“Come on,” Logan said, racing into the bunker. The elevator was locked at the top, but they weren’t going to bother with it; he quickly opened the inspection hatch on the floor, peered down into the gloom beneath, and snapped a box into position by its side, pulling it to test that the magnetic lock had activated. Pulling open the top, he snapped one of six cables into position on his suit, and then jumped down through the hatch.
Even in Martian gravity, a fall of three hundred feet would be incredibly dangerous, and the cable spooled out as he descended, lights flashing by on each side. Up above, he could hear the rest of his team joining him, each taking their turn on the cables. In a few minutes, this route would be cut off as the decoyed guards returned; they were probably already at the bunker, making sure that there were no more enemies outside before blocking their retreat.
That was the essence of Logan’s plan; he had not counted on getting out. Either the Senate was going to order them released, or the conspirators would have them shot. No other options existed, and unless they moved quickly, the first would soon cease to be possible.
He seemed to be rushing down towards the ground awfully quickly, and the cable snapped to a stop with only a few feet to spare, the buckle disengaging to drop him the remainder of the way. Not waiting for the others, he raced down the corridor to the next level of security, holding a metal sphere in his hand. Hearing footsteps up ahead clanging on the floor, he rolled the sphere in front of him, counted to three, and turned off his optical display for a second.
When his vision began to work again, he saw two more guards stumbling around ahead; Harper had caught up to him by now, and between them they managed to knock out their pressure regulators, sending them into unconsciousness.
“Nice toy, that,” she said.
“Don’t go for the man, go for the mechanism,” he replied with a smile. Cameras were watching their every move, and more security would be on the way; the elevator was likely already on its way down, blocking their escape, but he had a few more tricks left up his sleeve.
Harper was moving ahead now, and with Jordan next to her, they started to work on the next of the hatches. The question was whether the commander of the garrison would try and leave them bottled up, or whether he would send reinforcements to capture them. Fortunately, the latter was true, and a light winked on to indicate the airlock cycling.
Ready with her reprogramming, Harper turned up the pressure to fifty times normal, while Jordan made sure that the occupants wouldn’t have any idea what was going on from the wall systems. Their suits would notice, of course, but once the airlock thought that it had finished its cycle, the doors would open unless someone could stop them in time.
“Heads down!” Logan yelled, throwing himself to the floor. The airlock doors ripped open, sending the six guards inside tumbling down the corridor, sucked out into the vacuum beyond. Wasting no time, Logan raced through the ruined doors, activating a manual override to open the inner door, and triggering a series of decompression alarms. As he worked, he knew that all of the compartments beyond would be locking themselves down, all of the control systems isolated from the outside, and the personnel scrambling to work out what was going on.
Carefully, he stepped into the now airless corridor beyond, walking up to a nearby terminal; they were now far enough in that any of them would be connected to the network, though under normal circumstances, that shouldn’t matter. The systems were kept up-to-date, and even if someone with Harper’s talents could get access to them, it would take hours to break in. They had seconds.
“Well,” Esposito said, racing up to him, “Are you ready?”
“We need some cover,” he replied. “Get one of those doors open, we’ll hide inside.”
“Hide?”
“All we need is ten minutes or so,” Logan said, “Alamo will be coming into orbit any time now.” Plugging his suit into the terminal, he said, quite calmly, “This is Logan Winter. Disarm until countermanded.”
“That’s it?” Esposito said. “Just ‘disarm’? No codewords, passwords, secret combinations, or anything even slightly resembling security?”
“We didn’t see the point in making it overly complicated. Just a voiceprint confirmation.”
“Verified,” the console said in an overtly-robotic voice. “Orbital defense network disarmed.”
Before he could move, the group was surrounded by guards wearing space armor, all of them heavily armed. Response might have been slow, but it was still fast enough to catch him. One of the figures walked over to the terminal, tapped a sequence of controls, and shook his head.
“Who is in charge here?” a voice came over Logan’s communicator.
“Who’s asking?” he replied.
“General Myers, Martian Defense Force. Whom am I speaking too?”
“Lieutenant-Captain Logan Winter, Triplanetary Intelligence.”
“I demand that you release control of the defense network immediately. A hostile vessel is approaching, and you are leaving Mars totally defenseless!”
“Would that be the Battlecruiser Alamo?” Logan asked. “I have no intention of releasing control of the systems. Your hackers should be able to override my control in due course.” With a smile, he said, “You might want to get back to your command center. Right now every military base on the planet has been notified about what’s happened here. I suspect that you can expect calls from your superiors any second now.”
The General pulled a pistol out of his pocket and leveled it at Logan’s helmet; it was an old sidearm, an antique, with a caliber that would rip a hole through his suit, his head, and out the far end.
“I will kill you, Captain, right now, if you do not release the control.”
“General, in about ten minutes you are going to get one of two calls from the Senate. Either you will be relieved of your command and instructed to release us, or you will be ordered to go ahead and put us in front of a firing squad. I suggest you wait for them to decide.” Looking down the barrel of the gun, he said, “As nothing you can threaten me with will make me release those controls. Whether you like it or not, your ability to handle the situation in orbit has diminished to nothing.”
“Damn it,” the General said, dropping the pistol. “Lieutenant Mandeville, take them to a holding area. Full guard detail. I’d better get back to Control.” He started to walk down the corridor, and turned back to face Logan. “I hope you can live with what you are doing today. I hope all of us have the chance.”
Logan decided to let him have the last word, and followed the guards into the room. All six of them filed silently in, then the guards stepped back, the door slammed shut, and with a loud hiss, the compartment began to pressurize. After his suit showed green, he cracked open his helmet and took a deep breath of air.
“That went about as well as I could have expected,” he said.
“Yes, but Alamo won’t know what happened,” Esposito said. “They won’t have any idea that they are in the clear.”
“Of course they will,” Logan replied. “When I said every installation, I mean every installation. Right now the news networks will be carrying this live. A fail-safe we built in, just in case one of us went rogue one day. What I did was as public as it was possible to make it.”
“So now what?” Harper asked.
“We wait and see if Captain Marshall can pull off a miracle in orbit. There’s still a battleship in between him and safety.” He looked down at his watch, and said, “My guess is that they’ll be settling into orbit about now.”
Chapter 26
“Sir, he’s done it!” Weitzman yelled from the communications station. “We’re getting messages from all over the place, the newsnets are alive with it. The planetary defense system is out.”
“That’s not so good,” Caine said. “If the UN finds out that we’re vulnerable, they might get tempted to do something about
it.”
“I’m sure our old friends in the Martian Space Service will have the network up and running in a little while,” Marshall replied. “As long as we’ve got our window to engage the enemy, we’ll manage. Weitzman, any signal from Zeus?”
“No response to our hails, sir.”
Frowning, he said, “Tightbeam laser transmission, then, Weitzman. I want person to person, and if there is any way that you can make sure that the maximum number of people on that ship hear me, so much the better.”
“Firing range in seventy-five seconds, Danny,” Caine said.
“Acknowledged, Deadeye.”
“You have your channel, sir,” Weitzman said.
“This is Captain Daniel Marshall, of the Triplanetary Battlecruiser Alamo. We wear the same uniform, and we’re on the same side. I implore you not to launch an attack on a fellow ship in the Fleet. You are operating under illegal orders, and I call on you to stand down, and let us present our case to the Senate. If they instruct, I will turn myself in for arrest.”
The screen cleared, and a new figure appeared, Vice-President – currently Acting President – Ackerman, who began, “This is the President of the Triplanetary Confederation. You are under arrest, Captain, you and your entire crew, and will surrender at once or face the consequences of your actions.”
Blood seemed to rush to Marshall’s head. He’d fought battles before, more than a dozen of them during his time in command of Alamo, many more than that during the War. He’d had independent command for a lot of them, had the ultimate responsibility for deciding the outcome of the struggle. This was different. This time he knew who he was fighting.
“Spaceman Weitzman,” he said, “Close the channel.” He took a deep breath, turned to Tactical, and said, “Senior Lieutenant Caine, fire at will.”
She looked at him, nodded, and said, “Aye, sir. Firing range in sixty seconds.”
Ryder turned and said, “Fighters and shuttles are ready for launch. Optimum window is in one hundred and ninety-one seconds.”
“Three minutes,” Marshall said. “Three minutes we’ve got to live in that fire. Steele, don’t wait for orders, use every trick in the book. We’ve got to get close into Zeus.”
“Energy spike from the enemy,” Spinelli said. “Laser cannon charging, and all missile tubes show hot. My guess is that they will fire when they get into range.”
“Better make sure we aren’t where they were expecting, then,” Steele muttered, slamming a series of controls that sent Alamo lurching down, hundreds of meters from its former trajectory, slowing the ship to take it into a slightly lower orbit, then ramming the thrust back to maximum to bring it back up again. Caine held her hands over the laser controls, ready to take a shot of opportunity.
“Firing range in fifteen seconds,” Spinelli said.
Zeus was bobbing up and down as though it threatened to go out of control, its trajectory rocking back and forth as its helmsman struggled to keep up with Steele’s evasive maneuvers. Just as she seemed to be establishing a pattern, something that the enemy could cope with and predict, she changed it, swerving in a different direction, trying to keep them guessing. Given time, a skilled pilot might be able to match it, but she wasn’t going to give them that chance.
“Firing solution in five seconds,” Steele said, her eyes locked on her console.
“Ready,” Caine replied.
“Energy spike!” Spinelli yelled. “Three seconds early, missile salvo away! Fanning out in front of the ship on parallel course plot.”
“Clever,” Ryder said. “Anti-missile screen to block our first shot.”
“Hold your missiles, Deadeye,” Marshall said. “Wait for the fighters.”
“Laser firing!”
For less than a second, Alamo lined up for a perfect shot on Zeus, giving the enemy tactical officer a split-second opportunity to get a retaliatory shot of their own onto the target. An expert would have managed it, but their blast came an instant too late. Alamo, on the other hand, burned an angry scar down the side of Zeus’ hull, wisps of air leaking away into space where deck plating had ruptured.
“Good shot!” he said. “Where did we get them?”
“Looks like forward thrusters and auxiliary control. That might make it a bit easier.” She looked up at her controls, and said, “I’m firing a missile salvo, plotted to go just ahead of us. Might increase the odds for the fighter assault.” Alamo rocked as the missiles raced away, forming up into an arrowhead formation, their trajectories interlocking with the warheads already in the air.
Marshall watched the screen, looking at Zeus up ahead. Normally, there would only be a few minutes’ opportunity to exchange blows, but both ships were close enough together in course and velocity that it could be measured in hours. Alamo might have drawn first blood, but any moment now, Zeus would take the gloves off and it would become a very different story.
“Salvo from Zeus, aiming directly!” Spinelli said.
“Anything from the surface, Weitzman?” Marshall asked.
“Nothing, sir. Traffic volume’s going up, though. I think we've been noticed.”
“How the hell are we going to explain this one away?” Ivanov said from the engineering station.
“Let’s hope that’s our problem, Spaceman,” Marshall replied.
The missiles raced towards Alamo while Caine struggled with the countermeasure systems, working on knocking them down with a combination of intrusion programs and guesswork. Then, abruptly, all ten disappeared from view, exploding in a brief flash of light.
“What the hell happened?”
“It wasn’t me,” Caine said.
“It’s the ground!” Weitzman said. “We’re getting a message, coded, from someone working with Harper! The hacker underground’s got our backs!”
His eyes widening, Marshall said, “By damn, we might win this yet!”
“It won’t take them long to switch to dumb-shot mode,” Caine warned.
“Get a salvo up, target combat-critical areas of Zeus. Start punching some holes in them.”
“Already on it,” she replied, Alamo rocking back as she fired. Almost as soon as they left the tubes, the missiles detonated, and the color began to drain out of her face. “It works both ways,” she replied. “Damn it, I should have thought of this. They’ve got the whole resources of all the countermeasures on Mars to help them. We might as well throw our missiles away for all the good they’re going to do us today.”
Without warning, the lights on the bridge flickered, and Ivanov raced over his controls while Steele cursed in the background, the ship spinning away as she struggled to regain control.
“Report!” Marshall yelled.
“Laser hit, aft section. We just lost a lot of the power control interface, the backup realspace drive, and aft sensor array.” The engineer looked up, and said, “It was a damn good shot, sir.”
“Retaliate as fast as you can!” Marshall told Caine. “Steele, get us closer. How long before we can get our birds into the sky?”
“Sixty-four seconds,” Caine said. “Laser recharge in ten seconds, but the shot after that will take a lot longer. We lost a lot of our network in that last hit.” Looking across at another display, she said, “Damn it, Ivanov, when were you going to tell me about the radiators!”
“What?” the engineer said, glancing across to a second panel. “Bozhe moi. We’ve got tears in the port radiator, Captain. We’re not going to be able to radiate all the heat properly.”
“Consequences of firing?”
“Systems failures in a lot of the outer parts of the ship.”
“Take the shot, Deadeye. Or they’ll get a chance to do worse to us.”
“Steele,” Caine said, “I want their laser. Give me the best shot you can.”
“I’m not dogfighting,” the helmsman replied. “The ship’s
wallowing like a pig!”
“Hold it together, Sub-Lieutenant,” Marshall said. “Hold it together.”
“We’re getting stand-down orders from the ground, sir,” Weitzman said.
“From the Senate?”
“No, sir. Colonel-General Clyde.”
“Wrong fleet,” Marshall replied. “Clear the channels.”
“Damage control teams ready for the shot, Captain,” Ivanov said.
“Two seconds!” Steele yelled, and Alamo swung into position, a precise series of pulses from the thrusters dragging it around. At the precise instant, the computer fired, and once again the two ships were briefly connected by a pulse of laser light. This shot hit home, right into the bowels of the ship, and a faint red glow appeared for a moment before flickering out. Then the screen faded to black, and sirens started to wail on the bridge.
“Damage report!”
“Both radiators are gone, sir,” Ivanov said. “Couldn’t handle the overload. Hull temperature way beyond design tolerances but cooling rapidly.”
“Casualty reports coming in,” Steele added, as the screen flickered back on, static now laced with the display.
“We’ve lost more than half of our sensor pickups and the rest are damaged, long-range communications are out, two of our missile launch tubes are non-operational,” Ivanov read. “It’s a long list, sir.”
“What about Zeus? Spinelli, can you clear that static?”
“Negative, Captain,” the sensor technician replied. “Bandwidth’s shot to hell, I’m having trouble putting anything into the feed. I think we got a clean shot at their laser array, but I can’t pick up any power readings from the enemy ship – none at all, so I think that some of my detectors are out. I need diagnostics, Ivanov!”
“You’ll have to wait your turn,” the engineer barked back. “Right now I’m making sure we still have life support. We have hull-breaches from burn through in nine places, micro-fractures in dozens more places, and Mr. Quinn is inventing new swear words by the second.”
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