Jupiter's Sword

by Webb, Nick

  They needed cover. The destroyer began to fire as it charged at them, and McAllister sent his ship into a tight spiral, arrowing toward one of the arms of the Telestine fleet. He righted the ship just long enough to lock onto a Feather and fire, and gave a whoop when his shot caught it on the wing. It jerked sideways and into another ship, and both of them tumbled back toward the Telestine fleet.

  “If anyone has ideas about getting some cover, now would be a stellar time to air them!”

  “Sir!” It was Newbie Thirteen. “The Cairo is breaking ranks to join us!”

  A scout ship, a frigate that had swung late into formation for some reason, but a frigate was better than nothing.

  “All right, ladies and gents, we have some cover fire. Form up around the Cairo and wave at the bridge, they’re saving our asses!” Theo directed his fighter to open a channel. “Cairo, this is McAllister. Thanks a million.”

  “You’re welcome, McAllister.” The familiar voice was colored with equal parts amusement and annoyance. “Less talking and more flying, though. This is going to be a shitshow.”

  They’d put Walker on a scout frigate? On a goddamned frigate? McAllister’s jaw clenched. “Aye, ma’am! Fighters, you take as many of those damned Feathers down as you can before they reach the Cairo, and then get ready for a new target.”

  He jerked back on the targeting matrix and watched a stream of bullets streak out into the darkness. Almost all of the shots were hitting—which would be fantastic if it didn’t show him just how many of the fighters there were.

  “There are too many!” Newbie Seven called.

  “Then take them down! For the next hour, you find a target, you shoot it, and then you find another target and repeat the process. Do you understand me, fighters?”

  “Aye, sir!”

  A yell broke off suddenly on the comms as one of the newest ships blew apart. The destroyer’s beam shot into the darkness behind them and then cut off, the cannon glowing red like a malevolent eye.

  “All the hells….” Princess breathed, his voice broken. “Why spend that shot on a fighter?”

  “To make us stop fighting,” McAllister said grimly. “To break us. Same reason they do everything they do. We’re not going to let them win.”

  “Fighters, regroup behind the Cairo,” Walker ordered. “We’ll give you an opening soon, but stay hidden for now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You heard her, pilots, hightail it behind the Cairo and get ready to come out firing!”

  As his ship banked back over the sleek hull of the Cairo, he spared a glance for the battle below. Though the Telestine formation had spread and changed, the Exile Fleet was still firing full bore. Tiny bursts of light skittered across his screen as shots met hulls, and every once in a while came the flare as a pocket of air ignited on one of the ships. Fire blazed momentarily against the dark and ships tumbled out of position. This was one of the most dangerous parts of any battle, as the sheer amount of uncontrolled debris deflected shots and turned the area into a minefield.

  And then he saw it: the streaking fire of a nuke, shot by the Santa Maria. As if grabbed by an invisible hand none of them could see, it began a slow arc back around….

  Toward the Exile Fleet.

  “Walker?!”

  “Jesus Christ.” Her voice was broken. “Oh, God. Swing wide! Swing!”

  He saw it, too—the Alabama swinging out of formation, trying to avoid the nuke that was now coming directly at it. But there wasn’t anywhere to go without crashing into another human ship, and a second later, the nuke hit the upper decks.

  McAllister tried to keep breathing. Whatever the hell he had just seen, he had to keep doing something. Anything.

  He just couldn’t think of what to do. His mind was completely blank.

  “All right.” Walker’s voice was crisp in his ear. “We need to end this, and we need to end it now. We’re going straight for that destroyer. You keep the Feathers off us. We need to keep their formation from closing around ours, or it’s all over.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He relayed the orders to the team and was pleased to see them swing into action at once. The Cairo’s cannons fired and the Feathers failed to scatter quickly enough. As they struggled to regroup, the cannons kept their target and fired again. Walker was battering a hole through the swarm of enemy fighters to get to the hull of the destroyer. The cannons fired again and again, and McAllister saw an opening.

  “Cairo, stand by, we’ll make you a hole for the starboard cannons. Fighters, throw everything you got into that path. Get those Feathers out of the way!”

  The fighters swung into a tight formation, a diamond advancing forward with McAllister’s fighter at the center, and he tried not to grin at the practiced perfection of their formation. If they all got out of this alive, then would be the time for a round of drinks and some congratulations.

  Their rounds tore through the last cover and the Cairo’s batteries began to fire full bore. The ship shuddered on its trajectory, its aging stabilizers no match for the not-quite symmetrical set of its cannons. When they demoted Walker, however, they’d demoted the core of her crew on the Santa Maria as well, and whoever was targeting those cannons was adjusting them to the spin of the ship perfectly. A full-throated roar of approval echoed from a score of fighters at once as the destroyer’s hull buckled and their cannon array went dark.

  “Ready for a new target, McAllister?” He knew that tone. Walker would be wearing a savage grin right about now.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Straight over to the next finger, then.” There was a pause. “Tentacle? Arm? Whatever. And since you’re wondering—yes, we’re all going to get reamed out by Morgan when this is done. But think of that as a consequence of still being alive to get reamed out.”

  McAllister was laughing as his fighter came up in a smooth arc. “Aye, ma’am. All right, everyone. We’re in about as much trouble as we’re going to be, let’s kill some of these fuggers while we’re at it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ceres

  EFS Cairo

  Bridge

  “Head for the destroyer at the tip of the arm.” Walker studied the battle readout. “Main battery, get ready to fire. Fighters, are we clear behind?”

  “Not yet.” McAllister’s voice was half-laughing. “But we’ll fix that, ma’am. Tocks, you take 17-32 and circle back around. Come back to join us when you’re done.”

  “Aye, sir. Cairo, this is Tocks. We got your six.”

  “Thank you, Simpson.” Walker smiled. She watched as fighters broke away from the main pack, streaking up toward the Cairo. “I do believe they know where we’re going. McAllister, one wing needs to keep us clear from the side, and let’s get that carrier down before it does any real damage. What the hell are they waiting for?”

  The Telestine formation was hanging in space, not advancing, simply holding.

  “Hold your position.” Admiral Morgan’s voice was tinny through the speakers. “Cairo, return to the fleet.”

  “Turn that off,” Walker said simply.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sanderson switched off the comm channel.

  “Ma’am, the destroyer is preparing to fire.” The helmsman did not look around as he guided the ship into an arc. “Taking evasive maneuvers. Starboard side battery will be open to fire for the next five seconds before course correction.”

  “All batteries fire,” Walker said crisply. She clenched her hands, running the calculus in her head. They had lost so many nukes already, and they hadn’t had many to begin with…. But that was where the battle was now. “Use the nukes.” She laced her hands behind her to stop them from trembling. She was committing mutiny, but she had no time to absorb that fact. Right now, she had only one goal: keep her tiny frigate safe while it tried to take down a destroyer. She consoled herself with the fact that it wasn’t any riskier a plan than staying in a giant bloc with the rest of the fleet, but mutiny was mutiny. She was going to be thrown ou
t of the fleet after this battle.

  And she didn’t know what she was without the fleet.

  The missiles streaked away and the ship groaned as the stabilizers tried to adjust. The Cairo had been only nominally retrofitted, and its guidance systems could not keep up with either the pilots or the weaponry. The floor shook, and Walker stumbled. She gripped the main desk with a curse, eyes still locked on the missiles. Closing, closing—

  “Five hits, two hull breaches,” Sanderson reported.

  “Yes.” Walker gave a tiny punch. She could feel her face split into a feral smile, and realized there was little reason to hold it back now. She was gone after this. There was no need for decorum anymore. “Get ready to fire—not nukes, but widen those breaches. Fighters, swing wide and get in there, too. Helmsman, bring us around for another pass. Keep us level—they’re going to have a hard enough time in the fleet without any stray projectiles coming from us. I want you firing parallel.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am?” It was McAllister. “I think I see what they were waiting for.”

  Walker drew in her breath sharply. He was right. In the few seconds it had taken to open fire on the destroyer, the lead Telestine ship was moving out of the center of the claw, making directly for the Exile Fleet.

  Finally, the claw itself made sense.

  “They’ve set it up to shred anyone who goes for the main carrier. And I’ll bet you anything that the carrier has one of the beams we saw at—” She broke off as the screen fuzzed white. The laser array carved through the center of the Exile Fleet. “Mercury,” she finished, through numb lips.

  “All ships hold position,” Morgan ordered.

  Walker felt the wind go out of her. She gripped the table.

  “Ma’am, do I—”

  “Fire.” She didn’t know how she was speaking, but she heard her own voice. “Take the destroyer down, stick to the plan. We can’t get at that carrier as things stand. And get me on the fleet-wide channel!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sanderson held on as the ship shuddered and rolled. “Ma’am, you’re live.”

  “Exile Fleet, this is Walker. Do not engage the main ship, break and target the arms of their formation. If you can, get their destroyers between you and the carrier. Climb!”

  “Hold formation!” Essa’s yell was deep and furious. “Go at that carrier with everything you’ve got!”

  “Exile Fleet, you cannot match that carrier. Get out of its way!”

  “Walker, so help me—”

  “How many more ships do you want to lose?” She talked over him without a thought. Fury was making her vision go red. She hardly noticed as the destroyer began to list to the side and the helmsman adjusted course for the next arm. Her eyes tracked the ships as they broke away from the wreckage at the center of the formation and fear settled deep in her gut. “Sanderson, give me the status of the Santa Maria.” And Delaney.

  She didn’t need to say it. Everyone knew that Delaney served under Morgan now; Essa had made sure of that.

  “The Santa Maria is still flying, ma’am.” Sanderson’s face was pale. “We only lost two entirely, though three more are reporting in as too heavily damaged to fight.”

  Thank God for small mercies.

  “Then let’s take the rest of them down. Get me … is Geshalt commanding anything anymore?”

  “He’s still on the Stockholm, ma’am.”

  “Get him on the line.” She pressed down onto the desk, trying to let her anger flow out of her palms and into the metal. “Batteries, you know your job. Fire when ready. Helmsman, do anything except get us between the carrier and the destroyers.”

  Heads nodded, and it was only a few seconds later that the line from the Stockholm lit up. Walker looped a headset over her bun. “Where are you?”

  “Nowhere.” Geshalt sounded furious. “We dropped down as soon as that thing got ready to fire, and now we’ve got the rest of the fleet between us and—”

  “Perfect,” Walker interrupted.

  “What?”

  “They want us to go in to take out that carrier so their destroyers can catch us in the cross fire. We need to go around back.”

  “I’ll get right on it, ma’am.”

  “Cut your engines,” Walker advised. “Go into a drift, and then shut down communications. Try to run dark. If they write you off as debris and you don’t transmit, they may not pick you up again. Meet you there?”

  “See you in a few.” He cut the channel and she watched on the main screen as the Stockholm went dark.

  “Helmsman, cut engines.” Walker raised her voice. “Batteries, start loading the rest of the nukes but go to radio silence and get ready to cut the engines as soon as we’re on the right heading. We’re circling around, but we need at least ten seconds of drift for them to write us off. Let’s hope Tel’rabim’s fleet has the same targeting failures as their old one.” For years, human ships had been making use of the algorithm in Telestine targeting systems that read unguided movement as debris.

  “Ma’am, this destroyer is close to finished.”

  “Then let the rest of the fleet pick it off. Looks like we’ve got two ships on their way to join us—they can handle cleanup.” Walker nodded to the helmsman.

  Her lunch nearly came up when the engines cut. The gravity systems shuddered, decoupling from their usual adjustment to the acceleration, and a few coffee cups lifted slightly off the desks. Officers grabbed for printouts and locked their feet under their chairs.

  …six, five, four….

  “Walker!” It was Delaney, broadcasting wide. “Cairo, come in!”

  Her heart squeezed, but she shook her head at Sanderson when he reached out to open the channel.

  …two, one….

  Their helmsman was good—very good. He barely twitched the engines to send the Cairo into a slow tumble over the top of the battle. They watched in the viewscreen as the Exile Fleet wove desperately out of the way of the main carrier’s laser array and toward the rest of the formation.

  “Accelerate down to the back of the carrier at my mark.” Walker tracked their progress on the screen, dizzyingly aware that they were twisting, the battle above them and then below, above, and the below as the frigate spiraled…. “Go.”

  The engines roared and for one terrifying moment, she thought the ship would split in two. It gave an almighty screech as it shot downward along the back of the Telestine formation.

  “Ma’am, the Stockholm is beginning its approach.”

  “Thank you, Sanderson. Batteries, ready on the nukes?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Geshalt, report.”

  “Fourteen seconds, two destroyers coming around to face us.”

  “Noted.” There was nothing to do about that now, no time for the human fleet to adjust course, and no better chance to take out the carrier. Walker focused on the readout of the battle, on the slow advance of her ship—in reality, hurtling through thousands of miles of darkness.

  They swung wide and came around with another screech, and Walker saw one of the officers make the sign of the cross with a whispered prayer.

  “Fire!”

  The ship rolled into a spin and hurtled away again in a tight circle, twisting as it went to give the other batteries a clear shot.

  “Fire.”

  “Ma’am, they’ll need fifteen seconds to load another set of little boys, and that’s the last we—”

  “Carrier is losing navigation!” Geshalt’s voice broke through the room. “One more round and—yes! Chain reaction! Get out!”

  Warning lights lit up on the battle array and the helmsman swore. They were gone a moment later, the Telestine fleet scattering with them, as the Cairo’s bombs found what must be the weapons cache of the carrier, and the ship ripped itself apart from the inside.

  “Telestine fleet is not regrouping. Say again, Telestine fleet is not regrouping. Exile Fleet, Retreat to Mars. Rendezvous at Carina Station.” The Santa Maria’s co
mmunications officer was almost crying with relief.

  Walker smiled as the crew of the Cairo broke into ragged cheers.

  Another comm line lit up, however, and she felt her heart drop.

  There was no point in putting this off. She picked up. “Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Report to Mars.” Essa’s voice was tight with an unmistakable fury. The distance between the Cairo and the UN Headquarters on Mars did nothing to disguise the Secretary General’s rage. “I warned you, Walker. What is coming will not be quick and you will not get off lightly. And if you even think of running, I will make you sorry you were ever born.”

  ***

  On the bridge of the Koh Rong, Nhean settled back in his chair as the captured transmission ended. Heat swept through him and he forced himself not to act, not to speak, until the haze of anger cleared. Then he sat up and looked down at his pilot.

  “Set a course for Mars, and inform the United Nations that I will be arriving shortly to meet with the Secretary General.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Asteroid Belt

  Vesta Station

  Hangar bay C

  “You told him to come here?” Pike dropped his end of the cargo crate and stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. Rychenkov had insisted they restock basic medical supplies. And by that he meant “medicinal” forms of alcohol.

  A buzzer blared. Ten minutes to shift 2, a mechanical voice announced over the loudspeakers. Miners jostled past him on their way to the elevators. The hallways were full, a carefully choreographed chaotic dance, and the miners threw contemptuous glances at the two tourists clogging up the tunnels.

  “Come on.” Parees pulled at his end of the crate.

  “No. Wait just a second. You told Nhean to come here?”

  “Yes. Come on.” Parees waited obstinately until Pike picked up his end of the crate again. “He needs to meet Ka’sagra. And he’ll be better at all of this than I am, anyway.”