After pursuing the Xhamin towards Eritain for sixty-eight minutes and gaining about half the distance, the Xhamin began to slow on its approach to Eritain.
‘Captain, do you want me to match their vector and speed?’ asked the pilot.
‘No,’ said Yamaton. ‘This is where we can make up most of the remaining distance. Leave our braking to the absolute last minute and pass them planet-side at two thousand kilometres and then stay at that distance. Weapons officers, use our lasers to take out any missiles they fire at the planet, and us for that matter, there’s not much we can do about their energy weapons until we get there.’
‘By braking early, at least we know they haven’t detected us,’ said Nexen. ‘Your cloaking is evidently more robust than their system.’
‘That’s all well and good until we fire our weapons,’ said Yamaton. ‘Then they’ll know.’
‘Won’t they be able to work out your trajectory too?’
‘Standard operating procedure for engaging an enemy while cloaked is to change your course every time you fire,’ said Bache, still sitting beside Nexen at the side of the bridge.
‘Why don’t you fire on the ship?’ Nexen asked.
‘Too distant to have any effect on their shields,’ said Bache. ‘If they adopt a random course most of the laser bolts would miss anyway. The closer you are, the more punch a laser or beam weapon has.’
Nexen nodded. ‘But you’re still going to use them against any missiles they fire?’
‘Most missiles are unshielded, so long as they’re adhering to a computable trajectory, just a glancing blow from almost any distance would do the job.’
Nexen glanced up at the captain. ‘The young man knows his stuff,’ he said.
‘We train them well,’ replied Yamaton, watching as the space traffic on this side of the planet thinned as they approached. ‘They certainly know something’s lurking out here, the commercial ships are disappearing in the other direction as fast as they can hustle.’
‘Four ships reduced to radioactive slag—I’d be trying to hide too,’ said Nexen.
‘They’re entering a high orbit, Captain,’ called the navigator.
‘The surface is being scanned, sir,’ said the array officer.
‘Let’s hope that’s not for target selection,’ said Yamaton, touching an icon on his chair arm and turning to face his two weapons officers.
A high-pitched chime sounded around the bridge, causing Nexen to peer up at the ceiling as handholds popped out from behind their hidden overlays.
‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘Action warning,’ said Bache, handing Nexen one side of his harness. ‘Anyone not secured must do so immediately. It also powers up all the lifeboats and initiates the weightless handles.’
Nexen grabbed the belt, found the one on the other side and snapped them together. He gazed around the bridge nervously, watching everyone else do the same as if it were an everyday occurrence.
‘Time to orbit?’ Yamaton asked.
‘Three minutes, sir,’ came the reply. ‘Beginning our braking manoeuvre now.’
The holomap automatically panned in on the planet and the Xhamin. The pilot had judged it correctly as their predicted path took them slightly past the other ship and into a matching orbit just below and at around two thousand kilometres distant.
‘Missiles fired,’ called the array officer.
‘Engaging,’ said the weapons team.
Bache watched on the holomap as five red icons began tracking from the Xhamin towards the surface. Moments later they all heard and felt the thudding of the Dres’kin’s heavy cannons, followed immediately by a sudden course change that even the ship’s powerful inertial dampers struggled to compensate for.
‘Bloody hell,’ grunted Nexen as he was pulled heavily against his harness.
Three bolts of energy flashed across above them where the Dres’kin would have been without the course change.
‘That works then,’ said Nexen, as five more red icons tracked away from the Xhamin, one of which turned in their direction.
‘Engaging,’ came the call.
‘In range now, Captain,’ said the array officer.
Yamaton nodded. ‘Hit them as planned,’ he said.
The roar of the Asteri beam was unmistakeable. Its six-metre diameter beam of pure white energy hammered into the Xhamin’s shields, followed by two Kataligo missiles. It was enough. The shields failed and even though the Asteri beam was shut down instantly, it still managed to melt a deep circular hole through one of the Xhamin’s engine nacelles in the split second it touched the ship.
‘Cannons,’ called Yamaton, pointing at the weapons officers. ‘Just propulsion, weapons and eyes—nothing more.’
The Xhamin had become visible when the shields failed, which most likely meant the two systems were interconnected. This made it much easier for the laser cannons to accurately target their engines, arrays and weapon systems.
Bache could feel Nexen twitching next to him as he watched lumps of the Xhamin being surgically removed by the Dres’kin’s sustained fire.
‘Did you get all the launched missiles?’ asked Yamaton, scanning the holomap for any of the tell-tale red tracked icons.
‘I believe so, Captain,’ said one of the weapons officers.
‘Either you did or you didn’t?’
‘I can confirm nine hits, sir, with no more viable targets.’
‘They launched ten missiles, Lieutenant,’ said Yamaton. ‘Where’s that last one?’
Everyone stared at the holographic display and watched as dozens of ship fragments blown off the Xhamin began burning up in the planet’s atmosphere.
‘Crap,’ said Yamaton. ‘If they’ve deactivated one straight after launch, it could be hidden amongst that lot.’
Almost as he finished speaking, a trill note sounded and a very distant and small red icon illuminated in the lower atmosphere, heading straight down and accelerating.
‘Target it fast,’ shouted Yamaton, just as the icon disappeared again. ‘Bastards, they’ve turned it off again.’
‘They’re relying on all the other junk shielding it,’ said Bache. ‘They needed to activate it for a few seconds to correct its trajectory and now it’s become a gravity bomb.’
A small glint of light on the planet’s surface confirmed everyone’s fears.
Nexen’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh shit,’ he groaned as the array officer panned in on a slowly rising mushroom cloud.
‘Where is that?’ asked Clammer.
‘In my day, it was a major industrial city called Hallsbard,’ said Nexen, in a subdued tone. ‘Millions lived and worked there within a few square kilometres.’
It was silent on the bridge for a few moments, before Yamaton hit the transmitter icon on his chair.
‘Sergeant Posett, you have a green light. Board that bloody ship and detain whoever was responsible for that atrocity.’
‘Do we have full weapons authorisation, Captain?’
‘Confirmed,’ Yamaton said, nodding slowly. ‘But remember there could be innocent crew members on the ship in hibernation pods.’
‘Roger that, sir.’