“Do you really think that will help, sir?” Bill asked.
“Belay that order,” Spectre growled. “XO, prepare to launch torpedoes. I want a full spread. Maximum thrust for five minutes, then shut down. See if they can get in range of the fighters before the fighters get in range of us.”
Bill did the math and didn’t reply. The answer was “no way in hell.”
“There is no way in hell we’re getting out of here alive,” Berg said over the leadership freq.
“Aware of that, Two-Gun,” Staff Sergeant Hinchcliffe replied. “Just keep firing until you’re out. Then use your pistols.”
“There’s an alternate plan, Staff Sergeant,” Berg said. Covering the door was so automatic he wasn’t having any trouble carrying on the conversation. It was just a matter of firing as conservatively as possible. They’d long before switched to single fire, alternating to full auto only when the Dreen made it into the room.
Nicholson was down, not dead but his gun was sheared away from a thorn and another had punctured his armor. He said he was hanging in there, but his vitals looked lousy. Priester had clocked out on ammo, twice, so Hinchcliffe pulled him back to “security.” The sergeant was a good shot but God he used ammo like there was no tomorrow. Since its inception, the Marine Corps had stressed accuracy. Among other reasons, they often operated on very thin supply lines. When you were on thin supply, using the bare minimum ammo to kill your enemies and win the battle was a good thing. How Priester had not picked that up in his years in the Corps, Berg couldn’t figure out.
He, Smith and Staff Sergeant Hinchcliffe were covering the door, killing Dreen dog-demons and thorn-throwers that seemed to be an endless stream. It was simply a question of what ran out first, Dreen or their ammo.
“What’s your alternate, Two-Gun?” the staff sergeant asked.
“There’s a way to overload the reactors in these suits,” Berg said. “An SF sergeant did it on the last mission and some of us tinkered with it until we figured out how he did it. It’s not a big nuke, but it’s big enough to take out this compartment and everything around it.”
“Let’s save that for absolute last ditch,” Hinchcliffe replied after a moment’s thought. “But you’d better tell me the details in case you’re not the last guy in the compartment.”
25
“Conn, Tactical. Dreen fighters at one million kilometers.”
Spectre frowned at the screen and snarled internally. Their lasers were popguns, not even capable of scratching the Dreen fighters. Torps were fired…
“Roger, Tactical,” the CO said. “Range to torps?”
“Four thousand kilometers, Conn.”
The Dreen fighters had engaged at over six hundred million kilometers before. Chither, there had to be something…
“What’s the orientation of the approaching fighters?” the CO asked, rubbing his chin. “Are they relatively above us or what?”
“Off the starboard side, Conn, at mark neg one.”
“COB?”
“Sir?”
“I want you to figure out how to rotate this ship so that those fighters are, relatively, above us,” the CO said. “Use anything you can. Get that chaos generator pointed at them.”
“Roger, sir,” the COB said, pulling himself out of the compartment and forward.
“Engineering is aft, COB,” the CO pointed out.
“Torpedo room is forward, sir.”
“Right, get both of the motors mounted relative up,” the COB said.
The hardest and longest part had been getting the torps into place. There was a hatch directly to the magazine for loading the torps. Unfortunately, it was not an airlock. He’d ended up getting permission to jettison the ready torps and use those. Now it was just a matter of getting them lined up and controlled.
“Rotators are in place, COB,” the LPO of the torpedo room said.
“Conn, COB,” the COB said. “We can rotate. End to end control is still working. No yaw, yet. And it ain’t really fine control.”
“That’s great, COB,” the CO said. “Gimme a short thrust rotating the port relative up. Just a touch.”
“Gimme a touch of burst on starboard,” COB said.
The torpedoman used a manual controller to fire the torp for just a moment.
“Right, when I tell you I’ll need about the same in the opposite direction,” the CO said. “On my mark. Three… two… one… Mark.”
“Fire port,” the COB said.
“Too much, COB.”
“Bit to starboard…”
“Christ, I wish this was electronic control,” the CO muttered, then keyed the communicator. “That’s got it pretty close. We’ll need to fine tune that in a bit. Can you get the bow up, relatively?”
“There’s going to be some rotation,” the COB answered.
“That’s fine. Just a touch.”
“I think that’s got it,” Spectre said after ten minutes. “Tactical, range to target?”
“Seven hundred thousand kilometers,” the TACO replied.
“Sir, you’re aware that they have more range than we do,” Weaver said quietly.
“Yes, I am, Commander,” Spectre replied. “Thank you for your input.”
Weaver knew he’d been slapped down and better than to comment.
“Here’s the deal,” the CO said after a moment. “Yes, the plasma guns took out the torps. But we’re tougher than torps. We’re going to keep firing that chaos generator as long as it lasts and as long as we last. And if we can even get them to scatter a bit and hold off engagement, it gives Miss Moon more time to work. I was going to wait to engage them until they were in range. Now I’m going to start firing before they are in their basket. They’ll either choose to scatter or not, but they will by God know we may be dead in space but we’re not done fighting!”
“Conn, Tactical, Dreen fighters approaching six hundred million kilometers. We have energy spike, Conn. Incoming.”
“Open fire, continuous, on the chaos ball generator,” the CO replied. “COB, get ready to maneuver…”
“What was that?” Miriam asked as an alarm claxon started going off and the ship shuddered.
“Nothing to worry about, ma’am,” Red said. He was busy assembling the pieces of the controller, using some of the smallest waldoes on his arm.
“Ship’s under attack,” Sub Dude replied, setting down a length of pipe. “CO’s firing back. It’s a battle, ma’am, but we’ve been through them before.”
“Don’t worry, I’m still calm,” Miriam said, picking up the pieces of the jury-rigged neutrino generator and slotting it into the tube. “Red, how are you doing?”
“Just done, ma’am,” Red said.
“Get me a number seven pipe clamp,” Miriam said, calmly, as the ship shuddered again. “And hand me the controller…”
“Damage in engineering compartment, personnel quarters and auxiliary personnel quarters,” the XO said. “No casualties, nobody in those areas. But we lost the gearing, entirely.”
“Good thing we don’t need it,” Spectre said as the ship shuddered from another plasma hit. “Tactical, they in range, yet?”
“They’ve scattered, Conn. Three groups designated Bandit One through Three. And, no, still one hundred thousand kilometers out.”
“Right, let’s get to targeting Bandit One,” the CO said. “COB, prepare to rotate the ship.”
“Damage to mess deck and the rear torpedo room,” the XO said.
“They always get hammered,” Spectre replied. “Just tell me my quarters are surviving this time.”