Deep Space Dogfights

Deep Space Dogfights

An Anthology of Science Fiction

Edited

By

E.S. Wynn

Cover art

Stephen Cooney

Planets And The Universe by kraifreedom

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

First Edition

Rogue Planet Press

© Rogue Planet Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

without written permission from the publisher.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Deep Space Dogfights

Infection

John A. McColley

Final Flight of the Fighting Jack Churchill

John X Grey

Dixie and Lexa’s Blood-Money Escapade

John C. Adams

Platinum Blonde

Micke Lindquist

Space Pirate Sabbath

Karlton B. Douglas

Star Riders

Mark Slade

Skiffs and Sculls in Dreadger Space

Anthony A. Labriola

The Fate of Trex9

E. W. Farnsworth

All in a Day’s Work

Rie Sheridan Rose

New Red Sand Aerial Corps

David S. Pointer

A Spin in the SBG-XHEE

Russ Bickerstaff

The Last Engagement

Richard L. Rubin

The Collectors

Jean-Paul L. Garnier

Through the Looking Parallax

Jon Mercurio Knight

Bowie And The Star Pirates

Ken L. Jones

Digging In

John Ogden

Gentlemen of the Sky

Gavin Chappell

I Flew With Captain Mac

E.S. Wynn

Welcome Sorrow

Joseph J. Patchen

Escort to Callisto

Gregory K. H. Bryant

The Earth Auxiliaries

Vincent Morgan

Flashed

Joseph J. Patchen

The Jade Tattoo

Susan Kuchinskas

Contributor Biographies:

Infection

John A. McColley

Silver One, this is Silver Six!  We've got bogies!  Repeat, we've got bogies!  Kepler is gone.  I've been hit, but I think I'll make it.  I bank away from the swarm, Klein on my 3 O’clock.

We'd split up to patrol the moons in pairs.  Jupiter has so damn many of them, it seemed expedient.  I tap the flashing '6' on my screen to see the footage Six'd sent.  No xenos had appeared inside Pluto's orbit in almost five years.  Had.  Europa! Now!  I scream into the comm to regroup, but my display shows a third of the flight radio-dead.  I speed toward the rendezvous, trying not to think of Io, writhing with gray-green tendrils, unknown ships like a toxic cloud above.

Around Europa, I see only four of us left.  Four of thirty.  I struggle to regain my calm, breathing deeply, searching for a stratagem besides fleeing.  A couple of numbers on my roster turn green again.  A moment later, all but two ships, one I'd seen fall into Jupiter's cloud banks myself, are transmitting.  I punch up a private line to Simms.

Silver Six, are you there?  Do you read?

Silver Six, a shaky voice replies, are you there?  Do you read?

Stop playing around, Silver Six.  What is your status?  We lost you for a minute there.

Stop playing around, Silver- I close the channel.  Duping our signals, clever.

Anyone who's really out there, I say into the general comm, Eighty Six, repeat Eighty Six.  I send them home, tell them to evade all enemies, travel fast, just get out.  I take off toward Ganymede, ready to hightail it out, too, but I see something that triggers a whole different instinct.

Ships, exactly like our fighters, in mold-green instead of the blue, gold and white of Earthborn.  The greens converge on us.  My fingers fly across controls, pulling the stick around to allow me to fire on the enemy broadside.

Nothing happens.  I try again, getting a 'no target' message.  Damn!  Our own beacons, meant to prevent friendly fire, protect the enemy.  The xenos fire streaks of something barely-visible against the black of space.  I punch the targeting aid offline and fire, too.  My white-hot lasers slice into a fighter, sending it spinning toward Europa.

The enemy's shots are like black tadpoles against Jupiter's striped backdrop.  They miss, and my heart leaps, but then the wavering pods explode into whisper-thin nets I can barely see.

Two!  Nine!  Evade!  I cry, too late.  I watch in horror as the nets wrap themselves around wing and bow, spreading like bugs on windshields, but continuing, shimmering as they transmute metal and glass.

I fire again, hoping my shots spare Allens and Kimber the agony of alien absorption.  I've got the enemy's attention.  They turn toward me as the only untainted Earthborn ship visible.  I weigh my options.  Run to tell the tale?  There are so many.  Take as many out as I can and hope the last two make it out?  One hit will take away that choice, one net-mine-thing and I'm a turncoat.  Can I live with that?  Hell no.

I speed into their faces, loosing photonic death as best I can, slicing two more into pieces.  They wheel around to give chase.  Good.  I find myself face to face with another group.  Some are ours, converted.  Some are xeno.  I guess at least four other technologies, leftover captures from previous conquests.  All are that not-quite uniform gray-green.  The Earth flashes into my mind's eye, writhing like Io.  The last of the call signs on my roster screen flicker out, then back.  I've lost them all.  I strike key sequences I'd hoped never to use.  Goodbye, Halloran.

Computer record report.  Silver Flight, Commander Seibritz reporting all scouts lost.  Landfall on Io.  Enemy with infectious weaponry turning any ally hit to enemy.  Will do what I can to stem the tide.  End report.  Send beacon.  I say, jettisoning the tiny probe into Jupiter's upper atmo as I break hard, sending up a wave of dense gas.  It's programmed to stay there for a few days and then float up and head for the nearest base, avoiding all other contact.  It's the best I can do for now, in the way of warning, anyway.

Io rises to my two O'clock over Europa, a dot which grows quickly to a yellow candy with a bite from it.  I stop counting the ships between me and the surface after a hundred.  I type instructions to the computer and push the stick forward to weave through the throng.  A few ships explode as autotargeting takes hold.  The odds are with me in one way- the ship will only balk at firing on former Earthborn ships.  The rest will eat laser.  I stitch the stick left and right, strafing the wriggling missiles and the nets, getting dragged one way, then the other as I'm hit.  I was never getting out of this, but I'm taking as many of these xenos out as possible, if only to give the warning probe a chance to get home.

Sensors show a pile of ships following me.  Good.  I try to resist the urge, but flick a glance over at my right wing.  Not good.  It looks like a minor hit, but I know what happens next.  I disable the governor, then punch the throttle, pushing the engines past their capacities.  I need the antimatter to get overexcited and blow through the magnetic containment.  It'll be a hell of a show, and I have a front row seat.  My lasers continue to clear the path, heading for the center of the blight on Io's surface.

Warning!  Overload Imminent!  Warning!  Overload Imminent!  The screen flashes at me.  I think of Simms and the others.  I salute their memories.  A flash of heat and light ends my perception before I can bring my hand down.  Invade this!  My last thought doesn't make it to my lips.

Final Flight of the Fighting Jack Churchill

John X Grey

Future historians would say the one word which best initially described much of the Battle at 40 Eridani was disaster.  But the entire war against invaders called Xak-ort could also be considered equally futile prior to that engagement.  Even the race’s name had only been crudely translated from garbled signals Earth vessels or outposts detected and relayed via hyperspace, sometimes before those spacecraft, space stations and colonies met with presumed destruction or conquest.  The alien armada had entered this galaxy six weeks earlier and followed a spiral course through the Orion, Perseus and Sagittarius Arms – the 6,000 light year section Earth had claimed by the early 24th Century, striking its outermost positions and exploration craft while moving closer to Earth.  Images of their gleaming black and silver-colored Star Destructor spheres (supported by clusters of smaller diamond-shaped, wedge-shaped or long forward swept-wing supporting craft) were censored during those first three weeks by United Earth Space Command from the general public still sensing something was wrong.  But as more reports by independent spaceships barely escaping the Xak-ort invaders reached loved ones, official censorship was finally ended after an address by the UESC High Commandant in a special broad-wave address.

Yeah, I saw Darcy’s announcement on the giga-tron in downtown Atlantic City taking leave.  Captain Storn Royce’s graying bushy brown eyebrows were furrowed as Task Force Omega exited hyperspace perpendicular to the system named 40 Eridani within one AU of its large yellow star, commanding the Celtic-class warship Fighting Jack Churchill.  Of the four planets, one was a habitable semi-arid world colonized for surface and asteroid (that belt twice the size of the one in Earth’s solar system) mining.  The bright orange star Eridani A was closer than red dwarf Eridani B and white dwarf Eridani C orbiting each other.  Our High Comm. was always a cool customer as my instructor, but I recognized hidden fear in his face that day.

United Earth’s fleet of 535 starships, support vessels and auxiliary craft had been reduced by the new enemies to fewer than 200 since those spheres first appeared over Deneb IV.  The initial battle cruiser sent to investigate, UESC Mad Anthony Wayne, was never heard from again just like agricultural colonies spread across that planet.  What the Xak-ort did with any survivors, assuming they were taken captive, remained unknown.

Begin standard sensor sweep, Royce instructed tactical officer Lieutenant Mimi Carter, once the ship had exited hyperspace, I’d like to know before anyone else if we’re alone here.

Captain Royce commanded one of the oldest ships in this scraped together armada sent on what some among his crew and those aboard other ships felt was a futile last stand far from Earth as possible.  Reflecting that mood, he even recently overheard a lowly petty officer in the engineering section half-joke: There’s a reason our task force was designated Omega.

And this old tub being one of five retrofitted late-23rd Century vintage warships command pulled from inner system patrol duties to augment our force, we’re getting desperate.

The Churchill possessed a sturdy construction, but lacked the newer artificial intelligence integrated computer control, relying more on manual systems than newer craft and carried 255 people (actually 2/3 of minimum requirement) to operate everything.

Scan indicates the system is clear of other ships, short-haired brunette Carter reported, one of four people inside this interior bridge, normally manned by ten, at the approximate center of the tapered cylindrical gray warship, but Eridanus contains no human life signs and emits no standard signals from near orbit or the surface.

Remain at alert, Royce informed his officers, they may still be lurking around even if our settlements and outposts are gone.

The captain maintained calm despite his premonition a trap had been laid here.  Although Earth Command’s signals were tightly encoded, some experts remained convinced the Xak-ort were already reading them.

On a forward viewer, fed from optical crystal imagers along this ship’s hull, the crew saw the 88-member task force’s six scouts take up point positions approaching Eridanus’ equatorial orbit as other ships deployed into patrol formations.  Seconds later, spatial distortions opened up above the orbital plane of the planet and above the several Earth warships.  Disruption blasts preceded the Xak-ort support attack vehicles pouncing upon forward vessels.  As Royce ordered the Fighting Jack Churchill’s forward cannon and missile pods to fire at enemy fighter clusters, additional distortions of local space before and behind the fleet confirming their enemy had waited within hyperspace and somehow remained undetected.

Cartmell, he addressed the short weapon’s control officer at her semi-enclosed station ahead of him along the bridge’s starboard section, the ensign already targeting diamond-shaped screen blips, fire aft pods.  Chick, z-axis minus 5,000 meters and 180 degrees about starboard – get some distance between us and the others.

Helmsman Commander Charles Chick Turnbill seated just ahead of Royce’s command chair executed the maneuver, his orange crew cut and goatee bristling as Ensign Mala Cartmell fired forward pulsar cannons and registered six diamond-shaped fighters exploding into plasma trails, the silver-haired lady almost leaping from her bucket seat in triumph.  Her hair’s tight bun was coming undone onto the uniform’s collar, fingers flying across touchpad surfaces to execute further missile launches.

Lateral guns just got a forward-winged marauder making its ramming run at our hull, Cartmell relayed to Royce as the bridge shook from the alien’s explosion less than 100 meters to port, they’re coming in thick all around…

Everyone on the bridge fell silent and the weapon’s officer trailed off her report as they witnessed the armada’s flagship, Sun Tzu, explode on the viewer near Eridanus and presumably take commanding Admiral Conan McClellan with it, as the Star Destructor responsible slugged it out with the Hannibal and Stonewall Jackson.

Increase thruster power!  Royce gripped his seat’s armrests in urging Turnbill and their ship to maneuver away from the closing trap faster.  He smacked the inter-craft communicator panel near his right elbow on its raised stem to demand: Engineering, we need more speed!  The little friends of those spheres make us look like we’re standing still!

We’re givin’ standard drive all it’s got, sir, Chief Engineer Chaim Stockman’s voice crackled through the speaker before his blurred image with wide gray eyes and disheveled curly black hair appeared on the small oval screen above it, but this old gentleman was overdue for decommissioning before the Xaks ever showed up.

Royce breathed easier seeing the destructive salvos exchanged between fellow warships and the Xak-ort craft when falling away from above them as the Fighting Jack Churchill moved perpendicular to the Eridani system’s plane, getting a better view of the three-dimensional space battlefield, until the vessel shuddered from alien weapon hits against its hull along the forward port and ventral sections.  The bridge was briefly thrown into darkness, except for ceiling and floor emergency lights.  Everyone held onto their armrests to avoid being thrown about as smoke drifted around them from shorted controls and relays.

We’ve lost main power, Executive Officer Terry Allan entered the bridge compartment from the aft passageway, his light-brown, bald-shaven complexion with its sweaty sheen visible even under reduced lighting, but the auxiliaries should cut in and compensate soon.  His blue uniform jacket was disheveled and the left sleeve bore scorch marks in two places.

Long as we hold to damage control protocols on this tub, Royce recalled, standing from the command seat to inspect control stations as Allan took a chair at the ship’s main status board near the engineering systems readout module, "old Jack might survive this mucked battle – after regaining some wind."

Sensors showed more bad news as this ship pointed its bow toward Eridanus; Royce noting the main Xak-ort sphere (presumed so being the smallest one present) hanged back from the other thirty-nine now engaged in smashing through Earth’s largest assembly of might against any outside aggressor species.  By now, the George S. Patton, Duke of Marlborough (named for a different famous British Churchill of the 17th Century), Crazy Horse, Saladin, Moshe Dayan, William Pitt the Younger and Suleiman the Magnificent were taking damage but only dealing similar destruction to a lesser portion of the Xak-ort armada.  The seven newest warships after the Sun Tzu assembled for this conflict would not last too much longer it appeared.  Captain Royce then heard alarms from proximity detection sensors as small forward-swept craft were approaching this spaceship’s forward port side escorting perfect-shaped cubes that extended grappling claws for attachment to the hull.

Captain to crew, he engaged the inter-craft system from his chair’s right side again, I know we’re undermanned, but all non-essential personnel join Main Force Combat Trooper units to repel any alien boarders.  There are only 50 CT’s aboard.

Main lighting resumed on the bridge as its crew directed missile and pulse cannon fire at approaching fighters and breaching cubes, taking out some of them but not enough to prevent a half-dozen pods attaching successfully and making the Churchill’s hull shudder.

All personnel will arm in the event forward sections are overrun, Royce walked over to an emergency wall locker with Allan and they unsealed it using electronic keys simultaneously turned.  Inside hanging on a metal bar were one-dozen sleek black-finish pulse pistols by curved and ridged handle grips.  Everyone present overheard sounds of boots running along hallways above and below headed forward as the spacecraft was rocked from hull breaches by unwanted visitors.

Good God, the captain realized about their enemy, we don’t even know what THEY look like.  Are they humanoid or something completely – alien?

Chick, swing us around the planet toward its magnetic north, Royce had a new idea as he handed Turnbill another pistol and the Velcro-fastened gray metal fabric belt with its holster, before instructing his weapon’s officer, Mala, keep swatting at those fighters with smaller guns, but hold the big stuff we’ve still got left for now.

Cartmell looked around her console’s area to report: Can do, sir, but we’re still taking collateral hits from at least five different enemy spheres.

Our gentleman Fightin’ Jack’s tough, he almost said aloud, as Allan moved beside his left brandishing a pistol in both hands, before staring toward an enclosed alcove containing the ship’s ceremonial plaque and a holographic portrait of the World War II British commando for whom this vessel had been named.

Sir, Lieutenant Carter gasped out at something on her readouts, "the Audie Murphy just rammed two of their spheres.  The Marshall Von Blucher was caught in the explosion."

I’d like to have seen that, Terry Allan smirked with the gleam in his bionic left eye that matched the pride from the right green organic one, Royal Prince is a damned stubborn mistress of her ship.  She probably died cursing the Xaks with her last breath.

According to my readout, Carter added with her sobering tone for the celebrating bald-shaven Allan rubbing perspiration off his scalp, "the Murphy had already sustained 78% damage to its structure.  They probably had no other choice being an older ship like ours."

Captain Prince was a fine officer with a good crew, Royce nodded, silently deciding, and so was Blucher’s Captain Mi Lang.  Will we sacrifice our ship too before this battle’s over?

The Churchill reached that planet’s orbit, the captain hoping polar magnetic distortions would obscure their detection by any sphere’s sensors, even as a half-dozen boarding cubes were attached along the forward port, dorsal and ventral sections.  Royce ordered a release of drive plasma to obscure them from visual sighting by anything