Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) (4 page)

Chapter 6

Vincent

Vincent wasted no time putting the attack order into action. "Reapers on me, switch back to attack mode," he commanded.

His fighter shifted the armored plates away, giving him an unobstructed view of the field again. In reality, the only change was from total darkness to some pinpricks of light—the enemy bombers were still too far to make out with the naked eye. His sensor's magnification was a different story.

"Reapers, key in maneuver tango fower." Using the phonetic radio code for T-4, he keyed for his ship to slave its first salvo of missiles to the targets he designated. Faster than he could blink, AMI laid out a set of variables across his HUD, having powered through the calculations. Vincent grunted in acknowledgment, swallowing his distaste.

He glanced at his weapons and set his blasters to rotating fire, then his Gatling cannon to standby. He lined up a bomber in his sights to paint its hull with a sensor, and when reticule changed from red to green, he flipped up a plastic shield and depressed the trigger beneath. Two missiles streaked ahead of him into the oncoming bombers, while simultaneously, twenty-two other missiles filled the shortening space between ships. Each missile was tipped with a nuclear warhead with enough destructive power to wipe out a city, and just enough to be effective in the void.

The enemy bombers were arranged in cube formations so their gunners could overlap. As the missiles streaked in, the sandcaster round leapt out to meet them. The simple clouds of sand hit the missiles like a thousand bullets, and destroyed any they touched. They couldn't hit them all, however, and as seven of the bombers were struck and destroyed, an eighth took a grazing hit in the port engine and went spinning out of control. The oxygen mix within the ships blossomed into short-lived fireballs in the vacuum, and sent a spray of debris to litter the battle space. A sour taste welled up in Vincent's mouth, but years of experience overrode the feeling—this wasn't the first human he had shot down.

An immediate spike in the vitals monitor flashed below Vincent's peripheral—no surprise there. His excitement level was just as high as the rest of them. But despite his numerous engagements, and the horror of every death, he still reveled in every twist and turn.

The bombers continued in their formations, blasting sandcaster clouds out around them like a wall. The more sand around them the harder it was to maneuver, but it forced any attacking fighters to fly straight in. The grav prop would pull in and defend against the particulates, but any sharp maneuvers would leave them wrecked. With the speeds they were flying at, even the smallest grain of sand could cut right through their ships, and in attack mode, Vincent’s cockpit was exposed. It was strafing runs against the bombers’ gunners.

The bombers numbered three dozen, with a squadron of fighters for support. The Reapers would be hard-pressed to keep them all from letting their payloads loose, even with the extra time Vincent's maneuver had bought them. Several of the ships dropped torpedoes that blasted into the Reapers’
midst, the more maneuverable Chimeras were able to dodge the incoming projectiles. As the Reapers jinked and weaved among the incoming fire, the lead bombers grew desperate enough to launch their payloads at the
Inferno.

Vincent cringed as the missiles streaked towards his home. He turned away without looking to see if they connected, and concentrated on stopping the remaining bombers from loosing their own missiles. Let the
Inferno
's own point defense systems worry about the strays. With a quick kick to the left rudder, he popped into a tight turn. His maneuvering thrusters turned his tail and his grav prop pulled his craft onward, taking him out of the path of the bombers, and their sand clouds.

The fighter escort broke out to engage the Reapers, and Vincent locked onto one. As he painted the target, it juked left then followed with a sharp turn to the right. Vincent followed a moment later, stealing himself to the spin as the toned-down inertial compensator allowed him to feel a small percent of the g-forces his ship was pulling. As the fighter leveled out, he attempted to paint it with another missile lock. The enemy pilot responded with a tight roll up and around.

A less experienced pilot might have attempted to repeat the maneuver, but Vincent only rolled his wrists forward on the joysticks so the ship snapped upside-down, and with his grav prop turned down low to reduce drag, he continued backwards with the inertia and painted the target. It was a dangerous maneuver to have his unprotected flank traveling forward, but he was rewarded with a flash: The enemy ship flared bright as a star in its destruction. Vincent flipped back around, keeping his grav prop forward to catch any debris in his path.

The other Reapers had
broken down into four groups of three, Vincent flying with the Duchess and Zombie. Not feeling the need to oversee his well-qualified pilots, Vincent let his squadron's position fade into the back of his mind, concentrating instead on his own path.

Zombie called.

"Break off, I'll take him," Vicnent said as he swung up and around.

"Zombie, cut hard," Vincent commed.

Vincent dialed down the power on his grav prop while the Duchess and Zombie spun in a helix around him. As he lost momentum, one fighter shot past him to chase his wingmates. Vincent squeezed out a shot with his blasters, scoring a glancing blow against the oncoming fighter's shields. As the blast connected, the refracted light fed into his sensors, the data showing negligible damage in the strike. Both fighters banked away.

Knowing he would not trick them again, Vincent directed power back to the engines. His speed peaking, he took his wingmen into a turn up and around to strafe a group of bombers. As his HUD keyed onto the new opponent, he rotated the frequency of his blasters. He sent out a call to Duchess and Zombie, who rotated their own frequencies to different wavelengths from his own. Hoping to overload the bombers’ shields together, they triggered a trio of blasts. The beams slammed home, though when the light faded, Vincent cursed as the shield shrugged off the combined blow.

"Some kind of new armor, it's absorbing the shots,"
Vincent said. "Switch to cannons. We'll shoot them down the old-fashioned way
.
"

He spun up the Gatling cannon and could feel it shaking beneath his feat as it moved. He keyed for the rounds to use explosive charge, and led his trio around for a strafing run. A light keyed green as the rounds were chambered, and Vincent's finger slid down to the secondary trigger.

Vincent teased the rudder and took up a position behind an enemy ship, its bulbous frame hiding the deadly munitions beneath. He kept his ship in a lazy spiral to avoid some of the tail gunners’ fire, and squeezed off a burst from his cannon, the chemical-filled rounds stitching a row of miniature blasts in front of the bomber as it continued onward. Its armor took the brunt of the damage, but Vincent could see atmosphere draining from some of the holes. The Duchess's rounds punched through its cockpit, and with a muted flash, the bomber continued its run without pilots. Vincent and his wingmates charged forward through the sand cloud and other bombers. They moved fast, and the sand blocked the bombers’ computer sensors from painting them with a target lock; the enemy gunners had to shoot them by sight.

The bombers’ formation had pulled away from its floundering member and a well-disciplined gunner brought his lasers to bear on the Duchess. Before her armor could be overwhelmed, Vincent kicked his own ship sideways to take the fire on his port side. A quick flash of red bled into the green field of his HUD as the heat compensator protested, and Vincent diverted his starboard power to reinforce. The ablative armor could shrug off only so much before it slagged.

Vincent's maneuver opened an opportunity for Zombie, who had been further back, and with a quick burst of his own guns, the bomber disappeared in a torrent of muted flame.

"No man escapes the Reapers," Vincent intoned the squadron's motto. Duchess let out a whoop of exhilaration, and an undercurrent of gratitude and thanks poured openly through the bionet.

Zombie called across the net.

"Button up, Zombie," Vincent chuckled despite himself. The thrill was starting to overtake him; he was losing himself in the fight.

Their chase had taken them further from the furball and remaining bombers, and with a flick of the rudder, Vincent corkscrewed and pushed back into the chaos.

So far the dreaded alarm had stayed silent; no one in his squadron had been injured. For this, Vincent was grateful. Too often he lost good pilots to careless mistakes or chance. But today, he intended to congratulate eleven pilots in the debriefing room.

Chapter 7

The Exile

The pilots broke down completely when they saw the enemy bombers and their fighter escort. They were juveniles, and no amount of training could have steeled their nerves when they found themselves surrounded by the enemy. Exile's web couldn't break the hold of the fear that consumed them, not without it consuming her as well. She pulled her knife from its sheath once more, and stared down at the obsidian sphere nestled in the pommel. Her own blood would not be enough; she needed more power than she could pull from her own reserves. She needed a sacrifice.

The Shadow within the dagger thrummed with excitement, connected as it was to her emotions. It knew what she was planning, and it hungered for the release. Was it worth giving into the creature to save herself? For what felt like an eternity, she considered re-sheathing the dagger and letting fate choose her path.

Patience brings peace.
The mantra came quickly to answer her silent question, and she felt the spear of pain from the ghost of her amputated arm. Her lack of faith was what forced her from the conclave, bonded her to the monster in her dagger, and stole her arm. She would never again allow fate to have sway.

Exile approached the first man who had moved to attack her. She had difficulty discerning humans by their physical features, but she remembered the imprint he had left in her mind. A pathetic, lecherous creature, which no one would miss, and yet she stayed her hand.

The dagger screamed in her mind, fighting against her to stab it into the human’s blood, to give it the power it so craved. Exile's hand trembled as she lifted it over her head.
Lose one, save many.
The dagger plunged down into the man's chest, and Exile felt every inch of skin that split, every strand of muscle severed, and the scream of sated hunger when the dagger found his heart.

Though he had been incapacitated by her attack, the human screamed, his voice raw from the terror and pain. It was not just the physical shock of the steel in his heart as the Shadow spread from the wound and exchanged blood for darkness. Within moments, it spread through his body, consuming him as though he were skewered with flame. The man was no more, and a being of darkness lay in his place.

The dagger clattered to the floor as Exile pulled away, and the Shadow slipped away from the body. Then the black energy twisted into a point and shot out of the cargo hold. Walls, atmosphere, the vacuum beyond—none held sway over the creature. He was darkness given form—an elemental made of absence. Exile sank to her knees, the overwhelming knowledge of what she had unleashed too heavy for her to keep on her feet. One man was not enough for the monster to come fully into the world—it would have minutes at best, but minutes were more than enough. Her shuttle would be safe, but fate would take those who got in its way.

Chapter 8

Vincent

Alarms wailed as Vincent's world became a swirling miasma of nausea and fear. His control board was dead, and his fighter was out of control. The Duchess and Zombie took up defensive positions around him as Rover came alive. Springing from its position, it skittered into Vincent’s view and crouched down beside the damaged thruster. From beneath Rover's eye-shaped sensors, a laser played across the exposed wires and rent metal, assessing the extent of the damage. The enemy strike had punched through the port stabilizer, grazing enough to cut through the control lines, and without regulators attached, the powerful thruster was pushing well past its safe limits.

Duchess called, worry permeating the unspoken connection.

Vincent fought to stay alert as the spin pushed him into the seat, his suit rippling and tightening to keeping his blood flowing.

"I was hit by a fighter, watch your six," he said.

"You need to get out of here. Take the Reapers back to the ship," Vincent ordered.

"
There's nothing you can do."

"Damn it, Duchess, take the others and get out of here. Protect the
Inferno.
"

Whether it was fear for his pilots, or his home, or something else, Vincent did not know, but it was enough to force him to key the command he never thought he would use. His AMI sent the data packet that overrode Duchess’s system, and twisted her fighter back to the safety of the
Inferno
.  The other Reapers followed in her wake. He made sure they could still maneuver—he wouldn't forgive himself if they were killed because of his order—and then he cut off his incoming communications to focus on his own crisis.

He struggled to make out the HUD's readout of the damage, but his vision blurred and he nearly blacked out. He tried to reach out for his control board, but the spin was too great. He cut short a groan, and with a short mental command, the lights in the cabin flashed colored lights to alert him of the damage severity. When a red light washed over him, fear threatened to grip the edge of his mind. The grav prop had automatically throttled back to its lowest setting, keeping the artificial gravity as well as inertial compensation active. If the prop stalled, the g-forces would tear Vincent apart.

Vincent shut his eyes to the swirl of stars visible through his canopy and waited. He regretted it immediately as the nausea flared, and opened his eyes to another blaster flashing across, close enough to draw spots in his vision. Another mental command and his canopy darkened, obscuring the laser that came close enough to strip his ship’s paint.

Vincent concentrated on Rover, who was clinging to the rotating ship with its six magnetic clamped legs. The bot lifted its front right leg and reached back into a compartment on its shell, and exchanged its configuration for a short laser-cutter. Rover’s arm shot in and out of the damaged hole with robotic precision as it probed and cut the damaged wires. Once finished with the wires, it stopped and played out the diagnostic beam again. The controls to the cockpit were slagged, almost unsalvageable, Rover informed Vincent through the AMI, but the bot continued anyway. After cutting away the destroyed sections, Rover unfurled a pair of precision manipulators from where its jaw would be. The miniature claws grasped the burnt and mangled ends and pulled them together. The material that surrounded the wire was able to self-repair to a degree and started reattaching—though for Vincent, not nearly fast enough.

Rover reached its larger left claw down and clamped the ends, securing the connection. Its tail rotated, bringing a nozzle to bear. It snapped into the hole with its fore claws and twisted through a series of deft movements, spraying an insulation membrane that coated all the remaining wires. The lights within the cockpit flashed to yellow, much to Vincent's relief. Rover had given him the most basic of controls back, enough to stop the sickening spin.

Immediately, Vincent grasped the joystick and attempted to arrest his death spiral. Even at its lowest speed, the grav prop had still dragged Vincent well past the battle's engagement zone. Not far out of the planet’s gravity well to begin with, Vincent found himself falling towards the planet as he attempted to secure control of his ship. Rover's hasty repairs weren't enough to ramp up the engine and pull out of the dive. He was going to hit atmosphere.

"This is Reaper One, I've been hit, cannot maneuver, impact with Bastogne imminent. I say again, I am beaching my fighter," he called.

Duchess screamed in his mind. She had overridden his com blackout.

"Negative, I can land it." Then he keyed the command sequence to reroute all communications through the AMI. No distractions, not if he was going to pull this off.

On his wing, he could just make out Rover jamming the armor back into alignment. The bot exchanged both its foreclaw tools for clamps and grasped the rent armor. All along the robot's spine, maneuvering thrusters fired off to keep it firmly latched to the ship as it pulled the armor back into place. Its tail rotated again, and a plasma welder swung down to attach the bowed metal permanently. The job left the armor bulging and ugly, but intact, and hopefully it would keep the ship intact for reentry. Let the repair crew worry about aesthetics; Vincent just needed to land.

A countdown to impact flashed onto the corner of the HUD. The planet grew until it all but filled his screen, and he could see the fires that ravaged the surface even as far out as he was. The research colony was gone, destroyed by the blaze. Maybe that's why the Separatists had arrived—to salvage intel. Vincent shook his head. He needed to focus. He briefly released the stick to run his thumb over his father's multitool.

The transition from vacuum to air was gradual, and without his sensors telling him how far he'd gone, he wouldn't even know when he hit the upper layers. His grav prop cut off automatically once the atmosphere was too thick, and he lost shields and inertial dampeners. Gravity reoriented so that he was falling face first.

The front of his nose and wings took on a cherry glow from the friction as the ablative armor deflected most of the heat. Alarms screeched in his ears, and Vincent snapped to mute them. The patch job Rover had done wasn't taking the strain, and the little bot had to stay nestled in his mount or would be ripped off the hull.

Vincent reached up for the levers above him, knowing there was a fair chance that what he was about to try would lead to his abrupt and violent death, and then he twisted and pulled straight down. Tiny detonations rocked the hull as the armor panels were jettisoned from the craft, and the no-frills frame of the Chimera fighter was revealed. Thin nose, cockpit, engines, and wings; no armor, weapons, or navigation equipment. Just enough to fly.
The way Dad taught me.

Vincent was far enough down now that he could see the ground clearly as it rushed up to greet him. Pulling back lightly on the stick, he tried to get some air under the stubby wings. Pull too hard and they would snap off, not enough and he was a burning wreck on the ground. Since problems always came in threes, the only place to land below was on fire.

Maybe I should have ejected.