But that was only half of the trap.
The larger pieces were flying into the battlefield, and as their momentum died down, they activated gravitic devices. Kate recognized the pattern immediately from their assaults on the Domeki bases. The rocks exerted a drag on the human vessels that they locked onto, slowing them so that even more could latch on. The attractive force dragged the asteroids, turning them into ever-accelerating giant projectiles hurtling toward the human ships. All around the fight, human forces turned and fled, pursued by ship-sized rocks that were gaining on them.
“Enough of this garbage,” Kate growled, and punched the Pandora to full speed. The ship leapt from her hiding spot. She looked for the nearest opportunity and found it in the anvil ships now engaging the lead elements of Force Two. She designated those enemies and said, “Pandora, give me a path to these ships that will take us into range of as many asteroids as possible.”
The ship didn’t reply, but a bright yellow tube appeared on the screen, with a curving line connecting the Pandora’s current position to the opening at the near end. She nodded and steered onto the projected course. Once in the cylinder, she spun and twisted the ship like a fighter to stay inside the boundaries Pandora had set. She felt the tug as a mass of asteroids attached to her and hit the controls to push the engines just a little beyond their alleged top speed. The ship’s avatar didn’t complain, so Kate figured she was still within anticipated tolerances. Even the Domeki engineers played it safe, she thought.
She came out of the tube perpendicular to the Xroeshyn ships that were firing at Force Two as it navigated the gap in the asteroid belt. She wove through their formation, dragging the asteroids along behind her and smashing several into the aliens. The enemy commanders were capable, however, and the majority dodged her while maintaining their barrage against the incoming vessels.
Exactly as she hoped. “Diaz, lock the Claymore torpedoes on a point between us and the rocks on our tail. They should target as many asteroids as possible.”
“On it,” he replied.
“Pandora, give me a spot.” Kate gave a snarl of anticipation as Pandora put the mark more or less where she’d expected, just half a minute ahead of her current location. It was gratifying that the ship understood her plans so well.
Kate flew over one enemy, then twisted and dove under the next, smashing one of the smaller trailing asteroids into it. Then she was beyond the formation and in position. She stabbed the buttons to fire the torpedoes, and they leapt from the bow tubes and curved away to circle behind her. They rotated and ejected their contents toward the rocks behind her and the ships beyond. The repeated strikes were powerful enough to pulverize the asteroids where they struck and possessed sufficient force to send stones and shrapnel hurtling back along the path. The incredible kinetic energy not only caused the debris to reverse course, it carried the shards that didn’t encounter an obstacle on into the formation of enemy ships.
As before, the results were indeterminate for several moments, then appeared and cascaded in a wide swath of destruction. The shrapnel and the bladed spheres arrived as one, battering holes first in shields, then in the ships themselves. The enemy vessels exploded or imploded in a line, each sending more fragments into the ones surrounding it.
Before the Pandora had fully curved around to return to the center of the battlefield, the anvil facing Force Two had been decimated, with just a few heavily damaged enemies drifting before the incoming humans.
“Let’s go help Force Three,” she said, shooting across the system at top speed. As they neared, she saw that most of these rocks were smaller, and would be difficult to hit. “Pandora, are you willing to fire against the asteroids that are pursuing our ships? I’m sure your ability to precisely target the gravity projectors is much greater than my own.”
The ship’s voice sounded from speakers around the bridge. “That is not in conflict with my programming, Commander. I’m happy to do this.” Again, a path and a tunnel appeared on the screen, and Kate sent the ship into it. The Pandora’s energy weapons fired rhythmically, pushed to their maximum rate. She noted on her control panel that they were delivering less than full power. Presumably, Pandora was using only the minimum required amount of destructive force.
Everywhere they flew, asteroids trailing Union and Alliance ships suddenly fell away, their gravitic attractors destroyed or damaged by her ship.
“Great work, Pandora,” Kate said. Diaz and Peterson echoed her compliment.
“Thank you,” Pandora replied.
Kate’s attention was drawn by a sense of sudden motion throughout the system, and dozens more enemy ships appeared from nowhere on the display. “Stealth ships,” Pandora informed them, “undetectable until they moved. It appears they were within some sort of anti-sensor sheath.” Kate looked at the real-time view and saw the items Pandora referred to, which floated free, looking like discarded blankets. The newly revealed enemies shot toward the most wounded human vessels near them, an indication they’d been able to use their own sensors or receive communications while inside the shrouds.
Kate ground her teeth and steered into a curve to intercept the nearest but knew there was no way she could make it in time. Data about the ships scrolled down her display, and she saw they were relatively underpowered compared to normal alien cruisers. But she was sure they’d still pack enough of the punch to shift the battle in the Xroeshyn’s favor.
A deep and vicious frustration gnawed at her, as she scanned the screens frantically, looking for a trick, a strategy, anything at all that would allow her to change what was about to come. She found nothing, and it made her want to scream.
Okoye’s voice sounded again. “Tunnel jump,” he ordered, and her hand twitched toward where the control would be on a human ship. Across the sector, ships vanished to reappear in a semicircle set one kilometer inside the asteroid belt, the midpoint in the center of the gap through which Force One had traveled. The strange and unpredictable gravity patterns of the system resulted in the pattern being ragged rather than uniform, and in at least three instances, there were explosions where human ships had reverted into space occupied by an asteroid or an enemy ship.
Despite that, most of her allies now had moments of respite as they were out of range of those seeking to destroy them. Several of the enemy ships accelerated toward them. Others moved in the direction of the fortresses. Still others curved to pursue a carrier marauding in the rear of their lines, its fighters and broadsides combining to carve a path through their forces.
It was only then Kate realized, in the glow of success that accompanied the escape of the human forces, that she was cut off. Worse, at least a dozen ships were on the way to where she stood alone, far away from friendly support, at the entry point of Force Three.
Chapter Thirty-Five
An outside observer would’ve seen a section of the fortress’s hull glow before a ring formed, increasing in intensity as it burned through the skin of the installation. The disc created from the incendiary circle would vanish, falling away to leave a hole that led to the compartment below.
Inside that compartment, Saint, Sinner, and their Marines stood in a wide oval to avoid the heavy armored slab as it fell into their midst, drawn in by several grapnels and then captured by the station’s artificial gravity.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked GeeWhiz from his protected eyrie in their arrival hangar.
“No, I’m sure it isn’t a good idea. It is, in fact, a terrible idea,” Saint replied. “However, it’s our best chance at the moment.”
He turned to the Marines nearby and activated their internal comm channel again. “All right people, here we go. Tethers.” They attached lines to one another and arranged themselves single file with Baker in the lead and Sinner as rearguard. “We can assume they’ll have our position now, so it’s a race. Once we go, we keep going. We don’t stop for anything or anyone unless Sin or I order differently. If one of our demolition experts falls, someone
else grabs their satchel and keeps advancing. We keep moving until we’re in position to breach. Any questions, forget them. No time. You know the goal. Surfer, move.”
“Up, up, and away,” the lead Marine quipped as he activated the rockets built into his suit and catapulted through the hole above. He set an angular path and cut the jets as he approached the lip, allowing momentum to carry him out. Saint watched through the feed from Surfer’s helmet as he fired the grapnel mounted on his right forearm and reeled himself into the base. The rest of the Marines followed with no need for commands, one after the next jetted up to secure themselves with magnetic boots to the outside of the floating fortress.
Once they were gathered on the installation’s surface, they ran in formation toward the position GeeWhiz and the sub-Pandoras had marked on their map and overlaid on their display. They couldn’t take a direct route as ports dotted the path leading to the target. Pandora had identified some as exhausts for gases that would damage their suits, and they agreed that avoiding both those and the ones whose purpose was unknown was the logical choice.
“Faster,” Saint growled, and the team increased from a fast walk to a slow lope. They’d all drawn their weapons, so when enemy troops appeared a score of meters away, crawling like spiders out of an opening in the hull, they fired without waiting.
Bullets flew across the space between them and grenades followed. Laser beams lanced across the gap while the physical munitions traveled. Battle armor protected the aliens, shedding the energy that had been reduced in power as it crossed to them. The projectiles arrived and impacted the enemy’s suits, accompanied by shrapnel from fragmentation grenades and the concussion of incendiaries that mostly failed in the airless environment.
The enemy continued undeterred, moving in lockstep and holding their own fire as they neared.
“Not good,” Sinner said. “Faster, people.”
They increased their speed again, now risking the security of their footholds as they leapt in short bounds along the fortress’s surface. The tethers were their fall back, but the tradeoff was that a hard enough strike had the potential to pull all of them off the hull, which would be far less than optimal.
“Let’s try sticking them,” Sinner ordered, and the Marines who had the rifles with attached grenade launchers loaded and fired web grenades. Upon impact they ejected sticky strands in every direction, coating the first rank of the aliens and securing them to the base. The non-Newtonian characteristics of the webs resulted in increased resistance as the enemy pushed against them, hardening and locking them into place.
A second rank of enemies moved around the front line and continued to advance, followed by the other two sets of four. The webbed soldiers fired into the sticky threads that connected them to the base. Projectiles were ineffective, but energy blasts began to find success in parting the strands.
“Dammit,” Paris observed.
“These guys suck,” Sinner agreed. Then the enemy was in range, and the two forces traded shots in earnest. The running Marines took worse than they gave because they were on a predictable path, and the aliens were far more stable in their steady march. Saint’s display showed him the suit conditions of each of his people as they degraded from dark green to light green and into pure yellow.
“Stop and counter,” he ordered. The Marines twisted and crouched on their next landing, bringing weapons to their shoulders. They operated in pairs, their suits automatically supplied targeting information from the first member to the second. Coordinated fire stabbed out at the aliens, targeting knee joints wherever head shots were impossible. Several stumbled backward under the onslaught, but the suits’ computers registered no kills. They continued the barrage as the enemy dropped to their chests to return fire, and again Saint watched his people’s suit integrity fall.
“Easy, Paris, and Char, you’re with me. Surfer, swap weapons with Paris. We’ll need the launcher. We’ll smother these bastards in grenades while you all advance.”
“Saint,” Sinner began over their private channel, and he barked, “Stow it, Sin. You know what’s at stake.”
“I’m going to kick your ass for sending me ahead, Saint. Count on it,” she said, then he heard her over the general channel calling, “Move it, people.”
He hunkered down with his team and created a channel just for them. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Smoke grenades in front of them. Web grenades in the middle of them. Easy, pull out your big gun and go for headshots. Paris and Char, get in front and protect her.” Saint ran cables from his backpack and Easy’s up to the other two. “Use your shields when you need to, they’ll draw power from our suits as well. When you hit orange, lay down smoke again and all of you run. I’ll be rearguard.”
His Marines knew better than to argue, and they took position under the cover of the first round of smoke.
“I can give you an assist,” GeeWhiz said. “We’ve finally broken through and have a foothold in their security system.” Ghostly outlines appeared in their helmets as the sub-Pandoras drew the locations of the enemy troops on their displays. “We’re getting telemetry from their suits, so assuming Pandora is doing her job right, these should be perfectly accurate.”
“You are my new favorite person, GeeWhiz,” Easy breathed, her voice slow, as it always was when she was in sniper mode. “This is the best present ever.”
Saint saw the gases escape as the custom bullet, part of a set she always carried designed specifically to work in the absence of atmosphere, flew from the barrel. In the heads-up display, he watched it impact against the helmet of an enemy soldier. The tip was sharp and made of the densest material they had and was backed by a thin needle of the same substance. As the round deformed from impact, the needle continued forward, piercing the armor without blunting and driving into the skull inside it. The suit fell to the ground and lay motionless.
Incoming fire battered the two in front of the sniper as they blocked the rounds that sought her, the only vulnerability was the barrel of the rifle where it peeked between their armored forms. Another round flew to claim another kill. Easy was able to mow down half the enemy force before the aliens reduced the blockers’ safety to bloody orange. Saint leapt in front, and Easy took a final shot between his parted legs, killing one last bird. “Smoke, then run,” he ordered.
Canisters flew past him, and he saw their icons leave him behind as they obeyed. The green forms marking the enemy soldiers marched forward, and he assessed their position against the curtain of smoke and noise that separated them. He took a deep breath and raised his rifle, then fired a barrage of energy at the hazy outlines. The goal wasn’t to eliminate them, although he’d take any luck he could get, but to delay them for a few more precious seconds as his troops moved away. An instant later their return fire found his armor and knocked him backward a step. Saint stowed the weapon on his back and leapt in a dive toward Sinner’s force in the distance, activating his suit jets and taking flight along the surface of the installation.
Enemy rounds battered him as he climbed at an angle, trying to steer with leg motions that weren’t working properly with no atmosphere to push against. He started to spin, then fired his grapnel toward the metal hull below. Its momentum failed to carry it far enough, and he trailed further and further away from the fortress as he flew. He growled in frustration, then heard Sinner’s voice in his ears. She said, “Saint, you’re an idiot.” He felt the impact of a grapnel as it hit the chest of his suit. He followed the line to find Sinner at the other end, attached by a tether to Surfer, who also hung in space, connected by his own cord to Alvie below. Each Marine activated their winch, and they were pulled back to the base.
They were all so distracted by the rescue attempt that none of them saw the approaching danger until it was upon them.
An enemy fighter blasted into view and strafed the station with energy as it passed. It was followed by a human fighter, whose errant bolts also splashed onto the skin of the fortress. There was no time to react,
no time to respond. When the incandescence had cleared, and the spots dissolved from his eyes, Saint looked in horror at his display. Only five Marines were still alive, and one of those read as unconscious, her suit administering drugs and tourniquets to stop the blood flow from shattered bones on all of her extremities. As he watched, Easy’s vital signs slipped into a state that indicated a medical coma.
“Gods. Damned. Bastards,” Sinner choked in fury and anguish. Saint’s shocked senses registered the oncoming green hazes in the distance, and he forced himself into motion. “Grieve later. We still have a job to do. Surfer, Flame, tether Easy. Sin, grab Flame’s plasmacord. Then, run, top speed. Hit the amps.” The Marine’s power armor had a supply of last-resort options. One of them was a cocktail of amphetamines and painkillers that would keep them going far beyond the limits where their brains would normally shut them down. He triggered the injection and felt the energy burn through his veins as the drugs flowed through him. He ran full out for their target, just tens of meters away now. When he arrived, he loaded every explosive he had into a pile on the mark. Sinner slid into place moments later and slapped the plasmacord down in a ring, attaching a small detonator. By the time the other three joined them, they were ready.
“Blow it,” Saint said, and the incendiary burned another hole into the fortress’s skin. He triggered the explosives, which sent the freed disc careening down into the space below. He leapt in after it with a battle cry and fired his grapnel to pull himself in. On the way down, he drew his pistol and extended his arm to fire six shots in rapid succession at the suited figures below, killing or drastically wounding each alien he targeted. The birds without pressure suits succumbed quickly to the airless environment. The sound of bulkheads crashing down to keep air from evacuating from nearby compartments filled the space.
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