by Ryk Brown
“Lieutenant Delaveaga,” Cameron continued. “We’ll jump in, fire two full power rounds on the fours and fives from a range of ten kilometers. Then we’ll jump to above her bow and pass over her at five hundred meters, showing her our starboard side. We’ll pound her with all guns, including our broadside cannons, as we pass her length. If she tries to quick-shot her missiles at us as we pass, don’t wait for my order to snap-jump us out of harm’s way, Mister Sperry.”
“Understood,” Luis replied.
“I won’t let them touch us,” the navigator, Ensign Sperry, assured his captain.
“On intercept course,” Ensign Hunt declared.
“Jump plotted and ready,” Ensign Sperry added.
“Execute the jump,” Cameron ordered.
“Visors down, weapons loaded!” Sergeant Lazo barked from the front of the troop shuttle. “Check your safeties. Check the pack of the guy in front of you. We jump in two minutes! Boots on the ground in two thirty!”
Biorgi Saladan pulled an ammo magazine from one of the thigh pockets of his combat armor and inserted it into his weapon. After ensuring that his safety was on, he pulled back the lever to load the first round into the chamber.
“Remember,” the sergeant continued, “single shots, no auto-fire unless ordered. When you have the shot, take the shot. If you don’t have the shot, reposition and get the shot. A round that strikes an enemy has the potential to injure or kill. At the very least, it lets the enemy know that someone is trying to kill him…that a marine is trying to kill him. A round fired in haste that misses its target is a wasted round.”
Biorgi pulled his combat visor down, activating the tactical display. He still didn’t have the knack for absorbing the constant stream of data it provided without having to stare at the display. After weeks of training and one combat landing, he was starting to wonder if he would ever get the hang of it, despite the fact that his instructors assured him the skill would come in time.
Biorgi turned to the man sitting to his left, checking that his pack was secure, tugging at the straps and checking the gear, as he felt the guy behind him doing the same to his pack.
“Remember your training,” Sergeant Lazo reminded them from the front of the troop shuttle, “and remember, you don’t fight for anyone other than the men who fight with you. Kill your enemy, and protect your friends. Live or die, you are all heroes of the Alliance, and protectors of your worlds. Mah-REENS!” the Ghatazhak sergeant barked proudly.
“DO OR DIE! DO OR DIE!” the men replied proudly in unison.
Sergeant Lazo smiled as his comm-set crackled. “One minute to jump.”
“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported as the jump flash faded from the Aurora’s bridge.
“Got her in my sights,” Jessica reported. “Firing all forward tubes!”
Nathan waited a split second for all eight plasma torpedoes to clear their bow on their way to their target. “Roll us onto our port side and hold this attitude.”
“The guns on arms three and five are swinging in toward us!” Mister Navashee warned.
“Jess!” Nathan called while the image of the battle platform that filled their main view screen rotated from left to right as the Aurora rolled onto her port side. “Hit them with our starboard broadside cannons!”
“Already on it!” she replied. “Rail and plasma quads as well!”
“They’ve got us!” Mister Navashee warned.
The swarms of pale blue dots did not announce the arrival of enemy rail gun slugs as before. This time, the flashes were at least ten times as large, and their color was a brilliant blue, tinged with angry, fiery yellow-orange halos that cast eerie flashes of light across the interior of the bridge as the Jung rail gun slugs slammed into their shields.
“Firing broadside cannons!” Jessica announced as the bridge shook from the impacts against their shields. “Firing quads!”
“All starboard shields are down to fifty percent!” Mister Navashee reported as the bridge continued to shake in the eerie, strobe-like illumination. “Forty percent!”
“I’ve lost the angle!” Jessica declared as the Aurora passed under the massive battle platform. “We’re hitting shields again!”
“Escape jump!” Nathan ordered, the blue-white jump field spilling out over the Aurora’s hull on the view screen just as the words left his mouth.
The Celestia’s bridge flashed red-orange repeatedly as her plasma torpedoes left their tubes.
“Target two is launching missiles!” Ensign Kono reported. “Time to impact: thirty seconds.”
Another round of plasma torpedoes lit up the bridge again.
“Time to first wave?” Cameron asked, despite the fact that she had memorized the jump schedules of every phase of the mission.
“One minute,” Luis replied from the tactical station.
“Mister Hunt, change course for Adlair. Jump as soon as ready.”
“Missiles will impact in fifteen seconds…”
“Turning for Adlair.”
“You don’t want to use the broadside cannons on the second cruiser, sir?” Luis wondered.
“It was a wasted effort on the last one,” Cameron replied. “She was already coming apart. But I would appreciate it if you kept those missiles off us until we finish our turn and jump.”
“Already on it, sir,” Luis replied.
Cameron glanced at the main view screen as the mark two point-defense plasma turrets around the perimeter of the ship continued firing on the incoming missiles as the ship turned away from its attack run.
“Direct impacts,” Ensign Kono reported. “Target two is destroyed.”
“On course for Adlair,” Ensign Hunt reported.
“Jump us to Adlair and get us into our orbital track for attack on the troop base,” Cameron ordered, glancing at the mission clock. “The Falcons are jumping in ten seconds, and the troops in less than a minute.”
“Jumping to Adlair in, three……two……one…”
“Jump complete,” Loki reported from the copilot seat on the right side of the Super Falcon’s cockpit. “Five good flashes. Locking weapons on assigned targets. Hold your course and speed.”
“No problem,” Josh replied as the Super Falcon buffeted lightly in the thin atmosphere of Adlair.
“Picking up twelve bandits, rising from the target area,” Loki reported. “Falcon Flight, One. Bandits in the air. Count twelve. Two, take control of my busters. I’ll take everyone’s chasers and deal with the bandits. The rest of you stay on your primary targets.”
“Two copies. Taking your busters.”
Loki opened his ship’s weapons bay doors as the rest of the Super Falcons confirmed his instructions. He watched his tactical display, as his weapons targeting system took control of all chaser missiles in the weapons bays of the other five Super Falcons in his flight, as well as his own. He quickly traced a circle with his index finger on the screen, selecting all twelve bandits headed their way. Then he pressed the auto-assign button to allow his weapons logic systems to automatically assign targets to the chaser missiles in the belly of each of the Super Falcons in their formation. Icons on his weapons display representing two of his four buster missiles turned red as Falcon Two initiated their launch. Loki initiated his own launch a few seconds later, sending four missiles from each Super Falcon, a total of twenty-four chaser missiles, streaking toward their distant targets at more than six times the speed of sound on Adlair. Another six icons appeared from the target area, indicating more bandits had gotten off the ground. Seconds later, the buster missiles hit their target, no doubt destroying the Jung airbase still more than two hundred kilometers away at their current speed. He did not assign more chasers, however. He simply selected the additional targets and instructed the weapons system to vector any leftover chaser missiles that missed their targets to reassign to the new targets. His plan worked. All twelve icons from the first group disappeared as they were picked out of the sky by fourteen of the chaser missiles lau
nched in the first wave. The remaining ten missiles continued on, finding and destroying the additional six Jung fighters that had managed to get off the ground before the buster missiles had destroyed the airbase.
“Threat board from target alpha is clear,” Loki announced. “Falcons Three through Six, vector to target bravo. Two, follow us in to verify the destruction of alpha.”
“On your six, four right, One,” Falcon Two reported.
“Like shooting fish in a bucket,” Loki bragged, feeling pleased with his performance.
“A barrel,” Josh corrected. “The expression is ‘like shooting fish in a barrel’.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Josh insisted as he pitched their nose up slightly and reduced power to both climb and slow their ship down to subsonic speeds. “You know, I’m kinda liking this thinner atmosphere. Not as much control authority, but we don’t get our teeth rattled as much when we jump in low.”
“Are you sure it’s a barrel?” Loki challenged. “I mean, that doesn’t even make sense. Barrels have a lid on them. They’re sealed up, right? How do you shoot the fish if there’s no opening?”
“Hey, I didn’t make the saying up,” Josh defended, “and I sure as hell never said it made sense.”
“Jump complete,” Ensign Latfee reported as the jump flash windows on the combat jump shuttle turned clear again. “Fifty meters up, four clicks out, two-fifty closure. Thirty seconds to insertion point.”
“Nothing on my threat board,” Sergeant Torwell reported from his gunner’s bubble atop the combat jump shuttle.
“Just the way I like it,” the lieutenant said.
The sky outside was a brilliant topaz, as the two hundred and thirty hour day was about to begin on Adlair. Light reflecting off the gas giant Hartog provided the primary illumination for the first eleven and a half hours of the Adlairan day, after which the world would be bathed in direct sunlight from their parent star, Eta Cassiopeiae, for an equal amount of time.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the sergeant declared in awe as he gazed outside.
“What did you guys do to Torwell?” the lieutenant asked. “Did one of you spike his water bladder?”
Commander Telles smiled as he gazed out the window. The young, talkative sergeant was correct. It was a breathtaking sight to behold. The commander had studied the data on this world in great detail, and he knew that for the next two hundred and thirty hours, this world would cycle between this dreamlike, topaz night sky, and its usual pale blue daytime sky, every eleven hours. It would then return to perpetual darkness for another two hundred and thirty hours, as the moon made its way quickly around the backside of its parent planet, Hartog, plunging the world into frigid temperatures. Were it not for the large moon’s constant internal volcanic activity, kept in constant motion by the pull of Hartog’s massive gravity well, the moon would be a ball of frozen rock and ice, instead of the rich, lush world that the terraforming engineers of a thousand years ago had created.
It was no surprise, however, that the people of Adlair preferred to live in small villages contained within protective domes built into the sides of the planet’s many rolling hills. While it might be warm and lush during the sunny part of their trip around Hartog, it was less than ideal during the other half of their journey.
“Weapons hot,” Master Sergeant Jahal ordered. “If it’s armed and it isn’t wearing black, kill it.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Ensign Kainan announced.
“I’ve got a lock on the target,” Lieutenant Delaveaga reported from the Celestia’s tactical station. “Ready to fire.”
“Troops are in the airspace, ten seconds from deployment,” Ensign Kono announced.
“We’re late,” Cameron realized unhappily. “Comms, tell the Ghatazhak to hold position on the ground and take cover while we blast the target.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant, as soon as those CJs move off to safe range, you’re cleared to fire.”
“Yes, sir,” Luis replied. “Estimate thirty seconds.”
“Confirmation from Commander Telles, sir,” Ensign Souza reported. “They are taking cover in place.”
“Any sign of the Aurora?” Cameron wondered. “She should have handled those frigates by now.”
“No, sir,” Ensign Kono replied. “And I’m picking up two FTL signatures that I believe are the frigates.”
“Are you sure?”
“That they are FTL signatures, yes,” the ensign assured her. “But there’s no way for me to tell what kind of ships they actually are. I’m just guessing that they’re the frigates, since they’re too small to be cruisers.”
“All combat jumpers are clear of the target area,” Luis reported. “Opening fire on the troop base on the surface with our ventral quad rail guns.”
“Very well,” Cameron replied. Still concerned, she turned toward the comm station at the aft side of the bridge. “Mister Souza, dispatch a jump comm-drone to the area of the battle platform and auto-hail the Aurora.”
“Aye, sir,” Ensign Souza acknowledged.
Luis looked at his captain. “You think they ran into trouble?” he asked. “Like, battle platform kind of trouble?”
“Doubtful,” Cameron admitted. “Just playing it safe, that’s all.”
“Two contacts!” Mister Navashee reported urgently from the Aurora’s sensor station. “Frigates! Just came out of FTL! They’re locking missiles on us, sir.”
“Continue firing on that battle platform until we jump!” Nathan ordered his tactical officer. “Be ready on the escape jump, Mister Riley. Execute when our port shields reach forty percent, or any missiles get within a kilometer of us.”
“I’ve got my finger on the button, Captain,” Mister Riley assured him.
“Maintain a clear jump line at all times,” Nathan reminded his helmsman. “Jess, try to angle some of your quad shots under their neighboring shields as we pass. Try to take out some of their shield emitters so we can get a clean shot at one of the other arms.”
“You got it!”
“Inbound missiles,” Mister Navashee reported as the bridge shook from rail gun impacts against their weakening shields. “Eighteen of them. First ten are twenty seconds out!”
“Point-defenses are engaging the incoming missiles,” Jessica assured him.
“Jump flash!” Mister Navashee added. “Comm-drone.”
“Incoming message,” Naralena reported. “From the Celestia. They’re asking for our status.”
“Message: Engaged with battle platform and frigates. Require immediate assistance. End message.”
“Sending.”
“Arm four is coming apart!” Mister Navashee declared in excitement.
Nathan turned back toward the main view screen, switching camera views just as the bulk of the heavily damaged number four arm of the Jung battle platform broke off from the platform’s central structure and began separating into several pieces, rocked by internal explosions deep within the arm itself.
“Yes!” Nathan declared triumphantly. “That was one of her maneuvering arms, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Mister Navashee replied. “She’s going to be slow to rotate and keep her good shields toward us as we pass.”
“Then at least we’ve got a fighting chance,” he declared. “Mister Chiles, turn us toward the nearest frigate. We can’t fight a battle platform with a couple of frigates pestering us, now can we?”
“Telles, Celestia Actual,” Captain Taylor’s voice called over the commander’s helmet comms as the bombardment suddenly stopped.
“Celestia Actual, Telles. Go ahead,” he replied as he rose to his feet and stared at the settling dust a few hundred meters away.
“We need to disengage the target. The Aurora is heavily engaged with the battle platform and two frigates, and they need our help. Can you handle the situation on the surface as is?”
Commander Telles glanced at his tactical display on the inside of his helmet
visor, noticing very few red icons, most of which were moving around slowly and in haphazard fashion. He then checked the weapons status displays for the four Super Falcons circling high above them. Each of them still had two busters, and four chaser missiles. “I believe so,” the commander replied. “Deploy the CNS-sats, then go and help the Aurora. I believe they need you far more than we do. Return when you can.”
“CNS-sats are already on their way out,” Cameron assured him. “The net will be up in two minutes. Celestia Actual, out.”
“On our own, again?” Master Sergeant Jahal wondered, a broad grin on his face.
“It is less complicated this way,” Commander Telles replied.
“Holy shit, Lucius! Was that a joke? From Captain Serious?”
“That’s Commander Serious,” Telles replied without missing a beat. “Advance on the target, and confirm with the Super Falcons that we own the skies. Then clear the marines in close behind us, just in case.”
“Yes, sir,” the master sergeant replied, still grinning.
“I’ve got four more bandits to the northeast,” Loki reported with surprise.
“Where the fuck did they come from?” Josh wondered. “There was nothing left of that base when we flew over, that’s for damn sure.”
“They must have been parked elsewhere,” Loki replied. “Maybe they keep some tucked away, or something. Two, One. We’re turning northeast to intercept. Targets are low and slow, only four-twenty closure. Range in twenty seconds. You take the two on the right, we’ll take the two on the left. Pop two, jump up and then jump back down vertical on them to finish with guns in case they manage to evade.”
“Two copies. Selecting two on right. Will pop two, then jump up and take them in a vertical dive with guns as needed.”
Loki quickly selected the two targets on the left and assigned one chaser to each target, leaving two more in his weapons bay. “Falcon One, popping two,” he announced over the comms as he fired the two chaser missiles.