Ambition (The Long Haul Book 1)

by Geoff North

  Smaller, until nothing.

  The stars around Vin flickered, as if a door had suddenly shut. Time and light appeared to snap back into focus as the collapse event ended. The remaining nine Pegan ships had cleared the disturbance, but were in various states of disarray. Some were dangerously close to colliding into others. Vin could only imagine the panic and mass confusion spreading throughout all of them.

  Now was the best time for her to get out of there, before they regained control. She punched in the directional coordinates that would take her into orbit around Oread—where she hoped Ambition would be waiting—and engaged the fighter’s fold drive.

  Chapter 63

  Hail checked the interior temperature indicator on the sleeve of his space suit again. He couldn’t read the Pegan numbers displayed in digitized orange, but the steadily vanishing bars next to them told him more than he needed to know. “What does yours say?”

  Kella didn’t bother to look. “Does it matter?”

  “I suppose not.” He twisted his body into a more comfortable position—or at least into a less painful one—and Kella shifted with him, their closed visor plates clunking off one another. It was getting colder. The breathable air inside the excavation vehicle cab had run out completely half an hour earlier, forcing them to seal up completely inside the suits. It allowed them more time to live, but Hail only wanted to feel her skin against his. He was tempted to remove their helmets, sacrificing what precious air remained, to die with his lips on hers.

  “Are you scared?” She asked.

  “Yes. Scared… and sad.”

  “Me too.” Kella yawned.

  Hail knew she wasn’t tired, she was trying to pull more oxygen into her lungs from the almost empty tank. “I wish we’d spent more time together back on Ambition.”

  Kella hugged him tighter. “Everyone regrets something near the end. Be happy that we had these last few days together.”

  Hail rubbed frost from the window and looked into the big rear view mirror attached to the passenger door’s exterior. Half a dozen mechanical beings crawling on multiple legs were approaching fast in the deep tire tracks Kella had left behind. “Uuh… not sure you want to hear this right now, but—”

  “I see them.” She replied sluggishly. Her gaze drifted away from the mirror and looked up into the stars. “Looks like this is it, kid. Let’s hope they make it quick.” A point of moving light caught her waning attention. “There was an old saying back on Earth… wish upon a shooting star.”

  “Never heard it before.” One of the mechanisms had jumped from the moon’s surface and attached itself to the back of the vehicle. It dug into one side of the metal haul bed and began crawling towards them. Hail squeezed Kella into him and looked away from the mirror. “And I don’t think it would do us much good now anyway.”

  “Up there, Hail,” she lifted an arm slowly and pointed out through the front window. “I see a shooting star.”

  Hail saw it a moment later, streaking across the black horizon. “That’s no shooting star, it’s a ship!” He maneuvered an arm underneath her and searched for the seal release of his alien pressure suit. Cold blasted against Hail’s chest as he dug a hand inside and searched for the beacon unit he’d retrieved from Bee. He pulled it out, and a steady green light filled the cabin. “It’s one of ours!”

  “They’re not… receiving our signal.” Kella pushed away from him and crawled back over the gearshifts into the driver’s seat with the last of her remaining strength. “Gotta let them know… we’re here.”

  Metal claws ripped into the passenger door, shaking the entire cabin. A second crawling mechanism jumped onto the roof, squishing the ceiling down six inches. Hail slouched over and shimmied away from the door. “It’s no use, they didn’t see us.”

  “I’ll make them see.” Kella pounded at a button on the control panel.

  Hail stared out the passenger window helplessly and watched the alien mechanism draw one of its arms back to smash through the thick glass. Bright orange light fired up all around it as the excavation vehicle’s second missile rocket activated. The missile shot forward, incinerating the multi-limbed robot in its wake.

  There was no way to control the missile’s flight path. It streaked ahead and slightly up, covering two kilometers of open space before plunging into the top of one of the excavated mountains of rock.

  “Too late,” Hail said after the flash of light died down. “They’re gone.”

  Claws tore through the roof and began peeling metal away. More appeared directly in front of them, climbing up onto the hood, headed for the glass shield. Kella reached for the door handle and jumped back when something slammed into it. A massive dome-shaped head appeared moments later, flooding the cabin interior with probing red light.

  She grabbed onto Hail’s hand and squeezed without saying a word. There wouldn’t be time to say goodbye. The roof had been completely ripped away, the claws reached down. A flash of light blinded Kella and Hail. A single metal arm dropped down into the gear shifts between them, still glowing orange and smoking at the end where it had suddenly detached from the rest of its body. Two more flashes streaked across the vehicle’s hood, blasting the mechanical creatures away from the glass shield.

  “They came back!” Kella yelled triumphantly.

  Hail looked out the side window and saw an Ambition fighter hovering less than six meters from the ground. It began a slow sideways sweep to the front of the vehicle, blasting the remaining mechanisms away. The driver’s side window shattered outwards—the last of the automatons reached for Kella’s leg. The fighter shot its head off, dropping the powerless body halfway through the frame.

  The ship fired its landing thrusters and settled to the rocky surface in a cloud of swirling dust. Hail clunked his helmet visor against Kella’s. “We made it. We’re going home.”

  “Never once… doubted it.”

  The oxygen left in their tanks was almost gone. Getting to the fighter less than ten meters away would be the greatest challenge yet. Hail’s limbs ached as he dragged her from the vehicle. They spilled down onto the ground and began crawling. He looked ahead and saw the weapons canopy open. Kella collapsed fully into the dirt. “Don’t you quit on me now.” He grabbed onto the fabric at the back of her suit and pulled.

  They made it to the fighter. Hail lifted Kella one last time and placed her hand on the bottom rung of the turret ladder. Her fingers wrapped around the metal and she pulled. Hail bent down, placed one shoulder into her rear-end, and pushed. What would’ve taken less than ten seconds under normal circumstances, stretched out into a full minute of life-sapping struggle. By the time they’d both made it all the way in, Hail no longer had the strength to even close the canopy.

  It dropped down automatically and sealed. Pressurization lights flashed red, orange, and finally green. Hail could hear the rush of oxygen outside his helmet as a breathable atmosphere was re-established. He removed his helmet and gasped in deeply. Kella’s shaking hands couldn’t find the release switch for hers. Hail did it for her, and pulled the helmet free.

  A voice was calling to them through the cabin speakers. “—are in possession of an Ambition fighter homing beacon. You have three seconds to identify yourselves, or I’m going to release that canopy again.”

  “It’s Hail Vela! Hail and Kella Sa from Bee!”

  “We thought we’d lost you two. You’re a little ways off from where you’re supposed to be.”

  “Vin Vir?” Kella was gasping in the air. “Is that you? What’s a science tech doing in the pilot seat of a fighter?”

  “Long story. How did the two of you get here?”

  “That’s an even longer story,” Hail answered. “Take us home and we’ll tell you all about it.”

  There was a pause before Vin responded. “You’ll have to tell me along the way.” The fighter lifted off from Oread. “I don’t think we’re going to have a home much longer.”

  Chapter 64

  “They’ve found
us,” Kalin reported from his station. “Nine of the ten Pegan vessels have just appeared on the sensors.”

  Rastaban sneered at the young officer. “Location and range.”

  “On the other side of Oread, facing the planet. They’re picking up speed and will intercept us in less than four minutes.”

  Rastaban spun in his chair and faced Gacrux. “How soon can you make another faster than light jump?”

  The propulsion chief shook his head. “There won’t be any more jumps. We’ve just completed the first round of diagnostics on the collapse chamber. There’s a definite crack on level three, section twelve. If we try forcing even one DMP through, a collapse event will occur before it clears the column.”

  “How long before you can fix it?”

  Gacrux raised his eyebrows and looked to Nash. The robot answered for him. “It will require weeks to complete the testing, and months to effect repairs. Depending on the breach severity, it could take more than a year before we can make the jump into fold space again.”

  Rastaban’s fingers were rubbing at the dead skin on his face. “Do we have any more video drones to throw at them?”

  “Less than a dozen left, but none yet rigged to implode,” Gacrux replied. “My brother and his crew report the first three will be available to launch in another hour.”

  “Ambition doesn’t have an hour,” Rastaban said. “We have three and a half minutes.”

  Argus Cor joined in on the discussion. “What about the rest of our nukes?”

  “Slower and less manoeuvrable than the drones,” Gacrux answered. “The Pegans would pick them off before they could get close enough to do any appreciable damage.”

  Rastaban held onto Argus’s suggestion. “We could launch them anyway—distract those ships long enough to make another run.”

  “We wouldn’t get very far at space normal speed,” Nash said. “I suggest we power down altogether and surrender.”

  Rastaban waved the idea away. “The Captain tried that once already. The Pegans didn’t fall for it.”

  Nine distant lights appeared on the view screen above the edge of Oread’s cratered surface. No more options were offered. The bridge fell silent.

  A light blinked on Argus’s communication panel. “We have another contact.” She adjusted her controls and brought the signal through her headset. “It’s Vin Vir! She’s piloting Nail home!”

  Rastaban rose up from the command chair, his chest pounding. “Put her through on the main speakers!”

  There was a blast of static, and then her voice sounded throughout the bridge. “Looks like you have your hands full, Ambition. Any chance of opening a door and letting us slip in?”

  “Vin…” Rastaban staggered down the dais steps, his eyes glued to the screen. The image changed from the Pegan vessels to that of the lone fighter streaking through space. “You don’t know how good it is to hear your voice again.”

  “Ras? You’re in command of Ambition?”

  “Admiral Lennix and his people have been deposed. I was next in line. What about you? What happened down on Pega? Where’s the Captain?”

  “Captain Sulafat is dead. General Emin murdered him in cold blood.”

  Argus gasped somewhere behind Rastaban. The acting commander lowered his head and closed his eyes. “Understood… And the rest of the landing party—did you find Hadar Cen?”

  “Hadar is alive. We lost a lot of the soldiers sent down to get him. They’re not going to give us a third chance, Ras. We’ll have to try something really desperate now if we want to survive.”

  “We’ve been living on desperation our entire lives, these last few hours especially. There’s nothing left for us to try.”

  “Don’t give up so easily, Captain Drac.”

  Rastaban knew his friend well. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was smiling. He heard something in the tone of her voice the others couldn’t. “What’ve you got for me, Vin?”

  “Not what—who. I have a couple of stowaways riding along in the weapons turret. Let us in and we’ll explain everything.”

  Chapter 65

  “I don’t care if there’s an underground city in the center of that damn moon,” Hal Gulum snapped. “You’re suffering from the effects of first stage hypothermia and near asphyxiation. You should be back in bed at Medical—not risking your health any further up here on the bridge.”

  “There won’t be a medical section much longer if we don’t act fast, doctor,” Kella countered. She was sprawled out uncomfortably on the weapons section chair, having the wound in her side treated.

  Hail was down on one knee next to her, holding the young woman’s hand. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be fine,” Hal grumbled. “But she isn’t doing her recovery time any favors. I’ll see her strapped to a bed for at least a week when this is over.” He glared at Hail. “The same goes for you.”

  Rastaban and Vin were standing a few feet away at the base of the command dais. Drac’s hand was still wrapped around her waist, unwilling to let his closest friend slip away again. “Finish your job here, doctor, and I promise to have them strapped in bed for a month. Until then Kella and Hail are remaining on the bridge until we figure a way out of this.”

  “I’m picking up multiple energy signatures from under the moon’s surface,” Gacrux called out. “They’re faint, but something is definitely there.”

  Nash was standing over him, reading from a separate display. “Oread is the densest of all planetary bodies in this system. It would’ve been no easy task carving out such a substantial area to place a city, but with that much lead and nickel in the rock, it definitely makes for the most undetectable and hidden of locations.”

  Rastaban finally let go of Vin. He climbed the dais steps and sank reluctantly back into the command chair. “Then we’ll offer the Pegan ships a choice; back off and let us leave the system, or watch as we pound the city below with our remaining nukes.”

  “You’d better reach out to them quickly,” Kalin said. “The lead ship has just opened fire.”

  All eyes went to the main screen where a growing orange globe of concentrated plasma had suddenly appeared. “Hard to port!” Rastaban yelled. “Fire all starboard cannons!”

  Ambition’s heavy exterior guns swung as the ship turned and released a simultaneous barrage of concentrated lasers and octogen-tipped missiles. A few found their target, and struck into the heart of the alien explosive, blasting it into a thousand balls of glowing energy.

  The smaller plasma globes rained into Ambition’s aft section, sending multiple shudders throughout the ship. Rastaban clutched at the arms of his chair as fellow crew members were thrown hard to the bridge floor. “Why aren’t the Sol-damned shields up?”

  “Power for the deflection screens are siphoned automatically from the fold drive,” Gacrux shouted back. “With fold inoperable, the shields operate at less than half maximum capacity. It’s why we sustained such heavy damage during our first encounter with the Pegans.”

  And it was the main reason Ambition would be destroyed that much quicker now, Rastaban thought. Their ancient ancestors had refitted the mining vessel into a war vessel, but had neglected to equip it with sufficient defensive properties capable of staving off a direct attack. The deflection screens protected them from meteor strikes and radiation during long periods of travel; Ambition’s thick outer hulls were her crew’s primary protection in battle.

  “Drop a nuke onto the moon,” he commanded. “Give them a taste of what will happen if they don’t back off.”

  “It would be a waste of our remaining resources,” Nash said. “There’s almost a full kilometer of heavy rock protecting the city underneath. A nuclear detonation on Oread’s surface would barely be felt that far below.”

  The Pegan ships had begun to spread out, surrounding them on all sides. A red beam shot down from one and began slicing into Ambition’s exterior. A second laser pierced up into the ship’s belly. “They’re going to c
ut us into two pieces!” Gacrux announced. A continuous shake was building under their feet; they could hear the growing rumble of two-meter thick hull plating being ripped apart.

  “Concentrate all fire on the one above our port side!” Rastaban swivelled the chair to face Kalin at the helm. “Cut all power to the orbital thrusters and let us drop on top of the ship below.”

  Oread’s gravity grabbed onto Ambition and began pulling her down. The continuous discharge of missiles and lasers from the upper aft bays pushed the ship towards Oread’s surface even faster.

  “The ship below has cut off its attack!” Kalin yelled triumphantly. “They’re pulling away to avoid collision.”

  “The vessel above has sustained heavy damage,” Nash announced much more calmly. “They’re drawing back as well.”

  The shuddering and rumbling ceased. Ambition steadied. Vin grinned up at her friend in the command chair. “It looks like you’re fitting into this new role rather well.”

  “Fear’s an excellent instructor.”

  Nash assisted Vin back to her feet. “We’re still being pulled in. If we don’t engage thrusters, the ship will collide into the moon’s surface in less than one minute.”

  Rastaban leaned back and stared at the screen. Oread’s black mountains and deep craters were growing in size. He had done all he could. The Pegan ships would reorganize and resume their attack as soon as Ambition tried climbing back up into a controlled orbit. Why give them that satisfaction? “Let us drop then,” he finally said. “Let it end here, by our own hand.”