BattleTech Legends: The Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, page 15
“Roger, Valkyrie Leader. You should be home in time for supper.” The male flight controller lowered his voice. “The food’s not going to be anything like the meal I had two nights ago in Sovol, Tyra. You should have accepted my invitation.”
Anika cut into the line before Tyra could answer. “Lojtnant Tviet, would you mind sticking to business? We are in a hostile theatre of operations.”
Tyra heard Tviet’s acknowledgement of Anika’s rebuke, and the radio went dead. She thanked Anika silently, but the all-too-familiar feelings of regret and anger began to boil up within her again. She fought to keep her mind from wandering off on these unhappy tangents. You made your decision and that is that. You decided to decline Phelan’s offer and sign on with this company because that made the most sense. You couldn’t stay on Gunzburg, that’s for certain.
A red light flared on her radio control panel, and she punched it automatically. As though reading Tyra’s mind, Anika spoke with her friend over the private frequency they shared. “Tyra, you can’t keep kicking yourself, because it’s not your fault. What happens, happens.”
Tyra nodded and glanced over at Anika’s Shilone. “I know you’re right, Nik. There’s nothing I could have done about Phelan’s death, even if I had signed on with the Kell Hounds. Phelan’s unit didn’t have aerospace cover, so I wouldn’t even have been there.”
“That’s more like it.” A mixture of relief and exasperation echoed through Anika’s voice.
Tyra glanced again at the sensor scan from the Bragi, but it remained clear. Throughout this “public relations” tour, she had been hoping the pirates that killed Phelan would stage a raid so she could get a shot at revenge. That’s stupid. Just the sort of thinking to get me killed.
Tyra keyed her mike. “Thanks, Nik. I’m back. When we hit the Bragi, remind me to give Tviet a lesson in the definition of the word nej.”
“Roger.”
Tyra saw something new appear on the scanner screen. Four small red triangles appeared at the outer edge of the DropShip’s scan. Her combat computer brought the secondary monitor up and started flashing the different silhouettes and performance profiles for all aerospace fighters and shuttlecraft that matched the incoming data. The computer alternated between the Stuka and the Corsair models, but could not make a final decision.
Tyra touched the icon representing her ship, and the scanning computer shifted back over to her own instrumentation. It cut down the range of the scan, but gave her combat capability which, all of a sudden, seemed a good thing. She keyed her radio to the DropShip’s control frequency, but patched her flight’s tactical channel into the feed.
“Valkyrie flight here, Bragi. We have four UAC on the screen.” She looked at the monitor again. “They’re coming in on a vector that might have looked to you like our heat shadows, but I’ve got them on my instruments. Please confirm.”
Tyra increased vector thrust on the right side of her ship, moving it to the left and away from Anika’s craft. She watched as one of the four ships following her flight aped her maneuver. Whoever they are, they’re good! It takes some tight flying to pass yourself off as the IR shadow of an aerospace fighter traveling through a helium cloud.
Tviet’s voice answered Tyra’s call, but gone was the cockiness of their earlier communication. “Ah, roger, Valflight. We’re getting some jammed transmission from Thule itself. We don’t know what it was, but chances are it has something to do with hostile actions on the planet.”
“Roger, Bragi. Do we engage the people on our tails? I have them about a hundred myriameters behind us.”
“Negative, Valflight. We are clear to the JumpShip at the nadir point. Just watch them.”
Tviet’s words came slowly, with pauses between them that told Tyra the controller was getting lots of input from sources other than her ship. She glanced at the auxiliary monitor and saw the four unidentified aerospace craft split formation and pick up speed. Here they come!
“Be advised, Bragi, we are under attack and moving to engage. Valkyrie Two form up on me. Three and Four hang together and take the pair vectored at 256 degrees and closing. Luck.”
“Skill,” countered Ljungquist.
Tyra kicked her thrusters in and vectored their output to pull her through a tight turn that stood her ship on its left wingtip. While in space she didn’t have to worry about friction and air turbulence, but inertia still affected her and her craft. Her flight suit pressurized itself to prevent blood from draining from her head as she pulled four gees coming around, but she knew that even the suit would not keep her from blacking out if she maneuvered too quickly.
Set on her new course—racing back through the space she had just patrolled—Tyra brought each of her combat systems up. The computer drew a picture of the Shilone on her primary monitor and illuminated each weapon as it came on line. “Forward long-range missile launcher, check,” Tyra mumbled to herself. “Forward heavy laser, check. Wing-mounted medium lasers, check and check, and aft arc short-range missile launcher loaded and ready.”
A red crosshair painted itself on her helmet’s faceplate and tracked with her right eye as she looked around. The armrests of her chair slowly rotated ninety degrees, presenting the trigger buttons for all her weapons. Keep the crosshairs on the target, in space or on the sensor display, and poof, it’s gone.
Like the ground-pounding BattleMechs, aerospace fighters relied on a holographic display of sensor data. Though ’Mech pilots had only to orient themselves within a two-dimensional battlefield, fighter pilots had to deal with enemies in a full three-dimensional theatre. That meant their holographic displays formed a bowl with the area toward which the fighter’s nose pointed as the center. When a gold ring flashed around the whole display, it told the pilot that the computer had gotten a lock-on to a target in the aft arc.
Tyra’s computer still could not decide if the ships she and Anika were hurtling toward were Corsairs or Stukas, which was disturbing. The Stuka was a heavily armored fighter boasting all the weapons she had, but more of them. The Corsair, while lighter in weapons and armor, had superior handling capabilities that made it an elusive enemy. Still, if I can get into its arc, it’s vulnerable.
“Is your computer schizing out on you?” Anika asked, apparently having the same problem with hers.
Tyra tried to answer confidently. “Yeah, something has definitely addled its little silicon brain.” She felt a shiver course up her spine. “Figure on Stukas, but pray for Corsairs.”
“Roger.” Static shot over the open channel for a second, then came Anika’s voice again. “What the hell are Davion fighters doing out here? Did I miss a declaration of war? I mean, did Prince Hanse Davion get married again or something?”
Tyra knew that Stukas and Corsairs were key Federated Suns military spacecraft, but something told her these fighters were not from the Federated Suns. Before she could say anything to Anika, lights blazed to life on her command console. Then came the keening alarm resounding through her cockpit. “I’ve got a hostile radar lock on me! Juke left high!” Tyra shouted.
She side slipped her Shilone right, which jammed her shoulder into the left side of the cockpit. That dropped her fighter directly beneath Anika’s craft, with only twenty-five meters between them. As the computer updated its sensor data, painting one image over the other, Tyra boosted thrust to the right vector. The Shilone rocketed off to the left, streaking up beyond where Anika’s Shilone had been while Anika executed a similar move that took her high and to Tyra’s right.
The warning lights died. Good. Mixing our silhouettes, then ripping them apart confused it. She punched her right fist against the targeting computer. Why the hell did they get a lock on me and I didn’t reciprocate? This is not the time for my computer to go out on me.
She glanced at the auxiliary monitor, dropping the visually guided crosshairs onto the scanning image of the lead enemy craft. In the flick of an eye, she armed her long-range missiles and waited for the dot in the center of the crosshairs to light up, confirming a sensor lock. Instead of the dot, she got a running meter clicking off the distance separating her target from the LRM’s effective range. What? They had a lock on me at three times effective range. Who the hell are these guys?
She opened a radio channel. “Valkyrie Three, bogies might have advanced target capability. Advise caution.”
She heard the sensor lock sirens blaring through Ljungquist’s reply. “Roger. Kinda busy here, Val One.” His voice slurred its way through the next sentence as he put his Slayer through a high-gee maneuver to shake the lock. “No, dammit. Arrgghh!”
A sizzling pop snapped through the radio speakers. Before Tyra could find out what had happened to Ljungquist, the computer gave her a lock onto her target. Her right index finger hit the trigger beneath it, and the LRM pod mounted beneath the cockpit spat out a score of missiles in rapid-fire succession. The missiles streaked away until their rockets seemed little more than stars in the distance, then a series of explosions cast light into the void. Hit!
She knew better than to hope one volley of LRMs had destroyed her enemy, and she gained quick confirmation of that fact as both aerospace fighters shot past each other. Instantly, her computer stopped its vacillation between Stuka and Corsair fighters. It settled on neither and instead filled the secondary monitor with a digitized visual representation of the craft she faced.
The craft had definitely been built along the lines of a Stuka. The rectangular body and stubby wings supporting large weapons pods were unmistakably those of an STU-K5. It also had the forward stabilizers, located beneath the dome-covered cockpit, which added stability to the aerospace fighter when forced into atmosphere. Slight variations in the outline of the weapon canisters on the wings suggested, however, that they carried even more weapons than the standard complement of twin heavy lasers, which did not please Tyra at all.
What did please her was the ruined armor on the Stuka’s nose and the gaping, fire-blackened hole where the computer reported a short-range missile launcher should have been. Good! In a tight fight, that will be to my advantage, though his lasers are more than enough to destroy this thing. And not only is it packing more weapons, but its performance profile suggests it has more armor, too.
Most intriguing, the visual image showed the craft’s crest. At first glance, it looked to Tyra like a polar bear silhouetted against a black moon. No, that can’t be right. No bear has six legs. And why is there a white star in the middle of the moon?
Tyra kicked her Shilone around in a split-S, sending it arcing up and off to the right and then rolling the craft back around, its nose pointed one-hundred-eighty degrees from where it had just been. She tried to get another weapons lock onto the enemy fighter, but it had pulled a similar move, sending their warbirds straight at each other again. Tyra, seeing that the abbreviated range of the battle would give her heavily armed enemy the advantage, let the Shilone continue its slide to the right. Then she brought the craft over and around in a broad barrel roll that looped her around her enemy’s line of attack.
She armed another weapon as her scanners reported her foe nosing up abruptly and rolling in an Immelmann. Fancy flying, but real risky. You gotta be woozy from the gees you’ve just pulled. She looked at the icon of the craft behind her, then when the rim of her display disk pulsed gold, hit the switch beneath her left thumb. Here’s where you earn your pay.
Four SRMs shot straight in on their target, hitting the enemy fighter just as it completed its roll. The missile explosions marched in succession up the nose of the fighter and onto the cockpit canopy. Tyra’s combat computer updated the picture of her enemy by ripping holes in armor and denting the crystalline cockpit dome.
The pilot reacted to the attack after only a moment’s hesitation. During that moment, the craft continued its roll, so the pilot increased thrust to bring the craft down and to the right. Tyra jerked her fighter up onto its left wing, then feathered the pitch controls to bring up the nose. The maneuver slammed her down into her seat and ground her teeth together, but she hung with it. Boosting the thrust from her right wing, she sent the Shilone spinning back down to where it dove like a hawk on the fleeing raider craft.
Shimmering, multicolored balls danced before her eyes as she brought the Shilone’s nose back up. My dive arc is steeper than his. Gotta come up to target... She pressed her left foot down, vectoring more thrust to that wing, which brought the left side of the craft up and around by fifteen degrees. Hold it! Hold it! Her Shilone swung in behind the raider as though being towed on a string. Now!
Tyra fired all her forward weapons at the enemy, and in turn, took damage from the medium laser he fired back into his rear arc. The scarlet beam of light slashed a blackened scar through the armor on the right side of the Shilone’s fuselage. Tyra’s combat computer updated the status of her ship, but no warning lights flashed or sirens sounded. Clean bill of health.
The nose-mouthed large laser pumped kilojoules of energy into the enemy fighter. The ruby beam swept over the fuselage like a spotlight, but concentrated its attack on the left rear-thrust port. In combination with the medium laser mounted on the Shilone’s left wing, it fused the port shut, instantly bouncing the enemy fighter to the left. The Shilone’s other medium laser sliced armor plates from the aerospace fighter’s right wing, but did little more real damage than melt the moon and bear insignia from its surface.
Tyra rode her fighter over to the left, relentlessly tracking the enemy. With the left vector port gone, the pilot can’t easily turn right. I’ve got him!
Before she could lock her weapons onto target for another savage assault, the piercing wail of warning alarms filled her cockpit. “SRM lock!” She stomped down with both feet, engaging the overthrusters and hurtling her craft forward. Smashed back into her seat, she overshot her intended target and tried to pull another wingover to cut out of her current vector. Just as the Shilone began to react, the trio of SRMs launched by the raiders’s wingman hit.
One blasted into the surface of her left wing. The explosion rocked her craft and blew chunks of armor from the Shilone, but the inertial reaction to the blast actually helped her bring the fighter over on her intended maneuver. The other missiles slammed into the engine in the Shilone’s aft. The computer dropped her power output by 7 percent and flashed two small icons against the Shilone’s outline on the primary monitor.
A wave of heat washed into the cockpit to tell her what the computer silently displayed. Great. Two heat sinks hit. I lose speed with the engine damage and now this baby will slowly roast me. Well, I won’t have to worry about that if this new raider gets a lock on me again. “Nik, where are you?”
“On him, Cap. Break left. Three, two, one…missiles and lasers away!”
Tyra rolled her Shilone to the left, and Anika’s fighter shot through the area she’d just left. As her ship corkscrewed through space, Tyra saw a series of explosions on the ship Nik had been chasing. Righting her craft, Tyra radioed a quick congratulation to her wingmate, then looked at her sensor screen and found her quarry. Easing back on the thrust, she sent another flight of SRMs from her rear-arc launcher at him.
The missiles missed their target, but forced the pilot further left in his wild attempt to elude them. That pulled him even with Tyra only thirty meters off her left wing. The pilot actually tossed her a salute, then began to pull up. Of all the...salute this!
Tyra sent a microburst of ion thrust through her right yaw control and cut all acceleration thrust. Unfettered by atmosphere, the Shilone rotated on its vertical axis, tossing her forward against her safety belts and the left side of the cockpit. The fighters continued to sail along in the same direction, but suddenly Tyra’s craft brought all weapons to bear on her foe.
The raider whipped his ship over on its left wing and vectored thrust through the belly ports to pull away. Tyra’s targeting system locked onto this new heat source and flashed the dot in the crosshairs. Without thinking, Tyra triggered all three lasers through the forward thrust port. Armor vaporized at the lasers’ touch, and the half-melted vector louvers spun away amid clouds of ionized thrust. The hellish beams stabbed up into the body of the craft itself, but at first, Tyra could not tell if they had done any damage at all.
Almost as if her attack had not taken place, the raider’s nose continued to pull out of line. The unbridled thrust pouring through the forward port stressed laser-heated stabilizers in the fighter’s body, and warped the metal out of shape. As the aft belly thruster pushed the ship forward, the nose thruster just pushed it away. Like a wax model in unbearable heat, the fighter began to bend in the middle, then the nose snapped off right behind the cockpit. The two halves slammed into each other, crushing the cockpit like an eggshell, then spun off in a ball of twisted metal and fused ceramic armor.
“Val Two, this is Val One. I’m free. Where are you?” Tyra looked anxiously at her scanner. It registered two enemy craft and three friendlies, including herself, but the added heat pouring into her cockpit had temporarily fried whatever circuit painted the identifier tags on the scanner icons. “Who did we lose?”
Another of the enemy craft winked out of existence before Anika answered. “Sorry, Cap. Needed to concentrate there. I have minor damage to a vector thruster, but I’ll survive.”
“Valkyrie Four reporting. My target is breaking off.” Karl Niemi’s voice carried no emotion with it. “Sven lost it in the first exchange. He took damage to the cockpit and was in and out thereafter. He did box one in for me and I got him.”
Tyra felt a lump rise in her throat. “Damn! He was a good man. How are you doing?”
“I’m leaking fuel, but I should be able to coast to the Bragi. I’ve plotted a return vector. If I can’t land in the bay, I’ll punch out. I can’t raise the ship, so I’d appreciate it if you’d radio and have a rescue team standing by.”
“Roger.” Tyra looked down at the frozen image of the black moon and six-legged bear insignia on her secondary monitor. “Anybody know what pirate unit this crest belongs to?”
