“Four ships?”
“Correct, profile suggests three cruisers and a battlecruiser.”
“No escorts?” the commodore demanded. The sensors team all shook their heads. “Fools! How do they expect to screen? Inform the fleet to attack in a single wave. Get as many missiles in the black as possible.”
“Orders relayed.” The commodore sat back and watched the system tactical map, his whiskers flicking. Slowly a smile began to grow. The legendary Winged Hussars finally made a mistake. When he claimed the hulk of Pegasus as a war prize, General Peepo would make him an admiral!
* * *
Maki Cruiser Dappled Bark, Golara System
Captain Heek of the light cruiser Dappled Bark found himself in the unfortunate position of commanding the 14 ships advancing on the Winged Hussars. It was particularly unfortunate because Dappled Bark was the biggest ship in his impromptu squadron.
“The enemy ship is actually four ships, Captain,” the TacCom announced. Heek felt the fur on his tail bottle-brush in fear. Facing Pegasus was bad enough, but four ships?
“Approach profile?” he said. “How much delta-V can we change?”
“No enough,” TacCom said.
“Let’s see them,” Heek ordered. The CIC Tri-V changed from squadron details to a view that showed the edge of Golara 3 and four glimmering points of light, fusion torches burning. The sensor techs worked with the computers, and four images came up. The first was the pointed cigar shape of the Hussars’ command ship; the writing in their language on the nose declared it to be the EMS Pegasus. The next was also a cylindrical warship, its lines speaking of a parentage similar to Pegasus, but without the doors on the nose or quite the girth. This one said EMS Hippogriff. The next was also of similar design, though had a wider, more flattened superstructure. The entire length seemed to sparkle as if it were covered in dew drops. EMS Manticore was on its bow.
The final ship took the longest to resolve. “You won’t believe this, Captain,” the TacCom said as the image finally resolved. It was almost identical to Pegasus. Maybe darker, and with scars from hastily-repaired damage. On the bow was EMS Shadowfax.
“Gods!” Heek exclaimed. “It’s another of those entropy-cursed Pegasus ships!”
“Profile is identical,” the sensor operator confirmed, “though there are no gravity decks, plus a few other cosmetic differences, and its engine EM signatures are different.”
Probably improved, if that’s even possible, Heek thought.
“Orders from the commodore,” the comms officer said. “Engage at range with maximum missile spread.”
Heek nodded slightly. Sound Izlian tactical doctrine. The Hussars’ formidable squadron was heavy, but it lacked escort. Without adequate screening, not even ships like Pegasus and Shadowfax could hope to brunt a missile storm from 14 ships.
“Send my regards to the commodore and acknowledge the order. Inform him we are engaging the Hussars. Squadron, this is Captain Heek, ship killers, continuous fire!” The 14 ships began to rain missiles.
* * *
EMS Pegasus, Golara System
“Missile launch,” Glick said. “Oh boy, do we have missile launch!”
“Marking at least 100 birds inbound and counting,” Flipper said. “They’re still launching.”
“Too soon,” Paka said.
“Guess they were excited,” Xander agreed. “They probably got eyes on Shadowfax.”
“We’ll see if we can make that a memorable sight.”
“Launch, Commander?” Hoot, the Buma comms officer, asked. His head was turned 180 degrees to look at her, eyes massive, though not in fear. The owl-like Buma’s eyes were always huge.
“Hold,” Alexis said, “let them get it out of their system.” The Maki had launched at nearly four light seconds’ distance. In space, a missile’s range was only determined by its sensor’s reach. The Maki missiles were rather smart, as missiles went. They could independently target or use another friendly ship’s guidance. The missiles’ fuel only allowed for two minutes of constant acceleration at a thousand gravities, though, and then it coasted, reserving the last few seconds of fuel for its final course corrections.
The first missiles went into coast phase, traveling better than 1,200 kilometers per second. They’d cross the remaining distance in about four minutes.
“They’ve stopped firing,” Xander said.
“Wow,” Paka said, shaking her head. “Damn near emptied their racks.”
“I have 1,590 missiles in the black,” Flipper said. The CIC was deathly silent. It seemed even the air circulation fans were afraid of making too much noise. Alexis nodded; she was counting the seconds.
“That’s a good proportion of their magazines,” Xander said. Alexis gave a tiny smile as she watched the time. The first counter expired.
“Begin firing, all ships,” she ordered. The ship reverberated as missiles were ejected into space via puffs of gas. There was no noise when they ignited their engines; they were already dozens of meters away. Wave after wave of red darts shot away from all four ships, though not as many from Manticore.
Pegasus had 10 missile tubes in two rings of five, one fore and one aft. They launched a salvo every 10 seconds. Her sister ship, Shadowfax, had been refitted to match, but her launchers were newer and could fire every eight seconds. Hippogriff, a Steed-class battlecruiser, was what most spacers called a missile barge. She put the Egleesius-class to shame with five rings of eight launchers that could fire a salvo every five seconds. Manticore had a meager six missile tubes of the same design as the Steed-class. Ironically, she still launched more missiles per minute than the Egleesius.
As a squadron, the four ships were launching around 700 missiles a minute. Of course, they didn’t have the missiles to maintain that rate for even two minutes. Alexis gave them 30 seconds, which put 325 missiles into the black.
As soon as the last missile fired, she gave her next order. “All ships, formation Talon-9. Manticore, launch! Drone control, launch.”
“Launching,” Captain Thibodeau from Manticore confirmed.
“Launching,” Ghost replied in its job as the drone controller on Pegasus.
The four ships stopped thrusting toward the enemy and rotated on their axis so they were now facing 80 degrees away from their angle of forward momentum. While they were aligning, Manticore launched her drone contingent. She only had a few missile launchers because she was one of the Hussars’ five drone carriers. What Heek had observed as sparkles were the 120 drones clamped to the outside of the ship’s hull. A second later, the 30 drones Pegasus was carrying joined the others.
Alexis’ grin was savage now. A small part of her wished they’d had another week’s work on Shadowfax, then she’d have had her drone contingent onboard as well.
Their maneuver complete, the high-G alarm sounded, and, a second later, eight gravities slammed them into their seats as the Hussars’ ships danced on tails of fusion fire.
* * *
Maki Cruiser Dappled Bark, Golara System
“The enemy has launched counter missile fire,” the TacCom on Dappled Bark announced, then he laughed. “Captain, only around 300 anti-missiles were fired. That’s not even a quarter of our inbound wave.”
“Fools,” he said, “their only hope was to empty their magazines and pray. Now what hope do they have?”
“Enemy ships are maneuvering at high-G,” the sensor tech called out. “Estimates are eight gravities.” Captain Heed watched his tactical plot, which showed the four Hussars’ ships inside of a three-dimensional sphere representing the missile threat envelope. They rapidly moved out of the sphere. His eyes got wider and wider as the two versions of Pegasus cleared the threat bubble, then the battlecruiser, and then the fourth ship.
“Entropy!” he yelled. “Order Heed to load more ship killers and wait until the Hussars are closer this time.”
“High speed transient fusion drives,” the sensor tech said.
“Drones!” the TacCom ex
claimed. Oh gods, Heed thought, the flat ship was a drone carrier. The Winged Hussars’ drones were just as deadly as their ships. “Marking one hundred, check, one-twenty, check, one-fifty drones in the black!”
“Overlap the squadron,” Heed ordered. It was right out of the Izlian tactical manual. Then he wondered, Why did they fire 300 anti-missiles if they were just going to avoid our missiles?
* * *
EMS Pegasus, Golara System
“Maneuver complete,” Chug reported, and the horrible thrust fell off.
“We have cleared their missile threat bubble,” Glick confirmed.
“Roger that,” Alexis said, “Chug, two Gs back to center, please. Xander, charge the spinal mount. Hoot, my regards to Captain Stacy and tell her to fire at will.” On the bow of both Egleesius-class battlecruisers, flower petal-like doors began to open, and the bores glowed.
* * *
Maki Cruiser Dappled Bark, Golara System
“Enemy missiles were not interceptors,” Heed’s TacCom said, turning to look at his captain in dawning horror. On the screen, the Hussars’ missiles had swept through and past the Maki missiles with zero detonations. “They’re ship killers.”
“Three hundred ship killers?” Heed said. A scant few minutes ago he’d been laughing at their feeble launch of a quarter what he’d put into the black. He was about to order his own anti-missile fire when he remembered the commodore ordering him to reload ship killers. He had the wrong missiles in his tubes.
“Order the squadron to reload all tubes with anti-missile missiles!” he yelled. “Quickly!”
The missile-heavy Maki ships had an impressive rate of fire and carried lots of missiles in their batteries. The autoloaders could fill the missile tubes very efficiently with either ship killers or anti-missile missiles. They were, however, slow at unloading the missiles if they hadn’t been fired. Deadly slow. Izlian tactical doctrine said you didn’t waste missiles in a pitched battled. If they’d wasted the ones in their tubes, it would have been faster…
“Point defense lasers firing!” Heed’s TacCom said, and missiles started to explode.
“Yes!” Heed exclaimed, beginning to think he might make it through the fight after all. A second later, a 40-terawatt particle accelerator beam punched through Dappled Bark bow to stern, completed obliterating the CIC and Captain Heed. The other light cruiser met a similar fate moments later. The Hussars’ missile swarm fell among the confused survivors, killing indiscriminately.
* * *
EMS Pegasus, Golara System
“Enemy squadron has been eliminated,” Glick said.
“Very good,” Alexis said. “Set for cruise. Objective main enemy fleet. Drone control, divert the flight of drones as planned. Hoot, get me Revenge.”
“Revenge here,” the familiar rich voice of Nigel Shirazi said. “Fine job, Colonel. My regards.”
“Thank you, Colonel. You can begin your run on the shipyard. I have 30 drones coming in to cover you. ETA…”
“ETA five minutes. Good hunting, Asbaran.”
“See you in a few hours…ma’am.” Alexis felt her cheeks warm and turned her attention back to the Tri-V. The first battle was won; it was time to finish the campaign. Surprise, Peepo, you bitch. Hunt me, will you? Your turn.
* * * * *
Chapter Eight
Revenge One, Asbaran Solutions, Golara System
Nigel was slammed to the back of his CASPer as the dropship went to a full six-G acceleration. The dropships could have accelerated faster, but the pilots would have risked knocking his troops unconscious.
“Hey, Guido, how are we looking?” Nigel asked, grunting with the effort of talking under the high G.
“Good,” replied the co-pilot, Lieutenant Phil McCaffrey. “All eight dropships are in formation, and I’ve got the four we brought from the Mjolnir and the four from the Copperheads starboard of us.”
“Five minutes until the drones arrive.”
“I heard,” the co-pilot said. “Unfortunately, we’re going to be visible to them in three minutes. Do you want us to slow down?”
“No,” Nigel said. “Every minute we delay gives them more time to prepare their defenses. The drones will have to catch up.”
“Roger that, Colonel.”
Nigel spent the time listening to the command channel as the various battles were fought around the system. In what seemed like no time, the co-pilot informed him, “We’re coming into view of the station…holy shit!”
“What?”
“The shipyards are massive, sir. It’s like what the Hussars have, only much, much bigger. I can see them from here, spread out.”
“Can you see the target?”
“Yes, sir. I see both battleships. They’d be hard to miss.”
“Let’s get there, then. Full speed.”
* * *
System Control, Golara System
“New targets!” the sensor operator exclaimed. “Five…twelve…sixteen smaller targets just appeared from around the curvature of the planet.”
“What?” the commodore asked. “Where? Where did they come from?”
“I don’t know! They came from the other side of the planet, but there’s nothing there! I don’t know where they came from!”
“There must be more ships than we were led to believe,” the TacCom said, looking at the data. “These are smaller.”
“Drones?” the commodore asked hopefully. While drones would be bad, at least they would be limited in the damage they could cause.
“No,” the sensor operator exclaimed. “I’ve got 30 drones coming in from the battle where Dappled Bark was destroyed.” Calling it a battle was an overstatement of epic proportions, the commodore thought. “These are different…” the sensor operator added. “They’re bigger…”
“Dropships!” the TacCom yelled. “All shipyard defenses, go active. Destroy the dropships!”
* * *
Revenge One, Approaching Space Dock 17, Golara System
“They’re onto us,” Lieutenant McCaffrey announced. “Missile and close-in laser defense systems activating.”
“Where are the drones?” Nigel asked.
“Still one minute out. Stand by for evasive maneuvers!”
Nigel had been in enough drops to know that evasive maneuvers, while painful to withstand, would be limited in duration. The longer the dropship maneuvered, the longer it took to get to the target, and the more chances the defenses had to shoot them, especially when they turned broadside and highlighted themselves as targets. Maneuvers would necessarily be brief, last-ditch things, and they would either defeat the weapons systems targeting them…or they’d be dead.
“Defenses picking up…missiles in the black!”
Nigel was slammed from side to side and could hear the dropship’s countermeasures firing.
“Shit!” McCaffrey exclaimed. “Missiles coming from starboard! Shit! Shit! Shit! They got the two lead ships from the Mjolnir!”
Nigel winced. The CO and command element of Ragnar’s Reavers was aboard Mjolnir One, and their XO was aboard Mjolnir Two. Since drone support was planned, they had decided to use the newer dropships in the assault. Each of them had room for a whole platoon, but they were less maneuverable. He shook his head. A whole company of troops—more than 40 men and women—had just died.
“More missiles…drones are coming…Shit! Mjolnir Three is gone.” He paused. “The drones wiped out the missile launchers and are obliterating the laser defenses, Colonel, but they got three of the four from Mjolnir and one of ours—Revenge Seven.”
That would be one of the platoons from Delta Company. Charlie and Delta were supposed to go onboard the battleship and destroy any marines onboard. “Captain Pasdar,” he said, calling the Charlie Company commander. “Continue your mission with the three platoons you have remaining. If you need reinforcements, let me know.”
Nigel switched to the Reaver’s frequency. “This is Colonel Shirazi. Wh
o is in command of the Reavers?”
“That would be me, I guess,” a voice replied unsteadily after a few seconds. “Sergeant First Class Amunson, sir.”
“I’m calling for reinforcements for you,” Shirazi commed. “I need you to capture the entrance to the ship on your arm and hold it. We can’t have any of the mercs getting onto the ship. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Amunson replied. “We will hold the entrance to the ship.” He sounded happier to have direction.
“Pegasus, Asbaran Actual,” Nigel commed next. “The Reavers were nearly wiped out in the assault. We’re going to need the reserve down here. Please send the Horde contingent to assist them. Bravo Arm, Dock 22.”
“They’re on their way,” the Pegasus TacCom replied.
The ramp on the back of the dropship started down. “Five seconds,” McCaffrey warned.
Nigel braced himself as he saw the structure of the shipyard facility coming up to meet them, but he was still flung into his straps as the pilot performed the controlled crash of a combat landing. The magnetic locks on the dropship engaged, holding the craft to the facility, and the green light came on.
“Go! Go! Go!” yelled First Sergeant Thomas “Top” Mason as he stood at the ramp, pushing people out if they went too slowly. He followed the last trooper off the dropship, and Nigel followed him out in turn.
Nigel’s eye’s widened slightly as he took in the scale of the shipyard. This was the first assault he’d done on a space station, and while he’d known, intellectually, that it was big, the enormity of the station almost threatened to overwhelm him. Space Dock 17, the facility he was on, was shaped in a giant “U,” with half-mile long arms and a thousand-foot-long connector. The connector section was a massive structure in its own right, housing the administration, mess, and berthing for the facility’s workers, as well as the storage required for materials, tools, shuttles, and the other equipment needed to build the massive warships it produced.
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