by Ryk Brown
Captain Yahi watched as the two forward missile batteries launched four missiles each, sending them streaming off toward the incoming Jung ships. Eight more missiles streaked overhead from the aft batteries in pursuit of the first eight missiles.
“Our rail guns should impact the enemy ships in five seconds,” Lieutenant Calloway reported.
“First wave of fighters is away,” Lieutenant Fudala reported.
“Combat, Captain,” Captain Yahi called over his comm-set. “Target their forward weapons. Let’s reduce the amount of damage they can do to us on approach!”
“Aye, Captain,” Commander Denker answered over the comms.
“Quads one through six are continuing to fire on each of the Jung cruisers,” Lieutenant Calloway reported. “Quads seven and eight are targeting the forward rail gun emplacements on the two center contacts.”
“Helm, adjust course to pass between the two center contacts,” Captain Yahi ordered.
“Aye, sir.”
“Combat, set all mini-guns to fire on targets three and four as we pass between them,” the captain ordered. “Time to first pass?” he asked the helmsman.
“Thirty seconds,” Ensign Stewart answered quickly.
“First pass in thirty seconds,” the captain finished as the ship continued to shake from the impact of enemy rail gun fire.
* * *
Miri pulled the family car onto their street in the Vancouver suburbs, her two young children continuing to argue in the back seat over which of them was a better swimmer. Normally, she would have found their incessant arguing an annoyance. Today it served as a distraction. She was worried about her mother’s refusal to put Nathan’s death behind her and move on. As the wife of the newly-elected President of the North American Union, she was going to be a very busy and very public figure. She needed to be at her best and not in a constant state of managed grief.
Miri’s train of thought was suddenly disrupted when a large, black vehicle sped around her on her left, pulled in front of her car, and stopped, blocking the road. Miri slammed on her brakes, a small scream escaping her lips. Once the car stopped, she instinctively turned around to check on her children. Although surprised, neither seemed the worse for the sudden stop. She turned back around, about to mumble some derogatory remarks directed toward the driver of the black vehicle, when she realized that two men in black combat gear were climbing out of the vehicle that had cut her off. Her eyes widened with fear. “Kids!” she called out. Another man suddenly appeared at her door, pulling it open without warning. Miri gasped in surprise as two more men opened the back doors on either side, reaching for her children. “What are you doing?” she screamed.
“Mrs. Thornton,” the man said, holding out his hand. “NAU security. If you and your children will please come with us, ma’am.”
“What’s going on?” Miri demanded, noticing the ID badge hanging from the man’s collar. He looked and acted like most of the security agents she had seen protecting both her parents, but she had never seen them act so aggressively; nor had she ever known them to be so heavily armed.
“There’s a situation, ma’am,” the agent explained as he helped her from the driver’s seat. “We have orders to secure you and your family. We need to move quickly, ma’am.”
Miri stepped out of her car, her head turning to see the other two agents removing her children from her backseat. There was another black vehicle, identical to the one that had cut her off, parked behind her with two heavily armed agents standing on either side pointing their weapons behind the second black vehicle. “I don’t understand,” Miri said, her voice becoming shaky as the urgency of the event scared her further.
“Please, ma’am, we’ll explain it all to you on the way,” the agent insisted. “For now, we have to go.”
“What about my husband?” Miri said as the man led her away from the car toward the first black vehicle. “He’s still at the…”
“Hospital, yes. We know, ma’am,” the agent finished for her. “Another team will be securing him, you needn’t worry.”
Miri continued to look around in a panic as the agents moved her and her children into the front vehicle, quickly closing the doors as soon as they were inside. The vehicle sped off down the road, the second vehicle following. She spun her head around and saw that a third vehicle had shown up, and a man in a similar black outfit was getting into the driver’s seat of her abandoned car. “Tell me what’s going on!” Miri demanded as her children began to cry.
“It’s the Jung, ma’am,” the agent said calmly. “I’m afraid they’re here.”
* * *
Admiral Galiardi’s shuttle touched down on the brightly lit rooftop landing pad of the Earth Defense Force command center in Port-Gentil, its boarding ramp deploying as its landing gear touched the pad. Before the ramp hit the deck, the admiral appeared in the open hatch, making his way down the few steps as quickly as possible.
“Admiral!” Rear Admiral Duncan called over the noise of the shuttle’s engines as they cycled back up to full power to take off again. Rear Admiral Duncan fell in alongside his old friend and commander, Admiral Galiardi, as they made their way to the rooftop entrance, the wind from the shuttle’s lift thrusters biting at their backs. “We just got word from the Reliant! She’s under fire, sir!”
“What? What happened? Did the Reliant fire first?”
“Technically, no,” Rear Admiral Duncan explained. “Captain Yahi followed protocol. Parked himself directly in their flight path, attempted contact, issued warnings. He even fired a shot across their bow.”
“Goddamn it, Marty! We can’t afford to operate on technicalities right now!” the admiral cursed as they stepped through the rooftop entrance and made their way down the corridor.
“What the hell did you expect him to do?” Rear Admiral Duncan said. “Step out of the way and say excuse me? They’re warships, Admiral! Jung warships! And they’re coming right at us!”
“Jesus, did they say how bad the fight is?” the admiral wondered as they entered the elevator. “Are all six ships firing on him or what?”
“The message didn’t say. It came by FTL comm-runner,” Duncan said as he pressed the button for the command center located several hundred feet below the main building. “We should be receiving their battle telemetry in about ten minutes, though. That should give us a better idea of what we’re up against.”
“How long until the Volkov joins the fight?”
“At least half an hour.”
“Let’s not take any chances,” Admiral Galiardi said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the security foyer of the underground command center. “Spin up the Lunar Rail Gun Array and have them start a track. If they get too close, I want those guns ready to take them out.”
“Yes, sir,” Rear Admiral Duncan said as he placed his hand on the ID scanner. In less than a second, the light on the scanner bed turned green.
“And contact the UER. Tell them to start evacuating the data cores,” the admiral added as he placed his own hand on the scanner.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Admiral?” Rear Admiral Duncan asked as the admiral’s hand scan was approved, and the security detail opened the main doors to allow them into the command center. “Maybe our ships will turn them away.”
“And maybe those six cruisers are just the beginning,” the admiral said. “I’d prefer not to take the chance. If the Jung are only slightly more advanced than us, the data from the Ark will make them unstoppable. We can’t take that chance. I want those data cores pulled, packed, and ready for transport as soon as possible. We can always plug them back in later if we survive.”
* * *
“Course and speed data coming in from command now,” the tracking officer reported from his console. “Tracking array realignment in twenty
seconds.”
Tension filled the Lunar Rail Gun Array’s small control center as the specialists assigned to the facility checked and rechecked their systems to ensure proper operations of the ten massive rail guns positioned on the Earth’s moon. The top-secret facility had taken several years to complete and had only been operational for a few months, yet the staff had practiced for this very moment nearly every day since their arrival.
“Tracking array is realigned sir,” the tracking officer reported. “Estimated time to first contact based on course and speed is twelve minutes.”
“How long until the targets will be in range?” the weapons officer asked.
“Optimum range in fifteen, sir,” the tracking officer reported. “But we can fire as soon as we have confirmed tracks.”
“Very well,” the weapons officer noted. “Have all guns loaded and charged. I want full weapons capability the moment we receive orders to fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
The weapons officer touched his comm-set. “Load master, WEPS.”
“WEPS, go for load master,” the voice answered.
“How many rounds are we up to?”
“Fifteen hundred balanced slugs, sir,” the load master answered.
“Is that all?”
“It takes time to manufacture them, sir, and two of our auto-miners are still down. We’ve got another three hundred slugs that haven’t been balanced yet, but I wouldn’t recommend firing them if we don’t have to. I can’t guarantee their accuracy, as they tend to make the rails wobble a bit during launch.”
“Understood,” the weapons officer said. “We’ll just have to make every shot count.”
“They will, sir,” the load master promised over the comms. “Our guns may be big and slow, but they are accurate. And a projectile the size of a bus slamming into a target at one hundred kilometers per second packs one hell of a wallop, sir. I suspect one or two hits will make the Jung rethink their strategy a bit.”
“Let’s hope so.”
* * *
“Core, Hiller,” the young Data Ark technician answered after picking up the comm handset.
“Yanni,” the voice called over the comm-set. There was an unexpected sense of urgency in the caller’s voice that caught the technician off guard.
“Yes, yes, this is Yanni. Who is… Reto? Is that you?” he asked as he began to recognize the panicked voice on the other end.
“Yes, Yanni, who else would call you on this line?”
“What is it?” Yanni asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Yanni, listen carefully,” Reto began. “I need you to take all of the data cores offline.”
“What?”
“Take them offline and pack them. Get them ready for transport as quickly as possible. Do you understand me, Yanni?”
“Are you mad? The cores have never been taken offline, not in the two centuries since they were first found!”
“Yanni! Listen to me! The transports will be there shortly. The data cores must be ready to move! Can you do this?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Yanni promised. “I will begin immediately.”
“I need you to make sure the cores are properly handled, Yanni. You must stay with them wherever they go. Do you understand?”
“Yes, of course, but please, Reto, can you tell me what is going on?”
There was a pause, after which Reto said, “It’s the Jung, Yanni. They have come.” The comm-set clicked off.
Yanni’s face turned pale.
“What is it, Yanni?” one of the technicians asked, seeing the face of his supervisor suddenly becoming that of a ghost.
Yanni replaced the handset and turned to the other technician. “Take the cores offline.”
“Which ones?” the technician asked, not believing what he was hearing.
“All of them.”
“What?”
“Do it!” Yanni ordered.
* * *
Chunks of the Reliant’s outer hull tore away as projectiles from the Jung rail guns slammed into her on either side as she passed between the third and fourth cruisers in the Jung line. All of the Reliant’s rail guns, both her minis and her quads, returned fire, sending their own projectiles into the hulls of the enemy on either side of her. Explosions rocked the enemy ships as the larger, explosive rounds fired by the Reliant’s massive quad rail guns buried into the enemy’s hulls and exploded.
The bridge of the Reliant shook violently as the assault continued. Alarms sounded from various stations as the crew of the Reliant struggled to keep things under control while their ship ran its first gauntlet. Captain Yahi watched in amazement as his crew, all of whom had never before been under fire, performed their jobs perfectly amid the chaos of battle. He watched the forward view screens, the center screen showing their forward view. The screens on either side of it showed close-up views of the ships they were attacking. The scene was gruesome, at least to a ship’s captain, as large sections were blown away from the enemy hulls by the Reliant’s explosive rounds. Although they were not close enough to see much detail, he could imagine Jung crewmen being sucked out into space through the gaping holes in the sides of their ships, struggling vainly for control only to die moments later among the debris that would litter the Sol system for eons to come.
“Damage control reports fire in lateral thruster fifteen!” Ensign Donabee reported urgently as he and three other technicians struggled to keep up with the flow of communications pouring into the bridge from all over the ship. “They’re venting the thruster’s propellant to space!”
“How long until we pass through?” the captain asked.
“Twenty seconds!” Ensign Stewart answered from the helm.
“Combat!” Captain Yahi called over his comm-set. “When we come out the other side, I want you to fire a full round of missiles into target number four! She appears to be taking the most damage at the moment!”
“Aye, sir!” the commander’s voice answered over the comm-set.
“Hull breach!” Ensign Donabee reported. “Deck four! Section one zero two!”
The Reliant’s deck plan flashed through the captain’s mind. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it was a cargo bay that had been opened to space. The ship’s designers had been smart enough to keep all her critical systems and compartments well away from the outer hull whenever possible. They had no idea if the Jung ships were designed the same way, but he assumed they would be.
He watched the view screens as his fighters dove at the enemy ships, strafing any critical system they could recognize, as enemy guns stabbed at them in passing.
“Ten seconds!” Ensign Stewart reported.
“Flight, call those fighters off target number four and have them concentrate on target number three instead. We don’t want our fighters near that fourth ship when our missiles hit,” the captain ordered.
“Aye, sir!” Lieutenant Fudala acknowledged.
“Five seconds!” Ensign Stewart reported from the helm.
The captain could already feel the enemy rail gun fire lessening. As they passed through the line of Jung warships, they were moving too quickly for the enemy’s big rail guns to track them. He glanced at the starboard view screen, the one showing the fourth target, noticing that his fighters were moving away from the Jung cruiser as per his orders. “Combat, Captain. Stand by to fire missiles at target four!”
“We’re clear, sir!” Ensign Stewart reported with relief.
Captain Yahi watched as the images of the Jung ships on either screen slipped out of the camera frame, revealing the star field behind them. Pieces of his ship’s hull that had been blasted away by the Jung guns floated alongside them, partially obscuring the camera’s view. “Track target four, and put it on view screen three,” he or
dered. As soon as the words left his lips, the starboard view screen changed and displayed a new image showing the aft end of the Jung cruiser, the fourth one in the line, as it fell away from them.
“Fire missiles!” the captain ordered.
“Missiles away!” Lieutenant Calloway reported a moment later.
“Hard to port, Mister Stewart!” the captain ordered. “Go to max burn! I want us a few kilometers off the starboard side of target one, same altitude relative to the ecliptic!”
“Hard to port, full burn, aye!” the helmsman acknowledged, more than happy to get some additional distance between their ship and those of their enemy.
Captain Yahi watched as the missiles streaked toward their target on view screen three. “Maintain visual track on target four,” he reminded them. “Cease fire on all guns. Retarget them onto target one and stand by.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer answered. “Missile impact in five seconds.”
Captain Yahi watched as the missiles blurred into the image of the shrinking Jung cruiser. Their speed relative to the target was considerable, and in only seconds, they would be too far away from the enemy to see them with anything other than maximum magnification.
A bright flash filled the third view screen.
“Missile impact!” Lieutenant Calloway reported with excitement. “Multiple detonations!”
The captain continued watching, unmoved, as several more flashes lit up the view screen in rapid succession. Finally, the entire screen was whitened out for several seconds.
“Target four destroyed!” Lieutenant Calloway announced with pride. Cheers erupted from the bridge crew, knowing that they had just struck the first blow in the defense of Earth. More importantly, they now knew beyond doubt that their ships were capable of destroying those of their enemy.
