Chapter 5

Ok, I was lost in the moment. The possibilities filled my mind, but the proximity alarm raged in the background.

‘Proximity warning! Oh shit!’

I jumped into the command chair and watched as Bonnie took her chair.

Bonnie yelled, “Combat Mode!” to the AI units. To my shock, the other two bridge chairs were filled with naked women’s flesh.

Annette chimed out, “Scanners show a WLP nearby.”

Jenny said, “The Ship is called ‘The Hornet. ‘The captain is registered as The Raven.”

“Supplemental ... there is no bounty on the ship,” Jenny said. “However, the bounty on the captain is more than seventy-five million GCs.”

Bonnie: “It sounds like he has been a busy boy. That’s much larger than two days ago.”

“Yes, and that ‘underground WLP’ is an illegal Weapons Launching Platform. This guy must be as rich as he is good.”

“Are we going to take him on?” Bonnie asked.

I asked, “AI, calculate the probabilities for combat results with that ship?”

Jenny replied, “100 to 1 shot. The WLP gets the 100.”

Bonnie, “Not very good odds, is it?”

I said, “Contact your Grandfather. Give our position. Say we are requesting help.”

She did, and a moment later, I heard the Admiral in my mind.

‘You’re smarter than I thought. I have six vipers on the way.”

The Hornet continued to close with us but still had not detected us.

I said, “I think he is looking for a place to lie in wait.”

“I take it that’s not a good thing?” Bonnie asked.

“Not with us sitting on the prime real estate in the area, it isn’t.”

“Target ship is scanning each rock as it moves,” Annette said.

I said, “I would do the same.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Bonnie said.

“Detecting six incoming mass units,” Jenny reported.

I said, “That should be the Vipers.”

“The ‘Hornet’ has detected the incoming and is moving towards them.”

Annette said, “The ‘Hornet’ is firing hunter missiles.”

Jenny said, “Six missiles outbound, targeted on the vipers.”

“ECM countermeasures activated. No effect on the missiles.”

“Vipers are firing on the missiles.”

“The ‘Hornet’ is firing class ten lasers at the Vipers. Three hits on one ship have damaged it. Viper has lost power.”

“Four missiles have been taken out. Two remaining ... one of them is targeted on the disabled Viper.”

I said, “Power up our systems.”

“The ‘Hornet’ has hit another Viper. After seven hits, the Viper vaporized.”

This battle was not going well for the military boys.

Jenny said, “Vipers have unleashed three, no, make that four hunter missiles.”

“Now!” I said, “Full speed at the ‘Hornet’s’ rear.”

Another Viper exploded in an expanding ball of plasma as a hunter missile armed with an anti-matter warhead was detonated by laser fire as it left the Viper’s lunch tube.

The ‘My Love’ launched off of the rock at full speed. I took manual control and toggled the missile targeting system. I had a lock tone in two seconds and fired my lasers. The beams slammed hard into the rear of the ‘Hornet.’ My playtime on his hull stretched, as twenty, then thirty bursts hit the ‘Hornet’s’ rear shields and finally the hull. Heat build-up slowed my cycle rate, but I was still locked. I held down the ‘fire’ button. 36, 37, 38 hits. The rear of the Hornet exploded. I had scored the kill. As before, the escape pod fired away. The Hornet vaporized under my continuing fire.