Phantom Fleet

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Phantom Fleet Page 5

by D K Evans


  "You got it," Ford awkwardly fumbled with the battery until he managed to wedge it tight against his suit and then set off down the hull.

  Groups of crew were frantically tearing away at the twisted metal wreckage that was holding the ship in place. In some places, Ford could even see people using hand tools to try and get the job done. Eventually, he reached his destination and handed the battery over to the guy in charge.

  "Thanks!" the astronaut said, pushing their visors together to talk directly, "But we really need one of the mini-cranes up here to shift some of this pipework, that's what's causing the bulk of the issues."

  Ford followed his gaze further along the prow, to where a refinery pipeline had been squashed against the prow, the massive forces of acceleration had wrapped it firmly in place.

  "I could try and get one up here!" Ford replied, "How many have we got?"

  "Just three," the man replied, "And it'll be a while until the other guys are done with them."

  Before he could respond, Ford was staggered backwards as a series of massive explosions flared across the far side of the station. The entire facility lurched suddenly, like a drunk trying to stay on his feet.

  "What was that?" Ford asked his radio.

  "Larger missiles," Ellery's voice crackled, "The Federation are shooting at the station's engines and stabilizers."

  "What the hell for?"

  "To destroy the whole place," Hubbard said, "They're trying to drop the station into the gas giant's atmosphere. The entry process will be so violent it'll tear everything inside apart."

  "Shit. How are we looking for time?" Ellery asked.

  "Not good," Hubbard replied, "We're still wedged pretty tight and we don't have enough heavy machinery to get the job done quickly."

  "Well we can't just sit here and wait to die! Get your guys to work faster!"

  Ford was silent. They might not have enough gear to get them out of this, but there was one thing they did have. He started walking back to the airlock.

  -

  Cheng sped along the rabbit hole that the carrier had smashed through the machinery of the fueling station. He dipped under a tangle of metal in time to see a couple of enemy fighters nose into the far end of the tunnel. He instantly moved his thumb into the 'shoot' button of his joystick and along with every craft around him, filled the entrance of the tunnel with cannon rounds. The enemy disintegrated as the Rebels zipped through the resultant fireball and burst out into space.

  The enemy were still busy attacking the station and the civilian ships around it, with the fighters flushing the merchant shipping out from behind the far side of the station so that their larger ships could deliver accurate shots. Like gun dogs at a pheasant hunt. But the Federation attack craft had gone well ahead of the main fleet, leaving themselves without adequate support from their capital ships. Cheng grinned as he realized he was in a straight-up fighter duel. Then he got to work.

  With the element of surprise, Cheng locked onto the bright-red contrails of a passing squadron and swooped in behind them, eliminating two with missiles and the peppering the rest with a burst from his cannons. Then he peeled off and went low, threading himself between the two halves of a splintered cargo vessel and emerging on the other side to pulverize a passing electronic warfare craft. The Fed ship blew apart in a gout of green flame and Cheng pulled up in a massive loop, watching as the rest of the Rebel fighters engaged with the enemy. Then a string of gunfire streaked past him and he wheeled the ship into a crazy spiral.

  A simple glance behind confirmed that a pair of Feds were still on his tail. Cheng clenched his teeth as he flipped his ship over and powered towards them. But they saw the maneuver coming and were already out of the way when his guns opened up. He zoomed back own towards the station's surface and kept low, trying to keep the hodge-podge of fracking towers and sensor dishes between him and his pursuers. Not that they cared. They just became more trigger-happy. The lead pilot held down his trigger, lashing the station with cannon fire and churning up debris into Cheng's path, keeping him constantly ducking and turning as fuel tanks and machinery exploded all around him.

  Cheng dodged out of the way of a spray of shrapnel and liquid fire to find one of the station's drones crossing his path.

  "Fuck!" he wrenched the controls and just managed to miss it.

  The oblivious, bumblebee-like machine carried on undisturbed. Cheng looked over his shoulder just in time to see the lead Federation fighter collide head-on with it. The two craft smashed themselves into dust and gave him a split-second's relief before his second pursuer opened fire.

  The rounds just missed him. One glanced off his wing in a shower of sparks and Cheng desperately span the ship into a roll, dodging left and right as the second fighter closed in. He tried to keep putting as many of the station's towers, jutting bulkheads and cranes between him and the attacker, but it was no use, as the Federation craft kept gaining ground and the gunfire came closer and closer. As he emerged into an open space on the station's hull, Cheng realised that he had nowhere left to hide. The only thing he could do was try and turn to face the enemy as fast as possible. He hauled on the control stick and brought his fighter around, just in time to see the Federation ship turning after him. It was no use. The enemy craft was turning faster. In a second, its guns would be on him. Cheng closed his eyes.

  A shadow streaked past him as the Federation ship exploded amidst a flurry of tracer rounds.

  "Looks like you could use some help!" Pim's voice crackled over the radio.

  "I had it under control," Cheng gulped as he felt his heartbeat start to slow down.

  "I'm sure you did," Pim replied, "Form up on me and I'll show you how Rebel pilots fly."

  Cheng caught his tongue before he replied, fighting the temptation to put the irritating little shit in his place. Grateful for the escort, he pulled up alongside Pim's fighter as they flew back the way they had come.

  "So what now?" he asked.

  "Well you've been flying low and trying to hide down here for so long..." Pim ventured, "I figure we should go up high."

  Cheng looked above them to where a freighter was being swarmed by Federation fighters, its meagre defensive weaponry no match for their maneuverability. By the looks of it, the pilots were making a game of it, with each one taking turns to dart in for a strafing run whilst the others flew in lazy zigzags at a safe distance.

  "Going that high's a bit of a risk for just two of us," he replied.

  "Are you kidding?" Pim grinned, "Risk is what this job's all about, baby!"

  With that, he pulled into a steep climb and flared his engines, surging towards the enemies above. Cheng gritted his teeth and followed after him. As a rule, he didn't let himself get drawn into childish contests. But to wipe the smile off this guy's face, he was willing to make an exception.

  -

  Another explosion rocked the ship as Ford stepped back out of the airlock. Once on the hull, he turned and waited for his companion to follow.

  "I told you that you'd need me," Sub drawled as he activated his mag-boots and clamped onto the deck plates.

  Ford ignored him and started the trudge towards the front of the ship. Most of the smaller debris had been removed, though the work crews were still frenziedly working on freeing the ship. As they arrived at the prow, he could see one of the small portable cranes straining to pull a girder out of a rent it had torn in the side of the hull.

  "This is far enough," Ford panted as they reached a mass of tangled pipework that was pressing down on the ship from above. He unslung a cutting torch from his shoulder and gestured towards the mess.

  "If you can pull some of that pipe upwards and make a small gap, I can get the torch in and slice through the support beam – it should alleviate some of the tension on the ship," he said.

  "Seems like a lot of work," Sub deadpanned from behind his suit visor.

  "Don't be an ass," Ford spat, pulling down his suit's welding mask.

  After
a second's pause, Sub bent down and grabbed onto the pipework and pulled. Ford nodded as it lifted a few inches off the floor and leaned forward to cut the supports. He stopped as Sub kept pulling. With a grunt, the man used his massively augmented strength to tear the piping away from the ship's hull, lifting it above his head and snapping it free with a final wrench. Silently, he gave it a push and the two men watched as it spiraled through the vacuum above them. Ford's jaw momentarily hung open and if he could see behind the visors of the workmen around them, he would have seen that theirs were too.

  "Holy shit," he said, regaining some composure, "I knew you were strong, but that was something else."

  "Well there's not many ways to show that off in a prison cell," Sub said impassively.

  "It'd probably make escaping much easier."

  "Why bother? There's not many places to escape to in space."

  Ford nodded as he cautiously turned his back on him and set off for the next piece of debris. As the crewmen around them returned to work, some continued to stare. Ford was positive that they were thinking the same thing he was. Just what had they spent the last few weeks cooped up on the same ship with?

  Another explosion sent tremors through the deck.

  "Listen up," Ellery's voice came through his helmet speakers, "The Feds just blasted one of the last of the station's stabilizers. This place is already falling out of orbit – if we don't get free soon, then we're gonna be riding it all the way down."

  "We're working as fast as we can!" Hubbard's voice replied.

  "Well, work faster!"

  -

  Cheng watched as another Federation fighter exploded in his gunsights. He did a quick check of the immediate area and found they had some breathing room, so he did a quick victory lap of the freighter they had just rescued. Blast-marks peppered its outer hull, almost obscuring the nameplate, where 'Tangiers' was scrawled in gaudy golden print as large as a house.

  "Thanks for the assist," the Tangiers' captain said over the radio, "But I'm not sure that we'll last much longer out here, anyway."

  "You let us worry about that. Just focus on getting as far away as possible," Cheng told him before cutting the transmission.

  "Doubt he'd be quite so flattering if he knew your whole story, pirate," Pim said.

  "Well they're still alive," he gritted his teeth, "That's the important thing."

  "Very noble. Shame your flying isn't on par with your heroism."

  Cheng ignored the jab as his computer chimed. A bunch of new ships had just entered the area. A lot of them. For a moment, he watched his tactical readout as more data came in. If the Feds had just gotten reinforcements, then there'd be no getting out of this alive.

  Then the computer updated him with some new information and the new blips on the map turned a friendly shade of green. The rebel fleet had just arrived. As if in confirmation, he looked up to see a barrage of tracers and missile exhausts surging towards the nearest Federation ships.

  'Things are finally looking up,' he thought to himself, as the fueling station drifted past them, heading towards the surface of the gas giant that loomed in the void in front of them.

  -

  "We can finish up here! There's only one piece of wreckage left to clear!" Ford gestured to Hubbard, "Just get your guys to safety and keep an airlock open for us."

  "Roger that," Hubbard nodded and began the long walk back along the hull, shepherding workmen and equipment back inside the ship.

  Ford followed Sub in the opposite direction, until they reached the very front of the ship, which was still stuck firmly in place. The situation had looked a lot simpler from a distance. The mine they'd struck earlier had blasted a hole in the ship's armor. And Ellery's charge into the depths of the fueling station had opened up just enough space for one of the facility's broken support beams to get lodged in the opening. Ford could already see where the first careful attempts to reverse the ship had torn up more of the plating. If they tried to use engine power to pull the ship free, it could rip the vessel's nose clean off. So the job had to be done manually.

  As they approached, the station shuddered and a gout of flame whooshed out of a distant pipeline. The place was already starting to tear itself apart as it got nearer to the planet. They'd have to work fast.

  "Thanks for bringing me out here, by the way," Sub said as a piece of debris whizzed past, "I love any opportunity for exercise."

  "Yeah, a healthy body means a healthy mind," Ford pointed at the gash where the beam impaled the ship, "Get in the damn hole."

  Despite the bulky and restrictive suit he was wearing, Sub navigated the tangle of bent and twisted metal with ease, slipping between the armor plates and standing shoulder-deep in the wreckage.

  "You might want to take a look at this," he murmured, peering deeper into the gap.

  Ford awkwardly moved around and shone his suit's flashlight into the gap. The steel beam had gone deeper than they'd expected, penetrating into the ship's second layer of armor. This was going to take longer than expected.

  "Well," he shrugged, "We'd better get to work."

  "We?" Sub asked as he braced himself against the beam and heaved.

  Ford stood back as it slid upwards, out of the ship. Sub worked it free of the first layer of armor and relaxed, leaning back against the outer layer to catch his breath.

  "Didn't think you got tired," Ford said, watching from above, "Isn't there some modification the League could give you to help with that?"

  "Nobody's perfect," Sub shrugged, "Besides, I want to manage your expectations. If I over-deliver here, then you'll be having me do all the work on this damn ship. For all I know, next I could be painting the cafeteria and doing the captain's ironing."

  Ford couldn't stop himself from laughing at the picture that jumped into his head, "I'm not too sure he'd be very happy with that."

  "But the point still stands. I could be very useful outside of a jail cell," Sub suddenly went back to being serious.

  "Not my call," Ford responded with a half-truth, "You'll have to impress people who outrank me."

  "Then impress them is what I shall do," Sub bent back down and grabbed the beam.

  As he lifted, a massive explosion rocked the fueling station, sending both men staggering as the ship lurched to the side. Ford dived out of the way as another metal gantry scraped along the side of the ship before floating off as the vessel righted itself.

  "You alright?" Ford asked, making his way back to the hole.

  "Sure. The ship on the other hand..."

  Ford looked down into the void and caught his breath. The impact had driven the girder even deeper. He suddenly wished he hadn't sent everyone else back inside.

  "What's taking so long out there?" Ellery's voice came over the radio, "We're almost at the point of no return – if we don't get out of here soon, this station is going to drag us down with it."

  "We've got some problems..."

  "Fuck! I'm gonna start the engines – we'll have to take the risk of damaging the ship."

  "No!" Ford peered down into the hole, "It's too dangerous. Give us some time."

  "We don't have time!"

  "Ellery," he said, "Trust me, we can fix this."

  "You've got three minutes," she haltingly replied, "Then we're gonna take our chances."

  "Got it," he said and cut the radio.

  Ford fumbled around and picked up his cutting torch, checking that it still had fuel before returning to the hole. Sub was still looking up at him.

  "So who is this 'we' you keep talking about?" he asked.

  -

  Duuven's gaze was fixed firmly on the bridge's tactical display, where a 3d map of the area was filled with static and interference from the station around them. Something didn't quite add up. If the Federation had continued pressing the attack, they should have been blasted to shreds by now. But instead, the bombardment had slackened off. Something was going on out there, but he couldn't work out what. The only solid information
he had was about their own location. And they were getting closer and closer to entering the atmosphere of the gas giant with every passing second.

  "We need to leave," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.

  "I told them that we'd give them a few more minutes," Ellery responded.

  "Dammit!" he glared up at her from the captain's chair, "I'm the one who's supposed to be in charge of the ship! You can't just overrule me any time you..."

  "If we try and leave without removing that debris first, we'll tear ourselves apart. Within a few seconds of going into reverse, you might not have a ship at all."

  "It's out of line," he grumbled, growing quiet.

  On the map in front of him, the planet was growing ever closer.

  -

  Sub strained against the girder as he hauled it into position, just barely managing to raise the end of it beyond the first layer of the carrier's armor. Ford was waiting with the cutting torch. He twisted the nozzle to emit a wide flame, applying heat to as much of the beam as possible and holding the trigger down to ignite the largest amount of gas possible. After a little while, the beam was glowing white hot in the middle and he stood back as Sub renewed the pressure, grunting as he twisted the softened metal back on itself. Exhausted, he collapsed backwards and the girder slid back into the fissure.

  "That should do it," Ford noted as a fireball blossomed up from the other side of the facility, "Now just one more heave and we should be clear."

  Sub nodded wordlessly and disappeared back down into the wound in the ship's hull and lifted again. This time, he positioned himself under the beam and heaved it onto his shoulders. He strained to clear the end of the debris beyond the lip of the hole. After what seemed like an age, he staggered back and let the girder fall by the wayside.

 

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