Black Dawn (38 page)

The
Raven
and her companions soared directly at the approaching pirate cruiser.
“Taking massive hits on forward shields,” Parker reported.
“Shield power in that quarter now down 79 percent.”
They wouldn’t be able to take many more hits in the front,
Butler realized. Although they were giving as well as they were taking, those damnable pirate shields were absorbing everything they
could throw. And he still had another minute before he could use their
big gun again.
They hurtled in what looked like another suicidal attempt to
slam into each other head-on But only for a second or two. This
commander was smarter than that. “Vector to starboard, quickly!”
Ken ordered.
Both groups knew that someone would have to flinch first.
Butler had managed to do so, and at a time of his choosing. Which
meant that they would have a little more time to use their port side
weapons to best effect. The pirate ship changed direction as well, but
too late. Parker had it targeted, and fired as they passed each other.
“Turn us to port, Mr. Hoffman,” Butler said, “Keep turning.
Try to keep them on our port side.”
The two groups of ships began a fighter-like death spiral, looping in a circle which grew tighter and tighter, firing at each other all
the while. But not everyone could maintain this.
Ken saw it on the tac grid. The patrol ships were losing shielding, and fast. They were never meant for this kind of fight. He ordered them to pull out, just as one of them sustained heavy damage as
her shields failed at last. The other small ship had lost all but her dorsal side shields.
The two destroyers would be next.
And the
Raven
herself was losing shield power on every quarter.
The
Talons
were involved in a struggle with other fighters,
down in the moon’s atmosphere. Gary Michaels was at that station
chair in the tac room, monitoring their progress, urging his outmatched
team on. Zachary and their group were still tied up with the outsystem
pirates.
The
Raven
continued taking hits which jarred her repeatedly.
Ken had Hoffman roll the ship constantly, protecting this side, now
that of their dwindling shields.
“Quadcannon online and ready to fire,” Parker said.
“Mr. Hoffman, turn us about again. Get us a proper firing angle on that ship.”
It was another minute or so, but somehow in their twisting,
turning dance, Hoffman managed it.
“Fire!”
The big gun blasted, once, twice. The beams smashed into the
cruisers shields. The pirate attack leader was also canny enough to roll
their ship and spread the damage around. Even after two such powerful hits, their shields were weakened, but holding.
“Again!” Butler ordered.
The quadcannon fired at the same second that the pirate’s
cruiser took another shot at one of the destroyers. The quadcannon
beam hit the enemy’s ship, and the cumulative damage done to each
other in their constant battle finally mattered. The shields on her starboard side went down. But the pirate’s last shot also broke through
shielding in the destroyer’s rear quarter, stabbing into its engines.
There was an explosion, and the destroyer spun out of control. It
grazed the edge of the second destroyer’s shields as it went, and effectively took it out of the battle as well.
Butler ordered Hoffman to change course in a direction that
would draw the cruiser away from the damaged Alliance ships. It
was just the two of them now.
“Quadcannon offline again,” Parker said.
“Return fire with the dorsal and broadside guns.”
The ships went back to their complicated dance, trying to protect damage, and still trying to fire on one another as best they
could. The
Raven
shook, more violently this time.
“Port shields gone, Captain,” Parker reported.
“Roll the ship again, present our starboard!”
The ship turned, and they kept on hammering each other without mercy.
“Starboard shields down 92 percent,” Parker said quietly.
They all knew what that meant. There was another lurch, and then a
jarring hit which knocked Ken and anyone else standing off their feet.
“Hull breach, starboard side, Deck E.”
Ken clambered back up. If this went on much longer, he and
all the crewmembers on Lamont’s ship would be destroyed. However,
if he was going to go out like this, he would make absolutely sure that
a certain grimy pirate leader was going with him.
There was another
violent lurch.
“Hull breach, port side, Deck C. We’ve just lost the weapons’
fusion reactor.”
“Use the backup reactors. Channel all their power to weapons
systems. Concentrate fire on that ship.”
The ship shook again. And again.
“Damage to port side guns! They’re out of operation!”
“Keep on them. Fire with whatever we’ve got left!” The pirate cruiser looped beneath them, and was angling around for a better
shot. Hoffman went the other way, trying to bring their starboard guns
into play. The
Raven’s
dorsal cannons swivelled, constantly firing.
Their starboard guns were almost in place to take one last shot at the
man Ken Butler had truly learned to hate. But the damaged cruiser
struck again.
“Hull breach! Hangar bay, port side!”
Both ships continued trading shots at a murderous pace. The
Raven
kept trying to make the turn, but the pirate cruiser managed to
do it first. It was lined up with the best of its remaining guns pointed
right at the
Raven’s
already damaged side. “This is it,” Ken thought
calmly. “Damn, I hate disobeying Lamont’s order.”
And then, the
Starwind
soared in between the
Raven
and the
cruiser.
She came in firing, making the space around them bright as
day as she and the pirate traded shots at point blank range.
Her shields were nearly gone too, but Zachary had directly interposed his ship to give the
Raven
a chance. Butler found a surge of
adrenaline that he’d not thought was left in him.
“Keep us in the turn! Get us pointed directly at that cruiser!
Parker, at my order I want you to fire the quadcannon.”
“It’s still overheated, and not yet recharged, captain,” Parker
reminded him.
“Use the manual override on the safeties! Divert all remaining
ship power to it. Take it from the other weapons, life support; I don’t
care! Just get me every scrap of energy you can, and hurry!”
The flagship made the turn. The enemy cruiser kept firing. If
she scored a hit on the
Raven’s
bow and knocked out his big gun, Butler knew it really would be all over.
“Fire!” Ken screamed.
The quadcannon beam lashed out. It punched into the pirate
cruiser’s hull. But there was no visible effect.
“Cannon dangerously overloaded, captain!” Parker said.
“Com channel opening!” Aziza reported. “He wants to talk.”
Butler strode out of the tac room and back onto the bridge. He
stood directly behind Aziza as he brought up the holo-image of the
pirate’s battered face.
“Wait! Let’s talk,” he said. “I’ll make a deal with you. I have
all kinds of information that could help you.”
Ken noticed on another display that the pirate was continuing
to turn his own ship toward the
Raven
, angling to come between her
and the
Starwind
. He also saw that the enemy cruiser’s weapons systems were still active. So he wasn’t going to let Butler out of this either.
“We can work this out,” the grimy pirate lied to him.
“What
do you say?”
Butler stared into the other man’s eyes, his fury tempered now
to cold, emotionless determination.

“I say, you’ve made the wrong enemy today.”
He nodded at
Parker.
The quadcannon beam tore a hole all the way though the
length of the pirate cruiser. It smashed through decks, bulkheads, and
fusion reactors. The cruiser exploded in a flash of such brilliance, that
Ken had to turn his eyes from the display. When he turned back, there
was nothing left but slowly cooling dust, traveling in every direction.
The
Starwind
sidled up to the damaged flagship, and both moved off to
the last front in the battle.

The
Talons
continued in their sweeping, diving battle with the
pirate fighters. The fight had slowly climbed into the upper reaches of
the moon’s thin atmosphere. Smith in Onyx One targeted an enemy at
the same moment it was lined it up from Onyx Three. Between their
combined fire, the fighter burst into scraps of metal.
“That was ours!” the other gunner shouted over her com link.
“Ha!” Smith returned, as he was lining up his next shot. “Not

according to
my
scans.”
“Just ‘cause you’re a flight commander…”
She was cut off by Graham’s “Lieutenant! Five of the fighters

Anthony thought for only a split second.
“Onyx Two and Four,
take ‘em out. We’ll join you in a minute.”
“Roger that.”
The two
Talons
took off in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. They
chased them for several moments, firing at their tails.
“Something on scanners!” Brasch, in Onyx Two reported suddenly.
“What?”
“Six more fighters, coming from the surface.”
“Where’d they come from?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they left from the base…” They took a
jarring hit from behind as the new arrivals came into range.
“Doesn’t matter. Onyx Two and Four to Lieutenant Smith.
We could use a little help down here, commander.…”
“Finishing up… now.” Smith said. “We just got the last one of
ours topside. Commander Knepp and Captain Cheny are still busy.
We’re on our way. Hang on.”
Both pilots worked furiously, darting this way shaking off
pursuit and striking back.
But shield power was dropping fast. Five
of the enemy fighters had swung around behind the pair of BlackFleet
craft, still flying in tandem.
“Watch it, Onyx Four,” Graham said. “Your shields are almost gone!”
“I know, get ‘im off of me, will ya?”
Both gunners were firing behind them frantically. Another hit
from the pirates took out Estridge’s shields completely.
Onyx Four banked hard, trying to throw them off. Graham
went with him, and deliberately placed his fighter between his shipmates and the attack from the rear. All five pairs of the pirates’ guns
focused on them instead. In another three seconds, their shields were
gone, too.
There was a blast of fire from above. Smith was tearing down
through the atmosphere. Their fire scored a hit on one of the pursuers,
and rattled another so that he broke and ran. But the other three stayed
on Graham just long enough. Smith’s stomach lurched. Even as he
continued to fire, even as he hit another of the fighters pursuing his
squadron members, the pirates fired one last time.
Graham and Brasch’s
Talon
was blown apart.

News of Hendricks’ achievement, Zachary’s bravery and the
loss of the
Talon
all reached Lamont almost simultaneously. The first
irreversible BlackFleet deaths hit it like a physical blow and for several
desperate moments, Coy longed for the days when it had very few
emotions. With a concentrated effort, it acknowledged the reports and
returned its attention to the search on the planetoid below.

The
Talons
and Coy’s shuttle criss-crossed the terrain looking
for the disappearing fighter. They assumed he landed and shut down all
power, including life support, which made him virtually invisible to
their scanners. No life support also meant he was in a space suit.

“
I have something!” Marty Thomas announced from the other
Talon
. “Possible visual contact.” He fed the other ships the coordinates of where he saw the glint of metal down on the surface.

A fly over verified the fact that it was a
Talon
type fighter,
parked between two rocky outcroppings. Coy landed its shuttle in
front of the ship, at hopefully a safe distance. Randy and Sam Alexander did the same to port and starboard. They had him surrounded.

“
Dyvees” Coy transmitted on an open frequency, “This is
Commodore Coy Lamont. You are hereby under arrest for crimes
against the Beta Region. You have one chance to comply.”

There was a moment of silence, then static, then a finally a
face to put to Aziza’s information came on. “You don’t want me dead.
You want to know why,” was all he said before disappearing.

Coy’s brow furrowed in anger. He was right. Alive and spilling information was best, but, Coy reminded itself, stopped was the
ultimate goal. “That was your one chance.”

At that, the four Elite officers emerged from the
Talons
and
began approaching the vessel, weapons drawn and ready.
“I don’t suppose he’s going to make this easy and come out
with his hands up,” Sweggert commented on a channel only his colleagues could hear.
“Exit your craft,” Coy ordered the fugitive.
Static. “You don’t want me dead…” the image began again.
Realization dawned on Coy suddenly.
“Take cover!!” it
screamed at the four BlackFleet who had nearly reached the ship.
Instantly they turned and dove behind the rock formations. The
fighter exploded, shattering the rocks, which rained down on them.
Coy snapped its own helmet down and locked it with one
hand, while unstrapping itself from the pilot seat with the other. In
seconds it was out of the shuttle and heading for the devastation. The
rocks and dust fell down in almost a dreamlike speed due to the lesser
gravity of the planetoid. That gravity was Coy’s main hope for the
survival of the people underneath all that mass. It took several agonizing moments for Coy to locate any sign of life. Peering through the
cloud of slowly falling debris, it saw a booted foot. Again, intensely
grateful for the lack of weight, Commodore Lamont began digging.
The foot began moving freely, then the leg. A minute later, Marty
Thomas sat up, free of the rubble.
“Status”, Coy said sharply.
Thomas took just a second to access his medical telemetry. “I
seem to be okay.”
In answer, Lamont merely nodded to the rest of the pile. “Let’s
hope…”
“Commo…” a desperate voice broke through.”…air..help…”
“Skipper!” Sweggert called.
Coy straightened up and looked all around. It spotted Randy
who had evidently freed himself and was hurrying to another pile.
“Over here, sir! It’s Sam!”
After extracting Alexander from his deathtrap, Coy’s opinion
of the gravity changed as they had to fight it trying to race the damaged
pilot to the shuttle. Once they had him in , on the pull down stretcher,
and oxygen flowing into him, Coy glanced at the other two. “Find
her,” was all it said.
Keeping busy tending Alexander helped keep all the other
thoughts attempting to churn through its mind under control. Where
was Pierce? The miracle that even the three of them were alive. How
was Butler’s final
confrontation going? But foremost, and steadily growing, very intense, very cold, and now very personal, hatred.
“Sweggert to Lamont.”
“Lamont. Go.”
“Found her, sir. All body parts present and accounted for. Only
thing busted is her transmitter.”
“Acknowledged,” Coy breathed in relief. “Return…”
“Begging your pardon, sir. She seems to think she has located
someone you might be interested in.”
Lamont, Thomas and Sweggert leaned over the rocks and
peered down at the crater like indentation below them. A set of space
boot footprints led to a metal door set into the rock.
“Do we have the dimensions yet?” Coy asked Pierce. Due to
her damaged com link, she was the logical choice to return to the shuttle and monitor Alexander. While there, she could also use the shuttle’s scanners to find out about their quarry’s hiding place.
“It appears to be an equipment shack. One door in. Two
rooms. Lots of hardware. One lifeform.”
“No hidden tunnels or corridors leading back to base?” Coy
thought it knew the answer to that since they were on the opposite side
of the planetoid from base, but it wanted every possibility covered.
“Apparently not, sir.”
“Acknowledged. Keep me posted of any change.”
“Aye, sir.”
It paused, looking at the ‘shack’. How long had it been working for this moment? How many times had they been close, only to
lose track of the trail? And what the hell was it going to do with the
person on the other side of that door?
“Sir?” Randy prompted.
“We are going down there,” Lamont told him evenly. “You
two will be on guard on the outside. I am going to go in. If the wrong
person comes out—kill him.”
“Aye, sir. Count on it.”