by Terry Mixon
Gunfire and explosions came closer until the marines pulled back from the door. Talbot moved her toward the back of the compartment. “Cavalry’s here.”
Automatic weapons fire sent a storm of bullets down the hall and she saw men in body armor moving past while firing. It seemed like dozens of them. More than the total marine complement on Athena.
Jared and Doctor Stone ducked into the room with some non-combatants. Stone rushed to Kelsey’s side as Jared started directing the removal of the equipment.
“Hey, Princess,” Stone said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone cut me open.”
The diminutive physician took out a portable scanner and ran it up her body. “Without looking closely, it seems like they installed a set of marine enhancements. Are you in control or is someone else?”
“Me, I think. They didn’t get me in the third machine.”
“Then it probably overrides the default programming. You might just be the luckiest person I know. The brains weren’t looking forward to trying to change your programming.”
Jared turned to them. “The Pale Ones are massing ahead of our men. We’re withdrawing. Take her to the pinnaces while we bring the equipment. Kelsey, it’s good to see you again.”
“Thank you for coming for us.” She’d never meant anything so strongly.
“Thank me once we make it out of here. Everyone move.”
Talbot threw her over his shoulder and quickly took off down the corridor. Undignified but necessary. All Kelsey could see was Doctor Stone running behind them, but she could hear others cursing as they moved the bulky equipment.
The trip back to the landing bay was a confusing blur. Her head bounced all over the place and her eyes kept losing focus. They passed another marine force shooting at Pale Ones down another corridor. This marine unit wasn’t shy about using grenades to keep them back, either. Her head rang as the fireballs exploded and then the noise grew curiously soft.
They ran through an open lock and into the same landing bay where the Pale Ones’ had arrived. The two marine pinnaces never looked so welcoming. A group of men off to the side was working on an unfamiliar piece of equipment.
The medical team rushed Talbot into one of the pinnaces and directed him to strap her to a mobile med unit. He laid her down, but didn’t strap her in. “No straps. Never again.”
“God no,” she agreed.
“Trust me,” Stone said. “You’ll want to be strapped down for takeoff.” She threw a sheet over Kelsey’s body and ran two straps across her torso, but left the Princess’ hands free.
The grunting men carried the equipment in one piece at a time and strapped it down. Part of her mind noted they hadn’t brought the bin Talbot had knocked over.
Then the marines started pouring in. Jared threw himself into the seat beside Stone. “Button us up and prepare for emergency takeoff. They seem to have figured out we’re in the bay.”
Reese’s voice came out of Stone’s helmet which she’d set in her seat while she worked. “The breaching lock is closed and Marine Two is loading. We blow the emergency seal in thirty seconds. Marine One exits first. We’ve locked the fission weapon to the deck and set it for remote detonation and timer. It goes off in thirty seconds whether we’re gone or not.”
Jared handed Stone her helmet. “That’s us in the lead. Get her an oxygen mask in case we lose pressure and strap down.”
Stone slid a translucent mask over Kelsey’s nose and mouth. The doctor then stuffed her helmet on and strapped down. The pinnace lifted and accelerated so quickly that Kelsey was sure the bed would flip over.
The Captain grabbed it just to make sure. “Good work, people,” he said through an external speaker. Or more likely, he’d turned the speaker on so those without communications could hear. “Phase one of the operation is complete. Let’s blow these bastards to hell and go home.”
Time dragged for an eternity. “The orbital is targeting us. Weapon detonation in two…one…. Holy God. Hang on!” The pinnace rocked so heavily that Kelsey thought it might tumble. Loud cheering sounded over the loop.
The Captain let them have a moment before he cut them off. “Okay men, it looks like we pissed them off. We have a lot of ships buzzing around the shipyard we just attacked, so keep your eyes open. We’ll rendezvous with Athena before they catch up with us, but I don’t know if we’ll make it to the flip point unmolested. Get unloaded as fast as you can.”
“Don’t let them get too close,” Kelsey said. “They have some kind of knockout beam.”
“Only some of their ships have those,” the Royal pilot said. “Most have missiles. They never send many ships to capture prisoners. Those are smaller. Take those out first.”
Jared gave him a thumbs-up. “We’ll do that.”
The chaotic trip to Athena was full of abrupt course changes. By the time they docked, Kelsey felt like she was going to fall off the bed even with the straps. The docking had absolutely no finesse whatsoever. The hatches opened and men began streaming back into the ship.
Doctor Stone bulled her way through, pushing the medical unit ahead of her. She rushed Kelsey down the corridor with as much reckless abandon as their flight on the pinnace. The doctor commandeered a lift and took them directly to the medical center.
Full medical teams stood by, ready for anything from fixing a hangnail to apparently cutting Kelsey open again. “Get the regenerator ready,” Stone snapped. “If we don’t get these incisions healed now she might have permanent scarring.”
“I need to scan her implants first,” a kid said. Kelsey eyed the boy in shock. How did a teenager get here?
The medical team prepared some device that looked so much like the tank that it made her nauseous. The boy smiled at her. “I’m Carl Owlet and I’ll be your computer technician today. I’m going to download your implant programming to be sure that nothing untoward is inside it.”
“What will you do if there is?”
“Nothing right now, but we might try overwriting it if we have to. This won’t hurt a bit.”
The words almost made Kelsey hyperventilate.
He put a headset with lots of cables onto her head. “I’m getting a positive signal and the code is downloading. Her implants seem to be fully online.”
That didn’t make her feel very good at all.
The process took several minutes in which Doctor Stone looked ready to toss him and his computer out of the medical center. Carl seemed oblivious.
“Download complete. It’s an exact match to the old Empire marine code. No deviations detected. She’s not under any external control.”
Stone yanked the headset off and pushed Kelsey into the chamber. “The regenerator is going to knock you out, Kelsey. I should be able to eliminate all of the scarring. The procedure will take five or six hours.”
“Can you remove this stuff?”
The doctor’s voice took on a note of regret. “I’m sorry, but no. That’s so far beyond my ability that I’m afraid you might have to live with it. Maybe this new equipment will help to eventually remove it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Kelsey closed her eyes and tried not to cry. She was going to be a monster. Those things inside her head doing God only knew what.
“Princess?” It was Talbot’s voice.
“Yes?” she whispered.
“No matter what happens, I’m here. We never leave one of our own behind. You’ll never be alone dealing with this.”
“Says the guy who didn’t get cut open.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t right. I brought this on myself.”
“It was just bad luck, Princess. No one could know that damned ship was going to jump us. Sometimes life just takes a big old dump on you. You’ll come back from this.”
“Thank you. Thank you for saving me.”
He laughed. “I seem to remember things a little differently. You shot one of them down and strangled the other one pretty much by yourself. It took the rest of
us combined to take one out. Maybe you should look into a career in the marines.”
“I’m told I’m too short and don’t have the killer instinct.”
“Whoever told you that was as wrong as a human being can be. I bet with some training you’ll be a real badass. That Pale One took two of us on with whatever the implants had programed in hand-to-hand combat. Think about what you could manage with some real training?”
Stone cut him off. “I’m not sure this is the right time for this. Go let them examine you while I work on the Princess. Time to start the regenerator. You okay in there, Kelsey?”
“Yes,” she lied. She knew that she’d never be okay ever again. The regenerator plunged her into darkness again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jared raced to the bridge, not bothering to strip off his battle armor…or full complement of grenades. Graves gave up the command console and strapped himself at an auxiliary console.
“Status?” Jared snapped.
“Three dozen ships came out of the shipyard and are on our ass,” Graves said. “Several can cut us off before we can get clear of orbital space.”
Jared leaned forward. “Zia, those ships may be of two different classes. Are any of them smaller than the rest?”
The tactical officer checked her readouts. “Five of the enemy ships will be in firing range before we can fully change course. One is somewhat smaller than the rest.”
“Target that ship for the first salvo. It may have a weapon capable of knocking us out. I want you to turn it into expanding gas as soon as possible.”
“Aye, sir. Firing now.”
“Acknowledged.” He turned to Graves. “Get to engineering. I want them ready for anything. If we have a systems failure, we’re dead. Worse than dead. So that will not happen. Make sure Baxter has a plan to destroy this ship if I give the word.”
The Executive Officer’s face paled. “Understood.” He ran to the lift.
“Zia, if we lose drives keep shooting up the small ships as long as you can.”
Zia’s opening salvo proved to be overkill. The explosions blotted the ship from the heavens. Its companions opened fire with a pair of missiles each. They were larger and slower than those used by Fleet, but that hardly mattered at this fistfight range. All four enemy ships exploded after two salvos, but Athena took some hits. Thankfully, none to engineering.
That wasn’t to say they were insignificant. A dozen compartments were open to space. Thankfully, with the Royal marines on board, they had plenty of emergency responders.
Thirty enemy ships fell in behind them and continued firing. Athena’s electronic warfare suite was good enough to send many after false targets. The anti-missile railguns mounted aft proved successful at stopping the rest, though a few were close enough to raise his hair.
Their own missiles wouldn’t bear on the pursuit force so they ran for their lives without shooting back. He pushed the engines harder than Baxter preferred, but he needed to open the range. One didn’t transit a flip point at high speed so they’d need to brake hard before they transitioned.
The range slowly opened to the point that the Pale Ones stopped firing. If Athena could hold this speed for a few hours they’d come screaming into the Pentagar system with a few minutes warning that the second invasion was on.
Well, he didn’t have to surprise the Royal Fleet. “Zia, record a message for the drone on station in the flip point. Have it send the agreed upon signal when it transitions and then send the message.”
“Aye, sir. Recording on.”
Jared looked at the screen. “Commodore Sanders, we’ve recovered the prisoners and are less than two hours away from the flip point. We have thirty Pale Ones behind us and I’m certain they’re coming through after us. They didn’t appreciate those fission weapons you gave us crippling their shipyard and destroying the orbital. We’d appreciate it if you could have a welcoming committee on hand for them. Athena out. Zia, append our scanner readings and send it.”
The next two hours wracked everyone’s nerves. It felt like he waited an hour, but when he checked the chrono only a few minutes had passed. The damage reports came in. Another dozen of his crew dead and many more wounded.
Just when he started breathing a little easier, the enemy did something unexpected. They had ten minutes to go until flip and the Pale Ones abruptly added twenty percent to their acceleration. One exploded outright and disabled another. Two more fell out of formation with drive failures. Twenty-six sped after them, closing range at a frightening rate.
“Zia, will we make it?”
She shook her head. “They’ll be in firing range again with a minute to spare when we decelerate before the flip. They’ll be all over us.”
He opened a channel to engineering. “Baxter, they just boosted their acceleration. They’re going to catch us. How much juice can you give me?”
“We might burn out the grav drives and kill everyone aboard.”
“Or they might catch us and we’d only wish the drives had exploded.”
“That’s a point. I’ll give you what I can. Engineering out.”
Athena’s speed edged up, but not nearly as much as their pursuers. Their precious lead eroded with each passing moment. Zia turned and shook her head. “They’ll be in firing range before we can flip.”
“Then we’d best hope our railguns hold out. Do the best you can to evade. If we transition we might make it.”
Another enemy drive failed before they moved into firing range, but that still meant a lot of missiles to deal with. The railguns and electronic countermeasures worked until they were thirty seconds short of the flip point. Even then, the evasive maneuvers kept the one missile that got through from hitting them in engineering. It struck them at amidships.
The explosion ripped into the ship at an angle, spreading destruction from the midpoint of the ship forward. The impact staggered the ship and lit his control panel up with lurid damage and systems failure icons. Almost a quarter of the ship was open to space. One of the auxiliary consoles behind him shorted out with a loud ‘pop’ and the stench of burned electronics.
Ramirez somehow kept them on course and the countdown timer spiraled down toward zero. “Preparing to flip the ship,” he said.
When the counter hit two, the ship took a second hit and main power went offline. The dim emergency lights came on and Jared’s heart flew into his throat. They were dead.
Then the ship flipped.
The transition rivaled the weak flip point experience for disorientation. The ship jerked so badly that it felt almost like they’d struck something.
The screen still had power and showed them tumbling away from the flip point as Pale Ones flooded out behind them. Zia targeted one and opened fire. Only two missile tubes responded.
The Royal Fleet was waiting, thank God. They sat at just the right spot to intercept the intruders, firing their missiles at a high rate of speed. The few fortresses still online added to the destruction with their larger missiles.
The two fleets fought a missile duel at knife range. Athena destroyed three Pale Ones ships in one salvo. She took a third missile hit and lost the remaining two missile tubes. Zia raked one of the Pale Ones with the anti-missile railguns. The high-speed flechettes ripped the other ship open like a can of survival rations.
The fight moved past Athena’s dead hulk as the two sides mixed and fought. The Pale Ones knocked out some Royal units, but allied forces had the upper hand. Some Pale Ones broke through, but the Royal Fleet quickly chased them down. Athena managed to fend off the few missiles fired at her.
“Zia, get that probe back on the other side,” Jared said. “I want to have warning if more ships are coming. If a ship approaches the flip point, we need to know about it.”
“Aye, sir.”
He keyed the channel to engineering. “Damage report.”
“We’re totally screwed,” Baxter said.
Jared could hear some kind of alarm ringing in the backgro
und. “That’s not helpful. I need more details.”
“Both fusion plants fried just before the transition. Safeties shut them down, and it’ll take a while to get them back online. Thank God we had the flip capacitors charged or we’d still be on the other side. I’m not sure how much use the fusion plants will be even if we get them back up and running. The grav and flip drives are offline again. They may never be usable again. Oh, and our structural integrity is compromised.”
“Compromised how?”
“I think we came into the flip point sideways at high speed. The grav drives failed right before transition and we slewed. The stress forces warped the ship’s spine.”
“Can that be fixed?”
“No. Athena will never boost again.”
Jared covered his eyes with his hand. “Understood. Bridge out.”
He didn’t bother calling the medical center. They’d be swamped.
Zia turned her seat to face him. “I have Commodore Sanders calling.”
“Put him on.”
The older man appeared on the screen. “Thank the gods you’re alive. I’m launching medical teams and damage control parties to assist you.”
“We need them. Thanks. Did you get all the Pale Ones?”
The Commodore nodded with satisfaction. “Every last one of them. Hopefully that was enough to blunt the invasion, because our defenses are in very bad shape right now. What’s your status?”
“Our drives and power systems have failed. We’ve taken critical structural damage.”
“Do you need to abandon ship? We have cutters standing by.”
Jared shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I doubt Athena will never leave Pentagar. If you could assist us with evacuating all non-essential personnel, that would be helpful. I’m sorry, but I don’t have word on your people’s status. Most of us made it back from the raid, but we took some major knocks when we transitioned.”
“We’ll figure that out as soon as we get you the help you need. Sanders out.”
*
Hard work filled the next few hours. A lot of the ship was open to space or in danger of becoming uninhabitable without emergency repairs. The extra hands from the Pentagaran ships helped, but the list of things to do seemed endless.