“Fesky to Contest, a little help?”
A single Banshee left the missile cruiser, colliding with the missile heading her way. Both exploded in a flash that lasted for less than a second.
“Thanks. We need to take out as many of the shipyards’ turrets as we can before Bronson gets back in his destroyer.” Glancing at the tactical display, she clacked her beak. Wonderful. He’s nearly here.
“Acknowledged, Fesky,” Warren Husher said into her ear. “Keep your Condors away from the Contest’s bow—we’ll focus on neutralizing the turrets on that side.” His words came as a relief, but she found it slightly odd that he was the one to actually contact her. Shouldn’t he be focusing a little more on tactics?
Still, she shouldn’t complain. So far, she’d lost a remarkably small number of pilots, and she was proud to see that fewer human pilots had gone down than Wingers. Not that she celebrated members of her species getting killed, but it did mean she’d trained her pilots to be at least as good as Wingers. It was important to acknowledge small victories, too.
Bronson had nearly arrived when she received another transmission, this time from Caine, of all people. “Fesky, there’s no way I’m going to reach the Providence unless something gives. Can you help me out?”
“Oh, sure,” Fesky snapped. “It’s not like I’m busy with anything.”
“Thanks,” Caine said, and Fesky was sure she detected a note of amusement in the human’s voice.
This species will be the death of me. “Condor pilots, continue to focus on the platform’s turrets until the Contest requires your backup. I’m breaking away long enough to execute a strafing run.”
Caine lit up her position on Fesky’s heads-up, which seemed a little redundant, considering the Providence was sort of hard to miss, and the marines were trading fire within fifty meters of it.
Using visuals to carefully line up her shot so as not to do any damage to the supercarrier, Fesky began the run. Her kinetic impactors tore up the platform’s surface in a staggered line, taking out three of the station’s defenders before their formation started to fragment.
She hadn’t even finished her first run when they scattered, and Caine’s team pounced, taking full advantage of the confusion Fesky had caused. Another pass would not be needed.
“You’re the best, Fesky,” Caine said over a two-way.
Yeah, yeah. “Just watch your back inside the Providence, all right?”
“Why? You’re not saying you’d miss me, are you?”
“Negative. I’m just worried about how much more aggravating Husher will get if you die.”
That brought a chuckle from Caine. “All right then, Fesky. Good luck up there.”
Turning back to the battle, scanning for a target, Fesky wasn’t ready for what came next, and when it happened her talons nearly left the fighter’s controls.
Bronson had arrived in his destroyer, and his first order of business was to blow the Contest’s main engines clean away, stripping her of the ability to maneuver in battle.
Not to mention our ability to escape this scrap heap. How could Warren have allowed this to happen?
Shaking off her dismay, she switched to a wide channel. “All Condors on missile defense for the Contest, now. Now! She’s a sitting duck up there.”
Chapter 67
You Knew I Was Coming for You
Caine and her marines had no trouble entering the Providence, which didn’t comfort her in the slightest. As far as she was concerned, it spelled only one thing: ambush.
So she reminded the others to proceed with extreme caution, checking around every corner before exposing themselves, and she kept the ship’s layout in mind while selecting a route through her.
Caine also remembered Ek, and the way the Fin considered every factor in a situation, never missing an opportunity to leverage her knowledge against her adversaries. That was how Ek had helped uncover the conspiracy between Bronson and Moreno in the first place.
So who am I likely to face in here?
The war would not have left Command with much time to dwell on logistics, and since Bronson captained the destroyer battling the Contest overhead, it seemed likely that other conspirators would have been put in charge of preventing the Providence from being retaken. That meant Ryerson and Moreno.
Moreno she knew less well, but Ryerson had served under her for three years. And since Moreno was more accustomed to serving in a CIC, no doubt he’d let Ryerson lead the defense of the supercarrier.
Caine knew Ryerson. She knew how he thought—his strengths and his blind spots. I can handle Ryerson.
Simmons was on point, and when he checked around the next corner, gunfire roared. A bullet hit him, sending him careening backward.
Caine rushed to the private and yanked him away from the intersection, motioning the others to fall back. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding hoarse. “Pretty sure.” The pressure suit’s torso was reinforced with a para-aramid fiber, designed to protect the wearer from gunshots, though an Ocharium-sped round would still leave a nasty bruise.
“Tough it out, marine,” she said. “Everyone, retreat as quickly and orderly as you can. Follow me.”
Her route may have seemed odd to the others, since it was far from a direct one to the CIC. But that was because it ensured they were never far from a cargo bay, hangar deck, or other open space.
Now they fell back to a starboard-side cargo bay, one that had two entrances. Ryerson wouldn’t be able to resist an opportunity like that.
But because he’d chosen to ambush her here instead of waiting inside the CIC, he had no clue about her team’s composition, and she’d reacted too quickly for him to glimpse it. As they poured into the cargo bay, Caine instructed her Winger marines to shrug out of their suits and fly up to conceal themselves in elevated positions, taking advantage of crates stacked high, a towering forklift, and crisscrossing rafters.
That done, Caine and the human marines dragged the Wingers’ discarded pressure suits out of sight as they withdrew deep into the rear of the cargo bay.
And then they waited. “Do not fire except on my mark,” she instructed the Wingers above, over the encrypted channel she’d set up before leaving the Contest.
It took several minutes for Ryerson to order his people into the cargo bay to investigate why Caine wasn’t offering any resistance.
When she heard them enter, their footfalls picked up and amplified by her helmet, Caine opened a two-way channel with the Winger she judged to have the best vantage point. “Tell me what you’re seeing,” she whispered.
“There are fifteen of them,” the Winger marine said, “threading through the cargo, searching.”
“Notify me once they’re almost on top of us.”
“That would be now.”
Caine slapped her helmet to switch back to the wide channel. “All Winger marines, fire!”
Assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles spat fire from overhead. One of Ryerson’s men dashed past the boxes concealing Caine’s human soldiers, and she took him out with a well-placed pistol shot, sending him crashing to the deck face-first.
She shot him once more, to ensure he was dead, and then she motioned for her human marines to engage. When they emerged from their cover, only four of Ryerson’s people remained standing, and Caine and the others dispatched them with ease.
“All marines converge on my position. We’re hitting the others right now.” She jogged toward the door, holstering her pistol and readying her assault rifle as she went.
They made for the leftmost entrance, with four of her marines remaining behind to defend it, on her orders. If they circled around and pinned Ryerson down near the other entrance to the cargo bay, he would have nowhere to run, since it was located down a corridor that didn’t lead anywhere else.
When they reached the intersection again, Caine glimpsed a solitary figure disappearing around a corner up ahead. Ryerson. He’d be headed for the CIC, and if he
reached it, he could cause more trouble for them.
Caine took off after him, and her conditioning allowed her to speak orders as she ran. “Take out the rest of the group that ambushed us. I’m going to head off Ryerson.”
The private was nowhere to be seen when she reached the corner he’d vanished around, but she didn’t slow down to search for him, instead taking the most efficient route to the CIC. His speed came as something of a surprise, given he was still recovering from his injury. He must be using stims.
Ryerson’s knowledge of the Providence’s layout would probably be about as good as hers, given how long they’d served on it together. But she couldn’t let that give her pause. Instead, she increased her pace, glancing down corridors that crossed her path and clutching her assault rifle close, ready to react if the bastard tried to get the drop on her.
In the end, it turned out Ryerson had taken a different route. They met at the intersection just outside the CIC, with him just ahead of her. Laying on even more speed, she jumped, tackling him to the deck.
Ryerson pushed her off, and Caine staggered to her feet, recovering quickly, with her assault rifle pointing at Ryerson’s head. “It’s over, Private. Toss your weapon.”
“Going to shoot me again, Sergeant? Like you did on the Kaithe planet?” After throwing his pistol at her feet, he patted his sides from a kneeling position. “That’s all I had.”
“Pretty cocky, carrying so little. You knew I was coming for you.”
Ryerson’s eyes burned as he stared up at her. “I can’t believe you’re okay siding with aliens, Sergeant. You should have known all our problems started when we began letting them influence us.”
“Humanity’s problems started long before that.”
Her former subordinate glanced past her, and Caine instantly realized what was happening. She dropped, turning as she fell, to hit the deck in prone position.
Sure enough, Moreno was coming around the corner behind her with a shotgun. She popped off a burst into his face, throwing him backward.
When she rolled onto her back, Ryerson stood over her, his pistol in hand. They both fired.
Ryerson fell back, two bullet holes marring his forehead. His shot had gotten her in the stomach, which hurt like hell. But her reinforced pressure suit had saved her.
She managed to regain her feet, her belly feeling like it was full of ruptured organs. Which was possible, but she suspected it would feel like that either way. Ocharium-enhanced bullets shot at point blank range…it wasn’t what she would have called good for you.
“Husher,” she said over a two-way. “I just took out Moreno and Ryerson. The Providence is ours. How are you doing?”
“There are fewer of us. But we fought through, and we got Piper’s algorithm installed onto five ships. That’s all we have time for. We’ll head your way now.”
Chapter 68
Battle Scars
Warren Husher watched on the tactical display as another missile made its way past the handful of Condors defending the Contest, past her overtaxed point defense turrets, and slammed into the hull. Another one followed, hitting near the same area and rocking the missile cruiser violently.
Bronson’s destroyer was pelting them with everything it had, and if it hadn’t already used its primary laser to destroy the Stevenson, it would surely have won already.
Most of the destroyer’s missiles got taken down by Fesky’s pilots or by the Contest’s point defense system, but too many were getting through, and kinetic impactors peppered her hull all the while—from the destroyer, and from the few remaining turrets on the orbital platform. Without engines, they simply had to sit there and take it.
Even if I had engines, I would not strand my son down there. “Get me a damage report on that latest,” Warren said, though he was tired of speaking the words, and his chest tightened every time he did.
“Decks three through nine are leaking atmosphere into space between sections eleven and seventeen,” his sensor operator said, clacking her beak. “Twenty-nine crew are unaccounted for.”
Warren ran a hand over his face. Was this really the best he could do as a captain? He didn’t seem to recall losing this hard during the First Galactic War. His CIC crew had started shooting him worried glances since he’d allowed their engines to get taken out. They expected better from me.
He felt like he was trying his best, but he also considered the possibility that the Ixa had removed the part of him that made him a great captain. Or maybe they’d added something to his brain that made him think he was giving an engagement his all when he was really holding back.
“Another missile’s about to get through, Captain,” his sensor operator said. “Maybe you should tell the crew to brace for another impact.”
“Yes. You’re right. Coms, put me on the—”
Too late. The missile struck, throwing Warren against the straps holding him in the Captain’s chair. In the CIC, they had the luxury of strapping into their seats, but most of the crew’s work required the ability to move around. It’s my job to warn them of impacts. And I didn’t. Stupid, Warren. Stupid. He really had lost it.
“Sir,” the sensor operator said, and Warren winced, gripping his seat’s armrests so hard his arms trembled.
“Yes?” he said, bracing for what had to be the finishing blow. “What is it?”
“Sir, it’s the Providence. She’s rising.”
He opened his eyes, having squeezed them shut. “Give me a visual.”
She did, and it was majestic…the most gorgeous thing Warren had ever seen. The old supercarrier didn’t gleam with newness, like it had in Warren’s day, during the First Galactic War. But somehow, as she labored toward the stars, her battle scars made her all the more beautiful.
That’s what decades of hard service to humanity looks like. Who else can claim it?
“Sir, the destroyer has already turned its weapons on the Providence. She’s swatting down whatever missiles it sends, and returning a healthy dose of her own.”
“Put up a tactical display, for God’s sake.”
The main viewscreen changed to show a clear layout of the battle, and Warren felt a thrill shoot through him as the supercarrier’s arrival warped the entire engagement.
Without the need to focus so intensely on missile defense, Fesky organized her fighters into alpha strike formation and began hitting the destroyer hard. More Condors streamed from the Providence’s flight decks to join them.
“Fire Banshees at that thing, Tactical,” Warren barked. “And kinetic impactors, too. We don’t have to worry about missile defense anymore.”
“The destroyer is turning, sir,” his sensor operator said. “It appears Bronson intends to flee.”
“Let’s make that as unpleasant an experience as possible. Tactical, direct our missiles at the destroyer’s engines. I want to put them in our shoes.”
“Yes, sir.”
But Bronson’s point defense turrets were robust, and he expertly met many of the Contest’s Banshees with missiles of his own. The Condors were doing damage, but those that had just emerged from the Providence had not yet reached the destroyer, and they weren’t likely to, now.
A flock of missiles sprang from the supercarrier herself, helping Bronson on his way. Three of them made it through, causing brief explosions to blossom on the destroyer’s hull, and causing Warren’s heart to blossom, as well. A welcome sight.
“We’re receiving a transmission request from the Providence, Captain.”
“Put it on-screen.”
His son appeared on the CIC’s main viewscreen, and Warren’s shoulders rose and fell in a sigh of relief. “Vin.”
Vin gave a curt nod. “Captain. It looks like Bronson’s destroyer is going to limp out of here after all.”
“We should give chase. He doesn’t deserve to continue operating freely.”
“I’d love to, and we’d overtake him, in time. But we can’t waste a second in getting to Hades. Not to mention, I’m uncert
ain how long your ship’s going to continue being spaceworthy. I want you to get the crew to all available shuttles and escape pods, and I want you to use them to get over here as quickly as possible.”
“All right. I guess that makes sense. How’d you have enough people to fly the Providence, by the way?”
“Most of them were imprisoned in their quarters. A testament to the UHF and the Commonwealth having their hands so full. Some have been sent to Hades, but they were keeping most of them here until they figured out what to do with them.”
Warren nodded. Figured out how guilty they considered them, more like.
“I need you to hurry, Dad. Get over here. Husher out.”
To his surprise, Warren’s eyes stung. That was the first time in over twenty years that his son had called him “Dad.”
His Winger sensor operator turned to him, her brown feathers surprisingly smoothed, denoting calm. “Sir, five UHF ships just lifted off from the Vermillion Shipyards and are forming up with the Providence.”
He nodded. “Piper’s algorithm at work.” Maybe we’ll have a chance at Hades after all.
Chapter 69
The Ultimate Whetstone
Korbyn’s arrival had finally cracked the Wingers’ veneer, and they had permitted themselves a few seconds’ cheering when the stealth ships revealed themselves by decimating a sizable UHF battle group.
Ek did not join the celebrations. To do so would risk disrupting the flow state she had occupied since the battle’s outset, which her deteriorating condition was already doing enough to jeopardize.
Instead of celebrating, she had continued to study the enemy’s ever-shifting disposition, as well as that of her own fleet, and she derived many insights thereby.
Two hours had passed since Korbyn’s gambit had paid off so lucratively. It had bought them the time they had needed so desperately, time enough for more Winger battle groups to arrive, taking the pressure off the main body of Ek’s growing fleet.
Though the pirates were highly unlikely to regain the advantage of stealth during this engagement, their ships were nimble, darting in to harry the edge of Carrow’s fleet and darting away again before getting picked off. The tactic was getting to the UHF captains, many of who had given chase out of frustration. When they did, the pirates turned on them, backed up by Korbyn and his Talons. They had destroyed several more ships that way.
Juggernaut: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 2 Page 22