“Yes?”
“A high-speed squadron of raptor featherheads—er, pilots.”
Deynolds gave a slight smile. “I know just the ones.” She headed off down the corridor, leaving Chhun and Owens together.
“How bad was it?” Chhun asked his commanding officer.
“Not as bad as you think,” Owens said, pushing his shades up onto the bridge of his nose. “If we weren’t planning a major kelhorned invasion of an entire planet, I don’t think he would’ve blinked. Plus, he expected you on Operation Turning Point to take down the shield generator, and when he learned that R&R wasn’t the reason you begged off… well, that didn’t sit well with him. But I’ll take the heat on that. Point is, he agreed. So this is your free pass to do something other than kill donks. Because when you get back… you and Victory Squad are gonna be in the thick of it on Ankalor.”
***
Masters adjusted the plasteen strips tied around his wrists. “I hate this. Cap, are you sure we gotta kit out like this?”
Chhun pulled himself away from the manic hustle of the surrounding docking bay on board the Intrepid. Outside the shielded bay door, the swirling, haunting folds of hyperspace blurred past. Not much longer until the ship arrived at Olik.
The strips Masters was complaining about were designed to make the Legion armor capable of surviving limited exposure to the vacuum of space. Masters knew that. But Chhun played along.
“No telling what kind of nut we’re going to have to crack to get at Nero,” Chhun said. “So it’s just like it was back in Liberty Scouts: Stay Prepared.”
Masters dropped his head and sulkily replied, “My mom didn’t let me join Liberty Scouts.”
“You didn’t miss much,” said Fish, who was standing just inside an assault pod attached to the bottom of an armored transport shuttle.
“What’re you talking about?” said Bear. Like Chhun, he was staying outside of the cramped pod for as long as possible. “Liberty Scouts was awesome. That’s how I first learned to shoot a blaster rifle.”
A lull in the conversation followed as the kill team checked and re-checked their equipment, waiting for the order to load up into the assault pod. Smaller than assault shuttles, assault pods were launched like missiles from larger craft. They were less powerful than the piloted assault shuttles Chhun and his team had used to breach capital ships through the years, but that was precisely the point. A standard assault shuttle would rocket straight through a transport shuttle, and everyone wanted this “General Nero” captured alive.
Chhun looked over to the standby assault team made up of Republic marines—the guys who’d be sent out if his kill team found itself on the wrong end of a blaster cannon. Walking through the crowd was Major Owens in full kit, a navy pilot at his side. The pair made their way straight to Victory Squad.
“Captain Chhun,” Owens said on reaching them. “I want you to meet Lieutenant Dax Danns. He’s the squad leader for Raptor Strike Squadron 101—Star Reapers. He’s assigned to make sure you don’t get shot down once you launch.”
Dax had a dark complexion and a charismatic, megawatt smile. He moved his flight helmet from one hand to the other to shake with Chhun. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“You too, Lieutenant.” Chhun looked around the docking bay, searching for the taxied Raptor starfighters.
Dax seemed to sense what he was looking for, as he pointed Chhun in the right direction. “That’s us over there, and we’ll be nearby the whole time. No way we’ll let a kill team get vaped while the Reapers are in flight.”
Chhun studied the ships. The fixed-wing Raptors had the usual white hull with gray streaks, all except for one, which was metallic gray with bright green streaks. That must belong to the flight leader. “How’d you get the okay on a paint job like that?” he asked. “Not exactly reg.”
Dax chuckled. “By not having a CO with a stick up her ass. Captain Deynolds okayed orders to let us customize our birds after we got our tenth confirmed. And,” Dax tilted his head, clearly impressed with himself and filing his fingernails against his dark green flight suit, “only took me a week clearing out pirates outside of Honnifer to pitch out my ride. Rest of the squad’s only a few kills behind. Probably get it done today if Black Fleet launches fighters.”
“They’re the best,” Owens said, raising his voice to be heard over the all-comm updates, mechanical noises, and general chaos that was a docking bay at general quarters—battle stations.
“Glad to have you out there,” Chhun said.
The shipboard comm interjected itself into the conversation, calling for all pilots and appropriate personnel to prepare for launch.
Dax smiled. “You get a chance to do a favor for a kill team, you take it, right? Get-out-of-dead free card in case the House of Reason ever jumps down my neck.” Laughing at his own joke, Dax pulled his flight helmet over his head and started running toward his Raptor squadron.
“Okay, Victory,” Chhun shouted, turning to face his team. “You heard the magic voice. Time to climb inside and get cramped.”
Owens knocked on Chhun’s shoulder armor. “Save room for me in there.”
This wasn’t a surprise; Owens had his rifle and was jocked up for combat. “You sure, Major?”
“Not letting a team down two men get after it solo. We aren’t that desperate yet.”
Chhun nodded. Owens had proven on Herbeer that his time in command hadn’t atrophied his fighting ability. “Masters is our spear tip. Why don’t you take jump master?”
Owens looked like he wanted to object to being placed at the end of the line, last one out of the pod. But he only nodded, removed his shades, and pulled his bucket over his head. “Rock and roll.”
***
Command Bridge of the Black Fleet Frigate Monstrous
Olik System
Pehl Turek walked slowly across the bridge of the Black Fleet frigate tasked with bringing General Nero to Tusca from his recuperations on Tarrago. Not the most important mission in the galaxy, but infinitely better than his time as first mate aboard the long-haul transports traveling from one end of the galaxy to the other.
His hands were clasped behind his back as he observed his modest crew. Only five were needed on the Monstrous, unlike the two dozen needed to man a destroyer. He wondered, for a moment, the crew size needed for one of Emperor Sullus’s dreadnoughts. Some day he would find out. But for now… he was in command. Finally.
From a family steeped in Republic Navy tradition, Captain Turek found himself an oddity. Four generations of sons had all served in the navy, to a man. Turek’s three older brothers had done their part as well. But Turek didn’t test well enough to serve as an officer—that’s what they said. He could perform the necessary duties expected of an officer. He was quick on his feet, made good practical decisions, was suited for a life in space, but when it came to the necessary entrance examinations… he always bombed. Enlistment was his only option. The first Turek son unsuited to serve as an officer in the Republic Navy.
So his father told him to skip the navy altogether. Told him there’d be more money and fewer headaches just taking a commission with a mercantile spacer. And no shame.
But shame was all Captain Turek ever felt. Because he knew he’d failed. He knew his father had told him not to enlist because he didn’t want to introduce to his retired navy brass buddies his three officer sons and the swab who couldn’t cut it. His father never said that out loud, but Turek knew it was true.
And that was why Turek experienced a soul-stripping inward flush of warmth every time he entered a spaceport, sat through a Republic customs inspection, or gathered with his siblings. That was the worst of all. At every wedding or funeral, they would appear resplendent in their white dress uniforms. And there he was in an ordinary suit, explaining for the hundredth time to a distant relation why he, Pehl, wasn’t in the navy like everyone else. Or even in command of the cargo hauler he served upon.
But I’m in command now, Turek reminded himself
, his brief tour of the bridge complete.
That was all it had taken for him to join the Back Fleet. Just the acknowledgment that he had been overlooked—that there was a place for him in the coming new order.
“We want men of merit,” the former Naval Academy instructor, now recruiting for the new emperor, had told him. “And we know you were born for the stars, clipped and grounded by the Republic. And I think,” the man said during that clandestine comm discussion in the stark loneliness of deep space, “that it’s time you take command of your future, and a ship in our fleet.”
A simple frigate, while a step up from a deep-space hauler, was still the sort of starship people were given command of when their career was all but over. But for Captain Turek, Monstrous—with its modest command crew, its meager detachment of shock troopers, and its single squadron of tri-fighters—was everything. He would do his duty well and please his superiors. He would be noticed. He was ready for greatness. Ready for his destiny.
And so, when the Republic destroyer burst into subspace, already within firing range, Turek did not hesitate.
“Shields!” he screamed, in time to prevent all but the first deadly turbolaser from impacting his thin hull. “The general?”
A comm and sensor officer studied the dash. “Sir, the general just exited Olik’s atmosphere and is on a trajectory toward Monstrous docking.”
“Republic Raptors!” screamed the security officer, giving words to the visuals they all saw through the forward viewport. Starfighters, practically miniature compared to the hulking destroyer from which they came, poured out of a shielded docking bay.
“Scramble all tri-fighters,” Turek ordered. “We need to buy the general time to reach us.”
Turek’s helmsman swiveled in his chair and got his captain’s attention. “Sir, oughtn’t the general return to the planet?”
Captain Turek shook his head. “The planet will be swarming with legionnaires before long, if the general is their target. His best chance is to reach Monstrous and escape with us. Have jump coordinates at the ready.”
“Yes, sir!”
The ship lurched and rocked from the concussive force of turbolaser fire impacting in brilliant explosive flashes on the shield array. Monstrous couldn’t take much of this. Not for long.
“Captain Turek,” the weapons officer called out. “Requesting permission to engage the Republic destroyer.”
“Don’t bother,” Turek said, dismissing the idea with a wave. “We’d be lucky to get their shields to even flicker. Power down all batteries except for starfighter defense, and channel it to increase shield strength. We don’t need to out-punch them, we only need to last until the bell rings.”
***
Raptor Strike Squadron 101, “Star Reapers”
Olik System
Dax Danns roared out of the Intrepid’s docking bay and into open space. This was always a surreal sensation. Inside the bay, the noise from his Raptor’s thrusters was deafening—and then it all went deathly quiet once he was out in open space.
Massive turbolaser blasts shot from Intrepid’s batteries over his head. Carnage in energy form advanced to wreak havoc on the much smaller frigate, hammering its shields so ruthlessly that Dax could actually see the protective energy screens rippling.
“All right,” Dax called into his squad comm. “Form up on me, Reapers. We in, we out, and we fast on this hop.”
“Scope’s picking up a Republic-model transport shuttle exiting orbit,” called Reaper Four, his report coming just as Dax saw the same on his screen.
Dax tapped in a preconfigured request to his Raptor’s AI, asking it to plot an optimal intercept route. “Thirty seconds,” he mumbled to himself.
And probably four minutes before the shuttle reached the frigate. Not much time, especially if the Black Fleet had any halfway competent starfighter pilots scrambling to intercept.
With an easy push of his flight control stick, Dax aimed his ship straight for the frigate itself. His plotting computer beeped at his wide variation from its highlighted course.
“Where you headed, Reaper One?” the Intrepid’s CSG—Commander, Starfighter Group—inquired over comm. He was a year into the position, and Dax knew that the guy wanted little more than to be back behind the stick.
“Gonna swing us around the frigate’s docking bay,” Dax said, knowing that his squadron would follow him without his giving the command. “If they launch fighters, I want to have the drop on them.”
“Priority is the shuttle,” reminded the CSG, his voice stern.
“Roger,” Dax said, increasing his speed as the fixed-wing craft scanned for incoming fighters. “We got time for the detour, boss.”
The Raptors swooped alongside the frigate, flying parallel to the craft. These frigates always reminded Dax of boxy, oversized speeders with two massive drive engines protruding from the back. The Reapers raced past the engines, lining themselves up to fly directly toward the distant shuttle, the frigate’s docking bay still ahead.
Flashes of turbolaser fire from Intrepid cast their green glow inside Dax’s cockpit like flashes of lightning on a night drive. Soon, magenta flashes erupted from the frigate in response.
“Whoa!” called out Reaper Four.
“What is it?” asked the CSG from Intrepid. “What’s the SA?”
“Frigate’s guns are trying to tap us,” reported Reaper Two.
Dax throttled forward as the Monstrous’s blaster bolts streaked behind him. “Just kick up the speed, Reapers. Those guns can’t track small and fast.”
The squadron increased its acceleration, quickly burning through the distance between them and the frigate’s hangar bay. And just as they came near, the larger ship began spewing forth slick and agile tri-fighters, painted matte black, just as in the reports from Tarrago.
“That’s what we’re looking for,” Dax called out. “Paint your targets and punch right through, Reapers!”
Tri-fighters jinked in hopeless attempts to escape the unanticipated barrage of starfighter fire tearing into them mere seconds after they emerged from the shielded docking bay. At least a half dozen tri-fighters were immediately vaporized as the Raptors’ blaster cannons ripped through their wings and cockpits. Even so, more continued exiting the frigate until it seemed there were two tri-fighters for each Raptor.
“Mother, this is Reaper One,” Dax called in to his destroyer. “Vaped six tris, count a couple dozen more. Must have ’em packed in tight in that frigate.”
“Copy, Reaper One,” the CSG replied. “Launching Black Hawk Squadron to engage fighters. Don’t let the shuttle get away.”
“Not plannin’ on it,” Dax said to himself.
He executed a spiraling corkscrew that locked a tri-fighter in his sights, then sent linked blaster bolts burning into the tri-fighter. One more hashmark to be painted beneath his fighter’s canopy.
“Reapers Two and Three, form up on me. Let’s keep that shuttle from getting back home. The rest of you keep those fighters busy.”
“On it, boss!”
“Right behind you!”
The three Raptors pushed through the thick screen of Black Fleet fighters, picking off targets of opportunity as they fell into their sights. Soon Dax was through the swarm, and the distant shuttle was in view from his canopy, growing larger as he streaked toward it.
“Reaper One, one of you picked up a tail,” called Reaper Nine from the maelstrom. The three Raptors had formed the three points of a triangle, moving in formation toward the shuttle. “Coming up behind the port-side Raptor. Is that you, Three?”
“Yeah,” replied the pilot. “I can tell something back there is shooting at me, but I got no joy—I can’t see ’em!”
Dax frowned. “Two, Three, break off and keep an eye on each other. But if the tri puke follows me… do me a favor and vape ’em.”
“Acknowledged, Reaper One.”
The two Raptors rolled away, peeling in large, inverted arcs that afforded each pilot the opportun
ity to look up and see more clearly their wingman’s situation. Peals of blaster fire chased Reaper Three’s maneuvering Raptor, glancing across its wing and bringing down its shields.
“Shields down!” Reaper Three reported. “Tri-fighter is still on my six… can’t shake him loose.”
“Hang tight,” said Reaper Two. “I’m coming around. Damn it… this guy won’t stay still. I can’t get him locked.”
Blaster fire shaved away paint stripes and sizzled impervisteel as it seared past Reaper Three. The pilot sounded concerned, a man sensing his demise. “Get this guy, dammit!”
“I’m trying!”
Dax looked over his shoulder at the knife fight behind him and swore to himself. He pulled his Raptor up hard and looped around, orienting himself with a barrel roll and assuming a collision course with Reaper Two. “Nose down, Three!” he ordered.
The pilot pushed in stick-forward and performed an abrupt dive, giving Dax an opening at the pursuing tri-fighter. Reaper One didn’t hesitate. Two alternating blaster cannons sent four energy bolts into the center of the tri-fighter’s cockpit, igniting its flammable gases in a quick burst, and Dax flew through the exploding wreckage.
“Thanks, Dax,” called out a relieved-sounding Reaper Three.
“You can thank me at the club,” Dax replied, already falling back into formation. He looked with a furrowed brow at the intercept readings. “Sket! We gotta disable this shuttle yesterday!”
“Be advised,” the CSG announced over the comm, “hostile frigate has lost shields. Expect power to be routed to laser batteries. Eyes open out there, Reapers.”
The shields were down? Dax had an idea. “Mother, this is Reaper One.”
“I hear you, Reaper One.”
“Blow that frigate apart!”
“I… what?”
“That shuttle’s got a chance to dock hot… and the moment it gets inside… hyperspace. We gotta deny its ride out of here. By the time the shuttle starts calculating its own jump, I’ll have the engines disabled.” Dax could see the auto-turrets under each shuttle wing attempting to track his approach. He would attempt to knock those out before swinging around and hitting the engines. “Hope I don’t blow the whole thing up,” he mumbled to himself.
Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7) Page 8