Flight of The Lancer
Kelsea 'Ginger' Shoos walked briskly down the narrow metal hall that led to the secondary hanger of the weathered Ishka Class fleet carrier Any Port in a Storm. Beside her was one of her four squad mates, Helena 'Savage' Marks. Helena was a female Yeown of average size and had cream colored fur across the front of her body that faded to a muted gray at her wide shoulders and back. She had picked up that particular nickname on shore leave a while back when she had savagely put down a man who was drunkenly hitting on her. Ginger and her other squad mates had laughed and commented on how savage she was, and it had stuck. Savage wore her name with pride and remarked on it often.
Ginger had been given her nickname almost immediately due to her unusual appearance. She was Nerivith, but unlike most of her people who had raven black hair and purple or indigo eyes, she had a genetic mutation that gave her fiery orange hair and vivid yellow eyes. She had been teased relentlessly as a youth about her appearance, many of the children had called her things like 'Rusthead' and 'Shrij Eyes'.
Bringing herself back to the present she focused once more on the moment as a klaxon blared once and the speaker system announced "Fifteen minutes to warp exit. Please report to your battle stations, this will be a hot drop. Expect resistance."
Savage turned to her and growled "I hope it's hot, it's been a while since I wetted my claws."
Ginger smiled and replied "I'm sure it will be, we are dropping straight into the contested zone."
They walked out of the hall into a larger staging area that joined to the secondary hanger. The room was long and narrow with a low ceiling, like everything on the four-hundred-and-sixty-meter-long carrier. While Ginger wasn't much a fan of the low ceilings, at least she didn't seem to have as many problems as Savage. She spotted another two of her squad mates getting geared up in their dark brown pressure suits as they entered the room.
Jridgena 'Harpy' Xceese and George 'Dunce' McMann were struggling into their flight suits as she and Savage approached them. Dunce saw them and attempted to wave while he was still putting a leg through his garment, the result was a loud grunt as he promptly fell flat onto the padded ground. Harpy let out a breathy giggle as he struggled to untangle himself. She made a grab for his leg and he yelped as she sunk her clawed digits into his rump instead as he flailed.
"Woah hey, watch it. I need to be able to sit on that ass." Dunce complained as he finally managed to free his legs and sit up. Dunce was a Human male of below average height with brown eyes, dark hair and caramel skin. While a great pilot, he was near useless when it came to tasks involving eye to hand coordination. They had originally called him Clutz but switched it to Dunce after he was placed on disciplinary leave after an incident involving the officers table and a large container of still living Grassstriders.
Dunce stood to his feet and gave Harpy a playful nudge while saying "Not that I didn't appreciate you letting me know you were thinking of me."
Harpy grinned playfully and smiled her wide shark smile. Harpy was a Slaaveth female of above average height. Tall and with the powerful shoulders of a natural born swimmer, she had a vigorous look to her. While she was generally a cheerful and sunny person, she had a vengeful streak. She had picked up the name Harpy after she had ruthlessly hunted down a thug who had harmed one of her previous squad mates and sent them to the ER with her bare claws.
Harpy looked at Savage and asked "You two are here. Where's Strong?"
Dunce chimed in "He is probably already in the hangar waiting for us, you know that big guy is nothing if not punctual."
Ginger agreed with him saying "He's never late, if he isn't here, then he is ahead of us. It's kinda eerie actually. I wonder if it's some sort of Vinarfel thing?"
"I can guarantee it isn't, I once knew this Vinarfelien chick who was never on time to anything." Dunce said briskly.
Harpy turned to him and feigned shock as she asked "You dated a Vinarfel girl? How promiscuous of you!"
Dunce spluttered for a moment and tried defending himself as he backpedaled "I never said we were dating, and so what if I did. Strong is Vinarfel, and I don't see you complaining about him?" Harpy just looked at him with that same sharp toothed smile as his face went from defensive to annoyed. "Oh I get it, you are just fucking with me aren't you?"
"Not on duty, I would never." She said sweetly. Dunce just rolled his eyes and went back to putting on his gear.
Ginger smiled to herself as she finished putting on her own gear. Her smile faded as she once more thought about the message she had received from command. She was being assigned to a new craft today, her old Voidbane Mk III was in storage and she had been training in the simulators on a new ship whose design she had never seen before. The simulation had called it the Lancer-E, but in her eyes it looked more like a flying hammer.
Savage seemed to pick up on her mood change, probably due to her enhanced predator senses. "What's wrong Ginger?" She asked concernedly.
Ginger sighed and said "I get the privilege of flying that new bucket of bolts that I told you about. I have plenty of training on it in the combat simulators, but I'm going to be flying it for real out there, any mistakes and I'm toast. It doesn't help that this thing is supposed to be able to take out a cruiser, you know."
Dunce poked his head over in her direction as he grabbed his helmet from his locker "What takes out cruisers?" He asked.
"My new craft." She said flatly as they made their way into the hangar. They walked between rows of sheltered alcoves that held the various fighter wings of the Any Port.
"Whoa, I knew you were getting a new toy but I didn't know you were getting the big boy toys. How in Luck's name does a fighter disable a cruiser?" He asked her.
She passed her long fingers over her horns as she tried to settle her insides, the Lancer was essentially a series of medium laser arrays rigged together through various beam focusers and combining arrays to form the five lasers into one. And the purpose of this was to achieve the power density of a heavy laser in a package small enough to mount in a fighter. A heavy laser was much too long to mount in a fighter, and a medium laser wasn't powerful enough to reliably penetrate the armour of most destroyers or cruisers.
"The short answer, Dunce, is that they put a dangerous amount of laser cores into much too fragile a frame and now expect me to do something useful with it." She told him.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before asking "But it can cripple a cruiser? That's awesome. Imagine what that would look like to them, it's like getting a broken leg from a horsefly." He said enthusiastically.
Ginger knew what a horse was, and she had seen flies before, but she had no idea what a horsefly was. She thought about asking and then decided not to. Every time she asked Dunce about something from that helhole he called a homeworld she ended up having nightmares.
Instead she contented herself saying "Yes, if it works, if I can fly it effectively, if I don't get blown to pieces by anti-fighter missiles. I flew it in simulations, it's fast alright, but not very maneuverable." She grumbled.
Savage said "I'm sure you wouldn't be asked to fly it if it hadn't been exhaustively tested. They would have no reason to put you in such danger without a reliable ship."
Harpy snickered and said "That doesn't sound like the SCU at all." Ginger shot her a look as they finally reached their alcove. To the shock of nobody, Strong was there waiting for them. He was a Vinarfel male, looking similar to a six-meter-long centipede from Earth, his forward third was reared up in a slight S shape and his upper body possessed five pairs of grasping arms.
Strong was not really that much stronger than an average member of his people, but after the fifth time someone had remarked 'Wow, you're strong' while he was moving something heavy, he had just hissed in annoyance and said 'Yesss I am, and who are you?' After that, they had taken to calling him Strong as a sort of inside joke that he tolerated with a grim attitude.
"It isss good to ssee you have arrived in time. We sshould get ready for warp exsssit." The large man hissed.
Ginger said "Good to see you as well, he's right, we don't have a lot of time, we need to get ready."
Dunce and Harpy sprung towards their own Voidbane fighters while Strong scuttled to his like a flash of lightning. Savage grined at her and made her way over to her bulky Steelwoods Fighter/Bomber.
Ginger watched them all for a moment before turning towards the strange new ship that would be her space coffin if the mission went poorly. The Lancer was a long ship, about twenty two meters in length, much longer than the sixteen meters of a Voidbane or the eighteen of Savage's ship. It looked like a hammer, with a long 'handle in the front where the laser arrays were housed and combined while the 'head' near the rear housed the cockpit and flight control systems. There were thrusters along the length of the front as well, but the main thrusters were clustered at the back of the ship in a diamond configuration.
She stepped over to the strange ship and pulled herself onto the control surface of the left wing and entered the cockpit. There various dials, gauges, and digital readouts that made her eyes swim for a split second before the numerous hours in the training sims kicked back in and she began to run a pre-flight checklist.
After assuring herself that the ship was ready for combat she heard another series of klaxons and noticed the announcement saying "One minute to warp exit, Combat roles to battle stations."
Ginger shivered in excitement. This was what she lived for, the feeling of tense anxiety in her gut receded as she prepared herself to enter space with nothing but a thin suit and piece of industrial plastic protecting her. The carrier exited warp with the all too familiar twisting lurch, the nauseating feeling crashing through her almost too fast to detect, almost.
She winced as her insides twisted in discomfort but quickly suppressed the feeling and ran a quick double check on her new ships systems, everything came back in the pink. The lights should have been green, but it looked like the check lights were still set to Nerivith military standard, pink for all clear, yellow for trouble and blue for critical malfunction. Ignoring the issue, she linked her helmet into the squad comms. The comms used old school light speed lasers for communication, but were still effective for the relatively short ranges the fighters would be operating at.
The klaxons blared again and the overhead lights flashed red and white as the main hangar doors unfurled and the thin gravity barrier was revealed holding in the thin atmosphere above the launch rails. These older style carriers still used the antiquated electromagnetic rail launch systems to offload their fighter complements instead of the new and improved gravity launch arrays. The new ships would just line up their fighters and then project a slight gravity field at a ninety degree angle to the deck to pull the ships into space. It was effective and allowed for the mass launching of up to half a carrier's fighter complement all at once if necessary, although they generally only launched about three squadrons at a time. The Any Port was an older Ishka class and was unable to match those numbers, launching only five fighters per minute.
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As her squadron was the second to launch, she waited for a minute before receiving the all clear from the ships comms relay and rolling her ship forwards into the launch bay. She rolled to a short stop right next to Savage in her fighter bomber combo and gave her a quick wave, Savage grinned widely and then looked forwards as their ships were grabbed by the electromagnetic rail and moved into launch position. Their front wheel was equipped with a protruding armature that slotted into the rails in the ship's floor and would drag the rest of the shuttle out of the bay into space at about sixty meters per second in only about two seconds. While this acceleration should have broken her neck, she was protected by her fighters inertial compensators that countered the gravity by producing an equal and opposite effect canceling the original force out.
She screwed her eyes tightly shut for a second and said a quick chant to the powers that be before she felt a slight tug of acceleration, snapping her eyes open she took control of her new ship as it shot out of the carrier's launch bay. “Savage you read me? This is Ginger.”
She waited for a second before she heard the husky voice of Savage respond “I read you loud and clear Ginger, Harpy and Strong are next then we are just waiting for Dunce.”
“Copy that Savage. Harpy, form up on us when you are free.” Ginger said knowing that she would do just that.
After another minute of loitering around the vicinity of the carrier, Harpy, Strong, and Dunce had joined them and were all relaying tactical data to each other so as to better coordinate. Ginger took the leftmost position beside Strong, and Savage took the rightmost position beside Dunce as Harpy took the center. Harpy’s voice flooded the comms as she said “Ok Green Squad, this is a hot zone, and I just got updated information from the Any Port, Commander Greisse has relayed the positions of our targets to us. While Red, Yellow, Blue and White squadrons are distracting the main bulk of the enemy, we are going to be slipping around the sides and taking shots at their support ships.”
Savage growled over the comms and said “We are taking out the big girls huh? What do they have, a couple of cruisers?” Strong made a small noise of agreement over the comms before Harpy answered.
“Negative, there were supposed to be two cruisers and a support carrier here, but it looks like our intelligence was wrong on this one. Thay have two cruisers and a carrier all right, but they also have a Meteor class heavy cruiser, that's one mean son of a slurrge that we are responsible for disabling.” Harpy said over the comms.
“What? There is no way we can disable a heavy cruiser. This thing has a hard enough time with regular cruisers. Not to mention as soon as we get within five kilometers of it we are going to get blasted out of space by its secondary guns.” Savage said over the comms.
“That's why we got the new toy, or rather, that's why Ginger got the new toy. Did she tell you about its operational capabilities?” Harpy said.
As they flew through space, they were rapidly covering the fifty-kilometer gap between the two opposing fleets. Ginger wished she could just focus on the lessening range counters, but instead she spoke up in response “The Lancer-E experimental anti capital fighter is equipped with a five cell medium laser fusion array. It combines the power of five medium laser arrays into a single beam, this combined beam is capable of piercing the armour of even a battleship at close range, or most small attack or support ships at long range.” she recited from memory.
Dunce sighed over the comms and said “Yes you have said that before, and it's nice, but what does that actually mean? What kind of range are we talking about here? Three thousand meters?” he finished with a snort.
Harpy answered him saying “If my understanding of the engineering behind the weapon is correct, the maximum effective range of her main weapon is eight thousand meters, though she may have to close to six thousand to get a killing blow.” The comms were silent for a few moments as they flew closer to their targets. The small pinpricks of detonating munitions could be seen flickering in the distance.
Finally it was Strong who spoke up “Six thousand meters, then, why are the rest of us here?”
Ginger told him “You are here because this ship is not designed to fight other fighters. He is faster than any of you in a straight line, but suffers from a lack of maneuverability and carries no small caliber weapons. I am a flying cannon, but I am only good for taking out the big ones.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Savage said over the comms.
Harpy said “Now that you are all more familiar with our purpose here, don't be a hero and get yourself killed, we can blast these scum suckers from complete safety and then return home as heroes. Nothing to it really.”
Strong made a low hiss of skepticism but said nothing. Ginger focused on the range counters as they got within twice her effective range. “Alright gals, we are on the clock, let's make it count.” Ginger said as they officially entered the combat zone.
They locked their flight computers together and rocketed into the hot zone. Ginger checked her nav system and saw it was plotting an approach from the rear of the Meteor class heavy cruiser then past the two smaller cruisers and then finally across the rear of the support carrier.
She looked out of her cockpit and could just make out the small bright pinprick of the large seven-hundred-and-eighty-meter-long ship in the void of space. It was flashing slightly with the discharge of its main guns as it threw fire out at the smaller corvettes and gunships that were dancing in front of it. With any luck its shots would all go wide and no one would be killed. Ginger held the controls of her ship as she banked slightly to stay in formation with her squad. They were coming up on her maximum range of eight kilometers, she began to charge her combined array as they passed the kill distance and the range ticked down.
Ginger lined up her sights on the aft of the large ship, aiming straight for where its main reactors would be, she should be able to burn through its weak rear armour and penetrate the main reactor from this angle with a three second burn. That was pushing the capabilities of her new ship's main gun, but she knew it would hold. It had been built specifically for this purpose after all.
“Ginger, any time now, we are getting really close to its kill zone.” she heard Dunce murmur over the comms. She ignored him and waited till her counter reached the six kilometer mark before she initiated the weapon.
Immediately her visor darkened as a searing beam of purple light seemed to connect her to the huge ship. She could see the bright spot on the rear hull as it suddenly glowed as bright as a sun and slagged inwards, there was a bright explosion of molten metal as it breached the pressurized interior of the ship and the air whooshed over the vaporising metal burning the oxygen violently. After the three second burn was over the brilliant beam winked out of existence and she glanced at her weapon readout to see it flashing a pale yellow.
“Holy shit.” she heard Dunce exclaim as she looked back towards the heavy cruiser. She felt the same way as she saw the damage her ship had wrought.
“You can say that again.” she whispered as she saw the jagged slagged hole in the rear of the ship. The ship itself seemed to shudder and then fell silent as it lost all main power, its lights flicked out and it began to drift as it was no longer under control. A few explosions seemed to blast additional debris through the jagged ten-meter-wide hole in its rear.
“Well, it works.” Harpy said in a slightly surprised tone.
“Whoo, look at it burn.” Savage roared over the comms making everyone chuckle a bit.
Ginger said warmly “Okay calm down a bit Savage, we aren't done yet, we can probably tag another one or two of them before they figure out what's going on. Keep your eyes and ears open for trouble.” Harpy made an affirmative noise and Ginger saw their plotted course alter slightly.
They whisked onwards towards the next target, the cruiser was a much softer target and Ginger programmed her weapon to make two short one second bursts, one on its main engine room, and the other on its backup generator. Again she waited till they were near the minimum safe engagement range before she opened up. That brilliant beam was so startlingly beautiful, even as it burned a terrible hole into the rear of the ship. The smaller five-hundred-and-fourteen-meter ship listed into a spiraling arc as it lost main drives and the resulting explosion knocked it violently off course. Again she was struck with awe at the sheer power of the weapon she was piloting. The Lancer was swatting cruisers out of space like it was a battleship.
Ginger knew the surprise wouldn't last, and as they approached the third and final cruiser, it started to turn its heavier frontal armour towards her. She made a few calculations on her ship's computer and then grimly set the main gun to fire at maximum intensity for a punishing four second pulse. This was going to be dangerous, if she pushed the array too hard it could stop working before the cruiser was disabled leaving her and her squad mates dangerously exposed with no hope of safely retreating. Some of them would undoubtedly die if that happened. But if she didn't push it hard enough the effect would be the same. Ginger decided to trust her gut and the engineering prowess of her people, no one in the known galaxy was better than the Nerivith when it came to producing large scale lasers after all.
Reaching the minimum safe engagement distance of six kilometers from the defending cruiser she made another short chant to the higher powers and initiated her main weapon. Her heart dropped as for two seconds nothing seemed to happen, then she blinked as the prow armour of the cruiser seemed to lose all integrity and the deadly beam sliced into the main core of the ship. For the better part of two long seconds the energy of a star was focused into the small beam that she was projecting into the enemy ship. Then with a flash of brilliant light something critical in the ship's core detonated.
She squinted as her visor didn’t darken fast enough and the wave of light washed over her ship. The cruiser was gone, in its place was a massive blown out carcass, its interior supporting structure looking like the titanic ribcage of some vast creature. The lifeblood of its atmosphere burned away instantly as chunks of debri were hurtled outwards at incredible speeds. Sheltered as they were from the worst of the debris due to the armoured front of the dead ship facing them, they weathered the blast and continued onwards towards their last target.
“Whoa, what in the Mother’sss name wass that?” Strong hissed agitatedly.
“I think I may have overdone it a bit.” was Ginger’s only reply.
Dunce cut in and said “You sure did, blew the absolute fuck outta those rebels. I would be surprised if anyone made it out of that mess.”
She nodded to herself numbly and once more looked at her readouts seeing the main gun had now turned a solid blue. She had overdone it, and now she couldn't complete her mission, they would have to retreat as the final carrier was too heavily defended to be disabled by the fighters and corvettes alone.
Ginger spoke up in a solemn tone “Harpy, I have some bad news.”
Harpy immediately responded in a concerned tone “What kind of trouble, are you hit?”
“No, nothing like that, but my weapon is dead. I must have overloaded the capacitors and when I fired that last burst, it seems to have overheated the laser cores. I am flying a dud ship here.”
Harpy started to respond before cutting off. She returned a moment later saying “Well in that case I have some good news for you, the rebel carrier just surrendered.”
It took a second for the words to sink in, Savage seemed to growl in minor frustration and Strong hissed in surprise as she spoke up “Wow, well. That sure is lucky I guess. So what do we do now?”
Dunce spoke up “We head back and get wasted, yeah drinks on me!” he exclaimed excitedly.
Harpy giggled and said “Dunce is correct, our new orders are to return to Any Port and disembark. Our shuttles will be rearmed and checked over, not that they need it, and yours seems like it's roasted. But hey, mission accomplished right?” The plotted course changed to lead them back to the fleer carrier and they banked away from the carnage.
Ginger looked at her readouts and sighed as she saw how close she had been to blowing herself up instead of the enemy ship. She thought about all the lives that she had just ended and wondered for the first time in her military career what the point of it all was. Dark thoughts threatened to drown her in misery, but her dark brooding was shattered by the sound of laughter.
“Oh c'mon, it was a perfectly reasonable joke.” she heard Dunce complain.
Harpy shot back “I don't agree, I will make you pay for that one you scaleless sluurge.” she gurgled at him in a disapproving way.
Savage interjected and said “Don't be so hard on him Harpy, we both know why he's so on edge after all.” they shared a small giggle as Dunce grumbled over the comms.
Strong addressed her privately and she smiled as he said “Ginger, you are quiet. I hope you are not thinking about the cruisser your weapon destroyed.”
She switched to the private channel and said “I was, what's the point Strong? I just wiped out hundreds of people, people who were only following orders.”
Strong hissed in a disapproving way and said “The point is they made their choice, asss did I. We all have a part to play in the grand scheme of life, it'ss not ssshameful to take life in battle.”
She replied “I know that Strong. It's just that I was wondering why it even matters.”
“It mattress to me, and I know that I matterss to you. We are as a brood, we mussst look out for each other. Now cease your troubled thoughtsss and ssmile, the way I ssee it we are owed a drink by Dunce. And that iss causse enough to rejoice.” Strong told her. She smiled in spite of her darkened mood and switched back to open comms.
She smiled as she was once more immersed in the bickering of her family. “Hey Dunce, what was that you said about buying us all a drink? You didn't say where, and I want my drink from the deepest, scummiest dive bar we can dig up on our next shore leave. Savage, we are going to get into some fights too. And Harpy, they won't know what hit them.”
A chorus of affirmations and excited comments were roused by her short speech. She leaned back into her seat and allowed the auto pilot of her ship to carry her onwards, knowing that as long as she was with her family, everything would turn out okay.
End of Story