“Patron of Marines protect us,” was Himes’ mantra.
Aware that he had no feel for distance, Berg spun his sensor pods, looking for the mines and missiles. When he found them, he couldn’t figure out if they were far enough away or not, but he also realized he didn’t want his sensor pods trained on them.
He also noticed that the ship was just flat gone.
“Hold it up,” Berg said, raising a hand. As he did, there was a flash that lit the metal glove as if were the heart of a sun. “I hope like hell this is far enough.”
“Pretty,” Spectre said, looking at the transmission. The belly camera was out but the ship had gotten just enough of a look to tell that they’d gotten something. “Tactical, Conn. Any clue what we got?”
“No clue, Conn,” Tactical admitted. “Whatever it was wasn’t there long enough for us to get a good emissions lock before it went up. But it’s also gone.”
“Send a query to the Caurorgorngoth,” the CO said. “Maybe they can tell.”
“Two-Gun, make for the Blade…”
“Staff Sergeant,” Berg said on the leadership channel. “The ship is gone. It went into warp. We’re out here on our own. And we’re sitting ducks. Those Dreen ships can engage at up to three light-seconds. We can’t get away fast enough to avoid them.”
“Suggestions?” Hinchcliffe asked.
“Get in close,” Berg said, turning his board. “Get in really close. Maybe if we’re close enough, they won’t be able to engage us. Hell, board the bastards. Go down fighting.”
“I can’t even figure out where the node is,” the staff sergeant admitted.
“Still lots of particle emissions from the node,” Berg said. “Follow the trail, Staff Sergeant. Now you know why we’ve got all this gear.”
The Marines turned their boards, hammering for the unreality node. There didn’t seem to be a hope in hell that they could survive. They had air for twenty-four hours and then it was gone. But, hell, they also had a full load of ammo.
For that matter, Berg knew how to turn his suit into a micro-nuke. If it came to that, he was planning on going out with a bang.
“Closing the node,” Hinchcliffe said. “Man, I don’t know what came through but all it is now is—”
“Big neutrino spike, Staff Sergeant,” Berg said. “I think we’ve got com—”
It happened too fast for Berg to process. One minute there was empty space and an expanding cloud of gas and the next there was a mothergrapping HUGE ship so close that he actually ran into the hull.
The ship began to move and his suit was hit, again, by one of the projecting guns.
Flipping in space, he accelerated up to the gun, grabbed on and then tossed a grenade down the open barrel. For all he knew, the gun wouldn’t even notice but it was a start.
“Himes, Smith, locations?”
“Mid-section, port, upper deck,” Himes replied. “I’ve grabbed onto a gun. I think it’s some sort of plasma gun. If it goes off, I think I’m toast.”
“Right behind you, Two-Gun,” Smith said. “I just tossed a grenade in one of these cannon-looking things.”
“Look for an airlock, any sort of entry,” Berg said. His sensors were getting washed with readings but a huge meson spike from relative “down” made him flip his board to relative down. A hatch had opened up and pods were jettisoning from the side of the ship.
A hatch.
“The ship is launching fighters,” Berg snapped. “Midsection, middle decks. Head for those hatches!”
“Conn, Tactical, we’ve got another neutrino spike and this one is bigger… Conn, Tactical, Target designated Sierra One. Dreen dreadnought. Emissions spectrum indicates that converted battlewagon from — Another spike. Conn, Tactical, Target, Sierra Two. Dreen destroyer. Target, Sierra Three, Dreen destroyer. Battlewagon is launching bandits, Designate Bandit Group One. Target, Sierra Four, Dreen destroyer, another spike…”
“Now we know what they were waiting for,” Spectre said calmly. “Reinforcements.”
22
“Any word from the Marines?” Spectre asked.
The Blade had backed off as the Dreen surrounded the node with ships. Fighters were covering farther out. It was going to take some thought to take on the flotilla that had appeared.
“We got some fragmentary stuff right as the battlewagon emerged,” the TACO said. “After that, nothing.”
“What are we looking at?”
“Sixteen ships,” the TACO said. “Sierra Nine I’d put in the class of capital ships. But from the fighter numbers, I’d say it was something like a carrier. Sierra One that has the emissions spectrum consonant with a convert is the other capital ship. All the rest look to be Dreen. Two that have higher emissions than the destroyers, they’re going to be larger. Call them cruisers. One battlewagon, one carrier, two cruisers, twelve destroyers, one of them a convert. Current count of about ninety fighters. Fighters appear to be working in teams of three, staying about two light-seconds out from the main fleet. But they’re harder to resolve from this distance. All of them are heading for the Caurorgorngoth’s position.”
“Okay,” Spectre said, taking a deep breath. “Except for there being more targets, the mission remains the same. We will warp in and fire and warp out. I’d like to reduce the fighters. If they’re at two light-seconds, they could engage us while we’re doing relative adjustments. Do we have enough time during warp in to drop torps?”
“Unlikely, sir,” the TACO said. “It’s very tight.”
“Okay, if we can draw the fighters off we’ll scatter torps in silent mode,” Spectre said. “For that matter, we’ll scatter some ahead of the fleet until all but four are used up. But it’s time to get on our game face.”
“Incoming transmission from the Caurorgorngoth,” the commo officer said as Spectre took his command seat.
“Let’s see it.”
“Vorpal Blade, this is Kond,” the ship master said. “If you wish to retire, it is understood. I have sent word of this disaster to Fleet Master Lurca. He agrees that it is unwise to attempt engagement. They are fleeing with what fuel we have.”
“That’s fine, Kond,” Spectre said. “But I didn’t come here just to watch the show. Besides, there’s that whole mutual need thing. I take it you are not fleeing?”
“We must slow them as much as we can,” Kond replied. “It is duty.”
“And this is duty,” Spectre replied. “We are preparing to engage. I don’t think we can coordinate with you to any extent, but if you can do something about the fighters I’d be much obliged.”
“We will see what we see,” Kond said. “I wish you well and thank you as do all of my people.”
“Hey,” Spectre said, “the way I look at it, it’s just a target rich environment.”
The bay was about forty feet across and twenty high with walls and floors made of scarred metal. At the rear was a lift of some sort that looked strangely disused.
But sitting on top of the lift was a pile of what looked like glowing green poop. The poop pile had a massive tube running out the back, which entered the ship through a small hole in the inner bulkhead. There was a patch around the hole, also glowing green, that looked something like the top of a mushroom.
Walking farther into the compartment, Berg saw that at the back the overhead was indented and there was a window. It looked like glass but was probably something stronger than aliglass. The glass was covered with a patina of dirt and he couldn’t see what was beyond. There were alcoves to either side as well. And the rear one had a hatch!