| Jovian APAworks | Volume 1, Number 2 | January, 2001 |
Lieutenant Liliane Cymri allowed herself a quick glance back at the launch area that she had just left. It was a trained habit drilled into her by instructors to make sure that she had cleared the catapult. "Rose 2 is airborne." She said into her comm. once she had switched its channel over to her squadrons combat frequency.
"Copy Rose 2." Came the reply from the JSS Vigil combat coordination officer. "Come about to heading one one fiver plus thirty."
"Copy Vigil." She replied and fired her apogee thrusters to give her Retaliator a smooth arc back towards the ship she had just left. As she did so, she heard Rose 3 confirm its launch a moment later over the channel. Rose 1 was already on station and waiting.
Her Retaliator pointed in the right direction, Liliane set about to familiarize herself with the situation. A good pilot was taught to immediately assess the immediate field around her. She glanced in all directions around her, the Retaliators head mimicking the movements of her own, and let her active sensors tag and identify all contacts. The inside of the cockpit sphere lit up with red markings, each marking identifying a contact. Movement and targeting data was being calculated by the targeting computer and displayed alongside the corresponding contact marker.
The Vigil and her escorts were the first to be identified, due to their sheer size and the IFF transponders all were using. There were only three ships in this patrol group, the Valiant-class strike carrier JSS Vigil and her two Athena-class escorts JSS Nike and JSS Adonis. The Nike was turning to face outwards from the Vigil and the Adonis was sliding underneath to take up a similar position.
The next contacts to be tagged were the other members of her squad. Rose Squadron was the general purpose exo-squadron flying off of the Vigil. Rose 3 was the designation for Lieutenant Andrea Ypres’ Pathfinder. She was the recon pilot for the Vigil. Rose 1 was the leader of Rose squadron Captain Beauregard Desrosiers, who also piloted a Retaliator. On the very edge of her sensor sweep a large red circle appeared, marking an unknown contact. Her sensors were not powerful enough to determine exactly what she had picked up. It could be a small capital ship or a squadron of fighters.
"Listen up Rose Flight." Captain Desrosiers voice cut through Liliane’s analysis. "Here’s the situation. Thorn Flight encountered a number of unknown contacts 15 minutes ago. We haven’t heard anything from them since. Vigil has a group…contacts inbound. We’re here…ake sure tha…unknow…..get……close…..Vigil."
The rest of the squad leaders message broke into static. The tactical display inside of Lilianes Retaliator started to pick up ghosted contacts, red markers that would appear and then disappear a moment later. "Electronic Countermeasures." she whispered to herself. This was going to cause problems for the coordination of the Jovian exo-armours. The large circle split into smaller circles and even more ghost contacts blinked in and out. The Vigil would be trying to break through the electronic cloud of confusion that was being thrown up by the unknown contacts but that would take some time. Time was something that she did not have the luxury of because if the velocity indicators were to be believed then she had only a minute or two before the enemy were in combat range.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. It was bad enough that several unfriendly contacts were bearing down towards her but she now had to rely more on her own human instincts and reactions instead of the target tracking computer. All exo pilots were trained for this and it would simply be a matter of remembering what she was taught, and steeling her nerves.
Liliane changed her Retaliators vector. It was more likely than not that the enemy had a good fix on her while she was struggling to see them. She was not going to make an easy target for them. On a side display she brought up her tactical screen. The information displayed on it was confused as the computer tried to keep track of targets that were there one moment and gone the next. The group of enemy contacts began to split up. It looked as though there were two contacts coming right towards her. A few more changes were made to her vector and she switched the targeting system to manual.
There was a quick change on her tactical display to bring up a more local tracking screen and she was engaged. The target, her computer had managed to eliminate one contact as an ECM ghost, bore down on her. Her threat indicator lit up letting her know that she was being targeted moments before the computer registered the missile launch.
"Computer!" She yelled as she threw her Retaliator into an evasive loop. "Lock on nearest target! Identify!" One missile streaked close by her and as she finished her loop, but the Retaliator twisted and shook with the impact of the second. A quick glance at the damage display showed that there was light damage to the arm. She twisted the Retaliator around to bring her to the back of her enemy. In a corner of her cockpit sphere a small window appeared showing the enemy exo and the computer identified it. A Syreen, she repeated to herself as she took a quick glance at the display. CEGA.
A target recticle appeared over the contact marker for the Syreen. A low buzz in her communications headset combined with the flashing of the targeting recticle told Liliane that the counter attack was ready. "Missile lock on nearest target. Fox Two." she said as a MMJ-4 missile streaked out from her Retaliators shoulder mounts. The pilot of the Syreen evaded the first try but the missile swung around for a second attempt and she watched as a small multi-coloured cloud marked where it impacted. The Syreen rocked but started to swing around for another pass. Liliane followed up with a couple of shots from her JAW-11A Railgun but missed.
The Syreen bore down on her again. It seemed to be sparking on one side damaged from where Lilianes missiles had hit it. Liliane was in a better position this time and fired off two shots from her Railgun, one hitting a wing section and prematurely detonating a missile. The Syreen responded with laser fire from its midsection. Again Liliane worked her control joysticks to make her Retaliator evade but she was not fast enough. The Retaliator shuddered with the impact and her damage control display turned a couple of her leg systems red. Then her threat indicator warned her of an incoming missile. She reacted quickly but felt the impact of the missile. This one threw the Retaliator around more than the previous times and one of the cockpit sphere monitors blew out, showering glass on the pilot. Liliane covered her face with her hands involuntarily. "Missile lock on nearest target!" she yelled. "Fox One!"
The LMJ-4 missile tore out from its mount and screamed towards the Syreen. The Syreen was turning much slower than before, due to earlier damage from the Jovian, and could not evade the missile. An expanding cloud of bright and exploding gases satisfied Liliane that her opponent had been destroyed.
Liliane surveyed the field as she turned her Retaliator looking for another opponent. She saw an explosion in the distance and quickly glanced at her tactical display. One of the Jovian markers was surrounded by two steady enemy contacts and then the Jovian marker disappeared. "Andrea!" she yelled as though the emptiness of space could carry her cry. The two enemy markers streaked towards the Vigil, unimpeded by Jovian exo-armours. Lilianes first thought was to streak to where Andreas Pathfinder had exploded in the hopes of finding her friend had ejected but she knew that there was another priority. Captain Desrosiers was having trouble with his opponent and there would be no one to stop the other two contacts from strafing the Vigil. Liliane turned her retaliator towards the two exos that had attacked her friends Pathfinder.
The Retaliator locked its target on the two unknown exos at a voice command from Liliane. She tried to get closer but it was not easy. The two unknown exos were moving at a faster rate than she could safely manage. The computer identified the targets. Brimstone-class exo-armours. This caused Liliane to mentally pause as she thrusted towards them. Her first opponent had been a Syreen, which is a CEGA exo-armour. Brimstones were Mercurian exos. She had initially thought that their opponents were CEGA, which everyone assumed to be the standard aggressor for Jovian forces. Could there be something else here that she was missing?
She didn’t have time to dwell on this thought however. Liliane chased away these ideas and meanderings and focused her attention on the Brimstones that were setting up for an attack run on the Vigil. "Missile lock on target 1. Fox Two!" she said into the mic as calmly as she could. Her third MMJ-4 missile left its mount for a destiny with the closest Brimstone. As the missile streaked towards her target, Liliane fired a couple of rounds from her Railgun.
The Brimstone was fast but not very maneuverable compared to Lilianes Retaliator and the railgun rounds found their mark as the Brimstone moved to evade the missile. The Brimstone turned to squeeze off a couple of shots from its own railgun but the shots went wild as Lilianes missile barely caught the exo from behind. The Brimstone looked as though it was going to come after her, which suited the Jovian as it would keep the Vigil away from it, but it turned and dove after its partner. She watched as both exos wove around the anti-exo fire from the Nike. It slowed them down a bit but not much. A few missile hits to the Destroyer gave them enough time to slip by with minimal damage.
Liliane was about to pursue when her threat indicator sounded an alarm. She craned her neck to see what was around her, and her retaliator followed her body’s movement. This was enough to twist and present a bit of a smaller target for the incoming missile volley. The missiles knocked her about the cockpit as multiple explosions detonated against her Retaliator. Liliane turned to face her attacked as another monitor blew out and the damage display started to light up even more. Filling her view screen was a Wyvern. She knew the silhouette well from her enemy identification classes.
"Missile lock on new target!" she yelled as the Wyvern raised its Massdriver at her. "Fox Two!" Lilianes last MMJ-4 missile leapt eagerly from its shoulder mount and bore down on the Wyvern. Small flashes from the CEGA exos head showed that the Anti-missile system was active and, with the explosion of her missile, effective. Cursing through clenched teeth, Liliane raised her Railgun and fired off two shots.
The Wyvern twisted out of the way, surprising the Jovian pilot, and returned fire with a burst from its own Massdriver. The burst was a rapid succession of flashes, more than Liliane could fire from her Railgun, that just caught her, shaving off some more armour from the Retaliator.
Liliane was tensing up now and she could feel it. This wasn’t like the earlier fight with the Syreen. That had been quick passes but this pilot was far too comfortable meeting her exo at close range. She tried to relax a little, tension being one of the enemies that her instructors had told her to watch out for, but did not succeed with all of the evading that she was doing. "Missile lock on nearest target! Fox One! Fox One!" Two LMJ-4 missiles leapt from their housing and headed towards the Wyvern. It was a calculated gamble on Lilianes part. Once again the anti-missile system in the head lit up. One missile was blown up but the second found its mark. A small cloud burst open on the Wyvern and Liliane followed this up with a shot from her railgun, which also found its mark.
She allowed herself a brief glance back at the Brimstones. The exos had flown past the Nike and had started their attack run on the Vigil. While she could not see the actual missile launches from the Brimstones she could make out the Vigils anti-missile system exploding to life in a series of long streaks of laser energy.
She knew that she only had a few seconds before the Wyvern recovered and getting distracted like this in combat was life threatening. But Liliane found herself momentarily entranced by the explosive clouds that now appeared on the hull of the Strike Carrier.
"No!"she screamed as she watched the missile impact clouds increase in number.
Editors Note: This is a Jovian Chronicles serial piece by Grizzly Bryan Lee. You can read the previous part, Rude Awakening, or the next part here, Blowup/Blowout.
| Jovian APAworks | Volume 1, Number 2 | January, 2001 |
Jovian Chronicles is © 2001, Dream Pod 9, Inc. All rights reserved. Jovian APAworks is not affiliated with Dream Pod 9 in any way. Submitted material remains the property of the creator.