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Homeworld Return - blackjack
:: 05/05/01 ::
Chapter 10
Jakare hated life aboard a Destroyer. It was cramped, it was busy, but above all, it was boring. Especially on the Rim of the Somtaaw territory - none attacked them here, none disturbed their endless cruise through the void. The greatest excitement had come from the discovery of a Somtaaw Recon fighter yesterday, but even that had not been much of a thrill: she had not been dispatched after the ship's resident tactical officer repeatedly assured the captain that the unit's sensor systems could not detect the Destroyer through her activated cloaking sheath. Launching fighters would only reveal their presence, he had said, and advised against it. She had grumbled to herself, but overall she knew that she had no say in the matter. She was in charge of leading her pilots into battle, not deciding when and where the battle would be fought. And so she had ducked her head in submission and surrendered to the captain's will.
Everyday she and her pilots checked out their craft. All of the Sickles were in excellent condition, and the Ravages were in good condition as well. They were ready for a Somtaaw attack, even though they all knew that it would not come. A singular ship was not that important of a target, certainly not important enough to be hit by anything more than a few of the enemy's paltry frigates and fighters.
So they were little expecting the Carrier that hyperspaced in almost directly on top of them almost exactly a day after the sighting of the small enemy craft. Even less expected was the veritable fleet that came out of hyperspace along with it - a trio of enemy Destroyers and two dozen of the Somtaaw frigates held the Ytterbian ship under their guns. The massive Destroyer rocked as enemy plasma cannons pounded it from several angles, temporarily too stunned to return fire.
The captain pivoted immediately to her, who stared shocked at the screen. "Go!" he shouted. "Launch your ships, now!"
She rushed off the bridge, heading for the fighterbay at the rear of the ship. Over the intraship comm system she could dimly hear an order for all fighter pilots to report to the hangar bay for immediate launch, but it was faint past the adrenaline that was building up in her veins.
She clambered into the cockpit of her Sickle, several meters above the bay deck, and strapped on her HUD helmet hurredly. After starting the systems of the fighter, she boosted engine power and throttled up. She accelerated with tremendous force, throwing her body against the restraining couch and blasting her out into the cold blackness.
Immediately, she wished that she hadn't. The space around her was a twisting mass of plasma cannon rounds and ion beams, from enemy vessels as well as hers. A group of large fighters swarmed about her base Destroyer, pumping plasma cannon rounds and blasts of white energy into the hull of the Ytterbian craft - electromagnetic pulses, she realized with a start as she scanned the readings from the brilliant bolts.
A Sickle rocketed out of the bay behind her, only to be cut down by the whirling ion beams of one of the Somtaaw frigates. Ahead, a Ravage was shredding a squadron of the heavy fighters, until it was crushed by a barrage of missiles from one of the large enemy destroyer ships. The friendly Destroyer itself lanced out at various craft with its own beams, tearing into the armor of the Somtaaw destroyers and vaporizing a frigate as she watched.
One of the heavy fighters sliced across her field of vision, but she managed to clip it with her ion cannon before it swept out of her sights. She pivoted to follow it, but found herself staring down the barrel of one of the enemy multi-beam frigates' gun ports. The port slashed out at her with a thin sapphire beam, tearing into her armor and shredding several of her sensor systems. She twisted in space, bringing herself out of the beam's arc, and found her original prey. She impaled it, charged particles cutting a crude trench down the centerline of the enemy ship, and the lower half of the craft detonated. Surprising her even further, the remaining half detached from the wreck of what was once, apparently, a separate ship, and curved away out of her reach.
She cursed and began a dive bombing on the crowd of other similar craft that were slowly suppressing her home vessel with a storm of what appeared to be artificial lightning, tearing apart one of the ships in her first run. She noticed other fighters making similar attempts, but all of them were one by one carved down by a web of blue ion streams. Then, suddenly, the Destroyer stopped firing its pulse beams out at the varied fleet surrounding it, and Jakare knew that the battle had been lost. They were going to finish off the ship in a matter of minutes now.
But the enemies stopped firing immediately, confusing her. She paused as well, wondering what was happening, but found no available answer. Her instincts told her to renew her attempt to destroy the large fighter cloud around the Destroyer, but her mind told her to wait and watch - as long as she was not shooting as well, the deadly enemy frigates might not regard her as an active target.
She backed off, out of weapons range, and watched with as much calm as she could while four corvette-sized, lozenge-shaped ships broke off from the main fleet and latched themselves onto the hull of her Destroyer. Puzzled, she watched as they dragged the docile vessel back to the core of their fleet, where a massive ship hyperspaced in to greet them.
The huge vessel appeared to be built around a central stalk, Jakare thought as she scanned it more closely, with a large number of modular sections built on and around it. She watched as the four small craft dragged the Destroyer to under the main block of the massive ship, under its head section, and released it to float freely. Then they moved to dock with the main ship.
The next few minutes seemed to stretch into eternity as she waited for the enemies' next move.
* * *
Onboard the Kuun-Lan, Hjihad Somtaaw looked down at the wireframe schematics of the enemy vessel, docked underneath his ship's Hangar Module, as they were refined by the repair drones that had been reconfigured to serve this express purpose. Assault teams were being prepared to board the enemy craft, hopefully enough to take over the ship so that they could scan the computer systems and data cores of the vessel to find more information about the Ytterbians.
Satisfied that all was in order, he switched his command couch screen to a sensor sphere of the space around them. Only a few scattered fighters remained, all of them either staying inactive or fleeing from the Kuun-Lan. Immediately, he picked a fighter at random and ordered several of the ACVs that had helped to down the Ytterbian Destroyer to disable the fighter.
* * *
In the cockpit of that same fightercraft, Jakare watched as a group of nine heavy Som'taa fighters broke off from the main swarm and turned to head directly for her. She swore again and wheeled about to flee, but found her escape route cut off by one of the enemy anti-fighter frigates, looming ahead and ready to impale her with a blue ion beam if she dared try to go around it. She cursed again and dove, hoping to find an open patch of space where she could ignite her craft's afterburners and escape, but found none - all of the gaps were stopped with Som'taa frigates and fighters.
She cried out in horror once more and turned the only way she could - directly into the path of the oncoming fighters.
She tore one apart with her ion beam immediately, shredding it and creating a ball of roiling plasma, but as she pivoted on her central axis to target another, a huge electrical charge surrounded her ship and the craft went dead. She was floating through space, uncontrolled, all sensors and engine power gone - doomed.
She stared startled out at the huge enemy vessel before she realized what was happening. They were going to take her into the craft, just as they had her home Destroyer, and kill her slowly. The thought filled her with dread, overwhelming her just as another thought popped into her consciousness.
Her oath to Eyarae had just been broken.
She slammed her hands down openly on the dark console and wept bitterly for her lost life and the shattered promise.
* * *
"Kuun-Lan, this is Avenger Lead. Enemy fighter has been disabled."
"Copy that, Lead," Hijhad radioed. "Excellent work. Worker 2, move to drag that fighter in for interrogation and salvage."
The communications channel popped with a reply as the Worker disembarked from the safety of the Kuun-Lan's bay. "Affirmative, Command, we are en route to salvage target now."
Satisfied for now, Hjihad issued only a single more order before leaning back into the command couch. "Avenger squad, watch that fighter - if it moves, you are authorized to disable it if possible, and if not then to destroy it before it escapes. Acolyte squads one through six, split up and clean up the area ASAP."
"Yes sir."
"Copy."
He grinned slightly to himself. The operation had gone off without a hitch - now all they had to do was scan the enemy destroyer and hopefully find some weakness in the Ytterbians. They had been saved for the time being… now if only the remaining fleets could hold the enemies back long enough for them to use the information he felt sure was contained in the Destroyer's data cores.
He stayed on the bridge only long enough to watch the fightercraft being towed into the Kuun-Lan's hangar bay before he stepped off and headed to his personal quarters. His job was done - it was up to his personnel now. He felt a great burden being lifted from him as he stepped into his own wardroom, feeling so light that he abruptly fell asleep for the first time in two days.
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