Conqueror

by Richard Tongue

  And of course, he’d known that going in, and he went in anyway, regardless.

  “We’re getting a spike, Cadet!” Drake yelled. “You’ve got to go!”

  Nodding, she jumped from the cockpit, sprinting towards the hatch, smelling the stink of ozone in the air all around her as the electrical fires began, heard the boom and hiss of the deck behind her, the heat building rapidly. She raced through the doors, Drake releasing the override just as the fighter exploded, only a brief flash visible before the hatch slammed shut, isolating the docking bay from the rest of the ship.

  “Report, Specialist,” Drake ordered, as the technician looked over the damage control station.

  “About what I expected, sir, I’m afraid,” he replied. “The hatch was destroyed in the fire, and the hangar deck is completely exposed to space. All of the automatic fail-safe systems cut in, and the area has been completely isolated, but I don’t see how we could possibly complete any repairs without some time in a spaceyard, sir. There’s just too much damage out there.”

  “Not a problem,” Bradley said, brushing herself off. “That’s just going to bring it nicely in line with the rest of the ship.” She walked over to a wall communicator, tapped a control, and said, “Working. Hard to believe.”

  “Flight Ops here,” Bishop’s voice barked, distorted through the damaged speakers. “What the hell just happened? We’ve registered an explosion, and our laser communications system just went dead.”

  “I managed to get through to the strike force,” Bradley replied. She looked at Drake, then said, “I need a patch through to Commodore Maddox on Theseus, priority one. I know we’re not going to be able to encrypt it, that we’re going to have to send it in the clear on civilian frequencies, but I’ve got to pass a warning through the Commodore before it’s too late.”

  Normally, the idea of a first-year cadet demanding to be put through to one of the Combined Chiefs of Staff would be little short of insanity. It was a measure of the madness of the situation they were finding themselves in, Bradley mused, that Bishop didn’t even question her request.

  “Patching you through now, Cadet. I’ll listen in as well. Be aware that this is going to be heard far and wide, so use circumlocutions as best you can. We’ll just have to hope that the Commodore understands you without access to a code.” She paused, then said, “You’re through, Cadet. In my name.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” She coughed, clearing her throat, trying to mask her nerves, and said, “This is Mitchell Station to Theseus Actual. Poppa Bear just warned me that we’ve got a hundred unexpected guests planning to gatecrash the party. They’re bringing lots of firecrackers and none of them are here to make new friends. Suggest you might want to find another venue.”

  There was a long pause, and the harsh voice of Maddox replied, “Your message received, and just about understood. Thank you for the warning, but I think we’re going to continue with the party as planned. I’ve got enough spare seats at the table to accommodate all of our guests, and I still think we’re going to be able to give them the proper welcome. Come along when you can. It should be quite a show. Theseus Actual out.”

  “What?” Drake said, shaking his head. “Did I understand that right? Did he? He’s just going to carry on according to the battle plan, even now?”

  “Maybe he was just keeping his plan to himself,” the baffled technician said, looking on. “He can’t seriously…”

  Tapping a command, Bradley called up the long-range sensors, throwing an image of the task force onto the nearest monitor. Every ship was proceeding just as planned, no change to the attack profile, no change to the formation. She waited for a long moment, hoping that something would happen, that the ships would alter course, move to avoid contact with the incoming fleet. She waited in vain.

  “This can’t be happening,” Drake said. “He can’t expect to win, not now.”

  “It would appear that he does,” Bradley replied, trying to keep herself calm. “Our fleet commander is either a traitor or an idiot. Anyone care to place a bet?” She sighed, then continued, “We’d better get to Flight Ops. There’s got to be an answer to this madness somewhere, and as far as I can see, we’ve got less than ten minutes to find it!”

  Chapter 15

  “No change to target aspect,” Haynes reported. “Sir, I don’t think this is going to work. They’ve got to know that we’re bluffing. They’ll be saving all of their fighters for the battle.” She paused, then added, “I just hope that Commodore Maddox got our message. They should just have time to change their approach vector.”

  “He hasn’t,” Winter replied, bluntly. “If he had, they’d be altering course themselves, moving into position to support the cruiser. Which is still nowhere to be seen, incidentally. I’m not picking it up on the medium-range sensors. That must mean that its still on the far side of the moon, keeping out of our sight.” He looked at the trajectory plot, making a few quick calculations, and added, “It couldn’t be hidden from both us and the fleet. They’re still playing some sort of game, and we’ve got to find out what it is.”

  “The rest of the squadron will be starting their attack run in a minute,” Haynes said. “It might be worth trying to contact them, warn them off.”

  “No point, not at this stage. They’re going to be running into enemy defenses whether they launch their strike or not, and they might as well hit whatever the Terrans have hidden down there. It couldn’t hurt.” He looked at the sensors again, and said, “Anyway, they’re well below those peaks. We couldn’t get a communications laser aimed, even if we wanted to.” Throwing a control, he added, “Nothing from anyone. I can’t even raise the station now.”

  She looked up at the readouts, and said, “Want some bad news, sir? They’re opening their launch doors on our target carrier. They’re going to be on us before we can launch.” She paused, then said, “At least we might be able to decoy a squadron out of the fight. Right now, I guess that’s the best we can do.”

  “That’s a start, but I think we can do better than that,” Winter replied. “We’re pressing our attack, all the way to the end of the run.”

  “Sir,” she replied, “I hate to bring this up, but our missiles have been configured for surface bombardment. They don’t have the guidance systems needed to get through the enemy countermeasure screen.”

  “True, but on the surface, they look just like standard Firefox missiles, and the enemy has got no way of knowing that this wasn’t a part of our plan right from the start.” He paused, then said, “Lock us on a collision course. Let’s make this as convincing as possible.” Reaching for his controls, he added, “I’m altering the flight profile of our drones to trick them into thinking the center of gravity is further forward than it is. They might think we’ve rigged them for a kamikaze strike.”

  “Are you planning that?” she asked.

  “Only as a last resort.” He looked at the sensor display, and said, “Contact in thirty seconds. If they’re following normal doctrine, they’ve got another squadron waiting for launch. Let’s give them something to think about.” He reached for a control, paused for a second, then tapped it, releasing the missiles from the six unmanned fighters, twelve new contacts snapping into life on the display at the same instant, racing towards the nearby carrier. “Break, Flight, break!”

  Haynes fired her own missiles, two more joining the silent formation, then pulled to the side, Winter directing the unmanned fighters to scatter in all directions, setting their pulsar cannons to fire automatically if they found any hostile targets. With no pilot in control, it was more than unlikely that they might ever score a hit, but he needed to give the enemy something to think about. As he’d hoped, the second squadron launched, racing to intercept the missiles, their cannons pounding away almost as soon as they were clear of their base ship, fighting to defend their comrades.

  “First squadron is still heading for us,” Haynes said. “We’ve got three targets inbound. The rest are splitting up and
going for the drone fighters.”

  “I’m keeping one,” Winter replied, “and leaving the rest to themselves. I suppose there’s a chance they might punch through. Get us past them, Flight, as tight as you can, and if you get a chance to have some fun with your pulsars, feel free.” He tapped in a command sequence, lowering a visor over his head to give himself the best possible virtual view from the cockpit of the fighter he was controlling, the controls on his console now limited solely to that end.

  No fighter pilot ever supported the use of automated fighters. The concept of putting a human in the cockpit was too ingrained for it to truly die, despite the host of potential arguments against it. He’d written papers and briefings on the subject himself more than once for one journal after another, stressing the value of human instinct over that of a computer, the potential danger of some enemy hacking into an automated fighter’s systems and suborning it to use against its own side. Those arguments had merit. And that meant that most fighters were designed to require human control, at least at some level. He wouldn’t be able to keep the drone flying for long.

  While he did, though, he could do some damage. His first action was to disable all of the safety cut-outs, all of the restrictions required to prevent the unpleasant death of the pilot. The fighter could manage twice the acceleration to which it was normally limited, and he would be able to make use of every scrap of speed he could muster.

  He guided the fighter around, bringing the pulsars to full strength, throwing a series of experimental shots towards the incoming enemy squadron, more concerned with disrupting their advance than with actually destroying any of them. Taking out a couple of fighters would make no appreciable difference to the battle, but disrupting their attack pattern might have the impact he wanted.

  Periodically, he glanced at the sensors, watching with admiration as Haynes guided their lumbering fighter into a series of evasive maneuvers, trying to throw off the enemy fighters, attempting to prevent them from getting a missile lock. In the distance, he saw a series of flares, their missiles destroyed one after another by the newly launched squadron. He counted thirteen detonations, then smiled as the final warhead found its mark, slamming into the side of the enemy hull, tearing and gouging its way through the hull armor. One hit, at least.

  Now the enemy fighters were upon them, and Winter brought his ship around, firing wildly to break out the trio that was attacking them, catching a missile with a lucky shot just as it was launched. Haynes quickly realized what he was doing, swinging around to make full use of the distraction, running her engines hot enough to almost risk unconsciousness in an attempt to open the range between the ships, decelerating at a furious rate to take them down into the maze of mountains and craters on the surface of the moon below.

  The maneuver caught the enemy completely by surprise, their trajectories wildly arcing around as they struggled to compensate for the unexpected course change. Winter had done what he’d wanted to do. He’d made the enemy mad. He pulled the unmanned fighter around once more, letting fly with the pulsar cannons, sending it wildly spinning around in an attempt to knock down the missiles that were racing towards it, successfully destroying three of them before the screens when dark, his fighter ripped into pieces.

  “Nice flying, sir,” Haynes said. “I’m taking us down as low as I can. If we can get around to the other side of the moon, we might be able to race for home. We’re going to be hurting for power when we do, though. I hope they don’t have any more surprises for us.”

  “I make twenty-three enemy fighters launched,” Winter replied. “Almost a quarter of their total strength. Not a bad start, though I still think we might be able to do better.” He reached for the sensor controls, adding, “We should be getting a good look at the task force any second now. Maybe we can do something else to help them out, buy them some more time.” He paused as the screens updated, his mouth dropping as he saw the six corvettes of the task force moving into position, surrounded by a swarm of fighters and support ships.

  “Christ, they’re holding position,” Haynes said, looking at the images on her repeater. “Didn’t they hear us?”

  “Either they didn’t get the message, or they didn’t take it seriously,” Winter said. “Damn that bastard. He’s leading the entire task force right into a trap. Unless we can draw some more heat off them, they’re not going to have a chance.” He paused, then asked, “How low do you think we can take this beast?”

  “Regulations say five thousand feet, sir.”

  “Since when did you give a single damn about what the safety regulations say? How low, Flight?”

  “If you’re not overly concerned about the risk of crashing into a mountain, eight hundred feet.”

  “I have faith in your ability to avoid bringing our flight to an abrupt conclusion. Take us around the moon, all the way. No escape velocity, just a full-power loop. Think of it as putting us into a ultra-low powered orbit.”

  “They’re going to love this at the after-action report, sir,” she replied, as Winter brought up the rear scopes.

  “Power up the aft pulsar cannon. Kill the rest. We’re only going to be shooting at anyone stupid enough to follow us for the next few minutes.” He reached across to the laser communicator, tapping a control to set it to automatically home in on anything or anyone that might be close, on any friendly signals at all, then focused on the aft scanners, his eyes locked on the approaching targets. Both squadrons of enemy fighters were still on their tail, racing after them, their commanders evidently willing to throw them into harm’s way to counter whatever scheme Winter was planning.

  He looked at the power levels, his eyes widening as he saw the indicators hovering deep in the amber zone, threatening to enter the red. Haynes had run the fighter ragged to get them through their first encounter with the enemy, and if he spent too much power on pulsar bolts, they’d be lucky to make it to escape velocity, still less get back to the station before the enemy. He glanced across at the engineering telltales, quickly deactivating any system they could do without, the long-range sensors sacrificed to buy them a few scant seconds of thrust.

  It wouldn’t make much difference, but it just might be enough. He looked at the enemy fighters, watching them slowly close in, keeping high and avoiding the rapid course changes Haynes was being forced to make, ducking and diving around million-ton obstacles in their path. Red lights flashed on his console, warning of enemy power buildups all around them, and pulsar blasts began to pound into the ground all around them, sending fountains of molten rubble flying into the sky.

  “That was too damned close,” Haynes said, firing her thrusters wildly in a bid to dodge the expected blasts, getting out of the way with microseconds to spare. “They’ve got the high ground, sir. What’s the plan?”

  “Pray for a miracle,” he replied.

  “That’s our plan?” Haynes asked, her voice on the edge of panic. “Sir, I…”

  “Relax, Flight. One miracle, coming right up.” He tapped a control, saying, “Black Leader to Red Leader.”

  “Red Leader here. We’ve got you on sensors now, closing on your position. Base destroyed, and it took all of our missiles to do it. I think they were using it as a storage depot. We’ve got pulsars charged and ready to go.”

  With a loud whoop, Winter replied, “Just in time, Cassie! You’re on a perfect approach vector. Send those bastards to hell. We’ll link up on the far side. Out.” Turning back to Haynes, he added, “Head for Red Flight, best possible speed. You can start gaining altitude again now, but watch for enemy fire. We’re still going to have to be careful until our friends arrive. Which should be in a little under a minute.”

  “You drew them down,” Haynes said. “You lured them into a trap. How did you know Red Flight would be there?”

  “I didn’t, not for sure, but our little battle gave off enough energy to have been spotted clear out to Golgotha. It was a safe enough bet that Cassie would assume that anything generating that much mayhem wo
uld involve me one way or another and that she would come and see what was going on.”

  “You played a hunch?”

  “Call it an educated guess.” He looked at his sensor display, smiling as he watched the enemy fighters scatter in all directions, racing for safety, trying to get away before Red Flight could rip through them. The arrogant confidence of their earlier attack pattern was gone, replaced instead with desperate flight, and he risked a couple of pulsar shots from the aft cannon to encourage their panic. In an instant, Red Flight was past them, heading into a brief dogfight with the Terran fighters, flashes of light already illuminating the sky from a dozen pulsar cannons erupting at once.

  “Coming up to ten thousand feet. We should be safe at this altitude,” Haynes said. “Where are we going? I can get us onto an escape vector, and we might even have enough boost to get home before all of our systems fail. Certainly we’ll be close enough for someone to come get us with an SAR shuttle.”

  “We’re not done here yet,” he replied. “Intercept course with the carriers, if you please, and I want to see if we can fight that cruiser. Theseus is close enough that we might be able to feed Maddox some tactical data, and based on his current formation, he could certainly use it.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Sir, if we do this, I haven’t the first idea where we might end up.”

  “We’ll just have to trust in the kindness of strangers, Flight. Go for a collision course. We might even get them to launch another squadron after us if we’re lucky.”

  She shook her head, reaching for the throttle again, ramming the engines back to maximum acceleration, heedless of the strain she was placing on the near-depleted power cells, warning lights flickering across the engineering displays as the systems warned her that she was on a suicidal course. Disabling his cannons, Winter looked at the squadron status report, sighing as he looked at the distressing news it provided. No serious damage, but no ordnance either, and he wasn’t quite sure whether any of his people had sufficient reserves to get clear of the target in time. The mission as originally planned would have pushed his fighters to the limits, and he’d gone far beyond those original plans in his desperate bid to improvise.