Each F/A-4140 massed 94 tons, most of that divided between its powerful Consolidated Aerospace KV-1050 plasma drive and the Solenergia ZPE quantum power transfer unit. Two Marines, a pilot and a weapons operator, were squeezed into a tiny dual cockpit forward. The Stardragon mounted a variety of weapons, interchangeable depending on the mission profile, but its primary was its spinal mount, running forward all the way from the aft thrusters to become the distinctive needle-slim lance extending for 10 meters beyond the nose.
That lance was a plasma accelerator capable of hurling tiny masses of fusing hydrogen at near-c velocities, inertia-shielded to bleed off the incredible recoil energies that otherwise would have torn the fighter to shreds. Range was limited to about 120,000 kilometers—less than half a light-second—but the combination of fusion temperatures and high-velocity kinetic impact could be turned against almost any target with devastating effect.
In terms of both tonnage and firepower, however, the PanEuropeans held the advantage. Both Samar and the Lejeune, while sizeable vessels, possessed only relatively lightweight armament—primarily point-defense lasers to engage incoming missiles or enemy fighters. Thor and Morrigan were more heavily armed, but they were two against six, and the enemy monitor was a behemoth, slow-moving and clumsy, but possessing a devastating long-range punch in its trio of turret-mounted antimatter accelerators.
The one advantage held by the Commonwealth lay in the sixteen Stardragons of VMA-980. The fighter squadron already was beginning to live up to their nickname, the Sharpshooters, a proud name born by other Marine aviation squadrons across the centuries. As soon as each fighter was aligned with a PE target, its on-board AI, closely linked with the Weapons Officer’s mind, calculated range and speed, adjusting the spacecraft’s attitude to permit interception shots across a range of almost 100,000 kilometers. Like miniature suns, packets of fast-expanding fusing hydrogen snapped across the void, penetrating magnetic shielding, slicing through hull composites, liberating flashes of starcore fury with each strike. The outer hull of the immense Rommel seemed to sparkle with the impacts.
The Rommel was clearly the key to the battle, the equivalent of the proverbial high ground in a conventional surface battle. The Commonwealth destroyers and Lejeune’s fighter squadrons could deal with the enemy frigates and destroyers easily enough … if the PanEuropean monitor could be neutralized. And if not, the monitor’s heavy weaponry would make short work of all of the Commonwealth vessels.
From the PanEuropean perspective, it was vital to knock out the two Commonwealth destroyers quickly, before they could combine their considerable firepower and cripple the monitor. Neither Lejeune nor Samar possessed heavy weapons—they were transports, after all, the first of Marine aerospace fighters, the second of Marines, and while they mounted considerable point-defense capabilities and some high-energy lasers for ship-to-ship actions, they lacked the more devastating firepower of antimatter accelerators or large plasma cannon.
Admiral Edan Mitchell was in command of the Commonwealth fleet, operating from his combat command center on board the Lejeune. He would be linked in to the battlenet now, Garroway thought, directing the Commonwealth fleet to focus its full attention on the enemy monitor. Already, fighters were issuing from the Lejeune’s ventral launch bays, accelerating at high-G toward the PanEuropean behemoth. Clouds of tiny, robotic probes were already scattering throughout the battlespace, each providing a steady feed of visual and electronic data for the Commonwealth C3, allowing the battle analyses staff to build up a coherent picture of the action.
On board the Samar, the waiting Marines could only watch the battle unfold around them, watch … and wonder if they would get to take part in the battle, or if a direct hit on Samar was about to end their careers in a single, sun-brilliant flash. Once, a plasma bolt struck Samar’s hull with a savage, burning snap and an explosion of vapor into empty space, and the transport had rolled slightly, staggered by the shock. There were no casualties; armor and an AI-controlled point-defense gun turret had been all that had been hit.
But the jolt had driven home the overwhelming sense of helplessness Garroway and the other Marines were experiencing right now. And it had led him to rather forcibly remember one of the battle simulations he and the other recruits of his training platoon had experienced at Noctis Labyrinthus, after their naked time, after they’d received their Corp implants.
The historical battle had been at a place called Tarawa, in Earth’s Pacific Ocean back in the late pre-spaceflight era. In that action, the U.S. 2nd Marine Division, with elements of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division, had made an amphibious assault against a tiny tropical coral atoll defended by 4,500 Japanese under the command of Rear Admiral Shibasaki Keiji.
Tarawa, according to the download data, had been a royal cluster fuck, an operation that had come that close to being an utter and complete military disaster. The preliminary bombardment had transformed the atoll into a fire-blasted landscape reminiscent of the cratered surface of the Moon, but had utterly failed to touch the defenders, dug in to a well-protected labyrinth of trenches, log forts, and five hundred concrete bunkers. Worse, much worse, the first Marine waves had gone in late, and the tides had been unexpectedly low, so the incoming landing craft had gotten hung up on the coral reef 500 yards offshore. The first waves of Marines had been forced to swim and wade ashore across a fire-swept lagoon, ideal targets for the Japanese mortars and machineguns.
A few amphibious tractors—amtracks—had made it over the reef and across the lagoon, then begun shuttling back and forth between the beach and the reef, carrying stranded Marines ashore, but the Japanese fire had been accurate and heavy. Within a few hours, half of the available amtracks had been knocked out.
For the Marines huddled in those vehicles, the crossing must have been hell. All the men could do was wait … crowded together, helpless, wondering if the next incoming round would be the one to score a hit on their wallowing vehicle.
Garroway had been there, standing on the reef next to a blazing landing craft, then on board an amtrack churning its way across the lagoon as mortar shells sent geysers of spray skyward on all sides. He’d charged bunkers with handfuls of Marines, had watched the battle slowly, slowly shift in the attackers’ favor, but only after three days of savage fighting, three days collapsed into several long hours by the simulation feed at Noctis Labyrinthus.
Not until now, however, had Garroway truly felt one with those long-ago, long-dead Marine brothers.
“Listen up, Marines,” Lieutenant Jones’ voice called over the command channel. “We have orders. Stand by to launch!”
“Shit,” Ramsey said. “This is it!”
“All you newbies,” Master Sergeant Barrett said. “Your trajectories will be AI controlled. When you get on board the target, just stay close and watch your feeds. Just like your training sims.”
“Yeah,” Ramsey added. “And thank the Marine-green gods of battle you’re not going up against the Xul first time out of the gate!”
“Let’s kill the bastards!” Barrett added.
“Ooh-rah!” chorused from the ranks of waiting Marines.
Garroway watched the data feed coming through. Samar was rotating to bring her SAP launch tubes to bear on the Rommel, now 12,000 kilometers off and hammering away at both the Morrigan and Thor. Garroway watched the numbers of the countdown flicker toward zero, bracing himself … and then his SAP slammed into the void under nearly twenty gravities of acceleration.
With inertial dampers on and his suit cushioned within the narrow constraints of the pod by a thick, almost gelatinous liquid, he felt only a few of those twenty Gs, but they were enough to crush the breath from his lungs and blur his vision. When it cleared, when he could focus again on his link feed, he could