We All Died at Breakaway Station

by Richard C. Meredith

  “Dammit, I wish I knew how that battle was going. It could last for hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Keep me posted if you possibly can, commander.”

  “We will sir. We’ll do our best.”

  “You’d better, commander, by all that’s holy, you’d better.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “Good luck, Lasin. Bracer out.”

  One minute to star drive.

  “Attention. This is the captain,” said the voice of Daniel Maxel over the ship’s intercom. “All hands prepare for star drive in one minute. I repeat. Star drive in one minute.”

  “Nuclear missiles ready,” said Akin Darbi.

  Now Absolom Bracer had almost forgotten the pain of his wounds, his missing limbs, the organs he no longer had. But it was still there, all of it. He supposed that it would still be there when‌—‌when it ended. So be it. The pain wasn’t really that bad. You can get used to anything if you have to.

  Thirty seconds.

  “Energy cannon crews at stations.”

  Fifteen seconds.

  “Star drive potential achieved. Holding.”

  Then.

  Now.

  NOW!

  There is no way to describe the distortion, the displacement, the unbeing that a man feels when it happens, when the first jump is made. If you’ve never experienced it, no one can tell you about it. If you have, no one needs to.

  It took the tanks a second or two for their scans to synchronize with the microjumping. At first they flickered, tried to hold on to the half of the “cycle” that represented what we call the real universe, got out of phase, shifted through a mad, meaningless unblack grayness, then settled down, holding onto the sync pulses fired from the star drive generators, scanning only when in normal space, cutting out when in nonspace.

  The Iwo Jima was in one spot. It “twisted.” It was in another spot, one hundred and seven kilometers away. It hadn’t moved. It had just changed location.

  Five hundred microjumps per second. Then a thousand. Then two thousand. The starship was jumping faster than it was moving under true speed. Nuclear drive was cut.

  The universe had run out of time.

  47

  Madness. How many kinds of madness are there? Albion Mothershed asked himself as he stood on the shuddering deck of the bridge of the starship San Juan, felt the ship fighting for its life around him. There’s the kind of madness that’s inside a man, that turns his mind inside out. But there’s another kind of madness. A madness that’s outside of him, and that is what he saw on the main forward tanks as plasma torpedoes and nuclear missiles and energy cannon beams cut through the nothingness of space, lighted the screens of battling starships. That is true madness, he said to himself.

  “Admiral,” Captain Stalinko said, turning away from his command console for only a moment. “Admiral!”

  Mothershed broke himself out of his trance, responded. “Yes, March?”

  “Are they ready, sir? Your reports?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “The Benburb is going to try to dock with us and pick them up,” Stalinko said.

  Mothershed looked back up at the screens, saw the blazing hell of space battle.

  “No,” he said flatly. “That’s impossible.”

  “But, sir,” Stalinko said hopelessly, “she’s got to. We’ll never get the San Juan moving again. We’ve got to get the reports off her.”

  “Do you really think we can dock in this!” Mothershed demanded. “We’d both have to lower screens‌—‌you know what that would mean, don’t you?”

  Stalinko looked back up at the screens. It was everything that the four rescue ships from Port Abell could do to just hold off the Jillies, now with the Chicago dead and the Hastings so battered that she was unable to return the enemy’s fire. To lower the screens of the San Juan or the Benburb for as little as thirty seconds would be sufficient for the Jillie weapons to reduce them to so much vapor and twisted metal.

  “But, sir, what else can we do?” Stalinko asked.

  “Wait,” Mothershed answered. “Just wait.”

  He too looked at the tanks again and wished that Ommart had sent more help: perhaps just one more ship would make the difference. Just one might be able to give them a chance‌—‌but as it was…

  The odds were fifty-fifty that Albion Mothershed would ever see Adrianopolis again. And those odds just weren’t good enough, not when the survival of the human race depended on them.

  Albion Mothershed decided that it might not hurt too much if he said a little prayer, if he could remember how.

  48

  The six ships of the Jillie fleet began to swell in the tanks, to loom larger and larger, distant points of light becoming real, visible objects.

  “All hands stand by,” Bracer said.

  …roger?…

  …they’re ready, sir, the other ships, they’ll do what you do, when you do it…

  …okay, stay with me, roger…

  …i’m with you, sir…

  …keep things coordinated as best you can…

  …i will, sir…

  Still many, many kilometers distant a Jillie energy cannon fired, wild and high. Another cannon blasted, closer this time, but still wide of its mark, and poorly synchronized with the jumping of the human starships. They’d have to do better than that if they expected to do any damage, Bracer thought.

  Closer still, a third energy cannon fired, right on sync, striking the Iwo Jima’s screens and was absorbed.

  Now the fun begins, Bracer found himself thinking.

  The starships angled slightly, aimed for a gap between the six enemies. Their speed was now three thousand microjumps per second.

  The space was narrowing at fantastic speed. The Jillies could have been seen with the naked eye, had anyone been in a position to observe them.

  Now it was time.

  “Cut star drive! Drop screens!” Bracer yelled. “Thirty seconds of continuous fire!”

  There was a sudden lurching sensation as the pseudospeed generators cut off, as the Iwo Jima ceased its motionless plunge through space, “stopped,” hung scant kilometers from the decelerating enemy.

  From within the starship human senses could not detect the instantaneous absence of the force screens that had enfolded her, that had deflected and absorbed electromagnetic energy. But now they were gone and the ship’s hull was naked again to the light of Breakaway’s sun, and to the weapons of the enemy‌—‌if they were able to bring them into play quickly enough.

  Almost simultaneously, the ship’s twenty-one energy cannon began to fire, lacing the darkness with intense beams of force. Most of them picked the nearest of the enemy warships, a medium battle cruiser, bathing it in heat and light, pouring uncounted ergs into the energy absorption units of its field generators.

  Fifteen nuclear-tipped missiles exploded from launching tubes, electronically sighting in on the enemy craft, bearing toward them on tails of flame.

  The six plasma torpedo tubes glowed white as spheres of the “fourth state of matter” burst from them into space, enfolded in magnetic cocoons, propelled by their own intense power, ballistically guided since no external signals could possibly penetrate the layers of stripped matter to the control units nestled in the centers of those raging hells.

  As legions of fury broke from the Iwo Jima and the Pharsalus, the enemy began to realize what was being done to them, began to decelerate and turn, to face the unexpected and inexplicable attack. But even as they turned, the nearest Jillie ship faltered; its screens grew brighter as heavier and heavier loads of energy splashed against them. Absorption units within the alien began to break down, exploding, creating havoc within the ship’s metallic skin. As more units ruptured, the alien’s fields began to flicker‌—‌a nuclear missile, entering the field, exploded; now more energy than the alien could withstand‌—‌her hull glowed red, white, then did not exist. A tiny sun flashed in space, an artificial nova. The
Jillie ship exploded.

  A cheer went up from the officers and the crewmen on the bridge of the Iwo Jima. One down…

  Then the thirty seconds were up. Daniel Maxel reacted. “Weapons, cease firing! Engineering, screens up!”

  “Get us out of here!” Bracer added. “Star drive, now!”

  The few second’s delay was agonizing. The remaining Jillie ships had negotiated their turn, were now coming back toward the three immobilized human starships, their own weapons now lighting the blackness of space.

  …roger, are they with us?…

  …they are, sir. right on the money…

  …are they ready to go?…

  …ready…

  “Bridge, this is engineering. Star drive at potential, standing by.”

  “Let’s go,” Bracer said. “Maximum.”

  Again the distortion, the disorientation of star drive. The ships began to “move” again, in and out of reality.

  “Get those cycles up,” Maxel said into the console. “They’re closing.”

  “Doing the best we can, sir,” engineering replied.

  “Think they’ll know what we’re trying to do?” Maxel asked the admiral over his shoulder.

  “I doubt that they understand us any better than we do them,” Bracer replied.

  “But they’re not going to let us get away‌—‌and they won’t give up Breakaway Station either.”

  “You figure they’ll split their forces?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would,” Maxel said. “But I’m not a Jillie.”

  “I’m not one either, but it looks like about the only thing they can do. I just hope they think we’re worthy of their big guns.”

  49

  This is going to cost me my commission, my career, everything I’ve got, Fleet Admiral Paolo Ommart told himself, sinking deeper and deeper into the fear and depression that had driven him to this place, falling into the depths created by the alcohol and the drugs, into the rosy, euphoric hell that was inside of him waiting to devour whatever there was left of his soul. This is the end, he told himself.

  “Paolo, what is it?”

  The voice was coming through the variegated fog from a long way off, and it took a great effort of will to focus his eyes on the face that had spoken those words, to remember the name that went with the face.

  “Heather?” he asked, not really meaning to.

  “Of course it is, Paolo,” the girl said soothingly, moving slightly closer to him. “Tell me how I can help.”

  “You can’t help,” he said as he looked at her through the shimmering haze and the smoke of the happysticks that burned in the tray on the table, and he told himself that he had been very fortunate in finding such a lovely and kind and desirable and understanding mistress as Heather, but what was she going to say, what was she going to do when the truth came out that the great Fleet Admiral Paolo Ommart was nothing but a coward?

  “Come on, Paolo, cheer up,” the smiling blonde girl said. “Do you want another happystick?”

  Shaking his head, Ommart raised himself up and looked at the musicians playing across the crowded, smoky room, and looked at the jeweled and spangled girls who danced to the exotic music that they played. For a few moments he was able to focus his eyes and notice details, details that for a few instants became hard and stark and bright and something much more than that‌—‌the navel of one of the dancers suddenly was the moving, gyrating center of all the universe, all that existed was subordinate to that navel‌—‌and then it was the hands of one of the musicians as he strummed the nine-stringed banjo-like instrument‌—‌and then it was a candle flickering on a table half a dozen meters from where he sat‌—‌and then it was the glass of scented whiskey on the table before him‌—‌and then it was Heather’s left nipple, peeking through the thin metallic strips that made up the semidress that was the height of fashion on Adrianopolis this season. And he suddenly wanted to take that nipple in his mouth, to fasten his lips on the center of the universe, and that seemed very funny to him. To suck on the tit of the universe! And he laughed aloud.

  “Paolo, what is it?” Heather asked, concern in her voice now, he thought. “Is it something you can talk about?”

  He looked back into her eyes for a few long moments, remembering how he had endured all that he could, the suspense of Mothershed’s battle off there somewhere seven light-hours from Adrianopolis, how he had done everything he could do to see that Mothershed had the assistance he needed‌—‌and then the reports that had started coming in from Breakaway Station: Jillies were attacking there too! Bracer and his cripples were holding them off, or trying to hold them off until Mothershed’s report came through. Bracer‌—‌Bracer…

  He had fled from the war-rooms of Valforth Garrison; he had grabbed Heather and entered an aircar and fled. Paolo Ommart had fled from battle!

  No, it wasn’t physical battle. He could take that. But this‌—‌this battle, these battles‌—‌he couldn’t take them.

  And he couldn’t take knowing what he had done to Absolom Bracer. He had sent him out there.

  But what else could I do? he asked himself. What else could anyone have done?

  Ommart looked up at Heather, and then at the dancers, and then back at the table, and he knew that soon, very soon, he would have to go back to Valforth Garrison and learn the news, the truth. He would have to accept.

  Absolom, he prayed, don’t hate me too much. Please don’t hate me too much.

  50

  The starships microjumped faster and still faster. The cycles mounted. They moved away from the still sub-light Jillies, out and away from Breakaway, toward the outer planets of the system, the huge, lifeless gas giants, and then beyond. The Iwo Jima leading, Pharsalus and Rudoph Cragstone close behind.

  Bracer watched the dwindling Jillie fleet in the tank. They had not yet acted, though they had ceased firing as the human ships moved out of range of their weapons.

  “Well, what are they going to do now?” Maxel asked.

  “Watch them,” Bracer replied.

  One of the alien ships, no more than a distant blip now, began to turn about, aim back toward Breakaway, while the other four flickered, became unreal, ghosts, and began to move.

  “Here they come,” Bracer said. “Contact Breakaway,” he yelled to his comm officer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The heavy’s going to hit Breakaway,” Maxel said. “Can she take it?”

  “I don’t know,” Bracer replied. “I hope so.”

  Now the tank in the command console had come to life, showing the face of Commander Lasin.

  “Get Crowinsky on at once,” Bracer ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the stricken communications officer on Breakaway answered.

  It was only moments before his image was replaced by the general’s, an image that flickered with each microjump, an image that threatened to fade out altogether as the Iwo Jima neared lightspeed.

  “Jillie heavy battle cruiser coming your way,” Bracer said. “Can you handle it?”

  For a moment Crowinsky did not answer, his mouth working soundlessly, his face white.

  “Dammit, man, answer me!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you hold him off?”

  Crowinsky licked his lips. “For a while, perhaps. We’ve still got a few missiles and cannon.”

  “They’ll probably try nukes first,” Bracer said. “Get your antimissiles up and try to stop them. If you do, they’ll come in closer with torpedoes and cannon and try to knock out your defenses. Watch for them.”

  “I know how they fight, Bracer,” Crowinsky said defensively. “I’ve seen them before.”

  “Okay, do your best. We’ll hold off the others for a while, but I doubt that we’ll be much help against that one.”

  “I know.”

  “Good luck, general. We’ll be back in touch with you as soon as we can,” Bracer said, knowing that he would probably never talk to Herbe
rt Crowinsky again.

  The starships moved outward.

  The rate at which the cycles of pseudospeed increased seemed much slower than it really was, yet the three human starships were moving away from Breakaway at velocities that soon became multiples of light. UR-712-16 shrank behind them, and the dwindling point of light that was Breakaway had vanished from the sky. Radio and tri-B contact with the station had become impossible.

  Chronometers swept around their dials, indicating the passage of time, indicating that the lone Jillie warship that had headed toward Breakaway Station had now probably reached its destination, had begun bombarding the planet with nuclear missiles.

  Bracer could be relatively sure of that: the Jillie had reached Breakaway. Of nothing else could he be certain. He could only hope, he could only believe that Crowinsky had put his every defense into operation, and was holding off his attacker. He had to believe that, or else all the rest was pointless, useless. Crowinsky was holding.

  The rest of the Jillie squadron went starward, chasing the fleeing humans.

  51

  The planet rocked, shuddered, and screamed around her. Fire came pouring down out of the sky, splattering against the stones, heating them to incandescence, then to liquid, and the rocks themselves flowed like water. Flame and hell rose into the sky in return, nuclear missiles, plasma torpedoes, energy cannon beams lashing upward through Breakaway’s thin atmosphere at the monster in the sky.

  Sheila Brandt had been returned to duty, stripped of her rank, a court-martial pending that would probably give her a prison sentence‌—‌if she lived to serve that sentence‌—‌and in a state of disgrace for which she knew she had no excuse. But she had been returned to duty. No one could be spared, not even someone who had been guilty of such neglect as she had.

  Once again she monitored circuits, though now she was very nearly on the planet’s surface, only a few meters below the stone, and a small paraglas bubble above her gave her a view of that barren, cold, uninviting surface. That surface was now alive with the battle of the Jillie warship against the station’s few surviving defenses, and though she could only occasionally see what was happening, she could feel the shock of it transmitted through the stone of the walls and floor.