Children of Steel (41 page)

“Missile Launch!” Rudy called then so I
flipped us back over and fired two myself and started evasive
maneuvers.

“Jamming…” He called and I watched as he took
control of one of the LRGM’s I had launched and curved it around to
nail one of the shuttles as it came into range. I fired another two
at each of the survivors then.

“Missile launch!” he called again, then
“Multiples!”

I did my best at evading holding the
throttles to max and turned the nose at the two survivors as they
each tried to vector away from the incoming missiles, telling the
computer to re-task the last three missiles to defense, as Rudy
cranked the actives to max power. Two of the defensive LRGM’s took
out enemy missiles, the third missed.

“Jamming!” He called just as the enemy
shuttles took hits and broke up.

“Damn, they both flushed their SK’s!” Rudy
swore as I pitched around to fire another LRGM at one in the group
Gabe was tangling with. I pointed the nose back towards the Astra
and fired the last missile I had after them instead.

“No use, they’re too far ahead.” He
groaned.

“Where the hell is Bravo flight?” I swore and
hit the high power radio. “Astra you have incoming!”

“Roger Alpha leader, we see them. Stand clear
of Point Defenses.”

I turned the nose up and saw on my tactical
display that Gabe and Jeb had done the same as the Astra opened up
with its rail guns and point defense lasers on the two missiles. I
watched as they picked off each ship killer, one then the other.
Without anyone to fly them they were a lot easier to take out as
their onboard evasive programs weren’t that evolved. They got the
second one when it was only ten miles out. I exhaled then, and
checked the position of the destroyed shuttles on my radar, if I
took the time to chase after any of them I wouldn’t be able to
catch up with the Astra which was still accelerating. With a shake
of my head I turned the nose around and headed back for the ship
before it moved out of range of the shuttle.

“That was too close…” I said as we walked in
to the flight room, pealing off my suit. I was soaked inside.

“You’re telling me,” Rudy sighed. We
collapsed into our chairs as the rest of the group staggered
in.

Chief Shandour came into the room then and
sat on the desk in front. “Good shooting men. Hobson’s Navy told us
they’ll have a frigate in the area in about six hours, they’ll
check the wreckage and tell us what they find.”

We all just nodded.

“Apparently they were launched from an
asteroid on the edge of the belt, the Captain suspects they may
have a base of some sort around there so he doesn’t want to stick
around, and it’s the Navy’s problem now anyway.”

“I can’t believe someone would try that this
close in.” Gabe said shaking his head.

“Yeah and they weren’t going for a swipe,
they were going for a kill,” Dave added. “All those ships looked
like they were carrying SK’s.”

“Well, let’s be happy that they didn’t seem
too experienced,” the Chief continued, “Otherwise you might not
have had a ship to come back to.”

We all nodded to that one.

“What took Bravo flight so long?” I
asked.

“The Captain ordered them held in, he didn’t
think the SK’s would be a problem for the ship’s defenses and he
was concerned that there could be a second wave, so he ordered them
rearmed with complete LRGM packages.”

I thought about that for a moment. In the
heat of combat seeing anything streaking towards the Astra didn’t
make me happy, but once we had taken out the enemy shuttles I could
see his point.

“How’d they even manage to match velocities
with us Chief?” Rudy asked, “Coming off of any of those asteroids
they should have been in a tail chase, or only capable of a quick
head on pass.”

“Boosters. That was when we picked them up.
They were staged on top of boosters apparently.”

“That means there has to be a ship out there
someplace to pick them up. Otherwise they’d be stuck out here at
the mercy of Hobson’s Navy afterwards.”

The Chief nodded, “That’s what the Captain
figures, which is why he held Bravo flight back.”

I shook my head, “Sounds pretty desperate to
me.”

“Yeah, but think of the effect this will have
on the shipping lanes here,” Jeb pointed out. “If they had gotten
away with it, no one would know who was next. As it is, people will
still wonder if there will be another attempt.”

We all thought about that.

“Looks like this war just might be heating
up,” Dave said and we all just nodded.

The next four days passed very slowly, the
ship’s crew wasn’t too keyed up, but those of us on the shuttles
were. If you get left behind on an outbound jump, the further out
the ship is, the more the chances of rescue diminish. Chances of
returning to any planet in the system are non-existent.

The last day before jump the flight room was
like a death watch. All the shuttle crews were there, no one could
sleep at that point anyway. Outbound attacks were rare, and
attempts at total destruction of a ship were even rarer still.
Hobson’s Navy had found no survivors, those that weren’t killed had
suicided, and they were all humans. They hadn’t found the base yet
either, or the ship that must have dropped them off. Companies
didn’t apply these tactics, only fanatics did.

When the ship finally made jump I dragged
myself to my room and locked the door. I was so keyed up I was
afraid I’d jump out of my skin, all I wanted to do was sleep.

After that life did settle back into a more
enjoyable routine. The soldiers onboard this time were a light
assault unit made up of wolves, foxes, other canines, and cougars.
We were going to drop half of them at our first stop, the rest at
the second. The nearly two months we spent going to the first drop
was fairly normal, except for once again having all the troops on
board.

Breakout however wasn’t. Twenty seconds after
we came out I heard the bridge come over the intercom.

“Contact detected dead ahead, range three
point seven million miles, heading identical, status unknown.”

I looked back at the tactical board in my
cockpit and transferred the ships imaging to my visor as more data
came in.

I was tail end Charlie today, last in the
rack so I had time if we were going to launch.

“Bridge this is shuttle control, do you want
us to secure stations?”

“Stand-bye shuttle control,” came the reply.
We all waited.

Ten seconds later we heard, “Shuttle control,
secure the launch rack, but remain on alert. We are accelerating to
intercept.”

I looked at the information and sure enough
our state was changing dramatically. The Astra was under full
throttle the unidentified ship was still in a deceleration profile.
I turned on the radio receivers to see what I could pick up.

“What do you think it is?” I asked Rudy.

“Beats the hell out of me. Looks like a small
freighter. According to the data link they’ve not responded to the
company transponder, so they’re not one of ours.”

I nodded, “can you find anything else
interesting on your link back there?” Rudy’s link to the Astra's
computer was much more extensive than mine; I had to fly the
shuttle after all.

“Not yet. They’re still trying to get a good
enough look at it to match it with a known type.”

“Oops, they’re they go!” I said as the ship
suddenly started to turn end for end, changing course to accelerate
as well. “Looks like they’re changing to an outbound course.”

“Hold on a sec,” Rudy said, “something’s
coming in from the base.”

I waited.

“The base is under attack!” he said
shocked.

“You’re kidding!"

“Nope, and apparently our unknown friend
there is broadcasting something in code. Probably a warning that
we’re on the way.”

“Any word on the make up of the attack?”

“Not yet, it’s just a general distress signal
on the company’s standard frequency. It’ll be a couple of hours
before we get a response.”

I nodded in my helmet.

“Shuttle control, this is the bridge, secure
from alert.”

“Roger that.”

I watched as they sealed the hatch and
re-pressurized the launch bay. Then headed back to the flight room
with everyone else. It was a four day trip into the system, I
wondered what would be there when we got there?

“Okay everyone listen up,” the Chief said as
we came into the room. “The Captain’s going to address the crew in
a minute, so grab a seat.”

Rudy and I grabbed a seat with Dave and Gabe
and pealed the top of our vac suits off.

“Attention all hands, Attention all hands.
This is the Captain speaking. The Samia installation is being
attacked. From the data we have received so far the attack started
approximately eight hours ago. The ship we just ran off was either
reinforcements, or the same people who tried to destroy us now come
to warn the attackers. At this point they are accelerating back up
to jump and will most likely be gone soon. In either case they are
no longer an issue.

“However what is an issue is that Samia base
can probably not hold out four days for us to arrive in a standard
orbit. Therefore as Captain I am going to proceed in system at
maximum thrust. This will allow us to attack their support space
craft in only twenty four hours.

I heard all of the other crews gasp. My own
jaw dropped.

“However we will be getting only one pass at
them, and one shot. So we’ll have to make it count as it will then
take us six days to perform a braking maneuver around the sun to be
able to enter orbit. All sections will get their orders shortly.
That is all.”

“Woah,” I think that was Dave.

“I’ll say this, the Captain sure has balls,”
said the Chief. “Well you heard him. So I suspect that means we’ll
be having a full launch, with a complete stock of SK’s on each of
you. I don’t know how many ships they have in orbit, but if we can
nail them, the attacking force will find itself in a world of
hurt.”

“Yessir!” We all said and looked at each
other, a mixture of shock and anticipation. Sure enough thirty
minutes later we got those orders and were all sent to our bunks
while the tech’s swapped out the missiles. They wanted us rested
and awake when we crossed, speeds would be such that a lot of skill
and quite a bit of luck would be required. It was a long shot.

It was not to be however, six hours later
they started to withdraw and by the time we were halfway there they
broke orbit in full retreat. Six days later we made orbit, and got
to check out the damage.

Surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as it could
have been. They hadn’t gotten the benefit of surprise, and once
they figured out what we were doing they started to pull out
immediately. They did do some damage, and got some of our cargo as
they pulled out, destroying one of the warehouses when one of their
shuttles crashed after being shot down. So spirits were good and we
were welcomed heartily for showing up and saving the day.

However it was clear to everyone that we had
a few spies back at Hobson’s Choice because they obviously knew we
were coming here and did their best to stop us. Fortunately their
best wasn’t good enough, this time at least.

The next stop was something new for me; I was
going to be part of an expedition at the next stop.

This was supposed to be one of my secondary
jobs and I was glad I was finally going to get to do it. The planet
we were going to had been surveyed from space years ago, so now the
company wanted to explore some hopeful signs and see if they could
establish a mine there. I found out we were supposed to do this
last year, but the fight back at Arboral had changed our plans.

Breakout was a lot more enjoyable this time;
we really didn't expect anybody to be around as this system was
pretty well outside of the sector. We still did the drill, but
everybody was a lot more relaxed about it.

The whole process of making orbit and getting
a base camp set up took two weeks time. The planet was okay I
guess, it was cold, cold enough that I'd have to wear my insulated
flight suit even at the equator. It had an earthlike atmosphere,
which was the rule more than the exception for our class of survey
team I was told. There weren't too many storms about, and the
planet was seventy five percent land, most of the water having
frozen I guess.

They left us with one of the assault shuttles
for local transport, the cargo shuttles being more than we needed;
two helicopters; and some ground vehicles specialized for the snow.
We had a base camp of three main buildings, a barracks, a
garage/shop, and a lab/storage area. There were thirty six of us,
and we'd be here about six months, depending on the Astra's
schedule. The Astra itself still had the other half of the troop
contingent onboard to deliver; I just hoped they didn’t run into
trouble in the process.

Kate and Franz were there, they being part of
the standard survey team. Sheen was there too, as part of the
security and technical forces. That was where I fit in myself; Rudy
was along being my WSO and a tech as well.

There were also four Tiger's along, who with
Sheen and myself made up the total security detachment.
Fortunately, Rasha, who I’d still been seeing occasionally, was one
of them so I wouldn't have to be celibate for the whole six months.
Sheen and I had never ended up in the sack together, but there were
no Jag's here and now that her boyfriend wasn't around maybe
something would happen. I hadn't made a pass at her in over a year,
but now that she was the only unattached Leopard around I was
definitely going to start again.

Of the remaining thirty people we had four
Wolves, one was a chemist, three were techs; six Bears, two were
geologists, one was a micro biologist, the rest were techs; two
Possums, one was Rudy, the other was a cartographer; two Monkeys,
both nurse/medics; six Rottweilers, they were all scouts; two
Otters, they were marine biologists; two Goats, one was the cook
and his mate was the doctor; and six Badgers, they were our
engineers and administrators, I didn't know the break down.