“What do you want?” another panic-stricken voice cried out. “We’ll surrender. You can board us. We have no goods and few supplies. Please, stop firing. Our ships are full of workers–full of people. You’re killing civilians. We’re on fire!”
Scanners displayed an awful, one-sided battle among the transports.
Most of the old bulk freighters didn’t even have weapons.
Each of the heavily armed Matayan destroyers was more than a match for them or most of the ships in Aunt Sleak’s fleet.
Except for the 6m quad spinal guns of The Dromon.
One crippled freighter broke apart and exploded under concentrated fire from three destroyers. It didn’t have any shields, and only minimal armor. Its two turrets either didn’t work or had been taken out already.
Static and Matayan battle language rang out in triumph.
Dromon’s four primary guns cut loose, lighting up the entire sector. Its blue-white blasts ripped into the lead corsair flagship and its wingships, disrupting their shields.
The starboard wingship took two hits and listed to one side. Its aft section exploded.
“This is Captain Sleak Maeris of Clan Maeris. Enemy vessels, be advised: Cease hostilities and vacate this system or be destroyed.”
Matayan curses and laughter her only reply.
“Clan Maeris,” one of the freighter captains cut in. “This is Captain Philsen of The Botaru. Help us! Our situation is desperate. The corsairs are trying to destroy us. We don’t know why.”
“Acknowledged. We’re coming in. Disperse if you can. You’re still too bunched up. Scatter and concentrate on defensive actions. Jump if you’re able. We’ll try to draw them off. We’re boosting your distress call.”
Three more corsairs turned on the fleet, with all twelve dozen fighters full front on intercept.
The other trio of Matayan attackers kept after the freighters.
Naero heard the pleading and the screams on the open channel, just before another freighter got blasted to oblivion.
Naero realized she had tears on her face.
Was that how her parents went? Blasted to death by Matayan guns?
The rage she felt nearly overwhelmed her reason.
She checked her systems, gripped the controls of her gunnery station, and forced her emotions to go cold.
Against superior numbers, Naero and her Clan Fleet closed for battle.
20
The Dromon led the Spacer attack.
It ignored every hit.
The punch of its massive spinal guns disrupted the shields of the next three corsairs. The blast impacts knocking the Matayan destroyers aside in mid-space as if they were toys.
The Slipper’s spinal gun disrupted the shields on another, leaving them vulnerable to killing strikes. But they could still fire back.
Shinai exchanged hits with yet another.
Enemy fighters locked on and swept in.
Naero watched the rush of combat on her viewer.
Her targeting analyzed approaches, selecting optimal targets.
The Matayan fighters attacked in well-timed waves, launching missiles from afar to distract and soften up their opponents.
They worked as a unified team, coming in on optimal attack vectors, revealing their advanced military training.
Outnumbered, the Spacer fighters held their formation close to take advantage of the fleet’s guns and countermeasures.
Naero had only been in a few skirmishes.
This was her first all-out fight.
Friends fought out there in those ships. Her Clan.
Some wouldn’t return.
More Spacer wakes.
Blood pounded in her ears over the chatter of the pilots. The continued pleas of mercy from the helpless freighters.
“All batteries,” Aunt Sleak’s voice thundered over the com. “Open fire. Fire at will.”
“All right,” Naero said out loud. “Give me some shootin’ music.”
Her AI answered with the pulse and hammering beat of preset throck tunes.
Naero cut loose.
Her pulse turret spun, fired, and took out three missiles.
New targets came up. The system directed her.
She winged an enemy fighter.
It shot past out of range.
Analysis. The attacking Matayan fighters were Omni GT-82s, a bit old but tough, serviceable, and well-armed.
Her people flew Kima A-12s, fast and maneuverable, but with slightly less weaponry. Aunt Sleak had meant to update them with better armaments and ordnance.
Missile and blast hits burst in bright energy flashes.
The corsair destroyers returned coordinated fire.
Dromon took the brunt of the damage like a juggernaut and kept coming.
The Slipper listed from two strikes, one from a spinal gun, the other from a missile–but her shields held at sixty percent.
Seventeen Matayan Omnis got vaporized or knocked out in the initial clash. One Spacer Kima. Two more floated dead in space.
Naero tried not to think about who was gone.
The fleet’s two smaller ships, The Nevada and The Ardala, defended the rear, unable to do little more than protect that and themselves. The enemy fighters ignored the armored Dromon and directed all their fire on the more vulnerable Slipper and Shinai.
Shields on The Slipper buckled, but her armor held. No major damage yet.
More mining freighters exploded, more screams silenced.
Cries of victory from the corsairs.
“Dromon, all ships,” Aunt Sleak ordered. “Continue closing; concentrate all fleet batteries on the destroyers attacking the freighters.”
“We’re going to take a pounding from the others,” Zalvano said.
“We’ve rattled them. Now make the bastards pay. Put fire on them!”
The fleet bore down on the killers.
The Slipper’s rapid-fire spinal gun knocked out the first destroyer’s shields with three direct hits. The Shinai blasted the next, disrupting its shields and doing further damage to its weapons.
The Matayan destroyer leading the assault on the freighters broke off and immediately withdrew.
The Dromon’s massive quad cannons pulsed blue-white throughout its length.
Its beams ripped into the third destroyer’s shields and armor, and tore through the jump drives of the second from behind as it turned to run.
The area went blinding white suddenly. The second destroyer’s energy core detonated like a small nova.
Heavily damaged, corsair number one went into jump.
The other enemy destroyers regrouped and closed in.
They swept past the lumbering Dromon to get at The Slipper and The Shinai close-up, exchanging broadsides and point-blank strikes from their main guns in a whirl of intense fire.
Dromon surprised everyone and spun violently on its axis.
Its secondary batteries and the main guns of the two smaller ships raked the enemy.
The Matayans broke off and limped away, badly mauled.
The remaining enemy fighters tried to break off to rejoin their fleeing ships. Naero locked onto two Omni’s and kept at them until they exploded. He first kills, and she felt no remorse.
The Slipper listed further and burned, crew scrambling to contain the damage. Her teks flung her shields back up at the last instant to keep her from being destroyed.
The remaining Spacer fighters chased the enemy down ship to ship. The final showdown lasted only seconds.
Only a handful of the enemy fighters survived to rejoin their ships. The Spacers took one other casualty. Several Kimas limped home or got towed, in very bad shape.
The Dromon came about and blasted another destroyer to atoms with direct hits from all four main guns.
The Matayans had enough. Their remaining destroyers jumped.
Captain Ensel Volaski let out a wild howl from The Dromon.
“Turn and run, you filth. We’ve broken the scum!”
Cheering erupted from the Spacer ships.
21
Naero assessed the fleet’s damages.
They’d been lucky. Heavy damage here and there to ships and cargo, but they’d lost only a handful of fighters.
Whereas the helpless freighters had seen half of their ships destroyed outright…all of them stuffed with miners. An appalling loss on a human scale.
And the danger wasn’t over yet.
“Situation critical!” The Botaru Second called out from the surviving freighters.
“The Captain’s dead...took a direct hit on the bridge. We’re on fire. We’ve lost power...dead and wounded everywhere. We still have almost two thousand people in our holds. Please, help us!”
Naero cursed.
It was normally illegal for small freighters like them to cram so many people on board. But the Corps set their own risk management regs pretty low, or simply ignored them, using freighters like slave ships. Even freeze ships were more humane.
At least people didn’t suffer or starve along the way.
From the looks of its scans, another freighter named The Shago wasn’t doing much better. But at least it wasn’t burning.
“Second of The Botaru,” Aunt Sleak said. “Get as many of your people into your escape pods as you can. We’ll try to put out your fires. You must evacuate your ship in case it explodes.”
“We only have enough pods for the crew. We’ll put as many children in them as we can. Please hurry.”
Naero was already out of her chair and heading toward her rescue transport. Jan ran up behind her.
“Seven,” he said. “I hit seven of those bastards. I got two kills, N!”
Dromon and Shinai had the most rescue teams.
Naero knew they’d be sent out to assist the freighters.
“Jan, we have to–”
“All rescue teams,” Aunt Sleak ordered, “board your transports and proceed to dock with The Botaru and assist survivors. Shinai, jettison cargo from holds one and eight into tow balls for Dromon and Slipper to pick up.
“Prepare to receive casualties and survivors. Medical teams, take your positions. Ardala and Nevada, help the fighters guard our butts. Good work, people, but it’s not over yet.”
“Can do,” Captain Maradi piped in from her command on board The Ardala.
“This is Captain Otanja from The Nevada,” another female voice said. “Long-range scans picking up a very large warship, probably a Triaxian Guardian Class battleship, intercepting at top speed.”
“A jump late and credit short,” Aunt Sleak said. “Give them our situation, Nevada.”
The Nevada had the best long range sensors and com array.
“Make sure they don’t fire on us by accident and ask questions later,” aunt Sleak added. “We’re gonna be busy for a while. This is going to be ugly, people. Those freighters are crammed with workers and they took some heavy fire.”
The rescue teams launched quickly.
The old bulk freighters only had three or four access points.
Robotic hoses doused The Botaru’s fires in expanding retardant foam and hull sealant.
At least she didn’t explode, for the moment.
Jan brought up the internal schematics of the freighters, while Naero helped another crew named Mrin attach one of the emergency docking ports with its pressurized flex tunnel. Survivors could slide down it onto an inflated cushion in the shuttle’s hold. They could pack it full with up to two hundred people.
When the seals opened, hot smoky air flooded the shuttle, mingled with the stench of blood, scorched flesh, hair, and human waste.
Screams and cries for help filled the air like something out of one of Naero’s nightmares.
Naero sealed her helmet, gloves, and boots on her togs, clambered through the tunnel, and pushed off into the zero-G, decompressed cabin.
Jan, Mrin, Saemar, and Gallan backed her up.
Several dead and mangled Botaru crew and passengers floated about.
When they opened the doors to the main hold, they found its grav field still up. Several hundred panic-stricken miners rushed them.
“Repulse!” Naero yelled. They lifted their stunners and sent a mild subdual wave into the mob to stop them in their tracks and disorient them.
She hated to do it, but there were only five of them. They’d get trampled otherwise.
“Halt, remain calm,” she shouted through her amplifier. “We’ll get you out. Follow our instructions in an orderly manner. No rushing, pushing, or trampling.”
“Get us out of here!” the leader of a large gang of men said. “This ship could blow any minute. We’re on fire. Get out of the way!”
He and several of his friends made the mistake of rushing Naero and her team–crushing and trampling the weak and the injured to do so.
“Take them down!” Naero cried.
The next stun blast dropped the ringleader and about two dozen of his friends in their tracks.
“They go last; shove them to one side,” she told the others. “Now, move toward us, people. Slowly and quickly. Queue up. Get the children and those who can still walk out first. A medical team is waiting.”
The workers shuffled into the rescue chutes, terror and trauma written all over their faces.
Naero never felt so sorry for landers as she did these miners. They were virtual slaves, economic refugees shuffled about at the whim of the Corps.
Men, women, children, elderly; partial and whole families. Kids cried out for parents. Parents called out to kids. Scores of workers didn’t move, and probably never would.
Blood and human waste contamination everywhere. A scene from hell.
Another rescue team joined them to take over.
Jan turned to Naero. “The way this ship is laid out, there must be more in the next hold,” he said. “I can stay on top of things here with Mrin until the others arrive. You and Gallan go take a peek at the drive core. The readings are pretty scary.”
Naero nodded.
“Don’t take too long, N,” Jan said. “There’s still a lot of smoke and heat coming from the aft section. It could go critical any moment.”
She grinned and patted his shoulder. “I’ll be careful, Jan.”
She and Gallan pushed their way through the shambling workers.
The rescuers zapped a number of wounded along the way with their needlers, putting them in a state of chemically induced stasis until the medteams could get to them. At last they made it to the passageway between the holds.
A young boy about her age made Naero stop and pause at the bulkhead. He sat to one side, staring out into nothing, cradling the body of a little boy or girl in his burned arms.
The missing head made it hard to discern the child’s gender.
She couldn’t stop from looking into the boy’s shattered eyes.
“Let’s help this one,” Naero told Gallan.
“Hey, c’mon,” Naero said to the boy, kneeling down at his side. “Go with the others. You’re gonna be all right.”
Gallan gently tried to take the corpse away from the boy.
The boy only hugged the corpse tighter.
“I got him. I got him,” he sobbed. “We’re okay; we’re gonna be okay.”
“Your brother?” Naero guessed. The lander boy nodded.
“His name’s Rain. He just turned six last week.” The boy wept uncontrollably. “I was supposed to keep him safe.”
“Rain’s gone,” Naero said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no he’s not. I got him, I got him. He going to be okay.”
Naero sprayed healer on his burned arms. Then she gave him a mild sedative. “Shhh...give Rain to my friend,” Naero said. “We’ll look after him.”
The exhausted, malnourished boy relaxed suddenly, going drowsy from the sedative.
Gallan slipped the corpse free and covered it with a rag of blanket.
“I’m Naero,” she said.
“Tarim,” the boy told her. He desperately grabbed her w
rist. “Don’t let us die here, Naero. Our parents got blasted as soon as the attack started. I said I’d protect Rain. He was playing with some other kids. We took a direct hit. It tore right through all of those kids.”
His eyes fluttered closed. He spoke as if in a delirium. “Promise me you’ll get us out of here. Look after Rain. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Naero said.
Tarim’s head drooped back in her hands. She glanced back at Rain’s little bare feet sticking out from under the old dirty blanket and closed her eyes with a shudder.
No time for tears. There were still so many lives to save. So much to do.
“Gallan, can you carry this kid?”
“Easy.”
She’d made a promise. She was determined to get this poor boy out of there alive.
The husky Spacer picked Tarim up, popped him into a rescue floatball, and tethered it close behind his back.
Once in the corridor between the holds, Naero sealed one bulkhead behind them before opening the other.
Inside was a total mess.
No survivors. Hundreds of floating bodies and pieces of bodies, most of them charred.
The hold had burst, decompressed, and then re-sealed.
Jan cut in over her com.
“N, we’re in control up here. How’s it going on your end?”
“Nothing alive back here, Jan. Very ugly. There’s a lot of heat coming from the aft section. I’m worried about those reactors. The foam appears to be working, but that might not keep them from blowing. Continue getting everybody out as fast as you can. We’ll check and see if there’s anything we can do about the core.”
“Will do. Over.”
They pushed off and propelled themselves through the floating morgue. Gallan still held the unconscious lander kid secured in the floatball. Naero fended off bodies. With all the blood and brains and entrails spinning about, they’d have to detox for sure.
“All Spacer crew,” Aunt Sleak commanded over their private coms. “Sensors show major damage to the freighter’s reactors. Explosion imminent. Take what survivors you can on this run and evacuate the ship immediately. The Botaru could go up at any time.”
Naero knew Aunt Sleak was doing the right thing, but she quickly made a reply. “Captain, this is Naero. Gallan and I are at the reactors. We might be able to jettison them before they cook off.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 15