Test of Magnitude (The Torian Reclamation) (33 page)

When the fifth ship—Vector—cleared mark one, it was Brandon’s turn. He hit the dag and popped up at the near warship, over the rear of its hull where none of the others had hit yet. Immediately upon coming out of dag, he found a target to hit with the left cockpit laser. Mip7 did the same with the right cockpit laser, and the lower turret gunner was on a third target with the big beam.

On the initial runs, they were concerned mostly with taking out the enemy’s mounted laser weapons, of which there were many. The configuration of the warships had been analyzed back at Cardnial-4 from data gathered during the space battle there, and many weapon targets had been mapped out. These now showed on targeting screens for the ITF1 laser weapons. But there were others which had not been pinpointed, and it was up to the crews to find them manually. For now, on these first few runs, they focused on the known targets the screens gave them. It was pretty easy shooting.

Brandon repeated the process on mark two, and returned to the staging area after having destroyed three targets on each ship. They stood in line and repeated the process when the time came.

After their second run, Mip7 began shaking his head as they waited their next turn.

“What is it?” Brandon asked.

“Still no return fire. That’s odd. We’ve been tearing them up now much longer than it should take them to engage us.”

Just then, Jol2’s voice came on the radio.

“This is ITF1 squadron command to mission command. The battle is contained. I repeat. The battle is contained. Move in and find your subjects.”

“I guess you aren’t the only one to notice,” Brandon said.

Brandon’s ship engaged in two more runs and still no return fire was seen from either enemy warship. By now, the transport ships had arrived behind them and were launching conventional fighters. While Brandon and Mip7 waited in line for their fifth attack run, they got the news everyone was waiting for.

“Squadron leader this is mission command. Our subjects have been located, and they are all on the ground. Repeat, subjects are confirmed as all being on the ground. Handle the enemy ships as you see fit. We are commencing the rescue operation.”

“Good,” Mip7 said. “We’re almost out of automatic targets. Want to give Jack a shot at something?”

Brandon thought for a second. “Not yet. I want to get those damn missile batteries that gave us so much trouble.”

Mip7 nodded enthusiastically. “Great. Take us in.” He pushed the radio button. “Aston moving on mark one.”

Brandon came out of dag underneath the hull of the first great warship. No one else had been down here yet. Right away, Brandon knew this was the ship he had tangled with before. One of the missile batteries was already taken out, with a huge burned jagged hole in the hull of the ship where it had once been.

“Your handiwork?” Mip7 asked.

Brandon smiled and hit the local propulsion to bring them across the bottom of the hull to where the other battery was. The lower laser gunner had already taken out one target and was working on another.

“The honor is yours,” Brandon said.

Mip7 promptly lined up the missiles and let them fly. A tremendous explosion erupted when the missiles hit their target.

“Aston clear mark one. Both missile batteries destroyed on mark one. Repeat, both missile batteries destroyed on mark one. Aston moving on mark two.”

Brandon popped them up under the second warship and Mip7 destroyed one of the missile batteries immediately. Brandon then moved them under the hull to the second battery, a risky move. So far, all the ITF1’s had been dagging out quickly after hitting targets. Brandon was hanging around using local propulsion, figuring they might as well take both of these batteries out now, since there had still been no return fire of any kind. Mip7 got another bull’s-eye shot off with the missiles, but then something strange happened. The explosion was tremendous, much bigger than the other two, and tore a gigantic gap across the entire bottom hull of the enemy warship. The reverberation shook Brandon’s ITF1. Instinctively, he hit the local propulsion and dove away from the warship out on the far side.

“That was unexpected,” Brandon said. He took the ship out farther and began a long, controlled U-turn.

“There must have been missiles in the battery,” Mip7 said, “causing that chain reaction. Nice flying. Aren’t you going to clear the mark?”

“Not yet,” Brandon said. He got on the radio.

“Aston
not
clear mark two yet. Repeat, Aston still on mark two.”

“What are you doing?” Mip7 asked.

Brandon ignored him and spoke into the radio again.

“Mission control, this is Aston. Have you scanned the enemy ships for life? There has been no return fire. Is anybody on board these things?”

Brandon completed his arc and began moving back toward mark two. “We can give Jack a shot at this now, where the structure weakened from the missile battery blowing. It might well destroy the entire ship.”

Mip7 nodded. The radio came back on.

“Aston this is Mulut8 with mission control. We can confirm that the warships are occupied. In fact, they’re loaded. Watch yourselves.”

Brandon wasn’t expecting that answer, but he was already within laser range of mark two again, coming up under it quickly.

“Why aren’t they shooting back at us?” Brandon said.

Mip7 shrugged. “Your shot, if you want it, is coming right up.”

Brandon got on the ships’ intercom.

“Jack, we blew a gap in the front hull of this ship so big it’s probably hanging together by strings. We’re coming under it again and you can have a shot at it if you want. Gotta be a major structural weak point now. Might just blow the ship to pieces, like that freighter. Just so you know—we do have confirmation there is a large population still on board, alive—but the hostages are all on the ground.”

“Yeah, I saw the hull blow as we cleared it,” Jack’s voice said. “Has the enemy fired a shot back at any of us yet?”

“No,” Brandon replied. “We appear to have caught them sleeping or something. It’s up to you. We’re here. Take the shot if you want it.”

Brandon’s ITF1 cruised under the bottom of the warship slowly, then cleared out the other side, but nothing happened.

“Guess he didn’t want the shot,” Mip7 said.

Suddenly, a laser from the enemy warship connected on Brandon’s ITF1. It hit them in the middle of the hull. Brandon felt it immediately and swerved the ship left, but the laser stayed on them and cut its way back to the rear turret. Warning lights flashed on the control panel and the dag drive screen went blank. Brandon made a sudden dive down, then cut left, then dove farther down and cut right, and finally broke free of the beam. He tried to hit the dag drive, but it would not engage. They were wounded.

“The other ship,” Mip7 said.

Brandon looked up and saw they were now headed directly back towards mark one. He turned the ship and made a long arc around the front of it.

“We’re hurt,” Brandon said. “Bad. The dag drive is out.”

Mip7 got on the radio.

“Aston clear mark two, but we are hit and badly damaged. They’re awake now boys, so watch out. Pulsar2, we need to dock. Can you receive us?”

The speaker began crackling badly, but they could make out Mulut8’s voice clearing them to dock on Pulsar2—which, thankfully, was the closest transport ship. The hangar doors were open on the end of the ship’s sphere and there were several conventional fighters circling in the space around it.

“Think you can dock it all right?” Mip7 asked.

“Yeah, I think so. The local controls are all working. Check on the crew.”

Mip7 hit the intercom and asked the crewmembers to report their condition. The lower turret gunner and the two technicians in the main cabin all replied that they were fine, but there was no response from the Reep gunner in the rear turret.

“Jack, please confirm you are all right.”

Nothing.

“Maybe his intercom is out,” Mip7 said. “We did get hit back there.” He pushed some buttons and checked the readings on a screen that came up on his panel. “We haven’t lost compression anywhere, but some electrical systems are out.”

“Yeah,” Brandon said. “Let’s hope that’s it.”

* * *

“Jack, can you hear me?”

Jack was dazed and didn’t respond. Dazed, but alive—for the moment, anyway. By the looks of him, however, he might be better off not coming back to full consciousness. His hair was singed off and there were large burned spots on his clothing. Brandon knew he had at least second degree burns in those places. His eyes were partially dilated and there was a gel-like substance running out of one of them. He needed a hospital, fast—an Earth hospital.

“What the hell happened to him?” Perry asked. “If the rear turret was shot through, how is he even still alive?”

Mip7 responded. “The turret wasn’t shot through. There was a power surge back there, probably caused by the Reep gun field, which was active when we were hit. I think he got caught in it, and was electrocuted.”

Brandon felt a great distress building inside of him. The poor kid never got a shot off. Damn it, he wasn’t even supposed to be in that spot. Brandon knew this was his doing, 100% his fault. They were supposed to clear mark two, but Brandon decided to come in again from the back side and give Jack an “opportunity” for a shot he didn’t want. That decision threw off the rotation of the other fighters as well. Was Brandon’s ego getting out of control? Was he such a glory hog that he almost got them all killed, while screwing up the battle plans of the entire mission? And this innocent boy now laying before him on the hangar deck—burned to a crisp and barely hanging on to life—was he the victim of Brandon’s pride?

Brandon couldn’t take the thought of it. He began trembling and crumpled to his knees with his head buried in his forearms.

Perry put his hand on Brandon’s shoulder and bent down beside him. “I know how you feel, brother. Go ahead and get it all out. Same thing happened to me in a firefight in the gulf war. I had to make a spilt second call one time, and another Marine lost his legs as a result. There was nothing anybody could say to comfort me, until my company commander set me straight on the matter. He let me know in no uncertain terms that pulling the trigger on a decision in the heat of battle is a one way street, and that making a decision is always better for the unit than not making one. He shortly had me convinced that by doing what we did, many lives were saved, and the guy who lost his legs eventually said he wouldn’t change a thing about what happened that day.”

Brandon just sat there squatting with his head buried, and felt himself hyperventilating.

Perry continued. “In war, there are going to be casualties. From what I heard on the radio, neither of those enemy warships have missile capabilities anymore—so because of you, we are all safe here now. All four transport ships. And the one that got a piece of you isn’t likely to bother anybody anymore, seeing as you busted it up so badly.”

Brandon grabbed ahold of Perry’s hand and held it tight with one of his, mostly to steady himself and to try to stop shaking. It worked, probably more because of Perry’s words than his grip. This guy was an angel, sent at a time when Brandon needed one most.

“The medics are on the deck,” Mip7 said. “And it looks like the commander is with them.”

Four Torians were running across the hangar floor now. One was wearing red shoulder pads. It had taken them a while to get here, but now they were running. There was only one other ship still in the hangar, other than Brandon’s docked ITF1, and that was a landing craft—the one Perry was assigned to. Brandon’s emergency had taken priority here. His injured ITF1 was now hanging above them. As soon as Brandon had managed to get the thing docked, the transport ship closed the sphere and pressurized the hangar, and then deckhands rolled stairs and carried ladders to the ITF1. That was the only way to get out of it from the hangar dock, which was just a huge mechanical arm that latched on to the ship’s hull in two places. The two technicians had carried Jack down the portable staircase and laid him on the floor before running off to get help. Brandon, Mip7, and their lower laser gunner climbed down on a ladder placed up against the cockpit after manually opening it.

“What can you do for him?” Brandon asked the medical team as soon as they arrived. “You don’t know anything about Earth medicine, do you?”

The medics ignored him and began touching Jack in different places and scanning his body with a small tubular probe wired to a lightpad.

“Brandon, I am Commander Mulut8,” the one with the shoulder pads said. “Great job docking that injured craft. Your technicians tell me it is barely holding together.”

“That’s news to us,” Mip7 said.

“Electrical shock,” one of the medics said.

“Yes—we figured that,” Brandon said. “Can you do anything for him? Can you help him”?

“We don’t know,” the medic replied. “Are either of you skilled in Earth medicine or biology?”

Brandon and Perry looked at each other and then both shook their heads. “No.”

“We can offer our blood if needed,” Perry said. “Mine is a universal donor type. And I know CPR.”

The medic shook his head. “There is no blood loss.” He then scanned Perry and Brandon’s bodies with the probe. “We can use the data we just gathered from you to monitor him and try to make adjustments if necessary. What is CPR?”

“Pushing on the chest to restart the heart if it stops,” Perry said.

The medic shook his head again. “We have equipment on board for that, which will work much better. We can take care of him from here.”

Two more Torians ran up with a stretcher. They placed Jack on it and began moving him off.

“Good,” Mulut8 said. “Brandon, I’m sorry about your rear gunner. Glad he’s still alive. Perry, we’ve plotted an approach for the last group of hostages now. Unfortunately, they are only a few, and they are close to a large enemy encampment. Could be a tough job. Let’s get your team on board and get after them, if you’re up to it. Brandon and Mip7, if you would like to volunteer to go along, they can certainly use your help now.”