Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor (23 page)

 “You want Cooper to live through this, Private?”

 “Duggan, take the damn shot! That’s an order,” Cooper grunted through his pain, reaching for his pistol.

 “He dies if you do, Duggan,” Diego said, groaning as he clapped one hand down on his knee. “Get Duquesne down here. I need treatment.”

 Nodding, Duggan reached for his communicator while Cooper shook his head. He looked across at his pistol, just out of reach, but there was no way of knowing if it would even work, no way to tell whether a heroic leap across the deck would do any good.

 “Duquesne’s on the way,” Duggan said. “Spaceman Collins gets treated first, and that is non-negotiable.”

 “Only if you toss your weapon away, Private.” With a sneer, he continued, “I mean, if you aren’t planning on using it anyway, you might as well drop it and save us all the trouble.”

 “Where is Al-Sarfah, Diego? What planet?” Cooper said, trying to distract him.

 “It isn’t a planet, Cooper,” he said. “You know, I might have to set the bomb on that shuttle off after all.”

 Another hatch cracked, and Diego turned and fired; he had to be on some serious combat drugs to keep him moving with the wounds he had suffered. Taking the split second, Cooper danced across the deck, snatched up his pistol and fired, wildly. Diego turned to him, his gun drooping from his hand, and as blood ran down the traitor’s neck, slumped down to the deck, a control rolling out of his pocket. Duggan got there first, snatching it up.

 “It isn’t even connected to anything. He was bluffing.”

 “Collins didn’t think so.”

 Over in the corner, there was a loud thud; Diego’s last shot had been exactly on target, and Zapolski’s body fell to the deck. Cooper raced towards it, looking down at his friend, a puzzled expression on his face, his eyes locked into a glassy stare, a hole in his chest. With a sweep of his hand, Cooper closed Zapolski’s eyes for the last time, looking up at Duggan.

 “Next time I tell you to take the damn shot, you take it!”

 “Then it would be you dead, instead,” Duggan said.

 “My choice to make, Private,”
he snapped in reply.

 The elevator opened, and Duquesne stepped out onto the deck, medical kit in hand and nurse by her side. She took one look at the scene and raced towards Collins, flinging herself to the ground next to him. Looking up at Cooper, she said.

 “Business is starting early today. I think he’ll make it.”

 “Good,” he said. “I’m glad someone will.” Looking over at Duggan, he said, “Come on. We’d better get to our battle stations, and we might as well swing by the armory. I think we’re going to need a lot more ammunition today.”

 As they left the deck and the technicians resumed their interrupted work, Collins groaned as Duquesne began her battle to save his life. The elevator doors closed, and Cooper’s eyes lingered on his dead friend for a moment, then mused over the last words of Diego. Where the hell was Al-Sarfah?

Chapter 23

 “I suppose we’d better get this done,” Marshall said, leaning back in his command chair, looking out across the bridge. His crew were all ready at their posts, poised for battle; while he had not told the crew that he was anticipating a major fight at their destination, somehow he hadn’t had to. They knew without being told, and it raced through the whole ship like an electric pulse.

 Caine, nodding, tapped a control on her console, “Tactical to Crew. All hands to battle stations. I say again, all hands to your battle stations. This is no drill. Repeat, this is no drill. Report status to the Captain.” She turned to him, “Half the ship was already at alert status, I think.” 

 “Auxiliary Control to Bridge,” his father’s voice called. “We’re ready.”

 “Engineering to Bridge, Zebrova here,” another voice said. “All systems go.” Marshall smiled, recalling the argument he’d had with his executive officer about banishing her from the bridge. There was no choice, though. One thing he was certain about was that Alamo was about to sustain serious damage, and dispersing the senior staff was the only way to protect the chain of command.

 “Shuttle Squadron to Bridge,” Bradley said over a crackling communicator. “We’re ready.”

 The rest of the stations went through the list, one after another, and Caine checked them all off before saying, “That’s it, all systems go.” With a smile, she continued, “What about the Captain?”

 “He’s raring to go.”

 “Good to hear.”

 “What about our surprise packages?”

 “Quinn’s nursing them now, riding shotgun in Weapons Control. Let’s just hope they work.”

 “They will,” Marshall said. “We’re going to win this one.”

 “I damn well hope so.”

 Leaning forward towards the helm, he said, “Tyler, I want this ship to dance out of the egress point. Evasive maneuvers for the first twenty seconds, then punch it at full speed towards our destination. Every ounce of acceleration you’ve got.”

 Nodding, the young officer replied, “I’ve already taken the safeties off the helm controls, sir, and I think we can squeeze a bit of extra performance out of her.” He paused, then said, “Thanks for letting me sit in this time.”

 “Intelligence officer or no, Mr. Tyler, you’re still the best pilot we’ve got.”

 “One minute to the egress point, sir,” Steele reported from her station. “I want to get those bastards. We’ve earned a little payback.”

 “That we have,” Marshall replied, looking around the bridge. Retreating from this fleet had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, especially given the loss of Hercules once they had escaped. This felt like redemption, a chance to make up for what they had been forced to do before, and whilst it perhaps might not be the most tactically astute decision he had ever taken, it still felt like the right one. All his instincts were guiding him to this battle, and he’d learned to trust them.

 He tried to choreograph the battle in his mind, tried to work out the sequence of events. Seventy-two missiles were sitting in the elevator airlocks in the hangar bay, enough to knock out two or three battlecruisers if he could get those shots ho
m
e. The laser was charged, ready to burn its way through a ship, and Bailey had her spooks on alert, ready with everything they had learned from the stolen Cabal database.

 Alamo was ready to put up a fight the like of which the Cabal would never forget, and
perhaps
just be able to cope with the enemy fleet. Do enough damage at the start of the battle, and they might get through all of this yet – and even if they didn’t, they should certainly be able to achieve Marshall’s secret objective, to do enough damage to the Cabal forces in this area that a conflict with the Confederation would be postponed indefinitely.

 A hundred years from now, how would this battle be seen? Would this be the first engagement of the Cabal War if this all went wrong, or would that be dated back to Ragnarok, or to Jefferson – or forward to some future battle, with some o
th
er commander in the driving seat. Would the names of his crew join those of Hercules on the memorial wall of Mariner Station, another selection of people labeled as ‘missing, presumed dead’, caught in a limbo of uncertainty.

 Glancing at the status board, he quietly checked the escape pods. If it got bad, if it looked as if Alamo was lost, he was ready to give the order for his crew to leave, to seek mercy from the Cabal fleet. While he could send his crew out into captivity if it was a choice between that or death, he would never leave himself. With a faint smile, he realized that the odds were high that his life expectancy could be measured in minutes, a last furious burst of battle to close out both his career and his life.

 As the last few seconds ticked away, he thought about everything that had led him to this moment, and realized that he would not change a thing. Not for himself, anyway. If he’d been told when he signed up that this was going to be his fate, he would have accepted it willingly. Hell, during the last war the life expectancy of a fighter pilot was down to a couple of months at the low point, and he’d already beaten the odds then. Maybe he could do it now.

 “Ten seconds,” Steele said.

 “Spinelli,” Marshall said to the sensor technician, “I want a complete picture of that system the instant we emerge.”

 “You’ll get it, sir.”

 “Deadeye, don’t wait for me to order you to fire. Save the surprise packages for my call, but get the normal missiles into the air, and take whatever shots with the laser you can get. Fire at will.”

 “Don’t usually get that order before a battle even starts.”

 “Five seconds,” reported Steele, working her console.

 “This isn’t a normal battle.” He looked around the bridge at his crew, then said, “Good luck, everyone.”

 “Two seconds. One. Realspace!”

 Alamo staggered into normal space like a drunkard, lurching on its thrusters and spiraling around as Tyler struggled to bring up thrust, ramping the acceleration up. Spinelli started frantically working at his console as the viewscreen cleared, the sensors focusing on their targets.

 “Threat warning! Five vessels, close aboard, four on intercept courses!” Spinelli yelled as alarms began to sound. 

 “Details, Spaceman,” Marshall said.

 “Four battlecruisers, one carrier, the latter at range. Launching small craft of unfamiliar design, no fighters yet. We’ve got energy spikes from the battlecruisers.”

 Alamo rocked as Caine fired her first wave of missiles, six racing out of the tubes towards the nearest battlecruiser, and then the lights dimmed as the laser cannon fired, a beam of light briefly connecting the two ships as it burned an angry gash down the side of her hull, ripping away deck plating and equipment, sending blasts of out-gassing atmosphere racing out into space.

 “Good shot, Deadeye!” Marshall said.

 “I think I got his sensors and some of his missile tubes. Thirty seconds to another shot. Our missiles are running true.”

 “We’ve got twelve missiles incoming now, sir, from two enemy battlecruisers,” Spinelli said. “Nothing from the others.”

 “Nothing at all?” Steele said.

  Marshall nodded, “Probing our electronic defenses. Get Bailey on the case. And I need to know what those small craft are, and I need to know now!”

 “Wow,” Caine said. “Bailey’s already taken down two of the missiles. Five of ours are still running. Ready on the first surprise package.”

 Nodding, Marshall said, “Fire first salvo, Deadeye. Hold on, everyone!”

 Alamo seemed to tumble back on itself as thirty-six missiles raced into the air, following in the wake of the five remaining missiles of the first wave, grouping into a series of clumps as they ranged into towards their target, the luckless nearest battlecruiser. Caine worked her controls, guiding them in and providing cover against counter-hacking, but the enemy ship had no chance at all, only a couple falling away as their hastily-prepared engines failed.

 “The incoming missiles are turning away, trying for the salvo!” Spinelli said.

 “That’s a bit desperate, isn’t it?” Weitzman said, looking over from his communications station.

 “Another salvo is in the air, six from the remaining battlecruiser, heading right for us,” Spinelli said. “Our missiles will impact in eight seconds, sir.”

 “Let’s see it,” Marshall said, and the viewscreen seemed to race forward as it zoomed into the targeted capital ship, gleaming white amid the blackness, twisting and spinning as its pilot attempted every trick in the book to mitigate the damage. He thought he could see lights racing away from the ship, escape pods making a bid for salvation.

 Then the first group of missiles, four of them now, hit home, slamming into the side of the ship and ripping away at the hull. That was nothing compared with the next impact, with thirty-four missiles hitting the ship in a simultaneous strike. There was a brief flash that the filters struggled to dim, and then all that remained was a twisted hulk of tangled wreckage, debris flying in all directions as the she broke into fragments.

 “The escape pods?” Marshall said, quietly.

 “Nothing could have lived through that,” Caine said, looking up at her status board. “Second salvo ready to fire.”

 “Sir, I think I know what the incoming ships are. Cabal shuttles, modified.” Spinelli said.

 “Shuttles?”

 “I believe they are planning to board us.”

 “Steele, get our missile shuttles into the air, and have them target the incoming s
hips
. Caine, get that second salvo up, let’s knock another battlecruiser out of the fight while that gimmick works. And what about the incoming missiles?”

 “Just one left, sir, but I think it’s going to hit,” Spinelli said. “Somewhere aft.”

 “Brace yourselves,” Marshall said as the missile slammed into Alamo’s hull, a brief taste of the devastation they had just unleashed. “Where did they get us, Prentis?”

 The flight engineer looked up at his status report, frowned, then said, “Aft sensors, sir. Bandwidth in that area’s almost gone.”

 “Aft? Why hit that area?” Caine said. “Salvo ready, firing!”

 Alamo rocked again as the second batch of missiles sped away into the night, closing rapidly on their target, another hitherto undamaged ship that turned to try and outpace them, knowing that it would only buy them a few seconds more of life. This time the escape pods spilled out into space as soon as the salvo was launched.

 “They’re not even trying this time,” Steele said.

 “Sensible commander, trying to save his men.”

 “Two against one,” Caine said, “I like those odds a lot better than four to one.”

 “This battle isn’t over yet,” Marshall said, shaking his head. “Get Cooper on the horn, I want him ready in case those troopers touch down. We can’t afford for them to hit any critical areas of the ship.”

 “On it, sir,” Steele said. 

 “Picking up speed nicely, Captain,” Tyler reported. “Four thousand miles from the hendecaspace point, and distance increasing fast. Remaining active battlecruisers are closing on our position, trying for an intercept.”