“Enemy battlecruiser is on the move,” Spinelli reported. “Changing course, heading for the deep system.” Shaking his head, he added, “We can catch them if we move quickly, Captain.”
“Firing range in one minute,” Cantrell said, as the missile tracks disappeared from the screen in a frantic series of collisions. “We'll have at least two shots. Request permission to fire a defensive salvo?”
Nodding, Orlova said, “Do it. Then fire at will.” Turning to Powell, she added, “Instruct all ships to launch their missiles as soon as they are in range.”
Alamo dived towards its fleeting target, the Neander vessels on her flanks slowly moving ahead, their greater acceleration now unleashed to the full as they sought vengeance for the death of their comrades. Behind them, at the planet, the Koltoc ships were still dueling with the fighters, none daring to get within firing range of the satellites.
“Ten seconds,” Cantrell said, and Alamo rocked as the first salvo launched, racing ahead of the Neander. They didn't have the range to hit the enemy ship, but when it fired its missiles, they'd be in a perfect position to intercept. A heartbeat later, six new targets appeared on the screen, all of them bearing down upon Alamo.
“Midshipman, line me up a shot,” Cantrell said. “Specific location unimportant. We just need to make a mess.”
“Aye, ma'am,” he replied. “Coming around.”
As the rest of the squadron unleashed their missiles, Alamo fired its laser cannon at the enemy, a neat black line running down the side of their hull, gas escaping, tossing them around. The Xandari quickly re-oriented its missiles to defensive fire, trying to gain speed to escape, but her fate was inevitable, and all present knew it. As she watched, ripples of explosions raced across her hull, exposing the compartments within. A single missile struggled to clear the ship, immediately destroyed by a Neander missile before it could get away.
Finally, the enemy vessel could fight no more, and with one last blinding burst, she exploded, a halo of jagged shrapnel where once she was. All eyes were on the viewscreen as they saw the ship meet its end, and Orlova shook her head.
“Now we've got to finish the clean-up,” she said. “Take us back...”
“Signal from the station, Captain!” Spinelli said.
“Are they surrendering?”
“No, ma'am. Some of the workers have broken free, and the Xandari are massacring the rest.”
“We've got to help them,” Ryan said, stepping forward. “There are a couple of hundred of my people over there, forced labor in the construction process!”
“Have Lieutenant Cooper proceed to their support with everyone he's got,” Orlova ordered.
“Captain,” Cantrell replied, “those shuttles would be sitting ducks for the fighters, to say nothing of the satellite network.”
“I'm aware of that,” she said. “We can't just sit here and watch while they kill the Copernican prisoners. Let's just hope that Pavel can knock them out first.” Shaking her head, she stepped over to the helm, and added, “Bring us about, Midshipman. Get us back to the planet, maximum acceleration.”
“Aye, ma'am,” Maqua replied, and she watched as the stars shifted on the screen, Alamo turning back towards its original target. The elevator slid open, Ryan racing from the bridge. She couldn't blame him. Under the same circumstances, she'd have done exactly the same.
Seconds later, the shuttles launched, four of them, all overloaded with troops. In five minutes, they'd be in the firing line. Now the waiting would begin again.
Chapter 9
Salazar gently guided the shuttle towards the planet, frowning as he labored to set up their flight towards the satellite network. Beside him, Hooke grumbled at his position, rattling controls to bring his electronic warfare suite online. After Harper, he was the best hacker on the ship, and he knew it. That his skills tended to perpetually bring him into dangerous situations was not lost on him, but early efforts to maintain a comfortable anonymity had failed long ago.
“Course complete,” Salazar said. “How are you doing, Hooke?”
“I'm still working on my last words,” he replied. “I think I'd better keep them nice and short under the circumstances. No point boring everyone to death at my funeral.”
“Cheer up,” Salazar said, forcing a smile. “If we screw this up, odds are there won't be enough of us left to bury.” Gesturing at the navigation computer, he added, “We're going to have to dip below escape velocity to make the pass.” The engines rumbled, the ship tumbling to the left to avoid a debris field, and the pilot poked at his controls again, adjusting his course. “Crowded out here.”
With a sigh, Hooke said, “If you're really interested, my primary communications link is on-line, and I've loaded my intrusion software into the computer.” He looked around the shuttle, and said, “Let's just hope my enhancements work.”
“Enhancements?”
He frowned, shook his head, and said, “Why do you think I arranged for us to have this shuttle? I've been tinkering with her for the last month or so, boosting the transmission capacity and the processing power.”
“You arranged it? It was just...”
For the first time, he saw Hooke smile, as the hacker replied, “Come on, Lieutenant, I'm good enough at my job to make sure there are no such things as coincidences. I don't think there's a sysop in the fleet that doesn't, shall we say, enhance his shipboard experience somewhat.” Raising his hand, he replied, “You can talk. I saw how you got those new quarters, not to mention the office. Nice work, by the way. I didn't know you'd had any special training.”
“I haven't,” the baffled Salazar replied. “The scheduling systems just assigned them to me.”
Shaking his head, Hooke said, “Huh. So you thought that you were the only officer of your rank to have an office of his own, as well as the best quarters on the officers' level? Lieutenant, you can come clean with me. Why do you think I have my own room? I need my privacy. It's all justified, of course. Security.” The smile grew, and he said, “Security can excuse just about anything.”
“Trust me, Spaceman, I haven't, and when I get back, I'm…” he paused, and continued, “Harper?”
“Probably. She likes you, if you hadn't noticed.” The hacker frowned and added, “Maybe you really haven't. Interesting. In any case, you don't need to worry. We hackers tend to keep ourselves honest, at least after a fashion. I might arrange to get a slightly nicer room, but I wouldn't interfere with anything essential to ship operations.”
“And when I was Security Officer, how did I miss this?”
“Well, Quinn was running things at the time, and besides,” he paused, frowned, then continued, “you aren't a hacker. I guess you took the basic electronic warfare training at the Academy, but we're a bit beyond that level. Hard to supervise someone when you don't understand what they're doing. Harper's the only boss I've had who really knew what I was up to.” He nodded, and said, “I actually picked up a few tricks from her. Giving her a ship was a smart move.”
Salazar glanced at his controls, and checked the course heading. Three minutes to the action. The Koltoc ships were cruising in his wake, ready to provide support, and he could pick up a squadron of Copernican fighters launching from the surface, moving into position for their attack. Everyone was depending on his flying, and Hooke's skills.
“You really are a little clan of your own, aren't you,” Salazar said, settling back at his station.
“Of course,” he replied, turning to his controls, tapping a series of buttons to bring new programs to the fore. “There are three of us who could quite easily take over the ship, if we wanted to. No matter how many firewalls or defensive programs you could install to stop us. Harper, me, and Washington.” He paused, then added, “Maybe the Captain, as well. She was pretty good, but she's not had the practice. A waste, really.”
Shaking his head, Salazar replied
, “Two minutes, now, Hooke. Better get ready.”
“I'm always ready, Lieutenant. It's safer that way.” He turned, and said, “You think you can get us through the gap?”
“Don't worry, Spaceman, I've got a nice smooth trajectory right through the middle.” He frowned, adjusting his sensors, and continued, “Just make sure they can't lob anything at us, and we'll be back on Alamo before you can say milk-run.”
“Oddly, that isn't working,” he replied, tapping a control. “Here we go. I should be able to start logging on now.” Turning for a second, he continued, “Whatever you do, don't distract me. Unless we're about to die. Be nice to have a little warning.”
Salazar looked up at his sensors again, and cursed under his breath. The satellites were even better than he had thought. Either that, or the Xandari had managed to make some modifications to the basic design. The two defense platforms on either side were changing their orbits, moving to fill in the gaps in the system created by Red Avenger's pass. They'd had the luxury of a high-speed flyby, only a few seconds in the window, but they were looking at three or four minutes of bombardment. Not that they'd need anything like that much. One good hit would finish them, and on their present course, they couldn't even bail out. They'd re-enter the atmosphere in minutes, just a shooting star in the night sky.
He looked at the planet, shaking his head. They were diving towards a huge, blue sea, green and brown islands pin-pointed all over it in vast archipelagos. Some day, he'd like to go down there, sail on that sea for himself. Maybe when all of this was over.
Finally, the sensor computer produced an updated course plot, and he burst into life, entering course changes by the second, altering their course to bring them around the perimeter of the satellites. It wasn't merely the gap to contend with now, but the debris fields from the battle that had taken place bare minutes ago. All of them had been fighting in the same orbital plane, and he periodically made adjustments to dodge large enough chunks of metal to cause real damage to the shuttle.
Then, making matters worse, the fighters lit up, moving to an attack trajectory. Even if they made it through the satellites, they'd be caught as soon as they passed through the other side. It might only be revenge, but they'd still be dead, just the same. He turned to Hooke, then shook his head. The hacker was engrossed in his work, digging into the modified network, and didn't need any distractions. This was his problem, and he was going to solve it, one way or another.
With a smile, he reached across for the throttle, pushing the engines up to maximum acceleration, enough to press him back into his couch and earn him an angry stare from Hooke, who turned back to his work with a grimace. Below, the Copernican fighters were coming up, rising to meet the Xandari fighters, but with the gravity gauge against them, it was going to be tough.
“I'm in!” Hooke said. “Broken into Satellite Three. Let's see what I can do with it.”
An alarm went off, and Salazar replied, “Make it fast. Satellite Two just fired three missiles at us.” He reached underneath the panel and turned a key that only an experienced pilot would know existed, a control that wasn't in any of the manuals for a very good reason. It deactivated the safety systems, allowing him to force all possible acceleration from the shuttle, regardless of the well-being of the occupants. He could just manage ten Earth gravities and remain conscious, an aftermath of a life raised in a low-gravity environment. Anything stronger would knock him cold, and going above twenty would result in a long spell in sickbay. Above twenty-five, and he'd have a longer stay in a coffin.
He glanced across at Hooke, still frantically working, attempting to urge a launch from his satellite, targeted at the other missiles. Above them, one of the Koltoc ships launched a wave of its own warheads, swooping down towards the temporarily vulnerable satellite, but they couldn't get there in time to make any difference.
Ramping up the acceleration as high as he dared, sufficient that his vision started to gray around the edges, warning lights blaring across the cabin with a sea of red lights dancing on his console, he tried to outpace the missiles, buying the struggling Hooke time to work his console. The hacker threw him a quick, painful glance, then slammed a control, sending two more missiles into the sky, locked onto the shuttle's own guidance system.
Though a standard transfer shuttle had no capability to launch missiles, past experience had amply demonstrated that the ability to control them was a useful feature, and Salazar struggled to the side panel, stabbing buttons to manipulate the guidance system, to direct them towards his selected targets.
More warning lights sounded as the missiles approached, the acceleration rendering him barely able to breathe. He glanced across at the indicator, reading fourteen gravities. More than he'd ever remained conscious through before, forty times the usual weight he was used to back on Mars, but he only had to stand it for a few more minutes.
Automatically, the physical countermeasures engaged, tossing flares and chaff away from the side of the shuttle, a primitive attempt to block the incoming sensors of the approaching missiles, frustrate them for the critical second required for a good pilot to find a miracle. He looked up at the sensor screen, transfixed, as he saw the three missiles converging on the shuttle, bare seconds left until impact. Their two counterparts chased towards them as fast as their engines could burn, but something inside him said that it wasn't going to be enough, that their life was measured only in seconds.
He turned to Hooke, but at the final second, their missiles put on an extra burst of speed, smashing into the rear of the approaching warheads and catching all three of them in the explosion, rendering the sensor scope blissfully clear. Easing down the acceleration, he turned to Hooke, shaking his head.
“You could have warned me, damn it,” he said.
A smirk on his face, Hooke replied, “I thought about it, but you looked like you were enjoying yourself. Besides, you had the engine running so hot I could barely breathe.” Turning to the side panel, he said, “Looks like the Koltoc have blasted through our window.”
Satellite Three had detonated in their rear, leaving a gap large enough that the Xandari fighters were vulnerable to attack from above. Their commander had realized it, and the formation moved into a new trajectory, ignoring them and focusing their attention on Cooper's attack wave, closing in on the station right above them.
“We've got to stop them,” Salazar said, running up the thrust again.
“We don't have any weapons,” Hooke replied, grimacing as the acceleration built, “and I can't hack into another satellite in time.” Glancing at the sensor display, he continued, “What are you going to do?”
“Play chicken,” Salazar replied, locking onto the lead fighter. He built up his acceleration again, soaring past escape velocity and freeing himself from the tyranny of the planetary gravity well, but that didn't matter to him right now. Navigation was reduced to one objective, ramming into the lead fighter.
“Lieutenant, we'll be killed!”
“He'll break,” Salazar said, with a confidence he didn't feel. “Trust me.”
“Trusting you is what got me into this mess!” Shaking his head, he moved back to his controls, and said, “Maybe I can do something from here. Hang on.”
“I can't, Hooke! Thirty seconds to impact, and if we miss, they'll be raining death on Cooper's Company in the next minute.” Glancing at the display again, he flicked a switch, and said, “Lieutenant Salazar to Copernicus Fighter Squadron. Come in, please!”
“Lieutenant Deveraux here,” a whimsical voice replied. “We're closing on your position, missiles ready to fire. Be with you in forty seconds.”
“We'll be dead by then,” Hooke said, frantically working his console. “I think I can hack into their communications system.” Shaking his head, he added, “It won't do any good. We haven't cracked their code, and I don't even speak their bloody language.”
“Turn the gain up
as high as you can,” Salazar said, fine-tuning their course, “and run the volume up all the way. Let's make their eardrums bleed.”
Hooke looked at him, smiled, and issued the necessary commands, drowning their headsets with noise. Filters would normally shut it down almost instantly, but he played with the gain, pulsing it fast enough to trick the computers, but slowly enough that it made no difference to those forced to listen. One of the fighters drifted off course, the pilot in the middle of some maneuver when he lost all concentration. Salazar's fighter roared into view, before finally veering off at the last second, diving down towards the planet as the squadron leader randomly dodged.
“Blocked,” Hooke said, pushing a button, “but it doesn't matter now. Here come the Copernicans!”
A quintet of sleek, winged shapes cruised towards them, firing ten missiles from under-slung hard-points, racing towards the Xandari fighters, who could only muster six missiles to counter them. Even if they could survive the attack, they were unarmed, out of the battle, and their leader turned them back to the station, trying for a ramming attack on the shuttles.
It was a tactic born of desperation, and the carefully placed shots of the Copernican squadron rendered it impossible, missiles slamming home in a series of fiery explosions, ripping them apart. Salazar looked down at his course plot, a satisfied smile on his face. They didn't have enough fuel to get back to Alamo, but they were on a trajectory to take them well clear of the combat area, out to the safety of the outer system.
“Thanks for the assist, Lieutenant,” Deveraux said. “Nice flying.”
“Nice shooting,” Salazar replied. “Can you manage the rest of the defense network?”
“It's got more holes than my old socks,” the pilot said with a laugh. “Consider them gone. Assuming the Koltoc don't finish the job for us first. I'll stand you a drink at the bar when you make it down to the surface. Deveraux out.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Operation Damocles Page 8
