Eternal Frontier (The Eternal Frontier Book 1)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Maybe they could take these incoming fighters. Maybe they could survive the next wave.

  But it wasn’t those fighters that concerned Tag. Distant bursts of cannon fire and energy rounds broke up the darkness of space before them, and several more SRE-labeled dots blinked out from his holoscreen. A massive SRE destroyer split into thousands of hurtling pieces as a blinding flash of blue spread like a halo from its center. The cloud of debris enveloped another nearby destroyer, and tumbling pieces of cannons and sidewalls pinged off the Montenegro. The SRE capital ship would go down before the Argo even reached it. Without the aid of AI systems or shields, the behemoth of a ship was as defenseless as a junk cargo vessel.

  As the Argo bucked and fought against the teeming fighters, Tag studied his holoscreen. If only they could somehow make it to the Montenegro. He wished he had some way to port into their systems and transfer their firewalls to the Montenegro’s intranet. Maybe he could if they somehow made it past the wall of malicious fighters and ships pounding the SRE fleet, but too much fire was concentrated in that direction. It would be like trying to run in a rainstorm and not get wet.

  No, no, there had to be another way. Tag drew his focus away from the failing Montenegro and toward the other leviathan in this fight.

  “Coren, what are our chances of making it to the dreadnought alive?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  “Make it to the dreadnought? Alive?” Coren asked, his good eye wide with disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.” Tag met his gaze.

  “Alive, well....” Coren turned his attention to the holoscreen projecting the three-dimensional map of the battle. “Assuming most of their fighters are trained on the Montenegro, we’ll still have to avoid their point-defense systems.”

  “There’s got to be a blind spot we can use in our approach.”

  “A blind spot? There are no blind spots on an Integrity-class dreadnought.”

  “Give me a weak spot then,” Tag said. “Come on, the whole ship can’t have twenty-twenty vision.”

  Coren seemed perplexed by the expression but didn’t bother voicing his concern when the Argo shuddered under the hail of fire from two incoming fighters.

  “Come on, boys!” Sofia said. “I’d like to head some direction other than into enemy fire!”

  “Yes, yes,” Coren said. “Point-defense systems are less concentrated around the cluster of main impellers along the keel. If you stay under the dreadnought, there might be only a dozen cannons with firing solutions at a given time.”

  “Only a dozen?” Sofia cried. “Well, gee, this will be as smooth as a shot of gutfire!”

  Tag didn’t have time to respond to Sofia’s sarcasm. The ship jerked as she ducked the Argo under a salvo of energy rounds, and Coren finished off the fighter responsible for the incoming fire in a blaze of energy rounds and Gauss slugs.

  “Once under the keel, is there somewhere we can board?” Tag asked Coren.

  “Yes, there are several fighter bays along the port and starboard. We should be able to get in one.”

  “Good,” Tag said. “Alpha, let’s get a full-ship scan of the dreadnought.”

  “Consider it done, Captain.”

  In a few seconds, a holoprojection of the giant ship floated in the middle of the bridge.

  “Coren, mark the locations of the fighter bays. If one is open, we’re going for it.”

  On his terminal, Coren used a slender finger to identify the fighter bays. Circles appeared on the holoprojected ship. The holoprojection shuddered as a fresh volley stung the Argo, and Coren shot back a reply burst, but this time the assaulting fighter came away unscathed.

  “Shields are back down to forty percent,” Alpha said.

  We’ve got to hold out just a bit more, Tag thought, steadying himself in his crash couch. They weren’t going to last much longer fighting out in the open against the Drone-Mech forces.

  “I assume you have a plan once we board them,” Coren said.

  “Yes,” Tag said. “I want you and Alpha to use the anti-AI virus against the Drone-Mech fleet.”

  “I suppose I can, but it’s not as simple as uploading something to the dreadnought’s intranet and leaving.”

  “I assumed it wasn’t. But you’re the engineer. You’re the one that’s been spouting off about your superior technology.”

  “That’s all true, but this won’t be easy.”

  “Didn’t expect it would be. But between you and Alpha, I want it done. We’ll subvert the Drone-Mech firewalls and screw their AI systems. See how they like it. I want to take down their shields, too.”

  “That’s going to take time, Captain.”

  “Sofia and I will give you time. You just focus on getting it done.” More rounds sliced across the Argo’s bow and slammed into the ship.

  Alpha’s voice piped up again. “Shields at thirty-five percent.”

  “All right, you heard her.” Tag leaned forward in his seat, studying the holoprojection of the dreadnought. “Let’s do this! Get us in there, Sofia! Full thrust!”

  The initial acceleration shoved Tag into his chair. After a moment, the inertial dampeners caught up to the forward acceleration, but they couldn’t keep up with the constant side-to-side movements of the ship as Sofia dodged intercepting fighters. Soon enough, Tag no longer needed to look through his terminal’s magnified view of the dreadnought to see the ship. The entire terrifying vessel appeared before him in the viewport, decked out in sleek black armor plates and cannons spewing streams of energy and kinetic fire. Tag could practically hear the boom from each gun. He wondered how many asteroids and planets had been mined to fabricate such a monstrous war machine.

  But his admiration was short lived as the dreadnought’s point-defense systems blazed and incoming fire burned through space toward them. The Argo jerked and twisted, avoiding fighters, missiles, and pearly laces of cannon fire alike.

  “Shields down to twenty percent,” Alpha said. She was quiet for a beat. More fire lanced into their ship, and groans echoed through the bulkheads. “Now fifteen.”

  “Come on, Sofia!” Tag said.

  “Think I already got the message!” she yelled over the din.

  Smaller cannons along the dreadnought’s hull whirred on and spun to aim. Blue fire sprayed in front of them, then impacts resonated through the bridge and into Tag’s crash couch as alarms screamed and red lights flashed.

  “Shields down to five—”

  A ball of fire and white light blinded Tag. His ears rang, and his head shot forward, then slammed back. He struggled to keep his eyes open as pain flooded his entire body. His EVA suit responded with numbing painkillers, but it could do little to stop the blackness overtaking him. His vision seemed to shrink until he saw only out of pinholes where intense light pierced his retinas.

  Then the ringing died down, and the sound came back. He forced himself to stay awake, to stay conscious against the concussive pain pounding through his head and limbs.

  “Status report!” he yelled to no one in particular. The drone of the alarms barking through his suit’s comms drowned out his muddled voice. Shock stabbed a painful knife through his gut as he surveyed the state of the bridge, and he slammed a fist on his terminal to mute the sirens.

  He didn’t need the ship’s systems to tell him they were screwed.

  A gaping hole in the bridge did that for him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “Hull integrity compromised,” Alpha said. She steadied herself as the atmosphere equilibrated with open space.

  The deafening, vacuum-induced silence of the cannons and fighters still firing on the Argo seemed unreal. The only sounds he heard were those of his crew through their EVA-suit comms. Sofia was cursing. Her hands were still wrapped around the controls in a death grip as she maneuvered the Argo along the dreadnought’s keel. Coren grunted and groaned, firing impotently at swooping fighters.

  Damage reports flashed across Tag’s holoscreen. The repair bots, al
ready pushed to the limits with several lost to the deluge of incoming fire, stood no chance of keeping up with the considerable damage the ship had sustained and continued to endure.

  But it didn’t matter. Tag was set on one goal: make it to the fighter bay. The Argo could fall to pieces for all he cared as long as he made it into that damned bay.

  “There!” Tag yelled. “See that one? It’s open!”

  The fighter bay appeared like the ominous, hungry maw of a giant beast. A cavernous interior, gleaming with harsh yellow lights and rows of small spacecraft, called to them, teasing them. Several fighters took off from it, flying directly at them, and the bay doors started to close.

  “Give her everything she’s got!” Tag yelled.

  “I’m trying,” Sofia’s voice rang out through his helmet’s comm. “But she’s limping like an old lady with gout!”

  “Limp or not, we’re getting in there.”

  “I estimate we only have two hundred meters of clearance,” Alpha said. “And we are currently ten seconds from the bay doors.”

  More fire scraped the Argo. Another report flashed across Tag’s terminal. One of the main impellers was out.

  “We’re losing acceleration,” Sofia said. “Come on, baby. Don’t give up on me now!”

  “Fifty meters clearance,” Alpha said.

  Coren directed the point-defense system at a fighter hurtling across their path. Rounds punched into the smaller craft, and it screamed into the hull of the dreadnought, trailing flotsam and fire. The fighter exploded into thousands of alloy shards. Several of the pieces flew from the site of the crash and careened at the Argo.

  “Straight ahead!” Tag yelled.

  “Twenty meters of clearance!”

  Pieces of wings and cannons and engines from the destroyed fighter bounced off the Argo’s hull. A snake of wire, thick as an arm, whipped through the massive hole in the viewport, slamming into an empty bridge officer’s chair and tearing it from its bolts. The wire and the chair smashed against the rear of the bridge, bouncing around, as more deadly shrapnel hit the fractured viewport. Cracks formed like spiderwebs around the hole, threatening to turn the whole viewport into a storm of daggerlike polyglass shards.

  “Five meters of clearance!” Alpha reported, ever vigilant.

  A thin slice of light marked the narrow opening in the cargo bay doors, and Sofia twisted the controls, shooting for the ever-tighter gap. She let out a whooping yell as the prow burst into the cargo bay. The Argo shuddered as the rest of the ship scraped against the edges of the doors. They slammed shut behind the Argo, and the bay’s atmosphere began to restore itself, evidenced by sensor readings on Tag’s holoscreen reporting increasing pressures and atmospheric content. The Argo screeched across the metal bay deck, grinding as Sofia applied reverse thrust. The ship twisted and crashed into lines of vacant fighters, smashing them under thousands of tons of protesting alloy. Several Drone-Mechs ran from the sliding Argo with terrified expressions etched on their snake-like faces. But they were too slow, and their bodies disappeared under the ship.

  Momentum carried the Argo onward as it tore apart catwalks lining the bay, sending more Drone-Mechs flying. Finally, the ship collided into the back wall of the bay with a sickening crunch. Dust, loose debris, polyglass shards, and metal fragments flew through the air as if a bomb had gone off. Tag was thrown forward. His harness dug into his EVA suit and pressed on his ribs. Air rushed out of his lungs. When he flopped back into his seat, he fumbled to undo his harness. Alpha was already up and helping Coren from his.

  Tag gasped for air, pain still flaming hot waves through his body, and ran to Sofia. His heart leapt. A huge piece of scaffolding jutted into the bridge. It had devastated the top half of Sofia’s chair.

  When Tag got to Sofia’s seat, she was gone.

  “Sofia?” Tag yelled. He spun on his heels, searching over the deck. A thick, viscous fluid dripped from a busted pipe connected to the dreadnought. Sections of a torn ladder lay crumpled over what remained of the Argo’s chart table, and several dented and battered barrels from a broken catwalk leaked some kind of unknown, glowing blue liquid over the weapons terminal.

  “Sofia?” Tag cried again. “Where are you?”

  “Here!”

  He twisted to see her body crumpled against the bent and destroyed wall of the fighter bay. Blood trickled across her forehead under her suit’s visor.

  “You okay?” Tag asked, ducking under a pipe. “Can you feel your limbs?”

  He climbed over one of the barrels and then knelt by Sofia’s side. Not wanting to risk worsening any injuries she might have, he didn’t want to move her and instead gingerly touched her shoulder.

  “I think so.” She wiggled her feet then her hands. With evident effort, she pushed herself to her knees.

  “Take it easy. Don’t force anything if you’re hurt.”

  “Whether I’m hurt or not, I’m not missing out on the fun. Give me your hand.”

  “You sure?”

  “Don’t paint me a liar, Skipper.”

  “All right.” Tag held out a hand, and she took it, dragging herself to her feet. She held her side as she stood and grimaced. For a moment, she wavered, tightening her grip on Tag’s hand. Tag returned the grip. He’d almost lost her. He’d almost lost the whole crew. Even though he’d only known them for a few short days, he realized that he deeply cared for them. What’s more, he couldn’t imagine trying to carry out this self-assigned mission alone.

  As his heart settled, Sofia finally let go of his hand, and the pained expression on her face started to subside. Undoubtedly her EVA suit was pumping her full of chemicals to lessen the blow.

  “Sure you can do this?” Tag asked.

  “No. But I’m going to try anyway.”

  Tag guessed those words held true for the rest of the crew as he and Sofia joined Coren and Alpha at the bridge’s hatch. The odds were certainly not in their favor, and small-arms fire was already pinging against the Argo’s hull. They’d jumped from one disaster right into the next. But all they could do was keep moving forward. He owed the crew of the Montenegro that. They had to try.

  “Armory first,” Tag said. The group rushed down the ladders and down the passageway. “Coren, you got an idea of where the nearest terminal is with access to the ship’s intranet?”

  For the first time, Coren grinned as they sprinted through the corridor. It was an unsettling, almost dastardly grin. Maybe he was half crazy after realizing what they’d gotten themselves into. “You put me in front of any damned terminal, and I’ll give us unrestricted access to the intranet.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” Tag threw open the hatch to the armory. He unlocked the cabinet full of mini-Gauss rifles and passed them out to Alpha and Sofia. Coren took one of the Mechanic-made rifles he’d brought aboard. The group sprinted for the cargo bay next, where crates lay broken and spilled, and the air car was a dented wreck, mangled by several steel crates that had come loose and smashed against it. Tag wound between the broken supplies and made his way to the hatch.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  The three others, holding their weapons, nodded. Gunfire thudded against the bulkhead and slammed into the hatch as Drone-Mechs yelled outside, their voices permeating the breaches in the Argo’s hull. Tag punched a button to unlock and open the cargo bay hatch. Half bent and damaged, the door whined as it shuddered open. The doors screeched and finally ground to a halt. A wave of incoming pulsefire singed the deck and crates.

  Tag shouldered his rifle and crept to the opening. This was it. “Let’s move!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Tag crouched and leaned through the open hatch. He aimed at the first orange visor and black power-armor suit he saw. The mini-Gauss opened up, letting three slugs fly and send the Drone-Mech flying backward with fresh holes punched through its chest plate. The mini-Gauss’s fire didn’t go unanswered, and several other Drone-Mechs replaced their fallen comrade, sending a blazing salvo of r
ounds Tag’s way. A burst of pulsefire sliced past Tag’s head, close enough he could feel their heat, and he plunged behind a crate. The pulse rounds ignited something within the crate and started a small fire. Tendrils of smoke snaked from the blasted crate. Coren and Sofia joined Tag, and together they unleashed a violent fusillade that sent the Drone-Mechs diving for cover.

  The fire crackled behind Tag, but he ignored the conflagration, readjusting his aim to bring down another shooting Drone-Mech, then took a second to survey the fighter bay.

  Shredded sheets of alloy and jumbled fighters were strewn across the deck. Fires raged over a couple of the fighters, and a haze of smoke drifted from them, starting to cling to the ceiling of the bay. Large gouges down the center of the bay leading to the hatch marked the Argo’s landing path. Several crane-and-pulley systems hung overhead. One had fallen and smashed three fighters, with the mangled remains of catwalks and Drone-Mech bodies draped over it. A web of catwalks still crisscrossed the expansive bay, leading to hatches on other decks, and already Drone-Mechs occupied two of them, firing down on Tag and his crew with pulse rifles.

  “I’m moving! Cover me!” Tag sprinted to a nearby fighter and ducked behind its swept-back black wing. He fired enough rounds at the catwalks to make the Drone-Mechs duck.

  “Coren, help me out here!”

  The Mechanic strode from the Argo, firing and landing shots on the Drone-Mechs in rapid succession. Two fell over the catwalk’s railing. Their bodies cartwheeled through the air then smacked sickeningly against the deck. Alpha and Sofia ran out next, both with rifles blazing.

  A squad of Drone-Mechs took position behind some other destroyed fighters. A storm of pulsefire screamed around the bay. They might’ve had the element of surprise, but they were quickly losing their advantage to the Drone-Mech reinforcements. They needed to move—and fast.

  “Where to, Coren?” Tag yelled over the whine of Drone-Mechs’ weapons.

  “There!” He pointed to a hatch near where several Drone-Mechs were barricaded. “The passageway behind that hatch leads to one of the ship’s repair-bot control stations. I should be able to gain access there.”