Jaxlen rubbed an eyebrow in thought. “Align the three of us to take the human vessel with broadside volleys of projectiles. Just before firing, hit its sensor points with directed energy bolts.”
“As you command, Lord.”
Calxen was uneasy. He called his ship up again. “Any change with the Trellixan, Fryax?”
The Xu answered from his ship. “They are adjusting course minimally. Could be a correction, but it’s closing the distance toward your ship.” Jaxlen’s destroyer was last in the phalanx of three. Fryax added, “They’re well within weapons range now…powering up!”
Calxen half-stood, wishing he was aboard his own vessel and cursing his agreeing to come aboard the command ship for the attack. “Get out of there, Fryax!” He reached out an shook Jaxlen toward him. “Fire on the Trellixan! Do it now!”
“What?” Jaxlen’s face registered confusion. “What do you see…”
“Lord! The Trellixan has fired its plasma cannon—.”
The lights went dim and the artificial gravity shuddered as Jaxlen’s ship took a heavy hit.
“Return fire!”
Aboard Valor’s Shuttle
Travers had never flown a shuttle in close to a larger warship so Kendra took the controls as they glided in underneath the back end of the Prax vessel. As she accelerated to keep up with her target, Kendra admired the ship. It was smooth-surfaced and the builders had minimized the protrusions for weapons, sensor arrays and docking points. The coating was jet-black, and the engine housings were recessed tightly against the rear edge of the flat hull. It was definitely alien in design, but gorgeous—the fleet could learn something from how the Prax are advancing in their own designs, Kendra noted with professional admiration.
“They’re going somewhere, engines are engaging,” Travers noted from beside her.
“At least they’re not going to blast us out of space.” They’d both been startled by the transmission from the human named Antonov who talked with that odd language and accent. She’d suspected that this is where the renegade humans had ended up, but frankly had expected a Prax to be hailing her from the warship. Not like the Prax to allow humans access to sensitive systems.
She saw the cargo bay door was hanging open. It was going to be a tighter fit than she would’ve hoped for.
Travers saw it too. “Are we going to fit in there?”
Kendra shrugged. “It’s meant for supplies, not shuttles. Well, maybe little ones.” She cut the main engine and concentrated on the thrusters, changing the shuttle’s attitude multiple times to align it with the opening. With a hundred meters left she slowed them to a crawl and focused on the opening, seeing nothing else but the well-lit rectangle. The Prax ship was moving too, and her computer had to compensate for the changing relative positions. Adjust, adjust.
Adjust.
Travers leaned out to see the top edge of the shuttle graze the hatch lining. Another twenty meters and Kendra lowered it onto the decking, nudging some unstowed metal containers aside with the prow of the shuttle. Hope there isn’t anything combustible in those, she thought as one container tipped over as it caught on the grating and rolled against the bulkhead. The shuttle came to rest and made a sighing sound as the thrusters turned off and bled excess pressure.
“You can close the cargo hatch, I think,” Kendra said into the mic.
Travers tapped the control to show the rear camera display; all they could see, however, was the space they’d just traveled through. “Tight fit,” he added dryly.
“Um, hi,” said a new voice. “This is Seaman Baker. They asked me to keep an eye on you. I guess you docked?”
Kendra looked at Travers. “No, we didn’t dock. We landed the shuttle in your cargo bay as instructed. Who is this?”
“Seaman Baker, Ma’am.”
“What’s a ‘ma’am?’ Travers wondered aloud, unstrapping himself.
Kendra frowned. “Baker, what do you mean you’re monitoring—aren’t there any Prax crew there to do that?”
“It’s a long story, ma’am. I think the skipper should fill you in on that. Oh, wait…” They heard Baker talking to someone else in the background. “Here’s Petty Officer Wilson, ma’am.”
A new, more authoritative voice came on the line. “Shuttle pilot, are you landed?”
Kendra smirked at the odd language. “Yes, we are landed. Now, is anyone going to normalize the atmosphere in the bay so we can get out?”
“Yep, sure. Working on that now. You’re…you’re from the human fleet, right?”
Travers leaned over and whispered. “What are these humans?”
“Yes, Wilson, we’re Fleet officers.”
“Oh, good.” There was a pause as she thought she heard the sounds of an argument in the background. Then, “So, would you happen to know what control to use to do that normalization thing?”
Kendra sat back heavily in the pilot seat. “By the stars, what sort of ship have we landed on?”
Chapter 53
“Sir, we took a bad hit aft somewhere with that last salvo.”
Halloran was strapped into his seat, trying furiously to comprehend the action unfolding on the display in front of him. “Find out where, Reyes.”
The ship shuddered again.
“Projectiles away, Captain,” announced Axxa from where he’d wedged himself in between Carruthers and Djembe.
“So that wasn’t a hit.”
“No, Captain. But the other Prax ship is heavily damaged. This vessel is quite powerful for its size.”
Wilson came onto the bridge, panting. “That last hit took out the loading bay, along with the shuttle that had landed in there.”
Halloran turned in his seat. “Casualties?”
Wilson shook his head. “No sir; Trigg had gone out and brought everyone inside beforehand.”
Halloran exhaled. “Where are our guests now?”
“I don’t know, sir. Should I go look?”
“No, head back down and tell Wyatt to keep the engine running—if he knows how, that is.”
Axxa looked back. “Your Trigg Wyatt is very intelligent engineer, Tomalloran.”
Antonov’s voice came over the speaker. “Bridge, Antonov. Captain, we took a hit amidships. I think it’s a hull breach. Can you see anything from your end?”
Halloran looked expectantly at Axxa, but the Prax was pointing something out to Djembe. “Axxa, we’ve got hull damage somewhere.”
Djembe’s hands flew over his console. “Rotating to avoid the next salvo. This ship is amazing!”
Halloran watched the view on the front screen change dramatically as they dove away from an oncoming swarm of projectiles similar to the ones he’d seen during the battle over Earth. The ship twisted and turned under the obviously-skilled hands of the pilot. His tactical display also changed and he noticed a new target appear within the spherical holo. He waved to get Axxa’s attention. “Is this the Valor?” He asked loudly, pointing at his display, his finger hovering over the new blip.
Axxa looked totally distracted but stopped what he was doing to pull up an identical holo display at Carruthers’ station and study it briefly. “Yes, human ship,” was his response before shutting the display down and reaching across Carruthers to adjust some controls. “No!” he yelled at Carruthers, who threw her hands up in frustration. “Not that! This…” He grabbed her hand and placed it on a control.
Halloran’s mind was reeling from all the difficulties in understanding the situation with the ship and battle. But he was glad that the Valor had finally stepped in.
“Firing another salvo of projectiles,” announced Carruthers with clear pride in her voice. “I did that.”
Halloran glanced up from his frowned study of the tactical display. “Outstanding, Petty Officer.”
Djembe called out. “Second Prax destroyer took a direct hit from that at point-blank range, Carruthers! Good shooting! Taking evasive action avoid the expanding debris from their explosion…you really hit something important
with that round.”
Carruthers let out a whoop.
Heres undid his straps and moved forward to stand behind Renno, hanging onto the back of her seat. “What’s that lunatic doing?”
Renno’s voice was laced with admiration. “He couldn’t have gotten any closer to them unless he tried docking.”
Grisa called from his station. “Two small vessels destroyed in the first exchange of projectiles. Wow, what a shambles.”
“Fire on the lead destroyer with everything we’ve got,” ordered Heres.
“Firing. Brace for incoming!”
Everyone hunched automatically as the ship was struck by Prax projectiles. Thankfully, the bridge remained intact.
“Damage report.”
“All compartments checking in, sir.”
“Damage to upper hull, sealed already. Lead ship is turning to bring weapons to bear on the new Prax ship, sir!
“Good, good. She’s showing us her rear end—fire another volley right up it!”
The Valor shuddered as the cannon fired it’s salvo of twenty medium-range projectiles at incredibly high velocity. Heres knew that the slightly smaller Prax destroyers would have been more that a match for his ship, had they been able to gang up on him. But with Halloran punching holes in them from close range, they were able to start chewing them up instead.
“Lead ship is coming apart, sir.”
“Nice work, Renno.”
“Sir,” called a tech from the rear of the bridge. “Agra reports heavy damage from the Prax weapons. Lucky long shots.”
Heres moved back to his seat and reached for a strap. “I think that’s all they’ll get off against the colony. Message them back that we are closing on the enemy and intend to finish them off.”
“Sir,” Grisa said in an odd voice. “You better come see this transmission.”
“From the colony?” Heres snapped, trying to pull up his tactical display.
“No sir, from Mars Command. Just received.”
“We’re in the middle of a close-quarters battle, Grisa!”
The junior officer said, “sending to your station now, sir.”
Heres smacked the control on his seat arm to pull up the transmission.
“Oh…”
Trigg Wyatt was from Chicago. His parents were both corporate executives in real estate, and there had been some pressure for him to join their firm as soon as he graduated from high school. Instead, he’d gone straight into the Navy and become fascinated with submarines. Now, at twenty-four, he was a seasoned “nuke” or Nuclear Section-trained Petty Officer. There wasn’t a piece of metal, tubing or electrical housed within the top-secret reactor compartment he didn’t know the function of. He’d been heir-apparent to Master Chief Drew aboard the Bonhomme Richard.
Now Drew was dead and Wyatt found himself in an engineering environment that meant nothing to him. That alien guy had come through and moved from one piece of machinery to the next, pointing out control modules and attempting to explain the relative functions of the equipment. Both Wyatt and Lieutenant Hummel had tried to keep up with the huge red alien as he jabbered terms that the translation devices couldn’t process. Machinists Mate Nunez from the A-Gang was there, too, and he seemed to be following some of it. Freakin’ auxiliary guys, thought Wyatt. Figures they would understand this maze.
Now the alien was gone as well as Nunez—off to man life support, he’d said—and Wyatt, Hummel, Bruce Brown and Seaman Jack Stacey each had manned a station to watch and wait.
PO Wilson rushed in the entry just as the ship shuddered and groaned from a hit, very close. “Guys, are you figuring this out?” Wilson’s voice, normally quite deep, was squeaky. He was coated with sweat from running.
A series of red indicators were flashing on a wall-mounted panel. Wyatt went over, staggering as the ship performed a nausea-inducing movement. “What is that, some kind of artificial gravity going out?”
Brown beat him to the display, grabbed a protrusion to hang on as he focused on it. “Wyatt, it looks like a fire indicator, doesn’t it?”
“I guess…sure. So this other amber lit button could be fire suppressant?”
“Try it.”
One thing all submariners knew about were fire drills—they lived by them, virtually daily while on patrol. Wyatt pushed the thick button into the panel, holding a few beats for good measure.
The red light flickered and went out.
“You did something with that. Hit the rest,” Brown said.
Stacey called from his station. “Hey! I’ve got several red indicators on my panel now!”
Wyatt ran over, grabbing the edge of the console as spun to its front to look. Several ominous-looking digital bar graphs were dropping towards nothing. Wyatt seemed to recall the alien saying this was life support control. His eyes looked for the control the guy had pointed to, finding it. “Hit that lever. I think the alien said it was a life-support reset—sounds important!”
“We could be turning off life support for all we know,” Stacey noted dryly as he yanked on the lever.
The ship lurched again.
“I didn’t do it!” hollered Brown to the engineering space at large. “Wyatt told me to!”
Wilson had gone, but in his place was a new guy in a gray uniform, human, leaning on the entrance hatch for support as he looked around. His astonished eyes landed on Wyatt. “Who are you? Where’s the ship’s engineering crew?”
Wyatt steadied himself against a workstation. “You’re looking at it, brother. You know how to run a space ship?”
Suddenly a tall, pretty good-looking woman in a similar gray uniform pushed her way into the space past the shorter guy. She seemed able to stand on the tilting deck easily as she scanned the room, taking no notice of Wyatt. She rushed past him on her way somewhere.
Wyatt, not above trying his charms on the ladies, smiled at her. “Well, hi there…”
She ignored him as she attached herself to the station he’d been at. After looking it over she called the other gray-outfitted guy over, pointing. “This is the main relay control. That means that…is the stabilizer coils control. Get us back on normal attitude!”
As the shorter guy rushed in the direction she had pointed, she looked at Wyatt, who along with Brown and Hummel were staring unabashedly at her. “Who’s in charge here?”
Wilson charged back into Engineering. “The cargo bay door is missing! I think we lost that shuttle…um.”
“I said—who’s in charge!”
Everyone pointed at Hummel.
The woman stared in open disdain at Hummel. “Are you in charge of this disaster? Where are all the Prax crew?” She actually looked enraged.
Hummel visibly wilted under her inquisition. “Um, no ma’am, I mean yes ma’am…”
She frowned. “Don’t tell me…” She turned her attention back to the board in front of her. “Good work, Travers. Now if I could just read Prax lettering.”
Hummel joined the other Navy guys where they were staring. “Who is she?” He whispered.
Wyatt shook his head, his blond locks floating in the intermittent gravity. “No idea, but I think I’m in love.”
The Trellixan took another heavy hit. Halloran felt the loss of gravity that passed momentarily. “Chief…”
Reyes was strapped in at a command station behind Halloran, puzzling over displays. “Yes, sir. Can’t tell you what is happening. Sorry sir…” Under his breath he added, “if we get out of this alive I’m going to learn every inch of this ship, or else…”
Carruthers was arguing with Axxa. “But you haven’t tried this panel yet!”
Axxa was clearly flustered in his effort to follow the actions of Carruthers and Djembe as they alternatively handled and mishandled the ship’s controls. “That is a defensive weapons system I don’t comprehend yet. Activating it is not recommended.”
Halloran saw that the Valor had engaged the lead destroyer and done damage to it; the Prax was shedding hull sections and seemed t
o have lost directional control. His own ship was wedged in between the remaining two Prax destroyers, all three traveling along roughly the same vector and remaining close. Very close. Trading projectile salvos. It seemed as if their shields were doing yeoman’s duty keeping them form being shredded… The rearmost Prax ship was a wreck, encircled by debris blown off by Trellixan’s cannon. The third Prax ship was using thrusters to turn itself, Halloran noticed. Perhaps their weapons were damaged on the one side?
“Djembe,” he called. “Can you see that ship rotating?”
“No.”
“Okay, hmm, can you drop us vertically?”
“You mean decelerate?” Djembe was looking over his shoulder.
“The other ship is going to fire at us, but I think they’re partially blind or damaged. Can we go down—dive—quickly on my command?”
“Dive?”
“Never mind. Take us down, now!”
Djembe shook his head.
Axxa reached over and pointed at something. “Attitude thrusters. The upper set!”
Djembe leaned into the indicated control set.
For several long moments, nothing happened. Then Axxa peered over at Carruthers’ holo tactical. “Captain, the Prax ship has fired a salvo directly over us and into the rearmost Prax ship.”
Halloran ordered, “Roll us and fire at that bastard.”
Djembe understood. Carruthers looked at Axxa and watched him tap the correct control.
“Firing plasma cannon—full broadside.”
Halloran was alarmed. “I thought you said those weren’t for this close a fight?”
Axxa looked back and tried to shrug. It came off more like he had a neck pain. “Why not, yes?”
Halloran couldn’t suppress a chuckle.
“Heavy damage on the center Prax ship, sir,” called Reyes from behind him. “I’m figuring out the sensors over here.”
“Good for you, Chief.”
“Show me, sir?” Carruthers was leaning out from her station to call to Reyes.
“Yep, once we survive this.” He saw Halloran. “Sorry, sir.”
Halloran shrugged in a way that only Reyes could see.
War Without Honor (Halloran's War Series Book 1) Page 35
