Bandits Engaged (Battlegroup Z Book 4) Read online

  Two inbound warheads headed straight toward Justin’s Sabre, apparently unaffected by the ECM pod each fighter carried. That’s different. He rolled away, engaging his afterburner while dropping several pods of chaff. Around him, the other members of Alpha did as well. It registered with him that the incoming was far more accurate than League tech. While one missile took the chaff and exploded harmlessly, the other tracked him relentlessly before slamming into the aft shields of his craft.

  “Whoever these guys are, they know what they’re doing,” Feldstein said, her voice cracking from interference on the commlink.

  Justin gritted his teeth. “As Mateus puts it, a target-rich environment.”

  “I like a challenge,” Mateus replied. “Leaguers get boring after a while.”

  “Stay focused.” Justin picked one of the fighters out and goosed his Sabre toward an intercept vector. Not bothering with another Vulture, he switched to Eagle heat-seeking missiles instead. As Justin swung in behind the bandit, he sent a wave of miniature-neutron-cannon bolts into its aft shield.

  The hostile’s shields collapsed from the fusillade, and flecks of armor melted off around engine exhausts—the result of Justin’s continued bombardment. As he was about to send an Eagle into the maelstrom, four missiles erupted from the bandit. Justin watched in shock as they all reversed course and headed straight toward him. Oh shit.

  Justin pulled back hard on his flight stick with lightning-fast reflexes while simultaneously triggering the chaff dispenser and dropping six pods into the void. LIDAR trackers with cone lock-on reversal tech? The CDF had such technology, and it was in wide use across their space-superiority fighter forces, but to his knowledge, it was tightly restricted. How’d pirates get their hands on gear this good? They’re always two generations behind, using common civilian models.

  Two of the inbound warheads took the bait and exploded among the chaff pods, while the others pressed on. Justin kicked up his afterburner and got every ounce of speed the Sabre had in it, dodging and juking to throw off the missiles. One ran out of fuel and blew up, but the last tracked him move for move and smacked his aft shield, knocking the single-seat fighter into a spin.

  G-forces bit at Justin as the Sabre spun around and around before he was able to force his hand to the throttle and hit the afterburner activator, which required affirmative control. The spin evened out, and the craft rocketed away.

  That was too damn close. Justin scanned his HUD, trying to locate the enemy he’d been so close to destroying.

  “Alpha Three to any friendlies. I’ve got a bandit on my tail.” Adeoye’s voice crackled through the commlink.

  Justin quickly located him, and the heavy fighter doggedly matched each move of Adeoye’s Sabre. “Alpha Three, break left and accelerate. I’m coming in hot.”

  “Wilco, sir.”

  It took a moment for Justin to line up the hostile craft in his forward cone and shift his finger to the missile-launch button. “Alpha One, fox two,” he called the second the lock-on tone buzzed.

  Two Vultures dropped from the internal stores bay on Justin’s Sabre and raced away into the void. “Alpha One to Alpha Three. Adjust heading ten degrees left relative and increase declination by twenty-five degrees.”

  “Wilco, sir,” Adeoye replied.

  The movement of Adeoye’s Sabre led him downward and cleared a path for Justin. He squeezed the trigger on his miniature neutron cannons, sending bolt after bolt of blue death toward the enemy as the HUD-mounted targeting reticle turned green. Both of his missiles hit the bandit in quick succession while the enemy was too focused on his tail-chase with Adeoye to avoid the stream of neutrons. After a cascade of hits, the fighter exploded in a bright-orange ball of flame that extinguished itself as it consumed the available oxygen of the craft’s life-support system. “Alpha One, splash one.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Adeoye said as he uttered a sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry,” Mateus interjected. “Got hung up on a bandit. Thanks for taking care of him for me.”

  “Don’t go getting soft on us now, Lieutenant,” Justin replied as he felt a lump in his throat. The knowledge that they were all a moment from death loomed large. He searched for another target in the HUD. “Look alive, people. There’s still a lot of bandits left out here.” Too many.

  Purple and red streaks rushed by Justin’s cockpit canopy as the two corvettes switched targets from the freighter to the Greengold. He marveled at the energy readings being put off by the two vessels. I’d expect to see that kind of firepower on a destroyer, not some pirate ship. A blinking warning indicated a new wormhole opening within the battle space. Justin held his breath as the onboard sensors took a few moments to ID the new contact. A blue icon appeared a few thousand kilometers away. Thank God, it’s the Marcus Luttrell. He continued to focus on eliminating the bandits swarming around them.

  Tehrani held on to the sides of her chair as the Greengold rocked from enemy fire. At least the two converted corvettes, as she’d taken to calling them, had switched targets. Unfortunately, their target is now us. Blue light bathed the bridge, supposedly calming nerves and helping the crew work their consoles.

  “Those little ships pack quite a punch,” Wright said as he glanced at her. “I’m detecting xasers and meson-based weaponry.”

  “Matrinid tech?” Directed muons were a hallmark of directed-energy weapons used by their former allies. “They wouldn’t even sell that technology to us.” Tehrani furrowed her brow. “What’s going on here?”

  “There’s a black market for everything, I guess, Skipper.”

  The two vessels took another firing pass at the carrier, purple beams lashing their shields along with oblong directed-energy charges.

  Tehrani waited for Master One to get closer. “TAO, firing point procedures, forward neutron beams, Master One.”

  “Firing solutions set, ma’am.”

  Closer. Closer. That’s it. “Match bearings, shoot, forward neutron beams.”

  The neutron emitters on the bow of the Greengold glowed, and two lances of blue erupted from them. Moving at the speed of light, they connected with the enemy vessel's shields, which held and shimmered, radiating energy into the void.

  “Conn, TAO. Master One deflector cohesion weakening on fore and starboard quarters.”

  A full-power blast should’ve pierced their shields and blown half that ship’s hull off. Tehrani frowned. “TAO, conduct a deep scan of Master One. I specifically want to know how strong their power source is.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  The incoming corvettes, which had reversed their course, were in the process of another high-speed firing pass. As the enemy ships reentered weapons range, the Marcus Luttrell came alongside the Greengold. She’d finally caught up to the carrier and fully charged her weapons.

  “Communications, direct Sierra Two to join us in an alpha strike on Master One,” Tehrani said as she took note of the escorting destroyer’s position. “TAO, firing point procedures, forward neutron beams, Master One.”

  “Firing solutions set, ma’am.”

  “Acknowledgment received from the Marcus Luttrell, ma’am,” Singh replied.

  “Match bearings, shoot, forward neutron beams.”

  As Tehrani uttered the words, another wave of formed mesons slammed into the Greengold’s weakened shields. On the tactical display she was monitoring, their forward deflector strength dropped under five percent. Simultaneously, the Marcus Luttrell opened up with everything it had—neutron beams, magnetic-cannon rounds, and Starbolt anti-ship missiles. The carrier added its energy weapons to the fray, and between the two vessels, they battered the enemy corvette.

  “Conn, TAO. Master One deflectors have failed. She’s taking armor hits, ma’am,” Bryan said with a glance backward.

  The corvette maintained course and speed, barreling toward the Zvika Greengold. Tehrani started to question whether its crew was planning to ram them before a bright spear of blue energy erupted from the
enemy vessel’s bow and punched through the Greengold’s nonexistent energy barrier. The impact was enough to throw everyone on the bridge around in their harnesses, and a few unlucky enlisted personnel not strapped into their seats went flying to the deck.

  “Damage report, XO,” Tehrani barked.

  “Localized armor failure on the bow. Neutron beam emitters offline.” Wright turned to her. “That was a destroyer-strength neutron beam, ma’am.”

  Another volley of mag-cannon fire and more anti-ship missiles lashed out from the Marcus Luttrell, and finally, the enemy corvette broke off. Tehrani felt her face grow warm as she mentally worked the problem. Something felt very wrong about what they were up against.

  “Four Maulers just hit the flight line, ma’am. They’re ready to launch on your order,” Wright interjected. “A few Javelins might even up the odds out there.”

  “Do it,” Tehrani replied.

  “Conn, TAO. We’re close enough to extend our shields around Sierra One, ma’am.”

  “Navigation, present our starboard quarter to the enemy. TAO, lower the forward shield and conduct an emergency recharge.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Mitzner replied. As she spoke, the carrier began to shift position, and changing star positions were visible through the windows at the front of the bridge.

  “XO, get me an estimate immediately of how long it will take to get the civilian vessel ready to jump.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  Even though they were up against pirates who, by their very nature, lacked logistical support and fought solely for easy cargo to sell to the highest bidder, Tehrani couldn’t help but feel outmatched. They outgun us, and the esprit de corps displayed rivals the CDF’s. She hoped the bombers would tilt the scale of combat in their direction for good.

  5

  Heat-seeking missiles of an unknown model flashed by Justin’s fighter, narrowly taking the flares he’d deployed that burned brighter than the surface of a star. Too close. The battle was chaotic, with the surprisingly nimble pirate fighters—closer to heavy fighters because of their size—buzzing around the battle space.

  “I’m not getting recognition in my tactical computer for any of the enemy craft,” Feldstein said, her voice crackling over the commlink. “But specific subsystems are human-built.”

  “We’ll have time for intelligence analysis later,” Justin said through gritted teeth as the g-forces got to him in a high-speed, high-energy turn. “Now let’s focus on survival.”

  All around him, Alpha element traded fire with hostile fighters and attempted to cover the Boars of Beta element as they made an attack run on Master One.

  One of the enemy craft swung through Justin’s forward arc, and he picked it out as his next target. He flipped the stores selector to a LIDAR-tracking Vulture missile and enabled linked launch. The moment the lock-on tone sounded, he squeezed the button for launch. “Alpha One, fox three.”

  The warheads dropped from the Sabre’s weapons bay and raced toward the enemy, a plume of fire from its engines visible for several seconds. Justin’s target made no attempt to evade. The LIDAR tracker smacked into the hostile craft’s shields, exploding in a bright-orange ball of flame.

  To Justin’s surprise, the shield power indicator only dropped twenty percent. Some of them have upgraded deflectors too. “Alpha One to Alpha element. A few of these bandits have super-juiced shields. Be careful.”

  “Alpha Three to Alpha One. File that under no shit, Sherlock, sir,” Mateus replied. She sounded harried rather than her usual calm, cool, and collected self.

  Enough of this. Justin whipped his Sabre back toward the bandit he’d been pursuing and toggled his missile selector to Eagle heat seekers while simultaneously changing it to launch two warheads. Blessed with a favorable intercept vector, he squeezed the launch button. “Alpha One, fox two.”

  The enemy deployed a few dozen flares before it kicked on its afterburner. Intense glare from the brightly burning decoys momentarily caused Justin to become disoriented before his helmet automatically adjusted its light filter. Unexpectedly, the hostile contact reversed course and accelerated sharply. What the hell? Purple energy weapons flashed by his cockpit canopy as the bandit settled behind him. Every attempt to evade was matched move for move.

  Work the problem. Determined to avoid compromising his OODA—observe, orient, decide, act—loop, Justin pushed to the back of his head the questions about how a small craft twice the size of his Sabre could have nearly equal delta-V. “Alpha One to any friendlies. Bandit on my six almost has a guns solution. Request immediate assistance.” More purple pulses zipped by as he spoke. A scan of his HUD showed Feldstein tangled in her own dogfight.

  “Alpha Three to Alpha One. Hang on, sir. I’m thirty seconds out, bearing zero-eight-five.”

  Justin located the icon representing Mateus’s fighter as his aft shields took repeated hits from the bandit chasing him. Time for guns-D. He began a series of wildly varied maneuvers in an attempt to shake the enemy and disrupt its aim. After waiting until the last possible moment, Justin toggled off the safeties for the inertial dampening system and pulled up hard relative to Mateus’s position at maximum speed with his afterburners engaged.

  Blackness crept in around the corners of his eyes as the g-forces skyrocketed. Even with the robust inertial-dampening equipment, he was pulling fifteen Gs. The advanced technology of his pilot’s chair and suit kept the force from killing him. Multiple missile icons detached from the nearest blue dot to Justin’s Sabre on the sensor readout. This is gonna be close. In quick succession, he killed the afterburner then desynched his fighter’s inertial-damping field and flipped the craft one hundred eighty degrees. That left his nose cone pointing backward toward the enemy as his forward motion continued unabated.

  Blue neutron-cannon bolts along with LIDAR-tracking missiles streaked across the void from Alpha Three. The pirate fighter sent purple xaser energy back at both Justin and Mateus, lighting up their shields. Justin held down the firing trigger on his flight stick, sending his own fire into the fray. The concentrated barrage battered down the bandit's deflectors before the Vultures connected and blew it apart.

  As the glow from the explosion faded, Justin exhaled for what felt like the first time in a while. “Alpha One to Alpha Three. Thanks for the assist.”

  “Any time, sir. Nice trick there, by the way.”

  “Something I picked up from the CAG.” He quickly scanned the HUD-based sensor readout. “Bandits bearing two-six-eight, range fifty kilometers. Break left and push it up to max thrust.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The course Justin had called out would put them in range of the two fighters Feldstein and Adeoye were tangling with. Then the HUD flashed red, indicating a new wormhole forming. Good grief. When it rains, it pours.

  “Conn, TAO. Aspect change, inbound wormhole.”

  Tehrani waited for his report with a gnawing in the pit of her stomach.

  “Reads as Lusitanian signature, ma’am,” Bryan continued. “Contact designated as Sierra Three. Freighter, bulk hauler classification.”

  Lusitanians out here? While the area was technically close to their border, the neutral planet had a reputation of keeping to itself and out of interstellar affairs. Tehrani narrowed her eyes. “Communications, send my compliments to the commander of Sierra Three and request they stay clear of the battle.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Singh replied.

  “This is mighty odd,” Wright said as he stared at his chair-integrated display. “That freighter is moving faster than I’ve ever seen an ore hauler go.”

  Over the last year, Tehrani’s combat senses had become attuned to changes in the battlefield. They were now almost a sixth sense, and as she stared at the onrushing freighter, they cried out in alarm. She couldn’t avoid heeding the warning. “TAO, reclassify Sierra Three as hostile.”

  Bryan apparently couldn’t believe his ears. “Say again, ma’am?”

  “Reclassif
y Sierra Three as hostile now, Lieutenant,” Tehrani snapped.

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  “Communications, warn Master Three to move away now, or they will be engaged.” Tehrani turned to Wright. “XO, ETA for our forward neutron beams being back online?”

  “At least fifteen minutes, ma’am.”

  The Marcus Luttrell kept up the pressure on the most damaged pirate corvette—Master One. While the enemy ship was nimble, it couldn’t dodge neutron beams moving at the speed of light. Repeated hits on its aft quarter eventually resulted in engine damage, and the vessel began to slow.

  Tehrani, above all, wanted prisoners to interrogate. The pirates had to operate out of somewhere, and if she knew where, Battlegroup Z would be paying them a visit. There was still the matter of the bulk hauler, however. Its presence disrupted the entire battle space. “Communications, any response from Master Three?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Conn, TAO. Aspect change, Master Three. She’s launching small craft, ma’am.” Bryan’s voice went up an octave. “Ten… twenty… thirty… I count thirty-six. Mixture of fighters and larger single-seaters, probably bombers, ma’am.”

  Pirates with a carrier? The sheer brazenness of it shocked Tehrani, but she quickly set it aside and focused on working the problem. “XO, how soon till the rest of our battlegroup arrives?”

  Wright glanced at the digital clock showing ship’s time against other standard time zones. “Twenty minutes on our frigates, an hour for the Astute, ma’am.” He bit his lip. “Not fast enough.”

  The XO’s commentary was on point, but Tehrani didn’t want to hear that kind of talk on the bridge. She shot him a dirty look and focused on her tactical plot. Only one course of action remained. “Communications, order the Hadley’s crew to abandon ship immediately and land their escape pods on our flight deck.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”