“Route power from the galleys if you have to,” Dalton ordered. “Keep those shields up. Lieutenant Pennyman?”
“Here, sir.” The orange-furred felinoid communications officer brushed away bits of singed fur as he resumed his post on the panel. “Crispy around the edges, but still not fully cooked.”
Dalton smiled at the alien’s sense of humor during the battle. Efficient and resourceful, Pennyman had become one of his favorite bridge officers. The felinoid had been relaying messages to the frigate group commanding the drone fleet. With the arrival of Browning and the assault ships, he would be re-tasked with running carrier operations under Bach’s command while Dalton commanded the overall space arena.
“Pennyman, bring our fighters around to a heading of one-oh-one mark seven,” Dalton ordered, examining the holographic battle scene. “Give us a band aid over the starboard plasma batteries.”
“Captain?” Bach asked, moving closer to the command seat. “Blue Lightning and Red Thunder squadrons are being held down by enemy frigates.”
“I want to draw them in closer to give Browning more time to get into position,” Dalton replied. “I just hope the rest of the Alliance lives up to its name.”
“Has there been any word from Chang?” Bach asked, holding her ground as the deck shuttered again.
“Nothing yet, but you know the admiral,” Dalton replied. “Don’t speak unless spoken to, and only then in one word sentences. I’m sure he’s bitten his nails completely off by now, wondering what’s going on with the fleet.”
Instead of replying, Bach stepped back to the edge of the command well and began to direct orders to the fighter squadrons. Crowned Eagle fighters were racing across the screens into positions. Dalton could see they were about to be outgunned by the rising Ch’Tauk occupation fleet. While they were waiting for the Vadne, they could not risk using jump blockers to keep the aliens from calling in reinforcements. Their best hope was to keep the fight up for as long as possible and pray the Alliance came to their aid.
“Sir!” Pennyman’s voice cried from the pit.
Dalton looked up at the big screen just in time to see a Ch’Tauk escort ship, bigger than a fighter but smaller than a frigate, begin tumbling towards them. It had been clipped by one of the plasma cannons on the starboard side and was beginning to tumble towards them at full speed. There was some wobble to the ship indicating the pilots were attempting to correct, but the damage was too severe. Dalton involuntarily grasped the armrests of his chair again as he watched the ship tumble closer.
“Target missiles!” Dalton ordered, knowing it was too late.
The impact of the escort ship to the shields lasted only a moment. Blue sparks shot from the hull into space even as the banded hull of the Ch’Tauk ship ruptured. In less than a second, drive plasma and detonating weapons systems erupted and sent a plume of red-orange flame cascading across the starboard hull of the carrier. Energy weapons fell silent as the already overloaded systems collapsed under the strain. Dalton felt his stomach flutter as the gravity on the bridge flickered out. Diana Bach was lifted from the ground as the ship reacted under the impact, turning suddenly nose-down towards the planet. Her body was slammed into the ceiling of the bridge, followed quickly by other members of the bridge crew and assorted debris. It took only a few seconds for the bridge to fall into chaos as the gravity generators reasserted themselves.
The bodies of the flailing crewmen slammed back down to the deck, creating a brief tattoo of muted impacts. Dalton held fast to his command chair even as his first officer slammed into the railing dividing the command level from the pit. There was a sickening crunch of bone as he heard her back snap. The woman cried out in pain for a second as she dangled helplessly over the rail. Franklin leapt from his seat to grab her tunic and keep her from falling further into the pit. She was still gasping for air as he pulled her back to the deck. Her eyes were wide with pain and fear as he laid her on the deck.
“Commodore…” Bach gasped for air. “What…?”
“Hold still, Diana,” Dalton said, carefully laying her head down and stepping back to the chair. “I’m calling for a med team.”
“Franklin… Don’t. Let…” Bach cried between painful breaths. “Don’t let …the … bastards…”
“I won’t, Diana. Just lie still,” Dalton said, returning to her side and brushing a strand of hair from her face. “They won’t keep the Earth.”
“To hell with Earth!” Bach cried out in a painful scream. “Don’t let them take her ship.”
Dalton looked into the woman’s eyes. In the six years since taking command of the ship, they had rarely spoken about what had happened to her former commander. Captain Ellie Blackmon had died during the initial attack on Earth by the Ch’Tauk. Dalton had become her de-facto commander afterward by default. He had been a computer systems commander and Bach had been his second. It had taken Diana years before she finally revealed her relationship with the captain of the carrier. The two women had been in love, and Bach had been readying herself to leave the service to continue the relationship. Blackmon’s death had left Bach with a deep hatred of Lee Pearce and a need to protect the only thing left of her former lover: the ship.
“Diana,” Dalton said to his first officer. “No force in the universe will allow the enemy to take this ship. I promise you that.”
Bach seemed to relax at his promise. Franklin Dalton had made a career of never breaking promises. He had seen what broken promises had done to his own family and mother, and made it a personal mission of honesty. As Diana’s eyes fluttered closed, medics pushed the commodore away from her. He sat back on his heels and watched even as the chaos from the bridge around him snapped back into view. Cries of the dying and for the dead echoed in his ears. He heard the sound of metal twisting under the strain of repeated impacts on the hull.
“Commodore!” Pennyman’s voice split the fog in Dalton’s head. “I’m reading multiple incoming vortices.”
“How many?” Dalton asked, standing and returning to his chair. The holographic displays were no longer operating, but the chair held him up as he sat down.
“It shows three dozen so far,” Pennyman replied, staring at the screen. “Wait … more vortices are opening. Sir, I see over a hundred ships incoming on our position.”
A cold finger of dread lanced up Dalton’s back as he watched the big screen. The Alliance plan involved bringing the enemy close to the carriers and overwhelming them with reinforcements. The arrival of the assault fleet before the reinforcements told Dalton something was wrong. If the Ch’Tauk had gotten off a signal from one of the outlying colonies on Calisto, or even Luna, it was all over. The best they could do at this point was watch and wait as the coronas of fire bled away to reveal their saviors or their executioners.
“Incoming signal, sir,” Pennyman announced, tapping keys on his panel. “Broadcasting wide-band on Alliance frequencies.”
“Put it on overhead,” Dalton said, hope rising in his heart.
“Alliance fleet, this is the Vadne High command. Do you require assistance?”
The crew was too damaged to cheer, but the mood lightened considerably. Dalton watched the long, silver ships shed their energy coronas. Nestled in between the long felinoid ships was a group of small vessels resembling metallic boxes. Tonal ships had joined the Vadne fleet and were already spreading out to choose targets. The porcine race was known for its hearty disposition and their ships were no exception. Built for battle and heavily armored, Tonal battle groups split off and headed straight for the three remaining dreadnoughts.
Ripples of plasma energy rolled across the surface of the massive ships. Vadne battleships raced in and out of the battle zone, peppering the smaller ships with missiles and kinetic projectiles. Dalton could see his own Peregrine and Eagle fighters matching speed and acting as escorts for the silver darts. Tonal ships were pounding the dreadnoughts in a constant barrage. The nearest dreadnought began to nose closer to the planet below. It near
ly lost the tail portion as a group of three Vadne ships speared its hull. The ship ruptured along the aft quarter and bands of armor began to peel away. The tonal ships backed off and let the Vadne and their fighter escorts guide the ship around the curve of the Earth. Just as it entered North American skies, the ship erupted in a massive fireball, lighting up the dark side of the planet with red-orange fire.
Dalton took a second to wonder what it looked like from the ground even as his own ship rocked again from plasma fire.
“Sir,” Pennyman said, wiping soot from his console. “Mars is hailing.”
“Route it through my chair,” Dalton said. “Assuming that still works.”
“Franklin?” Elise Browning’s voice popped from the small speaker embedded on his chair arm. “Status report. Are you functional?”
“Barely, Commodore,” Dalton replied, surveying the damaged and smoky bridge. “We’ve taken heavy damages.”
“Can you launch?” Browning’s voice asked. “We can begin the landing procedure now. Launch Vultures.”
Dalton had to stand and move over the walkway bisecting the control pit. He had not realized the extent of the damage until just now. Dead crewmen were scattered across the tops of consoles. The remaining crewmen were scrambling to reroute control boards around flickering monitors. His flight deck officer, a middle-aged blonde woman whose name Dalton forgot, was tapping keys on a darkened screen. She looked frustrated, but was still issuing commands over a headset.
“Can we launch bombers?” Dalton asked, looking down at the woman. “We just entered phase three.”
“Aye, sir,” the woman replied. “I can’t see ‘em, but I can launch ‘em.”
“Go!” Dalton ordered. “Launch everything. We’ve got nothing left to lose and a planet to gain back.”
The woman nodded and began issuing orders. Dalton looked to the big screen. The space around Zeus was swarming with red, yellow and green dots. Each one of the dots was a life. Even if the ship was one of the flocked vessels controlled from remote, Dalton felt the pain of the battle.
“Pennyman, can you get me back on the air?” Dalton asked the felinoid. “I need to get some control of this mess.”
“I believe so, sir,” the orange cat replied. “I’m getting one more signal, sir. The last vortex just closed and the ship is hailing.”
“I don’t really have time,” Dalton replied, striding back to the command chair. “Who is it?”
“It’s Captain Ortiz, sir!” Pennyman replied. “It’s Terran Hope. He says he’s broadcasting from the kitchen of the buffet and needs some help.”
Dalton stared at the felinoid. Pennyman had a strange sense of humor, but the mention of the buffet was no joke. Dalton knew the communications relay station had a command center just behind the buffet table on the former cruise ship. If Ortiz had been relegated to the kitchen, the ship must be in bad shape.
“Order escorts to protect that ship,” Dalton responded. “Whatever Hope wants, she gets.”
28
Battleship Resolute
The rumblings of minor explosions across the barely-holding shields were constant now. Through a haze of soot and smoke, Lee Pearce could make out the local battle map on the big projection. The smell of burning flesh and fur permeated the thick air and made breathing a nauseating chore. Lee held his left arm tight even while he felt the bones in his forearm scrape against each other.
“Status on the Demons!” Lee yelled over the thumping on the hull. “Where are they?”
“Captain, all four are reporting green,” Farthing replied. “Merlin is reporting a power falloff in his port thruster array and Baron is out of missiles, but they are all still in the fight.”
The felinoid’s fur was singed across the right side of his face. Pale white teeth showed through a hole in the commander’s face. Lee looked around the bridge, noting the status of the remaining crew. Goldstein was gripping his console hard and tapping keys. The man was keeping Resolute in pursuit of Victory even through the swarms of enemy fighters. The octopod seemed unhurt, but was a deep orange color. He had not been able to communicate since a shard of metal had shattered his vocoder, but Lee didn’t need to have a conversation. All eight arms were tapping a maddening rhythm, blasting their plasma cannons to near overload. Two more officers had entered to replace dead crew, but Lee couldn’t see them through the smoke.
There was a lurch as a massive strike on their starboard side caused the ship to tumble. It had been a similar hit which had broken Lee’s arm. This time he let go of his broken limb to grip the chair arm. His feet pressed into the metal deck, trying to find purchase even as his stomach lurched. Roy Booth’s voice had become a steady scream from the open comm line on the chair. A string of expletives blasted across the bridge and someone screamed from behind.
“Sir, another dreadnought has moved out of orbit and is closing on our position,” Goldstein announced. “Victory has seen her and is turning to face the contact.”
“Can we do anything to stop them?” Lee asked to the bridge.
“We’re doing everything we can just to keep up with them,” Farthing yelled. “Neither of us can last much longer. We should leave the Ch’Tauk to finish them.”
“We can’t go anywhere,” Goldstein shouted back, willing the ship back on its axis. “M-Space engines are out. Even if we could open a vortex, we’d never survive translation.”
Lee uttered a pilot’s prayer under his breath as he realized the truth of the matter. It had taken minutes for the Ch’Tauk to mobilize their home fleet and mount a counterattack. Resolute had been augmented with advanced shields and armor by the elves before the ship had left Perigee space. Victory was retrofitted with a shield design created on Karisia by the last group of scientists to plan an attack. Both ships were limping towards the Ch’Tauk home world.
“What did they hit?” Lee asked, feeling the ship at a slight incline to port. “Gravity is off kilter.”
“One of their destroyer analogs got in a lucky hit. I think the hangar bay may have—” Goldstein’s voice cut off in mid-sentence as he stared at the tactical display. “Sir, I’m showing a new contact entering the field. It’s one of ours.”
Lee looked back up at the display. A solitary blue dot was arcing away from his ship. The computer had yet to identify the target, but it seemed obvious where it had come from. Goldstein had said the bay doors had been hit. Since the Demons had already launched, it could mean only that the one remaining ship on board was now in play. The only question was who was flying it. A sickening sensation held him to his seat. He turned to look back around the bridge.
“Alice?” Lee asked the murky command center.
“Sir, I’m reading new contact is Demon One,” Farthing announced. “Call sign has been changed to … oh no.”
“Get her on the line!” Lee roared at the feline. “Alice! Get back here!”
“Sorry, Flyboy,” Alice’s familiar voice rang out. “You need me out here and I need to get a little payback. I’m taking it back.”
The channel abruptly cut as Lee reached Farthing’s side. He twisted back to the big screen and watched as the blue dot changed to green began attacking Ch’Tauk fighters. It was an evil ballet in space. The Ch’Tauk had been able to match Alice’s moves, keeping the other Demons constantly on the defensive. Now, with her anger and pain filling her, Alice was clearing the field of enemy ships. Lee was as familiar with Alice’s wild tactics as he was his own. The Ch’Tauk twisted into corkscrews and tried to maneuver with varying speeds. Alice countered with near suicidal strafing runs and brute force attacks against multiple targets. Like watching a fighter box with his shadow, the battle was surreal and bloody.
“Get her back on the line!” Lee ordered. “I need her back.”
“Attempting to connect, sir, but she’s turned off her system,” Farthing replied, wiping away a gob of burnt hair from his console. “I’m not sure I can override the comm.”
“Use my access codes,” Lee s
aid, turning and tapping the sequence into the panel. He gritted his teeth against the pin of his arm. “Have the Demons give her cover.”
Lee looked up at the screen again and watched. A flicker of energy tapered from the bottom of the projection to the top and the image changed. The tactical display was replaced by an enhanced image of the battle. Lee looked back at the felinoid to see him grimace back. It was the telemetry from Jackal’s ship as she swung around to face Demon One. Lee saw blue hits glance across the fighter’s shields as the Ch’Tauk tried to destroy Alice.
The nose of Jackal’s fighter came in close and Lee could see plasma bolts lance from either side as the Asian woman blasted enemy ships. With her flanks cleared, Alice goosed her accelerator and pulled away from her escort. Lee could see a destroyer analog moving into view. Alice had aimed her ship directly at the warship and was loosing deadly fire from her own cannons. Lee’s Golden Eagle was the most heavily modified fighter and was far faster than the other ships. There was a haze around Alice as she approached relativistic speed. Jackal could not hope to keep up, but she stayed on task anyway. More plasma bolts came from either side as the remainder of the Demons pulled in to escort.
Lee’s life slowed down as he watched in horror. Alice had been attacking a Ch’Tauk ship in the same manner as when she had been hit. Her ship had tumbled away behind a destroyer and disappeared. He had endured over a year of torture thinking she was gone forever. He had never stopped believing she was alive. Now he saw her repeating the maneuver that had killed her the first time.
“Sir!” Farthing’s voice interrupted. Lee realized the commander had been shouting his name for the last few seconds. “We’ve got an incoming vortex. I think it’s the Sweet Liberty.”
“Cap’n Pearce,” the drawl of Connor Jakes’ voice crackled over the speakers. “We had to make an unscheduled stop to pick up a few old friends. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
The pirate ship shed its corona after entering normal space and began blasting away at the Ch’Tauk. Lee kept his eyes riveted to the projection as Alice turned nose down at the destroyer. She launched four of the concussive missiles on board the Eagle and pulled away fast. A hit from below caused her ship to stagger, but it stayed its course. She went over the top of the destroyer and continued firing. Lee tore his gaze away from the display and back to Goldstein. The man’s display was showing the pirate ship as it swung under Victory. Light cannons opened up on the battleship and it slowed. A blast from the big gun of Victory shot out across space towards the dreadnought.
Resolute Victory (The War for Terra) Page 22