by Rachel Aukes
Her formation group was positioned within the left side of the arrowhead. They joined up behind another group and to the left and slightly back from a group. The arrowhead was only halfway formed by the time the Swarm fleet was in firing range.
Photon cannons fired beams of golden light at the Strike fleet, which returned a barrage of photon cannon fire. The Swarm’s cannons were smaller, but they severely outnumbered the Strike ships. Several of the Swarm’s blasts devastated the ships they’d hit; many more blasts left damage. At least half of the Strike fleet’s initial barrage found targets. The Swarm’s thicker hulls were still no match against cannon fire. No fewer than twenty Swarm probes exploded, and twice that many veered off from the larger group.
“I clipped one. Looks like he’s limping off to lick his wounds,” Finn said.
“I missed,” Sylvian said, sounding dejected.
“Don’t worry. You have plenty more rounds to fire and plenty of target practice out there,” Throttle said.
The formation groups were stacked so they could all fire against the Swarm without hitting any of their own with friendly fire. Throttle kept the Javelin in formation, but she craved to break away and dogfight. In the group, she felt more vulnerable, even with ships above, below, right, and left, taking fire away from the Javelin. But Throttle had grown up on a lone gunship. She didn’t start formation flying until she was an adult, and by then, her flying habits were baked into her bones.
Her panel beeped, and she saw that it was time to rotate. The group at the front—four of the five ships remained—pulled up, rolling to rejoin at the back. Throttle’s group climbed and sped up to move forward, though there were still two groups before them.
She no longer recited her checklists out loud—she’d long since outgrown that habit. But she still loved to fly by her own compass.
Both fleets were firing nonstop at each other. Throttle could’ve used sunglasses to ward off the brightness as the windshield’s auto-dimming feature wasn’t designed to respond to flashes of light. An explosion lit up space not far above her and to the right while a ship broke formation low and to her left.
Her jaw tightened. “The arrowhead’s not going to last.”
“It’ll last,” Finn said.
Throttle disagreed. “We need to increase speed to get the Gauntlet to the planet faster.”
She saw the Gauntlet had emerged from the black hole and established its position near the center of the arrowhead. The fact the Swarm wasn’t hell-bent on attacking the Gauntlet meant the operation was still on track.
“Hey, I got one!” Sylvian called out.
“Good job,” Finn said. “Pick your next target, lock it in your sights, then fire. Go slow to go fast.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m trying here,” she said.
“Do or do not. There is no try,” Finn said.
Throttle chuckled but remained focused. The arrowhead had begun to look like a mangled horseshoe, but it held together better than she’d expected. Very few of the Peacekeepers had been through a war, and only a small number had handled violent political skirmishes. Throttle and her crew, on the other hand, had lived their entire lives through a time of political unrest. All three of them had participated in the Fringe War. Throttle and Finn had served on opposite sides, while Sylvian had participated as a computer specialist. Their experience gave them a calmness that newbies lacked.
Throttle’s panel beeped again, and the groups rotated. Second from the front.
The Swarm fleet was getting close enough that Throttle could make out individual probes. Finn and Sylvian continued to fire. He’d taken down at least four enemy probes, but it made no visible difference to the tsunami coming at them.
A ship in the group before them exploded. The remaining half flew off and took out the ship next to it. Throttle cringed.
Throttle noticed the Harlot in its pirate grouping several ships to her right. They were firing nonstop at probes with more guns than the Javelin had.
A photon beam shot above the Javelin so close that it skimmed across the hull like a skipping stone. Throttle might have squeaked, then forced herself to take a full breath.
“Hey, Finn, see if you can’t try to take out that probe that’s trying to take us out,” she said nonchalantly.
“I’m on it. They’re so fast—makes them hard to get a bead on.”
The probe that had nearly shot them listed to the side. “Ha! I got him,” Sylvian said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Thank you,” Throttle said with relief.
The lead ship in the group ahead of them suddenly flew downward. Throttle’s group had to break around it before rejoining.
“Cover me, Syl. I’m swapping cells,” Finn said as he worked the computer panel before him. Chief had outfitted the Javelin with a newer cannon with the automated photon cell exchange upgrade. It saved precious time during a battle, where a gunner used to have to go and manually swap out photon cells. With the upgrade, the process took less than ten seconds.
Throttle’s panel beeped. “Hurry, Finn. We’re moving to the front of the line.”
Dread and trepidation filled her when she saw only two ships of the group before them had survived. She glanced at her grid to make sure the Gauntlet was still in its position. It was.
But the odds were getting worse as the Swarm fleet closed the distance. Throttle’s group settled into the arrowhead’s left edge, and she suddenly felt more exposed than ever, especially since the Swarm fleet was closer than ever and showed no signs of slowing.
The Harlot and its group ducked down to drop to the back when a damaged probe flew at it from straight above. The Harlot fired too late; the probe smashed into its hull, causing an explosion that burst out from the center of the ship.
Throttle didn’t feel joy at Hinze’s death like she thought she would. In the end, marshals and pirates had united against a greater threat. Losing the Harlot was losing a comrade-in-arms…not that she was going to shed a tear or toast a drink to its crew. Hinze’s one final good deed in his life didn’t make up for all the death and pain he’d caused as a pirate.
A probe zoomed past the Javelin, and Throttle searched for other immediate threats.
Finn had reloaded the cannon. The rail gun would run out of ammunition at some point—Throttle was hoping that point would be later rather than sooner. Finn began firing nearly nonstop, and Throttle didn’t blame him.
The two fleets met with neither slowing down. The Swarm fleet was so vast, it surged into a tidal wave that crashed down upon the arrowhead. Formations crumbled as Swarm broke through the lines, but the Strike fleet gave as good as they got, and decimated many of the leading probes. The ship nearest her exploded, leaving a gap in their formation.
The Swarm pulled away. Throttle suspected they were about to crash down again, but instead, their cargo bays opened. Thousands of smaller probes emerged from the fleet of hundreds.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Here come the little stingers.”
The smaller probes, or drones, or whatever they were, didn’t pack much of a punch individually, but put a dozen of them together, they could scrape and puncture holes worse than a hailstorm.
The panel beeped. Throttle wasted no time in pulling up and around for a break from the front. She was surprised to see that their group still had four ships, though one was bleeding air pretty badly.
“Sylvian, tell number three to bug out and take care of that leak on their gut,” Throttle said.
“Okay. I’m sending it off now.”
With breathing room, Throttle looked at her grid to see the Gauntlet still protected by the arrowhead. She looked out and could see it ahead of them, deep within a tight pocket of groups.
“Good luck, guys,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hell Group arrived at Jade-8 in the middle of an attack. In the distance, Yale could just make out six Swarm probes shooting at the massive Jade-8 station, while a full complement of what looked like Jade-8
security ships tried to fend them off. The Hell Group flew toward the Swarm.
“Are we always late to the party?” Parks asked.
“At least we were invited,” Yale offered, then noticed the three other flight groups that had been at the last station. They were down three ships. Yale remembered seeing two ships lost to the Swarm, and he wondered what had happened to the third. “Looks like we’re not the last ones this time, though.”
Their comm line chimed, and he opened the call.
“Unlike last time’s mess, each group is taking ownership of a different area. Follow me to our playground. I’ll leave this channel open,” the Hell Group leader said.
Yale tapped the microphone. “Remember what I told you about the Swarm’s patterns.”
The Mockingbird took off, and the three ships followed.
The formation groups from the Iron fleet and the Jade-8 ships outnumbered the Swarm at least five to one, yet it seemed that the humans were sorely outmatched. It looked like the only reason more ships hadn’t been destroyed was that the Swarm seemed wholly focused on the station.
A pair of enemy probes managed to shoot through a transit tube of Jade-8, and an entire section of the station broke away.
“We’ve got to get up there,” Parks exclaimed.
“I don’t understand how they can be so fast,” he said as he tried to make out their routines.
“I don’t care. I just want to shoot another one.”
“I’ve been wondering about something. You got out of training, what, two weeks ago?”
“Almost three weeks,” she corrected.
“While I’ve barely begun marshal’s school. Makes you think how desperate Chief is already if he’s sending out cadets.”
“Correction. A cadet and a specialist.”
He nearly rolled his eyes. “What I’m saying is that we’re in a group of pirates and guns-for-hire. The Peacekeepers were supposed to be equipped to handle anything that was thrown at Ross, but it’s looking more like we can’t even stand up to the Swarm’s early assault teams.”
“Quit talking, Yale. You’re bringing me down.”
“Sorry.”
The Mockingbird fired at a probe, but it had already turned away. The Cabal and Ender’s Game broke off and went after the same probe from different angles.
“All right, Yale. Time to work that magic in lining me up for a good shot again,” Parks said.
“I’m working on it.” He pointed. “That one seems to always bank to the right after it fires at the station.”
“Get me closer,” she said.
The Hellcat was already at maximum sub-speed, and it seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace compared to the Swarm. The enemy had made two runs at the station before Yale had the Hellcat within firing distance.
“Almost got it,” Parks drawled out.
Photon blasts flew over their bow, and the Swarm probe blew up.
A cheer sounded over their comm line. “Thanks for the tip, kid. It’s working like a charm.”
Yale tapped his microphone to speak, but Parks muttered, “He took my shot.”
The Cabal’s captain must’ve heard her, because he added, “Them’s the breaks, Hellcat. Don’t worry, there’s plenty more Swarm out there to choose from.”
“Speaking of Swarm, watch your sixes, Hell Group. It looks like we’re about to have a whole bunch more company. Backup’s on the way, but they’re still a few minutes out,” the Hell Group leader announced.
Yale glanced down at his screen to see scores of blips appear. That they were moving faster than the blips of the Iron ships didn’t bode well. “Oh, shit.”
He flipped around the Hellcat to get a visual on the Swarm. There must’ve been fifty of them. The enemy now outnumbered the Iron ships.
The incoming Swarm swerved and bypassed the formation groups as they made their way toward Jade-8.
“Keep them away from that station!” Hell Group leader commanded.
Yale cranked the Hellcat back around and raced toward the nearest probe. Since they were flying straight in, Parks laid down a barrage of blasts across their tails. She tapped one, but it continued forward.
The Cabal took out two Swarm probes on their strafing run.
“Damn, he’s good,” Parks muttered before firing again.
The Swarm reached Jade-8 and broke off from their run like moths around a flame.
Yale couldn’t make out their individual routines because there were too many of them as they looped around one another on shooting runs.
He blew out a breath. “They look like they’re enjoying themselves.”
“Then let’s wipe the smiles off their faces,” Parks said, and she laid down another line of photon blasts. One beam was a direct hit to the flaring engine, and the ship exploded as though it’d been a pinata smashed by the Hulk.
Parks raised her hands. “Ha ha! How about that, Cabal?”
“The mike’s not live,” Yale said.
She frowned and then turned back to her screen.
The Swarm numbers slowly went down as the Iron ships picked them off one by one.
The Cabal took out another three probes while the rest of the formation group each added one to their tally. One ship in another formation group was clipped and limped away from the battle.
Yale flew as fast and hard as he could, and Parks fired nonstop. Jade-8 was taking a beating under the onslaught. The central mass of the station hadn’t yet been breached, but many of the smaller attachments and sections had sustained damage. If the Swarm managed to destroy Jade-8, the loss of life would be catastrophic.
Parks unbuckled her belt and jumped up. “Photon cell’s drained. I have to swap in a new power cell.”
She ran off the bridge, and Yale leveled off the Hellcat and brought them farther from the chaos. He looked at his screen to see it fill up with blips. Terror seized him.
“Heads up, Hell Group. Our friends are here. Try not to hog all the party favors for yourselves,” Hell Group leader announced.
Relief drowned out the fear he’d first felt at thinking more Swarm had arrived. He looked out to see at least a hundred specks in the black. What looked like most of the remaining Iron fleet had arrived.
“Locked and loaded,” Parks said as she took her seat.
He smiled. “Good news. The rest of the fleet arrived.”
His grin fell when he saw the sudden change in the Swarm’s maneuvers. They ceased attack runs on Jade-8 and turned toward the Iron fleet.
Parks’s mouth opened. “Oh, shit. They’re not playing nice anymore.”
As the Swarm beat down on the fleet, they took out a dozen ships on their first attack run. Yale realized he’d been overconfident. The enemy had never seen the ships as a risk before—just pesky mosquitos that they’d sometimes swat. But now…now the humans had their attention.
Yale worried that the Iron fleet had just opened a can of worms. Only these worms were vicious killers.
As the Swarm and ships closed the gap, Yale had to focus on avoiding friendly fire as much as enemy fire. He swerved to miss what looked like a commercial passenger ship with a machine gun mounted on top.
The bellies of the Swarm probes all opened at once. Out of each probe flew dozens of smaller versions of itself. They zipped around ships, shooting with mini photon cannons that weren’t nearly as powerful as the cannons mounted on their larger brethren, but they brought damage through the sheer magnitude of hits. Fifty or more of the smaller enemy ganged up on a ship and pelted it with blasts before leaving it breached and riddled with holes.
“What the hell are those?” Parks asked.
“Didn’t you read the case sheets?” he asked back to her.
“Who’s got time for those?”
“Those drones are more Swarm, of course. Only smaller.”
“Jesus.” She fired in wider arcs. With so many Swarm in the area, she took out a few with each sweep.
An alarm went off, and Yale noticed that they’d rece
ived minor damage to the airlock. “Crap. They’re coming after us.” He spiraled the Hellcat down before turning around to find a couple of dozen of the smaller Swarm drones on their tail.
Shots fired into the mass, and the enemy disbursed. The Cabal flew by.
Yale tapped his microphone. “Thanks for the help, Cabal.”
“Any time, kid.”
Yale reengaged to disrupt an attack on a GP cruiser. Two larger Swarm probes were circling it, taking potshots.
“Get ready to take those two out from behind,” he said to Parks.
“Behind?” she asked.
As the Swarm probes circled around, he brought the Hellcat in tight, almost too tight, in the same pattern. Only Yale’s ship was slower. The Swarm came around the aft of the other ship in a near-certain collision course with the Hellcat. Parks fired, hitting the first probe dead center. The second climbed, and her shot went through its center.
She whooped. “Now, that’s a two-for-one special!”
Yale pulled alongside the GP cruiser. It was in rough shape, but the crew on the bridge were still alive, and they waved as he peeled away.
He searched for other ships in need of assistance, but the battle scene was too intense. Nonstop photon bursts lit up the black like fireworks. He went after a probe that was pulling away from the larger group. It flew slowly, clearly damaged, and Parks took it out with a single shot.
“Ender’s Game is out. Watch yourselves,” Hell Group leader said over the comm channel.
“Out? What do you mean by out?” the Cabal’s captain asked.
“They took direct hits from stern to bow. Survivors unlikely.”
There was a lengthy curse made against the Swarm before the channel went silent.
Yale and Parks shot each other a worried glance before he girded himself and found another ship to go after. The Swarm drones all stopped as though frozen in amber, before zooming back into the bellies of the probes. The Swarm turned as one and flew for open space.