Today's Spacemage by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

Thirty Two

I waited until the courier was almost in scanner range the next day, before the fleet formed up, and we went through the jump point in formation.

We weren’t ready, but the alien ships could shoot, fire missiles, and go where they were told to go. Each ship had magic in place to replace missiles fired.

The crew of my new ship weren’t a cohesive unit yet, but the basics were in place. Jen had taken the helm position without any discussion. Sasha was in the XO's position, and I wondered why, since Jen should be there, technically being the captain of the ship. But Jen was first and foremost a pilot, so I guess she saw her best role in combat, being at the helm. Jess was at the engineering station, and Lea was at coms. Tasha of course, was at the ship's weapons console. Behind her and along one wall, was the other six weapon consoles, and a supervisory chair overseeing them.

The fleet was in a three one three formation. The battlecruiser was in the middle, with three alien ships in a line above and below. I was mildly surprised to find we all jumped at the same time, and it was the first time I made any connection with how big the jump zone was.

In front of us, and already firing, were the six ships I'd known were there. My force wall went up ahead of the fleet, and as all ships began firing on the lead enemy, I concentrated on making sure no missiles made it around the wall.

Missiles and pulses tore into the first alien ship, as its shields went down. But before it took too much damage, Sasha bellowed to switch target, and I changed the direction of all the missiles still aimed at it. It wasn’t firing back anymore. The crew were mostly still alive, and focused on staying that way.

One by one, we battered down the shields of each ship, damaged it to the point where it stopped firing, and moved on to the next.

When the firing stopped, I nodded to Lea, and she opened a channel to all six ships, with Bill's new translator sending in their language. I split my sight up, to check how many were actually receiving, and found all of them were. I concentrated on the lead ship.

"Attention enemy ships. You've been left alive so we can discuss a cease fire in this war. Please respond."

The lead ship exploded. I immediately moved the remaining five to a point just in front of their other fleet, only now coming into range of the jump point on the other side of the system. Ships made violent course changes to avoid collisions, and one more of the moved ships exploded, peppering the shields of their own ships with debris.

I gathered up all of them, and moved them back to where I’d first moved them. Now twenty two strong, but I figured four damaged ships would slow them down. I was wrong. They simply left them behind.

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