Fleet Action (36 page)

The back hatch of the landing craft blew open and assault troops streamed out, wearing magnetic-soled shoes and swarmed in through the ruptured cargo door, firing RPGs, miniguns, and assault recoilless flechette launchers.

Kevin shot past the destroyer.

The damn plan just might work!

The seventeen assault ships ahead pressed in, Kevin now riding herd above them. He tried to ignore everything else: the hundreds of ships fighting and dying around him, the total chaos, as all tactical formations were lost. Kilrathi fighters, now fully committed to this new threat, swarmed in, space so thick with them that he witnessed half a dozen collisions between turning fighters, their own ships, and Confederation craft.

Five of the Marine ships disappeared a full battalion of five hundred men winking out of existence. In any other situation their loss would have been viewed as a disaster. Here, with the final desperate defense of Earth, it was the mere incident of a second's time. Three Jalthi turned in on the group, ignoring Kevin. He slashed two out of existence, while the third took out three landing craft and then broke hard down and to the left, disappearing.

The Marine craft pressed on in, dodging past a lumbering cruiser, with the lead landing craft pushing up and over.

"Come on, take it, just take it before you're all killed," Kevin thought, wanting to scream at the assault unit's commander. The cruiser fell astern, taking out three more craft as they shot past, with a mass driver burst shutting down his own aft shields and slicing deep into his armor. Six craft were left and then he saw the target straight ahead as he looked up after dispatching yet another fighter — a Kilrathi heavy carrier turning in evasive.

The carrier, with a mix of twenty civilian and assault ships behind it, was going through a slow, ponderous turn, its aft, top, and bottom batteries all engaged, slaughtering their pursuers. Within seconds the twenty ships were gone.

They were racing straight in on the carrier. The six craft he was escorting opened fire, sixty area suppression bombardment missiles blanketing the ship's bow.

"Fighter following me, we're going for their topside forward bay, match speed and give us suppressive!"

Startled, Kevin looked at his comm screen. It was Duke Grecko on a laser link line.

The order was insane and yet he followed it. He leaped ahead of the six landing craft, even as two more of them exploded, then slammed in reverse thrusters, coming to a dead stop fifty meters in front of the launch bay.

Kevin toggled through every weapon he still had, dumping out IFFs, dumb fire and then mass drivers. The spread exploded across the airlock bay, which shimmered and glowed red, part of the concentrated blast kicking through the shielding, blowing apart a mass driver turret above the bay. Two landing craft came streaking past and headed in. An explosion rocked his ship, spinning it over in a cartwheeling pivot away from the carrier. A quick scan of his instruments told him the worst and he reached down between his legs, grabbed hold of the ejector ring, and pulled.

"Switch IFF transponders now!" Grecko roared.

The pilot flipped the switch to the preprogrammed Kilrathi IFF, which intelligence claimed would get them through the airlock if they activated it at the last second before the deck officer could toggle the channel to a different frequency.

He closed his eyes as they hit the field. If intelligence was off, the landing craft would not be able to handle the head-on collision and would vaporize on the shield.

An explosion rocked the ship and he was slammed forward by a jarring blow. He opened his eyes. They were skidding down the length of the flight deck, the Kilrathi launch crew scattering in every direction.

"Blow rear hatch!"

The rear hatch swung open even as the landing craft continued to skid down the deck in a shower of sparks.

Duke, unbuckled from his jump seat, stood up clenching a laser gun and started for the rear.

"Let's kick ass!" he roared

The Marines closest to the hatch were already up, leaping out the door, rolling on the deck coming up and firing. Grecko hit the back edge and jumped, deliberately rolling on to his new artificial arm which could take the blow better. Gaining his feet he nailed a furball pilot coming at him with a drawn pistol, cutting him in half, then dropped a ground crew coming out from under a Krant.

The landing craft skidded to a stop and Duke raced towards it. He looked back at his other landing craft. It was on its side, burning, survivors struggling out from the wreckage.

"Get that mine out now! First platoon with me on the advance. Second platoon knock out their launch bridge and secure a perimeter, then help any survivors from the other landing craft. Third platoon escort the demolitions team."

Duke looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. Intelligence had never said anything about the internal layout of the ship. But then again, what the hell did intelligence know about these damn ships anyhow, other than that they were big? The only plan they had was to board and then get as deep into the ship as possible.

He saw an oversized door. Hell, they were all oversized given the size of the Cats. Flight deck personnel were fleeing through it and it looked as good as any.

"First platoon, let's go!"

He raced for the door, firing as he advanced, dropping Cats, their bodies piled up at the entryway. He hit the corridor, started to step in, and then ducked back from a flurry of laser shots. Two of his Marines leaned in, firing a suppressive spray while a third held up a minigun. The explosive roar of the gun drowned out all other sound, filling the corridor with fire, smoke, and a hundred rounds a second. Another Marine threw a concussion grenade in; it detonated and they waded through. Each door that they passed was kicked open and a grenade dropped in.

They reached the end of the corridor which broke into an intersection of four hallways radiating outward.

"We have to get down, damn it, into the guts of the ship!"

He sent sections running up each of the corridors and thirty seconds later a runner came back.

"Access hatch to lower levels, sir, this way."

"First section, first squad, secure this point. Get the demo team up here and move them in after us."

He looked back at the rest of his team.

"I'm getting too old for this crap," he grinned. "Come on, let's go!"

"My lord, they've boarded the ship through the topside launch bay!"

Stunned, Prince Thrakhath looked over at the ship security officer.

It was madness, absolute madness. And brilliant. Why could he have not seen that in desperation this would be a final tactic?

"How many Imperial Marine guards are on board?"

"A security detachment of fifty, my lord, not counting your own security squad."

"Where are they heading?"

The security chief toggled through a schematic of the ship and traced out a line.

"They're moving down into the second level already. Reports are sketchy."

"They're going to set mines and blow them," Thrakhath said coldly and he looked over at his damage control officer.

"What can they do?"

The damage control officer looked at him wide-eyed.

"All our calculations of damage containment were based upon external torpedo and missile strikes. Our armor is layered, through several sectors of the ship, strongest outside, with two internal belts. Into the core there's no armor at all, my lord."

He paused.

"If they blow a demolition charge in the middle of the ship, the armor will actually act to contain it, making the damage far worse." He swallowed hard. "It'll destroy the ship, my lord."

Prince Thrakhath roared with anger, slamming his fist down on a console.

"Get everyone who can carry a weapon forward. Block them off!"

The security chief ran from the bridge.

"Boarding parties now reported on two other carriers, my lord, as well as twenty-nine other ships."

"And the enemy fleet?"

"Still holding position, my lord. Two of their carriers have been destroyed, all the others damaged."

"Press the attack press it in!"

Prince Thrakhath looked back up at the main tactical display. Hundreds of his fighters were now circling around his carriers, nearly all of the enemy strike waves destroyed. There was nothing for them to go after, their armaments expended in the mad shooting match.

"Order all on defensive to prepare for second strike on enemy carriers."

The combat commander looked up.

"Their armaments have nearly all been expended, my lord."

Prince Thrakhath growled angrily. If he landed them and any of the carriers were destroyed by the boarders he'd lose his pilots.

"Order the fighters to hold until boarders are disposed off, then land and rearm."

He looked up at the internal security display and saw a white line tracing the enemy attack into the second level of the ship.

"I'm going to the forward launch bay," he announced coldly. "The attack to finish their fleet I'm personally leading

He started off the bridge and then paused.

"Order the cruisers to break through and finish Earth now!"

In anguish Geoff Tolwyn watched the flickering two dimensional image on the tactical display. All holo displays were now off line as was primary shielding jump engines, and port launch deck. Concordia had survived two more torpedo hits and was crippled, barely able to make twenty percent speed.

The offensive strike waves had simply disappeared into the heart of the enemy fleet. He knew some successes were made, with more than a dozen frigates, destroyers and cruisers gone. But the carriers were still intact. Whether any of the boarding parties had even gotten into the heart of the fleet was merely a guess at this point. The computers handling the hundreds of comm channels was down, as was burst signal link to Earth.

They had fought the enemy offensive strike to a stand-still. Not fifty of the enemy fighters out of the four hundred that had come in had survived. Two more of his carriers were gone, the surviving three damaged, with Lexington threatening to blow from internal fires — and there were still close to a thousand enemy fighters left along with a hundred escort ships.

But what was worse, far worse, was the cruiser squadron that at the opening of the action had flanked far out to port by more than five million clicks and was now plunging straight in towards Earth, scoops closed and up to flank speed. Not even his fastest ships could close with them now. The light picket line of a cruiser section, Earth orbital defenses and moon ground based defenses and a handful of obsolete frigates would have to stop them. It had been assumed that at least one section of enemy ships or more would go for a straight breakthrough under the screen of the fleet-to-fleet action. Earth was on its own now.

He thought for a moment of a distant ancestor of long ago, who, when contemplating the invasion and destruction of England, announced that even if England fell, the Empire, and with it the fleet, would still continue the fight.

England. No, he didn't want to think of that now.

"Get me Polowski on laser link."

The image flickered on the screen.

"Mike, they're going to come in to finish us off. We still need to keep our carriers alive. I want you to close and see what you can do to knock them off balance."

"What I've been waiting to hear," Mike replied, his voice sounding distant and strained.

"Take care, and God's speed to you, Mike."

Mike did not even reply. Seconds later Destroyer Squadron Three leaped forward into the attack.

Duke Grecko, his good arm shattered by a blast from a grenade, sat against a bulkhead wall. A lone runner came back from the point squad.

"The bastards are insane up there. At least a hundred of them charged when we hit the next deck. It was hand to hand."

The runner was panting hard.

"Your platoon?"

"Finished, sir," and she paused "I got out because Lieutenant Flory sent me back just before they overran us."

"It's all right, Marine. How long before they get here?"

"I lasered the door shut, sir. Not more than a minute or two."

Duke brought his laser up with his artificial arm at the sound of running. From around a corner a Marine appeared, gun down low, ready to fire, and relaxed at the sight of Grecko. He looked back and waved on his unit and came up to Grecko.

"Demo team reporting, sir. How's it up ahead?"

"As far as we're getting son."

"Only three levels down, sir. Can't we get one more?"

Duke looked at the young woman who had been on point.

She shook her head

"Then it's right here, son," and as he spoke the survivors of the demo team and the platoon escorting them came up, pushing a steel crate, maneuvering it with null gravity handles.

"Open her up," Duke said quietly, and the team lowered it down, popping the lid open.

Duke looked at the detonator for the thermonuclear warhead.

"All right, now get the hell out of here. I'm giving you five minutes," and he reached over, first arming the device and then turning the timer on.

The demo team looked at him and grinned

"Let's go, sir."

"I'll be along in a minute," Duke said quietly.

The surviving corporal of the team hesitated.

"That's my job, sir."

"I'm not going to play hero, son. Now get the lead out of your butt and that's an order. I'll be along shortly."

The Marine looked at him, hesitating. A thin smile creased his features. He saluted and then turned, heading back down the corridor, leading his team with him.

Duke settled back against the wall and sighed. He simply couldn't admit that he was played out and exhausted. Perhaps the president was right, he had never really recovered from his wounds taken at Vukar. He should have stayed at his desk rather than running off to play commando. Since someone did have to stay behind, just in case the Cats got through and knew how to disarm the weapon, it might as well be him.