Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1)

by Richard Fairbairn

  The Ion control room, situated directly beneath the destroyed gun, was blasted to dereliction. The eight men and three women stationed there were vaporised as the explosive energy from the ruptured plasma energy banks washed over them in a furious moment of light, heat and annihilation.

  “What are they hitting us with, Mr Strange?” O’Rourke surged forward, almost pushing the grim-reaper featured weapons officer away from his console, “Weapons free. Show them who’s boss, Chris,” O’Rourke growled.

  Christopher Strange’s Frankenstein forehead creased heavily as he studied his controls. The information coming from the Ion stations was confused. Losing one of the two big guns had disrupted the plasma feed to its twin. But the Enrilean warship was close enough now that Strange could fire the huge railguns mounted on the port and starboard bulkhead, far away from the twisted mess at the front of the Armstrong.

  The heavy railgun sabots – each one over two metres long – streaked out of the launch tubes. The railguns carried by the USS Neil Armstrong and the USS Brilliant were the most powerful weapons in the United States Space Fleet arsenal. Every eighty ton sabot carried enough lethal force to devastate the toughest armour. And the two mammoth bolts slammed straight through the Mainstay’s bridge, ammunition store and power reactor before passing – within milliseconds - right through the engine power conduits and finally the Mainstay’s white hot engine thrust nozzles.

  The Enrilean warship’s demise was a visual feast for the Armstrong’s tactical team. The smaller craft exploded spectacularly, splitting in half right down the middle as the power conduits blew up in a chain of blasts. Lingering for the tiniest fragment of time as two massive lumps of wreckage hurtling through space, Mainstay’s two huge wreckage clusters travelled side by side for a full three seconds before the wrecked power centre of the ship unleashed its final outpouring of energy in one tremendous flash of radiation and heat.

  “It’s a… magnificent sight. They’re… blown… all over space,” Strange’s unusual punctuation gave his statement even more impact.

  “Nice shooting,” The Captain said. He exhaled loudly, relieved and almost drained, “Recall the fighters. Contact Stamford and tell them to get Glasgow through that wormhole right the fuck now or blow it up. And get us the hell out of here.”

  The Dart fighters were much larger than their intended prey; the sleeker, more rounded silver grey Predator Mark Sevens. The twelve fighters, tightly packed in four rows of three ships, were preceded by a larger ship. The forerunner’s sole purpose was to generate a powerful energy field that masked the Darts. As the smaller Predators headed back towards their carrier, the strike formation closed in. Lieutenant Tom “Wildcard” Steed and his computer operator Chris “Gopher” Coleman were flying closest to the approaching Enrilean fighter group. Marcus Connah, the humourless 2194 top gun winner, was on Steed’s right. Connah’s CIAO, the exotic milk chocolate skinned Amenagh Vorderman, struggled to work out what she was seeing on her scanner.

  “Malfunction, perhaps?” Connah offered.

  “Nah, it’s something. Wildcard, you seeing this?”

  “Yeah, Gopher is looking at the same thing right now. Armstrong says they got nothing on their scopes.”

  “Well, there’s something there,” Connah said, “I don’t believe in sensor ghosts or fairies. Especially sensor ghosts that change direction. Keep your eyes open, Wildcard.”

  “My eyes are always open,” Steed said, “Marcus, we’re going to swing fifteen degrees to port and take a looksee.”

  “Roger that,” Connah replied, “We’ll be on your six, fifteen thousand clicks starboard and ready for action.”

  The Enrilean fighter group was now within weapons range of both Predators. Two of the long, javelin shaped fighters had their weapons locked onto Steed’s Predator and another one had Connah firmly in his sights, rail guns ready to fire. Once all the intended targets were within range the shield ship would shut down its powerful energy field, revealing the twelve fighters to their victims. There would be no time for any evasive action or countermeasures. The twelve Dart fighters would fire their weapons as one – destroying all of their targets in one deadly moment of energetic violence.

  Flight leader Kallyan Kommiza had invented and tested this tactic thirty years previously. Swarm Assault, they’d called it. Kommiza had wanted the War Publicity Machine to use the name he’d intended the manoeuvre to be known by but the WPM officials had voted eight to four in favour of Swarm Assault. This decision would prove fatal to three of the men who’d voted against Kommiza. The veteran space pilot had been imprisoned for murdering two of the propaganda experts. Kommiza’s incarceration at the brutal lunar penal colony was short lived. Admiral’s Jaxx, Deveer and Killian had argued in Kommiza’s favour. Days after his release from Enrilea’s moon, Kommiza was demoted to lieutenant commander. His command of the massive ground assault ship Javelin Incursor was also lost to him. Not that Kommiza really cared. He’d grown tired of captaincy. He’d missed piloting the older, smaller Interceptor fighters that had preceded the much larger Darts. Two hours after his disciplinary interview, Kommiza travelled eighteen hundred miles to meet the third man who’d denied him the glory of naming his spectacular manoeuvre. This time there would be no arrest, no prison sentence. He’d slain the last paper pusher on the man’s own doorstep in front of a hysterical four year old girl and a shocked, grotesquely overweight wife. The WPM official had apologised briefly to Kommiza before bowing his head and accepting his fate. Kommiza had shot the pale skinned, soft bodied man twice at close range into the top of his balding, sunburned head. The apology, if anything, had angered him even more. Something, however, changed inside him after the last killing. Somehow, he decided against continuing his journey across the three thousand mile Grand Sea to find and kill the last man. He returned to Throne City. Shortly afterwards, the fourth man would take his own life. Nobody would ever know the truth behind Salno Bann’s suicide, but the public speculation would burn for months.

  Kommiza had unwittingly become a worldwide celebrity. Following the first two murders, his story had been leaked by the underground media. Across the Throne World, Kommiza’s struggle for justice had earned him the status of legend. A military hero who had been denied the right to claim as his own an audacious technique that had helped clean up the final scourge of the Relathon resistance. Kommiza had many supporters. He was a handsome, charismatic young man with a seething undercurrent of insubordination. A bachelor who captivated the imagination of many eligible young women who sought the prestigious, prideful, uncertain life of a warrior.

  Kommiza’s family history sparkled with honour and courage. His father had fought bravely in the Relathon war. An infantry soldier, wounded in the historical invasion of Jann Linn city in the final months of the conflict. He already had a hero’s pedigree. The people loved him. His face would be plastered on recruitment posters all over the world for months to come.

  A lot of time had passed. Kommiza had lost some of his speed, but his reflexes were still sharp and his heart still burned with a warrior’s flame. The believed that the Crystal Gods had blessed him with a healthy perspective on his ageing. Most pilots did not share his view. They believed that they were improving with age. Experience winning over youth. They were liars even to themselves, Kommiza thought. Kommiza was a realist. He knew that ageing meant that his body was slowing down, even becoming weaker. But accepting this gave him the urge to push harder, to maintain an intensity many of his young comrades couldn‘t match. He spent longer in the simulators than anyone else he knew. He worked out daily – no matter what. And he wasn’t burdened with the weakening quagmire of family life. He lived alone and trained alone. His stamina was still comparable with a man twenty years his junior.

  “Secondary alien fighter group coming into weapons range,” Lieutenant JiiJumm reported. Kommiza was old enough to be his wingman’s grandfather, “Locking targets in five, four, three… all targets now locked.”

  The tw
elve Enrilean fighters were now targeting eight of the Predators. This was the crucial moment. The stealth ship would lower its screen and then all hell would break loose. The alien enemies would be destroyed and then the big ship would come after them. The Neil Armstrong. Kommiza knew that the massive alien fighter carrier would destroy him and his entire fighter group with its powerful guns - unless they could duck back behind the shield ship’s stealth screen and avoid detection by the powerful warship.

  Kommiza smiled thinly. His right hand shook slightly as he lifted it from the customised pearl black control yoke, stretching the fingers as much as he could. They wouldn’t stretch very much at all, he noted. Sometimes his baby finger and ring fingers would catch on the resinous material of the worn, thirty year old fighter controls. Sometime in the next five years Kommiza would not be able to flex the fingers of that hand enough to even release the controls.

  He muttered a quiet obscenity at the offending hand and flicked a switch to the right of the w shaped flight control column, signalling the stealth ship. The lightly armed Relathon stealth ship Hiddenton began its brief preparations for Kommza’s Murderstorm.

  Marcus Connah noticed the change in Hiddenton’s stealth field. The reduction in electromagnetic energy was subtle and small enough that Relathon and Enrilean sensors would not have registered anything. But the Predator fighter’s multibeam sensor system picked up the minor frequency change in the Hiddenton’s field as the stealth ship prepared to reveal itself. The information was relayed instantly to the USS Neil Armstrong and Tom Tweetman’s fighter. Armstrong was too far away to pick up even the slightest trace of the Hiddenton, but Steed’s fighter was close enough to the approaching cluster of Enrilean fighters that the little fluctuation spoke loudly to both the Predator’s computer systems and the CIO.

  “Holy cow,” Coleman said, “Mav, there’s something coming right at us. Virtual array sensors show…”

  “Evasive break! Evasive break!” Steed interrupted, transmitting his shouts to Connah’s fighter and the other Predators approaching from behind, “Cloaked ships coming in…”

  He was already deploying countermeasures and jerking the stick to the right as the Hiddenton’s shield disappeared, revealing the Enrilean Darts. They fired immediately, four railgun sabots hurtling through space towards Steed and Connah. Eighteen missiles blasted forth towards the secondary Predator group flying twenty seconds behind Connah.

  “Shit, incoming!” Chris Coleman’ words were the last sounds he’d ever make. The speed of the Enrilean railgun coupled with the proximity gave his Predator no chance. The fist shaped projectile smashed through the centre of the small craft, exploding Tom Tweetman’s head and taking the left half of Coleman’ chest away. The sabot exited through the fusion engine, severing fuel conduits and destroying coolant shields. The fighter exploded spectacularly milliseconds later – before Steed and Coleman even knew they were dead.

  Connah fared better. The electronic debris ejected from the pods circling the nose of the Predator did nothing to prevent the railgun round’s approach. But Connah’s radical change in direction and dramatic twenty percent decrease in velocity moved the Predator sixteen metres away from the sabot as its faint blue plasma plume whizzed by.

  “Shit,” Connah grunted, “Ameena? What’s happening. Deploying more countermeasures.”

  “Missiles tracking the second group,” Vorderman replied, her voice shrill, “Countermeasures are… oh fuck, missiles are…”

  The second railgun sabot passed right through the Predator’s starboard missile tube, missing the missile stored there but destroying the launch mechanism for half the ship’s missile complement.

  “Get it together,” Connah said, his tone harsh, “Second group, be advised you have missiles inbound. Ameena, relay your tactical data right now.”

  “Okay,” She whispered.

  Connah could see the approaching Enrilean vessels. There were thirteen of them. Twelve small ships and one larger ship that seemed to be pulling away from the fighters. The large ship was about twice the size of the Rocket Rescue, Connah thought. Maybe the same size as the SS Glasgow.

  “Connah this is Armstrong. We see your bogeys in sector four. Missiles are tracking all Predators in the second group. We are advising they take evasive and deploy countermeasures. Marcus, you need to get the Hell out of there.”

  “I am working on a course of evasive manoeuvres,” Connah said evenly. He was already considering his options carefully. There was only one round of electronic chaff left to deploy. The fact that his fighter was still in one piece made him guess, correctly, that the first two bursts of generating chaff had confused the Enrilean attackers. His fighter was flying behind a rapidly expanding – and weakening - field of electronic noise.

  Ten of the Enrilean missiles found targets, destroying four of the eight fighters in the second Predator group. Another two missiles malfunctioned, never reaching their targets. The surviving Predator pilots were Kyle Hunter and Fraser Mackay, but their survival was more to do with luck than any other factor. Their fighters happened to be further back in the group. All the fighters had performed evasive manoeuvres, but only Hunter and Mackay had had enough time for their changes in speed and vector to make a difference.

  “Second group, this is Armstrong. We are tracking thirteen enemy vessels in your sector. Do you copy?”

  The Enrileans were preparing to fire a second salvo of missiles. There was nowhere to hide. Crantarr was a distant tennis ball behind Hunter and almost invisible to Connah. The second planet, Relathon, was steadily growing larger – but the Enrilean fighters lay between the Predators and the planet. The distance between Connah’s Predator and the new Enrilean fighter group was rapidly diminishing.

  “Understood, Armstrong. Report that ECM appears to be… moderately effective against the Enrilean tracking systems,” Vorderman spoke rapidly, “We have one jamming module left. We’re riding in an ECM cloud now, but its spreading out.”

  “Roger that.”

  At that moment, another barrage of railgun sabots streaked through space. The Dart fighters had target the ECM cloud and had fired blindly. Eight high speed projectiles flashed through the sensor jamming cloud. None of the hard, inert projectiles came close to hitting the small fighter.

  Kyle Hunter and Fraser Mackay had their Predator Altered Momentum engines on emergency power. The two Predators rocketed towards Connah’s position.

  “Hunter, this is Armstrong. You’re coming into enemy railgun range.”

  “Affirmative.”

  2195AD - USS Neil Armstrong.

  “They’re getting wiped out,” O’Rourke growled, “Why the Hell didn’t we see this coming? What can we do to help them?”

  “Not much,” Strange’s eyes were unusually watery, his mouth agape, “If we go back to help them… we’ll be cut off by the two destroyers. As it is, there’s a good chance that the larger ship Devastation will intercept us before we can get to Gallsin.”

  “Exec, why didn’t we see these fighters? What’s happened?”

  “The larger ship seems to have been generating some kind of powerful energy field,” Cutter replied, his eyes not leaving his controls, “Sensop didn’t see a thing until the energy field went down and the firing began. Sensop are examining the sensor logs right now. They’re trying to find out if there’s some way to detect any other… concealed ships. So far they haven’t given…”

  “Alright,” O’Rourke interrupted. He was more concerned with the massive warship that looked like it was going to cut off their escape. The mighty Devastation. Aptly named, the ship was almost twice the size of the USS Neil Armstrong. Long range sensor scans had been able to determine that the ship bristled with weapons. It was much more heavily armoured than the Neil Armstrong. The young lieutenant Chekhov – Armstrong’s weapons expert – had stated categorically that none of the ordnance carried by Armstrong would penetrate the dense forward hull of the mile long ship. Worse than this was the fact that there appeare
d to be no immediate weak spots in the armour. The ship was a solid fortress shielded by a strong, reflective metal substance the science teams were still trying to identify.

  There was no way to go back for the surviving Predator pilots, O’Rourke knew. The ship was travelling too fast for the remaining six fighters to be launched safely from the one remaining hangar that was still in operation. The Enrilean fighters and their invisible escort were recharging their weapons. Steed was dead. So was Neidermeyer, Faxton and six other flight teams. Strange would know all of their names. DeGeorgio, the deck officer, would know all of the names. And the names of their wives, husbands, sweethearts. If he was still alive, that is. He’d been out of contact for fifteen minutes and had last been seen in the now destroyed forward hangar.

  “There’s nothing we can do for them,” O’Rourke whispered, “Chris, order them to get the hell out of there any way they can.”

  It was too late, O’Rourke realised. Chris Strange knew that too, but he sent the order anyway. O’Rourke walked across to the navigator’s station. He could see the tactical display there next to the forward facing sensor readout. There was still a chance that the massive Enrilean Devastation would beat Armstrong to the wormhole. It was continuing to accelerate in a ragged, unpredictable manner.

  The three remaining Predators were already performing emergency manoeuvres. The twelve Enrilean fighters were within railgun and missile range of the fleeing Predators. The railguns fired in unison, a sparkling blue line of energy streaking out from each of the Enrilean fighters. The projectiles smashed into Hunter’s Predator, killing both crew instantly. Lieutenant Mackay reversed thrust a split second before the railgun sabots hit, but it wasn’t enough. Mackay felt the railgun rounds smash into the Predator, pulverising his Computer Information Officer and destroying the rear section of the fighter. The cockpit canopy disintegrated above Mackay, peppering the tail section of the fighter with fragments of armoured glass. Mackay’s cockpit controls flickered, but kept working. An alarm sounded in his left ear. In front of him, between the starboard engine fire control and shutoff switches, a red light started to flash. The right engine of the Predator was damaged, but unable to shut down on its own. The electrical energy crackled and arced around the fighter like it was being struck by lightning. Fraser reached down to flick the engine shut off switch, but his hand never reached the toggle. Behind him, the ship had continued to disintegrate. Discharged electricity from the shorting starboard engine reached the environmental system, igniting the pure oxygen supply. The flames blasted through the oxygen nitrogen mixing system before the safety systems could work. Mackay’s breath was literally sucked out of his lungs.