Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance (47 page)

He raised his weapon and carefully took aim, firing a single shot into every Jung soldier he could see as they struggled to rise against the increased gravity. By the time the gravity reverted to normal, he had killed fifteen more men. He didn’t know if the changes in gravity were on purpose, or due to system malfunctions. At this point, he did not care. There were many more Jung soldiers still left between his forces and the Karuzara control center. He had to move quickly.

“Captain!” Naralena called out. “I have the Celestia on comms.”

“Put them up,” Nathan ordered as the bridge continued to shake from the impact of the platform’s rail guns. Naralena nodded at him a moment later, indicating the connection was live. “Celestia, Aurora Actual, how do you copy?”

“
Aurora Actual, Celestia Actual,
” Cameron’s voice crackled over the speakers.
“A little broken, but we copy. What’s the situation?
”

“No time. Brace yourself for impact in…” Nathan turned to look at Mister Navashee, both hands holding tightly onto the arms of his command chair.

“Ninety seconds.”

“…A minute and a half,” Nathan finished.

“
What kind of impact?
” Cameron wondered.

“Debris. We’ve got a KKV inbound. We’ll try to shield you as best we can, but if one of their antimatter reactors doesn’t eject…”

“
Understood. Celestia out.
”

“Seventy seconds until the platform rotates out of her firing solution,” Mister Navashee reported.

The bridge suddenly shifted to the right and heaved upward. Nathan felt himself being lifted into the air, coming down and landing hard again in his command chair.

“Damage control reports a hull breach!” Naralena reported. “Ventral side, midship, just forward of the reactor plants! Backup fusion reactors are offline!”

“Power reduced by fifty percent!” Mister Riley reported.

“
Captain! Cheng!
” Vladimir’s voice called over Nathan’s comm-set.

“Go ahead,” Nathan answered.

“
We have lost antimatter reactors one and three! The containment fields became unstable. Safeties initiated automatically and ejected the cores. We are down to only two antimatter reactors. Fusion reactors are offline as well. If we lose reactors two and four, we will be without power!
”

“Understood,” Nathan answered, tapping his comm-set to end the call. “Time to KKV impact?” he asked Mister Navashee.

“Forty seconds! Barrage ends in thirty!”

“Commander Dumar on the line again, sir!” Naralena announced.

Nathan pointed to his headset without looking back at her.

“Captain!” Commander Dumar called over Nathan’s comm-set, “we cannot hold any longer! The Jung are preparing to blast their way into the control center. They will vent our atmosphere and kill us all. There is nothing more we can do to stop them! You must launch a KKV!”

“I already have!” Nathan replied, tapping his comm-set again to end the call.

“Thirty seconds to KKV impact,” Mister Navashee reported.

“Comms! Get me Telles!”

“Fifteen seconds until platform loses their firing solution,” Mister Navashee added.

Nathan glanced at the images streaming from Lieutenant Telles’s helmet camera. The image was shaking and moving so fast and furiously that Nathan could barely make out what was going on. One moment, Telles would be firing his weapon, the next moment he would be ducking incoming fire, a parry by a Jung with a bladed weapon, or the incoming butt of an energy rifle.

“I have Lieutenant Telles,” Naralena reported.

Nathan’s eyes widened, startled by the image from Telles’s helmet camera. A Jung soldier was faceplate-to-faceplate with Telles. The man’s eyes were wider than any Nathan had seen before, full of rage and determination. Then they changed. For a moment, Nathan was confused by the changing look in the Jung soldier’s eyes. Then he remembered the look. It was the same one he had seen in the eyes of the man Nathan had shot on Haven, standing in front of Tug’s home. It was the look of a man who knew that his life had just ended. The stillness of the moment was itself, shocking, as the men fell away from the lieutenant just as Telles’s voice came over Nathan’s comm-set.

“
Captain, Telles!
”

“Lieutenant,” Nathan replied. “Yes or no. Can you hold?”

The image from the lieutenant’s helmet camera began to move wildly again. As it pitched down, for a brief moment, Nathan could see the face of the Jung soldier the lieutenant had just killed face-to-face.

“
We are Ghatazhak,
” the lieutenant replied confidently. “
The Jung shall not take this asteroid, Captain. You have my word.
”

Not once had Nathan ever heard the slightest hint of doubt in the lieutenant’s voice. Not through all the seemingly impossible battles he had been called upon to fight, and not in the words he had just spoken.

Nathan took a deep breath to strengthen his resolve. The violent shaking and the repeated impact of enemy rail gun fire suddenly stopped, casting an eerie silence on the bridge of the Aurora. “Lieutenant, tell your men to brace for impact.”

“
Understood.
”

Nathan watched the view from Lieutenant Telles’s helmet camera as the link between them ended.

“Impact in five seconds,” Mister Navashee reported.

“All hands, brace for impact,” Nathan ordered calmly.

“Three……”

Nathan gripped the sides of his command chair tightly as the collision alarms sounded throughout the ship, along with the automated verbal warnings that something was about to strike the ship.

“Two……”

Nathan continued to watch the images streaming from the lieutenant’s battle camera as the hand-to-hand combat in the corridors just outside the Karuzara’s control center raged on.

“One……impact.”

Nathan’s eyes moved from the helmet camera feed to the center of the image of the Jung battle platform in their main view screen. A brilliant white light suddenly appeared in the middle of the upper half of the platform’s main vertical section at its center. The back side of the central section sprayed outward as another light flashed on the topside of one of the three remaining arms. As the arm also began to spew debris out from the other side, the center section blew apart, followed immediately by the arm directly behind it. The remaining arms, as well as tons of debris of varying sizes went spewing outward in all directions, with the majority of the debris following the path of impact out the opposite side of the exploding platform.

“Direct hit!” Jessica exclaimed.

“There’s no antimatter…” Nathan began to exclaim.

“…Those last two arms!” Mister Navashee warned. “One of them is headed toward the Karuzara!”

“What about their cores?” Nathan demanded.

“I’m not reading any antimatter eve… Wait! I have them! Thirty-eight antimatter cores, moving away at twenty kilometers per second and accelerating! They’re fanning out, down relative and away from the platform!”

“Incoming call from Scout One,” Naralena called out.

“Scott!” Captain Roselle yelled over the comms. “Are you fucking nuts? If the Jung capture that asteroid…”

“The Ghatazhak will…”

“Ghatazhak my ass!” Roselle interrupted. “I can see the feeds too, you know. It’s a fucking melee down there! And you just destroyed the wrong goddamned target!”

“I’ve still got one KKV left, Roselle,” Nathan said.

“Then you better launch the fucking thing right the fuck now before it’s too late!”

“Telles will not lose the Karuzara,” Nathan insisted.

“
Goddamn it, Scott! If you don’t destroy that asteroid, I will, and you know it!
”

“The arm will impact the Karuzara in ten seconds,” Mister Navashee warned.

“Hold your fucking position, Roselle,” Nathan demanded as he switched channels on his comm-set. “Telles! Scott! Impact in five!”

“Ghatazhak! Brace yourselves!” Telles called out over his helmet comms. He lunged forward, driving his knife deep into the belly of a charging Jung soldier, driving him backward. As they fell to the deck, Telles twisted their bodies in the air, landing on their sides, and pulling the dead man’s body over his own as cover.

The corridors shook violently. The lights flickered as rubble fell from the rocky walls of the corridor. Conduit along the ceiling snapped and fell, striking those still standing and knocking them down. The lights went out completely, leaving only the light of energy weapons as they continued to fire in the darkness and chaos. Telles pushed the dead soldier off of him as the shaking subsided. He rose to his feet and charged forward, firing wildly as he stepped over the bodies of the dead that littered the corridor. He could see the Jung troops up ahead, preparing charges to blast their way through the airlock door to vent the control center of all atmosphere. He fired into the group of men, killing them instantly, but in doing so drawing the fire of others.

His men rose up behind the lieutenant, following him on his charge down the corridor, stepping on the fallen, both enemy and comrade, determined to finish the battle.

Jung soldiers who had been knocked off their feet by the impact were rising from the bodies on the floor of the corridor, taking aim at the charging Ghatazhak. Men on either side of the lieutenant fell to the Jung fire as he charged forward into the hail of energy weapons fire.

A Jung energy bolt struck the lieutenant in the arm, melting the armor just forward of his elbow and shorting out the control console on his left forearm… Yet still he continued forward, firing madly. Another energy bolt glanced off the side of his helmet, while a third struck his right chest plate, nearly knocking him over… Yet still he continued forward, firing madly. The Jung weapons fire increased as more soldiers joined them.

“Down!” the lieutenant commanded as he dove to the deck, taking cover behind a pair of dead soldiers, one Jung and one Ghatazhak, stacked atop one another. He brought his weapon up onto the back of the fallen Ghatazhak behind which he sought protection, and continued firing with both his energy rifle and the laser on the right top side of his backpack. All around him, his men did the same, together sending a hailstorm of energy weapons fire toward the rallying Jung troops only a few meters away.

The images streaming from Lieutenant Telles’s helmet camera to the display on the Aurora’s main view screen flickered on and off for several seconds, then disappeared completely as the camera suddenly turned toward the deck and dropped rapidly downward.

“Call up the others!” Nathan ordered as the battle platform debris that had been striking the underside of their hull began to subside.

“I’m losing feeds right and left,” Jessica said in disbelief. “I think they’re losing, sir.”

“Comms, get me Scout Three,” Nathan ordered in hushed tones.

“Aye, sir,” Naralena answered.

“Tactical, update the targeting package for KKV One. Target the Karuzara based on current course and speed.”

“Sir…”

Nathan turned to look over his shoulder back at Jessica at the tactical console behind him.

Jessica sighed. “Updating KKV One’s targeting package. Target, Karuzara.”

“Scout Three is standing by to receive, Captain,” Naralena said.

“Target update is complete,” Jessica said.

“Transmit targeting package,” Nathan ordered.

“Transmitting,” Jessica answered.

Nathan’s eyes drifted to the deck at the base of the helm’s center pedestal as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The Karuzara was not just an asteroid. It was not just a base or a shipyard, it was hope. Hope for his crew, and for his world. It was also what his friends were currently fighting, and dying, to protect. “How many camera feeds are left.”

“I’ve lost them all,” Jessica answered, sadness and despair in her voice. “The Ghatazhak, the hallway cameras… All I’ve got left is the one inside the control center.”

Nathan raised his eyes slowly, unable to bear what he was sure he was about to witness… The death of his friends. The image was dark and the camera was not at the same angle as before. He could barely make out any details, only the control room staff scurrying about, no doubt panicking in their final moments of life as the atmosphere in the compartment was about to be removed by their attackers.

“Scout Three confirms they have received the updated targeting package for KKV One, sir,” Naralena reported.

“Very well,” Nathan said. “Message to Scout Three. Launch…”

“Captain!” Naralena interrupted. “Incoming message from Commander Dumar!”

The overhead speakers crackled as Naralena patched through the incoming voice call for all to hear.

“…
ora! Karuzara Control! The Jung have been defeated! The Jung have been defeated!
”

Cheers erupted on the Aurora’s bridge.

“Comms, cancel last message to Scout Three,” Nathan ordered. “New message. Tell Scout Three to hold position.”

“Aye, sir,” Naralena answered.

“Contact the Celestia, tell them we’ll be back as soon as we deal with the gunships over Earth.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“By the way, the Celestia is finally under way again,” Commander Willard said.

“I’m glad we waited until we could recover and get a few of her cores reinstalled,” Nathan replied from behin
d the desk in his ready room. “It would’ve taken a lot more than two weeks for them to get back to Earth.”

“When will the Karuzara return?”

“It will take them thirty-seven days to jump their way out to Kuiper Four Seven, loop their way around a few of its planets, then jump back to Sol. That should give them plenty of time to clear out the main transit tunnels and repair the damage to the main docks, although it may take them awhile to get all the airlock doors working again.”

“I am surprised that the commander’s team was even able to find a route that would work,” Commander Willard admitted.

“I’m surprised they found one that was only twenty-seven light years away,” Nathan replied. “Until then, we’ll have to do what we can to make repairs in orbit.”