Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2) (27 page)

“Bandit splashed!” called Oliver.

“Navigation, send the ‘Fly Away’ signal to the wasp ships!” called Jacob.

“Transmitting,” replied Louise. “Two wasp ships are moving back from us!”

“We’re sending out ‘Stop Biting’,” the admiral said quickly.

Three wasp ships stopped firing.

Two dozen bright lights lit up the darkness as Smart Rocks hit wasp ships on either side of the Bristle Ball. Those ships, which had been spinning to reduce the impact of incoming laser beams, now jinked sideways, up and down, moving to avoid the self-directed balls of explosive. Some of those ships shifted their laser fire from the frigates to the incoming Smart Rocks. New bright lights flared as the wasps began killing the Smart Rock broadsides.

The
Inchon’s
green dot slowed its movement as its fellow destroyers shifted their orientation to take on another wasp ship. Her sensor holo told the tale.

“Captain!” Daisy called. “The
Inchon
has lost one of its thrusters to a combined beam attack. She’s limping. But she’s also shooting back!”

On the screen up front Joy Jefferson spoke. “Jacob! Uh captain, our spysats at the third world report all our thermonuke warheads have been destroyed by that wasp ship that went there. It’s moving out of orbit and heading for Valhalla!”

“Fuck,” he said, briefly surprising Daisy with his language. “Admiral! That wasp ship above the third world is leaving orbit and heading for Valhalla. O’Sullivan’s base can only cover its side of the planet. They can move the base to stay over the settled continent, but they’ll run out of fuel soon. Suggest we send the
Inchon
toward the wasp colony world as our answer and let me send out the MAD video to these wasp ships!”

“Do it,” the senior Renselaer said.

“XO, take care of the
Inchon
.” Jacob paused. “Com, transmit the MAD cartoon video.”

“Transmitting on the wasp frequency,” Osashi said calmly.

Daisy tapped on her own neutrino comlink line and spoke to the captain of the
Inchon
. She acknowledged and began moving her destroyer out of the Bristle Ball formation. Then Daisy saw something worse than wasp ships that seemed able to avoid most return laser fire.

“Admiral!” she yelled. “That giant wasp ship is changing its hull plates! It’s going to black hole mode! Keep your distance from it!”

“Seen. Understood. Marjorie, move us back,” the man said over the neutrino link that connected every Earth ship. “Tactical, concentrate our outrigger lasers on the nose of that big bastard. Cruisers! Join your lasers with ours! If we can blow a big enough hole in its front, maybe it will be unable to go black hole!”

Daisy hoped that was possible. But now she saw the meaning behind the swirl of wasp ships that flew wildly around the outside of the Bristle Ball, taking their chances from the combined laser and proton fire of the Earth ships. Both giant wasp ships were aiming to take out the Battlestars.

“Captain!” Daisy yelled. “There are five x-ray laser nukes between us and that damaged wasp ship. It may be trying to ram us! We should blow them. And the other giant ship is moving to the rear of the
Midway
. It’s aiming for the Battlestar!”

“Tactical, make it so,” Jacob called. “Admiral, suggest you blow your x-ray thermonukes since they are closest to the oncoming enemy.”

“Agreed. Tactical. Blow them,” the admiral said hurriedly.

A second star glowed white-yellow as another wasp ship died under the combined proton beams of seven destroyers. The rear-mounted dual lasers on each destroyer were firing at the giant wasp ship that was aiming for the
Midway
. Too late.

“It’s gone black hole!” cried Willard.

Daisy had too much to watch in her holos and on the front wallscreen.

The distance between the
Midway
and the black hole wasp ship was closing fast. Now down to 4,303 klicks. Clearly the black hole ship could move even while sheltering inside its black hole field. Which was wrapping incoming red and green beams around its globular field in an accretion disk that was almost beautiful.

The
Inchon
could only make five percent of lightspeed now that she had lost one of her two fusion pulse thrusters. She was launching missiles from the two missile silos on her tail, clearly hoping to raise a plasma cloud shield against the green laser beams and yellow lightning bolts coming at her from three wasp ships in her portion of the fighting space.

“No you won’t, you bastard!” yelled Joy from the
Philippine Sea
as she moved her destroyer out of the inner Bristle Ball and onto a vector track that would put her ship between the oncoming wasp giant and the
Lepanto
.

“Admiral!” yelled Jacob. “We need to retreat to the seventh planet! Make the wasps chase us. Our stern lasers can give ‘em hell!”

The man grimaced. “All ships! Head for the seventh planet. Make top speed! Do it now!”

Daisy kept one eye on her situational holo with its green and purple dots and one eye on the true space holo. She hoped there would be no star blasts among the battle group ships. Which were now all turning toward the ice ball of the seventh world. Which lay nearly 20 AU distant. The plasma exhausts of each ship created a space behind them that blocked incoming lasers and lightning bolts. But the rear-mounted lasers on every Earth ship now fired at angles that hit the swirl of wasp ships. Three wasp ships showed silvery water globules and white air spewing from hull punch throughs on their sides or noses. A few surviving Smart Rocks hit other wasp ships, causing them to shift away from direct pursuit.

The giant wasp ship in black hole mode shifted its course away from the
Midway
and toward the
Lake Erie
destroyer, which was slow in going to full thruster speed. It was on maneuvering thrust like all Earth ships had been as they shifted their position to avoid incoming beams while keeping the form of the Bristle Ball.

“No!” Daisy yelled.

Simultaneous with her situational holo that showed the black hole ship reaching a distance of 3,900 kilometers from the destroyer there came a new white-yellow star.

“Third wasp splashed,” said Rosemary.

“The
Erie
is caught!” Jacob yelled.

Daisy watched as the
Erie’s
crew fired both fusion pulse thrusters in an attempt to escape the gravitational pull of the wasp black hole. She heard its captain order Engines to go to twelve percent of lightspeed. Clearly he was trying to copy the escape speed that had allowed the
Lepanto
to escape from the other giant wasp ship. But the
Lepanto
moved on three thrusters, whereas the cruisers, destroyers and frigates moved on two. Two thrusters could not produce the 14 percent of lightspeed that had allowed her ship to escape.

In slow motion the
Lake Erie
came closer and closer to the black hole event horizon that was now a swirl of green and red beams, endlessly circling the wasp ship, unable to ever reach the enemy ship inside. Nor could the rear CO
2
lasers fired by the
Erie
make it through. The two green beams twisted at a right angle as they hit the event horizon of the black hole ship. A black antimatter beam from the
Midway
now hit the event horizon and was itself turned sideways. Where its negative matter met the positively charged matter of the proton and CO
2
lasers, white glows happened as one type of energy joined with another type in total annihilation. Daisy wondered if, when the
Erie
hit the edge of the event horizon, it would be destroyed by the circling antimatter before the gravity tides of the black hole field ripped its hull plates apart, pulling them into metal taffy.

The white glows faded away. There was more laser energy circling the wasp ship’s field than there was antimatter. The
Midway
had fired only one AM beam, then stopped as it became clear the beam could not harm the wasp ship.

In the scope image, the gray hull above the
Erie’s
yellow-orange thruster flames stretched visibly.

It all came apart at once.

Three hundred meters of metal, air, water, plants and hope became fragments circling the event horizon of the black hole ship.

They were joined by 113 human bodies.

She found no ease in knowing everyone had died instantly as their bodies became elastic taffy that joined with metal taffy and streams of water to form a circling ring of matter that had once been alive, caring and dangerous.

“She’s gone,” muttered Marjorie Jones from the
Midway
.

Daisy looked up at the image of the admiral, his XO and his captain. All looked shocked. Death in space they understood. Death by way of a black hole was not anything they had trained for.

“Admiral, the
Lepanto
is coming alongside you,” Jacob said, sounding angry and sad at the same time. “We will be a rearguard against those wasps. Maybe they will pull back.”

Daisy’s eyes caught the counter number in the neutrino scanner holo. It showed fifteen purple dots and eighteen green dots. They had killed three more wasp ships and paid in flesh with the lives of one destroyer.

The man who had earlier been vibrant, decisive and daring in ordering the Bristle Ball formation licked his lips. Inside his helmet Gordon’s face was lined. There was no doubt showing, but sadness had visited him. Daisy could see that, even if most men couldn’t.

“They are still following us, but yes, they’ve opened the range to 50,000 klicks. Maybe that MAD video had an effect,” Jacob’s father said. “All ships! Maintain Alert Hostile Enemy status. Tend to your wounded. Reload as needed. Repair any hull punch throughs that can be reached from inside. This is a fighting retreat!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hunter One could not cope with his conflicting emotions. On one wing there came the scent signal from Hunter Seven showing his nest flying above the third world of this sky light, with images of its land and wild lifeforms, and the claim it was heading to the Soft Skin colony world to threaten its destruction. But on the other wing he now viewed a simple imagery group sent from the large Soft Skin ship that threatened the colony world, and Warmth itself, with particle seed destruction most terrible. The imagery of the signal conveyed land-bound explosions greater than any produced by one of his particle seeds. The meaning was clear. If Swarmers harmed the Soft Skin world, then both the new colony of Warmth and the hoped for colony in this flight of worlds would be destroyed. He looked to the perception imager that carried the fluttering wings of his leader.

“Hunter Prime, will we lose our new colony world?”

The bright colors of the Prime’s strong body seemed diminished. The short yellow hairs of his outer hard shell seemed limp, not upright as normal. The leader’s two antennae were half bent, a clear sign of dismay at the loss of so many nests. Only fifteen now remained in flight. Behind the leader were his Servants who controlled the devices that filled the Flight Chamber. Each of them also looked disturbed. What could the Servants be scenting? Hunter One inhaled the scents coming from Prime’s nest and smelled dismay pheromones mixed with aggregation, trail, territorial and dominance scents.

“No!” cried Hunter Prime in a rushing flow of Hunter dominance pheromones. “No, I will not permit the loss of this new colony world. Our larvae have need of feeling that world’s pull down caress. They need to see the open sky in which they will eventually fly!”

“Agreed,” One said hopefully. “The Soft Skins fly toward the outermost world of this sky light, perhaps there to fight us once again. It will be a full day cycle before we and they reach that world,” he scent cast in a mix of alarm and territorial scents. “Do we try to bite their flying nests? We could lose more Swarmer nests before the Soft Skins are overcome. And more larvae Pods.”

The black antennae of Hunter Prime lifted stiffly. His five eyes fixed on One. The whole shape of his massive body became charged with energy. “We pretend, Hunter One. Recall how on Nest, in the long distant past, one group of Swarmers would stop attacking the territory of another group and fly off to hover above a nearby forest or mountain, as if in defeat? The defenders would fly back to their nest and set to eating and sexing in celebration. Then the fly away would reverse and the attacking Swarmers would overwhelm the defenders, bite the necks of their Hunters and Fighter Leaders, and spread their dominance scent among the surviving Swarmers.” Behind the leader the bodies of his Servants also grew firmer, more resolved as his unique dominance pheromones filled their spiracles. “You have experience sending simple signals to these Soft Skins. Prepare and send a signal that shows our nests flying to one side and moving to the third world, which flies ahead of the fourth world occupied by Soft Skins. Show our nests flying above that world and depositing our larvae Pods on its surface.”