Extract from a new novel series
Void Hounds Chapter 1
The whaling ship Far Voyager was in trouble. Wallowing in the icy rings of Vintar IX she wailed dismay across the comms channels, plaintive cries of terror ringing loud. She rose from the murky ring surrounding the gas giant, Propulsors straining at maximum. Spinning shards of ice and rock were flung into the void by her passage, remnants of a failed moon, now they were scattered across the vacuum in a desperate attempt to escape.
A Schooner by class, the whaler's length was impressive and the bulky processing modules lining her flanks clung on like limpets. She was an old ship, refit many times for various purposes. Once a proud Explorer, then relegated to passenger ferry, then a one-way colony ship and finally rebuilt as a whaler. Old, tired and slow, her Propulsors were obsolete and shields weak. She could not survive what was closing on her stern.
Across the terminus they cut, five sleek predators of the void. Angular bows were packed with weapons and flanks bristling with boarding tubes. From their spines rose trailing fins, each half the length of the ship. Into those fins were packed bulbous Propulsors and shield generators, sensor blisters and comms arrays. The overall appearance was a small coastal vessel, as once sailed the oceans of Old Earth, tiny craft moved by cloth sails and wind. A quaint appearance for such deadly crafts, for these were no idle mariners, they were pirates and they were on the hunt.
Far Voyager redoubled her efforts to get away, straining her superstructure to the limit. The whaler could not outfight these brigands, her only hope was to flee. It was futile. The pirates drew in fast, reducing hundreds of thousands of kilometres to mere thousands in minutes, then they opened fire. Plasma cannons across their bows lit up, battering shields down with inexorable waves of destruction. Iconic disrupters added their wroth, designed to cripple computers and critical systems and leave their prey vulnerable and helpless.
The whaler's shields blew out in moments, obsolete defences proving flimsy indeed. Her cries became even more desperate as the pirates closed in with eager relish, extending boarding tubes as they matched velocities. Even now the corsairs would be readying shock batons and electro-nets, laughing as they did so. Their prize was bursting with bounty, but the crew were no less valuable. Among the stars slavery was anything but dead.
The ship's fate seemed sealed, until suddenly it wasn't. From the outer dark they came, tiny darts crossing into sensor range. Small dots in the vast expanse of space, moving in formation. They hurtled across the void at tremendous rates, boosted by triple propulsor fins that gave them an acceleration curve no other vessel could match. One-man craft, agile and swift and bearing the crest of the Entente Worlds on their hulls. Victor fighters, closing in an attack profile.
"Hold V-formation till we engage, weapons hot and watch your backgrounds, hit that whaler and its coming out of your pay," came the comms call of their wing commander.
"Shanting pirate scum," her wingman Duncan Jaceq called back, "We'll make them regret messing with us!"
"That we will, two minutes to engagement, then the fun begins!" she declared.
In her cramped cockpit Wing Commander Helena Farina ran one last look over her controls. Of course most of the displays didn't physically exist, created virtually inside her head by a neural shunt buried behind her right ear. Still the principle stood, the human need for graphic displays and readouts simply couldn't be shaken off. Her readouts were good, the powerplant was humming, all three Propulsor fins were Green-1 and the twin plasma cannons under her feet were bristling with potential.
Satisfied she turned her attention outside. Forty Victor fighters, in twin trailing arcs like geese. Vacuum rated, they were bulbous craft, ovoid in form and with fins rising from their spines and dropping from either flank. Victors were flown from the standing position, with the pilot held upright in the nose behind a Crystalsteel canopy. Totally unsuited for atmospheric work, but then humanity had never built a fighter equally capable in air and vacuum. Farina didn't care, the Victor was sleek and fast, she loved the speed and agility of her craft, nothing else could give her such a rush.
"Would you look at that," pilot Tanya Clais commed.
"Pirate scum are breaking off," pilot Gordon Norret confirmed, "Moving to engage us instead. Scum they may be, but they aren't stupid."
"No, not them, look at the Narvals," Clais urged.
Beyond the troubled whaler drifts of light swirled. Vast billowing sheets of organic matter, trailing electro-scoops in their wake. Moving through the void on wafting gravitic sails, making the stars shimmer. Shoals of them fed off Vintar IX's rich electromagnetic energies, feasting upon the backwash as jellyfish of Old Earth once scoured the oceans. These were the cattle the whaling ship had been harvesting, space-faring lifeforms, with vast energy-storage capacity much sought among the Entente Worlds, a fortune waiting to be claimed.
Farina was struck for an instant by their beauty. Sheets kilometres-wide filled with dancing light, with trailing fronds billowing in the void of space in ways surely impossible without wind and tide. The Narvals were marvellous, and yet humanity looked upon them only as a mean to profit. Thousands had been culled in recent decades, torn apart for the magnificence of their hides and the astonishing energy-storage capacity of their flesh. It seemed wrong, but then humanity hadn't changed since they fled the polluted wastes of Old Earth. The same ravenous greed that had killed their homeworld still endured even centuries later.
She shook off introspection as the neural shunt pulsed in her brain, "Look alive, thirty seconds till contact. Break in pairs on my command and give them hell."
"I want to paint a pirate kill on my hull!" Norret laughed.
"Stow the chatter," Farina snarled, "Clean comms, clean attack runs. Good hunting Void Hounds. On my mark… break!"
Ahead the pirate ships began spitting out plasma blasts from smaller turret lining their hulls. Travelling at near-lightspeed they closed the distance in seconds, lancing their course with death. The Victors however were no longer there, in the few seconds of grace they had spilt apart, their formation shattering like birds scattering before a diving eagle. The pirates had fired too soon, their shots were wasted without a kill.
Farina's view became a whirling morass of stars as she tumbled through the void. Propulsors contorted gravity about her fighter, flinging her away with force enough to powder bones. G-dampners fought to unwrite physics, keeping the stresses survivable, but even so her flight suit had to squeeze her lower body, forcing blood back into her head. After a few tumbling seconds of disorientation she wrenched the steering yokes about and countered her spin, hundreds of kilometres from where she had been.
"Still with me Jareq?" she called.
"On your five," her wingman reported.
"Good, let's get up close and personal!"
Her evasive manoeuvre had brought her under the keels of the pirate ships and she closed at a furious rate. The neural shunt in her brain enhanced the image and she beheld pitted hulls and badly welded plates. Built in secret, by shadowy corporate sponsors at back-water worlds, they were hardly up to military-grade constructions, but there was nothing wrong with their plasma turrets. Sprays of blasts shot from all five vessels, seeking the elusive fighters pinwheeling around their flanks. Shant, that was a lot of firing from pirate scows, Farina had never seen so many shots put out by corsair scum.
Farina held to her course and gripped the yokes tight as she rose, aiming to cross the stern of the starboard most pirate. Gravitic wash from the Propulsors made it hard to look backwards, so most ships had few weapons to cover their sterns. A slashing pass across the rear should give her the best chance to inflict serious harm. Her human eyes could barely make out a dot in the distance, but her neural-shunt counted down the seconds and then the weapons fired.
Twin plasma cannons under her feet erupted, spitting fury at the foe. Farina didn't have to pull a trigger, no human finger could possibly prove adequate to the variable geometries of space-combat but the neural-shunt made her brain part of the Victor's operating system and was more than equal to the task. Moving at eye-watering speed she shot past the pirate, hammering their rear shields, then she was away with plasma bolts chasing her ass.
She instantly threw herself into an evasive spin, darting to and fro in a whirlwind of random motions. G-dampners struggled to keep up, unable to predict her wild evasions, random as no computer could ever be. Her bones creaked as the flight-suit squeezed hard and her heart thundered in her chest. Blackness tinged her vision and her eyes pressed back into the skull. The Victor's frame creaked in alarming ways as she pushed the envelope to the limit. It was madness, all was chaos and frenzy, but dammit it all this was glorious. Farina lived for moments like this, testing the limits of the possible, dancing on the edge of the abyss and feeling the primal urge to fall. Farina loved to fly, nothing else made her feel so alive.
A few seconds passed and she finally judged she was clear. She pulled about and took in the results of her labour. The formation of pirates were still blazing away in all directions while darting fighters dove in and out, hammering their shields and breaking away. It was firework's night of traded shots, both sides unleashing all they had, but she could not help but note none of the pirate's shields had failed.
"Shanting hell!" Jareq spat, "Why aren't they going down?!"
"Must have upgraded their shields," Farina hissed.
"Military-grade shields, since when do pirates have military-grade shields?!"
"Since now, she spat.
"What do we do?!"
"We hit them as one," she snarled, "Void Hounds, form up on me: Claw-formation!"
The Victors broke off, racing to meet her as she curved about. Forty tiny motes closed in, gravitic wash blurring the stars as they passed. They spun about her location then formed up, making four inward-curving arcs about her position. In moments they had become a reaching hand, closing about their target as they swooped in.
Farina led them on a rearward pass, angling to keep out of the arcs of most of the turrets. Still it was a dangerous game she was playing, fighters survived combat by being supremely manoeuvrable and unpredictable, formation flight was neither. She was presenting the pirates with a perfect target, and she was keenly aware they could not survive a single shot. Fighters traded shield strength for speed and agility, their protection barely enough to deflect random motes of dust in space, a direct hit from a plasma cannon would shred their flimsy hulls. Farina knew they had one chance, only one, the pirates were spreading out, not coordinating their fire, the defence was just spotty enough to slip a fighter wing through, maybe.
Wild sprays of plasma came their way as they closed in, as the pirates heaved about to engage. Speed was all, they had to make their run and be away before the pirates could bring their guns to bear. Every pilot knew they were tempting death with this stunt but none of them wavered, not one. Courage and discipline some would have called it, but those who knew the Void Hounds would more accurately have called them batcrap crazy.
Farina saw a plasma blast flash too near and one Victor tumbled out of formation, spinning wildly out of control before exploding. She had no time to check if the pilot had managed to eject, for the target was in her crosshairs. Instantly weapons fired, directed by thought alone. Thirty-nine fighters engulfing a single target, every one of them hammering it with blazing plasma.
A second later and they were past, racing away from the target. "Break!" Farina shouted as she heaved herself about. Once again dancing stars filled her eyes as she strove to evade chasing fire. Sickening kaleidoscopes smeared her vision and her ears filled with glue-sensations as fluids built-up in her head, then she was away.
"Did we hurt them?!" Jareq called as he moved to her side.
"We hurt them bad," Farina grinned as she steered a curving path on the boundary of weapon range.
In their wake the target was reeling. Shields were gone, blown out in the vicious pass, and her hull was pierced in many places. Rupturing conduits exploded as gasses vented into the void of space, brief fiery explosions lighting up the sundered hull before vacuum snuffed out the flames. The Propulsor fin had snapped in half, leaving a truncated stump behind that was useless for motion or defence. Secondary explosions burst from her keel, as energy-conduits failed and capacitors overloaded. Even as Farina watched the vessel rolled over and went into a powerless spin, sections going dark one by one. The pirate's cold-fusion reactor was automatically shutting down to prevent catastrophe, leaving her a drifting hulk in the void.
"That's a kill!" Clais cried.
"Take that pirate scum!" Norret crowed.
"Stow the chatter," Farina snapped, "Did we lose anyone?"
"Picking up a distress beacon," Jareq replied, "Xavaer managed to eject in time."
That was good, a Victor's cockpit could be blown clear by explosive bolts, saving the pilot if all else failed. Farina was glad, but the situation was not all good. The wing was down to thirty-nine fighters, and four corsair ships remained, pirates with upgraded shields and a lot of plasma turrets. Even as she curved about the edge of weapons range she saw them drawing together, closing formation to protect each other. Their web of defence was growing tighter, and the chances of a pilot surviving a pass were shrinking by the second.
"Ah hell no," Norret groaned, "They got smart."
"What do we do?!" Clais cried, "Evade or run?!"
"Neither," Farina growled, "Keep circling, draw them to us."
"We can't break through that!"
"We don't have to, we got them right where we want them."
From below a great disturbance emerged. The icy rings of Vintar IX bubbling like an erupting volcano, spraying water and rock in all directions. The Narvals scattered in terror, fleeing as fast as their grav-sails could manage, racing to get away from a true predator of space. A vast bow broke the surface, wider than a pirate ship was long. A long hull followed, festooned with plasma cannons and heavy with armour plates, reaching back to where a pair of particle projectors bulged from the spine and keel. Twin swirls of ice parted as sizeable Propulsor fins broke through, above and below, carrying an immense amount of Propulsors, shields and sensor arrays. Finally the rear slid clear and revealed a cavernous hanger bay, yawning wide with the fighter wing deployed.
Farina's lips drew back in a savage grin. The fighters had drawn the pirates' eyes, allowing their mothership to close from below the distorting hash of the rings. Her bulk was massive, more than tenfold the mass of the pirates, and her intent was made plain by open gunports and charged cannons. Farina imagined the pirates' bowel-loosening terror as they beheld a genuine Entente World Battlecarrier closing into point-blank range, capable of enacting their total destruction, and offering no mercy. Farina moved higher to observe the fight unfold as she snarled, "Say hello to the Swiftsure, she's gonna teach you that no one messes with the Void Hounds!"
Void Hounds Chapter 2
"Far Voyager is in distress," came the call of the comms-officer.
The captain's response was curt, "Tell them to hold course and leave the engagement zone, we will keep the pirates distracted."
The response was relayed but a return message was read out, "They… they demand we move to shield them, they are insisting we cover their escape."
The Captain's eyes narrowed in annoyance, "I won't be told how to fight a void battle by civilians. Tell them to go in a straight line and let Swiftsure deal with the pirates."
As she turned back to her console and began relaying his message Captain Charles Harrison leaned back in his chair and examined the Holoviewer. Swiftsure was rising rapidly through the rings of Vintar IX, steering a course straight for the distant enemy. Sensor hash was bad, too choppy for targeting yet, but when they cleared the rings they would have a clear shooting solution. He could see them responding, turning away from the swirling fighters harrying their flanks to present their guns. Harrison wasn't afraid, the pirates were used to tussling with Entente Frigates, but he was willing to bet they'd never run into something as big as a Battlecarrier.
An older man, with white stubble across his chin and thinning hair, Harrison looked like he should be commanding an office not a starship. Yet the arms in his standard issue shipsuit yet held muscle and his gaze was unwavering. His thin lips were set in a cold smile, blue eyes steely and his sharp nose bestowed a hawkish profile. He could admit he was old, but the thrill of combat took decades off his shoulders.
"Receiving reports from the fighters," a sharp female voice issued from his right side, "They say the pirate ships have upgraded their shields and weapons."
Harrison didn't take his eyes off the Holoviewer, "They are still no match for us Commander Shelton."
"You are gambling all our lives on a hunch," she whispered so the bridge crew wouldn't overhear.
Harrison bit back a retort. Jane Shelton was aggressively ambitious and driven, but she was rarely wrong. That was the most annoying thing about her, and something that made Harrison pray to the Gods of Old Earth nightly that she got that promotion she so desperately wanted. Still he couldn't argue her point and turned to the science station, "Analysis Mr Yadav?"
In a rich Jaipur-colony accent the science officer reported, "Shield harmonics are cycling higher than typical, weapon potential above average, but no sign of increased range, we are still outside their reach. No indications of increased energy output, their cold-fusion reactors are average for destroyers that size."
"Someone's been buying the pirate top-shelf weapons, and slapping them onto existing hulls," Shelton muttered.
"That's the intelligence spook's problem to worry about, ours is to stop them," Harrison chided, "Time to weapon's lock Mr Sato?"
From the operations station Lieutenant-commander Sato reported, "Electromagnetic hash is still blocking our locks, gunnery controllers say thirty seconds till we're clear."
Harrison grinned, "Thirty seconds everybody, then we're in the thick of it. Plasma Cannons, Ionic Disrupters and Particle Lashes are to fire on my command only. Shields to maximum, Propulsors steady and tell the Troopers to hold tight in their boarding pods, if we can disable any enemy we'll try to take one intact. Look alive people, Swiftsure may not be the youngest gal at the ball, but she's got some moves left in her yet!"
Around the bridge the crew set to their task, bending over their consoles with furious concentration. The bridge was a tight space, efficient and austere, as all military vessels should be. Harrison sat in the middle, where all could clearly hear his commands. A dozen consoles faced a glowing Holoviewer, filled with three-dimensional icons representing the combat zone. Plain metal panels showed the ship's age, slight discolouration marking the surfaces and the padding of his chair was frayed and ripped from long use. Harrison didn't care; he fondly patted a tear in his armrest, patched with duct tape. Like him this ship had seen better days, but neither of them was ready to be put out to pasture just yet. His eyes drifted to the dedication plaque, bronze long since turning green, yet he could make out the ancient words that always brought him comfort, "We shall travel with hope, and trust the swift, sure hand to guide us."
"Hash clearing," Lieutenant Yadav reported from his station.
"Gunnery control reports we have a shooting solution," Sato called.
"Stand-by bowguns," Harrison ordered, "Plasma cannons first, wide-spread, batter their shields to nothing, then we gut them when their pants are down. Stand-by… stand-by… shoot!"
The Swiftsure roared as her bow guns opened fire, capacitors screeching as they dumped torrents of energy into plasma projectors. Harrison love the sound of his ship being let off the leash and knew flaring bolts of energy would be hurtling away from their position, saturating space around the targets. Space battles took place over tens of thousands of kilometres, too far for the human eye to see, and the bridge was buried deep in the hull anyway. Still he could imagine the impacts, brilliant bolts of energy slamming into ships, creating flaring discharges as their gravitic shields struggled to shunt aside total destruction. Competing forces would be generating lightning storms of dissipating energy, like inverted snowglobes.
The holoviewer frizzled for a second, then reset, showing the enemy right where they had been. Four pirate corsairs, and one drifting hulk, sailing on undamaged. Harrison's jaw clenched, that salvo should have smashed their shields down, leaving them helpless. Something was wrong, something was very wrong.
"Shant," Shelton cursed with a thick New Ohio accent, "They really have upgraded."
Yadav called, "Enemy shields were degraded, but not broken. Recommend concentrated fire on one target at time."
"You heard the man, we need to get close enough to smell them," Harrison called, "Increase speed to maximum, take us into the middle of them!"
"Aye aye Captain," came the eager call of the young helmsman Ensign Meyer.
Swiftsure trembled as her Propulsors increased outpost, generating gravitic forces that accelerated the ship faster than any chemical or nuclear propellant could achieve. G-dampners filled the air with noise as they countered forces, but they were old and Harrison felt himself being pushed back into his chair. The distances in the Holoviewer shrank as the Swiftsure barrelled closer, prow cutting across the stars at a fast clip.
Shelton murmured, "If we get any closer we'll be in range of their guns."
"Swiftsure can take anything that scum throw our way," Harrison growled.
"We have an advantage in range," Shelton cautioned, "We're throwing it away."
But Harrison smiled coldly, "Once on the oceans of Old Earth ships fought in lines. The bravest thing a sailor could do was steer right into the foe, risking everything for double broadside."
Shelton was too professional to comment but prayed, "May the Five Gods be with us."
Closer they steered, closer, crossing the invisible threshold where the pirates could target them. Energy spikes flared in the Holoviewer, and seconds later shots slammed into their bow shields. Harrison felt the ship rock as feedback ripped through the systems. Shields, propulsors, G-dampners and artificial gravity all operated on the same principles and when stressed would create jarring disruptions. As the shields shunted aside ship-killing power his chair jolted hard, making his spine ache. Display frazzled from feedback, creating a nightmarish strobe effect and a trouble smell of scorching wiring pervaded the bridge as machinery overloaded.
Swiftsure was running straight at the pirates, giving them a clean shot. The distances involved made targeting a tricky proposition, but since they were heading straight at them the calculations became a lot simpler. Four pirate ships, flinging plasma right into their path, filling space with energy. Harrison could see the fighters nipping at their heels, but knew it was too little to change anything.
"Incoming fire increasing, Shields are buckling," Mr Sato called with a worried tone.
"Hold your course," Harrison commanded sternly.
"We need to break off," Shelton urged.
"She can take it," Harrison growled, "Ready the bow guns, target everything at the pirate veering to port."
On they charged, straight into the teeth of the enemy's fire. The decking began to vibrate hard, making Harrison's teeth chatter and forcing him to cling to his chair to avoid slipping sideways. A nasty veer was creeping into the artificial gravity, as systems faltered and the whole bridge began to tilt sideways. There was nothing he could do about it, the computers were overloaded keeping the shields up and aiming the guns. Even the most advanced processors humanity could produce had limits.
"We can't wait any longer," Shelton urged.
"A few more seconds," Harrison growled, "Hit them at point blank range, then give them the Ionic disrupters."
"Shields collapsing!" Sato yelled.
"Fire!" the Captain roared.
Once more the Swiftsure let rip, but this time from mere hundreds of kilometres away, eyeball to eyeball in void terms. Plasma bolts flew from the bow in waves, slamming into the enemy an instant later. The portmost pirate took the full brunt this time, and her shields staggered in the onslaught, then blew out, leaving her defenceless. A second later Swiftsure's secondary weapons lit up. Ionic Disrupters sending crackling packets of electrostatic hash at the foe. They hit the foe and swaddled her in brilliant flares of energy, stabbing into sensors and comm-arrays. Ships were well-protected against the stellar winds, but they needed to see and steer and so their computers were vulnerable. Stabbing knives of disruptive force ran along data-conduits, ripping through delicate circuits and collapsing binary matrixes into gibberish. The result was inevitable; the ship shut down primary systems and went dark, adrift in the void.
"Target disabled," Mr Yadav called.
"That's one," Shelton growled.
"Fighter wing is moving in for the kill."
"Belay that," Harrison growled, "Lieutenant Darvis, tell them to keep harassing the rest. Send in the Troopers, about time they earned their keep."
In the Holoviewer streams of boarding pods leapt away from Swiftsure, heading for the disabled craft. Harrison had no time to watch, for pirate vessels were breaking to all sides, their formation shattering. The Battlecarrier had rode through the worst of their fire and proved inviolate, now they sought to run. Spitting a few desultory shots they broke in all directions, trusting the lone ship could not catch them all.
"They're getting away," Shelton spat.
"The hell they are," Harrison growled, "Steer course 245 mark 010, rotate us thirty degrees to port. Mr Sato, ready both broadsides!"
"Gladly Captain," the operations officer growled.
The stars wheeled in the Holoviewer as Swiftsure rotated, bringing the pirates into a level field. They were splitting away, one to what was now port, another to starboard and one dead ahead. Harrison's course had manoeuvred the Swiftsure into the middle of their triangle, keeping one ship in each arc of the guns. So far they had only used their bow guns, but a Capital ship had many fire arcs, and power enough to deploy them all.
"Range increasing," Shelton warned, "Accuracy will drop off."
"If we fire now we shoot at an oblique angle," Harrison corrected, "We must wait till we can hit their sterns dead on."
"Gunnery crews are good, but are they that good?"
"They're competing with the fighters for kills, they won't dare miss."
Seconds stretched to eternity, each one torture. Harrison gripped his battered hair hard, watching the vectors shift. So slow, so damned slow, starships could cross a stellar system in days, but fights took place at ranges that made even that trivial. The urge to give the order nearly overcame him, but Captain Harrison had lifetime of hunting pirates under his belt and knew how to hold his nerve.
Suddenly the vectors aligned and then he roared "Shoot!" Swiftsure erupted with a storm of firepower, flinging plasma in all directions. Port guns flared in sequence, starboard batteries unloaded as one, and the bow guns spat fury into the vacuum with furious disdain. All three pirate ships were caught right in the stern, hammered furiously by a concentrated barrage. Their shields failed, propulsors took hits and air ruptured from terrible breeches as they staggered in the onslaught.
"Particle Lashes, port and starboard, fire!" Harrison bellowed. On the spine and belly of Swiftsure engorged turrets turned, bearing oversized, single barrels. They flared as long streams of energy shot forth, sustained beams rather than the quick bolts of other weapon system. Magnetic channels formed a bridge and charged plasma was funnelled across it, contacting the enemy instantly. The turrets did not rotate, but the motions of the ships involved meant the beam racked over the target, ripping long furrow into hulls, as if struck by a vicious lash.
The portside target took a hit across the Propulsor fin, shearing it clean off and leaving the pirate helpless in the void. The other ship took a hit along the keel, the entire length of the vessel ripping open and venting compartments to space. Like a gutted fish its innards poured out, men and women screaming silently as the void of space claimed them. Their vessels had been upgraded but their shipsuits had not, cheap and slow to seal flexihelms about their heads, none of the pirates lived long enough for their last-ditch protection to kick in. Their vessel rolled over in dead spin, empty and dark as all signs of life faded.
"Two kills, I repeat, two kills," Mr Yadav reported calmly.
Ensign Meyer was less composed, "Ha, take that pirate filth!"
"Stow that loose talk Ensign!" Shelton snapped.
But Harrison grinned, "Let the boy have his moment, it was earned. Nice helmswork ensign, and to the rest of you. Pass my compliments to the gunnery chiefs, their aim was sterling!"
The bridge crew grinned at the praise but Mr Sato called, "Permission to finish off the last target?"
Harrison sniffed, "Negative, the guns have had two kills, let the fighters have even the score. Lieutenant Darvis, tell Wing Commander Farina she can indulge her pilots."
The comms officer relayed the order and then reported, "Fighters engaging, they promise to bring you back a piece of the hull. Also the Troopers report they have secured their target. Data-files intact, but no prisoners were taken."
"No prisoners?" Shelton frowned, "Not one?"
"They…" Darvis swallowed, "They report they found slave pens on board, and some bodies."
Harrison knew what that meant. The horror of slavery had reared its ugly head again among the stars and the Void Hounds were no stranger to its cruelties. The Trooper division was based on the Core Worlds, but a lot of them were from remote colonies where raiders were common threats. Many Troopers would have lost family and friends, and would not be forgiving. Piracy was hated, but slavery was on a whole other level, that was where the Nanoweave boot came down.
Captain Harrison knew better than to ask if any attempts to surrender had been offered and ordered, "Tell them to secure the computers for the spooks, we may uncover whose been arming these scum. Then get their arses over to the other ships, there may be some captives left alive on those ones. Secure the ship, stand down action stations and assess for damage. Well done everyone, once again the Void Hounds have proved the stars belong to the Entente Worlds!"
Author's note
After building my skills writing Fanfiction i have decided to make the leap into writing a completely original novel series. I plan to draw upon various elements from the stories i have written, using characters and themes i know worked well. This is a project i've been planning for a long time and plan to publish one day as proper books. Hopefully in years to come you may see my novels on the shelves next to authors like Jack Campbell or Christopher G Nuttall.