Silver.
“Wait,” she said. “Those are friendlies!”
Three J-84’s roared past her, banking around and forming up on her wing. She looked through the cockpits and saw a familiar helmet, red, emblazoned with flames.
“Holy shit,” she said, breaking into a wild, manic laugh. “It’s them! It’s the ones we raced!” She punched the air. “How’d they get here so fast, all the way from the Fuqing?”
“Wow,” said Flatline, “guess they were holding back.”
She tried the engine restart and, mercifully, this time her ship sprang to life. Her electronics came back, her HUD outlining the ships in green. Allies.
“Hey, Guano, you there?” Roadie seemed panicked. “We got company.”
“I’m okay,” she said. “Ship’s back up, power’s back…and yeah, we got some allies to help us shoot this bastard.” She turned the ship around, back toward the enemy cruiser. “Assuming we can talk to them.”
“Already on it,” said Flatline, but she didn’t like how his voice sounded. Listless. Hollow. “I’m picking up chatter on 194.44, standby…”
Suddenly, her helmet was full of Chinese.
“Hey,” she said. “You guys out there?”
“Hello?” The pilot’s English was thickly accented but clear. “American pilot?” Laughter. “Hey, she’s awake.”
“Yeah,” said Guano. “Lovely to have you boys with us.”
The Chinese fighters scooted closer to her wing, and her computer flashed as it interfaced with their new allies. “We’re in a dangerous situation here,” said her counterpart. “Why didn’t you eject? Your ship is badly damaged.”
“Haven’t finished the fight yet,” she said. “That cruiser is heading for the Midway. You boys wanna help me take it out?”
“That’s what we’re here for.” The Chinese ships moved along with her. “Try to keep up.”
Fighter jocks throughout the galaxy were all the same. She laughed and leapt back into the action, her ship racing toward the enemy cruiser, but the levity quickly faded. Flatline hadn’t said anything for a while. “Hey, buddy, stay with me, okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, in a tone of voice that suggested he was not fine. Airy and distant. “I can’t find where I’m hit. That’s good, right?”
More blood drifted up in front of her, floating in the microgravity. She swatted the droplets away angrily, smearing her gloves with the stuff. “Yeah, that’s good. Definitely good.”
“Maybe it’s my foot,” said Flatline. “I can’t see anything in this seat. It’s too cramped.”
“Maybe it’s your dick,” said Guano. “Explains why you might not be able to find it.”
He didn’t laugh, which was a bad sign. “I’ll keep looking,” he said. “Talk to me later.”
“Is now later?” Guano adjusted her weapons console. Her ship was in worse shape than the national debt, but it would fight. “Because if you die in my ship, I don’t want your nasty-ass ghost floating around haunting me, like, woooooo, woooooooo… Get the fuck out of here.”
He still didn’t laugh. He was breathing in a pained rasp, wheezing with every inward breath, and occasionally little spherical rubies would drift in front of her vision.
She couldn’t think about all of that right now. They had to save the Midway. She reopened the channel to the Chinese fighters. “So hey, guys, I forgot; I’m Lieutenant Patricia Corrick, but please, call me Guano.”
“My name is Sub-lieutenant Shen Fong,” said the lead Chinese pilot, just a little more formally than he needed to.
“Great,” said Guano. “What’s your real name?”
She could practically hear his smile over the line. “My callsign is Dúshé.”
“His name is douche?” slurred Flatline worryingly. “Hah hah, hah, haaahhh…”
She quickly checked her instruments. The ship’s computer had translated it. “It means Viper.”
“Viper, huh,” said Flatline. “Funny how… Funny how we all have the same ideas, like, you know…about pilots and things. With callsigns.”
“Yeah,” said Guano, the enemy ship looming larger in her gun sights. The ship’s computers painted the cap ship with their missiles. “A’right, Viper, Viper’s buddies, get ready to blow this ship.”
“Thoughts on how to engage it?” asked Viper. “Our 20mm cannons are unlikely to pierce even the rear armor. Our missiles are HE, not AP… They won’t even scratch the surface. We need torpedoes and nukes to get through that armor.”
The studied the large ship on her readout monitors. Viper was right. The hostile ship was clad in heavy armor that her systems couldn’t penetrate, and it was the size of a small cruiser, just under one hundred forty meters, its hull comprised of six ovular sections stuck together, bristling with guns and weapons. Six engines were clustered together from the rear, red exhaust streams leaving a trail across space. Fins protruded like those of a fish, handfuls of lights glowing an ominous red. Sleek and fancy.
Time to turn it into scrap. Her radar reflections showed that the hull was thick and well layered, but the RCS was warped toward the rear of the ship. The farther they got away from the front, the thinner the armor was, and then she saw it.
“The engines,” she said, looking directly at them from behind, “that’s the key. The rear is armored, but they don’t seem to have any protection at all in the exhausts.” Which made sense. “Normally they’d be too small to target, for capital ships, but us little fighters? If we lob whatever we have into there, it might piss them off a little bit. Our heat-seekers have the best armor penetration… Let’s keep our semi-active medium-ranged missiles in reserve.”
“Sounds good,” said Viper. “Hitting the exhausts will be difficult. They’re not much bigger than two meters.”
She felt like calling the guy Red Five, especially since he was Chinese, but she controlled herself. “Great,” she said. “Lock S-foils for attack run.”
“What’s an S-foil?” asked Viper, confused.
“Never mind,” she said. “Just a line from some old movie.” She swung her ship around, aligning her craft with one of the engines, plunging into the red stream behind them. It was like flying through a bloody mist, dark red glinting stream of particles scratching across her cockpit, thousands of them becoming lodged in the cracks of the damaged glass. Her ship shook and trembled as the stream buffered her around.
Time to do this before they discovered her. She turned on the forward-looking infrared; the FLIR glowed white hot. At least aiming would be simple.
“Ready to shoot this shit?” asked Roadie.
“I am ready,” said Viper.
“Guano’s a go,” she said, and dumped all her heat-seeking missiles, not even worrying about brevity calls. Four white streaks, one after the other, cut through the red exhaust stream. Before they even hit, she switched over to guns, and turned ammo into noise. She squeezed the trigger, sending a twin stream of high-explosive shells along the exhaust trail. She switched over to using Flatline’s ammo supply as well, emptying that in just a few seconds.
And then her guns were dry and her missile racks empty. The only sound was the distant grinding of some logistics officer’s teeth.
She pulled out of the crimson exhaust stream, flecks of it coming away with her ship, like a battered dolphin cresting out of the ocean. Roadie and the J-84’s emerged similarly. She watched, waiting, to see if it had all been for nothing.
For a second, the ship seemed to jerk, a ripple running from its stem to its stern. The exhaust cut out from all engines and it began to turn. Slowly, inexorably, as though to crush them.
Then, with a blinding white flash that seared her retinas, the ship jumped away.
“Wow,” said Guano. “I guess we got ‘em.”
“Don’t crow too soon,” said Roadie.
But in her radar, she could see the other hostile ships around them, similarly, begin to turn.
“What the blue hell is going on?”
&nbs
p; Chapter Twenty-Two
Bridge
USS Midway
Mattis touched the earpiece. “Shao, are you there?”
The voice that came through the line was harried but full of energy. “This is Fuqing actual. Send it.”
“It seems we’re outnumbered,” said Mattis. “I was hoping you’d have some advice regarding ways we can remedy this predicament.”
“We’re firing as fast and as hard as we can, and we’re taking the brunt of enemy fire in return. Not sure what else you want from me, Admiral.” A slight pause. “Although, you know, if you let me shoot you again…I’m all ears.”
“I’m sure you are,” he said, unable to keep back a small smile. No matter what else he’d thought of asking his old enemies to give them a broadside, it had been pretty awesome. “But I meant more with regard to our enemies. Any particular hints you might be willing to drop?”
“I’m afraid keep shooting at them ‘till they die is the best we have at this stage, Admiral.”
That was all they had as well.
“Actually,” said Shao, slightly distracted as though listening to a report that barely carried over the din of her bridge, “we’re receiving a report from some of our strike craft that a preliminary examination of the hostile ships reveals that their engines are a notable weak point—this might explain why they’re all taking great care to angle their frontal armor toward us.”
“Makes sense,” mused Mattis. “This fleet’s obviously designed to attack… They have guns and frontal armor, and a mass-driver system, but their capital ships are built to attack strike craft and smaller ships. That means…they probably weren’t expecting two capital ships here, and they weren’t expecting one of those ships to lose engine power and continue to fight against such overwhelming odds.”
“Okay,” said Shao. “So if they’re built to attack, what should we do?”
“Well,” said Mattis, “when the ball’s on your ten-yard line, you don’t wanna block, you wanna get it to your running back and take the game to them.”
Shao didn’t answer right away. “Sorry,” she said, “I don’t follow. I thought my English was actually okay, but none of that makes any sense.”
Right. The Chinese didn’t play football. “You’re doing great. I’m suggesting we go on the attack. We need to get close to them, right up close, and hit them with our torpedoes, old-fashioned broadside style, at point-blank range so they can’t dodge. Punch through their hulls with nuclear fire.”
“Sounds good,” said Shao, the notion seeming to agree with her. “I’m sick of trading jabs. Let’s snap-kick them in the throat.”
Now they were talking. “Get your nukes ready,” he said. “We’re going to want a full barrage from both ships. Target one hostile, flank it, bombard from both sides. And Shao—don’t miss. These things will hurt us, and you.”
“My gunners never miss,” said Shao. “Let us know when you’re able to move and we’ll do it.”
“Status on those engines,” barked Mattis. “Good news, if you please, Mister Pitt.”
“Damage control reports that engine three is functioning at one-quarter capacity,” said Commander Pitt. “That’s all they can give us at this stage.”
He’d asked for good news but hadn’t actually expected to receive it. Still, it was welcome. Mattis knew his ship like the back of his hand; one-quarter of one-third of their engines wasn’t much power, but it was something. “Good. Bring it up, slowly now, gently. One-eighth engine power. We don’t want to stress it. Just navigate straight toward the nearest ship. It’s not much, but it’ll make it harder to coordinate fire on any weak points they detect. Get us away from the wreckage of Friendship Station.”
“Aye aye, sir, one-eighth ahead.” The command was relayed throughout the bridge.
It felt good to be moving. The repaired engine gave them a whisker of mobility, and a little bit of movement could go a very long way indeed.
“Shao,” said Mattis, “follow our lead.”
“Right.”
“We’re pulling away, sir,” said Commander Pitt. “All guns maintaining fire for effect on targets of opportunity.”
Commander Pitt, despite everything, had performed admirably. If they survived this, he’d be commended in some way. Mattis would make sure of it. “Very good,” he said. “Continue to hammer those skunks, and coordinate with the Fuqing. We want to hit them at the same time, if we can. I know it’s difficult with our wings clipped, but we gotta make it happen.”
The door to the bridge opened and a pair of corpsmen arrived. Finally. Two women in uniforms adorned with red crosses in white circles. They seemed drawn, instinctively, toward Malmsteen, but the moment they saw him, they moved on. Mattis wordlessly pointed to Lynch and then turned his attention back to the outer view.
Glowing yellow lines of cannon fire leapt out from all sides of the Midway, streaking toward the enemy fleet. Red lines of their return fire darted back, absorbed by the hull and ricocheting off into space, or sinking into the thick metal. For the most part, that fire seemed ineffective; the overwhelming majority of their damage had come from the mass-driver strike on Friendship Station.
“Status on torpedoes?” asked Mattis.
“Standby.” Commander Pitt consulted his console. “All tubes loaded, sir.”
About time. “Get ready to fire a volley, full spread, targeting the closest ship, the same one the Fuqing has targeted. Use their firing solution on the opposite side and concentrate on weak points. See if we can punch right through its weaker side armor.”
“Got it, sir,” said Commander Pitt. “We’re moving into position.”
They were, but it was agonizingly slow. At minimal engine power, the Midway crept forward.
Lynch, with the medics still tending him, seemed drawn to his console. “Admiral?”
“Yes?”
“It’s the attacking ships,” said Lynch, disbelief in his tone. “They’re all turning and jumping away. Six, seven, eight…and that’s the last of them.”
It took him looking at the radar output to believe it, to watch the beam sweep space and find only strike craft and debris, but it was true. The attackers had left behind their strike craft, but all the capital ships had jumped away.
“The alien fleet is bugging out,” said Commander Pitt. “The AO is clear of anything bigger than a fighter, and debris.”
But the Midway had barely hit them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bridge
USS Midway
The guns were quiet and, unbelievably, almost all noise on the bridge ceased. Pitt’s words echoed around the room.
The alien fleet.
It was true. The ships were not from Earth. They weren’t Chinese or American or Indian—they were… something else. From somewhere else.
Mattis slumped back in his chair, taking in a long, slow breath and letting it out. The stench of burning electronics filled his nose, pungent and acrid, and he could smell other things. Chemicals. Metal. Blood.
These things always lingered in the wake of battle. It had been so long that he barely remembered.
Ramirez appeared beside him, her hands on her hips. She was bloody, scorched, but defiant. “Okay,” she said, clearly being as patient as she could. “I’m going to tell one amazing story about this when we get out of here. But aliens…seriously. Are they aliens? That can’t be.” She paused, regarding him. “Ready to tell me just what the hell is going on, Jack?”
He couldn’t have her doing that. Talking to him like that, on the bridge. Calling him Jack. His command was tenuous as it was, with the body of the former captain in the corner covered in a sheet, and he couldn’t have anyone undermining it. Not a civilian, someone from the press. Not…her.
“You’ll be briefed in time,” he said, a little more curtly than he truly meant. “A statement will be made to the press, when we have more information, and I’ll make sure it gets passed along to you.”
Passed along… The mom
ent the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He didn’t mean it, but it would be improper to countermand himself in such a way. He’d committed.
Martha looked at him impassively, with that practiced reporter’s face, and then turned curtly and left.
It was always worse when she said nothing.
But there were a million things he should be focusing on, not watching her leave the bridge, slipping out through the narrow door. It wasn’t his fault. He was just doing his duty…
So he’d told himself for so long he almost believed it.
“Admiral?” asked Commander Pitt, his tone suggesting it was the second or third time. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head to clear away the doubts. “I was just…thinking.”
“Thinking,” echoed Commander Pitt. The guy had a calming vibe to his voice. “About the aliens?”
He grimaced. The whole idea was cringeworthy to him. “There’s no evidence that the ships that attacked us were crewed by extraterrestrials,” he said, a little more condescending than he probably should have been. “For all we know, this was some kind of attack by…” He couldn’t finish that sentence in a way that didn’t sound very silly in his mind.
“I understand,” said Commander Pitt. “But the level of technology, the composition of the ships—it does seem very alien, in the literal sense of the world. Otherworldly. Different. I think we can all agree that the use of the word alien is justified in this case, at the very least, until we learn more.”
He couldn’t contest that. “Very well. But more importantly, Commander, the present… How’s my ship?”
Commander Pitt drummed his fingers on his arm. “Well, sir, the Midway is badly damaged and not combat effective. Now that we’re not being shot at, we can start to seal up the breached bulkheads and try to restart some of our damaged secondary systems, but the rear of the ship took one hell of a beating, sir. I’m not sure we’ll be able to coax much more out of the engines, but we’re going to do our best. If anyone can do it, Modi can.”
The Last War: Book 1 of The Last War Series Page 9
