by M. D. Cooper
A trail of debris led to it, and he realized that the second drone must have taken some damage from the grenade. He reasoned that melding with the bulkhead was a repair process of some sort.
“Sneaky bastard.”
“I wonder how many protrusions we’ve seen in the corridors were really autonomous defense systems,” West said after Trevor passed her the feed.
“Stars…I don’t want to think of that. I just want to get off this damn ship already.”
“No argument here,” the engineer said. “Should I try to land some nano on it? Maybe we can hack the thing and just get out of here.”
Trevor shrugged and nodded, wishing they had an AI with them aboard the fishbone. After spending so long on Sabrina, he’d become accustomed to always having AIs around. Running operations without half a dozen on hand felt almost dangerous.
He glanced at West and felt a moment of guilt. The New Canaanite was a smart woman, and Jessica had taken the time to select a good team. He should give the engineer more credit.
“Oh shit,” West muttered a second later.
“What?” Trevor asked, and then saw what had elicited the reaction from the chief.
Where there had been one bulge in the corridor’s bulkhead, there were now seven.
Trevor called over to the Lantzer.
she finally said with a laugh.
Trevor sent across a feeling of impatience.
“Chief. Give me the module. I can carry it and run a lot better than you can.”
“And shoot the things?”
“Sure,” Trevor shrugged. “Easy.”
A half-minute later, he stood at the room’s exit, CriEn under one arm and his rifle in the other. He set it to fire its electron beam in a continuous mode, and stepped out into the corridor.
The moment he passed through the chamber’s exit, the bulges in the bulkhead began to push out, separating from the walls, weapons beginning to emerge before the drones even freed themselves.
He fired, slashing the electron beam across the still-detaching drones, slewing the electron flow across as much surface area as possible. They began to slow, portions of their skin seizing up, though not before several fired shots at him. One struck his shoulder, but he didn’t slow his attack.
No more fire came from the drones as their motion ground to a halt in a symphony of screeching metal.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he muttered.
“It won’t for long!” West shouted, already several meters down the corridor.
Trevor turned and followed the engineer, the sound of the drones struggling to move coming from behind before he even went a dozen meters.
The pair raced through the ship, eyes forward, watching every bulkhead and cross corridor, waiting for more drones to grow out of the ship’s skin.
Behind them, the sounds of pursuit grew louder until Trevor caught periodic glimpses of the balls as they rolled after the pair.
“Just around that bend,” he said, pointing at the left turn that would take them to the dock where their pinnace awaited.
They were five meters from the corner when rounds struck Trevor’s back, almost causing him to stumble. He half turned and fired wildly, catching sight of six drones rolling down the corridor, closing fast.
He looked up to see the Marine step around the corner, a heavy railgun anchored to his hip. The weapon’s ka-CHUG ka-CHUG thundered through the air, and white-hot tungsten rods streaked overhead, slamming into the drones and tearing the first two to shreds in seconds.
“Go! Go!” Marc hollered, ceasing fire long enough for Trevor and West to get to their feet and rush around the corner before he fired another barrage.
“Where’d you get that thing?” Trevor asked as the three retreated down the corridor toward the docking bay.
“Was in the pinnace’s armory,” Marc grunted as he fired at one of the drones as it edged around the corner.
“Wasn’t on the inventory,” West said, sounding perplexed.
“Guess someone forgot to note it,” the Marine grunted. “You complaining?”
“Fuck no!”
A bulge started to form in the bulkhead on their right, and Marc fired a rod into it, spraying flowmetal across the retreating team.
“Keep moving,” Trevor ordered West as they reached the docking bay where the pinnace was already hovering above the deck, ramp lowered in invitation.
Marc continued firing down the corridor—and at anything in the bay that even looked like it was moving. He paused to shoot at what looked to be a perfectly normal bulkhead, screaming in a garbled combination of rage and fear.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Trevor dropped his own rifle and grabbed the Marine bodily, hauling him back onto the pinnace’s ramp.
The pinnace blasted through the grav field at the bay’s entrance and out into space.
Trevor gave Marc a measuring look, and the Marine responded with a wary nod. After the unspoken communication passed between them, Trevor turned and walked through the small ship to the cockpit, glad to see the Lantzer dominating the forward view.
What made him less happy were the two other points of light, engine flares from the two fishbone ships en route to intercept the ISF cruiser.
“Fun’s just getting started,” he said.
“Is that what you call this?” Meg asked.
Marc came into the cockpit behind Trevor. “They’re still an hour out. We get the CriEn on the Lantzer, power up the stasis shields, and those things can pound on us all day.”
“That’s the problem,” West said from behind the Marine. “If they really do have dozens of CriEns on these ships, then how long do you think we can power a stasis shield against their weapons with just one of our own?”
A grim silence fell over the group, and Trevor slapped Marc on the back. “Buck up, Marine, we still have the ARC fighters. Two of them have functional stealth systems. Jessica will come up with a plan.”
THE PLAN
STELLAR DATE: 10.04.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Lantzer
REGION: Coreward of Stillw
ater Nebula, Orion Freedom Alliance
“Stars, Trevor, I have no fucking clue what to do.”
Jessica whispered the words, though they were the only two present on the bridge. Lucida and Karma had both gone to the galley to prepare a meal for the bridge team, giving Jessica the opportunity to be straight with her husband.
“What?” he asked. “You took out one of those ships with a single ARC fighter. We have two that are stealthed. Just boost both of them into the enemy ships.”
“Sure,” Jessica nodded. “If we make perfect strikes and disable them right away, then it’ll work. But what if we don’t take out their C&C, and they nail us with the thousand drones each of those ships carry? We won’t last under that sort of barrage. If all our weapons were online, it would be one thing, but we’ve got four beams and a railgun. Given the CriEns they have, those fishbones can weather anything we throw at them.”
“OK…well that sounds like you have some idea of what to do.” Trevor flashed a winning smile, and Jessica gave him a single laugh in response.
“I guess I’m good at desperate, last-ditch plans, but this one is harder than most,” she said.
“You’ve spoiled me,” Trevor agreed. “I was hoping for a guaranteed win that was clever and elegant.”
“You’re in the wrong business.”
“Seems like it.”
Jessica had been afraid that the module wouldn’t work at all; despite the delay he’d cited, the modicum of optimism in Glenn’s voice assuaged the greatest fear she’d not voiced to Trevor.
Jessica knew better than to bother the engineer further.
She turned back to the holotank and brought up the projected positions the two fishbone ships would be in when they entered effective firing range. Which, given density of the interstellar medium around them, was roughly one hundred thousand kilometers.
“OK, so I’m already moving the two stealthed ARCs onto these tangential vectors,” she said, pointing to two markers on the holo. “I’m worried I won’t be able to get enough v on them to penetrate the enemy shields without the fighters being spotted.”
“Does it matter that much?” Trevor asked. “Punch them up to half c and just slam them in. That’s how you destroyed the AST dreadnoughts in Bollam’s.”
“That was before anyone knew what our stasis shields could do, and those AST ships didn’t have enough delta-v to jink effectively. One thing is for certain. These fishbones know what we can do, and they’re not just going to sit there and let us fling ARCs at them.”
“So you’re not even going to try?” Trevor asked. “I really thought you were going to at least give it a shot.”
Jessica groaned and threw her hands in the air, advancing the holo. “Yeah, I’m gonna try, but here’s what I expect to have happen.”
The holo showed the ARC fighters hit nearly 0.6c, but miss the fishbone ships as the enemy vessels jinked.
“See? Now the ARCs are going to have to brake for an hour before they can make it back around for another hit. By that time, we’ll have been duking it out with the enemy for forty minutes. Battle will probably be decided by then. Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that we’re practically standing still.”
“OK, so we need more thrust,” Trevor nodded sagely. “West got the remote helm system rolling for our captured fishbone. We could use it to push the Lantzer.”
“Plus, we need to hit at least a tenth light-speed,” Jessica said. “No way you can just ‘push’ another ship that fast. We’ll both be shredded.”
“What about that grav beam it had?” Trevor asked. “Think its emitters are strong enough to create a stable cushion between us?”
“Which means shields as well,” Jessica added. “That’s gonna take a lot of time. Too risky.”
She suddenly wished they’d not been so hasty in disabling the captured fishbone. She hadn’t expected to need to use it in combat; her goal at the time had been making sure it didn’t come alive and shoot them in the ass.
“Stars…I wish we had a tug aboard,” Jessica said. “Latch one of those on the front of the fishbone and use its nets to grapple the Lantzer.”
“OK, so what’s our plan if the ARCs fail to take out our new friends?” Trevor asked.
Jessica shrugged. “We dump to the dark layer.”
“It buys us time,” Jessica replied. “If we can get our own CriEns back on, then a pair of fishbones won’t be any match for the Lantzer.”
Trevor shrugged. “It was just a suggestion to get more delta-v. Wasn’t going to be our salvation.”
“I’d do it if the pinnace had shields and we had more Marines.” Jessica placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “But right now, it smacks too much of leaving people behind. I’m not going to do that.”
“You know I was going to volunteer.”
“Of course I did.”
The big man snorted. “OK, we’ll, I’d better go make myself useful. I bet Glenn and West could use a hand with a thousand different things.”
Jessica nodded and stretched up to plant a kiss on his lips. “We’ve been through tougher shit than this. We’ll be fine.”
Trevor barked a laugh and slapped a hand on her hip. “Sure we have. I remember the last time we fought a pair of enemy ships with ascended AIs aboard. Oh, wait…”
“Funny man.” Jessica gave him a wry smile and waved him off the bridge. “Go fix stuff and give me more options.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * * * *
It was almost anticlimactic when it finally happened.
The two stealthed ARC fighters reached 0.5c and lined up with their targets. Jessica had carefully maneuvered them to mask their burns, hoping it was enough to keep the ships hidden.
Given the fact that F1 had spotted her stealthed ARC when it was drifting through space, her level of confidence was low.
“Here goes nothing,” Ensign Karma muttered as the counter on the display approached zero and the ARCs fired their engines.
Jessica nodded, biting her lip as she watched the scan data, eager to see an energy surge, anything to hint that the ARCs had hit their marks.
“Confirming ARC missile launch. Full spreads fired,” Karma announced. “Something’s going to hit those fishbones, ma’am.”
Jessica just hoped it would be enough. The grav generators on the fishbones were more powerful than any she’d seen outside of an I-Class ship. With their dozens of CriEns, the enemy vessels could deflect an incredible amount of kinetic energy.
A second later, scan lit up with energy signatures coming from both enemy ships.
“Contacts!” Karma half-shouted. “Shit…not enough energy…no secondary flares.”
“Glancing blows,” Jessica mused as data poured in from the ARCs. Both fighters had survived, but so had both enemy ships.
“One was a miss, though three of its missiles struck F3,” Karma announced. “Oh! The other hit a gl
ancing blow on F2, but there’s atmosphere bleeding out—secondary explosions!”
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief as scan showed additional energy flares at F2’s location. She waited for more data from the fighters’ sensors, giving a frustrated grunt when it finally came in. The visual showed that the collision had been with one of the fishbone’s ‘ribs’. The ship was still moving under its own power and appeared otherwise undamaged.
“OK,” she said, nodding to Karma. “Pull in the other three ARCs and set these two to loop around on a vector to meet us at Beta One.”
Karma nodded, and Lucida prepared the ship for a drop into the dark layer. Ten minutes later, with the fishbones only five minutes from firing range, the Lantzer was ready to transition, and Jessica gave the order.
Starlit space disappeared from the forward display, and though Jessica knew it was her imagination, it seemed like shadows crept onto the bridge from the forward display.
“Uh…ma’am? I’ve got a weird reading,” Karma said, a note of fear creeping into his voice. “Oh shit! Shit shit shit! Admiral!”
Jessica’s head whipped around to look at the forward display where Karma’s scan data was displayed.
“I’m reading masses!” the ensign shouted.
“Pull us out!” Jessica screamed, praying they’d be fast enough and that none of the things had latched onto the ship.
A second later, the starscape snapped back into place on the forward display.
“Status!” Jessica demanded.
Gil said, even the AI’s voice carrying a note of worry.
Lucida turned to stare at Jessica, her eyes wide with fear. “Ma’am…we’re light years from a star. How are there Exdali out here?”
Jessica turned her gaze back to the holotank and the two approaching Caretaker ships. “I’ll give you one guess.”