by Jay Allan
-o0o-
Jake closed his comm and shifted in his chair. “Ayala, patch me through to the rest of the ship.”
Ensign Ayala keyed a few switches on her board. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Attention all hands. Grab a hold of something and brace yourselves. It’s about to get a lot rougher sailing.” He looked back at Po. “Is the forward section clear?” Several particularly rough impacts and explosions buffeted the ship, and Jake had to catch himself on his chair.
“Nearly. Another minute.”
Another massive explosion from the Caligula’s railguns helped him make the decision he didn’t want to make. The impossible decision. “No time. Ensign, now. Full speed ahead.”
The sudden acceleration knocked nearly everyone on the bridge off their feet as the ship began speeding up at over one g. “Distance to Caligula?” he shouted.
“Half a klick and closing fast!” yelled Po in reply.
Jake climbed up to the captain’s chair and strapped himself in. “All hands! Brace for impact!”
As the image of the Caligula loomed larger in the viewscreen at a frightening speed, Jake began to wonder if this was his final mistake. He made a point to ask Bernoulli if there was some gambit in chess that sent the king on a suicidal attack run at the queen.
Not likely.
CHAPTER 9
CAPTAIN TITUS EXAMINED his command console from the center of the bridge. He looked back at Admiral Trajan. “All railgun crews are firing, sir. Shall I signal the ion beam cannons as well?”
“Not yet, Captain. We’ll see if this gets Mercer’s attention. He thinks he’s going to get out of this, you see, and we need to convince him otherwise. I would really like that ship in my fleet, but if he doesn’t cooperate, then so be it.” He turned to tactical. “What is the status of the boarding parties on the Roc and the Heron?”
The lieutenant touched a few buttons on his console. “Crews have landed, sir, and have secured the fighter decks. They’re beginning to fan out throughout the ships.”
Trajan nodded. “Good. Comm, get me the boarding crew chiefs.”
Ensign Evans spoke into his comm set, and after a moment glanced back up. “I’ve got them, sir. Colonel Hamm and Colonel Stauph on the channel.”
Trajan cleared his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Crew chiefs, as you secure the ships, isolate every officer of the rank of lieutenant commander and above, and execute them. Out of sight of the crew so as not to encourage uprising. Understood?”
After a moment of hesitation, both soldiers responded. “Yes, sir.”
“It is not the usual way we do things, Colonels, I agree and I understand your concern, but we’re facing Resistance on the Phoenix, and I don’t want that repeated on the other ships. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply from both.
“Trajan out.”
“Admiral!” The lieutenant manning the sensor station had nearly jumped out of his seat. “The Phoenix is on a collision course. She’s accelerating!”
Titus felt a sudden rumble from the deck plate, and heard a distant explosion, followed by another louder one.
Admiral Trajan spun around to the sensor station. “What was that?”
The blood drained from the lieutenant’s face, and seeing that, a knot formed in Titus’s stomach.
“Something just hit our gravitic drive, sir. We’ve lost gravitic thrust. Conventional thrusters only.”
Titus yelled. “What was it? A ship? A fighter? Did someone on the surface fire at us?”
The lieutenant shook his head. “There was a brief gravitic field spike before the explosion. I don’t know sir. Whatever it was, it’s gone. No fire from the surface, nothing from the Phoenix. But we’re dead in the water, sir.”
“Conventional thrusters! Move us out of the way!” Titus yelled again, but knew it was too late—the other ship had already accelerated to a speed far faster than the Caligula could reach in the seconds remaining to them.
Trajan turned to tactical. “Make them at least pay for it, Lieutenant. Maintain railgun fire.” The calmness with which he said it almost unnerved Captain Titus.
Titus and Admiral Trajan both spun to look at the front viewscreen and watched as the Phoenix grew larger, eventually filling the whole wall.
He’d never been in a ship collision before. Was the energy sufficient to destroy the ship? Titus thought back to the battle over Earth three years ago when Admiral Pritchard had maneuvered a ship straight into the Behemoth, delivering a mortal wound. With a shudder, he thumbed open the ship-wide comm. “All hands, brace for impact.”
Trajan kept his arms firmly by his side, as if in defiance of the approaching ship. Titus wondered if the Admiral had any other meticulously planned-out strategies up his sleeve. Trajan’s quiet murmur gave him his answer.
“An interesting move. And that gravitic signal … I should have guessed that the scientists at CERN had something—”
The impact interrupted him, and everyone and thing that was not strapped down flew halfway across the bridge, several officers slamming into the wall—one at an odd angle, which, Titus noticed at the periphery of his attention, caused the man’s neck to snap back, most likely killing him instantly.
When Titus finally got to his feet, he nearly had to cover his ears against the screeching of metal on metal as the Phoenix continued its grinding slide to rest firmly in the bow of the Caligula. Glancing at Admiral Trajan, who climbed to his feet near the wall, he ran to assist the man.
Trajan’s face dripped with blood, the wall panel having left a deep laceration across his cheek which continued up and over onto his forehead. Luckily, the path of the gash was over the already empty eye socket, or Trajan might well have lost his sight that day. The Admiral removed a spotless white handkerchief from his front jacket pocket and dabbed at the blood, waving Titus off.
“Comm. Signal to the other ships to open fire on the Phoenix.”
Titus protested. “But sir! They’re lodged in our hull! If they blow, they’re taking us with them!”
Trajan flashed an eerily calm, bewildering smile. “Yes, Captain, that is true. But the fact remains that I am committed to the plan. To the goal of wiping out the Resistance once and for all. And Captain,” he lowered his chin and stared at Titus with his now even more ghoulish, bloody face, “We are not committed like the hen, but like the swine. I am willing not just to sacrifice a few of my precious eggs, but my flesh. That is the duty of an Imperial officer. Remember that,” he added, coldly.
“Yes, sir,” Titus said, with a faint voice.
“Sir! I’m reading another gravitic disturbance, this time from the Roc.”
Trajan’s face snapped toward the lieutenant so fast that blood actually flew off his cheek, splattering onto Titus’s uniform. “Are their engines back online?”
“No sir.”
The grinding screech of metal on metal finally ceased, and Trajan strode back to the command terminal, studying it intently.
“Comm. Tell the fleet to hold fire momentarily. Sergeant Tomaga,” he said towards the comm speaker on his console.
“Yes, Admiral?” the commander of the fifty-first brigade replied over the speaker. He headed up the group of specially trained shock troops usually reserved for planetary surgical strikes.
“The forward section of the Caligula is currently mated, after a fashion, with the bow of the Phoenix, and my console tells me there is a route you may send your men through. Get on that ship, Sergeant, and finish this nonsense.”
“Yes, sir. Sending out squads now.”
Trajan turned to Titus. “Captain, speak with the other captains on a secure channel, and let them know about the Resistance’s new technology, and to be ready for it.”
“New technology, sir?”
“That is exactly what I said. We’ve picked up two gravitic signatures now,” his eyes lost focus, as if staring at a far-away object, “No, three. One as the troop carriers first entered the Phoenix’s fighter bay,
one right before our gravitic drive was hit by an unknown source, and another one aboard the Roc—”
“And another one just now aboard the Heron, sir,” the lieutenant interrupted.
Trajan looked annoyed at being cut off, but continued. “Obviously, the Resistance scientists have developed not only the new gravitic drives for the capital ships, but for the smaller fighters as well. I suspected they were on to something, but our scientists back on Corsica swore that the new gravitic field approximations could not apply to small mass, low energy systems. It appears they were incorrect.”
“Very well, sir.” Titus walked over to the comm station.
The Admiral leaned back over his console. “And it is a technology that will prove most useful to the Emperor and his fleet.” His voice dropped to an almost conversational tone as he continued studying the readouts on the console. “We will capture it, Captain, one way or another.”
-o0o-
Lieutenant Anya Grace watched with glee as the torpedoes raced away from her front bow and struck the core section of the Caligula, blasting a hole in the ship and sparking secondary explosions from cut power lines. With a deft finger, she pressed the button to initiate a gravitic shift to the fighter bay on the Roc, not willing to wait around to see the aftermath of her handiwork. They’d notice her eventually, and would start firing soon afterwards.
The fighter bay of the Roc snapped into place around her, and instantly she knew something was wrong. A large group of imperial soldiers was streaming into the bay’s anteroom, and Anya had to shake her head at the oddness of it all—not a minute before she had been firing her fighter’s guns at imperial shock troops in an exact replica of the fighter bay she now found herself in.
There were far too many soldiers to take out with her guns, not right away at least, so without waiting another second she squeezed the trigger of her torpedo launcher, launching a missile which slammed into the anteroom, sending a massive fireball blazing back into the fighter bay and pelting her viewport with shrapnel and ASA suit-clad body parts.
Before the survivors could return fire, she transmitted the calculations to the Roc’s computer, with instructions for it to route them to engineering and the bridge. With another press of the gravitic shift engagement button, the flaming fighter bay blinked out, only to be replaced by yet another fighter bay, this one on the Heron.
Four imperial troop carriers sat on the deck, but otherwise the bay was deserted. “Damn,” she muttered. The imperials must have already made their way up into the body of the Heron, and she supposed the ship was probably already lost, given the number of carriers present in the fighter bay. With nothing other than spite, she squeezed the trigger of her guns, and raked a stream of staccato red into the nearest carrier until it exploded, following up one by one with the others until they all were nothing but flaming debris.
She transmitted the calculations to engineering and the bridge again, hoping against hope that there was still someone there to retrieve it, and act upon it. With one last glance at the burning wreckage of the troop carriers, she initiated a fourth shift, this one back to the fighter bay of the Phoenix, sending up a wave of shrapnel from shifting into place too close to the deck.
“Bridge, this is Grace. Mission accomplished.”
She set the fighter down with as soft a touch as she could manage, bringing it to rest on the mangled deck floor, but instantly wished she hadn’t as the entire fighter bay lurched towards the bow, and she would have flown out of her seat had her restraint not been firmly attached.
“Sounds like the Admiral didn’t appreciate his gift,” she said to the empty cockpit. Looking out the viewport she saw Nivens sprawled out on the floor, apparently having just been knocked down by the sudden shaking and rocking of the ship. Ben Jemez was still pulling himself to his feet as she wrenched the cockpit door open and jumped out.
“What the hell is your buddy doing up there?” she yelled at Ben, pointing in the general direction of the bridge.
He winced, holding his head as he tried to stand up straight. “You know, I’d like to ask the man myself.”
-o0o-
When the sound of grinding metal died down, Jake released his held breath, unstrapped his restraint and dashed towards the wall near the helm where the helmsman had fallen, apparently having forgotten to buckle his harness.
“Po? Damage report. How many people did we lose?”
Megan Po’s fingers raced across her board, scanning the forward decks for life signs. She drew in a quick breath. “Scanners indicate twelve deceased crew members, though its not clear if they had died during the collision or the battle. I’m picking up faint life signs from ten more, with another handful in decent shape.”
Twelve. At least twelve people just died because of his decision. Twelve people with mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, maybe kids, who would always look for their loved one to suddenly come walking through the front door. Jake felt sick, and bent down to help the helmsman get to his feet. Twelve people. He couldn’t shake the number from his mind.
“Engineering, bridge. Bernoulli where the hell are my engines?”
The voice responded in an impatient, almost slurred tone, thick with the Italian accent that always crept into Alessandro’s speech when agitated or excited. “If you would stop bothering me maybe I could find the time to actually get something done! Look, friend, gravitic field realignments don’t just happen overnight—usually they take weeks. And I’m doing it in less than two hours!”
“So … you’re saying you’re almost done?”
“Yes! Yes, almost. Almost, friend, just let me work and you’ll have your engines within twenty minutes. Just be careful with them—don’t shift too far. I can’t guarantee flawless results, but we’ll get there in one piece. Probably.”
“Fine. Mercer out.” He looked back at Po. “Megan, we’ve got to squeeze twenty more minutes out of this situation. What’s the status of the Caligula?”
Her hair had fallen back out of the bun again, revealing a far younger-looking woman—Jake sometimes had to remind himself that she was in her thirties and not her fifties. She pushed it out of her face and looked up. “We hit her good, sir. All their systems are fluctuating wildly. Weapons are out. Gravitics are still out, main power is out.”
“Best news I’ve heard all day,” he said.
Something on her console caught her eye. “Captain, I’m reading new life signs in the forward section.” She looked back up. “Soldiers from the Caligula. They’re just walking right on.” She hit a few keys. “I’m getting reports of weapons fire, and more hull breaches. Jake, they’re blasting their way through the emergency bulkheads that dropped from the decompression. They’ll suck the air out of the whole ship if they keep on going.”
Damn.
Jake hit his comm switch. “Sergeant Pearson, Captain Mercer. What’s your status? Is the flight deck secure?”
No answer. Jake sat back down in his chair wondering what pieces he had left when the speaker came on.
“Jake, it’s Ben. Sergeant Pearson is dead.”
-o0o-
Ben looked down at the dead form of the Sergeant. He’d died well, charging the last group of invaders, pushing them out of cover so that Ben and Nivens could get a clear shot, but it was his final act of heroism.
Jake’s voice came back over the speaker. “Who else have you got? Ben, I need twenty minutes before the engines are fixed, and now I’ve got all of the Caligula’s ground forces surging into the forward section of the ship and blasting through our emergency bulkheads.”
Ben steeled his jaw. “I’ll handle it, Captain. You focus on getting us out of here. I’m going to need every available marine. Send word out through the ship to have them meet me in the common area on deck ten. We’ll branch out from there and move forward.”
Jake breathed hard into the speaker, and Ben couldn’t tell if it was relief or tension. “Ok, Commander. Godspeed. Mercer out.”
Anya ran after Ben a
s he sprinted through the door into the flamed-out anteroom and conference room, jumping over the bodies of invaders and flight deck crew and pilots alike. “Grace, stay here. Get the flight deck up and running.”
She hollered back, “Screw that. I’m not done killing Imperials today.”
“Lieutenant, that’s an order!” He didn’t even stop to look at her, but ran down the hall, passing the surviving marines who had just mopped up the remnant of Imperial soldiers holed up in one of the storage rooms.
“What are you going to do, court martial me? Fuck it, Jemez, I’m coming along. You’ll need me.”
He swore under his breath and shook his head as he opened up the arms locked in one of the storage rooms off the flight deck corridor. “You’re a stubborn one, you know that?”
“You figured that out after our first night in that cheap motel in Destin, remember?”
He’d hoped she’d forgotten. He’d tried, not wanting to dwell on the bleak days after Dallas when he wandered aimlessly, willing to do just about anything to help him forget the annihilation of his hometown. Even her. He’d lost everything. His parents. Everyone he’d ever known.
Tossing an ASA suit out at her, he turned to reply, putting on what he hoped was a sneer. “Believe me, I’d forgotten.” He threw the helmet as well, then grabbed a suit for himself, stripping down to his underwear so that he’d fit into the suit.
“Disrobing even faster than last time. Can’t wait to get back into these?” She pulled her pants off and dangled them in front of him before tossing them aside and wiggling into the armor he’d thrown at her.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Anya, it suits you worse than the overblown bravado you throw up like an overused cliché.” He zipped the front of the suit and clicked the button that would create the seal, and he felt the material suck itself to his body like a second skin, becoming his protective shell, and yet leaving him almost completely mobile.
“You know you love it.” She zipped her own armor and shoved the helmet over her head.
“Ready?” he said, picking up an assault rifle, a sidearm, and a plasma-rpg launcher, which he strapped to his back.