“Pass control over the second salvo to the gunboats, then prepare to fire a third,” Thomas ordered. The enemy battleships were regaining control, their point defence network dented but not destroyed. Thomas scowled. He’d hoped the entire network would go down. Instead, the virus’s computers had taken over. “And signal the flag. We have completed the first objective.”
He leaned back in his chair as the enemy formation began to advance. The virus wasn’t sitting still, waiting to be destroyed. Thomas rather suspected that meant it had loaded a considerable amount of viral matter onto the battleships, enough to allow them a degree of independence. They were certainly massive enough to provide storage ... hell, they’d just need a tank to store the matter. It was bad, but not all bad. A laser warhead that burned through the hull would give the virus a nasty shock.
“Reduce speed,” he ordered, calmly. “Let them come to us.”
He smiled as the enemy formation picked up speed. The planners hadn’t been sure just how much of the fleet the virus would actually see, between the cloaking devices, the ECM haze and the loss of the brainship, but it looked as if the alien battleships had only seen the tip of the spear. Lion and her escorts were visible - vulnerable - to their sensors, giving them a chance to run them down and extract revenge for the brainship. They couldn’t see the trap beyond.
And if this goes wrong, he mused as the alien formation opened fire, we won’t live long enough to regret it.
***
“The enemy starfighters are coming at us,” Tobias said. The gunboats had reversed course and were accelerating away from the alien battleships, but there was no way to put enough distance between themselves and the starfighters before it was too late. “I think they’re mad.”
“We just killed their brainship,” Marigold said. “Of course they’re mad.”
Tobias laughed despite the fear clenching his heart as the range closed with terrifying speed. The squadron had - somehow - survived the attack on the brainship, but the starfighters were a far more deadly threat. They couldn’t put out as much firepower as the capital ships, yet they were considerably more accurate. The only upside was that the gunboats could return fire, blowing the starfighters out of space as they tried to close the range. Tobias feared it wouldn’t be enough. The starfighters were also far more manoeuvrable than the gunboats.
He keyed his terminal, launching a nuclear-tipped shipkiller towards the oncoming swarm and priming it to detonate as soon as the starfighters were within the blast radius. It was impossible to tell if they’d try to shoot the missile down or not. They might assume a lone missile was no threat to the capital ships or they might simply blow it out of space, just to be sure. Tobias watched, feeling his heart skip a beat, as the missile darted into the cloud and detonated. A dozen starfighters vanished. The remainder kept coming.
“Good shot,” Marigold said.
Tobias glanced at her. “When we get back to the ship, do you want to find a tube?”
Marigold laughed. “I think this is not the time and place.”
“Hah.” Tobias giggled as he ran his hand down the console, triggering the point defence weapons. “It’s a more optimistic thought than anything else ...”
He frowned as the point defence opened fire. No human could follow the action, let alone take opportunities that were open for only a fraction of a second. He’d been through hundreds of simulations that proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet ... he felt helpless, a spectator on his own craft as the weapons fired automatically. He wanted to take control himself, to fire back at the starfighters as they closed with terrifying speed ... he knew he couldn’t. All he could do was watch.
The compensator field seemed to shift, just slightly, as Marigold threw the gunboat into an evasive pattern. Tobias doubted it would be particularly effective. The gunboat was blindingly fast, compared to a battleship, but slow and inelegant next to a starfighter. His head started to pound as he watched the starfighters closing the range, plasma bolts zeroing in on them mercilessly; his fingers touched his mask, ready to snap it into place if they had to eject. Starfighter pilots had survived ejections, he’d been assured. There were no figures on how many had died in the attempt.
They’d be dead if they tried or just remained in their seats, waiting to die, part of his mind whispered. The display filled with new icons. And ...
Marigold whooped, cutting off that line of thought. “They came! They came!”
Tobias blinked. Starfighters - human starfighters - had arrived, cutting a swath through the alien craft while they remained focused on the gunboats. Tobias let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, watching in awe as the alien starfighters - caught between two fires - were picked off before they could adapt to the new threat. Human pilots would have turned and fled, surrendering the chance to hurt the gunboats in exchange for survival; the virus, it seemed, didn’t care.
“Keep us heading away from the titans,” he ordered. His sensors were showing the human battleships now, spitting missiles towards the alien ships. “I’ll check for orders.”
His heart sank as they broke through into clear space. There’d been fourteen gunboats in the squadron, when they’d launched. Now, there were only ten. Eight people were dead ... he tried to tell himself that they might have merely been separated from the rest of the squadron, but he knew it wasn’t so. They were dead. He felt a wash of guilt that he’d never gotten to know them, mingled with relief. He wouldn’t be mourning friends, merely ...
No wonder fighter pilots are such arseholes, he thought. He’d met enough pilots to know he disliked them, even though he was technically a pilot himself. They and their friends could die at any moment.
He shook his head. And so could we, his thoughts added. The battle isn’t over yet.
***
“Signal the fleet,” Susan ordered. “All ships are to commence firing.”
She allowed herself a wintry smile. She’d hoped the enemy would allow themselves to be lured into firing range and it looked as if it had worked. She knew, all too well, that it could easily be nothing more than a delaying tactic, to give them time to destroy the catapults, but there were ways to do that which didn’t involve sacrificing a handful of battleships. No, they hadn’t known the rest of her fleet was there until it was too late to avoid action. Her smile grew wider as the battleships opened fire. It felt good to have the firepower on her side.
A low rumble echoed through the ship as her main guns opened fire, sweeping plasma bursts over the alien hull. The alien battleships could take one hell of a beating - Susan knew that from countless sensor records - but their exposed sensor nodes and point defence weapons were far more vulnerable. A single hit would be enough to kill the nodes, allowing her weapons to pound the enemy ships without interference. The enemy was firing back, of course, but she had far more ships. They had to split their fire between multiple targets.
She nodded as a starfighter flew into the maelstrom and vanished. There was no way to tell if it had been human or alien, friendly or unfriendly. There was just too much interference. The pilot had either lost control of her craft or assumed, wrongly, that she could pick her way through the plasma bursts. Susan felt a stab of sympathy, which she ruthlessly suppressed. She didn’t have time for anything but victory.
“Missiles away, Admiral,” Richardson reported. “Impact in ten seconds ...”
“Order Lion to target the alien carrier,” Susan said. The alien fleet carrier was starting to reverse course, heading away from the battleships and back towards the catapults. The carrier wouldn’t carry battleship-grade plasma cannons, but she could do one hell of a lot of damage if she wished. “Take her out before she gets out of range.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
Susan nodded, watching as missiles slammed into the alien battleship. The ship was tough, the hull taking two nuclear strikes without serious damage. A missile detonated inside the battleship, but she kept coming. Susan would have been more impressed if
the battleship hadn’t been trying to kill her. The virus knew it had lost the battle. It also knew there was no hope of extracting the battleships. It might just decide to try to ram the battleships into their human counterparts. But if it wanted to try, it had left it too late.
She smiled, again, as the battleship finally gave up the ghost. The hulk fell out of formation as its drives failed, its weapons falling silent ... Susan eyed the wreck for a moment, then dismissed it. It was harmless now. If there were any survivors, it was unlikely they posed any significant threat. They could be ignored, left alone ... her heart clenched. She hated the thought of wanton slaughter, of killing people - aliens - who could no longer hurt her, but the hosts were already dead. Their bodies belonged to the virus. There was no hope of freeing them.
We’ll destroy the hulks later, she promised herself. Until then ...
***
“Captain,” Sibley said. “I have a targeting lock on the alien carrier.”
Thomas nodded. Lion had no place in a clash of the titans. The boffins swore his ship could survive a sustained barrage from the battleships, but he had no intention of putting that to the test. Better to circle around the engagement and engage the fleet carrier, rather than allowing his ship to be destroyed for nothing. The admiral clearly agreed.
“Fire,” he ordered. They’d fired more missiles than he’d hoped, although not more than he’d feared. It wouldn’t take that long to resupply, before they jumped into enemy space. “And order the gunboats to follow the missiles in.”
“Aye, sir,” Sibley said.
***
Tobias nodded to himself as the new orders flashed up on the display. The gunboats had been left alone since their side’s starfighters had arrived. It looked as though the virus was having trouble reacting to multiple different problems, although he knew he could be completely wrong. The battle was spreading out of control, fought on such a scale he could barely keep track of his own, tiny aspect. He hoped the admiral was doing better. He’d heard good things about Admiral Onarina, but he’d also heard a lot of nasty things about admirals as a group.
“Here we go,” Marigold said. “Make sure you take control of the missiles.”
Tobias bit down on a sharp reply as the gunboats altered course, racing around the edge of the battle and zooming towards the enemy carrier. It took on shape and form rapidly, a cluster of boxy shapes surrounded by a handful of starfighters. There was something crude about the design, as if the designers had no sense of elegance. Lion wasn’t the most elegant design in the navy - and she was far cruder than Stellar Star’s personal ship, which was so futuristic she might as well be fantasy - but there was something neat about her. The alien carrier was so poorly designed that it was hard to believe the designers were actually intelligent.
Not that they care about my opinion, he thought, as he linked into the missile command network. The fleet carrier was already opening fire, its point defence forcing the gunboats to scatter as they closed in. They certainly crammed a shitload of firepower into the hull.
He gritted his teeth as he deployed a handful of ECM screamers. They wouldn’t last for more than a few seconds - he’d be surprised if any of them lasted more than a minute or two - but they’d distract the point defence. He took control of the missiles, directed them through the haze and then logged out again. Marigold laughed as she reversed course, the compensators straining as the gunboats roared away from the carrier. Tobias grinned as the missiles slammed home, unleashing a series of explosions that blew the carrier into a cloud of flaming debris.
“Scratch one flattop,” Marigold carolled.
“Target destroyed,” Tobias agreed. He couldn’t see any more enemy starfighters - there was just too much electronic haze - but if they were still alive they were thoroughly screwed. Their mothership was dead. The rest of the fleet was dying. And there was no way their life support would last long enough for reinforcements to arrive. “What now?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Marigold said.
***
Mitch smiled as the alien fleet died under human fire. He’d taken up overwatch position as soon as the shooting started, following orders he didn’t particularly like ... but understood. Unicorn had no place in a battleship engagement, even though her point defence might have made the difference between victory or defeat. He felt his smile grow wider as the last of the alien battleships exploded into a cloud of debris. The battle was effectively over. Humanity had given the aliens a solid thrashing.
He keyed his console as the remaining starfighters were wiped out, reviewing the engagement. It had been fairly one-sided, once the brainship had been taken out. And yet, the battleships had shown more independence than any of them had expected. He’d feared they’d stay too close to the catapults, forcing the admiral to risk a close-range engagement that could have destroyed the devices they’d come to steal. It would have been a victory, but ... he shook his head. The operation had been a smashing success. It would do wonders for morale when the truth was released on Earth.
The battle isn’t over yet, he reminded himself. There was one part of the plan that remained to be completed, before the surviving enemy did something stupid. They haven’t taken the catapults yet.
Chapter Seventeen
“In space,” Private Scott Davies whispered, “no one can hear you scream.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Colin snapped. The joke hadn’t been funny the first time Davies had made it ... probably not the first time anyone had made it. The idea of chasing aliens around a starship - or being chased by aliens around a starship - was the sort of thing that sounded cool in a universe where it didn’t happen. “We’ll be down in a moment.”
He looked at his team, wishing he could see their faces behind the masks. They’d trained for the mission as best as they could, but he was all too aware that their planning rested on a great deal of guesswork. No one knew precisely what to expect when they burned their way into the control nodes, from a blob-filled compartment to a hive of host bodies fanatically determined to keep the marines from taking control. He studied the live feed from the shuttle’s sensors as it coasted towards the nearest catapult, careful to stay well away from the titanic struggle between the fleets. Colin would have preferred to wait for a clear victor to emerge before jumping into the unknown, but General Sampan insisted the catapults be seized as quickly as possible. The last thing they wanted was for the virus to get any ideas about blowing them to dust, rather than let them fall into human hands.
His eyes lingered on Kevin. The alien’s face was hidden too, but ... Colin shook his head. It was impossible to tell what the alien was thinking. Colin knew what he’d been thinking, the first time he’d dropped into danger ... he wondered, as the seconds ticked down, if the alien was thinking along the same lines. Pride in his skill, combined with fear of letting the side down ... that attitude had been drilled into Colin well before he’d joined the marines. He’d spent most of his schooling playing football, or at least it felt that way. He certainly didn’t remember much of his lessons. They’d been boring beyond words.
Conversation died away as the shuttle closed on its target. The catapult didn’t look like a catapult. Colin was almost disappointed. He’d once owned a catapult that could probably have qualified as a deadly weapon, if someone had been inclined to press charges. The alien device was nothing more than a giant mesh, linked to generators and control nodes that were - presumably - charging up for the jump. The spooks hadn’t been able to predict when the virus had actually intended to use the catapults, although Colin wouldn’t have trusted them if they had. There were just too many institutional memories of the spooks being wrong with confidence.
They would have waited until they had everything ready for a knock-out punch, Colin thought, coldly. And when they were ready, they would have moved without hesitation.
“Ten seconds,” the pilot called. “Get ready.”
Colin tested his plasma rifle, one final time, as the countd
own ticked towards zero. He preferred projectile weapons, but plasma weapons were more effective against the virus and its hosts. They were also more dangerous to their bearers, although ... Colin gritted his teeth as he checked the grenades on his belt, readying himself for action. The boffins had been promising safer weapons for years, but nothing had ever materialised. The bootnecks would just have to be ready to hurl overheating weapons at the enemy, if their containment chambers threatened to explode. Who knew? The blast might destroy the enemy position and win the war.
The gravity field flickered as the shuttle latched onto the alien hull. Colin braced himself, wincing as a low whine echoed through the air. The cutters were going to work, slicing through the heavy metal and tearing deep into the alien hull. He would have preferred to use a plasma torch to burn their way into the alien structure, but they needed to avoid damaging the catapults as much as possible. No one had been able to calculate the odds of accidentally destroying the catapults as they tried to seize them, yet ... he shook his head. There was no point in dwelling on it now. There’d be plenty of other people who’d be happy to second-guess him - and everyone up to General Sampan himself - if the mission failed.
Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16) Page 16