by Jake Elwood
Vicente turned, expecting to see the Theseus racing away, abandoning them. The freighter was still there, but a small alien ship was looping around the hall and plunging toward him.
He jerked back, letting go of the pry bar, and fumbled for his laser cutter. It was, after all, just a powerful hand-held laser. He pointed this pitiful weapon at the alien ship and pressed the button.
The beam was invisible in the vacuum of space, and if it had any effect on the alien ship he couldn't see it. He couldn't even see a red dot. The ship dropped toward him, so fast he wondered if it meant to crush them with its hull.
The first rail gun round flashed past between him and the alien. It rebounded from a strut, ricocheted, and missed Vicente by less than a meter. He didn't see it exactly—it was a blur of motion, barely registering—but a divot appeared in the strut. He stared at the dent in the metal, his heart galloping madly, but there was no time to process what had happened.
The alien ship shook, then came apart in a burst of tearing metal. Chunks of wreckage spewed out, battering the Cassandra in eerie silence. A chunk the size of a chair came right at Vicente, and he threw an arm up to protect himself.
The impact was less than he expected, a gentle tap against his right forearm. He fell back, felt the girl's hand on his shoulder steadying him, and watched the piece of wreckage tumble away.
His screaming nerves told him to stay frozen in place while his brain caught up. Instead, he turned his back on the Theseus and the remains of the alien. His pry bar floated forgotten in the void beside him, and he grabbed it and went back to work.
The second set of flaps was bent back in moments. By that time the girl was done cutting the third flap, and she joined him with a pry bar of her own as he went to work bending back the third set of flaps. They didn't bother with the remaining side, just burned away the rubber seal across from the remaining flap and worked their pry bars around the edge of the steelglass.
The trapped crew joined in, pushing from the inside, and the edge of the steelglass pane began to lift. Vicente let go of his pry bar, grabbed the edge of the pane with both hands, braced his feet against the hull, and heaved.
For an endless time nothing happened. When the window gave way it moved all at once, and Vicente found himself flying outward as his legs abruptly straightened. The safety line tightened and swung him around in an arc until he banged into the struts on the far side.
By the time he got himself oriented and unclipped, a dozen or more Spacecom sailors were soaring toward the hull of the Theseus. Vicente lined himself up, took one last look around, and kicked off.
He was barely in the lock, the hatch still closing behind him, when the Theseus began to move.
CHAPTER 14 - HAMMETT
There," said Hammett. "Fifteen degrees to port and almost thirty degrees up. That's the Tomahawk." The corvette was ringed by three amalgamated ships, all of them trying to melt through her hull. "Let's give her a hand." He didn't hold out much hope for the survival of the Theseus, but the Tomahawk might yet win free. The corvette could generate wormholes, and she held the survivors of the Gideon as well. "Signal Kaur," he said to Sanjari. "Tell her to get out of here if she can."
Sanjari nodded and murmured into the microphone set in her console. Hammett turned his attention back to the ships ahead.
Two of the alien ships were achieving little, their heat weapons dispersing across the corvette's Fourier shielding. The third ship, though, had found a vulnerable spot between the engines. Hammett could see a red glow coming from the corvette's hull. "There!" he cried. "The aft end of the Tomahawk. That's your target."
Hal nodded absently, nudging the nav thruster controls. Eddie worked the main thrusters, sending the Theseus gliding forward. The ship opened fire at point-blank range, and a barrage of metal and stone erupted from the forward rail guns.
The alien ship tilted and spun, and Hammett found himself staring into the maw of the heat weapon. It glowed like a furnace, and he had to fight the urge to throw up a protective hand in front of his face. The alien was a good hundred meters away, after all, though the distance was closing rapidly.
A second volley tore into the Hive ship, and the heat weapon began to cool. Several small ships broke away, and the Theseus tilted as the pilots tried to bring her to bear on another alien. The Theseus had too much velocity, though, and it drifted past the Tomahawk without getting off another volley.
There were plenty of other targets. Amalgamated ships filled the sky. They clustered like ticks around the engines of the Adamant. As Hammett watched, one of the destroyer's main engines flared brightly, then died. An EDF corvette swept across the tail of the Adamant, firing an ineffective barrage. Then the corvette twisted away, frantically dodging its own pair of pursuing ships.
Hammett started to point, but Eddie and Hal were already reacting. The Theseus came up alongside the corvette, the nose of the Theseus tilted sideways and up, and Hammett felt a hint of vibration as the aft battery fired.
"We're losing this fight, Admiral."
Hammett glanced at Sanjari. She looked perfectly calm, her eyes glued to her displays. He said, "We'll get through it."
She shook her head. "We're the only ship that can even touch them when they're clumped together like that, and we're almost out of ammo."
She was right, of course, but saying as much wasn't helpful. Hammett felt his irritation flare. "Well, what the hell would you suggest?"
"Running, of course."
He blinked. "Running? Where?" He gestured at the windows. "There's nowhere to run."
"There are, let me see, three functioning Gates in this system," she said calmly. "They aren't even very far away."
He watched as the Theseus bore down on an alien ship, fired a barrage, then pursued the alien as it fled. His attention was on Sanjari's words, though.
"If we run, we need to do it now," she said. "While some of these corvettes still have working engines."
He wanted time, even a few seconds to weigh his options, consider the consequences. But she was right. Every second that passed put the ragged remainder of the fleet in terrible danger. And if a wormhole-capable corvette couldn't escape, there was no point in any of them escaping.
"Signal the fleet," he said to Sanjari. "Tell them we're leaving. Eddie. Get us out of here."
Eddie glanced back, and Sanjari said, "Forty-five degrees starboard and a bit down."
Only three ships made it clear of the scene of battle. The Theseus led the way, with the Tomahawk following on one side and the EDF corvette Sgian Dubh on the other. Behind them the pocked hulks of the Adamant and the Cassandra floated among the wreckage of the other corvettes, the supply ship, and uncountable Hive ships.
Most of the alien fleet gave chase. Seven amalgamated ships remained; two of them had taken damage, and paused to link up before joining the pursuit. Each corvette had a Hive ship close on its tail, almost within range of its heat weapon. The other four Hive ships trailed after.
"We can't decelerate when we get close to the Gate," Sanjari said. "They'll be all over us."
Hammett shrugged. "One crisis at a time, please." He checked his display. "Everyone's travelling in a perfectly straight line. That means we should be able to line up the aft battery."
"I'm on it," said Eddie, and began to work his controls. Slowly, delicately, the converted freighter began to drift sideways.
"Hal," said Hammett. "How's our ammunition holding up?"
Hal tilted his head, accessing his implants, then murmured something. He turned. "We have forty-seven rounds left for the big guns. About a hundred and thirty rounds of mixed sizes for the other guns."
Hammett shook his head, wincing. The Theseus was almost toothless. "Tell the crew to unload the forward guns. We'll only be firing backward for a while." Five shots from each gun. We'll have to make them count. To Eddie he said, "Line us up carefully. We can't afford to miss."
"We're gaining slightly," Sanjari said. "Maybe shooting soon is best.
" She looked at her screens. "The Sgian Dubh is the fastest. She's holding back to stay even with us. The Tomahawk is going almost full-out. The Theseus is the slowest pony we've got in this race. Still a hair faster than the aliens, though."
Hammett stood and turned, staring back through the aft windows. The glass had taken more damage during the battle. There was hardly a spot bigger than his hand without cracks in it. It was holding for the moment, though.
The largest alien ship, formed from two amalgamated ships that had linked, was slowly overtaking the other aliens. They could catch us, he realized. If they formed up into two or three huge ships, pooled their thrust, they could overtake us.
Either the aliens were afraid of a missile strike, or they were willing to let the humans escape. And why shouldn’t they be? We can sting them a bit if they catch us. If they chase us away, we won't be any danger to them at all. We're the shattered remnants. We don't matter.
Hal said, "Are we going to make it, Admiral?"
Sanjari spoke before he could answer. "The Gate is almost edge-on to us. We'll have to decelerate at least a little. They'll be all over us. It's going to be ugly."
Eddie added, "And they'll follow us through, won't they?"
"Maybe they will," Hammett said. "Time will tell." He'd have to destroy the Gate once they were through. It would minimize pursuit, and it would keep the aliens fragmented.
"Where will we end up?" Hal said, his voice plaintive.
"I don't know," Hammett admitted. "In a few minutes, though, we're going to find out."
CHAPTER 15 - HARDY
The Gate was a white triangle gleaming at the edge of Hardy's display. Five red squares made a ragged line in front of the Gate, alien ships poised to block incoming missiles. On the other side of the screen a green star represented the Bumblebee, with green circles on either side showing him the EDF fighters that accompanied him.
He was tail-on to the Gate, decelerating hard. Nothing showed through the cockpit window but empty space and the distant, tiny shape of the alien settlement. The battle he'd fled was invisible, even the Adamant and the enormous length of the Cassandra made impossibly small by distance. He asked himself for the thousandth time if he should have stayed, and told himself yet again that it didn't matter.
He'd made his choice. He looked at the five red squares on his display. It wasn't as if he was taking the easy way out.
"Five on three," he muttered. "It won't be so bad."
"It'll be bad enough," said a woman's crisp voice in his ear. "This is Lieutenant Spellman. Who am I speaking to?"
Whoops. I should have realized I'd be broadcasting. "I'm Ken Hardy."
"Welcome to the scrap, Hardy. Thanks for coming with us."
"Sure," he said.
"I'm Sam Dante," said a deep bass voice. "That's me on your port side."
"Hi, Sam."
"We'll engage the enemy first," Spellman said. "Try to get some quick kills. But the Gate is our priority. We're here to destroy it. Understand?"
Hardy said, "Yes," and Dante rumbled agreement.
"Ram the Gate if you have to," Spellman went on. "Survival's not a big priority here. I don't think any of us will be seeing Earth again."
A cold silence fell, and Hardy shivered.
"Hey, Hardy," Dante said. "I'm glad we get to fight on the same side. I wasn't looking forward to fighting against you guys, you know what I mean?"
"I do," Hardy said.
"All right," Spellman interrupted. "Enough chatter. The music's starting; let's show these turds how to dance."
Hardy glanced at his display. He was almost to the Gate, with a relative velocity below a hundred kilometers per hour. He brought the nose of the Bumblebee whipping around, battle lust rising in him like a hot wave as the Hive ships moved forward to meet them.
An alien came at him straight on. He poured fire into it, then jerked the ship sideways to whip past. The Hive ship dodged in the same direction, and he struck the ship a glancing blow. His helmeted head slammed against the side of the cockpit, he saw bursts of light, and then all he could see was stars. He shook his head, disoriented, then brought the nose of the Bumblebee around.
Two Hive ships were converging, with a third about to join them. Hardy, knowing that a group of three would be all but impervious to the fighters, pointed the nose of the Bumblebee at the third ship and opened fire. He hosed it from end to end with lasers and rail gun rounds, and instead of merging with the other two, the third ship rebounded and tumbled away. Hardy whooped as he shot past.
He was sweeping around for another pass when he glimpsed the Gate to his left. There was no time to consider his options. He jerked the control stick sideways and the Bumblebee slewed around. He had to oversteer and give the main thrusters a squirt to soak up his sideways velocity. Then he lined up on the Gate and charged in.
Closer and closer it loomed. Several times, Hardy started to squeeze his triggers. Each time, though, he hesitated. The Gate, he realized, was bigger than he'd thought. Much bigger. Each time he thought he was practically on top of it he was wrong. It was bigger and farther away than he suspected. Somewhere behind him Spellman and Dante were fighting for their lives, but perhaps he was buying them a reprieve. The aliens were here to protect the Gate, after all. Odds were, they'd break off the dogfight and chase him.
He was too busy—and too frightened—to look.
Finally the buzz of a proximity alarm told him he was at point-blank range. He hit his braking thrusters and opened up with lasers and rail guns. He was almost perfectly edge-on to the giant triangle, so that it loomed like a pillar with a pyramid at the top and bottom. Shot after shot slammed into the side of the pillar and bounced away.
Another buzzer sounded, similar to the proximity alarm but deeper in tone. It meant a larger ship was approaching. Hardy, without time to blink, much less look around, shoved the thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on firing. The pillar, maddeningly, showed no damage.
Then, as he was about to veer off, a crack appeared. Gritting his teeth, Hardy made himself hold the ship steady. Ram the Gate if you have to. An endless second passed, the Gate expanding in his view as the distance closed. Round after round hit the side of the Gate, a chunk of the outer covering broke away, and one final round hit home, striking inside the structure of the pillar.
Hardy hauled desperately on his control stick and stomped on the left foot pedal, triggering the port-side nav thrusters. The nose of the Bumblebee turned, but the ship was still hurtling toward the Gate at a terrifying speed. He fired the main engine, felt an instant of thrust pushing against his back, and then the tail of the ship banged into the side of the Gate.
The Bumblebee spun madly, and Hardy could do nothing but clutch the sides of the cockpit, helplessly dizzy. The ship's computer would notice the spin and stabilize him in a moment.
Except most of the autonomous systems had been ripped out when the fighter was reconditioned for manual control. Almost everything that couldn’t be relied on to work after an EMP strike had been removed, replaced with pedals and handles and buttons. He spent a moment spinning, trying to decide if he was going clockwise or counter-clockwise. Then, fighting a tremendous centrifugal force that made his arm feel as heavy as a small freighter, he stretched out a hand, wrapped it around the control stick, and dragged the stick to the left.
For most of thirty seconds he clung to the stick, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the ride to end. He thought he felt consciousness slipping away, but realized it was, in fact, the centrifugal force becoming less. When he merely felt drunk instead of insane he forced his eyelids open.
The stars swung past, but slowly. He let go of the stick, took a deep breath, then began working the stick and pedals, bringing the ship under control. When the stars stopped moving he looked down at his display screen.
The Gate was dead astern, along with several small ships and something new, a large vessel, closing quickly.
He brought the Bumblebee around. A hol
e gaped in the side of one pillar of the Gate, and the glow was gone from the three pyramids. Disabled, he decided. It would be better to smash it completely, but all travel was shut down, and that was good enough for now.
A hundred meters or so from the Gate he saw the two EDF fighters, one pretty much stationary relative to the Gate, the other drifting along, turning slowly end over end. Both ships were burned and mangled. A couple of Hive ships floated nearby, lifeless hulks riddled with laser and impact holes.
Between them he could see an amalgamated ship, three little ships joined together. The amalgamated ship was heading toward the Bumblebee.
"Well, come on then," he snarled. "Let's see what you've got."
A couple of stars vanished from the sky beyond the approaching alien. He shifted his gaze. A behemoth was coming up from behind, a massive alien craft. He could see a central shape, a design he'd never seen before, one big ship maybe half the size of a corvette. Half a dozen of the little Hive ships formed clusters on either side, like detachable engine pods. Hardy stared, his mouth going dry.
Well, it's not like I thought I was going to live through this. He let go of the control stick, clenched and unclenched a fist, then grabbed the stick again. "Come on, then. Let's do this."
A groan filled his ears. It was a deep voice, full of pain. The groan ended, and Dante spoke, sounding as if every word came at great cost. "One of us might as well get out of here, and it ain't gonna be me. Run, Hardy." Dante coughed. "RUN!"
One of the ruined EDF fighters came to life. Engine light flared behind it, and the fighter surged forward. It was moving for less than a second before it slammed into the three-ship amalgamation that was closing on the Bumblebee.
Hardy didn't wait to see what happened next. He accelerated hard, yanking sideways on the stick and stomping a foot pedal to sharpen his turn. He pointed the nose of the Bumblebee at deep space and flew for all he was worth.
It took thirty seconds or so to realize he was snarling, a primitive sound of frustration and terror and rage. His helmet mic would be picking up the sound and broadcasting it to … possibly no one, he realized. But perhaps he was annoying the hell out of someone on an EDF corvette and blocking a channel someone needed to use. He made himself stop, then flew on into the dark, sobbing quietly.