by G J Ogden
“What is it?” Sonner blurted out so suddenly that she made Taylor recoil.
“Damn it, Sarah, you scared the life out of me,” Taylor complained, and then he saw that Sonner wasn’t alone. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know there was someone with you.”
“Don’t sweat it,” said Reese, extending a hand, which Taylor accepted, “Captain Reese Turner. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have?” said Taylor, and then Reese let out a yelp as Taylor inadvertently added too much pressure to his grip. “Sorry about that,” said Taylor hastily releasing his hold, “I literally don’t know my own strength.”
Reese shook the pain away, but he was smiling, “I guess being a simulant has some benefits, huh?”
“Well, it beats being dead,” said Taylor, “and it means I clean up in arm wrestling contests.”
The two men laughed and Sonner shook her head, “You two finished? Good. Now, what are we dealing with?”
Taylor turned back to the console screen as a recording of the evacuation message played out over the speakers again, “Five more ships just jumped in, and they’re nearly on top of us. I’d say these ones already knew where to look. Most likely, they picked up the residual ion trails from the four that were high-burning it around the moon earlier.”
“Yeah, that was me,” said Reese, holding his hands up. But then he frowned, “Just five more ships, though? That doesn’t sound so urgent.”
“Maybe not, but we intercepted a signal from the lead vessel,” said Taylor. “This is just the welcoming party; reinforcements are on the way.” Taylor then leaned across the console and brought up the long-range scan analysis of the approaching squadron. “And they’re not just any five ships, either. Four of them are War Frigates – the Commander and I know all about those – but the fifth is something new.”
Reese let out a long, low whistle. “That thing is freakin’ huge!”
“Thanks for that expert assessment, Captain,” said Sonner, snarkily, as she studied the data, “It’s a capital ship of some kind, maybe even a carrier.”
“I don’t know what it is, but I’ve seen it before, during one of the first times I entered the Fabric,” said Taylor. If he was still human, his body would have felt a shiver as he recalled the memory. “It was at Earth, so it’s a fair call to suggest it will be on the front line when we attack.”
“Not if we take it out here,” said Reese, smarting a little from Sonner’s jab. “We have a hundred ships. We could take out these five before the cavalry arrives, and while we still have the advantage. It would mean we then don’t have to contend with them at Earth.”
“That’s what I’d do,” agreed Taylor, “but our esteemed Colonel has other ideas.”
Sonner growled, which was all she could do to stop from screaming at the top of her lungs, “Damn that fool! Where is he now?”
“He’s on Nimrod Command”, said Taylor, “And by the way, he asked me to tell you – not very politely I may add – to get on-board ‘posthaste’ if I saw you first.”
“Posthaste?” said Reese. “Who the hell talks like that?”
“I’ll see if I can shake some sense into him,” said Sonner, though she didn’t sound hopeful. “For now, get to your ships and out of this lava tube, before those warships turn it into a tomb.” Then she slapped the crewman who was working at the console on the shoulder, “You too, mister. Evacuate the command and control room.”
The crewman shot out of his seat as if it had been electrocuted and raced towards the corridor leading to the hangar deck, closely followed by the three other remaining control room staff. Reese and Taylor laughed.
“It looks like your special mission won’t be necessary after all, Reese,” said Sonner, raising her eyebrows at him, “I’ll see you at rally point alpha.” Then she turned to Taylor and sighed, “I’m no good at goodbyes, Captain...”
“That’s not been my experience...” Reese cut in, getting his own back for Sonner’s earlier snide remark, but the look he got in return could have melted lead.
“As I was saying...” Sonner said, turning her back to Reese, but then Taylor held up his hands to stop her.
“No goodbyes, Commander,” said Taylor, “they’re too final. Let’s just say, ‘until next time’, okay?”
Sonner nodded and smiled, “Good luck Taylor. Until next time…” then she turned back to Reese. “I’ll see you at rally point alpha, okay?”
“Not if I see you first, Commander.” He replied, then he smoothed the loose strands of her hair back and gently kissed her on the forehead. “Give the Colonel hell.”
“I will…” Sonner answered, and set off back towards the hangar deck. She had only taken a few paces, before she stopped and again met Taylor’s silver simulant eyes. “Make sure you find her Taylor,” she said. It was phrased as an order, but spoken with deep affection. “Make sure you put your crew back together.”
Taylor smiled and threw up a lazy salute, “Aye, aye, Commander Sarah Sonner.”
Taylor and Reese remained and watched Sonner as she hurried off along the corridor to the hangar deck, steeling herself for yet another confrontation with Colonel Collins. Then once they were alone, Reese turned back to Taylor and smiled again.
“You know, it takes a lot to get in Sarah’s good graces, take it from someone who knows.”
Taylor had been wondering why Reese had accompanied Sonner, right up to the point where he kissed her on the head, and then the penny had dropped. “You’re her ex-husband, right?” Reese smiled and nodded.
“She asked you to be our blocker, didn’t she?” Taylor continued, piecing it all together. “And you agreed?”
“Let’s just say she made a pretty compelling argument,” Reese answered, slightly evasively. “The truth is, Captain, I have no idea if you’re a robot, or a Hedalt spy like Collins says, or if you’re just as human as the rest of us. But if what you say you saw at Earth is true, I do know that we don’t have a hope in hell of beating the Hedalt armada. So anything you can do to even the odds has to be worth a shot.”
“Well, I appreciate your honesty, Captain,” said Taylor.
“Call me Reese.”
“Okay, Reese.” He shrugged, “To level with you, I don’t really know what I am either. But I’m certainly no spy.”
“I believe you,” said Reese, slapping him on the shoulder. “Besides, Sarah trusts you and believes in you. I’d say she’s never trusted or believed in anyone more in her entire life, except for perhaps one other.”
“So what went wrong?”
Reese took a deep breath and rubbed his chin, “I wasn’t ready to commit. I chickened out. And then when I came to my senses... well, it was already too late.”
“It’s never too late,” said Taylor firmly, “not until it’s over.”
Reese smiled and half-nodded, half-shrugged, “I hope you’re right.” Then he straightened up, “So, can you do this thing, whatever this thing is that you’re planning to do?”
“Yes, I believe I can,” said Taylor, confidently. “Providing I can get out of this base and jump away without either Colonel Collins or that Hedalt squadron blowing my ship to pieces.”
“Don’t sweat it, Captain Taylor Ray,” replied Reese, cheerfully, “you’ve got yourself a blocker.”
FIFTEEN
Taylor ran on to the bridge of the Contingency One and spotted Casey and Blake already at their stations. He dropped down in the command chair and glanced towards the mission ops station, which was empty. At his sister’s insistence, James had been reassigned to Nimrod Command, the designated command ship where Colonel Collins and Commander Sonner would direct the battle for Earth.
“It will be strange without James at mission ops,” said Casey, spinning around and throwing up a lazy salute to Taylor. “I was getting used to having him around.”
Then the console in Taylor’s chair bleeped to notify him of an incoming communication from Nimrod Command. “Speak of the devil...” said Taylor, routing the
message through to the bridge audio system.
“Nimrod Fleet, this is Nimrod Command,” said the slightly wobbly voice of James Sonner, “All ships stand by for hangar deck decompression. Once complete, all vessels are to exit the base in squadron order, smartly. Nimrod Command, out.”
Blake leant over the back of his chair with a puzzled look on his face. “Are we s’posed to be in one of these squadrons?”
Taylor smiled, “We’re a squadron of one, and we go last. Apparently, Collins considers us less important that the ‘human’ ships.”
Blake growled, “I swear if the two Sonners weren’t on Nimrod Command, I’d blow that ship to hell right now.”
“I know how you feel,” sighed Taylor, “but it actually plays to our advantage. Hopefully, by the time we get out, half of the fleet will have already jumped away. It should make it easier to sneak off unnoticed.”
The audio link to Nimrod Command clicked on and James Sonner’s voice again came through over the speakers. “Hangar bay decompression in five... four... three... two... one...”
Taylor and the others watched as micro-explosions rippled across the entire front wall of the hangar bay, like dominoes falling in line. Each detonation blasted away one of the bolts fixing the wall in place, until there were none left. Then, as the hangar rapidly decompressed, the wall was pushed outwards, crashing through the open airlock and out into the gloom of the lava tube.
“Won’t it take too long for a hundred ships to squeeze through that tunnel, one at a time?” said Blake, as the first squadron of Nimrods powered out of the hangar.
“It would, but that’s not the plan,” replied Taylor. “This base is burned. We can’t come back while the threat from the Hedalt armada remains, so the lead Nimrod squadron is going to collapse the cave ceiling at the far end.”
Blake’s console bleeped and he turned to check it. “Wow, those guys move fast...” he commented.
“What do you mean?” asked Taylor, pushing out of his seat and moving to Blake’s side. “There’s no way they can already be in position.”
“Well, the cave’s collapsin’ now, so if it ain’t them, then who?”
Taylor felt his senses heighten, “Put the area on the viewport,” he ordered, and then quickly returned to his chair. Blake tapped the commands into his console and the viewport switched to a magnified section of the cave ceiling, several kilometers across the other side of the lava tube. Just as Blake had said, it was collapsing, raining huge chunks of volcanic rock onto the abandoned residential blocks that occupied the far side of the base. But there were no Nimrods in sight.
Taylor punched up an audio link to Nimrod Command using the console in his chair, “Commander, are you seeing this too?”
“We see it, Captain,” said the voice of Sarah Sonner. She sounded composed, but still rushed through the sentence. “Stand by for plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” asked Taylor, wondering if he’d somehow missed that part of the briefing for the base evacuation plan.
“I’ll tell you when we have one, Sonner out...”
The communications link went dead. Casey and Blake exchanged concerned glances and then both turned to Taylor, but the focus on him was short-lived as alerts suddenly rang out from all stations. They all peered back up at the viewport as a massive section of the ceiling fell down, opening up a hole several hundred meters in diameter. But visible through the opening was more than just the hazy atmosphere of the moon; there was also the outline of a ship many times larger than anything they’d encountered before. Silhouetted against the glow of the system’s star, the goliath ship hung above them like a giant manta ray, silent and still. Then its underbelly suddenly lit up as dozens of shards of purple plasma flashed into the lava tube, directly towards the base.
“Casey, get us out of here, I don’t care how!” Taylor cried, as plasma shards hammered into the surrounding structures of the Contingency base.
“Aye, aye, Captain Taylor Ray!” replied Casey, pulling the pilot’s viewport into position. Then she glanced at Blake, “Hey, do you think you can make me a little door?”
“Already on it, Casey,” said Blake, firing the forward cannons and blasting a chunk out of the stone wall alongside the already open section.
The hole was barely larger than the profile of the compact Corvette, but Casey surged the ship forward, adjusting the angle and axis of the vessel with surgical precision, and managed to squeeze through and out into the lava tube ahead of the remaining Nimrod squadrons.
“Jeez, Casey, that was close!” cried Blake, gripping his chair as if he was on a rollercoaster that was about to dip down.
Casey drew back from the pilot’s viewport and winked at him, “Quit complaining; you could have made the hole a little bigger…”
A fleet-wide broadcast interrupted any further banter. It was from Nimrod Command and Taylor put it on speakers.
“Nimrod squadrons Alpha One and Alpha Two, concentrate fire on the opening in the cave ceiling. We need to crack it wider so the fleet can slip through. Nimrod Squadrons Beta One, Beta Two, engage that ship and push it back. All other Squadrons, just get the hell out of this cave and jump to the rendezvous point!”
“She don’t need to tell me twice!” said Blake, as a plasma shard as thick as a tree trunk flashed past, obliterating one of the Nimrods that had just exited the hangar bay. Casey took evasive action, but they had all seen how devasting a single shot from the capital ship had been.
“Casey, I’d really appreciate it if you could steer clear of that ship’s big guns.”
“It’s on my to-do list, Cap!” Casey called back, weaving between one of the fleeing Nimrod squadrons to race ahead of it.
At the far end of the lava tube Taylor could see the opening begin to widen further as the lead Nimrod squadrons pummeled cannon rounds into the rock. But the dust hadn’t even settled before the imposing sight of a War Frigate filled the gap. “Damn it, we’re like rabbits trapped in a warren down here,” said Taylor, “Casey, can you punch us through?”
“Shouldn’t we help the fleet, Cap?” shouted Casey, as she weaved the Contingency One around another of the slower-moving Nimrods. Two more ships were hit ahead of them and ignited into fiery hunks, causing Casey to take sudden evasive action. “Hang on!” she cried as she banked hard right and spun between exploding sections of broken hull. Fragments of metal and debris bounced off their armor like flaming meteorites. “On second thoughts, scratch that idea, Cap. If we hang around in here for much longer, we’ll be pulverized!”
“Just pick an opening and hit it, Casey!” shouted Taylor, “If we don’t get out, it doesn’t matter how many of the Nimrods survive. They only have a chance if we take down the Nexus!”
The console in Taylor’s chair bleeped again. It was a tactical alert. What now? he thought, wondering what else could go wrong. He scanned the data, but then he wished he hadn’t asked. “Hedalt reinforcements have just jumped in,” Taylor called out to the others. “Fifty warships... correction, make that seventy ships! Casey, it’s time to leave...”
“I’m on it, Cap!” cried Casey as she surged towards the smashed opening in the lava tube. Plasma shards lit up the darkness as she jinked and weaved and spun the ship, using every ounce of her considerable piloting skill and ingenuity to make her course as chaotic as possible to avoid the incoming fire. But she couldn’t help noticing that the Hedalt were far more focused on them than the rest of the fleet. “They’re not making it easy on us!”
Taylor noted that Nimrod Squadrons Beta One and Beta Two were now directly engaged with the capital ship, but it was like shooting BB pellets at a medieval suit of armor, and three of the ten ships had already been destroyed. Come on, come on! Taylor urged as he watched the counter for the number of ships that had escaped slowly creep up. Twenty... Twenty four... Come on!
Suddenly the ship was rocked and Taylor grabbed the arm of the chair, putting another dent in it due to his inhuman strength.
“Direct h
it!” cried Blake, and then there was a tense pause, “but we’re okay... minor damage... the armor soaked up most of it.”
Taylor inspected the summarized damage report on his console, “Luckily it was from one of their smaller turrets,” he called out. “But if we take a hit like that from the main cannons, we’re done for.”
“Noted!” shouted Casey, as she dodged another volley of plasma fire. “Hold on to your pants, because I’m going to make my run through the opening in five... four...” But Casey didn’t reach three, as the hawk-like outline of another War Frigate appeared above the gap she was aiming for, “Damn it, Cap, that route’s a bust too!” she cried out swinging the Contingency One back around and further into the lava tube again, as a savage volley of plasma flashed past their hull.
“Keep looking, Casey,” Taylor called back, “Any opening you see, take it!”
The communications system bleeped again, but this time it wasn’t a communication from Nimrod Command, it was from Nimrod Delta One. Who the hell is this? Taylor thought as he opened the link.
“Hey, Captain, I thought you could use a hand,” came the voice of Captain Reese Turner.
“Reese? What are you doing, get yourself out!” Taylor called back, “Colonel Collins will be too preoccupied with getting the fleet to safety to care about us.”
“Sure, though I couldn’t help but notice that you’re still here, Captain,” said Reese. “Collins may let you go, but these big-ass Hedalt ships seem to have taken a particular dislike to you. It’s why the rest of the fleet is managing to slip out.”
“He’s right, Cap,” Blake called back, “They’re focusin’ fire heavily on us. It’s like there’s a damn bounty on our head or somethin’. We must’ve hacked ‘em off worse than we thought!”
“What do you propose, Captain?” Taylor said into the communicator. He was reluctant to let Reese put his neck on the line for them, but he knew he was right. The Nimrod Fleet had no chance against the Hedalt Armada if they couldn’t reach the Nexus and shut down the simulants.