“The order came from Mother herself,” Estelle answered, “relaying a command from Parks.”
Dodds wasn’t convinced – it didn’t add up. Plasma bolts hurtled past his fighter from the rear, followed soon after by an Imperial starfighter that had no doubt been tailing him. He resisted the urge to target the attacker and give chase, and instead punched away at his starfighter’s console, opening up a comms link to the UNF carrier.
“Mother, this is Lieutenant Dodds. Requesting permission to speak with Commodore Parks.”
“Commodore Parks is unavailable right now,” came the reply.
“Then let me speak to the captain.” He racked his brain for a moment to remember whom that position generally fell to. “Commodore Mandeep.”
“That’s a negative, Lieutenant,” the same operator replied. “Both Commodore Mandeep and Commodore Parks are currently occupied with other duties.”
That was enough information for him. “We’re staying put, Estelle. Something’s wrong.”
“Dodds—” Estelle began, before Dodds interrupted. He could hear the incoming verbal warning for leapfrogging the chain of command.
“The order didn’t come from Parks or Mandeep,” Dodds said. “Someone else is calling the shots. And until we work out who, I don’t think we should—” He stopped talking, his eyes drawn to a large white circle that had just appeared on his radar, behind the gathered allied capital ships.
“Jump point forming,” he heard Chaz confirm.
Dodds turned his eyes in the direction of the circular distortion that was increasing rapidly in size.
“It’s a big one,” Chaz added.
The distortion brightened, forming a short-lived ring of lights, before an enormous whirlpool-like swirl appeared in their place. From out of it emerged the bow of an enormous battleship. The remainder of the incredibly long body was quick to follow, the tall, bright red lettering of ‘C.S.N. Dragon’ confirming the identity of the vessel to any that may have held the slightest doubt.
Dodds swore. His fellow wingmates followed suit. It seemed the arrival of the former Confederation battleship had immediately hit the already strained moral of the allied forces, many fleeing their engagements and trying to put as much distance between themselves and Dragon as possible. It appeared that the battleship’s operators were working quickly, as the enormous vessel wasted no time in leaping into combat, powering forward and driving itself straight for where a UNF battleship and Erik the Red were holding position.
From its port and starboard sides, three thick green beams erupted, cutting straight into both vessels that it passed between. Against the combined power of three simultaneous accelerator beams, Erik the Red’s shields held for barely a couple of seconds before the concentrated plasma energy cut through and into the hull of the frigate itself. It was clear that the vessel would never have stood any chance. The beams soon worked their way through to the other side, briefly giving the appearance that the ship had been skewered like meat on a barbecue. The beams were quick to afford the UNF battleship the same fate, the combined power more than enough to end both vessels’ service within only a few seconds. Dragon’s six plasma accelerators fell silent as it powered past, heading deeper into the conflict zone and leaving the stricken vessels to explode, rupture and break apart in its wake.
Dodds watched the scene helplessly, aware that his fighter was coming under attack by a number of adversaries, but unable to tear his eyes away from Dragon’s titanic entrance. His comms were exploding with chatter, a mixture of shock and traces of panic. But it seemed that his wingmates, like he, had become momentarily dumbstruck by the scene.
He found his voice. “Still want to leave them to it?”
“Knights, form on my wing,” Estelle said. “We’ve got to find a way to stop Dragon.”
“Disobeying orders, Estelle?” Dodds said, cutting his way through a swarm of fighters and vessels of all loyalties, and towards Estelle, who was swinging her ATAF around to face in the direction of Dragon. “You know you could get court-martialled for that.”
The woman gave a small chuckle. “If we don’t lend any kind of assistance, then there won’t be anyone left for the hearing, anyway.”
“What the hell?” It was Enrique who had spoken.
“It’s surprised me too, mate,” Dodds said.
“No, Grendel’s Mother!”
Mother? What about it? Dodds slowed and swung his fighter around, in time to witness a series of explosions rip their way out the front of the ship. The carrier momentarily sank into darkness, before running lights across the vessel sprang back into life. Still, many of them remained out, it being clear that the emergency systems had engaged and were only serving the ship’s most immediate needs. It appeared that the blasts had knocked its engines temporarily offline. Its guns lay silent and its steady course had already begun to deteriorate. The scene was reminiscent of the battle that had occurred in Aster, when Griffin had been hit heavily in battle – the carrier losing stability, the guns, shielding and weapons systems all affected by an Imperial starfighter, which had rammed the flight deck. This time, however, Dodds was able to appreciate the destruction from outside, rather than from within.
“What happened?” Estelle said. “Was it hit by a torpedo? Did something crash into it?”
Dodds wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell what had done this to the ship, but the explosion looked as though it had originated from somewhere near the front of the vessel, close to the bow. The structure looked to be crumpled, as if the carrier had driven itself into a mountain side, crunching and splintering the forward portion of the ship.
His eyes shifted to his radar. Dragon was still closing. It seemed the massive battleship had taken an even greater interest in Grendel’s Mother, now that it was dead in the water. He saw something begin to happen across the bow of the massive battleship – locks had begun to disengage, gears and turbines beginning to spin. A great seam ran the length of the bow, and the huge front of the battleship started to split open.
The antimatter cannon! It was going to use it against Mother. Dodds then saw Dragon shift its heading …
… and point itself at Griffin.
*
Parks got to his feet, feeling dazed and a little confused. Beside him, Potter rose quickly, snatching up the pistol that had tumbled from his grasp as the carrier had lurched. Despite being flung against a wall, Parks saw that the female escort had managed to maintain her mark on him throughout the commotion. It seemed that the three hadn’t even made it halfway to the brig when they had been bowled off their feet, crashing down heavily.
“What was that?” the woman said.
“Sounds like something just exploded,” Parks said, looking around at the flickering lights. Further up and down the corridor, other lights were doing the same. Whilst some minor rocking and lurching of the carrier wasn’t uncommon during combat, the severity of this one was cause for concern.
“Let’s keep moving,” Potter said, urging Parks forward.
“What are you doing, man?” Parks glared at Potter.
“It’s nothing personal, Commodore; I’m just obeying orders. You heard the governor – you’re to be held in the brig for the remainder of your time aboard this ship.”
“Then how about I just get off the ship now?” Parks suggested.
“Like I said, I have my orders.”
Parks was flabbergasted. “Brigadier, look at what’s happening around you.”
Potter paused for a moment, then waved his pistol in the direction they had been walking. “It’s probably nothing. Now, come on.”
“You’re a ground commander, Potter, not a starship captain. Believe me, this is not nothing!”
“It’s nothing, now get moving!” Potter took a step forward to push Parks along, then the three occupants of the corridor were bathed in maroon hues, a siren ringing out all around them.
“All crew, this is your captain speaking. Intruder alert! Enemy forces have boarded the
ship! I repeat. Enemy forces have boarded the ship!”
Sima! Parks couldn’t help but feel that she was in immediate danger. He held his ground as members of the crew began darting past, on their way to help deal with the threat.
Potter swore, then said, “Get going, Commodore, I don’t have time to stand around with you now.” He once more tried to urge Parks forward, nudging him with the barrel of his pistol.
Parks refused to budge even an inch, staring intently at the brigadier.
Potter looked at the woman who had accompanied them. “Carla, take the Commodore the rest of the way.”
Carla came forward and grasped Parks by the upper arm.
Parks once again resisted the attempt to push him onward. “You know what that alert means, Brigadier,” he said. “We’ve been boarded and there are now God-only-knows-how-many Pandoran soldiers crawling all over this ship. And you know as well as I do that the crew are totally unprepared to deal with the threat. Whatever that explosion was just now, it was the Enemy’s doing. Are you seriously going to expect me to stay confined to the brig, with all of that going on around me? For Christ’s sake, will you get your hands off me!” He shrugged Carla off him, glaring at her.
The carrier lurched again, though the jolt was not as strong as the last. People were continuing to run past them in both directions, hurrying to their duties. Parks saw that some of them were now even brandishing various kinds of firearm.
“Potter, listen. Right now, you need me!” Parks urged him to see sense.
For a moment, Potter hesitated. “Carla—”
“For Christ’s sake, James, just give me a damn gun!” The lights flickered once more and the carrier gave yet another gentle rock.
“Very well, Commodore,” Potter said, removing a spare pistol from his side which, after a brief inspection, he handed to Parks. He reached into his jacket and removed a couple of small batteries from within, which he also turned over.
“Eighteen shot clip,” Potter said.
Parks gave the weapon a quick once-over and then nodded. “Let’s get to the bridge,” he said.
*
“Ready accelerators,” Estelle called to her team. “Target Dragon along the vector I’m sending you.”
Dodds did so, clicking quickly through the ATAF’s configuration screens and bringing the weapon system online. The screens still looked foreign to him; he couldn’t remember having used the weapon at all since the battle in the Phylent system.
“Ready,” he confirmed, the instant the cannon acknowledged it had been successfully activated. Now he only needed to wait for the others to signal their readiness. He stared at the huge bulk of Dragon as he sped ever closer. Although he had gone up against – and been victorious over – the battleship once before, this time something felt very different, felt very wrong. He subconsciously directed a finger to the velocity control, but resisted the urge to slow his approach. Just as the other three acknowledged that they were ready and in position, the battleship opened up with a tremendous barrage of fire, directed straight towards them.
Estelle immediately issued her counter argument.
Just as he had done before, Dodds squeezed the joystick trigger and directed a thick beam of plasma towards Dragon’s hull. The beam struck the outer shielding of the battleship, light blue ripples pulsing outward from the point of impact.
Following Estelle’s lead, he twisted his fighter around, tracing along the path that she had transmitted. He waited for Dragon’s shield to collapse as it had done before, waiting for the five accelerator beams to cut through into the hull and begin slicing the armour open.
He followed and waited. Followed and waited. Followed …
The unexpected then happened and the accelerator beam shut off. With a jolt, Dodds realised that he had fully output the weapon’s charge. A few moments later, he saw his fellow Knights’ attacks also cease. Yet the unrelenting barrage of return fire from Dragon continued, striking his wingmate’s fighters, as well as his own.
He felt his throat close up. Dragon’s shield was holding. He looked to his targeting system, to see that their assault had had no effect on the vessel whatsoever, their initial pass having made very little impression on the battleship’s defences.
How could that be? Six months ago, the five beams had been more than enough to send Dragon limping from the field. Its weapons systems had been put out of commission, its power sapped, and its life support crippled. But for all the good this run had done them, they may as well have attacked it using their bare fists.
He realised he was still hurtling towards the ship, dangerously close to coming into contact with it if he didn’t react soon. He pulled back on the stick, surged past the many cannons that dotted its surface, seeing bolts and beams chasing after him as he did. He found himself at a loss to explain how their attack could’ve failed to put even so much as a dent in the battleship’s shielding.
“Dragon’s shields are holding,” he said.
“Did you all fire?” Estelle said.
“All fired, all on target,” Chaz answered.
“Another pass,” Estelle ordered, as the five starfighters sped towards the rear of Dragon. “Pull back and give the accelerators time to recharge, then prepare for a second run.”
Dodds could hear the frustration at their failed attempt to stave off Dragon building within her. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest. If his was thumping this much, then he could only imagine how Estelle’s must be right now. He wondered how she had managed to survive for so long on Mythos’ battlefields.
The group followed Estelle’s lead, lingering only a little longer over the body of the former Confederation battleship, before diving out of the way of its cannons. They found themselves once more in the thick of a cluster of Imperial and Independent starfighters that they had flown into. A storm of weapon fire erupted instantly between the ATAFs and the Pandoran forces, and Dodds reacted accordingly, setting his targeting system to lock on to the nearest craft to him, chasing its predicted path with his crosshairs.
Even so, he found himself almost overcome; he couldn’t think straight or react fast enough to what he needed to be doing. The swarm of fighters around him was almost too much to comprehend. He had never seen this much butchery in all his life, not even during the failed Operation Menelaus and not even when he had had to defend Griffin after returning from Arlos. His radar was a forest of green, red and white triangles; impossible to decipher and navigate even at the most minimal range, due to the sheer density of shapes and colours.
Bright white and cyan engines danced around for as far as the eye could see. The smaller ones of the starfighters, diving, swooping and whirling around, larger ones from the capital ships blazing brightly. Green bolts of plasma flew this way and that, thin red beams of laser fire glancing off crafts. Ripples and splintering shards of blue light added to the hues of colour that filled the once still space. And then there were the blooms of explosions that continued to burst forth from all over the combat zone. It looked as though the battle could be almost never-ending.
And this is just a small fraction of the Enemy’s forces, Dodds thought. With every passing second, Operation Sudarberg was making more and more sense.
Just then his computer jingled, dragging him back to the task at hand. The accelerator cannon had recharged and he relayed his status to Estelle. Chaz, Kelly and Enrique acknowledged their readiness not long after him, and the five Knights swung themselves towards Dragon once more. They applied the same technique as before, sweeping along the hull of the huge vessel, following Estelle’s lead. But again, Dragon was no more receptive to their second attempt than it had been to their first, the vessel’s defences holding up to the power of the accelerator beams.
Missile warnings were sounding in Dodds’ cockpit. He saw cannons along Dragon’s surface swinging around to follow his route past them, still firing at him with unrelenting ferocity.
“Dragon’s defences are still holding,” Chaz
said.
“We have to try again!” Estelle stated determinedly.
“Estelle, my shields are taking a beating,” Dodds said. He had never seen the readouts this low in all the time he had flown the craft in combat. “We can’t go on like this! I’m registering fifty-one percent!”
“Fifty-seven,” Enrique said. “And dropping.”
“Forty-nine,” Chaz said.
“Fifty-three,” Kelly said.
Dodds saw something – most likely a missile – slam into the rear of the ATAF that flew ahead of him. A second missile followed swiftly after it.
“Fifty!” Kelly corrected.
“Prepare to fire again,” Estelle said.
“Estelle, we have to pull back!” Dodds protested.
“No!” Estelle answered. “We have to force Dragon off the field!”
“Estelle, Dragon’s defences have been massively upgraded,” Dodds said, watching his own defences and making a dedicated effort to now evade enemy fire, a task that was proving increasingly difficult. A warning sounded briefly, before his fighter rocked from a sudden impact. His shield counter then dropped into the forties. That was enough for him. “Estelle, we have to pull back! There is no way we are punching our way through those shields!”
He knew it was far from an easy request to make of Estelle. She didn’t want to order the squadron to break off their attack on Dragon. Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t see what good it would do.
There was a moment of silence. “Knights, break off the attack,” Estelle said. “Concentrate on the fighters.”
Dodds did so, swinging around and putting distance between himself and the battleship. Griffin was going to have to fend for herself.
*
The cries detailing the invaders were already reaching Parks’ ears as they permeated down the corridors of Grendel’s Mother, the words weaving stories that he might not have believed had he not already known what he was up against.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 86