King gritted his teeth. "How long before they catch us now?" He had to speak loudly over the roaring engines.
"I don't know, sir. Depends on their maximum speed. Judging by their current acceleration rate, if we push our engines hard and divert all power to our Talaria drive, we can delay the battle by thirteen minutes."
"Do it," King said. "Keep running. As fast as you can." He turned toward the rest of his crew. "In thirteen minutes or less, we'll have a battle on our hands. We need to prepare. If anyone has a brilliant plan, speak up now."
* * * * *
The crew was silent.
The Freedom charged across space, but the clawships kept pursuing. They were gaining on them.
King turned toward his XO. "Jordan, what do you think?"
Jordan's eyes were dark. "We have no weapons. Only one Goliath projectile for the Fist of Freedom, and it's a dummy. Hollow. Just a fake for the tourists to snap photos of."
"Then we'll have to get creative," King said. "I was hoping to reach the Mercury armory before we had to fight. But we're gonna have to fight at least one battle unarmed. We have fireworks. We shoot them for the tourists from the Angels of Liberty."
Jordan tilted his head. "You're not suggesting we shoot fireworks at them, Jim? Even if Mimori can disable their shields, they still have armored hulls. Fireworks won't even scratch them. We might as well shoot spitballs."
Maybe we should shoot out the tourists, King thought.
"Fireworks are not lethal, but they can blind the enemy," King said. "And the Fist of Freedom is more than a railgun. It's a ramming weapon too. Two rails of solid metal, hundreds of meters long—they can rip through an enemy hull." He smiled grimly. "Remember the battle against the Xiaoping?"
Jordan nodded. "Of course. We rammed her. Tore right through her. But Jim, that was a Red Dawn frigate. Much slower, much weaker. These clawships …" He shook his head. "I've never seen ships fly like this."
"That's why we'll blind the bastards," King said. "If we can blind 'em, we can ram 'em."
Jordan nodded. "All right. It's a crazy plan. But it sounded crazy back in World War III too. I'll begin coordinating things with the gunnery boys. We'll get those fireworks loaded in time. We'll put on a show."
"Mimori, how long do I have?" King said.
"Nine minutes, sir," the android said. "They're accelerating faster than I thought. I've shut down everything but life support in the tourist decks, and I'm diverting that energy to our Talaria drive. But our acceleration is slow compared to theirs, and—"
"Got it," King said. "Mimori, send out an ATLAS probe. Have it hover five hundred klicks above us. I want an eye up there."
"Launching probe now, sir," said the android.
A device the size of a coffeepot soared into space. The probe offered them an extra camera, which they could connect to from the bridge, giving them a bird's-eye view of the battle. Such probes had proved themselves priceless in the last war.
"Probe in position, sir. Seven minutes until the enemy reaches us."
King turned away from the android. "Colonel Levy!"
The Israeli fighter pilot looked at him, chin raised. She had stayed up drinking late last night. Her flight suit was wrinkled. Her eyes were red. But she snapped to attention right away. "Yes, sir!"
"There are two hundred Eagle starfighters on this ship. I want them launching within the next eight minutes. I want your Eagles to attack two enemy clawships while we ram the third."
Spitfire frowned. "Attack them with what, sir? My Eagles don't have missiles. And we're not equipped for shooting fireworks either. Do you want us to perform stunts for them?"
"Eagle starfighters come with a compartment for firing chaff at enemies," King said. "During World War III, the Red Dawn would often attack our Eagles with heat-seeking missiles. So we'd open our back hatches, and we'd release clouds of chaff. Screws. Strips of aluminum. Any scrap metal we could find."
Spitfire nodded. "I know. We store snacks in those compartments now."
"Well, fill them with chaff!" King said. "Grab whatever you can. Anything metal. Hell, fill bins with cutlery and dump that in. Whatever you can get in eight minutes! Seven minutes now. At high enough speeds, chaff can severely compromise a hull. Go! Get to work."
Spitfire hesitated. "Sir, we're just stunt pilots."
"Not today. Today you're all fighter pilots. Now go, Colonel! Get my starfighters flying."
"Yes, sir!" She ran off the bridge.
"Five more minutes, sir," Mimori said. "They're gaining on us. I can't go any faster."
"Jordan, how are the Angels of Liberty doing?" King said.
There were fourteen Angels in all—cannons that thrust out from the starship, seven on each side.
"The gunners got three loaded with fireworks, all on the starboard side," Jordan said. "They're working on the rest."
"Three minutes, sir!" Mimori said. "They're moving faster than I expected."
King cursed. "Mimori, begin to position our starboard hull toward the enemy. We'll hit 'em with fireworks, then yaw so our prow faces them, charge them head-on, and ram the bastards."
"Should I stop fleeing?" Mimori asked. "Two more minutes until they reach us."
King nodded. "Yes. It's time. Slow to a halt and prepare for battle. And get those shield disruptors ready to fire."
"Understood. Beginning our yaw, sir."
It could take a dreadnought the size of the Freedom a while to yaw under the best conditions. It also required massive amounts of energy diverted from other systems to the side thrusters.
The deck plates creaked. Motors rumbled. King could feel the massive starship turning. The Talaria drive began to hum down, slowing the ship as they turned. The side thrusters roared, surging with energy. Power rumbled and clattered through pipes and cables. The lights dimmed as the Freedom sucked up all the energy she could.
King stared at his bridge crew. "Godspeed, everyone."
He looked at the main monitor. The three enemy ships were coming in fast, almost on them now. A hundred steel claws sprouted from each vessel, pointing at the Freedom. As King watched, those claws began to extend, blooming open to reveal centers of glowing plasma.
"Sir, we're now in position to aim the Angels and fire," Mimori said. "Should I launch the shield disruptors?"
The alien ships bloomed wider. Their centers blazed, furious and blinding.
"Not yet," King said. "Mimori, cut our engines. Divert all available power to starboard shields."
It was a risk. There was no fleeing this fight now. They were in this to take the punches—and hopefully dish out some punishment too.
"Diverting full power to starboard shields," Mimori said. "Stern engines powering down. Sir … waiting for your order to disrupt their shields."
"Not yet, Mimori!"
King just hoped his own shields would hold. These shields had withstood Red Dawn torpedoes, even a nuclear blast. But could they take rah plasma?
"Jim, we need to disrupt their shields now!" Jordan said.
"Wait for my order," King whispered. "Wait …"
The enemy stormed closer.
Their plasma crackled white-hot.
"Mimori, disrupt their shields!" King shouted. "Now!"
The Freedom thrummed. Waves of photons blasted outward and washed over the enemy.
Shields blazed to life around the three clawships—orange webs of electromagnetic energy. The shields flared, trembled—and vanished.
"Their shields are down!" Mimori cried. A few officers cheered.
Jordan raised his eyes from a control panel. "All starboard cannons loaded with fireworks! Awaiting your order, Jim." The XO grimaced. "I hope this works."
The three alien ships were fully dilated now, displaying their swirling, flaming cores.
Plasma surged forth.
"Fire!" King shouted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Starship Freedom
79 million kms from Earth
04:0
1 December 26, 2199
King's voice echoed across the bridge.
"Fire!"
The Bloodlust, one of the enemy clawships, had gotten off a shot first. The plasma was storming toward the Freedom—a spinning, crackling stream of death.
"Five seconds to plasma impact!" Mimori cried.
A ship the size of the Freedom was too slow to dodge an assault at such close range. Definitely not with the power flowing to their shields and cannons, leaving their Talaria drive to idle.
"Four seconds!" Mimori said.
"Why aren't we firing?" King demanded.
"The enemy is moving fast, and we need to re-aim our cannons," Mimori replied. "Three seconds to impact!"
King saw it on the monitor. That flaming stream of death charging toward them, closer and closer, devouring the distance.
Motors hummed. Atop the Freedom, the Angels of Liberty were moving, readjusting their aim. The bridge vibrated as the enormous cannons rotated.
"Two seconds to impact!"
"Fire, dammit!" King shouted. "Fire now!"
The Freedom's mighty cannons fired.
Silvery canisters flew into space, streaming toward the enemy. They were full of fireworks, which had not yet detonated.
"One second to—" Mimori began.
The jet of plasma hit.
A locomotive of fury plowed into the Freedom's starboard hull.
The ship shook.
Klaxons blared.
Smoke filled the bridge. Red lights strobed.
"Our shields held, sir!" Mimori said, and a few officers cheered.
A few thousand klicks ahead, right by the enemy ships, the fireworks burst.
They were special fireworks the ship was saving for the annual Fourth of July Freedom BBQ Bash. It was always a hit with the American tourists. Now the red and blue fireworks lit up space. The red ones streaked in every direction, painting stripes through the darkness. The blue fireworks sparkled like ten thousand stars.
The grand display, with all its American glory, flowed over the three rah clawships. It draped them with flags of light.
"Yaw toward them and charge!" King shouted, ignoring the agony in his throat. "Full power to thrust! Ram the middle one, the one that burned us. GO!"
Mimori had already begun the yaw. She deflected power from shields back to the Talaria drive, which was still primed and red-hot.
The Freedom charged like a bull.
She stormed toward the blinded enemy. Faster. Faster.
"Sir!" came Spitfire's voice over the MindWeb. "I still need a few minutes to grab chaff, I—"
"Hold on to something, Spitfire!" King said.
The Freedom blazed through the red and blue fireworks.
The enemy fired again. All three clawships were firing now. Plasma washed over the Freedom's prow, searing the shields, melting several sensors. Warnings flashed. The Freedom kept flying, roaring through the inferno. The flames blazed around them, forming a hemisphere of light. And still the Freedom flew. Proximity alarms screamed. One thousand klicks away. Five hundred. And—
The mighty rails of the starship Freedom plowed into a clawship—a vessel twice her size.
King fell and banged his knees on the deck. Monitors shattered. Control panels ripped free. Mimori slammed down beside King. Crew members flew, hit the bulkheads, the deck, the railings.
And still the Freedom flew. King felt them moving.
Half the goddamn ATLAS monitors were down. King pulled up MindPlay and connected to the telemetry probe, which was still flying five hundred klicks above the Freedom. He hallucinated a monitor, which hovered in the air before him. It displayed a video from the probe, showing him a bird's-eye view of the Freedom.
King lost his breath.
His starship had slammed into the Wandering Widow, one of the black clawships. The railgun's two mighty prongs, each the size of a skyscraper, had impaled the rah dreadnought. The Freedom was like a fork stuck in a piece of meat. And the ship was still flying, shoving the enemy back through space.
"Mimori, fire the railgun!" King said.
"Commander?" Mimori tilted her head. "You mean … fire the Fist of Freedom?" They had not fired it since the last war. "I would need confirmation from the XO. But sir, there's barely any power in the rails. And no Goliath projectiles loaded."
Lieutenant Commander Jordan pushed himself up. The tall XO was bleeding from his forehead.
"Jim, you know we don't have any Goliaths to fire," he said.
The two other clawships, the ones not impaled, came flying in fast. They flanked the Freedom. Plasma crackled inside them.
"Fire the goddamn railgun!" King shouted. "Just turn the damn thing on and fire a blank. Now!"
Jordan nodded. He seemed to understand. "Do it, Mimori."
"Yes, sirs!" said the android.
Enormous, unimaginable power surged through the starship, streaming toward the railgun.
The two clawships flanking them opened fire.
Electricity raced across the bridge's deck, the bulkheads, raising everyone's hackles, racing to the prow. Vast electromagnetic fields pulsed out the hulls, rocking the flanking clawships.
For the first time in decades, the Fist of Freedom turned on.
Plasma slammed into both the port and starboard sides of the Freedom.
The Fist was only at seven percent power. It had no projectiles to hurl. But it roared, and its two rails lit up with furious white electricity.
The hull shields heated, heated, began to crack, to melt. The plasma was unrelenting. The klaxons wailed in protest. Mimori screamed.
The electricity surged from the rails into the clawship they impaled.
The Wandering Widow burst open like a black dragon egg.
The mighty clawship, a vessel the size of a town, tore right in two.
Claws the size of city blocks flew through space. Chunks of craggy black hull scattered every which way. Some pieces of the destroyed clawship pounded the Bloodlust and Venom, the two surviving rah vessels.
Both Bloodlust and Venom reeled in space. Their jets of plasma spurted harmlessly into the distance, giving the Freedom some respite. Just in time too. The port shield was down to forty percent, the starboard to thirty-five percent.
The rails were free.
One clawship down. Two to go.
* * * * *
"Spitfire, where are my Eagles!" King shouted into his MindLink. The bridge smoked around him. The two clawships were raring for more brutality.
King hallucinated Spitfire running across the starfighter hangar, shoving a cart of cutlery.
"Getting chaff, sir, as you ordered!" Spitfire said. "Had to stop by the galley. Needed to grab a ton of cutlery, as you suggested."
"Get those Eagles into the fight, dammit!"
"Yes, sir! One more minute, sir. Two tops. Definitely no more than five."
King shut off the hallucination. "Mimori, how long until you can charge the rails again? Even five percent is enough to shock the enemy."
The android winced. "I can't charge them, sir. Not if we want the shields to stay up. The Fist of Freedom is out of commission for at least seven, eight hours. Longer if we want a full charge."
That had always been the downside of the gargantuan railgun. The damn thing took so long to charge. To charge it enough to cause serious damage took a full day, even under the best conditions.
When fully charged, when hurling its legendary Goliaths, the Fist of Freedom could destroy worlds. That was why the XO needed to authorize its use; even the commander of the ship could not wield such power alone.
Well, the Fist was down for now. The Eagles were still in the hangar. The Angels of Liberty, the Freedom's secondary weapons, were out of fireworks. During the war, the Angels had fired the dreaded Maccabee torpedoes, but they had none today, not until they reached the armory. A hundred machine-gun nests sprouted across the Freedom's hull, but what use were they without bullets?
Out of weapons. Out of options. And two
clawships came charging right at them, one from each side.
Perfect.
Not how King had imagined his first day of retirement.
"We should try another ram," Jordan suggested.
King shook his head. "No. Without a charge in the rail, we'll get lodged inside one clawship. The other clawship would rip us apart. Spitfire?"
"Two more minutes, sir!" she replied through MindWeb.
King's upper lip twitched. He sent a telepathic transmission to everyone in the gunnery department.
"Gunners! This is your commander. Load the Angels of Liberty with whatever you can. Anything heavy. Chunks of loose bulkhead. Metal furniture. Railings. Helmets. Anything you can grab! We'll fire what we can."
Several dozen tiny icons hovered before King—the crew responsible for the Angels of Liberty. They all saluted and sounded their yes sirs. One of them was a Mimori model, one of the three midsection units.
"Jordan, stay on their asses," King said. "Let me know when the Angels are ready."
"Got it, Jim." Jordan summoned his own MindPlay interface, overseeing the work on the cannons.
But they were out of time.
The Venom opened her metal jaws and unleashed hell.
"Mimori, evasive maneuvers!" King barked.
"Yes, sir!"
The Talaria engines roared. The Freedom shot forward. She barely dodged the stream of plasma.
Meanwhile, the Bloodlust yawed and charged toward the Freedom. Her red claws thrust forward. She was the largest of the enemy ships, dwarfing the Freedom. Hel'rah was aboard that ship, no doubt cackling away.
"She's going to ram us!" King said.
"Not today," said Mimori, yawing hard and rolling toward their port side.
The two ships shot toward one another.
The Bloodlust's claws gleamed. The Fist of Freedom thrust out its rails. The claws were longer.
King braced himself for impact.
"Mimori!" King cried. He wasn't sure the Freedom could take another collision. Not with those claws aimed right at them.
Those things will rip us open like a can of sardines, he thought.
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