Into the Battle

by Rosone, James

  The next ten minutes went by in a blur. The Rook entered the planet’s orbit as they maneuvered to get in position between the two other ships. Even wounded, the Rook still had more armor and weapons than the other ships in the fleet.

  Once they had settled in orbit, the two working forward turrets fired their thirty-six-inch shells down into the formation of the enemy fighters.

  “Firing main weapons now,” called out Lieutenant LaFine.

  The ship shuddered a bit as the large magrails started firing through their magazines.

  “Missiles are firing now,” LaFine announced.

  Captain Hunt heard a low rumble as the first stage of the Havoc missiles ignited and were ejected out of their launch tubes. The missiles streaked out through space, accelerating as they headed toward their targets. The empty missile tubes were reloaded and made ready for another orbital strike should they need to fire another round.

  Hunt and the rest of the crew watched and waited as the slugs traveled toward the swarms of enemy aircraft. At first, the enemy fighters didn’t seem to detect them—they didn’t respond as if something dangerous were headed their way. Then the first couple of five-thousand-pound high explosives detonated, throwing shrapnel in every direction. Nearly forty of the enemy aircraft blew up instantly. The remaining Zodark fighters immediately kicked their thrusters into overdrive to escape the exploding projectiles.

  Captain Hunt and the rest of the bridge crew watched as the missiles streaked toward their intended targets. They had fired twelve missiles at each of the four known pulse batteries in hopes that a few might get through and do some damage.

  Hunt counted. One, two, three, four… Several of the missiles winked out of existence as the Zodarks engaged them. The captain’s heart pounded and he gripped the armrests of his chair, nervously hoping. Seconds later, the weapons officer announced that two of the missiles had gotten through to one of the laser cannons and burst into balls of flame. The site was obliterated.

  “Sir, we’ve got several more explosions,” Lieutenant LaFine continued. “We’ve successfully taken out a layer of their planetary defenses.”

  “Good job, Lieutenant,” said Hunt joyfully. “Fire another wave of missiles at the remaining defenses. Engage our magrails to join the fray now that we’ve dispersed those fighters. We need to take those pulse beams out before we can land the ground pounders.”

  “Brace for impact!” called out Commander McKee as she white-knuckled her chair.

  Moments later, the Rook shook violently. Just as Hunt thought the jarring was over, the ship shook a second and third time from two more pulse beam hits.

  “Making evasive maneuvers, sir!” called out the helmsman.

  The defensive system continued to fire out countermeasures seeking to change their position and throw the targeting systems of the enemy weapons off. The slightest change in a direction across thousands of kilometers would cause the next shots to miss while the tracking laser worked to reacquire them.

  “Commander Robinson! Where the hell is my jamming?” shouted Hunt angrily as he turned to his electronic warfare officer or EWO.

  “I’m working on it!” Robinson growled. His fingers tapped away feverishly on the screen before him.

  “Captain, we’ve got a hull breach on deck one,” declared Commander McKee. She immediately turned to relay a new order to the damage control parties. Deck one, the troop deck, had a lot more open areas—it was the least compartmentalized section of the ship, and fortunately, at the moment it was completely empty of their normal troop complement.

  “Damn it! Where’s my jamming? We can’t take another hit like that,” barked Hunt at Robinson again.

  “Enemy lasers have lost lock; they’re down for the moment,” announced Robinson, clearly relieved that he had gotten the enemy fire off them.

  “Those fighters are heading toward us,” Lieutenant LaFine said urgently. “They’ll be in the range of our point defense systems in ten minutes.”

  “LaFine, now that those pulse batteries are jammed, start laying some magrail slugs into them,” Hunt ordered. “I want those guns offline before they’re able to burn through our jamming again.”

  He turned to his XO. “Commander McKee, see if the Xi and the Voyager can set their magrails to use proximity fuses and start shooting at those incoming fighters. If I had to guess, they’ll be packing more of those nasty plasma torpedoes.”

  McKee grimaced at the thought of more of those little bastards hitting them—those weapons had nearly destroyed them last time. “On it, Captain.”

  Suddenly the ship shuddered hard as the thud of an explosion rippled throughout the ship.

  Commander Lyons from Engineering called through to Hunt’s communicator. “Captain, I need you to bring the ship into a higher orbit so we can get the breach on deck one sealed up. We’re just on the edge of the atmosphere right now. We’re getting thin layers of air rushing in, and it’s fueling the fires. The Synths can’t get the flames under control as long as they have a fuel source.” It sounded like utter chaos in the background behind Commander Lyons.

  Captain Hunt tapped the sensor on his communicator. “Copy that, Jake. What the hell was that last explosion?” Hunt asked, hoping it wasn’t anything too serious. They were already in trouble, and those inbound fighters were still getting closer.

  More shouting could be heard as Commander Lyons replied, “Some of the ordnance for the ground pounders cooked off. It blew out a couple of areas we had just sealed up. We’ve now got another breach on deck five because of it. My people are on it, and we’ll get it taken care of, sir.”

  Hunt nodded in satisfaction, more to himself than to his friend, who couldn’t see him. “That’s a good copy, Jake. Just so you’re aware, we have more fighters inbound. I imagine we’ll be dodging plasma torpedoes in a few minutes.”

  “Captain, we can’t take any more plasma torpedo hits, sir,” Lyons asserted. “We still have multiple hull breaches that are being sealed up with duct tape and superglue right now. I can’t guarantee we’ll hold together if we take a couple hard hits like that again.”

  Crap, that’s not what I wanted to hear, Hunt thought nervously. He watched a swarm of fighters closing in on them. “Gotta go, Jake. Just get your people ready for some more action.”

  A couple of minutes went by, and then the ship’s point defense weapons opened fire. The roar from the dozens of 20mm Phalanx CIWS guns could be heard even on the bridge. The point defense weapons used regular good old-fashioned propellent: no magnetic railguns, just liquid propellant. The cyclic rate of the older-style guns was nearly triple that of a magrail system. It made more sense to use the older technology for last-minute defensive actions like this.

  The CIWS spewed out a wall of lead in the direction of the enemy fighters. Several groups of fighters broke out of their formations. The Zodarks were trying to separate and give each other the best possible chance of getting in range to launch their plasma torpedoes before they cut and run.

  Hunt was transfixed on the screen in front of him, where scores of fighters were getting wiped out by the CIWS as the AI computer coordinated which guns to use on which groups of fighters and then shifted the guns around when a single fighter or group of them was taken out. The AI running on the ship’s quantum computer could calculate how to best fight the ship and what targets to engage far faster and more efficiently than a human operator could. It didn’t mean a human was taken entirely out of the loop, but the AI was usually leveraged more for close-in-defensive actions like this, where milliseconds made the difference between life and death.

  Then Hunt felt his stomach drop. A group of four fighters the CIWS hadn’t been able to take out yet fired off two plasma torpedoes each. From their previous battle, he knew that they only had a few seconds to get the Rook out of the way while the missiles were converting to plasma torpedoes and lost their guidance system.

  “Eight torpedoes inbound,” called out Commander McKee, her voice rising an octave
.

  “Helm, evasive maneuvers now!” Hunt shouted to be heard over the warning alarms blaring on the bridge and the continued roar of the CIWS and other gun systems.

  The ship veered hard to starboard and picked up speed as more power was channeled to their main thrusters.

  Two more sets of plasma torpedoes appeared, but they were heading toward the Xi and the Voyager, not the Rook. All three ships were now making radical maneuvers as they did their best to avoid the incoming torpedoes. Their point defensive systems continued to fire rapidly at the incoming threats. One of the satellites caught an incredible view of the battle—the three starships spewed tens of thousands of red tracers into the darkness of space and the atmosphere below in a wild defensive act.

  “Enemy gun batteries are down! Our last barrage from the main guns took the last of the planetary defensive systems out,” exclaimed Lieutenant LaFine, excited that they had succeeded.

  “They missed! Four of the torpedoes missed!” exclaimed one of the officers on the bridge.

  Now there’s just four, thought Hunt.

  “Oh God! Two of these are going to hit,” said Lieutenant Hightower, his navigations officer, as he desperately turned the ship hard into another radical turn that caused nearly everyone to grab hold of something, anything.

  “Brace for impact!” yelled Commander McKee as she grabbed the sides of her chair, a tight grimace on her face.

  BOOM…BOOM!

  Everyone was rattled hard as the Rook shook violently. Suddenly, the entire bridge blacked out. The computer screens went black, and so did their tactical view of what was happening around them. They couldn’t even hear the roar of the CIWS or any of their other gun systems—the ship’s power had been knocked out.

  Seconds later, the emergency lights flickered on. The computers rebooted as the backup power units came online. While the systems were rebooting, Hunt felt something he wasn’t expecting: a drop in not just their speed but what he perceived was their altitude. He didn’t have any instruments to look at just yet, but he had a sickening feeling that they were starting to fall deeper into the planet’s orbit. If that happened, they could end up literally crashing into New Eden. These ships weren’t made to fly through the atmosphere, and there was nothing aerodynamic about them.

  “Helm, what’s going on? Are we falling into the planet?” demanded Hunt.

  The lieutenant didn’t answer right away. He was clearly doing his best to get his terminal back up and running, as was everyone else on the bridge.

  Tapping the sensor on his communicator, Hunt called down to his engineering department. “Jake, what’s going on? I need the main power back online like yesterday!” Hunt exclaimed.

  A few seconds went by, and nothing. Hunt tried to hail his chief engineer on his communicator a second time. He needed to know what the hell was happening back there.

  “Fran, why can’t we get through to Engineering?” Hunt barked. He immediately realized he probably shouldn’t have yelled at her like he had, but he needed answers.

  She turned to look at him, her face backlit by her computer monitor, which was now online. She hesitated momentarily before she replied, “Sir, it looks like most of the engineering section is gone. Both of those torpedoes hit the rear half of the ship. I think it might have been sliced right off. I’m not getting any response from our damage control parties anywhere in the entire rear half of the ship.”

  “Can you patch us through to the Voyager?” Hunt implored his coms officer. “We need to know what happened before I give the order to abandon ship.”

  Branson nodded as her fingers tapped a couple of keys. A second later, he got an audio connection with their flagship.

  The Voyager confirmed the unthinkable: the plasma torpedoes had sheared off the rear half of his ship. They were now in a downward descent into the gravity of the planet. Hunt only had one decision left—he needed to save as many of his crew as possible before it was too late.

  In that instant, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him. They all realized the ship was doomed, but they waited for him to give the final order.

  Looking up at the people who had fought so valiantly with him, Captain Hunt knew they had done their best. Now it was time to save his crew. He then uttered the words no ship captain ever wants to say, but every leader must be willing to say, “Abandon ship!”

  In the next few minutes, a flurry of activity took place across the ship as everyone headed to the escape pods, some helping to carry the wounded with them. The ship designers had had the forethought to position several very large escape pods near the medical bay, which made evacuating the wounded quickly possible. The designers had realized that in most cases, if you had to abandon a starship, there wasn’t very much time before it was game over.

  The ship started to shake and rattle a lot as it entered the upper atmosphere, the lower portion of the hull superheating as it raced across the sky like a shooting star. Hunt saw from the readout on his tablet that everyone was either in an escape pod or had ejected from the ship in one. It was time for him to join his crew.

  He sprinted over to one of the last pods, stepped inside and powered up the unit. He closed the door and strapped himself in, mentally preparing for what he knew was going to be a bumpy ride. He then hit the eject button, and the little tube he was standing in shot out of the ship like a bullet.

  Through the small window of the escape pod, Hunt saw his ship streaking through the sky below him. The rear half of the Rook was torn apart and missing. Other sections of the ship looked scorched and mauled from the battle. The bow of the ship turned bright red as the hull heated up from the friction of the atmosphere and its uncontrolled descent to the surface below.

  Hunt watched scores of little escape pods descending to the ground all around him. He was sure some of the crew members who had gotten out while the ship was still in orbit would be picked up by the Xi or the Voyager. Many others, like him, had ejected inside the planet’s atmosphere, so they were on a one-way trip to the surface, whether they wanted to be or not.

  As the pod buffeted from the air moving around him, it heated up. Then the little heat shield at the bottom of the escape pod deployed to protect the pod from burning up in the atmosphere and deflect some of the growing heat that would otherwise have cooked him.

  Once the pod descended to fifteen thousand feet, it opened a guidable parachute above. Hunt used a small joystick to guide the pod’s landing. The vessel had a very rudimentary navigation system, which basically consisted of a couple of compressed air canisters to help with maneuvering. The system was, after all, designed for use in space.

  As his escape pod drifted down to the ground, Hunt looked for where best to land it. The whole place seemed so strange and alien to him—he now understood what the Deltas meant about not getting distracted by all the new stuff on the planet’s surface. He was finding it hard not to just look all around, but he knew he needed to stay focused on finding a safe place to land.

  A couple groups of escape pods were clustering together a bit as their occupants angled for what looked like a fairly open field not too far from a more densely forested area. Hunt figured he’d try to steer his chute in their direction.

  A few minutes later, his escape pod thudded on the ground and fell over. Luckily, the pods were balanced in a way that ensured that when they fell over, the door would always face up, so the passengers would be able to get out. The pod dragged a little as the chute was still getting caught by the wind. It pulled Hunt along a few feet before he was able to disconnect the chute and stop the pod from moving.

  Captain Hunt lay in the pod for a moment; he couldn’t see much just yet. However, knowing he needed to get out and start looking for his people, he hit the unlock button on the door to open it. The air inside immediately escaped with a slight hissing sound, replaced with the fresh air of the planet. He took a deep breath in and had to admit, the atmosphere was freeing after being stuck breathing recycled air on a starship
for the last month.

  Chapter Four

  The Zodarks

  Space Command Headquarters

  Earth – Sol

  “Who the hell leaked the video, Admiral?!” President Alice Luca demanded angrily as she stared daggers at him.

  Trying to deflect some of her rage, Admiral Chester Bailey opened his palms as he replied, “It would appear someone within the TPA smuggled a copy of the video off their secured server. It then ended up on a transport to the Gaelic Outpost, where it was uploaded to a server and beamed to Mars, Lunar, and then Earth. It was propagating throughout the public domain faster than we or the TPA could squash it.”

  The President’s face turned a darker shade of red as she did her best to control the rage building up within her.

  “Madam President, if I may,” Bailey offered, “this might actually work to our benefit.”

  Luca tilted her head slightly to one side. “How do you figure, Admiral?” she asked icily. “The entire world is in a frenzy. The TPA is publicly saying we brought this new threat upon the world by deviating from the planned expedition to Alpha Centauri. I wasn’t even president when the decision was made to scrap that mission in place of New Eden.”

  Bailey nodded as he let her vent. Then he took a deep breath. “The video leaking like it did wasn’t right,” he admitted. “But we can use that, Madam President. Fear can be a powerful motivator. Right now, the world is terrified of the Zodarks—let’s use that to our advantage.”

  With her anger starting to subside, the President leaned in. “What do you suggest, Chester?”

  Admiral Chester Bailey turned around in his chair and walked over to the wall.

  President Luca rarely ever uses my first name, he thought. She was obviously really overwhelmed. Then again, who wouldn’t be? She’d hardly been president for a year when the Zodarks were discovered. Now she had to deal with the political and military mess her predecessor had left behind.