Starcruiser Polaris: Blood of Patriots

by Richard Tongue

   “That's it, everyone, time to go!” Cordova said. “Evacuation sequence!” She turned her rifle back on the prisoners, and said, “Stay where you are,” fixing them in position while her crew made their escape, Sokolov pausing at the helm for an additional heartbeat, making one final adjustment to their course before relinquishing his position, the last of them through the threshold.

   “Wait!” Hunter yelled, as Cordova made to follow. “What about us? You said...”

   “I said I wouldn't harm a hair on your head. I'm going to leave that to your friends out there. After all, you're the one who brought them here. Besides, you remember the old saying. The Captain goes down with the ship.” Gesturing at the helm, she added, “The course is locked in. You can't alter it. If I were you, I'd sit down and enjoy the ride. While you can.” Stepping through the door, she sealed the bulkhead behind her, jamming the lock with a hastily entered code, and raced after her fleeing crew, sprinting through the corridors, the sounds of the dying ship all around her in her desperate flight to safety.

   Behind her, hatches slammed shut, side passages jammed, the constant call of the decompression alarm ringing from every direction. The ship shuddered under the multiple impacts, the debris of eight decades of constant service fluttering down from the ceiling, Cordova's stomach lurching as the artificial gravity field flickered on and off, unstable power leeching from the system as it began its march toward with death.

   Red lights flashed around her, the hull screaming in agony as another missile slammed home, only a deck above, the third squadron moving into position. Hanoi couldn't take any more of this, and soon she would be within range of the mass drivers of the three capital ships ahead. They'd finish the job the fighters had started in short order. It was a miracle that the tanker had held together for as long as it had.

   “Come on, Major!” Hubbard said, waving an arm from the far end of the corridor, urging her on. “Six missiles heading right for us, any second now! We've got to move!”

   “Don't wait for me,” Cordova replied, sprinting towards her, eating up the distance with every long-legged stride, weaving from side to side as the gravity field shifted, the ship lurching from side to side with every impact on the hull, the last rumbling roars of the failing engines firing to guide it to its final target.

   Just as the salvo was about to find its mark, Cordova jumped through the hatch, crashing into Hubbard, sending the two of them sprawling to the deck. The airlock slammed shut as the shuttle raced away from Hanoi, her engine recklessly thrown to full power by the desperate Sokolov. Behind them, a white flare ripped the tanker in half, the forward section torn to pieces, the aft section still firing its engines with the last vestigial power from the storage batteries, accelerating faster than before, shorn of all the excess weight.

   As the shuttle veered off, the rattle of debris rebounding on the hull, Cordova watched, face pressed against the viewport, as the remnants of Hanoi careened into Borealis, the enemy pilot unable to alter course in time, the tanker moving faster than he had calculated, obeying the last command issued by Sokolov. A second flash of light filled the sky as the rebel ship smashed into the midsection of the Federation vessel, tearing it into two jagged pieces, the reactor going critical an instant later to obliterate the remains of both ships.

   “My God,” Haggard said. “Four hundred people...”

   “Sokolov,” Cordova replied, “Contact Polaris. Tell them we've cleared a path, that we're on our way home, and that we could use some covering fire if Kani and his friends aren't doing anything better at the moment. Burn her as hard as you can, Yuri. With a little luck, we'll be out of the system in a few minutes.”

   “How much luck do you want?” Saxon replied, turning from her position in the copilot's seat. “I'd say we've had more of it than we had any right to expect already.”

   “One more push,” Cordova said, “and we win it all. I'd say that's worth tempting fate for.”

  Chapter 20

   “Did you see that?” Montgomery said, as Kani watched the spectacular death of Borealis, ripped asunder by Hanoi.

   “I saw it,” Kani replied. “New instructions coming in from Polaris. I can guess why.” He paused, scanning through the tactical updates, and continued, “One squadron left. Our mission is to give them something else to think about, then turn for home and escort the Hanoi survivors back to the barn.” He frowned, looking over the course projections. “Go red-line on your throttles, and make sure your artificial gravity is powered high. It'll be a struggle to compensate at these speeds. Watch yourselves, people.”

   “I make enemy targets in fifty seconds, Leader,” Voronova said, all business now. “Swordfish interceptors. They left their lighter birds for us.”

   “We can live with that,” Kani said. “Break and attack, people, and Monty, remember what I said. No stupid risks. Just burn through and run for home.”

   “Roger that, Leader. Engaging enemy.”

   The three fighters surged forward, running their engines past the conservative design specifications in a bid to gain the greatest possible speed, sliding nimbly into an arrowhead targeted at the heart of the enemy formation. Kani took a few seconds to evaluate his opponent, looking at his performance in the battle so far. By the book, all the way, everything according to the manual. Not necessarily a problem. A rookie commander would ignore the book, thinking he knew best. A more seasoned man would know that the book contained the wisdom to keep his people alive and accomplish the mission, and know that his best course was to follow it.

   And then there were the true veterans, pilots like Kani, who realized that someone had to write the book, and that the training manuals contained a collection of crazy tricks that had proved successful. That sometimes you needed to follow the rules, and sometimes you needed to ignore them.

   His formation was already breaking up, splitting into three as each pilot chose his own path through the enemy squadron, Montgomery's missiles already in the air and ranging towards a target, two fighters breaking away to riddle the battlespace with particle beams in a bid to shoot them down. The goal wasn't to shoot down the enemy ships. That wasn't realistic, not with the odds so far against them. All they had to do was disrupt their attack, slow them down long enough to allow Polaris to get away.

   Of course, if he could pick up his tenth kill, become one of the handful of Double Aces in Commonwealth service, he'd have no objection at all, and he disengaged the safety on his particle beams, sweeping the nose of his fighter around, heedless of the effect it was having on his trajectory, trying to get in a shot.

   The enemy pilots all had the same trouble. Only a handful of Federation squadrons had ever seen real action, disgraced fliers posted to the frontier as punishment for the most part, a handful of officers who actually believed in what they were in the service to do, actually sought the ultimate test that battle provided. These rookies had spent most of their careers at Sol, practicing in training maneuvers where referees set rigorously enforced codes of conduct.

   Kani, on the other hand, didn't believe in such rules.

   His finger danced on the firing stub, releasing his targeting computer to fire when it had a good shot, the cannons on either side of his cockpit glowing red as they unleashed bursts of energy at the targets drifting before him. The enemy fighters danced around, trying to use half-remembered techniques to avoid the dangerous madman hurtling through their formation, but one of them was a second too slow, drifting right into the path of his fire.

   With a faint tissue of flame, Kani earned his tenth kill. He raised his fist into the air in triumph, almost hitting the cockpit canopy, then threw a switch to release his missiles, allowing them to range on either side of him, flying brief escort before tailing off as the on-board targeting computers found their mark.

   “Got one!” Voronova said, another fighter exploding on the far side of the formation. The remaining pilots were scattering in all dire
ctions, any attempt at a structured attack run now distant history as they scrambled for safety, their evasive action hopelessly wrecking any possible chance that they could press an attack on Polaris.

   “Squadron Leader,” Montgomery said. “Medium range scanner, oh-two-two by one-oh-nine. We got problems. That shuttle's bringing some friends along for the ride.”

   Kani flicked the controls on his console, swearing under his breath in Bantu as he spotted the incoming ships. Fifteen fighters had managed to recover from the attack on Polaris for just long enough to home in on the fleeing shuttle. The safe option would be to let it go, to admit that the enemy were going to wipe out or capture the last survivors from Hanoi.

   They'd risked their lives to save Polaris. Leaving them behind wasn't an option.

   “Monty, Diana,” he said, “break for home, but feint towards Arcturus first. Might be able to draw a few of those bastards away. I'll look after the shuttle.” Before he could receive a reply, he threw his throttle full open, grimacing as the acceleration briefly hit home, then tweaked his course to send himself in a wide spiral towards the incoming fighters.

   He'd used most of his ordnance in the first attack. No missiles left, and only a third of the charge for his particle cannons remaining. Worst of all, if that enemy formation had a single competent flight leader, they'd know how much energy he'd used, know what he had left to work with. Raw speed would have to suffice, and he locked his fighter on the leading enemy ship, the incoming formation tight enough that the shrapnel damage from impact would slam into half a dozen others.

   “Let's play chicken, you bastard,” he said, waiting for confirmation from his sensors that he was within firing range. He carefully adjusted his course, matching the limited evasive maneuvers of his target, waiting for him to break away. One of the enemy wingmen panicked, spiraling away, racing out of the battle at high speed, cowardice that he would almost certainly regret when the battle was over.

   His counterpart was good. Very good. But he was better, matching move for move as the enemy pilot attempted to shift his course without losing his lock on the shuttle. Remorselessly, Kani burned on, totally committed to the attack, stabbing the control on his particle beams as he entered range, bursts of death racing towards the enemy fighter, more motivation for him to change his course.

   Almost at the last second, his adversary's nerve broke, and he hurled his fighter around, Kani taking advantage of the confusion in the enemy formation to glide from side to side, catching one of the other fighters in the aft section with a lucky shot, the ship's engines obliterated in a single, brief burst of destruction.

   Slicing through the enemy, he glanced across at the sensor display, smiling in satisfaction as he saw the pursuing force scattering in all directions, struggling and failing to make good on the time they had lost. The shuttle continued to charge towards Polaris, Montgomery and Voronova defying orders to hold back, ready to escort it back to its destination.

   His good mood was shattered as alarms echoed through his cockpit, sensors picking up objects close ahead, his ship currently on a collision course. He'd been focused totally on the enemy ships, and had ignored the tumbling rocks of the Cinnamon Belt, his fighter on a wide parabola taking him through dense clusters of asteroids, tumbling through space before him.

   If they'd been in a populated system, his computer would have had painstakingly gathered data to work with, course projections and tracking to tell him what course to follow, allowing him to ease his way through. The Cinnamon Belt had never been properly charted, not in any methodical way, and his navigational computer metaphorically threw up its hands in disgust at the course it was attempting to calculate through the shattered rubble beyond.

   He glanced across at his thruster controls, and one of the drawbacks of the fighter he was flying suddenly became apparent. The fuel tanks for the maneuvering jets were on the outside, long cylinders underneath the particle cannons. At some point, a piece of shrapnel had lodged into one, the damage control computer failing to report the problem. Something to correct at a later date, but for now, he barely had a tenth of his usual thruster fuel left.

   Taking a deep breath, he fine-tuned his sensors, focusing totally on the area in front of him, with enough range that quick reactions could guide him through, then rested his hands on the thruster controls, taking time only to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The first targets swept onto the screen, one of them on a collision course, and he carefully fired a pulse from his lateral thruster to send him away, correcting an instant later to avoid sweeping into another meteorite.

   He risked a glance at his trajectory plot, still reaching for an intercept with Polaris, and dived to the side once more, two fragments moving on parallel tracks, close enough that he could glimpse them as fast-moving stars on his viewscreen. Then another, this one requiring an extended burn, once to dive out of the way, twice to set him back on his original course.

   “Voronova to Leader,” a voice buzzed in his ear. “We're almost home. Thirty seconds. Shuttle's just behind us.”

   “Roger,” he replied with a grunt. “Almost there.”

   The belt grew deeper as he dived towards his target, picking his way cautiously through a cluster of tumbling rocks, so close that they must have been the result of some recent catastrophe, centuries ago. If anything in such a long timescale could be described as recent. Another quick adjustment sent his fuel warning light ticking on. He'd have to save something for docking, couldn't hope to perfectly tune his course on the first try.

   Though that wouldn't matter if he smashed into a rock on his approach. Another burn, this time to the left, swinging past a large, jagged rock. He glanced behind him, noting with satisfaction that none of the enemy fighters were daring to follow him. Presumably there were regulations against the suicide course he'd locked into, but this was one of the times to throw the rulebook out of the window, and trust to the seat of his pants.

   Polaris appeared at the edge of his sensor display, only a pair of rocks between him and his target, a quick maneuver to sweep around the fringes, burning all but the last of his fuel. Only a faint trace remained, and he reached for the throttle, one last kick to put him to the most accurate trajectory he could manage, risking a quick pulse from his port thruster to aim him at a landing bay, the outer doors already opened to admit him.

   Docking was tough at the best of times, his long-suffering navigational computer spitting data at him in protest at the task it was being asked to accomplish, text flashing up to recommend that he attempt a different path, call for a tanker, a rescue shuttle, any alternative to the feat he was about to risk. Polaris was racing towards him awfully fast, and his computer carelessly fired the last trace of fuel when he was still short. Too short.

   Collision alarms rang through his cockpit, and for a moment he feared he was about to crash into the hull, doing to his own ship what he had feinted doing to others, but at the last instant, Polaris lurched to the side, Norton managing to do the near-impossible, and move the ship to meet the incoming fighter, the magnetic clamps locking onto the vehicle as it approached, fixing it in position and dragging it into the cramped landing bay, the outer doors slamming shut.

   Kani sat back in his cockpit as the space outside flooded with atmosphere, the cockpit canopy opening while he still looked at his readouts in disbelief, unable to quite realize that he had lived through the wildest flight of his life, coming through with only a few dents and scratches on the outside of his fighter to show for it. Finally, the system dragged his fighter into the hangar deck, sliding it into position alongside the rest.

   “Great flying, Win!” Nguyen said, walking over to his fighter as he finally scrambled down from the deck. “I watched the whole thing from the Ops Room. You're the craziest son of a bitch in the whole damned Commonwealth Fleet, and this time you really proved it.”

   “Congratulations, as well,” Voronova added, still leaning on her own figh
ter. “Double-Ace. With one to spare. I'm still two off my first star.”

   “You'll get there,” he replied. “You'll get there.” Looking around, he said, “Monty, that was some nice work out there. You can fly on my wing any time.”

   “Thank you, sir,” Montgomery replied. “My pleasure.”

   “Hell, call me Win. All my friends do. Certainly all my wingmates.” Looking around, he asked, “Where is everyone?”

   “Down in engineering, getting ready for the battle,” Nguyen replied. “You're all wanted on the bridge as soon as possible. We've still got two capital ships up ahead, and I think we've made them angry.”

   “We just finished a battle, and they want us to crew bridge stations?” Voronova replied.

   With a shrug, Kani said, “You got anything better to do? Besides, we don't want to miss the last act of this little play. I have a feeling that Commander Curtis is warming up for a big finish.”

   “He isn't the only one,” Nguyen replied. “We're picking up more gravitational turbulence. More ships heading into the system. And we can all guess who they belong to.”

   “The Commonwealth Monitor squadron,” Montgomery said, looking at Kani.

   “Let's get up to the command deck,” Kani replied, his face blank. “If the axe is going to fall on my neck, I might as well accept it in person.”

  Chapter 21

   “Screen clearing, Commander,” Strickland said. “Enemy fighters are scattered to hell and gone. They can't have been expecting us to put up any sort of resistance.”

   “Arrogant bastards,” Cordova replied, stepping onto the bridge. “Just because they've got a good hand didn't mean that we might not have a better one.”