John Ringo: Vorpal Blade

“What the hell is that?” the tactical tech asked.

“What you got?” the tactical NCOIC said.

“Neutrinos,” the tech answered. “Lots of them. From the southeast about two hundred klicks. Wait…”

“Boards,” the NCOIC said, easily. “I’ve got the contact on radar.”

“But those are big signatures,” the tech pointed out. “And the neutrino count is way higher than that many boards.”

“Going visual,” the NCOIC said, punching controls for one of the tactical scopes. “And… zooming.”

“What?” the tech said, looking over at the NCOIC who was frozen at the scope.

“Conn! Tactical! We got bandits at ten o’clock!”

“Ooo-RAH!” Berg shouted, the nose of the golden surfboard pointed at the ground.

The surface must have generated some sort of sticky field. He’d started out fighting the thing but as the first sergeant nosed over and hammered it towards the ground, he had to follow.

He wasn’t sure if the thing was reading subtle clues from the armor or if it was actually reading his mind. But it was one hell of a ride. He could see the hole below, like a dark eye in the middle of a plowed field. He also noted that it was blazing with apparently random particles. Those Demon things might be biological but they had some sort of high tech basis.

“Next time,” Hatt said, passing him and giving him a thumbs up, “we drop from orbit !”

“Oorah!” Berg shouted, again, speeding up to catch up to the cannoneer. “Last one to the LZ buys the first beer when we get back!”

“You’re on, Rookie!”

“What in the hell are those?” the CO said, looking at the scope. “Are those… dragonflies?”

The species had a superficial resemblance. They had long, vaguely torpedo shaped bodies, four long wings and compound eyes. They were also brightly colored, mostly blue with flashes of red, especially on the eyes.

“I don’t know, sir,” the XO admitted. “But everything around here but the Cheerick has been pretty unfriendly.”

“The hell with this,” the CO said. “Tactical. Lase them.”

“Laser locked,” the weapons operator said.

“Fire,” Souza replied.

The front rank of the oncoming hoard of dragonflies blazed bright orange at the laser fire but kept coming.

“Did I just see what I think I saw?” he said.

“Was that some sort of shield ?” the XO replied.

“Pilot, back us up into space,” the CO said. “XO—”

“ALL HANDS! ALL HANDS! GENERAL QUARTERS! PREPARE FOR DEPRESSURIZATION! MAN GENERAL QUARTERS STATIONS!”

As he said that the group blazed red and beams of energy began slamming into the ship.

“Pilot!” the CO yelled.

“Heading for orbit now, sir!” the pilot said.

“She backs up as fast as she goes forward,” the CO said. “Keep the lasers on target! Tactical, as soon as we’re out of atmosphere, hit those things with an ardune torp!”

“Marines,” MacDonald said. “The ship is under attack. Hopefully, we can stop that by taking out this mountain. The importance of what we’re doing just went up.”

“ Maulk ,” Berg said. The ground was coming up, fast, so he flared out, taking the gees with his knees, and settled next to the large hole.

It had probably been made by one of the beetles, but if so the beast was nowhere in sight.

“Okay, Marines,” Captain MacDonald said. “By the numbers. Two-Charlie…”

“Sir,” Gunny Frandsen said. “We’re getting low on privates. Why don’t I take point?”

“Lead on, Gunny,” the CO said. “Everyone stay off the radio as much as possible. It’s liable to attract these things.”

Frandsen dropped into the hole, followed by Berg, Hattelstad and Jaenisch. They stayed on their boards since the drop was over thirty meters.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” the gunny growled, looking around. There were several tunnels branching off from the hole, but only two big enough for one of the beetles. One was headed towards the city so…

“Heading left,” Gunny Frandsen said.

The tunnel bent almost immediately, then dropped sharply downward. Gunny Frandsen slid down the slope carefully and negotiated another bend as it bottomed out. The tunnel twisted like it had been made by a snake. Just around the corner the gunny stopped at the sight of one of the smaller Demons. It was lying on the ground, its head propped on crossed forearms, and appeared to be asleep.

The gunny reached down and pulled out a bush-axe. He’d carried one ever since he was a teenager doing survey work in the arctic.

Sneaking was not impossible in a Wyvern when the floor was reasonably flat. And this one had, clearly, been flattened by the feet of quite a few Demons. It was even easier on the boards.

The gunny silently slid forward until he was looming over the Demon, then slashed downward, severing its spine.

He levered the big axe out, wiped it on the Demon, tracked right and left with his Gatling then waved the team forward.

“Sir, the hull is overheating,” the XO said. “We’re up to a thousand degrees on the rear edges.”

“And they are gaining on us,” the CO pointed out. “We’ll chill as soon as we can. Right now, we’re fighting for our lives.”

As the ship left the atmosphere, it could speed up. But, apparently, so could the dragonflies. Their wings had retracted and now projected as thin canards, tilted up and down and glowing faintly blue. And the laser fire hadn’t reduced. The sonar-dome was melted through and the forward torpedo room had had to be evacuated, the torps jettisoned before they exploded.

“What’s the atmosphere outside like?” the CO asked.

“Less than one tenth of a percent, sir,” Lieutenant Souza answered. “We should be able to survive a short-ranged hit.”

The problem was that the dragonflies had closed to within fifty klicks. The ship probably could survive an ardune strike that close, but they’d taken enough damage.

“Fire ardune torp into the center of their formation,” the CO said. “Evasion course Charlie.”

“We’ll have to turn,” Lieutenant Souza said. “Otherwise the torp’s liable to slam into us.”

“Pilot, prepare for skew turn,” the CO said. “Rear torpedoes ready?”

“Ardune torp up on four,” Lieutenant Souza replied.

“Prepare to fire on four,” the CO said. “Pilot, skew turn!”

The ship pivoted in space, continuing in the same direction but briefly presenting its rear to the oncoming dragonflies.

“Fire!” the CO shouted as the torpedo came to bear.

The skew had thrown off the fire of the dragonflies so the torpedo made it out of the tubes and, following its programming, went “up” from the ship and then forward towards the enemy.

“Fire lasers when they bear!” the CO said.

The laser to laser battle began again. By bearing on just one of the dragonflies with both lasers they’d found they could burn through its shields after a few minutes of continuous fire. Doing that, they’d dropped a few. But there were over fifty in the swarm and while their lasers were not particularly powerful, they concentrated, too.

“Forward torpedo room breached!” the XO said.

“Good thing we launched all the torps,” the CO said. “Or we’d be in a right pickle about now.”

At that moment the torpedo dropped into the midst of the enemy formation and detonated in a flash that shut down all the visual systems.

“All right !” Spectre shouted. “Eat quarkium you dragonfly bastards!”

“Wait,” the XO said, then let out a sigh. The area of effect of the warhead had been enough. Nuclear weapons don’t propagate in space the same way that they do in atmosphere. In atmosphere, besides the immediate blast area effect there are various effects from atmosphere. The blast gets propagated by compression waves, destroying far beyond the “totally destroyed” area of the actual blast.