Bandits Engaged (Battlegroup Z Book 4) by Daniel Gibbs (novels in english txt) 📕

no getting away from them. They smacked the already-weakened shields of the enemy ship before slicing through the corvette’s hull.

A small explosion dotted out of the starboard-side thruster assembly on the corvette, and the ship began to drift.

“Target disabled, Captain,” Martin said with a tone of triumph. “No incoming weapons fire.”

“What about their fighter screen?”

“Six units combat effective. All ours are alive and well.”

It was only a matter of time. The moment the Greengold arrived, they would deploy the Marines and capture the ship. If Grant was fortunate, they might even be able to tow the corvette into the carrier’s hangar. Probably too much to hope for. As a spy, he’d learned to take what he was given and always try for a little more but never get greedy. Greed got good spooks killed.

“Wormhole opening, five hundred kilometers to starboard,” Douglas said suddenly. “Same signature. Exact same silhouette as the pirate corvette.”

A stream of plasma fire and a neutron beam from the newcomer removed any doubt about their intentions.

Grant barely kept from being thrown into the overhead as the Farnborough rocked. He grabbed the sides of his chair. “Shield status?” he barked.

“Port deflectors close to failure, Captain. Aft is showing stress.”

While the Farnborough had overpowered protective energy screens, it lacked a reinforced and armored hull. As a result, it couldn’t handle a straight-up slugging match. The Q-ship was designed to hit hard, hit fast, and win quickly.

“Comms, where the hell is the Zvika Greengold?” Grant’s calm, unflappable exterior began to unravel. He could see the writing on the wall.

“The last message I received, sir, was they were one jump away.”

Grant studied the plot. It showed the icon for the pirate vessel looping around, presumably for another attack run. “Redirect all weapons to the new hostile.”

“I’ve got a firing solution, sir. Neutron beams and plasma cannons. The mag-cannons will take a few minutes to reload.”

“Fire.”

Plasma bolts raced away from the Farnborough’s nose and two turrets mounted amidships. They tracked the corvette. Some hit its deflectors, while others harmlessly overshot. Much as with the attack on its stricken consort, the Q-ship’s neutron beams struck fast and true. Their energy lashed against the pirate vessel’s shields, creating a bright-green skid effect. Simultaneously, the deceptively small ship matched everything the Farnborough threw at it and then some. Plasma bolts peppered the freighter’s weakened port shield quarter, followed by the coup-de-grace: a full-power blast of a cruiser-sized neutron cannon.

“Captain, we’ve got hull ruptures in holds two, four, and six. Atmosphere is venting,” Douglas said, alarmed.

“Seal it off with emergency bulkheads,” Grant replied. “Maintain fire on the enemy.”

“Sir, we’re not built for this,” Douglas said as she tapped at her console. “The Farnborough can’t take sustained hull damage. We’ll blow apart in the middle.”

Grant was in no mood to hear any opposition. He would defeat the pirates—period. “Maintain fire on the enemy. Or I’ll have you escorted off the bridge and do it myself.”

“Yes, sir.” Douglas stole a glance at the communications officer.

They probably wish the old captain were here. I judged him too weak to accomplish the task. Grant stared at the sensor display as the pirate vessel turned on a dime and headed straight for them. I’ll give the bastards this… they don’t give up either. “Why aren’t we firing, tactical?”

“The last hits damaged our power relays. It's taking longer to charge the weapons enough to fire,” Douglas replied, exasperated. “Minimum charge achieved.”

“Fire,” Grant growled.

Again, the Q-ship lashed away at the enemy with her entire weapons suite. A well-coordinated salvo from her magnetic cannons and the port neutron-beam emitter inflicted severe damage to the corvette’s shields. During the final moment the beam was activated, it bored into the hull of the pirate craft, turning the armor plating molten.

Douglas sucked in a breath, and her eyes got a bit wider. “Inbound wormhole.”

If that’s our friend’s bulk hauler carrier… well, I might be leaving this plane of existence sooner than I’d expected. Grant stared straight ahead. Nothing he could do would change the outcome.

“CDF signature. It’s the Zvika Greengold.” Douglas exhaled loudly enough it that carried a meter to the captain's chair.

“Excellent.” Grant grinned. “Always in time, indeed.”

The artificial wormhole grew larger until it reached critical mass and burst open in a kaleidoscope of color. From it came the bow of the Greengold, followed quickly by the rest of the carrier. While it was still emerging, the newcomer turned toward the enemy. Her point-defense weaponry lashed out at the nearest pirate fighters, and two blue beams of death erupted from her bow, smacking the corvette’s shields. But they caught the undamaged side of the ship instead of the one the Farnborough had wounded.

“Send my compliments to Colonel Tehrani,” Grant said. “And tell her to get the Marines moving. We’ve got a ship to capture.”

Major Kosuke Nishimura, Terran Coalition Marine Corps, climbed through the hatch into one of three stealth breaching pods lined up neatly in the Zvika Greengold’s main hangar. Each held twenty Marines in full power armor along with their weapons. He’d handpicked each person on the craft, defaulting first to those who’d completed VBSS training on the way to Sol and participated in capturing the League freighter. The remaining few were those whom his senior enlisted man, Master Gunnery Sergeant Malcolm O’Connor, had picked out and vouched for. Between him and the platoon sergeants, they’d planned to assault the pirate corvette with two pods, leaving one in reserve in case resistance was unusually high. Nishimura felt the craft couldn’t have more than fifty crew members, and none of them could hold a candle to the training and weaponry of a TC Marine.

The interior was cramped even without nineteen other power-armored Marines. One by one, the rest of the team slid in and locked themselves into the anti-grav harnesses. Designed to support the extreme g-forces the pod could subject its occupants to, they also gimbaled around as necessary.

Nishimura toggled his commlink to the command channel, where the pilots of the pods and his