Gestapo Mars (8 page)

One of the admiral’s eyebrows raised itself into a question mark as he turned toward the junior officer at his scanning station. “Could it be the carrier group returning for some reason?”

The ensign shook his head. “Sir, I think maybe it’s—”

“New group of signals at mark point eight off the port side,” another officer shouted from a different scanning station.

“I have nine ships at mark point one,” a third officer shouted.

“Himmler’s nuts!” The admiral rushed to the main scanner display, bent over the viewer to take a look. “I want a full count, and I want it right fucking now!”

A long scary moment passed.

“Forty-five ships inbound,” the third officer said. She was a handsome, middle-aged woman with a shocking streak of white through one side of her black hair. “All Coriandon.”

“
S
ound general quarters!” A second later the red alert klaxon sounded through the ship as the bridge erupted with activity.

“Tell the gunship crews they have ninety seconds to detach,” the admiral shouted over the klaxon alarm. “They’re sitting ducks if they don’t maneuver.” He seemed to remember us at the last minute, and pointed at a pair of thrust loungers off to the side. “Strap in. It’s about to get bumpy.”

Meredith and I threw ourselves into the padded chairs. I quickly scanned the bridge from my new vantage point.

“Trade seats with me,” I told Meredith.

“Why?”

“I can see more of the scanners from where you are.”

We traded places and buckled the straps across our chests.

I opened my senses and, as always, everything slowed, the training absorbing every particle of information and making a picture out of it. The blips from the multiple scanner screens, the orders barked back and forth between the officers, technical readouts of inbound ships, the bright pinpoints of thrust as those ships grew in the viewports. The training latched onto each puzzle piece, arranged them all into a clear picture of the impending battle.

“Nine more ships just dropped out of translight,” the ensign shouted.

“Bastards must’ve been watching, and waiting for the carrier group to jump to translight,” the admiral said. “We must have missed a spy buoy when we swept the area. They’ve got stones the size of asteroids if they think they can take on a battle hulk, but with over fifty ships, they might just do it.”

“Sir, I recommend a fleet-wide distress call,” the first officer said. “A few extra ships—”

“Wouldn’t get here in time,” the admiral said. “Only the carrier group is close enough to respond, and calling them back would leave the colonies exposed—which might be just what they want. We’re the whole show, people!”

“Missiles incoming!”

“Count?”

“Two-hundred sixty three,” the first officer reported. “They are likely coming in light to test our counter-measures.”

“Oblige them,” the admiral said. “Give them a scatter spread, nice wide dispersal.”

Four dozen scatter-spheres blasted from the battle hulk and streaked toward the incoming cluster of missiles. Three seconds later they exploded directly in front of the missiles, creating a “buckshot” effect. Every one of the enemy missiles hit one of the flying pieces of debris and detonated harmlessly, still several thousand miles from the battle hulk.

“I want a return spread,” the admiral barked. “Target the forward dozen ships.”

Four hundred missiles erupted from the battle hulk and hurtled toward the enemy group. A few seconds later, outer space around the enemy ships flashed and twinkled like hundreds of miniature supernovas.

“Their counter-measures destroyed all of our missiles,” the third officer announced, still bent over her scanning station. “But ten of the other ships had to join in to catch them all.”

“We’re still going to have to go dumb,” the admiral said. “All gun crews report to stations.”

“Gun crews report to stations,” the first officer repeated into the ship’s intercom. “We’re going dumb. Repeat,
we are going dumb
!”

I’d almost forgotten about dumb warfare, a common practice even back in my time. It had been at the height of an old twenty-year war with the Akrohn Empire, and had been invented by the intrepid and headstrong Captain John Luke Pishman.

At the time, Pishman had been patrolling a backwater sector of space in a twenty-five-year-old frigate, recently updated with modern equipment. An Akrohn dreadnaught had dropped out of translight and had immediately opened fire. Pishman’s alert crew had launched counter-measures, saving the ship from the surprise attack just in time. They returned fire, only to find that the dreadnaught had equally effective counter-measures. For six days the two ships dueled, floating three hundred thousand miles apart. Each ship deflected the other’s missiles, jammed the other’s targeting electronics, absorbed the other’s laser blasts.

They couldn’t lay a finger on each other.

It was all too clear what had happened. As smart bombs and smart weapons got smarter and smarter over the decades, they’d finally reached the point where they totally negated each other.

Once Pishman had made his decision, he didn’t hesitate. The older, smaller frigate had just a single advantage over the dreadnaught—it could accelerate much faster. Pishman ordered the frigate to move within point blank range, at which time he launched a dozen freezers full of Swanson frozen turkey dinners out of the forward airlocks.

The freezers had no sophisticated electronics to jam, so the Akrohn sailors could do nothing but watch helplessly with their double-mouths hanging open as the freezers slammed into their engines, utterly destroying them. Pishman then knocked a hole in the dreadnaught’s hull with the reclining easy chair from his own cabin. After rendering the Akrohn’s laser weapons inert with an EMP, Pishman led the boarding party himself, going through the hole in the dreadnaught’s hull to bludgeon the Akrohn sailors to death with cricket bats. (Pishman’s crew had won the fleet cricket championship three years running.)

Now Vice Admiral Ashcroft, like so many others before him, followed in Pishman’s footsteps, though without the cricket bats.

“Move us in among them,” the admiral ordered. “They’ll have to risk shooting each other if they want to have at us.”

“Another group of inbound missiles,” the first officer announced. “They still want to do it the easy way, but our counter-measures took care of them.” She peered at her screen, then added, “I see gun ports opening now on the lead ships. I think they’re taking the hint.”

“Tell the pocket gunships to position themselves aft,” the admiral said. “I want them running interference for anything targeting our engines.” The battle hulk barreled into the swarm of frigates, and within a second the enemy was all around us. The ship shook with the impact of their guns.

“Open our gun ports,” the admiral shouted. “Fire as they bear!”

Six hundred gun ports opened across the hull of the battle hulk. The dumb projectiles were lead spheres about the size of bowling balls, shot with magnetic launchers. It was strictly line of sight, point and shoot. There were also elaborate hydraulic and compressed air systems to fire the guns, in case power to the mag launchers was cut.

The battle hulk fired, lead shot blasting in every direction. An enemy frigate which had moved in close off the port side, attempting to target the bridge, was instantly shredded, the high-speed lead balls ripping through the hull as if it had been made of tissue paper. Another half dozen ships around it veered off as their hulls were peppered with shot.

The battle hulk rocked and shuddered with impacts from enemy fire.

“Explosive decompression in sections fourteen through twenty-one,” the first officer shouted.

“Seal it off,” the admiral said. “Deploy the damage control bots.”

The battle hulk emerged from the other side of the swarm of frigates, then swung around for another pass, inertia dampers keeping us in our seats.

“How’d we do?” the admiral asked.

“Four enemy ships destroyed,” reported the first officer. “Another dozen severely damaged.”

“Let’s give them another taste.”

“They’re forming up a little better this time, sir.” There was the slightest edge of warning in the first officer’s voice.

“Full speed ahead!”

The battle hulk plunged back into the fray. An enemy frigate placed itself directly in our path, and was blasted to pieces. The debris bounced off our hull, shaking us.

The Coriandons concentrated their fire forward on the starboard side, at least a dozen ships firing their broadsides at once. The impacts would have knocked us out of our seats if we hadn’t been strapped in. Meredith yelped and grabbed my arm, forgetting her anger for the moment.

Another volley rocked us, and I was thrown against the safety straps so hard I wrenched my neck. The bridge lights dimmed, but came back on immediately. More impacts shook the battle hulk. There was an explosion on the far side of the bridge and quickly the place filled with smoke. Somebody shouted “medic” as the auto-extinguishers hosed down the flames.

“Vents!” the first officer shouted.

The smoke cleared, and I saw the admiral pick himself up off the deck, rubbing at a bloody gash over his left eye.

“Bastards,” he said. “Take us out of here! Position us between the enemy ships and the wormhole. Keep our port side toward the enemy. The starboard side is toast!”

The ship shook with another barrage as we maneuvered away. This time the lights went out and stayed that way, the emergency reds coming on and washing us all in a hellish glow.

“Report!”

“I’ve already told work crews to re-route power,” the first officer said. “Engines are good at ninety percent, but we lost one of the pocket gunships in that last pass. No functioning weaponry on the starboard side. Explosive decompression in almost every section of that half of the ship.”

“Make sure everyone gets into a P-suit,” the admiral ordered. “What about the enemy?”

“Twenty-two ships remaining. The rest are destroyed or damaged enough to retire.”

“Twenty-two. That’s too many,” the admiral muttered. “Damn it. Just too many.”

“They’re taking up attack positions,” the first officer said.

I unstrapped my harness, then unstrapped Meredith’s, and took her by the hand.

“Come on. We’re leaving.”

“What!?” It was the closest thing to panic I’d yet heard in her voice.

The admiral noticed us, surprise plain on his face. “Where the hell are you going?”

“The situation has changed, Admiral,” I said, “but I still have a mission. I’m going to take Miss Capulet’s yacht and try for the wormhole.”

“It’s suicide,” the admiral said flatly. “They’ll be on you before you get a hundred yards.”

“I’m going to try a hot start,” I said. “I think I can make the wormhole.”

We met each other’s eyes, and in that second both of us knew the score. Under normal circumstances, I would ease the yacht out with maneuvering thrusters and then accelerate once I was clear of the battle hulk. A hot start meant I was going to hit full thrust while still in the hangar bay, blasting out at top speed, more or less destroying the hangar bay in the process.

Telling the admiral I was going to attempt such a maneuver was basically like telling him his ship was doomed anyway, so it didn’t matter.

The fact that he didn’t stop me meant he knew it, too.

“I’ll have the remaining gunship cover you,” the admiral said. “Whatever your mission is, I hope it’s worth it.”

I flipped him a two-finger salute. “Good luck to you, Admiral. And thanks.”

He was already barking orders at his crew again as Meredith and I left the bridge at a run. The ship rocked with the next salvo as we sprinted down the main corridor on the port side, the impact knocking us off our feet and sending us skidding across the deck. I recovered first, grabbed Meredith under one arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Keep moving!”

“My knee!” She winced.

“The admiral’s faced this side of the ship toward the attack,” I said. “If these compartments decompress, they’ll seal us off, and then our ride’s over real quick.”

“Help me,” she said. “I can make it, damn it.”

I half-dragged her along as she limped and cursed to the hatchway leading down to the hangar bay. The lifts were all offline so we had an awkward climb down the metal ladder. She favored the twisted knee all the way.

There were several huge explosions, and the decompression alarm sounded as we hit the hangar bay deck. I could feel the air being sucked out, and knew we only had a few seconds. I dragged Meredith into the yacht, and she screamed pain all the way, her eyes overflowing fat tears that ran down her cheeks. I slapped the
DOOR CLOSED
button with my palm, and the airlock sealed behind us.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “There wasn’t time.”

“It’s okay.” She swallowed a sob, dropped into a lounger and slowly rubbed her knee. “Damn, it hurts. I’m going to need a med patch or something.”

“As soon as we’re out of here,” I promised, “I’ll fix you up.”

“Go do what you have to do,” she said. “I’ll strap in here.”

I bolted for the cockpit, and strapped myself in as another volley of dumb fire rocked the battle hulk. Debris clanged onto the hangar deck beside the yacht. If more debris fell in front of us and blocked the bay door, we’d be trapped. I told our ship’s computer to tell the battle hulk’s computer to open the bay door, and for a long, nervous second I thought maybe nobody was left alive to approve clearance.

At last, the bay door began to slide open.

I told the yacht’s computer to skip preflight and fire the engines to full power. When the bay door was completely open I hit full thrust as the yacht shot out of the bay, riding a plume of fire.

Instantly we were thick into the center of the battle, parts of glowing Coriandon frigates floating past. In the rearview monitor I caught sight of the battle hulk. The damage to the enormous vessel was almost beyond comprehension. Three enemy ships maneuvered close to concentrate fire on the forward section.

The rearview clouded over with the shadow of an approaching ship, and I was relieved to see it was the surviving pocket gunship, on its way to cover our escape. I pointed the yacht directly at the wormhole and kept to full thrust, redlining the engines and threatening to overheat most of the systems.