Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) (23 page)

Their helmets and gloves already on and sealed, Lieutenant Brian Carter and Ensign Santine sprinted across the deck from the base of the tower towards the waiting Cyclones, the ground crews swarming over the fighters to disconnect the umbilicals and clear equipment out of the way. Brian hit his Cyclone's boarding ladder at the third rung, racing up and dropping into the cockpit. Assisted with his connections and strapping in, Brian was quickly going through his pre-flight checklist, flipping on his pre-start systems.

Knocking on his helmet, the flight line assistant indicated that the Lieutenant was ready to go. Brian nodded, and switched on the anti-grav, the Cyclone becoming weightless and lifting off the deck. “Santine, you hooked in yet?”

“
Yes, sir,” he waved.

Brian saw the boarding ladder disappear and pulled the lever to lower his canopy, nudging the flight stick and moving the Cyclone slowly out of the revetment, guided by hand signals from the lineman on the deck. “Remember, Santine, anti-grav and maneuvering thrusters only, until we're at least a couple clicks out.” He checked his canopy seal and satisfied, headed his Cyclone down the runway.

“Copy, Lieutenant, shields, burner and guns are outside toys only...”

Brian smirked as his Cyclone slipped through the stasis field and out into the starry blackness, the gate back to Longreach visible in the distance. Clear of the ship, he toggled off the anti-grav and toggled in the landing gear, which bumped gently as it locked up into the fuselage of the fighter. Spinning up his engines, the startup rumble vibrating through the frame of the fighter, a deep thump signaled the ignition of the burners. Nudging the throttle forward and swinging right, he looked over his shoulder and could see Santine's Cyclone coming up behind him. The Freedom's stern bay doors were already closing and in another few seconds the Freedom began to shrink as they arced around to join the two Lancias of Red flight in search of the drone carrier. “Blue Leader to tower, we're clear and in-route to our search grid...”

■ ■ ■

Studying the sensor scan, Jack watched the approaching cloud of fighter drones on a collision course with the Freedom, when a thought suddenly struck him. Tapping on the flat glass keyboard, he pulled up the tactical weapons and armament information and paged to the torpedo specifications data on a separate screen...
Torpedo triggering event settings: Contact, Delayed Penetration, Proximity or Manual Detonation.
“Nice.” He pulled up the two launch tubes and selecting the graphic of the left torpedo, adjusted the setting of the MK*73 to
proximity.
Because the fighter drones were too small of a target for a sensor lock, he set the trajectory of the torpedo to pass through the center of the drone cloud. “Torpedo One, firing,” he tapped
launch,
and the outer door slid open automatically, the MK*73 torpedo streaking away, a brilliant fireball propelling it across the darkness. The auto-load system sealed the outer door and began the process of reloading the tube with the next available torpedo from the feed rack.

“
Sir, the MK*73 is not really designed for targets that small... I don't think you're going to be able to hit one of those things.”

“
Don't need to hit one, Mr. Ragnaar, just get close... I hope,” he added quietly, mostly to himself.

The drones were so close to the Freedom the swarm could be seen on the view screen as a glittering, shimmering, shifting mass. They appeared to spread out as the MK*73 neared, opening up to allow the torpedo clear passage through their midst, easily avoiding the giant ship-killer. As it passed through, a brilliant flash and a lightning-fast shock wave swelled in a sphere, devouring the fragile fighter drones, tossing them aside like leaves in a gale, shattering them with its brutal storm. Only a small handful escaped the massacre by being on the outer fringes of the swarm. They advanced towards the Freedom, streaking mindlessly through the darkness, unthinking, unfeeling, oblivious of the destruction of the others, leaving a glittering, drifting cloud of dust and debris behind.

A gentle wave of applause swept across the bridge but they all knew it wasn't quite over yet...

■ ■ ■

Lieutenant Mike Warren adjusted the scan range and sensitivity of his Lancia's Radar system, eyeing the planet off in the distance about thirty degrees to his right. Mike looked left over his wingtip at Duncan Taylor's Lancia, keying his mic, using his wing man's call sign, “Nineteen, you picking up anything on LIDAR?”

“
I've got nothing, Mad Dog,” came the reply over local channel, “you picking anything up on Radar?”

“
Negative...” Mike switched over to a broad encoded channel. “Red Leader to Blue Leader, are you picking anything up?”

There was a momentary silence. “This is Blue Leader... we've got a ping, it's really small - probably just debris, but we're headed to check it out...” he forwarded the coordinates for reference, “sending you the coordinates now.”

“Good call, Blue Leader, it could be a relay buoy. Keep us apprised.” Mike switched back to the local channel he was previously on. “OK, Nineteen, let's go see what's behind that planet.” Mike swung the nose of his Lancia thirty degrees to take them to the planet in question, Duncan Taylor's fighter pacing alongside.

Beyond the marbled grayish, dusty looking planet, the system's sun glared in their eyes and Mike Warren squinted, lowering his tinted visor to cut the effect. It helped... a little. “Damn that's bright,” he muttered.

“
Nineteen to Mad Dog, my LIDAR sensors just went blind... I don't think switching to LADAR will be any better...”

“
It won't,” replied Mike, “Switch to SPD,”
Scanned Phase Doppler Radar,
“I'm running MPB,”
Magnetic Pulse Beam Radar.

“
Nineteen copies, switching to SPD Radar.”

■ ■ ■

Steele was pacing the bridge stations, “Are we clear?”

“
Clear, sir,” replied Raulya from the tactical station, “all drones destroyed.”

Jack keyed his mic, “Bridge to tower, we're clear for launch. Four to CAP task force, ready both Zulus.”

“Tower copies, two launching now...” the floor rumbled as the two Lancias waiting in the launch tubes that were originally to be the second half or Red Flight, thundered out into the darkness, suddenly visible on the forward screens as they lit their engines and streaked upward and away. “Tower to bridge, two clear, two loading. Zulus prepped and ready in less than five...”

“
Understood.” Steele stood, arms folded in the center of the bridge, “Ms. Stacell, open a line to the Bowman.”

“
Aye, Captain, on screen...”

Gantarro's face appeared as an inset video on the big screen, “How're you folks holding up, sir?” asked Jack.

“We got hit hard before we could clear the gate and get our shields up, Captain. We lost our communications array and won't be able to reach anything beyond the task force. Our sensor array was heavily damaged... we're pretty much blind except for magnetic Radar.” He reviewed the reports on his e-Pad, glancing down, then back up, “Seventy-five percent of our shields are at one-hundred percent...” The litany of damage continued to include the loss of a main generator, severe damage to her main starboard engine and enough damage to one of her main gun batteries to make it inoperable. It was interesting to note, that while there
were
a few injuries, there were no crew casualties.

“
Anything we can do for you?”

“
Not at this point, we need a repair station.”

“
Understood,” replied Jack, “stick with us, we'll do our best to keep you covered. In the meantime, we will link up and feed you our sensor information, the more eyes, the better...”

“
Thank you Mr. Steele, Bowman out.”

The floor rumbled as a brace of Cyclone fighters stormed out of the launch tubes into the darkness, their engine plumes streaking off to the left to join the two Lancias on CAP. “White Leader to Freedom, we now have four on fleet CAP.”

Jack recognized Lieutenant JG Walrick's voice. “Understood, Lieutenant. Carry on.” He paced back to his command chair. “Ms. Raulya, please set up a continuous sensor feed to the Bowman,” he dropped himself heavily into his chair.

“
Aye, sir.”

“
Ms. Stacell, is there any way we can boost their communications strength?”

“
Negative, sir. The best we can do is to keep an open relay so they can piggyback on our comms.”

“
That'll have to do then, I want them aware of all communications.” He studied the Freedom's status on the three semi-transparent mini-screens mounted to his command console. “Let's stand down the gun crews and give them a break, keep us at yellow alert.”

Aye, sir. Yellow alert.”

Warning lights all over the ship winked from red to yellow as Jack rose from his chair, the Shepherd jumping up to stand with him. “Walt, you've got the bridge, I need to go down to the flight deck for a bit.”

Walt nodded, “Quite. I'll hold down the proverbial fort, my boy.” Jack wasn't sure if he was just used to hearing it or if Walt's British accent was fading somewhat. He shrugged mentally and headed for the bridge door. “What're you working on Jack...?”

“I'm going to see a man about a Rhino,” he replied passing through the bridge doors.

■ ■ ■

Steele's discussion with his Chief Engineer, Hecken Noer didn't go quite like he'd hoped. It wasn't horrible mind you, it wasn't a total loss, but it confirmed some of his doubts and reinforced some of his expectations. The Rhino had been reprogrammed and was completely functional now - ready, willing and able to render all types of repairs. The problem lay in its location. The Freedom had it but the Bowman needed it. While the Rhino did have a ballistic leap ability that could safely allow it to cover a couple miles of open space, tethered or untethered, the ships needed to be at a dead stop to accomplish that maneuver. Attempting a leap-transfer at speed, would end with the same result as flicking a cigarette butt out the window of a car moving at highway speeds. The Rhino being the butt, of course.

Hecken Noer patted the nose of the Rhino, “Sorry for the bad news Captain, but we don't want to risk valuable equipment...” He turned back toward Jack, “If we get to a point where we can make the transfer safely, I'm sure the Rhino can do some real good on the Bowman.”

“Don't apologize, Chief,” replied Jack, “I wanted the truth.” He gestured toward the Rhino, “I know it can weld and probably seal the Bowman's hull... any chance it can make repairs to the forward turret or the starboard engine?”

The Chief shrugged, “No way to tell till I get it over there and see the videos. It's possible. No guarantees though. I would recommend we shoot for the hull repairs first.”

“Thanks Chief. I don't feel safe doing it now, but if we get a chance at an
all stop
, I'll try to give you some lead time to set up the transfer.”

“
Aye, sir. It's all charged up and ready, all we need to do is get it to the fantail. I'll only need about five minutes.”

Jack nodded, “Good deal.” He headed out of the revetment toward the base of the tower, crossing the flight deck, Fritz trotting along side. Jack's earpiece tweeted in his ear and he keyed it, “Steele, go ahead.” Fritz looked up at him as they walked, his ultrasonic hearing picking up the signal.

“We've got an incoming signal from Red Leader...”

“
Thanks, Ms Stacell, hook me in.”

“
Aye, sir, your mic is live.”

■ ■ ■

On their approach to the gray planet, Lieutenant Mike Warren and his wingman, Lieutenant JG Duncan Taylor, took an approach to, in effect, put the planet between them and the system's sun. They also intended to get as close to the planet as possible before moving around it, in the hopes of disguising their approach and surprising whatever or whoever was hiding behind it.

Chatting on a low gain, short range channel, the two pilots discarded formalities. “Nice, the LIDAR can see again...”

Mike slid his visor up as they lined the planet up with the sun, blocking its glare. He blinked hard, “Ahh, that's better.” The planet looked like at some point in its life it was a fertile world with oceans, rivers, continents and mountains. But the only things left were vast stretches of gray-brown wastelands, raging dust storms and angry rainless clouds.

“
Remember, we have to stay out of the atmosphere, or we might as well erect a giant billboard telling 'em we're coming...”

“
Got it... Wait, what's a billboard?”

“
A giant sign.”

Duncan Taylor nodded inside his helmet, “Ahh, gotcha.”

Miles eyes narrowed as he looked at his Radar screen, “Speaking of giant signs, are you picking this up on LIDAR?” He looked up over the nose of his fighter at the left hemisphere of the planet near its equator.