Let the enemy be a conduit for your rage.
Yes. That would do.
He took another breath, afraid to speak the words he knew he must. “Damage report.”
“Half of Flight Deck A has been torn off, sir. The port-side storage compartments also suffered significant damage, and two of the crew corridors have been breached. Your order to roll with the collision did appear to prevent further damage.”
Half of Flight Deck A… His hand twitched. He wanted to place it over his face and cry. “Seal off those crew corridors.” I’ll kill them for hurting my girl. “Get me a casualty report.”
“I already have it, sir. Seven crewmembers are unaccounted for.”
“God damn it,” he muttered. “Was Hangar Bay A affected?”
“Querying the hangar bay crew now…no! It wasn’t breached, and the Condors there are fine. The damage did not extend that far in.”
“Thank God. What kind of shape is the Gok carrier in?”
Werner furrowed his brow. “Streaming atmosphere and fuel into space, but still limping along, sir.”
“Arsenyev, what do we have for them?”
His sensor operator spoke again before Arsenyev could answer. “Sir, their starboard point defense turrets are mostly gone.”
“Good. Arsenyev, arm a couple Banshees and program them with a course that exploits the new weakness they’ve acquired for themselves. I want to plant two nukes deep inside her guts.”
“Can do, sir.”
“Do it now. Do it five minutes ago.” Keyes’s breath was becoming ragged, and he tried once more to steady himself. Screw it. He ripped the straps from his chest and stood. All eyes found his, except for Arsenyev’s, who knew better than to delay his orders.
“If any of you want to abandon ship, now is the time to run for the escape pods. You have my permission. From this moment on, only those willing to die fighting will remain in my CIC.”
He looked around at his CIC crew. No one moved.
“Fine,” he said, and now he let anger lace his words. He pointed at the main viewscreen. “They’ve taken a piece of our home. It would take months to replace it, and that’s assuming we’re likely to find a safe harbor to do so. We’re not. Every species in the galaxy is aligned against us, including our own.”
Silence reigned. The helmsman opened his mouth, but closed it again.
Keyes brought a fist to his chest. “This is my ship.” He pointed at Arsenyev. “And she’s yours.” He pointed at Werner. “And yours.” He pointed at Ek. “And she’s yours. It’s all of ours. I trust my ship, because she’s never failed me. Whatever we’ve asked her to do, in the service of humanity, she’s done it.” He pointed back at the viewscreen. “Right now, I’m going to ask her to fight the ones trying to throw an entire galaxy into darkness. If I die in that fight…if I die in that fight, then I couldn’t ask for a better death.”
Grim nods answered his words, and set jaws.
“Banshees ready, Captain.”
“Fire, then. Bring up a visual of the bastard, Werner.”
The viewscreen showed a visual of the Gok warship, which had come about and was drifting slowly back toward them. Incredible.
Two minutes later, the enemy ship erupted with a fire the void quickly extinguished.
“The Roostships are moving to engage again, Captain,” the sensor operator said.
“Then we’ll destroy them, too.”
“That’s not all. Another Gok carrier is about to arrive.”
Chapter 78
Rolling the Dice
“Everyone toss your IDs in a pile in the middle of the room,” Husher ordered the Winger administrative workers. “Now!” he yelled when they hesitated.
Of the Winger force sent to stop them in the subsurface offices, only two had survived. The rest had refused to surrender, instead fighting to the death. Using some cord from a supply closet, the marines had hastily bound the pair that had finally thrown down their weapons. Husher gave the order to lock them in the same closet.
Luckily, even though they all carried handguns, none of the workers in this room seemed interested in opposing the intruders, and they quickly surrendered their sidearms.
Thanks to the stims, the pain in Husher’s shoulder had been reduced to a dull throb. But that wouldn’t last forever. We need to end this.
He assigned three privates with the task of sorting through the IDs relinquished by the Wingers. After a few minutes, they’d identified the most senior official here.
“You’re coming with us,” Husher told it. “The rest of you are free to go and find whatever safety there is to be had.” The Wingers quickly filed out of the room, in the direction of the platform’s perimeter.
“What do you want with me, human?”
“I’m sure you’ve already figured that out, uh—” Husher glanced at the Winger’s ID. “—Dyson.”
“You want my biometrics.”
Husher nodded. “We need to get back to the platform’s surface without drawing too much attention. Cooperate, and we promise we won’t expose you to battle. If things get hairy, we’ll release you to flee. You’ll be free to go.”
“Why should I help you?”
“For the same reason Fesky helps us. We need to talk to your government, and this seems to be the only way to do it.”
“Do you really think name-dropping an exile will persuade me?”
“Blackwing is helping us, too. He got us here. Do you know him?”
Dyson clacked his beak. “He was one of our most decorated pilots before disappearing down Pirate’s Path.”
“And after hearing us out, he agreed our cause is not only just, but necessary. Now, we can stand here arguing, making it less and less likely we’ll complete our mission. Or you can follow your instincts—the ones telling you to take the same side as a Winger you clearly respect. You won’t get in trouble with your superiors. You are facing down a platoon of armed marines, after all.”
But the Winger stood immobile. “I cannot. I won’t betray my species.”
“Then we’ll force your face against the bioscanner. Is that what you’d prefer?”
Dyson regard Husher with what he felt sure was disdain. “Very well. Let’s get this over with.”
Husher nodded. “How close can you get us to the central reactor?”
“There are two elevators that will take you within twenty meters of it—one on either side.”
Husher turned to Wahlburg. “Remember fighting the pirate incursion?”
The sniper raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to ask me to take one of the elevators by myself? You do know we’ll be fighting Gok up there, right? They’ll overwhelm me before I can snipe even three of them.”
“You won’t be using a sniper rifle. You, Siu, and Davies will take our two SAWs, along with the heavy machine gun and tripod. Once you’re in position with the big gun set up, get in touch. We’ll be ready to hit the Gok from behind.”
“Not the most honorable way to conduct yourselves,” Dyson said.
Wahlburg smirked. “We’re talking about Gok, here, bird. They’ll probably be insulted if we don’t try to take them dirty.”
“We’re leveraging every available advantage to complete our mission as fast as possible.” Husher didn’t like it either, in truth, but he liked the alternative of unnecessarily endangering his three marines even less. “Let’s move.”
When they reached the first elevator, Dyson placed his hand on a DNA scanner while letting a camera inspect his eye. “There,” he said. “You have full control over the elevator.”
“We’ll wait until Wahlburg, Davies, and Siu are in place before going up.” He eyed the three marines that would press on to the other elevator. “Be fast, but cautious. Don’t draw any unnecessary attention to you. This could fall apart pretty easily.” That seemed true of a lot of his plans, lately. Against odds like the ones they faced, rolling the dice on a desperate gambit seemed logical, since at least it offered a chance of succ
ess. But if I keep rolling the dice, eventually I’ll roll snake eyes.
The marines remained silent as they waited for the trio to get into position, their usual off-color banter stowed for now. They knew the importance of staying covert.
Several minutes passed, and Husher noticed his heart beating harder. And not just because they were about to enter battle. How far away can that other elevator be? They should have reached it by now.
“They’re taking too long,” he said at last. “We’re going up there. I want to be in position to help them, in case they’ve been compromised.”
“What if they get compromised down here?” asked a marine with a wide jaw.
Markov. His name is Markov. “Then we take advantage of the disturbance and strike at the power core.”
“Why don’t you just radio them to see how they’re doing?”
“Because if they’ve been caught, then we’ll probably be tipping off whoever captured them.”
Markov didn’t reply, seeming to accept the explanation without further scrutiny.
“Let’s go,” Husher said.
They all piled into the elevator, which was clearly designed to accommodate large freight. There was enough space for all of them, meaning there would be plenty of space for Wahlburg and Davies to set up the tripod. Providing they’re still in action.
As the elevator reached the surface, the muffled reports of a large gun reached them through the doors.
Husher activated his transponder. “Davies, Wahlburg, what’s going on?”
“It was the bird,” Wahlburg said, his voice sounding strained for the first time Husher could remember. “We didn’t search him thoroughly enough. He had a pistol hidden on him, and he had it pointed at Siu. I had to take him out. You better move now, sir. The Gok will be on top of us any second.”
“Is Davies all right?”
A brief hesitation, and then Wahlburg replied. This time, he sounded dazed. “Davies is dead. The bird got her right in the neck.”
Chapter 79
Stims
“I’m going to set her down,” Blackwing said, his eyes glued to the visual display of the platform’s surface. “We got every hostile that’s in range.”
“Belay that,” Caine shot back—the second time she’d said it in as many minutes.
“We’re too clear a target up here, human. If we land, the ship will at least have some cover. Having a ship that can fly is sort of important for the mission—you remember that part, right?”
“If we land, they’ll just start swarming us again. Plus we won’t be in position to strafe any new targets. We need to take out as many enemy combatants as we can. The more we leave alive, the harder it will be for Husher to make it back.”
“You aren’t my commanding officer, you know. I haven’t even taken orders from Wingers in—”
“Look!” Caine yelled, pointing at a hulking mass on the visual display. A Gok. It towered over one of the barriers meant to provide cover to the platform’s defenders, holding— “What is that? Magnify its weapon.”
Blackwing did, joining her in squinting at the screen. “Could that be…?”
“What?”
“I think that’s a directed-energy weapon.”
“Impossible. The Gok don’t have the technology for that. No one’s been able to make energy weapons work.”
“Because the power demands are too great, and you’d need to carry around so much heavy equipment. The kind of weight only a Gok could bear. And it looks like someone’s developed it for them. We need to land now!” On the viewscreen, the hulking alien was raising its weapon.
“No, you need to take out that Gok.”
“Human, you don’t get it, we—”
A bolt of light streamed from the Gok’s weapon, connecting with the ship somewhere below the sensor that was feeding them the visual display. An explosion followed that rocked the stealth ship and sent Caine to her hands and knees on the floor.
An alarm sounded, even louder than the one when they’d first approached the platform. Red light pulsed throughout the cockpit. The ship began to fall.
Blackwing had been strapped in when the energy beam hit, and he’d kept his seat. He punched a button on his console, sending his voice through overhead speakers: “Brace for impact!”
That was all he had time to say before the ship’s nose connected with the platform’s surface. Caine’s body smashed against the main control bank. The stealth ship rocked backward, coming to a rest in an upright position, which caused her to slide onto the floor once more.
For a moment, she was transfixed by a scarlet string of her own blood, which rose slowly into the air before floating to the ground. She tried to get up, but the pain was too great. Instead, she lay back on the floor as Blackwing unstrapped himself, stood over her, and fixed her with what she felt fairly certain was a glare.
Moving her extremities told her she hadn’t broken any limbs. But a sharp pain in her torso spoke to a likely fractured rib. She instructed her suit to flood her body with stims—something she hated to do, since it tended to cloud her ability to think strategically.
With the stims moving through her system, she was able to push herself off of the floor and regain her feet. She retrieved her assault rifle from near the cockpit entrance, where it had ended up in the crash.
Blackwing was still glaring at her, looking a little murderous now that she had a chance to study his face. “What was the explosion?” she asked.
“Oh, just our main engine.”
She nodded and walked to the hatch, punching the button that made it slide open.
“Where are you going?” the Winger said. “The mission is over, human. We might as well surrender.”
“Our mission right now is to protect the nuke. At any cost. We’ve been doing that, and we’ll continue to do it.” She exited the cockpit.
“I don’t think Husher meant for you to protect it at the cost of the mission itself!” Blackwing shouted after her.
She ignored him and continued walking.
Chapter 80
Berserkers
“Open the door!” Husher screamed at the marine closest to the elevator’s controls. They slid apart to confirm his worst fears: the central reactor was surrounded by Gok.
The Wingers had quickly figured out what the humans’ target would be, and they’d deployed the most formidable troops at their disposal to defend it.
Currently, the Gok soldiers were all turned toward the other elevator, where Wahlburg’s SAW had gone off. Several of them were running around the reactor to confront Wahlburg and Siu.
Not wanting to alert the enemy of their presence, Husher gave the hand signal to move out. They rushed out of the elevator as quickly and quietly as possible, spreading out in front of it.
He brought his assault rifle to his shoulder, and the others mimicked the action, readying their weapons and lining up their first volley.
The trigger felt cool under his finger, and he squeezed it slowly, the way his father had taught him when he’d been just eight. Warren Husher’s words echoed through his mind: Don’t pull the trigger with your finger. Pull it with your thoughts.
The roar of gunfire rose up around him, and the marines’ bullets sailed into the hulking alien forms, seeking weak points in their armor. Several Gok went down. Several others turned back toward their attackers, faces rictuses of rage.
Bulky weapons were raised to massive shoulders, and Husher realized what they were at the last second. My God. They have energy weapons.
“Scatter!” he yelled.
Blinding beams of light lanced out at the marines as they ran in all directions, some of them back into the elevator, some of them to the scant cover offered by the wall on either side.
Husher saw three marines go down as he ran toward a doorway a few meters from his original position. He took a second to check the knob. Locked. Raising the assault rifle to his shoulder again, he sighted down the barrel at the nearest enemy.
&
nbsp; The Gok weren’t content to blast the marines from their initial position, near the reactor. Instead they advanced forward, firing at anything that moved. One of them headed for Husher’s doorway, giant strides closing the distance rapidly. Husher’s bullets bounced harmlessly against the Gok’s titanium-plated armor.
The alien cut a menacing figure, made somehow more imposing by its pressurized suit. Through its massive helmet, Husher was sure he could see the hatred in the thing’s dark-green eyes, even overshadowed as they were by the prominent ridges Gok had in place of eyebrows.
Acting on instinct, he threw himself from the doorway and out into the open, just in time to avoid getting hit by a bright bolt of energy.
But his adversary had no plans of giving him time to recover. The giant rushed at him, casting aside its weapon to seize Husher by the shoulders and throw him against the wall he’d just left. His assault rifle skittered away across the orbital platform’s surface.
Pain lanced from his shoulder as he collapsed to the floor, but the beast was atop him again, picking him up off the ground and pinning him against the wall by his neck. The thing’s massive fingers clenched, and dark starbursts exploded in Husher’s vision.
The sound of battle seemed to get turned down as the pressure on his windpipe demanded all his attention. I need to do something. His arms dangled freely, and he managed to grip the haft of his combat knife. He drew it from its sheath and rammed it into the Gok’s suit, under the armpit, which was covered in tough fabric that nevertheless yielded to the blade.
The thing only tightened its grip, apparently undeterred by the hissing of its suit depressurizing or the blood that dampened it. Husher withdrew the knife and stuck it in again. Again.
Finally the Gok’s grip loosened, and Husher managed to draw some oxygen into his pulsating lungs. He raised the knife to where the alien’s helmet met its suit and punched it through the seam there. The Gok released him, and Husher fell to his knees, clutching at his throat.
But the alien wasn’t done. With the combat knife still lodged in its neck, it raised both fists to deliver a blow Husher knew would likely kill him.
Supercarrier: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 1 Page 24