Void Dragon

by William Kephart

  Wen thought about it, really thought about it. They could rest for a day and slip right back in at another LZ they weren’t watching. But no, time was of the essence and she couldn’t allow the Enemy to stop her now.

  “Negative. We’ll head south and lose them in the equatorial region,” Wen ordered.

  “Captain, I think you’re forgetting—”

  “I think you’re forgetting whose ship this is, Mr. Nima. Make. It. So.”

  They made their way due south, for the sun-baked equator and the dust storms. Ground-based interceptors wouldn’t be much use there for long.

  “Three interceptors approaching from the northwest,” Xinren said. “Hypersonic speeds.”

  “Faster, Mr. Nima.”

  “Captain, I can’t. We’ll tear the ship apart if we go much faster!”

  “Then give me everything you can. Check with Tian if you’re unsure what the ship can sustain.” Wen’s object tracker showed the interceptor formation was banking in for an attack run.

  The crew was deafened by a series of sharp strikes that tap danced down their starboard side and Wen could see the Enemy fighters were pulling off for another go.

  In space with their shields up the Void Dragon would have laughed this off. Their shields, even the weakest, thinnest layer amidships could easily turn aside pea shooters such as those. Here they might actually be a threat. Even so, the ship was solidly constructed of durable, space-grade neosteel. It would probably be a while before the Enemy could chew through it on their own.

  Where were those dust storms? “Nima, how much further to the equator?”

  “We should be coming up on it about now. It seems to be an unfortunately clear day.”

  Just great. “Xinren, give me a scan, 300 kilometer radius. Find me a dust storm to hide—”

  RAT-A-TAT-TAT.

  “—in.” Damn, that was loud. “Xinren? Commander Xinren? Did you hear me?”

  His reply was drowned out by another RAT-A-TAT-TAT.

  “I said I’m trying, Captain, but they’ve shot out a few of our photon discharge ports. It won’t be complete.”

  “Give me what you can.”

  “Okay, Captain, I’ve got one about—”

  There was another RAT-A-TAT-TAT followed by an awful, unhealthy shearing sound.

  “I SAID ONE HUNDRED KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST!” The RAT-A-TAT-TAT was constant now.

  “DOES IT SEEM LIKE THEIR ATTACKS ARE GETTING CLOSER TOGETHER?” Wen shouted over the din.

  “AT THIS RATE WE WON’T MAKE IT!” Nima added.

  “I AGREE. XINREN, BUGOUT BURST.”

  “WHAT?”

  “BUGOUT BURST. TRY TO SHAKE THEM WITH LIGHT-NOISE!”

  “I’LL TRY.”

  The Void Dragon pumped out enough light to blind half the hemisphere, random spectrum, random frequency. Wen’s object tracker went completely blank for a few seconds.

  “WELL?”

  “IT’S NO GOOD, CAPTAIN! THEY’VE CHEWED UP OUR STARBOARD ENERGY SINK AND THEY’RE IN VISUAL RANGE, NO NEED TO DETECT US WITH INSTRUMENTS!”

  Looks like I’ll have to deal with this myself.

  “NIMA, ORDER THE CARGO COMPARTMENT TO UNPACK AN INTERCEPTOR. YOU HAVE THE CONN! GET THE SHIP TO THE LZ SAFELY!”

  Wen dashed off the command deck and as soon as she was alone in the passageways commenced to shaking out her limbs. Have to get lose, like I used to. It had been years since her piloting days but she would remember her old instincts, she’d have to.

  The marines were working at unpacking even as she arrived. “Tell me you have an interceptor ready to fly.”

  “Just about, Captain,” Zhamisce replied. “You’ll have to extend the wings in flight, though. You’re really planning to fly it yourself?”

  “No choice.”

  “Captain, I have troopers with pilot ratings. We can handle this,” he said delicately, or at delicately as could be managed over the noise.

  “Just shut up and open the hatch,” she commanded.

  She slid in, her hands groping for the familiar...wait, this doesn’t look familiar at all!

  “What the hell? This isn’t an I-6!” she called out.

  “It’s an I-7, they’re new,” a trooper replied.

  Figures. Everything’s new this days. “Give me the startup checklist.”

  “Checklist? Captain—”

  She snatched the datapad out of his hand. “I’ll thank you not to question my judgment. I get enough of that from Nima.” She sealed the cockpit and brought up ‘I-7 Startup Checklist’ on Zhamisce’s datapad.

  Okay, let’s see here. It can’t be that different. Secondary power, primary power, fuel lines, check check check. It’s not that different at all, more intuitive control placement as well, unless I’m misremembering. Okay, okay, let the plasma turbines spool up and we’ll be in business.

  She brought up the external speakers. “Clear the cargo compartment and open the port,” Wen ordered.

  The marines scurried away as the plasma turbines rattled the whole deck. “Okay time to go.”

  She waited for the exit port to open. And waited.

  And waited.

  All the while she heard the muffled sounds of the Enemy interceptors chipping away at her ship’s armor. “What’s keeping them?”

  She glanced down at the datapad and noticed she had a message.

  The door is damaged. We can’t open it. -Major Zhamisce

  “Oh that’s just great. Let’s see, what to do, what to do?” Her fingers danced over the controls, remembering and reeducating themselves as she bounced in her seat. She had to do something, and fast.

  Come on, come on, come to me, come to me…

  And then she had it.

  Wen extended the forward-facing shield prong and used it to vent some raw plasma. It was like using a pair of tweezers while wearing a boxing glove, but eventually she was able to cut the door open.

  Free!

  The turbines roared and Wen’s interceptor cleared the Void Dragon just fast enough for her to catch sight of the Enemy formation pulling off in her peripheral vision, their latest attack run complete.

  That was lucky, she thought. If I escaped a second sooner I’d have plowed right into their fire pattern. Mm. Maybe they’re out of ammo?

  But no, they were coming back for another run. Wen extended her wings and pulled up, trying to make them follow.

  Altitude, altitude and speed were life for an interceptor pilot. Wen learned that in the Academy. She gained both rapidly and checked her six. No bites, oh well, it was worth a try. She should have known better than to think they’d give up a big fish for one little interceptor.

  It was probably for the best. She noticed that every time she reached a certain speed threshold she experienced a shock of turbulence. That’s not normal, Wen thought. Had she done something wrong?

  She repeated the pattern a couple of times, completely at a loss for what to do, before resigning to turn around and confront the Enemy, turbulence or no. Just as she was about to start her dive she snapped her fingers and hunted around for a moment until she found the lever that extended her other wings.

  Hypersonic boom breakers. They made her interceptor look a bit like a triplane in an ancient aviation museum, but they would break up the pressure every time the craft reached high Machs and allow her to go fast. They also contained prongs to extend and bend massive light into a diamond shaped shield, but Wen didn’t want the extra weight. She wanted the speed.

  Down, down, she swooped like a raptor. Let them ignore me. I’ll show them.

  The I-7 interceptor had four guns, using the same massive light powered vacuum acceleration rail technology as the guns on larger Navy vessels, but with an extra feature. The magazine fed the rounds into a chamber with two parallel charged kinetic energy plates that were continually rotated for rapid fire and recoil absorption. Wen would tear them apart from above.

  The Enemy formation was perfectly lined up for her, coming in stacked up astern f
or a slow pass on the wounded frigate. Big mistake.

  Wen slowed down a bit; she didn’t want anything to throw off her aim. She led her target and let it rip.

  Three bursts of rapid fire tore through the leader and clipped a wingman. It was a perfect volley. There wouldn’t be enough of the leader left to bury. Before she had a chance to finish off the other two the speed got away from her and she blew past them.

  That’s what you get for lack of situational awareness.

  Her instruments indicated the survivors were breaking off their attack. Whether they meant to run or chase her she didn’t know. She pulled up because she’d need altitude for another dive regardless.

  The second climb was much faster now that her boom breakers were properly deployed. She was about to dive again to continue the fun when she noticed she was being followed.

  Well, well, well, looks like you do care after all. They were on her tail but not close enough to hit her yet. She tried to randomize her flight path just a bit, though, no reason to give them an easy shot.

  That’s what I get for lack of situational awareness. There was a reason the attack dive was a group tactic. No single interceptor would be have time to take out an entire Enemy flight in one pass. Now she was in a hell of an unfavorable dog-fighting situation, but at least the pressure was off the Void Dragon and they could slip away. That wouldn’t save her, but Wen had been in tight spots like this before.

  Her sensors gave half a moment’s warning and she veered hard to the left, dove a bit, and corkscrewed back to the right in an evasion pattern. They’re closer than I thought. This is bad.

  Wen knew she couldn’t shake them forever, but they’d been pounding the Void Dragon for a while and had to be low on ammunition. Her luck had held so far. It would have to hold a while longer.

  Since altitude was no help now she decided to descend and see if she couldn’t lose them amid the mountaintops. She took a steep dive and pulled up only just in time skim the surface of Harbin’s equatorial desert badlands. Her instruments went a little crazy as they adjusted to the mammoth cloud of dust kicked up by her plasma turbines and the muted shockwaves echoing off the mountains. Once her piloting software caught up to the situation and returned to relaying accurate data Wen noticed something.

  Only one of them is following me closely. The friend is limping behind, must have nearly finished him on my first attack run.

  This was good. Avoiding one interceptor was infinitely easier than two. At hypersonic speeds she made the mountain range beyond the northern tropic in record time.

  Okay then. Let’s see if you like this!

  Wen sent a pulse of massive light in all directions and mapped herself out a fine obstacle course. It would be tight in places and she’d have to reduce speed but hopefully her pursuers wouldn’t be ready for her plan.

  It was like the days of simulator training in the Academy. Wen couldn’t help herself; she was having fun.

  Her heart sang as she swooped through a valley. Her feet tapped merrily and she took a hard turn around a small mountain and led the Enemy interceptors in a race to the other side. Can’t catch me!

  She could tell her plan was working because the Enemy had ceased trying to shoot her down, their attention completely taken up by simply hanging with her. Their wounded bird had given up entirely, going into a climb to monitor the pursuit from on high. It wasn’t working, though. They were slowly falling behind and Wen sensed her chance had come.

  After drawing the bogey on her tail into a figure eight through some jagged rocks she pulled up hard. Unpredictability was her specialty. Most pilots overly relied on their predictive copilot software and didn’t improvise well, especially at very high speeds. Wen never had that problem.

  It was a simple matter to line up the wounded bird in her crosshairs as she climbed. They didn’t have much chance to take evasive action and Wen let off a burst of fire from her forward-facing rail guns. One of the slugs must have clipped a plasma turbine because she caught a hint of purple steam in her peripheral vision.

  The free plasma they used in their turbines could melt just about anything if it leaked and the Enemy’s fuselage was scrap a fraction of a second later. Two down. One to go.

  Wen was halfway through a celebratory barrel-roll when she lost control of her craft.

  Damn. That one must’ve been more on the ball than I thought. I never lost him for a second, and I bet he wants revenge for his wingmen.

  She felt a shock of turbulence once she had (mostly) managed to regain control. It returned any time she tried to accelerate and Wen knew immediately what was wrong. Her boom breakers were damaged. Without her hypersonic boom breakers she’d slow down and become an easy target.

  Wen needed speed; speed was life. Thankfully, her pursuer was pretty obviously conserving ammunition, or else she’d probably already be dead. He won’t take anything less than a perfect shot. Well, I have no intention of giving him one!

  She flailed wildly, pitching and rolling this way and that, but the Enemy interceptor stayed with her, patiently waiting to deliver the kill shot once she slipped up.

  Wen realized her mangled boom breakers were more trouble than they were worth just then, and at these speeds were actually creating significant drag. It was the work of a moment to cut them loose for a small burst of speed. The action ended up tempting the Enemy’s itchy trigger finger and he wasted a burst of fire on the jetsam.

  For a moment Wen dared to hope that was the last of his ammunition and he’d turn back, but no such luck. It was becoming quite clear to her that the opportunity window for escape was closing. He wasn’t going to give up and she was fresh out of tricks. Or perhaps not.

  If it’s worth trying once it’s worth trying twice, she thought. Wen hadn’t meant to bait him the first time but he didn’t need to know that. Her craft had two plasma turbines and could limp away on one if absolutely necessary. She secured the fuel line to her second engine, no point in taking a chance on a leak, after all. The image of the kind of damage that could do was pretty fresh in her mind.

  Just need to draw him a little closer. Wen slowed down, but only enough to allow some more creative maneuvers, nothing suspicious about that.

  The interceptor started gaining on her, but it wasn’t quite enough.

  Come on. I’m right here. You want your perfect shot? It’s here, just come a little closer.

  Wen leveled off and reduced her speed more than reason and sanity might dictate. Closer.

  Her instincts served her well. She dropped her engine a split-second before the Enemy craft opened fire. He was close, too close, and plowed right into the cloud of burning plasma that erupted from hitting Wen’s spare turbine. That wasn’t the end of her problems, though.

  Shit! Shit! Shit! I was too close. Wen felt heat on the back of her neck as her I-7’s automated damage control system struggled to contain a plasma fire that was spreading just behind her. She knew it was bad when she started to lose altitude. That could only mean the fire was spreading to her other engine and a fuel detonation could take place at any moment.

  She struggled with the controls to jettison it (and the magazine she quickly remembered, a fire to either was instant death). The onboard safety software didn’t seem to comprehend the danger and made her confirm she was sure twice before executing the command and cutting loose her craft’s most explosive components.

  It was only just in time as she felt an eruption of heat and violence right behind her.

  She didn’t have much time to be thankful. The last thing Wen noticed was how low her altitude was before the remains of her interceptor skipped across the ground like a stone.

  Chapter 10

  Major Weilan Zhamisce was having one hell of a long day. It all started after a particularly dangerous space battle which he neither saw nor heard. He and his unit had no choice but to hold on and hope for the best. That was simply part of a marine’s life aboard a warship, and entirely expected. The real trouble started after t
hey returned to port, when a particularly haughty and arrogant (but weren’t they all?) Ren officer had ordered his unit to disarm.

  Still, he wasn’t one to complain. That, too, was par for the course. His like wasn’t highly regarded and his troopers even less. Mei were there to shut up and do what they were told.

  Then they received word that they would be sent out again, without so much as a day of R&R. But that wasn’t all; they were being sent out to find Task Force Xuanwu, the celebrated expeditionary force. The whole Marine Corps wished for a deep space deployment with them. Their mission: highly classified and behind Enemy lines. Nobody knew what Xuanwu got up to exactly, but glory and prestige were theirs. They were widely perceived as an elite unit who only took the best of the best, and that was something every good marine wanted to be a part of.

  What a surprise that they had been on Harbin of all places the whole time. Harbin, one of the first Mei colonies, a miserable dusty rock remote from everything that mattered, was the site of the second worst defeat of the war.

  Xuanwu had been there for years, dug in, reinforced and resupplied with experimental technology that all but teleported cargo into their base, a hollowed out Mountain Stronghold. They were there to bleed the Enemy dry, bleed them until they decided Gongyue Government planets weren’t worth occupying after all.

  And add to all that the business with Montjoie the xenoscholar, the man who was to interrogate Enemy prisoners and learn their language. Major Zhamisce didn’t know what to think about that. Did they expect to negotiate? To surrender? He feared the later if he was telling the truth.

  He knew very well that the civilians were tired of the war. They would accept just about any conditions to make it all go away. They might not have said it exactly, but that was the kind of thing you didn’t need to say out loud. Everybody knew. It was in the air, little as the authorities might like it.

  Zhamisce thought it was all quite naive. He’d seen them up close. There was no reasoning with those creatures without number. When they came swarming out of the swamps it was kill or be killed.

  That was why he liked his current posting. The Void Dragon was miracle technology. This was going to be his first real chance to land a little surprise party on an Enemy-occupied planet and do maximum damage. And they would. Oh, they would.