Hell's Razer

by S. F. Edwards

  UCSB Date: 1005.377

  Bridge, UCSBS-Wolfsbane, Drobile System

  Any good hunter knows that patience is key, even for a wolf. Captain Sardenon stared at the tactical display intently. His taskforce remained hidden behind one of Drobile-6’s largest moons to avoid detection. All he had to go on right now were the passive sensors mounted on the satellites around the tear snare that were feeding them telemetry. It wasn’t much to go on, though - thus far all the device had done was heat up, slowly, taking almost a full cycle to do so.

  It was ingenious in a way. After the initial thermal pulse, if the Wolfsbane hadn’t known where to look, then the slow thermal build up would have gone all but unnoticed. All of it was bleeding away into the local atmosphere before it could reach space. But they did know where to look, and once they’d learned what the initial pulse signature looked like, they checked the logs of the sensors trained on the other gas giants. They detected no similar reactions.

  Mah Roa’s best estimate from the science division stated that the device should be ready to deploy at any pulse.

  Commander Vetter looked like he’d been awake for a decle as he manned the upper holo-sphere. Despite the Captain and he taking turns manning the bridge to keep rested, the Drash appeared ready to drop. “You good XO?”

  Commander Vetter perked up and tapped a device on his sleeve. “Stims will kick in a few pulses, sir. I’ll be ready.”

  The Captain didn’t care that his First Officer was hopped up on stimulants, but he knew from experience that Commander Vetter handled them better than most he’d known. He would just have to ensure that the man would have several cycles of rest and low intensity duty after this battle. Assuming that they survived.

  He pushed that thought aside. The plan had to work. Too many lives had already been given up trying to take that ship. Countless more relied on them now.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked towards the status of his fighter wing. They’d been rotating in and out. Crews took forced drug-induced and terminated rests if they had to. Reports stated that most flight crews hadn’t left their craft for more than a few pulses at a time. Eight fighter squadrons were still aboard, along with half the bomber wing. The rest were arrayed around the taskforce or the secondary holding groups at the other two jump points. At a moment’s notice, the remaining craft would launch.

  Luck dictated that the Phantom would jump in right before the next scheduled rotation. He hated luck. As a result, he and the CAG, Colonel Malamas, had made sure not to leave any squadron out for too long. Even with that, they were less than twenty pulses from the next rotation.

  Alerts sprang up on the tactical hologram. Captain Sardenon growled and ran over to look at it. The thermals on the device had spiked and before he could even reach the hologram it exploded open. The resulting shockwave destroyed the satellites hovering around it. Luckily, two were far enough away that they survived, relaying the rapid expansion of atmosphere as it roared upwards like a poorly-contained shaped charge. “No, the Kinetic Kill Satellites!”

  Commander Vetter looked at the Captain and highlighted the distances involved. “Sir, they’re well outside of range. But they’ve completely stirred the atmosphere. We could see a megastorm forming within a few hects.”

  “I doubt we’ll have that much time. All units, launch and…”

  Before the Captain could finish the order, a massive energy blast tore through the mushroom cloud towards the Captain’s precious traps. Eyes wide, he watched the sensor imagery as the wide area energy burst either obliterated the satellites or knocked them out of their orbits. “What was..?”

  The silver-haired sensor officer at the hologram, Silo Miho, spun around. “Energy signature is consistent with a Razer Cannon discharge. But I’ve never seen a volumetric profile like that. They’re flooding the region with a pi-meson field.”

  “Doesn’t matter now. Lim, get everything into space,” the Captain ordered and raced up the ladderwell to the upper bridge.

  “Sir,” Reil called from the upper sensor station, in her always concerned voice. “Multiple contacts are emerging from the other jump points. Reserve Forces will attempt to hold them but they need backup.”

  The captain called up the report on his console. Sure enough, two groups had jumped in. At the most distant jump point, a force of a dozen heavy corvettes duked it out with his reserve force. Their job would be to secure and hold the jump point, cutting off any avenue of escape. He wasn’t worried about them, for now.

  The other group was far more problematic. Nothing but open space hung between his taskforce and that jump point where a trio of Sachsen Class Destroyers, each with four Bethesda Class Escorts, had arrived. They’d make short work of the frigates and corvettes stationed there.

  The Sachsen were classified as light destroyers. That was because their crescent mooned-shaped aft hull held ‘only’ a pair of deadly Razer Cannons. Jutting out from a massive boxy connector lay the destroyer’s saucer-shaped primary hull and its numerous heavy turrets. The ship could easily slug it out with any Confederation combat craft in the same class with reasonable chances of success. Worse for his taskforce, those Razer cannons were perfect for long range, cross system engagements. And they all hung in open space, exposed.

  The Bethesdas escorting them were no slouches either. The oldest space frames in the Galactic Federation fleet, the spindly-looking craft had been built to last. While they couldn’t carry the larger turrets needed to punch through most capital ship shields, they did boast an impressive array of torpedo and missile stores along with several light turrets. That made them ideal as escort craft, as did their ability to carry externally-docked fighters. Even now, the Captain watched those very fighters deploy on his screen.

  He analyzed his tactical situation. Behind him, a force with six Razer cannons could saturate his volume of space. Even at just below the speed of light, it would take several pulses for the energy beams to reach them. That meant he had to keep his ships moving in erratic fashion.

  At the same time, the Phantom’s wide area Razer amounted to a critical problem for him and his fleet. Without knowing the carrier’s exact location, he had no idea how to deploy his forces to avoid it. He would have to disperse them and let some act as bait. He was uncomfortable with that, but saw little choice. The one saving grace he could foresee was the Razer cannon’s slow cycle time.

  Everything that generates energy also creates waste heat. The ship-destroying Razer Cannon was no exception. Except for older destroyers, most ships carried two to six of the weapons so that they could fire a volley up to every twenty pulses, instead of every sixty. GF ships dared not fire the cannons any more rapidly than that so that they could dissipate the thermal build-up. If they didn’t, they risked thermal overload or cooking their crews. Even heat sinks needed time to recover. Despite that, a solid hit from a Razer cannon meant certain doom to most capital-grade ships. That cycle time just gave him room to work with.

  “Deploy all of our remaining onboard strike craft to engage those destroyers. I don’t want to get shot in the back while taking out that Phantom.”

  “Sir,” Officer Slaik yelped from her sensor station. “Multiple contacts rising from Drobile Six; Fighters, Bombers and Corvettes. The Phantom is launching her full strike compliment as well.”

  The Captain sat back in his chair and grinned. “Let’s not be rude. All ships engage, but watch out for that wide area Razer. Sia, if any of my Kinetic Kills are still alive, have them deliver their presents.”

  Monstero Nach 003

  The stims flooded Blazer’s bloodstream like liquid fire, burning him awake from his drug-induced slumber. Despite the pain, they brought him back to full alertness in the span of a few heartbeats. Sound was always the first thing to return, even if it remained muddled at first. Through the haze he recognized the sound of klaxons. “Scramble! Scramble all fighters! This is not a drill!” the Vilick launch controller blared through his earphones in his oddly sensual voice.

/>   Blazer looked about. No other sound intruded, despite the deck crew rushing about to launch the ready fighters. He looked forward, wiping his hand across his visor. The doors to space hung open. They were ready for a full-wing ballista launch. The Phantom must have arrived. Blazer’s displays blinked to life with emergency start checklists. He slapped the control to close the canopy - his first step.

  Arion reported them in. “Monstero Nach Zero Three powering up. Ready for external deploy in two pulses.”

  As if in response, the pad their fighter was locked onto flipped over into the tunnel between the inner and outer hull. Before he could blink the last of the sleep from his eyes, the pad shot up the short tunnel. The hatch above slid away and they were outside the ship. Blazer’s hands flew across his controls as he and Arion worked in concert to complete their start-up sequence in record time.

  With the last item completed, the holographic guide beacons shone to life through his visor, invisible to outside observers. Blazer’s pulse pounded as Arion ticked his last checklist item and their shields powered up. “Monstero Nach Zero Three, Flight of three ready for launch,” Arion called out.

  “Monstero Nach Flight Two, you are clear to launch.”

  Blazer slid his throttle to full before the grapplers along the hull took hold and flung the fighter down the deck towards his objective. He pulled back slightly on the throttle to let his wingmen catch up. A quick look over his shoulder revealed two more flights launching from the open front portcullis to the hangar. Blazer felt amazed by how fast they’d all launched, and how the WSO weave had made such efficiency possible. He checked his navigational markers. They guided him towards a slipstream entry before an alert lit up his display. “Arion?!”

  “High energy discharge. Five light pulses out. It came from the near the jump point. Keep clear of this corridor,” Arion’s curt reply came.

  A holographic shaft appeared on Blazer’s HUD, the path of an incoming Razer Cannon beam. On that vector it would intercept the Wolfsbane if they didn’t change course. A quick look over his shoulder eased that concern. Then another shaft lit up the darkness. “Arion?!”

  “Multiple volleys. They’re attempting to hem the Wolfsbane in and keep it from engaging the Phantom.”

  The pi-mesons the Razer Cannons unleashed were precisely targeted to a volume of space before they were fired. Once they’d reached their target, they would attain a critical decay state and energetically react with any mass present. If that happened inside of a ship, it meant certain doom since the charge bypassed shields. Despite that, they made even empty volumes of space along the firing vector dangerous to traverse for several pulses. The pi-mesons wouldn’t always decay at the correct time, leaving a wake of deadly little radioactive mines.

  Blazer felt his veins go rigid with fear. The Wolfsbane was by no means the strongest fighting ship in the taskforce. Those were the destroyers. Its presence would still be vital to coordinating the battle. If the enemy successfully trapped the ship on the backside of this moon, it could cost them the battle, or worse, allow the Phantom to orbit the moon into a kill position.

  Tadeh Qudas broke into the link. “All Monstero Nach craft, enemy forces are tearing through the defenders at jump point one. Two GF destroyers have already slipstreamed towards us with their escorts. Our own destroyers are moving to engage the Phantom but are launching anti-slipstream torpedoes ahead of us. We are to escort the Nip Tails as they eliminate the GF destroyer group. Terra and Arrow Squadrons will also be providing escort before moving to assist the forces at the jump point. Order of battle incoming.”

  Blazer set his nerves. He could not allow fear to control him. Not now, not with so much on the line; his ship, his home. His wife and his son were counting on him. “Arion, configure for Anti-Defensive Battery Assault. We need to clear a path for the Nip Tails.”

  Bridge, UCSBS-Wolfsbane

  The scene outside the Bridge SIS spun as the Wolfsbane changed course once again. The impossible had happened. The three destroyers had fired twelve volleys in twice that many pulses. Such a thing was unheard of in his experience. Razer Cannons had a sixty pulse cool down time, minimum. He turned to Mah Roa, his Glackid science officer, as the burst of a previous Razer blast pierced the darkness. Mah’s three eyestalks and tentacled arms waved about at his holographic screens. A new timer shone around it; counting down until the volume was safe to enter. “Explain!”

  “Sir! The energy discharges are well below the standard threshold for this type of Razer cannon. It even appears to be below the minimum critical mass the weapon has to achieve in order to fire.”

  “Unless the Geffers figured out a way around that.”

  “It’s impossible sir!” Mah replied, keeping just one eyestalk on the Captain. “Razer cannons focus and fire pions built up in a fixed reaction chamber created by manipulation of the strong nuclear force from the ship’s reactor. A Sachsen simply doesn’t have the ability to create a smaller critical mass to ‘choke’ the blast.”

  “The Satan’s been doing it for decades and the Phantom has just revealed that she can fire a wide area burst as well.”

  “Yes sir, but the systems and power requirements…”

  “The Geffers have found a way around it,” the Captain replied, suppressing a growl. He couldn’t allow his frustration to show. “I need to know how long they can keep this barrage up. Sensors, focus everything you can on those destroyers. I want to know the micropulse they have to shut down to cool those cannons.”

  The Captain turned to the tactical display. The destroyers were a little over a light-pulse out now and his assault force was right on top of them. Several inert thermal contacts hung behind the destroyers, but he couldn’t get a clear reading on them. “Officer Mioshay, order the Arrows to see what those thermal spots are.”

  Aye sir,” the Flight Operations Officer replied.

  The captain turned the display towards the Phantom. His Kinetic Kill darts had managed to hit something. They recorded what appeared to be shield impacts before the Phantom disappeared back into the clouds. Bombers were in hot pursuit, but that proved difficult with that wide area Razer firing every five pulses. Two bombers had limped out of the battle space already. One barely made orbit, a third…

  He spoke to the crew, consoled them as they fell towards crush depth, unable to help. The bastard will pay! His destroyers continued saturating the area with every beam, warhead, and asteroid in their arsenal. The Phantom’s air wing was no slouch and did a competent job of intercepting the physical projectiles. Too competent.

  “Sia, Lim,” he called and highlighted a section of the planet for his Tactical and Flight Operations Officers. “I want the bombers to move into this volume. Destroyer group one is to saturate these adjoining volumes with heavy fire,” he ordered, highlighting a crescent-shaped region near the first zone. “Then in twenty pulses I want Destroyer group two to saturate this region with everything they have.” The new zone closed off the crescent just shy of where the bombers would attack. “Our space wing is to engage all enemy defenders and keep them from intercepting our ordinance.” He let a harsh grin cross his lips. He would herd the Phantom to right where he wanted them.

  Monstero Nach 003

  “Dive, dive, dive!!!” Arion screamed, breaking through the shroud.

  Blazer did as instructed and broke off his attack on the Phantom Four that he’d engaged. A centipulse later a Razer discharge sizzled through the sky above him. Sweating, he twisted about looking for his prey. It was there, beyond the beam, limping. Its shields glistened and the engines of the right wing sputtered. The pilot hadn’t been so lucky, his fighter skirting the edge of the beam.

  Ordinarily, the nature of the Razer meant that the pi-mesons targeting the Wolfsbane would prove only a minor threat to anything in between the destroyer and its target. These fast-firing Razer cannons however proved to have leaky containment beams. As a result the pions decayed far more rapidly and erratically. A glittering trail marked each p
revious beam path as leaked pions continued to decay around them. The enemy fighter was out of the fight, but Blazer had to be sure.

  It might even be a mercy. The radiation alone would kill the pilot in a few cycles at most. Better to ease their pain and ensure that they were no longer a danger. Blazer lined up his shot and squeezed the trigger. A dozen plaser rounds ripped through the armored wing. It exploded, launching what remained of the fighter into oblivion. A final burst of light soon marked its end.

  Blazer wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that kill. It was necessary, and a mercy to be sure, but some might view it quite differently. This was war however and that one fighter, crippled and damaged as it might have been, was still a weapon to be used against him and his home.

  He shook it off and turned his attention back to his wingmen. In Nach Four, Zanreb and Bichard had completed their run, destroying the turrets on one of the Bethesda Frigates. They rose to meet Blazer and Arion, as Gavit and Matt in Nach Six began their attack run. Blazer dropped low, behind Six, scanning for fighters as Four kept high watch relative to the frigate. It was a typical three-fighter assault rotation, and it would be their turn next.

  “We have incoming,” Arion highlighted a pair of Phantoms streaking towards Nach Six.

  “Copy that,” Blazer replied and keyed in the link. “Six, Three, incoming. They’re coming right for you. Four and I are on them. Four, with me.”

  Blazer vectored his fighter towards the incoming pair of Phantoms as they dropped in behind Gavit. Twin lock boxes sprang to life over both fighters, his and Nach Four’s. Tiny lines of data scrolled past over the data link as his lock diamonds snapped into place. A shrill bird whistle pierced the thrumming silence of the cockpit. Blazer didn’t even have to issue the order before a pair of missiles dropped out of his launchers and streaked towards the enemy fighters. Two more raced towards the targets in their wake from over his shoulder.