Resolution: Bad Star

by M. L. Baldauf

  Glenn brought his engine to full power and waited for the magnetic launcher to fling his craft into the fight. A moment later he was in open space and arching towards the nearest cruiser with 25 fighters following directly behind him.

  Harper watched wave after wave of fighters launch into space as Resolution curved towards its target. He couldn’t help but feel a little pride in the efficiency the launch process had shown. The Resolution had almost reached firing range when Parker turned to the Captain. “All fighters are away.”

  McLeod stood and looked out the forward view port. “Range?”

  “Thirteen kilometers and closing. Twelve… Eleven,” Sato counted down.

  “Lieutenant Lane, are the Nighthawk missiles ready?”

  “Aye, sir, launchers are full,” Lane replied without taking his eyes off the target.

  “Program a strafing pattern along the nearest side. Fire!”

  In rapid succession, missiles fired from the wing shaped launchers on both sides of Resolution. The missiles flew at the dreadnought, followed by streams that burned like ignited magnesium, and landed one after the other in a line from stern to bow.

  Glenn brought his fighter in behind his target. The U.N.S. Baxton was moving alongside the same Salaxian cruiser, turning its cannons to starboard, and preparing to fire. As Glenn skimmed the Salaxian hull and opened fire simultaneously with the Baxton’s battery of cannons, he had to make a quick evasive maneuver to dodge one of the Salaxian cruisers primary cannons as they spun towards the attacking ship.

  A faint orange glow lit up Glenn’s console. Checking his rear-view scope, he could see large sections of another fighter spinning into space. One of the pilots had not reacted quickly enough, and had flown full speed into the cannon.

  Glenn resisted the urge to close his eyes in quiet mourning. The cannons completed their turn and emitted beams of energy, causing multiple breaches in the Baxton’s hull.

  “Headcase, you with me?”

  “I read you, boss.”

  “We need to take out those cannons. Follow me.”

  Glenn and his wingman arched back towards the Salaxian cruiser, the fighter crafts’ missiles descending from the ventral hull. Moments later, four missiles streaked through space and crashed into the base of one of the Salaxian ships cannons.

  Glenn could hear the rest of his flight group celebrating over the COM. “Alright, guys, let’s not get too excited. Split up and take out the others so the Baxton can finish this bastard off.”

  As the Resolution pulled away from its first attack run on the Salaxian dreadnought, Lane shouted, “The Salaxian ship broke off its attack on the planet and is turning toward us.” No sooner had the words left his mouth, the ship shook with the impact of the dreadnought’s weapon fire on the hull.

  “Prime aft launchers. Fire,” McLeod shouted. On the Captain’s order, the missiles streaked toward the turning dreadnought.

  “Most of those only grazed them, Captain. Only one direct hit,” Lane reported. “They’re lining up their main beam now.”

  “Helm, evasive action,” McLeod ordered. The Resolution rolled to port, barely missing the Salaxian ships fatal blow. The beam from one of the standard beam cannons struck the Starboard side of Resolution’s hull, the impact forced everyone on the bridge to grab the nearest secured object, or be thrown across the room.

  “Minor damage to our aft starboard launcher. No hull breaches,” Sato reported.

  “Turn us about. Prepare forward launchers.” Resolution turned back towards the dreadnaught and unleashed a small volley of missiles. Several of them made direct contact with the nose of the Salaxian ship, disabling the primary beam cannon.

  Glenn watched in triumph as the Baxton unleashed all of its firepower on the now nearly defenseless Salaxian battle cruiser. In moments, the battle cruiser's interior was vented into space.

  “Great job! Let’s move on to the next one,” He called out.

  “We won’t be joining you,” A voice came from the Baxton. “We’re heavily damaged and almost out of ammo.”

  “Understood, Baxton. Warp out of the battle zone, we’ll take it from here. All fighters, on me. Glenn led the fighters towards the next battle cruiser and could immediately see that it had the U.N.S. Arizona on the run and had thinned out the compliment of fighters that had been assisting. The Arizona had multiple hull breaches and was running on thrusters only.

  While closing the gap, Glenn watched helplessly as the Salaxian cruiser opened on the Arizona again. The beam struck the already weakened hull on the port side, and quickly melted through to the warp engine. His viewport darkened just in time to prevent the antimatter explosion from blinding him.

  He felt a trickle of dread running down his spine. That was the third U.N. ship that had been taken out of the battle, and he was losing more pilots than he could have possibly anticipated. He was snapped back to reality when a voice came in over his helmet speakers.

  "This is the U.N.S. Grayback, lead pilot, do you read?"

  “This is Orion, I copy.” Glenn increased the power on his shortwave radio, scanning his HUD for the small blip that would indicate the position of the stealth ship. The U.N. stealth ships were relatively small ships, with crews of no more than 20, and were shaped much like the submarines of the 20th century; oblong with no viewports. They were nearly invisible to the naked eye, due to their vantablack hull coating which absorbed almost all visible light. To keep them invisible to technological detection during battle, they would completely shut down their warp engine, and only communicate by shortwave radio.

  "We’ve taken out two Salaxian cruisers and I’m heading towards you. I sent the rest of the fighters to deal with the last one so they don’t draw attention to my location.”

  "Understood, Captain Baran. What do you need from us?”

  "I need you to encourage the cruiser to turn around. I’m running our ion drive to get us there faster. If I pass them for the shot we need, they will see our engine signature."

  Glenn was immensely impressed, both at the courage of Captain Baran, and the talent of the Grayback’s pilot. One of the other sacrifices the stealth ships make for their strategic advantage is to run on thruster power only. However, when approaching an enemy head-on, a steady handed helmsman can keep the blaring ion energy signature hidden from enemy sensors by keeping it directly behind the ship on a straight line to the target.

  "Understood, we’ll get their attention. Fighters, create a tight formation around me.” The rest of the two groups of fighters bunched to the sides and rear of his craft and followed him as he flew over the bow of the Salaxian ship and arched back. Glenn made sure they were directly on the opposite side of the Salaxian ship from the Grayback, before calling out orders. “Prepare for attack pattern gamma. cannons only."

  The fighters organized themselves into a stacked circular pattern, flying directly parallel to each other. “Turn... Fire!" The fighters all turned end over end without changing velocity, and angled themselves inwards before opening fire on the Salaxian ship.

  The tracer fire created a visible cone pattern, the point terminating on the Salaxian hull. "Get ready to scramble the second the ship turns.” The Salaxian cruiser took the bait, and turned its bow towards the fighters. As soon as it had its aft side turned to the Grayback, the fighters split up and flew off in random directions. Glenn saw one of the Salaxian’s returning shots make a direct hit on one of the fighters’ port wing, taking the wing and port engine with it.

  “Brakeman, are you all right,” he called out.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “R-T-B. Don’t try to keep flying with that damage.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Glenn watched for a moment as the fighter limped back towards the Resolution, and breathed a sigh of relief for not losing another pilot. As he arched back towards the Salaxian ship he saw two large missiles appear seemingly out of a void in space. Both missiles hit directly inside the Salaxian cruiser’s solitary engin
e. Glenn could see explosions cascading inside, bloating the hull as they went.

  * * *

  Moments after the destruction of the dreadnought’s main beam cannon, Harper watched the hull of the dreadnought light up. Each of these lights seemed to belong to an individual scale on the ship’s hull. The dreadnought began to spin and the scales separated from the hull, flying towards the Resolution. They were much smaller, spike shaped craft like the dreadnought itself, but only the size of the Resolution’s own fighters.

  “I can’t believe it. They have fighters,” Harper exclaimed.

  “Man the Thompson cannons,” McLeod ordered. Harper relayed the order to man the Thompson point-defense cannons, which were controlled remotely from a room on F deck, and watched them spring to life on the hull in front of the bridge. The space surrounding the Resolution was suddenly filled with explosions as the anti-small craft shells detonated to ward off the oncoming fighters and detonate any incoming missiles. The dreadnought lined up its secondary cannons for another shot.

  "Evasive maneuvers,” McLeod called out. The Resolution dipped downward and Harper heard Parker shouting in a panicked tone, “Wave off, Wave off!” Harper looked back through the flight deck window and saw a damaged fighter trying to land. With a missing wing, the pilot didn’t have the thrusters necessary to make such a sudden maneuver when the Resolution changed directions.

  "Close the doors,” Harper yelled. Parker reached for the emergency close button, but it was too late. The fighter crashed into the upper lip of the door, violently shaking the bridge, and throwing Parker to the floor.

  The aft portion of the flight deck filled with flames and chunks of the fighter’s hull. The impact destabilized the containment field, and several members of the deck crew were sucked out into the vacuum of space, before the doors automatically slammed shut.

  “Fire at will,” McLeod shouted. One of the Salaxian fighters took advantage of the temporary openings in the firing solution, and fired a missile at Resolution's portside.

  "Hull breach on E deck," Sato reported.

  McLeod turned towards Parker, who was recovering from her fall. “Do we have any fighters available?”

  "Five Salaxian ships have been destroyed. There’s a battleship and stealth vessel that can take care of the last one.”

  "Call our fighters back.”

  Glenn took a breath as he watched the Salaxian cruiser darken to nothing more than a charred husk. “Well done. Let’s take care of this last ship.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth, Parker’s voice blared over the COM again, “Resolution to all fighters. We have Salaxian small craft attacking the ship. Return to support.”

  Glenn arched back towards the Resolution, and pushed the throttle to full. He glanced to his starboard side as Headcase pulled beside him. “When did these bastards start using fighters?”

  "I don’t know,” Glenn replied, “but, luckily we’re a step ahead of them for once.” Glenn thought to himself about the uncharacteristic lull in Salaxian attacks over the past months. The Salaxians had been developing a new strategy. He wondered how many other surprises would be revealed in the coming attacks.

  As they neared the Resolution, he could see that the fighters were swooping in on the Resolution in groups, finding whatever gaps they could in the firing solution to make wild shots, none of them landing in strategic points. Glenn smiled. Apparently, small craft tactics were new to the Salaxians. They were used to the brute force of planetary bombardment and ship to ship cannon play.

  One group of Salaxian fighters had just finished an attack run, and turned directly towards Glenn’s formation.

  “Here we go. Remember to stick with your wingman and be careful not to hit the Resolution with your cannon fire,” Glenn ordered. A moment later, Headcase turned on his overdrive and flew ahead of the formation, directly at the Salaxian fighters.

  Glenn shook his head and flipped on his own overdrive, careful not to fly directly behind Headcase during his reckless attack run. The show of force caused most of the Salaxian fighters to break formation, but one Salaxian ship took Headcase on in his game of chicken. Glenn fired a missile at one of the fighters that broke away, and it easily matched the fighter’s trajectory, destroying it and another fighter that was flying too closely.

  The fighter that continued toward Headcase fired its own missile, which he dodged effortlessly, and entered a spiral trajectory towards his target. Headcase fired a missile into the Salaxian fighter’s port side at such close range that he flew directly through the resulting explosion.

  Glenn smiled as he heard Headcase let out a celebratory yell. Glancing around, he could see the rest of the squadron was involved in their own dogfights, and one group of Salaxian fighters was still trying to slip through Resolution’s defenses.

  "Now that you’ve got that out of your system, let’s take care of these bastards trying to destroy our ship."

  They regrouped and headed off the Salaxian fighters before they were in firing range of the Resolution. They surprised them, quickly destroying the two lead fighters, and the rest scattered. Glenn and Headcase split up, pursuing their own targets. The fighter Glenn was chasing seemed, for a time, to be trying to lose him in the hairball of the other dogfights.

  Glenn spotted in his peripheral vision the magnesium glow of Resolution’s missiles flying towards the dreadnought. There was an explosion directly behind him. Seeing the debris of another Salaxian fighter in his rear view scope made him realize that he was nearly lured into a trap. The fighter he was chasing was setting him up to be destroyed by the fighter behind him. If not for Resolution’s timely shot, it would have worked.

  The Salaxian fighter did an unstable, end over end turn and started firing its laser cannon at Glenn. One beam scorched his port wing and the next went straight through his starboard engine. Glenn flew off the line while he shut the engine down, then riddled the Salaxian fighter with holes till its fuel tank ignited and exploded.

  Glenn scanned for his wingman and spotted him chasing another fighter displaying the same cat and mouse tactics. A shadow moved across Headcase’s hull, and Glenn spotted the second fighter, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Glenn turned and flew towards his wingman with every bit of speed his one remaining engine could manage.

  “Headcase, break away. You’ve got a tail.”

  "I’ve almost got'em. Just a few more seconds.”

  They were heading straight at the Resolution’s dorsal hull, so using the canons was out of the question. Headcase was desperately trying to get a missile lock on the Salaxian fighter, but its sporadic flight path made it impossible.

  "Headcase, I said break away. That’s an order,” Glenn shouted, trying to close the gap, but unable to move any faster. This time, Headcase didn’t respond at all. All of his focus was on obtaining the missile lock. Finally, a high-pitched tone confirmed the lock. Headcase pressed the switch on his joystick, launching a fatal missile strike on the Salaxian fighter. Glenn finally reached firing range and tried to establish a missile lock on Headcase's stalker, but it was too late.

  The Salaxian fighter opened fire with its laser cannons, shredding the wings from Headcase's craft and sending him into an uncontrolled spin. Glenn watched his wingman, and friend, die as his craft exploded against the bridge of the Resolution.

  Harper struggled to open his eyes. The world came back to him as a blur of flashing lights and klaxons. Parker was standing over him, and he tried to focus on her through the blood and sweat, but wasn’t having much luck.

  "Commander, are you okay?"

  "Yeah. I think so. What happened?”

  "One of our fighters slammed into the bridge. You took a nasty fall over the railing.”

  Harper looked up at the forward bridge platform and was going to respond before a computer synthesized voice came in over his earpiece. “Command protocols transferred." He ripped the data pad from his belt to confirm what he had heard. It displayed the same message; that the
highest command functions for the ship had been transferred to his authority. The only reason this would happen is if the ship had detected that the commanding officer was dead or severely incapacitated.

  He stood and ran up the staircase, skipping steps as he went. “Engineers and medics are already on the way,” Parker called after him. When he got to the Captain’s chair, he saw the wire ladder for conduits running along the bridge dome had become detached, and impaled him.

  Harper checked his pulse. It was weak. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before a medic shoved him aside, waking him from his quiet contemplation of the sudden change of circumstances. When the engineers began cutting the Captain free, he turned away and focused on the job at hand.

  "Status report."

  Sato spoke first, “Our last shot overloaded their weapon systems, but they are recharging."

  "Our tactical sensors are offline. We won’t be able to use the missiles or the point-defense cannons," Lane added.

  Palmer let out a long sigh before adding, “We’re down to auxiliary thrusters. We can also make a short warp jump if needed.”

  “We’re not leaving,” Harper replied, wanting to quell any thoughts of retreat. He stared out at the dreadnought for a long moment before turning towards flight operations. “Parker, are there any fighters available?”

  "All of them. The last Salaxian fighter was just destroyed," she replied after checking a nearby console.

  "Tell them to strafe the facing side of the dreadnought. Lieutenant Lane, prime the broadside cannons.”

  Lane turned to him, a confused scowl furrowing his brow. “Commander, with the tactical sensors offline, we won’t be able to aim them accurately.”

  "But they will fire. Prime them and set them to exactly ninety degrees. Palmer, can you line up the ship for this shot, manually?"