by P. C. Haring
November 9, 2832
13:40
Surahan Sector
COLONEL LABONNE TURNED hard to starboard, narrowly avoiding the debris field she created out of the Verasai fighter in front of her. Her proximity alarm went off, alerting her to another squadron entering the arena. Although still out of range, these ships were moving to intercept her wing. They turned to meet the attack, but as Valeer shot across her field of vision, pursued by a pair of fighters, she continued forward to save him. Valeer darted and weaved, making it that much more difficult for Labonne to keep her targets in line. Her targeting computer locked on and she unloaded into the starboard pursuer, slagging it.
She rolled as she passed the debris field, intent on taking down the second. Valeer cut hard to starboard, but his attacker cut to port. She hesitated for only a moment, before cutting to port herself and pressing her pursuit. As she came around, her display alerted her to the problem. The Verasai had turned to cross the battlefield toward the safe corridor out of the engagement zone. He was running to call for reinforcements.
“Gryphon strike lead to, Mjöllnir! We’ve got a runner! I’m pursuing.”
She laid into the throttle and sank into the seat as the ship pressed into her, but Valeer’s ship caught up to her and re-formed on her wing.
“Looks like you need a wingman, Colonel, and we’re even in our wager. What do you say? Winner take all?”
Still up to his games. Damn, she liked his style.
“Done.”
Labonne throttled forward to full speed as she tried to lose her new wingman, but Valeer held his position. Ahead of her, the enemy fighter was little more than a speck of light from its engines as it flew through debris, attempting to lose its two pursuers. But the Verasai had drawn the unfortunate luck of being pursued by two very qualified and very competitive air wing commanders, each intent on one thing: destroying the enemy before the other could. The Verasai cut hard to port, diving relative to its previous course, now heading straight for a thicker debris field. Labonne and Valeer followed, each trimming their turn to cut distance as they canceled their thrust vectors.
The Verasai made its move, charging through the field. Labonne fired off her boosters, leaving Valeer behind. As the Verasai cleared the field, he executed a one-eighty, turning back to face her, but still traveling along the same vectors. Another light lit off his port wing. Her target spun back and fired his engines. The missile shot towards her despite her equipment not registering a target lock. She saw it a fraction of a second before it happened. The missile entered the debris field and struck against one of the larger hulks. Judging by the result of the explosion, he had hit an intact power core of some sort. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valeer peel off to evade the explosion. Instead of following, she charged forward, pressing the attack.
Her fighter blasted through the fireball, debris pelting her ship and canopy. She rolled to avoid a larger piece of debris and when her fighter emerged from the fireball, she let out a maniacal laugh as she returned her ship to attack configuration.
“You’re insane, Colonel!!”
Labonne laughed again as she lined the target up.
“Perhaps, Colonel! But that’s why you’ll be paying my bar tab tonight!”
“I don’t care which one of you kills it,” General Rashar yelled into the channel. “Just kill it!”
“I’m not done yet, General! Your pilot is good, but I’m better!”
Her sensor panel indicated Valeer was closing the distance, likely on some sort of afterburner system. Under normal circumstances, she would have throttled up to keep the distance, but the added stress might rip her ship apart. She sighted her target, locking her last missile onto it, but before she could fire, the Verasai fighter had entered the interference zone. Inside there, she would not be able to get a lock due to the pulsar’s emissions. Now, she would need to kill it with her guns.
The Verasai seemed to know this, as he started dodging, trying to evade her from a straight line of sight. She could not match his maneuvers, nor would she try, lest she lose precious ground on him. Instead, she would continue on her line and use his vector changes to her advantage.
“Colonel, we have a problem.”
“How so?”
“We’re running out of time and I don’t think either of us are going to catch him before he can escape the outer perimeter.”
She consulted her tactical display. The numbers were close, but she might make it.
“I’m going to have to concede this one to you, Colonel.”
From her right side, she saw Valeer’s ship fall back, hanging just off her aft starboard quadrant.
“Giving up on me? I’m too much competition for you?”
Across the line, Valeer chuckled. “Most fun I’ve had in years, Colonel, but I’m going to make sure we get him. Pitch your nose negative seventeen degrees and maintain your current vectors and relative speed.”
Labonne frowned. “I’ll lose sight of the target!”
“Just do it!”
She shrugged as she prepared to argue the point a little more, but her tactical display rang off in a new alarm, indicating that someone had locked weapons onto her. She consulted the readout. In the split second, she turned her attention to it, the display indicated that Valeer had fallen back, way back, and assumed a position directly behind her. It was he who had locked on.
“What the hell are you doing?’
“Pitch your nose now!”
The tactical computer indicated that he had fired a missile directly at her and would impact in less than ten seconds.
“Do it!”
She had no time to ask questions. She executed the instruction. No sooner had she reached the target position, than an explosion from behind rocked her ship. Tactical display indicated that Valeer had destroyed the warhead just short of striking her. It also indicated she had gained speed.
“Just giving you a little push! Good hunting!”
Labonne re-oriented herself and reacquired the target fighter. It had leveled out, apparently thinking it had eluded her. His mistake. She closed the distance, adding her own booster thrust to the mix of engine burn and shock-wave surfing. The target drew closer, and Labonne opened fire.
The first volley missed, but it forced the target to turn hard to starboard. This time, Labonne followed and fired again. Her weapons fire flew to the target’s port side as she hoped to cut him off from continuing towards the outer perimeter. But he cut hard to port anyway, taking a few glancing blows as he crossed the firing line. Labonne matched the maneuver. She hadn’t destroyed him, but he was venting and leaving a nice tail to follow. He also had apparently lost maneuvering.
He did not turn away. Her weapons found their target, ripping it to pieces. She let out a triumphant cry as her fighter blew through the outer perimeter, but the victory was short lived when her sensor array lit up like a Christmas tree.
Her head bounced between the display and her cockpit canopy. The rogue planet had lost mass and was shrinking so fast she could see it with her naked eye. No—shrinking was the wrong word. It was breaking apart. Damn, there was a lot of debris from that thing.
A fissure opened up. Even from this distance she could see it. Trapped gasses and debris spewed out, finally relieved of the pressure, but she did a double take when the stream of ejected matter turned towards her. Her sensors lit up again, but as individual forms took shape, she didn’t need to look to know.
“Oh, shit...”
Without further hesitation, she turned her fighter around, and pressed as hard as she could to stay ahead of the advancing Ralgon Swarm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
November 9, 2832
13:45
Surahan
THE ENGAGEMENT between the Verasai and the Remali stopped dead in its tracks as the two fighters broke through the inner perimeter and sent warnings of the impending attack. At the mere hint of the name, both sides retreated like squabbling children to time
-out. The Mjöllnir held her position in proximity to Surahan, standing guard in the station’s defense. As the Remali maneuvered their ships to form a defensive line against the Ralgon, the Verasai fleet reformed to facilitate a retreat.
But the Ralgon, hot and heavy on the heels of the fleeing fighter craft, had other plans and swarmed into the sanctuary, cutting off all avenues of escape. The Remali welcomed them with weapons blazing. The first attackers fell fast, helpless against the onslaught of firepower from the entrenched positions, but the main thrust of the Ralgon forces followed close behind and the front line of frigates and light cruisers found themselves immediately overwhelmed. With their broadsides turned, they had the best weapons coverage they could get, but very little maneuvering room. Even the wall of death created by exploding ordinance and artillery fire could not repel the swarm for long, and the first line collapsed under the weight of the Ralgon onslaught.
Both Amado and Rashar had anticipated this and, planning accordingly, had held the heavier warships back far enough from the line that they would not be immediately engaged, but still close enough that they could support and the combined fighter squadron could advance. However, they had not anticipated the Verasai.
Much to everyone’s surprise, including Regent Melor herself, the Verasai fleet halted their retreat attempt and instead re-deployed their forces into the Remali and Mjöllnir’s secondary defensive line. Together, the three flagships stood firm, bracing themselves for the assault, while a re-combined fighter squadron, now five thousand ships strong, charged out from behind the protective cover of their home ships and entered the fray against the Ralgon fighter and minion forms in a sortie so fast and furious, the flagships could not get accurate scans or communication signals from their pilots. With the minions and fighters wrapped up, it fell to the Lorencha, Valor, and Mjöllnir to lead the larger vessels against the larger Ralgon forms.
The two lines collided with each other, trading blow for blow as they closed the distance on a pair of Ralgon heavies forming the vanguard for what looked to be a much heavier battleship form. Despite being outnumbered three to two, the synthetic life forms dealt as good as they got. Electric current arced between the advancing Ralgon as they advanced in unison, stalling the Allied counter attack.
Remali medium cruisers took to engaging a series of Ralgon ships which had emerged from the battleship. These smaller vessels, more akin to Alliance drop-ships than anything else, had scattered. Some went for the Mjöllnir, others for the Valor, the Lorencha, and Surahan itself. They gave chase as best they could, but the sheer difference in mass allowed the Ralgon raiders to outmaneuver the Remali within seconds. A pair of raiders charged the Mjöllnir's position. One met its end in an otherwise unfortunate combination of a course miscalculation, and the ship’s defensive flak. The other evaded and broke through her defensive line, maneuvering just a few meters above the ship’s fuselage before exploding.
The ship’s demise caused no significant damage to the hardened hull of the Mjöllnir, but it left in its wake a rain of a new swarm of Ralgon which had been stored in the carrier’s hollow belly. These minions flew along their ballistic trajectory towards the Mjöllnir, landing on her hull like paratroopers landing behind enemy lines. Once down, they scuttled about the ship’s hull on multi-segmented legs until they found each other. Then with the same long, sharp claws which had so easily eviscerated Marcus Foster just a few days ago, they drove downward, driving into the hull, peeling layers back like one would peel an orange, and tore into the ship’s interior.
The Valor and Lorencha suffered similar attacks, but the semi-organic hull covering the Remali vessel presented a problem for the Ralgon as it repaired the tears before the Ralgon could create openings large enough. This forced them to coordinate their efforts, focusing a larger number of minions into a smaller area of the hull, buying time for security teams inside to get into place and for a pair of Remali fighters to disengage from the swarm and rush to defend their mother ship. They dropped in low, skimming the surface of the Valor, and strafed targets as they came to bear. While most blew apart in a harmless mist, a handful squeezed inside the ship before they could be picked off.
The fighters followed their flight line past the Valor and repeated the process for the Lorencha. But as they veered away from the second vessel to defend the Mjöllnir, they passed directly over a group of five which had gone unnoticed. Or rather, they would have passed over them, had those five not launched themselves off the Lorencha’s hull and into the fighter’s flight path, sacrificing themselves as the two Remali fighters blew apart so that those remaining could finish their job.
Without the bio-sheeting to protect it, the Mjöllnir’s hull tore open with ease. The decompression of the compartment within blew one unsuspecting creature off-balance and into space. The twelve others were far more successful. They slashed and tore their way through her flight control relays, causing a momentary loss of control, resulting in a failure to counter-thrust as the ship turned. Instead, she over-rotated her turn and the six main cannons that were supposed to fire upon one of the two Ralgon heavies lost their firing solution, leaving the Mjöllnir exposed on her port side. The Ralgon turned and fired, but exploded in a shower of armor, carapace, and flash frozen fluids as the Sacrifice of the Noble, sister ship to the Valor, entered the fray. The Noble led its own battle group which had diverted to investigate the breakup of the rogue planet. With fresh reinforcements delivering swift punishment to the Ralgon intruders, the engagement outside turned manageable, while the fight inside the Mjöllnir had only just begun.
The dozen Ralgon who had managed to get inside swarmed through the ship, tearing through the bulkheads like they were made of paper as they advanced into the ship’s inner compartments. With every failed seal, another decompressed compartment. Eventually the order came from OpCom to seal off the affected areas, but the Ralgon knew where the heavy blast doors were, and scuttled around them before they could close fully. Although they had failed to keep the Ralgon incursion out, they were now in pressurized compartments.
With a fury and discipline only his late commanding officer could have instilled, newly-promoted Colonel Ellian Charten led the defense teams against the monstrous intruders. Ordering all weapons to be loaded with incendiary ammunition, Charten and his men offered no quarter: to the Ralgon or the ship. The explosions rocked the evacuated decks as corridors collapsed: first from the Ralgon tearing through them, then from the marines’ weapons fire as it exploded around them. The decision had not been made lightly, but it had been decisive. The Ralgon had to be stopped, and fast. As the Mjöllnir's command authority watched the engagement from the relative safety of OpCom, it became quite clear that Charten would ensure the ship remained defended and secure.
Surahan also fell victim to the raiding Ralgon. Like the Mjöllnir, it lacked the bio-sheeting of the Remali vessels. But being Verasai in construction and in significant disrepair, the station proved an easy mark. The carriers evaded the random, scant attacks with ease and only one of the four took a hit—a glancing blow at that. The raiders found their entry points, seeking pre-existing weaknesses in the degrading hull and using them to their advantage. Once inside, they swarmed into the station, tearing its interior apart. The remaining civilians scattered, running frantically, cramming, pushing and shoving as they fought with their neighbor to squeeze into one of the three remaining freighters still docked at the station.
With the majority of its population already evacuated, Surahan now had room to breathe, room to panic, room to run. But so too did the Ralgon as they scuttled along the walls and ceilings. Remali security forces responded with whatever force they could muster, but their civilian training proved little match for the fast-moving Ralgon. Rashar had been smart enough to leave two detachments of her own personnel on the station to oversee the evacuation, but the twenty soldiers could not defend a station as large as Surahan from more than one hundred attacking Ralgon. They split into two as they rampaged: one moving
towards the stations control center, the other to the station’s bowel. Regardless, the creatures attacked without prejudice, ripping apart any Remali who strayed too close to their long, razor-sharp pincers.
The remaining freighter Captains, fearing for their cargo, blew the airlocks, leaving those still between the two doors, to die mercifully in the vacuum of space. The pity lay with the poor souls now stranded aboard the station as they died painfully as the Ralgon ripped their limbs from their bodies, splattering blood, and internal organs in all directions. The two groups attacked their targets simultaneously, but the control center fell first. The Ralgon swarmed in, destroying the only entrance in or out, cornering the unprepared officers and making for easy consumption.
The group moving into the station’s bowel had an easier, but no less important task. There would be no resistance in the bowel, but the station’s power systems were well-protected. The Ralgon thrust forward, ripping the infrastructure to pieces. Nothing else mattered but reaching the core. The raiders skipped the nicety of opening the armored housing via its control panel, but instead leaned in and ripped the housing open, leaving the core exposed. They charged in, committing suicide as the power core overloaded.
The overload set off a cascade as the bedraggled power grid collapsed under the strain of the power surge, setting off a series of secondary explosions within the station and sealing its fate. The freighters gathered as the Noble fell back to cover them. The Ralgon continued to press their attack against the Mjöllnir and Valor, both ships showing their fatigue in this battle as it raged. Seeing the cascade ripping through Surahan and realizing that their last and most secure sanctuary had fallen, Rashar ordered an immediate withdrawal of all ships.
Immediately, all surviving fighters disengaged and broke for their home ships. The Allied fighters opened the range on the remaining Ralgon fighters, withdrawing inside the battleship’s defense perimeter. With friendly fighters off the battlefield, the allied ships’ selective defensive fire mode blossomed into a full force of defensive flak. The sudden wall of explosion incinerated the remaining Ralgon fighters, giving Labonne, Valeer and the rest clear access to their landing decks.