Confederation -- 31

Chapter 31

The Pugs' ship passed over the station's top, heading away from the planet/moon. It was on a trajectory that meant it would move closer to the giant planet in its haste to escape.

"Frazzle, get us after that ship!" I yelled.

He did. We instantly accelerated at maximum and turned to a parallel course. We were about a hundred klicks out, and our turn placed us on a gradual intercept course. Our ship jumped ahead under full power, heading towards the gas giant's farther horizon in pursuit.

The dust and rocks formed a continuous flare as they bounced off our shield. So far, we had struck nothing that the shield couldn't handle, and I mentally prayed that condition would continue. As we moved inside the station's orbit, the dust thinned, although there were clots and streamers along with thicker patches.

The orbital shield system made a noticeable difference. The smaller objects were far less likely to bull their way through the overlapping shields. Those that got through were moving at a shallow angle towards the shields and filtered through the gaps between their overlapping configuration, usually ending up in orbit around the moon.

The Pugs were staying ahead of us. It looked like their ship was at least as fast as ours. If it were a newer generation, it might even be faster. I wondered if their transporter was active. Perhaps we could get on board that way.

"Frazzle, can we link to the ship's transporter?" I shouted.

He flinched. I realized I was practically yelling in his ear from excitement.

"I checked dere system. Not working. Maybe dey turned it off, but we can't use it," he answered.

That was out. We'd have to link up or, most likely, shoot at them.

Just as I thought about shooting, a heavier patch of dust in front of us developed a hole through its center. They were shooting at us!

I didn't know if they were nervous or their targeting system wasn't as accurate as ours, and I didn't want to wait to find out.

"Shoot! Liz, shoot!" I shouted.

She triggered the weapons, and our fire-control computer released a triple burst from both waist guns and the bow gun simultaneously.

The enemy ship was moving behind a thicker patch of dust as we fired. The dust dissipated most of our anti-matter burst, and I thought that we'd missed them. Their ship rolled, veering as if it was changing course. As it continued its roll, I saw through the dust that we had hit one of its FTL vanes. The sudden mass shift caused by losing half the vane had caused the instability.

There was a sudden faint flash ahead of us as another hole burned through the dust. Frazzle gave a chirp of alarm, and our ship shuddered.

We'd taken a hit somewhere. I hoped our hull was intact and was somewhat gratified when Frazzle squeaked out, "De small shuttle gone!"

They'd burned off our shuttlecraft. As much as I hated to lose it, it was lucky for us it had taken the bulk of the charge.

Liz had been adjusting the weapons system, working on another firing solution. The guns fired again, burning a momentary hole through the now thickening dust cloud.

The dust masked the Pug ship for a moment. The cloud was thick, and we couldn't see them. I looked at the weapons control monitor and saw that it was tracking two objects.

"Liz, what happened? Did they launch a shuttle? What's that second thing?" I asked.

She hesitated, trying to get the system to focus through the interference, then answered, "I can't tell what's going on. We need to get closer."

That was something I was reluctant to do. They'd been a little too accurate for me to want to risk another hit. The edge of the dust cloud was approaching rapidly. It would be better to wait until they cleared the obstruction.

"Liz, aim at the edge of the cloud and wait for them to come out," I sent. I was going to give her the order out loud but then realized that I'd thought it before my mouth was ready to speak.

She nodded and made an adjustment.

There was a glint of reflected sunlight as the enemy ship passed through a thin part of the cloud, and then it sailed out into complete visibility. Liz tensed, ready to shoot.

"Stop!" I shouted.

The Pugs' ship was a wreck. The shot had cut it into two separate pieces, and these were what we'd detected. Both pieces were now spiraling around, headed for quick oblivion in the nearby atmosphere of the gas giant. As we watched, the pieces skipped off the upper reaches of the atmosphere and then plunged downwards, shedding red-hot metal and burning debris as they went. The pieces quickly disappeared into the thick cloud cover.

Frazzle turned our ship, and we headed back towards the station, grateful that our encounter had been no worse.

Damage control had sealed off the partially destroyed port, and our hull was secure. We were going to miss the small shuttle, but there were several on the underside of the station, and I hoped we could pick up one of these as a replacement. We stayed at battle stations. There was still fighting going on, and the second armed ship had not yet fallen under Rudy's control.

As we approached, I had a moment to think. If the Pugs were going to come after us with anti-matter armed ships, we'd need some kind of defense. The problem was that the stuff destroyed anything that it struck. Our bow deflection shield might shed part of the beam, but the anti-matter traveled at nearly light speed, and at least part of it would get through the shield and create damage.

We were getting closer to the station when Rudy called in again, "We've got control of all three ships. The Pugs are all dead, and the Sim-tigers and Marines have finished off all the Pug-bears. I'm trying to reach the shuttle bay assault team to check their status."

A little later, he called again with the news that the shuttle bay was under our control, but no functional shuttles were left. The fighting had damaged all of them.

As he finished, I suddenly formulated an idea. The dust had acted to attenuate the anti-matter charges. What if we could use our point-gravity control to hold a cloud of heavy dust or maybe metal filings out as a shield? Perhaps that would weaken an incoming anti-matter shot enough to minimize damage. The problem lay in getting it into place to intercept the beam. That might be a challenging task, but I thought the Sunnys could probably figure out a way to accomplish it. They were very creative with issues of personal safety.