The Turret: Starclan Foundation
Page 22
Jeri ignored the comm lights indicating calls from Mark and Karen. He didn’t feel human enough to talk with anyone right now.
***
Chrysler Building
55th Floor
New York City
Standard Earth Date March 30 3488
The brown haired woman rocked slightly as she stared out the windows. She thought about walking to the temp control and turning it up, but she didn’t move. Her rocking had taken on a life of its own, it would seem. And, what took my life, then? This chair, this room, these windows? It’s always so cold in here now. What kind of an evil creature have I become?
You have done well, my dear. Our goals are almost within reach now. Just a little more…
“A little more what!” She shot to her feet, rage turning her paled, wrinkled face into a crimson façade. “I used to be good inside. I’m sick of being evil! How many more must die before you have enough power? You are pure evil! I reject your evil! I will not be your tool any…ahg… ”
The brown haired woman collapsed to the floor. A few moments later the custodians came and cleaned the room. Again.
***
The Battle For Turret Halsey
USF Jeremiah Wadsworth
Standard Earth Date March 30 3488
“Jack, something’s not right.” Kesa’s tone caught Jack’s full attention.
“Talk to me.”
“Beta Fleet has withdrawn. They’re headed to Earth. And, if I’m reading this right, Task Force Anvil and Task Force Hammer have also changed course, and are Earthbound at four times light speed. Jack, they’re running away!”
“Get Admiral Seymour on the line.”
“I’m trying, Jack. They aren’t responding. I’ve tried Bucktooth and Gordon. No answer. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Peter, can you get any news broadcasts?”
“Not now, we’re moving four times faster than the broadcasts are. And, we’re ten seconds from projectile sweep. Should I abort?”
“Negative. I can’t think of anything good coming out of letting those rocks slam into Earth.”
“Here we are, Commodore!”
Jack expected to feel impacts, shaking, something to tell him they’ve trapped the projectiles, even though he knew the science said he wouldn’t.
“How many?”
“Jack, we have them all!”
“Is our course still true for the main body?”
“Right on the dot, Jack.”
“Without orders to the contrary, we will proceed with the plan. Maintain four C velocity.”
Chapter Eight
United News Network
Times Square Studios
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“We have breaking news at this hour. Sources confirm that the USF fleet battling the Bugs has withdrawn and is heading for Earth. Unconfirmed reports indicate that an ADS station, known as a “Turret”, was heavily damaged in earlier fighting and has been over run by Bug soldiers. The assumption is that all hands there, including Admiral Jock MacAlister, have perished.
“In our sights for expert analysis tonight is retired Lieutenant Commander Jay Thorpe. We attempted to contact Senator Sandy MacAlister to hear her side of this story, but the Senator’s office has not yet responded to our requests. Lieutenant Commander, what do you make of this “redeployment” of our ships?”
“I can’t say that it looks good, Don. The only reason to fall back like that is if we’ve had our butts kicked, if this was a complete royal screw-up. I would suspect that if we survive this encounter, there will be repercussions for many of the high-ranking brass running this operation.”
“And, Commander, who would that likely be? Admiral Jock MacAlister has been extensively involved in our efforts…”
“That’s Lieutenant Commander. Exactly. Admiral MacAlister has managed to get himself promoted, and to arrange cushy jobs for friends and family members for forty years. Remember, it was Admiral MacAlister who started this war by attacking the alien emissary ship. He’s even managed to parlay this manufactured conflict into a Senate seat for his wife and several lucrative business deals for himself and his friends.”
“But, Commander…”
“Lieutenant Commander, Don.”
“Sorry. Lieutenant Commander, are you saying that Admiral Jock MacAlister created this entire conflict for personal gain?”
“I’m just reviewing what we know, Don. Your viewers are bright enough to draw their own conclusions.”
“And there you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen. What do you say? I’m Don Derringer, and this is Straight Shot. Stay tuned, we will bring you more as it becomes available.”
***
The Battle For Turret Halsey
Landing Bay Alpha
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
The last alien boarding pod streaked silently along the surface of Turret Halsey’s control station asteroid. Every few seconds it would pass a glowing pool of molten metal and rock that had been a plasma laser site, sensor array, gravitic clamp, or a shield generator. The pod had limited maneuverability, and used what it did have to arrive at a preprogrammed destination, the gaping hole that used to be Landing Bay Alpha.
The three alien soldiers sat motionless inside fluid-filled keratinaceous cells. As the pod slowed and drifted into the landing bay, the fluid drained away and the soldiers became active. When the pod’s motion stopped, the three soldiers straightened their armored legs and shattered the travel cells as well as the pod’s structure with their armored backs. The last pod’s shell fell in shards onto the landing bay floor as the three soldier Bugs it carried joined the eleven hundred already there.
As if of one mind, the soldiers now lined up and began moving towards the door leading into the station, plasma projectors moving side to side, searching for a target...
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
Tracy’s Turret
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Commander, ten seconds to ‘special package’ delivery.” Lieutenant Alexander MacAlister reported.
“Thanks, Alex.” At least they couldn’t recall those.
“Impact in three. Two. One. Now. One hit seen. One of the Three Kings is gone, Commander One appears damaged!” Alex’s eyes pleaded with Tracy through the cheers in the CIC, carrying the question he couldn’t ask out loud.
“Alex, ETA for GravTorps and Shrikes on main body, please.” She gave him one sideways movement of her head.
Alex turned back to his sensor array. “GravTorp contact in three minutes. Shrike contact in one minute.”
“Shuttle ETA on Halsey’s Turret?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
***
The Battle For Turret Halsey
CIC
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
The CIC crew all stared at the door as the banging started. Four bangs, pause, three bangs, pause, one bang. Corrine Halsey signaled ready and Jane Jones hit the control opening the door. Jock, Mike, Elsa and Monty slid through and Jones resealed the door.
“All the connections are made. We use the Laser controls to activate.” Jock walked over to the makeshift barricade and looked back at the door. “Captain, are you happy with the set up here?”
“Happy, Admiral? No. But I think this is damn good considering what we had to work with.”
“Commander, do you agree?”
“Yes, Admiral. I don’t see how we could do any better.” Corry replied.
“Hmm…” Jock walked along the barricade, stopping near one end. He moved a chair an inch to his left. “There. Much better, don’t you think?”
Everyone stared silently at Jock. After several seconds, he broke into a childish grin, and the entire crew began laughing.
Then the alarms went off.
“Movement into the corridor outside Alpha. High energy readings flashing sporadically, consistent with energy weapons fire.”
“Boyd to
CIC. The Bugs are breaking out, hundreds of them. We’ve fried dozens, but they keep…” Static. Then silence.
“Boyd! Harlow! Report!” Mike ordered.
“There is no comm signal on the other end, sir!”
“Marines, this is Halsey. Fall back to the CIC. Repeat, fall back to the CIC. The corridors should limit their speed.”
“Fire Team Delta, Aye-aye.”
“Fire Team Gamma, Aye-aye.”
The doors opened when the marines banged the code. Jones closed them immediately.
“When are you going to activate your toy, Admiral?”
“When as many Bugs as possible are in the corridors. We’ll only be able to use it once. Until then, I want as much carnage out of the L-17s and auto turrets as possible. Eddie, do you have anything on those eight bogies?”
“I couldn’t get a fix on them before our last sensors went out, Admiral.”
“Okay, let’s focus on what we can do something about. Corry, who are your best shots with the carbines?”
“Jones, Hicks, Yamamoto, Elsa, Monty, Kevin, myself, and Wilson, in descending order. We’re all within zero-point-five percent of each other, and zero-point-one percent ahead of the marines. We’re all damn fine shots in here, Admiral.”
“If you’re down at number six, I don’t doubt it. Lieutenant Jones, how does my daughter handle finishing sixth best?”
“Sir, Commander Halsey hates to lose, Sir!” Jones said with a tiny grin. “But she does tell us how proud she is of us, Admiral. Every time.”
“Jones, did you know that the Commodore here was the National Intercollegiate skeet shooting champion? Twice?”
“Da-ad! Eh, Admiral, shouldn’t we be concentrating on the Bugs?” Corry’s face was bright red.
“I think we’ll have our fill of Bugs very shortly, Corrine. I was only pointing out that we have a room full of exceptional marksmen, and ladies here. I like our odds!” Yeah, and if you bought that one, I’ve got a bridge for sale…
“Explosions in the corridors. Auto-turrets firing. They’re on their way.
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
USF Jeremiah Wadsworth
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Coming up on 1437, Jack.”
“Peter, drop to one-half light speed.”
“One half light speed achieved, Sir.”
“MacAlister to Jenkins. Releasing clamps. Good hunting, Jimmy.”
“You, too, Commodore.”
“LCPAs away, Sir. Confirmed twelve on course to 1437.”
“Set speed to four times light speed, relative, Pete. We have another delivery to make.”
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
Tracy’s Turret
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Shrikes contact in three. Two. One. Now.” Alex gave the countdown in near monotone. “My God!” he exclaimed as three hundred thousand fifteen-kiloton nuclear warheads detonated as one. For a brief instant, a second sun burned on the edge of that star system Humanity called home.
“Damage assessment, Alex. Did we hurt them?” Tracy asked.
“I’m detecting three thousand plus a handful of Bug ships still active. Plus the two Kings. We hurt them a lot, Commander.”
“How long until the GravTorps hit?” This could end here and now.
“Just under one minute, Commander.”
Three hundred thousand GravTorps closed in on the Bug main body ships as they moved closer around the two remaining Bug Super ships.
“GravTorp contact in three. Two. Commander!” Alex shouted.
“Talk to me MacAlister!”
“The Bug ships, Sir! They’re…gone!”
***
The Battle For Turret Halsey
CIC
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Steady now, Jones. Steady.” Admiral MacAlister whispered as the crew watched the CIC door smolder under the attack of some type of energy weapon. “Now, Lieutenant Jones!”
“Engaged, Admiral!” Jones activated the device, then immediately grabbed her carbine and resumed her firing position behind the barricade.
As soon as Jones hit the switch, a horrendous shrieking wail rose up from behind the CIC door. The lights dimmed for three seconds, then came back up. The screaming from beyond the door died.
“Mike.” Jock pointed at the door with his carbine.
Mike Halsey worked the control that operated the doors. They groaned and creaked, sliding open with the loud mechanical protestations of a machine that had functioned for the last time.
The first thing they noticed was the smell. It assaulted them as a great wave of partially incinerated garbage. Smoke was the second thing the crew noticed. Thick acrid and reddish-brown, it seemed to occupy every inch of the corridor the Bug bodies did not. And there were a lot of Bug bodies.
Piled one upon another, with legs sticking out at odd angles and bodies split open as they cooked from the current, the smoldering Bug bodies filled the corridor with a ghastly, odorous smoke.
“I guess your little surprise worked, Admiral. Running the power output from our reactors through the floors and walls of the corridors did a number on them. Eddie, do you have any readings in the station?” Corrine turned her head away from the door and towards Wilson.
“There is movement, but I can’t…”
Eddie’s report was cut short by a bolt of white-hot plasma passing through his right shoulder. Three more bolts flew into the CIC before the marines began returning fire. Two of the bolts hit Kevin, burning a hole in the center of his chest and abdomen. The third bolt hit Corrine just below her left elbow, vaporizing her forearm.
“Cease fire! Save your ammo,” Mike called, even as he leapt across the CIC to his wife. Parker was already applying a bandage to her cauterized elbow, and Jane was binding up Eddie’s wound.
“Here they come again!” Jock exclaimed as he began firing into a corridor suddenly alive with squirming legs and snapping jaws behind bolts of star-hot plasma.
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
USF Jeremiah Wadsworth
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Where the hell did they go?” Kesa screamed at her sensors.
“Could they have FTL?”
“If they had FTL, they would have just bypassed us to attack Earth. But, somehow, they just…vanished!” Jack scratched his head.
“There! Look, they’re closer to 1437. They jumped somehow. Peter, get us on top of them.”
“On it, Jack.”
“Finch, are you ready?”
“Frothin’ at the bit, Skipper.”
“It could be a rough ride, Otis. Hang on.”
“Roger that.”
“On them, Jack.”
“Kesa, what’s the maximum speed of this tub?”
“I can get you there in twenty seconds.”
“Do it.”
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
Tracy’s Turret
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Alex, what just happened?” Tracy was trying to make sense of the information on her CHUD.
“The Bug main body just moved two hundred thousand kilometers in three one-hundredths of a second. It must be some type of dimensional shift.”
“Those GravTorps were our best chance. How could they know they were about to activate? Damn. OK, what about the Bug vanguard units?”
“They’re still turning. ETA for their return is ten minutes.”
“And we have no weapons that can reach them effectively.”
“Commander, we have twelve ships inbound to Turret Halsey. Configurations match Marine LCPAs!”
***
The Battle For Turret Halsey
CIC
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“Fall back to the barricade!” Jock’s voice called. The sailors and marines pushed back. There was not much room lef
t. The CIC before them was strewn with the bodies of Bug soldiers and dead crew. For the moment things were quiet, thanks at least partially to a pile of Bug bodies that blocked the door.
Damn, Jock thought as he looked around, Mike, Jane, the marines Johnson and Rodriguez, Elsa and the wounded. Corry, firing with one arm, Eddie, shooting left-handed. And me. Well, losing a leg doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
“Captain, there’s movement in the corridor.” Johnson announced.
The survivors lifted their carbines once more, and waited.
***
The Battle For Castle Shannon
USF Jeremiah Wadsworth
Standard Earth Date March 31 3488
“We’re almost in position, Jack.”
“Ready, Finch?”
“Give the word, Commodore.”
“Clamps released. Give ‘em hell, Otis!”
“Hoo-Rah!”
The six modified LCPAs broke away from the Faster Than Light compressed space of the Jeremiah Wadsworth and immediately accelerated towards the two surviving Bug Super ships. The landing craft had special modifications designed to allow them to board the alien ships; high-powered gravity clamps to hold them tight to the Bug ship’s hull and a molecular gravity drill to bore through that hull.
The six armored ships only had a few kilometers to travel, but the Bug reaction from the main body ships was swift. Four were vaporized almost immediately. Another was hit in its main drive unit and tumbled away until it was also destroyed.