A Relentless Fury (The Great War Book 3) Read online

Draper leaned back in her chair. The freighter’s single escorting destroyer was on her far side, poorly positioned to intercept Ghost. They could put a torpedo into the freighter and disappear before the tin can could even consider taking revenge.

  She rapidly processed it, working through a mental flowchart. For a stealth to attack was always a risk, and it was her job to balance that against opportunity. And even if it was a viable hit, they only carried ten of the bulky ship-killer torpedoes aboard. Valestra was running damn short of them. She had to know her prey was worth it.

  The million-ton estimate helped with that consideration. Whatever the bloated thing was hauling, it contained a lot of it, and the only things which moved these days was cargo vital for the war effort.

  “We’re going for it.” She snapped, her decision made and the time for procrastination over. Grimes grinned hungrily in response.

  Over the next hour, the stealth sneaked closer. So close, that if they had a window on the tiny vessel—which they didn’t—they could have looked out and seen their quarry with the naked eye.

  Draper pressed a button on her chair’s armrest. With the whir of servos, the attack array rotated down from the ceiling, replacing her more general consoles with those needed to prosecute the attack without distraction.

  “Ready tubes one and three,” she murmured, trusting her bridge crew would hear and obey her command. The display before her zoomed in on the heavy freighter. She wasn’t an elegant design. More like a long truss with a bridge and crew compartment at one end, and blazing engines at the other. Storage modules and tanks were fastened along the truss, seemingly haphazardly. In large, amateurish lettering, the ship’s name was emblazoned on her side. Clara.

  An isolated part of consciousness vaguely wondered who Clara was. The captain’s wife? His daughter? Mistress? A dog? She frowned, disregarding the thought. It was irrelevant. Personifying the people she was going to kill was the road to madness. A road she wasn’t going to take.

  Her practiced eye swept over Clara, looking for the impact points which would cause the most damage. She could break its back with one torpedo. Putting one in the engines, too, would guarantee a kill. Maybe, if they got lucky, or if the ship was poorly maintained, even spark off a reactor overload. That would save the cargo from any hope of being salvaged.

  That would be mission accomplished.

  She flicked her eyes to the tactical display. The destroyer was still beyond the freighter, relative to their position. As they’d closed on their prey, Draper had ensured she’d kept Ghost in opposition to the sleek Iconian vessel.

  Now was the time to strike. Modern combat jammers could spoof missile and torpedo AI with incredible efficiency. But a stealth’s torpedo worked in a different way. They were more dumbfire weapons, not vulnerable to such countermeasures. And now was the moment of maximum vulnerability for the freighter.

  She laid a cursor on both points she wanted to hit: the engines and halfway down the truss. A pair of targeting lasers lanced out, painting the ships. Some modern warships—hell, even a few merchantmen now—covered their hulls in sensors to detect the lasers. Often that would be their first, and only, warning a stealth was hunting them.

  Clara was clearly as shoddy and old as she looked. Her engines didn’t flare in response to being targeted. She didn’t began a wild attempt to evade Ghost, and most tellingly, her escorting destroyer didn’t respond one iota.

  They had a clear shot. She flicked her thumb on the fire control, raising the safety. A clunk resonated through the ship as two external torpedo tube doors slid open.

  Draper smiled thinly. This was as textbook as it got. And there was no reason to delay anymore. There was no need for melodrama. Her voice was clear, and as cool as if she were ordering a coffee. “Fire one. Fire three.”

  Loud thuds echoed through the two–hundred–meter long, midnight-black frame of Ghost as the torpedoes launched. On her tactical display, the two blinking icons raced forward. A beeping noise increased in frequency as they closed on the enemy ship.

  Too late, Clara responded. Much too late. Draper’s smile turned into the wolfish grin of a predator who knew they had caught their prey. Clara’s and her escorting destroyer’s engines flared as they tried in vain to accelerate and evade. Seconds later, an explosion blossomed on the side of the freighter. The two ends began folding in together as the spluttering flame of her drive pushed the stern past the dismembered bow. Then the second torpedo slammed into the engine module. The effect was catastrophic. In an instant, the space where the ship had once been was transformed into a flaming maelstrom of devastation as the ship’s reactor breached.

  Another million tons of cargo was not going to the Regime or its coalition ally, the Hegemony.

  A loud bong noise filled the bridge. The gong-like audio tell-tales that they were being hit by a sensor blast, presumably from the destroyer. On the tactical, more rippling echoes came from the warship, which powered up and over the dispersing remains of the Clara as if she were a sprinter hurdling a frame.

  Now it was Ghost’s turn to be hunted. Draper’s practiced eye warily watched the destroyer. Her vector was just offset by enough of an angle to tell her the enemy ship hadn’t picked them up. If it had, it’d be coming dead at them, saturating the space around Ghost with pulse fire until she took a hit.

  And just one could kill the vulnerable ship.

  “Secure for repositioning,” Draper called. She’d already had their route out planned in the back of their mind. “Heading, one-two-niner by oh-four-eight. A half-gee under silent running.”

  “Half-gee, silent running, aye.” The helm, and executive officer, Lieutenant Nick Hargreaves, called. From two hundred meters behind her, the hum of the engines grew to a rumble.

  The thin line showing Ghost’s trajectory stretched out from her position, reaching below the destroyer, keeping the still expanding cloud of debris of Clara between them. Ripples continued washing from the destroyer as it sought to find them with its powerful stealth-hunting sensors.

  Draper was no amateur, though. She kept the wreckage between them, letting the blooming bubble of wreckage and destruction which was the corpse of the freighter shield her. The two ships pirouetted around that central point, slowly growing farther and farther away from each other.

  Soon, the destroyer would give up and return to the remains of Clara. To see if any life pods had survived the destruction.

  It was odd, Draper thought as she shut down the tactical—the array folded itself up and receded back into the deckhead above—how little she felt at the undoubted deaths of dozens or more people. There was a time, not so long ago, when witnessing the kind of destruction she had just wrought would have kept her awake for days.

  Not any longer. She didn’t hate her enemy. Not at all. Instead, she knew she’d become hardened and cold. Sympathy for the defenseless foe she had just mercilessly cut down could wait until after the war was won.

  Lieutenant Commander Nisha Draper was twenty-six years old, and entrusted with one of His Majesty’s stealths and the lives of the thirty-one men and women aboard her. And that, to be blunt, was the one and only thing she did care about.

  Chapter 4

  Flight Lieutenant Rick Richards

  Regis System – KSS Corvus

  “Looking good, ma’am,” Flight Lieutenant Jason “Rick” Richards murmured quietly to the pilot in front of him.

  Lieutenant Commander Rose Faraday pulled her gloved hand back, easing the throttle down. The rumble of engines from behind the cockpit of the two-seater trainer Tempest reduced in power as they swung around behind the stern of the carrier Corvus. The perspective of the huge vessel changed, the ship twisting from an elongated cylinder, with a flight deck threaded through the center, to a circle bisected by a rectangle surrounded by the welcoming flashing illumination of the landing lights. He felt a buffet as they passed through the wash of her two engine nacelles, throttled down to steerageway lest they atomize the tiny fighter.

/>   The woman was good, for Navy that was, Rick thought. She’d been wasted on the Cyclone torpedo bombers. Those old kites were more a test of nerves than piloting skills, her previous job being, pretty much, to ignore enemy flak and anti-aerospace fire, keep straight and level, and deliver a torpedo into an enemy warship.

  The rear of Corvus’s hanger bay expanded. Within, rows of fighters and bombers were visible lining the central runway threading through the center of the ship.

  “Remember, we’re a little lighter than a Cyclone.” Rick casually lay his hands on the controls, just in case the navy pilot was going to do anything crazy as they came into the traps. Carrier landings had long been considered one of the trickier maneuvers in flying. “The buffer field will be more violent.”

  “I got it.” They swept toward the bay, slamming through the rear atmosphere forcefield, sending ripples of energy around them. The first buffer caught them and Rick felt himself being jammed violently forward into his harness, reducing their velocity from a relative hundred meters per second to fifty. Then they hit the second field, halving their velocity again.

  The retros on the front of the fighter burned, killing off the rest of their velocity. Smoothly, the Tempest sank to the deck.

  Not bad. Not bad at all.

  “Okay, how do you think that went?” Rick asked, tugging his musty helmet from his head and setting it in his lap.

  “I think...okay.” Faraday flicked switches, powering down the fighter. Again, Rick nodded in approval. The woman had enough of what the pilots called “spare capacity” to be able to hold a conversation and do a technical task like shutting down her bird at the same time. “Kicking myself I needed a second volley on the target drone.”

  Rick pulled his gloves off and smiled. If he was honest, Faraday was much better than “okay.” As much as he wouldn’t admit it out loud, these Naval Aerospace Arm pilots were damn good. Maybe not a match for Viper Squadron, but they certainly weren’t as horrendous as he’d expected them to be when he took this job.

  After months of intense combat over New Avalon and dangerous reconnaissance missions, Rick had found himself being rotated back into training, ostensibly to cascade the skills and drills he’d acquired through hard and bitter experience down to the new pilots graduating from flight school. That’s what his boss had initially told him, anyway. When he’d railed against the posting, the boss had ordered he sit his arse down, and told him in no uncertain words that he needed a rotation away from the lines before exhaustion killed him.

  A month into his posting at Holfield, the Kingdom Aerospace Forces training school, he’d been climbing the walls when an opportunity come up. He was one of the most experienced Tempest pilots in the KAF, and the navy wanted help training up pilots for their brand-new carrier-variant. So now, he was attached to the 825th Naval Aerospace Squadron as their Chief Flying Instructor, having spent two weeks on the naval conversion course—principally learning just how “fun” carrier work was.

  “Yeah, from what I saw, you simply overcompensated. People get surprised by how smooth the Tempest flies. They think they’ve got to be firmer with ’em than they have to be.” Rick patted the console in front of him. “But, just to kill the anticipation, I’m passing your check-ride, ma’am. You’re now a fully-fledged real pilot.”

  Faraday gave a scoff of laughter as she pressed a button. The cockpit slid open and a waiting technician grabbed her outstretched hand and hauled her out the cockpit. “I’d like to think I was a fully-fledged pilot while you were still a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”

  It was Rick’s turn to let out a laugh as he climbed down the metal stairs abutting the side of the fighter. This was a young person’s war. Rick was twenty-four years old, standard. Faraday, at most, was pushing thirty. If he was being ungenerous.

  Together they crossed the bustling flight deck, stepping aside to allow a taxiing Tempest to rumble past.

  “Are you settling in okay?” she asked.

  Rick rolled his eyes, thinking of the metal shoebox-sized cabin which was now his home. “It’s a little...basic aboard.”

  “You KAF types don’t know what real luxury is.”

  “Sure we do: an apartment on base and a mess where the beer flows like water.” Reaching a hatch, they slipped from the expansive flight deck to the claustrophobic warren of corridors and made their way to Faraday’s office.

  “Not thinking of transferring your commission yet then?” Faraday asked as she took a seat behind her desk.

  Rick gave a deprecating shrug. Frankly, the thought of being stuck permanently on a carrier held little appeal. What he really wanted was a rotation back to Viper Squadron. Failing that, any combat position in the KAF. The truth of the matter at the moment was that, short of hunting down that big bastard ship, Behemoth, the NAA—the Naval Aerospace Arm—wasn’t getting the same opportunities to get stuck into the fight as the KAF.

  “Perhaps,” he settled on. He didn’t want to insult his hosts, beyond friendly interservice rivalry, after all. He reached into his thigh pocket for his tablet and unfolded it. “But that’s for tomorrow. Right now, we have the fun stuff.”

  “Admin.” Faraday drew her chair close to the desk.

  “Admin.” Rick nodded and began tapping at his tablet. “Right, the takeoff was nice but I have to grade you a B on it for the wobble coming off the catapult. A hint for how to overcome that is...”

  And with that, they settled into a debrief of every aspect of their check flight.

  Chapter 5

  Captain Cutter

  Starbase Victory

  Achilles bore her scars as she should, like a proud warrior. From the fires of battle over Asteria to the brutal slugfest with Behemoth—every pitted crater in her armor, every gash in her hull told a story of heroism and victory.

  At least that’s what he should be thinking. Hal Cutter frowned as he looked over his ship from the observation lounge overlooking her slip.

  Instead, to him, those scars spoke of the sacrifice of spacers. Those who had served on Achilles herself, those who served in the fleet, and those civilians who had answered the call.

  He quelled those thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to dwell. Apparently, even in the midst of this damn war, a captain’s duties still involved being on the social scene, comfortable in the luxury of the VIP lounge where they were celebrating the battleship’s return to the line. Turning, he felt his smile grow from forced to genuine as he saw his wife holding their young baby, Carter, in her arms and showing him off to a smitten and cooing Delia Sherrington.

  Cutter stepped forward, holding a finger out and letting his son curl his chubby fingers around it. “Don’t tell me you’re getting broody, Delia.”

  “Not quite yet.” The captain of Ajax smiled and reached out as Iona proffered the child to her. The uniformed woman took Carter in her arms and gently rocked him. “Well, maybe a little. But then Ajax, you know...Lost Earth, what a jealous child she would be.”

  “Oh Achilles is for sure,” Cutter said, before he could stop himself.

  Iona raised an eyebrow at her husband. To the room, the disapproval in her face would merely be mocking. Cutter knew differently, though. As far as she was concerned, his ship, the navy, this war, was keeping him away from home. Away from her and Carter. Where he damn well should be.

  “Sometimes,” Iona settled on, “it would be nice if Hal would remember that a ship is just a ship.”

  Sherrington’s eyes twinkled in amusement and understanding as she glanced up at him. A ship wasn’t just a ship, not to her captain. She was home, both protection and ward. And the millions of tons of battle-steel had a personality of her own. She needed both gentle nurturing and a firm hand. The bond he felt was, not that he’d ever admit it to his wife, nearly as strong as that he felt for Iona and Carter.

  Oh, that had only recently changed. After they’d faced this war, together. When they’d become blooded in the fires of battle, together. It seemed a distant memory that before
Port Rorian and Asteria, he’d been ready to resign his commission and go work for one of the private cargo lines.

  Besides, these days, it was infinitely more dangerous to be in an unarmed freighter than it was on one of the most powerful ships in the fleet. Despite hunting and killing Behemoth, the Reach was full of Hegemony Astral stealths. And the losses crossing that expanse of space were horrific.

  Still, with Achilles in dock, he really should be a little more self-disciplined about finishing on time. Getting home to their apartment to see his boy off to bed each night, not staggering in past midnight and then heading out of the door at 0600 hours.

  Tomorrow, he resolved. From tomorrow he would make sure he left work at 1800 hours unless the damn Neos were knocking on New Avalon’s door.

  Sherrington bobbed Carter in her arms, apparently uncaring of the smear of greasy fingers on her immaculate black dress tunic and the tugging on her uniform’s golden braiding. “Speaking of Achilles, Hal?”

  “She’ll never look quite as pretty again.” Cutter inclined his head to the observation port, ignoring the rolling of Iona’s eyes. “Not short of being dry-docked for a full-on refit.”

  “Fat chance of that.” Sherrington rocked her head back as Carter let out a milky belch. “Not with the commitments the fleet is currently servicing.”

  Cutter nodded as he took Carter from her, letting the woman pick up her Buck’s fizz from the white cloth-laden table and take a sip. The tempo of operations was ridiculous. Intel had confirmed the existence of Behemoth’s brother-ship, Leviathan. But for the moment, the Hegemony seemed content to simply allow him to be head of a fleet in being. Existing solely so that the Kingdom had to commit an even larger force to ensure he was locked in the Vadir System and unable to break out. At some point, the navy would have to pull together enough ships to go in and take down that battleship. But for now, that looked impossible with the sheer amount of wide-ranging escort and defense duties required to protect against the dreaded enemy stealths in the Reach. They had to be content that the Hegemony Astral couldn’t actually use the deadly battleship lest it be hunted and destroyed.