“Enjoying the show, Sub-Lieutenant?” Marshall asked.
“Sorry, sir,” he said, looking down at his console.
“Don’t worry, Salazar. If you’ve done your job right up to this point you really shouldn’t have that much to do. The work will come afterwards in the clean-up.” He frowned, then said, “This is a very clumsy attack. Just brute force, and they haven’t got enough of that to do the job.”
“Yeager Station launching a salvo, sir,” Spinelli said. “We outnumber them on missiles now.”
“They’ve got their last salvo up, Danny,” Caine said, looking at her monitors. “They’re moving too quickly for us to get a good shot with the laser, but I don’t think we need it.”
“Why aren’t they running?” Marshall asked. “They’ve done their job, and they can’t do anything more. Spinelli, what’s their course.”
“Wait one, sir, they’re changing trajectory.”
Nodding, Caine said, “Back to the carrier.” She looked across, then said, “Two of their missiles are down. As are two of ours.”
“We have ten to their six. We can afford that.”
“Collision course!” Spinelli said. “They’re on a direct-line course to ram into us!”
Salazar pulled up specifications of the Falcon fighters, matching them against the ones on the screen, and frowned. They were close, very close, but there were some differences. Especially at the tip of the nose.
“Sir, I think these have been modified for precisely this. We’ve got to shoot them down,” he said. “My guess is that they have warheads in the nose.”
“No prisoners,” Marshall muttered.
“I’ll try the laser,” Caine said. “Foster, get me a shot. Third salvo will be in the air in a moment. I’m focusing everything on the fighters now, Danny.”
“I know.”
“Which means the remaining missiles could easily get through.” She glanced across at a monitor, and said, “Four of them.”
“Understood. We’ll deal with them if we get a chance.”
Another enemy fighter was caught by the laser, this time astern. The pilot might have survived it, but his ship exploded a heartbeat later, nothing but twisted debris remaining. Salazar shook his head, wondering what sort of a person would willingly fly under those conditions. Knowing that whatever happened in the battle, he wasn’t coming back to the flight deck.
“Yeager’s warheads are closing from the rear. Their countermeasures package is working well, but we’ve still got more than one each.” The ship rocked, and she said, “There’s our third salvo. We’re not going to have time for a fourth.”
“Foster, start orienting to keep those missile hits away from critical locations.”
“Dimensional instability, sir!” Spinelli said. “Right behind Caledonia.”
“Who is it?” Marshall asked, urgently.
“It’s the Wyvern, sir, and she’s launching fighters,” Spinelli said.
“From a scoutship?” Foster asked.
Looking up with a beaming smile, Spinelli said, “I don’t recognize the design, but they’ve got three heading for the fighters, and three heading for our incoming missiles. Fast as hell, as well, more than three times the acceleration of the Falcons.”
“First strikes, sir,” Caine said. “Our second salvo and Yeager’s. Three enemy fighters destroyed. Just two to go.”
“Weitzman, offer them the chance to surrender,” Marshall said.
After a moment, the technician replied, “I’m not getting anything from them, sir.”
Salazar watched as the battle came to a close. The two remaining fighters continued on their course, as though hoping for some sort of ghastly miracle that would allow them to complete their work, but the new fighters were just too fast, their warheads leaping forward while Alamo’s third salvo dealt with the incoming missiles.
“Signal from Captain Ryder, sir, on the Wyvern,” Weitzman said.
“Put her on,” Marshall said. “Nice timing, Ryder!”
“Glad to be of help. What do you think of my toys?”
“What the hell are those things?”
She beamed, then said, “My drone fighters. I’ll brief you later, but I thought you might find them useful.”
“That’s an understatement,” he replied, turning to Salazar. “How’s our shuttle doing?”
“Should be hitting Caledonia any second now, sir.”
“So all we can do is wait.”
Chapter 2
Ensign Gabriel Cooper looked up at the trajectory display, watching the shuttle curve in toward its destination, just a couple of minutes left before intercept, then turned his attention to the shuttle’s cabin, at the troopers preparing themselves for battle. He’d trained all of them himself, as good as from scratch, over the last few months on Ragnarok, taught them everything he hadn’t had the opportunity to pass on to his last command.
Still, most of them were still rookies. Only the Sergeants and Corporals had battle experience. The Lance-Corporals had been assigned based on the performance of the troopers in training, but until a man was bloodied in battle, no-one could predict how they would react. They were running over their equipment checks properly, everything seemed to be going by the book, but there were those little touches missing. The weapons were too new, too damn clean, right from the armory with none of the hundred modifications a veteran would make.
He looked down at his own battered rifle and smiled. A custom scope on top to replace the standard issue, a few notches on the butt, one for each battle he had lived through. He knew the gun, had used it countless times. All the training in the world couldn’t match up to the real thing, but at least this time, he’d done everything that it was practical to do.
“Right, listen up, everyone,” he said. “In about ninety seconds, we hit the deck. Now this is a brand-new design, the latest model from the boys at R&D, so don’t be surprised if it screws up.” There was a forced chuckle, and he continued, “If it works as advertised, we’ll latch onto the hull and the systems will cut their way in, tearing a new hatch for us in less than twenty seconds. We’ll have surprise on our side.”
Looking at the expectant faces, he continued, “Not for long, though, so take full advantage while you can. Two teams. I’ll head up to the bridge with Second Team, First Team under Corporal Hunt heads for the engines. Corporal, your priority is to stop the hendecaspace drive from firing. We don’t want any surprise trips.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
“Robertson,” he said to the medic, “You wait here at the shuttle with Sub-Lieutenant Bradley. If one of us calls for you, come in shooting. Got that?”
“Got it, sir.”
“Thirty seconds!” Bradley’s voice yelled over the intercom. “I’ll be dropping you right into the topside corridor if I’ve got this right. Stand-by.”
“Weapons check,” Cooper said, looking over his rifle one more time. Low-velocity slugs so they wouldn’t penetrate the hull, underslung grenade launcher with smoke rounds loaded, a few HE safely tucked into his pocket just in case, ammunition clip full and fresh, and ten more of them on his belt.
At least they’d upgraded their equipment a little. They’d been too reliant on their spacesuits before, but now they had helmets with comms, sensors, range-finders that they could use in breathable environments. They still weighed too much, though. He quickly checked each of the systems, green lights running down the visor one after another.
“Brace!” Bradley yelled, and he wrapped his hand on a rail, bending his knees to absorb the impact. The shuttle slammed into the hull, and a loud crackling noise sounded from around the airlock. Amazingly, the new gadget actually seemed to be working, and in less than the advertised time, the lock opened, revealing a hole leading right into the corridor. Of course, if the shuttle left without repairs, they’d have effectively
blown a hole in the side of the transport, but that seemed to come under the definition of ‘Scorched Earth’.
“Let’s go! Team Two, with me!”
He raced forward through the gap in the hull, his rifle in his hands, looking left and right to find the corridor empty. The four men of his fire team charged after him, Lance-Corporal Hamilton in the rear, and he raced up the corridor, heading for the blast door at the end, passing closed hatches leading down to the cargo bay.
Behind him, he heard Corporal Hunt taking his team in the opposite direction, but he had to leave the veteran to do his job. He skidded to a halt at the door, slamming an autohacker into the dataslot, waiting impatiently for it to do its work. With a loud grinding noise, it began to open, and he fired a trio of shots through the gap on general principles, rewarded with a scream from the far side.
“Come on!” he yelled, leading the way. Some of the crewmen looked to be preparing a last stand, but they’d designed their defenses around the airlocks, and were paying the price for that mistake. One of them lay on the floor, bleeding out, and the others turned, trying to line their rifles up, but Cooper and his people were just too quick for them, dropping them with a couple of carefully aimed shots.
“Good work, Ham,” he said, glancing back at the grinning trooper. “The bridge is just ahead.” The five of them jumped over the half-built barricade, sprinting towards the hatch at the end of the corridor. He noted the rooms they were passing, all carefully labeled in English and French, and the neatness of this ship. This ship was brand new, the paint perfect, everything its properly place. Even the best-run ship showed its age in some ways, but not this one.
“Alamo to Cooper,” Marshall’s voice crackled in its helmet. “We’ve got space superiority. The rest of your platoon is on the way right now. Can they come into the airlocks in the upper corridor?”
“Affirmative, Alamo,” Cooper replied, panting as he ran. “Have Sergeant Morton do a proper door-to-door as soon as he gets here. We’re rushing things.”
“Roger that, Cooper, we’ve got your back.”
He reached the door, and smiled. The dataslot had been filled with some sort of glue, only just set. Someone had decided to adopt a low-tech approach to security, and he had no choice but to return the favor.
“Bring up the charges, Rhodes,” he said, gesturing forward one of the troopers. The young Espatier reached into his bag and pulled out four small squares of white putty, stepping forward to place them into position on the door, then running detonator wires back to a control box.
“Ensign!” Hamilton yelled, an instant before a bullet slammed into the place where he head would have been. Cooper threw himself to the deck, spinning around to see a group of pistol-wielding crewmen charging forward. A fusillade of shots rang out across the corridor, and Rhodes felt back onto the ground, a trickle of blood running from his leg.
“Return fire!” Cooper yelled, following his own order. There was no cover here, nowhere to hide, but that applied as much to the attackers as to his own people, and he took one of them down with a carefully aimed shot. The two groups exchanged fire, the noise filling the air, and another of his troopers was hit, knocked to the floor, before the last of the attackers dropped down.
Cooper moved over to the wounded Espatiers, looking at the vital sign indicators on their armor. Hamilton was just unconscious, a dent in his helmet, and Rhodes was stable. Both could wait for the reinforcements. He picked up the detonator, checked to make sure it wasn’t damaged, then pulled the trigger.
The explosions ripped the door off its mounting, and Cooper raced in, the remaining two members of his squad behind them, moving to cover the technicians inside. Most of them were human, with a Neander on the far side of the room standing by the communications console, and sitting in the command chair was something else. Something almost human, but not quite.
“I suggest you surrender,” he said, a grin spread across his face. “Right away.”
“We’ve got you beaten,” Cooper replied.
“Your call,” he said, reaching for a button, but Cooper was faster than he, his rifle firing and sending the creature slumping in the chair, dead from a bullet to the brain before he could move. Reaching forward, he pulled the body down, safely to the deck, then looked around the room.
“Anyone else want to be a hero?” he asked. Turning to the rear, he said to one of the troopers, “Richards, head back to the shuttle and get Sub-Lieutenant Bradley up here. I need someone to assume command of this ship.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, racing down the corridor with his weapon raised.
“And get some help for our wounded,” Cooper yelled after him. Turning back to the bridge crew, he gestured with his rifle for them to move away from their stations, and cautiously, they complied, heading over to a bare wall in the corner. “Keep them covered, McCarthy,” he ordered, and the single remaining soldier nodded, raising his rifle in as menacing a manner as he could manage.
“Hunt, this is Cooper, what’s the story?”
“We’re in the engine room, sir, and everything appears good from here. I think we’ve got full control of the ship.”
Shaking his head, Cooper said, “No, this is too easy. Too damned easy.” He walked over to the helm, tapped a couple of controls, then turned to the bridge crew, yelling, “Why don’t these systems work? Where’s the backup control?”
None of them replied, and McCarthy said, “They look brainwashed, sir. Look at their eyes.”
“The internal layout doesn’t match a Rhodan-class, and we don’t have time to search.” He frowned, then headed over to the security console. As with the others, he couldn’t change anything, but he could at least see what someone else was interested in, and he recognized one of the hatches from his race down the primary corridor.
“That’s it!” he yelled. “McCarthy, hold the fort here.” He leapt through the ruined door, then sprinted down the corridor, three familiar figures heading in his direction.
“Gabe, what the hell’s happening?” Bradley asked.
“Bridge is locked out, I’m going to see if I can find a key. Watkins, stay with me, Robertson, go see to the wounded, and if you see anything that looks like reinforcements, send them in my direction.” As he spoke, he felt sick to his stomach, and felt himself floating up to the air in a sea of dust and debris.
“Someone’s taken the spin off,” he said. “Not a good sign.” The door opened on a manual lock, showing a shaft leading into the heart of the ship. Pulling a grenade from his belt, he pulled the pin and threw it down, swinging out after it, pushing off on hand-holds but being careful not to get ahead of his little surprise. The light blocked out above him as Watkins dropped in after him, a little slower, a little clumsier, but coming.
The grenade shattered at the bottom of the shaft, billowing smoke spilling out in all directions, and he fired off a couple of shots, wild and blind, hoping to at least pin someone down. Planting his feet on the deck, he pushed forward, rifle ahead of him, slapping a control on his left arm to turn his compensators on. Now at least the recoil wouldn’t throw him all over the place, not as long as the jets on his feet had fuel in them.
Two more guards up ahead, coming into view, and these ones were better equipped, wearing armor similar to his, and weapons that looked suspiciously like UN Marshal standard issue. He fired a couple of shots in any case, then unloaded his smoke grenade clip forward, filling the corridor with blinding gas that made his eyes water. Dipping into his pocket, he found what he hoped was the HE grenade clip and locked it into position. They were deep enough inside that he wouldn’t breach the hull. Probably.
They’d obviously been expecting a smoke grenade. The blast echoed up and down the corridors, and Watkins watched the devastation with wide eyes, his face turning pale as the floating pieces of what once were people drifted down towards him.
Turning to him, Cooper
said, “If you need to throw up, Private, get it the hell over with and follow me. We’ve got a ship to secure.”
“I’m alright. Sir.”
“Then let’s get on with it!” He turned, kicking off on the floor, managing to avoid the bodies as he swam down the corridor. The blast had taken out most of the walls, exposing the compartments beyond, and he quickly peered in. Supplies in one, empty quarters in the other. Hopefully the owners wouldn’t mind the impromptu remodeling.
At the moment he wasn’t even sure he was heading in the right direction, but there was a likely-looking blast door up ahead, no-one guarding it but a winking security camera. He gestured Watkins towards it, and the private took it out with a well-aimed rifle shot, sparks flying through the air.
“We haven’t got any explosives, sir, and they’ve sealed the dataport,” said Rhodes, the words rushing from his mouth, blending into each other.
“There’s a way around that,” Cooper replied, bracing himself against the wall. “Shoot anything that moves.” He squeezed the trigger, and the second grenade raced towards the door, quickly followed by the third. The roar of the explosion was followed by screams, the smell of burnt flesh and electrical fire, and what had to be swearing in a language Cooper didn’t recognize. Cautiously, he drifted forward, Watkins covering him, and he peered inside.
This had been a control center. That second grenade meant that it wasn’t any more. The two people at the door, probably the same not-humans that Alamo had dealt with before, had been killed instantly, and everyone else in the room was wounded to one degree or another, all of the systems smashed. Belatedly, Sergeant Morton drifted in, looking around with a mixture of pride and bemusement.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I was informed you needed help.”
“Just a clean-up crew, Sergeant. Get the medics in here to look after the prisoners. Let’s hope they decide to tell us what the hell all of this was about.” He looked at Watkins, the young trooper’s face still pale, and said, “Go take a drink of water, Private. Take a few minutes then report back to the Sergeant.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Not In My Name Page 2
