“What?” said Haywood.
“He’s a little odd,” said Ryan, “but damn good with weapons, sir.”
“I feel safer already,” said Haywood. “Now maybe you can enlighten me about what’s going on.”
“It’s a long story, but we have a weapon that can help against the Altarrans.”
“A weapon? Well I’ll be damned. Come to my office. We’ll all have a seat and chat. I have the best damn hot chocolate on Pluto. Come to think of it, the only damn hot chocolate on Pluto.”
For the next hour, Ryan explained in detail all that had transpired. He told Haywood about the solar disrupter and the overhaul of the outdated ships.
He could see that Haywood was listening intently. After Ryan was finished, Haywood looked at him and shook his head. “That’s one hell of a story. Never would have dreamed in a million years cadets could have thought of that. But then, you ain’t no ordinary cadets, are you? I’ll be damned if it’ll work, but who am I to argue? So I assume you’re here with orders?”
“I am, sir.” Ryan held up his Slider. “From Admiral Williamson. He told me only you would have the codes to open the file.”
Haywood took Ryan’s Slider and waved it over his console. Then he gave it back and entered his passcodes on the console viewer. Ryan stayed seated and waited patiently while Haywood watched the screen.
Haywood stood up and turned off the viewer. “That’s damn impressive, Cadet Williamson. I have to admit, I thought Cadet Thompson here was exaggerating.”
“It should work, sir,” said Amanda. Ryan could see she was uncomfortable with compliments.
“All right,” said Haywood. “These orders are confirmed and authentic. I’ll have the survivors, including the wounded, brought to the transport ships and flown to the academy. As for munitions, we have enough of a stockpile to arm you guys to the teeth. But to do that we’ll need to just about empty all our reserves. I’d love to give you guys all of it, but we need to maintain a supply for our ships, not to mention for the base. We’ll have you ready to go within four hours.”
Ryan stood up. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate your assistance.”
Haywood’s communicator beeped. “Haywood here.”
Ryan listened in as an excited voice came across the communicator. “Walker here, sir. We’ve got something on the long-range visual feed. We think it’s the troop carriers, sir. You’d better get down here and see this.”
“On my way,” said Haywood. Barely turning around, he added, “Okay Cadet folk. You three with me.”
Ryan followed Haywood with Amanda and Tanner right behind him. They entered a large room filled with monitors displaying various sectors. His eyes immediately went to the middle monitor.
Amanda gasped, “Oh my lord.”
Tanner, for once, was speechless.
Ryan couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Three enormous ships were headed their way. He’d never seen a ship that large. They seemed to go on forever.
“How big are they?” asked Haywood.
Walker turned around. “According to the sensors, two miles in length and one mile wide. The height of each ship from highest point to the bottom is fifteen hundred feet.”
“Holy shit,” said Tanner.
“How long until they reach us?” asked Ryan.
Walker turned around to answer him. “At their current speed, about three hours and fifty minutes.”
“Um, Ry,” said Tanner. “How many troops and ground weapons do you think a ship that size could carry?”
Ryan tried to calculate it in his head.
“Too many,” he said.
“It also depends how large the aliens are,” said Amanda.
Ryan looked at Haywood. “Lieutenant, we need to get those weapons on board and we need to do it fast.”
Haywood nodded. “Walker, I want all hands on deck. We’re going to load these ships in record time.”
“Yes, sir,” said Walker.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ryan said to Haywood. “If you’ll excuse me, we’ve got to get back to our ships.”
“Go,” said Haywood. “And good luck. Lord knows you’ll need it.”
Ryan made his way back to his ship with Amanda and Tanner right on his heels. His mind was racing. He had to figure out a plan of attack and he had very little time to do it. Clearly he hadn’t counted on such a large volume of enemy troops.
Chapter 36
Plan Of Attack
Ryan entered the conference room on board the Churchill. His bridge crew was already there waiting for him. They had two hours left before the troop carriers passed Pluto on their way to Earth, so time for planning was limited.
“Okay, guys,” he said, as he entered. “We need to talk about our alternatives here. Let’s look at what we’re dealing with.”
He played the video from the satellite images they’d seen on the base. For Amanda and Tanner, it was a replay. But Jill, Nicole, and Paul were visibly shaken.
“What do we do now?” said Paul. “Those things are like floating cities.”
“There’s got to be a way,” said Ryan.
“How?” said Paul. “The hulls alone would have to be so thick that even with their shields down, it would probably take our whole artillery to even make a dent.”
Tanner stood up. “Ry, I think if we used my torpedoes we could destroy at least two of them. Maybe even all three.”
“Torpedoes would be like throwing rice at them,” said Paul.
“Not my torpedoes,” said Tanner.
“Wait a minute,” said Amanda. “I hope you don’t mean your Pop and Jody or whatever they’re called.”
“Punch and Judy,” said Tanner.
“Whatever,” she said. “What’s exactly is in those torpedoes?”
Ryan gave Tanner an odd look. “Tanner, those are only to be used in a worst case scenario.”
“Well this seems like a pretty shitty scenario, doesn’t it?” said Tanner. “Or did I miss something and those things really aren’t the size of San Francisco?”
Amanda asked again. “I repeat, Tanner. What kind of torpedoes?”
“Listen, Amanda,” said Ryan. “These are last case scenario weapons. If and when the time comes to use them, we’ll discuss it, but as captain I reserve the right to make the final decision. For now, let’s think of additional options.”
“So that’s how you play it?” she said. “You keep your executive officer in the dark?”
“Guys,” Paul said. “Can we focus on the real problem?” He pointed to the monitor.
“Right,” said Ryan. “So, who has an idea? And that means you, too, Amanda. We need to stop these troop carriers from making it to Earth, but we can’t use all of our munitions up on these three ships. That would leave us defenseless against the fleet in Earth’s orbit.”
“I have an idea,” said Tanner. Ryan turned to look at him, as did everyone else. “What?” said Tanner. “Hey, nobody takes me seriously. I’m a serious kinda guy. Well, maybe not always, but that’s because you guys are boring. Well, except for you two.” He pointed to Ryan and Amanda. “You’re always a source of entertainment. But seriously, I am the best weapons specialist in the academy, and—”
“Tanner,” said Ryan.
“What?”
“Your idea.”
“Oh yeah,” said Tanner. “Here it is. We let them pass us.”
“Let them pass us?” said Ryan. “That’s your idea?”
“Are you insane?” said Jill.
“Wait,” said Tanner, “hear me out. We let them pass us, but we break into three groups of five ships. Then we come up behind them with our weapons hot. And then, we blast their engines from behind.”
“Would that work?” said Paul.
“Look at the video. Look how exposed those engines are. Even with their shields up, we have the disrupter. They’ll never see us coming. If we knock out their engines, they ain’t going nowhere.”
Amanda jumped in. “You know som
ething? That’s actually a good idea. But the timing would be critical. We’d have to plan it down to the last second.”
Tanner took a bow. “I didn’t say it would be easy. But we’d have the element of surprise. They’d never know what hit them. And best of all, maybe we could hightail it outta there before they can respond.”
“Tanner, you’re a genius,” said Ryan. “Let’s see if we can work out the details. Amanda and Paul, you guys work out the timing. We have less than two hours to make it happen. Let’s do this.”
Amanda, Paul, and Tanner left to start running simulations for planning the attack.
It took two hours for them to finish loading all the torpedoes. Ryan checked the time and ran the scenario over in his mind. They would have to power the solar disrupter before getting into firing range. Then, with less than three seconds before the overload, stop on a dime, shut down the overload at the tenth of a second mark, and then fire the disrupter and their weapons. Timing would be everything. If they arrived even a few seconds late, they might not have time to fire off their shots. If they were a few seconds early, the Altarrans might just spot them and fire back. That would be a disaster.
Ryan entered the bridge. He was waiting to get the word from Lieutenant Haywood letting him know when the Altarran troop carriers passed the base. According to their projections, they should arrive any second.
“Are those calculations ready?” he asked Amanda.
“Very close,” she said.
“Take your time,” he said. “Not like we’re in a hurry or anything.”
“They’ll be ready,” she said.
“Captain,” said Jill, “I have Lieutenant Haywood on a secure channel.”
“Put him through,” said Ryan.
“Haywood here, Thompson. The Altarran troop ships are just passing us now. Their current speed is one-quarter sub-light.”
“Copy,” said Ryan. “Thanks for all your help.”
“Good luck, Thompson. Give ‘em hell. Haywood out.”
Ryan turned to Amanda. “Well, you’re up. We’re waiting on those calculations.”
Amanda looked up. “On my mark,” she said to the bridge crew, “have all ships engage their solar disrupter. As soon as we engage, we need to get each group of ships into position. All ships must be at the coordinates I’ve assigned them within twenty-five seconds of liftoff. Once they’re in position, each group needs to head to their target area at one-half light speed for thirty seconds. Got that? One-half light speed for thirty seconds. That’ll give us a five-second window to stop and fire the disrupter, followed by our torpedoes.”
“Jill, you copy that?” said Ryan. “Inform all ships to bring main engines online.”
Jill opened a channel to the entire fleet and told all ships to power their engines. “Captain, all ships report ready.” She turned to Amanda. “Mandy, your com link is open. All ships are awaiting your mark.”
Ryan noticed how quiet the bridge was. This would be their first real action and he could feel their tension.
Amanda looked up from her console. “Now! All ships lift off and get into position.”
Ryan watched the rear monitor. He could see all the ships climbing off the surface of Pluto. It was a beautiful sight, watching the fifteen ships in perfect formation with Pluto in the background. For a brief moment, he felt like a spectator. Turning to Jill, he said, “Inform all ships to power their weapons.”
“Message sent, sir,” she said.
Amanda was studying her monitor intently. “All ships go to one-half sub-light speed. Bring solar disrupter online.”
Ryan watched as the fleet broke into three groups of five ships and each group bore down on their target.
“Holy shit, would you look at that,” said Tanner.
Ryan couldn’t believe the image on the monitor, even though he was expecting it. This was the first close-up view they’d had of the alien troop carriers. Seeing them from a distance was one thing. But within close proximity, it was an awe-inspiring sight, even from the rear. They truly were like floating cities.
“Stay focused,” said Ryan.
Tanner called out from the weapons console. “Solar disrupter activated. We are closing on target.”
“Twenty seconds until we reach target,” said Nicole from the helm.
“Twenty-five seconds until solar disrupter is activated,” said Tanner.
Ryan held on tight as the ship started to vibrate from the overload in the reactor.
Yelling to hear himself over the noise level, Tanner counted down. “Five seconds to target area.”
“All stop,” yelled Ryan.
Nicole cut the engines and hit the reverse thrusters to bring the Churchill to a dead stop.
Ryan could hear the stress of the engines and the hull creaking as the Churchill came grinding to a halt. The sudden shift of the internal gravity threw him to the floor. Between feeling like he weighed five hundred pounds and wanting to puke his guts out, the effect was almost intolerable. He had to shake it off. They only had five seconds to react.
“Enemy ship targeted, Ry,” said Tanner. “Firing solar disrupter.”
Everyone’s eyes were fixated on the main viewer as the immense troop carriers seemed to slow down.
Ryan stood up. “Fire tubes one through four. Full spreads!”
He could feel the recoil of the ship as four torpedoes were fired in rapid succession from each tube. His mind ran the numbers as he watched on the main viewer. Sixteen torpedoes times five ships. Eighty of them directed at each Altarran troop carrier, forty per engine. Ryan prayed to God that it would be enough to take out their engines.
“Tracking torpedoes,” said Amanda.
It only took a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to Ryan as he waited to hear if they had hit their targets. He had a feeling, though. Before Amanda could say a word, he knew they were dead on.
Amanda pumped her fist in the air. “Direct hits on all three carriers.”
Ryan felt a sense of pride as cheers could be heard all throughout the ship. Just then, Jill let out a scream from the communications console. “Oh no!”
“What is it?” said Ryan, his heart pounding.
“The Nimitz . . . she’s . . . gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“No communications. And look at those particles on the monitor. She just exploded. I don’t understand. She wasn’t hit by enemy fire.”
Ryan looked at the viewer and his heart sank. “Damn it. Have all ships break off attack,” he said. “Full speed. Set course for Mars.”
Jill seemed as if she was in a trance for a moment, then she reacted. “Sending message now.”
Amanda looked up from her sensor station. Ryan could see the pain in her eyes. “We stopped the troop carriers,” she said. “All three took heavy damage to their engines. They’re dead in the water.”
It should have been a moment to celebrate, but it was a bittersweet victory. “We all did our jobs well,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He looked around at the crew, his crew. Even though they had succeeded in disabling the Altarran troop carriers, the mood was somber. They had just lost one of their ships. Fifty of their friends and classmates were gone in an instant.
He’d always wondered how it would feel to lead an attack and suffer casualties. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the handbook to explain how to handle the gut-wrenching experience of watching your friends die—friends under your command who trusted you to keep them safe. What made it even more jarring was that the ship that had exploded was the ship he and his crew were supposed to be manning. Had they been on time installing the weapon, it would have been them on the Nimitz. Odd, he thought, how every move that you make, or don’t make, can spell the difference between life and death. And usually, there’s no way to tell which ones are which.
His stomach was in knots. The reality of war had just hit home like a Category 5 hurricane. And something told him the worst was
yet to come.
Chapter 37
Confrontation
Ryan could see Mars on the main viewer. They were almost there. Barring the occasional update from other ships in the fleet about minor technical malfunctions, the three-hour flight had been quiet and routine. Or as routine as you could get after witnessing the death of your classmates and knowing you were about to face a formidable alien force. But for now, all they could do was focus on the task at hand.
“We’re ten minutes from Mars, Captain,” said Nicole, breaking the anxious silence.
“Understood,” said Ryan. “We’ll set up in a wing formation. Put us on the point. Keep Mars between us and Earth. I don’t know how powerful the Altarran sensors are, but I’d rather play it safe. Jill, inform the fleet and have them get into position.”
“Sending message now,” said Jill.
Ryan stared at the main and side viewers. Seconds after Jill’s broadcast, he could see all the ships moving into formation. All but one glaring exception—the empty space where the Nimitz should have been.
“Have all ships run full diagnostics on all systems,” he said to Jill. “Let them know I want to be ready to head for Earth as soon as possible.”
Ryan was running a few different strategies through his head when he noticed Amanda approaching. “So what’s our plan?” she said.
“Truth? I’m not sure yet. They don’t expect an attack, so that’s one good thing in our favor. And they’re probably overconfident, since they had no trouble with the best the fleet had to throw at them.”
“Can we do the same thing we did against their troop carriers?”
“What, disable their engines from behind?”
“Well, I was thinking we could come in with the solar disrupter ready to be discharged, only we’d have to use light speed so we arrive ready, sort of like a cobra strike.”
“And you thought fixing a light speed engine in space was risky? I mean, not that I don’t believe you could figure it out, but—”
“I can do it, I just . . .” She paused for some reason.
Cadets Page 18