Odyssey of War

Chapter 7: Infiltration

Within moments of the attack order, all weapons were firing upon the Dytari ship. The wormhole closed behind it, releasing radiation and sending a shockwave towards the Razorclaw and damaging its hull. The ship's weapons had little effect on the Dytari ship's shield, which surrounded the ship like a bubble.

The Dytari fighters engaged us, hundreds of plasma bolts whizzing around. "Break formation!" Phillip shouted over the comms. This variant of Dytari fighter looked like a stingray, another nickname to add to the list.

I veered the craft away from the group, and found myself facing the Dytari ship. It loomed over our ships, but hadn't fired any sort of weapon. Most of its hull was crimson, and it had many bulbous sections. The ship itself was easily over 14 kilometers long and six kilometers wide, dwarfing all of our ships combined. The three spikes were present on the underside of the ship.

"Sergeant, we need to destroy that ship. Radio waves cannot go through Dytari shields, so I'm placing you in charge when comms cut off. Now hurry!" Martin ordered.

"Roger that," I replied.

"Everyone in formation behind Delta Lead" Carlos said.

As they did so I said, "Sam, will the explosives be safe going through the shields?"

"They should be, they have electronic deflector coating" he replied.

"Good. I'll head through first. If my fighter is destroyed then all of you are to turn around, is that clear?"

"Yes Sergeant" Phillip replied.

As I piloted the fighter closer to the lightly visible shields, I could see a hexagonal pattern on it. Here goes nothing I thought as I activated the shield-bypassing mechanism, otherwise known as an SBM. Just before the fighter touched the shield, arcs of electricity shot out of the SBM, causing the shield to go wavy. This all happened in an instant, and I was quickly inside the shield.

Once the others saw, they proceeded to do the same. Most of them got through, except Sergeant Dennis Weaver, one of Zulu squad's support soldiers. His fighter broke up as it hit the shield, resulting in a short lived explosion. I received the crash information on my fighters flight computer, his SBM had malfunctioned, and it hadn't warned him.

"Dennis!" I heard Sergeant Amber Washington shout. Many of us had seen Dennis and Amber together, and I heard they had been close friends since childhood.

We got back in formation, but came under fire from the ship's plasma cannons. "We can't stay out here Sergeant, we need to find a way inside!" Carlos said.

"I agree," I replied as I scanned the ship's hull. I spotted what could be a closed hangar door in a large canal-like section, "Get into a scattered formation, and strike that lower canal on the ship's underside with hornets"

"Roger that" Lindsey acknowledged. Hornet missiles were small, rocket powered and were designed to puncture. They were filled with thermite, and so could melt structures, vehicles, etc. Unfortunately they hadn't been tested on materials used by the Dytari.

One by one we fired a single hornet missile, striking the section with pinpoint accuracy. On the last few impacts, we could see the section begin to melt. At this point the air pressure had changed, so all sorts of things came flying out of the opening. The area inside was large enough to hold our fighters.

"Ok everyone, release poppers and file into the opening" I ordered. Poppers were considered space fireworks. When fired, they split into five and created sparks. They also jammed tracking devices, not that that would stop Dytari scanners. Outside the shield the Dytari fighters were still harassing our ships. The Razorclaw was taking tremendous amounts of damage, and was only just keeping together.