Aggressor (Strike Commander Book 3)

by Richard Tongue

   “Don't shoot!” she said. “We surrender!”

   “Throw away your weapons,” Angel ordered. “Hands over your heads, and over to the wall. Move it!” All around, troopers complied with her demands, and her improvised combat team clustered together, keeping their guns trained on the enemy soldiers as they made for the bulkhead. “Nunez, check them for weapons. Clyde, keep them covered.”

   Susan looked at the devastation around her, eyes wide, her hands shaking as she saw the bodies, heard the groans of the wounded. The air was filled with the stink of battle, of cordite mixed with blood, and she dropped her pistol to the deck, rattling away as she looked up at Angel.

   “First battle's always tough,” Angel said. “This is war, kiddo. Believe me, it gets worse than this.”

   “All hands, attention!” the voice barked. “Firing range in one minute. Damage control teams to the hangar deck. Prepare for multiple missile impacts. Repeat, firing range in one minute.”

   “See what I mean,” Angel said, looking down at her. “Just when you think it can't, it gets worse.”

  Chapter 21

   Morgan looked across from her panel, a frown on her face, and said, “Angel reports boarding parties neutralized, Captain, but the hangar deck is a hell of a mess, and the engineering corridors are worse. It's going to make damage control a lot tougher in those areas. Chief Cruz already has teams on the way.”

   “And the butcher's bill?” Mallory asked.

   “Six dead, fourteen wounded, three seriously.” Morgan paused, then said, “Doctor Strickland expects to save one out of three, with luck. From the boarding parties, fifteen dead, ten wounded, fourteen captured.”

   Shaking her head, Clayton said, “Maybe we made a mistake stopping them so soon. They might have been a bit more reluctant to press home their attack if they knew their own people were on the firing line.”

   “Sub-Lieutenant, do you think that Admiral Knight will develop a conscience now? She's thrown her own people into the fire time after time in the pursuit of her glorious cause, and I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't be willing to do it again.” Shaking her head, Mallory continued, “I'm sure if they were making good progress, she might have changed her mind, but that would have required conceding areas of the ship we couldn't afford to lose.” She paused, turned to Morgan, and asked, “What about...”

   “Your daughter is fine,” Morgan said. “Working with the clean-up. Angel told me to pass on that she was one hell of a good shot, and that she'd recommend her for a citation for conduct during the battle.”

   A faint smile crossed Mallory's face, and she replied, “Thank you, Ensign.”

   “Firing range in one minute,” Finch said. “I have a firing solution, and our fighter screen is ready to move in support of our attack.” Throwing switches on his panel, he continued, “I'm going to try for their launch tubes first, then their engines.”

   “Thank God they don't have a laser battlecruiser,” Clayton added. “Or we'd be sitting ducks for an easy kill.” Tapping a control, she added, “Ready for evasive action, Captain. Forty seconds to go.”

   An eternity, Mallory thought. All the decisions made, all the preparations completed, a mad minute of combat awaiting them. She looked up at the sensor display, admiring the cold functionality of the screen. Just two dots connected by a narrow line, a circle representing firing range, and a trio of smaller dots over to one side, Jack and his flight moving to support their attack.  Theseus could still avoid the worst of the combat. Missile duels were another version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. If either side decided to opt for defensive fire, the exchange would cancel each other out. Admiral Knight had a reputation as a ruthless tactician, one that had certainly proven itself true many times in their previous encounters.

   And the battlecruiser was undamaged, only a few surface scars from earlier encounters. The same wasn't true of Churchill. From a glance at the status board, the only thing holding the ship together was the collective will of her crew, but she knew what that would be worth when the missiles started to fly.

   There was still an escape vector. Even now, she could abort the attack, pull Churchill away and allow Theseus to flee the system. Cleaning up the mess left behind in this system would give them valuable intelligence, and they'd have time to repair the battle damage, get the ship back into fighting trim.

   Then she looked at the status board again, and shook her head. This ship didn't need a few days of maintenance, it needed a complete overhaul in a major shipyard. Chief Cruz was good, but she'd need magic powers to get this ship back into combat condition in anything less than weeks. A few days weren't going to make any noticeable difference. If they were going to commit to the attack, now was as good a time as any to press it home.

   “Twenty seconds, Captain,” Clayton said. “Red Flight will be sixty seconds behind. They're having trouble catching up, but should be in a position to exploit any vulnerabilities we can open up.”

   “I have a final firing solution, Captain,” Finch added. “Going for their missile tubes with the first strike, engines with the second.” Throwing a control, he continued, All trajectory tracks are locked in. Ready for launch.”

   Nodding, Mallory watched the screen, a countdown clock trickling away the final seconds. A red light winked on, and Churchill rocked back as the first missile salvo raced away, surging towards its destination. Immediately, Finch frantically worked to prepare the second strike, glancing up at the status board to watch their warheads dive towards Theseus.

   “Enemy counter-strike,” Morgan said. “Six missiles, bearing directly. Looks like they're going for offensive as well.”

   “They're trying to hack our birds,” McGuire replied. “I can hold them off for a few seconds, but no longer than that.”

   “Lieutenant,” Mallory said, turning to Finch, “switch to shotgun mode on our missiles as soon as McGuire instructs.”

   The grim-faced hacker rattled his hands over the controls, trying to counter the actions of his opponent on Theseus, but the monitors over his head displayed the odds he was facing, the overwhelming electronic firepower against which he battled. He was good, very good, but it wasn't going to be enough.

   “Now, Finch!” he yelled, and the officer to his left turned a key on his panel, a series of status reports flashing red on his status screen.

   “Missiles locked, Captain,” Finch said. “Unable to affect further course change. If Theseus wants them down, they'll be intercepted in five seconds. Second salvo will be in the air in twenty-eight.”

   “Understood,” Mallory said, her eyes still focused on the viewscreen, watching as the two clusters of missiles flew towards each other, the trajectories close enough that there would be no warning. The dotted lines moved forward, then surged past each other as the salvos moved towards their respective targets.

   “Evasive, Clayton!” Mallory yelled. “Make sure they don't hit anything critical.”

   “Aye, Captain,” she replied.

   “Missile strike in twenty seconds,” Finch said. “Ours will hit Theseus at about the same time. I think they're going for the missile tubes.”

   Churchill danced on her thrusters as Clayton worked the helm controls with practiced precision, ducking from side to side in an attempt to ride out the attack. They couldn't dodge the missiles, but at least they could force them to non-critical areas. Not that there were many at the moment, given the state of the hull.

   All was silent on the bridge, every crewman watching the tactical display on the viewscreen as the missiles crawled towards their target. Theseus was going to be hit, that much was now certain, Admiral Knight deciding to accept the damage in exchange for wreaking a greater toll on her enemy. With six missiles against three, she was likely to get her wish.

   “Ten seconds to impact,” Finch said in a monotone.

   “Come on,” Clayton said, throwing the ship into a low roll. “Come on
, old girl, you can do this.” Her eyes were fixed on her panel, carefully playing the thrusters, while the incoming missiles fanned out to home in on their specific targets, the enemy gunner knowing the weak spots he was trying for, attempting an element of misdirection, trying to trick his opponent.

   Then three of the missiles swung in again, sliding towards each other, two of them almost imperceptibly reducing their acceleration to move into a formation, line astern, all running towards the heart of the ship. There was only one target they could be trying for. The bridge.

   “Hold on, everyone!” Mallory yelled. “Brace for multiple impacts in five seconds!”

   Despite all of Clayton's work, McGuire's last-second attempts to crack into the incoming missiles, without effective countermeasures, there was nothing they could do. Finch just about had his second salvo ready, but the arming process was dragging, taking seconds they simply didn't have.

   Churchill slammed to the side as the missiles crashed into it, detonating on impact, the hull crumpling into fragments as atmosphere spilled away. A chorus of sirens sounded, interrupted by a final explosion that deafened the bridge crew, a schematic of the ship flashing onto the viewscreen to reveal the extent of the impact, the bulkheads twisted on the deck behind them. At least a quarter of the ship was exposed to space, and she was tumbling out of control, twisting on her axis as the air inside escaped.

   “Engines have failed, oxygen reservoir breached, main reactor is off-line and all communications are dead,” Morgan said, reciting a litany of damage.

   Through it all, Mallory could hear a faint hiss, the noise that every spacefarer dreaded above everything else. A pressure leak. The atmosphere within the ship leaking out into space. She looked around, trying to find the crack, but it could be as small as a pinprick and still be enough to decompress the deck. Finch looked up, but before he had the chance to say a word, a hideous crack sounded from the ceiling, and one of the support struts collapsed, landing across his back.

   The hiss became a whine, and Mallory said, “Evacuation sequence! Get out of here! Now!”

   “I can't transfer command functions,” Morgan protested, turning back from her station.

   “To hell with that. Get moving!”

   Clayton glanced at Morgan, then raced for the door, the crippled archaeologist limping after her. McGuire was already out in the corridor, not waiting for the order to leave. Mallory looked up at the status board, the missiles still ready to fire, the glass-eyed Finch staring up at her, his hand clutching the panel in a death grip.

   “Captain!” Clayton said, standing at the threshold.

   Nodding, Mallory walked over to the door, then slammed her fist into the emergency release, sealing the bulkhead with her inside. She could hear a hammering on the hatch, Clayton trying to open it, but she wouldn't have the time to operate the override. Running over to the tactical station, she pushed Finch's corpse away and leaned over the controls, throwing the switch to fire the final salvo, launching it towards Theseus.

   “Damn it, get out of there!” Clayton's voice echoed over the speakers. “You've got the birds up, now get moving! You're running out of air!”

   Just launching the missiles wouldn't be enough. Finch's first salvo had done its job, taking out all but two of the enemy missile launchers, but Theseus was still racing to its target. If the fighter strike was going to work, she had to buy more time, and that meant a direct hit on the battlecruiser's primary engine. The automatic systems couldn't do the job, not with the damage to the communications systems. She'd have to guide them in herself.

   “Captain!” Clayton said, her voice growing faint. The pressure was getting low now, and she was struggling to concentrate. Her hands moved lethargically across the panel as she guided the missiles onto target, swinging them around to catch Theseus in the rear. The sirens were fading away, a sea of red light bathing her from the status monitors, alerts going unheeded as Churchill continued her final dive, lurching around as new leaks began.

   The ship was dead, but she could still bring down her murderer, and this time the enemy hacker couldn't stop her, the critical link to the quantum computer on Omega Base severed by their first strike. The trajectory lines slid into position, and Mallory smiled as she watched them disappear, one after another, the missiles crashing into the battlecruiser's engine, stranding it far short of its target.

   “You've done it, Captain! Now get out of there! Captain! Captain!” a distant voice yelled. Mallory pulled out her datapad, the image of her daughter on the display, and looked down at it as she took her last, desperate breath, the cold of space chilling her to the bone.

   “Susan,” she whispered. “Jack, take care of her.” Her head slumped to the side, and she collapsed onto the deck, the blackness enveloping her in its final warmth.

  Chapter 22

   Jack watched as the missiles slammed into Churchill, his eyes wide as his combat computer attempted an analysis of the damage. The ship listed to the side, revealing gaping holes in the superstructure, whole sides of the hull ripped away by the force of the explosions. Still, his ship remained in the fight, three missiles racing forward from the launch tubes, a ripple of hull fragments following, the ship unable even to withstand the force of the explosion.

   “Red Leader to Churchill Actual. Come in, please.” He waited for a second, then repeated, “Red Leader to Churchill Actual. Come in, please.”

   “Jack,” Sullivan said. “That last series of hits was right on the bridge. I don't think there's anyone there to hear you.” He paused, then continued, “There's still power and life support in some areas, but I'm picking up biological residue. Which means...”

   “Bodies. Thrown clear by the blast,” Jack said. Up ahead, Churchill's final salvo hit home, catching Theseus in the aft section, by the engine housing. The battlecruiser lurched to the side, angry gashes around the engineering system, and the primary engines died, the ship now carried forward only by its momentum.

   “Good shot!” Xylander said. “We're all set for an attack run, boss. My clock says thirty seconds to go.”

   “They've only got two launch tubes left,” Jack said. “We're not going to do this piecemeal. Everything in one salvo. Understand? Time-on-target throughout the ship to knock out her systems. We've got to bring her down with this pass. Sure as hell we're not going to get another, and I'm not sure we've got anywhere to rearm. A lot of people have died to give us this chance, and we're not going to waste it.”

   “Roger,” Sullivan said. “I'm on your wing. Locking combat computer to yours for simultaneous launch.” He paused, then said, “They'll still take down two of them, Jack. Eight missiles against an armored warship isn't as much as it seems.”

   Tapping a sequence of controls, Jack replied, “I've set my targeting computer for optimum explosive pattern. Given the damage she's already sustained, we might be able to take down the superstructure. If we get it right, the damn ship will fall apart.” He paused, then said, “Red Leader to Churchill Actual. Reply at once.”

   “Jack, she's dead,” Sullivan said, bluntly. “And we're twenty seconds to combat range.”

   With a deep sigh, Jack replied, “I know, Mo. I know. Dirk, you logged in?”

   “All ready to go,” Xylander answered.

   “In that case, Tally Ho! Break and attack!” He settled back in his couch, risking a glance back at Churchill, his ship now listing to the side with a halo of atmosphere around it, fountains of escaping air tossing it wildly around. The worst of the damage was forward, up by the bridge, but he could count a dozen major hull breaches just on the side facing him. There were almost certain to be far more than he could see.

   Kathy was dead. Somehow he knew that. Theoretically, there might have been a chance for survival, but a little voice in the bottom of his soul assured him that she had passed, and just as insistently claimed that his daughter was still alive. Sickbay was one of the most protected areas
of the ship, deep inside, and he couldn't spot any damage that could trace back to that section. If she was there, she might have lived through it.

   He looked up ahead at Theseus, black rage seeping through his heart. The woman who had caused all of this death, all of this destruction, was sitting on the bridge of that ship, trying to escape the system, to flee the justice she had earned. He had to get her. This was beyond mission requirements, beyond the quest they had undertaken. She had to die. Only then, perhaps, might the dead sleep soundly.

   Warning lights danced on the unfamiliar panel as he set up the final attack path, the computer selecting the critical areas that would cause maximum damage to the enemy ship. As the fighters soared into combat range, he looked down at his control panel, a smile dancing across his face, and reached across for the manual override on the throttle, tapping a sequence of commands into the combat computer with his other hand.

   “Firing in five seconds,” he said, as the hulk of Theseus loomed before him, cruising to the hendecaspace point. Even without her main engine, the battlecruiser would still reach it, and the fighters only had a single intercept pass to bring her down. The countdown clock clicked down to zero, and his ship rocked back as the final salvo raced away towards the target.

   Jack flew with it, racing ahead to keep pace with the missiles, the fighter roaring far past safe acceleration, enough that the edges of his vision started to blur. He glanced down at the sensor display, and his smile grew as he saw both his wingmen keeping pace. They'd had the same idea, to use their fighters as decoys to allow the missiles to press their attacks home.

   “Red Leader to Churchill,” he grunted. “Someone, come in.” Still there was no reply. A pair of dots appeared on the display, Theseus launching a pair of missiles in a belated defensive strike, and Xylander dived to the side before Jack could respond, running his aged fighter to a velocity that must have rendered him unconscious, his autopilot completing his friend's last command, diving the fighter into the path of the missiles before they could lock onto their chosen targets.