Chapter 60

The Talon was pushing as fast as possible back to Eden's End. They had been halfway to Varlen when Matthews was woken up by a high-priority ship comm. He would have preferred a hostile attack to the actual issue they had woken him up for.One of the techs responsible for reviewing Qcomm messages going out from Eden's End had failed to enter the comm data into S.A.M. for analysis since he didn't see anything out of the ordinary in the messages. It wasn't until an after-action review was performed by the head of analysis that S.A.M. pointed out the suspicious nature of the messages. It didn't take the program long to decode the conversations.

They had come from one of the drifters living on Eden's End. When Matthews read the decoded messages, he had ordered the Talon to reverse course. The tech who failed to do their job was going to be scrubbing floors and toilets until the Talon returned to Ganos, where the Hawks' leadership would decide if he got sent back to remedial training or released from the company for this gross oversight.

That man's eventual fate would depend a lot on whether they were too late or not. In his updates with HQ, they simply told him to 'Go above and beyond for Mr. Kane.' It wasn't hard to figure out why after he started sending in his monthly field reports, and he was more than glad to oblige. He liked Kane, and most of the crew liked the man as well. It was rare to come across someone so talented and honest, yet humble as well. The Hawks' leadership knew a good investment when they saw one. If it wasn't for the pirate incursion, they would have stuck around and maybe even rotated out with their sister company to ensure constant security for the system.

"How much longer until we emerge into normal space?" he asked, doing his best to hide the worry in his tone.

"Less than a minute, Captain," the crewman replied.

He pressed the all-hands button and an orange light began to strobe throughout the ship followed by a short klaxon. "We are about to emerge from FTL, strap yourselves in for combat maneuvering. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill."

The warning was unnecessary, his people had been ready and in position for the last hour, but it paid to make sure. "Lockdown the bulkheads and finish venting procedures."

Every door across the massive troop transport was sealed shut and he could hear the quiet hiss as oxygen was pumped from the rooms and into the storage tanks. Matthews reached up and clicked the button that would seal his helmet.

"Five seconds," the same crewman from before said.

"All weapons are green," the Chief Weapons officer stated over his suit radio.

The ship emerged into normal space, the entry far rougher than usual because they had pushed the warp exit much deeper into the system's gravity well than was normally advised. But he knew from experience that the ship and the drive could take it. Even if the bubble destabilized, the ship probably would have been fine. The people on board, maybe not so much. Matthews had never been on a ship that experienced a warp field collapse, but it was a topic of discussion in flight school. The premature collapse of a warp bubble would have made the turbulence they felt just now seem minor by comparison.

The ship was racing towards Eden's End but even so, it took a few minutes for their sensors to collect the data of what was happening at the planet. "There are fifteen contacts in low orbit above the planet. No transponders Captain."

Dammit, they were too late to stop the pirates from landing. "Any signs of debris in orbit?" the planetary railguns should have done a number on the pirate ships.

"The sensors are picking up some debris, but it's not enough to indicate a ship. The sensors are also picking up multiple signs of smoke from the surface. There is also residual radiation from high in the planet's atmosphere. S.A.M. indicates a nuke was detonated?" That last one came out as a question from the stumped Ensign. Matthews wasn't surprised, nuclear weapons weren't in common use since before the Shican war.

It sounded like the pirates attempted to destroy the surface weapons, and when that failed, they set off a nuke outside the atmosphere as an EMP to clear the way. Even as a student of military history, he hadn't heard of anyone using a nuke as an EMP in well over a hundred years. There was no point when more sophisticated methods existed to temporarily disrupt electronics.

That didn't even answer the question of how the pirates got their hands on a nuclear weapon in the first place. The STO sure didn't use them, and even the Coalition had never bothered with the weapons during the war. Matthews gritted his teeth. While the existence of the weapon was concerning, how the pirates got their hands on a nuke wasn't important right now. "Tell the PDC crews that I don't want a single missile getting anywhere near us. And tell the main battery crews to open up as soon as they have a firing solution." If they had one nuke, they might have more. Better to be safe than sorry.

"The pirates have spotted our jump signature, they are beginning to accelerate for a higher orbit."

"Weapons fire from planetside detected!" another of the bridge crew cheered.

"Calm down," Matthews chided the person. However, he smiled as he watched the smaller pirate vessel burst apart from the single impact.

He had never mentioned this fact to Alexander, but his railguns were complete overkill for most things. A ship like the Talon might be able to shrug off a dozen of those massive rounds, but smaller ships like gunboats and Corvettes simply weren't built to take that sort of kinetic impact and survive. Matthews was of the mind that it was always better to go for overkill than underkill though. In this case, it seemed it paid off.

The ship shuddered as the main guns fired.

The Talon's weapons may not be as large as Alexander's but he had twenty-four of them. "Tell the missile crews to target the largest ship. I guarantee that was the bastard that launched the nuke."

Moments later, four streaks zipped past the Talon before tiny points of light flared to life as the missiles closed in on their target.

Two more ships burst into expanding clouds of debris from the planetside guns before the Talon's weapons arrived on the scene. There were no explosions as his weapons tore into the weaker shielding on the rear of the pirate ships. The pirates tried to escape the planet's gravity or curve around to the far side to avoid the oncoming fire, but they had been stationary when the Talon jumped in and were at a distinct disadvantage. Two more ships died as their drives gave out and he watched in satisfaction as they began to plunge into the atmosphere.

The Talon rocked hard as return fire impacted its thickly armored front.

"Minimal damage to report, Captain. They are using autocannons."

A burst of fire exploded between him and the fleeing pirates. "One of our missiles was intercepted. The other three have engaged electronic warfare countermeasures and evasive maneuvers."

"Splash two," the officer said a few moments later.

He witnessed the third explode as it hit a piece of wreckage. The fourth made it through and exploded near the large pirate ship.

"Heavy damage to the pirate ship, but they are still maneuvering. Six inbound missiles detected."

A hail of PDC ammo flew to intercept the missiles while the Gauss cannons continued to spit death at the fleeing pirate ships.

The Talon was moving so fast that he needed to maximize the damage they inflicted before overflying the pirates. If they didn't kill or chase off the pirates before that happened they would be vulnerable to an attack from the rear. There was a reason why high-speed intercepts like this were not advisable.

"Enemy missiles destroyed. The main ship is attempting to accelerate to a safe jump distance."

He pressed the comm button and spoke calmly into his radio. "If that ship escapes this system, I will be severely disappointed in all of you."

Every gun capable locked onto that larger ship and began to fire. Three more missiles flew out as well. Missiles were expensive, so they normally only used the bare minimum in a combat situation. But when the Captain says he is going to be disappointed, you pulled out all the stops.

The enemy ship did a valiant job trying to stop the missiles, but another one struck the engines and the kinetic rounds easily punched through the ship's static field and armor. He knew they were dead in the water when he saw the ship start to drift sideways.

"The rest of the ships are jumping away, Captain."

The fact that the pirates had risked a jump so close to the planet surprised him. They wouldn't have gotten far with the unstable warp bubble, but by the time the Talon picked them back up on sensors, the ships would have plenty of time to jump properly. "How many escaped?"

"Only three of the fifteen, Sir."

Matthews grunted in annoyance. "Slow us down and get the drop ships ready to disembark. I want to ensure there aren't any surviving pirates. What about conditions on the surface?"

"Scans show one debris field on a landing pad and four other ships down there. It also looks like three craters where gun emplacements used to be."

At least they hadn't been caught completely unaware. "Any communications from Eden's End?"

"Negative, Captain."

It was likely their comm gear was down due to the EMP strike. "Tell the drop ship teams to split into two groups. I want one aboard the ships, the other to scour Eden's End of these filthy bastards and find anyone who survived." With fifteen ships full of pirates, he had little faith that anyone was left alive down there. Getting revenge was the best the Hawks could do and he would take this failure to his grave.

***

It took hours to slow the Talon enough to swing back around toward the planet. By then the planetary gun had gone silent. Nobody aboard Travers' drop ship knew if that meant it was out of ammo or that the pirates had finished off the defenders. Either way, they were going in with full kit and the heavies were leading the charge. There were no half-measures this time.

The dropship shook as its bow-mounted flechette turret tore into the pirate ship on the landing pad. The ship had tried to take off when they saw them coming. It was a little too late to run though, not that they would make it far without a jump drive. And even if they somehow made it past the drop ships, the Talon would have shot them out of orbit.

The ship was likely still on the landing pad because they were afraid of the orbital railgun picking them off. That was the only smart choice these pirates had made today.

The enemy ship lost power and crashed off to the side of the landing pad, cracking the frame and leaving a large furrow in the dirt until it came to a rest. That was a bit annoying. It meant his team would have to clear the ship before they could go for the facility. Unless… "Pilot, when we land, rotate so you're facing the pirate ship."

"You read my mind, Sir."

The shuttle touched down and his people stormed off the ship, the heavies swept their much more powerful flechette cannons back and forth looking for hostiles. No pirates poked their heads out though. Sёarᴄh the NôᴠeFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

With the landing zone clear, they all rushed through the doors that had been blown open. As he rushed inside, he had to skid to a stop before he ran into the back of the augment suits. "What's the hold-up?!" he demanded.

The heavy gestured down the hallway. Travers poked his head from around the large armored suit to see a barricade of metal crates and a whole lot of dead bodies on this side of it. An older woman he recognized but had forgotten the name of poked her head from around the corner.

"You're a little late for the fireworks, boys."

That got a chuckle out of the rest of the people behind the barricade pointing weapons their way.

Travers had removed his helmet after they learned the people had repelled or killed off the rest of the pirates. He wasn't sure who was more surprised that the people down here had driven off the pirates, him or Captain Matthews when he radioed it in.

People thanked him for showing up and for the training the Hawks gave them as he walked past. He was currently following Eva Wu, that was the older woman's name, down a hallway.

"You're certain they're all dead?" Considering what he saw at their entrance, he didn't doubt the woman's words. But it was possible they missed a few. Pirates liked to run and hide.

The woman snorted. "Trust me, Alexander was in quite a foul mood after the attack, he personally scoured the entire facility. If there are any pirates left, it's only on the shuttles. Alexander and Damien both agreed that it wasn't safe to try and board the shuttles since there was no cover."

"What were you planning to do then?"

"Nothing. If they tried to leave, the one working railgun would have shot them down. If they tried forcing their way back inside a second time, we were ready for them. The decision was to let them starve in their ships and in a few weeks check to see what remained."

It was a very clinical tactic, but considering there was no place to survive on the surface, it was probably the safest course of action.

"How many survivors?"

The woman looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Hun, don't try to sugarcoat your question. Ask what you want to ask."

Travers cleared his throat. "How many died?"

"We suffered eighty-six casualties. Most of those came from the two augmented pirates. One bastard had a grenade launcher and a minigun. Alexander took care of both of them though."

Travers paused. "Alexander did? How?"

"I'll let him explain that to you if he decides to. Now come on, we're almost there."

They entered Kane's workshop or what was left of it. The place looked like a bomb had gone off and most of the robots and machines were damaged to one extent or another. Alexander was over by one of the printers, removing components from it and putting them into another one. The repaired printer hummed to life as they approached.

Alexander turned toward them, but he was without his usual holographic face. The robot body he used was far more unsettling without the face. Travers' first instinct was to run when he saw it. He squashed those feelings ruthlessly as he held out a hand. "I'm glad you survived."

He could almost sense Kane's easy smile as he reached out and shook the offered hand.