War Fleet: Resistance

from Rob and he’d ignored it. The cyborg’s regular reports tended to be mind-numbingly detailed, with little of actual note. Until now, it seemed.
“As you wish, Captain. The current target asteroid has an average N-number of 318, indicating a highly unstable core. The rock is emitting gamma and beta radiation at consistent, near-hazardous levels. Upon approach from the miners, it has pulsed well above hazard levels twice in the last half-hour. However, neither pulse lasted long enough to do damage to our hardened systems.”
“Let me guess,” Olsen said. “They still want to set charges on it?”
The mining operation was technically civilian. The Tapper was just there to support them. But in practice, it was Tapper ships and pilots out there ferrying the miners around. The ship itself was considered a mining ship, in spite of her military designation.
Rob shrugged. “My analysis shows the probability of finding metrinium at thirty-five percent.”
That gave Olsen pause. He’d not heard a probability that high since they’d arrived in the tight-knit belt of asteroids in the Hardy-Myers sector. He could hardly blame the miners.
“Captain, the incoming ships are assuming an attack formation,” Santiago said. “We have weapons signatures.”
“It seems the light show has attracted some unwanted attention,” Olsen said. “What assets do we have out there?”
“The Extractor, sir. She just started her final approach to the target asteroid.”
“Who’s on the stick?”
“Redrock,” Rob said.
Olsen felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach. Redrock was Lieutenant Edward Nathan’s call sign. He was the best pilot Olsen had ever known. He was also like a son to him.
Olsen nodded at Santiago, who immediately put him through to the Extractor.
“Lieutenant, we have hostiles inbound. Get back here at full thrust before they lock a tractor beam on you.”
“No kidding,” Nathan said curtly. “I was waiting to hear from you. I’m already headed back.”
“Head back faster,” Olsen said sharply. “Tapper out.”
He opened a hatch on his armrest and tapped a button within. Klaxons sounded on deck, and the light in the room went from soft white to a harsh, pulsing red. An automated voice called for battle stations.
Olsen glanced down at his cold coffee. “What the hell,” he muttered to himself as he drained it.

2
The Tapper was no pushover. She could handle a few small hostile ships, but this was supposed to be light support duty for a mining operation in the middle of nowhere. The Tapper was skeleton-crewed and lightly armed. Her bark was worse than her bite.
And for months, that had been more than enough. As he’d predicted when this mission had started, Olsen was bored out of his mind.
The mining company wasn’t doing much better. Fifty asteroids broken apart, and not one speck of metrinium. They’d come all this way to the far reaches of space to obtain the resource necessary for powering the new fusion-cannons in the modern super-dreadnought battleships, but so far, there hadn’t been a trace of anything.
But here was something, Olsen thought. Something less than ideal. “Can you max magnify?”
The view on the screen went grainy, but the incoming ships were close enough that shapes emerged.
“Cruiser-class vessels,” Rob said.
“And from the look of it,” Olsen said, “they’re outfitted with 7800-Celsius laser turrets on each flank.”
“And underbelly ion-cannons,” the cyborg said, noting the protrusions.
Olsen swore under his breath. “How long until Nathan gets here?”
“ETA in thirteen seconds,” Rob replied.
“As soon as he passes the launch doors, fire up the shields. No delays.” In the distance, the ion-cannon on the largest vessel started to glow bright white. Ion-cannons cost an absolute fortune, but the weapon was so powerful its beam could pulverize a moderately-sized unprotected ship in seconds. It contained enough energy to completely short a destroyer’s shield, if it hit at the right angle.
In other words, the Tapper was in trouble.
“Five seconds,” Rob said.
Static pulled at the hairs on Olsen’s beard as the light bloomed ever brighter at the front of the ion-cannon. “Schmidt, heat up the lasers, dammit.”
“Yessir.” The gravelly voice of the weapons officer, Lieutenant Commander Teller Schmidt, boomed across the CIC.
A massive beam of light shot out from the front of the nearest incoming ship. “Shields!” Olsen shouted. He worried he’d left it too late, but the beam hit a wall of energy and dissolved into it. A blue band pulsed out of this just in front of the ship.
The shields started to sputter, but they managed to hold, albeit barely.
“Redrock,” Olsen said. “Did you make it?”
No answer.
“Redrock—”
“Affirmative, sir,” the shuttle pilot’s voice came back over the radio. “Our backside got a little toasty, but we made it.”
Olsen turned to his weapons officer. “And the shields, Schmidt?”
“Twenty-five percent, sir. If another ion-beam hits the hull, we’re shrapnel.”
Olsen tugged on his uniform’s collar, loosening a bead of sweat that trickled down his chest. “Charge the left coilgun.”
The Tapper had two large guns designed for searing into a ship’s hull, alongside four side-mounted 5300-Celsius laser turrets. Not the highest-tech equipment, but good enough to pack a punch.
Olsen glanced at Ensign Boris Chang, the ship’s youngest officer. “Go down below and see if you can squeeze some extra juice into those coilguns,” he said. “Work your magic.”


3
“You got it, Cap’n,” Chang said, before he even thought about what he was agreeing to. He ran to the rear door and pushed the release button to open it. The clanking of the magnets on his boots against the deck plating echoed out from the corridor. Only the principal rooms on the Tapper could afford artificial gravity.
Chang was out of breath when he got to the defense bay. Still, he knew time was thin. Ion cannons were notoriously slow to recharge, but if one ship had them, then they all might. And in the meantime, standard lasers could do plenty of damage with their shields weakened.
Chang punched open the doors, turned off his mag-boots, and pulled himself inside using the door frame. He had artificial gravity in here, necessary for all the technology to work correctly. He landed lightly on the floor, closed the