by Rachel Aukes
“Oh, no you don’t!” Parks fired a barrage at the departing Swarm, taking out two and damaging another three before they jumped so fast that they blinked out of view.
Yale’s jaw slackened. “Did you see that? I think they just jumped to full light speed.”
“Impossible,” Parks said, but her expression seemed to agree with him.
“The Swarm have bugged out. Report any damage to me,” Hell Group leader announced.
“The Cabal’s ready to go another round.”
Yale checked the status of the airlock before he tapped the microphone. “The Hellcat’s still got her claws.”
He shot a grin at Parks, who grimaced like she’d just eaten something sour. “Don’t try to be funny. It’s not your schtick.”
Hell Group leader spoke again. “All right, Hell Group. Great work today. First-response units are on their way, but they’ll need help. Pick up as many survivors as you can fit. I’ll send you our docking bay numbers once Jade-8 has a chance to pick itself back up. We’ll take a breather there before heading out again.”
Yale leaned back. He took his fingers off the controls for the first time in what felt like hours. His hands were sweaty and cramped, and he rubbed them together. He turned to Parks. “All right. Let’s see who we can help out.”
She pointed to a ship not far from them at their two o’clock low. “That one. I can see at least one person waving through the airlock window.”
As they approached the ship, his gaze wandered over the aftermath.
He had a hard time identifying operational ships in what had become a massive graveyard. Red distress lights flashed on so many ships, it looked like a string of Christmas lights. Chunks of debris scraped alongside the Hellcat’s hull. One piece looked like a boot, but he tried not to think about it.
Parks got out of her seat to help line up the airlocks between the ships.
Yale wasn’t sure which side won, though it looked like the Iron fleet had taken greater losses. But the Swarm had fled, so maybe that meant that the humans had won that fight. After all, Jade-8 still stood.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chief sat on the bridge of the Whirlwind, which was one of the ships leading the three superacid bombers in the arrowhead formation. He disliked not being at a ship’s controls, especially while in battle, but Hank Williams was an adept captain and pilot, and Chief needed to stay focused on directing the Strike fleet.
As soon as he received updated data, he analyzed it and sent updates to the group leaders. Most of his updates involved flight path corrections and where the greatest number of Swarm clusters were, but he also sent out tips as he received them, such as the Swarm probes being unable to shoot anything that wasn’t directly head-on. While he surveyed the battlefield, he glanced down at the video feed of the bombers behind them to find them. All remained undamaged. The pair of gunships carrying superacid bombs flew behind the Gauntlet, which itself was the bomb. The ships were enveloped within many layers of formation groups meant to protect them against the brunt of the Swarm attack, but no one was safe in the Swarm system.
The Swarm probes had less armor and were outgunned by the Strike fleet’s photon cannons. A single hit could take out a probe, but the Swarm made up for their weaknesses with speed and agility. The probes could spiral around faster than a gunner could aim, and place multiple strikes on a ship’s hull before it could respond.
Essentially, the Strike fleet was a bear to the Swarm’s badger, and the badger was winning through its nipping and scratches.
“You have to get ahead of them to hit them, Jose,” Hank said.
“What do you think I’m trying to do? They’re wiry little bastards. If they would just quit zigzagging for a couple of seconds, I could hit one,” the Whirlwind’s gunner retorted.
“Then you should try to predict where they’ll be going next,” Hank replied.
“That’s easier said than done, Hank. They’re completely random, and there are too many of them,” he replied.
“Focus on just one at a time. Don’t pay attention to the rest,” Chief offered.
Jose chortled. “Yeah? And when one of those shoots us?”
“You’re not doing anything now to prevent that from happening, but you can bring down their numbers one at a time,” Chief replied.
Jose grumbled something under his breath, but Chief noticed that the gunner’s movements became less erratic and more determined. Several seconds later, he whooped. “Got one.”
“About time,” Hank said with a smirk.
“Keep it up. You’re doing great,” Chief added.
While the massive formation helped protect ships from getting hit from every side, the groupings were tight enough to allow for only the smallest of maneuvers. Hank piloted her gunship in tight S-turns, and the probes nearest the Whirlwind fixated on easier targets.
Every ship the Swarm destroyed was a hit to Chief’s solar plexus. He knew the names of every Peacekeeper in the fleet. He even knew many of the names of the freelance security teams he’d contracted to join the operation. They were all good people, willing to give their lives to protect Ross, which was exactly what many of them were doing that day.
“The Valkyrie just broadcast a message. They noticed that each probe flies the same pattern over and over, so watch for patterns,” the communications specialist said.
Hank smiled. “I owe Detroit a drink for that tip,” she said and turned to Jose. “You heard, Naoki. Focus on one probe and find its pattern.”
After several long seconds, Jose spoke. “Aha.” He fired, and a probe blew up off their ten o’clock. “I guess I was so focused on the forest, I lost sight of the trees.”
Hank frowned. “What’s that mean?”
Jose shrugged. “Just something my dad used to say.”
“I wonder…” Chief said under his breath. He analyzed a single probe. His gaze narrowed as he surveyed the enemy and its drones, and he began to see a new pattern. “You see that?”
“See what?” Hank asked.
“Detroit’s message made me think. We’ve been assuming the Swarm think like humans all along, but they don’t. They’re computers. What I know about computers is that they don’t do anything random. We know that because they fly in patterns, just as any unmanned drone would. But, look.” He pointed. “They’re shooting in patterns. The probes are firing only at the ships shooting at them, individually. They’re ignoring the ships with damaged weapons, or those not hitting anything.” He turned to Naoki. “Tell the bombers not to fire.”
“Should I tell them why?” he asked.
His jaw tightened. “No. It’s an open channel. Everything we do has to be to get the bombers to their targets. We can’t risk half the fleet deciding they don’t need to shoot to give themselves some breathing room.”
“Now I don’t want to shoot,” Jose said.
“Your job is to keep the Swarm away from the bombers, so you’d better do whatever you can to take the heat off them,” Hank admonished.
Jose shot her a crooked grin. “I was joking, sort of.”
The gunner fired, though not as often as Chief would have if their positions had been reversed, but he couldn’t blame the Peacekeeper. It took a certain amount of bravery—or foolhardiness—to intentionally draw enemy fire. Jose had a wife and three kids back on Hiraeth, which meant that he was living for more than himself.
It was that mindset that had led Chief to avoid relationships. When he joined the Peacekeepers immediately after graduation, he’d found the family he’d never had. He put everything into being a marshal. He had a few relationships here and there, but he’d always been the one to sabotage them. In his heart, he knew he didn’t have enough room for both the Peacekeepers and a spouse.
By the time he was promoted to director, the concept of sharing his life with another person had become foreign to him. It made sense that specialists had families—they had desk jobs, after all, but he couldn’t understand how marshals had families, gi
ven the lives they led, but Chief supported their decisions. Whatever it took so that they would remain high-performing Peacekeepers. But families could also get in the way. Punch Durand had most recently shown Chief the hassles of having a kid. He knew that Punch was hiding his and his daughter’s involvement with the Swarm, but Chief would find out after he returned to Free Station.
The ship in front of the Whirlwind exploded, and Chief ducked out of instinct.
“That was close,” Hank said.
A Swarm probe flew across the windshield, and Jose shot it. The explosion reverberated through the ship.
“That was too close,” Hank said.
“Just doing my job,” Jose said.
As the arrowhead’s frontal layers were peeled away from the Strike fleet, Chief felt his anxiety build. His people were getting slaughtered. Every minute that passed, the fleet’s chances for success went down. They’d never win in a drawn-out gunfight. They had to get the Gauntlet to the planet.
After he sent out the latest data, he crunched numbers. The planet was still too far away for his comfort. The only good news was that the Swarm hadn’t seemed to figure out the fleet’s intention yet.
But they would soon enough.
He swallowed before he spoke. “Naoki, inform the group leaders that it’s time to tighten the arrowhead into the tip of the lance. All ships to increase speed to maximum sub-speed, and focus all photon cannons on clearing the bombers’ paths. We’ll break open the lance in one minute. I’ll initiate the timer now.” The moment the message was sent, he transmitted the timer.
His eyes were constantly moving between the vid screen displaying the bombers, the timer, and the congested space ahead of them. It was still too congested for jump speed. Even with its shields, the Gauntlet would never make it through the probes to the planet.
Chief turned to Hank. “Have this formation group enter jump speed first to clear the Gauntlet’s path.”
Her eyes widened slightly before her tight features returned. “You should take an escape pod, Chief.”
He scowled. “I don’t abandon a ship with the crew still on board.”
She gave a nod. “So be it. It’s your choice.” She transmitted to her flight group and to the bombers. “Group One, drop below the fleet. Enter jump speed in ten seconds. Break off at minimum safe distance from the planet. Gauntlet, follow our flight path for your approach.”
“But we’ll crash right through any of the Swarm between us and the planet,” Naoki said, sounding afraid.
“The Gauntlet has to get through. Besides, the Swarm are fast. Let’s hope they’re fast enough to get out of our way.” Hank didn’t sound overly confident. She then transmitted, “Preparing to jump in five, four, three, two, one, jump.”
Chief felt the Whirlwind transition to jump speed. Lights and ships became blinks as they flew through chaos. A chunk of debris no larger than a couple of inches in diameter struck the windshield. The pane cracked around the embedded object. A member of the crew grabbed a canister and sprinted forward. He sprayed the foam sealant over the crack. The liquid gel expanded and quickly hardened into amber.
The ship to their left exploded. Chief winced, but his gaze was drawn to the view of the planet that had grown to fill all the edges of the windshield.
“Hold on. We’re dropping out of jump speed, and it’s going to get bumpy,” Hank announced the split second before the Whirlwind slowed. It was on a direct collision course with the planet. She pulled the ship up and banked to avoid slamming into the metal surface. The ship narrowly missed a column that stood taller than the rest of the surface. If the planet had an atmosphere, the ships would’ve all crashed.
Even so, another ship in their group had left jump speed too late and hit the planet less than a mile from the Whirlwind. The explosion rippled across the gray surface, opening a gaping hole.
Chief held on to keep from being knocked from his seat. His pity for the lost crew was overlaid by curiosity when he leaned forward as he saw the cavernous opening. Inside, he saw level upon level of assembly shops. It was essentially a massive round skyscraper. “The planet’s hollow.”
“That’s good for us,” Hank said. “Less stuff for the acid to burn through.”
He glanced over at the captain. She hadn’t even broken a sweat yet, but her features were tight as she fought to keep control of the ship through the planet’s gravity pull and the turbulence from the explosion.
Hank blew out a breath. “We’re lucky the planet has minimal gravity, or else I never would’ve been able to pull up like that.”
“I didn’t remember reading anywhere that said the planet had hardly any gravity,” Naoki said.
“That’s because you didn’t,” Chief said. “We didn’t know that.”
A photon blast streaked across the Whirlwind’s bow from a probe flying directly at them. “Draw their fire, Jose. Make a lane for the Gauntlet,” Hank commanded as she steered the ship away from the planet.
Chief glanced at his vid screen to see the Gauntlet enter jump speed. His heart panged with the flurry of battlefield emotions, mostly loss and hope. He murmured, “Godspeed,” as he watched his gunship streak toward the planet.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Eddy frowned and turned to Rusty. “I don’t like how that acid’s sloshing around back there.”
“The Teflon containers should retain the superacid until impact,” Rusty said.
“‘Should’ or ‘will’?” Eddy asked.
“Should,” Rusty replied.
Eddy thought for a moment. “Maybe I should cut the gravity. That could help.”
“Leave the gravity. It won’t make much difference now that the liquid is already moving, and gravity will help you reach the escape pod in time,” Rusty said. “You should instead focus on the cannon. Your aim is not the best.”
Eddy guffawed. “Well, you try shooting when there’re a hundred of our own people’s ships in front of us.”
“I’d be happy to if I was connected to the weapons systems,” the computer said.
“Sorry. Chief wouldn’t sway on that one.” Eddy waved him off. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to be focused on flying this fancy ship.”
“I am focused on flying the Gauntlet. However, I am more than capable of concurrently directing multiple processes.”
A beam of light flashed past the Gauntlet. Eddy jumped. “Whoa. Did you see that?”
“My sensors indicated a photon blast came within one hundred meters of the hull.”
“It seemed a lot closer.”
“The Gauntlet has the most heavily armored hull in the fleet. It would require multiple direct hits to take significant damage,” Rusty said.
Eddy continued to watch the battle through the windshield. Beyond the chaos, the planet loomed. He grinned. “I can’t wait to see this superacid work. Did you know that it’s something like a quadrillion times stronger than sulfuric acid?”
“I did,” Rusty said.
Eddy continued to watch the scene. The Strike fleet was doing a decent job at running interference for the Gauntlet and the two gunships carrying the superacid missiles meant for the moons, but the fleet was doing a lousy job at staying together. Ships were constantly exploding, breaking apart, or tumbling out of formation.
When the Swarm released their Stingers—at least that was what Chief called them, and the name wasn’t wholly bad—the fleet really started to break apart. The Gauntlet used to have a buffer of fifty ships deep between it and the Swarm. That buffer had been cut in half, while the number of Swarm probes hadn’t seemed to shrink at all.
The Strike fleet continued to drive forward toward the planet while the Swarm probes and their Stingers zigged and zagged around ships, zapping them with their beams. It was pretty obvious the Swarm could tell the arrowhead was headed straight for the planet. They probably thought the fleet was planning on attacking the planet with a barrage of photon blasts, since the Swarm was trying to take out as many indi
vidual ships as they could. Chief expected that—that was why he’d sent so much of the Peacekeeper fleet on the mission.
Chief was in one of the gunships in front of the Gauntlet. If Eddy was in charge, he would’ve stayed back at Free Station where it was safe. After all, there wasn’t a lot of direction Chief could give once the operation was underway.
Eddy didn’t like all the activity. The lights and movement gave him a headache. But at least most of the buzzing was taking place away from the Gauntlet. In fact, he was almost surprised to find that so few probes had even shot at the Gauntlet.
“Hey, Rusty. That planet’s not trying to reach out to you, is it?” he asked.
“No. It’s as I expected. As long as I don’t broadcast, the Strike fleet generates far too much electronic noise for Vantage Core to detect my presence.”
“Good. I guess you really didn’t need me here after all.”
“But it was nice to have you on the trip here,” Rusty said.
Eddy smiled. “Yeah, finally some time without the rest of the crew asking us to do this and do that.”
“I’ve received a message from the Whirlwind. Chief Roux has directed all bombers not to fire except at Swarm posing immediate danger,” Rusty said.
“Good. I hate shooting, anyway,” Eddy said, then frowned. “Wait a second. Aren’t we all in immediate danger just by being here?” When the Swarm attacked a formation group not far from them, he added, “Isn’t it a little weird that the Swarm are shooting at some of the other ships a lot more than they are at ours?”
“You haven’t hit a single enemy yet, so I believe they don’t see this ship as a risk. They are likely focusing on the ships causing the most damage to their fleet, which is also likely the reason for Chief’s message.”
Eddy thought for a second. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Eddy, I recommend you make sure the escape pod is ready. The formation will be breaking in fifteen seconds. You will have only sixty seconds after that to eject,” Rusty said.
“It’s ready.”