Fall of Icarus (13 page)

Before Captain Hodge could manage a reply, the bridge of the
Vindicator
filled with warning claxons the same time that Eminent Merric began yelling his own report.

“I have multiple launches from the nearest Destroyer,” Merric yelled to be heard over the concerned calls for help.
 
“I’m counting…
”
 
He paused as he rechecked his numbers, not believing the first report.
 
“I’m counting over a hundred slug and rocket launches.”
 
Merric looked up, disbelief cast on his face.

Captain Hodge looked back at Rochelle.
 
The Pilgrim’s face revealed that he knew his death was imminent.
 
His stoic visage quickly replaced his look of dread as his eyes locked firmly onto Hodge.

“Goodbye, Captain Hodge, and good luck,” Rochelle said, his accent thickened with the raw emotion in his voice.

Watching both the console picture of Captain Rochelle and the forward view screen, Captain Hodge watched in horror as missiles detonated along the port side of the
Vindicator
while thick metal slugs tore holes clean through the ship.
 
A stream of exploding plasma rockets blossomed along the hull in a clean line from bow to stern, splitting the
Vindicator
in two.
 
Slowly, the two halves of the Alliance Cruiser drifted apart, separated by a growing sea of debris and bodies torn free from the interior of the ship.
 
Looking down, Captain Hodge saw only her own reflection on the now dark console monitor.

Biting back her tears, Captain Hodge knew that there wasn’t time to mourn their loss, not with three more fully capable Terran Destroyers still in the fight.
 
Still, she couldn’t erase the memory of the Terran’s secret weapon.
 
Something had been in the warheads of those rockets, something capable of shutting down the massive engines of a Cruiser.
 
There was no way to know how many of those rockets the Terrans had in their arsenals on board each Destroyer.
 
With that sort of technology in the hands of their enemy, Captain Hodge suddenly worried about more attacks by the smaller Terran fighters.
 
A few
more well
targeted assaults like the one on the
Vindicator
and the Alliance Fleet may lose this battle after all, regardless of their superior numbers.
 
Though she hated to pull her own
Duun
fighters away from the main dog fights out on the battlefield, Captain Hodge made a command decision that she felt was right if the Fleet stood any chance of surviving.

“Magistrate Young,” Captain Hodge said, her voice flooded with weariness.
 
“Contact all Squadrons and tell them to pull back to their respective Cruisers.
 
Order them to provide covering fire to the larger vessels while we engage the last of the Terran Destroyers.”

As the message went out both to the fighters and the rest of the surviving Cruisers, Captain Hodge hoped she had made the right decision.
 
In all the years of training and combat maneuvers since the Taisa Accord was signed, no commander had ever ordered their fighters to withdraw.
 
And, though she knew that the scenarios during training were nothing
like
what she was seeing now, she couldn’t help but feel that she would eternally be judged for making such a rash decision.

CHAPTER EIGHT

           
Keryn watched with dismay as the
Vindicator
was destroyed and listened intently as Captain Hodge recalled the
Duun
fighters back to their respective Cruisers.
 
To her surprise, the devastation of one of the Cruisers gave her the opening and distraction she had required.
 
As she watched from the cockpit of the
Cair Ilmun
, the
Duun
fighters broke contact with their Terran counterparts and split down the middle, flying toward both the two flanking groups of Cruisers.
 
Sensing weakness, the Terran fighters gave chase, splitting along similar lines.
 
The result was instantaneous.
 
In the middle of the battlefield, an area that only moments before had been filled with swarming fighters, Keryn was able to see open space.
 
More importantly, just beyond the open space the three remaining Destroyers came into view, no longer concealed behind a screen of smaller ships.

           
Though every other ship was moving toward the Cruisers, Keryn broke from her position, switching on the
Cair
-specific channel as she moved.
 
“All
Cair
ships,
follow me.
 
I’ll take the tip of the cone.
 
Everyone else, fall into position behind.”

           
Slowly the other pilots shook off their surprise at seeing a Cruiser so easily destroyed and followed the
Cair Ilmun
.
 
Though some of the pilots opted for the more protected interior of the cone, many pilots surprised Keryn by taking up flanking spots around her ship.
 
Keryn had studied long enough and made enough mistakes during her time at the Academy to understand the effectiveness of three-dimensional combat.
 
On the ground, the Wyndgaarts trained using a similar technique called a wedge.
 
By having a single person at the point of the wedge, it allowed the other members to have overlapping fields of fire on all sides, making it both dangerous and effective at penetrating enemy defensive lines.
 
In space, similar rules applied, though they added another axis to the grid.
 
In a cone, the three-dimensional equivalent of the wedge formation, Keryn’s lightly armed
Cair
ships were able to not only fire in all directions but were able to overlap their fire for greater effectiveness.

           
The cone launched and moved quickly as far away as possible from the returning
Duun
fighters.
 
Though she had confidence in their new formation, Keryn didn’t want to tempt fate by facing a Squadron of Terran fighters before they were clear of the Cruisers.
 
Skirting the sides of the dogfight, Keryn was able to observe the feverish pursuit by the Terran fighters.
 
She doubted they truly understood the Alliance technique of bringing the
Duun
fighters back to the Cruisers.
 
In the eyes of the pursuing Terrans, all they saw was a full retreat by the one threat still remaining to their own Destroyers.
 
However, Keryn knew better.
 
Pulling the
Duun
fighters back to the Cruisers not only protected the Cruisers from any more of the mysterious attacks that Keryn had watched the Terrans use on the
Vindicator
, but also allowed the Cruisers to add their own firepower when defending against the gnat-like Terran fighters.

           
Keryn’s group was nearly clear of the swarm of ships and into the open void between both forces before a group of Terran fighters spotted the odd formation and turned around, moving on an intercept path that would bring the two groups face to face.
 
The only thing that surprised Keryn was the length of time it took them to spot her force.
 
Still, the Terrans had grown overly confident in their pursuit of what they assumed was a retreating enemy.
 
They didn’t send a large group to intercept and destroy Keryn’s
Cair
strike force.
 
They saw a group of lightly armed transports and sent only the minimal force they thought they needed to eliminate the new threat.
 
The Terrans greatly underestimated Keryn’s resolve and tactical ingenuity, a mistake she would gladly shove back down their throats.

           
“We’ve got company,” Keryn warned to her insertion crew still strapped into their seats in the rear of the
Cair Ilmun
.
 
By now, Keryn could only imagine the frustration they must be feeling.
 
“Hold on for a couple more minutes and I’ll get you to a Destroyer.”

           
As the Terran fighters entered range, both sides opened fire.
 
The
Cair
formation rolled independently of one another, dodging a lot of the incoming fire.
 
Still, Keryn felt the
Cair Ilmun
jerk as a spray of machine gun fire struck one of the wings.
 
Luckily for her, the wings were not a necessary part of space flight operations, only truly being used for stabilization once the
Cair
ship entered an atmosphere.
 
Though it would have to be repaired, the injury to the ship wouldn’t keep her from the fight.
 
In retaliation, the
Cair
cone returned fire.
 
The overlapping machine gun fire filled the space in front of their formation with a nearly impenetrable wall of gunfire.
 
Too late, the Terrans saw the effectiveness of their opponents and tried to evade, but there was no space within range that wasn’t being filled with the roaring machine gun bullets.
 
Metal peeled away from the hulls of the fighters as they exposed bellies, wings, and cockpits to the deadly barrage.
 
Wings tore free.
 
Sparks lit the dark space around the ships.
 
Fires filled and consumed the cockpits.
 
By the time Keryn and her team quit firing, only debris filled the area before them.
 
Though Keryn had lost nearly a third of her
Cair
ships to the fighters, they had opened a gaping hole through the Terran defenses, leaving the Destroyers to fend for themselves.

           
“We’re on a short timeline,” Keryn called over the radio.
 
“It won’t take the Terrans long to realize that we’re attacking one of their flagships.
 
Watch for fighters coming in from behind and tell your insertion teams good luck.
 
On my mark, break formation.
 
Three, two, one, mark.”

           
On her command, the cone broke apart with
Cair
ships heading off in nearly every direction.
 
Though the tighter formation was effective against the Terran fighters, sitting too close to one another was a death sentence when facing the slugs and rockets of a Destroyer.
 
As individual ships, they became small and difficult vessels to target by the slower yet dominating Destroyer weapon systems.

           
Dodging the dark metal slugs and massive rockets, Keryn led the
Cair
ships as they descended on the nearest Destroyer.
 
Skimming the hull, Keryn watched the other ships fall on the Destroyer like leaches, extending and attaching their flexible boarding tubes onto the hull of the large ship.
 
Extending like the proboscis of a butterfly, the tubes allowed Infantry soldiers access to the interior of the Destroyer.

           
Keryn chose a spot further down the hull in order to make her landing.
 
Judging by the lack of weaponry in this section, she thought it closer to crew compartments, areas that would be unmanned during a fully involved space battle.
 
The less resistance Yen and his team had to face getting onto the ship, the better the chance of their survival.
 
And, to Keryn’s surprise, she was truly afraid of Yen getting hurt.
 
As she set down on the hull, another
Cair
ship latched on just ahead of her, obviously sharing her ideology about keeping the team safe.
  
The
Cair Ilmun
rocked gently as the boarding tube affixed to the hull, stopping the
Cair Ilmun
’s forward momentum.
 
Unhooking quickly from her seat, Keryn opened the door to the crew compartment.
 
Already free from their seats and locking magazines into their weapons, Yen and his team wore stern visages as they focused on the dangerous task at hand.

           
With a nod from Yen, Keryn pulled open the floor hatch near the cockpit, revealing the tube running to the solid hull beneath.
 
One of the Infantry soldiers broke free from the group and wordlessly dropped into the hole.
 
Though there was breathable air in the tube, he still dropped weightlessly to the Destroyer’s exterior.
 
Reaching into his pack, he withdrew and began assembling a series of explosives in a circular pattern near the edge of the tunnel.
 
Satisfied that everything was in place, the soldier pushed off from the ground, extending his arms upward as he flew back to the
Cair Ilmun
.
 
When he was within range, Yen and Adam grabbed him and pulled him back within the safety of the ship.