Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance (46 page)

“Captain, I have Commander Dumar for you,” Naralena reported.

“Put him on.”

“
Aurora, Dumar,
” the commander called. Nathan scanned the camera views, spotting the commander on one of the cameras inside the control room. He was facing away from the camera as he watched the firefight taking place on the other side of the blast-proof windows of the control center.

“Dumar, this is Scott,” Nathan replied.

“
Captain, I am sure of it now. They mean to capture the entire asteroid. To jump it away. That is why the platform is not firing upon us. You must launch the KKV! You must destroy this base!
”

“There’s got to be another way, Commander!” Nathan objected.

“Their emitters,” Mister Navashee suggested.

“Commander, maybe we can destroy your emitter arrays instead?”

“
No, no,
” Commander Dumar argued, “
they were designed with triple redundancy. You would have to destroy literally hundreds and hundreds of them. It would take too long.
”

“Surely we can try,” Nathan insisted.

“Jump flash, Captain,” Mister Navashee interrupted. “It’s a boxcar, headed for the Karuzara’s main transit tunnel.

“Commander, there are at least two hundred more Ghatazhak about to land on your main docking platform. In five minutes, they will have the advantage.”

“
That will be too late, I’m afraid…
” Commander Dumar replied.

Nathan turned to Mister Navashee. “How long until that platform can fire on us again?”

“
You must launch the KKV…
”

“Three minutes,” Mister Navashee replied.

“
…You must destroy the Karuzara…
”

“We can get into firing position in half a minute,” Mister Chiles said.

“
…There is no other way…
”

“You’ve got two minutes to take out as many emitters as possible,” Nathan ordered. “Jess?”

“I’m on it.”

“Maneuvering toward the Karuzara,” Mister Chiles acknowledged. “Fastest speed.”

“
Nathan,
” Commander Dumar pleaded. “
You cannot let the Jung get their hands on a jump drive. You cannot. All the free worlds, both of this sector of space as well as my own, are depending on us. You cannot fail them.
”

“Goddamn it!” Nathan exclaimed. “Comms! Get me Scout Two!”

“I need to know what’s going on out there,” Cameron insisted.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ensign Kono apologized. “Both of the forward arrays are dead. I can’t even tell if they’re still there.”

“What about the aft arrays?”

“We’re tumbling end over end,” the Celestia’s sensor operator explained. “I’m only getting short scans, and the signal from those arrays are intermittent at best. Without full power, all I can tell you is that we’re drifting
away
from the platform.”

“Well, that’s better than drifting toward it, I suppose,” Cameron agreed. She looked around the dimly lit bridge. Half the main view screen was missing, and the overhead section of it had shattered and fallen in large sections directly onto them. Her navigator, Mister Jakoby, lay dead on the deck, his head covered with blood. The navigator’s console, and most of the helm was damaged beyond repair, and was also covered with her dead navigator’s blood. Ensign Hunt, although having suffered multiple lacerations about his head and arms, was diligently trying to find a way to get what was left of the helm console to function. All three of the starboard stations were smashed by a support beam that had given way. All three of the crewmen who had been at those stations were unconscious and in obviously bad shape. “How are they?” she asked Lieutenant Delaveaga, who was overseeing other crewmen tending to their injured comrades.

“Unconscious, heavy blood loss,” Luis replied. “Carter probably has significant head injuries. Boseman’s gut was torn open by the side of his panel when it collapsed. Both of Ulwellyn’s legs are broken, as well as her hip. I don’t know about her back. I’ve only got basic emergency medical training.”

“Do what you can, Lieutenant.”

“We are, sir.” Luis paused, looking around. “Why haven’t they finished us off, Captain?”

“My guess is either they can’t, or the Aurora is protecting us.”

“No chance the Aurora has already taken them out?”

“Maybe,” she replied, “but we were already pretty close when we were hit. If they took that platform out, we’d probably have been pounded with debris, or worse, an antimatter event. I doubt we’ve drifted far enough away to have missed it.”

“Wouldn’t their cores eject just like ours?” Mister Delaveaga wondered. “All their other ships’ did.”

“Possibly,” Cameron admitted. “The last one did, but that’s no guarantee.”

“How badly damaged do you think we are?”

“With everything down, your guess is as good as mine, Lieutenant,” Cameron said. “The last time I saw this much damage on a bridge was when the Aurora rammed the Campaglia. Mangled the front quarter of our bow and killed more than half the crew.” Cameron looked at the lieutenant, noticing the concerned look on his face. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant, they’ll come for us.”

“Firing!” Jessica announced.

Nathan watched as streams of laser fire streaked away from the Aurora toward the rotating Karuzara asteroid in front of them.

“Minute fifty remaining,” Mister Riley warned.

“Three emitters destroyed so far,” Mister Navashee reported. “One minute until the platform has a firing solution on us,” he added.

“At this range, those guns will hurt,” Jessica warned.

“Be ready to back away toward the Celestia as we fire, Mister Chiles,” Nathan said. “See if you can keep our gun side toward the Karuzara and keep us just out of the platform’s firing solution as we go.”

“I’ll have to show them our belly at the last moment,” Mister Chiles warned.

“Understood.”

“Twelve emitters down.”

“Come on, Jess,” Nathan urged in frustration.

“I’m trying, sir,” Jessica assured him. “Their wobbly rotation isn’t making it easy, though.”

“Fifteen down,” Mister Navashee reported. “Minute thirty to abort; forty seconds to guns on us.”

“How many emitters do we need to kill before we can be sure that they can’t jump?” Nathan asked.

“At least two hundred,” Mister Navashee replied. “Twenty-two down.”

Nathan turned and looked at Jessica.

The lieutenant commander glanced up momentarily from her console, noticing her captain’s eyes on her. “You could help, you know?”

Nathan charged over to her side. “What do you want me to do?”

“Auto-tracking isn’t working,” she explained. “One of the arrays is probably damaged. Get the asteroid’s lateral wobble rate from there. Every time it changes, update it there.”

“Got it,” Nathan replied as he began entering in the changing numbers.

“Thirty down,” Mister Navashee updated.

Nathan glanced up at the main view screen. Jung fighters were still whirling about the asteroid, chasing combat jumpers and Falcons, as well as being chased by them in return, darting about to avoid the Aurora’s laser fire as well.

“Minute ten to abort. Twenty seconds to guns on us,” Mister Navashee updated. “Fifty down.”

“I think it’s working,” Jessica exclaimed.

“Sixty down. Ten seconds to guns on us.”

“Start backing away, Mister Chiles,” Nathan ordered.

“Backing away, keeping guns on the Karuzara, aye,” Mister Chiles acknowledged.

Nathan glanced up at the view screen again as the Karuzara asteroid began to shrink in size. “If any of our ships out there have a moment, tell them they’re free to take out a few emitters themselves,” Nathan exclaimed.

“You’re doing good,” Jessica assured him.

“One hundred emitters down,” Mister Navashee reported. “Fall back rate is keeping the platform’s guns off us. Forty seconds.”

“Jesus,” Nathan said under his breath. “Your job is more stressful than I thought.”

“It has its moments,” Jessica replied as she continued to work frantically to continuously retarget their laser turrets.

“One twenty. Thirty seconds,” Mister Navashee reported. “Jump flash, Scout Three is back.”

“Incoming message from Scout Three,” Naralena reported.

“Not now,” Nathan told her.

“One fifty, fifteen seconds. One sixty-five. Ten. One seventy-five. Five.”

“Captain?” Mister Chiles urged.

“Start your roll!”

“One eighty-five…”

“Rolling over, aye.”

“Losing the angle,” Jessica announced, ending the attack.

Enemy rail gun rounds again began to slam into the underside of the Aurora.

“How many?” Nathan asked as the bridge shook violently from each impact.

“One hundred and eighty-seven,” Mister Navashee answered.

“Damn it!” Nathan exclaimed. “We almost had it.”

“If it makes you feel any better, sir, we probably needed to kill more than two hundred emitters to be sure. Even then, they could still jump away with part of the asteroid, as long as they have the part with the jump drive field generators in it.”

“No, it doesn’t make me feel any better,” Nathan said, “but thanks.” He turned around. “Message?”

“Scout Three confirms the placement of KKV One at position seven, sir,” Naralena reported as the bridge continued to shake.

Nathan sighed, turning to again witness the gruesome scenes displayed by the cameras about the Karuzara’s control center, and by Lieutenant Telles’s helmet camera. Again the Aurora began to shake violently as the platform’s rail guns started pounding the underside of their hull once more. “How long until they lose their firing solution again?”

“Four minutes, fifteen seconds,” Mister Navashee replied.

Nathan thought for a moment, looking at the feed from Lieutenant Telles’s helmet camera. “Jesus, are they hand-to-hand now?”

“Looks like it,” Jessica agreed, her tone somber as she clutched the sides of her console to avoid being knocked off her feet by the rail gun impacts.

“How long until the Celestia reaches a safe distance?”

“Without an antimatter breach? Two minutes. With a breach?” Mister Navashee looked at his captain. His expression said it all.

Telles swung the knife in his left hand in a wide sweeping motion, batting the Jung soldier’s weapon away from his face as it fired. His visor darkened slightly to protect his eyes from the brilliant flash of the Jung weapon as it discharged. With his opponent’s face now exposed, the lieutenant raised his weapon and made a quick jab toward the man’s faceplate. He could feel the tubules in his suit tense up in support of his motions as he jammed the butt of his weapon into the man’s faceplate, cracking it open. The Jung soldier dropped his weapon and grabbed for his faceplate, which was now hemorrhaging air at a staggering rate. The lieutenant turned away from the man, knowing that he had only seconds of life remaining.

A glance to his left, the direction he was moving, revealed another Jung soldier not a meter away and moving toward him. The lieutenant lunged at him with his knife, his left arm extending outward. The Jung soldier instinctively leaned to his left to avoid the parry. In a smooth motion, Lieutenant Telles rotated his left hand to bring the blade of his weapon downward as he drove the blade in a slashing motion across the man’s neck into the small gap between his helmet’s locking ring and the collar of his suit. A hiss of air was heard, along with a gurgle of blood as his blade found the man’s neck deep inside his suit.

Telles looked forward and slightly right as he stepped over the man he had just killed. The targeting reticle on his tactical visor found a valid target in the distance. A Jung soldier preoccupied with the Ghatazhak in front of him did not notice the tiny sighting dot dancing about his chest. The Ghatazhak soldier he was preparing to battle
did
notice the dot. He dropped to his left knee and leaned away as the lieutenant’s shoulder mounted laser fired a single blast into the enemy soldier’s left armpit, just under his armor, nearly severing his arm from his torso.

Telles raised his weapon to his right, glancing only long enough to take quick aim before putting a blast of plasma energy into the face of another Jung soldier only two meters away. He then dropped to both knees as the next combatant directly in front of him swung the butt of his own energy weapon in a wide arc that passed above the lieutenant’s helmet. He jammed his knife upward into the inner thigh of the Jung soldier’s right leg where there was no armor, piercing his suit and severing his femoral artery. Telles looked up at the soldier’s face, hearing no sounds through the vacuum as the man screamed in agony. Telles withdrew the knife as the man fell to his knees before him, bringing them face-to-face. The lieutenant squinted for a moment as the dying man’s eyes began to bug out from lack of air pressure.

The lieutenant pushed the man away as he rose. Suddenly, he felt himself rising up from the floor. He looked about, taking note that everyone else was rising as well. The artificial gravity had been lost. Telles pushed himself away from a combatant, putting himself into a spin as he rose. He fired his weapon at targets of opportunity as he spun, wounding or killing at least three more Jung soldiers in the process. He stuck his left hand up over his head in time to touch the ceiling and push himself back down. Pools of blood floating in the air bounced off his helmet faceplate and armor as he came down. As his feet touched the ground, he touched a button on the control pad on his left forearm to activate the mag-locks on his boots again.

His feet stuck firmly to the deck once more, the lieutenant looked around. Bodies were floating about, both the living and the dead. Oddly shaped pools of blood were drifting about, splashing as they collided with objects in the air. Fields of tiny droplets formed a reddish haze in the air in places. He could see more of his men coming up the corridor behind him, moving cautiously and with marginally more effort while using their mag-lock soles to keep their feet on the deck in the weightless environment.

Suddenly, everything fell… Hard. The force of the intense impact shattered the faceplates of the Jung soldiers who had been unlucky enough to land face first. They too would be dead in seconds. Telles himself had to struggle to stay standing. It took all his strength, as well as the muscle-assistance systems in his suit, for him to reach the control pad again and increase the assistance levels of the motion-assist systems built into his suit. A second later, movement became easier, although still more difficult than in normal gravity. He looked at the tactical information display on the inside of his visor. The environment data showed four times normal gravity.