Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 252

(Main Bridge, BSN Shinokage, Tsk’neth System, Free Worlds Alliance)

The screen switched from an overall tactical view to the bridge of one of the battlecruisers. I could immediately see that it was a mixed-race crew. Both a Y’nar and a human could be seen seated in the background, wearing Yathru corporate security uniforms. They were turned away from the screen, paying attention to their readouts.

In the center of the screen was an Ihm female, with hilariously overblown rank insignia and ribbons on her uniform. She looked like one of the dictators from a banana republic back in the real world, but with more scales. The damn thing didn’t even look like it was capable of forming a vacuum seal in case of decompression.

Black Star uniforms included an adaptive skin suit as a matter of course. They sacrificed a bit of looks for that, obviously, but the point of a ship uniform was to keep the wearer alive when things went to hell. Anything that made its way through from the looks department on top of that was simply bonus points. The Yathru Corporation apparently decided differently.

The Ihm female sneered at me. “This is Admiral Threkzi Akoh of the Yathru Corporate Security Fleet. Your ships are in violation of Yathru corporate property, and you stand accused of destruction of corporate property in the amount of 6.35 quadrillion Alliance credits. You are to be arrested and held without bail until this amount has been paid, your ships confiscated as partial payment of this debt. Surrender, or be destroyed.”

I just stared at the woman for a moment, and then broke out laughing. I could hear snickers and laughs from other people on the bridge. Even the stoic Captain Inatumal was giggling at the absurdity of it all.

The admiral was… less than happy at my initial response, demanding again that I surrender or be destroyed, but I managed to catch my breath, waving at her to stop talking. I turned away from her, dismissively, typing in a couple commands to Raven. “Yes, yes. I heard you the first time, you jumped up iguana with the brains of a tadpole, you insignificant pimple on the backside of a pig covered in shit.”

I took a breath, and then turned to stare directly at the admiral. “I am Admiral Mirikon Mollen of the Black Star Navy, and my ships have faced the best that the Empire, the Alliance, and the X’thari have to offer, and come out on top every time. If you think your pathetic little collection of relics which were outdated even in the last war are a match to my ships, then you are even more of a brain-dead idiot spawn of an animal fornicating gene-corrupted twat-waddle than your pathetically overdone uniform, which is clearly designed to compensate for your obvious deficiencies in finding a mate that isn’t a Helvarian Fecal Maggot, makes you appear.”

The admiral snarled, baring her teeth at me. Apparently, she was even less pleased at my response. “You arrogant human! I have twenty-five ships, and you have nothing bigger than a cruiser! Surrender now, so I don’t have to damage future corporate property for the research division.”

Ah, so that was what they were playing at. The corporation had already written off Tsk’neth’s usefulness, since the agriworld was literally gone, along with their source of bioweapons for research. So, instead, they wanted to take me and my ships, and use them to prop up their stock price. They no doubt had all kinds of ideas of getting their hands on Black Star technology to sell as their own.

“You intellectually challenged child playing dress up, pretending that you are anything other than a whimpering brood mare that no male would touch without being paid, if you think you can take on this mere fraction of the Black Star Navy, you are more than welcome to try. However, if your pea-sized brain can comprehend the words I’m saying, then know that this system is now under the control of the Black Star Company. Any aggression by your ships will be considered the start of a full corporate war between the Black Star Company and the Yathru Corporation. Now, turn that collection of pathetic rust buckets you call ships around and leave my system before I tell my gunners to remove those piles of scrap that are little better than mobile navigation hazards from my space!”

The admiral screeched, literally screeched, in rage, and snapped at her crew, “ALL SHIPS ATTACK! DESTROY THAT SHIP!” The next instant, the connection was severed.

Twenty-four of the twenty-five ships surged forward, with only the escort carrier hanging back, launching its two squadrons of fighters and one of bombers. I nodded, and said, “Launch Ebon Blade squadron. They and the Crows are to eliminate fighters. Raven, do we have the flagship?”

“Yes, Boss. The admiral is on the Hostile Takeover, one of the battlecruisers. I’ve updated target profiles. Unfortunately, they aren’t so foolish as to allow unlimited data transmissions during battle, so I don’t believe I’ll be able to hack their systems until the Marines board.”

I nodded, having expected as much. “Well, it would have been nice if they were all as stupid as their admiral, but that doesn’t matter now. Orgrim’s Hammer has her target. Full deployment. Capture the flagship, I don’t care if it is a bit busted up, but I want the Admiral and any corporate representatives alive for questioning.”

Looking at the scans, I said, “All other ships, weapons free, fire at will. Disable the flagship, but destroy the rest. Atlanta pairs with Artemis, Simo Hayha moves with Shadowdancer, Shinokage reaps souls alone. Main guns and dragonbreath torpedoes. No need to waste starbolts on these scrap heaps.”

I watched the scans as my ships began moving. My ships had the edge on speed, since they had less mass and more power, causing the gap between the fleets to close rapidly. The five ships in front fired moments before the Thunderbolts and Crows from the Marine ships sped past us, hurrying towards the enemy fighters.

The officer at the communications station spoke up. “Admiral, long-range scanners are detecting a weak transmission on the quark-length transmission array. Identification code QT314159.”

I looked at my screen, and saw what that was. “Crows, focus fire on the bombers. Priority target. Ebon Blade, clear the path for them. All ships, Enemy has access to Dragonbreath torpedoes. Point defense to full.”

Captain Inatumal raised an eyebrow, even as she carried out her orders. When it was done, she turned to look at me. “Sir?”

“All Black Star munitions that are sold to non-governmental third parties are tagged, Captain. Anyone who buys a civilian-access Dragonbreath torpedo, as these people clearly have, consents in a bit of fine print sandwiched between clauses identifying the base elements of a chicken sandwich and the correct order to watch the Stellar Conflict movies to have a tracking device on the weapons which identifies it in a rarely used, and even more rarely monitored, section of the quantum EM spectrum. This tag is, by contract, has no connectivity to outside systems, but will set the Dragonbreath’s artificial gravity to create a microsingularity if it is removed. That should be fairly unhealthy for anyone in the immediate vicinity, at least for the few picoseconds before the torpedo destroys itself. The tag has limited power, so being inside a ship’s hull would likely block the signal, but the moment it was launched, or hauled out on a bomber, then it would be detectable to those in the system who knew where to look.”

“I see. And I take it our contract writers didn’t bother to mention that to people? I can’t imagine most people willingly sign on for that.”

I chuckled, and said, “It is hardly our fault if they don’t read the fine print. Technically, it is an antitheft system. However, it does give us the advantage of having exact coordinates, vector, and attack speed for all those weapons, in real time, which makes point defense easy. However, if we didn’t have to reveal that, it’d be great.”

The tactical officer called out, “Calculated impact in three, two, one. Impact!” I watched as three of the Utadis registered impacts. “Good impacts on Tangos 18 through 20. Tangos 18 and 19 are confirmed destroyed. Tango 20 attempted evasive maneuvers at the last moment, causing the weapons to hit just aft of the ship’s midpoint. The aft half of the ship is destroyed, and the rest is without po--.” The third blip went out. “Scratch that. Looks like Tango 20 suffered a reactor breach. Target destroyed.”

The Yathru ships hadn’t even bothered getting out of their attack formation. They were probably more than sufficient for counter-piracy, or suppressing rioting spacers, but they clearly had not been briefed on what the Black Star Navy could do. The fact that only one ship even attempted evasive maneuvers, even after they all should have seen our guns fire meant that they were either phenomenally stupid, or their leaders didn’t have the authority to deviate from the admiral’s attack plan.

Actually, that was probably closer to reality. Corporate security was never trained like Military. Sure, they might have military gear, but they usually aren’t trained to the same standards as military are. They’d probably been trained to deal with pirates, and maybe other corpsec. Unfortunately for them, Black Star was trained to be military.

The ships were going into evasive maneuvers now, but the patterns were so simple that I could pick them out even without the computer’s assistance. The corvettes and frigates did, however, begin moving in front, looking to shield the larger ships from future attacks. It wasn’t going to help them, of course.

“All ships switch to Dragonbreath and energy weapons. Save the main guns for larger prey. Punch through their lines, and fire the main guns at point blank range.”

“Admiral, fighters are engaging the enemy.”

I nodded to show I heard, focusing on the screens. The Thunderbolt IVs were clearly superior to the Ika 7 fighters that the Yathru flew. They had better engines, better shields, and heavier weapons. More importantly, they had better pilots.

Twenty-four fighters and twelve bombers had launched from the carrier. Twelve of those fighters were already dead or disabled, as Ebon Blade focused their fire forward, working to clear a hole in the center of the enemy force. Ebon Blade 6 was pulling back, a lucky hit taking out one of his engines. Otherwise, well, the Thunderbolts split into flights and started hunting.

The Crows blew through the hole the Thunderbolts opened, and sped past, targeting the Reveth bombers. The bombers were little more than reusable torpedo launchers with flight controls, designed for attacking fixed installations like space stations and asteroid bases or disabling heavy freighters, rather than attacking actual warships, but twelve of them with Dragonbreaths were still a legit danger. Six of twelve were destroyed before the Crows turned back to make a second run. I looked away, content in the knowledge that none of the bombers would threaten my ships.

Before long, our ships were in range. The Assassins and Shinokage each launched a pair of Dragonbreaths, followed by the eight Yathru frigates firing single shots each shortly after. The frigates were out of date, their missile tracking and point defense capabilities better than civilian craft had a right to be, but against bleeding edge weapons like Dragonbreath torpedoes? Well, six of the corvettes and one of the frigates simply weren’t fast enough.

My ships, however, were all modern warships, with modern sensors, modern fire control, and modern point defense. More importantly, they also had firing solutions sorted the moment the frigates launched, because the sensors were actively looking for the tags. They didn’t even get close enough to scratch the paint.

“Confirm Tangos 1 through 6 and Tango 13 destroyed. Frostwolf, Laughing Skull, and Warsong have eliminated enemy bombers. Ebon Blade Leader reports sixteen confirmed kills for his squadron, three disabled, the rest trying to run back to their carrier. Ebon Blade 6 and 11 are out of the fight, damaged but should be able to return to base.”

“HA!” I grinned. “Ebon Blade Leader cleared to pursue enemy fighters at his discretion. If he deems it possible without unnecessary losses, he may attempt to disable the pocket carrier. Have the Crows turn and start eliminating the remaining corvettes and frigates. Artemis to lead her pair against Tango 21. Shadowdancer’s pair will take Tango 22. Captain Inatumal, Tango 24 is blocking my view of the stars, I would appreciate it if you would remove the obstruction post haste.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral!”

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Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J

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