Black Dawn (36 page)

As the
Raven
was beginning to return fire, Aziza said, “Incoming com message!”
“Let’s have it,” Ken ordered. An all too familiar face resolved
on the vid.
The grimy looking pirate attack leader stared back at him with
cold eyes.
“I’ll be accepting your surrender now,” he said.

“
Damage report!” Hendricks shouted as the
Nighthawk’s
violent shuddering began to subside.
Nathan collected himself and concentrated on his panel. It
didn’t look good.
“All forward and port side shielding, gone. Shield generators
in those areas overloaded and offline.”
“Get a repair crew over there,” Hendricks said. “
Nighthawk
to
Rapier
---come in. Report status.”
Hendricks looked with great concern to the blank screen representing her link to the Servati battlecruiser. At the very last second,
the
Rapier
had surged a bit ahead of the
Nighthawk
, so that she took
the brunt of the triple nuclear blast. Intermittent static came now from
the
Rapier’s
feed, but it soon resolved into the captain’s haggard face.
“All shields offline,” he reported. “We have power outages all
over the ship, blast damage to the front third of our hull, and the casualty reports are… still coming in. I’m afraid that we’re out of the fight,
Captain.”
“I’ll be sure to get ‘em for you. My sincerest thanks to you
and to your crew.”
Hendricks cut the com, and watched on the plot as the rest of
the task force began to leave the
Rapier
behind.
“Continue report, Lieutenant.”
“We lost only a little forward momentum. Still on course, I
think.”
“Status of ships still in orbit around the target?”
“Sensors are still being scrambled by the effects of the blast,
Captain. Should be back up in another few seconds, although…”
Hendricks interrupted by swearing at herself viciously. “All
ships fire forward guns: missile defense mode!”
It was just in time. Missiles fired from the base while everyone’s sensors were down had almost reached them. The forward guns
got most of them just short of the task force. Three managed to get
through, but expended themselves upon three different ships, all of
which, fortunately, had operational shielding.
“Scanners becoming functional,” the navigator reported.
“Ships in orbit around the target are…
leaving
Captain.
Heading in all
directions.”
“What?”
“I show six ships, all smaller classes, pulling out of orbit.”
“Are we still on course for low altitude pass on the base?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Time to intercept?”
“One minute, thirty seconds.”
Hendricks stared at the display. She began designating ships
to the rest of the attack group.
“All ships, maintain course, but fire on fleeing ships with long
range guns. I don’t want one of them getting away if we can help it.”
The
Nighthawk
, as well as the others, picked a ship and began
pounding the stuffing out of its shields, even as they continued their
breakneck pace toward the asteroid base. The enemy craft returned
fire, but Hendricks rolled her ship to present its undamaged shields.
Shots were traded. The enemy craft’s shields buckled, and the
‘
Hawk
hit her twice more at extreme range. A shot severely weakened
the
Nighthawk’s
starboard side protection, but her return shot finally
broke through the pirate’s shielding. Flame spat out into space. The
ship slowed considerably; vital systems on board obviously hit. In the
end, only two out of the six pirate vessels managed to escape.
“Starboard shields down 62%”
“Ground defenses opening up!” Nathan said.
“Roll ship!” Hendricks shot back.
The pirates’ last gasp was a set of auto cannons set on the outer layer of the large asteroid housing their base. The task force’s
course was set to have them skim the surface of the asteroid just a couple of miles above the pirate base.
“
Theseus
,
Valiant
, form up on us: inverted wedge!”
At the last, Hendricks tucked the
Nighthawk
and her damaged
shields behind the two heavy cruisers in their attack force where she
would be somewhat protected by the other ships’ shielding. And now
it was the moment of truth.
“All ships, target those ground emplacements. I want them
taken out on our first pass.”

The base guns blazed, desperately attempting to stave off what
their operators knew was coming. The attack force was simply too
close now, moving too fast for such measures to be of much use.

“Four…three…two…one…optimum range!”
Nathan called
out.
“Fire!” Hendricks ordered.
In one stroke, several particle beam cannons lashed out at the
ground defenses. A split second later, all of the defense guns were
smoking craters. And the top two levels of the pirate base were venting
atmosphere in several places. Then an explosion ripped through the
surface layer of rock. Flame briefly spouted forth into space before the
vacuum quenched it. The attack force rocketed past.
“Braking thrusters!” Hendricks ordered.
“Bring us about.
Prepare for another pass.”
It wasn’t necessary. Before the Alliance ships could fully make
the turn, a bloodied and desperate looking pirate was on the com
screen.
“Alright!” he screamed without preamble or protocol. “We
give up! I’ve got fires all over down here! Do you copy?! We surrender!”
“All ships come to relative stop above the base,” Hendricks directed, even as they were all making the long slow turn to come back
to the asteroid. She turned a gaze to the com screen that made the already desperate pirate flinch.
“I’m going to be sending several teams down shortly. They’ll
help you get the fires under control, collect your wounded, and round
everyone up for detention. If there is any, and I mean
any
resistance at
all to my teams, I will pull them out immediately, and finish what we
started with your ground cannons. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” the pirate quailed.
“This is Captain Mara Hendricks of the BlackFleet Mercenaries with the Betan Alliance task force, out.”
She saw the pirate silently mouthing the words ‘BlackFleet
mercenaries’ in disbelief, before the com screen went dark.

The
Rook
,
Karasu
, and the Nebula attack group bore in toward
the small planet hiding the main base.
“Not moving, yet?” Rebel asked his navigator.
“No sir. All twenty ships still in orbit around the target.”
“But we seem to be detecting a lot of com traffic between
them,” Trevor offered.
Rebel turned to the part of the tac display that allowed him to
communicate with the other ship commanders. “What does this look
like to you?” he asked Drake over on the
Karasu
.
Drake peered into his own display on the bridge of the destroyer. Not having been designed to be a task force leader, the
Karasu
had no Tac Room but controlled its part of the action from the bridge
itself.
“Looks like we’ve caught them completely by surprise. And
they don’t have much time left to figure it out,” he answered.
Rebel saw that the cruisers were widely spaced apart as they
moved to meet them, and that the other ships in orbit were now moving about in a clearly uncoordinated fashion.
“Looks like you were dead on, Drake.” Rebel shook his head
in disbelief.
“Being engaged by fixed defense platforms!” the nav announced. The particle beams from four of the platforms opened up on
the Alliance ships, spreading their fire fairly evenly throughout.
“All ships! Return fire!” Rebel ordered.
The attack force quickly annihilated the weapons in the automated defense shell, and kept on coming.
“Sir! I have a third cruiser breaking orbit!”
“We’re reaching missile range on the first one.” Rebel said,
watching the tac grid. The first cruiser finally began slowing down to
allow the following ships to catch up. Someone over there had finally
remembered that they should attack as a group. Especially against a
task force containing a battlecruiser. But it was too late.
“Open fire!” Rebel said.
The battlecruiser launched a hail of missiles, which sped on
ahead to slam into the pirate cruiser’s shields.
It fought back, aiming its counter attack mostly at the battlecruiser. Rebel had the
Rook
and the
Karasu
hold back, saving their
limited store of missiles for the battle to come. The larger Alliance
ship and one of the heavy cruisers took care of the pirate, just as the
other ships reached the area of the battle. The enemy cruiser blew
apart, and the hugely unbalanced forces reached particle beam range.
At Rebel’s order, all 12 ships hammered their three opponents
unmercifully. Shields buckled and fell. “We surrender, we surrender!” one of the pirate commanders shouted over the com.
“Target engine systems and continue to fire,” Rebel said into
the tac display. The
Rook
and
Karasu
smashed the engines of all three
pirate ships into useless scrap. Then the group moved on.
“Seventeen ships are forming up into more of a defensive line,
Captain Rebel,” Bard reported from the bridge. “They’re getting ready
for us.”
“Then let’s not disappoint them. Standard formation. Let’s
make it good,” he said to the attack group, then opening the dedicated
channel he reported, “We have engaged and destroyed the first wave of
defense, sir. Heading toward the base.”
“Acknowledged,” came Lamont’s voice. “Carry on.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Good hunting.”
They formed a standard “V” formation with the battle cruiser
at its head, and the
Rook
and
Karasu
to either side. The heavy cruisers
and other ships formed out from there. They drove in at one third
speed decelerating as they went, making for a lengthy, tangled battle
with the pirate defenders. Missiles and particle beams flashed across
space as they met each other.

On the far side of the planetoid, it was dark, still and quiet.
Twenty persons in specialized space armor drifted in a long slow curving arc down to the surface. Their life-support was on bare minimum,
and there were no other betraying energy signatures. They had been
propelled planetward as tiny projectiles from the hatch of the shuttles,
which stayed on station high above.

Schiff, who was in charge of this strike, monitored the passive
sensors set in his helmet. The touchiest moment had been when they
reached the inner ring defense platforms in orbit above the planet. But
whether it was due to the net being set off by the approach of the ships
on the other side, or because they were too small for the platforms to
notice, they had passed that obstacle effortlessly. Schiff didn’t really
care which explanation it was, as long as they were through.

Now they curved down in an approach which put them in a
low orbit. It was calculated to end with them making planetfall very
near the pirate base on the other side. They would have been tiny meteors, except for the lucky fact that there was no atmosphere to trouble
them with re-entry.

Now, within only a few kilometers of hitting the ground,
Schiff gave the order. All twenty troopers and Elite Forcers fired
thruster packs on their backs which slowed their descent. Schiff noticed their approach angle on his display, and made a slight correction,
which the others copied. The major watched their final descent anxiously, scanning the horizon for any sign of attack from below. None
came. They made a picture-perfect landing behind a set of low hills
about two kilometers from the base.

As each person touched down, they jettisoned their packs and
unslung their rifles. Schiff signaled for the group to move out. They
set out at a trot, making for an area to one edge of the underground
pirate base.
The major had them approach quickly, but cautiously. Everyone scanned the ground around them for traps or sensors. At length,
they came over a small rise, and made for a set of large rectangular
grates with walls 3 feet or so above the terrain. Schiff checked the
scanner attached to the left arm of his space armor, and when he saw
its reading, he finally broke operational silence.

“
Damn,” he said with venom. There
were
traps and alarms inside the vents. No way could the scouting mission have detected that
for sure, not as far out as they were. Lucky enough to even guess that
the things were here from the energy output readings.

“
So what now, Major?” one of the troopers asked, “We can’t
set off the alarms. I thought the op depended on our keeping the element of surprise.”

Schiff pointed upward.
“See those flashes of light up there? That’s the rest of the fleet
distracting these idiots and giving us the chance to get in here with a
minimum of risk. So we go into these vents and we go in right now.”
As he said the last, he tossed one of the canister assemblies to
Marcus, and one to Speed. He motioned them toward the next two
vents over. Then, he stepped onto the rim of the vent he’d been
crouching beside, and held up a canister of his own. He looked back at
the others.
“You comin’?”

The technicians working the late shift in Atmosphere Processing sat idly, watching the monitors, playing cards, or finding some
other way to be just plain bored. Boring though it was, however, it did
pay great. Whenever the raiding parties came back, they had usually
spent a short amount of time making a lot of money, which got distributed all around. .But the techs in question were, at the moment anyway, thinking primarily about how boring their jobs always remained.
Until the alarms went off.

Frantic scurrying about followed pretty quickly as they sought
to decode the alarm. The giant 5-story-high atmosphere processing
unit gathered the diffuse gases of the nebula around them, and converted it to breathable air for the base. It had millions of working parts,
any one of which could be critically malfunctioning.

A set of muffled booms went off from deep inside the unit.
Then someone noticed that it was the intruder alarm siren that was
sounding off. And there was another boom from inside the unit, much
closer this time. Someone yelled something about taking cover. And
at that moment, in three distinct, widely separated sections, the unit
wall exploded inward.