Raven's Course (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  O’Flannagain didn’t respond. The seconds crept forward.

  “Fifty thousand. Flight time twenty seconds.”

  “Eighty percent of detection threshold, O’Flannagain,” Henry murmured. “We’re out of time.”

  He heard the CAG exhale sharply.

  “Firing radar pulse,” she snapped. “Fire all missiles on confirmed target and take GMS to full power.”

  At fifty thousand kilometers, it was less than half a second before the targeting systems on the Lancer confirmed one hundred percent lock. Henry took another moment to confirm alignment with the rest of the squadron and then fired.

  Twenty-four missiles blasted away from the starfighters, disposable launchers providing hundreds of kilometers per second of additional velocity while their own drives lit up behind them.

  At three KPS2, the strange invisibility they’d enjoyed at lower accelerations vanished. Each of the six starfighters blazed like full-size starships as they charged forward, falling into carefully calculated gravity wells inside their defensive shields.

  The Guardian might have been oblivious to their presence, but the Drifter crew had been prepared for an attack of some kind. Defensive lasers flared to life in the first ten seconds, targeting the incoming missiles—but they had never expected fire to come from that close without warning.

  But it was still a ten-million-ton warship the best part of a kilometer long. A hundred lasers opened fire, filling the void around the Drifter ship with coherent light. A third of their missiles disappeared from Henry’s scanners…and then the rest disappeared a thousand kilometers short of the Guardian’s shields, shifting into a different level of the seventeen dimensions humans couldn’t perceive.

  Half of the weapons rematerialized around the shield, barely inside or outside the defensive energy bubble. Several others completely missed—and three five-hundred-megaton warheads exploded amidst the modules that made up the massive vessel.

  Between the explosions directly on the shield and the damage to the Guardian, the shields went down—and the Lancers were there, twenty seconds behind the missiles.

  “Target is still active,” Turrigan snapped. “Engines are damaged but still operational. Shields are down but I’m reading at least three still-active plasma turrets.”

  The squadron XO didn’t even need to report the lasers. The defensive systems that had targeted the missiles now turned on the charging starfighters. Gravity shields distorted and deflected the beams, but more and more lasers were coming online as the fighters closed.

  “Plasma turrets firing.” It took Henry a moment to realize the calm voice reporting the massive plasma weapons activation was his. His own fighter drew the short straw, with one of the big guns aimed directly at his craft.

  The GMS allowed him to easily dodge the incoming burst, and then they were in range. There was no detailed plan for how to attack a capital ship with six starfighters’ defensive lasers. The lasers were occasionally used for this—but usually with closer to a hundred starfighters.

  Henry targeted the turret that had fired on him, blazing a beam of coherent light down its barrel as it tried to track him. The laser gouged through the armored barrel, and for a second, nothing happened.

  Then the turret tried to fire again, and its containment failed. A multi-hundred-megaton explosion tore apart one of the weapons modules, sending other pieces of the big warship flying as the starfighters dove in again.

  “Raven-Two is down,” O’Flannagain said flatly. “Guardian turrets are down. All turrets are down. Target the power pla—”

  Henry wasn’t sure if it was a hit on one of the power plants or backlash from the destruction of the turrets. One moment, the broken-but-still-formidable Guardian was rotating in space, trying to bring intact defensive lasers to bear on the mosquitos killing her.

  The next, two fusion reactors and an engine containment vessel failed in less than a second. Three massive new explosions tore through the modular ship…and then there was silence.

  “Raven-Three is down,” O’Flannagain reported in the quiet.

  That was Lieutenant Commander Turrigan’s bird, Henry realized. The odd-numbered starfighters were the wing commanders, the senior half of the squadron. That meant they had Four, Six and Eight left alongside O’Flannagain’s own Seven.

  All of the CAG’s senior pilots were gone. Phạm was at least in sickbay, but Raven’s squadron had been cut in half.

  “We need to get out of here, CAG,” Henry told her. “Fall back to Raven. We should be clear enough to use lasers to open the chasm up a bit to get back in.”

  Whatever happened now, the starfighters had more than done their part.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “And here they come,” Iyotake said calmly.

  Henry was back where he belonged, on Raven’s bridge. He hadn’t changed out of the flight suit. It had his proper rank insignia, the steel oak leaf emblazoned on the right side of the collar, and he didn’t have much time.

  “Time?” he asked.

  “Admiral Cheung will likely declare us out of contact in just over eight hours,” Moon reported. “Twenty to twenty-one hours before relief, ser.”

  He nodded; his eyes focused on the screen.

  Bandit Three was definitely damaged. She was accelerating at point five KPS2, blood in the water if he’d had any ability to engage her…and if she weren’t being accompanied by the clearly completely undamaged Bandit One.

  The two Guardians might have been a match for an undamaged Raven. In her current state, well…

  “I don’t believe I have ever been quite so appreciative of ice in my life,” he murmured.

  “You, I see, do not vacation in the Caribbean,” his XO said with a chuckle. “When you’re on those beaches and there isn’t a cloud for five hundred kay in any direction…you really appreciate ice.

  “But you’re right; today I might appreciate this chunk of ice more.”

  It wasn’t going to buy them twenty hours, Henry suspected, but it had bought them almost thirty already. More than he’d had any right to hope for, really.

  “Any clever ideas, people?” he asked. “According to the fabricator reports, we are up to twenty-four total missiles.”

  He supposed they could fill one or both of the pilots in the medbay with painkillers and stims and send out a five-fighter strike. It was very clear from their maneuvering, though, that the remaining Drifter ships knew roughly what had happened to Bandit Two.

  “Bury our heat signature as they get close and hope,” Iyotake told him. “That’s Song’s option. We still haven’t needed it yet.”

  “It might buy us a few more minutes,” Henry conceded. “I just don’t think it will buy us enough for them to completely bypass our hiding spot.”

  “Ser… No, that can’t be right.”

  Henry turned to look at Ihejirika, the tactical officer rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. None of the senior officers had taken any breaks since they’d embedded themselves in the meteor. Even with internal networks regulating fatigue toxins, it was starting to show.

  “I confirm, ser,” Ybarra said quietly. “Multiple skip signatures at the Ra-One-Seventy-Five skip line. Drifters are turning, sers.”

  “Ihejirika?” Henry demanded.

  “Guardians are turning; course is for Kozun space,” the big African officer replied crisply. “I make the new signature three capital ships and seven escorts, high probability that the central capital ship is a Crichton-class fleet carrier.

  “It’s Scorpius, ser,” Ihejirika said wonderingly. “We’re too far and using sensors without enough resolution to be certain, but I believe I’m picking up a full deck launch.”

  Henry stared at the data as it appeared on his screens. A Crichton-class fleet carrier had a hundred and twenty SF-122 Dragoons aboard. At this point, having flown a Lancer into combat, he knew the Dragoon was obsolete—but it was still the second-most powerful starfighter he knew of.

  “Maneuver cones,
Commander, please,” he said, his tone distracted.

  They were already flickering onto the screen, and they told him everything he needed to know: the Guardians weren’t going to escape. They only had a third of the acceleration of the starfighters pursuing them. They couldn’t make it to the skip line. They couldn’t make it to Raven.

  “Ser, incoming transmission,” Moon reported. “Two transmissions,” she corrected. “One is on Vesheron protocols; one is encrypted on UPSF protocols.”

  “Play them both,” Henry ordered. “Vesheron first.”

  “This is Rear Admiral Cheung Jian Chin,” the familiar-looking short Chinese Admiral said in rough but clear Kem. “To the Drifter forces in the Lon System. We are fully aware of your treachery, of your betrayal of both the United Planets Alliance and the Kozun Hierarchy.

  “By the time you could reach Kozun space, the Hierarchy will be fully aware of your crimes…but you will not reach Kozun space. Surrender, or my fighters will run you down like the rabid dogs you have proven yourselves to be.”

  The message ended and Henry grinned. He knew it was a cruel and vicious grin, but he had no sympathy for the people who’d wrecked a peace conference—and he knew that Cheung was correct.

  There was no way the Guardians were escaping the Lon System.

  The second message started playing a moment later, this one showing the tall blond features of Commodore Peter Barrie. Henry’s ex-husband looked worried.

  “Captain Wong, Raven, this is Captain Barrie on Scorpius,” the Commodore declared. “We received an update on the system from Ambassador Todorovich. Jackdaw and two destroyers are headed to your rough location now.

  “Stay concealed until they reach you. We have the situation under control. I repeat, the situation is under control. Stay where you are. Scorpius and Rook are also en route to retrieve the Ambassadors from their survival capsule. Everything is under control.”

  The world fell out from under Henry.

  Todorovich had told them what had happened. How? She was dead…except the UPSF contingent was picking up a survival capsule with the ambassadors. Had they all survived?

  “Ser?” Moon said after a moment. “What…what do we do?”

  “Stand the ship down to Status Three,” Henry ordered. “We stand by until Jackdaw is closer to us than those Guardians, then we establish communications.”

  He looked at the expanding cluster of green icons on his display.

  “We did it, people,” he told them all. “We did it.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The rescue shuttle settled onto the immense flight deck at the heart of Scorpius with a gentle thud audible throughout its passenger compartment.

  Scorpius was a squashed cigar shape six hundred meters long, and her flight deck ran the full length of her hull. As Sylvia slowly stepped down the ramp, she could see the rows of single-fighter bays that held the carrier’s “main battery.”

  Those bays were empty, their usual inhabitants flying search and rescue through the wreckage of the two Guardians that had refused to surrender in the face of overwhelming firepower. Not all of those starfighters would be coming home—but the only Drifters that would see their homes again would do so through the mercy of the UPSF.

  A formal greeting party was waiting on the deck, with files of immaculately turned-out GroundDiv troopers lining a long blue carpet. Rising Principle had already reached the end and was now standing beside the tall blond officer waiting for them.

  Sylvia instead stayed at the bottom of the ramp, waiting until Oran Aval and her escort made it down to join her. Several people in the crowd clearly seemed to be expecting the Kozun Voice to emerge as a prisoner, but they’d get to be disappointed.

  “Come, Voice,” she told Aval in Kem.

  “I was expecting a different welcome,” Aval told her.

  “Whether the UPA is at peace with the Kozun is my call, Voice Aval,” Sylvia reminded the other woman. “And you and Rising Principle made a deal. That means we are at peace.

  “So, we should go.”

  Aval smiled thinly and joined Sylvia as they walked down the long blue carpet together, their bodyguards and staff trailing a few steps behind. GroundDiv soldiers snapped to attention as Sylvia passed them, and there was something ever so slightly different in their posture.

  It wasn’t that Aval was with her. It wasn’t even that these troops didn’t know her and she was used to Raven’s troops. It was… Respect was the wrong word. GroundDiv troopers had always been respectful of her.

  It was awe. She’d survived the destruction of her ship and then orchestrated the defeat of the Drifters’ plot from inside a glorified escape pod, and that story had clearly already spread.

  “Ambassador Sylvia Todorovich,” Scorpius’s commander greeted her with a bow. Barrie wore the standard black slacks and turtleneck uniform of the UPSF. His sweater had the white collar of a starship captain with the gold oak leaf of a Commodore pinned to the right side of it.

  “Voice Oran Aval,” he continued, turning to the Kozun and switching easily to Kem. “I understand that the La-Tar Cluster now has a peace treaty with the Hierarchy.”

  “We do,” Aval confirmed. “And given the treachery here, the beginnings, I believe, of a potential alliance against an enemy that has attacked us both.”

  “It is not my role to speak to the place of the United Planets Alliance in that conflict,” Barrie said calmly. “That duty lies on Ambassador Todorovich, who I trust will handle the affairs of our nation with her usual skill.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Sylvia told him. “For the moment, the UPA will be operating on our defensive treaties with La-Tar and others…but the Drifters have clearly demonstrated themselves a threat to everyone.

  “I hope that threat can be defused by discussion and negotiation,” she admitted, “but if they prove as paranoid as their actions here suggest, I have the utmost faith in the courage and skill of the United Planets Space Force.”

  Enough of the crew would understand Kem that her words would be communicated throughout the ship and the battle group within hours.

  “You must all be exhausted,” Barrie said after a moment. “I have medics standing by to check over all of your people. They are trained on Kozun and other Ashall physiology, I promise.”

  Aval almost unconsciously touched her stomach.

  “That strikes me as a good plan,” she agreed.

  “We are at your disposal, Voice Aval,” the Commodore told her. “Please, this way.”

  Sylvia felt more than a little silly, hesitating outside Barrie’s office a couple of hours later. Raven was now on her way to join the battle group, which had both good and bad elements.

  Good was the confirmation that Henry Wong had survived. A lot of his crew hadn’t, though, and it was clear that the battlecruiser would never fight again. Raven was a wreck, mobile under her own power but no longer a functioning warship in any sense.

  It also meant that they had the full copies of Raven’s telemetry of the Drifters’ betrayal, the ninety seconds of Kozun shock that might have been critical if the Drifters hadn’t proceeded to blow any pretense in their hunt to destroy those records.

  She was outside Commodore Peter Barrie’s office, though, for entirely selfish reasons. It was uncharacteristic of her to hesitate—but she didn’t like leaning on her position and the contacts it gave her for personal matters.

  On the other hand, well…

  She buzzed for admittance.

  “Come in,” Barrie replied. “Ambassador?”

  The questioning tone in his voice carried over to his face as she stepped into the office. The degree to which the office mirrored Henry Wong’s on Raven’s was fascinating to her. The spaces were laid out identically. The only difference was that where Henry’s office had Raven’s bird-with-quill seal on the wall behind him, Barrie’s office had the ancient astrological constellation the ship was named for.

  “How may I help you?” he asked, gesturing her to
a seat.

  “It’s nothing critical, if you’re busy,” she admitted. “It’s a personal matter, though somewhat time-sensitive.”

  Barrie eyed her for a moment, then chuckled.

  “I am the commander of a capital ship with forty-five hundred souls aboard, Ambassador, I am well familiar with creating time for time-sensitive matters when I’m busy. I’m not sure how I can help with personal matters, though.”

  Sylvia paused for a few moments, then took a sharp breath and dove in.

  “Henry Wong,” she said bluntly. “You’re his ex-husband. May I ask what happened?”

  “That’s…very personal,” Barrie admitted, clearly surprised for a moment before his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But you’ve been aboard his ship, on and off, for almost a year now, haven’t you?”

  “About that, yes,” she confirmed.

  The Commodore sighed, laying his hands on the table and looking down at them.

  “The short version is that practically every other couple I knew had an understanding about the nature of wartime relationships and their requirements,” he said bluntly. “Rather than actually talking to Henry, I assumed. Given what I knew about Henry’s own nature as far as romance and sex go, that was, in hindsight, spectacularly stupid.

  “Our divorce was reasonably amicable, but I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t my fault,” Barrie said. “I regret it, but it is far from the worst sacrifice the war demanded.”

  “I wondered,” Sylvia admitted. “He seemed surprisingly un-bitter about it, for all that he didn’t talk about it, either.”

  “He’s a better man than I am,” the Commodore said. “I am far more upset with my younger self than I think Henry is.” He shrugged. “I don’t think that’s what you need to know, though, is it?”

  Sylvia had the self-control required to be a key ambassador of a nation of seven star systems and over forty billion human beings. She still flushed at Barrie’s blunt assessment.