The Ember War (The Ember War Saga Book 1)

by Richard Fox

  “This new skipper is a ballbuster, no?” a woman said, a heavy French accent caressing her words. Black hair fell down her shoulders in loose waves and her dark eyes shown like obsidian in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. She put a vapor wand to her lips and took a deep breath. “Valdar flunked the entire bridge crew on the first drill. They almost passed the second,” she said, vapor riding her breath like fog drifting over a bay.

  Lieutenant Marie Durand looked Hale up and down and poked at his right arm. “Doesn’t look so bad. You OK?”

  “I’ve had worse. I’m better than those miners at any rate,” he said. “As for a ball buster of a CO, he’s not so bad, really—Valdar, I mean. Just has high standards for his people, even higher standards for himself.”

  “You know this how? Talk to a guy for two seconds and you know everything about him? Maybe you should have gone intelligence instead of Marine Strike Corps.”

  “He’s my godfather,” Hale said. “He evacced my dad from Okinawa during the war, got him and the rest of the wounded off the island before the Chinese could overrun them. One of the civilians on the ship was my mom—that’s how my parents met. He and dad were close before the battle and they stayed in touch after my dad was medically retired. My brother and I would visit Uncle Valdar every once in a while when we were growing up. He was there when I pinned on my butter bars.”

  “The captain is your godfather. I’m not sure if that means you can get away with anything or nothing.”

  “Let’s keep that secret between us and not find out how much I can get away with. Wait…aren’t you part of the drill?”

  Durand rolled her eyes.

  “Please, everything we do in the fighters is analog. The squadron finished the drill in thirty minutes. So I came to check on you,” she said. Durand glanced around, then leaned in and pecked Hale on the lips. “Your Marines won’t stop bragging about you. Why don’t we go to our spot and I do a bit more than brag?” Her hand brushed over his thigh.

  “Marie…,” Hale’s voice cracked with nerves as he double-checked that no one else saw their public display of affection. They’d kept their relationship quiet for weeks, a minor miracle on a ship the size of the Breitenfeld. One wrong look in front of witnesses and the scuttlebutt would begin in earnest. “Marie. First, yes. Second—”

  “Battle stations! Battle stations! All hands to battle stations! This is not a drill!” the speakers in the bulkheads blared. Red running lights snapped to life on the bulkheads.

  Durand and Hale traded confused looks as they took their helmets from their carry pouches. A translucent net around Durand’s locks pulled her hair into a bun to accommodate her helmet.

  “Stay safe,” Hale said. He squeezed her hand before stepping past her and taking off in a run.

  “Et toi,” Durand called out. You too.

  ****

  Captain Valdar strapped himself into his command chair. Void combat meant rapid acceleration and deceleration, and despite all the advancements made by the Ibarra Corporation, the law of inertia still meant a messy end to anyone not strapped down for maneuvers. Someone tossed him a proper void helmet, larger and better armored than the one he carried in his suit.

  The helmet fastened with a twist and he connected it to the airline coming from his command chair. His suit could provide air on its own for up to six hours, but running off the ship’s air was vital for longer engagements.

  “Scope, what’ve we got?” Valdar asked.

  “Showing twelve Chinese Jiantou fighters and twenty Chui bombers on acceleration toward us,” Stacey said. “They launched from a cargo ship in high anchor over the moon, same way they hit Mars during the war.”

  “Another Q ship, what a surprise,” Valdar said without humor. “Give me a course projection.”

  He turned his chair around and directed it on the rail to the holo table.

  An icon of the Breitenfeld hovered over the table; red triangles marking the Chinese ships appeared moments later. A cone sprang from the triangles, the edge barely touching the Breitenfeld. The colony fleet and its Atlantic Union escorts were dead center in the course projections.

  “Sir, that’s barely a wing of Chinese planes against our entire fleet. What do they think they’re going to accomplish?” Commander Ericson asked. The two carriers in the fleet could have twice as many fighters in space before the Chinese were within engagement range; at first glance, the Chinese effort seemed futile.

  “They’re going for the colonists,” Valdar said. “They damage the civilian ships and the whole mission gets scrubbed. Get me Admiral Garrett on the line.”

  “Do they really think they’ll get through?” Ericson asked.

  “They don’t have to get through,” Valdar said. “They just have to get close enough to launch their torpedoes. Those civilian ships are glass compared to us. Any damage and they aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Sir, Admiral Garrett.”

  A hologram of the admiral’s face came up on the control table.

  “Valdar, I’ve got your tactical feed. You’ve authorization to launch and engage any hostiles. Get with the rest of the fleet as soon as you can. The rest of the Chinese fleet is mobilizing and the rest of the Union fleet is going to sit this one out,” Garrett said, his words tinged with venom.

  “What? Why?” Valdar asked. He picked up a light pen and drew intercept vectors for Breitenfeld’s fighters.

  “We aren’t technically part of the Union while we’re on this mission and China just declared war on the Ibarra Corporation, not the Union. Seems no one in Geneva is that anxious for another world war,” Garrett said.

  “More contacts!”

  Red icons indicating unknown contacts flared at the edge of the table. Dozens more joined them and Valdar watched as “unknown” icons resolved into cruisers, carriers and destroyers.

  “Looks like their entire fleet. Not ones for half measures, are they?” Valdar asked.

  A course for the Breitenfeld came up, taking it directly into the Chinese line of advance. The course came from Admiral Garrett.

  “Isaac, the fleet needs thirty minutes to engage the slip coils. Thirty minutes and the civilians will be safe. Can you give it to me?”

  Valdar acknowledged Garrett’s course and looked at the admiral’s projection.

  “You don’t have to ask, sir. I was going to do it anyway,” Valdar said.

  “Fight your ship,” Garrett said and cut the transmission.

  Valdar opened a channel to the flight deck.

  “Commander Albrecht, how soon can you launch the Eagles?”

  “Ninety seconds until the first sortie,” the air boss answered.

  “Good hunting,” Valdar cut the channel.

  “Sir! Transmission from the Q ship,” said the officer at the communication pod.

  “Show me,” Valdar said. He didn’t bother standing up for this or removing his helmet. Showing that he was ready to fight might defuse the situation before it escalated into a shooting match.

  The image of a Chinese officer, clad in the People’s Liberation Army Space Navy’s red and gold void suit, his head bare, came up on a holo display in front of Valdar. The Chinese officer sneered at him.

  “Forces of the illegitimate Ibarra flotilla. You are in violation of the UN declaration on system settlement. Return to Luna anchorage immediately or we will seize your ships by force,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “Cao ma de!” Valdar said and cut the line. The bridge was stone silent as the crew stared at their captain in shock.

  “Did I say that right?” Valdar asked.

  “You actually told him to go…you know…his horse, but I’m sure he knew you meant his mother,” Stacey said. “Mandarin is a tonal language. He might think you called his horse a—”

  “Malcode warning!” the EWO announced. Pods shifted to haptic keyboards and flat display screens.

  Valdar keyed his throat mic for a ship-wide announcement.

  “Breitenfeld, t
his is your captain. The Chinese have heartburn over our mission and are on an attack vector to the colonial flotilla—unarmed ships full of innocent men, women and children. Any of you who’ve fought the Chinese before know they aren’t afraid to target those who can’t fight back. Let’s kick the Chinese in the teeth so hard they think twice about ever following us to Saturn.”

  ****

  Durand ran up to her Eagle as Valdar’s speech ended, the distinctive white skull and crossbones over a black field, the squadron markings of the 103rd squadron to the fore of her cockpit. A pair of smaller skulls were to the side of her cockpit, kill markings of the two Chinese fighters she shot down during an ‘accidental’ incursion into Australian airspace. The void fighter moved along the conveyor belt leading from the hangar to the twin catapults that would launch her and her wingman into the fight.

  She leapt onto the ladder against the side of her fighter and vaulted into the cockpit. There were a dozen critical pre-flight checks to do before launch. By the book, she had time for no more than two. Her hands flew over the controls, activating the navigation and weapon systems.

  Her crew chief, a stocky Scotsman named MacDougall, ran airlines into the back of her helmet and she felt cold, stale air puff into her helmet. He fastened her restraints as she brought up her custom holo displays.

  “Knock ’em malky, lass,” MacDougall said.

  Durand, despite speaking English fluently, had no idea what MacDougall just said to her.

  MacDougall saluted her and jumped down. He unhooked the ladder and the cockpit closed around her. The noise of the flight deck died away as the cockpit sealed.

  Her F-99 Eagle, designed as a void fighter, looked more like a wide dagger blade. Wings, ailerons and rudders remained within the fighter until it broke into atmosphere. Twin variable engines and small thrusters around the hull gave her more maneuverability in space than she would ever have in atmospheric flight.

  She tested the rotation on the twin gimbal-mounted gauss cannons under her fighter. Both cannons could rotate and shift on their mounts to provide 360 degrees of fire; a holo screen showed the gun camera feed and offered deflection-assisted aiming. She had five hundred rounds for each cannon, no more than thirty seconds of continuous fire.

  She glanced to her right, where the rail lance barrel jutted from the hull. The lance was a miniature version of the rail cannon mounted on the Breitenfeld, designed to damage lumbering capital ships and ground targets.

  Her mouth went dry as she brought the lance online. The weapon drew significant power out of her batteries and every shot came with a significant risk of knocking her fighter offline. Losing all power in the middle of a dogfight was a sure way to end up as a mark on the enemy’s hull and Eagle pilots had modified an old sniper’s mantra for the cannon, “One shot, you’re killed.”

  Durand’s fighter shifted to the ready deck, next in line for the catapult. Adrenaline coursed through her veins.

  “Gall, you ready for this?” Ensign Jenkins, her wingman, said over their commlink.

  Durand looked up at Jenkins in the Eagle directly across from her.

  “I don’t think it matters, Burro,” Durand said, using Jenkins’ call sign. “It’s happening anyway.”

  Clamps fastened around her landing gear and shifted her fighter into the catapult, which would slingshot her from the hangar with enough velocity to hold her own in a dogfight.

  “Eagle 3-7, prepare for launch,” came the warning over her helmet IR.

  Durand pushed herself deep into her acceleration couch and braced herself.

  A hum filled her cockpit and a whine escaped her lips.

  The catapult accelerated her at four times the force of Earth’s gravity and the hangar sped past in a blur. The void enveloped her and her engines burst to life. The location of her flight came up on her cockpit display and she launched her Eagle into a steep climb.

  Jenkins, who launched seconds behind her, joined the climb at her side.

  “Gall, Burro, form up on me. You’re on the attack run,” Commander Albrecht said over the squadron channel.

  “Attack run? On what?” Durand asked. She nudged her Eagle higher, flying level with Albrecht and his wingman as they burned away from the Breitenfeld. More icons streaked from the Breitenfeld toward her, the last of the squadron’s twelve fighters to join the formation.

  “Red and green flights will interdict the Chinese as best they can. Blue flight will break from the scrum and make a gun run on that Q ship. That ‘unarmed’ merchant ship is heading toward the fleet at full speed. My best guess is it’s got internal rail guns and will try to nail the civilian transports once it’s inside the fleet’s APS bubble,” Albrecht said.

  Each warship had an active protection system, a linked system of radar-guided missiles and gauss weapons designed to intercept incoming rail cannon rounds and knock incoming rounds off their intended angle of attack. Chinese rail guns fired projectiles too fast to be seen by the naked eye and the reaction time of the human beings manning the APS was limited. The chance of intercepting incoming rounds using radar and flack rounds was high, so long as there was time to detect the threat. As the Chinese got closer, the chance of an APS interception dropped.

  “Why haven’t the fleet’s cruisers drilled that thing yet? No way some merchant ship could handle forty rail shots at once,” Jenkins asked.

  “Fleet—and Breitenfeld—are charging their slip-coil drives. Can’t shunt the power to weapons, something about exploding, so we’re all she’s got.” Albrecht said.

  Red triangles popped onto Durand’s display, enemy icons.

  “Bogies inbound!” she shouted on the squadron channel, the announcement reverberating through the squadron.

  “We’ve got…eighteen Jiantou fighters and six Jian bombers inbound,” Jenkins said. Icons on Durand’s display shifted to match the new designations. A line of ice ran down Durand’s spine as fear broke through her adrenaline rush. The Jiantous were the best fighters in the Chinese arsenal and the Chinese wouldn’t trust those planes to average pilots.

  “Two to one. Not great odds but it’s quality over quantity, right?” Jenkins asked.

  “Suddenly quantity has a quality all its own, n’est pas?” Durand said. She felt the cold touch of sweat beneath her flight suit and tightened her grip on her control stick. The icons on her canopy grew larger; she could just make out the Chinese thrusters against the Milky Way’s mélange of stars.

  “Effective range in thirty seconds, synch target computers,” Albrecht said.

  Durand clicked a switch on her weapon control stick and the Eagles’ onboard computers calculated firing solutions for each fighter. Each gauss gun would engage separate targets so long as their firewalls held up.

  “Please hold,” Durand said to herself. The EWO on the Breitenfeld would fight in the cyber realm and winning—or losing—that fight would end this fight in short order.

  “Malcode warning,” her onboard computer said. Amber warning icons flashed as the Chinese hacked into her ship’s control systems. Her ship’s firewalls would protect her for a few seconds, seconds she used to break the compromised systems away from the ship’s controls with the push of a button.

  “Breitenfeld EWO reports Chinese systems impacted. They’re running new attack malware. Don’t plan on getting our comps back anytime soon,” Albrecht said.

  Durand’s gauss cannons returned to her control. She locked them in place. The only way she could aim them now was to point her fighter at her target. Over a hundred and fifty years of air combat and I have to fight like I’m in the skies over Verdun, she thought. She cut control to the gun stick and put both hands on the control stick in front of her; the trigger on the control stick would suffice.

  The threat icons blinked away; the afterburners behind the Chinese fighters flickered like torchlight.

  “Even playing field again, except they brought twice as many to the game,” Jenkins said.

  The threat icons returned, their
Identify Friend or Foe broadcasts marking them for Durand’s truncated tracking computers. If she was close enough to read their IFF, they were close enough to read hers.

  “Prepare for a pass. Blue flight, keep your burn going. No dogfighting if we can avoid it,” Albrecht said.

  Durand clicked her mic twice to acknowledge.

  The Jiantou fighters, red and gold craft that looked like double-bladed arrowheads, formed a semicircle in front of the manta-like Chui bombers. The Chinese attack wave and the Breitenfeld’s fighters adjusted course to fly straight toward each other. Durand lined up her crosshairs on a Jiantou and watched the range indicator, the distance still in red, her target still beyond the effective range of her gauss cannons.

  Over the radio, she heard someone reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The range on her target blinked amber—nearly there.

  “Prepare to jinx,” Albrecht said, panting into his mic.

  Durand caught a glint of sunlight off her target’s canopy. The range icon went solid green.

  “Jinx!” Albrecht shouted.

  Durand slammed a foot against her rudder thrusters and hard banked her Eagle on its side. Her hand squeezed the control stick hard enough that her knuckles popped.

  The vibration from her cannon roared through her cockpit as it fired. Tracer rounds, treated to burn white hot as they shot through the cannon’s barrels, zipped past her target. Red bolts streaked past her cockpit. She fought against a scream and smashed her fighter to the side with a thruster burst.

  The Jiantou flew past her, her canopy darkening to block the blinding light from the passing engines. She glanced over her shoulder. The Chinese fighter stuck to its course instead of turning to fight.

  The HUD on her canopy showed three blue icons breaking through the swirling mass of Eagles and Jiantous; the rest of her flight had survived the first brush with the enemy, but red X’s covered two of the squadron’s icons. One flew from the dogfight on a steady course, propelled by whatever momentum it had before being damaged. The other X hung in space, the fighter destroyed.