Sol Strike (Battlegroup Z Book 3) by Daniel Gibbs (red novels .txt) 📗

held his left fist up—the signal to stop. “Okay. Help us obtain a full load of helium-3 fuel from the automated refinery in this system, and you’re all free to go. Take it or leave it. That’s the best deal you’re getting out of me.” Nishimura set his jaw. “And for crying out loud, stand up.”

“Thank you.”

Nishimura stared at the woman. “Don’t thank me yet.” I already regret not offing this guy. He slid the pistol back into his holster as a Marine slapped flexicuffs on the stunned civilians.

15

Twelve tiny wormholes ripped open the fabric of space near Mars, and twelve Ghosts appeared, including Justin’s craft. He gripped the flight stick tightly as he opened his eyes. It seems like the aftereffects from a Lawrence drive jump build up when you’re in these things. Justin scanned his HUD, confirming everyone else in the Red Tails squadron was nearby and forming up.

“Nice of you to join the party,” Green said over the command commlink channel. “Black Hogs are present and accounted for.”

“Good,” Justin replied. “Lieutenant Martin, what about your squadron?” Additional friendly icons appeared on his sensor readout—the twelve Ghosts from Green’s unit.

“Yeah, Cap. We got caught up dealing with a few Leaguers. I’ve got a fighter kill.” Martin sounded especially pleased. “Maybe I’ll catch up with the rest of you one of these days.”

“Probably got us all beat on raw kilos destroyed, though,” Green said with a chuckle. “But I’ll put my guys up against both of you any day for taking out League bombers.”

Justin grinned, even though no one could see him. “We all bring strengths to the team, as the major has been trying to hammer into our heads.” He zoomed the sensors in, focusing on a cluster of space installations. “I’m designating this station as our primary target. Deep scans from the stealth raiders suggest it’s a military command of some sort.”

“You’re forgetting something, mate. A station like that will have heavily reinforced shields,” Martin replied. “See the field of cargo containers and short-range haulers a few kilometers away? A far better target for our merry band.”

He’s got a point. Justin spent a few seconds staring at the screen before he cued the mic. “Okay, let’s still take a shot at the station. One Javelin, say. If it doesn’t make a dent, we’ll switch to the cargo yard.”

“Sounds good, mate.”

Justin flipped his channel back to the Red Tails. “Alpha One to all pilots. Form up in finger-four formations and follow me in. Lieutenant Martin and the Winged Lightnings have point.” He pushed his throttle up to maximum speed. It seemed unbelievable that the League hadn’t responded with overwhelming force. This is our last attack. I’m not pressing our luck any further than needed. Four separate assaults on Sol’s major planets would go a long way to delivering a huge morale boost for the Terran Coalition. And some payback to these communist bastards.

A few minutes later, Martin put a single Javelin anti-ship missile in space. It flew straight and true, directly toward the League station. The giant structure was shaped like a double torus, with an outer and inner ring. Docking ports jutted out from it, and a few had ships attached, though no combat space patrol was in evidence.

The blue dot representing the active warhead on Justin’s HUD got closer and closer to the installation. He willed it forward, hoping they would catch the enemy with shields down, asleep at the helm. When the Javelin exploded in a bright flash of brilliant white light, a red energy effect ringed the station. Justin checked the sensor readout, hoping to find that perhaps the League hadn’t invested in strong protection for its assets in Sol. No such luck—the shield appeared on his display, and the computer gathered enough information from the attack to determine it had lost half a percent of its structural integrity. Yeah, we’re not getting through that. “Alpha One to all pilots. Switch to secondary targets.”

“Wilco,” Feldstein replied quickly.

“I wanted one of those commie stations to my credit,” Martin grumbled. “I’ll have to settle for raining hell on their import-export holdings.”

Justin snickered. “You do that, Lieutenant.”

As the thirty-two Ghosts zoomed toward the sea of cargo containers, a stream of new contacts emanated from the nearby station. They quickly accelerated outward and formed into groups of three. Justin’s HUD flashed with an alert. “Alpha One to all pilots. We’ve got twelve to fifteen bandits bearing three-two-five. Assess enemy does not yet have a hard sensor lock on us.”

“The moment we open up, they will,” Green interjected.

Staring at the screen, Justin shook his head. He had no great answers, and he was determined to take a risk in hopes of putting an exclamation point on the damage already inflicted by the CDF’s strike. “Then we’ll shoot them down like we’ve shot every other Leaguer down,” he snarled. “All pilots, break and engage containers.”

The Terran Coalition fighters juked and weaved toward the zero-G cargo yard. Modular pods were stacked on top of each other as tugs moved them around to waiting vessels, while other ships waited in what appeared to be an unloading area.

Justin lined up one cluster of containers and waited for the missile-lock-on tone. “Alpha One, fox one.” His next-to-last Javelin missile dropped out of the internal stores bay and zoomed away.

Most of the friendly craft loosed their Javelins, while some tried neutron-cannon blasts to varying degrees of success. A few pods exploded—or more accurately, disintegrated—from missile hits, then the Javelins struck home. Entire groups of cargo containers ceased to exist along with the tugs moving them. Spectacular explosions of blue-and-orange flame filled the sky.

Justin scanned his HUD, satisfied with the wave of destruction they’d wrought, then all of a sudden, one last warhead hit a structure in the middle of the field of pods. As it blew apart, the containers began to move. What the…? Justin’s fighter wrenched under him. It took every ounce of concentration he had to keep control.

“Take that, you damn commies!”