First Strike

Tarina steeled herself as the seven ships’ crews prepared to jump to Derra-5. All of the other jumps to date had been without incident. This time, however, she knew they were deliberately going into harm’s way. From their hidden satellites orbiting above the planet they knew where the enemy’s ships would be, however, once they came out of their jump they would have to fly as close as possible to the Kurgan vessels before detaching their bombs. It was a maneuver that would probably take more than ten seconds to accomplish, leaving them vulnerable to detection and engagement by the Kurgan ships.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Wendy in Tarina’s headset.

  “I don’t mind telling you that I’m more than a bit nervous about this one.”

  “Me too. I’ve already programmed the return jump into the computer. Give me the word and we are out of there.”

  “Sounds good. The sooner we can get back here the better.”

  The lights inside the hangar changed to red. Tarina let out a deep breath and watched apprehensively as the floor below them opened up. As one, all of the craft maneuvered underneath the transport ship and spread out.

  Colonel Wright’s voice came in loud and clear in all of the Avengers. “Okay, people, this is what they pay us for. Stay sharp, keep calm, and you’ll all do fine. Beers are on me when we all get back.”

  An automated voice took over and began the countdown. Tarina could feel her heart racing. Her palms inside her tight leather gloves were sweating. The instant the computer said zero all of the Avengers jumped into battle.

  It was the shortest flight in her life as far as Tarina was concerned. The second they came out of their jump, Tarina and Wendy saw their target, a massive Kurgan fighter carrier. Tarina looked up and smiled. They had arrived right underneath of the enemy vessel. Tarina glanced down at her scanner; there were no fighters in the area. She quickly engaged the sublight engine and maneuvered straight up. The fighter carrier dwarfed their ship, filling the glass of their cockpit.

  “Five hundred meters,” announced Wendy.

  “Detaching the bomb,” said Tarina as she flipped a switch on her flight console. Beneath their Avenger, the experimental EMP bomb activated and floated free in space with its timer already counting down from sixty seconds. Tarina maneuvered back slightly from the bomb and said, “Wendy, get us the hell out of here!”

  “Jumping in five-four-three-two-one.”

  Tarina expected the world to turn dark as they jumped away from the enemy fleet. Instead, they were still beneath the Kurgan carrier. “Wendy, why haven’t we jumped?”

  “One second,” replied Wendy as she re-checked her calculations in her head. “Jumping now!”

  Again, nothing happened. They were still in Kurgan occupied space.

  Tarina’s console lit up. “Damn it. They have us. Wendy, can we jump or not?”

  Wendy sadly reported, “I don’t think so. I think the engine must be malfunctioning.”

  Tarina swore. Right away, her fighter pilot training kicked in. She pushed down on her joystick and applied full power to the Avenger’s thrusters, trying to put as much distance as she could between her ship and the bomb before it detonated.

  Colonel Wright saw them flying away. “Alpha-two, this is Alpha-one, why have you not jumped?”

  “Alpha-one, our jump engine is non-functional,” replied Tarina curtly.

  “Head for the Marine landing sites. They’ll be along in an hour.”

  “Roger that.”

  The warning lights on Tarina’s console flashed red. She cursed their run of bad luck when she saw that a Kurgan cruiser had a missile lock on their ship and a pair of fighters were closing in on them. “Hang on,” Tarina warned Wendy as she dove underneath the cruiser just as it fired.

  “Warning: incoming missiles,” said an automated voice in the cockpit.

  “No shit,” muttered Tarina. Up ahead was another cruiser. Tarina grinned. She had an idea. Without flinching, she flew straight for the other Kurgan cruiser.

  “What are you doing?” asked Wendy, her voice tense and nervous. “The missiles are right behind us and closing fast. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Firing countermeasures,” Tarina announced calmly as she ejected several super-heated metal orbs out the back of her ship to lure off the incoming missiles. Two of the three enemy rockets locked onto the orbs and detonated. The third, however, flew straight past the others and rapidly closed on the Avenger.

  Wendy cranked her head around and looked behind them. “Damn, we’ve still got one bogey hot on our tail.”

  Tarina waited until the Kurgan cruiser’s stern filled her screen before she flew underneath the ship missing it by less than a meter. Behind them, the missile locked onto the nearest heat source and flew straight into the cruiser’s engine, igniting it in a massive fireball.

  “You did it!” cheered Wendy.

  “We’ve still got company,” replied Tarina, watching her console as the two Kurgan fighters closed within fifty kilometers.

  They never witnessed the havoc wreaked on the enemy fleet when the EMP bombs detonated. Only half of the experimental weapons went off as planned, but the results were beyond measure. One of the Kurgan carriers instantly lost power and began to drift in space. The other only experienced some electrical outages, but that was at the precise moment the first strike force from the Sixth Fleet arrived in orbit and began to launch its fighters to engage the enemy. Within seconds, swarms of fighters from both fleets were locked in a deadly struggle. Missiles streaked across the heavens as the Kurgan Fleet struggled to fight back. In less than three minutes, the entire complement of ships from the Sixth Fleet jumped into their pre-arranged coordinates above Derra-5. Hundreds more fighters rushed to join the battle targeting the Kurgan destroyers and cruisers that still had power.

  “We’re going in,” announced Tarina as the underside of the Avenger turned red and began to heat up as they rapidly descend into the planet’s atmosphere. The ship shuddered as it fell, rattling its occupants.

  “I can’t see those fighters on my scope anymore,” said Wendy.

  “Our scanners will be useless for the next couple of minutes. They won’t give in that easy. We’ll probably pick them up again once we get lower in the atmosphere.”

  “Please tell me that you weren’t a real wash out at fighter school.”

  “I was let go because I didn’t follow orders well and went after the enemy by myself.”

  “That’s a good thing, right? You’re good at dogfighting, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry, I never survived a single simulated engagement.” Tarina heard Wendy groan. “There’s got to be a first time for everything.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Fleet status?” asked Admiral Sheridan.

  “Sir, all ships have arrived in orbit,” replied Captain Killam. “The carriers Ark Royal and Saratoga have engaged the two Kurgan carriers. The Kirov has launched her fighters armed with anti-ship missiles to attack the enemy’s escort ships. Our destroyers and cruisers have moved to engage the remainder of the Kurgan Fleet.”

  “Thanks. Ask for periodic reports from the strike forces, but don’t get in their shorts. Let them do their jobs and they’ll win this battle for us.”

  Killam nodded.

  Admiral Sheridan looked down at the tactical screen and watched as the number of friendly fighters destroyed in the fight began to climb. They may have achieved near total surprise, but that didn’t mean the enemy was going to roll over and let them walk all over them.

  The pull of gravity soon began to be felt inside the Avenger. It wasn’t as sudden of a change as jumping into the atmosphere, but it was still noticeable. Tarina looked down at her terrain guidance display and tried to identify one of the pre-designated landing zones. She bit her lip when she realized that they were a good ten minutes away from the nearest one. Tarina knew she was facing aerial combat with two enemy fighters in a vessel that wasn’t designed to fight. The coming fight was going to tax all of her skills a
s a pilot.

  “I think I’ve got something on my screen,” announced Wendy. Her growing fear came through in her voice.

  “What have you got?”

  “Uh . . . looks like only one of them is still after us. It’s over three thousand kilometers back, but closing real fast.”

  “Hang on,” said Tarina as she put their craft into a nosedive. Plummeting almost straight down, the Avenger shook violently. Never designed to be flown like a fighter, Tarina was pushing her ship to the limit. Through the clouds, the snow-covered peaks of the mountain range south of the capital came into view.

  Wendy called out, “Do something; it’s going to be in missile lock range in less than thirty seconds.”

  Tarina leveled out and flew straight toward the mountain peaks. She had used up all of their Avenger’s countermeasures in orbit. Tarina knew she had to try to out-maneuver her opponent in the mountains if they were going to survive.

  A threat indicator came on. “Warning, incoming enemy missile! I say again, incoming enemy missile!”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know,” muttered Tarina as she aimed her ship between a couple of jagged icy peaks.

  “Five seconds to impact,” said the automated voice.

  Ahead Tarina saw a tall mountain. She grinned and headed for the peak. In her headset, she could hear the computer’s voice counting down. When it said two seconds, she pulled back on her joystick and applied full power to the engine. Instantly, Tarina and Wendy were pinned to their seats as the Avenger flew straight up into the sky. Behind them, the Kurgan missile didn’t have time to correct its flight and exploded on impact with the mountain.

  They had little time to celebrate as cannon fire from the pursuing fighter shot past the Avenger, missing the cockpit by mere meters. Tarina gritted her teeth. Their opponent was good. She pulled out of the climb and dove back down for the safety of the mountains. In seconds, they were down inside a long valley. Skimming just above the trees, Tarina flew from side to side trying to throw off their pursuer’s aim. She could see the valley opening up. Once they burst out into the open, she knew that the more maneuverable Kurgan fighter would be on them in seconds. She had to do something.

  “Wendy, how close is the fighter?”

  “About two kilometers back.”

  “Wendy.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hang on,” announced Tarina as she instantly decreased their air speed and pulled back on her joystick, raising up the nose of their ship. For a second, the Avenger seemed to hang straight up in the air. The sudden declaration on the women’s chests was like being crushed in a vise.

  The Kurgan fighter, not expecting such a radical maneuver, flew straight past them.

  Tarina, still grimacing in pain, dropped the nose down, applied power to the engine and flew after the Kurgan ship. It was less than a kilometer away. Tarina didn’t hesitate. She lined up her sights on the back of the fighter and pulled back the trigger on her joystick. Thirty-millimeter shells tore through the sky and struck the enemy craft’s port side wing, tearing it off.

  Tarina and Wendy both let out a triumphant cry as the Kurgan fighter rolled over and plummeted to the ground. A couple of seconds later, it hit nose first and exploded. Neither woman saw if the enemy pilot had time to eject or not.

  Wendy said, “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “It’s an old dogfighting trick called the cobra maneuver. I never could pull it off in the simulators. I always stalled the engine and crashed.”

  “Thank God, for once you didn’t.”

  They flew out of the valley. In the distance was one of the proposed landing sites.

  The threat indicator sprang to life. “Warning, incoming enemy fighter.”

  Tarina swore and dove as low to the ground as she could. It was the second fighter they had lost contact with.

  “Tarina, how much ammo do we have left?” asked Wendy.

  “Not enough,” Tarina replied grimly.

  “Warning, enemy fighter has missile lock,” said the computer.

  Tarina desperately searched the horizon for cover. It was a vast, frozen plain. There was nothing to see for kilometers.

  Wendy turned her head and looked behind. The Kurgan fighter had closed within a few hundred meters. It was toying with them. It could easily blast them out of the sky. A second later, it shot up right beside their craft. Both women looked over and saw the Kurgan pilot wave to them before ducking in behind them. He was going for the kill.

  Tarina was about to order Wendy to eject when unexpectedly the Kurgan fighter exploded in midair. Flaming debris fell from the sky.

  In their helmets, the women heard a familiar voice. “Keep going. We’ll be over the first LZ in two minutes.” Today, their guardian angel was Colonel Wright.

  They landed their Avengers near an old, abandoned farmhouse nestled next to a frozen lake and climbed down onto the snow-covered ground.

  Wright activated his emergency transponder beacon marking their position. Next, he armed the self-destruct devices on both Avengers. If anyone tried to open either cockpit without first disarming the explosives, the planes would detonate. He pointed over to the ramshackle-looking farmhouse and led them all inside.

  “We’ll have to hold up in here until the Marines arrive,” said Wright. He looked down at his watch. “Shouldn’t be too long of a wait. The first wave is due in orbit in just under thirty minutes.”

  “It’s freezing in here,” Wendy gripped. Her teeth chattered.

  “My friend is out there somewhere,” Tarina remarked. “He’s been without heat for longer than I care to imagine. This isn’t so bad.”

  Wendy regretted opening her mouth. “Sorry, I sometimes don’t think before I speak.”

  “It’s okay, we all do that from time to time,” Tarina said, hugging her friend.

  Wright drew his pistol. “Until the Marines get here, I want everyone to pick a window and keep a sharp lookout. Don’t forget, we’re in enemy territory. I, for one, don’t intend to end up in some Kurgan POW camp on a planet no one has ever heard of.”

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