Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  “Interception point arrives in six point three minutes,” called Louise.

  “Finally,” muttered Jacob from above her. Her overhead image of him showed him looking to Richard. “Chief O’Connor, tell your Marines to load into their Darts. Just the pilot and a single Marine to handle the Dart laser. And to offload the three thermonuke warheads you put in each cargohold.”

  The white-haired, strong-shouldered man hunched forward, peering intently at one of his holos. “Darts are loading a pilot and a Marine sharpshooter.”

  “Who’s going out?” called Jacob.

  “The pilots are Master Sergeant Linda Mabry on the Chao Lee, Master Sergeant Howard Johnson on the Chapultepec and Master Sergeant Aaron Jacobs on the Tarawa,” Richard said flatly. “Joining them to sharpshoot are Gunnery Sergeant Jane Diego on Chao Lee, First Sergeant Auggie Naranjo on the Chapultepec and First Sergeant Wayne Park on the Tarawa. All six of them carry the nuke arming codes. Sir.”

  “Your team leaders,” Jacob said, sounding distracted.

  “Yes sir.”

  Daisy understood the Darts prep was in case the Lepanto lost her antimatter cannon and a boarding of the wasp ship was needed. The Marines would launch under covering laser fire, impact, offload the thermonukes and then hit the retros. In theory it would place nine, three megaton thermonukes into three parts of the wasp hull. Enough to kill it, Jacob had said during the early part of their chase. He’d called it his ‘final option’.

  She returned her gaze to the ship cross-section holo, with quick glances at her situational holo that showed the upcoming intersection of the Lepanto and the Midway with the black hole ship. Its vector track had changed slightly, moving it into a line that ran close to the top of Valhalla’s atmosphere. She touched her armrest control. The projected end point would arrive at 4,180 kilometers above the planet’s atmosphere. A blinking yellow dot just below that arrival point turned her throat dry.

  “Captain! The wasp ship is aiming straight at Green Hills station! If it’s still in black hole mode when it arrives, the station will be ripped apart!”

  Jacob cursed. “Com! Connect me with O’Sullivan!”

  “Going up,” Andrew said.

  The wallscreen grew a fourth image. It showed the vacsuited forms of Captain Billy O’Sullivan and Ensign Jason Mikoto. The Anglo’s hazel eyes fixed on them.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The last wasp ship is heading for your station,” Jacob said hurriedly. “We can’t do a thing to it while it’s in black hole mode. It will pass well above you but the field reaches out damn far. The edge or worse will grab you. Evacuate your station!”

  Mikoto turned pale. O’Sullivan grimaced. “We’ll try. Gotta pull in the two shuttles we have keeping laser watch on that wasp ship at geosync.” The man sighed. “Captain, there are 312 people on this station. The shuttles hold twenty-four each. Max. No way we can get everyone off.”

  “Captain!” yelled Joaquin from his Life Support station. “Tell him to put the others in their vacsuits! The normal station suit has maneuvering jets and six hours of air. If the people in suits jet down to a lower altitude, their orbital speed will increase, moving them away from the Green Hills. They’ll be going east, the same vector as the station. The wasp ship’s track will take it to the west of Valhalla. Maybe one of our following ships can pick up the suits before they hit atmosphere. The atmo top is at 130 klicks. If they get low enough, the suits might avoid the black hole field when it hits the station. Which is now at 597 klicks high.”

  “O’Sullivan! Do what my guy says! You’ve got ten minutes before we all arrive above Valhalla.”

  “Will do.” The Star Navy captain turned to his ensign. “Mikoto, take charge of loading people into the two shuttles. There will be time for a trip downplanet, then maybe time for a second load to take down. Don’t matter if the shuttles can’t make it up here afterward. The station will be gone by then.”

  “Yes sir. Moving on it,” the young Asian said, turning and running out of the com room.

  O’Sullivan looked tired. “I’ll round up everyone else and put ‘em into suits. We’ll have to jump out of the station’s airlocks before that bastard arrives and its field hits us. Kill it, will you?”

  “It’ll die. And we’ll zap any nukes it launches at Valhalla. I promise,” Jacob said, sounding intensely frustrated.

  “Thanks. Green Hills out.”

  One of the captains in the line of fourteen images above the wallscreen now spoke.

  “Captain, I sure wish the Sea could get there and help with that evacuation!” called Jefferson.

  “You can’t,” Jacob said. “Your ship and every other fleet ship has just two thrusters. You can’t make our 13.2 psol. Which is why only the Midway and the Lepanto are chasing this SOB. But you can help rescue the suited evacuees.” He gestured at the wallscreen. “All StarFight ships, do your best to pick up station folks. They’ll be close to the top of the atmosphere by the time we finish this.”

  Acknowledgments came from everyone.

  “Interception,” called Louise.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Jacob looked away from Jefferson and focused on his situational holo, which copied the holo that filled part the wallscreen. It showed Valhalla’s moon lying not far away, maybe five hundred thousand klicks. Which put the Midway, the Lepanto and the invisible wasp ship just eight hundred thousand klicks away from Valhalla and the Star Navy station. At 13.2 psol that was very close.

  “Enemy ship is slowing to one psol,” called Louise.

  “Engines, drop us to one psol,” Jacob said. “Power, reduce reactor output to safe rating. Gravity, restore gravplate functioning.”

  “At last!” called Akira, sounding exhausted from having to baby her fusion thrusters the last hour.

  The other station chiefs sent out orders as directed.

  In one of the top wallscreen images his father gave the same orders to his Bridge staff.

  “Admiral, enemy’s black hole field is still up,” Jacob reported. “I’m moving to put the Lepanto along its planet side. We’ll be able to zap any missiles or warheads it launches once it drops the field.”

  His father nodded quickly. “Just right. The Midway will take topside. Hopefully one of us will get the bastard in our cannon sights.”

  Jacob looked ahead. Louise held her hand up, thumb and forefinger forming an A-Okay circle. She’d heard and taken action to alter their vector track.

  “Linkletter, have you got that bastard in your cannon’s targeting field?”

  “Captain, I do.”

  “Good.”

  Jacob watched the true space holo as the green hills and blue oceans of Valhalla swelled into distinct view, thanks to the ship’s scope that could bring almost anything into crystal pure clarity. The white ball of its moon hung off to one side. A tiny silver sparkle was the wasp comet ship at geosync. The black hole ship would pass well below it, in a grazing pass that would allow its field to take out Green Hills station. Clearly the Hunter Prime leader had watched his own vidrecords from the earlier battle led by Hunter One, where the station’s proton lasers had zapped most of the nukes launched by the comet ship. The enemy commander was aiming to make sure the station could not do the same before it dropped its field and launched its own nukes at the world below.

  “Range to Valhalla atmosphere is now 24,389 kilometers,” called Louise. “Enemy speed is down to 2,857 klicks a minute. Black hole field will hit the station within seven minutes.”

  Jacob licked his lips. “Tactical, prepare to fire.”

  “Ready and eager,” Rosemary said.

  “So am I,” called Linkletter from the AM node.

  From the wallscreen came similar commands from his father on the Midway.

  Yellow sunlight illuminated the human-occupied part of Valhalla. The green forested continent, which was shaped something like the giant island of Australia, held so many lives, human, animal and native critters. Alien versions of birds flew th
rough its sky, while shark-like sea creatures roamed the blue oceans that flanked its eastern and western coasts. Millions of minnow-like fishes swam those waters, while large herds of six-limbed animals grazed on its western plains. The silver ball of Green Hills was clearly visible. Red flame shot from the stern of two shuttles as they shot down to the planet’s surface, carrying forty-eight refugees among them. Jacob hoped that was the second shuttle trip. If it was, nearly a hundred of the three hundred plus humans on the station were now safe in Stockholm. Safe at least until nukes and lightning bombs fell from the dark blue sky.

  One way or another, that would not happen.

  “Station is fragmenting,” called Louise.

  Jacob watched the distance counter in his situational holo. The Lepanto was within 3,980 kilometers of the black hole ship. Just beyond the reach of its field but close enough for his cannon to reach out and kill part or all of that monster. His father’s Midway moved at a similar distance on the moon-side flank of the wasp ship.

  “Enemy has slowed!” said Louise. “Vector speed down to 17,358 kilometers per hour. Sir, it’s aiming to go into high orbit.”

  Jacob could see that. But the field was still present. What was it intending to do? Would it orbit above Valhalla still protected by its black hole field? Would it—

  “Field is down!” cried Rosemary.

  “Incoming beams!” called Oliver.

  “We’re hit!” called Quincy from the right side outrigger. “Laser and proton both gone! Got punch through into the outrigger. Hatches closing.”

  “Linkletter, fire!”

  A black antimatter beam shot out from the Lepanto.

  It missed.

  The giant wasp ship had suddenly moved upward, toward the Midway.

  “Admiral, it’s aiming to ram you! Maneuver!”

  “Putting on emergency thrust,” his father grunted. “Inertial field lagging. It’s back. Right outrigger, fire at that bastard!”

  Jacob saw too much at the same time.

  As the wasp ship sped toward a collision with his father’s ship, firing on the Midway with beams from all three weapons rings, its stern launched clouds of warheads at Valhalla, which lay just 5,000 kilometers below.

  The angle of the wasp ship as it closed on the Midway meant the targeting separation between the two was becoming almost nothing.

  “Tactical! Lock onto that wasp with our cannon and kill it!”

  Rosemary touched her control pillar, hands moving so fast they were a blur.

  “Firing!”

  A black beam reached out over thousands of kilometers, its meter width resembling a black stripe against the green and blue ball of Valhalla. That stripe was suddenly there, faster than any eye could follow.

  Lightspeed is that way.

  A new yellow sun occupied the space ahead.

  “The Midway is intact!” yelled Daisy.

  Jacob wanted to throw up. But there was more to do.

  “Richard! Launch your Darts against that rain of warheads! Have your people kill ‘em!”

  “Darts are launching and curving out,” the Marine chief said. “All three Darts are aiming to pass between the warhead cloud and Valhalla’s atmosphere. They . . . their pilots say they will blow the thermonukes in their cargoholds if it takes that to kill surviving warheads.”

  Jacob moved from giving thanks that Rosemary had been as good at targeting as he had thought, to dismay that he might lose some brave Marines.

  “Nav, drop our nose to aim the cannon at the top of that cluster!” he yelled. “Weapons, aim our left front laser at that cloud of warheads. Don’t hit the Darts!”

  “Firing our left front laser,” called Rosemary.

  “Also firing our left side and belly proton lasers,” yelled Oliver.

  In the true space holo that filled the middle of the wallscreen, explosions and dying happened.

  The Darts had gotten just below the cloud of warheads, thanks to the ten psol speed of their single fusion thrusters. Which now worked in reverse as each Dart flipped over to hold station five hundred klicks above the colony world. Three green laser beams shot up from the Darts, hitting single warheads. The three beams shot out again and again and again, hitting more descending warheads.

  “Firing antimatter,” called Rosemary.

  A black beam speared into the top of the warhead cloud, killing at least a dozen thanks to the beam’s spread over 3,000 klicks.

  A second black beam joined it.

  The Midway was firing almost straight down at the cloud of warheads. Which meant its total matter-to-energy conversion created a roiling white-yellow ball of plasma that sank down, enveloping more warheads.

  “Darts! Get the hell out from under that plasma!” Jacob yelled.

  The white dart shapes of the Chapultepec and the Chao Lee moved out from under the ravening cloud. The Tarawa didn’t.

  He would miss Wayne Park and Aaron Jacobs.

  More green laser streaks and red proton beams struck down from the Midway and out from the left side and belly of the Lepanto.

  Jacob wished the other battle group ships were here to add their energy beams. They weren’t. They were at least ten minutes behind. Even ten psol cannot magically transport you instantly from spot A to spot Z.

  “Engines, go to one psol. Take us below the warheads. Then reverse thrust. Our hull can handle a nuke.”

  “Moving us. Aiming below,” called Akira.

  Of course two meters of armor hull could not hold out against a direct contact strike from a 50 kiloton nuke.

  Jacob knew that. His people knew that. He just couldn’t allow the people of Stockholm to die.

  “Sir!” yelled Louise. “The Midway is heading down! It’s aiming for the under spot.”

  His father had thought faster than Jacob had.

  Would the 321 people aboard the Midway give their lives to save 71,000 lives?

  “Tactical, Weapons, keep killing warheads. Maybe we can kill the last of them before the Midway gets there. Or we do.”

  The situational holo was unforgiving.

  It showed the yellow dots of 31 warheads still alive and functioning and getting within 500 klicks of Valhalla. They’d enter atmosphere at one hundred thirty klicks.

  “Ten more gone,” Rosemary said. “The Midway has passed our Darts. It’s heading under.”

  The yellow dot counter kept pace with green strikes and red beams.

  Nineteen. Fifteen. Seven.

  Three small yellow suns flared just above the top hull of the Midway.

  Had their sensors been set for air burst? If so, that meant the warheads had not been in contact with the Battlestar’s hull. Maybe they’d detonated two or three miles out.

  The red plasma haze from the three dets gradually thinned in the vacuum of space.

  “They’re alive!” yelled Daisy.

  Jacob took a deep breath.

  The scope showed the top of the Midway was burned down past its black ablative hull layer. Water globules leaked here and there, saying part of the two meters of armor hull had been penetrated. Or maybe fractured. Belatedly he recalled that a 50 kiloton fireball had a radius in air of a mile. Or one point six kilometers. Maybe a bit more in vacuum. That meant the three fireballs had not touched the hull of the Midway. They had to have been set for radar detonation as the ground echoed back to the warhead targeting sensor. Which the hull of the Midway had imitated, causing vacuum detonations.

  He looked up. His father’s face looked back at him.

  “We’re alive. All of us,” he said. “Some heavy rads came through. Med Hall has the injections to suck out the rad damage. Valhalla is safe.”

  So it was.

  “All StarFight ships, look for station evacuees,” Jacob said, giving thanks his last surviving parent still lived. The time his father had taken to talk one-on-one with him, just after Jacob had brought his battle group into rendezvous with the Earth relief fleet, that time still held a warm spot in his heart. Maybe it was time t
o let the past stay in the past.

  “It’s time, Jacob,” said Daisy from below.

  Had he said that last sentence out loud?

  His father’s grin said he had.

  “Don’t like these vacsuit comlinks, sir. They cut in and out and the static does weird stuff. Like make up words.”

  Gordon F. Renselaer nodded slowly. “You’re right. My vacsuit has done the same thing in the past.” He paused. “Your Mom would be proud of you. I know I am.”

  Jacob suddenly wished his Bridge was not under constant live vidcam observation. It would not do to show tears before the other ship captains. Or his crew watching on the other decks. He gritted his teeth and sat up straight.

  “Sir, may I transfer our five wasp captives out to that wasp ship in geosync?” His father looked surprised. “I’m willing to put a carbon-carbon tow line on it, move the Lepanto up to planetary escape velocity, and then slingshot the bastard out to the magnetosphere. It can head home to Kepler 22 on its Alcubierre drive.”