The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (The Battle for the Solar System)

by Stephen J Sweeney

  The questions returned: just what was this thing that he sat in? Had the Confederation really built this alone? And if they had, for what purpose? This was not just the next step up, it was a leap; and giant one at that.

  Estelle's voice dragged him back. “We need to hurry up, Dodds. These guys won't be able to handle the fighters themselves and Griffin is in trouble if that frigate gets any closer.”

  He adjusted his heading to pass over Griffin and onward to meet the approaching frigate. As he drew closer, he concluded that the quickest solution to the problem of the frigate was to employ the use of his fighter's plasma accelerator. Having only used the weapon during the first few days of the ATAF's simulated courses, a real world test was long overdue.

  Traversing the craft's system menus, he located the screen he needed to activate the weapon, only to be confronted with an access denial. He nevertheless tapped the screen a few times in defiance. The console did nothing, save for emit a dull bleep, further enforcing its rejection.

  “My accelerator has been locked,” Dodds said. “If yours isn't working either, then we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” Estelle said nothing and Dodds returned his full attention back towards their target, discovering the reasons for her sudden silence.

  A large explosion appeared at the stern of the Imperial frigate, followed by another. The vessel began to come apart, venting gases and chemicals, and trailing chunks of hull and bulkhead in its wake. An enormous hail of cannon fire came from somewhere behind, slamming into the stricken vessel and putting an end to its involvement in the battle.

  “Hawke,” Estelle said, as Ifrit came into view.

  * * *

  With Rissard next to him, Zackaria watched the destruction of the two frigates in silence, their short-lived victory coming to a swift end. He turned and signalled to the crew that they were to leave at once. He felt no disappointment over their loss, nor in the direction the battle had turned. He had gained considerable knowledge and insight into his enemy; experience that would prove invaluable in the future.

  * * *

  Parks glowered, observing a feed of the spinning remains of the second frigate. True to his word, Hawke had engaged the enemy vessel as it had jumped into position behind the three carriers, effecting a flank. Hawke's belief that the enemy might attempt such a manoeuvre had come to a head, and he had made good on his own proposal to await such a move and step in to undo it. Parks couldn't fault him for that.

  He looked back to another feed of two ATAFs chasing after the wing of fighters that had arrived with the frigate. The fighters were pulling away from the battle, heading back towards Dragon. Likewise, another group were retreating from the three ATAFs that had taken down the first frigate.

  “Griffin, this is de Winter. Enemy forces appear to be withdrawing. Should we pursue?”

  “Stand down,” Parks said. “Let them go. I don't want anyone to throw their lives away needlessly.”

  They did so, and as he watched, Dragon turned away from the allied forces. A jump point formed beyond, and the battleship, along with the enormous squadrons of Imperial starfighters, accelerated in, disappearing from sight. Though chatter and noise still filled the bridge, Parks felt an ominous silence descend upon him. It appeared that the danger had passed, yet he continued to stare at the feed, expecting at any moment the mighty vessel to reappear. It did not.

  “Dragon has departed the system,” he heard from somewhere up the bridge.

  It's over, Parks thought to himself. Thank God.

  “Yeah, but it looks like it left some of its babies behind,” a voice came. It sounded like Enrique's.

  Parks noted that some of the Imperial fighters had not made it into the vicinity of Dragon before it had departed the system. Unable to jump out of Aster, the orphaned craft now looked to be stranded, and for a time they milled around in the area once occupied by their allies. All of a sudden, they changed their heading and began back towards the allied forces.

  “Hey, they're coming back,” Enrique said.

  The cameras tracking the group began to pan faster.

  “They're coming back bloody quickly!” the pilot then added.

  The fighters were accelerating at an alarming rate, putting themselves on a collision course with the three ATAFs that remained the furtherest out from the allied forces.

  “They're going to ram us!” That was Chaz. “Get out the way!”

  Two of the ATAFs moved, the remaining enemy forces shooting past them, several making last-ditch attempts to collide. For a moment, it looked as though their efforts had been in vain. Then came an explosion.

  Parks spun from the video relay to the frontal viewport, where even without the feeds, the fading burst was quite visible. A ripple of shock ran the length of the bridge, gasps and curses filling the air. Shouts and cries exploded from the various feeds and the other bridges, all intermixed and indistinguishable, and none providing the one answer Parks needed.

  “What happened?” Parks demanded, above the cries. “Someone tell me what the hell just happened?”

  “Collision, sir,” Liu answered him.

  “Between?”

  “One of ours and one of theirs. It looks like both vessels have been destroyed.”

  Parks paled. It had been just as he had thought: the pilot had faltered, lingering too long as they tried to decide the best direction to take, to best avoid the dozen or so Imperial fighters that were speeding towards them. In the end, one of the craft had ploughed straight into them. For everything that had happened that day, this was by far the worst. With the destruction of the ATAF, their one hope against the Enemy had been dashed. Everything now seemed hopeless.

  He stood staring out the viewport. Seconds later, he shook the shock from his system, remembering that several suicidal Imperial starfighters were still racing toward the allied group.

  “Shoot them down!” he shouted.

  It did not prove difficult to do so, the craft making no effort to deviate from their course. Cannons from the line of allied vessels blazed, finally putting an end to the battle.

  Parks looked back to the two ATAFs that the cameras were still tracking, not far from where the fateful collision had taken place. He caught a glimmer of something as it emitted a faint glow. It appeared to be spinning over and over. It took him a while to realise what it was he was looking at.

  * * *

  Kelly blinked her eyes open and tried to clear her blurred vision. There was a jumble of noise in her head. It sounded like voices calling out to her and demanding attention. After sometime, she realised it was her craft that was spinning and not her head, and with considerable effort she managed to slow and halt the spin of the fighter, bringing it to a complete stop.

  Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her breathing, calming herself so that she did not do the unthinkable and vomit inside her helmet. What was going on? Where was she? In a cockpit, to be sure. The act of slowing the fighter had been somewhat instinctual.

  She opened her eyes once more and looked all about the cockpit, then to the nebulas that hung nearby. A forest of spinning metals floated in every direction the eye could see. What looked like the broken, burnt, and scorched hull of some unknown large vessel tumbled.

  “Kelly, are you okay?” a dim voice asked.

  It seemed to come from all around her. She winced against a dull ache on the left side of her head.

  “Kelly?”

  “Where are you? What's going on?” she said to the voice.

  “You hit an Imperial fighter,” the voice said. “It flew straight into you.”

  “It did?” Kelly said. She found that hard to believe. If the voice was telling the truth, shouldn't she be dead? Maybe she was?

  “Kelly, are you okay?” the voice said again. “Is anything broken? Are you bleeding anywhere?”

  “Enrique, give her a moment,” another voice cut in. “It's obvious she doesn't remember what just happened. Kelly, it's Chaz. You've just had a crash. Don't pa
nic, just stay calm; ignore everyone and take your time. We're right here.”

  For a time the voices stopped and Kelly's memory gradually began to rebuild itself as she looked about the cockpit and at the scene outside. She started to recall the events that had led up to her current situation.

  “Yes... yes... I'm okay,” she said, several minutes later. “I just can't remember very much about what happened.”

  “Sounds like you might be suffering from a concussion,” Chaz said.

  Kelly reached up to touch the side of her head, before her hand encountered the helmet she wore. Even so, she rubbed around the area where her head was aching. She must have struck her head hard against the canopy. That would explain the blackout. She still felt quite dizzy, but at least the sick feeling was passing.

  “How's the ATAF?” Enrique said. “Are you good to fly it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “How badly is it damaged?”

  She pulled herself together and looked at her read-outs. She squinted at the displays, sceptical of the numbers she was reading and the images she was looking at, thinking the blow to her head might be causing her to see things.

  “It's not.”

  “At all?” Enrique said, sounding surprised.

  “No.” she said. She might have been surprised if she had not been feeling so groggy.

  * * *

  The report was relayed to Parks, who started to wonder how many other surprises the day had in store for them.

  “She's alive?” Liu said. “After that?”

  Parks nodded to the helmsman.

  “By all rights that fighter should have been destroyed and she should be dead! That's incredible!”

  It's more than that, Parks thought. It may well represent our only hope.

  With the departure of the enemy forces and the silence of weaponry, the scene beyond the bridge had become still once more. But amongst the multicoloured splendour of their surroundings lay the remnants of a battle that had not been easily won. With the operation over, Parks found himself able to slow down and take in everything about him. He turned around.

  The bridge had been laid to waste; and whilst his crew were coping with the damage that had been dealt it, Griffin would without doubt be out of service for several weeks, if not months. It was not time they could spare.

  Idiot, he thought to himself, looking over how much the carrier had suffered at the hands of an enemy he had been foolish enough to believe he was ready to tackle. We're not ready yet! You are not ready!

  Leviathan's condition was not much better, the damage to the exterior quite clear from where Parks stood. The emblems of the mythical creature that graced the hull were torn and burnt from where missiles, plasma bolts, and lasers had scorched the armour. Small glistening crystalline shapes could be seen emanating from damaged areas, where leaking gases and chemicals froze in the cold. Loose metals and alloys threatened to break off at the merest brush with solar winds. Grendel's Mother told a similar story, the carrier in no better condition for her part in the battle.

  And then there was the loss of Grendel. The destruction of one of their carriers would not please the United Naval Forces, who had agreed to support the Confederation in their endeavour on the condition that the safety of their forces would be made a top priority. Parks had a lot to answer for, though he realised it could have been a lot worse.

  “Good job, everyone,” Parks said to the bridge crew, although the congratulatory offering felt decidedly hollow. “Now that we have time to breathe, please prioritise yourselves with seeing to the wounded and dealing with repairs.”

  He would call a meeting of his senior staff after he'd had time to see to other matters.

  “Mr Liu, please put me in touch with Leviathan, Grendel's Mother, and...” he started, before a sudden anger gripped him. “No, wait, disregard that. Put me in touch with Ifrit, alone.”

  As he waited for the link to establish, he tried to cool his anger by counting slowly to ten. He made it to three.

  XV

  — The Journey Home —

  “Thank you so much for your assistance, Commodore,” Parks began. “We certainly would not have been able to cope without your timely intervention.” Parks made no attempt to conceal the sarcasm in his voice, the man sure that, even if Ifrit's captain had somehow failed to detect it, his expression would do an adequate job of conveying his dissatisfaction.

  Hawke's expression in the holographic screen remained quite neutral as he composed himself before replying. “As we had both agreed prior to the commencement of the operation, Commodore, I took up the position of rearguard and moved in to fulfil my role as needed. I stand by my belief that had I acted sooner than was necessary, we would, without a shadow of a doubt, have been surrounded by enemy forces and certainly would not be having this conversation now.”

  “That is beside the point, Commodore!” Parks glared. “I gave you a very specific request that our forces were being overrun and we needed your support. You chose to ignore that request.”

  “I did no such thing. Your communication was cut short and I took it upon myself to hold position until I could make a better assessment of the situation,” Hawke replied with the same air of infallibility.

  Your stubbornness and downright arrogance is staggering, Parks thought. What the hell happened to you? It was almost as if the man didn't want to help. Had Hawke panicked in the face of the Enemy? Had a repressed memory of his experience aboard Dragon during the time of its theft reared its ugly head? Whatever it was, it was still unacceptable to stand idly by as hostile forces tore the allies apart, and for that Parks was infuriated. With all that had happened that day he felt the rage building within him and decided to end the discussion rather than make his feelings known to the entire bridge crew.

  “We will continue this later, during debriefing,” Parks said, fully intent on bringing the man's almost total lack of participation in the operation to the attention of Fleet Admiral Turner and other members of naval high command.

  He signalled to the bridge crew to open communications to Grendel's Mother and Leviathan. The holographic images of Mandeep and Meyers appeared alongside the already present image of Hawke, the quality of the images as poor as ever.

  “Commodore, Captain,” Parks greeted them. “Are you in any need of assistance?”

  “We will be fine for the return journey, thank you, Commodore,” Mandeep replied, the smile that Parks had grown so accustomed to and fond of no longer gracing her face. “Much of the damage we received was superficial, a miracle given what we just faced.” Mandeep looked sad and disappointed, the tremendous losses they had suffered and the deaths of her colleagues undoubtedly an enormous weight on her mind.

  “Likewise with Leviathan,” Meyers said. “We did take some considerable damage, but it's nothing that we cannot cope with prior to our return to Spirit.”

  Parks nodded in understanding. “Very well. Whilst going about the repairs we should perform a brief sweep of the area and pick up any bodies we can find. Obviously there is nothing we can do for those poor individuals, but we can at least return their bodies home for a decent burial.”

  His eyes flickered past the holographic images to the debris that floated about beyond the carrier. Many of the starfighter pilots that had lost their lives would have been all but vaporised in the explosions of their craft. This he was glad for. After everything that had happened, too many questions would be asked if they pulled in the body of one of the Enemy. Such an occurrence would only act as a catalyst and foundation for increasing rumour and speculation. A count and name-check of those returning on the carriers would be performed at Spirit, with those unaccounted for being marked as killed in action.

  With that in mind, he looked to Meyers. “Captain, can Leviathan carry some of our fighters? Our flight deck is too badly damaged to land any and we can only accommodate so many in our cargo holds. I don't expect Ifrit will have room to spare,” he added dryly.

  Meye
rs nodded. “That shouldn't be an issue since, regrettably, we have many empty bays.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Parks said, before he turned once again to Mandeep. “Please convey my sincere condolences to the families of those who were aboard Grendel. A lot of brave men and women lost their lives on that ship today.” To lose an entire carrier was disastrous to any naval force. Matters were made worse by the fact that the crew were made up of military personnel volunteered by a number of Independent World naval forces. Parks could almost hear the cracks widening in the already strained relationships between some of the worlds.

  “I will make sure your sympathies are known, Commodore,” Mandeep said, the sadness clear in her eyes even through the distortion. “Please contact us when you are ready to leave. We will wait with you here, in case we can provide any further assistance.”

  “Thank you again, Sima,” Parks said.

  “Excuse me, Commodore, but how do you suppose the enemy forces were able to override the shutdown code that was sent to Dragon?” Meyers asked. It was a question that had played on Parks' mind - and he suspected very many others - throughout the course of the battle. The sudden restoration of power to Dragon had tipped the scales well in the enemy's favour during the opening part of the operation.

  “I don't believe they did, Captain,” Parks answered. “Our initial attempt at transmitting the code was not immediately successful and it took a lot longer for Dragon's systems to be deactivated than I was led to believe. I was informed that the shutdown procedure would take place upon receipt of the code. The fact that it did not do so should have been our first warning. It is my belief that the Enemy became aware our intentions and purposely shut down all systems themselves in compliance. Once we were lured into a false sense of security, they sprung their trap.”

  “How could they have known about something like that?” Mandeep asked.

  Parks had a hunch that she was asking a rhetorical question, implying that the Enemy had either been tipped off ahead of their encounter or that Dragon's previous crew were now working alongside its new owners.