Warpath (45 page)

Jake looked at the
large tactical map in front of him, the fighters were in groups of
five, scattered throughout the field ahead. “Denied,” Jake said.
“Fire only if they have a clear line of sight.” He looked at the
private tactical screen on his command seat and verified where the
Triton was supposed to be. “All right, these groups,” he said,
marking four of the locations of the enemy fighter groups ahead.
“We’re going to hit them with shard missiles while they’re a
good distance out. Launch five at each group as soon as you have a
firing solution.”

Frost’s mate at
tactical, Ensign Surelle, activated the missile turrets on the belly
of the Revenge and began marking the targets. “Confirming, targets
marked according to tactical display.” Jake watched as the marks he
put on the tactical map turned red with the number of missiles and
the type of projectiles linked beside it. “Launching, missiles are
away.” The rapidfire rocket launchers on the bottom of the Revenge
sent eight high speed projectiles weaving between the slowly moving
asteroids. “Retracting rocket pods.”

Instead of striking any
of the fighters, the rockets exploded into thousands of white-hot
flak shards in front of the fighter groups. Their countermeasures
were ineffective from where they were hiding behind icy asteroids.

“Updating the number
of active fighters based on power readings and scanned integrity,”
Kadri said as nine of the enemy fighters turned grey on the tactical
display. It was an indication that the fighters or their pilots had
taken critical damage according to their scans.

“New contact at the
edge of our range,” Kadri announced.

“Ronin here,”
Minh-Chu said through their communications link with him aboard his
gunship. “Sixteen fighters are moving to intercept us. Tell me we
can break and take these guys out.”

Jake checked the
nearest group of five fighters and saw that most of them were
damaged. “You are free to engage the enemy fighters. Make it quick.
We’re getting a large energy reading ahead.”

* * *

“It’s about time,”
Jinx said through the communicator.

Minh-Chu set his course
for the nearest enemy group. He had Sticky and Maid with him. Sticky
he could trust with every system in the craft, so she monitored their
systems, their sensors, helped with navigation and operated their
rear turret and heavy munitions. Maid was brand new to the Squadron,
and a heavy set fellow, so he had the pleasure of manning the top
turret.

Both of them sat in the
cramped space behind him, Sticky facing port side, and Maid facing
starboard. “All right, we’re going to wolf pack these bastards.
All fighters, all gunships, attack the nearest fighter group. We need
to wipe them out before the rest move in.”

Minh-Chu led his pair
of Uriel Fighters, both fully loaded out for heavy combat, between
massive ice asteroids, through white shafts of light, and under a
large, rocky formation. He saw that the other two groups, each led by
a gunship and flanked by two uriels, were approaching from the sides,
so he passed under the enemy fighters, putting the large stony
asteroid between them.

“I can’t get a
shot,” Maid said. He was a complainer, Minh-Chu had discovered in
the minutes he’d spent with him in the small cabin.

“Wait for it,”
Minh-Chu said.

They came up behind the
enemy fighters before they could turn and compensate for their
approach. “Now, shoot,” Minh-Chu said as he lined up one of the
lead fighters and opened up with his pulse cannons. The shard turrets
on his gunship, fired by Sticky and Maid, sent a hail of solid
projectiles into the group of five fighters as they scattered.

The uriels flanking
Minh-Chu ripped into them as well, splitting to pursue the enemies
closest to the edge of the asteroid as their foes accelerated towards
cover. Minh-Chu took the middle enemies, flying near the two fighters
that decided to try him head on, and opened up with his rotary
micromissile launcher for a burst of three shots in one second. The
nearest fighter exploded, sending shrapnel into the path of the
second, which was getting pecked apart by Maid, who quietly giggled
to himself, a disquieting sound for such a large man.

“Five more coming
in,” Jinx announced from his Uriel. “I just finished mine off,
and Carnie is playing with the last fighter from group alpha.”

“Got him,” Carnie
said. “He has ejected.”

“Leave him,”
Minh-Chu said, looking at his tactical display. “Regroup, protect
the gunships and don’t let anything past us to the Revenge. Use
your heat seeking micro rounds.”

“This early on?”
Carnie asked. “The Uriels are twice the fighter those guys are
flying, so their ten against our nine is a bad bet, especially with
the gunships.”

“Orders are to clean
this up fast,” Minh-Chu said. “That’s what we do.”

“Aye,” Carnie
replied.

The six Uriel fighters
and three gunships formed a line for several long seconds as they
marked targets and traversed an open area of space in the icy
asteroid field. Minh-Chu marked three targets, fighters to the right
of the centre, and saw that he shared them with the Uriels flanking
him. “Time for you to earn your way out of that new handle, Jinx,”
he said to his wingman.

“Done, breaking right
and high,” replied Jinx.

They entered a vast
cluster of ice asteroids. The enemy was ready, they were waiting on
the edge of that complicated space. As soon as he passed across the
top of one large asteroids, all ten of the enemy fighters launched
missiles and broke in different directions. There was a wall of
medium sized, high speed projectiles coming their way, and Minh-Chu
evaded.

“Activating high-temp
flak,” announced Sticky. Minh-Chu cringed as he saw Hot Chow’s
Uriel fighter weave through the tail end of their countermeasures,
doing minor damage to his shields, but providing a target for a pair
of missiles that were meant for his gunship.

The missiles struck Hot
Chow full on. His fighter spun away from Minh-Chu’s gunship into a
broad opening, where several fighters opened fire on him. Minh-Chu
pointed his nose into the group of three enemy fighters and opened
fire with his guns, striking two of them several times. It took
several seconds for Maid to start firing in the same direction.

To Minh-Chu’s
surprise, Hot Chow got control of his ship and retaliated, raking the
enemy with explosive shells mercilessly as he tried to evade. A pair
of needle-like enemy fighters rushed to the aid of their comrades,
falling into Jinx’s trap. They were greeted with a volley of
gunfire and small missiles. Minh-Chu’s pair of targets burst,
venting their atmosphere and coming apart in pieces. The third was
completely Hot Chow’s kill, and the pair coming in to finish him
off were split by Jinx, who killed one and thrust off in pursuit of
the other.

“Major strike on my
ship, lost shields, down to two thrusters, I’m down to one gun,”
Hot Chow said.

“Retreat to the
Revenge immediately and await orders from Flight Operations,”
Minh-Chu said. “Good recovery there, Hot Chow.”

“This is Carnie, I’ve
been hit, had to eject my port missile pod, but I still have one gun
and my other missiles.”

“Crane here, my
Sensor Intercept Officer is dead. Nemo is dead. Ejecting,” he
announced. Minh-Chu glanced at Crane’s signal on the tactical
display in time to see two enemy fighters finish him and his Uriel
off before he managed to get clear.

A pair of enemy
fighters broke off in pursuit of Hot Chow’s Uriel as it accelerated
towards the opening they’d left behind. Minh-Chu marked them as his
new targets and started turning around, making his way through the
asteroid field as safely as he could so he could get a shot at Hot
Chow’s pursuers. “I’ve got Hot Chow’s back, everyone else,
clean this up.”

Minh-Chu saw a missile
launch from nineteen hundred meters above him and forced his gunship
into a spiralling dive. His upper turret had a clear line of sight to
fire on the fighters going after Hot Chow, who was flying backwards,
firing at his pursuers.

Maid was slow on the
gun again, firing rounds at a fighter that had been marked by Carnie.
“Get on targets beta two and three,” Minh-Chu ordered. “Maid!
Targets beta two and three, now!”

“What? Where?” Maid
said as he struggled to turn his turret in the direction of the
fighters firing on Hot Chow.

Minh-Chu swung the nose
of his gunship in the direction of Hot Chow’s pursuers and opened
fire as soon as he had a good shot that wouldn’t stand a chance at
striking his comrade if he missed. “These two,” he said as he
raked the fighters with pulse fire and waited for a missile lock. The
enemy fighters wove effectively, keeping Minh-Chu from locking on,
and, in that moment he wished he was in the cockpit of a more
manoeuvrable Uriel fighter.

“We’ve got you,
lad,” Frost said over the communicator. The forward countermeasure
guns, turrets that fired three thousand rounds per minute dotting all
sides of the Revenge, opened fire and the pair of fighters who
followed Hot Chow into their range disintegrated.

Minh-Chu spun his
gunship back towards the active engagement and started to accelerate.
There were three enemy fighters left, and Jinx was tearing into the
closest. Carnie was closing in on another with the help of two other
Uriels, and the last was being hunted by the rest as it took
desperate measures to evade in a cluttered portion of the asteroid
field. “Stay back,” Minh-Chu instructed, marking that fighter,
theta three. “Let him kill himself, or catch him on the other side.
Don’t follow him in.”

“Twenty five more
contacts,” Sticky said. “At extreme scanning range, fifty one
thousand kilometres out.”

“Why doesn’t the
Triton come in on this?” asked Uppity from the back seat of her
Uriel.

“Because we are the
fighter screen, the first line of defence,” Sticky replied. “And
before you ask why the Revenge doesn’t just rush through here and
tear it up with their point defence guns, I’ll explain it again. A
fighter can carry a weapon that does a lot of damage to a big ship,
but can be avoided by another fighter, so we take care of this kind
of mess for them.”

“Thank you,”
Minh-Chu said. He managed to conceal his concern. The last three
fighters from the defence the Order of Eden had in the asteroid field
were destroyed, and his fighter squadron started to form up again.
They moved carefully forward, ever closer to those five groups of
fighters, which each had five fighters. “Resetting targeting
labels, starting at alpha one and counting up,” he said.

Sticky carried out the
target marking for him. “Revenge Flight Operations, we’re about
to be outnumbered here.”

“This is Flight
Operations. Stand by.”

* * *

Jake eyed the tactical
display. There was a difficult to read energy reading in the distance
and twenty-five fighters between them. The Samurai Squadron, which
has been reduced to seven ships from nine, were between the Revenge
and the enemy.

“Jake, if there’s a
larger ship here, they’re not going for us,” Stephanie said from
above.

He looked at the
distant energy reading. It was large enough to be a destroyer or
bigger, but the reading kept changing. “Signal the Clever Dream to
get a scan on that,” he said. “They have two minutes. Tell Ronin
and his squadron to fall back. I have a feeling about what we’re
seeing.”

“A base,” Frost
said.

“If it is, we’re in
for more resistance than some fighters can help with,” Jake said.

“This is the Clever
Dream,” Lieutenant Garrison said. “We got close enough for a
scan, were detected, on our way back. Those fighters are in our way.
Forwarding data.”

A shielded asteroid
appeared on the tactical display, so high in iron content that it was
black. “That’s a base, looks like a small repair and supply
station,” Jake said as two Order of Eden battleships appeared well
above the base, in a large clearing inside the asteroid field.

“The Triton
acknowledges the scan,” Liara said. “Putting their low powered
laser-link through.”

“Jake, I don’t want
to see the Clever Dream go down, I’m launching fighters,” Oz said
through the audio system.

“Re-cloak as soon as
you can, we’re going to have to make a run for it,” Jake said.
“But towards them.”

“Can you do that? The
Revenge is agile for her class, but-“

“I can,” Ashley
called back over her shoulder from where she cracked her knuckles at
the helm.

“Be sure,” Oz
replied.

“If she says she can
do it,” Jake replied, looking at Ashley. “She can do it.”

“All right, we’re
launching all three of our fighter squadrons. They are under your
command. Where will you need me?”

“High and ahead. Try
to stay out of that base’s line of sight, I think that’s how they
caught the Clever Dream. They must have higher resolution scanners
there.” Jake watched as fighters appeared on the tactical display,
in the space of a minute there would be sixty three more ships on
their side. “All fighters, you are to wipe out the nearest wave of
bogeys, follow Ronin’s lead, then return to the Revenge, where you
will follow us.”

“Slick here,”
replied the leader of the Triton’s Space Superiority Wing. “We
are on our way, Clever Dream, hold tight.”

“Helm,” Jake said.
“Take us in, as fast as you can.” He reconsidered for a second
and added; “But don’t try to impress anyone.”

“Impressing people is
just a by-product of my excellence,” Ashley said, her lisp very
intentionally absent.

The Revenge fired all
its thrusters and rotated a few degrees as it began to weave between
asteroids many times its size. Jake caught Frost making the sign of
the cross out of the corner of his eye.