The Battle for the Ringed Planet (40 page)

“I know it’s a hard choice, Marty.”

“One you don’t have to make.” Then he rubbed his temple and sighed, “I’m sorry, Lars.”

Suddenly a warning beep code sounded from a holo display on a technician’s consul, and the young man with a silver ear piece glanced up meeting the eyes of Admiral Bennion, “Sir!” In an excited voice he relayed the data on the visual display, “Tunnel activity right off our starboard bow!”

“What?” the tall thin leader with a grey roof of hair turned with Lars peering out one of the large rectangular windows.

“Distance, Thomas?” Lars turned back to the technician, a sergeant.

“Less than 30 kilometers!”

“That’s suicide!” The stiff XO growled, “What’s coming in?”

But Martin quickly interjected, “Code Yellow, alert all gun crews.” Then he turned to another technician, and woman with dark eyes and matching hair named Rhonda, “Where is the CAP?” The CAP meant Combat Air/Space patrol.

“Coming around from the Juno, Sir.”

Then the other technician, Thomas, reported, “One Hawkeye and two fighters, Solvairs!”

--

Torian clenched his teeth to fight the momentary daze coming out of the wormhole as he slammed his fist down on the armrest. As his eyes adjusted, he saw flames on his left and feared they were burning up, but when he focused, he saw that one of his pursuers had entered the wormhole too late and had broken apart. Then the warning bell sounded indicating they were targeted, and he instantly kicked in the thrusters and rolled to the right towards a looming battle cruiser. Plasma bolts, invisible to the naked eye save for a slight distortion, whizzed across the nose of the Hawkeye. No time to glance at the holo, he knew that fighter was tight and close, and faster. Pulling a lever the LRRS officer ejected the last tunnel pod hoping that this enemy pilot was as naïve as the others. 

“The Europa! Can we make 30 clicks?” Monica shouted.

  An explosion on his holo directly behind the Hawkeye, before he could detonate the pod told him that this fighter pilot was no novice, shooting the tunnel drive to pieces and gaining on them rapidly. Torian weaved and then made a snap decision to roll, but the enemy pilot anticipated his move and scored a hit on the upper fuselage of the Hawkeye.

“Shields gone!” Monica shouted, as the vessel vibrated with a painful crunching noise, but he knew, wasting no time and cursing to himself for making such a stupid mistake. This time he weaved and then corrected quickly and feigned a roll to the left. One more hit and they would be blood and chrome titanium bits. This pilot knew Hawkeyes well because he never got directly on their tail so that they could engage their rear guns.

“Monica, upload the intel to the Europa, I don’t think we’re going to make it to the bay alive.”

He dived and the Solvair followed tightly, a fraction to the right waiting for Torian to make just one tiny mistake.

“He’s jamming us! We can’t send!”

--

“That Hawkeye is closing at full speed, on a direct intercept course with us!” Lars shouted, “What is he doing?”

“You’re the pilot, Lars, you tell me.” Then he turned to Thomas, “Who is it?”

“Hawkeye 221, sir …”

“And the fighter?”

The technician glanced up, “All black with a gold winged lion symbol on the wings!”

Alarmed, Lars caught Martin’s eye, “There’s only one source for that insignia …”

“The Immortal Fleet, get me the pilot of the Hawkeye, we need that intel!”

Lars stepped forward and watched out the window, “Marty, they’re not going to make it to the launch bay, that fighter is all over them!”

Martin leaned over a consul and keyed in a frequency, “This is Admiral Bennion to all defensive gun crews, as soon as that Solvair fighter is in range, switch to manual, and fire at will!”

--

Fresh from a hot shower and a meal of ham and eggs and toast wearing an oversized plain navy blue flight suit with a new Con for watching holos, Siiri felt a lot better as she was escorted back to her medical holding room by a friendly dark haired nurse, Lieutenant (j.g.) Dolce Paulo
.
She wanted to smirk at Agent Kavan Tass now that they took the shield down despite his angry protests, but he and a couple of other medical staff were watching a holo and peering out the round window next to her room.    

“What’s going on?” she asked casually, wanting to look around the ship some more if they would let her.

Tass held up his hand, “That pilot is crazy! He’s going to impact the hull!”

She saw a holo of the side of the Europa and two small vessels racing towards the battle cruiser, and then a burst of static from the audio feed, “This is Europa actual, Hawkeye 221, upload your intel, now!”

“This is Hawkeye 221 …” Torian’s voice was breaking up “…he’s jamming, attempting to shake him …”

Then Tass glanced back at Siiri as her eyes grew wide recognizing Torian’s voice, “Torian!”

“Son …” Admiral Bennion’s voice betrayed a hint of compassion, “Eject, it’s your only chance …”

“Negative Admiral, he’ll destroy the ship and the intel … one option left …”

Maybe it was a wave of sympathy for the girl transfixed on the holo, not wanting to see her grief-stricken reaction when her boyfriend became bloody debris, but Kavan Tass lowered his voice close to Siiri, “I don’t think you should watch.”

“Shut up!”

Dolce put her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

--

Never adept at multitasking, Torian struggled to keep the vessel meters ahead of a fatal canon blast by maneuvering and out-flying his opponent. Every second counted and Monica never gave the enemy a break firing the rear guns constantly to the point where he was sure they had no more ammunition. The Hawkeye was only slightly faster now that he had dumped the pods, but it was not enough. The Solvair’s combat thrusters were more maneuverable and time was an ally to their enemy. Sweat ran down his cheeks under his helmet and his eyes strained reading the HUD data streams and making mental calculations. Tristan had bragged about knowing a Starhawk pilot that had made a certain impossible maneuver and it was Torian’s only chance.

--

“Where’s the CAP?” Lars raged at Rhonda, the female technician.

“100 kilometers out at full speed, vectoring in,” she replied quickly, and then added, “The Solvair is in gun range, sir!”

Martin ran his hand through his grey top hair, speaking on the intercom, “Gunners, open up, but make sure you have a clear shot at the Solvair! I want that Hawkeye intact!”

--

“What are you doing?” Monica raised her voice in alarm as Torian turned sharply towards the Europa directly at the armored starboard side. A Moon class battle cruiser was exactly 522 meters in length, with relatively smooth sides except for a few defensive guns evenly placed.

“Watch and pray …” inhaling sharply he suddenly did a snap roll judging the distance. Torian had a knack for spatial calculations that he could do in his head, and this one would be the most important in his life. The Hawkeye, with the Solvair maneuvering close behind, angled toward the smooth side of the cruiser. The bottom side of the sleek scout vessel was about to crash into the giant starship.

“Out of ammo!” Monica reported. He hoped the rebel pilot would not clue in or he would take them out getting directly on their tail. Torian brought the Hawkeye on what anyone else could see as a landing approach on the side of the huge war vessel, though the landing gear was still up. Millimeter by centimeter, the thick underbelly of the Hawkeye glided closer to the armored hull. Fortunately, the ships guns opened up on the enemy fighter, providing a temporary distraction as Torian guided the Hawkeye fraction by fraction, until something unexpected happened: he began to rub on the Europa’s shields!

“I don’t believe it!” The red haired pilot exclaimed, “You’re skimming the shields!”

He eyed the outer skin temperature, approaching critical, as disrupted energy flew behind like the backwash of an aircraft, causing a distortion field and blinding the instruments of the enemy pilot, as well as impairing his maneuverability. Frustrated, the rebel broke off pursuit close behind the Hawkeye to try another angle. It was what Torian had been hoping for, a fatal mistake! The pilot forgot about the guns on the Europa and a gunner scored a direct hit, blasting the nimble Solvair into chunks of glowing red debris.

--

A collective sigh of relieve went up on the bridge as Torian’s voice broke through on the intercom, “Uploading intel!”

Thomas glanced up at the hopeful Admiral and nodded, “Receiving.”

“Is it the Immortal fleet?” Lars strode up to the consul where the technician read the floating screens.

“Yes, sir, he got it all, cruiser classes and types, numbers, positions, 25 capital ships in all … including our missing Imperium Sword class cruiser!”

A smile swept over the Admiral’s face, “We’ve never got a report on the exact count of the Immortal Fleet … Thomas, what is their distance to Earth from the Krallas System?”

“Using their oldest cruiser, they’ll need two tunnels from the Trallas system to reach earth.”

“All right, Rhonda, whose up?”

“Sir, the Prometheus has a Hawkeye on standby.”

“Ok, let’s get that intel to the Hawkeye and launch it to earth. Hopefully they’ll get there in time to warn the Earth 1st fleet and bring in reinforcements.” Martin’s smile now turned to worry, and then he glanced back at the busy sergeant technician, “Thomas, who is the pilot out there?”

“Ah … Lieutenant Monica Poehler.”

Glimpsing out the bridge window Lars replied, “No that was a male voice, the LRRS tech? Is the pilot injured?”

 “Sir, she has a LRRS officer, Lieutenant Torian McCallum.”

--

“I’m washed up,” the pretty red haired pilot sighed.

“Says who?”

“I froze McCallum. You saved our lives, and I thank you, but my career is over.”

They drifted casually along side the Europa while a flight of four Starhawks, the CAP, soared by with the symbol of a charging cougar on their tails, from the ‘Wildcat’ squadron, “Show offs!” Torian grumbled as he slid some virtual screens with his gloved fingers, “There, I changed the logs, well, except for this conversation, which I’ll fix in a moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, Tristan froze, too, and he was the best pilot in the fleet, well, Hawkeye, anyway. We tunnelled into an Imperium armada. I just altered the log holos to show residual static from the wormhole tunnel. I took over and told you I could get us out. You protested, cussed a few choice words, and that’s that. Now to fix this convo.”

“But I know what really happened.”

“So, anybody could freeze like that, why lose a good pilot?”

“Thank you, McCal…Torian.”

After a few alterations to the log he handed controls over to Monica and she began to steer the Hawkeye, sporting a completely charred underbelly, towards the landing bay underneath the Europa.

“Landing gear unresponsive,” she commented as they rose into the hanger bay.

“Oops.”

The Hawkeye landed with an unceremonious thud on her underside and then crumbled leaning to the starboard side.

“I’m not paying for that.” Torian winced as the Hawkeye groaned, more damaged than he had they had thought from skimming the shields. Since they could not climb out underneath, normal for a Hawkeye, crews immediately swarmed the vessel with a grounding cable and floating anti-grav platforms. Technicians and ground crews inspected the vessel and one of them selected a panel underneath the transteel cockpit bubble on the starboard side causing a hissing sound from leaking air pressure. The entire bubble assembly began to lift up, the emergency exit for the Hawkeye crew and Torian and Monica began to remove their helmets, met by the wide grin from a puffy faced sergeant technician.

“Congratulations, Sir and Ma’am, no one ever survives meeting the Immortal Fleet!” and he glanced down at the blackened hull, “Fancy flying Ma’am!”

She jerked her thumb to Torian, “That was all his doing.”

Both officers clambered out of the cockpit and jumped down on the floating platform with the bubbly technician who selected a button on the control panel lowering them to the hangar floor. Both he and the female pilot received collective pats on the backs from the ground crew and Torian glimpsed up at the CAG and Dekker standing up the stairs towards to observer room, the black senior officer chewing a cigar with an approving stare.

When they ascended Monica saluted followed by Torian and the CAG lazily returned one back, “I see you did some unauthorized flying Lieutenant … again!” He glanced hard at the young man while Dekker grinned.

“I … ah … she made me.”

“What?” Monica stared at Torian.

“Well, I don’t really care what happened between you and Poehler, LRRS techs have been known to take over when their pilots have lost control. Either way, no Hawkeye has ever skimmed the shields before, and the one or two Starhawks that did broke up. Well done, son.” He shook Torian’s hand.

The CAG took out his cigar and glanced at Dekker, “Now we’ll have a briefing in about 20 minutes, we’ll meet you then.”

They saluted and the CAG went down to talk to the ground crew officer while Torian and Monica entered the corridor and then he turned away, “Where are you going?” she asked.

“To see someone.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t happen to have blonde hair?”

“Yeah, I may be a little late.”

“Don’t keep the CAG waiting while he’s in a good mood!”

Torian walked and jogged through the metal tunnels and bulkheads towards the sickbay, clambering up ladders until he saw the medical logo, the ‘snake on a stick’ as everyone called it on thick double doors that slide open when he entered.

Wandering passed the wounded on stretchers, he spied a nurse changing the bandages on a burn victim’s hand with new skin grown in the laboratory so that there was no sign of injury. He rounded a corner towards where Siiri’s treatment room, or cell as he preferred, and was met by the blonde woman rushing into his arms.

“You’re not hurt?” she stood back with her hands clutching his examining the young officer.

“No … I see you changed, did they take care of you?”