Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (61 page)

              “Aye, sir!” Kezzin called, his voice shaking slightly in fear.  In all the months
Ironhide
had been stationed out here in Tyseus, the most action that any of these crews had seen was when a tramp freighter came blundering into the system and was stupid enough to try and approach the shipyard.  Skygexx and his crew had only been too happy to shoot out its engines and get a boarding party over to her.  The crew of that ship hadn’t enjoyed what had happened to them after that very much.  But none of them, Skygexx included, had expected to take on a heavy cruiser here without any additional support.  And they certainly didn’t expect to take on a
Republic
heavy cruiser.  What the hell were they doing out here anyway?  The Republic didn’t give a flying gronk about anything in the Argos Cluster, why all of a sudden was a cruiser and a corvette tromping into a sovereign star system?

              No, this was insane, Skygexx thought.  Those two ships had chewed up the
Wrath
with almost no effort, smashed his own ship and had wrecked more than half of Sokann’s fighter squadron.  Twelve Muon-class fighters were destroyed and what did they have to show for it all?  Minor damage on that heavy cruiser and almost no damage at all on that corvette and they were still flying on into the inner system, to the shipyard.  There was nothing he could do about it, short of crashing his ship into the side of the cruiser, but even that might not even do anything, as it was possible the Republic ship would just batter his destroyer into scrap and arrogantly carry on without a care in the world.

              “No, we’re going to pull back to the fueling station and defend,” he said aloud and it was clear that the rest of the bridge was hanging on his every word.  Even young Kezzin, who after having sent Skygexx’s message to the fighters, was looking over at his commanding officer speculatively.

              “Captain, your orders were to defend the star system,” he said, a slightly nasal whine in his voice.  He began to emit a very slight buzz, showing his nervousness, but he was carrying on.  “The Captain ordered you to stop any aggressors from attacking this system!  You’re supposed to defend the shipyard!”

              Skygexx, who was still shaking a bit; mirroring the vibration of his battered warship, turned slowly to face his upstart ensign.  “What did you say to me?”

              The young zheen, believing that his commander was shaking in fear and had become enfeebled due to the stress from the attack, carried on boldly.  “Captain Verrikoth ordered us to defend this system,” he said again.  “We can’t do that if we run away.”

              “Shut your mouth, larva,” Kufazik said, his voice low.  “Did you not see what just happened?”

              But Kezzin had been emboldened by his commander’s lack of serious response.  He seemed to think that his family connections would protect him from Skygexx’s wrath.  “The
Wrath
was destroyed because we weren’t ready,” he explained, as though he knew the answer.  He was ignoring the dirty looks and flaring antennae that were coming his way from the rest of his companions on the bridge.  “We survived a head on attack by
both
of their ships!  We can take them!”

              “Are you stupid?” Kufazik railed.  “They blasted
Wrath
to bits in
one
pass!  In a second pass with both ships they destroyed more than
half
of Commander Sokann’s squadron.  They shot down
sixteen
missiles from the squadron’s missile salvo and took the fire from four.  They just took it and shrugged it off.  A few minutes later, they came in and hammered this ship.  In what universe do you think that we are able to take on that heavy cruiser?”

              “So we stay out of close range and stand off!” Kezzin fired back.  “You’re right, we can’t get in a slugging match with that ship, so we stand off and pound her with missiles and evade their return fire.”             

              “What do you think we were trying to do?” the sensor officer demanded.

              “We just charged right down their throat!” the young zheen replied loudly.

              “Stop flapping your mouthparts,” the old one declared.  Kezzin glared at him.  “The captain had to go to the aid of Commander Sokann’s squadron.  And the Republic ships shifted their fire from the fighters to us.”

              “What’s the loss of a few fighters?  They’re much less of a loss than a destroyer like this one,” Kezzin said.  “We lost eleven pilots in the squadron.  We lost three times as many on this ship and eight on the corvette!  Eleven pilots lost is nothing!”

              “You need to sit down and shut up,” the old one warned him.  He caught a glimpse of the captain out of the corner of one of his segmented eyes.

              “Don’t tell me what to do, old one,” Kezzin spat.  “Your family are slug farmers on Kiall.  My brood mother and my father are far more important.  We actually have importance.  You will be
broken
for speaking to me that way!”

              “Shut
up
, you larva,” the old one said again.  While Kezzin had rose from his station and had walked across the bridge to stand in what he believed was an intimidating fashion over the elder zheen, the old one still sat in his seat at the tactical console. 

              “You are
nothing
, you old bug.  When I speak to my mother and father, I will make sure that you are tossed out of an airlock to writhe in the black,” Kezzin sneered.  “You will not-…”

              But they never found out what the old one wouldn’t do because Skygexx had had enough.  He’d risen from his command seat, crossed the bridge, and delivered a clenched fist straight to the side of Kezzin’s head, hitting him square in one of his compound eyes.  The younger zheen squealed in agony as he eye made a horrible squashing sound, and the carapace around his eye fractured in a spider web of cracks.  The comms officer collapsed against the tactical console, when the old one shoved him away. 

              “You’ll pay for that!” he shrieked, clapping a hand over his wounded eye, which was gushing a thick yellow ichor.  “My mother and father will see you torn apart for this!”

              Skygexx reached down and drew the needler pistol from his thigh holster.  He pointed it at the screaming comms officer.  “Get off my bridge, you mewling cur,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.  “I don’t care what your political connections are.  I don’t care who your parents are.  I don’t care that the Captain has decided to make them happy by foisting you off on me.  I don’t much care that he might be cross with me if I killed you.  You will stop your whining about things you know little about and you will get yourself down to your stateroom.  If you come out of that stateroom before I summon you, insect, I will make sure that your thorax is thoroughly perforated.”  He twitched the needler menacingly, indicating that the ensign should head to the bridge doors. 

              “I’ll make sure he gets there, Captain,” the old one said, rising from the tactical console.  “If you can get someone to relieve me.”

              Skygexx nodded.  “Go.  I will handle tactical until you return.”

              The old one was on his feet in an instant and grabbed Kezzin by one arm.  The younger zheen cried out in pain and struggled, but the old one’s grip was like iron and there was a dull crackling noise.  Kezzin gagged in pain, hissing intensely, his mouthparts waggling as the old one’s grip had cracked the carapace of his upper arm.  “Get going, you,” he growled, yanking the struggling ensign off the bridge.  Once they had left and the lift doors closed, there was a stunned silence on the bridge.

              “As you were,” Skygexx rasped, the needler still in his fist, pointed at the deck.  The other personnel quickly returned to their consoles, suddenly very interested and busy with what they were doing.  He looked around the bridge for a moment before holstering his weapon and sitting down at the tactical station.

              Thankfully, while the drama on the bridge had been unfolding, the Republic ships hadn’t decided to turn and make a lunge for the fueling station and its distracted and battered defenders.  No, it seemed that after having thoroughly smacked Skygexx and his fellows down, they were quite content to simply traipse on into the inner system, on a course straight for the shipyard. 

              Kufazik had slaved the communications station over to his own sensor console.  It made things a bit more complicated for him, but he seemed to be adapting while he waited for someone to come to the bridge and take over comms.  “Commander Sokann on the line, Captain.  He said he’s landing his squadron for refuel and rearming, and then he’s going to launch the Combat Aerospace Patrol.”  The CAP consisted of a flight of four of the Muon-class fighters, which were tasked to patrol the space around the fueling station.  Now that the squadron of twenty was down to only nine fighters there was going to be a serious strain on the pilots of Zg’chiss squadron as well as the equipment. 

              “Very well,” Skygexx replied tiredly.  He glanced up as Kezzin’s relief arrived on the bridge, sliding into the communications console and transferring control back from Kufazik.  “Helm, put us into geosynchronous orbit over the fueling station.  We’ll hold position there.”  He looked to the new arrival.  “Inform damage control that they may send out EVA teams as necessary.”

              There was a chorus of acknowledgements as the bridge crew scrambled to obey his commands.  He checked his feeds again and saw that the Republic ships were still holding course.  Based on their current speed, they’d be at the shipyard in sixteen hours.  He hissed out a sigh.  There was nothing he could realistically do to stop them. 

              His thoughts turned to the future.  Those Republic pigs would blow the shipyard and if he was very lucky, they would simply leave the system after that.  Of course, lucky was a relative term because even if they didn’t destroy what was left, when Captain Verrikoth found out what had happened, he would not be pleased by all the losses.  And he would take that ire out on one Captain Skygexx.  There was no really good option here.  He could attack the Republic ships and most likely have his ship be destroyed.  Or he could consolidate his forces here and try and retain what he could and have the pirate lord kill him anyway.

              He stared at the tactical display with something close to despair.  There was nothing to do for now.  He tried to maintain a strong façade, but he wasn’t sure he could succeed in that for very long.

              Duncan Harth returned to the bridge just as his two ship squadron was approaching visual range of the shipyard.  There had been no other ships moving to challenge
Legacy
and
Ravage
, no fighters, shuttles, nothing.  The crew at the yard hadn’t even attempted to communicate.  No bluster, no threats, no attempts to curry favor, not even a request for surrender.  If not for the scurrying and activity from the shuttles and EVA teams working on the ship in the yard, Duncan might have believed that the yard was uninhabited.

              “All right, Mister Drommen, talk to me about this yard and about that ship,” he said.

              “Yes, sir,” the domak said, looking up from his sensors.  “Heavy on life form readings; at least five thousand.  The ship in the yard is confirmed.  It’s a heavy cruiser.”

              Duncan nodded, looking at the information flowing onto his own display at his command seat.  The ship was about twenty meters shorter than
Legacy
, which wasn’t a lot, but the crew inside the ship might disagree since the ship had that much less interior space.  The ship was in very low power mode, but
Legacy
’s sensors could detect three separate power sources inside.  This made sense, considering the large number of heavy laser batteries and turbolaser batteries Duncan could see being worked on.  The ship fairly bristled with weapons, and he considered that this ship might be a very close match to
Legacy
in firepower.  Of course, Republic technology was better than anything else they had encountered out in the Cluster so far, but depending on how much of a deficit there was, it might be a very close match indeed.  The ship, however looked different than most of the warships Duncan had seen.

              Most warship designs tended to be sleek, with weapons set up in batteries, with strong chase armaments and greater broadside armament.  Heavy cruisers were meant to deal out punishment and yet be able to take as much as they dished out, given their armor and shields which were heavier than that of a light cruiser or destroyer, which made sense.  But this ship was different.  It was not sleek looking.  It didn’t look as though it could balance agility and firepower.  This ship was designed for one purpose, to bull its way into a fight and simply hammer on its opponents until they cracked or they peeled away.  Its hull was layered and blocky, as though a sculptor had a block of granite, chipped out what he felt was necessary and then left it.  The ship’s forward section looked very thick and roughhewn, but all of it gave the ship a menacing air, only enhanced by all of the weapons.

              “How far along are they, do you estimate?” he asked.

              “Hard to tell for certain, sir,” Drommen said, hedging slightly.  “I would say at least seventy-five percent complete.  The outer sections of the ship appear to be completed, but there’s no way of knowing how much of the internal control systems need to be installed.”