Birthright: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Drop Trooper: Birthright Book 2) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2022-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

"Looks bad." Deke stared without enthusiasm at the readout from the long-range scanners. "That," he said, gesturing at the glowing blip orbiting the flat, brown circle that represented the Predecessor world, "is at least an armed freighter conversion, if not an actual military cruiser. And you can bet if that's what they have in orbit, they have at least a couple assault shuttles and two or three squads of guards on the surface."

"He's right," Kara had to admit. "If we jump in at minimum safe distance, that picket ship will have all day to cruise out and meet us, and its shields and weaponry have to be nearly cruiser class."

I stared silently at the readout holo, trying to think, trying to ignore the stale tang of reprocessed air. We'd converted out of Transition Space just outside the cometary halo about an hour ago, after a long two weeks confined in that oversized beer can, and I was ready to attack a cruiser barehanded just for the privilege of breathing fresh air again. But they were right---it didn't look too good.

"Okay," I finally said. "Let's assume that it's a converted freighter, like the one back at Thunderhead. That means it has pretty heavy armament, and a good-sized reactor, but not a military command structure. Commercial ships don't have redundant bridges---if we can get one or two good shots at the command center, it'll cripple them."

"So?" Deke shrugged. "We'd never get close enough to worry about it. They can stand off about a thousand klicks and hit us with long-range lasers until our shields overload."

"The key," I said, wagging a finger at him didactically, "is jumping in close enough to keep them from being able to do that."

"But we can't jump in any closer than a ten planetary diameters," Kara pointed out, floating behind my right shoulder. "It's impossible."

"Not exactly impossible," Deke muttered, seeing where I was going, and not liking it. He fixed me with a hard glare.

"What's the matter?" I nudged him in the ribs. "It's okay if you play the long odds, but not me?"

"It's a bit like letting someone else gamble with your money, bud," he muttered sourly.

"Just what do you have in mind?" Kara shook her head. "I've been a pilot for over fifteen years, and, as far as I know, it's physically impossible to jump in or out closer than a ten diameters to any spatial body that masses more than ten million metric tons. The gravitational warping of local spacetime interferes with the formation of the Teller-Fox wormhole, and you wind up with half your atoms in Transition Space and half in realspace."

"That's what they tell you in Fleet pilot training," I conceded, "but it's only half the story."

"You were a spook," Deke told her, "you just got taught enough to get you on the planet unnoticed. We both got Attack Command training, which is a good deal more involved. Attack Command ships are mean animals---they're all capacitors and weapons, and they're built to

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