The Cruel Stars

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We will proceed as planned,” Commodore Jameson said, once the flotilla was well away from the tramline. “Hopefully, we’ll stay well away from any enemy ships.”

  Alan nodded, grimly. It would take three days to cross the second system, then another four days to cross the third ... it would take nearly two weeks to reach Alkaline, let alone the American base at Coralline. If they were lucky, they’d find safety there; if they weren't ... they might reach the base, only to discover that the aliens had sliced it to ribbons and moved on to destroy Earth. God knew the Americans hadn't designed the base to serve as anything more than a basic maintenance and resupply facility. In hindsight, the American-Russian agreement not to fortify the system beyond the basics looked like a dreadful mistake.

  New Russia was heavily fortified too, Alan reminded himself, as he ordered half his pilots to return to their bunks. And the aliens had no trouble blasting their way into the high orbitals.

  He took a long breath, then settled back to wait. If they were lucky, nothing would happen before they reached the base. And if they weren't lucky ... they’d just have to deal with whatever happened. And they had hurt the aliens. If nothing else, they’d taught them that humans had teeth.

  It might just slow them down, Alan thought. And if it buys us time, it was worthwhile.

  ***

  Abigail was used to monotony, but she’d never had to cope with the twin sensations of being bored and hunted at the same time. Normally, there was no shortage of maintenance work to do - and eBooks to read, and videos to watch - but now she found herself pacing the decks as the days turned into weeks. Crawling back home felt wrong, somehow, even though she knew all too well what would happen if the aliens got a sniff of their location. It was something she couldn't escape, no matter what she did. Even sex provided no solace as the reality of their position crashed down on her, once again, during the afterglow. By the time they finally reached the Alkaline Tramline, she felt like a nervous wreck.

  And we haven’t even caught a sniff of the aliens, she thought grimly, as she sat on the bridge and watched her crew preparing for the jump. They might not even be in the same star system!

  She dismissed the thought as the timer started to count down to zero. There was very little chance of the aliens not having a presence in Alkaline, even if it was just a handful of picket ships monitoring the approaches to New Russia. The odds of being detected were higher than they’d been since they left the unnamed star system. And yet ... cold logic insisted that the odds were very low, but she felt otherwise ...

  “Jumping in three,” Anson said. “Two ... one ... jump!”

  I’m getting too old for this, Abigail thought. She bit her lip to keep from gasping in pain. We need to replace those drives.

  She scowled as the sensation slowly faded away. She was no stranger to physical pain - she’d been in her fair share of fights as a younger woman - but there was something about the jump-shock that bothered her. It wasn't the pain, she thought, so much as the sense there was something fundamentally wrong about it. And it was growing worse as they put more and more stress on Haddock’s drives.

  Alarms howled. “Report!”

  “Picking up a contact,” Poddy snapped. A red icon flashed into life on the display. “One enemy ship, far too close to us!”

  Abigail swore. An enemy ship ... a cruiser, judging by the tonnage. Not the fleet carrier, thankfully, but something that could bring the fleet carrier down on their heads. And the ship was too close for comfort. The odds of not being seen were very low ...

  “She’s turning towards us,” Poddy said. “Captain, the flag is ordering us to launch starfighters.”

  “Deploy starfighters,” Abigail ordered. “Point defence, stand by!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Stand by for launch,” Savage said. “Go!”

  Alan gritted his teeth as the starfighter was hurled out of the launch tube and into interplanetary space, the drive field coming online and taking control the moment the craft was clear of the carrier. There was no point in trying to hide, not this time. The enemy cruiser was far too close to miss them ... he wouldn't have doubted that the wretched ship had seen them, even if the crew had played dumb. It was just too close to avoid seeing the human ships.

  They must have caught a sniff of us in the last system, he thought, as the starfighters fell into their ragged formation. And then they set an ambush ...

  He forced himself to think, hard. The aliens clearly hadn't had much time or they would have deployed the fleet carrier ... unless she was nearby, hidden under a sensor mask. But Commodore Jameson had already deployed a web of sensor drones to search for the enemy ship. She couldn't be that close to the flotilla or she would have been spotted by now.

  “I want one pass,” Savage said. “Hit the bastard with everything you’ve got.”

  Alan nodded as the alien cruiser came closer. Oddly, it wasn't spitting plasma fire in their general direction. He would have wondered if it was a human ship if he hadn't seen the telltale signature of an enemy drive field. And, as their sensors picked out more detail, it became clearer that the ‘cruiser’ was a scaled-up destroyer. The melted hull design was unmistakable.

  “Their targeting sensors are coming online,” Savage said. “Break and attack ... now!”

  The enemy ship opened fire a second later, directing a hail of plasma fire towards the incoming starfighters. Alan wondered, as he fought to keep his starfighter on a steady course while evading the enemy fire, if the cruiser was designed to stand off starfighter attacks. She didn't look to have any heavy weapons, nothing designed for ship-to-ship combat ... perhaps the aliens thought the plasma guns would be enough to handle a capital ship too. It offended Alan’s sensibilities, but he had to admit that the aliens might well be right.

  “Torpedoes away,” he snapped, as the automated systems launched the projectiles. “Taking evasive action ...”

  He cursed as he watched both torpedoes evaporate under enemy fire, an instant before Greene’s torpedoes slammed into the enemy hull. An explosion staggered the ship, but the cruiser somehow held itself together until four more torpedoes lanced into the damaged area and exploded with staggering force. Alan allowed himself a sigh of relief as the enemy ship disintegrated, then slowly turned his craft back towards the carrier. If they were lucky - really lucky - they might just be able to make it halfway to the tramline before the aliens showed themselves.

  A red icon materialised in the display. “Shit,” Greene swore. “Where the hell did he come from?”

  Alan frowned. “A starfighter,” he said. It was a different design to the ones they’d faced at New Russia, but it couldn't be anything else. “The carrier must be nearby.”

  He ran through the vectors in his mind. The starfighter was too far from the flotilla to be easily intercepted, but too close to be evaded. And that meant the carrier couldn't be too far away either. The aliens had definitely picked up a sniff of them in the last system, then. It wouldn't be long before the flotilla was under heavy attack.

  “The flotilla is altering course,” Savage said. “We’re to serve as CSP until we’re relieved.”

  If we last that long, Alan thought.

  He shook his head. Commodore Jameson had switched the flotilla to a least-time course, heading straight towards the tramline. It made sense, as long as they couldn't get rid of their damned shadow, but he couldn't help thinking that it was predictable. The aliens might plant themselves between the flotilla and the tramline and force them to punch through if they wanted to escape.

  “We may die, but we’ll claw the bastards good and proper,” Greene said. He sounded disgustingly cheerful. “And they won’t have a hope of getting away from us.”

  Alan opened his mouth to make a sarcastic remark, then closed it again without saying a word. Greene knew the odds. They all knew the odds. And if pretending to be cheerful was how Greene coped ... well, Alan wouldn't begrudge it.

  “We’re not trapped i
n this useless system with them,” Flight Lieutenant Patsy Govan put in, dryly. “They’re trapped in this useless system with us.”

  “It was more impressive when that actor said it,” Savage commented. Red icons flashed to life on the display. “Here they come ...”

  Another red icon materialised. Alan sucked in his breath, silently thanking God for small mercies. The alien carrier had been caught out of position, forcing the aliens to chase the human ships rather than block their way out of the system. It was a far from perfect situation - the aliens could wear them down, piece by piece - but at least the human ships didn't have to run a deadly gauntlet.

  But they could summon reinforcements from New Russia, he thought, grimly. Abigail had raised the possibility of the aliens having an FTL communicator, but there was a more mundane solution. The aliens could have simply sent one of their ships along the weak tramline to New Russia, cutting two weeks off their transit time. For all we know, the carrier we’re facing now isn't the carrier we saw earlier.

  “Don’t let them reach the ships,” Savage snapped. “Those carriers are our only way home.”

  Alan nodded to himself, then gunned the drives. The alien fighters were already firing, snapping off plasma bursts in all directions. He allowed himself a flicker of relief at the proof his assessment of their targeting wasn't too far off, although part of him noted that it didn't really matter. And then he fired his guns at an alien fighter and watched it explode ...

  Kill now, think later, he told himself. The alien craft were fast little buggers. Some of them had broken through the CSP, despite some brave and skilled flying. If you don’t kill them now, Alan, there won’t be a later.

  ***

  “They’re entering engagement range now,” Poddy said.

  “Get the rest of those fighters out,” Abigail snapped. Calling some of them back had been a mistake, clearly. “And open fire with point defence!”

  She gritted her teeth as the alien craft swooped down on Haddock. Their targeting still wasn't very good, but it didn't matter. Two alien fighters died, an instant before the first plasma bolt burned into her hull. Alarms sounded, muting rapidly as the situation was assessed. It was hard to be sure, but the makeshift armour had definitely done some good. There was damage, yet ... not as much as she’d feared. A third alien fighter was picked off as the pilot swung around, clearly looking for somewhere a little more vulnerable. He might have gotten lucky if he’d targeted the flight deck.

  Her console bleeped. “The armour held, Captain,” Drakopoulos said. “But repeated hits will wear it down.”

  “Understood,” Abigail said, sharply. “I’ll tell them not to shoot at us, all right?”

  “That would be good,” Drakopoulos agreed. His voice was so dry she couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Probably ... he knew, as well as anyone else, that the aliens didn’t seem to accept surrenders. “I suggest ...”

  The ship rocked, violently.

  “Direct hit, lower hull,” Poddy snapped. “They tore away a chunk of the armour.”

  “I’ll get teams on it,” Drakopoulos said. “It might give us some time.”

  Abigail doubted it. The engineers were good - and they’d practiced patching cracks in the hull - but there was no way they could repair the armour. And the aliens probably knew it. If they fired into the hull breach, they’d tear Haddock apart even if their plasma bolts didn't find something explosive. And yet ... it might just give them a few more minutes of life ...

  “Captain,” Poddy said. “Rackham!”

  Abigail swung around as a new icon flared up in the display. HMMS Rackham was under heavy attack, a dozen alien starfighters pouring plasma fire into her hull despite the best efforts of the CSP. A second later, the escort carrier exploded into a ball of expanding plasma. The alien starfighters seemed to pause, just for a second, before heading back to their carrier. It looked as though they were withdrawing.

  She frowned in disbelief. The human starfighters needed to return and rearm, but the aliens? They didn't need to rearm. But they were operating at quite some distance from their carrier ... perhaps their life support pods were running out. Or ...

  “Get the starfighters rearmed,” she ordered, curtly. She had no idea how long it would take the aliens to swap out their life support pods, but she’d bet good money that a purpose-built fleet carrier could do it faster than Haddock. “They’ll be back.”

  ***

  Alan felt tired, desperately tired.

  The alien starfighters had returned to their carrier - for whatever reason - and then resumed the offensive, sweeping in from the rear and blasting through the CSP as the human pilots struggled to counter them. They seemed to be showing a new sensitivity to losses - perhaps because the human point defence was getting better - but that didn't appear to be slowing them down very much. Another escort carrier had been destroyed and a third had taken heavy damage. Alan doubted the ship could remain in formation for much longer.

  “They’re playing with us,” Greene snapped. “We should go after them!”

  “Bad idea,” Alan said. He allowed his voice to harden. “We cover the flotilla.”

  He scowled. He understood Greene’s frustration all too well. The alien fleet carrier was keeping her distance, but Alan had no doubt that her CSP would be enough to deflect any attack by his remaining starfighters. It was possible that they’d planned to lure his starfighters into a trap, if the fleet carrier mounted as much point defence as her size suggested. Or maybe they were just concerned about taking too many losses.

  Or maybe they’re just trying to wear us down, he thought. At least one of the pilots had been killed because he hadn't been able to react fast enough. Herring Squadron had lost five pilots in quick succession when the aliens caught them on the hop. If this goes on, my people aren't going to be in any state for anything.

  He checked the display as the remaining alien craft fell back, heading straight towards their carrier. They didn't seem to be worried about pursuit, damn them. They’d have plenty of time to rearm while the remainder of their squadrons pushed the offensive against the human flotilla. The bastards could probably have a nap too, damn them. His pilots wouldn't have a chance to rest ...

  ... And his thoughts were wandering. He concentrated, working out the trajectories. The flotilla was pushing its drives as hard as it could, but they wouldn't be able to reach the tramline to Coralline in less than seven hours. Sooner or later, he would have to pull his people out of their cockpits for a rest, unless he authorised the use of stimulant drugs. But if he did, there was a good chance that there would be nasty side effects.

  And I’ll probably be hauled in front of a court-martial board, he thought. Using stimulants was dangerous. And yet, he couldn't see any other choice. They can hang me if I get the ship home, but at least I’ll have gotten the ship home.

  He took a moment to assess the remaining squadrons. The original formations had been smashed beyond repair, thanks to the aliens. He - and the other remaining commanders - had been forced to reorganise on the fly, tearing apart some of the squadrons to keep the others at full strength. It said a great deal about the situation that the complaints had been muted, even though starfighter pilots were proud of their squadrons. Everyone knew they were on the brink of obliteration.

  “Herring Squadron is to rearm,” he ordered. His mind wondered, absurdly, if Herring Squadron was still Herring Squadron, if two-thirds of the pilots had come from other formations. “And the pilots are to take stimulants before launching again.”

  There was an immediate howl of protest from a handful of the pilots. They knew the dangers, particularly when there was no time to tailor the stimulant injection to each individual flyer. But they also knew the dangers. They were reaching the limits of their endurance. It wouldn't be long before the aliens resumed the offensive. And then ...

  Alan sighed. He felt bone-weary, so tired that he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. His eyelids felt heavy. But he had to remain
awake. Hopefully, there would be time to rotate the other starfighters through the carriers one final time. He didn't want to take the stimulants himself, but ... but he knew he had no choice. None of them did.

  Thankfully, they had just enough time for him to rotate his squadron through before the attack started again.

  ***

  “Captain Chester is warning that he might have to break formation,” Poddy said. “His drive nodes are overheating.”

  “Tell him to stay with us as long as possible,” Abigail said. Overheating nodes were dangerous, but alien plasma fire was worse. Besides, Sirius could still launch and recover fighters. The flotilla could not afford to lose another escort carrier. “And see what we can do to cover her.”