Battleship Furiosa (20 page)

"Ironclads Eight, Nine, and Ten
stay with me," said Lieutenant Commander Holder.

The formation of four fighters
pulled away and towards their designated orbit around the ship.
Nate could see the grey line on his helmet overlay that they would
take, two pairs of fighters orbiting at different distances. They
would be the last line of defence should the worst happen. Nate
shook his head as he tried to imagine what that might be. Four
fighters didn't sound much, but they would be perfectly placed to
fight off anything that the powerful guns of the battleship
couldn't engage.

Stay calm
and focus on the mission. Now it's
all on you.

"Spread out and follow me."

He tried to sound calm, but his
voice was high-pitched and betrayed his fears. A quick check showed
that Billy had moved to his side, as always. Of all the pilots in
the Squadron, there was none he'd want to rely on more than Billy.
Behind them were two more pairs of fighters, the deadly Mantis
interceptors, in their glorious grey and gold colour schemes. He
looked at them and smiled at the thought of the four female pilots
inside them.

I wonder how good they really are.

The four were pretty cocksure about
their skills and ability, yet Nate knew both he and his friends
were no slouches. If it came to a fight, he almost felt sorry for
whoever turned on them.

"Mantis
interceptors, be ready and have your missiles prepped to
fire. We might only get one shot at this."

"Affirmative,
Ironclad."

"Waypoint one, burners...now!"

The two Lightning fighters
accelerated ahead, each streaking flames. Bright blue shapes on his
helmet marked the first waypoint to the right, nearly five
kilometres from the station. On they went until the four warships
faded into the distance. Nate licked his lip as he looked at the
facility.

That is big, very big!

The imagery picked up by the
scanners had shown an odd design, based on a fat bullet type shape,
with long tendril arms extended from one of the short ends.
Somebody had described it as a Kraken, and the more Nate looked at
it, the more he though
t this individual
was correct. It was big and sinister looking, especially with the
scores of limb sections that extended out vast distances into
space.

"Keep your eyes open."

The six fighters burst through
the first waypoint and then rolled to the left as they closed on
their destination. The detailed sensors aboard the fighters showed
no changes to the temperature or electronic signatures of the area,
and that made Nate even more nervous. He lifted the nose of his
fighter and followed the planned approach to the second
waypoint.

"Okay, activate sensor packages
now."

T
he
fighters switched on their active sensors. Once on they had a good
chance of detecting even well hidden spacecraft and weapon systems,
but at the expense of making themselves much more visible and
easier to track. He lowered his eyes and checked the
reading.

Still nothing.

The four Mantis
i
nterceptors remained close on their
flanks. Even with the Lightning fighters using their fuel hungry
burners, they were still unable to escape from the high-speed
interceptors. Nate tagged three more locations, one for each
group.

"Okay, split up in pairs and
survey the facility. Stick to your pairs, no matter what happens,
and follow the search pattern. Keep your eyes open."

The acknowledgments came in one
after the other as they moved closer and closer. A quick glance
backwards showed the formation of Byotai ships moving towards the
facility, but they were now little more than dots. Just knowing
they were too far away to be in danger gave Nate a moment's
respite, though he knew that would soon change. Valdis lifted up
high as she and her wingman made for the upper decks of the
facility. The second pair headed below, leaving the long tendril
arms for him and Billy.

"Okay, Ironclad Seven, we're
going in. Two minutes until we reach the outer structure. Stay on
my wing and watch your corners. It's gonna get real
tight."

Nate rolled right and left as he
neared the largest of the extended sections. As he moved along at
just a few metres above the plating, he could see the landing
clamps and fuelling points that reached a kilometre away from the
station.

"This must be so ships can load
and unload without coming into contact with the main habitation
blocks."

"Yeah," agreed Billy,
"So where are all the ships?

Nate looked down
and then to his mapping data. The Byotai ships
were closing the distance fast, and by his estimate; they would
pass by at around twenty kilometres from this part of the station.
That was close enough that a gun or missile system could make
contact in a matter of a few seconds at most. He increased speed as
he swerved in and out of the cover provided by the docking arm
while checking the scanners.

There’s
s
till nothing.

"Ironclad Six, report
in,
" said Lieutenant Commander
Holder.

"Sir. No contacts so far. Sensors
show the outer arms are clear of active power units and radiation
based weaponry."

"Very good, maintain your sweep."

"Sir."

As Nate said the words, he almost
missed the double tower directly ahead. The unit lifted up high and
was topped by a series of antenna reaching a height of nearly
twenty-five metres. A quick blip of the throttle and a lift of the
nose was enough to pull him to safety, but only just. Once safe, he
dropped back down and then checked for Billy.

Where is he?

For that brief moment it looked
like Billy had either struck the tower, or he'd been
fo
rced to withdraw from the close
position against the arm. Nate could feel his pulse
increasing.

Billy?

Then with a bright flash of blue he
moved in from the right and formed up on his flank.

"I'm here. That got a little
close."

As Nate smiled, he was sure he spotted
something glinting off in the distance, on the far right of the
main superstructure. No sooner had he concentrated his attention on
it, and the light vanished.

"Be careful.
I'm sure I just eyeballed something."

"Everything looks good over
here," said Valdis.

Nate glanced to his left and
smiled as the pair of interceptors split off, leaving massive
streaks of flame and energy behind them. He could have watched them
for hours as they showed off their speed and agility. The prison
facility was truly gigantic, but the frontal section was so complex
that even a moment's loss of concentration could leave them
dead.

"Understood. Stay frosty."

It was difficult, but as
he
swung the fighter in and out of the
next extension beams and platforms, he checked his tactical
overlay. His three pairs of fighters were covering a lot of ground,
and as they passed over each part of the station, it filled in
green to show it was secure. Once satisfied, he contacted
Furiosa.

"Commander, initial scans show
the facility is running on reserve power only. Most of the booms
are off-line, and there are no functioning ships on the forward
side."

"Good work, Ironclads," said
Commander Higgins, "We're coming into range within the next five
minutes."

Nate began to smile, but then spotted
that glint of light again.

"Wait, Sir...I think..."

An alarm barked as a deep hole
punched through two of his winglets and then crashed directly
through the rear hull of his fighter. He rolled to the left and
almost ran headlong into a loading deck with triple layer gantry on
the one side. As he pulled away from the cover offered by the long
arms, the electronic warfare suite swung into life.

"Contact!" he yelled.

Both radar and active microwave beams
were already showing on the threat system, and Nate knew that meant
he'd been detected and targeted.

"Ironclads, break for cover. Stay low
and stay fast!"

Nate and Billy rolled back so
that they were flying directly above one of the longest arms
leading into the facility's upper superstructure. A trench ran
along the right side, and inside was a double set of maglev tracks
that extended out to over a kilometre. At one end was a series of
massive blast doors, each surrounded by gun turrets, and at the
other a pair of motorised platforms for transporting cargo and
personnel.

"Missiles, coming from point
five-five."

Nate didn't bother looking, and
instead pushed his nose down and activated his burners. It was a
tight fit, barely forty metres wide. Normally, he wouldn't even
consider using this part of the station, but with so many warnings
flashing, he knew he had just seconds to live, if that.

"Get into the maglev trench,
now!"

As usual, Billy followed his
instructions without hesitation. It was one of the things that made
him the perfect wingman. Others might try to assess the situation
themselves, but not him. Both fighters dropped down just as a pair
of high-speed missiles slammed into the flanks of the trench. A
second later, and one of them would have been vaporised. Another
missile screamed overhead and struck an antenna, exploding in a
shower of sparks.

"Contact!" Nate shouted, "We've
got active SAM systems
and emplaced
artillery inside the facility."

The pair continued forward, but
there was only so much trench, and tempting as it was to stay
there, they were operating on borrowed time. Soon the ships would
be passing by, and the fighters had to get back or be left
behind.

"In three...two...one...now!"

Nate pulled up and boosted his engines.
Billy followed right behind as they burst out of cover and into the
space between the long tendrils. Smoke and dust trails drifted in
the void from the path of at least thirty missiles, and Nate was
horrified to see one of the Mantis burning as it evaded fire from
further inside the facility.

"Nate, we've tagged their
defensive position in the outer facility. Looks like they've
entrenched themselves in the secondary docking bay," said
Valdis.

She would likely be
reprimanded for using his name, but there would
be time for that afterwards, assuming any of them actually
survived. He rolled his fighter around and pointed his nose at the
secondary docking bay. Now that it was little more than eight
hundred metres away, he could see it formed a secondary layer in
front of the main structure. It was actually more than just a bay
and looked like a small island that under normal circumstances
would have been classed as a station in its own right. A number of
the long boom extensions ran into it, and dozens of blast doors of
different sizes ran along the base. A causeway linked the docking
bay to the rest of the station, and layers of defensive barricades
and triple-layer airlocks protected this.

Red shapes marked on his helmet
overlay showed where the Mantis pilots had tagged hostile weapon
systems. To Nate's surprise, they were installed in multiple
positions all around the docking bay.

"Good work."

A cursory look showed they were a
mixture of manually targeted gun platforms, and military grade base
defence missile systems. Based on the positions, they were
intentionally placed to make them hard to spot.

"Okay, these have been hidden here for
a reason, and I doubt they're connected to the defence grid. It's
an ambush."

"Agreed," said Valdis,
"What's the plan?"

Nate's mouth opened in a wide
smile.

"Simple. Activate weapons and hit them
hard. Clear a path for the taskforce."

"Affirmative."

He then glanced to Billy and
nodded.

"It's time. Activate the Star
Fires."

The pair took aim and quickly
tagged the nearest weapon installations. Billy took the missiles
systems. Nate concentrated on four separate gun mounts. Two of them
flashed yellow as they sent bursts of fire in his
direction.

"Fox Three!"

A pair of the deadly Star Fire
missiles detached from their pylons and accelerated towards the
target. No sooner were they gone and he'd sent in another pair. All
four used their combination of mixed passive and active sensors to
follow a path to their targets, while adjusting their course to
make it difficult to track.

"Rotate and hit them from below."

They rolled apart just as two
more blasts of gunfire struck nearby. As they moved away, the first
of the missiles struck the facility. The Star Fires were capable of
damaging even the newest warships, and had little problem in
destroying the weapon systems with each impact.

"Okay, rotate and strafe. I want every
weapon system knocked out."

"Ironclad Six. We've got inbound
cruise missiles coming from the station," said Commander
Higgins.

Nate felt a lump in his throat.
He'd been so busy hitting the station that he hadn't even noticed
this new threat. He glanced back to check on the missiles' progress
and smiled as he watched green dots on his overlay heading towards
them. Two of the four fighters were already moving towards the
missiles and had launched a number of their own to intercept
them.