Rebel Hell (Hell's Jesters, #3), page 9
“It’s time to go.”
THE ASTEROID STATION that had been the focus of so much fighting in the center exploded with enough force to split the rock upon which it sat. A globe of thermonuclear hell jetted across the void, but the following hailstorm of debris brought the real danger.
Tim dove into it, desperate to shake the pair of Valkyries that’d hounded him for the last minute. Proximity alarms joined hostile targeting alarms in a crazed chorus Tim would’ve killed had not every ounce of concentration gone into surviving the next seconds. A boulder the size of a city block spun towards him and he side slipped to avoid it, found a second chunk twice its size wheeling after it.
“This is not my favorite plan of yours,” Jeanie sniped.
Ignoring the AI, Tim put the Hellhound through another tearing maneuver, a hull-shaking bank to port, boosting hard on the ventral maneuvering fields. Something small glanced off the starboard shields with a smear of flame. A flash lit the aft display and Tim grinned as one of his pursuers bounced off a rock, shields saving it but sending it into a tumble. He didn’t see the second one.
“We’re free of their targeting,” Jeanie told him.
Tim wrenched the Hellhound nose-up, ninety degrees from his original course. He found a hunk of debris roughly twice the size of the starfighter and hugged close, letting his speed match and blending in as the shrapnel of the asteroid station’s death expanded. “Do we see those Valkyries?”
“Lost them in the mess,” Jeanie reported.
“Just like us.”
The debris cloud spread across the path of the Alliance fleet as it punched through the gap left when the tractor beam web disintegrated. Energy bolts licked out to smite the most dangerous particles. Shields fluttered to absorb the rest. An azure bolt of heavy particle beam smeared away a neighboring rock.
“We can’t stay here,” Jeanie warned.
“Not planning on it.”
He goosed the thrusters as another chunk of the asteroid blew to aft, wove out from behind his hiding spot, and shot for the fleet. “Li, are you still out there?”
No response came. He didn’t know if he’d lost his Second Squad Leader or if the scrum had simply drawn him afar. Other replies chattered back and Hellhound icons converged on him, some emerging from the debris cloud, others from nearby fights.
It’ll be enough, he thought, counting them. “Form on me Watkins Wing.” The group that remained could hardly be called a squadron. “We’re going for pay dirt!”
His gaze settled on a single, baleful icon on the display: the Immolator, Geiger’s ship. He’d gotten near her once, that dreadful day over Gallaton, hadn’t appreciated at the time how close he’d come to making history.
Gonna make it today, though.
“Give me full power to shields and engines!” Tim told Jeanie as he nosed the ship towards the battlecruiser. “Did you figure out the snarl with the Number Four scatter pack?”
The systems display gave a cheerful green blink, perhaps the only bright spot in a rash of red damage. “It’s operational. But shields are at forty percent, even with the extra power. Generator coil is failing.”
“Just need them for a few more minutes, Jeanie!”
The flail of point defenses lashed out towards Tim and his cohorts, but had a desultory, almost distracted direction to it. The storm writhing to life before the advancing fleet explained that, most of the ships’ fire shifting to their forward firing arcs as a missile salvo rushed for them from the Union fleet. Blasts no less terrifying for their silence in space expanded in terrible globes of brilliance that would devour a starship if they got close, did so in a couple cases.
But the Immolator coasted through.
“Nice of ‘em to help out,” Tim cackled. “Let’s do this, Watkins Wing!”
An alarm blatted from the console and the aft tactical display flashed crimson with warnings—then white with incoming fire.
“We’ve got fleas, Tim!” one of his wing mates cried. “I’ve got—ack!”
His Hellhound shattered as the blasts of three Valkyries converged on it. Their fire shifted, lanced amongst Tim’s companions, who began to scatter.
“Stay on the battlecruiser!” Tim snarled. The Immolator filled his forward display, rushing towards him, its point defenses swinging about to lash the space around him as the danger he posed became apparent.
Valkyrie particle beams turned another Hellhound into a tail of fire that twined an insane path ending in a blossom of fiery splinters. The rest of the Jesters veered off, firing the last of their scatter packs or simply running for it.
Tim charged through the storm alone.
Targeting halos crimsoned as they settled over the battlecruiser and their accompanying alarms merge into a single shriek. Hold it...hold. Every muscle tensed, every nerve tingled. Tim’s existence shrank to those endless moments, plummeting through space as lightning clamored for his blood. Sweat stung at the edges of eyes. Pulse hammered to till it hurt. He didn’t know if he’d even realize he was dead if it came.
Now!
He stroked the trigger, felt the last scatter pack release, and sawed the stick back and to the right. He had an instant to see the missiles spread away and strike in a daisy-chain of plasma-hued fire-splashes. The Immolator blurred by, wreathed in destruction, fell away on the aft display like a torch dropped from skyscraper.
Space opened before Tim. He inhaled once, drank in the sight of Loudon hanging free amongst the stars.
Impact crashed through the Hellhound. Tim felt his body slammed off the left side of the cockpit and rebounded off the right. Sparks splattered across his vision. Pain made him realize they were actually in the narrow space with him. Flames leapt from the console to his left, speckled his flaking leather sleeve. He flailed, screeched, battered at the blaze with his right hand. He gagged, suddenly couldn’t breathe as fumes thickened.
“Jeanie,” he wheezed.
His helmet visor slammed down and locked over his face. He had a moment of panic, lungs straining as ears popped with pressurization—and then relief as clear air filled his chest.
“This is why I insist on the helmet!” the AI chided, having clearly taken control of his flight suit remotely.
With a hiss, Tim’s suit followed the helmet in sealing. He felt a strange, oily jolt along his arm that didn’t exactly hurt as the inner lining of his leathers expressed the inky contents of emergency bladders. The ooze hardened to a rubbery consistency, automatically plugged the gaps burnt into his sleeve.
The Hellhound lurched. Stars spun in the forward display. The stick wobbled limply as Tim grasped it.
“Shields are gone,” Jeanie reported. “We’ve got engines back but Tim, I’m going to need your help.”
“Just fire ‘em!” he barked with renewed wind.
The Hellhound crashed and lurched once more. Acceleration returned with a pressed hand of force on Tim’s chest. The stick fought his grip, but steadied as Jeanie helped him master the fighter’s tumble. With a final tearing shudder, the Hellhound steadied.
“Did we get it?”
“Checking,” the AI replied. After a very human-like hesitation, “We hit, but the ship is intact.”
“Then we’re going back.” Tim gripped the controls. The ‘hound didn’t feel right, slow to respond, a faint shiver aft from the grav drives that didn’t subside. The stink of burnt circuitry and plastic had plastered the insides of his nostrils and throat—better than the smell of his burnt skin. And he was starting to hurt, a growing throb from his forearm.
Still, “What do we have left, Jeanie?”
“Tim, the shields are gone, generator coil blown. One more hit and we’re done.”
“We’ve faced those odds before.”
Jeanie threw the systems display up close to the corner of his right eye, where we couldn’t avoid looking at the globular and all the red. “Port gravity drive nacelle is hit. We’ve got sixty percent thruster capacity left. That’ll be no match for them if we bounce off more Valkyries. We’re hurt, Tim.”
He scanned the tactical display. “Where’s the rest of Watkins Wing?”
“Broken off. Red is recalling everyone. You told me to block her again, but I’ve been keeping track. They’re falling back to regroup, Tim. Everyone is.”
And he could see from the tactical that was true, and not just the Jesters. Greer’s fleet was peeling away from its positions over Loudon, even groups that the war book program had labelled as local militia. The furthest and fleetest of his vessels were already reaching speeds that would allow them to escape by hyper in fifteen minutes, and already at distances that put them out of the Alliance’s net.
“I can’t believe this,” Tim hissed. “They’re just going to run? They’re just going to let the Alliance have the place?”
“They’ve taken heavy casualties. We’ve taken them, Tim. We’ve lost half the wing.”
“It’s Loudon! That’s home, damn it! That’s worth the other half!”
“If we go back in there, against that, we will not survive.” Jeanie paused when he didn’t reply. “I have calculated it to a hundred percent.”
“Nothing in statistics is a hundred percent. You taught me that Jeanie.”
“This is.”
Tim watched as the Alliance fleet tore on towards Loudon and the Union fell away before it. His own course followed a long arc up and away from the planet and the ships closing in around it. Small fights still flared at the peripheries of the Alliance force, quick sparring as starfighter flights tried to avoid one another, failed, as picket vessels chased off interlopers.
“There’s that well-known saying about living to fight another day,” the AI prodded.
Tim growled but didn’t reply. Grudgingly, he gripped the control stick and edged the Hellhound back towards the empty swath of void the AI highlighted as the Jesters’ next rally point. He cast a hateful glance at the Immolator and its consorts, sailing down the gravity well, now unopposed.
Live to fight another day, he seethed. There’ll be no living till I fight another day!
“MEDICS TO THE BRIDGE!” someone cried.
Stepping through the smoke to Harriet’s side, Geiger knew they would be too late. The blast had ripped through the front of the compartment after that last, crazy rush by the Jesters, filling it with fire and shrapnel before emergency force fields energized. She’d flung up her arms in reflex. They had done her little good.
Geiger touched her shoulder and got no response. Captain Harriet Prescott sagged in her seat, eyes staring at nothing. A single rivulet of blood leaked from her hairline, down to her chin line. Splinter fragment, he knew. With gentleness he rarely showed anyone, he closed her eyelids with his fingertips. Damned, stupid bad luck...the damage wasn’t even that bad.
“Commander Chandler?” he asked hoarsely.
“S-sir...?”
“Assume command of the ship.”
The fleshy-faced officer stood from where he’d dived at the communications station. His eyes went briefly to Harriet’s motionless form, shimmered, and met Geiger’s. “Aye-aye, sir.”
“And get me a damage report!” He turned back to face the smoke-wreathed front of the bridge. The tactical hologram was struggling to rematerialize in the haze. “Lieutenant Curry, I need my eyes back!”
“Working on it, sir.”
The hologram steadied and details returned. Behind Geiger, he heard the airlock whisk open and an emergency team bustle onto the bridge. He ignored them, ignored their urgency and the sickened silence spreading through the bridge crew. Icy focus clamped down.
Greer was running for it, leaving Loudon wide open, and the Jesters had scattered. Nothing could stop Geiger now. A glance showed him Cummings’ attack group almost outdistancing him to the planet. Another showed him Staunton’s group floundering behind, inexplicable delay as the resistance before them had collapsed. Cold fury clenched Geiger’s innards as suspicion grew. But it didn’t matter.
“How long till orbit, Commander?”
“Five minutes, sir,” Chandler replied with impressive calm. He didn’t move from his perch by the communications station, even after the medics removed Harriet to a stretcher and carried her aft.
Geiger nodded. “And our damage?”
Chandler swiped a globular hovering near his head close and read. “Shields coming back up, but with limited capacity—maybe twenty percent—and we have moderate damage to the point defense suites. There’s minor damage to the gravitic disruption projector, superficial damage to the hull” he gulped “and bridge. All other systems show nominal.”
“Heavy weapons?”
Chandler might have hesitated. “Fully operational.”
“Excellent. Reestablish shields and take us into orbit. All ships to follow our lead.” He said to Curry, “Tactical assessment of the planet’s defenses, Lieutenant?”
The young man scanned his holograms. “Incomplete, Admiral. They’re jamming us, putting out a virtual blanket of ECM. But I can probably piece it together.”
“Best guess, please.”
“Sir.” He stared at his display a moment longer. “We know from pre-war records they had anti-orbital batteries built outside the capital city, particle beam arrays and anti-orbital missile sites, enough to dissuade piracy. Reconnaissance and intelligence reports suggest heavy investment after the succession. I’d say they upgraded to Tier Two planetary defenses, sir, covering most of the approaches.”
“So they can hurt us?”
“Definitely, sir,” he replied. “In fact, I’m surprised the Union fleet didn’t fall back to a third position here, using the planet’s firepower to augment their own and draw the battle out longer.”
Geiger grunted noncommittally. They didn’t in fear of what comes next.
Curry paused as his console pinged and he read something. “We are being targeted, Admiral. And I’m detecting deflector shields over the capital.”
Futile. Geiger smirked. “Any hails from the surface, Commander Chandler?”
“None, yet, sir.”
“Change in orders, then, Commander,” he said, “all ships to decelerate to standoff orbit and to power up main batteries. Prepare for orbital bombardment. Target all identifiable weapons installations” he paused “secondary targeting on major population centers.”
“Sir?”
“Quickly now! Transmit to Admiral Cummings, ‘prepare to enact Contingency Plan’.” He glanced at the tactical, at Staunton’s group still lingering. “Transmit same to Staunton. Confirm he has received, Commander.”
“Yes sir.”
On the tactical, Geiger’s core force settled into Loudon’s far orbit. Targeting schemata lit up across the planet’s surface, glimmering like scales along its dragon-shaped single continent, circling icons that indicated military sites, industrial centers, aerodromes...cities. Multiple halos settled over the planet’s largest, its capital, Mosby.
“Main gun batteries have targets,” Curry announced. A touch of squeamishness entered his voice. “Assign targets for antimatter bombardment rockets?”
“No, limited bombardment, only,” Geiger replied. Syntar wanted an intact world they could exploit, not an irradiated lump they’ve have to wait a decade to mine, and then only with hostile environment equipment. He pretended not to hear the bridge crew’s sigh of relief. “Commander, have Cummings and Staunton confirmed their orders?”
“Admiral Cummings has responded and is moving into position now,” Chandler replied. He frowned. “We have receipt of message, but no response from Admiral Staunton.” He looked at Geiger. “And he has not moved into position.”
Geiger scowled but didn’t respond, turned to look at the tactical. Staunton’s group remained back where they’d broken through the web, consolidating in formation, but without sign of advance. The coward...I’ll have him courts-martialed and shot! It didn’t matter, though, he knew, scanning the rest of the formation solidifying around his own. His group and Cummings’ would do.
“Commander Chandler, are we receiving any communications from the planet?”
“None, sir.”
This next part will be tricky, a bit of theatre...and risky, too. Have to create the illusion of offering terms. But if the rebels try to respond in good faith, our response will look truly bad. That wouldn’t stop him, though, not now, not after the death and destruction, not after these insurgents had ruined so much. The Alliance wouldn’t stand for it. Syntar wouldn’t stand for it.
He wouldn’t.
“Admiral!” Curry exclaimed. We’re detecting hostile targeting lock on the Immolator!”
Geiger didn’t bother to hide his smile. The fools...
“Fire,” he barked. “All ships, open fire!”
“Yes sir!”
“Admiral, wait!” Chandler cried from his station. “We’re getting something from the surface! It’s on the open channel—”
“I said fire!” Geiger roared over him. “Fire!!!”
AN ALARM SQUALLED FROM her console, indicated the sudden surge in power from Loudon, but the heat lighting flicker of the bombardment had already caught Kelly’s eye. Denial followed shock in rapid succession. I can’t be seeing this.
But she was.
Energy hell rained down from Geiger’s fleet. Heavy particle cannon sent azure bolts punching through Loudon’s atmosphere to strike the surface in blisters of thermonuclear fire. Buildings would melt before that sun-like heat like wax. Shockwaves would scour their ash clear to the ground. Nothing would stand. Nothing would be spared.
“Red...”
“I see it,” the Jester leader replied in a breathless whisper, as though she’d been gut-punched. “My god...”
“They can’t be doing this.”
But they were.
A white gash glared blindingly over what would be the capital city, deflector shields attempting to resist. The bombardment intensified, Alliance ships concentrating their fire, hammering, hammering. The shields died with a cataclysmic pulse that was lost as destruction bloomed from the city itself. Mosby burned with a dozen mushroom clouds, skyscrapers blowtorched to cinders that crumbled down upon suburbs. Bridges disintegrated into rivers that boiled. Firestorm swept to the edges of the planet’s single true metropolis, fiery carnage on a scale the brain couldn’t process.
