A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) (22 page)

“Incoming, sir.” Mae informed the team from her rearguard position. “Falling back to hold point.”

“Rhodes is in the airlock, we’re moving out in two minutes.” Scott informed them.

She looked back into the airlock. Rhodes was stirring on the deck. His eyes snapped open and his arm clutched at his bad shoulder. He rolled up into a sitting position and retched on the deck, mostly just stomach acid. He rose to his feet, still wobbling and cycled the inner hatch. As it opened he stumbled into the DC locker and disappeared from her line of sight.

It took him nearly 30 seconds to reappear, shrugging into a light pressure suit. Scott noticed an additional pressure bandage over his left shoulder where the bullet had penetrated his armor. As he finished donning the suit, Scott unlimbered the light rifle she had liberated from a dead soldier and the spare clips. She looked back up to see him entering the airlock, adding some light armor to his pressure suit as he did. He looked up and nodded, conveying with hand signals that he was ready to go. Unfortunately, there’d be no way to communicate via comms. Another oversight, Scott decided.

“We’re moving people.” Scott informed the team as Rhodes exited the airlock. She noticed now that he had a slight limp.

“Falling back.” Mae responded.

“Willis, lead off.” Scott ordered.

“Yes sir.” After a moment he was back on the comm. “Light resistance, pushing through.”

“Sir. Lieutenant Scott reports that they have blinded the battlecruiser. We have the vectors that they lack sensor coverage and point defense.” The ensign on comms reported. Captain Martin looked to tactical.

“Set it up.” He said, turning a second time to face maneuvering. “Helm, box turn. Navigation, plot it out.”

“Box turn, aye.” Helm responded.

“Plotting now sir. Transferring to helm.” The Navigator said crisply.

“Inform the Admiral, we’re taking that battlecruiser down.” Martin told his comm officer. She nodded in response.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Incoming message from
Thunderer
.” Daniels reported. “Captain Martin says that the Agema have blinded the battlecruiser and he is executing an attack run on her now.”

“Very well. Keep me updated.” Athena responded.
Tripoli
was riding into the firestorm, on an attack run against the surviving battlestation. The Armadillos were making their own run, nearly 100 degrees on two axis off
Tripoli’s
own approach vector. The other ACGs were making runs at other offsets, attempting to englobe the station. While Athena knew that she didn’t have enough ships to overwhelm the station’s point defenses, she could weaken their ability to focus on the Armadillos and thus increase Captain Kim’s chances.

Athena hated the plan, but at this point she needed to take down the battlestation quickly. She didn’t have time to pull out of range and re-arm all of her ships with missiles. That would take at least 18 hours, under ideal conditions. With so many ships damaged, that was likely to be an even longer process. She had that kind of time only once she cleared this system. Chinese reinforcements could arrive at any time and she needed to be on the move.

She noticed that
Thunderer
was starting her box turn. Since FTL required a ship to be travelling in the same direction as the jump, a box turn helped to bend the trajectory of a ship and allow for the ship to decelerate and gain velocity in the desired direction. A box turn, specifically, involved using at least two large bodies to effect the turn. In this case,
Thunderer
was utilizing the star and one of the outer gas giants. After rounding the gas giant,
Thunderer
would be able to develop the required delta-v and execute an attack run on the battlecruiser. A gunboat or corvette tended to lack to required power storage banks to do such a turn, but a cruiser like
Thunderer
had enough.

Providing that he doesn’t just decide to jump away.
Athena thought sourly.
Then he’ll be a constant threat for the rest of this mission.

“Inform Captain Martin that the destruction of that battlecruiser is paramount. Also, redirect all remaining gunboats to the effort. Inform all parties that they’ll be working together.” Athena decided.

“Aye sir.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Captain Kim glanced around the interior of the shuttle for what felt like the thousandth time. As she did, an indication came up on her HUD, a request for a two-way comm from Gunnery Sergeant Johnnie Bryant.

“Yeah Gunny?” Kim inquired as she opened the link.

“Relax Captain, you’ll stroke out and you know you don’t want me running this outfit.” He said slowly but bluntly.

“I’m on it Gunny, just never done anything like this before.” She replied, steadier than she expected.

“They jus’ don’t cover it all in training, do they sir?” He replied quietly.

“No they don’t.” She paused for a moment. “You ever do anything like this Gunny?”

“Once.” He said. For a long moment Kim thought he wasn’t going to continue. “Early in my service, just a greenie private. Terrorist group captured a combined cargo-passenger ship with five hundred aboard. All the usual threats and warnings, said they’d blow up the ship if anyone approached, that they had all the airlocks rigged. Usually turns out to be bullshit, but the Brass weren’t taking any chances. We jumped from a ship passing in front, well off their course, just barely slower. Took us four hours just to close in. Half missed the ship, but they were the lucky ones and got picked up off the stern by a waiting naval squadron. For whatever reason, maybe just an itch, they decided to make a rapid course change before we all touched down. The guys who weren’t on the hull, well let’s just say a ship is a lot more massive than an armored man. Anyway, we moved in and secured the ship. Of course, there weren’t any damned explosives, just a bunch of ignorant assholes.” He finished bitterly.

“I guess that makes you an old hand at this then, Gunny.” Kim said, the Gunnery Sergeant taking her mind off the impending shuttle launch.

“S’pose it does.” He said, his tone neutral.

The light in the shuttle switched from red to yellow, indicating launch was imminent. Each suit received the same warning, though only Kim’s gave any more data than that. Once it turned green, they’d separate from the hull and drive on the battlestation.

At least this target lacks a maneuvering capability.
Kim thought to herself. She clicked over to the shuttle-wide comm.

“Prepare for separation. One minute. Sound off.” Kim ordered. Even with modern technology, the military maintained the tradition of sounding off. The true purpose was to make sure everyone was in the correct mindset, focused on the mission ahead. No matter how ready the weapon, if the soldier using it wasn’t prepared with their head in the game, the weapon would be useless.

“Shuttle separation in three, two, one.” A tremor ran through each marine’s armor as the shuttle launched off the Armadillo’s hull. “Good luck Marines!” The captain of
Ticonderoga
gave them the traditional send off, just before the laser comm link was lost.

“Clean separation,
Tico
is pulling away smartly.” The shuttle pilot reported. “Forty seconds to combat deceleration maneuver.”

Kim could almost hear the inevitable groans from those in the shuttle, even without an open comm channel. A combat deceleration would be unpleasant. The dampeners weren’t ship sized, so some of the accelerations transferred into the people inside. A combat deceleration involved flipping the shuttle over and firing the mains to decelerate instead of the breaking thrusters. This meant that everyone would be feeling about twelve gs for fifteen or twenty seconds.

Kim could see that the shuttle copilot had successfully established the laser-link grid between all of the shuttles from
Tico
. Four shuttles, each carrying twelve RASAT. The other set of four shuttles was landing just around the edge of the station and was therefore out of line-of-sight. Kim refused to risk any other comm, it’d be suicidal.

“Decelerating!” The pilot called out a half second before everyone felt the acceleration. Kim felt like she was being crushed under a heavy vehicle tread.

“They’ve spotted us.” The copilot reported. “We’re inside repulsor range but I’ve got point-defense slewing onto us.”

Repulsors used for stopping incoming ordnance were tuned to halt or deflect said ordnance hundreds of meters from the hull, ideally further. For the shuttles, now inside that limit, they were of no help.

Kim waited, knowing that the pilots couldn’t maneuver the fragile shuttles or risk their chance to land. They didn’t have the ability to get outside the station’s point defense, so all they could do was try and get on the hull before point defense got them.

“Down in two, one, contact.” The pilot called out as the shuttle rocked and touched down on the armored hull. As good as the pilot was, the shuttle bounced once, rising nearly ten meters off the armored hull. The pilot frantically throttled his topside thrusters, looking to force the shuttle back down. A point defense turret, one that had tracked them in but lost them so close to the hull, saw its opportunity and unleashed a burst of slugs.

The pilot was quick, but the slugs were quicker. A dozen slugs tore into the topside, ripping away several square meters of the shuttle and sending it careening away. One of the topside thrusters was in its path, spewing fuel over the occupants for a few seconds before the copilot hit the manual shut-off. The pilot had backed off the thrusters as they approached the hull again, but as the shuttle’s struts touched down a second time, he throttled up to full. The force of the impact slewed the shuttle around, forcing it to ricochet off a sensor blister. The shuttle depressed its gear all the way to the stops. Kim was certain that, had there been atmosphere in the shuttle, she would have been able to hear the hull creak from the downforce. She certainly imagined the noise. As the shuttle came to a full stop, Kim couldn’t help but noticing that the starboard door looked to be caved in.

“Everyone out, I want a perimeter and I want it now!” Kim yelled, breaking the momentary hesitation several Marines experienced. The shuttle hatches were malfunctioning, forcing a manual exit to be used, a Marine opened the dump valve and another applied pressure to force the door open, albeit slowly.

“Hey jackasses, break ’er down, you trying to avoid scratchin’ the paint?” GSgt Bryant bellowed over the comm. The two marines on the door reacted almost instantly, throwing their shoulders into the door. A third marine reached out with his armored hands and snapped off the aft hydraulics on the port door. Seconds later, the port door was open and the RASAT emptied onto the hull. As Kim exited, she moved around to the starboard side, noticing that the shuttle was resting against a disabled point defense shotgun emplacement.

“Gunny, I want to go in through this shotgun. Make me a door.” Kim ordered, pointing to the disabled weapon.

“Yes sir.” He turned and switched his comm to a squad level to bark orders at two of the privates. Kim commed the pilot of her shuttle.

“Status?”

“We put down hard, but I think she’ll fly again if you’re so inclined.” He responded in what Kim thought might be a West Virginia drawl.

“How about the laser link?”

“Operational as well. We’ve got line of sight on shuttle 2. The link is stable.” The copilot chimed in.

“Very good. I’ll leave you two Marines.”

“Appreciated.” The pilot responded, probably too cheerfully considering where they were.

Kim detached two privates to guard the shuttle. If shit really hit the fan, they might be able to extract to here but she primarily wanted to maintain the ability to phone home. She established a link to the other three shuttles, confirming that everyone was down with no casualties. Apparently only her shuttle had taken any fire. Probably bad luck, but the flight crew would definitely be buying the beers when they got home.

“Bull One to Rodeo.” Kim said as she opened a comm channel to
Tripoli
.

“Bull One, this is Rodeo. State your status” Came the reply after a brief delay.

“Rodeo, we took a few rounds coming in, no KIA. Securing entrance now.”

“Roger Bull One. Anything else to report?”

“Negative Rodeo. Any status on Stag?” The other RASAT element.

“Stag has not checked in. We do not currently have eyes on. Updates will follow as they become available.” Rodeo reported.

“Roger that, Rodeo. Bull is proceeding.” Kim’s sign-off was punctuated by a mute explosion. She couldn’t feel a tremor in the station’s hull, but she could see the portion of the shotgun come free. Two RASATs stepped up and gently shoved the free piece away. GSgt Bryant tossed a camera drone into the open hole. Kim looked at the feed and saw that they had access to a sizeable hole, but not pressurized spaces. She wasn’t surprised, this would be an obvious weak point that would have more armor and thus more distance to pressurized spaces. Besides, they all would have seen the atmosphere escaping through the hole if they’d breached that far.

One of GSgt Bryant’s team lowered himself into the hole and began setting the next set of charges. They’d break through, given time.

“Contact, front of shuttle.” Called out another Marine. “PRC Marines.”

“Let’s take ‘em down. I want every Chinese Marine cleared off this hull.” Kim ordered. “Spread out and grab some cover!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Transition in three, two, one, transition!” Helm called out.
Thunderer
emerged from FTL a scant thousand kilometers from the wounded battlecruiser.

“Fire.” Captain Martin said.
Thunderer
already had all of her main guns oriented to face forward, so a complete salvo leapt from her guns almost as soon as Martin gave the command.

“Good hits.” Tactical reported at once. “95% made it through their point defense. Her number two topside railgun turret is gone sir.”

“I’m getting power flux from inside the hull sir.” Sensors reported hesitantly.

“She powering up?” Martin asked.

“I don’t think so sir…I’m not” The sensor officer stiffened for a moment, moving slightly closer to her screen before snapping her head back around to face Martin. “Core failure! She’s losing at least one of her reactors.”