BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

PART 3: END GAME

Chapter 44
 

“Fighters away and weapons are on stand-by,” Ensign Odette Daniker informed the Captain of the SPF Righteous.

  “Reliant, Cavalier, and Aldantia awaiting orders,” Ensign Cerise Tivnan followed after the other female. The black furred fox glanced briefly at her mate’s back as he sat in the command chair, his chin between his thumb and forefinger in thought.

  “Contact the Legion ships. Order them to heave to and prepare for boarding or they will be fired upon,” Captain Elias Tivnan directed. He turned his head slightly to the left, his eyes never leaving the display screen with the six enemy vessels floating within the luminous clouds of the Van Connor Nebula. “Engineering, status?”

  The grizzled human that manned the station glanced at the different displays for various sections of the ship and nodded before replying a moment later. “We’re nominal, Cap’n.” The man’s gravelly voice was calm as he spoke. “Engine output is green, shields are one hundred percent and damage control parties are on stand-by.”

  Chief Neil Rollins had been in too many engagements to get overly excited. Either he made it, or he didn’t, but he would do his job to the best of his ability regardless. His unflappable demeanor also had the effect of calming those around him, and he figured that it was just one more way of helping out with a vital aspect of the ship’s systems that couldn’t be fixed with rewiring or a bit of welding and a spritz of lubricant.

  As it was, the man reminded Elias of his former engineer, the Late Stram Molson. The two were definitely cut from the same cloth and the fox was sure that the human and Fur would have gotten along well. “Thank you, Mister Rollins.” The fox then spoke to his second officer who was separated from the rest of the bridge, insulated in his pilot’s capsule that also contained a full holographic real-time image of the space around the cruiser and was overlaid with flight data. “You know what to do if it gets hot, Saul. Just remember the Righteous is a little bigger than the Angel.”

  Elias was referring to the Q-ship, a warship designed to look like a common freighter, that they had been on for a little over a year that had been destroyed upon their real purpose having been discovered after an engagement with the outlaw group they again faced.

  “Aye, Captain,” the jaguar replied.

  Elias wished fervently that he were the one behind the controls, but his assignment had been given by Breth Janes herself, the supreme commandant of the Spatial Police Force. His wants had no place in his present position, though he had vowed to do the job he was given to the best of his ability.

  The fight was personal for the fox. Not only had the rogue mercenary company known as Ganlin’s Legion attacked his ship the Guiding Angel, causing the deaths of three individuals that were more than just comrades and friends, they had attacked his family. Elias Tivnan would have taken the fight to them even if he’d had to buy a ship of his own and he didn’t plan on stopping until the outlaw mercenaries were forever smashed into oblivion.

  His attitude might have been seen by some of the more liberal members of the Planetary Alignment as barbaric and vicious, but the fox knew that until the Legion was dealt with on a permanent basis, no one would be safe.

  Strapped into the seat to the left and behind the Captain’s was Colonel Sander Brees, the head of the SPF Special Operations Division and final authority for the mission they were presently on. The lion also looked at the main display with a slight lifting to his lips that revealed the tips of his sharp teeth. “They aren’t moving.”

  “No,” Elias said flatly. “The Legion doesn’t know when to quit. That’s why they went rogue.”

  The event that had caused the company to flee civilized star systems of the PA for the wilds of the Van Connor Nebula was fairly well known. Years earlier two corporations had simultaneously laid claim to a resource rich world that had phenomenal potential and vast mineral wealth. One of the corporations had been from Earth, the other from the now-dead world of Mainor. As was standard practice at the time, both parties had hired mercenaries to protect their interests. What had started with a minor standoff had turned into a bloodbath as the Ganlin Legion overstepped their contract and used an orbital missile strike to wipe out the Terran company’s assets on the surface. The Legion then sent in their foot troops and massacred the survivors.

  The incident had generated extreme tensions between the two planets, which almost led to a shooting war with Earth and Mainor until cooler heads in the PA Legislature had stepped in. The Mainor corporation had to pay reparations to their Terran competitors before both worlds backed down and the Terran corporation was granted full rights to the planet. Ganlin’s Legion was declared outlaw, but before they could be brought to justice, the mercenaries had stolen a number of ships and vanished.

  While the Legion would appear every so often to wreak havoc in the PA, no one had been able to locate their center of operations. To survive, the entire group had become bandits, raiders and pirates, often with their depredations succeeding spectacularly as they not only had the weapons and training to pull off stunning raids, they also had nothing to lose.

  From that incident, the Legion had sworn eternal animosity against humans in general, and the SPF in particular as the standing orders to all individuals within the interstellar law enforcement group were to hunt the rogue group down with extreme prejudice.

  “Energy signatures are increasing!” Cerise called from her station at communications and sensors.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Elias said to no one in particular. He hit the all-call control that would carry his words to the rest of his squadron. “Hold fire until they make the first move, then engage. Take them down and expect no quarter. Righteous out.” He toggled the comm to his own fighter wings. “Colonel, Lieutenant, harass and disable-”

  “Missile launch!” Odette informed the bridge. “Incoming pulse cannon fire!”

  “All elements,” the fox said switching back to the all-call, “weapons free! I say again weapons free!” Elias winced slightly as the display flared with bright light as pulse cannon blasts splashed against the forward shields of the Righteous, the protective energy field dissipating the coherent energy of the green-white bolts without allowing damage to pass through to the hull underneath.

  The huge pulse cannon turrets on the outer hull of the Eridani Class Heavy Cruiser slewed in different directions as gunnery crews targeted various hostile starships with sun-hot bolts of energy erupting from the stubby tubes as soon as acquisition was made and verified. While the larger guns engaged the enemy vessels, the VRF magnetic accelerator gun emplacements, under computer control for the time being, locked onto the smaller missiles that streaked through vacuum.

  The smaller weapons used discharges of electromagnetic energy to propel small solid metal projectiles at extreme velocity, the designation VRF indicating very rapid fire. Each gun was similar to the ancient Earth Gatling Gun and used a series of rotating barrels so that after spitting a round, the tube could cool a bit before it was used again. Even with barrels lined with rapid heat dispersing materials, the temperatures soared phenomenally in each tube after a few rounds. The idea behind the weapons were point defense against missiles and other explosive projectiles, and they served their role well filling the distance between the Righteous and the incoming warheads with a flood of solid metal rounds that chewed the enemy warheads into so many bits of inert trash.

  The Spatial Police Force vessels spread out and engaged the six ships of the Ganlin Legion while fighters added to the fray by harassing and using their own weapons to further tax shielding. While the Legion had access to high-end computers and equipment through their predations, it looked as if the crews of the hostile ships had actual personnel operating their weapons systems. Reactions were a few seconds too slow as the Legion gunners hesitated between targeting the larger ships or the fighters.

  Elias watched the battle as it evolved, both in real-time and via a tactical holographic overlay. “Cavalier! Watch your port flank!” Elias instructed over the communications network that his mate had set up. “There’s another ship emerging from the cloud!”

  “Affirmative!” the captain of the frigate replied, her voice strained and brittle sounding. The Cavalier was the smallest and the lightest armed ship in the squadron, though made up for its lack of size and punch in maneuverability and speed. “Engaging!”

  No sooner had the Cavalier  begun to alter course to engage the hostile than the cloud ‘above’ the latest Ganlin Legion contact erupted with glowing blisters of expanding detonations and withering fire as pulse cannon blasts and missiles tore into the destroyer class ship painted in red and black. The shields failed and Elias watched, distracted from the rest of the battle as the outer hull of the outlaw ship evaporated allowing the weapons fire from the unknown source to claw the internal sections a moment before the vessel exploded silently in the luminous vacuum of the nebula. Out of the cloud slid a battleship with Ganisian markings.

  “This is the battleship GNBS War Maiden out of Ganis to Spatial Police Force commander. Sorry we’re late. The Ganis consulate sends their regards and asks if you will accept our offer of assistance?” The face that appeared with the communication was a raccoon with Ganisian Navy Admiral’s rank in silver that contrasted starkly with the burgundy uniform she wore.

  “This is Captain Elias Tivnan of the SPF task force. We’ll bloody well take all the help we can get, War Maiden,” Elias said with a hard grin.

  The raccoon’s return smile was almost feral. “Admiral Polina Sheehan, Captain. We’ll get together after we wrap this little party up.” The female nodded to someone off screen. Seconds later more ships exited the clouds of the Van Connor. “We brought a few friends that were feeling a little left out as well.”

  “Looking forward to it, Admiral. If you don’t mind, we could use an assist to cut off their route of escape,” Elias told the Ganisian suggestively.

  “Can do, Captain.”

  The comm screen went blank and the fox turned and looked at Sander Brees. “That was unexpected.” He regarded at the tactical display that began listing the latest IFF signatures of the recent arrivals. Apart from War Maiden, there were two fast strike cruisers from Tanthe, a Terran carrier, and pair of Alexandrian destroyers.

  Two Martian Yards built System Patrol Boats disengaged from the Earth built carrier and lit after the nearest pirate to their entry vector even as fighters boiled out of the prow of the huge vessel. While the flattened, stretched-disk shaped craft lacked Faster-Than-Light star drives, they made up for it in both heavy armor and firepower, being little more than fast, durable weapon platforms for in-system defense use. They passed on either side of a Carrack Class ship, multiple shock thread emitters firing as the SPB’s passed down the length of the hostile vessel. Then as one they turned and headed off for another target, the ship in their wake floating lifeless as all of its internal systems were overloaded and shut down.

  “Nuke signature!” Cerise sang out from her console, her voice tight and clipped.

  “Emergency power to shields!” Elias shouted. “Evasive action!”

  In the confines of his encapsulated position, Saul increased power output from the engines, slamming the throttle controls to their stops, even as he threw the Righteous into a tight turn to starboard and ‘down’ from its relative position as the other ships of the SPF squadron also began to scatter. The SPF Reliant was breaking off from the ship it was engaged with, though her pilot was a little slower. Elias and the others watched in horror as the nuclear armed missile made it through the interdiction fire of the VRF cannon on a trajectory that carried it past the cruiser and straight to the Reliant.

  Tactical information from the Reliant ceased as the small warship and the vessel it had been engaged with were engulfed in a flash of light as bright as a sun. The wave of released energy and plasma from the atomic conflagration washed over the Righteous, eroding the shields to almost nothing while sparks popped as circuit boards surged with the electromagnetic pulse from the warhead. Artificial gravity cut out and the interior of the ship was suddenly thrown into zero gravity.

  “Report!” Elias growled as he waved away a tendril of acrid smoke that burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water.

  Rollins had one finger pressed to the earpiece he wore and listened to the reports from the damage control teams throughout the vessel even as he held onto his console with white knuckled fingers. “Artificial gravity is out. Shields at three percent. All other systems are green, Cap’n. Crews are containing a small fire in recreation and stores and are already working on restoring systems.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” the fox said with an audible sigh of relief. The shields were the main concern, but he trusted the human to know what the priorities that he needed to focus on were. “Target the ship that fired the nuke,” Elias snarled even as his hand came down on the intercom control that would put him through to the troop contingent. “Randal, prepare your team for breach boarding.”

  “Roger that, Sir. We’re ready,” the wolf replied stoically.

  Despite the tension of the moment, Elias allowed a small smile to tug at the corners of his mouth. No matter what had happened since the crew of the Guiding Angel had been thrown together, Randal Mercks had been the most stable individual out of all of them. The fox was surprised at how much he’d come to depend on the fur’s calm and unflappable demeanor.

  The Righteous came around, the jaguar guiding the cruiser and aiming straight for the belly of the enemy vessel that had fired the nuclear warhead. A hatch in the armored bow opened and recessed into the hull as a strange looking tube extended from the forward section. Heavy fire erupted from the Legion vessel’s defensive batteries, energy and solid shot failing to penetrate the protective field around the Eridani class ship even with her depleted shields.

  Gouts of cyan fire flared from thruster apertures as Saul Reese initiated a braking maneuver almost a thousand meters out from the enemy ship. As soon as the end of the breach tube connected with the outer hull of the Legion StarMaster class destroyer, a design that was almost seventy years old but built quite solidly, plasma cutters flared to life, melting through the thick armor plating like a laser through ice.

  “We’re through,” Randal informed his Captain via his armored suit’s communication suite.

  From his position on the bridge, Elias Tivnan listened in on the boarding operation, his insides knotted with tension even as he kept an eye on the rest of the battle around them.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.