A light flared beneath him, and he realized it was a fighter that must have skimmed into the atmosphere, been pulled down and disintegrated. On his forward screen he saw some Kilrathi fighters coming over the top of the world in pursuit.
"We've got a hot target," Hawkins cried. "The landing craft are out!"
After several minutes of transit, the autopilot flipped Geoff's fighter back over and his target acquisition light started to blink.
"We've hit the jackpot!" Hawkins cried. "Pick your targets and go for it! Look out for the damn escorts!"
Exuberant cries filled the comm link. Geoff spared a quick glance at his battle screen as his computer switched on its own radar and swept the area ahead. The entire forward edge of the screen glowed red with targets. Geoff toggled in to Hawkins' computer, which would take the data analysis from each of the strike fighters and then allocate targets so that no two attackers would go for the same target. Less than a second later, yellow circles appeared around half a dozen of the landing craft, indicating which targets his computer had been assigned.
Several hundred landing craft were strung out beneath the transports. Above them, however, were three battleships and at least a dozen cruisers, which had been providing fire support down on the surface of the planet. Far below, down on the surface, Geoff could see the smoke and flashes of fire from what had once been the Confederation's most important base beyond Earth. Apparently some resistance was still being offered, as a side channel picked up a signal from two Hurricane fighters. There was even a flash of fire from a ground-based laser battery.
A firestorm of light erupted around Geoff as the heavy ships laid down a curtain of fire against the intruders, and within seconds Geoff saw three fighters wink off his screen.
"Geoff, I'm skimming the atmosphere," Vance announced. "There's four fat landing craft going down, they must be loaded!"
Geoff, his palms feeling clammy pushed his nose over to follow Vance in. He knew that going into the edge of the atmosphere would cause a tremendous bleed off in speed, but the prospect of nailing a fully laden landing craft, with a battalion of assault troops on board, was too much to resist.
Confused calls reverberated on the comm link and then were drowned out as the Cats laid down a jamming curtain. His screen showed the four blips of the landing craft, which were nose down, going into a powered dive, seeking the protection to be found in the heavier air below.
Vance, now several clicks ahead, opened up on the lead ship, pouring in a hail of mass driver rounds. Within seconds the landing craft was in flames and tumbling. He banked, dropped off a dumb fire missile and began to pull out. The missile struck a second landing craft, which lurched, but stayed together. Geoff lined up on the damaged vessel and opened fire with his mass driver guns, the rounds going incandescent as they tore through the thin atmosphere. The landing craft burst and he caught a frightening glimpse of Kilrathi warriors, dressed in battle camouflage, tumbling out into space to begin their long fifty-mile fall down to the surface. It was the first glimpse he'd had of who he was fighting against. He banked, lined up on the third craft, fired off his one dumb fire missile and pulled up.
Geoff rolled his fighter over and looked back. His missile had hit. Smoke trailed out of the landing craft, and then it was lost to view as he continued to accelerate up and away from the planet. The Cat jamming lifted for a moment. Again the radio was filled with a wild confusion of shouts of fierce joy, terror, and screams of rage as the fighters tore through the massed landing craft. Flashes on Geoff's screen indicated that three of his six remotely-fired missiles had scored hits.
New signals washed in. The second wave, the Ark Royals, were clearing the pole, more missiles streaking out. Then the jamming came back on again. Flashes of light crisscrossed the heavens, explosions marking where landing craft had been hit, or fighters of the Confederation were dying.
A warning beep sounded, a fighter on his six o'clock coming in. A second later a reverberating shudder slammed into him. Intersecting beams of fire laced around him as the heavy ships several hundred clicks above poured out a fusillade to knock down the attack.
Prince Ratha cursed soundly as the fire from the battleships threw off his aim. He had already pumped a half dozen rounds into his opponents shields, the pilot not even reacting as he closed for the kill. Something made him sense that this must be the same pilot who had eluded him earlier, and he would not be denied the kill.
A cry erupted on his headset, announcing that one of the assault transports was heavily damaged and going down, the news moving him to a wild, insane rage. The transport carried the Third and Seventh Brigades of the Imperial Claw. They were kin of lesser blood, but of his blood nevertheless.
Banking around the shots from his own ships, he tried to reacquire his target, but it was already darting ahead, continuing to loop around the planet, accelerating with maneuvering scoops closed. The gravitational pull of the planet held the fighter on a curving trajectory which he attempted to follow. The fighter popped scoops open for a second, turned, then closed scoops yet again, now racing straight out and away. Ratha hung on grimly. The Confederation fighters apparently had a very slight edge on speed, he realized, but at some point it would have to slow for a landing, and there would still be time to kill it.
"This is Yorkshire, this is Yorkshire, we've lost our number three engine!"
Winston stood silent, watching the wavery image on the screen which was barely getting through the combination of shielding and Kilrathi jamming.
"It's been a good fight, chaps. We've crippled one of their battleships. We've also picked up a report from one of your fighters, now looping under McAuliffe, that they've dumped an assault transport and nailed a whole parcel of landing craft laden with troops. Marine Three just relayed up that the sky is on fire with landing craft burning up!"
A ripple of cheers swept through the CIC. Turner looked around the room and they fell silent.
"Concordia to Yorkshire, any report how many planes coming back?"
"We've got ten fighters of yours on the scanners now, Concordia."
Winston let the information sink in. He had started the fight with forty, lost sixteen in the first encounter, and now another fourteen were gone. Half of Ark Royal's bombers assigned to the attack were gone as well, even before their fighters had broken off to join in the second wave of the counterattack on McAuliffe.
The young exec in command of Yorkshire looked haggard, blood pouring from a slice across her forehead, the rest of her features concealed under a respirator, but she was still game and Winston could not help but feel a surge of pride in her defiance.
"We're going to slow down a bit here. I think it'll draw the flies in. Give you folks some breathing room to get the hell out."
"We copy that, Yorkshire," Naomi Dayan replied, her image showing now on a side screen. Winston could see the hardness of her features. She had been on the open line as the attack on the Kilrathi carrier went in, and he could see her disintegrate as her son shouted his defiant cry. He had known Naomi for nearly twenty years and never had he seen her break before. She had been offscreen for ten minutes, and she looked now as if she had aged ten years in that span of time.
"Take as many of the bastards with you as you can, Yorkshire," she said, her voice harsh and cold.
"Most certainly will," Yorkshire replied. "Must get back to work here. This is Yorkshire. Long live the Confederation."
The image snapped off. Strange, "Long live the Confederation." Two days ago such a line would have seemed like a bad line from a vid, now the words nearly moved him to tears. Winston looked over at Naomi's image.
"How are repairs?"
In the confusion of the attack, three Cat bombers cut their way through and plowed two torpedoes into Ark Royal. Again, one had failed to detonate, but the second one almost took the ship out, shutting down its launch and recovery capability.
"It's bad, Winston. We've lost all launch capacity. We might lose control of the fir
es, and I've got fifty percent casualties on board."
"Your engines."
"Still at one hundred percent."
"Get the hell out, Naomi. I'll bring up the rear with North Carolina, we'll recover your remaining planes."
"All right, Concordia. Rendezvous on other side of jump point."
Her image snapped off. Winston went to his command chair and collapsed. An ensign came over, bearing a steaming cup of coffee and he gratefully accepted it.
He turned his chair to look at the holo field. The round ball hovering in the field, McAuliffe, was drifting to one side of the display as they accelerated up and away after the strike. It had never been his hope to actually cut a way in and stay, but simply to relieve the pressure long enough to give the marines down on the surface a fighting chance of holding on.
They had come back around and were now racing at full throttle back towards jump point Beta. It was not the direct way back in towards the inner worlds but, rather, curved back in at an oblique. Naomi had suggested it for two reasons, the first that it was the closest jump point available, less than three hours out at full throttle, but it would also present the Cats with a tactical dilemma. If they drove straight in towards the inner worlds, a viable striking force would be on their flank with the potential of cutting back in. If the Cats did decide to pursue, it would take them away from the main target and maybe buy a little more time for Banbridge to organize a defense.
He watched the screen as the minutes dragged by. Yorkshire was continuing to fall further behind, while the strike on McAuliffe continued to accelerate towards the pickup point, less than ten minutes short of the jump. It would be a tight squeeze.
"Yorkshire's in serious trouble, sir," a comm officer announced. Winston pivoted his chair back and saw the display pop up. Three Kilrathi battleships had slowed to engage and were running parallel at a range of less than fifty clicks. The projected damage control board and continual translight radar bursts showed a fusillade of fire and missiles tracing back and forth. Yorkshire's first and third main turrets were gone, and multiple hull breaches flashed red on the diagram of the ship. He put his cup of coffee down, feeling that it was somehow indecent to be drinking it while good men and women were dying. He came to his feet, jaw clenched tight as a red band of light swept into the middle of the ship's diagram. The display winked off.
"We've lost all data from Yorkshire" the comm officer whispered. She waited several seconds. "Translight radar shows debris plume expanding… she's gone, sir."
Winston lowered his head. "She was a good ship." He sighed.
"Sir, one of the Kilrathi battleships is in trouble, sir."
He looked back up at the screen, which now only displayed the translight radar.
The radar officer stood up excitedly, pointing at the image. "There, sir, there. Look at that debris, something's wrong. Massive heat signature… the bastard's breaking up! Yorkshire got her!"
Winston watched, unable to feel anything as a second plume of debris erupted on the screen.
He watched the screen as the slower visual image finally arrived, showing the breakup of Yorkshire, followed seconds later by a series of internal explosions tearing through the Kilrathi battleship. Yorkshire had not hit it that hard, something must have gone wrong with their internal damage control.
"Sir, second Kilrathi battleship is slowing, turning. Massive heat signature behind it, sir. They've been breached, fuel is blowing out and igniting!"
Turner watched the display, praying that the damned ship would blow, but the red plume started to abate. Still the Cat ship was crippled and out of the fight.
"What's our threat analysis, Valeri?" Winston asked, still watching the screen.
She went over to the tracking board, consulted the officer and two enlisted personnel tracking the enemy and then went over to the holo field display. Intersecting red and blue lines started to trace back and forth.
"If Ark Royal can keep up speed, she'll make jump just ahead of them. Our pick up of remaining fighters, both ours and Ark Royal's, will start in thirty-seven minutes. Sir, the incoming Cat fighters and bombers in pursuit will be on us in one hour and twenty-eight minutes at present closing speeds. We're going to have a very tough fifteen minutes from there to jump."
"Fine, Val, fine."
He settled back in to his chair to wait.
"I told you to ignore the battleship!" Gilkarg cried. "We could have taken care of it later."
"My lord, the battleships are the primary target of this strike, not the carriers. We saw the kill and went for it," Nargth replied.
The scene behind Nargth on the vid display was one of chaos. The control room was filled with smoke, flames licking up from shattered control boards. The image flickered for a second, Nargth swaying, grabbing hold of a bulkhead as an internal explosion rocked the ship.
"Will you hold together?" Gilkarg asked.
"Ruptured fuel tanks for engines three and four, they're venting now. We'll hold, but this ship is out of the fight."
"And you lost a battleship. How was that?"
"It is a mystery, my lord. But remember, I warned the Emperor years ago that the Gamorgin class battleships needed more armor instead of greater speed. I think that is the reason."
Gilkarg bristled at the implication of laying blame for the failure on his father.
"If you had not dropped your speed, you could have closed on their carriers and finished them."
"Your own fighters and bombers, which you place so much trust in, will be there before the second one jumps out, and you appear to have delivered a crippling blow to the other," Nargth replied calmly.
Snarling with rage, Gilkarg shut the comm link down.
"My lord. You have shattered their base and taken it," an aide said. "You have destroyed over eighty of their ships in return for the loss of but two carriers, a battleship, a cruiser, a transport and several small vessels. It is still the greatest victory in the history of the empire."
"Yet they made a counterblow while crippled, and that is when they inflicted most of our casualties," Gilkarg replied. "Do you not think that will affect what comes next? If we could still guarantee the death of Concordia, it will be seen as an even trade-off. Concordia must be killed before it can escape."
He did not even comment on the savaging of the landing transports. Reports were that close to fifty percent of the assault force had been lost. Though of minor blood they were still mostly of the Imperial line. This would not sit well with his father at all. The balance had to be regained, a price of vengeance exacted for the defiant blow. He knew what Nargth would counsel, and who he would blame. Blood had to be shown now in return.
"The one carrier will escape," the aide announced, studying the board. "He is abandoning his fighters and running for the jump point with scoops closed."
"That means the scum who launched the attack must land on the other carrier. There is the point of our vengeance now."
"We have thirty fighters and five bombers closing in, my lord."
Gilkarg nodded but did not reply. He watched the plot board as the minutes dragged out. Though he did not know who the commander of the other side was, he would have his vengeance.
Geoff checked and rechecked his screen as they closed in on the rendezvous. It was going to be tight. Already a pattern was building up around Concordia. A crippled fighter had crashed at the entry bay, shutting down recovery operations for seven crucial minutes. The screen of red blips behind him was coming ever closer. He looked at his chronometer. In fourteen minutes Concordia would hit jump. Ark Royal had already successfully made transit several minutes earlier.
As he closed in he finally could see a speck of light, the Concordia, trailed by North Carolina and a frigate, which were engaging several Cat destroyers in a long-range exchange of fire.
"This is recovery operations, all recovery on hold. Repeat, all recovery on hold, we've had another crash."
Geoff cursed silently. His palms felt clammy and th
e pain in his legs was intensifying after the long hours cramped inside the fighter, so that it was hard to concentrate. To have survived all this, he thought, only to miss a pickup in the last seconds.
"Green and blue sections, do you copy?"
It was Hawkins.
Five pilots answered in. Geoff clicked his mike. "Here, leader."
"All right, boys and girls. Guess you know what we've got to do. On my count, follow. We've got to break up that incoming strike and let the others land."
Geoff sighed and nervously clicked his mike again. He suddenly realized that, though he had been tested before, here indeed might be the final and ultimate test. Part of him wanted to scream out that he deserved a rest, that he had played the hero, had done his bit, and now it was time for someone else, that it had to be time for someone else.
"Hey, leader, why us?" someone called sarcastically.
Hawkins chuckled sadly. "Because we're here, lads, because we're here."
The cynical exchange somehow braced Geoff. For that, after all, was indeed the logic and reason behind it all, because he was here it would always be his turn, and would continue to be his turn as long as he decided to place himself in harm's way.
"All right, lads, ready to break, three, two, one… break!"
Geoff saw Hawkins' fighter pull upwards and he followed suit, banking slightly to tuck himself in behind Vance. Within seconds after doing an Immelmann, the Kilrathi fighters swept past them, Hawkins leading the flight up into a banking turn to sweep across the bombers. A head-on flight of Cat fighters broke straight into their attack, dropping Hawkins' wingman.
Geoff barely managed to get off a high-angle deflection on a Cat fighter. He saw the shields glow, and then it flashed from view. The fight turned into a swirling melee which drifted relentlessly towards Concordia. Landing operations resumed and they were down to four. Two of the fighters broke out of the pattern and turned back to help, one of them dying seconds later as three fighters jumped it. Two of the bombers turned away from Concordia, angling up instead for a belly shot on North Carolina. Geoff was tempted to follow until Hawkins cut in.
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