Virtues of War (22 page)

“Brace for shock!”

She grabbed both arms of her chair and hung on as the ship jinked again. New missiles flashed past from behind. The brilliant surface of Laika filled her view as the ship dove, then the planet was swept away as they pulled up again.

The hulls of the enemy ships—Centauri, beyond a doubt—gleamed in the sunlight as they emerged into the dawn. Katja’s display indicated ten red symbols, but she could only see three through the windows. The middle one was by far the biggest—most likely a battle cruiser—and even as she watched missiles launched from her massive hull. The other ships were smaller, but looked no less threatening. Frigates, she decided. All of them were surrounded in a halo of fast-moving objects—short-ranged, robotic sentries.

Rapier
banked hard to port. Katja looked eastward and caught her first glimpse of Expeditionary Force 15 in its entirety. Even to her trooper eye the ships looked too closely packed together, which left them too busy scrambling away from each other to fight. Only the stealth picket destroyers were in a good position, and while they weren’t optimized for anti-vessel warfare, they were pouring out rounds to stop the wave of missiles. There were explosions as the EF defenses scored hits.

Then one of the Terran invasion ships imploded.

One of the mighty invasion ships—
Normandy
or one of her sisters, filled with three and a half thousand troopers, an entire regiment of equipment, over a thousand sailors and pilots, and a hundred strike fighters—collapsed from the center and tore herself apart as her mass was sucked inward by a split-second singularity. The ship simply ceased to exist in the blink of an eye.

The stealth ships had entered the battle.

Then the missiles struck. Explosions rippled through the EF’s capital ships. Trapped in close quarters at the center of the formation, they struggled to maneuver under the onslaught. Katja stared in horror as one of the battleships, blackened from bow to stern, slid helplessly into the beam of a supply ship. The smaller vessel’s starboard hull crumpled against the battleship’s armor plating. Locked together, the two vessels began to drift down toward Laika below.

Rapier
jinked again as she took fire from the advancing Centauri ships. Katja’s damage control board was flashing, and she pushed the horror behind her—remembered her role to keep the captain informed of the health of his ship.

“Structural damage to the port wing,” she said. “Power dropping in the port engine!”

Terran star fighters flashed by outside, as both carriers loosed their fighter wings into the melee.

“Pilot, course one-niner-seven mark three-five-zero,” Thomas shouted. “Get us out of the crossfire!”

Rapier
turned her nose up and strained to climb.

R
apier
leveled out, leaning her starboard wing planetside to keep open the firing arcs for all three turrets. Katja leaned forward in her seat to look past Thomas and watch the battle below.

The EF was hemmed in. The big ships that had taken the brunt of the initial missile attack were struggling to limp away. One remaining battleship and four cruisers were forming a defensive semicircle between the main body and the advancing Centauris, exchanging heavy fire with the ten enemy ships. Five Terran destroyers were moving quickly to clear the main body’s escape route. Anti-stealth fighters sprinted and drifted in their hunt for the enemy. Star fighters flipped and turned in dogfights with Centauri robotic sentries.

The pair of damaged ships, identified as the battleship
Lepanto
and the supply ship
Partisan
, remained locked together and were burning up in the atmosphere.

A second invasion ship imploded and disappeared.

Anti-stealth craft swarmed an empty spot in space.

The surface of Laika seemed to ripple and bend as the extra-dimensional explosion of a Centauri stealth ship curled spacetime.

“Oh my God,” Breeze said.

“Okay, keep it together,” Thomas responded. “OpsO, what’s our status?”

Katja tore her eyes from the battle to examine her console.

“Damage to the port wing and engine, sixty percent power only from the port side. Minor breaches aft on both decks, but pressure is holding. Hull power-transfer operative. All other systems within limits.”

“Very good. NavO, how are the weapons?”

“Four morningstars ready. Top and bottom turrets operational with ammo at sixty-one percent remaining. Tail turret is down!”

“Very good. Pilot, how’s she flying?”

“The loss of power in the port engine has made us sluggish, but we can still maneuver and maintain combat speeds. Top escape speed point-zero-seven-c.”

“Very good.” He activated the ship-wide intercom. “This is the captain, sitrep. We are in orbit around Laika. Centauri forces have just committed a massive sneak attack against Expeditionary Force 15. The battle is still in progress and we will be rejoining momentarily. The ship is in good shape. We have fought well. Continue to man your stations and follow your orders. We are going into harm’s way. This is the captain—that is all.”

Thomas closed the circuit and looked out again at the battle.

“Team, we are a small ship with limited firepower, and I’m not going to throw our lives away. Once we’ve expended our morningstars I intend to get us back to
Normandy
. But first we will make a difference in this battle.”

Katja examined her 3-D display, trying to figure where best a little FAC could influence events. A direct attack on the Centauri ships? The star fighters and cruisers were better suited for that. Hunting stealth ships?
Rapier
had no stealth-hunting capability. The only thing she was really good for was surface strikes, or boardings…

“
Normandy
’s in trouble,” Thomas said suddenly.

Katja stared at her display. One Terran capital ship had drifted away from the others, and was slipping out from behind the EF’s battle wall. One of the Centauri frigates had broken away from the main battle and was closing fast.
Normandy
was much larger, but her anti-ship weapons were minimal at best.

“Pilot, intercept course for hostile zero-two-one, flank speed. NavO, prepare four morningstars for attack.”

Katja gripped her chair and felt her stomach lurch into her throat as
Rapier
dove into battle once more. Against the brilliant backdrop of Laika, she watched as the main line of Centauri ships continued to push back the EF’s defenses. Most of their fire was concentrated on the lone Terran battleship,
Jutland
, and even from this distance Katja could see the severe damage to the giant warship. The enemy battle cruiser in particular seemed to be dealing out tremendous damage.

But
Rapier
’s target was north of the main battle—the single frigate that was closing on the limping
Normandy
. The huge invasion ship had a dozen point-defense weapons, but these were no more powerful or longer-ranged than
Rapier
’s tail turret. For all her might,
Normandy
had nothing to throw against an enemy warship—or so it seemed.

Without thinking, Katja stabbed at her comms switch.

“
Normandy, Rapier
. We are inbound to engage hostile zero-two-one. Recommend you launch
Cutlass
and
Sabre
to press the attack, over.”

Thomas looked sharply at her. Then nodded his approval.

“
Rapier
, this is
Normandy
,”
came the response.
“We’ve requested star fighter support.”

Katja looked at her display. There were no star fighters breaking away from the melee.

“Roger, but in the meantime you have eight morningstar missiles sitting in the wings of your FACs—use them!”

She heard Thomas snicker, although his expression remained locked on the attack run.

“
Normandy
, roger out.”

The Centauri destroyer opened fire with anti-ship missiles.
Normandy
’s self-defense guns blazed to life, but failed to stop one attacker from slipping through. A small explosion ripped through her port side, adding to the existing damage. The enemy frigate closed to engage with her guns, staying out of range of
Normandy
’s point-defense turrets.

The two ships sailed high over Laika in a deadly dance, the cumbersome invasion ship trying to maneuver away and the nimble frigate easily keeping station while firing away unimpeded.

“Target locked!” Breeze said.

“Salvo-size four—fire!” Thomas said.

From outboard to inboard, port then starboard,
Rapier
’s four missiles burst forth from their wing pods and cut across the sky. The Centauri frigate never saw them coming. They smashed into her topside with devastating effect—Katja actually saw the ship shudder and tip. Moments later
Rapier
dove between her target and
Normandy
, strafing with both remaining turrets as she did.

The frigate returned fire.
Rapier
shook violently. Katja’s damage control board lit up with red warning lights.

“Hull breach aft, lower deck! Temperature warnings forward!” To accent her words, a red cone of super-heated air started to engulf the ship’s nose.

“Pull up!” Thomas shouted.

Tamma struggled visibly with the controls.
Rapier
creaked as she tried to pull out of her dive. The rumble of the engines rose to a scream as Tamma fought both Laika’s gravity and the ship’s own momentum. Red air engulfed the bridge windows. They struggled out of their suicidal trajectory, but still headed down into the thickening atmosphere.

Katja stared in horror at her board. “Port wing under severe strain. Structural integrity failing aft, lower deck!”

Tamma was fighting the controls. “We’re going down!”

Thomas spoke over the broadcast.

“All hands, brace for emergency landing!”

Katja shook her head. “Negative, sir! We’re losing integrity in the port wing and the lower deck. We’ll tear apart in re-entry. We can’t take the strain!”

“I’ve lost the port engine,” shouted Tamma. “I can’t pull us out of the atmosphere. We’re going down!”

Thomas was ashen. He flicked the broadcast.

“This is the captain,” he said. “Abandon ship, abandon ship! All hands to the strike pods. Abandon ship, abandon ship!”

Katja was too stunned to move.

Breeze was out of her seat and pushing past them, flinging the hatch open. Tamma tapped in some final instructions and followed.

Thomas didn’t budge. Katja stared at him.

“Sir, let’s go!”

“Get to your strike pod.” He looked ahead, his face grim. “That’s an order.”

She unbuckled and stood. He still didn’t move.

“Sir?”

He looked up at her. “OpsO, I have a plan, but I need you to go with the pods.”

She felt tears well up from nowhere, but she fought them down.

“Katja, go.” His voice was calm but firm.

He reached to close the faceplate of his helmet, but before he could she leaned in and kissed him.

He was surprised, but after a moment kissed her back with passion, holding her armored shoulder with his gloved hand. Around them, the roar of the deepening atmosphere grew louder.

She broke away, and ran aft.

The hexagonal passageway looked the same as always, and ahead Katja could see the last of the crew climbing up into the strike pods. She was pleased to see Chief Tamma, as senior enlisted man, remaining on deck to the end, and noted with irony the absence of Lieutenant Brisebois.

“Get on board!” she ordered Tamma. “Captain’s got a plan, and he’s staying behind.”

Tamma made to protest.

Katja raised her rifle. “We leave now, or we all die. Go!”

Tamma climbed up into the starboard pod.

Katja clambered up through the narrow port hatch. The inside of the pod was jammed with suited bodies, the orange-filtered light from re-entry giving a warm, sunset-like ambiance to the terror-filled space. Cohen was ready at the flight controls. Assad, Jackson, and Hernandez loomed in their armored suits. The ship’s cook and one of the engineers supported an active-feed IV bag for an unconscious and badly wounded gunner.

She closed the hatch and sealed it.

“Lift off!”

At Cohen’s command the pod punched upward and free from the doomed
Rapier
. The wall of super-heated air smacked the little ship like a fly, and Katja was thrown into her troopers. The armor prevented any permanent damage, and with a groan she pulled herself up, then took her seat next to Cohen.

The strike pod rocketed upward at full thrust, reversing the inherited vectors of
Rapier
’s dive. In the distance, Katja saw the other pod struggling to rise, and she caught a single glimpse of the fireball that was
Rapier
.

And Thomas.

“Trouble ahead,” Cohen said.

Katja snapped her mind back into the present. She was now in command, and it was her duty to see
Rapier
’s crew to safety. She looked up, high into the sky, and saw the distant form of
Normandy
lumbering in the near-blackness. The Centauri frigate appeared to have backed off, and Katja caught glimpses of two smaller objects that occasionally flashed in the sunlight. Hopefully that was
Cutlass
and
Sabre
.

The strike pod had a rudimentary 3-D display which gave the relative positions of vessels, and little more. Katja studied it as the pod continued to climb, then strained her eyes to pick out the flashes of battle still raging above them. The Centauri frigates had closed to engage the Terran battle line at point-blank range. She hoped that the friendly ships could give as good as they got in this game, but she saw that the Centauri battle cruiser was hanging back.

On an impulse, she activated the long-range camera she normally used for surveying the strike zone during a drop. Precious moments slipped by as she figured out how best to aim it. The strike pod was clearing the last vestiges of atmosphere by the time she had a good view.