Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 

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Day 34

The attack came at a good time.

Not that I welcomed the Kadeshi task force, but at least all of our fighters were making patrol runs at the time. I had led three of my squadron; Myla, Tengo, and Hal, in a diamond formation around the Taiidan Heavy Cruiser Agamemnon. I looked at the blue and yellow-striped star craft, knowing that those colors showed off Admiral Shhar's position in the Republic Navy as the Elite Planetary Protection force.

We had barely flown past the black letters of the ship's name when we received a distress call from the proximity sensor grid. "All ships, this is Commander Naabal of Scout Contingent 114. We have Kadeshi ships inbound!"

I began to reply when I heard, "This is Commander Larkin. Our Bombers will assist."

After Third Prelate Ga and the Kadeshi squadrons complied, I flipped over to the squadron comm. frequency and declared, "Alright, Angels. Meet up at my coordinates and begin to enter Claw formation." As all the pilots called in, I powered weapons and banked to get on a heading towards the incoming fleet.

I fingered the new control on my main cockpit panel. In small, printed letters, were the words, "SHIELD GENERATORS." They had only just been installed, and while they weren't perfected, they could stand under enemy fire. I ordered, "Angels, activate shields when we come within five clicks of the enemy. We don't want to waste any power."

Tengo's mocking voice replied, "What, Captain, are you hoping that they'll promote you again if you conserve enough kilowatts?" I gritted my teeth. Over the last two weeks, I still wasn't able to entirely redeem myself with my recruits. "Cut the chatter, Four." I could only hope that he was more orderly during combat.

We got within five clicks of the ships, and I noticed that there were four Multi-Beam Frigates, and five new versions of the ovoid Fuel Pods, which were currently launching ten Swarmers and Advanced Swarmers each. I flipped off the glass shield over the deflector controls, and pressed down on the button. It turned red, and the space outside my cockpit began to shiver with a green light for a second, only to revert back to normal. As I looked back at the sixty-odd ships defending our base, I noticed that their shields began switching on one by one as well.

I looked back at the incoming ships, and saw that the Kadeshi fighters were now all in formation, swirling around a fixed center. I saw dozens of green needles shoot out from the fleet, and I banked my ship to avoid the beams. One of them hit me, rocking my ship a tad, and flaring up the shields on my front hull.

I targeted one of the spheres, and decelerated to enter a sharp arc that would intercept it. I fired several rounds, many of which missed. A few banged through the Swarmer's hull, but with its superior speed it was able to quickly swerve out of my firing range. I left it for someone else, and moved onto the next target.

I heard a rough voice call for health. "This is Seventh Prelate Chela. I am under attack by two Swarmers, and require assistance!" I ran his name through the myriad of information about each ship, and it targeted his ship. I pulled back the joystick to find him, and noticed that the shiny Corporate ship was in fact swerving to escape the verdant shots of a pair of Kadeshi ships, but his shields were still getting a pounding. Fortunately, since they seemed engrossed in attacking their target, I was able to sneak up to them largely unnoticed.

Tough for them.

I targeted both of them at once with missile locks, and I let two of the yellow weapons soar off. One of them fired at the ship again, and sparks hit off the now naked hull, but they detonated into dust before they could do any more damage. I let out my held breath. "Seventh Prelate, what's your status?" The reply came after a small hesitation, "My shields are out, and my left exhaust engine is compromised." After a pause, he said, "Thank you, Hiigaran."

With that pleasant thought in mind, that the Corporation and Hiigaran could be on the same side, I moved on. I turned to starboard, and I just barely evaded the raking energy beams of a Multi-Beam Frigate. The Agamemnon fired its massive drive cannons to smash the fragile hull to pieces. Before it could turn to retaliate, the Heavy Cruiser was already melting the hull with its own blue Ion Beams.

I also saw five of the boxy Taiidan Bombers fly past me in Delta formation. They let loose with luminous volleys of plasma, which blew up on the hull of another Multi-Beam Frigate, melting and distorting the sleek hull of the white ship. When a series of six explosions on the aft section of the ship tore apart the engines, blowing apart the fragile hull. I clicked on my comm., "Nice job, Larkin." The Taiidan promptly replied, "These ships are damn good against slow ships; killing Frigates is what we do." I put on a wry grin that he saw through the video comlink.

I turned to one of the Fuel Pods, watching dry Swarmers limp painfully back to their carriers. I armed missiles, and locked onto the ship's fuel pumps. I got a solid lock-on tone, but I was unable to fire before Kara Liir Hra shot past me, guns a blazing. The Pod's turrets fired back at her, flaring up her shields, but she kept on going forward. "Cadet Liir Hra, pull back!" She replied with panic, "My maneuvering thrusters are nonfunctional! I can't turn back!" Not surprisingly, Mara flew past my ship to try to help her twin.

I got a lump in my throat giving the order, "Stand down, Mara!" She replied, "No, sir!" I won't leave her!" She was far too late, however. Kara's ship melted into a hard stump of a ship, crashing into the Pod's hull.

"NOOOOOOO!" We both cried out.

Only seconds later, my missile hit the fuel pumps, igniting the liquid ions, and destroying the ship in one violent shockwave. Mara kept on flying into the now ignited space, obviously paralyzed by the trauma. I hit my afterburners and smashed my starboard wing into her port one, knocking her off course. I could hear her whimpering over the comm., "No…it can't be." I winced in sympathy. Watching someone die was bad enough. When that someone was your family, especially a twin, it must be devastating.

I shook my head. I moved to the general comm., and hailed one of our Salvettes to assist. "Angel Lead to the Water Thief, do you read?" The reply came, "I copy, Captain." The Thief was a legendary salvette, dating back to the Exodus. If anyone could tow the paralyzed Mara out of here safely, it was that crew. "I have a pilot here who is in no fighting condition. Could you come on over and take her to the Maelstrom?" The commander of the corvette replied, "Yes, sir. We will need escort, though." I agreed. "Two, Ten, please escort the Thief to our coordinates." Hal and Jacyn both acknowledged.

I waited, and checked my sensors. We had lost about ten fighters combined. Fortunately, there were only thirty more fighters on the enemy's side, putting the odds at about two to one on our side. I knew it couldn't last, though. Now that they knew of our new shields, they would look for new ways to destroy us. By then, however, we hoped to be ready with more ships.

The Thief was still far away when a Fuel Pod arrived. I began shaking, and fired at the turrets to destroy its offensive powers. However, it wasn't until I had destroyed three of the five turrets that I realized they weren't in the mood for fighting.

One concentrated burst of fire from the ship knocked out my shields, and sent me flying away from Mara. I hit my accelerators to try to get back to her in time, but I was too slow. The Pod opened up, and tractored her Interceptor into the hangar bays. And with a flash of red light, the Pod hypered out. I banged the control panel, and I felt weak all over.

A person dead, and another person captured.

As if things weren't bad enough. I rubbed my eyes, and kicked up the throttle. I caught up to the Water Thief, with two white Lance-class Interceptors flanking it, and I said, "Cancel previous order, Thief. They've hyped out." Hal was the first to voice his opinion after a long hiatus, "What? Both of them?" I nodded. "Kara has been vaped, and Mara has been captured." Jacyn said, "It can't be…"

I shook my head. "Neither can I."

* * *

Though it turned out that the Liir Hra twins were the only casualties in the squadron, the news hit everyone pretty badly. I noticed Hal was a bit quieter; he seemed to have liked them a lot.

I began the debriefing, with Tengo standing next to me. "The mission was a success. Not only did we ward off a sizeable force of enhanced Kadeshi, we also got field training of the new shield systems. We have sent off reports of the technology to Fleet Intel HQ, and already Kiith Naabal and Gaalsien are prepared to pay our scientists very good money for the information." I grimaced to myself; while destructive, one thing that was advantageous about the separation of the myriad Kiith was their reluctance to share technology. Therefore, one invention that can benefit many Kiith could make someone very, very rich. While ours was a multi-kiith fleet, the scientists knew when something would make them more profitable if they stood quiet.

"This reward we will use to acquire more ships from Hiigara. We have already enough resources to crank out several more capital ships, and enough Strike Craft to boot, but we could use more people and ships to fill up our ranks. It appears that the Agamemnon fleet is here to stay, as well as the Corporate ships. They're smart; they know that if we ally we will be able to beat them. From now on, any resources mined in this sector is being divided among our three peoples." This still didn't settle me. An enemy of one's enemy is one's friend, but when the common enemy is destroyed, alliances don't always remain as they were.

"In any case, all of our ships, including capital vessels, are having deflector screens installed." Nolan said, "You know, Captain, it probably isn't smart to offer the Taiidan and the Corporation shield technology." I nodded solemnly. "I know, but if they hadn't helped us out with technology they had, we would never have designed the system at all." I cleared my throat. "In retrospect, they seemed to have proved useful. Out of seventy two Strike Craft that they were installed on, only eighteen were disabled. Five corporate ships, four Taiidan fighters, and nine of ours."

"Including Mara and Kara," said Myla.

I cringed, hoping I would be the one to bring them up. "Yes, Cadet Kara Liir Hra was destroyed while making an attack run on a Fuel Pod, and Cadet Mara was captured before the Salvage Corvette Water Thief could pick her up. We do not know the intents or purposes of her abduction, but Ensign Gaalsien has made some observations about their tactics."

I looked at Tengo, and stepped away from the podium. He stepped up, and brought up a holodisplay of a Kadeshi Needleship. "In regard to Mara's capture, this is not without precedent. About eleven years ago, during the Exodus, a Turanic fleet led by the Lord-class Carrier Swift Death was commissioned by a Taiidan fleet commander to conquer the Great Nebula. Obviously, the plan was doomed from the start, but they did receive a lot of information on Kadeshi technology and physiology." May spoke up, "I heard about that mission. It is presumed that that was when the Turanic developed the technology to produce Heavy Cruiser-class starships." Tengo confirmed, "Yes, and fortunately they have not exercised using that technology very much since then."

The holodisplay shifted to a picture of two almost-identical looking Turanic pilots. "While we don't know much about the mission, because almost everyone in the fleet was killed except for Magistrate Klu'Koth, we do know from Turanic spies that pilots Jakhlan and Joraan were inadvertently pulled into the hyperspace field of one of the Needleships, and were captured shortly after. Though no one is quite sure what happened, as they never returned to the Swift Death, we have extrapolated that they use methods ranging from physiological tests to direct memory-download. Because of this, we have to try to rescue her before it is too late, as the Kadeshi don't even know the coordinates of Hiigara, much less the extent of our military power.

"Through telemetry scans, we were able to find the heading that the Fuel Pod took, and we are sending Probes to scan the possible areas they could have gone to. Until they send back sensor readings, we will have to concentrate on setting up battle tactics and contingency plans."

He cleared his throat. "First of all, we have noticed that, due to their belief in expendable forces, they tend to disregard any ships save for the ones they are engaging. Therefore, we must set up a new flight group paradigm, in which two pairs of wingmen monitor each other at all times. When fighters attack one pair, the other comes to assist the other. Also, it is inadvisable to take them head-on. They aren't as intent on individual self-preservation as we are.

"One more thing: before every mission, recalibrate your shield frequency. The survivors may have scanned our vessels and will be able to counteract them in the next confrontation. If we are all working on a different, random frequency, then they have less of a chance of getting the upper hand in combat. This debriefing is now over. I suggest we all get some hours in the simulators. Our Tactical Officers have set up training scenarios in response to this attack. Good luck to us all."

As they filed out, Tengo stayed with me in the room. So he knows, I thought. Not that it was unexpected; after all, he was a tactician. He waited until Iliom Se left the room and the doors closed behind him when he spoke up. "The Probes haven't been launched, have they?" I shook my head. He looked down. "I guess it would be unwise to let more Hiigaran technology into their hands." He hesitated, then said, "But we have to find her. She is a potential security risk." I was partially amused, as I thought I would hear this from May or Jacyn. The only difference was that, since he wasn't an Intel officer, he wouldn't have advocated sacrificing her in the interests of the race.

I said, "We already know where they are. Our Lance-class Interceptors have IFF beacons just like any other ship in the fleet."

Tengo responded, "But they would have deactivated it long before they reached their base."

I nodded, and explained, "They also house a secret homing beacon that runs on a very low frequency. When they stop at their frontier base, we will know where they are." I exhaled sharply. "They are also equipped with an emergency self-destruct system. When its sensors read Mara's bio-signature more than fifty meters away, it will commit suicide, destroying its databanks and its structure. We are piloting the most advanced, specialized starfighters in the fleet. Had they captured a vintage Scout fighter, that would be bad enough, but they could get a lot from our ships."

I sighed. "Until we set off to find her, that is the most we can manage. It will have to do." Tengo glared. "It had better."

I replied quietly, "I agree."