New Frontiers- The Complete Series by Jasper T Scott

Author:Jasper T Scott [Scott, Jasper T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: 2019-09-20T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“Admiral, our missiles are ten seconds from ELR,” Cardinal announced.

Alexander nodded, keeping his eyes locked on the countdown at the top of the main holo display. “I see it. Bishop, prepare to come about just before that count hits zero, and make sure you keep our engines facing away from the enemy at all times.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Cardinal, use our missiles to target the Crimson Warrior’s engines, and then her fighter launch tubes. We need to cripple them as much as possible with our first volley.”

“Yes, sir.”

The countdown reached zero, and Alexander watched via the enhanced view on the main holo display as their warheads split into a thousand glittering shards. Each of them lit its thrusters and went evasive. Hot-white contrails appeared behind each missile, illuminating space with bright spirals and zig-zags as the missiles adopted randomly varying approach vectors. A split second later, the missiles opened fire and space came alive with a dazzling flurry of red and blue lasers, all of them vectoring in on the Crimson Warrior’s engines. Abruptly an explosion tore through the aft end of the ship and a giant chunk of it went drifting away. The ghostly green glow from the Crimson’s Warrior’s engines disappeared, and the remainder of the massive ship went on drifting through space, now carried only by its momentum.

“Direct hit!” Cardinal crowed. “Target is derelict!”

“Target enemy laser batteries with our hypervelocity cannons, and use our missiles to take out those fighter launch tubes!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stone, launch our fighters! See if they can squeeze in a few shots before we fly out of range.”

“Aye.”

Hypervelocity rounds thundered out into the void: thud, thud, thud… and glowing golden lines of tracer fire appeared, tracking ahead of the enemy ship.

Alexander watched the Solarian ship fire back with simulated streaks of green extended-range (ER) and yellow high-intensity (HI) lasers. The two ships were still out of range with each other, so all of those shots went straight for the Adamantine’s missiles. Fiery explosions pock-marked the void, and then the remaining missiles fired for a second time. This time explosions rippled all along the enemy’s hull, each explosion marking one of the dreadnought’s fighter launch tubes.

“Enemy is launching missiles!” Frost announced.

“Intercept that ordnance!”

Another flash of green and yellow lasers took out the remainder of the Adamantine’s missiles before they could fire for a third time. Then the Adamantine’s own extended-range lasers screeched to life, adding sapphire blue to the mix of wavelengths flashing through the vacuum. It was easy to forget that those colors were all simulated. Lasers were invisible in space. Then again, Alexander thought, with him and his crew commanding the ship from within a mindscape, technically everything was being simulated.

All but two of the enemy missiles evaporated under the Adamantine’s barrage, disappearing before they had a chance to split into ten times as many independently-guided fragments. The last two were taken out by hypervelocity cannons.

“Extended ELR reached!” McAdams announced.

Alexander winced away from the main holo display as green streaks of enemy ER lasers vectored in on them from the Crimson Warrior.

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