Queen of Jarilo

The formation of ships burned into position, their main engines firing to match velocity, moving further into the system as they reached cruising speed. It would take a good hour for them to close the distance and reach Jarilo orbit, but jumping in any closer could put them at risk. If the Bugs had established orbital defense platforms as they were known to do, then even the larger vessels might be shredded. It was better to keep the engagement at as long a range as possible, and in space that could mean hundreds of thousands of miles. There would certainly be an ugly brawl in high orbit, but with any luck, they could use their missiles and torpedoes to take out the more dangerous vessels and structures before they reached spitting distance.

"Get me long range scans of the system," Stavros ordered, "I want to know the location of every Bug ship in this star's gravity well. If they didn't see the Russian survey vessel, then we may still have the element of surprise, but they'll have fortified regardless."

The modus operandi of the Betelgeusians, once they claimed territory as their own, was to place orbital defenses to ward off UNN ships and to dig tunnels deep into the planet's crust that made them exceptionally hard to root out. Being so far underground made orbital bombardment ineffective, assuming that the Admiralty wanted the planet even remotely intact, and so ground operations were a necessity. Krell and Borealan auxiliaries had evened the odds somewhat, but while the UNN tended to dominate in space, the ground wars were a different beast altogether. The Bugs emerged from their hives to launch surprise attacks, retreating back into the maze of tunnels once the damage was done, their activities difficult to predict and even harder to effectively counter. It was a guerrilla war on a planetary scale.

The two species had much in common, at least biologically speaking, Humans and Betelgeusians shared the same basic chemistry and found similar atmospheres and temperatures to be comfortable. This meant that competition for territory was rife, with some heavily contested planets changing hands two, or even three times between the races. Jarilo was a rare prize indeed, and Stavros got the impression that this was going to be a long and hard-fought campaign.

After another fifteen minutes had gone by when the officer operating the long-range scanner alerted him to the presence of Betelgeusian ships.

"It's a full invasion fleet Captain," he said as he swiped the readout, the information transferring to the monitor that was embedded in the large viewport. The transparent glass became misted, the digital overlay flickering to life. "I'm picking up two hive ships and five torpedo boats. They've launched one orbital defense platform already, but I'm not showing any signs of activity from it. I don't believe that it's operational yet. Looks like we may have caught them with their pants down, sir."

Stavros examined the readout, the computer matching the signatures of the enemy ships to known classes, more detailed pictures and schematics appearing beside the scan results. Hive ships were grotesque, bulbous vessels, nothing akin to the sleek lines of his prized Thermopylae. They almost looked like giant shrimps, sheets of metal plating like Medieval armor covering their hulls as an added layer of protection, dozens of spindly legs protruding from beneath the overlapping plates of the shell which allowed the things to make landfall. There was no viewport to speak of because the vessel was covered in biological eyes that served as cameras for the crew. There were innumerable sensors and antennae that resembled hairs from a distance, protruding from its nightmare body in every direction.

It was theorized that the Betelgeusians built a skeletal frame from alloys and then somehow guided the growth of biological material around it, eventually forming a living ship with a flight control system that more closely resembled a central nervous system than a computer. While they might appear primitive, there were some surprising benefits to building ships in this unconventional manner. Their vessels could self-repair, and they were remarkably reactive to threats. There was weaponry meshed into the living material that packed quite a punch, and their hides were thick with both biological and conventional armor. Much like a carrier, they housed dozens of smaller attack craft that clung to them like parasites, and they carried the ground invasion forces of the Bug armies. Information on them was scarce, it wasn't clear how they were piloted, or if indeed there was a pilot at all. UNN scientists had dissected the ruined remains of dead vessels, but no human had ever set foot on a live one, and so much of what was known was conjecture.

The torpedo boats were a problem. They were smaller vessels about the size of a UNN frigate that were chock full of long-range plasma torpedoes, nasty guided weapons that would burn through an armored hull like acid.

There were three primary means of engagement in space. Guided projectiles, which included missiles and torpedoes, those were used mostly at extreme range. Then there were railguns, magnetically accelerated guns that fired a solid slug at a percentage of light speed, destructive weapons for use at medium to close range and in ground support scenarios. The third were electronic weapons like lasers and electromagnetic pulse bombs. Far from melting through spaceship hulls as some people erroneously believed, such weapons were mostly used to fry an enemy ship's systems and effectively blind their sensory equipment. Being biological in nature, the latter were not of much use against Bug ships, so they were reserved mostly for non-lethal engagements against pirate ships and other forms of peacekeeping work inside UNN space.

"Prepare to fire torpedoes," Stavros announced, "aim for the orbital defense platform. I want that thing reduced to debris. We can't run the risk of it suddenly coming to life in the middle of the engagement."

He looked to his right, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the Kartikeya's torpedo tubes swing agape as the comms officer relayed his instructions, a dozen hatches on either side of its hull opening in preparation. The UNN ships had a longer scan range than the Betelgeusians, the smaller vessels would have time to evade, and the hive ships had point defense that would stop the majority of the projectiles. The inactive orbital station was defenseless, however. It was best to concentrate the first volley there, lest the hive ships move to defend it.

"Fire," he ordered with a wave of his hand.

There were flashes of light as the torpedoes slid out of their bays, hovering silently for a moment as their thrusters reoriented them, and then they were away. Stavros watched two dozen burning points fade and eventually vanish in the viewport. The planet was barely visible to the naked eye at this distance, let alone the smaller targets.

His eyes switched focus to the display, long-range sensors tracking the progress of the torpedoes as the carrier's telescopes zoomed in to get a view of the target vessels. They were floating lazily about the inactive platform. Who knew how close that thing was to being activated, it would have effectively denied them orbital access until it was destroyed through overwhelming firepower. It was a long tube ringed by a torus-shaped weapons platform, biological material clinging to it in ugly webs like meat on bone. The hive ships carried their component parts in their spindly legs, tucked beneath their bellies, ready for assembly upon exiting superlight. Now that they were in telescope range, he could see that one such disassembled orbital platform was clutched in the legs of one of the alien vessels, not yet deployed. The helmsman had been right, their timing was opportune. The bugs would have placed a dozen of them in high orbit if given the opportunity.

It took a painfully long time for the torpedoes to arrive, they were chemically propelled, little spacecraft in their own right as opposed to relativistic projectiles like railgun slugs. They finally impacted, the telescope cameras temporarily blinded by the glow, and when it cleared the orbital platform was breaking apart.

The Betelgeusian fleet scattered as they avoided the spreading cloud of debris, plumes of green flame spouting from engines embedded in their aft sections. Now the real fight would begin. They didn't use radio or any electronic means of communication that the UNN was aware of, the ships instead signaling to each other with flashes of great, luminescent sails that glowed with colorful patterns.

"That woke them up," the weapons officer chuckled.

"Be ready for return fire," Stavros reminded him.

The Bug ships came about, turning broadside towards the fleet and unleashing a hail of missiles.

"Looks like they spotted us, Cap'n," the helmsman said.

The bridge crew waited silently with bated breath as the cloud of missiles drew closer. It took several minutes for the torpedoes to reach them at these distances, and finally, the silence was broken by the sound of a missile launch reverberating through the hull. The Thermopylae, along with the contingent of CIWS frigates and the battleship, loosed a storm of interceptor missiles. They were effectively anti-missile missiles, designed to seek out and destroy incoming threats, their warheads exploding into a cloud of shrapnel that would cover as large an area as possible and damage or destroy the enemy torpedoes that passed through it.

There were bright flashes through the viewport, explosions from neutralized torpedoes, and Stavros looked to the graphical interface to the right of the main display that showed the status of the projectiles. The cluster of blips had been reduced by about two thirds. That was a good result, he hadn't expected them all to be stopped.

The viewport tinted automatically, becoming darker as beams of red light flashed, protecting their eyes from the strobes that pierced the darkness of space. The lasers pulsed the optical guidance systems of the remaining missiles, hoping to fry or blind them, and several more deviated from their course.

The point defense turrets fired, trails of tracer rounds arcing out into space, shooting down as many missiles as they could. It was beautiful to see, mesmerizing, crisscrossing lines of glowing bullets painting the sky as they waved back and forth.

Only one of the torpedoes broke through, its guidance system directing it towards the largest profile that it could see, the Martian battleship. It exploded violently against the Kartikeya's hull, but the mammoth vessel weathered it, the bubbling plasma eating through only a few of its many layers of armor.

"Give me a damage report, Kartikeya," Stavros barked over the comms.

"We're fine," Captain Chopra replied with a hiss of static. "Superficial damage, no cause for concern."

"We're closing into railgun range," Stavros announced to the fleet, "I want the gunships to go after the Bug torpedo boats. The Thermopylae and the Kartikeya will focus their fire on the second hive ship, the one with the disassembled orbital platform in its legs. With any luck, its maneuverability will be hindered by the extra mass. CIWS frigates one through six, stick close to the carrier and keep us protected, I want the rest of you covering the gunboats."

Jarilo expanded in the viewport alarmingly quickly, the bridge crew bracing themselves against their consoles as the retro thrusters fired and the G-forces tore at them, the fleet shedding velocity as they entered the planet's orbital footprint. In a moment they were upon the Bug ships, decelerating and turning their guns towards the enemy. They were still out of visual range, four hundred kilometers away, but in fleet engagement terms that might as well have been nose to nose.

The Kartikeya's gun turrets rotated in the direction of the hive ship, a dozen twin-linked railguns of impressive size brought to bear, their long barrels lined with copper-colored magnetic rings. The rocked back in their housings as the turrets fired, tungsten slugs accelerating towards their targets at relativistic speed, too fast to track and impossible to intercept. After a brief delay, there was a pattern of flashes across the hull of the target hive ship, not from explosive warheads but from the sheer kinetic energy that the slugs released upon impact. The Martian battleship fired another dozen torpedoes from its tubes, the enemy vessel's point defense stopping a few as they raced towards it, but a series of explosions wracked it and blew away chunks of what looked like meat and bone.

The hive ship shuddered violently, its layers of armor plating and chitinous shell doing little to protect it, the superconductive fluid that served in place of optical cables and wiring leaking from the crater-like wounds as if it was bleeding. Although injured, it was not yet dying, it would take a lot more damage to take it out of the fight.

The gunships burned towards the enemy, breaking formation as they fired volleys of railgun rounds at the Bug torpedo boats, a few of the CIWS frigates following close behind to shield them from return fire. The gunships took evasive maneuvers, rolling and tumbling as they avoided a salvo of missiles, more bright trails of point defense fire drawing curving lines across the sky. Their agility was deceptive. They danced in the microgravity of orbit, but each vessel weighed close to six thousand tons.

The Thermopylae joined the Kartikeya in another railgun salvo, the turrets on the carrier's belly turning to track the target. Stavros watched through the telescope display as what looked like buckshot peppered the enemy vessel's hull.

The other hive ship had finally locked on to them, drifting in front of its companion as if trying to shield it from further damage, returning fire. Along the broadside of the shrimp-like vessel was a line of gun turrets, embedded almost surgically into its living flesh, controlled by unknown means as they aimed towards the Kartikeya and their muzzles flashed. Where the UNN used railguns, the Bugs favored plasma casters. The magnetically-contained projectiles couldn't quite approximate the same velocity and force, but they had the added benefit of being extremely corrosive. The bolts would melt through hulls like a cutting torch, slagging metal as the super-heated gas transferred its heat to the material, the green color and splash of their impact reminiscent of acid.

They were aiming at the Kartikeya, the baddest looking ship on the field, and the battleship weathered the blows as the fluorescent plasma splashed across its hull. The armor glowed orange, sinking inward in the spots where the bolts had impacted, but the Martian warship was designed to handle this kind of punishment, and it did not falter. Now the engagement would become a slugfest, like two boxers hammering each other into submission until one of them breaks.

The gunships were tearing through the Bug torpedo boats, too close now for their missiles to be any real threat, the broken vessels resembling insects smeared on a windshield as they split apart and leaked conductive fluid.

A swarm of fighters launched from the hive ships like angry bees, detaching from the hulls where they had been clinging like fleas. They were more streamlined and beetle-like in appearance than the larger craft, their grasping landing limbs tucked under their bellies. They made for the gunships in a futile attempt to support the torpedo boats, the point defense fire and devastating railgun batteries turning on them instead. The Thermopylae had Penguin fighter-bombers docked in recesses along its hull, but it was not necessary to launch them. The gunboats would not have a difficult time dealing with the small spacecraft.

It seemed that this Betelgeusian fleet had been mostly defensive, they were not nearly as dangerous as the panicked survey ship had made them sound. Granted, facing down two orbital platforms would have been a challenge, but they hadn't had the time to activate either one of them. Stavros had been hesitant to charge in with so little intelligence, but the Admiralty had made the right decision. Swift action had averted a far more costly engagement.

"Captain, detecting a third hive ship!"

Stavros switched his attention to the monitor, watching a radar blip rising from the surface of the planet, coming at them from directly below.

"Why the hell didn't we see that on our scans?" Stavros demanded.

"It was obscured by Jarilo's atmosphere, it must have been unloading troops on the ground. Shall we move to intercept?"

"Negative, maintain fire on the previous target," he ordered as he turned towards the comms officer. "Put me through the Kartikeya." There was a brief fizz of static, and then Captain Chopra's voice came through over the intercom.

"We see the third hive ship, fleetcom. Permission to engage?"

"Granted, knock it out of the sky. We'll keep the pressure on the other two."

He watched as the great vessel fired its thrusters, angling downwards relative to the Thermopylae, its railgun turrets rotating to face forwards. Stavros had been foolish to hope that they had caught the hive ships before they had unloaded their troops on Jarilo's surface, one had already done so, and it was likely that a second had too. Only the third, still clutching the dissembled orbital defense platform in its legs, had been prevented from disgorging its army of ground soldiers.

The Kartikeya hammered the rising vessel with railgun fire relentlessly as the magnetic rings that lined the barrels glowed orange with heat. The hive ship attacked from beneath, gunning for the Thermopylae, perhaps knowing that it could do little to damage the battleship without support. Its attack craft detached and accelerated towards them, their mothership's armored nose still glowing red as the heat that it had generated from its climb through the planet's atmosphere dissipated. It had relatively few plasma casters mounted on the bow, but it fired them anyway, Stavros feeling his carrier shudder beneath his feet as some of the bolts hit their mark.

"Minor damage to the keel armor, Captain. We lost a couple of railguns."

"Ignore it, let the Martians deal with it. Weapons officer, keep your fire on the other hive ships. I don't want them escaping, they may have had time to charge their jump drives for all we know.

"The one carrying the orbital platform is listing hard, Captain, I think we've disabled it."

"Don't make assumptions, Major. It isn't dead until it's breaking up. Stay the course."

The gunships, now done with the torpedo boats, turned their attention to the hive ships. They maneuvered towards the massive vessels, fighting off the tiny fighters as they went, peppered with fire from smaller scale plasma weapons that melted holes in their hulls. Their engines and nuclear plants were housed in reinforced compartments that were lined with eight inches of steel and Kevlar, and the same was true of the crew compartment and bridge. It would take an exceptionally lucky shot to disable one of them. In return, their point defense turrets thinned the cloud of swarming attack craft, the CIWS frigates that trailed behind them hosing the Bugs with tracer rounds.

The hive ship that was attempting to shield its companion was forced to turn its broadside guns towards them, exposing the damaged vessel to more fire from the carrier. The weapons officer took advantage of the opening, concentrating his railgun salvos on the drifting ship, the slugs eating through its fleshy hull as they tumbled like bullets and dug deep wound channels.