Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (16 page)

“Admiral, I’ve got the shuttles but not the pilots,” Ken said over the link.

“I figured that would be the case. Task some of our scorpion pilots. Most of them were flying shuttles as teenagers. We’ve got a job to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

“The first shuttles are already launching… I take it you need them by your breech point?”

“Affirmative. As soon as she gets back here Sergeant Moore is going to be organizing a bucket brigade to bring canisters of construction nanites to the surface. I need your pilots to distribute them evenly over the surface of the
Alpha
starting at those areas furthest from my current position. And Captain, remind those pilots that they need to hug the surface. The
Alpha
is still active and will try to shoot them with those weapons still under its control. If they run into fire they are to drop their payload as close as possible and beat a hasty retreat.”

   By the time Cat had finished speaking a total of twenty-four cylinders had appeared out of the floor with more coming.

Sergeant Moore, along with the two other soldiers came back at that point dragging a gravity cart with equipment loaded on it.
WhimPy
scanned the equipment with a gold beam that fanned across the cart.

“This will work wonderfully Sergeant,” the Heshe AI said in a decidedly pleased voice. “Please place it in the designated area.”

Sergeant Moore was about to ask where that might be when a rectangle the exact size and shape of the gravity cart illuminated on the floor near the line of miniature fusion power plants.

Chapter 19: Engagement in Hupenstanii Space…

“Here they come!” Commander Trifa yelled from the bridge of the
GCP Relentless
.   “Captain Purohit to the bridge!”

“I’m here Number One. Give me a sit rep,” Captain Vigit Purohit said as he finished buttoning his uniform jacket while stepping off the turbolift.

“We have multiple hyperfield incursions starting at one AU and proceeding outward for another ten AU.”

“Anything coming through?”

“Looks like a total of fourteen ships. And they are big sir… easily an order of magnitude bigger than anything we’ve seen before from the Ashtoreth,” Trifa answered. He paused to adjust some controls at his station. “It looks like the ones closer in experienced the full effect of our little surprise. Every one of them appears dead and drifting. Those further out are drifting too but sensors are beginning to detect power systems coming back on line. I’d say we have five of the fourteen still a threat.”

“Very good Number One. Pass your sensor logs onto the
Mador
and
Exeter
. Comms, patch me into the
Mador
.”

The image of Commodore Ruck filled the forward viewscreen. “Well Vigit, it looks like the
Relentless
is closest to the fight… you ready to mix it up?”

“Launching my fighter wings now. Are you coming to the party?”

“Indeed I am my friend. I’ve asked Hikaro and the
Exeter
to take charge of the disabled ships. He needs to take out their drive systems before their crews recover. So these five will be just for you and me.”

***

Lord Captain Asdartu was in agony. His head felt like a fire wart plant had spilled its entire foul clutch on top of it. Every part of his body burned but his head pounded the worst.

“Report!” He managed to bark out.

There was no reply other than a few painful moans.

“REPORT DAMN YOU!” He yelled louder even though it was exceedingly painful to do so.

“We’ve emerged just under sixty light minutes from our target as per your orders Lord Captain,” the navigation officer said in an agonized voice. “It appears that the enemy has placed localized hyperfield oscillators in place that disrupted our higher order hyperfield dampening field. All sentient computers and biologics on our ship were rendered unconscious for just under eight minutes.”

“LORD CAPTAIN!” The sensor officer yelled. Asdartu had to fight the urge to shoot the man out of hand for yelling when his head hurt so much but with a tremendous force of will he simply scowled at the man. 

“We have incoming enemy fighters.”

WHUUMP!

The bridge shook as thousands of kinetic rounds pounded the unshielded and exposed ablative armor on his flagship. The KEWs traced a deliberate line across the breadth of the ship. The lights flickered and the battle klaxon added to the cacophony. The noise was defending and it brought stars to his eyes. He had to get a handle on the situation or all would be lost.

WHUUMP! WHUUMP! WHUUMP!

“Helm, flank speed,” he ordered. “Get us clear of those guns. Weapons, raise shields and return fire at will.”

“At once Lord Captain,” the officers acknowledged.

“CAG, prepare to launch our fighters.”

“We cannot Lord Captain,” the Commander Air Group officer yelled over the din of the Klaxon.

Asdartu pulled his disrupter and shot the klaxon to shut it up.

The CAG turned to look at the slagged metal that
had
been the klaxon and turned back to his captain without missing a beat. “Sir, the launch tubes were the first thing the enemy hit with their KEWs.”

“How many of the other ships can launch their fighters?”

The CAG checked his board. “Only four other ships are currently responding. I’ve tasked the
AE Asture, NuNoc
and
Skiir
to send close order support fighters to cover us. The
Makro
was the farthest out and has already launched their fighters. They are in route to the High Orbitals. Shall I call them back?”

The Lord Captain stood in shock. Nine of his fourteen ships were dead or out of commission and the battle had not even begun. If he did not find a way to salvage the situation his brother the King would decorate the throne room wall with his pelt. Whether he would wait for his brother to die before removing the pelt was, at best, highly doubtful.

“Negative. They may be what salvages our mission.” He turned to face his flight officer. “And CAG, get our fighters out there… Either repair the launch tubes, disassemble our fighters and carry them through the corridors to the shuttle bay, or cut a hole in the side of the damn ship! I
don’t care
how you do it, BUT LAUNCH THOSE FIGHTERS!”

***

Lieutenant Stone ran through the corridor of C-Deck towards the launch bay of
High Orbital One
. He was flanked by several other members of his MAC team. The marines had been in a briefing when the word came in that the Ashtoreth had entered the system.

“Let’s get these birds warmed up and in the air,” He yelled as he ran across the hanger to the
Betty Boop
.

Two minutes and sixteen seconds after the call to launch was issued, AG had his marines in the air.

“Form up on me,” Stone ordered. “Commodore Ruck reports there is an inbound wing of fighters about thirty light minutes out. Our job is to micro-jump to their location and take them out.”

“Begg’n the Lieutenant’s pardon Sir, but… these fighters don’t have jump capabilities,” JJ said over the comms.

“Good point Staff Sergeant. Fortunately for us Admiral Kimbridge is well aware of that small limitation and left a present for us. Connected to the bottom of this station is a… drum roll please?”

JJ complied with the requested “bum bum bum… bummm.”

“…Jump gate. All you need to do is initialize it with a desired destination and the system’s AI automatically calculates the higher level harmonics so we don’t get our bells rung when we jump through it. Commander Dickerson has already programmed our destination. All we need to do is thread the needle and fly through. Couldn’t be simpler JJ.”

“Simple is good sir… we’ve got officers in this wing… they need simple.”

“Remind me to talk with the Gunny after our little exercise today JJ. I believe he will have something
special
for you to do,” AG said with an evil grin that no one could see but everyone could hear.

“Yes Sir, I will most certainly remember to remind you,” Sergeant Hammond said in a voice that convinced no one.

As they approached the jump gate it began to shimmer with a miniature hyperfield vortex. The ships would easily fit two by two through the ring but certainly no more than that.

“JJ you’re my wingman. When we fly through you veer off to the left. I’ll head right. The second group will veer up and down respectively. Just like we practiced from a launch tube only we’re using a jump gate. If anything goes wrong, our FTL comms will let the second group know before they jump.”

  Together the
Betty Boop
and JJ’s fighter,
Rogue Nation
entered the hyperfield vortex and reappeared 29 light minutes closer to their enemy. AG pulled his small ship to the right. The transition through the vortex produced a slight headache but nothing that would incapacitate a pilot. He told his Mark Ten Stark suit to administer a mild analgesic. At the same time he signaled the entire MAC team to do the same. Admiral Kimbridge would want to fine tune the jump gate if they were going to start deploying them with any regularity.

“The others are starting to come through the jump gate
Betty Boop
,” JJ said on their private channel.

“Stay sharp
Rogue Nation
. As soon as everyone is through we will advance to the enemy position at best possible speed.”

Soon the thirty six scorpion class GCP fighters were ready to advance.

“LiDAR is showing one hundred and twenty eight targets ahead,” Lieutenant Stone announced on the squad-wide channel. “We are going to be out numbered four to one. That’s the bad news. The good news is that based on our last engagement, our ships can hit theirs from further out and are much more maneuverable… once we get up to speed.

“Their ships are currently traveling at about 0.05c. We have just enough time to accelerate to 0.076c before we arrive in the engagement window. That means I need each of you to push your throttles to maximum for the next five minutes. The G’s will be uncomfortable even with the compensators and your Starks helping out.  None of you believed that crap your recruiters fed you about the Marine Corps being a vacation so a little discomfort should not be an issue.

“When you get near range find a target and designate it with your flight computer. Our AI’s will keep track of which enemies have our attention so we don’t overlap targets. Keep your head on a swivel and use your wing man to attack their ships in pairs. Remember the enemy wants you dead and will be working hard to make that come true. That is all. Happy Hunting. Stone out.”

A few minutes later Lieutenant Stone switched his comms to his wingman’s channel. “JJ it looks like they are about to come into range. I’m flagging our first target. When we take him out you go ahead and flag our second.”

“Why thank you sir. That’s ever so kind of you to share the fun.”

“Here we go!” Stone yelled as he and his wing man fired their energy weapons at their first target.

The beams converged and illuminated an energy shield that surrounded the enemy fighter with a sparkling aqua blue nimbus.  As fast as they fired the two scorpions reversed their momentum and backed out of engagement range. The enemy fighter fired his plasma beams but the beams arced through empty space.

Several of the surrounding fighters also attempted to nail the two GCP fighters but the AI built into the Scorpions was built to detect targeting systems and automatically take evasive maneuvers. The result was the nimble little crafts were exceedingly hard to hit.

“Bank right and follow my lead,” Stone yelled at JJ.

The
Rogue Nation
shifted as commanded and the
Betty Boop
fired a combined spread of KEWs and plasma beams. Moments later his wingman followed suit. The shields on the enemy fighter went white hot and then suddenly burned out. The result was immediate as the Ashtoreth craft exploded in what could only be described as a miniature super nova. The blast was so intense it actually overwhelmed the shields of his nearest compatriot.

“Wow a two-fer!” JJ yelled over their private comms.

“Did it strike you that their shields seemed stronger than the last time?” Ag asked his friend.

“I won’t know, Boss. I’ll I’ve had to fight were simulators but yeah they seem stronger than what we seeing in the sims.”

“The sims were configured to replicate our first encounter. Based on that fusion explosion I would say they have upgraded their power systems.”

“That would seem like a good bet Sir. Switching to secondary target.”

The pattern of their attack remained the same for several minutes. Soon though it became harder to kill the enemy as their numbers decreased. It seemed these pilots were learning from the mistakes their compatriots had made or it could have just been they were better pilots which is why they were still in the mix.

Stone heard a cry over the squadron channel. It was from
Knight Rider
. “Daugkin’s just bit it! I’ve got six of them on my tail. Every time I jit or jog it seems like they are already firing on my position!”

“This is what I warned you about
Knight Rider
,” Stone yelled. “We all have the exact same skill training so we are becoming predictable. Mix it up. Do something unexpected.”

“I’m trying sir! The bloody bugger…” The Channel went dead.

Stone checked his LiDAR. Of his original thirty six fighters he was down to thirty three effectives.
Daugkin’s Creek
and
Knight Rider
were dead and
Meat Wagon
was limping home on one partial and banked up engine. The enemy was hurt even worse though. They were down to just sixty one fighters. The odds were only two to one now but it seemed like the fight was just getting harder.