Battle Group Epsilon

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

April 5 2184, 22:21 Hours (Standard Solar Time)
Aboard USNI Carrier "Waterloo" In Martian HPO

For the last few days, Chang had kept mostly to himself. The ship had a large gym and he spent most of his free time there doing Tai Chi. He'd walk past all of the free weights and cardio equipment and find an open mat. He had never taken lessons before. As a child there had not been enough money to. Instead, his mother would wake him and his younger brother up early every morning and teach them what she knew. It was relaxing and comforting to him and practicing it reminded him of those times. Though they had lived in an American colony, she had tried hard to instill upon them their own culture.
He hadn't seen Greenbaum since the incident. It wasn't his size that scared Chang, it was his ignorance. He had no intention of leaving the squad or ship. To do so would compromise his integrity and honor. If he did not have those, then he was dead already.
As he turned his waist and extended his arms slowly, he imagined himself as being made entirely of water. Tai Chi was fluid, molding and reacting to the situation. Unobtrusive. He closed his eyes and focused his breathing. It had to be slow and calm, matching the martial art technique he practiced.
He heard the soft patter of approaching footsteps and opened his eyes. Paul was coming towards him. When he saw that Chang saw him, his face turned red. Chang shut his eyes again and said, "Hi Paul."
At first there was no response and he thought Paul had turned away. A part of him, his instinctual side, told him he was standing there however. "I'm sorry Chang," he said in his nasally voice.
He lifted his leg and stepped forward. He kept his center of gravity low, shifted his weight forward, and made sure his back was straight the entire time. In his mind he was breathing from his stomach not his lungs. "What for?" he asked.
"The other day," he said and hesitated. "When you were in the locker with Greenbaum. I should have stopped him or reported him... Anything,"
"Like he said," Chang told him, "It wasn't your fight."
"No, but it should have been." Paul didn't say anything for a time and Chang continued his form. "Chang, you're my friend, the only friend I have here really. I just want you to know that I won't let that happen again."
Chang opened his eyes and smiled. He grimaced from the pain of his split lip but only for a second. "Thanks Paul, that's nice of you to say."
Paul smiled back, "I mean it too, really."
Chang saw Greenbaum coming toward them. His breathing changed and he was no longer in rhythm.
"Kowalski, you friends with this gook?" Greenbaum asked.
"Gooks are Vietnamese," Chang corrected him. "I'm Chinese."
"You're all the same," Greenbaum said. Chang saw Paul looking at him expectantly and he shook his head just slightly "What is this bullshit that you're doing?"
"It's Tai Chi," Chang told him. "It's a traditional Chinese-"
"Tai Chi? That ain't a martial art. That's what they teach at retirement homes. You wouldn't last a minute in the ring using that."
Chang closed his eyes and said, "You might be surprised."
"Surprised he says?" Greenbaum laughed. "Surprise is what you'll feel when I knock you on your ass along with your two front teeth."
"I don't want to hurt you," Chang told him.
"No, you'd rather kill me. I can read it in those slanted eyes of yours like a book."
"I didn't know you could read," Chang said. He really didn't want to start a fight but making him angry was just too easy.
"Why you oriental son of a bitch." He heard Greenbaum take a step closer and side stepped. When he opened his eyes he saw the man where he had just been looking furious. "Let's go," he said.
He walked toward the boxing ring and Chang followed. He went to the rack that held the various sized boxing gloves but heard Greenbaum say, "Put that shit away. We're doing bare knuckle, this is how real men fight."
Chang climbed up onto the ring at one end and Greenbaum on the other. With only one target to worry about, he liked his chances in a fair fight a lot better than what had happened in the locker room. Paul watched from the side of the ring and yelled, "Come on Chang, kick his ass!" He sounded very awkward and unnatural when he swore.
"Greenbaum looked over and said, "After I tear his head off, you can be next Kowalski."
Paul didn't vocalize his cheers anymore, but Chang knew he was rooting for him. He liked the idea of having a fan, even just one.
Greenbaum assumed the traditional boxing position. He kept his knees bent and his hands up protecting his face. He bounced lightly on his two feet, shifting the weight slightly between both legs.
Chang kept his mass low, steadying his balance and breathing. His opponent struck like a snake. He lunged forward quickly, putting his entire weight behind his first attack. Chang moved out of the way quickly and gracefully. He sidestepped the second attack and ducked beneath the next. He did not make his own attacks, but took advantage of his opponent's mistakes, turning his strikes against him. When the next jab came, he made his move.
Greenbaum's arm was fully extended and his balance off centered. Chang moved to his side and grabbed his muscular arm. He turned the arm and pulled it back to a position it would not naturally go. Instead of putting more force and breaking the extremity, Chang pushed him forward against the rings and kicked the back of his knee. He fell to the floor hard and crashed into the ropes.
Chang moved back to the other end and noticed they had attracted quite an audience. A group of people had begun to crowd around the ring. They were watching and cheering for both sides. He even heard Paul's cries among them.
Greenbaum got back up and turned to Chang. "You sneaky bastard." He got back into his stance and came at Chang, with more prudence this time though. All of a sudden the ship's sirens began to wail. The boxers and spectators alike were distracted and looked up at the speakers on the walls. The alarm ended and the skipper's voice came on. "Code Green! Battle stations, everyone to their Battle stations. This is not a drill."
Chang looked at Greenbaum. "This isn't over," the man said to him. They hopped off the ring and joined the crowd of people running down the corridors. They caught an elevator that went all the way down to the hangar. This was the real thing. Code Green meant that they had encountered enemy forces and they were to engage momentarily.
Chang and his squad went to the flight room and got suited it up. Even with two technicians devoted to each pilot; it took ten minutes to get the suits on.
They ran to their ships and were assisted in climbing the stairs and getting in. Chang got in, was buckled in, and watched the cockpit hatch close in over him. He heard a hiss as it was pressurized and he waited for the controls to flicker to on.
The buttons lit up in a full spectrum of colors and the navigation console snapped on. His stomach jumped up into his throat as the elevator lowered his craft into the launch tube. He braced himself against the back of his seat just before the catapult launched him into the unknown.
"Gold Team, form up on me," Captain Seymour called over his COM. "Sound off."
"Chang."
"Greenbaum."
"Janson."
"Kowalski."
"Oscar."
"Moore."
"Williams."
"All accounted for," The Captain announced. "Form up, Flying Vee." They fell in behind him with the Seymour taking point. "I'm sending you a waypoint now. Set your imager to filter out everything but FR Ambient." Chang looked down at his computer and saw a flashing blue icon on the far side of Mars in relation to them. "The Waterloo has identified two Class III warships in this sector, we're moving out along with the rest of the fleet to engage."
Chang recalled that a Class III warship was a frigate or its equivalent. A frigate? Who had the capability of making such a monster? The USNI had only just begun production of such vessels, who could have matched the resources and technological might of the UN? Chang knew who it was but wouldn't admit it, not even to himself. The Fist of Jupiter had risen from the discontent of the colonies of Earth. To think they could contend with the best was terrifying.
The Captain led them into a sling shot orbit, using the gravity of Mars to propel them toward their destination. There squad was not alone. Chang checked and rechecked his computer. If it was reading correctly, which he didn't see how it could; there were over a hundred Marauder squads en route to engage the enemy. Nearly a thousand Marauders. That did not include the several dozen SCARAB's that joined them and the three USNI Carriers staying back to provide long range support and command.
Chang had never seen or heard anything like it. He did not need to be told that this was the single largest military action every to have taken place in vacuum: by a factor of ten.
"Stay tight and watch your flanks," the Captain warned them. "Things are about to get incredibly chaotic and the last thing we need is Marauders colliding with one another."
As they waited to engage, Chang cycled through his weapons, taking the safeties off all six of his Corsair Missiles and the 120mm nose cannon. He ran a diagnostic of his ships systems and then ran it again. He wanted to make sure his ship was in peak fighting condition before he engaged an unknown enemy.
As gravity did its job and carried them around the planet, Chang got his first look at the enemy ships. They appeared as two deep purple blotches against the blackness of space. He turned off thermals and squinted in the visible light spectrum. He saw nothing. As he got closer he spotted them, only barely though. It was like trying to spot a shadow moving against a slightly darker shadow. He thought he was seeing something else for a moment but the ship moved against a distant star, eclipsing it, and knew it was the frigate for sure. His sensors detected no radiation at all, not even trace amounts. What could power such a large vessel without emitting radiation and almost no heat.
He switched back to infrared and checked his radar. The Captain spotted it just as he did. "Incoming targets! Get ready boys!"
Chang had read the reports just like everyone else. He knew what had happened in the engagement in Sector Kilo Foxtrot. Five squadrons had been torn apart in a matter of minutes. Besides that, there was no information on the enemy fighters. The larger ship had been identified as using some sort of laser like weapon. Would the fighters use it as well?
Chang soon found out that they didn't, but it didn't make them any less deadly. Ballistics and missiles crisscrossed and streaked both ways in the first barrage. With both groups heading toward each other at such high velocities, the chances of actually hitting anything was nearly zero. One of the slower moving SCARABs burst into flames and veered to the planet, being consumed into the beast by its gravity. A pair of Marauders evaporated in silent explosions as well. No confirmed enemy kills.
Whatever coordination had existed among the group as a whole was immediately lost. The battle broke into a hundred separate skirmishes. Chang kept his eyes opened but wherever the enemy engaged them, they used only conventional weapons; high powered automatic cannons and missiles. It looked like the smaller ships lacked the power to use lasers. It was one advantage, or at the very least meant they were on a level playing field. Gold team braked with their reverse thrusters and turned around for another sweep. Their enemy was already on them.
The Fist of Jupiter's single fighters were shaped like upside down Y's. The front was presumably the cockpit and two separate engines that protracted from it provided thrust. The dual engine design, Chang soon noted, gave them exceptional maneuvering.
Gold Team swooped under and turned around to chase an enemy squadron. All the while, they managed to keep formation.
"Christ they're fast!" Moore said over the COM.
"Alright boys and girls," the Captain told them. "Let's show these bastards who they picked a fight with. Engage at will!"
Chang hit the thrusters and accelerated his Marauder ahead of the others. He got up as close as he could to one of the enemy ships. The ship pulled up quickly but Chang managed to keep right on him.
The ship's engines glowed yellow as flames shot out the back. To Chang, it looked like a chemical rocket but he knew better. Chemical rocket designs were outdated by more than a century and besides, the tiny ship would not be able to hold the quantity of fuel needed for any real length of time.
Chang reached forward with his hand as the gees of such high speed combat tried to push it back. He tapped the command and launched one of his missiles. The Corsair exploded forward leaving a trail of smoke in its wake as it neared the fighter. Chang leaned forward to watch. All of a sudden a laser shot backwards from the port engine and struck the ordnance in mid flight. It exploded and Chang had to veer to starboard to avoid it.
Chang was mystified. How could the engines possibly double as point defense? It was impossible and yet he had just seen it with his own eyes.
"They have some sort of aft point defense system," Chang announced.
"Roger that Jade Spear," the Captain said. "I've encountered it as well."
Chang was still behind the fighter which was continually trying to throw him off. It was doing maneuvers that he had never even attempted to try. The gees from such techniques made them seemingly suicidal. The pilot must have been out of his mind.
He grabbed a joystick and brought the targeting reticule of the fighter and pulled the trigger. His 120mm cannon opened up. It was the same caliber weapon used as the main cannon on most tanks. The only difference was the one on his ship fired at a hundred rounds per minute. Chang watched the tracers on his screen and walked them toward his enemy. Only a trio of rounds struck the starboard engine but it was enough. It exploded and the craft began barrel rolling out of control to the side. It struck the fighter that had been its wingman and they became one fireball. Having killed not one but two made him realize they were not invulnerable. In fact they could even be fragile.
He changed course and found another target. It wasn't difficult, they were everywhere. Paul was going after the same fighter. Both Marauders tailed it at extremely close range, trying their best to follow the ship's agile and erratic path.
"Let's get him Chang!" Paul called on the COM.
They fell into a tight pattern as they narrowly tailed the fighter. Chang hit the trigger and sent a pair of missiles soaring through space. He was hoping that their targeting system wouldn't be able to track multiple targets. Sure enough however, a pair laser beams reached out and superheated the incoming missiles into oblivion.
Paul's missile however was fired from the enemy's flank. Whether it was on accident or was intentional, Chang never knew. He saw it sidewind toward the ship and hit the cockpit. The enemy fighter became an instant fireball that collapsed back onto itself in the vacuum.
"Hey!" Paul yelled out. "I got him."
"Nice job kid, keep em coming," Seymour chimed in.
"Sir," Chang said. "Give me an open channel to every squadron."
"Why, so you can tie up the entire fleet?" Greenbaum wondered.
"This had better be important Lieutenant."
Chang got the green light and hit the mic. "Their point defense lasers seem to only be effective from directly behind. If you can match their trajectory, get them from the side and they're powerless."
"Roger that Jade Spear."
Chang watched his radar as the number of reported confirmed enemy kills began to climb. The red ship markers were disappearing faster than the green ones. Their ship's uncanny ability made them difficult to follow or evade but their behavior was becoming repetitive, even predictable. If they were pursued one way they would do this, if another situation happened they had another set sequence of responses. He soon began to realize the truth behind what he was witnessing. These machines had no pilots. They were being flown by computer intelligence, not human. It was unthinkable. Chang was appalled and left with an empty feeling with every confirmed. How could they let unmanned fighters face up against manned ones? It was irresponsible and shameful. It went against every code of honor embedded in soldiers for thousands of years; true victory is only attained when one human bests another, not a machine.
Chang assisted with two more kills before the Captain came on.
"The SCARABs," Captain Seymour began, "Want to take a closer look of those two mother ships. We got escort duty ladies and gentlemen. Form up."
Leaving the battle at its climax made him feel like he was running. He would have much preferred to stay with the rest of the wing but orders were orders. Chang and Paul veered off from the main combat toward the sluggish missile boats that hurtled their way through outer space. The rest of Gold Team along with three other squadrons met them there.
He ran another self diagnostic on his Marauder. All systems came up green. He had gone though ten percent of his ammo for the cannon and half of his missiles. The two enemy frigates became centered in his cockpit window as Chang watched them gradually grow. There was something ghostly eerie about them. If things this large could be hiding out here, what else could be?
He had no idea what it was but something in his gut told him to switch to visible light. He squinted in the darkness trying to see something they could have missed. There it was, to there side. Something gleamed for a moment in the light of the sun but was gone just as quick. It was metallic and therefore manmade. He thought they were mines at first. Then he realized what they were only a second too late.
The powered down enemy fighters came to life. In an instant they engaged them from behind. Ballistics tore into a SCARAB and it blew up, sending shrapnel in all directions that the surviving ships had to avoid. They launched a volley of missiles at the escort team. Some deployed countermeasures in time, some didn't. Two members of Gold Team were killed without so much as a final word on the COM. Chang had never really known Janson or Williams. Now he never would.
"They're on our six!"
"I can't shake them!" another pilot yelled. "Someone help me out!"
Chang pulled up, reverse thrusted, and in four and a half seconds, he was right behind their pursuers. He shot down one that was chasing a member of a different squad. The escort fighters engaged and tried to draw off the main force from the SCARABs. They were close now to the frigates. Whether their weapons would even damage the massive ships was one thing but Chang didn't have to worry about that yet. He just had to make sure they had the opportunity to try.
"Chang!" It was Paul. He saw the fighter close on him. "Help me out, I can't lose him."
He changed his course and found his wingman. The enemy ship was firing its machine gun at him but Paul had evaded it thus far. His Marauder only had one missile left. He went to the side of the remote piloted fighter, as if they were wingmen, flying formation together and he launched the last of his Corsairs at it.

Chang though he had it at first but the fighter did something unexpected. It dove to the side of the heat seeking rocket. It didn't evade the weapon but made it so its rear was pointed directly at it. A laser shot out from the exhaust port and destroyed the missile. Chang had underestimated them. The automated ships were programmed but they also had the capability to learn. His realization came to late.
The ship fired its machine guns and caught Paul's ship. Smoke sputtered out of his wing and the last thing he did before he died was scream. Chang chased the fighter as it tried to turn away. Chang had him though. He opened up with his cannon and tore the ship to shreds. It was his fault Paul had died, he knew that, but there was no time for guilt now. Too many other good pilots were at risk of the same fate.
As they neared the Frigates, he got a closer look at them. The ships were long and blocky. They looked like sky scrapers that had been tilted on their sides. Single engine exhausts blasted out the back. On top of the vessel were two mounted turrets. They opened up on the incoming ships immediately. They fired individual lines of energy that incinerated the missile boats. They were slow firing however. Chang counted. They needed eleven seconds to charge between each shot, which could target only one ship at a time. They were completely over kill as well. It was like trying to kill a swarm of nats with a high-powered sniper rifle.
The gun ships opened up and gave the nearest frigate a broadside. They launched a volley of Harpoon missiles. The missiles contained a hundred times more firepower than the ones the Marauders carried. Chang waited for point defense lasers to swat the weapons away but none ever came. He was thankful for that at least. They struck all along the ship's portside. They breeched the hull, he was sure of it, but the ship seemed to neither care nor notice. The frigates continued along their course, undeterred.
When the fire vanished he saw that the armor was gone or severely reduced in multiple areas. Atmosphere vented and sparks showered out from exposed electrical conduits. It was just a flesh wound, he thought. There was no serious damage, none structurally at least. When they launched their second volley there were far less missiles than the first strike. The SCARABs were being targeted and in a few minutes there would be none left.
There were only a dozen left when the Captain of one said, "Give us some cover, we just need one more strike."
Chang didn't know how one more attack on the monstrous ship would do what the first two had not done but he did as they said. He was all out of missiles. If he could get close enough though, his cannon was more than effective.
The gun ships pulled hard to starboard and fell into the wake of the enemy frigates. Their enormous engines, powered something Chang could guess, appeared only as a brilliant white on his thermal imaging. It was expelling a tremendous amount of energy. He turned down the brightness on his screen so that he wouldn't need to squint. The engines were the only part of the ship emitting heat. Unless you were looking right at it, there was no way to detect the cold hull.
As he watched the frigates he noticed that they were large yes, but not large enough by far to contain all the single ships that were engaging them, not if the entirety of their volume was dedicated only to one large hangar bay. It meant there must have been more enemy ships nearby. Before he could even begin a scan though, the gun ships fired. They sent the last of their Harpoon missiles screaming silently toward the nearest frigate's engine.
Chang watched, hoping that it would not have the same laser point defense system as the single ships. It did. In a moment the exhaust went dark. The forward thrust had been cut and lasers began cutting and dicing through the incoming missiles, firing out from the edges of the exhaust. It was a smooth concave opening in the back of the ship. The lasers fired out from a ring at the edge of the opening. Chang winced with the destruction of each warhead. Every premature explosion was one more lost chance to destroy the frigate. There were only fifty Harpoon Missiles left where there had been over a hundred a few seconds before.
They impacted in the concave opening, shattering the once smooth surface. The lasers stopped firing, including those from the mounted turrets. Secondary explosions vaporized the aft decks and the force drove the frigate into a new trajectory. Its nose dipped downward and slightly to the side. Between the explosions that must have been plaguing the interior superstructure and the difference in pressure with the vacuum, the entire ship was torn apart.
Chang sighed with relief. It hadn't been easy, but they had destroyed one. They weren't invincible. Just then a new group of single fighters engaged them. He heard screams and cries for help over the COM. He swept his Marauder hard to port to join in the melee. One of his teammates came over on his headset. It was Greenbaum.
"I got one on me, I can't get rid of him. My countermeasures are all gone!"
Cheng wheeled his ship around until he saw him. The Y shaped automated fighter had a good lock on Greenbaum and would fire in a moment. His cannon was dry and he had no missiles. There was a way for him to help though.
He slammed the accelerator forward and was thrown backwards into his seat. There was no time to lose. He pushed the fighter to the edge of what an average human could survive and then kept going. His flight suit had his body in a vice grip but it was all it could do to keep him conscious. His vision narrowed and he could see little black dots appearing. He tasted something metallic and blood shot out his nose. It didn't obscure his visor however so he gave it no mind. He passed the enemy fighter just as it launched the missile. He deployed his flare countermeasures and not a moment too soon. The missile changed targets in half a heartbeat, which for Chang was beating quite fast, and detonated safely behind him. Bits of shrapnel peppered his craft but as he checked his systems everything checked out fine.
"Haha! Chang," Greenbaum said disbelievingly. "You saved me."
He had problems before he could even respond. The enemy fighter whose missile he'd blocked was now chasing him. Radar showed it as less than a hundred meters behind him. He tried one evasive maneuver after another but nothing worked. His pursuer was too quick. Without the need to protect a pilot from harmful gees it could accelerate, change course, and do any risky form of astrogation it desired limited only by mechanics and imagination.
His radar flashed red; the enemy had him locked on and had just fired. He deployed the flare but with less than a hundred meters distance, it made very little difference. Shrapnel and pieces of debris tore through his ship and the sheer force of the nearby explosion altered his course. His engine stuttered for a few seconds then died altogether.
"Chang!" Moore yelled.
"Jade Spear, come in." It was the Captain.
"This is Jade Spear, do you read me Captain?" he replied. The COM was broken. He was mute but not deaf. He was dead in space, spinning out of control in a ship that couldn't communicate. He could just as easily be brushed off as another KIA to another untrained eye. That was when he saw his real problem. He was caught in the gravity well of Mars. His ship was spiraling down and hard.
Marauder single fighters had wings but they were more for aesthetics than functionality. People couldn't get over the idea of a fighter jet without wings. They were designed for space combat and flying. Even if the fighter was functioning, which it wasn't, there was no way he would make it through Mar's atmosphere in one piece, let alone land it.
Depending on how much damage the Marauder had sustained, he might hope that the ceramic shell that surrounded the cockpit would protect him from burning up. The atmosphere was artificial; the result of a century of terraforming, but even so it was much less than Earth's. It meant that atmosphere entry was less abusive on his ship but when his parachutes opened up, there was less air to slow him down. He looked out his side window and saw heat begin to waft off the metal. After a few minutes flames began dancing up from the edges and it became noticeably hotter inside. No matter what happened, Chang knew he was in for the ride of his life.