Chapter 27

MARK

“Alert! We are being pulled out of hyperspace. Hold on tight,” Fleet Intelligence said over comms. Mark, Isabella and a few others were sitting in the mess hall for dinner when the announcement went off. The abrupt forced halt threw all of them from their seats.

“Everyone okay?” Mark asked after recovering to his feet.

“Ow, I think so.” Isabella said.

“Well that stop wasn’t planned,” another said getting to his feet and rubbing his elbow that broke his fall. He had a scrape but no bleeding.

The two pilots made a beeline for their ships.

“The nebula is incredibly rich in energy and resources. Energy levels are so high that our sensors are having trouble compensating,” came Intel again.

“Sometimes he’s just pointing out the obvious I think,” Isabella said. “I mean, yeah man, its a nebula almost a hundred lightyears across of course it’s dense!”

“It’s his job to inform us on all things of relevance,” Mark responded getting into his seat as she got into hers in the interceptor next to him.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to tell us literally every single detail either.”

They launched, and made for parade formation.

“There is a contact closing with the Mothership. Sensor instability makes it difficult to identify.” Mark’s map showed a single red blip closing in on them. “Preparing the Ambassador.”

The unarmed heavy corvette launched and proceeded to meet the target.

“Sajuuk, that thing’s huge!” Isabella said. They all saw it. The vessel was large, very large. More than the Turanic carrier but not as long as Mothership was tall. Close, however. A tiny fighter-class vessel exit its hangar and made for the ambassador that went to meet it.

“This is the Garden of Kadesh. For thirteen generations we have protected it from the unclean.” The other pilot’s voice was very deep. “The Turanic Raiders who came before you refused to join and were punished for this trespass. Like theirs, your ship has already defiled this holy place. If you have come to join, we welcome you and will spare your ship until all have disembarked. If you have come to consume the Garden, you will be, removed, at once. What are your intentions?”

“We were unaware of the significance of this location. We mean you no conflict. Please allow us time to prepare our engines so we may withdraw as requested,” the Ambassador’s captain said.

“If you will not join, then die. There is no withdrawal from the Garden.” The small craft cut comms and returned to its host. Once it did, dozens of similar sized ships launched from the forward bay making dazzling maneuvers as if a performance.

“Well that didn’t go over great,” Mark said pressing a few controls. “Here they come!”

“Hyperspace module charging. Ready in eight minutes,” Karan said.

“Okay team, only eight minutes and we’re outa here. Form up into claw and pick your targets.”

All squads formed up and made way for the enemy forces followed by corvette and then frigate support. Red Squad took the lead, and once he could, Mark opened fire on the first of the small ships. They may have been small, but were far faster and way more maneuverable than any Kushan strike craft was.

“These guys seem a lot faster than we are, set to evasive to compensate however much we can.” As Mark and his squad passed by the first wave, he noticed the long and pointed vessel had a second bay at the midsection that had launched some kind of frigate-class ships.

“Mark! We’re being followed,” Eric signalled. He checked his sensors and sure enough seven of the enemy fighters were trailing them. He signalled to pull up and come back around behind them, but it didn’t work. They were too quick to get off-guard and simply followed along with their maneuver.

“Um, okay this might sound stupid, but cut engines and fire forward thrusters full power until they pass us.”

“What?” Isabella shouted.

“Trust me, they seem to prioritize speed over all else. I think if we do that they wont have time to react.”

“Alright, let’s give this a shot,” she said.

Mark was correct, they could not react fast enough. Once the fighters flew past them, they opened fire one by one while accelerating to follow. Five blew up, but two of them got away including the lead.

“Don’t worry about those two, keep in claw formation and let’s make another swing around and join up with the other squads.”

They all tried their best to not become prey. These fighters, though fast and small, also packed a punch. Their damage outperformed an interceptor’s by quite a bit it seemed, so evasive tactics was a good call.

“The enemy is relying heavily on fighter-class ships,” intelligence said.

“Yeah, no shit!” Isabella said over comms.

“This time I’m with you on this,” Mark replied. “Tell us something we don’t know!”

“Our research division reports it can design a new type of corvette especially suited to combat multiple fighters.”

“Finally, we’re getting our asses handed to us here,” a pilot from Green Squad said.

Eric noticed something. “Mark, you seeing the same as me? Check two-seventy degrees.”

“Looks like we found a weak point,” he replied before opening a fleet-wide channel. “All hands, aim for those ships the fighters seem to cluster around. I think because they’re so small those are refuel stations like our support frigates. Take those out and they’re stranded.”

“Good call Red Lead,” Intelligence replied.

They came up on their first new target. A group of ten or so all gathered docked on the unarmed fuel ship. Once it went down, the fighters that were docked were thrown away by the blast and took a short time to recalibrate. In that time it left them open to attack, and so Mark and his team took advantage of that eliminating most of them on their next pass. The two that remained apparently took issue with their strategy and targeted Eric’s interceptor. He could dodge most hits, but still took a few more than Mark was comfortable with.

“Red Squad, let’s get to a dock asap. We’ve taken more than a few hits.”

“Aye.” They pulled around and started for the nearest support frigate.

“Damn, they’re still at it?” Isabella said. The two fighters were still following them but a lot closer behind. “Stop and go maneuver again?” Eric suggested.

“Do it.”

They all cut engines and engage forward thrusters. This time, however, one of the two enemies was able to aim enough to crash into and latch onto Eric’s interceptor by the sensor post.

“Ah! I’m hit! Wait, what the hell? It’s stuck on me!”

“Hold still, I’ll pull back and—

“I see it!”

“What?”

“It’s hair is the colour of blood and its skin’s white as a ghost! Demons?”

“Not likely, and hold still I said!”

“It’s not me!”

“Shit, I missed,” she said. She did hit the swarmer, but only enough to break off Eric’s sensor and free it. The fighter immediately took a beeline for its flagship.

The battle lasted a while longer, and Mark’s entire body was drenched in sweat. He hadn’t taken his thumb off the trigger much at all in that whole time. There were far fewer now, his strategy of eliminating the refuelling craft was proving effective. Porter salvagers were also starting to move in and grapple to whatever they could, about a dozen or so, starting with immobile fighters that ran out of fuel. The Mercy repair ships weren’t far behind just in case.

As for the enemy mothership class, it appeared to use its forward bulkhead as a ramming surface and took out an assault frigate too close to avoid impact, and it exploded. “Don’t get too close! Only a little more fleet,” Group Five’s commander said. The ion frigates were punching holes into their flagship from all sides in a sphere formation to avoid the ramming tactics until it began to vent atmosphere. Before they could finish it off, a red hyperspace window opened in front of it and the enemy managed to escape.

“Are they gone?” Isabella asked while they were still docked with the support frigate.

“I… think so?” Mark replied checking the sensors, as unreadable as they were.

“I can’t make out anything. Mothership, anything on your end?” He asked.

“Hold on Red Lead, one of our resource controllers is picking up something.” He waited about twenty seconds before he got his answer. “No, Soban. It appears the enemy mothership has some sort of repair ability once it enters hyperspace.”

And then the timer counted to zero, and they all sped back home for the jump.

The blue window opened, and then immediately collapsed closed. “We have detected an inhibitor field. We cannot launch the hyperdrive until the field is destroyed,” Karan said.

“Great I guess this was a waste of time, alright Red Squad, launch off again we’re apparently not done here.”

Red Squad was one of the first to arrive at the scene where their mining groups said the enemy flagship jumped to along with Green and Yellow squads.

“Wait, where’d they go?” Yellow Leader asked. The coordinates were vacant.

“Attention all units we are under attack,” Intelligence said. In the fog of the nebula they slipped by and were now closing in on the Mothership. And suddenly, the vessel opened fire with a forward ion cannon. From the amount of damage it managed to do, the estimate put said ion cannon at roughly four times more powerful than a Firelance frigate’s.

“Wow, it packs a punch in energy weaponry too? Wonderful,” Isabella said.

The new Tempest multi-gun corvettes began to launch and join in the fight. “Head on home, interceptor squads. We’ll clean up here.”

“We appreciate the help commander, but you do realize you’re asking a Sobani not to participate in combat, correct?” Mark replied as they turned around for another pass.

The commander had a laugh. “Well, you’re more than welcome to stick around in that case.”

It did not take long for the capital ships to catch up to their flagship and start whittling its armour down again, but as before, it jumped away before taking critical damage.

“Inhibitor field no longer present, get back in asap so we can get the hell out of here,” Intelligence said. He was rarely vulgar over comms, but in this instance it was more than warranted.