by Nick Webb
Pierce’s voice blared over his comm set. “All hands, ready for Maneuver Granger Three.”
“Sir, we’ve still got a singularity out here….” Ballsy glanced at his sensor board, and breathed harder when he saw a new singularity contact. “Make that two.”
Pierce hesitated. Ballsy knew the calculus that was running through the CAG’s brain—keep the fighters engaged with the singularities and risk getting hit by Maneuver Granger Three, or pull back and risk letting one of the singularities launch toward the Warrior.
Ballsy shook his head—the decision was an obvious choice to him. The good of the many outweighed the good of the stupid. And he felt particularly stupid that day.
“We’re going in,” he said.
Pierce confirmed. “Get in and get out, Ballsy.”
He checked the status of a rarely-used piece of equipment on the tail of his fighter. Operational. Good—if this didn’t work they were screwed.
“Fodder, make your run. Spacechamp, you’re going solo on his tail. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Where the hell are you—” she began, but he’d already peeled away toward the other singularity pulsing nearby. The debris field stretched between him and the miniature black hole, but that only made his job slightly easier.
He set his sights on a particularly large piece of debris, roughly double the size of his own fighter. As it loomed large in his view port he readied the equipment. He’d never used a tow cable before, at least, not outside of standard pilot’s training, and certainly not in the heat of battle, but there was nothing for it. All the other osmium bricks had either been knocked off course or were too far away. It was up to him and his tow cable.
His fighter blasted past the chuck of debris—he recognized it as a small section of one of the light cruisers they’d lost a few minutes ago—and pressed the launch button. The cable shot out behind him, and with a swell of relief he saw it attach to the steaming piece of hull.
He lurched forward against his restraint as the fighter pulled the line taut, but it, and the connection to the debris, held.
Now for the hard part.
He pulled with his fighter, and the debris accelerated along with him. And like a piece of string luring in a cat, he seemed to catch the attention of a handful of enemy bogeys flying nearby. They descended on him.
“Dammit,” he breathed, and looped around as he dodged the enemy fire. His job just went from stupid to impossible. The debris swung around with him, and, serendipitously, yanked him out of the way with its momentum just as a Swarm fighter flew past with its guns blazing. All the shots missed. “Luck is for the stupid, I guess,” he mumbled, and pushed the accelerator forward.
Very close now.
He dodged again to veer away from another bogey, then finessed the fighter into an angle that he prayed would send the piece of debris plunging into the singularity.
He pressed the button to release the cable.
It didn’t detach.
Chapter Thirty-Three
New Dublin, Eyre Sector
Bridge, ISS Warrior
“Two minutes until maneuver Granger Three,” announced Proctor.
Nearly there, thought Granger. Alpha Wing had lost two more cruisers, and the other two wings had lost their share as well, but they’d managed to destroy four of the twelve carriers.
“Captain Connelly, move the Eddington to starboard—you’re too exposed.” Granger traced the lines on his tactical screen. Damn—the Farragut was getting flanked by two carriers. “Captain Verish, pull down hard toward the atmosphere. Jefferson and Wallace move to support.”
The battered Farragut started dropping down, even as it began belching fire from its top. Ignoring the cover fire provided by the Jefferson and Wallace, the two Swarm carriers continued piercing the Farragut with anti-matter beams until finally it flared into a blinding explosion.
Granger frowned and shook his head. One more down. And Verish was a good captain. One of the best. A glance at his watch told him it was time. “All ships. Prepare for maneuver Granger Three. Funnel these bastards into a group—stay on the outskirts. All fighters, pull clear until Sigma and Gamma wings pass.”
The fighters immediately dropped away, pulling most of the swarm fighters with them, and the heavy cruisers formed a perimeter around the Swarm carriers, who continued pounding away at the IDF ships around them, seemingly unaware of the coming threat.
Ten seconds later, one of the Swarm carriers started erupting in explosions from unseen mag rail slugs and ten seconds after that the first ship of Sigma Wing blazed past in the blink of an eye. Several of the enemy carriers shot anti-matter beams after it, but to no avail—it was hundreds of kilometers away already, circling around for its next pass.
The next Sigma Wing ship flew by, then a third and a fourth in rapid succession. The addition of the cruisers’ massive speed to the already-fast mag rail slugs created projectiles with astoundingly high kinetic energy, and the absence of an easy-to-hit target appeared to confound the Swarm.
That was their one failing. For all their overwhelming firepower and speed, the Swarm seemed to lack strategy. He marveled how they could build such advanced spaceships with devastating weaponry like anti-matter beams and the singularity torpedoes, and yet fail in their ability to counter unconventional space warfare tactics. They couldn’t seem to think on their feet—or whatever it was they used to move around. Not that he was complaining about that particular defect.
One Swarm carrier exploded, then the next. Soon there were only two left as the final Sigma Wing ship blasted past, visible for only a second or so. The first Gamma Wing ship would be there in five seconds.
Four.
Three.
Two.
On the viewscreen, one hundred kilometers away, the incoming Gamma Wing ship, the ISS Mayflower, exploded.
“WHAT?!”
Granger bolted upright and reared upon the tactical station. “What happened?”
“It was hit by something, sir. Examining the blast signature now….”
The next Gamma Wing ship was fast approaching.
Four.
Three.
Another explosion. Another cruiser lost. Most lives snuffed out.
“Sir! I don’t know how we missed it, but another fleet q-jumped in right above us. Fifty kilometers higher orbit.”
“Swarm?”
Ensign Diamond shook his head. “No, sir. These readings match the Dolmasi ships we encountered before.”
Dammit.
A third explosion illuminated the screen. He waved over to Proctor. “Abort Granger Three. Call them off. Change course. All of them are to reassemble and make a run at the Dolmasi.”
He turned back to the comm. “All Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Wing ships, let’s finish off these last two carriers and join the others. Granger out.”
Proctor waved him down. “Tim,” she started, lowering her voice once he’d approached the XO’s station, “we’ve got to get out of here. We have no idea how many more are coming. We’ve made our point—they’ll be on the lookout now for attacks in their own space.”
“We can’t retreat.”
She shook her head. “Not retreat. Regroup. This was our plan—hit them hard, then fade away into interstellar space before emerging to hit them again, always avoiding their larger forces. Well this counts as a larger force.”
She glanced down at her console. “Sigma and Gamma wings are assembled, about to move against the Dolmasi.” She looked back up at him. “There’s still time. Let’s cut our losses and fight another day.”
She was right, dammit.
He was about to give the order to leave the system when the sensor officer and comm officer both spoke simultaneously.
“Sir, the Dolmasi—”
“—carriers all ceased fire—”
“—incoming transmission—”
“—all at the same time, sir.”
“—they’re asking to speak directly to you.”
<
br /> Granger tried to parse both announcements at once. He glanced at his tactical readout and confirmed—both remaining Swarm ships had ceased fire. He turned to Ensign Prucha at comm. “The Dolmasi want to talk to me? They named me?”
“Aye, sir. Incoming visual signal.”
Bewildered, Granger pointed to the monitor on the wall. “On screen, then.”
A familiar sight greeted him.
“Captain Granger. We meet again.” Vishgane Kharsa’s scaled face appeared on the screen. “And this time, it is you who are in our space.”
Granger smirked. “I suppose you’re going to ask us politely to leave?”
If the Vishgane had any emotional reaction it certainly didn’t show in his expression. “No. This time I ask for a meeting. Face to face. I offer to come aboard your ship that we might talk. As warriors and potential future allies and friends.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
New Dublin, Eyre Sector
Bridge, ISS Warrior
Shit.
Ballsy grimaced as he saw the singularity growing larger ahead of him, the brightness filling his viewport.
He veered away to miss the singularity himself, hoping that the trajectory of the debris would carry it into the shimmering hole, disrupt it, and snap the connection to his own fighter at the same time.
Probably wouldn’t survive the blast, though. Did this make him a hero? He grunted. He was about to die, and all the heroes were dead anyway, so why not?
His fighter lurched as it caught a few rounds of bogey fire on its wing, and the Swarm fighter flew by, strafing him and the debris both. The starboard thrusters shuddered, and his craft veered to the left, pulling the debris with it, out of the path of the singularity. He groaned as they both flew by it, just meters to spare.
“Dammit!”
He’d lost any favorable momentum and approach vector. That was it—he had only one choice.
Go in himself. Sacrifice his fighter, and his life, so that the others could continue the fight.
Hell, maybe he’d even find Fishtail on the other side. In fact, now that the decision seemed to be made for him, he felt an uneasy peace—knowing he was either about to die, or go through and see his old squadmate, or both.
“Yeehaw!”
A voice hollered out of his comm set, and he looked all around, searching for the source.
“Get out of the way, you moron!” Pew Pew’s voice called out again, and that’s when Ballsy saw it.
And swore again.
Pew Pew, his fighter mostly disabled, was pushed up against another piece of debris, using only his landing thrusters to guide the chunk of metal on a looping, spiraling, semi-chaotic course. With another curse Ballsy pressed on the accelerator and veered out of the way.
And just in time.
The debris connected with the singularity, and the three objects exploded together in a piercing light.
But not before Ballsy saw something shoot out from the fighter, away from the explosion.
When the blast subsided, he breathed easier. The shock wave bowled over him, and more debris caught in the blast front slammed into a few Swarm fighters nearby.
But Pew Pew was gone. Shit—that guy had lived through everything. Always throwing himself at the craziest situations. Always disappearing and being given up for dead, only to reappear at the last—
“Ballsy, you gonna come get me, or what?”
Volt laughed, and shook his head. “You didn’t….”
“I did. Ejected at the last second. I’m about to run into a mighty big cumrat ship though, and turn into a soupy blob myself, so I reckon you might want to make all available haste in getting your ass over here.”
Still laughing at the absurdity of it—making a crazy suicidal run at the singularity, failing, only to be bailed out by a similar suicidal run, and then having to rescue his rescuer—and within a moment he had his friend on the radar.
He swooped past and matched velocity, glancing out his rear to verify at least some length of cable was still there.
It was. Just a few meters, but it was enough.
“All right, Pew Pew, grab on. Don’t get roasted in my ion trail—I hear those bastards can get toasty.”
The Swarm carrier loomed closer and closer, and he nudged his craft toward his flailing friend, tumbling and twisting out in the vacuum as he careened toward the enemy ship. Only a few seconds left before they both smeared against the hull….
“Got it! Go!”
Ballsy nudged the left wing’s thruster to ease them out of the way. Too much acceleration and Pew Pew would fly off the cable and smash into the Swarm hull.
They weren’t going to make it.
“Ballsy, punch it! Don’t worry, I’ll hold on! Got it tied around my waist!”
Swearing again, he pushed more power to the thruster and they sailed out of the way, sending Pew Pew wrapping around him in a wide arc.
But they missed the hull. By only three meters, but a win was a win.
“Yeehaw!” Pew Pew called again. Ballsy puffed air in disbelief—it was a wonder the other man could still breath.
He glanced at his radar and saw, with satisfaction, that Fodder and Spacechamp had managed to knock out the other singularity. And if his readings were correct, they were even still alive.
But his radar showed something else. New contacts. Lots of them.
Dolmasi ships. But they weren’t firing yet. No fighters belched out from their bays.
But it was inevitable. They’d come. And with Pew Pew hanging on by a literal thread, they’d both die.
Time for yet another miracle.
Chapter Thirty-Five
New Dublin, Eyre Sector
Bridge, ISS Warrior
“Dead?” Conner’s face went red. “How? When? But—”
This was just awful. Isaacson never learned how to console anyone, much less a man-child freshly graduated from high school. He’d never wanted kids. Now everyone on the shuttle was probably expecting him to … well, do something.
Sighing, he went into empathetic politician mode. The I feel your pain mode. He stood up and sat next to him, putting his arm around the kid’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Conner. There was an accident. They wouldn’t say what exactly happened, but they say he died fast. Painlessly.”
Rather than sob, the young man was completely emotionless. “He was the last one. The only family I had. Now I’m it. Alone,” he said, his voice dead.
Isaacson did his best to console the kid, but in the end there was little he could do. The shuttle landed, and Isaacson went down the ramp with Levin. A soldier was waiting for them on the launch pad. He spoke in his chief’s ear. “Look after the kid. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Levin nodded, and returned to the shuttle. The soldier held up a hand to salute, then to shake Isaacson’s. “Mr. Vice President, I’m Colonel Titler. Welcome to the Squaretop Mountain production facility. Allow me to show you inside.”
From the launch pad they walked up to what looked like an old shack set against a low hill. Beyond the hill, just a kilometer away, rose a sizable mountain, which, as the name suggested, appeared flat on top. Once inside, he saw that the interior actually spread out and away under the hill, and, like the small building above the military complex in D.C., it served mainly as a checkpoint and security processing station.
“General Norton said you wanted me to show you around. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by our progress. When the president showed up last month we were still scaling up production. Heh—she wasn’t too happy with us. Now you can report back and assure her we’ve improved our process flow.”
Isaacson nodded. Clearly the officer thought he was there on an inspection tour, sent by the administration. He’d get more information out of the colonel by playing along. “Very good, Colonel Titler. President Avery will be most pleased.”
The colonel showed him through a few sets of doors, then down an elevator, through more doors, and do
wn yet another elevator, plunging deep into the Earth.
“How long ago did you start this facility up?”
Colonel Titler opened a door for him and led him through into an antechamber. Giant windows looked out onto what looked like a production floor. Dozens of people in full-body hazmat suits roamed the area, some carrying small sample bottles or vials, others pushing grav-lifts of storage containers.
“A few years ago. But we didn’t ramp up production until two months ago. You know, when the war started. General Norton called the next day and ever since it’s been a madhouse around here. We staffed up, retooled our production chambers where the material is produced, and now we can get through about ten kilos a day.”
All the talk was gibberish to him, but one part caught Isaacson’s ear. “A few years ago?”
“Yes, sir. Right at the beginning of the first term of Avery’s administration.”
Interesting. A weaponized anti-matter facility created at the beginning of Avery’s tenure, right in the middle of the implementation of the Eagleton Commission, no less.
“Ten kilos, huh? Tell me, what does that translate to? About a thousand bombs a month?” he said, remembering the figure General Norton had quoted him in the MUNCENT facility underneath the capitol.
Colonel Titler chuckled. “More like fifty-thousand, sir. I think President Avery will be quite pleased with our progress, like I said.”
Fifty-thousand? What in the world was Avery going to do with fifty-thousand anti-matter bombs per month? She must have one hell of a war strategy up her sleeve.
But what was she originally going to do with all that anti-matter if the Swarm had not invaded?
Isaacson smiled. “She sure will.” He watched the production crew wheel a giant pallet onto the floor, and begin unstacking its contents. “You sure had to acquire new staff pretty quickly. Happy with the people?”
Colonel Titler nodded. “Yeah, they’re working out. All draftees, of course. Got a crew of about ten thousand that keeps this place running. You wouldn’t know it by that shack outside, would ya’?” He laughed. “Actually, we’ve got other entrances scattered around the local town. Can’t have workers without bars, brothels, and restaurants now, can you?”