by Ken Lozito
The software suite took the new data and added it to the plot.
“Thanks,” Noah said tiredly.
They watched as ships emerged from the area where their last payload of HADES IV missiles had torn into the Vemus fleets. The targeting systems first scoured the area for something to shoot and then fired their weapons. If the Vigilant was there, it would have to broadcast its unique identifier so the orbital defense platforms wouldn’t fire at it. They couldn’t tell what the condition the few ships appearing on the plot were in, only that they were there.
A bright flash shone from the sub-holoscreen, followed by an explosion as one of the orbital defense platforms went offline. The weapons systems on the remaining two platforms targeted another blip on the plot. The ship was still far away. There was another bright flash that lanced across their video feeds.
Noah’s screen began filling with errors as the orbital defense platforms’ systems became unresponsive.
“That has to be a main weapon from a battleship carrier,” Kara said.
Noah was about to reply when he noticed another ship appearing on the plot, but then it just as quickly disappeared. Noah leaned in, peering at the holoscreen.
“What did you see?” Kara asked.
“I thought I saw the Vigilant,” Noah said.
The CDF ship signatures appeared as green on the plot so they could easily identify friendly ships. Noah glanced at the terminal session he had open to the orbital defense platforms. The data connection for one of them was still alive. He did a quick rundown of the critical systems.
“We have to help them,” Noah said.
“What can we do? This isn’t a warship,” Captain Benson said.
“I know what I saw. The Vigilant is still out there, fighting,” Noah said.
He turned back to his workstation, his eyes taking in all the holoscreens with renewed vigor. “The plasma-cannon from that platform is still online. It can still fire,” Noah said.
He pulled up the targeting systems and they were online as well. Noah frowned, trying to think of why the weapon wasn’t firing, and glanced at one of the error messages on the screen.
::Turret field out of alignment.::
Noah pointed to the error message and looked at Kara. “Do you know what this means? What turret field?”
Kara peered at the error. “It means the actual turret is damaged and the system can’t point the weapon in the right direction.”
Noah rubbed the top of his head and pulled his hair. “We have to get out there,” he said, rising out of his chair.
Captain Benson shook his head. “There are thousands of lives on this ship. We can’t just stop offloading people to the surface.”
Several members of the Chmiel’s bridge crew turned in their direction and glanced at both of them.
Noah clenched his teeth. He suspected the bridge crew would overwhelm him if the captain ordered it. Regardless, the cargo ship captain was right. “What about a shuttle? Something. You must have something you use to do visual inspections of the ship.”
Captain Benson’s mouth hung open, then he swallowed hard. “We do have a shuttle.”
“Fine. I’m taking the shuttle. Where is it?” Noah asked and started walking toward the doors.
“Mid-ship hangar. I’ll tell them you’re coming down,” Captain Benson said.
Noah fled the bridge and Kara followed him.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you go off by yourself,” Kara said.
Noah knew better than to ask her to stay behind. Truth be told, he’d need the help. He didn’t know how to fix a turret, but he had to do something. He had to find a way to get that plasma-cannon to fire its weapons again.
They ran to the small mid-ship hangar. The shuttle was strictly used on maintenance runs for the ship. Noah had learned to fly years ago because Lenora Bishop had questionable flying skills, and he preferred softer landings.
They climbed aboard and headed for the cockpit. After a quick check of the flight systems, they flew the shuttle away from the cargo ship. Noah punched in the coordinates for the orbital defense platforms. The distance to the Lagrange point from New Earth wasn’t that far. There hadn’t been any more weapons fire from the battleship carrier. The Vemus must have thought the platforms were no longer a threat. While the shuttle was en route, he and Kara slipped into EVA suits. They didn’t engage their helmets, which were collapsed into a tight compartment near the base of the necks.
There was a debris field from the remains of the other platforms, and Noah piloted the shuttle through it, heading toward one of the larger sections that was intact. The shuttle was highly maneuverable and they quickly wove their way through. Noah engaged the searchlights.
“The cannon looks intact,” Kara said.
It appeared that the orbital defense platform had been sheared in half and the section that housed the rail-cannon was nowhere to be found. Noah circled around the large plasma-cannon. There was a damaged section that was blackened from when it had been hit, but the cannon itself looked intact. Most of the damage was restricted to the base of the cannon where the rollers were that swung it in the direction it was to fire.
Noah patched into the platform’s systems. Power levels were slowly falling, but there was enough to fire a few more shots. Now all they had to worry about was aiming the plasma-cannon, and he had no idea how they were going to do it.
30
Connor didn’t know how the Vigilant was still holding together. It might have been their relatively central position when the HADES IV missiles had hit the remains of the Vemus fleet. Or perhaps it was the Vemus signal they’d been disrupting that prevented them from launching countermeasures or taking evasive maneuvers. What he did know was that the enemy ships had formed a temporary cocoon that protected them from destruction.
Connor glanced through his helmet at the others on the bridge. He’d ordered the surviving crew to go to life support. There were large sections near the central part of the ship where the interior atmosphere was intact, including the bridge, but places like the forward rail-gun batteries were completely exposed.
“Ops, what’s the status of 01?” Connor asked.
They’d been having problems getting ammunition to their only remaining rail-cannon due to extensive damage to the ship. Engineering teams were connecting a workaround to take the ammunition from other rail-gun batteries that were damaged beyond repair.
“They’re still working on it. A few minutes more, sir,” Sergeant Browning said.
Connor glared at the blank PRADIS output. They were still flying blind. There was another Vemus battleship carrier that had been hidden away in the rear of the fleet, and there had been a handful of smaller vessels that survived the onslaught of HADES IVs, but they’d been picked off by the orbital defense platforms.
The PRADIS screen became active and showed a Barracuda-class battleship carrier nearby. It was heavily damaged and Connor narrowed his gaze at the onscreen designation. Indianapolis. The battleship carrier had fired its main particle-cannon, which had chewed through the orbital defense platforms in short order.
They tracked the battleship carrier visually since their sensor array was offline. The damage-assessment teams couldn’t make it to where the sensors were housed and the armored hatches that protected the secondary sensor array had been damaged. If it weren’t for the optical array, they’d be flying completely blind.
New Earth appeared as a bright blue orb in the distance, but the Vemus battleship carrier was much closer to them. The exoskeletal hull had been burnt away by the fusion warheads of the HADES IVs, and there were large sections of the original battle-steel hull once again exposed to space.
“Do I have to go down to the forward sections and load the damn gun myself? I need that weapon now!” Connor growled.
If they couldn’t get the rail-cannon back online, Connor would order the remaining crew to abandon ship and he’d take out the engines of the battleship cruiser himself.
>
“Sir, they’re really close,” Sergeant Browning said.
Major Hayes had left the bridge to organize the engineering crews. Connor knew the man was doing everything he could, but it just might not be enough. The Vemus appeared hell-bent on getting at least one of their ships to the planet that the last of humanity called home. But no trace of the Vemus could be allowed to reach New Earth, which might include the Vigilant’s crew since some of them had been exposed.
Connor could barely discern where the orbital defense platforms had been. All that was left of them was debris. All their preparation for the past seven years had led to this. That enemy ship must be stopped.
Connor opened a comms channel to broadcast to the entire ship. “All hands—”
“Sir, rail-cannon is back online!” Sergeant Browning said.
Connor glanced at the operations officer and gave him a nod. “We’re about to make our final attack run on the enemy. We’re all that stands between them and our home. Should this attack run fail to disable that ship, I will sacrifice this ship in order to stop the enemy from reaching New Earth.”
Connor closed the comms channel. “Tactical, one more firing solution. Concentrate fire behind the MPDs. Helm, keep us in position as long as you can.”
Connor’s orders were confirmed. He heard some of his officers muttering a prayer. The die was about to be cast, and sometimes one had to roll the hard six.
Noah and Kara left the shuttle, each of them carrying a plasma cutter. He thought that if he could remove some of the damaged sections, he could free the turret enough so they could align it for a shot, but they had to move fast. The plasma-cannon was the size of a large building. They quickly circled around the base and closed in on the damaged sections. Noah peered at the area and there were several large pieces of twisted metal jutting out from the base. They looked to have been pieces from another platform.
He’d been poised, ready to use the plasma cutters, but when he saw the extent of the damage, he glanced down helplessly at the tool. If he had a week and a crew of fifty, he might have been able to do something.
“This isn’t going to work,” Noah said.
Kara had been standing off to the side and had an access panel open. “Come over here.”
Noah walked over to her, his mag-boots keeping him firmly attached to the metallic surface.
“What did you find?” Noah asked.
“Look here. There are still some thrusters active,” Kara said.
Noah peered at the maintenance terminal and his eyes widened. “You’re a genius! Come on. We need to get back to the shuttle,” he said, a plan forming in his mind.
He’d been so focused on trying to fix the turret that he’d overlooked the main problem of just aiming the weapon. The orbital platforms were large space vehicles designed to be stabilized while the weapons were active. Stability came with the use of gravity fields, along with redundant power stations.
“I should have caught this,” Noah said as they went through the hatch and back onto the shuttle.
“We both missed it. I didn’t even think of it until we saw the extent of the damage,” Kara replied.
Noah sat in the pilot’s seat and engaged the shuttle’s controls, easing away from the base of the plasma-cannon.
“I have thruster control online,” Kara said.
Noah swung the shuttle around so they could see the approach of the enemy warship. There were several bright flashes of light and he felt his mouth go dry. Kara gasped. If that ship fired on them, they had no chance of getting away.
Noah squinted, trying to extract every bit of detail from the tele-view on the shuttle’s heads-up display. There were more flashes of light, but it was gleaming sections of the battleship carrier as it tumbled toward them, out of control. The flashing was from the ship’s magneto-drive pods, half of which were disabled.
Noah brought up the platform’s control systems. “I’m ready to disable the gravity field.”
“Go,” Kara replied.
Noah disabled the field and Kara engaged the platform’s thrusters. The plasma-cannon swung around and Noah began priming the shot. Kara frantically tried to control the platform’s thrusters, but she couldn’t keep it stable enough. Noah tried to engage the gravity field, but it wasn’t responding. Without it, they’d only get a few shots because there was nothing to keep the cannon in place.
The massive ship came barreling toward them and Noah waited for the remains of the orbital defense platform to come around again.
“Hold on,” Noah said.
Gritting his teeth, he waited for the plasma-cannon to align on the target at point-blank range. At the last possible second, he fired the weapon. The plasma-cannon unleashed molten fury in a hail of magnetic bolts with superheated centers. The bolts tore into the hull of the battleship carrier while Noah maximized the shuttle’s engines. He angled away from the ship and sped away. As they cleared the ship, Noah saw that the plasma-cannon was still active, which meant it was still firing. He swung the nose of the shuttle around and could see the battleship carrier being ripped apart. The barrel of the plasma-cannon was lodged in the belly of the ship. Noah glanced over to the side and saw two streams of white bolts coming from a heavy cruiser. It was the Vigilant! Sections of the ship had been shorn away, but its remaining rail-cannon fired mercilessly on the enemy ship. He watched as the large behemoth expanded and then the exoskeleton split apart the fusion warheads, rending the ship to shreds.
“Noah, get us out of here or we’ll be caught up in it!” Kara shouted.
Noah got on the controls and maximized the thrusters. The shuttle raced away and Noah saw the Vigilant try to do the same, but the shockwave sent the severely damaged CDF heavy cruiser tumbling. The gleam from the remaining drive pods went offline as the ship slowly rolled over on its axis. The shuttle’s power systems shut down because the destruction of the battleship carrier sent out an electromagnetic pulse. Noah knew they’d come back online because the shutdown was part of the emergency response built into the system fail-safes for smaller spacecraft.
Noah glanced over at Kara. “Are you alright?”
Kara looked around. “I think so. The shuttle’s intact.”
The power systems came back online, along with their heads-up displays. A massive debris field stretched out before them, filled with huge sections of the Vemus ship. Telemetry of the field showed that they wouldn’t be coming near the planet. New Earth was safe.
They’d lost track of the Vigilant when they lost power, and the shuttle’s limited scanning capability couldn’t distinguish the Vigilant from the space debris in the area. Noah sent out automated ship hails on all comms channels. After getting no response, he flew the shuttle into the field and began looking for the Vigilant.
“If they abandoned ship, we should at least be getting beacons from the escape pods,” Kara said.
They caught up to the dead CDF ship a few minutes later. Noah tried opening a comms channel to the ship, but there was no response. The Vigilant looked more like a ship under construction than a vessel that had just come from a battle. Noah kept trying to get a response from anyone alive on the ship and felt a tinge of desperation creeping into his voice.
Finally, a comlink registered on the shuttle’s heads-up display.
“We’re here,” Connor replied, his voice sounding strained. “We’re still here. Did we destroy it?”
“It’s good to hear your voice, sir. No Vemus ships in the area. We have a lock on you. We’ll transmit your position back to COMCENT and get rescue operations going,” Noah said.
“That sounds good. Better tell them to use quarantine protocols,” Connor said.
Noah frowned and glanced at Kara. “I don’t understand. Quarantine protocols for what?” he asked.
“It’s a long story. Better patch in COMCENT if you can. We need emergency medical supplies as well. What’s your location?” Connor asked.
“We’re on a shuttle near the remains of the orbital d
efense platform,” Noah said.
“So you’re the ones who got off that final shot. Good work. You saved us all,” Connor said.
“I had help,” Noah replied and Kara spoke up.
“Thanks to you, too, Major,” Connor said.
“COMCENT is ready . . .” Noah said.
31
A week had passed since the attack. It had taken several days to get the survivors organized and make sure that there were no more ships in the Vemus fleet. The Vigilant was towed to the space docks near the lunar base. Unless they rebuilt the entire ship, Connor doubted it would fly again anytime soon, if ever. Given what they’d faced, he wasn’t sure investing in a fleet was their best option at this time. Officially, he and the rest of the Vigilant and the Banshee crews were still under quarantine. He was supposed to stay at the hastily constructed quarantine sections of the lunar space docks where they’d been building their own battleship carrier, but Dr. Ashley Quinn had cleared him and a small task force to leave. Connor had asked her to keep his clearance under wraps for the time being. None of the crew that had been directly exposed to the Vemus ship’s atmosphere showed any indication of infection, which was both a very good sign and a troubling one because they were no closer to understanding how humanity had fallen.
Once news of the attack had spread throughout the colony, the populace celebrated the Colonial Defense Force. The attack they’d all feared had come and they’d survived. All their preparation and sacrifice had paid off. But Connor had trouble thinking of it as a victory. They’d survived only by the skin of their teeth. Their defenses were virtually gone, and he was haunted by thoughts of the soldiers they’d left behind.
The CDF had commandeered the Chmiel and were heading back out to where Titan Space Station had been, looking for CDF soldiers still alive in the escape pods. Connor wished that was the only reason the Chmiel had returned to that area of space. The cargo carrier was also tasked with setting up a high-powered sensor array taken off the battleship carrier they’d been building.