Crossfire Station, page 18
If this went wrong, he’d lose the entire flight, and would be forced to go home alone. Not what he’d had in mind. He reached down to arm one of his missiles, knowing that any ordnance he expended now would be desperately needed for his attack on the aerostat, but also knowing that he had no other choice if he was going to have a chance to press that attack home.
“Pull back, Schneider,” Esposito said.
“I’ve gone to one-ten on the reactor. I think I can catch them off-guard. Let me take the lead in the formation.”
“Do it, Esposito,” Quinn ordered. “We play the cards we’re dealt, not the cards we want. Schneider, what are your power readings, status reports on your reactor…”
“Weapons hot,” Schneider said, as two of the three raiders turned towards him, their cannons armed and ready, missiles locked on target. An instant later, four new contacts appeared on the screen as the leading enemy ships unleashed their full firepower on Schneider, the doctor’s cannons blazing away into the dark in a bid to shoot them down before they could find their mark. Quinn frantically turned to his countermeasure controls, trying to hack into the missiles, trying to find some way to bring them down before they could do any harm, and watched with satisfaction as first one, then a second, winked off the display. A lucky shot from Schneider managed to take down the third, and in response, the remaining raider launched both of his missiles at the target, flying into the sky in a bid to shoot down the mad pilot before he could take down the two now-unarmed raiders.
It was a waste of time. The fourth missile found its mark, Schneider dying in a brief burst of flame that illuminated the sky for an instant before fading to dark. Quinn shook his head, cursing the waste, but whether he’d meant to or not, Schneider had forced the enemy raiders to launch their entire missile load, making themselves vulnerable to attack. Quinn hastily continued his hack, taking down the fifth missile, then watched as the sixth detonated.
“Nice work, Viktor,” Quinn said.
“It wasn’t me, Lieutenant,” the engineer replied.
“Me either,” added Esposito. “I thought it was you, sir.”
Quinn looked at his aft sensors, spotting a familiar target on the display, the prospector shuttle breaking orbit at high speed to come after them, taking a place at the rear of the formation. Closing his eyes, he cursed quietly in four languages before flicking through communication frequencies, hailing the ship.
“Elliott?” he asked. “Just where are you?”
“About twenty miles astern of your current position,” he replied. “I decided I didn’t want to sit this one out, either. This shuttle’s been modified for work in gas giants before. I’m going to follow you in.”
“Don’t turn down free help,” Volkov suggested.
“Contact in one minute,” Esposito added. “They’re turning away and trying to run. I can engage…”
“By all means,” Quinn replied. “You go right ahead and take those bastards down. I want a nice clean sky before I start my attack run.”
This time his pilots had the advantages. The modified Vixens were the last generation of fighters designed for dogfighting, and the pilots now had the opportunity to make use of their skills to close and engage the enemy, the raiders desperately trying to turn, to run for safety. They’d misjudged the battle, and were going to pay the price.
Esposito drew first blood, catching one of the raiders with two maser bolts amidships, but Volkov was only a few seconds behind with his kill, a single hit to the engine resulting in a satisfactory explosion. The third had managed to burn clear, race ahead of the others, the sensor display warning that he’d pushed his ship far beyond design specifications in the process.
He didn’t need any help to die. He did it all by himself.
“We did it!” Volkov said. “I can’t believe we did it!”
“You did it,” Quinn corrected. “You, Esposito and Schneider.” He looked at the sensor display, a smile on his face, and said, “They’re going to have more ships coming up any time now. I can get into the atmosphere long before they get up here, but you’ll be sitting ducks if you loiter. I’m changing the mission plan. Get back to the station on the double.”
“Sir,” Esposito protested, “I thought the plan was for us to stay at the innermost moon in the event you needed backup…”
“And now I’m changing those instructions. Go home. There’s nothing more you can do here, other than offer them a target.”
“Sir, we might be able to draw some of them off,” Volkov suggested.
“Right now, Sergeant, there’s only one piece of real estate in this sub-system worth worrying about, and it’s deep down in the gas giant where the two of you can’t reach. You’ve done your job, and you’ve done it damned well. Now it’s my turn. Elliott, that applies to you also.”
“That’s a negative, Lieutenant. Mutiny, I’m afraid.”
“Flight Officer, you don’t even have weapons on that thing.”
“Au contraire. This bird’s equipped with a double laser cannon.”
Quinn shook his head, and replied, “Designed for mineral extraction.”
“It’ll look convincing on a sensor display until I actually fire at someone. I’m coming with you, Lieutenant, to fly cover. You’re going to face nine targets down there. You’re going to need all the help you can get to beat this one.”
“That applies to me,” Volkov said. “I can…”
“Negative,” Quinn barked. “Flight Officer Elliott at least chose the right ship for his suicide party. Neither of you would get anywhere near the enemy in those ships. Go home. That’s an order.” He looked at the shuttle again, and said, “Elliott, I’m going to tell you one last time…”
“You can’t stop me, sir.” The old man paused, then said, “I spent all my life dreaming of going into battle, pitting myself against the enemies of the Commonwealth. I’m too old to truly ride fire, too old to fly a fighter, but I’m still one of the hottest damn pilots in this two-credit system, and I know that I can follow you in.” He paused once more, then added, “If you give me a direct order, sir, I will obey. I’m asking you not to do that.”
Quinn looked at the trajectory plot again, then looked at the shuttle, flicking a switch and saying, “I’m obviously as big a fool as you are, but your request to follow me in is reluctantly approved. We’ll go down in line astern formation, and stick as close to my tail as you can for the descent. Viktor, Esposito, we’ll see you when we get back to the station. Have a safe flight.”
“Thank you, sir,” Volkov replied.
“Good luck,” Esposito added.
“Thank you for that,” Quinn said. “We’re going to need all the luck we can get. Quinn out.” He looked at Goliath once again, ever larger in the screen. One way or another, within the next fifteen minutes he’d either have destroyed the station and completed his mission, or he and Elliott would be dead. He smiled, tapped a control, and said, “Form on me, Flight Officer. Hang onto your hat. We’re going in.”
Chapter 25
The last time Quinn had ventured into the gas giant, he hadn’t been awake for the trip, the shuttle flying on autopilot alone, guided to its goal by an experienced pilot operating in a friendly environment. This time was very different. This time he was here to wage war. He had an approximate target on his long-range sensors, but with the tempestuous winds of the gas giant, the improvised aerostat could be anywhere within a thousand miles of his guess, always assuming they hadn’t taken other measures to evade. They must have known he’d try and return, that he wouldn’t simply sit on Crossfire Station and wait for them to attack.
The sensors were blurry, indistinct, even at short range, the distortion of the atmosphere providing a series of ghosts and echoes that the navigation computers were struggling to deal with. He pulled back on his engines, killing thrust, letting his ship glide through the dense atmosphere, rocking from side to side as the air grew denser, thicker, more viscous by the minute.
This was flying. This was true flying, the likes of which he had never experienced in space, never could experience in a cold, airless void that set no real challenge to his reflexes, his skills. This was the sort of flying he’d read about from the early days of aviation, during the endless wars of the early Nationalist Era. His grandfather’s museum had boasted a fully functional flight simulator, restored to the condition it had been in when the USAF had used it to train bomber pilots. He’d spent hours flying simulated attack runs, time and again, skills he never thought would prove useful but which flooded back to him now, as he guided his ship through the endless, raging storms.
“Elliott to Quinn. I have multiple contacts ahead, distance about three hundred miles, closing at speed.” He paused, then said, “Five, correction, six bandits in the sky. Looks like the raiders are trying an intercept.”
“Care to guess the estimated range of their missiles in this soup?”
“Hundred miles maybe, unless they’re made some major alterations to the design. Be hard to fit them to their fighters if they did, though.”
“We’ll work on that basis. Can you see the aerostat?”
“Negative, but my effective range is four, maybe five hundred miles.”
Grimacing, Quinn replied, “I don’t even have that. Two hundred. I’m going to reduce altitude, try to go under them. Follow me down.”
“They’ll match your move,” Elliott warned. “They know this place a lot better than we do. If you try and outsmart them, you’re going to lose.”
“Any advice?”
“Just the obvious. Play to your strengths, not theirs.”
Quinn paused, nodded, then said, “We’ve got better countermeasures than they do, and in this mess, those missiles aren’t going to be working well against fast moving targets.”
“Don’t overthink this. Press your attack, while you still have fuel.”
Nodding, Quinn replied, “Belay my past order. I’m going right through, on the assumption that the aerostat is somewhere on the other side. They must have held their launch until the last minute to save power. Fire up your countermeasures. We’re going in.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Elliott replied, enthusiasm in every syllable. Quinn pushed the throttles forward, gaining speed as he charged towards the enemy ships, barely threatening the sound barrier in the dense atmosphere through which he was flying. In a normal battle, he was used to thinking in terms of thousands, tens of thousands of miles. Down here, a hundred miles was a long way, minutes of flight time, each costing him precious reserve power that he would never be able to replace.
Of course, neither would they. With the whole raider force in the air, if he could take down the aerostat, his victory would be complete. They’d be lucky even to make it to orbit in order to surrender. More likely they’d simply fall down to the surface, the hellscape of volcanoes a thousand miles below.
It might not actually be Hell, but it might as well be.
“Contact, five hundred and ten miles, Red Ten! I’ve got it!” Elliott yelled. “I have a confirmed sighting of the aerostat.”
“Roger that,” Quinn replied. “Send me the sensor data, and I’ll fine tune my attack pattern. How fast is it moving?”
“About a hundred miles an hour, roughly north-west.”
“Got it,” he said, entering in the data, his navigation computer trying to calculate a course through the raging storms ahead. “Looks like I have an intercept in eight minutes, firing in seven minutes, forty seconds.”
“I read the same,” Elliott said. “Fighters coming in, one minute away.”
“Understood. Go down under them, keep out of their sensor range if you can. I’m going through the middle.”
Quinn pushed his engines harder once again, able to spot the sleek shapes of the enemy fighters in the distance. The idea of being able to see what he was shooting at was a strange concept; even a cannon duel would normally take place over hundreds of miles, the weapons targeted and fired by the combat computers rather than the pilot.
This time, he’d be able to see who he killed.
A series of lights flickered on his sensor display as the raiders launched their missiles, ten of them racing towards him, weaving from side to side as they struggled to compensate for the turbulence. Quinn immediately threw his fighter onto a series of evasive maneuvers, dancing out of the path of the incoming warheads, his left hand running through the electronic intrusion software, letting the computer labor to hack into the missiles.
Almost at once, one of the missiles lost power, falling away into the distance, though he couldn’t work out whether it was as the result of a successful hack or a simple malfunction. Another started to turn back towards the fighter that launched it, detonated remotely before it could represent any sort of danger. Two down, eight to go.
He reduced speed, diving into the denser air, letting himself glide down a dozen miles, forcing the missiles further down, into areas their systems could barely cope with, that their guidance computers simply were not made to handle. Another spiraled away, diving into the abyss, and he allowed himself a brief smile as he pulled up again, the raiders moving into a defensive posture, preparing to face anything he might through at them.
The remaining missiles settled into a line abreast formation, sweeping through the sky towards him, and he increased speed still more, knowing that while he might not be able to outpace them, he could almost certainly outlast them, outrange them. He waited for them to draw close, then fired his lateral thrusters at the final instant, ducking out of the way too rapidly for them to compensate, two of them colliding with each other in their attempt.
Five left, as the raiders withdrew, pulling back to watch the aerobatic display. The missiles came around for another pass, turning towards him once more, and he kicked his engines briefly to full power, forcing them to increase their speed, then dropped back again, varying his flight path in a bid to trick the enemy guidance computers. While he danced with the missiles, Elliott continued to work, two more of the warheads detonating early, destroying themselves rather than fall into the wrong hands.
Only three now, but Quinn looked at his engine readouts, his power levels dropping low, too low for safety. He couldn’t afford to continue this for much longer, and he made the decision to ignore the remaining missiles, driving hard for the aerostat instead, bringing his targeting computers online. The enemy fighters quickly realized what he was planning, swinging around to fire again, but by now Elliott had arrived in the battlespace, his shuttle’s laser cannons arming, and two of the raiders turned to strike at him, opting to ignore Quinn’s continued advance.
“Good work, Flight Officer,” Quinn ordered. “You’ve done enough. It’s time for you to go. Burn for orbit at maximum speed, and see if you can draw some of those bastards with you.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Elliott replied. “I don’t think I can obey that order, because I’m pretty sure that if I do, the mission fails. Head for the target, don’t stop for anything. Trust me, I’ve got this.” As Quinn watched, the veteran pilot spun around, spitting crimson death towards the missiles, trying to shoot them out of the sky as they ranged towards him.
It would require a pilot of truly phenomenal skill to pull off such a maneuver. Quinn knew that he would never even have attempted it, but as he levelled off, locking onto the aerostat, he watched with awe as Elliott ducked and dived, firing shot after shot, explosions filling the sky as he took out one lumbering missile after another, the raiders now focusing entirely on the shuttle, letting Quinn proceed on his attack run.
The first three missiles fell, but by then, the raiders had launched four more, putting them into the air to replace those that had fallen. Elliott pressed on, continuing his manic defense, taking down another, and another, and another. It was a triumphant performance, a tour de force that would never be equaled, but the first mistake would be the last.
And with one missile left in the air, Elliott made it, his laser pulse falling a handful of meters away from the target, the narrowest of misses, but just a little too far. Elliott’s shuttle died in smoke and flame, the battered remnants tumbling out of the sky, diving towards the surface.
His sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain, any more than Schneider’s had been. He could see the aerostat now, the gigantic gas bags suspending the modified transport in position, but as he approached, heat warnings began to trigger on his forward sensors. Weapon emplacements, opening up as he approached. Quinn weaved from side to side once more, trying to stay one step ahead of the enemy gunners. He couldn’t launch his missiles at any sort of range. He was going to have to plant them directly onto the target, or he would never have a chance of destroying the enemy.
He’d hoped to launch at fifty miles. He’d have to close to less than a mile, risk the blast damage when he came out the other side. His targeting computer flashed a series of warnings as he continued his approach, forced to constantly revise and update the firing solution, but the raiders were too far away to intervene now, and he’d got the measure of the hull-mounted weapon emplacements. He had one shot, and when he’d left Crossfire Station, that was all he wanted, all he’d hoped for.
At zero seconds, he took it, firing all four of his missiles at once, all at point-blank range. He pulled away, throwing his engines back to full power once more, heedless of the strain he was putting on his ship’s systems. A bare instant later, the sky was full of smoke and flame, the aerostat dying in fire as the missiles tore into the side, knocking out the internal power and severing the gas bags, setting the burning hulk tumbling, falling down to the surface, destined for death in a matter of seconds. As he raced away, he could see a series of shuttles struggling to follow, anyone who might have been close enough to an escape vessel fleeing while they could, fleeing for their very lives.
His mission had been accomplished. All he had to do now was live through his victory. During the attack run, he’d run his power down to less than half reserves, what remaining rapidly draining away in his desperate attempt to gain altitude, to cut out of the denser reaches of the atmosphere and into the thinner layers above, where his engines would work freely, less strain on the hull, less to push against.
