Aquatics by Aer-ki Jyr

Author:Aer-ki Jyr [Jyr, Aer-ki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

Two weeks later…

“They’re making another drop run,” Captain Ender commented as he watched the tactical hologram from the bridge of the Hawkeye.

“Who’s got it?” Sara asked via the comm.

“We do.”

“Do we have an angle?”

“Slim. They’re coming in hard.”

“Damn it,” Sara said, tossing aside her towel and hastily pulling on her uniform over a still shower-wet body. Her earpiece was the only thing on her that was actually dry. “What have we got moving?”

“Two corvettes. They’re running three cruisers, two of which are transports.”

“What do we have for an atmospheric intercept?” the trailblazer asked, pulling on her shoes sockless and running out her quarters’ door.

“Nothing. They’re headed for the backside of the planet.”

“How is that in our zone?” she asked, running through the warship’s corridors, dodging personnel on the way.

“The lizards are being creative in their approach vector. Looks like they’re going to aerobrake pretty hard, so even if we did have surface assets we couldn’t give them a decent prediction of where they’re going to come down.”

“What’s the corvette loadouts?”

“Maulers both,” he said, referring to the section of each ship that was modular and could be swapped out for different weapon systems.

“How long till we get a shot?”

“12 minutes.”

“Copy that,” Sara said, ending their conversation as she ducked into a stairwell, bypassing the elevators in favor of running. She knew she didn’t have to be on the bridge for the intercept, and could have left Ender in command and not given it a second thought, but the lizard fleets in orbit around Atlantica were constantly playing games with them and a gut feeling said she needed to get up there and follow this live.

In addition to her fleet, which consisted of 6 warship-class jumpships, there were five others in orbit, along with 3 Star Force battle stations in close formation, mere kilometers apart so they could overlap their defenses. It was those seda copies that had allowed Star Force to retain a presence in orbit, for when the lizard counter offensive began 6 years ago they’d arrived with a fleet 4 times as large as theirs and had immediately set upon clearing orbit of anything alien.

They hadn’t been able to remove the battle stations, which gave the Star Force fleets a fixed point to retreat to. That first assault had lasted 3 weeks, during which the lizards lost half their fleet trying to take them down. The surface damage to the stations was extensive, but between their numerous cleansing beams and the backing of the warships, they systematically tore apart the lizard ships when they came at them, enough that they hadn’t tried to assault the trio of stations again…despite the fact that their insystem fleet now numbered twice what it had been during that first assault.

Star Force had lost a lot of ships in that first defensive effort, but with that little piece of orbit secured Paul had been able to work his naval magic and keep the lizards continually frustrated. Both sides maintained orbital presences around the planet,

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