The Longest Day (Ark Royal X)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She silently tallied the replies as more and more data flooded into her HUD, then led the squadron directly towards the enemy ships. This time, thankfully, there had been no equipment failures to ground one or two of her pilots. It had happened several times before as starfighters had been brought out of storage and reactivated, despite the best effort of the flight engineers. Then, it had been embarrassing and the unfortunate pilots had been the butts of hundreds of jokes; now, it would have trapped a couple of her pilots on the station, sitting ducks if - when - the aliens attacked. She wouldn't have wanted to be there, even if the odds of survival weren't in her favour. She didn't like being a sitting duck.

  A civilian would have called her formation ragged, if they called it anything at all. Her pilots jinked from side to side automatically, as if they were already evading incoming fire. It looked as though she had no control at all. But a military officer would know better. A randomised formation would make it far harder for the enemy to predict their course and put a railgun pellet in their path. Ginny knew precisely what would happen if she struck a tiny pellet at high speed and it wasn't pretty. She’d be insanely lucky to survive.

  Fancy formations are for President’s Day, she thought, wryly. Survival beats formation flying any day.

  She tapped a command into her console, bringing the plasma guns online. It felt warmer all of a sudden, as if she was sitting on an engine, even though she knew it was all in her imagination. She’d heard too many horror stories about early plasma weapons overheating and exploding, taking their starfighters and pilots with them. Even now, after the alien weapons had been reverse-engineered and put into mass production, there were too many problems with the plasma guns for her to feel comfortable using them. But she knew, all too well, that without the plasma guns they wouldn't stand a chance.

  “On my mark, break and attack,” she ordered. The alien starfighters were drawing closer, ducking and weaving in their own version of the human formation. She wondered, grimly, if any of the pilots facing her had been at New Russia. Killing those aliens would be very satisfying. She wanted some payback, damn it. “Prepare to move ...”

  She leaned forward, bracing herself. “Attack!”

  Her starfighter twisted as she opened fire, shooting a stream of superhot plasma towards the nearest alien starfighter. The alien formation came apart, then reformed into a very different hunting formation ... part of her mind admired their skill, even as they started to return fire with savage intensity. Either their plasma guns were still better, she noted, or they weren’t particularly concerned about the risk. They were firing madly, shooting even when there was only a faint chance of actually scoring a hit.

  An alien starfighter loomed in front of her. She snapped off a shot, blowing the alien craft into a fireball, then evaded as another starfighter targeted her. Lieutenant Powers blew it away seconds later, only to die himself as a third alien craft blasted him in the back. Ginny avenged him, then spun her starfighter like a top as three more alien craft appeared, firing madly. It looked, very much, as though they’d set their plasma guns to auto-fire.

  “I can't shake him,” Lieutenant Yu snapped. His voice was composed, but she heard an undertone of panic. “Help!”

  “On my way,” Ginny said. Yu was twisting and turning desperately, but the alien pilot chasing him seemed to have no trouble keeping up with him. “Fly straight, just for a second.”

  She smiled, savagely, as the alien fell into a predictable firing position. The enemy pilot was focused on his prey, too focused. He - or she - didn't even notice Ginny before she slipped right into his blindspot and blew him away. It was a very human problem, she noted as she twisted her starfighter through space. And yet ... the thought that she might have something in common with her enemies disturbed her. She’d always assumed she’d face Chinese or Russian pilots in combat, yet ...

  We can talk to them, she thought. She’d enjoyed some of her chats with Russian and French pilots, although the Chinese and Japanese had been more standoffish. And these bastards refuse to talk to us.

  She broke through into a patch of clear space and hastily checked her HUD, trying to get a sense of the overall situation. A third of the alien starfighters seemed to have stayed behind to dogfight with her and the rest of the squadrons, while the remainder were still heading directly towards Earth. The CSP was already moving to intercept, the automated weapons platforms turning to provide last-ditch back-up. She wondered, suddenly, what would happen to the missile pods. Firing now ran the risk of wasting them - the alien point defence was far too good - but holding them back gave the aliens a chance to pick them off before they could be deployed. She hoped the admiral made the right decision when the time came to act.

  An alien starfighter dropped into attack position, right behind her. Ginny cursed and kicked the drive forward, spinning her craft through a series of evasive manoeuvres. The bastard kept on her tail, following her with all the persistence of a half-drunk suitor too stupid to realise that he’d already been given an answer. She felt a flicker of admiration, mingled with cold hatred. The alien pilot had to have real experience. No simulator ever designed could teach pilots all the tricks of the trade. And that meant he’d been on New Russia.

  Her thoughts were cold and hard. Tell me, who did you kill? Which of my friends died at your hands?

  She braced herself, then yanked her craft around until she was racing directly towards her pursuer. The alien seemed to flinch - although it could have been her imagination - and then opened fire, spraying plasma bolts like machine-gun fire. Ginny jammed her finger on the firing key, returning fire as the range closed with terrifying speed. A bolt of plasma passed so close to her starfighter that she saw it with her naked eye, a second before the alien craft was blown to dust. She flew right through where the alien starfighter had been, wishing she had time for a proper victory roll. But the fighting was still going on.

  “The enemy carriers are still closing,” the CAG noted. New updates flickered to life on her display. The enemy didn't seem to think their carriers were also battleships - in that, if nothing else, they agreed with their human enemies - but they did pack some considerable firepower of their own. “Prepare to regroup.”

  Ginny sucked in her breath as the starfighters raced back towards Earth. She’d lost four of her pilots, four. And the other squadrons looked to have been hurt just as badly. And the battle had only just begun ...

  Chapter Twelve

  Near Earth/Earth Orbit

  The Combat Faction tallied the aftermath of the first strikes with a profound sense of displeasure.

  Losses had been higher for the humans, the various sub-factions noted, but their own losses hadn't been small. The humans had upgraded their weapons - one analysis faction claimed that the humans must have captured a starfighter at some point, although the others insisted that that was suspiciously optimistic - and their tactics had clearly been improved too. Their defences had been weakened, but ... insufficiently.

  We cannot withdraw now, the faction announced. We must deploy missile strikes at once.

  The Song shifted as new voices demanded to be heard. On one hand, deploying the missiles might just weaken the human defences; on the other hand, the risk of accidentally striking the human homeworld could not be ruled out. Some of the factions didn't care - the only good human was a dead human - but the others overruled them. Genocide - deliberate or accidental - could not be tolerated. The humans would certainly retaliate in kind, once they realised their homeworld had been depopulated. And it was a great deal easier to wreck a world than occupy it.

  The enemy defences are holding their own, the faction concluded. The Song rose to a crescendo as consensus was - once again - formed. We must increase our attempts to weaken them before it is too late.

  There was a pause as new orders were formulated. Launch missiles.

  ***

  “Admiral,” Hanson said. “The enemy starships are launching missiles.”

  Jon turn
ed to the display, gritting his teeth as the red icons appeared. The aliens were firing at long range ... far too long range. His defences would have plenty of time to come to grips with the missiles, which meant ... either the aliens were being stupid or they had something hidden up their sleeves. Perhaps it was a diversion. But if it was, he’d expect to see something else ...

  “Order the point defence to engage as soon as possible,” he said. “And alert the starfighters to engage the missiles as they pass.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Hanson said.

  The missiles picked up speed rapidly, pushing their drives to the limits. They didn’t have to worry about crew who’d be squashed flat if the compensators failed ... and yet, they weren't that fast. His point defences were already tracking them, preparing to engage with plasma cannons and railguns. The aliens wouldn't even get close to his facilities before they slammed into the point defence. Unless that was what they wanted him to think.

  He switched his attention back to the starfighters. A mass of alien craft had entered orbit, firing madly at everything within range, but they’d done relatively little damage. The panic after New Russia had done some good, he conceded reluctantly. Mounting weapons on everything from commercial relay satellites to asteroid habitats ensured that the enemy starfighters had to run one hell of a gauntlet before they reached the real targets. A great deal of equipment would have to be replaced, after the battle was over, but that wouldn't be a problem. He’d be glad of it, as long as they soaked up missiles and plasma fire that would otherwise be aimed at something vital.

  And our own starfighters have held up well, he thought. They’re not being brushed aside by superior firepower and speed.

  “Admiral,” Hanson said. “The alien missiles are still picking up speed.”

  Jon bit down a curse. The alien missiles were the fastest things in known space, showing an acceleration curve that was frightening as hell. No manned ship would be able to hit that speed unless there was a revolutionary compensator breakthrough ... he pushed the thought aside, hard. The missiles were far more of a threat than he'd assumed.

  “Order the point defence to engage,” he ordered, sharply. The original calculations would have to be tossed out the airlock. Thankfully, there should be enough time to redo them before it was too late. “And then alert their potential targets.”

  He cursed the aliens under his breath. Regular missiles would be going ballistic by now, falling onto predictable trajectories. But the aliens ... even if they’d just over-engineered the missiles, they’d thrown all his calculations for a loop. He didn't even have a definite idea of what they were targeting, although he had some suspicions. The aliens had to be able to pick some of the more important targets out of the halo of installations surrounding Earth.

  Including Pournelle Base, he thought, numbly. They might target us.

  ***

  “Jesus Christ!”

  Captain Ginny Saito barely heard the curse as she tried to jockey her starfighter into an interception position. The speeds the alien missiles were pulling were terrifying, even though she knew they weren’t aimed at her starfighter. She was used to flying the fastest thing in space and the alien missiles threatened to outrace her easily.

  The fastest manned thing in space, she corrected herself, as she shifted her plasma guns to automatic. No human could hope to react in time to engage the missiles with guns. I couldn't hope to catch up with the missiles if I had to give chase.

  Her guns opened fire a second later, spewing plasma fire into the void. A missile vanished from the display, followed by two more as they flew too close to the rest of the squadron, but the remainder flashed past them and continued to roar towards Earth. The squadron had just been caught out of position, utterly unaware that it would need to adjust course to intercept the missiles ... there were other starfighters, nearer the planet, but they’d have the same problem. She could only hope that the missiles weren't aimed at the planet itself. A single hit at those speeds would be utterly disastrous.

  And they might not even be aiming at the planet, she thought. They might miss their targets and slam into the planet instead.

  Her threat receiver bleeped as an alien starfighter locked onto her. She threw the starfighter into an evasion pattern, trying to dodge a hail of plasma fire before it was too late. There was nothing she could do for the people closer to Earth, not now. All she could do was fight to survive ...

  ... And hope there was a planet left, after the battle was over.

  ***

  “A handful of the missiles were taken out,” Hanson reported. “Two more appeared to self-destruct.”

  Jon frowned. It was possible that the Tadpoles had overpowered the missile drives to the point where a single disharmonic flicker was enough to rip the entire drive unit to atoms. A brute-force solution might be workable, although he was all too aware that the cost would be staggering for very little return. Long-range missiles had been on the drawing board for years, but no one had been able to make them workable. The Tadpoles might have punched their way through a few of the issues, yet the rest remained.

  “Let us hope the others go the same way,” he said. The missiles were entering terminal attack range now, their targets suddenly becoming very clear. “Or that we manage to take them down before it’s too late.”

  ***

  “I can't see the fucker,” Lewis Dennison said. “I can't ...”

  He cursed as he manoeuvred the worker bee around Tidemark Asteroid. He’d never expected to be on the front line of a war, not when he’d accepted the job of maintenance worker on an asteroid crammed with the rich and powerful. It was the ultimate gated community, he’d thought when he’d seen the job advertisement, but it came with plenty of benefits for a retired asteroid miner and his family. Hell, the school on the asteroid was so vastly superior to anything on Earth that he’d been determined to do whatever it took to keep his kids on the asteroid, even if it meant taking a pay cut. But now ...

  I should have taken them out to the belt, he thought. It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of independent, semi-independent and corporate asteroids that had schools of their own, although they were intensely focused on space-based technologies and jobs rather than anything more interesting. But I had to stay here, didn't I?

  He swallowed, hard, as the alien missile came closer. The damned thing was moving at a terrible speed, fast enough to leave his worker bee in the dust. Lewis didn't have the slightest idea who’d thought it was a good idea to stick a pair of lasers on the tiny craft and call it part of the asteroid’s defences, but he would have loved to meet the idiot up a dark alley one night. Dealing with space junk was one thing, dealing with incoming missiles was quite another. The lasers weren't even that powerful.

  The lasers fired. Lewis thought, just for a second, that they’d actually hit their target, but the alien missile appeared unaffected. It was still coming ... he stared, then jammed the worker bee forward, intending to put it between the missile and its target. But the goddamned craft was too slow. The missile raced past him and slammed into the asteroid, punching through the rocky exterior. A second later, it exploded.

  Lewis could only stare in horror as the asteroid shattered, pieces of rocky debris flying out in all directions. His kids had been on the asteroid, his kids and his wife ... hundreds of families had been on the asteroid ... all dead. Tidemark Asteroid had shelters, of course it had shelters, but they weren't designed to survive a missile strike. The nuclear blast had not only smashed the asteroid, it had destroyed the shelters as well. His kids ...

  The radio hissed at him, barking orders. Lewis could barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. His kids were dead. Pieces of debris were falling into the atmosphere now, some of them easily large enough to cause real trouble if they hit the surface. Others ... he hoped, with a vindictiveness that surprised him, that an alien ship crashed into a piece of rock and was smashed to rubble. He wanted to throw his tiny craft directly into their formation, to ram one o
f their carriers for himself, but he knew it wouldn't solve anything. Even if he made it through their point defence, he doubted he’d do more than scar their hull. It wouldn't be enough to pay them back for what he’d lost.

  Tears brimmed in his eyes as he keyed the radio. Orders popped up a moment later, telling him to keep the debris from falling into the planet’s atmosphere. Lewis almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of the orders. What the hell did they think he was flying? A heavy-lift tug? A worker bee barely had enough thrust to move under its own power. God knew he’d never win any goddamned races in his little craft. A starfighter would outrace him in seconds ...

  He forced himself to remain calm as he looked around for a piece of debris he could push into a stable orbit, but there were none. Most of the bigger pieces were heading down - Tidemark Asteroid hadn't been the only target, he noted - and there was no way he could stop them. He didn't want to think about what would happen when they hit the ground. Some pieces would break up, he was sure, and others would be smashed by the defences, but ...