Found Girl

by Pauline Baird Jones

  On their side of the formation, the two smaller ships were gone. The larger ship had slowed, but still had some propulsion.

  There were signs of confusion, the bogeys’ orderly formation dissolving as the following ships altered course to avoid mines.

  She drilled deeper into the data, pulling out the ships with weakened shields and sending the data to Coop. “You should target these with the battle drones.”

  She heard Coop’s long sigh of satisfaction. His eyes were alight and a small smile played around his mouth.

  “Launching.” The shuttle shuddered as the first wave of drones left their tubes.

  On the other side of the field of battle, Tiger’s drones moved in a swarm toward targets. Both shuttles were already altering position as fast as was possible in the vacuum of space. The swarms flowed among the ships, most going for the weakened ships, but also for other targets. The smaller ships had no chance. Four more exploded, the force of it rocking the larger ships, pelting them with chunks of debris. More of the drones punched into the larger ships, a few getting through their shields and piercing armor.

  “Three large ships and two small ships operational,” Arian said. “One large ship has lost propulsion, another is at half propulsion.”

  “Any data on their weapons systems?” Coop asked. His hands on the controls made light adjustments, just enough to keep them in motion.

  “All remaining ships have weapons capability—fighter craft is launching from remaining large ships.” Her lips thinned. Luckily this ship could count because there were too many targets for her to count visually. “Thirty from each of five ships.”

  “That’s a lot of little ships,” Coop agreed, his smile widening.

  “Yes,” Arian agreed. One hundred and fifty—their drones turned to target this new threat, taking out several, but leaving many targets behind.

  “Firing the second wave of battle drones,” Coop said.

  He’d called it the second wave, but it was also the last of the drones. And the fighter ships were going after them. Because they were the only visible target for them, she reminded herself. They wanted this outcome.

  Coop flashed her a quick grin. “Don’t look so worried. This bus still has a few surprises left. “ The shuttle veered right, shuddering from a glancing blow from one of the randomly fired enemy blasts. He used the blow to change course again.

  Arian worked on rebuilding the shuttle’s shields and cloak.

  “That was close,” Coop said.

  It was as if he’d become one with this ship. It responded to his lightest touch. Had she, in memory, felt possessive of this ship? It was yet another puzzle she lacked time to tease out. Time…something about that thought, that word caused her hands to tremble briefly before she got them under control.

  “They have damaged many drones,” Arian said, surprised her voice sound calm when it felt as if her insides shuddered like that large ship taking fire.

  “They’re drawing fire for us,” Coop said, an odd resolution in his tone.

  * * *

  “How far out are our reinforcements?” Coop asked, his mind comparing options as his battle drones winked out like stars at daybreak. If he dropped the cloak now, it would be a figurative unzipping of his fly. He didn’t want to do it until he had to. And he hoped “had to” would be never. They wouldn’t last long if the enemy could see them.

  “I do not know. This shuttle can not see the Phoenicopterian ships when they are cloaked.”

  They could sit tight until the drones were all destroyed, but that was crap tactics. If the enemy eliminated the drones, then the remaining ships would be able to concentrate all their attention on looking for them. With weapons. Right now they weren’t sure who and what was doing this or where they were. As if Tiger heard him thinking, or was thinking the same thoughts, his comm activated.

  “Time for round two, Banshee?”

  Round two was just short of unzipping their flies. But they did need to take advantage of those weakened shields while they could. They needed every advantage they could squeeze out.

  “Time for round two,” he agreed. “I’ll go in first.” This was going to be worse than a knife fight in a phone booth. There was more room in the phone booth. “If I make it, then give it a go.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “You’re in command. You get to decide.” Coop grinned, but when he glanced at Arian the grin faded. “I’m sorry.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment. “You believe we are going to die.”

  He shrugged. “High probability.” He didn’t have to look at the HUD to know he’d be navigating through a randomly swarming anthill—that couldn’t see him and dodge.

  “So be it.” Her lips pursed together, her eyes closed.

  He glanced left, then right. “Arian? What are you doing?”

  Her eyes opened. “I am puckering up.” Coop shook his head, bewildered. “For the good-bye kiss.”

  His grin came back. “You don’t know how much…sweetheart if I kiss you now, I’ll lose the plot. But you just gave me a good reason not to die today.”

  The pucker faded into a smile that lit every part of her face. Almost, he gave in—he turned resolutely back to the HUD. Their very small window of opportunity was closing. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he said a little prayer. There were no atheists in fox holes or cockpits. He studied the darting fighter craft, noted how they moved. “The drones will veer away from us?”

  “Yes.” She’d gone back to her keyboard.

  That was both good and bad. If the enemy were watching—and he had to assume they were—the drones movement gave them clues to the shuttle’s course. If they were lucky, this enemy would figure it out after. He banked the shuttle and started into the anthill, heading for the closest of the remaining big bad boys. He’d have preferred to start with a ship that had more damage, but he might only get one run at this. Tiger would have a better chance if all the ships had some damage.

  As he wove through the swarm of enemy fighters and drones, the shuttle screamed multiple warnings—they cut off abruptly. “Thanks.”

  “It is not as if you do not know.” Arian sounded calmly amused. “The first energy pulse weapon is ready for you to fire.”

  “Optimum range?” he asked.

  “To reduce the chances of interception—”

  “Close. Got it.” He should be scared. He’d done hopeless and survived. This was worse than hopeless. He fought the urge to bank hard when an enemy fighter cut across his path. There was no room for hard banking. He came close enough to the fighter that their shields bumped, sending it spinning out of control. It crashed into one of the scout ships, and they both exploded. He’d call that a win, though the enemy was probably looking at the data to see why. If they could add…

  He cut in close, this time forcing a drone off course, and drew a bead on his target. It had been the last ship through the breach, had the least damage, except to the shields from drone attacks. Time to change that. His thumb was light on the trigger as he made small course adjustments for his approach.

  “Warn me when we’re three hundred meters from the target,” he asked.

  “Roger that.”

  He found he could still grin, even as he narrowly avoided a collision with two enemy fighters. Did their collision alarms go off? Were they tracking him now? There was an itch between his shoulders as he steadied course for the final part of his firing run.

  “Three hundred meters in five seconds.”

  He angled so they’d skim just outside the target’s shields.

  The collision alarm blared, even though it was supposed to be off.

  He didn’t blame the shuttle. He didn’t like it either—one more meter.

  He thumbed the trigger, felt the small jolt as the missile left the tube. He changed course as fast as the laws of physics allowed. This weapon was not cloaked. So they could guess where he was unless he could stop being there fast. Enemy fire filled the space around the
m.

  The missile flew straight and deadly, too fast for the enemy to destroy it and not hit their own ship. It passed through the weakened shields and impacted solidly.

  Beams of fire filled the space around them. The shuttle rocked as it took some glancing blows. If he’d fired any further out, the enemy fighters would have got it. Whoever this was, they could shoot. And track.

  “Shields at ninety percent, cloak at ninety-two percent.”

  The enemy fighters tried to peel away from the concentrated fire. Coop tucked himself in behind a couple of them. No reason to linger where the shooting was.

  Light flashed in irregular patterns across the surface of the ship he’d targeted, then it went dark. Dead in space. Gotta love those energy pulse weapons. As soon as the big ship lost shields most of the remaining drones closed on it, making it marginally easier for Coop to continue to exit the area.

  Multiple fire patterns continued to criss-cross through where they’d been and where the shooters hoped they were going. Depending on how sensitive their sensors were, flying almost up their six was working for him for right now.

  There was a change in the pattern of the fighters. They were trying to box him in. Where he wasn’t.

  Don’t get cocky, he reminded himself, and shifted to the six of a couple of different ships, riding their tails and moving closer to his next target.

  “That’s how it’s done,” he told Tiger.

  “Didn’t look that hard.”

  “A walk in the park,” Coop agreed, hitting his speedbrakes when the fighter in front of him slowed suddenly. Did it see him? If you knew what you were looking for, a good pilot could “see” trouble on their six. He found someone new to shadow and checked the HUDs. Only two fully functional big ships remained. Only two, he mocked himself. They’d be watching for the next run, and now the fighters were doubling down on the drones. And moving to screen the remaining ships. They’d seen the danger of having their shields reduced. They knew Coop was out there, but they didn’t know about Tiger. Almost, he wanted to hold him back

  He started a new run, this time directed at the ship with reduced propulsion. They’d be expecting an attack on the undamaged ships. If he could distract them, Tiger might be able to take out one of them before their drones were all gone.

  “Something is changing,” Arian said.

  He only had time for brief glances at his HUD. He’d followed the last fighter into a swarm of them. If he wasn’t careful, he was gonna end up in the middle instead of on something’s six. He frowned as he processed what he could see. She was right. The swarms of fighters were reforming, gradually settling into smaller versions of the combat box. Maybe they were trying to link up their systems to catch him. And if he wasn’t careful, it was gonna work. He throttled back, finding a spot between two boxes while he studied the situation.

  Combat boxes were being deployed to protect the last two ships. Lots of movement so that the moving boxes could cover the larger ship. Then the formations began to tighten, closing the gaps between to try and force him into the “safe” areas in the center of the boxes.

  If it smelled like a trap, even if he couldn’t see the trap yet, then it was a trap. Not that he couldn’t see some of the trap, just couldn’t see what they gained with this yet. So far, he could still thread the needle. Just how ballsy was this enemy? How far would they go?

  “They are attacking the array again,” Arian said. “We are staying stay ahead for now.”

  “Good job,” he said absently.

  “What are they up to?” Tiger asked, his tone almost absent.

  The combat boxes appeared to dissolve and reform, their dance not pretty, but yeah, it was designed to flush him out. Tiger was still outside the dance, since he hadn’t started his run when they initiated the change. But Coop was getting squeezed from all directions. And he’d have to work his way through several of the moving boxes to get clear.

  And lose his shot at the big ships.

  “You keep clear, Tiger. They don’t know you’re here. You’re my ace in the hole.”

  “That’s—yes, sir.” His voice was tight, not happy, the “sir” a clear indication he knew it was an order.

  Instead of fighting the dance, Coop tried to use it to get closer to his target, pushing back what would happen once he fired on something. They’d have all their sensor eyes on those big ships watching for that move. He slipped between two fighters without bumping shields this time, watching for external threats in this complicated dance, and trying to figure out where the trap would close.

  He keyed a channel to his Marines, in lock-down in the rear. “It’s gonna get bumpy, guys. Hang on.”

  This shuttle had the best inertial dampeners the Garradians could devise, but even they weren’t up to what he was making the ship do. He had to fight to keep clear of the spaces opening up as the boxes dissolved and reformed. The drones didn’t know to not get sucked into clear space that was widening in each combat box. They darted into it, then launched at the fighters again.

  The moving box at the outer edge ejected multiple objects into the center, then pulled back as the space lit up with brilliant, sensor blinding light.

  When his sensors got their eyes back, the box had collapsed, forming a screen around the next box. Multiple exploding objects again.

  “They’re clearing the field,” Tiger said, his voice grim.

  The drones were disappearing faster, and they were forcing him closer to the big ships in his efforts to keep out of the center of the boxes.

  Something on his HUD caught his eye. Weird the scout ships weren’t doing anything.

  “Do you have time to scan those scout ships?” he asked. “Why are they just sitting there?”

  They were almost dormant, he realized. None of the drones had targeted them.

  “All their resources are directed into scanning. I can launch counter measures.”

  Coop would have blinked if he’d dared. “Counter measures?”

  “They are different versions of the combat drones. Fewer of them, but they will create false energy signatures in a variety of places. It should confuse them.”

  “Confused is good.” They needed lots of confusion right now, but at the right moment for maximum impact. His gaze darted around the busy HUD. He gave her a quick glancing grin. “I’ll tell you when to launch.” His hand light on the stick, he began the complicated moves that would bring the shuttle closer to his target.

  26

  For the first time since she boarded this ship, Arian was glad she was not its pilot. Coop’s hand appeared relaxed on the controls, a slight smile edging his mouth, his gaze laser-focused on finding openings in the morass of ships to slide theirs through.

  “Their shields are rebuilding,” Arian told him. “There is a weakness remaining on the rear portside.” She shot him the coordinates, then resumed her efforts to keep the array closed against the rest of the alien fleet, using her left hand, so that the right was always on the counter measures fire button.

  Each time she breached a security level, she shot a packet of information to Dr. Janeck, so he could continue her work if they did not make it, then she attacked the next level.

  As Coop was maneuvering between two formations of ships, the formations dissolved, leaving them in a clearing space. Coop muttered something and began the turn toward the relative safety of a cluster of ships.

  “They are firing,” she said, the clench of her stomach a contrast to a tone that surprised her by its calmness. She had lived in death’s shadow for so long, perhaps that is why she felt little fear now.

  The alien barrage began to detonate. The shuttle rocked.

  “Hull breach,” she said. On the upper deck. With her free hand, she closed the hatches, then worked to restore pressure to the rear compartment. She checked the camera. The Marines were strapped in and geared up. With their oxygen masks in place, it was not possible to see their expressions, though based on her last experience with them, there would
not be expressions to see. “Shields down to sixty percent. The cloak is holding at eighty percent.”

  “Not sure which would be worse to lose,” Coop muttered.

  They did need both. He had not given the order to launch counter measures, so she waited. She did wish she had more hands. As if the aliens knew, they stepped up their attacks on the array while she focused on the shuttle.

  “They’ve figured out something,” Coop muttered, “just not sure what.”

  “You believe they can see us?” That was not possible.

  “Not see us, exactly.” He frowned. “They know that we have two options. We are either heading for their ships or trying to escape…” His gaze moved around the HUD.

  Arian tried to discover what he saw while still working on the array. She was distantly aware her head hurt and pain tracked along both hands into her arms.

  “So they are covering their big ships and escape routes…”

  To Arian, it appeared he relaxed even more.

  “I wonder what would happen if I blew up those escorts screening that big bad boy?” His free hand indicated one of the two remaining ships.

  It made Arian’s eyes hurt to look at the swarms of ships, the formations appearing, then dissolving and reforming. The explosions blanked their sensors again and again. This was a most determined enemy. Determined…

  Was it possible to use that against them? They would require precision to maintain the correct safe distance for their ships as they deployed their weapons. Might that distance function as a buffer for them? Were the weapons controlled or attracted to each other? If the devices were designed to draw together, would it be possible to draw them in another direction? She needed more data. She wished to rub her eyes, but she dared not. Instead, she blinked. There.

  “The devices they are launching, they are designed to come together and then detonate.”

  “How are they controlled? Can you crack it?”

  “I am searching for signs of transmissions to the devices…” She found something that looked promising and raced to trace it back to the source before they detonated and she had to start over. She left the array to Dr. Janeck—he seemed to be catching up with her—and even took her hand off the fire control for the counter measures. If they could turn their weapon back on them—her system found something and began tracing it back, like lightning tracks on her screen. Suddenly a view opened onto the bridge of a ship. She could not stop a sharply inhaled breath, pulling Coop’s attention her way.