Three Square Meals Ch. 100

"Remember Port Medea, Mr. Ridgeway," Dacres said firmly. "We'll be showing the Kintark precisely the same amount of mercy."

The Tactical Officer nodded, his eyes narrowing with anger as he lined up the next bombardment with the Nereus' starboard batteries.

***

Prelate Khardas grinned as he watched the battle for Terra unfolding, leaning over the command table on the platform that overlooked the cruiser Jernak'tor's Bridge-pit. "I've waited for thisss moment for a long time. By Paldorosss the Unrelenting, you will be avenged thisss day, High Prelate Vraktrin!"

His joyful expression was mirrored by the toothy smile on Vorgrax the Royal Guard's face. "Agreed, Khardasss, The Terran Federation will be broken once and for all!"

They watched as the forward elements of the Kintark armada began to exchange fire with the Terran defenders. The space between the two sides became a lethal killing ground, with green plasma bolts flying in one direction, while bright amber beams blazed back in return. The Kintark forces pushed on at advance speed, closing the gap to medium range to increase the lethality of their plasma barrages.

After several minutes, the vicious firefight was starting to take its toll on both sides, but with the newly installed shields on the Kintark ships they got off far lighter in the exchange. There was an almost celebratory mood on the Jernak'tor's Bridge, even though they had not yet fired a shot. The reason for their lack of involvement in the battle was that the Jernak'tor was one of a score of cruisers, providing close escort to the repurposed Kintark dreadnought, the Vengeance of Hera. With the extended range of its weapons, it was able to sit behind friendly lines and attack the Terran forces with impunity.

The Terran battleship Aeolus had just lost its shields to a focused effort by Kintark gunners, its grey titanium hull now showing hits from insidious green plasma fire. Retro-thrusters on the bow flared as the helmsman put the battleship into full reverse, attempting to take them off the front line and allow some time for their shields to recharge. It had barely begun to move when the slug from the Hera's Singularity Drivers slammed into the prow, making the Terran capital ship quake with the strength of the impact.

A second later another round cratered the battleship's bow, armour plates shredded and blown clear by the blast. The Aeolus was little more than a sitting duck as it tried to reverse and one slug after another demolished the front of the stricken Terran warship. The bow-mounted retro-thrusters were quickly obliterated, so the helmsman attempted to turn instead, exposing the battleship's flanks to further bombardment.

"There isss no place for you to run, Terran vermin!" Prelate Khardas snarled, watching with bloodthirsty anticipation as the beleaguered battleship was hammered by the Hera.

The dreadnought's gunners kept pounding the middle of the battleship, huge impact craters turning into deep rents in its armoured flanks. Khardas could imagine the Terran vessel groaning in despair as it eventually broke apart under that relentless bombardment, the ship ripping into two separate chunks.

Vorgrax chuckled, his deep laughter echoing around the Bridge Pit. "The firssst of many, Khardasss. The Terransss must be horrified at usss usssing their mightiessst weaponsss of war againssst them! And bessst of all, their dreadnoughtsss cannot fire on our capital ssshipsss becaussse our ssshieldsss are ssstill intact!"

Khardas rasped his teeth in agreement, then glanced over to his left. "Look there, Vorgrax... The Praetorian Guard will ssshow thessse Federation weaklingsss the true meaning of terror!"

They both watched as the fearless Praetorian fleet charged headlong into the Federation forces that had shifted position to cut off their route to Terra. Rather than stopping at medium range to unleash measured salvos against the enemy, the green and gold ships continued onwards at full throttle, closing to point blank range.

The Terran forces opened up with their Laser Cannon batteries, but with the advanced shielding installed on the Kintark ships, those laser bolts made no difference whatsoever. The Terran ordnance weapons were useless until the Kintark shields went down, which meant the only guns they could use were slow-firing Beam Lasers. By contrast, the Plasma Cannon broadsides were at their most lethal when fired at such close range and within a couple of minutes that section of the map was ablaze with burning Terran ships.

"Thisss day will be remembered for millennia," Khardas gloated, watching the carnage with glee.

***

"All Claymore wings set course to 270. Proceed at max speed to designated coordinates. Urgent support needed."

Murphy studied at the Tactical Map as he listened to Lieutenant Commander Castelo's honeyed voice. He'd found that voice enchanting not so long ago, but now he knew she was a herald of destruction, sending him heedlessly into the maelstrom of battle. The Tactical Map displayed two almost solid blocks of red and green, tracking the Kintark and Terran ships-of-the-line squaring off against one another and exchanging broadsides. His theatre of war was to be the end of that battleline, where the reserves had been deployed to stop a Kintark breakthrough.

"Alright everyone, you heard the lady," he called out to his wingmates. "Keep your eyes peeled for roving fighter wings."

He banked a hard left and shoved the throttle forward, the insane thrust from the Trankaran engines pushing him back into his cushioned seat. A glance at the proximity grid showed the four Claymores in his wing forming up into a neat V shape as they barrelled down the back of the Terran line. They were the frontrunners, with the rest of the Claymore reserve squadron turning and following in their wake as they responded to the call for help.

Murphy got a good glimpse of the battle as he raced along, watching burning Terran cruisers and battleships pulling back from the front lines to regenerate their shields. It was like those sickly green fires were a contagious disease, spreading from one afflicted spacecraft to the next. Some of those vessels had succumbed to the deadly plague, with noxious verdant flames burning out of control in the wreck of one battlecruiser.

Seeing those dancing fires consuming the battered hulk, he had a sudden flashback... Romeo's Rapier licked by flames, his wingmate screaming for help as he was consumed by the conflagration. Murphy shut his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to steady his racing heartbeat as those agonised cries echoed in his mind.

"Target sighted, Leprechaun!" Baker called out, his voice bringing Murphy back to the fight. "Kintark wing harassing friendlies!"

There was a beep on the proximity grid and Murphy's eyes were drawn to Baker's target, seven ships highlighted in the deadly melee. Three Rapiers were frantically dodging the four Kintark heavy fighters on their tail, a storm of plasma bolts remorselessly following their every weave and turn. Before Murphy could say a word, one of the Terran fighters was caught by that vicious hail, and the Rapier ignited in a green explosion as it was blown apart.

"Gator, we're taking that first wing," he said curtly, desperately trying to distract himself from the memories that were haunting the edge of consciousness.

"Happy hunting, Leprechaun," Captain Lewis replied. "All wings disperse and free fire. Those boys need our help!"

Murphy tapped an icon representing each of his wingmates, then allocated them targets from the Kintark wing. Lincoln and Baker weren't as accurate as Halifax and Abbott, so he assigned them both to the rearmost Kintark. The Claymores were twice as fast as any fighters the Kintark possessed, so when the two fleeing Rapiers ended up flying directly away from their salvation, his wing were still able to quickly close the gap on the pursuing aliens.

The Kintark were too absorbed in the chase to pay much heed to any incoming threats, so Murphy was able to line up his shot and pull the trigger, without any wild jinking from the enemy to throw off his aim. The three Gatling Lasers built into each wing of his Claymore span up into a furious whir, then spat a stream of laser bolts into the rear of the green Batakos fighter.

Expecting those bright orange laser bolts to tear up the Kintark's armoured hull, Murphy was shocked to see a rippling series of circles sending waves over a faint green dome. "Those bastards are shielded!" he warned his wingmates, while holding down the trigger.

He heard a simultaneous curse from Baker and saw that the young Lieutenant had opened fire with his Gauss Cannon. The slug bounced harmlessly off the shielded heavy fighter, leaving it completely unscathed. Murphy's own target had finally reacted to being lit up with laser fire, but not before its shields went down with a pop. He murmured a silent prayer of thanks to the techs that had fitted the upgraded heatsinks in his highly-modified gunship, knowing how much harder his Gatling Lasers were hitting with all that extra power pumped into them.

Halifax's youthful but confident voice filled the airwaves. "It takes four seconds of sustained fire to strip their shields!"

Wanting to end the Kintark's pursuit of the Terran Rapiers as fast as possible, Murphy hit the thumb button on his flightstick. The Claymore shuddered as the Gauss Cannon built into the fuselage opened up, hurling a hyper-accelerated slug into the Kintark fighter. The round had enough armour penetration to be able to punch through a destroyer's armour plating, so the effect it had on the heavy fighter was catastrophic. The slug ploughed straight through the fighter, shattering the power core and obliterating the Kintark ship.

He checked the proximity grid looking for new targets, but his wingmates had eviscerated the rest of the wing, leaving the Rapiers free and clear. "Nice shooting," he said quietly, turning the nose of his Claymore towards the chaotic mass of red and green dots. "Follow me in."

The Kintark and Terran capital ships were involved in a brutal knife-fight, the kilometre-long vessels pounding away at each other from point-blank range. Murphy was a fighter pilot and had never crewed one of those big ships, but he could tell at a glance how badly that fight was going for the Terran forces. The green and gold Kintark battleships had spearheaded a charge right into the middle of the Terran formation and their broad-barrelled Plasma Cannons were sending salvo after salvo of sizzling plasma bolts into the Federation capital ships.

The Claymores raced into the midst of that anarchic fight, pulling up to avoid a burning Terran heavy cruiser, then swooping below the trio of Kintark cruisers that were savaging it with plasma barrages. There was no time to allocate targets to his wingmen now and he simply picked the first Kintark fighter that crossed his path. Gently squeezing the trigger, the Claymore's six Gatling Lasers sent a whirring stream of laser bolts into the rear of the green fighter. Counting to four in his head, he saw its shields shiver and pop as they were overwhelmed, orange laser fire ripping into the iridescent green armour plating.

The heavy fighter tried some frantic evasive manoeuvres, but no matter how much the Kintark pilot tried to throw him off, he was able easily stay on its tail. Murphy had to yank back hard on the throttle to avoid overshooting his target, then tapped the button to execute the heavy fighter with a well-aimed Gauss Cannon round. The slug hit the front of the Kintark's fuselage at an oblique angle, sundering the cockpit and sucking the pilot out into space.

"Leprechaun! Watch out!"

He jumped at Lincoln's strangled cry of panic, the warning followed a second later by a grating alarm as his shields were knocked out by plasma fire. Reacting purely on instinct, he slammed the throttle forward and banked right with the flightstick, his Claymore blasting forward like a bullet from a gun.

"Still on your six, keep dodging!" Abbott yelled.

Murphy dipped the Claymore's nose and roared towards a Kintark cruiser, before pulling up at the last second, and performing a smooth loop around its angular hull. He jinked around a fire-control tower then risked a glance at the proximity grid. "I can't see him!"

Baker's laughter echoed around his cockpit. "I'm not surprised! Both of them are back here... in a million pieces!"

Blowing out his breath, Murphy glanced at his Claymore's damage status and saw that his right wing had been clipped, but he wasn't on fire and no subsystems had been damaged.

"We're forming up on you," Halifax said, sounding as relieved as Murphy felt.

"Thanks guys," he said quietly, knowing that the four rookie pilots had just saved his life.

There were murmurs of acknowledgement and when he glanced at their holographic portraits, he could see the pride in their eyes.

Murphy pulled around in a gentle arc, giving his wingmen a chance to catch up to him as he looked for more targets. He spotted a fresh quartet of Kintark heavy fighters, which were making a beeline for an unsuspecting Rapier wing that had just launched from a heavy carrier. Raising the nose of his Claymore, he levelled off on a course that would let him intercept the Kintark before they could ambush the Terran ships.

"Why aren't they stopping them?!" Abbott blurted out, her distress and bewilderment quite apparent.

"Their Rapiers are severely outclassed," Murphy replied, feeling a mixture of relief and guilt that he'd been chosen to pilot a Claymore instead of one of the older Rapiers.

"No not the Kintark fighters, those transports!" Abbott insisted.

Murphy's eyes snapped to the Tactical Map and he watched in horror as the enormous formation of Kintark heavy troop transports and a squadron of battlecarriers skirted the chaotic melee. The Terran reserve force were fighting for their lives and weren't able to untangle themselves from the battle, leaving the Kintark invasion fleet to sail past unopposed.

After Nexus had ransacked the defences around the Homeworld, two new battle-stations were being constructed as replacements, but were still only half-built. That meant that Terra only had hastily constructed defensive turrets in place to protect it from marauders. The three colossal Kintark battlecarriers were at the forefront of the invasion fleet and they opened up with their banks of Plasma Cannons, sending wave after wave of plasma bolts at the Beam Laser emplacements. By the time the transports would have been within range, the Kintark capital ships had scoured away all trace of the turrets in a series of huge explosions.

There was nothing left to stand in the way of the Kintark Empire's invasion of Terra...

***

Like every other person in Olympus Command Centre, Admiral Charles Harris was watching the Tactical Map with hushed anticipation. Dacres fleet was nearing the shipyard, with the Kintark still doggedly pursuing them but doing so at a tremendous cost. The Terran forces had hammered the hapless alien ships with one thunderous broadside after another, forcing them to pay a bloody price for every kilometre they flew closer to Olympus.

The Praetorian Guard fleet that had originally jumped into the Alpha Centauri system had originally been comprised of 25 destroyers, 60 cruisers, 26 battleships, a battlecarrier and 6 carriers. After the mauling they'd taken on their approach, 10 of those proud battleships had been reduced to broken shells, while another 28 of the cruisers and all of the destroyers had been vaporised.

The Kintark carrier group had launched wave after wave of fighters in an attempt to establish strike craft supremacy, so that they could send in the bomber wings. However, Olympus' own strike craft squadrons had been waiting for them, flying protective watch over Dacres retreating fleet. Amongst that group were 40 of the new Claymore fighters and the Kintark pilots had been given a sharp lesson in just how powerful those state-of-the-art ships were.

Considering the horrific losses that the Kintark had sustained, it was a minor miracle that the Terran defence fleet hadn't yet lost a single ship. However almost all of the ten battleships and twenty cruisers had lost their shields, leaving them terribly vulnerable to losses if they continued the firefight. Several of the ships hulls were blacked by plasma burns, where the Kintark plasma bolts had eventually managed to land on their elusive targets.

"Alright Dacres, get your ships clear," Charles said, turning his attention to the comms interface. "Recharge your shields as best you can."

"Will do, Admiral," he replied, before turning to look away from the holo-screen. "Full power to engines, divert energy from weapons to shields!"

Charles watched as the Terran fleet rushed away to safety, no longer slowing their speed with the maddening weaving that they'd been using to such great effect. Unfortunately, that left Olympus Shipyard alone as it faced the wrath of the furious Kintark warfleet.

"Hit them with everything we've got, Commodore," Charles said, nodding at the lean officer standing at his side.

Commodore Ming launched into action, issuing a series of curt orders to the Tactical Officers manning Olympus' guns. "Open fire with Arbiter Laser batteries! Beam Lasers and Heavy Cannons fire as soon as they're in range. Prep Missiles and Torpedoes for my go!"

There were fourteen of the 50-metre-long Arbiter Lasers built into the station; they'd been given that nickname because they were big and frightening enough to settle all disputes. The massive weapons were normally sunk into a planet and used for orbital defence, but Olympus was more than large enough to house them. Eight of those colossal energy weapons were now facing the Kintark fleet, the lizardmen ships charging headlong into their fire arcs.

Charles watched as blazing amber columns of energy lashed out, stripping the last of the shields from two more Kintark battleships, then leaving ugly melted scars across their bows. The Kintark kept coming, desperately eager to finally get a chance to return fire at a stationary foe. It seemed like almost every ship in their fleet unloaded on Olympus, but the battlestation's shields were incredibly strong, with vast generators built into the station to protect it from hostile marauders. The hail of plasma bolts punched into the shield, making the enormous protective dome ripple with scores of impacts like raindrops falling on a pond. Although every plasma bolt struck their target, the Kintark were still firing at maximum range, so while it looked impressive the shield strength was barely dented.

"Shields at 95%, Sir!" the Chief Engineer called out.

Acknowledging the man with a nod, Charles watched as Olympus' Beam Laser arrays and Heavy Cannon batteries opened fire. The laser gunners were focusing on stripping shields from the Kintark ships with those energy lances, exposing even more targets to the fury of the station's wide-bore cannons. Explosions blossomed across the hulls of the two battleships that had just lost their shields, the Kintark capital ships almost obliterated from sight by the ferocious might of that fusillade.

The first took a critical hit to a plasma battery, triggering a virulent green explosion that engulfed the front of the battleship in flames. The second was left horrifically battered, almost the first third of the capital ship blown to pieces by the savage bombardment. It shuddered with the impacts of over thirty high-powered shells, the repeated explosions from those detonations knocking it off course, and leaving it listing forlornly as power outages caused the lights and systems to flicker on and off.

The Terran forces around Olympus had opened the battle with devastating and astonishing success, but Charles knew the next twenty minutes were probably going to be the longest in his life...