by Shane Black
“Whatever our plans are, we need to make room for the war that just started up there,” Zony said as she scanned the ceiling for clues as to when the next shot might happen.
“They may have engaged the Dunkerque,” Yili pointed out. “DeMay’s orders were to commandeer this installation.”
“If that Sentinel opens up on his ship, they’ll be pulverized. Even with a full crew, the Dunkerque can’t take that kind of pounding. Even Argent would have her hands full,” Moo said. “We’ve got to sabotage it before whatever these people are shooting at is destroyed.”
“Agreed sir,” Zony replied. “There’s a couple of things you should know. We figured out their power system. If they’re using it to drive this installation, we can’t cut the power conventionally.”
“Signals is right,” Yili said. “They’re using a matter-energy transmission field. The only way to disrupt it is with a scattering technology. Even if we had the hardware, we don’t have the power.”
“Recommendations?”
“These guys are fanatics,” Zony replied. “Corporal Daysmith over there took himself out after we saw through his Skywatch story.”
“If we do this the old fashioned way, it’s going to be a slugging match to get to the controls and power down the gun. If we can’t cut the power, we have to throw the switch manually.”
“And there’s a big crowd guarding that switch I’ll wager,” Moo said. “All right. We’ll see how close we can get before all hell breaks loose.” The colonel relieved Daysmith’s body of all the electronics and anything else that looked useful. “First guy we find I’ll need to borrow his weapon. Signals, you give us direction and bearing. Engineer, you’ve got the point. Anything suspicious gets two in the chest and one between the headlamps.” Moo snapped the corporal’s equipment to his belt. “Let’s move.”
Eighty
“Get me the Fury on a priority frequency,” Jason Hunter snapped. He was frowning and intent, scanning his engineer’s message for any other information he might have missed.
“Fury, Ensign Callomy.”
“Ensign, this is the Flag. Patch me through to Commander Doverly.”
“Sir–I–um–yes sir!” It was likely the first time Callomy had been given an order directly from a flag officer.
“Fury, Doverly.”
“What’s your status, XO?”
“We’re all powered up. Commander Hunter’s crew is working like a Swiss clock factory. How’s the fort?”
“Well, it’s under the command of a man who should really work on his reading comprehension. My Chief Engineer and Signals Officer apparently found a new toy and used it to zap themselves off the ship and on to Barker’s Asteroid.”
A pause. “At this range?”
“Unless they’re playing a prank on me.”
All of Argent’s tactical readouts went haywire at once. The bridge crew’s alertness intensified. A proximity alarm sounded.
“Report!”
“I have confirmed heavy weapons fire bearing three-eight mark sixty true!”
The combat frequency alert tone sounded. One of the handsets above the conn buzzed.
“Sir I have a message from–” Hunter held up a hand, trying to hear his engineer’s warning from below decks.
“Affirmative, Madison. You are authorized to bring her to maximum power. Bridge out.”
“Sir, Squadron Nine Nine Four reports they have engaged hostile fighters at point Uniform Tango.”
A flash of impossibly intense light filled the bridge for a moment and then faded just as quickly. The aft tactical display showed DSS Revenge trailing fiery plasma and tumbling pieces of ablative armor.
“Tactical!”
“Sir! CIC reports the origin point for that attack is Barker’s Asteroid.”
Hunter pounded on the arm of his command chair. “Signals! Bring us up on the J-A! Smartly!”
The fleet-wide alert tone sounded and automatic communications systems went active across Strike Fleet Perseus. Moments later, Captain Hunter’s channel patched in.
“Attention All Stations. This is Argent Force Command on priority channel. Engage battle conference and stand by for a message from the flag.”
The signals officer nodded.
“All commands, this is Hunter aboard the Argent. Under no circumstances are you to return fire against Barker’s Asteroid. Skywatch personnel are engaged in combat operations on the surface and one of our ships may be caught in the crossfire. Do not fire on the station or any other contact inside that minefield without my direct orders. All commands acknowledge.”
As if to answer his order, a titanic blast from the faraway Sentinel slammed into Fury’s port quarter. Uncontrolled secondary explosions ripped across her dorsal armor and took out battery two.
“Lieutenant.”
The signals officer looked up and met Captain Hunter’s gaze.
“You have two minutes to raise the Dunkerque, or a lot of people are going to die.”
Eighty-One
An impeccably synchronized wing of top-of-the-line strike fighters peeled off one by one as they fired their torpedos right into the teeth of DSS Ajax. The heavier battle frigate banked tightly in pursuit of the destructive little ships, while its storied anti-missile batteries went to war against the lethal inbounds.
“El Jefe” and his wingman shot past Ajax’s approach vector, tailing the trailing enemy fighter, with a menacing black T-Hawk racing along behind them to provide fire support. As if suddenly awake, the enemy fighter twisted in one direction then banked back again, attempting to evade Gato One’s fire acquisition. Tichborne’s wingman was pasted into formation like a tightened bolt, never veering more than six meters from his flight leader’s right weapon point.
All five fighters opened up at once, filling space with reflex battery fire from their aft weapons arrays. Everything that missed slammed into T-Hawk Three and was absorbed into her shields, where it was instantly converted and re-routed to her panic reactors. Argent’s fighters had the point, so the T-Hawk held her fire. Behind it, Ajax was in equally hot pursuit of the little furball that had kicked up.
A moment later, all five enemy fighters snap-banked in diverging courses. Gato One and his wingman pulled up and chased their original target. T-Hawk Three spun left and chased two more, while Ajax took their flight leader’s course on a starboard rolling dive. The moment all the drive fields cleared, Ajax opened up with proximity blasts from her forward guns.
The little fighter dodged, ducked and spun, but there was nowhere to go. An instant later, Ajax’s targeting systems locked and the next shot vaporized the target.
“Splash one!” her tactical officer shouted.
“Very good. Get us back on an intercept vector with flight leader 994,” Commander Harcourt ordered. “Maintain double screens forward and re-route all non-essential power to the reactor dampeners.”
Ajax performed a tight climbing port bank on an intercept vector for Tichborne’s pursuit track. As she came around, her primary weapons gained locks on all ranged targets. “Stand by your guns, tactical. Pilot, I want us to climb into that turn. Get us back in the war. All ahead battle speed.”
Meanwhile, inside Gato One, the drive field was spiking again and again as Tichborne’s angry little fighter snapped and bit at its fleeing target. The targeting tone sounded in his helmet as the vessel’s high-speed acquisition computer tried to line up a shot. First the enemy fighter would split right, then back left. Gato One stayed with it while Tichborne’s computer swerved over to the new vector and tried to match bearings.
Out of nowhere, DSS Minstrel appeared in front of the entire chase. With nowhere to go, the enemy wing sprayed destruction at the compact little warship, and then they got a rude education in the firepower differential between a two-man fighter and a frigate. Minstrel’s twin gun batteries opened up with a percussive and intense barrage of lethal energy bolts. Enemy fighter two was ripped in half an instant before fighter one took a piercing sh
ot right through the cockpit. A brief flash and there was nothing left but tumbling wreckage.
“Analysis, quickly,” Lieutenant Rebecca Islington ordered. Her sensor operator examined the broken hulls of the two fighters for telltale signs of organic life.
“Negative readings, ma’am,” the tech replied. “There was nobody aboard those fighters.”
“Very well. Coordinate all your sensor data and relay your findings to Ajax. My recommendation is to report this information to the flag and request instructions. Helm, give me a starboard turn and lay in a new course six zero mark one. Tactical, cycle your weapons and report readiness on a thirty-second alert. All ahead flank.”
“Helm answering new course six zero mark one all ahead flank, aye.”
DSS Minstrel accelerated into formation with her sister ship and prepared to engage the next attacking squadron.
Eighty-Two
The fleetwide alert played soundlessly on Dunkerque’s bridge. The information it broadcast to every ship besides DeMay’s abandoned command was already minutes old when Captain L’Orleans ships broke formation and turned away from the relatively monstrous Strike Cruiser’s hull.
But Captain Hunter’s ominous words did not go unheeded. As the condor-emblazoned pirate corsair banked away and then faded into space behind her cloak, a gloved hand clicked the alert channel controls on Dunkerque’s bridge and the screen went dark.
“You’re sure this is going to work,” a voice asked quietly.
“Not only will it work, it will grant me total control of the Gitairn Sector. I will crush the Perseus formation like a hammer against an anvil. Once I have restored power, I will return to the portal and welcome the hive into our space.”
The texture of Admiral Hughes’ voice gave his new assistant chills. She had been convinced over many weeks of the goals of their mutinous plan. She had been offered considerable power. But she still wasn’t certain she would be able to live with what her former superior officer was becoming.
“We will send our finest warriors to reclaim our weapon on Barker’s asteroid. Prepare to increase field density.”
“What is their mission then? Victory? Prisoners?”
“To consume them and learn their thoughts. First the Captain’s officers. Then Jason Hunter himself.”
Eighty-Three
“Doverly to Argent.”
The flagship of Strike Fleet Perseus was abuzz with urgent activities, none of which were performed with the expectation that their Executive Officer would be hailing them in the middle of a fighter and gunship engagement. Nevertheless, the junior fourth watch officer manning the battleship’s signals station at the moment the channel opened knew Commander Annora Doverly, one of the five infamous Bandit Jacks, was not someone who could be asked to leave a message.
“Captain, we’re being hailed by Commander Doverly.”
“On speakers, ensign.” Jason Hunter waited a moment for the intership to switch channels. “Argent, Hunter. Go ahead Commander.”
“Jason, our squadrons are up against automated opposition. Orca’s fighter attack and defense patterns are pre-programmed. All we’re doing is blowing a bunch of unoccupied Skywatch hardware to pieces.”
“How certain are you?” Hunter already knew the answer to that question. He asked it more to confirm his own surprise than to challenge his XO’s knowledge of fighter operations. Among her many skills and ranges of expertise, Annora had become somewhat of a flight deck operations specialist in the time she had served with both Hunter’s squadron and aboard the two ships she had been assigned to since. She was Argent’s first watch Force Commander and more than capable of taking the controls of the lethal little ships she sent into space if need be.
One thing Hunter knew was if anyone in the Strike Fleet could speak with authority about what a competent human-piloted fighter should look like, it was his XO.
“I wasn’t sure until I saw their pursuit banks. Every time the Orca’s fighters pass one of our fighters, they perform exactly the same turn with exactly the same engine vectors and flight radius. We’re in a pitched battle with a bunch of robots, Captain.”
A light went on.
“If that’s true, Commander, they were pre-programmed for a joust, not a fistfight.”
“Sir?”
“I’m going to trust you are correct on this, Hearts. Get me commander Fury. Quick!” There was a momentary pause. The channel clicked.
“Fury. Hunter.”
“Change in plans, Commander. I want the formation redeployed for main battery assault. Target: DSS Kingsblade.”
“Say again, Argent?” Jason’s sister’s voice was nine parts incredulous and one part annoyed.
“You heard me, Commander. Our fighters have done their job. They just shined a big spotlight on Task Force Poseidon’s weakness, and not only am I going to exploit it, I’m going to take both of those fleets intact. Acknowledge and signal readiness to Argent Force Command.” Hunter swiveled in his command chair.
“Notify Flight Operations to recall our squadrons immediately. We will rendezvous en route. Pilot, hard about! Course one nine zero mark five! Tactical, charge main batteries one through four. Maximum power for assault range strike. All power to forward battle screens. I want a hard waveform lock on the Kingsblade’s reactors the moment we break range.”
“Might I ask what we’re doing, sir?” McInerney asked as respectfully as she could from the helm.
“We’re about to kick a fat ship right through its hat. All ahead battle speed!”
What happened next would have given even the most experienced enemy officer pause. DSS Argent, a rather large and formidable ship on her own, even if compared with her pursuing adversaries, suddenly accelerated into a sweeping port-side turn. Along her flanks, the strike cruiser Fury and her two escort cruisers turned with her and redeployed into a battle line, configuring their missile and energy weapons to support their flagship. Moments later, Hunter’s ship accelerated into an aggressive intercept course with the mighty DSS Kingsblade. The range between the two behemoth combatants began to close at an alarming rate.
“What in the name of all that is good and right is he doing?” Jayce Hunter muttered, letting her chin rest on her fists as she watched her brother’s flagship surge out of its turn.
“What he does best, ma’am,” Annora replied. “Turn a momentary advantage into a win.”
Eighty-Four
The Sentinel planetary defense gun fired again. The dim lights gradually returned to their normal brightness.
“What are they shooting at?” Zony asked in an urgent whisper. Colonel Moody stopped at the corridor intersection two levels beneath the subterranean asteroid station’s main deck. He looked both ways as surreptitiously as he could, then motioned for Zony and Yili to follow.
“They would have pulverized the Dunkerque by now. They could be lobbing proximity blasts at Argent, but at this range I doubt it would be worth the energy. There is one thing we do know.”
“What’s that?” Moo asked.
“This thing has power now, and I’m betting it is coming from their energy field tech. That could give us a huge advantage when the time come–”
An unsuspecting station crew member entered the corridor right in front of the colonel. The crewman reacted quickly, grappling with the much larger marine officer for only a moment before he was inelegantly slammed into the wall. He staggered back and reached for his weapon. A flash of intense light and the high-pitched sound of an energy discharge filled the corridor before the crewman’s blaster clattered to the floor.
Yili lowered her weapon. “Colonel? I believe you had dibs on the next toy.” Moody picked up the blaster pistol and examined it.
“Standard Skywatch issue. So help me, when I get my hands on Atwell, I’m going to change his whole attitude about life.” Apparently satisfied the weapon would serve, the colonel brandished it and motioned to the others to follow him to the unusual silver-colored door at the far end of the passage.<
br />
“Any clues on the layout of this place?” he asked.
“New to you, new to us,” Zony replied. “We know there’s a fair number of people working on something below this deck, and we’ve got a pretty good idea where the gun itself is, but the rest we have to map on our own unless we can find their information network.”
The station trembled and the lights dimmed again as another shot was fired from the Sentinel gun.
“Let’s hope the Dunkerque wasn’t destroyed by the first shot,” Zony said.
“It wasn’t,” Moo replied. “Whatever they started out shooting at, they’re still shooting at. Every fire command has the same cycle time. What do you make of this, lieutenant?” Colonel Moody stood to one side to give the other two officers a look at the silver door. A line of strange symbols was etched on a plate under the transparent portal in its center. On the left side, a control panel similar to the one on the alien device Zony had discovered on Argent was built into the wall. Its buttons glowed serenely with the same strange yellow light. There was no activity visible through the portal, although the room behind the door was at least illuminated.
“If I had my choice, I’d like that to be a room with some kind of console in it so we can figure this station out,” Zony replied.
“Ready?” Moo whispered with a smirk. Yili nodded. The colonel activated the manual lock on the door’s face and the vacuum seal discharged. The door slid to one side and Moo slipped through.
“Whoa!” There was a shout and a rapid flurry of activity. Several unidentified personnel whirled and reached for weapons a moment before Colonel Moody’s command voice just about shocked Zony out of her boots.
“Weapons down! Now!” Moody trained his pistol on what appeared to be the leader of the ragtag group standing among a bunch of unremarkable storage crates. His face was frozen in a furious stare through the sights of his raised gun. Zony was in an equally aggressive stance, aiming her weapon at someone she then realized was wearing an Argent uniform.
“Hatch?”