Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (8 page)

The scanners, however,
weren’t the only ones bewildered. Both Ortega and Ann also became
disorientated and squinted at the viewer, looking for not just
debris, but any recognizable shape. All they saw, however, was the
constant blowing of the impenetrable red dust.

"I can't see a damn thing!" Ortega grew annoyed.
"Sensors, what do you read?"

"Sir, I'm getting nothing but reflections and
distortions," the crewman reported.

"It's that damn Martian iron oxide dust! It's like
sitting in the middle of a magnet blindfolded!" Ann's frustration
showed.

"There's only one way to see through this and that's
by minimizing our scanning levels," the captain realized. "Sensors,
cut back on your output power and try again," Ortega suggested. “It
should drop the level of noise interference.”

The crewman quickly adjusted his equipment, scanning
as he did. "It's working, Sir!" the crewman confirmed.

As the crewman continued to
scan, however, a look of bewilderment appeared on his face while he
double-checked the readings. Soon however, his puzzlement changed
to one of fearful alarm. "CAPTAIN, THERE'S INSUFFICIENT MASS!
DEBRIS APPEARS TO BE FROM A SHUTTLE, A COUPLE OF SPACE MINES AND
SOME OXYGEN-RICH FUEL CANISTERS!" the man reported. "WAIT! THERE'S
A SHIP OFF TO OUR PORT QUARTER!"

On the
bridge of the
Crazy
Horse
, Wakinyan glared hatefully at the
scratchy image of the Earth cruiser in front of him. His mind was
now not only set to accomplishing his mission, but bent on revenge.
Richard's dark brown eyes held a steady and unblinking gaze, while
his mouth formed just three words in loud tones, "MAIN GUN,
FIRE!"

The
revolving main laser weapon of the Martian ship flashed on and
began to batter the
Louyang
with a steady stream of pulsed energy bolts. Even
though the cruiser was much bigger, ray shielded, and heavily
armored, the close range of the ships all but neutralized their
effectiveness.

Under
Wakinyan’s guidance, the
Crazy
Horse’s
main gun first took out several of
the big cruiser’s laser cannons. From the resulting damage, a
build-up of energy created a massive overload, which was expended
in deafening explosions and a temporarily shutdown of the
Louyang’s
weapons system.
Next concentrating on a single point, the Martian destroyer punched
a gapping hole in the cruise’s hull. Satisfied with that, it then
sprayed the remainder of its lethal bombardment up and down the
cruiser’s port side. The
Louyang
swayed and listed as it was slowly pushed away to
the continuous fury of the
Crazy
Horse’s
bombardment.

Then as
abruptly as it had started, the
Crazy
Horse
ceased its firing, with the cruiser
saved by the safety time-out of the destroyer’s main laser battery
that prevented overload. The Martian ship then veered away and flew
slowly off towards the base again.

As the
Martian ship departed, the
Louyang
belched smoke from several breaches. Her hull was
scarred with some areas near to buckling while a large amount of
carbon scoring blemished her once glistening
skin.

The Earth
ship had been hurt badly. In particular, the
Louyang's
bridge was filled with a
thick haze of noxious gases that rose from burning equipment.
Alarms were still sounding as warning lights flashed to a threat
that was no longer present. Slowly, the dazed crewmembers gathered
their thoughts. The injured were then removed, while debris was
cleaned-up.

Ortega coughed incessantly as he breathed in the
foul air. He was furious with himself for having been taken in by
such an old trick.

"REPORT, DAMN IT! REPORT!" he yelled to his second
in command.

"Captain, we've three hull breaches and some fires!
Control teams are enroute!" Ann answered, coughing as she did.

Ortega then turned to the communications crewman.
"COMMUNICATIONS! INFORM GENERAL COX THAT THE MARTIAN SHIP IS STILL
INTACT AND MOVING ON HIS POSITION!"

"SIR, I'VE GOT HIM ON LINE NOW! HE'S REQUESTING THAT
WE TRACK THE TARGET AND TELL HIM WHEN TO LAUNCH HIS MISSILES!" the
crewman relayed.

Ortega was quick in his order. "TELL HIM WE’LL DO
SO!"

"AYE, SIR!"

"Annie,
get the ship underway!" the
Louyang's
captain voiced infuriated.
"Whatever is left of that Martian bastard, we're going to
obliterate!"

Moments
later, the huge Earth ship turned and followed the
Crazy Horse
. As the Earth
cruiser slowly close, however, the Martian ship just lazily
maneuvered over the Epson Planum Earth forces
base—waiting.

"Captain," Ann uttered studying the monitor, "he's
not even trying to run."

Captain Ortega sneered. "I don't care! He's just
made himself a great big target! COMMUNICATION'S, TELL THE GENERAL
TO LAUNCH NOW!"

As quick as the order was received, the
operations officer of Epson Planum initiated their last defensive
effort. From their underground silos, fifty anti-ship missiles
thundered and roared aloft into the Martian sky.

Aboard
the
Crazy Horse
,
repairs were quickly being made as unblinking eyes watched their
adversaries. The final act to the battle was only a minute
away.

“Captain, damage to inertia and gravitational
systems has been bypassed! All systems now restored!” the damage
control crewman reported the news to Wakinyan, whose bruised and
gashed face betrayed a quiet anger.

"SIR!" the sensor crewman
suddenly bellowed out to Wakinyan. "EPSON PLANUM HAS JUST LAUNCHED
A MASSIVE WAVE OF MISSILES! THEY'RE ACQUIRING!"

For a moment, Richard seemed uncaring, but suddenly,
his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. "Now, Mr. Randall!" he
calmly commanded.

Randall
glanced at his friend and then turned back to the weapons control
panel. With the single press of a button, the first officer of
the
Crazy Horse
showered the sky with missile decoys.

As the decoys fell away from the Martian ship, they
switched on, one-by-one, filling the sky with a fleet of
holographic space destroyers. Right down from the images to the
I-F-F (Identification Friend or Foe) signals, they appeared quite
solid and real to the homing projectiles. As planned, the decoys
became the targets of choice to be killed, rather than the single
Martian destroyer that rocketed away.

Captain Ortega beheld the phantom fleet as it turned
and faced his ship. Unexpectedly, they began to grow bigger, and
then he realized why; they were flying directly towards him.
Although collision with the decoys had become a real threat, they
were completely overshadowed by the tracking missiles that
faithfully followed them.

"THE DECOYS, THEY'RE…." Ann started to speak, but
was harshly interrupted by her superior.

"SHOOT THEM DOWN! SHOOT THEM DOWN! SHOOT EVERYTHING
DOWN!" Captain Ortega screamed in an absolute panic.

Although
the
Louyang's
remaining weapons began frantically firing at both decoys and
missiles alike, the big ship was overwhelmed by sheer weight of
numbers. Decoys collided and missiles exploded with the Earth
cruiser until it wavered and fell from the sky as a burning twisted
hulk. In a trail of dense smoke and fragmented debris, the
Louyang
slammed hard into
an outer section of the base it had tried to protect. The end of
the ship came in a monumental explosion that sent dirt, debris, and
part of the base skyward.

* * * * *

Aboard
the
Mariner
, the
entire bridge crew stood silently in suspense. Thoughts of failure
and feelings of anxiety occupied each crewmember as time dragged
by. Even Paladin felt a little anxious as he quickly glanced at his
chronometer. He wasn't sure if Wakinyan had ever reached the base,
let alone destroyed it. Paladin allotted only a few minutes more of
idleness before he himself would order an attack on the base by the
fleet.

Suddenly, the communication's crewman placed a hand
up to her headset, and all turned to gaze at the woman, hearts
pounding with anticipation. The woman listened carefully as a grin
slowly broke out on her face.

"SIR,
INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THE
CRAZY
HORSE
!" the woman blurted out excitedly.
"THEY'VE DONE IT!" the she bellowed in exhilaration. "THEY'VE DONE
IT! THEY TOOK OUT THE BASE!"

A mighty cheer rose from the bridge alone with the
sound of tremendous hand clapping.

"COMMUNICATIONS! TELL MR. DAMON TO LIFT HIS SHIPS
OFF NOW!" Paladin quickly ordered.

"AYE, SIR!" the woman happily obeyed.

"What a relief," Captain Winslow admitted.

Paladin did not, however,
share his subordinate's joy of the moment. Instead, he frowned
slightly. "We still have a long way to go, Mr. Winslow. We still
have a ways to go."

* * * * *

A troubled Richard Wakinyan
looked out from a porthole on his bridge, a captive to his own
thoughts. He saw the distant, bright fireball that announced the
Earth cruiser's demise. Although he should have been elated over
the victory, he wasn't. Instead, the Martian captain felt very
somber and drained inside along with something else: tremendous
guilt. He had just killed—or perhaps even murdered people who he
never knew.

The guilt was not just an
outpouring from the present battle, but rather a complex
intertwining of terrible memories from his past that sometimes
haunted Wakinyan in quiet moments. Friends, loved ones, and unknown
faces; all were lost in a morbid parade and spectacle of violent
death. In his mind, he saw the face of each spirit twisted in the
agony of despair, and possibly never knowing peace. For this reason
alone, he hated war and its senseless carnage, blaming both God and
himself for it. It was, however, a part of his profession, a
profession he willingly chose even though it was more or less
dictated by the circumstances of his life. But he wished it was
otherwise.

Richard cognized, perhaps he wasn’t the only one who
felt this way. For the first time in memory, the Martian fleet had
gone to great efforts to avoid a fight. All the Martians wanted was
their freedom—not Armageddon. Yet, dead and wounded now littered
Mars and its surrounding space. Commander Paladin had tried to
avert this by giving a five-minute warning of their intentions, but
it was not to be. The Earthers refused to step back and let them
pass. It left no other option.

Wakinyan watched dejected
as the fireball finally flickered out. “Forgive me!” he whispered
softly in veritable repentance for all the lives he took that
didn’t deserve his wrath. But he knew that collateral damage was
always the tragic—regrettable—and unavoidable part of
war.

As
the
Crazy Horse
touched the boundaries of space, he let out a small tired
sigh. He then pushed the guilt and memories out of his mind once
again, and focused on his next mission's
objective.

* * * * *

Chapter 4: Too Damn
Pretty

As the battle around the fourth planet wound down, a
huge white fleet of ships sat idle in the space between Earth and
Mars. They were ultra-modern, symmetrically designed, and yet,
totally eccentric in appearance.

Each ship was wrought as an
elongated cylinder that narrowed at both ends, but widen vastly
towards the center. On the topside was a deep oval well where a
blended superstructure of rounded, but irregular shaped blocks rose
modestly away from the hull. However, the bottom side was fashioned
into a huge, flattened hexagon, which was evidently a bay for cargo
or perhaps smaller spacecraft. On the topsides of each ship,
portions of two large vertical discs were mounted for hyperspace
travel, scanning, and defensive fields. Ultra-modern metals had
been combined with resin, and plastics to give each ship a
distinctive look of translucent glass as well as improved strength
and other technological breakthroughs.

For normal propulsion, two
rotatable engine pods were mounted mid-ship on both port and
starboard sides of every hull. They were inlaid as jutting dual
thrusters, but gave the illusion that they were inefficient and
unwieldy. Stranger still, conspicuously absent was any form of
weaponry from their sleek and seamless skins. This was in essence a
stealth mode, however, in which they might be mistaken for unarmed
transports or freighters.

In reality to this deception, these were the Earth’s
most advanced warships, which were far different from the older
vessels with keels and hulls of welded braced metal. Their
conception was the result of newer technologies specified in their
design requirements to counter a number of growing alien
civilizations with equal or superior battle fleets.

These ships were constructed of two-way shape memory
alloys and materials, in which all atoms shifted at the same time
to form new stable crystal structures when energized. This not only
altered the physical
footprint
of
the ships, but created added functions by forming new equipment.
The yield strength of these compositions were much higher than
steel,
giving the ships of this Earth fleet
a unique advantage along with battlefield
dominance.