“Weitzman,” Marshall said, calmly. “Break silence with the assault team. Request a status update.”
“Aye, sir,” the communications technician replied.
“It won’t take them long to burn out a landing zone with their plasma carbines,” Caine said. “Shall I get the shuttles in the air?”
“Not yet,” he said.
Weitzman turned, frowning, and said, “They’ve transmitted code-signal Spartacus, sir. Ready for assault on your command.”
“How the hell did he manage that?” Foster asked. “Seven days in less than four?”
“Very well,” Marshall said. “Transmit code-signal Caesar.”
“Wait a minute,” Caine said. “You mean Brutus, don’t you? Prepare for evacuation?”
“No, I don’t, Deadeye. We’re going to attack. Midshipman…”
“You can’t take us into that!” Caine said. “Danny, we’ll be torn apart. Thirty-two laser pulses would reduce Alamo to component particles, before we even get close to them.”
“Why don’t we use multiple-launch weapons, Deadeye?”
She took a deep breath, and said, “They might not have the same restrictions to their fabricators. For all we know, this is normal.”
“Then why didn’t they use them at Yeager Station? My guess is that they have shot their bolt. Right now their fighters are unarmed, they’ve used their surprise advantage, and we have a second ship to provide backup. None of that will be true if we wait even five minutes.”
“Besides,” Grant said, frowning, “Sometimes you have to take the big risk or lose the whole game.”
Caine looked at him, shaking her head, and said, “I hope you know what you are doing, Danny.”
“So do I,” Marshall replied. “Weitzman, contact those Republic shuttles, and tell them to hold into a parking orbit for the present. Get me information on their status. If they’re full of Republic Marines, they might be able to play a part in this battle yet. Midshipman, implement that interception course of yours, maximum speed.”
“Caesar code transmitted, sir,” Weitzman said. “I have the commander of the Zheng He for you.”
“Put him on. Caine, get our fighters in the air.”
“Aye,” she replied, tapping a control, “Drone Squadron, launch. Clearance on request.” Glancing across at a panel, she said, “They’re in the elevators now. In space in thirty seconds.”
“Good. I’ll tell Salazar where he is going in a minute.”
The viewscreen winked to a view of a battered bridge, a pair of technicians applying a temporary hull patch behind a man wearing a tattered Republic uniform, a blood-soaked bandage around his arm.
“Alamo, I’m going to evacuate. Request fighter cover and a safe haven for my crew,” he began.
“Negative, Zheng He.”
“Damn it, Captain, we need your help!”
“And you’re getting it. Are your sensors operating?”
He shook his head, and said, “Most of our exterior instruments are gone.”
“Spinelli, set up a data feed. I need them to be able to see what’s happening.” Turning back to the screen, he said, “We’re going to take these bastards down, and I need your help to do it. If I can deal with the incoming shuttles, will you stay in the fight.”
The man frowned, turned off screen for a second, then replied, “How far are you willing to go with this?”
“All the way.”
With a sigh, he said, “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Not if you want to save your ship.”
Looking across at a panel, he said, “I’m ordering all non-essential personnel to take to the shuttles, heading for the tanker. They might survive this if the rest of us don’t. Enough of us will be staying behind to give you the support you want.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“My pleasure.” He paused, then said, “Taking you out of the loop wasn’t my idea.”
“I presumed as much. Good hunting.”
“Likewise.”
Alamo rocked, six new tracks appearing on the tactical display, and Caine said, “Fighters away, sir. Heading right for the battle.”
“So are we, sir,” Foster said, as Alamo’s engines roared into life, kicking her forward towards the enemy ships. “I’m taking the spin off the ship.”
“We’re committed,” Grant said. “Any second now the Q-Carrier will see us coming around the far side of the planet.” Glancing up at a monitor, he added, “The fighters will be in the battle area in five minutes.”
“Get me Salazar,” Marshall said.
“You’re on, Captain,” Weitzman replied after a second.
“Flight Leader, this is Alamo Actual.”
There was a slight delay, then Salazar said, “Reading you, Alamo.”
“You get first crack at this, Leader. Four shuttles heading in. Make a maximum mess of them, then mop up as many of the fighters as you can. You should have an open run for a few minutes. Take full advantage of it.”
“Aye, sir.”
Marshall glanced up at the tactical display, “Alamo will be in the battle about four minutes after you. Keep those ships busy until we can get there. Zheng He will give you tactical support until then, but it might need protecting.”
There was a chuckle in Salazar’s voice as he replied, “You want me to protect the Republic battlecruiser, attack the shuttles coming out and the fighters returning, and cause maximum mayhem? Sounds like a true opportunity to excel, sir.”
“I knew you’d take it in the spirit it was intended, Sub-Lieutenant. Good luck, and good hunting. We’ll see you shortly.”
“I’ll try and save you a few bad guys. Salazar out.”
Caine stood up, walking over to Marshall’s chair, and said, “You know how much fire that kid’s going to be up against. Another salvo of laser-missiles, and if they have the same capabilities as the first two waves…”
“I know. Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
“You’re sending that kid to his death if it does.”
Nodding, Marshall said, “It won’t be the first time, Deadeye, and damn it all to hell, it probably won’t be the last.” Gesturing at the display, he said, “There are only a handful of people who could live through that fire. I think I just sent one of them into the fight.”
“I hope so.”
“Game face on, Deadeye. We’ve got work to do.”
Leaning back on his chair as she returned to her station, Marshall watched the tangle of course tracks in the battlefield ahead, watched the enemy battlecruiser turn as it saw Alamo coming around the planet towards them, fighters flying forward like avenging angels. Over the viewscreen, a clock flashed into view, counting down the seconds until they were in firing range.
“More speed, Midshipman,” he said. “Let’s go get them.”
Chapter 24
The force of the acceleration pushed Salazar back in his couch as the shuttle raced to catch up to the fighters up ahead, Erickson recklessly running the engines over the red line in an attempt to keep pace. He forced himself to focus on the feeds from his five drones, fingers of his hand reaching out into the void, and ran the mission plan over in his head.
Shuttles heading one way, fighters another. Not on intersecting courses, which made it tougher. Not to mention the other problem that there was a battlecruiser to protect. His thoughts flashed back to the first battle, when they had entered the system. Controlling two groups of fighters independently had been bad enough that time, but this time there would be all manner of electronic jamming to confuse the situation, missiles and potentially gigawatt laser blasts flying through space.
Two, two, and one. Pairs of fighters to head for the enemy shuttles, another for the fighters, the remainder to follow the shuttle as ready reserve, to intercept anything that decided to
head their way. He tapped the controls, and the drones instantly dived onto their new trajectories, dancing through space at accelerations that would have crushed any human pilot to death in an instant.
And yet, he was there, in each of them. At the touch of a button he could put himself into each cockpit in every way that mattered, with only a microsecond delay to alert him that he wasn’t actually there. He glanced up at the sensor tracks, watching as the shuttles began to change their course, arc away in an attempt to evade the incoming fighters. A nice try, but it wasn’t going to work. His velocity margin was a lot better than theirs, his acceleration infinitely superior. Over on the other side of the display, the fighters held their course, running for home. Low on fuel, low enough that they didn’t have a choice. Bad design, too little range.
Not that he had infinite fuel himself. The shuttle was running far too hot, and any sort of safe return to Alamo would depend on a quick battle that he couldn’t count on. The troops on the surface were in a dangerous enough position, but if everything went wrong, he and Erickson would be left drifting in space, surrounded by people he had been attempting to kill. They weren’t likely to be in the best of moods in the aftermath of such a battle.
“Alamo Actual to Flight Leader,” Marshall’s voice echoed. “We show you in firing range in ninety seconds. I’m hooking you over to Zheng He’s tactical net right now. Remember, you need to keep the wolf from the door long enough for Alamo to get here.”
Caine’s voice broke in, adding, “Enemy battlecruiser launching laser-missiles. No idea whether they are multiple or not. Four of them heading into the combat zone, unable to determine their target yet.”
“Hang on as long as you can. Alamo out.”
Shaking his head, Salazar switched views on his tactical display. Combat in sixty seconds, and those missiles were racing out in his direction. There was only one thing he could do about them, and with a deep sigh, he sent his single remaining fighter into the fray, arcing up and towards the battlecruiser, racing towards the incoming missiles.
The theory of the drone fighters was beautiful. If they did their job properly, then they would run themselves, the single pilot operating as the troubleshooter for difficult situations, and keeping a human finger on the firing controls. Maybe one day they would actually work as advertised, but for the present they were still in the experimental stage, and it showed. His fingers danced from one set of controls to the next, implementing fine changes to trajectories that the on-board systems were too dumb to work out for themselves. In combat, the best theoretical trajectory was death; the enemy had computers as well, just as capable of working out the optimum route, and able to work out the best way of intercepting. The only known way to break through the tactical stalemate was to introduce the random element, the human element.
“Thirty seconds, Pavel,” Erickson said.
He nodded, looking up at his controls, beads of sweat beginning to form up on his forehead as he watched the ever-tangling mess of the course plot. Three formations. One and Two heading for the shuttles and the fighters respectively, Three heading for the missiles. None of them having enough strength to do the job. A new alert popped up, the Republic ship launching half a dozen missiles into the fray, ranging towards the shuttles. Insurance, just in case, though almost as soon as they launched, three of them disappeared, destroyed by the automatic systems rather than risk them being taken over by the enemy.
That made this tougher. And brought the specter of the drone fighters being hijacked into play. They were controlled with tight-beam lasers, rigorous encryption, but even then, he couldn’t be sure. He’d have to wait until the last second to launch his missiles, that was certain, so to provide the enemy with no opportunity to evade.
Formation Two was coming into position first, ranging in before the rapidly retreating fighters. Ten fighters to take down, four missiles to do it with. And the drone fighters themselves, of course, if he chose to kamikaze. Tapping a control, he sent four missiles away, homing rapidly on their targets, no time for evasion. Anyone in their right mind would have ejected, escaping the doomed fighter, but these pilots opted to wait until the last second, trying desperate evasion tactics that were always likely to fail. Brainwashed, just like the others, more than likely.
Four men died as their fighters erupted in flame all around them, the shrapnel catching two more and sending shards of twisted molten metal slamming into their hulls, damaging them sufficiently to take them out of the fight. Just four left now, and there was nothing he could do to stop them drifting into the Q-Carrier. No idea how long they would take to rearm, likely a matter of minutes.
Formation Three, next, as Formation One continued to chase after the shuttles, the boarding parties spending their fuel recklessly, buying short-term survival at the cost of long-term fuel durability. A glance at his readouts confirmed what he already knew, that there was no chance those shuttles could return to their mother ship. Not that he was in a much better situation himself.
The laser-missiles were still diving towards their target, heedless of the approaching fighter, as though they were pretending it wasn’t there. Zheng He was doing all it could to maneuver, but looked like a wallowing beast, its helmsman hindered by the outgassing from a hundred tiny hull breaches lurching it in one direction or another. If those missiles fissioned, there wouldn’t be anything he could do.
He fired his missiles, watching the two tracks drive towards their targets, hoping that they would hit home. Then a red light flashed into view, and he jerked his head down to see that Formation One was almost in contact range, ready to fire. Formation Two was spinning around the Q-Carrier now, waiting for instructions, and he frantically started to type, his attention lost for a critical second as the two missiles he had just fired winked out short of their target, the jamming moving into play.
“Damn it,” he yelled, shaking his head. “There’s nothing we can do for them.”
At least Formation One was pressing home its attack, with four missiles leaping out towards the shuttles at minimum range to match the approaching spread of Republic warheads. Any second now, they would be destroyed, far short of their target. A foregone conclusion, from the moment he entered the battle-space.
“They must have known,” he said, slamming the communications button, “Zheng He, lateral boost, full power, now, or you’ve had it!”
The Republic helmsman complied with an instant to spare, sending his ship racing up as the four shuttles exploded, the detonation catching all of the approaching missiles in its track as well as both of the drone fighters, four gigawatt lasers leaping forward into what was now empty space.
“How did you…,” Erickson began.
“A decoy. It had to be. Why would they be in such a hurry to get the assault shuttles into the air? They had more than enough time to achieve space superiority at their leisure.”
“They’ve not worried about their soldiers before,” she replied. “And I thought we were assuming they were trying to capture that ship intact.”
“Maybe Alamo coming into the picture changed the game.”
Up above, the four missiles were still homing in on their target, diving for the Zheng He at full speed. If for some reason the not-men had elected not to fire their lasers, that still meant that four megaton warheads were heading in for the Republic ship.
“Zheng He, this is Drone Leader. Can you get another salvo into the air?”
“That’s a negative, Drone Leader. Damage to our fabricators. It’s going to take too long. Nice try.”
He glanced at the tactical display, shaking his head. His three remaining drones were scattered all over the battle-space. on wildly diverging courses, slowly beginning to curve back towards the approaching Alamo to rearm. No chance that they could do anything, not even a kamikaze run, if he used all of the fuel he had left.
“Alamo Actual,” he began.
“We’ve g
ot them on track,” Marshall said. “Nothing we can do from here. Harper can’t get in, and we’re out of missile and laser range. Come on home.”
“Negative, Alamo. I’m not out of options yet. Erickson, I want a parallel course with the missiles. We should be able to manage that in forty seconds.”
“Implementing,” she said. “You going to make a habit of crashing your ships into things?”
“Not this time,” he replied. “It wouldn’t do any good if we did. At best, we’d only take out one of them. They’re too far apart for fratricide.” Throwing a switch, he climbed out of his seat, and said, “Nevertheless, I’m ordering you to bail out. Right now you are on a safe trajectory and an SAR shuttle can get you.”
Shaking her head, she said, “No way.”
“This is damn risky, and…”
“And that’s fine, if it gets the job done.”
“Look,” he paused, then said, “Give me the helm, then. This is going to take some damn fancy flying.”
As they swapped seats, she asked, “What are we doing?”
“I think we can use the physical countermeasures,” he replied.
With a sigh, she replied, “That’s your grand plan? We might as well throw rocks at them.”
“Basically, that’s what I have in mind,” he said as he settled into the pilot’s couch, resting his hands on the controls.
“Alamo Actual to Salazar,” Marshall said, urgency laced in his voice. “Return to Alamo at once. There’s no point sacrificing yourself to take out one missile.”
Throwing a switch, Salazar said to Erickson, “I don’t have any time to explain. Ride the systems and the sensors. Let me know if anything twitches.”
“Zheng He is calling,” she replied.
“I’m just Mister Popular today, aren’t I.”
He glanced quickly at the course the shuttle was set on, nodding in approval. He’d have a spectacular twenty-one seconds to pull off this stunt. Far away, the enemy battlecruiser was launching another salvo, destination unknown, but that was going to have to be Alamo’s problem. These four missiles were his.
Battlecruiser Alamo: Not In My Name Page 20