“Hurry. They'll be here in a half-hour, unless the ground batteries can get rid of them.”
“Not this time. I think their entire fleet's coming in for the kill. There. Just cut through the bulkhead and into their engine compartment. Can't make blivits out of it. Confused tangle of pipes and wire and spit.”
“Start the probe. Get the robot repair unit working to dismantle what it can. Have everything photo-graphed.”
“You're babbling, Cap'n. I know what I want and how to get it.”
Norlin's mouth turned drier than any desert and half as tasty when he saw how little time they had before the leading element of the alien fleet flashed across their orbit. A warship could release hundreds of independently targeting missiles as it rushed past the cruiser. No amount of supporting fire from the ground could save them if that happened.
The aliens might even think it was worth the energy expenditure to use their radiation cannon. Norlin pictured himself frying inside the flimsy pressure suit and didn't like the idea.
“Got it set up for relay back to the Preceptor. We can get it all in encoded microbursts when the robots are finished. Damn, but I wish I could do it myself.”
“Get back immediately. I'm picking up the first data from the RRU and have a few good pix.”
“Copy it all. The admiral will want to see it,” Barse said sarcastically. “Dammit, Cap'n, don't you understand? I'm doing this for us. The Preceptor can be the hottest ship in the Empire Service fleet if we steal what the aliens have packed into theirs.”
“What do they look like? The aliens?” asked Norlin.
“Who cares? We've got their engines open to us!”
Norlin estimated times and decided they had outlived their luck. “Back. Now. No argument or I leave you.”
“Make a man a ship's captain and see what it gets you,” grumbled Barse. “He turns pushy.” She returned quickly, checked the sensor relays and swung into the couch beside him. “You're so anxious to see Sutton II, let's go see it.”
Norlin applied full throttle to the shuttle, ripping off grapples he had forgotten to detach. It didn't matter. Getting back to base would require ten times the piloting of the first trip.
Pier Norlin amazed even himself by landing just seconds ahead of the first barrage from space.
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* * *
Chapter Sixteen
“The sky is turning black. Look at it!” Barse pointed. The cloud-dotted blue-green sky darkened. The “storm cloud” was caused by hundreds of the huge planet-beamers in the Death Fleet.
“Here comes a hovertruck for us,” said Norlin. He wanted to break and run; only a sense of decorum held him back. They'd get under the kilometers-thick protection of the planetary defense shield in less time if he simply waited. Even so, nervous energy and the need to do something made his feet move in the direction of the approaching vehicle.
“Race you for it,” Barse said, smiling crookedly. Her strange colorless eyes turned back to the sky. She clutched Neutron tightly to her body until he squealed in protest. She ignored him. “There's the first barrage.”
Norlin shuddered when he saw the rainbow discharge in the atmosphere. Each touch of the deceptively beautiful ray brought death to everything organic.
Immediate replies from the heavy laser cannon batteries on the ground showed that Sutton II was not surrendering easily to the attack.
“Sounds as if they've automated. Those lasartillery emplacements won't roll over and die just because an ionizing beam hits them. No humans to kill.”
“The aliens'll switch to electronics-killing fre-quencies if they have to,” said Norlin. “Their radiation cannon seems to be tunable, depending on what they need to destroy with it.”
He found it impossible to watch for more than a few seconds. His attention darted from the shuttle to the approaching hovertruck then back to the aerial battle.
The sky darkened even more as the Death Fleet moved into lower orbits. Each ship swung past faster, and there were more of them. He nodded approval for the tactic. Any individual ship received considerable punishment, but the speed in the lower orbit took it out of range quickly while the planet-beamer following it maintained almost constant bombardment.
Share the damage, concentrate the destruction.
The truck screeched to a halt.
“You two want a ride home or are you staying for the main show?”
“How many ships overhead?” asked Norlin.
“Who knows? Who cares? It only takes one of them to kill you dead, dead, dead.”
Barse climbed in and scooted over on the bench seat until she was pressed against the driver.
“You have such a great philosophy. Tell me more. Maybe we can start a philosophic movement.”
Norlin got in and wished only to be away from the landing field. He remembered vividly how the aliens had destroyed the fields on Lyman IV and Penum. He shuddered in spite of the afternoon's heat. And Murgatroyd. The planet was now a lifeless asteroid blet spinning around an uncaring sun. In a few hundred million years higher life might reappear—if some radiation-resistant bacteria had survived.
“What do they want? They can trade for everything they're taking. Why risk dying just for a few days of unhindered looting?” Norlin realized he had spoken aloud.
“You're the captain. You tell me,” said Barse, turning from her quiet conversation with the driver. “What caused the Mongol hordes to sweep through Asia and Europe? Why did the Visigoths enjoy conquering more than the decadent pleasures of the Roman Empire? Why did Empress Aphia order Torrik IV destroyed, not that it worked too well? A whim. Maybe they're indulging in an alien whim.”
“It might be a scavenger hunt. Ever do that when you were a kid?” asked the driver.
He and Barse started swapping lies about their youth. Norlin turned away and stared at the bright rainbows shimmering in the distance and creeping closer. He almost slammed through the glasteel windscreen when the driver braked suddenly.
“Out. Into that tunnel. There's only one way to go if you're looking for a place to keep from having your head exploded.”
“You've got such a way with words, Joe,” complimented Barse.
“See you after my duty shift,” he promised.
He slammed his foot down, and the hovertruck leaped away in a cloud of dust the instant they climbed down from the cab.
Norlin and Barse hurried down the narrow metal-lined, downward-sloping tunnel. He fought down feelings of claustrophobia. Spacemen couldn't afford such fears, yet this was different. The sense of the weight of the ground above him grew until he wanted to scream. Then, just as he thought his imagination would bring down the entire world on his head, the tunnel opened into a well-lit area filled with elevators.
Standing in front of each elevator door were two armed guards. Norlin turned when he heard metal scraping across fabric. More guards on either side of the door behind had leveled laserifles.
“Sublieutenant Pier Norlin and Lieutenant Tia Barse, reporting as ordered,” he said.
“Identities check,” came a distant voice. “Elevator four straight to the Old Man's office.”
The guards left their post and escorted them to the proper elevator. Barse sniffed and said, “What a bunch of pretty flowers. Not a fighter in the bunch. Liottey would approve of their aftershave lotion.”
The guard on Barse's right started to protest. The instant his attention focused on her rather than the laserifle he held, she moved.
She swung around, wrested away the rifle and kicked his feet from under him. She towered above him, the laserifle pointed at the other startled guard.
“As you were, Engineer,” Norlin said irritably. To the guards he said, “There's no reason to keep the rifles on us. Either shoot or stay at port arms.” He took the laserifle from Barse and tossed it back to the fallen trooper.
“What can you expect? They haven't seen combat. They're all garrison soldiers.”
The d
oor opened, and Norlin pulled Barse in with him before the soldiers overcame their shock and got mad. The tiny elevator pressurized, giving him a fraction of a second to brace himself. Then the bottom fell out of the world.
“Some ride,” gasped Barse. “Reminds me of the first time I was in free-fall. I even feel dropsick.”
“Don't get sick in front of the admiral,” he cautioned.
“Hell, Cap'n, I was thinking of waiting to be sick on the admiral. Be the most fun he's had in days.” Barse crossed her thick arms to cradle the cat and smiled her crooked smile.
Norlin swallowed several times as the elevator continued to drop into the bowels of the planet. After what seemed to be hours, the cage began to slow. Its deceleration was gradual but still almost drove him to his knees. The door popped open, and he staggered out.
The admiral's aide looked up from a console and smiled.
“Don't worry. I've been up and down from the Pit a thousand times, and I still walk like I'm drunk when I get out.”
“Knowing you, Martin, you probably are drunk.”
“Still the same old Tia, I see. Go on in. Admiral Bendo is expecting you. Don't take too much time. They're beginning to open up with everything they've got, and he needs to concentrate on our defenses.”
He turned back to his work, fingers flying on the keypad and causing figures to march double-time across the vidscreen.
“Do you know everyone in the base?” Norlin asked his engineer.
“Seems that way, doesn't it, Cap'n. I make friends easy. Actually, Martin testified for me at my first court-martial. A good guy.”
“First court-martial?”
“You don't think I'd still be a lieutenant after all my experience, do you, unless I got busted?”
“How many times?” Norlin was joking.
“Twice. Made it all the way to commander the last time before that incident on Megalith V.” Barse stroked the cat sleeping in her arms. “Let me tell you about that ruckus. I—”
She quieted as the door slid open and they were beckoned into the admiral's office by another aide-de-camp. All four walls were covered with vidscreen displays. Norlin glanced up; the ceiling held its own display. It took him several seconds to realize it showed a slowly changing sector of space above the planet.
“I'm old school. I prefer to check visually now and then rather than letting the computers tell me what's going on,” the admiral explained. “The display encompasses a complete revolution every ten minutes.”
The screen winked white, then came back to show stars.
“The Death Fleet has wiped out some of your sensors,” said Barse. “That's why you have blank areas. Do you know what's going on in those sectors?”
“We know from what is entering and leaving—and there aren't too many yet,” the senior officer said. He settled into a reclining chair and stared at the ceiling. “I'm too old for combat, but there're not many others left.” He sat upright and spun around, staring directly at Norlin. “Why didn't you mutiny?”
“What?” The question took Norlin by surprise. “I'm a sworn officer in the Empire Service.”
“So were the captains and crew of fourteen cruisers, two battleships and a few score smaller ships. They saw the Death Fleet approaching and they mutinied and ran. Why didn't you?”
“I knew what they had done to Penum, Lyman IV and Murgatroyd.”
“You're from Murgatroyd, aren't you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.” Barse was unusually quiet.
“Rebel planet. Maybe we need more rebels. The empire doesn't have the backbone to stand tall any longer. Emperor Arian is more interested in his pleasures on Earth than governing properly.”
“Sir, that's approaching treason.”
“So court-martial me.” Bendo heaved a deep, gusty sigh then coughed. “It's nothing you haven't been thinking. The service is only as good as its principles. I checked your records, Norlin. Nothing outstanding, but you do have a commitment and sense of honor missing in most of our officers. You're less than half my age but you're old school, like me. Yes, old school.” The admiral heaved another deep sigh.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don't. It's a curse. I ought to pull out, let those bastards take Sutton II while I shift back to Earth. They won't attack the center of our society. They're not strong enough.”
“You're working well against them, sir.”
“Not good enough, but we've taken out adequate numbers to know we can defeat them. The independently targeting pursuit mines work pretty well for us, but we don't have enough to make a difference, not against thousands of ships.
“I've gone over the data you sent from Lyman IV. They always attack through infiltration and from positions of strength and surprise because we can defeat them if we're prepared.”
“And if half the ES doesn't turn and run,” put in Barse.
Norlin started to quiet her. Admiral Bendo motioned him to silence.
“She's right. We could blow them out of the sky in an hour if we had their cohesion of purpose. We had the will once. It's moved out to the far frontier.” He coughed again. “It might even be dead in what were once our colonies. No matter. We have to fight, not philosophize.”
The room shook. Bendo wheeled his chair around and worked on a panel so vast the individual controls lacked identifying labels. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small hand controller. He pushed back and began using the controller on the panel.
“Each lasartillery battery is keyed into the hand unit,” said Barse. “No one else can use it.”
“What does the board control?” asked Norlin. “It looks like a fire control board, but it's so huge!”
“All the planetary defenses flow through here,” the admiral said. “I've already programmed in the general strategy for our defense. I make the second to second adjustments myself rather than letting the computer do it. Makes me think I've got some reason for being here.”
Norlin nodded. His professors at the Empire Service Academy had been split on the proper use of a battle computer. Some claimed the faster responses of an electronic device outweighed the predictability they displayed. Others insisted no computer could match the human mind for integrating thousands of data bits and acting nonlinearly. Falling into a pattern turned a battle into a slaughter—the winner being the side that discerned the other's regularity of behavior and capital-ized on it.
“They orbited and tried to use their radiation cannon. The station sustained heavy damage but was sufficiently prepared. The core remained intact, and a few officers fought back.”
“The rest mutinied?” asked Barse.
“I'm afraid so. It didn't matter. The Death Fleet destroyed the station within an hour. That small resistance gave us ample warning and time to prepare, using data they collected.”
“What of my warning?” asked Norlin, startled that no one had heeded the messages he'd sent. He had risked his life and command—for what?
“My aide ignored it. I never saw it until after our sensors picked up the leading elements of their fleet,” said Bendo. “By then, it was almost too late. They infiltrated a dozen or more sneak ships that wreaked havoc on our fleet. Most were destroyed in dock.”
He ran a shaking hand over the sparse gray thatch on his head. Norlin fancied he could see through the parchment-thin hand. Bendo spoke with authority, but his body betrayed him in subtle ways. He coughed again; this time, Norlin listened and heard a death rattle.
“My aide led a small group of officers in an attempted coup,” Bendo said without turning around. He used the computerized controller to play the vast panel like a conductor with a massive orchestra. Lights flashed on and off; somewhere halfway around the world lasartillery batteries fired and surface-to-space missiles launched.
“The one outside? I've known Martin for years.”
“Not him. Another. He's dead, even if his rebels still are trying to take control. They want to sue the aliens for peace and work out a pea
ceful coexistence.”
“But—”
“I know, Norlin. I've seen your pix. So have they.”
“But the aliens give no quarter. They obliterated Murgatroyd!”
“We've been at peace too long. It's as pernicious as being at war too long. You get to enjoy it, think it's the only state there can be. One makes you soft, the other vicious. I'm not sure either is much good in perpetuating the species.” Bendo made a wide sweep with the controller and lit half the panel red.
Norlin blinked as the vidscreens blinked white then returned to their displays. Most of the lasartillery on-planet had fired. Behind its fiery bolts went a barrage of missiles, some of which penetrated to the Death Fleet because of the efficacy of the laser assault.
“Vary the attack. Catch them off-base with one then follow with another. And still another.” Bendo fired the lasers again. “Doesn't always work, though. They're good. They're vulnerable, but you have to probe hard to get to them.”
Norlin listened with half an ear. He had strayed to a panel manned by four under-officers. They struggled at some task the purpose of which wasn't immediately obvious to him. Then he understood.
“You've mined an entire moon!”
“Not mined. Something better,” said the admiral. “Watch this. We damaged ten percent of their ships with the first major assault. This will be even more interesting. They expect the next attack from on-planet. The outer moon has been completely mirrored.”
“Fighting mirrors?” asked Barse. “How do you position and aim them fast enough?”
“We're using continuous wave lasers for this attack. Chemically fired, slow-burning duration, high-energy oxygen-iodine.” Bendo pointed his controller over the shoulder of the middle officer at the board. Red lights flashed everywhere.
Norlin jerked around and stared at the ceiling. The laser beams blasted at the speed of light from batteries on-planet, found their mirrors on the outer moon and were reflected. To the Death Fleet, it must have seemed a new enemy had attacked from spaceside.
Alien Death Fleet [Star Frontiers 1] Page 15