Homeworld (Odyssey One) (72 page)

“Not much choice, but you’ve got it, sir.”

“They’re pressing in hard, Captain,” Roberts noted.

“They don’t have much choice,” Eric observed. “There isn’t much value in hanging back, and we’re blowing as many of them to hell as we can. They’re literally throwing themselves unto the breach. It’s almost inspiring.”

“If we weren’t the ones they were throwing themselves at, sure.”

“Even then,” Eric said, watching the fires explode out beyond the hull of his ship. “I can find an enemy inspiring, Commander, can’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“Archangels in motion, Captain! Vorpals launched from the
Enterprise
!”

“Do we have any sign of the enemy cruisers?” Eric demanded, shifting his attention back to the fight.

“No, sir.”

Eric’s response was one that would be censored from any official log, assuming he had a chance to file one.

“All fighters in the clear, form up on my lead. Weapons free,” Steph said as he turned off all the safeties across his board.

“We’re with you, sir,” Burner said from his wing. “And hey, check out those shiny new toys the
Big E
has brought to the fight.”

Steph turned his head slightly to the left, the augmented view of his HUD finding one of the Vorpal fighters firing full burners in the distance. The HUD magnified the image, classified the object, and listed it as green as the IFF checked out. Steph just snorted.

“Not even a tally on their fuselage, so new they probably squeak,” he said. “Let’s see how they handle a real furball. If
even one of those guys gets more kills than any of you, I’ll be
very
disappointed. You get me?”

“We get you, sir!” the wing crowed as one.

“Smart asses,” Steph growled, eyes flicking forward to the oncoming enemy fighters. “Initiate laser detection and avoidance systems. They’re not likely to be terribly happy to see us coming.”

The flight was acknowledged as Steph himself flicked on his augmented systems, lighting up the space around him with the computer-generated beams of light that represented lasers tracked by one or more of the Confederate scanners in the region. Beams flickered into being and vanished just as quickly as the computer detected or lost track of one. Presumably the enemy stopped firing in the latter case, though by Steph’s experience with technology that was far from guaranteed.

For all the advanced technology, though, there was still one point that held true from many wars back. You’d never see the shot that was aimed at you.

“Damn. Looks like a concert I went to once in L.A.,” Cardsharp said, voice slightly awed. “Only there were more lasers in L.A., I think.”

“Any of them able to turn you and your bird into expanding plasma?” Steph asked dryly.

“It w
as
L.A., Boss.”

“Smart ass. I’m surrounded by smart asses,” Steph grumbled, shaking his head. “Alright, cover the
Odyssey
! No one,
nothing
, gets close. Clear?”

“Clear!”

“Watch your fire.” Eric settled a hand on Waters shoulder as the young man directed the point defense priorities for the ship. “Don’t splash any of our boys.”

“No, sir, I’m being very careful.”

“I know you are, son. Just being the overbearing commanding officer.”

“Yes, sir.”

The fight was just window dressing, Eric was well aware, but it was lethal window dressing. People would be dying very soon, and all for nothing really, just buying time. The fighter screen was overpowering, but it was just a sideshow; the real game was coming up behind it, and until the cruisers decided to put in a showing, they were just spinning their wheels here.

“Any hits on the cruisers yet?” he asked, turning to Winger.

“We’ve got eyes on the far side that have picked up a couple hints of them, but the fighter screen is immense, sir.”

“I can see that,” Eric answered grimly while working the numbers in his head, trying to decide how long he could hold station against a force that size.

No matter how he worked them, it wasn’t long.

Now is not the time for the Drasin to grow a brain. Hurry up and come barreling in like the thugs in a corner store I know you are.

They were out there, not far away. The Drasin had no appreciation for subtlety in his experience so far. He just had to hold out longer than their patience did, and that shouldn’t be too hard.

Come on, Steph. Hold out just long enough.

Over the last couple centuries, or close enough, fighter technology had come a long way, from a man in the cockpit with a handgun all the way to fire-and-forget missiles with multiple warheads that could splash a target across a solar system. You couldn’t hide from a missile, you couldn’t
run
from a missile, and if you didn’t have tech at least within a generation or two of the missile, you had about no chance of surviving it either.

The alien fighters weren’t hiding, however, and they sure as hell weren’t running. Their tech may have been superior to the mil-spec ordinance being lobbed at them—that was a point that was open to debate—but it certainly wasn’t compatible in any way, so they weren’t spoofing the incoming weapons either.

Drasin fighters vanished from the plot in droves, dozens of them turned into vapor before the first Terran fighter even took a scratch. The only problem was that there were
thousands
of them, and they weren’t interested in bugging out.

“Angel Lead, Fox Three,” Steph intoned, faking left with a half roll, then twisting hard right in a full barrel roll that brought him up and over a sweeping beam intending to slice his fighter into halves.

The missile was ejected from the bottom of his fighter, its light CM generators engaging in sync with the rocket motors and the weapon flashing away from his fighter in a streak. It didn’t have far to go, a light-second or two, and the weapon entered terminal mode and detonated. The explosion threw out a dozen sub-munitions into place, each with nominal guidance, and a second later five hundred square
miles of blackness was lit up with a series of short-lived, brilliant spheres of light and fire.

“Angel Lead, splash five.”

The battle was both more lethal and somehow more relaxed than most he’d fought over the years. The Drasin were present in huge numbers, but they were primitive in tactics and weapons. Lasers were great ship-to-ship weapons, but they weren’t so good at popping a fighter at distances greater than one light-second.

Of course, things were a lot easier when the enemy barely paid any attention to you while you were killing them.

“They’re ignoring us! Heading for the
Odyssey
!” Cardsharp called, confirming his thoughts even as they formed in his head.

“
Odyssey
, do you copy that? Watch for kamikaze attacks!” Steph called. “We can’t hold them back!”

“Roger, Angel Lead. Do what you can.”

“Do what we can, he says,” Steph grumbled, killing his thrust and flipping his fighter end for end before slamming the throttle all the way forward again. “We’ve got two thousand guided missiles locked on the
Odyssey
and he tells me ‘do what I can.’ ”

The lead pilot of the Archangel squadron made a disgusted noise as his fighter slammed him hard back into his seat, shedding velocity in a hurry and building Delta-V back in the direction of his origin. He tagged and bagged fifteen more of the Drasin fighters as they passed him, all zeroing in on the
Odyssey
, and thumbed the firing stud on his control stick.

“Angel Lead, Fox Three!”

Lieutenant Commander Frank “Frankenstein” Stathus growled as he twisted his Vorpal around, cursing under his breath as the G forces became noticeable even while under full-powered CM. The enemy was being downright rude, in his opinion, not that he was really going to complain about being ignored when he and his flight were outnumbered a thousand to one.

Ok, not quite that bad, thank God, but close enough for government work
.

He’d already popped four of the enemy fighters and he’d been hanging back to direct his squad, so the kill ratio was going in the right direction, but it was clear that they weren’t interested in him and his in the slightest.

“Damn it! They’re going for the
Odyssey
! Take them out, Blades!”

His squadron acknowledged the order over the comms even as he poured on the thrust. A glance to the left now showed him that the
Odyssey
’s Archangel squadron was doing much the same, firing as they accelerated. He was surprised by the power-to-mass ratio the Archangels exhibited. Much of their specifications were still classified well beyond his clearance, and he hadn’t expected that they’d be able to keep up with the lighter-massing Vorpal class. But if his fighter had an edge, it wasn’t by a lot.

The Vorpals weren’t as sleek as the Archangels, having gone back to external hardpoints for their weapons. In the vacuum of space it hardly mattered, and the change let them launch more weapons in less time if the need arose.

Not that it seems to be much of an advantage, given how much fire those lunatics are throwing into space.

Frank wasn’t NICS capable. He’d applied for the program once a few years earlier and found out quickly that he
didn’t qualify. It was a bit of a sting, given what he’d seen the Archangels pull off during the war, but he’d shouldered the burden and moved on with his career.