Star Force: Canderous (SF16) Page 8

  “What the…heads up!” Ally shouted as a new contact blurrily appeared on his tracking screen…a big new contact with a weak signal.

  By the time Brad had swung around to see it with his own eyes the cruiser-sized ship had already pulled up halfway above the ridgeline it was hiding behind. Its knife-like design lay flat against the ground with small nodules poking up off the top at odd places. It quickly rose up and sky appeared beneath it, making it look like an alien version of a super star destroyer…very flat and long, and equally intimidating.

  Bits and pieces of plasma began flying their way from turrets somewhere on the distance ship, leaving a safe cone of approach for the two raiders in the center.

  “Break high!” Brad said, pulling up sharply as he took a hit to his port engine. The physical shield covering it ate up most of the plasma, but the little that got through burned off the paint and melted away the outside layer of thin armor, just missing the forward intake vent. A little smoke billowed up from the spot, trapped inside the shield perimeter, and formed a misty haze over that side of the craft as Brad kicked in his anti-grav engines and shot into the sky as fast as he could.

  “Report?!”

  “Tail damage,” Ally said, following him up. “Nothing critical. Speed intact.”

  “No damage,” Ras reported, matching their ascent.

  Brad toggled his comm to open Star Force band, which the approaching skeets, Clans, and Canderians could all monitor. “New contact, repeat, new contact. Big ass ship coming up off the deck. The raiders are heading towards it and they’ve got decent anti-air coverage. Assault is problematic. We could really use some orbital bombardment about now if someone could manage it.”

  “Our sensors show nothing, Foxes,” one of the Ninja Monkey pilots replied on the same channel, “but we can just make it out visually. What’s it look like from orbit?”

  “We’ve got no tracking data up here,” Harrison’s voice responded. “But we do have a limited visual. Confirm coordinates then get clear as spotters. We’ll bring the rain, but there’s no guarantee we’ll hit anything.”

  “Thank you,” Brad said, adjusting his flight line to bring him directly over the ship, but at a high enough altitude that he wouldn’t be an easy target. “Ally, Ras…break off and get to the edge of visual range. One take north, the other south. We need to keep this guy boxed in so we can direct the gunners.”

  “I’ll take north,” Ras offered, pulling away from their tiny formation.

  “Careful, Lead,” Ally warned, heading the south position.

  “Mara, I’m gonna get you as close as I can. Be ready to target my position at 45 seconds post ping.”

  “We’re set here,” the Archon replied.

  “Ninja Monkeys, stay clear on the west edge. We’ve got to keep a line of sight on the ship at all times because our sensors aren’t worth crap against these guys.”

  “We’ve got the backdoor covered.”

  “I’ll take the east side after this run,” he said, rolling his skeet upside down so he could look at the pan-like ship coming up beneath him. It was an elongated hexagon with the shortest two sides being front and aft, giving it a stretched out look. He could see the two raiders just now reaching the ship and settling into grooves on the upper surface. A shimmer of shields flashed across the east side, indicating to Brad that they’d left those down for the ships to come in under and now they were raising them back up. He didn’t know if they were physical-resistant shields or energy-resistant shields, but a ship hitting either would damage the matrix, even though a true energy shield would allow objects to move through and still remain intact.

  Either way, his fighter’s plasma weapons would affect both types of shielding. Because the plasma was made of atoms it would be stopped by physical shields and pass through energy shields…but because the atoms were ionized it would also be repelled by the energy shields, making it both a good multipurpose weapon as well as an easy one to defend against. The really potent physical weapons would pass through energy-resistant shields like they weren’t even there, and vice versa. Lasers would pass right through the physical shields that the skeets were using, given that the photons were so small they’d make it through the matrix ‘net’ that was designed to stop large, heavy atoms, such as the oxygen ones that the skeet’s plasma was made of.

  Energy-resistant shields were more difficult to construct, which was why Star Force didn’t currently have any. According to the V’kit’no’sat database most races didn’t have energy-resistant shields because the matrix required was too complex for them to create. Some limited energy shields, like a simple magnetic field, were possible, but a comprehensive energy-resistant shield was quite a ways up the technological ladder and many rungs ahead of Star Force at the moment.

  A magnetic shield would repel plasma and other charged particles, but allow all other matter to pass through as if there was no shield at all, which was yet one more reason why plasma was easy to defend against. It could also ward off electrical attacks, but light and other forms of energy were unaffected, making its defensive usefulness one dimensional.

  Brad didn’t know how advanced the lizards were, but if they did have energy-resistant shields it wouldn’t do them much good. The plasma would pound them heavily, but since Star Force didn’t use much in the way of energy-based weapons nowadays only the physical shields were going to come into play…and in about 60 seconds they were going to find out if that ship was as tough as it looked.

  Brad looked ‘up’ at the ship below his skeet, judging that he was approximately over top of it, and leveled his hand above the all important button on his control board. He flipped his skeet back right side up and began making a tight 180 degree U-turn, at the end of which he jammed down the button and kicked in his engines at maximum speed.

  “Sensor ping,” one of the Canderians reported. “We have the coordinates.”

  “Send them over,” Harrison said, watching the holographic map of the planet tag the location where the mystery ship was. Their orbital sensors still couldn’t detect a thing, but the visuals he was getting of it from high above were able to make out the yellowish knife-like shape set against the dark green forest. He wasn’t sure how accurate their bombardment would be, and he hoped their pilots would keep their distance.

  In the Saber colony control center the Archons on station received the coordinates relayed from the Canderians and remotely targeted their warships in low orbit that happened to be above that portion of the planet. The Sabers had two in position, as well as a third borrowed from 1st fleet. Two other Clan warships were also nearby and would come within range shortly, but the Sabers had wisely been using their engines to align for optimum orbital positioning while the other Clans hadn’t been so savvy.

  The 1st fleet corvette took aim as it orbited by, making for a difficult, but not impossible shot. The two Saber ships, however, had been upgraded with anti-grav drives sufficient to ‘float’ their ships above the surface of the planet. One was a destroyer, the other a light frigate, and Paul had specifically had the newer designs incorporate the technology for just this purpose.

  Having negated most of their orbital speed by now, the two Saber warships drifted low, just above the top of the atmosphere as the first rail gun slug fell at an angle past them from the 1st fleet corvette. It was followed by a steady stream of slugs, with about 5-second intervals, that pummeled the area tagged as the lizard ship’s location as the two Saber ships joined in with their heavier rail guns.

  More accurate due to the closer range and lack of lateral orbital speed, 62% of the slugs they delivered to target impacted the wide profile of the lizard ship, while the narrow edge stared at the surrounding and waiting fighters, giving the warships the best possible attack profile. Their rail gun slugs, each a massive chunk of iron mixed with other elements and blunted to apply maximum concussive force, hit the top of the ship and sparkled against the shields, though no one was in a good position to observe the spectacle.
/>
  The metal smashed against the physical shields and deformed, breaking through layer after layer of shield matrix as the cylindrical slug of metal mushed into a glob and bled off its kinetic energy, spraying glowing shards as the impact friction heated the pieces past the melting point. They resolidified in mid air and rained down on the forest or other parts of the shield while the main glob rebounded up into the air like sleet hitting and bouncing off of frozen ground.

  As impressive as the lizards’ shields were, they couldn’t stand up against much of that punishment, and after the first few dozen impacts the ship began to move forward on a gentle rise up towards orbit, making it damn hard to track.

  “Target drifting south,” Brad reported. “And gaining altitude. Looks like it’s coming up to play,” he said as one of the slugs got through the shields and poked a tiny hole in the upper hull.

  “Shield penetration,” one of the Ninja Monkeys reported as they began to fly alongside the ship at extreme range. “Mark our position at approximately 40 km. Foxes, give them a range and they can use us as targeting brackets.”

  “Best guess,” Brad said, trying to size up the distance mixed with the intermittent sensor bounces from the large ship, “25 kilometers.” He set his sensor ping to automatic, with it sounding off every 1.5 seconds.

  “28 kilometers,” Ras added, keeping pace from behind as the cruiser slipped south.

  “21 kilometers,” Ally reported.

  “Back off a bit,” Brad said over his group’s individual comm. “I know it’s almost impossible to hit a fighter from orbit, but don’t take the chance. Try and stay at least 25 out.”

  “I can’t fly backwards,” Ally pointed out, “so I’m having to zigzag to maintain visual contact.”

  “Zigzag faster,” Brad suggested as a few more rail gun slugs made it through the shields, all with diminished momentum which negated their destructive power. Poke enough holes, he knew, and the entire shield matrix would collapse, but he didn’t figure they were anywhere close to that point yet.

  “Better do what you can now,” he suggest over open comm. “We’re not going to be able to stay with them much longer. They’re definitely headed for space.”

  10

  “Do we still have a visual lock?” Harrison asked.

  “Yes,” one of the Canderians said, referencing the feeds coming from the warships.

  “Coordinate all the feeds and plot their course as best you can.”

  “Yes, Archon.”

  Harrison looked at the holographic display and where their warships were positioned around orbit. There were a few pairs here and there, but for the most part they were spread out. Soon a probability cone arose, coming up from the planet and continually shrinking as position data was updated.

  He picked three points around that cone higher up in orbit and designated them as rendezvous points for his other warships while the three currently engaged poured more and more rail gun slugs down on the target as it was now just escaping the atmosphere.

  “Stay with it,” he said into his earpiece.

  In response the Saber destroyer and light frigate began moving up and back as they kept up distant fire on the now quickly moving target. Most of their rail gun slugs were missing, given that the lizard ship had tipped upward, no longer offering its wide profile as a target. Before long it would be upon the two Saber ships, either to engage or blow past them. Harrison knew they had to keep a ship on its heels at all times else they’d lose the contact since they couldn’t follow it on sensors.

  The 1st fleet corvette was already passing by, nearly out of position as it rounded the planet in orbit, but several other ships were coming into range, both Saber and otherwise, closing in a very loose net, one that Harrison wasn’t sure would be able to hold.

  He saw the speed indicator for the enemy ship jump up and realized that they were indeed making a run for it, not even attempting to settle into an orbit but going straight up and cutting across the orbital tracks directly…which meant many of their ships would not be in a position to follow.

  “Anyone who can chase get going,” Harrison announced to the room.

  “We’ve got them if you can keep eyes on them a little longer,” San said from his terminal as he ordered his Clan fleet to intercept as a group from their position orbiting the moon of Dxun. They weren’t right next door, but rather at a 58 degree angle off the projected flight path of the target and with enough altitude to cover the distance for a possible intercept.

  “We’ve got eyes,” Mara said as some of the Star Fox ships in higher orbits began moving into position to form a visual relay, some of which were on a direct line with the target and accelerating out from the planet as well so as to match speeds. “We’re going to take a few potshots on the way, then they’re all yours, Monkeys.”

  On the holographic display Harrison saw one of the 1st fleet missile ships launch a long range salvo ahead of the target, with the missiles flying almost the completely opposite direction. This wasn’t a mistake on its part, but rather the same tactic the outer warships were using to set up an intercept. The target was now moving so fast that it would be almost impossible to hit head on so the missiles had to accelerate in the same direction to reduce relative speeds in order to have a chance of contact.

  The hologram showed the missile positions, but there was still only an indeterminate dot where the visual recorders and some mathematical guesswork were putting it. Harrison also knew that the missiles fired had no lock on target, which meant they were being guided by controllers back down on the planet. It wasn’t a very favorable circumstance, but at the moment it was all they had as the target zipped by the position of the 1st fleet warship and continued to head out away from the planet.

  “Bring up the missile telemetry,” Harrison told the Canderians, with a scattering of tiny camera images popping up next to the hologram. Nothing was visible except stars and Dxun on the far left, meaning the missiles were still out ahead of the target. A few moments later the missile images turned as a group to the right and a small, flat object appeared in the corner of the screen, growing larger by the second.

  “There it is,” Harrison whispered, watching the warheads close fast. He knew the controllers were watching the same feeds and flying the missiles in manually, but his interest was getting a good look at the ship. So far all they’d gotten up here was fuzzy, long range images.

  When the knife-like ship stretched from one edge of the screen to the other it began to rotate around, exposing its flat lower surface to the missiles as a shower of green particles manifested at several points on the hull and flew out towards the missiles. At first nothing happened, but then the missiles’ visual feeds began cutting out one by one until only 3 of the 36 were left. Harrison got a good, up close view of the ship’s hull as they rammed into the target and detonated, but whatever damage they did or didn’t do he couldn’t know, since their cameras had also been destroyed on impact.

  The run up to impact did tell him one important thing…there were dozens of the smaller ships attached to the hull of what must have been some form of carrier/base.

  Another small view of the ship appeared in the holographic map of planetary orbit, this one coming from a Star Fox warship that was accelerating hard towards an intercept. Watching the live video and the tracking points on the map Harrison suddenly realized that the target was faster than their ships and the cruiser in question wasn’t going to be able to catch up.

  Coming to that same conclusion the Star Fox warship launched a series of rail gun slugs from its forward arc, cutting all plasma engines to increase accuracy and hoping for a lucky hit. It fired off 8 rounds before giving up and watched the little dots on the map fly across the distance between itself and the ghost ship.

  Another Star Fox ship, this one a destroyer, was nearly matching the target’s acceleration, coming in at a similar angle to the cruiser but farther up the orbital ladder. Its camera view soon became the dominant one in the Canderian comm
and center and showed a decent image of two of the rail gun slugs hitting the target and splattering against its shields.

  For a brief moment the disruption in the energy matrix was so intense that the ship popped up on sensor scans, giving them a fixed point to begin reworking their course plotting from before it disappeared again as the shield matrix settled back down and began replenishing the damaged areas with additional power from the generator.

  “Good hit,” Anders commented. “Keep it up and maybe the Ninja Monkeys can put it down.”

  Harrison glanced at the upper edge of the holographic map. “You got the back door covered?”

  “Working on it,” Anders said, having his fleet spread out around high orbit, but with at least a few ships within possible intercept range an hour or two out if they could maintain visual contact that long.

  As the range closed between the target and the destroyer the Clan warship began shooting off rail gun slugs and missiles with no return fire coming from the enemy until the missiles got in close and were hit by scatter fire. Most of them were knocked out, but half of the rail gun slugs hit the target, whacking large holes in its shield matrix. As the range shrank down even further the destroyer opened fire with its own plasma cannons, seeing the light blue streaks blur and fade out before impact.

  The Star Fox pilots kept firing anyway, wanting to get a hit in at extreme range but it was the lizards’ ship that got there first. A green sphere of plasma shot off from the ship and crossed laterally over to the box-like destroyer and splashed against its shields. The bolt of plasma had dissipated significantly before impact, but it still ate up more than half the shield strength on point of impact…which was large, given the water balloon-like splash effect.