“Looks like someone’s done this before,” said Perez. “Intel, give me-”
“Pierre, this is Mac, we are sending the Tillman ahead of us to see if our Foon can call them off. This is one last try, ordered by the White House. Gunners in sections Omaha, Newark and sections Barcelona through Gibraltar stand by for A1 execute on my mark. Setting targets now, gunners all ships, watch your screens.”
The Tillman took the lead, flanked by two gunships, and the three of them surged ahead of the fleet. Internal cameras came online and the top screen was broadcasting the face of Neem, who was saying in native tonal language, “Do not harm these people.” He was repeating it over and over, as were the Foon with him. The bottom screen was displaying the fleet configuration, and everyone could see the Tillman and two gunships pulling away out front.
The top screen changed back to the outer view of the oncoming ships, and three large balls of light came firing out of the three lead Foon vessels, which were now flying in a V formation.
“Oh God,” gulped Corey. “This is my dream, all of it.” He was turning pale.
“Are you ok?” asked Reena.
“No, I’m not.”
“Activate shields, entire fleet, all sections, this is McCalvin.” The force shields on both sides of the battle would prove to be pretty much useless.
“Tillman group, evasive maneuver alpha, scatter NOW,” said McCalvin. The gunships broke off left and right, while the Tillman climbed directly up, went upside down and looped back toward the UE fleet, but to no avail. The weapons followed them, visible on the upper screen. Everyone in the UE fleet watched in horror as the fireballs overtook, and all three ships burst into flame and were annihilated.
Neem, his wife and those with them were gone.
“Goddammit!” yelled Jim. Pel grabbed his arm.
“A1 execute smart, now, now, now,” came the order from McCalvin. At that, a spread of ten trinitium nukes fired forward toward the tip of the V, range now around 50,000 kilometers, which meant they would be there in seconds.
McCalvin decided to send the trinukes first, to show the Foon what UE was made of and hope for a retreat. He also wanted to inflict the most damage before the enemy vessels started spreading out.
The V formation began to spread apart as Foon defensive beams fired at the missiles. Only one was struck, and a blinding flash of light filled the screen. It was followed by a series of flashes, each one a trinuke hitting the front of the Foon convoy. The light was so blinding even Jon looked away for a second.
McCalvin dropped his ship back into the middle of the fleet, “A1 execute repeat, now!”
Another ten trinitium nukes, targeted at the largest ships in a now dispersing Foon formation, fired forward. In unison, at least four hundred of the Foon fireballs came hurling through space at the UE fleet.
“Sections Bravo through Lincoln, flight pattern Nami,” came the command from McCalvin. At that, the left and right wings of the UE fleet broke off in a horizontal wave to flank the Foon fleet from the sides, and the UE ships took the first round of strikes from the fireballs. There was no wreckage from their direct hits; the UE ships simply vanished in space. Several of the fireballs had grazed their targets and left them partially intact, leaving men and women in space shields floating around the battlefield, dead, alive, injured, scared.
The front line of the Foon fleet took a tremendous hit from the second phase of Tri-nukes, but they kept coming, undeterred. Burning debris was flying in all directions. Chunks of hard matter as big as buildings became weapons as they, too, smashed into ships from both fleets. It appeared as though space itself was on fire, so much so that the battle was visible from lunar orbiting telescopes.
“Intel is reporting that these are plasma-based weapons, sir, but that seems strange, they-”
“Roadrunner, take position kelly mac two-six, stealthy,” came the call from McCalvin.
“Roger that,” said Perez. Helm, bring us behind gunships at zero, two-six, stealth pattern, slow to max. Let’s keep them guessing.”
“Roger that, sir. Zero two-six, slow to max.”
“Fleetwide, we are at zero barrier in 30 seconds,” came the call from Hard Mac. The opposing fleets would be colliding into each other’s space if no one blinked.
The Foon fleet made the first move, breaking left and right, up and down, opening up like the mouth of a great white shark, ready to devour its prey. The UE fleet flew right into the middle of the Foon dispersion, which was a grave mistake.
The UE was firing at will and taking out ships, but the Foon enabled a technology that allowed them to create a visible “web” between their vessels, a web that could disable any ship flying through it. A rain of fire collapsed in on the first one hundred or so ships of the UE armada, disabling them instantly. Among them were seventeen Phoenix-class vessels, the largest and most heavily armed, and almost the entire Santa Fe fleet. The ships were still intact but appeared to be burning in space, and there was no response from them on the com. The Foon, it seemed, had the upper hand, and no one knew that better than General McCalvin.
“Roadrunner, Roadrunner, activate now,” came the call from Hard Mac. He wasn’t going to wait any longer to try his experimental weapon. With that, Perez guided his speedship toward the front line, gunships ahead and at a distance that hopefully would hide their intention. As per the battle plan, other UE gunships converged into the same general space as the Roadrunner, as inconspicuously as possible, and they prepared to penetrate the front starboard flank of the Foon armada.
“Gunships, covering fire, now! Roadrunner move into position,” commanded McCalvin.
Ari was talking to himself and sweating through his shirt, as his hands quivered over the controller. My God, I’m doing this. This is happening.
“Distance?” yelled Ari.
“Spread, seven hundred to one thousand kilometers,” Perez fired back.
He tweaked a little more until he had his waveform oscillators set and the strike team was entering the next cluster of Foon. If this didn’t work, that web could be back in place again; they were taking a big chance. Gunships were blazing splitter rays in pulse mode, generating “bullets” of the lethal light, using it as covering fire.
“Roadrunner fire!” came the order from McCalvin.
The Titan playroc hit send, and the eyes of the UE fleet were onscreen. What they saw next was something that seemed impossible. Thirty-two Foon ships came to a dead stop in the middle of outer space.
“Gunships, Roadrunner, escape velocity now,” said McCalvin.
“Helm, get us out of here, delta execute!” yelled Perez, and he turned to the group, “you kids hang on!” The Roadrunner went full speed so quickly it made the Tallahassee seem like the sky coaster at Cydonia Six Flags. Pel, Jim, and Reena all heaved up their White House lunch at the same time.
“Delta execute” was Perez telling the helm to put the ship in a full spin while coming about and thrusting forward, with splitter rays firing out of every section of the craft, creating a “drill” through the Foon cluster.
“Don’t look at the screen, guys,” yelled Perez. The spin was unbearable to look at for the untrained.
“All Phoenix in section Lincoln use A1 and A2; target that cluster and fire,” said McCalvin.
The last of the Tri-nukes was fired, flanked by eight conventionals, four on each side. They self-targeted in flight to hit the gaps between ships that would take out the most hardware with the least number of missiles. Flashes of intense blinding light filled the screen, and the Foon ships were drifting rubble.
“Ari, it worked!!” yelled Corey, and everyone on the bridge was cheering.
“Mr. Lopez, you are one hard-ass musician,” came McCalvin over the com. “Pierre, we only had five decoy speeders in there with you; they might figure this out. We gotta act fast. Go to grid nine onscreen. You’re following the Hammer.”
“Helm, set one seven-zero, one seven-four, check your plate,” said Perez. “Reset,
Ari; we’re going deeper this time. Hard Mac, we have to figure out that web, and they’re starting to scatter.”
“Roger that, but they’re not going around us, just trying to get some distance. Hackjack sent a boatload of nanos into one of the webs and killed it. We’re going to try that again in front of you, stand by.”
“Intel, why would nanos kill a mag-based field?” asked Perez. He took his place next to the intelligence officer.
“Maybe it’s not magnetic, sir; I’m showing protochip information from the web replay. Look, here,” and he pointed at the screen. “It’s possible the fire we’re seeing is a holo projection to hide the nature of the weapon. Or maybe it’s from ship’s internal, but our birds are still intact. Maybe they have their own nanos; that could explain why ours were effective.”
Perez and his intel officer, Colonel Rad Musella, looked each other in the eye.
“Roadrunner, prepare to fire,” from McCalvin as they approached another cluster of ships.
“Jon,” said Ari, “how could they string together such a large cluster of nanos in zero-g?”
“Not now, Ari, stay on task,” from Perez.
“Decoys, spread pattern alpha, now. Roadrunner, don’t go center, look loose. Manhattan fleet, covering fire now, hard nano blast. Give ‘em hell and watch grid nine,” barked McCalvin.
“We’re in position, sir,” said Perez.
“Distance?” screamed Ari.
“Roadrunner, FIRE,” from McCalvin.
Ari had increased the signal strength on two of his wave oscillators, widening the stereo field to see if it produced an even better result. He hit send without knowing how far.
The cluster stopped in space, just as before, but this time it was twice as many ships affected. The Roadrunner scrambled out of there as the entire Manhattan fleet, with twenty-three Phoenix-class vessels and seventy-five gunships, blasted away at the catatonic vessels and blew them out of existence.
“Yessss!!” Pel, Jim, Reena, and Corey screamed it out in perfect unison, and there were cheers all around on the bridge of the Roadrunner. Corey gave Reena a hand-slap and a quick kiss.
“Great work, Major General Pierre Perez, you Titanean Snakehound,” said McCalvin. “What, you after my job?”
“Yes, he is!” yelled Reena, and Corey put his hand over her mouth. Perez smiled. His face felt stiff; he hadn’t been smiling much.
“Jon!” yelled Ari.
“It could be as simple as putting a four-dimensional link in the manufacturing process, making a ‘net’ of sorts,” Jon replied.
Colonel Musella chimed in, “too big, just too big. If they deployed that we would have seen it on approach, at least in the replays. Here, watch the screen. This is the Santa Fe fleet.”
Everyone was on their feet now and hovered around the vidscreen. They were two hours into the battle, and there was a lull in their end of the grid, though McCalvin and the other ship commanders were blasting a constant stream of chatter on the com.
“There,” said Musella. “It just appears all at once, doesn’t stream in from anywhere. Maybe it’s optical only, maybe...” his voice trailed off.
“Nickel Seven is taking fire in grid three, need backup.”
“Could they be teleporting it?” asked Perez.
There was a thunderous blast to the ship that sent everyone to the floor in an instant. Corey hit his head, and though he tried to shake it off, he was disoriented. He looked around the bridge, in a fog, a daze. Pain. There was blood on his face. What he saw next he couldn’t believe.
Five armed robots with heavily plated armor appeared on the bridge in front of the vidscreen. They were there, on board the Roadrunner. They were not made to look like Foon, they had no legs but hovered. Their bodies were weapons with functioning arms and hands to grasp objects. They immediately started firing into the humans, and Perez went down, then Pel, the gunner, then Jim.
Through the fog in his brain, Corey made a lunge at one of them but was pushed off to the side, slamming his back into the intel station console. The robots surrounded Ari, and two of them put their “hands” on him, and the three disappeared immediately with another flash of light.
Ari was gone.
Corey crawled over to Pel, holding his brother’s head in his arms, with no response. He put his ear to the chest of his best friend, his life companion, but there was nothing. A deep wound penetrated Pel’s chest just beneath his heart, but there was no blood. No breath.
Pel was dead.
“No! No!” Corey yelled in pain, pain in his body, pain in his heart. It sickened him, and he held Pel’s head in his hands. “What is happening, brother?” he screamed out loud.
“Corey? Corey!”
Oh my God, Reena…
One of the robots had Reena in its arms. She struggled violently against its tight grasp, kicking as hard as she could, but there was nothing she could do. Corey tried to get to her, but his legs crumbled beneath him. He stumbled to the floor, and he bled from his nose. She yelled to him again, “Corey!” and she was looking into his eyes, her face filled with horror, when she disappeared in a flash of light with the remaining robots.
“Oh God, Oh Maker,” cried Corey. “Oh God!” he yelled again as he looked around the bridge.
Everyone was dead. Jim, Pel, Perez, Musella, the helmsman, two security guards, all dead. The air was silent, but for the chatter on the com. Jon was not harmed but was standing up straight, eyes wide open, completely unresponsive, glued to the wall.
“Hard Mac this is Constellation, we’ve lost our gunners.”
Corey grabbed the com next to Perez. “General McCalvin, do you read me? This is Roadrunner. Hard Mac, this is Roadrunner, can you read me?” There was chatter on the com but no acknowledgment of Corey. He grabbed Perez’s limp arm, holding his wrist over the com scan. “General McCalvin, can you hear me?”
“Roadrunner, go ahead, who is this?” said McCalvin.
“This is Roadrunner, Corey Jagger-Seven. General Perez and the crew are dead. Ari Lopez is gone. Our ship was invaded, and…” he just realized something. “General, Ari is gone but the sound console is still here; maybe I can figure out-”
“Constellation fleet is down, repeat, Constellation fleet is down.”
“Corey, sit tight, we’re sending a-” then silence. No sound. No chatter, nothing.
“General? General McCalvin? UE fleet, can anyone hear me? UE fleet, can anyone hear me?” Silence.
Corey wondered why they thought to take Ari, but not the sound console. He guessed they just had no clue what was happening to their fleet, but they knew it was coming from this ship. But why kill the commander and take an obvious civilian? This didn’t make sense.
He looked up at the screen. Disaster. The ship was listing and apparently without power. The lower screen showed a very depleted UE configuration, while the upper screen, with camera drones now in every piece of the battle grid, was showing mass destruction of the UE fleet. The Foon outnumbered UE four to one. UE was losing the battle.
Corey looked over at the soundboard, then got up and sat down in front of it, studying. He touched the board along the edges, then hovered his hands over the panels and closed his eyes. I know this. I’ve watched him. I’ve learned things.
“Constellation, whatever you have left, fall back immediately.”
It was insane enough that the board was now a weapon, but even more ludicrous that Corey had a responsibility to the entire solar system to do something with it.
He felt waves with Pel, felt his presence. But Pel is dead, there can be no waves. There is no connection. Yet he was there, Pel was somehow there, and Corey called out to him loudly, into the silent air.
A voice called Corey’s name. Behind him. He turned to see his mother standing there, covered in blood and pale as linen, with hollow eyes and an outstretched arm and a finger pointing directly at his face.
“Oh my God, MOM!” screamed Corey.
With a low, rumbling voice, a voice
not her own, Mira growled, “Remember it…remember it or your brother dies.” She collapsed in a heap to the ground, and Corey rushed to her as fast as he could. He turned her over, but…God it wasn’t her, it was Pel.
“Pel! Pel!!” His brother was a mass of unmoving flesh.
Remember it.
Corey was trying to remember everything he could about how Ari used the board in the White House experiment. Hyperpan widening to strengthen the effectiveness of the sine wave, Reena’s voice was perfect in the experiment…she has such a pure sound. Ari needed an analog tone, that’s what he said, then he… which panel was it?
“Oh Maker Me…dear God…someone help me!” he screamed to the ceiling, to outer space, to no one. “HELP!”
The Foon…the Foon started shaking, it was too much…Tri-digital was distorting, so she sang the tone and then he fire-piped…
“Fire-pipe is how Telcom gets its long-range transmission. That’s IT!” Corey yelled out loud.
Another monster jolt hit the Roadrunner, and he was once again knocked to the floor. His head slammed against the Captain’s chair. The room was spinning and smoke was filling the bridge all around him. His mind was in a rage about Pel being dead, about Reena being taken, but his body couldn’t move. He had nothing left. Corey had to close his eyes, and his mind began to drift.
Mom…how is she going to survive when she learns about Pel? She’s so fragile right now. Reena, where is she, how can I possibly find her now, is she alive? No, but mom is dead…
The rancid stench of electrical smoke filled his nostrils. What do they need from Reena? God, are they going to use her to cross-breed? Are they snatching women, is it their intention to-
“Stop!” he yelled at himself as he forced his eyes open.
Corey got up to an elbow, then to his knees. “Telcom,” he muttered out loud, and he fell back down to the vibrating floor.
He was back at the Rochaus, walking with Reena under the beauty of Saturn. He was holding her hand and looking into her eyes; he was lying on the grass, and she was kneeling over him, beautiful, radiant. Her hair caressed his face, and she whispered, “Corey?” Her voice echoed in the sweet breeze that surrounded them. The stars were shining brighter than ever, and Saturn was a halo around her head as she lowered her face to press her lips to his. Corey’s hands grasped the cool grass surrounding him, but the grass turned to steel, and his broken nails scratched at the hard floor.
The Cosmotix 2198 Page 23