by J.J. Mainor
“We’re just about to clean up out here, Commander.”
“Negative. This is a priority-one order. Return to base immediately.”
Amber broke off to head back while Corbitt remained beating on his canopy.
“You win some, you lose some, Hopeless. And today we lost this one.”
He took a few deep breaths before breaking off the pursuit. After the Captain caused him to be the last one to the battlefield, he certainly didn’t want to be the last one back to the hangar bay.
* * *
Sadiq called to the captain’s office with their updated status. He already knew the response he would receive, but had to cover his butt regardless. If this went south, he would have a dozen witnesses around him to overhear the conversation for when Petron would inevitably blame him for a poor performance in battle.
“Sir, we have new orders to intercept a lone Vandal ship on course for Earth. I thought you might like to come to the bridge.”
The exasperated sigh was loud enough for all to hear. “Commander,” he finally replied in that condescendingly calm drawl of his, “you know I have to approve next week’s duty rosters and send them to Admiral Duffy by 1600 hours. Do you want to explain it to the Admiral when he calls at 1605 demanding to know why he doesn’t have our duty rosters?”
Sadiq said nothing. His question was a trap. Petron came across as the biggest idiot on the ship, but his XO knew he was far more clever than anyone believed. A lesser officer might have told him “no.” If they failed to stop that ship, Petron could lay the blame on him, claiming he was told the situation was handled and his presence on the bridge wasn’t required.
Conversely, he might have said “yes,” demanding the Captain take his place on the bridge where he belonged at that particular moment. Then, come 1605 when the Admiral called wanting to know why the duty rosters never arrived to his desk, Petron could blame his subordinate for his inability to handle the situation. Of course this Vandal invasion didn’t excuse the lack of paperwork because a good captain would have anticipated unexpected problems and had those rosters in a day early.
Sadiq knew the only safe response to Petron’s question was no response at all. The decision to take his place on the bridge or remain locked away in that private office had to be left to the Captain.
“You do what you feel you must,” Sadiq told him. “Regulations require I inform you of the change in orders.” And he silenced the comm line before Petron could get in another dig concerning his command abilities.
He turned his attention to that lone ship, once hidden behind a large asteroid through much of the conflict, waiting until the entire Defense Force had been occupied with combat. It was now free from its cover and heading toward that little blue planet. He anxiously awaited word their last fighter was secure before ordering his navigator to set the course to intercept.
At that point it was a race between the two ships. The Vandal ship, Fury was far closer, but the Legacy could afford to take the risk accompanying higher speeds in order to close the gap.
Whatever it had in mind, could not have been good. The Vandals never sent their entire fleet to cover for a simple raid, so this had to be dramatic. However, one cruiser was far too small and powerless to cause widespread damage before it could be intercepted. Its captain had to know that when he or she undertook the mission.
Sadiq had to assume it was after a specific target. He tried to imagine what one site on Earth could be so important to the Vandals to go to all this trouble for. No single city seemed unique over any others. Not even the leadership should require this strong an effort to assassinate.
Yet they couldn’t afford to find out what the purpose was. Sadiq knew they were too far away to launch missiles. The ordinance would take too long to cross the distance and the Vandal ship would have enough time to avoid them a thousand times over. The lasers were the only option at this point, but they required a clear shot. Across a million or so kilometers, there couldn’t be anything between them to stop the blast. And the calculations had to be perfect or they risked doing more damage to their home than the Vandals might.
“Do we have a clear shot?” he called out. It was only after he turned his attention to the man who should have answered that he realized an inexperienced warrant officer occupied the chair.
It took the man twice as long as it should to study sensors and pull up local charts. The calculations came off his fingers far too uncertain to trust. And when the answer came, it was more question than answer.
“No? The satellite network is out there. We have hundreds of satellites in the way.”
Sadiq rubbed his chin considering what the satellites meant. Little tiny, metallic boxes floating in space. Their lasers might vaporize them and continue without notice, but some of them were as large as the fighters.
The bigger consideration was the network itself. Communications, weather manipulation, asteroid detection and deflection, and a hundred other crucial tasks relied on that network. The Commander realized he might do more damage than the Vandals could. Still, it was a decision he might live with if it were the only complication.
“What about Earth itself? How long before the trajectory enters the safety margin?”
The Warrant Officer struggled over the calculations. Worse, he had to query the computer just to learn what the safety margin was. He had no idea the EDF looked down on weapons fire within a thousand kilometers of the edge of the atmosphere. With the Vandal ship approaching nearly from the far side of the planet, the first round of calculations showed their shots would already cross inside that cushion.
“We’re already in it, Sir?”
Sadiq marched over to study the math for himself. He ran the numbers again and came up with a trajectory just outside the safety margin, but it was close. Still, he considered that margin was only a guideline. Even if their lasers grazed the top of the atmosphere, there would be no adverse effects. It was all about safety around the home world, and Sadiq considered the Vandal threat was great enough to bend the safety rules.
He returned to the big chair and called to the armory. “I want careful targeting on that ship, but I want lasers firing immediately. All concerns but Earth are to be ignored.”
His scanners confirmed when his orders were carried out. The first laser blast exploded from the turrets. At the speed of light, it would strike the target in a matter of seconds. It proved to be a near miss, but it was a hit regardless – one that would surely trigger some sort of evasive maneuver. The armory had only a few more shots before the calculations would prove too difficult.
“I want more power to the engines,” he bellowed. “Push them beyond the safety limits if you have to, but we have to cut off that ship at all costs!”
The officer at the proper station was reluctant, but resigned to follow the orders. Still, he increased the speed only in slight increments, angering his impatient commander.
“We can’t afford to be timid. Earth can’t afford your timidity, Ensign. Give me speed!”
Sadiq studied the Vandal ship. As his speed increased, theirs matched. As the gunners fired, their course grew more erratic to evade.
Soon he found they had drifted into the orbital plane of the satellite network. External sensors indicated impacts on the hull, and all he could imagine was some businessman losing an important conference call, or the stock market falling into panic when the data streams fell silent.
The matters of those on Earth extended no further than the limits of their own lives. These matters high in orbit were of no concern to them so long as they kept their comforts. Even for those with business among the stars - those relative few hoping to mine a few asteroids or some far-flung moon for exotic elements, or the researchers hoping to write the paper of their career on some alien grass – the Vandals were of no concern so long as their shuttles were left in peace.
The Vandal raids were terrible. In years when casualties we
re high, public sentiment favored a passionate response; but in those years of silence while the Vandals pulled back and licked their own wounds, focusing more on their new prizes than in pushing their luck, their terror was largely forgotten. The people on Earth went back to their parties and their sports and their movies, and they wanted to hear nothing more of problems among the stars.
So long as the men and women of the EDF kept them safe, as long as Sadiq did his job against that ship, the worst those people would suffer was the loss of their communications signals or an entertainment broadcast.
Still, he corrected his ensign who raised the ship above the plane of the satellites. The maneuver cost him seconds; he would hope it hadn’t cost him the chase.
* * *
Captain Min sat perched on the forward edge of her chair.
“Bring us about five degrees! Put that planet between us and them!”
Her crew was no more fired up than they were stuck behind the asteroid. They wanted combat and this was too much like running away from a fight. If it was up to some of these younger kids, the Fury would adjust course to take the EDF ship head on before proceeding on their mission.
To Min, this was excitement. This was a race. First one to Earth won the grand prize. It was not a prize she could win by limping across the finish line. She needed the full capacity of her ship if she was to keep that other off her back long enough to deploy the missiles.
“I want this ship in that atmosphere!”
She sensed the faces around her twisting with desire. Some of them burned to know why they couldn’t launch the missiles from where they were, but past punishments kept their mouths shut. Most of those that didn’t already know the answer would never understand anyway.
It was like dropping an object into water. The greatest trauma occurs when the object strikes the surface. Their missiles were not designed for atmospheric entry. Like the object with water, contact with the edge of an atmosphere was the most jarring moment in such a launch. And Min couldn’t risk losing the payloads too soon.
She had to bring Fury into the atmosphere. Remove the surface tension and the missiles would do fine. They would descend as ordered until it was time to unleash the payload.
Until then, she still had an EDF ship to outrun.
Her own gunners held back their fire. She feared antagonizing her nemesis would trigger the kind of firefight they now unleashed. Min had gambled the other commander would hold his or her fire rather than risk an errant shot striking their home. Since that wasn’t the case, she called and gave the order to return fire.
“Whatever you do,” she ordered, “do not hit that planet!”
She knew the government and their citizens felt the EDF was sufficient protection. Sure the President and his Council were in some bunker monitoring the situation while the Senate huddled in its chamber praying to their various gods that the outcome favored their political parties to improve their reelection campaigns. The moment a Vandal laser struck some city, or a farm, or even landed harmlessly in the ocean, those politicians would scramble for their own shuttles and leave the planet before the Fury was in position.
The incoming lasers passed too close for comfort, so she ordered a sharper course correction. It might put them off course and cost them a few seconds, but she had to have the protection of that planet.
The Fury shook violently as a blast connected with her hull. Alarms flashed on Min’s console, and she flipped through the readings in a panic. She didn’t care much about the rest of the ship, so long as the missile tubes and their support crew survived.
“Roll the ship forty-five degrees starboard.” It wouldn’t be much, but with the two ships approaching at an angle, she hoped to minimize her armory as a target if she presented their topside.
That planet grew closer and closer, but so did the Legacy with her laser cannons. The gunners finally had the excitement they signed up for, almost forgetting the prohibition against firing on Earth. Their section chief had to reprimand them several times for firing too close, reminding them there were others anxious to man those guns if they couldn’t follow orders.
In the lowest section of the ship, the artillerymen waited with their fingers on the launch buttons. They too showed themselves to be overly impatient, and like the gunners above, if it were not for their level-headed commander, there would have been at least one premature launch.
And back on the bridge, Min was almost ready to celebrate when the Earth eclipsed the last bit of dark space from the windows ahead. As they had grown closer, their nemesis held their fire, afraid to strike the planet as much as she was. And now they were safely behind that beautiful blue world with atmospheric entry only moments away.
* * *
Sadiq paced the bridge with his hands clasped behind his back, cursing the Vandal’s good fortune. “I want more speed!” he barked. “Slingshot us around that planet if you have to, but get that ship back in sight!”
The race to the world had become a race around the world. The power driving these ships and the speeds at their disposal could not have been imagined when Jules Verne wrote his ‘round the world tale. A trip made in eighty days all those hundreds of years ago could now be made in eighty seconds if it weren’t for an annoyingly low escape velocity.
There was no time for physics. The Commander ordered his inexperienced navigator to hold a sharp turn in toward the planet to compensate for gravity’s weak hold. It was a dangerous risk considering this man might have oversteered and sent them crashing into the atmosphere.
* * *
Corbitt sat anxiously in the cockpit of his fighter. The pilots expected to deploy once more as soon they caught up to the new target, but the chatter on the open channels indicated they were already there. Normally he was grateful for these moments of inactivity. Their lives were so structured on these ships and the Captain’s insanity a drain on their productivity, they gladly took advantage of these dead moments to catch up on sleep or chow.
When they were suited up and locked in their fighters, all they wanted was to launch. At least in those birds they were free from all the bullshit. There was no one touching their faces to make sure they had shaved before reporting to duty. They didn’t have to undress to prove their underwear was regulation. They didn’t have a Captain calling them for room inspections in the middle of a preflight check.
He listened to his channels chiming in his ears, waiting for the orders. They expected the Legacy to chase the Vandal ship and they expected the orders to launch. So close to Earth, the precision of the fighters would better suit the task than the sledgehammers of the carrier. Yet that ship was around the planet, about to enter orbit while the fighters remained on deck.
“Hey Chief,” one of the pilots called out, “why don’t you let us out there? Let us take a whack at those terrorists.”
“Keep complaining,” Park warned him, “and you’ll get a whack at an Article 13.”
Corbitt might have thought it funny if Captain Petron didn’t have a reputation for issuing the most Article 13 disciplinary actions in the fleet. It was thought he didn’t believe in training his crew. Tell them once, then write them up for not picking it up. For all the room inspections he conducted and all the Article 13s he filed for failing, there wasn’t a man or woman on the ship who remembered him demonstrating the standard.
The beds didn’t matter. His stubble didn’t matter. All Corbitt wanted was the dogfight. He felt most alive when he danced with the Vandals, and he couldn’t wait for the second act.
The line from the bridge came to life and Corbitt sat upright expecting this to be his launch orders.
“That ship is in the atmosphere launching missiles. I want fighters in the air now. Don’t wait for safety; destroy those missiles before we learn their targets!”
He didn’t wait for the Lieutenant Commander to pass along the orders. Corbitt powered up his fighter, so he could lift off the moment he got the word
.
The four wings scrambled from the launch bay in a dance of controlled chaos, fanning out and dropping into Earth’s atmosphere the moment they were free from the Legacy.
Corbitt’s first sight through his canopy was of the Fury. Once one of their cruisers, it now belonged to the Vandals. They had modified it, adding additional compartments and decks as if it were a mass of lockable toy blocks. He couldn’t imagine it being safe, but it had crossed the outermost edge of the atmosphere without problem.
And it launched another missile. That three meter cylinder flew out from the ship and drifted downward toward the surface as the friction, even at these heights, slowed its advancement.
The fighters ahead had already descended below it, divvying up the first targets among them. Those behind hadn’t yet cleared the launch bay, so Corbitt figured this one belonged to him.
He dropped his fighter into the atmosphere, struggling against the escaping hydrogen and nitrogen fighting to keep him out. He knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as finding the target and firing. A downward shot risked missing and hitting the surface. The only way to save lives was to match the elevation of that missile and fire across the sky.
The deeper he dropped, the stronger the drag against his hull. His nose glowed red as the friction warmed the fuselage. The targeting scanners had trouble finding a target through the blowback. Even the radio signals broke up. All he had to go on was the brief glimpse through the glowing gas until the atmosphere thickened enough to cool him down.
The signals returned to his ears along with some confusion from his fellow pilots.
“The warhead just burst open!”
“It released something into the air!”
Corbitt’s eyes raced to find his missile, locating it just in time to catch the warhead split open. The metal pieces dropped back, nearly striking his canopy. Just behind those pieces of debris, came the payload. A grayish-yellow powder was blown backward and scattered through the air. Particles too small to see once the powder had dispersed, they would surely drop toward the surface as they spread throughout the atmosphere. There was no stopping this weapon after it was released.
