Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (33 page)

“Captain,” Andre added. “I should also point out that we have been unable to make contact with Commander Dumar, and there are only ten minutes left in which to do so, or he will launch a strike against both ships.”

“Why have you not been able to contact them?”

“You shot the comm-station, sir,” Andre reminded him, gesturing toward the damaged station with the body of the dead comm-officer still lying against it.

“Yes, of course.”

“If we could reach the medevac shuttle, we could have them send word—”

“Not to worry, Sergeant,” de Winter assured him. “It will take at least ten minutes for the missiles to reach us, by which time full power will have been restored and we will simply disappear.”

“Don’t you think that’s cutting it a little close?”

“Do you have any suggestions, Sergeant?”

“Send the sweep team back to the hangar deck. There were a couple of old ships in there; a cargo shuttle and an old Takaran interceptor. Maybe they can get one of their long-range comm units working.”

“Very well,” de Winter agreed. “See to it, Sergeant.”

* * *

“Gentlemen,” Bobby greeted his fellow agents as he entered the Aurora’s engineering section. “Situation?”

“All secure here, sir.”

“And what about the two that escaped?” Bobby asked.

“They went into the service tunnel in the next room. We locked the hatch behind them. We checked the layout, and as best we could tell, they could move around quite a bit in there. It’s like a maze. But it also looks like all the exits are closed.”

“
Bobby, come in,
” Andre called over the comms.

“Go ahead, Andre.”

“
Where are you?
”

“I’m in engineering. I’m about to start my sweep forward.”

“
That can wait,
” Andre told him. “
I want you to go back to the hangar deck, see if you can get the long-range comms working in one of those old ships, and get a status report back to Commander Dumar so he doesn’t try to shoot us out of orbit anytime soon.
”

“Understood. We’re on our way.” Bobby turned to the two agents. “Which one of you is best at comm repairs?”

“I am,” the second agent said. “Why?”

“We’ve got an urgent call to make.”

* * *

Two columns of fifteen men jogged into the Yamaro’s port hangar bay. They were all carrying energy rifles and handguns. In addition, they each wore the torso section of Takaran assault armor as well as the helmets complete with their built in comm gear. They also had stun grenades on the gun belts worn around their waists.

Ensign Willard looked surprised as the columns of heavily armed troops made their way across the massive bay. Corporal Eckert noticed the stunned look on the Ensign’s face as he drew closer.

“We took the time to raid the nearest armory on our way over,” the corporal told Ensign Willard. “We didn’t have time to don all the armor, so we just chose the pieces most likely to keep us alive.”

“Good thinking, Corporal.”

“Do you wish to address the men, sir”

“No time for that now, Corporal. I’ll brief them en route. Get them on board.”

“It’s going to be packed tight in there,” Marcus pointed out.

“Luckily, it’s a short trip,” Willard reminded him.

“Come on, kid,” Marcus said, grabbing Loki by the shoulder. “Let’s get on board first. The last ones in are the first ones out and the first to die.”

Sergeant Weatherly watched as the two columns of heavily armed Corinairans, who had moments ago still been members of an enemy crew, made their way past and up the boarding ramp into the medevac shuttle. “You are going to tell them not to shoot at us, right?”

Ensign Willard smiled. “Do not worry, Sergeant. We are not going to take the Aurora from you,” he said with a pat on the sergeant’s shoulder. “We intend to take it
from
the Takarans and
return
it to you.”

“Just checking,” he said as he turned to follow the men into the shuttle.

* * *

Commander Dumar watched the tactical map displayed on the planning table in front of him. “How long to max range?”

“The Corinari interceptors will reach maximum missile range in five minutes, sir,” the lieutenant reported.

“Any word yet from Captain de Winter or Sergeant Tukalov?”

“No sir, and we’ve been hailing them repeatedly for some time now. They still have fifteen minutes to their deadline, sir.”

The commander frowned and rubbed his chin. “Unfortunately, we’re going to lose our only orbital strike asset in less than five minutes.”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell the Aitkenna team to re-target their missiles: two on the Aurora and two on the Yamaro. Tell them to launch immediately and then abandon the site before it’s too late.”

“Yes sir.”

“And continue trying to hail Sergeant Tukalov,” the commander added.

* * *

The two black interceptors streaked through the night, skimming the treetops at four times the speed of sound as they closed on the Aitkenna missile base. Although the Aitkenna site had been closer to their base than the Wellerton site, the Aitkenna installation had only four of her original twenty missiles left. The Wellerton site had been fully loaded, hence her twenty missiles were of far more danger in the hands of others than the Aitkenna site had been and therefore had been dealt with first.

If the interceptor wing based at the Aitkenna spaceport had been at full strength, both targets could have easily been dealt with simultaneously. However, all but two of their wing had gone up to fight the Yamaro during her bombardment of Corinair. These two interceptors were the only ones left in the immediate area.

“Command, Black Dog One. Locked on target. Max range in thirty seconds. Requesting weapons free.”

“Black Dog One, Command,”
the controller’s voice responded.
“You are cleared to engage, max force.”

“Black Dog One copies. Twenty seconds to launch.”

The pilot looked down at his targeting display on the forward console, located just above the center console they jokingly referred to as the
nut buster
. His long range missiles showed that they were locked on the Aitkenna missile site. He reached over to the left side of his console and flipped a switch to arm the selected weapon. “Two scooters armed,” he announced. With his right thumb, he flipped a small switch on the side of the flight control stick being held by his right hand. “Pickle is hot. Ten seconds.”

He watched as the range display rapidly ticked away the distance to the maximum effective range of the long-range, hypersonic cruise missiles that they referred to as scooters. The scrolling number still displayed in red as it rapidly approached zero. A few seconds later, it turned green, flashed the phrase
Max Range
three times and then continued counting down, this time the distance to the target.

The pilot depressed the firing button on the side of his flight control stick with his thumb two times. “Scooter two. Scooter two,” he declared, announcing the launch of two scooter missiles.

Outside the interceptor, two panels along the underside of the fuselage quickly slid open. A split second later, two weapons, each just under three meters in length and about a meter across dropped out of the aircraft and fell away. They looked like flattened cigars, with stubby wings at the nose and slightly larger ones at the tail. A moment later the first weapons engine fired and the missile streaked ahead of the interceptor. The second missile did the same, and within seconds the two weapons had accelerated to more than ten times the speed of sound. A moment later, the same process played out under the second interceptor as well.

The pilot watched his weapons display as the missiles rocketed ahead of him. “Tracking four scooters, four locks. Time to impact: three minutes.”

“Copy Black Dog flight. Command is tracking four good scooters.”

The scooters were fire-and-forget weapons under normal circumstances, but this entire day had been anything but normal, and the pilot chose to continue on toward his target, just in case. He and his wingman each carried two more scooters, as well as several short-range missiles that were nearly as deadly against a ground target. If the first scooters missed, he might have time for another round.

* * *

“We’ve got incoming ordnance!” the sensor operator announced. “Four scooters, two minutes out.”

The squad leader spun his head to his left to look at the missile operator.

“Re-targeting complete,” the missile operator announced, and not a moment too soon.

“Launch all missiles!” the squad leader ordered.

The missile operator looked at the squad leader as he moved over and put his hand on the second missile launch key at the other end of the console, just over four meters away.

“Launch in three……two……one……launch.”

Both men turned their missile launch keys to the firing position. Everyone watched the main tracking screen on the wall in front of them. A row of twenty screens across the top of the main screen showed all the missile silos, of which only four were left. The other sixteen missiles had been launched at the Yamaro earlier in the day. They watched as the four missiles rose from their silos, clearing the ground level doors and leaping into the dawn’s breaking light outside.

“Four good launches,” the missile operator announced. “Turning over control of all weapons to command.”

“Tell that Kalibri to meet us on the roof now!” the squad leader ordered. “We’ve got a minute and a half until this based is turned into slag!” he added as everyone rose from their seats and started out the door.

* * *

The medevac shuttle flew out of the Yamaro’s port hangar deck and into space, heading toward the aft end of the ship. As soon as it cleared the launch tunnel, it turned to starboard heading away from the Yamaro and toward the Aurora. It was flying a bit faster than normal, despite the fact that the Aurora was quite nearby, as they had little time to spare.

* * *

“
Cheng, Weatherly. Inbound, ETA three mikes,
” Sergeant Weatherly reported over the comm-set. “Any idea how we’re gonna get the hangar doors open?”

“Yes, but it is rather drastic,” Vladimir admitted.

“
Talk to me, Cheng.
”

“The doors are designed to open automatically for any ship trying to enter while the ship’s power is down. This is to facilitate rescue of the crew if the ship is dead in space.”

“
Are you telling me you’re gonna turn the ship off?
”

“I said it was drastic,” Vladimir defended.

“
That’s not drastic, Sir; that’s crazy.
”

“Drastic, crazy, same thing,” he said as he tapped buttons on the data pad.

“
Any other ideas,
” Weatherly asked, “
like, maybe just opening the doors?
”

“Nyet. All data streams from the bridge have command priority. If I tried to open the doors, they would simply override them, and then they would know that you were coming as well.”

“
Don’t they already know?
” Weatherly asked. “
I mean, can’t they see us coming.
”

“That is why I am shutting everything down……right……now!” Vladimir tapped the key on his data pad to send the command string he had just written.

“What did you just do?” Deliza asked. Even though she had heard every word he had said to the sergeant, she still couldn’t believe it.

“I turned the ship off,” Vladimir said calmly.

“You what? How can you do that? All that stuff about command data streams having priority and—”

“The command string I sent does not take effect until after each and every element has already reached its destination.” Vladimir looked at the time indicator on the data pad. “It should happen in a few seconds.”

She looked at him, a smile forming on her face. “You made a cyber-bomb.”

“Da,” Vladimir answered confidently.

“But what about gravity and life support and—”

“It is not a problem,” Vladimir interrupted. “Artificial gravity systems in main areas are self-powered. They have backup generators that will run for hours.”

“What about the environmental systems?” Deliza wondered.

“Do not worry, there is plenty of air to breath, even without the recyclers. We would freeze long before we would suffocate,” he assured her. Deliza just looked at him. Vladimir ignored her expression as he checked the ship’s digital time display on his data pad again. “Ship will power down, right……now.”

All throughout the Aurora, everything began to quickly shutdown. Lights began shutting off everywhere, plunging the entire ship into complete darkness. A moment later, all the circulation fans that constantly cycled air throughout the ship also shut down. The ship was now as dark and as silent as it could possibly be. A few moments later, emergency battery powered lighting started to kick on in key areas of the ship such as the bridge, medical, engineering, and the hangar bay. In addition, small battery-powered lights evenly spaced along the bottom edge of the ship’s many corridors also lit up. The lights would all run for several hours, after which handheld units would be the only source of light available. It would take the oxygen many more hours to diminish down to levels that would no longer support life, especially considering how few people were left on board. In fact, it would probably become unbearably cold long before the oxygen levels became toxic to humans.

* * *

The pilot of the medevac shuttle looked out the forward windows of his ship just as the Aurora’s running lights all turned off.

“What the—”

The copilot also looked out the window. “What happened?”

“Uh, somebody!” the pilot called out.

Loki came forward through the narrow passageway to see what was wrong in the cockpit. As soon as he got there, he saw what they were talking about. “She’s dark!” Loki turned around. “Hey, Sarge! All the Aurora’s lights just went out!”