The Liberty Fleet Trilogy (War of Alien Aggression, box set two)
Page 27
"Bad news for the relay; that's a rainbow burst," said Lippmann grimly. "Someone is doing a pre-firing test to see what wavelength is getting through the atmo best." As if to confirm what he'd said, the lancing shaft appeared again as a quick double pulse, but this time in a rich amethyst hue. "They found their optimal wavelength..."
When the beam fired, the canopy above prevented her from seeing the mountainside where it landed, but the sky turned amethyst like the beam and then orange red with the color of the melting rock. The beam flickered like lightning as the beam shifted across the sky. Gobs of molten stone streaked across the opening above so fast she saw only blurred lines seared in her retina.
Five seconds later, the atmospheric shockwave hit, first sucking with a gentle precursor breeze, and then slamming the canopy leaves with so much force that unidentified alien marsupials and starfish-like snakes and prehensile-tailed crabs fell from the trees as the whole forest leaned away from the burning on the mountainside before springing back to support the weight of the older, now-uprooted trunks sagging the interlocking canopy above.
The beam ceased, leaving them in the relative blackness of the moonlight and the fire glow of the sky. "What are we going to do?" Dudley shouted it just before the first pieces of mountainside blown off by that initial beam salvo began to penetrate the canopy, crashing down and throwing up craters in the forest floor and igniting whatever they touched.
"Inside," she said.
They retreated to the junk, and within an hour the whole forest had caught fire. The roaring winds that fed the flames buffeted Aragami's blocky right angles and the curved n-space diffusion panels the bugs had mounted up near the bow. The atmo inside the boat rumbled.
Dana popped out the forward tube and hesitated to enter the cockpit for a moment. Atavistic instinct held her fixed in place until she could consciously overcome the fear of the fire outside. In the personnel compartment, the sight of the flames had been limited to the few portholes starboard and port and the windows of the airlock. In the junk's cockpit, the diamond-pane canopy provided wide views on all sides, including below. The flames swirled as the forest burned around them and little whirlwind tornadoes danced in the firestorm.
"Hot enough for ya'?" said Dice.
"We're alright so far. We can shunt the heat into n-space with the bugs' stealth if we have to, but that means no comms."
"Don't sweat it. We're rated for worse temperatures than this."
The static-pocked voice in their helmets startled all three of them. "Ronin, Ronin, this is Longshot."
Dice said, "They're a week early?"
"This is Ronin. You're early, Longshot."
Lippmann said, "Think it's some kind of a Clam trick?"
"It's valid comms," she said. "I can tell. We're using a paired key shared with Hardway." Dana thumbed in and said, "This is Ronin. You're early."
Ram's voice came over comms then. "Change of plans. We just entered the system less than a minute ago. Guide us. Only you can see through the Ekkai's stealth."
She used the QC-212 handheld to access control of the data-stream from the surveillance network and pipe it to Hardway through one of the surviving relays. "Keep an eye on your tactical displays," she said. "I'm sure the system looked almost empty when you arrived, but you should be seeing quite a bit more in a few seconds."
There was nothing but static for a moment while the flames licked at the cockpit and pieces of the forest fell to the ground around them.
Ram said, "Yes...We can see the enemy now...And we can tell they've seen us already because the whole Ekkai home fleet is now headed this way. It's not exactly going to be smooth sailing, but with this map, we'll have a chance to minimize the encounters with the Ekkai on the way to hit our target. Did you find me a ship to capture?"
"I didn't find you a ship, Ram; I found you the ship. It's designated as EK.57 in the dataset schema. As far as we can tell, that over-gunned behemoth is the dreadnought flagship of the Ekkai home fleet. Enemy comms traffic flows through it like it's a kind of nexus. Everything about it tells me it's a command ship. That's the ship you'll want. It appears to be coming your way with the rest of the Clams' home fleet."
It took several seconds for Ram to speak again. "EK.57 is leading the charge at the invaders. This is good. We can work with this. Keep the data from your surveillance network flowing. What's your situation there?"
Dice and Lippmann began to chuckle and shake their heads. "It's a nice planet," she said. "But it's hot. We've got some kind of small Ekkai ship in orbit triangulating our relays and hunting them down one by one with beams. Everything is burning outside, but they haven't found our junk yet. We can't lift off with them up there."
"And the Shediri stealth?"
"It works great, but we can't transmit the positions of the Ekkai ships if we're shunting energy to n-space."
"How many transmission relays do you have left?"
"Three, I think. They melted all the others along with three mountainsides over the last hour. After they find our last three, if we keep transmitting, they'll find the junk."
"Pardue is sending a rescue party with some Sky Jacks to extract you, but it's going to take time. I need you to maintain that data-stream to us no matter what. If we can't see through the Ekkai stealth, we won't survive this stunt."
"Acknowledged, Longshot. Tell Pardue's cavalry to haul ass. Ronin out."
5
SCS Hardway, Bridge
They'd vented the bridge for combat already and Ram breathed shallow in his helmet as the enemy ships were revealed to them. The swarm of enemy contacts projected over his XO's tactical console looked like a cloud of flies frozen before him. Ram located Hardway and the task force in the middle of that cloud of Ekkai warships, and he could suddenly feel the thousands upon thousands of alien eyes looking at them. The Ekkai home fleet was a now a net closing in on the task force.
Ram said, "Now that we can see them, Biko, how many are there?"
"Too many," Pardue said.
"How many, Biko?"
"It's hard to say which are military vessels. Wait...hold on...updates coming in... Okay. I count two-hundred and thirteen enemy vessels in-system." It was more than they'd expected. If this plan didn't work, then there would be no way out of this, no escape for the task force.
"What are you using to distinguish military from regular ship? Where do you get that count?"
"There's a lot more ships than 213 out there, but 213 is the number of Ekkai contacts heading more or less directly at us, on an intercept course."
"You've planned for this, Dear," said Margo.
"You should strap in somewhere before the fireworks start," he said. "Where's the boy?"
"He should be in his quarters if he's smart."
"You don't know?"
"You try and contain him; you'll see how well it goes."
"Take a seat at the Diplomatic Console. You can help coordinate with Ix and the Shediri."
"213 ships is a lot of firepower," Pardue said. "There weren't nearly that many at Shedir."
"We're not planning on fighting them all. We're going to pick our battles very carefully on our way to meet EK.57."
From the NAV, Wei said, "I can plot a course that closes the distance with our target faster than this and I can guarantee we'll only have to fight our way through one squadron of Hunter-Killers."
"There's a reason I told you to follow this course towards Alcyone-3 instead of going right at our target. We can't let them know we can see them. They may know Dana is there, on Alcyone-3, but they don't know why. They don't know about the network of surveillance proxies she strung out across their system. The enemy still thinks they're sneaking up on us. Mr. Biko, have all the enemy contacts nearby maintained a maximally decreasing range and bearing to our task force since we entered the system?"
"No. They're not all moving to intercept directly. Within just 20,000 Ks there's a squadron of Hunter-Killers that could have intercepted us by now. They appear to
be waiting for another squadron of three to join them before closing on us."
"That's a good idea. They know this task force's combined strength will make short work of three small Ekkai warships once they turn off that stealth and attack."
"They plan to ambush us here, I think." Biko pointed to the region of space only minutes in front of them.
"Very good."
"And we're going to let them ambush us?" said Margo.
"The second we do anything to confirm we know where they are, we give up our most powerful weapon. NAV, keep on this heading for Alcyone-3. Biko... where's the enemy dreadnought?"
"It's closing on us faster than the other ships. That's helpful."
Margo said. "This may entail a lot of fighting on the way to our objective. How can you be sure we'll still be combat effective to the degree required to accomplish our mission once we're in range of that alien flagship?"
"A few apparently random course changes will let us pick where we fight without giving up the game."
"And the fights we can't avoid?" Margo said.
"We'll go straight through the enemy before they can group their forces into numbers sufficient to ensure them a high probability of victory. The combined firepower of this air group and the big bore railguns on the monitors and Guerrero will blast us a path to our objective."
Despite the confidence in his voice, Ram was well-aware he hadn't answered her question. As she'd pointed out, the challenge would be to win the battles they had to fight without reducing their force effectiveness by taking too many hits or exhausting their stock of warspite torpedoes. Now, more than ever, he'd be relying on the skill of the men and women and bugs executing his orders.
Biko nodded up at the tactical projections and said, "The two closest squadrons of Ekkai Hunter-Killers have fallen into a single echelon formation. They're closing on the task force directly now. Time to intercept is less than seven minutes."
"Pardue, don't wait. Sortie the entire air group now. Once the Ekkai are close enough that we might plausibly see through their stealth, we'll attack with everything we've got. We're not pulling any punches today."
55th Fighter Squadron
2,000 Ks off the task force's port bow
"Hardway AT, this is Hellcat 1-1. Interrogative: you want us to maintain this vector?"
"Maintain parallel track, 1-1. We're on course for contact. Six Ekkai Hunter-Killers. Two minutes."
"If you say so, Hardway." Strike, aka Pippa Tsui, squinted at the starry black of the Alcyone system, but all she could see was glare from the swollen star. Her fighter's LiDAR and radar didn't show any ships out there at all. Two minutes away was pretty close. They still couldn't see the enemy. Ekkai stealth was better than she liked, especially on the destroyer-sized vessels.
Down past her wingman, Pill, on her four o'clock low, Strike's helmet picked out the remaining Hellcats and orphaned Kodiaks now under her command. Every fighter Hardway had was out in the black. The formation of 67 stretched out behind and below her. Beyond them, the ships of the task force caught a raking light that drew long shadows over their hulls.
As the raiders of the Shediri swarm caught up with the Sky Jacks, they spiraled around the formation on their way in. The black and white war paint on the nearly 700 raiders, made the space around her fighters seem to scintillate and twisted her vision. For a few brief moments, it created the illusion her Sky Jacks were flying backwards down a kaleidoscope tunnel. And then, the swarm of chitin-hulled ships flew ahead in a serpentine cloud towards the fight.
"Was that display for us?" said Pill. "I think maybe they were showing off bug-style."
She rolled her F-223 Sky Jack over and vectored thrust 60/40 to her starboard and port nacelles. As she came through the turn and evened out, she looked back at him on her wing. He'd followed her through the maneuver, but he'd cut the corner, coming up out of position and too close for him to cover her ass. "Hellcat, 1-2, this is 1-1. You got a crush on me?"
The static of Alcyone's emissions only tickled the comms line for a heartbeat before he responded.
"All day long, you're flashing that sexy Sky Jack's rear in my face, but whenever I try and make a move on it, bam...shot down."
"Don't get bitter,"
"Only thing I'm bitter about is how many times I have to hear that joke. It isn't even why I got the name and you know it."
His 223 still hadn’t fallen back far enough. Pill wasn't the best pilot the squadron had ever seen, but her was the best she had left to fill the 1-2 slot. Every squadron had their share of pilots that didn't fly as well as they could. In the past, she'd tried to keep some in the rear for their own good until they could season up. But she couldn't protect them anymore; now those pilots were the only pilots she had left.
Pill's voice almost cracked. "You remember what I said back in the bay." She remembered. He'd said, 'Don't get dusted; I don't want to be squadron leader.'
To give the bugs a little more of a head start, Hellcat 1-1 took the squadrons in a circle that looped up and around the five railgun monitors set off on the task force's port side with the fighters. The converted, single barrel rail cannons flew together now, in formation to fire their big bore railguns like one ship. Rabal's monitor, Colt, had the lead position and flew slightly ahead with the other four, blocky hulls arranged on all sides, just a couple hundred meters to the rear. Those converted haulers didn't look like much until you were staring down the business end of that cannon. The barrel on that gun was so wide an F-223's NAV called it flyable space and tinted it green in her visor. Until the UN's new battleships like Guerrero came along, the monitors were the biggest guns in space that didn't need a dozen tugs to get around.
"This is Captain Rabal on Colt. Hellcat 1-1, I know you've got a nice view out there. Interrogative: Do we have some kind of puny, flying insects buzzing around my formation?"
"Negative, Colt." She rotated her fighter to look down at the top of his ship and the command tower as she spoke. "Negative. You are currently escorted by the squadron voted most likely to bake a record number of canned clams today."
"Its going to take a lot of shells and well-placed torps and a lot of those little bug missiles to do the job on all those Hunter-Killers. Why don't you let the big boys handle this. You and the bugs can call it a day and watch how it's done."
She cleared her throat. "See, the battle geniuses up in the command tower on Hardway don't think lumbering ships like yours are up to protecting yourselves. They think you fat bastards and your big bore railguns need us to take the incoming enemy out before they can get in range and slice up your tin hulls."
"Didn't you hear?" said Rabal. "We've got bug armor now. We're well-nigh impenetrable."
"Action is truth, Rabal."
"Oh... You wanna bet which of us takes more clams?"
"I say Hellcats and Kodiaks and I've got 5,000 Ameros."
"It's a bet. I'll take your money. Fat bastards like me gotta stay fat."
Strike was distracted by the Shediri swarm out in front of them as it veered off to the port side and flew up out of their line of travel. The voice from Hardway's bridge almost whispered like the ACG was afraid the Ekkai would hear. "Hellcat 1-1, we just took the leash off the swarm. You're cleared to follow them in and engage the Ekkai. Come to 353 mark 22. Target at 5400 Ks and closing. Go active with radar and LiDAR pings and engage. They should be visible to you soon."
"Acknowledged Hardway; will comply." Strike rolled on her nacelles, came on vector, and pumped the thrust to the edge of the envelope for which the little fighter's inertial negation systems could compensate. Inertial gees overcame artificial gees and the forces pressed her back into her flight couch so hard that everything that wasn't dead center in her field of view stretched and blurred.
The Ekkai warships turned off their stealth and came visible less than 9000 Ks out. The zoomed image projected in her helmet showed their form in grainy monochrome. IR showed heat radiating from the fins that extended topside and keel f
or almost two-hundred meters - almost more than the length of the little hunter-killer ships themselves. The six of them had probably wanted to rendezvous with more ships before facing the task force, but the alien hulls still flew a tight, echelon formation in an unwavering line towards the task force and their doom. They had no hope of victory. Their job was to slow down Hardway and the task force so the rest of them could close in.
The almost 700 raiders of the Shediri swarm flew in twisting and curving in on a good line for an attack run with their missiles before they launched. She wondered if the Ekkai could see the sneaky little bug craft until the domed turrets set along the length of their hulls all opened up at once.
The dazzle of enemy beams reached out for the Shediri as the bugs' launched their missiles. The focused gamma beams burned ghostly in the vacuum, lancing and slashing at the chitin in flashing bursts as the hundreds and hundreds of missiles they'd launched corkscrewed and spiraled, flying in on a thousand, baffling and evasive lines.
The enemy guns now turned on the incoming missiles, chasing them through the vacuum as they jinked and rolled to evade fire. Where the beams connected, the focused gammas vaporized the missiles' casings and cooked off the cores so the warheads flowered across the front of the salvo. The plasma from the casings expanded around the little fission dets like magnolia blooms. Together, in motion, they looked like the white-caped crest of a fast wave.
"Hellcats and Kodiaks, follow me in. Time to raise Cain."
She leaned on the thrust and pointed the nose of her 223 at the springtime blooms detonating on the front of the inbound missile salvo. They enemy beams crisscrossed it and flashed in strobing bursts that left red streaks on her retina. As she closed with the Shediri missiles, she jinked her fighter into line with them and blasted herself forward at the enemy like she was leading the salvo of bug missiles in for the charge.
Strike rolled and dodged the attentions of one or two of the Ekkai gun crews on the nearest Hunter-Killer and opened up with the Sky Jack's center-mounted, 6 x 140mm cannon. They shook the frame of the fighter and her flight couch and her eyeballs in her skull as the propellant from the caseless rounds spat streaking sparks in front of her. Armor piercing sabot impacted on the hull of the closest Ekkai ship lined up in her sights.