Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (19 page)

Dave gave him a weak smile and nodded just before Art munched into the second half of his sandwich. A piece of lettuce escaped the bite and fell onto Dave’s trousers. Dave saw it all and was annoyed. He brushed it off with a flick of his free hand.

“Some things never change Dave” said Art playfully. Dave frowned and shook his head. But he still had a mouthful to contend with so Art added “Remember Quinlan?”

Dave gulped his food down and couldn’t help himself laugh. He had a loud laugh and everyone turned to see what it was about. “Bloody idiot wasn’t he?” said Dave recalling how their special forces buddy Jack Quinlan had dropped beetroot all over his dress uniform just before he was to be presented with his military medal.

“Not as big an idiot as old boney.”

That set Dave off laughing again. “Yeah, only he could have been that naive.”

“Doesn’t everyone wear their dress uniform in action?” asked Art who was also laughing in between his words.

Sue was looking at them both and shaking her head with a smile on her face. She too was in her combat gear. She always reckoned that it was when Art was with Dave that Art was at his funniest. “Are you going to let us in on what’s so funny?” she asked.

Art looked to Dave and then they both turned to Sue and shook their heads with big grins on their face.

“I see” said Sue with a smile “boys will be boys.”

Ivan appeared next to Dave and brought him back to seriousness. “Do you want to look at these signals?”

Art got out of Ivan’s chair and with a chivalrous wave of his hand invited Ivan to sit down. Ivan nodded his appreciation and Art made his way over to Chase’s terminal with the rest of the ground ops group.

Dave bought up the signals on his terminal screen and read them. He signed off on the one to the Admiral but made a minor change to the one to Aubrey adding ‘It’s not worth the risk.’

Dave looked up at the main screen and could see the timer ticking down. Only ten minutes to go. “How are you going Chase?” asked Dave. He was all serious now.

“Two minutes Sir” responded Chase. Chase sought agreement from Li on something and then began confirming the second contingency plan.

Crystal had the watch. She paced out onto the floor on the far side of the holo, centre stage, and began her pre warp-out checklist. The supernumeraries moved back away from the terminals and stood against the back wall.

Dave left it to Crystal. He was steadying his mind and focussing on his intent for this coming op. He repeated it silently to himself a couple of times. He sat their silently for another minute until Crystal finished with the last of the staff. Everyone was ready. Three minutes to go.

Dave closed his eyes and repeated his mantra. He uttered a prayer that they all would be kept safe, then returned to the mantra.

There was absolute stillness in the command centre. More than a few took the opportunity to say their own prayer. Others like John, who were not so inclined, used the time to gain their own centre. John was well aware that the lives of everyone may well rely on how clear he thought and on the speed of his reflexes.

Crystal, would have normally been reminding herself of her checklist. But right now she was looking at John who had his eyes closed. She glanced across to Dave, recalling his words from earlier this morning. Dave opened his eyes and was looking straight at her. It surprised her. He smiled and she refocussed to the task at hand.

Chapter 2. Resolute over Q2, 1220, 14 August

As they came out of warp cloaked some 50,000 kms (50K) above Q2, John was the first to speak. “Bogey 1 (the Cap), 2 and 3 (the frigates) on station at geo 36K out. Four fighters on CAP 30K out. I count… 11 shuttles on various routes. So far no reaction, no immediate threats.”

“Lot of traffic on the mil bands” announced Jasmin. “All bogeys actively scanning with radar and ladar. Active radar from various locations on the surface. No ground based systems targeting at this stage.” She could have announced a lot more but she knew that the focus was on one thing right now – attacking the enemy ships.

“We’re good to go Sir” said Crystal.

Chase had his head turned to Dave along with everyone else in the room. “Commit plan Alpha” ordered Dave.

“Committing plan Alpha” responded Chase.

Li, Jim, Sue, Chen and Art started filing out to go down to their stations.

“Li can you stay here for a bit” asked Dave.

“Of course” acknowledged Li.

As Crystal coordinated with the pilot for the run in on Bogey 1, Dave said to Li in a low voice “I want you to keep an eye on developments and let me know if and when we should commit our fighters.”

Li nodded and looked around to see where he should locate himself.

“Grab that seat” said Dave indicating the visitor chair vacated by Chen. “We should really reconfigure things here so you have a terminal up here. I think this is where you need to be. Can you get your deputy to manage things down below?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Just hail him for now. I want you to stay here.”

Li did so as James lined up the ship for the beam attack. Crystal turned to John ready to give him the command to fire the missiles at the frigates. His eyes were locked on hers. For the first time he could remember she actually smiled at him in the command centre. It took him aback.

“Fire” commanded Crystal.

John recovered quickly. “Beam firing…missiles away.”

“Send” ordered Crystal to Jasmin.

“Signals sent.”

“We’ve ripped ‘em” announced John triumphantly “Bogey 1 breaking up.” He rapidly switched focus to the missiles. These were on track. Then he spotted the enemy response from the two frigates. “Enemy missiles 25 from Bogey 2 at our runners, 30 from Bogey 3 at our runners…second volley…25 from Bogey 2 at us…20 from Bogey 3 at us.” There was a pause while John configured his response. “Missiles away engaging incoming 2 for 1.”

“Fighters climbing” cut in Chase.

“Any from the surface?” asked Li loudly but in a controlled manner.

“Negative” said John.

“We can take them” said Li to Dave. Dave was keen to save ship missiles and having the fighters take them out using their missiles would achieve this. But he did not want to expose them to too much risk. Dave knew that once uncloaked outside the ship they were extremely vulnerable, and they would have to uncloak to engage the incoming. He checked the holo, saw that the frigates would probably be destroyed in the next couple of minutes and so he turned to Li and nodded.

Li went to Chase’s terminal. Chase gave him his chair and Li input the instructions.

Down on F deck the first flight of Lightnings spat out the hangar doors. Kat Holbrook, already in her cockpit, followed her flight leader, Rose Joslen onto the now vacated launchers. With a jolt her craft was propelled out into space. The sunlight was blinding. She darkened her visor. ‘That’s better’ she said to herself.

“They’re splitting up” hailed Li. He was now firmly ensconced in Chase’s workstation. Surprisingly Chase was good natured about it. “Alpha flight target Bogey’s 4 and 5. Bravo flight you have 6 and 7. Engage at will” ordered Li calmly.

“Follow me” ordered Rose and she accelerated down to close with her targets.

“We have hits on Bogey 2” announced John in the command centre. “And now on 3.” He scanned back to the incoming enemy tracks, noted the results of the engagement with their intercepts and announced “Seven leakers heading our way. Firing missiles 2 for 1.”

“Bravo 3 and 4 engage bogey 7, 2 for 1” ordered Rose. “Kat we’ve got 6.”

“Affirmative” responded Kat. She was grateful that their fighter missiles had longer range than the enemy’s. “Away” she confirmed and pulled on the stick to affect the loop that would see her heading back away from the enemy. As her body wrestled with the G’s she could make out the tell-tale icons on her display, indicating the enemy had fired. “Incoming” she announced.

“Shit” said Rose “they have fired their whole load at you and I Kat. All Bravo engage incoming with all you’ve got. Alpha we need help.”

Li saw the destruction of bogeys 4 and 5. He also saw though that they had managed to get off their full load. So had bogeys 6 and 7 and they were now hightailing it back to the surface. There were twenty four enemy missiles bearing in on two of his fighters. It was too late to launch Charlie flight and have them engage those missiles. The ranges were now too short for that response. He saw that Alpha flight was also launching their remaining missiles to intercept the enemy’s but he knew even that would not be enough.

“Still two leakers” announced John “engage cannon, brace for impact.”

It all happened too quickly for Kat. She saw the incoming tracks disappear as they were taken out. She had fired off all her own and the only thing she could do now was to speed away. Her gut was aching. Her rib cage felt like it would cave in and her eyeballs felt like they were being ripped from inside. The first she realised she was hit was the loss of power. Her craft flipped and then tumbled over and over. The warning sound in her helmet forced her to focus. She hit the ejection control and was sure her neck was broken by the impact as the pilot’s enclosure ejected from the rest of the craft. Then everything went black.

Somehow Rose had survived but she felt her gut wrench when Kat’s icon disappeared. “Bravo 2 come in” she hailed.

In the command centre Chase had just been hit by a sledgehammer. He had been standing behind Li when he saw Kat’s icon disappear on the screen. He tried to take hold of the back of Li’s chair to support himself. He caught sight of Ivan coming to him but couldn’t work out why.

The close-in automated pulse cannons were flailing. Even inside the centre the noise was very loud. Chase would remember hearing John announcing that both leakers had been destroyed but it didn’t register as important. In the slow motion replay that he would experience later he was aware of being supported by Ivan and he could see Li turning to him and saying something. But his world was closing in.

Whiskey 6 was launched. It engaged cloak and accelerated to intercept and then recover Kat’s pod. It was back within the protection of its mother ship inside of ten minutes. In fact it had been the last craft to recover on board. Li had cajoled his fighters back on board once he saw the launch of twelve enemy fighters from a base on the planet. They had no missiles left anyway and would need rearming.

It was a reluctant Dave who ordered the firing of another 25 of his precious missiles to see off the fighters. Through all of this John had confirmed the destruction of both enemy frigates and their cap. It had been a resounding victory but it didn’t feel that way to most in the command centre.

Chase recovered quickly and Dave excused him so he could head down to the medbay. Dave could see the dislocating effect that Kat’s near loss had had on his team in the centre.

“OK folks” he said in a loud voice “We need to get a grip. The show is not over.”

As if on cue John announced. “Incoming missiles from the surface. Shit forty.”

“Warp away” ordered Dave.

The pre-programmed response was committed and Crystal hailed to the entire ship “Warp in one.”

The Resolute was long gone by the time the ground based missiles reached the location it had departed. They were aborted by frustrated rogan ground crew, knowing that they had fired precious missiles for no effect.

Chapter 3. Resolute in Qwantum 1630, 14 August

They were now back between Q3 and Q4. Dave was alone in his office taking stock. Yes he was annoyed at having to run away like that but he could not afford to stand and fight it out with ground based batteries. He just did not have enough missiles to do so.

On reflection he had destroyed one cap, two frigates and 13 fighters (only three had limped back to the surface) for the loss of just one fighter. ‘But I’ve spent over half of my ship missiles and a quarter of my fighter missiles. Can’t afford another battle like that.’

The knock on the door was annoying. “Yes” he reluctantly called out.

Ivan poked his head in. “Mary ’s finished” he announced.

“Right I’m coming” said Dave.

He and Ivan made their way down to the med bay. Neither spoke. Dave was not looking forward to it. He recalled 1
^st
Lt Mary Chernside’s face just before she closed the theatre doors. There wasn’t her usual bon ami.

When they arrived Mary was entering something into her terminal. She looked tired but she also looked grim. It was a bad combination.

She motioned for Dave and Ivan to take a seat. She swivelled her chair to face them. As she did she squirreled up her nose. The whole effect conveyed perplexity. Dave feared what she what about to tell him.

“It’s not good Sir. She’s fractured her” said Mary but stopped mid-sentence as she realised the technical explanation would not do. “She has multiple fractures to the neck. One of the vertebrae is so badly damaged I have had to fuse it. She’s never going to fly again – well other than as a passenger.”

Dave bit his lip and nodded painfully. “Have you told her?”

“No she’s still out and will be for hours yet.”

“Have you told Chase?”

“Yes just before you arrived. I don’t think it registered with him. I think he’s still in shock. Might be wise to excuse him duty for the next 24 hours.”

Dave pondered this for a moment aware that if they were to return for the ground op he would need someone in the ops role. But he knew he would need someone with a clear head and right now that was debateable in regard to Chase. Then he recalled how well he had bounced back after his dressing down yesterday.

“Let me talk to him” said Dave.

“Can it wait?” asked Mary. Her eyes bored into Dave telling him ‘yes it can and it should.’

As much as he hated doing so Dave said “No, it can’t.”

Mary threw her head back and shook it in obvious displeasure. She looked at Dave, testing his resolve. His held. Again she shook her head “All right then wait here.”

A couple of minutes later Chase came out of the recovery ward. Dave stood up to meet him. Ivan did likewise. Chase looked a little ashen but not as bad as Dave had feared he might. Dave could see that he had obviously been crying but that must have been some time ago. “I’m so sorry Chase” said Dave.