by M. D. Cooper
Three seconds ticked down with agonizing slowness, and then the shields from both ships touched and passed right through the other’s.
“Shit, it worked!” Vargo exclaimed.
Niki replied.
“I know the science behind it,” Vargo said in relieved tones. “But it’s nice to see things work in practice.”
The Torrent of Fire’s forward momentum, combined with the grav drives boosting on the Asora’s starboard side, kept the ships rushing toward one another.
Rika watched the six assault craft that the Torrent of Fire had disgorged slide off their attack vectors to avoid colliding with the fast-approaching destroyer.
The enemy cruiser slowed its approach, but it wasn’t fast enough. A second later, the Asora slammed into the Torrent of Fire’s shields, the ship shuddering for a moment before Niki inverted the destroyer’s shield field, nullifying the enemy ship’s shields long enough for the Marauder ship to slip inside.
They had a clear line of fire on the Nietzschean hull a scant hundred kilometers away.
Rika hoped the Asora could deliver a powerful enough strike on the Nietzschean cruiser. To hide the fact that they were planning an attack, the Asora’s reactors were running at low power—just enough for the shield maneuver—while also trickling energy into the SC batteries. It was just enough for a single full-power salvo.
“Lighting them up,” Vargo said, as the ship’s portside beams activated and fired at the Nietzschean cruiser.
The two functional railguns—the others had been lost in the dark layer—added to the barrage, each getting one shot off before their reserves ran dry.
Normally, such an assault from a destroyer against a cruiser would have little to no effect. But given that they were within the larger ship’s shields, every shot from the Asora struck true.
While they could have dealt crippling damage to the enemy ship, the shots were focused on the cruiser’s weapons, disabling as many as possible to make way for the twelve dropships that suddenly burst from the Asora’s starboard bays.
Joining in, Rika hit the emergency release on the bay doors, and punched the pinnace’s engines as it rocketed down the rails and out into space. She banked the ship around the Asora, pursing her lips at the sight of the vessel’s crumpled hull and the strange warps and bends from whatever the things in the dark layer had done to it.
Tearing her eyes from the destroyer, she boosted toward the Torrent of Fire, firing at one of its still-functional beams before launching a salvo of missiles at an enemy assault ship. Her beams disabled its engines, while the pinnace’s shields managed to shed the return fire the craft delivered.
“The Asora’s shields have two, maybe three minutes left on them,” Vargo announced, broadcasting to the Marauder assault craft. “Once those are down, they can hose us with point defense fire. You all need to board that cruiser any way you can!”
Staying just behind the Asora’s still-advancing shields, Rika made for a forward bay on the cruiser, firing two missiles at the doors. One was shot down by a point defense beam, but the other hit its mark, blowing one of the bay’s doors off.
She punched the engines and passed beyond the Asora’s shield coverage, swooping in close to the Torrent of Fire’s hull, firing on other defense turrets and bays as she angled toward her target.
“Shit, you’re not bad, Colonel,” Vargo said.
Rika nodded, her teeth gritted. “Just giving our people as much cover as I can.”
On scan, she watched as the twelve Marauder dropships closed the final twenty kilometers between them and the cruiser. What beams the enemy ship still had were blazing against the Asora’s shields, but the defense still held, keeping the dropships safe behind its barrier.
Then, when the leading Marauder craft were a kilometer from the Torrent of Fire, the Asora’s shields failed. Rika watched the dropships all initialize jinking patterns, and prayed that they’d all make it. Point defense beams reached out from the enemy cruiser, slashing through space, desperate to track the small ships, but they failed to move fast enough to maintain focus on the inbound craft for long enough to do significant damage.
Then the dropships were upon the Torrent of Fire.
Two breached destroyed bay doors and disappeared inside the cruiser, while another three settled on the enemy ship’s hull. Rika was close to her forward bay, but turned back, sweeping across the enemy ship once more in an attempt to draw as much fire as possible.
One of the dropships was angling for a bay, but the doors weren’t yielding under its beams, and Rika fired a missile at the doors to lend a hand, while firing another at a defense turret.
The bay doors blew open, and the ship made it in, but then a nearby explosion caught Rika’s attention. She glanced to her left and she saw one of the marauder ships auger into the cruiser’s hull.
“Fuck!” she exclaimed, trying to take comfort in the fact that every other one of her dropships had made it.
Rika only nodded silently as she angled toward the bay near the cruiser’s bow, spinning the pinnace at the last moment and firing the chem thrusters to brake the ship as it slid past the half-destroyed bay doors.
“Well, if there was anyone in there before…” Vargo muttered as the pinnace slid to a halt on a cushion generated by its grav drive.
Rika saw a defense turret in the corner of the bay turn toward the pinnace, and she fired the ship’s forward beams at it before turning them on the doors that led out of the bay, burning holes through them in seconds.
Niki said.
“OK, people, let’s move,” Rika said as she rose and followed Goob out of the cockpit. When she and Vargo reached the top of the ramp, they paused, waiting for Yig to declare the bay clear
Once he had, she walked off the ship, taking care to step on the coolest parts of the deck on her way to the inner doors.
Behind her, she heard Vargo moan in dismay. “Aw, look at her, my poor girl.”
Rika glanced over her shoulder to see the Asora drift past the bay’s outer doors, gouts of flame erupting from hull breaches, while a stream of plasma came from the rear of the ship.
Vargo made another pained sound as they reached the doors. Yig waited in the passageway while Cole covered the sternward direction and Fiona advanced toward the bow.
“You heard the lady,” Rika said aloud. “Let’s get rolling.”
* * * * *
Chase was the first one out of his dropship, the PR-109 in his right hand blazing as he turned to fire on a pair of Niets to his left. They were only lightly armored, and when Kelly came out behind him and added her GNR to the mix, they were torn to shreds.
He stepped aside to let Keli and Shoshin out, and then peered back into the dropship to where the two medics crouched next to the medpod containing Ashley.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Good until that
final maneuver,” one of the medics said. “Her heart rate’s been erratic since. I have her on a drip to help steady it, but I’m afraid she might get a bleed going again.”
“Sorry about that,” Ferris said as he appeared in the entrance to the cockpit. “It was either that or eat missiles.”
“Can you treat her here?” Chase asked.
The two medics looked at each other, then one shook his head. “I don’t think so. The pod can keep her stable, but we were in the middle of rerouting her femoral arteries to get the caps on her legs when we had to stop and get to the shuttle.”
“What he means is that she’s in a precarious state,” the other man said.
“OK,” Chase said with a nod. “Ferris. Grab a helmet and a weapon, we’re headed for the Niets’ medbay.”
“You’ve been good to me, girl,” Ferris said, patting the hull.
“You captain the Undaunted.” Chase frowned at the man. “How is a dropship ‘your girl’ now?”
Ferris shrugged. “Every ship I fly is my girl. Plus, the girls I fly….”
“Ferris. Just get a helmet on already.”
“OK, OK.”
The sounds of weapons fire came through the open doors into the passageway, and then Chase saw a Nietzschean run past, only to slam into an AM-4’s fist.
Or maybe that was the other way around.
Crunch nodded as he turned, yelling something into the passageway.
Kelly turned back to Chase from the bay’s entrance.
Chase glanced back at the medics pushing Ashley’s pod out of the dropship.
Fireteam one/one moved down the corridor in the direction Kelly had indicated, while one/two hung back to cover the rear.
The medics had just pushed the pod out into the passage with Ferris right behind them, when Chase spotted motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to see one of the Nietzschean assault ships that had been bound for the Asora heading straight for the bay.
* * * * *
Rika sent a pair of drones around the corner and down the next passage.
Cole twisted side to side as she strode down the passage.
The corporal dove backward, hitting the deck as a grenade bounced off a bulkhead and exploded a meter from where he’d been standing. The blast was followed by weapons fire, and the mechs pressed themselves up against the bulkheads, while Yig rolled over and then sat up.
Rika nodded.
She reached the cross corridor where the grenade had been thrown and caught a glimpse of the Niets firing on the mechs.
There were two shooters in heavy armor, with another ten in similar gear behind them. They held the sorts of weapons one rarely saw on a ship: rails, electron beams, high-powered slug throwers.
Rika wanted to tell him that it was just a ship, but she knew that wouldn’t help matters.
Her statement was interrupted by weapons fire from the rear of her team’s position, followed by a curse from Fiona as she took a shot in the leg and went down.
Oh, hell no!
Without further hesitation, Rika fired her electron beam right at the two shooters who stood only five meters from her. Then she shot two sabot rounds at the Niets in the back of the group.
There wasn’t enough distance for the sabot’s extra charge to boost the uranium rods to max speed, but one still blew a Niet’s arm off, while the other missed its intended target, continued to accelerate, and then tore a rather large hole in a bulkhead a hundred meters back.
Yig was pulling Fiona along the deck, while the SMI-4 jammed an emergency stint into her leg.
Goob was taking a lot of hits, but six of the Niets were down. Rika knew they couldn’t hold out much longer, but with Niets advancing down both corridors, there wasn’t any line of retreat. It was forward or nothing.
A moment later, she saw three figures step through the hole at the far end of the corridor where Rika’s sabot had hit, and Crunch’s voice called out,
Rika dropped, pulling Goob with her as rail shots tore through the remaining six Niets, shredding armor, flesh, and bone—and unfortunately spraying it across the two mechs who had hit the deck.
Rika glanced over at Goob and felt a moment’s revulsion.
More heavy fire tore through the other corridor where Yig and Fiona had been shooting, and then relative silence fell, the only sounds being the scraping of mechs rising to their feet.
Ahead of Rika, Crunch ambled through the haze with a fire
team at his back, and to her right, she saw Kerry and her team appear, the RR-4 in the lead helping Fiona to her feet.
Rika waved an arm in the air.
I think that’s starting to grow on me.
* * * * *
Whispers called up from the medical deck.
Chase glanced at Kelly and Keli, who had taken up positions at either end of the deck’s lift foyer, while Shoshin took up a position at the hatch above the ladder-like stairs that led down through the ship.