Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series) (47 page)

So close now to the surface that the barren, dusty, landscape streaked by, Richard was aware of only occasional, noteworthy landmarks – and they passed by in the blink of an eye. There was no time for nerves or apprehension. At that speed and height all the pilots were totally focused: instruments, outside, instruments, outside, instruments, outside . . . Richard’s scan raced.

As they entered the black shadow created by the abrupt peak of Mount Huygens, Thomas coolly said: “Turn left now. Head due north. One minute to Rima Bradley.”

As with most lunar rilles, Rima Bradley was believed to be formed by a tube of molten rock and superheated gas that flowed close to the surface during the Moon’s volcanic period. Subsequently, the thin and often brittle roof collapsed to reveal a ‘U’-shaped channel. Additionally, surface erosion and meteorite impacts over millions of years had further modified the appearance of these valley-like geographical features. Rime Bradley is linear when compared to the notorious Rima Hadley. It is also shallower and wider, but it would provide Richard and Black Formation good cover over its entire one hundred and thirty-four kilometre length.

The dash towards Palus Putredinis took less than three minutes, and when Richard sighted the broad plain, he issued another order over Channel 6: “Black Formation, one and a half minutes to run, reducing to fifty lutens . . . Come up line abreast . . . Line abreast, go!” he said.

“Now picking up multiple traces on the sensor scan,” interjected Thomas.

The statement snatched Richard from his thoughts as he scanned the horizon. “How many precisely?”

“There’s got to be twenty in the Hadley Crater area.”

“Damn it! Top-cover for the Humatron ground force . . . It won’t be quite the surprise I was hoping for.” Richard breathed a heavy sigh as Borghine and Tardier edged forward on either side.

At that moment Richard heard the cool voice of Doug Winton. He was leading A Section and running in from the south-west. “Red Formation, this is Red One,” he said. “Assume altitude. Assume altitude . . . Critical gate in two minutes. Remember! . . . Gate critical for the initial pass.”

By referring to the ‘gate’, Doug Winton meant a layer of airspace within which each formation must remain. For Richard and Black Formation it was from the surface up to 300 feet. For Doug Winton and A Section it was from 400 to 700 feet, and for B Section, flying in from the east, it was over 700 feet. When the three sections crossed simultaneously over the robot army, that discipline would avoid mid-air collisions and enable clear target allocations for the first pass – a pilot would not target an enemy craft outside their gate. After that it would be a free-for-all.

Richard had reduced altitude to 100 feet after emerging from the Rima Bradley. Now, Black Formation was speeding over the Putredinis Plain in a headlong sprint towards the foothills of Mons Hadley. Richard could see that spearhead-shaped peak reaching for the sky high above him. Surface features streaked past in a blur.

At ultra-low level and in such close proximity to the mountains, the highly rarefied lunar atmosphere seemed to glow with an uncanny radiance and the concentrations of cosmic rays at these latitudes made the radio crackle intermittently with heavy static. Regarding human voices, however, the frequency remained silent except for an occasional call from the Red Section leaders.

With the Montes Appeninus – mountains named after the Apennine range in Italy – bearing down on them at senseless speed and its escarpment rising as an abrupt and almost vertical wall of greyish rock, Thomas calmly issued his navigation command: “Turn left now, Commander, onto a heading of zero three five degrees. Continue for thirty seconds. Be aware that the ground is steadily rising. Then look to your left again; in the ten o’clock position you will see the head of the Hadley Rille.”

Richard nodded. It was good navigation. And with the six fighters flying line abreast and their wingtips almost touching, he eased the Formation into the turn using only fifteen degrees of bank – he was mindful of his wingman, Major Canales on this occasion, dropping very close to the Moon’s surface. Anticipating the desired course, he rolled his wings level and the Formation responded as if it was one machine. He looked to his left and then to his right; Borghine and Tardier were so close that he felt he could reach out and touch them. Then he checked the chronometer on the instrument panel; it read: 08:34:02. And then, dead ahead, and a few seconds distant, Richard saw surface features drop away – it was the start of the rille.

“Enter it, on an initial heading of north, Commander,” said Thomas, having appreciated that Richard’s adjustments to the ship’s flight path meant that Richard had seen the entry point.

Richard flashed his navigation lights, which was the signal for the Formation to make final preparations, and moments later the valley – a long, sinuous canyon – abruptly appeared. At 50 lutens, the ground disappeared beneath them in an instant. Suddenly they were 1400 feet above the valley floor. Instinctively, Richard pushed the nose of his craft down into a steep dive.

Like water over the Niagara Falls they plunged into the valley below. Passing 500 feet, Richard pulled the nose of his craft steadily backwards and he levelled the Formation at 100 feet, and then, appreciating his surroundings, he dropped further to 50 feet above the surface. This was the height he would hold for the attack run.

The sense of speed was incredible. Outcrops of rock and occasional boulders passed in a blink. Even though the valley floor was level and flat and a kilometre wide in the main, the near-vertical cliffs that towered on either side gave a claustrophobic feeling. Richard flashed his navigation lights again and said over the radio: “Assume attack formation.” With that the six spacecraft eased outwards and distributed themselves evenly in a line across the valley.

Richard looked ahead to see the first bend in the winding rille – a right-hand turn through one hundred and twenty degrees. It approached at breakneck speed. He negotiated it by rolling to the right through ninety degrees and pulling. And then, by necessity, he pulled harder in order to prevent the ship from skidding outwards in the turn, and he quickly realised that 50 lutens was too fast for this place.
Difficult . . . impractical
! he thought. The application of bank, the roll rate and the g-force, even with the Moon’s reduced gravity, would be too difficult to handle and would subsequently reduce their targeting effectiveness.

“Reducing thirty lutens,” Richard said simply over the coded combat frequency and simultaneously closed his thrust lever.

Even so, 30 lutens would give an equivalent ‘in gravity’ speed of 1000 kilometres per hour or 620 miles per hour. Borghine, Tardier, Quarrie, Mayard and Canales were all aware of the implications of a further speed reduction; but now, within the confines of the rille, they could appreciate Richard’s reasoning.

Periodic transmissions from Richard’s transponder that was coded six six four, enabled Doug Winton to see Richard’s trace on his radar display despite Black Formation being hidden from his view. He also knew that Richard was running approximately one minute late and consequently adjusted his own timing to account for this. Winton was studying his display when he saw Richard’s code change from six six four to six six five, meaning that Black Formation was about to attack. Moments later, Winton commenced his run, leading ‘A Section’ in an inverted ‘V’ formation. He checked his altitude at 450 feet and cross-checked the position and altitude of ‘B Section’ –
all is set for the showdown
, he thought.

In the valley, Richard was anything but settled. His heart was racing, adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he wiped away several beads of sweat that were running down his cheek with the back of his glove, before flipping closed his helmet’s inner airtight visor panel. He checked over each shoulder continuously, confirming the Formation’s perfect line across the valley, and he maintained an offset to the right of the valley’s centreline in order to accommodate three ships to his left and two to his right. He could see a great swirling cloud of grey and black dust and fine debris rising behind the outermost fighters and he knew that it extended across the rift behind them, like a thundery squall line. Richard’s thumb hovered over the cannon’s trigger. It was the centre button on the pistol-shaped grip in his left hand.
Speed is 30 lutens
, he noted, as the ground sped past and the radio altimeter indicated 44 feet at that instant.

Thomas, plugged into the ship’s avionics by way of his finger, appeared at one with the spacecraft. He called the sensor picture, giving Richard a continuous verbal update of what lay ahead. Richard, for his part, felt surprisingly reassured by the running commentary. The proximity of the enemy fighters that circled above the valley grew closer and closer with each passing second. Richard led the Formation through the twists and turns of the valley and in doing so he scanned the surrounding topography. The valley was predominantly ‘U’-shaped, but the ridge lines that towered some 1300 feet above him on either side were anything but even. Seismic activity over aeons had caused cracks and fissures in the abrupt walls of pumice-like rock and areas where landslides had occurred caused hillocks of debris on the valley floor.
I will need to be aware of those hazards and any other rocky outcrops when the battle commenced,
he thought.

The Hadley Rille is one hundred and twenty-five kilometres long and Richard became increasingly anxious as the Formation passed the 90 kilometre position.
The robot force is moving faster than I anticipated,
he thought.
We
must
engage them in the valley!

Thomas turned his head sharply to the left because he saw for the briefest moment a silhouette moving in the distance – it was high on the ridgeline. It came into view again and appeared to be travelling in their direction, but was quickly left behind. “A spotter! On the top . . . to the left! It will alert the ground force and bring the enemy fighters down on us,” he said to Richard.

“Commence firing chaff!” Richard barked over the radio.

Suddenly the area on each side of the Formation was filled with tiny reflective specks, like an unexpected and heavy downpour from a thunder cloud on a bright day. But this metallic rain glinted and glistened in the sunlight as it fell, like millions of minute, flashing lights. The metallic specks were directed forwards as well as sideways and at times the two wing ships skimmed through the shimmering mist of oxide pellets.

After negotiating a blind, ninety-degree bend to the left, Thomas suddenly shouted: “Commander! Multiple targets dead ahead . . . range six thousand metres.” The words cut into Richard’s psyche. Instantaneously something caught his eye; he glanced up to see a number of small, shiny, occasionally oval shapes manoeuvring against the blackness. They turned in tight circles, perhaps five Ks ahead, and slightly above him. But he pulled his eyes down to the ground and the job in hand and had a brief notion of Doug Winton and A Section coming in from behind him.

“Five thousand metres!” shouted Thomas over the intercom, unable to suppress his emotions.

Richard’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he peered into the distance. The ground streaked past at unimaginable speed and he strained to see what lay ahead. Intermittently, he glanced down at his instruments, in order to avoid target fixation. Then, in that instant, he saw a faint dust cloud; it stirred close to the ground in the middle distance. “Targets on the nose – range four thousand metres!” Richard exclaimed over the common frequency. He checked left and right. There was slight movement down the line, anxious twitches up and down as the fighters sped towards their target. Richard sensed his team’s restraint; their fervour to engage the robot force was palpable. He pressed the radio transmit button. “Steady . . . steady Black Formation,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. “Hold your fire . . . hold . . .”

And then came the flak; it rose from the ground like a spectre materialising. “Incoming fire!” someone shouted – it was Tardier!

Multiple, glowing, sublet tracers streamed towards them. Plasma pocklets exploded in front of them, electrifying Space like sparking ripples opening from a stone in a pond. And sonic grenades blurred the horizon. The barrage was like an angry swarm of bees: condensed, stinging, persistent.

Instinctively, Richard twitched forwards on the nose of his craft and dropped the Formation to twenty feet above ground level – the wall of flak was over them and in front of them, but the line held and behind them the dust and the debris swirled and rose into a crest like a great tidal wave flooding down the valley. Controlling the fighters became difficult; they shuddered and bounced in the bombardment and Richard felt the Swiftsure absorbing shrapnel.

And then he saw the opposition and their battle line across the valley – humanoid shapes in the kicked-up dirt. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. Humatrons, scores of them, running north-east and making good ground. His heart sank, as they too were dispersed across the entire valley floor, a tactic that made collective targeting impossible. The scene was set. This would be no hit-and-run raid.

It was hell on the Moon. The barrage rained down on them. The pilots flinched at the closeness of it. “Steady!” Richard called to his men. “Steady . . . standby . . . fire!”

CHAPTER 26

The Battle of Putredinis

The valley floor became a bubbling, seething cauldron of deactivation. For a few seconds the weight of concentrated fire from the fighters made the ground shake and rumble as if by Moonquake. It was like a volcano had vented precisely below the robots. Instinctively, each pilot twitched back on his control and slightly climbed his craft before disappearing into the rising cloud of pyroclastic turmoil. And it wasn’t just a smoke of dust and dirt and filth that erupted into the air; it was mechanisms and cyber-parts and oil and artificial intelligence.

A second later and like flashes from a brooding thunder cloud, the line of fighters emerged intact. They seemed to be survivors escaping from a towering, tumultuous Black Death – but there was an unrequested reception party on the other side. Like an agitated swarm of flies over a piece of meat they waited for Richard and his men at arms – a cluster of Humatron fighters lurked ready to pounce.

Immediately, Richard instructed: “Break formation! Break now! Break! Not above three hundred!”

Three fighters turned abruptly left and climbed, and three the same to the right, and as they did brilliant beams of laser-light struck out towards them. Now it was a free-for-all and, turning incredibly tightly, each fighter zoomed over the ridge line and into the fight.

Overhead, Doug Winton’s ‘Alpha Section’ whooshed past making numerous kills. The enemy fighters manoeuvred in the most amazing way, turning corners so tightly as to appear to make right angles. But it quickly became apparent that they lacked the top speed of the larger Delta Class. Richard saw a Delta take a hit; the laser beam severed its left wing and the craft exploded. Simultaneously, however, Winton’s second wing, ‘Bravo Section’, running in higher and from the east, easily picked off the Humatron fighter that had made the kill, as its momentum had taken it up into their territory.

In his peripheral vision, Richard saw the silhouette of another Humatron fighter. He ordered Thomas to take an image of it so as to better understand what they were fighting. Richard noted the design as an elongated oval shape with two stub wings, like a human hand with three centre fingers held together and the thumb and little finger spread slightly at an angle of approximately twenty degrees. Towards the front of the craft was a spherical cockpit, like a clear glass ball set within the thin, silver-coloured fuselage and with an equal proportion protruding both above and below, giving superb all-round visibility. Inside the bubble cockpit sat the unmistakeable figure of a Humatron.

Thomas quickly took an image of the ship as it turned towards them and magnified it on his tactical screen. Richard’s eyes widened at its turn rate and speculated an induced g-force of at least twelve – he knew even the most conditioned human pilot would blackout in that turn. The thought made him shudder and he instantly snap-rolled the Swiftsure to the left and tracked the incoming fighter in order to prevent it positioning behind. For a split second the Humatron fighter was in his sights and Richard fired his cannon. The red stream of sublets streamed away and Richard tried to tighten his turn so that the smaller fighter would fly through the line, but by another remarkable turn it evaded them. In that instant, Tardier’s ship zoomed past Richard’s nose; it was firing pulse torpedoes at something unseen. From left to right it soon disappeared into the fray. The Swiftsure juddered in its wake.

Richard reversed his turn and dived down into the valley. As he did he looked up; the sky was awash with spacecraft. White, smoky exhaust trails criss-crossed the blackness of Space and red and white laser beams flashed in all directions like spontaneous lightning bolts. Never had Richard been involved in aerial combat of such intensity. In that moment he thought of the historic Battle of Britain, where numerous white vapour trails against a backdrop of blue sky and occasional cloud evoked memories of a similar fight for survival.

Richard rolled inverted and scanned the valley floor. Two Delta fighters from his formation were already on their second pass; they were strafing groups of Humatrons and some way in front of them explosions and plumes of dust erupted. Over the radio and above the medley of heated exchanges, Richard heard: “
La chasse
 . . . !
La chasse
 . . . !” He knew that was Borghine.

Richard skimmed along the steep escarpment so close that he could have touched it with an outstretched hand. Suddenly a crashing Humatron ship tumbled down the vertical wall of dark rock not more than six hundred metres in front of him – it broke into pieces and burst into flames. Richard narrowly avoided it with an instinctive movement. Then, as he looked back over his left shoulder for targets, a laser beam passed so close as to illuminate his cockpit and drench him for an instant in brilliant white light. There was a fighter behind him. Richard strained to see it – but he couldn’t. Immediately, he dived again and followed the contours of the valley, turning all the while onto a north-easterly heading. He would rely on Red Wing for protection and continue with his objective. Now Richard could see the result of Black Formation’s first pass: the robot force had scattered and groups were still making their way along the valley towards Andromeda, but behind them the ground was awash with metallic carcasses and it smouldered.

Meanwhile, Thomas sent the image of the enemy ship to Richard’s sensor screen. He focused on it momentarily as he dropped to 30 feet – it was the bubble-cockpit that he was most interested in. The robot’s seat appeared to be ingeniously set on gyroscopic gimbals that maintained the pilot in a head-up position as the craft itself manoeuvred – it was an inspired design. The propulsion appeared to be a conventional rocket motor with a single, directional nozzle, and one laser initiator in the nosecone.

Richard caught sight of a glinting object in his ten o’clock position. It was another Humatron fighter and the red light that simultaneously illuminated on his instrument panel indicated that there was a weapon lock on the Swiftsure. In the centre of the valley, Richard rolled his wings level and commenced his run in. Against all his instincts he ignored both the approaching fighter and the red light on the panel and focused again on the ground force.

Richard heard the voice of John Mayard: “Number four and five requesting formation!” he called.

“Granted!” barked Richard.

Within seconds Richard became aware of two Deltas drawing up, one on each side; they had joined as a pair from the east side of the valley. With his visor down he checked each wingtip as the fighters established a tight echelon left and echelon right and then eased forwards the final few metres until the three ships were in a line. In the heat of battle and the sweat and with adrenalin and a cool stare, each pilot jostled and twitched and held their position.

“Target approaching . . . large ground force. Three Ks on the nose. Stay with me!” snapped Richard over the combat channel.

Suddenly there was an explosion on his left side. Richard glanced across. The flames quickly subsided to reveal a gaping tear in Chris Quarrie’s right wing and simultaneously another laser-burst flashed between them. Richard looked forward and then across at his wingman again. With smoke streaming from the hole, Quarrie looked back – he nodded sharply and held his line. Another laser-burst flashed past his cockpit. “Damned fighter!” blurted Richard over the intercom.

Thomas twisted his neck and looked behind. “One on our tail and another joining from the right,” he reported.

Richard broke tactical radio silence. “Red One from Black One, triangulate my position. Transmitting, one, two, three, two, one . . . we need help!”

Immediately Doug Winton replied: “I see you! Red Seven . . . Red Nine . . . follow me! We’re on our way!”

Richard breathed a fraction easier, but not before another shrapnel tear opened in his own left wing and near to the fuselage – he felt the disturbance on his control column. On the other side, Mayard held wingtip to wingtip so close that they could have been joined.

“Standby to target!” called Richard, and he prepared a volley of sonic eruptors and quickly selected the heavier armour-piercing shells for his cannon.

At that moment, the targeted group of about twenty Humatrons commenced rear-guard fire. The flak wall quickly approached. Richard dipped the Formation down again. The ground streaked past; senses were heightened and hearts thumped.

Unseen and overhead, Winton attacked the trailing enemy fighters. Richard was unaware of his success, only that it gave him some breathing space. He took final aim. “Five seconds!” he called. Quarrie and Mayard selected magma shells – high-energy exploding shells filled with iron ore pellets that became molten during the delivery phase, heated by a contained, effervescing phosphor charge.

“Fire!” called Richard, and simultaneously he pressed the trigger of his cannon. With his right hand he pressed a selector that released the sonic pulses. Away went the magma shells from Quarrie and Mayard – devastation would follow in their wake.

Richard watched the tracer shells from his cannon stream away from him in an unwavering red line, and then he saw their rampant, explosive impact in the dust seconds later. He tracked their percussive progress towards the line of robots and then the carnage they caused as they penetrated the group. Mechanical bodies were tossed like ragdolls high into the air and shredded limbs flew at the wave of unfettered shrapnel. Finally, the magma shells, expertly on target and merciless, exploded in the midst of the robots that remained standing; each launched a thousand searing pellets. The machines that fled were chased down and caused to disintegrate in an instant. And then the Formation flashed by. What little remained of the platoon floundered in the dirt and the dust.

“Break formation!” ordered Richard, and he pulled up steeply into a vertical climb to escape the area.

Andromeda Operations Room – simultaneous

“Give me the situation to the north!” shouted Eddie Lieven, the Chief Operations Officer, from across the Operations Room. He was red-faced and sweating.

Herbie Smith sat at his console staring at his sensor screen. He repeatedly referred to another adjacent screen on which constantly changing text updated information from the various battle fronts.

“The 1
st
Regiment is falling back from the Fresnel escarpment, sir – indicating heavy casualties. A number of Humatrons have already been sighted from lookout positions on the northern biodomes; maybe thirty minutes and they will be here. The 2
nd
Regiment under Colonel Randle are forming a defensive line to the east, but their report suggests minimal numbers and they are being harassed by enemy fighters. The Colonel thinks that there could be a thrust from that direction imminently.”

“And the Third!?”

“Some good news there at least, sir. We are getting reports of men arriving back from the Rima Hadley area; it seems our fighters are mopping up the robot surge from the south-west . . . and the other half of the Third are engaging a hit-and-run platoon five Ks south-east.”

“What about support troops from Earth?”

“All our sensors are down, but I’m expecting three S2s with assault pods any time now – they left Canaveral more than four hours ago . . .”

“Three S2s . . . sixty troops! Is that the best they can do! God damn it, we need more than that!”

The Operations Room was packed with personnel. Many were sitting at consoles. Others rushed between them. And officers paced the raised section that was the Lunar Security Control Centre. There was an air of dread.

“Nanobots . . . we must not forget the Nanobot threat, Chief!” interjected Dimitri Nurevski, from the primary security console. He looked up momentarily. “They are overrunning the Western Biodome Complex.” His voice trembled and many stopped and stared at him as a result.

“We need fighter support in the north . . . call Colonel Winton,” said Lieven. “Request that he sends a fighter section north . . . immediately!”

“Aye aye, sir,” replied Herbie Smith and buried his head in his computer.

Richard commenced a turn to the right and then violently reversed it into a steep left-hand turn that had his wingtips well past the vertical; he changed his energy status by constantly working the thrust lever and used the Swiftsure’s two manoeuvring retros to increase the rate of turn. ‘In combat, never fly straight and level for more than thirty seconds’ – that was his tenet and it had served him well in the past. He assessed the situation below. He had heard Herbie Smith’s call over the control frequency, requesting support on the northern flank and Doug Winton had promptly dispatched Bravo Section – less a few good men – saying that he would follow ASAP. Other warning calls over the combat frequency heightened the tension in the arena.

“Bogey six o’clock . . . Red Five, he’s on you!”

“Watch that one . . . he’s turning!”

“Fire! Take him! Take him!”

“I’m hit . . . going down . . . arghhh!”

“Red Nine! In your ten o’clock, turn right now . . . now!”

“Eject! Eject!”