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

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Mitzner replied.

As the bridge crew performed their duties, Tehrani worked through her mental checklist. She punched up the shipwide intercom, 1MC. “Attention, all hands. This is the commanding officer. General quarters. General quarters. Man your battle stations. I say again, man your battle stations. This is not a drill. Set material condition one throughout the ship.”

The lights immediately dimmed and turned blue, bathing the bridge in a calm, relaxing light that made staring at the screens easier. Simultaneously, the general quarters klaxon blared.

Bryan turned to face her. “Conn, TAO. Material condition one set throughout the ship.”

“Conn, Navigation. Jump coordinates confirmed, ma’am. All systems nominal,” Mitzner interjected.

Tehrani sucked in a breath. “Time to get our people and go home. Navigation, activate Lawrence drive.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

The void ripped open in a swirling mass of colors directly outside of the Zvika Greengold. The maw of the multicolored vortex grew until it was larger than the ship, which accelerated to enter the wormhole. Tehrani held on to the armrests of her chair. This will either be our crowning achievement on this mission or my worst blunder.

19

Red plasma balls from several separate engagements flashed around the cockpit of Justin’s fighter. Most of the remaining friendly craft were locked in one-on-one matchups with Leaguers, with only a few elements maintaining cohesion. The general strategy was to move the dogfights away from the League frigates and edge toward the Lawrence limit. I’m buying time at this point. The odds of any of them getting away were rapidly approaching nil, but he was determined to take as many enemies to the grave with him as possible.

“Alpha One to Alpha Three, you still with me?”

“A bit busy, sir,” Adeoye replied. “But still combat capable.”

“Give ’em hell.” Justin searched for his next target on the HUD’s sensor display. A League fighter hanging behind the general furball seemed like an excellent next victim. He edged his flight stick toward the enemy and pushed his throttle as high as it would go.

The Leaguer seemingly noticed Justin’s approach and changed heading—directly for him. The missile-lock-on tone buzzed, and Justin pressed the missile-launch button. A Vulture dropped from the Ghost’s internal stores bay and zoomed toward the hostile. I’m down to one active-LIDAR tracker and two heat seekers. He had no anti-ship warheads remaining. “Alpha One, fox three.”

At the last moment, the enemy pilot dodged with a gravity-defying pivot followed by whatever countermeasures the League craft carried. The Vulture exploded harmlessly in space. Justin and the Leaguer traded energy-weapons fire on a high-speed pass before Justin reversed his course with an Immelmann, looking to reengage.

“Coalition pilot,” someone with a Chinese accent said on the guard frequency, “why you here?”

Justin cued his commlink. “You really have to ask? After what you guys did to Canaan?” He gritted his teeth as the targeting reticle lined up on the Leaguer. Blue neutron-cannon energy stabbed into the void. “It’s called payback, you son of a bitch, and a preview of what’s going to happen when we invade your home.” Anger poured out of him like a caustic flood. “Don’t like it? Tough.”

The enemy pilot slowed suddenly, forcing Justin to overshoot him. They began a deadly ballet of scissor maneuvers, each changing positions until Justin was on the receiving end of a stream of plasma balls.

“This our home. No one kill our people here. League defend Sol with our lives.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you attacked us out of the blue.” Since the Ghosts lacked afterburners, Justin had practiced some out-of-the-box advanced-combat maneuvers, including a modified version of Pugachev’s Cobra, and it seemed as good a time as any to try it. He cut the throttle to zero and pointed the nose of his fighter ninety degrees positive in declination. Thanks to the onboard inertial damping system, the direct effect was a massive slowdown in forward motion. The Leaguer shot by, momentarily disoriented.

“The capitalist cowards run after attacking civilians,” the Chinese pilot sneered. “I will finish you off before the hour is done.”

Justin grinned as he used the thruster controls to push his Ghost back to a flat Z-axis in relation to the enemy craft and kicked up the throttle. “The officers and crew of the CSV Zvika Greengold send their regards, asshole.” With the Leaguer less than three hundred meters away, he couldn’t miss. Blue neutron-cannon bolts shot out of Justin’s fighter and ripped the hostile apart. It exploded in a bright-orange flame for a moment before fading to nothingness.

“Alpha One to all pilots, update jump-readiness status.” Green and red lights flickered on Justin’s HUD. Only eight? Shock set in as he stared at the display. “Stores check… does anyone have any Javelins left?” If anyone was getting away, they had to knock out the remaining point-defense frigate and make a mad dash for the Lawrence limit.

“My boys still have a few, Spencer,” Martin replied. “You thinking we try to knock out this last bugger, yeah?”

“If anyone has a better idea, now’s the time.” As he spoke, Justin examined the overall status of Martin’s craft along with the other former Mauler pilots. Damn. Everyone’s shot up, and shields are nearly depleted.

Another friendly icon disappeared, without the pilot ejecting. That made eight lost so far. As if that wasn’t enough, the proximity-alert alarm buzzed. “Heads up, everyone. Inbound wormhole.” If it’s more Leaguers, we’re toast.

Tehrani felt so tense that she couldn’t exhale as the carrier emerged from its tunnel through the void—at least not until the shields were up and they had some idea of what was going on. The five-second wait was agonizing.

“Conn, TAO. Shields raised. Sensors coming online. Numerous hostile contacts consisting of frigate-class warships and space-superiority fighters,” Bryan said.

Tehrani took in the battlefield on the tactical plot. “Navigation, come to heading zero-eight-one, all ahead flank. Communications, signal our friendlies to make for the hangar bay smartly.”

Incoming plasma balls found them, rocking everyone on the bridge.

“Skipper, we’ve got a problem.” Wright pointed at two of the icons closest