Bringing Stella Home (34 page)

With the alarm now muffled by the
noise control systems in his helmet, the boy ran with his platoon
to a long room filled with open vertical caskets, each lined on the
inside with thick cushions. The boy knew that during high-gee
combat maneuvers, these oversized cocoons would keep him and his
brethren safe.

He stepped into the nearest one and
stood still as it shut around him. Through the tactile input relay
in his armored suit, he felt the pressure of the cushions against
his armor. The coffin tightened until he was snug and
immobile.

The respirator in his suit connected
with the coffin unit’s hose, and his lungs filled with
high-pressure, oxygen-rich breathing liquid. At first, he felt as
if he were drowning, but he resisted the urge to cough it up.
Within seconds, the feeling was past.

All noises from outside the coffin
faded until he could hear nothing but the bubbling of his
respirator and the buzzing in his ears.

* * * * *

Danica took in a deep breath and
buried her growing fear and anxiety behind the captain’s mask she
so often wore. In the heat of battle, she could not afford to let
her men see her true emotions—that was a sure recipe for disaster.
If her men knew that she was on the verge cracking, their resolve
would fall apart.

“
Konstantin,” she said,
keeping an eye on the scanner, “I want you to power down everything
but the jump engines and auxiliaries and put the ship on standby
mode. Make us look like a floating derelict.”

“
Yes, sir,” said Mikhail.
He turned to his console and began to furiously type commands into
the computer. The lights in the room dimmed, and the ever-present
hum of the ventilators died into eerie silence.

“
Captain,” said Vaclav,
“are you sure that’s wise? What about our combat
systems?”

“
The auxiliary power will
keep them online long enough to bring them to bear,” Danica
answered. “Are your fighter drones ready?”

“
Yes. We can start
launching the moment you power up the main computer.”

“
Good.”

With luck, the unmanned fighter drones
would give them an edge. The Hameji conquered worlds and defeated
entire navies through perfect coordination of superior firepower,
not the strength of their pilotless fightercraft. With the latest
bootleg Imperial combat algorithms they’d acquired from Balthazar,
Danica wouldn’t be surprised if they took out two or three Hameji
fighters for every casualty of their own. It wouldn’t be decisive,
but it might be enough to get them out of a tough spot.

Besides, the
Tajji Flame
had a few
other tricks up her proverbial sleeve.

“
Systems powering down,”
said Mikhail. “Going on standby in three, two, one. Full
standby.””

The remaining non-essential lights
shut off, leaving the bridge in near total darkness. The stars
seemed dimmer than usual out the forward window; the sun was below
them, out of their view but still close enough to drown out the
starfield.

“
Captain,” Anya announced,
“I have two bogeys, repeat, two bogeys. They jumped in five hundred
klicks dead astern and are closing fast.”

Danica frowned. “Only
two?”
Where’s the third one?

“
That’s right. They’re
accelerating towards us at a rate of—” she squinted as she peered
at the data on her screen, her face silhouetted against the LCD
light, “of fifty meters per second squared and
climbing.”

Five gees,
Danica thought to herself.
Combat speed. Five hundred k-clicks—not close enough. Give
them half a minute—yes, half a minute should do nicely.

But where’s the other damn
ship?

“
Sikorsky,
c
an you get a location on the third
transport? Anything at all?”

Anya toggled the main sensor display.
“No, Captain,” she said. “I’m only picking up the two. The third
one’s outside our local scanning radius.”

They’re holding back from
the action,
Danica thought to
herself.
Providing backup. Waiting to see
what we do.
If she took out the first pair
too quickly, the third might call in for reinforcements. But if she
destroyed only one and disabled the other, the third ship might
attack them while they were attempting the capture. Their best bet
was to wait for the third one to jump in, destroy it, then dock
with the disabled ship and jump out with it in tow.

We can do this.

She glanced down at her command
screen. The Hameji ships were less than three hundred kilometers
away and closing fast. Now was the time to strike.

“
Konstantin, bring up the
gravitic dampers and the mass accelerator cannon. Nicholson, deploy
the fighter drones. Sikorsky, bring the nose around and prepare to
target the enemy.”

“
Mass accelerator cannon?”
James exclaimed. “You’ve got a mass accelerator on this
ship?”

Danica couldn’t help but smile. “Yes,
Ensign,” she said. “You’ve discovered our secret
weapon.”

A custom-built miniature
mass-accelerator had been fitted to the
Tajji Flame
, running the length of
the mid-sized freighter. It was nowhere near wide enough to launch
an asteroid, but was just the right size for half-meter ball
bearings—and powerful enough to accelerate those projectiles to
lethal speeds. A direct hit could cut through two meters of plated
durasteel hull like a sniper round through a water
balloon.

“
Cannon and gravitic
dampers online, Captain!” Mikhail called out. “We’re
ready!”

“
Excellent. Lieutenant
Sikorsky, target the nearest enemy ship.”

“
Yes, Captain!”

Anya had already started to bring the
nose around. The faint starfield spun in the window, and a slight
tug on Danica’s stomach indicated the abrupt shift in rotational
momentum. Behind her, James fell to the floor; she glanced over her
shoulder and saw that his cheeks were pale.

Not used to combat
maneuvers,
she mused.

“
Fighter drones deployed
and in formation,” Vaclav announced. “Orders, captain?”

She glanced at the battle
screen. The three fighter squadrons formed a triangle, with
the
Tajji Flame
in
the center. The Hameji were slowing down and launching fighters,
but hadn’t yet brought them into formation. To Danica’s delight,
they appeared to be making evasive maneuvers. Two hundred
kilometers was too close for them to safely use their heavier
munitions, but too far to effectively target them with their
precision weaponry.

She had them right in the sweet
spot.

“
Send the first two
squadrons to intercept the further transport and its fighter
contingent,” Danica ordered. “Order the third to give us a loose
escort.”

“
Acknowledged,” said
Vaclav. The dozens of screens surrounding his chair spun with views
of the starfield as he relayed the commands to his fighters. As
they cycled through the camera feeds of the individual drones, she
admired her flight lieutenant’s skill. Each cone-shaped fighter
flew tightly in sync with at least two others, no doubt giving the
appearance on the enemy’s scanners that both squadrons were little
more than two or three flights.

“
Target acquired,” said
Anya. “One hundred eighty klicks and making evasive maneuvers.”
Outside the forward window, the stars stopped spinning.

“
Fire.”

The floors trembled and shook. Through
the walls, the engines roared to life. Just as the sound reached
its climax, the whole ship lurched. Danica reached out and braced
herself against the back of her chair, but otherwise made no
motion. The half-meter ball bearing was too small and dark to be
visible, but on her screen, a red line traced the path of the
improvised bullet as it shot toward its target.

“
Five seconds to impact,”
Anya said. “Four, three—”

“
Cannon loaded and ready!”
said Mikhail.

“
Fire again.”

“
Firing.”

The engines roared, the walls shook,
and another deadly projectile disappeared into the darkness of
space.

“
Shit,” Anya muttered. “Our
first shot missed. Adjusting launch trajectory—”

“
Keep firing.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

Four more shots issued from the mass
accelerator cannon. The floor rumbled as if a beast were loose on
the ship.

“
Come on,” Anya moaned.
“Come
on
,
dammit…”

“
Steady,” said Danica, her
muscles tightening. “Don’t lose it, Sikorsky.”

“
Almost there…almost—yes!
Hit, direct hit!”

The point of light on Danica’s screen
broke apart like a fizzling firecracker. A cheer rose across the
bridge, and Danica allowed herself a sigh of relief.

“
Nicholson,” she said,
“give me an update.”

“
The first and second
squadrons are approximately one hundred kilometers from the
target,” he said. “Enemy squadrons moving to intercept. Estimated
time to contact, one minute.”

“
Excellent. Ayvazyan, can
you hack their drones?”

“
Yeah,” said Ilya. “At
least the ones from the destroyed ship, that’s for sure. Give me
five minutes and I might be able to give us full remote
access.”

“
We don’t have five
minutes, Lieutenant,” said Danica. “Just shut them down,
fast.”

“
Gotcha. I’m on
it.”

If they could cut the
enemy’s fighter contingent in half, the battle would be theirs.
Vaclav could send the third squadron to disable the surviving
Hameji ship while the first and second mopped up the surviving
drones—perhaps they could jump out with the disabled second ship
before the third one even showed up. The
Tajji Flame
wouldn’t even get a
scratch; their victory would be immaculate.

Why, then, did something feel
wrong?

“
Sikorsky, what’s the
status on our jump drives?”

“
Almost fully charged,
Captain,” said Anya. “Two more minutes, and we’ll be
there.”

“
Good. Set the rendezvous
point as our destination and start the preparations for
jump.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

“
Five seconds to
intercept,” said Vaclav. “Engaging in three, two, one.
Contact.”

The dozens of screens at his station
spun and flashed with light as the fighter drones engaged. A
handful of screens went out, turning to gray static before
switching to the next available feed. Though the drones’ dance was
soundless and deathless, there was always something ominous in the
way those screens flickered and cut out.

“
Dammit,” said Vaclav,
“we’re losing fast! They must have better programming than
I’d—”

“
Ayvazyan,
report.”

“
Almost there,” said Ilya.
“And…gotcha!”

He triumphantly jabbed his index
finger onto his primary keypad. On Danica’s screen, several dozen
specks from the firefight flew outward in perfectly straight
lines—derelict Hameji fighter drones doomed to hurtle forever
through space in the direction of their last maneuver.

Vaclav laughed. “Haha—that got
‘em!”

“
Nicholson, how do we
look?”

“
The enemy’s reduced to
only a couple squadrons—we outnumber them now by fifty percent.
Kill ratio is climbing—we’re taking out three of theirs for every
one of ours.”

“
Excellent,” said Danica.
“Send the third squadron to engage and disable the surviving
transport. Target the weapons and engines, but do as little damage
as you can.”

“
Acknowledged,” said
Vaclav. He leaned forward and attacked his work with a
vengeance.

“
Sikorsky, bring us closer
to the Hameji transport. Set the engines to full throttle—we’ve got
only a short window for this dock-and-carry.”

“
How short,
Captain?”

“
Shorter than you think.
Let’s move.”

“
Yes, Captain, but the
soonest I can do is five minutes.”

Damn.

“
Then make it four—just get
us over there.”

“
Engaging Hameji assault
ship,” said Vaclav. “Arriving in two, one—”

Across nearly a dozen screens, the
dark gray bulk of the enemy ship came into sight. Tracers and
proximity explosives flashed soundlessly across the screens, but
enough of the fighters survived to lay down a coordinated plasma
strafing run. Within seconds, the screens blurred as the fighters
came around for another pass.

“
Squadron three’s taking
heavy casualties,” said Vaclav, “but most of their short-range
weapons are down. Two more good strafes, and she’s
ours.”

“
Excellent.”

“
Captain, I’m detecting a
Hameji broadcast,” said Anya. “It looks like a distress
signal.”