The Battle for the Ringed Planet

by Richard Edmond Johnson

  Even though Torian had been through the process numerous times, in his combat utility suit strapped in the rear seat of the cockpit, it was always fascinating to watch, and after launch, he never got used to the feeling of his stomach jiggling around when they entered weightlessness.

  One battle cruiser acted as the control tower for the assembling flights and squadrons. There were about 24 Starhawks, flights from different squadrons maneuvering in formation to preparing for their assignments. He listened to the orders from the C.S.S. Prometheus coordinating the fighters and Hawkeyes and then glanced back at the Europa to the area along the smooth hull side lined with dots of light from the port holes and wondered which one Siiri was watching from.

  --

  Inside the sick bay, she stood up on her tippy toes and peered out the round thick transteel window and watched the small space vessels forming in angled lines of four, and recognized seven larger Hawkeyes behind in a line. Siiri had followed the three Hawkeyes launching from under the Europa and hoped Torian was in one of them. She missed the young LRRS officer and longed for him to hurry back to see her again.

  The blonde girl had been wroth with the agent for hitting Torian and refused to answer any more of his questions, and he in turn had ignored her request for something to eat or to use the bathroom. Turning back to the porthole, fascinated by the small starships flying off in small formations to their assigned destinations, she noticed three lone scout vessels remaining after the others had left. They seemed to be waiting for the others to clear and one of them began to fly ahead of the other two Hawkeyes. Then it halted firing thrusters to a complete stop, hanging in space for a moment, and then Siiri’s eyes grew wide in wonder as she watched.

  Enveloped in a ring of light flashing in multiple colors, the Hawkeye disappeared. It happened in less than a second.

  “Did you see that!” she exclaimed to Agent Tass.

  “What?”

  “That Hawkeye, it just vanished!”

  “It’s called a wormhole,” sighing, he added, “blondes …”

  --

  Torian spoke on the intercom, “Come on, do a roll.”

  “Why?”

  “Humor me.”

  “The CAG will chew me out.”

  “Live a little … let me do it then, I’m used to getting chewed out.”

  “No, you’re not a pilot.”

  “I’ll give you my silver star.”

  “You can’t do that … how did you earn it anyway?”

  “For kissing a girl and she’s watching, so come on!”

  “What? That must have been some kiss. All right, but you owe me big!”

  --

  The second Hawkeye created a wormhole and disappeared, and Siiri knew she would never get tired of watching the phenomenon. The last one waited for the command from the Prometheus, but before it initiated the wormhole, suddenly it did a roll. Grinning, she knew it was Torian. Then the small vessel disappeared in a ring of light, and she was sad, he would be so far away.

  Turning back to the sterile room, she sighed as her stomach growled and she felt pressure on her bladder, “I’m hungry and I have to pee.”

  “Answer my question first. How did the cyborg blow up the rifle in McCallum’s hands?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Then piss on the floor.”

  “Why are you so cruel?”

  “You get nothing to eat or drink until you answer all my questions.”

  Siiri then climbed up on the gurney, “I’m not saying another word.”

  “We’ll see about that.” from a small white case in his pocket, he pulled out a hypo syringe, “Nurse!” he called.

  --

  Torian always got a thrill coming out from the wormhole, and all the holos and his HUD were running text continuously for a moment before the systems kicked in again. Then there came the noise rush, kind of a delayed reaction, and he shook his head. After a while, you got used to it.

  A moment later the holos started coming back online and in front of his control consul was a beautiful three-dimensional image of a star system with eight colorful gas giants.

  “Wow, out of all the star systems I’ve seen, this one is the prettiest.” Monica exclaimed.

  “Largest is a brown dwarf, and the smallest only two Jupiters in diameter, and a million moons,” he replied.

  “Ok all systems online, testing thrusters.”

  The familiar hum of the ion engines was welcoming to his ears and they maneuvered towards a huge reddish pink ball a few hundred thousand kilometers away.

  “Launch probes,” she ordered.

  “No, not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “We might scare someone off, all we’ll see is a tunnel signature, let’s get in closer first.”

  “That’s not what we learned in class … and what about our own signature anyway?”

  “Depends what they’re doing, but probes will definitely alert them. There is probably nothing here anyway, so if you want to …”

  “No. we’ll do it your way. Any sign of that battle cruiser?”

  “Nothing.”

  --

  The bridge of the C.S.S. Europa, located half way up the reversed triangular super structure, identified by a row of long rectangular windows facing forward, was a busy room full of holos and flat screens tended by technicians and officers. A round table in the middle displayed Selunia and all the other cruisers in their positions. Admiral Martin Bennion, like his father before, was seasoned starship captain who had just won a decisive victory, one of several, glancing over at the wiry bald black officer with a small goatee and hard eyes.

  “You need some sleep, Marty,” the black officer growled with a gruff voice, a veteran with one red eye implant and completely titanium black skull cap without any artificial skin.

  “I can’t sleep while they’re fighting in the streets, Lars,” he scanned the holo of the planet and Kaarina with flashes of explosions and Starhawks dominating the airspace.

  “We’ve got three quarters …”

  “Yes, but we have to take that spaceport, then we can land the Titan,” battle cruisers could land but needed a large area that was strong enough to support their tonnage such as a spaceport. The Titan as so badly damaged it was venting atmosphere and plasma in multiple places.

  Commander Lars Tobias, the Europa’s Executive Officer, sighed when he observed a thick broad shouldered officer stride into the bridge from the heavy rear doors with a grim determined expression on his face, “Here comes trouble.”

  Martin glanced over at Lieutenant-Commander Val Dubois as he marched over to the table and slammed a hypo syringe down on the smooth clear surface, “I don’t use stims to keep me awake, Val.”

  “You don’t want to take that one; it will fry your brain.”

  “What is it?” Lars leaned forward glancing at the small tube.

  “It’s called Vitamin T, illegal and very expensive. Administered above the ear directly where the brain stores memories, it renders the person into a cationic state, making them highly susceptible to questioning, very effective yet with unpredictable and life-threatening side affects, including brain damage. Agent Tass wanted one of my nurses to administer it to the girl Siiri, but she screamed and kicked, and that’s when I came in.”

  The admiral crossed his arms, “I warned him.”

  “I will not allow this kind of treatment in my Sick Bay. He won’t let her eat or even use a bathroom.”

  “He claims she is highly dangerous with unpredictable powers, and has to use that force field or put the ship in danger. This mission to Kaarina was to locate evidence of this sort of thing.”

  “She doesn’t have powers, or if any, they’re benign.”

  Both Martin and Lars raised their eyebrows, “And how do you know this, Val?” the admiral asked.

  “I did a thorough examination, and I studied the logs when she was in the city with that Hawkeye specialist. They encountered numerous dange
rs, were attacked by an Imperium patrol and sentry bots, and in no instance did she use any powers to defend herself or the specialist, with whom she is in love with. Tass says the logs were tampered with and that she’s hiding incidents where she used her powers, but they almost died against the Imperium marines, that would have been the perfect opportunity.”

  “So you think there is no threat?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about the cyborg?” Lars countered.

  “Implants could have easily provided a power source for an energy weapon in a cyborg. The girl has no implants of any kind or energy reserves powerful enough to produce an attack. Except for being an angry young woman, she’s harmless.”

  “I don’t know, Val, my daughters can cause a lot of trouble when they’re upset!” Martin grinned.

  “I’m sure if Tass treated one of your girls like he is doing to her you’d turf him out an airlock.

  “You’re right. I don’t think Tass knows what he’s doing anyway. His team left him behind to prep the lab when they went to the Callisto. It does not sound like they had a lot of confidence in him. So let’s keep her there under observation for now, but have the force field removed, take away the guards. Assign her a female nurse for her needs.”

  “Tass will put up a fuss.”

  The grey haired man shrugged, “Then you have my permission to throw him in the brig, or inject him with that,” he pointed to the hypo-syringe. “I’m sure you’d have no trouble with those big muscles.”

  --

  “Are you seriously watching a hockey game right now?”

  “Shhhh, the Wheat Kings are on a power play!”

  Eight hours after entering the system Hawkeye 221 began orbit around the third moon of the fifth gas giant planet in the Krallas System. The moon was gorgeous, bright blue splashed with a web of yellow green.

  “What if you miss something?”

  “Listen, when you’ve done this as many times as …” then he leaned closer to the smaller holo of the moon and surroundings beside the larger holo of the hockey game, “…hold on.” He flicked the game off.

  “Do you see something? Like an Imperium battle cruiser?” Monica sounded anxious.

  “I doubt it, traces of wormhole activity, poorly masked, towards Krallas 5-4.” Torian was referring to the fifth planet, fourth moon.

  “The bright orange one?”

  “Aye, let me check more readings, but make that heading,” moon was deceiving because the natural satellite was about five times the size of earth orbiting the gas giant. Monica changed course and the sleek cropped delta winged vessel yawed lazily in space dominated by the gigantic deep blue gas planet in the foreground. The moons contrasted with the huge orange, green, and bright purple planet.

  “Sometimes a feel like I’m in some freaky holo animation,” she commented, mostly to herself while the LRRS officer shuffled through floating screens with his fingers.

  “So, you and that blonde survivor from the colony city, huh?”

  “Snooping in my files again?” approaching the orange moon, Monica rolled the Hawkeye and they both glanced up through the transteel cockpit at the swirling cloud motion of the atmosphere.

  “It’s beautiful down there.” she commented in awe.

  “And deadly, mostly nitrogen.”

  “Why is it orange?”

  “Organic skylinins, or something like that …” the sun flashed its rays around the moon making it difficult to see the other side and Torian frowned at the readings, “Wait a minute … something there …”

  “Can’t see a thing … tinting … I see something!” Monica checked her screens.

  Readings were scrolling rapidly on his HUD and floating vertical display as he began to analyze data, then his eyes snapped up.

  She saw them, too, “Battle cruisers! One, two, five … Oh no!”

  “Reading … hold tight, let me get classes and numbers …”

  “McCallum … fighters …”

  “I see them; hold just a little longer …”

  “How many cruisers?”

  “Twenty–five, including one Imperium …”

  Monica swallowed, “All black … the Immortal Fleet … we’re so dead!”

  Upon realization, Torian gripped both sides of his cockpit chair, memories of the last time he was caught in the middle of a fleet of battle cruisers flooded in, “Monica … punch it.”

  A flight of four Solvairs soared towards them followed by another flight not too far behind, “Come on Monica, turns us about …”

  The red haired woman put both hands on the thick control stick but they froze and she glanced up desperately. Her mouth hung open, and she could not move.

  “Monica! Dammit!” Torian shouted, “We have to go!”

  “I … I can’t …”

  “Taking the stick, let go!”

  Staring at the lead fighter only kilometers away she let her hands slip from the control stick and tears began to stream down her cheeks, “We’re going to die!”

  Nobody survived against the Immortal Fleet, but then again it only attacked where victory was assured. They took prisoners long enough to torture them to death, displayed for all to see on holos shown all over the known worlds, and it was worse for women, which understandably made his pilot panicky.

  Instantly Torian kicked in the ion engines to full power, spinning the Hawkeye three hundred and sixty degrees away from the fighters and towards the giant blue planet, “Monica! Guns!” the lead fighter was racing directly on their tail, but Monica did not respond. The Hawkeye edged away from the Solvair, but the long thin fighter still advanced close to weapons range.

  The Hawkeye dived at full throttle on an intercept course with the planet, and only mere kilometers out of range the lead fighter prematurely opened up and plasma bolts registered on his screen. Then Torian pulled a lever and jettisoned their spent external tunnel drive located on the top tail. Remotely, as it flew back towards the fighter, swerving to avoid the tubular object, Torian ignited it and a bright flash dominated the space behind. The inexperienced pilot never saw it coming and his Solvair became a fireball.

  Monica snapped out of it in the brightness of the explosion and cried out, “What did you do?”

  “Guns! Monica! If they’re stupid enough to fall for that they might get right on our tail!”

  “Ok.” her voice was shaky, “I got the gun targeting.” Torian weaved the scout vessel back and forth as the other fighters gained.

  “A couple of things, we have shields and if we drop both our pods we’re faster.”

  “We need to tunnel out …”

  “Can’t do that unless we’re stationary … we need to get distance.”

  The female pilot’s eyes grew wide, “But … we’re heading straight to the planet surface …”

  “Yeah …”

  “If we pull up they will overtake us!”

  “I know …”

  Then there was stunned silence from the pilot as the blue swirling surface loomed, and she swallowed, “We’re going inside …”

  “No atmosphere … brace for impact …”

  “You’re absolutely crazy …”

  “Ain’t she right, Tristan!”

  Perpendicular to the layer of gas the Hawkeye entered nose first and through the transsteel cockpit they both saw only blue with tiny particles bouncing off the surface of the vessel. His daring did not dissuade their foes from following and the three Solvairs entered in hot pursuit. The other flight of enemy fighters turned away and raced across the surface.

  At thousands of kilometers, an hour the Hawkeye was digging deeper and deeper into the planet and Monica’s voice announced with worry, “Pressure building …”

  “I see.”

  “Is it all gas? Isn’t there a core or something?”

  “We’ll hit metallic hydrogen first.”

  “What will that do?”

  “Like hitting a brick wall,” Torian eyed the pressure reading as it sta
rting heading to the red zone.

  “McCallum …”

  “Call me Torian.”

  “Pressure is in the red …”

  Torian clenched his teeth and muttered, “Come on … come on …”

  “Critical …”

  Then behind them there was a muffled explosion, followed by another and Torian pulled the Hawkeye up flying straight horizontal instead of deeper into the planet, “How many was that?” he called forward, knowing the some of the fighters had succumbed to the gravitational pressure and had been crushed. The Hawkeye, larger with a pressurized cockpit, could withstand more than the nimble fighters could.

  “Two, two fighters, one more …”

  “Fire Monica!” the fighter got directly on their tail, but before the Rebel could shoot, the female pilot fired the guns and it blew up with a rush of swirling blue and red gases. Torian turned the vessel upwards aiming out of the gas giant’s surface layers.

  “That was amazing, I would have never thought of that!” she shouted.

  “It ain’t over yet; we have another flight and maybe more to worry about.” Cutting through the colorful gases, he had the advantage over the waiting fighters to veer opposite from their flight path. He watched the four Solvairs reverse when they detected his vector was behind them. Pushing the Hawkeye to full speed despite the drag from the remaining tunnel pod, he shot out of the planet’s interior erupting with blue vapors chasing the similarly colored space vehicle. Snapping a roll, he glided the cylindrical vessel over the horizon of the planet towards the orange moon that hide the Immortal Fleet.

  “Ok, here’s the hard part. We have to stop to form a worm hole.”

  “You fly, I’ll input the coords …”

  “As close to the Europa as possible, hopefully she didn’t change course, or I’m sure the admiral will be pissed if we tunnel right into the bridge.” Torian glanced at the holo of the Solvairs gaining.

  “More fighters coming in front …” Monica’s voice was stressed, “Coords loaded.”

  Torian remembered the sight of the lone Hawkeye seen above the marine base jumped by a dozens of Solvairs, and then he switched on the forward thrusters to bring the vessel to a complete stop. It took a couple of moments for the Hawkeye to become stationary while Solvairs from all angles raced to intercept them. The countdown appeared on a floating screen and the young officer squeezed his eyes shut. He rarely prayed these days, but now was a good a time as any.