A Sword Into Darkness (41 page)

“Roger, XO,” Edwards agreed.

Nathan took a deep breath.  “Okay.  CHENG, report.  Did it work?”

He looked at the hull cameras even as she spoke.  The spirals of damage were no longer growing and no more dust streamed away from the ship.  Kris spoke up, her voice filled with static.  “Yep.  I think so.  No more critters eating the hull anyway.  I’ve got a lot of smoke and electrical damage back here, but we’re still in the fight.”

Nathan took a look at the battlespace, considering that.  The Control Ship was gouged and blackened, quiescent for the moment as it apparently contemplated its own damage.  Their warheads were all gone, either expended in the attack or blasted by the Deltan defenses.  The nanotech beam was also gone, as well as several of its laser emplacements.  For the moment, the battle was paused, both ships wounded, warily watching their foe.

“Nope,” he said into the net.  “We’re done.  There’s no way we can stop them with what we have left, and we’ve given them pause with what we’re able to do.  It’s time for retreat.  They don’t know that we’re dry at the moment, and I want to get away from here before they can repair their systems enough to try to take us.  Everybody back into your pods.  Helm, give me flank acceleration for the horizon and let’s see if we can make it home before they do.”

“Roger that, sir,” Weston answered.  “Fifteen g’s in ten seconds, everybody!”

“We’re buttoned up down in Engineering,” Kris yelled.  “Let ‘er rip.”

Weston fired the thrusters, turning perpendicular to the Control Ship, and the propulsion hull lit up with flank thrust.  The drive star began to roll by beneath them, putting distance and the burning horizon between themselves and the Deltans.

But the Control Ship—dormant while they had cruised by at a constant velocity—awoke now to full destructive fury, unwilling to accept a draw.

Six lasers shot out, all aimed for the same point at the weakest area of their hull, along the damaged radiator spine.  Radiator panels burned straight through and came apart.  Allocarbium bracing, made up of hardened alloys and nearly indestructible carbon nanotubes, vaporized under the thermal onslaught.  Gantries, pipes, and shafts parted, and the spine of the ship cracked right down the middle.

Fluids and vapor shot out from the damage and the destroyer snapped in two.

The propulsion hull barreled past the mission hull at flank thrust, sending both halves tumbling away from one another before the drive shut down.  Cut off from all power, the mission hull went dark, the data stream it had continually sent toward the re-trans pod now silent.  The propulsion hull, never equipped with communication antennas, was robbed of a final voice as well.

The
Sword of Liberty
was no more.

February 8, 2047; White House Oval Office; Washington DC

Lydia Russ watched the destroyer’s final moments in real time, six months after the fact.  No one in the room said a word, every one of them shocked into silence as the transmission from the
Sword of Liberty
cut away and the retransmission pod unemotionally kept up its broadcast, unaware that it sent forth its masters’ epitaph.

White faced and barely able to breathe, Lydia could not turn aside as the two halves of the destroyer spun uncontrolled around the Control Ship.  Constructs emerged from the implacable vessel, each one forming up around the two halves of the
Sword of Liberty
.  Bracketed by these alien devices, the destroyer sections were steadied up and then pulled into the interior of the Control Ship.  The warped and damaged plates of the alien vessel, which had slid open to reveal a dark interior volume, slid shut once more, entombing her friends, denying them even the solace of a burial in space.

The re-trans pod dutifully recorded the Deltan formation as it once again began revolving about its drive sphere, but whatever was to be done about the destroyed Junkyard and the heavily damaged other vessels went unanswered.  As soon as the Control Ship and the Deltan formation passed within close proximity of the pod, a flash of light lashed out and all transmissions ceased.  The stream from half a light-year away fell to static.

Lydia slowly turned away from the wall-mounted screen and glared at Carl Sykes and President Tomlinson.  Tomlinson looked as wan and in shock as Lydia had.  Sykes seemed perturbed, but not dismayed.

Lydia pointed a finger at the screen.  “They’re gone, Carl.  We just saw them give up their lives to stop those damned Deltans.  They made a sacrifice, assured that it wouldn’t be in vain.  But when I go to sleep tonight, and they’re there in my dreams, what the hell do I tell them?  Do I lie and say that the information they died to give us will help us alter the defense we’re building, that their example will help all the allied space navies be even more effective when the Deltans finally get here?

“Or do I tell them the truth, that there is no space navy, that the three ships we’ve been building still aren’t finished yet, that all the backdoor politicking and contract disputes haven’t allowed us to lay down any more hulls, that not one piece of the design has yet to be shared with our allies, even though we promised it to them right after the
Sword
launched?  Huh, Carl?  Which is it?”

Sykes flashed a brief look of shame, but squelched it in favor of indignation.  “Lydia, none of that is my fault.  These things take time, and delaying the completion of construction until after first contact was a strategic decision and the right one in my opinion.  I’m sorry your team was killed, but this has shown us where the design flaws lie.  When we complete the cruiser specs, we can build a truly effective warship.  Now we don’t have to waste production time on these flawed destroyers.”

“Bullshit!” Lydia screamed.  “The destroyer design isn’t fundamentally flawed.  They damn near took out the whole Deltan fleet with one ship!  If we quit on this design in favor of another version that isn’t even drafted yet, we’re going to be left with nothing.  It’s too late for this DC Beltway crap!  The Deltans are coming and their intentions are no longer academic.  They are the enemy and it’s up to us to build our defense as promised and planned.”

Sykes’ anger appeared in full force.  Whatever shame he had felt at seeing the
Sword of Liberty
destroyed was now buried.  “That’s not your decision to make!  We may indeed go on with the
Sword
class destroyers, or we might decide to proceed with the
Trenton
cruiser.  Maybe we’ll do both, with or without releasing the designs to foreign powers, but that’s something that will have to follow the full analysis of this data by my office.  And while you may be convinced of the implacable intent of these aliens, I’m not.  I don’t fully endorse the way Kelley handled things.  I think he was way too hot-headed and trigger happy.  He fired the first shot on these Deltans and he was the first one to destroy a ship.  For all we know, he took out a ship full of refugees!”

“Damn you, Carl!  Open up your eyes.  We’ve dragged our feet too long.”  Lydia turned to face the President, seated behind her desk.  “Madame President, it pains me to have to say this, but if this nation doesn’t do what’s necessary to defend this planet, I’m going to take Windward’s designs and Windward’s technologies to another world power who will listen and do what’s needed, nationalized US property or not.  I’m sure I can convince the EU or the Chinese to react.”

Sykes smiled.  “That’s it.  Go ahead and try, Lydia.  It will be my personal pleasure to throw your ass into Leavenworth.”

Tomlinson looked at Lydia’s stern expression and then turned to the Defense Secretary.  “Carl?”

Sykes faced her.  “Yes, Madame President?”

“Shut the hell up and get out of my office.  Your services are no longer required by my administration.”

Sykes’ features turned darker in outrage.  “What?”

Tomlinson stood, glaring at him.  “You said that ‘her team’ was killed.  What you’re forgetting is that every single one of them was a sworn volunteer of the United States Armed Forces.  They were our soldiers, my soldiers.  It wasn’t her team on that ship, it was the US Aerospace Navy and the United States of America in proxy. 
We
have been attacked by an alien threat, a threat which encompasses this entire planet, and as President I’m going to see their sacrifice made worthwhile.”

Sykes held up his hands.  “Madame President, they were drafted as a ploy.  Surely—”

“No.  You’re done.  If you value the bureaucracy you’ve built up more than the lives of the people in our military, then you’re not the soldier you used to be.”  Tomlinson turned to Lydia.  “Ms. Russ, you have my deepest apologies for the failure of my administration to keep up our end of the bargain, but you have my pledge that that all ends today.

“Our nation is from this moment on a war footing.  We will immediately contact our allies and fulfill our agreements for technology transfer, as we should have done long ago.  We will indeed analyze the battle and ensure that any necessary design changes are implemented in both the destroyer plans as well as the astrodynamic cruiser version.  Also, tomorrow, we will begin completion of the
Sword
s
of Justice
,
Independence
, and
Freedom
.  Their crews will be fast-tracked to full readiness, and we will launch all three by year’s end.  I guarantee it.

“And in light of what has occurred, it is my intention before the week is out to lay down the hull of our next destroyer … DA-5, the
Sword of Vengeance
.”

16:  “PATRONS”

Date Unknown; USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1), location unknown; Mission Day ???

Nathan
Kelley screamed.

Despite the anti-nausea meds, his stomach flopped about, churning with anxious bile, threatening to disgorge its bitter acid up his throat and into his helmet.  Cocooned within his Charlie Station pod, he spun chaotically about with the forward half of the ship, but the sickness that prepared to overcome him was only partly due to the motion.  There was instead something that concerned him far, far more.

He screamed again.  “Kris!!”

She—and ten others—had been aft in the engineering spaces, spaces which were now cut free of the mission hull and whatever remained of the flayed apart radiator spine.  He had no hope whatsoever that she could hear him on the general net, but it did not stop his anguished cries.

“Kris!  Talk to me, Kris!”

Nathan’s helmet telltales flickered without any sense of order.  The battle VR was filled with static, intermittent status bars, and multiple “blue screens of death” from systems cut off from their power source, their networks, and any semblance of connectivity.  He could tell nothing about anything.  For all he knew, he was the only one left alive aboard either half of the destroyer.

“Damn it, someone answer me!  Kris!!”

A piercing whine shot through his ears.  He winced and then froze as he heard an acerbic voice reply.  “Jesus, Nathan.  Would you just shut the fuck up for one minute?”

Nathan smiled desperately.  It was Edwards.  “COB!  It’s damn good to hear your voice.  Listen, have you got any data?  I lost everything after that beam cut through the ship’s spine.  Do you know what’s going on with Engineering?”

“No, Skipper, I don’t, but if you don’t mind me saying it, you need to chill the fuck out.  When I got my comms back, all I could hear was your heart bleeding over the damn net, and while I understand it, it’s the last friggin’ thing any of us need right now.”

Nathan said nothing, chastened into silence.

Edwards continued.  “I know you’re worried about Kris—and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re worried about the rest of us too—but she and the other engineers are like concern number twenty-seven on the list I’ve got running through my head.  I need you to start with concern one and work your way down it, not the other way around.  So, are you gonna captain, Captain, or do I need to cut your air off and let our happy-go-lucky XO take over?”

Nathan opened his mouth to bite back, but he closed it again with an audible snap and allowed himself to think instead of simply reacting.  A few moments later, he keyed his mike again.  “No, COB, you can keep me breathing.  I’m sorry.”

“S’all right, Skipper.  Next time we’re half a light-year from home and aliens chop my ship in half, with my sweetie in the wrong half, it’ll be my turn to freak out.”

Nathan chuffed a laugh, despite everything.  “Can I at least hope that your little counseling session was on a private channel?”

Edwards’ voice was full of good humor.  “Hey, who’s the Master Chief around here?  Of course it was.  Fact is, all the nets are down.  I only heard you after I opened a pod-to-pod channel.

Nathan nodded to himself.  “Okay.  I don’t know what you had as concern one on that list, but my first proper concern is situational awareness.  I’ve got nothing on my VR, and we need to know where we are and what’s going on before we can even start handling things.”

“Roger that, sir.  I’m in the same boat.”