We hit more targets: a Ziran supply convoy, another arms production complex on another Ziran moon, and a pair of bombardment platforms. The platforms were a prize find. They were en route to a human world to replace the ones we destroyed. One of Vinia’s surveillance probes spotted them when they went into drive just outside the Gatina System in Vingin space. I estimated where those platforms would most likely reappear. Paradyme. It had to be Paradyme. From the platform’s angle of approach in the Gatina System, Paradyme was the nearest human world.I tasked three PCs with the job of taking out the platforms: my own Tantamous, the Congress and the Admiral Hite. Cloaked in stealth, we skirted the asteroid field separating the inner worlds of Paradyme’s star system from its three massive gas giants. I expected the platforms to enter the system, stopping short of the asteroid field. Jasin expected them to have picked up an armed escort along the way. A Sky Mauler, perhaps accompanied by three or four assault frigates.We waited for 49 and a half hours. Suddenly the schematic screen lit up.“Hostiles out of Drive, approaching asteroid belt at maximum sub light propulsion,” reported the sensor tech. “Two platforms, one Sky Mauler capitol ship, four assault frigates, two medium destroyers.”Jasin was on the bridge, standing by the entrance. I turned around and we exchanged smart nods. It turned out our predictions were, for the most part, correct.“Send the Congress and Admiral Hite in first to distract the escorts,” I ordered.Cal opened a channel to the two ships and relayed my command.The visual screen came to life with the images of two warships emerging out of stealth in front of us. On the schematic screen enemy icons veered toward the approaching threat.“Drop the stealth?” Cal asked.I watched the icon representing Tantamous moving closer to the nearest platform. Both vessels continued their course toward the asteroids while the escorts engaged. But the platforms were unaware that a stealth-coated Protector Class was zeroing in on them. I wanted to keep it that way until the last cold second.“Not yet.”The platforms were less than a minute from entering the belt. The Tantamous was closing in fast. The platform in the rear grew larger on the screen as we narrowed the pursuit gap.“Target the rear platform,” I ordered. “No Category As. We need to conserve our stock as best we can. Use short range missiles and point kinetics. Aim for the thrusters.”A glitter of missiles, punctuated by staccato bursts of shield-penetrating, hull- puncturing rounds from point kinetic guns, perforated the platform. The besieged vessel’s thruster housing disintegrated on impact. The entire rear segment of the platform flaked away in a gaseous swell. Massive flares, doused by airless space, erupted from apertures caused by our ferocious missile/kinetic attack. Interior damage must have been devastating. The platform lurched off course, heading toward the nearest asteroid…more like a planetoid. A faint, dying glow issued from the jagged cavern where its thrusters used to be. Once ensnared in the planetoid’s gravity well, with no motive power, the platform’s demise was imminent.More short range missiles from the Tantamous streaked toward the remaining platform, exacerbating irreparable damage, shrouding the vessel in a blazing wreath of destruction.“The Sky Mauler is attempting to intercept us,” said Cal.I switched my attention from the forward view visual to the left angled view at the far upper right corner of the console.The Congress and Admiral Hite were locked in a furious tussle with the Ziran capitol ship. The space between the three close proximity combatants was ablaze with the exchange of missile and beam fire. The assault frigates scurried back and forth peppering the human ships with combustion beams. The smaller destroyers attacked from a relative distance, launching waves of missiles at the PCs. The small Ziran ships, not even a forth the size of a Protector Class, were little more than night flies harassing an armored grub rodent. The ineffectual nature of their attacks was demonstrated in the manner in which their missiles and beams collided harmlessly against the PCs’ variable density shielding.A blue-white streak of death lanced from the Congress striking one of the assault frigates in its smooth underbelly as it made strafing run over the top. The beam evidently penetrated a weak section of the ship, igniting a reactor. One second the frigate was whole, the next it was a seething billow of gas and debris.Someone hissed in savage delight. I was so fixated on the action on the screen that several seconds went by before I realized that ‘someone’ was me. I jerked my attention to the forward screen. An uending hail of kinetics from the Tantamous raked the fleeing platform, shredding its thrusters until their impulse glows faded to black. Ghostly white plumes of atmosphere from breeches in the platform’s upper rear vented with volcanic intensity.“Dammit, incoming!” Shouted the sensor tech. “Sky Mauler missile launch…signatures register as high grade nukes.”That was enough to remind me that I was definitely not a spectator in this affair.The Ziran capitol ship may have been heavily engaged with our PCs, but it still managed to open a window from which to target and lob a few equivalents of Category As right up our asses. I gripped the armrests of my chair tighter than normal as kinetics from our rear guns pulsed in precision waves toward the oncoming missiles. Four missiles were hit, their impact detonations so bright as to strain the optic capacity of the view screen polarizers. The fifth and last missile actually banked, avoiding a file of kinetics that ripped past it.“It adjusted,” whispered Kelte. “The Zirans never deployed missiles like that against the Tacherins!”Cal glanced up at the weapons officer on the high deck to his right.“Switching to dispersal fire pattern,” the boyish looking officer announced without being asked.Kinetics flew toward the remaining missile in a wide arc. The missile zigzagged through this metal gale with a maneuverability rivaling a pilot-operated fighter craft.I didn’t know what to expect. The missile was closing in, seemingly unhindered by the fire directed its way.I inhaled and waited for death.
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