Dark Space: Origin (41 page)

The narrow entrance and exit of the minefield was another problem they’d have to address. Brondi hadn’t even left enough room to escape the minefield himself. The gaps he’d left were only large enough for fighter wings and small capital ships. Nothing the size of the
Tauron
was going to make it through unscathed, so they would have to be sure they shot all of the mines along their entry and exit vectors before they got too close, and depending how powerful the mines were, they could still suffer damage—not to mention how much damage they’d take from the hundreds of fighters and the odd dozen capital ships which Brondi had scraped together in the last day and a half to defend himself.

If they got past all of that, they would still have to deal with the carrier’s own defenses. For the most part the
Valiant
was designed to defend itself from fighter attacks, but there were a handful of capital-ship cracking beam cannons to worry about—not the least of which was her main cannon, a massive corona XL which could punch a 60 meter-wide hole in an unshielded hull at 50 klicks.

Their only advantage and their only hope in the coming fight lay with the
Interloper.
Hoff hoped to death that the cloaked Sythian cutter-class cruiser was already in position at the
Valiant’s
port ventral hangar bay. They’d loaded that small, hundred-meter-long cruiser until sentinels were standing literally shoulder to shoulder on her decks, and now there were more than two thousand soldiers in full battle armor and over 100 zephyrs crammed aboard the alien cruiser. All they needed was a chance to get aboard, and Brondi wouldn’t stand a chance.

After that, however, they would still have to deal with the five
hundred
angry fighters buzzing around the
Valiant.
In a straight fight that many fighters could easily take down both the
Valiant
and the
Tauron
without an ample fighter screen of their own,
but Hoff trusted in the outlaw pilots’ instincts of self-preservation to keep them from doing anything stupid. Most of Brondi’s fighters were short-ranged, and by the time the
Valiant
was back under Imperial control, they’d be low on both fuel and air. If they decided to destroy the
Valiant
rather than see her fall back into Imperial hands, they’d be sentencing themselves to death, too. Brondi’s cruisers and destroyers were not equipped to take on that many fighters.

All things considered, their plan had a fifty-fifty chance of success, and it relied on everything working perfectly. Hoff feared he might be relying too much on common sense and reason with a band of uneducated, impetuous criminals who might just as easily decide to shoot first and regret it later.
But, as they say—
Hoff thought, watching the reversion timer tick down to five seconds.
—only time will tell.

The countdown became audible. When it reached zero, superluminal space disappeared with a flash, and back was the comparative dimness of stars and space.

“Engineering, report!”

“All systems green, Admiral!”

“Comms! Sound the alert! Launch Inferno Squadron and have them screen us on our approach. Their priority is AMS. Do
not
let them break off and engage. Anyone who peels off our flight path gets left behind. Weapons, your priority is AMS, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nav—come about! Maximum acceleration.”

“Coming about.”

 “Gravidar, what do you see out there?” Hoff asked, already scanning the grid to see for himself.

“Minor variations in the enemy formation. Everything looks predictable so far . . . wait, no, this is new. I have a pair of old baron-class cruisers coming up on our starboard side at K-44-54-16 and K-48-54-16. They’ll reach us before we’re through the minefield.”

Hoff noted the cruisers on the captain’s table and called out, “Gunnery! Flag those cruisers as secondary targets. Primaries are still the mines along our flight path and any missiles that we pick up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hoff looked up to see the
Valiant
pan into view. It glittered distantly against Firea’s day/night terminator. The half of the giant carrier which faced them was dark, shaded by its own bulk from the pale red light of the system’s sun, and Hoff could see the light of a million viewports glowing like broken flecks of fireglass in the dark. His gray eyes dipped back to the grid in time to see the enemy fighters responding to their approach vector. Almost a hundred of them would be in missile range before the
Tauron
was even through the minefield.
You’d better be in position, Caldin,
he thought.

“Admiral, a small transport just launched out the back of the
Tauron!
” gravidar reported.

Hoff nodded; he’d been expecting that. His clone would take Destra and Atta deeper into Dark Space, and from there they’d find a way to either commandeer a larger ship, or refit theirs so that it could take them all the way to the enclave.
“Did they have clearance?”

“They were auto-cleared by the system.”

“Then ignore them. They’re authorized.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hoff followed the gravidar icon of that transport out the back of the
Tauron
until he was satisfied that they were out of danger, and then he turned his attention to the seething mass of red enemy contacts converging on his battleship
.
A short stream of friendly nova fighters shot out the front of the battleship, launching with the
Tauron’s
forward momentum to give them an extra boost. That was
Inferno Squadron—
down to just nine out of the original dozen after their first run-in with the
Valiant.
Now it was time for revenge. Once all nine of them were clear, transports began to appear, flooding out on both sides of the
Tauron
. Assault transports weren’t either fast or maneuverable, but they were heavily armed and armored, and better than nothing as an escort, so Hoff had ordered them to flank the
Tauron
in two groups of twenty three. Along with Inferno Squadron, they would provide AMS support for the battleship.

Now all of the pieces are in play,
Hoff thought.
Let the game begin.

Chapter 27

A
tton jetted out into space aboard Hoff’s modified seraphim-class corvette. He’d found it waiting behind a shadowy door at the far end of Hoff’s clone room. Using the credentials already imbedded in Hoff’s wrist, he’d managed to open both that door and the corvette waiting on the other side. Once through the door, he’d taken just a moment to admire the gleaming lines of the ship. From the outside, it looked just like Brondi’s corvette, but the paint was military gray rather than the black with red accents which Brondi’s organization seemed to favor. It was three times the length of a nova fighter and stood easily a dozen meters high. For atmospheric flight, dual turbines flanked the hull and four movable stabilizer fins did double duty as air brakes and grav field projectors. Between the stabilizer fins lay two heavy laser turrets with room for gunners, while four more pilot-controlled arc-firing turrets ran along the top of the ship—two ripper cannons, and two medium grade, blue dymium pulse lasers. Mounted on the keel of the ship were another two ripper cannons, two missile launchers, and one torpedo launcher. For extra defenses it had a rear-facing mine launcher loaded with eight scatter bombs, and a reinforced shield array, with a deflection rating of 260, roughly three times that of a nova fighter. All in all, it was a flying fortress, a mini capital ship.

Atton had used Hoff’s own grav gun to carry him aboard and strap him down on a bed in one of the transport’s six sleeping quarters. Now, he sat up in the cockpit, familiarizing himself with the controls at the pilot’s station. This corvette had been redesigned for just one pilot and a copilot, while drydock standard would have been four to five bridge control stations.

 Atton hoped the other Hoff Heston up on the bridge of the
Tauron
wasn’t paying much attention to the corvette flying out the back of his ship. A quick glance at the comms revealed no incoming messages. No one had asked him to provide clearance codes or explain what he was doing. Hoff would expect to see the corvette leave, but he wouldn’t expect to see it join the
Tauron’s
flight path and fly into battle. Atton counted to ten, waiting until he guessed that Hoff had stopped watching him on the grid before he stepped on the starboard rudder to bring the transport around.
The bright blue glow of the
Tauron’s
thrusters hove into view—four main thrusters, each one large enough to swallow a venture-class cruiser whole, surrounded by eight smaller maneuvering thrusters. The collective glare was blinding even through the corvette’s auto-polarizing viewport. Atton turned away from the view to scan his holo displays. The main one was already set to the default—a glowing three dimensional grid of space. The grid was crowded with a seething mass of red enemy contacts.

Atton eyed those enemy fighters and starships. They began to blur together, converging on the
Tauron
in a bloody red line
.
A small number of green contacts shot out from the front of Hoff’s battleship. They were nova fighters. By the time they stopped streaming out, there were just nine of them, meaning they were outnumbered more than fifty to one by Brondi’s fighter screen. Assault transports began appearing on both sides of the battleship to augment that flimsy fighter screen. Atton shook his head. Those transports would be torn apart; they were too slow to go head-to-head with fighters. . . .

As slow as a corvette?

Atton stopped himself there with a frown. Hoff’s modifications had come at a price, and the corvette’s standard 108 KAPS top acceleration had been knocked back to just 92. That made it faster than the
Tauron,
but much slower than the average fighter.

Atton caught up to the
Tauron
just as both the battleship and the enemy fighter wing reached the minefield from opposite sides. They rushed headlong toward each other in the narrow gap between the mines. Bright red streams of fire began flashing out from the
Tauron
on all sides, hitting nearby mines and provoking brilliant flashes of light. The explosions caused a distant roar to rumble through the corvette’s simulated sound system.

ETA two minutes before the enemy fighters were in range. Atton tightened his hand on the flight stick as he raced past a glowing line of viewports more than a dozen decks high in the prow of the
Tauron
. He powered up the ship’s turrets. Two blue dymium pulse lasers and four ripper cannons. They all had the same range—about two klicks, which meant he’d only have time for one short volley before he passed the approaching fighters. He switched over to hailfire missiles instead and set the turrets to auto-fire. Now he had a maximum firing range of five klicks—ten if he just wanted the missiles to fly in a straight line.

Atton flew out ahead of the
Tauron,
and now he saw the blue engine glows of the Tauron’s novas—dead ahead. Atton’s corvette was coming up fast, about to pass them at any second. He would be the first one to engage the enemy. A quick look at the grid revealed that the squadron leading Brondi’s forces was made up of novas. Atton targeted the lead fighter and lined it up under his crosshairs. Thirty seven klicks to target. Atton’s forward velocity was 1546 m/s and climbing. He disengaged the engines and watched the rangefinder scroll down three klicks every other second. Twenty klicks to target. He wondered idly about his transport’s name as he waited to get within firing range. He asked the ship’s computer with a verbal query.

“This transport is designated the
Last Chance
,” the computer replied in a warm female voice. “It is a modified seraphim-class corvette with—”

“That’s all right, thanks. I already know the specifications,” Atton replied. “What’s your name?”

“Destra.”

Atton laughed. “All right, Mom.”

“My name’s not Mom, it’s—”

“I know, I know.” Atton shook his head, smiling despite the gravity of the situation.
Maybe she was right to stay behind,
he thought.

The admiral wasn’t all bad after all.
Skriffy as a space rat, but not all bad.

*  *  *

Devlin Squadron raced toward the minefield in a staggered line formation. Ethan felt the acceleration pin him to his nova’s flight chair and threaten to rip his hands off the flight stick. He had the point position, while a few dozen meters back and to one side was Gina, Devlin Two. Ethan’s squadron was the first of six to reach the edge of the minefield. There were just nine of them—Ethan, Gina, and the seven surviving members of Aleph Squad, slave-chipped to think they were pilots. Their recently acquired skills in the cockpit were just enough to make sure they didn’t crash into each other—but only just. Facing off with them on the other side of the minefield were the mighty
Tauron
and her opposing fighter screen of nine novas.

Their nine to our nine,
Ethan thought. Devlin Squadron would never be a match for them by itself, but they were leading a whole wing of expendable junkers, and there were another six fighter wings where that came from—more than 40 squadrons and over 500 fighters in all. Seeing what Hoff had brought to the fight, Ethan didn’t have to wonder about the outcome of this battle. The fact that the admiral had launched all of his assault transports to bolster his non-existent fighter screen was proof that even he was skeptical of his chances.
What were you thinking, Hoff?

There was no way the
Valiant
would fall to such a pathetic attack, and now Ethan had to rethink his plan to throw his life away. He was back to being Alara’s only hope. He gritted his teeth as mines began racing by to either side of his cockpit. His HUD painted translucent red walls around the minefield to show him where they would explode if he got too close. Those polygonal walls raced by him like the sides of a simulated canyon, adding a sense of speed and urgency to his flight.

Now their range to the
Tauron
was down to just 20 kilometers, and the Imperial novas were leading that by a good 500 meters. Ethan’s mind raced in anxious circles as he thumbed over to hailfire missiles and targeted the first Imperial nova. What was he doing? He couldn’t
help
Brondi. . . .

But if he didn’t, Alara would suffer a fate worse than death.

Suddenly an enemy missile lock alarm began beeping in his cockpit, and Ethan snapped out of it. Racing out ahead of Hoff’s fighter screen was the glinting hull of a seraphim-class corvette, and it was targeting him. The missile lock alarm screeched in a solid tone, and two hailfire missiles shot out from the transport.

Ethan blinked, and his hand hesitated on the flight stick.

*  *  *

Admiral Heston gaped at the grid as the
Last Chance
rushed out ahead of the
Tauron’s
novas. “Comms! Hail that corvette! Tell them to disengage immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

What are you doing?
Hoff wondered. He had a hard time believing that any clone of his would be that stupid. Why would he risk Destra’s and Atta’s lives like that? Maybe it had been Destra’s idea . . . or Atton’s.

“They’re not responding to our hails, sir.”

Hoff growled and shook his head. Of course they weren’t responding. If his clone answered, it would raise a lot of awkward questions with the crew. Hoff’s eyes narrowed angrily as he watched that transport dodge and weave toward the enemy fighter wave. It was too late to do anything about it. He was going to have to trust that his clone had the good sense to stay alive. And if not . . . Hoff had already taken the necessary measures to prevent a tragedy. He would have to content himself with that. If Destra and Atta died, they would wake up on Fortress Station a few months later with no memory of the battle which had killed them. Right now, neither one of them was a clone, but if Hoff had to revive them, then he would. He felt bad about chipping them without their knowledge, but he’d already hid plenty of other things from them, so what was one more secret? He was in the process of aging more clones so he could revive them aboard the
Tauron,
too.
W
hen Destra had broken into his facility and uncovered everything, she should have looked in the stasis tubes on the other side of the room. If she had, she would have seen two more familiar faces.