Rawls had just begun to relax again from the apparent false alarm when everything went to hell again. There was a flash on the main display that he instantly realized was a light source hitting the dorsal hull plates.
“Fuck!” his tactical officer practically screamed, all thoughts of professional decorum out the airlock. “The Resolute is gone!” Rawls saw the icon for his other ship on the Link status turn amber, then flash red and disappear.
“What happened?” he asked irrationally. “Was she hit with something?”
“We don’t know yet, sir,” the tactical officer reported. “I’m still clearing our local space.”
Rawls opened his mouth and closed it twice but said nothing. He felt completely helpless but the lieutenant commander was right; clear the area and then worry about what might have happened to the Resolute.
“Commander Bevin had just been selected for captain, too,” his XO whispered next to him, referring to the CO of the Resolute. He didn’t chide his inappropriate comment as he was still processing the fact that he’d now lost two-thirds of his taskforce and had yet to even remotely accomplish his mission.
“Local space is clear, Captain,” the tactical officer reported.
“Confirmed,” OPS said unprompted. “At least as clear as it was before the Resolute exploded.”
“Do we know what happened yet?” Rawls asked.
“Yes, sir,” OPS said. “This was just sent up from CIC.” The main display shifted to a shot of the Resolute flying off their starboard flank, trailing by a few thousand kilometers. The image jumped and Rawls realized he was watching a video clip. The video was slowed down significantly so they were able to clearly see a Darshik plasma lance burst through the port, dorsal surface on the Terran destroyer, piercing it like an arrow. The explosions rippling under the surface of the hull were grotesque in the slowed-down clip, but Rawls refused to turn away. For a split second light could be seen pouring out of hundreds of rents in the Resolute’s hull before she was engulfed in a flash.
“That’s all there was?” Rawls said, his mouth dry. “They didn’t send up anything on the ship that hit them?”
“They think they saw something on thermals as the blast subsided, but nothing definitive.” The OPS officer shook his head slowly. “They also didn’t detect anything leaving the area.”
“We were just hit by that ship Captain Wright warned us about, the one that snuck up on her and punched holes in the Icarus,” Rawls said. “There’s no other explanation.”
“How could it hide its approach and escape so completely? We’re at full power right now.” Rawls turned to his XO as the realization of what happened hit him like a bucket of ice water.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked.
“No, sir … I’ve never even heard of any ship being so quiet.”
“Yes you have,” Rawls said. “There’s one in the system right now: Icarus.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, that bastard has a reactionless drive. Coms! Send a message to the Aludra Star and the Icarus warning them Captain Wright’s phantom is in play and has just taken out the Resolute. Tell them we suspect it’s utilizing some type of gravimetric subliminal drive and it isn’t showing up on radar before it hits. OPS, bundle the data from the engagement and sent that as well.”
“What orders now, sir?” the tactical officer asked. Rawls saw that they were approaching their maximum subluminal velocity, knew they couldn’t see the enemy ship coming, and realized they were all alone out in the outer system.
“Shut down the actives; passives only,” he ordered. “OPS, secure the Link transponder. I want no EM emissions coming from this ship after our transmissions to the rest of the fleet go out. Helm, engines to zero thrust, steady as she goes.
“We’re just going to become as silent as possible, everyone … but we’re pressing ahead with our mission. We have a job to do and we don’t honor those we’ve lost on the Resolute and Racer by cutting and running when two other ships are still here fighting and that ghost ship is still on the loose. We’ll fight smart, but we’re still going to fight. Any questions?”
There were none. Just a handful of grim, determined faces staring back at him. Rawls took his seat and, strangely, felt calm and clear-headed. He’d just lost a good friend in Commander Bevin and was now alone and being hunted in hostile space, but all he could think about was trying to get the Relentless where she could do the most good and not wanting to sacrifice anyone else because he wanted to save his own skin. He was still afraid, but the panic had subsided and he felt ready for whatever was coming next.
23
“I think it’s safe to say something has changed!” Castillo shouted over the fading sound of the explosion that had shaken the ground beneath them.
“No shit!” Barton shouted back as he reloaded his weapon. Over the last six days they’d done as Colonel Rucker had ordered, hitting Darshik patrols in sneak attacks and even taking out a site that appeared to be an enemy bivouac, killing them all as they slept standing up.
But over the last forty-two hours there had been shift in the aliens’ tactics: They were now coming for the Marines and coming hard. The good news was that they were no longer messing about killing unarmed civilians. The bad news was that with the aliens’ superior numbers the Marines didn’t stand much of a chance over the course of the next few days. Even when they tried to hit and run like they had been the Darshik would doggedly pursue them, tracking them until they could reengage. Barton had to assume that something had shifted in the battle for control of the system out in space, but damned if he could figure out what that might be one way or another.
Another explosion ripped through a building down the street, the one they had been hiding in moments ago, the concussive blast taking Barton’s breath away. Shit. They were getting closer and they seemed to be much more proficient at tracking where their fire was coming from than they had before. He realized that the ineptness displayed by the enemy in the early days of the campaign were likely a ruse as the squad they’d engaged was systematically picking them off.
“We’re going to need to move,” he called to Castillo. “Withdraw everyone, pull straight back. I’m going to try to get to the major and see what he wants to do.”
“Got it!” Castillo waved for him to go as he used hand signals to withdraw the rest of the team before the Darshik used their light artillery to take out the squat commercial building they were hiding behind.
Barton ran down a back alley directly away from where they knew the small Darshik unit was for two blocks before cutting left and hustling up the street towards Major Baer’s last known position. The damn Darshik had surprised him with that last barrage and he’d been so close to the artillery shell when it exploded that it killed his com with a small piece of shrapnel piercing the battery. Either really bad luck or really good luck depending on how one looked at it, since the comlink transceiver had been attached to his harness right over where his heart was.
Two more blasts rocked the neighborhood, a small place that looked like it used to be mostly machine shops and other light industry, and Barton was just distracted enough that he ran full bore into the black-clad Darshik soldier that had stepped out from a small alley. The alien was looking the other way when Barton slammed into it, throwing it forward and knocking it off balance. Despite its greater bulk the Darshik was surprisingly light.
Unfortunately Barton also had not expected the impact and his carbine slid out of his grip and hit the pavement, his gloved fingers sliding off the stock as he desperately grabbed for it.
“Grresshhh!” The deep, undulating hiss that came from the alien turned Barton’s blood to ice. It was recovering and had already turned around, beginning to raise its weapon when Barton reacted out of pure, adrenaline-fueled panic.
“Fuck you!!” he roared and pulled his sidearm, charging at the alien again and slamming into it before it could raise its energy weapon. They both went down in a tangle and the alien trie
d to push Barton off, the human realizing that he’d pinned the weapon across the thing’s chest between them. He put the muzzle of his pistol between where the helmet met the neck of the combat suit and pulled the trigger again, again, and again. He kept pulling until the pistol stopped firing, just making a whirring sound, and the Darshik quit thrashing below him.
He pushed himself up off the dead alien and, on shaky legs, backed away towards the wall of the building nearest him. His muscles were cramped up and he felt lightheaded after the hard adrenaline shock his system had just taken. Before he could go and collect his primary weapon he had to turn and empty his stomach onto the sidewalk.
“Get your shit together,” he said to himself, spitting out the rest of the bile and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He reloaded his pistol and holstered it before picking up his carbine and checking it over to make sure his stupid ass hadn’t damaged it when he blindly ran into an enemy scout.
He picked up the Darshik energy weapon out of curiosity and looked it over, pulling it as far away from the body as the power umbilical would allow. After fifteen seconds of not being able to figure out how the damn thing worked he tossed it back on the ground, spit on the alien corpse, and continued down the street on still-trembling legs.
Barton didn’t get much further when a new set of explosive sounds reached him, these much further away and different than the concussive shells the Darshik had been lobbing at them. He looked towards the source and his empty stomach twisted up into knots. Large columns of vapor stretching up into the sky seemed to be appearing as if by magic over the city of Neuberlin, each accompanied by a thunderous CRACK! that shook the ground.
“You sons of bitches,” Barton whispered as he watched the capital of Juwel being attacked from a starship in orbit, laser fire raining down on one of the most populated cities on the planet. The beams were superheating the air when they were fired, causing shockwaves to emanate away from the vapor columns they created each time one was fired.
Feeling equally enraged and helpless, he turned and continued on to try and find Major Baer. If they were about to make a last stand—and it seemed like that was the case—he was determined to take out as many of these alien fucks as he could before they got him.
“Any word on why the Resolute dropped off the Link?” Jackson asked. He was on his fifth or sixth mug of the potent coffee they had in the ward room and he was starting to get a bit fidgety.
“Nothing, sir, and there is no indication that the Relentless is engaged,” Dole said. “I’m assuming there might have been a malfunction, but I’ve never seen both primary and redundant Link transponders fail simultaneously.”
“I have,” Jackson said. “Just keep monitoring it. We won’t jump to conclusions until we know anything. How long until our final course change?”
“Just over four hours, Captain.”
“Tell Commander Chambliss and Lieutenant Colonel Beck they’re clear to begin prepping the shuttles for launch,” Jackson said. “Let Chambliss know he’s authorized to power up all his shuttles via the umbilicals but to make sure Engineering knows before he puts a heavy draw on the power MUX.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Captain! Big com packet coming in from the Relentless,” Epsen called. “They’re saying the Resolute was destroyed by an unknown bogey and that they’re going silent but are still coming down to Juwel as fast as they can.”
“There they go,” Dole said, pointing to the Link status block on the main display. The icon for the Relentless went amber just as the Resolute dropped off the board altogether.
“Damnit!” Jackson ground out. “Coms, send that entire packet down to CIC and tell them I expect a full brief ASAP … I want to know what the hell happened out there and then ask the Icarus’s com officer if they received the same thing.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The next forty-five minutes were tense as he waited for his CIC to pull a cohesive story out of the data dump the Relentless had sent. They were getting close to the point of no return and this mission was still very much up in the air. The Icarus was well past them now and actually had to decelerate so she didn’t reach the planet too far ahead of the Star. Jackson was mildly embarrassed by that but didn’t show it in front of his crew; he’d already had too many slips of the tongue disparaging the Star when she didn’t perform like a destroyer would have. A lot of the crew had been with the ship for years and he was the outsider. They’d made it clear non-verbally early on that the comments didn’t pass unnoticed and weren’t appreciated.
“Sir, this is Lieutenant Jelinek,” Simmons walked up with a young officer in tow. “He’ll be conducting the briefing regarding the loss of the Resolute.”
“Lieutenant, am I correct in assuming that you’re about to deliver bad news given that you came up here yourself?” Jackson asked.
“It’s moderately horrible, yes, sir,” Jelinek said.
“OPS and Coms! Get Captain Wright on a video channel and pipe it here to the bridge,” Jackson said, ignoring the muttering he heard. It was unorthodox for captains to confer with each other in plain view of their crews. That quasi-tradition began because most COs could barely agree that space was cold and the arguments over even trivial matters tended to escalate into full-blown fights. When large egos collided the results were predictable, but Jackson and Celesta had enough mutual respect and history that he felt comfortable having her sit in on the brief and add her input when needed.
“Captain Wolfe,” Celesta greeted him as the video resolved on the main display. She was also sitting in her command chair on the bridge of the Icarus and Jackson felt a momentary pang of loss as it looked so much like his old ship: Ares. “Thank you for inviting me to your intel brief.”
“No problem, Captain,” Jackson said. “It’s good to see you again. Lieutenant Jelinek … you may proceed.”
Over the next twenty minutes Jelinek quickly laid out a concise recreation of what happened based on Rawls’s firsthand testimony and the sensor logs of the Relentless. The news was bleak. The Darshik “specter” was apparently a lot more capable of a ship than even Celesta had known it to be. In addition to being able to get into a system with a miniscule transition flash it appeared to be extremely stealthy and operated a gravimetric subluminal drive similar to the one the Icarus used. Even the plasma lance seemed to be especially powerful compared to the cruiser-class ships they were used to tangling with, having completely speared through the Resolute and rupturing two reactors within seconds.
“This … is not welcome news,” Celesta pinched the bridge of her nose. “The damn thing could be sitting between us right now and we likely wouldn’t even know.”
“It’s as bad a scenario as I can imagine,” Jackson agreed. “Why is there only one ship with this sort of capability though? Why are the other Darshik warships comparatively weak and this one can gut a Terran destroyer with one shot?”
Celesta just shook her head. “All I know is I’m more thankful to still be here than I originally thought,” she said. “That ship had a free pass on the Icarus but only hit her with a glancing shot. What do you want to do about this, Captain?”
“Nothing to do,” Jackson said. “We’ll have to hope we have some warning before it strikes, but if it left the Relentless intact we can bet it’s on its way here now that we’re approaching so close to the planet.”
“Agreed,” Celesta said. “We’ll try to—” She was interrupted at the exact instant Lieutenant Epsen began waving frantically for Commander Simmons.
“What it is?” Jackson asked him as Celesta leaned out of frame for a moment.
“Sir, word from the surface,” Epsen said. “The Marines are declaring an emergency and are calling on any assets in the system to help. The Darshik are firing on the capital from orbit and the troops on the ground are now coming after them in earnest. Colonel Rucker said he’s lost most of his force and can’t keep them out of the city now.”
“Captain Wolfe—”
“Cel
esta, go!” Jackson cut his former XO off. “Take out every ship over that planet! We’ll get there when we can.”
“Yes, sir,” she nodded and the video feed was cut.
“Icarus is moving off now, accelerating at … damn!” Dole said softly.
“Yes, she’s a fast ship,” Jackson said. “How far out are we now?”
“Final course correction coming up in seventy-two minutes,” Dole said. “We’ll begin braking shortly after and then slide into our orbital lane.”
Jackson just nodded, replaying what the Marines had said in his head. The ground troops were now attacking the city and its defenders in earnest. The atmospheric processor was still an important target, but at what cost? People were dying now; the processor alone would take many years to make a dent.
“Coms, have Colonel Beck report to the bridge, please,” Jackson said, making his decision. Now he just hoped the Marine officer saw it the same way.
“Tango marked as derelict is locked on!” Adler said. “One Shrike, ready to launch.”
“Fire!” Celesta said.
“Missile one is away,” Adler said. “Flying hot and clean.”
“Lock onto the cruiser that’s sitting over Neuberlin and bring the auto-mag online,” Celesta ordered.
“Aye aye, ma’am!” Adler said with a feral smile.
The auto-mag was the latest iteration of the venerable mag cannons that had served aboard Terran warships for over two centuries. This version wasn’t mounted on an articulating turret and the ferrous shells it spit were smaller, but it could belch out twenty-five rounds in rapid-fire succession before it needed to cool and be reloaded. It was not a subtle weapon and anything the multi-ton rounds hit at near-relativistic speeds was decimated. Even the Phage Super Alphas couldn’t withstand salvos from such weapons.
“It looks like it’s just those two cruisers over Juwel right now, ma’am,” Accari reported, taking the initiative as usual and helping the tactical officer with her workload while the ship was in battle. “That leaves one accounted for in the local area, three total from the initial sitrep we received from the Aludra Star, and our Specter friend.”
Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy Page 22