“Cohen, Knox, Haynes, with me. Let’s rip through their heart. Sokolov, see if you can catch up.”
“Trying, boss,” the young pilot replied.
Winter threw his fighter around, turning into the core of the enemy formation, bolts of pulsar energy flying all around him. He heard a cheer as another interceptor exploded close by, Knox celebrating the victory that would make him an Ace, but then grimaced as he saw the veteran pilot’s fighter destroyed by a retaliatory shot. He looked at the short-range sensors, his frown turning into a grin as he saw the drifting suited figure of the Caledonian pilot floating clear of the battle. He’d ejected just in time, less than a second before the destruction of his ship.
The enemy were pressing their attack on Dubois with everything they had, hoping to break through the Caledonian lines, trying to fight their way to a second firing pass that they might be able to manipulate to their advantage. Dubois might have been too eager before, but she was playing into their plan now, diving hard towards the enemy, her cannons still blazing. She weaved from side to side, taking careful shots, pounding her way through.
Glancing to the left, Winter saw Cohen moving ahead of him, trying to catch Dubois, to take some of the heat. He succeeded too well, and when his fighter erupted in flame, this time nobody could have escaped. Cursing under his breath, Winter opened up again, firing a series of pulsar pulses that avenged his pilot’s death by destroying his assailant. The enemy was thinning out now, dispersing, and his squadron was dividing up into smaller groups to hunt them down, remove any trace of them from Golgothan space.
“Haynes, stick with me,” he said. “We’re going to try and help Cassie.”
“I’m on your wing, skipper,” she replied.
The two fighters arced around, spinning on their axis, turning to face the enemy fighters as they swarmed around his old friend. Just five Terrans were left in the air, three of them before him, so committed on the destruction of Dubois that they were ignoring the other attackers, either through inattention to their rear scanners or single-minded determination to accomplish their goal.
“Bail out, Cassie. We’ve got this.”
“You just want to take the lead,” she quipped.
“That’s an order, damn it!” Winter yelled, but she didn’t heed his words, continuing to evade as the bolts danced ever closer, the Terran pilots finally finding their mark, just as Winter and Haynes dived into range. A cloud of exploding debris and vapor filled the sky where his friend once was, and his finger reflexively jabbed at the firing stub, hurling pulsar blasts at the enemy, one after another, Haynes matching his move to sweep the sky clean of the enemy.
And then, almost without warning, it was over. The last of the Terran fighters was destroyed, and the remaining Caledonian fighters swept unchallenged over Eusebius, their enemies cast down in their wake. Winter looked at the sensors, willing his two lost pilots to appear on the display, to drift out of one of the blind spots created by the battle, but it was clear all too soon that there was no hope.
At least they’d died knowing they were winning. That was something.
“Winter to all pilots. Make for the designated landing spot as instructed. Keep it nice and simple.” He threw a control, and added, “Any shuttle within range, pick up Sergeant Knox on the double and follow us down. Good flying people, and good work. That’s one for the home team. Out.”
They’d won. The cost had been high. Far too high. But at least they’d made their point. The Terrans could be defeated in battle. They weren’t invincible.
He just hoped, prayed, that it was enough.
Epilogue
The shuttle landed smoothly on the surface, cast in the shadow of the looming mountain above, and almost as soon as the landing legs made contact, the airlock slid open, a pair of figures racing out to make their way towards the wrecked vehicle nestled in the crater. Bradley looked out at the new arrivals and turned to Nguyen with a smile, opening the outer hatch to allow the newcomers to come on board. The two figures stepped through the hatches, cycling their way inside, the first of them taking off his helmet to reveal the concerned face of her father, breaking into a smile as he gave his daughter a clumsy hug.
“Sorry we didn’t call, but you didn’t seem to be picking up the phone.”
“We lost our antenna in the landing,” Bradley replied. “What’s going on?”
“Cohen and Dubois didn’t make it,” Winter said, looking down at the deck.
Nguyen stepped forward, and asked, “Cassie?”
“I’m afraid so. We knocked out the entire enemy squadron, though. Clean sweep.” He paused, then said, “None of them even attempted to bail out. One more mystery to solve. I’d have expected at least a few of them to attempt to get clear before their ships were destroyed. They had plenty of opportunity.” He paused, then added, “We’ve got Solstice Station up and running, and we’re working on opening up the weapons cache.”
The second figure walked into the cabin, cracking his helmet to reveal Cadet Pryce, shaking his head as he saw Bradley, saying, “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”
“How the hell did you get here?” she asked.
Cracking a smile, he replied, “Transferred to Ares from Hercules Station on a rescue shuttle, then got back on the same shuttle when Ares was hit.” Gesturing out of the window, he added, “I think I’m going to stick with her a while. She’s saved my neck three times in twenty-four hours.”
“Did everyone else get clear of Ariadne safely?” Bishop asked, her eyes still drifting in and out of focus.
“All the other shuttles made it down to the surface in one piece. Eighty-seven in all, more than half of them picked up during the fighting at Caledonia. We’re trying to get ourselves organized right now, but it’s going to take a while. We need to get back as fast as we can.” Grimacing, he added, “I don’t think there’s much point trying to salvage this ship. You really did a number on her, Vicky.”
“You try landing a shuttle without thruster control sometime, sir,” she replied with a smile. “I’m surprised we made it down at all.” She paused, then asked, “What’s happening back home?”
“I don’t know. We couldn’t get any reply to our signals, other than the acknowledgment of our after-action report, and we’ve slipped into shadow behind Golgotha. It’ll be at least four days before we could hope to make contact again. Right now we’ve got bigger problems.”
Nodding, she replied, “The Terrans will know that we’ve beaten them off. As soon as they’ve got the ships to spare, they’ll be coming here to finish what they started.”
“How long do you think we have?” Nguyen asked.
“Days, hours, weeks?” Winter replied. “I don’t know. Right now, there’s only one person who does know.”
“And when they come?”
“Then we’ll fight. To the last ship, to the last man. There’s nothing else we can do.”
Thank you for reading ‘Conqueror’. For information on future releases, please join the author's Science-Fiction Mailing List at http://eepurl.com/A9MdX for updates. If you enjoyed this book, please review it on the site where you purchased it.
The saga will continue in ‘Warrior’, coming in April…
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