“Some way to earn,” Quiz said from the seat of his Uriel fighter. “Not much better than patrolling empty space then coming back to a neat pile of GC and a pat on the back from the Carthans.”
Minh could hear him suppressing a yawn and momentarily considered dosing him with a mild stim but retreated from the medical command interface. “You’d rather the sector was crawling with Order fighters? Maybe some Eden drones?” Minh checked the course their Uriel fighters followed once more. In a way, the younger pilot was right; the sector was dead. “We’re out here because our Uriels have better sensors than the Carthan custom patrol ships.”
“Oh, why wasn’t that in the brief?” Fringer asked.
Minh liked Quiz, but he’d been asking a lot of questions that he could have answered himself just by thinking the situation through. He took a deep breath then reactivated his communicator. “Mostly because the morning brief was already two hours long, and Slick has been mentioning it every time he does the mission brief.”
“Oh,” Quiz said. “Well, it’s pretty sad when their customs ships don’t have great sensors.”
“They’re used to having a network of satellites as support. They’re too new to this system to have that set up,” Minh explained. “It’s your turn to do a deep scan.” Minh took an opportunity to stretch, and couldn’t help but notice the empty seat behind him. He missed flying with Slick, but he was busy commanding his half of the fighter wing. Flying alone in a Uriel wasn’t difficult, but it was much busier. Picking up the duties of pilot and copilot was sometimes too much for some.
Minh watched the readout on Quiz’s fighter as he generated a millimetre wide wormhole that stretched out into deep space. “That’s a little wide for a long range scan,” Minh said. “You’re using extra power.”
“Right, sorry,” Quiz said as he focused his scanners on the tiny wormhole aperture and activated them.
“No worries, that’s why we’re off in pairs,” Minh replied. “I’ll have plenty of power built up for a transit wormhole just in case we have to get out of here.”
“Nine patrols so far, and we haven’t seen anything,” Quiz said. “I doubt we’ll have any reason to bug out.”
The scan results started coming in from Quiz’s fighter and Minh started calculations for a transit wormhole. “Quiz, are you looking at your scan results?” he asked.
“Oh, there’s something to see this time?” he asked.
“Shut down the wormhole and look at the results,” Minh ordered. “And get ready to manoeuvre for home. We have work to do.”
“Holy shit! There’s a whole fleet headed for home!” Quiz said.
Minh confirmed the scan results to verify he was seeing the same thing. It was actually a large oval ship measuring just under a kilometre in length and three hundred small drones. He didn’t bother addressing Quiz’s overreaction, there were more important things to think about. “Stop charging up weapons, we can’t intercept while they’re moving that fast.” He opened several small wormholes that were pre-set to point at the other patrol sectors and sent a burst transmission containing the scan data. The message would give Skydock, the main defence for Kambis, a little over two minutes' warning, and the rest of Minh’s fighter patrol group would be able to do scans of their own. After they were finished they’d retreat to assist with the defence, the next thing on Minh’s list of things to do.
“Why are those ships moving -“
“-so fast? Because they’re decelerating after faster than light travel!” Minh replied, letting his frustration get the better of him as he finished the calculations for a transit wormhole back to Kambis. “You know this stuff already, you just have to use your head to interpret the basic information in front of you.” He flipped his fighter end over end and began generating a wormhole. “This’ll be open in four seconds, begin manoeuvring now,” he ordered.
“Aye,” Quiz replied.
“We have to help Skydock.”
The wormhole opened, and to Minh’s relief, Quiz manoeuvred inside and began accelerating hard, perfectly. He followed suit and started his systems check. It was something no one had to do, but it was better than staring at the sensor displays in the cockpit of his Uriel and the heads up display in his vacsuit visor.
“That’s the real deal,” Quiz said quietly. “Eden ships.”
Minh brought up a small window inside his visor so he could see what Quiz was looking at. It was a digital model of one of the drones headed for Skydock, Kambis, and possibly the moon they called home – Tamber. “Absolutely,” Minh replied. “You got a good scan, almost better than the ones from the Triton.”
“The ones taken from the attack that cost Chief Frost his leg,” Quiz said.
Minh finished checking his mini-missile load-out and checked the transit timer. They would have to begin decelerating in twenty-eight seconds. The enemy force would reach Kambis orbit in one hundred five seconds.
“These drones are different,” Minh said. “They’re the small, fighter model. Make sure your ship checks out, we’ll be in for a fight until orbital defence can engage.”
“Almost done,” Quiz replied. “I have a question for you, though.”
“I hope it’s a short one,” Minh replied.
“Yeah, why are we rushing to the defence? I thought we were just being paid to patrol?”
“You didn’t read the entire contract, did you?” Minh asked with a sigh.
“Who reads those things? I mean, they go on forever.”
“Well, since we’ve got about forty one seconds, I’ll explain it. We get paid a flat rate if we’re helping with patrols. If we catch something on scanners, we’re expected to assist with the defence. We get damage, trauma, and danger pay if there’s a firefight.”
“Oh."
Minh watched as the engine pods of their Uriel fighters rotated one hundred eighty degrees and fired as hard as they did during the acceleration phase of their transit. It wouldn’t be long before they were in immediate range of Skydock. “Right now, I’m just looking forward to shooting something.” He used the counting clock as a focal point as he breathed deeply, releasing frustration, tension, and doubt with every exhale. “A frenzied mind sees, a tranquil mind comprehends.”
“So this means a big pile of cash,” Quiz said.
“Yes, but try to forget about everything but surviving the next few minutes,” Minh replied during a long exhale. “Get ready, we’re coming out.”
They emerged from the wormhole to see Skydock. The traffic around it was dissipating as civilian ships followed navnet directions to the opposite side of Kambis, the massive, canyon-ridden planet ahead.
Skydock was a many-segmented station that had been built on for centuries. The outer segments of its fifty six kilometre length and forty eight kilometre girth were more gracefully designed with smooth curves and complimentary angles. The interior was a mix of square, utilitarian sections with hundreds of docking bays and thousands of large transparesteel windows. Minh had heard the view on the opposite side, facing the planet, was incredible. Tamber, the moon Minh and the remaining Triton crewmembers had come to call home, was on the opposite side of Kambis, far from where the fighting would begin.
“This is Skydock to Ronin,” a port officer addressed through Minh’s communicator.
“Ronin here,” Minh-Chu Buu replied. “Did you receive our alert?”
“Yes, fighters are scrambling now, and we have four destroyers ready to intercept. Advise on best position of pulse barrier, please.”
Minh was surprised, the pulse barrier was the most powerful weapon the station had at their disposal. “If you’re asking me where to point that thing, I’d say right behind us, just give us ten seconds to get out of the way,” Minh replied.
“That’s in line with our thinking, you have fourteen seconds to leave the target area.”
Minh plotted a course before navnet could send him a similar route and he set his thrusters to maximum. Quiz was less than a second behind.
“Are we about to see a light show, Ronin?” Quiz asked. He sounded almost giddy.
“I think so, I didn’t think they had that thing working, but I guess we get lucky today.” As soon as they were clear, Minh turned his attention to the station and the area of space the Eden ships would arrive in. Seventy metre long emitters running along the oldest part of the station, at its centre, began to glow red then flashed to white.
The Eden vessels emerged from the wormhole, their engines flaring brightly as they decelerated. Several missiles launched from the main, shining oval ship at the centre.
Minh targeted the missiles with six of his own mini-rockets and fired six at each. After a brief moment they were moving too fast to see with the naked eye. His computer registered five hits less than four seconds later. He’d destroyed their missiles.
“Are they going to fire that thing or what?” Quiz asked.
“That pulse weapon is a little old,” Minh replied. “It might have a pretty short range.” He watched the enemy fleet approach the base, closing to ten thousand kilometres.
“A few drones are heading for us,” Quiz said.
“Go evasive,” Minh ordered. “Split right.” He locked on to the nearest drone with mini-missiles and rapid-fired half a pod, twenty eight shots. Several beams swept across his shields as he strafed. As the first drone was struck and destroyed by his barrage of missiles, a second crossed in front of him, and he fired his pulse guns. The little machine’s shields shrugged the damage off, then it changed direction so quickly Minh lost sight of it for a moment.
Minh-Chu set his guns to autofire; they would react faster than he could to the drone if it crossed into his firing arc. He spun his fighter around and tried to get a missile lock, but the drone was too close, and closing quickly. He barely had time to begin thrusting in reverse before the drone struck him hard enough to completely deplete his forward shields and pepper his fighter with shrapnel as it exploded.
The drone was gone. He’d taken minor damage, but there was a bigger problem. The three remaining drones turned on Quiz, and he was firing at one with his guns, letting himself be guided into a slow figure eight. Two Uriel fighters emerged from their wormholes - it was Slick and Joyboy.
“Holy hell!” shouted Slick. “You’re being lured! Break and evade!”
“You’re gonna get slagged, man!” Joyboy added. “Get outta there!”
In the time it took for them to comment on the situation and start closing, Minh was able to get a missile lock on the two drones that were positioning themselves out of Quiz’s sight. Their cutting beams began focusing on his shields, and if Minh’s guess was right, Quiz only had a few seconds.
Minh engaged all his thrusters, pushing them to the limit and, when he was sure of his missile lock, he fired, hoping the added speed from his craft’s thrust would help close the gap faster. He changed direction to get a better angle on the drones for guns and they autofired solid rounds as well as energy pulses. Something under his seat started rattling, resonating with the rattling of his solid round gun pod. “Analyze that, please,” he told the computer as he guided his ship closer to Quiz and his pursuers.
“Interior sensors are disabled,” replied the passive computer voice.
The cockpit began to heat up, and Minh shut down his guns. He’d have to make do with missiles. A collision alarm went off, and he looked up in time to see the drone Quiz was following had turned so his fighter was thrusting directly at Minh.
Minh-Chu barely avoided a lethal collision with Quiz, but one of the other drones following him slammed into his ship from the port side. His shields began recharging from reserve power immediately, and Minh adjusted for the damage to a port side engine pod as he tried to get his fighter under control.
“Sorry!” Quiz offered lamely. “I’ve almost got this guy!”
To Minh’s relief, one of the drones Minh targeted with his missiles exploded in a fury of shrapnel. The other was struck by a couple of his missiles, but kept after Quiz, staying behind him, away from his main guns.
Slick and Joyboy entered combat range and began firing on the target Quiz chased as well as the one that sought to pierce his shields using an intense beam. Minh stopped his fighter from spinning just in time to see Skydock station’s pulse weapon activate. The Eden ship and hundreds of drones were slammed by a barrier of light and force that struck at half the speed of light. Most of the drones were unrecognisable, while the main ship had split into several sections that lazily drifted and rotated away from the station.
Quiz finished off the drone he’d been chasing for almost two minutes as Slick obliterated the one that had been drilling into his shields.
“Not a bad day’s work, huh guys?” Quiz asked.
Minh took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s get back to patrolling, we have three hours left on the shift and I’ll be stopping in to see an old friend when we’ve finished our sweeps.”