He started to realize as well that his own pups were no longer pups; they were flying and fighting like veterans.
“Now crossing into limit of ground defenses,” Merritt announced.
Jason, flying point cover for the ten landing craft, focused his attention forward. The moon was twenty thousand clicks away and closing. As they crossed fifteen thousand a scattering of heavy neutron bolts came up and Intrepid moved to bombard the defenses.
“Green Leader, let’s take ’em out.”
“With you,” Doomsday replied.
Eight Sabres and four Rapiers led by Jason kicked up their afterburners and started down, diving straight at the moon’s surface. The moon seemed to race up, filling all of space until surface details were clearly visible, the huge spread of the base a series of lines cut into the dark gray surface.
Jason dove past the position of Intrepid and continued straight in. He started to randomly jink his fighter to throw off enemy aim and to his horror he saw a Sabre move straight into a heavy neutron bolt. The ship disappeared and for a second he thought it was Doomsday.
“Try and stay alive till you drop your munitions; each of these new missiles cost more than an entire ship, so let’s not waste Confederation property,” Doomsday’s voice crackled on the comm.
They pressed in through a thousand clicks and then down to a hundred, boring in through the thin atmosphere.
“Break now!”
The remaining Sabres turned, following their nav screens in towards the preprogrammed targets which the computerized mapping analysis had indicated were potential ground-to-air defense systems.
Kilrathi jamming swept through the frequencies, attempting to mask their ground defense radars. Each of the seven Sabres dropped four air-to-ground anti-radar missiles, each one then breaking into fifty sub-munition rounds that locked onto individual radars, radio links, laser trackers, point defense guidance systems, and subspace transmitters. The missiles in turn fed back their target selections to Doomsday’s ship, which was mounted with a command system for this major launch. This system automatically prevented overlapping of targets and reassigned missiles to priority hits if the first missile tracking in should be knocked out.
Fourteen hundred matter/antimatter warheads streaked downward. A spread of Kilrathi point defense guns kicked on, sending up thousands of marble-sized mass-driven rounds. Hundreds of missiles were hit, detonated anywhere from ten clicks up, all the way back down to the surface. But hundreds more got through, some of the missiles weaving and breaking to higher priority targets to replace those that were lost. The surface of the planet erupted.
The Sabres pulled up and away, streaking back towards Tarawa to reload.
Jason pulled out, circling around, waiting. There was a moment of silence on his tracking system and then more Kilrathi systems, which had stayed off the air, but were now switching on after the strike, came on. He squeezed off his one anti-radar missile, watching as it leaped ahead, then broke apart, the fifty small missiles turning and diving off in every direction. There were more detonations, the surface five kilometers below blanketed with flashes of fire.
“Bring ’em in!” Jason shouted.
“Going in now and thanks, Blue Leader.”
“Godspeed, Svetlana, I love you and take care.”
He couldn’t help himself and he knew that everyone was listening in but at that moment he didn’t care.
The ten landing craft streaked past, spreading out to hit their first targets. From under each ship the air-to-ground suppression missiles were streaking out, the barrages blasting into the surface, shattering point defense systems. Yet still there was some fight in the Kilrathi and Jason watched as a landing craft suddenly split open, nailed by a rain of mass-driven shot. He kicked on afterburner, diving down, trying not to look at the shattered, flaming craft as he streaked down past, lining up on the mass driver battery, dodging the hoselike river of rounds coming up. Another battery opened on his flank, but he ignored it, putting the first battery into his crosshairs and squeezing off a dumb fire missile which streaked straight in. A jarring blow rocked his ship, his starboard shielding clicking off, and he heard the howling shriek of shot tearing into his durasteel armor. He turned inward, the gunner following him. Jinking down, he pulled out just above the surface of the moon and streaked in ten meters off the ground, pouring in fire on the battery, blowing it apart. Behind the battery he saw a geysering mushroom of fire as the landing craft dived into the ground and exploded.
Jason passed over the ship, throttling back. It was obvious there were no survivors.
He clicked back onto the marine channel and drew a sigh of relief when he heard Merritt’s voice on the air, directing the assault. Merritt’s landing craft hit the surface next to the hardened silo for a carrier. Jason circled above them, watching as the front and rear doors of the ship sprung open, the top turret of the craft pouring out suppressive fire as marines, clad in light atmosphere pressurized suits, scrambled out the rear, armored assault vehicles pushing out the front. A firefight instantly flared up at the entryway to the hangar and Jason, coming to a near hover, pointed his nose down and fired off an extended volley until his charger went down to zero. He caught a glimpse of the ship inside and he felt a mad, insane glee. It was a Kilrathi carrier, near completion, and totally defenseless. Unable to contain his joy he raised his nose slightly and pumped a shot straight into the ship’s bow, laughing with delight as durasteel armor peeled back in a vaporized flash.
“Save your juice, Blue Leader.” It was Svetlana.
“First time I ever got this close without feeling like I was going to die of fright.”
He pulled back up as marines stormed into the hanger, fighting every step of the way with ground defense units. Circling back up, he held station ten clicks above the battle. Another flight of Dralthi sortied from the home planet, moving towards Tarawa and Jason listened in as Starlight, who was positioned as forward defense, handled the battle, losing one more of her Ferrets and a Rapier in the engagement, but stopping the assault a good fifty thousand clicks short of Tarawa.
Jason kept a mental note of his losses. Five Ferrets, a Sabre, and five Rapiers down so far, twenty five percent losses. Even though they had dropped fifty Kilrathi fighters and bombers, along with four corvettes, he knew the battle was shifting against them.
He circled above the battle for another hour, vectoring in on several ground targets and watching with a sense of envy as Doomsday, returning with a fresh load of munitions, led his Sabres in on a suppression of secondary targets, unmasked as the marines started to shut down some of the phase shield generating systems. The attack ripped apart barracks and construction areas, the heavy single-missile matter/antimatter warheads tossing up debris twenty kilometers above the moon’s surface.
“Blue Leader this is Tarawa Combat Information.”
“Blue Leader here.”
“We are under attack from Kilrathi Stealth Fighters. Repeat we are under direct attack.”
“On my way.”
The screen scrambled and distorted for several seconds and then the combat information officer came back on, her voice high and strained.