With a shake of her head, Tehrani stared at the tactical plot and drew a series of lines over the touch screen. “Navigation, input the course I just drew into the system and drop us ten thousand meters, Z-axis.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Mitzner replied.
As the Zvika Greengold worked her way toward the fight, the Marcus Luttrell carried on the battle. First, it turned at the last moment after entering maximum effective weapons range and made almost all the plasma balls fired by the League destroyers miss. Then with the grace of a ballet dancer, the ship let loose with a full alpha strike of magnetic-cannon rounds, neutron beams, and missiles. Before the enemy could get a shot in, the Luttrell darted out of range—to begin the deadly dance once more.
Tehrani watched the plot like a hawk. The moment the Greengold cleared the last merchant ship, she barked, “TAO, firing point procedures, forward neutron beams, Master Four.”
“Firing solutions set, ma’am.”
“Match bearings, shoot, forward neutron beams.”
Two blue spears of energy shot out from the carrier’s bow. Moving at the speed of light, they made contact with the League destroyer’s shields and hammered away at them. Meanwhile, the Marcus Luttrell let loose with every weapon system it could bring to bear. As the last missile slammed into the energy barrier, the deflectors failed, and the blue beams made contact with the hull. The alloy turned molten and glowed red.
“Conn, TAO. Master Four shields are down.”
Tehrani grinned wryly at Wright. “XO, I heard those Boar pilots are always bragging about how ballsy their fighters are. I think it’s time they put up or shut up.”
“Couldn’t agree more, ma’am.” Wright touched a button on his chair. “XO to the boss. Launch the alert Boars.”
As Tehrani turned back to the tactical plot, a new group of icons appeared directly outside of the Greengold’s launch bay. May Allah help them in their goal.
A League space-superiority fighter blew apart less than five hundred meters from Justin’s Sabre. The brief orange explosion was a funeral pyre for the unlucky pilot who flew it. He rocked his flight stick to the right, avoiding a collision with fragments from the hull. More red dots appeared on his HUD as additional enemy craft entered the battlespace.
“Alpha, re-form and defend the bombers. They’re taking another pass at us.”
“Wilco, sir,” Feldstein replied, her voice staticky over the commlink. “Looks like the Boars are getting into the fight.”
Four new blue icons appeared representing the Gamma element. They raced away from the Zvika Greengold and headed directly for the nearest League destroyer—Master Four— hich still hadn’t been able to rebuild its shield grid. The Mauler bombers twisted, with Alpha providing close support, and came around for another pass.
Justin tightened his grip on the flight stick as a formation of three League fighters zoomed toward them. Inbound missiles lit up his LIDAR array but not the lock-on warning system: the enemy was firing exclusively at the bombers. “Alpha, drop chaff. Now, now, now. Break left and engage bandits.” He hoped the LIDAR-spoofing material would help confuse the warheads.
One of the Leaguers entered his sights as he brought his Sabre around. Justin squeezed the trigger for his miniaturized neutron cannons, sending dozens of blue bolts into the void.
“Alpha Two, fox three,” Feldstein called. A Vulture detached from her fighter and zipped away. A few moments later, it slammed into a League craft and blew off part of its wing. Sustained bursts from her neutron cannons finished the enemy off. “Alpha Two, splash one.”
Momentarily distracted, Justin glanced out of the canopy of his cockpit as the Boars roared into the fight. Most Terran Coalition fighters appeared aesthetically pleasing. Not so the squat armored Boar. It wasn’t built for looks. Instead, it was built to blow things up. Coming in at a high rate of sublight speed, the group of four lit up the enemy destroyer. Every couple of seconds, each craft fired a round from its ventral-integrated magnetic cannon, shredding armor and subsystems wherever they hit. Dumb-fire rockets and neutron-cannon bolts added to the maelstrom. At least two of the vessel’s plasma-cannon turrets exploded, while anti-ship missiles from the Mauler element slammed into the already-damaged hull. Secondary blasts erupted from areas already damaged by CDF weapons fire, and the League ship began to drift.
“Scratch one destroyer,” Green, the squadron commander for the Black Hogs, announced.
Justin scanned his HUD, searching for additional targets. Not too shabby. Hope that they would beat back the enemy with limited losses rose in him.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have been so quick to insult those Boar pilots,” Wright said with a chuckle.
While everything on the bridge was still bathed in blue light, Tehrani couldn’t help but feel the room had brightened just a tad. Two enemy destroyers down in a few minutes would do that to the mood. She locked eyes on the tactical plot. One left. Her recollection of the after-action reports from the previous convoy runs suggested two waves followed by a pause then more attackers. We should get a break to rearm and tee up the next fighter elements on deck. “Yes, I think you’re right, Major,” Tehrani murmured. “We owe them an extra-special dinner tonight from the senior-officers’ mess.”
“Agreed.”
The kernel of hope in Tehrani’s gut grew as the last wave of fighters and bombers the Leaguers launched was quickly eliminated. Until Bryan interrupted her thoughts, that was.
“Conn, TAO. Aspect change… inbound wormhole.”
Tehrani let out a breath. So much for military intelligence. She steeled herself for what came next.
“Conn, TAO. New contact identified as Rand-class heavy cruiser. Designated Master Six.”
There had to be some irony in the universe somewhere for CDF command to name a ship from a communist empire hellbent on conquering the Terran Coalition after Ayn Rand. Tehrani only knew of Rand in passing from her childhood education—that and a planet named Galt, beyond the Coalition’s frontiers. They’d long proclaimed to be
