enemy contacts. That's the debris clouds from the Battle of Deimos Lagrange you're reading on passive LiDAR. That's the wreckage of Khan and Hannibal . They drifted into the L-4 Lagrange point and now the debris cloud follows Deimos around Mars – probably will for a while."
Even in prison, he'd seen that battle happen from the view of camera drones and radar telescopes. They'd all watched Humanity lose that encounter. The Squidies' 800-meter dreadnought burned Hannibal from the inside and sliced Khan's hull and her bulkheads until there wasn't a piece left over 5-meters. The ships that met it had been the UNS flagships. They had the thickest armor and the biggest guns. And they didn't put a single hole in the alien dreadnought's armor.
At the recently savaged, but quickly rebuilding Staas Company Yards at Deimos, they sighted SCS Hardway and two other carriers – Pont Neuf and Araby. As the Lancers and their pack of Dingoes closed on Hardway , Jordo's helmet highlighted the 50-meter junks on patrol around her. At least six flights protected the carrier.
" Hardway CAP, Hardway CAP. This is Lancer 1-1. The 133rd are approaching off the carrier's bow."
"Roger, Lancer 1-1, this is Flight 3 and Kiwi . My, my, my... Will you look at all those flyin' nuggets? Seems like just yesterday we sprung all y'all from prison. Welcome to the party, Lancers. You are cleared to approach the barn. Contact Hardway AT for bay assignments."
Jordo knew she was big, but when he realized the specks he saw in one of her 70-meter bays were QF-111 Dingoes like theirs, the real scale of the carrier fell into place. It was five times Arbitrage's length.
Shafter took them on a flyby. Hardway was 950-meters long and mounted on her spine in discrete sections were railgun batteries on the bow, twin launch bay modules (48 bays), and another battery of railguns set between them that looked like they belonged on a battleship. Light poured out from a hundred portholes in what looked like habitat modules.
The command tower and its antenna spires rose a couple hundred meters above and below the spine. At the top he saw the light from the larger windows that looked down on every part of the ship. He zoomed in with his flight helmet. A figure...a dark-haired woman standing there pointed at the squadron as it flew past. That was the bridge.
"Lancer 1-1, this is Hardway Air Group Commander, Asa Biko. The 133rd are now officially under my command. You and your pack of QF-111s are cleared to land in forward bays 33-39, starboard side. Doors opening now."
Some of the open bays they passed contained 50-meter mining junks, but the bays where Biko sent the Lancers had been launching QF-111 Dingoes. There weren't any drones actually in there at the time, but he recognized the maintenance gear from Arbitrage . It was the same gear they used on the F-151s.
A crew of Hardway's redsuits watched his flight land. They all leaned against the bulkheads with their matchbox computers projecting one part of the Bitzer or another in the air in front of them.
The first one to approach seemed friendly enough. "I'm Raleigh," he said. First thing he did after Jordo climbed down the ladder from the cockpit was ask if he could climb up and take a look inside.
"Sure." What else was he going to say?
The redsuit was up the ladder on the starboard side in half a second and he seemed to know where the release latches were. "We just got cleared for the manuals on these 151s twenty minutes before you arrived," he said. Jordo felt pretty possessive, but these guys were going to be crawling all over his plane as soon as he turned his back and he was going to be trusting them with his life, so he tried hard not to say anything stupid like, 'don't break anything'.
Snooze shouted up to the redsuit in Jordo's cockpit, "Hey, don't break anything up there!" He didn't stick his head out, just his gloved hand with finger extended.
Jordo said, "You guys never seen one of these before?"
"Nope,"
Even in prison, he'd seen that battle happen from the view of camera drones and radar telescopes. They'd all watched Humanity lose that encounter. The Squidies' 800-meter dreadnought burned Hannibal from the inside and sliced Khan's hull and her bulkheads until there wasn't a piece left over 5-meters. The ships that met it had been the UNS flagships. They had the thickest armor and the biggest guns. And they didn't put a single hole in the alien dreadnought's armor.
At the recently savaged, but quickly rebuilding Staas Company Yards at Deimos, they sighted SCS Hardway and two other carriers – Pont Neuf and Araby. As the Lancers and their pack of Dingoes closed on Hardway , Jordo's helmet highlighted the 50-meter junks on patrol around her. At least six flights protected the carrier.
" Hardway CAP, Hardway CAP. This is Lancer 1-1. The 133rd are approaching off the carrier's bow."
"Roger, Lancer 1-1, this is Flight 3 and Kiwi . My, my, my... Will you look at all those flyin' nuggets? Seems like just yesterday we sprung all y'all from prison. Welcome to the party, Lancers. You are cleared to approach the barn. Contact Hardway AT for bay assignments."
Jordo knew she was big, but when he realized the specks he saw in one of her 70-meter bays were QF-111 Dingoes like theirs, the real scale of the carrier fell into place. It was five times Arbitrage's length.
Shafter took them on a flyby. Hardway was 950-meters long and mounted on her spine in discrete sections were railgun batteries on the bow, twin launch bay modules (48 bays), and another battery of railguns set between them that looked like they belonged on a battleship. Light poured out from a hundred portholes in what looked like habitat modules.
The command tower and its antenna spires rose a couple hundred meters above and below the spine. At the top he saw the light from the larger windows that looked down on every part of the ship. He zoomed in with his flight helmet. A figure...a dark-haired woman standing there pointed at the squadron as it flew past. That was the bridge.
"Lancer 1-1, this is Hardway Air Group Commander, Asa Biko. The 133rd are now officially under my command. You and your pack of QF-111s are cleared to land in forward bays 33-39, starboard side. Doors opening now."
Some of the open bays they passed contained 50-meter mining junks, but the bays where Biko sent the Lancers had been launching QF-111 Dingoes. There weren't any drones actually in there at the time, but he recognized the maintenance gear from Arbitrage . It was the same gear they used on the F-151s.
A crew of Hardway's redsuits watched his flight land. They all leaned against the bulkheads with their matchbox computers projecting one part of the Bitzer or another in the air in front of them.
The first one to approach seemed friendly enough. "I'm Raleigh," he said. First thing he did after Jordo climbed down the ladder from the cockpit was ask if he could climb up and take a look inside.
"Sure." What else was he going to say?
The redsuit was up the ladder on the starboard side in half a second and he seemed to know where the release latches were. "We just got cleared for the manuals on these 151s twenty minutes before you arrived," he said. Jordo felt pretty possessive, but these guys were going to be crawling all over his plane as soon as he turned his back and he was going to be trusting them with his life, so he tried hard not to say anything stupid like, 'don't break anything'.
Snooze shouted up to the redsuit in Jordo's cockpit, "Hey, don't break anything up there!" He didn't stick his head out, just his gloved hand with finger extended.
Jordo said, "You guys never seen one of these before?"
"Nope,"
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