On Silver Wings (26 page)

“Standby starboard thrusters,” Jackson ordered.

“Starboard thrusters standing by!” The Helm called back.

“Fire starboard bow thrusters, full burn.”

“Aye Sir, Full burn!”

They were slammed into the side of their bolsters as the thrusters burned, twisting the ship to port.

“Standby VASIMR Drive!”

“Standing by!”

“We’re in the minefield now, boys and girls!” Jackson grinned wide, “Let’s step lightly!”

“Gravity event, port side, amidship!”

“All ahead, twenty Gees!”

“All Ahead, Aye!”

Jackson opened the shipwide again, “Brace for acceleration!”

A few seconds later he was again slammed into the bolster again and he started panting through clenched teeth as he fought the tunneling of his vision. That went on for a few seconds, his grunting breaths the only thing he could hear as Jackson tried desperately to stay conscious, in control, and keep an eye on the telemetry plots in front of him.

Just as he thought they were through it, however, the Montana twisted hard to starboard and they were all slammed just as hard to the side. The twisting acceleration pressed on them for a few interminable seconds, and then all the lights and displays flickered before going dead for a moment.

“Power’s out??”

“That’s impossible!”

“Where are the backups!?”

There were calls like that all through the bridge, and Jackson could hear them through the bulkhead leading to the next compartment as well. He figured that most of the ship was in a similar state, just waiting for someone to ask the question no one wanted to ask before full blown panic erupted.

Were they hit?

He keyed the shipwide, panting through his clenched teeth against the acceleration, desperate to keep people from working themselves into a state of panic that led them to forget acceleration discipline. The last thing he needed was half the ship blacked out in the middle of a battle.

“Stay… Calm!” He grunted between breaths. “We’re not… done… yet!”

He was about to continue when the universe suddenly seemed to invert, and he had to fight to keep his coffee from coming back up. He couldn’t breathe, his ribs felt like they were caving in, and his brains felt like they were trying to run out his ears. Then the world went black.

When the light came back, no more than a few seconds could have passed but he felt like he’d been out for days.

He gasped out twice, trying like hell to get all the air he could, “Kha… Kha…. Kill the Accel!”

A moment passed, but the giant fist was still pushing down hard on his chest. “Kill it!”

When there was no response, Jackson reached out and forced his hand to flip open the emergency breaker in front of him before slamming his fist down hard. The rumble of the VASIMR drive died in an instant, leaving Neal shaking his head painfully.

The lights flickered and came back while he was recovering.

“Helm… Helm! Damn it Wayne wake the fuck up!”

“S… Sir!” Lt Wayne Powers head lolled about as he came out of the blackout.

“Prime the damn drive! I had to kill it!” Jackson growled, “Meers, you aware?”

“Visions still spotted, but I’m good to go, Sir.”

“Glad to hear it, boy. Now what the hell happened!?”

Meers rapped the side of his display units, shaking his head, “I’m half blind here, Sir, but it looks like they swept the track of their attack along our previous course. Then they led us toward the end, that’s why we’re still here.”

“Of course they did,” Jackson said, “You don’t aim where they are, you aim where they’re going to be. I just didn’t expect him to sweep it that far. Damage reports?”

“Tons of warnings across every system we’ve got, nothing reading as dead.”

Jackson sighed in relief as the VASIMR rumbled back to life and power came back to most of the screens. “Find our Bandits, boys! Get me my tracks back!”

“Coming online! Shit! They’re twenty light seconds out, closing fast!”

“We’re in a flat spin, Cap!”

“I can see that! Standby starboard thrusters!” He ordered, calling up the plot.

“Thrusters standing by!”

“Fire full thrust on the starboard bow thrusters!” Jackson commanded, “Spin us faster!”

“Aye Sir, firing full thrust!”

They were pushed into their seats, pressed hard to the side as the thrusters flared, spinning the bow of the Montana momentarily away from the enemy track.

“Tactical!”

“Sir!”

“Prime the box launchers,” Jackson’s eyes gleamed as he gave the order. “Prepare to flush the external magazines.”

“Aye Aye, Sir!”

The Montana spun around, its nose sweeping through a full arc before coming back to bear on the Bandit’s position. The two ships, hurtling toward one another at significant portions of the speed of light, closed fast. Jackson knew that he’d only get one chance before they blew past one another, and at that point the game would change from chicken to a marathon race.

He wasn’t so sure that he and the Montana had the legs to survive a marathon. He had to end this while it was a sprint.

Neal Jackson leaned forward, “Are the external magazines primed?”

“Aye Sir.”

“Then, Chief, fire as she bears.”

“Aye Aye, Captain. Firing as she bears…”

The nose of the Montana swept around, bringing all the external magazines they’d strapped to her hull to bear on the target. Big, clunky boxes that weight better than half again the total weight of the Montana were shunted over to computer control. As they came to bear on the enemy ship, optimal flight paths were calculated, and when they matched with reality a signal was sent to the magazines.

A hundred and fifty of the heaviest missiles ever built in Earth space, more than twice the normal load of a Los Angeles Class Destroyer, exploded from the magazines and tore into open space, accelerating at three hundred gravities into the face of Bandit One.

At less than twenty light seconds, the enemy ship had time to see them coming, but despite its superior maneuvering speed it was still ruled by inertia enough that there was no chance in hell of getting out of the way.

They tried, though, Jackson noted with a savage sense of glee. The enemy ship peeled to port, pouring on literally lethal levels of G-Forces as it showed its broadsides to the Montana and her missiles.

Unfortunately for the bandit, the missiles the Montana had just loosed through the black were capable of the same crushing accelerations as it was, and at such close ranges there was just no way to build the kind of Delta Vee needed to break loose.

“They’re engaging with point defense!”

Missiles began to blink out of existence, exploding in space and destroying some of their fellows in the chaos of the engagement, but Jackson saw immediately that the enemy’s defensive measures simply weren’t going to be enough. A few long minutes of watching blood red icons vanish from the plot were rewarded in the end when over thirty surviving missiles slammed into the starboard side of the enemy ship, punching ragged holes through the hull that were visible in the reflected light of nearby explosions.

The big ship shuddered briefly on the twenty second old visual plot Jackson was watching, great gouts of flame erupting back out through the holes the heavy penetrator missiles had blown through its hull, and then it’s engine acceleration died as it began to drift through space.

“We got it!”

Cheers erupted through the ship, stemming from the bridge and branching down the corridors of the Los Angeles Class Destroyer as word was passed man to man through the ship. Jackson let it happen, his men needed the moment, but he shifted his own attention to the other bandits.

The Nevada and the Anchorage were missing from his plot, their trajectory telemetry ending at dead ends in space where they’d died. He put the feelings those abruptly ending lines dredged up away, locking them deep inside because if he didn’t he’d probably ruin all the good morale their little victory had just won his crew.

That left five other destroyers in the task force, four of which were deeply engaged with the enemy while the fifth was accelerating in from the Montana’s starboard flank.

Jackson checked the plot quickly, doing the math in his head. “Signal the Indiana. We’re coming about to their port side and following them in against Bandit two.”

“Aye Sir! Message sent.” A few moments passed, “Reply from Indiana, Sir. Orders acknowledged, they’re accelerating to the attack.”

“Take us in on their port side, aft! One standard gravity acceleration.” Neal ordered, shifting in his restraints as he checked the numbers. “Inform damage control that they have fifteen minutes to fix whatever’s broken. Don’t waste it.”

“Aye Sir!”

Through the ship men and women seconded to Damage control slapped off their harnesses and quickly started moving around the ship. They didn’t have time to waste, as their Captain ordered, so they slid down ladders into sections strained by the near miss with the enemy weapon and began a tediously thorough eyeball inspection of every component on the ship.

With lives resting on the systems of the USS Montana, they couldn’t afford to miss anything.

Hayden’s World

The Cougar Automated Battle Chassis was one of the older and more robust weapon systems still in use by armies on Earth. Developed by Swedish engineers through a contract with First World Military planners, the system had survived several major wars, fourteen significant upgrades and, most telling of all, the best efforts of many a foot soldier’s attempt at ‘maintenance’.

Equipped with a Class Three Artificial Intelligence, the Cougar was capable of discerning allies from enemies as well as civilians from combatants with an acceptably low margin of error. In combat the chassis projected both power and fear in near equal measure across every battlefield it had ever fought on.

On Earth, it did, at least.

On Hayden, against an enemy that had no experience with its legendary reputation, it would have to settle for power alone.

The lead element of the automated strike force didn’t consider any of those factors, it only concerned itself with tactical realities. Once the order to engage in an asymmetric battle was given, the lead Cougar immediately linked up with all the other units in its squad and began sharing data.

The smaller DOGS were send out ahead, positioning themselves in secure places where they could gain a good overview of the area while the other two Cougars rumbled into position across the area the Hayden born guerrilla’s had hit earlier.

Tactical data from earlier fights gave the Cougar a good idea of what the enemy response was, so it backed into a thick piece of brush and settled in to wait. As expected, the waiting didn’t last long.

The Cougars noted the approaching thrum sound in the air long before the distinctive alien flyer arrived, triangulating position and arrival time based on the speed of sound through Hayden air at their altitude. Knowing precisely the course and approach speed of the alien flyer was child’s play from that information, and each of the automated tanks adjusted their positions minutely to maximize their opening attack.

As the flyers entered into the target zone each of the three Cougars opened fire as one, their elevated twenty millimeter magnetic accelerators rocking the jungle with the supersonic pressure wave. The three streams of automatic cannon fire intersected just as the enemy flyers slowed their approach, and tore the birds apart.

Even before the shards and scraps hit the jungle, the Cougars were on the move. They reversed out of their hides and tore away through the jungle on preplanned escape routes. The operative phrase for their current plan of action was ‘stick and move’. The Cougars had been programmed with specific tactics for almost every situation, though unfortunately being on the wrong side of asymmetric combat tactics were the lightest part of their coding.

Despite centuries of practice, many guerrilla tactics were still largely a matter of guesswork and instinct. Not exactly the strength of artificial intelligence systems, unfortunately. The Cougars did their work by the numbers, however, blazing a path through the Hayden jungle just a few breaths ahead of the inevitable rain of nuclear fire in their wake.

As the shockwave roared toward them, the Cougars rolled to a stop and dropped their suspensions low, mashing their armored vee shaped hulls into the jungle floor. The raging shockwave passed over them, battering the autonomous fighting vehicles with rocks, trees, and other random articles whipped up by the hurricane force winds generated by the blast to little avail.

As it passed, the Cougars rose back up on their hefty suspensions and rolled on, heading for their next engagement point.

Kilometers away, Jerry and his team got back to their feet where they’d thrown themselves as the explosion crossed over them. As deep in the jungle as they were, it was mostly baffled out so they didn’t feel much, but the roar and flash that lit up the canopy was unmistakable.

“Holy crap.” Dean shivered, “I hate that noise.”

Reed didn’t blame the poor kid, having been that close to a nuke would fry his nerves too, but he didn’t have time to stand around commiserating about it.

“Buck up, boys, we’ve got work to do.” He nodded over a ridge, “The next target is another three klicks that way, step it up.”

They grunted as they shouldered their gear, but no one complained.

They’d spent too many weeks huddling in the jungle, afraid of shadows and mist. Today was when they got some payback, what was a little sweat compared to that?

*****

Sorilla shouldered through a heavy stone door, using the power of her armor to shatter the stone in place. She had to give it to the invaders, they built some impressive constructs and they built to bloody well last.

She also cursed them, because even through her armor she could feel massive bruises forming on her shoulder and arm from slamming through the damn things. She’d never seen anything like the construction they were using, even major military bases on Earth were lighter built in many ways.