#
Chapter 24
Aurelius System
13:30 June 5, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Chameleon
“All squadrons are fully manned, armed and standing by,” Rokos reported over the intercom. “We are clear to deploy on your order, Captain.”
“Thank you, CAG,” Kyle replied, pausing to validate the data on the fighter squadrons. They were carrying a full load of the most advanced Sarissa fighter missiles the League manufactured, a surprisingly capable weapon that he suspected actually had better electronic warfare penetrators than the current-generation Alliance or Commonwealth weapons.
Chameleon was decelerating toward a point exactly one million kilometers away from the depot. In about twenty minutes, Taylor would deploy her single salvo of capital-ship missiles as stealthily as possible, ready to fire a time-on-target salvo with Echo Squadron’s missiles.
The stealth fighters would come around the far side of Aurelius 4B with enough velocity to give them a million-kilometer range, a surprise launch that, combined with Chameleon’s handful of Terran-built Stormwind missiles, should take out the four launch platforms and leave the single squadron of starfighters facing all of Rokos’s people.
Those were odds at which Kyle was comfortable asking Cataphract-Ds to face down seventh-generation space superiority starfighters.
“Any word from Echo Squadron?” he asked. All of the starfighters had been refitted with Q-Coms equipped with Federation entangled particle blocks before they’d left. It meant the ships could not be allowed to fall into Commonwealth hands but…that was true regardless.
“On schedule as of the last pulse,” Taylor confirmed. The Q-Com might not be interceptable, but its use was detectable at several hundred thousand kilometers if someone was paying attention and had the right sensors. So, instead of a full telemetry feed, Chameleon was receiving short text updates, minimizing the amount of time the Q-Com was engaged.
Twenty-five minutes to launch. Forty until the Q-ship could reach the depot.
Timers ticked away both in Kyle’s implant feeds and on the screens and holograms around him. So far, despite the wrinkle of facing Katanas instead of Scimitars, everything was proceeding according to plan.
Kyle had barely finished that thought, of course, before everything came apart.
“We’ve been made!” Flight Lieutenant Tomacino’s voice suddenly echoed across the bridge as Echo Squadron linked back in. “There’s a flight of Katanas flying a security patrol, and they blundered right into us.”
With the squadron’s stealth broken, full telemetry slammed back into the bridge, holograms and tactical plots updating in real time with the scans from the squadron of starfighters on the other side of the gas giant.
The acting squadron commander hadn’t waited for orders to engage. The four Katanas had managed to get within a hundred thousand kilometers before realizing they weren’t alone, and twenty-one missiles were already closing the gap at a thousand gravities.
The range was short enough there was no way the Katanas could evade the missiles—but long enough that they launched their own birds. Sixteen Javelin fighter missiles closed on Echo Squadron even as their discoverers died in balls of antimatter fire.
The plan was broken. Without the surprise salvo from Echo Squadron, there was no chance of taking out the launch platforms with missiles; that plan had always relied on the fact that it would take at least five minutes for the squadrons aboard the Zions to go from regular shifts to launching.
But there were options, and Kyle was giving orders before he had time to doubt himself.
“Tomacino, abort and break away,” he snapped. “Flash them your full drives, but dive into the gas giant. Play ghosts.”
“You want bait,” the Flight Lieutenant said grimly, the icons of his fighters on the screen bracketed by explosions as they took out the incoming missiles. For all that Kyle knew the experience level of his Space Force pilots better, Cavendish’s crews were still veterans, and Javelins without ECM support from their motherships were child’s play.
“Bait and a stalking horse,” Kyle confirmed. “Keep their eyes looking for you—but not at the price of your squadron. Understood?”
“I think so,” the pilot replied. He paused for a long moment, the silence making it clear that he at least understood the odds at making it out of this with his entire squadron. “Make it worth it, Captain.”
“I will,” he promised, turning back to Taylor.
“Jenny, would a deaf and blind merchant ship have seen those explosions yet?” he asked her distractedly, studying the tactical plot in the hologram.
“Thirty-five-plus gigaton-range explosions?” she asked. Despite her flippant response, she was clearly running the numbers. “Yes,” she noted. “A few seconds ago now.”
“Link me back to Lafferty,” Kyle ordered, replacing the stupid high-peaked cap on his head.
A moment later, the Q-Com channel reopened. This time, Lafferty looked significantly more stressed.
“What?” he snapped.
“We just picked up antimatter explosions,” Kyle replied in his best panicked civilian voice. “What’s going on, Commander?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Lafferty told him. “A bunch of pirates just jumped one of our patrols but we’ve no idea where they came from.”
“Pirates?!” Kyle exclaimed. “Sir, Ideal is unarmed! We’re helpless if there’s pirates out here.”
“They’re not on this side of the planet,” the Terran officer told him. “Maintain your current course! The exclusion zone is still in effect; we will fire on you if you break it.”
The channel cut short and Kyle smiled mirthlessly.
“Do I sound panicked enough to push his exclusion zone?” he said aloud. “Lau, adjust our course. Adjust our acceleration, I want us to swing right past the station at about ten thousand klicks with at least a hundred KPS left. Doable?”
“Easy,” the navigator replied. “Three-five-minute intercept. One-five to exclusion zone.”
Twenty minutes. Kyle would have to stall Lafferty for twenty minutes.
#
The squadron of starfighters flying overwatch for the depot was moving by the time Kyle was done speaking to Lafferty, all ten ships accelerating toward the site of the short battle at five hundred gravities. As the seconds ticked away and Chameleon started accelerating again, two more squadrons of the new starfighters launched from the Zions, taking off after the first one.
Thirty Katanas. That was going to be a headache.
Kyle found himself holding his breath, waiting for the second wave of launches. It should take five minutes for the other squadrons to prep and launch—almost the exact amount of time Lau’s new course had the Q-ship accelerating before the new turnover point.
No one at the depot even commented on the fact that the freighter was now accelerating toward them on a course that would take it into the zone where he’d been told they would fire. From his own experience, Kyle knew that even the most advanced intelligences and sensors still worked at the guidance of their human masters.
Today, those human masters were focused on trying to find Echo Squadron and getting their starfighters deployed. The “harmless freighter” closing with the depot wasn’t a factor in the situation, far from a threat.
Chameleon made turnover, hurtling toward the space station while now decelerating away from them at a hundred and ten gravities: well inside the Q-ship’s capabilities, but the kind of fuel consumption a freighter captain would only embrace if utterly terrified.
“Do we deploy missiles, sir?” Taylor asked as they crossed the range where the original plan had them launching.
“Negative,” he said quietly. “Load the launchers—capital-ship and fighter missile alike—but keep the hatches closed. What’s our lance range against the Zions?”
The range in any given exchange of positron fire was a combination of the strength of the defender’s electromag
netic deflectors, the power of the lance, and the actual size of the defender. It was easier for a thirty-meter-wide starfighter’s deflectors to generate a miss than for a kilometer-long starship’s deflectors to do the same.
“Hundred and fifty thousand kilometers.” Taylor paused, swallowing visibly. “Are we going to get that close?”
“If they’ll let us, Gods, yes,” Kyle told her with a wide grin, suddenly feeling comfortable in his bridge again.
“At that range, those defense platforms will shred us when they open fire,” she pointed out.
“Yes. So, when we shoot the Zions, you’d best not miss,” he agreed.
#
The feed from Echo Squadron was nerve-wracking. The stealthy starfighters had sacrificed any attempt at concealment to try and open the distance from the Terran ships chasing them. Both groups of ships had much the same acceleration, but Echo had been heading toward the depot when the rocket had gone up.
They had time, though. Tomacino was taking his squadron into 4B’s atmosphere, a risky stunt that his veterans could handle—but that Kyle was willing to bet the pilots assigned to security at a supply depot on the opposite side of the Commonwealth from the major war weren’t up to.
Of course, given that the supply depot security wings had better starfighters than they expected, it was possible they had better pilots.
If they did, though, the pilots were better than the rest of the crew. It was fully ten minutes after his conversation with Lafferty before anyone seemed to notice that Chameleon was now on a course that would cross the one-million-kilometer line the Terran officer had ordered them to stay clear of.
“What are you playing at, Sheridan?” Lafferty demanded as his shaven-headed image reappeared on Kyle’s communication screen. “We’re projecting your vector to bring you inside the no-fly zone. Break off immediately.”
“We’ve picked up the pirates,” Kyle insisted back in a panicked voice, the voice of a man who might well be jumping at ghosts. “They’re behind us; we need you to protect us! That’s what the Navy’s for, damn it, man!”
Seconds ticked by.
“We don’t see anything behind you,” the Terran officer finally said, his tone sympathetic. “I guarantee you, Captain Sheridan, there are no pirates on this side of the Aurelius Pair. Even at a million kilometers, our starfighters can intercept any threat before they could reach you. You will be safe so long as you follow instructions.”
It had been eight minutes. He needed to get closer—they were still seven hundred thousand kilometers short of the no-fly zone, let alone lance range. Kyle paused, trying to give the impression of a hesitating Captain while he opened an implant channel to Lau.
“On my mark, give me two hundred gravities deceleration for three seconds, then fake a blowout and kill the engines.”
Visibly, he exhaled a sigh as if trying to regain control.
“We will comply,” he told Lafferty. “Decelerating now.”
He reached to cut the channel and stopped as he felt Lau’s fake blowout throw the entire ship. He didn’t want to know what his navigator had cooked up with Engineering, but it was convincing to him. The Q-ship’s acceleration cut to zero and she continued to tremble as loose positrons slammed into the hull, triggering a thousand tiny annihilation explosions.
“My Gods,” he swore aloud on the channel. “Our engines are down, Commander,” he told Lafferty. “I can’t change course.”
Without accelerating in any direction, Chameleon would blast past the depot at ten thousand kilometers’ distance and a velocity of almost nineteen hundred kilometers a second—well before the pursuing Katanas reached Echo Squadron.
“We have your vector recorded,” the Navy officer said grimly. Kyle wondered where the Commander’s senior officer was—Lafferty was at most a shift commander. The depot’s defenses should have been commanded by an O-6 Captain or the O-7 Commodore that would be equivalent to a Federation Captain like Kyle. Though if it was a Commonwealth Starfighter Corps O-7, a Wing Colonel, that would explain a lot.
If Lafferty hadn’t bothered to wake up his superiors, that would also explain why no more fighter squadrons were in space. The Navy officer running the duty shift would only have the authority to call a full fighter scramble in the case of a direct attack.
“We picked up the explosion,” Lafferty continued. “Advise immediately once your engines are back online. If you adjust vectors without permission at this point, we will blow you out of space. You will be boarded by a Marine contingent as you close.
“This isn’t negotiable, Sheridan,” he snapped as Kyle started to open his mouth. “I’m sticking my neck out for you; don’t fuck it up.”
“I…understand,” Kyle said aloud. “I’ll be ready to meet your Marines as they board.”
The channel cut and Kyle ran the numbers. Unless it took them far longer than was reasonable to get their Marines into space, they’d board before he was in lance range. Unfortunately for Lafferty, he had a solution for that.
“Lieutenant Major Hansen,” he said calmly as he raised the Marine CO. “It looks like the Terrans are going to make work for you sooner than we thought.”
#
Chapter 25
Aurelius System
13:50 June 5, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Chameleon
Edvard spared four of his precious seconds to curse out competent Terran officers.
His entire company was in locked into battle armor and loaded aboard their assault shuttles. He was ready to punch a hundred and eighty of the Castle Federation’s finest into the logistics depot—which meant he had no one in position to counter a boarding they had no choice but to allow.
“They’ll arrive in just over eight minutes,” Roberts told him. “We’re in lance range in ten and launching your boarding shuttles in eleven. I need two minutes, Hansen.”
“I’ll get them for you,” Edvard replied grimly. “Bravo Platoon, disembark ASAP and move to the fake civvie boarding zone. Hustle, we’re on the clock. Alpha, Charlie—stand by for the assault.”
For several seconds, he hesitated, unsure which of the two operations his company was about to launch needed him… If the Terran Marines warned their bases what was coming, the assault would never happen. Everyone would be dead before his shuttles could launch, the battleship-grade lances on the remote controlled platforms would see to that.
“Riley, you’re in charge of the assault,” he ordered the black-ops Lieutenant as he used his implant to order the shuttle to release the heavy metal bars holding his battle armor in place. “Keep me informed, but the strike is yours.”
“Understood,” she replied. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck,” he said. “I have Castle’s damned Marines.”
She gave him a soft wolf-howl, a quiet version of the CFMC’s terrifying battle cry, and dropped the channel.
“Ramirez.” Edvard raised his Gunny as he stepped off the shuttle, the ramp closing shut behind him on the people who now be launching an assault without him. “We have jammers in inventory, right?”
“Of course,” the smaller man agreed, falling in beside him as they joined in the briskly moving column of armored Marines. “But we can’t jam a Q-Com.”
“Don’t need to,” the Lieutenant Major told his NCO. “We need two minutes, Gunny, and the Q-Com is on the shuttle, not in the troopers’ armor.”
Assuming they were feeling paranoid enough to show up in battle armor. It probably wouldn’t change how this ended, but battle armor certainly had options that Marines in lighter armor didn’t.
“Meet me at the docking bay with the biggest, nastiest jammers we have in inventory,” he ordered. “And like I said, Gunny, we’re on the clock.”
#
A Navy Chief Petty Officer was waiting for Edvard when he arrived at the docking bay in the fake-civilian part of the Q-ship.
“Are you greeting them?” the painfully skinny redheaded woman demanded gruffly. “Unle
ss you’re shooting before talking, they’ll need to see someone who looks like ship’s crew.”
The thought hadn’t even crossed Edvard’s mind. As usual, an informed noncommissioned officer had found the hole in the plan.
He checked the time. Ninety seconds; the Terran shuttle was accelerating hard to match velocities. They weren’t going to quite make it, and it was going to be a rough stop for the poor bastards aboard, something Edvard was relying on.
“It’s going to have to be me,” he agreed, starting to issue the commands for his armor to unlatch. “I can get out of the armor, but I don’t have a merchant uniform…”
“Got them,” the Chief told him with a smile, producing a white cap and jacket from her carry-all. “So long as you’re wearing a shipsuit, we should be good.”
Sixty seconds.
Edvard stepped out of his battle armor, ordering the suit to close up and move back out of sight on its own. Grabbing the jacket from the NCO, he glanced back at the Marines moving up.
“This ship has false panels there and there,” he ordered, pointing them to the accesses as he spoke. “They’ll cover you from standard passives. Get in there and wait. We need time more than we need dead Terrans.”
Forty seconds. He slapped the cap onto his head and turned back to the Chief.
“How do I look?”
“Like a lazy civvie, it’ll do,” she replied.
“Who am I supposed to be?”
“XO, Merchant Marine Commander,” she told him. “No name on the uniform, use your own—the Captain’s probably the only one the Terrans would recognize by name.”
“Thank you, Chief…”
“Poulson, sir. Becca Poulson,” she introduced herself, falling in behind him at a respectful distance as he approached the door.
Twenty seconds. The last of the Marines were out of sight except for Ramirez and two Marines he’d recruited as pack mules. They were each carrying the bulky meter-and-a-half-tall cylinders of high-powered regional jammers.
Q-Ship Chameleon Page 16