by Damon Alan
The radio crackled. “One-Eight, Combat Four.”
“One-Eight.”
“One-Seven is vapor. You are squad lead. Two-Zero is inert, likely dead.”
“Just you and us, One-Eight,” a voice said. “Let's get some nukes to that fleet.”
“Let's do it, One-Niner. Work with Combat Four to finish your assigned G-Ks. Then we'll rendezvous for a scout run with a bit of thermo added in.”
“One-Niner copies. Two G-Ks remaining over here.”
Sarah laid out the three dimensional map of the area. She displayed the narrowing cone that represented the possible flight area the G-K threatening them would have to fly if it wanted to kill One-Eight.
“There,” Breno said. “That's where we'll put up a wall for him.”
Sarah approved. It minimized their ammo usage, and presented a good chance for a kill. The G-K would hit the wall twelve seconds outside of optimal firing range on One-Eight.
“Set it up. Fire when ready,” Chip ordered.
“Fire in two minutes,” Breno replied.
“Should I go active radar to improve our chances?” Sarah asked.
“No more than five seconds, and I want a course change plotted after,” Chip answered.
Sarah turned on the active radar and her tactical screens refreshed. She noted the position of several friendly intel drones, the three debris clouds from the G-Ks they destroyed, and, most importantly, locked down the position of the G-K that still hunted them.
“Correcting the fire pattern,” Breno said. “Updated.”
Sarah turned off the radar then watched the tactical readout as the G-K closed. The enemy indicator turned from a glaring red triangle to a red arc at the narrow end of an expanding cone. This represented the area the G-K could be in without moving to break off combat.
Her palms sweated in her gloves. Air circulation in her suit increased to compensate. She resisted the urge to turn the radar back on, knowing that it gave away as much intel as it provided.
Breno toggled a switch on his control panel. “Firing.”
Another stream of orange-white shot away from them again, this time on the side opposite Sarah. The gun fired for four minutes, ejecting two sets of rails.
Breno checked his display. “We're down to four minutes of fire remaining.”
“That will be enough,” Chip said. “We'll save it for the enemy fleet if we can. They'll launch on us first chance they get.”
Breno's voice rose in tension again. “G-K is at the wall now.”
“Ping him,” Chip said.
Sarah activated the radar for three seconds. She waited for the target to disappear. It didn't. “We missed.”
“Shit,” Lariss spat. “He knows our location. We're practically point-fucking-blank.”
Chip's voice didn't change tone at all. “It's good, we'll change our vector and fire up the grappler engine.” He activated defensive maneuvers and One-Eight gyrated along its course.
“Great,” Breno moaned.
“We're going to hit that fleet if we can,” Chip said. “Sarah, plot it.”
“Wilco.” Sarah plotted their path. One-Eight burned ninety degrees off its previous course, almost directly toward the enemy fleet waiting a few million kilometers away.
“Plot another firing solution on that G-K, Breno.” Chip's voice was starting to show the slightest edge.
So he is human. Sarah chuckled to herself.
“On it,” Breno replied, his voice reflecting misery as One-Eight gyrated wildly.
Chip made some adjustments to the engines. “Sarah, keep a rolling plot between us and the enemy fleet, maximum burn. Our fuel levels are starting to concern me. There's a civilian tank farm on Ninarka where we can refuel if we need too, so keep enough in reserve to get us back there… and load up twelve more codes for the grappler.”
“Codes already in,” Sarah answered. “I'll set up the rolling plot.”
“Firing solution ready,” Breno interrupted. “Uggg— firing in eleven secon—.” He didn't complete the sentence. Maybe he was sick, but she didn't hear it.
Hang in there.
“Firing,” Lariss said for Breno.
A fifteen second stream tore from One-Eight toward the G-K.
“Shit!” Breno yelled half a minute later. “Missed. That is the luckiest bastard ever.”
Sarah wanted to beat her equipment. She plotted an evasive burn that used minimal fuel. The grappler motor guzzled helium-3 like candy, hundreds of times faster than the conventional engines. “We can't run the grappler engine more than four minutes, Chip. Or we're not going to make it back to Ninarka. The rest of our burns I've set aside fuel for.”
“Thanks, Sarah.”
Sarah watched the G-K close on tactical. Why hadn't it fired?
Chip answered her unspoken concern. “The G-K must be damaged or we'd be dead,” Chip said. “I don't know how, maybe he got a grazing blow from one of our rounds. But he's not firing.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Sarah said.
“Shutting down the grapplers and the engines. We're going to gamble to save fuel.” Chip punched some buttons and One-Eight drifted in zero G.
“What's the plan?” Lariss asked.
Chip shared it as he ordered it into action. “Sarah, we have that great sensor package on board for scouring Ninarka. Get an external camera on the G-K. That sucker is hurt, and I want pictures for the intel guys if we survive. Lariss, keep an eye on the enemy fleet, they might jump in system at any time. If they do, we head for fuel. If they stay put, we engage them. Good enough?”
Everyone agreed that was a good plan.
Breno sounded healthier now that the grappler motor was off. “I have a firing solution on the G-K. It's last second to give the sensors time to study it, but soon enough that if he's packing a nuke he won't get us.”
“Good. Let's do it. How long until fire?”
“Three minutes.”
“Not enough time for us to really get to know him. Maybe next time we can chat a bit. Share some tea,” Chip said.
Sarah chuckled. The first images of the G-K came in. Sarah stored the data, but also piped it to view screens at each station. It was damaged, little remained but the grappler engine and what would have been the cockpit on a human G-K. Maybe it planned to ram them.
“Tough son-of-a-bitch,” Sarah said.
“It's a machine,” Lariss countered. “If there is any human flesh on that boat, there isn't any human soul.”
Chip turned and looked at Lariss. “Shit. We have a philosopher on board.”
Lariss gave Chip a raspberry.
One-Eight's AI executed Breno's firing solution. Another few seconds of their remaining ammo burned away. Because the G-K was so close, the results came quickly. An explosion detonated as the enemy's fusion power plant opened up to space. The canopy darkened to isolate the crew from the external radiation flux.
“Yes!” three of them shouted together.
Chip nodded his head. “Good work. Let's burn for the enemy fleet.”
Chip picked up the microphone. “One-Niner, you there?”
“One-Eight, this is Combat Four. Negative. One-Niner is down. Recommend you burn back to Ninarka and refuel for flight to Zelan. The path is clear, the G-Ks on this end are inert.”
“Negative, Combat Four. That'll take too long. The fight at Zelan will be over long before then. We're moving to engage the enemy here.”
“Roger, One-Eight. We're refueling at Ninarka. See you back at Zelan if you make it.”
“Good luck, Combat Four. One-Eight out.”
They flew in silence for about sixty seconds. Sarah knew Chip was planning.
“Sarah how long of a burn can we execute at eight gravities if we don't use the grapplers at all?”
Sarah looked at her indicators. “Three hours, six minutes, eleven seconds.”
“Here's the course I want you to plot.”
Sarah plotted the course as Lariss and Breno yelle
d about how insane it was. Sarah, on the other hand, thought it brilliant.
* * *
The Hive fleet had to decelerate into the Zelan Prime system. Odds were they wanted to jump to Zelan, which meant they had to match speeds with the planet before they jumped if they wanted to stay near the planet. As fusion engines burned to slow down, a blind spot was created behind the enemy fleet. The exact vector One-Eight approached from.
External radiation levels were climbing rapidly, Sarah watched as Breno checked the levels every fifteen seconds.
“This is nuts,” Breno complained for the twentieth time. “We should drop our nukes and run.”
Sarah was tired of hearing it. “Shut up, Breno, I already explained to you this is the only way we're going to make it back to the fleet and get out of here alive. We don't even have the fuel to make it to Ninarka now. If our flotilla leaves, we're stuck in system, dead in space.”
“Whatever.”
“I'm with Sarah,” Chip said. “Shut it, Breno. The debate is over, not that I remember asking for debate. Even if we weren't too committed to turn back, I'd still do this.”
Breno sighed, but said nothing.
Sarah calculated the deceleration of the enemy fleet. She created a nav plot to put them close to the enemy ship that carried the fleet FTL drive just before it reached Zelan's vector and velocity. She assumed the Hive would waste no time and would jump immediately once they matched speeds with the planet. The jump to Zelan would take about twenty minutes, and One-Eight would be inside the enemy bubble.
The Hive might notice One-Eight once the enemy fleet shut off their engines, but Chip planned to maneuver close enough to the enemy ship that the fleet wouldn't risk firing on them. That was the hope.
Sarah counted plumes from the enemy ships. Sixty-seven ships comprised the enemy fleet. Far more ships than Twelfth Flotilla. She heard it was usual for the Hive to attack from multiple vectors, which meant more fleets with more ships. If so, this battle was lost by sheer numbers alone.
Bright points of light appeared ahead of One-Eight. The enemy was already too close for comfort, but Chip switched to the grappler motor to bring them closer. He maneuvered two minutes, then shut off the engines. One-Eight, apparently unseen, drifted above the enemy jump ship. He tapped the maneuvering thrusters and extended the landing struts.
Judging by the tone of her voice, Lariss was near her breaking point. “Have you lost your mind? We'll be contaminated.”
One-Eight clanked loudly as it attached to the enemy vessel and Chip looked toward Lariss.
“That's “Have you lost your mind, sir?” if you can't talk to me nicer than that,” Chip said.
Lariss said nothing. Breno, uncharacteristically, was silent.
“And no, I haven't. Long before we're infected by the Hive we'd be able to set off our nukes and take this ship out. Not to mention, Lariss, that Hive nanites probably don't fly on the outside of their capital ships. At least not for long. The Hive are electronic machines, and I'm guessing deep space radiation is something they'd like to avoid.”
Sarah started laughing. “I love it. If we're going to die, let's do it shoving a nuke up their asses.”
It was silent in the cockpit for a minute, then Breno started laughing too. Slowly at first, then with increasing vigor. “This is a funny way to go.”
Lariss scowled, but then slowly converted. “Fuck. Okay. We're going to die at some point. Might as well be this way.”
Chapter 9 - First Blood
20 JUNI 15309
The Hive fleet jumped.
Sarah watched through the cockpit window as the stars disappeared. The feeling of infinity that flying in space normally filled her mind with vanished, replaced by a slight bought of claustrophobia. She'd never seen the inside of an inclusion sphere before, not with her own eyes. Grapplers were inside carriers when flotillas jumped.
She'd seen it on camera, everyone had, but that was nothing like looking out a cockpit window and seeing it in person.
The inclusion sphere of an active FTL drive was opaque, and from the outside virtually solid. Anything it struck would be obliterated as if hit by a solid mass, although a large enough mass would shut down the drive. Although called lens flares by the military, most fleets jumping into a system were detected by the flare of energy in front of the enemy as they turned space dust to pure energy with their arrival. There was also a lens flare effect, hence the name, created as the singularity at the core of the FTL drive warped background starlight around the inclusion sphere.
Right now, that didn't matter. Sarah and her friends were trapped inside the bubble with the Hive. Nothing would leave, and for the duration of the jump, Sarah and her crewmates were in their own private universe. With sixty-seven enemy ships.
“Do you think they know we're here?” Lariss asked.
“Hard to say,” Chip answered. “We can hope not, but I'd think they'd detect the difference in the mass of this ship now that we're attached. It doesn't matter at this point.”
Sarah thought it mattered plenty. There would be no sneaking away from the enemy fleet in the heat of battle.
“We should remove the proximity safeties from the nukes, in case we detect any nanites,” Breno suggested.
“Do it,” Chip ordered. “Just don't pull the trigger.”
Breno bristled. “I want to live too. I'm part of this stupid plan.”
Sarah drummed her fingers on her console in irritation. “They're all stupid plans. This is the only one that involves us leaving this system alive.”
Chip laughed. “Breno, stop annoying my navigator.”
Breno sighed. Loudly.
Chip ignored him. “We need to plan our retreat. Sarah, plot two optimal paths away from the Hive ships. Breno, select targets for our scatterbombs. Not the ship we're on, but other ships we have high probability hit numbers for. Once we break off, I want you to open up on this ship with our remaining railgun ammo. Target the reactors if you can figure out where they are.”
Lariss laughed. She also sounded like she was crying. “They're not going to be happy with us.”
Chip made a pouting face. “No, I suppose not. Let's hope we do enough killing they can't do anything about it.”
“Working on it,” Breno answered.
“Me too,” Sarah said.
Minutes later the Hive fleet dropped out of highspace. The planet Zelan was port side, so Sarah selected her starboard course plot as their escape.
Chip deactivated the magnetic landing struts, and One-Eight drifted loose from the Hive FTL ship. “Launch our packages,” he ordered.
The two scatterpack missiles dropped away from the grappler, freed by explosive bolts. The long projectiles floated motionless for an almost imperceptible moment before roaring to life.
Chip ripped One-Eight to Sarah's plotted heading with maneuvering thrusters, then gunned the main engines at 12G.
One-Eight, despite being pushed by the same power that illuminated the stars, accelerated far too slowly in Sarah's mind. She imagined enemy guns coming to bear on them. Her path away from the fleet kept them in the targeting shadow of the FTL ship as long as possible, but eventually even that ship would join the rest of the Hive fleet in raining kinetic death into One-Eight's backside.
“If we survive fourteen minutes we're clear,” Sarah said.
“What's our speed then?” Chip asked.
“One hundred kps.”
Chip fought the G forces to manually control the small vessel, the servos in his power suit complained noisily. The ship jumped around as if it was rioting, seeming both angry and powerful. Sarah wondered if she'd feel her death, or if she'd end quickly. Full of fear, adrenalin, and the will to live.
Small projectiles were already passing them at velocities her mind comprehended only as abstract numbers.
The missiles launched by One-Eight raced a kilometer ahead of the enemy FTL ship and broke apart into submunitions. The railgun nestled beneath the grappler opened up at th
e same moment, hurling death toward the Hive FTL ship. Unlike the grappler, the Hive ship was too massive to evade successfully. A few seconds after they fired, the crew of One-Eight erupted in cheers when the first impacts from their railguns were detected as brilliant white flashes on the hull of the enemy ship. Seconds after that the Hive vessel exploded in a satisfying series of blasts as they hit a fusion reactor.
After the two missiles broke apart, several two hundred kiloton submunitions rocketed off on smaller missiles, each to individual targets. One-Eight was still close enough to observe the events visually on the sensor pack camera. The crew howled in celebration as trails of rocket exhaust flowered out from the scatterpacks. Like strings of a spiderweb, the thin white gossamer threads were the fabric of death. The nuclear weapons reached their targeted ships and detonated meters from the enemy hulls. The blasts tore a dozen Hive ships apart, including some hit by debris from other exploding ships. Many more ships in the enemy fleet were damaged.
The four crewmen of One-Eight congratulated each other as the small ship accelerated away from danger.
The celebration was short lived.
An explosion rocked One-Eight on the port side. Shrapnel shot through the cockpit, spraying the crew. Breno took a hit to the helmet and his head vanished in a cloud of red mist and glass shrapnel. The top of the cockpit exploded into space and the cockpit's nitrogen atmosphere burst out. Sarah looked to her right as the wall beside her vanished into space.
Chip took a piece of debris through the chest.
It happened so fast that Sarah's mouth hung open, stunned by the violence of it. One-Eight became barely functional wreckage.
Chip's last conscious words before he slumped forward were, “Unnng— good job, guys.”
Sarah took secondary shrapnel to her leg. The holes in her suit sealed, but she had no way to tell how serious the wound was. Sarah's skin stuck to the fabric of the suit as blood flowed. The wound hurt for a few moments, then went numb. She should have paid better attention in the first-aid classes, because she didn't know if the numbness was a good sign or not.
She ignored her situation and fleeting thoughts of death to check her displays. The grappler's vital functions remained intact. Had the relative velocity of the slug and grappler been higher, they'd never have known what hit them. But the enemy scored a hit at the very last second.