“He knows that, Danny,” Caine replied.
“I’ll monitor his flight from Astrogation,” Grant said, stepping into the elevator, the doors closing behind him.
Looking up from her console, Caine said, “He’s on the way. Whatever happens now, we’re committed.”
“I hope you have a very boring day, Deadeye. I guess all that we’ve got left is to sit back and watch the action.”
“Pavel’s a good pilot, Danny. He knows what he’s doing. If anyone can pull this mission off, he will.”
With a thin smile, he replied, “That’s a very important caveat you added there.”
“Change of target attitude!” Harper reported. “Third shuttle now departing the Q-Carrier, smaller and faster than the others. It’s going up into a higher orbit.”
“Any other signs of activity?” Marshall said, jumping to his feet.
“Nothing, sir.” The green-haired hacker looked up, and said, “I might have screwed up.”
“Or they are just being extra careful, double-checking the situation. Caine, get back on the horn with Salazar, and let him know that he has three shuttles to capture, not just two. Have SAR on standby for immediate launch.”
“In the works,” she said, returning to her station.
Shaking his head, Marshall watched the trajectories resolve into position, the three ships smoothly gliding on their interception course, slowly beginning to move around the planet. In a few moments, they’d spot Alamo, and while their jamming would hold the situation for a while, if just one of them got within line-of-sight of the Q-Carrier, the game was over. He walked back to his chair, sitting down, wishing that he was in a cockpit. Up here, there was nothing he could do but wait, and watch.
Chapter 14
The alert klaxon sounded, and Salazar tossed the plastic cup he was holding to the ground, the liquid within spilling out across the launch bay as he jumped into the shuttle. All around him, technicians were frantically preparing the drone fighters for launch, somehow fitting two of them on each elevator airlock in a desperate scramble. His co-pilot was still missing, and he glanced down at his watch, silently urging him on, before Erickson sprinted across the deck, a helmet in her hands, jumping through the hatch in a single bound.
“Aren’t you meant to be on the bridge?” he asked.
“Last minute change of plans,” she replied. “Gregor’s down with an ear infection. I’m covering for him. Launch in thirty seconds.”
“Preflight’s all locked in. When was the last time you flew a shuttle?”
“Relax, flyboy, I know what I’m doing.” She slid into the pilot’s couch as he settled down at the controls, activating the start-up sequence at last, flicking switches in a now-familiar pattern painstakingly memorized over the last five days of simulations.
“Bridge, this is Control One, ready to launch,” Erickson said.
“Roger that, Spaceman, you have clearance. Good hunting, and watch where you’re shooting.”
“Thank you, Bridge.” The shuttle dropped through the airlock, sliding through the double hatches until it dropped out into the cold space beyond. Up above, the other hatches were opening, each one disgorging its pair of drone fighters, all of them moving into the preset formation with the shuttle, sliding through space on their thrusters.
“Right,” Salazar said. “This mission’s a lot more complicated than we originally thought. We were supposed to be picking up two shuttles close together, but now we’ve somehow got to manage three.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Full burn on the course to intercept the first two shuttles. Let’s worry about those to begin with. I’m going to have enough on my hands managing one battle without fighting two at the same time. Though I can make sure we’ve got an edge.”
Throwing Drones Five and Six onto an independent command track, he set them to rise to a higher orbit, high enough that they would have the advantage of the gravity gauge over the third, fast shuttle, but not so high that they would pass into line-of-sight with the enemy forces on the far side of the planet. He hoped. Acceleration pushed him back into his couch as Erickson hit the main engine, kicking them and the first four drones to their meeting with their original target.
“Salazar, this is Alamo Actual,” a voice said. “I’m not going to back-seat drive, but we’ve got a new objective for you. We’ve got to have that small shuttle as intact as possible. The others we just need to capture. I know this isn’t going to make it easy on you, but the third stage of this plan won’t work without getting that ship back intact. Understood?”
“Roger, Alamo,” he replied. “I’m a little vague on the details yet, but I’ll do everything I can. Estimate that we’ll intercept the first group of shuttles in ninety seconds.”
“Negative,” Grant broke in. “I have you at contact in seventy seconds.”
“I’m assuming they’ll turn and run once they see a squadron of fighters bearing down on them. Wouldn’t you?” Glancing up at his screen, he said, “I’m a little busy to chat right now. Shuttle out.”
Shaking her head, Erickson said, “That bastard won’t let up, will he.”
“That bastard is a superior officer, remember.”
“Just a higher-ranking one,” Erickson replied.
“How the hell did you get on bridge duty, anyway?”
She shrugged, and said, “Quinn thought it would help season me a little. Wants to push me up to damage control supervisor, and a year as a flight engineer’s mandatory. I’d rather do this, though.”
Throwing another switch, Salazar guided the four fighters running close to him into a crescent formation, two of them racing out in opposite directions, spending fuel to put themselves into an optimum firing position. Any moment now, any second, the shuttles would spot him.
“We’ve got action!” Erickson yelled. “The high shuttle’s seen us. Rising at full speed.”
“Damn,” he replied, kicking in another control to boost the two drones he had in pursuit to their top speed. “That’s earlier than I’d hoped. If he speeds up much more, he’ll go into line-of-sight.” The missile control loomed at him, so tempting, and he started to set up a firing solution.
“Wait a minute,” Erickson said, glancing away from the hell. “You’re a bit out of range, aren’t you? We need to close in for accuracy.”
“I’ve got four missiles up there,” he replied. “I can sure as hell spare two.” He tapped a control, and two missiles raced ahead from his drones, surging forward to fly over the shuttle, gaining speed far faster than the manned vehicle possibly could. He had one eye on the sensor monitor, tracking their trajectories.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m suggesting that they might want to try a different course.”
“Ten seconds more and they get detected.” Glancing across at a second display, she said, “And we’ve got contact in forty seconds ourselves. Correction, forty-two. They must have seen us, trying for a low orbit.”
“Jamming?”
“All working for the moment. Harper’s box of tricks is doing the job. That won’t last forever, though.”
“One going down, one going up,” he muttered. “This is hard enough when they’re all in the same damned place.” Tapping another control, he drew his missiles closer into the high-flying shuttle, and the pilot decided to break away at the last second, just before he could act to cover his losses and slam the warheads in anyway, regardless of orders.
Wiping his hand across his forehead, he looked at the monitors, trying to gather all of the data, trying to make sense of it all. This whole system was a prototype, not intended for serious combat, and certainly not designed for one man to run two battles at the same time. His eyes darted from display to display, his hands moving over the controls on barely-trusted instinct, hoping that he was making the right choices.
Ranging wide, Drones One and Four slid around the far side of the two incoming shuttles, getting in behind them with their warheads, while Two and Three continued to barrel in towards them. He kept an eye on the fuel monitors, shaking his head. Even if they could pull off this near-impossible maneuver, they still had to get back to Alamo without being detected, without passing into view from the far side of the planet, and they didn’t have much orbital space to work with. This was going to leave them with dry tanks when they got back. Optimistically.
Up high, the two missiles were closing on the fast shuttle, driving in towards it, but the pilot was working his countermeasures as hard as he could. There was no way that they were going to get a closely-selected target, so he cut their engines, letting them drift. Two and a half minutes before they might be detected, and hopefully by then all of this would be over.
Back in his orbit, the two shuttles were still trying to evade, and he fired a salvo of missiles, one from each of his four drones, targeting right down their throats. Precision was less important here. He wanted them damaged, not destroyed, but his orders didn’t specify that the shuttles had to be used again. The short, stubby warheads leapt from the drones, ranging towards the enemy craft, two apiece, closing in on the target. Countermeasures and evasive maneuvers didn’t count for a thing as he guided them carefully in.
A quick glance across, another chance to wipe the sweat from his brow. The high shuttle could keep for a few seconds, long enough for him to see this down. The autopilots on the pursuing drones were staying within weapons range, even closing the gap, and the missiles were slowly dropping back.
“Alamo, this is Salazar,” he said. “Harper, we’re go. Missile contact in five seconds.”
“Roger that, Shuttle, I’m on it.”
The pack of four missiles pushing ahead of the shuttle turned around, their engines firing to slow them down, to match speed with their target rather than simply slamming into them. As they grew close, their warheads detached, smaller thrusters working to latch them onto the hull of the shuttle, two on each. Within a second, their engines had died, and their thrusters were pushing them onto a new course.
“Great work, Salazar!” Marshall said. “That’s two down! Harper’s bringing them in right now. One to go.”
“On it, sir,” he replied. This was easier, now that he could focus all of his attention onto a single target, even if he did only have two drones, and two of the special missiles to go. Each drone was carrying one conventional missile and one techjammer, the former a backup just in case everything went to hell.
“Anything I can do?” Erickson asked.
“Set up for the return to Alamo,” he replied, tapping another control to make sure that Drones One to Four matched their course. “We’re running out of time.”
He looked up at the range plot, started to take greater control of Drones Five and Six, his hands skimming across the controls as he feinted in with one, then let it slide back on reduced thrust as he brought the other forward. Then, with a single tap, he fired the last two missiles.
This one was make-or-break, and he knew it. The techjammer missiles didn’t have the range that the others hand, only a very limited fuel capacity, another prototype weapon under test. If something went wrong, then there was no backup plan. Alamo could fire a shot with its laser cannon, bring the shuttle down, but the energy pulse would be picked up on the far side of the planet.
He willed the two missiles in towards their target, focusing on nothing else, watching as they curved gently in, pushing past the remaining enemy shuttle, now dangerously close from completing its escape. The warheads detached, and the payloads completed their final burn, locking onto the hull.
“That did it!” Marshall yelled. “Harper’s got the third, with just enough fuel to bring it home. Now get back yourself, as fast as you can.”
“Roger that, Alamo. I’m on the way.” One last piece of business, and he sent the two missiles from the start of the battle, now running low on fuel, to spin down to the planet in this orbit. They’d have burned up without a trace before they could be detected by anyone on the surface, or on the far side of the planet. Now that the job was done, all he had to do was cover his tracks.
The shuttle engines roared as they moved to correct their velocity, slowing them down to allow Alamo to catch up with them. Up ahead, the two enemy shuttles were coasting towards the elevator airlocks, staying on the course they had originally been on before their attempt to escape, Cooper’s Espatiers ready to take the occupants into custody.
“Damn,” he said, looking across. “Red light on Drone Four. Fuel leak.”
“Let me take a look,” Erickson said, locking the shuttle on automatic approach as she rose from her couch, walking over to his console. She started to run a series of diagnostic checks, and shook her head. “No good. The damn thing never had enough fuel to pull this off. The defect’s in the tank itself, not the fuel lines. The gauges are messed up.”
“How did that get through the inspections?”
“Probably because no-one’s ever worked on anything like this before, and the deck gang would have been relying on the in-built safeties.”
Shaking his head, he tapped another control, and said, “You can get back to the helm.”
Frowning, she looked over his shoulder, and said, “You’re crashing it down.”
“No choice.”
“It’s bigger than the missiles…”
“That’s a risk we’re going to have to take. If we’re lucky, they’ll just write it off as a meteor, something natural. If we’re lucky.”
“And if we aren’t?”
“Then there isn’t anything we can do about it now.” He looked back at the sensor display, watching as the fast shuttle drifted up into Alamo, he and his drones now coming in on final approach. He glanced down through one of the viewports, saw a faint point of light with a slender trail behind it, Drone Four descending to its fiery death.
“Only one lost, Pavel,” Erickson said. “That isn’t bad.”
“Bad enough,” he said. “We’re going to need it later. You’d better call for docking clearance. I think we’ve got everything secure out here.”
“Right,” she said. “Damn, we’re running on fumes.”
He looked up at the sensor display one last time. Just clear space on the readouts, no sign of the battle that had just taken place out here, nothing for the detectors on the far side of the planet to pick up. A successful operation, but only just. Fighting enemies that didn’t have any weapons, he’d almost lost control. Next time, it would be for real.
Chapter 15
The last of the UN shuttles rose to the hangar deck, Cooper standing around with three of his squads, their weapons at the ready. Behind him, a trail of sullen prisoners were being taken to a holding area by an unhappy First Squad, a slow procession into captivity. He looked at the shuttle carefully, then down at his watch.
“Right. It’s going to be Third and Fourth,” he said. “As well as Sergeant Morton and Specialist Jackson.”
“Damn it,” someone from Second Squad said.
“I don’t know who that was,” Cooper replied, “but you’ll get your chance. Someone has to stay behind to guard the ship. Grab your kit.”
A fire team moved into position in front of the shuttle’s hatch, pistols raised and at the ready, and a technician reached across to open the door. A group of men in UN Security uniform walked out, looking around at the deck, their eyes absorbing the details they saw. One of them abruptly made a break, running for the airlock, but Corporal Pavlov took him in a running tackle, sending the two of them crashing to the floor.
Leaving his men to deal with the new batch of prisoners, Cooper stepped into the shuttle, shaking his head as he looked around the cabin. Cramped and confined, it was going to be a tight fit to get even two squads in here, but that was the m
inimum to complete the operation. At least they could leave their spacesuits behind.
“Grab your chutes,” he said, “and your kits. We’re moving out right now. Get into the ship.” Raising his communicator to his ear, he said, “Cooper to Marshall. We’re ready to begin the third phase.”
“Understood, Ensign. Harper has control of that shuttle and will guide you to the target. How long do you need?”
“Say seven days,” he replied. “We’ll find a way to make it work. Monitor this frequency, but if I’m calling home, something’s gone wrong.”
“Cooper, if you need to abort, at any time, do it. We can have evac shuttles down to pick you up in fifteen minutes if necessary.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Then good luck, and good hunting.”
Most of his men were in the shuttle, jostling for position. He picked up his parachute with one hand, his backpack and rifle with the other, and took his place at the head of the formation, standing in the airlock. A pair of technicians were hurriedly fitting the escape apparatus over the hatch, and he briefly paused to inspect their work, the retractable pole that would snap into place at the right time.
As he stepped inside the hatch slammed shut, and after a moment he felt the shuttle drop down through the elevator airlock, on its way to its final destination. It felt strange to have no-one at the controls, just Harper and the duty shuttle pilot back on Alamo handling it by remote. It was a violation of half a dozen safety regulations not to have someone qualified at the helm, but given a choice between taking a trained trooper and a shuttle technician, he’d gone for the former with no hesitation.
“Listen up,” he said. “This is the big show, people. Re-entry’s going to be tough with no couches, so hang on. We’ll be taking it as easy as we can. Make sure that you complete weapons and parachute check in plenty of time, and yes, I know we haven’t got much space in here.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Not In My Name Page 12