"Put it through, Lieutenant," Admiral Davis replied. He turned to watch as the air in the center of the room shimmered, and then resolved into the shape of his commanding officer.
"We've got a bit of a problem, Admiral," Arsenal's image said.
"I assume you're referring to the situation in Argentina," Davis answered.
"Exactly," Arsenal said. "The situation isn't looking good. Blood Jihad and NEBULA forces are already mobilizing, but it's definitely going to be a hell of a fight."
"I can imagine," the admiral agreed. "So, where does the Space Fleet come into all of this?"
"Our recon data shows that the B'harnate forces have been getting some heavy support from a source outside of Argentina. But the borders are closed on both sides, no ships are going to the ports, and no planes have been seen flying in. That leaves one option."
"A space-based supply line," the admiral concluded. "But they'd have to be cloaked...otherwise the early warning systems on our satellites would have picked them up."
"That's what I think," Arsenal said. "Your job is to find that supply line and shut it down, by any means necessary. Think you can handle it?"
Davis thought for a moment, then gave his answer. "Yes, sir. I've been working on a little project that just might be able to do the job, at least temporarily, if I can get it online in enough time."
"Then get to work, Admiral. The faster we can cut off that support, the easier it will be to take back Argentina, and a little effort now could save a lot of lives later. Arsenal out."
As the holographic image faded from view, Admiral Davis keyed in a command at his terminal. The image on his monitor was replaced by the face of another officer. "What can I do for you, Admiral?"
"I need a status report on the Black Hole project. How soon can she be ready for launch?"
"We've been having some trouble installing the cloaking device. We should be able to have it working in a couple of days, though. Other than that, she's ready to go, sir," the officer replied.
The admiral paused for a moment to consider the options. "We don't have that much time, I'm afraid. Can we send her out without it?"
"I suppose so, sir, but she'd need a constant escort, and the more ships you put around her, the more likely someone will find her. The thing has almost no armor or shields. It'd only take a few missile hits to take her down, Admiral."
"Very well, Captain. Assemble a crew, and prepare Black Hole for launch."
"Yes, sir."
For a moment, a small area of space seemed to tear itself open. A pair of Lyran troop transports and their 8-fighter escort flew out of this rip, which vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
"Engage cloaking device, and set course for Earth. Maximum speed," ordered the commander of the lead ship. The crew obeyed the order without question, and the ship vanished again.
The pilot of the Dragon-class fighter glanced at his scanner for what seemed to be the hundredth time in the past half-hour. This was his first time to fly a blockade mission, and the Dragon pilot had quickly learned that it was even more boring than he'd been led to believe. Even though he and his three wingmen had launched only 25 minutes ago, it seemed as though the pilot had been out there for hours.
He turned to his left, seeing the ship that the small group of fighters were escorting. If he stared long enough, the pilot could find the shape of a standard Confederation transport buried underneath all of the modifications made to the ship. Huge antenna arrays extended from the ship, used to broadcast a high-intensity disruption field. Anything entering that field would suddenly lose all navigation, tracking, communication, and defensive systems. Any hostile ship that got too close instantly became blind, deaf, and dumb.
Unfortunately, the systems on the jamming ship weren't especially picky. The four Dragon fighters also lost their shields and advanced targeting systems. The fighters' usual complement of FF and HS missiles had been replaced with dumbfires, since the jamming field tended to cause guided missiles to lock onto random targets, including friendly ships. The armor on each fighter had been increased to compensate for the lack of shields at the cost of extra speed. The Dragons still had working short-range communications, but were completely isolated from the Lexington, and the pilot knew that, should a problem arise, the five ships would be on their own. The knowledge that any hostile ships would be hit harder by the jamming didn't stop the pilot from worrying.
The commander of the lead Lyran ship was startled by the alarm klaxon. "What is happening? Are we under attack?" he demanded.
"All of our systems are going offline!" replied an officer, who seemed to be on the verge of panic. "Sensors, navigation, and communications all appear to be down. Our shields have fallen completely, and the cloaking device appears to be inoperative!"
"Shut down all engines and scanners," ordered the commander. "We must not be detected. Tell the engineers to find the problem and fix it immediately, if they value their lives!"
This was the commander's first mistake of the day.
The pilot's thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the comm officer on the capital ship. "Black Hole to Beta Wing, something big has just entered the jamming field. We're transmitting the new navmap to you. Go see what it is, and if it's hostile, kill it."
"Roger, Black Hole, this is Beta Leader. We'll check it out immediately," replied one of the other Dragon pilots. "Beta Three, you're with me. Two and Four, stay here in case anything else comes up."
The pilot, AKA Beta Three, pushed the throttle forward, accelerating the Dragon away from the Black Hole and toward his wingleader. The fear came on a bit stronger now, as he wondered if the two fighters would be able to handle whatever was unlucky enough to enter the disruption field. Beta Three prayed that the jamming would work on the enemy ships as well as it did on the Terran fighters.
"Sir, Engineering reports that they can find no faults in any of the affected equipment," one officer said tentatively.
"Then how do they explain the failure of nearly every system on this ship?" roared the commander.
"Sir, they believe that the failures might be the result of some sort of disruption field generated by an outside source," the officer replied, fearful of giving the wrong answer to his commanding officer. "They suggest that we reverse course and return to the point at which we entered the system. If the problem is caused by such a device, they say that our systems should come back online once we exit the jamming field."
"We will do no such thing! Our escorts are perfectly capable of defending us against any force the humans can muster! We shall not retreat, and if you wish to remain alive, you will not suggest otherwise again!"
"Yes, sir," the officer replied, preferring to avoid death for the moment.
"Looks like a couple of Lyran troop transports and fighter escort," reported Beta Three.
"Affirmative, Beta Three. Let's take out those fighters first. Break and attack on my mark," Beta Leader answered.
Three moved his thumb to the afterburner button on the throttle control and watched as the range display on his HUD slowly fell.
"Three...two...one...MARK!"
The pilot slammed the throttle forward, and then hit the afterburner switch. He felt the sudden acceleration push him back into his seat as his Dragon dived towards the enemy formation. To Three's left, Beta Leader also accelerated, and altered his course to put himself on an attack vector with the four fighters guarding the starboard transport. Beta Three pulled the stick to the right, going for the other half of the Lyran convoy's escort. The pilot armed his plasma guns, tachyon cannons, and one of his dumbfires. Three selected the nearest fighter in his targeting computer, lined it up in his sights, and began to tap the trigger.
Groups of four energy bolts began to streak toward the lead Lyran fighter. It attempted to evade the attack, but the Dragon's computer-assisted targeting systems compensated, and burst after burst slammed into the Lyran's unshielded fighter. Beta Three scored a direct hit to the small craft's engines, turning it into a expanding cloud of debris.
The other three fighters quickly dispersed, and began their attack on the Terran raider. One of them managed to get a missile lock on the Dragon, and fired off an FF missile. The missile, which homed in on the nearest ship not broadcasting friendly IFF codes, started to head towards the Confederation fighter.
However, the Black Hole's disruption field worked on just as well on missiles as it did on fighters and capital ships. The jamming caused the missile to lose its lock on the Dragon. It immediately began to search for a new target. It found a ship that seemed to be broadcasting no IFF codes, and dived directly toward it. The unfortunate victim of this missile was the same fighter that had originally fired it.
Beta Three grinned as he saw the Lyran fighter die by its own missile. The odds were quickly improving. He flipped a small switch on the Dragon's control panel, and heard the whirring sound of the fighter's wings descending and locking into place. The weapons status indicator on his HUD immediately changed to show the fission cannons on the wings become active.
The fission cannon, a relatively new development in weapon technology, was one of the most powerful fighter-based guns ever designed. A fully-charged burst from a pair of them could destroy most fighters. Unfortunately, they took some time to reach full power, and they had a nasty kick, strong enough to tear the Dragon's wings off if they weren't first locked down.
Once the computer confirmed that the wings were locked, the pilot depressed the trigger. A faint hum began to echo through the fighter, building as the fission cannons reached their maximum power level. He quickly pointed his ship towards a Lyran fighter and struggled to keep it centered in his sights as the capacitors charged. Finally, the hum began to even out, and Beta Three released the trigger.
As two blue-white balls of energy launched from the wing-mounted cannons, the Dragon was shoved backwards several meters. The bolts struck the center of the Lyran fighter, destroying it completely. The Dragon dived through the explosion, executing a quick victory roll.
"Three down, and one to go," thought the Dragon pilot. "Now where did that last--"
Three felt his fighter shake as the Lyran fighter pelted it with laser fire. He quickly hit his afterburners and began to try to evade the enemy ship, but it seemed to match every turn he made.
"This guy's good," the pilot thought. He glanced at his status board and saw that his rear armor was nearly gone. Thinking fast, he reached over and toggled the autoslide switch. He pulled the stick sharply to the left, and the fighter began to turn. However, instead of changing course as it usually would, the fighter simply turned to face its pursuer, continuing to move in the same direction, and giving Beta Three a clear shot at his opponent.
He flicked off the safety cover on the firing button for his missiles, and placed his finger over it. With the other hand, he turned off the autoslide system. The Dragon suddenly began to move forward towards the Lyran fighter. The pilot hit the launch button for the Dart dumbfire missile, which streaked toward the Lyran ship, assisted by the extra boost of speed from the Dragon. The Lyran had no time to react as the missile impacted his cockpit, killing him instantly, and destroying his fighter along with him.
The pilot sighed in relief as the last fighter on his scanner vanished. Beta Leader's voice called over the Dragon's radio, "Escorts destroyed, Beta Three. Begin your attack run now."
Beta Three pointed his fighter toward the transport that the Lyran fighters he had just killed had been protecting. He scrolled through his weapons list until he found the one he wanted, and enabled it. "Roger, Beta Leader. Arming the Flash-Pak," he replied.
The pilot locked on to the transport, and lifted the safety on a separate firing switch. A small bay on the underside of the Dragon opened, and a small black disk -- the "Flash-Pak" -- was deployed. The weapon quickly acquired its target. As the Dragon passed over the top of the troop transport, Beta Three hit the launch button.
The disk dropped away from the fighter, and small thrusters on the edges fired to give it extra stability. It latched onto the hull of the ship, where it stayed for a moment without any action. Then, it began to vibrate and glow slightly. Soon, the glow spread to the entire ship, as its atmosphere ignited under the extreme temperature increase caused by the "Flash-Pak." Explosions rocked the ship, leaving behind only a dead, gutted hull.
As Beta Three sped away from the dying transport, he rejoined Beta Leader, who had launched an identical weapon against the other transport, whose hull had already stopped burning as the oxygen supply was depleted.
"Beta Leader to Black Hole, splashed two 'sports and an eight-fighter escort."
"Roger, Beta Leader. Return immediately and resume escort," replied the jamming ship's comm officer.
As the flight of Dragons headed back, Beta Three decided that blockade duty wasn't really as boring as he had heard, and a boring mission didn't seem quite as bad as it had a few minutes before.