Starship Tomahawk (The Hive Invasion Book 2)

by Jake Elwood

  Thick hull plates weren't the answer, then. Filaments were. She would cover the Theseus in a thin layer of Fourier metal, and then add thickets of filaments like patches of hair. Each filament would poke out into the void, radiating heat and cooling the ship. If she could mount enough filaments on the hull, the ship would be effectively immune to Hive weapons.

  Of course, any substance that conducted heat well would also conduct electricity. What would the EMP weapon do to Fourier filaments? She imagined the filaments lighting up as current flowed through them, with sparks leaping back and forth. I wonder if I could mount a couple of cameras on the hull. I would love to see what that looks like. Of course, if the EMP weapon is firing, the cameras will be fried …

  She pictured the Theseus in deep space, surrounded by Hive ships, and an unexpected wave of fear crashed into her. This is the enemy that tore apart the toughest ships in Spacecom. They nearly conquered the Earth, and they're smarter now. They've adapted, learned how to hurt us. The Theseus won't last five seconds.

  "Who am I kidding?" She dropped the filament back in the bin, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and moaned. "We're doomed. We're in deep space, surrounded by hostile aliens, and we're going to die." Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily, and she dropped into a squat, curling forward until her face was against her knees. For weeks she'd been living under a tree in an orchard, tinkering in a farmer's garage, and suppressing the fear that ground away at her day and night.

  Now, it all hit her at once.

  In a dim corner of her mind she realized she was lying on her side, curled into a ball. The floor was none too clean, but she didn't care. She clutched her knees and sobbed as fear and loss washed over her, through her. On and on it went, until her habit of analysis, which was as much a part of her as breathing, began to assert itself. She began to wonder how long it would take to process this backlog of emotion, whether there was a formula that could measure duration and intensity.

  Once the analytical part of her brain got started, there was no stopping it. She wanted to keep crying. She wanted catharsis. She wanted every last bit of suppressed horror to be experienced, exorcised, released. But her body uncurled, she shifted into a more comfortable position on the floor, and her mind, despite her intentions, wandered.

  Finally she stood up, stretched to release some stiffness, and wiped her face. She brushed the worst of the dust from her face and crossed her workshop to where chalkboard paint covered a section of wall. She wiped away a diagram of the atomic composition of Fourier metal and went looking for a piece of chalk.

  "Heat shielding," she wrote. "Fourier metal hull plates and filaments for heat dissipation." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Shields aren't enough," she wrote. "The ship must be armed."

  Chapter 25 – Hammett

  Hammett was the last to leave the Tomahawk.

  He paused in front of the airlock, taking a last look down the length of the ship he'd commanded for a few short weeks. She had served him well. She'd destroyed her own weight in Hive ships, and he would miss her.

  Most of all, she represented a phase of the war that, he was reluctantly beginning to realize, was now over. Things had been simple when he left Earth. Us versus them. Humans against the Hive, with all of humanity united against the alien threat. The alien threat remained, as strong as ever. Humanity still hung by a thread, waiting to be devoured by the inevitable Hive counter-attack.

  But humanity was no longer united.

  "Unbelievable," he muttered, then turned his back on the Tomahawk, ducked through the airlock hatch, and entered the battlefield of a different war.

  He moved through the airlock in the nose of the Tomahawk and stepped through into the airlock in the nose of the corvette Tulwar. The two ships were locked together nose to nose, like strange dogs meeting.

  A marine stood on sentry duty just inside the lock, the first of many unsettling changes. Hammett wasn't displeased to learn the Corps had been reinstated, though he was alarmed by the speed of implementation. How much training did this hulking young man really have with the rifle slung over his shoulder?

  He understood the value of the Marine Corps – a handful of marines might have saved a bunch of lives on the Alexander – but their presence on a tiny, crowded ship like the Tulwar was disturbing in its implications. He was pretty sure the marines weren't on board to fight aliens.

  They were there to control the crew.

  Beyond the marine the narrow corridor was crammed with crew from the Tomahawk. There was simply nowhere else to put them. Hammett stood shoulder to shoulder beside Benson, who leaned into Geibelhaus to make room. It wasn't comfortable, but the trip to the surface of Ariadne wouldn't take long. Hammett frowned, wondering how long he'd be grounded.

  The deck plates thumped against the soles of his feet as the ship touched down. After a minute the line of sailors began shuffling along, moving deeper into the ship, heading for the landing ramp. Hammett waited until Benson was a pace or two away, then followed.

  A minute later he was on the surface of Ariadne for the first time, squinting in sunlight that had a bit more red than he was used to, taking in the scent of lush plants and a hint of flowers, overlaid by the steel and hydraulic fluid stink of the ship behind him. The rest of the crew milled around the landing gear, unsure of what to do next.

  The Tulwar's commanding officer followed Hammett down the landing ramp, a handful of her own crew behind her. It was easy to tell who was on which crew. The Navy's uniform had changed while Hammett had been gone. Sailors wore black armbands now.

  Major Potter was a blonde woman of about forty, her hair pulled back in a severe braid. Her face was compressed in a pinched expression that looked permanent. She reminded Hammett of teachers he'd known, the worst kind, the ones constantly scanning the room for any sign of rule-breaking.

  Every few minutes she'd reach up and touch the sash across her chest, as if to remind herself of her position and authority. Everyone else got plenty of reminders too. She barked pointless orders at the sailors who followed her, telling them to stand in a line, shoulder to shoulder, beside the ramp. Then she stomped back and forth in front of the hapless sailors, eyeing them like she was inspecting an honor guard. She glared at one man, a seasoned specialist who stared back with the equanimity of a professional who knows his worth. "Stand up straight," she said. "Hold your head up high."

  It made Hammett's hackles rise. She wasn't actually trying to destroy the morale of her crew. She was simply a foolish woman who knew she didn't deserve the power she wielded. Everyone else knew it too, which drove her to assert herself. Without meaningful orders to give, she would give pointless orders. The crew would resent her for it. They would resist in subtle, petty ways, and she would just get worse.

  "You there." Potter made a gesture that encompassed most of Hammett's crew. "Don't just stand around like a bunch of lallygaggers. Form a proper line." She flapped an arm, indicating a stretch of tarmac in front of the Tulwar where they might line up.

  A dozen pairs of eyes swung toward Hammett. He sighed and said, "As you were."

  Potter turned to face him, her mouth tightening until her lips all but disappeared. "I'm a major in the EDF!"

  "Come and see me when you get a Spacecom rank," he said, and turned his back. A quick scan of the area showed him a ruined building that might have been a terminal, a large hangar, and a third corvette. He walked swiftly toward the third ship, needing to put distance between himself and the ridiculous EDF woman. If he stayed he was going to tell her off, if he managed not to deck her first. That would help nothing.

  The ship was the Achilles. Half a dozen people stood under the port wing, gathered around the base of a rolling ladder. Atop the ladder a sailor was opening hatches and poking at exposed cables and tubes. Hammett headed toward the group.

  A familiar figure turned as he approached. "Captain," said Kaur. "I'm glad you made it down to the surface." She smiled. "I wanted to pick you up, but it wasn't … pruden
t."

  A quick scan of the group showed no marine uniforms and no black armbands. It was an uncomfortable precaution to take, and one Hammett already sensed was going to become a habit. He walked aft, out of easy earshot of the rest of the group, and Kaur followed. They stopped under the tail of the ship, and both of them looked around for eavesdroppers before they spoke.

  "The Achilles is grounded," Kaur said. "Totally incapable of flight."

  That was bad news. "What's wrong with her?"

  "Her crew have disconnected cables and couplings all over the ship," Kaur said, poker-faced. "If you need her, she'll be spaceworthy in about fifteen minutes. If her new commanding officer needs her, or the general in charge of the fleet, well …" She shrugged. "It could be weeks." She looked at Hammett, her expression wary.

  "Not liking the EDF is one thing," Hammett said. "Disabling a ship, though?"

  "Have you heard about Montreal?"

  Hammett shook his head, then listened in growing shock as Kaur brought him up to speed.

  "It's two Navies now," Kaur said. "The one that serves humanity, and the one that serves the EDF."

  "Good God."

  "Amen," Kaur said, and flashed a bleak smile. "The Achilles will be spaceworthy when the Hive returns, and not a minute sooner."

  They stood for a moment in silence. Then Hammett said, "I need to billet my people."

  That brought a chuckle from Kaur. "You may find things are a tiny bit disorganized. Refugees are trickling into the city, no one knows how many. Some people are dead, some are staying in the countryside until things quiet down. There are marines still sweeping the outskirts for aliens. My crew's still working out the details of their billets, and we don't know yet how many personnel are coming down from the new fleet."

  "Well, who do I talk to? Please tell me it's not Major Potter."

  Kaur chuckled again. "No, the man you need to see is Lieutenant Nicholson. He's more or less become our groundside coordinator and liaison with the colonists." Kaur paused for a moment, thinking. "Last I saw, he was heading for the sports fields." She gestured north. "Something's going on there, I'm not sure what. In the meantime, there's sort of a canteen set up at the Roadrunner. It's a good place to wait while people get organized." She pointed west. "It's a restaurant just across the street from the terminal. The terminal's the building with the hole in it," she added.

  "All right, thanks, Commander." Hammett glanced around and spotted a red-shirted figure striding away from the Tulwar, heading for the terminal building.

  "The EDF have their own hangout," Kaur said. "There's a bar in the terminal that's mostly undamaged. They've figured out the Navy personnel don't really enjoy their company." She made a face. "I think it's mutual. They don't like being around people who don't take them seriously. So they just hang around with each other."

  "Lovely," Hammett said. "I'll see you later." He headed back to the Tulwar, where he told his crew about the Roadrunner. "I'm looking into billeting," he told them. "Then we'll see about further assignments. In the meantime, go have a bite to eat and relax. You've earned it."

  He watched them go, weary, shuffling figures, many of them walking in a daze. He was the only member of the ship's company with combat experience, aside from the disastrous Battle of Earth. Those who were in that battle would have spent the duration floating helpless in a crippled ship. Today was their first real introduction to war.

  They would relax, and let the realization that they were safe and still alive slowly seep in. They would drink too much, and talk to one another about the battle, and raise a glass to the people they'd lost. Without an officer present they would be able to let off steam. He vowed to stay away from the Roadrunner for at least a couple of hours.

  He remembered his own first experience of combat. He remembered the aftermath, the shocked, harrowed looks on the faces of his shipmates. He felt like an old, old man as he turned away and went in search of Lieutenant Nicholson.

  Chapter 26 – Nicholson

  "That was good. Now we're going to try three-round bursts. A military weapon will have a mechanism to fire short bursts automatically, but we're going to do it the old-fashioned way. I want you to try squeezing the trigger three times quickly without moving the barrel. I want to see three shots, closely spaced. Ready?"

  A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on Nicholson. All twelve students turned away, peering downrange and lifting their newly-minted rail guns to their shoulders.

  "Fire!" Nicholson barked, and a barrage of steel pellets flew across the soccer field. The targets were broad green leaves, each as tall as a man, shoved stem-first into the ground thirty or so meters away. The leaves were a tattered mess by now. Soon it would be time for the second squad, currently keeping watch downrange to make sure no one wandered into the path of the pellets, to run out and replace the leaves.

  Nicholson swept his binoc across the row of leaves. It was hard to tell exactly how the squad of colonists was doing, but what they needed right now was encouragement, not honesty. "Good," he said. "Excellent work. Try another burst." This time he kept his gaze on the students. He walked along the row of grimly concentrating colonists, telling a man to lift his elbow, reminding a woman to squeeze the trigger without jerking it.

  "Okay, that's good. Safeties on." Each student flipped a small switch that cut power from the battery to the gun's magnets. "Ground weapons." He waited while they planted the butts of the guns on the ground beside their feet. "Good. Keep them grounded." He raised his voice. "Second squad! Change the targets, if you please."

  More colonists rose from behind a low ridge and hurried to knock down the tattered remains of the palm fronds. They planted new fronds and retreated behind the ridge.

  "Spacecom won't always be around to protect you," he said. "You've already learned that the hard way. I wish I could promise there would always be trained military personnel on hand to deal with the Hive or anything else that comes along. We all know that's not how it works." He made a grand gesture with his arm, as if he stood in front of a vast army of elite troops instead of a rag-tag militia. "Now you don't need someone else to fly in and protect you. You're dangerous now. You can protect yourselves."

  It was largely nonsense, of course. No militia was a match for a trained, professional military force. They needed confidence, though, not cold hard facts.

  "Lieutenant? It looks like you have visitors."

  Nicholson turned. Aimee Tanner, a colonist so tiny she hardly looked like an adult, kept one hand on the barrel of her rail gun and used her free hand to point in the direction of the spaceport. Three figures stepped onto the unkempt grass of the soccer field. A fat man led the way, his stomach straining the fabric of his red uniform shirt and spilling over the belt that held up his black trousers. His black sash curved around the stomach in question.

  By contrast, the man and woman who followed him were almost ridiculously fit. At least, they gave that impression. They wore black uniforms and medium-weight body armor, which gave them both broad shoulders and deep, solid-looking chests. The armor was narrow at the waist, though, and if either of them had five kilos of fat, Nicholson couldn't see where they kept it.

  "Rack the weapons," Nicholson said. He had a feeling a confrontation was coming, and he'd learned the colonists were stubborn, prickly, and courageous beyond all reason. If one of the redshirts was going to start pushing them around, Nicholson didn't want things escalating.

  The squad lined up to put their rifles into a simple wooden rack beside the improvised firing range. Nicholson called softly, "Second squad. Maintain your position." Then he led the first squad a dozen or so paces from the rack and waited.

  It took some time. The soccer field wasn't wide, but the redshirt wasn't moving too quickly. At last he arrived, his face almost as red as his shirt, and spent a long minute panting for breath. Nicholson looked past him at the marines, neither of whom was winded in the slightest. They wouldn't be new recruits. They were probably infantry, seasoned ground tro
ops transferred into the brand-new Marine Corps.

  "I'm Colonel McLaw," the redshirt said at last. "I'm in charge of everyone on the surface of Ariadne."

  That brought a mutter of annoyance from the squad.

  McLaw frowned and swept a cold eye over the colonists. Silence fell, and he returned his gaze to Nicholson. "We're here to confiscate your weapons."

  "What?" A babble of voices rose from the squad, all of them talking at once, but it was Aimee whose voice rose above the others. "You can't take our guns!"

  McLaw's chest expanded, and he smiled, an unpleasant grin full of self-importance. "I can and I will. The EDF will not tolerate unauthorized weapons in a civilian population."

  "The what?" said Aimee. She looked angry enough to eat rail gun rounds. "What's the EDF?"

  For a moment McLaw just gaped at her. He seemed utterly flabbergasted that someone was unaware of his precious organization. "The Earth Defence Force. We were formed under the direct authority of-"

  "So go defend Earth," Aimee snapped. She advanced on McLaw, and although he was triple her weight, he shrank back. "We'll defend Naxos." She took another step. She was a good three paces away from him, but he stepped back, to the visible annoyance of the marines directly behind him. "With our guns," Aimee said.

  She took another step. Either McLaw found some courage, or the marines behind him were pushing against his back. He stopped retreating.

  "Our guns, which we'll be keeping," Aimee said. Her head barely reached his shoulder, but when she leaned forward, he leaned back. "Is that clear?"

  A frozen moment passed, and McLaw seemed to realize the absurdity of his position. He straightened up, stared down at her, then gathered himself. He scowled, folded his arms across his chest, and took a deep breath. "The Statsminister himself has given the EDF authority over all affairs related to the defence of the Earth."