Chapter 9: Red Dragon

The Holdian Commander sat across from me and watched Rock Hound working the controls of a Tabtil Tosser trying to win a game against the Takkian. Goal of the game was to maneuver a Tabtil that was a tetrahedron shaped object with different colored sides, inside the opponent’s colored holes, while tossing blockers with remote controlled catapults, to prevent the opponent doing the same to you. Almost every recreation room outfitted by the Navy had at least one of these boxy contraptions, usually completely worn out.

The Commander had kept her word and got us out of the holding cell and without any permanent records and she even had taken all of us to a Pizza restaurant that was part of the adjacent housing settlement attached to the base. Mostly the families of long term deployed army and navy personnel were housed here and it had a few small stores and restaurants.

“Tell me the truth Midshipman, we are off duty and nothing will get past this table. Did they send you to evaluate me and what are you really?”

“Ma’am I can do nothing else but repeat myself. I am a Midshipman and nothing more. The details of my journey here are classified, but I assure you it has nothing to do with you. I don’t know Admiral McElligott all that well, but I can assure you he isn’t biased towards or against any race or species. I am sure Fleet Command would not have picked you to run this difficult post if they did not have absolute confidence in your abilities, Ma’am. I am certain Admiral Stahl and the Devi are on their way for different reasons too.”

Her cute nose quivered and she took another bread stick.

“Here I am getting a pep talk from a Midshipman. There are many Holdians in the Navy and quite a few on this station as Holda isn’t far from here, but I am the first making it to Commander and being usually perceived as nothing more than a fluffy plush animal has its challenges.”

Before I could say something, her Duty PDD and mine went of the same time. It appeared that this was true for every service personnel in the restaurant. The message flashing over the screen accompanied with a blaring sound had only two words. ‘Battle Stations’.

Interbase Transports now switched to emergency distribution, worked fast to convey the various personnel to their duty stations.

Gone was any rivalry among Army, Navy or Marines. Everyone stood orderly in line until the next IST capsule was available.

Of course the little Holdian was among the first and gone several minutes before I made it. The capsule shot through vacuum tubes and right into the ready room of the fighter squadron.

The child like ready to play Lt. Yordat was gone and replaced by no nonsense, by the book Squadron leader. “Viking you’re the most experienced take lead of wing Alpha. You will be briefed in flight.”

I acknowledged jumped into the Battle dresser. The pre set machine assembled a Mark 19 Flight suit around me and the floor parted the second I was done, sliding down a steep chute and right next to the waiting Wolfcraft. Thanks to the outer micro layer of the adaptive skin and thanks to my new Takkian friend the Wolfcraft was already black and red and sported the Olafson Wolf head logo.

The pilot seat with me in it rose from the floor into the cockpit, and while the fighter was already sliding inside the revolving starter, the neuro connections were made and I was ready.

The Communication equipment came on and I heard the Holdian Commander say.

“Checkpoint Squadron One, here is the situation. “One of the last convoys from Netlor has been attacked by a group of pirate ships. Emergency transmissions are just coming and identify the lead pirate as the Red Dragon.

We are under no circumstances allowed to cross into Freespace to assist, but our long range scan results confirm that twelve, maybe thirteen ships will make it. They are being pursued and you are authorized to use all means to assure the safety of the civilian ships once they are on our side. Our Battleship, the USS Makki-Grodno is on its way but more than 12 hours out, as she left for patrol early this morning. Super Cruisers USS Castro and USS Pollux are even further out. So until the pirates come into firing range of the planetary defenses, if they dare to cross the border, you are the only hope for those ships once they enter the system.”

“Rock Hound to Viking, take the lead, the entire Squadron is deployed. Don’t mind taking the back seat to you, Viking. You’re the Ace.”

The Computronic rearranged the symbols reflected into my sight to adjust them to my new status. “This was no time to argue or ask why he had done that and changed my position from wing to Squadron lead. I slaved the long range scanner results of the big sensors on Checkpoint 96 to my strategic view and counted nine armed vessels of Destroyer Size and four of Cruiser size pursuing seven transports and a Kermac T Cruiser.

“Listen up, guys. Beta wing take the Z axis and jump to the coordinates I am sending. Stay about a light minute over Herman’s star. Delta Wing you do the same at the opposite and then you activate your camouflage and wait.

Alpha, Gamma and Delta we stay in spearhead formation and approach openly. If it comes to a fight, there is not much those tubs can do to you, you’ve got excellent shields and Translocator Rotarys. Always keep an eye on the weapon scans of the enemy ships but for the most part you should be too fast for them to hit you in the first place, take out their engines first.”

Over the much slower comm. Channels of the civilian ships we heard a blood curling horror story unfold. Thirty ships had left Netlor and were systematically picked apart and raided by the pirate fleet. All pleas for mercy had been ignored. The pirates took their time to pick ship after ship and now the last fifteen, were less than eight minutes away from the outmost boundaries of Herman’s Star system and thus Union space.

The pirates caught up with two of the strugglers and shot the transports engines to scrap. Not many civilizations had developed means and weapons to scan, intercept and disrupt a ship traveling in quasi space. To see the red ship use Union Isah-field disruptors to pull the lightly armed transports from that semi-spatial dimension was more than disturbing.

Even more concerning was the fact that my scanners clearly identified ParaDim shields and Trans-Quantum resonators. ParaDim shields would make the Pirate ship immune to the instantaneous destruction effects of Translocator bombs and could only be brought down by pounding the shields with Translocator bombs and Loki torpedoes.

A battle ship would have no problems defeating those shields with a few well placed Giga loads, but it would be a hard nut to crack for the small loads our Wolfcraft fighters carried. I relayed that info to the base.

The rest of the thirteen transports made it across into Union Space and continued on their way to Checkpoint 96.

We had to watch on our long range scanners and optics as the pirates boarded the two ships they had crippled and to our horror we witnessed as the pirates spaced hundreds of pilgrims.”

The Comm. System reported an incoming GalNet transmission on military channels but without any coding and a metallic distorted voice spoke to us. “This is the Red Dragon speaking for the Sinister Alliance. I know your support battle ship is out. As you notice I can hear and listen in. You are so arrogant that you do not even code your military GalNet messages. My ship has the finest Union sensors and other surprises so I know where you tried to hide those Wolfcraft fighters and I can see the planet defense capabilities. Very impressive, and I would be scared if I was a run of the mill average space crook. But I am the Red Dragon, and I want you to remember that name. Well those who survive.”

The voice changed and became deeper. “However I will be your nightmare, Union! No ship, no colony and no base will be safe from me if I chose to attack. Checkpoint 96, you will be first.”

The voice laughed and added. “Oh I know you transmit that now to Fleet head quarters and that fat, old fart face McElligott will send hundreds of ships this way, but you can’t go where I can and who knows where I will strike next?”

His fleet of pirate ships abandoned the two looted transports each surrounded by a thin cloud of frozen drifting golden dressed bodies and begun their attack run.

I had to go by the book, even though the pirate’s intentions were obvious.

“This is Squadron Leader Olafson, calling hostile craft. You are now entering space claimed by the United Stars of the Galaxies, you are herby ordered to cut all power, drop shields and prepare to be boarded. You are identified as a hostile and criminal party and no further warnings will be given.”

Fleet Headquarters automatically sent out new code procedures and new channels.

There was a sharp laugh.

The pirate ships crossed into Union Space and attacked.

“All wings concentrate your fire on the other pirate ships. Stay at maximum range of your TL and concentrate on Engine targets. Viking to Base lead enemy ship has latest Para Dim and unique Terran TQ Resonator field protection. Scanner results hampered due to said shields. If this ship decides to attack it will be hard to stop, consider the evacuation of surface buildings.”

Load your surface batteries with Gravo-Bombs and lay double shots in the path of the Red Dragon Ship. Launch those long range Drones you have and target the other pirate ships.

“Base to Wing, Pilgrim ships were a rouse the ships are filled with ground troops. We are under surface attack...”

The connection to the base broke off.

I cursed the fact that this was an IV type. It did not have the option to switch to Graviton ammunition, but I attacked anyway. The Red Dragon was even better armed than expected. It had strong FTL DE’s of Union manufacture with union Computronic targeting. I only evaded being hit so far as I flew past red line almost the entire time. Twelve of the pirate ships were burning wrecks, they had little chance against the Translocator Gatlings of the Wolfcrafts, but two of my Squadron fighter symbols had just blinked out and I could not raise them, only register the intense explosions on my scanners where I knew them to be last.

I had no time to feel sorry for them now, but I knew I would. They had come to close to the Red Dragon and the Pirate ship caught both with a combination barrage of Union FTL FE’s and Nul Froth Casters.

I was down to twenty percent ammo, but risked a direct assault. I still had two Lokis and I would make them count. This time I could not evade the bluish Energies of the Froth caster but I managed to stay out of the firing cone of the FTL Directed Energy cannons. My forward shields almost died on me, but I deactivated the aft shield generators and reduced the side shields to 20% while feeding the freed energies into the front shields. All this while screaming at maximum acceleration towards its aft engines, His shields had to have structural gaps there, I released both Loki torpedoes and fired long burst into his aft section.

Without aft shields I turned and prayed to Odin to give me the 5 seconds to reset, hoping my almost insane attack had worked. Something did pepper my side and I checked on my squadron and gave flank protection orders. Only 15 of the original 20 Wolfcrafts remained and Rock Hound reported that Matchstick, Power socket and Ronin were out of ammo completely.

Odin must have heard my prayer because Hot Stuff was close enough to hear my plea for flank cover and he peppered 20 TL loads on and inside the Hull of a Kartanian Cruiser that was part of the Pirate ship fleet. The coffin shaped Kartanian who had just fired on me, expanded in the middle as if someone pumped air in it very fast, bright white lines followed every armor plate and it was ripped to pieces by a series of explosions micro seconds later.

Now I had time to turn the Wolfcraft in a tight loop and check out my handy work.

The Red Dragon was fleeing with severely damaged aft section and only one ISAH pod left. As much as I wanted, I could not pursue. Three pirate ships remained and they were still fighting and approaching Outpost 96.

It took us still 12 more minutes to defeat the last Pirates and then flew with all due speed towards the Outpost. We still heard nothing over GalNet.

I called Fleet Command, delivered a very short report and transmitted scanner and battle data and requesting assistance. Fleet Command assured me help was on the way.

Could those freaking pirates not have attacked just 48 hours later? Of all ships the Devi was on her way.

But then the Pirate was listening in, he had a GalNet Terminal. I did not want to imagine what would happen if the Union had to face an enemy that had the same resources and the same advances. I wondered if Deepa was already on her way back to Sin 4 and hopefully was not caught in the middle of this.

We reached the planet and the so clean and spotless space port looked so different from before. Burning and twisted wrecks of the Transport ships, a toppled and destroyed Octo bot had crashed into the upper terminal building, the tough transparent Duranium window panes cracked. My stomach tightened as I saw a space bus, its side perforated with dozen of large blaster holes, still burning.

Most of the Pirate transports were undamaged and we saw Pirate troops carrying loot. I actually screamed in the audio pick up. “Let none escape, strive them with your DE’s.”

Flying just a few meters over the ground with my Artigravs and the engines pushing as slowly as they could, I pressed the FTL DE in pulse mode and mowed them down.

It took us no time to clear the landing filed and destroy every one of the transports, but we still received sporadic fire from individual pirates hiding behind cover. We dared not fire back, as it would have caused even more damage to the base itself.

I ordered half of the Wolfcraft to the base on the other side and ordered them to survey.

“Squadron leader Viking switch to secure channel protocol NPBM 6.” It was the Admiral, it was Stahl.

I found I had to use my Wrist PDD GalCom protocol as the Wolfcraft Com equipment did not have that option to go to Nano pulse burst mode.” Sorry sir that it took so long this Com didn’t have any NPBM capability.”

“I ordered all Fleet Com to switch. Some heads will roll in my Comm. Department as they should have known Wolfcraft IV do not have that equipment. We are still at least 20 hours away. The Devi is going as fast as she can. Assess situation and report.”

The Admiral cut out, but now we could reach the Base at least the other side of the planet and a Colonel of the Army responded.”Viking we are cut off from the city. They have severed the Mono line. The troops with flight suits, Cerberus Robots and the nine flyers we have just reached the City. There is heavy fighting. I have a battalion of Orbital Assault troops here but no way to get them there fast.”