Three Square Meals Ch. 068

The Latina's head whirled around to take another look at the Tactical Map, while muttering, "That's impossible, changing formations at the last moment would be-." She suddenly looked aghast, as she cried out, "No! That's insane!"

"What is it?!" John asked her, alarmed by her look of stunned disbelief.

"They just sent a battlegroup after Lynton! If they continue their counterassault against the Kintark now, the remaining battlegroup will get slaughtered," she gasped, staring at John in dumbfounded horror. "They've just thrown away their best chance at victory!"

***

High Prelate Zorlin nodded with satisfaction as the Kintark capital ships under his command increased their speed, closing the distance with the enemy. The first wave of fighters had cleared his battlecarrier, the Breklan'tohok, and after assembling into their formations, they began their attack run on the Terran's protective screen of fighters. His decision to bring most of the Empire's carrier fleet to this engagement should prove decisive, giving his forces overwhelming numerical superiority. Eliminating the Terran fighter screen and establishing strike craft supremacy was the first, and most critical step, in his plan to bring an end to the Terran menace.

The Kintark heavy fighters favoured a staggered four-ship attack wing, resembling the clawed hands of their elite pilots. They were using the latest design of heavy fighters, with two pairs of Heavy Plasma Guns built into each wing of the ferocious-looking strike craft. The asymmetrical clusters of ships raced away, their shimmering green armour looking resplendent as they reflected the shining light from Regulus' four suns.

The fighters on both sides were much faster than the bigger ships following in their wake, and the seething swarms of strike craft raced headlong towards each other in the centre of the map. Those carefully structured formations broke apart as the two forces crashed into each other, attack wings breaking away as they fought a deadly battle for dominance in the cold arena of the Alpha-Leonis system.

He found it fascinating to study the Tactical Map, watching as hundreds of individual battles played out before his eyes, lives hanging by a thread before being cut brutally short. He knew that while icons simply blinked out of existence on the map before him, out in space, the reality of that battle was far more terrifying.

Tearing his eyes from the intense dogfight, he watched the ships in Grakira's group close from below the Terran capital ships. They were like the jaws of a vice being clamped closed, with the Terrans about to be crushed within.

As the two forces closed the distance, the plasma fire from the Kintark Cannons struck harder, the glowing green bolts having less time to lose cohesion. Unfortunately, the Terran ships were more accurate with their answering barrages, and many more of the orange laser beams were slashing into his ships. Red icons began to flash against the holographic icons representing the lead cruiser group, depicting the damage the ships were taking. He saw the Genash'tor, the Barrack'tor and the Aranan'tor flash red as their shields were overwhelmed.

This allowed the mass of Terran Heavy Cannons to be brought to bear, and they took a terrible toll on the three unfortunate cruisers. He watched as the computer dispassionately displayed chunks of armour being blasted away from their hulls, explosions ripping through armour and causing catastrophic damage to the doomed vessels. Each one was crewed by over two-hundred Kintark personnel, and the loss of so many valiant comrades dug at his heart.

"The consssequencesss of the politiciansss' failure," he muttered under his breath. "Ever paid, in the blood of good sssoldiersss..."

Zorlin let out a sigh of regret, resigning himself to the terrible slaughter he was about to unleash. "Launch the bombersss," he ordered Merklan, the Prelate coordinating strike craft operations from down in the Bridge Pit.

***

Gabrielle Lynton watched gleefully as Santini's battlegroup approached, his ships bearing down on her position with engines set to full power. This was turning out even better than she'd hoped, and she could barely restrain herself from clapping her hands in delight. The Kintark forces were embroiled in a bloody clash with the Terran ships under Buckingham, and she knew the death toll from such a cataclysmic battle would be horrific for both sides.

"Admiral..." Commander Nichols said cautiously, drawing her attention from the Tactical Map.

"What is it, Stephan?" she asked him, reluctantly pulling her eyes away from Santini's dreadnought.

He sounded worried as he replied, "Our dreadnought is a match for Santini's, but his battlegroup outnumbers our forces. Are we going to withdraw? Lead him away from the battlezone?"

Gabrielle laughed, feeling giddy with excitement as she replied, "Oh no, Commander. I have a little surprise for the short-tempered Admiral Santini."

"A surprise?" he asked her, sounding hopeful and anxious in equal measure.

Turning away from her XO, she enjoyed the look of confusion on his face as she declined to elaborate. Looking at her Gunnery Chief instead, she said, "Power up the Singularity Drivers, Commander Geroux, and prepare to fire on my mark."

The sombre looking officer frowned, and replied, "But Admiral, the Sword of Sif is still fully shielded, we can't-."

Gabrielle waved a hand sharply, cutting him off, and said, "Prepare the main guns, Gunnery Chief."

He nodded obediently, turning to the weapon controls arrayed around him at his position, and began feeding power into the massive weapons. Geroux only glanced back at Admiral Lynton once, before her disapproving frown made him concentrate fully on his orders.

Deep within the upper deck of the colossal intergalactic titan, twin reactors thrummed with power as they were engaged in anger for the first time. Huge amounts of power were fed into the chamber at the rear of the singularity drivers, flooding the system with the energy to perform its deadly function. An intricate sphere twenty-metres-wide began to rotate, spinning faster as the Tyrenium lattice focused the enormous surge of power towards its centre. A black speck appeared, growing larger as the Singularity Generator went to work.

It had taken just over four months for the Karron miners to carefully excavate the Tyrenium from Seb Mortimer's mine. It was an exceedingly rare and unstable ore, and they'd had to forego the bore-hole machines and explosives they normally used, slowing down extraction considerably. John had bought ten tonnes of ore for a ludicrously cheap price, taking full advantage of Seb Mortimer's ignorance, the man having little idea of its true worth.

From there, it had taken another month for John to haul the priceless cargo back to the Olympus Shipyard in his freighter, the Fool's Gold. The ore had been eagerly purchased by Vice-Admiral Charles Harris on the orders of Admiral Cartwright, as they tried to fulfil the requirements of the massive shipbuilding program ordered by Terran Federation High Command.

While John had sailed away in an old, decommissioned assault cruiser, which he'd purchased for a bargain price, the Terran Federation engineers had immediately gone to work. The Tyrenium ore was shipped to a special secured refinery at the shipyard, where it had been meticulously processed to remove impurities. The metal was then forged into the globe in the centre of the Singularity Generator, which was now spinning faster than the eye could see. At its heart, a black void had formed and stabilised, barely held in check by the mighty gravitic forces harnessed in that ominous chamber.

"We have achieved a stable singularity, Admiral," Commander Geroux stated, his eyes darting to several monitors and checking energy readings and gravity flows.

"Get ready to fire on my command," Gabrielle said, holding her breath now as she stared at the unsuspecting dreadnought steaming directly towards her.

*We shall intervene momentarily. Prepare yourself, Gabrielle,* a firm female voice commanded, echoing eerily as it reverberated through her mind. The voice belonged to Ailanthia, her Master's Matriarch.

High above Lynton's dreadnought, a vast black shape loomed. Haunting the Regulus system like an ominous spectre, the enormous vessel seemed to observe the petty struggles of the mortals below with disdain. It was just possible to make out its sinister profile by looking directly at it, and noting an absence of flickering stars, as its form blended in with the pitiless darkness of space.

As if summoned from the ether, a purple maelstrom of immense power began to coalesce off the starboard bow, growing in strength by the second. Flickering violet lightning surged around that terrifying, otherworldly vortex, until it reached the apex of its strength, and was blasted outwards. The purple beam throbbed as its terrible power was unleashed, the column of seething energies striking the unknowing dreadnought amidships.

The shields on the dreadnought flexed inwards, their Terran creators never imagining in their worst nightmare that they'd have to withstand firepower of this blazing intensity. Sickly purple rings pulsed out from that point of impact, and then the shield was gone, obliterated in seconds by technology far beyond their ken. The beam plunged down, shearing through the vast armoured barrels of the dreadnought's Singularity drivers, and neatly dismembering its most potent weapons of war. The resulting explosions knocked the dreadnought sideways, sending it veering off to starboard.

"OPEN FIRE!" Gabrielle screamed, revelling in her moment of triumph.

***

"Oh my God..." Commander Garfield whispered, his eyes widening as he stared at the critically vulnerable dreadnought. Turning to face his Commanding Officer, his face was ghostly pale as he gasped, "Admiral, it's the Sword of Sif... They just lost all shields!"

Admiral Caldwell turned to glance at his Chief Engineer, and frowned as he replied, "That's not possible. They haven't even engaged Lynton's forces yet."

"Look for yourself!" the shocked engineer cried, pointing frantically at the holographic Tactical Map. "Something just knocked out all their shields in one goddamn hit! The energy spike was off the scale!"

Edwin was about to chastise his Chief Engineer for abandoning all sense of decorum, but Commander Garfield was a grounded officer, sensible and dependable. It was massively out of character for the man to be so distraught, so he held his tongue instead and stared at the Tactical Map. His jaw dropped as he stared at Santini's flagship. The dreadnought had not only lost all its shields, but its primary guns had been disabled too.

"What the hell?!" he murmured, gaping at the stricken vessel in disbelief. Santini's ship was grievously wounded, and he hadn't actually engaged any enemies yet.

Suddenly a savage explosion lit up the map, and the dreadnought appeared to tremble from the impact. Armour plating thicker than a full-grown man was blasted clear, titanium shards flung wide in a scintillating metallic shower of debris. Edwin barely had a chance to register the impact before it was followed up a second later by another massive hit, and then yet another in a remorseless rhythm.

"Santini's fucked!" Commander Milton blurted out, shaking his head in horror. "Lynton's tearing that poor bastard apart..."

Edwin couldn't disagree, as the twin Singularity Drivers built into the spine of the traitor's dreadnought unleashed their monstrous firepower. Solid projectiles no bigger than a man's head, were hyper-accelerated by the singularity powering the dreaded weapon. The incalculable energy contained within was unleashed with every impact, wreaking utter devastation on the exposed vessel.

The Thor's Hammer was firing at extreme range, but the titanic three-kilometre length of Santini's dreadnought made it an easy target. Lynton's ship strafed slugs along the flank of the dreadnought, setting loose a rippling cascade of gigantic explosions at every point of impact. A round smashed into a Heavy Cannon mount, vaporising the weapon and the armour around it in an instant, before the following shot punched deeper, the detonations internal now.

The mauled dreadnought tried to pull away, but Lynton's Gunnery Chief was an expert marksman, and he followed the slow moving vessel as it turned. The hits were striking the same location now, ripping through the gaping hole in the armour plating, and blasting through the superstructure exposed beneath. One slug drove in deep, touching off a magazine explosion.

Edwin watched in shock as a blinding eruption blasted out of the starboard side of the Terran ship, leaving a hundred-metre chasm gouged out of the hull. More internal detonations were wracking the Sif, and one of the five power cores ruptured, vaporising a section of the topdeck near the rear of the capital ship. The Bridge was ripped away in that tremendous explosion, slaying the command crew in one appalling moment of destruction. The dreadnought trembled in its death throes now, as if terrified by the grim fate that had befallen it.

"You reckless fool..." Edwin cursed Santini under his breath. It was poor form to speak ill of the dead, but the hot-tempered man might have doomed them all.

***

"I've been hit!" Snakebite screamed, letting go of his flight controls as he flung his hands over his eyes to protect them from searing plasma. His voice raised several octaves as he shrieked, "Oh God, no!"

Lieutenant Murphy's heart was still racing, but not with the thrill of battle, not any more. The deadly hail of green plasma bolts from the Kintark fighters had quickly disabused him of that notion. Snakebite's image winked out from Murphy's battle computer as his wingman's fighter broke up in a verdant conflagration. While the picture of the Terran pilot had gone, the man's shrill screams echoed without end through Murphy's head.

Commander Summers banked hard to starboard, and Murphy yanked his flightstick to the right to stay on her wing. They rolled as they looped over the burning tomb of a Terran cruiser, the ship consumed by spectral green plasma fires. Angel brought them in behind a wing of Kintark heavy fighters, catching the slower ships by surprise. The four remaining Terran Rapiers opened fire, their four Gatling Lasers whirring as they sent a cascade of orange laser bolts into the rear of the Lizardmen.

"This one's for Snakebite, you scaly son-of-a-bitch," he snarled, gritting his teeth in fury.

Murphy narrowed his eyes in concentration as he strafed his shots over the engines at the back of the green heavy fighter. The emerald Kintark armour was mildly reflective, muting the damage slightly, but his accurate shooting paid off. The salvo of orange bolts melted through armour, liquefying the shimmering plating as he lit up the rear of the heavy fighter.

He ignored the spiking heat levels on his lasers, maintaining the withering hail as the Kintark jinked to try and shake him off its tail. His Rapier was faster and more nimble though, and Murphy had no intention of letting the bastard run. There was an explosion as one of Kintark engines blew, and the heavy fighter lurched wildly to starboard, spinning out of control. The fighter slammed into the side of a Kintark destroyer, exploding on impact.

"Got you, you fucker," he said with grim satisfaction, looking around him for the rest of his squadron.

He'd got pulled out of formation as he hunted down the Kintark fighter, and he saw that the rest of his squadron were embroiled in a vicious brawl with another Kintark fighter wing. It looked like his wingmates had been ambushed by a fresh Kintark squadron, and the Terran fighters were diving and rolling around a Terran light carrier. The defence grid on the carrier had opened up on the Kintark ships, but the crew of the Horkos had to be careful firing into the close quarters dogfight, for fear of hitting a friendly ship.

"Murphy! Get back here!" Angel cried out, and he saw her Rapier execute a hard banking turn to try and shake the fighter off her tail.

Shoving his throttle forward, Murphy's agile fighter leapt towards her, rapidly closing the distance. "Be right there!" he replied, desperate to save the kind officer who'd taken him under her wing.

Angel snapped a quick glance at her cockpit cam, seemingly staring right at him as she said, "I'll line him up, get ready to take the shot."

Another strangled scream reached his ears, and he watched in horror as Romeo's handsome face was contorted with fear. "I've lost my left wing!" he cried out, his image crackling as he was thrown around the cockpit. "Help me, someone!"

His terrified expression was frozen in the battle computer, before cutting out a second later as the Kintark pilot finished off Romeo's crippled Rapier. Murphy forced himself to focus on the fighter chasing after Angel, his shaking hand gripping the flightstick fearfully. He watched the distance between them closing at a blistering pace, as Angel ducked and weaved to avoid the plasma bolts sailing around her ship.

Settling his crosshairs on the Kintark fighter, he squeezed the trigger, his Gatling Lasers opening fire a second after the barrels spun up to speed again. The Kintark's armour seemed weaker on the front, and scared as he was, he managed to shower the Lizardman's cockpit with laser bolts. The blistering amber hail did its work, and one of the fist-sized holes he punched in the canopy caused an explosive decompression. The Kintark was sucked from his seat and forcibly ejected from the fighter, which then sailed harmlessly by.

Angel breathed a sigh of relief, and said, "I owe you one, Leprechaun. Now get on my six, and we'll rescue Binary!"

Murphy watched her pull an Immelmann to reverse direction, so he lowered his speed so that Angel could catch up with him and take point. Her fighter roared past, so he opened up the throttle again, tagging onto her wing as they chased after the three remaining Kintark fighters. The Horkos' gunners intensified their fire on the pursuing Kintark, as Binary wove a desperate path around the light carrier.

One of the green Kintark fighters was hit in a crossfire from fore and aft Gatling Laser batteries, exploding as the laser bolts struck the power core. Another was hit in the engine, and the heavy fighter slowed dramatically, a long plume of debris trailing after it. The Kintark pilot tried to break clear, but this just exposed his fighter to more laser fire, and the ship was literally cut to pieces, the wings shorn off, and the fuselage sliced open.

Binary narrowly avoided another salvo from the Kintark's Heavy Plasma Guns, just as the remaining pilots from Squadron Two-Sixty reached the duelling ships. The last Lizardman didn't last long under their concentrated firepower, and his ship broke apart in a shower of green plating.

"I think you owe those boys on the Horkos a drink!" Murphy panted, crooking a relieved smile at Binary.

Binary ignored him however, and there was a flicker of fear in Binary's voice as he blurted out a warning, "Commander, we have incoming! Kintark wings coming in around the wreck of that heavy cruiser at two o'clock!"

Murphy's eyes darted to his Tactical Map, and they widened in alarm at the dozen contacts rushing towards them, breaking away from the clutter of ships centred on the scanner.

"I'm hit!" Angel gasped as she tried to turn her mauled Rapier, but the flight controls were unresponsive.

Staring out his starboard cockpit window, Murphy could see the half dozen holes punched through the wing of her fighter, as the Kintark attack group showered them with plasma bolts.

"Angel!" he cried out, but just like that she was gone, her fighter enveloped in a blazing explosion as shots from a Kintark fighter hit her power core.