Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Reprisal Page 12

  “You don’t deserve to die with honor,” the Lieutenant countered.

  “Enough,” replied Loren. “We’re here to evacuate the Stormhawk survivors. That’s you. So get going, that’s an order.”

  The lieutenant gripped his SSK and stood defiantly. “You heard them, XO, they would rather be shot. I’ll be happy to oblige them!”

  He turned towards the now-standing Primans, only to see Loren’s SSK pointing right at his chest.

  “I gave you an order, mister. We shouldn’t need to debate this.” Loren sympathized with the Lieutenant, he had to admit. First off, they had caused the destruction of his ship. Second, Loren himself was a charter member of the Priman Haters Club. Still, there was a greater good to be done, but he’d be damned if everyone on this mission had to learn about it to get it accomplished. Why couldn’t the man just follow orders?

  He noticed that Captain Foth had let the Qualin crewer down and was standing next to him now, his rifle cradled at combat rest in his arms and ready to bring to bear.

  “XO, listen,” the Lieutenant continued, pumping his shoulders for emphasis, “These savages jumped us and tried to kill us. Their friends out there are trying to kill off the entire Confederation. Let us finish them off!”

  “Look, I don’t care what your story is. I am here to get you and your crew off this ship. And I’m sure Confed HQ would love to autopsy these guys, so you are not, I repeat not, going to send them off to the Great Beyond. So help me I’ll stuff you down a black hole myself if I have to, but these people are not your concern.” Loren’s SSK didn’t waver from the spot in the center of the Lieutenant’s chest.

  The three Stormhawk crew stood now, and walked up to the Lieutenant and formed a line abreast.

  Loren realized this was about to get out of control, then had an idea. He backed off a step or two in a show of giving the Stormhawk crew some space, just outside of the bulkhead into the compartment. He leaned over to whisper to Foth, using that motion to cover some slight of hand as he reached out towards a low floating utility table.

  “Alright, we’ll do this your way,” Loren said loudly as he walked up to the Primans. Before anybody knew what was coming, he smacked each of them in the temple with the butt of his sidearm enough to dazzle them, then pushed them towards the bulkhead around the corner where Captain Foth stood waiting. The Primans staggered drunkenly and rounded the corner, whereupon Foth pushed each roughly up against the wall, then stood aside almost out of sight to the Lieutenant and his crew.

  Loren passed through the bulkhead and turned to face the Primans, raised his SSK towards them, and fired twice. A second later, the sound of two bodies hitting the floor could be heard.

  Loren stormed back into the room and angrily confronted the Lieutenant.

  “There, are you happy now? Now can we leave this ship?” Without waiting for an answer from the stunned crew, he grabbed the Lieutenant’s SSK from him and shoved him out towards the Primans and Captain Foth. The he did the same for the other three crew. He marched them past the Primans and on down the hallway, where there were two Marines waiting, no doubt called by Captain Foth during a moment of distraction. They escorted the four crew on down the corridor and out of sight.

  Loren sighed, shoulders slumping a bit from the relief of getting past that situation without having to fire on any Confed people. He motioned for Captain Foth towards the next bulkhead down from where they were, and Foth understood. He manually pulled the blast door across the hatch and let it latch, giving them some semblance of privacy. In the dim emergency lighting, where only the occasional electrical spark and feedback short provided a break from the tomblike atmosphere of the place, Loren and Foth looked at the prisoners.

  “I’m glad we were on the same page on that one, Marine.”

  “Me too, XO.”

  Captain Foth handed Loren back his stun pistol with a grin. While Loren had fired two armor piercers into the bulkhead, Foth had stunned the Primans and then quickly shifted some small containers to conceal the hole in the wall. Loren didn’t use the blaster function, of course, because the telltale smoke on the wall, even if concealed with an obstruction, would tip off the Stormhawk crew that Loren had put holes in the wall and not the Primans, not to mention the lack of sizzling burn marks on their chests.

  “Can you call for a couple Marines to help us carry the bodies out of here?”

  Foth nodded and did so, while Loren rummaged around in his bag and retrieved a hypospray. He injected the Primans with a more powerful sedative, one that could mimic death to a casual observer.

  He stood up and looked Captain Foth square in the eye.

  “Alright, Captain, here’s what we’re going to say. All the Primans are dead- we’re retrieving them for autopsy. We’re going to take the bodybags to my shuttle and we’ll be taking them to Avenger. I can’t stress how secret it is that we’re taking those two alive. I don’t mean to come down too heavy handed here, but you and I are going to be the only two people who know that fact, so if I ever hear it gets out, I’ll kick my ass and then yours, ok?”

  Captain Foth nodded soberly. “I can keep a secret, especially if it involves these dirt eating humps, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Chapter 5

  “There it is again,” said the sensor tech of the Prowler. On patrol above and well behind relative to Avenger, the sensor and recon ship was covering the rear of the rescue effort. They’d watched the outer system for the better part of an hour now as shuttles docked with the wrecked ships floating lifelessly in space, salvage teams had tugged various items of interest over to Torino and sent them down into her hangar bays, and more, all while monitoring the long range scanners for any signs of activity. Twice now they’d had a blip, and on the second occasion had vectored two Talons over to check it out. Still nothing had appeared. Now, with the last of the shuttles about to leave the various dead ships one last time, the tech saw that blip yet again.

  “I don’t know, something just looks odd. Is Grosh out on combat area patrol?”

  “Oh, you know you’ll never hear the end of it if you call for help,” replied the left-seater.

  “Still.” He checked his status board and found Grosh’s icon, and he was in fact on CAP near Avenger. “Grosh, this is Prowler One on station out-system.”

  “I’m here,” came the quick reply. “Anything going on?”

  “Well, I’ll just get this out of the way right now, you can gloat about this later, ok? I’m sending over a sensor contact history. Can you give me a second opinion?” The sensor tech was keying up the data and sending it over the secure link even as he spoke.

  “Sure, and I already know I’m amazing, but thanks for the recognition. What am I looking for?”

  “Well, something looks suspicious, but I’d like a fresh look at it.”

  “Standby.”

  “He’s going to want to give you his autograph or something, you know never to feed a fighter pilot’s ego,” chided the pilot.

  “Yes, I know, but he’s good at sensors. I don’t know how he managed to stay out of a Prowler.”

  “Be glad, or that would probably push you down the food chain to flying a recycling freighter.”

  “Thank you for your vote of confidence.”

  “Prowler One, Grosh,” said the Qualin. “You have a good eye; that sensor return isn’t natural as far as I can tell. It doesn’t look like a Crusader class cloaking signature, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s some sort of stealthed or cloaked vessel.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you wouldn’t say, thanks for the consult.”

  “I’ll send the bill later.”

  The sensor tech didn’t waste any time before calling Avenger. “Avenger, Prowler One, possible enemy contact report. Consult datalink.”

  Seconds later Captain Elco himself was on the display.

  “I saw your data, Prowler. A little light on proof, but these days I don’t believe in taking chances. Steer left of course and clos
e up on us a bit, we’re going to test the waters.”

  Though he said it very nonchalantly, he assumed highly charged energy was about to fly, and the pilot made the suggested corrections with haste.

  On the bridge, Elco was preparing to do just that. With Loren leading the away mission, Elco was sitting in his chair with a constantly open channel to the Combat Control Center.

  “Starboard fire control,” he spoke into the monitor, “fire one round at those coordinates.”

  A second later, a packet of magnetically contained energy leapt forth from one of the Avenger’s laser batteries, lancing through space and to the exact spot that had been targeted. It passed through and kept going off into the darkness, until the containment field dissipated and the energy escaped harmlessly into space.

  “Maybe it was nothing?” asked the fire control officer.

  “Maybe,” said Elco slowly, lost in thought, “but laser volleys are cheap, so let’s light it up. Bombardment pattern centered on that spot, all starboard batteries, fire now.” The bombardment pattern was meant to saturate a relatively small area with a random but heavy barrage of fire, meant to find weak points in collapsing shields or guarantee coverage of pinpoint targets.

  This time a great volley of laser blasts erupted from the Avenger, crisscrossing the space between itself and the target coordinates. Suddenly, a few flashes of light appeared, the kind that occur when a laser blast is dissipated by shields.

  “Red Alert!” Elco yelled. “All batteries, fire on that target. Comms, get me Torino and tell her as well. Then call Fleet Combat Control and verify we have no Crusaders doing something stupid like trying to sneak up on us.”

  Elco leaned towards the Sensor board. “I need a sensor profile on that thing ASAP. I doubt it’s a Crusader, but if it is, we need to know, and if it isn’t we need to build a sensor profile for the future.”

  The tech nodded and kept at her task, already hard at work and lost in the process.

  Elco could hear the bridge kick into high gear as the shuttles were recalled and the CAP was vectored to cover the Avenger’s rear, though they weren’t sent out because, for all anyone knew, there were more cloaked ships out there.

  “Uninvited guests,” Cory murmured as she looked at her datalink display. She saw the ghostly outlines of three vessels that remained unidentified and in fact mostly unseen. She watched as Avenger poured another volley into space near one of the unidentified ships, then launched torpedoes at the same coordinates. They exploded amidst the chaos, telling Cory they were either timed or proximity fused to get around an inability to give them a target to lock onto.

  She looked at the tactical plan that was being distributed to the Confed forces. Avenger and Torino were swinging through the debris field of the wrecked ships to make a pickup of the last transports that were still scattered among the vessels. Torino was in the process of launching a screen of Talons, but Avenger’s fighters were the closest to the enemy vessels and would remain so until all the Confed forces were on the other side of the wreckage. Her Intruders had no specific assignment in the withdrawl plan other than covering Avenger’s six, so she decided now would be a good time to use that command authority they kept telling her about and put something together. She noticed that all three presumably Priman ships were attacking from the ‘near’ side of the debris field, and if the Confeds could get to the other side they’d most likely escape. Apparently the Prowler had forced their hand before the encirclement was complete, and while the Primans still held a tactical advantage, it was up to them to chase the Confed ships down. She figured the Prowler crew would be the recipients of a few drinks in the Officers Lounge tonight for detecting the Priman interlopers.

  “Warbirds,” she said on the tac net. “I’ve designated one of the enemy ships as our primary target. That’s the one that will get farthest into gun range on the Avenger. We’ll split into two sections, standard pincer attack from the forward quarter. If we can get a definite range on the hull, we’ll follow the torpedoes in for autocannon runs on the superstructure. If we get nothing by the release point, we do the standard starburst and regroup. Fire an occasional laser shot and look for the shield splash to get a range on the ship. Split now, watch the countdown for the run-in.” As she talked, she was keying the cursor over her main screen, designating approach lanes, a rally point, and more, multitasking a drill that was so second nature she was thinking more about what she was saying than what she was programming.

  Her ECM gear flared up, signaling that Avenger and Torino were trying to burn through whatever cloaking systems were in use with their electronic measures….

  The captain of the Priman ship was surprised, to say the least, that the Confeds had discovered his ships. They were mere minutes from being in optimum position to launch their strike, and now were playing catch-up to the Confederation forces. They had used the scene of the recent battle as a testing site for their new cloaking technology, assuming that a Confed Search and Rescue force would turn up sooner or later. Their stealth technology was in fact inspired by the Crusader class ships that had given the Primans so much trouble since the invasion began, but apparently it wasn’t perfect and the technology would need to be fine-tuned. Fair enough; these field tests were done for a reason, and he could still take down a Confederation ship or two. The only problem was that, to maintain the stealth profile, his cruisers hadn’t launched any fighters, and the delay in getting them flying was giving the Confeds an advantage that they were pressing for all it was worth. Twenty four of the small craft- twelve fighters and twelve attack ships- were swarming around his cruiser, the lead vessel.

  “Weapons,” the Priman captain began, “fire at will when we are within range of the Confederation capital ships.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Cory was keeping an eye on the shuttles leaving the wreckage, the timing for her squadron’s torpedo run, the closure rate of the advancing Priman ships, and the medium range laser fire spanning the distance between the Confed and Priman capital ships. As if to even the score a bit, Avenger had engaged her magnetic shield, bending light and emissions abound her hull and rendering her as hard-to-see as the Priman ships. Torino was left as the lone visual target, but added her fire to the mix as well, even triggering off salvoes from her big ship-to-ground batteries. One of them scored a hit on a Priman cruiser, knocking the cloaking shield completely off line and thereby making her the target of all the Torino’s batteries thenceforth.

  Cory noticed the slow emergence of a number of fighters from the Priman ships, but they wouldn’t get organized in time to affect her run. The shielding on her target ship was holding, presenting her with a targeting problem. She couldn’t give her torpedoes guidance, because there were no sensor returns off the Priman ship to lock onto. There were always drive emissions, but that would involve circling around the back of the ship and wasting that time; she didn’t think they had the time to spare and hoped a well-placed volley of torpedoes would slow down the ship just enough to allow the Confed ships to escape without having to commit to a fight; they were needed for the battle of the Delos System and their hulls would be better spent there. So she planned in a firing solution to launch the torpedoes ‘cold’, just boresighted on a spot that the Priman ship would hopefully occupy at the same time her weapons got there.

  She watched as her squadron reached their release point, let fly with their twelve light torpedoes and didn’t waste time trying to see how it went. The Warbirds executed their starburst maneuver and were soon in the protective company of Loren’s (for today, Merritt’s) Vipers. A few Priman fighters had managed to get into range, but the Intruders and Talons weaved, dove, and covered each other’s tails as they egressed the area and headed towards the Confed ships. She risked a quick glance at her displays and saw with satisfaction that the cruiser they’d fired upon had veered sharply nose up in an evasive maneuver in the course of registering three torpedo hits on her bow. Not enough to inflict much damage, she assumed, but en
ough to slow down the pursuer.

  Loren was watching the same feed, only his eyes were focused on the larger repeater display in the rear of the cockpit of the Freedom class transport. He was seated sideways, looking at the bulkhead where a large amount of data was available to those that wanted to see the battle outside. He often joked that he’d rather switch off such bad news and just live in ignorance, since the data he could see usually served only to scare him. This time, however, he wanted to keep close tabs on his friends and comrades. He saw that Cory, ever the typical insane Intruder pilot, was charging headfirst towards the first Priman cruiser she could find. He thought with a wry grin that Merritt probably didn’t win a lot of arguments in that relationship.

  His mind was snapped back to the present by a near-hit on the shuttle, which caused a sharp roll to starboard and sounded like somebody had hit the fuselage with a large hammer. He looked at the screen in front of him and saw that the shot had been part of a long range volley from the Priman cruisers. They wouldn’t get within range to fire any truly accurate shots, but they could at least saturate the area between the returning transports and the returning Confed ships with enough blasts to perhaps get a lucky hit. He also saw that the Warbirds and Vipers had already begun their recovery back onto Avenger.

  He glanced up front and took in the picture, trusting his eyes and experience to gauge the transport’s relationship to Avenger more than the computer generated picture on his display.

  One of the pilots looked back and saw him staring ahead through the cockpit windows.

  “Anything interesting going on out there?” Loren asked nonchalantly.

  “Don’t worry, Captain,” replied the co-pilot, who also served as navigator. “He always flies this rough, so we’re used to this sort of ride.” He jerked a thumb towards the pilot, who responded with an obscene hand gesture of his own. Loren knew these two, of course, and knew that they were good enough friends to handle some banter, even at a time like this. Maybe especially at a time like this- it could keep the mood from getting too dark, or at the least provide a brief distraction from the ever-present possibility of an untimely death. Since the transport crews were both equally qualified and swapped seats from mission to mission, he also knew that the other pilot would have his revenge for the wise comments the next time they flew together.