Outriders Read online

  “Multiple hostiles detected,” announced Clara, “coming in on headings two-seven-three and four-eight-one. I read twenty-four starfighters of unknown make, all with weapons systems live.”

  “Break by wing pairs and disengage,” Malcolm commanded. “I repeat, disengage. Get clear of Orna’s gravitational well and find an escape vector. Return to the Tuatha system however you—”

  A piercing shriek stabbed into Clara’s ears and Corsair Six faded to gray. She spared a glance to starboard and saw Trish’s Marauder tumbling into fragmented chunks of molten metal. Stephanie veered into a steep climb as pursuing ships launched superheated plasma at her undefended stern, and then Clara lost sight of her when she twisted in the opposite direction. Tense conversations peppered the squadron’s frequency amid warning alarms and discharging weapons.

  “Watch your tail, Eight.”

  “My port engine has taken damage. I’m down to forty-three percent output.”

  “—stabilizer feeling shaky.”

  “Hell of a shot, Seven. I owe you.”

  “Catastrophic failure in my kinetic buffers!”

  “Pull up, Four!”

  “—I can hold—”

  “Five more hostiles coming from above—”

  “My canopy is cracked! It’s breaking—”

  “—Four is gone.”

  “Shit, shit. Another squadron of hostiles is coming around Orna.” Hayato’s normally calm and calculating voice trembled with anxiety. “Our escape route is cut off.”

  Clara ascended as blistering energy flashed past her cockpit, bathing the consoles in pallid blue. Threat indicators on her screen multiplied as the third enemy squadron approached maximum effective weapons range. A black and gold starfighter rocketed past her cockpit and Clara squeezed one trigger on her control stick, firing a burst from her plasma cannons that narrowly missed one wing. A warning light flared on her screen accompanied by a shrill tone, signifying a hostile starfighter had gained a targeting lock on her.

  She wrenched her Marauder to starboard, plunged into a steep dive and accelerated in the reverse direction until leveling again on a straight course. “You okay, Ten?”

  “I can’t see Corsair Eleven or Twelve!” Akira answered, her soft demeanor shaken by nerves.

  “Trust them to do their job and focus on your own. I only need you watching my starfighter, not theirs.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant.”

  Clara punched through one gap and decelerated into a sharp turn, aiming for a lone hostile and reorienting her starfighter until Orna consumed her vision. The unknown ship weaved in Clara’s targeting brackets and her first salvo missed high, striking Orna’s surface and melting a rock formation into ruins.

  “Leader, you have three hostiles zeroing on your position,” Ammar announced.

  “Seven, support Leader now,” commanded Stephanie.

  Katarina’s answer came in a panicked, jittery voice. “I can’t get to him!”

  “Seven, watch your own flank!”

  Azure plasma ripped into Katarina’s fuselage and her cockpit shattered into blackened shards. Ejected slag and fires sparkled for a fleeting moment before dissipating into a mass of charred wreckage. KIA materialized across her profile and Katarina’s status indicator turned gray.

  Clara yanked her Marauder into a dive and discharged plasma at her target. Her blast ruptured the tri-engine, which spewed sparks and smoke until her following shot chewed straight through to the propulsion core. The starfighter exploded in an expanding gas cloud and microscopic pieces rattled off her cockpit as she flew beneath. A quick glance at Malcolm’s status indicator showed the green light had shifted to yellow, denoting a damaged starfighter.

  “You still with me, Ten?”

  “I’m here, Nine,” responded Akira. “A shot winged my engine mount, but my ship computer is reporting only minimal damage.”

  “Stay close to me and don’t deviate for any reason. Do you understand?”

  “I copy, Lieutenant.”

  “Good. We’re going after Leader.”

  “I’m right with you.”

  “Leader, this is Corsair Nine,” Clara said. “What’s your status?”

  Static punctured the transmission, reducing his words to a jumbled mess interspersed with scratching noises. “…read you…I’m losing…systems cra…can’t…”

  “Five, can you reach Leader?”

  “Negative, Nine,” Stephanie replied.

  “Abort…won’t make…turn home.” ordered Malcolm. Pain was evident in his voice, and there was no mistaking labored breaths. Yellow darkened to orange and Damage Critical pulsed over his image. “…ight suit torn…bleeding…ntrols unresponsive…life sup…shut…own.”

  Clara looped her starfighter around and glimpsed Malcolm in the distance, his own ship belching smoke and trailed by multiple hostiles. “Leader, I can get to you.”

  “Negati…damage catastroph…won’t…urvive.”

  “Malcolm, let me try.”

  Text scrolled across her console from Malcolm as his frequency went dead:

  KEEP THE KIDS SAFE.

  Clara felt agony ripple through her chest as Malcolm’s Marauder broke apart under sustained fire, splitting into warped, flaming debris. Perspiration beaded on her brow and dripped down one temple, hanging from her jawbone inside the sealed helmet.

  Diego’s words came as a choked whisper. “Oh God.”

  Lieutenant Cassimento spoke over the channel, and Clara could imagine Stephanie struggling to keep her voice steady. “Squadron Leader has been lost.”

  Corsair Squadron was being torn to pieces. No one would escape this massacre unless the survivors abandoned their failing strategy. With Malcolm dead, she was now the ranking officer, and Clara would be damned if she let her pilots die.

  Flight Three remained intact, along with Stephanie and Hayato. Half of the squadron was gone. Six friends dead, their bodies turned to dust and left to drift among stars. Six families who had lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Clara had played with Malcolm’s young boy and bounced the child on her knee as he squealed with delight. She shared stories with Malcolm’s sister and accepted gifts from his parents during the holidays while on shore leave. Now she needed to tell his family Malcolm would never be coming home, and that his son had lost one parent forever.

  “Corsair Squadron, form on me,” ordered Clara. “Switch armaments to torpedoes. We’re punching a goddamn hole through these bastards.”

  Five starfighters swept into position behind her in a tight wedge formation, with Clara leading as the spearhead. The unknown hostiles established a countering line of almost two dozen starfighters and moved into position for a straight attack against the Corsair survivors. In fair conditions, a head-on-head pass with such disproportionate numbers would favor her enemies. But Clara had no intention of playing fair.

  “Slave your firing telemetry to mine and set the warheads to a premature detonation distance of six hundred meters. Switch your targeting computers off.”

  Clara received verbal confirmations over their communication channel as she oriented her torpedo tubes in line with the cluster of adversaries. With all their targeting computers disabled, she could not fire a torpedo accurately enough to strike one nimble starfighter. On the other hand, her foes would receive no prior warning of a targeting lock.

  She pinpointed her ideal firing solution, watched the range finder decrease below one kilometer and squeezed her triggers, launching two ionic torpedoes that were swiftly joined by ten others. Several hostile starfighters veered in time, though most failed to react without notice from their anti-missile sensor alarm. Twelve torpedoes converged toward a solitary point of empty space directly in the middle of the enemy formation and reached detonation range.

  A titanic explosion ripped outward in an expansive shockwave, shredding the nearest starfighters apart into glinting particles. Wings and engine fragments were ripped from others and the crippled ships whirled off course a
mong a minefield of twisted wreckage.

  Clara rolled to port, reverted armaments to her primary plasma cannons and dived beneath an expanding cloud of gases and jagged debris. Sensor warnings screamed in her cockpit as a metal chunk bounced off the kinetic buffers of her stern fuselage less than one meter behind the canopy.

  Akira’s flustered voice echoed in her ears. “Nine, are you okay?”

  Clara frantically read text displayed on one screen as her starfighter vibrated:

  HULL INTEGRITY NOT COMPROMISED. CRITICAL SYSTEMS REMAIN OPERATIONAL. PROPULSION CORE PERFORMANCE REDUCED TO EIGHTY-SEVEN POINT THREE PERCENT EFFICIENCY.

  “I’m…I’m okay,” Clara assured her wingmate. “Shunting auxiliary power from long-range communications and scanners to my engines.”

  “Eleven hostile starfighters destroyed or severely damaged,” affirmed Stephanie. “Nineteen still remain.”

  “I’m detecting an instability in my propulsion core,” Ammar declared. Unease crept into his words, each syllable wavering as though on the edge of panic. “Output levels are fluctuating sharply, but the performance is plummeting past sixty percent.”

  “I can see your engine mount shaking,” said Diego, still flying alongside his wingmate.

  Clara lost sight of Corsairs Eleven and Twelve after plunging through the debris field, and now struggled to loop around closer to their position. “Eleven, the volatility is most likely caused by a faulty coupling shield attached to one thrust chamber in your engine. I need you to isolate the malfunctioning one and shut it down.”

  “I can’t,” he pleaded. “Intersystem connections aren’t working. Nothing is responding! My computer isn’t—”

  Ammar howled in pain and uttered a hoarse, rasping cough. “I’ve t-taken…damage. P-plasma penetrated my fuselage and…and sliced through my console. My arm…I can’t…I can’t feel…”

  “Twelve, give him support!” commanded Stephanie.

  “I can’t!” Diego cried. “I lost him!”

  “Damn it to hell, find him. He needs—”

  Ammar screamed again, but this time his agonized voice was abruptly silenced by crackling distortion. Clara did not dare glance down, knowing his status indicator had lost all color and was replaced with KIA.

  Clara bit down on a numb lip and tightened her strained grasp, discharging several opportunistic blasts at enemy starfighters in her sights. Plasma scored one aft fuselage and the enemy craft veered to starboard, only to have Akira’s successive shots tear through and send the starfighter tumbling into broken pieces.

  “I have a hostile on my tail!” shouted Diego.

  Stephanie remained calm and decisive, her voice assertive, crisp. “Eight, leave my wing and support Twelve.”

  “On it,” Hayato replied. “Twelve, alter your course and come about one hundred and seven degrees to port.”

  “Altering course. I see you, Eight. I’m coming on – look out behind you!”

  Hayato’s Marauder disgorged flaming smoke from perforated holes and exploded into a smattering of dust and mangled segments.

  “Oh, Jesus…”

  Clara swept behind Diego’s pursuer with secondary torpedoes armed and held the starship in her targeting brackets. She depressed her trigger a heartbeat before earning a viable target lock, launching a shimmering trail toward her adversary earlier than the pilot could react. The starfighter desperately labored to evade without luck and a blinding explosion filled Clara’s canopy as the warhead detonated against its tri-engine.

  “Twelve, report,” she said.

  “A shot punctured my number four thrust chamber,” Diego responded. His voice was jittery and shrill, a far cry from his composed and brash self.

  “Transfer discretionary power from armaments to your propulsion core,” instructed Stephanie. “And maintain your current vector. I’ll shadow you at fifty meters and shield your starfighter.”

  “We’re going in too, Ten,” Clara said. “Corsairs Five and Twelve, decrease altitude and converge on the mountain ranges of Orna. The hostile squadrons aren’t letting us reach orbit; our only chance is trying to lose them among the canyons and valleys of the moon.”

  “Copy that, Nine.”

  Clara descended and swept low across the craggy, rust-colored surface toward Diego far ahead. Choking clouds of black smoke vomited from his starfighter’s engine and billowed over Stephanie’s Marauder as she followed behind and slightly above. Hostiles trailed and splattered the moon with plasma, giving birth to magma pools of liquefied rock that glowed like amber.

  “We won’t reach them in time,” Akira remarked.

  “Like hell we won’t.”

  Clara settled her targeting brackets on the lead enemy starfighter, causing the pilot to instinctively break when the cockpit shrilled a warning. She held off the firing trigger, repositioned on another hostile and provoked that vessel to likewise abandon its deadly pursuit.

  Diego and Stephanie crossed an elevated threshold and rocketed between mountains beyond Clara’s sight. Flashes of blue plasma sparked above the darkened peaks as if lightning strikes and Clara soared through one pass, once again glimpsing her squadmates and their desperate circumstances. Yet before she drew within effective firing range, a shot clipped Stephanie’s starfighter and knocked the craft into an oscillating wobble.

  “Five!” Clara shouted. “Stephanie, are you okay?”

  “My flight controls are unresponsive and I’m losing altitude. I can’t regain—”

  “Five, eject!”

  “Systems not responding,” she replied in a strained voice. “Manual override malfunctioning. My velocity counterpoise is f-f-failing…having t-trouble breathing…losing conscious…”

  Text appeared on Clara’s console from her shipboard computer:

  CORSAIR FIVE VITAL SIGNS CONSISTENT WITH UNCONSCIOUS PILOT.

  Stephanie’s starfighter plunged in an erratic spin and cratered against the surface, erupting skyward in a geyser of flames and scorched rock.

  “Fuck this,” Diego barked. “I’m making a run for orbit.”

  “Stay where you are, Twelve,” responded Clara.

  “We’re dead if we stay!”

  Diego’s starfighter broke away from his shallow trajectory and rolled into a steep ascent, climbing through streaks of plasma coloring the black starfield above them.

  “Get back in formation, Pilot Officer Gutierrez. That’s a goddamn order! Diego!”

  His fuselage shattered into chunks and detonated like a supernova, showering the scarred moon beneath. Diego’s dying screams burned through Clara and stabbed into her heart as she flew beyond the strewn remnants of his starship.

  Akira uttered words too soft for Clara to understand, even with the automated audio amplification functioning. Her voice was like a fleeting breeze, indistinct as it brushed Clara’s ears.

  “Say again, Ten. I didn’t copy.”

  “They’re all dead,” Akira whispered. “They’re gone.”

  “But we aren’t. We’ll make it home together.”

  “No one’s going home.”

  Clara rocketed over Orna’s pockmarked surface, blasting particles and soot into a whirling dust cloud. She was amazed Akira remained behind her, likely flying on instinct even as her mind traveled elsewhere. Stone ruptured in a torrent as plasma narrowly missed Clara’s starfighter and blasted the surface.

  “Spooks, listen to me,” Clara pleaded. “I still need you. Don’t give up on me, and don’t give up on yourself.”

  “We lost them all.”

  “Not each other, and that’s what matters right now. Our friends want us to keep fighting, but we can’t do that if we give in to despair. Are you with me?”

  No response came and Clara feared she had lost Akira. “Don’t do this for me,” she said. “Or even for you. Fight for the sake of our friends and survive to keep their memory alive. Please. Are you with me, Pilot Officer Takahashi?”

  “Our friends…”

  “They still need us.
”

  Strength flooded the inexperienced pilot’s voice, a determination she had never shown during training. “I’m with you, Lieutenant.”

  “Then let’s get the hell away from here.”

  Their starfighters surged over crumbling canyons and craters gouged into the moon millennia before humans arrived. Clara weaved across the surface with erratic abandon, her skull throbbing from alarms wailing continuously on her control panel. She wrenched clear of missile targeting locks, skimmed cavernous depressions rimmed with collapsing rock formations and danced between streaks of blue plasma.

  “Distributing power from non-essential systems to augment kinetic buffers,” Akira reported. “I’m getting fluctuations in my port stabilizer.”

  “Transfer discretionary input from your hydraulic feedline to the wing aerofoil. You’ll need to force a manual override but that should do the trick.”

  “Copy that, Nine.”

  Plasma scorched the surface beneath Clara’s Marauder while their pursuers missed by the slimmest margin. Vaporized rock and molten sprays vented to either side of her starfighter as though volcanic eruptions plumed with ashen smoke.

  Akira’s panicked voice erupted at a shrill clip. “They have me bracketed!”

  “Stay with me, Ten. Shift your velocity and vary the flight path. Give them nothing to anticipate or accurately target.”

  “I’m trying! I…I can’t shake free!”

  “I’ll fall behind you and deploy countermeasures. Stay at your current altitude.”

  “Okay. I can try—”

  A hostile torpedo detonated against the moon’s surface beneath Akira’s starfighter, enveloping the Marauder in a concussive tremor and pummeling the fuselage’s underside with rock shards accelerated to the velocity of kinetic projectiles. Akira uttered a choked cry.

  “Ten?” Clara questioned. “Spooks, can you hear me?”

  Distortion hissed over the channel. “I…I read you, Nine.”

  “Give me a report. Are you injured?”

  “Having trouble seeing…head is dizzy. My starfighter…it’s bad. I’m losing velocity. Kinetic buffers are gone…hull integrity is at critical. I don’t…I don’t think I’ll make it.”