“Care to keep these ugly little buggers off our asses while we stuff their big ships full of explosives?”
Justin chuckled, and smatterings of laughter rippled through the commlink. “We’ve got your back,” he said as he rolled his Sabre around and accelerated toward the bomber formation. “Alphas Two and Four, finish off those bombers.”
“Wilco,” Feldstein replied quickly.
Martin’s voice came through loud and clear. “Glad to hear it, Spencer. Cheers, mate. I’ve got some beers on ice waiting for us. While we’re at it, maybe we can find something besides missiles to stuff into these buggers, eh?”
“Keep the commlinks clear for proper traffic,” Major Whatley suddenly barked.
It felt like the school principal finding you in the hall without a pass. The line stayed silent, as apparently no one wanted to respond. I oughta tell him to get out here and fight, rather than worry about our comms traffic. Justin grinned as he closed the distance on Gamma element. The idea that they were fighting up-gunned pirates went through his head again, but he rejected it. No, we’re fighting another military. But who? The craft attacking them matched nothing in the database, nor did the style of ship design.
The bomber pilots knew their business. Martin and the three other Maulers settled into a tight cluster formation resembling an upright diamond, allowing each to engage without being behind a friendly craft. It made life easy for Justin, as all he had to do was settle in above their formation with Adeoye. However, their opponents weren’t content to let them just blast their ships. Another wave of the snub-nosed, red-tinted fighters launched, and his HUD immediately labeled them hostile. “Alpha Three, break and engage inbound enemies.”
“Acknowledged, Alpha One,” Adeoye replied as he rolled away and engaged his Sabre’s afterburner.
Justin flew right behind him, lining up the lead enemy in his sights. The kilometers dropped quickly, and before long, the missile-lock-on tone sounded in his cockpit. Justin squeezed the firing button for a single Vulture active LIDAR-guided weapon. “Alpha One, fox three.” The missile dropped out of the munitions bay, and its engine engaged, accelerating toward the target. Six seconds later, the Vulture exploded against the enemy’s forward shield, while Justin poured neutron cannon fire into the mix.
Most of the enemies had broken off when struck by weapons fire, but not this one. The craft refused to alter course, instead sending bolt after bolt of red energy directly at Justin’s fighter. Hits piled up on his Sabre’s forward shield, and its protection rating dropped like a stone. He adjusted his shield power and redirected the aft generator forward, buying him precious few seconds to continue pouring neutron cannon fire onto the enemy. It worked—the black-and-red craft exploded in a brief flash of orange and blue before the vacuum of space consumed all available oxygen from the hapless fighter’s life-support system.
“Alpha One, splash one,” Justin called as he balanced the remaining deflector power his Sabre retained.
Adeoye’s fighter zoomed ahead, entering a series of interlocking scissors maneuvers with one of the other three enemy craft. He and the enemy pilot traded energy-weapons fire, each scoring several hits until Adeoye locked into the cone of lethality. A sustained stream of neutron-cannon bolts later, the unknown craft blew up.
“Nice shooting, Alpha Three,” Justin said.
“Whoever these guys are, they explode really well,” Mateus interjected. “Alpha Four, splash one.”
“Eyes on the ball, Lieutenant,” Justin replied with a chuckle.
While the furball continued, the friendly bomber element steadily closed the distance to the enemy frigate they’d lined up on. Justin tried to monitor his HUD’s LIDAR display as the deadly dance between his Sabre and the hostile fighters continued, to make sure nothing broke off to chase down the vulnerable bombers.
“We’re ten seconds out, chaps,” Martin said. “I’ve got a green light, Javelin ready. Gamma One, fox one.” He used the brevity code for firing an anti-ship missile.
Each one of Gamma’s bombers loosed a Javelin, which headed directly for the frigate labeled Master Three. With no escorting fighters between the warheads and their target, the only remaining obstacle was the enemy vessel’s point defense system. It flung a hail of small red plasma balls into the void, which made for an impressive display, but that was all it did. Three out of four missiles impacted its forward shield quarter, hammering down the frigate’s shields and blowing off a sizeable chunk off its bow. Secondary explosions began, and after a few seconds, the entire vessel blew apart into one-meter-sized pieces. No life pods launched.
“Take that, you stupid buggers!” Martin shouted. “Now, let's go piss on the next one, mates!”
As infectious as his enthusiasm was, something in the back of Justin’s mind told him that cheering the death of hundreds of people or aliens probably wasn’t the right way to approach the situation. But he set the thought aside and picked his next target.
Tehrani stared out the transparent alloy “window” at the front of the Zvika Greengold’s bridge. It took several seconds for the explosion resulting from Master Three’s destruction to die down. As it did, it cast a shadow across the entire combat information center. Two down, two to go. A glance at her tactical readout showed that the largest ship, Master Four, still had most of its deflector strength intact.
“Conn, TAO. Aspect change, wormholes inbound,” Bryan began. “Both are CDF signature, ma’am. CSV Glasgow and CSV Sheffield, designated Sierra Two and Three.”
The last of our escorts. “Plug them into the tactical network, Lieutenant. Designate Master Four as the primary target for all ships and bombers,” Tehrani said.
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Her eyes went back to the tactical plot on the screen built into the CO’s chair. Blue icons of the Greengold’s escorts and fighter squadrons filled the display. They swarmed around the two remaining red icons like bees. Additional symbols for anti-ship missiles appeared from the flight of bombers and quickly accelerated into the side of Master One, merging with its icon and blinking out.
“Conn, TAO. Aspect change, Master One. She’s powering up
