Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (12 page)

“Captain,” chittered Lofty Flyer from her Navigation station. “Two of the Collector ships are launching pods! The pods are entering atmosphere and heading toward the Earth provinces of Japan and British Columbia.”

That surprised Bill. He’d thought the starships would spend more time hunting down surface navy ships and missile launching subs. This development was encouraging. It moved up the timeline for their pods to enter the enemy ships.

Jane slammed a fist on her armrest. “Damn slavers! Fleet, we leave now for our strafing attack! Transports, use your lasers against any pods you can reach. We on
Blue Sky
will go after the Collector ships!” The woman who had the manner of an officer born to command gestured forward. “Navigator, take us up over the north pole of Earth! Make our altitude 500 miles above sea level. Transports and subs, follow us!”

“Magfield engines moving us up and out,” hissed black-skinned Time Marker as he used his neck fringe tentacles to tap in commands on the top of his control pillar.

“Life Support parameters are stable,” barked Wind Swift as the silver-scaled kangaroo leaned back on her thick tail. Red eyes looked Bill’s way, as if she wanted to do more to support the fight.

He understood her anxiety. The reptilian Alien had worked as an asteroid belt mining engineer in her home system. She was used to doing rather than watching others do. But among his five Alien crewmates, only the work of Lofty Flyer at Navigation, Long Walker at Collector Pods and Time Marker at Engines was relevant to a fight in space. While Bright Sparkle’s role in managing the ship’s three fusion power plants was vital to powering the lasers, MITV railgun launchers, the plasma batteries and the antimatter projector, still, the color-banded woman likely felt passive in the face of the actions taken by him, Richardson and Jane. That passive feeling was likely why Wind Swift had spoken up.

“Thank you Wind Swift,” Jane said calmly, her command instincts finding time to reassure Bill’s crewmate. “You provide the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. You were vital in adjusting the Greenery Chamber oxygen output to accommodate the 18 temporary guests we had. Without you, none of the rest of us could fight this upcoming battle. Or the battle we fought out beyond the Moon.” His wife nodded to him. “Weapons Chief, can our rear lasers deflect enough to fire downward even as our nose lasers are firing?”

“They cannot,” Bill replied as he scanned the ship outline in his Weapons holo at the upper left of his station. “Our nose and tail lasers are slightly mobile, but not like the WWII Sperry ball turrets whose globe could rotate and aim across 180 degrees.” A thought hit him. “But if Lofty Flyer can set the
Blue Sky
to flipping tail over nose in a constant roll as we come into firing range, I can use all four lasers for rapid firing on the Collector ships.”

Jane looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Do it that way! And flipping this ship in a continuous roll will reduce the hull exposure to any laser counterfire. Right Star Traveler?”

“You are correct,” the AI hummed low, its tone sounding warm, almost friendly. “While the adaptive optics seeded into our hull can deflect glancing laser strikes, head-on strikes will penetrate. As we saw in the Kepler 443 battle. Rolling the ship will reduce the exposure time for any section of the hull.”

“Weapons Chief,” called Richardson. “I admire your determination to use all your lasers. But won’t this rolling disorient you?”

Bill almost laughed. He didn’t. The CNO had not spent nine months in space like he and Jane and their crew. “I will not be disoriented. My Weapons fire control image will be provided by our spysat imagery. Which is stationary. While I like seeing true space directly from our electro-optical telescopes, I’ll take targeting data from any source I can! And the spysat allows this ship to go to a constant roll in space without any bother to me. With the benefit of an increase in our laser firing rate.”

The man blinked gray eyes, then grinned. “Oh. Stupid of me. I had forgotten about that spysat. Which of course is neutrino signaling to us the image we now see of the far side of Earth.”

“Which side is now coming into direct line of sight,” Jane said loudly. “Vice admiral, tell your subs to launch Harpoons, ASROCs and SUBROCs at any ship
except
the tail-end Charlie ship. Which is highlighted in green. Their fire control officers are getting the same spysat feed we are seeing.”

The stocky man leaned forward, his vacsuit sliding over his broad chest. The man tapped his Liaison control pillar. “Captains Baraka and Leonard, launch half of your remaining rockets against these Collector ships after our warhead barrage detonates!”

“Admiral!” called Baraka. “Do we launch our last Trident?”

“No, hold that for later,” the CNO said quickly.

Bill heard and appreciated what Jane and the CNO were doing. But his attention was elsewhere. The system graphic holo showed three clusters of yellow dots converging on the six starships. Those were the MITV warheads launched on a polar arc by
Blue Sky
and the Trident warheads launched on equatorial vectors by
Louisiana
. The
Minnesota’s
Standard 2 warheads showed in the graphic coming up from the South Pole, but they would arrive five minutes after the first three clusters came within laser range of the starships. Which was now. His true space holo of the Collector ships showed green flares popping up like popcorn all around the curve of Earth as the Aliens fired lasers at the incoming warheads. That would not do. The point of launching 300 warheads at once was to overwhelm the defensive fire of the Collectors.

“Captain, those 24 lasers of the Collectors are taking out warheads faster than I expected. Your orders?”

Jane grimaced. “Have the closest warheads go to detonation. Those are our MITV thermonukes and the nearer sub nukes. They will create a cloud of fusion plasma that will disrupt later laser fire.”

Bill tapped his pillar’s Fire Control surface. “Detonating closest warheads. Which makes for a hundred thermonuke blasts. The x-ray laser warhead cluster is following behind,” Bill said.

“Good. Advise me of the results,” she said.

A new sun took shape above and to either side of the six Collector ships as the fusion plasma fireballs of the hydrogen thermonuclear warheads detonated in airless space. Whatever the kiloton or megaton level of each warhead, they produced spheres of infrared light, visible yellow light and golden plasma fireballs, all while spreading high-energy neutrons, gamma rays, neutrinos and medium-hard x-rays in a shell of radiation. Sadly, the inverse-square law that Bill had learned about months ago from Bright Sparkle now limited the strength of those rads. While all the warheads were within 4,000 miles of the enemy ships, none were close by like the one that had nearly hit the hull of the tail-end Charlie ship. A few green flares showed here and there as gaps opened in the plasma gas cloud that lay between the ships and the oncoming warheads. Bill felt encouragement. Then dismay as his system graphic reported bad news.

“Captain, our spysat reports all six ships have fired their antimatter projectors at the incoming warheads.”

“Crap!” she said, her expression in the comlink holo showing frustration. “But the antimatter comes in coherent beams. Plenty of room for misses. So some warheads will not be vaporized, right?”

“You are correct,” the ship AI hummed from the ceiling. “However, the plasma cloud from the multiple detonations is no barrier to antimatter beams. Any solid object within 4,000 miles of a Collector ship that is hit will undergo total matter-to-energy conversion. That will create many tiny stars.”

“Captain,” Bill called. “My fire control is counting the number of destroyed warheads. We lost 47 to the first round of laser counterfire, then a hundred in the simultaneous detonation. Which leaves about 150 warheads still intact and incoming, including the x-ray laser warheads and the Standard 2 warheads coming up from the South Pole. The Standards have crossed over the equator and are now within targeting range of the Collector ships.”

“Captain Jane,” called Lofty Flyer from Navigation. “This ship and allied ships are now above Earth’s North Pole. Shortly our ships will be in direct line of sight of the Collector ships.”

Bill could see that from his system graphic holo. With Earth’s circumference being 24,900 miles, the great circle distance from the north to south poles would be half that, or a little over 12,000 miles. Their distance from the North Pole to the equator was now 6,000 miles. The Collector ships lay at 20 degrees north of the equator, which put them closer to his fleet. Fortunately the planet’s curve kept them out of direct line of sight, and laser fire, for the moment. But in two minutes or less they would all be within line of sight targeting by Alien lasers. Which had now resumed laser zapping the incoming warheads. His fire control counter said nine had just died.

“Captain, I’m detonating the remaining warheads to add to the rad impact on Collector ship sensors,” Bill said, touching his Weapons control pillar.

A new golden cloud now appeared on all sides of the Collector ships as 123 warheads detonated. But the detonation had occurred 3,000 miles away from Alien ships, so the only impact would be sleets of radiation.

“Are the x-ray laser warheads still intact?” Jane called.

“They are. They’re at the back of the western grouping,” Bill said. “Uh, the Standards are now within laser zap range.”

“Use those laser warheads now! Before they can be killed,” Jane ordered.

“X-ray laser warheads now detonating,” Bill said.

Twelve tiny suns appeared to one side of the fading plasma cloud that had been formed by the second barrage of standard thermonukes. While x-rays are always invisible to human eyes, the
Blue Sky
had sensors able to track them. On the true space holo he and everyone else now saw twelve golden lines appear suddenly. All hit the tail-end Charlie Collector ship. They hit like a shotgun blast.

“Captain,” called Sky Traveler from the ceiling speaker. “The ship mind on the x-ray target ship reports the intensity of penetrating x-rays ranged from lethal with 15 minutes to disabling within an hour. It projects total disabling of ship crew by the time this ship’s boarding pod arrives.”

“Excellent news,” Jane said, leaning forward as their fleet of five ships crossed over the Bering Strait. “What about the other five ships? Any word from those ship minds?”

“Yes,” the AI hummed low. “They report brief disabling of targeting sensors due to external radiation impacts. Three ships are temporarily sensor blind until their AI replaces their multi-spectral sensors. Which is their emergency programming obligation. Two ships retain full sensor function, though the plasma cloud created by the second wave of detonations is interfering with all ships’ ability to make target lock-on.”

“That means we need to attack now!” Jane growled. “All ships, spread out into Scenario Orion! Fire at will!”

“We’re flipping tail to nose!” Bill said as he tapped his nose lasers Fire Control, aiming at the two ships with still functional sensors. Two bright green lasers zipped across 2,723 miles to hit glancing blows on the two functional Collector ships.

“Ship is in spiral advance mode!” called Lofty Flyer.

As he tapped the
Blue Sky’s
rear lasers to fire, Bill watched the system graphic. On it his ship, the two subs and the two transports were moving sideways and around in a braided spiral vector track that made maximum use of the Magfield engines on each ship. Those engines allowed any ship to jink up, down, sideways, even backward briefly, as all advanced on the string of six Collector ships.

Which now fired back using their own lasers.

Star bright green beams passed to one side of the
Blue Sky
, barely missed the transport
Tall Trees
, missed
Talking Skin
and the
Minnesota
, but hit the rear of the
Louisiana
.

“We’re hit!” called Baraka over the neutrino comlink.

“Where? How bad?” asked Richardson as Bill fired the nose and tail lasers of the
Blue Sky
as if he were tapping out a Ragtime melody on an old-style piano keyboard.

“Lost our tail and screw aft of the main ballast tanks and the hull above auxiliary machinery room two is venting air to space,” Baraka said hurriedly. “Internal hatches closed! We have air in most of the ship. People injuries are two from the machinery room. May be fatal if their suits were breached.”

“Are you able to fight?” Richardson called.

“Yes!” Baraka yelled. “Launching three Harpoons through our forward torpedo tubes.”

“Captain Baraka,” called Jane quickly. “Take your ship out of this engagement
now
! Move to the L4 spot ahead of the Moon. You have little to fight with and I want your people alive to fight another day!”

“Is that a direct order?” Baraka said, sounding reluctant.

“It is! Carry out my order,” Jane said testily.

“Leaving orbit for L4,” Baraka said. “Will advise of repairs status and injuries later.”

Bill tapped his Fire Control panel for the fourth time, sending a new grouping of green laser beams at the two nearest Collector ships. Which were also jinking sideways while counter-firing their lasers at the four remaining ships in his fleet.