It has to be the Test Fleet, Solomon realized. He saw some parts of ships that he recognized from the more standard Rapid Response Fleet, and some that he had no clue what they were for.
Over there, he saw the larger brick-like shapes with their four positional thruster arms similar to a standard CMC bomber, and elsewhere he saw smaller four-winged craft that could be the experimental version of a new type of fighter craft. They were smaller than the regular fighter craft, but with a sharper, meaner nose and a fatter wedge of thrusters at the back.
Then came the more quixotic craft—ships with two sets of outer rings and a long inner body that looked a little like someone had jammed two jump-ships together. Or a couple that appeared to be haphazard collections of spheres attached by thin access tubes, and no apparent propulsion system at all.
Flash! Even as the sight of the mysterious fleet swam before his eyes, Solomon saw one of the sleek experimental fighters suddenly erupt in a gout of flame and plasma as one of the CMC fighters fired a payload of Hellfire missiles at it, which sent it turning end over end into the stationary experimental fighter beside it.
“It’s like shooting fish. Why aren’t they responding?” Jezzy breathed.
“Because they haven’t been activated, dammit!” Ochrie said. “The Test Fleet is comprised of craft, and hardly any personnel at all. There aren’t pilots to fly them!”
Warning! Target Lock Detected!
Ratko growled in frustration. On the tactical screens above them, Solomon could see the small, fast blip of a Hellfire missile closing in on their position.
“Plasma vent!” Solomon called out, remembering just what he had done aboard a transporter earlier to avoid a very similar position.
Ratko didn’t say anything but nodded grimly, understanding immediately what the lieutenant meant. “Opening propellant injectors 1 through 3,” she said as there was a judder from the scout.
Outside their ship, the CMC attack craft would have seen three sudden and small plumes of purple, blue, red, and yellow gases spume out of the back of the scout. The propellant ignited as soon as it got near the burn of the thrusters, expanding and creating a shifting cloak of burning plasma for a brief moment.
But a brief moment was all they needed.
Hellfire missiles rely primarily on thermal scanning, Solomon knew. They locked onto the large heat signatures of a craft’s thrusters and engine block and followed it to detonation.
But now the missile had a new, and much nearer heat signature that burned hotter than the thruster flame for the briefest of moments before evaporation.
Flash! It self-detonated as soon as it entered the plasma field, and the scout was zooming forward, saved.
“Genius,” Ratko complimented him.
“Not quite…” Solomon saw the ship’s warning flicker onto the overhead screen.
Warning! Propellant Mixture -35%!
“We can’t do that too many times,” Solomon said. Well, we can’t do that too many times if we also want to be able to ignite the thrusters and positional rockets.
“Frack,” Ratko said.
But Solomon had an idea. “Ochrie—Chief, I mean—are the ships automated? Remote-controlled, like the experimental jump-ship?” The one that had just been blown from the sky, he thought.
“Of course!” Chief Ochrie said, nodding at Willoughby to open a broadcast channel. “Input Order: Voice Activation Commander-in-Chief Ochrie!” she called desperately.
If they were waiting for a response from the vessel, they got none, but they all knew they didn’t have time to knock and wait politely.
“Activate Fleet!” Ochrie said.
“Send us the remote access!” Solomon hissed, running to the side of the bridge where a line of spare consoles was sitting, doing nothing but processing data. These, he knew, could be used by the crew of the craft to dedicate certain roles to certain officers—gunnery, tactical operations, science analysis, and so on…
“Sir?” Jezzy said in a confused voice. The captain’s command chair was still empty.
“She’s your boat, Jezzy, take the helm!” Solomon said as he heard Ochrie ordering the automated fleet to send their remote access protocols to the scout.
Flash! Another of the experimental fighters exploded, and one of the heavy bombers was listing to one side, two of its four ‘thruster arms’ horribly broken and melted.
Access Granted.
On Solomon’s console, which had no accompanying command chair, flight or firing sticks, were the hologram controls above the black screen as well as a series of overlay tactical images on the viewing screens above.
ECH TEST FLEET COMMAND PROTOCOL
Complement:
Nightjar Fighter Craft Group 1 (5 vessels) ACTIVATED
Nightjar Fighter Craft Group 2 COMPROMISED (4 vessels) ACTIVATED
Nightjar Fighter Craft Group 3 COMPROMISED (2 vessels) ACTIVATED
Vulture Heavy Bomber Group COMPROMISED (2 vessels) ACTIVATED
Retribution Tactical Fighter Group (2 vessels) ACTIVATED
Ouroboros Jump-craft (2 vessels) ACTIVATED
Ragnarök Spheres (2 vessels) ACTIVATED
“What am I looking at here?” Solomon said, half to himself and half to Ochrie. But he knew he didn’t have time for an answer, either. I’ll have to leave all the ships that I have no idea what they do, like the Ouroboros and the spheres…
But when it came to the names of the other ships, Solomon thought he had a much better sense of what they might be capable of. Already, several of the attack groups were compromised, which he thought meant that they had already lost ships from their number or had been damaged by Hausman’s attacks. He had to move fast.
“Jezzy? I’m sending you the controls for Nightjar Group 2 and the Vulture Heavy Bomber Group, you think you got that?”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Jezzy said from her command chair, even though her tone sounded deeply confused.
No time to be confused, Solomon thought as under his fingertips, the available ECH craft appeared in small groups like a computer game, with a catch-all list of commands.
>Full Offense
>Full Defense
>Search and Destroy
>Protect
“I guess they automate after you set their operational style,” Solomon said, selecting Nightjar Group 1 and 3 and putting them into full offensive mode, while selecting the Retribution Heavy Tactical Fighters and setting them to Search and Destroy.
Instantly, the ECH craft on the tactical displays started to peel off in their groups, with Solomon in charge of seven Nightjars and two Retributions. He realized that by using his hands, he could direct the different groups en masse, while each craft in their groups would also perform their own maneuvers to attack and evade in combat.
This is just like playing a computer game, Solomon thought, and although he didn’t have much experience playing them—he’d always had too little time while planning or executing real-world heists and scams—he did remember many happy hours as a young teen playing Battle Stars or Frontier Assault.
The eight CMC craft of Hausman’s group were all operating in skirmish mode, Solomon saw—a classic full offensive that encouraged each of the CMC fighter pilots to select individual targets at will, so long as they fitted the remit of the mission.
Which is presumably to destroy as much of the Test Fleet as possible, Solomon thought.
He moved the largest of the Nightjar groups into a direct attack vector against the largest knot of CMC fighters—five against four, as it happened—while the two ‘spare’ craft, he put on a wider arc around the same group.
“I’m going to drive them out from the ECH,” Solomon called. “They’ll probably scatter—”
Which they did. The four CMC fighters—all good pilots, it had to be said—separated into a wider cloud of escaping craft.
The Nightjars opened fire, and on the viewing screen above, Solomon saw the sparkle of fire from the opening and closing weapons ports.
&
nbsp; Hit! Target Down.
Hit! Target Compromised.
His main body of Nightjars managed to secure two solid strikes, with only one of the swerving CMC fighters exploding and the other jerking to one side but still operational.
On the viewing screen, the CMC fighters moved with the speed and skill of sparrows in quick, sudden movements. They deployed chaff behind them in glittering plumes of aluminum, chrome, and gas.
But Solomon’s command instincts were already paying off. Two of the fleeing CMC fighters encountered his reserve two Nightjars, and as Solomon’s reserve craft opened fire, one of the escaping CMC fighters flew straight into it.
Hit! Target Down.
But as Solomon had recognized, the CMC fighters were good. One of the two fighters fired its full complement of Hellfire missiles in response, and Solomon’s reserve Nightjars had already been compromised from the first attack.
Warning! Multiple Target Locks Nightjar Group 3, Vessels 1 and 2.
Nightjar Group 3:
Vessel 1 COMPOMISED. DESTROYED.
Vessel 2 COMPROMISED. NON-OPERATIONAL.
As Solomon watched in frustration, curves of flame hit his two reserve craft, one of which promptly exploded into spiraling fragments while the other pinwheeled end over end, its rear thrusters destroyed.
“But it’s still four against two,” Solomon growled fiercely to himself, setting the remaining Nightjar Group 1 to Search and Destroy on the final two CMC fighters of this attack vector. The Nightjars appeared to be faster than the CMC ships, but perhaps not as maneuverable—or rather, they couldn’t perform the slightly erratic, quick-fire turns that their CMC sister-craft could.
But they could close on their enemy all the quicker, and they appeared to be able to target with more accuracy. Solomon left the Nightjar group to their task as he turned his attention to the rest of the battle.
“Jezzy? How are you doing over there?” he called out, his hand already moving to the two heavy tactical craft that he had sent on a wide arc around the ECH.
Solomon could see that Jezzy’s remote command had been going well, considering the craft she had been given. She had control of Nightjar Group 2, with four vessels in it, and the experimental Vulture bombers with two craft inside, while she fought three CMC fighters.
“Good, I think,” he heard her reply. On the overhead tactical displays, Solomon could see that Jezzy had sent the two bombers on a charge, with the four Nightjars spiraling around them in Protect mode.
The three remaining CMC fighters could easily outpace the slower-moving bombers, but the four accompanying Nightjars sent a near-constant barrage of fire against them. Added to this were the heavier guns of the bombers. Jezzy hadn’t fired any of the bombers’ largest payloads yet, not against such small craft.
As Solomon watched, one of the four protecting Nightjars was blown backward by a lucky CMC Hellfire missile, but two of the three CMC fighters were destroyed in circles of light and fire by the charging attack group that Jezzy had created.
Solomon checked his own battle.
Mission Accomplished. All Targets Destroyed.
62% Hit Ratio.
2 Nightjar Vessels Destroyed.
2 Nightjar Vessels Rendered Non-operational. Begin Auto-repair?
Solomon didn’t even know they could do that, but he swiped his hand into the affirmative hologram logo all the same. A tiny circle started to fill up very slowly with green ‘health.’
“They have on-board drones,” Ochrie explained, watching the overhead tactical displays like a hawk. “If they can’t fix the ship, they’ll communicate to get it transported back to the ECH garages.”
“Sweet system,” Solomon murmured. He had lost two vessels out of the seven under his command, and a further two had been critically damaged. Against five CMC fighters, that wasn’t the sort of ratio he had been looking for, but considering that this was his first experience as a remote commander, he considered it a success.
This must be what it’s like for Asquew all the time, Solomon thought. And Hausman.
There was only one CMC fighter craft left.
“I got it!” Jezzy said, and her hands started to move through her tactical commands.
“Belay that order!” Solomon shouted quickly. “Hold back and follow it. Let it think it’s accelerating,” Solomon said.
Jezzy looked puzzled and annoyed, but Solomon quickly explained his reasoning as he settled his hand on the wide sweep of the Retribution Heavy Fighters.
“These fighter craft didn’t get here under their own steam,” he said. “Especially as there’s only a handful of people in the whole Confederacy who knows where here is. Hausman’s got to have a jump-ship around here somewhere.”
Jezzy nodded. Solomon set the heavy fighters on a deep parallel course, still holding back but matching the vector that the singular CMC fighter was taking.
“Deep-field scan initiated,” Willoughby called out from the comms and navigation desk, and all of the tactical maps overhead coalesced into one much smaller map as the view suddenly expanded.
Blip!
Vessels Found:
CMC Marine Transporter 45GE-2
CMC Jump-ship #34
“Bingo,” Solomon said. He instantly set the Retributions on a Search and Destroy mission straight to the thirty-fourth jump-ship of the Confederacy.
“All this technology we’re throwing away,” Solomon heard Chief Ochrie say.
“Better throw it away than have it nuke us, ma’am,” Ratko called out with glee as she turned the scout in the same direction to follow way behind Jezzy’s bombers.
The CMC fighter got there first, but Hausman’s ships were in disarray. The jump-ship was already starting to re-position itself, its engines starting to churn as threw its magnet locks onto the boxlike Marine transporter.
That was how the eight CMC fighters got here, Solomon could see. Each Marine transporter was a huge block of metal, capable of holding a couple of regiments at once, as well as having loading arms that could dock a variety of smaller craft—anything as large as a heavy bomber or above had to secure its own jump-ship. The eight fighters must have clung on, limpet-like, to the belly of the transporter before they were skipped across the fabric of spacetime to attack the ECH.
But apparently the transporter wasn’t deigning to wait for its tiny passenger as it fired positional rockets to get perfectly in line behind the jump-ship.
“It hasn’t even deployed its loading arms!” Solomon heard Willoughby say at the apparent scandal.
“Well, we can do something about that.” Jezzy detached her own Nightjars, which shot away from the Vultures to scream towards the jump-ship and Marine transporter.
Solomon looked at the jump-ship, then at the transporter, and lastly at the CMC fighter desperately screaming forward to try and reach the transporter before the ECH Test Fleet caught up with it.
Inside every one of those vessels is a CMC officer or Marine, he thought. They wouldn’t have been conscripted like he and the other Outcasts had been, Solomon was willing to bet.
But that also doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own extenuating circumstances for joining the Marine Corps. His fingers moved toward the hologram controls and froze. “And they certainly didn’t ask to be put into the middle of a civil war,” he muttered.
“Lieutenant?” Jezzy said, hearing her superior officer mutter and pausing her attack commands.
“Wait.” Solomon shook his head, sliding the Retributions back to Protect and directing their target as their ward and the ECH itself.
“Why? What’s wrong, sir?” Ratko asked.
“Leave them. Weapons down. That’s an order,” he said sternly.
“Sir. Yes, sir,” Jezzy said, pulling her own Nightjars back to the Vultures and slowing their speed accordingly.
“Lieutenant?” Chief Ochrie raised an eyebrow at the man. Solomon knew that she could countermand his order, she had all the authority to override his control of the automate
d fleet, but she didn’t.
That was one thing that he had learned about the ambassador—the commander-in-chief, he corrected himself—during their long, arduous journey together. She might be fierce and cantankerous, and she might be more than eager to pick a fight when she saw the need for one, but she was a woman who was also willing to hear the analysis and opinions of the people around her.
“We don’t need to kill any more of Earth’s children today,” Solomon said severely. “And we’ve sent the message to Hausman now. He knows that we have the ECH, and the ansible, and the Test Fleet.”
“But he knows where the ECH is now, of course,” Chief Ochrie countered. “Do you not think that he will try again? And the next time, he might bring his dreadnaught with him, and the rest of the Near-Earth Fleet?”
“No,” Solomon said in a matter-of-fact manner.
“Explain.” Ochrie nodded her assent.
“When we were held prisoner in the Ru’at colony, the Ru’at drone showed me an image of the Ru’at mothership approaching Earth space. It might already be in orbit by now, for all I know. They might be working with Hausman, but I doubt it.”
“Reasons?”
“Past experience,” Solomon said, just as he had been taught to do. Stick to the facts. Make a case. “We saw what the Ru’at did to the Chosen of Mars on their colony. And you, of all people, Chief, should know how the Ru’at treat their humans.” She may not have remembered the experience, but they had filled her in. “They brainwash them. Hypnotize them. Even when they’re supposed to be allies. So, for that reason alone, I don’t think that the mothership will take long to start treating Hausman and the rest of the citizens of Confederate Earth the same.”
Ochrie nodded, her eyes going far into the distance for a moment. “So, you are telling me that we need every human fighter alive in order to use them against the Ru’at? Even if those fighters are loyal to Hausman?”
Conquest of Earth Page 11