A Greater Interest: Samair in Argos: Book 4 (5 page)

He clenched a fist, growling slightly.  “Commander.”

Tyler’s head snapped up and over, spearing the pirate lord with his gaze.  “Yes, my Lord?”

“Increasse our sspeed.  Our lighter unitz are getting cut apart.”

Jensen Tyler looked confused.  “My Lord?  We’ve lost one of the corvettes, yes, but so have the defenders.  And our ships are still fighting as a group, not the undisciplined rabble that the locals have fallen into.”  He sneered.  “We’ve already seriously damaged one of their ships and it looks like,” he said, gesturing to the display, “They’re about to lose another.”

Verrikoth grunted, his antennae twitching.  “Yes, I ssee that.  But I want uss in fasster.  I know that Typhon izn’t going to sstand watching hiz sshipss get torn apart and to be honest, the whole point of thiss raid waz to get in and out quickly, loozing a few sshipss as possible.”  Now he hissed.  “I’ve already lost too many trained pilotss.  I do
not
want to looze any more sshipss.”

“Understood, sir.”  Tyler hesitated for only a moment more.  He turned to the pilot.  “Helm, increase speed to flank.”

Right on cue, as the ship’s acceleration increased, the comms officer spoke up.  “My Lord, I have General Typhon on the line.  He is demanding to speak with you.”

“Put him through.”  Verrikoth sat a bit straighter in his chair as his forward display came to life, showing the black-furred lupusan.  “General.”

“How much longer are you going to delay?” the wolf snarled.  “We dawdle out here at this low cruising speed and in the meantime our light units are getting chewed apart!”

“Calm yoursself, General,” Verrikoth told him, his voice serene.  “We are increassing sspeed now.  Try to keep up.”  He pressed a control and cut the connection before the lupusan could say anything.  The zheen’s mouthparts writhed in amusement as he saw Typhon’s look of slight bafflement because of his statement. 

“Get damage control down there!  Seal that breach!” Nazan bellowed over the cacophony of alarms.  That last hit had breached the aft shields and cut a huge hole in the hull.  They hadn’t lost any engines, thank the stars, but two of the plasma conduits were ruptured and power was down.

“Yes, Captain!” the engineering watch replied, speaking into his microphone. 

“Captain,” the helmsman spoke up.  “Engines one and two are offline because of the power loss.”

“Primary plasma conduit on the starboard side was ruptured with that last hit, Captain,” the engineering watch interrupted.

“We’re down to half our acceleration, sir,” the helmsman said.

“They’re coming back around,” Alys growled, hammering the keys on her console. 

One of the pirate corvettes came in, its heavy lasers blazing. 
Cavalier
rocked from the hits, the whole ship shook. 

“One of the corvettes is locked on,” Alys called from tactical.  “And it looks like one of the gunboats is swinging around to come after us.”

Nazan grimaced, turning his head to the side.  “Alys, lock on with any missile tubes we’ve got left.  Let ‘em rip!”

The woman’s fingers flew over the tactical console, setting up a firing solution.  “All three tubes still active, fire control is still online.  I’ve got a lock on the corvette.”

“Fire!” Tariq snarled and Alys stabbed a control.

The starboard missile tubes all belched out a missile and an instant later, their drives kicked in.  It took less than seventeen seconds for them to close the distance from the
Cavalier
to the pirate corvette.  The enemy corvette sprayed the area with energy fire, clipping one which sent it off course and exploded out into open space.  An energy bolt hit the second missile perfectly head on and it detonated.  But the third missile got through, slamming into the pirate ship’s shields, which flared under the hit.

“A hit!” Alys said, but her eyes never left her displays, her fingers held steady.

“Shift targeting,” Tariq ordered.  “Target that corvette, all available weapons.  Helm, roll ship.  Try and put the less damaged side facing them.”

“That’s going to open us up to ships on the other side, Captain,” the tactical officer warned.

“I know, but they’re over there and that corvette is nearly on top of us,” Tariq replied.  “Carry out my orders, helm.”

“Aye, Captain,” the pilot replied, smoothly rolling the ship’s port side to face the incoming pirate vessel.  “I’m losing power, Captain.  We’re down even more.”

“Damn it,” Tariq growled, clenching a fist.  “Try and go evasive,” he ordered.  “But do your best to keep our engines on an angle somewhat…”

“Away from the pirates,” the pilot finished, nodding.  “Yes, sir.  Understood.”

“Ready, Captain,” the tactical officer replied.  “Locked on.”

“Fire.”

Coherent energy beams lanced out from the
Cavalier
’s weapons, another pair of missiles and a flurry of metal following close behind.  The corvette fired back, destroying both missiles, and vaporized a few of the metal rail gun slugs, but enough of them got through the counter fire. 

“I’ve got some shield flare on the enemy corvette,” one of the sensor techs piped up.  “I’m showing some spotting on their shields.  They’re turning away, rolling to present another shield facing.”

              As Tariq opened his mouth to reply, another hit rocked the ship.  The ship didn’t lurch so much as shiver.  “We’re taking fire on our weakened facing from that blasted gunboat, sir,” the sensor tech reported.

              “Fire on them,” he ordered.  “Save the missiles though.”

              “Understood, sir.”  Alys pressed a few commands and the corvette’s energy weapons and railguns filled space with racing death.  The shots hit the gunboat and it exploded into an expanding ball of burning shrapnel.  “Got him!”

              Tariq took a deep breath, as the fire against his ship slacked off for a few moments.  He checked the sensor displays, seeing the furball of the starfighters as it moved like an amorphous blob around the battlespace.  For the moment, there was a decent amount of space separating the bigger ships from the fighters, but that could change in a matter of seconds. 

“Move us away from this part of the battle,” Nazan ordered.  “Bring us over within two thousand klicks from
Eridain. 
We can try and cover one another.”

“That might draw fire from those incoming cruisers, Captain,” Alys warned.  “It turns two targets into one more tempting one.”

He nodded.  “I know, but the gunboats and the other corvettes will slowly chew us up if we try and do this alone.  Helm, Nav, get us moving.”

“Aye, sir!” the two officers chorused.

              ~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~

Sokann twitched his antennae as he brought his
Muon
fighter on another attack run.  Those damned manta ray fighters the locals were using were fast, maneuverable, armed and armored, and with those
skeezzik
shields they sported, they were
very
tough beetles to crack open. 

And they were
fast
.  Unlike the
Sepulcre’s,
these things were only a few steps behind the
Muons
as far as speed and maneuverability.  He and the remainder of his Zg’chiss squadron were able to stay ahead of them, out maneuver them, but only just.  Their missiles were devilishly accurate but so far he and his pilots had been moving too quickly to get shot down.

He and the five remaining pilots of Zg’chiss squadron were harassing some of the local fighters, trying to prevent them from getting a proper run up at any of Lord Verrikoth’s or General Typhon’s ships.  Every now and then one of the mantas would snap off a missile but he and his pilots were keeping them from delivering a proper, coordinated punch.

“Lead, this is Kl’gurr,” his wingman called.  “I’ve got a bead on one of those fighters.  Rolling in for an attack run.”

“Copy, Kl’gurr.  I’ve got your wing.”  Sokann banked his fighter and dove, following right behind and to port of Kl’gurr’s ship.  The two egg-shaped ships pelted after the flatter local starfighter, and no matter where it tried to turn, they stayed right with it, their cannons blazing, lighting up the shields on the manta fighter.

The pilot juked to the right, but Kl’gurr stuck to him like a burr, peppering the fighter with his guns.  It was agonizing.  The
Muon
s were very lightly armed, meant for commerce raiding, not space superiority.  The fighter was nibbling through the manta’s shields, but slowly.  Every so often, the trio of ships had to dodge around other ships, other dogfights, as the furball moved and shifted, as gunships and starfighters pounded away at each other.

“Getting nasty in here, Lead,” Kl’gurr noted.  His voice was filled with hissing, though he wasn’t bothering to switch to the human standard tongue; he spoke in one of the zheen dialects they both knew.

“Getting nasty?” Sokann riposted.  “We lost almost half our ships in the first salvo.  Right now we’re just barely holding on.”

“Come on!” the other pilot growled, as he landed a few more hits on the dorsal side of the manta as it tried to climb above the plane of the ecliptic.  Still, his shots pounded against the fighter’s shields.  “How strong are those shields?  And where can we get some?”

“I don’t know, Kl’gurr,” Sokann replied, firing off a volley of his own, only two bolts actually landing on the fighter.

The manta tried to dive, but Kl’gurr anticipated it, with Sokann following right along behind.  Both fighters opened up and their shots pierced the shields, striking the aft end of the manta fighter.  The energy blasts hammered through the fuselage, ruptured the fuel tanks and the engine tore the ship apart in a burst of flames, which were quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space.

“Got him!” Kl’gurr crowed, hissing wildly.  “Thanks for the assist, Lead.”

“Good shooting,” Sokann replied.  “All right.  Let’s go find another.”

“I’m right there with you, Lead.”  He hissed incomprehensibly again.  “Tough beetles, aren’t they?  Worth killing, they are.”

“Yes, they are,” the squadron leader said, nodding slightly, though Kl’gurr couldn’t see.  “And I agree with you from earlier.”

“That’s how you progress in life, Lead,” Kl’gurr quipped.  “You need to keep agreeing with me.”

Sokann clicked his mandibles.  “I
mean
that we need to see about capturing one of those fighters, or maybe the schematics or technical readouts.”

The two
Muon
starfighters banked around, heading back into the furball, looking for another viable target.  “Do you think they have that info on the gas mine, Lead?  I mean, they launched from there.”

“It’s possible,” Sokann conceded.  Then he considered further.  “Actually, yes, it’s possible.  They might even have a few fighters that weren’t launched.”

“Down for repairs?”

“A good guess.  Here’s hoping the boarding teams can grab us one,” Sokann said.  “All right.  Get your mind back in the fight.  There’s one there, two point four six low.”

“You take this one, Lead.  I’ll cover you.”

Sokann clicked again, pushing his throttles up.

“Closing on
Eridain
, Captain,” the sensor officer reported.

“Very well.  Comms, get me
Eridain
’s captain on the line,” Tariq ordered.  A moment later, the forward screen activated, but it wasn’t the captain who looked back at him. 

“Captain Tariq,” the female lupusan said.  She had leytenant’s bars on the collar of her uniform tunic but he didn’t recognize her.  Her brown furred face was matted with blood, but Tariq wasn’t sure if any of it was hers. 

“Where’s Captain Muzi?”

“Sorry, sir,” she replied.  “Captain Muzi is dead.  I’m Leytenant Rujarrik.”  Rujarrik looked from side to side, her ears lying flat against her head.  “I guess I’m in command of
Eridain
.”

He nodded.  “All right, Leytenant.  You’ve got command over there.  Hopefully, once we get through this, if you’re up for it, Ms. Samair will confirm you.”

The lupusan grimaced.  “I just want to get through this, Captain.  What are your orders?” she asked, squaring her shoulders.  Clearly she was happy that someone else had a higher rank.  Tariq, while commanding an identical ship, actually held superior rank within the company structure, so this mess would be
his
to officiate.  She only had to fight her ship and obey his orders.

Stars, how I envy that clarity.  That lightness
.  Burdens of command and their weight.  He shook his head, flicking away those stray, traitorous thoughts.  There was no room or time for that now.

“All right.  I don’t know how we’re going to do this, to be honest,” he said, sounding vulnerable for only just a moment.  “But we’re going to have to ride this out together.  We’ve taken some serious damage to our aft plasma conduits, so two of my engines are down.”

She nodded.  “Yes, sir.  We’ve taken a great deal of damage.  We’re still in the process of sealing off the breaches.”