Pursue the Past: Samair in Argos: Book 1 (45 page)

              “Well, now, what’s this?” she asked, checking her sensors.  She saw the fourth fighter, the one she had only damaged, homing in on the freighter. 
Grania Estelle
’s cannons were firing ineffectually, but they were managing to keep the
Centurion
at bay.  But Tamara didn’t have the chance to try and go in and help, as the three others moved to try and cut her off.

              Rolling right, she let loose a spray of fire from her guns.  One of the fighters turned to try and evade and ran right into the laser fire from the
Grania Estelle’
s guns, blowing it apart. 

              “Ha
ha!”
She crowed, turning and firing at another of the ships.  So far, things were going fairly well.

              And that’s when she took a hit.  It was only a glancing blow, which hit to the rear of the fuselage.  The fighter rocked and the fuel tank was punctured.  Thankfully it didn’t ignite, but fuel was spraying out in a fine mist behind the
Perdition
as it flew, making a sort of contrail behind the ship as it maneuvered through space.  Alarms blared in the cockpit, indicating the fuel leak, as well as electronics damage.  Engine power and weapons were still available, but she was concerned as to how long they would stay that way, especially with the fuel leak.

              “Damn it!” Tamara swore, turning again, banking around.  Cursing herself again, she had a momentary flash where she wished she had missiles in her armament.  But there was nothing for that now. 

              The two remaining fighter pilots that had been tangling with her apparently decided they were going to return to their primary mission.  They turned away from Tamara and her damaged
Perdition
and raced away, heading for the bulk freighter.  The crew of the
Grania Estelle
tried to swat them away with their laser cannons, but was succeeding only in sending out shots of coherent light into the sky above Hecate.  The fighters were simply too nimble and their gunnery too slow.  The three fighters made strafing runs against the huge vessel’s shields, the energy beams of their guns causing the freighter’s shields to become opaque and visible.  Each hit was a tiny sting, but they were gradually wearing down the ship’s defenses.  Each hit drained a little bit more of the freighter’s shield power.  For the moment they were not causing any damage but the shields would not hold forever against the battering. 

              “Oh, no you don’t,” Tamara hissed, giving chase.

              The bridge crew tensed as another strafing run hit the shields.  The deck shivered a bit with each hit, causing everyone to flinch.  George was visibly sweating as he continued working with the weapons.  He wasn’t having much luck shooting down any of the fighters.  In fact, the Captain had gotten the hit, he’d just been firing away, hitting nothing.  It was clear that they were going to have to work out a better system for targeting.  Stella was doing what she could to help, but she was just as green at this sort of thing as he was. 

              “Blast!” the Captain hissed, as one of the fighters slipped out of his targeting. 

              “Captain,” Kutok called.  “Two transport shuttles have arrived and have docked with the
Ganges
.  Sensors report that more life forms are now on board.”

              “Great,” he said, firing on another
Centurion
.  He missed, but he forced the ship to break off its firing run.  “What’s the word on the
Ganges
?  Is she going to join the fight?”

              “I’m showing power levels are increasing, Captain,” the hak’ruk answered.  “But it’s not the same thing as powering up a shuttle.  I imagine it’s going to take them at least a few hours to get the ship underway.”

              “Which means we shouldn’t hang around here and let them.”  The Captain sighed.  “Helm, break orbit and take us to the hyper limit.  Astrogation, begin plotting a course out of here.”  He tracked another fighter and depressed his trigger.  The gun unleashed a bolt of coherent light that struck the very edge of the fighter, cutting a rent in the right hand side of the ship and forcing it into a barrel roll.  The
Centurion
recovered quickly, but sparks and smoke were trailing from the damage.

              “Shields are failing under the continued assault, Captain,” George reported.  “They won’t hold much longer.”

              “Helm, full thrust,” he ordered.  “If we fly far enough from the planet, maybe we’ll get lucky enough and they’ll break off their attack.” 
I hope
.

Chapter 15

              “Yes!” Tamara said happily as her guns peppered the engines of one of the Hecate fighters.  “Take that!”  The
Centurion
fighter turned and flew off, heading back for the freighter.  Tamara checked her sensors and looked through the cockpit, trying to find the
Grania Estelle
.  “There you are,” she said.  The ship had broken orbit and was heading out.  They were only about a hundred thousand kilometers from their starting position, but they were apparently flying at top speed.  It would be almost three days before they could climb back out of the gravity well and reach the hyper limit, but the fighters would not pursue them that far.  Their fuel and life support levels would not last anywhere near that long.

              But then, neither would hers, especially with the damage.  She needed to end this.  Angling around, she tore after the ship and its two attackers.

              An alert began flashing on her display, indicating fuel status.  Thirty-one percent and falling.  She needed to end this
quickly
.  At the rate the
Perdition
was burning through fuel because of her maneuvers and with the leak in the tanks, she would be out of the fight in less than ten minutes. 

              She keyed the comms.  “
Grania Estelle
, this is Em-One.  I’m having serious fuel problems.  I have only about nine minutes of fight left in me.  I’m moving in to engage the remaining two fighters.  Continue your course to exit the system, but please get a shuttle prepped and ready to fly to tractor me back in.”

              “Understood, Em-One,” Kutok replied.  “The Captain ordered Shuttle One to be prepared for launch.”

              “Thank you, Kutok,” Tamara said. 
Gotta do this fast
.  She was approaching the freighter, where the two damaged
Centurion
s were firing on the starboard side.  Her sensors indicated that the
Grania Estelle
’s shields were failing, currently showing at only about eight percent power.  Gaps were starting to form in the shield coverage, and the fighters were moving to try and exploit those.

              As she closed, she held down the trigger, aiming at the closest of the fighters.  Lightly, she alternately pressed the rudder pedals, which made the
Perdition
’s guns spray fire all over a small area.  It decreased the accuracy of any potential hits, but it increased the chance of some sort of hit.  Her shooting had the desired effect.  A pair of bolts hit the
Centurion
at max range with glancing blows, causing little more than superficial damage, but forcing the pilot to break off his attack on the freighter and veer away. 

              But Tamara wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.  She continued her pursuit, peppering his tail with shots from her cannons, until finally one well-placed bolt ruptured the portside engine, ruptured his fuel tank and the ship exploded.  The ship shredded in a great fireball which was instantly snuffed by the vacuum of space as the atmo and fuel were consumed. 

              “One to go,” she muttered.  A glance at her own fuel readouts was not encouraging.  The excessive maneuvers had burned through more fuel than expected.  Little more than three minutes of playing time and then she would be drifting free.

              “
Grania Estelle
, this is Em-One,” she said.  “I’m just about out of the fight and I can’t guarantee I can get this guy.  Try and warn him off.”  She increased speed, firing as she went, trying to score at least a minor hit to try and force the last fighter to break off and head home. 

              “Attention Hecate fighters, this is the
Grania Estelle
.  Break off your attack and stand down immediately.  We do not wish to destroy you.  Break off and we will cease firing.”  Kutok sounded slightly annoyed at giving this message, as though it should have been completely obvious an action.

              But the last Hecate pilot, flying his damaged fighter with one side of his weapons gone, clung stubbornly to his prize.  Another salvo tore through the failing shields and hammered into the hull.  Cargo bay three was in danger of being cut open again, something that annoyed Tamara beyond anything else. 

             
I just got that hull fixed!
  Tamara watched as the number indicating distance rapidly scrolled down.  At less than a kilometer of distance between them, she fired.  An alarm blinked red for an instant as the ship tried to warn her (again) that her fuel was almost gone. 

              “Winged him!” she crowed, as the
Centurion
’s port engine shredded, trailing smoke.  The fighter broke right, looping under the belly of the huge freighter.  “Get him, Captain!”

              One more series of insistent beeps and flashing lights and then the fuel supply ran out.  All systems except the radio and life support shut down.  Acceleration cut to zero and the
Perdition
was adrift.  “Damn it!” she screamed. 

              “Captain, Em-One has lost power,” George reported.  “She’s adrift.”

              “Once we take care of this last annoying stinging parasite,” the Captain said, “launch shuttle one and tractor her back into the boat bay.”  The Hecate fighter was out of his area of responsibility, in fact he was on the other side of the ship entirely.  He was monitoring the sensors, however, for if that last little bastard came into his patch of sky again, he was determined that he was going to blast him out of the stars.  They had damaged his beautiful belle.  His ship, his home, his pride.  This was one of the few times he wished
Grania Estelle
was a warship instead of a bulk cargo freighter, for he wished he could unleash some serious payback on the sniveling worms who had attacked him.  Simply destroying the fighters and their pilots was not enough.  He wanted the ones who would give those kinds of orders.

              But with the
Ganges
getting ready for space, it was unlikely he was going to get any kind of satisfaction in that regard. 
Grania Estelle
had barely stood up to six fighters and (if he was honest with himself) that was due to the excellent piloting and combat skills displayed by Moxie, not his own gunnery.  Against a light cruiser, they stood no chance whatsoever.  They needed to get out of this system as soon as they could.

              “He’s making another run, Captain,” George cried, working his gunnery console, trying to track the last fighter.  “And I’m going to get him.”

              The Captain couldn’t help but chuckle, but then he gritted his teeth as the ship shook lightly again as another strafing run struck the hull.  “No more playing around, George.”

              George was concentrating fiercely, the tip of his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth, the rest of his body, except his hands and his eyes locked in position.  Every spare erg of energy in his body was spent on focusing on the controls.  The pilot tried to duck and weave his fighter around to throw off the freighter’s targeting and for the moment, he was succeeding. 

              “Helm, full starboard roll,” Eamonn ordered.  The helmsman complied and the
Grania Estelle
began to turn. 

              George started in surprise.  Clearly he hadn’t been paying attention to the Captain’s order.  But this seemed to work out to his advantage, as he pressed the firing control.  “Hold still, you little bastard,” he muttered to himself. 

              Energy bolts lanced out from the freighter’s cannons, dancing all around the Hecate starfighter, which turned as fast as its damaged engines and hull could stand.  But with each miss, he seemed to grow more confident, taking more potshots at the freighter’s hull.  He seemed to be taunting the freighter crew with his ability to evade their weapons.  He was far too lucky and skilled to allow them to kill him.

              And then George grabbed hold of the pilot’s luck and tore off a hunk.  A pair of well-placed shots hit the
Centurion
fighter in the fuselage and the cockpit.  In the span of one second, the nimble (if damaged) fighter was slipping along near the hull of the bigger ship, and the next it was shredded metal expanding outward as the
Centurion
’s power core detonated.

              “Yes!” the ops officer yelled in triumph, thrusting a fist in the air.  Calming long enough to check his sensors, he said, “We’re clear, Captain.  No further pursuit.”

              “Get the shuttle out there,” the Captain ordered.  “Pick up Moxie and bring her back aboard.”  He let out a long breath and then deactivated his weapons controls.  The control stick folded back down to the side of his chair again, out of the way.  “Get me a full damage report.  Oh, and speak with engineering about how long it’s going to take to get the shields back up to full power again.”  He turned to the hak’ruk.  “Get me shipwide.”

              Kutok pressed a key and then nodded to him.

              “This is the Captain speaking.  Very well done, everyone.  We are clear of the fighters and we are leaving the system.  I know we had all hoped to spend some time here for shore leave, but it seems the locals have other ideas.  As you all know, they attacked us over a contract dispute and if we stay too much longer, I suspect that they will send their cruiser after us.  So we are leaving this place and moving on to our next stop: Kazyanenko.  I just want to express my anger to you all at our treatment here by the locals and again my thanks and gratitude at all your hard work and dedication.  That is all.”  Kutok cut the connection.  He stood.  “I’m going down to the boat bay to meet the shuttle.  George, you have the bridge.  Call me immediately if anything changes.” 

              “Yes, Captain, I have the bridge,” the enthused operations officer said as his captain walked off the bridge.

              The
Perdition
touched down on the deck of the boat bay as the tractoring beams brought it to rest.  Tamara had the standard fighter jockey’s ego and thus humiliation at being towed back into the carrier vessel, but she had nothing else to be ashamed of.  She had downed four fighters, allowing the
Grania Estelle
to get the other two and escape the battle space relatively unscathed.  There was some very minor damage to cargo bay three and to the hull around the engineering spaces.  Thankfully, the engineering spaces did not have any breaches. 

              Once the magfield was active, keeping the atmo within the bay, Tamara popped the canopy, which slid forward and stopped.  She shoved on the armor glass, which made a slight grinding sound before sliding the rest of the way open.  Climbing up, she saw that a piece of shrapnel had impacted on the fuselage and had jammed into the armor glass, thankfully not puncturing the canopy.  She pulled herself out of the cockpit and slithered over the side of the fuselage, landing heavily on the deck.

              The Captain rushed over to help her, but she waved him off as she climbed shakily to her feet.  “Sorry, Captain, just trying to shake off the adrenaline.  It’s been a few centuries since I was in combat like that.”

              “You did good, Moxie,” he said, grinning.  “You did real good!”

              She smiled back at him.  “Thanks, Captain.  You all didn’t do too bad yourselves.  Way to keep it together under pressure.”

              “I’m just sorry the little weasels here cheated us out of our shore leave.”  He grimaced.  “And our shares.”

              “Do we have enough fuel and supplies to make it to Kazyanenko?” she asked.

              He nodded.  “Cookie laid in enough supplies for two jumps,” he explained.  “We’ll be fine.  He’s rotated some fish from Instow out of the freezers and some other stuff from Folston.”  He squinted at her ship sitting on the deck.  “Little worse for wear, Moxie.”

              “And you’re going to let me fix it up, free of charge,” she informed him with a smile.  “Seeing as how the
Grania Estelle
and her crew owe me
big
for taking on those four fighters for you.”

              He made a mocking sigh.  “I suppose I can do that for you.  This time.”

              “I’m a member of your crew, Captain.  You need to take care of all of your assets.”  Tamara was giving him a very frank look.

              He nodded.  “Of course.  In fact, I’m thinking I would like to expand our repertoire a bit.”

              “Oh?”

              “After this debacle with the gadolinium shipment, I’m thinking that perhaps we should start dealing less in raw materials and more in finished goods.  With only the few replicators we have we aren’t really a mobile factory, but I think we can get a fair few parts and things built.  And after today, I think we need more than just four laser cannons for defense.”

              “I agree on the weapons, I’ll talk to Quesh about getting the rail guns completed.  They would have been done here, but obviously that didn’t work out,” Tamara said.  She stood up straighter, rolling her shoulders.  “What did you have in mind as far as other goods?”