“Four shuttles shouldn’t have been able to in a stand-up fight,” Osadar agreed. “I can’t spot any damage to the shuttles, but the jamming could be blocking that. I don’t see anything unusual on visual. We have to take into account there could be more shuttles on the other side of the missile-ship. Or maybe there’s something else besides a shuttle hiding there.”
With his fingers, Marten squeezed the back of Osadar’s chair. He’d been counting on the missile-ship. The idea of cruising to the Sun Station in the patrol boats while wearing combat-armor…there were better ways to commit suicide, faster ways than radiation poisoning.
“Why are they jamming?” he asked.
“The obvious reason would be to keep any signals from leaving the missile-ship,” Osadar said, “including distress signals or a file about what happened out here.”
“Four Highborn shuttles, a destroyed shield to the SU warship and jamming,” Marten said. “The implication is clear: the Highborn have captured the missile-ship or they are in the process of capturing it.”
A frown appeared on Osadar’s senso-mask. “I hope you are not envisioning another of your mad schemes.”
“We have two patrol boats and a little over eighty space marines.”
“Poor odds against Highborn,” Osadar said. “There are potentially more Highborn than Jovians.”
“Maybe,” Marten said. “Our ace card is that we see them and they don’t see us.”
“That is an assumption.”
“Granted,” said Marten.
“I’m afraid to ask, but what are you suggesting?”
Marten’s features tightened. Ah Chen’s revelation about the Sun Station had changed his thinking back on Earth. It had shown him that at least one Highborn played a deeper game. Before, it had merely been enough to defeat the cyborgs, to keep humanity from extinction. Now he wondered if he could gain a larger victory. Social Unity was breaking apart. The stress of war had shaken the pillars of society. If someone like him could control a Sun Station, maybe he could help affect greater changes. Why did people have to remain slaves to a deadening socialist system or slaves to a so-called master race?
“We need the missile-ship,” Marten said.
“Your reasoning escapes me,” Osadar said. “We need stealth against the Sun Station. How does one sneak up on such a station with a missile-ship?”
“That’s the easy part,” Marten said, “by flanking the enemy.”
Osadar studied him. “You mean maneuvering onto the other side of the Sun as the station, and rushing around it in close orbit?”
“Right.”
“It is a tactically sound idea,” Osadar said. “Providing the ship can withstand the heat and radiation. But I must point out that Highborn presumably possess your needed ship.”
“I read the situation otherwise,” Marten said, with a tight grin. “I spy SU rebels using stolen Highborn craft. We must help our allies and repel the enemy.”
Osadar stared at him. “You don’t really believe that.”
“It will be my story if we fail.”
“If we fail, we’ll be dead.”
“I need the missile-ship,” Marten said, his tone hardening.
“You actually mean to pit Jovian space marines against Highborn commandoes, likely a greater number of Highborn?”
Marten nodded.
“How do you propose achieving victory?”
“We’re going to have to risk using our engines,” Marten said. “We’re going to do it now at the farthest distance possible, nudging us onto an intercept course.”
“If we use the engines, they will detect us.”
“It’s a risk, as I said. But maybe they’re so busy jamming the warship, trying to capture it, that they’ll fail to spot us.”
“That is doubtful,” Osadar said.
Marten ignored her. He’d already made his decision.
***
After informing the others of the plan, Marten, Nadia and Osadar took their places. Marten piloted, Nadia ran weapons and Osadar tracked the enemy.
Marten flexed his fingers as a sense of urgency filled him. This was it. He needed the missile-ship. Otherwise, heading to the Sun Station was a suicide mission, something he’d avoided until now. Capturing the
Bangladesh
had been the nearest thing he’d ever done to a suicide mission, and he didn’t even like thinking about that time.
“Here we go,” he whispered. He engaged the ion engine. There was a hum from the back of the boat. The
William Tell
began to vibrate and a bump pushed him against his chair. It wasn’t fast acceleration with many Gs, but a gentle pushing as the boat moved onto a new heading.
Every second the engine burned was another second the Highborn could spot them on their sensors.
Nadia tapped a control.
Outside, metallic clamps unlatched. There was another bump from outside and a shudder ran through the boat.
“The decoy has deployed,” Nadia said.
Marten nodded. Their vessel had carried a decoy. The other patrol boat possessed a large S-80 drone, a Social Unity weapon.
The seconds ticked by on the chronometer. Then a light flashed on the screen and Marten switched off the engine. Three seconds later, the other patrol boat did likewise.
“We’re on an intercept course,” Marten said.
No one else spoke, not even the space marines in back. They were heading for a showdown against Highborn. Had the enemy seen the brief flares of ion engines?
Marten glanced at Osadar. The cyborg watched the sensors. She must not see anything unusual yet, or she would have said something.
“I hate the waiting,” Marten whispered.
The waiting continued for another forty-seven hours.
The decoy was in the lead. It ran silent like the other boats. At the end of the forty-seven hours, the S-80 drone drifted away from the second patrol boat.
The situation over there had become much clearer. The missile-ship was the
Mao Zedong
. The spaceship had thick particle-shields, except for the obliterated one. The jaggedness of the edges of the other shields beside the demolished one indicated missiles had repeatedly blasted through the mass. The lettering on some of the visible hull had given them the ship’s name.
Highborn occasionally used thruster-packs to flit from a shuttle to the missile-ship or vice versa. Once, three Highborn in vacc-suits maneuvered a big piece of equipment onto the
Mao Zedong
.
“Are they repairing it?” Nadia asked.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Marten said.
The hours passed and now the patrol boats coasted to within one thousand kilometers of the missile-ship.
Marten began to slither into his equipment. The combat-vacc-suit used articulated metal and ceramic-plate armor. A rigid, biphase carbide-ceramic corselet protected the torso, while articulated plates of BPC covered the arms and legs. He had an IML: Infantry Missile Launcher. It fired the trusty Cognitive missiles. He would also bring a gyroc rifle with extra ammo. Unlike the assault onto the planet-wrecker, each space marine would have a thruster-pack. Hopefully, they would be alive long enough to use it.
Waiting to don his helmet, Marten floated behind Nadia. She wore a silver vacc-suit minus the helmet as she sat at the weapons chair.
“This is it,” he said.
Nadia turned around and pushed up to him. Gripping him fiercely, she kissed him. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too,” he said.
She touched his cheek. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Marten Kluge.”
He nodded grimly. The idea the Highborn might destroy the patrol boats in the next few minutes, killing his wife… “Let’s get started,” he said gruffly.
She kissed him again, hard. Then Nadia let go and climbed back into her seat. She took a deep breath. “I’ll need the decoy’s radar for this.”
“I know,” he said.
“Osadar?” asked Nadia.
“Ready,” the cyborg said. She ran the decoy.
“Now,” Nadia whispered.
Osadar turned on the decoy’s radar. It pulsed, waiting to acquire precision targeting data. In moments, the data flowed into the
William Tell’s
computer.
Nadia fired the point-defense cannons. Each shot used depleted uranium pellets as ammunition. The cannons were primarily meant to intercept incoming missiles, drones or torpedoes. Today, Nadia targeted two of the shuttles. The other patrol boat fired at the other two HB shuttles.
Time crawled with agonizing slowness as the pellets zoomed toward target.
Then Osadar said, “One of the shuttles is starting its engine.”
“They’ve seen us,” Marten said. “Use the drone.”
Seconds later, the S-80 burned hot. It accelerated toward the enemy, rapidly gaining velocity.
“Another shuttle has started its engine,” Osadar said. Her fingers moved across the sensor equipment.
Ahead of them and visible through the ballistic glass an ion engine burned. It was the decoy. It turned away from the missile-ship, heading out as if fleeing.
On Osadar’s screen, two shuttles began to move.
“No,” Marten whispered.
“A hit!” Nadia shouted. “The cannons hit one of the shuttles.”
A beep sounded on Osadar’s equipment.
“What’s that?” Marten asked.
Osadar studied the readings. “Sand-blaster,” she said.
Marten nodded. He’d heard of that, sand shot in a cloud. The idea was that a particle of sand would hit shrapnel or a cannon pellet and deflect the incoming object just enough to miss the ship.
Then the S-80 drone exploded. It was a shape-charged nuclear drone. The blast, heat and radiation would primarily go forward in a ninety-degree arc at the enemy.
Everyone in the
William Tell
donned his or her helmet.
“We surprised them,” Osadar said.
Even as she spoke, enemy missiles accelerated at them from one of the supposedly destroyed shuttles.
A painful knot tightened Marten’s stomach. Shuttles and patrol boats lacked the size for big engines. Therefore, they lacked lasers or particle beam weapons. For them, it was missiles, anti-missiles and cannons. It meant you could kill your enemy and from the grave, as it were, your enemy’s pre-launched weapons could still come and destroy you.
“Ready the cannons,” Marten said.
Nadia nodded.
An object brighter than a star appeared outside the window. Marten knew he witnessed one of the missile’s exhaust plumes. Then a second and third “bright star” appeared, rushing toward them and quickly growing bigger.
“The first missile is headed for the decoy,” Nadia said.
Marten clutched his IML. He began shaking his head, as if by his thoughts he could deflect the missile from their boat.
“The second missile is also headed for the decoy,” Nadia said. “Oh no,” she whispered. “The last one is heading here.”
Twenty second later, a bloom of brightness showed the HB missile destroying the decoy. As the flare of it died down, they saw the last “bright star” headed toward them.
The point-defense cannons began to chug from both patrol boats.
Fourteen seconds later, Nadia said, “I think we disabled it.”
She was wrong, or wrong enough that it didn’t matter. A pellet hit the missile. Then the missile exploded. Thankfully, it did not explode with a nuclear detonation. At extreme velocities, shrapnel spread in a small cloud. Although the
William Tell
was in the lead, none of the enemy shrapnel hit it.
Four pieces, however, pierced the skin of the second patrol boat. One of the pieces cut an ion coil, letting coolant spread in a vapor. The same piece of shrapnel the size of a pinky-fingernail sliced through a heating unit. When the vapor touched the hot surface of the unit, an explosion occurred because of the oxygen seeping in from the living quarters. The explosion caused an overload in the remixing core, and it ignited, obliterating the Jovian craft in an impressive detonation. Forty-two space marines died, most of them cooked in their combat-suits. The others died as debris smashed through their faceplates.
On the
William Tell
, Marten closed his eyes. His marines’ death numbed a little more of his heart. The war was so unrelenting: modern battle so unbelievably deadly.
“A Centurion Titus is hailing us,” Osadar said.
“We didn’t kill all the shuttles?” Marten asked, his voice betraying his bitterness.
“The jamming has stopped,” Osadar said. “I don’t detect any more missile launches.” She turned around. “The signal is coming from the
Mao Zedong
.”
“Let’s hear it,” Marten said.
Osadar put in on the boat’s speakers.
Marten opened his helmet’s visor. The deepness and arrogance of the voice told him a Highborn spoke.
“You are weak warriors, striking from the dark,” Centurion Titus said. “You fear to face us man-to-man. Very well, face the ship’s weapons then.”
“The
Mao Zedong
is moving,” Osadar said. “I think they’re turning the ship to bring a missile-port to bear.”