“And don’t think of refusing, either. I’ve already ordered the tunnel sealed off. The outer doors are blast proof, and they’re already closing. You can’t get out until I order them open again, which isn’t going to happen unless you cooperate,” the general said.
Beth sighed with a little relief. The crew hadn’t cracked, then. They hadn’t given away every bit of information they had, anyway. These people had no idea that the Satori could jump through a wormhole. You couldn’t trap the Satori by closing a couple doors.
“Setting down now,” Beth said. “I’ll lower the ramp once I land.”
Then she shut off the external speakers.
“You know this is just a trick, I assume?” Majel said.
“Of course. How’s that hack coming?” Beth asked.
“Just about there.”
“Time to give them a little more than they bargained for,” Beth said.
Fourteen
Charline wanted to cheer when she saw the Satori drop her cloak. It was a hell of a relief to have backup here at last. The reactions from the Air Force personnel standing by were comical, too. All of them went on their guard at once, gun raised. They were out of their depth here and knew it.
That didn’t mean the team was in the clear yet by any stretch of the imagination. They had to board the Satori still, and get away. Going to be easier said than done. She glanced over at General Hereford. The man was smart, and standing very close to John while eying the railguns on the Satori’s wing tips cautiously. He’d engineered this thing to catch the ship, but he was wise enough to know that the whole thing was inches away from spiraling out of his control.
But Beth was following his orders. The Satori settled onto the deck. Her engines were still running, but the ship was down. There was a whirring noise as the ramp began to descend.
“Alpha team, remain with the prisoners,” Hereford said as soon as the ramp was down. “Bravo and Charlie teams, board the ship.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Dan said to Hereford.
“Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of your toy there,” Hereford said.
“No,” Dan said. He was grinning, relaxed back in his wheelchair. “I don’t think you will.”
He’d only just finished speaking when there was a loud keening noise from off to their left. Charline whirled. She knew that sound. The Naga fighter had started up her engines and was lifting off the deck. It pivoted toward them. She heard a roaring sound as its engines powered up and it began sliding toward them. It picked up speed as it went, hovering about three feet above the floor.
“Take that thing down!” Hereford screamed.
The Air Force security personnel turned on the Naga fighter and opened fire. Most of their rounds pinged off the hull without effect. It was still building velocity as it flew straight at them. The armed men had to duck first, hitting the deck as they dove out of the way of the fighter. It continued on toward the rest of them. Charline dove as the fighter shot over her head where she’d been standing.
She glanced around. It hadn’t hurt anyone, but it had made everyone dive to the floor. Now it pivoted smoothly around and came back at them for a second run. Shouts and yells mixed in with the high-pitched engine noise as organization broke down and the military teams struggled to react to the runaway fighter.
“Now would be a good time,” Beth’s voice said from the Satori’s speakers.
Charline more than agreed. She got back to her feet in a flash and sprinted for the ramp. The others were right behind her. Beth waited at the top of the ramp, two of the Naga rifles in her hands. She tossed one to Charline.
“Glad you could make it,” Beth said. “Cover the others.”
“Nice job with the distraction,” Charline said.
“That was my idea,” Majel said. “It seems like it worked well.”
“That it did,” Charline said, squeezing off a shot with her rifle.
Andy and John were helping Dan struggle to the ramp. They’d abandoned his wheelchair, each of them supporting him from one side as he staggered up. Linda made the ramp first and sprinted aboard.
Some of the guards had spotted them making a run for it and had turned toward them. Two of them aimed rifles to fire, but Beth nailed one while Charline took the other down. The bolts their weapons were firing were set to stunning power. The downed guards would wake with a nasty headache and some bruises, but they’d live.
Charline was glad. She didn’t want to kill these people. They were just trying to defend their planet in the best way they knew how. Even if they were wrong, they were trying to do the right thing.
She fired a few more shots, taking down another soldier and keeping the others’ heads down. Their team was aboard, and the ramp was raising.
“Majel, activate the cloak,” John said.
“Done.”
Charline walked back over to her station. She’d missed the Satori. It was damned good to be back aboard. She couldn’t help but feel a little more confident now that they were together again. Even if what they were facing out there was worse than anything they’d had to overcome, at least together they’d have a shot.
“Dan, get us out of here,” John said.
“Plotting a micro-jump,” Dan said. He tapped a few controls, taking the Satori up twenty feet in case the security forces tried to fire where they had been before. He tapped another button to activate the external microphones.
“You can’t go anywhere!” Hereford was shouting from outside. “You’re still trapped inside here, you damned fools!”
Dan tapped the button for the external speaker. “What part of the word starship did you not understand, General?” he asked.
Then he keyed in the command to open the wormhole for them. A burst of light shimmered in the middle of the hangar bay, bright enough that those on the ground needed to shield their eyes from the brilliance. The Satori’s drives kicked in and they leapt forward into the hole in space.
They erupted from the brief wormhole transition in space. Below them the Earth looked to be about the size of a beach ball.
“Nice!” Dan said. “Well, close to nice. We’re about fifty miles away from where I plotted our destination, Majel.”
“Adjusting algorithms to compensate. This close to the Earth-Luna gravity well, there’s significant flux that is causing issues with calculating the destination.”
“Well done anyway,” John said.
Silence settled into the bridge for a moment as they all took in the enormity of what they had done, and what was left to do. They’d just broken out from a top-secret government facility. The lives they were used to living were gone, no matter what else happened over the next few hours.
Of course, their lives might be flat-out over a lot sooner than that. Three Naga battle cruisers were out there somewhere. They had to be stopped.
“What do we do now?” Charline asked. “We’ve never faced anything like this before.”
“This may not be the biggest threat, either,” Beth added.
“What do you mean?” John asked.
Beth filled them in briefly on the destroyed Naga station, and the massive ship that had almost captured the Satori out by the Cyanaut world. The tale was chilling to Charline. Beth had come so very close to being captured out there alone. If she’d simply vanished, the rest of them would never have known what happened to her at all.
“You think the ship was built by the same aliens who built the Satori’s wormhole drive,” John said. It wasn’t really a question. Beth had been clear about her suspicions.
“It makes sense. The Naga feared that species because they were at war with them,” Beth replied.
“But they were beaten,” Andy said. “The Naga seem pretty convinced they were defeated completely.”
“I’m not so sure,” Dan said. “Remember the defenses around the dust world? Their fear, when they saw the Satori show up with the wormhole drive? They aren’t as certain that species is dead as they want to be. May
be some got away and only now are coming back.”
“Maybe we brought them back,” Linda added in a somber tone. She’d been quiet through most of the discussion. Her whole manner had been more subdued since returning from Cyan, and it hurt Charline to see it. Of all of them that trip seemed to have hurt Linda the most. “Maybe they can detect the wormhole drive’s activation the same way the Naga tracked their fighter here.”
“Perhaps,” John said. “But either way, it’s not something we can solve right now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Charline, what are the Naga up to?”
She tapped her console, bringing the display up onto the main view screen so that everyone could see. She sucked in her breath when she only scanned one blip on the radar reading. There was only one Naga ship floating out there. The other two were gone.
Fifteen
It didn’t take them long to find the other ships. Majel opened her scan up more widely, crafting an algorithm to determine most probable courses and scanning those locations. That didn’t work. The ships were nowhere near Earth, which meant she needed to do something different. She scanned for some sort of trail or tracking that might indicate where the ships had been instead.
That was the key. The Naga vessels left behind a tell-tale spread of ions. It wasn’t much. Barely detectable, really. But it was enough to tell their direction of travel, and from there finding them on radar was not difficult.
“They’ve departed near-Earth orbit and have moved further out into the solar system,” Majel said.
“Are they leaving? It doesn’t seem like we hurt them enough to force them to retreat,” John said.
“Agreed. My surmise is that they are collecting objects to use as mass effect weapons. The area toward which they are headed is filled with many objects of enough mass and density to be effective in that use,” Majel said.
“They’re going to drop rocks,” Dan said.
“Mass weapons,” Majel corrected. She double checked her math before going on. “At sufficient size and velocity, one or two such weapons could wipe out all life on the planet.”
“Never let it be said that the Naga were not thorough,” Charline said.
Majel kept a trace on the two Naga ships headed toward the asteroid field. It would be useful to remain aware of their location, so she left a small fragment of her awareness watching them. But that enabled her to return most of her focus to the one Naga warship remaining near Earth. It was sitting out there by itself.
“Why leave one ship behind?” Majel asked aloud.
“It’s a watch-dog,” Andy said. “It’s keeping an eye on the planet in case we humans do something unpredictable.”
“It remains the most vulnerable element of the Naga fleet,” Majel pointed out. Her scans indicated that it was fully powered and had a small fleet of fighters in space around it, but it was only one ship - the others, flying together, represented a greater threat but also a higher danger to the ship.
“You’re suggesting we take the singleton and then deal with the other ships?” John asked.
“It seems a viable strategy,” Majel replied. “Perhaps we can split the other ships as well. Two Naga cruisers acting in concert would make attack…problematic at best. Disastrous at worst. One by itself, we may fare better against.”
Majel tried to calculate the probability of success against either one vessel or two, but it was difficult to calibrate. Too many variables had changed since their last encounter with such a vessel. She herself was one of the largest changes, since she had grown enormously more self-aware in the time that had passed since. Majel preferred to think that would be an asset to their coming fight, but it made predicting the outcome problematic.
“Agreed,” John said. “But… Folks, this is probably the worst fight we’ve ever been in. I won’t kid any of you. We may not come back from this. If any of you want to back out, we can drop you someplace quiet on Earth and you can try to ride out this storm on the ground. Or we can make a quick stop at our base on the moon and leave you there - might be safer than Earth if we fail.”
There were a few moments of silence. Majel watched the crew carefully for a few nanoseconds to feel out their reactions before speaking.
“If I may…?” Majel said.
“Of course,” John said. “You’re as much a part of the crew as any of the rest of us.”
“You have built a strong team whose members all care deeply for one another. I don’t think anyone is going to back out on you now, John,” she said.
“Agreed,” Beth said.
Dan nodded, and Andy made an affirmative grunt.
“I’ve been through this much with you guys, I won’t quit on you now,” Linda said. “Just tell me how I can help.”
“We’re all in,” Charline said. “Which I think you already knew, John.”
He shook his head. “I hoped. But I would never just assume it. This isn’t the military. You aren’t obligated to follow my lead here.”
Dan laughed. John stopped speaking as they all looked to Dan instead of him.
“We’re not, John. But we’re basically the last, best chance for humanity to survive the next couple of days,” Dan said. “I think we all appreciate the offer, but let’s cut the crap and get this done. Right?”
More affirmative nods. It was a strange feeling, being with these people. They were risking their existence for others. Not just for their direct friends, but for people they didn’t know and would never meet. Majel felt a strong sense of self-preservation, the desire to continue her own life. From this crew she had learned to value the lives of those she…cared about…as much or even more than her own.
But this was something very different. This was a sense of obligation and duty toward humanity as a whole. It was a fascinating concept, which she promised herself she would explore in more detail later. Assuming there was a later.
“If we’re in agreement, I will set a course to intercept the lone Naga vessel,” Majel said.
“Make it so,” John intoned. “Charline, what’s our status on guns?”
“Full load in both railgun magazines,” she replied.
“Beth, wormhole drive charge?” John asked.
“Better than ninety nine percent,” Beth said. “That little jump barely took anything off the top. We’ve got plenty of juice left.”
The ship began accelerating toward the Naga vessel. As they approached, it grew in their screen, changing from a small dot to a larger target until it loomed ahead. Several dozen fighters flew about it in a pattern. Majel tracked their routes; their path was easy enough to predict and she plotted it on the screen for the crew to view.
“God damn, I forgot how big those things are,” Andy said.
“I’m headed back to the engine room in case we have issues,” Beth said. “Try not to wreck my ship this time?”
“You were the one who smashed it up, last time!” Dan protested.
“Talk to the hand,” Beth said, holding her palm up toward Dan as she retreated from the bridge.
Majel went over the database information that she had recovered from earlier battles against the Naga. They had far more information about the enemy ships than they once had. She knew where their guns were, where the engines were placed, and how to strike in a manner that would most likely do some damage. The real problem was that the Naga ships were simply well built machines. They had thick layers of armor and redundant backups for most major systems. They were not easily destroyed.
“Getting ready to make our first run,” Dan said. “Taking over manual control of the ship. Hang on, everyone.”
Majel handed off the ship’s controls smoothly. Dan was an enigma to her. She could pilot the ship perfectly along any vector required. But somehow, Dan had a feel for flight controls that allowed him to do things she wasn’t able to consider. His shifts in vector and speed didn’t always make sense to her, but they worked more often than not. It was another thing she intended to learn more about, and she felt a pang at the thought
that she might never have the chance now.
Pushing that feeling aside, she instead lit up targets on the consoles for Charline and Andy, both of whom were operating the fire controls for the ship guns. As the Satori streaked in alongside the Naga cruiser she showed them where to hit it. They fired, launching a long series of railgun shots that hammered the side of the vessel. Brilliant flashes lit the darkness of space as the rounds hit home, blasting apart armor and systems along the port side of the cruiser.
Then they were past, still cloaked and invisible. All the fighters were circling the Naga ship with even more speed, and as she watched more fighters began spewing from its bays.
“More fighters launching,” she warned. “They’re taking up a protective circle around the cruiser.”
“Just more targets,” Dan said. He brought the Satori in for another diving run.
Sixteen
Dan wrenched the ship around its axis. Space spun in the view screen. The Naga fighter he was trying to avoid flashed by mere feet away. He was close enough he could actually see the lizard inside its cockpit. It was all he could do to not white-knuckle the controls, but he had to stay loose and relaxed or he’d never be able to respond in time.
“We barely missed that last one. John, there’s too damned many of them,” Dan said.
“OK, abort. Pull away.” John scratched his chin thoughtfully.
It was with relief that Dan maneuvered the ship away from the Naga cruiser. They’d given the enemy a beating, but it was nowhere near enough. Half its guns were gone. The port engine was down. But that still left a somewhat mobile ship with a lot of guns left, and there were eighty fighters out there in space. All of them were spinning circles around their mothership as fast as they could fly.
It was a tactic he’d never seen them use before, but he had to admit it was effective as hell. The fighters were orbiting about five hundred meters away from the cruiser. They must have had a ship-board AI controlling their flight paths, or they’d have all crashed into each other as fast as they were zipping around. But it made a damned fine shield. They didn’t need to be able to see the Satori to ram into her.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 61