Faith & Empire: Book One of The Holy Terran Empire

5. Boots On The Ground

"...Blessed repose and eternal memory."

I kept an eye on the tactical display even as my fellow marines and I prayed for the souls lost on the Lionheart.

The Lepanto had lost a dozen of her batteries. Her shields were reduced to forty-four percent. The Emperor Karl was stripped of all her ventral batteries. The King Sobieski lost one on each side as well as suffering a hull breach at her prow. Both destroyers were running without force shields. The Montgisard lost a score of her guns and was fighting fires on three of her decks. The Roncevalle lost an engine and was forced to slow considerably as she listed heavily to starboard. The Raymond du Puy and the Habsburg were ordered to fall back in her defense. The Halberd and Hussar lost half their guns between them and their shields were depleted.

The pirates however were in full retreat even as they unloaded all their ordnance. Their remaining seventy-nine ships were fleeing towards the asteroid belt. The Lepanto and the destroyers were in pursuit.

The view of the Lepanto's chase disappeared in a flash of static. It was replaced by the view of our approach to Muvuru-3.

Captain Devereaux spoke up once more. "Alright everyone, enemy missiles should be rounding the horizon in ten seconds."

Enemy torpedoes climbed over the curvature of Muvuru-3 like a cloud of stars. Almost as soon as they appeared, the missiles began exploding as they flew into the torrent of our point defense fire.

Not a single one was able to punch through our fire wall.

Seconds later the enemy fighters appeared, loosening another barrage of torpedoes before our own missiles fell upon them. A dozen enemy ships were destroyed instantly. Twice that number were damaged enough to either fall from orbit or retreat planetward.

The King Alfred's tactical officer announced, "Computer counts six hundred and eleven fighters remaining."

"Firing solution Beta, initiate," Captain Devereaux ordered, unleashing another swarm of Imperial torpedos. They were accompanied by a dozen jets of plasma and a trio of rail gun shells.

Our point defense eliminated the second wave of enemy missiles as handily as it disposed of the first. The pirates fired a third volley and lobbed it our way with a rain of laser bolts and jets of plasma.

Fourty-eight of their fighters were lost to our return fire and we began to take damage.

Everyone of our ships suffered a lashing from combinations of laser and plasma. Additionally, thirty-one missiles slipped through our defensive fire. They exploded mostly against the King Alfred and the carrier Czar Peter Magnus. Our own Santo Torquemada was rocked by a couple of torpedo strikes.

The next instant, the pirate fighters released a fourth batch of torpedoes as they streaked past our battle group. Three score enemy missiles found their targets, striking mostly our big ships, the frigate and the carrier. The Santo Torquemada was hit another three times. A Lance and two Spontoons were lost to the barrage. In turn, our batteries obliterated forty-four of the fighters as they passed.

The King Alfred and Czar Peter Magnus loosed another one hundred torpedoes between them. Their missiles took out another thirty enemy fighters as they banked into another attack run.

At last, our Angels joined the battle. Their volley of missiles arrived and nearly four dozen pirate ships exploded into shards.

Moments later, the Angels were trading fire with their rival fighters. The two swarms of ships flew through each other trading torpedoes, laser bolts and jets of plasma. I winced watching collisions take out several fighters on each side. Others were destroyed by intense concentrations of point-blank range fire.