Dark Space: Origin (42 page)

Hoff sighed. It wasn’t ideal, but few things ever were. In the end, it always came down to the same question: are we just a biological storage device for our experiences—or are we something more? Hoff didn’t believe in things he couldn’t see or measure, so for him there could only be one answer to that question. The fact that multiple instances of the same person could exist did nothing to diminish his belief.
If two things look alike, sound alike, and act alike—are they not the same?

“Sir, one of the enemy cruisers is within corona beam range,” the gunnery chief reported, bringing Hoff back to the present situation.

“Open fire,” he said, looking up from the grid just in time to see two red corona beams arc out from the starboard side of his ship and slam into the distant hull of a baron-class cruiser. The enemy cruiser’s shields flashed bright blue at the point of impact, deflecting the attack. But corona beams were designed to take down shields, and they kept pouring a continuous stream of hull-cracking energy into that cruiser for four full seconds. The enemy cruiser’s shields failed at the last second and the corona beams drew a roiling ball of fire from her hull.

“Enemy shields depleted,” the weapons chief said.

Hoff smiled. “Hit them again, Lieutenant.”

*  *  *

Ethan hesitated for a long, breathless moment, his hands and feet frozen at the controls. The missile lock alarm screamed at him with increasing urgency, but he didn’t budge. He couldn’t justify killing any more innocent officers to save Alara or himself.

The pair of hailfire missiles which had locked onto him blossomed like fireworks just seconds before they reached him, each warhead split into four separate pieces and then spiraled off on hot orange contrails, now tracking multiple targets from unexpected angles.

“Hoi, someone’s got a lock on me!” Devlin Three said. That was Sergeant Dorian of Aleph Squad.

Ethan watched the three missiles which spiraled toward his own fighter. His heart thudded madly in his chest. His palms began to tingle and sweat. A cold fist of panic seized him and his heart seemed to abruptly stop beating in anticipation of the end.

At the last possible second, instinct took over. Ethan thumb-switched over to lasers and shot two of the approaching missiles down. The third one impacted on his shields, and space turned white. A deafening roar came through the simulated sound system and the seat restraints dug roughly into his chest as one of his three engines exploded and his nova flipped end over end with the unbalanced thrust.

“IMS to 100%!” Ethan said. Suddenly the tumbling sensation ceased, but space continued to spin around him. A quick thrust correction brought his nova back under control, but now with a maximum acceleration of just 98 KAPS and barely half of its former maneuverability. Ethan scanned the grid to the look for the modified corvette which had shot him. He saw it go racing past him, spitting a solid stream of gold ripper fire and blue dymium pulse lasers at the other Devlins. As he watched, Devlin Three’s icon flashed brightly and then winked out.

No more sergeant Dorian.

Devlin Two screamed, “You motherfrekker!”

That was Gina. She flipped around and returned fire on the corvette but it deflected her lasers easily and turned its turrets on her next. Ethan grimaced, watching as she and the other Devlins fired haphazardly at the corvette. Half their shots missed, and they didn’t even bother to make use of their speed and maneuverability to dodge enemy fire, meanwhile the corvette ducked and wove like a ship half its size. Ethan pulled up hard to loop over and line up on the corvette’s tail, but before he’d even brought his crosshairs in line, it took out another Devlin and clipped the wings off a third.

“Frek it, I’m dead in space!” Devlin Nine said.

“We’ve lost Six!” Five added.

Ethan gritted his teeth.
Don’t they know they’re firing on their own men?

He lined up the corvette under his sights and snapped off a quick fire-linked burst of his own. All three lasers found their mark, taking 10% off the corvette’s aft shields. Then they equalized and it was only 5%, but it was enough to get the corvette’s attention. Suddenly it stopped firing on Ethan’s squad mates and those turrets swiveled to face him. A blinding pair of blue dymium lasers flashed by his canopy, so close that they bathed his cockpit in an azure glow. Ethan kicked his fighter up on its side and began weaving an evasive pattern, but with one of his thrusters ruined, his maneuvers were slow and clumsy. Lasers flashed by his cockpit with increasing accuracy until a pair of them hit.

“Shields critical,” his nova’s computer reported.

Ethan’s eyes darted to his shield gauge to see his shields in the red, barely recovering at just 12%. A couple of hits were all it would take to bring him down.

“Devlins, I could use some help over here!” But they’d all broken off, their attention drawn by the onrushing wave of enemy novas.

“Ruh-kah!” he heard Gina roar.

“Hoi, missiles incoming!” another said.

“Frek it! We’re too close!”

“Break, break—skrsssss . . .” that last message died in static. Ethan spared a quick glance at the gravidar just in time to see his whole squadron go winking off the grid in quick succession. Their explosions lit up the holo display and rumbled through his speakers.

Devlin Two, Gina’s fighter, was the last to go.

Ethan stared at the grid, wide-eyed with horror.

“Frek!” he activated his comms and switched to an open channel, no longer caring what Brondi’s reaction might be. “You just killed a whole squadron of friendlies! Congratulations. That was Aleph Squad and First Lieutenant Gina Giord, in case anyone cares.”

Another shot from the corvette hit him and his nova shuddered.

“Shields critical,” the computer warned again.

“You don’t say?” Ethan snapped while increasing power to forward shields.

“Dad? Is that you?”

Ethan blinked. Hearing Atton’s voice interrupted his concentration just enough for another two shots from the modified corvette to find their mark. A warning siren blared through the cockpit and the computer said, “Shields depleted.” His canopy flashed again, and he heard a gritty screech of duranium. His flight suit auto-pressurized with an ear-popping hiss, and that was when Ethan noticed the jagged crack in the left side of his canopy. He turned to look out over his port wing and found nothing but a molten ruin where it had once been. Ethan tested his flight stick, but found that now the nova barely responded. At full thrust he was crawling along at just 22 KAPS. Only one of his thrusters was still lit, and it was sputtering. As Ethan watched, his HUD flickered and his holo displays went black, only to start up again a moment later, but now tinted a sickly red. He was on emergency power—back up batteries.

“Dad! Frek—are you okay?”

He couldn’t believe it. His
son
was flying that corvette. Ethan let out a shuddering sigh and keyed his comm. “Atton?”

“I’m coming about. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but my fighter is pretty badly scorched.”

“Do you think you can get clear of the engagement?”

Ethan shook his head. “No, I’m running on emergency power.”

For a moment, neither of them was sure what to do next, and then a flurry of warning beeps flooded through Ethan’s helmet speakers. Missile locks. The
Tauron’s
novas were in range.

“Atton! Tell those novas to stand down!”

But it was too late. The beeps turned to sirens and Ethan’s hand found the red ejection lever beside his chair.

“Ruh-kah,” he whispered, and then he pulled the lever.

His canopy blew away as the explosive bolts fired. The flight chair shot him out into space at a modest 60 KAPS, which he felt with the crushing weight of three and a half G’s. The ejection seat cancelled only half of that force with its weak grav field, while the rest worked hard to flatten him like a pancake. For a brief instant, the weight on his spine was almost unbearable; all the blood drained away from his head and black spots swam across his vision, blotting out the stars. Then the chair’s thruster sputtered out and he began to drift at a constant rate. Ethan twisted around to see the approaching battleship and its nova escort. The novas were tiny, glinting specks against the darkness of space, but visible to the naked eye, which meant they were very close. The mighty warship behind them looked like an onrushing mountain, glittering with lights and bristling with cannons.

Suddenly, fireworks blossomed in the foreground and over half a dozen orange contrails spiraled out of nowhere. Ethan knew what those were. He fought his seat restraints to peer down on his damaged nova. The charred and broken fighter drifted by some 200 meters below—still far too close. In a matter of seconds, when those hailfires found his ruined nova, Ethan would be incinerated by the blast.

Chapter 28

T
ime froze as Atton watched his father eject and the hailfire missiles zero in on his drifting nova. With a heart-pounding stab of adrenaline, he realized that Ethan would be too close to the blast when those missiles hit. He banked toward the incoming missiles and began firing wildly at them. The first two exploded, but there were still six more arcing toward their target. He briefly considered putting his transport between the missiles and their target, but blocking them all would be impossible—not to mention suicidal.

Maybe he didn’t have to block them. Atton targeted his father’s derelict fighter and pushed the throttle up past the stops into overdrive. Now he was roaring along at 120 KAPS. He switched his shields to double front, dialed up the IMS to 100%, and made small course corrections based on his target’s drift. The rangefinder ticked down to just a few hundred meters, but the missiles were nearly as close. Atton had a horrible premonition of those warheads hitting the fighter at the same instant he did, and all of them exploding in a fiery spectacle.

Then he hit the drifting nova and the transport imparted 556 m/s of kinetic energy.

“Shields critical,” the corvette’s computer warned. Several damage alarms sounded. But the nova fighter went tumbling off into space at 440 m/s, and Atton saw the missiles arc after it just a split second later. He waited to see the fiery starburst which would signify their impact.

But he never got to see the explosion. Instead, he heard the sudden screech of a missile lock alarm, followed by a muffled
boom
and a blinding flash of light.

“Shields depleted,” the computer said as acrid smoke poured into the cockpit.

*  *  *

Caldin watched the developing confrontation with an encroaching sense of dread. The first nine kills went to Hoff’s novas and one mysterious corvette, but Brondi had hundreds of fighters left. As she watched, Hoff’s formation came into range, and the junkers dumb-fired their missiles at the
Tauron
, ignoring the novas completely. Hundreds of streaking missiles appeared on the grid. The
Tauron
and her novas opened up on them with a blinding flurry of lasers, but fully half of the missiles got through. Caldin watched the
Tauron’s
shields drop from 100% to 89% as impact after impact flashed along her bow. Then the
Tauron
went slicing through the enemy formation, taking pot shots at the odd 60 fighters which went roaring over and under her hull. Hoff’s flanking assault transports joined the fight with a few barrages from their turrets, but in the handful of seconds it took for the enemy fighters to race past, Hoff’s forces only managed to kill a squadron and a half of them. The
Tauron
raced on at full throttle, her rear turrets flashing out with parting shots, but those  junkers would never catch up to the
Tauron
now. The first wave was over, but it had been the easiest one. Just on the other side of the minefield were more than 400 additional fighters, and almost half of those were novas with military grade munitions.

Caldin grimaced. It was going to be a very close fight. She looked up from the captain’s table to see her XO, Junior Captain Crossid Adram, standing down by the edge of the holographic dome, staring out at space. She frowned. They didn’t have long before the
Tauron
made her pass on the
Valiant,
likely just another minute. What was he doing down there? She shook her head and jogged down to Adram. Upon reaching his side, she tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t respond. His lips were moving and his eyes were closed, but she could hear only indistinct whispers coming out.

“It’s a little late to be saying your prayers, Adram.”

He opened his eyes and turned to her with a smile. “You’re right. It’s far too late for that.”

Caldin’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t comment on whatever morbid sense of humor had provoked that smile. “I need your full attention on the grid, Adram. We’re less than a minute away from our attack window.”

“Of course,” he replied, nodding slowly.

Caldin turned and jogged back to the captain’s table, not waiting for him to catch up. She planted her palms on the rim of the table and gazed down on the grid, watching the
Tauron
nail a few mines with its cannons before roaring through the minefield. They were in, but Brondi’s fighter squadrons had just been waiting for this. Now they were all in range.

The grid erupted with lasers, beams, and missiles. Explosions blossomed to all sides of the battleship in a blinding flurry of light. Space was so busy that she almost missed what happened next.

All of a sudden, the minefield began to explode. Fire spread across the grid like a tidal wave. Caldin blinked and shook her head, unable to understand what she was seeing.

“Gravidar! What’s taking out those mines?” she demanded.

*  *  *

Admiral Heston watched the battle rage around him on the holographic grid. Hundreds of missiles flashed out from Brondi’s fighters, and the battleship’s gunners answered back with a blinding stream of lasers. More than half of the missiles were shot down before they reached the
Tauron,
but that left his ship shuddering with the impacts of a significant remainder. Dozens of missiles impacted on all sides of the battleship, filling the bridge speakers with a muted roar. Hoff watched out the viewports as half a dozen missiles spiraled in toward the bridge itself. They splashed on the viewports in a blinding burst of light a second later, and Hoff winced away from the glare.

So far shields were holding. They were down to 62%, but ETA until they reached firing range with the
Valiant
was just thirty seconds now, and they had already roared past the majority of the enemy fighters. The massive, five-kilometer-long carrier began to fill their entire view of space.

We’re going to make it,
Hoff thought. But they still had to get past the
Valiant’s
own defenses. After they’d hulled a baron-class cruiser with their corona beams without taking any damage themselves, Brondi’s smaller capital ships had chosen to stay back, out of range. Now Brondi was being smart. He wasn’t going to throw his more valuable ships away in a battle which he was certain to win anyway, and he didn’t need to; he had his junk fighters for that.

Hoff watched the confusing mess of exploding missiles, darting fighters, and lancing lasers, and gave a predatory smile. Brondi had no idea that his carrier was about to be overrun with navy sentinels.

Suddenly the grid came alive with something new. The minefield began to explode, all at once, flaring on the grid like a supernova. It was as if Brondi had pushed a button and remotely detonated all of his mines. The resultant wave of fire from those mines spread all the way around the
Tauron
and the
Valiant
in a brief, shining sphere of light. Hoff frowned as the myriad explosions began to clear.

Why would Brondi detonate his own minefield?

*  *  *

Atton coughed on the smoke pouring into the cockpit. He sealed and pressurized his flight suit with a whisper of a command, and the maddening tickle in the back of his throat eased as he began breathing a separately filtered air supply.

A quick look at the damage report showed minor damage to the hull and inertial management system. There was a slow fuel and pressure leak somewhere inside the port engine nacelle, and two of his stabilizer fins had been blown off, but otherwise all systems were in the green. He’d been incredibly lucky. The hailfire missile which had hit him had stripped his shields, but not much else.

Then Atton remembered the reason he’d put himself in the path of the hailfires in the first place, and his eyes darted to the grid. He zoomed in several levels to find his father drifting away slowly at a distance of two klicks. At 33 klicks, the enemy fighter wing was already turning around to chase the
Tauron
. They’d be back in range of the
Last Chance
in just a few minutes.

Atton targeted his father and brought the corvette
around in a tight arc. He kept the throttle down so he wouldn’t overshoot. Once he came to within 50 meters of Ethan, he pulled back on the throttle and pulled up gently on the stick to cruise out overhead. He set the transport’s autopilot to maintain that position relative to his father while he cycled the rear airlock open. Using the airlock’s emergency rescue systems, he managed to get a grav lock on Ethan and pull him inside. Shutting the airlock once more, he spared a quick glance at the grid to see an entire squadron of junkers now angling toward him. Fifteen klicks.

The
Last Chance’s
shield gauge glowed red at just 22%, and the enemy fighters were already moving fast. In just a few seconds they would be in firing range. There was no way he could stand and fight with 22% shields.