Operation Chimera (27 page)

“We should make contact soon if this plot is accurate.” Aaron’s voice pulled Michael out of the tedium of button mashing.

“I have faith in the little guy,” said Michael. “Strange that we don’t see anything yet.”

“Have we gone astray?” asked Emma.

Michael pinched his nose. “Keg, did you factor for Protocol Four?” He continued, not waiting for an answer. “Of course you didn’t, that was changed twenty years ago.”

“Protocol 4?” The hesitance in Keg’s voice made five living stomachs sink. “Oh, bother. You are correct.” Keg flew out of the co-pilot’s chair to the electronics suite. “Upon loss of contact with allied ships, the
Manhattan
would have canceled thrust and attempted to maintain relativistic orientation.” He ran the calculation again. “They would not have kept moving forward, so we’d know where to find them.”

Aaron sighed.

“Fret not my fearless companions, this makes it easier.” Keg ‘grabbed’ the glowing waypoint on the map and dragged it backward along the
Manhattan
’s projected route. “Adjusting for the moment of contact loss, according to the Manta’s flight log, the carrier would be stopped about here.” He tapped it, causing a rippling of light to ping outward from a blue diamond on everyone’s screen.

Michael wiped sweat from his face. “Come about eighty-seven degrees. We should be travelling along the
Manhattan
’s flight path now. If they did stop, we will find them, and so help me if one of you says anything about the nebula disorienting us…” He laughed.

“D… Dragon?” Emma seemed hesitant; it could have been fear or hope.

“Proceed, Sylph.”

“Look at your CCS. Is anyone else’s doing that?”

Michael shifted his glance to the center of his console. The previously dark screen lit up at the bottom with one word:
SYNCHRONIZING.

Aaron whooped over the comm, loud enough to hurt several ears. “We’re getting a signal!”

“Yes!” Emma cheered. Not a trace of her copious tears of joy sounded in her voice that time.

Zavex’s hand entered his holographic bust, tapping his forehead and falling through a spiral wave in front of his face. “Vas’una has guided us.”

Everyone held their breath as the string of periods at the end of their new favorite word grew.

Synchronizing…

Synchronizing……

Synchronizing………

Dark again.

Hearts sank. Then, the screen fluttered and the full tactical map lit Michael’s cockpit like a marquee. The red sector-delineation grid shifted and wavered through heavy interference. Green Wing was absent from the display, though they could see the
Manhattan
’
s
glorious carrier-shaped icon, and other clusters of diamonds where Gold, White, and Red wings hovered close to it.

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Betty?”

The female AI, despite being emotionless, sounded upbeat―due only to Michael’s own projected mood. “I have the results of the scan, putting it up.”

Six columns of numbers scrolled along the HUD, blurring by too fast to read. He traced a finger through the numbers, twisted his hand about and pulled open a graphed view. A thick blue line wavered like a streamer in the wind, every so often puffing all the way down or all the way up on a gust. He stared at it for a few minutes, analyzing the way it moved. Eventually, a pattern emerged to Michael’s consciousness. The peak wavelength of ambient signal interference began at a little over two-thousand, 2044.8 to be exact, held that for several seconds and fell into the mid-fifties before going back up. Every ten seconds, the direction of change inverted, becoming a gradual increase instead of a gradual decrease. Then, without warning, it would leap from one end to the other. If it was low it would jump into the 2k range, if it was already there, it would plummet below fifty. The dancing ribbon on the graph betrayed a predictable pattern.

“Betty, analyze this frequency spread. Every ten seconds it seems to flip over on itself. Can you come up with a compensation pattern? Is that as predictable as it looks? What I was trying to do by adjusting the transmission was the right idea but a human can’t change it fast enough or accurately enough by hand.”

“Processing.”

Crackling―“Green Wing… perations officer… son Grey…esting status report…”

“Nest, this is Green wing,” said Michael. “Repeat, Nest, this is Green Wing. We are attempting to locate you now.” He lowered his voice. “Betty, where’s that analysis?”

“In my memory core.”

He blinked. “Not literally. What is the progress?”

“It will be complete in approximately… it’s done.”

“Perfect. Apply that algorithm to modulate our outbound transmissions, and use it as a subtractive filter to incoming communication.”

“Working.”

“How long unti―”

“Done.”

“Nest, this is Green Wing, are you there?”

Michael ceased breathing as he stared at the CCS, waiting. It chirped; the wonderful word from before disappeared, replaced by an even better one:
Updating.

“Betty, transmit that algorithm to the remainder of Green Wing on a short range closed channel.” Michael glanced at the row of holograms. “Attention Green Wing. My Betty is transmitting a software module now, enable it and link it to your communications system as soon as you get it.”

One by one, four green diamonds appeared in the lower left corner of the screen.

“Green Wing, we are back!” roared Michael.

“Yes!” cheered Liam, pounding the console.

“Praise Vas’una.”

“Never doubted you, Keg,” said Aaron, earning a moment of silence.

“Lieutenant Summers? This is Commander Ellison Grey, are you receiving? We lost you on sensors. What happened out there?”

“Copy that, sir. Glad to be back. We had enemy contact, signal interference from the nebula blocked us off.”

“All fighter wings, return to the
Manhattan
immediately. We have inbound Draxx capital ships and are preparing for an emergency jump.”

“Jump? Not going to make a stand?” asked Aaron, on a wing-only channel.

Liam gasped. “How did they find us?”

Michael traded places with Emma at the nose of the diamond. “Operations, what is the situation around the
Manhattan
? What are we flying into?”

“Green Wing,” said a woman’s voice, “The carrier experienced an unexplained loss of functionality to several critical systems as well as primary power.”

“Summers, this is Commander Grey, please explain why you are coming through loud and clear and other wings are garbled.”

“Sir, with all due respect, that may be intelligence we do not want intercepted on comms. I’ll brief you when we get back.”

“This better be good, Summers.” His voice muted as if he covered his microphone with one hand. “Kim, keep transmitting return to bay to the rest of the wings.” Grey’s voice returned to full volume. “We have sensor contact with three Draxx capital ships, two frigates and a battlecruiser. The Chimera effect is playing havoc with our tactical readiness; this is not a fight we can withstand right now.”

“Understood, sir. Alright, Green Wing, you heard the man. Time to take it in.”

With confidence in their heading, they accelerated to the highest speed Liam could squeeze out of the Manta. Several seconds passed, and three red dots appeared on the CCS, about seventy thousand kilometers to the right and a little upward from where the
Manhattan
’s icon was. The carrier changed facing, heading toward Green Wing to help them get back faster.

The chill in Emma’s voice was gone, she sounded happy. “Want me to scout ahead?”

Michael grinned. “Negative, stay here where the men can protect you.”

“Oh, now you’re a comedian,” she said, squinting. The audible sarcasm held off true anger. “Was that a backhanded yes?”

“If I tell you to stay in formation now, you’ll feel condescended to.”

“Not if you can give me a tactically sound reason beyond what’s on my chest,” said Emma.

“What does her name badge have to do with anything,” asked Keg.

Everyone laughed.

“Well, after surviving getting that close to a Draxx Python, I imagine there isn’t much you couldn’t handle. However, I’d prefer if you stayed close, just in case another Krait gets on Hunter’s tail.”

Everyone except one laughed.

ith the order given for all fighters to return home, Driscoll’s full attention was on the task at hand. One wrong move, and there’d be no barn for the horses to bolt back to.

“Keep monitoring comms,” he said to S’lestra. “We leave no-one behind.”

“Underssstood, Captain.”

The
Manhattan
’s main guns, mounted around the entire edge of the ship, rotated to face the Draxx. Lieutenant Brooke brought the weapons to bear on the lead Draxx ship, and opened fire. The projectiles acted like nail bombs: upon detonation they sent thousands of miniature armor-piercing projectiles that sprayed the enemy vessels in bursts. The Draxx shields fizzled and spat at the continuous, multiple impacts. The
Manhattan
’s cannons threw chaos, the likes of which no Draxx had ever experienced before when confronting a Union vessel. The
Manhattan
was a test bed for numerous new technologies, not least of all its weaponry.

“Damage?” Driscoll asked.

“Minor, sir. We’re not getting past their shielding, though they’re weakening,” Brooke said.

“Not good enough,” Driscoll said to nobody in particular. “Load tubes one and two.”

Brooke worked to switch the guns to automatic control and load the forward missile tubes at the same time. “I’m turning the guns over to Frank.”

“Understood.”

With the AI in control of the guns, the streams focused into a tighter array. Attempting to aim so many individual turrets was more than a human mind could handle. Deep within the ship’s computer system, a dozen subordinate processes spawned. Each took control of a turret as though it had its own personal operator.

“Birds in the tubes,” Brooke reported, hand braced on the release.

“Lieutenant Hardy, full left rudder. Bring us about one-eight-zero, switch to one quarter thrusters,” Driscoll ordered. “Mister Brooke, target the vessel nearest us and fire when ready.”

“Aye.”

Brooke depressed the release. Two duotronic missiles flared away from the bow of the
Manhattan
, spiraling toward the closest of the three Draxx ships. The first spent its velocity and payload against the energy shield. However, the second broke through, and impacted the hull.

The explosion ripped a gigantic hole in the front quarter of the Draxx capital ship, spewing material and debris out into space.

“Direct hit with number two!” Brooke cheered.

“Good job,” Driscoll said.

Lieutenant Hardy allowed the
Manhattan
to continue to drift about for a second, before he fired the engines and took them to one-quarter power. The
Manhattan
lurched forward; again, the internal systems took a few seconds to accommodate the change in inertia.

“The Draxx have opened fire,” Lieutenant-Commander S’lestra reported.

Here it comes,
Driscoll thought.