“Why’s it so special? We only got one of them.” She looked the gun over.
“It works with a sort of tracer round. Every third bullet is ten times as powerful as the second shot.”
“You couldn’t just make better bullets?”
“It’s not the bullets. It’s what the gun does to them. Part of the firing mechanism.”
“Well, it’s useless right now.”
“Relax, Private. There’s plenty of time between here and Mars. Focus and listen. I can talk you through it.”
* * *
Hours went by as each crew member passed the time in their own way. Some of them ran over the battle they might have been heading towards, wondering if the whole endeavor was a lost cause or an easy victory. The numbers were certainly stacked against them. Some did anything to keep their minds off battle. It wasn’t like the first war where they were part of Earth Fleet standing against the fleet of the Ka’traxis Brood. This time it was just them and a little Wartech ship. If they could save the rest of the fleet that was taken, their force would grow but no one knew just how many Catter ships were waiting on Jupiter or how many more could wormhole in from the Catter homeworld.
Irons crouched down and peered through the glass case his turtle called home. The red snapper broke off a piece of lettuce and munched away without a care in the world. The Captain reached his hand in and stroked the turtle’s shell.
“She’s a tough old girl. She can take the hits,” he said as the turtle pulled its head into its shell.
Irons lightly tapped the shell, taking note of how hard it was. The little reptile’s only real defense was to retreat into its shell. It reminded Irons of the hull of the Lucky Liberty. Like the turtle shell, the hull was their only real defense once the guns ran dry. Offensively, the ship could handle just about anything, especially when its turrets were set for auto targeting. That would leave the crew with more time to focus on evasion tactics should they have to face an armada. It was a small comfort, and with time running so short, small comforts were immensely welcome.
“Captain,” Hannah said over the intercom. “We’re approaching the last Hypergate before Mars.”
“I’m on my way. All crew report to the bridge.”
* * *
Irons put his hand on the ship’s wheel as everyone took their places.
“Stevens, you there?”
“I am, Captain.”
“I guess this is where we part ways.”
“I’d wish you luck but I don’t think the Iron Albatross needs any.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence. I just wanted to say thanks for the assists.”
Syracuse smiled, knowing how hard it must have been to have a company CEO help through so much. Assists from other soldiers were welcome but from a stuffy suit-wearing citizen? Fortunately Irons knew what was at stake.
“Are you kidding me?” Stevens said. “I got to be a part of Captain James Irons’s crew. You have no idea what kind of an honor that was— Is.”
The rest of the crew turned around and smiled at their Captain. It had been a while since any of them had felt that way about the war hero. It reminded them of what they were really doing. They were always an effective military unit before but it had become old hat. It was just the way things were and no longer thought about. But hearing Benjamin Stevens’s excitement hit home for all of them. Even Private Durham, who would have preferred to be anywhere else.
“Thirty seconds to Hypergate five,” Hannah said.
“We’ll radio again when we come back.” Irons stared dead ahead at the display screen.
“I look forward to hearing the stories, your success and seeing all of you again,” Benjamin said. “I’ll have the good stuff on ice for your return.”
“I look forward to that,” Durham told him.
“This is Benjamin Stevens signing off, Captain Irons. Over and out.”
“Alright, kiddos,” Irons said. “Halfway to go.”
Hannah counted down. “Entering Hypergate in three…Two…One.”
The same buckle created by the other gates rocked the ship as it passed through.
Hannah’s eyes widened as a massive object appeared in their path. “Catter fortress! Starboard bow!”
Twenty
Bad Timing
Even in the zero gravity of space, maneuvering at the speed the Lucky Liberty was going was jarring to those inside. Irons spun the wheel left. Port side thrusters near the stern of the ship flared to life and swung the back side of the giant cruiser around while the main thrusters continued to push her forward, narrowly avoiding a collision with the fortress. The sudden turn at that speed gave them plenty of distance between the ship and the fortress but it also made them drop out of the Hypergate’s path, instantly slowing the Lucky Liberty to normal Slipstream Regulator velocity which was still incredibly fast.
Irons dropped the throttle and the rear flame sputtered out. He switched to the bow thrusters and activated five, two second bursts, slowing the ship even more before swinging it around to face the Catter fortress.
Durham leaned forward, his hands on his console. “What happened to turning anything we hit into dust?” He looked like he was going to throw up.
“What happened to the way is clear?” Syracuse asked.
“It probably wormholed in,” Hannah said.
“Meteors are one thing,” Irons said. “We don’t know the density of those fortresses. Otherwise I’da smashed us right through it.”
“What’s that thing doing here?” Syracuse asked.
“How far out from Mars are we?”
Hannah rushed to pull up the information.“Twenty-seven thousand miles, Captain.”
“Get them on comms.”
“We just gonna leave that thing?” Syracuse asked.
“At its speed, it’ll take that thing years to reach Earth,” Irons said. “Best to save the ammo. Especially if the gun that fired it is nearby. Hannah, anything from Mars?”
“Not yet, sir. Just static.”
“Ok. Let’s get back to it. Lost too much speed here.” Irons put his hand on the throttle, ready to launch.
“Captain!” Lindsay yelled. “Enemy ships off the fortress!”
“What?” Irons’s eye darted to the display screen.
What started as specks flying off the fortress quickly turned into a swarm of attack ships. Each of them was roughly the same size as the Wartech ships.
“So many…” Syracuse voice trailed off.
“What’s the count?”
“Still scanning, sir.” The fear in Hannah’s voice was palpable.
The Catter tanks were tough opponents but they were far easier than a swarm of Catter LAVs. Smaller and vastly more maneuverable, the LAVs were going to give the new armaments a challenge.
“Get those auto turrets online!” Irons ordered.
“Brooks, all weapons systems are linked to your console,” Hannah told her.
Lindsay dropped the visor over her eyes. “Do I have a HUD to the other guns?”
“You should see it now.”
“There!” Lindsay said.
Another screen popped up in her visor. The Heads Up Display showed enemy movements as small red squares. They swarmed toward the Lucky Liberty. She could see many of them already passing by the main cannon.
“Activating auto turrets.” Lindsay slammed her fist down on what looked like an additional attachment to her console. She watched as streams of laser blast fired out over the bow before disappearing into the void.
One of the lasers hit a passing Catter ship, exploding it into fragments.
Lindsay had to close her eyes from the brightness of the fireball, quickly extinguished in the vacuum of space.
* * *
Outside of the ship, Catter LAVs swarmed around, darting up and down and zipping by at speed. The flying was erratic and without formation, as though there were no central commander, just a blanket order to take down the Lucky Liberty. The LAVs dive bombed
the top of the cruiser, firing at it. Most of the bullets ricocheted off and in some instances hit other LAVs. With any luck, the Catters might take themselves out.
The turrets spun and fired rapid bursts. There were almost as many misses as there were hits. The Wartech additions did a superb job of keeping locked onto their targets, but some of the Catter pilots were superb at evading the targeting system.
Explosions erupted in lines through space as chains of LAVs were hit by the turret blasts. Rapid gun fire from the main cannon did its fair share of destruction as Lindsay fired on anything that passed in front of it.
* * *
“We’re gonna run out of ammo before this is over.” Durham grabbed his control console.
Everyone on the ship was rocked as the Lucky Liberty took a direct hit to her port side from a hail of Catter ship fire.
“We can’t just sit here,” Syracuse said.
“Ready evasive maneuvers!” Irons ordered. “Brooks, keep your finger on that trigger!”
“Mowing the lawn, Captain.”
Irons throttled the engine up and blasted toward the fortress.
* * *
A smaller swarm of enemy fighters followed the Lucky Liberty as it raced toward the fortress.
The massive cruiser, dwarfed by the enormous fortress, dove below and flew under the larger vessel, towing along the the pursuing LAVs.
As it neared the other side of the fortress, the Lucky Liberty pulled up around the curvature of the Catter vessel before starboard side thrusters fired, spinning the ship to reface its pursuers.
The main cannon fired a steady stream of bullets during the spin, shredding the LAVs that were too close. The LAVs at the back of the swarm broke the loose formation and dove downward as the Lucky Liberty shot back under the fortress. The Bull Head rammed into two of them, crushing their front ends before batting them away to float adrift in space.
* * *
“Good to know she’s still got it.” Syracuse tightened his grip on the armrests of his chair to keep from being jerked around too much.
“She never lost it.” Irons spun the wheel of the ship, putting in another daredevil turn that jerked the crew in the opposite direction.
“Captain, turret one just ran out of bullets!” Lindsay yelled.
“I thought those things were lasers,” Durham said.
“Two out of eight are lasers,” Hannah informed him. “The others are solid ballistics.”
“We gotta replace that gun.” Syracuse watched the LAVs flying around on the display.
“Activate Wartech’s ship. Get that copy to assist as soon as it’s out of the bay.” Irons spun the wheel.
Syracuse whipped around to the Captain. “We’re gonna drop the gangplank while fighting?”
“What’s wrong, XO? You afraid of a little turbulence?” Irons smiled half heartedly. Even he knew it was a bad idea.
* * *
Four more Catter LAVs exploded from the Lucky Liberty’s gunfire as the larger battle cruiser flew by another swarm, heading for its starboard side. Gunfire from turret four suddenly stopped, leaving them with six guns. This was not a good place to be. Any ammunition left needed to be used for the Jupiter assault. At this rate they were going to be down to nothing more than the Bull Head, and there was no way they could ram their way to victory.
The gangplank door lowered and everything not strapped down was sucked out of the doorway. The Wartech ship’s landing skids screeched across the steel floor of the loading bay as it, too was sucked out.
* * *
“That thing activated?” Irons asked
“Aye, sir!” Hannah yelled.
* * *
The lights of the Wartech ship came to life as it oriented itself and quickly checked its systems. A burst of light shot out from the hard light projector, creating the mirror copy of the ship, and its engines fired up, sending it hurtling toward the LAVs, guns blazing.
The hardwired tracking system of the Wartech ship was better than the Lucky Liberty’s modified version of the same. Very few shots from its guns missed as the ship and its light copy took out LAV after LAV. Either way, it was an effective ally. Three against a swarm. Better odds than they started with.
* * *
“How many more of those things are still fighting?” Irons asked.
“Anywhere between a hundred and too many,” Durham wiped the sweat from his brow.
“You seeing any tactical advantages?”
Durham shook his head. “Boss, these things have no flight pattern. They’re like bees. And the hive keeps spitting them out.”
“What do you mean ‘keeps spitting them out’?”
“I mean we shoot one down, two more pop up.”
Irons and Syracuse exchanged glanses.
“That thing’s an aircraft carrier. Can you imagine if this swarm happened on Earth?” Syracuse said.
“J’s been playing games with us from the start.” Irons gritted his teeth and pulled the ship up. “You see where they’re coming from?”
“Top of the fortress,” Durham pointed at the screen.
“That’s what I figured. Give Brooks a target. Brooks, hold your fire on the main cannon.”
* * *
The Wartech ship caught up to the Lucky Liberty as it flew above the Catter fortress. The auto turrets on both ships were taking out waves of LAVs while the Lucky Liberty was hit multiple times by enemy fire. One of the lasers exploded as a steady stream of fire hit it. The Wartech ship and its copy returned fire, destroying that LAV.
Well above the fortress and still being pursued, the Lucky Liberty made a wide turn and blasted down toward the top of the huge Catter vessel. Small ships continued to fly out from the fortress to join the rest of the swarm.
* * *
“There it is!” Durham shouted. “Four o’clock!”
“Roger that.” Irons steered the ship toward the the LAVs exit point.
“Target locked!” Lindsay shouted. She pulled the trigger and held it down, firing on the smaller roof on top of the fortress.
* * *
The bullets from the main cannon struck the LAV exit point. The last laser turret spun for the same target and unleashed its own barrage. Both guns ripped into the roof, shredding it into nothing until all they could see was the hatch underneath.
The elevator was already carrying up another LAV but the Lucky Liberty’s gunfire destroyed it then continued blasting the elevator platform. Several explosions erupted from the hatch before the Lucky Liberty changed course and flew right above the top of the fortress. The Bull Head struck a communications tower, ripping it from its holding and sending it hurtling into an oncoming LAV.
The radio tower knocked the enemy ship off course, making it crash down into the fortress.
* * *
“That takes care of their re-enforcements,” Syracuse said.
“Negative, sir,” Durham responded. “That thing’s got more bogies. Coming out at nine o’ clock!”
“We can’t fight something that’s got unlimited numbers. Not when we’ve got limited bullets.”
“Then we get rid of the factory,” Irons pushed the wheel forward.
* * *
The ship rocketed downward into on-coming enemy fire. The main cannon fired shots at the approaching LAVs while the Wartech ship took out attackers of its own.
Suddenly the Lucky Liberty fired off thrusters from different sides, making the center of the ship a sort of axis that it spun around on before the whole ship came to a stop with the fortress dead ahead.
The auto turrets fired continuously until two more of them ran empty.
Then the main thrusters blasted off, launching the ship toward the fortress. As it flew toward its goal, it swatted away the LAVs in its path. Some tried to stand their ground and shoot at the cruiser but their bullets bounced harmlessly off of the Bull Head.
The stream of the thrusters suddenly shut off and the Lucky Liberty, under sheer inertia, raced toward the fortress
while the strange ripple of the Repulser moved over the ship.
There was no metal on metal connection. The repelling magnet sent the fortress away from the Lucky Liberty without the two space vessels ever touching.
* * *
“Two more of those ought do it,” Irons said.
“Sir.” Lindsay released the trigger. “Main cannon is empty. We’re down to two auto turrets and they’re running low.”
“How’s the load on our assistant?”
“Halfway, sir,” Hannah said.
“That’s a full load then.”
“We’re gonna hit that thing again?” Durham asked.
“Keep your seat-belts tight.” Irons throttled the engines back up and watched the display as they got closer to the fortress.
He made a wide turn and put a different side of the fortress in front of them. The screen filled with only a partial image of the enormous Catter vessel. Irons shut down the engine. The same ripple coursed though the ship before the whole crew was rocked forward from the impact.
“Get that visor off, Brooks. I need all eyes on screen,” Irons ordered. “You see anything funny, call it out.”
Lindsay Brooks did as she was told and raised the AR visor to focus on the main screen.
The auto turrets blasted away at three LAVs that dared to get in front of the Lucky Liberty. It took few shots to turn them into scrap.
Syracuse noticed the fortress moving just to the other side of the Hypergate. “What’s the plan here, Albatross?”
“Just testing Wartech Industries products.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea, Boss,” Durham said.
“We’ve been doing it since this whole thing started. Might as well see what kind of strain they can take.”
IRON SPEAR Page 10