Thanks again Bien Canonizado for your review. A fair few of your suggestions i do actually have planned for later chapters. You should see a few of them soon enough. Also i should still have plenty of time to update at university, for the moment at least.
Chapter 21: Siege
Razor's perspective
From outside, Oasis station looked as if it may very well have been abandoned many years ago. In the murky sunlight which was largely hidden behind the ghastly orange clouds, the typically shiny dura-steel shell looked aged beyond its years. The constant battering that it had taken from sandstorms had also gone a long way to make the place look a derelict hulk.
In reality however, the base at this time was undoubtedly as lively as it had ever been. As I was sprinting across the platform to my fighter which was waiting on a nearby landing platform; I noticed three laser tanks moving into a position to cover the launch pads. I'm not sure what class they were, but they looked modern.
I just hoped that they didn't contain Retros.
I couldn't see any Kilrathi ships, not that I especially wanted to look for them outside of my cockpit. I'm guessing that they were still a little way out. Maybe they were still descending into the atmosphere.
A deafening whine drowned out the sound of rushing wind as two Sabres took to the sky. My own fighter was only a few meters away. The ladder was already in place and the guy holding it was looking at me with a face that showed an utter lack of hope. He expected to die here. Miserable bastard.
I ascended the ladder; it took me longer to get up the thing in the wind. When I finally stepped into my cockpit and closed the canopy, the resulting stillness in the air felt surprisingly comfortable. I felt almost at home in this thing.
The ships systems soon started coming to life around me. My eyes fixed on the radar as it lay featureless before me. When it finally came to life with a short electronic hiss, I noticed nothing except for a large cluster of light blue dots with a handful of darker blue ones circling them.
My engines finally came online. I hit my ventral manoeuvring thrusters and pushed myself off of the ground, then I hit full acceleration, pulled up and climbed into the air.
"Oasis Station, this is Fire Wings leader. What are we looking at?"
It took them a while to respond. For an instant I wondered whether the Retros had gotten through to the bridge already, then a face, a Confederation face, appeared on my com screen.
"Fire wings leader, this is Oasis, we count fifteen Kilrathi fighters, all Vakoths by the look of it. We're also picking up two bigger contacts, they look like troop transports."
"That's it?" I'd half been expecting him to tell me there was a H'varkann in orbit, along with all its escort ships and at least three hundred fighters.
"That's it ma'am. There's nothing else on sensors."
"Understood."
"I'm uploading a nav point to all your onboard computers, that's where the cats are coming in from."
The face vanished from the com screen at pretty much the same time as the nav point appeared on my radar.
This didn't look right. If it weren't for the troop transports, I'd assume that the Kilrathi had just sent an advanced wave past the Hermes to weaken the base's defences. On their own however, they would be hard pressed to soften us up enough to clear a path for the troop transports. Unless…
Realisation hit me like a punch in the gut.
Unless they had inside help, which presumably took the form of the Retros. They'd waited until some agreed time to attack and thereby cause chaos at the base. They'd probably try to sabotage systems from within; maybe even turn some of the base's weapons on us.
Of course they had the marines to contend with, and after the show in the bar, I doubted that the Retros would fare too well. Maybe the Kilrathi knew that too. Perhaps they figured that they could use apes as cannon fodder to make their lives easier.
The first of the Kilrathi contacts appeared on the radar and I abruptly stopped caring. My job was to stop them getting through and that was what I had to focus on. It wasn't like I could be much help anywhere else after all.
"All fighters, break and attack. Try and lead them to the base's defenders, but don't let them get a shot in."
A few people responded with 'aye ma'am's' and so on. Most people were too busy picking targets and readying missiles.
I'd assumed command of the base's remaining fighter detachments shortly after arriving. The reason for this simply being greater experience. The previous wing commander hadn't been especially happy about this, but hadn't made an issue of it.
As it stood, we had eighteen ships. Seven Hellcats, (as many as the base could accommodate), and eleven Sabres. The Hellcats were basically replacements for the handful of modern day fighters the base had that the Retros had stolen. The Kilrathi Vaktoth outclasses both kinds of fighter, and there was no shortage of the, which didn't do much for our confidence. Add to that the lack of experience in the majority of the Sabre pilots, tank and turret crews. This was not going to be easy.
Two minutes later
"Watch it Whisky 3, you've got one on your tail."
"I can see that!" Came back the irritated response from the pilot. "Lancer, focus on one of his wings, see if you can't…"
I closed the channel. They were taking too long. The Vaktoth would annihilate the Sabre before the gunner's brain told his fingers to press down on the fire button.
I abandoned my target and peeled off to the left, lining myself up behind the Vaktoth. It was a long way out, and the sun made it difficult to see, but it was still in missile range.
I locked on a friend or foe missile and fired.
The missile struck the Vaktoth in the midsection, I think, but didn't break through the shields. The enemy seemed to sway a little under the impact but soon recovered.
"That was a missile by the way." I said over the radio, trying to force scathing pomposity into my voice, "I'm guessing you're too stupid to figure that out yourself."
A snarl was my answer, and the Vaktoth soon turned towards me. I kept moving towards him for a few seconds then swung around and ran back the way I'd came.
My rear shields started taking hits. I pulled right and downwards slightly; trying to keep my ship in his forward display. I needed him to focus on me.
And that he did, right up until two missiles from the station sailed past my fighter and tore his ship to pieces.
The vapour trails that the missiles had left in their wake hung in the air for as long as I could see. On closer inspection they were just two among dozens. There were still a fair few Kilrathi ships around so I was guessing they weren't all faring with as much luck.
Blue streaks of light shot out from one point below me, they seemed to be chasing a Vaktoth across the sky, the Kilrathi pilot seemed to be dancing around them. Whether this was just a coincidently picturesque series of evasive manoeuvres or just him showing off I couldn't tell, and didn't really care.
I switched through contacts until I got his ship, then I closed on him and fired with full guns.
He had a harder time evading two sets of gunfire. Not long after I landed my first hits, the laser fire from the tank below finally found its way onto his shields.
The cat took his ship into a dive to the floor, I almost followed him, then I realised that I wasn't in space and would probably plunge nose first into the dirt if I tried. Damn planetary engagements.
His ship was hard to make out next to the dusty ground. I tried to track the fighter as best as I could and let off a few shots at the green crosshair on my screen. Only a few hit home. The cat didn't seem to care.
After a few seconds, he fired. The fire from the tank died out a few seconds later and I noticed an explosion next to the base, followed by another a few meters behind it, and then another.
Those tanks each carry a crew of four.
I accelerated again and unleashed another string of gunfire. Soon after gunfire shot out from three different points on the surface, all pointing at the Vaktoth. It seemed some of the tank crews had witnessed the destruction of their comrades.
One of the tanks seemed to land a hit on the fighter's engines. The enemy ship slowed at first, then began to descend. The bow of the craft tilted towards the sky, suggesting that the pilot was attempting to pull up.
Fire from the tanks ceased, they seemed content that the creature was doomed. I wanted to make sure.
My gunfire ripped one of the enemy's wings off shortly before his ship smashed into the floor and vanished in a cloud of fire and scorched surface dust.
I called up a third Vaktoth and swung my ship around to face it. When I saw it, I also saw a flaming wreck that had once been a Sabre break apart in front of it.
That was the fifth Sabre we'd lost, at the very least.
I lined up my targeting crosshairs on the screen and fired.
The Kilrathi didn't seem too worried about evading my fire. Instead all he did was turn around and fire at me. I didn't fancy a pounding match with a heavy fighter which I had no chance of winning so instead I afterburned past it.
I didn't realise that the station's com officer had reappeared on my screen until he started talking. He sounded worried.
"Attention all fighters. The tank in the north east quadrant is almost gone; and our turrets and missile launchers in that region have taken hits. Cover that area! We can't give the cat transports a safe place to set down!"
"You heard him people." I said to the other pilots, "Fire Wings 5, 6 and 7; keep trying to draw them towards more defended areas. All other ships, cover the northern quadrant."
"Understood."
"Yes ma'am."
"Holy shit!" Screamed a dying Hellcat pilot, "I'm breaking up! I'm…"
Damn it!
My previous target had gone elsewhere, probably a more tempting target had shown itself.I caught sight of two Vaktoth which were following a Hellcat towards the north east quadrant, and taking the occasional pot shot at him as they did so.
I prepped one of the three leech missiles that I had and placed one finger over the afterburner controls. I'd have to afterburn in straight behind the bastard and fire the missile into his rear shields; leech missiles, as we'd discovered in this battle, were easy things for the Cats to avoid.
The lock chime eventually sounded. I hit the afterburners and charged at the Vaktoth. The Cat sent a few shots at me from its rear turret, but didn't make any attempt to evade. Presumably he thought he could afford to stay put for a while.
I launched the missile and was rewarded with the briefest hint of a blue flash as the warhead impacted on the beastie's shields. I came about and afterburned away from fighter.
For a while nothing happened, except for the Vaktoth deciding to chase me. Enemy gunshots sailed past my fighter; others sailed into my rear shields. I pulled upwards and tried to roll back and lose him that way. He stayed with me, and my lock light soon came to life.
I released three decoys and dived for the surface. The missile smashed into one of the decoys, but the cat still stuck with me. I didn't think that this leech was going to do anything.
As if on answer to my thoughts, the Vaktoth began to fall away. His speed decreased steadily, and then his altitude began to drop. Losing your engines is an especially bad thing to happen in a planetary atmosphere when you have gravity to contend with.
"A coward's tactic!" Hissed the Kilrathi as his ship plunged into the dirt, "There is no honour!"
"Yeah, but which one of us is dead?"
He didn't answer.
"Attention all fighters," The station's com officer said again, there was no visual with the face this time for some reason; "We're picking up new contacts. Looks like; ah shit! They're Vaktoths, another fifteen of them. They'll be entering the atmosphere in three minutes."
My heart sank, and for a while it was all I could do to fly in a straight line while I absorbed this news. There was no way we were going to be able to hold off a second wave. Most of our ships which weren't charred wrecks on the ground were in pretty bad shape. Two Sabres and a Hellcat had been forced to withdraw already. The ground defences could still
"Looks like the first wave ships are retreating to join their litter mates." Said one of the Sabre pilots, her voice echoing the sudden hopelessness our situation had taken.
How many fighters did the Kilrathi have to throw at us? There were more fighters in this single engagement then there were in a single squadron onboard the Hermes.
"Alright," I said at last, "Oasis station, how long till the cats get here? Do we have time to land and rearm?"
"Negative, enemy eta is…" The voice broke off as something on one of the displays caught his attention. "What the… I'm picking up new contacts in orbit, directly behind the Kilrathi. They're, wait. Confirming…"
The wait was maddening. We didn't know what the hell he was going to report, and I was little short of certain that it would be something unpleasant like another 15 Vaktoths, still, the uncertainty bread hope, and it was the hope which was maddening.
"It's a Concordia class fleet carrier, plus escort ships. I'm also reading at least twenty fighters heading our way, but I can't make out what they are yet." With that he closed the com channel.
For a long time I was too amazed and far too relieved to think. Then for one brief moment I thought it was the Hermes, returning in triumph from the engagement with the H'varkann to assist us. Then the com screen crackled and a blurred face appeared on the screen, and I was to be proved incorrect. Atmospheric turbulence was doubtlessly responsible for the poor signal quality.
"…To static you. Repeat this static the TCS Invincible, we are launching fighters to assist you." The transmission now seemed to have cleared up slightly, and I was able to make out the features of a youngish looking communications officer. She looked almost apprehensive. "We are also launching marine shuttles to bolster your station's defence force. Be advised, one of our marines is a Kilrathi. Inform your people of this, we don't want any friendly fire situations."
A Kilrathi?
And then it clicked, the Invincible was the ship which Z'ratmak had been assigned to. I grinned and felt a short stab of grim humour at the thought of what would happen to any Retros who came across him.
"Stay sharp pilots." Said the station's com officer, suddenly reappearing on the screen, "The Cats are still going to get here before our reinforcements."
To be continued.