Warrior Empress (Warrior Empress Series Book 4), page 20
And NOW I appreciated the fine work Roun had done to find this ship. As ugly as it was, the defensive nodes had been strengthened and the weapons upgraded.
Without those changes we’d already be dead. Thank you Roun.
Uh, I’ll thank her another time. Just now? We were fighting to just stay alive. There was a sharp tang to the smell of the atmosphere in the ship. I’m guessing ozone.
There was also a fine mist of something I had no interest in knowing what it was. It did not look good..
Yanol and Azz were sending us updates as they rushed around to try and seal the punctures.
They were madly rushing around to find and patch. As it turned out, there were seven holes, all small and all snap-cracks from the hit and the stress on the ancient hull where the particle beams had hit our defensive shield.
But we were alive and Roun was still tracking our path to prevent another strike and line up on our next target.
In the fog of battle, things happen quickly. I snapped a look at the threat sphere and took a count.
All four of our fighters were dead, just bits of flotsam debris as four small clouds. How in Lor’s name did that happen? They were excellent pilots, all.
The Admiralty patrol cruiser had just exploded into a fog of plasma, atmosphere and debris. When the fighters expired, they’d finished it off as well as two other ships in that corner of the battlescape.
Four down, five to go and we were in an hot, ugly mess.
Chapter thirty-eight
The elite’s ships may have been a hodge-podge of different types but they were certainly competent and capable enough to continue their inbound attack, and to try and surround us.
And they were doing an unfortunately good job of it.
Roun still pushed our corvette sideways, up, down, accelerated, slowed, the whole deal.
Tremeer was in the right side battle couch and was trying to help with throttles and directional thrusters while Roun steered.
Uh. . . yes, it was chaos, but they were doing a great job confusing the enemy about where we’d be next.
Tau was silent as usual and the only way to know she was there was the frequent bang and snap of our weapons.
Yanol, Azz, Teesa and Wah-Sin were in the back, hopefully all now webbed in.
And, I felt totally useless.
So, I scanned my console, found the rear rail stinger and hovered my left index finger over the firing stud.
I was waiting for the best shot and laughed to myself. I’m trying to reserve slugs? Why? It won’t help if I have slugs left over and we’re all dead.
I tapped the firing stud just as we led a trader ship arcing in firing at us with everything it had, trying to kill our main engines.
I got lucky. My five centimeter rail slugs screamed across space and danced into the enemy ship just as its path reached the slugs.
I expected the ship’s defensive screen to deflect the slug energies, but just got lucky.
The defensive screens I could see in my small console viewer went instantly blue, then bright white, orange and simply vaporized into a cloud of atmosphere and plasma. Huh. That was a lucky shot and a lot more blast than I would have expected, but will take the strike anyway.
While I was focused on defending the back of the ship, Roun had lined up directly on a yacht arcing in and firing its rail guns at us, rattling the edges of our screens as the slugs ricocheted off our defensive shroud. They just barely missed. Tau did not. Another strong bang and snap from the destroyer sized particle weapons slung under our corvette disintegrated the yacht into a cloud of debris.
I didn’t have a chance to marvel at her exact timing to lead that shot as she was already using the top turret to fire almost directly “up” above us at another yacht.
Roun and Tremeer were sliding us sideways, but Tau anticipated that. The yacht’s rail guns had been firing too and the slugs slammed into our screens causing us to go blue again, just as Tau fired the turret.
She won.
The intense blue faded from the top of our screens as the energy was deflected, just in time for us to see the yacht’s screens turn blue, then just blank out. The ship was still there, still traveling toward us, but no longer firing and no longer under any kind of control. . . just a block of plastisteel and bio-material careening through space.
Roun jinked us back and forth again and I was fortunate enough to see the inbound trader sliding in from the side to shoot out our main engines. Roun pulled the throttles for the mains and then Tremeer rolled us sideways giving me the shot I needed.
The trader had already fired and their slugs. . . and their particle beams, both, hit the outside edges of our screens, just as I began firing, too. They had no way to slow down to avoid the arcing trajectory of my rail fire and they slid directly into the path of. . . ten rail slugs that slammed through their screens, stitched through the side of their hull and ripped it apart into a blossoming cloud of gas and particles.
While I was spending precious time observing that, Roun and Tremeer had already slid us around to give Tau the last shot she needed at the last yacht. Tremeer had used our lateral jets to slide us sideways causing the yacht to miss completely. She had gotten so good at doing that, she slid us sideways and put enough angle into the slide that it gently aligned our forward cannon with the inbound yacht, giving Tau the shot she needed.
And, just like that, we were done and alone in space.
Yanol, Azz, Teesa and Wah-Sin were all still scrambling in the back somewhere trying to find and patch small holes. Yanol sent images through our nodes that some of them were not holes, but tears in the fabric of the hull, showing the enormous stresses the hull had endured from the hits, moves and bangs of the battle. We were lucky to be alive. It was. . . is, a good ship, but she is old and her hull clearly not strong enough to take this kind of battle.
I reached out to all by node and verbally, “Report status.” We are warriors after all and need to stay on top of our circumstances, conditions and resources.
Roun responded, “Fine, ship solid, still leaking air, venting water-fuel on the right side, right main is down to eighty one percent, maneuvering solid.”
Tremeer added in, “Coms fine, screens fine, no apparent damage to Jump system, power cores fine, but maxed, we need to let them cool down.”
Tau just grunted. Twice.
I half expected that, but turned just to make sure and then. . . yelled as loud as I could, “Yanol or Azz, med kit now. And a patch.”
Tau’s right hand was pressed against the right side hull. I thought it might be from pain, but saw some of her blood seeping under her hand and escaping from the hull hole. It must be tiny, but just enough she could cover it with her hand. The left side of her armor was more red than normal. Her armor had been pierced by shrapnel sometime during the battle.
All four from the back came rushing in. Yanol grabbed her armored hand, sliding it sideways to give him the room to slap the patch on. My ears popped at the low pressure as the air screamed out until his patch sealed.
Azz was kneeling down next to Tau and working to get her out of her armor.
She wasn’t objecting as she was trying to help, her eyes bright and angry. Oooh, she was mad.
That was a good thing. That meant she wasn’t badly injured. I hoped.
He pulled the couch web off, then lifted her up to get to the armor clasps.
It is the only time I’ve ever heard her cry, but it was just for a moment. I can’t imagine the pain she must be in with that much blood on the outside of her armor, glinting in the light.
He swiftly, and as gently as he could, pulled the front carapace of her armor off and we all gasped. Her white inner tunic was covered in blood. What was amazing was the hole. It was tiny, like really small. Something tiny had ripped through her chest from her lower right back, through her ribs and out the front, angling up and through the right side hull. She’d had the presence of mind to slap her armored hand over the hull hole to keep air in.
He slid his arms under her and swooped her up, standing and heading with Azz to take her down into the Med-Doc.
Fine. She would be fine. I needed to focus. Just focus. Let them do their job.
My warrior training took over. She would be fine, Yanol and Azz had her, so I instantly looked at our threat sphere to make sure we weren’t being attacked. Again.
It was clear out to fifty thousand kliks. I could still clearly see in the display the fifteen tiny clouds of debris that had been the other ships, but nothing moved, except us and nothing was solid.
I nodded to myself and realized both Tremeer and Roun were doing the same thing, watching the threat display, watching our consoles, watching for anything that would put us at risk.
The space around us was empty. My console alerts were green with many orange lights and some flashing reds, but no solid red.
With what we’d been through, I was a little surprised at that. . . okay, a lot surprised at that.
I was thrilled we weren’t all red given the strikes and near-misses. We’d take any luck from Lor we could get.
My head, and my heart, flashed back to Tau for just a heartbeat. Then I nodded to myself. She is in very capable hands with Yanol and Azz.
My task now? Get us home.
We’d beaten the elites. This was the only place they’d try and strike. There isn’t any way they try this within Hoganthan space. The retribution against them would be just too extreme. At least out here, in another system, they could tell the Hoganthan peoples they weren’t involved.
If it was inside our home system? That wouldn’t work, they’d be found out and it would destroy them. Anyway.
And, we’d survived.
Roun had already begun to turn us back toward our correct trajectory, outbound and finish our journey home.
Well, we would meet up with the escort ships waiting at the edge, all Jump back to Hoganth and then figure out our next steps from there.
And execute my plan for retribution.
Chapter thirty-nine
We took a full day to reach our Hoganthan escort squadron.
I almost contacted them early, but decided to not share the attack, nor our horrible condition. I wasn’t sure what we’d run into when we got there and decided to play it quiet, just in case we had more enemy surprises waiting.
During that trip out-spin, Yanol and Azz got Tau in the Med-Doc. She was stable and the Med AI was working on her. Its initial prognosis was green. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear that. . . even by neural node. Green meant full and complete recovery. I’m sooo happy about that.
Anyway, Tau was stable and being worked on by the Med-AI.
Hmm, when I heard that I had something in my eye and had to wipe it away. Must have been some dust in the air.
Yanol, Azz, Tremeer, Teesa, Wah-Sin and I all went through the ship. . . like five times, trying to find and seal the air leaks - seventeen of them, the nine water-fuel leaks, the one waste leak - and I won’t tell you how bad that ooze smelled - and the forty seven damaged power couplings and optical conduits. Even with all of the spares on board for just such emergencies, we almost ran out of conduit.
But we finished it and even had a few minutes where Azz and I could replenish the rail magazines with five centimeter slugs.
I know. . . I know. . . there is no way we’d need them now.
We are heading home once we rendezvous with the escort squadron, but. . . I don’t know, I just felt better with the weapons full and ready to go.
None of the elites will risk attacking us in the Hoganthan system. They’d lose too much, so I was thrilled.
But, I just. . . felt better with full weapons.
Two destroyers, two frigates and a fighter group continued to be parked out there, but no cruiser. Hmm.
I was both surprised and a bit curious about that so reached out to the captain of the group, “Captain Hoola, where is the Qua Loo?”
His image appeared on our screen with a smile as he responded, “They were ordered away to finish their mission.”
I understood the need for that, but a part of me had a niggling little feeling that it had also been orchestrated to remove that enormous weapon from some coming battle. . . that we’d be the target of.
I nodded at him. I could see Roun and Tremeer focused on him as well. Our threat screen wasn’t visible to him and I kept looking back at it. . . just in case.
I guess he may have seen my focus and expression, “Empress, we have also been ordered to a new quadrant to aid in an attack on a group of empire cargo ships. We were just about to leave.”
I cocked my head to one side, my internal alarms ringing with concern. The timing of this felt like a battle tactic.
He nodded at me as he saw my expression, “I see your concern and agree. I’ve tasked the Howsen frigate to escort you in-system. I just can’t imagine anyone would attack you heading down-spin.”
He frowned and then continued with a firm nod, “That would bring visibility and retribution they couldn’t risk, I think.”
I nodded at that, “Thank you captain. Any escort is better than none and the frigate is fine. I am just. . . I find it curious that the Admiralty could not spare any regular military combat vessels for. . . for the existing leader of the empire. That is very curious.”
He smiled pleasantly and nodded at me, “I agree, empress. May Lor go with you on your Jump and down-well journey.”
He ended the conversation and I could see in our threat sphere that the rest of the ships, except for the frigate, were heading out-spin toward the galactic rim and preparing to Jump.
I thought about his conversation and it seemed genuine. I shook off my warrior concern, my instant reaction of strategy and tactical execution in a battlescape.
We’d head home.
I could see Roun already working with the Howsen as we both aligned and began to set up our very precise and coordinated Jump into Hoganthan space.
My mental focus was interrupted as Teesa and Wah-Sin both began sharing updates, reconnecting to the palace data systems and trying to go back to our regular business - if that is even possible now.
Teesa started first, her face clearly angry, “We have more detail on the virus. I’ll send the file.”
Wah-Sin quickly followed that, “It is quiet. Too quiet. The elites are clearly furious at the proclamation from the information we can glean. The media are outraged we’d support the Alliance, but the ground level surveys we’ve been doing still show clear and overwhelming support for the vote. I’d say the Houses are planning some kind of event or response.”
I nodded at that. If I were them, that is exactly what I’d do. And, I’d do it quickly. I needed to focus on that, what they’d try to do. . . and when.
Both ships were ready. . . so, we Jumped back toward Hoganth and any surprises that might wait there.
Chapter forty
Well, at least that part was uneventful. The Wardle system starfield disappeared to be instantly replaced by the Hoganthan starfield.
I quickly looked at the threat sphere as I usually did and found that the Howsen had inserted exactly as we did, with clear military precision, still just a hundred kilometers away, so pretty tight spacing for ships traveling as fast as we were.
Roun had intentionally set our in-spin insertion point well out of the deep gravity well of our sun because we were coming in at a large angle of deflection to point us at Hoganth.
At least Hoganth was on “our” side of its orbit, so we didn’t have to swing around, but still, the high deflection angle made our Jump less accurate because of the gravity well, so we inserted further away to make sure the gravity well didn’t have us ‘bump’ anything. . . like a planet or asteroid, or the Howsen, or. . . well, you get it.
So, we were both heading in-spin and still about two days out from Hoganth given where it was.
Yeah, yeah, we could have gotten creative, Jumped to the other side a couple of parsecs out and then Jumped directly in perfectly lined up with the gravity well, but I was actually okay with our two day breather as it gave me, gave us all, a chance to decompress from the battle, attend to Tau and allow me to work on what I was going to do next.
I knew what I wanted to do and the new file Wah-Sin had given me confirmed everything I needed.
I was starting to relax. Of course that was a mistake.
By habit, I was staring at our 3D threat sphere when the bright red dot appeared from its Jump, only twenty thousand kliks out and relative right to us. The frigate was right next to us and, of course, closer to this new target.
The moment the target locked in from its Jump it fired full on, so it had Jumped knowing exactly where it was going and came in with weapons hot.
How did it even know we were exactly there? And, who was it?
Roun, Tremeer and I all almost sprained our fingers stabbing the defensive screen to full. We’d Jumped as we always do, with weapons on, but not full strength. That was my second stab, to bring them up to full power.
I’d quickly done that and then instantly looked back at the sphere to see a plume of blue gushing out of the side of the frigate. Not good. It was holed through and through.
Who was this attacker? It made no sense. The elite Houses risked everything attacking us in-system. They are just not that stupid. Arrogant, yes, but never, ever stupid.
Roun and Tremeer were angling away, going into evasive maneuvers and trying not to get us shot. Our screens were full on, weapons hot and we were trying to maneuver around to point at the attacker.
I could see the frigate bloom into a full cloud of debris, gas and plasma. There had been forty one beings in that ship, now all dead, instantly incinerated by the plasma wave.
I snapped back to the threat sphere to look at the details of the inbound track. Roun and Tremeer were punching us around a lot to keep us out of his or her targeting system. I got neural pings from everyone and just shared, ‘Under attack, one ship, frigate gone.’
I would have shared more detail but was busy trying to figure out which ship, which House would attack us out here.
