Vatican Assassin
Page 33
Captain Yamano seems to enjoy having BC on the bridge. Whenever there's a lull in activity, he explains what's going on to BC.
"There's still fighting going on at Lunar Prime, that's where we're going," Yamano tells him. "They're still hitting some Earth targets, too: Sydney, Hong Kong, Manila. They've been dipping up and down from orbit. They hit Moscow, Berlin, London, New York, LA, Tokyo, all the major cities. 'Death swooping down from the skies,' I heard one guy call it."
Yamano's brow furrows.
"This is bad, Father, all out war. They have to have more Transpace ships than we thought. Shit. Look at that... we're coming up on the Moon," something catches his eye, "hold on, Father! Grab a seat... you can sit over their by the nav console. Strap in, in case we lose G."
An insistent, pinging alarm sounds.
Red emergency lights come on around the bridge.
BC bolts to the chair the captain indicated. Out the window ahead he can see the Moon, about the size of someone's head at this distance.
Two small explosions flare up in the space around the Moon. BC can see angry black and orange hot points glowing on the lunar surface, but not much else.
Hard to make out Lunar Prime. That can't be good.
Those small explosions. Weapons fire. Not just that, though. To see it this far away, those have to be ships exploding...
"Damn." Yamano turns to BC. "That one on the right was the DeGaul. I just hope that other one was one of theirs," the captain says.
BC turns in his chair to face the captain. "The heavy cruiser DeGaul?"
"The former heavy cruiser, unfortunately. This is bad." The captain stops talking as he studies the readouts around him, a mask of concentration freezing his features with furrowed brow.
BC looks back out the front viewport. The moon has surged closer, looms larger than the limits of the viewing area, horrid black smears glowing fierce orange-red, like open wounds, marring the surface. BC sees something flash by, sees metallic rain sparkling outside.
Must have been a missile. And countermeasures.
"Pull us up and away off the elliptic a hundred degrees. Now!" Yamano yells.
BC watches the moon drop out of sight in the viewports as their ship surges up and ahead in a burst of speed. BC feels the Gs pushing him down in his chair despite the artificial gravity.
"Rear guns, I want answering fire on that missile launcher yesterday!" Yamano calls out. "Launch more countermeasures, we haven't covered this position."
Shit... this is bad. I've never seen it this bad before. The moon looks like Hell.
"They're probably going to need you down on Lunar Prime, Father, or what's left of it. Lots of last rites to perform, I'm afraid. I'm getting reports of heavy casualties and wounded."
"How bad is it?" BC has to ask.
"They hit the main dome of Lunar Prime," Yamano says, "destroyed the central section." The captain is listening to some com source BC can't hear and relaying the information.
He looks directly at BC. "They hit the Vatican section pretty hard, I'm afraid, Father. It's being mentioned as one of the hardest hit areas." Yamano tries to cheer him up. "Guess you're lucky you're with us here, huh? Well, let's hope..." Yamano is cut off.
"Captain, we're being hailed by the King," an officer tells him. The captain nods back.
"Go ahead, King. Yamano on the Eisenhower, fresh back from Fortune. How can we help?"
"Nice to see you, Ike," the com sputters. The signal is just barely holding together.
BC can hear explosions in the background on the com.
"We're picking up a UIN flanking action around the dark side," the com sputters. "Hey Ike, why don't you come on over and help us stop them from hitting our line's blind side! Sending coordinates, hope we see you soon, King out." Another background explosion is cut off as the message ends.
"Nav, helm, get us over there. Tactical, I need some scans in that area. Bridge, kill the white light in here, we're going dark side."
Regular lighting blips off at the captain's command. Only the red alert lighting now lights the bridge.
Cool. Just like the movies.
Except here we can die.
Maybe nothing like the movies, come to think of it.
BC watches the moon go from orb to crescent all the while getting larger in the forward viewport.
Going in.
He sees extensive damage to sites on the surface of the dark side as they get closer. He thinks about what Yamano told him.
Man, did they hit us hard. The atrium of Lunar Prime. All those good restaurants and bars... and our section.
I wanted to forget that, pretend I didn't hear it. God, I hope everybody got to safety in the shelters. I have no idea how much advance warning they got. Merry Christmas from your friends in the UIN. Happy Anniversary.
BOOM-ANG-THUD!
A blast shakes the bridge. The entire bridge crew snaps into a spurt of precise activity as they take battle stations in earnest.
"We've got company!" someone shouts. "That was a hit!"
"Tell me something we both don't already know, Chargon," Yamano says, cool and sarcastic. "Damage?"
"Minimal," an officer on BC's right reports.
"Good. That's what I wanted to hear. Okay, you guys got one free shot, you don't get another one," the captain tells the enemy.
He turns to BC. "Hey there, Father, how you doin'? Ever ride a cruiser into battle before?"
BC musters a smile. "I'm, uh, I'm okay. Can't say as I have, captain."
"First time for everything, huh?"
"Captain, we've got missiles locking on!" the guy BC now knows is Chargon shouts.
Yamano turns to face front.
"Return fire!" he barks. "Countermeasures!"
"Another one coming in from starboard, sir!" Chargon reports.
"I'm on it, captain," the guy on BC's right tells Yamano. "Starboard side batteries firing."
"Good. Keep those missiles away from us. No lasers yet? Funny. They may not have them on every ship. Missiles are easier to mount, easier to come by, too," Yamano says, thinking out loud.
BC watches the bridge crew in their ballet of battle.
It is almost a dance, the way they work together to run the ship. They're the interactive human brain for the cruiser's killing machine. Kill or be killed.
They close in on the UIN ship that fired on them. As the ship gets close enough for BC to see some detail, it erupts into an orange cloud of debris and quickly extinguishing flame from the nearly invisible laser fire from their cruiser.
Another UIN ship suddenly appears from behind and to the left, bearing down on them. The Eisenhower's lasers soon focus on the new intruder. It's obliterated in turn, only to be followed by a third, right behind. It, too, quickly disintegrates under laser fire from their cruiser.
"I've got a fix on another two, maybe three of them," the officer to BC's right tells the captain after they've taken out the third UIN vessel.
"Try to keep us between them and the moon. There are still civilians alive down there. Let's see if we can't keep more of our people from being killed." The captain pauses, thinking. "Don't let us get too close to the surface. We need to be able to maneuver. If they get too close to us, or head towards the surface, slice ‘em and dice ‘em," he orders.
"Captain, The King on the com!" Chargon says.
"Go ahead, King," Yamano authorizes.
"Eisenhower, you are a sight for sore eyes! Good to see you. You're hot! Good shooting!" the com sputters, stronger than the last time.
"Who else we got here, King?" Yamano asks.
"Well, we had the Kennedy, but they're gone, back for repairs. The UIN first wave took out the Blair... down with all hands, the poor bastards. But The Blair took out a huge UIN Transpace Transport ship, one we hadn't see before, before she went down.
"The UIN used the big ship to ferry smaller ones here from Mars. If the Blair hadn't stopped them, they woulda been able to bring in more ships."
"The Blair too
k it out, huh?" the captain asks the com.
"Yeah, but unfortunately not before it unloaded it's last batch of assault craft. We got another one coming in!" the com clicks off.
"We got it, captain. Coming up from the surface, didn't see that one on the scans! Incoming!"
BOOM-THUD-ANG
"I want that ship! Get some fire on that fucker!" Yamano yells.
The UIN ship explodes in their viewport.
BC watches the battle blur by. Their ship is hit, but not badly damaged as they mop up the failed UIN flanking action on the dark side.
After, Yamano brings the Eisenhower back around near Lunar Prime.
The UTZ line has been holding the main UIN advance at bay in the space around Lunar Prime. As The Eisenhower approaches the UTZ line, more UIN ships appear, probably the last of the UIN flankers.
The Ike engages a couple of these straggling assault ships. They're no match for the UTZ Heavy Cruiser. The Eisenhower takes some damage, but deals out more. Both ships are destroyed.
The Eisenhower, two other heavy cruisers, and several smaller support craft are all that are left of the UTZ forces by the time the Ike arrives on the line. To BC, the battle seems to be all but over, with the exception of a UIN straggler here and there like the two The Eisenhower had taken out earlier. But the bridge of The Ike remains tense and alert.
The crew uses every scanner at their disposal searching for enemy ships. Eyes wide open. BC figures the scene is the same on the bridges of the other cruisers.
The King tried to follow them from the dark side, but ended up touching down for repairs at a nearby outpost instead when their damage proved too extensive for them to continue. "They'll live to fight another day," Yamano had quipped. BC heard him mention something about another cruiser coming back from action on the dark side, too.
BC sits in his chair and listens. He knows the battle is really over when all of a sudden everyone seems to simultaneously exhale a breath they didn't know they were holding. No one says anything, but it's been a while since they've seen an enemy ship, and all of a sudden everything is All Right. A relative calm descends over the bridge.
I guess we won.
There are more of us left than them. But the cost seems incredibly high.
What is the UIN doing?
The white lighting comes back on. BC hears Chargon reciting a list of ship's damages to Captain Yamano and begins to pay attention.
"...about seventy percent. It's okay, not great, but okay. And the other one, well... it'll probably blow up if we push it beyond minimal directional firing. But we'll need it for that, because most of the starboard side directional engines are out. We suffered most of our hull breaches on the starboard side, some explosive Dee, mostly confined to deck two."
"Casualties?" Yamano asks.
"Two," he's told. "Endoway is gone, sucked right out of C corridor on deck two. LeClair was killed when Engine Two flared."
"Roger." Yamano massages his brow, closes his eyes.
"Orders, sir?" the helmsman asks.
"Right." Yamano lowers his hands, opens his eyes. "Take us in to Lunar Prime, Reagan Station. Take us down, Mr. Chargon."
BC leans forward to see what he can of Lunar Prime out of the viewports as they approach.
What he sees makes him feel sick, sour and twisted in the pit of his stomach. The entire station is a charred mess. Twisted metal beams jut up out of melted piles of what were once walls, ceilings, floors. New craters mar the surface.
One of those craters is where I used to live. I can only hope everyone made it to some kind of shelter. But I'm not sure anywhere was safe from that blast, by the look of it. Might have been a nuke! Would they dare?
Man, this is the most destruction I've ever seen, maybe worse than some of the Earth attacks back when I was a kid. This was major, an all-out blitz.
"There were a lot of casualties down there," Yamano says at BC's side, startling him out of his thoughts.
I never heard him approach... must be slipping.
Might be shock. Caught me daydreaming, or, what, day-nightmaring?
"Looks like it." BC says.
"I'm sorry. I know you were based here. Maybe you were lucky to be with us instead of here when the attack came," Yamano says. He looks out at the ruins with BC.
"They threw everything they had at us, seems like," Yamano ponders aloud.
"Looks that way. Merry Christmas, huh?"
"They won't forget the massacre." It's a statement.
"Not likely," BC agrees.
"Captain, we're down. Into what's left, anyway. We're improvising an airlock using our ship-to-ship facilities. Should be able to disembark in twenty minutes," the com says.
Chapter Thirty-One