by Brown, Ryk
“Aye, Captain, bringing up rail guns.”
“Naralena, tell flight ops to open the deck and be prepared to launch fighters.”
“Yes, sir,” Naralena answered.
“First jump plotted, sir!” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s chair.
“Jump!” Nathan ordered, holding tightly onto the arms of his chair as the ship shook violently.
The perimeter shield around her glowed a pale, semi-opaque amber as it struggled to hold the steadily thickening atmosphere of Takara away from Jessica’s suit. Despite her shields, she could still feel the heat being generated by the friction of reentry as she continued to fall toward the planet below. She struggled with all her might to keep her hands at her sides and her legs together, knowing that any wild movement could disrupt the shield’s integrity, the result of which would be unpleasant.
As the atmosphere thickened, the sound of the air rushing past her shields intensified, eventually blocking out the sound of her own rapid breathing, interrupted only by the occasional expletive. The one thing she had always hated the most about floating in space was the sound of her breathing. Nothing made a person feel more isolated than to hear only their own respirations. Now, she longed to hear anything other than the incessant rumbling as she continued to plow through the air.
She watched the display on the inside of her helmet visor. The small maneuvering jets built into her reentry suit were maintaining her flight path automatically, keeping her angle such that her speed was reduced while not generating more heat than her shields could handle. She and the nineteen members of the Karuzari had begun their atmospheric entry just over five minutes ago, and by her clock, they had another five minutes to go.
The computerized voice announced something in Corinairan through her helmet comms. All she understood was the Corinairan word for ‘fifty.’ She scanned her visor display and found a bar graph that indicated her shield strength. That has to be it, she thought. How long have I been falling? She checked the displays again, cursing herself for not insisting that the display be translated into Angla before jumping. How the hell did I miss that one? She was reasonably certain that she had been in reentry for just over five minutes, and the entire reentry was supposed to last ten minutes. With just over half of her shield strength expended, it was going to be close. The suits had been designed for reentry into the Corinairan atmosphere, but Takara’s atmosphere was a bit thicker. So much so that even the additional shield power that the suit designers had considered an adequate margin of error might not be enough to see them completely through reentry. It was a calculated risk, and the suit technicians had assured them that they would make it, barely. However, it was a risk they had all been willing to take.
She watched the shield strength bar and the reentry timer so intently that she no longer cared about the view beyond her visor displays. The computerized voice made another announcement. Jessica could count in Corinairan. Her shield strength was down to twenty-five percent. She checked the reentry time again. Two minutes. There was nothing she could do except continue to plunge through the atmosphere and pray that those Corinairan geeks had been correct in their calculations.
* * *
“Distance to targets?” Nathan asked.
“One light minute, sir,” Mister Randeen answered from the tactical station. “Target course and speed remain steady. Distance between the two targets also remains unchanged.”
“Third jump plotted and locked,” Mister Riley announced.
“Mister Chiles, as soon as we come out of the jump, put your nose on the port target. Once the first torpedo is clear and away, turn into the starboard target. After the second torpedo, steer us directly between the two targets and accelerate. I want to be past those ships when our torpedoes hit.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman answered, swallowing hard. Although he and his partner, Mister Riley, had already flown the Aurora in combat over Ancot, there had been no warships to deal with, only fighters, which had all been handled by Major Prechitt and his pilots.
“Ready all weapons,” Nathan ordered. “Stand by on tubes one and two.”
“Weapons are ready. Tubes one and two ready to fire,” Mister Randeen responded.
“Here we go, people,” Nathan stated calmly. “Jump.”
The bridge filled with the brilliant blue-white jump flash, the main view screen automatically dimming a split second before the jump fields initiated the transition.
“Jump complete,” Mister Riley answered.
“Come to port,” Nathan ordered as he realized Mister Chiles was already doing so.
“Range to targets: twenty kilometers and closing fast,” Mister Randeen reported from tactical.
“On port target,” the helmsman called out.
“Snapshot tube one,” Nathan ordered.
Mister Randeen pressed the fire button on his weapons console. “One away.”
Everyone looked forward at the main view screen as the torpedo began to pass them.
“Coming to starboard target, three seconds,” Mister Chiles reported.
“That’s it, Mister Chiles,” Nathan commended. He was happy that his new helmsman understood the situation and wasn’t waiting for the order to act when the correct moment to execute his turn was painfully obvious.
“On the starboard target,” the helmsman reported.
“Snapshot tube two.”
“Two away.”
“Adjust course and accelerate. Full power, Mister Chiles,” Nathan ordered.
“Aye, sir. Altering course to pass between them,” he announced as he steered the ship back slightly to port. “Mains coming up to full power.”
Despite the Aurora’s inertial dampeners, they could still feel her accelerate hard as her main drive came up sharply to full power. Nathan could imagine Vladimir’s delight as his engines began spewing forth their massive amounts of thrust. Unlike the slower Defender class warships of Earth, the Aurora could accelerate a lot faster and could maneuver with the best of ships.
“Fifteen seconds to first torpedo impact,” Mister Randeen reported. “Passing torpedo two.”
“Both ships are powering up their shield generators,” Mister Navashee reported from the sensor station. “They’ll be at full power in twelve seconds.”
“Very well,” Nathan responded.
“Passing torpedo one. Ten seconds to impact, five seconds until we’re lateral with the targets.”
“Stand by all rail guns. Target both ships… Fire!”
“Firing rail guns,” Mister Randeen stated.
The ship hummed slightly, the vibrations from eight of her rail guns all firing away translating through the Aurora’s skeleton. Even though he could not see the ships as they passed them by, Nathan could imagine their metal slugs slamming repeatedly into the unprotected hulls of the two imperial frigates.
“Three seconds to torpedo impact……two……one……impact.”
The first torpedo flew exactly down the middle of the port frigate’s main propulsion nozzle, detonating when the nozzle narrowed to the point that the warhead’s proximity fuse was activated. The detonation ignited the propellant being pumped into the frigates propulsion system as they tried to accelerate and evade, blowing the entire drive section apart and sending the frigate’s forward section toppling slowly end over end.
Moments later, as the Aurora’s rail gun fire pounded the second frigate’s port side, the second torpedo struck the frigates aft section slightly to port of the main propulsion nozzle. The detonation obliterated the frigate’s port engine nozzle and damaged their center bell, leaving only the starboard nozzle intact. The damage was nowhere near as severe as that of the first frigate, but she was severely damaged nonetheless.
“Port frigate is down. She’s cracked in two!” Mister Navashee reported.
“What about the starboard frigate?” Nathan asked, reminding the excited sensor operator that there were two warships out there.
“Starboard frigate is, u
h, she’s still maneuvering sir, but she’s got significant damage to her stern, and her shields are intermittent at best.”
“Tactical, target all four missiles at the starboard frigate and fire when ready.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Starboard frigate is firing missiles!” Mister Navashee reported, his excitement suddenly subdued.
“Mister Riley, plot an escape jump, one light minute dead ahead, and execute when ready.”
“Plotting jump,” Mister Riley reported.
“Mister Willard, are we jamming?”
“Since the moment we jumped in, sir,” Mister Willard reported, looking back over his shoulder at the captain.
“Multiple contacts! She’s fired twelve missiles!” Mister Navashee reported.
“Jesus,” Nathan mumbled. “I guess he’s pissed.”
“Missiles locked,” Mister Randeen reported. “Firing four.”
“His missiles are coming hot and fast, sir!” Mister Navashee reported. “Ten seconds to impact!”
“Mister Riley?” Nathan urged.
“Plotted and locked!” Mister Riley announced. “Jumping!”
The jump flash filled the bridge again, subsiding as quickly as it had come.
“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported.
“Helm, reduce speed and come about,” Nathan ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Mister Chiles responded, “reducing speed and coming about.”
“Mister Navashee, I want to know the damage to that second frigate as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any contacts in the area?”
“Negative, Captain,” Mister Navashee responded. “Nearest contact is a cruiser, about ten light minutes out from us, fifteen from Takara.”
“Mister Riley, after you have an escape jump plotted, I want you to plot another jump series to put us directly astern of that cruiser.”
“Aye, Captain,” Mister Riley answered.
Nathan looked at the mission time display on the lower edge of the main view screen. The time had started counting forward the moment they had jumped into orbit above Takara. That was eight minutes ago. Even if the empire’s command center had sent out a general message to all warships to be on the alert the moment the Aurora had arrived in orbit, it would still take seven more minutes for that message to reach the next furthest ship, the cruiser that was ten light minutes away. That would still give him plenty of time to jump his way into position and fire on the cruiser before she was aware that their home system was under attack.
He waited impatiently for a report on the damage to the second frigate. If it was still a threat, he would have to either jump back and finish her off or unleash a squadron of fighters to do the job while he went after the cruiser. He could not take the chance that the second frigate might be able to return to Takara and reinforce the palace defenses or interfere with their own orbital maneuvers. Unfortunately, there was little he could do but wait. It took time for light and other forms of radiation to travel through space, despite the incredible speeds at which they traveled. That was both the blessing and the curse of physics. He was one light minute away from that second frigate, so he had to wait.
“Escape jump plotted. Plotting intercept series for the cruiser, sir,” Mister Riley reported.
“Very well.”
“Turn complete, Captain,” Mister Chiles reported from the helm. “We’re on course back to the first engagement zone.”
“Understood.” Nathan rotated his chair slowly to his left as he waited impatiently for a report from his sensor operator. He glanced over his right shoulder at the time display again.
“Data coming in now, Captain,” Mister Navashee reported. “The first is completely dead in space. No power, no life support, nothing. The second frigate is heavily damaged. Minimal power, no shields, no propulsion. She’s broadcasting a distress call, sir.”
“Yes!” Mister Randeen cheered from the tactical station.
“Two down, nine to go,” Nathan muttered. They had just taken out two frigates using only two conventionally armed torpedoes, some rail gun fire, and four missiles—and all without any damage to the Aurora. He only hoped the rest of the empire’s warships would be that easy. “Mister Randeen, reload tubes one and two with conventional torpedoes. Load the aft tubes, conventional in tube five and fixed yield in tube six. Rig them all for snapshot. I expect the cruiser will be a bit harder to destroy.”
* * *
Jessica watched as the indicator bar for her shield strength went from orange to red and continued to fall. There were still thirty seconds left on her reentry timer. If I survive this, I’m gonna beat the crap out of those geeks,” she thought.
Without warning, the semi-opaque nature of her shields began to fade, its amber hue giving way to reveal the darkness of the Takaran night below. As the shield began to flicker, she could almost make out the lights of the cities still many kilometers below. The lights twinkled in the darkness, painting an almost serene view as her shield failed completely.
The full force of the air slammed into her as her shield collapsed and disappeared. She was surrounded by darkness as her ears were assaulted by the incessant pounding of the Takaran atmosphere against her helmet. The computerized voice reported something, but even if she could have heard it above the rumbling of the air outside her helmet, she would not have understood it. She continued to fall, waiting for her body to rapidly heat up and begin to burn.
It never happened. She tried to look around to see if she could spot the others, but it was too dark. She could not call them, as they had to maintain radio silence during their entire descent. Her shield indicator was gone now that the shield had failed completely, but she was still alive. She was still falling, but she had survived reentry. I guess those geeks get to live for now, she thought. There was still a long way to go.
The computerized voice started speaking once more, and again, she could barely hear it over the noise. It was talking a lot longer than usual. It was repeating something. She realized the voice was counting down to something in Corinairan. She pulled her arms in tight across her chest, grabbing the shoulder straps of her harness just above the hard plastic chest pack. She then crossed her legs and squeezed them together tightly.
The jolt was severe, pulling her entire harness upward. The wind was pushed out of her lungs in a one big sudden exhalation that fogged her visor and covered the inside of it with droplets of her own spit. The severe jolt only lasted a few seconds, after which it settled down to a constant pulling of the harness. She struggled to angle her head upward enough to see the barely visible image of her gray drogue chute as it filled high above her head. Relief washed over her now that her drogue chute was fully deployed. Over the next few minutes, it would decelerate her considerably, eventually slowing her rate of descent enough that she could open her main chute safely. She made a mental note to herself; if she ever had to do this again, she would exhale right before the drogue chute opened.
Jessica continued looking about as she dangled beneath her drogue chute. She thought she could make out one or two of her team in the distance as the moonlight reflected off their faceplates. She looked down at the surface of the planet as it moved slowly from left to right. She checked the flight path display on the inside of her visor. It showed that she was on the proper glide slope for this part of her descent. With nothing else to look at, she continued to look downward, concentrating more to her left as that was the direction she was traveling. The distant city lights began to twinkle more frequently until they finally disappeared completely, obscured by cloud cover below her.
After several minutes of descending on her drogue chute, the computerized voice again began to countdown. Jessica again braced herself, drawing in her arms and legs and this time exhaling as the countdown reached the Corinairan word for zero. She felt something on her back pop, like doors springing open, after which she began to fall faster. She could feel her main chute paying out from behind her, the
drogue chute pulling it up and away from her. Again she felt the harness dig into her, only this time with less force.
She looked up at her main chute, a big gray rectangle inflated high above her. During her special operations training on Earth, she had performed many jumps from many different altitudes. Back then, nothing ever felt as good as seeing your main chute open. Today was no different.
Jessica continued scanning from side to side, both above and below her, watching for the others in her team. They may be considerably spread out as a result of the jump, but they were all headed for the same athletic field in one of the back spires of the palace grounds. Eventually, they would all be converging on the same target, and she needed to be ready to take control of her chute at a moment’s notice in order to avoid colliding with one of her teammates.
She watched the glide path indicator on her visor display, noting that everything appeared to be going properly—except for one thing; she could no longer see the city lights below. Either every man, woman, and child in the city of Answari had suddenly turned off their lights, or the cloud cover was getting thick. A few thousand meters more and she would know.
She hoped that Dumar had survived his descent as well, since he had the comm-device needed to alert his contact of their pending arrival. If the lights were still on when they came down, they would surely be spotted and burned out of the night sky by energy weapons fire from the palace guards below.
She entered the cloud cover, and her visibility dropped to zero. The dense cloud was cold and wet, and she felt like it would never end. Within seconds, it did, and she could see the palace below. She could also see the others in her team more easily than before, which meant that those on the ground could see them as well.
Jessica instinctively reached for her weapon which was fastened to the front of her chest piece. She fumbled with the release mechanism, cursing herself for not spending more time familiarizing herself with the weapon before the jump. Then the lights below her all went dark. As relieved as the darkness made her feel, it also meant she couldn’t see the ground rushing up at her. She focused her attention on the visor display, reaching up and grabbing the chute control tethers as her altitude rapidly counted down to zero. At just a few meters above the ground, she pulled hard on the back of the chute control tethers, flaring out and stopping her forward momentum. Her feet touched the soft grass of the athletic field, and she stumbled forward, rolling onto her left side. Her chute continued forward as it collapsed, falling to the ground just beyond her point of impact. She immediately got to her knees, spun around to face away from the chute, and pressed the chute retraction button. The mechanism quickly reeled the chute into her backpack and closed. She managed to get her weapon disconnected from her chest pack and looked around.
