War of Alien Aggression 2 Kamikaze (4 page)

Harry Cozen said, "Don't call them 'bogies'. Call them 'bandits', please, Mr. Biko. A bogie is what you call it when you don't know what it is. After six days of unceasing battle, I think we can be fairly sure any contact we see is the enemy."

"Bandits, then, Mr. Cozen. Bandits at 148 low." As Biko zoomed in so the display projected in the air over the bridge showed the incoming contacts more clearly, Harry Cozen leaned forward in the chair. The Squidies' warheads flew in echelon like geese, but in a cone.

Ram thumbed the squack from the Ops console. "Multiple bandits inbound. Damage control teams, standby."

"Lt. Commander Sellis," Cozen said, "open all remaining forward bays and commit our last Dingoes to the fight."

Opening the bay doors was like taking them off a leash. The QF-111 fighter drones shot out into space and their canine artificial intelligences wanted nothing more than to hunt down enemy bombs and bandits and chew them to hell with their autocannon. A tenth of a second out of the bay, they fixed on the incoming contacts. They noted a lack of friendly IFF transponders, and
Hardway's
last 24 drones gleefully rocketed off for the chase.  

"
Hardway
AT to junk Flights One, Three, and Five: vampires at 148. Scramble! Scramble! Scramble! All gunnery junks scramble!"  

Out the windows of the bridge you could see down onto the primary launch bay module where the topside doors now opened. The junks filled the bays with fire before they punched out hard and fast, maneuvering on directed thrust from their outboard nacelles. They launched from bays to port and starboard and off
Hardway
's keel with their 4x140mm guns already swiveling in their turrets. In seconds, eighteen gunnery-junks had formed up and headed off to intercept the aliens' flying bombs in three flights of six. 

"
Dutch Girl
to
Hardway
. How many inbound contacts are bombs?"  

"I've got 176 returns on LiDAR, all warheads."

"Where are the alien fighters?" That's all
Dutch Girl
wanted to know. 

The red-hulled alien fighters came over the South polar vortex this time. The six red bandits flew close to the thin outer atmo and it was as if something about their engines or maybe their reactors' emissions made the lightning flash in the blue clouds beneath them as they came. "Alien drones closing from low orbit over the south polar region." Biko said, "If they maintain speed and heading, then they'll intercept our drones just after they get in range to start shooting down those warheads."

"Prepare to commit our reserves," Ram said.

"Are you sure, Mr. Devlin?"

"Mr. Cozen, Half our defensive guns are gone and the junks and the drones we've got deployed now can't shoot down all those alien warheads if they're busy dodging those fighters."

"All 223 Squadron junks standby to scramble," Biko ordered. 223 Squadron were
Hardway
's orphans - the remaining junks from Flights 2, 4 and 6, the ones that had lost too many junks to remain combat effective. 

The Dingoes had already blasted off and left the gunnery junks behind them. On the AT Controller's projected tactical display, the blurry-edged, green region surrounding the Dingoes now almost overlapped with the position of the incoming alien warheads. They were almost close enough to use their teeth. Ram said, "Any second now..."

Just before the Dingoes could bite, the Squidies' flying bombs broke from the formation in which they'd approached and split in all directions. The Dingoes split into fights of six and twisted together in fifty-gee turns to keep on the tails of their prey until they could tear them apart with rapid-fire shells.

Out the bridge windows, over the limb of the planet, bright flashes pulsed and faded – detonations of alien warheads or the reactors that drove them. Vampire contacts winked out on the display. For those few breaths, Ram almost let himself think it was going well.

River Queen
led Flight 1, chasing the Squidies' bombs along with
Diamond Dog
and Flight 3. Together, the 12 junks and their 48 turrets, stitched space so thick with shock and shell that the alien warheads cooked off around them like a fireworks display.
Estanza
and Flight 6 fell on the ones that tried to duck away.  

Then, the red bandits arrived. The alien fighters ripped around the gas giant and reached the equator with stunning speed. They must have been accelerating for an hour to get going that fast. On their first pass at the Dingoes and junks pursuing the bombs, they broke into two flights of three and then flew around and down the streams of fire that chased them. They raked
Estanza
and three other junks with their small-bore particle streams, clawing at their hulls and forcing them to turn their fire from the warheads to the alien fighter drones.

Flights One and Three all turned their turrets on the bandits together and tried to close a net of fire around them, but the red-hulled alien machines changed direction so fast and unpredictably the turrets couldn't catch them. When the aliens came on their next pass, they stabbed and clawed the junks with their particle streams.

The Squidies' remaining warheads came back together on the far side of the gunnery junks like a school of fish, and the red bandits settled right over them, protecting the flying bombs as they closed the distance to
Hardway
. 

Biko said, "This is the AGC... 223 Squadron, scramble, scramble. Vampires inbound on all bearings topside to starboard beam, from 11 to 4 o'clock. Go, Go, Go! Be advised, you are the only guns between the incoming warheads and
Hardway
." 

"Acknowledged,
Hardway
. We're on it." 

"Alien warheads at 50,000 Ks. Closing fast," Dana said.

Biko was a pilot and he should have kept that infectious calm in his voice. He always had it before. "All junks! Hardway S.O.S. Spike! Spike! Spike! Make the incoming torpedoes the top priority!"

The junks fired from all turrets, but now, they were too far away and the Squidies' flying bombs dodged their fire. The gunners couldn't get a real shot unless the junks closed the distance. That meant engaging the red bandits that hovered above the alien bombs like mother geese. None of the junks closed the distance.

The 223rd opened up on the warheads, but they shied away from the red bandits and couldn't get close enough for a real shot either. 

A whole second passed waiting to hear Biko give the order that he should have given, but he didn't. And that was all it took. By the time Harry Cozen and Ram both screamed into comms and directly ordered all junks to close the distance and engage, it was already too late.

The warheads came in range of
Hardway's
defensive turrets, and the guns filled the space above and to
Hardway's
starboard side so thick with fire that from where Ram was on the bridge it looked as if nothing could get through the interlacing streams of radar-guided, range-det shells. But even the fiery clouds of blossoming hell they made around the carrier couldn't stop every alien bomb. "All Decks," Ram said into the squack, "Brace for detonation." 

The first bomb detonated against the primary Hab module on the top side. After the bridge's windows and the visors of all the helmets blacked out for a few milliseconds to keep them from being blinded, the shock wave made everything blur. Ram saw down from the tower into the burned and blasted section. The direct hit had vaporized enough of it that it looked like a piece had been scooped out. The inside was sheathed in zero-gee flames, burning in a vacuum.

Nothing but death for five decks. That was all Ram could think as the second bomb came out of the blossoming fire cloud and struck the starboard side of the primary launch bays. The bridge's windows flickered and shuttered dark again. When they cleared, the molten metal coming off the starboard side looked like burning, arterial blood.

The third, alien warhead rocketed out of the cloud at a shallow angle near the bow, and the autocannon up and down the ship chased it with shells all the way to the tower, but it arced across their fields of fire faster than the turrets could rotate to aim. The gun batteries tried to throw explosions in its path, but it had so much angular momentum they were never fast enough to catch it.

It struck the command tower module near the spine and for those that weren't strapped in, the whole bridge moved meters to the left and slammed them with the starboard bulkhead and windows. Dana Sellis and Ram tumbled and spun and hit the port side windows as plasma shot up the tower's tubes like geysers of fire. It slammed against the closed emergency hatches and bulkheads, trying to get on the bridge.

 After a few seconds without any more detonations, the pyrocumulus cloud around the ship's starboard side faded to wisps of hot gas. It was over. The salvo of alien warheads had all detonated or been destroyed and the red bandits had turned and gone home. The junks hadn't killed even one.

Harry Cozen thumbed the Air Group's common channel. "All
Hardway
junks, all flights, all squadrons, RTB, repeat. Return to base. 223rd, relieve Flight One as the current third watch air patrol." Those orders were supposed to be given by the Air Group Commander. That was Biko and he stood only a few meters away, across the bridge.  

Despite the vein throbbing on Cozen's temple, there was cold dispassion in his voice. "Mr. Biko," he said, "Get off my bridge."

*****

 An hour later, Cozen chewed Asa Biko out in his office and he made Ram part of it. He stood them both up in front of his desk and asked Ram exactly how Biko screwed up as Air Group Commander during the last engagement.

"The AGC allowed his squadrons to wander too far from
Hardway
." 

"Bull dust, Devlin. Don't cover for him. Even if he had done that, it would have been manageable. He just had to order the junks to do one thing. What order should Lt. Commander Biko have given that would have saved 146 lives?"

"The AGC
could
have ordered the 223rd and the other three flights to close with the incoming alien bombs." Ram added, "But since they were escorted by fighters, at least six junks would have been destroyed with a loss of a dozen pilots and almost fifty crew." 

"That's right, Mr. Devlin," Cozen said. "But before that, the junks would have most probably hit enough incoming warheads with their shells that there wouldn't be three new holes in this carrier. 146 more people would be alive."

Biko didn't say anything to that. There was nothing to say.

"To be fair, Mr. Cozen, Biko did call out the Spike code ordering all junks to make immediate elimination of incoming warheads their priority, even over survival. The pilots didn't move to close the distance fast enough."

"Because they knew they were probably going to die," Cozen said, "That's why we needed our AGC to
order
them in. He should have ordered them in directly." 

Biko said, "You're right, Mr. Cozen. You're right. I should have ordered them in. And I didn't. I didn't even think of it. "

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not really the man for this job. My people trust me to keep them
alive
." 

"Those junks would have gone in if you
ordered
them to," Cozen said. They might have hated you, but they'd have done it. They'd have done it or Mr. Devlin would have them all shot." Cozen didn't say anything for a few seconds. He let Biko listen to the sound of his own breathing. "Mr. Biko, I'm relieving you as Air Group Commander." 

"You know I never wanted this job, Mr. Cozen."

"So you've said. Mr. Devlin will take over your duties as AGC." Ram didn't want the job either; his hands were already full. "Now, Mr. Devlin," Cozen said as if he was casually moving on to another topic at a meeting, "I've got a mission for
Hardway
's Air Group Commander. I want you to bring me one of the alien fighter drones, a red bandit. Just one will do. Intact if you please."  

Biko almost laughed and shook his head as he made for the hatch.

Cozen said, "I haven't dismissed you yet, Mr. Biko."

"You've got to be joking," Ram said. "You want one
intact
? We can barely shoot them down with the junks, let alone catch one."

Cozen didn't say a word because the fact that Ram didn't know how to bag a red bandit had nothing to do with the fact that Cozen wanted one. "If we complete our mission and survive, then I want to take one of them home. We need to know
exactly
how they're beating us, Mr. Devlin, or it will keep happening. They'll keep coming and protecting wave after wave of warheads and slaughtering the junks and Dingoes that go to shoot them down. You have twelve hours to get me one of the aliens' fighters." 

"Why twelve hours?" Ram asked.

Cozen looked them both in the eye for a full second each. "Because we are losing this battle," he said. "Slowly, but surely, we are losing. They're wearing us down below the level of operational effectiveness required to complete our mission. The SBS has already sent two teams and two incursion craft to sneak up on the blockade gun. Both teams are confirmed dead. They have one more chance. If they fail or if their success cannot be confirmed by the time the UNS task force is scheduled to transit to Procyon via the main wormhole, then the plan calls for
Hardway
to ensure victory with her death." 

"You're going to ram the Squidies' blockade gun?" Biko said. "It'll cut us up before we impact."

"In 12 hours," Cozen said, "We will put out from the gas giant, keeping the planet between us and the Squidies' gun. When we've reached a satisfactory distance, we will turn and accelerate what's left of this carrier as hard as we can. Once we can no longer use the gas giant as a shield, we'll maneuver around the limb on an intercept course. We're big enough that at 20,000 K/s, even if the alien gun that's dug into that rock cuts
Hardway
up into ten-thousand pieces, we'll still destroy their weapon on impact."