Wasp Hand

by Jonathan Moeller

  The communication panel pinged. The Tiger was close enough for radio transmissions with only a few seconds of lag.

  “Unidentified civilian craft,” said a man’s harsh voice, “this is Major Cameron, commanding Red Squadron of the RCS Roncesvalles. Identify yourself and state your business at once.”

  “You’re up,” said March.

  “This is Lord Admiral Theodoric Stormreel, commanding officer Seventh Fleet,” said Stormreel. “Voice print recognition follows.” He rattled off a series of random words, no doubt matched to a voiceprint analysis in the Seventh Fleet’s computers.

  The response came at once.

  “Admiral?” said Cameron. His voice was less harsh now. “What the hell are you doing on a civilian blockade runner?”

  “We experienced complications during our inspection of Vesper Station,” said Stormreel. There was an understatement. “The Tiger is under the command of Captain Jack March and is well armed for a vessel of its size. We will be coming to assist you.”

  “Not going to lie, Admiral, but the help would be welcome,” said Cameron. “We took out two of those Eumenidae cruisers before you got here, and a lot of our starfighters are rearming and repairing on the Roncesvalles right now. Any extra firepower would help a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Some more firepower is coming,” said Stormreel. “It looks like we’ll approach the interceptors from their starboard side just as you move into missile range.”

  “You have any point defense on that thing, sir?” said Cameron.

  “Laser turrets and flak launchers,” said Stormreel.

  “Better than we’ve got,” said Cameron. “Can’t believe I’m giving orders to an admiral, but you hit them from the side, we’ll hit them from the front. We’re feeding the Tiger’s transponder code into our battle network, so our missiles don’t hit you.”

  “Thank you, Major,” said Stormreel. “Good hunting.”

  “You too, sir,” said Cameron, and ended the transmission.

  “Do flag officers customarily fly into fighter battles?” said Adelaide.

  “The Admiralty generally frowns upon it,” said Stormreel with glacial calm. “But conventions are only useful to the extent that they help win victories. Archaeologists normally do not fly into space battles, either.”

  “Mmm,” said Adelaide. She flicked a switch and sent a list of firing solutions to March. “I suppose I’m special that way or something.”

  “Firing range in forty-five seconds,” said March. He watched the tactical display as the two masses of human and Wasp starfighters hurtled towards each other. “Any minute now they’ll start launching missiles. Looks like the Calaskaran fighters are moving away from the bombers, trying to reach the interceptors before they can close.”

  “That is standard tactical doctrine,” said Stormreel. “We…”

  Alarms chimed through the flight cabin.

  “A whole hell of a lot of missile launches,” said Adelaide. “None of them targeted at us, though.”

  “Set the turrets to auto fire at the missiles,” said March. “We might save some of the fighter pilots. Switch them back to point defense if we have any missile locks on us.”

  “Roger,” said Adelaide.

  The two flights of missiles slammed into the Wasp and Calaskaran fighters, and fireballs bloomed in the darkness of interstellar space.

  And the fighting began.

  The Calaskaran fighters looked sleek and armored and deadly, bristling with lasers and plasma cannons and missile points. They were Phalanx-class heavy starfighters, each one crewed with a pilot, a co-pilot, and a pair of gunners. They had been built to look somewhat like the ancient jet fighters of primeval Earth, though the crew cabin was encased in armor in the center of the ship rather than at the nose. It was partly an aesthetic choice, but it also allowed the Phalanx starfighters to have a massive array of forward-facing armaments. Each fighter had two forward-facing plasma cannons, two forward-facing chain guns, twelve missile hardpoints, and a rear-facing turret with another plasma cannon and a point defense laser.

  The Wasp interceptors hurtled towards the Calaskaran fighters. They looked like giant insects and were armed with only a pair of plasma cannons and missile mounts. Despite that, they were more maneuverable and had better acceleration than the heavy Phalanx starfighters.

  “Here we go,” murmured Adelaide.

  March’s fingers tightened against the flight yoke, and the Tiger surged into the battle.

  He swooped behind a pair of Wasp interceptors circling around a Phalanx fighter, and a firing solution flashed across the screen. March squeezed the triggers, and the Tiger spat a volley of plasma bolts into the fighter. The gravitic shielding dispersed most of it, but some of the bolts chewed into the ship’s hull, organic debris spraying into the void. The fighter jerked, and the Phalanx’s rear turret spat another volley of plasma bolts. The interceptor ripped apart under the barrage.

  The proximity alert chimed, and the tactical display showed a volley of missiles heading towards a flight of four Phalanx starfighters battling a group of seven Wasp interceptors.

  “Set the lasers to point defense,” said March, rolling the Tiger and sending it towards the dogfight. “Burn those missiles.”

  “Point defense,” repeated Adelaide, and she sent a firing solution to the turrets. Both the dorsal and the ventral laser turrets began rotating, targeting the missiles and slicing through them. They lacked the gravitic shielding of the Wasp fighters, and the beams carved into the missiles’ casings, disrupting whatever organic propulsion system they used.

  March lined up behind a Wasp interceptor making a run on a Phalanx, waited a heartbeat to get a clear shot, and started firing. Plasma bolts punched through the interceptor’s weakened shielding and tore it apart. Two of the interceptors turned to pursue the Tiger, and March went evasive. He banked hard to port, twisted the Tiger around, and had a half-second’s clear shot at one of the interceptors. The Tiger shuddered as the railgun spat, and the tungsten round drilled through the center of the interceptor, its own speed tearing the weakened craft apart a second later. The remaining interceptor sent a volley of plasma bolts into the Tiger, the radiation shield straining under the impacts, but two of the Phalanx fighters blasted the interceptor to dust with their chain guns a second later.

  “Get power back to the radiation shield,” said March, sending the Tiger after another interceptor. The volley of plasma bolts had siphoned off forty percent of the shield’s power. Too many more hits and the shield would collapse.

  “On it,” said Adelaide, her voice tight. The shield charge level started to tick back up as Adelaide diverted power to it.

  March blasted another interceptor to pieces with the plasma cannons and sent the Tiger weaving in and out of the melee. His ship was better armed and armored than the Wasp interceptors, and he put the Tiger’s armaments to good use, shooting down interceptor after interceptor. Whenever the Wasp starfighters tried to focus on the Tiger, the Calaskaran fighters seized the opportunity to destroy their opponents.

  And during the furious melee, the torpedo bombers flew ever closer to the Wasp cruiser. The bombers looked far less streamlined and sleek than the Phalanx-class fighters, boxy craft powered by enormous fusion engines. Despite their ungainly appearance, they carried a heavy armament, and each ship had eight thermonuclear torpedoes. Several of the bombers were destroyed as some of the Wasp interceptors got past the Phalanxes, but most of the bombers powered through.

  And then they were within range of the cruiser. It felt like it had taken months. March glanced at the chronometer and was shocked to see that only six and a half minutes had passed since he had shot down that first Wasp interceptor.

  “All craft, this is Bomber Leader,” said a voice over the speakers. “We are firing. I repeat, we are firing.”

  The remaining bombers fired their torpedoes in two volleys. The first volley hurtled towards the cruiser, and the Wasp capital ship’s point defenses opene
d up. Anti-torpedo rockets burst from the side of the cruiser, and point defense lasers sliced into space. About half the torpedoes were destroyed before they reached the target.

  The other half slammed into the cruiser.

  That many nuclear torpedoes detonating at once made an impressive explosion.

  The cruiser’s gravitic shielding collapsed, and the explosions tore massive craters into the side of the grayish-green ship. The Wasp ship jerked, trying to correct its vector, and then secondary explosions erupted through its superstructure.

  The explosion tore the cruiser apart.

  “That,” said Adelaide, looking at her displays, “is a lot of radiation.”

  March nodded. “Good thing you got the radiation shield back up.”

  “I thought you said neutron bombs were the best way to attack Wasp ships,” said Adelaide, glancing back at Stormreel. The admiral had sat at the tactical station for the entire battle, watching his displays with calm interest. March supposed watching life-and-death struggles with cool interest was a vital skill for a flag officer.

  “They are,” said Stormreel, “but we’ll need to save our neutron bombs for the nestship. But for the smaller Wasp starships, simply pounding them into pieces with standard nuclear torpedoes will suffice.”

  “I think that’s the largest space battle I’ve ever survived,” said Adelaide.

  March almost said that the battle wasn’t over yet, but even as he looked at the tactical display, he realized that it was. The final Wasp interceptors were destroyed, and the destroyers and the corvettes had smashed the other Eumenidae cruiser.

  The battle was over…but the nestship still awaited in the Vesper system.

  And the key to destroying the nestship and saving Vesper system sat in a box on the deck.

  “Congratulations,” said Stormreel. “Captain March, I need access to the communications system. I must speak to Captain Alacon at once. We shall have to move quickly.”

  “The panel’s unlocked,” said March.

  “Start heading for the Roncesvalles,” said Stormreel, tapping commands into his station. “We’ll receive clearance to land there shortly.”

  March nodded and turned the Tiger towards the fleet carrier. The surviving Phalanxes and torpedo bombers were doing the same. March wondered again how the hell the Wasps had known where to find the Roncesvalles and her escorts. If the Wasps could communicate through hyperspace, perhaps they had been able to sense the presence of the dark matter reactors aboard the Roncesvalles and the other ships.

  That was a disturbing thought. The quantum beacon had given off a constant low-level dark energy signature. Could the Eumenidae sense that as well?

  That was an even more disturbing thought.

  The flight cabin speakers crackled. “Admiral Stormreel?” The voice was deep and commanding, a marked contrast from Stormreel’s slightly nasal rasp.

  “Captain Alacon,” said Stormreel. “I congratulate you and your men on an excellent victory. I had a firsthand view, and our men performed admirably in all respects.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Alacon. “I am pleased to see that you are still alive. When those Wasp cruisers showed up, we suspected you had been killed before you even reached Vesper Station.”

  “There were unforeseen complications,” said Stormreel. “The main Eumenidae force has already reached the system, and the nestship is heading towards Vesper’s World. We have six days to stop it.”

  “I see,” said Alacon, his voice turning grim. “Vesper Station?”

  “Disabled, with the crew taken and killed,” said Stormreel. “We managed to rescue a single survivor, but I’m afraid every other crewer aboard the station is KIA.”

  “How did you wind up on that privateer vessel, sir?” said Alacon.

  “By excellent good fortune,” said Stormreel. “My shuttle came under attack as soon as it exited hyperspace. Fortunately, Captain March and the Tiger responded to our distress call. Once he rescued us, we were able to proceed to Vesper Station.”

  “Then your mission, sir,” said Alacon. “It was successful.”

  “Yes,” said Stormreel. “We will need to move at once.”

  “It will be a least a couple of hours before the fleet is ready to move, sir,” said Alacon. “The fighters need to land and rearm, and the ejected pilots have to be collected. The destroyers and the corvettes took some light damage that needs patching.”

  “We will move as soon as it can be done,” said Stormreel. “I need to meet with you, the tactical staff, and the other captains as soon as possible.”

  “Right,” said Alacon. “I will have Flight Control put the Tiger in for a priority landing spot.”

  “Excellent,” said Stormreel. “We shall speak shortly, Captain.”

  The transmission ended, and Stormreel turned to face March.

  “You ought to receive landing and telemetry information from the Roncesvalles any moment,” said Stormreel. “Once you do, land. I’ll need to confer with the fleet captains, but I expect we will be ready to move in another three to four hours.”

  March frowned. “You have another job for us, I assume?”

  Stormreel smiled. “Yes. We’re going to save Vesper’s World, Captain March.”

  Chapter 7: Navigator

  The landing information from the Roncesvalles came about a minute after Stormreel finished his conversation with Captain Alacon. March fed the vector into Vigil, turned the Tiger, and headed towards the Roncesvalles, following the directions the ship’s communications officer and Flight Control had sent.

  Bit by bit, the Roncesvalles filled the visual screens.

  The ship was a Crusader-class fleet carrier, an armored metal rectangle four and a half kilometers long that could carry two full wings of fighters and bombers. Because so much of its interior volume went to hangar space and maintenance workshops, the Roncesvalles could not support the heavy weapons of a cruiser or a destroyer. Yet the ship’s hull bristled with point defense lasers, railguns, and rocket launchers, and any fighters or missiles that tried to take a run at the carrier would face a hard time.

  March stared at the screens, memories stirring in his mind. He had seen the Roncesvalles before, a long time ago, when he had still been an Iron Hand and part of the Final Consciousness. The remaining Machinist forces on Martel’s World had been evacuated, and March had seen the Roncesvalles and the rest of the Calaskaran fleet jump in and smash the Machinist capital starships. It had been a crushing victory, and the Machinists had not made another major offensive towards Calaskar since.

  And then the Machinists had bombed Martel’s World during their retreat, burning the planet and its billions of inhabitants for no better reason than spite. That had set March upon his path, driving him away from the Final Consciousness and towards the Silent Order.

  The path that had brought him here.

  “Jack?” said Adelaide.

  He looked at her.

  The same path had brought him to Adelaide Taren.

  They hadn’t known each other very long, but she seemed to realize when he was distracted. And getting distracted, March had to admit, was a stupid thing to do while piloting a starship.

  “It’s a big ship,” said March.

  “Three hundred years old,” said Stormreel. “The Roncesvalles has participated in actions against the Ninevehk, the pantherax, the Machinists, the Rustari, the Falcon Republic, and a dozen other foes of the Kingdom of Calaskar, and has been present at some of our most decisive naval victories of the last three centuries.”

  “And now it will have gone up against the Eumenidae,” said Adelaide.

  “Yes,” said Stormreel.

  March steered the Tiger towards the Roncesvalles’s aft starboard hangar bay. Flight Control sent him more telemetry information, and he cut the fusion drive and eased the ship forward with ion thrusters. The Flight Control officer directed him towards a landing pad at the rear of the hangar, and March guided the Tiger through an enormous hangar that
dwarfed the one on Vesper Station. Below he glimpsed rows of fighters and bombers and mobs of technicians in red and green coveralls. It almost looked like a horde of multicolored ants going about their business. March rotated the Tiger and set the ship down on the landing pad, cutting the power to the drive and the ion thrusters.

  He let out a long breath. They had survived the Vesper system. The odds had been against them, but they had gotten out alive. Of course, March’s primary mission was to get Adelaide and the relics back to Calaskar, and he still couldn’t fulfill that, not as long as Stormreel held command over the Tiger.

  “Leave your ship on standby, Captain March,” said Stormreel, getting to his feet. “I suspect you will need to leave again shortly.” He picked up the box with the quantum beacon. “I will take Donaghy, Jordan, and Warner with me, and then I will meet with Captain Alacon. If you turn portside when you exit your ship, there will be an unused pilot ready room there. Please wait there for another one of my officers to arrive.”

  Adelaide frowned. “Which officer?”

  “You said only four people knew about the relics of the Great Elder Ones,” said March. “You’re going to send the fourth one to talk to us, aren’t you?”

  “Very good,” said Stormreel. He passed the box to March. “Secure this in your strong room. I don’t want to take it on board the Roncesvalles, and it will be safe on the Tiger for the next few hours.”

  “All right,” said March, taking the box. It was lighter than he expected. But the relics of the Great Elder Ones were always lighter than they looked.

  Stormreel left the flight cabin. He called out to Donaghy, and the staff captain, Jordan, and Warner joined them. March watched as they filed through the dorsal corridor and disappeared into the cargo hold. He waited until he heard the cargo airlock cycle.

  March looked at Adelaide.

  “Hell of a day, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “Not over yet,” said March. “Let’s lock this beer cooler in the strong room, and then wait for the fourth person in the ready room.”