Part 4 | Star Frontiers

Aboard ASW DragonflyIV10 meters overReseda Valley, Colorado, Isabella System05/04/70, 02:38:01“Not anymore,”Master Chief Pilot Officer Alicia Parker remarked, a sustained burstfrom the twin MPAC3030 railguns in the wings ripping the Gnat heloapart, even as the passive sensors lit off on a large mass of troops entering the valley, Gnats,Starmarines, and the members of the so-called rebels on thismiserable voghole planet, swarming into the valley like ahungry nest of anklebiters.With a nod of herhead, the pilot of the Dragonfly IV tapped a command on herleft-hand control holodisplay to arm the hafnium bursting charges inthe torp launcher’s torpedos, and fired, the kinetic-kill missilespraying a dense cloud of shrap which ripped through the charginghostiles, as the pair of thirty-thirties hammered at those stillstanding.”They look prettywell equipped for a half-assed band of rebels and pirates,” Aliciaobserved to herself, launching another airbursting assault missile.“And,”she added,”they seem to be following the lead of the Marzie sons ofvogs who aren't even supposed to be on this planet to begin with.”“Imagine that,”she quipped, as she ripped into more useless Marzies.“Imagine th—“she started to repeat, just as the ship shook, and the warpdriveradar alarm lit off on an SAC-81 Boojum dropship diving down on her,all guns blazing. Aboard FSS Eve OfDestruction10 meters overReseda Valley, Colorado, Isabella System05/04/70, 02:40:48“Oh, hell yeah!” exulted Chief PilotOfficer Pax Judas “Hammer” Rabwin, the pilot of the SAC-81 Boojumdropship Eve Of Destruction, upon spying the littlepiece of Nakkie pie shaking its gynt in front of him, hammering ather with his twin 3030s, as the squatter, not having the stomach fora knife fight—same as all the rest—punched it into warpdrive.“Vog!” heswore an instant later, fighting to keep control, as 30 mm roundsslammed into his tail, instantly reducing the strength of Eve’sdeflector by half, beforepunching through to make scrap metal of most of the Boojum’sinsides. “You miserable voggin’ gynt!”shouted Rabwin at the same time his fingers flew across the SAC-81’snavicomp holodisplay, kicking the Eve Of Destruction intowarpdrive, breaking out right on the tail of that tight-gyntedlittle Nakkie slut.Ain’t a gods-damned one of ‘em worthcrap in combat, no matter how much PC the political generalsand the proks running roughshod over all of them tried to cram downhis throat; they could strut the strut well enough, but when a realswingin' gug got a hold of oneof 'em, same result every time, every time, same aswhen he'd gotten a hold of that tight-gynted little Diana Shawnkafter it had compounded its audacity by telling the Hammer it wasn’topening up for him or for any other man, that it thought munching therug was the right friggin’ thing to do, and the tasty mothervoggin’way t—Son of a gynt!Alarms by the bushel screamed, as the cockpitexploded, sparks all over the place, both control holodisplaysflickering, the stick going slack in his hand, the veteran FederatedStates Starfleet chief pilot officer unpleasantly reminded of fifteenyears ago, when the carrier he’d commanded had rammed theTrans-Utopia ten klicks above L’Enfant, resulting ina fireball that could be seen everywhere on Lamar, and almosteveryone on both ships killed. And, the same vogging political generals that hadlet his father be taken prisoner by the Naks busting him all the waydown from captain to a frickin' third class, sticking him in themothervogging JAG Corps, even though it had clearly been theirfault for lowering the training standards to the point where theAlexander’s half-witted excuse for an XO couldn’teven spell vector, much lessplot one.Doesn’t matter at present,he reminded himself, as his deadstick machine spun like atilt-a-whirl, and plummeted towards the inhospitable surface ofColorado’s Reseda Valley.Nothing to do now,he thought to himself with a sigh, except pull the magichandle. Pressing the red button on the center buckle ofhis straps as hard as he could, Rabwin floated up out of his wreckeddropship, his suit’s integral grav harness moving him away, as theSAC-81 slammed into the rocky, barren valley below. AboardASWUnbroken1,750 kilometersfrom Colorado, Isabella System05/04/70, 02:46:19 Fighters and lerfswere ripped apart by shrap, as Unbroken unleashed herfirepower against the coordinated efforts of the two supposedlyopposed political factions.Both of whom wereremarkably well-equipped, even the alleged half-assed rebels andpirates employing state of the art Mod. 4 Gato-classlong-range fighters, City Of Nations-class corvettes,Hull-class frigates, and a Cochran-class destroyer, aswell as an unending swarm of Thundercat fighters, a far cry from theancient Fletcher-class frigates and Onslow-classcorvettes that the Colorado Republican Navy had been using at thetime the civil war had broken out fifteen years ago.Before the master ofthe Unbroken could muse on that any further, Meliza shoutedout,”starcraft emerging from warpdrive, bearing plus seven-fivedegrees by zero-one-zero-one Zulu, three-zero-zero thousand klicksdownrange!”Unbroken'ssensorman added, a few moments later,”hostiles are five FlightIIIA Zumwalt-class heavy cruisers, all squawking Sixth Fleetidents.”“PM,” Steviesaid,”refresh my memory. Didn't the Marzies report Sixth Fleet lostwith all hands in this system at the beginning of the civil war?”“Attacked bypirates, Skipper,” Prue replied, while spearing one of the Zumwaltswith the graser,”according to what FSN reported, just beforeinfo of any kind stopped coming out of Colorado.”Stevie nodded herhead.“Sensors, Sparks,”she said,”upload everything to Sentinel Docks,” she said, beforetelling Prue,”Pilot Major, jump the ship.”Steviethen glanced at the readouts on her right-hand command holodisplay,making sure the ship was still travelling at least 0.01c,as the better half of herfuriously punched up calculations and commands on the navicompholodisplay underneath the fingers of her right hand, and the ship ofthe Watch.... ...shotinto warpdrive, away from Clarion and the Marzie sons of vogs nowdescending upon her surface to.... ...notgonna be like that,notthis time,the master of the Unbrokenthoughtto herself, even as the five inchers flayed open three of the foursurviving Marzie cruisers, the fifth ducking into warpdrive, Unbrokenfollowingsuit, re-entering normspace ninety million klicks from Colorado,Anayah reporting,”Weapons master reports extraction successful,Ms Johansdottir and her party are aboard DragonflyIV now,dropship heading out of atmosphere at max burn.”“Howbad off ?” Stevie found herself asking, as Prue gutted one of thetwo Coloradan destroyers, while torps turned into shrap rippingthrough a wave of hostile lerfs.Whichis a stupid question, after all, she rebuked herself. You,of all people....“...I-i'ms-sorry,“ Taylor blubbered, as she was forced to kneel on the stagein front of the other proks, an overseer standing behind her,prepared to activate the implant in her head at the slightestprovocation. “I-i am,“Taylor stuttered, body shaking, as she tried fighting what she couldnot fight,“a d-dirty pr-procreator, carnal, perverse anddepraved, who seduces others, so that I m-may trap them into becomingas filthy and degenerate as I am.“ “No,“Stevie screamed, forced to kneel and watch this,“no,you're n—“ White fireexploded in her brain, and the fifteen-year old girl heard someoneusing her voice to shriek and shout out denial, as she struggled tocrawl blindly along the littered, broken street which had once beenthe main highway to Freya's downport. She heardvoices echoing, some of them surprised as she was to see her fightingthe implant, others insisting it simply wasnot possible, it was a prok, a stinking, filthy piece ofgynt, for True God's sake, there was nopossible way it could fight something He above had createdfor its subjugation. “...I begthe forgiveness of my Masters, my Mistresses,“ Taylor continuedsobbing,“and of my Progenitor and Lord, for profaning His Creationwith the ab-b-bomination that I-i....“ ...should know just how bad Marzies can get,she finished thinking to herself.Everythingthey’re capable of.“Accordingto Rifleman Lieutenant Dawntreader, sir—“ Anayah started to say.“Bad,”Stevie finished for her.“Yes,Shipmaster,” her radioman replied softly, as Unbrokenonceagain ducked into warpdrive, re-entering normspace between a pair ofStarfleet destroyers, railguns and torps hammering both of them tillthey came apart, Prue taking them into warpdrive again, Unbrokenre-enteringnormspace inside the Colorado Highport complex, high forts andorbital weapons platforms all opening up on her, as she came upbehind her dropship.“Spoton, PM, per usual,” Stevie remarked. “Nukes, warp engine status?”“Auto-repairsystem has repaired all damage to the port warp engine,” Arielreplied. “All other damage still being worked on. Diverting allavailable warp engine power to the deflectors.”“Thankyou, Nukes,” Stevie replied, as Prue impaled a squadron of lerfswith a thirty-terajoule graser beam which vaporized their fragilehulls before punching a dripping wound through the spherical hull ofthe high fortress which had launched them.“Openinglaunch deck doors,” Prue reported,”Intercept in five, four,three, two—““Medteam to the launch deck,” Stevie said over the Link. ”I sayagain, med team to the launch deck.“—zero,”Prue said, throwing the switch which initiated the warpdrive entrysequence, the master holodisplay a blinding flash, then a shower ofblue lights gradually darkening towards indigo, violet, and black.“Dropshipsafely recovered,” Prue added unnecessarily. “Med team is on thelaunch deck, tending to Ms. Johansdottir and the others.”Theship of the Watch re-entered normspace five AU from Colorado, abluish-brown Jovian planet and its system of moons coming slowly intoview in front of them.“PilotMajor, plot a vector for Hammarskjold,” Stevie said, not relaxingfor a second. “Maintain present course and speed, stand by on theguns; all hands, remain at action stations.”“Thehard part's,” she added,”just begun.”