(YCSF Lessons Paid For, Maccara Gateway, Maccara System, Free Worlds Alliance)
Shipleader Irata Rhih was, as the humans would say, bored. The fleet had been buzzing the last few weeks, as the news that the Black Star Company, out of the Confederacy, had declared a formal Corporate War against the Yathru Corporation. Oh, corporate wars were fairly common in the Alliance, but they never involved the major players, like Yathru. At most, it would be a subsidiary fighting, not the main corporation. So, the news that the corporation as a whole was going to be involved in the war was a big thing.
It wasn’t just that Yathru itself was going to be fighting that got the rumor mill stirring, but who they were up against. The Black Star Company was widely regarded amongst the management types as being upstart newcomers. Somehow, they had ridden a wave of success to making a big name for themselves in the Confederacy, and had gotten too uppity. They needed to be cut down to size.
Or, at least, that was the view of the executives. In the ranks of the Fleet, however, the rumors were going in a much different direction. Unlike the corporate officers, the security groups had more face to face contact with groups outside the Corporation, or the Alliance. Moreover, they paid attention to the stories about military matters. Who had the biggest guns, and how they used them, was a vital part of living long enough to retire, after all.
The Black Star Company may have been many things, but, if even half the stories about them were true, they were not a group that she wanted to be facing in a pitched battle. The executives were still discussing plans for economic warfare against Black Star, and arranging attack teams to hunt Black Star shipping. The Fleet had come to the dreadful certainty that they would have no need to go seeking out Black Star, now that the preparatory period for the Corporate War was over. Save for the most diehard loyalists to the corporation, not a soul thought that Black Star was actually going to wait for them to come and fight on Black Star’s turf, or that Black Star would use financial trickery against them.
No, this war would be settled through force. And the Yathru Corporation simply didn’t have the kind of force necessary to fight off Black Star. Not in a straight fight, at least.
Which brought her to why she and her ship, a frigate that had been cutting edge twenty years ago, when it was built for the Alliance-Imperial war, were sitting by the Maccara Gateway, along with the other guardians, scanning every ship that came through the gateway. It was dull, boring work, but it needed to be done. Even the executives weren’t so thick as to believe that they could just leave the Gateway unguarded.
By the Abyss, the rumor was that they intended to launch assault forces through the Gateway to the so-called ‘Amazon’ system. The idea being that, then, they could fly normally to the Star’s Reach system and strike at the heart of Black Star’s operations. To Rhih, it just sounded like a great way of committing suicide.
But the Gateway still needed to be guarded, even after the assault force went through, so the Lessons Paid For would remain in Maccara along with the Home Fleet when the assault ships and mercenaries shipped out. And there would be plenty of mercenaries. The word around the fleet was that Corporate was even hiring the Kul’tirans to try and stick it to Black Star. Of course, the Kul’tirans didn’t really have a great track record against Black Star, either. Now, if only…
“Unscheduled Gateway activation!”
Her internal musing was cut off by the announcement from her Sensor Second. “Report!”
“Address matches the one recorded for Star’s Reach!”
Star’s Reach? Surely, they couldn’t be that arrogant? “Shields up! All point defense to full. All hands to battle stations.”
She had barely gotten the orders out of her mouth when the screen began lighting up with more sensor readings. She didn’t need the Sensor Second to tell her what they meant. Missiles incoming. Lots of missiles, being fired through the Gateway.
(Main Control Room, Drez Station, Yathru Corporate Security Fleet Headquarters, in orbit of Maccara Prime)
“What is happening?” Fleet Leader Chikzazz Zess snarled at the menials who were manning the sensor stations. She had been working on the plans for attacking Black Star when what seemed like all the alarms in existence began going off at once.
“Fleet Leader! The guardian defense platform and ships guarding the Gateway are under missile attack! The defense platform has been destroyed. Three of the five guardian ships are just gone. Profit Margin is disabled, and venting atmosphere. Lessons Paid For is maneuvering away from the Gateway, shields at 24%.”
“Damn it! Where is the gate coming from?”
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“Star’s Reach, Fleet Leader.”
“Damn it all to the infinite abyss! We’ve been outplayed. Full power to shields. All hands to battle stations! All ships, all stations to go to active sensors, maximum gain! There is a cloaked spotter out there, guiding the missiles through!”
Across the system, every Yathru ship, every station, every drone or satellite large enough to mount a sensor suite, whether they were civilian or corporate security, switched on their active sensors, blanketing the system in enough noise that it was impossible for any cloaked or stealthed ship to remain in hiding. Even the best stealth technology still had to obey certain rules of physics. If you were inside the universe, then spotting your ship was simply a matter of pumping enough energy out there that you got a hit, no matter what.
“CONTACT! MANY CONTACTS!” The sensor officer’s voice yelled out. “Computer counts fifty-eight unidentified contacts! Bearing two-one-four-mark-five by three-five-four-mark-five. Range six million kilometers and closing fast!”
Zess frowned. That was just over twenty light-seconds away, and charging almost straight ‘down’ from above the ecliptic. How the hell had they gotten so close, without being seen? They had spies at all the other known Gateways, save for Star’s Reach. There should have been no way that a fleet this size could possibly slip past the spies.
The sensor officer yelled out again, once more disrupting her thoughts. “Fighters! Fighter launch detected! Bloody abyss, there have to be ten squadrons launching!”
Fleet Leader Chikzazz Zess had thought that this would be a corporate war, like any other. Maybe not like any other, but following the same basic tenets. Now, she was starting to believe that Yathru had made a grave tactical error.
“Wait, what is that? OH SHIT! KINETICS ON INBOUND TRAJECTORY!”
The sensor officer on duty aboard Drez Station noticed the kinetics when they were five seconds out. Shock and lack of practice slowed the weapons officer’s reaction time to a full second. Training point defense on the objects took two seconds. The beam weapons the station used for point defense could fire at a relatively quick five shots per second. However, the software was designed to target fighters, conventional missiles, and asteroids, not objects hurtling forward at relative velocities of 50% of the speed of light!
Drez Station sported shields twice as strong as a superdreadnought’s. A superdreadnought could shrug off three, maybe four of the impacts from a Black Star ship’s main weapon, and remain in the fight. Six simultaneous impacts would kill even a modern superdreadnought outright. Drez station was hit by twenty-eight shots, all timed to land within 0.02 seconds of each other.
The best that could be said about the fate of the people aboard is that at least it was quick.
(YCSF Lessons Paid For, Maccara Gateway, Maccara System, Free Worlds Alliance)
Shipleader Irata Rhih was desperately praying to whatever powers would listen that she could go back to being simply bored. One moment, she had been engaging in simple guard duty. The next, she was doing everything she could to try and stay alive.
The missiles had poured out of the Gateway in a torrent, two hundred and fifty in total. The defense platform never even managed to get their shields up, or activate their point defense, before taking fifty of the ship-killer missiles straight to their hull. The Contract Law, Tariff Setter, and Greener Pastures had at least left their point defense on automatic, but it hadn’t helped, not against the twenty missiles each had been targeted by.
The Profit Margin and her Lessons Paid For, at least, had managed to get their shields and point defense on-line, and were able to begin evasive maneuvers. Unfortunately for the Profit Margin, they had simply been too close to the Gateway, and hadn’t had enough time to maneuver. The frigate had managed to shoot down or evade twelve of the twenty missiles, but eight had been enough to gut the ship’s aft section, leaving it drifting, without power, and venting atmosphere. The best that could be said for it was that the reactor had not suffered a catastrophic failure. Yet.
Her Lessons Paid For hadn’t fared much better, however. They had been the furthest from the Gateway at the time, but that only gave them a couple seconds more time to maneuver. They managed to shoot down seven missiles, and evade eight more. Rolling the ship as they engaged in maneuvers, the remaining five missiles only scored glancing blows, and never in the same section of shielding, allowing her to spread the load, at least a little. She was down to 24% on the shields, but the rough treatment had already caused several systems to go offline.
“Damage report!”
“Inertial dampening at 57%. Hull breach in deck four, section three, port side! Port-side point defense is offline! Casualties reported, sickbay ready for patients. We have radiation warnings in the compromised section. Looks like one or more of the missiles that got through was a nuke of some kind.”
Rhih nodded. “Very well. Bring us around! I want starboard shields facing the Gateway until repairs are completed. Communications! Do we have any word from Command?”
“Ship Leader,” the Sensor Second cut in, “Active sensors detecting a massive number of enemy ships, on an intercept course for Drez Station! It is the Black Star Fleet! Fighters launching from carriers, looks like ten whole squadrons!”
“Of course, it is,” muttered Rhih. Who else would it be, after that sneak attack through the Gateway? And it would be just her luck to get caught up in the battle like this.
Still, it could be worse. She could have been one of the Ship Leaders who were too close to the Gateway. Or she could have been off duty, and her Ship Second, while a capable administrator, did not make decisions quickly, even in emergencies. In either case, she would have been dead already, along with her ship.
“SHIP LEADER!” The sudden note of fear in the Sensor Second’s voice caught her attention, her gaze snapping over to focus on the young officer. “Drez Station is just gone, Ship Leader! It has been completely destroyed! No escape pods detected, and, given the size of the debris, it is unlikely that there are any survivors.”
“Comms, status of the rest of the fleet?”
“The situation is confused, Ship Leader. No one knows who is in charge, with the Fleet Leader dead. Leader of Ships Rodix of the Total Package and Leader of Ships Krih of the Theater of Pain are both attempting to assume control of the fleet, and the situation. Beyond that, there are simultaneous calls for both evacuation and to stand and fight.”
The Sensor Second called out again. “Ship Leader, tarpit traps have been dropped, blanketing the system!”
More oh so wonderful news. This was starting at bad, and getting worse by the minute. “What are the Black Stars doing?”
“They appear to have broken into four formations. Two are heading towards Maccara Prime. Probable Marine ships, so likely conducting landing operations, goal unknown. The other two are splitting, to engage the Home and Assault fleets simultaneously.”
Taking a breath, Rhih considered her options. There weren’t really any. They did not have weaponry that could turn the tide. They couldn’t run, and they couldn’t get close enough to the battle to do any good before it was done. It was not the most enviable of positions.
“All stop. Shut down all power except Life Support and sensors. Have damage crews work on restoring our shields and point defense, as best they can. Tell them to leave the repairs to our communications array until last.”
“But sir, the communications array is undam—” She quelled the communications officer with my patented death glare. “Oh. I see. Yes, I will tell them to leave the array for last, as you command.”
Ship Leader Irata Rhih was glad. She would have hated to have to summarily execute the officer, but sometimes needs mattered more than desires. Especially when the underworld god was in control. Maybe if they could just act like a hole in space, no one would notice them until the winning side was readily apparent. She just wanted to go back to boring, damn it!