Accord of Mars (Accord Series Book 2) (14 page)

I
watched
as Perrault’s ship tore my first volley to bits. I wasn’t really anticipating much from the attack. The Hermes had to sacrifice something to add all the fighter bays, and I’d elected to give it only minimal offensive capability. Everything in ship engineering was a trade-off.

His ship was venting atmosphere like mad. The Hawks had hurt him. If I could keep most of his attention focused on my ship, they’d wound him even more on their next pass. I just had to make sure we survived the experience. The raw number of missiles headed our way was more than I’d expected to be facing. But we weren’t done yet.

“Helm, bring the ship a course perpendicular to theirs,” I said. “I want to almost cross their T, but keep us out of the path of their main gun.” They’d still be able to fire on us. Missiles didn’t have have to shoot in straight lines. But by moving laterally the missiles would have to work harder to acquire us, and harder still to maintain a lock. “Come to five gravities acceleration, and circle around them as we go.”

The speed would make tracking us harder still. With the suits on, we could sustain that sort of burn for a long time. I hated breathing the liquid perfluorocarbon crap, but it was keeping us alive.

Most of the missiles were still tracking us even with the change of course. “Rotate the ship,” I ordered. “Belly toward the missiles.”

“Aye, sir, rotating.”

I’d had to give up a lot of offense in designing the Hermes. Missile magazines took up enormous space, and we simply didn’t have room for them. We could have added more launchers, but then we’d have burned through our entire magazines in just a few volleys.

Anti-missile gun ammunition, and the little rockets I’d developed to seek and destroy incoming missiles? Those were smaller. We could pack a ton of those. So I’d given the Hermes a few tweaks that no one had ever seen before. The attack tubes were on the sides of the ship. The anti-missile defense was mostly stacked on the belly. As we rolled the belly of the ship toward the teeth of the incoming assault, every gun emplacement on the ship was able to come to bear all at once.

The first volley they fired was fifty-two missiles. Ten lost track of us as we moved. The other forty-two died in that hail of lead. Not a single one got through our defense.

The bridge crew cheered. I let them have their moment. I felt a lot like cheering myself; it was the total vindication of the effectiveness of my design. Then I brought them back to their tasks. “Stay ready. There’s a lot more missiles coming our way.”

There were a few murmured “Aye, sir” and “Yes sir” replies, but I could feel the energy of their mood. A few minutes ago the Hermes had been an untried, untested ship. None of us really knew how well the defenses would hold. Now we’d seen it first-hand. Their confidence was running high.

“Keep firing as long as our missiles last,” I said. “I want focused fire on the rear of the ship.”

Flynn’s next attack would strike the back ends. If a few of our volleys landed about the same time her attack did, it would give their defensive fire that many more targets to worry about, and make things that much harder for them. We had to get more missiles through. The Dreadnought was so big, so well armored, that it was going to take a lot of damage before it went down.

Then the second wave of missiles pounded away at us. This time our defenses were almost as good as they’d been for the first wave. Only two of the fifty shots broke past. But then the other reason for rolling the ship came into play.

I’d known the Hermes would take some hits during a fight, even with the best defensive grid possible. I also knew I couldn’t armor the ship everywhere. It would have been as sluggish as Perrault’s dreadnought if I had. So I focused all the armor on the belly of the ship, turning the entire surface into a massive shield of composite alloys and ablative armor.

The two missiles slammed into the armor plates, which ruptured and burst, scattering the blast back into space. The ship shook with each impact, but I’d been through worse.

“Damage report,” I said.

“None sir,” Harris said. “All stations report no damage.” He sounded stunned.

I wasn’t so much surprised as relieved. That was how the armor was supposed to work. But it had never been tested under combat conditions before. There simply hadn’t been time. I’d had it installed anyway, and it was gratifying to see that the gamble was paying off.

Then it was time to check on my fighters. I cursed as two more of the Hawks were destroyed on their attack run. It looked like the dreadnought was using its anti-missile guns on the fighters now. Flynn had brought them in incredibly close. The fighters couldn’t carry a lot of missiles, so she was trying to make this into a knife fight, get her ships in near enough that there was no way the missiles could be shot down before they impacted.

When the Hawks fired they were so close that the missiles didn’t even register on radar for long enough to display on the holotank before they blew. Eight fighters, she’d fired sixteen missiles in at the back end of the dreadnought. Her fighters winged away, splitting and running clear of the ship. One was clipped on the way out and vanished from my screen.

But they’d done the work. The holotank displayed a damage estimate, and it was showing me the plumes of secondary explosions in the rear of the ship. Even better, they’d stopped their forward acceleration. The fighters had damaged something in the engines and crippled the dreadnought. The ship still had the forward velocity it had already built up, but it wasn’t going to be doing any maneuvering.

“Flynn, have your Hawks return to base,” I said. They had to be low on missiles, but they could re-arm on the Hermes or even on Mars Station in a pinch. It would cost us time, but they needed more missiles to get the job done.

“Negative sir,” she replied. “Making one more pass. Gonna try to pick up a missing package.”

“Flynn, return to base,” I said. I knew the package she was talking about. There was no way I was going to let her endanger the entire mission just to save my son. “That’s an order.”

“Sorry sir, your message is garbled. I think the enemy ship is jamming transmissions again,” she said.

“I -” I started to berate her over the radio, and realized that at least two of my bridge crew were shaking in their suits. They were laughing. Part of my wanted to chuckle, myself, both at Keladry’s audacity and my own foolish attempt at calling her home. A lesson I’d learned a long, long time ago: never give an order that you know won’t be followed.

So instead I keyed the mike one more time, and said: “Godspeed, Kel.”

If anyone could bring Thomas home, she was the one who could make it happen.

T
he fighter’s
missiles slammed into the rear of the ship like a pile of sledgehammers. I couldn’t tell if defensive fire took any of them down, but enough got through that we felt it all the way up near the nose of the ship on the bridge. Tremors shook the floor, and I heard more ominous groaning from the structure. They’d built her damned well though. I had to admit, the ship was taking a beating.

Then I realized something had changed. My stomach lurched, and I wasn’t pushed back into my seat by acceleration anymore. We were in free fall. The engines were gone!

A console behind me erupted in showers of sparks. The marine who’d shot Acres had buckled himself in near the offending machine. He let off a string of curses, hastily undoing himself from the chair and batting out sparks where they’d landed on his uniform. Without thinking about it he’d pushed himself away from the console as hard as he could, and now he was drifting toward where I sat.

I looked back to Perrault, who was barking orders to his crew. He was distracted. The crew was busy fighting the ship. And one of the three men in the room with a weapon was floating in the air next to my head.

I unbuckled my own straps with one hand and reached up with the other, yanking hard on the butt of the marine’s pistol. The hard motion sent him into a spin. Rather than reach for his weapon to keep it away from me - which is what he should have done - he flailed his arms around trying to catch hold of something to stop the motion. It was an automatic reflex, one he only would have trained his way out of if he’d spent a lot of time fighting hand to hand without gravity.

Which he hadn’t done. None of these people had trained very long without gravity around them. Even their flight out here had mostly been with the benefit of the artificial gravity from their spinning ship. On the other hand, I’d worked and lived without gravity for months at a time.

I worked the pistol free from his holster with one fluid motion. Then I snagged him by the front of his uniform and hauled him down so I could look the Chief’s killer in the eye. His eyes were wide and terrified. I found that I didn’t care.

“This is for Acres,” I said. Then I shot him in the face. I had a feeling this was one face that wasn’t going to revisit me in nightmares.

The rest of the room froze for a moment at the sound of the gunshot, deafening in the enclosed space even over the sound of alarms and explosions.

“Stop him!” Perrault yelled, rising from his seat and pointing at me.

I aimed the gun at him and fired, but the shot went wide. He ducked down behind his chair. Damn. If I could take him out, cut the head from the snake here, there was a chance whoever took command afterward might be willing to see reason. Or at the least it could cause enough confusion to make things easier for Dad. But there were still two other marines in the room, the men who’d dragged me up here. Both of them unbuckled themselves. They’d be all over me in a minute. I didn’t have time to deal with Perrault.

I shoved off against the seat with both legs, dragging body of the guard I’d killed with me toward the door. My hand might not be able to open the lock, but I had a feeling his might do the trick whether or not he was breathing. I grabbed the dead man’s wrist and waved it in front of the door lock. The doors snapped open, letting me haul myself and the body through. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the other two marines launching themselves toward me. Both of them had their pistols out now, and were taking aim as they came.

Flipping the dead man’s hand up again, I waved it in front of the panel on the other side of the door. The bridge doors slammed shut, and I heard the marines crash against the door on the other side. That would only hold them a moment though. Time to make it a little harder on them. I aimed at the panel and fired the pistol. The first shot only splintered the panel, so I fired three more times. The third round went through and tore up the electronics inside. I saw sparks flash from the panel as something inside the door mechanism shorted out.

I was certain they’d find another way out, but it should hold them for at least a few moments. I’d gotten of the bridge, but now what? They’d be through the door in another minute - or call in more marines from the other side - and I’d be right back where I started. There had to be some way I could get off this damned ship. Or failing that, do enough damage to the ship to take it down with me. It was a grim thought, but if I was going out I wanted my death to mean something.

My smartwatch chirped at me.

I stared at the thing for a moment. At first I thought it was a malfunction. That I’d damaged it at some point. But the watch was trying to tell me I had an incoming message. Could it be Dad, trying to reach me? I tapped the screen to receive the call.

“Thomas here,” I said.

“Hiya Thom!” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Kel? What are you doing out here?” My watch didn’t have much range. Dad might have been able to get a signal in to me, but I doubted I could broadcast back to him - he was hundreds of miles away in the Hermes. To be reaching me like this, Kel must have been on the ship with me. Or - right outside it?

“I’m blowing up the ship you’re sitting on,” she said. “Wanna come join me?”

“Is that your idea of a hot date?” I asked. Joking under fire, that was me.

“Ha. Funny,” she said. “Listen, the Hawks can do a mid-space pickup. I’ve had practice.”

“Practice?” I couldn’t imagine who she’d convinced to let her try that stunt. But I could totally see Kel giving it a shot. “On who?”

“Your father. Now shut up and listen. There are airlocks fore and aft on both sides of the ship. My scan is showing damage on both front airlocks from our missile barrage,” she said. “Hold on.”

There were a few long moments of silence. I sat there hoping she was all right. Knowing she was out there, fighting for her life, and risking a lot trying to even talk to me. Then I heard noises from the other side of the door into the bridge. It sounded like some sort of cutting tool. They were coming after me.

“Thom? Sorry, it’s a little hectic out here,” Kel said.

“No worries.” Well, lots of worries, but it wasn’t going to help her to tell her that I was scared as hell for her. I’d missed her so much it hurt sometimes. But now, I wished she was just about anywhere other than here. I’d almost lost her in my last space battle. I hated even the idea of losing her now.

Which was probably a little how my father felt whenever it was me in danger. I had a sudden sympathy for his position.

“You need to get aft. Use one of the airlocks to get outside,” she said. “I’ll grab you.”

“I’ll try,” I said. That was half a mile of hostile territory to cover. It wasn’t going to be a fast jaunt.

“Just do it!” she said.

“I’m on my way,” I said. “But Kel. You have to tell Dad. This ship’s main gun can take out the most of the colony on the surface with one blast. It sounds like one shot might be all it has left in it, but Perrault is planning to use it. We’ve got a few minutes before he coast into range, and then…”

“I hear you,” Kel said. Her voice sounded sad. “But damn it, get off the ship before I have to blow it up. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

“Will do,” I said.

Time to get out of here. I waved the dead man’s hand over the second set of doors and peeked out into the hall. Then ducked back twice as fast. Bullets pinged off the wall where my head had been a moment before.

“Shit,” I said. I was pinned down.

Behind me, sparks flew as whatever blade they were cutting through the door with opened a small hole in the steel doors.