Found Girl

by Pauline Baird Jones

  A hundred-plus against their two ships.

  The array’s protection felt minimal.

  If they were forced to bump heads with these bogeys, they weren’t going to last long. They needed a different strategy, one that took advantage of the one advantage they had. Their cloaking technology. Stealth…

  “This remind you of anything, Tiger?” Coop asked his wingman.

  “Which FUBAR should I remember?”

  Tiger sounded pretty amused considering.

  “Those old World War Two movies we used to watch.”

  “Okay, I might need one more clue.”

  “The Silent Service.” The wolf pack subs weren’t cloaked, but they might as well have been until the allies improved their radar.

  Coop could almost see Tiger straighten.

  “I’m starting to follow you, Banshee.”

  “We’re not exactly a wolf pack,” Coop admitted, “but we have one thing those early subs didn’t have.”

  “Cloaking tech.” Tiger’s tone said his wheels were turning, too. “We need to let the old man see this.”

  “Already sent,” Coop said. Would the birds help? They had cloaking tech, but home plate didn’t. If they came—and he was sure Pappy would come if at all possible—it would have a big, old target painted on it. He looked at Arian. “You two have to fix that hole. If that many ships get through—”

  Her face was pale, tense. She nodded. “What is a sub?”

  “If we survive, I’ll show you,” he promised. He considered the problem. He’d like to go through that hole and do some damage, but he wasn’t stupid. “We have to assume at least some of them will get through…”

  “I estimate they will breach the array in two of your hours.” A thread of strain ran through her voice. “Or less.”

  “Keep working on fixing it, both of you. If some ships get through, we’ll deal with them, but let’s keep as many out as we can.” Divide and conquer. This wasn’t dogfighting. This wasn’t like anything he’d trained for, but in an opportunity to excel, that was pretty much SOP. It wasn’t going to be enough to think outside the box. It was time to kick it to the curb. “What kind of weapons does this crate have?”

  24

  There was some good news. Reinforcements were coming.

  There was some bad news. None of them had a comet drive.

  The birds could fly faster than the Boyington, and they had those sling things. If they could rig the Boyington, then they’d arrive in twelve hours—give or take a lot of uncertainty because the birds didn’t count time in the same way they did. And if they couldn’t get the sling rigged? The Boyington wouldn’t like being last to the fight, but Coop would be happy if the bird fleet arrived before they got blown out of space.

  That was, if they knew how to fight. They’d been a sanctuary for a long time, near as he could tell. And they hadn’t exactly talked about fighting at the last meet up.

  “I wish we had some mines,” Coop said, then had a sudden thought and turned to Arian. “What about the array devices? Could they be rigged to explode on contact? If we could detach some and scatter them around?” He frowned. “But only if they could remain cloaked.” Otherwise, the aliens could just shoot themselves a path through.

  Arian looked interested, then thoughtful. “At this level of programming, I think I can move them. I’d need to disable their deflection programming while keeping the cloak online…” Her voice trailed off as she leaned into her station, her hands a blur on the keys. “Where do you want them? To cover entry?”

  “No, if the first ship hits something, they’ll fire a concentrated spread to clear their path. We want to lure a few of them in, then close the door behind them,” Coop muttered, studying the tactical HUD and mentally playing out scenarios. They’d have to enter one at a time, but then they’d need to spread out into some kind of defensive formation. But once they hit the mine field—

  If they put the minefield there, then the ships behind would be forced to veer in these directions. If he and Tiger each took a side—he frowned. He was used to having Tiger on his wing, used to them covering each other. With this plan, they’d be far apart if one of them got in trouble. He kept trying scenarios, running them from beginning to end. There wasn’t any other option that he could see. Maybe Tiger could see something he couldn’t. He put together the plan and shot it over to his wingman. “Take a look at this, Tiger. Tell me what you think.”

  He knew his tone told Tiger that he wasn’t happy with it either. He turned back to the plan. If they did take up positions on either side of the breach, Tiger low, their ship high…

  Of course, there was no high or low in space. It was all relative, but flyboys needed to at least pretend there were some fixed points so they wouldn’t accidentally shoot each other. “Be a bummer if one of us shot the other accidentally…” he muttered.

  “These shuttles have programs in place that allows them to avoid friendly fire,” Arian murmured.

  That could be good, but also unpredictable. “Can I turn it off if I need to?”

  Arian looked startled, considered it, then nodded, even as she used her HUD to pluck devices out of the array and set them tracking toward the trap coordinates. “When we go into combat mode, the option will appear on your screen.”

  “I’m a control freak,” he said. Short answer was all he had time for. In battle he needed to control all the shuttle’s movement. Didn’t want, or need, it jinking on its own just as he took aim at something. Her lips twitched, but she did not comment. They were both busy. He turned back to his battle plan. His comm pinged.

  “Go ahead, Tiger.”

  “This has some pretty sweet weapons systems for a passenger shuttle.”

  “Perhaps,” Arian said, without looking up, “the passengers lived in dangerous times?”

  “The lady has a point,” Tiger conceded. “Or the passengers were high value.”

  “Well, I put a high value on us. Let’s try to stay alive and fighting fit until the reinforcements arrive.” He hesitated, not sure how to ask.

  “It’s the only way, Banshee.”

  No surprise Tiger knew what was bothering him. “Yeah,” he agreed. It was the only way.

  Time seemed to slow and speed up. It was like that before battle. Nerves tightened to shatter point and then smoothed out when the action started. In the heat of battle, it was all reflex, split second decisions, and surviving because you were a little better, a little quicker, or boom you were gone because the other guy got the drop on you. He’d lost men in battle. Knew the feel of this, felt the change in the air as he briefed his contingent of Marines. Must be crap to be strapped down, your life in some other guy’s hands. He’d have left them back at home plate, but Pappy always had his reasons. If they were boarded—well, he’d be glad they were here.

  “We’ve got incoming.” The voice was Janeck’s.

  Arian looked from her HUD to Coop’s. Janeck had been monitoring the breach and working on how to shut the door at the right time, while Arian worked on her minefield.

  “They are sending in scout ships.” Coop cursed under his breath. He should have thought of that. If one of the smaller ships hit their mines before the bigger ships came through—

  As the small group entered sanctuary space, it almost looked like the array devices were riding on a current. When a ship came too close to the devices, they bobbed away. Then drifted back into place behind the scouts as they began to move into positions well clear of the breach.

  “Nice job.” Coop relaxed about a millimeter. Had to tense again when the scouts put their feelers out, scanning for threats. They shouldn’t find anything, not when everything was cloaked, but they wouldn’t know for sure until the shooting started. And they lost their advantage. After a tense period, while the ships settled into place, in a staggered line of high and low, he let his breath out. They were looking the wrong way for trouble. Well, the wrong way to see the shuttles. The Boyington on the other hand…

&nbs
p; “How far can they see?” Coop asked, not expecting an answer.

  “They are smaller, with less sophisticated technology,” Arian said. “I doubt they can see that far into the sanctuary. Most of their interior is given over to weapons.”

  “What kind?”

  “Energy based, but they do have a couple of devices that are similar to your missiles.”

  “Can we update home plate?”

  Arian hesitated. “It would be a risk.”

  “I’m surprised the array doesn’t have something that will shoot,” Coop murmured, making a small adjustment to position mostly for something to do. “Hold fire until the first mine strike,” he told Tiger, even though he didn’t have to.

  “Roger that.” Tiger didn’t sound offended. His focus had intensified, too. Coop would hear it in his voice.

  It felt like forever for anything to happen outside the breach. Then the first of the big ships started to move.

  “Why so slow?” Not that he was in a hurry—okay, so he was ready to get this done.

  “They can not be certain it will get through.” Arian checked something.

  They watched it make small course adjustments as it drew closer to the array.

  “It’s gonna be close,” Coop muttered.

  “Very,” Arian agreed.

  If it didn’t get through, they’d probably start shooting again. And if a stray shot came through the gap and hit one of the devices—felt weird to be hoping the bad boy would fit. He tensed as the HUD showed the ship intersecting with the array. Almost felt like he heard the scrape of metal against the hull as its thickest part reached the point of critical contact. Did the alien ship hang there? Time slowed—and then the fat part was through. Coop released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  “How many do we let through?” Janeck asked.

  Coop assessed the ships. “No more than four.” That would be pushing it, but he also wanted the bogeys to feel some pain. He glanced at Arian. “Can you arrange a mine strike at the same time we shut the door?”

  Arian shot him a look. Gave a tiny shrug. “I wonder why they don’t widen the gap? They could send more ships in a faster rate?”

  “If it were me in charge over there, I’d worry about how closely the array is being monitored. Maybe they are hoping the breach will appear small enough to keep the birds from reacting in time.” Is that what would have happened? He couldn’t read the birds well enough to know their tactics. No surprised, the birds hoped the array would get fixed before there was a battle, but they’d known it was coming. What kind of defenses had they built up as they watched this happening? Did they have enough ships to take on an armada of this size if they did break through? Had they failed to act because they couldn’t fix the array? Or were the birds sacrificing them to buy time? His two-ship wolf pack should be able to cause them some problems, but if too many ships got through, all they could hope for was to last long enough to distract and annoy them as they moved deeper into the system.

  And if, by some miracle, they stopped this incursion? Even if they got it all fixed, the aliens knew something was here. They wouldn’t stop trying. Deal with the problem in front of you, he reminded himself.

  Tiger spoke through the comm. “Those formations kind of look like battle groups. One big ship and two smaller ones.”

  That they did. Hadn’t planned on the addition of the smaller ships. If he’d been a sea dog instead of a flyboy…

  Would their modified wolf pack strategy translate successfully into a three-dimensional battle? He ran the plan through the systems again, but couldn’t think how to change it. And it was too late now.

  “Well, the subs took those on, too, Tiger.”

  “That they did, Banshee.”

  “We got two battle groups on this side. Janeck, stand by to shut the door.”

  There was a grunt Coop took to be an affirmative. Okay, he hoped it was an affirmative. The formation’s resemblance to Naval battle groups increased as the smaller ships moved into position on either side of the larger ships, once they’d cleared the breach. On the HUD, Coop could see Arian’s devices bobbing around the approaching ships like buoy’s in an ocean. She’d have to time their movement just right. Which might not be possible.

  The first ship continued to move forward, with its escort matching the forward momentum. As the second and third groups cleared the array, one of the groups adjusted into a course for the high element position, the other moving toward the lower element of the standard combat box. That left the first ship in the lead element. Did that make it the big boss alien element or the sacrificial lamb?

  “Combat box.” Coop spoke out loud for Tiger’s benefit.

  “Does kind of look like it,” Tiger said.

  Even if the best case happened, the rear guard ships wouldn’t interact with the mines. Hopefully, they could make life difficult for them anyway. He tracked movement, looking for which direction he thought the bogeys on his side would break when the mines blew. He started adjusting course, saw Tiger doing the same.

  Who were these guys? Were these just universal tactics or did they read history, too? In WW2, the B-17 bombers had used a combat box to concentrate fire and for self-defense, but they’d been defending against diving Stukas and barrages from ground defenses. Were they prepared for the two shuttles’ surprisingly interesting defenses? He hoped not. And he hoped he’d picked the right placement for the battle. He was putting ships—and their crews—pretty far out on a limb.

  “The fourth battle group has cleared the breach,” Arian said. “Dr. Janeck, close the gap now. Firing reverse rockets on the devices.”

  Coop’s heart started to thump a hard countdown when the gap didn’t close. “What’s the holdup, doc?”

  The doc ignored him. Maybe he was busy. Another battle group passed through the gap.

  “That’s five.”

  “I can count,” Janeck snapped.

  Coop didn’t speak when the sixth group cleared the breach. He did start sweating.

  Number seven was approaching, the two smaller ships in the lead. On his HUD he saw thin lines begin to track across the breach, like flashes of lightning that stayed connected and grew thicker instead of flashing out of sight. Bogey number seven must have seen it, too. It began decelerating and went into a ponderous turn. The two smaller ships were too close. The last lines knit into place. Light flared, and the two ships disappeared from tracking.

  “Any damage to the array?” Coop asked. Six big bogeys and twelve little ones—relatively speaking. All twelve ships were significantly larger than their shuttles.

  Arian studied the readings. “The repair fluctuated, but it is holding.”

  He ran a hand across the top of his head, then settled deeper into his seat. He activated the internal comms. “Everyone strapped in? We’re gonna start bumping heads.”

  Arian checked her strap. “Ten minutes until multiple device impact with the lead ships.”

  In the three dimensional HUD, Arian’s minefield looked like a net bending to enclose the first three battle groups. On the HUD, it looked like a knockout punch. In reality, they could have used more devices in play. She’d had to pluck them out carefully, and there’d only been time to pull from around the damaged area.

  “Do we know how powerful those things are?”

  “They should destroy any smaller ships that take a direct hit. Damage to the larger ones will depend on their shields.”

  “So, that’s a no.” He itched to launch the battle drones. They were small and deadly, which would make them hard to target, but they had a limited power source. Without the data from the first strike, their deployment wouldn’t be as effective. The goal was maximum confusion for as long as possible. Yeah, they were cloaked, but as soon as they started doing crap, even a stupid and confused enemy should be able to figure out their general position. They had the maneuverability advantage over what they could see. But if those ships had small fighter craft—which he would expect—then
they’d lose that edge.

  The last two battle groups added to the combat box, settling into staggered position—low and high—relative to the rear element. He’d guess that the distances gave an indication of their standard firing spread. They wouldn’t want to shoot each other either.

  So, best case scenario, their minefield took out the lead ship in the front high position, and the front low ships. That would leave three groups to bump heads with. Of course, best case was a dream. A faint hope. It was going to be a knife fight in a phone booth kind of battle, a real fur ball.

  It felt like a slow-mo shot as he waited for the group on his side to enter his tactical box. He activated his comm to the Marines. In the camera view, they were all fully rigged out, including oxygen masks in case of a hull breach. Locked and loaded. Even if they couldn’t help him that much, it was a reassuring sight.

  “We engage the enemy in three minutes…”

  25

  Lights flared, one or two at first, but it quickly spread into what appeared to be a charge running in a moving line, from ship to ship. Secondary explosions flared in the wake of the running charge. The flares grew bigger, spreading, so many that the sensors were overloaded, the field of battle a concentrated white light. Arian felt Coop’s tension as they waited for the sensors to catch up, for the HUD to update.

  White faded slowly, then out of the white shapes images emerged, beginning to resolve into real data once more.

  The lead element was completely gone, both the large ship and its accompanying smaller ships.

  The ships in what she’d call the center of the formation were not damaged, though they had received debris impacts from when the larger ship blew up, she noted. The outer groupings had sustained damage. One of the larger ships on Tiger’s side of the formation was drifting out of position, it’s propulsion offline. The smaller support ships were both gone.