Winged Hussars (The Revelations Cycle Book 3)

by Mark Wandrey

  A target appeared on the master Tri-V display, complete with angle of approach and velocity. Geshakooka blinked all three eyes, it was coming fast. The SitCon had added probabilities of risk to the ships along the direction of counterattack. They were small, but still there. Geshakooka made a decision.

  “Engage the drones,” he ordered. “Spread attack on probable locations of all undetected targets.” Since drones worked together to increase their potential to overwhelm a target’s shields, he knew the others were likely not far away.

  The escort closest to the bearing of the drone cut its acceleration and yawed. It began to fall back in formation as the other four ships continued to boost. The elongated wedge-shaped frigates had laser batteries mounted along all sides, though only a few on the nose. Coming about allowed the greatest number of weapons to bear on the target. The ship unleashed a screen of crisscrossing low-power laser fire. Centered on the identified target, the high-frequency pulse lasers created a veritable wall of coherent light. The drone was obliterated in a fraction of a second.

  The other escorts used their sensors in concentrated scans, looking for the telltale flashes that indicated other drones had been destroyed. There were no other explosions. As the precious seconds ticked by, Captain Geshakooka’s response went from uncertainty, to confusion, and then fear. There was no possible way the enemy sent a single drone. Then he understood. Diversion.

  “Widen the scans!” he ordered, too late.

  “Drive plumes!” SitCon called out. “Drive plumes on all sides!”

  “All ships, prepare for attack,” the captain ordered.

  Seconds before they would have rocketed past the Bakulu ships, eleven of the surviving drones flipped over and fired their powerful micro-fusion torches. Their closing speeds dropped at a shocking rate; they were all around the Bakulu, not in one area. He had been correct; the first one had been a decoy. “Engage at will,” the captain ordered, but the drones were already firing.

  The power plant on the drones would have been more than sufficient to operate a laser, but to reserve that power for propulsion the drones used chemical lasers instead. All eleven drones danced and juked as they began firing their high-frequency, chemically-pumped lasers. Each beam packed just under 10 megawatts of power.

  “Drones are firing lasers,” tactical told the captain. The specialist shook his eyestalks in disbelief. “They are unbelievably accurate!”

  “Target?” Geshakooka asked.

  “Frigate One,” he replied.

  “And?” he pushed. “What else?”

  “Just that ship!” It was the captain’s turn to shake his eyestalks in disbelief. The Human drones were not acting like drones. Frigate One was the escort which had fallen out of formation to engage the decoy. Because it was yawed sideways to the squadron’s flight path, the drones targeted both its fore and aft shields. Those shields were small, thus harder to hit. They were also proportionately weaker than the side shields.

  Tactical data flowed into the cruiser, updated by the SitCon on the big Tri-V in the center of CIC. Captain Geshakooka watched as his escort’s fore and aft shields were knocked down, and the ship was riddled with pinpoint laser fire. Normal drones should have gone for the biggest ship, or, if targeted against the escorts, should have attacked the one closest to their location, but these drones saw a frigate out of formation, selected it as a target of opportunity, and tore it up.

  “They’re acting like they’re piloted fighters,” he said. “That’s impossible.” No race in the galaxy could withstand 100 gravities for more than a fraction of a second. The data on the screen indicated these had likely exceed a thousand Gs!

  “Frigate One reports drive and shield damage,” SitCon said. “They are unable to resume chase.”

  “Acknowledged,” Geshakooka said, “tell the commander to go defensive.” The frigate would cease powering her drive and divert all energy to shields and close-in defensive laser fire. “See what their engineers can do to get the ship back under control.” He turned his attention toward tactical. “Results of the anti-drone fire?”

  “Three more drones destroyed,” the sensor tech reported. On the Tri-V, the eight remaining drones showed small secondary sensor echoes. At first the captain thought they were missiles, but the new contacts didn’t move with their own power, and the sensor returns were shallow, or not dense enough to be weapons. He blinked in confusion, just as the drones again lit their engines and accelerated. Not toward the now disabled Frigate One, but toward the rest of the squadron.

  Geshakooka looked at the Tri-V tactical display, considered the radical way these drones were acting, and made a snap decision.

  “Order the squadron to alter course and take evasive action,” Geshakooka ordered, “emergency thrust!” As one, the four ships still under power initiated skew turns in four different directions, and under nine Gs for almost 10 seconds. He had a glimpse of the command crew relaying orders and commanding the ship’s computers to execute the maneuvers an instant before the mollusks all withdrew into their shells where they were most tolerant of the extreme thrust. He gritted his radula as the acceleration slammed down like a hammer.

  * * *

  Geshakooka was right, the drones were not ordinary in many ways. They were custom manufactured by the Winged Hussars from the ground up. They were more powerful than any others available and had longer-endurance micro-fusion torches. Their structure matched the performance of the fastest missile manufactured in the galaxy as the Hussars’ Geek Squad, in designing them, had started with that missile and turned it into a drone.

  The Winged Hussars employed three classes of drone. Standard drones were carried by nearly every ship in the mercenary company, but the other two types were only used by Pegasus. Of those two, one was outwardly indistinguishable from the ones used by other Hussar ships. The other was quite special. Of the 14 launched, 12 were the standard drones Pegasus used, and two were special. They’d held back as the other 12 took positions.

  Captain Geshakooka was also right in that what the drones were doing should have been impossible. Drones didn’t control other drones.

  After the eight surviving drones finished their initial attack on the frigate designated by their controller, they were ordered to flush. The tiny reactors the drones carried were limited because of the small amount of F11 they held. The rare gas absorbed radiation, which was particularly important in the miniature, barely-controlled fusion plant of a drone. When the F11 became saturated, the reaction would cease, and the drone would be melted by its own power plant. As small as they were, they possessed almost no ability to dissipate surplus thermal radiation. The Hussar’s drones had a trick, though; they carried extra F11.

  Once they’d boosted at full power for nearly a minute, their F11 was almost saturated. They flushed their cores and immediately refilled them with the reserve. In addition to the F11, the drop tank contained extra reactive chemicals for the lasers, which was transferred concurrently. The now empty tanks were released, and the drones given new targets. Without the drop tanks, they could accelerate even faster, and they shot at the small squadron of Bakulu ships like lightning bolts.

  This time the target was one of the cruisers. Only eight were left, but they fired their two-megawatt lasers at their weapons’ maximum rate of fire. After a second of firing, the enemy ships ceased their direct pursuit course and began to maneuver radically. The drones fired their lasers until their chemical stores were exhausted, then adjusted their engines to full thrust as they fine-tuned their courses. Based on the enemy positions and their tactical responses to the drone attack, a last-minute decision was made.

  After depleting their lasers, the drones accelerated for 3.1 seconds. In that time, they reached a speed of nearly 260,000 feet per second. All eight, plus one of the special drones, rammed their targets at precisely the same time. The kinetic energy of each impact was equal to 84 tons of TNT, or nearly 700 megawatts of energy.

  * * *

  “Dama
ge report!” Captain Geshakooka yelled as the ship rang like a bell from the impacts.

  “The drones concentrated on us,” the SitCon reported.

  “We have multiple shield generators out,” the damage control coordinator said while SitCon continued to analyze. “Some minor primary hull damage, but no systems are down.”

  “Where in entropy did those drones go?” the captain demanded. “Helm, prepare to resume pursuit!”

  “The drones rammed,” SitCon finally concluded. He was struggling with the conclusion. It was nearly impossible to successfully ram. For all eight to do it was inconceivable. “Between the lasers and the impacts, more than a gigawatt of energy.” The main tactical Tri-V updated with scrolling charts of data from the attacks, and Captain Geshakooka marveled at it. These Winged Hussars were dangerous and unpredictable. Why attack this way? They had to know that it wouldn’t be enough to penetrate their shields. They’d faced Yushispa once before, after all.

  “We are bearing back on the enemy,” helm reported.

  “Another drone contact!” sensors called out. “It’s almost on top of us.” Before the captain could issue an order, the drone exploded.

  The drone controller, one of the ones Rick and the other marines delivered, carried a specially designed 20 megaton EMP warhead. The blast wasn’t powerful enough to destroy a fully-shielded ship, but it was enough to blind anything within a few hundred miles.

  “We are blind,” the sensor operator reported.

  “Shields further weakened,” tactical added.

  “How many more drones are there?” the captain demanded, his senses buzzing. The sensor tech was sifting the data repeatedly. “How many?!”

  “I think that was the last one,” he finally said.

  “Entropy!” the captain cursed. This tactic only made sense if they were about to... “Helm, evade, evade, evade!”

  * * *

  “She’s evading!” Glick yelled.

  “Best guess, Edwards,” Alexis said, then barked “Fire!” The small black man nodded. The ship was under his control, linked to his pinplants. Flying backward now, bow facing where she’d come from, he stabilized and opened the flower petal-shaped doors.

  Pegasus’ massive particle accelerator spinal mount fired, sending an underpowered, 10-terawatt beam flashing at the speed of light toward the pursuing Bakulu ships. Geshakooka realized at the last possible second the drone attack and blinding were to keep them from noticing that Pegasus was no longer racing toward the stargate—she’d spun around to engage the Bakulu. His sudden evasion saved the ship.

  As the Maki had found, the Pegasus’ main gun was a devastatingly effective weapon, more than making up for comparably weaker secondary batteries, and it would have been powerful enough, even at less than one quarter power, to penetrate Yushispa’s forward shields and punch through the narrow cone-shaped ship from bow to stern if it had hit.

  Edwards’ best guess was better than most tactical officers’ planned firing solutions, and it had also, unknown to him, been ever so slightly tweaked to make it even more accurate. Despite all that, the shot missed. Mostly.

  The one second pulse of energy was aimed right down Yushispa’s nose. The ship rotated on her axis, causing the first three quarters of the beam to miss entirely. However, as she rotated, the last quarter tore into the aft shields of the spinning ship. The shields blew out almost instantly, and the beam cut into the ship’s hull like God’s own plasma torch.

  * * *

  Yushispa shuddered and screamed in agony, explosions rippling through her overloaded rear shield generators as the particle beam carved into the hull. The beam cut through a reaction mass tank and penetrated her main engineering space, stopping mere feet before it would have sliced into one of the two main fusion reactor cores.

  “We’re hit!” the DCC yelled. “Aft shields are out!”

  “Engine room decompressing,” engineering reported. “Main reactor damaged. Going into safe mode. We are operating on backup power only. “

  “Warn the escorts,” the captain ordered.

  “Radio is still out from the EMP,” the reply came.

  The escorts were blinded like the Yushispa, but didn’t have the same caliber of commander. With the command cruiser no longer presenting a predictable target, Edwards picked another for his next shot.

  The other cruiser was hit with a 20-terawatt particle beam, and it tore through her lengthwise. The ship was torn apart and exploded with the loss of nearly all hands. Edwards decided no more shots were warranted.

  * * *

  “Return to course,” Alexis ordered and hung on as Chug spun Pegasus back toward the stargate and resumed the previous acceleration. He crunched the new course plot and reported in a few seconds.

  “No way we’ll make the transition window now,” the helmsman said.

  “Understood,” Alexis said; “just get us there as close to transition time as possible. Also, inform Engineer Long that we’re a go on the other plan.”

  “He’ll be thrilled,” Guylan quipped.

  “Damage assessment?” Alexis asked Glick.

  “Working,” the Bakulu responded. The alien had several Tri-V displays up showing frame by frame images. Some were taken with Pegasus’ visual tracking telescopes, others with radar, and a few were from the drones’ gun cameras, taken moments before their destruction. The latter were, naturally, the worst quality. A moment later he spoke again. “In addition to the frigate the drones chewed up, one cruiser was destroyed. The other cruiser was hit, and is adrift. Flipper, can you get me any more data?”

  “Not with the torch burning,” the Selroth sensor tech replied.

  “Then I can’t give you much more,” Glick said.

  “Safe to say we at least clipped the other cruiser in their engineering section,” Edwards said. Glick burbled his agreement.

  “Any collateral damage?” she asked. They’d tried to be careful when firing at the pursuing Bakulu ships, but Karma Station and dozens of other starships were downrange of their shots.

  “Deflection was more than enough,” Glick said, “all our shots were outside the danger zone.”

  Alexis nodded, relieved. “Well done, everyone,” she said to her command staff, “as always. Prepare for transition in…” she looked to Chug to finish.

  “Forty-nine minutes.” Paka took charge of the final preparations.

  Forty-five minutes later, she spoke to the helm again. “How close?” she asked.

  “About one minute,” Chug confided.

  “Damn it,” Alexis said, “that’s a long time.”

  “Best I could do,” he said. “If we had both reactors…”

  “No way,” Guylan interjected.

  “CIC, this is Engineer Long.”

  “Go ahead,” Alexis said.

  “We’re ready, but this is not advised.”

  “Noted,” the captain replied, then turned to her helmsman and navigator. “Chug, begin powering for hyperspace.”

  “Yes, Captain,” he said. Reactor Three began to power up to 100 percent, and energy was channeled through the network of hyperspace nodes. They drew 20 of the power plant’s 29 terawatts of power, and the rest of the ship’s systems drew another seven. Staying in hyperspace with one power plant was tricky and incredibly dangerous; there was no room for errors.

  “Calculations ready?” Alexis asked through her pinplants.

  “” the answer came immediately.

  “We’ve never done this at the kind of velocity we have right now.” Alexis said.

  “”

  You are right about that, she thought. “Alright everyone,” she said to her command staff; “tell the crew to stand by for transition!”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 29

  Rick had just locked his CASPer into an armorer frame and popped the hatch when the PA chimed and the computer’s voice spoke.


  “All hands, prepare for transition.”

  He’d ridden out the ship’s spinning and firing in his suit, using its powered hands and magnetic soles to lock himself to the deck of a gangway just above marine country. He’d spent several tense minutes wondering if they were about to be punched through by return fire or annihilated by a nuclear ship-killer. When no response came, he breathed again. He’d fought on a ship twice, but this was the first time he’d been on a ship in battle. The not-knowing was worse.

  “Acceleration ends,” the computer announced and Pegasus’ powerful fusion torch cut. Rick sighed and enjoyed breathing for a few seconds. The earlier respite before they’d opened fire had been too brief. Plus, the ship had been spinning on her axis, and since he was in the lower decks, that maneuver had pulled several Gs. The final cessation of thrust was a welcome relief.

  In blessed zero gravity, Rick flipped up and double checked his suit was properly locked before kicking off toward the lower deck where his squad would be. He found them all engaged in an animated discussion about the attack. Lynn was just finishing telling the others about how Rick had simply floated, shooting at the charging Zuul, without bothering to take cover. They all looked at Rick as he came in. Well, except for Oort who merely moved a couple eyes over to observe his arrival. She was holding a slate and reading with several others.

  “Some kind of a Human badass?” Zit asked. Rick floated over and dropped into an open chair, quickly strapping in. “You trying to prove something?”

  “No,” Rick said, “I just wasn’t scared.”

  “That Zuul could have burned your tiny brain out,” Johansson said.

  “Took guts,” Jeejee said. The little Flatar was buckled into his harness on Oort’s back. Rick figured since the Tortantula was locked to the deck with her seven remaining primary legs, it was as safe as any other place in the compartment. He made a mental note to ask the arachnid about the missing leg, but to do it from a distance. The truth was, the huge alien still concerned him.