Wing Commander #07 False Color William Forstchen (top 10 books to read .txt) 📖

"Hornet one-oh-six, feet cold!" That was pilot's slang for approaching any airless chunk of rock or ice, up to and including small planets.

They passed the boundary set arbitrarily by the navicomps. At first there was no noticeable change, but then the particle density began to rise until Babcock felt like she was flying in atmosphere. Although the rings were not very thick, the supercarrier's orbit was at a very low angle from the plane of the rings, and it took nearly half a minute on that vector to pass through them. As abruptly as they'd entered the orbiting ice cloud, they were through.

And, all at once, the threat tone sounded loud in Babcock's ears.

Bridge, Guild Privateer Bonadventure Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System 1458 hours (CST)

"Targets! Targets! Two targets, bearing zero-zero-two by zero-one zero! Range ten thousand, closing."

Zachary Banfeld rose from the captain's chair and crossed to the tactical control officer's position. "What are they?" he demanded sharply.

"Mass is just under fourteen tons each," the TACCO reported. "Length 'prox twenty-five meters . . . warbook calls them Hornet fighters."

"Hornets." Banfeld didn't bother to hide the contempt in his voice. Obsolete light fighters from ConFleet's old stock didn't pose much of a threat to his squadron.

"They will be posted as patrol craft," Gedi Tanaka commented. He was nominally the captain of the privateer, a one-time Confederation Fleet officer who had been discharged for failing to prevent a Kilrathi raider from knocking out three ships in the convoy he'd been assigned to escort. Despite that blot on his record he was a fine tactician and a capable leader, and he had flourished since coming out to the Landreich and joining the Guild. "There will be heavier fighters ready to respond to an attack."

"But not enough to stop our attack," Banfeld replied. "Not if we can get the first blow in by surprise."

He checked the tactical plot. Bonadventure had settled into orbit well ahead of the Karga, keeping the rings between the two ships. Springweather's information had made mention of a sensor glitch, and that was just the thing he needed to achieve complete surprise.

His orders from Williams were to destroy the supercarrier, but Banfeld had no intention of doing so if he could possibly knock it out without severely damaging it. Those Landreichers had worked hard restoring the ship to something like working order, and he fully intended to take advantage of their hard work. But to take out the ship's shields without causing collateral damage he'd needed an edge, and the obscuring rings had given him just what he wanted.

Bonadventure was the perfect ship for the mission, and she was ready to strike. Originally a bulk ore carrier, she'd been taken over by the Landreich government ten years back and refitted as a sort of makeshift escort carrier, with a single flight deck and a capacity of no more than twenty carried fighters. Before she was finished the Landreich Navy had pronounced her hopelessly outclassed for combat service against the Empire, and the project had been abandoned. But the orbital shipyard where she'd been building had belonged to a member of the Guild, and Banfeld had paid to have her completed and crewed as the largest of his fleet of privateers. Though she might not be able to face a stand-up fight with a Cat battle group, she was an excellent convoy escort . . . and an equally effective raider.

Against an enemy with no drives and dependent on a tender's thin-stretched shields, Bonadventure's fighter contingent would be more than adequate. Striking with surprise, they'd have the tender's shielding battered down before the carrier could scramble its available fighters, and that would be the end of the fight. Banfeld could sit back and wait for the supercarrier to fall into his hands, intact and ready to have her refitting completed by the Guild.

Of course, Mancini and Williams didn't have to know if the supercarrier was captured. Let them think he'd been forced to destroy it. They were pleased to call him one of the best agents of Y-12, but in fact Zachary Banfeld remained his own man. It was convenient—and lucrative—to work with the confees from time to time, but in the end what mattered to Banfeld was preserving the balance of power out here on the frontier. He'd take down the Landreichers before they could put a ship into service that would force Ragark to back down . . . but later it might be the Cats or the confees who needed to be cut off before they became a threat, and with the Karga he'd be nicely placed to do whatever was needed to keep the fires of war stoked high.

Banfeld smiled. He enjoyed the dangerous game he played, balancing opposing sides and growing wealthy from the profits. He imagined Ragark would offer a tidy sum for information about Murragh, the kil Springweather had claimed was the heir to the Imperial Crown. He'd kept that bit of information from Williams and Mancini, figuring that Ragark would pay more than they would. How much would it be worth to the warlord to have this rival eliminated? With luck, Banfeld would have a chance to find out. But, as he'd told Springweather, he wouldn't be telling the Cats about Karga. That was too valuable a secret to let Ragark discover. For now, at least.

The tactical plot showed the wedge of fighters shaping their course toward the oncoming Hornets . . . and the supercarrier that would soon be coming through the rings. Bonadventure's sensors were tracking the supercarrier well enough. They were top-of-the-line modules salvaged from a Kilrathi cruiser, coupled with a computer imaging program he'd picked up from the ConFleet by way of a black market source who had an inside line to the CSB. He smiled at the thought. According to Springweather that was just the sort of thing they were doing aboard Karga, cobbling together different technologies to produce an effective compromise between Cat and