by Daniel Gibbs
Caillaux and Li nodded. "Indeed, Admiral," Li said. "As long as we fulfill our Social duty, no other consideration matters. With your permission, I will join your forces to repel the boarding parties."
"No," said Hartford. "Make your way back to your ship. Your vessel's electronic countermeasures will allow it to slip away. Link up with Captain Zervakos and see to the operation's completion."
Li nodded. "I will, Admiral." After saying that, he departed the command center.
Hartford's attention returned to the ongoing battle. Most of the enemy ships were already coming up to the intact hangars or pulling adjacent to sections of the torus opposite of the intact plasma cannons. Two vessels approached the central body of the station and came under immediate fire that forced them away. The icon for one disappeared; destroyed or crippled, in all likelihood.
"Admiral, you should withdraw as well," Caillaux said. "You still have a role in the war effort. The Altair is docked under the cover of our remaining weapon emplacements. Allow me and my officers to cover your escape with our lives."
A pained look came over Hartford's face. After several moments, he nodded in acceptance of the point. "Very well. Your names will be remembered by society until the end of time, Captain."
"That is all any member of society can ask," Caillaux answered proudly. "Once you’re clear, we will overload our fusion cores. We'll take these animals with us."
"No." Hartford turned to him and shook his head. "The other ships may know something about our plans. If the station is destroyed, they would immediately head to Lusitania and might arrive at an inopportune time. My final order to you, Captain, is to hold out as long as you can before you overload the cores."
"Order acknowledged, Admiral," Caillaux said. He promptly saluted Hartford. The rest of the officers did the same.
Hartford brought his hand to his brow stiffy and returned the salute. After his hand came down, he turned toward the exit door and, with some reluctance, departed the command center.
20
Through his holotank projector, Henry watched the success of his plan with relief. The League base's defenses were heavily compromised by the missile attack and the approaching ships were further degrading the station's defensive capability. Already they were heading in to begin deploying boarding forces. So was the Shadow Wolf, in a wide parabolic course to evade both the remaining guns on the station and the enemy fleet still determined to kill them.
Henry knew something had changed when the incoming fire slackened. He watched on the holotank as the enemy fleet turned away. At first, he wondered if this was some attempt to regroup.
"Looks like they lost interest," Tia said. "What do you think they're up to?"
"I wish I knew." Henry keyed the commlink to the Mad Hatter. "Commodore, it looks like they're withdrawing."
"So it would seem," Dulaney said, his tone cheerful. "We've won."
"No, I don't think it's that simple." Henry stopped himself from shaking his head. "That's not how these people think. They haven't fought long or hard enough to give in." A suspicion came to him. "They're going for Lusitania. They're still going for whatever their operation is."
"Then we should call off boarding action," Piotr suggested. "This may be trap."
"No, no, we still need to take this place," Henry insisted. "We might be able to recover data on what they're doing. We need to know."
"If we board, League will probably self-destruct station, kill our boarding teams."
The point raised was a good one. Henry spent another ten seconds considering it before he shook his head. "No. I understand what you mean, and if you want to break off and pursue that fleet, go ahead, but I think we need that station. We should secure the engineering spaces and the command spaces immediately and then take the station bit by bit."
He waited for the reply to his argument. Two of the would-be boarding ships broke away and started burning for Dulaney's section of the fleet again; those captains evidently didn't like the idea.
"Your points are right, Captain Henry," Dulaney said. "I'm ordering our people to maintain boarding plans."
"And you, Captain Tokarev?" Henry asked.
There was a silence of about ten seconds. Cera was already putting them on a more direct course to enter one of the hangars.
"You make good argument, Captain," Piotr answered. "We will stay on course. God stands with us."
"We'll harass the enemy ships before they jump," Dulaney added. "We won't have the firepower to stop them, but maybe we can whittle them down."
"I'm leaving that in your hands, Commodore," Henry said. "Captain Tokarev, my people will go for the computers of the station if yours will head for the command center. Dulaney's can handle the engineering section."
"Accepted!" came the eager reply.
"Bringing us in, Captain," said Cera.
The Shadow Wolf pulled in toward the outer part of the station's torus section. The display at the front of the bridge showed a set of closed hangar doors come into view. "Piper?" Henry asked.
"With pleasure," she replied as her hand reached for the firing controls.
One of the Shadow Wolf's plasma cannons tracked to face the alloy-covered opening and started firing. Pulses of purple energy slammed into and then through the door, wrecking part of the interior of the hangar. There was no decompression. Henry figured the League had depressurized the area anyway, undoubtedly to complicate boarding. He opened a comm to Felix. "Make sure the landing troops know to expect low or zero-G and no atmosphere."
"They're already in softsuits," Felix replied. "So are we."
"Who's going aboard?"
"Yanik, Miri, Miss Caetano, al-Lahim, and I. Oskar and Jules'll follow to provide aid to the wounded. The killer's suited up too, but I don't think he'll be helping us for long."
"Let him do what he wants; we'll handle Kepper later," Henry answered.
Cera was already guiding the Shadow Wolf in. The ship would never fit in the hangar; it was too small for a vessel of its size, so she was bringing them around and pulling as close as she could. "I think we'll just manage t' get th' hold ramp to touch th' floor, sir," she said.
"Do whatever you can," Henry said. "Once we're unloaded, pull away. We'll see if there's another hangar we can actually land in."
Several seconds passed. The Shadow Wolf finished her turn. Cera used the maneuvering drives and a little thrust from the plasma drives to line the Shadow Wolf up to the hangar, putting it on their starboard.
Piper spoke up. "Enemy fighters launching, Captain."
"Let those Trinidad volunteers in our turrets know to keep their eyes peeled," he replied.
"I've done th' best I can," Cera said. "Tell 'em to open th' hold."
"This is Henry to boarding forces. Open starboard hold, extend the ramp. Good luck to you all," Henry said. "Piper, I'm not sure our quads will have a firing angle, but there should be an auto-turret to give them support fire."
"I'll be ready," Piper offered.
A few moments later, Tia spoke up. "Starboard hold door is opening."
"My best to Cera," Felix said over the commlink. "The ramp is a bit over half a meter into the hangar. We can use magboots to walk right in."
"Thank ye, Mister Rothbard. I do aim t' please," Cera said brightly.
"Alright, everyone, we're heading in. Wish us luck."
"You've got it," said Henry.
Tia glanced to Henry and, despite herself, grinned. "Just like old times, I suppose?"
Henry snorted a quick laugh. "A bit, but not quite."
"Oh?"
"We'd have added 'Godspeed'," Henry said. An old, familiar pain showed on his face. "And that's a word I don't use anymore."
Tia noticed the grimace and said nothing more.
The Trinidad teams were careful in stepping off the Shadow Wolf and onto the station. The damaged area had little in the way of anything beyond debris. A sliding double door on the far end was shut. One of the Trinidaders walked up to it and tested the control.
"Locked down," she said, looking at the others through the faceplate of his suit. "Demolition charge?"
Another man provided the charge. Everyone stood back as it was attached to the door and activated. The explosive did its job and blasted the door open in a shower of flame. "Go, go!"
Yanik led the Shadow Wolf contingent in joining the boarding teams' charge into the station. They found the corridors empty and depressurized as well. "Makes sense to fall back," Felix said. "A shame we couldn't get anyone onto the station core; they're going to make us pay to get through."
"Agreed, but I believe I have the answer to their defensive positions." Yanik hefted his assault gun.
Al-Lahim eyed it with surprise. "That's… God, my grandfather spoke of seeing videos of those being used against us when we warred with Sauria. How did you get one?"
"My own grandfather used it in those same wars," Yanik answered. "I am well aware of—"
Before he could finish, there was a vibration through the deck, powerful enough it seemed to shudder. "That felt like an explosion," Felix said.
"It did not sound like one due to no atmosphere?" Caetano asked.
Felix had nearly forgotten she was with the team. "Yeah. No air, so the explosion doesn't have a boom without air to push. Just vibration through the deck."
"Mines, most likely," al-Lahim suggested.
"Right." Felix sighed. "I was a fleet officer, dammit. What we need are Marines."
"They would be most useful." Yanik stepped ahead. "But they are not here. Nor is our 'ally'."
The others glanced around and confirmed to themselves that Kepper was gone. "He probably slipped away with the other boarders. Good riddance, if you ask me. That man was bad news."
"I don't think he will pose a threat," al-Lahim remarked. "He is here for his own mission. If we're lucky, maybe he'll distract them further."
"However that turns out, we should continue moving," said Yanik.
"You're the Second Mate. We're right behind you," Felix said, grinning slightly.
The Shadow Wolf pulled away from the enemy station just in time. Twelve League starfighters were already in open space, making strafing runs on the various privateer ships still trying to land boarding teams. Henry checked the holotank. "Cera, bring us up alongside the nearest ship still unloading. Piper, I want all guns focused on the League small craft."
Under Cera's expert control, the Shadow Wolf accelerated forward and carried them toward a hundred-meter-long converted liner. Henry guessed it was one of Dulaney's ships, likely set up to bring a larger number of troops. It was imperative to ensure they all got on the station. From what he could see, the liner's intraship tubes—typically meant for external docking to stations or ship-to-ship transfers—were being used to let the teams cut through the hull and enter the station. This would take longer than his method of dropping people directly into the hangar. The enemy fighters had seemingly keyed in on that as well.
Six of the enemy fighters screamed in for the transport, their plasma cannons blasting away at the liner's shields. The weapons were meant primarily to attack other light craft and didn't break through the deflectors on the ship. But given time they would, especially if joined by a volley of missiles.
"They haven't fired missiles yet," Tia noted. "How do they expect to get through the deflectors, then?"
"They're probably holding them in reserve in case we put our own fighters out," Henry said. But his face belied his own reservations about this. What are they up to?
Cera's course brought them to within engagement range. The six fighters broke away even before the quad-guns on the Wolf opened up. "Keep us alongside," Henry said. "Just in case they come back."
"Aye, sir," Cera said. "All set t' keep station."
Henry returned his attention to the holotank to get a feel for how things were progressing. Other captains that had already let their boarding teams off were taking up his decision, providing cover for the ships still offloading. A few others were darting around the station, trying to get clear shots at the remaining plasma cannon emplacements on the station without exposing themselves to fire at the same time. One ship miscalculated and took a barrage that battered down its deflectors. It survived the hits only by a sharp maneuver to port, getting back behind the station's core, and was grievously wounded by the weapons’ impacts.
As for Dulaney, he and the rest of the fleet were accelerating hard to intercept the outgoing League fleet. The stolen ships were burning for all they were worth for the Lawrence limit. Given the relative positioning and acceleration, Henry wasn't confident Dulaney could stop them from getting away, but if he destroyed enough, it might make the League's plans non-viable. It wasn't the assurance Henry would’ve preferred, but it would have to be enough.
"More fighters are launching," Piper said.
Twelve more fighters emerged into the void from another of the hangars, also still covered by the remaining plasma cannons. "Give me a visual," Henry said.
Tia did so.
Henry looked over the craft, which was a slightly aerodynamic box with its extendable atmospheric wings visible on the sides. Four plasma cannons were built into the "nose"—which was more of a chin—and belly of the craft while several hardpoints had weapons mounted.
Henry recognized them, since he'd seen them before in his career. "All ships, prepare for evasive maneuvers!" he called into the tactical commlink. "They've got anti-ship missiles!" He directed a glance to Piper. "Make sure the auto-turrets prioritize them above all other threats. Our deflectors can't take more than two hits, at best."
"I'll be ready for evasives," Cera promised.
The League fighter squadrons met up. With two losses to fire from the rest of the fleet, the initial twelve fighters were down to ten. Twenty-two fighters in total were not going to defeat the privateer fleet, not even this section of it. But Henry knew those anti-ship weapons could do a lot of damage before they were wiped out.
Their first clear target was another of the larger ships doing as Henry had done, dropping teams off via an intact hangar. The fighters lit off a missile each toward the big ship and its cover, one of the Cyrilgrad-crewed vessels. Point-defense fire met the incoming missiles. Had the two ships been military craft with their more sophisticated, and plentiful, point-defense systems, Henry would have written off the entire attack.
But these weren't military ships, and they didn't have the volume of fire to stop twelve missiles at such close range. In the end, half of the barrage hit home, four against the escorting ship and two against the larger ship. Both ships' deflectors failed from the attack. The Cyrilgrad ship suffered even further, taking two direct hits that blew the ship to pieces, while the big ship absorbed no further damage.
Henry found it curious. He would’ve focused fire on the landing ship, not the escort. Even if they weren't Hunter missiles, even standard weapons could have programming for prioritizing targets, so it wasn't a case that most of the weapons inbound for the larger ship were those lost to point-defense.
But I'm thinking like me. Leaguers don't always fight the same way. As he pondered the situation, it occurred to Henry why the League wouldn't prioritize ships still dropping boarding forces.
"Dammit," he muttered before keying all of his tactical links. "They're stalling," he said. "They want to drag this fight out as long as possible and take as many of us with them as they can."
"What makes you say that?" Tia asked.
"They're not worried about our boarding parties getting on-station," Henry said, his voice still carrying into the line. "I think they’ve written themselves off. Their goal now is to delay us to ensure their Q-ships accomplish whatever their mission is."
"Then they might overload reactors before we get to them," Piotr warned. "Should we recall teams?"
"No." Henry shook his head. "Our best chance of finding out what they're doing here is if we get access to their systems. We need our people to break through before they can overload their systems."
; "You're asking me to endanger hundreds of lives," Dulaney pointed out. "We could just head to Lusitania and thwart them there."
"We don't even know what they're up to, Commodore. The less information we have, the harder this gets."
Henry waited for a response, knowing Dulaney's decision would decide everything through his control of the Trinidad Station contingent.
"We're committed already, I suppose," Dulaney conceded. "But I'll hold you personally responsible if we lose people needlessly, Captain Henry."
"Understood, Commodore," Henry said.
Once he removed his finger from the transmit switch, he noticed Tia giving him a worried look. "What?"
"He'll probably shoot you if this goes wrong," Tia said.
"Knowing his reputation? Yeah." Henry shrugged. "I wouldn't blame him. Besides, look on the bright side."
"What bright side?"
"The way things are set up, you'd get the ship," Henry said with a grin.
She gave him a bemused glance before returning her attention to her station.
The liner they were covering retracted its intraship tubes, leaving behind two holes in the station's hull. "It looks like most of the ships have put teams aboard," Tia said.
"Then let's get those fighters. Cera?" The tone in Henry's voice made clear what he was expecting.
"Bringin' the fusion drives online," she said.
Yanik and the others arrived at one of the shafts heading into the station's core section to the scene of a recently-ended battle. Several bodies were present, shot by varying kinds of weapons or, in one case, by the concussive force of an explosion. There were a few in League-modeled suits and slightly more wearing non-uniformed gear. "So we figure they're going to blow the station when it's clear we're about to take it, right?" Felix asked aloud.
"That would make sense," Miri agreed.
"It would." Al-Lahim knelt over one of the fallen bodies and whispered to himself, too low for the others to hear.
"So how do we stop them?"
"The most obvious solution is to take their engineering section before they can act," Yanik said. "Undoubtedly, they will expect this and have their strongest defenses there."