Switchblade, page 1
part #4 of Astrid Amundsen Series
Switchblade
Book Four of the Astrid Amundsen Military Science Fiction Series
Alan Householder
Copyright © 2021 by Alan Householder
All rights reserved.
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-7335153-4-4
This is a work of fiction. The characters and events in this work are products of the author’s creativity and imagination. Any similarity to actual people (living or not) or events is unintentional and coincidental. Exceptions: Any actual historical events and people mentioned herein are used in a fictitious manner.
Contents
1. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
2. Grim Reality
3. GQ
4. Spin-Up Twenty Marlins
5. Whitaker, Go
6. Fair Winds
7. Never Do That Again
8. Blackness, and a Great Many Stars
9. An Enormous Plume of Flame
10. What About the Slug?
11. Examining the Slug
12. The Two Quietest Members of the Squad
13. We Call That “Plasma Blowback”
14. Don’t Spare the Horses
15. I Think You Better Pray for Whitaker
16. We Remain Optimistic
17. When We Saw Sabine for the Last Time
18. Approaching Skydock Eight
19. Not Downs
20. Keep Your Distance
21. Damn Right
22. Astrid, Your Stomach!
23. What Am I Going to Do With You?
24. Examining the Wound
25. We Did Our Best
26. Playing the Hand You Were Dealt
27. How Is Your Stomach?
28. An Unpleasant Discovery
29. Icarus Takes Control of the Enemy Boarding-Ship
30. Plasma Guns Powering Up
31. Aliens Versus the Drone
32. Now We Outnumber Them, Five to Three
33. My Ears Were Ringing
34. The Grisly Scene
35. The Bridge Still Reeked of Recent Gunfire
36. Why the Overkill?
37. The Secret Army-Navy Prank of 2368
38. Edgar’s Prank
39. Edgar Whitaker—and Edgar Whitaker?
40. Astrid, It’s Blanchard
41. I Pushed Forward on the Throttle
42. Zipping Through Space
43. Big Code Implemented
44. Precise Targeting
45. Drones in Nearly Perfect Formation
46. Didn’t Feel Any Too Safe
47. The Railguns
48. Time to Put Down Our Fiddles
49. Believe It, Blanchard
50. Nothing Living on the Ship
51. Back to Bay Two
52. Still Facing a Major Mystery
53. One Other Possibility
54. Be Ready for High Weirdness
55. The High Point of My Time at the Academy
56. Edgar’s Story
57. We Need to Destroy the Switchblade
58. How the Enemy Mind Operates
59. We Can Trust Him
60. The World’s Worst Actress
61. Astrid’s Theory of What Happened
62. We Don’t Have a Lot of Time
63. The Perfect Plan
64. Several Acute Fears
65. Back to the Traps
66. Astrid, Are You Seeing This?
67. Semper Fidelis et Semper Paratus
68. A Rusty Old Walking-Plow
69. We Watched for a Minute or Two
70. Not One of the Best, But the Best, Period
Acknowledgments
Characters
The Members of C-Squad
Astrid is a first lieutenant. The rest of the squad are second lieutenants, a few based on breveting.
Lieutenant Astrid Amundsen
Lieutenant Elmore Downs
Lieutenant Charles Lamar
Lieutenant Gloria Pine
Lieutenant Emeka Tinubu
Lieutenant Blanchard
Lieutenant Ramona Rodriguez
Main Bridge Officers of the LNS Ranger
Captain Wayne Banning
Commander Talia Gerson (Executive Officer, on loan from the Israel Defense Forces)
Lieutenant Commander Edwin Murphy
Lieutenant Sabine Harding (Navigator, was killed during the events of Proximity Warning.)
1
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Captain Banning tapped his headset and said to me, “Astrid, I’ve got Skydock Eight here. I can’t make anything out. Can you?”
We were still a good two hours away from the Skydock, and all previous efforts to make contact had failed. This was due to geomagnetic storms, which had been interfering with near-Earth communications on and off during the past several days. Other than that slightly ominous sign, this looked to be a placid end to an event-laden, and nearly catastrophic, voyage on the LNS Ranger.
We now were in the process of braking, by occasionally burning our forward-facing bow engines.
Skydock Eight was in high Earth orbit a mere forty thousand kilometers above Earth, so our arrival there would mean we made it home. Honestly, I had just been loafing on the bridge with Captain Banning and the rest of the normal bridge-crew, namely Commander Talia Gerson and Commander Edwin Murphy.
Talia had assumed navigation duties, because we had lost our much-loved navigator in a fierce battle. At the moment, Talia was sitting calmly, gazing at the stars through the bridge’s viewing port.
Edwin was “resting on his oars,” so to speak. More precisely, he was asleep. I didn’t blame him. We were all thoroughly beat, because the voyage had been exhausting—physically and mentally—for all of us.
I clicked onto the same line that Banning was listening on, and all I heard was static. I shook my head, but then I heard, with crystal clarity, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Skydock Eight calling LNS Ranger. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
The voice exhibited no sense of alarm, which wasn’t surprising. The word Mayday was enough.
2
Grim Reality
I punched a key to bring the entire exchange onto the bridge’s speakers. I said, “Roger, Skydock Eight, this is LNS Ranger. State nature of distress.”
The voice on the radio continued, saying, “Greetings, Ranger. This is Skydock Eight, under attack by two enemy ships, definitely Koalovian. One large ship, about two hundred meters in length, is probably lurking in the area. We last tracked that one an hour ago. The other ship has attached itself and has begun boring through our hull. I expect to be boarded shortly. We have no weapons other than small arms and grenades. Only four of our crew remain alive. At present, I’m separated from the other three, and I’m out of contact with them. I believe they are on the bridge. That’s where I’ll be heading soon.”
The speaker then paused, and Banning addressed our ship’s AI, saying, “Icarus, cut the bow engines and light the stern engines. Full burn.”
Icarus said, “Aye aye, Captain.”
We had been braking in a nice, leisurely fashion. Now we were going back to accelerating at whatever rate the Ranger could sustain.
The Ranger had effective inertia-suppressors, but I could easily feel some acceleration, and I had to place my hand on a nearby console to steady myself.
The man on Skydock Eight said, “Do you have my location?”
His voice sounded vaguely familiar to me. I couldn’t place it, but I associated it with Annapolis—maybe from when I was a first-year or second-year midshipman.
I said, “Affirmative, Skydock Eight. Hold on. We’ll be with you soon.”
I knew that the man on Skydock Eight had only given us the bare essentials of his situation. That’s pretty much standard procedure in these circumstances, especially when communications might be lost at any second. But I did want more information. I said, “Anything else you can tell us that might help?”
“Not much. They initiated their attack with eight small boarding-craft. Those all have departed the area. Then this other boarding craft arrived and attached itself to the Skydock. The large ship is well cloaked. We couldn’t track it very well. It could be anywhere now.”
I glanced at Captain Banning and shrugged a little, then said, “Just hold them off. We’ll be there as soon as humanly possible.”
The man said, “Good. Our shielding is on the interior of the ship, and it’s set to reestablish itself over any breaches, so that’ll slow them up.” He paused and then said, “I hope.”
The interior shielding was marginally less effective than exterior shields. Only a few of our ships still had the interior shields. I said, “We get it. This is Lieutenant Amundsen. Who am I speaking with?”
The voice on the other end became animated. “Astrid, good! It’s me—Whitaker.”
I said, “Whitaker, of course! I thought I recognized your voice, but I couldn’t quite place it.”
Whitaker said, “Same here—same with your voice. I did hear that you opted for the Marines on graduation. Maybe we’ll fight side by side in a little while.”
“That’s my hope, Whitaker. You mentioned a crew of four. We expected more.”
“Two hours ago, we had sixteen,” Whitaker said. “We took the fight to the enemy, and we executed every trick in the book—clean, dirty, and otherwise. Eliminated probably forty-five of them. It was brutal.”
I didn’t envy the guys on Skydock Eight. The Skydock was set to be retired, and the Navy had removed its missiles, guns, and drones.
I said, “What’s your plan?
Whitaker said, “Our hope is to hang on till the cavalry—that’s you—arrives. A lot of our coms are out. Most of the Skydock is now decompressed. Some of it is still fine. If you make it to one of the shuttle bays, you can get to our bridge without EVA suits—at least for now. Your AI can interface with us and get current images showing what’s decompressed and what isn’t.”
I said, “Got it.”
“Anyway,” Whitaker said, “I’m trying to channel the Swamp Fox. Maybe hit and run a little, and eliminate some of them before they get a foothold.”
I said, “Escape pods?”
“Not going to take that route, Astrid,” Whitaker said. “If abandoning the Skydock had been on the table, all sixteen of us could have escaped. But we’re like you Marines. We don’t run from the enemy. We don’t hide. We take on the enemy head-on, win or lose. All sixteen of us met before the first boarding ship attached. None of us were willing to leave. This is our Alamo, Astrid, live or die. We’re not running and we’re not hiding. We’re US Navy.”
“Okay, Whitaker, good. That’s what I like to hear,” I said. “Get back to us as soon as you know anything else.” A wave of static swept in, and I waited till it left. “Coms are kind of iffy for us, too, though.”
“Understood,” Whitaker said. “I’ve now made it to the attachment point of the boarding ship. Looks like they’re having problems making penetration. The hull is armored, but their drills go through it like butter. It’s the shielding that’s slowing them up, so maybe we’ll be fine till you get here.”
I said, “Our jockey has gone to the whip. Anything else for now?”
“No, Astrid, nothing. I’ll get back to you soon. Out.”
3
GQ
I can’t express in words how proud I was of Whitaker and the others, and of their clear resolve to fight to the end, come what may.
However, when I told him, “That’s what I like to hear,” that was only true on a superficial level. I wanted to tell him, “Time to board an escape ship, Whitaker.”
But I couldn’t do that, because he was firm in the decision that they had made when all sixteen were alive, and what’s more, they had already lost twelve crew members on the premise that it was “do or die” for all sixteen.
In short, there was no way Whitaker or the other three were going to abandon the Skydock, so why urge them to do that?
I turned toward Banning and said, “First things first.” Then I looked vaguely upward, as I sometimes did when engaging with an artificial intelligence, and I said, “Icarus?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I might take C-Squad out in our Banshees. I’m looking for the optimum launch-time.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Icarus said. “Fuel-consumption rates and heat generation are the principal factors. If the Ranger and the Banshees redline their engines, and I’m sure you will, the calculations are complex. We also have to allow for a one-half rotation, and then your retro-burn for braking.”
I said, “How about a ballpark figure? How long have I got?”
Icarus said, “I will give you more exact figures as the time draws near. But for the Banshees I would estimate a launch time of about thirty-five minutes from now.”
Banning said, “All right, Astrid, looks like we’ve got some time.” Then he said, “Icarus, GQ, please.”
Icarus said, “Aye aye, Sir,” and the klaxon sounded a dozen times. Then came the canned recorded voice: “General quarters. General quarters. All hands man your battle stations. Condition Zebra stem to stern.” Then all that repeated.
I knew that the crew would absolutely love the GQ order. I certainly did—you know, in the sense that it was just about the last thing I wanted at that moment.
The voyage to that point had been one bad thing after another. I had lost a finger, and a slug had torn into my right forearm, and after that my abdomen got cut up, and so did my back. Also, my poor face received a savage slice.
My stomach wound continued to give me grief and was still bleeding a little from time to time. My face still had stitches—twenty-four in number—running down its side. For that matter, my stomach also still had some stitches, and the whole area wasn’t healing very well.
All of this caused me quite a bit of pain, especially my stomach, when I moved.
I never complained about it, except a little when people asked me how a certain wound was doing. Complaining never improved my situation, and it makes a person look like . . . a complainer. A bad look.
Honestly, I should have removed myself from duty at some point, but we had others who also were playing through the pain, so really I had no choice.
But obviously in my case it wasn’t just the pain. My functionality was reduced, because of the damage to my abdominal muscles, and also it seemed to me that if I sustained any kind of blow to my stomach, it would do serious damage. Also, my grip strength in my left hand was significantly reduced, because of my loss of the little finger.
Okay, enough of that.
The point is, we had been through a lot, and we weren’t in the mood for GQ.
But I was able to shelve my pain and weariness. My main focus now was Whitaker and his three team members. I intended to save them, or die in the attempt. And I knew that everyone on C-Squad would feel the same way.
4
Spin-Up Twenty Marlins
Somehow Edwin, who was basically third in command, right after Talia, had managed to sleep through all of this, including the sounding of the klaxon and the announcement of general quarters.
Talia poked Edwin on the shoulder, waking him up. She told him that Skydock Eight was being boarded and gave him further details.
Edwin became alert and all business. “How far out are we?”
Banning said, “We’re at maximum acceleration. If we keep this up, we might be an hour away. But we’re also running low on fuel, and we don’t have many heat sinks left, so it’s guesswork at the moment. We can launch missiles at any time, if we can isolate some targets. Astrid here is gnawing at the bit to take C-Squad out.”
Edwin nodded.
Banning sighed resignedly, then said, “Icarus, spin-up twenty Marlins.”
The Marlins are our larger missiles. But they are of little use if the enemy ships are cloaked. And besides, our main problem was the fact that the Skydock was in the process of being boarded. My own worry was not the enemy ships as such, but the enemy soldiers on board Skydock Eight and the threat they posed to the four US Navy personnel on board.
Talia said, “Scanners show the Skydock clearly. I also see the boarding ship. It’s pretty small. Nothing else is visible in the area. Even if the boarding ship was cloaked before, it isn’t now.”
Banning said, “Based on its size, how many personnel might be on the boarding craft?”
“It’ll hold at least eight,” Talia said, “according to my reckoning. Probably no more than fifteen or so.”
I looked at Banning and opened my eyes wide, to indicate that I wanted to get out of there, join up with my squad, and get ready to leave the Ranger in my Banshee.
