Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1)

by Richard Fairbairn

  “Armstrong is four minutes from Joan Gallsin. Enrilean warship Devastation will intercept them in two minutes ten seconds,” Vorderman was saying, “They’re… not going to make it.”

  The sky bike Jackie had saved up so hard to buy. The silver, Yamaha 250S sky bike. It had killed him. Or he had killed himself. Or the SS Cassiopeia had killed him when he’d collided with it in the upper ionosphere. Or all of those things at once. Or none of them. It didn’t matter. He was dead. He was gone. A light that had shone so brightly in Connah’s life, extinguished just like his mother’s. But he had held his mother’s hand and sobbed tears with her as her life had faded out. As Jackie had squeezed his shoulders. And now, aged eleven, his big brother was gone forever. One moment here and the next gone forever. Because of the sky bike. Because of fate or luck, or for no reason at all.

  “I believe you are right, Lieutenant.”

  “We have to help, Marcus.”

  “I really don’t know what we can do, Lieutenant.”

  “We need to do something.”

  Below them, the massive continent of Arramla was In total darkness. There were a few pinpricks of lights. Dots of life in the vastness of oblivion below. The Predator streaked by, above even the highest defence satellites. Out of range of the ones that still worked and moving too quickly for the ageing missiles to catch even if the launch mechanisms could have worked.

  “There isn't anything we can do. We have three functioning missiles remaining, lieutenant, and I'm not certain that they will even fire when the time comes. But all of this is entirely academic. Were we to engage the Enrilean warship it is highly unlikely that we would get within a half a million miles before they obliterated us. I fail to see what assistance this would give the Neil Armstrong.”

  “So when they're getting pulverised by the Devastation, we're just going to sneak around them and through the wormhole.”

  “Considering the size of our ship and the potential effectiveness of any attack we would make, it would be just as foolhardy an exercise.”

  The city beneath them was called Kamma Opian. It was another dying city. The steelworks which had once employed five thousand Relathons lay dark and decaying below. For thirty years the life had slowly drained away after the war had ended most of the Relathon heavy industry. Some lights still burned below. Ancillary plants located around the old Kamma Opian steelworks that continued to churn out metal hull panels and components for the Enrilean space fleet. The city passed by in the wink of an eye. Neither Connah or Vorderman even knew it was there. A handful of observers dotted across the twenty square mile industrial complex happened to glance at the sky as the Predator sped by, its blue trail glowing faintly behind it.

  “The chances are we won't make it to the wormhole anyway,” Vorderman said.

  “Yes,” Connah replied matter of factly. He detected but chose to ignore the subtle request for optimism within Vorderman's quavering voice.

  TWENTY FOUR

  2195AD - SS Glasgow.

  The SRV901 specialised rescue vessel had a colourful pedigree. The sixty foot long vessel's basic design pre-dated the USS Neil Armstrong by a good fifty years. Designed as a high powered, heavy duty general purpose vehicle. Its oversized fusion reactor supplied enormous amounts of energy to four powerful Altered Momentum engines. Even the original reactor and engine combination supplied much more power than anything remotely near to the same size and mass as the SRV variants. But three reactor upgrades and five AM technology advancements had boosted the Rocket Rescue's might even more so. The spacecraft's hull was extraordinarily well protected. A throwback to a time when the original AM engines could not fully compete with the gravitational pull of the Earth. The Rocket Rescue's hull was lined with a vastly improved lightweight thermal protection system similar to the one used on the Space Shuttles of the late twentieth century. The Altered Momentum engine advancements had removed the need for protection against the incredible heating caused by unretarded aerodynamic re-entry. The SRV901's hull blanketing included an advanced top layer of reactive armour system along with a different kind of thermal shielding intended to shield against the sudden, intense heat generated by the types of energy weapons that might have been fired at the Rocket Rescue.

  The SRV901 Advanced Composite Hull Shielding System was superior, even, to the protection used around the most vulnerable parts of the USS Neil Armstrong. In tests, the ACHSS system could dissipate the energy generated by a twelve mega-joule plasma cannon at a range of under fifteen miles. The top, reactive layer – the really, really smart part of the shielding, could generate a powerful and localised electromagnetic field so intense that it could vaporise high speed railgun sabots. The shield took enormous amounts of energy to be effective, but it could cope with several hits of the kind fired by the Predators and perhaps even the Dart fighters. But it couldn't hope to cope with the heavy, warship pulverising armour piercing darts of heavy metal carried by the Enrilean warship Devastation. Three of these massive, deadly projectiles streaked through space towards Val Stamford's Rocket Rescue as the SS Glasgow limped away from its would be guardian.

  “Holy shit,” Brooks said, “They've got problems, guys. Maybe we do too. Brace your...”

  Frank's voice had started to race, but he still didn't get a chance to finish speaking. The three ton, twenty foot long sabots fired by the Devastation's forward railgun system whizzed between the SRV901 and the damaged, struggling, Alcatraz transport ship. The SRV901's defence system detected the pulverising spearheads of silver with three tenths of a second of time to do something about it. The hull shielding would not have withstood even a glancing blow from the massive sabots, but the SRV901's computer system didn't care about that. It energised two thirds of the shield layering, preparing for the impact before calculating the massive force that it would have inevitably failed to protect Stamford, Gumm and Woods. But none of the sabots hit either ship. They disappeared into the vast infinity of space as the Devastation prepared to fire again.

  “What's happening?” Apple felt strange g forces pulling at him, wrenching him away from the console, “What is this?”

  “Inertial stabiliser is having problems,” Brooks replied, “That ordnance that just whizzed on past us might have been charged with some kind of em energy field or something. Its shook up the inertial compensator some.”

  Apple had trouble staying on his feet. Vazquez had already strapped herself into the harness in her regular, worn out seat next to Brooks. Barrett was sliding across the floor on his back, right through the massive blood stain left by Jackson’s body. The inertial forces generated by the ship’s movements were not being suppressed anymore. Apple was having trouble speaking. He wanted to tell Brooks not to give the drive any more power. Without the inertial compensation system everything inside the Glasgow would be smashed to pieces. He caught the pilot’s steely blue-eyed gaze. Brooks was holding onto the console for dear life, but Apple knew that he understood.

  “Shit,” Vazquez grunted, “My… head’s going to… come off…”

  Apple was being pulled away from the seat back. He wasn’t strong enough anymore to hold on. He could barely speak. The inertial compensator was shutting down. The Am engine was

  “Sh…Shelly…”

  2195AD - USS Neil Armstrong.

  “Stamford reports that they have detached from the Glasgow,” Cutter licked his lips, “Devastation fired long range railgun projectiles, but looks like they missed. Looks like they can’t reload them all that fast either.”

  “Luckily for us,” O’Rourke nodded smartly, “How soon until we are within weapons range.”

  “Forty seconds, Sir,” Strange replied.

  “First thing we gotta do is disable those heavy cannons,” O’Rourke grunted.

  “Agreed, sir,” Strange nodded coolly

  “We’re hoping to take them out first, Captain. Difficult to be sure at this range, but science is pretty sure the guns are positioned close together like the configuration on the J
ustice Six.”

  “I don’t care if they’re positioned up their own damned arseholes. Just get them before they get us.”

  The Enrilean warship’s railguns were, indeed, positioned closely together. They were side by side, which allowed a single warehouse sized facility to reload the three cannons. As Devastation literally blasted through space towards Armstrong, massive electromagnetic cranes deep in the heart of the village sized spacecraft moved the huge, deadly spears into each gun’s red hot loading breech. Fifty tonnes of hardened, penetrating Armstrong’s sensors had locked onto the railguns and the ship’s plasma cannons prepared to fire. But it was too late. The Enrilean railguns fired again in unison, lancing through the rapidly decreasing void between the two ships in seconds. Armstrong’s point defence system blazed spectacularly, but the sabots were just too massive. The Omni ray did little more than heat the surface of one sabot before they smashed into the Armstrong.

  Death was practically instantaneous for the crew unfortunate enough to be in the ship’s maintenance section. The reactive armour served only to shatter the first railgun sabot, forming ten thousand fragments of fast moving and white hot razor sharp metal. The carnage continued through the maintenance section and into the Armstrong’s own railgun ammunition reserves, disabling Armstrong’s most powerful weapon. The smaller railgun projectiles carried by Armstrong absorbed a great deal of the force. But not before the onslaught had killed more than two thirds of the ship’s engineers and technicians.

  “Massive damage to engineering,” Cutter reported, “Casualties, sir.”

  In the command centre, four hundred metres forward of the devastated middle of the ship, the attack had registered as a dull thud followed by a series of warning lights appearing in front of Cutter, Harris and Strange. Lieutenant Harris’ console died completely and she leapt from her chair to reach the secondary controls in the far corner of the bridge near the now sealed exit. Strange registered, with some dismay, that the flight control centre appeared to have been knocked out also. At least twenty percent of the ship seemed to now be sealed off – the occupants dead or dying.

  “How far are we from Joan Gallsin?” O’Rourke barked, “Can we make it?”

  “One minute ten seconds,” Cutter’s tone was solemn, worried, “I don’t think so, Captain.”

  The junior navigator twisted in her seat, the harness painfully tugging her blonde ponytail. She searched for Cutter in the noisy chaos of the bridge.

  “Engines losing power,” Her smoker’s throat rasped, almost squeaking with its dryness, “Main propulsion is not responding to my controls.”

  “Options!” O’Rourke shouted.

  “We have to fight,” Strange said, “We have to fight them.”

  The Armstrong’s main fusion engine was shutting down. The starboard fusion reactor was damaged. Or the cooling system. Without a link to the engineers it was impossible to tell. The ship’s Altered Momentum engines – all twelve of them – were still fully operational. Lieutenant Sarah Connor pushed them all to maximum forward momentum. But the Armstrong was already travelling much faster than the AM engines could muster. Even at maximum output, the AM propulsion system couldn’t match the powerful fusion drive. Without both reactors, the Am drives would soon run out of power.

  “Energy readings from the Devastation,” Sensor Operations officer John Deepblue yelled, “They’re going to hit us again.”

  “All engines, starboard evasive!” O’Rourke’s voice was shrill.

  Connor’s bony fingers had been already poised over the controls. The now defunct fusion engine had given Armstrong considerable forward momentum, but the AM drives were able to push the ship to the right and upwards away from the streaking railgun missiles. They missed the Armstrong by fifty clear metres.

  “They missed!” Cutter jubilated.

  “Confirmed,” Deepblue gave a rare smile, “Sabots flew right under us. Enrilean warship now coming into our weapons range.”

  “Let them have it, Chris. Fuck them up, won't you?”

  “Aye, sir!” Strange's cold expression barely concealed his lust to fight back, “Locking onto railguns and – firing.”

  The Armstrong's forward energy cannons fired, sending out enough energy to blast a hole right through two feet of armour plating. The plasma splashed against the underbelly of the massive Devastation, scorching the surface of the armoured railgun enclosure.

  “Direct hit,” Deepblue reported, “I don't think that did them any harm.”

  “Firing torpedoes,” Strange spat.

  Only twelve of the sixteen medium range torpedo tubes were still operational. The torpedoes fired out of the launchers and rocketed towards the Devastation. Strange continued to exhaust the plasma cannon, dancing bolts of energy along the entire length of the Enrilean warship's long railgun tubes. The Armstrong's most powerful weapon failed to damage the railguns at all. Then the Devastation fired its railguns a third time. The first of the torpedoes reached the Devastation. They exploded brightly, hundreds of metres from the target. The computer controlled close range missile defence system designed by Jann Linn had destroyed every one of them before they could get close enough to cause any damage.

  “Torpedoes were destroyed by some kind of missile defence system. Liam, I think we're really screwed.”

  Strange's words were lost in the mind numbing sound of the Armstrong's hull being torn open by the heavy, hull bursting sabots. The lights in the control room died completely for an eternal two seconds. They only partially returned. Most of the control consoles were showing terminal errors, or trying to reboot.

  “Weapons systems control not responding,” Strange's ashen features were whiter still.

  “Helm controls rebooting,” Harris piped in.

  O’Rourke had lost his footing somehow. The side of his head was bloody. He realised that he'd been thrown against the bulkhead behind the navigator's station. It was still difficult to stay on his feet. The inertial stabilisers were failing, or had failed completely.

  “Partial sensors,” Deepblue droned, “They're getting ready to fire again.”

  “Torpedo control restored,” Harris snapped.

  “My console’s… dead!” Strange looked like a lost child, his face ashen and confused, “I got no control!”

  Harris had an idea. As Connor twisted the ship in space, narrowly avoiding another onslaught of the powerful railgun sabots, she targeted the carrier’s nuclear torpedoes.”

  “You’re off target,” Strange was suddenly at her shoulder. He smelled faintly of garlic and imperial Leather soap, “You’re gonna miss em!”

  “Sir, I know what I’m doing,” Harris said.

  She wondered if she was right.

  “They're slowing down. We're going to catch up with them. And then what do we do?”

  “What is the status of our weapons?” Connah said.

  “The PG4 is still fully operational, but it won't do much good unless we're practically sitting on top of them.”

  “Devastation's armour will likely to be far too strong for the plasma Gatling cannon even at point blank range,” Marcus Connah frowned invisibly in front of Vorderman, “Is my display showing the correct missile status?”

  “I'm afraid so, Marcus. Launcher is damaged. We got two missiles left but no way to fire them. They're stuck there, just about as useless as we are.”

  “That’s disappointing,” Connah spoke quietly, his thoughts burning a hole through the partition between Vorderman and himself, “Then we will have to improvise, Lieutenant.”

  The Predator was catching up on the Devastation. The massive Enrilean ship was visible as a dime sized shining dot, easily outshining the distant stars and the slightly larger objects that were two of the Enrilea's smaller moons.

  “I know you want to ram this crate straight into that alien ship,” Vorderman’s voice was soft, deliberate, “But we both now it’s not going to do all that good. Have you seen the size of that thing?”

  “I understa
nd the risks, Lieutenant.”

  Her laughter stopped him in his tracks. It was a strange sound not unlike a small dog choking on an oversized bone. The small coin that was the Enrilean warship had become a small golf ball glowing a cool, cobalt blue.

  “The risks?” she laughed harder, the tone lowering to a deep and masculine sound, “I think we’re beyond that. You know, I wasn’t expecting to survive this.”

  “I do not expect that we will. I am referring to the risk of our imminent annihilation providing little or no assistance to the USS Neil Armstrong. No matter how I examine your sensor data I cannot see a place on that ship where our impact would provide little more than a minor inconvenience to them.”

  Her laughter died away. There was silence for a few seconds. The Devastation was slowing down and becoming larger. As big as a tennis ball now. Still glowing blue, but not so brightly. Vorderman could make out the three football field sized pusher plates at the rear of the Devastation. These dense, scorched metal constructs prevented the explosions from the nuclear propulsion engine from damaging the Devastation’s armour. The bulky space vessel could turn 180 degrees to put the huge blast scorched shields between the ship and a powerful enemy. This would form an impenetrable shield Devastation could fire behind. The main weapons of the ship could also turn all the way around, allowing Devastation to bring its wrath upon the attacker. In its fifty eight years of service, Devastation had never needed to attempt the manoeuvre.

  “It’s a big ship, I’ll give you that,” Vorderman smiled again, “We’re not going to make much of an impression, I’m afraid. But I know you’re not thinking about giving up without a fight.”

  “The word fight may not be an appropriate…”

  “I get it, Marcus. They’re going to blast us before we get near enough to do them any harm.”