Crusade chapter 8 (standard:science fiction, 2540 words) [8/11] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 11 2003	Views/Reads: 2496/1928	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
chapter 8

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

and behind in vee formation Broadsword and Cutlass. “Transmission from 
the fleet Sir.” came the voice of the communications officer, 
“Broadsword reports combat ready. Cutlass estimates 20 minutes until 
combat ready.” “Acknowledged.” Understandable, Cutlass's crew were 
still new, she was only a week out of the shipyards. “Signal the other 
fleets, Battle Six 30 minutes till combat ready.” 

Five hours later. “Transmission received Sir, Battle 17 has detected
enemy at grid BZ52 and is engaging with all haste.” reported the comms 
officer. “Helm, come around to intercept Battle 17, all ahead flank. 
All hands battle stations!” ordered Carver. Grid BZ52 was 120 light 
minutes (or a hair over 1.3 billion miles) from their position, but 
Battle 17 was closer.  “Signal the fleet weapons free.” Battle 17 might 
be closer but they weren't going to get the first kill if he could help 
it. Even at full speed it would take time to reach the battlefield but 
in the meantime there were things that could be done. “Give the green 
light to all fighters and bombers,” he ordered. Neither the fighters 
nor bombers had their own hyperdrives but they could operate in 
hyperspace, and when Crusader made her own exit portal the fighters 
would use that to drop into real space giving them the jump over their 
(theoretically) still shipbound foe. 

A bleeper sounded throughout the hangar decks, this wasn't the harsh
klaxon of a fighter scramble, this one meant a standard launch. All 
crews had been on amber light for the past two hours, this was the 
green for launch. Will Granger ran to his cockpit abandoning his 
coffee, behind his gunner was already strapping himself in. The onboard 
computer lit up the displays and closed the canopy, on either side of 
the canopy he could see the dull rounded tips of the two Harbingers 
fielded by the Black Widow. Behind him the gunner, Win, griped the 
joystick of his quad blasters, his seat faced backwards as did his 
weapons. The wing commander in charge of the bomber wing spoke to them 
over the radio net, “Ok people hard and fast. Your comps have your 
targets, so get in, give them the good news just like in practice. You 
each have two vamps on your wings but ignore them, they go with you not 
the other way round.” 

Alecto fired the bomber into the blue glow of hyperspace, Granger
brought his around and accelerating ahead of the ship and joined up 
with his escort in front of Crusader. Within minutes the exit portal 
appeared and lead by their escort fighters, the bombers dropped into 
real-space. Granger pushed the throttle full forward and shot toward 
the ugly organic shape of the Megaeran frigate he was to attack. His 
scanner showed the two Super Hurricanes take up their positions on his 
wingtips and ahead it showed the enemy fighters waiting to greet them, 
as he watched a wing of Xetâls shot past less than 500 metres away, 
their speed making the Black Widow look like a joke. Suddenly a red 
light lit up on his HUD, it meant that his ship was being illuminated 
with an etheric laser, someone had a missile lock on him. He turned 
sharply to port and kicked the rudder pedal all the way down throwing 
the ship into a spin, the G meter shot up and he felt his flight suit 
trousers inflate compressing his legs and forcing blood to his brain. 
The violent manoeuvre extinguished the light and Granger brought the 
mistreated ship back on course, only one escort bird remained, the 
other was presumably seeing off the challenger. Behind him Win was 
firing the quad blasters at any likely targets, noiselessly he saw a 
Kestrel explode, a life pod shooting from the fireball, “Life's a 
bitch,” he said, pressing down the firing stud and emotionlessly 
destroying the pod, “and then you die.” A yellow light burned on Win's 
HUD and then suddenly became green, target at optimum range. He lowered 
his visor and suddenly his view changed to the 3-D onboard camera of 
the starboard torp, he flicked up a button guard on his joystick and 
pressed two studs beneath. The torps tore away, the port one under its 
own control, the starboard under his. He felt the bomber turn away but 
concentrated on flying the torp. Even the best non-sentient computer 
wasn't a match for a human and Win was better than average. He 
skilfully manoeuvred the torp through the frigate's defensive fire, 
before impacting the shields when the camera went dead. 

“Real-space in 5...4...3...2...1,... real-space,” came the calm voice of
the helmsman. Immediately the holoscape lit up with previously 
invisible data, Battle 17 had already arrived but so far no kills had 
been scored for either side. Carver issued his orders, “Papa turrets 
target tango six (a frigate) and open fire. Helm ahead two thirds, port 
circular course 500 K radius. All torpedoes ready and standby.” This 
was a standard battle set up, the circular course would encompass the 
battlefield and allow maximum firepower. 

Already there was the rhythmic thump of mid calibre EP canon on the
shields, but thankfully no sign that they had been targeted by larger 
weapons, the holoscape showed torpedoes flying in all directions but 
none came within danger range. “She's open Sir.” came the bridge 
gunnery officer using the term for a shields down condition. 
“Excellent, Papa turrets target tango 16 and fire at will. Papa torpedo 
fire one two and three.” The torps raced toward the frigate at terminal 
velocity, each one guided by a pilot on board Crusader. Mere moments 
later two impacted the stricken ship, turning it into a rapidly 
expanding ball of dust and radioactive gas. “Foxtrot torpedo full 
spread (fire all tubes divergent angles) target tango 22.” 
Simultaneously there was another shout, “TORPEDO TORPEDO TORPEDO.” On 
the hull Alecto swivelled a turret toward the incoming torp and loosed 
a Starstreak missile, accelerating almost instantly to full speed it 
headed toward the target. Suddenly the nose split into two and fell 
away, from within six smaller darts raced away, each hit the torpedo 
detonating it before it impacted Crusader. “The Kerrato has been 
destroyed Sir!” shouted the comms officer. “Acknowledged.” returned 
Carver. “Sir, port array down to 20%,” came another voice. “Helm, roll 
180 degrees.” This presented the starboard side to the enemy guns, 
“Sierra turrets target tango 22 and open fire! Foxtrot torpedo, sierra 
torpedo, alpha torpedo tango 22 full spread.” Twenty torpedoes 
blossomed from the warship and arced toward the unfortunate enemy. On 
the bridge there came a sudden shout, “Sir, tango 2 collision course, 
bearing 003 by 355, range 70 K and closing!” “Helm, evasive 
manoeuvres!” Carver shouted. “They're matching, we can't out manoeuvre 
them Sir.” Tango 2 was a light cruiser, more manoeuvrable than Crusader 
and capable of destroying her on impact. “Range 30 K!” “Helm, engage 
hyperdrive!” “Its no good Sir, they're too close to escape.” “Do it 
lieutenant!” cried Carver with a vehemence borne of desperation. The 
blue dot appeared in space and started to grow but too slowly. 
“Disengage the safety and dump the weapons capacitor into the portal 
generator now!” Carver ordered. With the safeties off-line there was 
nothing to prevent the full charge of the weapons capacitor tearing 
through the generator. Suddenly the portal grew to full size and 
destabilised with the excess energy, as the cruiser hit the portal and 
sent a ripple through the fabric of hyperspace the portal shattered 
into billions of shards, each opening onto its own hyper-corridor. Each 
individual molecule of the cruiser was torn from its neighbours and 
sent permanently into hyperspace. In the bow of Crusader the portal 
generator glowed white-hot and destroyed itself, the portal vanished 
taking the cruiser with it. “Damage report?” “Sir, all decks reporting 
massive power fluctuations, engineering reports hyperdrive is off-line, 
portal generator is off-line, primary power grid is off-line, EP canon 
are off-line, EP blasters are off-line, ramscoop is off-line, shields 
are off-line, life support and antimatter containment on emergency 
power only, all other systems 100%, Sir.” “Get shields on-line pronto, 
helm take us away from the battle, comms appraise the fleets of our 
situation, recall the fighters, have them form a defence screen.” His 
plan had been the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment. 
When Carver decided on that course of action he hadn't known exactly 
what would happen to the cruiser when it hit an unstable portal but he 
knew that it would be better than the alternative. Even with so many 
systems off line and his portal generator permanently destroyed it was 
better than complete destruction. 

“Sir, tango 22 has been destroyed.” “Excellent,” shouted Carver, “All
torpedo rooms re-target tango 17, fire at will!” “Sir, message from 
Broadsword, they are moving into a defensive position until we get 
shields online.” Carver didn't like this, Broadsword should be 
attacking not defending and Crusader was big enough to look after 
herself, “Comms, signal Broadsword: Continue with mission, attack the 
enemy!” This was met with a message from Captain Adams, “Captain, my 
ship is my responsibility, and you have no authority to countermand my 
decision, Crusader is too valuable to leave undefended.” Despite 
Carver's misgivings Captain Adams was making the right move: as soon as 
they detected Crusader was open the Megaeran fleet realised they could 
salvage some advantage from their failed attack on Heretic, they 
re-targeted on the stricken battleship. Almost with a single mind, the 
enemy about turned and brought their guns to bear on Broadsword, now 
the only thing between them and their prize. No ship could take this 
sort of beating and within sixty seconds there came the message, 
“Broadsword to fleet, abandoning ship.” From all over the vessel life 
pods erupted. Even after being abandoned to her fate Broadsword 
continued to protect Crusader, her ravaged hull adsorbing most of the 
EP bolts meant for the battleship. The one advantage of this situation 
was that, with the Megaeran ships concentrated as they were, they made 
a better target for the fleets. Little by little the remainder of the 
Megaeran fleet was being destroyed as the situation became an absurd 
race, Crusader was straining her engines trying to put distance between 
herself and the enemy fleet that was pursuing, whilst behind them was 
what was left of the alliance fleets. 


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