Ambush

by G J Moses

  “Strangely, the Chohish have not destroyed the last set of probes. They must be very confident or they are trying to intimidate us. Not that it makes any difference, we do not stand a chance against that force.” continued Hawke.

  Unexpectedly, the ship started gaining speed while going into a tight swirling motion. As the ship continued on, the swirl became larger. At the same time, Hawke noticed the radiation leakage became heavier.

  As everyone strapped in, the sound of the defense systems firing began. But it was muted compared to what it sounded like when they had engaged the Chohish earlier. It soon became obvious, that with so many systems having been destroyed or damaged, that the response was not going to be near as effective. But the question in everybody’s mind is, why now?

  The main forward screen suddenly changed to display the Chohish fleets with the data being supplied from the probes. Both side screens were now showing the enemy missiles as they were being fired. The amount of ordinance being sent their way was staggering.

  The ship continued in its strange swirling motions as it went getting more erratic as each moment passed. It wouldn’t be long before the missiles arrived.

  They looked at each other in sorrow as they knew that they only had minutes to live. But none there were sorry for making the attempt. It started with Hawke, who saluted the rest of the group followed by Khaleesi until all followed suit. “Goodbye my friends, it was a trip I am honored to have taken with you.”

  “Well, I hope you do not mind if I pass on that right now, I am not ready to call it quits, not just yet anyway” said a strong voice not heard in days.

  Startled, Jeanne turned to face the entrance of the Bridge where Zeke, flanked by Doc, Michale and Shon, stood tall in his dress uniform. A little pale, but he looked so much better than the last time she had seen him. Her heart fluttered as she looked upon the man who had come to me mean so much to her.

  “Good day my dear, I hear you are responsible for all this.” Turning to lay his hand affectionately on Doc’s shoulder, Zeke smiled with deep affection. “I owe this man my life, but someone sure does need to talk to him about his bedside manner, it needs a bit of improvement. All I heard when I woke up was how pissed he was for me not reporting my condition.”

  Walking to stand next to Jeanne sitting in his chair, he put his hand on her armored hand. “I had hoped to save you and the rest here from all this, but it seems that even the best laid plans are not fool proof. But it does not change the fact, I am very glad to see you once again.”

  With haste, Jeanne unbuckled her harness to jump out of the Captain’s chair. Turning to face Zeke, Jeanne grabbed his hand to pull him into an embrace where she kissed him hard. “Don’t you ever do anything so stupid like that again, you hear me?” she whispered.

  “I hear you, but please, your armor is threatening to undo all the work Doc has done.” Zeke gasped.

  Releasing Zeke, Jeanne did a short curtsey in her armor to offer his chair back before she moved to a spare workstation.

  Meanwhile, Michale and Shon directed Doc down the hall to don their armor.

  Sitting in his chair, Zeke shook his head in acknowledgement of everyone else. “Hawke, Khaleesi, Karter, Jan, hello all. I would like to catch up, but it does not sound like we have much time.”

  “Hello LS1, status on Horus?”

  “Welcome back Captain Kinsley, it is good to hear your voice again. Horus is in the final phase of execution.”

  “Status of our defensive array?”

  “We are down to thirty eight percent effectiveness.”

  “Well, that is more than I expected at this stage of the game. Do you have any expectations for that to improve prior to arrival over Niflhel?”

  “There are several arrays that I have the repair robots working on to reroute their power conduits. I expect to get back to forty seven percent by the time we arrive.”

  “Excellent! That was a good job LS1 on getting through the cruisers. I may have to upgrade you to pilot status.”

  “Variants of my programming are already incorporated in all flying programs Captain.”

  “HA, I should have known. Good job anyway.”

  If Zeke had looked around, he would have seen astonishment on the faces of everyone present. This type of casual conversation with an AI was unheard of.

  “Captain, enemy missiles are less than five minutes away. You may want the crew in the fighter and shuttle bays to lock down prior to their arrival.”

  “Others? What others? Jeanne, did you bring others on board?”

  “That would be my officers, Captain, we were not leaving no matter your orders. We have our own codes to follow.” interjected Khaleesi calmly.

  “If, by some miracle we survive this Major, you will sit with me when Doc gives me that lecture that he kept promising me while I was in recovery on following proper procedures. No reason for me to have to suffer through that one alone.”

  As if on cue, the subject of that discussion walked in followed by Corporal’s Dennison and Michale. Michale was carrying both his own and the Doctors helmet in one hand while Shon carried a suit and helmet in each hand. Only the power supplied by his own armor allowed him to carry such a heavy load.

  “That lecture just got longer young man, I am adding respect for your elders.” said Doc with humor edging his voice.

  “Corporal Lance, good to have you back. Shon told me when you were about to be released. How are you feeling?” asked Khalessi.

  “Like a truck ran into me. But no worse than I do after some of our training sessions.” answered the Corporal. “Thanks for the save Major.”

  Nodding her recognition, Khaleesi gestured towards some empty seats. Doc though, declined, letting them know he was going to go check on Jax, his crew and the Marines. Zeke, knew better than to argue, or even order him to stay, and watched as Doc left. Doc was Doc.

  Lumbering over to Zeke, Shon dropped the suit he was carrying where he signaled Zeke to get up.

  Cognizant that Shon would not pay any attention to him delaying or ignoring the hint, Zeke sighed and complied. Moving to stand by Shon, he allowed him to assist put the armor on.

  Once done, Shon handed him the helmet and gave him a stare he had come to know. It was the ‘put that damn helmet on when the time comes or I will come over and shove it on myself’ stare.

  “Captain, all my officers are locked down. Jax and his guys are positioned around the ship where they feel they will be needed most. I notified them Doc was on his way, they will make sure he is safe. We are as ready as we will be.”

  When Zeke looked at Jeanne, he saw she was staring at him intently. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Horus? What is Horus?”

  “My battle plan name. Horus was the name of a sky god from Earth, that age old wonderful planet. One of my father’s passions was Earth ancient history. As his children, we were regaled with fantastic stories about Earth’s history as he put us to bed. Anyway, Horus was a well-known god of the sky who protected the rulers of a country called Egypt. How appropriate is it to name the plan after an attempt, in the sky above, to protect the citizens of Niflhel, the rulers of that planet?”

  A smile was starting on Jeanne’s face, but it was wiped away when she had to hang on as the ship took a wild port turn. This was followed by the ship being violently flung in the same direction. Some of the missiles had arrived.

  The ship recovered whereupon it went back into its swirl.

  “LS1, did we lose any?” yelled Zeke.

  “Negative Captain, I followed your instructions they are the top priority above anything else.”

  “Awesome, keep up the good work.” Turning to look at Hawke, Zeke questioned on the positioning of the Chohish fleets.

  “They are still stationary. I would have expected them to come to meet us.”

  “Why? When we did not flee after seeing the cruisers, they knew we were coming to them. It must be obvious to them that we are going to try and stop the bombardm
ent. Besides, the bombardment is their main goal, not us.”

  Without warning, the ship turned again to port. Everyone tensed, waiting for the slam forward. They were not to be disappointed. Groans were prevalent as the seat constraints pressed against their chests. The ship flipped and rolled before it slowly regained control and back into its swirl.

  “LS1?” gasped Zeke.

  “Negative Captain, none were lost. I have them as tight against the ship as I can without affecting their physical structure. I must say Captain, I now understand why you did what you did. You were right when we discussed it. The missile tubes seem to be their primary targets. We are down to one still functioning. But sooner or later, they will fire upon the engines. I am impressed though; this has never been done as far as I can tell.”

  “Not surprised, new ship configuration allows for new tactics, nothing someone else would not have come up with. And I think they will ignore our engines for now. They want us to come to them, especially since we have not been firing any missiles. Oh, and do us all a favor will you? Warn us when you are making a turn.”

  Immediately they heard. “Turning…”

  The ship turned again to hard port. Even though everyone had tensed up, they were not prepared for the brutal shove that followed. Pain flared in their bodies regardless of the armor it was so severe. Flames shot out of several air ducts. Workstations flew across the room. Groans could be heard from behind the walls.

  Trying to right herself, Jeanne noticed that her shoulder restraining strap was hanging loosely on her chest. She felt lucky that others had not broken as she would have been sent flying. Realizing the severity of the issue, she inspected the rest. That was when she noticed that the restraints were new and had triple the number of straps. Looking around, she saw she was not the only that had busted straps. Those seat occupants were looking just as stumped as she was. Puzzled, she looked up at Hawke.

  “One of the first things that Zeke did when we left Nocuous, was to have the repair robots upgrade the restraints. As he put it, we are going to get hit hard, really bad. That may force us to move around to different workstations as we will not know which ones are working. He does think of everything, doesn’t he?” a smiling Hawke replied while holding up two busted straps.

  It was then, Hawke started laughing out loud. “I just figured it out, ingenious Zeke, ingenious.”

  “Took you long enough my friend, but way too late, you still have to buy.”

  Hearing this, Jeanne flashed Khaleesi a puzzled look. Khalessi seeing the look on her face, smiled at first, but could not hold in her laughter. She was soon joined by Michale, Shon and Karter.

  Looking over at Jan, she saw he was as perplexed as she was. “Marine’s! And a particular Sorath!” she muttered just as LS1 announced “Turning…”

  Bracing herself, Jeanne felt the ship turn to port once more. “What the hell is he doing, turn in some other direction, damn it!” she thought just before the ship rocked forcefully from a solid hit.

  Pain, intense pain, caused Jeanne to momentary blackout. Slowly regaining consciousness, she felt the coldness on her thigh where the armor had injected a stimulant. What met her gaze was fire and smoke. Repair robots rushed in to spray the fire with a retardant while the smoke was slowly clearing up.

  Alarms were blaring but were quickly silenced by LS1 upon instructions from Zeke.

  “LS1, any change? Can you tell me how the rest of my people are doing?”

  “In answer to your question on the status of the other personnel first, they are scattered in heavily fortified areas wrapped in engineer protection cocoons supplied by Lieutenant Commander Andrews. Between the armor and cocoons, none have been heavily injured beyond bruising at this time. I have been monitoring their life signs through the cocoons.”

  “Per your other question, no change, although we did lose the last missile tube. Did I tell you I am impressed?”

  Putting her hands up in the air in frustration, Jeanne sat there muttering her frustration.

  That brought more laughter from the Marines now accompanied by Hawke.

  The laughter was short lived as they heard once more. “Turning…”

  The ship turned, but to starboard this time. Everyone grabbed their harness waiting for the shock waves. Surprise crossed their faces, except for two, that is, when nothing happened.

  “Repetition, the Chohish command structure, they saw how you were always going to port and expected us to do it again. They gambled that we would do it again. But the missile guidance systems should have corrected it, why didn’t they?’ Jeanne asked.

  “The reason for the wide swirl. Anytime we went to port, we were at the far-left sweep of the swirl. When we finally did go to starboard, we were at the far-right of the swirl. I hoped the missiles could not correct over such a large distance in time. A desperate hope really, but it looks like it worked. We needed to get in range for my plan to work. Now… LS1. If you would…”

  Looking at the main center monitor, which was the last one working out of the three, Jeanne saw several groups of six ships and a third group of four missing several destroyers. ‘These must be the fleets I ran into when I jumped into this system. Some look like they have taken some type of damage.’

  Without responding, it was soon obvious what LS1 had been asked to do. The center screen now split into multiple views. All watched as well over a hundred missiles that had been towed were now pushed to the sides of the Lucky Strike. Mixed in with the missiles were dozens of probes and ECM’s. All those engines igniting at once were a sight to see.

  The ship, which had been doing a wide swirl, stopped the swirl after the last turn while picking up speed. The sounds of the engines whining were soon heard on the bridge.

  “The engines, have they been damaged?” asked Jan.

  “LS1, do you want to answer Jan?” asked Zeke out loud.

  “The engines have not taken any damage at this time. I removed all safety controls and running them at maximum. I estimate we will reach one hundred and forty eight percent of the recommended maximum speed within the next minute.”

  “You can do that safely?” a very concerned sounding Jan asked.

  “Negative” was the only response he got at which he gave Khaleesi a puzzled look, who when seeing it, started chuckling before she broke out laughing. This time Jeanne joined her before the rest of the group.

  “The Major should have hit you harder when she had the chance” reflected Shon stoically. That brought on the laughter even louder.

  The laughter all stopped when the ship bucked and rocked from near missile hits. Smoke and fire returned with a vengeance.

  “Captain, I strongly recommend everyone put on their helmets at this time. The ship is taking severe damage.”

  This was supported by the ship slewing sideways before it flipped over. Huge cracks appeared on the ceiling and walls. The ship continued to rock from explosions. Again, the ship flipped over and was flung sideways.

  As Zeke struggled to put on his helmet, he heard LS1’s voice transition from the bridge speakers to his helmet. “Captain, we have lost all defensive and offensive weapons.”

  Through the smoke and debris raining down from the ceiling, the now flickering central monitor showed the missiles reaching their destination. The missiles, seen in three separate groups, exploded as one. The monitor went white for a few seconds as it waited for data from still functioning probes.

  Reeling back in his chair from the ship taking another horrendous blow, Zeke watched as the monitor cleared. Extensive damage could be seen on all three battleships, but they did not look to have been knocked out of action. But that is not what he looked for.

  “LS1, status on Horus? Do we need to go to plan Salamis?”

  The speakers in his helmet crackled with static before he could make out LS1 responding. “Horus looks to have been successful on two of the Battleships.”

  So close, he had come so close. Salamis was even more of a desperation act than
Horus. He had very little faith in that being successful. But he had to try, so many people’s lives depended on it.

  “Execute Salamis, LS1, Execute Salamis” ordered Zeke.

  “Captain, only two of the engines are still functioning. My calculations for Salamis successful execution are less than five percent. The ship has taken tremendous damage.”

  Before he could answer, the ship yawned to starboard violently. Zeke was flung against his harness with force. He howled into his helmet as his ribs flared up in excruciating pain.

  The ship rolled and rolled before being flung sideways where it started drifting aimlessly.

  Checking his armor stats, several indicators showed yellow, but none indicated outright failure. But the same could not be said for the Bridge itself. It was awash in smoke and flames.

  Everyone else looked to be moving, some more slowly than others, but none showed to be incapacitated. How they survived up to this point was beyond him.

  The speakers in his helmet relayed a message he hoped never to hear. “Captain, all engines have been destroyed. The integrity of the ship is compromised. Everyone needs to evacuate.”

  The main monitor showed a snowy image of the enemy fleet. Where he expected to see them coming towards the Lucky Strike to finish them off, they were accelerating away from them.

  Unexpectedly, through the smoke and fire, he saw a missile hit a Chohish destroyer, then another. In amazement, he watched as a strange looking Irracan fighter entered the screen. As he watched enthralled, he saw a bulbous shape being ejected from the fighter.

  In his helmet, he heard Jeanne exclaim out loud. “Shiver me timbers! Masson, you did it, against all odds, you bloody well did it!”

  Unhooking her safety harness, Jeanne staggered to her feet, trying to compensate for the pitching and rolling ship around her. “Well me bucko’s, it is time to leave this poop deck, we have guests to go meet.”

  Glancing at the screen one more time before joining Jeanne, Zeke stood still as he watched as dozens of fighters flew past the ship toward the enemy fleet. As he was about to turn away, he saw a destroyer enter the fray. An RGN destroyer with the words RGN JACKAL emblazoned on it. The ship commanded by his old friend Captain Lance Henry.