Magnus
Alarms rang out through the ‘Greymark’, and Magnus rushed towards the flight deck with the rest of the squadron. They had spent the last two months conducting none stop drills, both simulations, and real time exercises. He had spent more time in the cockpit of his starfighter in the last two months than he had in the previous six months combined. The alarm that rang out weren’t training exercises though, and the call for battle stations rang out again, and again.
“Prepare for jump,” Magnus heard the call over the speaker as he sealed his helmet, and climbed into the cockpit.
“What do we know?” Magnus asked.
“Scout ship just returned,” Major Oldseal replied from his own cockpit. “Bosworth is under attack.”
“Fuck,” Magnus uttered. Not for the battle that was to come, but for the crew of the scout ship. They must have been in the Bosworth system even since the ‘Greymark’ left the system two month past, wait. It was possible they had been from one of the few support craft which had jumped in and out of the unnamed starship the ‘Greymark’ had been performing exercises in, but Magnus doubted that.
“Bout time we got out of this system,” Richard added as Magnus ran through the system check of his starfighter. “Anything would be better than slowly losing my mind in this god forsaken place.”
“Poor bastards,” Lydia said as the speaker began to count down toward a light speed jump.
Magnus couldn’t agree more. Two months trapped in the cold of space on the edge of a star system running on low power mode, and for what? An attack that only the captain knew was coming? Magnus couldn’t imagine what such a mission would have been like. Alone with no more than one or two people in a tin can little bigger than his own starfighter. The smell alone would have been enough for Magnus to shutter. It sounded like punishment at best, and a nightmare at worst.
Captain Hull had based the ‘Greymark’ at the outer ranges of the Jump Drives of the old Osgar-class Heavy Cruiser. Magnus watched as the last of the pilots rushed into their cockpits, and service members that worked the hangar bay took their positions for a light speed jump. He thought it would feel different. The rush and chaos before battle, but he felt almost calm as he tried to control his breathing.
“Jump in three, two, one, launch,” Magnus heard the last of the countdown before the starship launched through space more than half a light year.
Magnus fought the urge to puke as the ‘Greymark’ arrived in the Bosworth star system. He, like most people, got space sickness when jumping through space. They might get used to the effects, but they would never become immune to the effects of each jump, just become better at handling them. Not since his days at the academy of the Commonwealth Forces on Anchorage had he allowed himself to puke inside his helmet. Most did, at least once, and he would be damned if he let it ever happen again.
“Starfighters launch,” the command came through Magnus’s comm system built into the helmet of his space suit.
Magnus launched his starfighter through the launch tubes connected to the hangar bays, that kept the bays clear for larger craft to use, and to launch them at vast speeds they could not reach if they were to simply use the bays. The G force pushed him against the back of his seat as his starfighter, along with every other one on the ‘Greymark’ launched from the rail guided launch tubes into space.
By the time he cleared the hull of the ‘Greymark’ Magnus could feel his vision had cleared. He no longer felt the urge to puke even if he still tasted it in the back of his throat, and the starfighter continued at massive sub-light speeds. He brought his starfighter into formation with the rest of Green Squadron as the other squadrons formed, and came together.
The starfighters squadrons joined the formation of the four waiting corvettes, and frigate which had made the light speed jump themselves instead of waiting in the ‘Greymark’ Hangar bays like the starfighters. Even now the hangar bays were being flooded with heavy starfighters, assault boats, and various shuttles as they came into standard formation which had been practiced enough that Magnus thought they could all do it in their sleep.
Magnus scanned his display screen as new information came in from his own scanners, as well as the link with the rest of the formation, and the ‘Greymark’ itself. The planetary bodies loomed large on their sensor displays, yet were small dots in the viewport of his starfighter. Green dots filled the display, starfighters, and other allied craft, as well as satellites, and other objects already in system along with the unknown yellow of unknown targets, but it was the red dots of the five Tutha patrol-class starships which stood out, and held the most information text next to them.
The Tutha starships stood no chance against the ‘Greymark’. The Heavy Cruiser had it vastly out gunned, and at less than several hundred kilometers away, was almost on top of them, and in weapons range of everything it had other than point defense lasers.
Magnus had fought those starships a thousand times in the simulations, but never for real. He hadn’t fought any ship or starfighter for that matter, for real. Real time training exercise, but never a real battle, and again he was surprised by how comm he felt as he heard the chatter in his headset.
The enemy starships were even in range of the starfighters, but Magnus knew that they could be on top of them in a matter of seconds with their current distance. Twenty to thirty seconds was it would take at max speed, but twenty to thirty seconds was a lifetime under fire.
Magnus waited for the command to open fire as they moved towards their target, but the command didn’t come, nor did the Tutha raiders open fire, and then a new ping jumped on his display as a flash arrived in space. The Green ping revealed the information of another Osgar-class Heavy Cruiser, the ‘Dragon’, and he could see starfighters launch from their sister ship, and than a third, and a fourth ping popped, and the ‘Defender’, and ‘Mageblade’ were in system, and blocking all retreat of the raiders.
Magnus could hear the commands to surrender through the comm system as Captain Hull spoke on the open channel. The Tutha starships had no hope of escape or winning a fight. Trapped between the gravity wells of the world of Bosworth, and the other planetoids of the inner system prevented a jump even if the patrol-class jump drives on the Tutha starships weren’t on cool-down, which Magnus, and every other person knew they were, just like they knew those starships didn’t have a second drive even if they weren’t trapped in the gravity well.
The Tutha had few choices that Magnus could see. They could surrender, and he heard, and watched as two of the patrol starships accepted the commands to surrender, or they could run towards the world of Bosworth, and hope to get to the other side of the system before they were caught by the fleet because to turn around and try and get through the four heavy cruisers would have been suicide, not that running for it was any better.
“Weapons free,” Major Oldseal gave the order as commands came through. “Weapons, and engines. Take the fools down,” he said as more than five hundred standard starfighters, and heavy starfighters broke formation to engage the three patrol-class starships.
The Tutha starships were fast, most starships that size were. At least at sub-light speeds, but they weren’t faster than the starfighter, nor could they hope to get out of weapons range of the heavy cruisers.
Magnus popped counter measures as missiles flew out of the Tutha vessels, and watched as other pilots did likewise. Flares, and counter missiles rushed out to meet the incoming threats, and blew them apart in bright explosions.
Two of the Tutha vessels were disabled before Magnus or any of the starfighters could launch their own missiles or weapons fire. Overwhelmed by the attacks of the four heavy cruisers, he watched as they lost control, vented atmosphere, water, and debris, and knew that they would have to be grappled before being pulled down into the planet.
The third vessel took fire, but managed to take out several starfighters before it blew apart in a glorious ball of fire, and debris, and starfighters scattered in all directions away from it to avoid the worst of the debris.
“This is Captain Hull of the Commonwealth Forces Warship ‘Greymark’. I repeat. You will stand down, and be boarded. If you continue to resist we will destroy your vessels. Acknowledge or be considered a threat.”
“We surrender,” Magnus heard over his comm system. The battle of Bosworth was anything but a battle.
