“Hydra Lead, recommend you commence your attack,” Styker suggested as he watched a large window open up in the pirate fighter screen from their depleted numbers on his spectroscopic display.
He lased the target with two optically guided designators and unleashed a pair of missiles at the evading enemy fighter. As these missiles raced away Styker triggered another round of laser blasts. In burst mode they showered the space surrounding the DragonRay in beams of deadly energy. Quickly moving the control stick around, Styker sent his fighter’s nose moving and sliding in ever changing directions, making the laser bolts spread out to cover a large area. No matter where the enemy maneuvered its fighter was struck with at least a couple of the green beams. They splashed harmlessly against the enemy’s shields, but were there only to serve as an annoyance before the Kiba missiles struck.
They came to without two hundred meters when the enemy fighter pulled up and flipped straight on its tail, changing direction in less than a second. Styker watched a single missile eject from the bottom of the now upside down craft as it unleashed a barrage of intense particle beam fire at one of the inbound missiles. Most of them missed, but it only took one to detonate the Kiba and at that point Styker knew that it was the same fighter that he had seen destroy the missile in the first engagement. It was then at his other missile struck the pirate launched one and exploded before it could even reach its target.
Suddenly something feel inside his mind shouted ‘caution’ and forced Knight Lead to slide his Dragonfire sideways just as a pair of laser beams glanced off his forward shields, causing the following particle bolt to miss completely. The next thing Styker saw was the enemy fighter flashing by his cockpit and through the area he had just occupied. He told his wingman to take up point for the damaged Knight Five and quickly flipped himself around to follow the enemy. The AF-103 responded as if it was an extension of his own body, changing direction instantly. Its superior thrust to weight allowed the lighter fighter to catch up with the other craft in only seconds.
Styker wanted this kill all to himself, but knew he would have to work for it. Together they danced violently in space, while at the same time the Hydra Squadron Valkyrie bombers cut their way through the thinned out enemy minefield and commenced their assault. Deadly beams of green and blue energy from his fighter interplayed with red and blue ones fired from the DragonRay as both craft change positions every few moments. Each time one would get the upper hand and score a number of hits against the other’s shields, only to have the fortunes reversed seconds later, forcing the aggressor to become the prey.
At the moment Styker was the one being chased through space. He weaved his fighter in seemingly erratic patterns to try and evade the incoming fire. Through a transparent display projected within his visual HUD he could see the enemy trying to maneuver behind him for a clear shot thanks to the array of cameras at the rear of the Dragonfire. Energy beams slashed by his cockpit and around his fighter, barely missing him by fractions of a second. He pushed his craft into a quick barrel roll to the port side and cut power at the same time, while flipping the fighter back around. Just as he started the flip Styker felt his fighter shudder and watched the shields flare a deep blue-white before an alarm rang out.
He actually completed the turn as his shield generator overheated, shutting down before reaching catastrophic failure and leaving his fighter exposed until it could cooled down and regenerated itself. The enemy fighter failed to break off in time and flew by Styker. Not wasting the opportunity he accelerated after the pirate once more. All he needed was for the DragonRay to slow down just enough for him to get a visual missile lock. He knew that a pair of warheads would most likely break the stale mate between them. The enemy also knew this and therefore kept strafing and rolling to avoid ever staying in the same spot for any amount of time.
To his surprise the enemy fighter actually leveled out and held steady. Without a second thought Styker triggered two missiles and saw them accelerate from his fighter just as a lock was confirmed. As they passed his cockpit, the same feeling of warning that he had felt before called out to him from somewhere in his mind until he noticed something tumbling form beneath the enemy craft. What he realized only too late was that the object was a large missile. The two fighters were so close together that Styker never had a chance to react before the missile ignited its thrusters behind him and slammed into his unshielded rear. It pieced through the Dragonfire’s rear armor plating before sending its explosive force into the fighter’s fuel cell. His ship’s automated pilot assist detected the critical impact and triggered his cockpit ejection protocol within milliseconds. Styker barely had time to realize what was happening before the entire craft shattered from a big explosion just below his discharged capsule as it hurled away from the debris field.
The Kiba missiles proceeded to take revenge for the destruction of their launch craft. The distances were so small that each warhead’s infrared detector had no trouble picking up the DragonRay’s thrust emissions. Once locked on there was nowhere for the enemy to run and no evasive maneuver to throw them off its tail. It only took a few seconds for the high speed projectiles to catch up to the fighter. High above, Styker watched one of them hammered the shields, while the second pierced through its defenses to explode right below the fighter’s cockpit as the craft tried to roll away. It happened so quickly that he pilot never even had a chance for his or her ejection systems to trigger.
As his cockpit slowly spun in the silence of space Commander Telwin saw the distinct shapes of the Valkyrie bombers commence their attack run. Their squadron spilt into two separate groups and attacked one pirate frigate each. Each bomber unleashed almost its entire complement of large anti-ship missiles in three distinct waves. The enemy ships tried to put up a defense by filling the space around them with intense bursts of plasma and laser fire, but Styker watched each one splinter into multiple pieces as tremendous explosive blasts erupted along the outward facing sides of both frigates. Finally he relaxed and let out a deep smile, the first of the engagement and leaned back into his seat. At that very moment everything around him went black and he heard the cockpit seals unlock. A soft white light instantly poured into the small dark capsule through the newly formed slits around the edges of his canopy as the entire thing opened up.
Along with the light came sound. The commander could hear multiple voices from just outside his cockpit. Some were talking calmly, while others were almost shouting excitingly as they went over what had just happened. Each one of them was quickly recognizable by him.
“Did you see that?!”
“What the hell was…”
“How did you avoid…”
“I so had you there!”
“Did you happen to catch that move the commander made?”
He pushed himself up from the seat as the Simpod’s canopy locked open and stepped out from the pod. That particular Simpod was an exact replica of the Dragonfire’s cockpit section. All around him were other similar pods, over four squadrons worth. At the moment the majority of them were Dragonfires, but ten were Valkyrie shaped. Styker put his hands on his hips and stretched out his back a little after the long time spent in the seated position. Tilting his head back he looked up at the ceiling high above him. Stretching up along the somewhat curved walls were rows and rows of other simulator pods suspended for future use during large scale, fleet-wide, simulated training.
“Nice one Flyboy, almost had you there,” a soft familiar voice called out to him from the other side of his simulator.
Styker turned with a smile to find Tiari Okawa sitting on the step there looking over at him with a smirk. “I thought that was you doing all those crazy moves. You did have me Taurus, if it hadn’t been for my PAS I would have joined you in the after place.”
He let out a laugh and jumped down from the slightly raised simpod and looked around to watch the other pilots converse amongst themselves. They stood in pair or in larger groups talking about the simulation they had
just participated in. Some were reliving victories, while others were laughing about their deaths. Either way every moment of the sim had been another learning experience for all of them.
“That was some nifty flying boss! Thanks for getting my back on that last one,” said Baxon ‘Sparky’ Sparkalli as the lieutenant wrapped one of his big arms around the commander’s shoulders.
“It’s my job Sparky. I remember you having some fancy maneuvers as well. Keep up the good work,” Styker replied and patted the large man’s back, still wondering how Baxon ever fit into a Dragonfire cockpit. The man’s size made him ideal for the Army or Marines. No one would ever guess that he had chosen the Naval Flight Academy.
He told the man to go grab some food in the mess hall before turning his attention back on Tiari. “Next time you get to be the pirates,” she told him while standing up to face him as Styker came closer.
“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that,” he grinned and teased, “you have to show me that last move you did with the missile release. I might have to steal that.”
“You like that huh? Just something I’ve been working on.” Tiari replied as she moved a little closer, looking up into Styker’s eyes suggestively, “I guess I can show you. You want to meet up for a private tutoring lesson, Hotshot?”
“Well if you’re offering, curves,” he grinned and called her by his nickname for her, making sure no one was close enough to hear. “I’ll open up my schedule…”
A loud attention alarm rang out throughout the ship and stopped him from finishing his sentence. “Attention, Attention, this is the Admiral! All hands prepare for Battle Stations! Repeat, prepare for Battle Stations. Drop commencing in five minutes.”
“Knight and Viper Squadrons are the Ready,” Captain Chulovski’s growl like voice called out a second later and caused everyone to drop what they were doing.
“Rain-check I guess,” Styker said as they all filled out of the room to get to their stations. He leaned over and kissed Tiari straight on the lips before letting out a grin and taking off in a run towards the hanger.
Darma Horizon - Darmatium Refining Facility
Chu-Tsao System, Cetus Sector
His entire body lurched back into the reclined and padded pilot’s seat seconds after the lighting outside his cockpit turned green and the Dragonfire accelerated to tremendous speeds in fractions of a second. Without the fighter’s inertial dampeners he would have lost consciousness long before the craft even exited the launch tunnel. In less than a second he was thrown out of the large Majestic carrier and into the red light given off by Chu-Tsao, the massive red giant star that centered the small solar system of the same name. As soon as he cleared the ship his AF-103 automatically ignited its thrusters to a preset level and continued to push itself through space at the same velocity that had just launched it. At the same time his body relaxed in the seat as the forces against it finally dissipated by the adjusting dampeners.
“Knight Lead reports successful launch,” Styker informed FOPS, Flight Operations, and quickly heard the rest of his squadron relay the same.
Along the Dragonfire’s right side the entire length of the six hundred and ninety meter long carrier rushed by. Commander Telwin glanced over the dark gray hull plating and admired the clean lines that composed the ship’s distinct shape, an evolution of her predecessor. He beamed with pride at the ship, while racing past the ship’s name, Regal, engraved in massive block letters along one of the angled hull armor plates. The vessel had been his home for the past seven years and he had become attached to it over that time. She might not be the largest or most powerful ship in the Federation anymore, but to him the Regal and her entire group was crewed by the finest men and women he had ever know. Everyone that served her had become part of his family.
Some of the closest members of that tightly knit family were forming up all around him. Knight Squadron had launched in staggered formations from the Rapid Launchers that lined the top of the port side hanger’s outer structure and formed up above and below him and his two current wingmen. This hanger was situated between two sets of wedge shaped wings that projected out from the top and bottom of the carrier’s central superstructure and joined together at the outer points. Each of the wing’s forward sections contained launch tunnels that could launch four completely squadrons all together, when all four wing sections were combined. At the moment the Regal had chosen to deploy only two of its eight squadrons. One was the Dragonfire equipped Knight Squadron and the other being Viper Squadron, one of the two Cyclone interceptor squadrons assigned to the carrier group.
Clearing the Regal’s large bulk Styker quickly refocused himself to the mission at hand and looked out into the space ahead of them. There he saw the bright flares coming off the various thruster exhaust nozzles at the rear all of the different escort vessels that made up the CBG. Some of these were rather large like those of the destroyers, while others were smaller and propelled the frigates and corvettes of the group. Made up of two destroyers, three frigates, and two corvettes the forward deployed escort formation stretched out to over three kilometers at its most distant point from the carrier flagship. These ships were aligned in such a way as to respond to any arising situation since the entire Regal Battle Group had dropped out into the unknown.
The group had been called to action by Aquarious Sector Command after a request from Cetus Sector authorities. Cetus Naval Command had first received a strange transmission from the system by a fuel freighter departing Chu-Tsao. That ship had apparently noted something that looked like a ship hovering close to the primary star, which never responded to hails. Directly after that transmission the entire system had gone dark with a total communications black out. Fearing a pirate raid in progress, a not entirely uncommon event within the strategic system, they had dispatched a number of naval vessels from some of the surrounding systems to investigate.
Contact was lost with these vessels as well and it was then decided to classify the system as ‘hostile incursion in progress’ until proven otherwise. As such Cetus Command believed that a larger force would be necessary to investigate the issue further and contain it should the need arise. The Cetus Sector was home to the 7th Fleet, a decently sized military force in of itself, but most of its deployed units were hours away from Chu-Tsao. Meanwhile the Regal Carrier Battle Group had been conducting training exercises along the Aquarius-Cetus Sector border, less than fifteen minutes subspace transit away, and was therefore the most logical choice for assistance in the matter. Do to the uncertainty of situation the entire group had dropped out of subspace under full general quarters and in battle formation. It was ready to face the majority of threats it that it would likely encounter.
Upon his launch from the carrier just after transit into realspace Styker had been monitoring his sensor systems for instant updates of the activities within the system. These updates were being collected by the various sensors onboard the Federation ships as well as those attached to the trio of EagleEye surveillance drones launched from the formation’s leading ships. These drones were tasked with spreading out around the small system and collecting early warning information on any other ships within Chu-Tsao. One of these EagleEye’s was also programmed to make a flyby of the Darma Refining Facility.
Projecting within his HUD were the wireframe representations of the warships directly in front of his fighter, two of which receded on both sides of him as his Dragonfire raced past. A few thousand kilometers ahead of the forward most deployed escorts a large planet began to appear on his display. Commander Telwin in no way needed the sensor data to tell him the planet was there, though. The gas giant planet of Hong Tempest was impossible to miss as such a close distance. Its entire surface was covered in dense swirling clouds of a red and beige color, all the more prominent thanks to the nearby red giant star, making the planet glow like a huge beacon in space. Looking on Styker could already make out the planet’s single rocky moon revolving into view from behind its other side. It was on that moo
n that the Darma Fuel Corporation refining facility was located.
“Raven, Caster, all clear here, no ships detected of any kind,” Commander Julia ‘Caster’ O’Neil of Viper Squadron informed to Styker from the other side of the battle group.
“Roger that Caster,” Styker replied as his whole squadron cleared the carrier formation’s perimeter, “Knight Squadron proceeding to objective.”
Knight Squadron moved as one unit and turned towards the distant moon for a closer inspection. There were no ships or any kind detected in orbit, letting everyone know instantly that something was indeed wrong. The system was not only a processing and refining facility, but also a sprawling fuel depot for most of the surrounding systems. Darma Horizon, as it was named, was the only dark matter processing plant in the entire Cetus Sector. It supplied the fuel needs for parts of three neighboring sectors and was therefore a highly important United Plants Federation interest. This fact meant that on any given day there were dozens of ships coming and leaving the system. Some would be there for transportation purposes, while others would just make refueling stops to top off their fuel cells before transiting to other sectors.
At the moment the system was devoid of any living being except for those serving on the Regal and her escorts. Styker’s instrumentations, however, began to pick up fields of objects floating in dead space above Tempest and others around the large planet itself, stuck in orbit. As the scans progressed these objects began to take on more distinct shapes. Some much larger than others, but each one radiating distinct signatures, allowing his sensors to differentiate between where they had come from. In addition to these signatures other particles within the surround space were detected by a lone EagleEye drone that had recently traversed through the area.
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