War of Alien Aggression 1 Hardway (12 page)

"At this point in the engagement," Biko said, "Junks will approach the target in tight formation, on a steady intercept course and release their ore containers. Those ore containers will be packed with fission mining charges and high-density belt iron. They'll be rigged as anti-ship mines. Lt. Commander Sellis and Chief Terrazzi have managed to make us twenty-two improvised Vernier detonators. We will sortie 22 junks armed with 22, fat, anti-ship mines."

"Back up a second," Lt. Lee said. "Go back to the first part.
Mohegan
. The junk you're making into a neutron generator. I know that det is going to throw a lot of energy, but the timing's critical. Can't use a remote pilot for this. Not in combat. It'll get jacked in seconds. There has to be a pilot
on
that junk to fly it where it needs to go and push the button at exactly the right moment." 

"That's right," Biko said. "The pilot that flies
Mohegan
isn't coming back. It's my job now to order one of you to fly her, but I'm going to ask for volunteers."  

That was Cozen's cue. He was supposed to step forward and volunteer. That's what he and Ram had agreed, but when Ram turned to look at him, he didn't move and he didn't say a word. He just stared out into the eyes of the pilots. What the hell was he waiting for?

Ling's hand went up and then Richardson's and Singh's. Macaulay and Kollowitz volunteered. Every one of the pilots' hands went up and when Ram saw it, all the emotion that he'd shoved down deep tried to rise. Yes, they believed Cozen's lie, but it wasn't just the need for revenge that made every one of them volunteer to go. He knew that. He felt it. He saw it in their eyes and no lie could have put it there. He'd never seen that in anyone's eyes but Mickey's. He wanted to cry out of sheer relief that vengeance wasn't all that was in them because it meant Cozen's lie wasn't all that drove them.

Ling laughed then. "You've got too many volunteers. You're still going to have to assign one of us, Biko." The laughter spread and Ram laughed, too, but he was only pretending. The anger, the rage had already begun to build in him. Was Cozen going to let someone else go in his place? Was he calling Ram's bluff, daring Ram to reveal his lies to them and take a chance on destroying everything?

What had just brought tears to Ram's eyes was the feeling of hope it gave him to see that these men and women didn't
need
Harry Cozen's lies to fight this battle. Ram raised his own shaking hand to quiet them as he steeled himself against the fear of what he had to do now. He opened his mouth, but only the first word came out: "I..." 

"Commander Devlin," Cozen said, cutting him off. "I think I know what you're about to say." Cozen glared at Ram before he looked to the crowd. "I think we all know what you're going to say. You won't be flying this mission. Nor you, Lt. Commander Biko. Nor any of
Hardway
's pilots. I'm going to do it. I'm going to fly
Mohegan
myself." 

As a rule, Privateers and Staas Military contractors don't salute, but that didn't stop
Hardway's
pilots. They rose and delivered their own awkward imitations of what they'd seen. It started in the front rows and spread. Rigid-fingered hands rose to their heads at a dozen, odd angles. They were Cozen's now, Ram thought. They were his until death. 

 
Chapter Eleven
 

Ram called out, "All hands to duty stations, exosuits and helmets are the order of the hour."

"All junks, standby," Biko said on comms, "
Mohegan
, prepare to launch." 

"Acknowledged,
Hardway
AT," Cozen said from bay 6. "
Mohegan
is waiting for your 'go'." 

Ram thumbed the squack from the command chair. "All decks, prepare to vent atmo." Internal atmospheric shock waves from a hit could be far more deadly to a crew than the blast itself.

Hardway
put Jupiter's limb between her and the aliens just long enough for Cozen to launch. 

"The alien ship is turning," Biko said from the AT controller's console. "It's coming off its intercept course with
Arbitrage
. It's turning to meet
Hardway
." 

Four, anxious minutes later, Cozen reported, "
Mohegan
is in position." Over the AT console, Jupiter floated meter-wide and out of scale. Cozen and the junk were the size of a bumblebee hovering low in the shifting auroras, keeping position in a storm of solar wind and charged particles focused and funneled by the planet's giant magnetic field. "The reactor is running hot. It's taking everything this junk has to fight Jupiter's gravity." 

"Can they see his IR signature against the background?"

"I don't know," Dana said, "but I sure can."

They were close enough now that the images of the alien showed plenty of detail. Ram could see Captain Horan had been right – the stacks of rings forming apertures at the top of those towers suggested magnetic vectoring, probably for particle streams. There was a stack at the top of both tower sections. "Two main guns," Biko said. "I'd call it a destroyer made for fast intercept." Whatever they were, the Squidies would pound
Hardway
with those guns if they got the chance. Smaller batteries of unidentified emitters studded the alien hull, probably smaller weapons meant for faster targets. Two sections of hull opened along the forward edge of the vessel.  

"Those look like launch tubes," Biko said.

While
Hardway
gawked, the aliens must have been gawking back, looking up and down the mining carrier's length, scrutinizing her for guns. Once it got close enough, the Squidies inside must have seen how
Hardway
didn't have any because the line showing the destroyer's projected course began to change. It veered away and towards
Arbitrage
again. Bergano said, "He's turning. He's turning back on course for
Arbitrage
." 

Biko said, "He thinks we're bluffing. How does he know we don't have our guns hidden?"

"Maybe he's seen an Staas Company carrier before. Maybe he knows we're not a warship."

"...ooks..like..th....jig...s..up....ardway..."  Cozen's transmission from
Mohegan
came in pocked with static because of the radiation where he was. 

"Dana, if the alien warship keeps going and gets back up to speed, will it still catch
Arbitrage
before she reaches the cover of the UNS fleet?"  

"Absolutely," she said. "Without a doubt."

He could see on the air traffic display that the alien ship wasn't anywhere near region A and it wasn't ever going to be. The whole plan with Cozen and the junk and the neutron cannon wasn't worth beans now.
Hardway
could still intercept the alien, but they'd have to do it farther away from Jupiter, where they wouldn't have any tricks up their sleeve. If they wanted to engage, a straight-up slug-fest in open space was the only fight Squidy was offering now. 

Ram said, "Lt. Commander Sellis, plot an intercept course with the alien." Ram thumbed the squack. "This is acting Captain Ram Devlin. The alien destroyer isn't biting. It's adjusting course again and accelerating for
Arbitrage
. We are now maneuvering to intercept it in open space.
Arbitrage
needs time and
Hardway's
buying. We will close as much distance between us and the alien as we possibly can before scrambling the junks. All boats, be ready to blast out of the bays hard and begin your attack run as soon as you clear the launch bays, but do not, I repeat, do not launch until AGC Biko gives the word. That is all." 

A one-kilometer-long carrier doesn't turn on a dime, but it must have been plainly apparent to the aliens that
Hardway
was coming about to give chase. Still, the alien showed
Hardway
the flare and glowing, rose-colored plasma of its engines. "They think they can outrun us," Biko said. 

"They can," Dana said. "In another minute, the junks won't be able to catch it."

"It won't have that long." Ram was betting the alien couldn't outrun the Dingoes. "As soon as our nose is pointed at it, open bay 2 and loose the QF-111s. Loose the Dingoes. They'll get the aliens' attention."

While the bay doors opened, Ram looked down from
Hardway's
bridge on top of the command tower out over the 200-meter launch bay module and the 400-meters of ore containers proceeding it on the bow. The stacked ore containers took up 2/5 of the ship's total length. They came up 240 meters tall and almost as wide around the spine. They'd shield everything but the tower if
Hardway
faced her enemy the right way. Some of those ore containers were full of platinum and iridium ore and scores of osmium, but many were filled with simple, high-density belt-iron. As the ship came about to face the enemy and the flare of the alien destroyer's engines settled over
Hardway
's bow like an ugly pink comet, Ram hoped like hell those endless boxes of rocks would take some of
Hardway's
beating for her. 

Bay 2 was close to the tower module on the topside section of the launch bays, and after the bay door fully opened below,
Arbitrage's
QF-111 Dingoes flew up and out of the bay, past the bridge's forward windows in a tight formation. Their flat, engine-packed backsides torrented fire and their curved hulls bristled with gun barrels long as lances. The Dingoes cleared
Hardway
in moments and vectored high-velocity plasma streams as they cut a fifty-gee turn together and threw themselves at the alien hull. 

"It's coming about," Dana said. "Turning to cover its ass."

It still showed the carrier its flank, but the alien warship ship would turn faster and easier than
Hardway
. "Stay on those maneuvering thrusters and make sure to keep our nose and all those ore containers pointed at the enemy as it turns. I don't care if you have to spin us like a top to do it," Ram said. "Don't expose our flanks." 

"I got it," Dana said. "I got it. Keep the bow pointed at the enemy. I got it."

Biko said, "New contacts!" He pointed to a pair of contacts on the AT controller's display that appeared next to the destroyer. "Came out the ports on the leading edge and they're moving fast. Maximally decreasing range and bearing to
Hardway
... looks like a collision course." 

"Missiles?"

"Too fast. Signatures look like they've got their own reactors... They're torpedoes." They looked like ax heads spitting plasma out the back. As the Dingoes came for them, they blasted away from the carrier hard, but then cut a button-hook, 80-gee turn that pointed them straight at
Hardway
again. 

"What the hell can we do?" Biko said. "We can't outrun or dodge that."

"The Dingoes will get the alien warheads," Ram said it like he believed it even if he didn't.

The bridge and everything around him blurred as it shook with an impact to the hull. The shock wave rattled up
Hardway
's spine and transferred through to the tower module and the bulkheads of the bridge. It happened again. This time, he saw the particle streams. The alien destroyer fired ghostly beams in bursts from the emitters on its hull as it brought its small guns into play. It raked them across
Hardway
's bow and the ore containers.  

Dana said, "What is that? What did he hit us with?"

Bergano said, "Judging from the spikes, that was a stream of accelerated atomic nuclei – heavy ones."

"It felt like we got rammed."

"The stream was going pretty fast."

"How fast?" Ram asked.

"92% cee. Close to the limit."

"I've got red lights up and down the forward spine."

"Send damage control."

Dana leaned over her console and stared out the windows at the alien ship as she fired bow and stern maneuvering thrusters in opposite directions to keep
Hardway
facing into the destroyer's fire.  

"That's it...Keep closing the distance between us and keep the bow facing it."

The Dingoes' 140mm autocannon tore stitching streams of burning green osmium-tungsten alloy across the paths of the two, incoming, alien warheads. The Squidies' flying bombs split and peeled over in wild corkscrew turns. The Dingoes picked one of them and chased it. Together, they laced their streams of fire so densely across its bow that only a ninety-degree turn could have saved it. Sabot burrowed in through the alien bomb's hull casing spitting molten spray until the alien weapon disappeared in a detonation flash. 

A second after that, the alien ship's smaller guns ignored
Hardway
and began to target the Dingoes with stabbing particle streams. Two of the QF-111s got run through with the beams. They flared up and then veered off from the others and spun away into the black. Another exploded soundlessly after Ram saw a stream of nuclei spear it clean through the reactor.

That's when the alien destroyer reached out for
Hardway's
bow with its tower-mounted main guns. A pair of two-second streams of atomic nuclei moving close to the speed of light slammed into
Hardway's
bow and Ram couldn't see the site of the impact itself, but the flash lit up the alien ship's oddly rough hull and hurled whole and half and melted ore containers in all directions. 400 meters of stacked, 20m containers rippled high on all sides with the shock wave. Enough of the force that hit the bow transferred through the spine to the launch bay module that it blurred and diffused before Ram's eyes.  

The tower module and the bridge was over half a kilometer from where the alien weapons had hit them, but when the shock wave hit the command tower, the force that came up through the deck under Ram's feet nearly shook his brain out of his ears. The alien's smaller guns scored direct hits on the command tower below the spine, but they were just pecks compared to the kinetic hell the aliens' main guns dished out.

That first blast from the Squidies' main particle streams knocked
Hardway's
front end a few degrees – enough that the next shot raked down the starboard side of the ore containers. The particle stream drew its ghostly line and where it touched, the belt-iron containers ripped themselves apart spewing molten ejecta and their shredded metal skins into space. The shock of that blow was worse than the first.