Slaves of Hyperion (Star Crusades Uprising, Book 6) (19 page)

“Status report, all stations!” barked the XO.

Reports flooded in from each section, and as each one arrived, it was obvious they had problems.

“Sir, engines are not responding, neither is navigation. Minotaur reports her engines are operational.”

“Tell her to go. Everybody else, find out what the hell is going on!”

The fear in his voice was clear and did nothing to instil confidence in the shaken crew. They checked their stations, but there was little that could be done from the CIC, it would require small teams to trace the faults. Either way, his attention was diverted from the current problems by a shout from the tactical officer.

“Sir, the weapon signature on the planet has just activated.”

“What?” cried Captain Cornwall, but in his heart he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“I’m picking up seven blooms, exactly the same as before.”

Seven? What can we do against such power?

On the main screen a bright flash was all that remained of where ANS Minotaur had been as her powerful engines ignited. The great warship quickly accelerated and blasted out of orbit and away from the danger of the planet. The sight of the ship escaping the torment of the ground weapons sent a pang of relief through Captain Cornwall’s body. He looked back to his CIC and was brought instantly back to the situation at hand. The XO was straining to lean over to speak to the tactical officer. Both of their voices were loud in desperation, not anger. He looked back towards him.

“Captain, we have two minutes until impact! We’ve got three ships with no power, and
Bellerophon
’s life support has just cut out,” said the XO.

Two minutes!

“Listen up!” he called out to his crew. “We have seconds to make a decision. If anybody has any kind of a plan, now is the time.”

There was silence, just the sounds of alarms, and the continuous audio traffic from those stations still functioning and the other ships in orbit. Captain Cornwall looked to his XO to see nothing but his second in command shaking his head.

That’s it then, all we can do is sit and take the punishment.

“Sir, I have the source of the weapons on the surface, and they are based in a hexagonal shape around this one point. We could go to the surface?” suggested the tactical officer.

“The engines are out. We can’t manoeuvre, and this ship would burn up on re-entry.”

The XO nodded at the suggestion.

“He’s right, Sir. If we head to the boats, we could evacuate the ship and land as close as we can to the weapon sites.”

The Captain looked as though he’d just woken up.

“Yes, we could then disable or destroy them, and potentially find the source of the ship control or communication.”

He looked over to the tactical officer. “How much time do we have?”

“Seventy-two seconds, Sir.”

This is going to be close!

He nodded to the XO and pulled at his straps. Luckily, the artificial gravity was still operating, and that would speed up the escape.

“This is the XO, abandon ship! This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures. You have less than one minute to leave the ship. Landing zones are being sent to the nav units on all boats. I repeat. This is not a drill. Evacuate the ship!”

With that, he unstrapped himself and made for the nearest escape lifeboats. In case of emergencies there were pods and boats situated at key areas along the outer skin of the rotating section. While the pods were very small, the lifeboats could carry up to twenty people. By the time Lieutenant Nilsson, the ship’s communication officer reached the nearest boat, she could already feel the reverberation through the metal plating of them ejecting from the ship. Their powerful retro-thrusters would blast the side of the hull as they moved away as quickly as possible. As she reached the door, she glanced back to see just three people left behind, and they were also moving for the door. The Captain and the XO were barking orders, and one marine guard was doing his best to manhandle them from the CIC towards the last lifeboat.

“Captain!” she shouted as loudly as she could.

He looked over to her, a look of disappointment on his brow.

“Get off the ship, Sir!” she added and turned and threw herself into the escape pod. The door hissed behind her and with just a three second warning, the unit unbuckled from the ship and fired its engines. Her breath was forced from her lungs as the brief moment of acceleration forced her into her seat. Two other crew were already inside, and all of them groaned at the feeling. Then as quickly as it had started, the engine cut and the pod used its micro-thrusters to manoeuvre. She pulled her head around and looked out through the auto-block glass porthole. It was very small, not much bigger than her head and triple plated for protection. She could see the Santa Maria as well as the other two cruisers that appeared complete dead in space. Scores of small shapes continued to blast away from the cruisers as well as a two larger landing craft that were following close behind her lifepod.

“Look!” said the young ensign sat opposite. He looked barely old enough to serve, and yet his face betrayed exposure to terrible events. She recognised him as one of the new replacements that had joined Santa Maria’s crew at the same time as her. She watched his gaze and looked through the other porthole to see the glowing orbs of energy coming up from the surface. They must have been more than halfway to the ship now and showed no sign of slowing down or changing direction.

Gods no!

As she watched, even more life pods continued to eject from
Bellerophon
’s hull. They were taking too long, probably due to the loss of power to their habitation unit. With little or no gravity, it would take them much longer to reach the boats. In the seconds it had taken her to watch the ship, the projectiles had reached a height of just a few kilometres from the ships. They were out of time. As the glowing orbs reached a thousand metres, the automated point-defence turrets opened fired. Thousands of metal shards were showered on the approaching objects, yet they seemed to achieve nothing, and the seven shapes slammed into the remaining taskforce.

“Come on, get out!” she shouted uncontrollably.

Bellerophon
never stood a chance. The first orb struck her underside and towards the bow. With a bright flash, a chunk the size of a landing craft was blown off, and the bow of the ship tore off into space. The cruiser might have survived had the second not struck her centre. Fuel cells or ammunition must have been struck because the entire vessel vanished in a bright orange flare of energy that quickly dissipated to reveal large chunks of drifting debris. Lieutenant
Nilsson
turned away, unable to watch the rest of the assault upon the now defenceless and powerless ships.

* * *

Spartan paced outside Admiral Churchill’s office with his patience now reaching breaking point. He considered booting open the door but was saved from the indignity by it opening from the inside. A marine guard beckoned for him to enter. Spartan needed no further encouragement and was inside and stood in front of the Admiral before he even had time to turn around.

“That will be all, Lieutenant,” he said to the guard who saluted and stepped outside. Spartan tried to speak, but the Admiral lifted his hand for him to be silent.

“I know, Spartan, I know exactly what you are thinking and what you want. Hell, I agree with you, but not even I can force ships to be sent to the area
for a rescue mission.
”

“But, Sir!
You’re an Admiral!
” answered Spartan bitterly.

“Yes, I am, but even an Admiral has to work through the chain of command, and I have been given instruction that I am not to conduct ship-based operations without the express authorisation of the Defence Secretary.”

Spartan tied to speak, but
Admiral Churchill lifted his hand once more and walked to his personal computer unit. He turned the display around to face him. It showed the ANS Santa Cruz, one of his old ships in orbit. Spartan looked at the image for a few seconds. The shape brought back memories of the war, but also more recently, of the special operations he had been running.
The Admiral turned back around but kept the image up on the screen.

“The Senate is doing what it does best, talking. At some point, it might be today, it might be next month, but eventually, they will send a force to investigate. Don’t forget, we have lost a major civilian ship and now potentially a complete five-ship taskforce. They will just say, in fact they are already saying, we can’t just throw another ship into the same situation. Right now, the assumption is still that the area is dangerous to enter due to the frequent solar flares. My opinion of that? It’s all bullshit. You know as well as I do that our ships can stand a beating. Even the storms of Prometheus weren’t enough to hold back Confed ships, not back in the day!”

He spotted Spartan desperately trying to speak and once more had to nod to let him finish first.

“Now, I want you to take a team of specialists, perhaps a few with the right kind of reputation to run an inspection of the Santa Cruz and kick her into shape. You will appreciate that a number of exchange platoons are currently settling in, and she’s not expected back in the line for at least another six months. Major Daniels was supposed to be taking leave, but I have asked him to join you for a shakedown crew due to the current crisis. It is dangerous with us having no rapid reaction force. I have decided to post a number of training ships not far from here to help ready crews and troops for potential security issues. You run a series of readiness drills, you never know when the order might arise to leave orbit, and there are plenty of destinations that would be perfect for the training of these men and women.”

Spartan could easily read between the lines of the somewhat distinctly unsubtle approach put forward by the Admiral. In his experience, it was often best to give politicians well-prepared solutions to problems. A ship with a team of the best people and equipment, and already waiting in orbit, would be a priority for use in any kind of reconnaissance or rescue operation.

“You’re probably aware we are well down on our numbers right now. Most of our senior officers are on leave, retired on in training. The War really hit us hard, and it will be at least another nine months before we’re back to anything like full strength. Our ships are spread thin and crew numbers are low. It is in my power to grant you a temporary promotion, and for this operation I think you’re going to need it. As of twenty minutes ago you are now Captain Spartan, second in command of the
2
^nd
Alliance Special Operations Group,
with duties to help increase fleet readiness in case of emergencies.”

He moved a file over to Spartan’s datapad, and a low beep indicated the arrival of the high-level encoded material.

“That is authorisation for temporary transfer of non-commissioned Alliance military personnel for the training mission under the supervision of Major Daniels. Now, get moving, Spartan, and get boots on that ship...fast. When I am able, I will give the order for your deployment. I have already transferred the information on your new mission to the Major, and he will be in touch shortly.”

* * *

Teresa had been lucky. Of the craft that had left the Santa Maria, hers had been the last and the most at risk when the enemy weapons struck the nearby cruisers. She’d seen one landing craft destroyed completely by a direct impact that scattered the craft in chunk of shattered metal. She could only hope and pray that the majority of the crew and marines had made it out before the end.

“You okay?” asked Sergeant Lovett.

It was odd, but since the devastation of the small fleet, he seemed to have awakened. It was as if the pain, desperation and tragedy had forced him out of his stupor and back to being the marine she was used to. She was well aware of his loss, but right now they had their own problems.

“Yeah, I’ll live. Don’t know about the rest of the marines though. We’ve just lost a lot of good people. Did you see what happened to the Santa Maria?”

Sergeant Lovett shook his head.

“No, last thing I saw was the cruisers getting hit. They were all blasting away with their turrets. You think she could have survived?”

Teresa looked at the window, but there was nothing but the flames of re-entry. She looked back to the number of computer screens, but all of them were showing the same image, digital distortion of the planet’s thick atmosphere.

“Make sure you’re strapped in, people. We’re coming in to the marked landing zone, and we’re coming in hot.”

Sergeant Lovett looked surprised.

“What? Why the rush?”