One by one the other spacecraft in the wing acknowledged Kadare. Despite their professionalism, he could hear the creep of excitement in their voices. Most had never been in action before. The most experienced had been through a few dogfights with pirates and marauders.
What was approaching them out of the dark was on a whole other level entirely.
‘Navigator, give me an update.’
‘Nothing yet, skipper.’
‘How far out are you scanning, Klaus?’
‘Maximum range. We are all clear.’
Kadare cursed inwardly, and looked at his fuel gauge. Plenty left to drink, but that did not mean he wanted to lead his wing too far out from the planet.
‘All Furies, course one eight five, level out and keep your intervals. Form on me. Navigators, keep sweeping three-sixty. They are out there, lads – our job is to find ‘em.’
The silence of space. Kadare’s breath seemed loud and hoarse in his helmet. Despite his suit, he was sweating, a cold sweat that chilled his flesh.
The sixteen Fury interceptors cruised farther out into the system, their cockpits dimming automatically as the Kargad sun swung from behind Ras Hanem, creeping along the terminator and blasting bright, soundless light across the void. Kadare’s stomach turned over. The Furies had no gravity generators on board, as this was a local mission, and they had loaded up with extra missiles and fuel. He was glad he had not eaten breakfast.
Sixteen years service, and today I feel as nervous as a recruit, he thought angrily. But as he spoke on the vox again his voice was as calm as if he were on a training run.
‘Third Squadron, ease out to port thirty kilometres. Let’s widen the net a little.’
‘Acknowledged.’ At once, four of the interceptors wheeled off to Kadare’s left, opening out the formation.
‘Stay on augur, Brenner. Keep your ships together.’
‘Aye, skipper.’ Philo Brenner was a good man, but a hard charger. No one better to have your tail in a dogfight though.
‘Fury One, this is Six. I have contacts on augur.’ A swallow, audible on vox, and then: ‘One, I have multiple contacts, bearing one seven two, speed – they’re speeding up, Fury One. I have formations closing, closing fast!’
‘Where the hell did they come from?’ someone sputtered over the vox.
‘Voice discipline, Crixus Wing,’ Kadare said sternly, though his own heart was hammering, and he could feel the grip of the pressure suit as it encased his torso, keeping the blood running to his brain.
‘Bear to starboard ten degrees. First Squadron, close in.’
‘I have them, skipper.’ This was his own navigator, Klaus Feydan. They had crewed together for ten years, but Kadare had never yet heard that precise tremor in the veteran’s voice.
‘Seven, eight… no, nine squadrons closing at full speed.’
‘What are they, Klaus – can you make them out?’
‘Swiftdeath fighters, skip, diamond pattern. They’re coming head on.’
‘Head on is fine with me,’ Kadare said calmly. ‘Crixus Wing, squadron teams. Break on my mark. Wait for the command.’
Still nothing to be seen out of the cockpit but the peaceful star-spattered dark of space.
Kadare’s gunner spoke up from his bubble in the nose of the Fury. ‘Missile range in eleven seconds, skip.’
‘Lock on when you can, Mikel.’ He flipped two red lights at his right fist and grasped the yoke more firmly.
‘Lascannons powered up,’ the gunner said.
There, out on the very edge of sight, a tiny silver glint as something caught the light of the Kargad star. It was like catching sight of a fish gleam in deep water.
‘I have multiple missile launches on my twelve,’ someone said.
Sure enough, Kadare could see the minute yellow blooms of flame that sparked out and then died in the chill vacuum dozens of kilometres ahead.
‘Crixus Wing, break, break, break,’ Kadare said, and then yanked back on the yoke while shoving the throttle-levers forward.
The formation exploded as the sixteen spacecraft, each forty metres long, burst into a starlike pattern. Kadare felt the G-force blackening the edges of his sight, the suit squeezing on the blood vessels of his legs to compensate.
‘Klaus, countermeasures,’ he said, and there was a series of bright flashes as the Fury launched a ripple of heat-drones to misguide the oncoming missiles.
‘I have a lock – I have three locks,’ the navigator cried.
Kadare threw the Fury around in the void as though it were a scrap of paper caught in a gale. His heart hammered in his chest. Something bright and soundless erupted close by and the ship shuddered. He heard the clank and rattle of shrapnel on the hull.
‘Missiles away,’ the gunner said, hoarse as a crow.
There were screams on the vox, each lasting only an instant. More bright momentary explosions all around them. And then the red lances of lascannon fire.
There was no up or down. Kadare peered one second at the flickering screens in the cockpit, and then out at the pyrotechnics beyond. Something streaked across his path and he depressed the trigger-switch on the yoke. Spears of las-fire carved an arc in the blackness as he threw the ship on its side, spiralling and firing, the energy bolts winding in a beautiful, deadly pattern.
An explosion, and a rattle of what sounded like hail on the plaspex of the cockpit.
‘Second salvo gone,’ the gunner intoned.
The vox was braying with the voices of the Fury pilots, men screaming, some calmly relaying target information. For three hundred kilometres, the void was lit up with afterburners and missile-streaks, and it bloomed with the transitory yellow globes of fire that meant the death of a ship. Kadare caught his breath – he had forgotten to breathe for the last spiralling dive – and halted the mad spinning of his craft.
‘Gunner, report.’
‘All missiles gone, skip. I reckon five hits, but I can’t be sure.’
‘Take over the lascannons, Mikel. Klaus, give me a situation report.’
His navigator was a disembodied voice that sounded as though it were kilometres away, though Klaus sat directly behind him in the long, narrow crewspace of the Fury.
‘Give me a second,’ he muttered.
‘Talk to me, Klaus.’
‘Acknowledged. Skipper, looks like… looks like we’ve lost half the wing. Brennan is gone, and Marstann. Third Squadron has been destroyed. Skipper, we have seven ships left.’
Eleven crews gone – over thirty men that Kadare had known and lived with for years – all in the space of forty seconds.
The navigator spoke up again. ‘Skip, they’re coming round for a second run at us. I count… Emperor’s blood, I count fourteen squadrons, and there is heavy metal behind them. Cruisers, I think.’
A moment, hanging there in the silent blankness of space, when Kadare was utterly at a loss. He had never in his life before confronted the finality of utter defeat. Strangely, the prospect calmed him. He thumbed the air-to-ground vox button.
‘Control, this is Crixus One.’
‘Control, send, over.’
‘Control, have sustained over fifty per cent casualties. Enemy has not been seriously damaged, and is approaching in overwhelming numbers. I propose to attack with my remaining ships. This is Crixus One, signing off.’
He turned off the vox before the reply came. He did not want to hear it.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said on the wing-vox, ‘it is our honour today to fight and die for our home world, and for the Imperium of Man. Crixus One will engage the enemy more closely, and there will be no retreat. All ships, try and get through the fighter screen and attack the cruisers beyond. Good hunting, brothers.’
A pause, and the vox was silent. Then the gunner spoke up on the ship-frequency. ‘Skip, we have nothing left that will hurt a cruiser.’
‘We have ourselves, Mikel. We’ll ram them.’
One word came back. ‘Acknowledged.’
Kadare slammed forward the throttle-levers and was thrown back in his restraints as the Fury leapt under him. The roar of the engines could not be heard, but it made the entire hull of the ship shake and shudder.