Hammer's Commandos (Hammer's War Book 4)

by James McEwan

  Chapter 28

  Horota had greased enough palms to learn the location of Yiska’s little operation in the desert. He returned to his ship and entered the coordinates into the auto pilot. The little ship rose up off the space port’s dilapidated platform before blasting off in the direction of the desert.

  Meanwhile Thad, Eve, Sabella and Sabella’s former master, headed for Qasr Burqu' with the three of them riding on the back of the large hairy pig. While the three of them road in relative comfort on the bench seat. Farhan sat on the beasts back with his back to the bench seat, his arms stretched out and lashed to the wooden back rest.

  They learned from Sabelle was from Ziafea. She also told them that her former master’s name was Farhan, which means happy. Thad had laughed when Sabella had told him that. He had remarked, “Boy did his mother get that one wrong.”

  They were half way through their first day’s ride when Thad noticed a low flying ship. Thad used the zoom feature on his implanted eye to get a better look at it. He noticed it was the same ship he had seen a day before and it seemed to be heading in the same direction they were. Eve noticed it as well and she noticed the look on Thad’s face, “Something wrong?” She asked.

  “Maybe. This is the second time I have seen that same ship and it is so familiar to me. You have any information about it?” He asked, forgetting that she didn’t keep all that kind of information locally and that right now she was cut off from any kind of computer network.

  “Why would I know anything about that particular ship.?” Eve looked at him funny.

  “Well I just thought you could look it up,” he paused then he remembered, “Oh sorry I forgot no net out here.”

  “Exactly,” Eve Replied. “Are you worried about that ship?” She asked.

  “Not so much as worried, but you might say I have a bit of a bad feeling in my gut about it if you know what I mean.” Thad responded.

  She gave him another funny look, “As I have yet to experience human intuition or, as you call it, your gut feeling, no I can’t say that I do.”

  “Then just trust me, that ship doesn’t mean good things for us I would bet on it,” Thad said as the ship passed out of sight. The group continued on.

  Far above the planet on the far side of one of the planets’ two moons, the remaining Ralnai ships that had engaged and destroyed the Gemini where still milling about. They had parked themselves on the far side of that moon to start effecting repairs. Normally they would have landed on the planet to repair their ships, but Thad’s little stunt of blowing up the slave market had damaged the only repair facility on the planet. Since they were to shot up to safety travel in hyperspace, they only had one choice. Fix what they could in space and wait for things on the ground to get fixed.

  The last thing they expected was for a ship to appear right in the middle of their formation. It was also safe to say that it was the last thing for the Eden and her crew to find themselves in the middle of a bunch of Ralnai war ships.

  On the bridge of the Eden St. Claire was sitting in the command chair and he was buttoned up in his armor. The ship had been decompressed as St. Claire had no idea what they would be jumping into. Right now he was glad he insisted on it. He saw the ships on the screen the second they materialized. “Eve I think we have a problem,” he said.

  “I know and I am working on it,” she said as the Ralnai ships powered up their weapons. “I don’t think they are going to be friendly. They are not trying to hail us,” she added.

  The first ship fired and the heavy ship’s laser hit the Eden’s screens. Her screens flared a bright blueish white as they dissipated the energy. They followed that up with a missile. Eve easily blew it up with the Eden’s active threat denial system. The system was a series of smaller lasers, rail guns and power guns that have no other function other than to kill or destroy any incoming threat.

  “Eve, are you going to return fire or just sit here as a target for these idiots?” St. Claire asked. He sat there feeling a bit powerless as the Eden, although able to be operated manually, she was fully automated. But right now he was the only one on the bridge. He couldn’t fly and operate the weapons systems at the same time. Even if the bridge was fully staffed, they couldn’t react as fast as Eve could. Nonetheless, as an old warrior, St. Claire still didn’t like being in a fight where he could throw no punches.

  “I’m on it,” she said as her guns went live and the first two mac rounds from her two magnetic accelerated canons cut through the ship that had fired on her. The Ralnai ship rocked and rolled as internal explosions tore through the ship. Ralnai were sucked out in to the cold vacuum of space as they were not expecting to go into battle and there ships were still fully pressurized. Knocking out the one ship was a good shot but it was still way too early in the fight to get excited about killing one ship.

  The other Ralnai ships moved fast to power up their weapons and they unleashed hell upon the Eden. Eve was holding her own, but there was just too much fire power for her to completely avoid. Any ordinary ship would have been nothing more than a debris field by now but the Eden was no ordinary ship. Her hull had been built with a similar Nano tech that gave Thad his healing powers. She also had unlimited energy that she could pull from sub space, although she could only pull so much power at one time as the energy transfer components could only handle so much before they burned out. As it was, the Eden’s screens and weapons systems were being taxed heavily.

  and every which way to avoid as much as the incoming fire as she could. The Eden moved with the grace of a ballet dancer trying to dance to the sounds of heavy metal. Even at her best, Eve just couldn’t win this fight there was just too many ships with too much fire power.

  In the holosuite, Ruby was busy with her training when the battle had begun. At first, she had no idea what was going on until the power to the holosuite failed for a moment. She was in the middle of using her suits anti-gravity belt to climb an obstacle and with nothing to support her she fell. She would have fallen a good six feet before crashing into the hard deck, but her armor sensed her falling and cranked up the anit-grav to the max. She slowed down and ended up floating a mere foot above the deck plating. Before she could do anything the power came back on and the obstacle was restored. The hard light slammed into Ruby and sent her flying backward and right into Kára.

  Kára caught her as she was a fish that had just been flung at her. Ruby’s little arms and legs flailed around as she tried to grab on to something. After Kára had her safely standing on the ground she asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, but what was that?” Ruby asked in return.

  But before Kára answer the room exploded in a flash of heat and light. Ruby would have been blinded by the intense light but her armor saved her again. When the visor sensed a dangerous light level it flashed over completely opaque. When the threat was gone, the visor changed back to clear and she could see where Sergeant Mendoza had been standing was now a hole that was opened to space. The gravity plating had been destroyed and floating next to the open hole was all that was left of him. Sergeant Mendoza’s left armored arm was just hanging there slowly twisting and drifting towards them.

  Ruby screamed. Kára magnetized her boots then grabbed the hysterical girl by the arm and dragged her from the room. They ran to the bridge and found it was also a mess with a couple of small holes open to space.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kára demanded as she and Ruby burst on to the bridge.

  “We kind of jumped right into the middle of a shit storm here!” St. Claire said as he was working the weapons station doing his best to help Eve out.

  “Anything I can do to help?” Kára asked.

  “Not unless you can get out there and throw some of those lightning bolts of yours!” St. Claire said half joking and half wishing she could.

  “Well I would, but there is not enough energy in the vacuum of space for my armor to pull from…” she drifted off.

  “I was just kidding really but…”
St. Claire started to say.

  “Shut up!” She cut him off. “Eve can you direct energy to the hull plating? I mean right to the spot where I will be standing?” “Yes, but why?” Eve’s voice asked over the only speaker in on the bridge that was still working.

  “What are you thinking?” St. Claire asked.

  “I got an idea,” she said before grabbing his helmet and giving it a quick hug. “I love you,” she said and then let go of the helmet and ran for the nearest airlock.

  “Kára!” He cried out after her but she was already gone. He turned to see the tears flowing down Ruby's cheeks. He wanted to wipe them from her little face and tell her that it was all going to be okay, but the best he could do was give her an awkward hug as their armor wasn’t really designed for close intimate maneuvers like hugging.

  “Everything will be okay,” he lied and he knew that she knew he was lying.

  Worried about everyone and especially about what Kára was about to do St Claire asked, “Eve honey I know you are a bit busy, but why haven’t we just jumped out of here?”

  “Sorry, but the engines took a hit before the cool down cycle was completed so we can’t jump. Now I am just trying to keep us all alive. So, unless you have something that can help me, I would ask that you shut up while I keep shooting!” She was curt with him.

  “Damn. Computer women or real women, doesn’t seem to matter,” he mumbled to himself as he turned back to the weapons panel.

  Kára passed out of the air lock without a problem as the ship was already decompressed. She made her way to the crest of the Eden’s nose. She had to duck and doge more than one laser bolt. Luckily for her, her suit could detect the power built up in the enemy’s weapon and anticipate the direction of fire and warn her to get out of the way.

  The stars and the planet below them whipped around and around as the Eden moved and spun to avoid the blow that would spell their doom. She ignored it as it was so disorienting even she would have lost her breakfast had she been looking at it. Instead she looked at the tactical display on her visor and she counted four ships still in the fight. Three cruisers and one battleship. She focused on the battleship. Rule one in combat, kill the most causality producing weapon first. Then go after the smaller ones. That battleship was pounding them hard and if they got in one lucky shot it would be game over for the Eden and the Commandos aboard her.

  “Okay, Eve now would be a good time to power up the hull plating,” Kára said over the comm.

  “Here it comes,” Eve replied.

  The comm cracked as the electricity flooded her suit. She had never pulled this much before and had no idea if her armor could even handle it, but she had to try. She couldn’t let them down. She had to save them.

  On the bridge of the Ralnai battleship the ship master stood bleeding from a large gash in his head courtesy of one of Eve’s direct hits on his ship. He looked at the tactical display and paused. He looked again and it was still there. He even wiped the screen to make sure it wasn’t something on it. “Do you see that?” He pointed to the Eden.

  His first mate also couldn’t believe what he was seeing as well, “I think it is one of the humans standing on their ship.”

  “What are they doing?” The big lizard could not understand what he was seeing. In all his years of combat he had never seen his enemy stand on the nose of their ship in the middle of a battle.

  Inside her armor Kára was starting to get really hot as she held the charge and pulled even more and more power. Her suit was far past redlined and she had to override the suit’s safety features as she continued to pull power from the Eden.

  “Time to ride the lightning!” she said as she stretched out her arms then brought them together in a clapping motion. She pointed them towards the enemy.

  The ship master stood dumbfounded as he watched the woman on the ship. “Is she glowing?” the first mate asked. Sure enough, she was glowing brighter and brighter as the power built up around her.

  “I think she is,” the ship master answered.

  “What do you think they are doing?” Another of the crew asked.

  The big lizard was trying to figure that out, when Kára let lose a massive bolt of energy. The Ralnai’s brain just couldn’t work fast enough to process what he was seeing. It was too late when he understood. He barked out, “Screens to maximum and evasive maneuvers! Get us clear!”

  The stream of energy smashed into the battle ships screens. They flared and lit up the black as if a small star had just been given birth. The screens failed and the power stream burned right through the nose of the battle ship. It took several seconds for it to burn completely through the ship. The outer hull buckled and turned from the normal drab green to a cherry red to finally a hot white. The seams of the ship went first, then the stream of energy cored the large battle ship just before it exploded in a mass of light and a quick fire. Now, where there had once been a Ralnai battleship there was now nothing but its debris floating in space.

  The main threat was now gone, but Kára wasn’t done yet she wheeled around and using her arms to direct the flow of energy as it was a fire hose and she was trying to put out a fire. She easily destroyed two more ships.

  Inside the Eden they watched in helpless awe as Kára did the seemingly impossible. Because of the massive amount of energy being transferred they couldn’t hear her comm. This was a good thing because she was screaming inside of her helmet. The pain was unbearable, but she bore it. It was the thoughts of St. Claire, Ruby and the others and her love for them that gave her incredible strength.

  Eve managed to finish off the one of the last two ships with a double shot from the Mag cannons. Then the energy stream that was coming from Kára faded away. One ship still remained and it was closing in for the kill. One would think that after witnessing the destruction of the other ships it would flee. Unfortunately the Hail Mary the Eden had just thrown had burned out many of the ships systems and she powered down.

  The Eden was dark and was in a dead drift, she was ripe for the picking. The ship master wanted her hull as a prize and he ordered to close and board.

  St. Claire stood on the dark bridge and tried to get Eve to talk to him, but for the time being she was not talking. He didn’t know how bad the damage was or if even Eve was still on-line. He didn’t know how many of his people were hurt, or worse, dead and he didn’t know what had happened to Kára. The screen had gone dead with the rest of the ships systems. He didn’t like not knowing and it pissed him off.

  Since St. Claire was not a man to sit around and worry about all that was going wrong around him, he instead focused on what he could do. First, he needed information and with Ruby safe next to him, Kára was the most important thing to him now. He activated the flash light on the side of his helmet. He then went to the emergency panel. He didn’t bother trying to open it, he just grabbed it and tore off the cover and tossed it aside. He grabbed the manual release to drop the armored plates that covered the bridges windows. After all she was built as a pleasure ship as well as a war ship. He pulled and the plates dropped away one by one.

  He then could see Kára’s body floating away and she was not moving. “Stay here, I’m going to go get her,” he told Ruby.

  Ruby didn’t say anything, but she did nod to let him know she understood. St. Claire also noticed the last ship closing. He had been so busy with the fight he hadn’t opened his comm channel to his team. He did it now and he heard a lot of traffic, “Cut the chatter and some body talk to me.”

  His team quickly reported their status, four wounded and two KIA; Mendoza and Ryan. He would have to morn their loss at a later date and time. Right now he had to get Kára and do something about that last ship. “Somebody get me a Trident and meet me at the airlock,” St. Claire said.

  By the time he got to the airlock one of the Commandos was waiting with a large anti-ship missile. The Trident was a hand-held ground to air missile that was designed to bring down enemy aircraft. It wasn’t the first time a Tr
ident had been fired on a ship this size, but it was the first time anyone had tried doing it in outer space while standing on the side of a ship.

  The Commando handed him the missile “Do I need to ask what you are going to do with that?”

  St Claire stopped and gave him the look. The look of do you really think I am stupid, “Kill Ralnai. What did you think I was going to do with it?”

  “Good luck Sir,” was all the Commando said.

  St. Claire magnetized his boots and lifted the missile up on to his shoulder. Even though the powered armor handled the weight with ease the mere act of moving his shoulder in that manner sent a wave of pain through his upper body. Doctor Hammer had done a masterful job of repairing his shoulder but the old wound still bothered him every now and then. He gritted his teeth and grunted and pushed through it.

  He walked out on to the hull and he had to look at his feet as the Eden was still spinning and looking up would have made him sick. He made his way out towards Kára. She was still not moving and was starting to drift further and further away. He looked up and counted the seconds between the rotations. Every rotation the Ralnai drew closer and closer.

  St. Claire could see that they were spinning too fast to use the auto lock-on. He would have to manually fire it and hope the missile locked on after it was fired. He did the math in his head and waited for what he thought was the perfect time to fire. He lifted the missile into firing position on his shoulder, grunted again from the pain and stared down death yet again.

  On the bridge of the Ralnai ship the ship master pointed at St. Claire, “What is it with these crazy humans? Kill him,” he ordered.

  The Eden Rotated into position and St Claire flipped up the safety cover and said, “Well here goes nothing. Bye-bye you assholes.” He smashed his thumb down on the fire button. A millisecond later the missile’s engine ignited and streaked towards the Ralnai ship. It quickly acquired the target and homed in on it. He watched as it slammed into the side of the ship with a satisfying flash. Pleased with himself St. Claire declared, “Hey that worked.”