Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance (12 page)

“Target is raising shields!” Ensign Kono reported. “They’ll have full power in thirty seconds!”

“I’ll have our nose over in twenty,” Ensign Hunt assured his captain.

“Be ready with those firing solutions,” Cameron urged her tactical officer.

“Plotting them now, sir,” Luis answered as he quickly tapped commands into his console. “All forward tubes and cannons will be ready to fire in five seconds!”

Cameron watched as the Jung cruiser passed over her head from behind, sliding down the center of the main view screen, finally coming to a stop, upside down, in the center of the screen.

“All forward weapons locked on target!” Luis reported.

“Fire at will!”

“Firing all forward tubes! Firing cannons!”

“Target is firing!” Ensign Kono announced. “Forward rail guns and both forward missile batteries! Twelve missiles inbound! Ten seconds to missile impacts!”

“Jump six, Mister Jakoby! Get us out of here!” It was the first time Cameron’s voice had shown the slightest hint of excitement since the attack had begun.

“Jump six, in three……” Her navigator responded.

“Torpedo impacts!” Ensign Kono added.

“Two……”

Cameron glanced at the main view screen as bright yellow flashes appeared, obscuring their view of the shrinking image of the enemy cruiser as the distance between the Celestia and her prey rapidly increased.

“Contact!” Ensign Kono reported with excitement. “Jump flash! It’s the Aurora, sir!”

“One……”

“Target’s shields are down fifty percent!” the ensign added.

“Jumping!” Mister Jakoby announced.

“She’s the Aurora’s problem now,” Cameron mumbled as their jump flash washed over them.

Seven jump flashes appeared against the black, starry backdrop of space, revealing seven Falcons speeding toward the Jung battleship less than one hundred kilometers directly ahead of them.

“Get that jump plotted,” the pilot urged his weapons officer. “They’ll know we’re here in twenty seconds.”

“I’ve got it!” his weapons officer answered from the rear of the Falcon’s cockpit, “sending now!”

“Alpha Flight, Alpha Leader,” the pilot called over his helmet comms. “Transmitting jump fix. Execute in five.”

“Weapons free,” the weapons officer announced. “Attack jump in three……two……one……jumping.”

The pilot instinctively closed his eyes momentarily, despite the fact that the brief opacity of his helmet’s faceplate provided all the protection his eyes needed from his ship’s jump flash. He opened his eyes as his visor cleared, and the massive Jung battleship, that only moments ago was nearly one hundred kilometers distant, appeared before him, frighteningly close by.

“Jump complete! Scanning for emitters!”

“Translating down!” The pilot announced as he fired the translation thrusters along the topside of his ship. The Falcon immediately responded, sliding to the hull of the battleship as it passed quickly beneath them. Bright flashes of blue-white appeared all along the surface of the enemy ship in the distance ahead of them. “They’re firing!” the pilot announced. “Alpha Flight! Incoming rail gun fire! Evasive action! Launch weapons and get the hell out!”

“Emitter positions verified!” the weapons officer reported. “Locking all weapons on targets! Firing missiles! Firing nose turret!”

The doors covering the lead Falcon’s port and starboard weapons bays along her underside slid open. Four small missiles popped out from each bay, ignited, and sped off, arching downward toward their targets on the hull of the battleship below. A split second later the missiles found their targets, slamming into eight of the mighty battleship’s shield emitters.

The lead pilot pulled the nose of his ship slightly upward as his nose turret continued spraying the hull of the battleship with deadly charges of plasma energy, angling for the invisible gap between the enemy battleship’s shield layers in preparation to jump to safety. “I’m on the jump line!” he reported.

“Three seconds to jump!” his weapons officer answered.

“
We’re taking fire!
” one of the pilots cried out over comms. His cries of anguish were cut short.

“Two……”

“
Leader! Six! Five is down! Five is…
”

“One……”

“
Six is down! Both Five and Six are down!
” another pilot reported.

“Everyone! Jump, jump, jump!” the lead pilot ordered as the blue-white light poured out from his own emitters, engulfing his ship in a jump field. His visor turned opaque for a second, and when it cleared a moment later, the massive enemy ship was no longer beneath him, and only the black void of space lay outside his canopy. “Alpha Flight! Alpha Leader! Check-in!”

“
Alpha Two!
”

“
Alpha Three!
”

“
Alpha Four!
”

There was a brief pause.

“
Alpha Seven,
” the last pilot reported with a sigh. “
Five and Six went down hard, sir.
”

“Damn it!” the lead pilot exclaimed. “On our first pass!”

“Contact, three kilometers off our starboard side, two kilometers ahead and closing fast,” Mister Navashee reported from the Aurora’s sensor station.

Nathan watched the main view screen as Mister Chiles maintained their starboard yaw in order to keep their forward torpedo tubes pointed at the enemy cruiser as they flew past its port side.

“Cruiser three, Captain. Her shields are down to half strength,” Mister Navashee added.

“All forward weapons are locked on target,” Lieutenant Eckert announced. “Firing triplets on all tubes! Firing doubles on all cannons!”

Again the Aurora’s bridge illuminated with numerous flashes of red-orange light as twelve plasma torpedoes, followed by eight larger, more powerful plasma cannon shots, quickly crossed the icy void between the two ships. As Nathan watched the destruction of the last Jung cruiser in the Alpha Centauri B system, he felt strangely disconnected from the entire sequence of events. There was no remorse for the thousands of Jung lives he had just taken. It was as if he were watching one of the many science fiction videos stored in the Aurora’s entertainment database.

“Target’s shields are down,” Mister Navashee advised. “She’s lost all main propulsion and maneuvering, and she’s running on one reactor only.”

“Another round, Lieutenant,” Nathan ordered dispassionately. “We don’t want to have to come back later to finish her off.” Nathan wondered if his lack of emotion was normal, as he coldly ordered the execution of the cruiser and her entire crew. These ships, these men… None have them had directly threatened his ships, or his world. However, others of their ilk had, and given a chance, so would they. This was war, after all… And in war, people died.

“Another round, aye,” the lieutenant acknowledged.

“Stand by to execute jump seven, Mister Riley.”

“Jump seven complete,” Mister Jakoby reported as the Celestia’s jump flash faded.

“Contact!” Ensign Kono reported. “Jung battleship! Ten kilometers, two to starboard, one down! I’ve got multiple jump flashes as well, but no more contacts. Alpha flight must have just jumped out, sir.”

“Keep our nose to bear on the target as we pass, Mister Hunt,” Cameron reminded.

“Commander!” Ensign Kono exclaimed, “I’m not detecting any significant shield failures!”

Cameron’s head snapped to her left. “What?”

“I’m detecting at least two dozen missing emitters, but sensors are only showing a ten percent drop in three of the affected shields!” the ensign explained.

“Tactical! All weapons! Target the weakest shields and fire at will!” Cameron ordered. “Keep firing until we jump!”

“Targeting the weakest shields with all weapons!” Luis acknowledged. “Continuous fire mode!”

“Target is firing!” Ensign Kono reported. “Forward rail guns! No missiles yet.”

“Initiating continuous sequential fire mode on all forward tubes!” Luis announced.

Cameron glanced at the main view screen as plasma torpedoes streaked away from the Celestia on their way toward the distant battleship. “Ship-wide! All hands, brace for incoming fire!”

“Firing plasma cannon one!” Luis announced.

“Mister Jacoby,” Cameron said, “if they fire missiles, don’t wait for my command, just jump.”

“Yes, sir,” the navigator answered.

“Firing plasma cannon two!”

The bridge shuddered as rail gun rounds slammed into the Celestia’s outer hull.

“Damage control reports multiple rail gun impacts across our bow,” Ensign Souza reported from the comm station.

“Firing plasma cannon one!” Several red lights suddenly illuminated on Luis his weapons display. “Two of our forward point-defense lasers are offline!”

“How many torpedoes have we fired?” Cameron asked.

“Firing plasma cannon two!” Luis glanced at his torpedo control board. “Just finished our third round, sir! That’s thirty-six torpedoes! Two more cycles and our torpedo cannons will be too hot to fire!”

The bridge suddenly jerked to the left, nearly knocking Cameron out of her command chair.

“Hull breach! C deck! Section four!” Ensign Souza reported.

“Damn it!” Cameron exclaimed. She turned to her left. “Kono! Have we made any dent in their shields?”

“Two of their four previously weakened shields are now down to twenty percent!” Ensign Kono answered.

“Comms! Warn the Aurora that the battleships shields are still combat effective!”

“Contacts! Target is launching missiles!” Ensign Kono exclaimed. “Eighteen missiles inbound! Impact in ten seconds!”

“Jump us out of here!” Cameron ordered as the Celestia’s jump flash already began to wash over them.

“Son of a bitch!” the leader of Alpha flight declared in frustration as rail gun rounds from the battleship’s fast-tracking point-defense weapons ricocheted off the leading edge of his starboard wing. Blue-white flashes from hundreds of muzzles were visible all across the battleship’s hull.

“
There are too many of…
”

“
Leader! Two! Three is gone!
”

“Everyone! Go to full power! They won’t be able to track us if we go fast enough!” the lead pilot declared.

“The ones in front of us will!” his weapons officer reminded him.

“
We won’t be able to pitch up in time!
” one of the other pilots exclaimed. “
We’ll miss our marks! We’ll be jumping directly through their shields!
”

“It’s going to fuck with our systems,” his weapons officer warned.

“So will those goddamned rail guns!” the pilot argued as he pushed his throttles all the way to the stops. The ship lurched forward as its main engines went to full power. The battleship below them immediately began to pass under them at a faster rate. Although there was a noticeable drop in the number of rail gun rounds striking their underside, they were still taking quite a few impacts in their forward sections.

“We can’t take much more of this!” the weapons officer warned. “Those rounds may be small, but there’s a fucking lot of them!”

“Just keep firing at that goddamned turret!” the pilot insisted. Another group of rail gun rounds slammed into the underside of their port wing, ripping through its skin and blasting out the top, rupturing one of their propellant tanks in the process. The impact caused the Falcon to suddenly roll to its right, forcing the pilot to counter the motion by yanking his control stick hard to the left. “Damn it!” he exclaimed. “Pitching up! Jump us the hell out of here!”

“My pleasure!” The weapons officer responded.

Moments later their jump flash washed over them. The ship rocked violently for a brief instant just as their jump flash subsided. Warning alarms sounded in their helmet comms as lights flashed on their systems status displays.

“Port fusion reactor just shut down on us!” the weapons officer exclaimed.

“Can you restart it?” the pilot asked.

“I have no idea,” the weapons officer answered. “I’ve got all kinds of tripped breakers and crap showing up back here. Give me a minute.”

The pilot sighed.

“I told you this was going to happen if you tried to jump through their shields,” the weapons officer mumbled.

“Hey, we’re still alive aren’t we?”

“For now.”

“Alpha Flight, check-in,” the pilot ordered over his helmet comms.

“Jump seven, complete,” Mister Riley reported.

“Contact, Jung battleship,” Mister Navashee reported. “Twenty kilometers, four to starboard, two down.”

“Incoming flash traffic!” Naralena announced. “It’s from the Celestia, Captain. Message reads: Falcon attack on battleship ineffective. Battleship’s shields remain combat effective. End of message.”

“Multiple contacts!” Mister Navashee exclaimed. “Missile launch! Thirty-six missiles inbound! Impact in twenty seconds!”

Nathan felt himself tensing up. Things were no longer going according to plan. “New jump,” he began, “put us a few hundred meters aft of the target,” he ordered. “Helm, flip us over fast. Tactical stand by all forward weapons, especially the plasma cannons.”

“Plotting jump,” Mister Riley answered.

“Pitching over hard,” Mister Chiles acknowledged.

“Fifteen seconds to impact!” Mister Navashee updated.

“Triple shots on all weapons, including the cannons,” Nathan added.

“We can only fire triple shots on the cannons two, maybe three times before they overheat, sir,” Lieutenant Eckert warned.

“With any luck, we won’t have to,” Nathan told him.

“Ten seconds,” Mister Navashee updated.

“Jump plotted and locked,” Mister Riley announced.

“Our nose will be over in ten seconds,” Mister Chiles added.

“Five seconds to impact.”

“Snap jump, Mister Riley!” Nathan ordered.

“Jumping!”

The Aurora’s jump flash washed over the bridge. As the flash subsided the stern of the battleship passed across the main view screen from the left side and slightly below, moving slowly up and center. Although the distance between them was at least three hundred meters and expanding rapidly, Nathan felt as if he could reach out and touch the battleship’s main propulsion nozzles.