Legend of Dreamwalker (The Hunter Imperium Book 5) Read online

  I saw Starman nodding slowly.

  “Link your torpedoes up to fire one from each launcher for each button press, and use them on denser areas of enemy fighters. Don't worry about anything missing. Early on, almost all of them will hit something. Those with less launchers may want to have your AI rig them to fire multiple torpedoes for each button press. On my Cobra, I was firing six at a time, and waiting the second or two to juke so they could all hit if they were going to.”

  I saw Miriam shaking her head as if she'd just been told the very obvious, and was surprised she hadn't thought of it.

  “Lastly, mosquitos. With five thousand fighters coming at me, I had the AI fire all hundred from each launcher at a single target, remembering I had fighters tagged as missiles. The object was missile spamming, and the basis of a full load of mosquitos would give a tree fighter a serious shield dent when they hit. You waste a lot against actual missiles, but the launcher AI's can retarget them.”

  I saw some serious nods this time.

  “The only thing to note though, is I used all my mosquitos. In fact, Orion had nothing but IR's left after the battle. So you might like to set some limits on how many can be expended for future safety sake, especially any ship which doesn’t make its own.”

  I paused and took a breath.

  “Orion started on the other side of the jump point, where the plants had set up a kill zone. I went through at full speed, and immediately after the jump, pulled the ship up, and rotated to put the topside turrets pointing directly at the fighters. The first thing was getting out of the kill box before they could get a bead on us, and the second was to bring maximum firepower to bear on their heaviest concentration. You need to figure that out for your own ship, and know how to orient yourself after the turn.”

  All of them nodded.

  “Once out of the kill box, I did an arc to change their orientations, which to some extent fragmented their formations, although it still looked like a cloud to me.”

  A few chuckles again.

  “Once the range started to close, I came around to face them. I let the turrets fire when they were in range, and then used the shredder as soon as those guns were in range.”

  “Was it really necessary to dive down the middle of the cloud?” asked someone a popup labelled as Captain Renaud.

  “In this case, yes, as the middle was the safest place.” He didn’t look convinced. “When it's just you, everything you fire at is an enemy. For them though, a tad short of one hundred percent of ships there were friendly, and that means they have to check their fire.” George was nodding. “I'm not sure if they care though, but that was the theory.”

  “Once in the middle, you slow right down, engage your strafe, and simply blast the hell out of everything around you.”

  “Is that before or after you hand out barf bags?” asked George, grinning.

  “After. In my case I forgot, and so there was a mess.”

  This generated a real laugh from almost all of them. I waited for it to subside.

  “If you're dogfighting as part of a fleet, it might be better if the AI's assign hunting areas, and you try to keep out of each other's way, while supporting each other. Or I gather you can still use the wingman principle even with your big ships. Jane will tell your AI's how to set up strafing for wings. 266 has more or less perfected this now, and it should still work with dreadnaughts. Up to you if you try it or not.”

  “Once I weeded them down to manageable levels, I stopped strafing and started actively hunting again, until all the fighters were gone. And towards the end, I had the AI attempt to target the capital ships with the big guns. This doesn’t work too well until you settle down to a steady course again, but all the same, between cap ship missiles and titan turrets, by the time I'd finished with the fighters, all of the smaller capital ships were also gone, and only battleships remained, most of which were already damaged. Then it was just a matter of stalking them just inside big gun range, until they were all gone.”

  They were all very still.

  “Watch your shields though. The tree fighters not only throw debris when they come apart, they throw dirt as well. And all of that impacts your shielding just as much as fire does. By the time I finished with the fighters, and extracted us from the debris field, Orion was down to five percent. So I had to head away from the remaining battleships for a bit in order to get out of their pulse range, so as to regain enough shielding to be able to handle their remaining missiles without any mosquitos. The point defense turrets might have coped, but I wasn’t taking the risk.”

  “We've all had shield upgrades,” said the Imperator, who I'd not noticed being there. “But he has a point. Some of you are just too gung-ho at times. We have speed in our favour, and we can take all day to finish a battle unless something else is going on, we need to stop. So we can leave the battle long enough to get shields back up, and if need be, we do what we did this morning, and rift away and form up again well out of range. If it takes two or three attacks to finish a battle, we can do that.”

  “What about if we need to get marines on a planet in a hurry?” asked George.

  “Then we choose our approach vector to avoid the main fleets if possible, get the marines down safely, then we take on the fleets. But it’s a case by case thing, and depends a lot on how much we know about each battle before we go in.”

  He looked hard at me.

  “Anything else to add?”

  “I think that covers it. I can't emphasize strafe enough. You need enough shielding to keep you safe while you’re a sitting duck, but the ability to fire any way and every way, almost randomly, is a huge multiplier in combat. How effective that is with a small fleet of big ships doing it, I guess we're yet to find out. But AI monitoring of courses and fighting patterns should keep ships from hitting one another. Oh, that is another thing. When Orion went into the cloud, the main impact on shields was fighters going splat against them. You need to allow for that, with a bigger allowance as the ship gets bigger.”

  Starman and Stiletto were cringing, but the image of bug splat seemed to tickle George.

  “If you get the time, watch the vid of what I did this morning.”

  “We already have,” said my aunt Susan. “And we will again.”

  “Anyone have any questions?” asked the Imperator.

  Silence. He looked at me again.

  “Thanks Dreamwalker. At some point I hope to get us all together, and have you walk us through it on the vid.”

  “I'll look forward to that.”

  Not.

  Four

  One by one the hollos winked out.

  The Imperator was the only one left, and he seemed to be distracted by something. I soon found out what.

  “We're out of time people. Line astern please, with Unassailable in the rear. Once through the rift I want an arrow formation. We'll be coming out behind a moderate sized Trixone fleet, but not close enough to fire at. I want them launching fighters at us. We'll launch our own when they do. Standby for the rift.”

  There was nothing for me to do except watch, and prepare to launch when told. Or so I thought.

  “Orders boss?” asked Vulture.

  I froze for a moment, and checked who was where. 266 were in the left side tubes, and 267 were in the right. 268 were lined up ready to use the left side tubes when they were clear.

  “Wait for the launch order. Squadrons to triangle on me. 266 goes high, 267 goes left and low, 268 goes right and low. Arrow formation for the flights. Mind your distance so I can strafe without hitting anyone.”

  The three squadron leaders acknowledged. I thought for a moment. Being the boss was totally new to me, and it took a few to figure out I needed to say more.

  “Dreamwalker to all pilots. We will shortly be launching to face whatever plant fighters are waiting for us. There is only us.” Jane jerked her head around at me, and pointed to Unassailable. Oh right, I’d forgotten. “And some drone fighters. They'll form up behind us
. I know the squadrons have been formed quickly, and some of you haven't flown with the original 266 pilots before. If anyone hasn’t used strafe, talk to your CO's right now, as they're all experts. Flight leaders decide if you're going to strafe or not, and stick to that as a flight.”

  “What if we have a problem?” asked a voice I didn’t know.

  “Talk to your flight leader, or your CO. And do it now, because we could be launching in minutes. If it can't be sorted, make do. It’s a war, and we all did a pier head jump with no warning, being reassigned here. So put it aside, and concentrate on the coming battle.”

  “Do we know what we're facing?” asked Rockmonster.

  “Trees,” said Vulture. “As many as come at us.”

  I could see the capital ships were almost lined up now. Behind BigMother were three smaller carriers without fighters, three dreadnaughts, and two missile dreadnaughts. With Unassailable, the drone carrier battleship and smallest capital ship in the fleet, in the rear.

  “Be ready to launch. The carriers behind us will be moving into arrow formation behind BigMother, so stay well clear. Crusader is going up and keeping station above BigMother.”

  BigMother. What idiot thought up that name?

  The CO's acknowledged again, and the box like effect appeared in front of us. BigMother dived through, and I could see in the middle distance there was a fleet in front of us, some of which were warships, and the rest looked like transports.

  “Launch fighters,” ordered the Imperator.

  Jane released the docking clamps, and kicked Crusader upwards, accelerating to keep up with BigMother, while rising far enough above her to safely form up the squadrons. At the same time, 266 and 267 launched, allowed a couple of seconds to clear the ship, and began to form up into squadrons as they angled upwards to join me. Both were almost in position when 268 launched.

  By the time the big ships were in their arrow formation, the squadrons were formed up on me, and nine corvette sized and extremely weird looking drones formed up behind the squadrons, three in arrow formation behind each. I looked at Jane.

  “Modified Brawler design, able to link together twelve into a single larger ship. They fire everything a Brawler does, but twelve at the same time at the same target.”

  “What's the downside?”

  “Me. I can fight them okay, but I don’t have any combat instincts. So I tend to lose more than, say you, would.”

  I nodded.

  “Why nine?”

  “All I have left from the last battle. More are being made in the fabricator, but Unassailable needs a shipyard. I'm assuming Jon will keep me out of this battle if he can.”

  The plants launched their own fighters, and Jane popped up the total. Six hundred. At the same time, their capital ships began to turn towards us. I could see the Imperator waiting. His cat was also showing in the hollo, and glued to the view ahead.

  “Fighters are to engage the plant fighters,” ordered the Imperator. “Unassailable will back you up with mosquitoes. The rest of us back into line astern please. Marines prepare to drop.”

  “Drop?” I asked Jane.

  “Jon's going to put the marines on the ground in case any of the plant troop transports make it there, while he can do it without them being fired on. Fearless will be left there as high cover.”

  “Where's Grace going to be?”

  “Fearless.”

  “Doesn’t that leave team one without a pilot?”

  “They shanghaied their number two choice at the same time Jon was moving pilots. Just in case.”

  “Good call it seems.”

  “Yes, they do that.”

  “BigMother has the lead,” announced the Imperator.

  Another box shape appeared in front of BigMother, and the entire fleet dove through one after the other. The HUD showed them reappearing over the planet, in what seemed a too close orbit for my liking, and five small ships detached from BigMother, while Fearless detached from her dreadnaught. They all headed down. The fleet turned towards the plant transports, while forming up in a line abreast formation. I noticed the spacing was wide enough to allow safe strafing.

  I dragged my attention back to the fighter cloud coming at us.

  “Jane and your AI's have control. Stand by for a rapid course change when they fire their big guns at us, after which we go to attack speed. Crusader has the middle. Hold squadron formations as long as you can. First pair strafes in front, second pair strafe towards the outside of the cloud. Let's go through them like a missile, and then turn and come back at what's left.”

  “Yee-haw,” yelled Watershed, and I took that as the wing response.

  Out of our range, the plant fighters all fired their cruiser guns at us. Jane took the whole wing in the direction of least fire, and none of us were hit, although it was a gut wrenching turn. Unassailable behind us also radically altered course, but took a few of the pulses meant for us all the same, and lost a bit of shielding, but not enough to worry.

  “Fire FF's if you have them loaded,” I ordered, as Jane altered the wing course to go straight down the middle of the cloud. “Keep firing until gun range, and then fire at will.”

  No-one said anything, but every ship began firing missiles, including Unassailable, who also started firing mosquito missiles to counter the plant missiles now being fired at us.

  There's a strange period of time while you're flying at combat speed towards an enemy, but there is nothing really to do but pump out missiles. The brain hasn’t entered the zone yet, and all sorts of things pop in. Is this the one where I buy the farm? Did I say goodbye to Grace? I don't remember what the last thing I said to her was. What was it? And where are we going, if we are? Will I ever see her again? Get a grip sunshine, or you really will buy it.

  And then the moment is past, the combat is truly upon you, and you press the torps button, sending fifty into the mass of ships coming at you, followed by another fifty, and another, and finally a full salvo of all guns that can point forward.

  The debris of the fighters immediately disintegrated in front of you starts to degrade your shields, and now you're inside the cloud, with the lock, aim, fire cycle pushing you deeper and deeper into the zone. The turrets are under AI control, and firing in all directions around you. And now you press the strafe button, and begin an irregular dance with the front end of the ship, pointing at formations of enemy fighters' oncoming around your line of advance.

  Shields degrade. Torps fire. Guns cycle. Lock, fire, aim, fire, repeat. Release the strafe and juke wildly as the next group ahead fires their cruiser guns, and juke back to give them your attention, firing torps and guns and missiles. Strafe again, rinse and repeat.

  And that’s just what's happening in front of you. With my all round vision, I'm also aware of the squadrons keeping pace with me, and the lines of undamaged enemy streaming out behind us where we didn’t have enough firepower to take them all. Some of these are turning to come back after us, and others are continuing on towards Unassailable.

  Squadrons break up into flights. Flights break up into pairs. Calling out breaks and warnings starts to dry the mouth out, and as shields degrade, orders to get the hell out of there and run until shields are back up are given.

  Rockmonster and Watershed punching through and running, her shields down and holes in her hull. And no-one to go after the enemy fighters pursuing them.

  I turn in their direction, my finger touches the strafe button, and Crusader jerks around so suddenly I remember I forgot to warn my mage I was about to do something like that. I hear Jane chuckle, but I'm so in the zone all I see is six ships chasing two of mine, and counting down the seconds until they can fire their big guns again. My left hand shoves the speed slide to the stops, and now I'm catching up, blazing a path out of the cloud at an angle, closing on them from behind and to one side.

  I regroup my front guns to fire four at a time, and line up the rear ship.

  “Rockmonster, break right now.”

 
She does, Watershed following, their rear turrets adjusting to the turn but not powerful enough to do enough damage to the pursuers. Both spit FF's, but they miss, looping around to follow.

  I pull my trigger, and the first one explodes. Minor change in direction, and pull again. The debris splatters against my shielding, but I'm fixated on the next one, and it too vanishes in a cloud of dust.

  The cardinal rule of combat is don't fixate, and sure enough now there's a dozen after me, and a hit to the rear shield as they fire their big guns, and the fourth in front is dust in the stellar wind. An FF catches the fifth and it loses speed, smashing into my front shield and vanishing. The sixth one takes all four of my cruiser guns, and is gone. But Rockmonster now has one stubby wing shorter than the other. And she's not out of the woods yet.

  Strafe on, and I swing Crusader one eighty, switch back to all guns firing together, and pull the trigger again. The two closest vanish into dust, and pressing the torps button takes the rest unexpectedly.

  Release strafe, a total reverse of course the internal gravity can't compensate for adequately, and I can hear the mage puking. Back towards the remainder of the cloud, but there isn’t much left now. The flights are forming up again slowly, the last remainders of tree fighters are being targeted, and Unassailable has the last word.

  “Squadrons form up on Unassailable.”

  Three acknowledgements, and I bring Crusader around to form up as well. Letting go of the vision is difficult, but the capital ships are all engaged with ours, and our part is done.

  The bridge returns, and the mage is sitting there looking stern, but there is no mess. Magic can be useful.

  Jane pops up a screen with all my ships on it, showing shield status, damage in a number of cases, and ordnance statuses. Not brilliant, but could be worse.