Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (17 page)

Chapter 20: You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down…

The battle raged on for the better part of an hour. Lieutenant Stone knew his men must be spent. His newly enhanced replicant body was stronger and faster than anybody he knew aside from Admiral Kimbridge and
he
was getting tired.

He was down to ten scorpions. About half of the ones he had lost were straight out and out kills. Those pilots would be coming out of the bio-generators as new replicants in the next few hours. The rest were in disabled fighters that would need to be rescued by the Aircraft Recovery Teams. Sadly JJ and the
Rogue Nation
were among those that would need rescuing.

It had hurt him to leave his friend behind but the enemy was now less than a light minute from their destination. The only good news was there were only four enemy fighters left. While much of their ordinance was spent, each enemy fighter was itself a fusion bomb. Stone’s MAC team had learned the hard way that the Asktoreth did not allow their fighters to be disabled or captured. They were apparently set to explode in an attempt to take out their attackers as a weapon of last resort.

“Sir, LiDAR has sixteen new targets coming up fast,” Corporal Walker flying the C
hasing Tail
reported between exhausted grunts. The young man was proving to be quite a pilot in his own right. Lieutenant Stone had already decided the man needed to be promoted and put in a leadership position to see what he could do with it.

Stone checked his own LiDAR scanner and confirmed the incoming. His computer changed their designation from unknown to green friendlies as he watched. His squadron comm-link crackled.

“Betty Boop this is Gold Wing Leader. Word has it you have unwanted guests. Permission to join the party.’

AG smiled. “Jax, it’s about time you guys got out of bed… sir. We left a few of them for you… if you don’t mind taking over. I’ve got some boys out back in banged up birds I want to check on.”

“No worries
Betty Boop
. We will have these guys mopped up in a few minutes. Go do what you need to do. We’ll handle this. You guys need a rest.”

AG saw that two of the enemy fighters had already self-destructed… leaving just two left. It was truly over.

“Thanks
Gold Wing Leader
. Before you go do you have a sit-rep on the rest of the rest of the battle?”

“We just finished up with the last of the incoming fleet. Seems these guys don’t like to surrender. The ten ships we disabled self-destructed once their crews recovered and discovered their drive systems were offline.  The
Mador
and
Relentless
are trying to negotiate with the Asktoreth flagship
DorKra
to see if we can’t get them to stand down with anything short of releasing the containment fields on their fusion power plants.”

***

Lord Captain Asdartu spat green blood on the floor. His left arm was broken. The bridge was a smoldering wreck. The enemy had pounded his ship without mercy. Of course none was asked for. He had remotely detonated each of his disabled ships earlier in the battle. He had waited until GCP boarding parties had approached those of his ships which had surrendered. The GCP, and humans in general, had no concept of what surrender meant to his people.
Death Before Dishonor
was more than just a glib statement. It was their way of life.

He was not going home. That he knew in every fiber of his being. His mission had all but failed. There was still one move he could make. He pressed the engineering communications button on his command chair.

“Engineering, this is the Captain. Report your status.”

“Lord Captain, this is engineering mate Ttylee. The chief engineer is dead. There are three of us left. We have restored partial hull shielding but that is it.”

“Engineering mate Ttylee, you are now Chief Engineer Ttlee. Do we have a working jump drive?”

“Lord Captain, we can jump but our higher order hyperfield resonator was disrupted by the enemy’s attacks. We would be rendered unconscious.”

“Nevertheless, we can jump this ship… correct?”

“Yes Lord Captain.”

“Excellent Chief Engineer. I want you to red-line the thrusters. I need this ship to have every ounce of momentum possible. Once you think the drives are at their limit I want you to jump the ship to the coordinates I’m going to send down to your console. My helm is disabled up here. Can you do this for me, Chief Engineer Ttylee?”

“Lord Captain, I live to serve. If it takes my last breath I will make this happen.”

“It most certainly will,” He said to himself after he closed the channel. Asdartu began to enter the coordinates for the engineer on his command console. He had one last surprise for the enemy.

Slowly his ship began to pick up speed. The battered inertial dampeners strained to suppress the effects of the acceleration. Asdartu gritted his teeth. The shaking was violent and his broken arm felt every tremor. After several minutes of torment he considered hailing that young fool in engineering and telling him to engage the jump drive.

Before he could reach the communications button, a Violet-blue hyperfield vortex formed in front of his ship. He felt one final stab of intense pain as the extradimensional planes that represented sentient consciousness were perturbed by the hyperfield his ship was passing through.

***

    Jason Ruck shook his head. He had been trying to reason with the commander of the Ashtoreth flagship for the past twenty minutes. The man, who called himself Lord Captain Asdartu, indicated that a negotiated truce was possible but only if the GCP forces surrendered completely to his sole surviving vessel.

“Commodore, the DorKra is powering up her engines,” Ensign Topen reported from his sensor station.

“Lord Captain, we are detecting a power build up in your engines. I do not want to fire on your vessel again. Please stand down and let us continue our conversation.”

A rasping voice filtered through a severely degraded communications system answered him. “There is nothing more to talk about Commodore. I am as good as dead but you have ultimately lost... Our conversation is at an end. You fought well. Be proud of that little victory.”

“What the...,” Ruck began. 

“COMMODORE!” First Officer Marlena Nash suddenly yelled. “The
DorKra
just jumped!”

“Jumped? Jumped where?”

“Sir… she jumped thirty light seconds out from the planet. I think she means to ram it!”

“How fast is the DorKra traveling?”

Nash checked her board. “Sir… she’s managed to push her engines to 0.016c… she will hit the planet with enough force to rip away half the atmosphere.”

“Try to raise them!” Ruck screamed as he raced towards the communications station.

“Sir, our hyperfield jamming nodes were in full operation. That crew is either dead or completely incapacitated,” Nash said in a soft voice. The sense of impending doom was ominous.

***

AG Stone was redlining his scorpion in an effort to get back to JJ Hammond. He was up to a full 0.1c when two things happened that would severely impact his day. First, a massive Ashtoreth vessel emerged for a hyperfield conduit fifteen light seconds away. Second a call came in to all ships in the area to attempt to intercept, destroy or deflect said Ashtoreth vessel. Sadly, he was by far the closest ship.

“Computer, arm our nuke. Authorization code: AG loves a hot shower… Enable. Enable. Enable.”

“The nuclear missile is armed. Shall I engage its cloaking field?” the computer responded.

“Negative. Launch missile on a course that will intercept the enemy vessel to my port side.”

“Missile away.”

Lieutenant Stone counted of the seconds to himself
. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand
. Suddenly the forward viewscreen filled with a blinding white light. AG hoped this new body could handle a few extra RADs because he was pretty sure he just absorbed a boat load of them.

“Computer, report?”

“The enemy vessel had minimal shielding in place. The shield is now down and the vessel suffered a catastrophic hull breach. It is venting atmosphere in six locations.”

“Its course! Its course! Did we change its course?”

“Affirmative.”

“Will it still impact the planet?”

“Affirmative.”

“Query. If the containment field on a scorpion-class fighter were to be dropped would the resulting explosion be enough to deflect that vessel enough to miss the planet?”

“Affirmative, if certain conditions are met.”

Lieutenant Stone looked at his ship’s computer interface. He hated to ask the next question but he knew he had to. “What are those conditions?”

“Condition one: The explosion must occur no closer than fifty meters to the main body of the Ashtoreth ship and no further away than five hundred meters. Condition two: The explosion must occur within the next 48 seconds.”

“Damn,” Stone mumbled to himself. “Time to go to hell and regroup. Computer set a timer on the fusion containment field drop it when this ship gets to within seventy five feet of that other ship or when thirty seconds have gone by… whichever comes first.”

“Acknowledged sir.”

Those would be the last words Lieutenant Anthony Grant Stone would hear… in this life.

***

Doctor Janice Pulaski was startled by a sudden noise from outside her office. She raced out of the room and into the main medical bay. The noise was coming from the newly installed Bio-generators. It seemed the equipment had begun an automatic regeneration cycle. Unlike the units that were installed on the
Mador
,
Relentless
and
Exeter
, this particular machine, which was the prototype, currently only had one set of engrams stored in it. That meant that Lieutenant Stone must have gotten himself killed again. She sighed.

For a man who had managed to avoid killing himself for twenty six years, to die twice in as many weeks must be some type of record. She shook her head again. Of course it was a record. Aside from Admiral Kimbridge, coming back from the dead was not something human beings did without divine intervention.

She checked the various control surfaces and readouts. Everything looked fine. She adjusted some of the fluid levels to make sure there would be adequate supplies for the 3d tissue printers that were even now rebuilding the handsome young Lieutenant.

Doctor Pulaski knew Cat Kimbridge would want to know what was happening. But she also knew that the Admiral was on the
Alpha
station attempting to secure it so that the Uruk AI could not use the weapons platform to attack Earth.

She decided her best move was to inform Captain Kirkland. Within a few minutes of her call he walked through the door of the med bay.

“Good evening doctor,” he said in his characteristically cheerful voice.

“Good evening Captain. Sorry to interrupt you when there is so much going on.”

“Nonsense,” he said with a wave of his hand. He walked over to the bio-generation chamber and tried to make out what was happening inside the semitransparent cylinder. He looked back at Doctor Pulaski. “Didn’t we just do this last week?”

“Indeed we did. It seems our Lieutenant Stone has gotten better at getting himself killed.”

Chapter 21: Cat in a Cage…

Cat ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Given her Heshe enhancements, that was quite fast. Sergeant Moore was not happy to see her take on this specific mission but it was those very Heshe enhancements that gave Cat and Cat alone the only chance of carrying out the mission.

Behind her a series of three repair droids flew in a close formation pursuit. She had previously destroyed over a dozen of the pesky flying machines. She knew very well that even now more were on the way. The
Alpha
AI was in full control of this sector. Unfortunately there were seventeen VASMR drives located in the immediate vicinity. They were the essence of her mission.

These thrusters operated by sending a powerful laser beam into a gas, stripping the electrons out of the gas and then using powerful magnetic fields to superheat the resulting plasma. By modern standards they were inefficient plasma thrusters but they had the advantage of being easy to build and amazingly robust. That last point was probably the reason they existed on the
Alpha
platform. The Uruk believed in building robust, highly redundant systems.

If the
Alpha
managed to get them back online there was a real possibility that it could use those thrusters to steer the giant weapons platform back into a collision course with Earth. That was something Cat could not let happen. Several shuttles attempting to drop off the
WhimPy’s
nanite packages to take control of the area had been successfully driven away by the
Alpha’s
defensive systems in the general area.
WhimPy
-
101
had calculated that the
Alpha
would be in position to use those thrusters well before the
Yorktown
team could deploy the nanites needed to suppress them. Thus Cat’s one-woman mission to hand-carry the nanites through the interior corridors of the massive ship.

Her goal was still a good thirty kilometers away. She was averaging a little over twenty kilometers an hour because of the various distractions the
Alpha
platform was putting in her way. It had apparently deduced her intent and was actively working to thwart her. It was in these moments that she really wished Senior Fleet Admiral Imera had met with an accident at birth.

If she couldn’t reach her target in time for
WhimPy-101
to take action then the Earth would very likely pay the price for her failure. Somehow she suspected Imera would find a way to be on a ship headed out of the system long before that happened.

“Admiral, you will need to take the corridor on your immediate left. There is a blockage in the corridor you are in about half a klick down the way. You will not be able to clear it before those drones pin you down.”

“Thanks 101,” Cat huffed as she vaulted over a meter wide, three meter high elbowed pipe that was protruding from a wall directly across her path. Fortunately the ceilings in the part of the weapons platform were well over five meters.

As she jumped, one of the drones fired a welding laser. The beam struck her right shoulder and burned a four centimeter hole clean through her body. There was a brief flash of pain before her medical nanites blocked the nerve endings in the affected area. As a result of the injury however she dropped the pack that contained her supply of nanite cylinders. It fell to the floor with a crash and she was forced to stop and collect it.

This allowed the pursuing drones an opportunity to catch up and begin a coordinated assault. They began firing on her position and she was forced to seek cover. The massive pipe was the only cover in the area.

She fired her assault rifle using just the left arm. Fortunately its automatous targeting system was able to take its cues from her optic nerve. She simply had to look at a target and pull the trigger in order to hit it.

In short order she had eliminated the remaining three drones but they had cost her valuable time. She grabbed the backpack with the nanites and headed out again. Already in the distance she could hear with Heshe enhanced ears the sounds of additional flying service and repair drones.

Her bad arm was recovering and her medical nanites knit flesh and reconnected sinew. Still it would be several minutes before she had full use of the arm back.

She raced around the corner that
WhimPy
had recommended she take and immediately ran into a problem. A force shield had been erected in her path. She could tell by tell-tale flicker of dust particles hitting the field and disintegrating that this was not a field that she would want to touch.

She reversed course and ran into a second field. The
Alpha
had her trapped!

Cat unslung her assault rifle and changed its setting to a high power continuous concentrated beam. She fired at the base of the field blocking her path forward. She began to cut way the floor under the field. She moved the rifle slowly in a clockwise direction. She had no idea where the control circuits were but if she could hit them before her rifle ran out of energy she could disable the force field. Her only other option would be to try to walk through the field and hope her Heshe enhancements would enable her to complete her mission. She had her doubts about that option.

Before she got half way across the floor her rifle issued a low charge warning and shut down. She popped out the battery and plugged in her single reserve battery.

This time she got almost three quarters of the way up the side wall before the battery quit. Still the shield remained in place.

“
WhimPy
, I need some help here. My path is blocked by some type of force field. Can you disable it?”

“Perhaps Admiral, but you will need to deploy one of the nanite cylinders in order to do so.”

“I’d hate to do that but I don’t see a lot of options,” Cat said in a frustrated voice.

“Neither do I, Admiral.”

Cat placed one of the three cylinders she was carrying on the floor near the shield. In a moment it dissolved into the floor. Cat waited for what seemed like hours but which was in reality barely two minutes. Finally the shield flickered and collapsed.

“Thanks
WhimPy
,” Cat yelled by way of acknowledgement. She continued on her run. Before she had gone another kilometer she ran into another force field.

“This is going to be a problem,” Cat said to herself. Because she had no choice she placed her second to last nanite cylinder near the base of the shield. A moment later the screen was down. It seemed faster than the last time. She supposed
WhimPy
had learned from his first encounter with the technology.

“101... Can you get the job done with a single load of nanites?”

“It’s certainly possible Admiral but proper placement will be hard to determine and will likely require a high degree of fortuitous providence,” WhimPy replied quickly.

“Luck,” Cat said. “What you mean is luck. Why can’t you just say
luck
?”

“Very well Admiral. Proper placement will require luck.”

Luck however was not to be had. Within three kilometers of her ultimate destination Cat ran into another force field. With no other options she turned around with the thought to find an alternative route. Her way however was blocked by still yet another force field.

***

AG opened his eyes and saw a most beautiful set of hazel eyes. They were part of an even more beautiful face framed in soft brunette hair. He sighed softly. “I must be in heaven… I’m seeing angels.”

“Humph,” Doctor Janice Pulaski said with a snort as just a touch of red frosted her cheeks. “I think he is going to be fine Captain.”

“Well his ability to appreciate some of the finer things in life seems to be intact,” Ken said with a wry grin.

“You’re not helping Sir,” Doctor Pulaski said dryly. She ran a hand held diagnostic scanner over the length of Lieutenant Stone’s body.

AG followed the motion of her hand as she scanned him. He was lying down on a medical bed with a white med bay sheet pulled most of the way over his body. The last thing he remembered was being in his scorpion about to… self-destruct in a last ditch effort to deflect a massive Ashtoreth ship that was threatening the annihilation of the Hupenstanii race.

He made to get off the bed. He had to know if he had been successful.

“Whoooh there trooper. Where do you think you are –?” Janice started to ask.

He pushed her hand out of the way. “I have to get to the bridge. How long have I been out?”

“The Bio-generator just finished printing your body. It took it the better part of four hours. How long you had been dead before it began I have no idea.”

“Doc, if you only knew how strange that sounds. The fact that it actually makes sense doesn’t actually help. Wait… you were on the
Yorktown
… Where am I now?”

“This is the
Yorktown
. This is where we had you engrams stored.”

AG looked at Captain Kirkland… seeing him for the first time. He felt an overwhelming sense of confusion. “Have any of my men regenerated here?”

Janice shook her head. “No, all the other marines that underwent engram training had their engrams transferred to the Mador. The only reason yours were here was because we had already transferred them to this bio-generator. When the
Yorktown
stopped receiving updates to your engrams it concluded you had been killed and signaled the only bio-generator with your engrams stored to begin rebuilding you.”

“I died…”

“Again,” Doctor Pulaski and Captain Kirkland said in unison.

“I was trying to prevent the destruction of the Hupenstanii home world… Was I successful?”

Ken put a hand on his shoulder to gently push him back down so that the doctor could finish her examination. The Lieutenant’s muscles were so hard it felt like he was pushing against a rock… or perhaps a ‘stone’ would be a better metaphor. It was painfully obvious the only reason the Lieutenant laid down was because he choose to.

“I contacted Commodore Ruck the moment the bio-generator here began to work on you. He reported your scorpion self-destructed seventy four meters from the DorKra. The result of the explosion was enough to push the ship into a circumsolar orbit that will keep it well away from any of the planets for many years to come. I believe the Commodore was quite pleased with you.”

Ken looked over at his chief medical officer. “Well doctor, what’s your assessment? Is he ready for duty?”

“I gave him his full load of nanites while he was still under. Physically he is fine. Mentally, we just don’t know enough about what goes on in a person’s head after these types of experiences.”

“Well Doc, if that’s your way of saying you want to get to know me better – I’m game,” AG said with a grin.

Ken shook his head. “Down Romeo. I have a more pressing need for a person of your unique abilities. It involves saving a stranded Admiral and coincidently the entire planet.”

***

AG jogged down the corridor at a gate that ate up ground like a cheetah chasing a gazelle. The route he was following mirrored the one taken by Admiral Kimbridge a few hours earlier. On his back he carried an assault rifle, six spare battery packs and a duffle with eight nanite caches that were supplied by
WhimPy-101
. He had started out with ten of the nanite cylinders but he had already used two to take down force fields that the
Alpha
AI had erected to thwart his advance.

According to the
WhimPy
, Admiral Kimbridge should be just ahead.   Sure enough he rounded the bend and there stood Admiral Catherine “Cat” Kimbridge. She was stalking back and forth like a caged animal. Her uniform was badly burnt and shredded on her right side. Large portions of her muscular torso were exposed. The uniform still covered the essentials but just barely. She would want to address it before walking about the
Yorktown
. If he had to guess, she had attempted to push her way through the force field.

He shook his head in disbelief. Only Cat Kimbridge would try such a thing. Anybody else would be dead. She just regenerated by virtue of her Heshe nanites. He tossed a nanite cylinder into the corner by the base of the first force field.

“Word has it there was a Cat caught in a cage down here, Admiral,” Lieutenant Stone said as he split his remaining supplies with her.

“Good to see you Lieutenant. I hear you had an eventful day,” Cat said as she replaced the battery in her assault right and pocketed two more power packs.

“Nothing too unusual ma’am… just been to hell and back… all in a day’s work for a marine.”