“Missiles away,” Tremaine said. “Pythons are closing in.”
“The carrier’s reaction seems disproportionate to our attack,” Winterton said. “She’s dumping Ravagers toward the incoming missiles and fighters. It appears they may have some suspicion about what we’re trying to do.”
Husher winced, turning to Coms. “Give our pilots the go-ahead to engage fully.”
On the tactical display, most of the Hydras split into their separate warheads, many of which were intercepted right away. Pythons made war on Ravagers, unloading Sidewinders and kinetic impactors on the kamikaze robots. They succeeded in pushing back the tide—but not nearly enough. The carrier’s point defense systems weren’t engaged at all, which meant Ayam and his fighters would get torn to shreds once they reentered realspace.
“Helm, adjust attitude upward thirty degrees and bring engines to fifty percent, now.”
“Aye, sir,” Ensign Vy said.
“Nav, I need you to whip up a deceleration profile as fast as you can—one that brings us to a stop just above those Ravagers.” Husher turned toward Tremaine. “Tactical, supplement point defense turrets with tertiary lasers. We need to help our Pythons punch through, and we don’t have very much time to do it.”
Husher’s breath came in ragged bursts, and his stomach felt like stone. He’d been so confident his ruse would work out that he’d risked sending his CAG and the other subspace pilots to their deaths. If that happened, he wouldn’t just lose his most talented pilots. He’d also lose his last subspace-capable craft, which had proven vital to the Vesta’s survival so many times.
The supercarrier arrived above the Ravagers, and her augmented point defense systems went to work. By now, all of the Hydra fragments had been cleared by the enemy, but seeing their base ship join the fray seemed to cause the Python pilots to redouble their efforts.
Partner-pair formations wove in and out of the barrage of robotic missiles, one partner taking the lead while the other pilot watched the leader’s back. With the Vesta thinning the cloud of Ravagers substantially, her Air Group was able to cut through the remainder with ease.
In less than two minutes, the Pythons had pushed through to threaten the carrier’s hull, forcing her to engage point defense turrets. Five Pythons went down as they ensnared the carrier, surrounding her. Another four went down. Two more.
Then Ayam and his subspace squadron reappeared, in perfect position to execute a strafing run all along the carrier’s starboard-side main capacitor bank. Explosions ripped through the massive ship’s hull in a neat line, and then Ayam’s squadron vanished to perform the feat on the other side.
Husher opened a two-way channel with Price. “Is Oneiri Force ready to deploy, PO?”
“Ready as they’ll ever be, Captain.”
“Go take that ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dozens of new icons appeared on the tactical display, deploying from the Vesta’s flight decks: the new MIMAS mechs, commanded by Price and accompanied by Rug in her own alien mech. They sailed toward the disabled carrier.
“Sir…” Winterton said, with a note of uncertainty. “The entire Progenitor force attacking Arrowwood has vanished.”
“Should I recall the Air Group?” Coms asked.
But Husher could feel his heart begin to pound in his chest as he realized what was about to happen.
“No,” he said. “Tell them to continue surrounding the carrier and ready themselves to defend it. Contact Petty Officer Price to tell him that I need the carrier’s point defense systems deactivated as soon as possible.”
Winterton was looking at him with his head tilted sideways. “Sir?”
“The Progenitors aren’t leaving,” Husher said. “They realize what’s happening. Coms, tell every ship and every fighter in the system to converge on our location, immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
But it was too late. The remaining enemy ships began reemerging into the Arrowwood System in a tight sphere, with the Vesta at their center.
Chapter 38
Viper-Like
“Rug, let’s break through the hull where it’s already damaged,” Jake said over a two-way. The airless void had already quenched the explosions that had taken out the carrier’s starboard capacitor bank. “I don’t want to risk hitting her anywhere else. I’m afraid of compromising the integrity of the structure any more than it has been.”
“I am in accord with your plan, Jake Price.”
“Awesome.” He used his implant to paint two red dots on the damaged section, within fifty meters of each other. “How’s this? I’ll take the left, you take the right?”
“Yes. Let us.”
“Get ready. We’ll be in range in a few seconds.”
The carrier’s point defense turrets directed some fire at the incoming mechs, and one MIMAS had already gone down. But mostly the turrets were hitting Pythons, who in turn attempted to execute surgical strikes meant to take out individual turret banks.
That’s a dangerous game. If this ship exploded with Jake and Oneiri Force inside, they’d all be wiped out. He doubted even he or Rug would survive that. Maybe if they were merged with their mechs, like Roach had been—that had seemed to make him nearly invincible. But Jake still refused to do that, no matter how hard it had become to resist it.
The red dots painted over the carrier’s shredded hull grew larger, and Jake yelled, “Now!”
His arms became energy cannons at his mental command, and he sent twin blasts at the red spot painted by the mech dream. He’d calibrated the blasts with just enough power to make a hole big enough for his alien mech to get through, and when the explosion dissipated, it left exactly that.
Rug had done the same, using shoulder-mounted energy cannons she’d morphed for the purpose. Together, they crossed the remaining space and passed through the ship’s jagged hull.
Jake’s metal feet found the deck, and he ran forward to clear the area for the MIMAS mechs coming in behind him, spikes sprouting from his feet to cling to the deck and help him slow his momentum.
The rest of Oneiri Force came in with much less speed: they used thrusters to decelerate before entering the ship, to avoid damage to their mechs.
As his pilots streamed into the carrier, Jake took a moment to take in his surroundings. He stood in a long room filled with row upon row of the hulking metal boxes that held the capacitors, most of them charred and twisted from the explosions triggered by Ayam’s strafing run. The chamber was open to space now, so anything not bolted down had already been sucked out. Emergency lighting provided a dim murk, enough to see that the carrier’s interior was fairly similar to the Vesta’s crew section. The same gunmetal grays, the same function-driven aesthetic.
As the last of Oneiri Force boarded the Progenitor ship, Jake received a call directly from Captain Husher.
“Price here.”
“PO, I want you to take the CIC as soon as you can,” Husher said. “I’m sending Major Gamble aboard as well, along with two platoons of marines, and my tertiary CIC crew. The Tactical officer is a skilled hacker, so with any luck he should be able to take over the carrier’s point defense systems and help us defend.”
“How’s it going out there, Captain?”
“Not great.”
Jake cleared his throat, waiting for Husher to elaborate, but it quickly became clear he didn’t plan to. “Should I hold here till Major Gamble arrives, then?”
“No. Make for the CIC and do what you can to disable those turrets. Just give Gamble encrypted access to your path through the ship. He and his marines will follow behind you.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Good luck. Husher out.”
Jake didn’t waste any more time in mobilizing Oneiri Force. “Let’s move, people.” Leading by example, he walked toward the nearest interior hatch, which was sealed off, almost certainly in response to Ayam’s attack.
Jake blasted it apart with his energy cannons, leaving a gaping hole
large enough for a mech to push through.
He did so now, and as soon as he emerged into the corridor beyond, the roar of gunfire sounded from opposite directions. Turning right, he peppered his attackers in that direction with balls of energy, while his sides slid open to reveal rocket launchers. The missiles sailed down the corridor, quickly filling it with flame and sound.
The shooting from that direction ceased, and behind him, Rug was already engaging the other group of attackers.
As Jake waited for the smoke and fire to clear so that he could observe his handiwork, a hulking form sprinted into view—an Ixan, made massive by the Progenitors’ genetic enhancements.
It also moved with unnatural speed. Before Jake could react, the alien crashed into his mech, causing him to stagger backward while he reformed hands to attempt to deal with his assailant.
The Ixan battered him with ham-like fists, apparently oblivious to the way the mech’s metal hide shredded its knuckles. Then the berserker drew twin shortswords and launched a flurry of viper-like attacks, slashing and thrusting.
The blades proved incredibly sharp, and the mech dream flashed blood-red as Jake realized they’d actually pierced his machine. He danced backward, but the Ixan followed, swords darting and stabbing.
Letting instinct take over, Jake sprouted swords of his own—broadswords, which he used to parry an overhead cut, then to knock aside a thrust. His blade found the Ixan’s throat, and just like that, it was over. With a flick, Jake’s blade burst from the alien’s thick neck, half-severing its head from its body, which slumped to the deck.
He was ready for the pair of Ixa that charged at him next. One of his broadswords became a heavy gun to spray across the corridor at his foe—an avoidable volley, but one that slowed them. Then he was between them, parrying a blow with the gun’s barrel while running his other attacker through, pinning him to the bulkhead.
The first Ixan hit him from behind, twin shortswords sinking deep into the mech, but Jake sprouted spikes from his back that were longer and thicker than the alien’s weapons. They struck home, and when they withdrew, the alien crumpled to the deck.
By now, most of Oneiri Force had crowded into the corridor. “Don’t underestimate the ship’s defenders,” he told them over a wide channel. “Their enhancements make them almost as strong as us. But unlike us, they aren’t walking armories. Focus your fire and take them down before they get close.”
He divided his force into four squads, each with orders to radio the others if they found the CIC. Then he ordered them to form ranks, and they did so with parade crispness. “Share your trajectories through the ship with Major Gamble,” he said. “By the time he arrives, I’d like this vessel mostly cleared.”
Jake took one squad, putting Ash, Rug, and Maura Odell in charge of the other three. Ash still wasn’t thinking straight from losing Beth, but she needed to see that he still trusted her. He worried about Rug, too, given she piloted an alien mech like his. But she’d shown no sign of losing control like him, so if he was going to put faith in himself, he would count on the Quatro, too. As for Odell, he still considered her new, but she wasn’t as new as the rest of Oneiri Force, and to put one of them above her would have been a needless insult.
“Look alive,” he told his squad as he started down their chosen corridor. They moved together in tight formation, and whenever they encountered resistance, the forward rank dropped to one knee. The corridor was wide enough that this allowed all ten MIMAS to fire on anyone confronting them. If the defenders were entrenched behind cover, the mech squad simply continued approaching, keeping them pinned with overwhelming firepower, until they were upon them.
At that point, they’d either neutralize their targets at point-blank range or Jake would take them out with a little broadsword work.
I do believe I’m getting used to having this many mechs. Oneiri Team had never numbered more than eight, but this squad alone had ten. The MIMAS design was finally doing what it had been intended to do: revolutionizing warfare.
Twenty minutes later, Ash got in touch. “We found the CIC and locked it down, PO,” she said. “Gamble’s boarded the ship and he’s already here.”
“Good work,” Jake said, and he meant it. He was glad Ash had been the one to do this. He could tell she needed a win. “Though I heard the Ixa call it the bridge, not CIC.”
“Whatever.”
“Do the officers there seem cooperative?”
“They’re dead. They refused to surrender, so hopefully our crew can figure out how to make this thing work.”
“Yeah,” Jake said, and couldn’t think of anything else to say. He had a sudden suspicion that the Ixa on the bridge hadn’t refused to surrender at all—that instead, Ash had ordered them murdered in cold blood.
He shook his head to clear it. Have a little more faith in your teammate than that.
Chapter 39
Insanely Ambitious
For the first time since the war began, the Progenitors fought to the last ship.
“They know exactly what we’re trying to accomplish,” Husher told Ochrim as they walked through the captured carrier, toward the main engine room. “That means they’ll be back soon, with more ships.”
The Ixan remained silent. Tension drew his features taut, and the whitened scales around his eyes seemed even lighter than the last time they’d spoken.
He knows what’s about to be asked of him.
Husher laid a hand on Ochrim’s shoulder as they walked. “This may very well be the last time I call upon you in this war, friend. After this, you can rest.”
“Yes. All I have to do is accomplish the impossible.” The Ixan offered a wan smile to soften the sarcasm, but Husher got the message, and he couldn’t say he disagreed, exactly.
After the Progenitor ships had appeared all around her, the Vesta had expended the rest of her missiles defending herself against the constricting sphere. She’d lost forty-nine Pythons to go with them, her Air Group’s heaviest losses ever. The number of Pythons the supercarrier could field was dropping, and at this rate, they’d soon approach the Providence’s maximum capacity.
If Arrowwood’s defenders hadn’t rallied around the Vesta with admirable speed, they would have lost many more. But with the system and planetary defense groups, the supercarrier’s own battle group, her Air Group, and the colony’s advanced defense platforms, they took out every enemy ship, except for one. With hundreds of missiles headed its way, the final destroyer had vanished, no doubt to report what had happened in Arrowwood.
If only we could have taken out that ship, we might have had some reprieve.
But Husher knew their only reprieve would be the time it took the enemy to rally enough forces to deliver Arrowwood a crushing blow.
They reached the hatch leading into the engine room, which was flanked by a pair of MIMAS mechs guarding it. They both came to attention and saluted the moment they spotted Husher.
“At ease,” he said as he passed them, impressed that even inside such hefty machines, they could pull off textbook salutes.
Inside, a massive metal construct hung suspended in the air, surrounded by four consoles situated near the bulkheads, though they all faced the floating construct in the center.
Ochrim immediately went to the console nearest the hatch and went to work, pausing only to occasionally glance up at the massive quantum engine.
Though he knew he shouldn’t interrupt, Husher couldn’t help himself: “How did they get it to float like that?”
“Ocharium nanites, would be my guess,” Ochrim answered. “Evenly distributed throughout the shell containing the engine. It would also require a Majorana fermion matrix woven through not just the deck but also the bulkheads and ceiling.”
“Why bother making it float in the first place?”
Ochrim stopped working altogether to peer at Husher, blinking. “The quantum engine aboard the Spire also floated, using powerful magnets. How else could a spherical wormhole be generated around i
t without separating it entirely from the ship?”
“Ah,” Husher said, reddening slightly. He should have known that. He should have taken the time to familiarize himself with the workings of the ship he’d sent Fesky to another dimension in. But a war for survival had a way of stealing one’s time for studying engineering schematics.
After that, he let Ochrim work uninterrupted, while he stared at the strange construct suspended in the chamber’s center.
At last, the Ixan stepped away from the console. Husher raised his eyebrows.
“The good news is that I found exactly what I hoped to,” Ochrim said. “While the design is different, the Progenitor quantum engine appears to function according to the same principles as the engine I designed for the Spire.”
“And the bad news?”
“The limiting factor is energy. Since the Vesta’s bigger than this carrier, we’d need a bigger engine, or at least one with an upgraded power bank and alternators. It would take weeks to build one, working around the clock with no hitches.”
“I need it to be hours, not weeks, Ochrim.”
The Ixan stared at him blankly. “I’m afraid that simply isn’t possible, Captain.”
“What if we rip this engine out of the ship, put it in the Vesta, and make the necessary modifications to it there?”
“That…” Ochrim coughed. “If you’re willing to open up your ship like that, I suppose it could speed things up. A timeframe of hours still seems insanely ambitious, but it would be faster.”
“Then we’ll do it. As for the timeline, I’m not the one setting it, Ochrim, trust me. It’s being set by the Progenitors, who are coming very soon to kill us all.”
Chapter 40
Permanently Compromised
“Ortega, adjust our attitude downward half a degree,” Husher said as they inched toward dry dock, his eyes glued to the telemetry readings. “We’re looking pretty close up top.”
“Aye, sir.”
While Ochrim and Husher had been investigating the Progenitors’ quantum engine, the controllers of Summit’s biggest ship construction platform strove to raise it to a higher orbit as quickly as possible. If the Vesta had attempted to enter dry dock at its previous orbit, the planet’s gravity would have dragged the supercarrier down till it smashed against the rocky surface.
Ixan Legacy Box Set Page 63