Battlecruiser Alamo: Cage of Gold

by Richard Tongue

   “No, no, no,” he said. “Manual override. Grant, try an override on the helm. There might be some residual power.”

   “Jack, what’s happening?” Orlova asked.

   “Override does not respond,” Grant said with a sigh. “Helm is not responding to control. All lights dark.”

   Reaching under the panel, Quinn pulled a pair of levers, but the status displays remained resolutely blank, the lights still dark. Somehow, it felt far colder on the bridge than it did a second ago, and Orlova tugged her jacket still tighter as she walked over to the engineering station.

   “Well, Jack?”

   “It didn’t work. Either there was an error in the upload process, or we lost control again an instant after bringing everything back on-line. I never even managed to start routing power to the engines.” He glared back at his board. “This should have worked.”

   “By now we’d be on our way out of the system,” Grant said, with a sigh. “Can we try again?”

   Glancing down at his watch, Nelyubov said, “We’ve got a date with an uncontrolled re-entry in less than five hours, and I don’t think we’re going to be permitted to miss it.”

   “It’s no good,” Quinn said. “If it’s our error, and I don’t think it is, then we don’t have anything like enough time to go through the code and fix it. If it’s still interference from the surface, then I suppose it could come back on at any time, but we’ve got no control over that from up here.”

   “I understand. Thank you, everyone. I know that you all tried your best.”

   “It just wasn’t good enough,” Grant said, shaking his head.

   “Jack, I’d like you to go down to Storage Six, and have everyone make for the Espatier barracks at once. Grant, you take Storage Two. Make sure you do a head count, I don’t want anyone to miss this.”

   Nodding, Quinn rose from his seat, stepping over to the emergency hatch, Grant following him. He looked around the bridge, shook his head, then started to climb down the ladder.

   “There might be another answer, Maggie,” Nelyubov said.

   “I can’t see one. We’ve played our last card, and it looks like our opponent has won the pot.” Resting her hand on the arm of her chair, she said, “We’ll give them a minute to get started, then head down to the barracks.”

   With a deep sigh, he said, “I know what is coming next.”

   “There isn’t any choice,” she said. “Even now we’re going to have to trust to luck.” She stood up, walked over to the helm, and rested her hand on the console. “I remember the first time I sat there. On our way back from Ragnarok, that first mission.” She paused, then said, “I’ve let her down, Frank.”

   “You didn’t do anything wrong. We were almost certainly caught as soon as we pulled into orbit, maybe as soon as we entered this cursed system. There was no warning, no indication of trouble, no sign that the planet had anything that could threaten us.”

   “I’m in command,” she replied. “That makes it my responsibility.” The only light in the room came from the engineering console, the dull red status updates from the systems upload still glaring, as though tormenting her. “And in five hours, it’s all over.”

   “There’ll be another ship to pick us up. Enough people knew where we were headed.”

   “Which means that in a few weeks, a few months, another ship will come out this way and get trapped as well. Another crew stuck in this trap. That doesn’t make me feel better.” She glanced down at her watch, and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

   The two of them climbed down the hatch, silently making their way through the familiar passages, Orlova running over what she would say a dozen times, trying to find some way of expressing her thought that didn’t sound like a defeat, or an admission of guilt. She was failing.

   All around, they could hear noises, people talking on their way to the barracks, footsteps rattling along cold corridors. They must know that something was wrong, that her plan had failed, that there was no prospect of their ship saving them from danger. She longed for Captain Marshall, Captain Cunningham, for someone else to be here, to take this burden from her, but there was no-one. She was in command, and this was her job.

   Dropping out of the hatch, she started to walk down the corridor towards the barracks, Nelyubov right behind her. A group of life support technicians were standing outside the door, talking, and snapped to attention as she passed. She nodded, trying to force a smile, and stepped into the room, more than a hundred people waiting for her next move. Quinn, at the lectern, saw her arrive and signaled for silence.

   She stepped through the crowd, puzzled, disappointed, silent faces watching her as she took the lectern, Quinn moving to stand on her right, Nelyubov on her left. As she looked across the sea of crewmen, the words just wouldn’t come. Her mind flashed back to the final seconds of her first command, the Hercules, the ship tearing itself apart all around her, the crew having to force her into the last shuttle. Not this time. She took a deep breath, glanced down at the panel for a moment, and began.

   “You are all aware of our plan to conduct a full systems wipe in an attempt to remove the alien influence on our ship, to regain control. About ten minutes ago, the process was completed, and we attempted to bring ship functions back on-line. You can see from the current condition of the vessel that we failed.” Shaking her head, she continued, “We don’t know what happened, but the end result is the same. In just under five hours, this ship will burn up in the atmosphere of Thule, and we now have no way of altering her course.”

   She looked around the room, the words somehow flowing freely now, and continued, “I know that everyone in this room did their absolute best, and I am only sorry that I cannot report that your efforts were not met with success. Nevertheless, I am proud to have served with you, with each and every one of you.” Taking another breath, she said, “The time has come for me to give the order to abandon ship.”

   A gasp filled the room. Realistically, everyone had known what the outcome of failure would be, but putting it into words felt as though she was issuing a death sentence for Alamo.

   “How do we know the escape pods will work?” one of the communications technicians at the back asked.

   “We don’t,” Quinn replied. “We know that the last shuttle did make a safe landing, and that it was essentially brought down under automatic control. Our belief is that the crash only took place because the pilot attempted to regain helm functions.”

   “Spaceman, we have no answers for you,” Orlova said. “Whatever force that has taken control of our ship doesn’t seem to have any interest in killing us. With total control, if it had wanted us dead, it could have made that happen in an instant. Nevertheless, I agree that there is a risk here, but it is a risk against a certainty. Unless something unexpected happens, this ship will be destroyed in just under five hours, and we have no means of correcting its course.”

   A murmuring filled the room, and she continued, “According to our calculations, if you launch in eight minutes from now, you’ll come down in or near the crater. As long as you get within a hundred miles of it, you can cover the rest of the way in your suits. You have equipment to survive for a month if you don’t, as long as you are careful.”

   “What about the thrusters?” a woman at the back asked. “We could try a manual fuel bypass…”

   “I already ruled that one out,” Quinn said. “Take it from me that we are at last resort territory.”

   “Upon reaching the surface, you will make contact with Captain Marshall,” Orlova said, addressing the crowd once again. “We expect that help will be on the way in reasonably short order. You aren’t going down for life. In a few months, a Triplanetary ship will be coming this way. Your mission is to survive until that happens, whatever means necessary.” She glanced at her watch, then said, “You have seven minutes, forty seconds to get to your designated escape pod. Good luck, and I’ll
see you on the other side. Dismissed.”

   The crew began to disperse, a low hum of anxious conversation filling the room, dividing up in small clumps to find their destination. A few of them would scurry to their cabins, defying regulations to retrieve some cherished possession, but everyone would be there in time.

   Grant remained, arms folded, and said, “You aren’t going, are you, ma’am?”

   Shaking her head, she replied, “Commanding officer's privilege. Even if she's only on a dog watch.”

   “Wait a minute,” Quinn said.

   “You said it yourself, up on the bridge,” Orlova said. “Something might happen down on the surface. If we get a miracle, I want to be there to take advantage of it, and I’m going to be sitting at the helm until the end.”

   “I’m not going either, then,” Quinn replied. “You’ll need me to get the systems back up. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you aren’t that good an engineer.”

   Before Grant could say anything, Nelyubov added, “I still remember just enough astrogation to plot a course out of here.”

   Looking around, Grant said, “I haven’t got any excuse. I just don’t want to run out on a battle.”

   Shaking her head, Orlova replied, “One of you needs to be on an escape pod. We don’t know what the situation is down there, and they’re going to need a senior officer to take command.”

   “You could go,” Nelyubov said. “With your hand the way it is, I’m a better pilot anyway.”

   “I’m staying,” she said. “And I suppose I can’t argue with Jack, either.”

   “Good,” Quinn replied.

   She reached into her pockets, and came out with her hands as balled fists. “One has a data crystal, one doesn’t. Winner gets to stay. Grant, you pick first.”

   “Left hand.”

   Smiling, she opened the selected hand, and said, “Nothing. Get to your escape pod, Lieutenant, and thank you. I mean that.”

   Nodding, he looked around the darkened room, and said, “I never get any of the lucky breaks, do I. Good luck, to all of you.” He walked quietly out of the room, leaving the three of them behind.

   “How about that,” Quinn said. “Maybe he might make a human being yet.”

   “Sometimes, miracles can happen. Let’s go back up to the bridge. We’re no use down here.”

   The three of them made their way up through the maintenance hatches, Orlova’s heart lighter this time, a heavy burden removed from her soul. Her crew were going to safety, and if she couldn’t save her ship, at least she could protect them. When she opened the final hatch, a dark hand reached down to help her up.

   “Joe?” she asked, and Kibaki smiled.

   “You aren’t the only one that gets to be noble today. Besides, I don’t much like the look of that planet.”

   “I gave you an order.”

   He shrugged, then said, “Feel free to throw me in the brig. If you can get the locks to work, that is.”

   She climbed up to the bridge, and looked at the rear stations, Spinelli and Weitzman in their customary posts. They turned, smiled, then returned to their work, still trying to restore ship functions, setting up their panels so that they could activate them at a second’s notice.

   As she settled into the command chair, the ship started to rock, the sound of dozens of explosions from the side of the vessel. She counted thirty-one, and smiled. All the escape pods were clear, their passengers on their way down to the surface. Leaning back in the chair, she settled down, her crew at their stations, all waiting for the end.

  Chapter 21

   A hundred flickering flames lit up the sky, smoke trickling up to the stars as the gathering army huddled for warmth, waiting for the dawn. Cooper looked out across the plateau at the force he would be leading into battle in the morning, walking from one group to another, giving words of encouragement, advice, and in a few cases sympathy as he toured the impromptu camp, Corporal Vaughan in tow.

   Over in one corner, Lance-Corporal Goodman was conducting a quick class in marksmanship, teaching a dozen of the Neander how to use their surplus service revolvers, lecturing them on the effects of recoil. From the Stone Age to the Industrial Age in one swift leap, but they were going to need all the advantages they could get when they launched their attack.

   He’d only dared a couple of brief scouting missions, Corporal Max taking two of his compatriots part-way down the pass to probe the enemy defenses. They’d be charging into four machine gun nests, and around a hundred and fifty prepared riflemen. If the plasma carbines had been working, this wouldn’t have been a fair contest. Half a dozen well placed shots would have brought the battle to a hasty conclusion.

   Over to his right, he glanced at Corporal Hunt, dismantling his weapon for the tenth time, trying and failing to find anything wrong with it. By all appearances, it should work, all systems functioning, the power pack well charged, but they just refused to fire, the safeties locked resolutely in place, and nothing any of them had tried worked. Everyone else had given up hours ago, Hunt still hoping against hope that he could conjure a miracle and change the tactical picture.

   They’d covered a lot of things during his basic training, how to fight in a wide variety of artificial environments with a wide selection of weapons. Old-fashioned bullets were nothing new to him, the low-velocity pistols they’d trained with replaced with some better suited for the new warfare, combat on planetary surfaces, that they had found themselves in. Heavier load, greater muzzle velocity, but they still felt essentially the same. Just a lot louder than he was used to.

   He held his pistol in his hand, feeling the weight. As advanced a weapon as the plasma carbine, in its own way, though designed to be as simple and rugged as possible, to last during prolonged campaigns with minimal maintenance. Something you could forget about for a month, pull out of your pocket and trust to work. Unsurprising that it had originally been designed for starship crewmen.

   “Credit for your thoughts, sir,” Vaughan asked. “Though I might be able to guess them.”

   “We’re going to be fighting a battle out of the Dark Ages, Corporal. Older. Most of this force are equipped with stone axes, knives, and our enemy has machine guns.”

   “Dead is dead, whether it is with a plasma weapon or a rock.”

   “True enough.” He looked up at the sky, looking for Alamo. “I just wish we had some better idea about what was happening up there. Or what the Captain is doing, down on the plain.”

   “Captain Marshall can take care of himself, sir.”

   Shaking his head, he replied, “Corporal, in a little over an hour, I’m going to be gambling the future of thousands of people on a pitched battle against desperate odds. Do you find it strange that I would like to have some sort of back-up?”

   “No, sir, but how different is this from any other battle we’ve ever fought?” He gestured around the camp, and said, “Little groups of people, sitting around and talking about any rubbish that comes into to their heads, trying to put out of their mind the fear that they might be dead by morning. The stakes for them are always the same. Life or death. That’s the way it is for any soldier, I think.”

   With a smile, Cooper said, “You should have taken up philosophy, Corporal.”

   “The philosophy of the gun, sir. We win or we die, and perhaps we die anyway. That’s not something to dwell about.” Peering down at the defense lines below, he added, “Though I wonder what is running through their little tin heads down there.”

   “A lot of ones and zeros, I suspect.” The two of them forced a laugh, and he continued, “Cost-benefit analysis. If we’re lucky, if we do enough damage, then they might cut and run if the odds get too high. They won’t necessarily stay until the end.”

   “Usually the decision when to break and run is at least taken by the soldier on the field. Are they taking that away from us as well, now?” Shaking his head, Vaughan said, “T
he perfect warrior, one who obeys orders, never asks questions, never gets tired, never gets sick. How long before someone decides to replace us with robots?”

   “Tomorrow, I hope,” Cooper said. “Preferably before dawn, if someone can get me a nice big consignment of combat robots. If that day does come when they decide that machines can do the dirty work for us, I won’t weep.” He gestured over to one of the fires, and said, “You’d better try and get a bit of rest. It’s going to be a hard day.”

   Nodding, the Corporal walked over to the fire, holding his hands close to keep himself warm, one of the Neander passing him a hot drink. Cooper walked over to the perimeter of the camp, off by himself, looking up at the stars blazing down from the skies, old, familiar friends in this alien world.

   He started to walk the perimeter, nodding at the posted guard as he strolled past. Over in the distance, he could see another figure, further away than he, standing well away from the rest of the camp. Cautiously quickening his pace, he relaxed when he saw Max glancing out at the plateau, at the far wall that separated the ghost of life from its extinction.

   “I’m not one of them,” he said, looking out at the camp. “I’m not one of you, either.”

   “No, you’re a Corporal in the United States Army,” Cooper replied. “It’s a strange universe, isn’t it.”

   “My ancestors roamed these plains freely, before your people arrived. This was our world.” He shook his head, and said, “A fool’s paradise. You can’t halt progress. That’s why I signed up with your Underground, rather than our Army of Liberation. The one you trusted Salazar and his friends to.”

   “Same music, different singers.”

   “Hardly. One would attempt equality, the other would simply change who is on top. And while we bicker and squabble, the crops die and our air runs out.” He paused, then said, “A lot of these people are going to die tomorrow.”

   “That’s usual in war.”

   “I’ve never fought a battle, not like this. I don’t think there has been one in the history of this planet. Little disputes, a few dozen people fighting it out, but nothing on this scale, two armies smashing into each other. I’ve read histories from Earth, from your Earth, of millions of men clashing in fields like this. I wonder what that was like?”