Crusade chapter 6 (standard:science fiction, 1878 words) [6/11] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 11 2003	Views/Reads: 2286/1756	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
chapter 6

“Con epdar, ping detected Sir, bearing 352 by 008,” the epdar officer
said the words Carver had been dreading. The ping meant that there was 
an epdar station out there using active epdar that had detected their 
echo by now, the element of surprise was gone. Aboard the Kerray-win, 
the ping had also been detected, Captain Tennit, the fleet-commander, 
ordered the group into real-space, this was their target. 

In the hangers klaxons were sounding and people running to their birds.
Squadron Commander Forrester vaulted from the ladder into the cockpit 
of her machine in one practiced movement, and in the seat behind, her 
gunner did the same; the canopy slid shut and Alecto manoeuvred them to 
a launch tube. Forrester pressed her push to talk switch (ptt) and 
spoke to her squadron: “Vampires, engage the Megaeran fighters, Tempest 
squadron (Broadsword's fighters) will assist, the Andurils will take 
care of torps (torpedoes) and escort the bombers. Let's show these 
bastards what humanity is made of!” Alecto magnetically accelerated the 
fighter down the launch tube and shot it out of Crusaders flank at 
combat speed, Forrester whooped, the ride was like nothing else. Ahead 
her virtual display showed a cloud of enemy fighters swarming like 
wasps, she punched the throttle and the triple vectored thrust ion 
vents erupted in a haze of blue thrust, she corrected course a little 
and waited. Behind, her gunner Yuri Toitovna waited too, his display 
showed the four Valkyrie hard points online and the six cyclic 
rapid-fire EP blasters ready to deal some death. They didn't have long 
to wait, rapidly the swarm of targets resolved themselves into 
individual birds, the Super Hurricane came screaming into weapons range 
and immediately Forrester selected a bad guy and fought to stay on its 
tail, invisibly the six blasters began to spit their lethal energy from 
the forward swept wings, the barrels moving to follow Toitovna's gun 
sight. The Kestrels seemed to be acting oddly, running instead of 
fighting; they seemed unsure how to deal with the new combatants. The 
human fighters had no qualms about exploiting the enemy's wavering 
resolve. The Megaeran pilots soon got over their shock however; and 
gave the new fighters a worthy test. Forrester felt the small machine 
jerk violently several times as a Kestrel got them in its sights, she 
thrust the joystick forward and left moving out of harms way but losing 
Toitovna's target, he cursed behind but locked onto a new bad guy and 
opened fire; she saw a point of light dart away from under the bird's 
nose, a Valkyrie, but it was quickly out of sight as it arched toward 
the original target. The Super Hurricane's speed and (unforeseen) 
slight shield advantage seemed to be working; this, added to the 
enemy's initial dithering, meant that the Vampires and Tempests were 
able to keep the Megaeran birds busy and several torps had already 
slipped through to the enemy battle fleet. Forrester could see the 
occasional explosion in the distance and could recognise the single 
blue-white blast of Anduril fusion torpedoes and the double white then 
orange blast of human Harbingers. 

As soon as Tennit ordered the fleet into real space Carver knew they had
found the target, “Scramble the fighters,” he ordered, “Battle 
stations, all weapons prepare to engage.” It takes a good 45 seconds to 
drop into real space and in that time the first of the fighters were 
already being moved into the launch tubes. “All weapons report green 
light Captain,” came the Chief gunnery officer from her lair. “We have 
real space,” called the helm. “Come starboard 82 degrees and orbit the 
battlefield. All papa turrets acquire and destroy the battleship, all 
torpedo rooms depressurise all tubes and target the battleship as soon 
as it's acquired.” On the holoscape the battlefield was set out in 
living 3-D. Suddenly the ship was rocked by a whole volley of EP bolts 
and Crusader's turrets still hadn't identified the battleship. On the 
holoscape Iron Pirate loosed a flock of torpedoes toward the largest 
enemy, a light cruiser, finally the battleship appeared like a huge 
malevolent animal: it was organically shaped, as though it hadn't been 
designed so much as congealed, the projected course was showing an 
intercept with Crusader. At that moment all papa turrets fired, rocking 
the vessel. “Papa torpedo fire all tubes, foxtrot torpedo fire all 
tubes, all bravos; (torpedo bombers) take out the battleship.” Ten 
torpedoes raced toward the new threat. “Sir, Dellara (an Anduril 
destroyer) is damaged, they're abandoning ship. Fleet has identified 
six enemy vessels plus the battleship.” “Deploy dropships, pick up as 
many lifepods as possible, the Anduril fighters will have to cover 
them.” The dropships were designed to move objects between orbit and a 
planet's surface but they could use their powerful graviton beams to 
rescue lifepods. 



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