Conflagration

Bandits

Erin was trying to evade the incoming missiles, but they were proving tenacious. Those EMPs had been fired from a long way away which gave the missiles' A.I. guidance systems plenty of time to compensate for Erin's attempts at evasion. Erin's mind raced as she tried to think of what else she could do. The hardpointer's big engines might give it a huge thrust-to-weight ratio which was helping her slow down, but the plane still had a lot of mass. It maneuvered like a pile of bricks. They had fired on her just when she was in the middle of her deorbit burn, when she was most vulnerable. There wasn't much else she could do.

Then, an idea occurred to her. "Lyssa, get back to the engine room. I think those are EMPs and I think they're going to hit us. They're trying to disable us so that we bounce off the atmosphere. Once we lose power, I need you to get us back flying as soon as possible. Got it?"

Lyssa just nodded, all of that still sinking in. What she understood most was the part about getting back to the engine room. She sprang out of her seat and over the center console. She began running as fast as she could down the length of the plane. She made it as far as the galley before a bright light flashed outside the galley window and the floor disappeared from beneath her feet. She was temporarily blinded and floating weightlessly in the galley. She could hear her engines spooling down, no longer running, but their mechanical components still spinning through physical momentum. If I can restore fuel flow and ignition before they spool all the way down, I can start them right up, she thought. Of course, I can't see shit, so good luck with that.

"There's another one! Close your eyes!" she heard Erin shout from up in the cockpit. Lyssa obeyed and just in time. She saw another flash through her closed eyelids and then all was darkness again.

"That should be all!" Erin shouted back from the cockpit. The intercom system (just like everything else) was out, so they were just going to have to shout. "They're gonna board us after we bounce so we can't let this plane bounce! Get me flight controls! Get me engines! Get me anything you can!"

Were this not a life-and-death emergency, Lyssa would have chafed at being given direct orders, but right now she was just scared. She was floating weightlessly in the darkness of a dead spaceplane and it was up to her to bring this bird back to life.

It took about a quarter of a minute for her vision to come back well enough to see by what little sunlight came slanting in from the galley windows. Close at hand, she spotted an emergency supply kit. She opened it up and its supplies floated out of it. Medications, bandages, scissors, syringes, gauze, all floated off into the galley area. She found a flashlight, tried its switch...nothing. She found a small chemical light. She snapped and then shook the chemlight to activate it. She was rewarded with a dim, yellow light. It was all she had, so it would have to do for light in the windowless engine room. Above her head, Lyssa could now see in the dim, piss-yellow light a hand rail mounted to the ceiling. The rail was there for just the kind of artificial gravity failure they were currently experiencing. She reached out, grabbed the rail, and began pulling herself, hand-over-hand along the ceiling toward the engine room. She held the dim chemlight clutched in her teeth to light her way.

* * *

"Nice shot, Mister Lover!" came Victimizer's voice over the radio after Emilio's EMP went off with a bright flash. Even at this safe range, the flash was nearly blinding. A moment later, a second flash as Victimizer's EMP detonated on the target. Not that the second EMP actually did anything to the already-disabled hardpointer. It was Mister Lover's shot that had done the job and everyone back on the Ready Sophia would know it.

Still, Emilio knew to congratulate his lead pilot for his own successful shot. "You too, sir. Nice shot."

They kept their throttles pegged as they raced to close the distance to the freighter. As soon as it bounced off the upper atmo and back out into space, they needed to be in position to land on her and take her. Never knew when those Third Law jackasses might show up.

"We taking prisoners today, sir?" Emilio asked.

"Lemme check with command."

Emilio listened as Victimizer repeated the question back to the ship.

"Squad one, that is your discretion. The captain wants the plane," came the ship's response.

"Roger that," Victimizer said.

"So, no?" Emilio asked.

"If it's my call," Victimizer said to Emilio, "then no prisoners. We land on the plane, breach the door, and let the vacuum of space do the hard part."

"If they're in EVA suits?"

"Shoot anything that moves. I ain't dyin' just 'cause some shit stain freight dog wants to play hero. Fuck 'em."

"Roger that, sir." Emilio was glad to hear that. Killing the civvies was the safest option. "Looks like he's starting to bounce." This was going to be a good day.

Then, suddenly, the day took a turn. Mister Lover's HUD indicated inbound fighters coming up from the planet below. Over the radio, Victimizer's voice sounded. "Command, we got bandits," Victimizer said to the ship. "Want us to blow the freighter and fall back?"

Without waiting for the response, Emilio verified he still had a lock on the hardpointer and switched his ordinance panel to short-range, anti-spacecraft missiles. He held his finger on the trigger, ready for the order he knew was coming. He would hate to blow this prize out of the sky, but no way was Capt. Villalobos going to risk it falling into enemy hands.

* * *

"Sir?" the comms officer asked, unbelieving.

"You heard me," Capt. Villalobos said. "Tell 'em to take the freighter and defend it. Send squads two, three, and four to reinforce. Raith ain't gettin' it without a fight."

"Aye, sir," said the comms officer.

Now, Capt. Villalobos turned to his helmsman and navigator. "Get this ship moving away from this cursed moon. I want us in missile range within ten minutes."

"Aye, sir," said the navigator.

"Captain," Cdr. Tengrove said, "looks like the enemy has launched all their fighters."

"All of them?" Capt. Villalobos could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Could Raith really be that reckless? He looked at the tactical display. Sure enough, all of Raith's sixteen fighters were coming up from the planet to join the fray.

Capt. Villalobos could see the chess pieces moving to his advantage. Squad one would almost certainly die trying to defend the freighter, but that's what pawns are for. The captain saw an even greater opportunity. Just like that, Capt. Villalobos' mind reclassified the freighter from a prize to be taken to a decoy, a pawn to sacrificed. "Get that troopship loaded. We end this today." With Raith's fighters in the air, the planet's surface was relatively undefended.

"Sir, all their ground troops are still on the platform. And their gunships."

"We're not attacking the the platform. We're going straight to the squatter settlement. Our mission here is to remove that village of squatters by any means necessary. I want them all either dead or off our planet before Raith even realizes what we're doing."

Tengrove stared at his captain.

"Problem, Commander?"

"No. No problem, sir."

"Good. You have your orders."

The reserve fighters rocketed away towards the battle. Ready Sophia's four powerful engines, each big enough to park a hardpointer inside, came to life and gradually pushed the ship away from SHP 242's third moon where she had been orbiting for weeks.

The battle for SHP 242 was being joined.