“Incoming fire,” Kittani said. “Beams and missiles!”
Tolwyn braced himself, ready for the worst.
Broadsword 206, Guild Squadron “Raider-One”
Near Vaku VII, Vaku System
1504 hours (CST)
“Firing!” Winston Drake hit the trigger to release a full salvo of beam weapons, then followed up with a pair of salvaged Kilrathi Image Recognition missiles. According to the mission profile the pilots had gone over during the outward voyage, the target ship would have only minimal shield power available, and a rapid string of laser hits would weaken the force fields long enough to allow the missiles to penetrate. Each of the privateer fighters in the two Broadsword squadrons would make an identical run, and the cumulative damage from so many tightly-packed attacks was sure to overload the target’s capacity to protect itself and destroy the target completely.
That was the plan…direct and simple. But his sensors were giving him a different story from the predicted profile. The attack wasn’t going anything like the computer simulations they’d run back on the Bonadventure.
The beams were striking the intended target area, but the shields were absorbing them easily. And the two missiles detonated harmlessly, their hellish energies barely causing a ripple in the force field.
“Damn!” he said aloud. “Damn it, those shields are stronger than they’re supposed to be!”
“Continue your run,” Zachary Banfeld ordered. “If it takes a little more effort to bring the shields down, so be it. Just knock out that tender!”
Bridge, FRLS Sindri
Docked with FRLS Karga, Vaku System
1504 hours (CST)
“Those bastards are targeting us!” Dickerson added a few more colorful comments.
“Calm down, Captain,” Tolwyn said over the commlink. “What’s your status?”
“If we hadn’t been letting you run your own field, we’d already be debris,” Dickerson said harshly. “As it is, we’re draining power fast. Our generators weren’t built to cycle fast enough for combat conditions. We’ve got lots of reserve power, but we’re losing ground.”
“This is Richards,” the battle group commander cut in. “Captain, cut loose your grapnels and get under way. With our fighters joining the part and the carrier clearing the ring system I think we can keep the bastards occupied while you make good an escape. If you stick where you are, one of them could get through and take you out.”
“But, Admiral, if your generators go down…”
“Never mind that! This is not what your crew signed on for. Get them clear!”
“Aye aye, sir,” he said reluctantly. Dickerson wanted no part of a battle, but he felt guilty at leaving the carrier to fend for itself. He’d been monitoring the same instruments Graham was watching from the carrier’s engineering decks. Karga could replenish her shield reserves far more quickly than Sindri could, but the generators weren’t balanced properly. Sooner or later the strain of maintaining them at full power would cause the whole system to collapse, and the supercarrier would be wide open to whatever the hostiles sent her way.
And if the shields were knocked out for a prolonged period, radiation would do all the killing the enemy needed.
But he had the admiral’s orders…and the lives of his own people to think about. “Mr. Kaine, cut us loose,” he told his first officer. He glanced at the empty pilot’s chair. Clancy was on his own. Luckily they wouldn’t need his fine touch for the kind of maneuvering they were about to perform. “You take the helm, Kaine. Get us the hell out of here!”
Broadsword 206, Guild Squadron “Raider-One”
Near Vaku VII, Vaku System
1506 hours (CST)
The carrier was clearing the ring system by the time Drake killed his original attack vector and swung around for a second run. He was cursing under his breath as he locked in the target coordinates. The first bombardment was supposed to have penetrated the shields and destroyed the tender perched on the back of the carrier’s looming superstructure. That would have spelled victory then and there.
Now the privateers would have to go back in against an opponent ready for them. They wouldn’t have the advantages of obscured sensors and masked point defense weapons. And the sensors showed fighters had started launching from the starboard flight deck of the ungainly Kilrathi ship. That would complicate things.
But even though the Landreichers had been working on that monster for months now, Drake had seen the pitting and scarring along the carrier’s hull. A ship that badly damaged couldn’t put up much of a fight, not against two squadrons of determined men willing to do whatever it took to get the job done.
He lined up his targeting reticule on the tender, then cursed as it lifted clear of the ship and accelerated outward. His sensors showed the carrier still had shields up. That explained the unexpected strength of the tender’s shielding, then. The carrier didn’t need the tender’s support any longer.
Drake followed the tender. His orders were to destroy it, and destroy it he would, attached or separated. Putting the tender out of action would still leave the carrier at their mercy if they could batter down her shields as well.
He lined up his shot and opened fire with everything he had….
Hornet 100, VF-12 “Flying Eyes”
Near Vaku VII, Vaku System
1506 hours (CST)
“I’ve got one on my six! Give me some help!” Babcock scowled and accelerated as Jensson’s desperate call crackled in her headphones. Retreating toward the safety of the carrier had proved to be no safety at all, not with those Broadswords circling and swooping in like birds of prey stooping low over their victim. Most were concentrating on attacking the tender, but the attackers didn’t pass up a chance to take a shot at the Hornets if they came in range.
Viking’s Hornet was being pursued by one of the Broadswords. Both ships were plunging straight in towards the carrier, rolling from side to side as the enemy pilot tried to match Jensson’s evasive maneuvers. Viking’s acceleration curve was all wrong, far too slow, and Babcock caught a glimpse of twisted metal along the rear of the port side wing. He’d taken a hit, then, and now he’d lost the one advantage of a light fighter over a heavy one-speed.
“Keep them guessing, Viking, while I get into position,” she said coolly, dropping her fighter behind the Broadsword and arming her heat-seeking missiles. The target reticule seemed to take forever to center on the Broadsword, and Babcock remembered again how she’d wished she could have strapped on her own plane today instead of this one.
Then the diamond on her HUD display glowed red to indicate a target lock, and Babcock opened fire with both laser cannons and both heat seekers, a single powerful strike. She hoped it would at least get the other pilot’s attention.
But even as she fired, the Broadsword was opening up as well. Beams stabbed at the weakened rear shielding of Viking’s Hornet, and moments later missiles detonated. It was small consolation to see her own missiles batter right through the Broadsword’s shields and rip through a weak spot in the armor around the main engine…not when Viking’s Hornet disappeared in an expanding cloud of debris at almost the same instant.
Babcock swore. She hadn’t liked Eric Jensson, but he had been one of her pilots. Now he was gone.
The threat tone sounded in her ear. Another Broadsword had decided to join the party to help the one she had just crippled. And it had just acquired a target lock on her fighter.