Angles of Attack (22 page)

We clear the next four compartments one blown airlock at a time.

“How many HEAT grenades did you bring?” I ask Philbrick after I follow him through the third hole the SI troopers have shot into inch-thick composite hatches.

“Enough to go through every airlock in this fucking place twice,” he says. “Figured they may not let us leave quietly.”

“Thinking like an NCO,” I say, and he flashes a grin.

The last airlock on Foxtrot concourse falls to four more HEAT grenades. Despite the hands I’ve cupped over my ears for every salvo, I hear a sharp ringing now that feels like it will never go away again.

The SI troopers usher the skipper and Dmitry through the new provisional access hatch in the middle of the airlock. When I climb through, the edges of the hole are still hot and glowing. I help Private Watson through, and then Corporal Nez brings up the rear.

When the corporal is halfway through the hole, there’s a sudden fusillade of gunfire on the other side of the damaged airlock. I can hear projectiles smacking into the high-strength laminate from the other side, and I reflexively drop to the ground and scramble away from the airlock. Corporal Nez yells and stumbles, then lets himself drop through the hole made by the grenades. He falls to the floor in an ungraceful heap.

“Contact rear!” he shouts, quite unnecessarily. Then he crawls to the other side of the hallway, away from me. More gunfire clatters against the airlock. Private Watson steps up to the side of the hole, sticks his rifle around the corner, and fires a long burst through the opening.

“Tac team’s here,” he shouts. “Seven, eight guys. Maybe more. We have got to go.”

The airlock connecting the station with
Indy
is just twenty meters away. Several armored SI troopers come running out of the docking collar and into the concourse, weapons at the ready.

“Second Squad, lend a hand,” Staff Sergeant Philbrick shouts. “Seven-plus bad guys on the other side of that hatch.”

Corporal Nez takes a grenade out of his harness and pops the safety cap. He smacks the fuse end against his armor to activate the charge and chucks the grenade through the opening.

Then the airlock starts to open with a slight mechanical whine.

“Uh-oh,” Corporal Nez says.

The lower edge of the airlock is maybe ten centimeters off the ground when the grenade detonates in the corridor beyond. The shock wave makes the laminate ring like a muffled gong. The airlock crawls up another ten centimeters, then twenty, then thirty. When the ragged top of the hole we made reaches the bulkhead above, the upward motion stops with a shrill and tortured metallic shriek.

“Get them into the ship,” Sergeant Philbrick shouts, and points at Dmitry and me. The skipper is already halfway to the docking collar, shielded by Private Bennett, who is directly behind him to keep the bulk of his armor between the colonel and the gunfire. Two members of Second Squad dart over to where we are to provide the same service to Dmitry and me. Together, we make a rapid and highly awkward procession to the docking collar as the other SI troopers start pouring fire through the crack at the bottom of the airlock to cover our retreat. One of the tactical cops on the other side of the airlock takes a chapter out of Corporal Nez’s playbook and rolls a grenade through the opening, but Staff Sergeant Philbrick stops it with his armored boot and kicks it back through. It explodes just barely on the other side of the airlock, which shudders violently with the explosion and then slams back down rapidly without any restraints. All over the corridor, multiple alarms are blaring, blending with the gunfire in a discordant crescendo.

The SI troopers usher us into the docking collar. Behind us, First Squad holds the line, falling back in turn while keeping up a covering fire aimed at the hole in the airlock. I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen if one of the tactical cops decides to fire a grenade launcher down the concourse and into the docking collar while we’re between the station and the ship.

Then I’m back on
Indy
, past the main airlock and inside the ship’s main port-to-starboard passageway. A few moments later, the rest of First Squad come running up the docking collar and through the airlock.

“Secure the airlock,” Staff Sergeant Philbrick shouts. Corporal Nez runs over to the side of the passageway and hits the emergency-lock button with the butt of his rifle. A warning klaxon blares sharply, and the airlock slides down and out into its recess in the ship’s armor belt. The noise from the outside of the ship instantly cuts off.

“Seal your suits and guard this airlock,” Colonel Campbell shouts over to Sergeant Philbrick. “Nothing in or out. Tell CIC I am on my way. Mr. Grayson, with me.”

The combat information center is already abuzz with activity when Colonel Campbell and I step through the hatch. The colonel strides into the middle of the CIC pit. I step up to my accustomed spot on the pit rail and grasp it with both hands to steady myself.

“Sitrep,” the colonel barks.

“Reactor is at full output. Propulsion online,” Major Renner replies. “All personnel accounted for.”

“Get us loose from the station now.”

“They’re not releasing the clamps, sir. We’ve initiated undock sequence, but they’ve locked us down.”

“Blow the emergency locks on the docking clamps. Blow ’em off,” Colonel Campbell orders.

The engineering officer hesitates for just a second before flicking to a different screen on his control panel and punching several controls in sequence.

“Aye, sir. Emergency release initiated.”

A shudder goes through the hull as explosive charges blow out
Indy
’s docking receptacles and eject them from her hull. This is an emergency measure that I’ve not seen used in five years of fleet service. Once the mating points for the standard docking clamps are torn from the hull,
Indy
won’t be able to dock with any station again. Fitting new receptacles to the hull requires a fleet yard visit and a complete hull overhaul.

“Helm, set thrusters full speed astern. Tear us loose.”

“Full astern, aye,” the helmsman acknowledges.

Major Renner brings up the tactical orb on the holotable. With the station taking up all the space in front of us, our field of view is limited to the hemisphere behind us.

“
Murphy
is moving into intercept position, sir.”

The blue icon representing the destroyer is less than three kilometers astern and above us. Their acceleration is slow, but at this range, they don’t have to go hard on the throttle to be on top of us in a minute, and there’s not a weapon on the
Murphy
that can’t reach us even from three klicks away.

“
Indianapolis
, power down your propulsion and your active sensors and return to your berthing spot immediately, or we will open fire.”

“Testy,” Colonel Campbell says. “No reply, comms. Crank up all the active gear.”

“Distance from station fifty meters,” the helmsman calls out. “Seventy-five. One hundred.”

“As soon as we are clear, go to negative zero-four-five by zero-zero and hit the burners,” Colonel Campbell orders.

“Active fire control radar,” the tactical officer warns. A warning sound chirps on his console. “They are locking on to us.
Murphy
is opening forward missile tubes, sir.”

“Fucking maniacs,” Major Renner says. “We’re too close. To them and the station.”

“Go hot on the jammers and the CIWS,” Colonel Campbell shouts.

“Missile launch! Vampire, vampire. Two birds—”

On the tactical display, two inverted V shapes detach from
Murphy
’s icon and race toward the center of the plot. The flight time is ludicrously short. I don’t even have time to swallow hard before both missiles have covered the distance. One of them disappears just a fraction of a second before it reaches the center of the plot. The other streaks past
Indy
. I can’t hear the explosion in front of the ship, but the blast’s shock wave jolts the ship backwards.

“They hit the station,” the tactical officer shouts. “Impact on Independence. CIWS got the other one.”

“Give me a forward view. Guns, get a firing solution with the rail gun.”

“Target acquired,” the gunnery officer says. “They’re rolling ship to bring their own rail gun to bear.”

“Don’t let ’em. Weapons free. Hit the sensor array in the bow, make ’em blind. If they roll around enough to unmask their gun mount, you shoot it right off that shit bucket.”

“Aye, sir. Weapons free.”

Murphy
is shadowing us from behind and above, which means that her dorsal gun mount is on the wrong side of the ship to engage us.
Indy
’s gunnery officer takes ruthless advantage of that mistake. As
Murphy
rolls around and coasts toward us,
Indy
’s rail gun pumps out three rapid shots in one-second intervals. The tactical officer brings up the optical feed just in time for us to see the kinetic projectiles tear into the nose of the aging destroyer, sending armor shards flying.
Murphy
shudders visibly under the hammer blows. Rail guns aren’t useful at longer ranges or against heavily armored ships, but not even the titanium hull plating of the destroyer can stand up to kinetic shot at point-blank range.

“Ship is clear of the berth!”

“Come to new heading negative zero-four-five by zero-zero, ahead flank,” the colonel orders. “Hang on to something, everyone.”

I don’t need the invitation. I renew my death grip on the rail with my good hand as
Indy
’s bow thrusters fire and pitch her nose sharply downward. The thrum-thrum-thrum of the fusion propulsion system going from idle to full thrust reverberates through the hull.
Murphy
is halfway through her 180-degree roll to give her rail gun a field of fire, and our gunnery officer fires three more shells. One goes over
Murphy
’s hull and screams off into space. The second hits the side of the hull at a steep angle, and the projectile ricochets off the armor. The third round hammers right into the armored rail gun mount. There’s the puff of an impact and then a soundlessly expanding cloud of metal debris. Then the mass of the station intersperses itself between the optical sensor and
Murphy
as we pass underneath Independence.

“Good shooting, Guns,” Colonel Campbell says. “Keep the jammers running. Let’s keep the station between us and them for as long as we can. Tactical, give me a plot.”

The tactical officer expands the scan range of the holotable display. There are a handful of blue icons around Independence, most of them sitting still in station berths. Other than
Indy
and
Murphy
, three more ships are under way in the vicinity, but none are on an intercept course.

“Helm, make your new course positive zero-four-zero by negative zero-zero-three. Follow the spine of the station. Stay on the throttle.”

“Let’s hope nobody backs out of their parking spot in a hurry,” Major Renner says.

“We need to be clear and in the black before
Murphy
catches up and blows us into stardust,” the colonel says. “We got exceedingly lucky with that exchange. If they had been below us instead of above, we’d be an expanding cloud of debris right now.”

“Not bad, though,” Major Renner grins. “Punching a destroyer in the nose, with a little OCS.”

“No, not bad at all,” Colonel Campbell agrees. “But we probably killed a dozen sailors on that destroyer just now. I’m not going to feel proud about that any time soon.”

Murphy
coasts to the underside of Independence Station and onto our tactical display again a few minutes later, but they’re not pulling military acceleration.

“They’re trailing debris,” the tactical officer says. “We hurt ’em good.”

“Four kinetic hits at knife-fight range. Wouldn’t be surprised if those went halfway from bow to stern,” Major Renner says.

We are well away from the station, coasting ballistically with all the active sensors turned off again, doing what
Indy
does best. With every passing minute, we’re putting more and more empty space between us and
Murphy
, Independence Station, and Earth.