Jason did a quick scan of his squadron. They were scattered out across several hundred cubic kilometers, locking on to their targets, nailing them, and then chasing the next. His people were too spread out.
The landing craft laser guns and mass driver mini cannons kicked into point defense even as he turned back in towards the marine ships. Space was crisscrossed with flashes of lights and exploding warheads, and then there was nothing but darkness.
“White Knight, what’s the tally?”
“One ship damaged, she’ll still make landing though, a handful of casualties. Thanks for the cover, Blue Leader.”
“It’s our job, White Knight.”
He found it hard to believe that Svetlana was on the other end of the conversation. She was now so coldly professional, her voice calm, almost disembodied.
“Blue Leader, initiate Plan Bravo.”
“Initiating Plan Bravo,” and he passed the command up to his Rapiers and to Doomsday’s Sabres, while Starlight pulled her recon Ferrets back to act as point defense for the landing craft if anything went wrong.
“Form up, you know your targets.” He took a deep breath, and dived straight in at the planet, following the track of his auto nav system which was programmed with the target, a Kilrathi landing field and barracks area, believed to be the center of planetary defense, which the First and Fifth Marines, augmented by the commando battalion were planning to seize. It was going to be a tough run.
The squadrons dove towards the planet’s surface. Planetary defenses were up, an orbital station already engaged by Sevastopol’s fighter bombers, ground defenses kicking on their jamming and attempting to gain lock on the incoming Confederation ships. He did a quick switch over to a Kilrathi channel and through the shifting hum of the encoding system Jason could still pick up the angry chatter and shouted commands. He barked off a quick curse, not sure of the exact Kilrathi pronunciation for a rather impossible anatomical act, and laughing, switched back to his main comm channel.
“All right Tar squadrons, don’t hit that atmosphere too hard, or you’ll regret it.”
He hated atmosphere fighting, where anything much beyond a click a second was far too much. He bled off speed, watching the nav screen which was plotting out his trajectory, a thin blue line on the bottom of the screen showing the edge of the atmosphere. He felt the controls go mushy, the Rapier’s computer automatically switching from thrusters to wing control surfaces. Fuel was now going to be a constant concern; flying inside the atmosphere, the hydrogen scoops would simply create too much drag. He closed the scoops and soared in.
Behind him the rest of the Rapier and Sabre squadrons were following. Doomsday peeled off, taking two craft with him to hit a suspected communication and control sector several hundred clicks from the landing areas, other fighters and bombers turning off seconds later to hit their assigned targets.
A light cloud cover was ahead, high in the atmosphere. He punched through and below him, clear in the shimmering desert heat, was his target, the base clearly visible in the middle of a high plateau. The planet was a scorched ball of desert with atmospheric density nearly a third higher than Earth standard, and gravity .2 above that of Earth’s. The only habitable places were on high plateaus and mountain peaks, where the air was thinner, and the temperature a tolerable hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
He saw a flicker of lights—point defense of lasers and the flash snap of ground-to-air missile batteries. He went into a dive, aiming for a canyon cut into the side of the plateau. Just as he entered the canyon a missile streaked by straight overhead and slammed into the far side of the crevice, the concussion rattling his ship. He wove down the canyon for half a dozen kilometers, mentally calculating the moment, and then popped back up and turned straight in at the base. He released a missile which streaked away and several seconds later was broken into half a hundred sub munitions, each of the small arm-length bolts locking on to individual radar and comm link targets and tracking them in. The Kilrathi ground defense array shut down, but it was already too late; missiles had their locks. Skimming in low, less than fifty feet off the ground, Jason watched as the volley of shots leaped ahead. Several seconds later the first round hit, the matter/antimatter explosive heads mushrooming out. The entire top of the plateau suddenly seemed to lift into the air as all fifty warheads found their marks and cut loose. He pulled up, rolled over, and then started into a dive, lacing what appeared to be a barracks area with a blast from his neutron cannons, the rounds striking with such force that the buildings were ripped apart by the massive release of energy.
Listening in on the commlink, he heard the chatter of his pilots, their shouts of excitement and fear, the reports coming in of successful strikes. One of them called that he was hit and pulled out and away, and Jason keyed over to Starlight, telling her to send in three of the recon ships to finish the target up with their Ferrets’ mass driver cannons.
“Blue Leader this is White Knight, how goes it?”
“Primary landing area is suppressed, will fly cover, bring the boys in.”
“Good work, Blue Leader.”
Pulling up to an altitude of twenty kilometers, he kept a steady eye on his main screen, waiting for the first flicker of an enemy radar. But their system appeared to be either totally destroyed, or shut down for self preservation. Far over the horizon, where Doomsday and two of his Sabres were working over a well dug-in defense which three marine regiments were supposed to take, there was still a flurry of activity, half a dozen missiles gaining space, only to be knocked out by the back up of Ferrets which were flying in with the landing craft.
Jason switched to his main screen for an instant and followed the main assault wave. The screen was alive with blue blips breaking through the atmosphere. Off to his right he saw a brilliant flash, and looked up towards space. A flare as bright as the hot yellow sun above the world snapped up, casting a second line of shadows on the planetary surface below. On the main link he heard the triumphal report of the Pol’s wing leader, announcing that the main reactor of the Kilrathi space defense platform had detonated, either from a hit or in a final suicide act by the defenders to avoid capture.
The first marine landing craft shot past, an instant later over forty more came in, their laser cannons firing a spread of shots into the flaming wreckage of the Kilrathi base. A volley of area bombardment missiles snapped out from the undercarriage of each ship, winging down, and seconds later the entire plateau was turned into a cauldron of fire. Jason watched, mesmerized by the total destruction that a marine landing wrought when it unleashed a suppressive bombardment from its ships.
He rolled over and dived in, following the landing down.
Five red blips appeared on his screen.
“Get ’em down White Knight, we’ve got company!” Jason shouted.
He rolled his ship again, looking for a visual and saw them, four Sartha and a lone Krant, launching out from a concealed base on a mountain peak overlooking the plateau. The Kilrathi had kept low, waiting for the landing craft to come in.
“Mongol and Round Top, vector down here on the double!”
Jason kicked up his afterburners, feeling the controls in his hands start to shudder as he tore through the heavy atmosphere, realizing that his wingtips would most likely be glowing from the friction.
He lined up on the lead Sartha, and nailed it with his guns, the ship detonating in a flaring ball of flame. The marine landing craft went into evasive, but they were like sitting ducks against the agile light fighters. The Kilrathi pressed straight in, ignoring Jason’s onset, going instead to knock out part of the landing force. He pulled in hard and in an offhanded deflection shot dropped a second Sartha and then lined up the Krant, which pulled up and over and came in head-on.