The Complete Union Earth Privateers, page 38
Sothcide angled the nose of his interceptor. Dipping below the rim of a hailstorm sounded like someone pouring out a sack of grain the size of the entire sky. Victoria had confided in him that the sounds of atmospheric activity unsettled her, and Sothcide had to admit a similar vulnerability. He was used to the relative silence of space flight, hearing only the sounds of his own engine and instruments. The thick hail disrupted his sensors, but he still saw the signature of the overexposed Gavisari vessel shift two tenths of a degree, corroborated by his number three flying twenty miles to the south. Their target was on the move. It was time to put the Privateer’s plan into motion.
Chapter 18 – Condor Descending
"Sothcide’s on the move, Vick. I’m seeing engine heat output increases all across the board. The adjacent squadron is moving in to support."
"Thanks Avery. If Jones is watching you can bet he saw them too. Huian, climb us up another two kilometers while his sensor operators are distracted. I want a height advantage. Carillo, launch a pair of tightbeam relays."
The Condor shuddered even harder for a brief moment as the two small missiles carrying communications equipment sped toward low orbit on plumes of frozen propellant. A blinking light on her comms repeater showed that her operators on the Oracle had successfully connected to them as well when it turned to a dull magenta glow. The relays would let her communicate without compromising her own ship’s position.
Victoria drummed her fingers against the arm of her command couch. "Let him know we’re right behind him."
"Roger that, Vick. I’m intercepting a communication between the Gavisari using Jones’ codec. He’s put them on high alert. I don’t have a fix on his position, but he’s reporting the fighter positions within a thousand kilometers of the formation. Expect our boy to maneuver soon. His active EM radiation signature matches recorded light frigate systems. Designated Primary."
The main view screen lit up with the new designation, replacing the overlay for an unknown contact with the double crescent moon shape of a light frigate. Similar in size and profile to a Privateer, but likely more than double the tonnage with all the armor plating and active defenses that Gavisar liked to slap on their hulls.
"Light frigate. Perfect. Any word of us on the waves?"
"Negative, either Jones hasn’t caught our scent or he’s keeping our secret. Whatever else, he’s still a Privateer."
Victoria caught herself drumming on the arm of her couch again and stilled her hand with an effort. Some of the Privateer and Union Earth Naval captains came from blue water backgrounds where they had gone head to head with the minds of other human officers. The previous hundred years of human history had not been without wars and skirmishes, despite the extra-planetary efforts of Union Earth. But Victoria had never been part of any country’s navy. She was an explorer and a pioneer. Maybe a bit of a pirate, but not a military operative. It was a new sensation, knowing there was another human mind working against her. Somehow more sinister even than meeting the Malagath, being pursued by the Dirregaunt, or even kidnapped by the Kossovoldt.
Victoria had witnessed terrible acts committed by individuals and governments alike. Humanity was her cause and her life’s work, but it was also capable of unimaginable cruelty. Some rough patches maybe got smoothed over along the centuries, but the malice to perform it and the guile to confront and resist it through blood persisted through each generation, and never had she found herself faced with that utterly human miasmic threat. Sometimes the devil you knew was goddamn worse than the one you only pretended to know.
Victoria eyed the tactical grid on her sensor repeater, watching as expected contact positions were pushed and pulled and bearing rate began to increase measurably on a few more contacts. They were closing on the formation. "Huian, put us on an east southeast heading."
"Aye Skipper."
East southeast increased the crosswind component of the storm buffeting them, a massive storm cell over six thousand kilometers in diameter. In the lower ionosphere they were out of the worst winds, but the Condor’s rattling intensified. Sometimes high-frequency vibrations could be worse for a spacecraft than the pressure wave of an explosion. Hopefully Davis Prescott wasn’t slacking his fat ass off in the engine room.
"Tactical conn, I’m maneuvering to shallow up our dive so we don’t plow into a mountain side, and to try and keep our bow pointed at the quadrant of sky where I expect Jones to be. Be ready to readjust firing solutions."
"Aye Vick."
Carillo must have been feeling talkative today. A few rare moments passed with no chatter on the open circuit, then the communications notice blinked in her retinal implants. Sothcide was initiating. Victoria thumbed the activation switch on her command couch.
"Condor Actual. Go ahead."
"Captain, Wing Commander Arda has been monitoring our progress through the other fighter wings, and gotten wind of your plan. She has ordered the fleet out of hiding and is preparing for a long range attack based on our intel. I am patching you through to her now."
"Shit. Okay, go ahead."
Passive sensors lining the aft third of the ship spiked when active sensing radar passed into line of sight from the Vitacuus and her sister ships. Victoria eyed her thermal scope reading the most likely bearing of the Howard Phillips, directing the Gavisari ships, but even at max sensitivity the field remained barren. However, several new contacts sprang up on the main view screen.
"Conn sensors, active reflection, cross section suggests fighter-type craft. Two squadrons to the east transitioning north."
"Sensors conn, aye." said Victoria. She had known they would be out here, but the Gavisari fighters were taking pages out of the Maeyar playbook by reducing their engine output as much as possible. Or maybe from Jones’.
Her main view screen overlay still painted the light frigate as an unreliable range when a portion of it was taken up by Arda’s severe onyx features. The bridge behind her was a carefully controlled chaos of orders and department heads directing the actions of the massive command carrier and the remaining fleet. She was broadcasting in raw radio, despite the warnings of who else may be listening, with her husband and first officer resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Human Victoria. I see you have rejoined the defense of Pedres. I do not know if you betrayed or abandoned the Malagath duchess, but you will not have the opportunity to do so with me. I am pulling my forward fighter squadrons back. I will not risk exposing them for a solitary frigate. Our situation is too dire."
"Commander, if you just give me a chance to explain the plan."
"Negative, human. We are pushing over the mountains now, climbing to high altitude. Vacate the area of operations and do not engage. If you are here, you will follow my directives and follow the fighter wings away from the coming battle."
"Let me guess," Victoria said, an edge of venom creeping into her voice, "You can’t guarantee my safety if I persist?"
Arda’s eye jerked clockwise in its socket, the iris narrowing as she let her temper get the better of her. Arda was cunning, ruthless, quick, and indomitable. If they weren’t at such odds Victoria might have even liked her.
"This is a war, human. I will not vouchsafe, nor do I particularly care for, your safety either way."
The connection was severed, and she opened up a tightbeam radio link to Sothcide. "We won’t get another chance at this," she said.
"I am with you, Victoria Marin."
* * *
Sothcide had never gone against the orders of a superior officer, let alone purposefully interceded in a planned fleet-level offensive push. But Victoria had seen things at Gavisar that would give her more insight than the mistrustful commander of the Pedres defense fleet. And she had her eyes in the sky with their spacewalker-captured vessel. The fighters in his wing and those moving to support were the remaining sixteen pilots under Vehl’s command, and with deft fingers he linked their communications together in a single circuit and their transponders under his command, ignoring the protests and threats of his gunner, placed by Arda to watch him.
"All fighters of First and Fifth wing. Form up and position for an attack run."
The leader of the fifth wing, Allid, responded almost immediately. "Wing officer, we are going against Arda’s orders?"
"Yes, Allid. Arda is a brilliant commander and a sound tactical mind. But sound conventional tactics will not overcome a fleet with half again our strength. We must embrace the unconventional, as Vehl Ku would have done. Trust in me."
Time was running out, they were drawing closer and closer to the frigate, and though radar was being scattered by clouds, Sothcide was sure they were closing inside of a hundred kilometers. Even the stunted lasers would be effective under twenty, but visual would be optimal in Juna’s unrelenting storms. Somewhere behind and above him, Victoria was preparing her heavy weapons as well.
There was silence on the channel. Sothcide waited while his counterpart wing officer considered.
"Vehl chose you to lead us. We will follow."
Sothcide flipped his engine from a high idle to an attack profile. "Then cover the eastern approach. Keep those fighters away from our attack run."
The light frigate was changing course again, realizing the intentions of the fighters too late. Even a ship of that size carried more mass than was convenient to move, and the Gavisar ships had little in the way of aerodynamic aid. Overhead, Allid and his wing had increased their intercept speed, burning hot and accelerating at a breakneck pace. His radio blared in his ear as Arda’s gunner in the back of his fighter overrode his communications and Arda’s voice filled his cockpit while her face and the frantic bridge crew behind her filled his monitor.
"Wing Officer! Pull back now, I cannot launch with two wings in the target area."
The bearing on his sensors was coalescing, and Sothcide turned on his localized targeting sensors. They were inside of two hundred kilometers now, and closing fast on the fleeing frigate. Its engine heat blazed like a guiding star. The active radar swept and returned, offering ranging information within five hundred meters tolerance. Still not close enough.
"I cannot, Wing Commander."
"Sothcide, we are committed to this attack run."
"So are we, Arda."
The Wing Commander hissed through her proboscis, which turned into a low growling order to break off the attack, declaring ship position orders and trying to salvage the wreck of her formation. She could not lose a third of her remaining fighters to friendly fire. Several thousand feet above his dive, Allid had engaged the tough-skinned Gavisari fighters. Lasers lit up the sky, carving linear paths distinct from the lightning that staggered its way across Juna and crackled against the damaged hull of his fighter. The clouds robbed it of almost all its range. It was like an ancient planetary duel fought with the lasers of pre-space-traveling Maeyar ships that still relied on lift and aerodynamics to achieve flight instead of fusion engines and anti-gravitic generators. Even if these interceptors weighed a hundred times as much as their jet-driven counterparts.
"The rest of Gavisar’s fleet is on the move. We will have one opportunity, Victoria. Be prepared."
Chapter 19 – True Colors
"Let slip the Dobermans, and send a few missiles to cover our approach."
Shrieks echoed through the hull of the Condor. Victoria’s will was made manifest by the myriad armaments pouring down past the Maeyar fighters and into the Home Defense Fleet frigate. Warnings began to dot her screen, noting Sothcide’s contact with the frigate’s active fighter defenses, as well as the medium-range ship-to-ship missiles that the rest of the Gavisari was slinging their way to cover the frigate’s retreat. Sure enough, her missiles began to be cut down as well, but the Doberman rail mines storming toward her target had yet to be targeted. Admittedly, her own missiles were disappearing from her combat network at an alarming rate.
Confirmation of successful hits from Sothcide’s wing came in the form of light brighter than any bolts of lightning Victoria had yet witnessed at Juna. The laser energy scored grooves through the storm and that energy, normally invisible, was allowed to propagate through the atmosphere, carving off armor plating and penetrating existing damage on the frigate.
"Conn tactical, fifteen seconds to firing range. Have good solution, one of the pilots laid eyes on through a break in the clouds."
A micro-nuclear burst created a tiny sun off her starboard bow for an instant. Two of the IFF beacons from the fighter winked out, struck by an exotic matter payload more suited to cracking a destroyer’s back than to taking out fighter-type craft. It must have come from one of the cruisers in the main formation. Her radio crackled to life again.
"Condor, this is Sothcide. Target is breached. Dorsal spine, just aft of the twenty second frame. Two of my pilots reported it before they were taken."
"Make the adjustment," Victoria shouted over the open mic. In the corner of her eye, for the first time, a new identifier icon appeared on her communication screen. A warped, 5 pointed star shone on her screen, with a flame burning in the center. But there was no time to think about that now.
The Howard Phillips.
"Fire," said Victoria. Lights dimmed aboard the Condor, and for the first time Victoria was treated to the deafening roar of the twin magnetic rail cannons running the length of ship being fired in atmosphere. The forward view-screen was so overwhelmed with brightness that for an instant Victoria worried that she was looking at an unlucky missile that had found the Condor, but the rails continued to bark and rattle the deadly gout of metal shards at speeds beyond hypersonic. They left vacuums behind that collapsed so violently that the air ignited in their wake, and the Doberman rail mines, miniaturized versions built into a mid-sized missile housing, added to her thunder with their own.
"Holy shit," said Victoria, though no one who was listening could have heard her profanity over the report of the railgun rounds. Huian was already lifting the bow of the Condor, banking with what power the ion engine could produce to halt their forward motion. Now on their port side, the reduced heat signature for the Gavisari engine was decreasing quickly on the azimuth, and accelerating toward the surface of the planet.
"Primary is down, repeat, primary is down. Zero bearing rate on multiple contacts, Vick.
Sothcide had seen the kill, and was pulling his fighters out of the dogfight, trying to minimize losses. But two more fighters had been struck from the sky. Victoria opened the channel to Sothcide again. "Alright, target down. What’s Arda’s status?"
"Human Victoria, the battlegroup is a mess, exposed, still attempting to reorganize without crashing half the ships into the eastern face of the Jodaeyar Mountains. If the invasion fleet were to find them, we would be lost. We cannot continue, we must return."
Once again the icon for the Howard Phillips illuminated on her communications display. "Hope you’re paying attention, kid," she murmured before accepting the video invitation through one of her remote comm relays. A portion of her main view screen was filled with a mirror of her own conn. Same pilot’s bench, same command couch wreathed with consoles, switches, and command repeaters. Jones looked out at her with the same metallic glint in his eyes, reflecting the bright light of his own view screen on a face otherwise steeped in shadow.
"Pawn takes bishop," said Victoria.
White teeth appeared in the shadows. "So it’s chess we’re playing? Very well, Victoria. You may have taken a piece, but you exposed your queen in your haste to strike the first blow. Your pieces are out of position, and you’ve shown your strategy to be full of holes."
"Not as full of holes as that frigate."
Jones leaned forward, rolling his shoulders he looked like some fairy tale monster with white glowing eyes and a Cheshire grin.
"And to punch those holes you tore a rift in the entire Maeyar command structure. Fighter captains mutineering against their commanders, your entire fleet clustered and disarrayed like a flock of sheep."
"Keep talking, asshole."
Jones laughed, but it was true he seemed to be in no hurry to terminate the connection.
"Face it Victoria, you’ve lost here. You tried to shut me out of Pedres out of spite so you could foster your little pet project. But these waters aren’t the East Indies. Empires aren’t built on coffee and cloth anymore. Tech div wants tech, not a few lousy minerals. You think long-range trade is profitable for Union Earth?"
Not after he got the trade freighter killed. A single line of text appeared on her retinal display.
Keep him talking.
"No, but alliances are built on trust. And I earned that trust, a trust you tried to sidle in to and swindle like a con man," said Victoria. She leaned forward in her chair as well, staring at those stark white eyes.
"Trust? That Maeyar commander can barely stomach you. Hell, do Maeyar even have stomachs? Never mind. She distrusts you so much that she would rather broadcast her intent and position over radio waves than rely on the secure communication channels that you provided. Your fighter captain sure had faith in you."
Avery was staying silent, but her sensor repeater was being constantly updated with the evolving situation. Zero bearing rate, emissions increasing, radar up-doppler. Victoria eyed the panel. The Gavisari were arrayed in their arrowhead formation again, driving west into Arda’s remnant fleet, and all the heat her straining engine was putting out painted her signature in the skies.
"And how the fuck would you know anything about what Sothcide thinks?"
