Now all of the pieces are in play, Hoff thought. Let the game begin.
Chapter 27
Atton jetted out into space aboard Hoff’s modified seraphim-class corvette. He’d found it waiting behind a shadowy door at the far end of Hoff’s clone room. Using the credentials already imbedded in Hoff’s wrist, he’d managed to open both that door and the corvette waiting on the other side. Once through the door, he’d taken just a moment to admire the gleaming lines of the ship. From the outside, it looked just like Brondi’s corvette, but the paint was military gray rather than the black with red accents which Brondi’s organization seemed to favor. It was three times the length of a nova fighter and stood easily a dozen meters high. For atmospheric flight, dual turbines flanked the hull and four movable stabilizer fins did double duty as air brakes and grav field projectors. Between the stabilizer fins lay two heavy laser turrets with room for gunners, while four more pilot-controlled arc-firing turrets ran along the top of the ship—two ripper cannons, and two medium grade, blue dymium pulse lasers. Mounted on the keel of the ship were another two ripper cannons, two missile launchers, and one torpedo launcher. For extra defenses it had a rear-facing mine launcher loaded with eight scatter bombs, and a reinforced shield array, with a deflection rating of 260, roughly three times that of a nova fighter. All in all, it was a flying fortress, a mini capital ship.
Atton had used Hoff’s own grav gun to carry him aboard and strap him down on a bed in one of the transport’s six sleeping quarters. Now, he sat up in the cockpit, familiarizing himself with the controls at the pilot’s station. This corvette had been redesigned for just one pilot and a copilot, while shipyard standard would have been four to five bridge control stations.
Atton hoped the other Hoff Heston up on the bridge of the Tauron wasn’t paying much attention to the corvette flying out the back of his ship. A quick glance at the comms revealed no incoming messages. No one had asked him to provide clearance codes or explain what he was doing. Hoff would expect to see the corvette leave, but he wouldn’t expect to see it join the Tauron’s flight path and fly into battle. Atton counted to ten, waiting until he guessed that Hoff had stopped watching him on the grid before he stepped on the starboard rudder to bring the transport around. The bright blue glow of the Tauron’s thrusters hove into view—four main thrusters, each one large enough to swallow a venture-class cruiser whole, surrounded by eight smaller maneuvering thrusters. The collective glare was blinding even through the corvette’s auto-polarizing viewport. Atton turned away from the view to scan his holo displays. The main one was already set to the default—a glowing three dimensional grid of space. The grid was crowded with a seething mass of red enemy contacts.
Atton eyed those enemy fighters and starships. They began to blur together, converging on the Tauron in a bloody red line. A small number of green contacts shot out from the front of Hoff’s battleship. They were nova fighters. By the time they stopped streaming out, there were just nine of them, meaning they were outnumbered more than fifty to one by Brondi’s fighter screen. Assault transports began appearing on both sides of the battleship to augment that flimsy fighter screen. Atton shook his head. Those transports would be torn apart; they were too slow to go head-to-head with fighters. . . .
As slow as a corvette?
Atton stopped himself there with a frown. Hoff’s modifications had come at a price, and the corvette’s standard 108 KAPS top acceleration had been knocked back to just 92. That made it faster than the Tauron, but much slower than the average fighter.
Atton caught up to the Tauron just as both the battleship and the enemy fighter wing reached the minefield from opposite sides. They rushed headlong toward each other in the narrow gap between the mines. Bright red streams of fire began flashing out from the Tauron on all sides, hitting nearby mines and provoking brilliant flashes of light. The explosions caused a distant roar to rumble through the corvette’s simulated sound system.
ETA two minutes before the enemy fighters were in range. Atton tightened his hand on the flight stick as he raced past a glowing line of viewports more than a dozen decks high in the prow of the Tauron. He powered up the ship’s turrets. Two blue dymium pulse lasers and four ripper cannons. They all had the same range—about two klicks, which meant he’d only have time for one short volley before he passed the approaching fighters. He switched over to Hailfire missiles instead and set the turrets to auto-fire. Now he had a maximum firing range of five klicks—ten if he just wanted the missiles to fly in a straight line.
Atton flew out ahead of the Tauron, and now he saw the blue engine glows of the Tauron’s novas—dead ahead. Atton’s corvette was coming up fast, about to pass them at any second. He would be the first one to engage the enemy. A quick look at the grid revealed that the squadron leading Brondi’s forces was made up of novas. Atton targeted the lead fighter and lined it up under his crosshairs. Thirty seven klicks to target. Atton’s forward velocity was 1546 m/s and climbing. He disengaged the engines and watched the rangefinder scroll down three klicks every other second. Twenty klicks to target. He wondered idly about his transport’s name as he waited to get within firing range. He asked the ship’s computer with a verbal query.
“This transport is designated the Last Chance,” the computer replied in a warm female voice. “It is a modified seraphim-class corvette with—”
“That’s all right, thanks. I already know the specifications,” Atton replied. “What’s your name?”
“Destra.”
Atton laughed. “All right, Mom.”
“My name’s not Mom, it’s—”
“I know, I know.” Atton shook his head, smiling despite the gravity of the situation. Maybe she was right to stay behind, he thought.
The admiral wasn’t all bad after all. Skriffy as a space rat, but not all bad.
* * *
Devlin Squadron raced toward the minefield in a staggered line formation. Ethan felt the acceleration pin him to his nova’s flight chair and threaten to rip his hands off the flight stick. He had the point position, while a few dozen meters back and to one side was Gina, Devlin Two. Ethan’s squadron was the first of six to reach the edge of the minefield. There were just nine of them—Ethan, Gina, and the seven surviving members of Aleph Squad, slave-chipped to think they were pilots. Their recently acquired skills in the cockpit were just enough to make sure they didn’t crash into each other—but only just. Facing off with them on the other side of the minefield were the mighty Tauron and her opposing fighter screen of nine novas.
Their nine to our nine, Ethan thought. Devlin Squadron would never be a match for them by itself, but they were leading a whole wing of expendable junkers, and there were another six fighter wings where that came from—more than 40 squadrons and over 500 fighters in all. Seeing what Hoff had brought to the fight, Ethan didn’t have to wonder about the outcome of this battle. The fact that the admiral had launched all of his assault transports to bolster his non-existent fighter screen was proof that even he was skeptical of his chances. What were you thinking, Hoff?
There was no way the Valiant would fall to such a pathetic attack, and now Ethan had to rethink his plan to throw his life away. He was back to being Alara’s only hope. He gritted his teeth as mines began racing by to either side of his cockpit. His HUD painted translucent red walls around the minefield to show him where they would explode if he got too close. Those polygonal walls raced by him like the sides of a simulated canyon, adding a sense of speed and urgency to his flight.
Now their range to the Tauron was down to just 20 kilometers, and the Imperial novas were leading that by a good 500 meters. Ethan’s mind raced in anxious circles as he thumbed over to Hailfire missiles and targeted the first Imperial nova. What was he doing? He couldn’t help Brondi. . . .
But if he didn’t, Alara would suffer a fate worse than death.
Suddenly an enemy missile lock alarm began beeping in his cockpit, and Ethan snapped out of it. Racing out ahead of Hoff’
s fighter screen was the glinting hull of a seraphim-class corvette, and it was targeting him. The missile lock alarm screeched in a solid tone, and two Hailfire missiles shot out from the transport.
Ethan blinked, and his hand hesitated on the flight stick.
* * *
Admiral Heston gaped at the grid as the Last Chance rushed out ahead of the Tauron’s novas. “Comms! Hail that corvette! Tell them to disengage immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
What are you doing? Hoff wondered. He had a hard time believing that any clone of his would be that stupid. Why would he risk Destra’s and Atta’s lives like that? Maybe it had been Destra’s idea . . . or Atton’s.
“They’re not responding to our hails, sir.”
Hoff growled and shook his head. Of course they weren’t responding. If his clone answered, it would raise a lot of awkward questions with the crew. Hoff’s eyes narrowed angrily as he watched that transport dodge and weave toward the enemy fighter wave. It was too late to do anything about it. He was going to have to trust that his clone had the good sense to stay alive. And if not . . . Hoff had already taken the necessary measures to prevent a tragedy. He would have to content himself with that. If Destra and Atta died, they would wake up on Fortress Station a few months later with no memory of the battle which had killed them. Right now, neither one of them was a clone, but if Hoff had to revive them, then he would. He felt bad about chipping them without their knowledge, but he’d already hid plenty of other things from them, so what was one more secret? He was in the process of aging more clones so he could revive them aboard the Tauron, too. When Destra had broken into his facility and uncovered everything, she should have looked in the stasis tubes on the other side of the room. If she had, she would have seen two more familiar faces.
Hoff sighed. It wasn’t ideal, but few things ever were. In the end, it always came down to the same question: are we just a biological storage device for our experiences—or are we something more? Hoff didn’t believe in things he couldn’t see or measure, so for him there could only be one answer to that question. The fact that multiple instances of the same person could exist did nothing to diminish his belief. If two things look alike, sound alike, and act alike—are they not the same?
“Sir, one of the enemy cruisers is within corona beam range,” the gunnery chief reported, bringing Hoff back to the present situation.
“Open fire,” he said, looking up from the grid just in time to see two red corona beams arc out from the starboard side of his ship and slam into the distant hull of a baron-class cruiser. The enemy cruiser’s shields flashed bright blue at the point of impact, deflecting the attack. But corona beams were designed to take down shields, and they kept pouring a continuous stream of hull-cracking energy into that cruiser for four full seconds. The enemy cruiser’s shields failed at the last second and the corona beams drew a roiling ball of fire from her hull.
“Enemy shields depleted,” the weapons chief said.
Hoff smiled. “Hit them again, Lieutenant.”
* * *
Ethan hesitated for a long, breathless moment, his hands and feet frozen at the controls. The missile lock alarm screamed at him with increasing urgency, but he didn’t budge. He couldn’t justify killing any more innocent officers to save Alara or himself.
The pair of Hailfire missiles which had locked onto him blossomed like fireworks just seconds before they reached him, each warhead split into four separate pieces and then spiraled off on hot orange contrails, now tracking multiple targets from unexpected angles.
“Hoi, someone’s got a lock on me!” Devlin Three said. That was Sergeant Dorian of Aleph Squad.
Ethan watched the three missiles which spiraled toward his own fighter. His heart thudded madly in his chest. His palms began to tingle and sweat. A cold fist of panic seized him and his heart seemed to abruptly stop beating in anticipation of the end.
At the last possible second, instinct took over. Ethan thumb-switched over to lasers and shot two of the approaching missiles down. The third one impacted on his shields, and space turned white. A deafening roar came through the simulated sound system and the seat restraints dug roughly into his chest as one of his three engines exploded and his nova flipped end over end with the unbalanced thrust.
“IMS to 100%!” Ethan said. Suddenly the tumbling sensation ceased, but space continued to spin around him. A quick thrust correction brought his nova back under control, but now with a maximum acceleration of just 98 KAPS and barely half of its former maneuverability. Ethan scanned the grid to the look for the modified corvette which had shot him. He saw it go racing past him, spitting a solid stream of gold ripper fire and blue dymium pulse lasers at the other Devlins. As he watched, Devlin Three’s icon flashed brightly and then winked out.
No more sergeant Dorian.
Devlin Two screamed, “You motherfrekker!”
That was Gina. She flipped around and returned fire on the corvette but it deflected her lasers easily and turned its turrets on her next. Ethan grimaced, watching as she and the other Devlins fired haphazardly at the corvette. Half their shots missed, and they didn’t even bother to make use of their speed and maneuverability to dodge enemy fire, meanwhile the corvette ducked and wove like a ship half its size. Ethan pulled up hard to loop over and line up on the corvette’s tail, but before he’d even brought his crosshairs in line, it took out another Devlin and clipped the wings off a third.
“Frek it, I’m dead in space!” Devlin Nine said.
“We’ve lost Six!” Five added.
Ethan gritted his teeth. Don’t they know they’re firing on their own men?
He lined up the corvette under his sights and snapped off a quick fire-linked burst of his own. All three lasers found their mark, taking 10% off the corvette’s aft shields. Then they equalized and it was only 5%, but it was enough to get the corvette’s attention. Suddenly it stopped firing on Ethan’s squad mates and those turrets swiveled to face him. A blinding pair of blue dymium lasers flashed by his canopy, so close that they bathed his cockpit in an azure glow. Ethan kicked his fighter up on its side and began weaving an evasive pattern, but with one of his thrusters ruined, his maneuvers were slow and clumsy. Lasers flashed by his cockpit with increasing accuracy until a pair of them hit.
“Shields critical,” his nova’s computer reported.
Ethan’s eyes darted to his shield gauge to see his shields in the red, barely recovering at just 12%. A couple of hits were all it would take to bring him down.
“Devlins, I could use some help over here!” But they’d all broken off, their attention drawn by the onrushing wave of enemy novas.
“Ruh-kah!” he heard Gina roar.
“Hoi, missiles incoming!” another said.
“Frek it! We’re too close!”
“Break, break—skrsssss . . .” that last message died in static. Ethan spared a quick glance at the gravidar just in time to see his whole squadron go winking off the grid in quick succession. Their explosions lit up the holo display and rumbled through his speakers.
Devlin Two, Gina’s fighter, was the last to go.
Ethan stared at the grid, wide-eyed with horror.
“Frek!” he activated his comms and switched to an open channel, no longer caring what Brondi’s reaction might be. “You just killed a whole squadron of friendlies! Congratulations. That was Aleph Squad and First Lieutenant Gina Giord, in case anyone cares.”
Another shot from the corvette hit him and his nova shuddered.
“Shields critical,” the computer warned again.
“You don’t say?” Ethan snapped while increasing power to forward shields.
“Dad? Is that you?”
Ethan blinked. Hearing Atton’s voice interrupted his concentration just enough for another two shots from the modified corvette to find their mark. A warning siren blared through the cockpit and the computer said, “Shields depleted.” His canopy flashed again, and he heard a gritty screech of duranium.
His flight suit auto-pressurized with an ear-popping hiss, and that was when Ethan noticed the jagged crack in the left side of his canopy. He turned to look out over his port wing and found nothing but a molten ruin where it had once been. Ethan tested his flight stick, but found that now the nova barely responded. At full thrust he was crawling along at just 22 KAPS. Only one of his thrusters was still lit, and it was sputtering. As Ethan watched, his HUD flickered and his holo displays went black, only to start up again a moment later, but now tinted a sickly red. He was on emergency power—back up batteries.
“Dad! Frek—are you okay?”
He couldn’t believe it. His son was flying that corvette. Ethan let out a shuddering sigh and keyed his comm. “Atton?”
“I’m coming about. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but my fighter is pretty badly scorched.”
“Do you think you can get clear of the engagement?”
Ethan shook his head. “No, I’m running on emergency power.”
For a moment, neither of them was sure what to do next, and then a flurry of warning beeps flooded through Ethan’s helmet speakers. Missile locks. The Tauron’s novas were in range.
“Atton! Tell those novas to stand down!”
But it was too late. The beeps turned to sirens and Ethan’s hand found the red ejection lever beside his chair.
Dark Space- The Complete Series Page 76