Hammerhead Resurrection (18 page)

Cantwell asked, “Distance to Earth?”

“Five hours, six minutes on the current deceleration curve, sir.”

Leaning forward in his command seat, elbows on knees, he stared at the decking in front of him. He closed his eyes, imagining the distance between the fleet, the Sthenos, and Earth. For two days they’d matched the fleet’s deceleration perfectly.

What do they have planned for us?

He felt as though he were trapped at the bottom of a pit with a boulder leaning over the edge high above.

“God damn you Holt,” he said under his breath. “Why did you have to be so right?”

Holt and the flight crew had been missing for over forty eight hours. While he knew what that probably meant, he still didn’t want to acknowledge it. Large sections of the ship in that area had remained pressurized, but were cut off by damage, so hope remained, no matter how thin.

Taking his mind from Holt, he thought back over the last few years. If he hadn’t been in retirement maybe he could have prevented the removal of manned fighters. He opened his eyes. On the Nav-Con the fleet lay out before him, engines glowing off the cowls that seemed tiny and delicate but were, in reality, armored arcs of metal fifty feet high.

“Communications,” he said, “Any transmissions from Earth?”

“Nothing sir.”

“Nav-Con,” Cantwell said, “give me a visual on the Sthenos fleet.”

“Yes sir.”

He moved to stand beside the Nav-Con officer. “That’s a strange configuration.”

The ships, flying thrusters backward with their deceleration, were arrayed out in a vertical disk, flying face on to the fleet, each ship slightly staggered. Their engine housings glowed a deep blue. Two hours earlier, the Sthenos destroyers which had laid waste to Earth’s military installations and communications infrastructure, had come out of orbit, gone around the incoming fleet with astounding acceleration, and joined the larger Sthenos attack force.

Cantwell pointed to the ships. “What do you suppose this staggering is for?”

“I’m not sure, sir.” She rotated the image side-on and scowled at it. “There is this.” But she fell silent as if in thought.

“What?”

“Each ship has its front quarter clear of the others in a vertical plane. If they fire their energy cannons in the manner they did at Europa, they wouldn’t strike each other.

Cantwell nodded. “That’s good Lieutenant, very good. I’m thinking you’re right. It’s some kind of attack formation. It’s close now.”

Cantwell walked out to the center of bridge, under the great lattice the stars sharp and bright overhead. Turning to the bridge crew, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the time that I should offer a wise speech. I have none. Nothing I say will change what you know to be true. I can’t armor our ships with words, and I can’t steel your hearts. That is up to you. I
will
tell you we appear to be Earth’s last line of defense. We must be decisive. There are four billion souls planet-side, all relying on us. I won’t dress it up; this is going to get much worse before, and if, it gets better. In the next few hours, days, and months, our actions will steer the course of human history. You must find your strength even in the face of near-certain failure. We may not live through the day, or even the hour, but I do know this one thing: each one of you who sets self aside for service moves us that much closer to achieving the impossible.”

Not waiting for their reactions, which was something between them and themselves, he walked back to the command seat and sat down, feeling tired.

Stacy Zack walked onto the bridge with her team. Indicating that Marco, Horace, X, and Jacqueline should remain at the back of the room, she approached Admiral Cantwell.

“Sir, you asked for us?”

Cantwell, his eyes exhausted but his voice strong, said, “Commander, we’re dealing with large scale warfare, but if we’re lucky enough, we’ll need your small scale operational expertise in the near future. I want you and your team to be here from the beginning to assure a full understanding of our situation.

The navigation officer looked up from her console, saying, “Deceleration reduction for orbital entry will begin in ten minutes, sir.”

“Excellent.”

Cantwell briefed Stacy on what had occurred up to that point. When he’d finished, the deceleration maneuver was a few moments away.

The navigation officer said, “Reducing deceleration on my mark. Three… two… mark.”

Just at the edge of her perception, Stacy felt the ship go quieter, less alive. Her weight reduced to a now incredibly light-feeling, single G. Above, the stars seemed more still, despite the ship’s high velocity. The sense of stillness at such staggering speeds could be deceptive. She’d once completed a space walk at a solar-relative speed over one million miles an hour. Floating in the deep dark, the swath of the Milky way ranged broadly over her left shoulder as she drifted in a state of profound peace.

“Sir,” the Nav-Con officer said, but fell silent as she watched her podium screen.

“Yes?” Cantwell said.

“I’m sorry, sir, just a moment please.”

After what seemed to Stacy much more than one moment, the Nav-Con officer said, her face glowing with the light of her podium, “The Sthenos ships have not reduced deceleration curves. They are falling behind quickly.”

Cantwell said, “Keep me informed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cantwell said, as if to himself, “If they aren’t going to enter Earth’s orbit, what the hell are they—”

The Nav-Con operator cut him off. “The Sthenos have cut deceleration completely now. They’re turning… into an acceleration configuration.” After a moment, she said, “They’re accelerating.”

“At what rate?”

The Nav-Con operator looked to Stacy and Cantwell as though she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “Eight G’s sir.”

“Eight?” Cantwell moved to stand beside her. “How is that
poss—,” but he let the comment go. “They’re most likely going to make a strafing pass. We’re going to catch some hell. Bring up the battle group, and Sthenos positions. Collapse accordingly.”

The Nav-Con blurred before the sharp red and yellow lights swept into view over the display. Near the center of the battle group, the Lacedaemon glowed a more-intense red.

As Cantwell stared at the narrowing gap between the Sthenos ships and the fleet, he said quietly, “What the hell is your game?”

“Velocity delta is already 2,500 miles an hour sir,” the Nav-Con officer said.

“This makes no sense.”

Stacy shared Cantwell’s confusion. The more the Sthenos accelerated, the more they would overshoot Earth and the less time they’d have to take shots at the fleet. Visualizing the black destroyers blurring by at thousands of miles an hour, she tried to understand what they had planned.

Cantwell asked Nav-Con, “What will our relative speeds be at current velocity deltas?”

She ran her fingertips across the podium. “If our deceleration and their acceleration remain constant, our relative delta will be 15,000 miles an hour sir.

“15,000 miles an hour?” Stacy said. “They’ll be lucky to get one shot off at that speed.”

“Nav-Con,” Cantwell asked, “are any of the trajectories on collision courses?”

Without delay she said, “No, sir. There are no collision avoidance warnings. All trajectories are clear.”

Stacy stared at the Nav-Con with Cantwell, the display zooming in as the Sthenos closed. Soon Stacy could see the small shapes of the destroyers.

Cantwell said, “At that speed, they’ll overshoot the Earth so far we’ll have more than enough time to touch down… but it can’t be that simple.” He returned to his command seat. “Fleet, it appears the Sthenos are going to strafe us. Be ready for Sthenos course changes related to collisions. Nav-Con.”

“Yes sir?”

“Time to Earth orbit?”

“One hour, sixteen minutes, sir.”

On the Nav-Con, the Sthenos and the fleet seemed to be nearly on top of each other. Stacy looked up through the broad lattice.

“Is that what I think it is?” Stacy asked, pointing at something dark among the stars. As she squinted at it, it grew into the glowering prow of a Sthenos destroyer.

Cantwell asked, “Nav-Con, are you sure they aren’t on a collision course?”

“Not at this time sir. That ship will pass by starboard. It’s highly unlikely, with their current velocity, they have enough time to redirect to strike any of our ships.”

“They seem to live in the realm of highly unlikely.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Sthenos destroyer, aimed to pass by their starboard side, began to rotate in a slow barrel roll. The rotation accelerated to a spin.

“What the hell?” Cantwell asked in a quiet voice.

The destroyer increased the speed of its roll to a near blur. The Nav-Con officer, her voice incredulous, asked, “How can they roll like that and not crush everyone inside?”

“I have no idea,” another officer said.

To the port side, much more distant, another Sthenos ship came into view, spinning up as well, faster and faster, also blurring. Even further away, another ship came into view.

“Holy hell,” Cantwell said. “They’re going to run us through a blender.” He jammed his finger on his com button. “All ships cease deceleration and turn ninety degrees to port
now
! Get yourselves perpendicular to the Sthenos approach vector.”

Weightlessness returned as the stars began to rotate above. The
conn had responded quickly to Cantwell’s order.

“I think it might be too late sir,” the Nav-Con officer said.

“Let it be as it will,” Cantwell said and shouted to his right, “Fire control! Engage at will as they pass.”

The Sthenos’ bright-green energy beam lanced out from the prow of each ship, and their long axis spin caused the beam to sweep into a corkscrewing sheet, filling the field of stars.

“Brace for impact,” Cantwell called out.

The Sthenos whipped by leaving a green swath in front of the bridge glass just missing the Lacedaemon’s bow. A moment later, the deck shuddered and pitched, throwing Stacy in the air as her
mag-boots jolted free. Tucking her shoulder, she rolled over, and hit the lattice with her back. She braced herself for another impact, but none came.

The Nav-Con officer floated a few feet off the deck, struggling. Kicking off the lattice, Stacy landed beside her, boots relocked to the deck, and pulled her down. Red emergency lights pulsed. The main lighting in the bridge flickered, and everything fell into blackness.

Had they returned fire? Even one shot?

In the darkness, the stars overhead became brilliant and immeasurable. Stacy noticed a glow on the edges of the lattice work. It seemed to be coming from port side. Moving to those windows, she saw the S.D.F.
Naraka drifting in three sections. From each cut, a crystallizing fog of atmosphere escaped into space. The Sthenos had cut down the largest and most powerful Japanese destroyer in half a second. Here and there, the orange burn of life pods streaked away in solid-rocket-smoking lines.

“I need fleet status Nav-Con,” Cantwell called out.

“I have no power, sir.”

As if the Nav-Con officer’s words had triggered it, dim emergency lights flickered to life. The Nav-Con podium lit up, but the display remained empty.

“Nav-Con,” Cantwell said, “get me status on the fleet and the Sthenos
now
.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. Her fingers flew over the illuminated podium and went still. She stared at the panel for a moment, tapped on it once. Eyes wide and mouth slightly open, she turned to Cantwell and said as if confused, “They’re gone sir.”

“Gone? Who? The Sthenos? Do you mean gone to a distance or gone entirely?”

The Nav-Con officer looked back to her screens. “I… I’m not…” She looked back to Cantwell and shook her head as if trying to clear it. “The fleet sir… our fleet, every ship is… destroyed.”

Cantwell looked to the Nav-Con’s empty disk. “That pass was too fast. They can’t all… Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Stacy said, “Forgive me sir, but the Naraka is off our port side.”

Cantwell looked to her, his eyes hopeful, and she hated to tell him what she saw, hated to confirm and even believe it herself.

“It’s in three pieces.”

He stared at her only a moment before saying, “Navigation, make sure we stay with them. We have to collect life pods.”

“Main thrusters went offline when we were struck, sir,” the navigation officer said. “I have no control.”

The dead feeling in the decking and the weightlessness bothered Stacy more than it had before because she knew the ship might never come alive again.

“Are we maintaining position with them?” He asked the Nav-Con officer.

“Yes, sir.”

“Get pinging for survivors.” He looked to the communications officer closest to him. “You’re the point. Give me any messages that are relevant to main tactics. Route all other communications to relevant commanders.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He looked to Stacy. “Any thoughts, Zack?”

“Nothing relevant to our current situation, sir.”

He nodded, seeming to appreciate her brevity.

“Nav-Con, does your data still maintain that all ships are destroyed?”

“Yes sir,” she said, the color somewhat returning to her face. “I show all fifty-six ships were at a minimum completely bisected, some trisected. We were the only one that turned sideways enough… and were lucky enough to avoid a major hull breech.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The U.S.S. Theras had completed its turn, but was cut down the middle.”

“Completely down the middle.”

In the woman’s closed off expression, Stacy understood she was stuffing something down into her heart that was too hard to deal with. “Yes sir, all hands lost, no life pods ejected.”

“Stay on task folks. Our job is to get planet side,” Cantwell said. While Stacy felt certain the loss of a thousand men and women, most the ages of his grandchildren, crushed him, he gave no indication of it. He seemed to have switched off any part of himself which might get in his way.

Cantwell said to one of the communications officers, “Send out a signal to all life pod computers to autopilot themselves into our hangars.” Then to navigation, “The moment they’re collected, get us decelerating for orbital insertion again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the status of the Sthenos ships Nav-Con?”

“The ships have begun their deceleration, but were travelling far too fast with their attack acceleration to obtain orbit. They’ll pass the orbital plane by a significant margin.”

“Estimated time?”

“Based on the physics of our ship’s limitations, they should be delayed beyond our own orbital timeframe by twelve hours.”

“Let’s cut that in half for a safe measure and consider our window at six hours.” Cantwell said. “That still gives us enough time to get to ground.” He looked around the room. “Does anyone have a damage report? I know we got hit, I felt it.”