The Lion and the Unicorn

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Contact,” Staci snapped. The hazy icons sharpened, suddenly, as the cloaking fields collapsed. “Nine starships … six cruisers, three unknown.”

  Mitch nodded calmly, despite a flicker of excitement. The enemy ships had messed up the timing. If they’d remained cloaked for a few seconds longer, Unicorn would have been trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, unable to retreat or close the range to the point she could do real damage. As it was, he had an excellent chance to get back to the squadron and coordinate a counterattack. The cruisers were tough, perhaps tough enough to give Lion a very hard time, but a combination of missiles, gunboats and starfighters should be enough to blow them to hell.

  “Helm, bring us about,” he ordered. “Tactical, continue to feed live data to Lion.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Staci said. “They’re bringing their own active sensors and ECM online.”

  “Good,” Mitch said. The enemy didn’t need to hide any longer either. “That’ll make it harder to miss.”

  He smiled, coldly. The enemy tactics were brutally simple. They were advancing on the planet, forcing Captain Hammond to choose between retreating at once - perhaps firing a handful of shots for the honour of the flag - and risk being crushed against the planet. Neither side would be particularly concerned about stray missiles striking the planet itself, but … they’d both prefer clear space, if they were to have a full-scale engagement. And the humans would have the advantage. Captain Hammond might be cautious to a fault, but even he wouldn’t miss the opportunity. They could give the virus a bloody nose even if they lost the planet.

  “Take us back to the squadron,” he ordered. The virus didn’t seem interested in trying to swamp his defences, but there was no point in letting the enemy brain-blobs decide it was worth the effort. “And stand by to repel attack.”

  ***

  Thomas knew, all too well, that his military service had been largely sterile. He’d never had any passion for blood sports, never felt any inclination to join the army instead of the navy … he’d watched enemy ships die, but he’d never shot someone personally. He’d certainly never been spattered with blood and gore … he wondered, suddenly, if he should have spent more time chasing foxes over the countryside. It was barbaric and pointless, but it might have prepared him for the gruesome sight in front of him. The seemingly dead body was rotting in front of him.

  “Explain it to me in layman’s terms,” he ordered. He sat in his ready room, feeling alone. “What’s happening to her?”

  “The virus’s control structures effectively disintegrated,” Doctor Sarnia Carson said. She was surprisingly young, for a top expert in her field. “In layman’s terms, you could say most of her bones and muscles turned to jelly. The body collapsed under its own weight.”

  “But it wouldn’t have,” Thomas said, slowly. “The host body itself should have remained unaffected, right?”

  “The virus apparently pervaded most of the body,” Sarnia said. Her voice betrayed no disgust, none of the horror she must be feeling. “It replaced muscle mass, which was rendered useless; it dug into the brain, accessing memories and damaging her mind. I believe she was effectively dead a long time before the counter-virus got into her system.”

  “And so we killed her,” Thomas said. Someone had said, once, that a single death was a tragedy while a million deaths were a statistic. Stalin? He wasn’t sure. But it was true. The dying - effectively dead - woman on the display had been a living person, with a family and friends and everything of her own. Her death touched him in a way the obliteration of an entire colony would not. Could not. He just could not comprehend a million individual lives. “Are they all going to die?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Sarnia said. “I think there just isn’t enough brain matter left for them to survive, even if they were given the best medical care in the known universe and …”

  The alarm rang. “Captain to the bridge,” Donker said. “I say again, Captain to the bridge.”

  Thomas stood. “We’re going to have to table the discussion, Doctor,” he said. “We may have incoming.”

  He deactivated the terminal, then hurried onto the bridge. The display glowed with nine red icons, enough firepower to do serious harm if it got close to the planet. Thomas took his command chair, checking the status reports as his ship prepared for war. The crew had responded well, very well. His lips twitched. Two successful missions - and months of intensive training - had done wonders. It had been weeks since the department heads had reported any problems.

  “Captain,” Donker said. “The enemy will be entering engagement range in forty minutes.”

  “Assuming we hold position,” Thomas said. He didn’t want to let the enemy ships any closer to the planet than strictly necessary. The risk of them taking a pot-shot at the colony was too high. It might be too late to save the human settlers - the host bodies, he reminded himself sharply - but a handful of nuclear strikes would wipe out the marines. “Helm, lay in an intercept course.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Thomas nodded to himself. “Take us out.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “XO, prepare to deploy gunboats,” Thomas ordered. His fingers danced across the console as the intercept vectors sharpened. “We’ll launch in ten minutes.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Donker said.

  Thomas allowed himself a smile. Nine starships, six of them cruisers … the remaining three might pose a threat, but they weren’t any bigger than the cruisers. It was hard to believe the enemy fleet could seriously threaten the squadron. Unless they packed some weapon he’d never dreamed possible, the virus’s ships were completely outgunned. They were picking up speed, probably in hopes of closing the range to the point the odds would start to tip in their favour … it would have worked, he acknowledged wryly, if they’d faced a conventional enemy. Lion could pick them off at a safe distance and, if they survived, beat a hasty retreat without ever letting them get into engagement range. It might not be fair, or brave, but he didn’t care. The virus was too dangerous to take lightly.

  He settled into his chair and watched the seconds tick down to zero. The virus’s fleet was filling space with sensor pulses, as if they thought Thomas had a battleship squadron in his back pocket. They didn’t know they were wasting their time … he wondered, suddenly, just when and where the virus had determined the system had been invaded and occupied. Had his sweep of the system missed something? A cloaked picket or a flicker station? Or had the ship they’d destroyed en route had a friend who’d evaded discovery and managed to report to its superiors?

  There’s no brainships, he mused. They can’t be thinking very clearly.

  “Captain,” Donker said. “The gunboats are ready to launch.”

  “Good,” Thomas said. He didn’t need them, not when the enemy was obligingly revealing their own positions, but it was well to be careful. The craft would do no good if they were locked to his hull. “Launch.”

  ***

  Tobias cursed under his breath as he scrambled into his flightsuit, then headed for the hatch. Marigold followed, hastily buttoning up her suit. They’d been in one of the privacy tubes when the alarm had sounded, thankfully before they’d proceeded past the cuddling stage. His face burned with embarrassment as he wondered how many of their fellows knew what had happened, imagining the jokes they’d make … he shuddered. There’d been boys and girls caught behind the bike sheds at school, publicly humiliated even if they didn’t face any formal punishment. He didn’t want to imagine what people might say …

  He put the thought out of his head as he hurried into the gunboat, took his seat and brought up the targeting systems. Marigold slammed the hatch closed, then sat and powered up the drives. The timer was already ticking down, a grim reminder that they’d been caught - quite literally - with their pants down. He snorted, ruefully. It was the sort of thing that would have been funny if it had happened to someone else. He hated to think what Colin would have said. Tobias was pretty sure it wouldn’t
have been anything pleasant.

  A low shudder ran through the gunboat as the craft disconnected from the battlecruiser and headed out into interplanetary space. The remainder of the squadron spread out around them, picking up speed as they flew towards the alien ships. Yellow icons pulsed on the display as the battlecruiser launched her first salvo of missiles, command and control links hastily establishing themselves as the missiles moved past the gunboats. Tobias scowled, reminding himself it was quite possible to accidentally steer into a missile’s path. It had happened during simulations. He was reasonably sure that the odds of it happening had been scaled up a little, but he didn’t know how badly …

  “We’ll enter enemy point defence range in five minutes,” Marigold said. “Pick your targets.”

  Tobias nodded as he took control of his missile cluster and steered it towards one of the mystery ships. An escort carrier? A troopship? He didn’t know. The ship didn’t look large enough to take more than a couple of hits without exploding, although there was no way to be sure. He’d been told the virus couldn’t innovate, but he didn’t believe it. The virus had absorbed millions of human and alien minds. It must have learnt from them.

  “I’m having some problems getting a precise lock,” he said. “They’re pumping out a lot of ECM.”

  “Go for the sources, if you can’t get a lock on the hulls,” Marigold advised. She swung the gunboat from side to side, although the virus didn’t seem to be trying to get a sensor lock on the craft’s hull. The range was so short it probably didn’t need a precise lock to score a hit. “It’ll be easier to target them than the ships themselves.”

  “Understood.” Tobias frowned as he worked his console. The sensor haze was getting stronger, but - perversely - it was actually making it easier to locate the sensors themselves. It was almost as if the virus wanted the sensors destroyed. His eyes narrowed. It made no sense. There was no brainship, but that didn’t mean the virus was stupid. “I think …”

  He widened the sensor focus as the missiles closed on their targets. If the enemy weren’t being stupid, it meant they were up to something and …

  “Impact in one minute,” Marigold said. “I’m altering course.”

  “Hold us for a moment,” Tobias said. The enemy had to be up to something. “I think …”

  He broke off as the missiles started to strike home, wiping out the enemy sensor sources. The display seemed to blank, just for a second, then cleared. Tobias sucked in his breath as he realised, too late, what the virus had been doing. They’d been tricked. No wonder the virus had kept its active sensors online. It had distracted the human sensors, blinding them to the real threat.

  “Shit,” he breathed. Red icons appeared on the display. Seven, perhaps eight, enemy ships. Big ships. “We’ve been suckered.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Captain,” Sibley said. “I’m picking up one brainship, three battleships, one carrier and three heavy cruisers.”

  Thomas sucked in his breath. They’d been tricked. The enemy had used the light ships to mask the heavier ships … clever, he noted sourly. He’d been lured into an engagement that was likely to go poorly, even if he broke off at once. Lion could outrun the enemy fleet, at the cost of leaving the remaining ships exposed. It was not going to end well.

  “Tactical, fire a full salvo at the brainship,” he ordered. “Helm, bring us about and prepare to retreat to the first waypoint.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sibley said.

  Thomas forced himself to think. The gunboats had done well, wiping out seven of the nine lighter ships. But they were now exposed, forced to take command of the missiles while the enemy fleet bore down on them. They’d be better off withdrawing, except he needed them to direct missiles towards their targets. And … he told himself, sharply, that the gunboats were expendable. He’d spend them wisely, but he would spend them.

  “Continue firing,” he added. “XO, order the squadron to retreat.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Donker said.

  “Communications, signal the planet,” Thomas added. “Inform the marines that they have to go dark.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cook said.

  Thomas scowled. He’d just abandoned the marines, at least until a friendly fleet managed to regain the high orbitals and liberate the planet. Again. The counter-virus would continue its work, he was sure, but would it be enough to stop the virus before the marines had to take off their masks? They’d never planned for a long occupation. In hindsight … he mentally kicked himself for not considering the possibility. They’d assumed they’d get in, deploy the BioBombs and then watch the results from a safe distance. He’d never considered being caught so badly out of place.

  The virus might hammer them from orbit, if it gets a sniff of their presence, he thought. Or it might just destroy the entire planet to make sure the counter-virus doesn’t spread.

  He looked at Cook’s back. “Communications, signal Prestwick. She is to leave the formation and proceed directly to the nearest forwards base, taking with her copies of our records and sensor logs. We’ll keep her appraised until she passes through the tramline.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cook said.

  Thomas nodded as he returned his attention to the display. Prestwick was a lone destroyer. Her firepower wouldn’t make much, if any, difference once the range closed to the point the virus could open fire, but she was able to take a message home. Earth had to know what had happened when the BioBombs were deployed. And what had happened to Lion and the remainder of the Thunderchild Squadron.

  The display sparkled with red light. “The enemy have opened fire,” Sibley said. “They appear to be fairly standard long-range missiles.”

  “Activate point defence, then deploy decoy platforms,” Thomas ordered. “Helm, move us to cover the other ships.”

  He frowned, then leaned forward. “And deploy drones as well,” he added. “The freighters are to cloak and alter course as soon as the drones are active. Let them head to the waypoint alone.”

  And hope to hell the enemy doesn’t see them in time to blow them to hell, he thought, as the enemy missiles closed on his ships. The navy had plans to build a fleet of fast tenders to support the fleet train, but production had been delayed by the urgent demand for actual warships. They have to rely on stealth to survive.

  Lion shuddered, again, as she unleashed another spread of missiles. Thomas gritted his teeth as the enemy missiles came closer, zeroing in on his ship. They’d fired enough to be sure one or two would get through the point defence, despite everything. And then … Thomas checked the live feed from the damage control teams. They were about to face their first real test.

  “The enemy brainship is taking damage,” Sibley reported. “However, I don’t believe we’ve crippled her.”

  “Designate the carrier as secondary target,” Thomas ordered. The enemy carrier hadn’t entered the fray, but it was just a matter of time. “Fire at will.”

  He braced himself as the enemy missiles entered his point defence envelope. Dozens - hundreds - fell to his point defence, or wasted themselves on harmless decoys, but the remainder survived long enough to strike home. Two hammer-blows struck Lion in quick succession, each barely fended off by the armour. Thomas had no time for relief before a laser warhead exploded far too close to his armour, driving a stabbing needle of energy deep into Lion’s hull. His ship shuddered, red alerts flashing up on the display. The damage control teams raced to the wound, while the remainder of the section was evacuated. Thomas told himself, grimly, that it could have been worse.

  “We lost two of the gunboat ports,” Donker said. Behind him, the displays constantly updated as the damage was cleared. “A third is effectively gone.”

  “Noted.” Thomas had no time to worry about it. They could dock the gunboats at a standard airlock, if anyone survived long enough to do it. Right now, the damaged or destroyed point defence weapons were a considerably greater concern. “Rotate the ship, then keep us moving. We have to clear
the range.”

  He studied the display. The enemy capital ships didn’t have the legs to catch the battlecruiser, once she started to run. He issued orders, directing the battlecruiser to increase speed as soon as the freighters were clear. Maybe they could fire missiles, but … they had no place in the line of battle. If they engaged, the enemy would just blow them away and that would be that. Better to get them out if there was no other choice.

  And hope they see the planet as more important than we are, he thought. They could escape, but they needed time to repair the ship, reload their missile tubes and plan their next step. The marines couldn’t be abandoned, not if there was the slightest chance he could get them out before they were infected or killed. We need a diversion.

  ***

  “I’ve got a solid lock on the fleet carrier,” Tobias said, as a cluster of missiles shot past the gunboat. “Missiles inbound … now!”

  He watched, grimly, as the fleet carrier started to finally launch its starfighters. He wasn’t sure why the virus had waited, unless the brainship had felt it would be better to keep the starfighters protected within their carrier than throw them into a maelstrom. It was going to regret that, Tobias was sure. The starfighters were nimble in space, but helplessly vulnerable if something happened to their carrier. He smiled, coldly, as three missiles survived long enough to strike the carrier’s launch tubes and explode. The carrier hadn’t been destroyed, but it would be a long time before she could launch and recover her starfighters again. The impact had to have set off a chain of explosions that threatened to rip the entire ship apart.

  “Good shot,” Marigold commented. She yanked the gunboat to one side as an enemy missile roared past. It detonated a second later, too late to catch them in the blast. “Shit!”