Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  “But sir,” he protested, “Q-161 broke from the team alone. She says she laid the charge. This ship is going up any second.”

  I blinked twice, trying to think. We were in real time now, things were moving very fast.

  “What’s our window?” I asked Rumbold.

  “Fifty seconds,” he said. “It would be longer if we hadn’t lost engine one.”

  “Rumbold, their only chance is based on your piloting. I want you to open the shuttle bay doors. Blow them off—now.”

  He reached for the panel, fumbling at the unexpected command. I leapt up and did it myself.

  “Now, fly directly toward them. Scoop them up in that mouth-like opening we just made.”

  “But my course isn’t—”

  “You’ve got to do it on full manual,” I said, staring at him. “Can you do that?”

  He looked as if he’d eaten something hot and unpleasant. He swallowed hard. “I can sure as hell try, Captain!”

  “Go!”

  I sat back down. Defiant went into motion, slewing around and aiming her nose toward the star carrier. After the assault team had been deployed aboard Iron Duke, we’d gotten busy destroying her point-defense weapons. This side of the hull had been stripped clean.

  “Hard to control with number one gone,” Rumbold apologized as we all lurched, gripping our armrests with claw-like fingers.

  “All hands,” I said, activating the ship-wide broadcast, “prepare for extreme maneuvers.”

  “Bunch up, Morris. Tell Okto to join you. A hot pick-up is your only hope. If we don’t scoop you up, you’ll be fried by the fireball when the ship blows up.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  They’d been riding the shuttle, hanging onto it like sailors clinging to a raft. As we plunged nearer, I considered ordering Rumbold to slow down. Surely, even if he did catch them with the open shuttle bay, they’d all be killed when they hit the back of the hangar.

  But I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. There wasn’t time to micromanage anything. Rumbold would only be distracted and confused. He was either going to pull this off, or he wasn’t.

  “Sweet Mary!” Morris called out in the final instant. “You’re going to run us all down, Captain!”

  His words ended as we swept over his position. I felt sick. Had we just crushed their bodies to pulp?

  We didn’t even hear anything. Not a thump or a thud. Their mass was so tiny compared to Defiant’s it was as if we’d hit insects.

  “Life signs, Yamada?” I asked.

  She paused. We all waited, hearing the roar of our engines invade our helmets, then our skulls. Rumbold was pulling up and pouring on the thrust.

  “I’ve got something, Captain. They’re not all dead.”

  “Emergency crew to the hangar!” I demanded. “Rumbold, can you ease off a little?”

  “Can’t do it, Captain. We need every second and more. My port side is dragging its ass as it is.”

  “You have the helm,” I told him, freeing him to pilot as he saw fit. I suspected he was going to do so anyway, unless I hauled him out of his chair and replaced him bodily.

  We were doing about one and a half gravities of acceleration already. Our real acceleration rate was actually higher, but our stabilizers hid the worst of the crushing effects. The ship struggled to speed up more, but she couldn’t in her wounded state.

  Before we could get to a safe distance, the carrier exploded. A silent blue-white flash came first. Then radiation washed over Defiant making her hull scintillate with charged particles.

  My command deck staffers whooped in celebration, fists raised and smiles all around. We’d been victorious.

  We’d done it. We’d killed Iron Duke. I allowed myself a small, tight smile. But I couldn’t hold the feeling, and my face turned glum again. This victory had come at great cost.

  In addition to our losses so far, there was the mass of fighters closing on our position, screaming after us.

  “Durris, what are the numbers?” I asked. “Will they catch us?”

  “Depends on how much fuel they have left, Captain,” he said. “They’re gaining, but slowly. If they can burn the way they are now for another hour, they’ll have us.”

  I nodded. “Give me your best guess. Do they have the fuel left in their tanks?”

  “Well… we’ve been tracking them, and assuming the variants haven’t altered their capacities, this pack should run out before they catch up.”

  That made me smile. It was quite possibly the first slice of good news I’d heard all day.

  “Excellent. Let’s hope your math holds. I’m going below to check on Morris’ team.”

  “Captain?” Yamada asked me, her face full of concern, “has he contacted you? Since he came aboard?”

  I shook my head.

  She turned back to her station and neither of us spoke.

  Hand-over-hand, I climbed out of my seat, made it to the passages and used the handholds to aid me in my progress. The ship shook and slid to one side now and again, due to our unevenly applied thrust. Rumbold was fighting the controls every step of the way.

  When I finally made it to the hangar deck, I was greeted by a grim sight. A dozen emergency personnel were crawling over an equal number of soldiers. Three of them were much larger than the rest.

  “Okto?” I asked.

  She stirred.

  “So,” she said, “my murderer comes to make sure the job is complete. Your attempts to slay me have increased in both frequency and violence. What is it that antagonizes you so much about me, Sparhawk?”

  “Well, you sound like your usual healthy self.” I glanced at the corpsman working on her battered body. “Is she going to make it?” I asked her.

  “If she were human, I’d say no. But these colonist types are much tougher than we are.”

  It was a slur to call Okto something other than human, but I let it slide. My crewmen were understandably stressed today.

  I found Morris next. His body was broken, but he was breathing raggedly on a ventilator.

  “He’s got more than twenty fractures,” one of the medical team marveled. “Shock alone should have killed him. Still might. Word is that the entire team came in too fast. They hit the back of the hangar trying to slow down the shuttle, but they didn’t manage it. There’s a damned big scorch mark on the back wall, and not much left of the shuttle!”

  I nodded, watching an old friend struggle for life.

  “He’ll make it,” I said, “if only to scream profanity at Rumbold.”

  The corpsman gave me a strange look then she went back to working on her charge.

  Taking each step with painful force, I worked my way back to the command deck and to my seat. We weren’t free of the enemy yet.

  -59-

  The next twenty minutes were like a rollercoaster. At first, we thought we were going to slip away. By our numbers, the enemy fighters couldn’t reach us. They’d spent too much fuel racing after our ships.

  But then the enemy shifted their plans. As always, they did so as a group and all at once.

  “Captain!” Yamada called to me, “they’re coming about to a new course heading.”

  “Durris, project possibilities.”

  He was already tapping and dragging his fingers across two screens at once. On the projection above the table, the situation shifted. Balloons of color appeared, representing possibilities, and our course began to merge with them.

  “XO?” I asked, unable to contain myself. “What are they doing?”

  Durris ignored me, but then he turned around with a sigh. “Several wings have reached the Stroj home world. They’ve been hitting them hard.”

  “I know that. But they’ve got no base left. Nowhere to return and refuel and rearm.”

  “Right sir, but there are still the four battleships. They’re following us now. All the fighters that aren’t striking the Stroj planet are after us too.”

  I stepped on unsteady feet to join him at the planning
table. We were both hunched over it as if clinging to it for dear life. Our bodies weighed more than usual, and the effect gave one aches and pains in unexpected areas. In particular, I found that my neck always hurt after hours of keeping it upright under acceleration. I guess it was like wearing a cumbersome helmet.

  Worse, our natural blood flow was adversely affected. Our heads were up high, and it took a lot of pressure to drive blood to our brains under these conditions. When the effects were prolonged, headaches, dizzy spells and the like were common.

  “Let’s sit back and rest,” I said, relaxing on a nearby couch to talk to him. “Where could we go to escape these converging groups?”

  He shook his head. “There is no escape. They’re englobing us. Look at the spheres of possible future engagement. They’re overlapping already.”

  I looked up, straining to see the ghostly graphics that hung effortlessly over the planning table. At moments like this, I wished I were a weightless pixel.

  “What’s that gray globe to the right?”

  “That’s the Stroj planet.”

  “Surely, the planet isn’t that large!”

  “No, Captain. The extent of that balloon includes the reach of their missile bases.”

  I sat up and stared with renewed interest. “You included our allies as enemies?”

  “They warned us off, Captain. You remember their threats? To stay out of missile range or be destroyed?”

  “We’ve done just that,” I said. “In fact, we’ve removed the biggest threat from the system. They should be grateful for that.”

  Durris snorted. Apparently, he believed the Stroj to be ingrates. I had to admit, he had a point.

  “What about their fuel limits?” I demanded. “Aren’t the pursuing fighters drifting by now?”

  He shook his head. “I can only assume the variants performed some alterations and improvements.”

  “Get Lorn up here. Bring him to the command deck.”

  The last uninjured marines we had aboard groaned at this order, but they complied. Several minutes later, a foul-tempered Stroj arrived to look down at me.

  “Taking a rest on your command deck, Sparhawk?” he demanded with a rough laugh. “What happened? Did you soil yourself when the variants nearly caught you?”

  I pointed at the planning table, or rather, at the ghostly projections hanging over it.

  Lorn studied the scene. “How did you get yourself so badly misplaced on the battlefield?” he demanded.

  “Unfortunately, a brave strike at the heart of the enemy often leaves the brave in the middle of the opposing force.”

  “Yes… How are we going to get out of this?”

  “You’re going to help,” I said, climbing to my feet.

  The Stroj pirate stood tall and proud ignoring the crushing G forces. His body was at least fifty percent artificial. His brain and his limbs were flesh, but except for certain key organs, his bones and other internal components were made of cold metal.

  Lorn looked at me disdainfully. “I’ve kept our bargain. I’ve done everything you asked and more. Why should I help you further?”

  “Because you will be destroyed if you don’t. We’re flying toward your home planet. What will the Stroj do planetside when we come into range of their missiles?”

  “They’ll fire,” he said glumly. “They won’t tolerate an enemy ship in that close.”

  “What if they’ve used all their missiles?” Durris asked. “I’ve noticed their barrages have been increasingly thin. They haven’t been very effective against the enemy fighters, either.”

  Lorn shrugged. “The Stroj always have reserves. Always. It’s part of our doctrine. A knife behind the back is often worth more than a rifle in the final moments of a struggle.”

  “More Stroj wisdom?” Durris said angrily.

  I waved for him to calm himself which he did with difficulty.

  “Can you do it?” I asked Lorn. “Can you convince your people to hold their fire? That we’re coming to help?”

  He laughed. “I don’t see how I can do that. You’ll be trailing thousands of additional fighters. Why not destroy you?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I demanded, getting an idea. “If they shoot us down, the fighters will have nothing left to attack other than your home planet. They’ll need to keep us alive, if only as decoys.”

  Lorn stared at me for a second. Almost reluctantly, he nodded at last.

  “That might work,” he admitted.

  After a few minutes of trying, we managed to get the Stroj overlord to answer our calls. I tried not to sound desperate, but we were getting close to the borderline.

  The odd alien-looking Stroj we’d spoken with previously came on the screen again. Lorn did the talking, explaining the reality of the situation.

  “Deception!” it said. “Duplicity! We’re preparing to fire, but you’ve not yet crossed the line. Please continue on your current course.”

  “Wait a minute!” Lorn said with a hint of desperation. “What do you mean? We haven’t deceived you!”

  A limb waved to indicate Lorn’s surroundings. “The humans are in charge, not you, traitor. We’ve monitored your transmissions and hacked your security codes. We know you’re nothing to them but a prisoner. To us, you’re a traitor.”

  “Hold on!” Lorn said. “Hear my appeal to reason, to your sense of self-preservation. The enemy following us will overwhelm you if we’re destroyed.”

  The creature appeared to examine instruments. “You’re almost within our reach now. Continue wasting your final moments. It amuses us.”

  “Listen,” Lorn said, hardening his resolve, “our three remaining cruisers are coming your way. There are a thousand fighters chasing each of us. They hate us because we destroyed their carrier. They’ll chase us until their fuel runs out—unless you destroy us first. Use us as decoys to lead the fighters safely away.”

  “Falsehood. Miscalculation. The enemy will follow you because you’re the nearest available target. Once they determine they can’t catch you, they’ll swarm our planet instead.”

  Lorn and I stopped talking, and we fell into an uncomfortable silence. We’d both realized the creature might be correct.

  “Here’s what I offer,” continued Lorn after a painful delay. “We’ll slow down after we’ve moved a hundred thousand kilometers into your territory. Fire your missiles—but aim them at the fighters instead of our ship. We’ll help, gloriously fighting to the death among them.”

  “What—?” I asked, my mouth sagging open.

  The creature considered the offer for about a second.

  “Very well,” it said, with a wobble to its red crest. “Die well, Lorn, and your name will not be deemed too sinful to speak aloud in the future.”

  The screen went blank, and I turned on Lorn, who was very proud of himself.

  “You see?” he said. “I told you I could swing a deal.”

  “You’ve only postponed our doom by an hour or so.”

  “Exactly,” he agreed, and then he moved to sit in my chair. He wore a self-satisfied expression.

  Irritated, I had him chased from the command deck and placed back in his cell clamped in gravity-cuffs.

  -60-

  We reached the red line and passed it. The line indicated the point of no return, the point where we’d moved into Stroj space.

  They could reach us with their missiles now, and they didn’t wait long to exercise that power.

  “They’re firing barrages, sir,” Yamada said, “every base they have is unloading.”

  “How many? What targets?”

  “There are several hundred missiles en route to each cruiser.”

  I looked at the data sourly. “Any chance they plan to meet the fighters chasing us instead?”

  “That’s hard to know,” Durris said, working his analysis table. “They’ll strike our position right after the fighters meet up with us—if we maintain our current course and speed.”

  “Right,” I said,
poring over the information. “We’ll have to change our heading. We’ll veer away from the planet slightly.”

  “What good will that do?” Durris asked.

  “We have to play this carefully,” I said, “the fighters must follow us closely, but never catch us until the last possible moment.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “But what if they figure out what we’re up to? These pilots are intelligent. They’re likely to switch their targeting and fall upon the Stroj planet.”

  “Then the Stroj have even more reason to take them out, instead of us.”

  He looked at me with respect. “Ruthless and cunning. The Stroj have let us into their space under false pretenses. They’ll never trust us again.”

  “They as much as told us our only option was to die while they watched,” I said, “I have little pity for them if they’re so intractable.”

  He nodded and turned back to his tables.

  I felt a little weighed down by these crucial rapid-fire decisions, but I felt there was no room for error. The Stroj had refused to bend. We were thus forced to deal them a harsh blow even as we helped pull their rear-ends from the fire.

  The battle played out much as I’d imagined it would. The variant pilots followed us for a time, but then turned toward the planet when it became clear we weren’t going to let them catch us.

  After that, things became ugly. Several waves of fighters struck the Stroj. Their last handful of ships did battle as we watched from a safe distance, but they were taken down one by one.

  Many of the fighters were taken out by the Stroj missiles, but it wasn’t enough. They won through.

  “Advance,” I ordered, when the fighters entered the atmosphere and began bombing runs with impunity. “Get us into range of those fighters. They’ll have to slow down in the atmosphere or burn up. They’ll be easy targets for our guns.”

  White-faced, my crew followed my orders. They were thinking that I was taking a big risk. The Stroj might well have more reserves—but I’d be surprised if they did. Who would hold back firepower when their cities were burning?

  “Yamada, get Okto on the line for me, I need to talk to her.”