Three Square Meals Ch. 100

Broadcasting on the battle group interface, he barked, "All carriersss, launch bomber wingsss! It'sss time to finisssh thisss."

There was a buzz of activity, as the High Prelates commanding the carrier and battlecarrier fleets rushed to follow his orders. He knew it wouldn't take long and hordes of bombers would start flooding the battlefield, able to strike with impunity at the Terran capital ships. The bloodbath in the Dragon March had proven just how vulnerable the Terran forces were to the Kintark's shielded bombers, and just like before, there were barely any fighters left to stop them.

He darted a worried glance at the golden Maliri fleet that had made a dramatic and completely unexpected appearance. Melkadian wasn't sure how or why they were in the Sol System, but he was fairly sure it was to do with John Blake. He'd heard vague rumours from his extensive network of spies that the Lion of the Federation might have allies amongst the Maliri, but to actually see them leave their precious territory was a shock. The thought that the Maliri border with the Kintark empire was defended by nothing more than a bunch of freighters sporting falsified transponder readings hardly gave him any reassurance. In fact, with every Kintark fleet emptied from the Empire to attack the Terrans, the Maliri could waltz unopposed all the way up to Kinta.

Pushing that disturbing thought aside as he studied the System Map, Melkadian spotted a distinctive white battlecruiser racing towards the battle. Travelling at over four times the speed a ship of its size should be capable of, he was under no doubt who it belonged to. John Blake's ship was heading directly towards the battle lines, but two smaller vessels launched from the Invictus, each peeling away and heading directly for Terra itself.

There wasn't much he could do about the smaller vessels, but they were hardly a threat. The Invictus was a far more worrying prospect... or at least it would be if the Emperor had not taken precautions against the Lion making an appearance; very sensible ones so it seemed.

"Transmit the code!" he snarled at the Chief Engineer, who looked subdued, but reluctantly nodded as he pressed a series of buttons on his console.

Melkadian allowed himself a sinister smile in triumph as he watched the Invictus rushing towards its own demise. It took several seconds for the transmission to take effect, but the battlecruiser's status on the map immediately changed when it did. The Grand Prelate laughed in delight as the Invictus' shields deactivated, the cut-off the Brimorians had sensibly included in their Shield Generators working exactly as intended...

***

John hit the button beside the rear ramp, the whine of hydraulics filling the loading area. The door swung down, giving him a spectacular view of the battle, as hundreds of huge spacecraft fired lethal broadsides at each other. Lurid blue energy beams caught his eye, drawing his attention to the location of Lilyana's fleet. Those brilliant shafts of energy were followed by amber-hued explosions, marking the destruction of Kintark ships to Maliri guns.

*The Invictus just lost shields, but Dana's bypass worked perfectly. We're bringing them back up now,* Jade informed him, not sounding surprised in the slightest. *It looks like your hunch was right, the Brimorians did give the deactivation code to the Kintark.*

*Something else I need to have a little chat with Deep Lord Athgiloi about,* John said, sharing a glance with Alyssa.

She rolled her eyes and smirked. *Our list of badguys who desperately need killing keeps on growing, doesn't it?*

*Let's see if we can trim the list down a bit today,* he replied, performing a final check on his Quantum rifle before shouldering the weapon.

Alyssa winked at him, then copied that same sequence of checks on her own rifle. It felt like second nature to her after all the fighting over the last six months.

Dana stepped away from her hug with Rachel, then watched the blonde as she readied her bullpup weapon. "Why didn't you grab a Reaper Cannon instead?" she asked in confusion. "There's a huge difference in firepower."

"I wanted to keep a hand free for psychic abilities," Alyssa explained, hefting the Quantum rifle in one hand and waving the other in front of the redhead's face.

"Why not have two hands free?" Dana replied, glancing at the Reaper Cannon that floated beside her, then rapping Alyssa's clear-crystal faceplate with the knuckles from both hands.

Alyssa laughed and nodded. "Alright, you make a good point. Wanna trade?"

The redhead pouted and reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, I guess. I suppose I don't really need it where I'm going."

As the two Karron girls swapped weapons, Tashana twirled her Reaper pistols around her trigger fingers. "How much more powerful are my guns now they've got Eternity Crystals in them?"

"They'll hit about 30% harder, same as the Reaper Cannons," Dana replied, slipping her arm through the shoulder strap of Alyssa's Quantum rifle. "I could pump even more power in, but the barrels can't take the stress."

"Nice!" the Maliri girl exclaimed, a broad grin on her face.

Rachel smiled at her girlfriend as she locked the Reaper Cannon to her Paragon suit. "You really do give me the nicest gifts, sweetheart."

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that one," Dana said with a smirk.

Faye flickered into view, her holographic wings fluttering nervously. "We'll be reaching drop height in ten seconds, John."

He nodded, then placed a hand on Dana's shoulder and stared intently into her sky-blue eyes. "I can't believe I'm even letting you try your crazy plan. If you have any last-minute doubts, I want you to call it off, alright? You know how important you are to me, I don't want you taking any big risks..."

"You worry too much, I'll be fine!" Dana replied with an enthusiastic grin. When she realised her exuberance wasn't doing anything to reassure him, her face turned serious. "I've checked all the calculations over and over again. Trust me, it'll work."

John gave her one last look, then nodded and turned away. "Take care of her, Faye."

"You can count on me, I won't let you down," she replied, her cute elfin face uncharacteristically sombre.

He pulled Tashana and Rachel into a hug, with Alyssa mirroring him so they were drawn into a four-way scrum. "Follow me down and stick together when we reach the landing site. From what we've seen on the video footage, the Citadel forces are in big trouble. It's going to be pretty desperate down there."

The three girls nodded as they listened attentively, and when he looked at their beautiful faces, he saw absolute trust in their unwavering gaze. Even though they were about to perform an orbital drop into a warzone, there wasn't a trace of doubt in any of their eyes. That level of devotion was humbling and he was determined not to let them down.

"Love you all," he said as they broke the huddle.

The girls echoed his words, then turned and stood beside him at the rear loading ramp, gazing out at Terra. The atmospheric haze on the planet's horizon was a soft turquoise, adding a certain enchanting mystique to the beautiful blue and green planet below. John admired the view for a second, then took a deep breath and leapt out of the gunship, beginning the fifty mile drop to the surface.

***

Melkadian gaped at the icon next to the holographic depiction of the Invictus, his triumphant grin instantly wiped from his face when he saw it flash from red to green. He'd watched with glee as the Brimorian's secret transmission code had knocked out the white battlecruiser's shields, but then they powered up again only seconds later. Now the Invictus was charging towards the Kintark forces with a full set of upgraded Brimorian shields of their own.

How could John Blake have known?! Was it possible that the Brimorians had betrayed the Kintark, only paying lip-service to the fine print of their agreement? With those disturbing thoughts rushing into his mind, he began to severely doubt the wisdom in leaving the Kintark border with the Brimorian Enclave so exposed. The fleets that had once defended that stretch of space had all been stripped away and press-ganged into service with this armada.

He watched the Invictus rushing towards the battle lines and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help remembering High Prelate Tekarin's warning... The Lion was coming after him next...

***

The Claymore banked hard to the right, narrowly avoiding the lacerated carcass of a Kintark bomber as it spun helplessly out of control. The Kintark ship smashed into the burning shell of a Terran destroyer, the explosion triggering its payload of torpedoes and obliterating the wreckage in a huge blastwave. By that time Murphy was well clear, lining up his crosshairs on the next bomber in the wing. This was the eighth he'd destroyed so far, but there were so many more lumbering after the Terran capital ships...

"Leprechaun, the heavy fighters chasing me have given up! They're hanging back to protect the bombers," Lincoln warned him. "These strafing runs won't work much longer..."

For the past five minutes, Murphy's wing had been performing full-speed attack runs against the enemy bombers, leading the Kintark fighters on a merry dance as they did so. The Batakos-class heavy fighters were barely half as fast as the Claymore gunships, so he and his wingmen had been able to pick off bombers while basically ignoring their fighter cover. The bombers had twin Heavy Plasma Guns in a rear-mounted turret, but as his wing were hitting them head-on or from the flanks, the bombers might as well have been completely defenceless.

"The fighters will probably try to go head-to-head when we get close to the bombers," Murphy replied, watching as the fighters chasing him peeled off to shadow a bomber wing. "Concentrate on evasive manoeuvres until you fly past the fighter cover, then hit the bombers with everything you've got for the last couple of seconds."

"Affirmative!" his wing called out, the four young faces tense with concentration.

"Oh fuck!" Baker suddenly gasped, his eyes going wide with fright. "Check heading 270! We've got a shitload of incoming fighters!"

Murphy's eyes snapped to the proximity grid and he saw at least fifty more fighters heading towards their dogfight. While the Zeus' Claymores had been inflicting horrendous casualties on the Kintark strike craft, the rest of the armada was not so fortunate. They'd been relying solely on Rapiers and from what he'd seen from his glances at the Tactical Map, the Terran fighters had been swept clear from the battlefield. Presumably Kintark Fighter Command had redirected this wave of fighters to help protect the bombers from the Claymores' depredations.

As he stared in shock at the incoming squadron of fighters, he spotted a wing of three Claymores chasing after a pair of bombers, orange bursts of laser fire striking the rear of the Kintark ships. The Claymore pilots were so intent on their target they hadn't spotted the deadly threat racing towards them.

Stabbing a button down on the comms interface, Murphy yelled, "Whiskey, look out! Fighters at 9 o'clock low!"

"Oh fuck me!" Whiskey gasped, his scratchy voice riven with fear.

Over a dozen Kintark fighters opened fire on the trio of unsuspecting Claymores, Whiskey's two wingmen blown to pieces in a hail of plasma bolts. Whiskey tried to escape the ambush by cranking his engines up to maximum, but there were too many incoming shots. His shields went down almost instantly and one of the gunship's engines was blown to bits in a huge fireball. Spinning wildly, Whiskey's Claymore slammed into one of the bombers he'd been pursuing and both craft just disintegrated, grey and green armour plating ripped apart with the impact.

Murphy fought against the crashing wave of grief, the loss of Whiskey bringing back awful memories of losing Angel, Romeo, and Snakebite. He knew he needed to keep it together for the sake of his wingmates, so he buried his pain, leaving him feeling numb. He stared at the squadron of approaching Kintark fighters; there were just so many of them... They couldn't fight upwards of fifteen-to-one odds and hope to survive, but the retreating dreadnought was counting on him and his men. If he let the bombers through, the Odin would be at their mercy... He knew that tens-of-thousands of Terran lives hung in the balance and with sudden clarity he realised he had no choice.

It would be a noble death, but he'd resigned himself to that fate when he saw the odds stacked against them in this battle. He'd give his wingmen the option to stay and fight; he couldn't order them to just throw their lives away, but in his heart, he knew they'd all choose to stay and fall at his side. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and blinked away the tears... this would be the hardest order he'd ever had to give.

Murphy opened his mouth to speak and a searing blue flash suddenly lit up his cockpit, making him wince against the glare. After that initial blast there were several more, the staccato azure pulses making him wonder what the hell was going on. As the blue lines seared across his retinas began to fade, he twisted urgently in his seat to find the source of those beams. Explosion after explosion distracted him, until he spotted streams of blue laser bolts carving their way through the Kintark fighters. His heart in his mouth, he followed those lines back to their source and had to restrain himself from whooping with joy when he saw the glistening white Raptor gunship. He watched it tearing through the Kintark reinforcements, the lioness appearing like a heaven-sent angel in his time of greatest need.

A crackle on the comms interface drew his attention and his heart skipped a beat, hardly believing that he'd finally get a chance to speak with Jade. It came as a shock when it wasn't the verdant beauty who had contacted him, but a man wearing an Admiral's uniform.

"Claymore wing, I order you to open fire on that Raptor gunship!" Admiral Weber yelled, the panic in his eyes undermining the authority he was trying to project in his voice.

"That girl just saved our lives!" Murphy balked, staring at the senior officer in disbelief. "You can't be serious?!"

Weber glared at him, his panic forgotten in his fury. "Blake and his lionesses are all traitors! I'm ordering you to shoot down that gunship!"

Murphy rubbed his eyebrow with his extended middle finger. "Sorry, Admiral... your signal's breaking up. I'm afraid I didn't catch that last order..."

He used that same finger to press the button to end the call, Weber's shocked face disappearing from the holo-interface. Glancing at his wingmen, he saw Baker smirking, while the rest just nodded their approval. Trying not to smile, he activated the comms interface and hailed the gunship, eager to thank their saviour. Instead of Jade's enchanting face, he was surprised when his call was answered by a stunning blue-eyed redhead. He knew she was called Dana, he'd heard her name mentioned plenty of times when his fellow pilots were discussing who was the hottest lioness.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Ryan Murphy," he faltered, mesmerised by her enchanting eyes. Finding his voice, he continued gratefully, "Thanks for saving us from those fighters."

"No problem!" Dana replied, her dazzling smile somehow getting wider. "We were just passing through and thought we'd lend a hand."

"Can you help us with the bombers?" he requested, glancing at the Tactical Map. "There's too many for us to take alone."

Her beautiful face fell and she slowly shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Ryan... we can't. We're needed elsewhere." She gave him a look of regret as she waved goodbye. "Good luck..."

He watched in shock as she ended the call and the white gunship rocketed off into space, heading away from Terra and the frantic battle.

***

The Invictus charged towards the Kintark forces, making a beeline for Admiral Ramos' besieged battle group, which was being attacked from three different directions. Calara carefully studied the intense firefight, her expression fraught with worry.

Irillith's eyes were shining with a bright violet glow as she murmured, "I've hacked the T-Fed Secure Tactical Network... you're all set."

"Excellent, thank you," Calara replied with a grateful nod, although she was unsure if Irillith could see her while the Maliri hacker was focused on Cyber-Space. Turning to Faye, she said, "Okay, patch me in."

Faye made the connection and a couple of seconds later, a row of Admirals appeared in the Battle Group interface, their name and ship listed below each image. The row of shocked faces gaped at Calara in astonishment; all of them recognised her Paragon-suit and knew exactly who she was.

"This is Lioness Calara Fernandez, I will now be assuming Tactical Command of this battle," the Latina informed them brusquely.

Admiral Weber recovered first and snarled, "How dare you speak to your superior officers like that, Commander Fernandez! As if I'd take orders from a filthy alien-loving whore!"

Her eyes narrowed in fury as she snapped. "Superior? Don't make me laugh! You're facing the most humiliating defeat in Terran Federation history! If you'd asked John and me for help, we could have smashed the Kintark and taken less than 10% casualties!" She gritted her teeth to control her anger at the needless loss of life, then looked at the rest of the stunned Admirals. "Weber's on his own. If any of the rest of you object to me saving your lives, please let me know now; It'll make coordinating our forces considerably easier..."

Her request was met by nervous silence, with the Admirals darting wary glances at one another, then focusing on Admiral Caldwell as if waiting to follow his lead.

Caldwell was quiet too, his eyes darting to the Tactical Map. He watched the Maliri ruthlessly stripping shields from the Kintark forces, leaving them vulnerable to the vengeful Terran fleet they were supporting. "Are the Maliri with you? Lilyana said they were doing a favour for John..."

"John's gone to Terra to confront the Emperor. I'll be providing Tactical Oversight for the Maliri forces in this battle," Calara replied, trying to rein in her impatience. "The clock's ticking Admiral Caldwell... every second you delay, the more ships and crew you lose."

He nodded to himself as he made his decision. "What are your orders, Lioness?"

"You can't be serious?!" Weber balked, eyes widening in disbelief. "She's a fucking traitor, just like Blake!"

Calara ignored his outburst and said calmly, "All battle groups, full retreat to the orbital defences around Saturn."

Weber sneered at her, his tone mocking as he said, "That's your big plan? To run away?"

Caldwell glowered at him and interrupted, "You already are, Carl! If you'd actually supported Mishra, she'd still be alive!"

Flushing red with embarrassment, Weber blustered, "I-I was just regrouping my forces!"

As if talking to a petulant child, Calara explained, "By temporarily withdrawing, you'll draw all the Kintark forces together to pursue you. With the Kintark capital ships clustered into tighter formations, our Nova Lances will be far more devastating. In any case, you're currently in severe danger of encirclement. If you continue as you are, in ten minutes your battleships will be overrun by bomber wings and Kintark cruisers will be hunting your carrier fleets."

Caldwell faced the Terran Admirals and said firmly, "Do as she says. All forces full retreat."

"Thank you, Admiral," Calara said, the tension easing in her shoulders. "Prepare yourselves to launch our counter-offensive on my mark."

Weber looked furious and started ranting, "Have you all taken leave of your senses?! I can't believe you're actually going to listen-"