Balance of Power (Battleborn c23), page 13
Rapid footsteps could be heard in the corridor. Nia and Kareena turned at the same time, weapons raised ready to fight.
"It's us," Jill called out, the Beta in tow. The two newcomers looked at the battlefield. "Why didn't you call us?"
"Jammers," Kareena remarked curtly.
"Shit!" cursed Jill.
Nia turned off the vibroblade. Her face revealed that she, too, would have loved to make short work of the killer. But they weren't done yet. And unlike Kareena, she had kept control of her emotions. With a stony face she went to the overturned chair, picked up her clothes and put them on, at least the ones that were not riddled with projectiles.
Toss knelt down beside the unconscious woman and examined the crippled arm. The suit had automatically discharged a sticky gel that had settled over the wound, stopping the last of the bleeding that the vibroblade hadn't cauterized.
"Now what?" asked Jill.
"Let's get her out of here," replied Toss.
"And then we'll have a word with her!" The threat in Nia's words was unmistakable.
05-04-2211, Aigis Orbital Fortress, Earth Orbit
The shrill of the siren abruptly jolted José out of his dreams.
"This is not a drill," his ComLink buzzed. "Man battle stations immediately! I repeat, this is not a drill."
He picked up the automatic injector from his nightstand and pressed it into the crook of his arm. Within seconds, the drug cocktail drove away the last vestiges of fatigue. In a flash, José slipped into his coveralls and left the quarters. People were running wild in the corridor. A lieutenant was still putting on his pants as he ran. José logged into the ComNet. While marching to the operations room, he called up the current tactical data. What he saw was not good. It was already serious.
The fighter squadron pilots were streaming out of their quarters toward the operations room. José was one of the last to arrive. He looked into the faces of the American mercenaries who, after weeks of maneuvers, couldn't wait to finally get into real combat. Zapp winked at him cockily. The young cadets, whom they had taught the basics of space combat together, were a bit more subdued. They all knew they weren't ready for action. But there was no alternative.
"Ladies and gentlemen," José began his address. "Mid-range sensors report that a battle group has broken loose from the Aurora space station in low Earth orbit. Our squadron will be deployed immediately to intercept the enemy force."
"Here we go, finally!" Warhead raised his fist in the air.
"Has the mutant force's target been identified yet?" asked Zapp.
José took a deep breath. "Yes. They're heading straight for Aigis."
Incredulous silence filled the room. Even Warhead grew serious. "They're attacking us?"
"That's what it looks like," José confirmed. "They are currently accelerating at two g's. Assuming an apogee flight with no drift phase, they will arrive here in 21 minutes. If they don't turn and slow down halfway, but continue accelerating straight ahead, in thirteen minutes. We fly toward them at high acceleration and make the first attack in a fast flyby. Then we turn, equalize our vectors, and go into infight. Any questions?"
Silence.
"Then let's go! I'll see you back outside."
The pilots jumped up and hurried out of the room. José ran after them. The elevator took them to the hub of the rotary section. In the locker rooms, technicians were already waiting to help them put on their pilot suits in zero gravity. Every move had been practiced a hundred times. José was pleased with his people.
Seven minutes after the briefing, they were in the hangar and slipping into the cockpits. Just under half of the squadron was equipped with the Lancer gunships. The rest flew the lighter Cobra fighter-bombers, which their opponents also used.
José's ComLink reported the receipt of a command message. It came from General Novak. He opened the channel. "Yes, sir?"
"Alvarez! What the hell are you doing in the hangar? I want to see you in the command post!"
He had been afraid of that. José was here as an instructor, not as a fighter pilot. But over the past few weeks, he had grown so fond of his students that he could not now send them alone into the inferno that awaited them.
"Sir, the pilots are not ready," he replied to Novak's question. "To repel such a massive attack, we need every man out there. Especially experienced ones to show the youngsters the ropes. I've got to get out there with them, or we're ashes."
Silence reigned for two seconds.
"To hell with it! Good hunting, Major!"
José took a breath. The hurdle had been cleared.
The maintenance man on the other side of the cockpit signaled readiness for takeoff and disappeared from the range of the exhaust jets. José unclipped the retaining clips and balanced the gunship on the maneuvering thrusters out of the hangar. He was the last one out. Amid the star-speckled blackness, the blue disk of Earth welcomed him. There was no sign of the enemy fleet. They would have visual contact for only a fraction of a second during the attack flight. But the Lancer's sensors had already picked up the target. Twenty ships of various sizes, including a fleet carrier, the Donar. He opened the com channel. "Assume battle formation! Ten g's for the approach. Turning maneuver after first attack with twenty g's. ComLaser stand by. Let's go!"
At his signal, the fusion thrusters ejected plasma into space, pushing the Lancer in the opposite direction. The acceleration pressed him into the gel-filled seat. It conformed to his body shape under the pressure and made the tremendous forces acting on him more bearable. At ten times the acceleration due to gravity, the squadron raced toward the earth. Somewhere there in front of him, a few hundred miles above the planet's surface, Aurora was orbiting. The plan had been to attack the mutant-occupied station as soon as the pilots were ready. But their opponents had beaten them to it. No one had expected that they would dare to attack Aigis. The orbital fortress was considered unassailable. Its armor withstood all known non-nuclear weapons and its defensive guns cleared any enemy object at a distance of several hundred miles. José found it hard to believe that this was a real attack. He thought the whole thing was a diversion or a test of their defensive capabilities. But good! They were going to get their test. Time to report back to his people.
"Enemy has reached apex. Range three thousand miles. Contact in four minu..." José faltered as he received new tactical data from Aigis and his own sensors. "New situation. Enemy fleet only partially entering braking maneuvers. Eight ships continue to accelerate at a constant two g's."
"What the hell are they doing?" Zapp called him on a private channel so the others couldn't overhear. "They're separating their fleet?" Then she realized for herself what that meant. "Fuck! Burners!"
José opened the channel to the command post. "Aigis, this is Toro. Enemy sending Burners."
"We saw it, Toro," General Novak replied. "Ignore it. We'll take them out with the interceptors. Concentrate on the battle group with the Donar!"
"Roger that. Toro out."
Burners. After nukes, the ugliest weapon in space combat. An unmanned spacecraft was highly accelerated and placed on a collision course with the enemy. Kinetic energy did the rest. Usually not much of a problem for military ships, since modern multi-g drives allowed effective evasive maneuvers. But against a stationary target like Aigis, quite an option. The orbital fortress defenses, however, were designed for such attacks. The interceptor missiles would chop the ships into manageable pieces that the armor could withstand.
"Toro to fighter squadron. Maintain intercept course for main enemy fleet. Distance eighteen-hundred miles. Contact in two minutes. Ignore passing Burners!"
Doubt rose in José's stomach. There was something fishy about this. Sacrificing eight ships just to test the orbital fortress's defensive capabilities seemed a bit much to him. According to his sensor readout, all the Burners were full-blown cargo shuttles and other large transporters. You didn't normally sacrifice something like that without need. Besides, the mutants had to know that they were not seriously endangering Aigis. After all, many of them had served in the Federation forces before the mutiny and certainly knew the fortress.
He made a minimal course correction to avoid getting too close to the Burners. Given the vast distances in space, the probability of an accidental collision was vanishingly small, but safe was safe.
At a relative speed of more than twenty miles per second, the doomed ships hurtled closer. To the naked eye, José could see no more than a brief flash against the black background of space. Then they were gone. His sensors provided a more detailed picture. The eight ships... wait! Now, suddenly, more than fifty objects were displayed. José started a more detailed analysis of his sensor data. The eight burners continued to accelerate, but at over three g's, almost twice as fast as before. Engine power had remained constant, meaning their mass had spontaneously halved. The blood drained from his face as he realized what was going on. The additional objects that had appeared had been docked to the Burners and had now detached. Forty thrusters flared, slowing the smaller ships by more than thirty g's. His on-board computer reported Cobra fighter-bombers and troop carriers. The Donar fighter squadron had not been on the fleet carrier ahead of them, but hidden in the cargo bays of the Brander. And he had let it pass scot-free. What a load of bullshit!
"Toro to fighter squadron..." He paused. Radio contact was down. They had entered the range of the enemy jammers. Probably the Donar and its escort ships. He activated the ComLaser and locked on to his squadron leaders. The directional communications had low bandwidth under battle conditions, but it was sufficient for an audio link. "Toro to fighter squadron. Turn around immediately and head back to Aigis! The enemy battle group was hidden in the Burners. Maximum acceleration."
He led by example, turned the engine in the direction of flight and went to full power. Thirty g weighed down on his body and pressed him into the gel pads. He felt the injectors of the pilot suit pumping circulatory stabilizers into his blood. Speaking was impossible as of now. He closed his eyes and concentrated completely on the data that the ship's computer was feeding directly into his brain via the neural interface. His order had been received. The entire squadron had turned and was accelerating back toward Aigis. Their opponents, however, had a significant speed advantage. Catching up with them before they reached the fortress was impossible. The defenders had to make do without them. But no object in Earth orbit was better suited for such a fight than the orbital fortress. José's display reported the launch of interceptor missiles. Then a series of explosions, but several seconds early. He was confused. Nothing was going the way it should in this battle. He checked his data. The Burners had exploded, but had not yet been hit. Clouds of debris spread between him and Aigis. Then he understood. Not only he, but the attackers now had myriads of wreckage between them and the fortress and were protected from its defensive weapons. Against the widely scattered pile of debris that was just descending on Aigis, neither defensive missiles nor guns would help. The station's armor would limit the impact damage, but the attackers' strike force was under cover for the final approach. A truly admirable maneuver. The mutants had skillfully outmaneuvered both the fighter squadron and the fortress's direct defenses. What chaos! Now all that remained was to move up as quickly as possible and hope that the party wasn't over when José and his men arrived.
A warning message was displayed. Several objects approaching. The Donar and its escort ships were firing missiles at José's squadron. Damn it, that too! He shut down the engine and turned the Lancer around. The abrupt transition from high acceleration to zero gravity demanded everything from his insides. He pumped another load of stabilizing drugs into his circulation. Then he aimed the Beast at the approaching missiles and pulled the trigger when the targeting computer gave the green light. The brute force of the Gauss gun shook the gunship and its occupant with all its might. The engine howled to compensate as best it could for the recoil of the gun. Most warships had special defensive guns against missile attacks, mostly small-caliber railguns with a high rate of fire. On the Lancer, they had dispensed with them. Although the Beast was completely oversized for this task, it fulfilled said task with flying colors. The enemy missiles dissolved into dust as the hail of bullets rained down on them. José's sensors indicated that his comrades were doing the same. The missiles were not a serious threat to the gunships, but that had not been the goal of the attack. The defensive maneuvers had cost valuable time and prevented them from intercepting the real enemy. That was all that mattered. Another salvo of missiles. Align again, aim, fire. Stopped again for twenty seconds. A damned shitty game! José was frustrated. The mutants were just having a sleigh ride with him and he was helpless against their tactics. The whole thing was one big humiliation.
At least the last defensive maneuver had finally taken them out of effective range of the warships and their pesky missiles. The fleet carrier and cruisers could not keep up with the acceleration of the Lancers and Cobras.
Aigis was coming into range. José's sensors painted a picture of horror. The hull of the orbital fortress was speckled with thousands of craters where the debris from the Burners had hit. The enemy troop carriers had docked and were releasing hundreds of small objects that danced across the armor, looking for weak spots where they could penetrate the interior of the fortress. If the assault troops succeeded in their search, it was all over for Aigis. The Federation infantrymen had no match for the battle mutants in their super-heavy armored suits.
José reduced the acceleration to ten g and took a deep breath as his lungs were relieved at least a little. The jammers were still active. Then again, so were the ComLasers.
"Toro to fighter squadron. Squadrons three and four: fire on the assault troops! We are the only ones who can stop them from invading the fortress. Squadrons one and two: we'll give the others cover from the enemy fighters. Toro out."
At a distance of one hundred miles, he could easily see the station with the naked eye. The sensor alert again. Not missiles this time, but fighters. Cobras. Bandits. Hostiles.
He headed straight for his opponents. Two Bandits were in range. He turned the Beast, aimed, fired. A ton and a half of iron raced through the vacuum. One of the Cobras was hit full on and turned into a cloud of rubble and dust. The other, in a rapid zigzag flight, dodged the obstacle course the Gauss cannon had laid before its bow. José tracked the gun, aimed it again. His computer sounded the alarm. The mutant pilot fired back. The Cobra's armament had nowhere near the penetrating power of the Beast, but was nonetheless absolutely lethal to a ship the size of the Lancer. In a fraction of a second, José's sensors detected the approaching projectiles and reported their trajectory to the ship's computer, which calculated an evasive course. José was completely shaken. Under these circumstances, aiming was out of the question, but he still pulled the trigger. The sheer volume of projectiles the Beast spat out gave a realistic chance of hitting at short range, even with wild stray fire. Luck was with him. He scored only a grazing shot, but for a moment his opponent was rattled. The brief respite was enough for him to follow up with a well-aimed shot. Poof! Dust cloud number two. José was sweating. The waste heat from the engines and the Gauss gun was rapidly driving up the temperatures in the cockpit. But there was no time to rest.
The frantic maneuvers prevented the ComLasers from aligning. Now it was every man for himself. The mutants fared no better. Aigis was also sending broadband jamming signals into the ether.
For a moment, José had peace. He used the time for a short overview. The opponents kept their distance from the Lancers. They had quickly learned that they would lose out in a direct confrontation. Instead, they took defensive positions. Placed themselves between José's squadron and the assault troops that crawled over the fortress like ants. The station's defensive fire had come to a halt. The guns that had survived the impact of the fire debris had been knocked out to minimum distance by the infantrymen. No one would come to the aid of José's men. Quite the opposite. In less than three minutes, the enemy capital ships would arrive and take them on. Time was playing into the hands of the mutants. The only remaining trump card was the firepower of the Lancers. Now he would play it.
He stopped drifting and accelerated head-on toward the enemy. The squadron followed him. The enemy fighters broke formation and scattered. One came in his direction. José kept toward him and took aim. At a range of ninety miles, he opened fire. The projectiles took about six seconds to cover the distance. Enough time for evasive maneuvers. His opponent backed away from him to maintain the distance, the only thing that saved him from annihilation. He was playing for time. But José didn't let himself get involved in that. He took advantage of the gap that had become free and turned the muzzle of the Beast toward the fortress. A squad of assault infantry was making straight for the ruins of a gun turret. José pulled the trigger. The five-pound chunks did nothing to the station's armor, but for the assault troops it was an inferno. Only scraps remained of them. Then a warning message. Bandit approaching! José could hardly believe his readouts. At fifty g, the fighter that had just fled from him was now racing toward him. The distance between them had already shrunk to half by the time José had even turned the gunship around. He had not seen such a maneuver since AI-controlled fighters had been outlawed. The pilot was probably going through hell right now. However, that didn't stop him from covering José with the heaviest hail of bullets that the Cobra's two on-board guns could deliver. The computer took over the controls and let the Lancer pirouette. José meanwhile pulled the trigger again without aiming. This time, luck failed him. The Cobra came through his salvo unscathed, wildly hooking, and continued to fire deliberately. José could not dare to give up evasive action for even a second without being blown to dust on the spot. The son of a bitch had him pinned down. And the farther the distance melted, the greater the chance of a hit. He had only one option. Turn and fly away at full speed. Thirty g pressed him into the seat. But the flight was over before it had even begun. A sudden jolt went through the gunship. The stars beyond the cockpit pulpit became narrow white streaks. Every two seconds, Aigis swept through his field of vision. It took him a moment to realize he had been hit and was tumbling uncontrollably. One of the two starboard radiators bid farewell and flew off in a wide arc. He throttled back on the thruster. With only one radiator, the reactor would overheat within seconds. With the remaining power, he just managed to stabilize his flight, but it was over. He was out of the game. Defenseless. Waiting for the catch shot. But instead of the final impact, his ComLaser reported an incoming, unencrypted signal. Puzzled, he opened the channel.
