by Scott Warren
"Condor, this is Sothcide. Target is breached. Dorsal spine, just aft of the twenty-second frame. Two of my pilots reported it before they were taken."
"Make the adjustment," Victoria shouted over the open mic. In the corner of her eye, for the first time, a new identifier icon appeared on her communication screen. A warped, 5 pointed star shone on her screen, with a flame burning in the center. But there was no time to think about that now.
The Howard Phillips.
"Fire," said Victoria. Lights dimmed aboard the Condor, and for the first time Victoria was treated to the deafening roar of the twin magnetic rail cannons running the length of ship being fired in atmosphere. The forward view-screen was so overwhelmed with brightness that for an instant Victoria worried that she was looking at an unlucky missile that had found the Condor, but the rails continued to bark and rattle the deadly gout of metal shards at speeds beyond hypersonic. They left vacuums behind that collapsed so violently that the air ignited in their wake, and the Doberman rail mines, miniaturized versions built into a mid-sized missile housing, added to her thunder with their own.
"Holy shit," said Victoria, though no one who was listening could have heard her profanity over the report of the railgun rounds. Huian was already lifting the bow of the Condor, banking with what power the ion engine could produce to halt their forward motion. Now on their port side, the reduced heat signature for the Gavisari engine was decreasing quickly on the azimuth, and accelerating toward the surface of the planet.
"Primary is down, repeat, primary is down. Zero bearing rate on multiple contacts, Vick.
Sothcide had seen the kill, and was pulling his fighters out of the dogfight, trying to minimize losses. But two more fighters had been struck from the sky. Victoria opened the channel to Sothcide again. "Alright, target down. What’s Arda’s status?"
"Human Victoria, the battlegroup is a mess, exposed, still attempting to reorganize without crashing half the ships into the eastern face of the Jodaeyar Mountains. If the invasion fleet were to find them, we would be lost. We cannot continue, we must return."
Once again the icon for the Howard Phillips illuminated on her communications display. "Hope you’re paying attention, kid," she murmured before accepting the video invitation through one of her remote comm relays. A portion of her main viewscreen was filled with a mirror of her own conn. Same pilot’s bench, same command couch wreathed with consoles, switches, and command repeaters. Jones looked out at her with the same metallic glint in his eyes, reflecting the bright light of his own viewscreen on a face otherwise steeped in shadow.
"Pawn takes bishop," said Victoria.
White teeth appeared in the shadows. "So it’s chess we’re playing? Very well, Victoria. You may have taken a piece, but you exposed your queen in your haste to strike the first blow. Your pieces are out of position, and you’ve shown your strategy to be full of holes."
"Not as full of holes as that frigate."
Jones leaned forward, rolling his shoulders he looked like some fairy tale monster with white glowing eyes and a Cheshire grin.
"And to punch those holes you tore a rift in the entire Maeyar command structure. Fighter captains mutineering against their commanders, your entire fleet clustered and disarrayed like a flock of sheep."
"Keep talking, asshole."
Jones laughed, but it was true he seemed to be in no hurry to terminate the connection.
"Face it Victoria, you’ve lost here. You tried to shut me out of Pedres out of spite so you could foster your little pet project. But these waters aren’t the East Indies. Empires aren’t built on coffee and cloth anymore. Tech div wants tech, not a few lousy minerals. You think long-range trade is profitable for Union Earth?"
Not after he got the trade freighter killed. A single line of text appeared on her retinal display.
Keep him talking.
"No, but alliances are built on trust. And I earned that trust, a trust you tried to sidle into and swindle like a con man," said Victoria. She leaned forward in her chair as well, staring at those stark white eyes.
"Trust? That Maeyar commander can barely stomach you. Hell, do Maeyar even have stomachs? Never mind. She distrusts you so much that she would rather broadcast her intent and position over radio waves than rely on the secure communication channels that you provided. Your fighter captain sure had faith in you."
Avery was staying silent, but her sensor repeater was being constantly updated with the evolving situation. Zero bearing rate, emissions increasing, radar up-doppler. Victoria eyed the panel. The Gavisari were arrayed in their arrowhead formation again, driving west into Arda’s remnant fleet, and all the heat her straining engine was putting out painted her signature in the skies.
"And how the fuck would you know anything about what Sothcide thinks?"
"Your emission discipline lapsed when things began to fall apart. Even tightbeam comms aren’t a one hundred percent secure method. If you can get between the source and the receiver, adaptive beam forming will do the rest. You should have stuck to the laser. Oh, and if the Gavisari don’t pin your ship to a storm, get that portside ablative wing fixed back there. It’s an eyesore."
Victoria tried to control a shudder. A predator like Jones was tuned to pick up signs of weakness. Victoria expected to be outmaneuvered, for the privateer to fly circles around her, be where she wasn’t expecting. But the fact that he’d gotten a visual on her ship and none of her operators had picked up on it? Well, that was unsettling. She was right to fear him. But she had also pegged him for a gloater, eager to soothe his ego after she had emasculated him in front of a xeno military officer. And in that, Jones did not disappoint.
"Now I suggest you vacate the area. Once I relay the Maeyar positions to my xenos, that mountain range is going to get a bit warm."
"Don’t bother, I took care of that already."
The vulpine smile faltered.
"Come again?"
"That’ll be the day. I said don’t bother. I already told them exactly where to find the Maeyar. Or rather, you did. And how to position themselves to best take advantage of their disarray. Very clever of you, Jones."
Victoria swung the main viewscreen one hundred and eighty degrees with a wave of her hand. Ahead to the west, pinpricks of light were growing in the storm, hidden by occasional gouts of iridescent lightning.
"Victoria, what have you done?"
Victoria sat back in her command chair as Jones frantically swiped through his command repeaters. He would be seeing the new Gavisari positions for the first time. "Amazing what you can do with a spoofed crypto codec and a xeno-tech specialist aboard a compromised electronic warfare ship. You always did disregard your marines. The last little thing I needed was your emission profile. And I knew that if I messed up, you couldn’t help yourself, you little shit."
Ahead, above, and all around, missiles burst from the cloud bank. Mid and long-range missiles whipped past her ship, rocking her with sonic shockwaves as they thundered louder than any lightning. Two, from the Slingray, were almost as long as the Condor herself. Victoria scowled at Jones. "And yeah, I knew you could fly circles around me. But you forgot I’m the meanest bitch you’ve ever fucking seen. If you’re not where I would be then of course you’re shadowing me, hiding in my wake and intercepting my comms. You can’t resist showing how much better you are. And you know what? You’re still fucking listening to me when you should be telling the tripods to get the hell out. There’s a storm coming. Batton down and get ready for the thunder."
"This won’t change what happens here. Remember that, Victoria. Remember this hollow victory when your precious defense pact burns down with the ashes of Pedres.
On her viewscreen, Jones reached down to the comm circuit panel in the arm of his command couch. Then the connection went dead and the icon for the Howard Phillips disappeared from her viewscreen. Bastard probably wouldn’t even try to warn the invasion fleet, more likely he’d already be climbing with the intent to break atmosphere
and reconnect with the Gavisari Admiral.
"Good work Cohen. Keep the destroyers in low orbit jammed, they won’t even see those birds coming."
The comms panel lit up again, tightbeam-encrypted radio from the Vitacuus. Victoria opened the channel.
"Condor Actual, that is how you humans address captains, yes? I am pleased to report that missiles are away and should be arriving on target in three, two, one, mark."
The rear sensors on the Condor deactivated and shuttered to avoid damage as soon as they detected the fierce light at the center of a dozen or more exotic matter detonations. A handful of speedy nuclear-tipped missiles were a preamble to a pair of the Slingray’s fleet-killers that had put the other warheads to shame. It was so bright that Victoria could see clearly the ridgeline horizons in all directions, despite the miles-high storm banks being swept clear by the force of the blast waves. Maeyar artillery was truly terrifying.
"You won’t have gotten them all, even with the Oracle running interference."
"Perhaps. But the ones who remain are in no position to follow. We make for high orbit, the path to Pedres stands open."
Through the dissipating clouds Victoria could see the sleek profiles of the surviving members of Arda’s battlegroup, flying in perfect formation. Six warships, Arda’s carrier, the Slingray, and another dozen lighter craft. They were climbing faster than the rockets that carried man first to the moon, then beyond. A force like that, striking from behind, could break a formation like the Invasion fleet and turn the battle. If it still raged.
"Aye, let’s go give Raksava a taste of the Maeyar military. Huian, take us up. Nice job on the radio speech, Wing Commander. Hell, you almost fooled me. And I was in on it."
Arda’s eye spun lazily. "Yes, well, it wasn’t much of a stretch, if I were to be honest. But you did come back, though no one forced your hand. You could have collected your men and left without detection. But you did not. Perhaps Yadus was not in error."
Victoria was disinclined to mention the eleven Gavisari in her holding deck, including one of the hyper-fertile priests. Union Earth would prevent their total genocide, and take the fully-functioning Oracle as a prize to boot, if they could get it back to Earth in one piece. Or rather, in however many pieces it was in now. The video signal buzzed with interference from the nuclear events, but Victoria couldn’t keep up with the Maeyar’s climb anyway, so she signed off. She would have to catch up with the Alcubierre after she broke orbit. With the time it would take to break from Juna’s gravity and reach a safe space to drop the compression shell, Pedres was only a couple hours away.
The skies above Pedres loomed, dotted with the fires of a half-thousand vessels. Some were locked in a desperate attempt to cast off invaders, others viciously fighting for the survival of their species. Sothcide emerged from the launch tubes of the Vitacuus to the horrible revelation that the Maeyar were barely holding on to the line of defense and the anti-bombardment network on the surface was under heavy attack. The Homeworld Defense Fleet, originally designed as protection for the world of Gavisar, made an indomitable siege force.
Before the static from the launch rails had faded from his monitors he was relaying orders to all eight fighter wings, newly returned to his command. His eye spun as he swiveled his visual sensors, analyzing the battle from every possible angle. Jalith, Jalith, where is Jalith . . . there!
He found his wife’s carrier locked in battle near the northern pole of Pedres, locked in a standoff slug-out with the Bulwark, the Gavisar Flag Admiral’s personal battleship. It dwarfed any two of the carriers, hull seeming to shimmer as dozens of active defenses cut down wave after wave of missiles. Lasers carved away layer after layer of ablative plating but the Bulwark had it to spare, and was giving better than it got. Somewhere in the heart of that beast, Raksava was directing his wife’s murder.
But that was on the other side of the field, a quarter of a million kilometers away. And between he and Raksava lay an entire armada of deadly ships. After days stuck in the limited visibility of Juna, Sothcide was almost overcome with the lack of claustrophobia over the clear sight lines. The entire time in Juna’s storm, the thought of crashing into an undetected peak had terrified him. Now he could see clearly again. The Gavisar admiral had divided his forces to tackle the clustered orbital defense platforms, the gravitationally advantageous territory above Pedres’ first and second moon, and had moved a main wedge in to threaten the planet with lethal bombardment to force Maeyar interception and rob the advantage of their maneuverability as they struggled to screen the planet’s surface with active defenses. So far they were successful. The main front of the Gavisar assault could not spread thinly enough to penetrate the screen without the flanks losing the critical overlapping defenses of the formation. But they were slowly gaining space.
The long-range missile boats had been held in reserve near the starward edge of the armada, slinging their heavy payloads at the robust orbital defense platforms and leaving craters on the moon where previously stood stationary defensive installations. Raksava had left light defense around them, perhaps expecting his flank to remain unabridged by Maeyar forces he thought trapped at Juna. Well Victoria and her devious ruses had set them free, loosed like arrows into the vulnerable hindquarters of the Homeworld Defense Fleet. And while Arda labored to connect with Wing Admiral Yadus, Sothcide led his attack on the valuable, and sluggish, formation.
"Wings two and eight, flank on the positive azimuth and draw the escort’s attention. One four and five, with me. Stay in the engine wash, they shouldn’t see us coming until the fighters report it. Three and seven, cover our strafing run," said Sothcide, filtering sensor contacts and assigning target designations with deft fingertips tapping away on his communication panel. On his side monitor he could see the laser arrays cycling through their various configurations, one last pre-firing operational check before settling on a focused array for system penetration. The artillery ships were not heavily armored, with the exception of the magazines containing the missiles and their automated loading systems. And it was engineered to protect against the missile fire and excited particles an artillery vessel was expected to encounter. Terrible damage could be done at the right angle of incidence with short-wavelength lasers.
"Adjust course, drop six degrees on the negative azimuth and come in below the magazines. We won’t get through those, but we can hit the aft couplers energizing the autoloaders. Adjust for a pass at sixteen degrees to minimize reflection."
"Sixteen degrees will spread the beam, it’s shallow, wingboss," said his new gunner. Ganyo, one of Vehl’s whose interceptor had been damaged beyond repair covering their attack run on the light frigate with Victoria. His accent betrayed his heritage from the furthest northern reaches of Maeyar, where the howling winds drove away men’s senses.
"We want shallow, we’re aiming for internals. Anticipate their reaction."
The roar of the engine intensified as Sothcide lowered the reducing rods in his micro reactor. The cockpit warmed noticeably with the action, but the artillery ships would never read it through the backwash of their own thrust. Some of the escorts had begun to react as they detected the diversionary wings approaching, fighters and corvettes accelerating to intercept and protect the artillery from Maeyar fighter craft. The artillery ships, for their part, kept up their fire while they made to maneuver away, slowly traversing their bow and exposing the couplers to his attack run.
The bulk of the artillery ship loomed ahead, brown and green with the animalistic striping of the Homeworld Defense Fleet. Their target was slightly bigger than the other artillery ships, roughly the size of a destroyer, with a hunched shellback magazine and four forward-facing launch apertures. The engines burned to counteract the kinetic force of the missile launches, and every few seconds another appeared, flaring briefly before distance turned it into just another pinprick of light.
"The light of my horizon shines like aurora over the roof of the world, and you are blocking my view of
her," said Sothcide, giving the dorsal thrusters a kick to drop their sight-picture. His gunner just laughed, a series of rapid clicks as his lower jaw clacked. The instant it came into view, Ganyo and the other six fighters in their formation cut loose with a salvo of ultraviolet lasers. The response from the artillery ship was instant, realizing immediately the maneuver that had carried Sothcide’s fighters into the formation. Anti-fighter lasers stabbed back, attempting to keep up with their evasion program, but it was too late. The combined barrage penetrated the hull, venting atmosphere, and what looked like missile propellant, into space. The ship began to yaw uncommanded on this new axis of thrust so far from its center of gravity, the opposite side thrusters unable to overcome the forces.
Ganyo howled over the radio as the attack run carried them past the artillery ship, and swung the lasers to rake the hull of the damaged vessel. His shots had little effect of course, the capacitors not even returning to full charge between each triggering of the array, but it didn’t look as if that mattered. The artillery ship must have been barely holding together after its escape from Gavisar, and the remainder of the missile propellant exploded, shearing off the magazine, and the entire shellback assembly from the vessel. Reports began to chime from the other wings on attack runs claiming similar successes, if not so spectacular. Arda and her battered battlegroup joined the fray as well, bearing down on the now weakened line of six artillery frigates and providing cover for the interceptors engaged with the escorts.
Without those missiles, Raksava might not have enough pressure to keep the Maeyar from maneuvering. He had made a risky play, reducing the defenses in his rear line to increase pressure. And while more formations of artillery ships existed, it would take time for the admiral to withdraw ships to protect them, and lives. Less time than it would take Arda to sweep through their rear lines. The ships would be climbing against the gravity of the planet to come to the aid of the missile boats. And every Homeworld Defense Fleet vessel destroyed was one fewer hurdle in his road back to Jalith.