Past the Redline

Throttle Fifty-Four

The shipyard was on the edges of the mega city, a huge factory space with dry docks and warehouses adjoining it. Massive cranes stuck out of the complex like clumps of hair on the head of someone who wasn’t a morning person.

The factory currently housed three unfinished Bolgian corvettes, the ships held up on gantries and frames to one side. The central section of the shipyard had a much larger frame being worked on. She suspected it belonged to a Bolgian cruiser, at least judging by the length and size of it.

Did that mean that their cruisers were atmosphere capable, or did they merely build it here where workers could enjoy normal gravity and breathable air, then assemble it back up in orbit?

She didn’t bother to ask, because in the end, it didn’t truly matter. “Got some targets?” she asked instead.

“Yes, Mistress,” ChaOS said.

Diana grinned, then brought the Hercules lower and closer to the ground. “Then fire on my mark… and, mark.”

Six missiles roared out of the Hercules, flying in long parabolic arcs that had them descending back down towards the shipyards.

The location wasn’t entirely undefended. AA-guns opened up from the edges of the shipyard, one of them batting a missile out of the air.

The other five came down hard. One for each of the un-finished corvettes, another for the cruiser, and the final missile crashed into one of the more centrally located warehouses.

Explosions rocked the site, the corvettes evaporating with great balls of fire while loose debris was flung into the air. The cruiser’s explosion wasn’t quite as impressive, at least not at first. Then something gave in the gantries holding it in place and the kilometre-long ship groaned as it crashed to its side.

The warehouse explosion put the others to shame. Diana suspected that ChaOS had targeted it for a reason. It must have contained something dangerous, because the entire warehouse shook, the hole in its roof where the missile had gone through burning, before, with a sudden flash, the entire centre of the site burst apart.

A wall of hard wind blasted out of the area, and Diana had to shift her ship up and away as the shockwave hit her mid-flight.
When she looked back, there was a massive grey cloud of dust and smoke, with flames dancing beneath the roiling surface.

“Well, shit,” Diana said. They had certainly destroyed that site, and likely every window for a few kilometres around. Most of the apartment buildings nearby, she noted, had weak shields around them. The nearest had all popped, but those further out held.

Smart. And probably an expensive way of keeping local civilians safe.

Once she was through the worst of the turbulence, Diana levelled off the Hercules and aimed towards the next objective. She glanced at her radar; there were a lot of ships turning to converge on her. A dozen Bolgian fighters and interceptors, and of course that mini-corvette and racer that had been taking potshots at her for a while.

She started to accelerate across the outer edge of the city, flying over a shoreline that dipped into one of the planet’s oceans.

The space was open, with no cover, but it also lacked any sort of ground-based opposition. She didn’t have to worry about close-range fire from anti-air positions. Without obstacles to hide behind, any fighting would depend entirely on the skill of the pilot and the ability of their machine.

Diana felt a familiar tingle racing down her back. She was excited.

The mini-corvette and its fighter companion raced after her. The ships fired, but they were still far enough back that Diana was able to weave out of the way. The interceptors would be on them soon enough, so she decided not to dilly-dally any.

With a kick, a set of air brakes slammed open along the sides of the Hercules, and Diana fired some of the manoeuvring thrusters, sending her into a deathspin towards the ocean far below.

“Track and fire when optimal,” Diana said.

“Firing,” ChaOS replied.

The turrets on the Hercules locked themselves in place after making a few minute adjustments. Then, as the ship spun, they fired.

Diana kicked the thrusters up and sighed in relief as she was no longer being crushed to the side from the spin’s g-forces.

The rounds her turrets had fired sliced through the air and intercepted the two ships chasing her in mid-flight.

Bright sparks filled the air as the projectiles met their shields and were deflected, but she imagined that the move had stung them anyway.

Levelling off her flight with a kick from her main thruster, Diana darted at an acute angle away from the ships tailing her. Now they’d need to spin all the way around to catch up, which gave her plenty of time to gain some altitude.

Diana pulled the Hercules’ nose up towards the bright sky above. She grit her teeth against the weight pressing against her chest.

The mini-corvette and its fighter companion split apart, both circling around in different directions while corkscrewing upwards to catch up to her. The corvette’s many turrets came around and sprayed her way. Half the rounds missed, overcompensating to catch her if she tried to weave out of their way again. She let the rest splash against her shields.

At the apex of her up-swing, Diana cut the thrusters and flipped the ship over.

Both ships had locks on them already, red circles highlighting their positions on her hud. “Missiles on the fighter. Sideswipe its shields down.”

As her upwards flight slowed down, the mini-corvette and fighter started to catch up. The point-defence guns on the Hercules opened up on the fighter, and its pilot got busy trying to dodge gatling fire that splattered against its shields like heavy lead rain.

The mini-corvette slid into Diana’s reticule. Her finger twitched.

The ship rocked slightly as she fired four quick railgun rounds at the larger of the two ships.

The shields went out with a burst of light, quickly followed by an explosion on the ship’s flanks as one of the rounds overpenetrated.

Diana switched her target lock to the fighter and fired a single tiny missile from the side of the Hercules while she pushed her thrusters to move faster.

She slipped right past the mini-corvette, her smaller turrets firing nonstop into the ship’s unprotected flank. Bulkheads were rent, armour torn apart, and she imagined that anyone aboard the ship was having a bad day as thousands of rounds were pumped into and through the ship.

The fighter, still flying around to dodge her, had its shields go out a split second before the micromissile rammed into its thrusters.

Both ships blew apart, filling the sky with flaming debris as Diana flew through the explosions, shields bright as shrapnel deflected off of them.

Now all that was left were a dozen interceptors. She imagined their pilots weren’t feeling so confident anymore.

The ships were arranged in a loose formation, nothing like the sleek and careful formations the fighters in space had been deployed in. Either these pilots weren’t as disciplined, trained, or they had given up on all of that when everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Diana didn’t have time to care overly much. She flew right at the formation, the front of her ship turning slightly to line up with the lead ship. Her guns roared and the ship was turned into one more ball of fire and debris as its shields popped and the ship was torn apart within a half-second of each other.

She switched targets to the next ship, then the next.

By then, the Bolgians caught on and were quick to spread apart like a shoal of fish who’d discovered a hungry shark in their midst.

She scythed through the formation, leaving burning wrecks behind her before she started a gentle turn back towards the city. “A bit too easy,” she said. “Maybe we should have gone with a ship that was less capable?”

“I understand your desire for fairness, Mistress, but perhaps place your self-preservation ahead of that?”

“That’s no fun,” Diana said. “Can’t change anything now though.”

She glanced at the local scans, noting that the Bolgian interceptors were taking a while to reform into anything looking like an orderly grouping.

“Next target,” Diana said. “How far are we from the top?”

“Quite a ways behind the leader, mistress. Keep in mind that I can’t keep track of every racer’s position and points earned. We are in the top fifty.”

“That’s… rather awful. We really need to get ourselves together, ChaOS. Can you imagine if we did all of this and didn’t come out on top? That’d be embarrassing. Get ready to launch everything; we’ll hit every target all at once.”

“As you wish, Mistress. Preparing for a swarm launch.”