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F-709A Jackal 101
The Canés Venatici Galaxy
The Delta Agnes System, Sector Alpha Tango Theta
2055 Hours (CST)
Everybody arrives. Cool. Nobody’s around. Great. Take two squadrons and depart the Phlegethon. No problem. Start the patrol. No problem. Check out the nebulae. Problem.
Big problem.
"Pull out, Overkill!" Jared bellowed into the comm. "Get your squadron out of there!"
While Jared flanked Red Weevil Squadron, Captain Patrick "Overkill" Shmidt led the Tarantulas. While Jared pulled up the rear, Overkill and his pilots were supposed to do a quick sweep of the massive Agnes Nebulae they had encountered. It was a cloud of particles that stretched out for nearly half the system, masking its entire perimeter from anything much more than a surface scan. Tierson figured it was worth checking out, as it might be a good place for the Phlegethon to lie low in while it conducted its long-range scans of the Gamma Onisis System. Jared went along with the idea, as he thought it would be a good opportunity for Overkill and the handful of less-experienced pilots in his squadron to score some easy field experience.
As Overkill’s squadron neared the nebulae, however, the mission objectives went out the window.
A veritable swarm of black, egg-shaped vessels poured from the face of the thick, gaseous nebulae’s mass. Prominences extending from the pink gas body plumed outward farther as more of the swarm kept on coming.
Jared’s wide eyes flew over his HUD. When at last the swarm seemed to stop coming, he counted twenty-one of them.
Twenty-one Steltek Drone ships.
"Devilbane to Phlegethon," Jared spoke, "You better tell me you have my other squadrons scrambling."
"All fighters are on emergency scramble, sir," the polite feminine voice of a comm officer informed him. "More fighter wings are on the way—the commodore’s orders are to keep the enemy ships away from the Phlegethon at all costs."
"Acknowledged." Whole additional fighter wings were on their way?
Just make sure those gunners aboard are working their Macrofusion turrets, he thought to himself. All hundred and fifty of them.
"And... good luck, sir." If he weren’t so caught up in the matters at hand, Jared would have most certainly made a mental note to look her up when he got back to the omnicarrier.
"Fan out, people!" he ordered, talking to both squadrons now. Overkill’s boys and girls were sluggish, afterburning about in their tight formation, all making for one big, easy target for the drones. "Split up into pairs, lock your targets, and fire at will!" He cycled through his targets, locking one of the later ones he doubted the other fighters had taken. He dialed up his own wingman, 1st Lieutenant Nina "Zephyr" Collier. He spoke into his headset, "Attack my target. I’ll flank you and see if I can take out any of those critters on the way."
"Copy, Devilbane."
"You ever seen Top Gun, Zephyr?" he asked offhandedly.
He could only imagine Lieutenant Collier’s dismay. "Sir?"
"It’s in the old film archives—something of a classic. Today’s flyers seem to get a kick out of it."
"Never saw it, sir."
Jared chuckled. "Oh, never mind. Stay frosty, Zephyr."
Switching from his Jackal’s default setting of dual Quadracite Cannons, Jared went to full-guns. Dropping his velocity just enough to let Zephyr pass him and take the lead, he hit a key and brought up the nearest drone ship. Overkill’s squadron and most of the now-scattered Steltek drone ships were near 2,000 klicks off, and the nearest drone that came on his VDU was already being hounded by a Nexus fighter. Captain Leon "Beelzebub" Hayes’ fighter, he guessed. Cycling again, he found a new target not far from the first.
The piece of shit is trying to drop a bead on Beelzebub!
He felt the urge to open the comm and send the drone ship his regards, but he knew it would pointless. They were unpiloted; nothing more than automated war machines. But what war machines they were. He maneuvered his crosshaired reticule over the green Blindfire brackets appearing on the approaching target. When the klicks fell into the hundreds, the Blindfire brackets turned red. Maneuvering his fighter to stay with the Drone on raw reflex, he fired his array of full-guns. The energy bolts sizzled as they struck the drone ship, but little more. He’d thought as much.
Fortunately, so had Special Ops weapons R&D.
With the flip of a switch, Jared went to his secondary armament. A single Multiphasic Disruptor came on-line, immediately swallowing a fourth of his maximum velocity as it tapped into the Jackal’s power core. It was a trade-off to use, but he might as well be shooting blanks with his normal weaponry. It wasn’t until Jared was about to head into space that the chief tech decided to give them all the run-down on the new Anti-Steltek line of weaponry Blair and Special Operations had been developing. Now was as good a time as any to try it out.
He fired.
The blast struck the Drone ship square in the rear. On his target analysis VDU, the entire aft and parts of the starboard hull were lit a welcome fire hydrant red. Keeping the drone ship in his sights, he waited out the fifteen second refire rate, then fired again. The effect was immediate and oh-so gratifying.
The drone was history.
Pulling away, he started toward the heat of the battle, keeping an eye on Zephyr every so often. The battle was being waged at all sides, energy weapons were flung in every direction, each one shining against against the cloud mass of the nebulae. A continuous stream of bright yellow bursts flew from the Phlegethon’s myriad of Phase-Transit Cannon batteries, peppering the distant clusters of drone ships with pure, concentrated capship firepower. In bursts spaced out in increments of twenty seconds, the two evenly-spaced out great double Plasma Laser Cannon turrets atop the Phlegethon fired their payloads off, payloads that could take out a small destroyer or light carrier in a single blast. Fighters from both squadrons were struggling to stay out of the omnicarrier’s line of fire, knowing the grand Confederation flagship’s arsenal would almost certainly have more luck than they would. Meanwhile, explosions flashed, some of them from impacting missiles, others from destroyed ships. As a knot began to build in his stomach, he opened the comm. "All right, gimme a status check, COs," he said.
One by one the squadron commanders of his fighter wing reported in, muttering their terse acknowledgements and giving casualty reports for their squadrons even as they were in the midst of dogfighting. His chosen squadron was all in one piece, thank god.
All in one piece... except for "Archangel." Jared cursed himself for not even being able to remember the poor kid’s name.
He wanted to check the "Tarantulas," but he’d left them in Overkill’s control. They were his responsibility. Overkill had to learn it sooner or later, and none could argue that he would not get a better chance than now. Either way, though they had been a scare at first, the drone ships were being contained by the fighters and the Phlegethon’s support.
Before Jared could enthusiastically take another target, he happened to look at the nebulae. His heart skipped a beat.
The bright pink phosphorescence of the great cloud dimmed, then became nearly purple. Gigantic silhouettes began to become defined in the gaseous mass, then seemed to start to push through. One of the awesome shapes burst through, then another, and a third.
Three Steltek motherships. Marauders.
TCS Phlegeton;
Bridge
2120 Hours (CST)
"TERRAN PEOPLES, KNOW THAT YOU HAVE INVADED AND PROFANED OUR HOMELAND."
To say a lot of things that could have gone wrong went wrong would be an understatement.
Everything had gone wrong.
Before the Phlegethon now was three Steltek Marauders—three Steltek motherships. The most powerful predators the universe had to offer, and each one of them moving in for kill.
"KNOW THAT YOU HAVE COMMITTED SACRILEGE."
Commodore Mason Tierson had been told to expect such an encounter. They all had. He should have counted his lucky stars the Phlegethon didn’t jump into a Steltek militarized zone.
Or was that what they did?
"KNOW THAT THIS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."
The lead Marauder in the trio of Steltek ships in a triangle formation veered its outrageously bloated front to face the Phlegethon. The constructions looked every bit as huge as the Tri-D clips of the one encountered two years before, right down to the radiant triangles atop their mass, glowing with eerie green. Over fifty kilometers in length each... there were moons—planets, even—that were smaller than the three boomerang-shaped Steltek monstrosities.
"DISARM YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER YOUR SHIPS. PREPARE TO BE VINDICATED."
Tiring of the sickly Steltek commander voice overriding the comm, Tierson stood from his chair and strode into the central crewpit. "How is the scanning progressing?" he asked his senior comm officer.
The younger-looking woman peered up. Terror was written all over her face. "We’re having some trouble screening through the nebulae that are all over this sector, but it’s coming. We’ve scanned approximately thirty percent of the Gamma Onisis System."
Thirty percent in just over an hour was not bad. But it was very likely an entire Steltek armada of Marauders was lurking about, possibly preparing to jump in at any given moment, possibly moving about cloaked, as they knew the Steltek to have such technology from the last encounter. Time was simply not a luxury he could afford. Not for his sake, not for his ship’s sake, and not for his crew’s sake. Blair be damned—Confed had better be happy with just a scan of the Gamma Onisis System because that was all they were going to get.
Tierson turned a glance back at the Marauders, creeping forth as black shadows of doom. Everyone knew damn well from the original Marauder two years ago that it only took one Marauder blast to annihilate a carrier. Omnicarriers, aside from their unprecedented size, had superior shielding and hull durability, but there were three Marauders and only one omnicarrier. Even if the Phlegethon could survive one ship killer blast, how could it hold its own against three fully-equipped Marauders?
He found his XO by a defense console in the port bridge crewpit. "Commander, is the metaphasic shield layering up?"
Commander Gelhart looked up. "Yes, Commodore. The tactical officer saw to it that it was activated the instant those Steltek Drones showed up, sir."
Tierson smiled grimly. Another parting gift from Special Operations. "Excellent."
"Your orders, sir?"
"Divert turret fire to the Marauders. Then ready and launch every capship missile we’ve got. Aim for the pyramid generators. They’re something like seven thousand meters in diameter—they can’t miss."
"Yes, Commodore. I’ll tell them now."
"Let’s show these bastards what the Phlegethon’s made of," he said. He then added, bitterly and almost inaudibly, "And make those Steltek sons of bitches pay for what they did to my brother."
Tierson calmly strode back to his command chair, monitoring the battle with newfound confidence as it continued to play out.
It was time to make history.