Ep.#8 - Celestia: CV-02 (The Frontiers Saga)

by Ryk Brown

  The two Jung warships continued firing their point-defenses at the incoming anti-ship missiles, but the angle they were forced to shoot from was less than ideal. Six of the thirty missiles that made it past the flight of Jung fighters also made it past the Jung point-defenses and smashed into the aft end of the massive troop ship, splitting her drive section wide open. The troop ship remained intact but started pitching downward as the force of the explosion pushed her aft end upward.

  Able to do no more to defend the troop ship, the mini-rail guns on the back half of the two Jung warships swung back around to help defend against the Intrepid’s second wave of missiles. They opened fire, but it was too late. The constant acceleration of the second wave of missiles had done exactly what Captain Christopoulos had hoped it would do. It had pushed most of them past the Jung defenses.

  Three missiles smashed into the center of the cruiser, reporting their impacts with brilliant, nuclear flashes. Two more missiles slammed into the cruiser’s drive section, resulting in two more flashes of brilliant, white light. Two of the missiles reached the frigate, one striking her bow and the other her stern. One last missile passed directly underneath the frigate and slammed into the bow of the troop ship, as her nose had pitched down enough to reveal itself from behind the frigate.

  “Multiple missile impacts!” Lieutenant Eckert reported. “All three ships!”

  “Damage?” the captain asked his sensor officer.

  “One moment,” Ensign Kono answered.

  “Sir, we are closing fast on the targets,” the helmsman reported.

  “Major damage to both the cruiser and the frigate, sir,” Ensign Kono reported. “Neither has weapons or propulsion.”

  “What about maneuvering?”

  “I doubt it, sir.”

  “Status of our fighters?” the captain asked the flight operations officer.

  “The enemy fighters are breaking off and heading toward the next battle group,” Lieutenant Tonnes reported from the flight operations station.

  “Tell our fighters to pursue and destroy,” the captain ordered.

  “Sir!” Ensign Hunt called again in an insistent tone. “We’re headed right for them, and I’ve got no way to maneuver around them!”

  “What?” The captain stood from his command chair, moving forward and leaning down as if to take over the helm himself. “Have you got docking thrusters?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ve been trying them,” the helmsman answered. “They’re just not powerful enough.” The helmsman turned his head to look at his captain. “We’re going to run right into them.”

  The captain stood upright again. “How long?”

  The helmsman glanced at his flight data display. “Eighty-eight seconds, sir.”

  “Combat, captain!” Captain Christopoulos called over his comm-set.

  “Captain, go for combat,” Commander Nasser answered.

  “Commander, we’re a dead stick and headed right for the targets. I need you to blast us a way through. Fire everything you have at them.”

  “Aye, sir,” the commander answered over the comm-set.

  “Comms,” the captain said as he returned to his command chair. “Warn all decks to prepare for collision and send word to Fleet. If they don’t hear back from us in two minutes, they’re not going to.”

  * * *

  Rear Admiral Duncan stepped up to Admiral Galiardi as the admiral studied the tactical display map on the far wall of the underground Fleet command center. “Sir, the Intrepid reports that she has disabled the second battle group. She is continuing her attack to break them up.”

  The admiral looked surprised by the rear admiral’s last statement. “Break them up? Why waste the ordnance?”

  “The Intrepid is on a collision course, and all ships are dead sticks. They’re counter orbit, sir. At that speed, they’d never survive a collision with an entire ship.”

  “At that speed, they probably won’t survive a collision with a small piece of it,” the admiral said. He sighed as he looked at his watch. “Send a message to the Celestia. Tell them to start their burn. It’s now or never.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rear Admiral Duncan acknowledged. He turned to his subordinate and passed along the instructions before turning back to the admiral. “Sir,” he began, keeping his voice low, “perhaps you should consider preparing your evacuation.”

  Admiral Galiardi looked at his friend again. “I know things look bad, Marty, but we still have two warships. We haven’t lost yet.”

  “Yes, I know, Admiral. If either of them survives, we’ve still got a good chance of defeating the remaining ships in orbit. But if we don’t… Sir, one of those battle groups is directly over the African continent. Their forces are already on their way down. If you wait too long, you may not get away. If we’re going to continue to fight as an organized underground resistance, we’re going to need a leader.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Marty, but I’ll stay for now. If it makes you feel any better, you can have my shuttle and escorts made ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Sergeant Surbeck ran down the long entry road to the United Earth Republic capital in Geneva, leading his men from their previous position at the main gate toward the center of the compound. The need to guard the main gate against entry by protesters had been negated when the bombardment sent the demonstrators scattering in all directions. It had also kept him and his men trapped for nearly half an hour, as they had hunkered down in shelters waiting for the bombardment to end.

  Once the bombardment had ended, the landers began their approach and were now beginning to set down at various points within the main compound. The sergeant could see the landers—large, boxy-looking crafts with snub noses and pivoting engines on each corner—as they approached from out over the water. They weren’t pretty to look at, but they didn’t need to be. They just needed to get the enemy troops on the ground.

  Hastily assembled gun emplacements had already opened up on the descending landers and had successfully brought down at least two of them. There were, however, a lot more of them on their way. They arrived in groups of six. Each group was escorted by a pair of gunships—long, cylindrical crafts with ducted rotors overhead that were dropped from large platforms that hovered over the lake and out of reach of their guns. The gunships were fast and agile, with gun turrets in the noses and on either side of their fuselages. They darted about as they strafed UER ground forces, never standing still long enough to get a clear shot at them.

  As they ran down the roadway, Sergeant Surbeck took notice that, while most buildings were either damaged or destroyed, the main building—the one they jokingly referred to as ‘the palace’—was untouched. The gunships danced around it but took great care not to shoot in its general direction. It was almost as if they were protecting it from harm, which made little sense, because there was nothing of strategic importance within the building itself: no data center, no command facility, no comm-center. It was nothing more than a meeting place for representatives from every nation on Earth to assemble. It was more of a symbol than it was a place of importance. It represented unity, unity of the people of Earth and a shared belief that they had to work together in order to prosper.

  Sergeant Surbeck signaled for his men to fan out to either side of the street as they approached the main circle that surrounded the capitol building. Six landers were touching down on the massive, grass lawns that lined the circular roadway. As their skids settled onto the grass, their rear boarding hatches opened and their ramps slid out and touched the ground. Jung soldiers decked out in black body armor trimmed in red and gold came pouring out of the landers, running down the ramps and spreading out to both sides.

  “Open fire!” the sergeant ordered as his men dropped behind cars, benches, and garbage cans—anything they cou
ld find to use as cover. Machine gun fire erupted from his men and from other squads of men all around the circle. They had come from all over the compound, some from piles of rubble that had once been barracks, or offices, or operational rooms. The roar of so many automatic weapons was deafening, but it was nothing compared to the Jung’s return fire.

  As Jung soldiers came charging out of the landers, they opened fire on the UER forces with their energy rifles. Bolts of red shot out across the compound, each announced by the odd, metallic zhwang of the energy weapon’s discharge chamber. The red energy bolts damaged everything they hit, transferring intense amounts of heat into that which they contacted. Dirt blasted into the air with every bolt that struck the ground, burning the grass around the point of impact. Concrete was blown apart, as the intense heat of the weapon caused the particles within the concrete to move and expand in rapid fashion. Holes were literally melted through parked cars in the blink of an eye. When the blast was taken by a soldier directly, the result was barely recognizable, with a large portion of the soldier’s body having been burnt away in an instant.

  The battle flashed red with every discharge of the enemy weapons. Yellow-orange flashes leapt from the barrels of UER guns, the sound of their gunfire adding to the cacophony of battle. Troops streamed in from all over the complex in response to the Jung’s apparent concentration on capturing the main capitol building in one piece. There were no other reports of enemy troops landing elsewhere within the compound. This circle around the United Earth Republic’s main building was where they were to make their stand.

  Jung landers continued to cycle in and out of the area. No sooner had one landed, unloaded, and taken off, than another had come to take its place. The result was a never ending presence of at least four landers on the ground at any one moment. The Jung troops charged down the ramps of the landers while turrets on top of the landers sprayed the nearest threats with blasts of energy. Jung troops ran forward into the middle of the crossfire, taking several shots from the UER troops as they jammed metallic shields into the ground to protect themselves from incoming fire.

  “They’re trying to create a protective barrier with those shields!” Sergeant Surbeck yelled over his comm-set. “Target those carrying shields!” The sergeant raised his rifle and immediately dropped one of the shield carriers, placing three quick shots into his face and neck as he ran. The soldier stumbled forward, blood gushing from his neck, the shield flying from his hands and landing a few meters ahead of him. As quickly as he had gone down, another Jung soldier had picked up the shield and jammed it into the ground, taking up a position behind it and firing around its edge.

  “Bring up a rocket launcher!” the sergeant ordered. He raised his weapon again and continued to fire, concentrating on the shield carriers. He paused for a moment as he noticed a new pattern. Once the Jung had planted six shields in a row and created a five-meter-long wall, they began adding shields above the first row, leaving gaps between the second row of shields through which to fire. It was a simple, low-tech solution to the lack of cover their chosen insertion point offered, but it was an effective one. Within a matter of minutes, they had created a successful barrier behind which they could land, unload troops, and disperse them, all without being in the direct line of fire from the nearest UER soldiers. It also gave the Jung troops a very secure position from which to return fire.

  As soon as one barrier strip was completed, the amount of energy weapons fire coming from the firing gaps within the barrier became overwhelming, cutting down UER troops with ease.

  “Where the hell is that launcher?!” the sergeant demanded.

  “I don’t know, sir!” the corporal answered. “I sent Traeger a few minutes ago!”

  “Then send someone else!” the sergeant ordered as he continued firing. He heard shouts and noises coming from behind him, and he turned to look. In came more landers, only they were not headed for the main circle. They were landing at least one hundred meters behind them where there was no resistance.

  “Fuck!” the sergeant cursed, realizing they had been tricked. “They sucked us all into the circle, and now they’re inserting behind us!” he yelled to the corporal.

  “Why aren’t our guys in back taking them out?” the corporal asked.

  The sergeant pointed at the gunships circling the outer perimeter of their forces as they fired their turret guns at the backside of their lines.

  It was the searing heat that first caught the sergeant’s attention. While his attention had been drawn toward the battle developing behind him, the sergeant had failed to notice the energy bolts striking the far side of the vehicle that he was using as cover. He had wisely taken a position that placed the vehicle’s engine block between him and the enemy, knowing it offered the greatest amount of protection against their energy weapons. Unfortunately, the concentrated fire coming from the forces clustered behind the nearest Jung barricade had eventually melted its way through the vehicle’s engine block and was rapidly heating up the side of the vehicle against which the sergeant was leaning.

  He looked down at the side of the vehicle as it began to glow an intense red-orange. “Oh, shit!” he exclaimed as he dove to one side. The glowing portion of the vehicle erupted as the metal gave way and an energy blast struck the soldier that was duck-walking behind Sergeant Surbeck, killing him instantly.

  “Corporal!” the sergeant yelled as they both scooted to a new position. “Send word! Divide our forces! Half stay! Half take up rear defense! Everyone holds the line, or we’re fucked!”

  * * *

  The Intrepid continued along her orbit over the Earth, coasting along dead stick with no propulsion or maneuvering. They had entered orbit along the same path as the Jung battle groups but in the opposite direction in order to reach and engage them in battle more quickly. For every minute they were left to harass the Earth below, thousands of people died.

  Unfortunately, this also meant their dead-stick closure rate was more than fifteen kilometers per second, and neither the Intrepid nor the Jung ships had the ability to change their course or decelerate. Now the Intrepid was forced to fire on otherwise defenseless ships in the hope of breaking them apart enough to survive the impending collision.

  The Intrepid’s rail guns, both her quads and minis, pounded away at the three Jung ships. Two full spreads of missiles with both nuclear and conventional warheads had been launched in rapid succession. A total of thirty-two missiles in all had been sent their way.

  The first wave of sixteen missiles reached their targets almost simultaneously. A wave of explosions engulfed the three ships, accompanied by multiple nuclear flashes. The Intrepid’s rail guns continued to fire during the detonations, despite the fact that the projectiles would either be destroyed or deflected by the blasts.

  Firing on a defenseless enemy did not bother Captain Christopoulos. Although it was contrary to the rules of engagement, the Jung had mercilessly attacked his world without warning or provocation. In his mind, they did not deserve the considerations the customary rules of engagement afforded. Under different circumstances, he would have followed those rules, regardless of how inappropriate he might find them. However, if he did nothing, they would all die—both on the Intrepid and on the Jung ships. He would have sent a warning message in the hopes that they might be able to maneuver or might at least attempt to escape using some sort of escape pods, but eighty-eight seconds was not enough time for either.

  “Second wave will detonate in thirty-seven seconds!” Lieutenant Calloway reported. “All nukes are set to detonate based on range.”

  The captain watched the main view screen, the magnified image of the three ships filling his vision. The nuclear flashes cleared to reveal large sections of the various hulls still floating in their path, with debris and flash fires all around them. “My God,” the captain exclaimed. “You can’t even tell which piece is from which
ship.” He suddenly felt a little guilty for what he had done and had to remind himself that he had been left with no alternatives.

  Ensign Kono studied her displays as she scanned the area just ahead of them, checking on the size of the debris still in their path. “It’s not going to be enough,” she warned, turning toward her captain. “If the second wave doesn’t do it…”

  Captain Christopoulos looked at his sensor officer, sending a searing glare her way that cut her off mid-sentence. Everyone on the bridge knew the stakes, and they all knew they were doing everything that could be done. None of them needed to be reminded of how poor their chances were of surviving the next minute.

  “Ten seconds to missile detonations,” Lieutenant Eckert reported, his voice beginning to sound desperate. “Twenty-two seconds to collision.”

  The captain and his bridge staff watched as the second wave of missiles closed on the debris field. Each missile locked onto the largest section of ship they could find. Each missile carried conventional warheads, sharing their targeting information with the other missiles in the group so that no two missiles would target the same object. The conventional missiles reached their targets a few seconds before the nuclear armed missiles, detonating in bright flashes of reddish-orange and amber. A few seconds later, when they were in the heart of the debris field, the nuclear armed missiles detonated. Eight brilliant flashes of light filled the main view screen.

  “All hands, brace for impact,” the captain announced calmly. “Gentlemen, you all fought bravely today. I am honored to have led you.”