by Nick Cole
They would have to shift Terror to the rear and cover her with their deflectors. Protect her and use her as ranged fire platform once they’d engaged the Republic’s main fleet.
Where the hell was Devers?
“How long—”
He was about to ask for a timetable until they could get their deflectors back up, but the CIC cut him off, because there was more.
“That’s not the worst of it, sir,” interrupted the CIC.
He leaned in and spoke in a low and confidential tone. Instinctively Admiral Rommal bowed his head to listen.
“We lost the whole command team. Looks like a Republic fighter smashed right into the bridge seconds after the deflectors went down.”
“Gulza?” the admiral murmured.
“Dead. Everyone. Everyone is dead, sir.”
“Who’s in charge right now?”
The CIC pulled up a new menu on his datapad. “That would be Commander Vampa. She was on the hangar deck when the bridge collapsed.”
Admiral Rommal nodded, pursed his lips, and tried to remember anything he could about the officer. But each ship had ten thousand crew. It was impossible to know everyone.
“Her file,” offered the CIC, “indicates she’s efficient but ruthless. Drummed out of the Repub Navy for moral offenses. Commanded a hammerhead corvette that got shot out from under her at Kaankar Nebula. Awarded the silver star for bravery.”
“Then she sounds like just the right officer for this situation. Field promotion to captain. She has command of the Terror. Tell them to drop behind the fleet until we can get their deflectors back online.”
The CIC tapped in a series of orders and said, “It’s not all bad, sir. Our casualty loss assessment on the Republic Fleet indicates we’ve managed to knock out at least eighty percent of their available fighters. The carrier used all her cards in one go. We can rearm now and go in against them with full fighter cover. They’ll have very little to fight us off with.”
At least, thought Admiral Rommal, that was something.
Republic Seventh Fleet, Carrier Group
Bridge of the Freedom
0538 Local System Time
The tac assessment officer hovered above the admiral. Mentally willing her to make a crucial decision in the next few seconds.
“Second Wing?”
“On deck. Ready five.”
Admiral Landoo lifted her chin and stared off into the darkness of the combat information center. Shadows moved among the screens and readouts here deep inside the massive carrier.
They’d been transporting a new wing out to Tarrago. One hundred new Raptors with pilots. They’d had to bring the fighters up from the auxiliary cargo bays, but the chiefs had moved heaven and earth to get two full carrier squadrons out of transport storage and ready for combat. And Raptors were the best the Republic had.
“How many survivors from the first attack?”
“Less than thirty are going to make it back to the deck. Who knows how many are combat-ready after a turnaround rearm. We’ll have wounded too, but we have backup pilots. So…”
“Tell them to hold station above the group until we get Second Wing off the deck. Then bring ’em in for rearm.”
She stared down once more at the board. The glowing red holographic battleships were coming closer.
“Launch both squadrons now. Inform Admiral Nagu to close and engage.”
11
Republic Seventh Fleet
Second Squadron, “Gunfighters”
Ready Five, Carrier Freedom
0540 Local System Time
Admiral Landoo’s order came across the general comm and resounded throughout the briefing rooms, passages, and hangar bays surrounding hangar deck six. Flight boots thundered down passages.
The pilots of Buccaneer and Gunfighter Squadrons, each with fifty Raptors apiece, had been sitting in their big briefing loungers going over all available data on the enemy fleet they were about to face. Or not. Some preferred staring off into space, a look of certain fatality writ large on their stony features.
Everyone knew the casualty reports from the first engagement. They’d seen the extensive losses.
Over eighty percent of the first strike had gone up in vapor trails. Eighty percent of an Omega strike—the fabled strike to end all strikes, the Republic’s not-so-veiled threat… or so fleet doctrine had long assured them. In moments, everything had changed.
The pilots had been confined to the briefing rooms to keep the hangars clear as their ships were brought up from lower storage and armed, and the air was thick with fear and adrenaline. These pilots had expected to do no more than dead haul out to their new duty station aboard the carrier, come out to Tarrago, and run shipping overwatch missions and the occasional pirate interdiction.
Now they were being tossed into a pitched battle between capital ships. A full-scale Alpha strike against an enemy fleet. But would it be enough? The fabled Omega strike had gone down over the target. An entire fleet’s worth of tactical fighters... gone. Would a mere Alpha strike, consisting only of a single carrier’s fighters, be enough?
Never in their wildest dreams had the pilots in these rooms imagined they’d be in this dire situation, facing such odds.
Least of all Atumna Fal.
She was different than most of the other humanoid Tennar in one important way. She was a member of that one percent who had skin the color of a burnt orange.
It was rumored that Gomarii slavers would pay in mithrium for such a prize as a Tennar with that rarest of skin colors.
But Atumna Fal was an ensign in the Republic Navy, not a harem slave for some warlord along the galaxy’s edge. She was a fighter pilot.
She wiped a bit of sleep from her eye with her right tentacle and yawned like some great jungle cat.
“Hey, girl,” said the pilot in the seat next to her. “I can wake you up good and shiny.”
Race Mandu was always trying to put the moves on her. On anyone. He liked to think of himself as one switched-on ladykiller. And it wasn’t just Race. Every Raptor jockey in the squadron had been trying to put the moves on the small, tiny, and very curvy Atumna Fal.
She rolled two large and beautiful eyes at Race and batted his hand away with her other tentacle.
But she smiled inwardly. The attention was kind of nice. She hated the average Repub beta male with all his mincing social justice hesitations. Apologizing for asking a girl out. Apologizing for trying to kiss her. Apologizing for kissing her. Apologizing for last night. Apologies, apologies, apologies.
She wanted a man, not wimp.
Even though she wasn’t partial to other Tennar men—a warrior class with eight tentacles as opposed to her two—she still missed their “Me man, you woman” tribal virility deep down in the seafoam green depths of her world, near the temples of Ahm.
Thankfully, becoming a fighter pilot had surrounded her with a ready supply of testosterone-laden alpha males from many other races. They reminded her she was a woman. And a dangerous woman at that.
“The order just came down, Race. We’ll be called to our ship in the next three minutes. Sorry, flyboy. Maybe never. ”
“It don’t take long,” Race assured her.
She laughed and dismissed him.
And then the final order to report to ships came.
“Gunfighters up! Scramble, scramble, scramble. All pilots report to your ships on hangar deck six.”
Pilots grabbed datapads and flight bags. Flight helmets were stuffed under arms as everyone ran for the exits.
Race pulled on Atumna’s slender shoulder as she turned to leave. His lantern-jawed face was stone-cold sober now. Icy blue eyes searched her own.
“Be careful out there, little sister.”
She smiled up at him quickly. She knew the effect she had with her devastating brown-and-gold-eyed otherworldly smile against skin the color of fall on all the worlds in the Republic.
“Forget safe,” she giggled over her shoulder as she edged
toward the aisle, away from him, and toward her ship. “Be the best, or die like the rest.”
She winked, then raced for the flight line.
Black Fleet
Auxiliary Control of the Terror
0542 Local System Time
The newly minted Captain Vampa watched as techs booted up most of the auxiliary control stations deep within the battleship. Fleet protocol called for not keeping this station manned until crew reserves were at full. Now they were trying to bring it to life after the entire command bridge had been wiped out.
The great present weakness of this fleet, thought Vampa, arms folded below her chest, was crew availability. Obviously there would be casualties in this battle. They’d known that. But too many casualties, and they’d lose control. Or, she thought darkly after watching the horrific damage via closed-circuit feed of the main bridge, too many of the right kind of casualties.
And now she was in charge.
Just like that.
A cruel smile formed in her mind. Yes, even she knew she was utterly ruthless. The High Command that had eluded her in the Repub Navy had suddenly come to her in one horrific moment, here in this brand-new fleet attempting to wrest the galaxy from the Republic’s trembling fingers. She found it all very ironic. They’d fired her, and now she was about to destroy them. To her, this whole fight wasn’t about regime change, or a new order. To her, this was about revenge and power. Naked power and nothing more.
And that suited her just fine.
And if she was going to hold on to her command, then this was her moment to prove to Admiral Rommal and…
His name is Goth Sullus, she heard a voice remind her. A voice she allowed to speak to her. To tell her what her compass was. A voice that could force her to do the things that needed doing, even when that frightened refugee girl she’d once been didn’t want to do those things.
Vampa had noticed that everyone in the fleet had some kind of strange and unspoken mental block about referring to him, but she’d forced herself to name the man in black.
Goth Sullus.
And if she was going to keep command of the Terror, she needed to prove herself, to him, now.
And to do that, she had to get this ship operational and back in the fight in the next few minutes. Already Imperator and Revenge were pulling forward to meet the Seventh Fleet’s charge. Tactical showed more than a hundred next-gen fighters departing the Seventh's carrier, still hiding behind the destroyers.
She wondered if Rommal was freaking out right about now.
No one had planned on a second carrier strike. And that rebel Repub Third Fleet with the brash admiral was nowhere in sight.
“What’s our status on squadron rearm?” she said. It came out as a demand to make things move faster as opposed to just a request for a mere status update.
Her first officer raised his head from internal comms. “We’re almost ready to launch, five minutes…” There was a pause.
She watched him. Waiting. Waiting for him to say it. Willing him, with her depthless gray eyes, to bend to her superiority.
She hoped he was struggling with her obvious dark beauty and not the fact that she was now his captain. Because yes, she was beautiful. She knew that, because it had hampered her career. Instead of seeing a competent officer, Repub Navy admirals had either seen someone they wanted to sleep with, or someone they hated because she, unlike them, was a statuesque model with a dark beauty about her. She’d have been more successful had she been squat and butch—just diverse or minority enough to make rank for all the wrong reasons.
But she was what she was. A real live woman who used her beauty like a great hammer to bash in the skull of anyone who stood in her way.
And they all, in their own ways, had penalized her accordingly. She’d watched them climb up and above her, smirking smugly as they’d done so. Knowing they’d beaten her on nothing more than herd mentality and fear-mongering. Talent and beauty need not apply.
She wouldn’t let that happen here. Not in this brand-new fleet. This was her chance. And she was taking it.
“Captain.” The man had finally found his tongue.
She held his gaze for a moment longer, making sure he acknowledged her superiority in rank. Then she raised one corner of her mouth in a small gesture of amusement. Just so he absolutely had no idea where he stood with her.
“We need that cover up in the next two minutes,” she shouted across aux con. “Helm, make for flank speed. We’re not sitting this battle out.”
She saw the helmsman pause and stare at the first officer, as if seeking permission. But with a simple turn of her head and a glare, both men returned to their controls and made the ordered adjustments to speed.
The enormous ship thrummed a little deeper beneath their boots. She could feel it on the deck, and in her stomach.
Vampa returned her gaze to tactical.
She felt the first officer sidle up next to her. “Captain, we…” He hesitated. Then seemed to find his strangled voice. “Our deflectors are offline. We will be defenseless.” His tone was one of grave concern.
Vampa studied the Repub formation the fleet was approaching. The super-destroyer Atlantica was closing fast on Imperator and Terror. The other destroyers were fanning out to begin ranged turret fire.
She leaned forward and tagged Atlantica with a gesture.
“Once she engages Imperator, she’ll use her main guns to get through the deflectors. Standard Repub targeting protocols call for massed battery fire on the first target to lose its deflectors. Our battleships can take a lot. We have a lot more armor and mass than they do. But what if two battleships don’t have deflectors?”
The first officer studied the holographic ghosts of the ships on the display. In just a few moments both groups of ships would be within range of each other. And still he didn’t say anything. She could tell he was cautious. Which was good. It would balance her recklessness.
She knew that about herself.
She knew she needed someone to rein in her wilder and more daring plans.
“It could confuse the AI targeting protocols,” said Vampa, as though beginning a battle lesson of some sort. “In a perfect world the gunners would override on the basis of chained targeting-for-opportunity fire. Sensing the chance to knock us out, too. But what they don’t realize is that they will weaken their overall ability to knock out our flagship by splitting their destructive capability. So my plan is to come in at them on this angle and give them our bow as a target. Less profile, and our forward armor and superstructure will mitigate our internal damage.”
“We’ll buy time for Imperator to get her deflectors back online.”
She smiled at him seductively.
This was another one of her tricks.
Sex.
The man flushed as she allowed him all the possibilities she could provide. She had him. She watched him swallow, thickly. But it was what he did next that forever sealed him to her. Convinced her that she’d randomly found just the right ally in her quest for power.
“And we look like heroes to Rommal and…” He whispered as if to himself. “Him.”
That block against speaking the name of Goth Sullus.
She let it go and returned to studying the converging forces on the tactical display. She was inwardly pleased with herself.
“Exactly. Tell the batteries to engage Arangotoa and Victory as we come alongside to flank their formation. If we can knock out both, we’ll be able to broadside what remains of Atlantica. That’s our game plan.”
The first officer snapped to attention. “I’ll inform the battery commanders, Captain.”
No hesitation.
Perfect.
And then he was off, and Captain Vampa leaned closer to all the assets in play on the holographic displays, willing this battle to happen exactly the way she wanted it to.
She smiled as she waited for the coming slaughter.
Black Fleet
Bridge of the Imperator
&n
bsp; 0555 Local System Time
“Closing, Admiral. In range with forward guns in thirty seconds.”
A hushed silence—apart from the constant electronic murmur of status reports from sections and squadron leaders across the fleet—fell over the bridge.
Admiral Rommal walked toward the main bridge window that looked out across the immense gray ship and the triangular bow in the distance. Holographic displays lay over all this. Currently the CIC had the display set to show gunnery arcs and ranges with constantly updating probability hit indicators. Everything was in constant motion. And yet the vast and immense stillness of space remained vast and immense and still, out there beyond this tiny little battle. This microcosm of life and death.
The Republic super-destroyer and seven destroyers were slowly closing in. Each side dancing to see how close they could come to the orbital defense gun’s protective, or destructive, range. For all the intel currently being crunched and processed by both sides, no one knew what was going on below Tarrago Moon’s surface.
No one knew who had control of the gun.
And yet this brand-new fleet, currently and simply identified as only the Black Fleet, had the tech and even the numbers to dominate in any scenario currently being played out. All the theories and the probabilities they’d wondered about… about their plans, equipment and even themselves… were being tested in the real-time crucible of battle.
The next test was just seconds away.
Fleet-to-fleet engagement. At range, and eventually, at close broadsides. The casualties would be enormous. On both sides.
Rommal could feel the crew waiting. Waiting for his orders to begin in earnest. As though the most massive dogfight in Republic history had not just taken place in the last hour. It was as if the galaxy now required some new blood spectacle to outdo the floating debris spreading away from the battle.
As if it were all beginning anew… once more.
He ran through his weapons one more time.
Two ships.
Two main ion guns apiece.
Four anti-matter torpedo launchers.