by Ryk Brown
“That may be where the destroyers have gone,” Nathan realized. “Kayla, are the destroyer’s guns accurate enough to target the Ghatazhak without inflicting significant damage on the Dusahn palace?”
“Their main guns are similar in design to those on the battleships, but we’ve never faced a Jung destroyer before. It was our understanding that they had been phased out centuries ago, in favor of heavy cruisers and missile frigates.”
“Best we assume they are,” Nathan decided. “Helm, turn us toward Takara. We’ll jump into high orbit. If those destroyers are planning to attack the Ghatazhak from orbit, they’ll be low to increase their accuracy.”
“Plotting jump now,” Loki acknowledged.
“Load two shield busters on the starboard rails,” Nathan instructed. “And have two nukes in the queue to follow.”
“Loading two shield busters,” Jessica acknowledged.
“Comms, warn our Super Eagles about the destroyers,” Nathan added. “We don’t want them surprised from above.”
“New targets, approaching from two seven zero relative,” Donan’s AI warned.
“I’ve got him,” Donan replied as he rotated his turret to the left to face the threat.
A massive explosion rocked his tank.
“What the hell was that?” Donan exclaimed.
“Pastor is hit!” Braden reported from Madra Five. “Jesus! He’s fucking obliterated!”
“From where?” Donan barked over comms. A second explosion went off, several intersections to his left.
“It’s coming from above!” Scotty reported from Madra Eight.
“Octos?” Donan wondered.
“I have received a status relay from the Weatherly,” Donan’s AI reported. “A Dusahn battleship has jumped into orbit and is targeting this area.”
“Madra One to all Madras!” Donan called over comms as he grabbed his control sticks and jammed them forward, causing his tank to accelerate forward. “Find some cover!” he continued, turning his tank to the left toward a nearby building. “Hug a building! It’ll probably be orbiting west to east so it can stay over the target area longer! Hug the tallest building you can find!”
“Fuck! Brycen’s hit!” Tor cried out over comms. “His turret is gone!”
Two more explosions went off, this time from the far side of the square.
“Five, One!” Donan called over comms as he guided his tank up to a building, pulling it in tight against its west face. “I can’t see you on tactical! Where are you?”
Rail gun rounds the size of a small vehicle slammed into the ground where Donan’s tank had been less than a minute ago. The force of the impacts blew massive holes in the street, sending a shock wave that knocked his tank to the left, into the building wall, causing it to collapse on top of his tank. “Fuck!” Donan exclaimed.
“Anyone got eyes on Five?” one of the tank drivers yelled over comms.
More rounds slammed into the next street over, shaking Donan again. “Jesus! Somebody get that fucker off of us!”
“That battleship is pounding the crap out of our tanks on the surface!” Bonnie reported from the Weatherly’s sensor station.
“Targeting data is loaded into the first four missiles!” Denny announced from the tactical station. “But they’re not shield busters!”
“No time!” Captain Hunt insisted. “Launch all four and then load shield busters.”
“Launching four!” Denny confirmed.
“New contacts!” Bonnie warned. “Octos! A lot of them!”
The Weatherly suddenly rocked violently as Dusahn octo-fighters opened fire.
“More contacts!” Bonnie added. “Missiles! BRACE, BRACE, BRACE!” she added, taking her own advice and grabbing the edge of her console.
Captain Hunt grabbed the arms of his command chair just as the missile struck his shields and detonated, rocking the ship so hard that he was knocked over the right side of his seat onto the deck. “Damage report!” he demanded, struggling to get back on his feet.
“Octos!” the Glendanon’s sensor officer warned. “Ten of them attacking from starboard!”
“Point-defenses are firing,” the executive officer reported from the tactical station.
“Where the fuck are the Gunyoki?” Captain Gullen barked. “Bonnie, you got eyes on the Weatherly?”
“Yes, sir!” his sensor officer replied. “She just took several direct hits from missiles! She’s lost half her shields, and she’s got octos all over her.”
“Where the hell is all this coming from?” Captain Gullen wondered. “Are you picking up any other ships in the area?”
“Negative,” Tinny replied. “Just the octos.”
“Relay from the surface!” the comms officer announced. “There’s a battleship in orbit directly over Aitkenna, and they’re pounding the hell out of our tanks with their rail guns.”
“Why are we only hearing it through relay?” Captain Gullen wondered.
“I’ve lost all comms with the Weatherly!” the comms officer reported.
“Launch a comm-drone, quickly, before there are too many octos to get one through!” Captain Gullen ordered. “Update command about the battleship!”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” his executive officer insisted. “If the Weatherly’s badly damaged, we’ve got no cover!”
“We’ve got shields and guns,” the captain argued. “More importantly, we’re not done shuttling Corinari to the surface. We’re not going anywhere until our boys take the capital.”
“But there’s a battleship just over the horizon!” the XO argued. “If they decide to attack us, we won’t last two minutes!”
“That battleship’s priority is our tanks!” Captain Gullen insisted. “We’re not a threat to him, and he knows it. We’re safe enough until he’s done with the tanks.”
“Hell, they can launch missiles, send them around the planet, and strike us from behind, all without warning!”
“It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Captain Gullen stated firmly. “If you’re not up for it, feel free to leave the ship.”
“Fuck you, Edom,” the XO replied. “You know damn well I’m up for it.”
“Then shut the hell up and keep those octos off us,” the captain snapped back.
Cameron had never been the type to pace the deck when waiting for news. Instead, she chose to stare at the holographic map of the Takaran system hovering over the command center’s plotting table, hoping it would provide some sudden inspiration that might turn the tide of the yet undecided battle.
“It’s only been three minutes since our last update,” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda pointed out, noticing that the look of concern on her face was more obvious than usual.
“We’re supposed to be getting updates every two minutes, max,” she pointed out.
“There could be any number of reasons why we haven’t heard anything yet,” the lieutenant commander insisted.
“Naralena is frighteningly strict when it comes to schedules, even more so than me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Cameron cast a disapproving glance toward her intelligence officer.
“Flash traffic from the Glendanon!” the comms officer announced urgently. “A Dusahn battleship is bombarding the Corinari from orbit. Fifteen tanks have already fallen. Commander Montrose is attempting to move more tanks in from elsewhere to protect the teams assaulting the capitol complex, but the battleship is making it difficult.”
“What about the Weatherly?” Lieutenant Commander Shinoda wondered.
“The Glendanon has lost comms with her, but their sensor officer reports that they took multiple missile hits. I’m transferring their last sensor dump to the plotting table now.”
Cameron turned back to the plotting table and switched the display to the Darvano system, qu
ickly zooming in on Corinair itself. “The Weatherly is squawking Delta Four Seven Tango,” she noted.
“They’re damaged but still in the fight,” the lieutenant commander deduced from the squawk code.
“The Weatherly is no match for a battleship,” Cameron insisted, “not even an ancient one.” Cameron turned toward the comms officer. “Signal the Glendanon. Relay to Razor One. Attack the battleship and bring down her shields. Maybe she’ll move off once her shields are down.”
“Yes, sir,” the comms officer replied.
“And relay a Darvano sitrep to the Takar system,” she added. “If the Aurora’s not too busy, the Darvano system could use some attention.”
“Razors Two through Ten, new target!” Commander Prechitt instructed over comms as he dialed up a new jump range on his flight control stick. “We’re going after that battleship’s shields.”
“Is that going to stop her?” Talisha wondered.
“No, but if we take out their shields planet-side, we might be able to take out a few of the rail guns they’re using to destroy our tanks.”
“They’ll just roll over and put another set of guns on them,” the commander’s wingman pointed out.
“Then we’ll attack those shields as well,” the commander replied. “Razors Eight and Nine, you’re closest, so you’re first up.”
“Eight and Nine are on our way.”
“Flash traffic from command and control,” Commander Prechitt’s AI announced. “They are recommending that we attempt to take down the battleship’s shields.”
Commander Prechitt pulled up on his flight control stick, starting a climb so that he could jump to orbit.
“Just thought you would like to know,” his AI added.
“Thanks, Max.”
“I’ve got them!” Kaylah announced from the Aurora’s sensor station. “Right where you thought they would be. All three destroyers are settling into orbit, moving into position over Answari.”
“Helm, intercept jump, ASAP,” Nathan ordered.
“Jumping in three…”
“Cannons on the targets right and left,” Nathan instructed.
“…Two…”
“Plasma torpedoes on the center destroyer.”
“…One…”
“Hot pickle,” Nathan added.
“Jumping,” Loki announced as the jump flash washed over the Aurora’s bridge.
The planet suddenly filled the majority of the main view screen. Three older, Jung-era destroyers, painted in the original black and red Jung colors, moved across their screen from left to right.
“Open fire,” Nathan instructed calmly.
As the lead destroyer deployed its ventral rail guns, in preparation to fire on the Ghatazhak invaders below, red-orange plasma torpedoes leapt from the Aurora’s forward tubes. As her forward gun turrets also opened fire, the plasma torpedoes raced toward the center destroyer, slamming into its shields, causing them to flash brightly.
The destroyers quickly returned fire, sending both energy bolts and rail gun fire toward their attacker. The Aurora’s shields also flashed as they absorbed the energy, both plasma and kinetic, with each impact.
“I’m reading severe fluctuations in the lead destroyer’s power grid,” Kaylah reported.
“Concentrate all cannon fire on the lead ship,” Nathan instructed Jessica. “Josh, keep pounding the center destroyer.”
Her forward torpedo tubes still firing, the Aurora’s forward port dorsal plasma cannon turret ceased fire momentarily, shifting to starboard as the ship rolled in the same direction to give her port gun a better angle. The roll completed, the port cannon joined its starboard partner, sending bolts of red-orange plasma energy streaking across the gap between the Aurora and flight of destroyers. The bolts pummeled the lead destroyer’s shields until they finally became unstable, failing as the emitters across the destroyer’s starboard side erupted in showers of sparks.
With its starboard shields down, the lead destroyer had no defense against the incoming bolts of energy other than its old, thick hull. The plasma bolts tore into the black and red hull, cutting gashes into her as her jump emitters began to spill out blue-white light. The gashes quickly deepened, finally setting off massive internal explosions as the bolts of energy found the warship’s propellant tanks.
“Lead destroyer is coming apart!” Kaylah announced from the sensor station.
“Why the hell didn’t they jump?” Josh wondered aloud. “Why aren’t all of them jumping?”
“The Ghatazhak are at the Dusahn’s doorstep,” Nathan explained. “They either stand and fight or die later at the hands of their leader.”
“Assuming there’s a leader left!”
“It’s a way of life,” Jessica added, as she retargeted their forward guns toward the trailing warship. “Now, how about you roll us ninety to port so I can get the angle on the third destroyer.”
“And keep pounding your target, Josh,” Nathan reminded him.
Commander Prechitt’s fighter came out of the jump less than twenty kilometers from the enemy warship in orbit above Corinair.
“The Dusahn battleship is nineteen point four kilometers ahead,” his AI reported. “The target is currently at a forty-three-degree angle to our intercept path, traveling west to east in a low, semi-synchronous orbit.”
“How long until they lose their firing solution on Aitkenna?” the commander asked as he adjusted his course for intercept.
“Approximately eighteen minutes.”
“We’ve already lost a third of our tanks, and they’ve only been here for three minutes.”
“The target’s shields have been augmented by increasing the number of emitters to create greater redundancy. It will be difficult to bring them down.”
“Can we still penetrate them?”
“Unknown.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out,” the commander decided as he checked his tactical display to make sure the other Nighthawk fighters had jumped with him. “Razors, the target has twice the usual numbers of emitters, so taking down their shields is going to be difficult. Our best bet is for all of us to jump in at once, giving them more targets than they can track with the few nearby guns. Remember, the closer you are to their hull, the harder it is for their guns to track you. We jump in one minute.”
Without missing a beat, the commander switched to a different comm channel. “Weatherly, Razor One. We’ll be attacking their starboard midship shields in fifty seconds. The moment that shield comes down, open up with everything you’ve got. If we’re lucky, we’ll sting them enough that they’ll jump away.”
“Razor One, be advised we have suffered heavy damage,” the Weatherly’s comms officer replied. “Attack may not be possible.”
“Prechitt, Gullen,” the captain of the Glendanon called over comms. “We’ll jump closer to the battleship and add our firepower to the Weatherly’s.”
“Negative, Edom!” the commander objected. “If we lose the Glendanon, our forces will have no support.”
“If we don’t get rid of that battleship, we won’t have any forces left to support!” Captain Gullen argued.
“I don’t have time to argue with you, Edom!” the commander barked. “Dota One! Razor One! Can you help the Weatherly with the attack?”
“Razor One, Dota One, negative!” Tariq replied over comms. “We’re swarming with octos at the moment! Suggest we call command for reinforcements!”
The commander sighed, knowing that they didn’t have time to wait for help. Even with their jump comm-drone relay system, it would be several minutes before additional forces would arrive. By then, they would lose half their combat tanks, and the other half would never make it into position in time to prevent the Corinari from being slaughtered.
“Five seconds to jump,” his AI announced.
“Razors! Let’s do this!” the commander ordered, pressing his jump button.
Ten faint pulses of light appeared on the Dusahn battleship’s starboard midship shields. A split second later, ten Nighthawk fighters appeared just inside the massive battleship’s shields behind faint flashes of blue-white light.
The side of the enemy warship instantly filled the projections of the exterior environment that wrapped around the commander’s cockpit, as if looking out clear windows. Numerous target identifier triangles appeared all over the enemy hull, superimposed on the projected images by the Nighthawk’s visual augmentation system.
“Let them have it, Max!” the commander barked as he pulled his flight control stick back hard to bring his nose up to avoid slamming into the side of the battleship. As his AI activated the Nighthawk’s mini-laser turrets, the commander leveled off and snap-rolled his fighter to give his AI a better firing angle.
Two seconds after the Nighthawk fighters penetrated the battleship’s shields and opened fire, the Dusahn responded with every defense turret on their starboard side. Waves of red plasma bolts swept across nearby space, lashing out at the tiny fighters.
Nighthawk fighters pounded the emitters on the battleship’s hull, causing them to disappear in showers of sparks as they exploded. Fighters broke in all directions, each taking a different flight path across the battleship’s hull. The fighters maneuvered wildly, hoping to avoid the bolts of energy lashing out at them, but to no avail. One by one, the sleek Sugali fighters fell to the Dusahn’s defensive fire, torn apart by the deadly plasma bolts, sending their remains scattered across the battleship’s hull.
“Arre’s down!”
“I can’t shake their guns!”
Comms traffic was full of Nighthawk pilots crying out in desperation as their fellow pilots were being slaughtered.
Talisha’s fighter lurched to port, her starboard shields taking direct hits from at least four separate streams of energy. “Leta! How many emitters left to bring down this shield section!”