They looked at me. I sighed, and went back to watching the displays. The mass was not far away now, but we were still firing in all directions.
"Jane, we need a full frontal broadside. Start moving the turrets so we have it in place in time. Let's have the ship suit up as well, in firing mode, but hair-trigger for changing into full protection mode."
"Confirmed."
But she shot me a look which said I was asking for too much. I had no choice.
"Jon?" asked Aline. "Isn't this mass usually too much for the entire fleet?"
"Your point is?"
"We're going in alone?"
"Have to. Everyone else is committed."
"We have casualties," said Jane. "Six Cruisers gone, and a dozen damaged and heading for safety waypoints. Three PB's are damaged as well, and one Battleship."
I closed my eyes, and shook my head. Nothing I could do about it. We were stretched too thin, and I'd known that doing the dispositions. I only hoped Lacey didn’t launch Corvettes and Destroyers too soon. But there was no time to think about it. Belatedly I realized I'd screwed up again. I should have started the three Titans towards where the masses were most likely to be, since we knew where they were in Midnight. The extrapolation should have been easy for Jane to make. But it hadn't occurred to me. I put it aside. Too damned late now, and I had a battle to fight.
"I have full firing control," I commanded, and took hold of the controls on my chair.
George and Grace both slumped a bit, as they let go.
"George, take control of capital ship missiles. Grace, you have the rest of the missiles."
"Aye sir," they both said together, and began to concentrate again.
"Firing range," said Jane, calmly.
I pulled the trigger on the main guns, having grouped them all up. At the same time, I mashed the torpedo firing button, and continued to hold both. Sceptre spat death ahead of her as she sped towards the center of the mass, at her top speed.
The aliens had plenty of time to see us coming, but they misjudged our speed, firing way too late. I juked us out of the way of their main shots, which mostly missed behind us. The ones which did hit, rocked the ship violently, and our shields went down forty percent. From there, we were hit almost continuously by minor hits, nibbling away at our shields.
"Brace for collision," I said as calmly as I could.
Fifty
We didn’t actually collide after all. It was most likely a fluke, but just before we were due to crunch ships, the Titan turrets fired again, followed by the next salvo of torpedoes, blasting a hole clear across the mass, and we passed right through throwing out missiles in all directions as we went. The mass came apart.
I pulled our speed off, pulled us around, aimed at the biggest still existing mass, and pushed the speed back on again. Guns and torpedoes tore through it, and we passed through the middle again. And did it again, and again.
"Five percent Jon," said Jane, much louder than normal.
Five percent? For a moment I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Oh. Shields. I aimed us at the next largest mass of ships still close by, and continued firing.
Suddenly, the guns stopped, the torpedoes wouldn’t fire, and the missiles stopped launching.
I shook myself out of my concentration zone, and looked at Jane.
"Suit active," she said. "Should I get us out of here now?"
"Yes Jane," said George, while I struggled to get a grip.
Sceptre twirled, and moved off at top speed.
"What a mess!" said the voice of John Slice. "Let's get some of that cleaned up for you."
His laugh came through before the channel closed.
Jane zoomed in on the local navmap, and then twirled it around the axis. Well above us was Apricot and Unassailable, who'd been on a sort of high guard, in case someone needed rescuing. Coming from them was a cloud of Hives, all spitting missiles and torpedoes.
A minute later, we changed course again, to RV with the two ships. The suit shifted back to its neutral state, and the missile launchers started firing again.
"Sitrep," I said.
"Looks like about eighty percent of the alien ships have been destroyed, with the rest heading in all directions trying to escape. No one mass is big enough to destroy a Cruiser now, and they're breaking apart quickly. Give it another five minutes, and Orion can start launching small capitals. Another half hour, and the Privateers should be safe enough to launch, as long as they co-ordinate at squadron strength."
"What's going on in Midnight?"
"They jumped everything they had on our side of the system, so those left in the system are nearly two days from us. Most likely scenario will be they'll jump an entire system long cylinder and masses into Midnight from Cobol, but this will leave them well wide of the jump point and probably a day away at best."
"But to do that," interjected Dick, "They'll need to move their existing remaining cylinder, and we'll see that in enough time to know they're coming."
"It won't make much difference anyway," said Jane. "My guess is they'll start doing this in a lot of systems down spine, but it won't speed them up much. If we were going much further, they'd rapidly overwhelm us. But by the time they bring up forces using this method, we'll be gone for good."
I thought she was a tad optimistic, which was interesting for an AI. She wasn’t just quoting facts anymore, but giving opinions based on woolly facts. And if I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was actually laying it on a bit thick so the team wouldn’t unduly worry. We traded glances, and I thought I saw a micro wink.
"How's our defenses look?"
"What's left of Bad Wolf has been turned to put a solid part of the rear surface at the front. The next ships to jump in will get the same as the first ones did. The asteroid lines are pretty much gone, but there is a substantial amount of debris we might be able to use."
"Start on building a line of debris from Bad Wolf. Wherever possible along the line, do the same. Use salvage droids from any ship you need to. If there are injured aliens out there, I want them seeing us rebuild the debris line, and passing the message back."
"What's the point?" asked Alana.
"It’s a bluff. I want them thinking we can do this to them every time they send a solid cylinder in, resulting in them losing hundreds of thousands of ships in an instant, with the rest being hunted down and killed before they can get another one jumped. I'm hoping they'll go back to standard tactics now. They know they should be able to breech the rock at the jump point with a single mass next time, or they know they can use a short solid cylinder to breech a new hole in the middle and a series of these will break it up at some point. But all this takes time, and in that time, we get to withdraw. As long as they come at us at normal speed, we win."
"Actually Jon," said Jane, "I'd estimate they jumped in over a million."
It was a sobering thought. We'd pretty much dodged a bullet.
"We dodged a bullet," said Dick. "How did you know?"
Everyone was looking at me expectantly again.
"I was actually shit scared they would figure this out in Hawaii. And again in Cobol. We're damn lucky they didn’t. I set this system up on the basis we'd need to make a serious stand here. And we may still need to. We'll know sometime in the next day, so for now, we stay put back in our starting positions. Although maybe Hammer can stand by near the end of where they managed to get to."
"Confirmed. Orion is launching Destroyers, Frigates, and Corvettes. The Hives have completed the main work here, and are now chasing down small groups of aliens. Orders?"
"Takes us back up the line to the Midnight jump point, via the biggest groupings. May as well pick off as much as we can on the way. Send the other ships at the jump point off in pursuit. If we can, I'd like this system clean inside twelve hours, including anything which might contain a live alien, which otherwise looks derelict. Once the system is clean, we can decide if we stay or go, without them knowing what we're doing."
<
br /> "Confirmed."
"I'll be in my Ready Room. Need to update the brass."
"No need Jon. They saw it all practically in real time."
"Then I'll be in my ready Room not updating the brass."
There were a few chuckles as I dropped to the deck, and limped the few steps to my desk. Instead of sitting there, I plonked down into a lounge chair. Angel jumped up onto my lap, curled up, and started purring as I tickled her.
Jeeves dropped a bottle of water next to me, with a ginger ale behind it. I drained the water without stopping, and started slurping the ginger ale. The empty vanished, and was replaced by another full one.
I was losing it. I needed to figure out how to get the team off the ship before I finally killed everyone. Not looking at your shield value during a furball? Only someone with a death wish was that stupid. Or someone so exhausted they couldn’t function properly. I didn’t think I had a death wish. But I didn’t think I'd be surviving much longer. So maybe I did have one. It didn’t matter, as long as I didn’t kill the others at the same time I went down.
Releases.
I sighed. I’d been neglecting them again. But it was way past time I meditated, so I entered the zone, released for all the aliens I’d killed, or been responsible for killing, and asked forgiveness from the crews lost today.
I came out of it a few hours later, and after checking our progress in cleaning up the system, headed for the Mess.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" greeted me as I walked in.
The walls were covered in pop-up screens, including all of my family, other than those in Gaia.
"Where's Galactica?" I sub-vocalized to Jane.
"Back in Outback," she said via my PC.
I might have known. If they couldn’t be at a birthday party for me, they'd make sure they were in vid range.
The Mess was catered for a party, and the team shifted into civvies. I reluctantly followed them, and so did those on the screens. Jeeves brought in a cake with twenty candles on it, with five stars in the middle, and they sang the traditional, cheered me on, and everyone everywhere ate cake, drank, danced, and for a few hours forgot the galaxy was ending for the human race.
Fifty One
To my complete amazement, the aliens didn’t try the solid cylinder again. So it was two more days later before they started trying to breach Bad Wolf again. I could only guess my bluff had worked, and enough wounded or stranded aliens had seen us rebuilding the defenses, to convince them it was pointless to try again. The asteroids were gone, but their mass was still there, pulled by salvage droids back into position. The dust and debris would be just as fatal to any ship appearing in the middle of it, as the rocks had been. In fact, there was more mass there now, given all the alien wreckage added to its length. If they tried it again, and failed again, the amount of mass would grow again.
By then, I’d released the fleets. With less than three days of open Door left, and up to fifteen hours travel time for some of them, those who wanted to leave, did so. I was left with my own ships and squadrons, Simhausen's squadron, Slice and his AMS ships, and surprisingly, most of the Mercs. But then again, Mercs live the thrill of combat, so meekly walking away from where the combat was going to be, wasn’t their thing. In some ways, the fact I was surprised they stayed, showed I’d never really adapted to being one.
I’d given Bentley, Greer, Miriam, and Annette, permission to leave their ships and join the exodus into Gaia. All had refused. I’d told O'Neil he could take John Wayne through to Gaia now, and he'd politely ignored me, pretending he had a junior officer talking at him at the same time.
Now down to two days, those of us left could be there in about twelve hours, or even less if we docked everything to a Titan. I wasn’t sure it was possible, but in theory, we could dock two Titans to Redoubt along her long length, and not lose any speed, even with everything else docked to Redoubt. I hoped we didn’t need to find out.
My main worry now was Outback. Stations and ships were still jumping through as fast as could be arranged safely, but there was still way too many left behind. Jane assured me all of them would get through in time. Once the first of the fleet ships arrived, things seemed to change. A lot more order was established. What was it with people? Give them time to escape and they panicked and slowed things down. Point a gun at them, and threaten them with not going at all, and they became sheep, and more orderly. Once again, I wondered why a lot of them were worth saving.
Off to one side was my Mining Station from Nexus ring three, and many of my ships. Freighters filled with not unloaded goods, including my mining freighters. I noticed Hurndalls Stallion was with them, and nearly told her to get in the queue, but didn’t. Richard knew what he was doing. He'd spent the whole length of time coming up the spine evacuating people. If anyone deserved to jump the queue, his family did, but I knew him well enough now to know that wasn’t his style.
Further away was the evacuation fleets themselves, including Galactica. This wasn’t part of the plan. I opened a channel to Galactica. There was a slight lag, but it wasn’t enough to worry about.
"Captain to Captain please," I said to the Lieutenant Commander who answered.
"What can I do for you Admiral," asked my Dad a minute or so later.
"You can explain why your fleet is back in Outback."
I was being blunt. He was the same back.
"We unloaded everyone who wanted to stay in Gaia. Some didn’t, assuming we'd be exploring once the door closes, which we will be as soon as things settle down. Your Enterprise people wouldn’t leave the ship, and neither will most of the Pompeii people here. It's no biggie son."
"Why come back?"
"A lot of the remaining stations in Outback are having problems, and being worked on. Several may have to be abandoned. If so, we need to be able to evacuate them in a hurry. If need be, we can all act as tugs, and push the last stations through. We'll know tomorrow. Besides, as soon as you get here, your mother wants to see you."
The words 'one last time', didn’t need to be said.
"Fine. But regardless of what happens here, you make damn sure your fleet goes through in plenty of time."
"Aye sir."
He flipped me a salute and held it until I replied in kind. The channel closed.
"Here they come," said Jane.
Angel sat up straight, ready for her next battle fix.
A short length of solid cylinder popped into existence, punching another hole in Bad Wolf, and we opened fire on those alien ships which survived. Salvage droids kept the debris line intact, and pushed the new debris to join it. The tugs turned Bad Wolf slightly to make her solid again.
Aliens poured in as they jumped, but none of them survived. The next solid punched through a little later, and we tidied up and prepared for the next one.
The third one split the remains of Bad Wolf into chunks, and the salvage droids pushed the remains back into the jump lane. But several hours of punishment later, there was nothing left to stop them. The trickle became a pipeline again, and we were holding them, but not by much.
In the end, it was another mass getting ready to jump which triggered our withdrawal. We could have taken it, but I didn't want to risk anyone at this late stage in the game. One of my pet peeves in all the books, vids, and hollo's I'd ever read or viewed, was last minute avoidable casualties. Good drama for entertainment, but I'd never seen it that way. Dying at the last minute was something I hated. No-one was doing it on my watch if I could help it. There'd been too many already in this system. No more.
We retreated. The remains of Bad Wolf shattered and drifted off in all directions. The line of debris started to lose coherence, and also drifted off in all directions, as we retrieved the salvage droids along the way. I sent everyone else ahead, getting them to take the missile platforms with them, and did the droid collections myself.
Instead of twelve hours, it took me nearly a full day to reach Outback. But I wasn’t in a hurry.
We found R
edoubt parked out beyond the Gaia jump point, with all my ships parked around her. I checked on the status of the remaining stations and ships, and was assured all would go through in time.
To make going through the jump point faster, we started docking ships to the Titans. Fearless docked with Sceptre, and I was surprised to find she still had a full complement of troops. O'Neill made a point of telling me the job wasn’t done until the job was done. In other words, until the door closed with everyone on the other side, the troops didn’t think we were finished. Homer was empty, and Bonko's team were the only ones on his ship. Slice docked Apricot up in Sceptre as well, while Defiant docked with Orion, and Courageous with Hammer. John Wayne, Undaunted, the Guardians, and smaller ships, all docked with Redoubt. Galactica docked with Sceptre, Enterprise with Hammer, and Prometheus with Orion. Relentless, Dauntless, Gatherer, Preserver, and Deliverer, docked to their Titans as well. The three Escort Carriers hadn't come back from Gaia, which was no surprise, and it left more room for the Dreadnaughts. Unassailable docked up alongside Galactica and Relentless, and the remainder of my Missile Cruisers found places under all three Titans. Hurndalls Stallion docked at Redoubt as well, as did the remainder of my freighters.
This left my Mining Station, which Jane quickly improvised a dock to the top of Redoubt for, Redoubt being able to move it a lot faster than its own tugs could. The last of the mining crew still aboard moved to Redoubt instead.
In between the dockings, I kept monitoring the aliens, who were advancing into Bad Wolf at their normal pace.
With less than twenty four hours to go, those still on this side met on Redoubt for a celebration dinner. My parents hugged me, and I had troubles stopping everyone else from doing the same.
Bigglesworth was sitting with Lacey and his pilots. Jedburgh and Hallington were sitting with Greer and Miriam. I didn’t know why Hallington was still here, since the two American Super-Carriers had already jumped through. Jedburgh had never left Hammer, so I wasn’t surprised to see him still here.
Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13) Page 24