“Come on, come on,” she muttered, glancing across at the monitor. Nelyubov was having the same trouble, and the rocks below looked to be getting closer and closer, the surface appearing in greater detail through the faint haze, dust roaring up as they approached. Less than ten thousand feet to go, and even she had to admit that the computer had something to worry about.
Just as she finally managed to pull the nose up, she saw something shining on the surface, a dull blue glimmer that was gone as soon as she noticed it. She spared a quick second to glance across at the sensor display, but it showed nothing.
“Did you see that?” she asked.
“Nine thousand feet and dropping,” Carpenter replied.
“No, on the surface. The light.”
“Didn’t see a thing. Eight thousand, five hundred.”
“Damn.” Putting what she had seen to the back of her mind, she pulled up, firing the nose thrusters to kick the shuttle up, riding the throttle, as the rate of descent slowly slowed, finally leveling off at six thousand feet, lower than some of the mountains, but safe for the present.
“Frank, what’s the story?” she said, glancing back.
“Coming up,” he said. “Did you see that on the surface?”
“At least it wasn’t just me.”
“Leveling off at seven thousand feet.”
“Better than I managed. I’m pulling up.”
“Maggie,” Carpenter said, “We’re five hundred miles from target, just about.”
Glancing back at the sensor display, she said, “And that fighter is holding above us.” She paused, then said, “Damn it.”
“What?”
“He isn’t going to attack us, he’s going to report where we land.” Tapping a control, she said, “Orlova to Alamo.”
“Recommend you pull up, Shuttle,” Marshall said.
“Never mind about that. That fighter, up overhead, can you do anything about it?”
“That’s a negative.”
“I think they’re using it for recon, to work out where we land. Are you sure you can’t knock it down?”
“Our missiles won’t work at that altitude.”
“Only one chance, then. Frank, continue to target, and I’ll meet you on the ground.”
“Are you about to do something crazy?”
“How well you know me. Shuttle One out.” Glancing across at Carpenter, she asked, “Up for some dogfighting?”
“I’m no expert, but usually aren’t armaments considered a good idea?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. Keep an eye on the fuel.” She pulled up the shuttle’s nose, swinging around to line up on the enemy fighter, turning the protesting engines back up to full.
“We’re heading the wrong way,” Carpenter said. “Five hundred and twenty miles, increasing.”
“Just ride that fuel gauge.”
The shuttle soared above fifteen thousand feet, and she could just make out the fighter ahead, a black dot moving across a scattered cloud, curving away. At any time, the enemy ship could end this by pulling up out of the atmosphere, but it would leave itself open to a missile salvo from Alamo. He had no choice but to stay and fight.
“Threat warning!” Carpenter said. “Missile launch, coming right for us.”
“Ride those countermeasures, Susan.”
“Impact in one minute. Firing flares.” She paused, then said, “No effect. No point trying the electronic defenses, they won’t do a damn thing.”
“As long as it’s locked onto us,” she said, pushing the engines across the red line, warning text racing down her heads-up display, far-off engineers protesting by remote about the misuse of the equipment they had designed. The missile swung around, following the shuttle up through the atmosphere as she closed on the fighter, the enemy ship belatedly attempting evasive action as Orlova set the controls for a ram.
“On my mark, Susan, start throwing out the chaff.”
“Ready,” she replied.
Collision alerts joined the host of other warning signals covering the display panels, time to impact dropping to seconds. She took a series of quick breaths, trying to relax, to let the systems do the work for her. She couldn’t break too late, or all of this would be wasted.
“Now!” she yelled, turning the engines off, sending the shuttle curving back. The missile flew into the sea of chaff, and when it emerged, the only object in its path was the fighter. She didn’t manage a direct hit, hadn’t expected to, but the shrapnel damage was easily apparent, the fighter’s hull pitted and burned, smoke spilling out in a long trail as it headed down towards the surface.
“Fuel warning light just came on,” Carpenter said. “I don’t think we can make it back into orbit as it stands.”
“Something else to worry about later,” she said. “Frank, how are you getting on?”
“Close to target, Maggie,” he said. “About three hundred miles west of you. These birds can really move. Can you get to me?”
“I’ll going to try,” she replied, swinging the shuttle around, kicking the engines onto the lowest power she could manage. There was nowhere near enough atmosphere for her to glide in, but there was enough to help conserve a little power. One by one, warning lights faded away, the computer displaying a series of alternate landing sites beneath her. There was little danger of a crash, she’d have enough warning to bring the shuttle down without that being a hazard, but she’d come here to do a job, and one way or another, she was going to do it.
“Susan, we’re coming down by where Frank and I saw the light earlier. Little cluster of hills, all close together. Keep an eye out when we go past.”
The shuttle raced by at a thousand miles an hour, slowly descending towards the surface, and Orlova’s attention was elsewhere, nursing the shuttle to its destination, and Carpenter looked across in surprise as they flew over the hills.
“I saw something. Managed to get a good focus on the sensors, as well. I’m sending it up to Alamo to take a proper look.” Glancing up again, she said, “Getting deep into the reserves, Maggie.”
“Twelve minutes and we’ll be on the deck.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then we work out a way to get back up to the surface. We might be able to get enough fuel from Shuttle Two.”
Glancing at the telemetry, Carpenter shook her head, saying, “He’s going to have enough trouble getting back into orbit himself.”
“We’ll think of something. Start looking for signs of life on the surface. We’re going to be able to cover a hell of a lot more country from up here than we will once we’re down on the ground.”
“What are we looking for?”
“At this point, a fuel dump would be nice,” Orlova said. She ranged over the landscape as the browns turned dark, taking them over one of the marshy areas, looking for any signs of life, or even signs of a crash. Glancing at the sensors, she saw that the fighter had come to a sad end about a hundred miles back, slamming into one of the mountains as it tried to land. At least they were alone up here now.
“I’m touching down, Maggie,” Nelyubov said. “Just on final sequence now. How are things with you?”
“Three minutes, and I ought to make it. What’s your fuel status?”
“Just enough to get into orbit as long as everyone on board goes on a diet. You?”
“Less good. We should just make it down.” She paused, then said, “You’ve seen my telemetry.”
“That’s it. Down.” He took a breath, then said, “I was hoping it was wrong. You’d better transfer over to my shuttle. We’ll head back up, and try again.”
“Not an option. You may have noticed that we just lost our fighter screen. This is our one chance to find the survivors.”
“Done it! Maggie, can you swing her around a little?” Carpenter said. “A few degrees to
port, I see what looks like a crash site. Maybe two or three miles from Nelyubov’s landing spot.”
“We can come to you,” he said, listening in.
Shaking her head, Orlova replied, “We’ve already complicated this enough. I’m getting close now, Frank. I think I can come down alongside.”
“Why not come closer?”
“Let’s just say I’m getting a little suspicious in my old age.”
Carpenter looked across, frowning, and said, “Doesn’t much matter. Final warning light’s on, Maggie. We need to land right away.”
“I see Shuttle Two,” she said, gesturing ahead. “Thirty seconds to landing.” She played the thrusters around, kicking up clouds of dust that filled the air, and guided the ship gently down, one step at a time, keeping a single eye on the fuel gauge.
“Almost there, Maggie,” Carpenter said. “Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Down.”
“Engine off, legs anchored.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Well, that’s that. Alamo, this is Shuttle One. We’re down on the deck, but we’ve got a problem.” Nothing but static replied, and she repeated, “Alamo, this is Shuttle One. Come in, please.”
“Alamo, this is Shuttle Two,” Nelyubov said. “Do you copy.”
“I guess we’ve got two problems,” Orlova said. “No problem with the communicator.”
“Someone’s jamming us,” Carpenter said. “We’re not alone down here.”
“Get your gun,” Orlova replied. “We’ve got some survivors to rescue. We’ll worry about the next bridge when we reach it. Let’s move.”
Chapter 13
Marshall looked up from the datapad sitting on his desk, Quinn, Cunningham and Grant standing around his office, impassively waiting for him to speak. He scanned the last few lines of the report again, then pushed it to one side, leaning back on his chair.
“First of all, Lieutenant. You and Tanner were wiped out quite comprehensively.”
“Yes, sir. They moved a lot faster than we were expecting, and their missiles were resistant to our countermeasures. I don’t see how anyone could have done better under the conditions we were under.”
“Bull,” Cunningham said. “We had the same situation at Haven. You were slow, Lieutenant, and that came damn close to wrecking the operation.”
“You weren’t out there, sir.”
“I was watching every move from the bridge. Hell, Tanner doesn’t even agree with you! The first thing he did when he climbed out of that SAR shuttle was start swearing about how slow he was.” Looking at Marshall, he said, “It’s a bit of a moot point, of course, given that we’ve lost our fighters.”
“What about the shuttles?” Marshall said, looking at Quinn. “Any communications at all?”
“Nothing,” Quinn replied. “Everything went dead when the shuttles dropped below fifteen thousand feet. No voice contact, no telemetry, nothing. We’re working on it, but frankly we don’t even know where to start. We need a probe network, to try some experiments, but as things stand I don’t see how we can deploy them without the enemy interfering.”
“Next question. Is this the work of our friends on the far side?”
“I doubt it,” Cunningham said.
Nodding, Marshall replied, “I agree.”
“Wait a minute,” Grant interrupted. “This plays to their advantage a bit too much for us to just write it off, surely.”
“I suppose it is possible that they knew about the effect,” Quinn said. “Though then why risk a fighter strike at all? They’d know that we weren’t going to get any information from the surface, and the shuttles will be a lot more vulnerable when they come back up.” Looking at Grant, he continued, “Certainly, they will be now.”
“This isn’t my fault, damn it!”
“Lieutenant!” Marshall said. “If you can’t contribute anything to this discussion, then leave the room.”
The door slid open, and Harper walked in, a frown on her face, almost walking into Grant on his way out.
“Get out of my way,” Grant said, and she took a neat step to the side as he stormed onto the bridge.”
“What the hell is his problem?” she said. “Morning, skipper.”
“Harper, this is a briefing for the senior staff,” Cunningham began, but she walked past him, dropping a datapad onto the table.
“Summary of the alien computer programming.”
“Can you crack it?” Marshall asked.
“Not now. But eventually, I might, given enough processing power. The quantum computer on Phobos would do nicely.” Looking around, she said, “I didn’t even really try. No point wasting time. I did manage to work out a few interesting things, though. First of all, they’re paranoid about security. I found what have to be firewalls and redundancies.”
“Which means they think that we might be able to hack their systems,” Marshall said. “Interesting.”
“Their language is a derivative of our old friend, Proto-Indo-European. At least it shares some of the same assumptions. I guess that gives us a common ancestry, just like Carpenter figured.”
“They’ve got an enemy,” Marshall said. “Someone who knows them better than we do. The Cabal?”
“No, no, there’s more to it than that,” Harper replied. “Our network is built to work together, that’s the whole damn point of it. This one isn’t, it’s as if they are paranoid about letting the system talk to itself. Plenty of exterior feeds, thousands of them, but all going to different locations.”
“We have a redundant network for emergencies,” Cunningham said. “And some of the key systems are isolated from the rest of the ship.”
“Yes, but this is if we’d decided to separate, say, Elevator Control from Waste Processing. What’s the point? There’s something more to this, skipper, and I want to know what.”
“So, how long?” he asked with a smile.
“Without more processing power…”
“You’ve told me it’s impossible,” Marshall replied. “So, how long?”
Glancing up at Quinn, she said, “I’ll be making some pretty damned intensive use of our systems.”
“I think we can get around that,” Quinn replied. “We’ll have a talk when this meeting’s finished, try and work out some sort of a schedule.”
“Fair enough. No promises, skipper, but this might be fun. I’ll need to borrow some of Carpenter’s science staff, her tame linguist for a start.”
“Take anyone you need who isn’t vital to our combat status.”
“Which pretty much means the science staff and our erstwhile fighter pilots,” Cunningham added.
“Douglas will be fine,” Harper said. “What about Maggie?”
“Shuttle Two, we estimate, should have enough fuel to get back to orbit with a full load. Not necessarily to Alamo, but we can always meet them halfway,” Quinn said. “Shuttle One did a hell of a lot more maneuvering in the atmosphere before landing. Not in the mission profile. My guess is that she’s on fumes.”
“Projections?”
“She might manage a few hundred miles surface-to-surface, but there isn’t a chance in hell of her reaching space.”
“On a suborbital track?” Cunningham suggested. “It’d be tricky, but I think we could manage an intercept with Shuttle Three, either transfer the crew or boost the whole lot into a stable orbit.”
“Not into space at all,” Quinn said. “I’m surprised she managed to get down on the deck in one piece, but it was definitely a controlled landing. She brought Shuttle One down within a hundred meters of the target site.”
“Is there any way we can contact them?” Marshall asked. “There must be something.”
“Not using our communicators. We tried lasers, but the atmosphere’s just too damn thick. Besides, even if we could talk to them, that doesn’t solve the essential problem.”
“I don’t get it,” Harper said. “Can’t they all just pile into Shuttle Two and head back up? Try again?”
“We had enough trouble getting them down on the deck last time,” Cunningham said, shaking his head. “This time we’d be doing it without fighter support.”
“Not that it helped us much the first time around,” Quinn said. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
Marshall thought, at least for a second, that a flash of the old Quinn was back, a faint trace of engagement, something outside of the routine that he could get his teeth into.
“What have you in mind?” he asked.
“I think I could adapt half a dozen of our missiles for high-altitude flight. It’d do serious damage to their performance, and they’d have a limited range, but it could be done reasonably quickly.”
“Timeframe?”
“Six hours.”
“Frank might try and lift before then,” Cunningham said.
“I don’t think so,” Marshall replied, shaking his head. “They’ll wait for orders, and start to look for survivors, continue the mission as planned.” With a frown, he said, “Say, if the range is so short, how do you intend to deliver them?”
“From Alamo,” Quinn replied. “Flying just outside the atmosphere on a low orbit. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble pulling it off. I’d like to take the helm for the maneuver, though.”
“Is that really necessary?” Cunningham asked, but Marshall flashed him a glance.
“I think so, sir. For the best, in any case.”
“I’ll leave it to your judgment., Jack. That’s not the only problem, though. Right now we have a dead bird on the surface, and the likelihood that we have a lot of people to bring up.”
“I was assuming that we’d send down Shuttle Three.”
“That would mean abandoning one of our ships on the surface,” Quinn said.
Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High Page 11
