“Enough time to get the laser back on-line,” Erickson said.
Orlova frowned as she watched the sensor display, watching the missiles range towards each other, an act of silent inevitability. It didn't make any sense. The last shot was bound to be intercepted, and they'd delayed long enough to give Alamo plenty of time to reload. As a rule, the Xandari were a lot smarter than that.
The realization hit her a second too late, as the missiles exploded in a silent wave of death, a new cloud of debris filling the crowded battlespace. She cursed under her breath as she stepped over to Cantrell, looking down at the tactical systems monitor.
“How long for another salvo?”
“Forty-five seconds,” she replied. “We're running the fabricators pretty hard.”
“Too late,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Energy spike!” Spinelli said.
Nodding, Orlova said, “Shuttles, launching towards Ausori.”
“There's nothing we can do,” Nelyubov replied, shaking his head, looking up at the status panel. “They'll be out of range in seconds.”
“Contact Harper,” she said. “Let's see if Daedalus can get back into the dance.”
Chapter 22
Harper looked silently at the sensor display, watching as the situation worsened with each second. The curse of it was that they were winning, overall. Their ships were outmatching those of the enemy, and the few reports she was getting from Cooper on the Neander transport suggested that they were turning the tide over there, as well.
None of that would matter if those shuttles made it in. Daedalus and the rest of the squadron looked pitifully small in comparison to the incoming vehicles, the enemy battlecruiser now descending back down upon them, ready to unleash the full force of its missile loads. She glanced across at Salazar, busily working the helm, then across at the frustrated Scott, her job for the battle concluded with the expenditure of their ordnance during the first strike on the enemy vessel.
“Options, people,” she said. “We can't let those shuttles get on board Ausori.” Turning to Scott, she asked, “How many troops on board?”
“Anywhere between eighty and a hundred and forty,” she replied. “Presumably trained and experienced combat veterans, and equipped better than anything they are liable to face when they land.”
Nodding, Salazar said, “They'll hook up with the Proctors, and between them overwhelm the loyalist forces under Kelot. Then either massacre the civilians or return them to slavery. Even if we win the rest of the battle, we've lost the war if we lose control of that ship.”
“Signal from Skeuros, ma'am,” Ingram reported. “He wants to know our intentions.”
“So do I,” Harper muttered, looking at the scrambled images on the monitor. None of the options were good. They could knock down the shuttles, but that would leave them vulnerable to an attack from the very ship they were meant to be defending, and certainly Daedalus would not survive a full-scale assault. The battlecruiser closing on them complicated matters still further, and though Alamo had delayed them, they'd still be facing them alone for a devastating sixty seconds.
“We've got to change the picture,” she said, shaking her head. “We've got eight launch tubes between us. If we can add six more into the fight, then we've got a chance of bringing the bastard down. Smash the shuttles to pieces before they can launch.”
“I know what you are thinking, ma'am, but if Cooper and his forces could have taken control of the missiles by now, they would have.”
“No,” she replied. “They might not be able to grab them, but we can.”
Her eyes widening, Scott replied, “We'd never get a shuttle across in the time.”
“Pavel, take us in as close as you dare to the missile tubes. Ingram, contact Skeuros and the rest of the Neander squadron, and have them cover our backs. Then get Rhodes and the rest of the Espatier force to Airlock One, suited and ready for battle. Assure them that I have no objection if they bring their plasma rifles along, on the condition that they bring an extra one for me.”
Turning from the helm, Salazar said, “As the commanding officer...”
“I'm the best hacker we've got, and they're using stolen United Nations hardware. If it was just a question of destroying those missiles, I'd leave it to you, but I'm the only one who might be able to suborn them in the time. Besides,” she added with a smile, “the last time I checked, I was in command, and what I say goes.” She rose from her chair, taking cautious steps back towards the door in the variable gravity, while Salazar struggled to bring them in towards the Neander vessel. A warning light flashed on, another half-salvo reaching up towards them, but Skeuros easily managed to knock them down in time.
“They're not going to be able to keep that up for much longer,” Salazar warned.
“Then we'll have to get this over with quickly. As soon as we make the jump, take the ship to a safe distance and prepare to engage the enemy. Leave the shuttles to us. Your job is to keep the enemy battlecruiser busy for long enough for Alamo to close and finish them off.” She paused at the door, glancing around the bridge, and added, “You have the deck, Pavel.”
“Aye, ma'am,” he replied. “I have the deck.”
She jogged down the corridor towards the airlock, Rhodes, Higgins and Medodkis waiting for her at the far end, already half-into their suits. With a curt nod, they stepped into the airlock while she hurriedly donned her suit, strapping the plasma rifle to her back and running up the charge cycle as her helmet computer booted up, running through an abbreviated version of the initialization checklist.
“Closest approach!” Salazar yelled, his voice echoing along the corridor, and the first group stepped out, the airlock cycling in record time to allow the second group to follow, only a handful of heartbeats later. Scott had taken control of the suit navigation from the bridge, guiding the group across the void between the two ships with liberal use of the on-board thrusters, a series of quick blasts sending them curving towards their target.
She looked around, gasping as a brief collision alert flashed onto her screen, another missile launched from their target, the counter-missile sweeping past her close enough to see before the two of them collided. Patches of debris registered on her computer, amber alerts constantly flashing faster than she could dismiss them, the suit protesting at the insanity of their current course of action.
Matters quickly worsened as they continued their approach. Despite their fuel tanks emptying with alarming rapidity, none of them were able to properly match speed with the lumbering Ausori ahead of them. One mistake would send her tumbling back out into space, unable to correct her course, gambling that she would be picked up by her own side before the enemy. Assuming her side won the battle.
She could see the airlock, and reached out her hands to snatch at it, the rest of the boarding party doing likewise. Glancing at her sensor display, she smiled in satisfaction as she watched Daedalus nimbly dance around, swinging into position to intercept the incoming warship. At least she knew that she'd left her ship in good hands.
The vessel rushed towards her, clouds of thruster fuel preceding her as the computer struggled to slow her to a safe level, but before she was quite ready, she slammed into the hull, just under her target, the airlock an inch out of reach. Desperately, she snatched at an antenna complex as she rebounded back, the last of her thruster fuel spent as she hung next to the freighter, taking a deep breath.
Two suits were heading back out, their occupants unable to stop in time, thrown back out into the void. Only one other had made it, swinging carefully towards her, and she saw the irrepressible smile of Rhodes gleaming at her through the faceplate as he pointed down towards the airlock.
“Three minutes, ten seconds,” he said, gesturing out towards the approaching shuttles.
“Right,” she said. “Let's move.”
Carefu
lly but quickly making their way down the side of the ship, plasma rifles in hand, the two of them swung down to the sealed airlock, the control failing to respond at the first push. Rhodes lowered his gun into position, but Harper shook her head, pulling out a control rod and jamming it in, gambling that it would work, that the limited exposure she'd had with Neander software would have paid off.
The outer hatch slid open, and the two of them dropped in, but the inner hatch stayed resolutely closed. This time, she motioned for Rhodes to position his weapon, reducing the power as low as possible to minimize the risk. She jabbed her hand on the override control, maintaining the vacuum. If there was anyone waiting outside for them, they were about to have a very bad day.
A slender trickle of green flame soared from the barrel of the plasma rifle, splashing against the door, the pressure differential rupturing it with a loud report. Something had been standing on the far side of the airlock, but aside from a few tattered fragments of bone, there was nothing left of them as they walked into the ship.
Quickly tugging free their helmets, they raced down the corridor, heading for the missile control room beyond. The internal layout of the ship was still hazy to them, but there was no mistaking the location of the weapons facility, and it could only be a few meters away. The pair of guards standing outside provided additional proof that they were in the right place, and they dived for cover as they saw the two heavily armed troopers racing towards them, firing a pair of shots that crashed worthlessly into their suits.
Rhodes fired a second pulse of energy before Harper could stop him, the ball diving down the corridor, splashing on the wall at the far end, exposing a storage room beyond. Sprinklers began to drip from the ceiling, responding to the registration of the sudden increase in heat, and in the confusion, the two guards raced away, fleeing down a corridor.
Placing the rifle back on her back, Harper pulled out a pistol and walked towards the door, counting down the seconds. She looked at Rhodes, now similarly armed, standing behind her, and ducked into the missile control room, firing at anyone standing around, each of them taking down a technician with well-aimed gunfire.
The response was immediate, the rattle of a machine-gun sending bullets slamming into the hull all around them, Rhodes catching half a dozen shots in the side, grimacing with pain from the deep dents in his armor. Leveling her weapon, Harper fired twice, two precise shots that caught both the gunners in the forehead, sending them sprawling over their weapon. Rhodes looked at her gun, then at the bodies, shaking his head.
“Lieutenant, I won the last ship's competition for marksmanship, but I'm an amateur compared to you.”
With a smile, she tipped the pistol back, exposing a customized grip, and said, “I cheated. Experimental model, on-board guidance system that tracks the bullets in.”
“I want one.”
“No, you don't,” she said. “Any hacker worth a damn can send them anywhere they want. Fortunately, they don't have many over here. Keep an eye on the door, and watch your shots. Remember there are friendlies running around outside.”
“I'm on it,” Rhodes replied, stepping back out into the corridor. Harper turned back to the controls, racing towards the main panel, scanning it for any sign of damage or disruption. Everything seemed intact, the targeting computers focused on Daedalus, the combat fabricator over on the side functional. The actual launch controls would be elsewhere, buried deep in the bowels of the ship, but with a little creative work she should be able to re-target the missiles from here.
Placing her datapad on top of the panel, she quickly spliced a pair of cables into what she hoped was a maintenance panel, nodding as the start-up sequence flashed onto the screen. As she had hoped, this was Xandari technology, not Collective, and that meant that it had been stolen from elsewhere. In this case, the United Nations, though the controls and readouts were all in an unfamiliar language.
The scanners showed the shuttles racing in, closing for their final approach, burning for a host of airlocks selected for the greatest strategic advantage. Someone was about to be sorely disappointed when their allies failed to arrive on time. Or at all.
A hail of gunfire resounded from the corridor, Rhodes swearing as another bullet bounced off his battered armor. He looked longingly at his plasma rifle, but at a glare from Harper stayed with his conventional pistol. There was too much important equipment in this room for them to take a risk of damaging it.
On the monitor, a row of numbers danced across the screen, and Harper tried to shut out the distractions of the battle around her, focusing tightly on the task at hand, her hands finding their positions on the panel as her hacking datapad, a distillation of all she knew, launched wave after wave of aggressive programs into the system, hunting down anything that it recognized and disrupting it, changing it, bringing it under her control.
Given time, this would have been easy. No one on board had her skills, or had the training to match her in an electronic duel, but time was her most precious commodity, and with the shuttles closing towards their target, the one she could not afford to waste.
She tapped her fingers impatiently on the console, watching as the monitor lights flicked on, periodically making manual overrides to the programming, until finally all of the lights flashed green, and the text flashed into English, the control surfaces gliding smoothly into position. A scream echoed around the corridor outside, followed by a series of loud reports as bullets crashed into the room, but none of that mattered.
Harper had never had any formal tactical training, but the task at hand wasn't difficult. All she had to do was line up six missiles on six incoming targets, the computer doing all of the hard work for her. A light tap, and a loud roar reverberated around the room as her missiles launched, almost deafening her for a moment. The new tracks appeared on the screen, swinging into position towards the shuttles.
The six pilots had only a handful of seconds to act, and there was nothing they could do to stop them. Perhaps with a little more time, they might have come up with a way out, some last-second miracle, but Harper had no intention of granting them such a chance. One by one, the lights flashed from the display, the shuttles destroyed along with the troops they carried.
She sat back in the chair, sighing with relief as the missiles automatically reloaded, before leaning forward to find another target. Rhodes turned to her, his face covered in grime and smoke, shaking his head.
“Can we get out of here now?”
“Not on your life,” she replied. “We've got a fully-operational missile emplacement at our disposal, and I intend to make good use of it.” Tossing him her communicator, she added, “See if you can contact Cooper and get us some reinforcements.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he said, doubtfully.
“Relax, Corporal. This will all be over in a few minutes.”
“I was just hoping to live long enough to make the victory party,” he replied, turning back to the corridor. Harper ran her hands across the controls, engrossed in her work, her sensors seeking out another target. Up ahead, any second now, Daedalus would be in battle with the enemy capital ship, and if there was anything she could do to help them, she would, no matter what the cost. The renewed rattling of gunfire from outside suggested just what that cost might be.
Chapter 23
Salazar managed to restrain himself from glancing back at the empty command chair, inwardly cursing Harper for leaving him behind. He'd temporarily inherited command of an unarmed ship, on course to intercept one of the most heavily armed warships in space, with a group of warships following that were at least temporarily allies, but which may or may not do as he asked, and certainly weren't in even a semblance of battle formation.
Rank aside, he'd never sought command, and the concept of commanding his own ship was still an alien one. Nelyubov had quietly sounded him out after Harper had been given command of Daedalus, and he had passed on the honest truth
, that he was pleased she was getting the opportunity, and that he wasn't a little jealous. The concept that he might end up commanding a ship of his own had dawned on him in recent months, but it was always in the context of something he might do a decade from now, not something he would have to worry about for a long time.
Nevertheless, all eyes on the bridge were upon him, calling on him to find some way through the current crisis. He looked up at the sensor display, hoping for a flash of inspiration, but all the readings provided was increased cause for despair. Alamo was a critical seventy seconds behind the enemy ship, just too distant to provide any help during the thirty seconds they would be in weapons range.
“One minute, thirty seconds to contact,” Arkhipov reported, and Salazar trimmed his heading, trying to gain time. He glanced across at the Neander vessel, now with a sting in its tail for as long as Harper could keep control of the weapons systems, and a smile spread across his head as he changed course, swinging her back around towards Ausori.
“Contact Skeuros,” he said, glancing back towards the communications station. “Tell him that I want him to continue on his formation, but to increase speed and make it look as though he is making for the far hendecaspace point. Tell him that he must get at least one salvo, preferably two, away.”
Nodding, the technician got to work, and a few seconds later reported, “The squadron is proceeding as you request, sir, but I'm informed that they only have seven missiles left.”
“Against that beast?” Scott asked.
“They assure me that all of them will be dispatched, sir.”
“Fine. Scott, get the command codes from the Neander. I want them to think that we're holding the missiles back for point-defense, while setting up for a time-on-target strike on their aft session. We've got to slow the bastards down to give Alamo a chance to finish it off.” Belatedly, he fished a communicator out of his pocket, dropping it on the helm and flicking open the channel. “Kris, you read me?”
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