America One: War of the Worlds (42 page)

“Gunner Two on Group One, locked and ready, outer starboard target,” stated Pluto Kathrine.

“Gunner Three on Group Two, locked and ready, outer starboard target,” stated the Jenny, the younger of the Burgos sisters.

Gunner Four on Group One, locked and ready, outer port side target,” stated her sister Jane.

VIN wondered what the
Matt
pilots would think if they knew that three young girls were about to blow them out of the sky.

Bogey Groups One and Two inside 3,000 mile barrier,” stated radar a minute later.

“Hey partner, you still there to take us home?”
asked the scratchy voice of Jonesy.

“Twenty-nine seconds early Mr. Jones,” smiled VIN as three more maser pulses were registered at once, only a few hundred feet above the wheel of the ship.

“Partner, we have been at 100 percent power for the full allowed six minutes, pilots reduce to 97 percent immediately. What’s happening?”

“Thirty-one enemy ships directly in front of your position. Once you see them on radar, head in and attack the bogeys closest to you.
Asterspace Three
is heading in on this pass in about seven minutes, she will need an escort, over.”

“They sure breed fast, faster than damn rats, astronauts confirm when you have radar locks,”
replied Jonesy.

Even at full power, Jonesy and the shuttles were only 9,000 knots faster than the enemy, and three times faster than the slower mother ship in front. They had been descending while the enemy were ascending.

When the blips filled their radar screens a few seconds later, Jonesy knew that it would still take a few minutes to get into battle range, unless something happened, and VIN was about to do that something.

“Gunners, fire at will, fire now! Make every shot count. They are beginning to part our hair and it will only take a few hits to destroy this ship.”

In the same second, all twelve of
America Two’s
lasers opened up and the lights in the bridge began diming every ten seconds as so much energy was being used.

The girls were good, and three explosions were seen on the first salvo, and another three on the second. VIN missed his first locked target 5,500 miles out in the third group, but got it on the second.

The closest group was gone in the first thirty seconds, the second group slightly slower and 35 seconds after the first group was eliminated.

By the time the third and fourth group gave up on their attack, they saw none of their ships in front of them, VIN had hit two of the eight from long range, and leaderless, they headed vertically back down towards the Martian surface and safety.

The fourth group still untouched also headed down in the direction of the Martian atmosphere, and their change in direction gave Astermine’s three shuttles the opportunity to cut the corner, they dived and gained rapidly on the descending craft.

“Commander, all three shuttles still 1,100 miles behind Group Four, but cutting the corner and catching fast,” stated radar.

“Gunners, continue firing at will until radar tells us our shuttles are close to arriving in our kill zone,” ordered VIN.

The four gunners now ramped up to full power, and one by one the explosions followed the enemy ships diving out of range. Three more erupted before Igor spoke.

“
Asterspace Three
is 4,000 miles to target, how she is holding up I don’t know she wasn’t designed to fly in any atmosphere at such velocity. ETA five minutes.”

“Laser locked on closest ship, firing now,”
stated Maggie a second after Igor’s voice gave them the information.

“Radar shows three more Matt ships climbing away from the Matt base. Mother ship gunners, halt your fire on the retreating ships,”
stated the radar chief on
America Two
.
“Mother ship gunners only, aim for the three new bogeys over.”

Maggie’s second beam exploded the enemy ship 700 miles in front of her.

“All shuttles, side thrusters on full rear thrust, or we won’t pull out of this dive, fire at will, over.”
Ordered Jonesy already slowing their ships down.

The gravitational pull on Mars, less than 15 percent of Earth’s didn’t add much to increase speed in a dive. They were already at maximum, and their shuttles weren’t accelerating much since they had already further reduced forward thrust down to 80 percent on Jonesy’s orders.

The weak Martian atmosphere did little to hinder the entrance of a spacecraft heading down vertically, but it had to be respected. Once they were back inside the weak atmosphere thirty seconds later, the
Matt
ships tried to spread out in different directions. Jonesy warned his pilots.

“Easy on the sticks guys. Oops! There goes a poor Matt, tried to outmaneuver the atmosphere,”
stated Jonesy seriously as an explosion blossomed out forty or more miles below them, and still at over 70 miles above the surface.
“Thrust down to 60 percent, full reverse thrust on your side thrusters, and don’t change your attack angle by more than a few degrees at any one time. You OK up there partner?”

“Up here and alone thank god,”
replied VIN.
“You guys certainly heading down in a hurry. We have hit one of the three exiting ships, expecting more to come out in 20 seconds, over.”

“Target locked, here’s one for my friend Jamie,” stated Maggie determinedly and another Matt ship exploded miles head of them.

“Got one!” added Gary Darwin.

“About time,” replied Jonesy. It was Gary’s first kill.

“SB-V, we have two down, over,” shouted Michael Price excitedly.

“Here’s one for my friend Penny,”
stated Maggie and Jonesy raised his eyebrows. His wife was certainly on form today as a third explosion brought down the numbers.

“Second bogey destroyed 17 miles north of the base. Three more exiting. These are heading out in all directions, over,”
stated the mother ship’s radar crewmember.
“Two enemy ships still in a vertical dive 57 miles above the surface 40 miles apart. Lone enemy bogey now heading south and climbing. I think the lone bogey has seen our incoming mining ship. Three new bogeys heading vertical east, north and west, seven miles from the door. Door closed, expected to open in 160 seconds. Asterspace Three turning in at 67,000 feet, 185 seconds from target, over.”

“Good job Igor, Boris,”
commented VIN.
“Jonesy Asterspace Three needs protection, over.”

“Copy that, partner, we are pulling out of our dive and descending in that general direction. Saturn, Lunar, keep on those two bad guys’ tails.

“One bad guy,”
replied Gary getting his second kill.

Gary got his third, which pissed Mark off as he missed his target as their pilots had to begin pulling the shuttles out of their dives still at 100,000 feet above the planet’s surface and at a rapid 47,000 knots. Mark, eyes glued to his camera was shocked to see the enemy he had missed still heading down and it only began pulling out a few seconds after Lunar.

The
Matt
ship didn’t make it and at full speed managed a pull out of his dive, but headed straight into the side of a mountain Michael Price suddenly realized was Lookout Mountain.

The two larger shuttles felt like being in very nasty roller coasters as they bottomed out at less than 10,000 feet and began to head back up again to continue losing speed and following the three new enemy clambering for altitude.

The three bogeys didn’t have a chance as the two shuttles, seconds apart swept through them like hawks after pigeons and two explosions lit up the dark night sky.

“Two bogeys to go,”
stated VIN.
“Jonesy, Asterspace Three 30 seconds from impact, door should be opening.”

“Copied Partner, catching up to lone bogey, damn Maggie missed, door dead ahead 35 miles out.”

“Door is opening, there is a blue shield inside the cavern. Somebody I need that shield taken out,”
ordered Igor looking through the approaching mining craft’s forward camera.

“SB-V, we are coming around, 8,000 feet, have door visual. Michael lock onto inside of cavern,”
ordered Lunar.

“Laser locking,”
replied Michael calmly. As he said that three
Matt
ships exited the gaping blue shield inside the cavern. They immediately dipped down below the bright blue hole, and like snakes in the grass turned and headed away in different directions.

Less than a second later Michael had the laser blasting away at the blue shield as a speck of something entered his camera view. It was Asterspace Three, and much like what had happened to
SB-I
, the blue shield exploded a split-second before the unarmed mining ship went in and seconds later, the same massive blast erupted out of the mouth of the cavern, and with it pieces of debris flew out in all directions.

“Three new bogeys and one old one,”
added Lunar as she pulled up and nearly collected
SB-III
. They both headed directly over the exploding mountain less than half a mile apart.

“Wow, that was a big blast,”
stated VIN.
“Heading over the horizon, see you in 12 minutes, alive hopefully, out.”

“Reduced the old ones down to zero, astronauts. Three shuttles left. All shuttles head vertical to pull the new enemy up with us,”
ordered Jonesy, and under full power they headed back up into the dark night’s sky full of bright stars.

Mars, Max, Vitalily and the two others had been listening into the fight outside since the beginning. There was nothing they could do and Mars was disappointed that he wasn’t up there. Gary Darwin, it seemed was doing a good job.

The crew inside the blue shield were blind. They had no way to see what was going on outside, but listened to the battle commentary on one handheld radio like people on Earth used to listen to sports on the radio.

“It seems several more and we are out of targets,” stated Mars to Max and the others. They were about to fit on their helmets.
Asterspace Three
was incoming to the mountain next door to theirs, and the explosion could really rock their boat.

The crew underground knew that there was a tunnel connection to the rest of the Matt base, which was about to be attacked, but they hadn’t found it. Max had also closed the outer door so that the crew controlling the incoming ship wouldn’t get the cavern’s mixed up.

“
Door closed, expected to open in 160 seconds. Asterspace Three turning in at 67,000 feet, 185 seconds from target, over.”
They heard Igor state over the radio and they screwed on each other’s helmet to ready for the explosion.

They didn’t know what could happen. The power could go out, which meant that the blue shields would disintegrate or close themselves down. They had fully recharged suits, and were expecting to return immediately to Mattville, down the tunnel, if the shields went out.

The explosion when it came was a deep rumble that could even be felt inside the shield. Pieces of tunnel rock and stones began to lazily fall through the shield. The crew looked up and dodged the several rocks falling through the roof of the shield.

Since the shield was up tight against the tunnel, the pieces of the planet that separated itself from the walls, just fell through the shield.

Mars looked out once he had dodged the falling objects and saw the same happening inside the large cavern. Most of the pieces were small, the size of his fist, but one piece the size of his head fell lazily to the floor, and shattered into a few pieces. Other than that, the lights and the shield stayed on.

The rumbling and quake stopped after a few seconds, and the crew braved heading out of the shield to check the damage.

“All shuttles head vertical to pull the new enemy up with us,”
the underground crew heard Jonesy say through their helmets and they headed one by one across to the other side. It was a mess, the first blue shield had exploded and there were burn strips along the walls through the tunnel.

There was no blue shield behind the first one and Mars looked back into the cavern to see a massive pool of air floating underneath the rocky oval roof of the cavern. The large bubble of air was as far down to the top of the cavern door ten feet below the highest section of the roof in the center.

“We’ve lost the air from the forward cavern,”
Mars stated to Max.

“The other rooms should be fine, but I think we should set up a new shield before we enter the mining cavern. The shield will protect that areas’ air from spilling out,”
replied Max.

“Mars, Max, stay off the air, we have a battle up here,”
ordered Jonesy from high above and the two men went about their work to set up the new shield with hand gestures only. Max knew that they had plenty of full air tanks in Mattville.

“I see one bogey heading vertical, the other two are dragging their tails on the ground somewhere off radar,”
continued Jonesy at 50,000 feet above the planet surface. By this time their speed had dropped off back to normal and the three shuttles circled and waited.

“These guys are flying different,”
stated Saturn noticing a change in their tactics.

“Well done girl, I noticed that as well,”
replied her father.
“I bet these three pilots are the more experienced pilots. The flights mostly had a leader, I bet these guys are their best, which means their last. Pilots treat these guys as veteran pilots. I believe that the single ship ascending is a trap, Maggie and I will head down to intercept. As far as we know there are three remaining fighters. Any more than three and that means they have another base we haven’t found, then we hightail it back into space, over.”

There wasn’t any good reason to wait around for
America Two
to arrive back over the horizon, so Jonesy added full thrust and headed down to take on the climbing enemy ship 37,000 feet below him.