Starship Tomahawk (The Hive Invasion Book 2) (23 page)

Hammett stood behind the captain's chair on the bridge of the
Theseus
, gazing aft and fighting the urge to fidget. The bridge, designed for a very small crew, felt crowded with Hammett and Sanjari there, along with a couple of colonists named Eddie and Hal. The two of them were usually the entire crew. In fact, Eddie often flew the ship by himself. They sat side by side at the helm consoles. Hammett had wiped a film of dust from the captain's seat before he first sat down. Apparently no one ever used it.

The rock was visible to the naked eye now. It loomed like a red-brown apple, slowly growing as it approached. Since the rock was aft of the ship, Hammett felt as if he were fleeing, locked in a deadly race that he was losing. He pushed the thought away, wishing the enemy would hurry up and reach the
Theseus
. The waiting was fraying his nerves.

"I've got movement, Captain," Sanjari announced, and Hammett felt a tiny shiver run up his back.
Be careful of what you wish for.
"I think they finally saw us."

Hammett circled the captain's chair, sat down, and brought up a navigational display. He could see the rock as a green lump in the projection. A swarm of tiny blips came into focus, sharpening as they moved far enough from the rock for the scanners to differentiate them. As he watched, the smaller blips merged together. One blip after another disappeared, blending with the amalgamated craft, until a single glowing dot remained. The distance between the dot and the rock slowly grew as the alien ship moved toward the
Theseus
.

"Sound General Quarters," Hammett said. The crew, after hours of relentless drilling, was resting. Now they would rise and move to their posts. Were they as nervous as he was?
It's worse for them
, he decided.
It's their first time.

"I said sound General Quarters," Hammett repeated, frowning.
The fight hasn't even started and things are already falling apart.

"I told everyone," Eddie said.

Hammett, who had been waiting for a drumbeat announcement, scowled. The crew had drilled without using their implants. Every colonist on board still had implants, though, and the Navy personnel among them would realize quickly what was going on. "Fine," he said, and turned his attention back to the nav display.

The alien craft was closing quickly, and he wondered if he'd be able to see it if he looked over his shoulder. "They'll close with us and try to burn us," he said. "Let's give 'em a taste of the main aft battery."

"Right-o," Eddie said cheerfully. He wasn't about to adopt military etiquette, and Hammett, a guest on his ship, wasn't about to insist. "Point-blank range?"

"Point-blank," Hammett confirmed. The last thing he wanted to do was miss with his opening salvo and warn the Hive ship that he had a potent new weapon.

A young man with a halo of curly dark hair stuck his head through the bridge doorway. "I'm ready with the drum." He held up a thick steel wrench longer than his arm and grinned. His job was to relay Hammett's orders to the rest of the ship by bashing the wrench against the struts that supported the catwalk outside.

"Stand by," said Hammett. He was tempted to use the crew's implants instead, but everyone had drilled with drum signals, and Eddie and Hal had enough to concentrate on already. "We'll be firing the main battery aft, on my signal."

The drummer nodded and rested the wrench on his shoulder.

Closer and closer the Hive ship came. Hammett twisted around in his seat and saw it sweeping in from behind, a behemoth, a lumpy shape like a deadly potato, growing as it approached. He turned his back, demonstrating a calm indifference he didn't feel, and Sanjari gave him a strained grin. Eddie and Hal didn't notice. They were focused completely on their consoles.

"It's coming up on our port side," Eddie said, his voice shrill.

"That's fine," Hammett said. "It can't hurt us. Fourier metal, remember?" He had serious doubts about the untested shielding, but he wanted the crew calm.

"Turning!" Hal said, and his hands moved on the controls. The stars, which hadn't wavered in hours, slid past the windows as the ship tilted. Hal cried, "Now!"

"Fire!" said Hammett, and the drummer vanished from the doorway. Three echoing clangs rang out, and Hammett stood, looking through the aft windows.

The alien ship filled his view. He didn't see the nine huge rounds as they hit, but he saw an eruption of debris. Shrapnel splattered against the steelglass, and a spent round went tumbling past. Another volley slammed into the Hive ship, then another, and suddenly the void was full of individual ships swarming in every direction.

"Cease fire!" He didn't even hear the drumbeat. He moved to the window, flinched involuntarily as a small Hive ship flashed past just a few meters away, then flinched again as a stream of small rail gun rounds tore the little craft to shreds.

For a short, terrible time a storm raged around the
Theseus
. Eddie and Hal didn't touch their controls. They just flew straight, giving the gun crews a stable platform to fire from. Steel canisters filled the space around the
Theseus
in a lethal storm, while Hive ships dodged and twisted and died.

Five small ships came together in a clump directly in front of the bridge. They found a blind spot just aft of a gun turret, and the bottom of the amalgamated ship glowed red. Hammett held his breath, waiting for hull plates to buckle and twist, but nothing happened.

"It works," said Eddie, disbelief in his voice. "That furry metal. It actually works!"

For thirty long seconds the alien hung there, hugging the hull of the
Theseus
. Then the Hive ship broke apart, smaller ships fleeing in five directions. The entire attack force fled with it, pulling rapidly out of the effective range of the rail guns. Hammett saw a small ship jerk to the side as a round hit it, then straighten out and streak away.

A few seconds later, the
Theseus
was alone.

Eddie let out a cheer, and Hal slapped him on the back. The drummer stuck his head into the bridge, looked around, then stepped back outside. He shouted something Hammett couldn't make out, and someone in the hold whooped.

"Reduce thrust," Hammett said, resuming his seat. "Launch the
Wasp
."

The
Wasp
was a little two-person survey ship, designed for taking samples from asteroids and other space rocks. It was small, maneuverable, and equipped with a powerful laser. The laser, designed to drill straight down when the
Wasp
was on the surface of an asteroid, was pretty much useless as a weapon. Today, though, it would serve a different function.

"Frank," said Eddie, "find Mr. Nicholson and take the
Wasp
out." He turned in his seat and grinned at Hammett. "They never did fry us. Thank God! I don't know what I would do without my implants."

"You get used to it," Hammett said. "Stay sharp."

Eddie nodded and turned back to his console.

A buzzer sounded, warning everyone the main cargo hatch was opening. A long minute passed, and at last the buzzer went silent. "Doors are shut," Hal announced. "The
Wasp
is out."

"Stay close," Hammett said. "We're the only cover they've got."

The stars swung past the windows as Hal brought the ship around. The rock loomed now through the forward windows, vast and sinister, looking as big as a planet. It was less than a kilometer across, but it seemed impossibly vast at close range.

The
Wasp
rose into view ahead of the nose of the
Theseus
. The little prospecting ship had the same tall, thin profile as a corvette, although on a much smaller scale. The ship couldn't have been more than two meters wide, with a couple of steelglass bubbles on the top marking the positions of the pilot and co-pilot. A colonist named Thursby would be at the controls, with Nicholson behind him.

Six articulating legs extended from each side, just above the bottom of the hull. They gave the
Wasp
an insect-like appearance which someone had amplified by painting the hull in alternating black and yellow stripes. The little ship had a sleek appearance which was marred by a wire basket welded to the back. The basket, designed to carry tools and samples, contained only one object, a metal cylinder painted red and yellow to warn of its lethal contents.

The
Theseus
had made one stop before heading into deep space. The ship had docked with the
Achilles
and picked up a small, deadly package.

The warhead from the ship's nuclear missile.

The
Wasp
raced ahead of the
Theseus
, and Hammett suppressed a curse. The little ship was unarmed and completely unprotected by Fourier metal. It was terribly vulnerable. Still, it might slip over to the rock unnoticed. Perhaps distance from the
Theseus
was the best thing.

He checked his nav display. The Hive ships formed a loose cloud on the far side of the rock, several kilometers distant. They were far enough away to be just about impossible to hit with rail gun fire, but close enough to react quickly if the
Theseus
did something effective. The aliens were probably gambling that the humans wouldn't be able to do much of anything at all.

Or they were biding their time while reinforcements came rushing in.

If we were just here to nudge the rock sideways, that strategy would work. They could take their time figuring out how to beat us, then put the rock back on track. Let's hope our little firecracker takes them by surprise.

"I don't like that sensor shadow," Sanjari said. It was impossible to know what might be happening on the far side of the rock, no way to know how many ships hid there.

"It works in our favor too," Hammett said. "The
Wasp
is already invisible to most of them."

The little survey ship was almost to the surface of the rock. It would land, burn a deep hole with the laser, and plant the nuke in the heart of the rock. With any luck the rock would be blasted into fragments, each chunk spinning off into the depths of space at a high velocity.

"The
Wasp
is touching down," Sanjari said.

Eddie turned to grin at Hal. "Everything's working! Maybe this won't be so bad."

As if on cue, a fresh blip appeared beside the rock on Hammett's scanner. Something was coming around the rock. Something big. "Line us up on that new target!" he barked. "Drummer, be ready to sound Fire Forward."

There was a clatter as the drummer dropped his wrench on the catwalk outside, then scrambled to pick it up. The rock fell away as the nose of the
Theseus
started to rise.

"Too late," Sanjari said.

Hammett had only a brief glimpse of the Hive ship. It was a ring of metal, a couple of dozen of the little ships joined together in a circle. Within the circle a rock hovered, a fist of stone a good eight meters wide. Even as Hammett took in the details a flash of white light surrounded the ships and the rock.

And the rock came hurtling toward the
Theseus
.

Lieutenant Nicholson floated beside the
Wasp
, one hand on a landing strut, holding himself in place, his other hand up to shield his face. He hadn't realized just how powerful the
Wasp's
laser was. The barrel of the laser was a ring a meter wide. It blasted a column of incredible energy into the stone beneath the ship, and gobs of molten rock came bubbling up, bumping the underside of the ship or touching the struts and making him flinch.

"It's reasonably safe," Thursby said. "The stone cools quickly." He reached out a glove and used the thickly-padded back to swat a floating glob of stone. The bubble had already hardened, and went drifting off into the void.

"Safe," Nicholson said. "Right." He edged back as a glowing ball of stone the size of an egg drifted past his thighs. "I won't test it, just the same."

Thursby's teeth showed briefly in a smile through the faceplate of his helmet. "Chicken." A moment later he put a lie to his own words, dancing back as a large glob of stone came dangerously close to his boots.

"I didn't think the laser would be this big." The warhead was no bigger than a person's head. The hole would be much bigger.

Thursby lifted one hand in an exaggerated gesture typical of seasoned spacers. Subtle gestures and facial expressions didn't translate well in vac suits. "She's only got two sizes of laser. This big." He held his thumb and fingertip a few millimeters apart. "And that big." He gestured at the hole they were boring into the rock. Less stone was bubbling out now. Was the rock being vaporized?

"It's designed for putting an access tunnel in a big rock," he continued. "A claustrophobic tunnel, granted, but you could wriggle into it, provided you weren't too fat."

"How long will it take to reach the middle of this rock?"

Thursby lifted his hand again, indicating a shrug. "Depends on what the rock's made of. At least ten minutes. Probably closer to thirty."

Thirty minutes?
His nerves were already stretched to the breaking point, and it hadn't been five minutes yet.
I'm not sure I can stand thirty minutes.

"At least the ship does all the work," Thursby said. "All we have to do is drop in the bomb and fly away. Oops, here comes another one." He edged back as another blob of molten rock floated toward him.

Nicholson ignored him, putting both hands on the strut and swinging his body sideways. This put more distance – and the body of the ship – between him and the melting stone. He pulled his way along to the back of the little ship, where he opened the cargo basket and drew out the warhead.

It was such a simple-looking device, just a metal cylinder with a couple of tiny access ports and holes for the screws that would attach it to a missile. Nicholson and Christine Goldfarb had rigged a timer, a plastic gadget with a spring-loaded dial that could be set by giving it a twist. There were no electronic parts to be fried by an EMP weapon. Just a battery and a set of contacts that would close when the timer hit zero. The battery would be enough to ignite the explosive shell around the ball of plutonium at the center.

Cradling the cylinder gently against his chest, he pulled himself one-handed from strut to strut until he was once again beside the laser. He peered under the belly of the ship to look at Thursby, who had his back turned. "Thursby. What is it?"

Thursby closed a hand around a strut, levered himself down until his feet were against the surface of the rock, and used his legs to press his shoulders against the underside of the
Wasp's
hull. That freed his hands, and he put a hand on the butt of the pistol belted around his waist. "I thought I saw something."

A chill went through Nicholson, and he let go of the strut, giving it a little nudge with his fingers so his body spun around. When his back was to the ship he reached back and grabbed the strut, stopping himself. His gaze swept the horizon a few meters away. To his relief nothing moved.

Then Thursby swore, and half a dozen spiky shapes rose into view. Nicholson let go of the strut, drew his pistol, and fired as alien troops came skittering across the stone toward him.

His first shot was lucky. An alien thrashed, then came loose from the surface, floating back and up with legs twitching. The next few shots went wild, the recoil pushing him back and turning him. His shoulders bumped the hull of the
Wasp
, steadying him, and he poured half a dozen aimed shots at the nearest alien.

Nicholson honestly couldn’t tell if the creature had a vac suit. The alien was so strange he couldn't be sure what was artificial and what was part of its body. Two limbs came up, deflecting his shots, as the other four limbs kept marching forward. Then a shot made it through and the alien just let go of the rock and let itself drift away.

Several more aliens closed in. Nicholson let go of the pistol for an instant, letting it float in the void before him as he grabbed the handle on the timer and twisted. A bright orange plastic tag stuck out from under the dial, an extra safety feature so a bump against the dial couldn’t blow up the
Theseus
by accident. He grabbed the tag and ripped it free. The bomb was live. If the aliens killed him, the nuke would still go off.

The aliens were terrifyingly close, but they advanced slowly, clinging to the surface of the rock with every step. Still cradling the bomb against his chest, Nicholson grabbed the floating pistol and took aim at the nearest alien.

The ship moved behind him, spoiling his aim.

Nicholson looked up, staring in horrified disbelief as the
Wasp
lifted away from the surface of the rock. He said, "Thursby, you cockroach!" Then he jammed the pistol back in its holster and put a hand on the thruster controls on his belt. A pair of aliens closed on him, forelimbs reaching out to pierce his suit, and he hit the thrust button.

Streams of compressed air sprayed from nozzles on either side of his belt and he rose from the surface of the rock. As he looked down he saw several more aliens who'd been right behind him, crossing the space where the ship had been. A stretching limb missed the toe of his left boot by a hairsbreadth.

He couldn't fly away, though. Not holding a bomb. He couldn't just shove the bomb toward the rock and hope for the best, either. No, there was only one thing to do, if he could find the courage to do it.

On the lighter side, he told himself, it was the last thing the aliens below would expect.

Aliens swarmed the area where the ship had been. There were at least a dozen, probably more, clinging to the rock all around the
Wasp's
landing site. Nicholson could see the laser-drilled hole, though, a dark circle growing smaller every second as momentum carried him farther from the rock.

Changing the angle of his body was awkward with the canister clasped to his chest. He took it in both hands instead, holding it at arms' length, using it to change his center of gravity as he contorted himself. When his head was toward the rock and his feet were pointed into deep space he tucked the bomb against his chest again and gave the thrusters another squirt.

In he went, diving head-first toward the alien troops. The bomb was throwing him off, though, messing with his sense of balance. He tucked the canister between his knees, praying he didn't lose it, and hit the thruster again, twisting his body to adjust his trajectory. It gave him more speed than he would have liked, and he plunged toward the rock.

He aimed for the hole, but he was off by a meter or so. In fact, he seemed to be heading directly for an alien soldier. At the last second he embarrassed himself by screaming. The startled alien brought a couple of limbs up to protect itself and he piled into it. For a horrible moment he found himself clinging to a couple of alien arms, staring at the steel coverings that encased each limb. Then he pushed with one arm, pulled with the other, and heaved himself feet-first toward the gaping maw of the laser-drilled bore in the rock.

The sharp tip of an arm hit the side of his head, jarring him. The blow didn't have much force, though, because the alien itself was floating free. He'd knocked it loose from the surface when he struck. His head snapped to the side, and when he straightened he saw the alien spinning helplessly just above the stone.

Nicholson didn't spin. His legs were in the bore hole, which gave him much-needed stability. He reached down with both hands and caught the edges of the hole. The stone there was rough to the touch, bubbled and lumpy from melting. It gave him a good grip, and he pulled himself in, dropping below the surface of the rock even as the first aliens reached him. He saw steely limbs slash through the space above him as he dropped out of reach.

The hole was deeper than he'd expected. The laser on the
Wasp
had real power. With his head and shoulders well below the surface he still hadn't hit bottom. He bent his legs, which put his knees against one side of the hole and his hips against the other, bracing him in place. With his hands he grabbed the bomb and gave it a shove, sending it tumbling down toward the bottom of the shaft. With a little luck it would ricochet around in the depths and not come bouncing back up.

Then, doing his best to push the bomb from his thoughts, he drew his pistol and looked up at the mouth of the hole.

A meter of width had seemed extravagant when he was watching the laser drill at work. From inside the hole it seemed downright miserly. He had to hold his pistol close to her body and tuck in his elbows just to get his arms above his head. He extended the gun, pointing it at the circle of stars above, and waited for the aliens to come.

For a moment all he could see was stars. Then a spiky shape appeared, and he started shooting. He emptied the magazine, ejected it, and fumbled for another one. As he reloaded, though, the aliens drew back.

"Yeah, that's right," Nicholson snarled. "Yeah, you better run away. I got lots more where that came from."

"Oh, for God's sake," said Thursby. "Quit fooling around in that hole and get out here."

Nicholson wasted a moment gaping up at the stars. Then he scrambled up until his head and shoulders stuck out of the hole.

Chunks of alien soldiers floated all around him. The
Wasp
hovered above and to one side, and Nicholson saw the laser drill glow for a moment. It vaporized a retreating soldier, leaving a couple of limbs twitching in the vacuum.

Nicholson took a good grip on the edge of the hole, got his feet under him, shouted, "Here I come!" and kicked off. A quick twist at the last moment let him hit the side of the little ship shoulder-first, and he grabbed for a handle. From there it took just a moment to pull himself up and into the open rear cockpit.

"Bomb's set," he said. "Not much time left." He had no idea how much time had passed since he'd twisted the dial.

"Right," said Thursby, and accelerated away from the rock, curving the
Wasp
to one side, getting them away from the bore hole. "What would be a safe distance, do you think?"

"Ariadne would be nice. Earth would be better."

"That's helpful," he muttered. "Looks like we've got company."

Half a dozen small Hive ships came looping around the rock, racing after the
Wasp
. Even one of them would be enough to destroy the little survey ship. The Hive ships wouldn't be stupid enough to fly in front of the laser drill. They'd get up beside the
Wasp
and burn through her hull.

Nicholson said, "Maybe we could-"

The bomb exploded.

There was a flash of white light, bright enough to leave spots on Nicholson's retina. He squeezed his eyes shut, and by the time he opened them a moment later everything had changed.

The rock was gone. The space where it had been was empty. He looked for the Hive ships that had been targeting the
Wasp
and couldn't see them either.

"It looks like we cracked the thing in half," Thursby said.

Nicholson took a slow look around. He spotted a chunk of rock off to one side, spinning as it drifted away. Only when he saw a Hive ship beside it did he get a sense of scale. The rock was hundreds of meters long, a jagged slab maybe a quarter the size of the original stone.

In another direction – 'up' from the perspective of his seat in the
Wasp
– he saw a second chunk, easily twice the size of the first one. It was closer, deflected less because of its mass. It was still hurtling toward Ariadne at a high velocity, he realized. They all were. The rock would miss by tens of thousands of kilometers, perhaps hundreds of thousands. The planet was safe.

Unless the aliens got to work redirecting the remains of their rock, of course. The defense of Ariadne wasn't over.

"Good work," he said to Thursby. "Oh, and thanks for saving my life. Sorry I called you a cockroach."

"I've been called worse," he said cheerfully. "I have two ex-wives. You'll have to work a lot harder if you want to offend me with harsh language."

"I'll keep it in mind. Let's get back to the
Theseus
." He twisted in his seat, trying to look aft. "Do you see it?"

"Seven o'clock," he said, his voice suddenly bleak. "Looks like they're in trouble."