Finding Darkness

Chapter 24 Target

A knock on the door broke the spell. Tamar rolled off Malachi and promptly off the bed onto the hard stone floor. Before Malachi had sat up fully, his suit was back over his head and face, red eyes back in place.

Some part of him only trusts me to see him. The thought brought a new sizzle to Tamar's body. Heating again places in her that had never felt that kind of fire before.

"Am I interrupting something?" Steve asked, an amused look on his face.

"No" Malachi answered.

"YES!" Tamar almost screamed.

"Sorry," he laughed. "But you said you'd look at our generator. I think it's about to give up the ghost, and we have a lady who could go into labor at any time. If that generator goes, we're all screwed, and she most of all."

"No rest for the wicked." Malachi turned to Tamar and crouched low to help her up.

"Do you want to stay here or come along? If they don't have the parts I think I'm going to need, I'm going to have to go back up to the surface to get them. I think it would be better for you to stay here and rest. Lord knows you need it."

"I'm not going to get any sleep down here if you're not here." She yawned as she found her footing. "But I am really tired. If you don't mind, I'll stay here. Just don't take too long. I would like to get some sleep sometime."

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Just stay here and rest." He turned to follow Steve out of the room and, for the first time in his life, he didn't want to leave someone. It was everything he could do to leave the room and not look back, because to look back at Tamar was to not leave her.

"Captain, we have one hundred and thirty-nine craft inbound. Two of their capital ships have broken away from earth and are on a course that will have them passing Mars in." Joshua checked his HUD. "Thirty-seven minutes. We're moving to engage."

The alien ships were traveling at just under half the speed of light, and his squadrons were just passing around the side of Mars. He checked his HUD and found he was moving at just under a quarter of light speed. His computer did the math before he could and he saw that he would be within range of their fighter screen in just under five minutes.

"Okay guys, engage at maximum range with our phoenix's. They should thin the herd before we go in." A chorus of double clicks over the comm channel came in response.

The ninety-seven Talons moved into a line abreast formation, with spacing of three thousand miles between each. That gave each pilot the maneuvering room he would need once ordinance started flying. Combat in space had extended the distances in which engagements were fought.

Inside earth's atmosphere, distances were measured in tens, to at most hundreds of miles. Out in space, on the other hand, it was measured in thousands, all the way up to millions of miles. Craft could now travel at the speed of light and faster, and that changed the tactics of commanders. At those speeds, split second timing was needed, and weapons to match.

The Phoenix missile was designed to hit targets literally planets away. It was an active homer, which meant it used an on board radar to independently home in on its target. Once it was fired, the pilot didn't need to do anything else.

It was only a few seconds after the line abreast formation was finished forming that the first salvo of missiles fired from the three squadrons of Talons. Each missile dropped out of an internal weapons bay as twin doors in the fighter's belly slid open and then closed once the projectile was away.

The space around the human formation blossomed with contrails as ninety some missiles streaked out towards the still unseen enemy fighter group. Joshua watched the missiles exhaust trails until the vastness of space swallowed them. On his screens he watched as one after another of the dots blinked, the enemy fighters flashed and then disappeared. The first salvo took out fifteen of the opponents, less than half of what he'd hoped. The problem was, they had no idea the capabilities of their enemies. So they could only trust in their fighters, and hope they wouldn't be outmatched, so far, so good.

"My Lord, their signal jamming is greatly degrading our systems. We have been unable to get  target lock on any of their fighters."

"Just keep your noses pointed forward and go to maximum speed. Close with them as quickly as you can. Your radars will be able to burn through their jamming soon enough." Vapade cut into the fighter direction channel.

He knew the fighter direction officer couldn't have liked his toes stepped on, but at a time like this, he really didn't care.

Whatever was behind the third planet was huge on a scale none of them had ever seen. The recon flight they had sent out had only managed to return a few grainy images of a ship, a massive ship, moving away from the Mars sensor shadow. From what could be extrapolated from the images, the vessel, or whatever it was, was bigger than anything the empire had ever produced. Their own Telgrathon class carriers weren't even a tenth its size.

And now it had launched some sort of small craft to intercept the fighters and bombers he had ordered launched as a precaution. It's what he would have done, and had done in similar circumstances before. Spread a skirmish line of fighters out behind your capital ships to act as a screen to hold the enemy bombers at bay until you could get to jump distance. Then issue an emergency recall order seconds before reaching jump. Those pilots who made it would live to fight another day. Those who didn't would be on their own in an enemy controlled system. But those were the calculations one had to make in war. A handful of pilots and their fighters was a small price to pay in exchange for the safe escape of your capital ships.

"Captain, we have visual on the other ship, and, well, you really should see this." The tech stuttered from the port crew pit.

The main viewer sprang to life and an image, this time crystal clear, came into view of the strange vessel. It was massive, nearly spherical, yet with boxy angles all along its surface, giving it an uneven appearance.

"By the seven moons."

"What is that thing?"

"Quiet, that's enough chatter." Vapade growled at his bridge crew. "I want complete scans of that thing. Every system, all of its spaces mapped, all of it." With that, he turned and marched towards the Prince's stateroom. It was high time the youth was brought up to date on the situation.

"Captain, we've just lost thirty-five of our fighter screen. Our bombers report they're under heavy missile attack..." The comms officer brought his hand to his headset, his face turning from the healthy blue purple to a sickly pale pink. "We've lost the bomber leader, sir."

Vapade stopped at the very threshold of the Prince's room.

"Have the Grankthon, and Salmez come within weapons range yet?" He asked, spinning to face the main viewer.

"No Captain, they are just clearing the orbital plane of the third planet now. They will be within range in another twelve minutes.

"That vessel will be able to jump in twelve minutes." Vapade thought over his options. "Tell the rest of the bomber to launch now. We might get lucky. All we need are a few hits, and we might be able to disable it." The necessary orders were given and on the screen, Vapade could see dozens of tiny dots detach from his remaining bombers and streak towards the fleeing vessel.