“There must be something we can do.”
“If you have any suggestions, I’ll listen.”
The door opened, and they stepped out onto the bridge, Kelso rising from the command chair, walking over to his station in three quick paces as Caine hastened to Tactical.
“Report,” Marshall said, still standing by the door.
“We’re now picking up three plasma rifles firing, sir,” Spinelli said. “No sign of activity in orbit, so I don’t think this can be a coordinated strike. Our resolution isn’t good enough to pick up any details, but there’s a hell of a lot of heat spikes down there.”
“Keep trying,” Marshall said.
“All decks are clear for action, sir,” Caine said.
The elevator doors opened, Quinn stepping out, adding, “We’ve got the laser back on-line, and the crews are coming back on board right now. Ninety seconds before they’re all secure.”
“Good work, Jack,” Marshall said, waving towards the helm. “Feel free.”
With a smile, he nodded, heading towards the front of the bridge. Foster looked up, frowning, then turned to Marshall.
“Sir, I am qualified to fly the ship through the dive.”
“I don’t dispute that, Midshipman, but Mr. Quinn is a lot more qualified than you are.”
“I…”
“Let him have it, Midshipman. Stick around and watch, you might learn something.”
Standing up with careful poise, she looked across at Quinn, her frown growing deeper, and stepped across to the standby crewman’s position. As the engineer settled into the helm, the communicator on the command chair beeped, Marshall reaching across to answer it.
“Auxiliary Control here,” Cunningham said. “We’re ready whenever you are. Aren’t we a bit early?”
“The bad guys are setting the timetable today, John,” he replied. “We’ll have to go by their schedule or not at all.”
“Energy spike!” Spinelli said. “Massive heat signature from the shuttles, I think they’re taking off. Yes, confirmed!”
“Now?” Marshall asked. “Damn. Jack, get us there, right now. Spinelli, I want full trajectory analysis, and we’re going to need a course to get us as close as we can. Weitzman, they ought to be transmitting as soon as they get out of range of the jamming, so listen out on all frequencies.”
“Already on it, sir. Yeager Station wishes us good luck and good hunting.”
“Oh, God,” Spinelli said. “Shuttle One, it’s losing height. Engines have failed.” He turned across, his face pale, and said, “They’re falling back to the surface.”
Shaking his head, Marshall said, “Damn it, Maggie. Damn it.”
“Impact, sir. Total loss.” He looked across at a second monitor, and said, “Shuttle Two is going well, but they’re climbing awfully slowly. Overweight, at a guess.”
Marshall leapt to his feet, his face lighting up, and said, “Clever!”
“What?” a glum Caine asked.
Gesturing at the screen, he said, “Maggie knew they couldn’t get Shuttle One ready in time, so she must have loaded everything into Shuttle Two. The other one was just a distraction, something to clear the ground underneath them and stop any ground fire.”
“I hope not,” Caine said. “They’ll never make orbit with that big a load, and I don’t see how Shuttle Two can possibly have filled its tanks in the time.”
“Executing course change,” Quinn said. “This is going to be fun. Weitzman, I’d love to speak to the pilot as soon as I can.”
“How low can we go, leaving Alamo combat-ready?”
“I don’t dare risk going below twenty-five miles,” he said, his hands locked on the controls. “At least we’ve got good atmospheric modeling. The computer should be able to do a lot of the work.”
Alamo’s engines roared, the ship decelerating, dropping out of its orbit. Marshall walked over to his chair, remembering to strap himself in as he sat down, looking around to make sure the others had followed his example. Quinn was cautiously tapping controls, his eyes fixed on the panel.
“I have Lieutenant Nelyubov, sir,” Weitzman said.
“Frank,” Marshall said, “What’s your status?”
“Not so good, sir. I have nineteen people on board, including four wounded. I also must report that Senior Lieutenant Orlova and Lieutenant Carpenter elected to remain on the surface.”
“Not in Shuttle One?”
“No, sir. I saw them get clear of the explosion. We were…”
“Never mind your report, we’ll worry about that later. What’s your fuel status? We don’t even have telemetry yet.”
“Coming up now, sir,” Erickson said from Flight Engineering.
“We haven’t got anything like the fuel to make orbit. The best I can do is a high suborbital trajectory, maximum altitude forty-two miles.”
“And if we can’t hook up?”
“I had to jettison most of our oxygen, sir. Not that it matters. We’ve used almost all our fuel, I kept a little back for a maneuvering reserve. If we don’t dock on the first try…”
“Understood, Frank. Make sure that every scrap of data on your course and the atmospheric conditions gets to us. That’s our top priority.”
“Aye, sir. I’m also sending over everything we have from the ground. Just in case.”
“Belay that,” Marshall said. “As far as I’m concerned, we are going to pick you up, and you are going to be stepping onto the hangar deck in a few minutes. Is that understood.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Captain.”
“Good. Alamo out.” Looking at Spinelli, he asked, “Well, Spaceman?”
“He’s being a little optimistic, sir. I read his maximum altitude at forty-one-point-five.”
“I can do it,” Quinn said. “Someone shut down the safety overrides. I don’t want any distractions.”
“Working on it,” Kelso said. Marshall looked up at the two trajectories overlaid on the screen, the shuttle heading down to an uncontrolled crash-landing in twenty-one minutes, and now Alamo moving onto a similar course. The difference being that Alamo had the fuel to boost them out of there.
“What about Shuttle Three,” Caine asked, quietly. “There’s time for Salazar to head down.”
“I don’t think he can do it, ma’am,” Foster volunteered.
Marshall turned to look at her, asking, “What do you base that on?”
“Starting higher than Alamo with a lower fuel reserve, sir. That’s all I meant.”
Kelso nodded, and said, “I agree. He might link up, but then they’ve got to transfer everyone across, and they’ve got wounded on board. I don’t see them doing it in the time. Best case they end up back on the surface, and we’re back to square one.”
“Continue with the plan,” Marshall said. “Spinelli, I know you are busy, but any sign of activity from the enemy ship?”
“Not at the moment,” he replied. “As far as I can see, they’re just sitting there.”
“Waiting,” Caine said. “This is a high-risk maneuver, and they know it. They’ll be assuming that we lose the shuttle, and hoping that we lose Alamo.”
“Down below fifty miles, sir,” Kelso reported. “Beginning to bite into the upper atmosphere. I’ve boosted the thrusters to compensate.”
“Keep monitoring,” Marshall said. He could feel the ship rocking a little, unaccustomed to an environment other than a vacuum outside. Quinn played the helm like a virtuoso pianist, moving from one control to the next, his hands dancing across the console playing music only he could hear, his eyes half-closed, not once looking up at the viewscreen.
Marshall couldn’t blame him. The planet filled the screen, desolate wasteland racing below with a few clouds high in the sky. The ground rushed past, Alamo gaining speed again as it descended, Quinn making quick adjustments
to keep her on course.
“Got them on short-range sensors,” Spinelli said. “Course information to the computer. Shuttle altitude now nineteen miles.”
“Contact in two minutes,” Kelso said. “Opening elevator airlock, number one.”
“Frank, if we get close, can you get in?” Marshall asked.
“Give me one shot and I’ll make it,” he replied.
“Need to kill speed,” Quinn muttered, dipping Alamo down, cutting down the acceleration.
“If we go too low we’ll never get back up,” Foster said.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Marshall replied.
“Closing to contact. Ninety seconds,” Kelso said.
The shuttle was just visible on the screen now, a small black dot rising to meet them, Alamo braced to snatch it out of the sky. The view shifted to the side, more turbulence, and Quinn swore under his breath as he compensated.
“Getting heat build-up,” Erickson said. “Growing steadily. Still below the danger level for the moment.”
“Sixty seconds,” Kelso said, looking across at the helm, where Quinn almost seemed to be sitting still, only making occasional adjustments to the course and speed, letting the ship coast steadily towards the shuttle.
“Enemy ship’s on the move!” Spinelli said. “Breaking orbit, increasing speed. I’d say they’re going for the high ground, sir.”
“Do we abort?” Foster asked.
“No we do not,” Marshall said. “Get us there, Jack.”
“Thirty seconds to go,” Kelso said. “Elevator airlock cycled. As soon as they’re in, I can run the sequence and get them home. Our altitude is now twenty-five miles.”
“Heat now approaching limits, sir. I’m losing some sensor resolution on the lower hull, damage to the outer monitors.”
Abruptly, the shuttle slowed, burning its last reserves of fuel to bring it to Alamo’s side, just by the hatch. For a heart-breaking second, Marshall thought he’d missed, but Quinn swung Alamo over to the side with a tap on the port thruster, and that gave Nelyubov the opportunity he needed.
“Got him!” Kelso yelled. “Outer hatch closed.”
“Increasing thrust,” Quinn said. “Overrides off. Hang on.”
The acceleration pushed Marshall back in his chair as Alamo picked up speed, Quinn pulling her back up out of the outer atmosphere, fleeing for the safety of space. One by one, warning lights began to wink out as the ship gained altitude, the stars once again appearing on the screen.
Waving a hand, Quinn said, “You can take it now, Midshipman. I have a feeling I’m going to be wanted below decks.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, carefully walking over to the helm and sliding into position. “Orbit in nine minutes, sir. It’ll take us a little longer than that to get back to the station, though.”
“What about the enemy ship, Spinelli?” Marshall asked.
“Moving between us and the station, sir,” he reported, frowning. “I’m not picking up any energy spikes, nothing at all. I’ve got a course to get us past them.”
“How close?”
“Eight hundred miles at closest approach, sir.”
Shaking her head, Caine said, “That would leave us open to a surprise attack.”
“Sir, Yeager Station is requesting instructions,” Weitzman said.
“Tell them to sit tight for the moment, and get their shuttle ready for immediate launch if an opportunity presents itself. They may only have minutes to take advantage of it.”
“Aren’t we going to do anything, sir?” Foster asked.
“We’re going to wait, Midshipman. There are still another three and a half days before we can leave the system in any case, and I’m not inclined to hand a tactical advantage over to the enemy for no good reason. If we have to run the gauntlet to pick them up, we will, but not yet.”
“Sir, I have Lieutenant Nelyubov for you,” Weitzman said.
“Welcome home, Frank,” Marshall said. “Great flying.”
“Captain, I’ve unloaded the passengers, and the wounded are on their way to sickbay along with some samples for the science team. The shuttle is in good shape, and I can be fully refueled in five minutes with the equipment we have up here.”
“You can give me a full report in a…”
“Requesting launch clearance, sir.”
“What?”
“I left two people down on the surface, Captain, and I want to go and pick them up.”
“Request denied, Lieutenant. Report to the bridge.”
“Sir, I need to go now, while I know where to look for them. Odds are that there are more troops on the surface.”
“I volunteer to accompany Mr. Nelyubov,” Quinn said, turning from the elevator.
“Denied, both of you. All you’d be doing is giving the enemy a chance to have an easy shot at a shuttle on descent trajectory. Unless you can guarantee that they haven’t got any more fighters on board?” He looked at Quinn, who stared down at the deck. “I feel the same way as you do, and if it was just a matter of a risky landing, I’d be flying that damn shuttle myself. There’s more at stake here than the lives of two crewmen, no matter who they are.”
“Yes, sir,” Nelyubov said, ruefully.
“Report to the bridge, Lieutenant. That’s an order. Someone else can handle the post-flight checklist. Mr. Kelso, secure from battle stations, but maintain alert status.” He sat back on his chair, then added, “All we can do now is wait for the other side to make a move.”
Chapter 19
The tactical display was almost distressingly simple. Alamo on one side, the station on the other, and the enemy vessel in between, blocking line-of-sight for laser communications, and able to jump one way or another at a moment’s notice. The crew had been at alert stations for twelve hours, longer than ever they should, and it was beginning to show in delayed reaction times and heated tempers.
Rubbing his hair from his forehead, Marshall looked around his office, at Cunningham sitting in the corner, poking at a datapad, and Caine not even trying to conceal her boredom as she stared out of a window. Nelyubov, sitting opposite him, simply fumed, staring straight ahead.
“There must be something we can do,” he said. “Come on, this is the team that beat the Cabal. One ship shouldn’t be too difficult to crack.”
“It’s all a question of orbital mechanics. They’ve put themselves in a position where they are daring us to make a move,” Cunningham said.
“We could launch a salvo of missiles, use them to escort Shuttle Three back from the station,” Caine began, before shaking her head. “No. They’d just think that a hostile act, and we’d be fighting a battle. And be one salvo behind. We’ll need them to knock down the laser missiles.”
“The answer is still on the surface,” Nelyubov said.
“If that is so, then the team we have down there is the best qualified to investigate it,” Cunningham said. “If I’d picked two people for the job, they would be the ones.”
“Rescuing them is out of the question,” Marshall said. “At least for the moment.”
Shrugging, Cunningham said, “We could just break for the hendecaspace point, cruise past the station and pick up the shuttle in the same way we rescued Shuttle Two. That was some damn nice flying, but from what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure Salazar is up to it.”
“And leave two of our people down on the surface?” Nelyubov said, shaking his head. “We can’t even consider that.”
“Come on, Frank,” Caine said. “This isn’t permanent. We’ll be back. And they’ve got enough supplies down there to last for months if it comes to it. Hell, we could even do another supply drop on our way out if you want.”
“This isn’t sentiment,” he replied. “I still maintain that the key to all of this is down on the surface, and if we yield it to the enemy, we’ll lose whateve
r it is.” Looking around the room, he said, “Yes, I suspect we could return in a few months and find Maggie and Susan down on the surface on one piece, though I would point out that it wouldn’t take many of those megaton missiles of theirs to rule that possibility out. We’d never know the answer, though.”
“There’s one person who might know,” Marshall said, tapping a button. “Captain to sickbay.”
“I’m busy,” Duquesne’s voice said.
“Don’t you have minions to handle the cuts and bruises? I need you to send up the senior officer able to talk to me, right now. I’m not talking about returning to duty yet, just for a debriefing.”
“I haven’t finished all of the medicals yet.”
“Evans is fine,” Nelyubov said. “She flew right seat on Shuttle Two.”
“Send her up, right away.”
There was a deep sigh, and she said, “Make sure she comes back as soon as you are finished, and don’t keep her too long. Everyone on that station has been under extreme stress for the last two days, and they need a chance to recuperate.”
“Stress? There’s a ship floating a few hundred miles away that could blow us away in a matter of minutes. That’s stress, doctor.”
“Point taken. Sickbay out.”
Shaking his head, Marshall said, “How the hell did we end up with her running medical?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Caine said, and he cracked a smile in response.
“What about your Tactical assessment? If we fight that ship, can we win?”
“It’s not quite as simple as that. If we’re talking missiles against missiles, then we have a better reload time, and we have the laser as well. We win. The factor I can’t do much about are those laser missiles. If one of those hits us, then the game is over. Computer simulations give us about a seventy percent chance of victory, and I’m not sure we can improve on that much.”
“They’ll have made the same projections,” Cunningham said, but Marshall shook his head.
“Which means that either they are trying to pull a bluff, or there is something they know about that we don’t. Right now I wouldn’t like to bet on it, not unless I have to.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High Page 16