Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (8 page)

His ships were coming in at a slight angle, so they had a brief opportunity to fire their starboard missile tubes before they'd settled on a stern chase. That brief fire was moving in fast, not as fast as the enemy's counter fire, but it was coming in as a surprise so many of the missiles were getting through the outer layers.

His follow-on shots had to come from his bow tubes since he couldn't turn to cross the enemy's T without losing the range. But as he watched the first missile wave got a few leakers through to hammer into her shields as she desperately rolled her already damaged starboard flank away. One, then two rounds of nukes kissed the edge of that weakened flank shield, and it buckled, then compressed inward.

Grav emitters popped like a string of fire crackers as they overloaded. Their breakers did their best to contain the damage, but for some it was too much. He grinned in delight as a portion of the nuclear fire licked at her ventral nacelle on that side, tearing at the armored hull and exposed engine thruster. The thruster flickered and died as did the weapon mounts on the nacelle as they were washed away.

“They know they've been kissed,” the TACO crowed.

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Purple Thorn was firing more than missiles out the chase tubes, however. Her missiles were intercepted by the quartet of prepared enemy ships easily despite every ECM trick they had in their canned memory.

But gently drifting along were dodecahedron shapes, just small enough to have been kicked out the tubes. They had been programmed to drift with their OMS out of the line of fire, but only just.

As
Firefly's
starboard shields went down, the string of presents the elf had laid down took on their final orders from their mother ship, then waited for the rapidly approaching foes. They had only twenty seconds before the first of them would be in engagement range.

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Sensor Tech Averies grinned as another missile lashed at the Fed ship. It didn't get in, but it had been picked off in the inner layer of defenses. He looked over his shoulder briefly. The skipper was working with the TACO to program the next bit. They were trying to get the missiles to spiral out over the ship to hammer at the ship's flank. Or were they trying to make the Fed ship think that so she'd turn it back to them? He wasn't sure.

“Averies, watch your scope!” the bosun barked.

He flinched, aware all eyes were on him. He gasped when he saw the faint trace of something. It had to be debris, but he'd get his ass chewed further if …. He queried the computer for confirmation, then gasped louder.

“What? What the hell is it? Spit it out!”

“Mines, sir! Dead ahead!” the hapless tech said, looking back to Captain Corry.”

“Mother of … Helm, pitch ship! Full power to the engines. Comm, warn the flag. And Bosun get that idiot off my bridge and in the brig!” he snarled just as the first mines acquired his ship and went into their final stages of attack.

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Renee wondered what the elf was playing at with the mines when the lead ship, the medium class cruiser suddenly pitched up to avoid them. She snorted, now thinking it was a distraction but then her eyes narrowed as the range from the mines to the oncoming ships registered. The hunters had just found that this prey still had sharp hooves she thought as the first four mines detonated practically on the ship's wedge and keel shields.

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Adventure Galley
bucked as she clawed her way to safety, but her shields went down from the four pin point impacts of nuclear hell. Then four more got through her already wavering shields to tear into her stern.

That knocked her drive out, and she drifted, OMS fighting to get her moving out of the way of her sister ships and the last line of mines.

They almost made it. The last four mines went off in a staggered sequence directly on his keel. Two found breaches in his armor and got through to his vitals, tearing his reactor apart and sending it into sympathetic detonation.

The third and fourth mines found the ship's fuel supply and keel munitions bunker respectively. The ship spun end over end as both detonated, tearing her apart.

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Rear Admiral Von Berk swore viciously as he saw
Adventure Galley
flip and then began to break up. First her hull began to peel as her shields buckled and failed, then all hell broke loose as the blast wave tore into her to get at her softer inner core. It had happened so damn fast it was hard to believe. But then he saw past her, saw a couple of the missiles the now dead cruiser had launched arch around the Fed cruiser. Some were picked off by her point defense, but a few of the others were in the cruiser's crippling blind spot made by the last series of strikes. They arrowed in, and then when their warheads telemetry recognized they were in striking distance, they triggered themselves, tearing her starboard primary nacelle in half.

He grinned.
Adventure Galley
had gotten her revenge even in death. Now it was time to finish the job he thought.

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Renee was about to congratulate Guns but saw the incoming fire. Ensign Drum and the helm were just a little too slow getting the ship around so an undamaged quadrant could engage them. Her eyes watched as missile after missile was picked off, but three got through everything her ship threw at them to hit the already wounded nacelle.

It tore open like rice paper in a hurricane, then broke in half. Pieces flared out, tearing into the other nacelles and into her ship's primary hull. She felt her ship buck like a wild thing and clung to her arm rests as her restraints dug in.

A piece of the ship's hull hit the primary hull's stern at the base of the Prifly. Her armor held but buckled inward, and that split off a scab of material inside to ricochet within the ship.

A bulkhead cover designed to cover up an ODN trunk was knocked loose and fell. One end slammed down into the helm tank, fortunately unoccupied, but the grav emitters inside kicked it up and out of the area like a repulsive pair of magnetic poles coming in proximity to each other.

It flipped in the air to tear into a sensor tech, then slammed into the tactical officer chair's headrest above the diminutive Purple Thorn's head before it pivoted on that so it's other end could come down onto Lieutenant Commander Simon Dart, crushing the XO.

The cringing bridge crew started to stop their slouch and assess the situation when a fresh piece of bulkhead came free to hit Firefly's holo table near the captain. It rolled off the table, crushing it, then one end ended up on Renee's right side.

Renee gasped as she felt bones in her chest, arm, and leg break. She felt the flash of pain, then the numbing anesthetic as her implants took over and blocked the pain for her. She blessed that, but she needed her mind clear.

“Skipper!” a tech called.

“I'm …,” she tried to push the piece away but couldn't. “I'm trapped, but I'll be fine. Focus on the battle or we're all toast,” she snarled. He hesitated so she glared him back to work. She used her pinned right arm to bring up her HUD mouse and transferred some of her controls to her HUD.

She did her best to keep her respiration even as she worked on what she could. DCC had its hands full so it would be some time before they could get to her.

She looked around the now darkened bridge. The stations were individually lit by skin suit lights and the light coming from their screens and holographic projectors.

A lurid almost pretty network of blue-white lights danced around the room. It took her a moment to realize it was from the severed ODN conduits. Then she had more important things to think about, like survival of her ship and crew.

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Captain Bordou swore as pieces of
Adventure Galley
continued to get in her ship's way. Their constant dodging was throwing off their timing as well as the aim of every one of the other ships.

“That was a little
too
close,” the XO said as a piece of hull came within two meters of hitting their port side.
Calico Jack
didn't quite dodge a large piece of what had once been the cruiser's bow. It hit her on the port flank then spun to hit her division mate on her starboard flank before she could dodge it. Both light cruisers took the blow on their shields, making them sparkle and deform, but the additional energy and wear wasn't pleasant. It also added to their momentary disruption of weapons fire.

“Focus on the job at hand, XO. The living need your attention more,” the captain growled. Her eyes roved the screens in front of her, soaking in the numbers. She didn't like how fast they were burning through her missiles.

“Yeah, especially the ones we want to make dead,” he growled.

“That's the spirit,” she replied.

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Admiral Von Berk scowled as he too noted the intermittent fire and the dwindling stock of missiles. The home-built missiles just weren't up to modern standards he noted. At least they were past the wreckage from Adventure Galley. He checked again but didn't see any life pod beacons from the ship. If her inertial dampeners let go beforehand, there might not be anyone left to save he thought.

He made a mental note to pick over and destroy the wreckage later.

---<>))))

“Guns, pick one of the light cruisers and pound it,” Renee ordered through gritted teeth. She couldn't help but feel something, a shortness of breath as she tried to move out from under the damn bulkhead. It wasn't budging, and the work crews working around her couldn't cut the power to the grav plates to lift it off her since they were tied to the inertial dampeners.

“Leave it I said,” she growled when a Veraxin DCC tech tried to insert an air bladder under one end to lift the piece up and off her.

She watched as her ship's remaining drive kicked ten degrees to port. She opened her mouth to protest, but then her eyes narrowed as her port broadside fired. The missiles had to maneuver in an arch to lock on, so they lost some of their speed advantage. But since the enemy was coming straight on …. She grinned when she saw familiar icons deployed from the port bay as well.

"We've killed one. I'm picking another," Purple Thorn growled, momentary brush with death apparently behind her.

“Give ‘em hell, Guns,” she murmured as the weapon platform deployed. She rested her head for a moment, closed her eyes, and then accessed the engineering teams for a status report.

She wasn't fond of what she found. She passed Firefly's spark while she did so, and paused, opening a virtual chat room. “Commodore Firefly, check the stealth systems. If we can break free of this engagement, we'll need them.”

“Captain, you are hurt. Should I take command?”

Renee frowned but shook her head. “No. You are hurt as well, Captain. I'll handle it for the moment. You are now acting XO. When we're clear I'll pass command to you while medical puts me through the ringer. Casualties?”

“Bad among the stern mounts and crew. Twelve percent of our engineering compliment, and you already know about the fighter losses.”

“I know.”

“Captain, we're also low on missiles on the stern magazines for both counter missiles and offensive missiles,” the A.I. warned.

“Guns is working on that.”

“I saw that as well as the order to move some of the munitions to the stern while the ship fishtails back and forth to open our broadsides. Do you think it will work?”

“I'm not sure. It depends on how much ammunition they have left and how determined they are to finish the job I suppose,” Renee answered. “One way or another we'll find out momentarily,” she growled as she departed the virtual chat room.

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Three of the four port fighters had been torn apart by the enemy upon exit before they could settle. The last looped away then came back in gallantly. Maya thought it was suicide and was ready to oblige the fool when she realized four more fighters had launched from the ship's starboard boat bay. These were coming up behind her forces.

She had eighteen fighters left. Five had been hit by the enemy ship, and a kiss from a PDC or in Shelly's case a counter missile, was the kiss of death it seemed. Her
Raptors
barely had particle screens she thought as she narrowed her eyes and focused on the enemy. Her sensors told her the enemy had full shields. Not good.

Still, they might be harder to kill, but they'd go down eventually. She outnumbered them by over three to one.

That thought lasted right up until they began to cycle their own missiles and then began firing their energy weapons and her
Raptors
began to die, exploding in brief puffs of vapor and vaporizing fuel or trailing both from a near miss. They didn't die in ones either, but in pairs. The numbers climbed rapidly. Her eyes went wide as the fighters tried to scatter and employ the limited counter measures they had.

“Break off! Break into pairs and take them out!” she snarled, mission forgotten as the urge to survive took over.

---<>))))

Captain Bordou didn't see the weapon platform; her focus was on the broadside. But she looked up sharply when CIC broadcast a warning.

“Damn it …”