Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10

by Randolph Lalonde

  “I don’t know, but she got through somehow,” Yawen said, sitting down. “I bet we’ll be in orbit of Tamber as soon as they round up the tugs.”

  “Colonel Black will get the station moved, but I don’t think it’ll be to Tamber,” Nivee said. “She’ll hide us somewhere else, another resource rich part of the system.”

  “We’ll find out soon,” Alice said, looking through the transparent hull. Three British Alliance battlecruisers were emerging from wormholes, spilling light across the darkness for a moment. “I can’t believe the secret didn’t outlive Suit Week.”

  “They couldn’t have expected something this big to stay a secret. There must be a hundred thousand people involved,” Yawen said.

  “It was a test,” Alice replied. “Colonel Black probably wanted to find the most important spies in our alliance. I’m sure she didn’t expect to find a spy with such a high rank. Right now the details don’t matter though, it worked.”

  Chapter 40

  Giants

  The bridge was anything but silent as the Revenge followed the Sunspire and the rest of the ships in its class out of the wormhole ahead of Freeground Alpha. Seeing the three remaining ships that were made to the same standards as the modernized version of the Sunspire filled Jake with a feeling that he was coming full circle. “Ship wide announcement, please,” he said to Liara.

  “Ready for ship wide, Sir,” her subordinate replied right away. A short whistle sounded across the ship.

  “This is your Captain. We are approaching one of the most important destinations in our journey. Scouts sent to this area did not detect anything, but this crew knows that our enemy surprises us whenever they have the chance. When we left the Rega Gain system there were traitors amongst us. We have removed them, and since then I have watched the morale and efficiency of this whole crew increase. I can’t express the pride I feel as I command this ship, and I made sure our Admiral knew all about it when I represented this crew on the Triton. We may have more fighting ahead of us, but if we do our duty and continue working as bravely as we have so far, we will get home. Stand steady, stand ready, and let’s kick some ass.” He signalled for the ship wide channel to close and turned his attention to the tactical display in front of him. Surrounding the main tactical hologram were fourteen different displays that kept him up to date on the status of the Revenge and the members of its battle group.

  “An aggressive message,” Agameg said from the engineering station.

  “Aye, that’s up there as my favourite,” Frost said from tactical. “Nothing on scans yet, all ships reporting in.”

  “Encrypted laser linkages are all functioning and clear,” Liara reported. “No jamming signals or other noise that would indicate an enemy ship on any channel so far.”

  “Follow the lead battle group to the wormhole gate,” Jake said. The round Lorander gate loomed large against a backdrop of a glittering asteroid field made largely of ice. Light from a relatively nearby sun cast blue shafts through the field and the clearing.

  “Triton has picked up a destroyer in the asteroid field,” Frost reported. “The Warrior Dawn is reporting a second.”

  The Warrior Dawn was a Nafalli ship, one of the heavy fighting vessels that could rival most battle cruisers. The rest of their fleet arrived, a triple column of over thirty large vessels with three standing out. The Rahgha, the Mausho colony ship, and a massive transport, the Elloo. They were kilometres long, and immediately moved towards a small nearby moon for protection. “Double check those readings, make sure they’re not reporting the same destroyer twice,” Jake said, checking the status of their shields and finding that they were fully charged with a deep reservoir of backup power to draw on.

  “Confirmed,” Frost said. “Two destroyers, on your display.”

  Jake looked at their locations. They were waiting hundreds of thousands of kilometres apart inside the asteroid field, perfectly positioned so their scanners would have the most coverage. He took a look at the profile of the ships and recognized them immediately. “Those destroyers have jump prevention technology installed, they’ll stop any wormhole from forming once they start emitting energy waves. There have to be more, this is a trap.”

  “I agree, Jake,” Oz said through a small display on his left. “But we’re committed.”

  “Here they come, wormhole exit points, thirty-eight of them,” Frost said.

  “Pick the biggest one and set a jump course according to whatever coordinates Kadri gives you, Ashley.”

  “I’ve got one!” Kadri said. “Nine ships about to emerge, one reading heavier than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “Got the coordinates, ready to execute.”

  Jake took a look at the data from their scanning suite. He could see the mouth of the wormhole Kadri targeted, and that the enemy ships were seven seconds from crossing the threshold. “Execute,” he said, hoping that his judgement was sound, that their plan wouldn’t destroy the Revenge in seconds.

  The entire ship thrust into a trans-dimensional wormhole with a jolt. “Ready tactical,” he said.

  “Ready to drop our missile pods,” Frost said, his hands hovering over the launch controls.

  The Revenge emerged from the neighbouring dimension, arriving inside the mouth of the enemy wormhole just above an Order of Eden base ship. “Launch!” Jake ordered.

  The missile pods affixed to the bottom of the Revenge were already away, and Ashley engaged their second jump, ripping a hole through the wall of the enemy’s wormhole as they made their own and escaped into their own energetic dimension.

  They emerged less than two seconds later next to the asteroid field in time to see the enemy wormhole exit point waver and belch an antimatter explosion that finished destabilizing their exit point. The base ship emerged sideways, slowly turning as it drifted out of control towards another large emergence point. A heavy carrier two kilometres long appeared behind it and collided like a lance into its side, crumpling at first against the base ship’s shields then bursting through and cutting into its hull.

  “Oh my God,” Kadri said. “It’s getting into the path of another base ship.”

  A second base ship emerged from its wormhole less than ten kilometres away from the first and collided nose to port side moving at a relative speed over three hundred kilometres per second. The wrecks moved on to collide with six destroyers and a carrier in the emergence point next to it before the rest of the fleet on that side could avoid them.

  “Well, that proves more of Ayan’s math right,” Oz said over a private channel. “These drives can disrupt wormholes with their own fields. Oh, and your crew is amazing, by the way.”

  “I’ll pass that on,” Jake replied. “Your turn.”

  “Aye,” Oz replied. “It’s time. Deploy, Dominate, Disappear.”

  The Triton, all the Sunspire class ships and two Freeground Fleet heavy battlecruisers disappeared from scanners then, using improved cloaking technology that had proven effective against Order of Eden patrols. The rest of their fleet began arriving with Freeground Alpha.

  The lumbering circular base emerged from its wormhole slowly with the Nafalli ships between it and the massive Order of Eden fleet that has just finished emerging. It had never looked so old, or scarred or vulnerable to Jake than it did then, but it had arrived in position and on time beside the Lorander wormhole gate.

  “Data on the remaining base ship coming in,” Liara said. “The Order of Eden Glorious. Their commander is opening a channel with us. He wants to speak to you specifically.”

  “Set a course for the nearest enemy asteroid field and accept his transmission. Make sure they don’t get access to anything else.”

  “That will not be a problem, Sir. Permission to attempt to hack their system while you two are talking?” Liara asked.

  “Granted, put him through,” Jake replied.

  The image of a man of average height appeared. His dark green uniform was neatly kept and included a long dress jacket that he ass
umed they kept for special occasions. Above all else, he recognized the man’s nose. “You wanted a word?” Jake asked.

  “Captain Valent, I’m Fleet Admiral Dron, commander of the Glorious Battlegroup.”

  “Are you sure your last name isn’t Hampon? I recognize the nose, it looks like one I remember biting off of someone who looked a lot like you.” Jake chuckled darkly more at the wide eyed expression of surprise from Agameg and the shocked glances from the members of the other bridge staff.

  “That is uncanny,” the Fleet Admiral said, taking a half step back. “I’ve even had a limited amount of work done so I wasn’t recognized as his brother. I assure you, I am not the same kind of man. Nor am I so easily baited.”

  “We’ll see,” Jake replied, easing back in the Captain’s chair. He was watching the holographic displays around him more than the image of the man standing in front of him. The displays were not being broadcast, so to the Fleet Admiral it must have seemed as though Jake was barely paying attention. Liara was still trying to hack into the enemy ship. “What do you want? I’m not actually in charge here.”

  “No, your leader has cloaked his ship and they are stalking behind us,” he said. “Ineffectively. I offer you this opportunity to surrender, Captain. Not your fleet, not Freeground Alpha, but the Revenge and her crew. Wave the white flag and we will let the rest of your people go. Even the Nafalli. Especially them. If I were in charge when the first wave moved through the nebula, their world would have been left untouched. They should not be involved with this fight.”

  “Two of your base ships are drifting away along with a few ships that were caught in that mess. If I were you, I’d concentrate on rescue. I’ll offer you a deal. We declare a ceasefire for one day inside the nebula so you can rescue your people and we can leave peacefully.”

  “Surrender, Captain Valent. The deal I’m offering will only be available for another ten seconds, then I will destroy the ships that think they are invisible, starting with the Triton.”

  “Let me discuss this with my senior staff,” Jake said, blocking the transmission. “Is the Triton seeing this?”

  “Yes, they’re altering course,” Frost replied.

  “Under no conditions are you to surrender, Jake,” he heard Oz’s voice in his ear. “We can confirm that they can see us, but we’ll be clear.”

  Jake reopened the channel and found himself eye to eye with Fleet Admiral Dron’s smiling face. “Too late.”

  The transmission terminated and his tactical screen lit up as the massive Glorious base ship opened fire on the Triton and all the other cloaked ships behind it. The fifty nine Order of Eden warships followed their example, launching every ordinance they had at the ships that, until a moment ago, thought they were safely hidden.

  “Manoeuvre theta, now!” Jake ordered.

  The Revenge turned away from the icy asteroid belt as Ashley carefully adjusted their speed and heading. If she didn’t match the speed and heading of the distant Order of Eden base ship, nothing that happened next would work.

  “Finn, make sure your people are ready to channel energy from the shields to our beam weapon,” he told him over the internal communications system.

  “We’re ready, but if we start overheating you’re going to have to retreat in a hurry,” he replied.

  “Agameg, are our shields ready for this?” he asked.

  “Aye, but I agree with Finn. We must manage our heat levels. A burnout would be catastrophic.”

  “We’re ready for step two, Sir,” Ashley’s co-pilot, the older Wendy Chatham reported.

  Jake took a moment to make sure that the jump coordinates in the navigation system would take them to within one kilometre of the Glorious before giving the order. “Make the jump.”

  “All posts report ready to fire,” Frost said.

  The Revenge slipped into a trans-dimensional wormhole for less than three seconds before emerging so close to the Glorious that it filled all the displays from edge to edge. Ashley carefully maneuvered the ship down towards it so their Lorander energy shields touched and began absorbing energy from the Glorious’ shield.

  “Power at four hundred and nine percent, firing energy weapons,” Frost announced. “We are merged with their shields, dorsal side facing out.”

  “Our launch bays are under their shields, launching all fighters,” Stephanie announced from the flight deck. “Good hunting!”

  “Power levels are down to two hundred four percent,” Agameg said. “Our shield is draining theirs, but at this rate it will go on for another nineteen minutes before they are depleted.”

  The Revenge’s main beam weapon cut at the enemy ship’s hull at full power, not just burning out electronics as it passed, but melting a path across the surface of the thick metal plating and giving the energy they were absorbing from their shields a place to escape so the Revenge’s power systems didn’t burn out.

  “This is working,” Jake said as he watched the levels on the energy storage in his ship return to safe margins.

  “We are scanner blind,” Kadri said. “Too much interference.”

  “Only laser link is still working, interference is blocking everything else,” Liara reported.

  “We burned out Array six,” Finn reported. “The rest are fine, it took the initial shock.”

  “All right, we saw this coming, just keep us in place, Ashley. We’ll stay for as long as we can.”

  “Aye, that’s the easy part,” Ashely reported from the helm.

  “Samurai Squadron is away,” Stephanie reported.

  “Good luck, Ronin,” Jake said under his breath, knowing that Samurai Squadron would have to make a real difference.

  Minh-Chu led his squadron of fourteen across the surface of the Glorious, the heavy metal skin of the massive ship blurred past as they kept their speed fast enough to avoid countermeasures. “Carnie, you’re with me. Sticky, Hot Chow, take your wingmen to the aft fighter bay then split to the port and starboard launch bays. Everyone else, head for your designated targets of opportunity. Avoid countermeasures, and stay within a few metres of the hull.”

  The entire wing split up, and Minh-Chu led Carnie to their first target, the primary emitter array. “You ready for this?”

  “Hell yeah, are you, Ronin?” Carnie asked.

  The space above them lit up with the illumination of thousands of projectiles from the close countermeasure guns. As suspected, they were unable to aim at any point under their own shields. If they managed to stay close enough to the hull, none of his fighters would be hit. “I’m good now,” he said. As they came around the side of the base ship the main emitter array came into sight. “Firing EMP cluster one,” he announced.

  His first missile carrying twenty four electromagnetic bombs sped ahead of his Uriel fighter. He and Carnie turned away towards their next target as the missile split open, unleashing all the smaller bombs towards the variety of metal stalks used to project the ship’s main forward shields.

  They were behind another hull segment when they went off, and Minh-Chu’s sensors told him that the power readings in that section had decreased almost completely. “That’s a good hit,” Carnie confirmed. “Target one down.”

  A flash on Minh-Chu’s display indicated that the aft fighter bay had just been hit by a massive energy blast. “Aft bay is down, moving on,” Hot Chow reported.

  “Nice shot, Hot Chow,” Sticky said. “Splitting off and moving on.”

  Smaller hits were being reported across the hull of the ship as the rest of Samurai Squadron struck targets of opportunity and disabled weapon emplacements as they came across them. “Forward launch bay is next, we’re both launching on this one,” Minh-Chu told Carnie.

  As they came around they spotted five fighters launching and turning to chase fighters in Samurai Squadron across the hull, skimming away. Minh-Chu opened up on the nearest with a volley of guided gunfire and watched the fighter spin, strike the hull and bounce off into space at high speed. Carnie opened fire o
n another target, cutting through an engine pod and into the cockpit, but the other three dipped out of sight.

  “Three fighters coming at you, Hot Chow,” Minh-Chu said.

  “I see them, thanks Ronin,” he replied.

  Carnie and Minh-Chu dove between the closing forward launch bay doors and launched their electromagnetic pulse missiles before reversing course and speeding away. To Minh-Chu’s surprise, Carnie’s fighter scraped one of the closing doors, sending his fighter spinning directly away from the Glorious. “Carnie!”

  “I’ve got this,” he said as he passed through the Glorious’ shields. Minh-Chu could see his wingman turn his shield regeneration level all the way up, and take control of his spin, but he was still drifting too fast. In a split second decision, Minh-Chu targeted the nearest anti-fighter autocannon emplacements, marked them as targets and fired all his rocket launchers, raking the nearest ones with his guns. Explosions erupted all around him as he watched the guns fire for several seconds at Carnie before they were destroyed. “Follow my lead! We have to get you back under cover, on the other side of the Revenge,” Minh-Chu ordered as he targeted the next group of anti-fighter guns that would take shots at his wingman and fired another volley of missiles as he pushed the engines on his ship to move faster.

  “I see what you’re doing, Ronin, ghosting you on the other side of the shields,” Carnie replied as his ship was peppered by anti-fighter guns that weren’t destroyed yet.

  “This is Flex, we are coming to you, Ronin.”

  “This is Fury, we’re coming to help knock out those guns so Carnie can go home.”

  For a very long minute, Minh-Chu targeted and destroyed every gun emplacement he could as he led Carnie back to the Revenge. The targets rose up on his heads up display as they moved along the hull of the Glorious, all straining to target his young wingman. If it were one target at a time, he would have handled the challenge easily, but there were five, often as many as eight guns ready to point at Carnie as he moved. He wished that they could just clear an area so he could hide there until the Revenge made its way to them or until the shields went down, but Minh-Chu could see fighters chasing his wingman as he skimmed the outside of the Glorious’ shields. Going stationary would be even more deadly than the shooting act they were trying to pull off.