Soldiers of Fortune (33 page)

              "Kinetic weapon, Captain!" Doc reported. "It just took off a large portion of the starboard vertical stabilizer." A kinetic weapon was like a missile, but didn't have an explosive warhead, just a solid chuck of metal that would tear through the hull. They were notoriously hard to detect because they were so small and fast.

              "It's better than that," Twingo groused. "The heat exchangers run through the stabilizers, we're already losing capacity on exchanger two." The two vertical stabilizers that protruded from the ship's back also housed critical parts of the cooling system that kept the engines and weapons from overheating. The reduced capacity meant picking one or the other: thrust or weapons. "I'll try to run it closed-loop, but I wouldn't expect too much."

              "We've done all we can here," Jason said, somewhat surprised they were still alive. "Let's get on the ground and try to finish this." The main problem was that even if they stopped the initial ground assault team, he had no doubt there were reserves waiting on board the remaining ships in orbit. It would just be a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

             
Using the momentum they were carrying from their initial attack run, Jason guided the
Phoenix
around the planet in a descending orbit as they prepared to make atmospheric entry. He was concerned about the missing stabilizer now that the gravimetric drive was completely shut down. The repulsors would have to fight to compensate, and that meant taxing their damaged cooling system.
This has turned into a serious cluster-fuck of the highest magnitude.

             
They began to feel the buffeting of the mesosphere as the gunship began to plunge into the atmosphere well before they would have line-of-sight again of the battle presumably still taking place in higher orbit. Soon the canopy was engulfed in superheated gasses as the
Phoenix
roared into the atmosphere without the aid of her gravimetric drive to slow the descent. With the structural integrity of the starboard stabilizer compromised, the fiery entry into the atmosphere was causing further damage to the cooling system. Twingo watched the capacity of the system continue to drop and hoped it would last long enough to get them safely to the ground.

             
Once the plasma had cleared from the canopy and the ship was flying in clean air, Jason turned them on course for the tether anchor point. He fervently hoped the population on the ground had fled to the outskirts once the assault had begun, but he doubted that many people could get out of the city center in time. He began to throttle up with the intent of circling the area, but as soon as he advanced the power the temperature on his engine readouts spiked.

              "We've got a problem, Twingo," he said. "I've got no thrust, I can't get past ten percent power before the temperature spikes."

              "I'm on it," Twingo said. "I'll re-route all the cooling capacity from system one to the engines... that means no energy weapons."

              "Whatever," Jason said, "just get me the engines back or we won't even make it to the tether." After a moment of frantic control inputs from the engineer, the engine temperatures began to drop slightly from critical to just dangerous. "Best I can do, Captain."

              "Copy that," Jason replied as he pushed the throttle back up again. The power climbed to twenty-five percent with the temperatures staying shy of dangerous for a moment, causing Jason to relax his left hand slightly. They should just make it if the repair held...

             
Before he could react, the temperatures spiked again and a loud explosion jerked the ship to port and caused the displays to go wild with warnings.

              "We've just shelled out engine one!" Twingo shouted. "I'm not sure how much longer the others will keep pushing." As if on cue, the displays began to flicker and the interior lighting died as they crossed the outer border of the city. A moment later half the displays on the bridge winked out. "Main bus A is out, B is failing! Switching to emergency power. Beginning emergency shutdown of the main reactor." Jason could feel his ship floundering, dying underneath him, she couldn't leave the planet and he had his doubts about a safe landing. So far the repulsors were holding on emergency power... but would they last long enough?

             
The
Phoenix
slogged through the sky above the only city on Shorret-3, still maintaining a barely controlled descent toward the anchor point, but fading fast. They had lost enough altitude that the building tops of the residential area were streaking by just below them. A few moments later and they were knocking over com antennas and the right wing obliterated a rooftop greenhouse that Jason hoped was unoccupied. Whenever he tried any control inputs the ship vibrated and shook as the repulsors were unable to comply. With no control left he tried to lower the landing gear and prepared to tell his crew the news.

             
No sooner had he hit the landing gear control than an explosion of sparks erupted from port bulkhead and all power failed throughout the ship, including the barely-functioning repulsor drive. "It's out of my hands! Brace for impact!" Jason's warning left his lips a microsecond before the ship fell sickeningly out of the air, her airspeed not even a fraction of what was needed for the wings to keep them aloft.

             
The
Phoenix
fell, twisting slightly to port, and crashed through the roof of an enormous processing facility that was six stories tall and covered at least five acres. The gunship went through the roof like it was made of paper and kept its forward momentum, gutting the building as it went along. Inside, the crew was now just along for the ride as horrendous impacts slammed them to and fro against their seat restraints. Some large piece of something slammed into the canopy and cracked the ultra-dense material into spider web mosaic before flipping up and over the ship. Although it happened in the blink of an eye, Jason felt they'd been coring out the building for an eternity. 

             
On the eastern road that ran along the processing plant, the ground began to shake and the building vibrated violently as if in an earthquake just before the right wing of the DL7 exploded out of the side of the facility, followed by most of the rest of it. The forward section burst through the building and swung around before dropping the remaining twenty-five feet and slamming into the road below. The ship lay there, still half buried in the structure, hissing and smoking, but otherwise still.

             
Jason blinked several times to clear his head as he hung from the restraints, the bridge canted at a crazy angle. Through the battered canopy he could see they had emerged from the building and were nose-down on a street.
Please let there have been nobody in this building.
There was a hiss of air as the emergency lighting glowed red along the walls and the chemical oxygen generators activated, signs of the
Phoenix
in her death throes.

              "Is everyone still alive?" Jason asked. He got a chorus of affirmative responses, some less enthusiastic than others.  

              "Well, you finally did crash her," Twingo said in an attempt at humor that fell flat.

              "Everyone try to get out of your restraints and get your gear without hurting yourselves or anyone else," Jason said, ignoring his friend. "Let's get to the port airlock and get out of here, we still have a mission to complete."

             
Over the next ten minutes the crew struggled to extricate themselves from their seats and collect their weapons and gear before struggling further to get off the tilted command deck and drop down to where the port airlock chamber was. Once they were all there, Jason manually closed the inner hatch, lifted the bright red cover, and smashed the large button down three times, then two more, activating the explosive charges that would fling the port hatch away from the ship. They heard and felt the muffled
whump
as the charges detonated. He waited a few seconds before opening the inner hatch, hoping most of the smoke had cleared out.

             
They made their way out of the gaping hole in the side of the hull one at a time, Lucky helping the smaller members of Omega Force so they weren't injured trying to make the jump. Standing straight, Jason took in the surreal sight of his ship jutting out the side of an industrial building and smashed onto the street below. The nose cone, a composite piece that covered the sensitive forward sensor array, looked to have taken the brunt of the fall, crushed and deformed as the weight of the ship pressed down on it. He deliberately turned away, becoming aware of the sounds of battle coming from the anchor point, which was still two kilometers away. Small arms fire and larger explosions were clearly heard as the surrounding area was largely silent, the citizens either in hiding or having fled.

              "Crusher, Lucky, we'll be hitting the far access gate like we originally planned," Jason said crisply, trying to get his crew back into focus. "You three," he said, pointing to Doc, Twingo, and Kage, "get someplace high where you can see the complex and try to feed us what intel you can. With the twins stuck in the ship, we have no idea of what's going on until we're almost on it." Jason knew well enough that they'd be of little use as far as spotters since the battle was likely already inside the anchor point facility, but it would keep the three out of harm's way while not insulting them directly to their faces. He looked at them speculatively, and then changed his mind.

             
"Check that; Kage, you're with us. We may need your talents. Twingo and Doc, same plan; get high and get me intel."

              "We'll take care of it, Captain," Twingo said solemnly, grasping the shoulder of Jason's armor. He understood the likelihood of ever seeing his friend again was slim, at best. Doc came up and wordlessly shook his hand before turning and leading Twingo away, down the street and around the corner.

              "Kage, stay behind us as much as possible," Jason said to his small friend, who was now wide-eyed as the reality of going into combat sunk in. "No heroics. Let the three of us clear things since we'll probably need you to either gain entry into the building or access the computers controlling the tether winch."

              "No heroics. Got it," Kage agreed quickly.

              "Let's move out," Jason said, turning and taking one last, bitter look at the
Phoenix
. "I'm sorry," he whispered before turning and breaking into a run to catch up to the rest of his team.

             
The two klick run wasn't enough to wind him, but it did bring all the minute fitting imperfections of his armor into stark relief as the joints rubbed his inner thighs raw and pinched the skin of his elbows. They reached the last building that would conceal them before they reached the small service entrance to the compound and stopped. The sounds of fighting were now muted, which wasn't necessarily a good thing; they had either breached the facility or had killed the security personnel already. The portal through the solid wall that ringed the compound looked formidable. "Any ideas?" He asked.

              "I will breach the entry, Captain," Lucky said.

              "We'll cover you," Jason agreed as he watched, amazed, as Lucky's eyes began to glow a malevolent red and his weapons began to hum with power. This was the first time he had ever seen the synth in full "combat mode."
This should be interesting.

             
Lucky burst from cover and closed in on the armored door with incredible speed. When he closed to within twenty-five meters he fired two blasts from his shoulder mounted cannons that crushed in and scarred the door, but left it somewhat intact. To the astonishment of his crewmates, who were running behind him, Lucky fired the repulsors in his feet and launched himself into a forward, spinning somersault and hit the door like a cannonball. The door disappeared in a screech of tortured metal and snapping bolts. The others burst through the opening in the wall, weapons raised, as Lucky stood up as if it were nothing. Jason looked over at where the door lay and saw it was reinforced steel nearly an inch thick at the edges.
Damn!

              "Captain!" Crusher whispered urgently, pointing to the sky. One of the assault boats that had delivered the ground force from the fleet in orbit was coming around the anchor point and heading in their direction. Jason raised his railgun and let the optics feed him ranging data, adjusted his aim, and squeezed off two rounds with a roaring flash. The hypersonic projectiles decimated the spacecraft, tearing the aft drive section completely off and sending in careening into one of the support buildings where it exploded.

             
"If we survive this," Crusher said, awed, "you're building me one of those."