Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (36 page)

The pilot advanced his throttle to its maximum setting and then armed his Orbital Ascent Drive. “Arming OAD. Pitching up.” He pulled back on his stick and started climbing.

Outside the interceptors, a pair of thrust ports located on the back of the externally mounted ascent drives opened up in preparation for firing.

“Passing Mach five,” the pilot announced as he continued to slowly pitch his nose up toward a vertical. He could see that his course was already leading the targets by a good amount. “Wings back,” he ordered, pressing a button on his console. “OAD burn in three……two……one……ignition.”

The pilot pressed the ignition button on the throttle for his orbital ascent drive. The drive ignited in a burst of flame shooting out of the thrust ports, which immediately tightened into a focused stream of thrust, causing the interceptor to leap forward. The pilot grunted as the sudden acceleration pressed him hard back into his seat and his body instantly took on five times the normal gravity on Corinair.

“OAD burning,” the pilot grunted over the comms. “Going vertical,” he added as he finished pitching upwards. His aircraft was now flying upward at an angle of only twenty degrees short of absolute vertical in relation to the surface below him. “Passing Mach six. Time to max firing range is five minutes.”

* * *

“Sergeant Tukalov, respond!” the captain shouted into his comm-set. De Winter looked about the bridge in frustration. The last transmission he had received from any of his men had been in the midst of a gun battle in the hangar bay. The fact that he could no longer make contact with any of them was not a good sign. Even Lieutenant Brayerton who had been left guarding the prisoners in medical was not answering. It all could only mean one thing; he and the other nobleman on the bridge were all that were left of the boarding party. That undoubtedly meant that an armed force was headed his way. There would be more than just two of them. That left the captain with only one viable option: escape.

“Where are the nearest escape pods?” the captain asked.

Josh turned around from the helm to face the captain. “The escape pods! What, are you kidding me?” The look on his face was one of disgust and disbelief. “After all that big talk, now you want to run away and hide?”

De Winter was in no mood to be ridiculed, especially not while he was still holding a gun, which he immediately raised and pointed angrily at Josh. “I will not ask again!”

Josh stood reflexively, his hands shooting up and away from his side. “In the corridor, just outside!” he answered quickly to avoid being fried by the captain’s small but deadly hand gun. “There are four of them on either side. Take your pick.”

De Winter signaled to the other nobleman standing nearest the exit. “Go!” he ordered as he stepped back toward Abby. He reached down and grabbed her arm. “You’re coming with me,” he ordered, fully expecting her to comply.

Abby slapped his hand away. “I will not! Get your hands off—”

Her words were cut off as the back of de Winter’s left hand smashed across her face, bloodying her lip and her nose.

Josh started toward de Winter, instinctively wanting to protect Abby. The captain saw his advance out of the corner of his eye and pressed his trigger. A small reddish-amber beam shot out and struck Josh in the abdomen, knocking him backwards over the helm and onto the cowling on the other side. Kaylah screamed and went charging toward Josh, scrambling over the navigation console to get to him.

De Winter grabbed Abby again, this time by her hair, and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me or you die!”

Sergeant Weatherly and Dexter were crouched down outside the bridge, hidden just around the corner at the next intersection. From his position, he could see the nobleman guarding the entrance, but the man seemed distracted by whatever was happening on the bridge. Directly across the intersection from him, Sal and the Omotossan crouched in a similar fashion.

As he was sizing up the situation, an energy blast was heard coming from the bridge. There was a flash of reddish-amber light, a scream, and the sound of someone falling hard. At that moment, Sergeant Weatherly knew there was no time to come up with a plan, they just had to charge in, guns blazing, and hope for the best. People were dying in there. He only hoped that the medevac pilot’s report of only twelve men being delivered to the Aurora was an accurate one, or else he was about to make a very big mistake.

The Omotossan wasn’t doing that much thinking. As soon as he heard the gun blast and the scream, he was up and running toward the entrance to the bridge, his rifle firing away. The sergeant immediately followed, with Dexter and Sal reluctantly bringing up the rear.

The first few shots from the Omotossan missed, giving the nobleman time to turn and bring his own weapon to bear. As the Takaran returned fire, the Omotossan’s next shot landed squarely in the nobleman’s chest, knocking him backward.

The Omotossan went down, stumbling forward onto his knees, finally bending over into a crumpled heap on the floor right in front of Sergeant Weatherly. The sergeant continued moving forward, stepping onto the dead Omotossan and leaping forward to tackle the nobleman. The Omotossan’s fire had been absorbed by the nobleman’s armored vest, and even now the Takaran nobleman was scrambling to get back to his feet, still able to fight.

Dexter and Sal came charging down the corridor right behind the sergeant, screaming at the top of their lungs to psych themselves up as they charged.

De Winter pivoted toward the commotion at the entrance, dragging the struggling Abby in front of him as a shield. He raised his weapon and fired toward the sergeant and the nobleman, the latter of which was struggling to keep the sergeant’s combat knife away from his throat.

Sergeant Weatherly saw the captain firing, and pivoted himself, pulling the struggling nobleman off balance which allowed the sergeant to move the nobleman into Captain de Winter’s line of fire. The blast from the captain’s small hand gun struck the nobleman’s back, his armor again absorbing the energy. The force of the blast pushed the nobleman forward into the sergeant’s knife, which was positioned directly in front of the Takaran’s throat. There was a gasp of escaped air followed by a gurgling sound, and the nobleman froze, a horrified look on his face.

Abby raised her left hand, inadvertently striking de Winter in the face. Unaccustomed to being struck in any fashion, the captain released his hold on the physicist and reached for his face, allowing her to fall away to the side.

Dexter and Sal charged clumsily into the bridge behind the now dead Omotossan and Sergeant Weatherly, their weapons firing wildly. Several of their shots inadvertently struck Captain de Winter. The first two were absorbed by his body armor, resulting in nothing more than being knocked off balance. The third shot, however, struck his left shoulder, spinning him around as he went down. As his knees hit the floor, a fourth shot struck the side of his face, blowing half of his head away, sending it spraying across the console behind him.

Behind Sal and Dexter, back by the hatchway, the nobleman’s body went limp and the sergeant let him drop to the side. He stepped forward, his bloody knife still in his hand, looking around the bridge. Other than himself, Dexter, and Sal, the only other people moving on the bridge were Abby and Kaylah. Josh was wounded, but appeared to still be alive for now. A feeling of elation washed over the sergeant at that moment as he realized they had done it; they had retaken their ship.

“Did you see that?” Dexter proclaimed excitedly. “I blew the captain’s face clean off, I did!”

“You did? I did?” Sal argued.

“What are you saying? Your shots weren’t anywhere near him.”

“My shots were the only ones that were near him. Yours were on the ceiling for the most part.”

“Oh, it figures!” Dexter complained. “It’s just like you to try and steal my moment of glory!”

Marcus and Loki ran up the ramp to the command deck on their way to join in the assault on the Aurora’s bridge. They had been running ever since they left Doctor Chen back at medical. Marcus was beginning to get tired of all the physical exertion. He was not a young man, and his body had been reminding him of that fact all day long.

As they continued down the main corridor toward the bridge, an electronic alert sounded from his pocket. At first Marcus couldn’t ascertain from where the sound was emanating.

“I think your pocket is beeping,” Loki told him as they reached the bridge.

Marcus stopped just outside the hatchway to the bridge, letting Loki go in ahead of him as he pulled the forgotten comm-unit out of his pants pocket. “Hello?”

“
Marcus, is that you?
”

“Who the hell were you expecting?” he said between breaths.

“
Is everyone all right?
” Jalea asked over the comm-unit.

“Jalea?” Marcus said as he stepped into the bridge and looked around. “Shit.”

“
What?
”

“No, not you.”

“
What is going on there? Is the ship all right?
” There was some noise over the comm-unit, like it was being roughly handled. Then Nathan’s voice came over the device. “
Marcus, listen up! You’ve got missiles inbound
—”

Marcus quickly handed the comm-unit to Sergeant Weatherly. “I think you’d better take this,” he said, switching the unit to speaker mode.

Sergeant Weatherly took the device from Marcus, staring at it momentarily. It reminded him of the portable phones everyone carried back on Earth. “This is Sergeant Weatherly.”

“
Sergeant, what’s going on there?
” Nathan asked over the comm-set.

“We just took back the ship, sir.”

“
The ship? What ship? What do you mean
, took back?
Who had taken it?
”

“Sir,” the Sergeant interrupted, “the captain of the Yamaro and some of his men, the ones that you took down to the surface. Somehow they managed to sneak back on dressed as medical staff. They came aboard the medevac shuttle the Corinairans sent up.”

“
Sergeant, I thought you were on the Yamaro.
”

“Yes sir, I was. They attacked us there as well. After we put them down there, we came over here—”

“
Where’s Vladimir?
” Nathan demanded.

“The Cheng is in one of the service tunnels, sir. They trapped him and Deliza in—”

“
Sergeant, listen,
” Nathan interrupted, “
you’ve got four nukes inbound. They’ll be there in just over five minutes. You have got to get the ship out of there! Do you understand?
”

“Yes sir. One moment; I’ll contact Cheng over comms.” The sergeant tapped his comm-set to place the call. “Cheng, Weatherly.”

“
Yes, Sergeant. What is your status?
”

“We’ve retaken the ship, sir. I’m on the bridge now. We believe all hostiles have been eliminated.”

“
Excellent news, Sergeant. Good work!
”

“Sir, I’ve got the captain on some kind of portable comm thing. He’s still on the surface. He says there are four nukes headed our way, and that we have to get out of here now.”

“
Oh bozhe moi,
” Vladimir exclaimed. Weatherly didn’t understand what the Russian was saying, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good. “
Sergeant, we do not have any power. How long until the missiles reach us?
”

“Captain said five minutes, sir.” There was a pause. “Sir?”

“
Sergeant,
” Vladimir began somberly, “
we will not have power back in time.
”

Sergeant Weatherly looked at the others.

“What?” Dexter exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that after surviving all of that, we’re gonna be blown outta orbit by our own missiles?”

* * *

“
Sir,
” Sergeant Weatherly said over the comm-unit. “
I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. We’re sitting ducks up here. Cheng had to kill all power so the transfer airlocks would go into rescue mode and let us in. He can’t get the power back up in time for us to take evasive action. Is there anything you can do from your end, sir?
”

Nathan could hear the desperation in the sergeant’s voice. He was a good man, strong and loyal to the end. Hearing the worry in the man’s voice didn’t make Nathan feel any better about the situation. “We’re working on it, Sarge.”

“
Yes sir.
” Nathan was quiet for a moment. He looked to Tug. “How long until the interceptors are able to fire?”

Tug looked at the main display on the far wall below. It had switched from a wide area map of the Hakai nation to the tactical plot of the interceptors on their way to engage the missiles bound for the Aurora and the Yamaro in orbit over Corinair. “Two minutes.”

“We’ve got a plan working here, Sergeant. We’ll know in three minutes.”

“
Yes sir.
”

* * *

“Command, Black Dog flight. Clearing atmosphere. Cannons in thirty seconds,” the pilot reported as the light of dawn faded into the blackness of space. The planet Corinair rotated below them now as they continued to accelerate.

“
Copy Black Dog. In the black, cannons thirty.
”

The pilot switched back to his ship-to-ship frequency as the buffeting stopped and they left the atmosphere behind. They were no longer on a vertical trajectory, having come over onto a course more parallel to the surface as they chased the missiles into orbit.

“This is gonna be a bitch of a shot, Jonas. We’re coming in nearly vertical under those missiles, so their thrust is gonna disperse most of the cannon’s energy. We’re going to have to tag them just outside the engine bells but still hit the bottom bulkheads in order to rupture their fuel tanks and light ’em up.”

“
Can’t we just shoot them in their sides and be done with it?
” his wingman asked.

“Their fuselages are reflective. At this angle they’ll just bounce off. They were designed that way to make them more difficult to shoot down when they’re coming right at you.”