by Ryk Brown
Weapons fire flew back and forth across the distant intersection, energy weapons from the right, gunfire from the left.
“We need to get out of here,” Tony declared.
Synda continued to watch in fascination as the battle raged on. Within seconds, Jung troops started advancing into the intersection from the right as they drove the Winnipeg militia forces back.
“Synda, come on!”
She heard more tires screeching. Seconds later, the Jung forces were backing up into the intersection again, only to be caught in a cross fire as more militia forces attacked from behind them. The Jung soldiers, with no other exit, turned and started running down the street toward Synda and Tony, firing their energy weapons behind them at the pursuing militia.
“Synda!” Tony yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her so hard she nearly fell. They ran down the street, turning to the left and running around the corner without so much as slowing.
“Wait! Wait!” Synda yelled, coming to a stop halfway down the street. “This is a dead end!”
Tony looked to his left down an alleyway. “This way!”
“Are you sure?”
“It comes out behind the bank on the corner!” Tony insisted, charging down the alley.
Synda spun around to look behind her as Jung troops entered the intersection. They took no notice of her as they stopped and spun around, dropping to one knee as they returned fire from their pursuers. She followed Tony down the alley, both of them at a full run. Just as Tony reached the end of the alley and was about to turn right, two Jung soldiers came around the corner and ran headlong into him, knocking him down. One of the soldiers stumbled over him and landed face-first in the alley. As Tony scrambled to his feet and turned to attack the soldier that was still trying to get up, the other Jung soldier fired two shots of his energy weapon, one of which struck Tony in his left thigh, spinning him around and knocking him back to the ground.
Synda screamed and continued charging toward the two Jung soldiers, kicking the one that was on his hands and knees in the face, which flipped him over. As the Jung soldier flipped over onto his back, his weapon left his hands and skidded across the pavement. The soldier lay unconscious in the alley.
The other soldier, the one who had shot Tony, swung his weapon around to try to strike Synda in the face as she charged toward him, but she ducked quickly, leaning unnaturally backward to avoid being struck by the butt of his energy rifle. As she bent over backward, she extended her left arm, rotated her body, and swung her leg upward, her foot heading for the soldier’s face. The soldier reacted quickly, blocking her leg with his weapon, moving it quickly in a circular sweeping motion, and catching the strap around her extended foot. He twisted the weapon around, making it impossible for her to free herself, and yanked backward, pulling Synda forward and causing her to fall onto her left side.
Now being even closer to the soldier than before, Synda shoved her right foot into his knee, bending it outward with a crack as the soldier fell to the ground screaming in pain. She noticed the other soldier’s weapon lying a meter away and tried to reach for it as the soldier she was fighting went down, but his rolling motion pulled on her caught leg again, making it impossible to reach the weapon. She heard the Jung soldier holler something in an unintelligible language, something she was sure was an insult directed at her. The Jung soldier was still upright, balancing on his good knee while he winced in pain from his other knee. He pulled his sidearm from his holster as he continued muttering likely Jung expletives at her and took aim. He smiled and moved his finger to the weapon’s trigger.
Synda closed her eyes, waiting for the blast from the energy weapon to take her life. A scream burst from her lips as she heard the screeching metallic zhwang of the Jung weapon. She felt the heat of its energy dispersal, but it was from farther away, and to her right, as was the noise. She then heard a thud.
Synda’s eyes popped open and saw the Jung soldier, the one that had nearly ended her life, lying face down in a smoldering heap before her, steam and smoke rising from the wound in the middle of his back armor. Blood had already begun to ooze out from under the dead soldier on one side. She looked over at Tony, who was propped up against the still unconscious Jung soldier lying in the alleyway next to him. He was holding the soldier’s sidearm at arm’s length, having just killed Synda’s attacker.
Synda reached down and freed her left leg, picking up the dead Jung soldier’s weapon and looking at the energy rifle in amazement.
“Is he dead?” Tony asked in disbelief.
“Pretty sure he is,” Synda answered as she scrambled over to Tony’s side to check his wound.
“Shit,” Tony exclaimed, still not believing what he had just done. He winced in pain.
Synda looked at Tony’s still smoldering thigh wound. “How bad is it?”
“It feels like my fucking leg is on fire,” Tony exclaimed. “That’s how bad it is.”
“Can you walk?”
“No way,” Tony said. “I can’t even move my other leg. It’s like that red blast of whatever it was short-circuited everything from my waist down.”
“Shit. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Carry me?” Tony pleaded, half-joking.
“I’m a hundred and forty-five centimeters and forty-three kilograms, soaking wet. You’re what? Eighty kilograms? We wouldn’t make it a block.” Synda’s head turned instinctively toward the sound of the Jung’s metallic boots as they grew nearer.
“Fuck. Trade me guns,” Tony told her, also hearing the approaching footfalls.
“Why?”
“Yours is bigger.”
“What are you gonna do?” Synda asked as she swapped her energy rifle for his energy pistol.
“I’ll hold them off while you make a run for it.”
Synda could tell by the sound of his voice that it wasn’t his first choice. “What are you, some kind of hero?”
“If I’m gonna die, I’d rather die while saving your ass than riding it.”
Synda smiled at the turn of phrase.
“You know what I fucking mean,” Tony insisted. “Now go.”
“Tony…”
“Just go, before I change my mind,” he urged.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said in all honesty.
“Name your first kid after me.”
“Yeah, right.” She snickered at the thought. She looked at him again. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he answered as he propped himself up a bit more.
“Don’t forget about that guy,” Synda told him, pointing at the unconscious Jung soldier that Tony was still leaning against. “He’s not dead, you know.”
“Don’t worry. He will be shortly,” he promised as he examined the Jung energy rifle, trying to determine how to use it. “Now go already.”
Synda rose up off her knees, remaining in a low crouch as she moved the two steps to the edge of the building and peered around the corner. Although she could hear the sound of approaching troops, the street in either direction was clear for the moment.
“Hey, Synda,” Tony called out. “If I had asked you out, would you have said yes?”
“Probably,” she lied.
“Damn it.”
Synda turned back around and moved back over to Tony. She grabbed his face with both hands and gave him a long, passionate kiss.
“What was that for?” Tony asked when she finally pulled away.
“Well, you are about to die to save my ass,” Synda answered.
“Don’t suppose there’s time for a quickie?” he asked as Synda moved back to the corner of the building in preparation to depart.
“Maybe someday, if we all survive this,” she answered, after which she disappeared around the corner of the building.
* * *
Three groups of missiles passed one another in orbit above the Earth. Two of them had been fired by the Jung and were headed toward the Intrepid. The third group had been fired by the Intrepid and was targeting all three ships in the Jung battle group currently in orbit above the Indian Ocean.
As the group of sixteen missiles approached the Jung battle group, the shots divided into three groups of six, five, and five, with each group heading toward their individual targets.
“Missiles have broken formation and are maneuvering toward their targets,” the Intrepid’s tactical officer, Lieutenant Eckert reported. “Impact in two minutes.”
“Targets one and three, the cruiser and the frigate, are moving,” Ensign Kono announced. “They’re trying to get between our missiles and the troop ship.”
“They must be afraid that some of our missiles will get past their point-defenses and hit that troop ship,” Captain Christopoulos said. “They’re willing to take the hits themselves.” The captain looked at his sensor operator. “Are they going to make it into position in time?”
“Doubtful, sir.”
“Where are our fighters?” the captain asked the flight operations officer.
“They’ve just started their climb back up from the atmosphere, sir,” the flight operations officer reported. “They’ll be in range of the troop ship in two minutes, twenty seconds.”
“Have them launch their intercept missiles at max range,” the captain ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Tonnes acknowledged from the flight operations console as he turned back around to send word to the flight’s lead pilot.
“It was a good idea to have those missiles wait until the last moment to break off onto their separate targets,” Lieutenant Eckert said. “Now they have to scramble.”
“Combat, Captain,” the captain called into his comm-set.
“Captain, go for combat,” Commander Nasser answered.
“Commander, launch another round of missiles, all nukes. Full burn the entire run this time. I want them there in half the time.”
“Aye, sir,” the commander answered. “Sixteen nukes, full burn.”
“One minute until our missiles reach their targets,” Lieutenant Eckert reported. “One minute, twenty seconds until theirs reach us. Their point-defenses are engaging.”
Captain Christopoulos watched the tactical display on the port view screen as the icon’s representing the Intrepid’s missiles began to disappear from the display, disappearing one by one as the point-defense systems of both enemy ships attempted to intercept the incoming weapons. The two larger icons representing the Jung cruiser and frigate were trying to move forward and closer to one another in order to shield the unarmed troop ship from danger.
“Our missiles are launching again,” Lieutenant Eckert reported. “Sixteen away. At full burn the entire flight, they should strike in one minute.”
“As soon as they pass our defense perimeter, fire our point-defenses,” the captain ordered.
“Aye, sir!”
The captain glanced at the main view screen at the center of the bridge as the sixteen missiles streaked away from the Intrepid’s four launchers, their thrusters glowing bright orange as they accelerated toward their targets only a short distance away. His eyes quickly returned to the tactical display, eager to see the missiles close quickly on the enemy vessels ravaging his world. Normally, the missiles’ propulsion systems would be shutting down at any second, having already reached their desired transit speed. By burning their thrusters the entire journey, they would accelerate the entire time. Not only would this make it more difficult for the enemy’s point-defenses to successfully intercept the weapons, it would also leave the weapons with no fuel to maneuver during the last few seconds of flight to ensure that they found their targets. Captain Christopoulos was betting that the clustering of the targets would make that last second maneuvering unnecessary and that more of his missiles would get past their defenses.
“Firing point-defenses!” Lieutenant Eckert announced.
Icons representing the Intrepid’s first wave of missiles continued to drop off the tactical display. Meanwhile, the Intrepid’s own point-defenses began tearing apart the incoming Jung missiles, causing their icons to disappear as well.
“Targets successfully intercepted our first wave of missiles!” Lieutenant Eckert reported.
“Captain!” Ensign Kono called. “The cruiser is launching fighters!”
“They’ve spotted our fighters,” the captain mumbled.
“Three missiles have breached our defense perimeter!” the tactical officer reported. “Ten seconds to impact!”
“All hands, prepare for impact!” the captain ordered. It was an expression he was using far more than he would have liked today.
Two Jung missiles slammed into the aft end of the Intrepid, erupting in brilliant flashes of white light that nearly obscured the massive ship from view. A second later, the third missile struck amidships on the opposite side from her previous hull breach, resulting in another flash of light as the third nuclear weapon detonated. It tore the Intrepid’s midsection wide open. As the three flashes of light cleared, multiple secondary explosions ripped out the three massive holes in the ship, two of which were aft and revealed her mangled engines inside. Fires flashed into existence and immediately suffocated, as the air left the compartments opened to space.
“Damage control reports hull breaches, starboard amidships!” Lieutenant Chara reported. “Aft section! Main propulsion! Engine compartments fifteen through twenty!”
“Main propulsion is down!” Ensign Hunt reported as his fingers danced across the helm console. “I’ve got no lateral thrust control either!”
“Fire in the forward propellant storage compartments!” Lieutenant Chara added as he sifted through the myriad of damage reports being passed to him from the damage control center.
“Our fighters are launching intercept missiles!” Lieutenant Eckert announced.
Fifty anti-ship missiles streaked away from their mounting points on the small fighters climbing up from the upper atmosphere of Earth. Mini-rail guns on the back half of both the cruiser and the frigate swung around and opened fire on the incoming weapons in an attempt to intercept them before they reached the defenseless troop ship flying behind them.
Several Jung fighters broke away from the main group, charging down into the atmosphere on their way to intercept the incoming fighters from the Intrepid. They angled toward the incoming missiles and opened fire with wing-mounted energy cannons, slicing through several of the small missiles as they streaked by. It was not enough, and more than thirty missiles made it past them.
“Captain! Those fighters have energy weapons!” Ensign Kono reported from the sensor station. “They’re trying to shoot down the missiles launched by our fighters!”
“Energy weapons? We didn’t think the Jung had them! How many missiles did they intercept?”
“Fifteen or twenty, sir.”
“Targets one and three are firing point-defenses!” Lieutenant Eckert reported. “They’re only firing half the defenses at our missiles, Captain! The other half are trying to intercept the ones coming from our fighters!”
“Yes!” the captain exclaimed. The ship was suddenly rocked by a massive internal explosion that nearly knocked the captain from his seat. “What the hell was that?!”
“Captain! Damage control!” a voice called over the comm-set.
“Go for captain!”
“The forward propellant storage has overheated and exploded! A quarter of the forward section is gone!”
“Why wasn’t that section vented to space when the fire started?!” the captain demanded.
“The controls were damaged! We weren’t able to get to the manual overrides in time, sir! It’s out now, sir! The explosion opened the compartment for us! But that’s nearly half our propellant, sir! And it took the forward maneuvering pods with it!”
“Goddamn it!” the captain cursed.
“It gets worse, sir! We lost main propulsion and most of our midsection as well. We’re nearly chopped in half! We’re dead in space right now.”
“Have you got any good news?” the captain wondered.
“We’ve still got power, life support, and weapons, sir.”
“Jesus,” the captain said to himself. “Do what you can,” he added to the damage control officer before switching off his comm-set.
“Sir,” Ensign Hunt began tentatively, “when the forward propellant tank exploded, the force decelerated us just enough to drop us into a lower orbit.”
“How low?” the captain asked.
“We’re at the same orbital altitude as the targets, sir.”
Half of the Intrepid’s fighters exploded in near unison as intercept missiles from the incoming Jung fighters found their targets. Energy weapons lashing out from the Jung fighters cut several more of the Intrepid’s fighters in half as they broke formation and began to take evasive maneuvers. A few seconds later, the two flights of fighters streaked past one another. The Intrepid’s fighters continued on toward the troop ship as the Jung fighters came about to give chase.
