"I'm sure Commander Paladin would be quite touched by your concern and loyalty," Jacobs offered sarcastically, but Damon just ignored the remark.
"I'm going to my cabin. Notify me when the battle is over with," Damon said in a huff. He then turned and headed towards the hatchway.
Captain Jacobs watched as the man departed. His disdain for the politician showed readily in his narrowed eyes and tensed brow that cast a hint of anger and disgust. Even though Jacobs was a man who would do mostly anything for money, he felt sorry for the poor souls on both sides now engaged in the fighting overhead. As he looked up through the large porthole and surveyed the distant death of ships and crews, an old prayer remembered came to his lips. Suddenly a large explosion appeared in the void and shimmered brightly, but it soon vanished along with his quiet words. With a deep sigh, the vessel's steward went back to his ship's business.
* * * * *
In the cosmos around Mars, fighters zoomed through the void trying to dodge other spacecraft and the all too apparent twisted and shattered wreckage wroth by war. Their plasma bullets of super-heated gas, and energy-seeking missiles sometimes found their marks—and sometimes didn’t. Regardless, pulse cannons of other fighters as well as the lasers of larger warships targeted the small speeding craft themselves. In the hectic chaos and carnage, hulking remains and broken bodies were left drifting everywhere—forever tumbling slowly in the coldness and solitude of space. This was the stark testimony of mankind’s habitual insanity brought about by hatred, injustice, politics, and lust for domination.
Among this moving maze of bloodshed and desolation, a damaged Martian shuttle zigzagged in evasive maneuvers. It ferried to a hopeful safe haven the only survivors of a ship that no longer existed. However, some things were never fated to be. Even though it wasn't a combative craft, it soon became the prey of two Earth fighters. Within moments, the two teardrop spacecraft with stubby delta wings let loose streams of plasma pulses at the unarmed craft from their nose-mounted weapons. After several direct hits, the burning plasma ignited fuel and oxygen instantaneously in a blasting rupture. The shuttle then dissolved into a brilliant ball of fire, killing all aboard.
After destroying the shuttle, the two Earth fighters then picked out an old Martian cruiser making its way through the heart of the battle. Circling from behind, the two daring pilots chose to make their run on the dark grayish-blue ship. They increased their throttle and headed in.
The old ship for the most part resembled a huge orca: an obsolete design concept that echoed the importance life once held by humanity. However, conards were substituted for fins, while gun blisters, and compartments punctuated the vessel. Also added to her silhouette just above mid-ship was a magnetic field accelerator that took the shape of a flat ring dome. It was connected topside by a huge dorsal fin, and was used for creating the massive and complex rotating magnetic fields needed for hyperspace travel as well as defensive shields. Beneath her, a large rectangular flight bay hung from the bottom of the vessel, while smaller engine pods on either side of her were mounted for maneuver and reverse thrust. Ominously, the rounded bow of the ship was fitted with a ramming plane that traveled its diameter: a leftover from battle tactics of long ago.
As the old vessel traveled through the conflict, both pilots fired their plasma weapons simultaneously at the ship. However, the Martian cruiser christened Mariner was heavily armored and returned their fire almost immediately. A direct hit transformed one fighter into millions of tiny flaming fragments as the second fighter pressed its attack—as well as is luck. This ultimately proved fatal, as one of the warship's laser cannons severed an engine and several control surfaces from the fighter. The small craft spun out of control, ending its flight with an explosive impact near the bridge of the big ship.
The bridge of the Mariner rocked from the volatile collision. Normal lighting dimmed and blinked off, replaced by an emergency subdued red illumination for a moment. It faded the bridge into a temporary surreal atmosphere of glimmering instruments being attended by shadowy figures. But an instant later, normal lighting snapped back on and was restored.
The bridge crew of the Mariner paid no heed to the lighting as they felt the ship rock from the violent encounter. Like crewmen of any ship, they continued to carry out their seemingly endless tasks of tending positioned instruments mounted against the bulkhead walls or around the main holographic viewer. Dressed in dark blue flight suits that covered their bodies from their black combat boots to their necks, the crewmen were methodical, yet hasty in their actions.
A small, stocky man with two stars on his collar paced the deck as he talked loudly into his wireless headset. His snapping and crackling ciphernetic voice came from an electro-mechanical device that was implanted in his throat many years ago. This added to his unsettling appearance of cropped white hair bounding between the normal right side of his face and the artificial skin that covered the left side like an off-colored mask. It was a constant reminder to all who viewed him that starship warfare was indeed a dangerous game.
Commander Paladin's dark eyes and harsh voice were charged with fury as he directed his ship and the Martian military’s order of battle. "Angel Fire to Angel One! Angel Fire to Angel One!" Commander Paladin voiced in urgency. "They're trying to reform several wings at 2-0, 3-1-7, 1-1-5, over!"
"Wait one," the female voice of Angel One replied over his headset.
* * * * *
Some distance away, the blue and gold Martian fighters of Angel flight assembled. They were somewhat reminiscent of the F-18 fighters of over 150 years past, but the superb blended-wing craft held many major differences. For instances, like the bigger Martian warships, they were ion driven. However, the fighters required compressed fuel cells for power instead of relying on cold fusion reactors. Also each forward wing was connected to the other by a rearward triangular spoiler, which gave them great maneuverability when flown through a planet’s atmosphere.
Huge plasma pulse cannons also replaced each of the F-18’s jet forward intakes. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen were their ammunition supply. Stored in wing tanks, a mixture of both fluids was sent into a special chamber and ignited into plasma by a laser. Using an intense electromagnetic accelerator to form and propel the plasma down its barrels, a plume of plasma bullets were then loosened from the fighter’s cannons at approximately 5,000 meters per second. The high-tech weapons could easily penetrate over a foot of unguarded steel. And to supplement their guns like their ancestor, there were a number of pylons under the forward wings that carried a variety of different types of missiles and other ordinance.
Angel One—Squadron Leader Colette Boussard—vectored her flight towards the given coordinates. Despite her helmet’s visor display supplying an enormous amount of flight and target information, she jerked her head around constantly while her eyes searched in an “S” pattern. This type of scanning was typical of veteran pilots that used it to avoid a “flaming helmet” scenario of information overload under the stresses of combat. Her bulky and somewhat oversized space helmet, however, forced her to over-exaggerate her head movements in order to get a better view.
"Boosy, I see them! They're at nine o'clock high!" her wingman blurted out over her radio earphones.
Colette snapped her head upward to survey two huge enemy formations of teardrop craft with delta wings.
"Oh my God, there must be over a hundred of them!" her wingman was awed.
Colette's gut tightened in anxiety, but it made no difference. "We see them, Commander. We're on our way!" Colette spoke resolved to her mission. "Angel One to Angel Flight! Vector 2-0, 3-1-7, 1-1-5! I say again! Vector 2-0, 3-1-7, 1-1-5! We’ll form a Cat’s Claw at the new Initial Point!"
One by one, the fighters of Angel Flight peeled away from their separate and isolated positions in the battle, and started their attack run in what seemed to be random, disconnected patterns. The space fighters zipped and spun about at tremend
ous speeds while turning at insane angles, barely missing thousands of drifting pieces of wreckage—the vestiges of the destruction—as well as other surviving spacecraft. The control of each fighter was directed by their linked flight computers via a joint tactical matrix system. But all were making their way steadily to the same directed I. P. This was the nature of fighter tactics of the 22nd Century. Long gone were the days of approaching an enemy fighter unseen from behind. An array of sensors and cameras scanning in all directions had rendered this ploy absolutely useless.
Regardless, the Martian fighters swiftly climbed to attack. With every second that passed, they drew faithfully nearer, masked by the stealth of their maneuvers. Yet, it seemed not to matter, for the “Earthers” were paying more attention to their intended targets rather than to the small ban of Martian fighters moving towards them.
As the Martian fighters closed in, cold sweat from Colette's hand filled her glove as it tightened its grip around the fighter's joystick. "Wait—wait!" she cautioned her flight. "Wait!" Colette cautioned further as she could now make out the enemy ships' markings. "Wait!" her thumb caressed the fire button as Angel Flight came together finally in a claw formation as indicated by her flight display. "NOW!" Colette’s harsh voice tone demanded.
The small group of Martian fighters unleashed a lethal barrage of pulse cannon fire and heat-seeking missiles that raked the first massive wedge formation of Earth fighters. Many of the small Earth craft simply blew apart, while the rest scattered to avoid the same fate as the burning cinders that were once their comrades.
As a few of the Martian fighters gave chase to the fleeing Earth craft, Colette strived to maintain coordination over her flight. "Never mind them! Concentrate on the second formation!" she ordered.
However a moment later, her wingman's voice yelled excitedly over her headphones in interruption. "BOOSY, WE'RE TOO LATE! THEY'RE FIRING AT THE VIKING! LOOK!"
Snapping her head for a view of the warship and its attackers, Colette’s eyes widen in alarm as the second formation fired their missiles at the ill-fated Martian cruiser.
The destruction of the ship came in slow motion to the flight leader. The hoard of missiles penetrated the hull of the ship from bow to stern splintering their entry points on the hull. Through its portholes, spontaneous flashes of light then illuminated the space around it. Next, the larger secondary explosions erupted, which began to twist and melt the metal of the vessel into molten portions. At this point, great blazing sections of the cruiser blew off indiscriminately, fragmenting the space around the vessel in her death throes. Finally, the end came in a silent massive explosion that sent an ever-expanding hallo of green energy off into the blackness of the void.
Colette winced in momentary wave of jitteriness that shook her in her seat and sent a trail of goose bumps up her body. However, she firmed her jaw and went back to her deadly profession.
* * * * *
Back aboard the Mariner, Paladin's attention had turned to several breaches in the hull of his ship. "I don't care! Commandeer the entire galley crew and any non-critical personnel if you have to, but seal those breaches! You get me, mister!" he rebuffed the ship's damage control officer over his headset.
"COMMANDER, AN EARTH CRUISER IDENTIFIED AS THE TASMANIA IS ABEAM OF US AND RAPIDLY APPROACHING OUR PORT QUARTER!" Captain John Winslow, an average middle-aged man of dark brown hair and New England ancestry warned Paladin in a yell across the bridge.
Paladin quickly turned his head and gazed at the tactical display. A holographic globe containing 3 dimensional images of the ships around the Marnier along with their coordinates were projected between two huge octagon light fixtures. The Earth ship's advance on their position was clearly recognizable. Paladin calculated that it would be in firing range in less than a minute.
"MR. WINSLOW, GET ME A FIRING SOLUTION ON THAT SHIP! TACTICAL, SET THE DISTORTION-FIELD GENRATORS TO MAXIMUM, AND READY THE HEAT SHIELD, STAR BURST, Phalanx, AND MISSILE DECOYS!" Paladin bellowed out to the weapons’ crewman as he abruptly paced to the helm's position.
Stopping next to the helmsman, he grabbed at the man's shoulder. "Cut the main starboard engine, right now! On my command, give me a hard right at a 45 degree angle of climb, and use the bow and port docking thrusters as well!"
Paladin then cast narrowed eyes at Winslow. "At this range, he can’t lock us with his sensors, not with the distortion generators set at max. He’ll have to lock on us by optics alone. At that point, we'll blind him and then turn just as he fires. He won't be able to correct in time. After his main weapons have timed-out and we've come fully about, we'll treat him to a volley!" Paladin spoke in strangled, but determined electronic tones.
Winslow's face brightened with a smile. "Aye, Sir."
"SENSORS!" Paladin continued, "CALL OUT HIS DISTANCE! BUT AS SOON AS YOU SEE ANY POWER FLUCTUATION, GIVE ME A YELL!"
"AYE, COMMANDER!" the woman responded.
The bridge of the Mariner then went silent.
The Tasmania was a modern-day warship of deadly efficiency and a veteran of many battles. Her multi-rectangular design, however, looked like an upside down and elongated stairway of four tiers with a huge upper deck that spread into a massive delta wing. Her super structure was oddly divided and mounted on her sides, but they each brimmed with laser cannons and other instruments of war. As she drew closer and prepared for her assault, her metallic gray and silver precipitated harden alloys gleamed brightly in the rays of the distant sun. She was a magnificent ornament of beauty and death in the eternal night over Mars.
"TASMANIA, TWENTY-FIVE CLICKS AND CLOSING!" the sensor crewman cautioned.
“TACITCAL, DEPLOY STAR BURST!” ordered Paladin. “WHEN I GIVE THE COMMAND TO TURN, ENERGIZE THEM!”
The crewman gave Paladin a single nod and then went back to his tasks. With a press of a button, a dozen man-size spheres ejected from the ship and took up station in front of the old Martian cruiser.
"Steady helm," Paladin’s voice reassured.
An endless moment then passed.
"TWENTY CLICKS—HER OUTER MISSILE DOORS ARE OPENING!" the sensor crewman again alerted.
Time now stood completely still.
"FIFTEEN CLICKS—POWER SPIKE!"
"NOW! HARD TO STARBOARD!" Paladin's words boomed in command authority.
The Star Burst Flares became a nova of an intense and blinding light just as the Mariner's thrusters came to life. Totally obscured by the sudden brilliance, the Martian cruiser turned mere seconds before the Tasmania fired her energy weapons. Without knowing the target had veered hard from its original course, the sustained laser beams passed harmlessly by as the Mariner rapidly pivoted away. Only when the brightness faded did the captain of the Tasmania realized his mistake, but he was quick to remedy the error.
A horde of missiles were launched from the Tasmania and pressed in for the kill. They streaked towards the Martian ship as burning white columns of death. Suddenly, from the Mariner's hull, missile decoys shot away at different angles, while several rows of rectangular magnetic and x-ray antenna transmitter arrays popped out of her sides and tons of liquefied hydrogen gas was released through huge spray nozzles from the ship’s internal storage reservoirs. The liquid gas was then diverted away from the ship’s hull by an intense diamagnetic field that was generated by the array. The field directed the substance to form a thick wall in front of the Mariner. The liquid was then boiled to an energized gaseous state by a bombardment of x-rays that also stripped it of its electrons at the same time. This transformed the gas into a thick churning, blistering shield of flaming red and orange-hydrogen plasma that burned like the outer reaches of the sun at approximately 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Paladin and his bridge crew watched the trajectory of the fiery messengers of doom approached the heat shield of the boiling cauldron of hydrogen gas. It stood as the first line of defense against the missiles. As the missiles closed, they all wondered if the
ir counter-measures would be enough to save them and their ship.
Finally as the first missiles penetrated the heat shield of plasma gas, these targeting projectiles exploded quickly within a few seconds, taking out themselves as well as any other nearby trailing missiles. However, the threat still remained even though a little more than half were destroyed; their detonations had dissipated much of the wall of gas, creating large gaps. The surviving missiles penetrated through these openings of the plasma field unscathed and continued on their deadly path.
As the projectiles closed in, the lumbering decoys transformed themselves into moving holograms of the Martian ship. The electronic illusions quickly confused many of the missiles and sent them on wild courses away from the Martian cruiser. Still, a few traveled unswerving towards the Mariner.
As the final few approached, the spinning multi-barreled Gatling Gun-like Phalanx lasers mounted in the Mariner’s many weapon blisters, aimed and locked on the missiles. They then showered the traveling explosive devices very rapidly with a bombardment of small pulses of laser energy that simulated a stream of incandescent water being sprayed by a hose. Each of the missiles was riddled by the lasers and blew up short of its target. As the last of the Earth ship's missiles were destroyed, it was clearly the Mariner's turn as her weapon systems tracked the Earth ship.
"WEAPONS, FIRE!" ordered Paladin in a roar.
The Mariner filled the space between the two ships with deadly and accurate laser and plasma fire. Both continuous beams and pulsed energy pummeled the Earth ship in battering strikes, opening huge sections of the Tasmania's steel alloy hull in explosive ruptures.
"SHE'S DAMAGED BADLY!" the sensor crewman loudly shouted to the Mariner's bridge personnel. "COMMANDER, HER POWER IS DOWN BY SIXTY-THREE PERCENT AND THERE ARE NUMEROUS BREACHES!"
"Cease firing," Paladin commanded. "Open a hailing frequency to that ship and put her on the viewer."
"Hailing frequency opened, Sir."
Commander Paladin drew a breath as he gazed at the luckless Earth ship. "This is Commander Paladin of the Mariner hailing the captain of the Tasmania. Captain, your ship is badly damaged, breached, and on fire. It is senseless to continue fighting. I promise care for you wounded and safe passage for your entire crew to…."