The Temple of Light (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 5)

by Kal Spriggs

  She pulled a grenade out of her pocket and threw it, then ducked down again as more fire rattled out in reply. As the grenade detonated, Staff Sergeant Witzke bounded to her feet and sprinted to the side. She'd almost reached cover when bullets began to snap past her. She dove the last bit of distance and then crawled along the back side of the thick conduit, listening to bullets impact and bounce away.

  She had five rounds left in her pistol and that was all. As she heard someone's footsteps, she rolled to her side and fired twice, just as the attacker's head and shoulders cleared the top of the conduit. He toppled backwards, but there were two more behind him. She fired two more rounds into the next man, and then one into the third as her pistol locked back empty.

  The last attacker grabbed at his shoulder, his face scowling, but he didn't fall. Dawn recognized him, his scar-seamed face and the jutting weapons strapped to his armor.

  The gunfire had ended and the marketplace was still, he raised his rifle, one handed and aimed at her. "You fought well," he said.

  Dawn spat, "Just get it over with."

  He chuckled, "Meet you in the next life."

  Dawn closed her eyes. She heard a tearing sound, far faster than she would have expected from his rifle, almost like it had come from a chain gun. Hot blood splashed her face, but she didn't feel any pain.

  Dawn opened her eyes. The pirate swayed, then fell to his knees. He dropped his rifle and then toppled face first to the ground. A moment later a figure in powered armor bounded forward, "Staff Sergeant," Major Woods said, "sorry we're late, we ran into a bit of resistance on the way here..."

  ***

  Kaigun Hanshu Iwasa flipped through his squadron's status as the fighters closed with the enemy. “Prepare to engage,” he snapped out over his squadron net, even as he signaled to their command ship that he had received their target priorities.

  The pirate squadrons in his sector flew in a ragged formation and Hanshu allowed himself a pleased smile at that. The pirate fighters looked to be Falkes, the Tau Ceti manufactured light fighter. Those fighters were agile and dangerous, but he could already see that they lacked the discipline and skill that thousands of hours of training had given his squadron.

  His people flew M6-A8's, nicknamed Kunai, light fighter-bombers built in the Hachiman-Gu system expressly for the Shogunate Fleet. Though Kaigun Hanshu had flown the Colonial Republic Patriot in battle before, this would be the first time he used a Kunai in combat.

  For all that, he felt confidence in the craft and his people.

  They closed the distance rapidly and Kaigun Hanshu's hands danced across the controls. He uploaded constant updates to his squadron and keyed in evasive maneuvers based upon predesignated maneuvers. As they engaged, the human pilots would barely have time to respond to the enemy's actions, so the pilots would all have uploaded plans and counter-plans to take that into account.

  As they closed the last few thousand kilometers, he felt his grin grow broad, “Banzai!” Hanshu shouted on the open net.

  Before he even knew it, they were engaged and his ship lurched through a powerful turn that the inertial compensators reduced by a factor of over a hundred... and the nine gravities of acceleration still almost blacked Hanshu out, despite the acceleration chair and suit squeezing blood back into his brain.

  Fighter dogfighting became a chaos as pilots queued up new responses and their agile craft responded. It was like a chess game, three, five, fifteen moves ahead, where pilots only had heartbeats to sense their opponent's moves and react. Yet the pirate craft moved as individuals and occasionally with squadrons... Kaigun Hanshu and his squadron moved as one and their actions moved in sequence with the other fighters from the Shogunate.

  He watched his display, his face intent as he keyed up weapons fire as the enemy fighter's maneuvers drew into a tighter and tighter box... and then it died. His fighter swung away from the expected attack, nearly blacking him out again as he swooped around and engaged, the over-eager pirate dying before he even knew that he'd missed.

  Hansu's squadron picked off the pirate's wingman and their sister squadron killed the other three pirates in as many seconds.

  Hanshu began to smile as the last of the pirate fighters in his sector vanished. A moment later, his commander forwarded the next set of targets. “Banzai!” Hanshu shouted, even as his fighter closed with the next group of enemies.

  His squadron echoed his cry, “Banzai!”

  ***

  Chapter XII

  Yaitsik Station, Alpha Canis Majoris

  Centauri Confederation

  February 28, 2410

  Captain Daniel Beeson bit back a curse as he saw the enemy's core ships course. “Confirm that,” he snapped to Lieutenant Tim Gray.

  “I confirmed it, sir,” the sensors officer replied. “The enemy's course is an orbit of Yaitsik Station, they're going to use the base for cover.”

  It was an unfortunately clever move for the enemy, especially with how the Shogunate and Tau Ceti vessels had begun to trounce the enemy's auxiliary vessels. Half of the enemy fighters had already died and the close-range combat already looked to be decided.

  Worse, the enemy forces had killed all of Daniel's probes, which meant the ships could play hide and seek behind the planetoid that contained Yaitsik Station. If they had any sensor platforms set to passive, they could use those to monitor Daniel's moves.

  With how the Carillo-class battlecruiser out-massed his own vessels and with the two Independence-class cruisers, this engagement had changed to one that didn't favor him as much as he'd like.

  The smart move would be to salvo missiles along one axis around the station and approach from the other. The enemy would be forced to either thread the inbound missiles or engage directly. Yet the problem with that was the close proximity to Yaitsik Station. Even if Daniel was willing to risk his own people on the station as well as the civilians, there was his agreement with Kapitan zur Weltraum Langsdorff.

  I can't use missiles, he told himself. Yet his mind insisted on pointing out details. The angle of approach, the close proximities, and most importantly, the enemy's narrow-spectrum jamming. Lieutenant Miller had picked up early on that the pirate squadron seemed to be using a repetitive pattern for jamming. It didn’t matter much, since Daniel couldn’t fire missiles, but if he could have, he could set those missiles to ignore the jamming. Or something else entirely, Daniel thought.

  “Our safety interlocks,” Daniel asked, “they can be used to adjust the yield of our Moljnirs, right?”

  Lieutenant Commander Shawn Miller looked back at him, his face blank with shock, “Yes, sir, but...”

  “What's the margin?” Daniel asked intently.

  “Fifty percent,” Lieutenant Commander Miller replied instantly. “But sir...”

  “We can set it to passive homing, correct?”

  “Yes sir, but the missile software defaults to active homing and--”

  “Set them to passive,” Daniel said. “You have a read for their jamming pattern?”

  “I do,” Lieutenant Commander Miller nodded. “It's still on the same repetitive pattern.” He blinked as he realized Daniel's intent, “You want me to home on their jamming pattern?”

  “Exactly,” Daniel nodded.

  Lieutenant Commander Capdepon spoke up, “Sir, that's a very risky move. If they realize what we're doing and shift jamming patterns or even just cut them entirely, the missiles could default to active homing. There's plenty of targets there for them to get confused and if one of them detonates on or even just near the station...”

  “I know,” Daniel said. “But we've just lost visual of those ships. I'd estimate that in...” he looked at the navigational plot, “two minutes they'll pop out from behind Yaitsik Station and open fire on us and our allies. We made this battle plan estimating one or two cruisers, we're facing three cruisers and a battlecruiser. I know we can take them, but odds are that they'll hurt us bad enough to make us combat ineffective.”

  “
Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Capdepon spoke softly, “I agree with you. Tactically it's the only decision to make... but we're going to alienate the Tau Ceti if we do it.”

  “I know,” Daniel replied, “and I can see that coming here wasn't the right call, this is going to blow up in our faces one way or the other. Either we're seriously hurt by these pirates and we can't continue our primary mission or we take them out and we lose allies in the process.” He shrugged slightly, “And while I want to protect the civilians on that station...” he shrugged. He had to preserve his forces to engage Reese.

  Coming here was a mistake, he thought, but I've got to make the tough decision... that's why I'm the one in command.

  Daniel nodded at Lieutenant Commander Miller and adopted a formal tone, since regardless of what happened in the next few minutes there was bound to be a formal inquiry. “Lieutenant Commander Miller, adjust the yields on our Moljnirs to one half power. Disengage our safety interlocks for range, and set eight of the Moljnirs to passive homing with the source signal being the jamming of those four cruisers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Miller replied.

  “Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Capdepon, “I'd like to formally state my position on this action as your Executive Officer, for the record.”

  Daniel nodded. Stating his protest about the risk was the smart thing to do, no matter the outcome. It would allow the United Colonies to disavow Daniel's actions if it went bad and it would protect the careers of his subordinates.

  “I'd like to formally endorse your decision as the best of several bad options, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Capdepon snapped.

  Daniel felt his throat constrict and he opened his mouth, not even really certain what he planned to say.

  “Enemy force clearing the horizon,” Lieutenant Gray reported, “Engaging!”

  “Evasive plan charlie!” Daniel snapped. The four ships of his squadron went into evasive maneuvers and as part of that plan, the jammers emitters on all four ships began alternating their jamming strength and spectrums in an attempt to further throw off the enemy's targeting. Even so, the Constellation rocked under several impacts. “Return fire,” he ordered, yet even as he saw targeting solutions begin to appear for the enemy squadron, the ships dropped back down beyond the horizon.

  “Damage to point defense emitter bank three,” Lieutenant Commander Capdepon reported. “Minor damage to engine pod two, maximum acceleration at seventy percent.”

  “Lancer reports damage to their missile racks, Spathae reports damage to their starboard drive pods and forward projector array, acceleration to sixty percent,” Lieutenant Gray reported

  Daniel winced at that. The Spathae was effectively at fifty percent combat effectiveness from those two hits. “Acknowledged.”

  At this point, the enemy knew his approach vector. They could utilize the planetoid and its station as a shield and if they were smart, there was little that Daniel could do about it.

  “Set missiles salvos for vector three seven five, three eight nine, and three nine five,” Daniel said.

  He saw Lieutenant Commander Miller look back at him. Those vectors were extremely close to the station. If enemy fire detonated one of the warheads at the closest point, the station would take damage. If anything went wrong, one of the missiles could impact the station. At these speeds, the kinetic impact would be almost as bad as the antimatter warhead detonation.

  “Salvo three seven five, three eight nine, and three nine five, aye, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Miller said as he keyed them up.

  “Fire,” Daniel snapped.

  The missile tubes went to rapid fire and Daniel closed his eyes in a brief prayer and then opened them, “Adjust vector to two nine three, full acceleration,” he snapped. With the way he had launched all three salvos, the enemy should be bracketed, no matter what they did, the Moljnirs should engage them... and Daniel's force should be positioned to intercept whatever survived.

  ***

  Captain Bednar grinned as he adjusted the squadron's course to drop below Yaitsik Station. These bastards might be good, but they didn't dare engage with missiles, not with how close he was to the station...and not with how shoddy of guidance packages they probably had. The Slivko Family had bought the best civilian and even some “lost” military munitions, but Jarred Bednar wouldn't have dared to fire them this close to the station.

  Captain Bednar waited as the sensor relays updated. It wasn't a military grade sensor, it was one of Yaitsik Station's traffic control satellites, but it was all that he had and it didn't have to be perfect. It told him where the enemy was headed.

  His eyes went wide, though as he saw twelve, fast icons appear on the display. “Captain!” his sensors officer's head whipped up, “they've fired missiles!”

  They've killed the station, Jared Bednar thought to himself in horror, even he was aghast at the human cost for the enemy to do this. And it wasn't even as if those missiles could guarantee a hit on his squadron. They had to have been fired blind, which meant that more likely than not they'd hit one of the sheltering or fleeing civilian ships rather than any of his squadron.

  “Full acceleration,” Captain Bednar snapped, “evasive pattern Dyad. Get us clear of the station.”

  He didn't want to be in close proximity for any debris from what they'd do to the station. This was about to be a damned mess that was certain to draw the local authorities, if only to cover up their own involvement. “Try to warn Anton about this.” Not that the warning would do any good. There was no way that Anton could get clear of the station in time.

  “Captain, missiles are tracking on us, fifteen seconds to impact!” his sensors officer snapped.

  “What?!” Captain Bednar demanded, that was impossible, his ships were evading, they were clear of the engagement parameters, and on top of that, they were jamming. There should be no way that...

  His mind skittered to a halt. Our jamming, he thought with rising horror, they're tracking on our jamming pattern.

  His gaze snapped to his defensive weapons station, the console set to its automated pattern, the defenses officer on Yaitsik Station, “Cut jamming, cut our jamming systems now!”

  But by then it was far too late.

  ***

  Of the twelve missiles the Constellation launched, eleven of them tracked perfectly on the Alexei and her squadron. The twelfth was slightly behind and above the other missiles, and as the jamming signals cut off, it lost target and detonated.

  All three cruisers vanished in thermonuclear detonations. The battlecruiser Alexei withstood four close proximity fifty megaton nuclear explosions, but its heavy armor was bent and twisted, its internal compartments shattered, and its crew dead. It was a hulk, venting atmosphere in a blood-trail as it tumbled away from the station.

  Daniel's squadron rounded the horizon of the station to see it drifting away, powerless, lifeless, and presenting no threat other than as a shipping hazard.

  “Status?” Daniel asked.

  Lieutenant Gray responded after a moment, “Captain, I see no civilian ships destroyed. Two ships are reporting damage to their sensors and one is reporting a drive malfunction due to electromagnetic pulse.”

  Daniel frowned at that. The one vessel lay a good distance from where those warheads had detonated, almost a thousand kilometers distant, in what should have been safe. Also, the ship was old and battered and it was in one of the station's maintenance parking orbits. I'd bet money the bastard is hoping to get someone else to cover the cost of his drive repairs, Daniel thought to himself.

  “Secure from combat,” Daniel said, “Begin recovery operations.”

  ***

  Chapter XIII

  Yaitsik Station, Alpha Canis Majoris System

  Centauri Confederation

  March 3, 2410

  "This is a flagrant and unprovoked intrusion upon the sovereign space of the Centauri Confederation!" Rear-Admiral Ustug repeated. "I insist that all your vessels power down or you will face re
tribution! If necessary, I will call upon all forces in the system to destroy your pitiful fleet!"

  I think I've had just about enough of him, Daniel thought. He'd listened to the Centauri officer bluster for almost thirty minutes at this point, long enough for his people to finish the records search of their captured data.

  "Interesting, Rear Admiral," Daniel said. "Before you order such an attack, might I mention that we captured the pirate base intact... and that includes their records. Of particular interest is their records of financial transactions to both yourself and Admiral Vilkov. I think those payments might be rather embarrassing should I have my people forward them to your local media outlets... particularly given the notes about human trafficking and piracy."

  Rear Admiral Ustug's face went pale. "That's..."

  "That's blackmail and I'm sure that you couldn't have done what you have without having the media as a part of the graft," Daniel said. "You're right. Which is why I'll be sending it to your system government and transmitting it to the Centauri System via ansible should you declare any kind of attack on my squadron or the ships of my allies." And I'll be sending those anyway, he thought. A military officer who took bribes was bad enough. One who took bribes to look the other way on slaving and pirating was absolutely despicable.

  "Now, I'm certain that Admiral Vilkov has ordered you to come out here and make certain that your golden goose isn't cooked," Daniel grinned, "how about you let him know the current situation. At this time, we've accounted for Anton Slivko of the Slivko crime family, Mark Salazar of the Muerto Cartel, as well as the terrorist Tomas Kanreich. We've also captured the entire financial records for the Slivko crime family. You and your superior have some work to do elsewhere… I suggest you get to it."

  Daniel cut the transmission and then nodded at Lieutenant Meyers. "Reject any further contact from them." He brought up the latest tallies of casualties as well as the ongoing staff estimates. "How are we doing as far as arranging transport for civilians?" Daniel asked.