Book 2: Chapter 61: Byte

Book 2: Chapter 61: Byte

USD: Short time later

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Orbit, Asteroid Belt, SRS A3123-Y

Amy watched as Abbey brought the Frigates and Destroyer into laser range. The ships had desperately tried to burn back to their heavier siblings. Then they had dived sunward a short time later, even more madly, but it had been far too late. The haphazard movements only doomed the ships to a relatively slow pass by the station.

As the distance narrowed, the lighter ships began to move in an evasive pattern and streams of kinetics flashed past A3123Y as the orbital did its best to avoid slamming into the incoming munitions.

They had attempted another two missile salvos; both had been wiped out easily by the stations point defenses.New novel chapters are published on

24cm quad barreled lasers took aim from a light second away and Abbey closed her eyes to focus as long-range targeting parameters were calculated.

|Glitter Glitter|

|Meet my flyswatter! |

|Fusion Fire|

There was no physical sensation to the weapons firing, but Amy felt a chill as she looked over her shoulder at Abbey. The young girls eyes were glowing, and a scary smirk had appeared on her face.

Chaff erupted from the fleeing ships in reaction to the large, high-powered anti-ship lasers caressing their hulls. The chaff was a mix of a micro-lattice of reflective mirror material that reflected over 99% of the incoming laser energy away at the cost of absorbing the remaining 1% as heat.

Space behind the frigates lit up as the coherent beams burned their way through the cloud at a much faster rate than point defense lasers could ever hope to copy.

As the frigates continued to burn away at full speed, the clouds quickly dissipated and lost cohesion. Warships carried hundreds or even thousands of chaff canisters, but the Corporate ships were forced to eject one every five seconds to keep the fiery lances at bay.

The frigates cut their acceleration to a minimum suddenly, but A3123Y copied the action, intending to keep the range open. There was no need to get close enough for the enemys railguns and PDCK to get in range.

The enemys own chaff cloud prevented them from returning laser fire. Neither could they change course any longer without risking outrunning the expanding protective cloud.

Amy looked at the plot, Corporate cruisers are accelerating on direct intercept course, springing trap.

Across the nearby area, the small caches of pods that had been stashed by their contract miners came to life. They had little range, so only a relative few fired.

It still amounted to almost six hundred small drones, each with an acceleration profile almost as high as a missile.

One cruiser jerked out of formation, and Amy sent a control pulse through high band for all units to target it specifically.

Hex 3 and 7 power and control restored! Logan said.

Amy shook her head as Logan fist pumped the air.

Activating Hex 3 and 7 weapon systems now! Abbey replied.

The entire station jerked, and even the inertia dampeners failed to hide the sensation of motion. Amy gripped her seat as the sudden force tried to fling her out of it toward the ceiling. The seat clamp attached to the spine of her suit worked fine, though, keeping her safe.

What was that? Did you fire Hex 3 and 7 and they blew up!? Amy yelled over the sudden plethora of alarms and klaxons saturating the command center.

Enemy is returning fire! Laser impacts to main module and Hex 8!

The enemy had run out of chaff. In the few seconds they had left, they targeted their lasers and had fired on their tormentors. The heavy 24cm beams of the station then tore through their hulls with little resistance, the coherent beams rippling across the hull and exploding and rupturing internals with wild abandon.

Amy turned her attention to the engineering monitor. Multiple sections of the orbital were flashing red and yellow.

Abbey spoke up, Bandit 1 and 2 have ceased fire and considered destroyed! Bandit 3 is broadcasting surrender and life pods are ejecting! Should I destroy those as well?

Amys eyes went wide at Abbeys suggestion. No, dont do that.

Oh, I see. Since they are plunging toward the planet, theyll burn up anyway!

Amy took a breath. No, Abbey, its wrong to shoot life pods or kill people without a good reason. Well try to rescue them if we can.

Oh I didnt know that. Should I send drones to help them?

Yeah, one for each pod should be fine. Can they get to them before they burn up?

Calculations say they will make it!

Logan interrupted, Uhh, guys, the damage is cascading, and those cruisers are still coming!

A shrieking sound echoed through the station as part of an industrial construction yard snapped, metal giving way under stresses it wasnt meant to handle. Abbey yawed the orbital in a movement to keep the section from slamming into the rest of the station and doing even more damage.

Depressurizing outer station, debris from damage impacted the main linear drive, but still operating at full efficiency! Abbey reported.

Amy kicked herself mentally. Should have depressurized first!

On the tactical map, their drone assault continued to burn hard toward the cruisers, which had cut their thrust toward the station and rendezvoused with each other. Both curved on a path that would take them out of the asteroid belt.

Intercept course plotted for Turtles 1 and 2! Abbey said.

Amy swallowed, the damage they had taken was ultimately minor, but it had been done by a few lasers. It had highlighted to her that even with the extra armor plating that had been welded onto the orbitals top sections; the station was not built for combat and highly vulnerable.

But they had already made their choices. There wasnt anything to do now but continue. She doubted there would be any mercy even if they surrendered now.

That gave her an idea. Abbey, demand that the cruisers surrender.

Umm, are you sure?

Yes, can you transmit to them?

The cruisers fusion plant suddenly lost containment, producing a small star long enough to ignite its remaining munitions and reactor rods in a devastating inferno that erupted out of the ship that was quickly snuffed by the vacuum of space.

Suddenly the room exploded around Amy, atmosphere blasting outward as one side of the room crumped into the floor. Loosened panels and bolts turned into missiles as they ripped themselves out into space. Taking a second to realize she was unharmed, Amy looked at her companions.

Logan! Abbey!

F..fine! Logan said.

Amy looked over her shoulder to see that Abbey was bleeding, her hand covering a hole in her suits navel that had been dripping blood and small specs of gray that Amy realized were active nanites.

Abbey?

Major hit to central module, power loss to Hex 1-4, PDCK fire ineffective against turtle 2. They are hitting us with rail rounds while hiding in their chaff cloud.

Abbey! Use the super laser! Logan shouted.

Thewhat!? Amy felt confused. What super laser!?

Deploying Logan-Abbey mirroring unit extension. Beam semi sphere collator ready-status.

The remaining operational lasers on the station stopped firing into the cruisers chaff, retargeting to the end of a column that shot out of the stations center like an antenna. A mirrored chamber accepted the laser energy and merged it into a single high-powered beam.

Starting single-core overload!

Amy felt alarm, Dont do tha

The station shook as a fusion plant dedicated to powering their laser weaponry detonated, tearing off Hex 5 from the station completely. But not before it dumped most of the sudden surge of power through every laser channel on the ship.

Heatsinks glowed in protest and several lasers popped as their circuits died from the overload, but the remaining systems held on and pumped their energy into the mirroring chamber.

A thin but potent beam shot out from the tip of the station, almost instantly crashing through its warding chaff cloud and piercing the armored hull like a needle. Vaporized material and plasma incinerated all it touched as it accelerated out of the pin prick wound.

Abbey unclicked from her seat and stood, raising her hand and making a karate chop motion.

Die!

The station pitched minutely, and the laser sliced the cruiser cleanly in half just as the Logan-Abbey focusing array slagged itself from overheating.

Abbey coughed and blood came out of her mouth, her free hand coming up and trying to cover her face but was stopped by the EVA helmet's glass.

She announced the cruiser's fate as she pulled another breath. "Gotem.

Amy frowned as the young NAI paled, her face turning white. The girls hand came off her suit and the pressure difference blew open the hole that had barely been plugged by blood and nanites, sending a stream of red liquid spewing out in a rapidly expanding cloud.

Suddenly the A-Grav field failed, and Amy clicked out of her seat and struggled to float over to Abbey while grabbing a med-kit along the way.

Reaching the floating girls limp form Amy felt a growing sense of panic.

Abbey!

The lights of the station flickered and died leaving the entire area cloaked in the dark, highlighted only by the emergency lighting.

USD: Six days later

Location: Nu Crateris, Dedia IV Orbit, en route to 92 Pegasi Jump Point, Tears of Fire

Alex propped her chin up with a hand as she listened to the Elevators Portmaster.

None of them have paid nearly enough to cover the Elevator fee, and they got detritus all over the station as they were waiting to board!

It had taken a long time to load the ships. He had that much right. With no crew, the ships had tried to rely on the drones to manage the passengers. In the end, she had caved and asked Captain-Major Thraker for help. He had sent several teams of security personnel to manage the thousands of refugees.

Having those possibly dangerous personnel on her ships made her feel wary, but so far, all her dealings with the IHMC were above-board. She was probably just being overly sensitive.

I dont see the problem, Portmaster. We had authorization to take on refugees, and we did so.

Alexs eyes dropped to inspect the idle circles she was drawing with her finger on her console. She was tired of paying attention to his outrage.

You..! You! It was agreed so that you could take on wealthy passengers, and that we would get a percentage cut! Even just one wealthy passenger could have paid for all of them, but you didnt take ANY! My department will have a deficit! Your Corporation needs to pay the costs at least!

Alex paused in her idle stirrings and looked up at the man calmly.

Wow, youre the first one to actually outright say it. I dont really think weve incurred any liability in being required to pay those costs you are alright with me broadcasting this recording, right?

She paused, a smile appearing on her face for the first time during their conversation. No? Well, thats really too bad. Enjoy everyone knowing how much a scumbag you are, asshole.

She jabbed the kill connection button before the Portmaster could recover, the shock on his face being the most enjoyable part of her morning so far. Mainly because neither she nor Elis had slept much, and breakfast had been skipped and she had been forced to eat some of the new MREs.

They were not any better than the old MREs.

It was time for her to take a nap, somehow. Despite the refugee convoys seemingly smooth and rapid departure, she felt a sense of oncoming dread at the situation. The Corporate Picket around the jump point was going to be a pain to negotiate around.

Thraker had told her she should be prepared to offer a sizable sum as a bribe to the inspectors, which would amount to half her remaining balance. No doubt they knew about how much the refugees were supposed to be paying and wanted their cut, too.

It was an insidious game that Alex hated.

She wanted to break it. Smack them and make them behave in a fair and non-exploitative manner.

Checking the monitor, she noted they were halfway to the jump point, and it would be two days until she had to deal with anything.