The engineer himself was sitting at the guidance control station, anxiously leaning forward over the console, making minute adjustments to their course and heading as Mulenga called them up from astrogation. The difference between a smooth, perfect escape trajectory and Alamo becoming a smoldering hole in the ground was narrow enough that he didn't want to take any risks. Cunningham was sitting at Tactical, tapping his hands next to the launch controls in an attempt to hide his nerves. Makala was making no attempt to hide them at the flight engineering station; not only was he about to have the damage-control run of a lifetime, his boss was sitting on the bridge periodically looking over his shoulder at him, throwing him bits of advice.
Bryant was sitting at the sensor controls, quiet and still; her full attention was focused on the satellites Alamo was now racing towards, preparing to issue a warning if they so much as twitched out of position. A couple of good shots, and Alamo wasn't going to get out of this one. The only one on the bridge who was not at all concerned was Harper, who had co-opted the communications station from Spinelli. Her fingers were dancing across the keyboard as she continued to write code for her infiltration program in what Marshall fervently hoped was just makework, a distraction.
"Sir," Quinn said, turning his head, "Final commitment in ten seconds."
Ten seconds for Marshall to decide whether or not to abort. He glanced at the green-haired Harper, then nodded. "Commit."
"Aye, Captain," he replied, eagerly turning back to his controls. One way or another, Alamo was about to make history.
"Entering satellite detection range in sixty seconds, Captain," Bryant said.
Harper craned her head around, "Ready to hack. Want me to start?"
"Not yet."
"But..."
"Not yet, spaceman. We're going to need every second that program can give us."
He watched Alamo move closer and closer on the tactical holoprojector, forcing himself to take deep, calm breaths. None of them were coming easily to him right now. The reality was really hitting home. If this program didn't work, there was no way back. No way to test it first; if it worked, it would only work once. Twenty seconds to go. He closed his eyes, counting down under his breath, then spun to face Harper.
"Do it."
"Right." Her fingers flew across the controls as the signal leaped out from Alamo's transmitters to the satellites, Spinelli watching to make sure there were no mistakes, no errors, no delays. Everyone was holding their breath as the seconds ticked away.
"Three seconds," Bryant said. "Two. One. Zero." This was it. Marshall tensed himself to watch the satellite guns unfurl, braced himself for the damage reports. "Plus One. Plus Two. Plus Three. No change to target aspect. It worked!" Bryant sounded more surprised than relieved, as Spinelli and Harper quickly changed seats.
"Good work, Harper. Damn, damn good work!" Marshall tapped a button on his console, "Captain to Crew. We're through the satellite detection perimeter, no change to target aspect. Now comes the hard part. All personnel make sure they are strapped down, you've got about ninety seconds at the most." He shook his head as he finished the message, "All hands brace for turbulence. Shuttle crews, stand by for launch."
No point going to battle stations. The enemy they were now fighting was intangible; could they pull out of Newton's grasp once they'd dared that deep into the gravity well? The bridge crew all tightened their straps one last time, and Marshall did likewise, comforted by the firm hold of the twin straps over his shoulder.
"Deploying ballute, Captain," Quinn said. They could hear the banging from the outside of the hull as Alamo nearly tripled inside, the huge ablative bag filling, protecting the underside of the ship, serving as their heat shield for the re-entry. All the external ports had been hastily sealed up in the final hours before the impact, the vulnerable laser cannon temporarily mothballed. A series of temporary bolts locked into place with a clang.
"Deployed and locked, sir," Quinn said. "Atmospheric entry in sixty-five seconds."
The planet filled the viewscreen, looming larger and larger. The curve was no longer visible as the nose pointed down, Alamo plunging towards the surface like a thrown dart. Ryder was fiddling with the instruments on her control panel; she turned and nodded to Marshall.
"All stations green and ready, sir."
"Good. Hold on, everybody."
"Oh, Christ," called Bryant from the sensor station.
"What is it?" Marshall asked frantically, thinking of the satellites now orbiting overhead.
"An altimeter just popped up on my display." She laughed, nervously, "I guess it hadn't hit home until that popped up. Sorry, sir."
Quinn craned his head, "Readings, Spaceman!"
"Two hundred thousand feet, descending."
Marshall was beginning to feel heavy, furious deceleration pushing him down into his seat. He gripped the armrests, keeping his head fixed ahead, textbook for a ballistic re-entry. In shuttles, he'd done this a thousand times, but none of that compared to this. The ship began to shake and tremble, creaking up and down the hull – every single hull plate was about to be tested to the limit. The ballute had given the ship the shape it needed to curve into the atmosphere, but it couldn't give it full protection.
The ship shook again, pulling him forward in his straps as Quinn frantically made second-by-second adjustments to his course, the guidance computers able to help him only in an approximate way; he was giving a virtuoso performance at the helm, but the ship was still lurching dangerously about, threatening to lose the attitude it needed if it was going to complete the ride. Flames started to lick around the viewscreen, a purple haze sweeping around the camera pickup.
"Altitude now a hundred thousand feet and falling! Outside temperature climbing rapidly!" Bryant yelled.
"Anything from the surface, Spinelli?"
"No, sir," the communications tech replied. "We're in the plasma sheath!"
"Hold together," Marshall muttered to himself, gripping the armrests on his chair as he struggled to remain upright. There were a series of loud bangs, loud enough to rattle the entire ship, and alarms started to go off. Makala frantically worked his station, yelling for reports from his microphone while manipulating ship's systems.
"Eighty thousand!"
"What's the news, Makala?"
"Hold one, sir."
"I can't, Spaceman!"
"Hull breaches in five areas. All contained. No pressure loss. Yet."
"Keep her together!"
"Seventy thousand, falling like a damn meteor, sir!" Bryant yelled.
Marshall, about to ask for a report from Quinn, paused as he looked at the engineer. Sweat was running down his neck, his face locked in total concentration, his fingers dancing from one control to another, making a series of fine adjustments to the computer-monitored course. The ship lurched hard to starboard, sending Marshall slumping to the side and yielding a series of swear words from Quinn.
"I think we hit a jet stream, sir!" said Bryant. "Course stabilizing now!"
The screen was beginning to clear, clouds and rolling ocean underneath. It looked awfully close, and the surface was still moving awfully quickly. To an observer on the surface, Alamo would look like a comet streaking through the sky close enough to touch; he hoped someone down there was enjoying the show.
"Sixty thousand feet! Outside temperature falling!"
"Quinn, main engines?" asked Marshall.
"Not yet. Not yet," he replied, muttering over and over to himself, while his right hand began to type in a firing sequence.
"Fifty-five thousand! Outside temperature still falling!"
The current projected course of Alamo on the tactical holoprojector had an unhappy ending in the ocean in a little over a minute. Every instinct of Marshall was to get the ship out of there, punch it away, but they still hadn't done what they had come for. The shuttles and fighters were still waiting in the hangar deck, perched on the elevator airlocks.
"Quinn...," Marshall growled, "pun
ch it!"
"Bryant?" the engineer asked.
She paused for three seconds; Marshall could easily count them all, each seamed an age, "Go, sir,” she said, as calmly as she could.
Quinn pulled a lever, and the ship began to roll and tumble, the tattered remnants of the ballute flapping away from the ship, gliding slowly down to the surface, far above Alamo as the ship continued to descend. Marshall felt sick as Quinn struggled to bring the ship under control, to get her back onto an even keel. He spent thruster fuel with abandon in an attempt to right her, and painfully slowly, the horizon began to stabilize. Just ahead, he could make out the lines of the super-continent, the jungle coastline; he could swear the ship passed over a vessel in the ocean.
"Fifty thousand feet!"
Marshall turned to Cunningham, "Launch them! Launch them all!"
Calmly, Cunningham spoke into his microphone while typing commands into his station, "All shuttles, all fighters, immediate launch. Clearance on request. Launch, launch, launch."
As Bryant's eyes continued to widen, and the surface continued to approach, a series of loud bangs echoed throughout the ship as the pilots hurried to obey the order. The ship was still rolling slightly to the left; the three shuttles seemed to gently curve away, speeding towards their destination, the fighters leaping out after them and soon speeding ahead, their engines leaving a trail of smoke behind them. A series of bangs rattled through the ship, and Marshall looked over at Bryant for a second before realizing what they were – sonic booms from the accelerating fighters, just ahead.
Alamo was well over the continent by now, the jungle already being replaced with the endless desert, getting close enough that Marshall could make out details on the surface, see hills, tracks and trails. There were contrails in the sky beneath them; someone down there had decided to send out a plane to investigate. He hoped that the pilot would keep well clear of Alamo's wake, given what he hoped was about to happen.
"Forty-five thousand now! Falling fast!"
"All shuttles and fighters clear," Cunningham reported, his calm exterior deserting him as the ground grew nearer.
"Burn it, Quinn!"
The engineer pressed three buttons, then slid a lever forward as far as it could go. This was no time for half-measures. Marshall felt a comforting acceleration on his back as the main engine came on, a series of rapid sonic booms heralding an increase in speed as the course curve began to run up again, the red warning lights popping up as Alamo increased its apoapsis a safe level. Bryant was nodding now as she read out steadily increasing altitude readings, Quinn pouring on the speed as fast as he safely could, guiding Alamo carefully out of the atmosphere.
"Hundred thousand! Hundred and ten! Hundred and twenty!"
Now they were racing another, and final deadline. They barely had a minute remaining before the satellites would be operational again, before Harper's program would cease to work. More crashes and creaks echoed from the rear of the ship, Makala cursing as he started to run through damage control procedures one after another, technicians across the ship struggling to obey his directions through the acceleration.
"Leaving atmosphere now!"
Alarms rang from the engineering station, and nodding, Quinn shut the main engine down. "That's it until we can give her an overhaul. Twenty minutes."
"Hull breaches all over the ship, sir," Makala reported.
"Casualty reports coming in. No fatalities as yet," Ryder said.
"Quinn, our course?"
The engineer sighed, "Five more seconds and we'd have been certain. Toss of a coin, sir. We will or we won't."
Bryant's cheer was evaporating as she focused her equipment on the satellite again, Harper unbuckled and drifting over her shoulder, watching the seconds count down. She'd warned him that the hack was guaranteed for just ten minutes. There might be a few more seconds, but they couldn't be counted on. Now they needed them.
"Nine second gap, Captain."
"Count it down, Spaceman."
Work stopped on the bridge as the sensor tech counted out the seconds, "In the gap. Plus One. Plus Two. Plus Three." He might as well be counting heartbeats; they were pounding fast enough. "Plus Six. Plus Seven. Plus Eight. Plus Nine."
Marshall buried his head in his hands for a moment, a chorus of cheers echoing around the bridge. He unstrapped, drifting over to Quinn, placing his hand on the engineer's shoulder, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Our course?"
"Nominal. We'll be able to do a low-power burn when we get high enough in our orbit to stop us dipping into the atmosphere again." He looked down at the instruments, "I think we'll still be in range of the satellites for the low point of our orbit, though. Not much I can do about it on the first pass. I don't dare give Alamo too much boost until we've had a proper inspection."
"Get on it. Ryder can handle it from here."
He nodded, "I'll go aft, start making some order out of chaos."
"Good work." Marshall looked down at the rapidly receding planet, "We survived the satellites and the re-entry. All we need is for the espatiers to make it three for three."
"I wouldn't bet against them, sir," Quinn replied.
Chapter 27
Fire raced across the sky in Alamo's wake, a huge tail of smoke and flame crossing the horizon as Orlova chased across the desert towards the landing field. Seven smaller trails of fire were falling back from the battlecruiser, three of them the familiar rectangular shape of shuttlecraft, the others the fine dagger shapes of a fighter wing swooping around. She couldn't believe that the Captain had tried something so bold; she'd have loved to be at the controls for that ride, but as it was, she could help out more on the surface.
Caine and her father had stayed behind to take care of the wounded until help could arrive; technically, Orlova hadn't bothered to wait for orders or permission before taking off. As soon as she'd heard that first sonic boom and seen the light sweeping down from the sky she'd known that she was going to be needed, and that there was still a lot of fighting left to do. The trucks that had been headed toward the ruined missile installation were still on the way, but she didn't think they were going to be a problem for much longer. Her faith was immediately justified as a trio of missiles came diving down from the fighters, three explosions smashing into the ground.
The pilots didn't seem to be delaying at all; the shuttles were coming down in typical approach formation, their landing jets already beginning to kick dust up from the ground, while the fighters circled overhead, spending their fuel recklessly to protect the helpless landers on their final descent. Her pistol in her hand, Orlova stagged towards the runway, looking for any potential hazards; a quick squeeze of the trigger knocked down the only Legionnaire she could see standing around, and there didn't seem to be any anti-air on the field. Presumably they had decided that the missiles would provide sufficient protection.
Resisting the temptation to play Landing Signal Officer, Orlova decided to stay well clear of the landing shuttles, the first of them settling down onto the tarmac just ahead of the rest. The fighters dipped their wings – presumably something Quinn had concocted to give them at least a marginal aerodynamic performance, and curved around towards the compound, evidently planning to soften the way for the assault troops once they made it in. The other two shuttles settled behind the first in a V-formation, steam coming out of their exhausts.
Running up to the airlock of Shuttle One, Orlova jabbed down the 'release' button, then belatedly decided to stand well clear just in case someone inside was trigger-happy. Standing in the airlock, attired in combat armor and carrying the plasma guns that would be devastating on the surface, she saw a squad of Triplanetary Espatiers, Esposito standing at their head. The Ensign did a double-take when she saw her; Orlova realized that her attire had changed somewhat since they had last met.
"What took you so long?" Orlova said, shaking her head. Esposito jumped out of the shuttle, clapping her hand on Orlova's shoulder.
"Th
e others?"
"Caine's back at the missile station with my father. We've got wounded back there."
"Your what?" Esposito's eyes widened. "Never mind. Doctor..."
Duquesne jumped out of the shuttle, medical kit already in her hand, "Already on the way."
Orlova gestured towards the smoke at the far side of the plateau, and Duquesne raced to help.
"Situation?" Esposito asked.
"We nailed a squad up on the missile silo, and your fighters took out a platoon and a lot of their transport. Weapons are conventional slugthrowers, like on Ragnarok. I haven't seen anything heavier than machine guns, but they might have something bigger down there."
"Right." She turned to Corporal Clarke. "Corporal, get the squad deployed. Secure the perimeter as planned."
"Yes, ma'am!" He yelled back to his men, "First Squad, tactical deployment on the double! Get moving, now!"
"Where's your pilot?" Orlova said.
Esposito raised her eyebrow, "You think I'd have missed the chance to sit in the pilot's seat myself for this one? I'm just sorry you missed it."
Sergeant Kozu ran forward, Second Squad fanning out on either side to secure positions in cover around the edge of the runway, and gave a parade-ground salute to the two officers. Over at the other shuttle, Orlova saw a woman in a pilot's suit running towards them, pulling her helmet off with her hand.
"Platoon disembarking now; Third Squad is unloading their kit. We'll be ready to move out in two minutes."
"Good."
Zabek raced up to Orlova, her eyes panicked, "Steele?"
"Fine last I saw; we left her in a village in the deep jungle." Orlova clapped her hand on the midshipman's arm, "She's getting the best care, Midshipman. Nice flying, by the way."
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