36

There was a moment in the wait where everything shrank down to the timer. It was on the screens in the nova fighter around Kira. It was in her headware. Everything else was secondary to the countdown to T zero.

Five minutes.

Kira forced herself to exhale, running her hands over the familiar lines and controls of the Hoplite-IV nova fighter. Most of the interceptors in Memorial Force were clones now. They had the fabricators for manufacturing Hoplite-IV parts and had used those, combined with Redward-built class two nova drives and Harrington coils, to build exact duplicates.

Her fighter wasn’t. It was one of the original six nova fighters she’d smuggled out of Apollo with her. She’d arrived in Redward with a duffle bag full of cash, a lawyer’s address and six nova fighters.

So many things had changed, but her Hoplite-IV hadn’t.

She smiled as she remembered that wasn’t exactly true. Just past where her right hand normally sat was a small statuette. Formed by hand out of bits of scrap metal from Conviction, the model was hardly a thing of great artistic beauty. It was a crude facsimile of a Hoplite interceptor flying over a mountain, only really identifiable as such if you knew the intent.

But Konrad Bueller had made it for her with his own hands as a favor and a good-luck charm. The fighter flew over the mountain, after all, and that was supposed to represent that she’d always rise above any obstacles.

It was silly and ugly and dumb and beautiful and thoughtful and romantic—and she loved it more than words could say.

Three minutes.

Kira carefully breathed in, then out again, and opened a channel.

“All squadron commanders, check in,” she ordered. “Confirm fuel and ammunition status for your squadrons.”

There shouldn’t be any surprises there, but they had the time. Every fighter was in space around her, almost seventy nova fighters and bombers waiting for the order.

Deception-Alpha reports hundred percent fuel, hundred percent ammunition. No torpedoes,” Cartman reported almost instantly.

Ammunition for a nova fighter was the plasma capacitors that fed their close-range cannon. They could be refilled from the microfusion plant that powered the starfighter—but not at nearly the pace they emptied. Usually, a fighter would use up half of their capacitors in a sixty-second pass and recharge about two-thirds of what they’d lost in the sixty-second pause before the next strike.

Raccoon-Alpha reports hundred percent fuel and capacitors. No torpedoes,” Patel’s voice said crisply.

That covered both of her CNGs and their direct squadrons. Both were interceptor squadrons of Hoplite clones. Carrying their torpedoes would have sacrificed the maneuverability they were going to need—and they weren’t planning on destroying Fortitude.

Deception-Bravo,” Colombera’s voice checked in. “Full fuel and ammo. No torps.”

Deception-Charlie,” “Purlwise” Yamauchi reported. “Full fuel and ammo. One torp per plane.”

Purlwise’s squadron was Kira’s only set of heavy fighters. They could carry two torpedoes—but the second degraded their performance.

Raccoon-Bravo, all full, no torps.”

Raccoon-Charlie. One hundred percent fuel, one hundred ammunition, no torps.”

Deception-Delta. One hundred percent fuel. Capacitors at one hundred percent. One torp per fighter,” Sagairt reported, his voice slightly more formal than the others. He had the Sinisters, the Redward-built fighter-bombers. They could have brought two of their three torpedoes, but they shouldn’t be needed.

Darkwing-Alpha,” Ruben “Gizmo” Hersch reported. “Full ammunition, full fuel, one torpedo each.”

Two more Darkwing squadron commanders counted in the last of Kira’s fighter-bombers, then one last report came in.

Raccoon-Zeta online and standing by,” her bomber commander reported. “Full fuel. Fuel ammunition. Twelve torpedoes per bomber.”

And that was why Kira’s heavy fighters and fighter-bombers were only carrying one torpedo each. If things truly went to hell, she would call in six of the updated Fastball bombers—carrying seventy-two torpedoes between them.

That strike would be a serious threat to even Deception herself. If Kira’s enemies forced her hand, she had the firepower to obliterate her target.

Of course, if she had to obliterate Fortitude, things had gone very, very wrong.

“T minus one minute,” she said aloud, making sure all of the squadron commanders heard her. “If you have a concern or a problem, now is the last possible moment to mention it.”

“If you forgot to go to the bathroom before we left, I suggest you double-check your flightsuit catheters,” Cartman suggested on the same channel. “Because nobody is mothering anybody.”

“Be good, Nightmare,” Kira said. “We all know the plan. We all know the drill. We all know who we’re up against.”

Seconds ticked away. They were giving Fortitude a full minute more than they’d calculated she’d need. There was too much chance of her jumping somewhere slightly differently than expected. That kind of change would be a smart security precaution, though they might also think it was unnecessary.

“These people have no idea what’s about to hit them,” she continued. “Our reputation reached this place, enough that the Crown Zharang came to find and hire us, specifically, out of the entire galaxy.

“Pilots of Memorial Force, let’s prove they made the right call.”

Ten seconds. Five. Kira swallowed. There was no more time. No more second thoughts. She’d taken Jade Panosyan’s money and she’d signed on for the Crown Zharang’s cause. If the Crest was to be free of the Sanctuary and Prosperity Party…if they were going to stick a finger in the Equilibrium Institute’s eye…if Memorial Force was going to have a fleet carrier this year, there was only one thing left to do.

“Memorial Force…nova and attack.”

* * *

Surprise was total. Fortitude was exactly where they’d projected she’d be, and six of the Hussar nova fighters were in space.

Kira’s sixty-one nova fighters emerged in a perfectly synchronized wave and activated their multiphasic jammers within moments of arrival. Old habit meant that she tried to lead the way, gunning her Harrington coils to full power and blazing forward through the chaotic mess of the jamming.

The other interceptors were with her, five squadrons of the Hoplites and their clones swooping in. The Blue Scarlet pilots didn’t even begin to react before the first plasma bolts struck home.

Four of the Hussars were gone before they even started defensive maneuvering, and Fortitude’s defensive guns weren’t firing either.

A fifth Hussar vaporized, a kill Kira was reasonably sure was hers, and the sixth finally seemed to wake up, unleashing a spiraling spray of fire as the pilot dodged back behind the carrier.

They didn’t make it. Kira couldn’t tell which of her pilots had taken down the fighter—she had no more communications in the mess the multiphasic jammers created than Fortitude did.

The Blue Scarlets had been slow and…almost amateurish. A far cry from the elite pilots Kira had anticipated. Even faced with complete surprise, veterans should have reacted before they died.

T plus sixty seconds. The destroyers flashed into existence at the edge of the jamming zone—but the next wave of Blue Scarlet fighters should be launching within seconds.

Kira twisted her fighter around the carrier—Fortitude’s engines were now online and she was laboring to evade them, but none of her guns had fired yet. The hope that her weapons would have been fully safed after the firing trials seemed to be bearing out.

She absently noted the deployment of Milani’s shuttles, the boarding ships flashing toward Fortitude as she watched for the launching nova fighters. T plus seventy to eighty seconds had been the expectation for the second-wave launch.

Now they were at T plus two minutes, with the shuttles about to board…and only now did Kira see energy flares in the carrier deck to suggest the launch. The nova fighters were coming out.

And it was the worst possible time. There was no way that she could warn off the shuttles, and there was no way her people could intercept the Hussars before they found themselves right in the middle of Milani’s boarding force.

Even the most incompetent pilots could obliterate half a dozen boarding shuttles with twice as many fighters at point-blank range. Without communications, Kira couldn’t order anyone to intercept or break off.

Instinct took over and she was feeding power to her Harrington coils and plasma guns before she even consciously realized what she was doing, dropping her fighter in between the assault shuttles and their destination and flying toward the carrier.

One of the biggest arguments Kira had had with John Estanza and his fighter pilots when she’d come aboard had been over unguided landing drills. She’d demanded that her pilots learn how to land a fighter with no control from the carrier.

The theory was for if the carrier’s communications were out…but it also worked for coming into the hangar bay of a hostile carrier.

As twelve enemy fighters tried to come out.

The last thing the Crester pilots were expecting was for someone to be mad enough to fly into their hangar bay. Without carrier guidance, manual landings were something kept for emergencies and desperation—and a carrier’s defensive guns would make a hostile approach suicide.

Except Fortitude’s guns were down and Kira had a hundred and twenty lives on the line.

Her plasma guns opened fire inside the carrier, tearing apart nova fighter after nova fighter as they launched toward her. Debris and vapor sprayed across the deck—but the launch system carried a lot of it at her.

One fighter managed to open fire, and alarms screamed at Kira as a third of her fighter was torn away. Her remaining guns silenced the Hussar. Debris and chaos had cleared the rest.

But more alarms were screaming at her, and she finally spared the fraction of a second for her headware to tell her what was going on.

Nova drives. Gone.

Microfusion plant. Gone.

Port guns. Gone.

Harrington coils. Half-gone, but no power.

She had about two seconds before she blasted into the back of a carrier, the horrifically named splash plate of armor intended to protect the carrier from a crashing nova fighter. Her Harringtons could stop her, but her power was gone.

But her guns were still at thirty percent capacitors—and that could be fed back to the power systems as well.

That gave her half a second.

For half a second, Kira Demirci had full power for half of her Harrington coils. It might have been enough, but she couldn’t take the chance and went for the age-old solution of a pilot who needed to stop.

It wasn’t called lithobraking when you did it to a carrier deck.

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