Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades
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Authors: Randolph Lalonde
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Space Opera
Spinward Fringe
Broadcast 8
Renegades
Randolph Lalonde
Copyright © 2014 by
Randolph Lalonde
Spinward Fringe is
a Registered Trademark of Randolph Lalonde
All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database
or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, Randolph Lalonde.
This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.
Images sourced
from NASA / JPL, with licensed 3D art rendered in the foreground.
Cover titling and
other design by Randolph Lalonde.
Ebook formatting
by
Jesse
Gordon
.
Print ISBN:
978-0-9937398-1-1
EBook ISBN:
978-0-9937398-0-4
Table of Contents
Chapter
6: A Disturbance In The Council Chambers
Chapter
13: An Unexpected Match
Chapter
14: Uncertain Turnabout
Chapter
17: Pondering Escalation
Chapter
18: Looking Back, Walking Forward
Chapter
21: Shozo Of House Fallen Star
Chapter
31: The Decks Have Ears
Chapter
32: Unsettled Settlement
Chapter
44: Quick Communications
Chapter
45: Placement and Progression
Chapter
46: Wheeler Interrupted
Chapter
48: The Taking of the Sunny Shifter
Chapter
49: Iron Head Nebula Departure
Chapter
52: Her Reluctant Majesty
Chapter
54: The Loathing Of Beasts
Other Books by Randolph Lalonde
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 1 and 2:
Resurrection and Awakening
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 3: Triton
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 4: Frontline
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments
The
Expendable Few – A Spinward Fringe Novel
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework
Dark
Arts (Coming sometime in or after 2014)
Brightwill
(Coming sometime in or after 2014)
Spinward
Fringe Broadcast 9
(Coming sometime in or after 2014)
For
other books by Randolph Lalonde visit:
facebook.com/groups/spinwardfringe/
The Hell Shrike
“Captain McFadden,”
crackled First Officer Eily Hogan’s voice from the communicator.
She was excited about something, usually a bad sign. “We’ve been
spotted by an Order patrol, corvette class. No fighter cover in
range.”
“Run out the guns,”
Captain Moira McFadden ordered as she put the paper book she was
reading down beside her on her bed and stood up. “Angle deflection
shields, watch for surprises. Looks like we’ll have to finish our
repairs in hyperspace.” She took her mid-length heavy jacket from a
metal chair, slipped into it and then clipped on her gun belt. She
couldn’t help recalling a descriptive passage from the book she was
just reading that described Cathryn, one of the Irish Union founders,
strapping a pistol on overtop a dress. The thought of wearing a heavy
skirt and a gun belt made her smile.
Fat
chance anyone will get me in a dress unless it’s my own funeral,
she thought.
The pair of pistols was
a welcome weight, like the old armoured jacket she wore adorned in
the colours of the Irish Union flag – green, black, and orange.
These were most of her surviving possessions, and she kept them with
her always. Underneath she wore the simple uniform of an Irish Union
naval captain, a black and grey fitted suit with practical pockets,
and three thin red lines that ran from the shoulders, down over her
knees to the feet. The flexible armour pads had already saved her
life several times, even though the uniform was relatively new to
her.
The captain’s
quarters were basic, with a double bed, a desk, a wardrobe cupboard,
overhead storage, and a beverage dispenser that hadn’t worked since
she was given command. The hatchway opened with a clink, the door
swung with a screech but she ignored both. The surfacing on the
floors and walls had been polished away decades before by the hands
of hundreds of crewmembers, leaving the bare metal to shine dark
silver. She could see her reflection in her decks and walls.
The two muscled guards
on watch at the entrance to the bridge snapped her a salute as she
passed. Their fibre-mesh plate armour and general condition was
picture perfect, and they had a pride Moira hoped would hold through
the coming months, when she wouldn’t be around to maintain order.
She returned their salute as an ensign pushed the bridge hatch open
for her. Feeling a little out of order after seeing the crisp
condition of the guards, she rolled and tucked her shoulder-length
brown hair into a bun.
“Update,” she
ordered as she dropped into the battered captain’s seat.
“The corvette is
biding her time,” replied First Officer Hogan. “Firing beam
weapons, testing our shields. They’re not getting past our sensor
or communications jamming.”
“Any transmissions
get through before we were spotted?” Captain McFadden asked,
checking the tactical and operational panel attached to her seat.
“We saw them because
they transmitted,” came the reply from Michael Durst, her
communications officer. “Almost missed the signal, looked like
noise, but I traced it back.”
“Good work as usual,
Mister Durst,” Captain McFadden said. The Hell Shrike was handling
herself well. Her shields were regenerating fast enough to keep up
with the beam weapons raking her port side. The black and green hull
of the Order of Eden corvette looked fresh, intact – a tempting
target. She looked at their location on the sector map and shook her
head.
“We’ve got boarding
teams at the ready,” advised her tactical officer, Tawnee Rickard.
“We’re still too
far behind enemy lines,” Captain McFadden replied. She couldn’t
help but consider that they were also protecting a full hold of
captured supplies and hauling four containers under their energy
shields, but she didn’t share the thought. There was no need to
justify her decisions; she was well past that point with the crew of
the Hell Shrike. “Be a shame to get jumped by a destroyer this
close to breaking free of Order space,” she muttered to herself.
The beam fire
intensified, focusing on one section of the Hell Shrike’s shields.
Three exterior doors began to slide open on the enemy corvette, and
Captain McFadden knew what that meant: missile batteries. Her energy
shielding would have to spread out; the beam weapons would start
getting through and her ship was still undergoing repairs to her
outer hull. “Slag this bugger. Fire all guns, load secondary gun
magazines with bursters so we can get through her shields. Missile
batteries one and three, load fusion warheads and hold for my order.
Come about one sixty, mark, point five.” She set up the ship’s
course on her console and sent it to the helm. “Navigation, start
calculating our final course to Rega Gain.”
The seven-station
bridge was busy as they carried out her orders. Several missiles
broke through the Hell Shrike’s shields, sending white-hot shrapnel
and explosive charges down the length of their port side. “Breaches?”
“Nay. We have
weakened plating, though,” replied Tactical Officer Rickard.
“Roll the ship to
compensate, we don’t want another hit on that section,” Captain
McFadden ordered, aware that there wasn’t much undamaged hull left.
The twenty-four railgun
turrets running along the rounded sides of the ship fired with deadly
precision, pounding away at the enemy’s shields. The corvette was
starting to accelerate away, firing everything it had as its shield
energy diminished. “Ready to fire, Missile Room,” Captain
McFadden said.
“Missile Room
reports: ready to fire,” replied Rickard.
Captain McFadden waited
a moment, watching as the enemy corvette let loose with a battery of
missiles and intensified beam fire, breaking through the Hell
Shrike’s shields and through her outer hull. Moira didn’t flinch,
even though three gunnery positions were immediately marked as
destroyed. The enemy missiles struck right behind the beam weapons,
liquefying metres of the Hell Shrike’s hull. It wasn’t time to
fire her own missiles yet. “Helm, full thrust, set your course
opposite to the corvette’s. We need a little more room.”
The corvette’s
shields were almost completely depleted, and railgun rounds were
breaking through, raking the enemy’s pristine hull. “Gunnery,
switch to explosive rounds on even positions, flak on odd.”
“We’re out of flak
rounds,” reported the other tactical officer, Trevor Walsh.
“Then load junk
rounds. Fire at will,” Captain McFadden replied. “Missile Room,
hold.”
“Aye, Missile Room
holding,” replied Tactical Officer Rickard.
Captain McFadden
modified the shield systems’ energy profile herself, running the
remaining shield emitters past their safety limits to keep the Hell
Shrike from taking more damage from the enemy’s beam weapons. They
had to last just long enough to get out of their effective range, and
the corvette was coming about, giving chase as the Hell Shrike
retreated, interpreting the retreat as a lack of resolve. “Surprise,
you Order of Eden bastards, I’m getting ready to finish you off,”
she muttered with a smile. “All guns, focus on the nose
of that ship. I want all our non-nuclear missiles to fire on the same
area, now.”
The crew was well
practiced, resolute, and steady on their triggers. A hail of railgun
rounds and slower missiles rained down on the enemy ship’s narrow
nose, battering its hull inward and forcing the air out of her
forward compartments. “Major damage to the corvette, Ma’am,”
reported Tactical Officer Rickard. “We have her.”
“Now we slag her,”
Captain McFadden said. “All gun and missile positions, cease fire.”
She pressed her thumb onto her command panel for DNA verification,
making her fusion missiles available to fire. “Fire one fusion
missile.”
The crew of the Hell
Shrike watched as a fusion missile crossed the distance between it
and the enemy corvette-class ship in under three seconds and exploded
in a bloom of light. Radiological alarms went off momentarily across
the ship, and there was minor aft hull damage, but the Hell Shrike
was whole enough.
There was nothing but a
cooling hunk of metal left of the enemy corvette. “Helm, it’s
time for us to finish this trip. Get us to Rega Gain – no point in
hiding around here trying to make repairs.”
“Aye, making best FTL
speed to Rega Gain System,” replied the helm.