Broken Halo (Wayfarers)

by Debenham, Kindal

  “Captain Ndigwe, you are to launch your Javelin missiles immediately. Set them to accept remote guidance from the RSRs, and then turn to intercept the easternmost enemy formation. You should enjoy an advantage in numbers now.”

  “Yes, Admiral. Firing missiles now!” The sharp arrows representing those projectiles shot out from the Strike Group, spilling out in a torrent of destruction toward the distant northern formation. The Strike Group then turned south, trusting the Wayfarer scouts to lead the missiles to their targets while the cruisers and frigates hunted other prey.

  Susan heard another signal coming in, this time from the Penance. She gestured to accept it. “Colonel?”

  Mccalister did not seem as composed as Ndigwe had been. “We’re picking up enemy scouts already, ma’am. We’re going to be spotted a little ahead of schedule.”

  Susan nodded. “Indeed you are, Colonel. In fact, right about …” The western enemy formation abruptly changed its course, separating further from the rest of the Directorate ships to close with the Decoy Group. “Now. You have only one formation to deal with, Colonel. I’m counting on you to occupy it while Ndigwe deals with the others.”

  His words were heavy with reluctance. “Fine. Just don’t get us killed.”

  She nodded. “Keep alert, Colonel. Good luck.”

  Then Susan gestured to close the channel and looked out over the chaos of the battle. Her expression grew hard. It was coming together now. The enemy formations were splitting, just as she’d intended. If she could keep them off balance, keep picking them off when they were isolated and confused …

  Then the pattern of lights shifted, and Susan cursed as she recognized what had happened.

  Wong heard a murmur of savage satisfaction rise from his officers as Formation Sierra let out a wave of torpedoes. The detachment of cruisers moving slowly past the left flank of the task force had been too good a target to pass up. Some of the last rigs to launch from the Sihang had been scout WGCs, meant to lead their own heavy units in. Now they were using their sensor arrays to highlight a target for the missiles.

  The strike would likely do little to avenge their previous hurts. The Sihang had already confirmed that fires were raging out of control throughout their compartments; the crew had suffered severe casualties trying to contain the damage. Wong was not optimistic about their chances. The Pavlov had been more encouraging at first, reporting only a series of engineering failures. Then an explosion had rocked the vessel and its tetherdrive had failed, sending the command ship spinning off on an errant course. It was unknown if they would be able to repair the damage soon.

  The Oheawai’s situation had been clear from the start. The command ship’s structure had been twisted and warped; her tetherdrive had died immediately. Fires were raging uncontrolled throughout many of her compartments, while others were only spared that fate because they were completely open to vacuum. Wong had already ordered the ship to be evacuated and the ship itself scuttled. No matter what happened, he did not intend for the Wayfarers to take any prizes here.

  The Terror-class torpedoes began to reach their targets, raining destruction down on the slowly maneuvering craft. One ship in particular took several impacts; as Wong watched, two missiles snuck through the screens to impact on the hull itself. An animal sound of triumph ran through his officers as the ship broke in two, atmosphere venting along the rents in its hull.

  Yet even as Wong snarled in triumph, he heard fresh alerts shriek to life, and he spun to stare at the main plot as a sudden wave of torpedoes swarmed in at Formation Oscar from nowhere. Their tracks were too accurate for chance. Too late, Wong realized that some of the background flickers around the forward formation must have been enemy scouts sent to guide their own treacherous attack on the Directorate vanguard.

  Then the missiles were hitting. The Phalanx-class cruiser Menelaus shuddered under repeated impacts, reeling to the side as one projectile made it through to encase the starboard armor in flames and ruin. Her sister ship, the Euobos, weathered the barrage with only a smattering of hits that damaged the forward armor while the Trojan-class cruisers in their wake were struck by a single missile apiece, not nearly enough to down their defense screens.

  Their escort craft were not as lucky. Nearly every one of the smaller craft, with their thinner armor and fragile defense screens, took at least one missile hit. With their small size, one hit was enough. Ship after ship flared and broke apart. As the escorts fell away, Formation Oscar was suddenly stripped of its protection against rig strikes even as momentum carried it closer to the rig battle raging ahead.

  Even as those new tragedies made themselves felt, Wong heard more warnings, and his face paled as Formation Papa, on the right flank, made sensor contact with an enemy battle group at last.

  Susan’s eyes were filled with cold satisfaction as the Deliverance and her sister ships led the charge. On the other side of the battle, the Salvation might have absorbed yet another strike and paid for it with her life, but Captain Ndigwe evidently meant to exact a price for that dying ship.

  The four cruisers split to take their opponents in a crossfire, dodging the hastily fired missiles the shocked Directorate cruisers had fired. The Deliverance climbed and the Emancipation dove, while the Redemption and the Liberation skidded out to the flanks. They pivoted as they moved, keeping their heavily protected bows pointed toward the enemy. Their opponents likewise pivoted, trying to form a defensive hedgehog like the one she had used to protect the Wayfarer fleet in the last engagement.

  The difference was that now the Wayfarers had far superior numbers compared to the Directorate ships. Even as the cruisers began to exchange long-range plasma cannon fire, their weapons flashing like lightning, the frigates of Strike Group drove in at the Directorate ships’ less-protected flanks. The cannon on the Caravan-class vessels were lighter and the armor and screens were thinner, but the enemy ships couldn’t focus their fire with cruisers pounding at them. Worse, the protection along a cruiser’s sides was not nearly as heavy as it was in the front. Susan watched as enemy screens failed and plasma impacts began to rock the Directorate cruisers. Obviously panicked, they began to fall back.

  They weren’t the only ones. The WGCs were retreating as fast as possible, having suffered terrible losses. Apparently disarmed, the SSS rigs were right behind them. Their withdrawal had allowed Gabe’s rig forces to break off as well, and they were now returning to refuel and rearm. He had accomplished his mission, after all; the northernmost enemy force was now stripped of their anti-rig defenses, and the enemy wouldn’t be launching another rig assault any time soon.

  Despite the enormous distance between the formations of their task force, the Directorate was already attempting to respond. The ships from the central formation to the south turned east to aid the outnumbered cruisers, as did the remaining ships from the damaged northern group, but she had no intention of allowing them to link up again. Not after she had gone to so much trouble to break them apart.

  She looked to the space surrounding the Concord, where the AWORs were finally coming back to recharge and rearm. Those rigs had just barely completed their initial attack run, and Susan felt a flicker of worry as she touched the controls to signal them. “Command to AWOR squadrons. Rearm and form up. Your next target is the closest enemy formation. Hit the cruisers hard and then return to the Concord to prepare for a third strike. CTRs, refuel as quickly as possible to accompany the AWORs to the strike point.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “She doesn’t ask for much, does she?”

  Gabe grunted. Derek’s voice showed a little fatigue, but it was obvious he was trying to keep his tone light. He knew that the other rig pilots had to be feeling close to exhaustion. The CTRs had just barely finished chasing off the last of the Directorate rigs. Despite his own tiredness, he cleared his throat. “The Lord will provide a way, Paladin-One-Five. Form up with the AWORs and wait.”

  Acknowledgements rolled back from the rest of the CTR pilots, and
Gabe took up his own position to wait. He’d launched just moments before, and he braked to a halt ahead of the Concord to watch the rearming operation.

  The Concord was a fire drill of commotion. CTRs were landing, being moved to the rig bays, and launching; somewhere during the process, the mechanics were finding the time to reload their ordnance and replace their fuel cells. When he looked to where the AWORs were waiting, Gabe could see how vulnerable the heavy-attack rigs were. Susan’s tricks and his own tactics had kept the CTRs from suffering terrible losses, but if the enemy came again now while half of them were refueling, there wouldn’t be anything Gabe and his pilots could do to stop them.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about that possibility. From what Susan had told him, the remaining WGCs and SSS rigs were still performing their own frantic reloading operations—and they only had one real carrier left to accomplish that task. He could imagine that a similar swarm of WGCs was now flooding around the Directorate flagship, flooding around their carrier like a nest’s worth of angry hornets. Even the SSS rigs, with their independent carrier, would need to replace their shattered weapons. It might just delay them long enough to carry off the attack.

  Gabe measured the distance between the Concord and that forward cruiser group, working the math out in his mind. He knew about how long it would take the CTRs to rearm, and how quickly they could all move toward the Directorate ships. Just as the last of the CTRs went into the recovery bays, he reached a conclusion and signaled Derek. “Angel-One to Paladin-One-Five. I show us reaching the target just after the WGCs reach us. The SSS squadron should be there a few minutes after that. Do you show the same?”

  The other pilot was silent for a moment, and then signaled back. “Looks about right, Angel-One. We’re going to have a fight on our hands.”

  “Then let’s hope the Lord is watching out for us today.” Gabe turned and stared at where the distant ships waited. There had to be a way to manage it. Even with the casualties the enemy had taken, they still outnumbered the Wayfarer rigs. On top of that, he doubted the triple S rigs would fall for the same trick of having their weapons shot out of their hands. If only he had more rigs …

  Then an idea occurred to him, and Gabe smiled. He cleared his throat. “This is Angel-Lead to all CTRs. When we close with the enemy, I want you to transmit the following signal on all bands. Cuidse du Atanaas. Repeat, cuidse du Atanaas. Transmit once and then get to fighting positions.”

  The rest of the rig pilots responded, but Gabe only listened to their half-confused acknowledgements with part his attention. It might not work. He might just be hoping for nothing. Yet if there was one thing he knew, it was that the Lord always provided a way.

  Susan watched the rigs leave on their next assault and wondered if Gabriel would survive the coming clash. The CTRs and AWORs had left quickly enough to cross most of the distance without encountering enemy rigs, but the WGCs were already waiting to meet them in a defensive screen, with the SSS squadrons not far behind. If the AWORs were going to have a clean shot at the northernmost Directorate cruisers—which would prevent them from linking up with their fellows in the east and driving off Ndigwe’s forces—she had to hope that Gabriel and his pilots could open a path. Otherwise, she might have to move to a new strategy—one that she had hoped not to use.

  Her fallback plan required a third AWOR strike, this time against the Directorate flagship itself. It was a plan Susan had so far tried to avoid, and for more reasons than simple mercy. Thus far, she had not ordered attacks against the Imperious because she was hoping to force Nevlin to run, and she wanted to leave them the chance to cascade out of the system. If that ship died, they would be trapped, and even a coward like Nevlin would choose to fight to the bitter end rather than fall into her hands. Yet if she had to choose between a drawn-out punching match and a strike to disable the last major carrier the Directorate had, Susan knew which option she would have to take.

  Lights flared on the western side of the battle, and she turned to see Colonel Mccalister’s force under heavy fire. The Directorate cruisers had closed to plasma gun range, their crews obviously looking for vengeance. Susan gestured to open a channel to the Pennance. “Colonel Mccalister. Now is the time for Contingency Beta.”

  There was a long pause. Susan could hear the roar of plasma cannon impacts in the background of the channel. She knew they had no choice; the mercenary ships were unarmed, and the Redemption was nothing more than a crippled wreck. If Decoy Group was to survive, there was only one option, however unfortunate it was. When Mccalister answered, his voice showed he had come to a similar grim conclusion. “Confirmed, ma’am.”

  The Redemption suddenly boosted out ahead of the other vessels, her still-intact tetherdrive mustering more acceleration than any of the other ships in Decoy Group. As the Directorate cruisers continued their headlong charge, the few remaining crew aboard the Redemption swung her to a new heading, bringing the ship over and around so her bow faced the enemy. Then they poured every last bit of energy their crippled ship had into acceleration, straining the already damaged structure.

  At first, the Directorate ships did not seem to notice. Their attention was almost totally focused on the mercenary ships. The Penance’s screens were nearly failing, and both the Junkyard and the Scrap were taking damage. Yet as the Redemption began to close the distance, the Directorate crews seemed to recognize their danger and switched targets, shifting the bulk of their fire toward the incoming craft.

  They might have driven the Redemption off if the escort craft in Mccalister’s formation had not interfered. The smaller craft had been hiding in the shadows of their larger comrades; now they came onto an even sharper intercept course than the Redemption’s. Their smaller frames allowed them to accelerate more quickly, and in moments they were making firing passes on the Directorate cruisers. The small number of Directorate escort craft in the formation began to duel with their opposite numbers, swirling and striking like birds fighting over a nest.

  The charge was a distraction the enemy came to regret. The Redemption continued her last doomed journey, her crew sending her on a direct course for one of the Phalanx-class ships. By the time the cruisers shifted their fire to her again, it was too late. Her crew bailed out of the ship, setting themselves adrift on a small set of shuttles and escape pods that had been prepared ahead of time.

  Guided by the automatic maneuvering systems, the Redemption’s tetherdrive flared in one final burst of acceleration. Her defensive screens abruptly dropped and the Directorate ships slackened their fire, as if confused, or perhaps believing that the ship had been fatally wounded at last.

  The Redemption detonated, unleashing the full power of her annihilation reactor combined with every form of explosive and fuel that the Wayfarers had been able to cram aboard. Her initial target was caught by the blast, battered by the tornado of energy and debris. The Directorate vessel’s screens failed, and impacts ripped gaping wounds in its armored hull. It fell out of formation, its tetherdrive faltering.

  Yet that ship was not the only casualty. A piece of the Redemption pinwheeled out of the explosion toward one of the other Directorate ships. Before the enemy craft could evade, the fragment chopped down like an executioner’s ax, biting into the cruiser’s rear quarter. Screens failed, and armor buckled. A gigantic, gaping scar opened in the cruiser’s hull, and a second Directorate ship fell back.

  As the enemy scattered in the face of that blow, Susan gestured sharply. “Colonel Mccalister, you are to accelerate and avoid combat. The escort craft are to break off their strikes and join you.”

  Mccalister’s voice came back rough with emotion. “As ordered, Admiral.” The remaining ships of Decoy Group suddenly poured on speed in a bid to escape to safety. They were no longer hobbled by the need to keep pace with the crippled cruisers they had accompanied. All three ships were now pulling sharply away from the enemy, while escort craft trailed after them like a pack of small dogs.

  Yet the cruisers
that had once been so keen on destroying them were not pursuing; they were in a confused tangle, with two of their number brutally wounded, and Susan would not have blamed them for withdrawing instead. All across the battle area was a similar situation; the enemy ships were starting to look uncertain in the face of their heavy casualties. They were close to routing, to finally running for home.

  Then a change swept through them. The western formation snapped into disciplined maneuvers, with the undamaged ships shielding their crippled fellows. To the east, the ships engaged with the cruisers and frigates of Strike Group shifted, allowing their escorts to countercharge her ships and give the cruisers a chance to fall back. Far to the south, escorts began to abandon their position around the Imperious and moved to reinforce the rigs shielding their vulnerable northern formation.

  Susan frowned, taking in the enemy’s newfound discipline. Nevlin couldn’t have restored order so quickly; he wasn’t capable enough to do so. Her frown deepened as she realized the source of the change. Obviously, the coward was no longer the one in charge.

  Captain Wong watched the task force move according to his orders, and felt a sense of vicious satisfaction as his ships tried to recover what they could from the disaster.

  Nevlin had plunged them into a nightmare. Over half their cruisers were now damaged to some extent, and some of them, such as the Diomedes, would likely have to be abandoned. Their escorts had suffered heavy casualties. Formation Papa was still in severe danger of being caught and overwhelmed by the enemy cruisers. Formation Oscar was only shielded from crippling rig strikes by the few remaining WGCs and SSSs. The Admiral had panicked when the Wayfarers had caught him yet again with that suicidal strike against Formation Sierra on the left flank, and he’d finally turned command over to someone who could do better.