by Scott Warren
"Alright, keep monitoring those reflected returns and the bands for sonics put out by his drive. This atmosphere is so thick and layered we should be in a good position to pick them up," said Victoria. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Huian, give us another half percent of thrust. Their engines are barely above idle but the squadron is still running away from us."
Her navigator nodded. There was no perceptible change in the attitude or activity of the Condor, but the ranging solutions offered by the computer’s IFF tracker began to reverse their trend. The interceptors were running at barely above idle and still leaving the Condor in the dust. She could see the holes their wake turbulence was tearing through the cloud banks, massive spiraling vortexes that dragged the frozen cirrus bands a mile or more before the winds of Juna’s upper atmosphere swept away any trace of their passage.
"Conn sensors, one of the fighters is sweeping north. She’s reporting positive bearing rate on a Gavisari cruiser."
Victoria zoomed in on her main viewscreen, the computer highlighting the fighter’s trajectory projected through the intervening clouds.
"Understood. Huian, swing us four degrees port. I want us to be covering that gap she’s leaving in the formation."
The heat signature on the fighters was only a fraction of that generated by the larger ships. Both the Maeyar and the Homeworld Defense Fleet were using them to scout ahead of the main battle groups. Following the pattern of Sothcide’s wingmate, the other four interceptors began to drift north, and Victoria considered. Some small amount of active radar was being picked up, but not enough to present a cross-section to the technicians on the low-flying Gavisar ships. But if Jones wanted to pick up the most direct bounce, he would be keeping pace ahead of the wing, maybe three or four hundred kilometers distant. Victoria keyed the laser intership comm connection that she maintained with Sothcide. Jones would have no way to intercept it without directly transposing his ship between the two, a feat of which even he was incapable.
"Primary wing, this is Condor Actual. Recommend dropping your number three, four, and six about six-zero-zero meters below your azimuth."
"Confirmed and complying, Condor. Expect further maneuvers to develop ranging solution on errant Gavisari vessel."
Victoria nodded as she followed the general path of the maneuvers. She had been out of the system, but the last time the Maeyar had pursued what they believed to be an errant ship it had cost them half their forward fleet. Even with a superior force remaining here, the Gavisari did not need to draw out and destroy the Maeyar remnants, only keep them from striking at Raksava’s rear flanks while the real battle was fought elsewhere in the system. On the flip side, if they did get a ranging solution, it could provide means for a long-range strike by the Slingray, the first Maeyar ship she’d identified at Ersis before this mess started.
"I wish I’d landed on the other side of the planet," muttered Victoria.
"What was that, ma’am?" asked Huian.
"I said steady as she bears, we’re passing under strong reflection. Avery, now’s your time to shine."
"Roger conn, hailing the Oracle."
It took monumental force of will to resist adjusting the propulsion feed line closer to the intercept power setting. An interceptor should have been the fastest thing in the sky, not creeping around with an engine purring like a house pet. It was a distraction, at a time when Sothcide was attempting to both lead his wing of fighters and keep his eye glued to the thermal scope. It was obvious why Victoria would not be direct with her knowledge of the human captain who opposed and defied her, least of all revealing his position. But the request to alter the tails of his wing put him in mind of his attack run on what he suspected to be a Gavisari cruiser prior to the destruction of Wing Commander Vehl’s battlegroup. Victoria tightened his squad’s radar signature, oriented to cover the patch of sky that she expected the other privateer was lurking. Only a few hundred kilometers away.
For the moment his thermal sensors read clear, washing out momentarily as flashes of lightning overwhelmed the apertures.
His number two had swung north. Putting herself fifty kilometers off his port bow and realigning with magnetic east had provided enough of a bearing drift on a Gavisari contact to triangulate the engine heat and active radar from one of their warships within a few hundred miles. Not nearly accurate enough for a firing solution to beam back to the Vitacuus, or anything beyond general awareness of its proximity really, but it presented an opportunity that Sothcide knew Arda desperately needed. Now down two frigates and a destroyer, Arda was at a firepower disadvantage.
The Condor had weapon systems that struck like the marine slug throwers on a spacecraft-sized scale. It was the same principle behind the interceptor launch systems aboard Maeyar carriers, if a brutish and primitive application of it. They were completely dumb-fired, and badly affected by the high winds over long distances, but emitted less light and heat than a laser and less traceable electromagnetic waste than an excited particle cannon. The projectiles were also smaller than missiles, small enough for most radar systems to overlook or dismiss as a harmless meteor. Jones had shot down one of his squad mates with one, Sothcide was sure of it. Would they do much against the smaller Gavisari vessels? Perhaps, if she knew where to fire them. The Condor’s advanced optics would count for little in this soup.
Sothcide angled the nose of his interceptor. Dipping below the rim of a hailstorm sounded like someone pouring out a sack of grain the size of the entire sky. Victoria had confided in him that the sounds of atmospheric activity unsettled her, and Sothcide had to admit a similar vulnerability. He was used to the relative silence of space flight, hearing only the sounds of his own engine and instruments. The thick hail disrupted his sensors, but he still saw the signature of the overexposed Gavisari vessel shift two tenths of a degree, corroborated by his number three flying twenty miles to the south. Their target was on the move. It was time to put the Privateer’s plan into motion.
Chapter 18 – Condor Descending
"Sothcide’s on the move, Vick. I’m seeing engine heat output increases all across the board. The adjacent squadron is moving in to support."
"Thanks Avery. If Jones is watching you can bet he saw them too. Huian, climb us up another two kilometers while his sensor operators are distracted. I want a height advantage. Carillo, launch a pair of tightbeam relays."
The Condor shuddered even harder for a brief moment as the two small missiles carrying communications equipment sped toward low orbit on plumes of frozen propellant. A blinking light on her comms repeater showed that her operators on the Oracle had successfully connected to them as well when it turned to a dull magenta glow. The relays would let her communicate without compromising her own ship’s position.
Victoria drummed her fingers against the arm of her command couch. "Let him know we’re right behind him."
"Roger that, Vick. I’m intercepting a communication between the Gavisari using Jones’ codec. He’s put them on high alert. I don’t have a fix on his position, but he’s reporting the fighter positions within a thousand kilometers of the formation. Expect our boy to maneuver soon. His active EM radiation signature matches recorded light frigate systems. Designated Primary."
The main viewscreen lit up with the new designation, replacing the overlay for an unknown contact with the double crescent moon shape of a light frigate. Similar in size and profile to a Privateer, but likely more than double the tonnage with all the armor plating and active defenses that Gavisar liked to slap on their hulls.
"Light frigate. Perfect. Any word of us on the waves?"
"Negative, either Jones hasn’t caught our scent or he’s keeping our secret. Whatever else, he’s still a Privateer."
Victoria caught herself drumming on the arm of her couch again and stilled her hand with an effort. Some of the Privateer and Union Earth Naval captains came from blue water backgrounds where they had gone head to head with the minds of other human officers. The previous hundred y
ears of human history had not been without wars and skirmishes, despite the extra-planetary efforts of Union Earth. But Victoria had never been part of any country’s navy. She was an explorer and a pioneer. Maybe a bit of a pirate, but not a military operative. It was a new sensation, knowing there was another human mind working against her. Somehow more sinister even than meeting the Malagath, being pursued by the Dirregaunt, or even kidnapped by the Kossovoldt.
Victoria had witnessed terrible acts committed by individuals and governments alike. Humanity was her cause and her life’s work, but it was also capable of unimaginable cruelty. Some rough patches maybe got smoothed over along the centuries, but the malice to perform it and the guile to confront and resist it through blood persisted through each generation, and never had she found herself faced with that utterly human miasmic threat. Sometimes the devil you knew was goddamn worse than the one you only pretended to know.
Victoria eyed the tactical grid on her sensor repeater, watching as expected contact positions were pushed and pulled and bearing rate began to increase measurably on a few more contacts. They were closing on the formation. "Huian, put us on an east southeast heading."
"Aye Skipper."
East southeast increased the crosswind component of the storm buffeting them, a massive storm cell over six thousand kilometers in diameter. In the lower ionosphere they were out of the worst winds, but the Condor’s rattling intensified. Sometimes high-frequency vibrations could be worse for a spacecraft than the pressure wave of an explosion. Hopefully Davis Prescott wasn’t slacking his fat ass off in the engine room.
"Tactical conn, I’m maneuvering to shallow up our dive so we don’t plow into a mountainside, and to try and keep our bow pointed at the quadrant of sky where I expect Jones to be. Be ready to readjust firing solutions."
"Aye Vick."
Carillo must have been feeling talkative today. A few rare moments passed with no chatter on the open circuit, then the communications notice blinked in her retinal implants. Sothcide was initiating. Victoria thumbed the activation switch on her command couch.
"Condor Actual. Go ahead."
"Captain, Wing Commander Arda has been monitoring our progress through the other fighter wings, and gotten wind of your plan. She has ordered the fleet out of hiding and is preparing for a long range attack based on our intel. I am patching you through to her now."
"Shit. Okay, go ahead."
Passive sensors lining the aft third of the ship spiked when active sensing radar passed into line of sight from the Vitacuus and her sister ships. Victoria eyed her thermal scope reading the most likely bearing of the Howard Phillips, directing the Gavisari ships, but even at max sensitivity the field remained barren. However, several new contacts sprang up on the main viewscreen.
"Conn sensors, active reflection, cross-section suggests fighter-type craft. Two squadrons to the east transitioning north."
"Sensors conn, aye," said Victoria. She had known they would be out here, but the Gavisari fighters were taking pages out of the Maeyar playbook by reducing their engine output as much as possible. Or maybe from Jones’.
Her main viewscreen overlay still painted the light frigate as an unreliable range when a portion of it was taken up by Arda’s severe onyx features. The bridge behind her was a carefully controlled chaos of orders and department heads directing the actions of the massive command carrier and the remaining fleet. She was broadcasting in raw radio, despite the warnings of who else may be listening, with her husband and first officer resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Human Victoria. I see you have rejoined the defense of Pedres. I do not know if you betrayed or abandoned the Malagath duchess, but you will not have the opportunity to do so with me. I am pulling my forward fighter squadrons back. I will not risk exposing them for a solitary frigate. Our situation is too dire."
"Commander, if you just give me a chance to explain the plan."
"Negative, human. We are pushing over the mountains now, climbing to high altitude. Vacate the area of operations and do not engage. If you are here, you will follow my directives and follow the fighter wings away from the coming battle."
"Let me guess," Victoria said, an edge of venom creeping into her voice, "You can’t guarantee my safety if I persist?"
Arda’s eye jerked clockwise in its socket, the iris narrowing as she let her temper get the better of her. Arda was cunning, ruthless, quick, and indomitable. If they weren’t at such odds Victoria might have even liked her.
"This is a war, human. I will not vouchsafe, nor do I particularly care for, your safety either way."
The connection was severed, and she opened up a tightbeam radio link to Sothcide. "We won’t get another chance at this," she said.
"I am with you, Victoria Marin."
Sothcide had never gone against the orders of a superior officer, let alone purposefully interceded in a planned fleet-level offensive push. But Victoria had seen things at Gavisar that would give her more insight than the mistrustful commander of the Pedres defense fleet. And she had her eyes in the sky with their spacewalker-captured vessel. The fighters in his wing and those moving to support were the remaining sixteen pilots under Vehl’s command, and with deft fingers he linked their communications together in a single circuit and their transponders under his command, ignoring the protests and threats of his gunner, placed by Arda to watch him.
"All fighters of First and Fifth wing. Form up and position for an attack run."
The leader of the fifth wing, Allid, responded almost immediately. "Wing officer, we are going against Arda’s orders?"
"Yes, Allid. Arda is a brilliant commander and a sound tactical mind. But sound conventional tactics will not overcome a fleet with half again our strength. We must embrace the unconventional, as Vehl Ku would have done. Trust in me."
Time was running out, they were drawing closer and closer to the frigate, and though radar was being scattered by clouds, Sothcide was sure they were closing inside of a hundred kilometers. Even the stunted lasers would be effective under twenty, but visual would be optimal in Juna’s unrelenting storms. Somewhere behind and above him, Victoria was preparing her heavy weapons as well.
There was silence on the channel. Sothcide waited while his counterpart wing officer considered.
"Vehl chose you to lead us. We will follow."
Sothcide flipped his engine from a high idle to an attack profile. "Then cover the eastern approach. Keep those fighters away from our attack run."
The light frigate was changing course again, realizing the intentions of the fighters too late. Even a ship of that size carried more mass than was convenient to move, and the Gavisar ships had little in the way of aerodynamic aid. Overhead, Allid and his wing had increased their intercept speed, burning hot and accelerating at a breakneck pace. His radio blared in his ear as Arda’s gunner in the back of his fighter overrode his communications and Arda’s voice filled his cockpit while her face and the frantic bridge crew behind her filled his monitor.
"Wing Officer! Pull back now, I cannot launch with two wings in the target area."
The bearing on his sensors was coalescing, and Sothcide turned on his localized targeting sensors. They were inside of two hundred kilometers now, and closing fast on the fleeing frigate. Its engine heat blazed like a guiding star. The active radar swept and returned, offering ranging information within five hundred meters tolerance. Still not close enough.
"I cannot, Wing Commander."
"Sothcide, we are committed to this attack run."
"So are we, Arda."
The Wing Commander hissed through her proboscis, which turned into a low growling order to break off the attack, declaring ship position orders and trying to salvage the wreck of her formation. She could not lose a third of her remaining fighters to friendly fire. Several thousand feet above his dive, Allid had engaged the tough-skinned Gavisari fighters. Lasers lit up the sky, carving linear paths distinct from the lightning that staggered its way across Juna
and crackled against the damaged hull of his fighter. The clouds robbed it of almost all its range. It was like an ancient planetary duel fought with the lasers of pre-space-traveling Maeyar ships that still relied on lift and aerodynamics to achieve flight instead of fusion engines and anti-gravitic generators. Even if these interceptors weighed a hundred times as much as their jet-driven counterparts.
"The rest of Gavisar’s fleet is on the move. We will have one opportunity, Victoria. Be prepared."
Chapter 19 – True Colors
"Let slip the Dobermans, and send a few missiles to cover our approach."
Shrieks echoed through the hull of the Condor. Victoria’s will was made manifest by the myriad armaments pouring down past the Maeyar fighters and into the Home Defense Fleet frigate. Warnings began to dot her screen, noting Sothcide’s contact with the frigate’s active fighter defenses, as well as the medium-range ship-to-ship missiles that the rest of the Gavisari was slinging their way to cover the frigate’s retreat. Sure enough, her missiles began to be cut down as well, but the Doberman rail mines storming toward her target had yet to be targeted. Admittedly, her own missiles were disappearing from her combat network at an alarming rate.
Confirmation of successful hits from Sothcide’s wing came in the form of light brighter than any bolts of lightning Victoria had yet witnessed at Juna. The laser energy scored grooves through the storm and that energy, normally invisible, was allowed to propagate through the atmosphere, carving off armor plating and penetrating existing damage on the frigate.
"Conn tactical, fifteen seconds to firing range. Have good solution, one of the pilots laid eyes on through a break in the clouds."
A micro-nuclear burst created a tiny sun off her starboard bow for an instant. Two of the IFF beacons from the fighter winked out, struck by an exotic matter payload more suited to cracking a destroyer’s back than to taking out fighter-type craft. It must have come from one of the cruisers in the main formation. Her radio crackled to life again.