"Her!"
"Well I'm not her."
"Have you been drinking Jane?"
"Of course not."
"Running a drunk impersonation routine?"
"No, but that’s an idea for one day."
"Then why the question?"
"Jon, I'm just messing with you."
"Gee thanks."
"Sometimes you’re just too easy. Anyway, you're in a relationship, so the question is mute. As long as you stay with Aline, I’d never interfere. Same goes if you’d chosen Miriam."
"What do you mean chosen? I didn’t choose anyone. Aline chose me, and Miriam stopped sending me vids."
She laughed at me again.
"You're clueless Jon, you know that?"
"Can't be good at everything."
Which made her laugh even harder.
"What are you two laughing at," said Aline.
"Just best friend talk," answered Jane. Her suit shifted into the D-Jane look. "You kids don’t stay up too late now. Big day tomorrow."
She shifted back to 'slinky red' and her normal face, and took herself off, still laughing.
Aline gave me a piecing look, and I shrugged.
The day wound up much as it had started. Aline bonked me senseless, Angel went to sleep in her cat bed for once since we wouldn’t stay still, and I fell asleep thinking it had been a good day.
Forty Two
"That was the last rock," said Jane the next morning, as we waited to see if the aliens were coming or not.
Aline had been gone when I’d woken, and the revelries of yesterday were largely forgotten. The team were on Last Hope already, with the rest of the troops. All the ships which had moved the day before, were now back where they were supposed to be.
"Tell all ships to stand by."
"Already have."
The aliens seemed to have one speed, and they were dead on time.
Thirteen had been for a look see, and confirmed they were coming without being slowed down by War at all. They'd sent their first ships through the jump point firing as they went, and had then built a tube using their own ships as asteroid defense. The whole concept of a tunnel made out of ships which spanned two thirds of an entire solar system, all constantly firing at ballistic rocks, boggled the mind. We couldn’t do it. And the really frightening thing was, they'd done it without losing any time.
We had no idea how many were coming this time. We had less to face them with, but more hitting power than we'd had before. Was it going to be enough? Of course not. The question was how long we could hold, and how badly we could bleed them.
The fleet was arranged in a flattened oval shape. The down jump lane was clear, but we were around the edge of it, and point blank range in front. To mass for a big hit on us, they were going to have to break their pattern and turn after they went past us.
The first ship appeared.
"Fire," I said into ship coms.
All ships started firing from their smallest first. This was mostly Point Defense turrets. This stepped up about ten seconds apart to include Corvette guns, Destroyer guns, Cruiser guns, and finally Battleship guns. Missiles followed. The object was to hit them appropriately according to the number of ships already jumped in.
It seemed to work, and for a while, nothing made it past us. As before though, the fighters ran out of ordinance, and the Corvettes had to pull back. Alien ships started making it past us. We let them go. The squadrons cycled through, the Corvettes returned. Rinse and repeat.
It was becoming so ordinary, my mind wasn't registering the incredible lightshow happening in front of me. The dance of ships in and out, and through, was merely information. My people knew their jobs, they did them, and all I could do was sit there and watch, waiting for the inevitable.
The hours passed. Jeeves brought the few of us in the CCC finger food and drinks. I was looking at Dick and Amy, and suddenly wondered why they were even here.
"Why are you guys here?"
"Where else would we be?" asked Dick.
Amy and Melissa both seemed surprised at the question.
"Shouldn’t you guys be on Redoubt? A lot safer there than here."
"Are you kidding?" asked Melissa. "Safest place is right by your side."
I looked at her like she'd just said water wasn’t wet, or pain doesn’t hurt.
The three of them laughed.
Relentless took a massive hit, and the ship shook.
"What the hell?" I yelled at Jane, while looking back at the HUD where I should have been looking.
"Massed aliens behind us," said Jane. "I guess we forced them into doing that."
I seized the controls, and flipped us end for end, pointing us now at the mass of black which had goosed us. Our firing hadn't stopped, so some of it went off into deep space, and hosed around to finally hit the back mass. I triggered off a full salvo of torpedoes into the mass, and along with our full missile launch, the threat was neutralized. The ones left turned away in all directions.
Relentless' shields had dropped to forty percent, but we were the only ones so far below fifty.
"Commander Young, break and attack. Sweep and clear."
"Roger that."
Once again, Miriam seemed eager to leave the protection of Redoubt's shields and go hunting. Shortly after, the Corvettes began to withdraw again, so I had them form up well back from us, and act as a second line of defense against the ones getting through. Their number started to increase, as our firepower dropped.
I began to wonder if I’d done the right thing. But getting badly hit from behind, when all our firepower was pointing the other way, wasn’t on my list of good things to happen, and the more which did get past, the better they were able to hit us in the rear like they had.
Once again, they'd demonstrated intelligence.
By one in the afternoon, I'd had to move Relentless in behind Redoubt, and I was getting very close to pulling out.
Suddenly shields started dropping faster all over the fleet.
"They're ramming us," yelled Jane. "Every enemy ship coming through is changing course to ram the nearest of our ships."
I watched for several seconds, and one of the Destroyers fell past forty percent in an instant.
"All ships withdraw," I ordered into ship coms.
This was a planned maneuver. Each ship had a course to follow, and we all went a slightly different direction. Once out of range, we formed up, and fell back to the first waypoint, and from there to Last Hope.
"Shouldn’t we be trying to take them out as they cross the system?" asked Melissa.
"Too dangerous," responded Dick.
"Yes," I said. "If they never formed up into huge packs, we could risk it. But they're like ants in a jungle. Give them the chance, and they swarm you. Actually going inside their lines now, is like wading into water known to have Piranha. It's not worth the risk."
"Now what?" asked Amy.
"Now we wait and see what they do when they find a habitable planet."
"How long will that be?"
"Forty hours," said Jane.
It was dinner time when we arrived in planetary orbit, so I ate alone for once. Not quite alone, Angel sat with me.
I pondered the next step. Did we try and defend the planet in space, or simply wait for them to invade? Presuming they did. The settlement on the planet wasn’t particularly big. Although not a readily defendable position, a battalion of troops should be able to do a reasonable job of it.
What bugged me though was we hadn't seen any sign of troops. The aliens came in fighter sized ships, and the few we'd taken in Pestilence contained a single alien. So if they were going to invade, and we had to assume they were in order to renew their life support systems and find food, then they needed to land millions of fighters. Potentially, this limited how many aliens could group together to attack the settlement, and it gave us a chance to evaluate their ground strength. And test our upgraded weapons.
The troops were already on the groun
d. But did I go down there or not?
You've seen it.
I sighed.
So this is it? Already?
I'd seen this a number of times, but never known where.
I sighed again. No answer usually meant I had my answer. The only question then, was when did I go down?
I waited, but no answer came to that also.
"How are you doing?" I pinged Annabelle.
"Fine."
"Need me?"
"No."
"I'll be down in the morning then."
"See you then."
She sounded very offhand, so presumably something was going on down there, and they didn’t really want my nose in it. It was fine with me, for now. I was too tired anyway.
Forty Three
The sun went out.
"What the fuck just happened?" I asked.
It was midday here on the planet, five in the morning ship time. I'd spent the day before with the troops, and slept in a Lightning to be realigned with local time. We were about an hour from the expected arrival of the first alien ships.
It was dark.
I mean midnight, no lights, no power for lights, not even a candle, blindfold over your eyes, dark. The light had started to fade about a half hour earlier, as if heavy clouds were covering the sky above us. There were clouds, but not enough to block the light out.
It was dark.
"FUCK!" I exclaimed as it hit me.
The Darkness. This is what they did. This was why they were called that.
"Talk to me Jane."
No-one else was. They were all standing there in combat suits, looking at me. As far as I could see, it being totally dark.
Jane didn’t respond either, but she popped up a hollo representation of the system tactical.
The aliens were massing, but not in planetary orbit. A disk built entirely of their ships was growing larger as I watched, placed in exactly the right position to prevent the light of the sun from reaching the planet. It was already bigger than it needed to be, but the larger it was, the less it had to move to keep the planet in darkness as the planet itself moved.
On a hunch, I checked the temperature outside my suit. It was already dropping. Not much yet, but definitely on its way to the normal night time temperature for this time of the year, which was chilly. Beyond that? Very likely.
"What's going on Jon?" asked Amanda.
"The Darkness is going on."
"Ha-ha."
"I'm not joking. Get Jane to show it to you. Jane? I'm in the wrong place. I need a Lightning down here ten minutes ago."
"Confirmed."
I opened up ship coms. The fleet had moved back from the planet, but still well in range of striking back if need be.
"Admiral Bentley."
"Sir?"
"Send all the small ships with Redoubt and Yorktown to the jump point. The Guardians and Drone Missile Cruisers form up with Relentless. The Pocket Battleships and Cruisers form up on Dauntless. I'll be up shortly. I see a bull's eye painted red. Let's go hit it."
"Yes sir!"
"No George."
"You take all the fun out of life boss."
"I can't risk you with the troops down here. If we mess up, you're their only evac."
"Where do you want me?"
"Low sync orbit over the settlement. Keep the Dropship pilots on standby. Try not to get noticed."
"Roger that."
"Jon? What's going on?" asked Alison.
"The aliens are blocking out the sun. This is what they do. This is why they're called 'The Darkness'. Give it a couple of days, and the surface temperature will drop below freezing over the whole planet. Give it a couple of weeks, and the planet goes into a new ice age."
"Oh of course," said Dick, listening in from Relentless. "All the planets we saw in the future had been through an ice age recently. We never made the connection."
"Right," I agreed with him. "They lower the temperature on a planet so the indigenous lose their food supply, can't function properly because it's too cold for them and their technology, and once its covered in ice and snow, they go in and eat everything."
I saw Alison shudder. She was in a combat suit, it was dark, but I could still see the shudder.
I was saved from any more reactions by the arrival of the Lightning. It landed a short way away from me, and I ran across to the front airlock, and cycled in.
"Go Jane."
"Going."
I stayed in the airlock, with a pop up showing me the view ahead.
"Nearest airlock to the CCC please. Then park the Lightning in the hangar. I'll need it again to come back."
"Confirmed."
Ground to orbit in a Lightning takes minutes. Strap a rocket to your back, and you're going slowly in comparison. A few more minutes to dock. I cycled through, stood against the wall, stepped out the back of the suit, and ran for the CCC. Jane, Dick, Amy, and Melissa, were already there. Amy was tickling Angel.
"What's the plan?" asked Jane.
"Tactical!"
Okay. Sun is there. Planet is here. Disk is there, between them. So where are the rest of them? Some predictably were spread out still looking for the jump points. Others were streaming towards the disk, obviously intending to make it bigger still. And others were obviously on their way to the planet. We had a few hours before they were ready to hit the planet. Too much planet to defend on the ground. Forget the planet. Focus.
"Jane, plot me the two best positions to launch missiles on that disk, from the safest places to do so."
"Confirmed."
Two spots appeared on the tactical display. One was high above the plane of the system, and the other well below.
"Which is safer?"
"The low position. The high one has less time before it'll be discovered."
"What happens if we're discovered?" asked Dick.
"I guess we find out," I answered, grinning at him.
He cringed, but also grinned.
"Admiral Bentley."
"Sir?"
"Jane is sending you a position on the low side of the system plane. Take your fleet there on a course which avoids discovery, and wait for Jane to tell you when to fire missiles. If you are intercepted or fired upon, you withdraw. No unnecessary risks."
"Understood sir. On our way."
The HUD showed her fleet moving out. I waved at Jane, and we moved out as well. Even taking a roundabout way, it only took us fifteen minutes to get into position.
"Saturation targeting Jane. Let's try and hit the whole disk at once. Let's see how they react. But better be ready to move at a seconds notice."
"Confirmed."
She'd arranged the fleet into a spread out box. There was a pause, and the whole fleet fired off all its missiles at once. Load time later, we fired again. And kept firing.
At this range, we had a good view of the entire area, both from comnavsats higher and lower than us, and from each ship's sensors. The tactical plot showed our missiles converging on the disk from two directions.
Suddenly there was this amazing bright light, and when it faded, the first few salvos of missiles were gone.
"Cease fire," I said.
"Confirmed."
There was another bright light, and the next salvos of missiles vanished. And another with the same result.
"Did we hit anything?" asked Amy.
"No," said Jane.
"Nothing at all?" asked Dick incredulously.
"Not a sausage."
I sat there stunned.
"What did they do?" I asked a minute or so later.
"Not sure," said Jane, "but at a guess, they're using the energy from the sun to super-charge their ship guns, almost like the whole disk acts as a solar collector. Ships between us and them report the missiles inbound, and they shift axis enough to fire on them en-mass, using whatever reserves they collected. I wonder…"
There was another major white light, and Relentless took a solid hit. Our shields went down to ninetee
n percent.
"Get us the fuck out of here!" I yelled.
We moved, but not before one of the Guardians had taken a similar hit. Only this time, with less shielding, the hit punched a hole clean through the ship. That’s what you get for not paying attention to ship orientation. Each ship should have been facing the disk fully. Although, maybe it was a good thing. The sheer strength of the hit might have holed the ship from end to end.
Alien ships were changing direction, towards both fleets. They'd obviously found us, and this was confirmed when the Point Defense turrets opened up for a few seconds. But it looked as if Bentley's fleet had been able to get away cleanly. They were following the line the missiles had taken.
"Drop me off over Last Hope Jane, and RV the fleet at the Morocco jump point."
I headed for my combat suit leisurely this time, pondering what had just happened. Something about that disk made their ships much more powerful than they ought to be. Not only had they hit us out of their sensor range, but they'd hit us at a much longer range than any time before now, and much longer range than our Battleship guns could effectively fire at.
Lesson learned. Leave the disk alone unless you can get it from afar.
"Jane?"
"Jon?"
"We need a way of hitting the disk from afar. Zero risk, long range, zero intercept potential, large bang. I'd use one of those torpedoes we came up with for massive ships, but it'd be too slow, and way too easy for them to destroy. What we really need is one of those cloaked skipper missiles out of Wing Commander."
"Hmmmm."
"Good hmmmm? Or bad hmmmm?
"Non-committal hmmmm."
"Work on it?"
"Sure. I expect to have a couple nanoseconds available next week sometime."
I let that go. I was asking a lot of her.
"Where's my ride?"
A clunk from the other side of the airlock answered me. I entered my combat suit, walked into the airlock, and sealed it.
"Express elevator please. Going down."
It felt like the floor dropped out from under me, even through the combat suit. It was just as well I was a pilot, and liked speed and gravity defying falls from a great height. Otherwise I’d have probably puked. Going down as fast as a Lightning can go, is borderline terrifying, even for a pilot. Just as well I hadn't had lunch.
Hunter Legacy 12: Hero in Darkness Page 19
