Opening Moves (30 page)

“Incoming, hard to starboard!” Tarek yelled. “Quick!”

The freighter burned its bow thrusters and Alexej slackened the output from the left hand engine, causing the ship to swing rapidly around. As it did so a cluster of what once had been several warships hurtled past, spinning through the mess of the battle to impact on the surface or Senfina. Between and around them other Dominion warships opened fire on planetary targets, too. The Ashani were determined to leave absolutely nothing alive when they departed.

Tarek was pulled back in his seat as Alexej slewed the ship around again, putting them back on course for the escape path and to the edge of the minefield.

“
We're here,” he commented plainly as if he were on a simple supply run.

“
Follow the course of the convoy exactly. We don't want to run into a surprise,” Tarek ordered, letting go a sigh of relief. At least they were out of the crossfire.

The IRON MAIDEN had covered about half the distance with the battle still raging behind them when sensors warned of a ship closing.

“Dominion frigate,” Tarek said through gritted teeth. “It's on an intercept course. Damn thing could cut us open from stem to stern.”

From just off the port side the frigate closed, arming its weapons and locking on to the struggling freighter. At barely twenty thousand kilometers the MAIDEN was basically within spitting distance of the ship. A flight of Érenni fighters tried to stop it but the warship simply ignored them, their ultralight laser posing no real threat to even its light armor.

“Can we evade?” Rául suggested frantically.

“
Not in this old tub,” Alexej replied calmly. “Never mind.”

There was a sudden flash. Tarek expected it to be weapons' fire but when nothing further happened he had to look at his sensor station. It showed the frigate spinning out of control with heavy damage to its bow. “The minefield!” he yelled joyously. “The fucker hit a mine!”

As he spoke the frigate blundered into two more fusion devices, essentially ending its contribution to the battle and the lives of its crew.

“
Glad we stuck to the path,” Annie observed. “And unless someone gets the weird idea to waste a one hundred ton anti-ship missile on this rust bucket we should be clear.”

“
Take us out of the gravity well. No messing around, just go for it!” Tarek emphasized. “Get us outta here before the Ashani finish off the planet and start looking for more sport.”

* * * * * * *

Captain Natara wiped away a bead of sweat from her head, reacting with surprise when she saw the trickle down her face had in fact been black blood. Her ship had taken a beating and wouldn't have lasted any longer on the front line – was there even such a line left? – so instead she had opted to protect the convoy of civilian ships trying to make it out of the star's gravity well. They were already several dozen million kilometers away from the blue orb of Senfina. A small part of her had felt like staying behind, even accepting the likely outcome, accepting death as long as it meant doing her duty. It was a strange feeling she had never encountered before today. But rationally she understood she could do more with the convoy group than she could defending the colony, a world which was now lost and condemned. The PERISAI kept monitoring the attack, watching the plague deliberately introduced to the verdant world, observing from a distance the final destruction of the fleet they had served.

“
Our fighter cover's down to a bare handful,” Commander Torok Sen relayed in her shrill tone. The cruiser's bridge was damaged and the PERISAI punched full of holes, but at least her crew was still holding together. Over the comm they'd heard cries of panic from other vessels less ready for war, whose crews had just fallen apart when the Ashani broke through. Those ships hadn't lasted long.

“
Tell them to stay close so we can support each other.” Natara felt strangely calm. The convoy had been struck by repeated fighter attacks but mercifully few warships were around. Most were too busy hitting the last defenders over Senfina itself, the battle now a distant blaze of light and radiation.

“
Captain, those Ashani fighters that were shadowing us,” weapons' officer Batal pointed to a display. “They ain't shadowing anymore.”

“
Power up the weapons batteries again, fire at will,” Natara said wearily. “Let them come.”

* * * * * * *

“Annie, get the railgun turrets ready, we're going to have company.” Tarek had hoped that escaping the planet was the end of their problems, but it seemed the Ashani were quite determined to kill everything in the system. Roving fighter patrols and pickets of smaller warships were patrolling the edge of the inner system. They had almost caught up with the convoy when a number of these fighters moved to strike, going for the weaker commercial ships rather than the few escorting cruisers.

“
Friendlies coming in from twelve o'clock,” Rául stated, his demeanor a little more relaxed now that they were in open space and he had something to do. “The enemies are at nine through eleven.” It was kind of an archaic way to give positions but everybody knew what he meant.

“
Guns are ready to fire, boss.”

“
Time to get even,” Tarek snarled. “Open fire!”

The four turrets on the IRON MAIDEN engaged, firing on the Ashani fighters as they crossed their path. Érenni interceptors joined the fray while the other freighters and their escorts tried to bring down the attack with their own fire. Swiftpaw fighters were hit and destroyed, but not before their squad mates had brought down two freighters, tearing apart their engines and leaving them drifting, slowly falling behind the convoy. The surviving fighters moved out of range and regrouped, eying the wounded ships like a shark smelling blood in the water.

“They gonna be taken under tow?” Rául asked as the IRON MAIDEN passed the damaged ships.

“
By whom?” Alexej chuckled mirthlessly. “None of these ships will stop long enough to help. That'd be suicide. Well,
assisted
suicide.”

“
They can't just leave them! Why don't the warships do something?”

“
Like what? They are doing exactly what their job is: they're protecting the convoy. Forty ships here or two ships back there,” Annie pointed out from the weapons' station. “Cold hard numbers.”

The Ashani fighters lurking behind began to close, moving in on the damaged ships.

“Why don't we help, try something?” Rául persisted. “We shouldn't just leave them to die!”

Nobody answered. None of them wanted to just leave, but to go back would leave them prey for the Fighter units, and in the end would leave three wrecks for the Ashani to salvage instead of two.

Llyr took off his headphones, for an instant tiny voices shouting for help were heard before he turned the channels over. They didn't need reminding what would happen.

“
The transition zone's ahead,” Tarek pointed at the green area growing in the main sensor display. “Nearly there, folks.”

* * * * * * *

“Seven destroyers, the standard fleet escort type,” Batal reported without taking his eyes off his displays. “That, plus a hefty fighter detachment's converging on us, Ma'am.”

“
We'll have to clear them away,” Natara nodded sullenly. “Form up with the other ships. We don't need to destroy them, just push them past our perimeter to allow the convoy to safely transition into foldspace.”

The PERISAI lumbered into range, its engines still not fully repaired, and fired its twin lasers at the ship closest to them, striking it squarely and tearing into its hull. In response the Ashani unleashed a constant barrage of missiles and lasers, but instead of firing across the line they picked one ship at a time and systematically overloaded its defenses. The Érenni didn't have the tactical finesse or training to link their vessels together into a coherent fire control. The most intact cruiser in the fleet was the first to go, exploding in less than a minute, shortly thereafter followed by the second most capable vessel.

“They're taking out our best ships first,” Natara noted, once again cursing the ruthlessly effective Ashani way of war. “Where's the convoy?”

“
Almost ready, Ma'am. The first ships are spooling up their drives.”

* * * * * * *

Tarek Winters almost cheered when the MAIDEN slipped over the invisible barrier that kept it inside the doomed Érenni star system. “Here we go, people, straight back home,” he assured.

The first ships slipped into the fold, hundreds of thousands of tons of steel and ceramics wavering like Fata Morganas in the desert before they vanished from their sight and sensors. The Érenni cruisers kept on fighting. Each freighter that escaped took thousands of survivors with it, and even though they were but a tiny fraction of the population of Senfina every refugee that escaped was a victory rescued from this tragic disaster.

“Alexej, heat up the
Malenkov-Okudas and get us the hell out of here!”

“
Fighters moving in,” Annie warned.

“
You know what to do. Let's not blow it at this stage.” Tarek involuntarily ducked as a Dominion fighter passed literally meters from the cockpit windows, its dirty beige fuselage a long blur as it raced past with an Érenni fighter chasing it. The ship ahead was struck by a squadron of Swiftpaws, bright plumes of fire erupting from its hull as the weapons' fire tore through it and caused it to list and tumble. Another ship was hit, and yet another. The first barely managed to keep going, long streams of atmosphere gushing out of its broken hull while the second lost its engine feed and disappeared in a fireball.

“
Watch the debris!” Tarek warned, and Alexej altered the MAIDEN's heading so the tumbling wreckage slid past them, the disturbing scene plainly visible up close from the large window. Another Érenni cruiser fell apart under Ashani heavy fire, but by now most of the convoy had vanished into the fold and hopefully was on its way to Akvô. But they weren't exactly in a position to celebrate yet.

“
Watch our six!” Rául yelled while Annie quickly tracked the guns.

The cannons fired again, sending twelve millimeter projectiles straight through a Swiftpaw's cockpit at two percent the speed of light, much to the crew's satisfaction. None of them held any love for the Ashani after today. But other fighters kept coming, and as one, fired on the ship. The weapons' fire tore into the rear of the IRON MAIDEN, crucially eating into the engineering bay and the engine feeds, blowing out the power relays and shutting down two of the four engines. The ship veered suddenly as the thrust changed, sending it spinning off course. Shrill alarms blared through the whole ship.

“Fuck! The warp bubble's collapsed, boss. The
Malenkov-Okudas are dead!”

“
No! No! No!” Tarek yelled, his eyes widening in rising panic. “Get them back online!”

“
On my 'to do' list,” Alexej said implacably as he wrestled with the controls, shunting power and trying an emergency restart of the damaged systems. Their new course sent them right where the battle was going on.

“
Err, Alexej...” Rául pointed at the approaching firefight in their main plot.

“
I can see it,” the tall Eurasian grimaced, flicking switches on and off seemingly at random and sending vibrations through the ship as he tried to re-engage the crucial systems allowing the MAIDEN to transition into the fold. Ashani fighters ignored them, prepared to finish them later, and instead engaged the last few ships trying to make it out, destroying two more before none were left behind. None except Tarek and his crew...

“
The engines are toast,” Rául said with some agitation, leaning over the ship's damage control console. “There's nothing left to be restarted, Duchess.”

“
Well spotted.” Tarek gritted his teeth again. So this was it. This was how they'd die: out of luck and half a universe away from home

“
So how do we escape? We won't last until another minute! Damn it, man, we're history!” Rául wailed. “Shit, after all that, to buy it now!”

“
Rául, shut up,” Tarek said methodically, shaking himself. “Annie, watch our back. Alexej , go for those ships.”

“
The Republican warships firing nuclear weapons around?” he queried, his bushy eyebrows raised.

“
Yes. Fly for them.”

* * * * * * *

Natara sprayed the fire extinguisher a few more times just to make sure the fire was out, then dropped the canister and knelt beside Torok Sen.

“
Doesn't look too bad,” she reassured her XO. Part of the bridge's paneling had exploded inwards after the latest hit. “Medics are on the way, just lie still.”

Of course they might take another direct hit before they arrived which would probably finish them, but there was no need to share that thought. Going against her instincts she stood and left Torok Sen for the medics and devoted her attention to the battle.