Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (17 page)

"Fifty-five clicks from
jump-gate, Sir," Winslow announced.

Paladin's heart nervously
began to beat a little faster. He then keyed his transmitter on for
inter-ship communications. "Angel Fire to Left Guard! Angel Fire to
Left Guard! Do you copy, over?"

For a long moment there was
only silence, but then a familiar, unexpected voice echoed from a
speaker throughout the bridge.

"Left Guard to Angel Fire!
Left Guard to Angel Fire! We read you five by five! Nice to hear
you, Commander," Major Franks' voice welcomed.

"Glad to hear you too,
Major. Where's Colonel Lon?" Paladin's confidence grew.

Another pause drew into a
tone of sadness from the major, "I'm sorry, Sir—he's
dead."

Paladin was taken back at
the news, but quickly steadied himself, denying a demonstration of
any grief. "And where is Right Guard?" he expected more bad
news.

"We're sitting off your
starboard beam, Commander," Wakinyan interrupted.

Paladin
smiled as he caught sight of the distantly small silhouette of
the
Crazy Horse
floating in front of the rotating clouds of the planetary
eminence of Jupiter. In a perfect moment, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
framed the Martian destroyer, joining the perception of the ship’s
power to the gas giant. "I thought you and your pirates would be
skulking about somewhere," Paladin joyful said.

"Just keeping an eye on
things, Sir." But suddenly, Wakinyan became very serious.
"Commander, we've got Major Franks' wounded on board, and some of
them are in pretty bad shape. I request your permission to
immediately shuttle the more serious casualties over to the
hospital ship."

"Permission granted,"
Paladin agreed to Wakinyan's concern. "Major as soon as that is
completed…."

Suddenly, Winslow shouted
across the bridge, "COMMANDER, ENEMY FLEET APPROACHING AT FLANK
SPEED FROM ASTERN!"

"BELAY THAT! How far away
are they?" the commander urgently questioned.

"Scout ships report ten
minutes, no more," Winslow relayed the communication.

"Major, set the gate
controls to automatic and shuttle over immediately!" Paladin
ordered.

Franks watched his men
working frantically on the controls. "That's a negative, Sir.
Controls were shot up during the operation. We only have manual.
Also, the main system is off line and is under repair,
Commander."

A cold chill went up
Paladin's spine, yet the seasoned officer refused to panic. "How
long, Major?"

"About seven minutes more,
Commander."

"Make it five!" Paladin
ordered.

"Commander," Wakinyan again interrupted, "the major has only a
skeleton crew on board. He can activate the gate and we can pick
him up. However, I still request we transport the more badly
wounded over to the hospital ship. Our surgeon was killed, Sir, and
we could also use a medical team transported to the
Crazy Horse
as
well."

Paladin deliberated the fate of those wounded for
few seconds before he spoke. "We have few choices at this point,
Captain, but those marines should be given every chance to live.
They've earned it! Shuttle them over quickly, and rendezvous with
us at Apoapsis Three. I expect to see you in my office right after
you arrive. Good sailing, Captain."

"Aye, Sir," Wakinyan
replied. "You too!"

Franks breathed a sigh of
relief at Paladin's decision about his wounded. His relief,
however, quickly turned to outrage as he spotted a few of his
marines standing idly by.

"SERGEANT GAGARIN! WHAT
THE HELL ARE YOU AND YOUR MEN STANDING AROUND FOR? GO HELP CAPTAIN
BENSON'S REPAIR TEAM!" the officer berated.

"AYE-AYE, SIR!" the
sergeant quickly responded. Turning to his men, Gagarin in turn
bellowed at them. "YOU HEARD THE MAJOR! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE,
MOVE!"

The small group of marines
then quickly darted out the hatchway.

* * * * *

Time passed distressingly
fast as Commander Paladin glanced once again at the ship's
chronometer. Five minutes ticked by quickly and still the gate was
non-operational. In the meantime, he had re-formed the fleet. From
a distance, it looked like an egg on its side, with his warships
gathered in the rear of the formation.

"Commander, most of Major Franks’ badly wounded have been
transferred to the hospital ship and a medical team has been
dispatched to the
Crazy
Horse
!" Winslow hastily
announced.

"And the Earth fleet?"
Paladin knew the answer to his question.

"We’ll be in range of their
weapons in two minutes!" Winslow verified hesitantly.

Paladin frowned. "If the
gate is not operational in two minutes, we'll have no choice, but
to attack their fleet. Give the order to standby." his voice
trailed into silent.

Winslow simply nodded and
went to transmit the command.

Back in
the control room of
Guardian
One
, Franks also glanced nervously at the
time. "We have less than five minutes," he spoke out loud to
himself, “What the hell is keeping that repair
team?”

Suddenly, there was a burst
of humming in the control room equipment, as their lights flickered
from red to green.

"WE'VE A GOT A GO, MAJOR!"
the marine manning the gate controls happily trumpeted. "ALL
SYSTEMS NOW ONLINE!"

"QUICKLY!" Franks yelled,
"NOTIFY THE FLEET! AND AS SOON AS THEY'RE READY, ACTIVATE THE
GATE!"

"AYE, SIR!" the marine
confirmed.

* * * * *

The race was coming down to
the wire, as glimmers of light danced off the hulls of the
advancing Earth fleet. A few of the massive vessels were even
taking long-range shots at the Martian vessels as they seemingly
closed in for the kill. They were still too far away, however, to
register any hits.

Finally, the giant wheels
of the gate began to spin. Faster and faster they turned, forming a
spiral of swirling red energy from its rotating electromagnetic
fields. It flowed in beautiful patterns that were speckled with
small patches of shimmering lights, while enormous lightning bolts
jumped menacingly about. Yet, it quickly stabilized into the
technological wonder of a man-made wormhole: a direct tunnel to
somewhere else in space.

"NOW!" yelled Paladin with
all the breath he could muster.

With that, Martian fleet
started towards the gate. As each ship entered the tunnel, they
were pulled irresistibly forward and vanished in streaks of blue
light.

As the
Martian fleet entered the wormhole ship by ship, the
Crazy Horse
positioned
itself next to the gate. Wakinyan watched from his command chair as
events took on a life of their own.

Whether
or not the Earth fleet would reach the gate before the last of
Martian ships warped away, was a question of fate. Regardless,
the
Crazy Horse
was
the rear guard and duty-bound to attack if the Earthers got too
close. Wakinyan knew, however, that his ship would not survive if
it came down to that. There was no trick or tactic that would save
his destroyer against such a huge and well-prepared armada. A last
grasp at glory proceeded by a brilliant, momentary fireball, he
thought, would be the epitaph of the
Crazy
Horse
and her brave crew.

Nevertheless, Wakinyan
waited to give the order to attack. It was times like this he felt
like praying, but it was not within him any more. He saw such pain
and misery in the universe that it made him question the apathy of
the Supreme Being he still believed existed. However, Wakinyan was
not to be abandoned.

"
That's it! They've all through the
gate
!" Lieutenant Randall yelled at the top
of his lungs.

"
Communications! Tell Major Franks and
his marines to their asses over here
, RIGHT
NOW!" Wakinyan shouted.

"Aye, Sir!" the
communication's crewman acknowledged.

* * * * *

The Earth
fleet was dangerously close as Franks and the last of his marines
boarded the
Crazy Horse
. Yet, the Earthers only fielded sporadic fire against the
lone Martian ship, which constantly missed. Although it seemed odd
to Wakinyan, he was more focused on retreating into the depths of
hyperspace than musing over why they were such bad
shots.

The
Crazy Horse
quickly fired up its engines and spun around 180 degrees. As
it did, the Martian destroyer raked
Guardian One
with its laser cannons.
The space station then began to rock from internal explosions as
the Martian ship sped past, opening a tunnel into hyperspace with
its own dimensional engine. A moment later after the
Crazy Horse
departed, the
station exploded, showering the area with streaming clumps and
particles of debris, some of which would eventually join Jupiter’s
faint rings.

* * * * *

Admiral
O'Donald sat nonchalantly in his command chair on the bridge of the
dreadnought
Ruthann
as he surveyed the Martian destroyer making its
daring escape
. The
pretense of pursuit was nothing more than the opening phase of
Selena's planned operation. If they were to track the Martians to
the unknown location of their new home world, things were not to
seem too easy.

His orders were quite explicit; he was to put up a
convincing act in attacking the Martian fleet, but no Martian ships
were to be targeted. This constraint had forced him to reduce the
speed of his warships as they approached in order to maintain
distance while sporting random inaccurate fire as a ruse to
encourage the Martians on their way. These considerations to
Selena's operation were not to be jeopardized—at least yet. It was
so critical that an unlucky hit on the wrong ship would do just
that.

"Lunda, have you located
the cipher scout?" O'Donald questioned his female cyborg
second-in-command.

"Yes, Sir. It's just off
our starboard quarter," she answered.

"Splendid. Begin retrieving
data," the admiral ordered.

Not too
far from the
Ruthann
, a cylinder rotated unseen. Viewed as a small distortion to
the gas giant’s clouds, by any means, it was nearly totally
invisible. The casing of the small object was evenly studded with
layers of thin pins, arranged in such a pattern as to bend light
around it as Einstein’s theories predicted. These were used to
create the illusion of transparency, making it extremely difficult
to see it from any direction. Furthermore, the casing had been
manufactured using a special resin that absorbed sensor fields used
in detection. A master of stealth, this was a cipher scout; a
device used for infiltration, reconnaissance, surveillance, and
spying.

As
the
Ruthann
closed
in, the warship transmitted a low powered recognition code to the
cipher scout in the Extremely High Radio Frequency range of the
electromagnetic spectrum. In response to the encrypted 290
Giga-Hertz signal, a red beacon popped slowly up and illuminated
itself on the cylinder, marking its position. Gradually, an antenna
mast silently extended out of the casing of the device. From the
top of the mast, four evenly spaced stubby rectangular metal fins
unfolded and locked into place to create an open corner box called
a waveguide—a specialized antenna purposely designed for use with
such high radio frequencies. At the same time, a cluster of
elongated metal fingers emanated out from the cylinder around the
base of the mast, each one set precisely at an adjacent 45 degree
angle. The beacon then changed from red to green indicating that
the cipher scout was now ready to broadcast its recorded
information. With the transmitting of a start key from the warship
moments later, the transfer of telemetric data from the device to
the
Ruthann
began.

* * * * *

Chapter 10:
Rhianna

Lieutenant James Randall was a conscientious officer who had a
knack for organizational leadership. Once the
Crazy Horse
had leaped into
hyperspace, he set about the task of not only repairing the vessel,
but also bringing the ship back into a state of complete readiness.
He puttered about the bridge supervising various teams over his
headset while going over his operational checklists. All systems
were to be scrutinized thoroughly, leaving nothing to
chance.

As Randall moved about the
bridge, he spotted Wakinyan collapsed in his command chair. The
man's head was leaning forward as his chin touched his chest with
his eyes exhaustively closed. Randall just smiled to himself and
quietly tried to walk past his captain.