He had no idea every ship in their fleet knew Retribution by name.
When the station wave front reached the Phoenix it took them fifteen seconds to read the plot. Another fifteen seconds for shouted orders. Then a drone broke away and decelerated to turn back the way they had come.
"Any chance of picking off the drone before it can jump?" Gordon asked.
"Not a chance in hell at this range," Thor assured him. "Don't waste the missile."
"Alternate jump paths for any other system?"
"Ninety-eight percent jump probability for Survey System 2109 at two G within five minutes. Exponentially decreasing jump success after that. Near unity jump luck with extreme over run and bleed off of velocity in target system."
"Change course for alternate. Advise Faraway Control of emergency change com."
"Our burn takes us cross-ways to the Phoenix. They are burning directly away at about four G. That's about all they can do without time to prep for hard acceleration. Likely somebody will get hurt even at that level on short notice."
"I predict course change and weapons release, as soon as they hear our jump change," Thor reasoned. "They will see us escaping whatever ship or ships they are sending that drone."
"Hyper missiles two tubes, one conventional straight in to blind her. Delay the hypers with a dogleg course. Track the Phoenix, but shoot only on my word. Defensive controllers fire on your own discretion if you have targets."
"Phoenix maneuvering, two away," Thor said.
"Fire," Gordon ordered. The release was felt before the word was finished. "Now fire four conventional in coast and sprint mode, aimed at the Phoenix's emergent point," Gordon said. "And hope the bastards come through soon to see why we don't emerge." Four more shudders came through the hull.
"No more fire from Phoenix," noted Thor.
"If she is like Twelve Palms she only carries six hypervelocity and two tubes. If two don't take us once it probably won't twice. They hate to shoot themselves empty.
"Beam weapons stand by for close in fire."
"Might as well try throwing shoes out the lock if the antis miss."
"I'd order that too, if we could get them down there in time."
Two small shudders marked individual interceptor missiles at extreme range. They would make the incoming missiles maneuver and expend counter measures. Two more followed. Everyone was tense. A sudden flurry of missiles left them.
"One gone."
>WHAM<
A blow rocked the ship so hard it made Gordon's teeth hurt.
"Second missile detonated on fail fusing at extreme range."
"Jump in seven, six, five, four, three, two, one," and the stars blinked out.
"Damage control on way to shuttle hanger. Hanger was in vacuum. Pressure failure in storage. Pressure drop in corridor section by hanger. Pressure drop in the galley. Com and controls up. Crap, there were two cooks working prepping for dinner. We lost crew."
"Did you get him?" Gordon asked.
"Damned if I know," Thor told him. "We jumped seconds before the critical action. He sure as hell holed us straight through. You know that fancy little shuttle we took off the Twelve Palms? Damage control says there's about enough of it left to fill a ship duffel."
* * *
"Vehicle turning east," the plane told them. "Fuel and restaurants over by the highway. I suspect they may gas up, get some food."
"We follow," Jesus told the other van and the plane. "If you are low on fuel now is a good time to go get some," he suggested to the plane.
"We're good until they reach the bridge," he was assured, "this platform loiters very efficiently at low speed. I wouldn't be able to return before they are on the move again."
"Stay then," Jesus allowed. "There are three stations at this exit. We are half on fuel but will top off fuel at a different station. In sight of them if possible. Wendi's van will pull around behind the station they go to and stay under our voice control. Then we'll switch and let them fuel up."
John pulled up to a pump and went inside to pay. They didn't trust you to pump first when you paid cash. Lee and Clare used the restroom and came out to look through the chachka in the store. Jan went in the restroom after them.
Two big four door off road trucks pulled in. One cut across the nose of their car. The other crossed the T on the rear blocking them in. Across the street Jesus yanked the nozzle out of his vehicle early, yelling to Wendi on the radio before the trucks had come to a stop. The plane was telling him what he already saw with his own eyes.
"I'm going in the back with Chris," Wendi advised her driver. "You back up and engage these assholes. Then pick us up."
Chris got out, huge leather duster covering his armor, but failing to make him inconspicuous. He blew the lock to shreds with a breaching round, let the 12 gauge drop on its harness and peeled the door open with black gloved hands. He dropped to one knee beside the door frame inscrutable behind his mirrored glasses and Fu Manchu and racked the shotgun.
Wendi charged through the door headlong screaming something unintelligible.
John looked up and saw the trucks bracket his vehicle. A man jumped out with a huge pry bar and smashed out the driver's window in passing. He ran back to the trunk and ripped it open with one long levered pull. Another fellow joined him to peer in the trunk and then they saw him gaping at them in the window. He turned and ran.
Wendi burst through the swinging doors from the rear of the store with her war face on and blocked John's path. He slid to a stop in terror.
"We are your rescue shithead. Where is Lee?"
"There," he pointed to the girls, crouched behind the tourist items. "And my wife in the women's room!" he shouted.
"In the van!" she ordered and grabbing a hand full of shirt threw him through the doors into the rear room. For a wonder Chris didn't shoot him. "Girls, you too," she said pointing at the doors. They scrambled for the back.
The agents were at the front doors and her van had finally backed out from behind the station and engaged their vehicles. The 12mm opened up with mixed tracers and armor piercing and walked down the front truck destroying it with careful workman like bursts. Glass exploded and it sank to the rims on burst tires.
The clerk ran out the doors and across the parking lot, abandoning his post. The tracers transversed the Williamson's car and cut the gas pumps off knee high, panels and pump bodies scattering in a flurry of burning parts and went to work on the rear truck.
The agents making for the front door had thrown themselves to the concrete and looked back, when the heavy machine gun opened up. Something in the second truck exploded, propelling it into the rain shelter overhead, lifting the whole corner of the steel structure and it fell back burning upside down on the car. The front windows all burst in, but Wendi was in the women's room by then.
She grabbed Jan who was standing by the sink and told her. "Rescue! Your family is out back. Go for the van!" She half dragged her out of the restroom and propelled her towards the back room doors. The men at the front doors were trying to get up and she gave them a good long burst and saw one jerk from a hit. She ran for the back. Chris was leaning against the door frame in the back and about half way to him he fired the shotgun so close she felt the slug go past her ear. The muzzle blast peppered her. "Mount up," she yelled at Chris and he stood and sprinted across the doorway coat billowing behind him.
She reach the door and got an extra shove in the back that staggered her. She looked down and there was a ragged hole pushed out the front of her armor. Everything got slow. She turned and her people were all crouched against the back wall of the store staring at her. The van was pulling up, 12mm muzzle being pulled in the door. Chris was headed to their charges and didn't know she was in trouble behind him. The girl Lee was looking at her horrified.
She finished turning and Agent Hershey was standing just inside the swinging doors. He was staggering, recovering a huge pistol in recoil. There was bright blood on his shirt and a neat dark hole
in his chest. Another man was laying in the doorway head removed courtesy of French's shotgun.
Lee saw the woman's war face smooth out and she got a terrible smile. She reached down and ripped two small balls off the front of her vest, they made a metallic tinkle in the sudden silence as the spoons spun off to the pavement. They left two rings with a straight pin fastened to the vest when they came off. She didn't bother throwing them. She stepped back inside the door. Another shot rang out, but it was far too late and superfluous. White flame coughed out the open door with a ground shaking >THUMP< followed by burning debris and the entire back wall bowed out and stayed bulged. Orange flame followed white and billowed upward turning sooty.
Chris stuffed Lee inside the sliding door and rolled in after her. The van made a sweeping U turn and cut around the front of the store. The pumps and vehicles were burning, the flames curling around the edges of the twisted overhead shelter.
The van door was still open and as they crossed in front of the station the other man inside aimed an odd stubby barreled weapon over the prone figure of Chris and it coughed delicately to her shocked ears. The empty windows of the station filled with a dazzling white glare and a thousand burning fragments fanned out of the shattered windows trailing thick white smoke. "Willy Pete," the smiling fellow said cryptically to Lee's shocked face.
The last thing Lee saw as she looked back was the station attendant, crouched down behind his car on the edge of the parking lot, watching the station burn.
* * *
"Defense we have a situation here." Fargone Control said in understatement.
"We see. The Phoenix fired first," Defense pointed out. "We can hardly deny them self defense when they altered course and didn't try to stop their drone either."
"I don't think they could catch it," Control said, "but I'd have wasted a missile trying I think… Crap. Retribution is hit. Debris and gas. It still managed to jump so they must not be hurt that bad. They advised emergency change of jump target before they left. Courtesy is nice, but I'll be damned if I'd be calling Traffic Control under missile fire with updates. Do you think they can get a valid jump on their alternate or did they just jump into the great unknown?"
"They have a very good chance," Defense insisted. "Especially since they were bright enough to run long. Phoenix is hit. See that? Not breaking up. Launched a few lifeboats and then stopped. She appears to be about a quarter shorted. One of those bit an end off her. I think they forced the other to detonate too far out."
"Control you better have somebody run out on a search and rescue. Might as well send Oleg's boys. They have the Sharp Claws in dock. I'd imagine they would welcome three quarters of a Santa Fe class destroyer as salvage right now. We'll send the cruisers Quantum Queer and the Murphy's Law out with the salvage tugs and a passenger bus, so the idiots don't get hostile with the salvage people. I've seen folks who go irrational and hole up in the wreck until they run out of air or food, before they will allow they don't have control and need rescue."
"What the heck is that second salvo doing?" Control asked. "It is headed for the point the Phoenix emerged, but slowly, powered down. I can see them shooting back but that's just a hazard to navigation. Shouldn't they be fail safed to self destruct by now?"
"No, that is tactics. Smarter than I'd have credited these guys who haven't been through an academy. Where is that drone going and what will it report? Tell Oleg to hold off approaching that wreck until the situation resolves. If we are too close when somebody emerges they may assume hostility."
Defense consulted among senior staff. They had two cruisers and a much smaller destroyer than those the USNA built, more like a frigate, in system. Three high orbiting stations had heavier missiles than a ship could carry. Was that enough? Four drones raced off to neighboring systems to recall some muscle.
Chapter 44
"Here," The man with the stubby weapon thrust his headset at Lee. "Jesus wants to talk to you." Lee fumbled with the strange equipment and got it on. "Hello?"
"Lee I'm behind you in the other van." She looked out the rear windows and the passenger in the van waved at her. She couldn't see his face, but it was Jesus' voice.
"Your dad wanted you picked up if it could be done. We have been watching you but got pushed to act when the Feds tried to take you into custody again. Once you get tucked away deep in their private prison system we'd have no chance. I have a plane standing off watching. It can land on a country road. If I call it in will you board willingly and let our people get you to a shuttle and get you off planet?"
"What about my friends?"
"We were hired to snatch you. We don't have any instructions about your friends."
"I have money to hire you. You know that don't you?"
"Yes Lee, I'm well aware."
"Take the job of getting the Williamsons and the Hansons clear of this mess and resettled someplace safe and I'll get on the plane."
"Hang on."
They rode in silence. Somebody had finally closed the sliding door. John was sitting staring at her. He'd obviously been listening to her side of the conversation.
"I will likely be leaving, but I'm making sure you are safe. Don't be afraid to ask these people to do anything," she told him. "I have places off world you are welcome if that's what it takes to get you safe and clear." He was rattled but nodded that he understood.
"Thank you Lee. I hope they get you safe too."
"Lee, my employer accepts your commission and will make every effort to see your friends safe." He didn't think now was the time to explain it was not Blackwater.
"Call your plane down then. I'll get aboard and I want a pistol, I damn well know how to use one and I'm tired of being helpless."
"Lee, It's safer with you," John said. "Take Clare with you if there is a seat."
Lee looked at Clare. She wasn't a big talker but there was no objection on her face. Indeed she seemed to have more a look of interest and expectation.
"Does the plane have two seats?" Lee asked Jesus on the headset.
"Yes, it is a four seater and has a pilot and an observer, but they are both agents and you don't need to take any of the ground team with you for security."
"Not them. I'm taking Clare with me." She ripped off the headset and returned it to preclude any argument. The van was slowing and the plane came over them from behind so low the wheels almost hit. It dipped, pitched nose up, huge flaps dropped even further on the wings and it landed with a surprising short roll. The van caught up and swerved at an angle blocking both lanes, slide door toward the plane.
Chris touched Lee on the shoulder. "Jesus says this is for you." He drew a 9mm and put the grips in her hand without expression. She stuffed it in her carryall and took the two magazines he offered in the other hand. "No serial numbers on it," was his only comment.
Clare was being hugged by both parents with a strange look on her face. Both were talking low at both ears. She grabbed Clare's hand and pulled. "Come on," she urged and the girl didn't slow them down at all.
The plane was ridiculously small and had a propeller on the front, of all things. She had been looking forward to seeing a horse and carriage on the island. This seemed almost as old fashioned. The pilot's eyebrows went up at seeing two people and the door popped open with the observer twisting sideways and pulling his seat forward tilted to let them crawl in the tiny rear. Nobody bothered to tell them to belt in or anything. The engine noise deepened to a harsh howling vibration even before the door slammed and suddenly the wheel noise vanished, they were heavy and looking at farmer's fields out the side window instead of the horizon. Lee was shocked anything with a propeller could climb like this.
"I didn't think to grab my purse," Clare said surprised at herself. "I think I just grew up all at once and found out stuff like my bag doesn't matter that much," she said in wonder.
* * *
"Retribution on Paradise jump run. Engaging. Plot attached. God speed. Phoenix."
It was certainly the s
hortest drone message he'd ever seen. They formed an expanding circle and linked defensive systems, waiting for Retribution to emerge into their semi-englobement. And waited. She didn't show. Could she had been damaged too badly by the Phoenix's fire to jump? Destroyed completely by a lucky shot? Or did she balk at jump decelerating to slowly return insystem after bleeding off her speed? That left little delta V for battle maneuvers. But she might still be a risk to Phoenix and the fleet should join her to defend her.
It never occurred to the Admiral that civilized folk might object to his warring in their system. He read the plot and also failed to consider that Fargone might censor their own war craft and drones from their system plot. He decided to jump in as a group. He aimed at the drone entry line and his escorts ran with him at a safe distance on the same vector. They were all primed to shoot at anything, expecting hostiles.
The Retribution launched missile was slowly coasting on a line for the emergent point. It only had a normal nuke warhead not an X-ray laser head. That required a really close detonation in vacuum to do any serious harm. If a target presented ahead it would sprint toward it and arm.
The Florida emerged ahead of it so close the missile didn't have time to start its thrusters. In fact it impacted on the nose of the Deep Space Battle Platform and penetrated into the com space under the command and flight deck.
It didn't have time to arm conventionally either, but the missile sensed an impact even as its outer layers of heat shield vaporized on contact, so similar to an intercept that it detonated on a fail fuse command - inside the fleet flag vessel. The other three missiles seeing no target before them and their mate triggered, went off as they had been programmed.
The instant of emergence is one of stress. Suddenly a complex situation is revealed and the senses can't absorb all of it at once. The Combat Control of the cruiser Calgary emerged to see the disintegration of the Florida in a nuclear fireball. That was only three thousand kilometers away. The other three close detonations were unnerving because he did not know if they targeted other ships of his fleet. The flagship's destruction broke their combat link up and he was dumped back to manual fire control.
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