Dark Fate, Chapter 234

Chapter 234 – Hit and Run

(Angel Leader, Incux Food Resource System 3)

The plan was simple, really, Slave-Squadron Leader Isis ‘Goddess’ Saliba thought in the quiet of her own head. It wouldn’t do to let the rest of the squadron know she was nervous. As the leader, she needed to project calm, cool readiness, or the others would start getting nervous.

There was a difference between ‘nervous’ and ‘alert’, of course. Alert meant that you were ready for action. Specifically, you were ready for the enemy to pull something that would threaten to ruin your whole day, and were prepared to react accordingly. Nervous, on the other hand, meant that you were getting too stuck on ‘what if’, which meant your head was stuck in the possible future, rather than what was actually happening in the now. That led to hesitation and slower reaction times when something eventually went wrong, and in a fighter a hesitation of half a second was easily enough to kill.

The plan was simple, but like all simple plans, it was more a guideline than anything else. Step 1: Attack Incux. Step 2: ???. Step 3: Profit! Goddess snickered at the thought. If she was bringing old memes into this internal monologue, then things weren’t nearly as bad as the negative part of her mind made them out to be.

Right on time, the computer brought her interceptor out of warp. A glance at her sensors told her all twenty-four Angels were with her, in formation. And the foodseeker they had chosen as their target was right there, waiting for them.

“All Angels, this is Angel Lead. Keep missiles in reserve in case something nasty comes our way. Remember, we have limited supplies on the Mercurial. Attack!”

She accelerated into her attack run, holding the trigger down as she maneuvered, using speed to throw off the Incux ship’s targeting. The little ship was roughly cylindrical, but with a flat end on the stern where the engines were, and a tapered conical bow. The only weapons that concerned her and her Angels were the two heavy blaster turrets. They were powerful, and relatively quick-firing for a ship’s weapons, but they were designed for commerce raiding and taking on other warships, not nimble fighters.

“Target’s shields at 74% and falling.” That was Rebound, one of the replacement pilots they’d gotten after their first fight with the Incux. “Their point defense isn’t able to keep up with us.”

“Don’t get cocky, Rebound. They only need to get lucky on a couple shots to shred your shields and take you out.”

“Roger that, Leader.”

Goddess took a moment to look at her sensors as she lined up her next attack run. The foodseeker’s shields were quickly dropping, thanks to the continuous barrage from the interceptors. As she watched, a gap formed in the shields, and Hentai’s blasters struck the dorsal turret six times in quick succession. The shields stabilized, quickly, but the damage was already done. The turret was out of commission, at least for the foreseeable future.

“Angel Lead to all Angels. Hentai just wrecked one of the turrets. Watch for the ship rolling, but we got one side free and clear of enemy fire. Enemy shields at 51% and falling!”

With half the ship undefended, the Angels pounced quickly, just as she’d trained them to do. Soon enough, the ship’s engines took several hits, leaving it dead in space. Not long after, the shields fell. One more pass, and the reactor blew, turning the foodseeker into a cloud of debris.

“Lead, Angel 5. Six foodseekers just warped in!”

“Angel Lead to all Angels, break break break! All flights rendezvous at Rally Point Alpha.” She was already moving even as she called out her response to Angel 5. Six foodseekers, coming in roughly six minutes after the attack started. Pretty good time, assuming that they weren’t keeping their warp engines hot 24/7. As she maneuvered away from the six foodseekers, she switched channels.

“Angel Leader to Mercurial Control. Six party crashers. Heading to Rally Point Alpha. Prepare welcome wagon.”

“Mercurial Control copies, Angel Leader. Don’t get caught with your fingers in the cookie jar.”

Goddess smiled as she looked at her Angels forming up in flights for the next phase of the plan. Each flight went to warp. ‘Just’ 10c, not pushing the engines too hard. Wouldn’t want the foodseekers to get lost or lose interest, after all.

Twenty-four A-pattern Interceptors dropped out of warp at Rally Point Alpha, and immediately accelerated to full combat speed, breaking off on six pre-planned vectors to clear the area as quickly as possible. Which was just good planning, really. No one wanted to get caught in what was about to happen, after all.

(Cinder Leader, Incux Food Resource System 3)

Slave-Squadron Leader Lelia ‘Heretic’ Carollo grinned as she saw her sister slave and fellow squadron leader break out of the kill zone. A couple of her fighters had taken glancing shots from the turrets on the foodseeker they’d hit, and from its friends that had shown up late to the party, but the shields had done their job, and kept Angel Squadron from suffering any losses.

Better yet, she had work for her Cinders to do. The Angels weren’t the only craft on her tactical readout, after all. “Cinder Squadron, six foodseekers incoming, possible other ships coming behind them. We’re going evens and odds on this one. Evens, you have first crack on this group. Odds, ready weapons and either finish off any survivors, or take on the next group of contestants. We don’t want any of these rude party crashers spoiling our Angels’ fun, do we?”

She got the cheers and laughs she expected from her Cinders as they all replied ready. Cinders 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 moved ahead of their wingmen as the Angels cleared the kill zone. Moments later, the six foodseekers dropped out of warp, their shields raised and weapons ready.

However, they were coming at foes who already knew they were coming, and had prepared accordingly. Six Renegades fired their pulse torpedoes, even as the Incux started scanning for targets. The foodseekers didn’t even have time to lock on with their weapons before the barely contained antimatter crashed into them, briefly turning all six into temporary stars that burned out in an instant.

“Good strike, Evens. Odds, move forward, and get ready. Looks like we have more than just foodseekers in this batch!”

There were four trails incoming. As the ships dropped out of warp, Heretic grinned. Two foodseekers, as expected, but two of the trails were hiveships! She quickly entered targeting data into the battle network, dividing the ships between the remaining Cinders. Cinder 11 joined her in targeting one of the hiveships, while Cinder 3 and Cinder 9 hit the other. Cinder 5 and 7 each took one of the foodseekers. Quick and dirty planning, but sometimes quick and dirty was all you had time for.

This time, the Incux had enough warning to start sending fire their way, but they were ready for it. Their shields could take a couple hits from the Incux guns, but that didn’t mean her pilots were trained to stand there and take hits for fun. All her Cinders avoided the worst of the enemy fire, and returned the favor with their pulse torpedoes. All four enemies died in nuclear fire.

“Good hits, Odds!” Heretic called out, before an alert drew her eyes to the tactical readout. One hundred and ninety-eight tracks incoming, too small to be even the foodseekers. That meant fighters, and with those numbers there had to be about eight squadrons heading this way. “Looks like the fighters are joining the party, and there’s too many of them for us to handle. All Cinders, retreat to Rally Point Beta!”

(Bridge, CRN Demon’s Roar, Incux Food Resource System 3)

Captain Alma Hernandez breathed softly as her ship exited warp alongside her three sister ships. Right in front of them was the main Incux fleet. Right where they were supposed to be. Of the eighteen capital ships that had been present at the start of this battle, only nine remained. Four swarmships and five truehives.

From the looks of it, a little under half the fighter screen had already warped out to go help with the hunt for Angel and Cinder Squadrons. However, that still meant almost three hundred fighters were in the area, and the Ceres Royal Navy was between them and their ships. Already, the fighters were turning about, weapons warming up. Already, the capital ships were locking targets with their weapons.

Four projectiles traveling a significant fraction of light-speed slammed into one of the swarmships, each shot hitting within a second of the others. The shields held for the first shot, failed on the second, and the last two tore through the swarmship like a hot knife through butter. Secondary explosions tore the ship apart from the inside.

Blaster hits began to register on the Demon’s Roar’s shields. Just point defense weapons, right now. But she knew that the truehives would be turning their big guns their way. She just needed to deliver her ‘gifts’ and get out of the way.

“Targets locked, Captain.”

Alma grinned at her Tactical officer. “Fire pulse torpedoes. Fire Tiamat torpedoes.”

“Firing!”

Two pulse torpedoes fired from the port launcher, aimed at one of the swarmships. From the bow, two more torpedoes launched. Only, these weren’t temporary magnetic bottles filled with antimatter. No, these were physical weapons, the Tiamat torpedoes that every Hellspawn-class corvette in the fleet was equipped with, since before the pulse torpedoes were even designed. Of course, the reason they hadn’t used the Tiamats before was simple: physical ammunition was expended after use, and they didn’t have manufacturing capacity for the torpedoes in the field.

Of course, there was also the fact that the pulse torpedoes were just generally better in almost every way. Almost every way. The Tiamats had two very important arenas where they were superior to the pulse torpedoes. The first was that they were guided weapons, while the pulse torpedoes just continued on the track they were fired on. The second, and more pertinent for this conversation, was the fact that they were designed to penetrate shields and armor, rather than crash against them.

Two swarmships rocked under the weight of the pulse torpedoes. One was destroyed outright, while the other lost power, and was already falling into a decaying orbit around the planet. Six hours, and it would be on the surface, and out of their area of concern, until the rest of the fleet was finished.

Eight Tiamat torpedoes streaked towards two truehives. On each target, the first torpedo was stopped, but the explosion punched a hole in the shields temporarily. The three other torpedoes followed it in, crossing the threshold before the shields could snap back into place. A cutting laser mounted on the nose of each torpedo weakened the hull just enough in one single spot that they could crash through, penetrating inside the hull. And then their antimatter payloads exploded.

“Captain, Targets 1 and 2 have lost approximately 30% of their total mass, and 58% of their volume. Hull breaches on all decks, I’m reading total power loss on both ships. They’re dead in space, Ma’am.”

“Captain, shields are at 68% and falling! Fighters on attack runs!”

The news from her sensor officer was good. The news from her tactical officer, though, was less so. But they’d accomplished their goals for this strike. No need to overstay their welcome. “Warp speed, Helm. Get us out of here.”

“Aye, Captain!”