Deep Chandra Orbit - Republic of Humanity Territory
- - - - -
Chandra wasn’t as stunning as Micah Prime had been. Its vomit-colored clouds obscured almost the whole surface, leaving a sliver of gray-blue ocean exposed near its poles. Where Micah Prime’s ring had caught its star’s light in a brilliant halo, Chandra’s captured meteor of a moon was currently trapped on the sun-side of the planet; according to the Champ’s system, it wouldn’t return to the night side for eight-point-seven years.
On the other hand, the different plants meant a chance it wouldn’t reek.
Kaya stood at the bridge, watching the planet rotate as the general—the local general, not General Gorsuch—explained the situation. “Thank you for emergency jumping. Fifteen minutes ago, a Bonravan worldship appeared in near Chandra orbit. Given the…ceasefire…between the border systems and Bonrava, we weren’t prepared to fight a vessel of such magnitude. It’s already begun the process of landing forces on Chandra, and we’re expecting a full-scale planetary cleansing.”
“So, you need a fast-attack team to go in, attack the cows on their ship, and take it down?” General Gorsuch asked.
The local general, Franken, shook his head. “Frankly, no. It’s too late for that, and it’s a suicide mission not even you could survive, sir, and I remember you made it two weeks on their home planet with nothing but a sharpened stake.”
Gorsuch grumbled angrily as General Franken continued. “No. The problem is that Chandra houses several facilities whose scientists are critical to the war effort and a mine producing a rare mineral needed for faster-than-light jump engines. Both sides have alternative sources, but denying the cows this one could slow down further worldship production. And no matter what, we need those scientists. They’re researching new weapons technologies, and due to the Bonravan ship, we can’t simply upload the data and leave.”
A light lit up on the massive hologram behind Kaya; currently, it showed Franken, but when the light switched from yellow to green, one of her academy classmates appeared. “Sir, where exactly are these scientists located?”
The planet appeared in the hologram, this time with its clouds stripped away. Kaya winced. Chandra looked like a swampy mess of a planet, with an occasional dry point higher up, and snow rimming the polar oceans. A moment later, the world spun and a gigantic ship appeared; it had to be at least the size of Ceres, and probably bigger. As Kaya watched, a large swath of the planet flashed red. Two dozen yellow lights blinked on, all scattered in the red zone. Then, at the northern edge, right where the red touched the snowy coast, a large yellow blob appeared.
“That big one’s the mine. The yellow dots are all research stations. We’ve evacuated what we can, and the local military is holding the line for now,” General Franken said, “but these locations are behind cow lines. Rescue those researchers, destroy the mine, and if you have time, assist with evacuations. Franken out.”
As the general’s helmeted head disappeared, Kaya looked at the holographic map. Yellow dots were already turning blue as the other ships’ lieutenant commanders picked their targets and their ships started moving toward them. She tapped on the mine. “System, what does that mission look like?”
[Well, LC, the mine is one of eight vatanium-295-producing mines in the Republic. It’s a highly-volatile substance, very very explosive. I don’t recommend you have any oopsies if you go there—oh. Wait. That mission’s goal is to make it blow! My mistake (╥﹏╥)]
“Great. So, we’re careful until we don’t have to be. What’s the plan for taking it out?”
[You have options uwu]
[The easiest way is probably orbital bombardment, but the probability of it destroying the whole mine with an 80-Millimeter Strike is…low. Very low. The better option is to go in, grab some of the demolition equipment down there, and set up an overload on it. That should be enough of a boom to make the mine unusable]
“Okay, great. We’ll do that.” Kaya tapped the mine’s icon again, and it went blue. It wouldn’t go green until the mission was finished, and it’d turn yellow if for some reason her team failed.
But they wouldn’t fail. They couldn’t. Humanity was counting on her, and more frighteningly, General Gorsuch was, too.
“Time to arrival?”
“Approximately three hours,” the ship’s navigator said. “We could go faster, but we don’t know if the shields would hold against the worldship’s weapons systems at higher speeds. We’ll wait until the escorts engage it, then slip through.”
“Understood. Bring us in. System, have the fire team assemble in the drop bay in ninety minutes. We’ll go over gear, put together a mission plan, and try to have a better drop than Micah Prime.” There was an empty seat on the bridge; the lieutenant commander sat there when needed. As the world ship’s bulk rotated slowly into view, she sat down and touched her MRC. A moment later, it popped and warbled.
Getting close enough to drop would take a miracle.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
◄▼►
The Bonravan worldship was bigger than any true ship in the Republic’s fleet—only the Command Schools around Ceres and the factory stations in Neptune’s orbit out-massed it. As she stared at the glass-and-steel monstrosity, its shields flickered on, and the whole thing disappeared in a shimmering oil-slick blur. And that’s just one of their worldships. How are we supposed to fight that?
Kaya knew the answer. The Republic didn’t fight worldships. There weren’t enough of the massive vessels to hold the line against the EAF’s smaller, more agile vessels, so even now, another battle group was thrusting into Bonravan space.
Very few powers still participated in ship-to-ship combat. For the EAF, it wasn’t worth the risk—not when they could use Droppers and air support to fight for the real objectives. For everyone else, it was mostly cost. A destroyer armed with enough firepower to destroy a drop corvette before one of the EAF’s escort dreadnoughts arrived cost too much, and dreadnoughts of their own couldn’t be everywhere.
Bonrava hadn’t learned that lesson yet. Instead, they’d gone bigger. Much bigger.
The two escort dreadnoughts, which each outmassed a drop corvette fifty to one, lanced toward the worldship like two toothpicks attacking a freighter. A jet of raw energy erupted from the first dreadnought’s bow, blooming across the massive ship’s shield. As the blindingly-white energy burst disippated, a small gap opened in the shield, and the other dreadnought vomited missiles toward it. Thousands of pixel-small dots appeared on the holographic map.
But the dreadnought wasn’t aiming for the gap. Instead, it kept firing, chewing into the swarm of corvette-sized fighters spreading out and barreling toward the EAF fleet. Explosions rippled across the fighters, but the dreadnoughts together couldn’t stop them all.
One broke free of the missiles, shield flaring, and its engines brightened to two knives in the dark sky. “Champ, battle stations,” Kaya said. “Bring the forward shield up, unlock the 80-Millimeter for anti-ship fire, and prepare point defenses.”
Very few powers still participated in ship-to-ship combat. At least, not willingly. But that didn’t mean Ceres Command sent its graduates out without the theory.
“Anders, you have control. Crossing Ts with the bogey, minimal exposure. Gunnery, get those eighties ready. They’ll outgun us, so choose your shots well. Rotate the shield as we pass, don’t worry about exposure to the worldship. It should be distracted.”
The minutes ticked by—something Kaya had always hated about ship-to-ship simulations. Even with engagement ranges measured in the thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers, the moments when both ships were just moving felt like gears locking up in her head. There wasn’t anything to do; The eighty could hit from this far—if the other ship didn’t take any evasive action. But with a nearly three-minute run-time for the shell, the odds of a hit were so low it wasn’t worth firing.
Was the other ship’s commander feeling the same pressure? Or did they have the cool, collected attitude of a superior combatant?
Finally, the enemy ship was in range. The whole corvette shook as the shields dropped, the 80-Millimeter Strike fired, and the shield raised again. “Ma’am, we’ll be exposed to return fire for eight minutes. One of the dreadnoughts gave us three torpedoes. If we can hold out that long, we’ll be out of his range, and it’ll take almost two hours to re-engage at the bogey’s current speed.”
“Okay. Keep it together. Prepare for evasives.”
A ray sprang out from the fighter, passing across the Champ’s shields. A moment later, the ship’s shields overloaded, and the drop corvette disintegrated around Kaya.
[Dropper Lost. You have suffered full body disintegration (╥﹏╥) ]
[Running Retrograde Backup]
◄▼►
As Kaya and The Champion of Democratic Intent flew toward their inevitable intercept with the Bonravan fighter, she ran through what had happened.
The Champ’s guns had fired, and the shield had gone back up.
A minute later, the enemy fighter had used a beam of some type, which sliced through the shield like it wasn’t even there.
Then the Champ had exploded.
She needed counterplay. But she didn’t have anything to manage that beam. The Champ wasn’t a space-combat specialist. For a moment, she regretted the choice to take a grenade launcher; four more cannons would help, even if it was just pressure on the enemy fighter.
Then she had an idea. “Navigator, plot us a course away from the incoming ship. I want us in their medium range as little as possible, even if it exposes us to their max range for longer. Piloting, set us on a spin. As fast as we can rotate without losing control.”
“That’s not procedure,” Anders said from under his crumpled-up baseball cap. Sweat poured down his face, and he took a sip from a water bottle before continuing. “Procedure is to get us in as—“
“Listen up,” General Gorsuch’s voice crashed into the bridge, silencing everyone. “I’ve never seen a fighter like that before, and the Lieutenant Commander hasn’t, either. She’s throwing stuff at it to see what sticks. I’m all for that plan! It’s a damn good one.”
“Thank you, general.” Kaya took a deep breath. “Gunnery, start firing the Eighty-Millimeters at the fighter.”
“From here, they’ll fall apart almost a thousand kilometers before they hit,” one of the gunners said over the intercom.
“Doesn’t matter. We don’t know their ship’s capabilities, so maybe they don’t know ours. We want them to panic, dodge, and waste time. If we hit, we hit. If not, we waste their time. Stagger the shots. Figure out your max speed, then even intervals between the guns.”
The Champ started spinning. Every twenty to thirty seconds, the shields went down, and a cannon’s fire shook the corvette’s steel-and-titanium hull. “Can we use the Kingfishers?” She asked suddenly.
[No. Intra-atmosphere only. Supposedly, Neptune’s working on a conversion that allows limited space-to-space combat, but it’s not needed in most theaters. (╥﹏╥)]
“Alright, so much for that idea. Keep us moving.”
“Ma’am, one of the dreadnoughts has launched missiles toward the fighter. We’ve got three incoming. They’ll hit just outside of our medium range at our present speed.”
“Flip us around, fire engines to maximum.” Kaya’s stomach dropped as the ship started decellerating. The oncoming red dot of the enemy fighter drew closer and closer, and without their speed, they’d be sitting ducks for the Bonravan’s ray. Worse, they couldn’t defend themselves with their cannon locked in reverse.
But if she was right, the missiles would arrive in time to save them.
Her heart pounded. This wasn’t how Droppers were supposed to fight. She was supposed to have a rifle in her hand and the power of her corvette at her fingertips, not be trapped in a tin can hurtling toward destruction or salvation. Either way, all she could do was watch as the five dots—the Champ, the Bonravan fighter, and three max-burn missiles—roared toward each other in a three-way race to the death.
Whose death, though? She couldn’t tell yet.