He nodded, and said, “As would our commander.”
“No-one else has to die here today,” she said. “Why don’t we wait and see what happens in orbit?”
Shaking his head, he replied, “That is not an option I am willing to consider. Contact your ship, and have them yield the crystal. We now have positive proof that you have possession of it.”
A crackle sounded in Orlova’s helmet, and she briefly heard, “Alamo calling. Stand by for emergency evacuation. All hands…”
“I heard that!” Carpenter said. “The jamming field is down!”
“Exactly,” the figure said.
Shaking her head, Orlova replied, “This was not your work. Or you would have done it long ago.”
“What makes you think that we didn’t?”
“You’d have called for reinforcements. And no, you don’t have anyone else up on the surface. This is the only place on the planet that actually matters, and you brought everyone you had left after we smashed your force to pieces during the escape of our shuttles.”
“Would it help if we told you that we respected you as a warrior? You fought bravely, Senior Lieutenant, but ultimately, we are victorious, as is only right and proper. We are the future, whereas you represent a regressive past that will soon disappear into history.”
“Or you are a dead-end,” Carpenter replied. “Like the saber-toothed tiger or the mammoth.”
“Perhaps. I am content to let the future judge us. The stronger will survive, the weaker will perish. Such is the way of all things in the universe.”
An amber light started to flash in her helmet, and Orlova replied, “Radiation alarm. What are you doing?”
“If we cannot have this installation, it is our duty to deny it to the enemy.”
“You can’t do it!” Carpenter yelled. “These secrets here may never be recovered again.”
“Walls, Lieutenant,” he replied. “Walls with ancient carvings upon them. Only the crystal matters, only that which we have sought. What does the rest of it matter?”
Taking a step towards him, her fists balling, Carpenter said, “We will never know where we came from without the knowledge here. This might be the last refuge of a dead race. Without…”
“It is,” he said, his voice implacable. “Our ancestors wiped them out. This place is ours by right of conquest. Take one step further, and I will kill you.”
Orlova turned towards Carpenter, raised her arm as if to speak, then slammed her hand down on her suit thruster, sending a high-pressure blast of nitrogen crashing into the figure, sending him tumbling across the ground. Before anyone else could react, she snatched up the weapon from the floor and turned it on the two assembling the bomb. They scrambled to rise, and she had to gamble that she could work out which control was the trigger. With a pair of loud reports, she realized she had judged correctly, and the bodies crumpled to the floor.
“Stay clear of them,” she said, pointing at the bodies. “Secure our prisoner.”
Nodding, Carpenter moved over to him, but he was quicker than she, tumbling out and pulling a weapon out of a hidden pocket, a small pistol that he raised towards her helmet.
“One move and she dies,” he said.
“I can say the same about you,” Orlova replied.
“Then I believe we have attained the goal you sought. We are caught in a stalemate that will only be resolved by the arrival of reinforcements by one side or another. Unless you are willing to sacrifice your colleague.”
“Not a chance,” she said.
“Strange,” he replied. “You demonstrate strong instincts for survival, but when it comes to taking the ultimate decision, you stumble. I marvel that your race has prospered given the restrictions you have imposed upon yourselves. I suppose, though that the universe will decide as it wishes, and that it is likely you have not encountered a suitable adversary as yet. After all,” he said with a smile, “this is the first time we have faced each other in battle.”
“I’d glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Maggie, I’m picking up power generation,” Carpenter said. “Up on the ceiling, heat sources.”
Moving to cover the enemy crawling on the ground whilst turning to look, Orlova saw a point of light at the roof of the cavern, one that erupted into a beam, bouncing from a series of hidden mirrors to form an image, floating in mid air.
“A tactical hologram,” Orlova said, as it coalesced into points of light, one of them obviously Alamo, another the enemy ship. A series of smaller objects were moving into position around the battlecruiser, which was moving away at speed.
“Alamo, this is Orlova,” she said, switching through the frequencies. “Let’s hope that last transmission wasn’t just a freak effect.”
“I have been in constant contact with my ship for minutes,” the enemy warrior replied.
“Maggie, this is Marshall,” a voice, thin and crackled through with static, said. “How are things down there?”
“They’ve been better. I don’t suppose that there is any chance that you can manage some reinforcements down here?”
“The prospects of that are excellent,” he replied. “We’re preparing to abandon ship. Best guess is that we’ve fought ourselves to mutual destruction. With a little luck we won’t take the station with us.”
“That bad, sir?”
There was a brief pause, and he said, “Right now we’ve got eleven laser missiles moving into position to surround us, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
“I can see them, Captain. Right now I’m looking at a tactical hologram.”
“The enemy had one?”
“No, sir. The original inhabitants of this planet. My guess has Alamo being hit in about two minutes.”
“Something like that. I’ll have Shuttle Two head down to your position. Help is on the way. Though I’d guess that will be all for the next month or so.”
“We’ll be waiting, watching, and hoping, sir.”
“Appreciated. Good luck.”
Turning to the enemy, still lying on the floor with his pistol, she said, “Call off the attack.”
“No.”
“If you don’t…”
“I heard everything you said. My ship is on the brink of victory. You don’t think that is the only vessel in your fleet, do you? We can have more ships here to exploit your weakness in short order, and now that we have had a chance to evaluate your defenses, the next battle will be very straightforward. Your time is passing, just as I predicted.”
Text started to appear, floating in the air, and Carpenter said, “I’ve got a couple of the words. Something about ‘Fire’ and ‘Command’.”
“That’s impossible,” Orlova said. “This place must have been abandoned for thousands of years…”
“Ten thousand years,” the figure interrupted.
“There’s no way that any sort of system could exist, not working correctly, not without maintenance or support.”
“The computer’s working,” Carpenter said, gesturing at the hologram, “and evidently so are at least some of its systems.” She glanced down at the man, the pistol still pointed at her helmet, and said, “Do it.”
“What?”
“Do it. Right now.”
“Move and I will kill her,” the figure said.
“You’ll die as well.”
“Wouldn’t you give your life for your comrades?”
“A hundred seconds, Maggie!” Carpenter yelled.
Before Orlova could do anything, Carpenter threw herself to the right, and the figure fired, Orlova getting in her shot a half-second later, tearing a bloody gouge into his suit. Carpenter was crumpled on the floor, and she raced over, tearing open her suit maintenance kit.
“Leave it, Maggie,” Carpenter gasped. “I can handle this. Ninety seconds!”
With a last glance down, Orlova said, “Alamo, are you still there?”
“We’re here. Just about to launch the first escape pods.”
“Belay that,” she replied. “I think we’ve got an answer. I need a translation into Proto-Indo-European, right now. The phase, ‘fire at the small objects’.”
“What?”
“Do it, sir! We might win this battle yet!”
She looked back at Carpenter, struggling with her suit patches, then ran over to the far side of the cavern, jumping over the body on the floor, sprinting to the figure who was still standing alone by the wall, now looking up at the hologram with his arms opened wide.
“Maggie, I don’t know what the hell you have in mind, but we’ve got the translation coming down to you now. It should be appearing on your heads-up display. I just hope we got the pronunciation right.”
“Only one way to find out,” she said, turning her external speaker to maximum. “Ecnis alpos weqtis.”
“Jai,” the hologram said, nodding.
The floor burst into light, a blinding blue beam that killed all the systems in her suit once again, and small fissures opened up into the roof. On the hologram, still hovering in the air, she could see eleven thin beams of light winking up, enveloping each of the laser missiles, holding them long enough for them to fall irretrievably off their course, spiraling away into the deep.
As rapidly as it came, the light faded away, and all the remained on the hologram was Alamo, slowly turning away from the enemy ship, both of them just sitting serenely in space as though nothing had ever happened.
“You did it!” Marshall yelled. “I don’t know what the hell happened, but the laser missiles just lost their course and self-destructed. I’m canceling the evacuation, it shouldn’t be needed now.” He paused, then said, “We’re still going to be a bit busy for a while. I’ll get some help to you when I can.”
“Well done, Maggie,” Carpenter gasped, and she looked over to see her friend lying on the ground, the seam of her suit flapping as her air escaped. Frantically, she dashed back, pulling out her suit repair kit, pieces of it tumbling to the floor as she tugged out her patches.
Carpenter was twitching, her face blue, warning lights flashing on the front of her suit to indicate that she was about out of air, the on-board systems having tried and failed to maintain local pressure despite such a severe leak. Clutched in her left hand was the patch, the sticky section half-exposed, and Orlova took it from her hand, slapping it across the damaged area. Still there was plenty left open, and she gently positioned a second patch, then a third, then a fourth.
Now her suit had at least a vestige of integrity, but there was nothing left inside to protect, and her friend lay there, terribly still. Turning her over, Orlova pulled out the tubes connecting the suit to the backpack in the rear, pulling it as far as it would go and jamming it into the auxiliary connector on her own backpack.
Her suit systems protested, but not too much. This was something it was used to, an emergency procedure that it understood, and it rapidly began to drive air through the new outlet, the oxygen flow up high in a bid to stimulate it. Carpenter’s suit began to wake up, injections from her medikit now trying once again to save her life.
“Susan, do you hear me?” Orlova said. “Susan, you’ve got oxygen now. Your suit pressure’s coming back up.” The tears began to flow, and she said, “Damn it, Susan, don’t you dare die on me. Not with all this to study. The find of a lifetime!”
“What’s happening down there?” Marshall asked, but Orlova ignored him, reaching down to throw in an emergency override on Carpenter’s suit. Her life-signs were there, faint, but still stable, and her eyes slowly began to flicker, struggling to focus.
“Susan, say something. Anything.”
Carpenter coughed, and Orlova could hear a series of deep, hacking breaths, slowly beginning to at least reach a vestige of consciousness.
“Susan, speak to me.”
“Ship…,” she muttered.
“Safe, at least for the moment. Help will be on the way soon.” She looked down at the improvised repair on her suit, and frowned. The was a thin mist spilling out around the outside, and she was out of patches. An amber warning light winked onto her heads-up display, air being used up too quickly.
“Liar,” she said. “And not soon enough. My systems are telling me some bad things.”
“Mine are just fine.”
“That’s a lot of crap. Look, Maggie, you’ve got enough air to last for twenty-five hours. Get out of here, and get back to the supply depot. This way you’ll be lucky if you make it for two hours, and Alamo might not get here in time. At the depot you can live for months.”
“Not going to do it,” Orlova said. “If you want to help, just sit back, and relax. The less oxygen we use, the better.” Tapping a button, she said, “Orlova to Alamo. Come down as soon as you can, once the battle is over.”
“No problems?”
“Carpenter had a suit malfunction, but it’s all fine now.”
“Understood. Things are beginning to happen up here. I’ll get back to you later. Alamo out.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
With a thin smile, Orlova said, “If I had, someone would probably have got themselves shot down trying to rescue us. I didn’t think that would help. Now just relax. Someone will be here in time.” Gesturing at the hologram, the huge display still hanging overhead, she continued, “At least we’ve got a good view.”
Chapter 25
Salazar drifted up to the shuttle, a datapad in his hand, as the last of the warheads was loaded through the airlock, Cook nervously supervising the technicians as they worked to carefully place them in the cargo section.
“Just about ready, sir,” she said. “Any news?”
“Alamo and the enemy ship have battered themselves down to a stalemate, with a little help from...some sort of mysterious force from the surface.”
Pausing, she frowned, replying, “Some sort of mysterious force?”
“Don’t ask me. All I know is that they drifted out of their trajectory, then self-destructed. At least the laser missiles aren’t a threat for the moment.”
“Then we can abort,” she said, nodding.
“No,” he replied, stepping into the hatch. “Stalemate, with Alamo having suffered some critical damage. The race to see who completes their repairs first is on, and I’m not sure that we’re going to win. Besides, they could still launch a boarding action.”
“Midshipman, this is something that Captain Marshall can worry about.”
“He isn’t here. Head up to Operations, and set-up the detonation. I’ll be along presently.”
She glanced at him, nodded, and floated off down the corridor, two technicians following her. Sliding into the cockpit, he started to throw a series of controls, checking the preflight sequence, and then tapped a ten-digit command override, setting the detonation controls to the shuttle.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bartlett asked, drifting in beside him.
“I could ask you the same question.”
Looking at the panel, he said, “I don’t think the fleet does kamikaze missions.”
“We don’t have the fine control we need to get this shuttle home, not with them still able to maneuver and throw laser missiles around. All it would take is one hit, and the game is lost. Someone needs to ride this one down to the end.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“One life for hundreds seems like a reasonable trade.” He paused, saying, “I ought to have died with my friends, back at Phobos. It would saved a hell of a lot of trouble. If this is what it takes, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
“No-one’s asked you to throw your life away.”
He smiled, then said, “I’ve no intention of dying unless I have to. I can set a thirty-secon
d time delay on the detonation, and once I get in that close, they won’t be able to dodge. With a little luck, I can bail out.”
“The shrapnel…”
“Is a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Fine,” he replied. “Then I’ll take right-seat.”
“No, you won’t.”
“If you aren’t following orders, you can’t expect me to.”
“I’m going to have enough to worry about for myself.”
“I can look after…”
“This is a one-man mission, Ben, and I’m the man. Get out of here, I need to get moving before they work out what I’m doing up in Operations.”
Shaking his head, Bartlett said, “No, sir. I’m not leaving. You need a co-pilot, and it looks like it’s me. Now get that hatch closed, before I call Cook and tell her to lock down the docking clamps.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Maybe.”
Nodding, Salazar tapped a control, and the hatch slid shut, locking into position with a loud clang, and he tapped in an override code to disengage the docking systems, sending the shuttle tumbling away.
“Operations to Shuttle,” Cook said. “You’re still on board.”
“Well spotted,” Salazar replied. “All hands are to report to the primary airlock and prepare to bail out if necessary. Jump as clear as you can, and hopefully Alamo will pick you up. You have command until...someone gets back.” He looked down at a control, and said, “Ben, there’s a cautionary warning on the airlock. Go and take a look at the outer seal, will you?”
“Sure,” he replied, grabbing a toolkit and gliding back into the lock. Glancing back for a moment, Salazar threw another switch, closing the inner hatch, and cycled the outer door, sending Bartlett hurtling back towards the station.
“Damn it!” Bartlett yelled.
“Sorry, Ben, but I did tell you that this was my mission. Get back inside and head up to Operations. I’m going to be a little busy right now, but for the record, thanks. For everything.” He tapped another control, and the primary engine fired, sending him speeding towards the enemy ship, leaving the station and the floating Bartlett behind.
Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High Page 21
