The light cruiser moved into position and the broadside weapons opened up, with the forward heavy lasers on the port side joining in on the fusillade. The missiles didn’t try to evade, they were fixed on their target. The ship’s weapons tore into them, ripping them apart as they approached. Seventeen of the missiles suddenly lost propulsion and went ballistic and were easy meat for Gorgen’s guns.
But there were too many. His weapons were spewing coherent energy into space in a cone, snatching missiles out of the sky but they kept getting closer.
“Damn, they suckered me!” Gorgen hissed, as two of the missiles slipped past his counter fire and slammed into the shields, exploding in waves of energy and radiation. “Those slippery bastards jinked at the last moment.” An instant later, the ship shook again as another one hit the aft end of the ship.
“Damage to engine number three,” one of the bridge watch called. “Heavy spotting to the portside shields. Minor damage to the hull.”
The last two missiles bore in and the closest counter battery went into last-ditch automatic suppression fire. One of the missiles took a glancing hit on the side of the fuselage and began to spin uncontrollably before it exploded prematurely, two hundred meters from the shields. Its destruction washed over the defenses of the ship, and less than one second later the second missile plowed into the screens and detonated.
Hestian grabbed the arms of his command seat as the ship shook slightly with the damage. “Damage report!”
“Port shields have collapsed,” the damage control operator reported. “Hull breach on deck six, heavy laser turret two is showing damage and is in local control. We’re showing damage to the power grid in that section, working on a bypass.”
Hestian nodded. “Very well. Comms, get on with the captains of the freighters. Tell them to hurry it along. I don’t think we can withstand another salvo like that again.”
Gorgen shook his head. “I’ll know what to look for this time, Commander. I won’t get fooled again.”
The lupusan captain stared at his tactical officer. “You’d better not. And…” He glanced back at his own displays. “How the hell did those missiles track us? And where did they come from?”
“They came from up in the gas giant,” Gorgen replied. “I’ve tracked their vector, but the only place that makes any sense is from the gas mine.”
“Kors!” the commander swore, clenching one long fingered hand tight on the arm of his chair. His orders from the flagship were very specific: under no circumstances was Hestian to attack the mine. Lord Verrikoth fully intended to be back in this system at some later date and he didn’t want to damage the real estate or the locals’ production capabilities.
“I have a target lock, Commander, on the mine,” Gorgen told him. “Ready to fire.”
“No,” Hestian growled, suppressing the urge (barely) to dig his claws into the arms of the chair and rip up the electronics. “Stand down, Gorgen.”
“But, Commander!” the lupusan almost whined.
Hestian turned and roared at him in fury, springing out of the chair and rushing to the tactical console. He grabbed the tactical officer by the lapels of his skinsuit and with a great outraged heave, he yanked him out of the seat, snapping the chair’s restraints. Hestian slammed Gorgen to the deck, and then kneeled down on his chest, his head close to the other lupusan’s throat. His fangs bared, Hestian let out a growl, his voice filled with subsonics.
Gorgen immediately went limp, his eyes wide and his ears flatted in submission. He hadn’t lost control of his faculties, but this was clearly the first dominance struggle he’d had in quite a while. He was breathing fast and shallow and trying his damndest not to upset the Commander.
“I… am in command of this ship, pup,” the elder wolf growled. “When I give you an order, you obey. I will not be giving more chances. I should tear out your worthless throat out right here, you whining little infant. Now get up, get back to your station and do your job!” He got up and went back to his chair, seating himself with just the smallest amount of flourish. After a good thirty seconds more of laying on the floor, Gorgen picked himself up, his shoulders a bit slumped and his eyes downcast. One of the zheen hissed and clacked his mouthparts in amusement; Gorgen snapped his jaws at him, growling.
Hestian grunted, chuckling to himself. The boy was strong and sadly, his sentiment mirrored Hestian’s own. He desperately wanted to blast the hell out of the gas mine and all of the pathetic bastards down there who dared thought they could just launch a volley of missiles at his ship. But, Lord Verrikoth had been explicit. And Hestian agreed with the idea that this show of force now would make it that much easier to show up in a few months to take what they wanted then. Once the local government realized what was happening here, they would panic. And if Lord Verrikoth showed up with warships in a few months, the government types would be pissing themselves to do anything he asked. Of course, there was that battlecruiser to worry about, but Hestian was sure that the pirate lord would come up with something.
He just hoped that Ganges and her crew could hold up against another salvo of those damnable missiles.
Just about the whole damned ship is on alert now, Ekaterina thought to herself as she and Konnair turned a corner. They ran into a pair of crew, wolves in coveralls carrying tool boxes and trundling a hover pallet behind them of equipment, possibly on the way to the damaged bay to try and repair the breach. Oh, won’t they be surprised when I blow the shuttles. But they couldn’t be allowed to just wander by. A pair of shots to their heads and the techs went down. She wanted to feel bad about it, but these were pirates, after all. And then there was no time to think about it, only to think about getting to that last hangar bay and somehow avoid the security patrols.
Konnair was huffing and puffing now, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He wasn’t out of breath, exactly, but his anxiety was at levels never before reached. He hadn’t been trained for this sort of mission, but he was holding up well enough. He was taking his cues from Ekaterina and only shooting either when she did or when she told him to, but he was managing to control his fear. Certainly better than Huw had, anyway.
They ducked into a compartment, finding it empty but there was a small terminal on the bulkhead. She pressed a key to bring it online, hoping to find a ship layout or something. In running from the hangar they’d somehow gotten twisted around in the huge vessel and Ekaterina had lost her bearings. Konnair hadn’t really been paying much attention; he’d been too focused on the moment. Using her implants, she was able to pull up a rough map of her path through the ship, but her implants (being made using FP’s Republic-style replicators) couldn’t interface with Federation tech, even ancient tech like that on this ship.
Thankfully, whoever had used this terminal last hadn’t bothered to lock it down or encrypt anything, though a quick check showed that it only had the most basic access to the ship’s database. It was used for communications and personal use, and checking through a few data folders, she found that the previous owner had used it for viewing some rather disgusting pornography. With a grunt, she accessed other files, hoping for a break.
After two straight minutes of feeling Konnair’s blood pressure rising as he watched the door, finally, she found something. “Got it,” she muttered, though there was no need to be quiet. The hatch was closed and it was unlikely that the sound would carry, but she didn’t want to get out of the habit.
“Got what?” Konnair almost squeaked. Hardly very dominant or imposing, that, but Ekaterina couldn’t blame him for being so nervous.
“Found a layout of this deck,” she said, pointing to the screen, but he hadn’t turned away from the closed hatch. “I’m downloading it now.” A message appeared on her HUD indicating “incompatible data stream” and “unable to download.” “Kors,” she whispered. “All right, we’ll do this another way.” She pulled the map up and charted a route through the compartment and corridors to the second aft bay and recorded the route on her implants.
“What?” Konnair asked, glancing back. “Why? There isn’t just a straight route?”
“There is,” she admitted, going to the hatch and cracking it open. “But I don’t want the troops on board chasing us straight there. I don’t want them to know where we’re going.”
“Okay, then let’s go.” Clearly the male was trying to bolster his confidence.
She clapped him on the arm, a very human gesture. “Good boy.” Pulling the hatch all the way open she slipped out, with Konnair following close behind.
“All the cargo ships are linked up with the tank farms,” the sensor operator reported.
“Good,” Hestian grumped. “The sooner they can fill their holds, the sooner we’re out of here.” When we first got here, I couldn’t understand why Lord Verrikoth would want to just get in here, steal a few things and get out. But now, after the losses we’ve taken and the damage Ganges has sustained, I fully appreciate the lord’s decision. And all this damage was done without the local’s battlecruiser getting involved. I dread to think what that ship could have done to us. He checked the sensor feeds himself. Fletcher’s Dolly, the first ship to get linked up, was nearly full to capacity. The last ship on the list, one of General Typhon’s, would be full in a short while. Nearly forty minutes, which would feel like an eternity while Hestian waited for the next salvo of missiles to come up from the planet’s atmosphere.
“Hsst!” Ekaterina ducked back against the bulkhead, pushing Konnair back with one hand, keeping her weapon pointed to the overhead. Just around the corner was the hatch that led into the bay they were looking for. It had taken an agonizingly long time to get through the ship, taking the long way around because Ekaterina was paranoid about running into crew or roving patrols going the most direct route. For some reason, the ship hadn’t gone on full alert after the skirmishes in the aft bay and with Marat’s team. That was making her nervous, and taking the long route helped to assuage her fears slightly.
But just around the corner was the hatch, they only had to slip through and plant the explosives. After that, it was just about the exit strategy. But, there was a whole bloody platoon of soldiers in front of that damned hatch. Twelve wolves, milling around, looking as though they were wondering what was going on. It is a big ship. Maybe the word hasn’t spread yet. Ekaterina chuckled to herself. And maybe I’m just fooling myself. But we can’t call this off. A thousand soldiers? Not even Chief Nymeria can hold off that many troops with what she’s got down there. Not without leaving nothing but a wreck of a station behind.
She did a quick mental inventory of her weapons. There was nothing she had that could handle a dozen angry lupusan. Unless she tossed the rest of the explosives at them and triggered it in their faces. But then an idea came to her. She had one more of the slimer grenades on her bandolier; Konnair had two. She signaled him and he slung his rifle and pulled the two grenades out. Ekaterina gestured that he was to pull the pins and toss them down the corridor. On her nod, they both threw the disabling weapons down the corridor. There was a trio of metallic clinking noises and the wolves up the corridor roared in frustration and anger, swinging their weapons in all directions. One of the wolves tried to save his fellows by leaping atop the incoming explosives. A noble gesture, to be sure, but ultimately fruitless.
The slimer grenades went off, covering the unfortunate raider in the foam. He writhed and screamed but he was soon engulfed in the expanding liquid foam that filled the corridor. In seconds, the foam from the three grenades had completely gummed up the area, encasing nine of the lupusan pirates.
Then Ekaterina and Konnair leaned out slightly from concealment and fired their weapons, cutting the remaining ones down as they were panicking about their fellows.
Konnair was breathing heavily, but there was a triumphant smile on his face. “I can’t believe that worked!”
Ekaterina, however, was swearing a blue streak. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
He turned to face her, checking behind her down the corridor. “What? Did they find us?”
“No, you stupid puppy! That!” She pointed one clawed finger in the direction of the mess of foam, no longer liquid and gas but now concrete-hard. “Those fucking grenades just gummed up the whole damned corridor. And the fucking hatch!”
Konnair’s face fell. “Is there another way in there?”
Ekaterina slammed a fist into the nearby bulkhead hard enough to hurt her hand. “Kors!” she snarled. “Yes, there is. But we’ll have to get in there by the control booth, like in the other big bay we went into.” Baring her teeth, she popped the magazine from her rifle and changed it out. “Come on.”
“General, we have four of those local fighters coming at us on an attack vector,” Bek reported from tactical. He was looking calm and eager, ready to take on those gnats that had just blown a hole in the side of the assault transport.
Typhon nodded. “Yes, I see them. They haven’t fired on us. Odd.”
Bek frowned, his ears laying back against his skull. “Yes, sir, it is. Damned peculiar. You’d have thought they’d just try and blast us out of the sky like their friends did against Nemesis.”
The general couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Even though the bug was his ally in this endeavor, it just felt so good to see his nice shiny new ship get hammered by missiles. Even if they didn’t do a substantial amount of damage, the bug needed to be brought down a peg or two. Especially since it looked as though that heavy cruiser was taking its sweet bloody time in getting into the fight. If he’d moved just a bit faster, Nemesis might have been able to annihilate more of the local corvettes, instead of letting all of the light units get nearly completely chewed up. Only one of Verrikoth’s gunships had survived up until this point and only two of the corvettes, one of Typhon’s and one of the bug’s. And both of those were pretty worse for wear at this point. The lupusan gritted his teeth. Byvennot would require quite a bit of work to get her back into fighting trim again. So far, this raid hadn’t been worth the effort. The loss of two ships was a tall price to pay for a pair of cargo ships full of fuel and strategic metals. Then he remembered; it was only the bug’s ships that had the metals. His were helping to bring in the fuel. No, unless the number of slaves and gear they could wrangle from the gas mine were substantial, this was going to be a very costly raid.
He checked the displays and it showed an overlay of Illuyanka’s weapon’s range. Another fifteen seconds and the ship would be in range of the fighters. They’d thrown their best against the whole of the fleet but they hadn’t dared challenge him yet. They feared him. And he’d show them why they should.
The timer ticked down and Typhon gave the order. “Shoot them down, Bek.”
“Yes, sir!” The lupusan was already pressing the controls and the Illuyanka’s heavy and medium lasers cut loose, energy blasts lancing out. The snap shots apparently caught the fighters by surprise. Two of them were vaporized before they even had a chance to change course. “Got you, little nothings!” The tactical officer was obviously pleased with the kills. The other two fighters broke off, veering away from the light cruiser and forcing Bek to either choose one fighter or split his fire.
“Keep them off us, but helm, we’re going to the aid of HT-626.” He turned to another of the watch standers. “Sensors, what is the status of the assault transport?”
“Their main power and sensors are still down, General,” the she-wolf replied. “They’ve got a large breach in the hangar bay doors and it looks as though they’ve lost a shield generator node on that same side.” She paused, but then squinted at her display. “General, there’s a shuttlecraft that’s accelerating away from the assault transport.”
“I’ve got a lock,” Bek said, smiling.
“Fire,” Typhon ordered. He watched in satisfaction as a heavy laser reduced the fleeing shuttle to scrap, but that feeling quickly turned to ashes in his mouth. Is this what he wa
s reduced to? Destroying two fighters and a shuttlecraft? He needed to be over on one of those boarding shuttles, dropping down into the gas giant’s atmosphere to take that station from the locals. He needed to be there taking lives and taking prisoners. He was a ground pounder, not a naval officer. Over the years he’d taken a more active role in the naval side of his operations, but stars how he missed being on the front lines, where the metal meets the meat.
“Get comms with the transport,” he ordered. “I want to know what the hell is going on over there. And inform them of the shuttle, get the ship on alert. Make sure that patrols sweep that ship from top to bottom. I don’t want any place on that ship unchecked.”
“Yes, General.”
When the klaxons started blaring, Ekaterina actually started to laugh. “Took them bloody long enough. We’ve killed, what, fifteen of their soldiers?”
“I’ve lost count,” Konnair admitted, panting with exertion. “Wait, was that fifteen including the dozen that we used the slimer grenades on?”
“Okay, then a score,” she said, glancing right, then left at a T-intersection. Even over the painful screech of the klaxons she could hear the thumping of padded feet on the deckplates. “Okay, company coming. And it might actually be a company of soldiers coming this way.”
“How far are we from the control room?” Konnair’s courage was fading, but somehow he was keeping it together. She wasn’t sure, though, if he could keep it together for much longer, especially if that company of soldiers managed to catch up.
“We’re only a few dozen meters,” she told him, keeping her voice very low. “And I’ll tell you what. If we get out of this, I’m going to put in for a month off. I want a nice, scrubby desert, with a nice watering hole,” she took a few cautious steps forward, her hears moving frantically up and down and her nostrils flaring. “And I would like a few nice fluffy rabbits to run down and eat.”
A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 Page 10