by Doug Hoffman
The figure stood like a statue, the only sound the wind whistling through the jagged peaks and the crackle of small arms fire in the distance. After several interminable seconds a voice issued from the statue.
“Your name is Dirk?” the dark figure asked.
“Yes.” the Marine replied.
“Your mother actually named you Dirk?” the figure reiterated.
“Ah, actually my first name is Reginald,” Dirk replied, confused by the cross examination. He was not sure what kind of response to expect but that was not it. Why would some space alien care what my name is?
“Well, Reggie, it would seem that balance has been restored to the force,” the alien continued. “And I always thought that karma crap was, well, crap.”
Now Dirk was totally confused. This conversation cannot be happening, maybe I'm hallucinating from lack of sleep and altitude sickness. As the befuddled Colonel stood in front of his towering interlocutor the rest of the battalion's Marines were assembling just down slope from the alien craft. The sound of small arms fire drew nearer.
“I never did catch your name during our previous encounter, Colonel. Of course, you weren't too keen on conversation at the time.” As the figure spoke its “head” turned transparent to reveal the head of a woman inside.
“My God,” Dirk exclaimed, “you're the gunnery sergeant from that squad of Marines, the ones who came back from the renegade spaceship.”
“Right the first time, Reggie,” Jennifer Rodriguez replied. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised you never learned my name either. You know, I have had dreams about what I would do to you if our paths ever crossed again.”
His mind raced. This must be some kind of cosmic payback, retribution for my past sins. But I was under orders not to talk with the returnees any more than necessary—and not to let them talk to anyone else. Hell, for all we knew they were aliens made up to look like Marines. Not that it will make any difference to the pissed off woman in front of me.
The sound of gunfire continued to draw closer, his men continued to fight and die. The Colonel sank to his knees and pleaded, “Do what you want with me, Sergeant, but for God's sake save my Marines.”
Jennifer's eyes narrowed and her head tilted to one side, as if she was seeing him in a different light. “That, Colonel, was the correct response,” the former gunnery sergeant, now Captain, said. Keying her suit radio, Jennifer gave orders to the rest of her Marines and the shuttle crew: “All right people, let's get these poor refugees on board—and disarm them as they board. I do not want any accidents on the trip back to base.”
“Aye aye, Ma'am,” replied newly promoted GySgt Washington for the rest of the squad, motioning the embattled Marines forward with a wave of his armored arm. The two battle bots and several of the armored space Marines moved down slope along the refugees' flanks, laying down a murderous wave of fire to cover the extraction.
“Thank you,” Dirk said, hanging his head and sighing in relief. “Thank you.”
* * * * *
The rescued Marine battalion was delivered to Farside Base 12 hours later, where the survivors were fed and bedded down after the welcome luxury of a long hot shower. The penitent LtCol Westfield was debriefed by Commander Curtis and Captain Rodriguez. In the end, Dirk volunteered for duty with the space Marines, even though that meant starting out as a new second lieutenant.
Privately, Capt Rodriguez was happy to gain a battle seasoned field grade officer like the former Lieutenant Colonel. It slowly became clear that he was not the total asshole or mindless martinet that their previous interaction suggested. Jennifer had still not fully forgiven him for how his men had treated her squad, but having him as a subordinate was definitely helping the healing process.
If having to call Jennifer “Ma'am” grated on the ex-colonel he did not show it. Instead, he threw himself into learning the new equipment and tactics required to wage infantry warfare in space. His success in that endeavor was indicated by his promotion to first lieutenant and position leading the second shuttle of boarders in the upcoming action.
Now they were all Peggy Sue's Marines, awaiting the order to board the landing shuttles—56 men, women and polar bears all in space armor and heavily armed. No one knew what to expect when they boarded the alien spacecraft, or even if they would be called on to attempt an assault. For now, all they could do was watch as the Navy engaged the enemy.
Bridge, Destroyer of Worlds
The Captain of the People's ship Destroyer of Worlds watched the alien ships approaching. They are much faster and more maneuverable than we are, he thought, no chance of out running them. Bowing to the inevitable the Captain issued commands to his crew.
“Fire debris into the path of the incoming enemy ships, and mix in a few mines as well,” he snapped, perhaps that will slow them down some. “Eject a messenger pod to the aliens' blind side and launch the auxiliaries. Have them concentrate on the large enemy.”
They had done grievous damage to the third planet's ecosystem, large impactors obliterating all the major inhabited coastal regions. Most of the warm life vermin must have been eradicated. Those that did not die directly from the attack would surely perish from lack of food and exposure as their civilization came crashing down around them.
Strange, he thought, life struggles to raise itself out of the primordial ooze, eventually creating a technological civilization without ever appreciating how dependent a species becomes on its own machines and gadgets. Technology makes proliferation possible and a species seemingly secure.
In reality, technology makes those who depend on it vulnerable to any major disruption. Technology, industries and orders of magnitude more individuals than a planet could ever support in a primitive state all woven together in a web of interdependence—a web that is surprisingly fragile and easy to break. And once broken, such civilizations are not just reduced or diminished, they implode. They collapse into ruin, carrying their creators to extinction. Yet these creatures stubbornly refuse to die.
“Captain, the auxiliaries are away and a wave of detritus has been sent toward the incoming enemy ships,” confirmed one of his lieutenants.
“Very good, Number Two.” It was just luck that the ship now chasing his had been out of the system when they started their attack on the infested planet. Now it would be much more difficult to complete their mission—they might even fail.
For the Destroyer of Worlds' crew the possibility of surrender did not exist for the Dark Lords did not tolerate failure. Failure might only be grudgingly accepted if every one of the People on board the Destroyer gave their spirits to the void in the attempt. Such a sacrifice might be deemed sufficient for the dark ones to spare the People's home world.
Bridge, Peggy Sue
The anxiety and excitement were palpable on board as time until the assault ticked down. More than half the crew were seasoned veterans of other space battles, but the capabilities of this foe were unknown. What weapons the enemy possessed could only be guessed at based on observation during the chase. The alien vessel was huge, massing several million tons, but it seemed a crude construction. Much of the mass was attributable to the asteroids it carried in its bulbous prow—projectiles used to destroy worlds—the rest appeared almost an afterthought.
“Captain, CIC. The hostile seems to be launching a number of smaller craft.”
“Roger, CIC,” Gretchen replied. I guess they know we are coming. Good thing we waited for the corvettes to become operational, or we would be facing the oncoming craft all alone—definitely better to be prepared, to not rush ahead half-assed. “Go in half-assed and come back with none,” was another of Jack's sayings. “Task Force Alpha, re-target on the smaller craft. The Peggy Sue will target the mother ship.”
As she received acknowledgment of the change in orders, Gretchen tried to cope with the rapidly evolving tactical situation. I guess the old saying is true, no plan of attack survives contact with the enemy. “Helm, full ahead. Concentrate main battery fire on th
e enemy's engines astern. X-ray batteries in defense mode until we see what they throw at us. Torpedomen ready a spread on my mark...”
Chapter 2
ESS Deloraine, Task Force Alpha
Lt. Elizabeth Melaku was sitting in the command pilot's chair of the corvette ESS Deloraine. Known to her friends as Beth, the lieutenant was of Ethiopian descent though born and raised in the UK. Tall and attractive, with a narrow straight nose and prominent cheekbones, she looked every inch the warrior, a worthy representative of her ancient homeland's people. She had been a pilot in the Royal Navy but, like so many others, was caught in the downsizing that plagued the armed forces of all western countries in the early 21st century.
Her ship was officially designated a corvette, a class of small warship that had been present in the world's navies for centuries. During WWII, the first Royal Australian Navy kill of a full-size submarine was attributed to a corvette, the HMAS Deloraine. There was a significant Australian presence at Farside Base and in the shipyard, hence the name of her ship.
The Deloraine was a relatively small, trim vessel, intended for patrolling the solar system, not interstellar missions. Much smaller than the Peggy Sue, each corvette measured 42 m (138 ft) in length with a beam of 8.5 m (28 ft). Eight gravitonic torpedoes mounted in launchers on the hull brought its diameter to 10 m (33 ft). Like pontoons on an outrigger, port and starboard 14 m (46 ft) winglike extensions mounted the X-ray secondary batteries and shield generator pods. Aside from the eight torpedoes the craft's main armament was a center-line mounted railgun 32 meters in length. A secondary 15mm multi-barreled railgun was mounted beneath the keel to provide close in support or to lay down a cloud of “sand” to help thwart plasma bursts.
The ship's complement consisted of six: a command pilot, pilot, engineer, navigator and two gunners mates. Like the crew in a two seat jet fighter, command pilot Melaku sat above and behind the pilot, WO François “Frenchy” Bouchard. Bouchard is a name of Norman extraction that means “brave” or “strong.” It is also a French nickname for someone with a big mouth, which described the French-Canadian Warrant Officer to a tee.
“The main railgun is online, Skipper,” Frenchy reported, “Now these salopards étrangers will find out what it means to mess with a Québécois!”
“Steady on, people,” Melaku cautioned, “wait for the word.”
To either side of the Lieutenant were weapons stations for the gunner's mates. Their job was to do targeting for the torpedoes and oversee the mostly automatic functioning of the X-ray laser counter batteries. Like the pilots, the gunners wore lightweight helmets with curved, face covering visors. The helmets' purpose was not protection but to support the visors, which provided a holographic view of the space surrounding the craft. Driven by the ship's sensors, the visor wearing crew could look outside the ship in any direction, unencumbered by walls, consoles and even their own bodies. As they did, sensor and targeting information automatically annotated the projected view.
Farther aft were the navigation and engineering stations, manned by another Warrant Officer and a Chief Petty Officer, both surrounded by their own displays. Behind the crew's action stations there was a small day room, sleeping compartments and a shared head. In all, not much space for the crew of six on a ship this size.
The crew space was cramped because most of the ship housed its muon catalyzed fusion reactor and gravitonic drive systems. Capable of sprints at 100Gs the corvette was quick and highly maneuverable, meant to cut and thrust like a knife fighter. Their job during the coming attack was to suppress fire from the alien ship while the Peggy Sue, with its much more powerful main battery, disabled the enemy's propulsion systems. The last minute launch of interceptors from the alien vessel shifted the corvette squadron's attention from the mother ship to new targets.
Much like fighter aircraft, the corvettes would attack in pairs, each consisting of a leader and a wingman. On approach they assumed finger-four formation—two staggered pairs forming a lopsided V. Deloraine's wingman was Foscari, and Intensity was lead for Karjala. The names of the corvettes were taken from previous warships from different navies: Australian, Italian, American and Finnish. It was an attempt to internationalize the war effort, as if the aliens had not done that when they blew most of the world up. Lt. Melaku did not care what the name of her ship was, she just wanted to get close enough to kill some of the alien marauders who had ravaged her home.
A sequence of tones sounded on the task force frequency, followed by the words “attack, attack, attack!” Together the corvettes surged forward at 50Gs, headed for the alien interceptor craft, which were racing toward the attackers in two triangular formations of three craft each.
“Intensity, Deloraine. We will take the formation to port at 8 o'clock.”
“Roger that, Deloraine. We'll take the starboard side.” The entire task force took their frame of reference from the Peggy Sue's orientation prior to the start of the attack.
“Foscari, I will take the lead enemy craft with railgun fire,” Beth called, shifting to a frequency used only by her and her wingman. “Follow my strike if the target remains, otherwise take the second one at 2 o'clock.” OK, let's see what it takes to kill these bastards.
“Roger that, Deloraine.”
At the relative velocity of their approach the firing pass was set up by the pilot, the target designated by the command pilot and the actual firing done by the ship's computer. The encounter passed in the blink of an eye as the railgun fired twice in quick succession. Then they were by the enemy formation and maneuvering to swing past the mother ship.
Quickly checking her instruments, Beth saw that her target was now an expanding cloud of debris. As she watched a second alien interceptor exploded.
“Ayeee!” yelled Frenchy.
“Scratch the second bogy, Deloraine,” came the exuberant signal from her wingman.
“Affirmative, Foscari. Follow me past the mother ship. We will give them a brace of torpedoes each—target the base of the cap forward.”
Each of the two corvettes fired a pair of gravitonic torpedoes armed with antimatter warheads. As the torpedoes accelerated toward their target at 1000Gs the corvettes pivoted, facing back toward the alien mother ship, and went to maximum acceleration.
“Looks like there are a couple of more bogies on this side of the mother ship,” reported Intensity, the second element leader. “We scratched one on the first pass but Peggy Sue will have to deal with the others.”
“Roger that, Intensity, we smoked two of ours. Form up on me and we will make a pass from this side. Like last time, take out the interceptors first and then fire on the mother ship's hull.”
* * * * *
“Captain, the aliens seem to have tossed a bunch of garbage material our direction,” commented the young Lieutenant JG at the navigation station.
“Looks like the corvettes blew through with no problems, so our shields should handle it,” added Lt. Medina from the engineering station.
“Mr. Vincent, take us by the target. Maximize the number of slugs we put into the engine section. Torpedoes, target the remaining alien small craft.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Billy Ray's fingers danced across the controls, informing the ship's computer of what was to happen. A number of explosions flashed by.
“Some form of mine, non-nuclear,” reported Lt. Medina. “Secondary batteries detonated them well away from the hull. Didn't even impact the shields.”
In a dizzying blur the 8,000 ton ship flew past the massive alien vessel, pirouetting to keep its nose, and its main battery, pointed at the target. In a matter of a few seconds the main rail-guns fired six times, three slightly staggered pairs of 10kg metallic slugs. The velocity imparted by the rail guns, combined with the ship's closing velocity gave each slug a kinetic energy equivalent to almost a half kiloton of TNT. Each pair would strike within a few meters of each other, the staggering creating a one-two strike in effectively the same location on the aliens shields or hull, max
imizing penetration.
A series of explosions could be seen along the tail section of the alien vessel. From within secondary explosions followed, then the last kilometer of the ship splintered and blew apart with a bright flare of light—residual antimatter detonating in the craft's engines. Carried by its own momentum, the Peggy Sue swung more than 600 km beyond the alien before matching velocity and then moving slowly back toward its target.
* * * * *
Capable of triple the acceleration of the Peggy Sue, the flight of corvettes only over shot the alien by about 125 km. In fact, they were close enough to the target vessel to require evasive maneuvers to escape the exploding wreckage from that ship's engines.
“I'm on the remaining bogies, Deloraine,” called Intensity, clearly hoping to even out the kill count between the two elements. The Peggy Sue's torpedomen had mopped up the three alien interceptors missed by the corvettes' initial pass.
“Roger, Intensity. We will strafe the mother ship's hull forward,” replied Lt. Melaku. “Do not, repeat, do not fire into the remaining aft section of the mother ship. That area is supposed to contain antimatter storage.” The last thing we want is to blow ourselves to kingdom come by detonating the alien's fuel bunkers.
“Roger, Deloraine. Understood.”
Farside Base, The Moon
Nearly eight billion kilometers from the battle being waged by Earth's space navy a meeting was being held in what passed for the central headquarters of humanity's post apocalypse government. Present were TK Parker, former Texas oil billionaire and primary backer of the project that created both the Peggy Sue and the lunar base; Dr. Rajiv Gupta, head scientist and Earth's greatest expert in gravitonics and other T'aafhal technologies; Dr. Ludmilla Tropsha, former cosmonaut, biologist, chief medical officer and ranking member of the Peggy Sue's crew on the base; and Isbjørn, the acknowledged lead polar bear, veteran of the second voyage.
