Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (3 page)

* * * * *

Some distance away, the blue and gold Martian
fighters of Angel flight assembled. They were somewhat reminiscent
of the F-18 fighters of over 150 years past, but the superb
blended-wing craft held many major differences. For instances, like
the bigger Martian warships, they were ion driven. However, the
fighters required compressed fuel cells for power instead of
relying on cold fusion reactors. Also each forward wing was
connected to the other by a rearward triangular spoiler, which gave
them great maneuverability when flown through a planet’s
atmosphere.

Huge plasma pulse cannons also replaced each of the
F-18’s jet forward intakes. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen were their
ammunition supply. Stored in wing tanks, a mixture of both fluids
was sent into a special chamber and ignited into plasma by a laser.
Using an intense electromagnetic accelerator to form and propel the
plasma down its barrels, a plume of plasma bullets were then
loosened from the fighter’s cannons at approximately 5,000 meters
per second. The high-tech weapons could easily penetrate over a
foot of unguarded steel. And to supplement their guns like their
ancestor, there were a number of pylons under the forward wings
that carried a variety of different types of missiles and other
ordinance.

Angel One—Squadron Leader
Colette Boussard—vectored her flight towards the given coordinates.
Despite her helmet’s visor display supplying an enormous amount of
flight and target information, she jerked her head around
constantly while her eyes searched in an “S” pattern. This type of
scanning was typical of veteran pilots that used it to avoid a
“flaming helmet” scenario of information overload under the
stresses of combat. Her bulky and somewhat oversized space helmet,
however, forced her to over-exaggerate her head movements in order
to get a better view.

"Boosy, I see them! They're at nine o'clock high!"
her wingman blurted out over her radio earphones.

Colette snapped her head upward to survey two huge
enemy formations of teardrop craft with delta wings.

"Oh my God, there must be over a hundred of them!"
her wingman was awed.

Colette's gut tightened in anxiety, but it made no
difference. "We see them, Commander. We're on our way!" Colette
spoke resolved to her mission. "Angel One to Angel Flight! Vector
2-0, 3-1-7, 1-1-5! I say again! Vector 2-0, 3-1-7, 1-1-5! We’ll
form a Cat’s Claw at the new Initial Point!"

One by one, the fighters of
Angel Flight peeled away from their separate and isolated positions
in the battle, and started their attack run in what seemed to be
random, disconnected patterns. The space fighters zipped and spun
about at tremendous speeds while turning at insane angles, barely
missing thousands of drifting pieces of wreckage—the vestiges of
the destruction—as well as other surviving spacecraft. The control
of each fighter was directed by their linked flight computers via a
joint tactical matrix system. But all were making their way
steadily to the same directed I. P. This was the nature of fighter
tactics of the 22nd Century. Long gone were the days of approaching
an enemy fighter unseen from behind. An array of sensors and
cameras scanning in all directions had rendered this ploy
absolutely useless.

Regardless, the Martian
fighters swiftly climbed to attack. With every second that passed,
they drew faithfully nearer, masked by the stealth of their
maneuvers. Yet, it seemed not to matter, for the “Earthers” were
paying more attention to their intended targets rather than to the
small ban of Martian fighters moving towards them.

As the Martian fighters closed in, cold sweat from
Colette's hand filled her glove as it tightened its grip around the
fighter's joystick. "Wait—wait!" she cautioned her flight. "Wait!"
Colette cautioned further as she could now make out the enemy
ships' markings. "Wait!" her thumb caressed the fire button as
Angel Flight came together finally in a claw formation as indicated
by her flight display. "NOW!" Colette’s harsh voice tone
demanded.

The small group of Martian fighters unleashed a
lethal barrage of pulse cannon fire and heat-seeking missiles that
raked the first massive wedge formation of Earth fighters. Many of
the small Earth craft simply blew apart, while the rest scattered
to avoid the same fate as the burning cinders that were once their
comrades.

As a few of the Martian
fighters gave chase to the fleeing Earth craft, Colette strived to
maintain coordination over her flight. "Never mind them!
Concentrate on the second formation!" she ordered.

However a
moment later, her wingman's voice yelled excitedly over her
headphones in interruption. "BOOSY, WE'RE TOO LATE! THEY'RE FIRING
AT THE
VIKING
!
LOOK!"

Snapping her head for a view of the warship and its
attackers, Colette’s eyes widen in alarm as the second formation
fired their missiles at the ill-fated Martian cruiser.

The destruction of the
ship came in slow motion to the flight leader. The hoard of
missiles penetrated the hull of the ship from bow to stern
splintering their entry points on the hull. Through its portholes,
spontaneous flashes of light then illuminated the space around it.
Next, the larger secondary explosions erupted, which began to twist
and melt the metal of the vessel into molten portions. At this
point, great blazing sections of the cruiser blew off
indiscriminately, fragmenting the space around the vessel in her
death throes. Finally, the end came in a silent massive explosion
that sent an ever-expanding hallo of green energy off into the
blackness of the void.

Colette winced in momentary wave of jitteriness that
shook her in her seat and sent a trail of goose bumps up her body.
However, she firmed her jaw and went back to her deadly
profession.

* * * * *

Back
aboard the
Mariner
,
Paladin's attention had turned to several breaches in the hull of
his ship. "I don't care! Commandeer the entire galley crew and any
non-critical personnel if you have to, but seal those breaches! You
get me, mister!" he rebuffed the ship's damage control officer over
his headset.

"COMMANDER, AN EARTH CRUISER IDENTIFIED AS THE
TASMANIA
IS ABEAM OF US
AND RAPIDLY APPROACHING OUR PORT QUARTER!" Captain John Winslow, an
average middle-aged man of dark brown hair and New England ancestry
warned Paladin in a yell across the bridge.

Paladin
quickly turned his head and gazed at the tactical display. A
holographic globe containing 3 dimensional images of the ships
around the
Marnier
along with their coordinates were projected between two huge
octagon light fixtures. The Earth ship's advance on their position
was clearly recognizable. Paladin calculated that it would be in
firing range in less than a minute.

"MR.
WINSLOW, GET ME A FIRING SOLUTION ON THAT SHIP! TACTICAL, SET THE
DISTORTION-FIELD GENRATORS TO MAXIMUM, AND READY THE HEAT SHIELD,
STAR BURST, P
halanx
, AND MISSILE DECOYS!" Paladin bellowed out to the weapons’
crewman as he abruptly paced to the helm's
position.

Stopping next to the helmsman, he grabbed at the
man's shoulder. "Cut the main starboard engine, right now! On my
command, give me a hard right at a 45 degree angle of climb, and
use the bow and port docking thrusters as well!"

Paladin then cast narrowed
eyes at Winslow. "At this range, he can’t lock us with his sensors,
not with the distortion generators set at max. He’ll have to lock
on us by optics alone. At that point, we'll blind him and then turn
just as he fires. He won't be able to correct in time. After his
main weapons have timed-out and we've come fully about, we'll treat
him to a volley!" Paladin spoke in strangled, but determined
electronic tones.

Winslow's face brightened with a smile. "Aye,
Sir."

"SENSORS!" Paladin continued, "CALL OUT HIS
DISTANCE! BUT AS SOON AS YOU SEE ANY POWER FLUCTUATION, GIVE ME A
YELL!"

"AYE, COMMANDER!" the woman responded.

The
bridge of the
Mariner
then went silent.

The
Tasmania
was a modern-day warship of deadly efficiency and a veteran of
many battles. Her multi-rectangular design, however, looked like an
upside down and elongated stairway of four tiers with a huge upper
deck that spread into a massive delta wing. Her super structure was
oddly divided and mounted on her sides, but they each brimmed with
laser cannons and other instruments of war. As she drew closer and
prepared for her assault, her metallic gray and silver precipitated
harden alloys gleamed brightly in the rays of the distant sun. She
was a magnificent ornament of beauty and death in the eternal night
over Mars.

"
TASMANIA
,
TWENTY-FIVE CLICKS AND CLOSING!" the sensor crewman
cautioned.

“TACITCAL, DEPLOY STAR BURST!” ordered
Paladin. “WHEN I GIVE THE COMMAND TO TURN, ENERGIZE THEM!”

The crewman gave Paladin a single nod and then went
back to his tasks. With a press of a button, a dozen man-size
spheres ejected from the ship and took up station in front of the
old Martian cruiser.

"Steady helm," Paladin’s
voice reassured.

An endless moment then
passed.

"TWENTY CLICKS—HER OUTER MISSILE DOORS ARE OPENING!"
the sensor crewman again alerted.

Time now stood completely still.

"FIFTEEN CLICKS—POWER
SPIKE!"

"NOW! HARD TO STARBOARD!" Paladin's words boomed in
command authority.

The Star
Burst Flares became a nova of an intense and blinding light just as
the
Mariner's
thrusters came to life. Totally obscured by the sudden
brilliance, the Martian cruiser turned mere seconds before
the
Tasmania
fired
her energy weapons. Without knowing the target had veered hard from
its original course, the sustained laser beams passed harmlessly by
as the
Mariner
rapidly pivoted away. Only when the brightness faded did the
captain of the
Tasmania
realized his mistake, but he was quick to remedy the
error.

A horde
of missiles were launched from the
Tasmania
and pressed in for the kill.
They streaked towards the Martian ship as burning white columns of
death. Suddenly, from the
Mariner's
hull, missile decoys shot away at different
angles, while several rows of rectangular magnetic and x-ray
antenna transmitter arrays popped out of her sides and tons of
liquefied hydrogen gas was released through huge spray nozzles from
the ship’s internal storage reservoirs. The liquid gas was then
diverted away from the ship’s hull by an intense diamagnetic field
that was generated by the array. The field directed the substance
to form a thick wall in front of the
Mariner
. The liquid was then boiled to
an energized gaseous state by a bombardment of x-rays that also
stripped it of its electrons at the same time. This transformed the
gas into a thick churning, blistering shield of flaming red and
orange-hydrogen plasma that burned like the outer reaches of the
sun at approximately 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Paladin and his bridge crew watched the trajectory
of the fiery messengers of doom approached the heat shield of the
boiling cauldron of hydrogen gas. It stood as the first line of
defense against the missiles. As the missiles closed, they all
wondered if their counter-measures would be enough to save them and
their ship.

Finally as the first
missiles penetrated the heat shield of plasma gas, these targeting
projectiles exploded quickly within a few seconds, taking out
themselves as well as any other nearby trailing missiles. However,
the threat still remained even though a little more than half were
destroyed; their detonations had dissipated much of the wall of
gas, creating large gaps. The surviving missiles penetrated through
these openings of the plasma field unscathed and continued on their
deadly path.

As the
projectiles closed in, the lumbering decoys transformed themselves
into moving holograms of the Martian ship. The electronic illusions
quickly confused many of the missiles and sent them on wild courses
away from the Martian cruiser. Still, a few traveled unswerving
towards the
Mariner
.

As the
final few approached, the spinning multi-barreled Gatling Gun-like
Phalanx lasers mounted in the
Mariner’
s many weapon blisters, aimed
and locked on the missiles. They then showered the traveling
explosive devices very rapidly with a bombardment of small pulses
of laser energy that simulated a stream of incandescent water being
sprayed by a hose. Each of the missiles was riddled by the lasers
and blew up short of its target. As the last of the Earth ship's
missiles were destroyed, it was clearly the
Mariner's
turn as her weapon systems
tracked the Earth ship.

"WEAPONS, FIRE!" ordered Paladin in a roar.

The
Mariner
filled the space between the two ships with deadly and
accurate laser and plasma fire. Both continuous beams and pulsed
energy pummeled the Earth ship in battering strikes, opening huge
sections of the
Tasmania's
steel alloy hull in explosive
ruptures.