Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 36
“What about the body?” one of the Guardsmen asked.
“Leave it for the scavengers.” Julian’s cackle carried over the moan of the winds.
“Jerry.” Josie shook him once more, hard.
The force of it jarred him enough to tear his gaze away from the shuttle they’d taken Tina into. Grav drives were spooling up and the boarding ramp was retracting.
Josie tapped the peta-drive still cradled under his arm. “We can still get this to safety. We can still make it worth something.”
“She’s still alive,” Jerry protested, nodding towards the shuttle.
“I know that, baby.” Josie’s face wrenched with anguish. “But she knew what she was doing. We all did.”
“What are you saying?” he whispered.
She pinched her lips into a bloodless line and her eyes went glassy. “I’m saying we’ve got a choice, and you know which one we have to make.”
“No.”
“Baby, that data could change the galaxy.”
“Josie...” He gasped, couldn’t find the breath, a fist clenching inside his guts, his lungs, squeezing the life from him. “I’ve faced this decision before. I can’t face it again.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I love you, but I’m sorry. You have to.”
The howl of the shuttle’s gravity drives reached a shriek and a donut of force rushed out from the ship’s footprint as it rose from the pad. Jerry started for the edge of the dugout, put his hands up to the edge, staring after the craft as it clawed for altitude. He felt Josie at his back, gripping him, restraining him.
But he knew it was over. He knew what she was saying was true.
He’d given up Tina again.
TIM HAD FACED DEATH more times than he could remember. But watching the fresh Alliance fleet spread out towards them, it was the first time he was certain old Death had caught up to him.
“Forty-two ships,” Jeanie stated, simulating a very human hush to her voice. “Doesn’t appear to be any carriers, but plenty of anti-starfighter weaponry. Closing fast. Less than ten minutes, now, at current speeds.”
And Tim looked over the scrambling Union support ships, the damaged vessels, none of them ready for this. Only the starfighter swarms, now being joined by militia Firestorms from the planet, could do anything about it. There’s enough of us, he thought. Not enough to win, no. But enough to do some damage, slow ‘em down, maybe. He swallowed once. Not enough to get out of this alive.
“Do we have an idea where Red or the rest are?” he asked.
“I haven’t detected any transmissions or any sign of them since we were broken up in the asteroid belt,” the AI replied. “That doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
“Means that no one else is coming to help, though.”
The AI may have hesitated. “That’s true.”
Tim leaned back in the flight couch for a moment, drew in a long breath. He was surprised not to be scared. After the hours of facing fear, he’d reached a point of numbness. He wasn’t sure he’d call it acceptance, either. A kind of cold fury trickled through him, driving out emotion, replacing it with the will to simply get in there, face whatever this was going to be.
Face death.
God knew he deserved it.
But glancing at the image of Kelly hovered in its place at the corner of his instrument panel, he deserved to live, too, didn’t he?
He gave himself a shake and reached out for the tactical. That Union pilot was still broadcasting their mayday frantically. Some of the starships were heeding, making as best a run for it as they could. Some looked to be mustering for a fight. Tim touched the pulsing icon of the Marauder, opened a communication.
“This is Jester Leader Two-One,” he said into the mic, “looks like you’re readying a welcome party. Wanted to know if you’d like a hand.”
The icon blinking mutely for what seemed like a long pause. Then a globular shivered to life before Tim.
And a face he’d only seen in stills for six months stared back at him.
“Tim,” Kelly said.
He rocked back in his seat. It was her. It was her! A battered helmet framed a narrow face, skin had paled to an unhealthy pallor, and harsh underlighting from within her cockpit glinted off a glaze of sweat. But green eyes, that looked at no one like those did, stared back at him.
A thousand responses stumbled over one another, like a stampede for a door. The only one that escaped was a laugh. “I should’ve known you’d be here!”
“Same,” she replied with a desperate smile.
“Should you really be transmitting on the open like this? We’re certainly being monitoring, this time.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s going to make a difference in a little bit.”
Tim’s grin faded a little at the truth in her words. “Yeah.” He swallowed back the knot threatening to cinch off his throat. “Well, I sure am glad to see you.”
“We could use any help you all are willing to give us,” she said, voice returning to a bit of that can-do he knew from her so well. “There’s not much of a plan. Admiral Avery’s trying to get as many ships out of range as he can. He’s asked us to throw the kitchen sink at these guys.”
“Figured.” He shrugged at the hologram. “Don’t know how much use we’re going to be. We’re bone-dry. I can give you plasma and particle beams and a lot of bluster.”
“Bluster will do fine,” she replied. “We’re fully loaded, will go in first. You follow. No need to be precise. Hit the closest ships. I’ve been in contact with the militia leader. They’ll go in last. Then we repeat.”
“Until there’s nothing left.”
“Till we win,” Kelly said with a brilliant, but forced smile.
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“As good as any of ours ever are,” she replied in a half-chuckle. She stared out of the hologram for a long time. A sweat-dampened tendril of auburn peaked out from a corner of her helmet and she scraped it back. Eyes shimmered and blinked. He knew she was fighting back tears.
So was he. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Because I love you.”
The fight in her was lost as tears slid down her cheeks. “I love you, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you all.”
“Would’ve been kind of hard.”
“No.” She shook her head, almost frantically. “No, it wouldn’t have. I wanted to stay here. I’m sorry. I did. It was easier this way. I didn’t have to worry, just do the job, fight the fight.” She visibly gulped. “It was the easier way. Easier than watching, waiting for all of you to die.”
Tim grimaced a little. “It’s all right. I understand.” Really, he did.
“It was cowardice,” she said. “I was afraid, and because of that, this is all you and I get. This is all we have left. It could’ve been more!”
Tim had to fight back another grimace, because that was true. Instinctively, he reached for her image. The globular fluttered a little and the ionized field of it responded with a buzz of haptic feedback across the fingertips. But there was nothing there, not really. Not the smooth line of her cheek, the warmth of her under his hand.
“This is all I need,” he replied.
“I love you, Tim Watkins.”
“I love you, Kelly Harrison.”
“Now,” she said, taking a deep, shivering breath, “we’ve got work to do.” Her voice hardened, reverted to its command tone. “I’m transmitting you our attack pattern. Like I said before, just follow us in.”
“Will do.”
She appeared to fight the words that came next. “Live, Tim. Get through this. If you do, I will find you!”
“Same,” he replied.
The globular blinked out. Tim was alone.
One of the Hellhound icons was pulsing with an inbound message. Cory. Tim sighed. The others probably knew what was coming. They were all Jesters and could see what was out there. But this next part was going to feel like murder. They’d all know the odds.
Reluctantly, he touched the icon. “Yeah, kid?”
The globular of Cory shivered to life before him. Her face was red and eyes full of tears. “Oh, Tim...”
“It’s going to be all right,” he assured her, “we’ve seen worse.”
“It’s not that...” She sniffled loudly. “That was beautiful.”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. “Wait, you were listening in?”
“I couldn’t help it. I mean, I could...but I knew that fighter was hers by the transponder and grav drive signature and...” She trailed off. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait, that means you knew from before, over Shangri-La—”
She was nodding. “I did.”
A rush of anger wilted before a chuckle. He couldn’t hold onto it before that earnest, teary-eyed stare. “Jesus, you big goof...you could’ve said something to her.”
“You already said it all.”
Tim nodded. A surge of anguish rushed up from deep within him and it was his turn to fight down tears. “I love you, too, kid. Don’t know that I’ve ever quite said it straight.”
“I knew it,” she replied.
“Glad you’re with me, here at...” he almost said the end, instead quickly chose “...at this moment.”
“No place I’d rather be.”
“You really are doing it. You always were one of us. But you’re really a Jester now.”
She smiled till it pinched up her whole face and tears cascaded down along the wrinkles.
“All right,” he said, then repeated like mantra, “all right, we’ve got work to do now, kid.” He switched to the general address. “Hey, Jesters, everyone hearing me?”
Replies chorused back.
“Last charge of the Jester Brigade?” Matyszak asked.
“Not the last,” Tim answered with bravado he was surprised to find he suddenly did feel. “Not if I can help it.” He found the copy of Kelly’s course heading on his screen and tapped it to transmit to all Hellhounds. “This is our course. Nothing fancy. Give those slugs everything you’ve got. Let’s do this, Jesters.”
“Hell yes,” Matyszak growled over the other responses.
Kelly’s squadron was beginning to pull away, put on speed. Tim dumped power to the thrusters, nosed the Hellhound after her. The rest spread out behind him like a weary Dire pack after a day-long pursuit, scenting the kill one more time.
“I’m glad to be here with you, too, Tim,” Jeanie said softly as the starfighter began to shiver with acceleration.
Tim smiled. “You know, Jeanie, you were always more than a machine, to me. You’re a Jester, too.”
“Thank you.”
It was hard not to imagine emotion in the AI’s response.
KELLY FORCED DOWN ANY emotion. She was the Squadron Leader, the pilot, the Ice Queen, rushing into hell. She couldn’t be any less. Less meant collapsing into a blob of anguish and hurt and, yeah, fear. She had work too important for any of that.
“I’m going to send you any help we can scrounge together, Slasher One,” Preston Avery said from a globular to one side. The man looked like hell. The bridge of the Solomon behind him smoked, looked like it’d taken damage. “We’re not going to leave you!”
“Glad to hear it, sir!” she replied. “But, ah, don’t take too long.”
“Understood,” the Admiral said with a weary half-smile. “Working on it. Good luck, Slasher One.”
“To all of us, sir!”
She switched back to the squadron channel. “All right, Slashers, these look promising.” She touched the tactical hologram, drew a circle around the leading trio of heavy cruisers. Destroyers were fanning out around their larger consorts, but with speed, the Slashers would punch right through those. “Concentrate your scatter-packs on those. Don’t hold anything back.”
“Not a goddamn thing,” Himari muttered.
Kelly nodded, hearing the hurt and rage in the younger woman’s voice. Under other circumstances, she’d worry. But those emotions would only be fuel for the desperate rush to come, might carry her clear.
A glance at the aft display showed the crazed tangle of Avery trying to sort out his ships for a response. Those Panthers were scrambling to detach from the missile tenders, some certainly not yet reprovisioned. Other support ships had already fired their gravs and were building up speed to flee. Damaged ships limped after them. The Sacramento pulsed in the midst of the ruckus, gravity drive emissions a weak flicker as she lumbered about to follow. Kelly swallowed back a surge of panic. The wounded old girl was never going to make out it at that rate.
The Slashers spread out into their customary arrowhead formation around Kelly as they picked up speed. A look at the tactical showed her the Jesters following, slightly off to their left flank and obviously selecting a different spread of targets. She winced and looked away, would not see them or think too hard on any one of them.
No matter who.
The Firestorms from the Surigao militia were lagging behind already. Kelly gave thanks they wouldn’t have to punch through a fighter screen. Those wingdings would be easy meat. They’d already taken a beating. This looked to be a slaughter.
Stop it.
“Four minutes to extreme weapons range,” the Marauder AI announced.
Kelly blinked, shocked at the speed with which they closed. But the Alliance was hurtling right at them, right into their faces, and her Slashers were responding in kind, halving the transit. This is crazy. A game of chicken at a measurable fraction of the speed of light. She snorted to herself. Except they’re riding a hovertank and I’m on a bicycle!
An alarm blatted and the leading edge of the Alliance fleet blossomed into white trails denoting missile launches.
“What the hell are they doing?” Kelly wondered out loud.
“Firing on us,” the AI replied without irony.
“Thanks, idiot,” she grated at the machine. “I mean, what do they expect to accomplish? We’re beyond extreme range. Those birds won’t have the advantage of the starships’ long-range targeting; they’re rushing out ahead on their internal guidance, alone. And we’ll have that much longer to pick ‘em off.” She scowled at the tactical. “What are they throwing at us, exactly?”
“Mixed salvo,” the AI said and brushed a pointer over the inbounds, caused small sub-globulars to pop out with schemata and textual details. “Anti-ship missiles and bombardment rockets.”
Bombardment rockets. She touched one of the icons, but the scanning results came back the same, the range still too long for a more definitive look and the doppler effect distorting even the missiles’ positions at this distance. “They’re multiple-vehicle warheads,” she said.
“Data are not at all conclusive,” the AI insisted.
She shook her head. “Nah, that’s it. Clever. They’d normally use ‘em to smother ground-based heavy weapons. If we let them get in close, they’ll spray two-dozen missiles in our faces.” She keyed up the general address. “Jester Leader Two-One, Militia Leader, those heavier bogies are MRV’s. Hit them first with long-range fire, then work your way down the food chain.”
A nervous azure flicker filled her viewscreens like heat lighting. The Jesters were already opening up with particle cannon—probably useless at that range, but helpful for the nerves. The Slashers joined in, slicing the vacuum before them with interwoven energy death.
Kelly worked the targeting halo over a dotted line ahead of one of the trails—the AI’s estimation of the projectile’s possible position, based on data that was already old—and squeezed the trigger. A bloom of destruction rewarded her seconds later, her improbable hit claiming one of the MRV’s in a messy cluster of fire-flash secondary explosions that confirmed its nature.
More explosions pulsed through the oncoming fusillade as the distance closed and the particle beams’ targeting improved. First one, then a second MRV puffed into an untangling of lesser trails, their individual mini-brains decided to release their payloads early, rather than not release them, at all.
The tactical computer blatted again. The Alliance ships were releasing a second volley and the nearer distance gave this one a more gut-tightening immediacy, trails rushing out in their dozens to claw through their still-exploding predecessors. Starfighter energy blasts flickered with regularity now.
“Extreme weapons range,” the Marauder AI announced.
Titanic shafts of flame pulsed out into space as the capital ships opened fire with heavy weapons. At this distance, that’d be slightly more effective than waving a flashlight beam into a gnat swarm. But it was one more thing to think about as a cloud of missiles filled up the tactical and every weapon on the Marauder blazed, quad-blaster joining the particle cannon.
Kelly worked the targeting halo over fresh targets, the icon crimsoning as it acquired definitive lock. A squeeze of the trigger sent another anti-ship missile—whose shield-shattering blast would’ve knocked her from space like an afterthought—pluming into fiery splinters. A MIRV burst into its double-dozen spread and she thumbed the weapons selector to the quad-blaster, squeezed the trigger. Now she held it down, hosing plasma blasts into that swarm and grinding her teeth as one after another strobed out of existence.
The Marauder shivered as the last of these exploded at barely a few hundred clicks. Expanding superheated gases flared off her shields as she plunged through them, found her skies littered with more inbounds.
“Stay with me, Slashers!” he grated into the mic, as much an effort to steel herself as any who’d survived to hear her.
Everything was suddenly globes of plasma flame and streaks of energy, all around. A spear of solid white-fire from a capital ship main gun caught a Marauder with an incalculably lucky hit, left nothing but a momentary flutter of expanding embers as it plowed across the void. The Slashers’ arrowhead formation came apart, individual flights of twos and threes, then singles breaking off to evade, weave through the storm, follow whatever instinctive paths to survival each pilot found.
“Stay with me!” Kelly repeated through teeth clenched so tightly each throbbed.
But an explosion to port compelled her to break off from Himari. Targeting and proximity alarms warbled together. The tactical was a blizzard of rushing icons, anarchy. She wove through them, seeking one of the larger contacts she’d picked out before.
“Leave it for the scavengers.” Julian’s cackle carried over the moan of the winds.
“Jerry.” Josie shook him once more, hard.
The force of it jarred him enough to tear his gaze away from the shuttle they’d taken Tina into. Grav drives were spooling up and the boarding ramp was retracting.
Josie tapped the peta-drive still cradled under his arm. “We can still get this to safety. We can still make it worth something.”
“She’s still alive,” Jerry protested, nodding towards the shuttle.
“I know that, baby.” Josie’s face wrenched with anguish. “But she knew what she was doing. We all did.”
“What are you saying?” he whispered.
She pinched her lips into a bloodless line and her eyes went glassy. “I’m saying we’ve got a choice, and you know which one we have to make.”
“No.”
“Baby, that data could change the galaxy.”
“Josie...” He gasped, couldn’t find the breath, a fist clenching inside his guts, his lungs, squeezing the life from him. “I’ve faced this decision before. I can’t face it again.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I love you, but I’m sorry. You have to.”
The howl of the shuttle’s gravity drives reached a shriek and a donut of force rushed out from the ship’s footprint as it rose from the pad. Jerry started for the edge of the dugout, put his hands up to the edge, staring after the craft as it clawed for altitude. He felt Josie at his back, gripping him, restraining him.
But he knew it was over. He knew what she was saying was true.
He’d given up Tina again.
TIM HAD FACED DEATH more times than he could remember. But watching the fresh Alliance fleet spread out towards them, it was the first time he was certain old Death had caught up to him.
“Forty-two ships,” Jeanie stated, simulating a very human hush to her voice. “Doesn’t appear to be any carriers, but plenty of anti-starfighter weaponry. Closing fast. Less than ten minutes, now, at current speeds.”
And Tim looked over the scrambling Union support ships, the damaged vessels, none of them ready for this. Only the starfighter swarms, now being joined by militia Firestorms from the planet, could do anything about it. There’s enough of us, he thought. Not enough to win, no. But enough to do some damage, slow ‘em down, maybe. He swallowed once. Not enough to get out of this alive.
“Do we have an idea where Red or the rest are?” he asked.
“I haven’t detected any transmissions or any sign of them since we were broken up in the asteroid belt,” the AI replied. “That doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
“Means that no one else is coming to help, though.”
The AI may have hesitated. “That’s true.”
Tim leaned back in the flight couch for a moment, drew in a long breath. He was surprised not to be scared. After the hours of facing fear, he’d reached a point of numbness. He wasn’t sure he’d call it acceptance, either. A kind of cold fury trickled through him, driving out emotion, replacing it with the will to simply get in there, face whatever this was going to be.
Face death.
God knew he deserved it.
But glancing at the image of Kelly hovered in its place at the corner of his instrument panel, he deserved to live, too, didn’t he?
He gave himself a shake and reached out for the tactical. That Union pilot was still broadcasting their mayday frantically. Some of the starships were heeding, making as best a run for it as they could. Some looked to be mustering for a fight. Tim touched the pulsing icon of the Marauder, opened a communication.
“This is Jester Leader Two-One,” he said into the mic, “looks like you’re readying a welcome party. Wanted to know if you’d like a hand.”
The icon blinking mutely for what seemed like a long pause. Then a globular shivered to life before Tim.
And a face he’d only seen in stills for six months stared back at him.
“Tim,” Kelly said.
He rocked back in his seat. It was her. It was her! A battered helmet framed a narrow face, skin had paled to an unhealthy pallor, and harsh underlighting from within her cockpit glinted off a glaze of sweat. But green eyes, that looked at no one like those did, stared back at him.
A thousand responses stumbled over one another, like a stampede for a door. The only one that escaped was a laugh. “I should’ve known you’d be here!”
“Same,” she replied with a desperate smile.
“Should you really be transmitting on the open like this? We’re certainly being monitoring, this time.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s going to make a difference in a little bit.”
Tim’s grin faded a little at the truth in her words. “Yeah.” He swallowed back the knot threatening to cinch off his throat. “Well, I sure am glad to see you.”
“We could use any help you all are willing to give us,” she said, voice returning to a bit of that can-do he knew from her so well. “There’s not much of a plan. Admiral Avery’s trying to get as many ships out of range as he can. He’s asked us to throw the kitchen sink at these guys.”
“Figured.” He shrugged at the hologram. “Don’t know how much use we’re going to be. We’re bone-dry. I can give you plasma and particle beams and a lot of bluster.”
“Bluster will do fine,” she replied. “We’re fully loaded, will go in first. You follow. No need to be precise. Hit the closest ships. I’ve been in contact with the militia leader. They’ll go in last. Then we repeat.”
“Until there’s nothing left.”
“Till we win,” Kelly said with a brilliant, but forced smile.
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“As good as any of ours ever are,” she replied in a half-chuckle. She stared out of the hologram for a long time. A sweat-dampened tendril of auburn peaked out from a corner of her helmet and she scraped it back. Eyes shimmered and blinked. He knew she was fighting back tears.
So was he. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Because I love you.”
The fight in her was lost as tears slid down her cheeks. “I love you, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you all.”
“Would’ve been kind of hard.”
“No.” She shook her head, almost frantically. “No, it wouldn’t have. I wanted to stay here. I’m sorry. I did. It was easier this way. I didn’t have to worry, just do the job, fight the fight.” She visibly gulped. “It was the easier way. Easier than watching, waiting for all of you to die.”
Tim grimaced a little. “It’s all right. I understand.” Really, he did.
“It was cowardice,” she said. “I was afraid, and because of that, this is all you and I get. This is all we have left. It could’ve been more!”
Tim had to fight back another grimace, because that was true. Instinctively, he reached for her image. The globular fluttered a little and the ionized field of it responded with a buzz of haptic feedback across the fingertips. But there was nothing there, not really. Not the smooth line of her cheek, the warmth of her under his hand.
“This is all I need,” he replied.
“I love you, Tim Watkins.”
“I love you, Kelly Harrison.”
“Now,” she said, taking a deep, shivering breath, “we’ve got work to do.” Her voice hardened, reverted to its command tone. “I’m transmitting you our attack pattern. Like I said before, just follow us in.”
“Will do.”
She appeared to fight the words that came next. “Live, Tim. Get through this. If you do, I will find you!”
“Same,” he replied.
The globular blinked out. Tim was alone.
One of the Hellhound icons was pulsing with an inbound message. Cory. Tim sighed. The others probably knew what was coming. They were all Jesters and could see what was out there. But this next part was going to feel like murder. They’d all know the odds.
Reluctantly, he touched the icon. “Yeah, kid?”
The globular of Cory shivered to life before him. Her face was red and eyes full of tears. “Oh, Tim...”
“It’s going to be all right,” he assured her, “we’ve seen worse.”
“It’s not that...” She sniffled loudly. “That was beautiful.”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. “Wait, you were listening in?”
“I couldn’t help it. I mean, I could...but I knew that fighter was hers by the transponder and grav drive signature and...” She trailed off. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait, that means you knew from before, over Shangri-La—”
She was nodding. “I did.”
A rush of anger wilted before a chuckle. He couldn’t hold onto it before that earnest, teary-eyed stare. “Jesus, you big goof...you could’ve said something to her.”
“You already said it all.”
Tim nodded. A surge of anguish rushed up from deep within him and it was his turn to fight down tears. “I love you, too, kid. Don’t know that I’ve ever quite said it straight.”
“I knew it,” she replied.
“Glad you’re with me, here at...” he almost said the end, instead quickly chose “...at this moment.”
“No place I’d rather be.”
“You really are doing it. You always were one of us. But you’re really a Jester now.”
She smiled till it pinched up her whole face and tears cascaded down along the wrinkles.
“All right,” he said, then repeated like mantra, “all right, we’ve got work to do now, kid.” He switched to the general address. “Hey, Jesters, everyone hearing me?”
Replies chorused back.
“Last charge of the Jester Brigade?” Matyszak asked.
“Not the last,” Tim answered with bravado he was surprised to find he suddenly did feel. “Not if I can help it.” He found the copy of Kelly’s course heading on his screen and tapped it to transmit to all Hellhounds. “This is our course. Nothing fancy. Give those slugs everything you’ve got. Let’s do this, Jesters.”
“Hell yes,” Matyszak growled over the other responses.
Kelly’s squadron was beginning to pull away, put on speed. Tim dumped power to the thrusters, nosed the Hellhound after her. The rest spread out behind him like a weary Dire pack after a day-long pursuit, scenting the kill one more time.
“I’m glad to be here with you, too, Tim,” Jeanie said softly as the starfighter began to shiver with acceleration.
Tim smiled. “You know, Jeanie, you were always more than a machine, to me. You’re a Jester, too.”
“Thank you.”
It was hard not to imagine emotion in the AI’s response.
KELLY FORCED DOWN ANY emotion. She was the Squadron Leader, the pilot, the Ice Queen, rushing into hell. She couldn’t be any less. Less meant collapsing into a blob of anguish and hurt and, yeah, fear. She had work too important for any of that.
“I’m going to send you any help we can scrounge together, Slasher One,” Preston Avery said from a globular to one side. The man looked like hell. The bridge of the Solomon behind him smoked, looked like it’d taken damage. “We’re not going to leave you!”
“Glad to hear it, sir!” she replied. “But, ah, don’t take too long.”
“Understood,” the Admiral said with a weary half-smile. “Working on it. Good luck, Slasher One.”
“To all of us, sir!”
She switched back to the squadron channel. “All right, Slashers, these look promising.” She touched the tactical hologram, drew a circle around the leading trio of heavy cruisers. Destroyers were fanning out around their larger consorts, but with speed, the Slashers would punch right through those. “Concentrate your scatter-packs on those. Don’t hold anything back.”
“Not a goddamn thing,” Himari muttered.
Kelly nodded, hearing the hurt and rage in the younger woman’s voice. Under other circumstances, she’d worry. But those emotions would only be fuel for the desperate rush to come, might carry her clear.
A glance at the aft display showed the crazed tangle of Avery trying to sort out his ships for a response. Those Panthers were scrambling to detach from the missile tenders, some certainly not yet reprovisioned. Other support ships had already fired their gravs and were building up speed to flee. Damaged ships limped after them. The Sacramento pulsed in the midst of the ruckus, gravity drive emissions a weak flicker as she lumbered about to follow. Kelly swallowed back a surge of panic. The wounded old girl was never going to make out it at that rate.
The Slashers spread out into their customary arrowhead formation around Kelly as they picked up speed. A look at the tactical showed her the Jesters following, slightly off to their left flank and obviously selecting a different spread of targets. She winced and looked away, would not see them or think too hard on any one of them.
No matter who.
The Firestorms from the Surigao militia were lagging behind already. Kelly gave thanks they wouldn’t have to punch through a fighter screen. Those wingdings would be easy meat. They’d already taken a beating. This looked to be a slaughter.
Stop it.
“Four minutes to extreme weapons range,” the Marauder AI announced.
Kelly blinked, shocked at the speed with which they closed. But the Alliance was hurtling right at them, right into their faces, and her Slashers were responding in kind, halving the transit. This is crazy. A game of chicken at a measurable fraction of the speed of light. She snorted to herself. Except they’re riding a hovertank and I’m on a bicycle!
An alarm blatted and the leading edge of the Alliance fleet blossomed into white trails denoting missile launches.
“What the hell are they doing?” Kelly wondered out loud.
“Firing on us,” the AI replied without irony.
“Thanks, idiot,” she grated at the machine. “I mean, what do they expect to accomplish? We’re beyond extreme range. Those birds won’t have the advantage of the starships’ long-range targeting; they’re rushing out ahead on their internal guidance, alone. And we’ll have that much longer to pick ‘em off.” She scowled at the tactical. “What are they throwing at us, exactly?”
“Mixed salvo,” the AI said and brushed a pointer over the inbounds, caused small sub-globulars to pop out with schemata and textual details. “Anti-ship missiles and bombardment rockets.”
Bombardment rockets. She touched one of the icons, but the scanning results came back the same, the range still too long for a more definitive look and the doppler effect distorting even the missiles’ positions at this distance. “They’re multiple-vehicle warheads,” she said.
“Data are not at all conclusive,” the AI insisted.
She shook her head. “Nah, that’s it. Clever. They’d normally use ‘em to smother ground-based heavy weapons. If we let them get in close, they’ll spray two-dozen missiles in our faces.” She keyed up the general address. “Jester Leader Two-One, Militia Leader, those heavier bogies are MRV’s. Hit them first with long-range fire, then work your way down the food chain.”
A nervous azure flicker filled her viewscreens like heat lighting. The Jesters were already opening up with particle cannon—probably useless at that range, but helpful for the nerves. The Slashers joined in, slicing the vacuum before them with interwoven energy death.
Kelly worked the targeting halo over a dotted line ahead of one of the trails—the AI’s estimation of the projectile’s possible position, based on data that was already old—and squeezed the trigger. A bloom of destruction rewarded her seconds later, her improbable hit claiming one of the MRV’s in a messy cluster of fire-flash secondary explosions that confirmed its nature.
More explosions pulsed through the oncoming fusillade as the distance closed and the particle beams’ targeting improved. First one, then a second MRV puffed into an untangling of lesser trails, their individual mini-brains decided to release their payloads early, rather than not release them, at all.
The tactical computer blatted again. The Alliance ships were releasing a second volley and the nearer distance gave this one a more gut-tightening immediacy, trails rushing out in their dozens to claw through their still-exploding predecessors. Starfighter energy blasts flickered with regularity now.
“Extreme weapons range,” the Marauder AI announced.
Titanic shafts of flame pulsed out into space as the capital ships opened fire with heavy weapons. At this distance, that’d be slightly more effective than waving a flashlight beam into a gnat swarm. But it was one more thing to think about as a cloud of missiles filled up the tactical and every weapon on the Marauder blazed, quad-blaster joining the particle cannon.
Kelly worked the targeting halo over fresh targets, the icon crimsoning as it acquired definitive lock. A squeeze of the trigger sent another anti-ship missile—whose shield-shattering blast would’ve knocked her from space like an afterthought—pluming into fiery splinters. A MIRV burst into its double-dozen spread and she thumbed the weapons selector to the quad-blaster, squeezed the trigger. Now she held it down, hosing plasma blasts into that swarm and grinding her teeth as one after another strobed out of existence.
The Marauder shivered as the last of these exploded at barely a few hundred clicks. Expanding superheated gases flared off her shields as she plunged through them, found her skies littered with more inbounds.
“Stay with me, Slashers!” he grated into the mic, as much an effort to steel herself as any who’d survived to hear her.
Everything was suddenly globes of plasma flame and streaks of energy, all around. A spear of solid white-fire from a capital ship main gun caught a Marauder with an incalculably lucky hit, left nothing but a momentary flutter of expanding embers as it plowed across the void. The Slashers’ arrowhead formation came apart, individual flights of twos and threes, then singles breaking off to evade, weave through the storm, follow whatever instinctive paths to survival each pilot found.
“Stay with me!” Kelly repeated through teeth clenched so tightly each throbbed.
But an explosion to port compelled her to break off from Himari. Targeting and proximity alarms warbled together. The tactical was a blizzard of rushing icons, anarchy. She wove through them, seeking one of the larger contacts she’d picked out before.
