Chapter Forty-Five
Pinegar System
Gas Giant Lyx
USS Midway
Bridge
The vortex spun slowly in space, a two-dimensional rift in the fabric of space where a moon had once been.
“Report,” said Mattis, trying to recover his composure, and restore some discipline to the bridge. “What just happened?”
“I … I don’t know,” said Lynch. The stark confession was as shocking to him as the actual destruction of the planet. “It looks like … it looks like the whole mass of the moon was turned into energy, at once, and then that energy was used to create a massive spatial-temporal disturbance. It’s … it’s unlike anything I’ve ever even read about.”
That much was obvious. There was someone who might know something. “Modi?” he asked into the radio. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“S-standby,” said Modi, something Mattis was rapidly learning to mean, I have absolutely no idea.
He turned to the marines on the deck. “Fetch me Spectre,” he said. “Bring him here. Right now. I want answers. I want—”
“Sir!” Lynch almost shouted the words. “Look!”
On the main screen, the vortex shimmered slightly as though being seen through a warped lens. A visible aura of energy extended out from it, rings of light that expanded, contracted, and then drew right into the centre of the maelstrom.
From the heart of the vortex, the bow of a ship emerged, seemingly unconcerned with the massive torrent of energy whirling around it. It was the same dark metal and red lines of power that the vanquished future-human ship bore; but this one, unlike its defeated friend, was undamaged.
“Designate that ship Skunk Bravo,” said Mattis, ominously, “and order the rest of the fleet to engage it at once. Ready torpedoes and guns; prepare vector strike craft to engage. See if they can find a weak point.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Lynch, and the whole bridge sprung back into action, both the joy of their victory, and their confusion at seeing the moon disappear, gone in an instant.
His command console flashed. He, as the CO, was receiving a private communication; he put it through to his earpiece.
“Midway, Hamilton actual,” said Abramova, her tone painted with amazement. “Are you seeing this shit, Jack?”
“Regrettably, I am.” Mattis stared at the main monitor as the future-human ship pulled completely away from the vortex and began maneuvering, turning toward the Midway. “We are getting ready to engage. Spread the fleet out, but maintain formation; I want the Hamilton at the tip of the spear when we engage that thing. I don’t know where it came from, and I simply don’t care; turn it to scrap.”
Her tone betrayed her eagerness. “With pleasure, Admiral. USS Alexander Hamilton moving to engage.”
A glance at the radar screen showed it to be true. The fleet, lead by the Hamilton, had turned from the debris-field that was Skunk Alpha and aligned their guns to the new threat. Against the inky blackness of space, bright flashes heralded a wave of fire that raced toward Skunk Bravo. At almost the same time, the Midway’s guns spoke, firing their own volley.
“Strike craft away,” said Lynch. “Wings Alpha and Bravo are en-route, Charlie launching in twenty seconds. The fleet is also launching strike craft…” his tone became charged. “And Skunk Bravo is also launching. Looks like a whole bunch of drone craft. It’s going to be one hell of a dogfight over there, sir; suggest we patch in our fighters so that we don’t get into a blue-on-blue situation.”
“Do it,” said Mattis. As he watched, scores of red, angry-looking fighter craft flew out of the enemy ship like a kicked wasp nest.
Lynch blew out a low whistle. “I count nearly two hundred fighters from that thing,” he said. “That’s nearly ten times what we can put out. And they launched them all almost instantly.”
Mattis gripped the armrests of his chair. “Just keep focused,” he said.
The first volley of shells flew past the future-human ship. One or two, the outliers, clipped the edges of it, splashing into nothingness. The ship retaliated, firing angry red streaks at the rest of the fleet from turrets that protruded like warts from its otherwise blocky, smooth surface.
“Definitely a different configuration,” said Lynch. “Looks like this one doesn’t have the planet-shaker weapon … but it does have a mighty amount of guns and strike fighters.”
The other one had not been expecting a fight, but this model seemed to be looking for one. “Keep firing,” said Mattis. “Lemme know when we get into torpedo range.”
“Will do,” said Lynch. “We don’t want to fire too early, or we risk them countering it.”
It was always a waiting game with these kinds of weapons. Missiles simply travelled too slowly to be used outside of close quarters, and everything in space was about distance. “As soon as you have a clear shot you take it, understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Lynch. “Torpedoes standing by for firing solution. We’re closing the distance now.”
The Midway raced toward the hostile ship. But, unlike last time, their contact seemed to be hanging back; it floated in space, unmoving, near to the vortex that had brought it to the battlefield, although its guns were blazing and its strike craft seemed more than happy to move further out.
But not the ship itself.
“What’s it playing at?” asked Mattis, glaring at the monitor. “Surely, if it has missiles like the other ship, it wants to get close too…”
Abramova spoke into his ear. “Midway, Hamilton actual, priority alert: we are detecting another energy surge.”
Lynch was already showing it on the monitors. The vortex was fluctuating again, surrounded by energy rings, and once more came through a warship, just like the first.
“Designating that ship Skunk Charlie,” said Lynch, an edge of frustration to his voice. “Dammit. Now there are two of them.”
“I see it,” said Mattis. “And I can count too. Get us closer; we need to use our torpedoes on those bastards and finish them off before more arrive.”
The second ship formed up beside the first, clearing the way for, presumably, more ships. That wasn’t good.
The ships drew closer to the vortex, the Midway on one side and the rest of the fleet on the other. From each vessel came waves of fire that splashed off both targets with seemingly minimal effect; the explosions blackened their hulls, and left glowing red penetrations where the shells hit, but they didn’t seem to be able to get through the hull completely.
Still, it was something.
“Ten seconds to estimated effective torpedo range,” said Lynch, “and forty for the rest of the fleet. Should we delay for a barrage?”
Now that there were two ships, it didn’t seem worth it. “No. Just fire as soon as the torpedoes are loaded and primed.”
“Aye sir,” said Lynch. “Three, two … firing.”
Twin missiles leapt away from the stern of the Midway, heavy nuclear-tipped missiles streaking away from the ship toward their target. The rest of the fleet fired shortly afterward, their missiles like the fingers of a dozen giants, jabbing and thrusting toward their enemy.
“The vortex is fluctuating again,” said Lynch, “another ship is appearing. Designating Skunk Delta.”
Mattis swore under his breath. Space between them was full of gunfire and fighters, all turning and banking and blasting each other with missiles and guns. “They’re bringing in more ships and we haven’t even managed to do more than piss off the first one,” he said, watching the torpedoes draw closer. “But hopefully this will—”
Both ships, Skunk Bravo and Skunk Charlie, vanished in a pair of white flashes.
“Did they just execute a Z-space translation?” asked Lynch, incredulously, and then he corrected himself. “Skunk Bravo and Skunk Charlie emerging from Z-space. They micro-jumped.”
Impossible. A ship’s Z-drive needed immense power to jump; most ships couldn’t keep their Z-space engines charged during a comba
t footing. But … he’d just seen it happen with his own eyes.
“To where?” asked Mattis, searching at his radar screen. Then he saw.
The future-human ships were right behind them, with the third in front, and a fourth one emerging from the vortex, only seconds away from joining the fight as well.
They were flanked.
Chapter Forty-Six
Pinegar System
Gas Giant Lyx
USS Midway
Hangar Bay
Back on the flight roster. Guano felt so good as she raced toward her Warbird, the scramble klaxon wailing in her ears, the boots of her flight suit clomping on the metal deck.
“Hey,” said Roadie into her ear. “Guano. Guano! I see you, what the hell are you doing on my flight deck?”
She laughed and grabbed hold of the ladder that lead up to her cockpit. Even the ladder felt so much more real than the simulator. “Doctor Brooks approved me back onto the flight roster,” she said, laughing as she started to climb up.
“Bullshit he did!” Roadie’s voice sounded strangely distorted, as though he were shouting inside his tiny little helmet. “He’s a goddamn fucking dietitian, not a medical doctor, he can’t make that decision. It’s my decision. And you are so fucking grounded.”
“Jeez, Daddy,” she said, swinging herself into the cockpit and settling in. “You’re really going to ground me during a red alert?”
Roadie’s tone shifted. “Yes.” He actually sounded genuinely angry, his yelling replaced by cold, evenly-paced words. “I won’t endanger this flight if you’re not fit for duty. Lieutenant Corrick, step out of that ship right now.”
“He approved me,” she said, plaintively. “He did. I swear.”
Roadie’s voice was completely devoid of any kind of humor. “If you’re lying to me, Lieutenant Corrick, this will in end in a dishonorable discharge.”
For once she wasn’t actually bullshitting him. “It’s true.”
The silence on the line was palpable. She could practically feel Roadie trying to see if she was lying. That or give her cancer with sheer, absolute force of will. Finally, he spoke. “Fine. You get to fly. This time. This time. But when this is done—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Guano tapped on keys on her cockpit instruments, initializing the power-up sequence. “Yell at me later.”
“Ooo,” said Flatline into her ears. “You called him Daddy. Heard he likes that.”
Guano clipped herself in, making sure the ejection seat was primed and ready to go if she needed it. “And how would you know that?” she asked, grinning like an idiot. “You fucking Roadie, Flatline?”
“No. I don’t yank the chain of command, if you know what I mean. I would though. Have you seen his abs? That guy works out.” Flatline swung the turret around, checking that it was functional. “I mean, I’m straight, but no one’s that straight.”
“True,” she said, bringing the engines up to power and tapping the talk key on her radio, indicating that she was good to go. “This is Guano, we are go for launch.”
“True?” Flatline chuckled playfully in her ears. “Something you wanna tell me, Guano?”
She felt vaguely odd, sitting there with one hand on the throttle and one hand on the control stick, waiting for the hangar bay doors to finish opening and for launch approval to come. “Huh?”
“Are you fucking Roadie?”
Guano hesitated just a fraction of a second but that was long enough.
“Oh. Oh. My. GOD.”
Her cheeks flushed. “No.”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“Yes! Yes you are! Ohooooo!”
“Stow it!” Guano ground her teeth together. “Flatline, I am definitely not knocking boots with Roadie, okay? I promise you. Absolutely not. I’m not.”
“But you hesitated,” said Flatline, seemingly more excited than she had ever heard him be. “You hesitated!”
“Shut the fuck up!” she hissed, trying to think of a way out of this shit, but nothing came to mind. “Look, it … it-it was a long time ago.”
Flatline hollered loudly, kicking at the back of her chair. “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!”
She felt her whole face burn bright red. “Look, it was one time, before he was even CAG, a billion years ago—”
“Guano and Roooadie, sitting in a tree! F-U-C-K-I-N-G!”
“One time!”
“F-U-C-K-I-N-G more than one time!”
“You know,” she said threateningly, “the pilot’s seat has the option to simply eject the gunner.”
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Guano with a demented baby in the carriage!”
Guano groaned and put her head in her hands. Why the hell did she say anything… why the hell did she confirm it…
“You fucked! You guys fucked! You fucked like inbred bunnies! You fucked on the couch, you fucked on the bed, you fucked in the closet—”
“In the closet? What? No! It was just that one time!” She wiggled the control stick to test her systems, sending little puffs of gas in all directions, desperate to not talk about this any more. “A-after the Officers Ball, when we were doing all those shots, we were drunk, it doesn’t mean anything—”
“This is the greatest thing in the world. I can’t believe this. This is going straight on the walls of the Ready Room. You guys are going in the Hall of Shame! Hah, man, could this day get any—”
A light flashed on her console. “Oh, look at that,” she said, opening the throttle as far as it would go. “Time to go.”
Jerking forward, her Warbird darted out into space, almost ramming into the back of the ship in front of her. She pulled back in time, the wild maneuver turning Flatline’s gloating into panicked shrieking.
“Guano!” roared Roadie in their ears, “did you forget how to fly? Stay in formation or I’m going to kick your arse so hard you’ll be tasting boot polish for a month!”
“Daddy’s mad,” said Flatline, his tone teasing. “He going to spank you again?” His voice became high pitched. “Oh Daddy Roadie, give it to me, ohhh, oooh … lemme see your joystick!”
Guano groaned audibly. “Sorry,” she muttered, and pulled her ship back into formation with Wing Charlie as the three wings of fighters soared out from the Midway, racing toward their target; a ship surrounded by blue light, and behind it, a massive brown gas giant.
“Hey,” said Flatline, the levity evaporating from his voice. “Wasn’t there a moon there just before?”
The observation took all the embarrassment away, replacing it with a strange kind of foreboding. This wasn’t a simulator … if they died here, there were no do-overs.
She put those kind of thoughts to the back of her mind and focused on flying in a straight line, the rest of her wing on all sides.
“Contact,” said Flatline. “We got a bunch of bandits right ahead.”
She checked her radar screen. So many of them. Over a hundred. More like two. They were heavily outnumbered.
Just the way she liked it.
Guano locked up the nearest few fighters and got ready to dump all her missiles at once. There was no point hanging onto them; all around her, her sensors told her that the rest of the strike craft were doing the same thing.
“Fox three,” she said, holding down the missile fire trigger. Her ship shook with the force as all her radar-guided missiles flew off their racks and leapt toward the enemy; given the massive amounts of hostiles in the area, she prepared to fire her much shorter range heat-seekers almost immediately. They would find something, even if their main engines burned out, the guidance systems and proximity detonators would take at least one fighter each out with them. “Fox two,” she said, dumping the second wave of missiles.
The missiles streaked toward their targets, bursting silently in the black, multiple secondary explosions silhouetted against the gas giant making bright, playful little flashes as the missiles found their mark.
And then, right as the two fl
ights got close to gun range, and a bright red projectile streaked past her cockpit, suddenly, it came.
Utter calm. Focus.
“Hey Flatline,” she said, thumbing the master arm on her guns off. “Tally. I’m feeling it.”
“You’re…” his voice suddenly sounded relieved. “You mean the thing?”
“Yeah,” said Guano, locking up her first guns target. “Let’s kick some arse.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Losagar System
Planet Waywell, High Orbit
The Aerostar
Harry jiggled the control stick of the dorsal rail gun turret of the Aerostar, but nothing. The HUD projected on the glass lit up; it was just as Sammy had said. A bunch of little fighter craft, five of them in total and all as black as night, flying directly toward them. A big red cross was painted across his gunsight, along with the words:
SYSTEM OFFLINE
“Sammy, bring the guns online!” said Reardon.
“They are, bro!”
“Mine is off too,” said Smith. “Is the ventral gunner position supposed to be on lock down?”
Reardon swore and pounded a fist on the console. The words flickered and disappeared. “See? Just got to be firm with her.”
“Ahh,” said Smith. There was a brief pause. “Holy shit, you’ve installed some serious weapons on this thing since I was last in here. Are these 75-caliber guns?” He whistled loudly. “Oh boy, you’ve upgraded. And you are going to spend a long time in prison if anyone ever catches you with these things.”
He had kind of hoped that Smith wouldn’t see them. “That’s why,” said Reardon, “we house them inside 45-caliber gun barrels with ‘big thick coolant sleeves.’ Most cops can’t tell the difference and don’t think to look inside.” He swung his turret around. “Anyway, point being, we got fighters incoming. Let’s take ’em out. Sammy, charge the Z-space drive, we gotta get the hell out of here.”
“Righteo,” said Sammy. “Charging.” There was a brief pause. “Do you want me to pull the lever marked in case of missiles?”
The Last Dawn: Book 3 of The Last War Series Page 20