Or there was no crew aboard at all. And the whole ship was a trap.
“Rojek!” he yelled. “Throw everything we’ve got at Agamemnon, and have Regulus do the same. We’ve got the bring that ship down, and we’ve got to do it now!”
His friend looked at him, puzzled, but obeyed the order. Curtis focused completely on the ship’s flight path, the ship’s controller now realizing that his secret was out and guiding the ship towards them, heading on a collision course. He looked at Norton, the helmsman shaking her head as she struggled to alter her heading. Avoiding the enemy ship wouldn’t be easy at the best of times, and with the fire increasing as they drew closer to the Commonwealth formation, it would only grow worse.
Then the fighters attacked, swarming in on a carefully chosen vector to do maximum damage to Polaris, concentrating on its maneuvering thrusters. The battle had been choreographed to perfection. Sweat dripped from Rojek’s forehead as he struggled to ward off the attacks, trying to make his defensive systems do additional duty, knowing it was a battle he couldn’t win.
The ship shook as the missiles struck home, working their way to what the computer still believed were lower-priority systems. Her firepower and defenses were still intact, but the tools Norton had to alter the ship’s trajectory had been damaged, and she struggled at her helm, trying desperately to bring Polaris around in a bid to avoid the rapidly approaching Agamemnon.
It was a battle she was going to loose. Collision alarms sounded throughout the ship, and under other circumstances, he’d have summoned the crew to evacuation stations. With the debris field that the destruction of the two ships would create, and the immense mass of firepower raging through space all around them, it would be hopeless, and they all knew it.
All around, every technician worked to gain a little more power, a little more speed, to hasten repairs to the thrusters as rapidly as possible, but they were fighting a battle against time itself, with far too little of it to make any difference. Norton tried one final trick, venting a series of lateral compartments to space, hoping that the kick from expelled atmosphere might save them, but it was hopeless.
Regulus and Polaris had both smashed Agamemnon to pieces, fragments ripped away as the ship buckled under the maximum barrage, but it was useless. With the damage Polaris had sustained, Agamemnon was locked into a suicide run, and there was nothing either ship could do to stop it.
“Thirty seconds to impact,” Norton said with a sigh. “If anyone has any nice last words, now’s the time, I guess.”
“Not yet, Lieutenant,” Hudson said.
“Course change from Regulus, sir,” one of the sensor technicians reported. Her eyes widened, and she added, “What the hell is she doing?”
His sensors had been so tightly focused on the approaching Agamemnon that Curtis had been ignoring Polaris’ sister ship, and his mouth dropped open as he saw the course her commander had committed her to, diving in between the two vessels, hoping that the decreased range would allow her to reduce the mass of Agamemnon to something survivable, employing her mass drivers at maximum firepower. If she could just complete the maneuver, she’d nimbly dance out on the far side, able to strike Hector with full power before withdrawing from firing range.
Chaos reigned on the sensor display as he willed Regulus on, urging her with all he had to move faster, fire her weapons harder, get her attack home. It was working, Agamemnon’s midsection buckling under the increased strain, her superstructure almost in pieces. Then, abruptly, she broke in half, the two pieces now on trajectories that would take them safely away from Polaris.
But not, alas, from Regulus.
Her commander realized the danger her ship was in, burned her engines as hot as she could in a desperate attempt to get away, and for a second, Curtis thought that she’d make it despite everything, would manage to rally sufficient thrust to clear the battlespace. Then the oxygen reservoir on Agamemnon ruptured, tossing it just hard enough to slam it into the rear of Regulus, neatly destroying her aft engines and sending her tumbling through space, her turrets now firing blindly, wildly, as her helmsman struggled against all the odds to regain control.
“Status?” Curtis asked, quietly, as the battle continued to rage almost unheeded.
“Crippled,” Hudson said, shaking her head. “She’s out of the battle. In a safe orbit, though. I doubt they suffered many casualties.” Turning to Curtis, she replied, “They took the hit for us. We should be dead right now.”
“Not many of my nine lives left at this point,” he said with a sigh.
“Clearing the battlespace,” Norton said. “I still have no thruster control, sir, but I’m able to bring us around for a second pass in conjunction with Castro and Liberty, in about eleven minutes from now. They could evade...”
“But why would they?” Curtis replied. “Felix, any idea how much damage we did to the enemy ships?”
“We hurt Hector, sir, but not enough. They’ll be able to take a full role in the battle.” Turning to Curtis, he replied, “We lost two ships to their three, but we couldn’t afford to lose Regulus. I’d say the odds are a little more against us that they were before. They’ll have time to come back into an attack formation worth a damn.” With a faint smile, he added, “Pretty even odds, actually. One Starcruiser and two lighter vessels a side, lining up for an old-fashioned duel.”
“Except we can’t dodge the bullets this time,” Norton said, looking down at her controls. “Best repair estimates give us at least an hour before we get even some of our thrusters back. Those fighters really knew what they were doing.”
“Most of them paid for it, though,” Hudson replied. “We knocked down thirty-one fighters during that engagement. I think we’ll both be going into the next firefight without support.”
Looking around, Curtis said, “I don’t accept even odds, ladies and gentlemen. The fate of the galaxy depends on winning this engagement, and I will not permit random chance to make that decision. We’ve got eleven minutes to find some edge, some weakness that we can exploit, and I expect one of you to uncover it in that time. Get working.”
“Aye, sir,” a resigned Rojek replied, turning back to his station. Curtis looked down at his controls, working the sensor pickups. There had to be an answer, somewhere.
Chapter 24
Kani looked at the wreckage ahead of him, firing his boosters to take him well-clear of the ever expanding debris cloud, a few small fragments still rattling off his hull. All the tricks and plans of both sides had deteriorated into a predictable mess, both sides trying to recover from the damage inflicted in the first desperate pass. Neither had done enough damage to knock the other out, and both still had the teeth to destroy the other.
All around, fighters were scattered through space, vessels of both sides running low on fuel. He tapped through transponder codes, trying to locate familiar faces somewhere, working out who was closest to him. He’d launched too late to take a serious role in the battle, both his missiles still sitting on his wings, ready for a target. The enemy ships were far enough away that he’d never reach them, not before Polaris could, and for a second, he resigned himself to the thought that all he could do was sit back and watch the show. He looked at Titan beneath him, looming large in the screen, and frowned.
There was an answer, a way he could get back into the fight. It’d be a tough maneuver, pushing the limits of what his fighter could do, probably wrecking it forever, but at any cost, he had to throw something into the battle, give Polaris one last chance to win. Finally, he found a familiar transponder, and smiled at the destiny that had brought him to this point.
“Monty, this is Win, do you read?”
“Roger, loud and clear. You missed all the fun!”
“Yeah, well, this party isn’t over yet. How many ships of your squadron are around.”
“Five, and I’m in contact with a few more. There are skirmishes going on everywhere, but we
don’t have any Commonwealth ships around at the moment.”
“Good. Patch me through to anyone you can find.”
“Sure, linking you up now.”
“Everyone, this is Wing Commander Kani. If you’re still ready for action, I’ve got a way for us to get a second firing pass on the enemy ships in four and a half minutes, but you’re going to have to make sure that your structural systems are working properly. We can’t get to them on conventional boost, but if we throw in an atmospheric skip, we should come out with an eleven-second window of attack.”
“This maneuver is going to push the abilities of our ships further than anyone would ever recommend, and I know that some of you have suffered damage. If you don’t think that your fighters can handle the strain, then hold this course, and see if you can get yourself into some of the skirmishes out here. If you want the wildest ride of your life, I’m entering the course change right now, and we’re twenty-two seconds from implementation. Your call.”
“Come on, Win,” Montgomery replied. “Do you really think any of them are going to say no, based on that?”
“Probably not,” he said, a smile on his face, as he entered the final details of the course into the computer, the systems giving reluctant acceptance to the programmed trajectory, conceding that there was at least a marginal chance that he might be able to survive it. All across local orbital space, fighters meshed themselves into his command network, lights flashing on one after another to provide status updates.
“Murdoch,” Kani said, tapping a control, “I’m ordering you to stay back. Your underhull plating is compromised in three places, and if you try and go as deep as we’re going to have to, the only thing you’ll be able to contribute is super-hot plasma.”
“Sir,” the young pilot began.
“That’s an order!” he said. “See if you can round up as many other pilots as you can and put them on a reciprocal trajectory. You might be able to catch any ships that try and go wide. Get moving.”
“Aye, sir,” she reluctantly said, dropping out of the network. None of the other fighters had been damaged to quite such a serious degree as Murdoch’s, but enough of them had been marred by the battle that he hardly expected half of his ships to pull out of the skip maneuver at the other end of the run. He grimaced, looking at the strategic plot again, but there wasn’t any choice. If they lost this battle, they were as good as dead anyway. Better to go down fighting.
His engine roared, hurling him down towards Titan, putting him on the calculated trajectory. All around him, dozens of points brightened, the fighters all around following his course track, joining him for one last strike at the enemy. Even a few of the Commonwealth fighters, defectors from the tyranny of their commanders, had elected to join the battle on their side. Settling his hands on the thruster controls, he threw a switch to kill the alarm system, preemptively silencing the panoply of klaxons that would otherwise shortly sound.
On his heads-up display, the altimeter winked on, lights indicating that he was already skimming into the atmosphere below, soaring at maximum acceleration across the sky. There was no sign that any enemy forces had yet reacted to his move, perhaps assuming that there was no realistic way for them to survive. That they might be right had occurred to him, but he dismissed those thoughts as defeatism.
Left alone, Polaris, Castro and Liberty were going to die. The three ships arrayed against them were all in better condition, had marginally superior armament and defense systems. Space warfare boiled down to statistics. Usually, the more powerful ship won, unless the other side could come up with a way of improving the odds. He aimed to do just that.
Flames briefly licked around his lower hull as he raced through the atmosphere, lining up his course with pinpoint adjustments on his thrusters to fine tune the attack. A pair of lights winked off his squadron status panel, and he sighed. Two of his people had just died, somewhere in the distance, their remains destined to settle across the world they were fighting to save. Somehow fitting. Another flickered out, blinking stubbornly red for a second before switching to a terrible, final, black.
And at that, his people were doing better than he’d feared. Those with battle damage were nursing their fighters through the dive, even at the expense of speed, and his formation was settling into two attack waves. They were beating all the predictions, and he only belatedly understood why. Before, in the Commonwealth, only a handful of fighter pilots had ever seen real combat, and even they’d only experienced the occasional skirmish. For the Federation, the situation was even worse, few squadrons able to report even a single kill.
These pilots were veterans, warriors who had fought in a dozen firefights all over this part of the galaxy, who had faced battle time and again and come through the other end, forged in the crucible of fire. Any one of them was the equal of the crack pilot he had once been. The enemy they were facing had no such experience, no such seasoning, and were suffering for it in battle. Already they had a significant advantage in fighters, if nothing else.
As he pulled out of the dive, three more lights faded from his panel, a report flashing that one of them had attempted the desperation move of bailing out, hoping somehow to live through the last stages of egress with enough velocity for someone to pick them up. Six lost out of twenty-seven. And nineteen missiles between the survivors, ready to punch into the side of the enemy ships.
Finally leaving the atmosphere again, he focused his sensors ahead, and smiled as he saw the trio of enemy ships setting themselves up for an attack run, homing in on their target, the rebel fleet. There were no other fighters in the air, and they had a clean run ahead.
“Kani to all pilots,” he said. “Those without missiles, take the lead and run interference for those who do. Look for weaknesses in their defense systems. You can bet that they’ll throw everything they have at us as soon as we get into range.” Glancing to the side, he said, “Our target today is Perseus. Go for her engines and defensive systems. We don’t have the teeth to destroy her, but if we can get a few well-placed shots into her gut, we might be able to make it easier for our people to wipe her out on the next pass.”
Looking up at his course plot, he added, “We’re going to be on fumes after this attack, so put yourself on the safest vector you can, and with any luck someone will be along to pick you up when the shooting stops. Good luck. Kani out.”
He looked over the blueprints again, stabbing the panel to choose his target, the primary heat exchanger. One good hit would drastically reduce the thrust their engines could manage, perhaps give Polaris the edge it needed to win the battle. Clicking a control, he enabled the launch mechanism, and the targeting computers frantically began to calculate a firing solution, trajectory plots flashing on his heads-up display as his systems determined the best approach to his goal.
It seemed so strange, almost like a simulation, no sign of battle anywhere, just his remaining fighters diving serenely towards the target. The seconds counted down as the ships danced in formation, moving as he had ordered to ensure that those with the missiles had the best chance to deliver their payload, to punch large enough holes through the defensive systems to allow them to reach their target intact.
Lights flashed in the sky as the defensive armament of the three ships engaged, a wall drawn in space beyond which it was death to cross. Launching their missiles without working to mitigate those defenses would be a waste of time, and he stabbed down on his own particle beams, following a pre-selected firing pattern designed to provide just such a gap, while carefully adjusting his course to keep him clear of the enemy.
More lights winked out on his status board, some of his pilots less fortunate than he, but the missiles raced clear, diving towards their target, inside the optimum defense perimeter. Seconds later, a dozen tissues of fire erupted across the ship’s outer hull, and he pulled away from the ship into the safety of empty space with a smile on his face, looking over the
damage reports that streamed in. With the last of his fuel, he kicked himself on a trajectory that would take him roughly in the direction of Enceladus, weeks from now, before looking back at the status board again, with a deep sigh.
He’d taken twenty-seven fighters into the dive. Twenty-one into battle. Four were returning. Montgomery was one, unsurprisingly, the rare combination of skill and luck paying off for the young pilot once more, and one of them another veteran, this time from Canopus, and one of the last-minute Commonwealth defectors.
And yet, his lost pilots had spent their lives well, the enemy ship already falling back in the formation, the other ships forced to concede some of their acceleration to hold by his side, precious seconds granted to Commodore Curtis and his surviving flotilla.
“Curtis to Kani,” a voice said, echoing through his headset.
“Kani here. Go ahead.”
“That was some nice flying, Win,” Curtis replied. “Damned nice flying.”
“Our pleasure, sir. Just make it count.” He paused, then added, “And don’t forget to send someone to come get us when you win.”
“We won’t. Out.”
With one final pulse on his thrusters, he turned his fighter around to face the battle that was to come, setting his sensors to watch the action as it developed. The final fight of the rebellion was about to begin, and he had no intention of missing it. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the familiar vial, and held it up in his hand, watching the particles within dance in the micro-gravity, strangely swirling about while he watched.
“Soon have you home, Gogo. Soon have you home. And with a little luck, I won’t be joining you any time soon.” He placed the vial containing his grandmother’s ashes back in his protected pouch, settled back, and waited for the shooting to begin. If he was calculating his trajectories right, they’d make contact in seven minutes.”
Seven minutes that would decide the course of the next seven generations.
Starcruiser Polaris: He Never Died Page 16