Grant had the engines of his ship fired before Fox completed the order. “That’s it! Everybody out!” With a roar and plume of exhaust he led the swarm straight out from the Flagstaff’s skin.
The commander arced forward and swung ahead of the battleship’s path. Multiple alien ships came to life across his main scope and he went straight for the leading vessel. “First one up,” he announced. “Don’t hold back. Each flight take a lateral strafe down the side with standard AGMs. Keep clear of the Flagstaff so they can back us up.” The defensive squadron’s four surviving flights branched off and closed together on the Cygnan cruiser.
“They’re not launching any fighters,” one of the fighter pilots remarked. “Did we really catch them off-guard?”
“If they were just now readying to deploy, maybe,” Grant replied. “Don’t worry; they’ll wake up quick. Let’s get as many as we can before they get the chance.”
Grant swung the SR-X down to the cruiser. Warnings illuminated on his display while he closed in. “They’re targeting us. Move to evade,” he ordered and spun to the right as a flash of light from one of the forward cannons burned through the vacuum above. “In range,” the commander announced and pulled back on his primary trigger.
The barrels to each side rumbled as the heavy projectiles leapt towards the alien vessel. Riding a beam of fire, the first two ate through the ship’s shields and carved the way for those that followed. They slammed into the skin and exploded with a wall of deep crimson fire, cleanly chewing deep into the ship beneath them.
“Shields are down,” Grant announced to the squadron.
“Copy. Get clear,” Commander Fox’s voice crackled back.
He pulled back just in time to watch a salvo of rounds from the Flagstaff’s massive deck guns drive their way into the smaller alien ship. Plumes of fire and smoke erupted from the smoldering scars and sent it tumbling off course as its engines failed to react. A final glancing blow ripped a wide swath of the skin away.
“Good hit,” Grant reported while he watched the Cygnan vessel become overwhelmed with fire and evaporate in a sea of light. “Observe for survivors; we’re moving on.”
He hardly uttered the words before he comprehended the rest of the approaching armada. In the seconds they had taken to eliminate the first cruiser, the rest of the ships had formed up for an attack. The general warning blared on Grant’s console. “They just lit us up. Shit! We’re inside their engagement range!” he shouted as a hundred points of light jumped from the facing line of alien vessels.
“Move to evade!” he ordered and swung the fighter in a tight roll, wincing at the glare from the blasts as they streaked silently past. A shock rocked the SR-X to the side as one of them hit their mark on his closest neighbor.
“Dammit, ship down!” Grant reported, thinking through the situation. They wouldn’t be able to take them all. “I’m tagging one to the center. Engage inside minimum range!” he said before a blast of static filled his headset.
The technique was dangerous at best. Even if they got close enough, there was no guarantee the Cygnans wouldn’t start shooting at each other to take them out, not to mention the blast radius of their own weapons. Better suicide than execution, Grant reasoned.
Waiting for the next volley and half preparing for a hit, he saw the stars before him flicker away just as the gigantic fuselage of a Patriot sliced cleanly into space only meters ahead. Immediately the noise in Grant’s voice channel adjusted to Lieutenant Parks shouting commands to his crew.
“Pull back!” Grant commanded, wrenching the pair of controls, skirting the edge of the battleship’s skin and barely avoiding impact.
“Shields up!” Parks yelled. “In range! Arm, aim and fire!”
Grant cleared the edge of the Patriot just as the guns made their existence known. For a fleeting moment, the starboard line of Lyran cannons overpowered everything else in the sky. Every star seemed to dim in his eyes as the blinding flashes of energy thundered through the vacuum. The line of Cygnan ships adjusted again to the new invader but not before several ate direct hits.
Their shields weren’t charged enough to deflect the blasts, which melted straight through into their structures. Belts of smoke and fire erupted from the four vessels unlucky enough to be well within range. Parks reported back the assessment to Grant and Fox.
“Collapsed shields on all eight primary targets! Hull breaches on four, three more critical! Recharging, prepare to fire!”
The commander watched as the dozens of surviving ships continued to maneuver for a position to return fire. Whatever they were thinking, they must have still anticipated a standup fight or at least refused to retreat. As he moved closer to their line of fire, three more Patriots arrived in perfect synchronization, appearing in spiraling orbits around the Cygnan formation.
Whatever plan the Cygnans had thrown together was instantly set alight as another ten of their support ships silently whispered out of existence into clouds of smoke and fire. The survivors broke formation and drove straight through the neighboring wrecks without regard, aiming for clear space to rearm.
Commander Fox cleared Parks’ ship and watched his target list adjust with each round of shots. “That got their attention! How are the Patriots holding?”
Clark came back first. “We’re maintaining primary shields at eighty-five percent after taking the first volley. The cruisers aren’t putting a dent in us. Wright is coming out long to engage their station.”
“Copy that. Keep on them. Can you find anything larger than the cruisers? Anything more dangerous?”
“No. We’re seeing exactly what you are. There’s nothing to suggest they staged any battleships or bigger stuff out here.”
Fox watched as another round of blasts from the Patriots carved through the twisted field of filleted metal and rip through a dozen more of the remaining metal caskets. From the far end of the field, Lieutenant Wright’s Patriot came into existence, exiting its jump just beyond the asteroid. The commander nodded with approval. “Lieutenant, is that you?”
“Yes, sir!” Wright radioed back. “Skies are clear back here. We’ve got a clear shot at the base.”
“No more ships hanging back?”
“Negative.” He studied the screen before him on the alien console. “There are a few dark ones docked near the base of the tower, a little field disturbance but not much else.”
“Good. Charge up and take it out.”
“Copy that.” Wright watched as the battery charged and the view on his scope plotted a projectile path through the tower and deep into the small rock below. Cautiously, he shared an imperceptible nod with his pilot beside him, his only fellow crew member in the wide, expansive room. The few staffed gunnery stations were down in the body of the ship, but Wright insisted that any decision or blame to fire the main cannon would fall to his hand.
The indicator ran green and he pressed the trigger.
In a flash of light, the first supermassive projectile was on its way at nearly the speed of light. The solid mass of the Cygnan tower didn’t slow it down as the wide bolt entered halfway up and vaporized every floor on the way down. Instantly the shot was gone and the structure exploded outwards into a thousand glowing shards from the incredible influx of energy before Wright felt the click beneath the button.
The surviving upper section of the tower, now fully alight, was pushed outward and sent spinning off its axis, ejecting spiraling streams of fire and debris in all directions. Wright watched and planned the follow-up shot to destroy it, but the movement carried a sense dread. The expected retort was a fraction of what his targeting computer was anticipating.
“Sir, this is weird. I took the shot and severed the base. There’s not much left but my system is way off in calculating the mass. I’m adjusting position to reengage.” He turned to the pilot, swallowing hard. “Bring us around to give the port guns a clear shot.”
Wright kept watch until panels began to peel off from the spire’s tip back to
the severed base. Like the discarding of shields from a traditional solid fuel rocket, the Patriot’s system again adjusted to the observed disintegration. It instantly blared a general warning.
In the shadow of the tower, another mass took shape, undamaged from the assault. It steadied itself while it continued to shed more panels and protective debris. Lights quickly illuminated across its skin.
“Dammit! There’s another ship hiding inside the tower!” he shouted and fumbled over the controls. How could he have missed it? Wright cursed himself for the shot and tried to keep his composure. The Patriot, in its current configuration and staffing, could only handle so much at once so he instinctively redirected the cannon’s battery back to their shields.
The Patriot’s defenses barely charged past forty percent before the first wave of fire impacted. Bolts of energy erupted from a hundred positions crammed across the Cygnan ship’s surface. From one side of his view to the other, Wright watched the growing firestorm be held back by nothing more than a few interacting particle fields.
“What the hell is going on over there?” Grant’s voice punched through on the open channel.
“Sir, we’re engaged by a ship that was hiding in the tower,” Wright hurriedly reported back. He realized he was shouting over the constant rumble from his power generators. The lieutenant attempted to steady himself. “The Patriot can’t generate enough power to charge the guns and keep the shields up!”
“We’ll move to cover you,” Grant said. “Are you able to defend yourself at all?”
“Negative, sir; it’s nonstop. If I drop for a second to fire I’ll lose the ship.”
“Just hold on.” The commander cut his vector out of an attack run over to the asteroid. “Lead flight, follow me. We’re making a run to assist Lieutenant Wright.”
The jump wasn’t long and the firefight quickly came into view. Grant studied his fighter’s information feed as it attempted to identify the surviving Cygnan ship currently pummeling their Lyran hardware. As he expected, it didn’t match anything in the limited database. It looked to be around half the volume of a Patriot but entirely devoted to offensive combat and suppression.
The Cygnan ship paid no attention to the six small fighters approaching from the rear and continued to hammer away at the lone battleship. Grant locked onto the biggest target he could: the ship’s configuration of five pulsating engines which were networked into the rear of the hull. The formation stretched across the aft quarter in a blue strip of light that reached halfway up the sides.
“Flight, nuke up,” he commanded. “We can’t go halfway on this. If they react, arm cannons to drop their shields.” Grant awaited confirmation from the rest of the pilots, then flipped the safety off his launch trigger. “Number One, off the rail,” he reported and solidly depressed the round red key emblazoned with a dark radioactive emblem.
The missile farthest out on his left wing came to life and streaked off its pylon leaving a thin trail of smoke. He watched as it outpaced the group of fighters and waited for an impact or response from their enemy.
Whether from ignorance or bravado, Grant couldn’t say but the alien ship didn’t waver from its target and continued to engage Wright’s Patriot. When only seconds remained before impact, they reacted. In a flash the ship’s five engines kicked on with the light of the sun and pushed the ship forward.
“What the hell?” Wright’s breathless voice came over. “It’s coming right at us!”
“Not for long. Get ready to evade,” Grant said without emotion, watching the warheads approach. Being too large to avoid the strike, it took four direct hits in a blinding string of explosions.
Lieutenant Wright heard the impacts outside cease before he could lay eyes on the Cygnan ship for himself. Now engulfed in flames and having shed half its mass, it continued to barrel towards him, picking up speed and tumbling as it lost control. His lungs froze and he grasped the arms of his seat. “MOVE!” he shouted at the pilot, unable to form a more complete command. “BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
The pilot cut hard and pushed the massive ship aside. “Hold on!” he managed as the alien ship closed on their own, passed within their dwindling shields and gently clipped their lower fuselage.
With the partial hit, the Patriot absorbed a huge influx of energy which kicked the ship hard from below. Wright’s neck snapped back hard against the seat but he still held on. Warning lights and sirens on the console and above blared loud and steady while the room rocked from the impact. Beside him, the pilot still had the controls planted to the side in an attempt to roll them out of the way.
Still trailing, the fighters followed for damage assessment. “Keep it together,” Grant demanded. “You still there? Most of that thing’s cleared you.”
As the rumbling ceased, Wright looked around him. His heart was pounding, adrenaline racing, but he was still alive. “I think we’re clear. How do we look over there?”
“No major damage,” he said, flying alongside the impact site. “Some scrapes but no breaches. Those things are tough.”
“I’ll say.” Wright sighed and turned to his pilot. “Nice flying. Turn us about to smoke the rest of that thing.” He switched to his headset. “All Clear, I say again, All Clear! Crisis teams stand down and report in.”
***
Twenty levels below, in the depths of the ship, Scott gripped his rifle tighter and looked to Lieutenant Carter to confirm the instruction. “Is that it?” he asked nervously.
“If we’re lucky,” Carter answered and let his weapon rest on the barrier in front of him. They were all suited in heavy armor and staged inside a circular barricade they had constructed on one of the minimalist platform trams. During the battle they had waited at an intersection of multiple passageways deep inside the battleship so they could react to an invasion from any location with relative ease. “We’ll pull back to the armory and wait for further orders,” the officer said and got to his feet.
Scott let his head lean back against the low reinforced wall of metal and exhaled in relief. It was his decision to join with the Special Forces team, and he had wanted to have some sort of an impact on the battle. Truth be told, he was glad it didn’t come down to a firefight on the defense. He flipped up his face shield and looked around their surroundings.
From what he could sense from the rumbling of the generators, flickering lights and impact from the derelict alien vessel, they had soaked up a huge amount of damage and were no worse for the wear. It went without saying that any Space Corps ship, the Flagstaff included, would have taken only a small fraction of such a beating before succumbing to the vacuum outside.
They were far from safety, but at least they had earned a brief feeling of victory. Whether it would be enough remained to be seen.
***
The final Cygnan cruiser took a line of fire from the USC Flagstaff’s forward cannons, sustained a hull breach and exploded in a ball of atomized particles. Commander Fox’s target list emptied, and for a moment the bridge grew eerily silent. “Report!” he shouted. “Is everyone alright?”
“Close call, but we’re good,” Wright radioed back, followed by the others.
“Two fighters K.I.A. but rest are operational,” Grant added at the end, taking responsibility for the only flight located away from the larger ships.
Thank God for that, Fox thought silently considering what they had been up against. Those are bad odds to take over and over again. “Take ten minutes and regroup for debrief,” he ordered and watched as the first Lyran gate carrier blinked into being far in the distance. “We’re only staying long enough to set up for the next jump.”
The commander walked from the bridge, across the hall and into the central briefing room. He waited only a minute before images of the other captains appeared on the rear wall’s screen. Each image was crystal clear, and he wondered what sort of system the Lyrans had devised to build the correct protocols into their ships to enable human communication. Even the radios were only a step shy of mi
raculous.
Shortly thereafter Grant walked in from the flight deck and took a seat to Fox’s left. His hair was matted above a face wearing a layer of sweat.
“I’m glad to see you made it.”
“Me too. Where do you want to start?” Grant asked Fox and looked around the room between the virtual faces.
“Well done out there,” Fox began. “The first site is down, but we’ve still got two larger ones to go. The entrance was a little rocky, but if we time our jumps a little closer I think we can have a better opening.” The other captains nodded. “It’s going to be tight for the Flagstaff to catch their attention but not get the chance to engage. If you had been much later, we would have had to make first contact alone or else cut and run. That’s a mess we don’t need.”
He looked at Grant. “What else?”
“Watch the towers for surprises. Whatever the thing was they had stuck inside the one here could have been a disaster,” Grant added from his seat.
Lieutenant Wright nodded with a sullen expression. “For a base like that, the main cannon will do it, but you need a higher angle of attack so it can hit top to bottom.”
“Agreed,” Grant said, nodding.
“Were we able to get any better insight as to the Cygnans’ capabilities?”
“Per ship, no,” Fox admitted. “Weapons and shields are about all we can see. If you want to run over to one and do a site survey, you’re welcome to, but I don’t think it’d end well.”
“That’d be a big help,” Grant added. “If we could get a data pull from them, it might give Omega’s intel force what they need.”
“Agreed, but we don’t have the resources to defer our primary mission. Earth must be protected at all costs. If a dozen of those things that snuck up on Wright dropped in, there’d be no Lexington and in a few hours no Space Corps Command.”
MissionSRX: Deep Unknown Page 13