A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (4 page)

              But there wasn’t time to really think about that.  “All fighters, go evasive!” he ordered, his voice harsh.  He jinked his Muon fighter up and to the left.  He drew a bead on the closest incoming missile and with a single hit of his triggers, he fired, blowing it apart. 

              The rest of his attack force wasn’t so lucky or skilled.  Of the twenty-two ships that started the engagement, barely thirteen made it through that first salvo.  Eight of the blocky and slower
Sepulcres
were blasted apart in nuclear fireballs, unable to outmaneuver the speedy weapons.  Only one of the nimble Muons got hit, the pilot turned sharply to evade one weapon and ran headlong into the teeth of another.

              In less than a second, his squadron was cut in half.  He cursed in near despair.  Those same feelings that had coursed through his thorax when his squadron had fought against that Republic cruiser back in Tyseus all those months ago were surging up again.  “All ships, accelerate to attacking speed!  Get in close; I don’t want to lose any more of us to the missile strikes.”

              He kicked up his own acceleration and raced after the incoming fighters.  Locking on, he let loose his own missile, and hissed in triumph as it exploded and tore the enemy ship apart.

              It had been too easy.  He’d been a fan of the
Sepulcres
when they’d been a part of FP’s defensive arsenal.  They were sturdy, had decent armament, were easy to fly, easy with maintain.  But now after a few months of flying in the Visions, Korqath decided that they were a decidedly outdated design.  They were perfect for pirates, but they were sitting ducks for his squadrons as his first barrage of missiles proved.  That and the punch and accuracy of Commander Samair’s throat-ripper missile designs.
              “All fighters, break and attack,” he ordered.  “Get those fighters, but save your missiles.  We’ve got some big boys that are getting belligerent.”

              “The fighters are moving in to engage, Captain,” Alys Flynn piped up from tactical.  “I’ve got gunboats moving to interpose themselves between us and those other corvettes.”

              “I see them, Alys,” Tariq replied, pursing his lips as he studied the displays. 

              “But they’re coming in at us from the portside angle,” the tactical officer continued.  “They won’t be able to intercept us before we can hit the target corvette.”

              “Good.  Maintain course,” he ordered.  He watched the displays as he saw the icon indicating the
Cavalier
as well as her three sister ships closing on the pirate corvette marked “P1”.  “Fire at will,” he ordered.

              All four ships approached weapons range of the pirate corvette, which was trying to dive under the defenders’ angle of attack.  It didn’t succeed, and all four of the ships cut loose with their weapons.  Missiles streaked forth, followed seconds later by coherent energy weapons from their forward heavy lasers.  A shower of kinetic kill metallic slugs spewed forth from the ships’ railguns.  All of the weapons hammered into the pirate corvette’s dorsal shields, which flared opaque for a brief second and then collapsed.  The hits struck and tore into the top of the ship ripping it open, almost as though the hull metal was being unzipped.  The pirates hadn’t even tried to make any counterfire, which might have saved them.  Four corvettes couldn’t throw
that
much in the way of fire, they were more designed toward high speed slashing attacks.  By not taking down any of the incoming missiles or rail gun slugs, the pirate ship took the full brunt of the assault.

              “Yes!” Alys crowed, pumping a fist in the air.  There were other cries of triumph from the rest of the bridge crew.

              “Belay that!” Tariq ordered, his voice harsh.  His eyes flicked to the longer ranged sensors, showing those cruisers and support ships getting ever closer.  “We have a lot of work yet to do.  Helm, change course.  Comms, get the others on the line, we’re going to move in on the other corvettes.”

              “Aploras, on me,” Korqath called, jinking his Vision hard to port to evade the incoming fire from the last remaining
Sepulcre
fighter.  The energy blasts narrowly missed him, but a narrow miss was still a miss.  “We’re going after those gunships; leave the egg fighters to the Twin Novas.”

              “Copy that, Lead,” Hukriss replied, as did several others.  “Forming up.”

              The rest of the squadron looped around, converging from numerous different vectors, evading and firing at any of the pirate starfighters that tried to get at them.  A pair of blaster shots from one of the Aploras caused the
Sepulcre
to break off, lumbering away from the furball as quickly as its engines could get it away from the fighting.  The pilot wasn’t finished, most likely he would be looping around and would come back into the fighting after only a few seconds. 

              “We’ll keep the scary eggs away from you, Korqath,” the Twin Nova lead pilot called over the comms.  Korqath hissed but didn’t otherwise rise to the bait. 

              As he angled his fighter around to face the approaching gunboats, he pressed a control to bring up the image of the enemy vessels on his HUD.  The gunboats were flat, roughly shaped like scarab beetles, with a trio of medium laser cannons in the bow as well as racks of missiles on the dorsal side.  They were slower than the fighters, even the
Sepulcres
, but scans indicated that they possessed shields, a level or two tougher than the output of the shield nodes on the Vision.  They would take a
lot
of killing.

              “Aploras, break and attack,” he ordered.  “Force them back.  I don’t want them getting near to the bigger ships.”  He pushed up the throttle and went straight at the lead gunboat.  Depressing the triggers, he sent a salvo of laser bolts stinging the shields of the enemy ship.  With a quick maneuver, his fighter flashed past the larger ship and he saw that two more of the Aploras made similar runs. 

              “We’re wearing them down, Lead,” one of his pilots said.  “But those shields are strong!”

              “We’re better,” Korqath snapped, bringing his fighter around.  “Hukriss, Karno, with me.  We’re going to hit that one together.”

              There were a series of clicks on the comms in acknowledgement.  The three manta rays circled around on different vectors, but once they were all locked onto the same fighter, Hukriss launched a missile while Korqath and Karno peppered the ship with their cannons.  A nuclear fireball blossomed as the gunboat fired, detonating the missile just short of the front of the ship.  The energy of the blast diffused slightly, but not enough.  The nuclear energy washed over the ship’s forward shields, making them flare and the follow up salvo from the fighters caused serious spotting.

              “One more pass,” Korqath ordered.  “Look alive,” he said, dodging his fighter under the incoming fire from another of the gunships. 

              “Fire’s getting a bit heavy, Lead,” Karno observed.  “I have a shot.”

              “Take it!” the zheen snapped.  “We don’t have time to
szizzkz
around.”  He brought his own fighter’s nose around, planting the targeting reticule on the ship’s ventral side.  He saw that the other Vision snapped off a shot from both its wing cannons and hit the gunboat in its forward section.  The ship shrugged off the blasts and returned fire. 

              The medium laser cannons pounded the
Zlk’vzn
fighter, shredding the ship’s shields and punctured the fighter’s port wing.  The pilot Karno tried to get clear, but a second shot punched through the fuselage and the small ship vaporized.

              “Karno’s been hit!” Hukriss shouted, his voice undercut by hissing and clicking.  “He’s gone!”

              Both of the fighters vectored in on their target, energy weapons blazing.  The gunboat’s guns opened up and a quartet of missiles rushed off the racks.

              “Turn!” Hukriss bellowed over the comms.  His fighter roared away from the gunboat, but Korqath didn’t break off.  Putting his fighter into a barrel roll, the zheen jerked the stick around in a random maneuver, causing the ship to jink crazily but in a very narrow cone.  It kept him on target for the gunboat but with his cannons firing continuously, he obliterated a pair of missiles heading straight toward him.

              “Firing!” he cried, launching two missiles from his dwindling supply.  Only six of the weapons left.  The missiles closed the distance in less than a second and exploded against the paper thin shields of the gunboat.  He yanked the stick to port and forward, diving “down” below the gunboat as the nuclear fireballs blossomed.  The energy splashed over his shields and damage alarms blared.  If he was a human, he would have squinted his eyes against the flare of the energy bursts.  As he wasn’t his antennae curled as he flinched away.  A few seconds later, he was through, his fighter a bit singed but still functional.  He flipped a few switches, redirecting some energy away from his weapons to increase his shield recharge.

              “Nice shot, Commander!” Hukriss said, his voice clicking.  “You nailed the bastard.”

              “Stow it, Hukriss,” Korqath ordered, his voice harsh.  He’d never flown
that
close to a nuclear explosion before.  He was a bit shaken up, though thankfully his fighter had gone through it relatively unharmed.  “We’ve got a lot of work left to do.”

              “Copy that, Lead,” the other pilot said, more clicking following afterward. 

              “Starboard shields are holding,” the shields technician called.  “64 percent, Captain.”

              Nazan winced.  The attack had started out so well.  But after the destruction of the first pirate corvette, the other corvette captains had gotten overconfident and their whole unit cohesion had broken down. 
Angara
and
Eridain
broke off from the rest of the group and moved off to attack one of the other pirate ships, but as they did so, three of the gunboats swooped in and launched a flurry of missiles. 
Eridain
’s railguns opened up with a storm of slugs for missile defense and the ship’s electronic warfare system started howling and strobing, anything to knock the missiles’ guidance systems off their intended target.  Three of the missiles wandered off course and two more were hit by the fusillade of metal slugs.

              But the remaining six slammed into
Eridain
’s shields and exploded.  The FP corvette shuddered and the force of the blows was so serious that the ship was knocked off its original course. 
Angara
was too busy exchanging fire with the pirate corvette to assist, and all of
Eridain’s
forward weapons and turret laser cannons were firing at the corvette to help with holding off the missile attack. 

              “
Eridain
’s starboard shields are down.  They’re venting from three serious hull breaches,” the sensor tech called, sounding seriously distressed.  “Their main power is out.”

              “Damn it,” Tariq swore quietly.  “Guns, do you have my target?”

              “Ready, Captain,” the tactical officer replied smoothly, her voice eager. 

“Fire!”

Verrikoth watched the battle from his seat on the
Nemesis
, watching the vicious fight going on between his light units and his fighters.  The locals were tough and disciplined, he mused.  Or at least those starfighter pilots were.  After that first assault by the local corvettes, which had blasted Typhon’s corvette to metal slivers, the local corvettes seemed to lose all sense of leadership.  One of their ships took a massive hit from some of his, perhaps the leader of their group has been aboard that ship and that was what happened.

But the more he stared at the plot, as
Nemesis
drew closer to the battle, the more he realized that the ships just simply weren’t working well as a unit.  Individually, it seemed that their captains and crews were skilled and brave, but they didn’t have much concept of how to fight as a unit.

His antennae twitched in amusement.  His own ships would get a bit battered, and he might lose one or two of the lighter units.  His hissed lightly.  He wouldn’t mind losing
most
of Typhon’s ships and crews.  The wolf was a terror, but he was also a threat.  Verrikoth had brought him along because he would be worth his weight in precious metals if that battlecruiser showed up.  The wolf, unlike many of the various pirate scum who commanded their own little fleets here in the Argos Cluster, wouldn’t run.  Even against overwhelming odds like that, his light cruiser and a few corvettes against a battlecruiser, Typhon would go down, kicking and clawing and biting.  Verrikoth needed and respected tenacity and skill like that.  But if the wolf would be cut down a peg or two… well… he wouldn’t complain too loudly.

It wouldn’t be a long stretch, perhaps nine or ten minutes before
Nemesis
would be close enough to engage with the rest of the fleet.  The light units had ranged far in front and perhaps he should have held them in a bit closer to keep his firepower concentrated, but he’d gotten cocky.  He’d thought his fighters would have made a better show of themselves, but losing nearly all of his
Sepulcre
s in a single salvo of missiles from the local ships had been something he hadn’t expected.  He’d assumed the boxy ships would have done a
bit
better than that.  With nearly half of his fighter screen obliterated, in fact
more
than half at this point as he watched two more of Sokann’s
Muons
get shot down, the local fighters were moving in to hit his gunboats and the corvettes.  They might be less likely to do so if the cruisers had been there to cover them.