Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2) (25 page)

“Targeted!” yelled Rosemary.

“Fire!”

Jacob watched as Linkletter’s crew fired a second pulse of black antimatter at the two wasp log ships that appeared to be nearly side by side, although one likely led the other since the original formations of the arriving ships were six rings of six ships each. Just like the formation that had first attacked them in Kepler 22.

Two new stars appeared where the black beam struck.

Incoming green laser beams and yellow lightning strikes struck at the twenty-one ships of the two battle groups.

“Nose hit!” yelled Joaquin at Life Support.

“They’re targeting the frigates!” called Oliver.

“Linkletter, fire at will!” Jacob called.

His eyes saw a third stream of antimatter reach out and impale a log ship that was thrusting sideways, trying to escape the target zone. It died and became another small star.

“We lost the
Ofira
!” called Rosemary.

Fuck.

“Frigates, move closer behind us and the cruisers!” Jacob called out over the neutrino comlink that connected the Bridge of every Earth ship.

“Fire on that departing big ship!” called his father.

The
Midway’s
antimatter beam reached out.

But the giant ship’s yellow-orange exhaust of plasma was sixty kilometers long.

The meeting of the two created a blast of energy that hit the rear of the giant ship, pushing it way faster, while creating a large cloud that blocked penetration by CO
2
and proton beams.

“The
Kursk
is gone,” Rosemary said, sadness in her voice.

The heavily damaged second giant wasp ship had now flipped to aim its thrusters toward the Iron Bar formation. It followed the other giant ship out and away from their arrival point. Twenty other wasp ships now did the same flip over in an effort to escape.

Black antimatter beams shot out from the
Lepanto
, three in succession. Each beam hit the side of a turning wasp ship, converting its matter into a glowing white-yellow cloud of plasma.

Three new stars filled the void.

A fourth black beam from the
Midway
chased after a fleeing ship. One more tiny star filled the darkness.

“Enemy out of antimatter range,” Rosemary called. “Now at 7,451 kilometers distance and moving at one-tenth lightspeed. Our lasers are firing but their exhaust flares are dispersing the beams.”

Jacob looked at the moving neutrino counter. The number of purple enemy dots showed as eighteen. Which meant the two battle groups had lost two ships in return for killing eighteen enemy ships. A one to nine ratio. Still, a hundred fifty humans had died on those two frigates. More ghosts.

“Captain, the enemy is reversing formation. Looks like an umbrella arrangement,” reported Rosemary. “All enemy ships are now beyond our weapons reach. Range is 10,473 kilometers. Enemy is firing on us.”

Three dozen green and yellow beams and bolts streaked into the midst of the Iron Bar formation.

“We’re spinning!” called Louise at Navigation.

“Hits on our spine and tail,” called Oliver from Weapons. “All weapons are still operational.”

Other ship captains reported similar hits, but no fatal damage.

Jacob looked to his father’s image. “Admiral! I recommend our Battlestars launch four missiles each to create a thermonuke plasma cloud in front of us. It will shield us from incoming beams! You saw this in the videos I sent you!”

“Agreed! Captain, fire four of our missiles.”

“Firing missiles, sir,” called his father’s captain.

“Tactical, do the same,” Jacob called.

“Four missiles going out,” Rosemary said hurriedly.

In seconds, once the missiles curved around and their chemfuel rockets pushed them ahead of the stationary line of Earth ships, each missile dispersed five thermonukes of three megaton power. Thirty tiny stars now glowed between the Earth ships and the distant wasp ships. The incoming laser beams and lightning bolts were diffused by the expanding plasma clouds, which soon became one giant arc of plasma that stretched across the 16,000 kilometers of the Iron Bar formation.

“Enemy has ceased firing,” Rosemary said, just seconds before his father’s XO said the same thing. “Enemy has retreated to 97,000 kilometers distance.”

His father’s face held more lines than during their private talk. The man’s dark brown eyes fixed on Jacob. “Captain Renselaer, your ship fought well. I counted six antimatter shots from your node. We got off four. Our accelerator is working to build reloads. The enemy lost eighteen ships. The rest are holding formation well beyond us. What is the condition of your battle group?”

Jacob looked up at the images of each ship captain that ran across the top of the wallscreen. The seven remaining captains who led his group of ships all held up their thumbs, signaling their ships were still functional. He focused back on his father.

“Fleet admiral, all StarFight ships report they are combat operational, including the
Lepanto
.”

The man nodded, looked aside at a holo, then back. “My captains report the same. Half my ships took glancing blows. Four of them lost part of their adaptive optics to those miserable yellow lightning bolts. The
Midway
lost its spine plasma battery. My cruisers each took deep strikes into their armor. No casualties other than our two lost ships.”

Which meant their combined battle groups now numbered nineteen ships. The enemy had eighteen ships, two of them being the giant ships, though one of them had lost a part of its front hull. Still, it was a deadly force. Two giant ships versus two Battlestars. Jacob sent a prayer to the Goddess that they would now leave the Kepler 10 system. They were beyond the magnetosphere boundary. The wasps could enter Alcubierre space-time at any moment. Would they leave? Or would they attack and try to kill Valhalla?

♦   ♦   ♦

Hunter One scanned every perception imager in his Flight Chamber. Their contents told him what he had felt was not imaginary. The front quarter of his nest was gone, thanks to seven strikes by heavy sky light beams. Other parts of his outer shell were scored by incoming sky light beams of the green form. At least his nest had not gone the way of the other Hunter’s nest. Nine hundred Swarmers including every larvae pod on that Colony nest were now mist in the cold darkness of space, far from the warmth of the nearby sky light. He looked to the image of Hunter Prime, who had acted faster than any Swarmer when the surprise attack had happened. Even as black beams reached out from two large Soft Skin nests, the Hunter Prime had flipped his nest and flown away from the deadly arrival spot. Command pheromones from his nest had told all other Swarmer nests to do the same, and to fire on the Soft Skins with their tail stinger tubes. Now the surviving nests rested far beyond the reach of the Soft Skin weapons. But where once six six-groups of nests had flown in a cloud of deadliness, just three six-groups remained.

“Hunter One!” called the leader of all Swarmers. “Is your nest able to bite hard!”

“It is,” One replied in a rush of aggregation and signal pheromones. “We cannot erect our Pull Down hull plates for we lack the head group that would complete the field. But our middle and tail stinger rings are hungry to taste Soft Skin flesh!”

“You showed strength in biting back even as you turned your nest to follow me,” Hunter Prime said in a strong flow of command, signal, trail and aggregation pheromones. “Are you ready to attack these two-limbed defiers of life’s order?”

That answered his unspoken thought. They would not re-enter the alternate dimension and fly elsewhere. Briefly he wondered whether Hunter Seven and his nest still lived. “In some moments my nest can join your nest and the other Support Hunters in attacking the Soft Skins. My Workers and Worker Leaders are acting to close the severed tubeways and tend to our two remaining power blocks.”

“You hold back?” Hunter Prime said in a swift flow of signal and dismay pheromones.

“No!” One said in a scent cast of aggregation pheromones. “This nest is loyal to the Swarm! This nest is ready to bite hard! This nest will carry our larvae Pods to the third world!”

“Better,” Hunter Prime said in a mix of primer, trail and territorial pheromones. “Let us fly ahead and englobe these Soft Skins! Perhaps one of their nests will come close enough to be broken in my Pull Down field!”

“Leader, be wary of the black beams! Their range is greater than the reach of our Pull Down field.”

The leaders two black antennae pulled back. “You make Challenge! Come to my nest and I will show you the wrongness of your scents!”

“No Challenge,” One hurriedly scent cast back. “Misunderstanding am I. Helping our Swarm was my sole intent in warming of the black beams. Guide me, Hunter Prime.”

The leader’s antennae leaned forward. “At least your caste training comes forth now. Follow me ahead. Join your bolts and beams with mine. Together we shall bite off the heads of the Soft Skins!”

“Following,” Hunter One replied in a flow of aggregation scent. “Flight Servant, set our path alongside the Hunter Prime. Propulsive Servant, make our nest fly toward the Soft Skins!”

Obedience pheromones came from all his Servants.

Ahead, the imagers showed the forms of the Soft Skin nests growing larger.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Richard felt surprise that the wasps had not already gone into Alcubierre space-time, if only to buy time for repairs. The incoming enemy fleet had been cut in half. Clearly they had not expected the Earth ships to be present at their arrival site. He felt renewed appreciation for the admiral’s decision to do the reverse of Jacob’s prior actions. While the young captain had much of the daring, ruthlessness and creativity of his old man, the admiral had decades of spaceship handling and fighting experience. Old Renselaer knew when to attack and when to prepare a surprise for the enemy. What would be the man’s next command?

“Commander Branstead,” called Jacob. “Are you ready to transmit some pheromone signals at those ships?”

That alerted him to a new surprise coming not from the father but from the son. He looked right to the brown-haired woman whose xenolinguist had been working on building an English-to-wasp vocabulary, thanks to daily talks with the captive wasps. What had happened recently?

“I am. We are, I mean.” She put a finger on an armrest control patch. “What do I send to Chief Osashi?”

“Send him three short message scents,” Jacob said quickly. “Make the first one ‘Fly away’. Make the second one ‘Stop biting’. Make the third one say ‘Submit to Soft Skins’.”

The veteran deck leader tapped her control patch, looked aside at a holo filled with color patterns, then up front where the electro-optical scope image showed the wasp ships moving into a loose cloud formation. “Transmitted to the chief. Let’s hope our scent frequency matches their receiver tech.”

“It should,” said Daisy from his left, giving him pause to wonder just what the captain’s brain trust of smart young people had been doing together. “Lori tried it on another, unmodified signaler unit that was placed in the Forest Room. The first two signals caused the expected reaction among the Worker wasps. Their response ended after their leader told them to ignore the strange scents.”

“Good,” Jacob said, sounding pleased.

Richard looked up at the line of ship captain images. There were eighteen there, including the admiral, his XO and his captain in one of the images. Jacob was the missing nineteenth captain. The admiral had looked up at Jacob’s comment. Now he frowned thoughtfully.

“Captain Renselaer, do I understand your Science people have created a way to ‘talk’ to these wasps?”

“They have, sir. It requires the emission of polarized radio signals. The polarization interacts with the wasp signaling devices to convert incoming EMF signals to scents, and to convert scents received into polarized EMF signals,” Jacob said slowly. “Do you wish a copy of the three signals I just ordered sent to our Communications chief?”

“I do. Send it to my XO’s attention,” the admiral said quickly.

“Going out,” called Osashi from up front.

The admiral looked aside at a holo. “The wasps are not leaving this system. Instead, they are moving into a cloud formation. It’s similar to what you encountered in the Kepler 22 attacks. Are they unable to do other than try to englobe an enemy?”

“Sir,” Jacob said quickly. “My exobiologist Lieutenant JG Antonova has shared with me her insights into wasp culture. Like many predatory insects on Earth and on our colony planets, these alien wasp people have a cultural pattern of attacking
en masse
any opponent or intruder. She thinks our arrival at Kepler 22 set off this instinctive behavior.”