Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter 4

Vincent

Vincent's head snapped back in the seat as his fighter rocketed forward, propelled by the cannon's magnetic rails. The running lights blurred as he picked up speed, momentum pushing him further and further into the seat, the starlight erupting all around him as he blasted into space. He hugged the larger ship’s hull and tapped his rudder to avoid the cannons that jutted along the spine. Their shots illuminated his cockpit with each blast.

Vincent winced as plasma blasts splashed harmlessly against the
Inferno
's forward-projecting shields
.
Vincent could see the
Inferno
's escort ships, their guns bellowing silently in the black as they added their own long-range bombardment to the fray.

The other squadrons launched and blasted further afield. The Vapefalcons, the quick response force of the ship, launched first. The lightning-fast crafts were dedicated to intercepting the enemy before bombers closed the distance. The Reapers slower Chimera fighters followed in their wake.

Havoc asked over the squadron's bionet.

<
They are Russian, they do not think,>
Forge replied.

<
How do you manage to broadcast an accent.>
Tesla wasted no time in antagonizing his wingman.

"Reapers, cut the chatter," Vincent snapped, only to hear a series of groans in his mind.

<
Preacher has to give the sermon, it's tradition.>

"
Make it fast, preacher."

An uncomfortable jolt rolled over Vincent as he passed through the
Inferno
's shield at its weakest point, but once free from the larger ship's protection, he dialed up his engines and flipped on his gravity propeller. The whole craft shook as it came online, and the propeller generated split-second singularities that dragged his fighter along.

As the engines roared, the sense of weightlessness faded and Vincent was pressed back into his seat.  He reached up to dial down the inertial dampeners; one of the mechanics had taken it upon on himself to change Vincent's settings.

The Russian ship seemed, to the naked eye, to be just a metallic glint in the corner of Vincent's screen, though his enhanced imagery and computer readouts showed her true fangs.

<
His greatest adversary was cunning, and tried to trick Johnathan. But his evil could not stand against the righteous.>

Vincent's sensors began picking up friend and foe markers as the enemy fighters flared their own grav props. Commander Belford, aboard the
Inferno
's
bridge, issued out assignments, and the “heads-up” display in Vincent's cockpit flashed his squadron's assignments.

"Wrap it up, preacher."

Ten other voices repeated the line. Vincent sighed. Damn gnomes watched too many movies.

Before the rest of the pilots could build up steam, Vincent cut back in. "Alright, Reapers, you know the drill. We're on screening detail. Fledgling, keep close to Havoc. Let's touch down twelve fighters when it's over. Stay light on the stick, those long-range guns are still pounding."
A series of groans issued across the bionet. Vincent agreed with them, but not for want of glory.

The Falcons’
grav signatures flared on screen as they took the lead. The Reapers hung back to shield their mother ship from enemy bombers.  Vincent released one of the joysticks briefly to twist open his multitool, a habit his father had passed on, before he reconfigured his fighter.

Once he slipped the memento away Vincent reached above his head to a series of levers with large stylized symbols beside them. One of them portrayed a medieval shield. With a twist and pull of the lever, Vincent activated defense mode.

The shudder caused by the grav prop's microscopic singularities was nothing compared to the violence the shifting combat roles inflicted on the fighter. The wings along the side of the fighter split apart and flared open, as did the nose, and as the armor sheet reconfigured, the craft went from sleek to bulky. Vincent's view of the battlefield went from unobstructed to blind, and only the senor nodes outside the armor provided him with what he needed to fly.

Around him, his squadron's ships shifted modes in tandem as they prepared themselves for contact, and on the sensors, eleven other asteroid-shaped lumps of armor fell into formation around the
Inferno.

<
When is that bastard ever going to deploy us in anything other than turd mode?>
Zombie asked, his bitter feelings seeping into the net.

"Vape it, zombie. They record the AMI chats." Vincent growled. Whatever leniency fighter pilots might enjoy would not cover insubordination.

In the corner of his HUD, he could see the other pilots’ vitals scrolling across the display. Fledgling's heart rate had spiked with his orders.  Vincent’s newest pilot had gone through the extensive training all the Reapers
endured, but nothing could compare to the thrill, and terror, of your first dogfight. Vincent considered opening a private channel to give Fledgling some words of encouragement. Somewhere on the
Inferno
,
a group of corpsmen were watching the vitals with an unblinking eye, and would be quick to pull Fledgling back if he went above their unnegotiable limits.

Vincent didn't want to see Fledgling grounded because the numbers didn't add up, flying was about more than that. Before he could tell AMI to contact the new pilot, however, he saw that Havoc was already taking care of it, and the decrease in heart rate made it clear that it was working.

With all his pilots in the green and ready, Vincent dialed up the gain of his HUD to see the fighting laid out before them. As the Vapefalcons connected with the enemy, the scene turned from organized squadrons to indecipherable chaos. The fight seemed like a swarm of bugs laced with fireworks. Vincent checked and double-checked his weapons.
Not long now
, he thought. Vincent took stock of his thoughts; despite his growing excitement for the battle, this was not a fight he relished flying into. The last several years had been a fight he could get behind, against an enemy not even from his own universe. Fighting his own kind, no matter the reason, was not something he took lightly.

Vincent twisted his multitool open and closed again, and with each snick-snack of the metal he was reminded of the nightmare he had stayed awake to avoid. He stared at his unchanged readouts as his ship orbited the
Inferno
and waited.
Snick, snack, snick, snack
. He was waiting for anything to move close enough to distract him, and wondered why the bombers hadn't been launched against them yet. He dialed out his sensors, looking for their telltale signature on the HUD.

Vincent rolled his ship into a lazy turn to take in more of the battlefield. Why would the enemy disgorge its fighters without bombers to make any real impact? As he finished his roll, he saw the planet's moon, and on the HUD, the friend tag that was blinking between it and the planet.

He tapped onto the console to zoom and saw a shuttle that had been traveling towards the
Inferno
when the fighting started. They were just outside the moon’s orbit, and would have to turn back. Vincent was surprised to see they were still accelerating towards the fleet, and doubly so when an SOS signal broadcast. The surprise faded when the red blips started filling the sector from behind the moon. The enemy bombers had made their appearance.

"Flight Control, Reaper One, I had positive ID on multiple bogies coming in from behind the moon. COBs in danger of attack. Permission to engage?" Vincent commed back to the ship. No response.

"Flight Control, Reaper One, I say again I have civilians on the battlefield. Permission to engage." More silence.

Vincent didn't ask a third time.

"Reapers, follow me," he commed, and rolled out of the defensive orbit to blast towards the closest planetary moon.

His squadron followed in his wake.

A transmission came through from his wingmate. <
Sir? Were we diverted?>
Duchess asked.

Vincent reached to the com unit to key in a private channel. "No, bombers just appeared from around the moon. Linking coordinates now. We have COBs between us and them."

The Duchess commed back a sense of approval, a transmission without words.

The
Inferno
had been locked in tidal orbit around the colony planet before it maneuvered for the attack, so the moon was only a few hundred thousand kilometers away. Vincent had his AMI pull up a holographic display to type in a brief calculation, then grunted in frustration when AMI crunched the numbers and set them on the screen.

"Thanks," he muttered.

<
Lieutenant Vincent, why have you left your grid?>
said an irritated voice across his private net.
Commander Belford
, Vincent thought with a sneer.
This should go well.

The enemy decided that Vincent would not need to respond. Another squadron of bombers dropped into view from behind the moon. There was no way the
Inferno
could ignore the threat now.

Vincent keyed a wide beam transmission. "Multiple hostiles approaching carrier group." He glanced at his readouts. "Heading fower, tree, six, niner, by eight, niner, five, tree. Reapers set to intercept. Permission to engage?" Vincent knew he needn't bother giving heading or even calling the targets. His computer had already sent a beam back to the ship with far more detail. He certainly wasn't ensuring everyone saw Belford's blunder. That would be petty.

Belford did not sound pleased.

Vincent’s lip twitched upward.

Chapter 5

Johnston

"Damn cowboy," Belford snarled, causing Johnston to look up from his dais toward the CAG. “Commander of the Air Group” was a term the wet navy used for their atmospheric fighter commander. Belford was in charge of all the
Inferno
's
squadrons, and though they operated in a vacuum and not air, the moniker stuck. After all, Johnston had started his career twenty-five years ago on one of those water-dwelling ships.

"Problem?" he asked.

"Chimera squadron left their post to chase after some bombers," Belford said. "They were our fighter screen."

Johnston sank into the data stream the squadron in question had been beaming back to the ship. Two bomber squadrons and escorts from the far side of the moon. As the details filled in, Johnston had to restrain his mounting annoyance. The squadron was the closest and most appropriate deterrent, Belford should know that. Johnston had an entire battle group to manage, he didn't have time to coordinate the fighter squadrons because his CAG's personal feelings got in the way.

Chimera squadron... Lieutenant Vincent Barkhorn, son of the legendary Chase Barkhorn. Kid's face was posted on every recruiting station the colonies had. Old animosity between Belford and Barkhorn, and Johnston had the worse of that pairing. What he wouldn't give for Chase to still be alive, now there was a fighter pilot.

"Multiple hostiles approaching carrier group," Chase's son said over the intercom. "Heading fower, tree, six, niner, by eight, niner, five, tree. Reapers set to intercept. Permission to engage?"

Johnston turned his head so Belford would miss the smile. "Acknowledged. Divert the
Independence
to support them. CAG ensure the civilians are protected. They are our priority here." The kid was rubbing it in Belford's face. He would have to deal with the two of them before long.

Belford scowled, but he had no leg to stand on. The Reapers were in a prime position to intercept and protect the civilians.

Johnston turned his attention back to the battle. His fleet was closing the distance, and the real battle would commence. The plasma blasts they traded were powerful, but easily negated at range. The computers could anticipate point of impact and engage defensive split-second singularities. When they closed the distance, and could bring their mass drivers to bear, then the real slug match would begin. Even the most sophisticated AIs couldn't predict and defend against every projectile in a point-blank broadside. At those ranges, raw fire power and hull strength were the deciding factors.

Even with all the technology the gnomes had given them, and all subsequent advances since then, it was still human minds that brought the fight. AIs were powerful and necessary tools, but they were predictable. Humanity lacked technology, but on a galactic scale, they made up for it with ingenuity and adaptability.

"Shields singularities are at seventy percent and holding."

"Failure in gun battery eighteen, two casualties taken to medical."

"Engineering reports reactor core stable."

Johnston couldn't help but feel pride in his crew—well, most of them—as they worked seamlessly together. The Warstar Class ship wasn't just the newest in the fleet, it was the first to incorporate all the races that comprised the Joint Fleet. Giants, gnomes, nymphs, and even shogoths were aboard, and Johnston was the one they’d chosen to lead them.

Up until that point in the war, the races had been segregated. He still had race specific crafts in his battle group, but for all humanity brought to the table, the technology that had been thrust into their laps was barely two decades old, and they needed to work together to keep up in their war against what lurked on the far side of the portals.

With his officers working to compile and sort all relevant information from their respective ship systems, Johnston was able to see the battle as a whole. Until they closed, he had little that required his full attention, so he planned ahead. He called up a hologram from his command dais and reached out to manipulate the field. His own ship was armed to the teeth, and had enough singularity generators to hold its own against anything the Separatists fielded. He would lead the charge. His escort ships, however, were far smaller, though what they lacked in firepower and defenses, they made up for with maneuverability. He used the hologram to plan out their attack routes, allowing the computer to power through the precise calculations while he worked out the general idea.

He had four ships go “up” in relation to him, and another four “down.” They would accelerate away from the carrier, and once far enough away, turn to catch the enemy between them. With the
Inferno
charging up the center, the enemy would be forced to stay within the trap, or more likely, execute their own plan.

It was a simple maneuver, one every officer learned at the Naval Academy, but there was no sense opening an engagement with your trump card. It was a game of rock-paper-scissors, and the plays would change a dozen more times throughout the course of the battle. Once the enemy reacted, Johnston could react, and then again and again until he emerged victorious. He rested his hands on the console and looked up. On the view port, the formation was already breaking up as the ships went on their proposed paths.

A pair of eyes turned on him in his periphery and he looked over. One of the nymphs was staring at him from her command console. Her purple skin and the two dark gray horns growing from her forehead made her hard to ignore. A tingle in his mind alerted him that she was trying to speak.

Johnston did not have to ask how, with no monitors in her workstation, she came by that information. She was connected with several others of her race around the ship, as well as the two that piloted the Chimera ships. Nymphs had a knack for picking up anomalies the sensors could not. The kinds of anomalies that came from portals.

"Classification?" he asked.

"Tell the fighters to be on high alert. It seems the Separatists are covering up something far worse than a wildfire."