Attack Butterfly (Rust Bucket Universe) Read online

  Three minutes later, the Attack Butterfly II was back in space, having been assisted by other fighters who guided them to where they were keeping the enemy busy. Susan's fighter managed to slip in from beneath to shoot a Malakin in the belly, so to speak. The Malakins evidently weren't expecting an attack from that direction. They had turned their ship so that the most damaged side was away from the fighters harassing it. That was towards the planet. Susan racked up another kill as the Malakin ship went silent from a clean shot of hers that sliced into the engines and cut forward along the body of the warship as her pilot assisted her shooting.

  Now back into the main fray of things, Susan broadcast to her fighter command and resumed control. Quick status reports indicated two fighters were forced to land on the planet and one fighter went back to the carriers. Six others were dead and destroyed. More than ever, she was glad of her decision. Her fighter command needed every fighter it could keep in the battle. Deftly and nimbly, her fighter moved among the enemy warships while the Berserker Squadron readied its part of the plan since the enemy wasn't leaving the planet.

  ***

  Emily opened up the hatch and watched as the four naked fighter crew members climbed inside and were shown a place to sit out of the way. Then the hatch sealed as Emily pressed a switch before the artytank resumed its primary mission of search and destroy.

  "Hi, Allen. You look like you didn't get much sun," Emily remarked with a slight chuckle.

  Allen looked at the face in camouflage body paint and said, "Emily? I thought you were back at the academy."

  She replied, "Sorry to disappoint you, but when I left the special fighter training they gave me this since they had a terrific need for a nudist marine officer and I'm from Echo. Even graduated before you did."

  He said, "You're kidding."

  She replied, "I'll show you my commission later when I get the chance. Right now, I've got reports to send in."

  Allen replied, "Okay."

  "Ensign Tall reporting pickup of four downed fighter crew members. All safe and well. We're resuming our mission."

  As she talked again with Allen, the action picked up as Sam shouted, "He's mine!"

  Emily gave her attention to the important task at hand as she watched on her monitor what Sam was doing. She saw how he went about wiping out a Malakin robot in three swift sure shots that left no doubt in anyone's mind that he was good. Almost as soon as Sam finished dispatching that robot, the other two from the trio of robots were found just behind a rise where they were engaged in combat with some Blue military personnel. The outriggers made their presence known. They drew the attention of the robots to them, relieving the Blues and giving them an opportunity to get under cover before the main fireworks began.

  Emily noticed that the robots were faster than the ones on Beulah. Then it occurred to her that it might be the gravity difference. She immediately called in a report on her suspicions. "Ensign Tall to Lieutenant Allalm. Robots here are faster than on Beulah. I suspect it's because of the gravity."

  "Understood, Ensign. Thank you."

  Still, Emily watched as her gunners took out the two robots as they ganged up on them with six outrigger drones while they were safely behind a hill out of sight of the robots themselves.

  ***

  The squadron moved in slowly. It was time to give the fighters some support and engage the enemy ships decisively. Dave watched as his squadron, in a huge plate formation now, moved forward and fired from extreme range. The Malakin robot ships immediately reacted to the squadron's presence and tried to form up to oppose it despite the continuous attacks of the small fighters. The amount of fire returned at the fighters lessened as the robot ships took the greater threat of the warships into account. They returned fire at the squadron where each warship was conducting its own evasive maneuvers within its assigned sector while the ships continued to advance. The elite Malakin warships tried to fight both forces at the same time.

  Caught from two angles of fire, more of the Malakin warships became silent as engines were destroyed, depriving many of them of necessary energy sources to both maneuver and fire weapons with. On the manned Malakin ships, shots that hulled sections of them sufficed to quiet the guns in that portion and lessen the rate of return fire. Very successful shots could sometimes kill the entire ship. Malakin robot ships would keep firing until the engines were destroyed. The engines were almost always the first priority of the attacking forces for both types of Malakin warships. Still, the Malakin forces continued to keep a blanket of forces surrounding the planet, though the blanket was becoming thinner with every minute of battle.

  Another fighter returned from the carriers, repairs completed and its crew eager for battle. The tiny fighter swept in between the bolts being sent at the enemy from the squadron. The fighter was almost invisible until it was too late for the enemy to react against its sudden lethal attack on the engines of another Malakin warship. The Malakin warship was left drifting and helpless as more bolts rained upon it, destroying much of its interior and ensuring that, if it was manned, it wouldn't get its engines repaired by depriving the occupants of their artificial atmosphere. Only those suited up against such a loss would likely survive. From what the human warriors knew of their enemy, the Malakins also preferred to have freedom of movement while fighting and a quick death rather than suiting up and having the choice of a lingering death or suicide.

  Besides, a hit on the same section would usually generate enough fire in that section, as the oxygen flamed temporarily before the vacuum of space took over, to destroy the fabrics of space suits and render them useless anyway. Then the being, human or Malakin, would die anyway as their lungs tried to breathe in a vacuum, though they usually ripped apart first. If the hit was on another section and the bulkheads didn't succumb, then there was little to worry about. If the engines died, there was usually plenty of time to suit up and go about making repairs. By then there might be less danger of a flare-up, if the enemy decided that the ship was dead and moved on to other targets.

  More and more Malakin warships were destroyed. The squadron rained fire upon them while holding a large formation that made it nearly impossible for the enemy to sweep out and surround them. Still, the squadron wasn't immune as two squadron destroyers winked out almost at the same time from accurate return fire from the Malakin fleet.

  ***

  Admiral Oden noticed how effective the tiny fighters were. He resolved to push for more carriers. The time was ending again for large scale warship battles where each slugged it out with ships that cost too much to make and man. As nice as the dreadnoughts seemed to be, he could see that their usefulness was ending as they had once before in a different fleet of a different era. Most of the return fire was being given to them. Only superior training and pilots kept them in the battle. Still, the dreadnought pilots had the disadvantage of size as they tried to evade the return fire. Dave could see from his vantage point that each had sustained numerous hits, but was still functioning. The cruisers were faring better and the destroyers even more so. Their smaller size and agility gave them advantages that outweighed their disadvantages against the huge Malakin warships which possessed even less maneuverability and were dying in droves.

  The more Dave thought about it, the more he realized that they needed to replace the dreadnoughts with something else. They needed something fast and small while remaining capable of carrying some of the heavy guns. The only answer he had, though, was more carriers with more fighters. As he thought about it, he realized that every ship should have the capability to carry one or more fighters. It would give the fighters a choice of where to land for repairs and lessen their fears of not having a carrier to land on. Maybe that was the answer he was looking for.

  He liked that thought. He imagined a fast cruiser with a wing of fighters on board. It wouldn't be like the heavy cruisers of a decade ago where the scouts attached to the outside of the ship and had to launch from the planet on their own. This would have to be a
fast cruiser with a hangar that carried the fighters inside the ship. If the cruisers had that capability now, he knew he would have started the battle with the equivalent of over three carriers worth of fighters. They could have punched holes in the enemy even more quickly.

  He let the thought continue to germinate and saw how it progressed into affecting other aspects of the Navy and even the academy. It was easy to see that producing only a hundred cadets a year wouldn't be enough to provide enough fighter commanders of the quality they wanted for the number of openings the Navy would soon have. Not only that, but they wouldn't be able to begin reaching that number for four years unless they modified and specialized the course work so that they could put fighter commanders through an abbreviated course.

  Dave didn't like what he foresaw happening to anyone graduating from an abbreviated course. He could envision a fighter commander forced to land on an inhospitable planet with no knowledge of how to survive. The fighter commander would be better off if he or she bought it in space. However, there wasn't any real choice as long as they were at war and had no real way of determining how long the war would last. There would have to be some compromises made. The graduating cadets would be the ones to pay the price for those compromises.

  Of course, if there were classes given on board the naval warships to give the fighter commanders the benefits of some of what they would miss out on, the compromises might not be so bad. It was the only way to make it work and give the fighter commanders a chance for survival. Even though the battle was still raging, Admiral Oden entered the information into his personal terminal for later submission. About the only thing he wasn't sure of was where to locate the new academy. It couldn't be located with the current academy since there wasn't enough room. He needed a planet with more access to space and not as close to the front of the war. Dave didn't want unskilled cadets being launched suddenly into a defense where they would be slaughtered wholesale. Much as he preferred for them to learn on a heavy gravity planet, there wasn't much choice other than Beulah unless they terraformed an uninhabited planet. That could easily take a generation to accomplish. The Navy simply didn't have that kind of time to wait. The new academy would have to be on a lighter gravity planet, regardless of Dave's preferences.

  More details fleshed themselves out as he continued to foresee the problems and solve them one by one to form a well-thought out proposal. As he continued to think everything through, he realized that he had one more resource that he was overlooking until now. He could always steal from the enlisted training center on Echo. Take half of their pilots and give them temporary commissions. That would address the immediate need for fighter commanders. That would fill the gap until the new academy was in place and producing officers. He added it to his proposal and only rarely glanced around to observe the progress of the battle. That was how much confidence he held in the personnel around him.

  He was completely unaware that his action then was being observed by the personnel around him. His obvious lack of concern for his own safety was inspiring, but not nearly so much as the trust they saw him placing in their performance to fight while he worked on other problems. He didn't even flinch when the ship was rocked by a hit on one of its sections. He barely looked up. When he did, it wasn't to see what the panels said about the damage but at the panel that tallied the known losses on each side.

  Those who were looking saw him nod slightly as he noticed that the battle was still going their way with only four squadron warships lost and dozens of Malakin warships in the other tally column. The Malakins weren't in positions to concentrate their fire. The Union squadron was. The tally under the Malakins changed minute by minute to reflect larger numbers.

  ***

  Susan felt her fighter take a hit. Immediately, she ordered it back to a carrier while transferring fighter command again. Minutes later, Attack Butterfly II landed on the Terra and was in the hands of her maintenance personnel. Less than five minutes later, new solar panels were in place. Susan's crew managed to get something to eat and drink before they launched again into the fray.

  Her fighter rode into the battle again, flanked by bolts from the warships which were targeted on Malakin warships. She noted how scary it appeared to be and yet how safe it was for a small fighter to return quickly. The bolts, constantly passing by at greater speeds, appeared to be masking her fighter from the enemy sensors. Of course, having a stealth design helped as well. As her fighter rode the bolts, the pilot aimed at a Malakin warship that didn't know death was approaching it. Susan saw the ship in her sights. Another bolt joined the masses of raining bolts on the enemy. Hers, however, had the advantages of being well-aimed and from a closer range that gave it considerably more effectiveness.

  The enemy ship flared suddenly as a well-placed shot tore out its atmosphere. The Malakin ship grew silent along its entire length. Susan's fighter was no longer riding the bolts as those shifted to another target. Her pilot veered towards another enemy warship. Susan was soon firing on it, helping out other fighters that were attacking from other angles. Lots of dead Malakin warships floated listlessly about. The small fighters were using those as cover until they leapt out at the living Malakin warships from close ranges that only increased the effectiveness of the fighter weapons.

  Messages and reports continued to filter into her brain as the squadron kept them informed of Malakin warships moving into sight from the other side of the planet and notified them of the Union fleet's overall progress.

  ***

  Allen watched as the crew of the artytank continued to search for and then destroy the Malakin robots with an efficiency that showed the depth of their training. Several hours had passed already. He, like the rest of his crew, was hardly aware any longer of their own nudity, let alone that of the crew of the artytank. In between actions against the robots, casual conversations, when some of the crew weren't resting, filled the hull of the artytank as they talked about what they would do when the war was over. Emily showed Allen her commission and he grinned when he saw she had seniority based on her date of commissioning.

  Occasionally, they listened to reports coming from the squadron and fighters as the battle in space moved to its climax with modest losses for the squadron and annihilation for the Malakin forces there. On the surface of Leuion, it was slower paced as they combed the countryside searching for the robots that were widely dispersed. The Union ground forces would clearly be busy for days trying to find them all.

  ***

  The last of the Malakin warships fell silent. The men and women in the fighter command and the squadron hustled about, rechecking to find targets, unsure that the battle was finally over. Destroyers were dispatched to circle Leuion and verify that there weren't any other Malakin ships hidden out of sensor sight or range.

  When news of no live enemy ships reached Admiral Oden, he set aside his new project to contemplate any possible enemy moves and put his squadron into the right defensive positions. An hour later, squadron ships moved into those defensive positions while the fighters landed on their carriers to give their crews a brief rest.

  As soon as they were in position, fighter support was offered to the marines on Leuion to help search for and destroy the Malakin robots. Lieutenant Allalm, impressed with the necessity for showing the Blues how quickly they could rid Leuion of the enemy, agreed to accept the assistance. Minutes later, fighter wings streaked down into the atmosphere to assist in the action below. At the same time, several shuttles were sent down to pick up the surviving crews from downed fighters and the transport that couldn't be launched. Three transports rose up from the surface an hour later when their crews returned to their untouched ships. Minutes later, they were back into position near the carriers for their protection.

  While positions were consolidated, the dead ships were searched by special teams for survivors from the squadron's ships. As well, they searched for Malakins to take prisoner on the destroyed enemy ships.

  Messages were speedily exchange
d with the Blues on the situation, keeping them advised of everything. The Blues were most appreciative of the efforts and extended an invitation to all the men and women involved to visit after the war as honored guests.

  ***

  Susan heard over the radio that Allen's crew was back at the carrier. She had something to attend to when her crew returned and looked forward to it. With the speed of her fighter, it was easy for her crew to cover a large amount of territory and pick off several robots. Other fighters were also having similar luck. Sometimes they arrived to assist the artytanks in killing the robots, giving the robots another direction to be wary of and causing them to ignore the more dangerous outriggers in favor of the larger and faster fighters.

  Try as they did, not all of the robots could be located. The space marines continued to search for the last few while the fighters were released after only a few hours of assistance. Susan's fighter rose back into space and soon landed on the Terra.

  ***

  Susan left the fighter with the computer image of Allen and his crew to be made into a picture. She returned to her quarters after filing her second set of reports and debriefings for the day. Once there, she worked on producing an image that she would hang over and just behind the chair where Allen had sat the other night.

  Twenty minutes later, Susan looked thoughtfully at the image that turned out to be all she hoped for. Like her own image, it was nothing that could have insulted anyone on Echo, had the image been taken there. The image caught the entire crew of the Tiger Butterfly in a full frontal shot. There were no secrets to uncover about any of the four crew members of that fighter. The only thing Susan lacked was a frame. She called her maintenance personnel to see if they had anything that might fill the bill. Half an hour after that, Susan hung the newly framed image on the wall.

  Soon after Susan had her personal project finished, she went to supper where Allen soon joined her. The discussion started with how they fought the enemy before it finally gravitated to less serious subjects. Susan was about to invite Allen to her quarters when a message arrived for her from the admiral. She looked at the message and excused herself, having finished eating. Susan went to report to the admiral on his flagship.