The Price of Freedom

by William R. Forstchen

  "Yeah," Gash replied, "I'll bet." He peered at her. 'Three squads against a whole carrier?"

  She smiled. Blair noticed it wasn't friendly. "Well, Colonel, you're always telling us how tough your Marines are, compared to us Fleeties. Now's your chance to prove it."

  She turned back to her map. He and Gash shared a look.

  "Once our fearless Marines have the ship under control," she continued, "the Johns Hopkins will close and transfer her teams, who'll get the Princeton under way and out of the system. Colonel Blair will remain on board as the ranking officer until relieved."

  She switched graphics again, this time to a larger overview of the space dock complex. "After you've pulled the carrier free, or, in the event you fail, Admiral Wilford will attack the installations with the fleet. Once the base has been destroyed, we'll retrograde the hell out." She slapped her right fist into her left palm. "That's basically it."

  She gestured to a thick stack of color-coded envelopes stacked on a table in front of her. "These are your briefing packets. Manic's forces are red, Hawk's green, and Blair's gold. Study them. If you have any questions, see me. Otherwise, we go in twelve hours." She gestured towards the two ratings assigned to the audio-visual console who began to distribute the packets.

  Blair retired to his cramped little room to study the packet. It contained a packet of crisp recon photos of the target, the deck plans of a Concordia-class carrier, written directions to a Concordia's critical areas, a detailed timeline of the operation, and a memory chip loaded with computer simulations of the target area. He studied materials in turn, memorizing everything except the deck plans. He'd spent enough time on the Concordia and the Lexington to know his way around.

  He checked the segment Farnsworth had included on Dekker's instructions. He whistled, dismayed at the tight schedule Panther expected the grunts to keep. She planned for the Marines to seize one landing bay within a few minutes, then to fan out and suppress local defenses. She hoped to have the first Hopkins team on board and on its way to the bridge within twenty minutes of the Marines' touchdown. The grunts, already stretched thin, were also expected to maintain ready teams to provide security for the Hopkins' people and to defend against an auto-destruct sequence or a counterattack from the main shipyard.

  Dekker would read his orders, keep his mouth shut regardless of his reservations, and give the mission his formidable best. But if anyone could pull off Farnsworth's audacious timetable, it would be him.

  Blair had his own worries. Panther's squadron had twelve birds, a third of which might charitably be considered front line. The rest were either obsolete or old, and certainly couldn't be considered adequate for the mission. None of the forces involved, for that matter, had the resources needed to guarantee success. Famsworths plan counted on luck and surprise to carry them through, both of which were notoriously fickle.

  He shifted to his single chair, memorizing callsigns and frequencies, timelines, operations details, call words, recall signals, and the other minutiae of a complex operation. He started his sixth repetition when Pliers rapped on his open door. "Come!" he yelled.

  The crew chief entered, grinning. "Well, sir, I've got good news and bad. Which do you want first?"

  Blair didn't hesitate. "Good."

  "I got your T-bolt back on line," he said, "and then some. I opened the thrusters a little more, giving you better manuvering, and recored the main drives. You should get 40-50 KPS more on both standard and afterburner." He grinned. "Hell, that's enough to get you off the deck without JATO's. I figured you could use an ace-in-the-hole."

  "Great!" Blair said, smiling. "Now, what's the bad news?"

  "I got her patched up, Colonel, but she ain't gonna hold together long. This will probably be her last flight."

  "Why?" Blair asked, sobering from his earlier elation.

  "Well," Pliers replied, "I scanned the insides. That mine explosion did a lot of structural damage. You got fatigue cracks all along the main supports and two struts have failed completely. I patched them, but they won't stand up to the kind of abuse you dish out. Also, my mods'll cost you combat radius and engine life." He scratched his head. "You won't have any catastrophic failures, but you're not going to want to fly this bird again, not after this mission."

  "Well," Blair replied, "let's just get through this one, shall we?"

  "You got it!" He grinned again. "What time do you want me to send someone to wake you, son?"

  Blair took this as a subtle hint for him to get some sleep. "What time is pilot's brief?"

  Pliers didn't even look at his watch. "About four hours. I'll send someone for you." He snapped out the overhead light.

  "Thanks," Blair said. He expected to have trouble sleeping, and was pleasantly surprised to have an orderly shaking him after what seemed only moments. It took him only a minute to pull his boots on and to make his way down to the flight deck.

  He stepped out of the passageway darkened for ship's night and into the brightly lit bay. Ground crews were hard at work, prepping and fueling the strike wing for launch. Most of the first wave had already been spotted on the painted marks and were ready for takeoff. Blair conducted his preflight inspection on his T-bolt, then walked around a couple of other fighters picked at random. All appeared to be in order, but his Thunderbolt wasn't the only refugee from the boneyard.

  He assembled his squadron and conducted his flight briefing from the wing of his battered fighter. Maniac did the same thing across the deck, while Panther filled in for Hawk. Colonel Manley had already departed for the escort carriers to brief their flight crews on their roles.

  The launch went well. He watched as the ground crews crossed their fingers while several tattered-looking fighters roared off the deck. Then his turn came. The launch officer pointed to Blair, then out into space. He saluted the deck officer, hit his afterburners, and prayed. Armed with extra missiles and modified engines, he made the launch, but not by much. He suspected he left paint and sponge armor on the front lip of the Intrepid's launch deck.

  He switched his comm-panel to the forces combined local traffic frequency. Pantner had assigned Sosa to traffic control. The strike wings kept her busy sorting them out. Her warm voice sounded unusually brisk as she assigned orbiting slots to the fighters, aligned the frigates for their raids, and generally coordinated the communications.

  A corvette and the Tango did picket duty, giving Hawk and Maniac objects for their squadrons to orbit while they assembled. Blair joined Panther's squadron and the Marines' three assault shuttles in orbiting the Johns Hopkins. Assembling a single raid was enough of a stone bitch—coordinating three at once through the Intrepid's damaged array multiplied the chaos. His elapsed time counter showed they were already late and getting later. That didn't bode well for the operation.

  He repeatedly checked his squadron, making certain his fighters remained on station and in their correct order while Sosa and Farnsworth scrambled to sort out the mess. Panther had insisted he not brief his pilots until the last minute as a security precaution and ordered strict radio silence. Blair understood her reasoning, but the result was chaos. Pilots, uncertain of their rally points, wandered from ship to ship, looking for their squadrons. Several of the Rapiers were already reporting fuel loads in the low seventy-percent range when they finally formed.

  Eventually, Sosa managed to get the strike wings sorted out. "Group Alpha, go't" she said, sounding jubilant. Maniac's ships peeled off, each winging over and blazing into the nebular dust in a long, loose column. The Tango, her drive stream glowing blue, followed. She would lose ground behind the faster fighters, but would still be relatively close when they hit the staging point.

  "Group Beta, go!" Hawks forces, the fighters arranged in neat vees over and under the bombers, hit their afterburners as a group and vanished. They had the furthest distance to go, and anticipated the most resistance.

  "Group Gamma, go!" Blair waggled his wings, signalling his squadron to form on him. He checked the course prog
rammed into his autopilot, then selected it from his menu of pre-set nav points. He glanced back, saw that his squadron remained correctly aligned, and turned onto his approach course. The squadron followed smoothly.

  Blair kept a sharp watch as they passed through the nebula. The gas and dust were pretty thin stuff, at least when viewed from the inside. Its real asset was its EM activity which both hid the base from prying outsiders and concealed the strike force. Of course, Confed fighters might also be hiding in the nebula. He scanned the space around him, glancing from quadrant to quadrant in search of enemy telltales. He glanced back to check his rear and was dismayed to see the fighters' phase shields and drive trails glowing as they reacted with the charged dust particles. The trails were a glittering, silvery sign pointing to his fighters. He gritted his teeth. It couldn't be helped.

  By some trick of the nebula, his radio scanner locked onto faint signals from Maniac's forces as they attacked. The battle had begun. There would be no turning back now. He checked his nav plot and saw they were minutes from their objective.

  "Mother Goose to goslings," he said, "assume attack formation. Sections one and three will hit the carriers turrets, sections two and four will provide top cover."

  He listened as each section leader acknowledged the order. The squadron drifted apart as the sub-leaders took control of their elements. Blairs two wingmen tucked in tight behind him, one Rapier hugging each wing. "Remember," he said, "light weapons only. We don't want to hull the ship."

  The last shreds of the nebula cleared. The recon photos and simulations hadn't done justice to the sheer size of the damned complex. Huge factories orbited a spider web-shaped space dock. The carrier, a full-sized fleet CV, occupied one quadrant of the dock. A pair of sleek new destroyers nested within a second quadrant with room to spare.

  He swore. The destroyers were new, and hadn't appeared on yesterdays recon tapes. They could be counted upon to mount a spirited anti-fighter defense once they got organized. The factories appeared to be dotted with flak towers, which would also mean a hot time for anyone foolish enough to stray into their effective range. A flight of Confed Arrows crossed towards the carrier, further complicating the picture.

  He shook his head. Their odds had just gotten a lot longer. He heard his pilots' murmurs as they saw the size of their objective. He knew it wasn't possible to abort the attack, not with Maniac having already engaged. They had to go.

  He keyed his microphone. "Mother Goose to goslings, break and attack assigned targets. Good luck."

  He punched his afterburner, feeling an unexpected pressure against his back as the T-bolt launched forward. The fighter felt rough and sloppy to him, but Pliers' promised mods were working. He angled for the carrier with his wingmen in tow.

  His supporting flights jumped the Confed fighters, surprising them and smoking two out in the first seconds with a volley of missiles. The surviving Arrows, rather than breaking and running as Blair expected, turned towards the raiders and attacked. One Ferret, then another, exploded and died as the Confed ships pitched into the Intrepid's strike.

  Blair heard his AIs proximity alarm chime. He looked up and saw the space dock fast approaching. He sloped into the gap between the latticework and the carrier, then angled to begin his attack run. His wingmen broke away to engage their own sectors.

  The carriers bows flashed past. His targeting reticule centered on the first turret. He stabbed his firing key. Twin plasma beams lanced out, piercing the turret and killing it. A second turret flashed into view. The AI projected his correct "windage." He fired, exploding the laser turret.

  He hugged the carriers smooth outer hull, raking its defensive turrets as they appeared, and taking out hardpoint after hardpoint. The Princeton reacted first, firing along the hull at him. He laughed as he saw their panicky first shots plowing into the space dock's superstructure, sowing damage in the work pods that clustered over the ship. He blazed over the rear of the ship, then down to begin his outbound leg. The CVs drive plumes brightened, nearly cooking him as he desperately fought to maintain control of his ship in the drives' buffeting.

  He maintained control of his Thunderbolt, firing his outboard thrusters to compensate for the stream's side pressure. He cleared the drives, sweeping underneath the carrier. The carrier's laser nets grew more intense as more undamaged turrets came on-line. Beams criss-crossed in front of the T-bolt, the misses tearing gaping holes in the superstructure overhead.

  Not all the laser bolts missed. Hits from surviving turrets scored against his phase shields, chipping away at his defenses while he raked the carrier's underbelly. He powered through an especially nasty cross fire, shifting his course from left to right as he destroyed first one, then another of his tormenters.

  A bright ball of fire glowed beneath the carrier, then slammed into it, briefly spreading a pool of flame across its surface before vacuum snuffed it. Pieces of a shattered Rapier drifted alongside the ship. A second Rapier, also burning, flashed across his front. It was on fire, but still hammered the carrier's point defenses. Then, it too slammed into the cap ship's hull, taking out one final hardpoint as it died.

  He held his course steady, aware that evasive maneuvers only made his task of hitting the surviving hardpoints more difficult. His capacitors dipped into yellow, and then into red as he scattered shots across the hull. The defenders' fire seemed to slacken as he recrossed the ship's bows and fled for open space.

  Open space proved no safer than the tight confines of the space dock. His Ferrets were either dead or fled, leaving the Arrows to struggle with an equal number of newer Confed models. Three of his Rapiers were dead as well. He frowned. His squadron wouldn't last long under punishment that intense.

  The flak towers on the orbital factories opened up, crisscrossing the sky with clusters of lasers. They fired with more enthusiasm than accuracy, though that might change once their operators calmed down. The attackers' only break had been that so far neither destroyer had shown much reaction.

  A Hellcat dropped onto his stern. His automatic rear guns fired even as his missile alarm chimed. He banked hard right, using Plier's boosted roll rate to slip the heatseeker that tried to crawl up his back. He brought his big ship around, turning the tables on the Hellcat. The Confed ship fired a second missile off into deep space, then tried to turn away. Blair, watching his capacitors creep back up out of the red, switched his ordnance to missiles and toggled off one of his own heatseekers. He felt the bump as the explosive bolts cold-fired the warhead, then watched it arc ahead. The infrared warhead caught the 'Cat as it slung around, trying to bring its guns to bear.

  The missile impacted at a high deflection angle, piercing its phase shields and shattering one drive. The Hellcat did a quarter-turn under the blow, then steadied out. The pilot regained control, then again tried to bring the ship around to attack.

  Blair, surprised by the Hellcat pilot's suicidal nerve, held his course a moment too long. The Hellcat raked him with its sole surviving ion cannon. His phase shields flared and he felt the impacts as dull thuds against the base of his spine. The missile targeting reticule centered on the Hellcat. He switched ordnance and pounded the 'Cat with his plasma cannon. The Hellcat vanished, its structure engulfed in a fireball as the shots ripped it open. He silently cursed the suicidal bravery of the pilot, hoping that it wasn't someone he had once called comrade.

  He sheered away from the expanding explosion and turned back towards the carrier. A burning ship, either a Rapier or a Hellcat, tumbled across his line of sight and exploded. The pilot never had a chance to escape.

  He scanned the babble on the tactical channels to ensure that all three of the mission's elements were engaged. They were. Panther's plan had succeeded in bringing them to grips with three enemy forces at the same time. His quick sense of the other two attacks was that they had encountered much stiffer resistance than they had anticipated. He smiled bitterly. Underestimating the enemy was one of the few constants of war.

  The Prince
ton emerged from the dock and into space like a butterfly from a chrysalis. Fires from burning hardpoints and turret sockets glowed and winked along its length. A single fighter launched from the carrier's portside bay. It arced upward and exploded as a missile struck it amidships, splitting it in half.

  Blair checked his capacitors, pleased to see they had recovered their full charge. He turned the Thunderbolt back towards the carrier. He swept down on the carrier, lining up his sighting reticule on a dual laser turret that sprayed the area around him with deadly red beams. He fired his plasma guns. The turret slewed around, then froze as the plasma beams opened it to the hard vacuum of space.

  He scanned the top of the carrier, looking for more turrets to hit. Whole sections of the CVs upper and lower hulls were dark, except for winking fires. A few scattered turrets maintained their fire, but were quickly silenced by the two surviving Rapiers. He assigned them to fly CAP over the carrier, scouring the carriers hull for targets of opportunity.

  He glanced up at the fight in open space. The last of the Confed Arrows broke and ran for the flak towers. The support group howled after them.

  Much to his surprise, they had accomplished the first part of the mission. The carrier's defenses had been cut down and the space around it had been cleared of fighters. The CV had fully emerged from the dock and turned towards open space, a move that made it more vulnerable, not less.

  He switched channels. "Blair to Dekker, shall we dance?"

  "Roger," the Marine replied. "I'll lead."

  Blair saw the drive plumes of Dekker's three shuttles against the nebular backdrop. They swept in towards the carrier, using boost packs to close on the vulnerable ship. Dekker kept the Princetons bulk between them and the flak towers on the nearest orbital factory.

  Blair stayed close by, matching their course and speed to better protect them from unexpected threats. A single turret on the Princetons upper hull tracked the lead shuttle. He targeted it and fired. Twin plasma beams reduced it to junk.