Starship Tomahawk (The Hive Invasion Book 2) (18 page)

The fighter
Jinx
separated from the
Tomahawk
with an audible clatter. Hardy gave the ventral thruster a short squirt, pushing the little craft away from the corvette. When he was a hundred meters from the ship he gave the dorsal thruster a matching squirt and the ship drifted to a halt.

He was afraid. He'd known combat would be frightening, but he'd never imagined it would be this bad. The enemy fleet, swarm, whatever you wanted to call it, was still a good twenty minutes away, but Hardy was on the ragged edge of panic.

Eyes squeezed shut, he watched his death play out hundreds of different ways, projected onto the inside of his eyelids by his overheated imagination. His flesh burned, his lungs hemorrhaged in vacuum, he was decapitated by flying debris ….

"Hardy!"

He jerked, banging his head on the back of the cockpit. He could hear the terrified rasp of his own breathing echoing in his helmet.
Is it loud enough to trigger the microphone? Am I broadcasting my panic?

Something stirred in the back of his mind, a horrible worm of memory.
I was saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' over and over. Into the radio.

"Hardy, do you copy?" The voice belonged to Gary Black, the fighter pilot from the
Achilles
. He'd survived the battle at the Gate. The
Hannibal
had retrieved him from the crippled remains of his fighter. Hardy had seen a picture of the ship, a melted wreck with the nose entirely ripped away. Hardy could still barely believe the man had survived.

"I copy," Hardy said. Shame washed over him, so strong it drove some of the fear from his mind. He wasn't quite thinking clearly, but the panic receded a bit.

"Listen, Hardy. I want you below the
Tomahawk
. I want you to circle wide on the port side and drop down beneath the corvette. Do you understand?"

The two men had the same rank. Black had no particular right to give Hardy orders, but he was at least fifteen years older and he had combat experience. Plus, he sounded so perfectly calm. Hardy obeyed him without hesitation, bringing the fighter sideways in a graceful curve. By the time he came to a stop beneath the
Tomahawk
he was, if not exactly calm, at least fully in control of himself.

"We're going to swap positions," Black said. "I want you to move to starboard, not too quickly. I'll move to port. When you're beneath the
Achilles
I'll be above the
Tomahawk
. Then I want you to loop around on the starboard side until you're above the
Achilles
. By that time I'll be underneath the
Tomahawk
. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Hardy turned the fighter to starboard, then gave the main engine couple of seconds of thrust. He tried to watch his scanner displays while also keeping an eye on both corvettes. Black's fighter was a glittering triangle above him, moving toward the
Tomahawk
. It was a lot to keep track of, and by the time he took his new position above the
Achilles
he was surprised to notice his fear was almost entirely gone.

That's why you've got me circling the corvettes. You're keeping me busy so I won't go squirrely.
It was an embarrassing realization, but anything was better than the mindless terror of a few minutes before.

"Here they come," said a voice over the radio. "Ten o'clock. About fifteen degrees above the horizon, forty degrees to port."

Hardy checked his orientation, made sure he was aligned with the corvettes, and squinted at the designated spot in the starscape before him. Was that a speck of light moving relative to the other stars? He brought up a tactical projection on his scanners.

A solitary alien ship leaped into focus. It was huge, maybe triple the mass of a corvette, and he gulped.
Why did I volunteer, again? I must have been insane.

Black started speaking, describing the approaching vessel, and Hardy frowned, confused.
Why is he telling them about the ship? The corvettes have better scanners than we do. Oh, right. The EMP. Black and I have the only working scanners.
He turned his attention back to the scan display, watching for any details Black might have missed.

For an instant a laser painted a fat red dot on the front of the alien craft. Then the Hive ship started to wobble as it approached, darting away from the laser again and again. The laser crew did its best, but Hardy could tell the aliens' shields, magnified by so many ships all clustered together, were holding up just fine.

The tactical projection showed amber lines emerging from both corvettes, marking the paths of lasers so he could avoid flying into harm's way. Orange lines appeared next, erupting from the rail guns. Both corvettes were firing everything they had at the approaching vessel. Hardy reached for his own controls, thinking to fire, then made himself relax. He didn't have the power or the massive ammunition reserves of the corvettes. He needed to hold his fire, save it for close range.

Pain hit him, an explosion in his skull that flashed momentarily through his entire body. It was gone in an instant, and his tactical display was gone with it. "EMP strike," Black said calmly over the radio.

Hardy glanced left. Sure enough, the clock display and menu that had hovered in the corner of his eye since puberty failed to appear.
Fine. This is what I trained for. Now I'm going to make them pay for all this inconvenience.

He tried to remember the range of the EMP weapon. It would tell him the range of the alien craft. Except the alien was closing rapidly, so it didn't really matter. He could see the ship with his naked eye now, like a sinister metal football plunging toward him.

Hardy expected the alien ship to break apart, as it had done in previous battles. The ship just kept lumbering in, though.

The aliens were trying a new tactic.

Closer and closer the alien ship came, until Hardy could see the lumpy outline of individual craft in the vast composite body. As the distance closed it became more difficult for the alien to evade, and the red glow of lasers shone almost continually on the front of the ship. The alien shield seemed to be holding, though, the glow dissipating across an energy barrier a handspan from the hull.

Rail gun rounds ripped into the alien craft, and Hardy saw component ships take damage. It didn't seem to faze the attacking vessel, though. It charged the
Tomahawk
, a black circle on the front of the hull beginning to glow red.

When the Hive ship and the
Tomahawk
were a dozen meters apart the corvette spun on its axis. For a moment the side of the
Tomahawk
glowed red with terrible heat. Then the
Tomahawk
raced away, fleeing toward Ariadne. The Hive ship pursued, racing to catch up with the corvette. Hardy followed as well, and he saw the
Achilles
spin and race after the Hive ship.

Hardy kept his fighter just above an imaginary column connecting the
Achilles
to the alien ship. Within that column would be a storm of laser and rail gun fire. Hardy raced along a scant six or seven meters above the danger zone, and tilted his nose down momentarily to try a quick burst from his own lasers and rail guns.

If he did any damage he couldn’t see it. Frustrated, he returned to flying along just above the alien ship, an inconsequential gnat not worth swatting.

The Hive ship bobbed and twisted as it flew, evading some of the fire pouring into it from the
Achilles
. The range was too close for the alien to remain unscathed, but from what Hardy could see, the
Achilles
wasn't having much effect. The lasers did nothing, and the rail gun rounds either missed, or did little damage on impact.

In fact, it was almost as if the glittering stream of projectiles arced away from the Hive ship in the instant before impact.

Hardy frowned, watching. He tilted his fighter for a better view, flying almost upside-down from the perspective of the
Achilles
. If the Hive ship had an "up" or "down" he couldn't tell.

Each round would be about the size of his fist. They were too small and moved too quickly for him to properly see one round. A stream of projectiles, though, made a glittering line. He could see two such lines leaving the nose of the
Achilles
and reaching toward the alien ship.

Where they curved slightly to port, either missing the ship completely or grazing the edge of the hull.

The alien rotated, putting the side that had been her port now at the top. And Hardy saw a stream of rail gun rounds flash past between him and the alien craft. They were deflecting upward now. And they were moving slower by the time they reached the alien ship. He was almost sure of it.

"
Achilles
," he said. "The aliens are using some kind of magnetic deflection on your rail gun rounds. They deflect upward. You need to adjust your aim accordingly." The alien twisted beneath him, and he said, "Now it'll be deflecting to starboard. Aim more to port and you'll score better hits."

He didn't get a reply, which was fine. He needed all the attention he could muster to keep up with the alien. The
Tomahawk
was twisting and diving and jerking to avoid the Hive ship, and the Hive ship was matching every maneuver, plus adding in twists and jerks of its own.

The Hive ship was faster, and only frantic evasion saved the
Tomahawk
from destruction. Again and again the Hive ship closed and scorched the corvette. Hardy couldn't see lasting damage, but hull plates had to be twisting and weakening.

The
Achilles
continued to spray rail gun rounds into the alien ship. It was a grim battle of attrition, and Hardy couldn't yet tell who would win. If the
Tomahawk
fell, he realized, the
Achilles
would be completely at the mercy of the alien ship.

And there was the small matter of the other alien fleet, the one busy destroying the Gate.

A stream of rail gun fire tore into the back of the Hive ship, ripping the hull of one of the small composite ships. Hardy looked down at the exposed innards where the tough outer skin was breached.
Maybe I can finally make a contribution.

He dove in, firing lasers and rail guns. The lasers did nothing, and he stopped firing them. His thumb-sized rail gun rounds, though, bit deep. Every third round was explosive, and he saw bits of metal and plastic erupt inside the exposed cavity. Dark fluid sprayed out, then quickly froze, and Hardy grinned as he pulled back and brought the fighter around for another pass.

As he started to dive again, though, something shifted on the hull of the enemy ship. A huge piece of the ship broke away, and for a moment he thought he'd done real damage.

Then he saw the truth. A smaller composite ship, maybe five or six of the smallest craft, was separating from the parent ship. Like a corvette launching a fighter, the alien was sending out a smaller, more manoeuvrable craft to swat to the gnat that had finally become annoying.

"Oh, hell." He hauled back on the control stick, pulling away from the smaller craft as it came toward him. He realized almost instantly he was making a mistake. The smaller ship would have weaker shields. It would be vulnerable to fire from the
Achilles
, even the
Tomahawk
. He should have stayed close to the corvettes.

Even as he pulled away to starboard, though, the
Tomahawk
jerked to port and dove. In an instant the corvettes were hundreds of meters away, with the small Hive ship in the way.

Hardy retreated, then dove and turned, trying to race past the alien ship. It darted in close, the heat weapon glowed red, and Hardy watched in horror as the tip of his starboard wing turned red, bubbled, and melted away.

After that he forgot about the corvettes. He dove and twisted and rolled, frantic to escape. He tried fleeing in a straight line, but the other ship quickly overtook him. The universe became a nightmare of terrified retreat, with death hovering scant meters away.

He didn't fire back. He never had a chance. The alien ship was always above him, below him, beside him. It hovered like a mosquito, always close. He had no room to manoeuver, no time to make a plan. Death was always an instant away. He could do nothing but react, react, and react again.

Finally he dove toward the planet. A screaming voice in the back of his mind told him his fighter with its stubby damaged wings might handle atmosphere better than the lumpy alien craft. He flew straight at the bulk of the planet, jerking from side to side to avoid the worst of the heat weapon but maintaining his overall course. The planet filled his view, mud-colored and crater-pocked. Closer and closer he raced, and finally he felt the buffeting impact of the upper atmosphere.

He brought the nose up a few degrees and sent the fighter spiraling downward, burrowing deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. The Hive ship plunged along right beside him, keeping up effortlessly. He tried rising, banking, diving. The Hive ship matched him move for move. If anything, it handled atmosphere better than he did.