by Alex Deva
"Sir, X-Ray One is opening."
The tactical lieutenant didn't wait for the order; he sent the imagery directly to his superior's screen. The alien ship had been twisting this way and that, trying to dodge the bullets and the missiles. Its maximum profile -- the top side, they would've called it if it was lying flat on the ground -- was currently turned towards Wing Six, Jack Broughman's ship. His crew was sending real-time visuals to both the Kennedy and Wing Two. The core of the black ship, a cylinder with three flat, curved spokes emerging from it towards the surrounding torus, suddenly opened like an iris. Jack's tactical officer carefully adjusted the telescope camera and zoomed in.
"What. The. Fuck," enunciated lieutenant commander Broughman slowly, over the open ship-to-ship channel, forgetting himself.
The telescopic camera had excellent quality. Every detail was vivid and perfect. There could be no illusion.
In the open cylinder there was one man. A blond man, in civilian clothing, wearing no kind of space suit whatsoever. His shoulder-length hair flew towards the space, as the air in the chamber ejected powerfully.
He seemed to be lying on his back on the floor, but they quickly saw that he was in fact anchored there. Thick, grey tendrils were visible across his torso, solidly strapping him to the floor and exposing him to the open space.
Bullets that were beginning to make it through the laser barrage hit the cylinder hard, and one even managed to find its way inside, crashing into the floor, right next to the man.
He was under immense physical stress. His thick arm muscles were bulging, veins swollen by the sudden lack of atmospheric pressure, but also by great effort. In his arms was a grey pyramid, pointed upwards, whose tip almost reached the opened iris. It was about as big as a large man, and it was suspended by a trio of equally grey elastic bands, attached to the inside edges of the iris, converging under the big pyramid, and held in tension only by the man's raw strength.
Two long, unreal seconds passed.
Then, the blond man let go of the pyramid.
"Incom...!" the tactical officer of Wing Six managed to say, before the pyramid travelled the few thousand feet that separated it from the starship and impacted the Wing at a sharp angle.
Because of that angle, it got deflected. The impact hadn't been straight on. But the odd projectile carried on across the length of the supple Wing ship, pushing it, carving its own way, leaving a groove in its hull, like an ugly scar, thick and filled with thousands of sparks; it crashed the landing gear housing, arrived at the gun turret and went straight through it, and finally lost enough kinetic energy in the aft and starboard engine groups, shredding the thruster cowling to so much debris, only to go on tumbling towards the Moon.
The unexpected, sheer ballistic collision hurt the Wing badly. It was swept away at a few tens of feet per second, tumbling head over end, causing everyone inside to lose consciousness to the huge acceleration forces, applied much more suddenly than their suits could have had time to counteract.
The first to recover was Wing Two, on the other side of the alien starship.
"Jack, are you there? Jack, come in."
There was no answer.
"Wing Six, this is Wing Two. Jack, this is Helen. Come in, Wing Six."
Inside the USS Kennedy, the bridge crew was speechless. Commander Gaines turned in his seat, as far left as his safety harness allowed him, trying to make eye contact with his navigator and the tactical officer behind him. He saw the stupefied, numb looks on the two lieutenants, and he knew the other crew members must share them.
"Bridge, engines. We just saw that... What was that?" asked the chief of engineering, from his aft compartment, on the ship intercom.
"Jesus, what happened?" said the weapons officer, too. "Did you see that? What was that, sir?"
"Did that suicidal maniac just kill a Wing with a goddamned, motherfucking stone and a slingshot?" asked Gaines to no-one in particular.
The tactical officer regained his composure.
"Sir, we lost visuals on the enemy ship. Wing Six isn't transmitting anymore."
"I know it's not transmitting," said Gaines, slowly. "That'll be because Wing Six is currently a fucking comet on its way to the Sun. What I wanna know is, how could something like this happen?"
The lieutenant was already scrolling back his radar logs.
"Sir, that projectile had a mass of almost eleven hundred pounds."
"My God, what was it made of?! Uranium?"
The officer calculated quickly.
"Heavier, sir. Looks like platinum, by density."
"That thing was platinum?!"
"Had about the same density, sir. If the impact had been head-on, Wing Six would've exploded like a bomb, sir."
"They're hurling goddamned platinum at my ships?!"
"It gets worse, sir."
"Oh, I'm sure it does, lieutenant. Do go on."
"Well sir, it flew at two thousand feet per second. That's almost as fast as an artillery shell."
"I know how fast that is, el-tee."
"Yes, sir. But it was only a slingshot. The amount of force that sling put out is off the charts, for a human being, sir."
"What are you telling me?"
"I'm telling you that either that man, if he is a man, is the strongest human being in the known Universe, or I don't know how to divide and multiply anymore. Sir."
XX.
"Quick, shut the iris! Bring back the air!" Mark yelled.
"Already doing it," Doina said, frantically touching floating symbols.
"Is he still alive?"
"Aram, can you hear us?" she said, by way of answer.
"Aram, mate, it's Mark. Can you hear us?"
There was no answer.
"Doi, let me out and open all doors between here and the airlock," said Mark.
She did so, and he threw himself into Two, then went through its door wall, swiftly switching ground as he crossed into the spoke, and ran the distance to the airlock just as Doina opened it from One.
Aram was still firmly held against the floor; the three elastic bands acting as a sling were rigid under the ceiling, against the closed outer iris.
The Dacian had his hands tight over his ears. He opened one bloodshot eye and turned it towards Mark.
"Fuck, my ears hurt," he whispered. "And I'm cold."
"Doi, turn the temperature up," said Mark loudly, knowing she'd be listening. Sure enough, the room quickly got warmer by a few good degrees.
"Why do my ears hurt?"
"They're most susceptible to pressure changes," Mark said. "Should've thought about it, should've made you some ear plugs."
"There was no time. Did I hit it?"
"You sure did, mate."
"Do any good?"
"The ship's gone out of the sky. You caught it at a bit of an angle, otherwise I'm sure you would've blown it to bits. It was quite a show, believe me."
He smiled.
"How's Doi?"
"She... They're both fine," Mark said. "The Yanks are still shooting at us, but with that ship gone, we can handle it better."
Then he noticed the big, molten round next to Aram's hip. He touched it carefully; it was already cold. He picked it up and showed it to Aram.
"We should be thankful this thing missed you," he said.
"Is that what they're hitting us with?" he asked with interest.
Mark inspected the spot on the floor where the round had hit. It was hardly even scratched.
"Well, I don't think they look like this. This one hit the floor, but whatever this floor is made of, it didn't give in, so the whole kinetic energy of the projectile turned into heat, and it melted instantly," he explained.
"Right," Aram said. "And you know all that because you're a teacher of English."
"Shut up," Mark said. "Look at you, look at what you did! This idea of yours, to use artificial gravity to help pull that five ton shell! It must've crushed you alive!"
"I'll live," said the Dacian. "I still
believe that I'll live forever, you know."
"I see no reason why you shouldn't," said the Englishman, smiling. "A man who thinks of using a slingshot against a spaceship can never die."
"Yeah, I'm still not exactly sure why I needed Doi to help me pull it," he said. "I mean, couldn't she have just turned the weight off in the airlock?"
"Yes, but mass is mass, even in absence of gravity. To shoot such a huge mass with a slingshot, you need a really strong sling; and to pull back such a strong sling, you need help. So, we used its own mass as weight. Doina had to carefully balance the artificial gravity, to only use enough to load the sling and not crush you."
He helped Aram squeeze out of his grey harness and gave him a little water.
"Mate, seeing you let go of that sling was the coolest thing I've ever seen anyone do."
"It helped knowing that I wouldn't instantly die, you know."
"Yeah," said Mark. "You don't die instantly if you're exposed to outer space. It takes about a half minute. But I bet it wasn't really pleasant, either."
"All the air got sucked out of me, and it felt a little like I was gonna be turned into pulp on the floor, but other than that, it wasn't really all that bad."
"Right, play tough," Mark said smiling again.
"Now, get out. I'm gonna do this again. I'm beginning to like it."
"Are you sure you're still up to it?"
"Hey, first time is always the hardest. Now I know what to expect."
Mark watched him as he wiggled back into the restraints, and stood up.
"Good luck. We'll find you a target and turn towards it, Doi will load your sling with that beautiful gel thing, and you unleash hell on them."
"Got it."
The door opened.
"Hey, Mark?"
"Yeah?"
"Get me some ear plugs before you go, will you?"
XXI.
Back in Room One, Mark told Doina:
"He's fine and he wants to do it again. How are we doing?"
"Better, now. We're not getting hit anymore. But we won't be able to take this forever."
"We could run, now, you know. We have an opening where that ship has been."
"And then, what?"
"We could run to Earth."
"They're fighting us here, beyond the Moon," she said. "Imagine what kind of guns they have back home. If we're gonna fight, I'd rather not put the ship through anything worse than this."
Mark looked at her appreciatively.
"Maybe if we stop them here, it'll make a difference," she went on.
"Let's take the fight to them, then. Turn towards the smaller ship."
"Do we still move slowly?"
"No, we need another surprise. The first time, Aram was the surprise; they'll see that coming now. We moved slowly then because I bet they don't have this inertia gimmick that cancels out g forces. This time, we'll move as quickly as we need to match their escape manoeuvres, even quicker, and they won't see that coming."
The little girl shrunk and said nothing for a second. Then, she asked:
"Do you think Aram killed the people in that ship?"
"It didn't explode. It was just knocked out badly. I'm sure the Yanks could go save them, if killing us wasn't more important."
She nodded halfheartedly.
"Come on, Doi. I have another couple of third century ideas that we could use, and I need to know if you can do them."
* * *
"Sir, what do we do about the crew of Wing Six?"
"Where are they?"
"On a very low lunar orbit, sir. It'll decay in a day or so."
"Air support?"
"Good for about the same amount of time, sir."
"Plenty of time to get them back, then. Where are my Wings?"
"On their way, full complement estimated in about six minutes."
"Comms, tell Wing Leader to assign best firing positions around X-Ray One, for every ship under his command."
"Yes, sir."
"Targeting, are any of our rounds still getting through?"
"Not that I can tell, sir."
"We'll see how they feel with nine Wings plus us shooting at them, at the same time, those damn Queen bastards."
"Sir, I have Wing Two on ship-to-ship."
"Go ahead, Helen."
"Commander, the target keeps turning towards us."
"Well, it was either you, or us, wasn't it? And you're smaller, to the fucking cowards."
"What do we do?"
"Same as they did. Evade, turn to present a smaller profile, make it impossible for that madman to aim at you."
"Yes, sir. Should I not back away, sir?"
"Dole, you are ordered to stay where you are with respect to our target and perform evasive actions, you understand me?"
"Yes, sir. Also, sir, we only have eleven missiles left and just under three thousand rounds."
"The other Wings are on their way. If four guns were too much for this thing, imagine what eleven guns will do to it. We'll tear it to shreds. Then, and only then, we return and finish off the Monnet, and then, and only then, we go back home. Clear?"
"Crystal, sir."
They watched Wing Two as it began a series of complicated evasive manoeuvres, pitching, rolling, yawing and translating on all planes, in the same time doing its best to keep firing.
But, whatever she did, the torus kept pace, and the assault was rejected in a flurry of laser beams.
However hard commander Dole tried to jump from one place to another, then brake hard and pitch over and run away, the torus kept facing her Wing with millimetre precision, matching its motions degree for degree. In fact, it was moving so fast, Kennedy's targeting officer had trouble keeping their guns on track.
"Damn," the weapons officer said. "They must be pulling a whole lotta g in that ship, doing turns like that. And that guy didn't even have a space suit, let alone a g-suit. What are these people?!"
"Sir, we're getting reports of a huge impact on the Moon. All seismic sensors registered large tremors," reported the communications officer.
"And why do I need to know that another meteorite hit our Moon?" asked Gaines, annoyed.
"Because it wasn't a meteorite, sir. It was that slingshot projectile. It left a crater almost six miles wide."
"So they're not only blasting my Wings, but they could destroy our mines, too."
"Amazing," said the tactical officer. "They're not just matching commander Dole's movements, they're actually predicting them. No spacecraft and no pilot are that good."
"Targeting, concentrate all fire on that iris. Do not let that fucker get past their own defences."
"Sir, we're running low on ammo," said the weapons officer. "If we fire that much now, we won't have enough to last us until the Wings arrive."
"Short bursts, then. But keep them busy."
"Sir, the central iris is opening on the target ship."
"Wing Two, Kennedy. Stay small, Helen!"
The Wing ship concluded a complicated dance in a stance that was showing the torus only its pointed tip, plus the wings and the two tall rear stabilisers. Its absolute minimal profile, barely ten feet tall, was the best it could do. Even with full thrusters, it couldn't get out of the way of something flying at over two thousand feet per second. Definitely not quickly enough.
But the alien ship did not fire. Instead, it shut the iris again.
"Stay put, Helen," commander Gaines warned her.
And then, something completely unexpected happened.
The torus began an almost instantaneous, circular movement, at an amazing angular velocity, rotating around a point on its edge. It didn't start slow and then accelerate, and it had no visible thrusters. It simply started to rotate at speed, swivelling around that point on its outer hull. It turned once, then twice, then the iris opened again.
At the middle of the third rotation, the maniac in the empty airlock let loose a spherical projectile.
Borrowing the ship's angular momentum
, and enhanced by its own rotation, the round projectile executed a graceful, elongated spiral arc, colliding with the Wing from underneath. It blew the ship's entire back side to bits, and sent it tumbling straight towards the American cruiser, about a half mile away.
"Hard pitch ninety, now!" yelled Gaines in his helmet microphone.
The Kennedy's frontal thrusters were firing even before their telescopic arms extended fully. The lights in the front cargo compartments -- the ones most affected by the angular momentum -- turned blood red. The crew was already at battle stations, except for two airmen who had been working to reattach a fallen crate back in its place. They were thrown so hard across the room that the bones in their bodies were crushed. They were dead in two seconds, stuck on a separation wall like squashed flies. The crate, which had come loose during one of the previous harder manoeuvres, burst through the separating wall, coming completely undone. Its contents continued to fly and crashed against the inner bulkhead.
Most of the crew found themselves unable to breathe, as they felt like elephants were trampling their chests. Their g-suits helped a little, but even so, many of them lost consciousness.
The brutal, unusual manoeuvre was all that stood in the path of a complete disaster, as the front side of Wing Two tumbled through the space occupied, only a second earlier, by the fore end of Kennedy's long cylinder.
Once the ship became stable again, reports began to flow in.
"Target lost, both guns on pause."
"We have two casualties in the cargo compartments. Biotelemetry shows four wounded, nine unconscious."
"We have four solar panels destroyed by incoming debris, partial power outages throughout the ship, and failures on power cells chargers thirty through forty-six."
"We have an inner wall breach in number one cargo compartment."
"Manoeuvring propellant is down to forty-one percent."
"Sir, Wing Leader reports, Wing Two clipped Wing Three. It's damaged her port wing. Wing Three has lost atmospheric flight capability and most of the propellant it had left, but other than that she and her crew are in good shape."
"And what about Wing Two?"
"Wing Leader reported that they were trying to brake using their frontal thrusters, sir. They were all over the place. Wing Eleven nearly got hit, too."