“Connect me through to the ship,” Harper said, reaching down for her microphone.
“You're on, skipper,” Ingram said, throwing a switch. “At least that still works.”
“This is the Captain. In about thirty seconds, we're going to be engaging the bulk of the enemy fleet. I know we're facing long odds, but I know that we've got to buy our friends time to get their forces into the battle.” Looking at Scott, she added, “Remember this. A man isn't finished when he is defeated. He is only finished when he quits. I don't intend to. Harper out.”
“Who said that?” Armstrong asked. “Patton?”
“Close. Nixon,” Harper replied with a smile. “One of my father's favorite quotes.”
“Twenty-five seconds,” Scott said. “Remember that talk we had before we jumped?”
“Sure.”
“I'm glad you decided not to follow my advice.” Resting her hands on the launch controls, she said, “I'd rather see this one through to the end.” Glancing at a readout, she added, “Salazar's shuttle is still running true. Looks like he's trying for auxiliary control. Smart play.”
“Armstrong, initiate evasive pattern,” Harper ordered. “Arkhipov, focus all remaining sensor assets on those battlecruisers. If someone on the bridge blinks, I need to know about it right away.”
Shaking his head, Kowalski said, “I'm pulling my teams back to the core of the ship, Captain. No sense getting them killed when the crap starts flying out there.”
“Energy spike!” Arkhipov reported. “Multiple launches, eighteen missiles in the air, conventional type.” He paused for a second, then added, “Six each, skipper. Nice and fair.”
“Launching salvo,” Scott replied, and the ship rocked as the missiles raced away, tracks blinking onto the screen. Behind them, the Neander raiders followed their lead, and ten missiles dived towards eighteen, Scott slaving the salvo to her control, dueling her counterpart on the Xandari ships. The game was simple enough, to do as much damage as possible to the incoming swarm of targets. A good tactical officer could take out multiple missiles with a single impact, tossing fragments of debris into the targets, but on this scale, survival was a matter of statistics, not skill.
Harper reached down to her electronic warfare panel, burying herself in her work, trying once again to probe into the missile control systems, break through the firewall and damage the equipment. On occasion, the Xandari used borrowed missiles, making this simple, but today they had reverted to their own equipment, and despite everything she'd learned in the last months of the war, she hadn't been able to find a way to break through. The few triumphs she'd managed had worked on the basis of flooding their inputs with extraneous data, but if she tried that now she'd do more damage to Daedalus' battered systems than those of the missiles.
She glanced up at Salazar again, still sweeping through the missile screen launched from Alamo, more than a minute to his target. At least the Xandari battlecruisers were concentrating on her attack now, not his assault. If it took throwing her ship away to give him a chance to retake Alamo, that was a good trade, tactically.
Scott waved her fist in the air, whooping in triumph as a cascade of explosions rippled across the screen, wiping almost all of the trajectory tracks from the display. Only two solitary missiles staggered through the devastation, and Red Avenger launched its remaining warheads to intercept them. Armstrong looked back at Harper, a smile wide on her face, then turned back to her station, running the acceleration as high as she dared, the Neander ships surging after them as they dived for the battlecruisers.
“Remind me to promote you, Kat,” Harper said, shaking her head.
“It's all in the hands,” Scott replied. “Closest approach in sixty seconds.”
Arkhipov turned, shaking his head, and said, “Energy spike.” His voice was listless, that of a man announcing his own death sentence. “Eighteen missiles, direct course. Six each, again.”
“Confirmed,” Scott said, looking up at the screen. With a deep sigh, she added, “Forty-five seconds to impact. Escape pods couldn't clear the ship in time, even if we launched immediately.”
Sitting back in her chair, Harper said, “Well, I guess that about wraps it up, folks. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve with you all.” She looked around the bridge, her crew still working to the end, then back to the sensor display, watching the missiles as they tracked in, the enemy gunner moving to envelop them, placing his hits to guarantee destruction. She couldn't even order them to ram. Daedalus would be dead fifteen seconds too soon for that to work.
“Wait one,” Arkhipov said. “I'm getting some odd heat signatures from the battlecruisers, something burning very hot.” A smile broke out across his face, and he said, “It's the Koltoc! They must have burned every scrap of fuel they've had to get here this soon.” Turning back to his console, he added, “Multiple launches, full strength salvo!”
Leaning forward, unable to speak, Harper watched as the Koltoc missiles, safeties disabled for maximum acceleration, raced towards the approaching Xandari swarm. The display attempted to calculate the impact point, then gave up, unable to cope with the rapid changes of acceleration, the efforts of the enemy to push their attack despite the Koltoc intervention.
“Ten seconds,” Scott said.
“Pray,” Harper replied. “If you remember how.”
A blinding flash swept the screen, and the hull rattled with the force of impacts all along their flank, Kowalski cursing as he worked his board, shaking his head in frustration. The screen was clear. All enemy missiles gone, along with the Koltoc interceptors, and they swept past the battlecruisers into free space, safe in their wake.
“Signal from Colonel Skeuros,” Ingram said. “He suggests that you owe him a drink.”
“Tell him I'll buy him the whole damn bar,” she replied. Turning back to the screen, she muttered, “Come on, Cooper. It's all down to you.”
Chapter 21
Salazar deftly guided the shuttle onto final approach, Alamo's familiar hull looming ahead of him, lights winking as though the ship herself was inviting her wayward children home. Lombardo, the last of his missiles expended, poked at his console, desperately trying to force the two docking computers to handshake, but the dour expression on his face suggested that he was having little success. Finally, he looked up at the pilot, shaking his head.
“You'll have to go full-manual.”
“If that's the worst thing that happens in this assault, Art, I'll be happy.” Pulling out the thruster control, he stared up at the docking view, trying to keep the cross-hairs lined up, correcting for the course changes Alamo's helmsman was attempting, a tick trying to settle onto a wild, charging elephant. Manual docking was hard enough if the ship was stationary, but he was spilling thruster fuel just to keep the shuttle close.
“Read it out,” Salazar said. “Tens, fives, ones.”
“Forty meters,” Lombardo said. “Watch it, Pavel.”
“I know, I know.” He tapped the lateral thruster, gaining ground at every opportunity, unwilling to concede even a centimeter in their orbital ballet, bearing down upon the welcoming airlock. He tried not to think what would be waiting on the far side, certain that the enemy commander would have prepared a hostile reception for them.
“Thirty meters. Keep it coming.”
“Roger.” A soft touch to port, then a harder turn to starboard as the ship veered away, precious ground lost as he dived in. For a second, Alamo flew level, and he fired his lateral thrusters as hard as he dared, soaring in close, having to counter his own thrust as he ran the ship dangerously fast, moving for a collision.
“Ten, Pavel! Watch it!” Turning to the rear, Lombardo said, “Rhodes, stand by for assault.”
“Locked and loaded,” the trooper replied, standing at the hatch, rifle in hand.
“Come on, old girl, just relax,” Salazar said, drifting in
the final meters, gently playing his thrusters as he struggled to keep the cross-hairs lined up. If he didn't get this perfectly right, they'd just bounce off, thrown clear of the ship by the centrifugal force of the artificial gravity. Somehow he didn't think that the Xandari would give him a second chance at this.
“Five. Four. Three,” Lombardo said, and finally, with a loud clang, the two ships made contact. For a desperate heartbeat, nothing happened, before a series of wailing grounds sounded from the docking port, the clamps locking the shuttle in position. The engineer turned to him with a look of disbelief, shaking his head.
“You did it,” he said.
“Don't look so shocked,” Salazar said, throwing off his straps. “Rhodes, go now!”
The airlocks slid open, and the rattle of semi-automatic fire echoed through the shuttle as the Espatier team fired blind, catching a pair of overly courageous Xandari who had been waiting for them, weapons in hand. Without waiting for orders, Rhodes raced onto the ship, his squad surging after him, sprinting down the corridor to secure a beachhead for the others.
Salazar followed, eyes wide as he walked the familiar decks once again, stepping out into the area behind the emergency bridge. While the troopers hastily assembled a barricade out of anything they could find, settling into position to repel the expected counter-attack, Hooke moved over to the nearest terminal, connecting his datapad and dropping to the floor, hugging behind a suit locker for cover.
“How long?” Salazar asked.
“Wait one,” Hooke said, as the rest of the crew walked out behind him, pistols in hand, moving into defensive positions as Rhodes directed. Duquesne gestured for her assistant, the two of them claiming an empty storage unit, laying out the medical kits for the anticipated casualties.
“Come on, Hooke, how long?”
“I'm through the first firewall,” the hacker replied. “Three, four minutes, I think.”
“You think?”
“I've never done this before, damn it. For some reason no one ever gave me permission to execute an uncontrolled shutdown from a wall access station. I'm going to have to do a lot of improvising to make this work, so don't distract me and make sure you keep those bastards off me for a few minutes. I know what I'm doing.”
“Company's on the way!” Rhodes yelled.
Salazar moved forward, sliding into position behind the trooper, and peered down the corridor. Abruptly, the lights flared out, the red emergency circuit cutting in, throwing dull shadows into the distance. An obvious move, but one that was going to make their lives a lot more difficult. He settled into cover, pistol at the ready, and tugged his spare clips of ammunition out of his pocket, resting them where he could reach them easily.
“Here they come!” Ghaison said, opening fire in response to his own call to action, the crack of gunfire slamming into the far wall as shaggy shapes moved forward, Xandari troops in their battle armor. A wave of bullets washed overhead, slashing into the hatch at the rear, and Rhodes leaned into his sights, carefully taking a shot that dropped the leading enemy soldier to the deck. After a second, the Xandari rose again, continuing his advance, only brought down by a second shot from Salazar.
“Damn, these bastards don't even know when to die,” Rhodes muttered, throwing his rifle to semi-automatic and firing a brief pulse of ammunition down the corridor. He glanced across at the service hatch, looking at Salazar, and shook his head. “They'll work around us quick enough, sir. Likely they've got people on their way through the decks already.”
“Hooke, how long?” Salazar yelled.
“Every time you interrupt me, it gets longer.”
“Damn it, Hooke, we're going to die here if you don't get a move on. How long?”
“Two minutes minus. I'm getting there.”
“Get there faster,” he urged, turning back to the corridor. Three Xandari were walking towards them, shrugging off gunfire that ricocheted from their battle armor. None of the weapons they'd had on Random Walk were armor-piercing, all the usual ship-side loads designed to do minimal damage to equipment. A glance at the far wall suggested that the enemy weren't playing by the same rules, the rear hatch now hanging from a single hinge, threatening to drop at any moment.
“Got an idea,” Ghaison said, the Neander looking across with a cheeky grin. Before anyone could stop him, he broke cover, racing towards the enemy, hurling himself at the nearest while gunshots rained down all around him, a bullet smashing into his foot, leaving it a bloody ruin as he collapsed on his target, sending the two of them rolling to the floor.
“No!” Rhodes yelled, firing at the Xandari behind him. He was too late, Ghaison dying to a shot in the back by one of the advancing enemies. Salazar looked up, shaking his head, then heard a scream from the rear as another burst of gunfire raced towards them, a technician staggering back with blood streaming down her face, one of her comrades dragging her back to Duquesne.
“Come on, damn it,” Hooke muttered, stabbing controls on his datapad. “Come on.”
One of the Xandari was down now, a lucky shot bringing him down, but more reinforcements were on the way, and Rhodes glanced across at Salazar, shaking his head before returning to the firing line.
“Better get those last words ready, sir.”
“Not today, Frank,” Salazar said. He glanced back at Hooke, then up at the wall clock, preparing himself for a desperate sprint towards the enemy. Any chance to buy a few seconds might be enough, might give them the window of opportunity the hacker needed to complete his work. Foster or Lombardo could finish the job just as well as he could.
Taking a deep breath, he waited for a brief pause in the battle, the leading Xandari ejecting his spent ammunition clip on the floor, then fired a trio of shots as he rose out of cover. A bullet ripped down his leg, white-hot agony from the force of the impact slowing him down.
“Got it!” Hooke said, and the airtight hatch slammed shut, isolating them from the rest of the ship. The Xandari raced forward, trying to beat the hatch, but a series of thumps on the closed bulkhead announced their failure. Salazar turned to Hooke, shaking his head.
“Great work. How much control have you got?”
“Theoretically, I can do anything you want, but in practical terms I'm limited to this baby.” He waved the datapad around, and added, “I've already shut down command access. As for the rest, give me a hint.”
“Shut down life support in all sections other than this one. Reduce the pressure to one-twentieth. That should prevent any equipment damage and put all our friends to sleep. And seal all suit lockers. We don't want any uninvited guests.”
“Done,” Hooke replied, tapping a series of controls. “Pressure reduced, and I've thrown up every airtight bulkhead. The whole ship will be out cold in minutes.”
Frowning, Rhodes said, “Some of them are bound to have grabbed respirators, skipper.”
“Maybe, but the bulkheads should slow them down. And I don't think they'll exactly love stratospheric pressure levels, either.” Turning to the rear, he said, “Doc?”
“I'm busy,” Duquesne yelled. “Pass me that hypo, Dass.”
“How long before they go under?”
With a sigh, the doctor replied, “Seventy seconds for safety.”
Nodding, Salazar moved to the bulkhead, pistol in hand, and said, “Hooke, on the count of seventy, I want a path clear from here to auxiliary control. And see what you can do about the jamming, as well. It might be nice to be able to tell someone we've taken back control.”
“That'll have to wait for the bridge,” Hooke said.
“Seventy seconds,” Ryan said, shaking her head. “When we take the bridge, what then?”
“I want you and Rhodes to make for Life Support, just in case someone decides to commit a copy-cat crime, then go deck-to-deck. Toss all the Xandari into one of the storage bays, and lock them up.”
Fro
wning, he replied, “That could take hours, Pavel.”
“Remember the story of the journey of a thousand miles? We've got to start somewhere.” He glanced at his watch, impatiently tapping his foot, and said, “Damn it, we come all this way and we're stuck here, waiting?”
Foster frowned, and said, “I suppose I should point out that we don't have any means of knowing whether the Xandari have come up with some way to stop us. For all we know, there are a dozen of them waiting outside with rifles at the ready.”
“We'll just have to take that chance,” Salazar said. “Rhodes, take down the guards in the corridor ahead, and any we see on the way to the bridge.” As the trooper began to protest, he added, “I know, I know, it stinks, but if we allow them to wake up, we won't have a chance of stopping them. We can take prisoners in non-critical areas, but if we don't retake the ship, a lot of people are going to die.”
“Understood, sir,” the stern-faced trooper replied. “We'll do our duty.”
“Time's up,” Hooke said, tapping a control. The door slid open, and Salazar realized that the orders he had given were moot as he saw the sprawled bodies of the Xandari on the floor, blood soaking into the carpets. He turned to Foster, and shook his head.
“They knew they'd had it,” he said. His face turned pale, and he said, “They'll have told the rest of their fleet. We're going to be under attack in minutes!” Without another word, he sprinted through the bulkheads ahead, racing for the auxiliary bridge before the doors could fully open, heedless of the risk. Foster was a second behind him, tossing her empty pistol away in her race.
“Those battlecruisers were five minutes away, minus!” she yelled. “If they've been warned...”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Pyrrhic Victory Page 18