Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Read online

  “Handy.”

  Colgan cracked a grin. “Isn’t it? They can let us in, or rather you in. After that, all bets are off. I won’t bullshit you, Major. Sending your people in now ahead of my attack on Jean de Vienne is risky. If they get a jump, they could take Astron out and you with it.”

  “But you don’t think they will.”

  “I’m betting on my ship and crew being better than them and Anya is a damn good tactical officer. Francis has given me some options that I think will more than tip the scales. If it works out, I’ll need you again to board the wreck of Tait’s ship.” His face hardened. “And it will be a wreck when I’m done. Because of the risk, I’m asking for volunteers.”

  Appleford’s face gave nothing away but his voice betrayed anger. “I don’t like the situation you’ve engineered me into, but I like pirates even less. I can’t do other than volunteer and we both know it. I’ll choose the rest of the volunteers now. We’ll be ready to go in thirty.”

  “Thirty minutes, no longer. Tait gave us an hour and we’ve already eaten into that.”

  “Screw Tait.”

  “Agreed,” Colgan said. “But I want to hit him hard at a time of my choosing not his.”

  Appleford nodded and cut the circuit without courtesy.

  Colgan sighed. He really missed Canada. His old ship had run like a fine watch, with precision. He hadn’t needed to dance around feelings back then. He pushed to his feet and headed back onto the bridge to retake his chair. He wanted Francis back at scan. She was his best.

  When the time came, Colgan watched the assault shuttles race toward Astron keeping in the shadow of the huge ship. Lieutenant Ivanova nodded that all was in readiness. Warrior was in stealth mode, her nanocoat set to black and her electronic emissions dialled way down. Her stealth field was at maximum, keeping any emissions within the bubble of protection it generated, letting nothing escape. It was her equivalent of silent running. That would change the moment she opened fire. No ship could remain stealthed under such circumstances. Her ECM alone would light up the boards of any ship looking for her, and of course weapons fire could be tracked back to a general location.

  “The drone?” Colgan asked.

  “In position and programmed, sir,” Anya said. “I have it mimicking our usual output and following us two thousand metres astern of us. I threw in some random course changes for giggles. Nothing too fancy, but enough to look like real manoeuvring to avoid fire. I figured it would look off if it just went in fat and happy.”

  “Outstanding,” Colgan said. “The decoy swarm?”

  “Ready when you give the word, sir.”

  Colgan nodded, took a last look at the assault shuttles on his number two monitor, and said, “The word is given.”

  The swarm of decoys punched out of their bays and roared away, heading in a mass over the top of MV Astron. Meanwhile, Warrior leapt onto a new course diving under the merchant ship towing the hundred ton drone. The decoys deployed between Astron and the enemy, spreading out to cover the vulnerable ship, and reaching out with powerful sensors ready to intercept missile fire. They were good tech, designed and redesigned through many iterations to defend against the best the Alliance or the Merkiaari had ever fired at one another. What they couldn’t do however, was intercept directed energy weapons. Still, they could and did degrade Jean de Vienne’s targeting solutions, hashing sensors and generally making Astron harder to hit. Come the moment, they would sacrifice themselves against her missiles.

  Warrior sped under Astron and back up toward the enemy. The moment Jean de Vienne appeared in Anya’s engagement envelope unobstructed by Astron, her preplanned fire mission executed via computer control. Her lasers and grazers spoke, and they had a lot to say. A lot. Anya Ivanova was a tactical officer with some experience under her belt, and she had big ears to boot. She had taken note of her skipper’s earlier words regarding Jean de Vienne and how taking out her engineering spaces would mean no bang-bang from Tait. That sort of attack guaranteed a lot of casualties and a ship fit only for scuttling after the action. No prize money. Knowing her skipper’s thoughts and his attitude regarding raider casualties, she thought it would be a fine thing to make his vague idea into her attack plan. Born on Last Chance (AKA Flotsam) where many raiders were based, gave her intimate knowledge of scum like Tait and his crew. She had no qualms about killing the lot of them.

  Warrior’s energy mounts swivelled, locked on, and spoke, and went on speaking. In fact, they got quite chatty with Jean de Vienne’s aft and mid section. Mega joules of energy reached out to rend the ship and were dumped into overworked shields. The shields were mil-spec of course. The Banshee class of destroyers were quite respectable ships. Their weapons were older designs, but not greatly different to Warrior’s. Except in number and output. Warrior was an Excalibur class heavy cruiser, and only recently superseded by the brand new Washington class. A Banshee had no business standing toe to toe with any heavy cruiser, and especially not an Excalibur. Tait knew that; any captain worth the name would, but to give credit where it was due he had little choice but to try.

  Jean de Vienne’s shields fluoresced and tried to shrug off the attack. They succeeded surprisingly well in the opening moments of the attack, and gave Tait enough time to manoeuvre. Unfortunately for him, Anya had anticipated everything he could reasonably be expected to do and had taken steps. Tait flushed his tubes, the dozen missiles he had threatened them with leapt toward Astron as he powered up, but Anya’s decoy swarm was right there waiting. They hashed the missile’s targeting sensors and with finicky precision manoeuvred to intercept. A dozen decoys died accomplishing their mission, leaving a like number awaiting their turn should Tait manage another broadside. Colgan didn’t expect it. Missiles were expensive ordnance and raiders, no matter how successful, lived their often short lives watching the bottom line. Tait had probably just thrown away upwards of five million credits. Maybe he’d weighed the cost of using his missiles against the cost of his life and ship. Who knew? Regardless, Colgan didn’t begrudge the use of his decoys against the missiles; that’s what they were for. Besides, any not destroyed could be recovered and reused.

  Warrior’s energy mounts poured fire into Jean de Vienne and her shields were penetrated in multiple strikes. Despite that, the beams were bent and degraded causing Anya’s fire to lose effectiveness. The hits were more like glancing blows than knockout punches. It didn’t matter. It was part of her job to analyse the effectiveness of her hits and make adjustments. Her tactical team worked with her like a finely tuned instrument to refine targeting solutions, and slowly the glancing blows became slashes, peeling away nanocoat to reveal the armour beneath. Those slashes became hammer blows, and atmosphere belched from the destroyer even as it tried to run.

  “Idiot,” Colgan muttered as he watched the attack on his number one monitor where it displayed in miniature a view similar to that displayed on Anya’s much larger tactical plot piped from CIC.

  Tait should have rolled ship and fired his port broadside on the heels of his first, but with Warrior the target. That would have forced Anya on the defensive, if only briefly, and may have given Tait a window of opportunity. Trying to run had turned his vulnerable engines toward Warrior, limiting his ability to attack at the same time as revealing his ship’s main weakness. Colgan nodded to himself as Tait realised his error and tried to correct it with a hard skew turn, wrenching his arse out of the line of fire. It worked, sort of, but only for a few brief seconds. Anya’s muttered curse made Colgan smile, but it was a cold smile. Her half dozen clear misses were nothing in the grand scheme. She quickly corrected, and scored more hits. This time the result was more than satisfactory.

  “Got him!” Anya crowed as Jean de Vienne’s emissions spiked wildly. “Look at that bitch flare!”

  Colgan nodded as Warrior’s computer analysed and displayed the new data. “Very nice, Weps, but he’s still going for jump.”

  “Not for long” she muttered.

  The f
lare in emissions faded revealing Tait’s ship had been badly damaged. She was streaming debris and atmosphere in her wake from the hits amidships over her fusion room, but the damage to her engines was the real deal breaker for Tait. His propulsion was down by a third. Definite hits on two of his drives then, Colgan mused. The emissions flare was caused by mega joules of energy being dumped into the ship’s drives cascading through the engine room into the ship’s power grid. Cut-outs and safety systems could limit but never prevent such damage. Enough damage could even force the reactors to shutdown entirely, or in extreme circumstances jettison themselves to save the ship from destruction. Ejection systems and blowout panels were fully automated.

  Tait continued his turn and Colgan braced for the inevitable. He was going to attack. He wondered if he was about to receive those hypothetical missiles, but no, Tait attacked with his lasers. Surely if he had them, he would have flushed his tubes at this juncture. Colgan began to doubt Tait had any missiles left to use. Maybe he had shot his entire magazine dry.

  Money again.

  Anya re-prioritised her targeting and poured fire into the enemy trying to gnaw the hole in Jean de Vienne’s vitals wider and deeper. She had already holed the ship early in the action, but now she tried to bore into the ship’s guts, seeking her fusion room.

  “Incoming!” Groves said, but the announcement was unneeded and too late anyway. Lasers were light speed weapons.

  “Shields holding!” Anya cried and punched her commit button flat. Without pausing, she set up the next firing pattern in her queue and punched the commit button again, and then again. “He’s concentrating fire.”

  Made sense. Warrior’s shields and armour were superior. If Tait had any chance he needed to concentrate fire on a small area. His crew’s gunnery was exemplary, Colgan thought unhappily. Shields were failing.

  “Roll ship, continue action with port-side weapons,” Colgan snapped as shield failure warnings screamed.

  “Aye, sir,” Janice at the helm said and Warrior rolled presenting fresh undamaged shields to the enemy.

  “No damage reported, Skipper,” Ensign Carstens at damage control said. “Shield generators were stressed a little,” he added with a grin.

  Colgan raised a hand to acknowledge the report. Stressed generators weren’t actually something to grin about. Stresses could turn into failures, but he didn’t reprimand the man. It was good that his crew felt confident. Colgan had time to wonder if Appleford was feeling as confident, and how the marine’s fight was progressing.

  Lasers and grazers slashed across the distance between the ships, each pinning the other under lethal beams. Tait’s ship was streaming atmosphere, Colgan’s seemed invulnerable, but then the first failure aboard Warrior occurred and multiple beams stabbed into her bow.

  “Report!”

  “Magazine three open to space,” Carstens said and sighed with relief. “No casualties.”

  No casualties was just plain good luck. The missile magazines were automated, but often needed crew to debug problems in battle. The attack plan had been to use energy weapons, and so the magazine had not been crewed. Lucky. He didn’t like relying upon luck and considered using his nukes or laser head missiles after all, but before the decision could be made Anya succeeded.

  “Yes!” Anya howled. “Got him, Skip. That has to be his fusion room. See the spike? Yeah... it’s his fusion room, definitely. There go the ejection panels.”

  Colgan watched the huge hatches blast away from the ship followed closely by the core of Tait’s reactor. The ship staggered sideways, a reaction to the ejection mechanism and the core’s detonation some thirty seconds or so later. All fire was cut as Jean de Vienne’s weapons lost power.

  “Hold fire,” Colgan said. “Keep her under your guns, Weps, but I promised Major Appleford he could visit Tait and explain to him the error of his ways.”

  Anya chuckled.

  Groves grinned. “She’s drifting, Skipper. I expect we’ll see... yes there see? She’s using manoeuvring thrusters to get back under control and trim course. It’s all she’s got left. She’s done.”

  “Janice, bring us even with the wreck, but do not close with her. Match course and speed to whatever she settles down to.”

  “Aye, aye,” Janice said and started working her panel.

  Colgan turned his station to face the comm shack. “Mark, get me an update from Major Appleford, please.”

  “Aye, sir,” Mark Ricks said.

  * * *

  2 ~ Old Soldiers Bold Soldiers

  Under fire, Aboard MV Astron

  “He’s gone!” Sergeant ‘Deacon’ Churchill shouted when his captain failed to respond. Appleford was dead and there was no fixing it. He grabbed the armoured arm of Perry’s suit and snarled in his face. “He’s fucking goooone!”

  Captain Shawn Perry, 3rd Alliance Marines was in hell. This couldn’t be happening. He blinked at Deacon’s red face wondering at the rage displayed there. Rage at Appleford’s death? No, it was directed at him. He looked away and back down at Appleford’s staring eyes, but Deacon wrenched him around and away from the ghastly sight.

  “Get a fucking grip and take command!” Deacon hissed over a private channel. “You’re in command, sir!”

  Command? But he wasn’t supposed to... Appleford said... Perry swallowed. He was only a lieutenant last month! He wanted the Major not to be dead so bad he couldn’t think, but he had to. The situation was going down the crapper fast. Everything was FUBAR and Appleford wasn’t the only marine to die in the ambush they had just walked into. Four good men had been cut down without warning, five including the Major.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way! Marines didn’t get their butts kicked by pirates like this, not ever, except maybe on Zelda’s ridiculous show. Anger burned in his guts. This wasn’t a sensim where the blood was added through computer manipulation. This was real life and death stuff, and it was time to grow a pair and make the killers of his marines, his marines, pay! He knew the plan. Appleford had been good that way, keeping his people in the loop. Astron’s crew still firmly held engineering and the bridge, so nothing had changed... only everything had for one newly minted Captain Perry.

  He licked his lips and nodded at Deacon. “I err... sorry,” he said and winced. Don’t apologise to a ranker, idiot! Be commanding, be confident or at least fake it. “Bring Barnes’ fire team forward. Choose someone else to watch the back door.”

  Deacon’s face flooded with relief. “Aye, sir”

  Perry watched Deacon head off, and turned his attention to the fight. His men, his men, were pinned down just beyond the main corridor leading from their entry point in one of the cargo bays to the central backbone of the ship. Merchies like Astron were huge multi-million ton ships, but they were essentially just a collection of hollow boxes linked together and protected by a pressure hull. Crew quarters, engineering spaces, environmental, the bridge, and a thousand other things were packed in between and around the boxes and those fiddly bits all needed pressurised corridors linking them together so that the crew could work comfortably. The boxes, Astron’s holds, could be pressurised or not depending upon cargo needs.

  His marines didn’t need an atmosphere to work in; their armoured hard suits were self-sufficient, but the enemy was preventing them from accessing the backbone—the main corridor running the entire length of the ship that linked it all together. No, they didn’t need the backbone for its air; they needed it to access the bridge and engineering. Perry couldn’t do a thing for Astron’s crew unless he removed the obstruction and cleared the bottleneck. Unfortunately the hijackers were well aware of his needs, and had taken steps. The men up ahead, though few in number, had barricades and heavy weapons set up. It was one of those H3Bs (Heavy Tri-Barrel Autocannon) that had cut Appleford in half—literally.

  Well, he had autocannons too in the form of Sergeant Barnes’ fire team. Barnes’ heavy weapons squad was the closest thing to artillery support he had on hand. Five men in hard
suits equipped with stedimounts, three of them armed with M3Bs (Medium Tri-Barrel Autocannon) which were basically man portable versions of the H3Bs the enemy had set up behind their barricades on tripods. Barnes also had a pair of AARs (Anti Armour Railguns) in his squad’s weapon’s mix. Appleford had deployed them to protect the men as they dismounted the assault shuttles in the cargo bay, but rather than bring them up afterwards, he had left them as rearguard. There were reasons for that, not least the fear of structural damage to Astron should they be used. Perry didn’t second guess the decision now, but despite the damage they could do to Astron they would do worse to the enemy, and he needed them.

  Sergeant Barnes arrived with his men and reported. Perry and the others were sniping at the enemy, trying to keep heads down and limit return fire. There was some cover to be had, and the Marines were making use of it, but they couldn’t advance. They needed a heavier barrage than an M18 assault pulser could provide. They were damn good rifles, but they simply couldn’t provide the needed weight. Barnes could. That was what his squad was for.

  “Welcome to the party,” Perry said easing back and around the corner. Once out of the line of fire he climbed to his feet.

  Barnes grinned. “Thanks for the invite, LT... ah, Captain.”

  “We have a situation up ahead. I need it dealt with.”

  “A pleasure to serve, sir. Just another lovely day in the Corps.”

  Perry smiled. “The enemy has a blocking force armed with H3Bs,” he said and Barnes’ smile slipped. Not so happy now eh? “I don’t think we have time or room for anything fancy, Sergeant. In line abreast would be best. Just pour fire into them and walk it up the corridor. Before you say it, no I don’t give a crap about their casualties or damage to the ship. All I care about is taking Astron without more casualties on our side.” He glanced at the two halves of Appleford on the deck. “Any more of us dead is unacceptable. Clear?”