Rogues Revenge, Chapter 10: Pt 1 16/7/03

[SteveMill]

Chapter 10 Part 1. Short but self contained.


Chapter 10: A New Broom

“Western jumpgate activating,” Kaitrin announced calmly. “On screen,” she continued, anticipating Corrin’s order.

All eyes turned momentarily to the view screen dominating the Enterprise bridge, before returning to their own station instrumentation. All except Kerman of course, the triple eyed Paranid kept one eye permanently on the screen while the others danced methodically over the Helm displays, absorbing readings and confirming the navigation commands his stubby fingers were already stacking in the command buffer in anticipation of the Captain’s orders. His right eye flicked momentarily over the adjacent Tactical station, where Kaitrin was already silently transmitting commands to the Combat Air Patrol fighters, deftly selecting manoeuvre options by code reference from nesting menu options.

Although he would not admit it he had developed a grudging admiration for the Argon woman’s skills. Her almost Paranid ability to digest the complexities of multiple objects moving on multiple vectors in a 3D environment down to inspired tactical orders that struck at the enemy’s heart like a dagger thrust was, in his expert opinion, a woefully under acknowledged factor in the chain of Raider victories.

“Launch Ready One, Two and Three,” Corrin ordered. “And go to Yellow Alert.”

Payter, sitting behind a console at the Security station, just to the left of the main bridge entrance at the rear of the bridge barely sounded acknowledgement when the gentle mustard shimmer of the Status lights mounted throughout the ship turned an urgent, pulsing cardinal.

“Red alert!” he called, the last syllable swallowed by the hooting blare of the Alert klaxon before it muted into the background. “Launch Wings Alpha through Gamma,” Corrin ordered quietly as the big Xenon ship cleared the gate. It was a destroyer, one of the old blade-thin, segmented body designs that had formed the backbone of the Xenon arsenal for as long as there were records. And it too was launching fighters, sunlight glittering from their wings as they formed up on their mothership.

Corrin triggered the seat restraint field, anticipating a rough ride, and swung the small command console across his lap. CAP One, the three Mamba fighters, sitting permanently crewed on standby had already launched. Three more Wing Status Indicators stood yellow, one suddenly flashing to green as the last pilot of Beta Wing signalled his launch-ready status. He made a mental note to send those five pilots something vintage from his personal stock. The other two wings followed in rapid succession.

“Helm, come about to…” he hesitated slightly as he weighed his tactical options. The destroyer was faster than the pumped up TL but the Enterprise had a full 625 MW of shields raised, a quarter greater than the more heavily armed warship. “Zero Eight Zero, mark two-five. All ahead flank!”

Kerman grunted acknowledgement as he executed the command. The view screen remained locked on the destroyer while Kaitrin displayed the forward view in a window superimposed on the bottom left corner as the Enterprise lumbered through a broad arc onto the new heading. Small, red boxes sprang up round the Xenon ships, tactical data concerning speed, bearing and load-out cogently displayed alongside.

The Xenon destroyer might be fast but it’s fighters were not and Corrin’s first instinct was to separate them from the cap ship. Only the squat X shaped Xenon light fighters could keep up with either the destroyer or the Enterprise and Corrin hoped they would prove easy meet for the Sarge’s missiles and the Raider’s own Bayamons and Hawks whose crews would already be racing to their stations.

“Mandalays standing by!” Kaitrin called. She was ice-cool, exuding confidence, her fingers poised to launch the autonomous AI point defence screen.

“Launch CAP Two,” Corrin commanded, Kaitrin called confirmation moments later. The six small fighters buzzed protectively around the Enterprise, the last line of defence against the Xenon equivalent of ship-killing Hornet and Silkworm missiles. They and the drones they contained were controlled by a prototype AI program developed by Xela.

This was its first test.

The destroyer arrowed in pursuit, trailing in the wake of a dozen N-Class light fighters. The M and L-Class medium and heavy fighters, another sixteen in all were ignoring the Orca and streaming towards the Trading Station. Corrin cursed under his breath and ordered the Paranid helmsman to plot an intercept course, the heavy fighters all carried Hornets. The destroyer adjusted it’s heading also, it would intercept the Enterprise before it could intercept them.

“CAP One, splash the N’s, Alpha and Beta get those L’s, designated Attack Two. Gamma, protect CAP Two.”

Kaitrin’s fingers blurred over her panel and she mumbled into a throat mike as she translated the general order into specific instructions.

“Helm, go evasive and then take us head to head with the primary target.”

The Paranid grunted acknowledgement and activated the manual flight over-ride. Despite the optimised rudder upgrades the TL handled like a Chelt and the Xenon destroyer barrelled through the dog-fighting Mamba’s and N’s to skim over the Enterprise before he could complete the manoeuvre. Improvising he decelerated sharply and pulled a tight left loop before hitting the after-burners. As he anticipated the Xenon craft fired hornets and dropped more fighters as it passed, it’s plasma weapons ripping into the Enterprise shields.

It was already curving to make another run.

“Launch Strike One, launch all remaining fighters,” Corrin said. “Twenty Silkworms, now!”

“Missiles away,” Payter confirmed. “Hornets inbound.”

The Prometheus and Mamba strike wing arrowed through the Xenon fighter screen as the Raider Bayamons fought to protect them. The missiles arced towards the destroyer as the Mandalays fought to take out the incoming missiles.

“Ahead flank!” Corrin shouted. “Helm, evasive at your discretion!”

He was sweating now, realising that his fighter pilot training and skills left him ill-equipped to command an improvised carrier in a capital ship engagement. The faster destroyer swept over them again, blotting out the stars on the view screen with it’s bulk. Again it’s primary weapons pummelled the Enterprise shields and again it launched missiles at point blank range. This time the fighters and their drones could not stop them all and the Enterprise juddered and rolled under repeated hammer –blows.

“Shields at 30%, Shield Two destroyed.”

It took Corrin a second to recognise the voice. It was Massoor at the Systems station, a small, olive skinned man in his early forties and a friend of the Sarge. He understood, from a brief skim of his bio that he had once been Chief Systems Engineer, running the Raiders ground-crews but lately he’d been Manager of one of the illegal stations in an unclaimed sector.

“Attack Two destroyed, three fighters down,” Kaitrin announced. “All wings, engage at will!”

Corrin attempted to take in the tactical situation on his console display but there were too many fighters and drones spread out along the arc of their flight for his fighter honed combat instincts to intuit a solution to their precarious position. Seven Raiders heavy fighters were among the fifteen casualties including half the point defence fighters. Thirty Xenon fighters were down but the destroyer’s shields stood at 300MW and recharging fast.

“Helm, head for Alpha and Beta wings, might as well make the best fist we can! Weapons, fire at will and damn the expense!”

Payter began launching silkworms as the destroyer came in for another head-on pass. Again the Enterprise shook under a plasma pounding. Again, hornets breached the increasingly porous defences.

“Shields at ten percent,” Payter intoned funereally.

“How are we doing Captain?”

Corrin started, he hadn’t heard Max enter the bridge.

“Not good,” he answered as Max took the First Officer’s station at his right hand side. “Dammit Max, I’m a fighter jock not a fleet commander. Helm, come about to Three-three-five Mark eight, all ahead flank! See if we can use a gate as a shield!”

The Enterprise hauled itself onto the new heading, forcing the destroyer to abort an attack run and arc around for another pass. In the background he could hear Kaitrin ordering all remaining fighters to intercept. It was a hopeless cause, the destroyer was much faster than even the Mamba’s and it’s shields strong enough to shrug off anything but Hornet missiles and as a civilian vessel the Enterprise had none. As the Xenon ship smashed through the fighter screen Corrin could see they were not going to make it to the gate.

It swept over them, laying down a barrage of plasma and banked firing more missiles. Enough hit to take down all the remaining shields.

On the view-screen flashed the words, GAME OVER.

Corrin found himself shaking.

“That’s four sims and four defeats Max. This tub isn’t a warship, there’s no way we can stand up to one in a fair fight.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure it’s bloody unfair!” Max said with a grin. “Leave it with me, it’ll give me something to do while I’m catching rays!”

“Then you’re going? I had a bet with Anje she’d not be able to talk you into it. How do you feel?”

Max smiled. “I feel really great, really great! She’s got the loan of some super star villa on Three Worlds Beta. Tyre checked out fine and is already there, some rich playground island, suns, sea and sand Corrin, straight after we get this meeting out the way. I can hardly wait, is it all fixed?”

“The sector station managers are already on the Trading Station with live link-ups to the owners. All except that bio-gas place, the manager tried to make a run for it in a Dolphin but he didn’t get very far and the station surrendered without a fight. Our security people are looking into it but I guess the rest of the staff are clean. We’ll have to fly until we pick up a teleporter. Ready or do you need to eat?”

“I’ve eaten thanks.” Max indicated a fading stain on his flight suit and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I think Zee timed the stabiliser impact rolls to deliberately spill my java!”

“Probably true!” Corrin laughed. “Come on Max, I’ll give you a lift. It’ll be good to fly something I know what to do with!”