“We’re only carrying four Shimmers,” Blake said. “If the first two fail, we’re not going to get a second chance.”
“Not with a thirty second reload interval.”
At ten klicks, Blake was sweating. The mothership was close enough to see with the naked eye, had there been a way to do so from the ES Blackbird.
“Those cargo doors are something else,” said Hawkins in wonder. “This probably isn’t a mothership at all, you know? I reckon it’s just a heavily-armed lifter.”
“You might be right. Either way there’s plenty of room for them to do all sorts of other crap onboard, as well as stealing our orbitals.”
“I’m beginning an intrusive scan of their hull,” said Pointer. “It might take a few minutes to interpret the data.”
There was an instant reaction from the Vraxar vessels.
“Oh shit. They didn’t like that.”
“Have they found us?”
“Not exactly found, sir. They know something’s up. They’ve replaced their wide-area scan with a series of narrower sweeps.”
“They haven’t altered course yet. It might be they are only acting cautiously.”
“It could be, sir.” Pointer didn’t sound like she was persuaded.
“Keep on with the scan of their hull.”
Blake clenched his fists and did his best to ignore the numerous warnings on his tactical console. The ES Blackbird’s AI was well-aware the enemy vessel was hunting for them and it provided estimates of how far each narrow-beam sensor probe was from pinging off their hull. As well as that, it provided a moving average of the figures. The chart showed the enemy’s search was becoming steadily more effective.
“Not long until they pinpoint our location, Lieutenant Pointer.”
“I’m aware of the urgency, sir.”
Another warning illuminated on of Blake’s screens. There was no mistaking this one for anything other than extremely bad news.
“They’ve just taken a shot at us,” confirmed Hawkins. “A new type of beam weapon went by at a distance of eighty kilometres.”
“For a first try that’s a little bit too close for comfort.”
“They’ve had another go. They’ve fired from three different beam domes. The closest was sixty klicks away.”
“We’re running out of time, Lieutenant Pointer.”
“You don’t need to repeat yourself, sir. The scan is almost done and the analysis of the data so far is ongoing.”
She was right and Blake knew he was pushing her too far. Pointer’s work up until now had been exemplary and he had no reason to think she was dragging her heels. On the other hand, he hated being unable to influence events and sitting waiting to be blown up wasn’t an experience he wanted to last any longer than necessary. He glanced at his tactical – the enemy narrow-band sweeps were averaging five kilometres distance, with the closest coming to within two. He hoped the Vraxar hadn’t realised exactly how close the ES Blackbird was.
“The Neutralisers are changing course,” he said. “The left-flank vessel is dropping away.”
“They probably expect we’re running off Gallenium,” said Quinn. “They’re trying to envelop us in their neutralisation field.”
“The doors are just shy of three hundred metres thick,” said Pointer.
“That’s a lot of armour. Lieutenant Hawkins, do we have the firepower to punch a hole through them?”
“It’ll be close, sir.”
“Close won’t be good enough. Let’s hope the weapons labs have done the business.” He swivelled in his seat. “Lieutenant Pointer, can you tell me whether they’ve got the Juniper clamped at the front or the rear?”
“No, sir. It’s going to be tight in there wherever it’s positioned.”
“The mothership’s energy shield has just gone up and we’re trapped inside it,” said Quinn. “They’re getting jumpy.”
“There’s no escape for us now unless we jump through it at lightspeed,” said Blake. “And we’re not leaving without at least attempting to rescue Lieutenant McKinney.”
As far as he was aware, there were no reports of a spaceship successfully hiding within the internal perimeter of an energy shield sphere. When it came to it, there weren’t many spaceships out there with the power to project a shield as far as this Vraxar mothership.
“Let’s get to within five klicks,” he said. “Arm the Shimmers and target the centre of the bay doors.”
“The Shimmers are armed,” said Hawkins.
“Something tells me we don’t have long.”
Blake was right. Before he could reach the desired range of five kilometres, twenty of the wide-bore cannons flanking the bay doors rotated from their rest positions and started firing. They didn’t operate like the Bulwark cannons, which relied on firing speed as well as the high velocity of their projectiles. The Vraxar guns fired in a constant thump-thump-thump, each activation launching a twelve-metre slug into space.
“Crap,” said Blake when his tactical warned him one of the projectiles had passed within a whisker of the ES Blackbird’s energy shield. “Load the Shimmers.”
Before Lieutenant Hawkins was able to complete the request, one of the Vraxar slugs struck the ES Blackbird’s energy shield. The projectile was flattened to a depth of only a few inches and it fell away into space. The Blackbird’s Obsidiar power reserves plunged.
“Shimmers loading.”
“That hit on our shield is going to give them a pretty good idea where we are,” said Quinn.
Another blow struck the shield and then another. Each successful strike took a big chunk from the power source which sustained it.
“Fire when ready.”
“Still loading.”
“We’ll be dead in about ten seconds.”
“Loading complete. Firing Shimmers.”
“Begin reload.”
“Yes, sir. Beginning reload.”
The gap between the two vessels was only a few thousand metres. It was insufficient for the Shimmers to reach maximum velocity. Nevertheless, they crossed the intervening space in less than a second and struck the Vraxar mothership within a hundred metres of each other.
The Shimmer missiles were equipped with armour-piercing warheads and carried an enormous payload. They detonated simultaneously, creating a vast, joined crater in the hardened alloys of the bay doors. Twin plumes of plasma were ejected downwards, their heat and energy dissipating into space. The area surrounding the impact site glowed in a variety of blues, oranges and reds, concealing the extent of the damage.
“Did we get through their armour?” asked Blake. “Lieutenant Pointer, get me a scan of that area!”
“Sir, it’s not clear. The sensors are struggling to make sense.”
The explosions had not stopped the turret fire and the barrage directed towards the Blackbird continued unabated. Not every projectile hit the spaceship’s shield, but the accuracy was increasing.
“We’ve got less than twenty percent left on our energy shield.”
“No! We didn’t get through!” said Pointer. “There is no breach through their hull. Damnit – we came so close! There must only be ten metres left.”
Blake swore. “How long on Shimmer reload?”
“Fifteen seconds.”
A series of successful strikes against their energy shield knocked it to below five percent. It didn’t seem like they were going to get those fifteen seconds.
Blake pulled on the control rods, dragging the Blackbird sharply to the left and then pointing it nose-upwards towards the impact crater from the missiles.
“We’re going in,” he said.
In his mind, Blake saw no other option. He fed a huge amount of power through the spaceship’s engines and it rocketed forward. The nose of the Blackbird smashed into the damaged area of the Vraxar mothership’s hull. The cargo bays weren’t breached but the metal of the doors was soft from the plasma heat. At the moment of impact, the Blackbird was travelling so quickly and with such imp
etus that it burst through the metal doors. The alloys of both vessels buckled and rippled under the immense forces and for a second, Blake felt sure they were going to get all the way through into the bay. In the end, the Blackbird became stuck, with its rear four hundred metres protruding into space.
There was the briefest of lulls in the bombardment from the Vraxar turrets and Blake dared to hope the weapons were not able to strike at objects so close. It wasn’t to be – the firing resumed, reducing the Blackbird’s energy shield to the brink of failure.
Blake gritted his teeth. “I won’t have this,” he said. With that, he pushed the control bars as far along their runners as they would travel. The muted humming of the spaceship’s gravity engines climbed to a shrieking howl, unlike anything he’d heard before. Bit-by-bit, the Blackbird ground its way through the gap, pushing aside the metal as it burrowed deeper into the Vraxar mothership.
“Not going to make it,” said Hawkins.
“Yes. We. Are.”
The energy reserves of the Blackbird’s Obsidiar core dropped to zero. The energy shield winked out and one of the Vraxar slugs struck the rear of the vessel with a glancing blow, sending a shockwave rolling through the walls of the bridge.
With no Obsidiar power remaining, the Blackbird’s engines went offline without a murmur. The lights on the bridge stuttered, flickered and then strengthened. Almost every screen on the bridge went blank.
It was enough. The bombardment from the external turrets stopped and all was silent. With a shudder, the Blackbird settled, coming to rest on its underside at the bottom of the cargo bay.
“We made it,” said Pointer. “I didn’t think it would happen, but we made it.”
Whatever victory they’d accomplished, Blake had no idea how short-lived it might be. He’d banked on the Vraxar lacking the foresight to line their cargo bays with weaponry. Not that they could be expected to predict the sort of manoeuvre they’d just witnessed.
“Lieutenant Quinn, see if there’s any residual power left while the Obsidiar core recharges.”
“There’s something, sir. Nothing significant.”
The screens within the bridge illuminated again. The looks were for show and most of the functions were disabled or unavailable for use.
“I want a sensor view of what’s in here with us. Can you get me a feed?”
“Bringing one up now, sir,” said Pointer. “It’s going to be grainy, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem given how close we are to whatever’s in here.”
The image appeared on the main viewscreen and Blake had to squint and turn his head before he could make sense of it. The Juniper was suspended from the roof of the cargo bay, held in place by immense cube-shaped gravity clamps which were just visible on the closest side wall. There were fewer than two thousand metres between the orbital and the floor of the bay and Blake realised how close they’d come to crashing into it when they’d burst through the hull.
“What now?” asked Pointer.
“Now you try and reach Lieutenant McKinney. Tell him we’ve come and we’re waiting for him in the bay.”
“Yes, sir. I’m looking for a channel. I don’t know if we’ll be able to reach their suit comms through the walls of the Juniper. Let’s hope their pack man is checking his comms unit regularly.”
“I’m picking something up,” said Quinn.
The tone of the man’s voice caused Blake to look across intently.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. The data I’m receiving isn’t complete. I thought I detected a reading.”
“Spit it out! What sort of a reading?”
Lieutenant Quinn wasn’t given the time to respond. The crew on the Blackbird experienced a brief feeling of dislocation, accompanied by a harsh nausea. Blake tensed his muscles to try and alleviate some of the racking pains in his abdomen. A few moments later, the feeling subsided.
“We’ve gone to lightspeed,” he said.
The crew looked at each other, as-yet uncertain what to make of this new development. Blake attempted to put a brave face on matters, when in reality he couldn’t think of any positives. Wherever the Vraxar were taking them, it wasn’t likely to be a stretch of empty space into which the Blackbird could make an easy escape. The others picked up on his unease and they sat in their seats, with nothing to say.
Blake closed his eyes and hoped he hadn’t ruined his chance to destroy these three huge Vraxar spaceships.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LIEUTENANT ERIC MCKINNEY cast his eye over the men and women lined up in front of him. There were thirty in total – he’d lost four from his own squad and Sergeant Woods had lost three in a firefight with the Vraxar. The survivors were made up from twenty armed soldiers, many with their spacesuits showing signs of combat damage, and ten non-combatant personnel. The latter were dressed in lower-grade suits which were designed for day-to-day functions onboard the orbital. A few of them carried gauss rifles.
Lieutenant Cruz was senior by rank time served, but she wasn’t trained as a troop commander in the way McKinney was. She followed procedure without complaint and let him lead.
“We have to get up to level 300,” he told the group. “I’ve spoken to one of the technical officers up there and she tells me the hangar bay is clear.”
“The enemy were flooding into the upper levels as we came through,” said Sergeant Woods. “I can’t understand why none of them were in the hangar bay.”
“We can’t worry about it, Sergeant. TO Rhodes is certain her shuttle will get us out of here and in the absence of any conflicting information, I’m happy to accept her word.”
“The hangar doors are shut,” said one of the new soldiers.
“Yes, they are,” said McKinney. “Captain Blake told me he’d deal with that problem.”
The most obvious way of dealing with the matter of the Juniper’s closed hangar doors wasn’t lost on anyone.
“Who gives a shit if it gets messy?” said Corporal Li. “The Space Corps isn’t getting the Juniper back any time soon.”
“Let’s say we bust out of here and get onto this spy craft – what happens next?” asked Roldan.
“One step at a time, soldier. If we keep taking those single steps, we’ll get home safe and sound.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think we’d make it this far, sir.”
McKinney called for silence and arranged the new men and women into squads, so he could have at least some semblance of control over them. The non-coms had all been through basic training when they entered the Space Corps and he was pleased to find they knew what to do.
“Let’s move out, people!” he shouted.
They set off, aiming for the closest stairwell. Sergeant Woods had experience of the command and control levels and he was able to offer more efficient guidance than that provided by the overlay on McKinney’s HUD.
“They used to have minigun turrets installed in the ceilings here,” said Woods. “Years ago, that was. One day they took them out and didn’t replace them.”
“I heard about those,” said Bannerman. “Rumour has it one of the guns chewed up a big group of scientists it mistook for Ghasts. Or something like that.”
“Here – these steps will take us up to level 300,” said Woods. “We came down the stairwell on the opposite side of this level.”
“Why didn’t you use these stairs?”
Woods shrugged. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other, sir.”
“You didn’t find much resistance?”
“We had to kill a couple of Vraxar on the way. Other than that, we didn’t come across anything significant.”
McKinney wasn’t happy. “You should have taken us to the place where there were no enemy, instead of here where we don’t have a clue how many there are.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, sir.”
There was no choice other than to let it go. “I suppose everything could have changed in the last few minutes. It’s guesswork as to which way is safer,
” said McKinney. “Did you see anything big on the last few levels?”
“They’re all pretty big, sir.”
“I don’t mean as big as a Ghast, I mean something that was twelve feet tall.”
“Those armoured bastards I heard one of your men talking about?”
“Yes, those ones. There hasn’t been a lot of time to fill you in on every detail,” said McKinney. “They’re resistant to explosives and our repeaters didn’t do a lot to their armour.”
“We aren’t carrying anything heavy,” said Woods. “We haven’t come up against many Vraxar, so we’ve got plenty of ammo left in our rifles. Other than that…”
Woods left it hanging. McKinney didn’t need it spelling out for him – he’d already checked out what additional weaponry this new group of soldiers had brought with them. They had no plasma tubes and few grenades, but they all carried rifles. They’d stopped by on one of the upper floor armouries and hadn’t bothered to tool up properly. A reprimand was due, but it would wait for the appropriate moment.
The stairwell was wide enough for six people to walk abreast and it climbed away from one of the rooms on the perimeter of level 285. McKinney peered inside – it was a larger version of the many other stairwells he’d already climbed to get this far. Each flight went upwards and then turned back upon itself at a square landing.
“I can hear something,” he said.
A few of the others listened intently, trying to figure out if there was any cause for alarm.
“Same old noises we’ve heard up until now, Lieutenant,” Corporal Li concluded.
Woods didn’t seem unduly alarmed and McKinney was worried the sergeant might have found the going too easy up until now. On the other hand, he’d managed to lead a group of survivors this far, so McKinney realised the man must have something going for him. Or he might simply be exceptionally lucky.
“These take us out not far from the main entrance to the hangar bay,” said Woods. “We didn’t need to visit the bay on the way down.”
Inferno Sphere (Obsidiar Fleet Book 2) Page 16