Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  “Very well,” Duncan said. It wasn’t the smartest of moves, but it would give Ironhide a moment of breathing space, while the heavy cruiser dealt with the swarm of stinging wasps that were coming at it. “Keep an eye on them. Tactical, activate our electronic warfare suite, I don’t want to get hammered by all those missiles.”

  “Aye, sir,” Kamerov replied, his hands flying over his console. “Ready for counter fire.”

  “Engage the missiles,” Duncan ordered.

  The missiles had been fired simultaneously, but the fighters were approaching in a staggered formation. This meant that the missiles were coming in in a ragged approach, not in a single salvo. This made them a bit easier for Lieutenant Kamerov’s weapons to target them and shoot them down. A blistering storm of lasers cut loose from Legacy’s broadside, accompanied by a lesser one from Ravage.

  “We got most of them, Captain,” Drommen said. “Four still inbound. Five seconds to impact.”

  The point defense laser clusters went into a last-ditch panic fire, spewing coherent light at the incoming weapons, savaging one of the Sierra missiles. The other three crashed into the heavy cruiser’s shields, which glowed opaque as they sucked up the damage.

  “Shields down to sixty-eight percent,” Drommen called, his voice getting slightly anxious.

  “Target the fighters,” Duncan ordered. “Firing plan Sextus.”

  “Firing plan Sextus,” Kamerov repeated.

  “Helm, attack pattern Beta.”

  The heavy cruiser twisted in space, moving in a corkscrew maneuver with surprisingly agility. It was a bit like a shark rapidly changing direction in the water to attack a school of piranhas. The ship’s weapons were fully under computerized fire control, as what looked like a sheer spray of energy weapons blazed out, firing on the local starfighters that were attempting attack maneuvers of their own. They’d broken formation and were peppering the warship with their energy weapons, swinging wide and pulling in close to the ship. The heavy beams of the Legacy’s turbolasers swatted them out of space, as it took the pain from their weapons.

  The ovoid shaped fighters flew in ones and twos, ignoring their discipline, mobbing the heavy cruiser like remoras trying to take down that angry shark. Their laser cannons were pitifully ineffective against the cruiser’s shields; it seemed as though the missile salvo they’d sent Legacy’s way was really their only strong punch and the Republic ship had weathered it without too much trouble. Their lasers now were little more than stings, which were slowly draining power from the cruiser’s shields, but it was taking all their fire to really make any appreciable difference.

  One of the ship’s heavy lasers blasted apart another of the Muon-class strike fighters and Skygexx cursed. This is insane. It isn’t supposed to be like this! He pounded the arm of his chair in frustration until there was an audible crack as he fractured the carapace on the outer edge of his hand.

  “Zg’chiss Leader to Ironhide,” Sokann’s absolutely livid voice crackled over the bridge’s speakers. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing out there, but my pilots are getting chewed up. Get back here and help us kill this thing!” Eight of the Muon fighters had already been destroyed and as Skygexx checked his display, he saw another vanish as it flew through the coherent energy of one of the cruiser’s turbolasers.

  “What’s the status of our shields?” he demanded, double checking on his own display.

  “They’re firming up at seventy percent, Captain,” the elderly male zheen at the tactical station replied. He was a wily old beast, long past his prime, but he knew his job and he could fight the ship.

  “Captain, the Republic cruiser’s shields are weakening, but there’s no spotting or holes yet. The fighters are attempting to attack only on one shield vector, but they’re having trouble concentrating their fire.” Kufazik sounded as though he was announcing sports scores for the Tyseus springball open, not in the middle of a battle where people were dying. “They are, however, managing to keep the Republic corvette on the far side of the cruiser, and effectively out of their fight. Every time the corvette attempts to maneuver to attack them, they swarm to the other side of the cruiser. However, that is further hampering their efforts as every time they do that they are moving to a new, less damaged shield vector.”

  “Helm, bring us about,” Skygexx ordered. “Take us in there, and as soon as we’re in range, target all weapons on the cruiser. Flush our missile tubes, fire all energy weapons.”

  “Understood, Captain,” the old one replied, his hands moving swiftly over the controls, setting up the firing solutions.

  “Destroyer is coming back around, Captain,” the domak reported.

  “Bring us around to intercept,” Duncan ordered, leaning forward in his command seat slightly. “Have Ravage follow us. We’re going to attack the ship together. We’ll drive the destroyer between us and pound him from both sides.”

  The ship hummed as the engines kicked in and the inertial compensator tried to keep up with the sudden change in vector and velocity. Cutting forward acceleration, the helmsman rotated the ship around to the appropriate vector and then engaged the drives again. The bridge crew were pressed back against their seats as the heavy cruiser fought against inertia to get onto the assigned attack vector, but a ship that large didn’t exactly turn on a dime. It took a few moments to get the big girl turned around and moving, time that the destroyer was using to close to weapons range.

  Then the destroyer threw everything it had at Legacy, and both Republic ships gave back as good as they got. Their own salvos savaged the destroyer, knocking the ship’s forward shields down and tearing into the hull. Crewmen frantically sealed off compromised sections, slamming bulkheads shut to contain atmosphere. The hull looked as though the Ironhide had flown face first through an asteroid field with no shields, and had been hit a dozen times by very angry rocks. But she was living up to her name. While the ships of the Argos Cluster couldn’t match Republic weapons or sensor technology, Ironhide had been built to a different standard. She wasn’t intended to go toe to toe with a heavy cruiser, but she was designed to take a lot of punishment. She was designed for raiding: race in, fire off a salvo or two and then race away, which meant most of her armor was focused in her forward quarter. Which is probably what saved her from the Republic onslaught. Yes, she was torn and bleeding, yes, she was hurt, but she could still fly and she could till fight.

  She raced past the two ships and kept right on going, not off course, but running. These were pirates, not a regular Navy force. Apparently, their captain had decided that he was not going to die trying to take on a superior Republic force. Whoever was left of the starfighter contingent apparently had come to the same conclusion, as all the fighters had broken off their attack and were accelerating back toward the fueling station.

  Duncan looked over to his officers. “Damage report?”

  “We took some hits, Captain,” Drommen replied. “Our forward shield took a pounding from their incoming fire, it’s down to twenty-four percent with some serious spotting. We’ve taken some hull damage as well. One of the turbolasers in Battery Two and another two in Battery Three are offline. Sensors on the bow took a few hits too. Engineering is working on it.”

  “What’s the status of those ships?”

  Drommen took a moment to reply. “They’re all moving to the fueling station,” he reported. “They’re taking up a defensive formation less than a light second away. The destroyer is moving in to support them there as well.”

  Duncan nodded. “Very well.” He straightened in his command seat. “Stand down from general quarters. Take us in closer to the shipyard, I want a good look at what they’re building there. Make sure to steer clear from the fueling station; we didn’t come here to fight them, despite what just happened. We came here to find that damned freighter.”

  “Break off!” Skygexx shouted as the bridge rocked. One of the auxiliary navigation consoles exploded and the zheen there shrieked in agony as
hot metal, ceramics and plastics blasted all over him. Verrikoth isn’t paying us enough to die for him. Not with no chance of success. He saw the helmsman executing his order and Ironhide shot past the Republic ships, running for all she was worth. “Contact Commander Sokann! Tell him to break off his attack and regroup back at the fueling station.”

  “Aye, sir!” Kezzin called, his voice shaking slightly in fear. In all the months Ironhide had been stationed out here in Tyseus, the most action that any of these crews had seen was when a tramp freighter came blundering into the system and was stupid enough to try and approach the shipyard. Skygexx and his crew had only been too happy to shoot out its engines and get a boarding party over to her. The crew of that ship hadn’t enjoyed what had happened to them after that very much. But none of them, Skygexx included, had expected to take on a heavy cruiser here without any additional support. And they certainly didn’t expect to take on a Republic heavy cruiser. What the hell were they doing out here anyway? The Republic didn’t give a flying gronk about anything in the Argos Cluster, why all of a sudden was a cruiser and a corvette tromping into a sovereign star system?

  No, this was insane, Skygexx thought. Those two ships had chewed up the Wrath with almost no effort, smashed his own ship and had wrecked more than half of Sokann’s fighter squadron. Twelve Muon-class fighters were destroyed and what did they have to show for it all? Minor damage on that heavy cruiser and almost no damage at all on that corvette and they were still flying on into the inner system, to the shipyard. There was nothing he could do about it, short of crashing his ship into the side of the cruiser, but even that might not even do anything, as it was possible the Republic ship would just batter his destroyer into scrap and arrogantly carry on without a care in the world.

  “No, we’re going to pull back to the fueling station and defend,” he said aloud and it was clear that the rest of the bridge was hanging on his every word. Even young Kezzin, who after having sent Skygexx’s message to the fighters, was looking over at his commanding officer speculatively.

  “Captain, your orders were to defend the star system,” he said, a slightly nasal whine in his voice. He began to emit a very slight buzz, showing his nervousness, but he was carrying on. “The Captain ordered you to stop any aggressors from attacking this system! You’re supposed to defend the shipyard!”

  Skygexx, who was still shaking a bit; mirroring the vibration of his battered warship, turned slowly to face his upstart ensign. “What did you say to me?”

  The young zheen, believing that his commander was shaking in fear and had become enfeebled due to the stress from the attack, carried on boldly. “Captain Verrikoth ordered us to defend this system,” he said again. “We can’t do that if we run away.”

  “Shut your mouth, larva,” Kufazik said, his voice low. “Did you not see what just happened?”

  But Kezzin had been emboldened by his commander’s lack of serious response. He seemed to think that his family connections would protect him from Skygexx’s wrath. “The Wrath was destroyed because we weren’t ready,” he explained, as though he knew the answer. He was ignoring the dirty looks and flaring antennae that were coming his way from the rest of his companions on the bridge. “We survived a head on attack by both of their ships! We can take them!”

  “Are you stupid?” Kufazik railed. “They blasted Wrath to bits in one pass! In a second pass with both ships they destroyed more than half of Commander Sokann’s squadron. They shot down sixteen missiles from the squadron’s missile salvo and took the fire from four. They just took it and shrugged it off. A few minutes later, they came in and hammered this ship. In what universe do you think that we are able to take on that heavy cruiser?”

  “So we stay out of close range and stand off!” Kezzin fired back. “You’re right, we can’t get in a slugging match with that ship, so we stand off and pound her with missiles and evade their return fire.”

  “What do you think we were trying to do?” the sensor officer demanded.

  “We just charged right down their throat!” the young zheen replied loudly.

  “Stop flapping your mouthparts,” the old one declared. Kezzin glared at him. “The captain had to go to the aid of Commander Sokann’s squadron. And the Republic ships shifted their fire from the fighters to us.”

  “What’s the loss of a few fighters? They’re much less of a loss than a destroyer like this one,” Kezzin said. “We lost eleven pilots in the squadron. We lost three times as many on this ship and eight on the corvette! Eleven pilots lost is nothing!”

  “You need to sit down and shut up,” the old one warned him. He caught a glimpse of the captain out of the corner of one of his segmented eyes.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, old one,” Kezzin spat. “Your family are slug farmers on Kiall. My brood mother and my father are far more important. We actually have importance. You will be broken for speaking to me that way!”

  “Shut up, you larva,” the old one said again. While Kezzin had rose from his station and had walked across the bridge to stand in what he believed was an intimidating fashion over the elder zheen, the old one still sat in his seat at the tactical console.

  “You are nothing, you old bug. When I speak to my mother and father, I will make sure that you are tossed out of an airlock to writhe in the black,” Kezzin sneered. “You will not-…”

  But they never found out what the old one wouldn’t do because Skygexx had had enough. He’d risen from his command seat, crossed the bridge, and delivered a clenched fist straight to the side of Kezzin’s head, hitting him square in one of his compound eyes. The younger zheen squealed in agony as he eye made a horrible squashing sound, and the carapace around his eye fractured in a spider web of cracks. The comms officer collapsed against the tactical console, when the old one shoved him away.

  “You’ll pay for that!” he shrieked, clapping a hand over his wounded eye, which was gushing a thick yellow ichor. “My mother and father will see you torn apart for this!”

  Skygexx reached down and drew the needler pistol from his thigh holster. He pointed it at the screaming comms officer. “Get off my bridge, you mewling cur,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I don’t care what your political connections are. I don’t care who your parents are. I don’t care that the Captain has decided to make them happy by foisting you off on me. I don’t much care that he might be cross with me if I killed you. You will stop your whining about things you know little about and you will get yourself down to your stateroom. If you come out of that stateroom before I summon you, insect, I will make sure that your thorax is thoroughly perforated.” He twitched the needler menacingly, indicating that the ensign should head to the bridge doors.

  “I’ll make sure he gets there, Captain,” the old one said, rising from the tactical console. “If you can get someone to relieve me.”

  Skygexx nodded. “Go. I will handle tactical until you return.”

  The old one was on his feet in an instant and grabbed Kezzin by one arm. The younger zheen cried out in pain and struggled, but the old one’s grip was like iron and there was a dull crackling noise. Kezzin gagged in pain, hissing intensely, his mouthparts waggling as the old one’s grip had cracked the carapace of his upper arm. “Get going, you,” he growled, yanking the struggling ensign off the bridge. Once they had left and the lift doors closed, there was a stunned silence on the bridge.

  “As you were,” Skygexx rasped, the needler still in his fist, pointed at the deck. The other personnel quickly returned to their consoles, suddenly very interested and busy with what they were doing. He looked around the bridge for a moment before holstering his weapon and sitting down at the tactical station.

  Thankfully, while the drama on the bridge had been unfolding, the Republic ships hadn’t decided to turn and make a lunge for the fueling station and its distracted and battered defenders. No, it seemed that after having thoroughly smacked Skygexx and his fellows down, they were quite content to simply traipse on into the inner
system, on a course straight for the shipyard.

  Kufazik had slaved the communications station over to his own sensor console. It made things a bit more complicated for him, but he seemed to be adapting while he waited for someone to come to the bridge and take over comms. “Commander Sokann on the line, Captain. He said he’s landing his squadron for refuel and rearming, and then he’s going to launch the Combat Aerospace Patrol.” The CAP consisted of a flight of four of the Muon-class fighters, which were tasked to patrol the space around the fueling station. Now that the squadron of twenty was down to only nine fighters there was going to be a serious strain on the pilots of Zg’chiss squadron as well as the equipment.

  “Very well,” Skygexx replied tiredly. He glanced up as Kezzin’s relief arrived on the bridge, sliding into the communications console and transferring control back from Kufazik. “Helm, put us into geosynchronous orbit over the fueling station. We’ll hold position there.” He looked to the new arrival. “Inform damage control that they may send out EVA teams as necessary.”

  There was a chorus of acknowledgements as the bridge crew scrambled to obey his commands. He checked his feeds again and saw that the Republic ships were still holding course. Based on their current speed, they’d be at the shipyard in sixteen hours. He hissed out a sigh. There was nothing he could realistically do to stop them.

  His thoughts turned to the future. Those Republic pigs would blow the shipyard and if he was very lucky, they would simply leave the system after that. Of course, lucky was a relative term because even if they didn’t destroy what was left, when Captain Verrikoth found out what had happened, he would not be pleased by all the losses. And he would take that ire out on one Captain Skygexx. There was no really good option here. He could attack the Republic ships and most likely have his ship be destroyed. Or he could consolidate his forces here and try and retain what he could and have the pirate lord kill him anyway.