Skirmishes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Author:Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Language: eng
Format: epub

TWENTY-FOUR

The shot was trickier than he expected because of the location of the military vessel. Boss had seen something Coop hadn’t initially seen. The imperial battleship was too centrally located. An explosion at the location of that ship would have a strong impact on the structural integrity of the entire station.

Below decks, his fighter ships were gearing up to escort the transports to the station. The same things were happening on the Shadow. The launch of the assault teams would happen in less than three minutes.

“Can that ship fire its weapons from its location?” he asked Anita.

Yash responded. “Not without causing the station some damage. However, the station itself does have defensive capability.”

“From everything I see,” Anita said, “its defensive capability is no match for our shields.”

Or their weaponry. But that part went without saying.

“So the ship will launch before firing,” Coop said, maintaining his focus as best he could. He didn’t want to think about Boss getting on one of those transports, then accompanying her team into the station itself.

“It’s already gearing up,” Anita said. “It should separate in less than a minute.”

“The moment it detaches, hit it with all that we have,” Coop said. “I don’t want it to get a shot off, particularly against one of our fighters.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Yash didn’t disagree, and she would have if she felt strongly enough. He probably should have made her first officer instead of Kravchenko because he trusted her more than anyone else on this ship. But he also needed Yash in engineering, and he knew she couldn’t do both jobs.

In the situation they were in, he needed a good engineer more than he needed a first officer.

“The ship’s shields are up, sir,” Kravchenko said, as if she knew he was thinking about her.

“Is that going to be an issue?” he asked.

“No, sir. They’re a little stronger than the ones Boss has on the Two, but not much.”

He didn’t consider the shields that Boss had on the Two worthy of the name, even though he didn’t tell her that. He had asked Yash to reinforce them before Boss took that ship anywhere again.

If she got out of this, that is.

“The battleship’s away, sir,” Kravchenko said.

“Our transports?” he asked.

“Not quite out yet,” Anita said.

“Warn them there will be debris, Kjersti,” he said to Perkins. Then he nodded at Yash and said, “Fire!”

She did. She aimed more weaponry at that battleship than he expected, probably to make sure she got it in one shot.

The weapons streamed toward the ship almost instantaneously. The images on the screens blurred, leaving little afterimages in his eyes. Something moved in one of the station rings—more weaponry, he guessed, targeting the Ivoire—but just as he was about to give the order to destroy that as well, the battleship blew up.

It exploded into a million pieces, many of which were large enough to damage his fighters, which had launched just a moment ago. But the fighter pilots were nimble: they avoided everything.

The transports headed into that mess

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