Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (36 page)

He nodded and leaned back. “Give me the tally, XO.”

“Huron, Perez, Kyong is wounded, Belanger has two broken arms, you and me.”

“And the
Garlic
,” William added.

“And the
Garlic
.”

William felt the pit of hunger in his stomach and instead focused on all he’d lost. Half his crew. It hit him and he pushed it back. He knew he’d use every single person under him to do the right thing. They’d come too far for half measures and feints. “All or nothing,” he mumbled.

“Captain?” Shay asked.

“Time?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Three minutes.”

“Will the torpedo be ready?”

“Yes.”

“Huron?”

“How much time I got?” Huron asked with a twang at the end of the sentence.

“Three minutes.”

“Well, hell. I’m getting to the reactor.”

“No mass drivers?” William asked. He’d hoped, at the very least, they’d get one operational again.

“Nope,” Huron replied, and said nothing more.

The
Garlic
orbited under the barest of grav drive power. A slight nudge early on had settled the course. The velocities were high enough that in the constraints of the gravity well they were locked in. There were no fancy maneuvers, no tacks, come-abouts, or halts. The
Garlic
was as committed as the
Gallipoli
. Physics ruled the course.

William leaned forward and kept his eyes on the display. The projected course lines hadn’t wavered. He tapped his console and licked his dry lips. “In about a minute we’re engaging. Get to the reactor and stay safe. I’ll brief you once we’re through. This should settle it,” he said. “Shay, you sticking around?”

“You got abandonment issues, don’t you?” Shay asked. Her fingers danced over her console and stopped, hovering over the panel.

William wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

“Of course. And here we come,” Shay said.

He felt better, but didn’t know why. “Keep the launcher aft, I don’t care what gets hit in the meantime. Just keep that launcher alive!”

“You got it, Captain.”

The ship clipped over the line of darkness and passed into the dawn. Before them lay the mass of the orbital station with the coal black ribbon streaming into the clouds below. The dropship hung nearby with half of the drop pods clinging to the side. Then the
Gallipoli
came into view.

The first railgun rounds clipped the top side of the
Garlic
and plunged deep into the disintegrating nanite aggregate. Chunks of grit and stone rained down onto the bridge. Alarms raged the flickering screens in shades of orange and red. The mass driver rounds came a moment after in a cascade of violence.

William ignored the alarms. They were old, the same things he’d been staring at since the two locked horns. His eyes only locked onto the status of the launchers.

“Oh boy,” Shay said, and made the ship dance.

The mass of the
Garlic
slid and pulsed like an overweight boxer. Even with the mass shedding off of the hull the ship itself was heavy and loud with slowness. It rolled and exposed a fresh quarter but kept the launcher hidden and tucked away from violence.

The
Gallipoli
in comparison was erratic like a flamenco dancer. All tips, taps, and shudders with never a position held for more than a fraction of a second. She bore the wounds of the engagement but looked more like a salvage yard deal than a princess of Luna. But still she spat slugs of nickel and nanite across the barest bits of atmosphere.

William felt himself grow warmer with the tension of the moment on his shoulders. He felt naked in the vacuum. He couldn’t throw a punch, couldn’t counter the anger, couldn’t do anything but wait. He ignored the pummeling of the mass drivers and instead focused on the torpedo. “Launch the damn torpedo,” he said through gritted teeth. “Launch it.”

The
Garlic
pushed closer with the intersection point coming barely five hundred meters from the dropship
Brendan
. The plots all clashed in an improbability so rare in space combat. The lines didn’t waver, the courses were set and the moment locked in.

A voice crackled from the dropship and the Italian spoke rapidly. “They’re going to be on us! Get them!” The phrasing was odd, but Monk spoke the truth and William knew it.

“They’re not shooting the dropship,” Shay mumbled as her hands pounced on the controls.

“What?” William asked. His eyes darted to the munitions display and saw nothing heading towards the dropship. “The torpedo,” he whispered, and began punching keys.

The railgun fired once more and the nickel slug slammed into the center mass of the
Garlic
. Atmosphere, had it been present, would have vented. Instead, more alarms blared and the display filled with more alerts. It was a slow and sudden destruction that chipped away the aggregate.

William felt a piece slam into his shoulders and rolled forward. He stood quickly and felt fire in his back. His hands danced on his shoulders checking for a breach. A chunk of grit, like chalk, was crumbling apart in his chair. He pushed it away quickly and dropped back down. “Prep to fire missiles!”

“Missiles prepped!” Shay called back.

He took a breath. He knew the
Gallipoli
would have no defense against missiles. The cutter was too far gone to intercept and he could picture the wall of nanite charges plucking it apart. His eyes took in the distance and he nodded to himself. Now was the time. He stabbed down on the only weapons system he had left.

Nothing.

Alarms exploded onto the displays. First thermal, then nanite. The missile propellant detonated in the launcher itself. Only the fact that the missiles didn’t arm saved the ship from instant destruction. But now they were truly toothless.

William opened his mouth to speak and instead watched, helpless.

The torpedo blasted out from the
Gallipoli
and sprayed a wash of orange and red. It was like a launch of an old missile and mostly useless against anyone with a mass driver. The velocity was ponderously slow, but it grew. It grew, and grew, and headed directly for the
Brendan
.

“Fuck,” Shay said loudly and her hands slammed onto the console.

“I’m taking it!” William called out and overrode the nav back to his control. “Prep and brace for impact!”

“What?” Shay asked.

“Do it!”

Shay drummed on her console and impact alarms sounded. Loud, angry klaxons.

The torpedo was a slow thing. Already the charge inside was burning brightly and adding acceleration with every second.

William punched at the console. He ran the numbers and guesstimated as best as he could. There wasn’t time to lay out the plots and see the courses. He piloted by instinct, by feel, by experience. It dawned on him as he adjusted acceleration that he’d never intercept the torpedo. “We can’t make it,” he said as much to Shay as to himself. Dread slammed into him. Dread and failure.

Shay silenced the impact klaxons and didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t save the dropship. The
Brendan
would, without a doubt, take a direct hit from a torpedo nearly as old as the dropship. He could taste steel in his mouth and his lips were dry. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Dust stopped falling from the ceiling. The
Gallipoli
had switched targets. The dropship now bore the entire brunt of the mass drivers and railgun.

“Wait,” William said. His eyes danced on the screen and he saw the course. Fingers punched keys and he leaned forward anxiously. A grin grew across his face. “Brace for impact!”

“But we can’t intercept the torpedo!” Shay called back.

“We’re not going to hit the torpedo,” William said calmly. “We’re going to hit
them
.”

The impact klaxons blared again and the torpedo exploded.

––––––––

“W
ith me!” Vale cried out. Her body, bulked up by armor, sprinted across the street and slammed into a metal service door. It crashed open and she fell inside in a heap.

Bark followed immediately behind with Rose and the cell crew in tow. A grimy group of convicts stumbled into the darkness. The sound of screeching steel echoed through the door.

“What now?” Emilie asked, nervous. She could hear gunfire, the sounds of engagement, but most of all the animal grunts.

“You’re sure you can get drones online?” Bark asked.

Emilie felt Vale’s eyes focusing on her. She nodded quickly to both. “Yes, if you can get me inside. All I have to do is engage the system.”

“Standard neural network?” Vale asked.

“Yes,” Emilie replied confidently. She knew it was the same style, density, and functionality as what was normally installed in planetary combat AI.

“How many?” Vale asked.

“Eighty-four.”

Vale glanced at Bark and nodded. “Anti-personnel? Ram design?”

Emilie nodded quickly. “I think so, yes.”

Bark and Vale huddled close and each spoke in low tones. Bark looked up and spoke to the cell teams. “Tell Koyo to let ‘em out a bit, back off.”

Consuela relayed the order.

“They’re hitting the east, two transports,” Paul said, juggling his cells.

Emilie looked between the Vale and Bark. “You’ve got to be kidding me. They’re pushing out, we’re going to lose it.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Vale said and ran up next to the door. The light streaming in didn’t do much to illuminate the grime stained convicts.

“Once they come out a bit, we can get behind the armor,” Bark said with a nod to the door.

“What about the brutes?” Emilie asked.

“Watch.” Bark pointed towards the door.

The convicts, wiry and worn thin like an old rag tucked tight to the wall. A woman, with hair like steel wool, edged up and nodded to Vale. Vale pushed her finger tips around the corner of the door and nodded to the woman. “Two, go.”

The woman dropped herself down onto the floor and scooted just her head and shoulders out. Two men grasped her tightly by the legs and then she opened fire. The weapon barked in a slow cadence. A gust of gritty recoil gases flared back and into the room. A bellowing noise like a enraged bull burst through the air. She grinned and scooted back in.

“Nice,” Vale said, her fingers still on the door frame.

More of the heavy caliber rounds burst out in the distance with more of the bellowing. The grating of steel stopped. Vale nodded, checked her weapon and sprinted out into the street with the convicts close behind.

Emilie went to move and felt Bark’s hand on her shoulder.

“Hold, we’re going to—” Bark said and was slammed backwards.

The ripping roaring sound of the tank firing was, at this range, beyond loud. The decibel count was on par with a shredded turbine engine, spraying nickel and alloy in a cataclysm of fire and noise. The walls tumbled. The sooty light rolled in as the roof expanded away. It was blasted apart, a mixture of corroded roof panels and waterlogged insulation.

Emilie tried to scream, tried to cry out, but she couldn’t hear anything. Her heartbeat was dead quiet in her ears. Her eyes danced from side to side and she stood shakily. A hand pulled her down and she stared out through a gaping hole in the wall.

A brute stood with an autocannon. Light flared from the barrel but Emilie couldn’t hear a thing. Next to it a second brute rolled on the ground, a slow and ponderous roll, and clutched at its face. A jellyfish like mass of an eyeball was tangled in it’s fingers.

The barrel of the tank slewed to the opposite side and then back towards her again. Waves of heat rolled off with tendrils of steam riding the thermals. Sparks flared off of the glacis as small arms fire smashed into it with gouges laid in from the heavier weapons. It stopped and the barrel hummed.

Emilie tried to stand again and found that she couldn’t. Her eyes drifted down and she saw Bark. Then she saw Bark’s mouth moving and it hit her: she was deaf. Completely and totally deaf. She spoke, but she didn’t know if anything came out. “I can’t hear you,” she screamed as loud as she could.

Bark pointed down with two fingers.

Emilie sat hard and watched. She felt detached, lost, the tank was going to fire again, she knew it. So why weren’t they moving? She glanced around and saw the debris, one wall was missing with the roof slanting down. The only way out was towards the barrel of the tank.

She heard a hiss. The slightest ringing on the edge of her ears. She was relieved, it meant that some hearing survived, but then she knew the tank was going to fire again. She caught movement and watched Vale, urging her on while feeling utterly helpless and, at the same time, serene. The only thought in her mind was how to salvage one of the brutes, it had to be priceless, that sort of bioaugmentation.

Vale sprinted up from cover and leveled the barrel towards the standing brute. It took a moment for the wide eyed creature to respond. It tried to swing the autocannon but she was too close. She was inside of its reach and jammed the muzzle of the rifle into a seam of armor and pulled the trigger.

A wall of sparks and shrapnel sprayed back and then the creature threw its head back and clanged against the tank. It dropped the autocannon and pushed Vale away. She clattered against the ground and continued to fire the weapon. A gusher of blood pumped out from the seam of the armor and the creature lolled over onto its partner.

The first of the convicts sprang over the brute and clambered onto the rear of the tank. He danced as weapons fire stitched into him. The second, and third, convict met the same fate. But the fourth, the steel wool haired woman, was lucky and jammed an explosive package into an access port and rolled off into the shelter of a dying brute.

She grinned back, a face rimed with grit.

The charge detonated in an anti-climactic thud.

Emilie felt a wave of relief. At the same time she focused on the dead Hun soldiers. All bioaugments. Good god, she thought, it was banned by the Covenant, no one could do that sort of research. But someone else did, and if she got a hold of it the research would be priceless. Thoughts of how to salvage her operation and stick it to Samson all came together. She stood slowly and felt every joint in her body creak.