Index: Suspended animation | Different times | Some assembly required | More pew for your credit | Trust the Plan | The Lennart Manoeuvre
The lancers of clan Aleska were dying and their clansmates could do nothing to save them. No one expected the Terrans to fly two gunships inside their starship and start blasting hull and star warriors alike. The merciless French legionaries’ presence came as a big shock too. Clanners assumed that most elite Terran troops were tied in on Avern’a, mopping up what was left of the Jaern force there.
Space pirates were pragmatic folk and in most, if not all cases, their crews had a backup lurking nearby or some elaborately planned escape ploy. Not this time however; after losing so many vessels in the failed assault on Cav asteroid colony, then during the battle in orbit of Avern’a prime, their forces were left in near complete disarray.
Those who successfully retreated had little to no fuel, few munitions and almost no provisions. Their crews suffered heavy losses and even though some craft were sacrificed, scavenged for parts, clansmates replenishing the lance bands of other vessels, Aleska were left in a bad place. A place which they did attempt to escape from by aggressively raiding Terran shipping.
Until that heavily-modified cargo vessel appeared here, the pirates felt their confidence back. They were once more on the offensive, doing what they did best. Their ambush peerlessly executed they thought, instead the Terrans hit them and precisely where most of their smaller craft were. Then, this modified cargo ship blasted one of them apart and now, the only alternative left for the star warriors of its last assault lance was to board.
They were all set; weapons loaded, broad shields raised and vicious vibroblades in their hands. The second that grappling arm’s plasma cutters sliced through the Terran spaceship’s airlock, Aleska rangers fired their particle-beam rifles. The torrent of thick beams showered a makeshift barricade; hastily wielded from left-over container parts, the cover was blasted to smithereens.
Then, their scanners detecting sparse Terran presence in nearby corridors, all pirates speedily moved forward. Their captain lobbed a plasma grenade just before she flew inside. Fitted with micro-engines, her flying munition detonated and blasted a mangled hole into the deck itself. Which would, of course, allow the star warriors of her lance to outflank the ship’s defenders, bypass their barricades.
Shields raised, clad in heavily-armored assault spacesuits, the Aleska stormed inside and were immediately greeted with a fusillade of railgun projectiles. Further back when any of them had expected, a team manning some portable heavy railgun managed to effectively pin some of them down. Then, from the side corridors came more Terrans.
Armed with laser rifles and snub guns, they carefully aimed at Aleska’s exposed flanks. Though that was not something which would stop or wipe out all of the skilled star warriors, it did slow them down. Returning fire, their rangers managed to damage the Terran machine gun and wound its crew. Then, engines glowing and charging in all directions, the heavies dispersed.
Few jumped down, utilizing the hole which their captain created for them. Others dashed by use of their engines and grapplers, aiming to slay the humans who foolishly thought that flanking an Aleska assault lance was the way to defeat it.
It was then, when the man appeared; armed with one top-of-the-line Terran assault rifle, he began shooting her rangers dead. One after another, he riddled them with railgun projectiles, sometimes emptying entire power packs just to end one ranger. With the heavily-armored, carrying broad tower shields Slayers on the offensive, the demise of her rangers was assured.
Indeed, they fired back, aiming to end the enemy marksman and hit him many a time, only to get blown to bits by his rifle. It seemed that the Terran’s spacesuit was not only well armored, but covered with a thick coat of energy deflecting paste. Before one of the slayers could catch up and attack him, he’d all but shot dead most of her ranged specialists.
From point-blank range, the human fired overcharged laser beams from his sidearm, aimed at her clansmate. Barely dodging the vicious vibroblade, he managed to kill the slayer by melting his head off. To her it was clear that this man was the vessel’s captain and she, instead of joining what was left of her lancers, moved against him. If she could take the captain down, perhaps then her star warriors had a greater chance to kill more of the enemy.
Dashing with her best speed, the Aleska captain attempted to catch the Terran, before this one was able to reload his assault rifle. As it happened, the human was a well-trained rifleman, plus he could fence off her attacks with his prudently attached bayonet.
The sword she wielded could cleanly chop him in two, yet he managed to dash away. Not once but three times he evaded death by mere inches, by forcing the engines of his spacesuit over their limit. Firing constantly from his assault rifle, he first tore her shield to pieces, then mangled her armor and finally, after his rifle overheated, clashed in melee.
Spear-like, the rifle’s length gave her human adversary a slight advantage and even though she was the better fighter, he still stabbed her more than a few times. In the end she almost sliced the human’s chest open, after smashing his rifle to pieces with another successful swing.
Stabbing her with his still intact bayonet in the sword arm, the enemy captain shot one entire power pack worth of laser beams at her. She kicked him in the leg, snapping it like a twig, but herself fell on the floor plating mortally wounded, her spacesuit’s armorplating molten and flesh burning. Hopping away, the enemy captain laughed and screamed orders to the nearby crewmates, while another human applied meds, healing his wounds.
The Terran crew managed to corner and disable most of the Aleska boarders. Either by collapsing the very hull of their vessel, burying them in mangled pieces of metal or chucking big canisters of industrial grade vacfoam at them, the Humans gained the upper hand. The trapped warriors were then promptly executed by a point-blank shot to their heads or vibroblade.
Too late it was to give a retreat order, even if they were not surrounded and immobilized... there was nowhere to retreat to. Her own starship was already successfully boarded and nearly all of its crew, butchered. Their only hope now was to kill as much of the Terrans, force their way into their engineering bay or bridge and after securing either of them, sabotage the ship.
Then Aleska could escape with their lives and whatever loot in the form of essential supply, they could carry. It was that slim hope of survival which kept Aleska warriors still engaged in battle and persevering. No, they did not believe that their enemy would surrender just like that – that was a tried and true impossibility. Just as they too would fight to the last, the Terrans would rather blow up their own starship than get captured and allow their enemy to win. The sad reality for Aleska now was – they had to force themselves into a position from which there was only one escape route.
What would happen she would never see, because the Terran captain shot again, this time aiming at her faceplate. The overcharged laser beam bore through her armor and killed her instantly. No longer could she hear the panicked shouts of her star warriors. After watching her die and witnessing how all of their strongest, heavily-armed lancemates got taken out, the handful of survivors attempted to go out in the blaze of glory.
Not that any of them managed to do any real harm to the Terran vessel’s main reactor – those who got close enough were met with more heavy machine gun fire and got mowed down to the last.
* * *
Captain Lennart limped inside his bridge and was immediately greeted by the sight of one ominous looking, decloaking Aleska corvette. Barely maintaining his balance and aching all over, only the stims which Silvia injected in him kept Lennart awake.
“I am ready to fire the torps, captain!” – shouted Josh, who, per his order, never left the bridge and acted as second in command.
“They are way, waaaay too close!” – alerted everyone Larisa, pointing at the data their navigational consoles had just gathered.
“How were they able to get that close?! I thought we set their cloaking shield frequency in our sensor array, didn’t we Briana?”
“Yes, we did and Silvia programmed a specific algo to keep constant lookout for those! Captain, should we decouple and perform evasive maneuvers?”
Briana was already punching in controls on her console, in preparation for force detachment and full engine burn.
“If I was in their place, I’d use every sneaky trick in the book.” – Stated Lennart, after he sat in his captain’s chair.
“They are basically upon us and if they wanted to – cripple our already damaged ship with one volley. No... this is another one of their devilish ploys. Silvia – run an active scan!”
“But we see it on our optics...” – tiredly mumbled his medic, yet immediately did what he asked.
“I am guessing they had some stealthy missile, fitted with a powerful holo-projector to complement their sensor ghost. Josh, be ready to launch the torps, on my order.”
“It is a sensor ghost; you were right captain! I detected the holo-projector equipped missile, it’s over he... Wait! There are traces of their cloak signature, better concealed than before but still, I can detect it. Captain, the Aleska corvette, it is quietly floating in our sensor shadow on condition white – look over there.”
Silvia’s hands danced all over her console and after a couple of seconds, another image was projected on their main holo-viewer. Josh, Larisa and Briana quickly adjusted their calculations and prepared to act, had their captain ordered. Tim was also wounded, but could still man the shield console and did so, ready to charge what emitters IMS Revenant had left.
If they were forced to decouple from that Aleska raid ship, just as Lennart planned it, their boarding team had two gunships to rely upon. If need be, they could retreat or even attack the corvette.
However, that was not in his initial plan. So far, nearly everything that he assumed and his Aleska enemy would logically do, happened. He feared that they would ignore him and proceed to attack the refinery; invade, then capture all the fuel they’d ever need. Maybe they’d break the mold, go against their Aleska tradition, use the Smokers and their families as hostages, living shields even?
It seemed that the captain of their starship was an everything or nothing kind of person. That and the sensor ghosts in his own cargo hold enticed the Aleska, promising them a good haul. Plenty of good, tasty food and enough fuel for their vessel to be combat efficient. If that was not an enticing lure, Lennart didn’t know what was.
There was a problem though; even if he fired the torps and they hit the enemy vessel, four warheads alone would not inflict enough damage to cripple the corvette. The meds Silvia gave him dulled the pain, not his mind and quickly, Lennart shot one order after another:
“Josh, attach cables and launch the torps – use them to manually target the sensor ghost. Cut the wires mid-way and let their warheads home in at the real enemy ship. Prepare to unleash everything else at my command, after Briana gives you precise navigational data of our stealthy enemy’s movements.”
“Silvia, make it look like our targeting scanners are locking on to the fake corvette. Meanwhile, perform a passive target acquisition – pinpoint the real ship’s main weapons and link these targeting solutions to our 50s and 30s.”
“Tim, they will aim at our engines – make sure to shave off every bit of available power, even that jury-rigged backup, juice those shields!”
“Larisa, prepare for emergency reverse; we have bow engines and they don’t, let us make use of this nifty design feature of ours.”
The dead quiet, so common before decisive engagements took over his bridge. Lennart’s head was now severely aching, and he felt that something was wrong. Perhaps it was yet another wound which he opened by not sitting still? Not exactly the perfect time to ask Silvia for another medical scan or injection. Gritting with his teeth, Lennart examined all data which his bridge officers were feeding the main holo-viewer with. The race of star-second versus star-second turned into a duel of minutes and before anyone could feel it, a dozen of them had ebbed away.
He watched how the four torps finally left their tubes, then saw how their enemy gently shifted its course, Briana making corrections on the fly. Just as the enemy corvette was preparing to pounce at IMS Revenant, the torps swiveled and all of her cannons opened fire as one. The 30s were out of ammo after the first barrage and Josh immediately shut them off to provide more power for other systems.
The Aleska were, once again, caught completely by surprise! It was a common and very good tactic to attack enemy ships while they were docked or grappled. If those were engaged in boarding operations – even better! However, they were not sneaking up on some clueless alien trader or attacking a rookie crew from ambush this time. The torps detonated one after another, all of them burrowing through the enemy armorplating, ripping it and part of the vessel’s hull asunder.
Multiple shells, a barrage of 30mm HEAS showered every lightly armored turret, blowing them to bits. Next the first two volleys of 50 mils hit; two of the corvette’s heavy turrets vanished before the Aleska managed to switch their shields between cloaking and defense mode.
Following his directions, Larisa gave their boarding crew on the enemy raid ship a sign to decouple. Then, set on full burn, she activated the Revenant’s bow engines and exactly when their enemy fired. Some of the particle beams hit their mark, even with her hull rotating and flying away from the enemy. Thanks to that timely evasive maneuver and the overcharged shields, damage to the already battered starship was minimal.
Their shields however, despite Tim’s skill, buckled and inside Revenant’s cargo hold something exploded. Their jury-rigged reserve power blew up, over-tasked plasma lines sending feedback pulses across two decks. Multiple reports came with casualties suffering severe burns and Lennart shouted an order:
“Medical emergency! Go there and take command, Silvia!” – Leaving her station, Silvia dashed out, giving him one look filled with worry, and all he could do was to smile back.
“Tim, do we have any working shield emitters?”
“Ya, we do and ‘tis the one protecten our gobs. I can lean on et wif sum juice, the power Josh freed from dem 30s. Don’ know how much it can take, cap.” – Lennart almost screamed from the sudden pain; he felt like someone was cutting his skull with a vibroblade.
“Turn our bow to the enemy, Larisa and keep dodging! Briana, how much...”
“Aye, keep flying on erratic pattern. We are at sixty-seven units, captain!” – Answered Larisa instead, Briana’s corpse rolled on the floor plating. One huge, bloody piece of her console stuck where the woman’s head was supposed to be.
Then another bout of particle-beams partially hit the ship and hell broke loose. The damage caused some systems to stop working and others completely died out, including the ship’s main scanner array. The Revenant’s 50 mils could technically still fire, but the turrets which housed them were inoperable. To shoot, they had to maneuver the vessel itself, that or wait for their enemy to wander into their fields of fire.
Torpedo loading system failed and gun crews were manually loading tubes four and two. More fuel was expanded after Larisa dodged another enemy barrage – they were down to forty-two units. A third of his crew was near death, another dozen dead and those who still lived, every single one was wounded. Silvia and other medics did the impossible and managed to save people with injuries others would consider mortal.
Heatsinks were near their maximum tolerance levels from all the fires inside the vessel and one could see outer space from some corridors. Despite the savage beating they’ve given the Aleska, their current opponent was still a corvette and they, a small, modified cargo ship. The fires however were taken under control, engineers and crew made a hasty plasma line bypass.
“Captain, we’ve lost access to our munition casemates! These four torps which we now have loaded in the tubes are our last.”
Josh was now attempting to aim the 50s in their enemy’s general direction since his gunnery crews had restored partial motion to their turrets. Lennart noticed that the crewmates made use of the escape hatches and were now manually pushing or pulling their turrets.
“Aim those torps directly at their reactor compartment, Josh. I hope your skill with the wire is just as good as you said, because we don’t have scanners anymore. Then fire what shots from the 50s we still have at their big guns – we can’t hold against their firepower for much longer.”
His head was hurting so much that unless he rested secure in the captain’s chair, Lennart would’ve most probably lost balance and fell.
“They can’t sustain more hits too! Those torps are no joke and the HEAS shells dealt significant damage on their systems, I am sure of it. If only we could see, then I’d squeeze our railgun shells directly through their buckled shields...”
Josh’s eyes widened and Lennart, despite the pain instantly gathered what the old spacer had in mind.
“Silvia, there is that old shuttle in our cargo bay – reconfigure her scanner. Give us a scan, any scan of the enemy vessel! We need to know where their most damaged armorplating is.”
He nearly lost sight in his left eye and tasted iron – blood was dripping from his nose.
“I can do this captain! We left the original settings and OS loaded on a backup starfighter mainframe – give me a minute and you will have your scan. You speak like you are in pain! Capt... Lennart, are you well?! I can leave the mainframe switch to one of our crew.” – Silvia’s voice trembled, laden with worry and he winced.
No matter what happened to him, the ship and her crew had to survive – they needed accurate information!
“No, I am fine, Silvia. You will do your duty and supply us with scan data, or we might lose this battle. Do you understand?” – He could not hear himself and probably sounded like an old man dying from some incurable illness, but that did not matter to him anymore.
“Ye... yes, sir!” – Silvia cut her comm and soon after the targeting data Josh required came.
Just in time!
Their barely functioning bow shields, which Tim had somehow sustained by feeding them odd bits of power and even portable energy packs, were about to collapse. The fuel Larisa had to work with fell below the fifteen units threshold, which her captain had told her not to cross. Somehow she was able to push the Revenant’s engines for one more emergency maneuver, burning what bubbles were left in one of their reserve tanks.
Lennart now knew how heavily damaged the Aleska corvette was – she left a trail of her burning hull behind; half her systems were inoperable. The enemy vessel’s heatsinks were basically melting, just to keep her main particle-beam turrets firing. Pinpointing the weak spots in their very close to bucking shield, then analyzing where the best places to sneak their wire guided torps through he did with one last near superhuman effort. Forcing his hand to move, inputting his calculations into the mainframe so that his crew could utilize it, felt like a Herculean feat.
“Now, Josh, fire!”
Lennart was unable to say anything else because another blood vessel inside his brain popped. As he sat on his captain’s chair dying of a brain hemorrhage, his crew did what was expected of them.
Torpedoes followed their wire guided course, only after a devastating bout of 50 mil railgun shells. Hit near her main turret power distribution node, the Aleska corvette bellowed a plume of plasma, molten hot metal and burning crewmen. Her captain decided that eating four nuclear tipped, masterfully crafted Terran torpedoes would be the end and ordered the vessel to cloak. Overloaded, the heatsinks struggled immensely and yet, in another second or two, the corvette’s silhouette faded away.
The fact they no longer had visual or sensor lock did not matter to Josh – he detached one torp from its wire. The old gunner set the torpedo’s engine on full burn and then detonated its warhead as close to their enemy’s last position as possible. Then, after the explosion splashed upon the corvette’s cloaking shield, he burrowed the second torp right next to its reactor assembly. The detonation set a chain reaction, which blew half the Aleska craft apart, sending irradiated, still shrouded in plasma fires debris, flying in all directions.
* * *
“Mama, mama, what happened next?! How did you and daddy get out of that ‘splosion? And what happind to that tough Cosette lady and the logi... legi... logionars?”
The two overactive green-eyed boys were eagerly hopping around, while their somewhat older sister canted her head smiling. The day was still young, there was much time to play and work, had they decided to do so. Yet, instead of doing their chores, her youngest siblings pestered their mother to tell them that story, again.
“Ahhh, the absolutely riveting, incredibly gripping tale about the ‘splosion’, lady Cosette and the ‘logionars’...” – The boys exchanged somewhat saddened looks and again in complete unison said:
“But moooom!”
“No buts, boys! Like your daddy loves saying – ‘you will find out in the next episode.’ Look, this is his shuttle descending through the atmo right now! Daddy’s home early – go greet him and be nice, you hear?”
“Hey, wait for meeee!” – The boy’s older sister quickly ran after them when she noticed that her dad was carrying his usually stuffed to the brim with presents captain’s suitcase.
Silvia slowly stood up; a gentle, happy smile adorned her face and while the giggling duo “viciously” charged her husband, she touched her belly.
It was time, again...
***
Dear reader, if you liked this story, you might enjoy my published work.