Jane licked her lips. There were only three people on that ship. Stefano, Bob at Engines and Cassandra at Weapons. Their spouses were on other ships. Which meant three more humans, besides her and her people, now faced imminent death. As did the captains and crews of the six boomer ships. She nodded. “Your assistance is accepted, Neil C. Roberts.” Was there more to say? The man’s ship was out of pods. An idea hit her. “Captain Stefano, have your ship mind launch the three transport craft on your ship. Each is armed with a laser and a few nuke missiles. Cassandra can operate their weapons from her station.” The man’s eyebrows lifted. “Maybe the transports can hit 15 percent of lightspeed, like the pods. Or maybe not. But they can give you extra laser guns!”
The soft-spoken man showed a brief smile. “We obey, captain. A very good idea. And Cassandra likes the idea of adding three more laser platforms to our nose lasers. Which she is firing now on the enemy.”
“Good,” Jane said, turning away from the man who was their backup in case the Blue Sky lost both engines and became vulnerable to an attack from the Fear Arrives. Green laser streaks from Stefano’s ship joined those from Bill’s station. Three of the four beams missed. The fourth hit Death Leader’s ship a glancing blow. No loss of air or water or fuel showed on her sensors. Damn! She scanned her system graphic. Most of the last waves of nuke-armed pods were gone, thanks to Death Leader’s use of antimatter against them. Was that three, or four AM shots? The bastard would be out of AM reloads for the ten minutes it took his particle accelerator to create more antimatter. The monster did not know of Bill’s expansion of their capability to six shots from the standard four shots on the Alien-built Collectors. Three small red dots showed up next to Stefano’s ship. The transports had been launched. They moved now to 15 percent of lightspeed. Good. Her comlink holo filled with three captain images.
“Captain,” called Jake from the Tangi Valley. “I’m a SEAL also. I wish to join Stefano as backup.”
“Me too,” called Janice from the Takur Ghar. “A SEAL I am and a SEAL I will always be. Let us join you and Stefano.”
“And me also,” said Mack from the Rolling Thunder. “I too am a SEAL. Let me help cover your back.”
Jane felt touched and heartened by the three captains’ effort to come to her aid. But if she agreed to their demand, surely she would hear similar talk from their fellow spec ops folks with battle training in Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard special operations. In both fleets. “No. Your offer is much appreciated. But a single backup ship is all that is needed. Plus I have the six boomer subs adding in laser firepower. You two, and everyone else, stay at ten percent of lightspeed and help our wounded ships. And one of you needs to go after Alicia on the Musan. She has zero engines. Stop that ship’s momentum, or get her people and ship mind off it!”
“Understood,” Jake called. “I’ll go after the Musan.”
Mack grimaced. “Reducing speed to 10 percent.”
Janice, a fellow Japanese-American like herself, showed an upset expression. “Captain Jane, my duty to you goes beyond my SEAL status! You know—”
“I do know what you mean,” Jane said, giving the young woman a smile. “Your family will know of your fight to serve the honor of all nihonjin. You serve that honor now by following my orders. Pull back. Save your craft for future defense of Earth.”
“As you command. Sayonara.”
Jane turned away from the comlink holo and faced the holos in front of her. The true space holo showed black space and hundreds of white dot stars. In the distance showed the red ball of Mars. They were just past the Asteroid Belt. Earth now lay three AU ahead. Four hours or less. And the enemy was speeding away at 14 percent of lightspeed. Time to follow Stefano’s example and end this. Somehow.
“Chester, move us up to 15 percent of lightspeed. We and the subs and Stefano can—”
Two yellow plasma balls showed in the true space holo. They were off to the side of her ship, or lagging just a bit.
Bill slammed his fist on an armrest. “Damn! The HMS Vengeance and the FNS Terrible just died! Their Magfield engines blew. Which had to have killed their reactors.”
She sighed. Her heart felt heavy. A total of 135 men onboard the Brit sub and 111 men on the French sub were now vapor spreading across cold vacuum.
“Captain Jane,” called Star Traveler. “This ship cannot sustain travel at 15 percent of light speed. My home is not a collector pod.”
“I know that! But—”
“Jane!” interrupted Bill. “I have an answer to further endangering the Blue Sky.” He stood up and walked toward her, his tube suit not hiding the tenseness of his face or the tightness of his shoulders. “I’m heading back to the Talking Skin. It can hit 15 percent lightspeed for a while. And it can jink as good as the pods. I’m taking demo balls with me plus a nuke bar.” He stopped below her seat and looked up at her. His hazel eyes met hers. “When I get to Fear Arrives, Star Traveler can remote open its hull to its Transport Access Chamber. Or I’ll use a demo ball to blow a hole into the fucking ship!” He turned away and headed for the hallway entry door. “I’ll put the nuke bar in its Engine space. Or close enough. Even with hallway pressure hatches closed against me, I will get there. I’ll try to get off using the transport. Or maybe one of its pods.”
“Bill! It’s not needed! Our lasers will take it down.”
“It is,” he said, his voice strong as he stood before the open door. She looked back. He gave a shrug. “Lower the speed of the Blue Sky and the Neil C. Roberts to 14 percent. That’s a risk anyway. More will blow this ship. Taking you, my friends and our loyal ship mind with it. Remember, I’ve done solo stuff before. And you or Chester can handle my Weapons station. We can only fire lasers right now. You guys keep up the laser fire while I jink and jiggle.”
He passed through the open door. Which slid shut as he entered the hallway and turned right, heading for one of their two transports. She turned away, looked ahead, nodded at the faces of Chester, Bright Sparkle, Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer, then said the needed words. “Chester, cut us back to 14 percent of lightspeed. Stefano, you do the same.” She tapped a control pillar in front of a side holo. That holo now glowed with a repeat of Bill’s Ship Weapons station holo. She tapped the fire control panel that appeared on the pillar’s top. Their two nose lasers fired coherent green streaks at the snake-gorilla’s ship. The beams missed as the enemy jinked to one side. On her systems graphic holo she saw their ship, Stefano’s ship and the four remaining subs were now at 5,124 miles away from Fear Arrives. Ahead of them the thousand plus missile warheads now moved slowly toward the enemy ship, their solid fuel exhausted. Maybe the warheads would reach the enemy ship. Some of which had x-ray lasers on them. Likely not, with them limited to an inertial speed of 14 percent of light. A new red dot showed on her system graphic. It was Bill. In the transport. It now moved ahead of them at 15 percent of light. Slowly it moved, but it was gaining on the enemy ship. Which would happen first? Would Death Leader’s ship blow up from engine overload? Would Bill’s transport die? Would the four pursuing subs, now going like bats out of hell at 15 percent, blow up before they reached the bastard who threatened her world? She didn’t know. She just knew that if the other ships died, she would offload her crew onto the Tall Trees transport and take over sole control of the Blue Sky herself. She could do it using the mind-control helmet on the alternate command seat in the Engine chamber. If necessary, she would ram the fucking bastard herself!
♦ ♦ ♦
Bill jinked his transport to one side and then up into a partial spiral. Green laser fire from Death Leader streaked past where he’d been. The control panel of the transport showed its own system graphic flat image. The three transports launched by Stefano were close behind him and getting closer. The weapons screen on the panel before him showed his ship held four thermonuke-tipped missiles. Plus their nose laser, which was as powerful as the ones on the Blue Sky. He tapped the fire control sensor patch lying next to the weapons screen. A
green streak shot out from the Talking Skin. It missed the Fear Arrives. But a laser beam from one of Stefano’s transports did hit the bastard. A brief spurt of air and water said there had been a penetration. He played with the nav hand-grip, causing his transport to jerk down, sideways, up, across and then sideways again. Two green laser beams streaked past his prior vector track. He was gaining on the bastard! It was just 4,015 miles away. Which meant he and the other transports would face antimatter shortly. He looked closely at the system graphic, then over at the electro-optical scope screen that showed nothing in the normal light spectrum. But the neutrino detector on the left side of his control panel did show the enemy’s neutrino emissions. Which were superimposed on an outline of the enemy’s long teardrop shape. When the three neutrino emission points, which came from the ship’s three fusion reactors, seemed to shorten, that meant Death Leader was changing his ship’s nose angle to lock onto Bill’s transport. The neutrino dots changed. He tapped his laser firing patch.
“Got you, you bastard!”
Sensors showed air, water and metallic debris erupting from the bulbous nose of the teardrop. Had he hit the antimatter projector’s port?
Bill jinked sideways. The system graphic screen showed the other three transports jinking and jigging in various vector angles. A black beam speared out toward them, according to what he could see in the electro-optical scope image that filled one screen on his control pane. No luck on the AM projector. Yellow-white light flared on the scope image. Which meant one of Stefano’s transports was now dead. He spoke, counting on his helmet comlink to instantly cross-link to his transport’s neutrino comlink.
“Jane! Try for the bastard’s antimatter projector. At the upper nose space.”
“Firing on him,” Jane said quickly. “That was his fourth AM shot. He’s out of antimatter for the next ten minutes. Think you can reach him before he reloads?”
Bill scanned the system graphic screen. It said he was 1,234 miles from the misbegotten fusion of a cobra and a gorilla. He pulled on the nav hand-grip, avoiding two new laser beams.
“Yes! Keep distracting him with yours and Stefano’s laser fire! And the subs’ laser fire. Uh, just before I get to his hull, blow the nuke warheads! That will create a sensor overload for his ship. It should help me with my closing and boarding.”
“Will do,” Jane said. “The four Trident subs are right on your heels. They’re firing their lasers now. They’ll be your backup if you have to use a pod to escape.”
“Thanks.” Escape was the least of the things on his mind as he did his best to emulate a flying squirrel darting through tree branches. Four laser beams hit the Fear Arrives. The ship staggered in its forward flight, then steadied. But large amounts of air, water and some isotope fuel were spewing from its midsection. Or so his sensors reported. His scope actually showed tiny silver sparkles from the gaseous globules. Which quickly disappeared as they turned to vapor. Ten new green laser streaks shot past Bill, which meant the fire control panels on the four subs were being coordinated with the laser fire from Jane and Stefano’s ship, and the four surviving subs. Star Traveler had to be doing that. It had created the Magfield control tablets used by every sub out there. That tablet cross-linked to the other sub controls. It seemed his ship’s AI was able to override whatever a sub sailor was trying to fire on by orienting its laser fire in coordination with laser fire from the other ships. He grinned. It was ten, no, eleven lasers against the two on the Fear Arrives!
“We’re coming for you, you bastard!”
In the scope image, green flares showed at two spots on the enemy ship. More air and water spewed out. Then two green lasers shot past Bill. His system graphic screen showed Stefano’s transports were now gone. Fuck!
“Bill?” called Jane. “The four subs are adding their laser fire to yours and ours. It’s wounded. You’re getting real close now. Get onboard, plant that nuke bar and get the hell out!”
“Will do.” Bill tapped his missile fire control panel. His transport shuddered four times, as one after the other, the four missiles in the belly of the transport shot out and ahead toward Death Leader. Maybe one of them—
Two yellow flares showed in his scope screen. Two dots vanished from his system graphic. Two more yellow flares. Two more dots vanished. His last two missiles were now vapor. And he was within the 400 mile target range of Death Leader’s spine-mounted plasma battery. Which now fired at him.
“Blow the nuke warheads!” he yelled as he jigged the nav hand-grip to one side, letting the yellow plasma ball sweep past. Another plasma ball came flaming out of the battery. He jinked. It missed.
“Detonating all but the x-ray laser warheads,” Jane called. “No way are we going to fry you!”
His true space screen went orange, then yellow, then golden, then near white as more than 1,300 thermonuclear warheads detonated. They plasma balls spread out, combined with other nearby warhead blasts and created a miles-wide front of radiation. Which now sleeted his way. His helmet ear buds squealed as the radio band was overloaded. He crossed his fingers that 4,000 miles of distance was allowing his transport’s metal frame to absorb most of the gamma and x-rays emitted by the blasts. This was the moment when the enemy’s sensors should be overloaded.
“I’m heading in,” Bill said, hoping his neutrino comlink’s passage through an alternate dimension would allow his words to be heard by Jane.
Bill twisted the hand-grip, causing his transport to move to one side of the enemy Collector ship. Its nose lasers and antimatter projector could not swing wide enough to get him. Those weapons had maybe a ten degree angle movement. He was beyond their angle. And they weren’t firing anyway. Clearly their targeting sensors were overloaded by the nuke blasts. But another plasma ball came at him from the spine battery. A second quickly followed from its belly plasma battery. Fuck this. He aimed his nose laser and killed the spine battery. A jink on the hand-grip and he dodged both plasma balls. He touched his laser’s patch. The belly plasma battery went red molten, then yellow, then it became dispersing metallic vapor.
“Contact!” he yelled as the Talking Skin’s belly touched down on the rear end of the Fear Arrives. He tapped on the magnetic clamps. Just in time. The ship rolled, trying to dislodge him. Giving thanks for the gravity plates that kept him stable, Bill got up from the pilot seat, grabbed his backpack, snapped shut the holster cover for his .45, then grabbed his laser and taser tubes and ran toward the midbody airlock. He touched a patch. Its hatch opened. He entered. It closed. He touched the outer airlock Operate patch. It opened. Nothingness greeted his eyes. Which of course made sense. The enemy’s hull was as invisible to his eyes as it was to all normal sensors. “Leaving the ship.” He jumped out, aiming toward the belly hull of the Talking Skin. Which was of course quite visible. Two black streaks along the transport’s side testified to how close he’d come to dying. Well, that only counted in—
“I’m on the ship!” he yelled as his tube suit boots made contact and their built-in mag clamps came on. Which way? Didn’t matter. “Star Traveler, can you override this ship mind’s control of its outer hull? Can you create an opening for me to enter?”
Humming sounded over his helmet’s comlink. “Unable to override local ship mind control,” the AI said.
“What would it take for you to override it?”
“Its death,” his ship mind ally said.
Well, killing another AI was not something Star Traveler had ever done. Unlike humans, who were very good at killing other humans. And nasty Aliens. “It’s okay. I’m arming a yellow demo ball. It should create a decent hole. Stepping away.”
Bill walked back to the hull of his transport, putting ten yards distance between him and the demo ball. Which he’d set on a five second delay. Which now ended.
“Kaboom!” came the sound of the demo ball exploding.
What the hell? He was in vacuum. How could—
“Regrets for transmitting my acoustic monitoring of sensory output from the
Fear Arrives comlink circuits,” Star Traveler said. “While I cannot override its ship mind’s control of ship functions, I do receive all inputs from its autonomous ship systems. Be aware the ship mind Dexterity will respond according to Emergency Protocols the same way I did when you and Captain Jane put on tube suits.”
He shook his head. The ringing from the blast subsided. His eyes showed him a gray metal ring that glowed redly against black space. Yes! He walked quickly toward it. The ring rim began slowly closing as the ship’s flexmetal tried to seal the rupture in its hull. He tried running. Not good. He kept walking fast. Faster. He got to the gray metal ring when it was three feet wide. He bent down, grabbed the ring edge and pulled himself into a room. Half gee gravity grabbed at him. Falling head first towards the room’s gray metal floor, he twisted in midair the way he’d learned in free fall chute jumps, twisted and landed on his right hip.
“Thunk!” came over his tube suit’s external com.
Which meant the hole above him had now sealed and some air was refilling the air lost from the room. He rolled over to his knees, put gauntleted hands against the floor and slowly stood up. Red light shone down on him. He looked around. Large blocks of metal, some tables, some automated metal grinders and cutters, and other powered mech told him what he needed to know. He was in this ship’s Factory Chamber. Which meant he was on the left side of the enemy ship and close to the cross hallway that led to the Engine chamber. Reaching back, he pulled his taser and laser tubes out of his backpack, turned and walked toward the eight foot high oval outline that was the door which gave access to this ship’s left side hallway. It would open on sensing his bodyheat.
Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens Page 22
