"That's too deep to get at with DEGs, CO," the XO replied.
"Where is the throat?" Sharon leaned back in her chair, watching the battle thousands of kilometers below them raging in her mindview. And the large disturbance over the teleportation facility continued to grow and grow for a few seconds more, and then there was a large flash of light in the sensors. The next thing she knew, the DTM was pinging new targets and painting the area with big red dots.
"Looking for the throat, ma'am, but until it fires, we probably won't find it," the STO responded.
"Understood."
"CO, CDC."
"I see the bogies below, CDC."
"Aye, ma'am. Just thought you'd want to know that we just had a Seppy hauler, three battle cruisers, and a couple frigates pop into normal space down there."
"Thanks, CDC." Sharon noted that the new red dots in her mindview had new labels on them, explaining what they were.
"Okay, Nav, jaunt us out into the line of fire of the last mass driver shot at the Madira bow-first. That will put us just a few thousand kilometers from the engagement zone. You have the coordinates."
"Ma'am?"
"Well, we ain't gonna find them until they shoot at us."
"Uh, yes ma'am. Prepping jaunt systems."
"As soon as we take the first hit, or before if you can manage it, punch the jaunt drive. Understood?"
"Roger that, ma'am."
"Okay, we've got more than two minutes to kill here. Somebody, find us some targets to shoot at." Captain Walker made a bright, toothy smile at her bridge crew, hoping to spark an idea.
"Well, Captain," the COB started between sips of coffee. "If we ain't got nothing to shoot at up here, why not shoot at something down there?"
"Damned good idea, Bill." She turned her chair slightly toward the gunnery officer. "Ensign Blake, pick any enemy targets below and fire at your discretion."
"Yes, ma'am. It'll be like shooting fish in barrel, whatever the hell that means," the gunnery officer replied.
"Jaunt coordinates ready, Captain."
"Captain Jefferson! We just had a Seppy hauler, three battle cruisers, and a couple frigates materialize in normal space about ten kilometers straight up, sir," the STO reported.
"Roger that, STO. Gunnery Officer Rice, target those bastards with everything we've got." Wallace spun his chair toward the air boss's station. "Air Boss, where are the rest of the fighters now?"
"Well, sir, we let them out just before we jaunted through hyperspace, and even at max speed, they are still about four minutes out."
"Goddamn, what a pickle," the XO grunted. "Sir, I'm getting reports from all over the ship. Whatever the hell Engineering did to give us that last jaunt blew out almost everything but the DEGs."
"Well, then, keep firing them." This was about as grim as Wallace had seen it get. The Madira was wounded badly and floating adrift in space with no structural integrity field generators and no propulsion. Fire teams and damage diagnostics showed a hole through the aft section of the supercarrier big enough to build a housing community in and the majority of the air wing was four minutes away in deep space. Oh, and there was the little fact that there had just been a small fleet of enemy ships appear in normal space right on top of them. This was definitely a typical Navy day.
I'm open for ideas. Timmy?
I'm working on it, sir. The CHENG's team and I are rerouting everything we can to get us some sort of propulsion. With the enemy ships above us and the facility below us, on the other hand, it is unlikely that they would fire the mass driver at us, in fear of hitting them.
That was the whole point of taking up this position, Timmy.
Aye, sir.
Keep at it.
Aye.
"CO! The hauler is dumping out Gnats as fast as it can throw them. I've got more than a hundred and counting!" the air boss shouted. "Our guys are gonna be outnumbered by at least one order of magnitude, sir."
"Warn them and tell them to make do."
"Aye, sir." The air boss reluctantly relayed the order to the CAG. What DeathRay said in return was rather foul.
"Captain. We've got nukes," the XO said with a crazy grin on his face.
"You're damned right we do, Larry. Let's send those battle cruisers a few of them."
"Roger that, sir."
"Gunnery Officer Rice!"
"All hands, all hands, prepare for QMT jump in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, jump!"
The ship had surged with a strange feel of static electricity, and then there was a crackling sound reverberating down the corridor through the structural members. Then everything seemed as normal as before.
We just jumped to Sol?
Apparently so, I'm asking the Lorda troop lifter now.
Kira raced down the corridor toward the engineering section of the Phlegra, scanning through drawings and schematics of the ship hoping to find an internal Achilles heel. On several occasions, she was nearly spotted. But to her advantage, the ship was only being manned by a very skeleton crew.
Kira, I'm picking up handshaking pings from U.S. fleet sources!
What! Here?
There are hundreds of them. And it's the Sienna Madira!
Oh my God! They must be attacking the facility. We have to warn them about Luna City!
Who do I contact? Uncle Timmy? Captain Jefferson?
No! Boland! Contact Jack Boland. He'll remember me. Penzington, Nancy Penzington was my name then.
Right, I recall. I'm handshaking with his AIC now for a secure channel.
Jack! I'm getting a message to you from on board one of the enemy vessels that just teleported in, Candis alerted DeathRay.
For me? Who is it?
All I'm getting is code name Bachelor Party!
Holy shit, put it through!
"DeathRay, DeathRay, this is Nancy Penzington, code name Bachelor Party, do you copy?"
"Penzington, is that really you?"
"Watch your six, DeathRay!" Fish cried out over the tac-net. "Fox three!"
"Oh shit!" DeathRay dove hard to the deck, pulling up with only meters to spare before he slammed the surface. He toggled to bot mode and put his feet down, running and jumping over a catwalk that led down a dugout crater rim, taking cover there. The Stinger on his tail shot past him, rolling over into bot mode himself and firing cannons backwards toward Jack's Ares-T fighter. Tracers ripped past, blasting up dust all around him. Jack rolled over onto his back, tracking the yellow Xs in his mind over the path of the Stinger until they both turned red. "Guns, guns, guns."
"Roger that, Boland. It's good to hear you're still alive."
"What can I do for you, Penzington. I'm a little busy right now!" DeathRay toggled back to fighter mode, going full acceleration back up into the fray and away from the exploding enemy mecha behind him.
"This takes priority over all orders you have, Boland. This battle cruiser that I'm on is about to QMT jump to Earth space and kamikaze into Luna City. It must be stopped."
"I need to relay that to the Madira." DeathRay toggled a channel in his DTM.
"Roger that, Boland. I'm gonna try and shake things up from the inside. Penzington out."
"CO Madira, DeathRay!"
"Go, DeathRay!"
"Sir, I just got a communication from Bachelor Party. She's on board the middle battle cruiser and has warned me that it is about to jump to Earth and crash into Luna City."
"Understood, DeathRay. Can you help her in any way?"
"I could trash and thrash on the ship, sir."
"Go, DeathRay. We are barely holding our own here, and things just got worse. There's not much we can do to help you otherwise."