“Yes.”
“Yes,” she said. “If the missiles had more fuel, perhaps they could accelerate fast and hard enough at the moon-ship to land on it. Remember, though, first the missiles have to brake in order to stop their momentum as they head toward Venus. Once they stop, then they will have to accelerate after the moon-ship.”
“Okay,” I said. “That just means we need more fuel.”
“It would take too many T-missiles teleporting enough regular missiles or fuel pods into position. And how would you get the fuel from one missile or pod to another? We don’t have that kind of refueling tech on the missiles themselves.”
I scowled. We needed more fuel, more mass, more—
I snapped my fingers. “I think I have it. But it will be risky, really dangerous, in fact. I wouldn’t suggest it except for the prize, saving our beloved planet.”
“Well?” Ella asked. “What’s your great idea?”
I told her, Rollo and the listening bridge crew.
Ella laughed, shaking her head as she did so. “I can’t believe it, Creed. That’s outlandish, insane and as improbable as hell. You do realize that, yes?”
“I don’t care about any of that,” I said. “Can it be done?”
Ella Timoshenko stared at me. “I have no idea. In fact, I doubt it. But I don’t see that we have any other choice. I wish N7 were here. We’re going to need incredible timing to pull this off. But if everything works at precisely the right instant, maybe, just maybe, we can pull off this madcap stunt and have a shot, at least, at saving Russia—saving Earth, I mean.”
-5-
Several hours later, the George Patton nosed among masses of free-floating T-missiles.
Our battlejumper had finally reached the Mars Fleet. The other ships had had to slow down so we could catch up in time. Once we all had the same velocity, those warships had disgorged almost their entire complement of teleporting missiles.
“Shouldn’t we disengage the nuclear warheads first?” Ella asked.
“There’s no time for that,” I said. “It’s going to be hard enough sequencing the mass of T-missiles to all teleport at one precise instant of time.”
“Hard?” Ella asked. “I still say it’s impossible. You’re going to tear the battlejumper apart with this stunt.”
“Which is one reason I’m going to only ask for volunteers,” I said.
“Creed, you don’t have time for that either.”
She was right, but it was hard to accept.
“When they signed up for Mars Fleet, this was one of the adventures they signed up for,” Ella said.
“I don’t see any other way to stopping the moon-ship in time,” I said.
“Me neither,” Ella said. “It’s the only reason I’m agreeing with this madness. But now you’ve got another problem. The moon-ship keeps catapulting rocks at Earth. We’re going to need the Mars Fleet out there to help knock down all the rocks. That means these ships should start accelerating for Earth again.”
“First things first,” I replied. “The planet can survive a few rocks. It can’t survive a direct moon strike.”
Ella could see that. “How many assault troopers will you have?”
“One thousand, maybe,” I said. “I’m taking every assault trooper Mars Fleet has.”
“One thousand to storm a moon-sized ship.” Ella shook her head. “That’s far too few.”
“You’re right. It is. We’re going to have to reach the enemy bridge to win.”
“I don’t know if you’ve thought this through,” Ella said. “Maybe they have auxiliary control stations over there. Maybe they can override the engines. Maybe—”
“Ella,” I said, interrupting.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Kindly shut up with your pessimism and start working on the immediate problem. How to board and secure the enemy moon-ship is my problem. I’ll solve it my way, and that isn’t by wringing my hands on all the possible ways it can go wrong.”
“No. You like to charge straight ahead and hope for the best.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I said. “That includes a proven combat method.”
She rolled her eyes, but obeyed my command, continuing to link every T-missile so they could make one coordinated launch. Combined as one, the mass of missiles in a precise whole would create a teleporting web, hopefully taking the battlejumper with them.
“I’m coming with you,” Rollo said.
“Good. I’m going to need someone old school. You can start by calling all the Mars Fleet ships. Make sure all their assault troopers are headed here. Do you have your bio-suit aboard?”
“Of course,” Rollo said. “What about yours?”
“I sent it ahead to the booster on Mars before I boarded. So it’s here.”
Our bio-suits were something else. They had first come to us from our Jelk paymasters. The suits were one of the reasons we’d all been injected with steroid-68 and surgically implanted with neuro-fibers.
Our bio-suits were alive, symbiotic second skin. They flowed over our bodies and could harden on the outside while keeping soft on the inside. They absorbed a tremendous amount of damage. The second skin also amplified our already considerable strength. They could also act like spacesuits, powered by our sweat. In case you’re wondering, the alien second skin didn’t cover our faces. We wore helmets instead and heavy combat boots.
We first-timers had had our bio-suits from the beginning. We’d found more in several Jelk star-cities throughout the years, but only had a limited supply. That limited the number of assault troopers humanity possessed.
I continued to run the steroid-68, bio-suited assault troopers, leaving day-to-day politics to those that loved it. Diana the Amazon Queen and Murad Bey were still alive. Each headed their respective parties for Earth Parliament. We used the old British system of government. Theoretically, I had a boss, the Prime Minister. In reality, I still pretty much did as I saw fit. That would change one of these days. But it wasn’t going to change today.
The hours fled as space teams maneuvered the T-missiles against the George Patton’s outer hull. Welders secured them to the armored skin.
During that time, the moon-ship catapulted more rocks. Earth Fleet charged toward the enemy and Earth Central began launching missiles. Those would intercept and obliterate as many approaching rocks as they could.
All the while, comm-operators hailed the moon-ship. So far, no one had replied.
It was maddening not knowing who piloted the moon-ship. Who was the enemy? What did they have against us? Was this a new alien menace or an old one finding a new way to attack humanity?
“Maybe we should talk to Holgotha,” Rollo said.
I shook my head. I doubted the Forerunner object would answer. He usually didn’t unless pressed hard enough. Once this was over, though, I planned on having words with the ancient machine.
More hours ticked away.
It was maddening. I stood on the bridge, staring at the moon-ship bearing down on Earth. My gut had begun to churn some time ago. If we didn’t get these T-missiles coordinated soon, it wasn’t going to matter what we did.
It was delicate work sequencing each T-missile to teleport at a precise instant of time. Anything else would tear the battlejumper apart as half teleported away and half remained behind. We still had the other problem. The moon-ship came toward the Earth from Venus. We headed inward from Mars. Once we teleported, we’d still be going in the same direction. That meant the battlejumper had to brake to a full stop and accelerate to catch up to the moon-vessel. That’s the reason I was using the battlejumper. It had the fuel and hard accelerating engines—but only if we went within the next three hours.
I called Ella. Sweat bathed her face, and worry lines creased her forehead. She was concentrating and didn’t have time to talk to me.
Two hours and twenty-three minutes later, Ella called me.
I’d moved down to the main assault chamber, more a cargo hangar r
eally. There were assault shuttles and sleds in abundance. We old-timers had used these before. I’d spoken to my assault troopers, a little less than one thousand warm bodies. I had nine hundred and forty-three troopers to be exact. It was a paltry sum to capture a moon-ship, but hey, it’s what I had.
“We’re as ready as we’re going to be,” Ella told me.
I inhaled deeply through my nostrils. If I thought too hard about what we were going to do—
“I want you off the battlejumper,” I said.
Ella laughed harshly. “That’s a negative, Commander. I’m coming with you. I even have my bio-suit here.”
“Ella—”
“I’m not going to argue with you about it,” she said. “I’m on the bridge right now. You need someone up here that knows what’s going on. Also, this is a science experiment, and I want full credit for what we did.”
She was ever the scientist.
“If this works,” I said, “I’ll tell people it was all your idea.”
She made a face. “Ideas are a dime a dozen, Commander. It’s executing them that counts.”
She had a point.
“How much longer until we’re ready to launch?” I asked.
She checked her board. “Give me another ten minutes. I want to run one last test. Then, it’s go time.”
“Roger that,” I said.
During those ten minutes, I loaded up the shuttles, twenty vehicles with fifty assault troopers per carrier. We weren’t going to use the sleds this time. Most of us carried pulse rifles and shock grenades. We also had a scattering of plasma cannon teams and some anti-air teams to knock down any moon fighters the enemy might launch.
The ten minutes passed in a blur of sick anticipation. This was our planet’s great hope for survival. How had it happened that after all our hard work to make Earth a fortress, she was relying on one thousand assault troopers? If we survived this, I was going to make the attacker pay an unholy price for attempting it.
I sat in the pilot’s chamber with Rollo. The First Admiral was going to do the flying. That was the kind of admiral I admired, one willing to risk everything with his men.
Ella appeared on a tiny screen. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I said, over-anxious to get going.
She nodded, tapping a panel as numbers flashed in the screen beside her.
Rollo began the count at, “Three, two, one…ignition.”
For a moment, everything went blurry. A feeling of sickness hit my stomach. Had we made it?
Disorientation struck. Then, everything around me began to shake. Through my helmet, I heard shredding metal sounds and crumpling bulkheads. What had gone wrong?
The shaking increased. Our shuttle lifted off the hangar bay deck. I looked over at Rollo. The flight board was dark. Our assault vehicle slammed against another shuttle. That flung me against my straps, forcing air from my chest. Our main blast window shattered as a different shuttle cartwheeled across us to bang against a hangar bay bulkhead.
This was a disaster. After all this preparation, the T-missiles must have not worked all at the same instant of time.
Finally, we stopped rolling. My muscles ached. That had been worse than any destruction car derby I’d been in as a teenager. Lights flickered in the hangar bay as grim rumbling sounds came from deeper within the battlejumper.
The comm came on. At least it still worked. A bloody-faced Ella stared at me.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did one of the T-missiles misfire?”
“No,” she panted. “It was a perfect teleportation. We did everything right in that department.”
“Then how come I’ve probably lost half my assault troopers before we started the attack?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “We miscalculated our destination, teleporting in front of the moon-ship not behind it like we’d planned. One of the rocks catapulted from the moon smashed through our battlejumper. The ship is shredded, Commander.”
I swore, feeling sick and helpless. How could this have happened? Did that mean Earth was doomed? A fierce resolve swelled in me. We still had to make this work, but I had no idea how.
Ella worked her board as she spoke. “It’s worse than that, Commander. The battlejumper is getting ready to go critical. You have to leave the ship or die in the coming explosion.”
“We need the battlejumper’s acceleration,” I said. “That was the critical element to my plan.”
“I know. You’re going to have to use the shuttles for that now.”
Right! That’s the only thing that made sense. “Get down here,” I shouted.
“There’s no time for that, Commander.”
“Get down here, Ella. I’m not leaving without you.”
“Sir—”
“Do it, Timoshenko. Or I’m coming up there to get you.”
She stared into my eyes, realizing I was dead serious. “I’m on my way, sir,’ she said, moving out of visual range.
Rollo turned to me. “Do our shuttles even have enough fuel and speed to accelerate fast enough so the moon-ship doesn’t obliterate us?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s it then,” Rollo said. “The moon-ship will either smash us or pass us. We failed.”
“Not yet,” I said. “I have an idea.”
-6-
A munition explosion tore open the frozen-shut hangar bay door. More explosive munitions hammered against an inner lock. The bullets came in a stream from Shuttle Nine. It was the least damaged shuttle of the lot.
We had begun the mission with twenty shuttles full of assault troopers. Now, we had fourteen. Few of those had a full complement. This was a balls-up. That didn’t mean it was over, though.
“I see stars,” Rollo shouted.
Ella hunkered in a back seat, having barely made it in time.
Shuttle Nine had already lifted from the hangar bay deck. It sped at the ragged opening. The assault shuttle tore pieces of bulkhead as it crashed through, but the operative word was through.
More shuttles followed number nine.
“Get us out of here,” I told the First Admiral.
The musclebound gorilla did just that, taking the armored shuttle like an angry baby through its birth canal. We zipped out of the mostly destroyed George Patton.
Rollo cursed as he gave the shuttle as much thrust as it could muster.
Before us were stars, beautiful stellar lights. I could see Earth in the distance. It wasn’t visibly blue-green yet, but it was the biggest thing other than the Sun. Uh, let me rephrase that.
The moon-ship looming behind us was the biggest thing. We could see craters just as if we had been Apollo astronauts in the good old days. But that I mean the ’60s. If there had been a better time for the Earth, I don’t know it.
The moon-ship loomed massive behind us, and it gained on our tiny shuttles. Our minuscule shuttle fleet tried to outrun doom.
The battlejumper no longer had acceleration power. The moon-ship gained on it and crashed against the wreckage, crumpling what was left of the glorious vessel and spreading it across the rocky surface.
No one said anything for several seconds.
Ella finally broke the grim silence. “I see the catapult rails.”
“Are they firing on us?” I asked.
“I doubt the rails are that precise,” she said. “But would you look at that. They’re launching another batch of rocks at the Earth.”
I watched from her view-screen. A giant bucket sped along the rails gaining velocity. It reached a ramp, like an old-time ski jumping ramp, and shot the rocks into space. They tumbled end over end, heading for Earth. The rocks would miss us by hundreds of kilometers. The battlejumper getting hit by some of them had been the freakiest of bad luck.
“We don’t have much time left, Creed,” Rollo said. “Maybe you’d better explain your wonderful plan to us.”
“You’re doing it,” I told him.
Rollo shook his helmeted head. “I’m not seeing it.”
“We’re losing velocity as we brake.”
“Not much velocity,” he said.
“Maybe enough so we can survive a crash landing.”
“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s your great plan?”
“There you have it in all its glory,” I said.
“How can you be so cheery at a time like this?” he complained.
“Because I’m playing the game,” I said. “If I keep my wits about me, I may get a chance to win. That will allow me to destroy the bastards who attacked Earth.”
“Oh-oh,” Ella said.
“What’s ‘oh-oh?’” Rollo asked.
“Those look like hangar bay doors,” she said. “And they’re opening.”
I tapped a console, bringing up her view. Huge doors opened on the lunar surface. One after another, fighters launched into space.
I stared at them in slack-jawed wonder. “Those are Jelk craft,” I said.
Rollo glanced at my view.
They were narrow fighters with missiles under incredibly stubby wings.
“Saurian fighters,” my friend amended.
“Saurians,” I said, tasting the word. “That scratches the idea this is a Forerunner plan. It’s a Jelk plan, a corporation assault.” My hatred for the Jelk Corporation awakened with added intensity.
Saurians were two-legged, walking lizards as I’ve said. The creatures’ movements were springier than a human’s. Usually, Saurians stood four or four and half feet tall. They called themselves the Family and made better workers than they did fighters. I think the Jelk liked them because Saurians were easy keepers and bred like flies.
“Where did the Jelk get transferring moon-ships?” Ella asked, perplexed.
“We’re going to have to turn to face the fighters,” I told Rollo.
“If I do that,” he said, “I can’t slow our shuttle from crashing against the moon-ship. We’ll smash against the surface harder—”
“Turn around, turn around,” I shouted. “They’re coming on us fast.”
As I spoke, enemy missiles launched from under those stubby wings. Fortunately for our side, we’d been fighting Saurians for a solid four years. We’d done so as Star Vikings and afterward as we went after the Jelk frontier planets. Most of those planets had Saurian guards. We’d gotten pretty good at shooting them down. Even better, we had their tech down pat. That included these missiles.
Fortress Earth (Extinction Wars Book 4) Page 3