The Hive Invasion- The Complete Trilogy

by Jake Elwood

  "Firing," Harrington said, and three of the smallest blips vanished from Hammett's screen. The larger blips broke apart, and every ship in the swarm began to dive and dodge.

  "They're retreating," Harrington reported. "The larger group is holding its position between us and that triangle. It looks like we've got ourselves a standoff."

  Hammett spent a long moment just staring through the windows, his gut churning with a mix of relief and disappointment. He opened a channel to the other two captains. "We'll advance. Not too quickly. If they come at us, we'll retreat." To Eddie he said, "Take us forward. Not too fast."

  "We've got a lot of forward momentum," Eddie said. "Do you want me to speed up?"

  "No. In fact, slow us down a bit. I want to see how close we can get without starting a fight." It was a fight the humans would lose, he knew. But if he could get close enough to that triangle for the Gideon to scan it …

  "They've stopped retreating," Harrington said.

  Hammett looked at his screen. It looked to him as if the two groups had merged.

  "They're advancing," said Harrington. "Slowly. But definitely advancing."

  Hammett lifted his gaze from the screen. He could see the larger clusters with his naked eyes, glittering points of light, wobbling like fireflies. They would be zig-zagging to avoid incoming fire.

  "Slow us down, Eddie." He looked at his screen. There was a new contact, displayed as a brown circle. It was the only thing on the screen that wasn't moving. "Let's get ourselves stationary in relation to that … alien object."

  "Right." Eddie touched his controls, and Hammett felt the tug of inertia as the ship braked. He could see the gleaming mass of the Gideon off to his left. Light flared from thrusters near the nose of the Jumper. To his right he could see the Tomahawk, also braking.

  "The aliens are slowing down," Harrington said. "I guess we won't be—what the hell?"

  Light flared in the void, ahead of the Theseus and high up. A ragged circle appeared in the darkness, glowing white, with rays of light shooting out in every direction. And ships appeared, tiny as toys. He saw a couple of destroyers, and corvettes so small they looked like snowflakes.

  One ship after another poured through the wormhole, and the cloud of Hive ships changed direction, hurrying to meet this new threat.

  "That contact behind us has disappeared," said Harrington dryly. "I guess we know what it was."

  The newly-arrived fleet was spreading out, forming up, and advancing to meet the approaching Hive ships. The glowing wormhole shrank and vanished behind them.

  "Let's get over there," said Hammett. "That's where all the fun is."

  Eddie flashed him a grin, then turned to his controls. The deck tilted, and acceleration pushed Hammett against his chair.

  "Stay with me," Hammett told his captains. The Gideon and the Tomahawk were faster, but they'd be helpless without the Theseus.

  He looked down at his screen. The EDF fleet—it was almost certainly EDF—had popped out on the far side of the alien Gate. Too far, unfortunately, to reach the Gate before the Hive ships could scramble back to defend it.

  A couple of dozen Hive ships hung back to protect the Gate. The rest hurried to engage the EDF fleet. The Theseus, Gideon, and Tomahawk were left unmolested, and a traitorous thought flashed through Hammett's mind. We could flee. We could go back to Ariadne. After all, what's the EDF done for anyone?

  But they were fellow human beings, and he'd be damned if he would abandon them when they were finally fighting the Hive. So he kept silent as the Theseus surged forward, wondering sourly if he was getting his people killed.

  It doesn't matter. If we sit idle while Spacecom battles the Hive, we're not worth saving.

  The EDF ships grew rapidly as the distance closed. Soon he could make out individual Hive ships, even the small ones. The fleet was having a rough time of it. He winced as he saw a corvette tumble away from the battle, spewing vapor from a breach in her hull.

  Then the battle vanished from view and the stars whipped past in a blur. Eddie was spinning the ship around, flying her tail-first so he could decelerate hard. The back of Hammett's seat pressed against him. He stood and turned, leaning against the deceleration, watching through the aft windows as the battle raged.

  Metallic clangs echoed through the bridge as multiple impacts slammed into the hull. The aft window starred not a meter from Hammett's face, and he flinched. We really need steelglass up here.

  Vicente Ramona yelped, looking at Hammett with wide eyes. His hand went to the side of his helmet, poised to close the faceplate. "What was that?"

  "Stray ballistic rounds," Hammett said calmly. "It won't be the last of it." Even as he spoke the words, a laser glittered against the window to his left. Scattered and diffused by the fine mesh of Fourier metal covering the glass, the laser left a wide scorch mark on the ceiling. The laser was gone in the blink of an eye.

  "Jesus!" said Hal. "We're on their side."

  "Well," said Hammett, "in a minute we're going to open up with the big guns—and I can just about guarantee we'll dish out some friendly fire of our own."

  Hal gave a strained chuckle. "That's gonna be a shock."

  Hammett nodded. The Theseus had as many rail guns as the entire EDF fleet put together, and some of those guns fired rounds fully a hundred times as massive as the puny round that had hit the window.

  He tilted his head to peer between the cracks in the glass, and saw a cloud of small alien ships surging away from the main battle, coming to meet his little fleet. The Theseus tilted down, and then up. For a moment the approaching ships were dead aft, with nothing but empty sky behind them. In that instant, Hammett heard the thrum of the aft rail guns firing.

  A ragged hole appeared in the center of that cloud of ships, jagged chunks of metal spinning away to vanish into the depths of space. Then the Theseus whipped around and charged head-first into the thick of battle.

  For thirty long seconds the hive ships swarmed around them. The Theseus twisted and turned until Hammett was completely disoriented. Glittering streams of metal surrounded her, rail gun rounds from her own magazines and the other human ships. Hive ships broke apart, until the Theseus seemed to swim in an ocean of metallic scrap.

  It ended suddenly. Hive ships pulled back, withdrawing in every direction. At first Hammett thought it was a rout, a panicked retreat, but the enemy ships stopped at a range of thirty kilometers or so. They formed a wide, loose sphere around the cluster of human ships, and they waited.

  Something banged into the side of the Theseus. Hammett heard a metallic crunch, and he staggered as the ship lurched. He looked through the starboard window and saw a chunk of hull plate drifting away. It was from a Spacecom vessel, he couldn't tell which one. The impact had broken some Fourier metal loose, and he watched uneasily as bits of heat shielding floated off.

  "All right," he said, suddenly weary, "let's see what's left."

  CHAPTER 5 - KAUR

  For such a brief battle, the butcher's bill was horrendous. The Gideon had lost her engines and most of her air. The Theseus was a little banged up, but seemed mostly intact. The EDF fleet was a shambles.

  Captain Meena Kaur sat in the captain's seat on the Tomahawk, listening as damage reports trickled in. There had been a bad few moments when Hive ships had surround the corvette on every side, like wolves trying to pull down a stag. Two different clusters had tried to burn through the hull. They'd been thwarted by the Fourier metal and had withdrawn.

  She shivered. Much of the hull was unprotected. If the aliens had struck one of the many gaps in the Fourier metal …

  "Mr. Geibelhaus reports he can't charge up the wormhole generator," a sailor reported. "He's not sure why."

  Kaur nodded, distracted. "That's all right. Someone in the EDF fleet will open a wormhole." And not a moment too soon, she thought. I don't like being surrounded like this. I don't like waiting for their next move.

  A light flashed on the console in front of her, and she p
icked up the telephone handset. Hammett, his voice made scratchy and distant by the crystal radio, said, "What's your status?"

  "We lost the top-side rail guns and the forward laser turret. Engines are good, and we're airtight."

  "Good," he said. "I want you to dock with the Gideon. Offload everyone. We're going to have to retreat, and the Gideon's not going anywhere."

  "Aye aye," she said, and put down the handset. "Touhami. Take us over to the Gideon."

  As the Tomahawk moved through the wreckage-strewn battlefield, she watched the EDF fleet taking similar measures. Ships with minimal damage docked with ruined ships, or hovered close by while figures in vac suits sailed out from gaps in the ruined hulls. By the look of it, half the fleet was disabled. She doubted a single ship had come through undamaged.

  The Tomahawk trembled ever so slightly as the docking ring in her nose met a matching ring on the side of the Jumper. She waited, wondering what she'd do if the aliens chose this moment to renew their attack. Silently she willed the crew of the Gideon to hurry. The Tomahawk was all but helpless while the two ships were docked.

  "Oh, my God."

  Kaur looked around. She couldn't tell who was standing at the starboard window—everyone looked the same from behind in a vac suit—but she knew immediately what the problem was.

  The mysterious triangle, the artifact the aliens had taken such pains to protect, was just visible as a tiny gray line, shining faintly against the deeper black of space. She could make out a couple of dozen ships that had stayed back to protect the triangle. She could also see more ships forming a growing cloud in front of the triangle. No ships were visible behind the alien structure, but ship after ship kept appearing in front. There were dozens, then more and more, and a cold hand closed in her stomach and squeezed.

  "Now we know," she said. "It's a Gate, all right."

  "Here they come!" Touhami's voice came out shrill, and Kaur gave him a sharp look. He flushed and looked away, then busied himself with a handset. He was embarrassed. That was good. It gave him something to focus on besides his fear.

  "Everyone's offloaded!"

  Kaur glanced at the young sailor in the doorway of the bridge. It was a youngster, one of Hammett's cadets from the Alexander, a breathless, red-faced girl. Kaur lifted an eyebrow and the girl straightened up. "From the Gideon," she said. "They were uncoupling when I left."

  "Back us up and bring us about," Kaur said. The corvette began to turn as the young sailor backed uncertainly out of the doorway.

  A figure in a vac suit with rank stripes across the chest elbowed past the girl. It was Harrington, her face pale with a high spot of color in each cheek. "The Gideon's evacuated," she said. She sounded shaken. Well, it was her first taste of combat. Her first time losing a ship. Kaur, who had done both, felt almost calm.

  Almost.

  "Heading, Captain?" said Touhami.

  "Queue up behind the Theseus," Kaur said. "Somebody's got to open a wormhole soon. We'll follow the Theseus through." The EDF might have the gall to arrest her after she'd helped save their collective ass, but she'd take a court martial over annihilation by the Hive.

  A light flashed on her console, and she picked up a handset.

  "Kaur." Hammett sounded harried, as close to flustered as she'd ever heard him. "Can you generate a wormhole?"

  "No, Sir." She fought a sudden sinking feeling in her gut.

  "Do you know why?" he snapped.

  "No, Sir."

  After a moment of charged silence he said, "See if you can fix it. But I think we're being jammed somehow."

  Kaur stared blindly into space. Jammed? You can't jam wormhole generators. It's impossible. But the alien EMP weapon was impossible too. Deal with it, Meena.

  "Aye aye," she said, and hung up. She rang the engine room and reached a senior technician. "Tell Geibelhaus to fix the wormhole generator if he can. We need it badly."

  By the despondent sound of the acknowledgement, the technician didn't hold out much hope. Kaur put the handset down, then looked around the bridge. "What's the enemy doing?"

  "Spreading out to join the sphere," Specialist Jin said gloomily. "We're completely surrounded now." He gave her a bleak look. "And there's more ships still coming through that Gate. It doesn't look good, Ma'am."

  Kaur surprised herself by chuckling. "We've never had so many targets to shoot at. We can hardly miss."

  That earned her a thin smile. "You're right. What was I thinking? It'll be great."

  Touhami snorted, then chuckled, and some of the tension on the bridge bled away. "We're about to have a hell of a scrap," Kaur said. "It won't be easy. But we're humanity's finest, and this is what we're trained for." She waved her hand to indicate the surrounding sphere of ships. "Those cockroaches have no idea what they've gotten themselves into."

  The speech felt contrived, and it sounded absurd in her ears. But Touhami straightened up in his seat, and Captain Harrington, standing by the aft bulkhead, squared her shoulders and nodded to herself.

  Kaur leaned back in her seat. I've done what I can. There's nothing to do now but wait and see what happens next.

  CHAPTER 6 - HAMMETT

  Hammett stared through the forward windows of the Theseus, distantly aware that he was clenching and unclenching his fists. It was more nerves than he liked to show in front of crew, but for once he couldn't help himself. The entire mixed fleet, colony and EDF ships both, was about to be destroyed, and he couldn’t see a damned thing he could do about it.

  His eyes moved restlessly from one Hive ship to another. If he could just puzzle out which one was doing the jamming, maybe they could destroy the key ship and escape. But if there was any difference among the ships that hovered and circled, he couldn't see it. And for all he knew, the jamming came from the entire swarm.

  Back and forth his gaze went. Ships were coming together, forming clumps of ten to twenty, big enough to pool their energy and melt holes in the hulls of every ship except the Theseus. When the converted freighter was the only ship left they'd find some way to deal with it as well.

  It wouldn't be long now. He could sense it. Already ships were beginning to shift, move closer. By the look of it half the swarm was hanging back, keeping the fleet surrounded, while the rest, a mix of amalgamated ships and small individual craft, prepared to attack.

  On the far side of that terrible sphere he could see the alien Gate, a dull metallic triangle still protected by a couple of dozen ships. No more ships came through, and his cheeks stretched in a mirthless grin. Thank God for small mercies.

  "Admiral? Orders?"

  "Hold steady, Sanjari," he said absently. It hardly mattered what they did. They would fight desperately, until they were overwhelmed and killed. The details weren't important. It wasn't as if there was some brilliant strategy he could pull out of the void that would give them an actual fighting chance. They could hand out a lot of damage before they died. And that was all.

  No more ships on the other side of that Gate. The thought nagged him, distracting him. Any distraction from his rising terror was welcome, and he prodded the thought, trying to figure out why his subconscious figured it was important. "Every ship they've got came through," he muttered. "They all came through here to fight us."

  Sanjari said, "Pardon me, Sir?"

  Hammett turned. "N-" He paused, the word "nothing" sticking in his throat. It's not nothing. He turned back to the window. "They're all here."

  Silence from Sanjari.

  He whirled. "Call the fleet." He gestured. "The EDF fleet. And Kaur. Tell them to follow us."

  Her eyebrows went up, but she reached for her console.

  Eddie stared at Hammett over one thick shoulder. "Follow us? Where are we going?"

  "Through that Gate," Hammett said, pointing. "It's the only way out of here. We'll run through and blow it behind us."

  Eddie wasted a precious second staring at Hammett, open-mouthed. Then he grabbed the throttle control. Hal worked the nav thrusters, swinging
the nose of the ship around as they surged into motion.

  With no human ships in front of them the forward rail guns had a clear field of fire. The ship rushed the wall of Hive vessels, blasting one Hive ship to shreds in a single volley from the big guns. Smaller rail guns tore into other craft as the Theseus charged ahead. The sphere of Hive ships looked like a wall from this perspective, a wall that seemed to constrict as ships hurried to intercept the Theseus. Hal worked the nav thrusters, swinging the nose of the Theseus in a circle, and the rail guns thrummed. Alien ships blew apart, and then the Theseus sailed through the opening.

  Hammett threw a quick glance over his shoulder. The Tomahawk was right behind, close enough to pose a collision hazard, slightly above the Theseus to keep her out of line with the aft rail guns. The remains of the EDF fleet were rushing to follow, even as the sphere of Hive ships collapsed inward.

  Hal let out a whoop, and Hammett turned back to the forward window. The cluster of alien ships guarding the Gate was hurrying forward to meet the Theseus, and the powerful forward rail guns were wreaking terrible carnage. The space in front of the Theseus turned to a glittering cloud of metal, spent rail gun rounds tumbling through a storm of shrapnel from destroyed Hive ships.

  A chunk of debris thumped against the forward window, making Hammett flinch. Then they were through, and there was nothing between the Theseus and the alien Gate.

  It looked nothing like the Gates humanity had built. Instead of a uniform circle of steel, he saw a giant rigid triangle, hundreds of meters on a side. At each point of the triangle a thick metal pyramid loomed, the size of a small house. Pale emerald light glowed from the seams where the faces of the pyramids met.

  Would it work like a human-built Gate? Would it allow a ship to pass through from this side?

  There was only one way to find out.

  The nose of the Theseus swung around, and Eddie took a last frightened glance over his shoulder. Hammett gave him a curt nod, and Eddie pulled hard on the throttle lever.

  The Theseus had quite a lot of lateral velocity, and for a terrible moment Hammett was sure they would smash into the side of the Gate, or miss it completely. Eddie knew exactly what he was doing, however. As the Theseus gained speed the Gate surged toward them, almost edge-on. It seemed to rotate as they neared and their lateral movement brought them closer to a perpendicular line. The Theseus was pointing straight at the center of the Gate as they finally shot through.