War for the Iron Planet

Chapter 17: Grounded

Drixen zipped out of the hangar and looked around to get a visual on the star tree. He spotted a tiny dot by Hittania's horizon and turned to go after it.

"Come on, squads!" he cried over the comms. "Let's get this one for Viper!" He got a chorus of cheers and the fighters all followed him.

There was no doubt his was the faster vessel, and his rangefinder confirmed he was gaining on Traelby's star tree. Then he noticed three other objects twinkling in the distance.

A beam, like the one Raivyn had fired from the star tree, grazed Drixen's fighter. He banked and started heading back towards the fleet. He punched a few buttons on his comm.

"Blue Griffon Fleet, come in. We have multiple hostiles inbound. I believe the Astralbians are mounting an attack on the fleet."

"What's that?" said Captain Vrik-Wei of the Arrowhead. "We have nothing on our- oh, no. Yes, multiple ships just came over the horizon."

"This is Jasken," said the admiral. "As you know, the Wingspan is dead in the water. We're still assessing damage. I will remain here to offer tactical advice but I'm afraid this will fall to my captains and squad leaders. May the Progenitor watch over you, and providence shine on you."

"You too, sir," said Drixen.

"Thank you, sir, we'll send them packing," said Vrik-Wei.

"Tell us what you need and you'll have it, and that goes for all of you," said Captain Arquess of the Ferryman.

"Okay, squads," said Drixen, this time over the fighters' comm channel, "change of plans. We're going to circle back and protect the Wingspan. Looks like we're in for a full-on naval battle against an Astralbian fleet, so we're going to try to get under the protection of our guns aboard the Arrowhead. Keep your eyes open. Squad leaders, call targets and make sure your bombers get plenty of opportunity to do their thing."

Even as they circled back, eye beams from the Astralbian ships were peppering the Arrowhead, which was moving to position itself between the Wingspan and the enemy. The Arrowhead returned fire, its deadly broadsides pounding the hearty star trees.

A swarm of enemies showed up on radar, and Drixen knew the void wasps had started emerging from the trees. Each with a skilled rider atop it, void wasps were fighter-sized insects bred to survive and even "fly" in space. Griffonian scientists were fuzzy on the mechanism that allowed wings flapping in space to move a creature, but the Astralbians had figured it out.

Drixen performed a loop-the-loop and fired on the enemy while facing them, just to let them know he saw them. The wasps fired beams from their eyes just like the star trees did, and started unleashing a hail of fire on the Griffon fighters.

"Alright," said Drixen. "That's enough of that. First squad, let's squash some bugs. Second squad, support the Arrowhead. Third, protect the Wingspan. I want everyone to keep looking for targets."

Having received their orders, the squads went their separate ways, with Drixen leading First Squad against the void wasps. They were deadly, agile opponents, but their armored skin was fairly weak compared to the steel construction of mechanical fighters. Fighting against them meant hitting hard and fast, if you wanted to survive. The fifteen fighters, including Cowgirl's bomber, took out seven wasps on their first sweep. Leading the charge, Drixen managed to take out three himself, alternating between machine gun bursts and laser blasts.

"Woohoo!" he shouted. "Let's keep it up, folks!"

The mood aboard the Wingspan was much more dour. Reclan had spent the past half hour helping Dekken and his team pick through the wreckage in the electrical passages. The saboteur had been thorough. The blast that had darkened the ship had killed the security team sent to investigate, as well as taking out the central infrastructure for life support and the ripmed drive. Without that they could neither travel nor communicate over lightyears-long distances. The Wingspan was the only ship in the fleet capable of that kind of communication.