6. Chapter 6 (1/2)

clean sweep

chapter 6

approaching delius station

delius system

"that's a large station," pershing said, fighting to steady his nerves. he was not afraid, not of the kilrathi. his fear ran along the lines of letting down his comrades.

"makes it that much harder to miss," responded one of the raptor pilots in an accent pershing could not quite place. she sounded like a cross between swedish and russian. probably from one of those russian colonies in the alpha centauri system, they always had strange accents.

both raptors flew ahead of them, lining up on the large target. they were but bugs before the kilrathi behemoth. like anything other spaceborne structure the cats designed or captured, delius station had countless sharp edges, and a few blades sticking out at odd angles. many of the bladed edges were not far removed from daggers. they house pulse turrets, as well as missile launchers. for the moment, the four fighters, along with other quads, remained outside useful missile range.

for the moment.

"relax mailman," candy radioed. he fighter flew along side pershing's no more than ten meters too his left. "just let the raptors worry about the starbase. you worry about enemies closer to your own size."

pershing had not forgotten about them, though he expected to see far fewer than the

iefing warned. fighters from victory smashed the fighter garrison on the moon. some of the explosions he could spot without sensor aid, as annihilation warheads simply vaporized ground installations. pershing spend only a few seconds wondering how many terrans were on the moon. the cats, or at least the males that comprise their military, were not known as prolific builders. everything built on conquered worlds not colonized with their own people were built by indigenous slave labor.

did the same thing happen on hurricane and mcleran? pershing drove the images of his neighbors in chains with kilrathi soldiers standing over them with rifles and whips. those fail to live up to their overseer's expectations were killed. or worse, they might even be eaten. no, those stories could not be true. rapier pilots, or at least the most veteran, told stories like that to rookies. sometimes, they said, the kilrathi spacemen were so sick of rations, they would tractor in escape pods and cook the contents.

"what, me worry?" pershing said, shoving his musing to the back of his mind. "why would i worry about a starbase. that's a threat i can see. the invisible ones worry me." invisible fighters, now there was a truly disturbing image– so to speak.

"glad to hear it," candy replied. "we're about to cross the line. don't forget to keep an eye on your decoy count."

for all the things pershing was suppose to keep an eye on, perhaps a giant spider would be a better choice for a fighter pilot. humanity has run into giants, lizards and cats, but to his knowledge, not into any spider-people. there were even a couple of varni serving in the task force, though not as fighter pilots.

in an instant, every alarm in his cockpit screamed for attention. at least it sounded like it, with all the racket they made. perhaps he should start flying with his cockpit depressurized, just for some peace and quiet. his sensors tracked a swarm of kilrathi missiles homing in on him, and perhaps some of the other pilots as well. he hoped they were ff missiles. if the cats decided to fire their own image-recognizing missiles, he was in dire straits. the only chance he had was to fire off a missile from a wing hard point, and hope the sudden change in his fighter's outline confused the missiles. terran ir missiles have been known to go stupid like that.

the four fighters banked sharply as one, releasing a stream of decoys behind them. decoys were simple enough devices, just transponders with amplifiers built into them. ff missiles would home in on the loudest noise. pilots could deactivate their own transponders as well, but that was a dicey proposition. sometimes missiles will ignore objects without a signal; after all, they ignore rocks floating around in space.

other times– other times were what worried pilots. confed pilots without transponders had the habit of being shot down by their own carrier's automated defenses. anything that flies in too fast without identification is targeted and destroyed. fortunately, weapons were always manned, in the event the cats got cute and put captured transponders on their asms. it was a rare gambit, since whichever side that fired the missiles might accidentally shoot them down.

all kilrathi missiles launched towards pershing detonated against decoys. space behind him lit up

ighter than the surface of delius. even not facing the explosions, pershing still had to blink the glare from his eyes. anybody who faced such blasts would be useless for a few minutes. of course, anybody who faced them would likely be dead as well.

evading the first wave of missiles, the quad shifted back on course for delius station. al around the station, hundreds of small suns winked in and out of existence. most were missiles on decoys, but not all. how many pilots on both sides were vaporized as fusion warheads detonated on contact with shields and hull. with no cap ships about, the kilrathi had only their fighters for interception. his instruments counted some forty-three remaining kilrathi fighters, a number dropping faster than their terran foes. perhaps a dozen fighters survived the earlier attack on the moon.

the moon in question was off in the distance, a half-moon against the backdrop of space. he did not expect to see anything over there, but that did not stop him from glancing. a garrison was tiny compared to any world upon it was stationed, thus would vanish with the tiniest of flashes. the moon looked a dead as countless other moons spread out across the galaxy. he spotted flashes far closer than the moon.

his comm unit blared to light as an omni-directional from the stricken dogwood. the frigate was swarmed by the survivors of the moon, each pilot looking to avenge their fallen comrades. tcs dogwood remained far too distant to be seen visually. pershing pictured the scene in his mind, a scene where the frigate was

eaking in half, escape pods shooting out in every direction. he could not understand most of the message, but what he did chilled him. the cats were flying nothing fancier than a krant, without weapons to kill a ship. two of the fighters, badly damaged with no hope of survival, turned their own fighters into missiles.

earth had its own share of suicidal enemies throughout its history, either desperately defending their homes against impossible odds, or simply civilians with nothing to live for and so much hatred in their hearts. whichever the kilrathi were, the results did not change. two exploding fighters overwhelmed the dogwood's shields and smashed through her hull. victory's flight controller tried to vector the carrier's own returning fighters to aid the frigate, but pershing held out little hope for the ship. perhaps with so many dangerous enemies about, the kilrathi pilots would ignore the escape pods.

"we're on our run," the pilot with the odd accent announced. "keep the cats off our back."

"will do," candy spoke for the escorting duo.