No Direction Home (28 page)

A second later, he heard the laconic report from the sitrep console:
‘The Enemy has opened fire.'

‘Acknowledged,' said Ferreira, his voice perhaps too controlled.

‘Permission to open fire, sir?' asked –
what was his name? Watanabe's replacement?
– Shojaei, that was it.

Ferreira paused for a second, convincing Vinter that it really was all an act, before saying, ‘Permission granted.'

‘Fire!'

Now it really
has
started…

*****

The EarthCorp shuttles came on, lasers and rail guns firing continuously – and effectively;
Terra Nova
was being struck repeatedly by laser blasts and projectiles moving at four, maybe five, thousand metres per second, slamming into the hull and leaving impact craters in the armour plating. More importantly than that, however, the external cameras and sensors were being taken out with almost contemptuous ease – every few seconds, a screen would go dark or simply display white noise before the operator could switch to an alternative.
At this rate, we'll be blinded before they even get here…

‘They're still not decelerating, sir,' Shojaei reported, his voice just too controlled to be convincing. ‘They should have done by now.'

‘Sir!' A panicky voice from somewhere over to the left. ‘The Shuttle Bay doors are opening!'

‘What?' Ferreira asked incredulously. ‘Who ordered that?'

‘Er… nobody, sir. They just started opening – eight seconds ago.'

‘Well, close the damned things, then!'

‘Yes, sir… Executing closing procedure… No response… Initiating over-ride sequence… Negative… Repeating over-ride sequence…' The officer turned and looked up at Ferreira who was standing behind him now. ‘Negative, sir. I can't get access. I'm being locked out.'

‘Sir!' This time, it was Varaphan. ‘Telemetry indicates that we received an encrypted microburst signal from Shuttle Two thirty-six seconds ago – five seconds before the doors started opening.'

‘You mean EarthCorp
ordered
the doors to open?'

‘It looks like it, sir. The signal must have contained the necessary passwords.'

‘But how would–' Ferreira broke off, shaking his head, and Vinter could almost read his thought processes; it didn't matter
how
, the priority was to deal with it. ‘Initiate counter-measures. I want control of those doors restored
immediately
.'

Ferreira stared at the tactical display. ‘Damn,' he muttered, almost to himself, then shrugged and turned to Vinter, frowning, evidently suspicious about whether he'd had anything to do with this latest development, but Vinter sensed that Ferreira would be weighing up his next order as well, all the while knowing that he had no real choice in the matter. ‘Very well, Vinter, you were right all along,' he said, reluctantly. ‘You'd better get suited up. I want you to take command in the Shuttle Bay and to defend it at all costs if we can't get those doors closed again in time. EarthCorp must
not
penetrate any further into the interior than the Shuttle Bay. Understood?'

‘Perfectly. What about the units guarding the airlocks?'

A momentary hesitation, then, ‘I'll order them deployed to the Bay as well. If they get in, we'll need every soldier we can get.'

‘Agreed.'

Ferreira was still staring intently at him and it was only too easy to read his thoughts: could he trust Vinter – but who else was there? Vinter, with his command level military training, was far and away the best candidate to lead the defending troops in the Bay, but, all the same… Abruptly, Ferreira turned away and called out, ‘Trabelsi!'

‘Sir?' A stockily-built captain stiffened to attention.

‘Get suited up as well and choose an experienced trooper to accompany you. I want you to keep an eye on Major Vinter here.' He reached into his pocket and handed the control device over to Trabelsi. ‘If he shows the
slightest
sign of deviating from his orders, you are to immobilise him by activating this device. Is that understood, Captain?'

‘Understood, sir.'

Now, Ferreira spoke directly to Vinter. ‘Understood, Vinter?'

‘Loud and clear.'

‘Get moving, then.'

Vinter nodded and turned away, seeing Kari still seated at her console; she did not look in his direction at all, but as he headed towards the Vacuum Environment Section, he heard the Persephone chime.

‘Here.'

‘
Best of luck, sir
.'

‘Ready to go?'

‘
Yes, sir – everyone's been briefed.
'

‘Thanks for that as well. Good luck to you, Kari – I think you might be needing it more than me. Proserpina.'

*****

So Vinter Two
had
received the message and had passed it on to Shadrin. Between them, they had decided to go for the option of attacking the Shuttle Bay on the basis of it being the fastest way into
Terra Nova
. They might have wondered if it was a trap, but the opportunity would be too tempting to ignore, especially in the light of wanting to capture
Terra Nova
with as little damage as possible to the starship. Anyway, who amongst New Dawn in their right mind would open the doors to them like that? It had to be from an EarthCorp agent aboard
Terra Nova
– after all, it had contained the correct encrypted protocols and passwords, hadn't it?

As well as not looking a gift horse in the mouth…
Of
course
Shadrin had gone for it. What else would he have done? Why had he ever spent a single moment worrying about it?

Because Vinter Two would almost certainly have realised it was a trap and might have talked Shadrin out of it…

‘Inner lock door sealed. Depressurising.' The disembodied voice came through his suit speakers, as it would for the other twenty spacesuited figures in the central air lock, clinging on to whatever handholds they could find in the weightless conditions. Not for the first time in this kind of situation, Vinter noticed that they were all oriented the same way, even though there was no perceptible
up
or
down
; it was as if they were taking refuge in some sort of uniformity or solidarity. Vinter could see the expression on the faces of the troopers on each side of him; their eyes were fixed on the outer lock door, waiting for it to open. The lips of the man to his right were moving – some sort of prayer, presumably, the same as any soldier going into battle –
please let it happen to someone else, not to me…

Seeing this, Vinter felt a sudden pang of guilt, because he suddenly realised that, if events today went the way he had envisaged, none of the troopers in the airlock with him would be coming back alive…
None
of them.

Not one.

‘Outer lock door will open in three seconds… two… one… lock door opening.'

The massive doors swung outwards and Vinter pushed himself forward into the opening, followed by Trabelsi and the trooper, the three of them emerging onto the central trackway of the Shuttle Bay; he grabbed a handhold, then swung round to take hold of the rail that led up to the Control Centre, a single pull sending him floating towards the entrance as, behind him, the other troops exited from the lock, choosing their guiderails to take up their positions around the outside of the Bay. Vinter swung himself into one of the seats at the control consoles, strapping himself in as he clicked the comms button; Trabelsi and the trooper took up positions behind him, hooking their boots into slots set in the floor.

‘Vinter here. Am in position.'

‘
Acknowledged
.' Ferreira's voice.

‘Request update.'

‘
Shojaei here. The enemy shuttles are coming in. ETA seven minutes.
'

‘Have we damaged them?'

A brief hesitation, then ‘
Negative. Not to any significant extent
.' The hesitation had probably been Shofaei checking with Ferreira how much to tell him over an open circuit, but it was hardly anything EarthCorp wouldn't already know.

‘Any progress on closing the bay doors?'

Ferreira's voice now. ‘
Go secure, Major
.'

Vinter typed in the necessary instructions on the comp. ‘Secure.'

‘
No, there isn't. Our so-called experts aren't getting anywhere with it.
' Even with the distorting effect of the scrambler system, there was no mistaking the disgust in Ferreira's voice. ‘
I've enlisted Adebayo's help, for all the good that's doing
.'

Vinter grinned to himself in the privacy of the suit.
Well, it wouldn't, would it, considering she wrote the programme you're trying to hack into…
‘Are we going to get all available units here in time?'

This time, there was a delay lasting almost half a minute, presumably as Ferreira consulted the various situation reports, before he replied, ‘
We should, yes.
'

‘And then you seal the airlocks?'

‘
Affirmative.
'

‘Until when? Who gives the order to unseal them?'

‘
We cannot afford to let EarthCorp personnel into the Main Body under any circumstances. The ship becomes indefensible once they break out of the Bay. You know that.
'

‘That wasn't what I asked.'

There was a pause of four or five seconds before Ferreira replied,
‘The airlocks stay sealed until EarthCorp forces are defeated.
'

Vinter took a deep breath, biting off an angry response, before he said, his voice carefully expressionless, ‘Understood.'
It's all right for you, isn't it? You and your bloody precious Command Team are on the other side of those sealed doors, aren't you?

Bastards.

A snatch of song came into Vinter's head at that moment, lifted straight from Vinter Prime's memories, a song by The Doors, one of the TwentyCee bands that had been in his collection:

Five to one, baby.

One in five.

No one in here gets out alive…

It pretty much said it all.

*****

‘
All units deployed. Sealing air lock doors
.'

‘Acknowledged.' Vinter glanced quickly across at Trabelsi, then subvocalised, ‘Persephone.'

‘Here.'

‘Report.'

‘We're in position, sir. Ferreira's sent almost all of the New Dawn troops into the Bay – there's only the Bridge Party left. We managed to keep most of ours back. They'd already been deployed to deal with the sleeper attacks.'

‘But not all of ours?'

‘Afraid not. Sorry.'

So there would be some UNSEC personnel in the Bay, after all…
Damn.
‘Not your fault. Stand by for next phase. Proserpina.'
Only to be expected…

Ignore.

To business.
Vinter rapidly scanned the various monitor screens, confirming that the New Dawn troops were correctly positioned – not that it would make all that much difference, he thought bleakly. The interior of the Shuttle Bay was not designed with military defensive requirements in mind and so they were having to work with what cover was available. Defending troops were crouched down behind baffle shields that were intended to deal with thruster exhausts rather than lasers or kinetic missiles, or were seeking protection by simple dispersal, scattering themselves around the Bay, using struts or girders as cover. Most of them, however, were using
Terra Nova
's shuttles as protection, one way or another. The shuttles were attached to the central hub at a hundred and twenty degrees to each other, facing forwards, sideways on to the bay door, so some were simply hiding behind the shuttles, keeping them between themselves and the door. Some had taken cover inside the shuttles, waiting in their cargo compartments, and would come into the fight when the compartment's hatch was opened.

For all the good it would do…
As a defensive position against armoured shuttles, each one wielding more firepower than
Terra Nova
's total armament, the Shuttle Bay was a nightmare, and, by enabling Earthcorps to open the doors, Vinter knew he had thrown away New Dawn's last chance of beating off the attack. Had done so quite deliberately, in fact…

OK, enough of that.

Vinter switched his attention to the monitor feed from the external cameras – not that there were many left now; most of them had been destroyed by the attacking shuttles' firepower. And at very little cost – the leading shuttle was almost at the Bay door now and seemed virtually untouched. One laser mounting was only a blackened stump and there were three scorch marks down the hull, but that was it. God knows how many laser and rail gun rounds had been fired by
Terra Nova
's defences, but, by the look of it, they might just as well not bothered…

And you knew all this anyway, better than anyone…

An unidentified voice over general comms: ‘
She's coming through!
'

Vinter looked up, out through the reinforced plexiglass at the Door and saw the nose of the lead shuttle come into view, moving with a kind of ponderous majesty as it cruised through the gap, lasers and rail guns blazing. The New Dawn troopers were firing rapidly at point blank range at the incoming shuttle and, at last, were scoring hits.

But so was the shuttle. Vinter saw one of the Gatlings obliterated in a soundless flash, watched as the shuttle's weaponry switched to the next target.

‘
Second shuttle approaching
.'

This would be Vinter Two's shuttle; Vinter was certain of it, simply because this was the way he would have done it. Send in the first shuttle to test the defences, but it would also be the one at greatest risk, so wait until the second, so that he could analyse the situation and act accordingly. The third would involve waiting too long – if things weren't going according to plan, it might be too late to correct the situation by then.