by Ryk Brown
“Lasers locked on the lead ship’s drive section,” Lieutenant Scalotti reported.
“Lead ship’s power levels are increasing rapidly,” Ensign Agari warned. “Suspect they’re going to FTL, sir.”
“Take their engines out, Donny,” Captain Nash ordered.
“Firing lasers,” Lieutenant Scalotti replied.
A split second later, a small burst of yellow-orange light was seen in the distance, along Copora’s horizon. A moment later, a bigger flash of light.
“Target destroyed,” Ensign Agari reported.
Captain Nash turned partly to his left, calling back over his shoulder. “I told you to target their main drive…”
“…I did, sir.”
“At those power levels, our lasers must have overloaded their reactors, Captain,” Ensign Agari said in defense of the lieutenant.
“We did warn them that they would be destroyed…” Wellsy chimed in.
“…I was hoping to avoid that,” the captain interrupted. “Hell, we don’t even know if the occupants were Jung…”
“Who else would they be?” Commander Eckert insisted. “They were trying to escape, after all… And they didn’t heed our warnings…”
“For all we know their comms are out. Hell, they don’t even know who is invading them.”
“Come on, Captain…”
“Second shuttle will reach FTL threshold in twenty seconds, Captain,” Ensign Agari warned.
“Lasers are locked on the second shuttle,” Lieutenant Scalotti added.
“Second shuttle’s power signature is rising,” Ensign Agari reported.
“Take them out,” Captain Nash ordered, shaking his head.
“They’ve got to be Jung,” Commander Eckert insisted.
“Firing lasers,” Lieutenant Scalotti announced.
“If they’re not, they would have turned around after seeing the first shuttle destroyed,” the commander continued.
“Second target is destroyed,” Ensign Agari reported.
Captain Nash sighed. “I don’t suppose the third shuttle is turning around?”
“No, sir,” Ensign Agari replied.
“Locked onto third shuttle,” Lieutenant Scalotti added.
“They’re powering up as well,” Ensign Agari announced.
“Take them out as well,” Captain Nash ordered, resigning himself to the inevitable.
“This is war, Captain,” Commander Eckert reminded his captain, keeping his voice low so that the rest of the crew could not hear him. “People die.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Captain Nash replied.
“Falcon One, Three, Five, and Seven,” the flight controller’s voice crackled over the comms. “Redirect… Redirect. Grid four five seven. Fifteen point four by eight point five. Ground forces moving to ambush Strike Two at target bravo.”
Loki punched in the new target coordinates as the message continued.
“Eight armored with WEPS. Ten armored personnel carriers, without. Falcons One and Three engage. Falcons Five and Seven fly cover. Jung fast movers inbound from the north. ETA, three mikes. Warning… Dragon two.”
“You got it?” Loki asked.
“Got it,” Josh answered as he initiated a high-speed turn. “How far?”
“Minute five at max speed,” Loki replied.
“Can we jump there?”
“At this altitude?” Loki declared, his eyes wide. “We’re skimming the treetops, Josh.”
“Can we?”
“Fuck,” Loki cursed as he punched the coordinates into the jump-nav computer. “Hold your course and speed,” he instructed. “Three, Five, Seven… One. Jumping in five. Flight. Falcon One. ETA to target, four seconds.”
“Hell yes!” Josh exclaimed.
“Three……”
Josh wiggled in his seat, leaning forward slightly as if preparing for the jump and the following attack run.
“Two……”
“Oh, my God,” one of the other Falcon pilots exclaimed over the comms.
“Heroes or zeros, baby!” Josh declared in excitement.
“Please don’t let it be zeros,” Loki mumbled as his visor became opaque. “Jumping.”
The jump flash washed over Falcon One as it streaked along the treetops. It disappeared a split second later, taking the tops of several trees with it.
A long line of armored Jung vehicles raced down the main road that led from Gastien to the Jung military base in the countryside just outside of the Coporan capital. Not more than a kilometer behind them, a blue-white flash of light appeared in the evening sky.
Falcon One suddenly appeared as the blue-white flash subsided, along with the tops of several trees that came tumbling along under them, falling to the ground and smashing through the trees below.
Josh’s visor cleared as their jump flash faded away.
“Jump complete,” Loki announced. “Convoy is dead ah…”
“FUCK!” Josh exclaimed, his eyes going wide. Directly ahead of them were several mammoth trees, each standing more than twenty meters taller than the others in the surrounding forest. He quickly rolled the Falcon onto its starboard side, barely managing to pass between two of the towering Coporan trees.
“What the…” Loki exclaimed as one of the trees passed directly over their canopy only a few meters away. He could see the flashes of blue-white light from the other three Falcons jumping in behind them, against the tree branches as they streaked by.
The Falcon snap rolled back to the left, coming level once again.
“Holy shit!” Josh exclaimed. “They’ve got some big fucking trees, don’t they!”
Loki ignored his pilot’s comments, focusing on his console displays. They were closing in on the convoy rapidly. “Opening weapons bays; dropping busters! Engaging nose turret!”
Four small missiles, two each, dropped from the Falcon’s port and starboard weapons bays, their engines igniting as their tiny winglets deployed. They immediately streaked ahead, slamming into four of the Jung armored vehicles only a few seconds later. As the enemy vehicles exploded, red-orange bolts of plasma from Falcon One’s nose turret peppered the roadway, blowing it to pieces. The plasma bolts found their targets, and although they did not destroy them they instantly superheated their surfaces, causing the men inside to perish as some of their body armor melted and burned them, while others simply burst into flames as the Falcon streaked over their heads and climbed away into the Coporan night sky.
The surviving vehicles continued down the roadway at top speed. Energy weapons turrets on top of several vehicles rotated to face behind and opened fire on the other three approaching Falcons as, one by one, they too released their weapons and opened fire with their nose turrets.
“Did you see that?” Josh exclaimed as they continued to climb. “We blew the shit outta them!”
“Loop back and continue your climb,” Loki instructed. “Fast movers coming in from three four zero, twelve thousand, ten clicks out.”
“Got it.”
“We’ve got two intercepts left,” Loki continued. “Get our nose on them so I can lock on.”
“No problem,” Josh replied as their climb became inverted. Just before the top of their arc, Josh snap rolled the Falcon right-side up and continued to climb at a thirty degree angle.
“I’ve got them,” Loki announced. “Six targets, total. Targeting two. Firing intercepts.”
Two more missiles dropped out of the Falcon’s weapons bays and streaked away on fiery tails of white-hot thrust. The intercept missiles crossed the now nine kilometer gap between the Falcon and the incoming Jung fighters in a matter of seconds. The first missile slammed into the lead Jung fighter, but the second one missed.
“Damn!” Loki swore. “One missed!”
“We can jump in and take them!” Josh urged.
“No time!”
“Convoy destroyed!” Falcon Seven reported over the comms.
“Five Jung fighters inbound!” Loki warned.
“Falcons, One, Three, Five, and Seven,” the flight controller called over the comms. “Ten seconds to Dragon… Jump, jump, jump!”
“We’re outta here!” Loki declared as he activated an emergency jump, engulfing their ship in blue-white light.
Four jump flashes lit up the night sky, leaving behind the burning wrecks of the Jung convoy on the roadway below. The scene became eerily quiet as the deafening ‘crack’ of the jumps faded away. Only the sounds of the burning wreckage, and the cries of the dying could be heard. In the distance, the sounds of the battle that had been raging at the Jung base only a few kilometers away had all but faded.
“Captain, relay from Ground Command. Clear for Dragon,” Naralena reported.
“Lieutenant Commander?” Nathan said, facing aft and looking at Jessica.
“Executing Dragon, aye,” she replied. “Mister Chiles?”
“Executing roll maneuver,” the helmsman answered.
The image of the moon Copora moved around the outer edges of the main view screen, tracking along the bottom from left to right, up the right side, and across the top, coming to rest directly over their heads.
“Locking main guns on target,” Jessica reported. “Firing.”
Lieutenant Kellen, leader of the second Ghatazhak strike team watched from their safe fallback position five hundred meters away from the Jung base. Over the last five minutes, he and his men had feigned a disorderly retreat, lulling the unsuspecting Jung soldiers defending the base into a false sense of victory. Now, he witnessed the complete destruction of the base as bolts of plasma rained down from orbit as the Aurora bombarded the helpless base into a massive pile of smoldering rubble. Debris shot high into the air, spreading out in all directions, as the plasma shots continued to fall from above, one after the other.
The bombardment ended only a minute after it had begun. When the dust cloud finally began to disperse, there was nothing recognizable left. Even the surrounding collection of shops and residences that had survived by supporting the base were destroyed. Several thousand Jung soldiers, and mostly likely several hundred Coporan civilians, both within the base and living around the perimeter, were either dead or trapped beneath the rubble.
“We should have done that from the start,” the lieutenant’s master sergeant said, as he stared at the pile of rubble in the distance.
“Agreed,” the lieutenant said. “These Terrans are too careful, too worried about how their actions are perceived by those who survive.” He turned and looked at the master sergeant. “It is not the way of the Ghatazhak.”
“As the commander said, ‘changing times require changing tactics.’”
“Perhaps,” the lieutenant replied, “but the Ghatazhak win because we are willing to do what must be done. Two hundred of our fellow Ghatazhak just died because the son of a Terran president, and a Takaran noble, could not commit to the level of force required to guarantee overwhelming success.”
“Dumar is hardly a noble,” the master sergeant reminded his lieutenant. “He comes from a commoner’s lineage, just as the Ghatazhak do.”
“He serves a nobleman, does he not? He lives as one, does he not?”
“We are programmed to obey his orders,” the master sergeant cautioned.
“And obey them we shall,” the lieutenant agreed. “To like them? That is not a requirement.”
“Firing sequence complete,” Jessica reported from the Aurora’s tactical station.
Nathan turned back around toward the main view screen. “Put the targeting camera on the main view screen.”
A separate window appeared in the middle of the main view screen showing an aerial view of the target on the surface of Copora. In the middle of the screen was a massive pile of rubble where the base had once stood. It was obscured by a cloud of smoke and dust that was already being blown aside by the constant breezes that swept across the excessively flat, large, Earth-like moon. The damage spread well beyond the base itself, out into the shops and residences surrounding it. Nathan cringed inside at the devastation, knowing full well that he would have to deal with the accusations that would undoubtedly be thrown at him by the leaders of Copora. Despite the obvious disdain for their Jung conquerors—as evidenced by their media, as well as in communications the Alliance had intercepted over the past few weeks—the people of this world had not asked to be liberated. It was unfortunate that the Alliance had little choice but to make the decision for them. The 61 Cygni system was too close to Sol, a mere eleven point four light years away. Enough time had already passed for word of the existence of the Terran jump drive to reach the Jung ships in this system, had a message been dispatched when the Aurora had first returned from the Pentaurus cluster.
“Estimated collateral damage?” Nathan wondered.
“Based on the blast radius, the diameter of the ejecta, and the original estimated population density of the area… maybe a few thousand civilian casualties,” Mister Navashee answered solemnly.
“The Ghatazhak did try to take the base without the strike,” Jessica reminded the captain. “Dragon was not our first choice.”
“I have a feeling that isn’t going to help, much,” Nathan said. “Hell of a way to start new relations with one of the core worlds.”
“A core world that was host to a sizable Jung strike force, within a few months travel of Sol,” Jessica also reminded.
“Perhaps,” Nathan relented. He sighed, then turned toward Naralena at the comm station. “Comms, message to Ground Command. Dragon complete.”
“Aye, sir,” Naralena responded.
“Green deck,” Nathan ordered. “Let’s get some more support down there and start cleaning things up.”
“All Falcons, Flight,” the flight controller’s voice called over the comms. “Pursue and eliminate remaining Jung fighters so we can send in reinforcements and aid. Sending target data.”
Loki watched his comm screen as the coordinates for their targets were transmitted from the Aurora’s flight operations center directly to their navigation and targeting systems.
“Coordinates coming in,” Loki reported. “Forwarding intercept data to your console.”
“I’ve got it,” Josh answered. He glanced to his right, at Falcons Three, Five, and Seven, flying in formation alongside, in low orbit over Copora, after having jumped away just before the Aurora began her bombardment of the Jung base on the surface. “See you guys back at Porto Santo,” Josh told them.
“Good hunting,” one of the other pilots responded.
“Flight, Falcon One; en route to intercept.”
Josh fired his braking thrusters for several seconds, then pushed the Falcon’s nose down and rolled to port, starting a turning dive.
“Jump point in five,” Loki announced.
“I’ll be on it,” Josh assured him.
Four seconds later, he was, and the Falcon was again washed in blue-white light as they jumped down toward their targets.
Josh’s visor became clear again as their jump flash faded away. The interceptor shook violently for a moment, as it suddenly found itself in atmospheric flight again. The heavy vibrations smoothed out, and Josh felt the sluggishness in his flight control stick fade as air flow was once again established over their atmospheric flight control surfaces.
Josh loved flying in space, but more and more, he was finding that he loved aerodynamic flight equally as well. The Falcon was an amazing ship, capable of just about anything. A flick of his wrist and a change in thrust, and the Falcon would respond with eagerness and precision. Even better, the jump drive and the lift thrusters could get Loki and him in and out of trouble in a heartbeat. No pilot could ask for a better ship.
He could see it in the eyes of the other pilots in the Falcon wing as well. They had all been Talon pilots for the Corinari, and had been equally enamored with their aircraft. In fact, most of them had balked at the idea of flying the fifty year-old deep-space interceptor, laughing at their ancient avionics and power plants. The j
ump drives had been the first thing to change their minds in favor of the 402s, or ‘Falcons’ as they had become known in their latest jump-capable incarnation. That, and the upgraded avionics, sensors, and weapons that the Takarans had provided. In addition, the removal of two of the 402’s propellant tanks had allowed its weapons bays to be enlarged, doubling its armaments.
Today, however, they had mostly carried the ‘buster’ missiles used to destroy armored and other hardened targets. They had already used all four of their intercept missiles in earlier engagements over the skies of Gastien. Doing so had even scored them three confirmed air-to-air kills. This time, they would be using guns… both their nose turret and the mini-plasma cannons in their wings.
Josh slowly pulled back on the flight control stick, bring the Falcon out of its dive, shaving off energy and airspeed in the process.
“Two contacts,” Loki reported. “Five degrees to starboard and fifty meters up. Fifty kilometers out. Turning toward us.”
“Coming five right and angling up,” Josh answered as he adjusted their course to intercept the two approaching Jung fighters. “You gotta wonder why they’re even bothering. I mean, they’ve got no support base, no ships left in the system, and they’ve gotta be getting low on fuel by now.”
“They’re firing,” Loki warned. “Four missiles inbound. Impact in thirty seconds.”
“Are they stupid?” Josh wondered. “Firing from this far out?”
“Twenty-five seconds.”
“Micro-jump us forward,” Josh instructed. “Put us five hundred meters in front of them.”
“I can’t,” Loki warned. “We’re moving too fast.”
“Calculate the jump for half our current speed… I’ve got an idea.”
“What idea…”
“In five!”