Voidhawks were in pursuit. Four of the nine combat-capable independent traders were also under acceleration. Two of them, Datura and Cereus , were heading on a vector straight towards the squadron at two and a half gees. They wouldn’t respond to any warning calls from the Arikara , nor Terrance Smith.
“Haria, Gakkai , go to defensive engagement status, please,” Meredith datavised. The situation display showed him the two frigates end their deceleration burn, flip over, and accelerate ahead of the rest of the squadron.
“What is the state of the remaining mercenary ships?” the Admiral enquired.
“Smith claims the starships remaining in orbit are obeying his orders, and therefore haven’t been hijacked,” said Lieutenant Franz Grese, the squadron Intelligence officer.
“What do you think?”
“I think Commander Solanki was right, and we’d better be very careful, Admiral.”
“Agreed. Commander Kroeber, we’ll send a marine squad into the Gemal first. If we can verify that Smith himself hasn’t been hijacked or sequestrated it may just make our job that bit easier.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The tactical situation warned him the Datura and Cereus were launching combat wasps. Meredith observed in astonishment as each of them released a salvo of thirty-five; according to the accompanying identification codes the starships were small vehicles, forty to forty-five metres in diameter. They couldn’t have held back any reserves—what absurd tactics. The drone armaments began to accelerate from their launch craft at twenty gees.
“No antimatter, Admiral,” datavised Second Lieutenant Clark Lowie, the Arikara ’s weapons officer. “Fusion drives only.”
That’s something, Meredith thought. “What’s their storage capacity?”
“Best estimate would be forty combat wasps maximum, Admiral.”
“So they haven’t left any for their own defence?”
“Looks that way, sir.”
Haria and Gakkai launched a counter salvo; eighty combat wasps leaping ahead to intercept the incoming hostiles at twenty-seven gees. Purple, red, and green vector lines sprang up in Meredith’s mind, as if someone was performing laser acupuncture right across his skull. The combat wasps started to squirt megawatt electronic warfare pulses at each other. Active and kinetic submunitions began to scatter. Two disc-shaped swarms formed, five hundred kilometres across, alive with deceitful impulses and infrared signatures. Electron beams flashed out, perfectly straight lightning bolts glaring against the starfield. The first explosions flared. Kiloton nuclear devices were detonated on each side. Smaller explosions followed as combat wasps blew apart under the prodigious energy impact.
A second, smaller, salvo was launched by the frigates, compensating for the loss.
“Admiral, the Myoho reports the blackhawk it’s chasing is about to swallow outsystem,” Lieutenant Rhoecus called. “Request permission to follow.”
“Granted. Follow and interdict; it is not to come into contact with inhabited Confederation territory.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
A vast circle of space burst into pyrotechnic oblivion as the two antagonistic combat wasp swarms collided, as though a giant wormhole had been torn open into the heart of a nearby star. The annular plasma storm eddied violently, radiating down through the visible spectrum in seconds until only nebulous violet mists were left.
Arikara ’s sensor clusters struggled to burn through the conflagration and present an accurate representation of events through the tactical situation display. Some submunitions from both sides had survived. Now they were accelerating towards their intended targets. All four combatant ships began high-gee evasive manoeuvres.
Myoho and its blackhawk disappeared from the display. Granth and Ilex both fired a volley of combat wasps at their respective prey.
Haria ’s masers began to fire as the remaining submunitions closed on it. Small vivid explosions peppered nearby space. Rail guns thumped out a stream of steel spheres which formed a last-ditch kinetic umbrella. Eight surviving submunitions drones detected it, three of them were gamma-pulse lasers. A second before they struck the umbrella they fired.
Large oval sections of the frigate’s hull turned cherry red under the radiation assault. Molecular-binding generators maxed out as they fought to keep the monobonded silicon’s structure intact. The energy-dispersal web below the silicon struggled to absorb and redistribute the intense influx. All the sensor clusters either melted or had their electronics burnt out by the gamma-ray deluge. Replacement clusters rose immediately; but the starship was blind for a period of three seconds.
In that time the remaining five submunitions hit the kinetic umbrella. They disintegrated instantly, but hypervelocity fragments kept coming. With the sensors unable to see them and direct the frigate’s close-range weapons they struck the hull and vaporized. The binding generators, already heavily stressed, couldn’t handle the additional loading. There were half a dozen localized punctures. Fists of plasma punched inwards. Internal systems melted and fused as they were exposed. Fuel tanks ripped open sending hundred-metre fountains of vaporizing deuterium shooting out.
“Bellah , assist, please,” Commander Kroeber ordered. “Rescue and recovery.” The stricken frigate’s emergency beacon was howling across the distress bands. The life-support capsules should have easily withstood the strike. Even as he requested more information from the computer the sensor image showed him ion thrusters firing to slow the frigate’s wayward tumble.
With all of their combat-wasp stocks exhausted in the first salvo, Datura and Cereus were left with only short-range masers to defend themselves against the assault from the frigates’ drones. The electronic warfare barrage was unrelenting as the drones closed at twenty gees, defeating the starships’ sensors. The two mercenary starships exploded within seconds of each other.
A cheer went round the Arikara ’s bridge. Meredith felt like joining in.
“Admiral, another blackhawk is leaving orbit,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said.
Meredith cursed, he really couldn’t spare another voidhawk. A quick check on the tactical display revealed little information, the blackhawk was on the other side of Lalonde from the squadron. “Which is the nearest voidhawk?”
“The Acacia , Admiral.”
“Can they hit it with combat wasps?”
“They have a launch window, but estimate only a thirty per cent chance of success.”
“Tell them to launch, but remain in orbit.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Bellah reports survivors from the Haria have been detected, Admiral,” Commander Kroeber said. “They’re matching velocities.”
“Good. Hinnels, has there been any reaction from the Juliffe cloud bands?”
“Nothing specific, sir. But they’ve been growing wider at a constant rate, the area they’re covering has increased by one and a half per cent since we arrived. It adds up to a respectable volume.”
Another combat-wasp battle raged high above Lalonde’s terminator as the drones from the Granth encountered defences fired by their prey. Then the blackhawk vanished down a wormhole interstice. Three seconds later Granth followed.
“Damn,” Meredith muttered.
But the Ilex was having better luck. Its combat-wasp salvo had forced the blackhawk it was chasing to flee back down towards the planet.
