Excelsior

by Jasper T. Scott

  Trying not to think about sharks, she jumped in with Dorian. They bobbed straight up, and she kicked furiously, holding Dorian out in front of her. A big swell hit them and she watched the water run over her faceplate in a blurry stream. At least she didn’t have to worry about her or Dorian swallowing water. The air intakes in their suits were self-sealing.

  Catalina saw the captain swimming for the raft and she kicked after him, determined not to lose sight of him in a sea of matching white helmets. They joined the greedy press of people around the raft, and the captain called out to one of his officers waiting on board. That officer raised a flare gun and fired it to get everyone’s attention before calling out in a megaphone voice, “Make way for the captain!”

  Catalina was surprised people actually listened.

  They reached the raft and a pair of officers with the gleaming silver bars of lieutenants reached down to help their captain up into the raft. Colonists crowded into the empty space he left, arms grasping for safety. Somehow the captain and his crew managed to reach past them to her. She held Dorian high and they took him first. Then they grabbed her outstretched hands and pulled her up, too. Caty mouthed her thanks, and the captain nodded, passing her baby back to her. Dorian had grown so tired of crying that he was actually quiet. Catalina saw that the raft was already packed full. No more room, but colonists were still struggling to pull themselves up the sides. The megaphone voice returned.

  “Everyone to the next available raft! We are already at capacity. Make way!” People screamed and cried out objections, their speakers burbling in the water, but the raft left without them, pushed along with ever-increasing speed by some unseen motor. Catalina watched the receding mass of people, arms clawing after them, furious to be abandoned. She shook her head, just as shocked as they must have been.

  “Time is critical,” someone whispered beside her. She turned and saw that it was one of the lieutenants who had helped the captain up. The blank stare she gave him prompted further explanation.

  “This is Confederate territory, and you can bet they saw our shuttle coming down. We need to get to shore and find some place to hide before they come for us or we’re going to become hostages and bargaining chips.”

  Catalina’s heart thudded in her chest, and her palms began to sweat. It took a few seconds to recover enough from her shock to remember how to activate her own helmet speakers. “Bargaining chips?” she asked.

  He nodded gravely. “We’re about to win the war, but that doesn’t mean we’re all suddenly going to be friends. Imagine how many Confederate officers will be able to negotiate leniency for war crimes when they’re holding an Alliance baby hostage.”

  Catalina felt her whole body grow cold despite the sweaty heat already bleeding through her suit from the Indonesian air. Her knees shook, and she collapsed on the floor of the raft, hugging Dorian close.

  The officer speaking with her went down on his haunches in front of her and fixed her with a determined stare. “We’re not going to let that happen, okay? You just hang in there.” He patted his thigh, and Catalina noticed the black triangle of a sidearm strapped to his hip.

  She nodded and swallowed thickly. He flashed a tight smile and turned away, leaving her to bathe in the cold sweat of her fears. She’d been so worried about surviving the landing and the sharks that she’d completely forgotten they were landing in enemy waters. The lieutenant was right. With the Confederacy about to lose a hundred-year war, Alliance hostages and prisoners would be more valuable than ever.

  Chapter 44

  “61st Squadron is away,” Lieutenant Stone reported.

  Alexander nodded. “Good. Tell them to hold position at five thousand klicks and keep an eye out for enemy missiles.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Our torpedoes are splitting. One minute to impact, ten seconds to ELR,” Cardinal said from gunnery.

  Alexander watched on the tactical as a broad wave of green dots steadily advanced on all fifteen surviving Confederate colony ships. They hadn’t deployed a screen of fighters or drones, and so far they had yet to visibly open fire, so those colony ships were completely defenseless. Alexander shook his head, wondering if they were dealing with a ghost fleet. Maybe Admiral Wilson was right and everyone was already dead.

  “ELR reached, firing!”

  Alexander looked up, watching on the main holo display as simulated lasers lanced out from laser-armed missile shards. A thousand hair-thin blue lines appeared in staccato bursts of simulated light, all vectoring in on just fifteen targets. Then the warhead-carrying missiles impacted, tearing up the black of space with the fiery reds and golds of simulated explosions.

  As the fabricated light faded, Alexander exhaled slowly, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. What’s another thirty thousand victims in a war of millions? he thought bitterly.

  “Captain! We’ve got incoming,” Vasquez announced from sensors.

  Alexander’s eyes fell on the tactical map. He saw nothing but a confusing mass of red dots. “Get me vectors!” he snapped.

  “Calculating!”

  A second later, thin red lines with velocities marked appeared on the tactical grid, showing where individual enemy missiles were headed. There were thousands of them, all busy splitting apart into thousands more.

  “Those missiles weren’t there a second ago,” Carter mused.

  Alexander noted the speed and distance of the incoming ordnance from the Confederate warships that had to have launched them, and he shook his head. “They were hiding behind the transports, so close we couldn’t even detect them. They were hoping we would try to shoot around the colony ships. If we had, those missiles would have gone on undetected until the last possible second. We could have lost our entire fleet.”

  “Good thing the admiral didn’t listen to you,” Carter replied.

  “They were counting on our humanity to get us killed,” he said, suddenly furious with the Confederates and war in general. “Cardinal, launch the next salvo, and Stone, alert 61st Squadron to target those missiles. We don’t want anything getting through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Enemy fleet is launching fighters!” Vasquez reported. “Three minutes before enemy missiles reach ELR with us,” she added, reminding them all how close they still were to a deadly engagement.

  “Let’s make sure they don’t get there,” Alexander said, watching as a second salvo of missiles went streaming out from the Alliance formation. A vast wave of Alliance fighters and drones sat glittering on the horizon, each glinting speck enhanced by the Lincoln’s combat computer until it was bright enough to challenge the stars.

  Vasquez spoke again, “Our drones will reach ELR to intercept in five, four, three, two, one.”

  Space lit up with an ice-blue flurry of lasers as the drones opened fire. Laser-armed enemy missiles answered Alliance blue with crimson reds. The entire exchange lasted only a fraction of a second. Fiery explosions pockmarked the void, and Alexander glanced at the tactical just in time to see their entire line of drones vanish along with a comparative number of enemy missiles fragments. The remaining missiles sailed on. Alliance fighters opened fire first, cutting enemy ordnance down by half. Then they fired back, stitching space with red laser beams and wiping out hundreds of fighters in an eye-blink.

  “61st taking fire!” Stone announced. “We’re down by four.”

  Alexander winced, wondering who had died this time.

  The remainder of the enemy missiles went with them, and then the Confederate fleet launched another salvo. Alliance missiles raced past Alliance fighters, leading the charge against the enemy. The same happened on the Confederate’s side, and both waves of missiles split into thousands of smaller shards mere seconds before the laser-armed fragments opened fire on each other. Missiles obliterated missiles with random fury, cutting each other’s numbers by half and then sailing on to tangle with fighter screens once more. Alexander watched another chunk of their fighter screen e
vaporate.

  “Down two more!” Stone announced. “One pilot left,” he said, his tone dark with fury.

  Alexander swallowed past a lump in his throat. The enemy’s missiles disappeared again, but part of the Alliance salvo got through. He looked up to watch the simulated explosions of three different capital ships. The light faded, and he checked the tactical. Ten more to go.

  “ELR with enemy fleet in three minutes.”

  “We’re going to take casualties if they get to laser range with us,” Cardinal warned. “There’s no time for another salvo of missiles.”

  “Then use the hypervelocity cannons,” Alexander ordered.

  “They’ll adjust their headings and evade,” Cardinal said.

  “So we track shoot! We might score a lucky hit. It’s better than waiting for them to hit us. Open fire!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Alexander watched on the main holo display as bright golden streams of hypervelocity rounds raced out into space, tracking the tiny gray specks of enemy warships.

  “They’re returning fire!” Vasquez announced.

  “Davorian! Evasive maneuvers!”

  “Setting thrust vectors. Five Gs maximum. Brace for maneuvering thrust!”

  Suddenly Alexander was pinned to his couch, immobilized as the ship executed a series of random maneuvers that would throw off enemy gunners’ aim. Stars pinwheeled and zagged in bright silver blurs while hypervelocity rounds went on stuttering out into the void in shimmering waves of computer-simulated light. Enemy rounds came racing back, impossibly fast, and far too close for comfort. Cannon fire streamed by on all sides.

  “Taking fire!” McAdams gritted out between bursts of acceleration.

  Damage alerts sounded. Then came a tooth-rattling screech of metal shearing and of high caliber shells digging into their armor.

  Another alarm blared, this one more distinctive. Every spacer knew that alarm from their drills. The subsequent shriek of air hissing out confirmed it.

  “Hull breach! Losing pressure,” McAdams said.

  Alexander’s ears popped and he heard his suit auto-pressurize. His eyes darted around the bridge, trying to find the source of the breach. Switching from external speakers to comms, he ordered, “Seal it up!”

  “Repair drones deployed,” McAdams replied.

  Alexander heard more shells hitting their armor. He winced with every hit, watching as they streaked in. Then one of them blew a hole straight through the main holo display, taking out Davorian and his control station in a puff of red mist. The vacuum sucked both the debris and Davorian’s body out in an instant, along with all of the remaining air on the bridge, leaving nothing but a glaring hole full of stars, and a ragged scar on the deck where their helmsman used to sit.

  Chapter 45

  Catalina watched as the raft ran aground on the shore of some jungle-infested island. A sea-salt smelling breeze ran through her sweat-matted hair, cooling her momentarily. She’d taken off her and Dorian’s helmets soon after making it to the raft. No need to hang on to those anymore.

  “Everybody out!” the captain roared as the raft came to a stop. “Move it! We need get under cover A-SAP.”

  The colonists clambered out, splashing nosily in the shallow water as they tripped and stumbled their way up the beach.

  “Let me help you,” someone said.

  It was the lieutenant she’d been speaking to earlier. Caty nodded and allowed him to lead her to the front of the raft. He jumped down first and reached up for her to pass Dorian down. She withdrew sharply, as if the lieutenant had threatened to snatch Dorian away from her. The man smiled and waited patiently, and Catalina realized she’d overreacted. It would be safer to pass Dorian down than try to climb out of the raft with him in her arms. She passed her baby down and then crawled over the side of the raft. As soon as she was standing on the beach, the officer handed Dorian back to her.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go!” the captain shouted down to them from further up the shore. Catalina noticed that she and the lieutenant were the last ones out. Everyone else was already fleeing for the jungle.

  Catalina ran up the beach, kicking sand and trying desperately not to trip. She reached the end of the beach and barreled into a dense green wall of ground cover and trees. Forcing her way through with a crying baby, she caught up to the rest of the colonists. They stood still and frozen near the edge of a clearing, speaking in urgent whispers. Someone scowled and hissed at her to keep her baby quiet. Dorian wasn’t the only small child making too much noise, but she got the hint. She did her best to shush Dorian, bouncing him and cooing softly in his ear. That calmed him somewhat, and she turned her attention to the clearing.

  It was some type of farm. Based on the amount of water she saw shimmering in the sun between the bright green tufts of plants, she guessed that it was a rice farm. A trio of workers were out in the field, their conical rice hats shining in the sun.

  Caty tried not to give in to despair. The workers hadn’t seen them yet. They could go back and walk farther down the beach, look for a more remote area to hide. She heard the jungle rustling behind her and turned to see the captain joining them. One of his officers greeted him and quickly explained the situation. She overheard them arguing about it.

  “We can’t go back,” the captain snapped. “There’s two confederate destroyers sailing down the coast as we speak. If we go back to the beach now, they’ll see us.”

  “That was fast. What about the other rafts?”

  The captain shook his head. “We can’t afford to worry about them right now. If they’re smart, they’ll head for another part of the beach and spread out. Do those rice farmers look armed?”

  “No.”

  “Then that gives us the advantage. Get Guitierrez and let’s go. Leave the colonists here until we’ve cleared the area.”

  “You want them to watch?”

  “They can look away if they have to. Move up.”

  Catalina heard someone shouting in the distance, and she spun around to see one of the workers in the field pointing at them. The others looked up and froze. The captain and his officers made their way to the edge of the clearing, their weapons drawn. Catalina followed, driven by the horror of what they were about to do.

  “Does anybody speak English?” she called out as loudly as she could. “We need help!”

  The captain rounded on her and grabbed her firmly by her arm. “Are you crazy?”

  “Someone had to warn them,” she said.

  “And now they’re going to warn the nearest platoon of soldiers. Nice work.”

  “Ahh, Captain…” one of the officers said.

  “What?”

  Catalina saw what—the farmers were approaching, not running away in fear. Maybe they hadn’t heard her clearly enough to realize she was speaking English, not Mandarin or Indonesian.

  One of them called out in heavily-accented English. “Hello?”

  “Shit…” the captain growled. “Let me handle this. Everyone get back under cover!”

  Catalina refused to budge. The captain stepped out of the jungle with his weapon drawn. “Don’t move,” he ordered.

  The Indonesian farmer stopped, his eyes widening. The other two advancing behind him also froze and traded glances with each other.

  “Who are you?” the nearest farmer asked in accented english.

  “We’re Alliance colonists. We crash-landed off the shore. Your people are looking for us. If you take us somewhere safe, I promise no harm will come to you or any of your friends. If you don’t, I’m going to shoot you now. Nod if you understand me.”

  The man nodded once. “You do not have to threaten us. We will shelter you, but you must agree to come quickly, before it is too late.”

  “We’re enemies. How am I supposed to believe that?” the captain demanded.

  “We are not enemies. Our governments are enemies.”

  The captain stood there staring at the farmer for a long moment, clearly unsure about what he
should do. Catalina feared for the farmers’ lives and covered Dorian’s eyes. But the farmers seemed completely unconcerned, as if their instincts of self-preservation had been engineered out of them along with all other types of self-interest.

  “And if I shoot the three of you here?”

  “Your weapon is not silenced. The sound will carry. People will come looking for us, and no one will agree to shelter you after identifying yourselves as hostile. You will trade an uncertain fate for a certain one.”

  The captain’s shoulders slumped, defeated by that logic. “Lead the way.”