Warpath (19 page)

Regardless, Captain
McPatrick, Minh-Chu’s old friend Oz, obeyed orders, firing a volley
of torpedoes and fired all its non-energy weapons across the nearly
one hundred thousand kilometre distance separating it and the Pontos
on their way out.

The Triton’s efforts,
the constant volleys from the British Alliance Destroyers, the
Barricades roaring guns, and the solid projectile fire from hundreds
of smaller ships brought the Pontos’ shields down to low levels,
and scarred the side of the vessel, but the enemy ship somehow
managed to maintain a functional energy barrier. It was just enough
to keep the vessel moving towards Kambis, on whatever mission it was
sent to complete

Minh-Chu could barely
stand to watch as his tactical sensors illustrated an oblong object
firing sideways from the front of the Pontos. The ship’s cargo
doors closed behind it and the Pontos turned at a speed that seemed
impossible for a ship its size.

The object it launched
into the atmosphere of Kambis accelerated through the atmosphere, its
shields creating a fireball many times its size. As soon as it was in
the open atmosphere it burst into more pieces than Minh-Chu’s
tactical systems could track, and the shards triggered an antimatter
alarm.

“Tell me this isn’t
happening, Minh,” Dent said. “I knew people down there.”

“We cannot let this
drive us to destruction,” Minh-Chu said on an open channel, “or
murder, or waste. Take the Pontos, and as many crewmembers as you can
alive. We need to know why this is happening, people will never stop
asking.”

As soon as the silver
shelled projectile finished entering the atmosphere, the two hundred
ten metre long case split open and fell away. Thousands of shards of
solid antimatter, each with their own containment shield, split in
all directions, moving at speeds that Minh-Chu’s sensors could not
track in real time. Once they were dispersed around the planet, the
energy field expanded, and each solid antimatter shard became a gas
covering thousands of metres.

Chatter on all fleet
communications bands stopped for a moment, as the antimatter gas was
suspended in Kambis’s atmosphere by the isolation fields separating
it from normal matter. Then the fields ran out of power, and the
gaseous antimatter made contact with normal matter, and, for a moment
that no one would forget, Kambis turned white and blue as it was
enveloped by an explosion unlike any ever recorded.

The bridge of the
Triton was silent until Henrietta gently announced; “The entire
planet has been struck by an antimatter explosion. There are no signs
of city ruins, and most of the atmosphere has been burned away.
Kambis’s surface is on fire.”

“Thank you,
Henrietta,” Oz said. “Agameg, how is the Pontos doing?”

“Energy readings
indicate that their shield is holding at three percent. I believe
they are drawing on power reserves, and doubt that they will survive
long enough to leave the gravity of the planet and an escape into a
wormhole.”

“Signal the British
Alliance, they are to cease heavy weapons fire immediately. Ronin is
right, we are capturing that ship. People will need answers.”

“Transmission sent,”
answered Lieutenant Commander Erron. “We have a reply.”

“This is Admiral
Charon, we will eliminate this threat. The weapons aboard that ship
are enough to significantly damage the fleet,” said a firm female
voice.

“Cease fire, you are
here by invitation of Triton Fleet,” Oz said just as sternly.

“A moment, Admiral,”
replied Admiral Charon.

He turned to Agameg,
“Launch all our gunships, hold on launching anything smaller. Load
high yield torpedoes and prepare for single firing, we’ll launch
them sequentially if we have to at all. Tell the gunnery bay to load
EMP rounds only and begin firing on their shields.”

“Admiral McPatrick,”
replied Admiral Charon. “We are recalling our combat support ships
and ceasing fire. Good hunting, Triton, we will be here if you need
us.”

“Signal the
Barricade,” Oz said. “They are to close and begin emitting
interdiction fields so the Pontos can’t get away. He looked to
Panloo at the helm. “Close in, present our front and sides, do not
give them a large target to fire on.”

“Aye,” she replied.

“Sir,” Agameg said,
alarm in his voice. “The Warlord and Samurai squadron are coming
through a wormhole seventy thousand kilometres behind us. The Warlord
is firing their thrusters in an emergency deceleration pattern. They
are badly damaged, the rest of Samurai squadron is damaged, but they
are reporting that they are still combat ready. Three are reporting
low ammunition.”

“Oz,” Jake said
over the emergency communications band. A hologram of him in his
vacsuit armour appeared with just enough of a background to suggest
that he was in his quarters. “We have a carrier, two
battlecruisers, and two destroyers coming in behind us. I did my best
to slow them down in the asteroid field. We’ve lost people, and
have taken serious damage, our bridge is open to space. A few
missiles brought a small group of Order Knights aboard. We have
jettisoned all our escape craft with the injured aboard and they are
awaiting rescue.”

“Ordering British
Alliance forces to support you, get clear, Warlord, and take care of
your incursion,” Oz replied. “We’ll request that they begin a
recovery operation.”

“Thanks, working on
it,” Jake said, cocking a wide bore short rifle with four barrels.

“Open a channel to
British Alliance defence,” Oz said.

“This is Admiral
Charon, I’ve been eavesdropping. We will intercept the incoming
carriers, and I’m sending three corvettes to recover the Warlord’s
wounded. That is, if you want the help.”

“Be my guest,
Admiral,” Oz replied. The light of an intense explosion drowned out
the illumination shed by the fires on Kambis’ surface for a moment.
“Tactical, what was that?”

“Someone detonated a
cloaked electromagnetic pulse bomb directly aft of the Pontos. It
flashed no more than ten metres away from its hull. The Pontos’
hull is undamaged, systems are unchanged, but its shields are gone.”

“Request for
communication from the Clever Dream,” Lieutenant Commander Erron
announced.

“Lieutenant Garrison
here. Lewis wouldn’t let me keep him out of this one,” said the
communication. “Where do you want us?”

“Remain cloaked and
stand ready to assist. You’re not even on the Triton’s scanners,
so I doubt anyone else has found your location.”

“I’d rather be
fighting,” Lewis said.

“You will be,” Oz
said. “Do you happen to have any of those super EMP’s left?”

“I may have six left,
Admiral,” Lewis replied. “Do you have a target?”

“I might, just stay
out of sight for now,” Oz replied.

“Fine,” Lewis
replied peevishly.

“All Triton Group
ships, focus your fire on the Pontos’ weapons and main thrusters.”
Oz ordered.

Victor Davis took a
seat in the second command seat beside Oz. “You heard the admiral,
tactical. Focus on weapons first so our fighters can get close.”

“It’s time, Paula,”
Oz said. “Launch all fighters.”

“Three large
wormholes opening thirty one thousand kilometres aft,” Agameg
announced. “The Warlord is manoeuvring to cross in front of them.”

“Jake, what are you
doing? I have the British closing in so they can engage.”

“We’re dropping our
primary EMP weapon in front of the carriers and abandoning ship,”
Jake replied from where he stood behind Frost, who had both hands on
the manual lever for the latest version of the Big Surprise.
Originally, the Big Surprise was a large electromagnetic pulse bomb
that the crew built on to as various initiations and rituals were
observed. The original was used during the Battle of Port Rush.

The new Big Surprise
was the same size, but constructed of top-end components with heavy
shielding, propulsion and guidance systems. “Drop our payload now,
Frost.” Jake said after making sure everyone’s vacsuits were
sealed.

“Aye, we barely knew
ye, farewell,” Frost said as he pulled the creaking lever. The bay
doors swung open and the black, oblong missile was pushed into space.
Its rocket engine fired immediately, thrusting towards the newly
arrived Order of Eden carrier group.

“Ash, start the
thruster firing sequence,” Jake ordered over his communicator. He
got all the confirmation he needed when he felt the deck rumble
through the soles of his boots. She was in another group of
survivors, surrounded by Warlord soldiers on the other side of the
ship.

He’d never been so
tired in his life. They had been running through the ship, shooting,
fighting since the boarders’ missile tubes rammed through the hull.
Half the engineering crew in the centre of the ship were injured or
killed in the first three minutes.

They disabled their
cloaking systems first, then the bridge took intensive fire, and Jake
barely got everyone out before it was breached. The Order Knights
were efficient, terrifying, and knew where to hit them. They didn’t
care who they killed, as long as they took the Warlord out of the
fight. Jake didn’t want to be around to see the second part of
their plan.

“Falling back to the
aft cargo bay,” Stephanie said. “They’re breaking through
here.”

“Here too!” Ayan
said, coming down the hallway leading to the launch room with three
soldiers in tow. She slung her rifle and closed the hatch behind her.
“There are four doors between us and them, but this is the biggest
compartment.”

Jake looked to the open
launch doors then to Frost. “Alice is falling back to this
compartment with the rest of the survivors. It’s about do get
crowded.”

“What’re you
thinking, Jake?” Frost asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“The whole crew will
be isolated in three main compartments, we could take the last
thirteen Knights out, but there would be heavy losses.”

“But what else can we
do? We have to stand and fight,” Alice said over their encrypted
communications channel.

“We can still carry
this fight forward,” Jake said. “With help, but not on this
ship.” Jake nearly fell over as he hurriedly turned towards a
control panel. His vacsuit armour helped him restore his balance.
“Can you control the maxjack from here?”

“Aye, I can use this
and my control unit,” Frost said.

“What? What are we
doing?” Ayan asked, looking from Jake to Frost.

“We’re going to
take one of those pretty battlecruisers coming after us,” Frost
said.

“Exactly, and we have
to stay in control of the Warlord remotely while we do this, or it
could all go wrong,” Jake added. “Can you coordinate with Oz and
get us a few hundred soldiers? We’re going to need their help.”

“A few hundred?”
Ayan asked, wide-eyed.

“Aye, taking the
Barricade was easy,” Frost said.

“It was a ship full
of amateurs, greenbacks,” Stephanie added over the communications
channel. “We’re in the rear cargo hold. Killed two Knights on the
way, sealed off all entrances. We should have about ten minutes
before they break through, maybe more.”

“Weld armour plates
over the doors, there are spares secured under the Uriel launch
rails.”

“I see them, on it,”
Stephanie said.

“Okay, so I’m
ordering a couple hundred soldiers,” Ayan said.

“Wait three seconds,”
Finn said as he stared at his command and control unit. “Two, one,”
he counted.

Jake’s heart skipped
a beat as all of his electronics flickered for a moment, but they
returned to normal before there was reason to panic. “There goes
the Big Surprise, I guess they didn’t manage to destroy it before
it went off after all.”

“Open a channel now?”
Ayan asked.

“Yup, hope you can
get one,” Frost said.

“Triton, this is Ayan
aboard the Warlord,” she said.

“Good to hear from
you, Commodore, this is Commander Victor Davis, the Admiral is a
little busy,” Victor replied. “Great work on that EMP bomb, the
carrier groups’ shields are almost completely down. Our readings
indicate that you fried a lot of electronics in the noses of those
ships.”

“How about the
battecruisers specifically? Did any of them get hit harder than the
others?” she asked.

“Three ate that blast
pretty heavily, at a range of about five hundred metres. Why?”

“We want one,” Ayan
said. “I’m not sure what’s about to happen exactly, but we are
still fighting Order Knights here, and are going to change location
to one of the destroyers heavily affected by our surprise. We need
boarding teams to follow us in.”

“Also, we need
someone to blast those hangar doors open,” Jake said as he finished
syncing his command and control unit with the flight controls for the
Warlord. He sent a signal to Ashley relieving her of pilot duties,
and telling her to stand by.

“Right, so an order
of boarding teams with a side of crazy pilots, if you please?” Ayan
asked. “About two or three hundred of the former and as many of the
latter as you can spare.”

“We have a Clever
Dream itching to get involved,” Victor answered.

“Ronin here,”
Minh-Chu interjected. “Glad to see most of you made it through.
Samurai squadron, support the Clever Dream’s run, fire on active
weaponry. We only have to clear a path to the fore hangar.”

“This is Triton
Flight, I’m sending three gunships and Terror Squad to assist,”
Chief Mendle said.

“We have our cover,”
Jake said under his breath. He began turning the Warlord, and one of
the main thruster pods stopped firing. “We have a Knight cutting
power to systems.”

“Well at least he’s
not trying to cut through the doors like the rest of them,”
Stephanie retorted.