SWNOVELS Chapter Illegal Landing
Act 5: Trial by fire
The SIM Jupiter 33 was in real trouble! After dropping off the surviving workers on Inkanthatana Four and flying on, she not only had to constantly dodge the attacks of the six interceptor squadron behind her, but also the secondary plasma cannons of the PGI cruiser, which was hot on the scout frigate’s heels. Normally, a cruiser would not have been able to keep up with a fast ship like the Jupiter, but as the pursuer was in no danger, it had used its surplus energy to increase the power of its engines and thus remained at a reasonable range.
“They’re pretty stubborn!” said Kuren in the pilot’s seat, in the heat of the moment. “I think they really resent us with Trayden!”
“I’m beginning to think so too!” Dios replied from the co-pilot’s seat as her systems sounded the alarm. “Do you see that?”
“I see it, I see it!”
“You see what?!” asked Tavis from one of the side assistant seats.
Dios explained clumsily. “The same thing that’s on your screen!”
“I’m not a spaceman! As if I know what the red dots mean!”
“Red always means bad! Another PGI cruiser, plus escort destroyers and more interceptors coming our way!”
Tavis couldn’t stop himself from asking a question that had already been answered. “Are you sure we can’t do another IPF?”
“The ship still says no!” replied Dios. “But luckily we know how to fly! We don’t need an IPF!” The increased number of pursuers trying to cut them off did not unsettle her or her sister. Instead, the pilots allowed themselves to be surrounded up to a certain point.
“They’ve got us pinned down!” said Tavis in alarm.
“PGI only covers seventy per cent of all angles!” Kuren replied. “Let’s just take some of the other thirty per cent.” There were enough paths in space and the Jupiter dived abruptly through an open corridor! Only the twelve interceptors were able to copy the daring manoeuvre and the PGI ships had to avoid each other!
“Don’t wriggle around like that!” complained Vorrn, who was operating one of the hyper MGs. However, the constant turning and shifting of the ship’s axis made it difficult for him to land a shot.
“Just aim better!” countered Kuren. “Just like Dorvan!”
The hacker’s bot operated the other hyper gun and took out two pursuers at once, but that wasn’t enough. The enemy interceptors were too often skilfully evasive and were much better at hitting, simply because there were so many of them, and they easily put the Jupiter to the sword.
“How long can a ship like this withstand this kind of fire?” asked Kysaek from the commander’s central seat
“A long time!” Dios replied doubtfully. “Just not long enough with the long distance we still have to travel to Anuket!”
“And how do we solve this problem? Shoot down all the fighters?”
“Vorrn would have to aim better for that! Until then, the fighters have too much combined firepower and are too fast, but don’t worry! We deliberately set out on this route! Planning is everything!”
“Now I’m even more worried!” Kysaek said forebodingly. “What’s going on here?”
“The usual! Lots of space, radiation, fog!” Dios listed, when suddenly all the holoscreens sounded the alarm. First a red dot appeared, then there were two, ten, a hundred and it didn’t stop. “And the occasional asteroid setback!”
“Get ready, sister!” said Kuren. “Set a new course! Deviate to thirty degrees!”
“I’m starting the calculation!” Dios confirmed as the Jupiter headed straight for the grid with the red dots.
“Are you crazy?” Kysaek asked reluctantly. “You’re seriously going to fly through an asteroid setback?”
“We have been before!” Kuren claimed boldly. “Trust us!”
“My heart totally does, but my head doesn’t quite want to! Do you know what the Alliance military taught me about this? - Never fly through an asteroid setback!”
Thais was not enthusiastic either. “I agree with Kysaek!”
“The statistics on successful passing a asteroid setback don’t speak in our favour,” Dorvan’s bot interjected analytically. “Anyone want to know why?”
“Better not!” Kysaek replied in the negative. “If I do, I’d rather die stupid!”
“And now imagine how PGI is feeling right now!” said Kuren, entering the setback with the Jupiter, which was like an endless thunderstorm in space.
There was just no thunder, lightning or clouds, only the stone asteroids, which whipped like merciless raindrops at a tremendous speed, often from one and the same direction, and came in a rich range of sizes. Some chunks were as small as a grain of corn, a fist or a person, but there were also the size of houses and ships and even small moons, although these were extremely rare in this cosmic shooting gallery.
Despite this, six of the ten remaining fighters did not give up the chase and continued to attack their target when they could. The Jupiter flew criss-cross through the stone shower and so the asteroids mainly came from the side. This made precise targeting relatively impossible for the fighters and they had to make every effort to avoid them. However, because they were travelling as a squadron, they also had to watch out for each other when avoiding the asteroids and this almost led to two aircraft colliding! However, one of the pilots had the presence of mind to react with a swerving, upside-down roll, only to be suddenly swept away by a rock of the same size!
The asteroids, which would have fit comfortably in the palm of your hand and were almost impossible to avoid, were even more treacherous. The Jupiter’s shields were able to withstand them, but for the interceptors the tiny stones were like the fire of any modern weapon. Too many hits made the aircraft vulnerable, until one of the mini-boulders smashed through the front of a fighter and the pilot’s helmet, sending him spinning uncontrollably to his doom.
But it only got much worse with the continuous shooting from both sides! Whether Jupiter or interceptor, their Hyper MGs pulverised the slender asteroids or severed pieces from the larger ones. The resulting fragments hurtled into all corners and collided with more rocks, triggering a chain reaction.
The previously dangerous asteroid recoil turned into an absolutely unpredictable flight zone. “Vorrn! Dorvan!” said Kysaek, who didn’t want to shoot anymore. “Stop trying to kill us already!”
“Only if I run out of ammunition!” replied Vorrn. “And that will never happen!” Dorvan’s bot followed the order, but the Hishek didn’t stop firing and caught one of the hunters.
Another pursuer grazed one of the chaotic asteroids and smashed into the next one. “It’s not like back then,” Kuren admitted. The Jupiter’s shields took a good stone hit on the right wing, but the ship was still intact! Nevertheless, the Sororanian changed her mind. “That was close! Divert all unnecessary energy to the protective shield!”
“Done, but that won’t help us!” said Dios. “We have to get out of this tangled hail and get rid of the last fighters!”
“Absolutely!” agreed Kuren and selected one of the rare megaboulders. “I’ll use one of the giant asteroids!”
“Use it?!” asked Tavis. “For what?!”
“Well, to win!”
“Winning is good!”
“And we have to get much closer for that!”
“That’s not good at all,” said Tavis and was taken aback by Doctor Askar’s calmness. “How can you stay so calm?”
“I’m not looking!” replied Re’Lis in a tense pose and with her eyes closed.
“And I’m praying silently!” added Wolfgang, who was sitting next to Tavis. His hands were folded in prayer.
None of this helped Tavis. “They’re both the same to me and not my cup of tea,” said the Palanian.
The Jupiter reached the giant asteroid and just before it reached the surface, one of the chase engines was split in half by a disc-shaped stone, but the remaining two chasers were really extremely persistent and didn’t give up! Directly above the megaboulder and virtually free of all small asteroids, they hit their target again more frequently. However, when the ship suddenly reduced its speed for a short time, the surprised fighters shot past the Jupiter and were caught by the light mass guns. The weapons not only destroyed the pursuers, but their shots slid through their hull like a knife through butter and gave the large asteroid two new, small craters.
“We’ve made it!” announced Kuren. The sensors no longer showed anything suspicious and for them the remaining environment of the setback was no reason for continued panic. “One and a half clicks and we’re out of here and we’ll reach Anuket in a few hours.”
Without the pressure of an opponent breathing down their necks, flying in the asteroid setback seemed so much safer and a sense of relief overwhelmed them all. This increased as they left the dangerous area and, much later, with the slow emergence of Anuket, a white and blue button on the black background of space.
“We’ll be there soon,” said Dios. “Another quarter of an hour or so.”
“Anything on the sensors yet?” asked Kysaek. Her eyes were still red from the tour de force on Trayden, but Doctor Askar had given her the green light during the post-battle examination.
“Lots of signals in orbit of Anuket. No sign of patrols off-planet or in deeper space.”
“Then find a frequency. I want to announce us right away.”
“Will do.”
“Announcing might not be such a good idea,” Tavis said. He stretched his legs after all that sitting. “Normally I’d be in favour of it, but aren’t you worried that PGI might target us?”
“There’s nobody around, not even PGI,” replied Kysaek. “We’d see them coming in time and if they were there, what would they do? This is the consulate’s territory. PGI certainly won’t invade here with warships and won’t start shooting so close to Anuket, because then they’ll be swept away by the planetary defence fleet.”
“Who would contradict such a prophecy?”
“Not a prophecy,” Kysaek smirked. “That’s also from Alliance lessons and the PGI security course in their training. Private warships are only allowed to fly into sovereign sectors or approach their populated worlds with explicit authorisation, and even with this permission, they are strictly forbidden to use their weapons. Only if they are clearly under attack are they allowed to use weapons in defence.”
“Excellent,” nodded Tavis with satisfaction. “You wouldn’t happen to know of any more such rules that we could use against PGI?”
“No, unfortunately not.”
“That’s too bad. To be beaten by your own rules ... Skarg Peeks should have a taste of such irony.”
“The barrel of a gun would be better,” said Vorrn. “And since you’re all too squeamish for that, I’ll take it.”
“It would be a simpler victory over Skarg, but victory is victory,” Tavis replied. “We could send Vorrn to Cipi alone. He’ll do it.”
“No, I’m sorry Tavis,” Kysaek said, recalling not only the recent event with anger in his mind. “After all this hardship, I don’t want to sit on the sidelines. No matter what we do next, it’s not going to be a solo effort by anyone.”
“How unfortunate for Skarg,” Tavis said with tempered sarcasm. “All of us together. That makes it even easier for us to beat him.”
“Palanians, ha,” Vorrn murmured speculatively. “Where did you get this amount of guts?”
“It must be your ego. It’s enough for a whole ship’s crew, only I express myself in a more civilised way.”
“If I were to bite your head off in the old Hishek fashion, how would that be?”
“Tough and incisive for you.”
“Boys, boys,” Dios interjected exaggeratedly. “I hate to choke off this absolutely manly showdown, but I’ve found a consulate frequency.”
“Very good,” Kysaek praised, readying the interface at her seat. “Put it on my holoscreen.”
“In a minute, I’ve got another stupid glitch in there,” Dios grumbled. “Always that annoying radiation.”
Kuren checked the data. “Do you see that?” she wondered, despite her experience as a pilot. “There’s some kind of gravitational grid behind us, like an unsteady wave.”
“Gravity? There’s no gravity without an object.”
“I know, but tell that to the gravity that’s there,” Kuren said. Suddenly the relaxed situation reversed and the sensors went into high alert as the Jupiter was targeted! There was no visible source, but Kuren yanked the ship to the left anyway. “Where?!”
A dozen red, synchronised lasers missed the Jupiter by millimetres and from where they came it appeared as if an invisible cloak was being lifted. The sloping snout of a cruiser emerged, as if from another dimension, and the rest of the ship followed. It was of human design, but there were no Luna Alliance colours or markings and the three quad laser turrets on the sloping snout fired wide every second!
Everything happened far too quickly, even for Kuren’s skill, and she couldn’t prevent one of the lasers from burning a significant cut into the hull of the right wing. “That was close!”
“Hull breach!” reported Dios. “I need to seal off an area!” As soon as she had done so, part of the engine caught fire and sparks flew even in the cockpit “Overload and total failure of secondary engine two! And the controls of the main engine have been damaged and can no longer be controlled! Manoeuvrability reduced by 50 percent!”
“It shouldn’t be too easy!” Kuren replied as the Jupiter flew towards Anuket at maximum available speed and, despite the damage, quickly gained distance from the attackers. “But I can’t make the landing approach like this!”
Suddenly a woman’s voice crackled over the Jupiter’s frequencies. “Unregistered ship! You are entering restricted space unannounced - identify yourself!”
“This is SIM Jupiter 33!” replied Kysaek. “Please help us! We are under attack and no longer have control of our ship!”
The woman believed it immediately. “Hold out Jupiter! We’ll come to your aid, but change your trajectory! You’re on a collision course with inhabited territory on Anuket!”
“I repeat - we no longer have control of our ship! We cannot deviate!”
“Then leave the Jupiter immediately! We’ll give you two minutes before we shoot the ship down!” the woman announced.
Kysaek realised that she had to obey the order if she and her crew were to survive. “Understood!” she confirmed and gave the evacuation order. “You heard the order! To the escape pods!” No one contradicted her and everyone hurried off the bridge.
In the meantime, several squadrons of attack fighters and scout frigates from the consulate zoomed past the Jupiter. Their target was the enemy cruiser, but it was already beginning to disappear again. Bright, flashing lines spread across its steel hull, and the more they expanded, the more the ship’s surface disappeared and space took its place, until the cruiser was completely invisible. Nevertheless, the fighters fired a wave of disruptor torpedoes shortly afterwards, but their projectiles hit nothing and simply flew on as if there had never been a target.
The problems the cruiser had caused were real, however, and as the Jupiter sped inexorably towards Anuket and its protection fleet, Kysaek’s entire group climbed into the escape pods located in the main corridor between the bridge and the engine room. Under high pressure, as if from the barrel of a gun, the secured pods were shot out of the Jupiter’s hull and the ship looked set to meet its end. A formation of destroyers aligned their main weapons with the Jupiter’s constant trajectory and simultaneously fired their salvos with the massed guns! This concentrated firepower disintegrated the leaderless target in seconds and into pieces so small that the numerous fragments would burn up safely in the atmosphere of Anuket.
Kysaek sat in a capsule with Thais, Re’Lis and Tavis. “Well, at least we’ve arrived,” she said with a deep breath, “And the Consulate isn’t attacking us.”
“But the Jupiters ... “, Kuren sighed over the intercoms. She was in another pod. “Such a beautiful ship.”
“It was, but you can grieve later,” said Kysaek and tried to contact the consulate again. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” she enquired, but there was silence. “We’re not enemies and we don’t want any trouble ... Hello? ... Haaalllooooo?! Don’t get any stupid ideas!”
“Are you making new friends?” Thais asked passively. “Is it wise to issue warnings?”
Kysaek kicked the intercom, but she left it at that and made no further attempt at contact. “I just wanted to give them something to think about and how can you stay so calm now?”
“We’re in an escape pod surrounded by warships. Do you realise that we are now at the mercy of foreign whims?”
“And that’s why I want to talk to them,” emphasised Kysaek as her and the other pods were caught by the bluish energy beam of a gravity cell and pulled into the hangar of the associated cruiser. After the escape pods crashed to the ground in the safe harbour, it became suspiciously quiet. No one ordered the stranded crew to disembark, but Kysaek was determined to get out. “Everyone stay in your place - I’ll sort it out!” Although she had a great thirst for action, she wasn’t reckless and discarded everything that made her a threat and gently unlocked the exit hatch.
A piercingly bright light shone towards her on the outside, and even her arm as a glare shield barely helped Kysaek to see. Nevertheless, she slowly stretched her upper body out and recognised more of her surroundings, but she could still hear perfectly well. The sound of multiple weapons being unlocked froze her body and she found herself surrounded by several soldiers who were at least not from PGI.
“So?” Tavis asked forebodingly. “What do you see?”
" ... the usual,” Kysaek replied indifferently.
“Gun barrels, in our direction?”
“A few.”
“From PGI?”
“No.”
Tavis took it sportingly, in his own way. “An improvement, after all. The rest is routine.”
“Quiet and stay where you are!” ordered a male voice that only a Galig in a mask could have. As he got used to the light, he and his squad of about twenty to thirty men took shape, a colourful mix of well-armed soldiers and uniformed hangar workers.
“Is it really necessary?” Kysaek asked as she realised that the pods were surrounded by many more forces. There was a whole semi-circle around them and the number was closer to forty or more.
“Quiet I said!” repeated the man whose insignia declared him to be an officer. “You only do as you’re told, speak for yourself! Do you understand?” Reluctantly, he got a nod. “Good! Now everyone get out of the capsules very carefully! In the name of the consulate, you are all under arrest! Unit Seven, take these subjects into custody!”
A dozen soldiers followed the order at the drop of a hat and walked at a single file towards the capsules and the grumbling Kysaek. “Great ... Welcome to the consulate,” she thought to herself as her arms were roughly grabbed and placed on the small of her back.