15

Deception’s and Huntress’s multiphasic jammers went up the same moment that the nova fighters’ did. The two capital ships were at least moving sufficiently in sync to remain in contact with each other via direct laser link, though. They lost some bandwidth but coms remained stable.

The nova fighters maneuvered too quickly and too randomly even at sublight for that to work for them for long—and they vanished into nova seconds after the jammers went live, anyway.

Which left Kira waiting for news of what was going on a full light-minute away as her two starships hurtled toward a battle that would, hopefully, be over before they could join it.

“Anti-fighter systems are online,” Soler reported, her voice soft. “Link with the CSP is…intermittent but active.”

While it had never been explicitly mentioned in the orders Kira had given, everyone had known they weren’t sending the entire nova-fighter fleet at the enemy. Two squadrons of Wolverines and two squadrons of Hussar-Sevens—all from Huntress—had remained behind to form a twenty-four-fighter combat space patrol.

Those fighters were moving around the two capital ships rapidly and randomly, taking full advantage of their superior maneuverability to throw off any sight lines anyone would get. It would also make them harder to hit if—

“Contact!” Soler snapped. “Multiple contacts. We’re having difficulty resolving them, but they’re inbound from the edge of the jamming bubble and coming in fast.”

“Time from nova?” Kira demanded.

“At least fifteen seconds,” the Tactical officer replied. “Forty-five seconds to exit nova… They must have barely missed our people.”

“Confirm identity,” Mwangi snapped.

“Approach vector and maneuvers are all wrong to be our people,” Soler told him. “Acceleration is wrong, mass is wrong, direction is wrong. CIC makes it ninety percent likely Liberators.”

Huntress CIC agrees,” Davidović confirmed.

“CSP is released,” Kira ordered. “Huntress squadrons, Ranger squadrons—break and attack!”

Huntress carried three fighter groups: Huntress Group with her Wolverine interceptors, Ranger Group with her Hussar-Seven fighter-bombers, and Avalanche Group with her Wildcat-Four bombers.

The Liberators were multirole fighters, similar in intent to Kira’s Hussar-Sevens, which meant they carried torpedoes. Both Deception and Huntress could take some torpedo hits…but not many. The single-shot plasma cannon were at least as powerful as Deception’s main guns, after all.

“Contacts at sixty thousand klicks and closing,” Soler said grimly. “Estimate thirty seconds to exit nova. We believe twenty targets.”

“They’re good,” Kira murmured. “We’re better.”

She felt Deception vibrate underneath her as the heavy cruiser opened up on her incoming enemies. The cruiser could hit nova fighters, but the odds weren’t great. Any of them she did hit, even with her secondary lighter guns, were blown to pieces, though.

To reliably hit a nova fighter in a multiphasic jamming field required rapid-firing guns from less than ten thousand kilometers’ range. Given that a plasma torpedo had a roughly fifteen-thousand-kilometer effective range, no capital ship wanted to get that close to a torpedo-armed nova fighter.

The best counter to a nova-fighter strike was another fighter, even the much-maligned sublight sub-fighters.

And unfortunately for the Colossus Nova Wing, Kira had more fighters in her defensive patrol than the CNW had in the entire area. The Liberators were fast for their size, but they were also big nova fighters, almost as large as Memorial Force’s Crest-designed bombers.

Her fingers curled out of view of the cameras, the instincts of a fighter pilot trying to wrap around a set of joysticks she didn’t have. There were few orders she could give at this point, and part of her still wanted to be out there, flying a Wolverine alongside her people.

There was even an extra Wolverine tucked away on Deception’s flight deck for just that purpose. But even Kira had to admit that Memorial Force would suffer for losing her—and nova-fighter combat was risky.

“Fighters are breaking off,” Soler snapped. “Exit nova in ten seconds. No contacts remain on approach.”

“Hold turret fire,” Kira ordered. “Let them go.”

She couldn’t order the fighters to make the same allowance, but she didn’t need to. The Liberators were solid fighters, but their pilots had been utterly outmatched. They’d been decently trained—but Kira’s pilots were a mix of veterans and pilots trained by said veterans.

With the numbers on her side, the Colossus fighters had never stood a chance. Four lived long enough to nova away to safety.

“Lock down those locations,” Kira ordered. “We need to do a Jianhong radiation review once the jammers are down.”

They’d be able to establish where the nova fighters had gone. If they’d only jumped a light-minute, they might be back in sixty seconds—that was the minimum cooldown of a class two nova drive.

If they’d jumped six light-years, however, they definitely weren’t coming back. With the thirty-six hours’ cooldown on a class two drive for a long nova, that was a getaway jump and only a getaway jump.

“New contacts,” Soler reported swiftly. “Multiple contacts, at least forty… Acceleration, mass and vector are correct for our people.”

“Flash the running lights, Captain Mwangi,” Kira ordered. “Let’s see how they did.”

It took a few seconds to establish a laser link, even with the fighters flying in easy, straight lines—though the very fact that nova fighters were flying in easy, straight lines told Kira everything she needed to know.

“Mission accomplished,” Colombera told her. “Cartman stayed behind with three squadrons to keep an eye on the freighters. They still have Colossus Army troops aboard, but they and the depot ship surrendered after we blew both destroyers to pieces in the first pass.”

“The bill?” Kira asked.

“Zilch,” her old comrade replied. “Couple of the bombers got dinged up, but nothing we can’t buff out. Clean sweep, boss.”

Kira released a layer of muscle tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Well done, Commander,” she told Colombera. “Mwangi, Davidović. Let’s drop the jamming and link up with the fighters. Once we’re closer, Milani will send teams over to secure the depot ship and clear the freighters.”

One trade-route stop down. They could hit one more before they had to discharge at Samuels—and Kira’s map suggested that Colossus would be blockading four.

Today’s results said that wouldn’t be for much longer.

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