Stephen nodded. It was unlikely the enemy cruisers carried starfighters of their own, but there was no way to know what the virus might have crammed into the massive orbiting fortresses. The halo of fortresses surrounding Earth, protecting humanity’s homeworld, carried ten squadrons of starfighters each, enough mobile firepower to give any intruder a very hard time even without the various national fleets. But they were also fixed in place, defending a single target ... Stephen shook his head. They weren’t about to challenge Earth’s defences. All they really had to do was keep the defenders busy until the recon team could make its escape.
“We’ll go with Beta-Three,” he said, after a moment. “Prepare to drop the cloak.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lieutenant-Commander David Arthur said.
Stephen felt the tension in the compartment begin to rise. Beta-Three wasn’t the most ... adventurous of their contingency plans, but it still carried the risk of the flotilla being overhauled and destroyed by the enemy cruisers if they made a mistake. Stephen had considered some of the safer options, all too aware that the enemy could respond with extreme force, yet none of them forced the enemy to respond. There was so little in Alien-3 that it was easy to imagine the orbiting starships simply ignoring Invincible if she stayed well out of range. Or sending one of their ships to Alien-1 to request help. The last thing Stephen wanted was to blunder into a trap and have his ship unceremoniously destroyed.
“Drop the cloak,” he ordered. “And bring up full active sensors.”
The display brightened as a rapidly-expanding sphere surrounded the central icon. Stephen felt his heart begin to race, even though he’d known it was coming. Any enemy ships or stealthed platforms within that sphere would know that Invincible was there, now; they’d know her exact location, her exact course and speed. No platforms appeared on the display, but that proved nothing. The virus, lacking the budgetary restraints that plagued humanity’s navies, might have scattered scansats all over the system. Cold logic suggested that the virus wouldn’t have bothered, but there was no way to be sure.
They’ll know we’re here, he thought, as the sphere washed over the planet. It would take long seconds - too long - for him to know if the cruisers had taken the bait. What will they do?
He cursed under his breath as the seconds ticked by. A human CO would hesitate before deciding what to do. On one hand, leaving an assault carrier skulking around the system would give the enemy ship plenty of opportunity to smash the system’s industry, as little as it was; on the other, sending his cruisers away from the planet would leave the surface open to attack. The virus had to be aware of its limitations. Those battlestations couldn’t cover the entire planet and the virus had to know it. And yet, would it care? The virus might consider the entire planet expendable.
It’s a nightmare, he told himself. How are we supposed to guess what an utterly alien entity will do?
The sensor display updated. “Captain,” Lieutenant Alison Adams said. “The enemy ships are moving out of orbit. They’re falling into attack vector.”
A least-time course to our current position, Stephen thought. Invincible was heading straight for Alien-3, challenging the virus’s starships to intercept her before she reached the high orbitals. It was curious, in some ways; he wondered, vaguely, if it was a sign that the orbiting fortresses weren’t as heavily armed as he’d supposed. Or maybe they just want to keep us from getting into bombardment range.
“Order the mass drivers to commence firing,” he said, coolly. “And launch starfighters on my mark.”
He studied the display, silently calculating the vectors in his head. The enemy cruisers were already within starfighter range, although Stephen intended to wait for them to converge on their target a little more before he threw his pilots into battle. The enemy ships, perversely, were both too close and too far for his peace of mind, a problem made worse by Invincible’s headlong charge towards the planet. Stephen’s starfighters might not have time to rearm before the enemy ships entered weapons range. Invincible was armed to the teeth, but she was no battleship. Stephen didn’t want to risk a close-range encounter with an enemy formation that might simply decide to ram his ship.
Not that we have much choice, he thought, as the mass drivers opened fire. Two of the three enemy stations were within range. The third, on the far side of the planet, was effectively out of the engagement for the moment. We have to keep them busy.
“Launch starfighters,” he ordered. “I say again, launch starfighters.”
“Aye, Captain.”
***
Wing Commander Richard Redbird braced himself as his starfighter rocketed down the launch tube and burst into open space. His display shifted rapidly as the craft’s sensors came online, showing the enemy ships and - behind them - the blue-green world that the virus had long since taken for its own. Richard shivered at the thought of landing there, although - he admitted privately - it was unlikely he’d ever be allowed to go down to the surface. The virus might be drifting in the air or lurking within the shadows, just waiting for its visitors to make a mistake. He couldn’t help wondering if the recon team would ever be allowed to return to their mothership - or, if they did, if they’d ever be let out of quarantine.
He dismissed the thought as the starfighters formed up around him. Squadron One was at full strength, again, but it had come at a cost. He was all too aware that Squadrons Four and Five were understrength; indeed, he’d seriously considered combining them into a single oversized squadron and to hell with tradition. Only the strong arguments from the squadron commanders, with many appeals to traditions that dated all the way back to the long-gone Fleet Air Arm, had stayed his hand. He still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing. A squadron was supposed to have a life, irrespective of the individual pilots as they came and went, but an understrength squadron was dangerously weak. Losing even a couple of pilots would be disastrous.
And if we were back home, we’d have no trouble requisitioning extra pilots and starfighters, he thought, morbidly. The Royal Navy had been caught short of pilots during the First Interstellar War, but - since then - the navy had always trained more pilots than it needed during peacetime. A reservist could claim a bonus just for keeping his skills sharp. Out here, we have more starfighters than we have pilots.
“Prepare to engage,” he said, studying the enemy ships on the display. The stealthed probes had told him things he didn’t want to know about their size and power curves, but nothing about what sort of weapons might be crammed into their hulls. He had guesses - he would have been astonished if the enemy hulls weren’t studded with plasma cannons - yet they wouldn’t know for certain until the enemy started firing. “Remember, we’re here to kill the bastards!”
“What a relief,” Monica said, dryly. “And here I was thinking we were here to ask them for dinner.”
Richard had to smile. “On my command, engage with torpedoes,” he said, firmly. “I say again; on my command, engage with torpedoes.”
He waited for the range to close, grimacing as the enemy ships opened fire. The odds of them actually hitting anything at this range were low, but they might get lucky. Besides, they’d definitely unnerve his pilots. He didn’t need an analyst who was safely out of the firing line to tell him that the enemy ships had a working datanet. The five ships were coordinating their fire in a manner that proved it beyond all doubt.
And that means that launching torpedoes might be a waste of time, he thought. But we have to know before we face a real fleet.
“Fire,” he ordered.
The starfighter jerked as it launched two torpedoes towards its target. Richard yanked his craft to one side a second later, cursing under his breath as a hail of plasma fire shot through his former location with terrifying speed. Another pilot wasn’t so lucky, her craft spinning out of control as a plasma bolt scored a direct hit on her fuselage. Richard opened his mouth to scream at her to eject, but it was already too late. The starfighter vanished in a brief, twinkling
flash of light. Richard clamped down hard on the stab of grief and guilt that ran through him. There would be time to mourn later. He had work to do.
He watched, grimly, as the torpedoes raced towards their targets. They’d once been the most terrifying weapons in the Royal Navy’s arsenal, but ever since plasma weapons had entered widespread use their value had declined. The torpedoes were designed to be hard to hit - their drives were configured to make it difficult to pin down their exact location, as there was no way they could be stealthed or cloaked - but the enemy could simply blanket their rough location with plasma fire until the drive signature vanished. Richard had hoped that one or two torpedoes would make it through the enemy point defence and strike home, yet it looked as if the virus had picked them all off before it was too late. They hadn’t even managed to get into bomb-pumped laser range.
“Direct hit,” Flight Lieutenant Gabby Rancher gloated. “Scratch one cruiser!”
Richard had to smile, although he knew the engagement was far from over. The enemy cruiser didn’t have the layers of ablative armour that protected carriers or battleships, let alone an internal layout designed to minimise the results of a direct hit. The nuclear-tipped torpedo had punched through the hull and detonated inside the ship, blowing it into a cloud of expanding plasma. He felt his smile grow wider, even though he knew they’d have to take the starfighters into knife-range to take out the remaining cruisers. They’d scored one hit without going too close to their targets.
Although we fired twenty-four torpedoes at each cruiser and only scored a single hit, he reminded himself. The boffins had promised that the new penetrator warheads would slip through the enemy defences, but it looked as though they were wrong - again. Something that had performed brilliantly under controlled conditions simply hadn’t worked so well on the battlefield. The day of the torpedoes is over.
“Close to gunnery range,” he ordered, stiffly. “Squadron Four, stand in reserve.”
He weaved backwards and forwards as the range closed at terrifying speed, doing his level best to keep his flight path as random as possible. The enemy kept firing, thousands upon thousands of plasma bolts flashing through space and vanishing into the darkness. Richard had to fight down the urge to turn and run as the range closed, jamming his finger down on the trigger as soon as he entered effective range. The plasma pulses tore into the enemy ship, punching through thin layers of armour and wreaking havoc inside the hull. Richard smiled, grimly, as the remainder of the squadron followed him, their guns strafing the giant enemy ship. The cruiser was definitely no battleship. It simply couldn’t take such a battering and live.
“She’s going to blow,” Richard said, as he saw the enemy drive compartment start to explode. The hull ruptured a second later, the entire ship shattering into a wave of debris and superheated plasma. “Scatter - now!”
He yanked his craft away, for once flying in a straight line as he tried to escape the explosion before it was too late. The risk was small, but it would be embarrassing to be killed by his target’s death throes. He wondered, absently, if they’d ever be able to tell who’d struck the fatal blow. They’d all be able to paint a cruiser on their starfighters, but the true killer would be in line for a proper reward ... he shook his head as they hurried away from the debris cloud, reforming a safe distance from the alien ships. It was unlikely anyone would ever be able to tell who’d killed the enemy ship.
We can all claim a piece of her hull, he thought, although it would bring them nothing beyond bragging rights. The Admiralty wouldn’t pay prize money for a cloud of expanding debris, none of which would tell them anything new. And we can tell lies about how we killed her next time we’re in a bar.
He checked the overall situation, then smiled. Three of the four enemy cruisers had been destroyed, taking three starfighters with them; the fifth was nothing more than a drifting powerless hulk. By any standard, it was a more than satisfactory exchange rate, although - as no one knew how many starships the virus had - it was hard to know just how badly they’d hurt the enemy. They might have inflicted a serious blow, limiting the virus’s ability to make war, or they might have done nothing more than irritate it.
Hell, he thought. The virus might not even notice.
“Return to the barn,” he ordered. “We have to rearm and take those stations.”
And hope to hell they’re not crammed with weapons, he added silently. Because if they’ve devoted all that mass to defences, with their entire hull covered in plasma cannons, we’re not going to get close enough to land the killing blow.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alice was certain, just for a moment, that she was dead.
The alien reared up, its hands - suddenly looking like claws - ready to plunge down and slice into her body. She was wearing light armour, but she had no illusions about how well it would stand up to a powerful blow. Even if the armour held, even if the alien didn’t strike an unprotected part of her body, the impact would weaken her. And she dreaded to think what would happen if the alien tried to infect her instead. The virus would turn her into a mindless slave, again. No, not a slave. A slave could hope to escape. She would be nothing more than an automaton.
Her tongue pressed against the suicide device, even as her sweaty hand gripped the knife. It had been a present from a US Marine she’d known, back during a joint exercise that had taken her and her comrades all over the United States; the KA-BAR, he’d sworn, was the best tactical knife in the world. Alice had carried it with her ever since, taking advantage of the policy that allowed Royal Marines to select their own personal weapons. She was sure it would gut the alien, but the creature might kill or infect her even as it died. Alice braced herself, ready to trigger the device. She had to blow her brains to bits before the virus had a chance to get into her grey matter.
The alien loomed over her for a long moment, its bulbous eyes peering down at her. Alice stared back at it, feeling uneasy at how the spider-like legs twitched and moved in a manner that bothered her on a very primal level. She was no racist - she’d been tested, carefully, for adverse fear reactions when she came face-to-face with creatures that hadn’t been born on Earth - but the alien made her skin crawl. Perhaps it was the presence of the virus, a cloud of viral matter surrounding the alien ... she hoped her mask was intact, although she suspected it hardly mattered. Removing a filter mask was hardly rocket science. All the virus would have to do, if it wanted to infect her, was take off the mask. She was morbidly certain that the viral particles would last long enough, even in the open sunlight, to slip into her body and turn her into an ...
The alien turned and walked away.
Alice stared, half-convinced she was hallucinating. The alien had had her at its mercy. It could have done anything to her. And yet, it had just turned and left? She forced herself to sit up, holding the knife firmly in one hand. The remaining aliens were milling around slowly, not paying any attention to her. It looked as if they were probing the area, picking out clues that would lead them back to the shuttle. Alice stood, gingerly, and picked up her rifle. She wanted to point it at the aliens, but a quick check revealed she had only a handful of bullets left. Besides, her instincts warned her that even pointing the gun at the aliens might provoke a sharp response. They’d seen enough to know that guns were dangerous.
And the virus would know that guns were dangerous too, she thought. The alien charge, right into the teeth of human guns, had shown her just how little the virus cared about its hosts, but still ... even from a purely pragmatic point of view, it had been wasteful. The most cold-blooded human in history would hesitate to throw his soldiers into the fire in such a manner, particularly when there were other options. It might ...
She swallowed, hard, as the answer dawned on her. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about, but the conclusion was inescapable. The alien had scented the virus on her. It had known she was infected. And it had just walked off and left her to her fate. Alice felt her legs threaten to buckle as fear r
an through her. What if ... what if she’d been infected - again? There was enough inert viral matter in her body to speed up the process of infection if some active matter entered her bloodstream? Her fingers shook as she reached for the medical reader on her belt and pressed it against her fingertip, wincing at the stab of pain as the clipper collected a sample of her blood. She almost collapsed again, this time in relief, when the reader assured her that her blood hadn’t changed. But that meant nothing. She really had too much viral matter in her body for anyone’s peace of mind.
They said my scent changed, she thought, as she carefully inched back towards the treeline. The aliens didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her, but that might change if she did something that was clearly against the virus’s interests. If that means they think I’m one of them, what can we do with it?
She kept a wary eye on the aliens, ready to draw her gun and start shooting if they turned against her, but they did nothing as she reached the treeline. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, save waiting ... as if they were robots who lacked a direct datalink to their commander. They weren’t even collecting the bodies for a proper burial. Alice took one last look, then turned and ran into the forest as far as she could. The aliens didn’t seem inclined to give chase.
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