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Saber in the Sky - Part VI
Posted By: mplacki<mplacki@yahoo.com>
Date: 6 October 2005, 5:00 am
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1914 Hours, July 20, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Military staging area above Kappa Epsilon
Jordan's Longsword cruised silently among the larger ships of Kappa Epsilon. Under Captain Deckard's orders, Saber Squadron was keeping their ships under minimal power, both to conserve fuel and to ensure that the squadron didn't attract any undue attention until it was absolutely necessary. The AMX-12 missiles the Longswords were carrying would only be effective if the Covenant ships' shields could be brought down. If the shields stayed up, the anti-matter missiles would be useless; since energy shields didn't contain any matter, the missiles had no effect against them. A UNSC victory would rely on the MAC guns of the bigger ships to take out the Covenant shields, followed by Saber Squadron's AMX-12s to rip them apart.
On the other hand, if the Covenant managed to destroy the MAC guns, things would get ugly. Quickly.
Jordan cracked his knuckles nervously and tried to banish the feeling that he had eaten something extremely wiggly. The Covenant ships were going to arrive any minute – and when they did, there was going to be one hell of a fireworks display.
The real question, mused Jordan, is which side gets to be the fireworks. If it turned out to be the UNSC… well, then he'd make sure the Covenant paid through their nose to watch.
He glanced over toward the right-hand side of his control panel. Bolted firmly to the ship's frame was a small four-by-six inch picture frame, showing a field of tall grass. Partly hidden among the stalks was a crouching young boy, wearing combat fatigues emblazoned with the UNSC logo and aiming at the camera with a toy MA5B assault rifle. The boy had light brown hair cut military-style, with piercing brown eyes, and the disarming, innocent grin of a six-year old.
Jordan held his son's gaze for a moment and felt some of his tension fade away. His wife, Mia, had sent him the picture from Earth a few months ago on Brian's birthday. Jordan wished that he could have been there, even for one day, and had tried to make up for it by sending Brian the assault rifle, but he knew it wouldn't be the same. Still, Brian had been thrilled with his present and spent an entire half-hour the next day recounting all the adventures and misadventures he and his friends had had with it over the holo-vid.
"We're fighting for you, kiddo," he murmured softly. "We're fighting for you."
Captain Deckard's voice jerked him back to the current situation.
"Enemy contact! Sabers, prepare to engage."
Bright white pinpoints of light had appeared a few hundred kilometers in front of the UNSC armed forced. In the space of a second they grew into rippling waves of energy, then faded as the smooth hulls of the Covenant ships emerged from Slipspace. Admiral Stanforth's voice crackled from the Leviathan.
"All ships, fire at will!"
Archer missiles raced over a dozen MAC rounds toward the Covenant ships. Jordan watched as thousands of tons of destructive power streaked ahead. Slowly, the enemy ships began to veer out of the way, intense blue-purple glows appearing as their engines were ramped up to full power at maximum speed. The first missiles impacted the Covenant flagship –
Too late.
Jordan smashed a fist angrily on his fighter's control panel as he saw the first MAC round crumple and several missiles detonate harmlessly against the flagship's energy shield. One of the frigates veered out of the way of the MAC rounds just in time; one round managed to land a glancing blow on its side, sending it spinning away, but with little actual damage. Another MAC round slammed into the destroyer's shields, which sparked and flared but remained up.
The other ships, however, were not so lucky. One of the frigates took a MAC round through the nose; Jordan actually saw its shield go up for a split second after the projectile started to drill a hole down the length of the ship. The round blew through its rear end, igniting its engines and detonating them in a spectacular ultra-violet explosion. The other frigate managed to move partially out of the way, but one of the MAC rounds aimed at it still managed to carve a near-perfect semicircular trench down the ship's lateral line. A second round completely missed the front half of the ship, but made up for it by smashing into its right-rear decks and emerging from its starboard engine. The engine went supercritical, and the resulting explosion ripped the rear half of the ship clear off. A second later, two dozen Archer missiles impacted against its bow, punching multiple holes through the ship's armor and detonating inside. What was left of the frigate's now-lifeless shell drifted away slowly, venting atmosphere, equipment, and personnel.
"All ships, break and attack! Take down those shields!" roared Stanforth.
The Leviathan's massive bulk moved slowly away, rotating smoothly to keep its MAC systems trained on the Covenant flagship. The Amazon and the Indomitable swiveled toward the destroyer, which was busily disgorging Seraphs and dropships. Meanwhile, the Sunset Glory and the Mississippi began to move to flanking positions around the surviving frigate.
A new voice, strong and steady, crackled over the radio: the head flight controller on the Leviathan. In a dogfight, the controllers on the capital ships acted as an extra pair of eyes and ears to watch the pilots' backs.
"All fighters, this is Control. Be advised: we have eighty-four, repeat, eight-four contacts inbound. Scanners read fifty-six, five-six Seraphs and twenty-eight dropships. ETA three minutes. Saber and Talon squadrons, until those shields are down you are to escort the Mississippi and the Sunset Glory and provide them with fighter defense."
"That's affirmative," replied Deckard coolly. "Saber Squadron, moving to escort positions."
"Talons moving to escort."
Twenty-four starfighters cruised almost lazily toward the smallest two capital ships in the fight. Talon Squadron moved to cover the Mississippi; the Sabers formed into their separate flights around the Sunset Glory.
Hundreds of kilometers ahead, bright red highlights began to form along the sides of the surviving Covenant ships. As if on cue, the approaching Seraphs and dropships broke off their attack vector sharply, giving the larger ships a clear field of fire. Plasma torpedoes rocketed toward the UNSC ships, weaving from side to side to match their evasive maneuvers.
One torpedo homed in on the Leviathan's bridge. Jordan watched in horror as one of the ships' Longswords – Cobra two – banked sharply in front of the torpedo, shielding the Leviathan from its deadly energy. Superheated gas burned into the fighter, vaporizing most of its armor plating and melting the rest of its superstructure. The Longsword's sharp lines blurred as the heat caused its frame to sag in on itself. What was now a molten blob of metal hurtled along its last trajectory, tumbling slowly as the remaining oxygen in it leaked into the vacuum of space.
Nearby, the Indomitable fired its emergency thrusters, snapping the ship out of the path of the incoming torpedoes. Its frame shuddered as it launched a MAC round toward the Covenant destroyer; the Amazon fired another one directly after it. The first round slammed harmlessly into the destroyer's shields. The second punched through the hole that had briefly opened in them and buried itself deep in the ship's midsection – the destroyer's bridge.
The ship went abruptly out of control; the engines were still at full power, but the impact from the MAC round and the explosive decompression from the breached hull pushed the ship far off-course. It veered drunkenly toward the remaining frigate, slamming into and through the smaller ship's shields and impaling itself in its hull. The two ships twisted wildly though space as the frigate fought valiantly to regain control.
The two UNSC destroyers now turned their attention to the plasma torpedoes, which had turned around and were now racing doggedly back toward the fleet. Several Archer missiles lanced toward the oncoming torpedoes, timed to detonate just in front of them. The ensuing explosions would, in theory, dissipate the plasma, rendering it harmless.
Unfortunately, three of the missiles started to go off a split second to late. The roiling plasma vaporized the missiles and continued on toward the ships. One torpedo burned into the Leviathan, melting an enormous hole in its recently-repaired hull. The other two tore into the Amazon's lower decks, compromising its structural integrity and disabling its MAC system.
"Concentrate fire on the flagship," called Stanforth over the radio. "Saber and Talon squadrons, move into position to begin your attack."
"Roger that, moving into position," replied Deckard.
Unfortunately, 'moving into position' involved going past the rapidly approaching Seraphs and dropships.
Jordan centered his targeting reticle on the lead Seraph and waited for a dead shot. It came closer…closer…
Jordan squeezed the trigger, spraying 110mm rounds at the fighter. Its shields flickered blue as the rounds hit but did no damage; a moment later, it returned the favor by spitting out bright purple plasma blots. Jordan snapped the Longsword into a tight barrel roll and dove under the incoming fire. He yanked back on the control stick, bringing the ship's nose up to point at the Seraphs belly. More rounds ricocheted off its shield as he opened fire, then the Seraph broke left and dove as the shield failed. A tight loop brought the Longsword back onto the Seraph's tail. The Covenant ship rolled onto its port wing and climbed, desperately trying to avoid his fire, but Jordan was in no mind to lose it. He flipped the ship onto its back and tore after the Seraph, only to jerk back in surprise as the ship suddenly exploded.
"Chalk one up for me, Jordan!" called David.
"Hey, he was mine! Find your own kill!"
David's Longsword waggled its wings and soared off toward the flagship. One of the Seraphs twisted around and shot after him.
"Dave, you picked up a bogey. Break right, I'll cover you."
David pulled sharply to the right, then shot upwards. The Seraph tried to follow him, but its trajectory pulled it right into Jordan's line of fire. Yellow tracer fire chased molten lead into the fighter's shields, which flared angrily. The pilot inverted his ship and dove sharply, trying to loop around onto Jordan tail. Jordan calmly pulled back on his control stick, then killed the engines.
"Commander, what are you doing?" demanded Revs.
Jordan ignored him. With no other forces acting on the Longsword, his ship slowly continued to flip end for end, bringing his weapons to bear on the Seraph.
The Seraph's pilot clearly hadn't expected to come up face to face with Jordan's rotary cannons; the pilot tried to pull out of it loop, but did so in vain. 110mm rounds ripped into the fighter, shattering its viewports and tearing straight through to the engines. The ship exploded spectacularly, spraying Jordan's fighter with shrapnel and causing his shields to spark briefly.
"Thanks for the save, Jordan."
"Thanks for playing bait, Dave."
The two squadrons broke out of the fray and moved off toward the Covenant flagship. Nearly two dozen of the Seraphs flew after them, but most of them concentrated on the bulk of the UNSC fleet.
"Admiral Stanforth, we are in position," announced Deckard.
"Fire at will."
Jordan jerked his Longsword to the left to avoid a plasma blast from one of the Seraphs and saw three MAC rounds crumple, one after another, against the flagship's shields. A fourth round slammed into the ship's bow; the shields took the brunt of the blow, but failed, and the round buried itself twenty feet inside its hull.
"Sabers, open fire! Launch those missiles!"
Jordan slammed the throttle forward and lanced toward the flagship's bow. Beside him, he saw Bobby weave frantically to avoid a flurry of plasma bolts from one of the Seraphs.
"I've got one on my tail!" he called. "A little help here would be hot!"
"Saber Two, break left, I'll cover you," replied Talon Four.
Bobby's Longsword slashed to the side just as an alarm blared over Jordan's cockpit speakers.
"Missile lock," warned Revs. "Recommend you break off, Commander."
Jordan snap-rolled onto his port side and dove, but didn't break the lock.
"Any way you can fool it?" grunted Jordan as he threw the ship into another high-G maneuver. "Hack into the Seraph's computer or something?"
"Sorry, can't do that. A 'smart' AI might, but I can't."
"See, I knew you weren't smart." Jordan grimaced as he sent the fighter spinning through yet another barrel roll.
"I'm smarter than you."
"Last I checked, people made AIs, not the other way around."
"Well, sure, the people who made me must have been smart. But you're not one of them."
"Yeah? Let's see how long they survive in a dogfight."
The alarm quit suddenly; bits of metal that looked suspiciously like pieces of a Seraph flashed past the cockpit. Jordan looked at his HUD, puzzled.
"What happened?"
Revs grinned at him. "Well, I couldn't hack into the computer, but I was able to spoof the guidance signature it was using to track your Longsword and stick it on the back of the Seraph."
Jordan stared. "You are a sneaky bastard, aren't you?"
"You bet."
Jordan brought his fighter back around to face the flagship just in time to see Sabers Three, Four, Eleven, and Twelve – Kelly, Aliesha, Greg, and Tony - launch their first missiles at the flagship. Immediately all four pilots rocketed up and away from the ship, breaking up into pairs and heading in opposite directions. On Jordan's tactical display, four small dots raced toward the flagship, which was angrily spitting out hundreds of pulse laser bursts at the offending Longswords. The missiles moved closer… closer…
There was a sudden, brilliant flash of light as the first missile impacted the flagship's hull. Jordan watched in awe as the every element of the ship the missile touched was destroyed, as every atom in the antimatter touch was ripped apart. Nanoseconds later, three more missiles buried themselves in the vessel, tearing through bulkheads and armor plating and eating through the superstructure. Secondary explosions spewed the ship's innards out into space and snapped it in half. The bow, propelled by the force of the explosions, flipped lifelessly through space toward the UNSC fleet, its running lights still flickering. The rear half disintegrated under the force of its own engines and spewed a trail of scattered debris through the system.
"Excellent work, Saber squadron!" announced Stanforth over the comm. "The flagship has been neutralized."
Jordan watched in disbelief as the Indomitable moved forward to intercept the ex-flagship's bow.
"Those were not AMX-12s," he said slowly. "I don't know what they were, but they're not what they say they are. Revs, what the hell are we carrying?"
Revs looked puzzled. "Everything checks out," he replied doubtfully. "Missile size, weight, launch speed – everything matches the operational parameters of an AMX-12 antimatter missile."
"The yield doesn't match," argued Jordan, pointing at the flagship's bow. "I used the prototypes of those missiles once, Revs – they do not pack that kind of power. A Marathon-class cruiser doesn't pack that kind of power, not in one hit. That ship was more than a klick long. There's barely a hundred meters left of it."
"Chain reaction?" suggested Revs. "Remember, there were all kinds of secondary explosions. Maybe –"
His speculation was cut short as another Seraph swooped down on Jordan's fighter, plasma cannons blasting away. With the destruction of the main invasion fleet, the remaining Covenant ships were firing wildly at anything and everything that moved, each trying to outdo the other in wreaking as much havoc as possible before they were destroyed.
Jordan pushed the craft into a classic Immelman, a half-loop and that would point the ship in the opposite direction followed by a 180° roll to keep it right-side up. The Seraph flashed past, but on his tactical display Jordan saw it pull an impossibly sharp turn and come back after him.
"This is Saber Nine, I could use a hand here."
Captain Deckard's reply was strained. "We all could, Commander. Deal with him as best you can, and we'll try to get over there."
The Longsword jerked sharply as plasma blasts struck home but didn't penetrate the shield. The indicator bar dropped a quarter before Jordan managed to twist out of the alien's line of fire. Jordan stomped the rudder, swinging the rear of the ship around and giving him a clear shot at his opponent. He pushed the throttle forward and tore after the fighter.
The Seraph's shields sparked, flared, and died as 110mm rounds peppered the craft's underside. In an act of final desperation, the pilot twisted the Seraph to point at Jordan's fighter and lit up the engines. Jordan snap-rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding a collision but still squeezing the trigger. Molten lead ripped the ship's starboard wing off and sent it into a ferocious spin; a few moments later, the centrifugal force tore the craft apart.
"I'm clear, lead."
"Good to hear, Commander."
"Bogey on my six," called Travis.
"Hang tight, I'm on my way," answered Jordan. "Revs, get me a targeting lock on the Seraph."
"Commander, an antimatter missile will be useless against the Seraph's shields."
"I'm aware of that. Just do it."
"Lock acquired," said Revs in a bored voice.
Jordan's finger hovered over the trigger as he neared the offending Seraph.
"Travis, dive, maximum thrust. Get the hell out of there."
Jordan squeezed the trigger just as Travis pulled into a full-throttle nosedive. An AMX-12 – if that's what it was – tore after the Seraph.
The smaller ship, still focused on trying to hit Travis, failed to notice the incoming projectile. The missile impacted –
And did nothing.
"God damn it!" roared Jordan in frustration.
"I told you," said Revs, sounding slightly irritated. "An antimatter missile won't hurt something that isn't matter – namely, energy shields."
"Thank you, I am aware of that," snarled Jordan in reply. "I just thought they might not really be antimatter missiles."
Revs rolled his eyes.
"I'm hit! I'm hit!" Travis yelled, now sounding slightly panicky. "I need backup now!"
"Travis, break hard port," ordered David. Jordan watched as he streaked down toward the Seraph, rotary cannons blazing. The pilot's only response was to intensify its efforts at bringing Travis down. David's fighter twisted nimbly, keeping the Seraph in its sights and hammering it mercilessly until it detonated in a ball of purple shrapnel.
"Nice one, Dave."
"Thanks for the save, sir," said Travis shakily.
WHAM!
Something slammed into Jordan's fighter, spinning it off course and causing several alarms to beep frantically in the cockpit. Jordan fought desperately for control for a few seconds before he managed to straighten the ship out. He dove sharply, inverted and twisted into a sharp roll to throw off his attacker.
"What the hell just hit us?" he demanded.
"I can't tell, the sensors are all scrambled," replied Revs. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Shields are down."
Jordan swore under his breath and yanked the fighter into another turn.
Ship Master Yara 'Ortamee staggered to his feet in what was left of the bridge of his frigate. After the destroyer had crashed into it, the humans had completely ignored his ship, which gave his time to stabilize its trajectory and mount an offensive.
There was no point rushing out to meet the humans head on, he knew. It would be a glorious death, but ultimately futile. With the ship as damaged as it was, a retreat was also out of the question – although, even had he been able to, he would die before he fled from battle.
"'Mantomee," he said to the red-clad Sangheili next to him. "Can we communicate with High Charity?"
'Mantomee tapped at the holopad before him for a moment. "Yes, Excellency. Our equipment is damaged but working."
"Very good," said 'Ortamee slowly. A plan was already forming in his mind. He would call for reinforcements, and in the meantime he would enact repairs on the ship and gather as much information about the humans' forces as he could. In fact…
'Ortamee watched the viewscreens intently. The humans had fought well, there was no doubt of that, but there was something more than that here. He watched as a Seraph dove after one of their fighter. Plasma bolts that should have destroyed the fighter slammed into it, but instead of exploding, yellow sparks flashed over its hull.
"Heresy," hissed 'Ortamee vehemently. He watched in fury as the fighter spun around and fired into the Seraph. The Seraph's shields failed, and the pilot twisted and tried to ram the human craft. Instead, its wing was ripped off, and the subsequent spin tore the Seraph apart. 'Ortamee bowed his head in respect.
"May the Gods accept your sacrifice, and may the Great Journey bring you peace and sustenance," he murmured solemnly. Then, to 'Mantomee, he said, "Attach a tracker on that ship. I want to know where it goes, what it does, everything."
"Of course, Excellency," replied 'Mantomee smoothly. "It seems that there are twelve of those craft –"
"One will be enough for our purposes, 'Mantomee. I merely need to know about this new devilry these humans have developed. Even with these inferior humans, it is essential to know their habits and abilities." He gestured to the bow of the flagship, drifting slowly through space. "To win against an enemy, you must know them, know them better than you know your allies. If you don't, the results are plain to see."
"Yes, Excellency. Sending the tracker now. However, I believe that if the humans have placed an energy shield around the ship, the tracker will be unable to get through."
"Have a Seraph collide with it to bring down the shields. Make sure the pilot keeps his weapons powered down so as not to alert this human."
"It will be done, Excellency."
"Thirty seconds until the shields come back online," announced Revs.
"Good," growled Jordan. He still hadn't been able to find out what had hit him.
Just then, there was a dull thump against the hull. Jordan frowned.
"What was that?"
"Probably just debris." Revs paused. "Shields are charging."
Jordan sighed and focused back on the fight at hand. There was still a lot of clean-up to do.
"The tracker has latched onto the human ship, Excellency," announced 'Mantomee.
"Excellent work. Move us into the shadow of the fifth planet of this system – we can remain there to begin repairs and contact the hierarchs."
He pushed a button on his control pas and brought up a camera broadcast from the tracker. 'Ortamee watched as the human ship moved to intercept another Seraph.
"Enjoy your victory for today," he hissed. "I am the instrument of the Gods, and I will assure your destruction tomorrow."
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