Part Four:
Rosa and her squad entered Klauss Inc airspace in a flash of blue light, their Hyenas sporting a winter-blue camo pattern to help them blend into the ice debris around the station. Nothing saw them arrive.
Engines flaring, the four ships advanced in a diamond formation, grav beams and gauss rifles ready to attack any ship that crossed their path. Their orders may have been to avoid combat, but Rosa was expecting to have to fight their way out, if not in. The rocks were tightly packed, and so they caught no sign of the station until they were almost on top of it.
It sat in the middle of a vast clearing, with two main approaches large enough to permit capital ships. The station was burned out, blackened and broken. Occasional burps of fire escaped from the ruptured hull as a fuel link or air pocket was ignited. A pair of pirate cruisers stood watch over the station’s corpse, while beyond them more ships crowded around what appeared to be a Jericho dreadnought. Six long rods were connected to the superstructure, extending almost a kilometre from the main hull and joined together by rings that crackled with green and red energy. As the pilots watched, cargo haulers began to unload vast quantities of iridum into the dreadnought’s rear cargo hold.
“Oh this is all kinds of bad!” Rosa hissed as she worked out where the ship was pointing. “Squad, let’s bail! We need to get word back to our fleet ASAP!”
The ships came about, but their presence had not gone unnoticed. Pirate ships descended on them, tearing apart the ice they’d used for cover in a surge of laser fire, plasma bolts and armour piercing shells. The OWL pilots cloaked and ran for the edge of the ice belt, but weapons fire chased them all the way.
“How the hell are they still on us?” one of them asked as he jinked aside, barely escaping a direct hit.
“The cloak isn’t perfect. There’s always a way to beat it…” she knew what had to be done. Firing retros, she came about and faced the attackers head on. Most of them were interceptors, but in their midst was a modified Imperial Castor. Long sensor spines and communication dishes dotted about the craft marked it as special, and no-doubt the reason the Tacklers couldn’t hide.
“Keep moving!” she ordered her squad. “I’ve got a kill to make!”
* * *
The bridge of the dreadnought hummed to the tune of reality being reshaped. The air tasted like burned metal, and everyone’s skin was itching unbearably. Miss Summer, despite this, managed to appear as calm and composed as ever. “How long until we’re ready?”
“Three minutes, ma’am,” the firing offer replied.
“Good. I can only assume the arrival of our guests means that the owls and wolves haven’t taken the bait. A pity, but we can work with that. Can we hold the gate open long enough to allow a full intrusion?”
She felt all eyes upon her, and knew for certain that every member of the bridge crew was now questioning her sanity. Nevertheless, the only reply she got was, “yes ma’am.”
“Wonderful. We can kill two birds with one stone. Call up every agent we have, and tell them we’re going to have a lot of salvage to pick through.”
* * *
“They’re firing!”
Rosa didn’t need telling that. She knew the dreadnought had fired its main gun - even though all the ice and rock between her and the ship the beam had been blinding. The whole world had turned a vile, sickly green. One of the pirate ships was seemingly knocked out by the force of the blast, and crashed headlong into an asteroid. The others were at least confused, and that bought Rosa the time she needed.
She came upon the command ship with all guns blazing. Her volleys tore holes in its frontal armour and her missiles ruptured the underside plating. It wasn’t dead, but it was wounded. She saw the spherical energy shield flare into life and deployed attack drones to keep him busy. She had moments to make the kill - perhaps moments to live, given the number of target locks on her ship.
Laser fire struck the shield as the Castor turned to face her. A barrage of rockets and missiles popped the energy shell and began to break apart the aft armour. The rest of the squad came into the fight, ignoring the shots that hit their shields and hulls. All eyes, and all guns, were on the commander.
Rosa made a second run, hammering vanadium slugs into a weakspot on the port armour. The ship blew apart from the inside as she past it, leaving her hull scorched and studded with debris. “Thanks for the assist, now obey my damn orders and run!”
This time, the cloaks worked. They were followed, but it was ineffectual. In minutes the pirates were lost, though it took far longer to reach signalling range.
It felt pointless; Rosa was certain the fleet would already know what was coming.
* * *
The Warp Gate howled across the electromagnetic spectrum, shutting down ship-to-ship communications and bellowing out shockwaves that made the Iris itself ripple and flare in agony. The energy beam that struck the gate made its surface glow white hot, and it seemed as though it would break apart under the onslaught. It did not. Pieces began to break away and enter an erratic orbit, which grew in speed as more and more pieces entered it. The shards began to flicker in and out of reality, and the entire structure took on an eerie green glow.
Every ship knew what was coming, and when the portal finally flared into life, they were ready and waiting.
The first Defiler took the full force of two entire fleets, and died without so much as firing a shot. The second and third were beaten down with only light damage. Then came four more, and four more behind those, and a vast swarm of Predators and Hunters. The portal was all but lost behind a swarm of alien weaponry, and as the return fire began, the Owl and Wolfpack fleets began to die.
Quinn had seen plenty of large scale battles, but he’d never seen anything like this. Alien incursions, while sometimes numerous, were normally only dozens of ships, and at worst one Defiler. His HUD was showing hundreds of contacts, with hundreds, even thousands more waiting to transition into realspace. His every instinct told him to run, but he knew that wasn’t an option; even if he could flee the battle, there was no escaping the Iris without a capital ship.
The Mammoth moved in to join the fighting line, positioned ahead of the Wolfpack command ship. It was a static formation, hoping to use the point defense turrets to help weaken the approaching aliens. Disintegrators and long range torpedo volleys tried to weaken the largest, strongest ships before they hit, but the aliens absorbed damage like nothing else in the galaxy. The numerical advantage of the humans wasn’t counting for much, and the enemy numbers swelled with every passing minute.
He realised that his crew was probably feeling the same gut-wrenching terror he was. “Alright, boys and girls, let’s get this done! See that Scout? Make that Scout go away! Attack drones focus fire on their drones! Okay, Mr Hunter, you look like the winner of today’s star prize; a free torpedo!”
Gallows humour helped keep the crew morale high as Elim’s voice came over the comm. “All ships, we need to seal that portal! Wolfpack, ahead full! Ram those xxxxxxxx back through the gate! OWL ships, form a cordon and keep them penned in! I want them taking us head on!”
The fleets began to move, and the attack wings followed. Quinn saw a familiar pink Ronin above him escorting the OWL flagship. He tried to hail them, but all he got was a wing of pilots humming Flight of the Valkyries as they plunged headlong into a pack of Hunters and their drones. Seemed he wasn’t the only pilot trying to enjoy the fight.
He unleashed another torpedo into his target, and the Hunter finally broke apart. One down, hundreds more to go…
* * *
The message was sent. Rosa’s orders had been clear; perform recon, and get out.
Rosa had never been good at following orders.
The squad plunged toward the dreadnought, decloaking and unleashing a brutal salvo that reduced one of the Tormentors guarding it to a burning shell in seconds. Turrets on the Cruiser escort tried to track them, but the Tacklers were out of their firing arc before they could get a lock.
They came in low, gunning across the superstructure, seeking anything that might give them an opening. So close to the beam weapon their shields were glowing white. They had less than a minute at this proximity before their ships were cooked apart, but to pull further away meant facing an entire fleet of enemies.
They passed the beam, and all hell erupted around them. Rosa watched as her squadmates were blown from the sky one by one, overwhelmed by dozens of turrets and ships. The enemy hadn’t dared fire when she was close to the weapon. Good to know.
She came about and dove back for the weapon pylons, and at once the firing stopped. She even taunted them, coming to a complete halt next to one of the rings. Nobody fired a shot.
“So, this is that important to you?” she asked herself. “Or is it that fragile?”
Grinning at the prospect of causing some serious mischief, Rosa span her Hyena around and took aim at a promising looking part of the ring. Her shells were reduced to molten metal in a fraction of a second, but they retained enough kinetic force to strike the ring and blow apart whatever device was attached to it.
At once, the fleet attacked her again, but now it was too late. She was racing along the weapon, blasting off the iridium devices as she went. As each little box was blown off, the beam began to shift. It was almost unnoticeable, but it was there. Six boxes later she was running for the ice again, trailing smoke and pieces of ship. She’d done what little she could, and prayed it was enough.
* * *
Elim went down with his ship. The Dreadnought rammed into the heart of an alien battleship and both were torn apart by the impact. The shockwave killed or disabled dozens of alien attack craft, buying the escorting ships a few precious seconds of peace. Above them, Commander Valen’s ship was burning, but somehow still in the fight. The OWL contain was on the verge of breaking, their attack craft all but expended. In the centre, at the cost of two thirds of their fighting strength, the Wolfpack had pushed the aliens back to the gate itself. Yet it wasn’t enough; they were simply too few to hold the line now, and it was only a matter of time before the aliens overwhelmed them and the OWLs alike.
Then, by some miracle, the beam began to shift. It moved away from the gate and then vanished altogether as the outer shell of the Iris blocked it, saving the fleets from its fury. Without power, the gate began to shrink. The aliens sensed it and turned to flee, with one of their Defilers being caught in the shrinking vortex and torn to pieces by the force. Across the human fleet a great cheer of victory broke out, followed swiftly by a hundred arguments over salvage rights as every pilot realised they were surrounded by alien technology, ready for the taking.
Despite Quinn’s fears that a second inter-Corp conflict was about to erupt, there was no such fight. Supply ships from both sides were summoned to the Iris, along with trusted third parties, and both Corporations agreed to share the loot equally. Naturally, both Corporations also lied about exactly what they had found, but it worked out fairly in the end.
A few pilots and officers considered chasing down Miss Summer, but it was a hollow sentiment. Both fleets were in tatters, and when Rosa’s report finally reached them it put an end to any thoughts of attack. The Corps spent four days looting the battlefield, salvaging what they could of their own lost ships, and licking their wounds. Before long, other groups began to show an interest in the Iris, and so the owls and wolves parted ways.
Resting in his bunk, Quinn vowed to himself that there would be a reckoning for Miss Summer. Across both fleets, the same oaths of vengeance were being sworn. Wherever she was, whatever she was planning, Miss Summer would pay.
Reminds me star wars books.
