Soldiers of Fortune

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "Ok, boys," he began. "We've been through this before, so let's settle down and focus on the small things. Get the systems all checked and re-checked, make sure the safeties on our missiles are disengaged, and just concentrate on your small part in the big picture." He wouldn't dishonor them by suggesting they could still turn back, not after they'd made their decision.

  "This is what we're here for, only this time we're saving the lives of millions of civilians... there will be statues of us and schools named after each of you," a few chuckles at that part, "We're going to hit them hard in orbit, but we're not going to burn-in trying to stand toe-to-toe with those bigger ships. Our main goal is to try and get planetside and stop their ground assault team from retracting the tether. It won't be easy, but we'll make a few passes with the Phoenix to try and soften them up first."

  They each sat a little straighter and went back to their individual tasks as the importance of their mission was reinforced. Jason, with little to do until they meshed in, let his thoughts wander to the things he'd left unfinished in his life. In particular, the beautiful blond woman he had left on Earth to pursue his calling among the stars. She would never know that he had died out here in a blaze of glory, fighting to protect a planet of innocent lives, but he hoped she would have been proud of him if she had.

  "We're five minutes out," Kage said crisply. Jason flipped his visor back closed and slaved his visual input to the ship's tactical sensors. They all sat in silence, anticipating what they would see within the next few moments.

  "Meshing in-system in 5...4...3... 2... 1... NOW!"

  As the slip energy dissipated and the sensors began populating the threat board they could see the orbital platform was already taking a beating.

  "Shields up!" Kage announced over the alarms.

  The Phoenix streaked into the system towards the fray, largely unnoticed. Jason could see on the display that the three larger warships were firing on the platform, but were staying out of range of its meager defensive measures. From what he could tell, they were content to hammer at its weapon emplacements until it could be jerked out of orbit by their ground team.

  "There is zero com traffic coming from both the platform and the surface," Doc reported.

  "That explains the leisurely attack we're seeing," Jason said. Even at their current range they could see the flashes of energy bolts splashing against the enormous orbital installation. "They took out communications and now they'll just toy with them until the tether is retracted. Arm up the big boys, I'm going to line up directly behind the closest ship and stuff them up his engines. We'll then get one clean pass on the second ship with the main guns before that third ship in higher orbit can get a bead on us. Hopefully."

  The "big boys" were two missiles they had inherited when they took possession of the DL7 gunship; a pair of high-yield tactical nukes. They were as old as the ship, but if they flew up into a ship's engines, the results should be quite dramatic. Unfortunately, they only had the two... while the missiles were sure to help even the odds a bit, they were still hopelessly outgunned once the remaining ships turned their attention on them.

  "We're locked," Kage reported. "We'll be in range in fifteen seconds."

  "Hold back, I don't want to risk their point defense taking them out, surprise is out only advantage right now," Jason said as he pushed the throttle up and raced towards the exposed rear of the closest ship. The sensors told him they had their shields up, but the section of shielding that was covering the engine emitters would be significantly weakened due to the gravimetric distortion propagating outward. Typically, that outward distortion would offer a significant level of protection when the ship was under way, but not when it was sitting in a station keeping mode. The relatively small missiles should be able to punch through and deliver their payload... in theory.

  He watched the distance between them and their target dwindle rapidly until Jason thought he could just make out the tiny speck of the targeted ship against the backdrop of Shorret-3. "Open the weapons bay and prepare to deploy. Two shots, no interval."

  "Weapons bay open, ready to deploy," Kage said, his hand over the fire control. These particular missiles required they both initiate the launch sequence, so Jason squeezed the trigger on the control stick and waited just a few more seconds before pulling their speed back.

  "FIRE!"

  Kage hit his own fire control and two thumps were felt through the ship as the missiles came off the rails and fired their engines. A split second later, two brilliant blue sparks raced away from the Phoenix at over two-hundred g's of acceleration until they were quickly out of visual range.

  "Close us back up, we won't get a second shot with missiles," Jason ordered as he throttled the ship up to pursue their two nukes. He wanted to pass over the target just as they realized they were under attack and hit the second ship hard before they could get a bearing on the small, speedy gunship. As the larger ship began to resolve itself in the optical sensors there was a sudden, brilliant burst of light that washed out the displays and automatically darkened the canopy for a moment. A split second later the canopy cleared and Jason could see the ship listing badly, now unable to keep its position over the planet.

  Still aiming to pass over the ship and pop out around it to hit the second ship, Jason was unprepared with their first target exploded right in front of them, the chain reaction that had been started by their missiles hitting the engines sending the reactors into meltdown.

  "SHIT!!"

  It was too late, the Phoenix plunged into the quickly expanding debris cloud before Jason could even think about steering away or stopping. Chunks of ship ranging from large to very large pummeled the combat shields and shook the ship violently as it battered through the heavy metal storm. Alarms began blaring and a list of warnings began to scroll over the tactical display, alerting them that all was not well. Fucking stupid bastard! You've killed us all before we've even started! A series of loud pops that sounded throughout the ship were their first indicators something critical was about to fail.

  "Power couplers are failing all over the ship!" Twingo shouted. "We're losing the shields! I'm trying to stabilize and re-route..."

  "Second target coming up," Kage said, still on task. Since he could do nothing about the shields getting ready to give out, he slammed the throttle down and relied on the Phoenix's speed to get them through the mess he'd flown them into. He lined up along the lateral seam of the hull and squeezed the trigger. Brilliant red bolts of plasma shot out in rapid fire mode from both of the forward emitters, causing the enemy ship's shields to glow and waver as they fought to absorb the onslaught of energy.

  The main guns began to overwhelm the enemy's shields as a handful of bolts passed through and caused massive damage along the ship's starboard side as the Phoenix shot past. Just as they cleared the aft most portion of the target's hull, they were rocked by a blast so violent Jason almost bit through his tongue. Two more hit them in rapid succession before they were out of range.

  "That was bad," Twingo said unnecessarily. "Shields are gone. Slip-drive is gone. The port engine is out altogether and the starboard engine is highly degraded."

  "We were hit by the third ship, the orbital platform, and the point defense of the ship we just strafed," Doc said. Jason cursed himself for flying too close to the orbital platform, whose crew could not realize they were trying to help. In such a defensive mode they were just firing at anything within range. He cranked the controls over in an attempt to come about and try to make landfall near the platform, but all that happened was the ship rotated attitude, but continued along the original trajectory.

  "I've lost maneuvering," he reported.

  "I'm not surprised," Twingo said. "One gimpy engine isn't enough to maneuver freely in space, especially so close to a planet. We're now at the mercy of standard physics... The grav drive is dead, Captain, better shut it down and bring the mains online. We'll have to do a complete orbit and try and enter on the other side."

>   Jason chaffed at the delay, but began to reconfigure the ship's propulsions systems anyway. As he was doing that, another detonation rocked the ship and yawed them violently towards the planet. "What the fuck?!"

  "Kinetic weapon, Captain!" Doc reported. "It just took off a large portion of the starboard vertical stabilizer." A kinetic weapon was like a missile, but didn't have an explosive warhead, just a solid chuck of metal that would tear through the hull. They were notoriously hard to detect because they were so small and fast.

  "It's better than that," Twingo groused. "The heat exchangers run through the stabilizers, we're already losing capacity on exchanger two." The two vertical stabilizers that protruded from the ship's back also housed critical parts of the cooling system that kept the engines and weapons from overheating. The reduced capacity meant picking one or the other: thrust or weapons. "I'll try to run it closed-loop, but I wouldn't expect too much."

  "We've done all we can here," Jason said, somewhat surprised they were still alive. "Let's get on the ground and try to finish this." The main problem was that even if they stopped the initial ground assault team, he had no doubt there were reserves waiting on board the remaining ships in orbit. It would just be a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

  Using the momentum they were carrying from their initial attack run, Jason guided the Phoenix around the planet in a descending orbit as they prepared to make atmospheric entry. He was concerned about the missing stabilizer now that the gravimetric drive was completely shut down. The repulsors would have to fight to compensate, and that meant taxing their damaged cooling system. This has turned into a serious cluster-fuck of the highest magnitude.

  They began to feel the buffeting of the mesosphere as the gunship began to plunge into the atmosphere well before they would have line-of-sight again of the battle presumably still taking place in higher orbit. Soon the canopy was engulfed in superheated gasses as the Phoenix roared into the atmosphere without the aid of her gravimetric drive to slow the descent. With the structural integrity of the starboard stabilizer compromised, the fiery entry into the atmosphere was causing further damage to the cooling system. Twingo watched the capacity of the system continue to drop and hoped it would last long enough to get them safely to the ground.

  Once the plasma had cleared from the canopy and the ship was flying in clean air, Jason turned them on course for the tether anchor point. He fervently hoped the population on the ground had fled to the outskirts once the assault had begun, but he doubted that many people could get out of the city center in time. He began to throttle up with the intent of circling the area, but as soon as he advanced the power the temperature on his engine readouts spiked.

  "We've got a problem, Twingo," he said. "I've got no thrust, I can't get past ten percent power before the temperature spikes."

  "I'm on it," Twingo said. "I'll re-route all the cooling capacity from system one to the engines... that means no energy weapons."

  "Whatever," Jason said, "just get me the engines back or we won't even make it to the tether." After a moment of frantic control inputs from the engineer, the engine temperatures began to drop slightly from critical to just dangerous. "Best I can do, Captain."

  "Copy that," Jason replied as he pushed the throttle back up again. The power climbed to twenty-five percent with the temperatures staying shy of dangerous for a moment, causing Jason to relax his left hand slightly. They should just make it if the repair held...

  Before he could react, the temperatures spiked again and a loud explosion jerked the ship to port and caused the displays to go wild with warnings.

  "We've just shelled out engine one!" Twingo shouted. "I'm not sure how much longer the others will keep pushing." As if on cue, the displays began to flicker and the interior lighting died as they crossed the outer border of the city. A moment later half the displays on the bridge winked out. "Main bus A is out, B is failing! Switching to emergency power. Beginning emergency shutdown of the main reactor." Jason could feel his ship floundering, dying underneath him, she couldn't leave the planet and he had his doubts about a safe landing. So far the repulsors were holding on emergency power... but would they last long enough?

  The Phoenix slogged through the sky above the only city on Shorret-3, still maintaining a barely controlled descent toward the anchor point, but fading fast. They had lost enough altitude that the building tops of the residential area were streaking by just below them. A few moments later and they were knocking over com antennas and the right wing obliterated a rooftop greenhouse that Jason hoped was unoccupied. Whenever he tried any control inputs the ship vibrated and shook as the repulsors were unable to comply. With no control left he tried to lower the landing gear and prepared to tell his crew the news.

  No sooner had he hit the landing gear control than an explosion of sparks erupted from port bulkhead and all power failed throughout the ship, including the barely-functioning repulsor drive. "It's out of my hands! Brace for impact!" Jason's warning left his lips a microsecond before the ship fell sickeningly out of the air, her airspeed not even a fraction of what was needed for the wings to keep them aloft.

  The Phoenix fell, twisting slightly to port, and crashed through the roof of an enormous processing facility that was six stories tall and covered at least five acres. The gunship went through the roof like it was made of paper and kept its forward momentum, gutting the building as it went along. Inside, the crew was now just along for the ride as horrendous impacts slammed them to and fro against their seat restraints. Some large piece of something slammed into the canopy and cracked the ultra-dense material into spider web mosaic before flipping up and over the ship. Although it happened in the blink of an eye, Jason felt they'd been coring out the building for an eternity.

  On the eastern road that ran along the processing plant, the ground began to shake and the building vibrated violently as if in an earthquake just before the right wing of the DL7 exploded out of the side of the facility, followed by most of the rest of it. The forward section burst through the building and swung around before dropping the remaining twenty-five feet and slamming into the road below. The ship lay there, still half buried in the structure, hissing and smoking, but otherwise still.

  Jason blinked several times to clear his head as he hung from the restraints, the bridge canted at a crazy angle. Through the battered canopy he could see they had emerged from the building and were nose-down on a street. Please let there have been nobody in this building. There was a hiss of air as the emergency lighting glowed red along the walls and the chemical oxygen generators activated, signs of the Phoenix in her death throes.

  "Is everyone still alive?" Jason asked. He got a chorus of affirmative responses, some less enthusiastic than others.

  "Well, you finally did crash her," Twingo said in an attempt at humor that fell flat.

  "Everyone try to get out of your restraints and get your gear without hurting yourselves or anyone else," Jason said, ignoring his friend. "Let's get to the port airlock and get out of here, we still have a mission to complete."

  Over the next ten minutes the crew struggled to extricate themselves from their seats and collect their weapons and gear before struggling further to get off the tilted command deck and drop down to where the port airlock chamber was. Once they were all there, Jason manually closed the inner hatch, lifted the bright red cover, and smashed the large button down three times, then two more, activating the explosive charges that would fling the port hatch away from the ship. They heard and felt the muffled whump as the charges detonated. He waited a few seconds before opening the inner hatch, hoping most of the smoke had cleared out.

  They made their way out of the gaping hole in the side of the hull one at a time, Lucky helping the smaller members of Omega Force so they weren't injured trying to make the jump. Standing straight, Jason took in the surreal sight of his ship jutting out the side of an industrial building and smashed onto the street below. The nose cone, a composite piece that covered the
sensitive forward sensor array, looked to have taken the brunt of the fall, crushed and deformed as the weight of the ship pressed down on it. He deliberately turned away, becoming aware of the sounds of battle coming from the anchor point, which was still two kilometers away. Small arms fire and larger explosions were clearly heard as the surrounding area was largely silent, the citizens either in hiding or having fled.

  "Crusher, Lucky, we'll be hitting the far access gate like we originally planned," Jason said crisply, trying to get his crew back into focus. "You three," he said, pointing to Doc, Twingo, and Kage, "get someplace high where you can see the complex and try to feed us what intel you can. With the twins stuck in the ship, we have no idea of what's going on until we're almost on it." Jason knew well enough that they'd be of little use as far as spotters since the battle was likely already inside the anchor point facility, but it would keep the three out of harm's way while not insulting them directly to their faces. He looked at them speculatively, and then changed his mind.

  "Check that; Kage, you're with us. We may need your talents. Twingo and Doc, same plan; get high and get me intel."

  "We'll take care of it, Captain," Twingo said solemnly, grasping the shoulder of Jason's armor. He understood the likelihood of ever seeing his friend again was slim, at best. Doc came up and wordlessly shook his hand before turning and leading Twingo away, down the street and around the corner.