Overlord (66 page)

“Commander Roberts and Lieutenant Rodriguez were blown out through the deck and into space,” said the Marine pilot of the number one shuttle, Commander Emily Coghagen. The two men had been her friends and she had trained with them on Master Chief Jenks’s design for the past two years.

Everett angrily kicked out at nothing, forgetting he was floating and momentarily throwing himself into a slight spin. Jason Ryan reached out and steadied his friend.

“Can you make two trips?” he asked Coghagen with little hope of a positive answer.

“Not in the time frame we’ll need to get two teams inside. The first will already have found their way deep into the energy ship before we returned with the second assault element.”

“So, you’re short one pilot and copilot and have a damaged ship?” Ryan asked with a brightening smile.

“Forget it, Commander, you’re not qualified,” Everett said angrily, knowing the young aviator would pull something like that.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t qualified to land the LEM on the moon either, but guess what?”

“What in the hell is he talking about? What is a LEM, and what fucking moon?” the Marine pilot asked astounded at the claim by the cocky naval aviator. “Sir.”

“Landing Excursion Module. Mr. Ryan accidentally landed one on the moon four years ago.” Everett shook his head at the astonished men floating next to the grinning Ryan.

“You see, Commander, the navy doesn’t tell the corps everything it’s up to—we keep some secrets to ourselves,” Ryan said as he returned his attention to Carl. “Now, either you think you can blow that thing up with one assault element, or you allow me to at least try to get your second team over to the opposite side. I’ll even take that asshole friend of yours along to show me the way of things. I’m sure those engine room boys would love for Jenks to get the hell off their ship anyway.”

Everett looked at his watch for no other reason than to see the time, because in reality he didn’t even know if they could get the
Lee
back into action long enough to find the power ship.

Ryan was watching, no longer concerned with his request as he noticed the thick blood clinging to the admiral’s watch. Without even asking he knew it was the blood of Jack Collins and everything he had learned about the British find came flooding back. He swallowed but refused to point that out to Everett.

“Okay.” Carl turned to the Marine commander and her copilot. “You have until launch time to get this asshole up to speed on the flyby wire control system of that bird, and you make him understand it and understand it good.” He turned to face Ryan. “Pay attention and no smart-ass comments or observations, is that clear, mister?”

Ryan nodded, smiling at last, letting the vision of the blood-covered watch go for the moment.

“Great.” Coghagen looked from the admiral to a cocky Ryan. “No matter if he understands something or not, he’ll say he does. I know these carrier jocks.”

“She’s got you pegged already, flyboy.”

“I love you too, Admiral.” Jason blew the retreating form of Everett good-bye. Ryan soon lost his smile as he turned to face the commander. “Let’s get to it.”

The Marine Corps pilot saw the sudden change in Ryan’s demeanor as soon as the admiral was out of sight. Gone was the man she had seen moments before; now Jason Ryan was all business.

She had no way of knowing that Ryan had just sworn to himself to try and change the destiny the Event Group, Matchstick, and the planners for Overlord had in store for him. Even if it cost him his life, Admiral Everett, his friend, would not die in the Earth’s ancient past if he could help it.

Ryan entered the damaged shuttle without another word.

*   *   *

“I want the drone launched immediately; I have to know the disposition of the enemy ships. How many are they, what does their fleet consist of, where are the processing vessels? And most importantly, the number of attack ships protecting the power distribution craft. As soon as the computers are up and propulsion systems restored I want that probe on the way. We’re not getting telemetry from the Earth stations since their jamming started.”

“Probe is ready and in the launch tube, Commodore.”

The lieutenant in charge of torpedo tubes 1–18 answered the commodore from his computer station. Jenks walked behind the kid and slapped him hard on the back. “Son, you take that system off-line while we try to crank this ion pump up; if she blows again it’ll take your torpedo tubes up with it. So safe all your weapons, is that clear?”

“Clear, Master Chief,” the young Royal Navy officer said, just grateful the master chief didn’t yell at him the way he had the commodore earlier when asked for the status of the ion drive.

“Good boy, now all hands strap in.” Jenks paused. “Ah, hell, hide behind something and take those damn Velcro boots off or you’ll break your ankles if we start venting again. Just hang onto your ass or the guy’s next to you. Everyone, helmets on.” The master chief and once proud professor looked at the Royal Navy female ensign standing next to him and raised his brows. “You stay by me, doll face. Okay, let’s start the music, sound the warning alarm, and tell the bridge we’re tryin’ her now.”

The alarm echoed through all eighteen decks of the
Garrison Lee.
Silent prayers were said and men and women closed their eyes as they waited for the loud sound of rushing coolant, and prayed that the new lines didn’t leak into the plasma containment tanks.

“Tell the computer to start, son, she ain’t going to do it without you.”

The propulsion officer swallowed and turned the switch, thus allowing the computer system to take over.

A loud whoosh sounded in the engine spaces as the coolant flow shot into the lines. Everyone cringed and then waited for the lines to back up into the plasma generator again, but this time the lights all turned green. One by one the plasma containment indicators switched on in the slowest manner possible. All twenty indicator lights were now in the green, or safe mode. Coolant was heard pumping through the lines at a rapid rate.

Master Chief Jenks closed his eyes and pursed his lips, surprised his jerry-rigging was successful. The propulsion officer sitting at his console watched as the power plant was now receiving the required amount of coolant and she slowly came online one system at a time.

“You did it, Master Chief, she’s up!”

Captain Lienanov, who had been hastily assigned to watch the plasma tanks for escalating pressure buildup, turned and echoed the officer’s words.

Jenks opened his eyes after his silent prayer and then looked at the computer showing full power had been restored. He raised the glass visor in his helmet and then stuck the stub of a dead cigar in his mouth, much to the horror of the safety officer, then turned to the men he thought of now as his people.

“Of course it is, what do you think it was gonna do, you bunch of—” The master chief looked at the young female ensign and then thought better of what he was going to call the men in the engine room. “Well, of course it works!” he said instead.

Jenks floated over to the intercom and slammed a beefy fisted glove into the switch. He removed the stub out from his mouth.

“Bridge, engine room. Full power restored. Now you have maneuvering capability, but don’t go slammin’ her into the moon or anything!”

*   *   *

Commodore Freemantle stood at his station and shook his head at the very unprofessional man he had in charge in the engine spaces. But he was thankful the gruff old engineer was there.

“Starboard maneuvering watch, fire jets one, five, and eight. Stern, reverse thrust of jets twelve and eighteen.”

The commands went without comment as the silent roll of the
Garrison Lee
started to slow.

“Port jets twenty, twenty-four, and fifty-one, fire now!” he said, overly excited to get the command out.

“She’s stabilizing, sir,” the helmsman called out. “Roll has slowed, slowing … stopped.”

“All jets cease burn. Helm, please give control back to the navigation computer for station keeping. Now torpedo room, launch my drone.”

“Drone away.”

On the one-hundred-foot view screen the commodore saw the small torpedo-shaped drone shoot out just aft of the deflector plow. The probe fired her booster engines and shot around the moon.

“Launch relay drone.”

Soon the first pilotless information-gathering drone shot free of the
Lee,
only this one stopped at seven hundred miles above the moon and still in visual range of the battleship. There it fired its automated breaking jets and came to a complete stop. She waited there to receive the information the first Black Bird drone sent back. Then it would relay the telemetry to the
Garrison Lee.

The bridge personnel waited silently for what the drone would tell them they were facing.

“First images coming in,” the intelligence officer called from her station.

Freemantle and the rest of the bridge leaned forward as far as their safety harnesses would allow and watched the screen closely.

“Oh, Lord,” said one of the younger radar officers.

“Stow that, sailor,” Freemantle said, though he too was stunned at the first image.

There were at least a thousand smaller attack saucers sitting in formation, six rows deep. The computer was rapidly counting and printing their type on the large screen. The message wasn’t good. Sitting on the outer rim of protecting attack craft were at least ten of the processing ships. They were at minimum the same size as the two that struck Mumbai and Beijing. Then in the exact center was the power-producing and transfer ship that would feed the invasion force the resupply of energy they would need to take on the lacking defenses of Earth’s military power.

An attack saucer broke formation and shot toward the probe. The little missile stayed in place and kept broadcasting as long as it could, and that was only a few seconds as the bridge crew saw a bright flash of light and the telemetry being sent to the relay went dark. But before it did they all saw the fleet of enemy warships start their advance.

“Number One, I would like to address the crew at this time, please,” Freemantle said as he straightened up as best he could.

“Aye, sir, one MC is active.”

“All hands, man battle stations,” Freemantle said calmly. “All sixteen-inch gun turrets, charge your particle canisters and energize your Argon systems. Ladies and gentlemen, the battle we trained for these past four years is now upon us. We must destroy as much of this fleet as possible to give the boys time to destroy their only power ship. Assault element, man your attack ships. Good luck, Admiral Everett.”

Throughout the HMS
Garrison Lee,
men and women tensed for the first outer space battle in history, and as most of them thought, the shortest and possibly the only battle.

The
Lee
turned to starboard, exposing all of her sixteen-inch laser cannon toward the curvature of the moon, waiting to discharge a full broadside into the first saucers that showed themselves.

Not since the end of World War II was a battleship more prepared for offensive action with naval gunfire.

*   *   *

Carl Everett looked Jack over as he sat up and winced at his broken ribs. He tried desperately to clear his eyes as the announcement was made about the testing of the power plant. He was finally able to focus on the face in front of him. As he tried to speak he felt sick as he started to float up into the air. Everett reached out and pulled him back down.

“I thought that letting you float away would be faster than explaining to you where you were at.” Carl smirked and then realized the last thing his friend had seen on the surface was more than likely his command being blown to pieces, and the death of Will Mendenhall. “I’m sorry about your command, Jack.” He looked over at Tram, who was sitting next to the now-spacesuited general. “And about Will.”

Jack Collins was still dazed, but not quite enough not to feel the pang of guilt over how he had failed. And now there was no telling what was happening below on the surface.

“Camp…” He swallowed and tried again, “Camp Alamo?” Tram handed him a Mylar bag of Dr. Pepper and he took it as his eyes searched Everett’s face.

“No word. Hell, we just got this big bitch back under control, thanks to the master chief.” Carl had heard the coolant pumps engage just a moment before.

Collins took a drink of the sharp-tasting liquid, coughed, and then drank again. He handed the empty bag back to Tram. He reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “The rest of the staff?”

Tram lowered his head and then started to clean the old M-14 rifle once again. The gift he had received from Jack in South America had never been out of his sight. Luckily when the Black Hawk went down he had it strapped to his back.

“Sebastian and the others are dead, Jack.”

Collins leaned back as he held firm to one of the many canvas straps that hung from the bulkhead.

Suddenly the feel of movement was pushed throughout the ship as the
Lee
started to control her roll.

“We’re headed for one hell of a gunfight in just a few minutes, buddy. I have to go. You and Tram take the number two lift to deck six, and then take the tram to the forward spaces nearest the escape pods. That’s the safest place on board, right by the plow. Thicker steel.”

Jack started to say something in protest, but Carl shook his head. “Not this time, pal, it’s my turn. You and your men have done enough.” He looked at the Vietnamese lieutenant. “Tram, you take command of the staff of General Collins, and if things go bad get him off the ship. That’s an order, you understand?”

Even Tram hesitated, making Everett shake his head. He then turned to an SAS military security man.

“Sergeant, you take these two men to the escape pod. You’ll know real fast if this attack goes south, so get them the hell out. The general’s flag is being transferred.”

The SAS sergeant came to attention and nodded.

“Sorry, Jack, but the fights in the navy’s corner now.” He peeled his feet off the floor, pushed off, and floated through the open hatch to the shuttle bay without the slightest hesitation. Collins knew he couldn’t say good-bye like he wanted to in front of the men around him.