Excelsior (7 page)

“Maybe he was promoted for technical expertise rather than tactical,” Korbin suggested.

“Maybe…” Alexander replied while zooming out the tactical map to look for the missiles the Lincoln had dead-dropped a day ago. They were millions of klicks past Lewis Station. Too late to fire them up now. Alexander had requested clearance to bring the ordnance online several times over the past day, but Admiral Gaulle had repeatedly denied his request—presumably to avoid provoking the Confederacy, although that concern was now moot.

Alexander watched the range between the enemy warheads and the fighter group tick down. ELR for the fighters was 2,000 klicks. The enemy’s laser-armed missiles were shorter-ranged at just over 1,000 klicks.

The Rapiers finished dead-dropping their missiles, and then turned tail to run once more. As soon as the enemy ordnance reached 2,000 klicks, they opened fire. Bright blue laser beams shot out, simulated on the Lincoln’s MHD.

Pinprick-sized explosions flared one more, this time at least fifty at a time. Roughly one in every four laser beams hit its mark. Not bad considering the enemy missiles were accelerating at hundreds of Gs on randomly varying trajectories. Unfortunately, fighters couldn’t get anywhere near the kind of acceleration required to evade a laser, so they were bound to fare a lot worse once the enemy’s ordnance started firing back.

Range dropped to 1,500 klicks and suddenly the fighter group’s warheads went live, popping up out of nowhere and splitting into dozens of fragments, all of them tracking toward the enemy missiles.

In the next instant, thousands of Confederate laser-armed warheads opened fire all at once. Hundreds of friendly missiles went boom, lighting up the tactical map with simulated explosions that echoed softly through the speakers in Alexander’s helmet.

The Rapiers kept firing, their aim getting better and better as range decreased. Then they came into the enemy’s ELR and soon they were drawing fire, too. Rapiers were better armored than missiles, so it took several direct hits to take one out, but the enemy had more than enough firepower for that.

Alexander watched the number of Rapiers drop down to just 76 in a matter of seconds. Then the missiles and fighters flew past one another, and the Rapiers rotated their guns to fore, firing on the missiles from behind. Enemy ordnance dropped from over 6,000 to just under 5,000. All of the Rapiers’ own missiles had been intercepted, but they’d drawn enough fire to save fully half of the fighter group.

Not that any of that would matter to Lewis Station. There were still 5,000 missiles incoming.

Alexander grimaced. “Williams! How long until those missiles reach Lewis Station?”

“Twenty minutes, twenty-seven seconds, sir!”

Alexander did the math and shook his head. Soon those missiles would be out of ELR, and the fighter group would be back to intercepting them with hypervelocity rounds. Odds were there would still be several thousand missiles left by the time they reached laser range with Lewis Station and the Lincoln, not to mention what would happen when missiles carrying nuclear warheads slammed into the station at over 200 klicks per second. The kinetic energy alone would be enough to take out the station.

Talk about overkill, Alexander thought.

Beside him, Korbin whistled and pointed to the tactical map still hovering between their chairs. The Alliance had just opened fire on the Confederate Fleet with thousands of hot-fired missiles. The Confederates returned fire with their own missiles and deployed a fighter screen behind them. The Alliance already had their own fighters deployed. Then streams of hypervelocity rounds went streaking out from fighters and capital ships alike, trying to intercept each other’s missiles. Soon lasers lanced between missiles, drones, and fighters. Explosions peppered the map. Capital ships began hitting each other at extreme range with projectiles fired from rail guns and coil guns at better than 20 klicks per second. A Confederate Battleship got caught in multiple streams of fire, and Alexander watched it burst open at the seams like an overripe piece of fruit. Crewmen and debris went streaming out into space. A few seconds later the ship’s engines went dark. Glancing around the map Alexander picked out at least six more ships already derelict on both sides of the conflict.

Missiles skipped past fighter screens and came into ELR with capital ships. The capital ships opened fire with dazzling barrages of lasers. Then it was the missiles’ turn. Laser-armed ordnance fired back, specifically targeting the big ships’ lasers to decrease the firepower arrayed against them.

Only a handful of missiles actually made it to their targets, but each of them was a one-hit-kill that painted a dramatic explosion on the map, leaving nothing but a drifting cloud of debris in its wake.

Then the capital ships reached ELR and they began firing lasers at each other in a deadly light show—Alliance blue, Confederate red. Missiles and hypervelocity cannons went on firing, but lasers turned the battle into a simple point-and-shoot war of attrition. The side with the most guns and the strongest armor won.

After all of just a few seconds, that side turned out to be the Alliance, but not by much. They had ten ships out of sixty still firing and maneuvering under active thrust by the time the Confederate fleet was derelict and drifting. It took a few extra seconds to mop up Confederate fighters and drones, and then the Alliance’s remaining starships launched repair ships and space marines, the former to aid repairs aboard their own derelict vessels, and the latter to board and capture derelict enemy ships.

At the far end of the engagement a few squadrons of Confederate fighters were fleeing desperately toward Earth with Alliance drones in hot pursuit. Drones could pull higher Gs so they caught up fast. Lasers flashed between them, and explosions flared, bringing the engagement to a decisive end.

It was over. Horror and disbelief settled in. From the simulated bird’s-eye view of the tactical map, everything looked like a holo game. It couldn’t be real.

“Sir!” Williams called out from the comms. “Lewis Station is busy evacuating. We’ve been advised to withdraw to a safe distance so we don’t get caught by shrapnel when enemy ordnance hits.”

Alexander looked up from the tactical map, mentally switching focus back to his side of the conflict. “Helm! Get us away!”

“Already ahead of you, sir! Brace for maximum thrust!”

There came a deafening roar, and then a train ran over him. The weight was unbearable. Alexander’s lips parted in a grimace, and his heart felt like it actually stopped. Maximum regulation thrust for short periods was ten Gs. Acceleration eased after just a few seconds, and Alexander’s head lolled. He blinked spots from his eyes and fought a sudden urge to vomit.

“We’re out of the blast radius, sir!” Davorian reported from the helm.

Alexander panned the tactical map over to his side of the conflict and watched the wave of enemy missiles drawing near to Lewis station. The fighter group was still in hot pursuit, firing at extreme range with bright golden streams of highly inaccurate projectiles.

The number of ordnance incoming had dropped to less than 4,000 missiles. Alexander grimaced, hoping that between the Lincoln and Lewis Station they could intercept the rest.

“Sensors! Are any of those missiles tracking us?”

“It’s tough to tell at this range, sir.”

They weren’t far enough from the station to distinguish incoming missile trajectories. “Davorian, put some more distance between us and the station. Four Gs thrust; keep that up until we identify incoming missiles.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Acceleration intensified once more, not nearly as bad as before, but still enough to make breathing labored and talking a chore.

“Sensors… track missiles whose vectors shift with ours. Highlight them on the tactical. Gunnery—as soon as you spot those missiles, start firing.”

“At this range, sir? Odds are—”

“Still better than nothing, Lieutenant!” Alexander gritted out between gasps for air.

“Yes, sir.”

Finally, Williams reported from the sensors station. “Incoming missiles detected!”

Davorian killed thrust and Alexander took a quick gulp of air. “How many?”

“Over 1,000.”

“ETA?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Gunnery, how many can we shoot down before they reach us? Best case scenario, please.”

“Best case… we’ll have fifteen seconds to intercept after they reach our ELR. We might do it, but when their laser-armed fragments start targeting our guns, interception rates are going to drop fast.”

“In other words we’re fucked.”

A few heads turned at the expletive, but no one was going to cite code-of-conduct regulations to him at a time like this. Alexander thought about his dead-dropped ordnance with a pang of regret. If he still had those missiles he could have fired them to intercept the enemy’s ordnance and evened the odds.

“Captain! We have a transmission incoming from Orbital One!”

“Full screen. I’ll watch—everyone else, keep eyes on your stations!”

A chorus of aye-ayes echoed from the crew, and then Admiral Flores’ face appeared on the MHD. She looked haggard. Her face was drawn, and her eyes were wide and staring. Officers were yelling at each other in the background behind her.

“Captain de Leon,” the admiral said. “I hope I’ve reached you in time.”

Alexander frowned. With the distance between them being what it was, there was no sense in him replying. The transmission had to have been sent over five minutes ago.

“The Confederates have launched a sneak attack in orbit,” Flores went on.

Suddenly the lights went out on the admiral’s end of the transmission. Holo displays running on battery backups glowed bright blue behind her. Golden sparks flew, and then the lights were back, but much dimmer than before. One of the bulkheads belched a gout of flame, and Admiral Flores yelled for someone to put it out.

She turned back to face the camera. “They tricked us, Captain. This was never about a wormhole. It was about drawing our forces away from Earth so they could launch an attack on our space elevator. Orbital One has been cut free of Earth with enemy ordnance in hot pursuit. It’s only a matter of time before the nukes start flying back on Earth, and that means our green planet is headed for a nuclear winter. Now reaching Wonderland is more important than ever. Operation Alice is a go, Captain. Your job is to assess the planet for habitability. We’ll come get you as planned if we still can, and if we can’t then—”

A sudden roar interrupted her, followed by a dazzling flare of light. Flores turned toward it just before the brightness consumed both her and her transmission.

It took a moment for reality to sink in. Orbital One was gone.

“Davorian! What’s our ETA to the wormhole under maximum thrust? Can we make it before those missiles hit?”

“No, sir.”

“Can we get back to Lewis Station?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do it. Comms, get me Admiral Gaulle!”

The Admiral’s face appeared on-screen a moment later. He was strapped into an acceleration couch aboard a cramped-looking lifeboat with row upon row of crew strapped in behind him. His teeth were gritted and his lips were peeled back in a g-force-induced grimace.

“What can I… do for you… Captain?” Gaulle said between gasps for air.

“Do you have remote access to the station’s defenses?”

“We do.”

“Did you see Admiral Flores’ last transmission?”

“Yes…”

“We need your help if we’re going to make it to Wonderland, Admiral. Can you prioritize interception of the missiles tracking us?”

“Send me the… targets, and I’ll see… what I can do.”

Alexander nodded. “Thank you.” A thought occurred to him then. “Do you have any missiles of your own on the station?”

“Why?”

Alexander blinked. Admiral Gaulle couldn’t be that stupid. “You can use them to intercept!”

Gaulle shook his head. “Fired them all days ago. Earth-bound.”

Alexander’s jaw dropped. Lewis Station was about to be obliterated because the upper echelons had decided that Earth needed more missiles.

“I hope it was worth it.”

“So do I. Good luck, Captain.”

The transmission ended.

“Comms! Send Admiral Gaulle the target data for the missiles tracking us.”

“Already sent, sir.”

“Good. Lieutenant Stone, get our fighters and drones to focus on the same targets.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

Alexander watched the incoming missiles on the tactical map. They were just five minutes away. Lewis Station and the Lincoln poured steady streams of projectiles at them, intercepting a couple of missiles with every passing second.

Time dragged by at the speed of sloth. Minutes felt like hours. The number of incoming ordnance dropped below 3000. ETA hit thirty seconds.

Alexander sat up straighter in his chair. “Start firing lasers!”

“We still have fifteen seconds to ELR,” Lieutenant Cardinal objected.

“Concentrate your fire! We’ll kill a few.”

“Yes, sir.”