False Colors

CHAPTER 19

Flag Bridge, KIS Dubav

Deep Space, Gorkhos System

0410 hours (CST), 2671.042

“A message, Lord Admiral. Passed on by Fleet Command.”

Ukar dai Ragark turned to face the speaker. “What is it, Communications Officer?” he asked, glowering. He was beginning to feel frustrated and impatient at the annoying problems that had cropped up over and over since the task force had departed from Baka Kar.

They had made a round-about voyage of it, traveling by way of Dharkyll, Khrovat, and Preesg to pick up additional ships for the strike group, including the escort carrier Larq, which replaced Klarran in his tactical dispositions. The idea had been to move slowly enough to let the Landreichers know they were coming, yet quickly enough to hit Ilios ahead of any possible response, but in practice it hadn’t worked that way. First there had been the delay in assembling the reinforcements, including Larq, at Khrovat, where the ships had recently been involved in the suppression of a rebellion. They had reported resistance completely ended on the colony, when it fact they had still been in the last stages of putting it down when the task force jumped in. He would have left them to their work and gone on, but Ragark had found that the falsely optimistic reports weren’t the only thing wrong at Khrovat. He suspected the System Administrator of entertaining notions of making his own bid for power within the province and using the rebellion as an excuse to retain those ships under his own command, so Ragark had been forced to intervene directly and clean out the corrupt administration before carrying on. It would not have been wise to take the fleet onward leaving a nest of traitors behind him.

Then the Hravik had developed jump drive problems at Preesg, which necessitated hasty repairs. Over an eight-day behind schedule, they had finally arrived at the designated staging area here at Gorkhos. Ragark had decided to hold back for a few hours longer, though, and send a scout ship ahead through the jump point to Ilios. Even if the Landreich had mustered a fleet to meet him, he calculated that he had the strength to defeat it, but Ukar dai Ragark was not the kil to leave things to chance. He wanted to know his opposition, rather than allow himself to be taken by surprise as Thrakhath, curse his name, had been time and again in battle against these unpredictable humans.

But the petty frustrations had been building, and he was feeling less than patient.

“Lord Admiral, a report from Vordran. The picket there. Captain lan Vharr has reported the arrival of the carrier Karga, believed lost over a year ago. It apparently was damaged and had to make repairs deep behind the human frontier, and is now on the way to Baka Kar for a more thorough refit at the docks.” The Flag Communications Officer gave him a triumphant upraised fist. “Yet another addition to our strength, Lord Admiral! Karga is one of the newer supercarriers…”

Ragark raised a hand and made a slashing motion, cutting off the report. Karga…he seemed to remember the name. Yes, a carrier…he had used Baka Kar as a staging area for a raid by a small battle group. One of Thrakhath’s worthless sideshow campaigns, intended to exact vengeance for the Landreich leader’s support of the Terrans in the Battle of Earth. The entire battle group had disappeared across the border, never heard from again.

That wasn’t quite right. There had been one contact, he remembered. One final message…

The admiral in command had announced that he was sacrificing the carrier for the glory of the Empire! That was it…that was why he remembered the whole affair so well. The hypercast had been distorted by static, but he could still remember listening and saying a death-chant over the loss of so many brave Warriors. So how could Karga still be alive today? No admiral would dare withdraw a self-destruct command at the risk of honor and hrai. Could it be a trick of some kind? But the captain of the picket ship had apparently been satisfied that it really was Karga.

Ragark remembered something else, something that made him bare his teeth. The admiral commanding the Karga battle group had been Cakg dai Nokhtak. A cousin of Thrakhath’s…a member of the Imperial House.

A possible claimant to the throne…certainly a tanist with better credentials than Ragark’s own. What if he had avoided the destruction of his ship, and survived until now? Would Cakg dai Nokhtak be content to join Ragark…or would he seek to replace him? Imperial blood would have a strong lure for many of his followers, possibly even Dawx Jhorrad. Especially if it was backed by a carrier and a story of heroism in the war.

He had been held back by the possibly disloyalty of the Administrator at Khrovat. This could be far more dangerous. He could return to Baka Kar to find his entire position undermined…

Ragark leapt to decision. “Transmit new orders to the task force,” he said. “We will move to the jump point to Vordran and investigate this story in more detail. The move on Ilios is postponed. See that all captains are aware of the change of plan. We get under way immediately!”

If Karga was a friend, he could afford the delay. After all, his move on Ilios had been designed to draw the humans away from threatening the repairs to Vorghath, and he was sure he had already accomplished that through the threat he had posed.

But if Karga was an enemy, his four carriers, combined with the two at Baka Kar, would crush him.

Operations Planning Center, FRLS Independence

Orbiting Ilios, Ilios System

0845 hours (CST)

The single figure sitting at the big triangular table in OPC looked very much alone when Kevin Tolwyn entered the compartment. Max Kruger was hunched over his computer terminal, calling up holographic charts of possible battle plans for the defense of Ilios, but the dejected set of his shoulders told a different story altogether.

“Sir,” Tolwyn said, “patrols have destroyed a Cat scout ship near the jump point to Gorkhos. And our long-range communications monitors have picked up traffic from the same direction. It sounded like an abort order, recalling the Cat fleet to form on their flagship and prepare to jump outsystem.”

Kruger raised red-shot, weary eyes. “When?”

“That’s the thing, sir. The signals are several hours old now. It took that long to get them correlated and descrambled. If they were jumping to attack us here, they should have started coming through the jump point long since.”

Kruger didn’t answer him. The President shut off the holo-projector, but sat staring at the center of the table as if it was still displaying an image.

After a long moment of silence, Tolwyn spoke again. “Mr. President…”

The older man raised a hand in a dismissive gesture. “By now, I doubt that,” he said. They had monitored word from the Landreich that Galbraith had rammed through a response to Kruger’s tactics in record time. As they spoke, the Council would be meeting to consider the Opposition’s call for a vote of no confidence. There had even been a rumor they were considering a vote to impeach Kruger for his abandonment of the capitol.

“Sir,” Tolwyn insisted. “Nothing official’s happened yet. Even Captain Galbraith can’t act against your orders until he receives an official message from Landreich.”

“So? What would the point be, Captain? Whatever I do now, they’ll nullify it.”

“The only reason I can think of Ragark to back down from the plan to attack here is if he had some kind of information about a threat to Baka Kar. If Mjollnir was keeping to schedule, she’d be going in today. And if that’s what Ragark’s reacting to…“

“Then he’s got too big a head start for us to make much difference, Captain,” Kruger said. “It looks like Richards and Geoff were right. Even if they take out the dreadnought, they’ll never get away. Not if Ragark can seal off their escape.” He leaned back in his chair, nothing at all like the excitable, enthusiastic madman who had become such a mythic figure in this part of space. Now he was just an old, done man, with nothing left to hold on to. “No, Captain, I suppose I should just save everyone the trouble. Let Galbraith take the fleet back to Landreich and get it all over with.”

“Damn it, sir, you can’t just write them off!” Tolwyn exploded. “You have no way of knowing what the tactical situation will be out there…but if Ragark does get back to Baka Kar, and Mjollnir has to face his combined forces alone, it will be a goddamned suicide mission.”

Kruger’s frown deepened. “We could end up spacing right into Ragark’s hands, Tolwyn. We could lose the whole damned fleet…”

“When has that ever stopped you before?” he demanded. “You were willing to rush that Cat squadron at Hellhole with two empty carriers and nothing but pure bluff to get you through, and if that wasn’t risking the fleet I don’t know what the hell was!” Tolwyn was pacing back and forth in front of the President, talking with his hands and body as much as his words. “Anyway, once Galbraith gets in power there won’t be much of a fleet anyway. He’ll pay off most of the carriers and draw down the rest of the armed forces. Or the Cats will roll right over everything and the whole fleet will be useless against them. What have you got to lose?”

“A lot of good men and women, Captain,” Kruger said wearily.

“You’ve sacrificed people before,” Tolwyn said brutally. “Soldiers and spacers…that’s what we’re for, you know. To die, if we have to, to protect the Republic.”

“What right do I have now?” Kruger asked. “Damn it, Tolwyn, the Republic’s in the process of disowning me! It may not be official yet, but you know that by the time the last gavel falls today I won’t have the authority to fire a salute, much less launch a battle.”

“Just because you’ve been disowned by your people, Mr. President, is no reason for you to disown them.” Tolwyn stopped and leaned over the corner of the table, looking down at Kruger. “Your whole life has been about helping the Landreichers when they were being handed a raw deal by some outsider. You gave up your ConFleet career and risked your life and the lives of San Jacinto’s crew to defend Landreich from the Cats. You’ve done the same thing a hell of a lot of times since then, too. Why? Because you were President? You weren’t when you were commanding San Jacinto and you told Vance Richards what he could do with his withdrawal orders!”

Kruger fixed Tolwyn with a stare, and there was silence in the OPC, a silence that dragged out uncomfortably long. Finally, he stirred in his seat. “You know, Captain Tolwyn, you’re turning into a remarkably fine replacement for Jason Bondarevsky. He always liked to play the role of my conscience, too, you know.”

“If I’m doing a good job of filling his shoes, I’m glad of it,” Tolwyn said.

Kruger snorted. “Wonderful.” He stood up slowly. “All right, Captain Tolwyn, we’ll try this your way. Maybe we’ll bail Vance and them out of a mess…or maybe we’ll just go down fighting. Either way, at least Max Kruger will go out with a bang, instead of a whimper, and be damned to the politicians who think they can put me out to pasture!”

Flag Bridge, KIS Dubav

Near Tump Point Sixteen, Vordran System

0918 hours (CST)

“No sign of the picket vessel, my Lord. Or anything else. Not even a debris field.”

Ragark resisted the urge to snarl a reply to the image of the ship’s captain on his monitor screen, forcing his voice to remain flat and calm. “Very well, shape course for the jump point to Baka Kar. Maximum acceleration.”

“My Lord!” That was the Flag Sensor officer. “Picking up an emissions signature that corresponds to the Karga. Near the edge of the asteroid belt…”

“You heard that, Val?” Ragark demanded.

Akhjer nar Val gave him a grasping gesture of understanding and assent. “We have it here,” he said.

“Then order the fleet to pursue, by the Gods!”

Ragark cut the intercom link, raging inwardly at the seeming inability of his subordinates to do anything competently. When they had first jumped into the Vordran system they had picked up a sensor image from something that should have been the picket boat, but after a burst of encrypted comm traffic the ship had vanished, apparently into the jump point to Hellhole.

Now they were registering the carrier…where nothing had been before. Lurking near the edge of the asteroid belt, with transponders shut down, they might have escaped detection. But what kind of game was this dai Nokhtak playing?

Zartoth 905, VAQ-662 “Shrill Cats”

Asteroid Belt, Vordran System

0920 hours (CST)

Lieutenant Mbenge smiled inside his flight helmet. By now Ragark’s crew should have picked up the signal he was sending, and he wished he could have been there to see the reaction when all those Cats discovered what looked like a carrier appearing from out of nowhere.

They’d be even more surprised when his wingmate, Lieutenant Cynthia Hill, started up her part of the day’s fun and games. Bondarevsky had detached the two Zartoth EW planes, plus a Kofar resupply bird to support them in the absence of the carrier, specifically for a situation like this one. Each of the Zartoths could put out signals that mimicked a ship’s transponder code and energy readings. The discrepancies of size and mass would be hard to spot as long as the planes remained near the fringe of the asteroid belt, and since they could turn their signals on and off at will they could do a fine job of keeping the Cats occupied, searching in vain for a ship that wasn’t there.

With luck, that could buy them some time at Baka Kar, and keep Ragark from setting up an ambush at one of the jump points. Then, hopefully, they’d be able to keep a low profile until the danger passed and someone sent ships from the Free Republic to retrieve them. From everything he’d heard, the carrier might not be coming back from Baka Kar.

He checked the countdown clock beside his sensor screen, and flicked off the switch that controlled his transmission. Let Ragark chew on that, for a while…

Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir

Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System

1118 hours (CST)

“Another cruiser, sir. Routine challenge and reply.”

Tolwyn nodded at Lieutenant Mario Vivaldi’s report. That was the fourth warship they had encountered since making the jump from Vordran, and so far each one had sailed blithely past with no more than a casual exchange of greetings over the commlink. Richards had been right. If they had tried to come in as attackers, they would never have penetrated this far. There were plenty of fighting ships in the system, though it was clear from long-range scans that the bulk of Ragark’s forces were elsewhere, presumably engaged with the Landreich fleet at Ilios-if Kruger’s intelligence information had been accurate.

But the deception was working beautifully. The transponder continued to send out the old ID signature which the Kilrathi picked up as friendly. And apparently the ruse with the picket boat had worked according to plan. There was no sign that anyone in space around Baka Kar was the least bit suspicious of Karga.

That would all change soon, though, he reminded himself grimly. As soon as the pretense was dropped and they attacked the dreadnought, every Cat in the system would come after them, and the odds were still formidable. With luck they could render the dreadnought useless…but it would still take a minor miracle to win clear afterwards.

Tolwyn pushed the dour thought from his mind. He had already crossed his Rubicon. Now he had to hope that all the elements of the strategy he, Richards, and Bondarevsky had mapped out together would come together as planned. And he had to make sure that Geoff Tolwyn, at least, played out his part.

The sensor technician spoke up. “Ships appearing on long-range scanners out of the jump point, sir. Two…now three. Lead ship IFF reads as Xenophon…”

“Right. Let the Cats get a good look, people.”

“Comm activity from the station is increasing,” Vivaldi reported.

“Vector changes on three cruisers…four…destroyers now changing vectors as well…” the sensor tech spoke fast to keep up with the changing conditions. “Hell, it looks like every capital ship in the system’s changing course for the jump point, skipper.”

“That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” Tolwyn said. He touched a stud on his intercom panel. “Flight, from CIC.”

“Bondarevsky here.” Tolwyn was surprised to see the Wing Commander in a full flight suit. The plan hadn’t called for Bondarevsky to be strapping on a fighter today. But it was his business to run the Flight Wing any way he saw fit. Tolwyn trusted him…and trust was a commodity Geoff Tolwyn rarely extended any more.

“Captain,” he said formally. “I make us forty-five minutes from target. The diversionary attack has commenced at the jump point. Get your people ready.” He paused. “And…good luck, Jason.”

Flight Wing Briefing Room, FRLS Mjollnir

Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System

1140 hours (CST)

Bondarevsky shut off the intercom and turned back to the assembled squadron commanders. “It’s time,” he said quietly. “You have your orders…but you also have your wits. Use them out there today. Now assemble your squadrons!”

“Black Cats!” Etienne Montclair shouted, smiling like a wolf on the scent of prey. Some of the others took up the call as they rose and headed for the door.

A good team, Bondarevsky thought as he watched them go. Maybe not as good as Tarawa’s old outfit, but a damned good team. Would any of them make it out alive? The odds were against it.

He saw Sparks and Harper leaning against the far wall, talking, and started toward them, but he never made it there. Alexandra Travis appeared at the door, her usual easy grace replaced by a stiff, awkward gait as she favored her injured side. He moved to meet her.

“What the devil are you doing out of sick bay?” he demanded. “Doctor Manning told me you’d be out of it for at least a week.”

She nodded. Pale from her ordeal the day before, her wan complexion offset the dark helmet of her shortcut hair. “I…just wanted to come down and see you off,” she said, her voice strained. Pain, or emotion? He wasn’t sure. “Sorry I have to sit out this dance.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to ride out the whole battle in the command plane anyway.” His original assignment for the attack had been to the Gratha Command and Control craft that would be coordinating the carrier’s Alpha Strike. But with one of his best Strakha pilots wounded, he had changed his mind. He’d fly one of the stealth fighters today, taking personal charge of the squadron in place of Travis.

He would have been happy that the woman wasn’t going into battle today, if the position of the carrier itself hadn’t been so hopeless. Bondarevsky had been struck by her resemblance to Svetlana-not so much in face or feature as in the way she carried herself, the way her mind worked so closely attuned to his own-but it wasn’t until she was wounded aboard the picket ship that he realized how much he’d come to care for her these past few months. It would have been almost too much to bear if she’d gone out there in a fighter like Svetlana, and never come back.

Her eyes met his. “Take care of yourself out there, Jason,” she said quietly. It was the first time she’d ever used his given name. “Don’t forget, you owe me a date when we get back to Landreich.”

His eyes strayed to the swell of her breasts under the khaki uniform she wore, then back to her mocking eyes. “I’ll be there,” he said. He would have taken her in his arms, but he was conscious of other eyes on the two of them.

“I’ll be there,” he repeated, and turned to leave the briefing room. It was time for battle.

Flight Wing Briefing Room, FRLS Mjollnir

Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System

1141 hours (CST)

“My thanks to you, darlin’ of the flight deck, for making sure my wee bird can fly today,” Aengus Harper was saying. A last-minute fault had threatened to ground his Strakha and keep him out of the action today, but Sparks had taken personal charge of the techies who had traced the glitch down and corrected it in time for him to go back on the roster.

If Harper was going to the on a suicide mission, he intended to do it in the cockpit of a fighter, not sidelined as he’d been all these years.

Sparks didn’t answer. He followed her gaze to where Bondarevsky and Travis were talking, then looked at the tech officer again. “Does he not know, then, that you love him, lass?” he asked.

She met his eyes and flushed. “What makes you say that?” she demanded.

“I’ve seen the look a time or two before, lass,” he said. “Even put it in a few ladies’ eyes, from time to time. You’ll not be denyin’ that you’re in love with him, will you now? And for a long time, I’d say.”

She nodded reluctantly. “A long time. But he was in love with another pilot back then, until he lost her on the Kilrah raid. After that…well, he was just getting over her, and I was just a techie petty officer besides.”

“And later?”

“We almost…got together once,” she told him. “But the timing was still wrong. He made it a rule not to fraternize with the junior officers once he became captain of a carrier… and just when I thought he wasn’t going to be my ship’s captain any more, we drew another assignment together.” She looked away. “After that, I decided I didn’t want to trade the friendship I knew we had for a romance I wasn’t sure we could ever manage. Now…it looks like I’ve lost him again. To another pilot, too.”

“You should tell him how you feel, lass.”

She shook her head. “Not much point in it now, Aengus. The last thing he needs is to have something like that laid on him now. And everyone says we won’t be coming back from this one. So I lose him one way or another…better I don’t cause him any more grief.”

“You’re one in a million, Janet McCullough,” Harper told her. “And if you weren’t head-over-heels for that one over there I might be trying to court you myself.”

“Save it, flyboy,” she told him. “Or did you forget you’ve got a launch coming up?”

Strakha 800, VF-401 “Shadow Cats”

Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System

1148 hours (CST)

“Eight-zero-zero, good shot,” Bondarevsky said. He pushed the fighter’s throttle forward and felt the gravitic differential pushing him back into his seat as the Strakha accelerated. “Good shot!”

“Roger, eight-zero-zero,” Boss Marchand replied.

He checked the status of his cloak and nodded inside his flight helmet. No one he’d ever heard of had ever tried launching a stealth fighter with the cloak on, but it had gone off without a hitch. The deployment plan called for the Strakhas to get off of the flight deck early, with cloaks up to hide the launch from prying eyes. It would make the operations cycle easier once the full Alpha Strike went forward later…and it guaranteed that the Strakhas would be in position for a very special mission before the Cats suspected anything was amiss.

One by one the rest of the squadron joined him, though his sensors continued to show surrounding space empty save for the carrier herself. When all eight of the cloaked fighters were assembled, Bondarevsky switched on his commlink once again. “Asgard, Asgard, this is Loki. Launch completed. Proceeding to designated target.” In honor of the carrier’s name-and perhaps in memory of Viking Jensson as well, the codenames for the various elements of the strike mission were drawn from Norse mythology. Asgard, the home of the gods, was the carrier, while the cloaked Strakhas operated under the name of the trickster god, Loki.

“Loki, Asgard, copy,” came the reply from Lieutenant Vivaldi. “Make sure you sting the bastards a couple of times for me!”

The Strakhas, unseen, undetected, raced inward toward Baka Kar.

Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir

Entering Baka Kar Orbit, Baka Kar System

1208 hours (CST)

“My God, what a monster,” someone breathed, and Geoff Tolwyn agreed. He had once thought Behemoth was a truly impressive piece of machinery, but the huge bulk of the Kilrathi dreadnought was something unimaginably larger and more terrible. The huge space station and repair dock alongside was larger, but not by much…and space stations didn’t generally fly under their own power.

Or carry sufficient weapons to wipe out a fleet or lay waste a planet.

Still unchallenged, the carrier was on final approach. Dahl and Murragh were busy talking to the station controllers, requesting final approach clearance, ostensibly so they could dock with the station and arrange resupply and repairs for Karga. He had been concerned about allowing the Kilrathi to play too big a role in the operation, in case one of them harbored more loyalty to his race than to his Prince, but the encounter with the picket boat had proved he could count on Murragh and the others. Tolwyn could safely ignore that entire facet of the attack. It was in good hands. At any rate, most of the attention at the station was bound to be focused on the distant skirmishing around the jump point, where Xenaphon, Durendal, and Caliburn were playing tag with the ever-increasing force of Kilrathi ships closing in on them from all parts of the system.

Richards was playing it canny out there, avoiding combat. The three Landreich ships could dodge away from almost anything their size or larger, altering vectors in plenty of time to avoid coming into range of a Cat ship’s guns. It would take a carrier with fast-striking planes to bring them to battle, and so far the only carrier they’d detected in motion was still close to an hour from the scene of the fighting. A second carrier was reported near the station, but its power readings indicated that it had suffered some heavy damage-probably the one Kevin Tolwyn had reported as taken out of action by the pirates at Hellhole.

“We have clearance,” Vivaldi announced. “Port side approach.”

“Very good,” Tolwyn said. “Just where we hoped. Mr. Clancy, I’ll thank you to steer for the port side of the station. And make sure you take us in close across the bow of that beast.”

“You want centimeters or millimeters, Admiral?” Clancy asked. “Or would you prefer microns?”

“Just bring us across her bow, and I’ll be happy. Mr. Deniken, are you ready?”

“All guns standing by,” the Tactics and Gunnery Officer confirmed. “Ready for your order.”

“A little longer, if you please.” He touched an intercom stud. “Mr. Graham? Status?”

“All systems nominal, sir,” Graham reported. “Shields cycling at nine-six-fiver. The drives are looking good. Damage control parties are ready.” He paused. “Would this be a good time to wish I was still back on good old Nargrast, freezing my butt off with Murragh and the rest?”

“Luck of the draw, Mr. Graham,” Tolwyn told him. “Flight Deck, prepare for launch operations on my signal. All stations, preparatory.” Tolwyn waited a long moment, savoring the feeling of command. “Mr. Vivaldi, you may hoist our colors, if you please.”

“Aye aye, sir.” In the days of sailing ships on Earth, a warship trying for the kind of surprise Mjollnir sought today might sail into combat range flying the flag of another nation, a legitimate ruse de guerre. But before the first broadside, the false colors would be hauled down and the real national flag hoisted. Mjollnir was doing the same thing electronically. Her transponder had broadcast the Identification Friend or Foe signal for the Karga, but now Vivaldi switched that transponder signal off and brought up Mjollnir’s new code, identifying her as a ship of the Landreich.

The waiting was over. The battle was beginning…

“Now!” Tolwyn said. “Execute Ragnarok…Now!”

Strakha 800, VF-401 “Shadow Cats”

Near Orbital Dock Asharazhal, Baka Kar System

1216 hours (CST)

“Ragnarok, Ragnarok, Ragnarok. I say again, Ragnarok!”

The Norse battle between the gods and the giants, a fitting code-word for the order to start the attack, thundered in Bondarevsky’s ears. He activated his commlink. “That’s the signal, Shadow Cats!” he said. “Attack designated targets at will.”

His hand reached out to drop the cloak that screened his Strakha from detection. The heavy fighter slowly emerged from its hiding-place in a bent portion of space, hanging bare meters above the hull of the dreadnought. As the Strakha’s targeting sensors registered a lock, Jason Bondarevsky opened fire at point-blank range.

They had adapted this portion of the battle plan from the attack Banfeld’s pirates had launched against the carrier at Vaku. But they had two advantages the pirates had lacked. Their stealth technology allowed the Shadow Cats to place themselves in close to the target before the attack…and the shield emitter arrays of the orbital dock and the massive dreadnought were far better targets than those found on a carrier.

The eight Strakhas had stationed themselves directly adjacent to eight different emitter batteries, six on the dreadnought, two more on the station. Hidden, they had reduced speed to close to zero, using thrusters to keep station against microgravitic influences but otherwise simply matching orbits perfectly with the Kilrathi station and its monstrous consort. Normally fighters tried to operate using high speeds and rapid vector changes, using their maneuverability to protect them from the dangers of Double-A-S. But that limited the time available to achieve a target lock and fire.

Today, though, the situation was different. The Strakhas decloaked and opened fire, pouring sustained energy blasts directly into the crucial emitters at point-blank range before the Kilrathi even knew there were enemies in a position to fire. Neither the station nor the dreadnought had been maintaining shields at combat strength. They were set at low power levels to screen out minor radiation or random chunks of space debris. So the sudden, overwhelming attack quickly punched through the protective screens and smashed into the arrays. In seconds there were huge gaps left in the Kilrathi shielding that would take long minutes to circumvent by reworking their power grid.

In the meantime, station and dreadnought lay wide open to attack.

As he continued to fire into the emitters, Bondarevsky saw Mjollnir making a slow, ponderous turn right across the bows of the dreadnought, where the shields were failing fast. Fighters and bombers were streaming from the two launch bays as fast as Boss Marchand could cycle them out, led by the Raptors of Etienne Montclair’s Crazy Eights and the powerful Vaktoths in Commander Lin Dan-Giang’s Black Lion squadron.

Then the carrier opened fire with her main guns.

Though not intended to engage in close space combat, the carrier had been well-equipped with batteries to ensure the destruction of any smaller fighting ship that managed to slip through her guard. They had only been able to get six of the eight massive laser turrets back in service during the refit, but Tolwyn had angled the ship so that four of those six turrets had firing arcs. They all opened up at once, and a moment later numerous smaller beams contributed to the massive assault. That had been the project Deniken had been wrapped up in since leaving Vaku. He had adapted the computer program that handled the largely automated point defense lasers, which were supposed to knock down incoming missiles or fighters that closed too near. Now they were slaved to the main guns, and if their individual power output wasn’t much against the heavy armor that protected the dreadnought, together they increased the already furious energy that washed over the enemy ship’s bow.

Armor sloughed off under the intense bombardment, but of course the dreadnought had plenty of armor to spare. Now it was a race between the Mjollnir’s ability to pour out sustained energy fire, the dreadnought’s staying power, and the Kilrathi crew’s response time as they tried to man battle stations and bring the leviathan into the fight.

No one expected them to just sit there and take it for very long.

Command Bridge, KIS Vorghath

Docked, Orbital Station Asnarazhal, Baka Kar System

1221 hours (CST)

Dawx Jhorrad emerged from the elevator to find the cavernous bridge of the Vorghath in the grip of confusion and near-panic. Striding purposefully toward his command station, he cuffed two enlisted ratings in passing and bared his fangs at an engineering officer who seemed completely out of his depth in the face of the crisis.

“Report!” he snapped, dropping into the command chair and turning the baleful glare of his mismatched eyes, one real, one bionic, on his first officer.

“Karga has launched an attack,” Khrell nar Dhollas announced without any of the honorifics that were usually addressed to a commanding officer receiving a report. He had always resented the fate that had placed him, a Baron of the Empire, under the command of a commoner, and his contempt showed even when he was performing ship’s business. But he was a skilled officer, and Jhorrad allowed him a measure of freedom. Neither of them could change who or what they were. “Just before firing, he changed his transponder configuration and signal. The identification is for a Landreich warship.”

“Apes!” Jhorrad spat.

“A squadron of Strakhas was also involved in the initial attack, decloaking and opening fire on our emitter banks. Shields are down across the bow as far back as bulkhead one-twelve. Additional fighters are launching.”

“Our response?”

“As yet, we have not been able to return fire,” Dhollas said. “Generators were off-line and the crew was unprepared.” That sounded like an accusation. It was true that he hadn’t allowed the first officer to take the ship to alert status when the three ape ships had appeared at the jump point. At the time, there had seemed to be no particular reason for alarm. Two destroyers and a cruiser offered little threat. They would not have been able to penetrate the defensive perimeter, and even if they had tried there would have been plenty of time for Vorghath to go on alert status.

Now they were paying for his complacency…but there was no need for Dhollas to point out the fact so blatantly. He made a slashing motion, calling the Exec to silence. “Excuses and blame will not serve here,” he said harshly. “Only results. All crew to combat stations, and bring the generators on-line. Reroute shields to cover the gap. Weapons turrets to acquire target and open fire. And cast us off from the station. I will not have Vorghath caught like a traggil in a trap!”

“As you command,” Dhollas said stiffly. He turned, shouting orders.

The mighty dreadnought lurched as the carrier fired again and damaged one of the mooring tractors. Jhorrad’s claws flexed instinctively.

He would swat this impudent ape who had dared to attack his ship…

Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir

Near Orbital Station Asharazhal, Baka Kar System

1223 hours (CST)

“He’s powering up his engines. Looks like he’s getting ready to cast off.”

Tolwyn nodded. He’d seen the sensor data flowing across his monitor even before the sensor operator reported Vorghath’s changed status. He had known they wouldn’t have much time before the dreadnought moved into action. The key now was to maximize their own firepower while denying their giant foe the chance to trade them shot for shot.

“Mr. Clancy. Assume position alongside the station. Commander Deniken, shift point-defense to standard operation. The station will be launching missiles once they realize we’re vulnerable.”

The carrier changed course slightly as Clancy altered her vector. Mjollnir was sliding smoothly behind the protective bulk of the station, allowing it to come between her and the dreadnought. It masked the carrier’s fire, too, but that wouldn’t be the case for long.

The section of the station they were hiding behind was the part the Strakhas had attacked. The shields had failed there, and the orbital dock was only lightly armored.

Tolwyn was assuming that the Cats would be reluctant to fire on their own station, at least for the moment. But he had no such qualms.

Strakha 800, VF-401 “Shadow Cats”

Near Orbital Station Asharazhal, Baka Kar System

1224 hours (CST)

Bondarevsky dropped his cloak once again and opened fire. The battle had developed a strange sort of rhythm, decloak, attack, cloak, move, decloak…a seemingly endless cycle of hit and run moves. The entire Strakha squadron was now concentrating their attentions on the dreadnought, leaving the station for other members of the Wing. Working in two teams of four according to a carefully prepared plan, the stealth fighters had switched from hitting the dreadnought’s shield projectors to attacks on turrets with a bow firing arc. Each of those massive turrets was easily five times the size of a Strakha and mounted a whole battery of energy weapons far more powerful than anything the fighter mounted, but they couldn’t hit what they couldn’t lock on to, and the almost random movements of the fighters back and forth across the ship’s hull, hidden by the cloaking devices, meant they couldn’t even begin to track their attackers. Like tiny stinging insects, the Strakhas could only mount pinprick attacks, but each time they hit an unshielded turret they caused a little more damage. The turrets had weaker armor than the main hull, so the damage mounted up fast.

He was beginning the re-cloaking sequence once again when Harper let out a whoop. “That’s done for the bastards!” the Taran shouted.

The turret below him erupted in flame as one of Harper’s missiles struck and penetrated. Further down the curve of the hull a second turret went up, too.

Even insect stings could kill.