Himdel's Fall: Book 3 - A Dominion War Novel by D M Marshall

Author:D M Marshall [Marshall, D M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Favigne

Channeling, Nate Shepherd could feel everything. The fear and the excitement of more than one million people as the battle finally began in earnest. The triumph and elation from early victories, and the pain, anguish and loss suffered in consequence. It threatened to overwhelm him. Never in his life had he experienced conflict on this scale, and the loss of life was already too much for him. He pulled his senses back, unable to bear the burden of witnessing so many lives being snuffed out. All life was precious to an Edo, and even the loss of an enemy brought great sadness to them, and Nate was no exception

He felt a pulse of sympathy and support from Raif Ko. He sent back gratitude and warmth. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushed aside his feelings and concentrated on the task at hand.

The Gladiators had used their stealth to slip to the rear of the Dominion fleet undetected. Ahead of them lay a Hellfire Mark II battleship, one of the enemy’s long range sniper ships. It dawdled at the rear of their formation, content to dish out damage at a safe distance. With it were two far smaller vessels, destroyers, and a flight of mark two Delta fighters. Their tasks were to defend the battleship from smaller ships, like the ones the Gladiators flew. Sadly for them they were ill-equipped to deal with such stealthy ships as the ones the Gladiators were in.

The battleship’s guns fired over and over, each of its many batteries of weapons charging or reloading for a few seconds between shots. It was a fearsome and deadly weapon of war. There was no telling how many lives lost it had already inflicted upon the Commonwealth forces. It had to be stopped.

“Ok, the plan is simple,” said Lee Gaspara over the comms. “We focus our fire on the battleship until it’s dead in the water. Then we take out the destroyers and mop up the remaining fighters.”

“Roger that, boss,” said Moller. “What are the rest of you going to do while I do that?”

“Cut the chatter, Moller,” chided August Durante, not for the first time in his life.

“Once the battleship is finished I want Raif, Harper and Kaisa to keep the Deltas busy while the rest of us take out the destroyers,” continued Lee.

“Roger,” confirmed Raif.

“Let’s target the battleship’s engines, since we’re behind it. Hopefully, we’ll trigger a catastrophic explosion and obliterate it, but at the least we should disable it.”

Double clicks sounded across the comms.

“We go in five.”

Nate swallowed. Felt his heart speed up, despite all his experience, despite all his Edo capabilities.

“Four. Three”

Nate prayed quickly to the Astrals for guidance.

“Two.”

Nate positioned a hand over the plasma torpedo controls,

“One. Mark.”

His fingers danced across the controls. The torpedoes became active, and a lock was established upon the enormous hulking battleship’s massive engine nacelles. Two taps and his Nebula shuddered as the torpedoes detached from it and rocketed away. His taccomm lit up with the tracking of fourteen other torpedoes, all of them racing through the vacuum of space towards their target.

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