Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Reprisal Read online

  With a nod to Terir signaling the conversation was over, Velk turned to the rest of his advisors and addressed them.

  “We have prepared for two eventualities. Should the Senator not have made it off planet, we would have redoubled our efforts to hold the Delos System or extract the maximum price from the Confederation for taking it. Since the Senator has escaped, we will go with the second option. We will make use of the man as he gains power in the Confederation government, with Ples Damar guiding him. In time, we will be able to use the Senator to open channels of dialogue which will be conducive to our efforts. For now, alert all our commanders- we will pull out all ground troops and have our forces off Delos within thirty minutes. We will leave the system if and when it becomes appropriate, but we will not attempt to hold the planet- our mission there is complete.

  “In addition, I have recent news to pass on not regarding this battle. It is important enough, though to mention now. I have received word that our efforts on Talar have succeeded, and their economy is in total collapse. Their financial system is in ruins due to our efforts, which leaves their entire government powerless. As you may remember, Talar’s government is ruled by leaders of their economy and industry, and with their economy disabled, their government stops as well. This means we have undermined the two major ruling powers in this entire region of space. We will be consolidated here and moving into the galactic core in a matter of weeks.”

  His advisors grinned and congratulated each other, moving about the room and offering their thanks and show of support to each other. The break in the action of the Delos battle was a chance for Velk to examine their behavior and catalogue who reacted how. He always needed to be on the lookout for someone reacting out of character to what they had just heard, but he saw no duplicity in them. This time.

  Representative Terir sat in silence in his corner of the bridge, undisturbed by the crew around him. He had set up a privacy field which stopped sound from entering or leaving his station, as well as a visual jamming field which cast a slight blur around himself. Nobody on the bridge seemed to have wandering eyes, but the communications of a Representative to the Commander need not be heard by just anyone. Besides, it wouldn’t do to let anyone know he had lied to his Commander. Terir had in fact received word that while policing up the scene of the Senator’s rescue, the body of Ples Damar had been found. Of course, the troops on the ground had no idea of Damar’s secret role in the placing of Senator Dennix back in Confed’s government, but the observant ground commander had included pictures and DNA samples in his report of everyone remotely involved in the incident. Anyone found within two blocks of a firefight was photographed and DNA profiled, and they were all appended to the report.

  Terir had recognized Damar’s face, and his DNA profile matched that which Terir had on file. With the cosmetic surgery Damar had undergone to fulfill his mission as a Confed mole, nobody recognized him as Priman, and the subtle Priman DNA markers had apparently gone unnoticed by the otherwise eagle-eyed ground commander. Terir had immediately sent orders to have the commander promoted out of the area and sent to Terir’s destroyer when his forces left the planet. Terir would have to commend him and then inform him that the battle he had taken part in was part of a classified operation and was never to be talked about. Coming from a Representative of Commander Velk, the soldier would obey the order without question if Terir had assessed the man correctly.

  Terir’s pact with Representative Tash and a handful of Council members had just received some unexpected help. If Velk insisted that Damar was in control of the Senator, but the Senator began making moves that ran counter to Priman interests and orders, it would discredit Velk and erode his supporters just a bit more. If Tash and Terir could arrange enough of these little indiscretions, perhaps Tash would be elevated to Commander early, and of course Terir would receive his rewards as well. And in the worst case scenario in which Velk discovered that Damar never made it off the planet, Terir would simply blame the ground commander who had filed the report, and nobody would be the wiser. This battle was turning out wonderfully for Terir.

  “On my mark,” started Cory, “three, two, one, fire and break!”

  The Intruders of her squadron fired their torpedoes, sending them straight out instead of letting them guide themselves. Priman jamming and Confed counters to it traded top honors so often that this crucial attack wasn’t being left to chance. On her mark, torpedoes were released and the fighter craft pulled up and away in the standard starburst maneuver. That is, the Vipers of Merritt’s squadron that had been tailing Cory’s ships.

  “Torpedo launch and evasive maneuver, Captain,” said the sensor officer on the bridge of Captain Canda’s ship. He sneered at the Confederation fighters, wondering if they would try the same trick again after his interceptors veered in from behind their formation to slaughter them. It would be a painful lesson for them.

  He watched on the monitors as ten blips raced ahead of the fighters, torpedoes headed towards his ships. The fighters began to disperse, but he noted with grim satisfaction that his displays showed two squadrons of interceptors suddenly swinging out from farther ahead in the Priman capital ship formation and heading to cut off the Intruder’s escape route, his force having regrouped there after the initial assault on the other Confed fighters who had attacked.

  “Captain!” Canda turned to look at a panic-stricken sensor officer. “The Confederation ships peeling off are Talon fighters, not Intruders!”

  The captain turned in confusion and looked at his display again. What was this? Were their fighters carrying torpedoes? Suddenly it dawned on him- the Intruders were still on a course bore-sighted on his ship, and were following their own torpedoes in, using the weapon’s disruptive ECM effects to conceal their presence.

  “Recall the interceptors and bring them back to us!”

  Chapter 10

  Cory had a menacing smile plastered to her face, and it seemed completely at odds with the rest of her stunning features. She was riding at emergency power in the wake of her torpedo, losing ground as her weapon gained speed, but also benefiting from the disruptive effect the torpedoes had on enemy tracking systems.

  All around her, the Intruders of her Warbirds squadron ran in, hoping to take advantage of their time Merritt’s people were buying them. In the new starburst maneuver, it was the Talons who peeled off, relying on the expectations of the Primans that it was the Intruders who were doing as such.

  She risked a quick glance at her status screen, noting the Merritt’s Talons were looping back around to engage the Priman interceptors that had been maneuvering to get the drop on what they had thought were Cory’s ships. She needed to make the most of this opportunity, since her tactic was going to likely result in the deaths of some of Merritt’s pilots.

  She shook off her maudlin thinking and watched her torpedo, mentally counting down the seconds until she’d break. Already, incoming point defense fire was trying to shoot down the torpedo, and a few of the high volume, low power blasts were splashing off her forward shields. No computer countdown could calculate the precise time to break off the run, to attempt to split the risks between following too close and getting caught in the wake of her own torpedo exploding versus the risk of peeling off too early and becoming the target of close-in defense weaponry.

  Finally, she could wait no more, and stood her Intruder on its’ starboard wing, yanking back on the stick and pulling away from her original course. Her ship closed the gap and was soon skimming along the hull of the Priman heavy cruiser, just far enough above the surface to keep out of the shields. Intelligence analyses determined that, unlike Confed ships whose roles could be determined by analyzing their superstructures, the Priman vessels seemed to be virtually identical except for size. With no real idea of what differing size meant in terms of mission tasking or design, Confed planners simply referred to Priman ships by using labels that named them according to similar sized Confederation ships. Thus, Cory’s target was referred to
as a heavy cruiser, since it was approximately the same size as the Confederation class cruiser.

  No matter what they called it, the ship was going down, Cory thought. As her torpedo exploded only a few ship-lengths behind her, she raced along, using her autocannons to destroy anything that dared to jut out from the hull of the ship. In space, where no sounds traveled, she could only feel the thrum of the cannons as shells were fed from the ammo bins through the barrels at incredible rates of fire. In atmosphere, the sounds resembled that of a demonic buzzsaw, a unique signature that sounded like nothing else and left no mistaking what was happening. She dodged her ship back and forth, weaving her way across the hull too fast for her targeting computer to evaluate and choose a target- she simply swung the barrels across anything that looked like it needed to be reduced to bits of slag and vapor and obliged.

  Her index finger twitched on the trigger, keeping her bursts short so as to conserve the limited ammunition she carried. This was why she flew the Intruder, why she trained relentlessly and chose one of the more dangerous craft in the Confederation inventory to pilot. She experienced the thrill of living in the moment, blocking out everything other than what was in front of her ship. Her mission was to create maximum havoc to augment and assist the capital ships in their mission, and she exulted in her role. Every time she or one of her squadron flamed part of the Priman ship, she cheered on the inside. Her time was limited, she knew, because after only one or two passes over the ship, the Priman defenders would be recalled and their own interceptors would bear down on her and her squadron, and the Primans would chase off or destroy her ships, which were not intended for knock-down drag-out fighter combat.

  She checked her screen again and noted the distance between Merritt’s Talons, the Primans, and the rest of the vessels around her. It was time to break off and go.

  Captain Canda cursed whatever gods fouled this galaxy with the damnable inhabitants who were attacking him and his ships. The status board showed mounting damage to his ship and two others after the Intruder’s torpedo and autocannon attack runs, which were now thankfully out of the picture in a full swing engagement with his own fighters. His ship was rocked again by an internal explosion, and he risked a glance at his damage control console and saw that one of the secondary reactors had begun to overload and been jettisoned by the engineers just as it had overheated and come apart. The resulting explosion had killed the valiant crew who had sent it overboard, but had likely kept his ship in the battle. The problem was, his ship was now falling off the pace as his engine power diminished, and every time his element of ships maneuvered, he would fall farther behind.

  “Weapons,” Canda called out, fearing the answer, “how long until we’re in range of the Confed battleships?”

  “Right now, sir,” was the reply Canda didn’t want to hear. Once again, his eyes were drawn to the status board. As the bridge lights flickered and switched to backup power, he noticed a few wisps of smoke hanging on the air. Through the haze and on the main screen tactical display, he saw the barrage of incoming torpedoes from the two Confed battleships.

  “Continue to fire torpedoes, and unlock all weapons batteries,” Captain Canda commanded. “Fire at will unless I assign a target.”

  Cory and Merritt were in the fight of their lives. Caught between the Priman interceptors and capital ships, they were left with little choice but to stand and fight. Space all around them blossomed with torpedo trails and laser blasts as the big Confed and Priman ships exchanged fire across the gulf between them.

  Cory heard Merritt talking his wingman into a turn to place himself on the tail of his wingman’s Priman pursuer.

  “Alright, bring it hard to starboard, then level off and up ninety degrees, now!” The Talon executed the maneuver, the Priman’s shots going wide to the left and then falling below as the Confed fighter changed its’ plane of orientation and maneuvered. The Priman ship pulled up also to follow, and in doing so put himself right into Merritt’s waiting crosshairs. Merritt watched the Priman ship rise into his sights, then triggered off a long blast of laserfire, chopping away at the space around the enemy ship until his hits connected. The incoming fire blasted the tail off the Priman interceptor, sending it tumbling out of control into the distance. Merritt moved on to the next target, looking at his display and finding Cory sidling into a trailing position on his wing as his own wingman, now some distance away, joined up on another lone Talon looking for a fight.

  “Looks like you need a new wingman,” Cory said to him over the combat net.

  “You have a resume handy?”

  “Does the flaming wreckage of a Priman cruiser count?”

  “Point taken. I’ll take the next one, then if we’re still together, we’ll reform and you lead. Sound good?” Merritt could have tried to lecture Cory about how her ship was an attack platform that placed second to the Talon in dogfighting ability, but he knew better than to try to argue the point with her.

  “Just lead the way.”

  Aboard the Formidable, battle was joined. She had launched repeated torpedo broadsides as she passed the Priman formation, taking a terrible pounding but giving it right back to the Primans. Captain Pencron watched the main holo display with fascination as, for a brief while, the space around his little corner of the war was so filled with energy and torpedo trails that it was almost impossible to make out the combatants. The good news was that there were so many Priman ships that they were actually getting in their own way of firing on the Formidable. He noted several that showed heavy damage, but could spare no time to investigate further.

  Executive Officer Feraan had chosen a single Priman cruiser as the sole target of all the battleship’s torpedo launches, letting the laser batteries concentrate on other targets.

  Pencron couldn’t feel the individual impacts of Priman laser blasts or torpedo hits as such; instead, he felt a constant vibration, a steady thrum through the deckplates that varied in intensity, but not in tempo. A twisted, fatalistic grin passed over his face- he loved life as much as the next person, but if today was his day, this was at least a hell of a way to go. Not that he planned on dying.

  “Ops,” Pencron yelled to a bridge crewer at a station on the starboard bulkhead. “Damage report!”

  “Moderate,” came the steady voice of his damage control crewman. “But no real impact on combat effectiveness, sir. We’ve lost two torpedo tubes, four laser batteries, and several secondary power couplings. Shields are holding, no hull breaches.”

  Pencron smiled as he patted the handrail by his command chair. “You’re a tough old broad, aren’t you?” He realized he was talking to his ship, but at the moment he didn’t care. Turning back to the forward bridge, he resumed barking orders.

  “Helm, hard to starboard, turn us around and head down the Priman formation again, full power to engines. Weapons, angle shields and get us a few more Priman victims for our combat report.”

  Velk sat silently in his chair, letting the battle information wash over him. He sat at the head of the large conference table, advisors and Representatives along each side in descending order of importance. The subordinates knew something was going on with him, for he had immersed himself in the battle some minutes before and had not spoken since. Nobody dared break the concentration he was displaying, but all hoped for some hint of what was going on. All Velk wanted to know was that all the enemy fighters were engaged or accounted for.

  Finally, Velk stood and walked in measured steps to the main communications terminal. He nodded to the officer sitting there, who in turn opened a channel that astute observers would have noticed had been reserved but inactive.

  “Ready, but not broadcasting yet, Commander,” said the communications officer from her seated position.

  Commander Velk turned to the others in the room and grinned. It was a wolfish, menacing look that few in the room had ever seen. It was the look of a man about to do great harm to someone.

  “Priman officers, Representatives, I have m
ore good news for you. I apologize in advance for the secrecy, but we do know the Confederation and Talarans have made a number of successful efforts to break our communications encryption. Representative Dag, since I placed you in charge of the project and it was completed perfectly, I believe the honor of unveiling our new weapon is yours.”

  Representative Dag, caught a bit off guard, stood slowly as all eyes in the room turned to face him. All were full of envy at the special treatment offered him by the Commander. Representative Tash, on the other hand, fumed at having been left out of the loop. He made a mental note to himself, sitting in his lower seniority spot one down from Dag, that this was another thing he would not do when he was Commander. On the other hand, perhaps Velk didn’t trust him after all. Tash would have to check up with his contacts to see if Velk had reason to suspect anything other than complete loyalty and obedience from him.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Dag began. “You do me a great honor.” He turned to address the table. “Some time ago, our planners decided we needed a more unique way to counter the threat of the Confederation Intruder/Talon attack we have seen. Our interceptors can deal with the Talons one on one, but we have no real direct counterpart to the Intruder. As a result, we have designed a new ship, designated the Reaper, to directly engage their small fighter craft.” Dag hit a button on the tabletop at his seating area, and a holographic schematic as well as live-fire test footage began streaming through the air.

  Velk grinned again, and nodded at the communications tech one more time.

  “Attention all commanders of the fleet. This is the Commander. Activate all Reaper units.”