The Talon ushing as fast as possible back to Eden’s End. They had been halfway to Varlen when Mattheoken up by a high-priority ship . He would have preferred a hostile attack to the actual issue they had woken him up for.
One of the techs responsible for reviewing Qessages going out from Eden’s End had failed to ehe data into S.A.M. for analysis since he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the messages. It wasn’t until an after-a revieerformed by the head of analysis that S.A.M. pointed out the suspicious nature of the messages. It didn’t take the program long to decode the versations.
They had e from one of the drifters living on Eden’s End. When Matthews read the decoded messages, he had ordered the Talon to use the closest p for an orbital slingshot back the way they came. The tech who failed to do their job was going to be scrubbing floors and toilets until the Talouro Ganos, where the Hawks’ leadership would decide if he got sent baedial training or released from the pany for this gross ht.
That maual fate would depend a lot oher they were too te or not. In his updates with HQ, they simply told him to ‘Go above and beyond for Mr. Kane.’ It wasn’t hard to figure out why after he started sending in his monthly field reports, and he was more than gd to oblige. He liked Kane, and most of the crew liked the man as well. It was rare to e across someone so talented and ho, yet humble as well. The Hawks’ leadership knew a good iment when they saw one. If it wasn’t for the pirate incursion, they would have stuck around and maybe even rotated out with their sister pany to ensure stant security for the system.
“How much longer until we emerge into normal space?” he asked, doing his best to hide the worry in his tone.
“Less than a minute, Captain,” the crewman replied.
He pressed the all-hands button and an e light began to strobe throughout the ship followed by a short kxon. “We are about to emerge from FTL, strap yourselves in for bat maneuvering. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
The warning was unnecessary, his people had been ready and in position for the st hour, but it paid to make sure. “Lockdown the bulkheads and finish venting procedures.”
Every door across the massive troop transport was sealed shut and he could hear the quiet hiss as oxygen umped from the rooms and into the ste tanks. Matthews reached up and clicked the button that would seal his helmet.
“Five seds,” the same crewman from before said.
“All ons are green,” the Chief ons officer stated over his suit radio.
The ship emerged into normal space, the entry far rougher than usual because they had pushed the exit much deeper into the system’s gravity well than was normally advised. But he knew from experiehat the ship and the drive could take it. Even if the bubble destabilized, the ship probably would have been fihe people on board, maybe not so much. Matthews had never been on a ship that experienced a field colpse, but it ic of discussion in flight school. The premature colpse of a bubble would have made the turbulehey felt just now seem minor by parison.
The ship was rag towards Eden’s End but even so, it took a few minutes for their sensors to collect the data of what was happening at the p. “There are fifteen tacts in low orbit above the p. No transponders Captain.”
Dammit, they were too te to stop the pirates from nding. “Any signs of debris in orbit?” the pary railguns should have done a number on the pirate ships.
“The sensors are pig up some debris, but it’s not enough to indicate a ship. The sensors are also pig up multiple signs of smoke from the surface. There is also residual radiation from high in the p’s atmosphere. S.A.M. indicates a nuke was detonated?” That st one came out as a question from the stumped Ensign. Matthews wasn’t surprised, nuclear ons weren’t in on use since before the Shi war.
It sounded like the pirates attempted to destroy the surface ons, and when that failed, they set off a side the atmosphere as ao clear the way. Even as a student of military history, he hadn’t heard of anyone using a nuke as an EMP in well over a hundred years. There was no point when more sophisticated methods existed to temporarily disrupt eleics.
That didn’t even ahe question of how the pirates got their hands on a nuclear on in the first pce. The STO sure didn’t use them, and even the Coalition had never bothered with the ons during the war. Matthews gritted his teeth. While the existence of the on was ing, how the pirates got their hands on a nuke wasn’t important right now. “Tell the PDC crews that I don’t want a single missile getting anywhere near us. Ahe main battery crews to open up as soon as they have a firing solution.” If they had one hey might have more. Better to be safe than sorry.
“The pirates have spotted our jump signature, they are beginning to accelerate for a higher orbit.”
“ons fire from pside detected!” another of the bridge crew cheered.
“Calm down,” Matthews chided the person. However, he smiled as he watched the smaller pirate vessel burst apart from the single impact.
He had never mentiohis fact to Alexander, but his railguns were plete overkill for most things. A ship like the Talon might be able t off a dozen of those massive rounds, but smaller ships like gunboats and Corvettes simply weren’t built to take that sort of kiic impad survive. Matthews was of the mind that it was always better to go for overkill than underkill though. In this case, it seemed it paid off.
The ship shuddered as the main guns fired.
The Talon’s ons may not be as rge as Alexander’s but he had twenty-four of them. “Tell the missile crews tet the rgest ship. I guarahat was the bastard that uhe nuke.”
Moments ter, four streaks zipped past the Talon before tiny points of light fred to life as the missiles closed in oarget.
Two more ships burst into expanding clouds of debris from the pside guns before the Talon’s ons arrived on the se. There were no explosions as his ons tore into the weaker shielding on the rear of the pirate ships. The pirates tried to escape the p's gravity or curve around to the far side to avoid the oning fire, but they had been stationary whealon jumped in and were at a distinct disadvawo more ships died as their drives gave out ached in satisfa as they began to pluo the atmosphere.
The Talon rocked hard as return fire impacted its thickly armored front.
“Minimal damage to report, Captain. They are using autoons.”
A burst of fire exploded between him and the fleeing pirates. “One of our missiles was intercepted. The other three have engaged eleic warfare termeasures and evasive maneuvers.”
“Spsh two,” the officer said a few moments ter.
He withe third explode as it hit a piece of wreckage. The fourth made it through and exploded he rge pirate ship.
“Heavy damage to the pirate ship, but they are still maneuvering. Six inbound missiles detected.”
A hail of PDC ammo flew to intercept the missiles while the Gauss ons tio spit death at the fleeing pirate ships.
The Talon was moving so fast that he o maximize the damage they inflicted before overflying the pirates. If they didn’t kill or chase off the pirates before that happehey would be vulnerable to an attack from the rear. There was a reason why high-speed intercepts like this were not advisable.
“Enemy missiles destroyed. The main ship is attempting to accelerate to a safe jump distance.”
He pressed the button and spoke calmly into his radio. “If that ship escapes this system, I will be severely disappointed in all of you.”
Every gun capable locked onto that rger ship and began to fire. Three more missiles flew out as well. Missiles were expensive, so they normally only used the bare minimum in a bat situation. But when the Captain says he is going to be disappointed, you pulled out all the stops.
The enemy ship did a valiant j to stop the missiles, but another oruck the engines and the kiic rounds easily puhrough the ship's static field and armor. He khey were dead ier when he saw the ship start to drift sideways.
“The rest of the ships are jumping away, Captain.”
The fact that the pirates had risked a jump so close to the p surprised him. They wouldn’t have gotten far with the unstable bubble, but by the time the Talon picked them back up on sensors, the ships would have plenty of time to jump properly. “How many escaped?”
“Only three of the fifteen, Sir.”
Matthews grunted in annoyance. “Slow us down ahe drop ships ready to disembark. I want to ehere aren’t any surviving pirates. What about ditions on the surface?”
“Ss show one debris field on a nding pad and four other ships down there. It also looks like three craters where gun empts used to be.”
At least they hadn’t been caught pletely unaware. “Any unications from Eden’s End?”
“ive, Captain.”
It was likely their gear was dowo the EMP strike. “Tell the drop ship teams to split into two groups. I want one aboard the ships, the other to scour Eden’s End of these filthy bastards and find anyone who survived.” With fifteen ships full of pirates, he had little faith that anyone was left alive down there. Getting revenge was the best the Hawks could do and he would take this failure to his grave.
***
It took hours to slow the Talon enough to swing back around toward the p. By then the pary gun had gone silent. Nobody aboard Travers’ drop ship knew if that meant it was out of ammo or that the pirates had finished off the defenders. Either way, they were going in with full kit and the heavies were leading the charge. There were no half-measures this time.
The dropship shook as its bow-mounted flechette turret tore into the pirate ship on the nding pad. The ship had tried to take off when they saw them ing. It was a little too te to run though, not that they would make it far without a jump drive. And even if they somehow made it past the drop ships, the Talon would have shot them out of orbit.
The ship was likely still on the nding pad because they were afraid of the orbital railgun pig them off. That was the only smart choice these pirates had made today.
The enemy ship lost power and crashed off to the side of the nding pad, crag the frame and leaving a rge furrow in the dirt until it came to a rest. That was a bit annoying. It meant his team would have to clear the ship before they could go for the facility. Unless… “Pilot, when we nd, rotate so you’re fag the pirate ship.”
“You read my mind, Sir.”
The shuttle touched down and his people stormed off the ship, the heavies swept their much more powerful flechette ons bad forth looking for hostiles. No pirates poked their heads out though.
With the nding zone clear, they all rushed through the doors that had been blown open. As he rushed inside, he had to skid to a stop before he ran into the back of the augment suits. “What’s the hold-up?!” he demanded.
The heavy gestured down the hallway. Travers poked his head from around the rge armored suit to see a barricade of metal crates and a whole lot of dead bodies on this side of it. An older woman he reized but had fotten the name of poked her head from around the er.
“You’re a little te for the fireworks, boys.”
That got a chuckle out of the rest of the people behind the barricade pointing ons their way.
Travers had removed his helmet after they learhe people had repelled or killed off the rest of the pirates. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised that the people down here had driven off the pirates, him or Captain Matthews when he radioed it in.
People thanked him for showing up and for the training the Hawks gave them as he walked past. He was currently following Eva Wu, that was the older woman’s name, down a hallway.
“You’re certain they’re all dead?” sidering what he saw at their entrance, he didn’t doubt the woman’s words. But it ossible they missed a few. Pirates liked to run and hide.
The woman snorted. “Trust me, Alexander was in quite a foul mood after the attack, he personally scoured the entire facility. If there are any pirates left, it's only on the shuttles. Alexander and Damien both agreed that it wasn’t safe to try and board the shuttles sihere was no cover.”
“What were you pnning to do then?”
“Nothing. If they tried to leave, the one w railgun would have shot them down. If they tried f their way baside a sed time, we were ready for them. The decision was to let them starve in their ships and in a few weeks check to see what remained.”
It was a very ical tactic, but sidering there was no pce to survive on the surface, it robably the safest course of a.
“How many survivors?”
The woman looked at him out of the er of her eye. “Hun, don’t try to sugarcoat your question. Ask what you want to ask.”
Travers cleared his throat. “How many died?”
“We suffered eighty-six casualties. Most of those came from the two augmented pirates. One bastard had a grenade uncher and a minigun. Alexaook care of both of them though.”
Travers paused. “Alexander did? How?”
“I’ll let him expin that to you if he decides to. Now e on, we’re almost there.”
They entered Kane’s workshop or what was left of it. The pce looked like a bomb had gone off and most of the robots and maes were damaged to oent or another. Alexander was over by one of the printers, removing pos from it and putting them into another ohe repaired printer hummed to life as they approached.
Alexauroward them, but he was without his usual holographic face. The robot body he used was far more uling without the face. Travers’ first instinct was to run when he saw it. He squashed those feelings ruthlessly as he held out a hand. “I’m gd you survived.”
He could almost sense Kane's easy smile as he reached out and shook the offered hand.