SECTOR 64: Ambush (38 page)

The radio crackled to life. "Commodore Salyth, I've failed you. That last missile drained our shields to five percent. We won't survive the next."

As the final dreadnought commander's transmission ended, a mad laugh echoed through the cavernous bridge.

Salyth looked at the severed head. The obstinate dead officer's eyes seemed to glare accusingly. The commodore feebly kicked at it and yelled, "Shut up!"

Again, the speaker blared. The commander's words echoed off the rock walls. "It's been an honor, Commodore. I'll see you with the Forebear—" His sentence died unfinished as the blinding flash of the next fission bomb flared across the bridge. Its shockwave shoved Salyth sideways.

The nuclear inferno of the burning dreadnought wrapped around his unprotected ship. In the brilliance flooding the bridge, Salyth turned back to the control panel. Barely visible through the radiance, a new light shone through the vital fluid puddled on its glass top. With a tremendous effort, Salyth swung a heavy arm across the console. An arc of blood sprayed from its surface. Rubbing his massive hands across the panel, he squinted, trying to read the display. Finally, the wavering letters came into focus: WEAPON CHARGED.

Commodore Salyth tilted his head back and roared. With the last of his failing energy, he hoisted both arms toward the ceiling. "The Forebearer's are avenged!" Then, his body collapsed. Falling through the white-hot light flooding the bridge, his arms thrust toward the weapon's actuator.

Sandy followed the general's aide down a long featureless corridor. The razor-sharp creases of the woman's uniform, lack of jewelry, and her jet black tightly drawn hair gave the senior officer a severe look. The female major slowed as she reached the end of the hallway. "In here, Captain."

Sandy nodded to her and passed through the double steel doors the officer had indicated. The placard on the wall above the entry read: Combat Control Center. Usually referred to as C3, the room was full of computer consoles and displays. A layman could easily mistake it for NASA's Mission Control. From here, Air Force command staff monitored deployed forces around the planet in realtime.

Stopping to stare at the room's main display in open-jawed amazement, Sandy realized the capability also reached into space. An incredible scene played out across a large display dominating the room's back wall. Like a cinematic space battle, hundreds if not thousands of ships filled the screen. Some flew about in total chaos, while others hovered in a stationary formation too big to fit in the image. Extending above and below the satellite's narrow field of view, the scope of the engagement made it difficult to tell one side from another. The disparate collection of ships, multicolored laser beams, and flickering curtains of energy painted a confused mural across the large display.

Utilizing the same gravity-defying ability demonstrated over San Francisco, the stationary vessels in the battle hovered over a large body of water. The conflict was obviously taking place in space. However, she had no way of deducing the location or altitude. Holding their position, the alien ships slowly shrank as the terrestrial satellite providing the video feed maintained its orbital velocity. Every second brought additional ships into the expanding view. A land mass slid into the bottom of the screen's right side. The curving shoreline formed familiar lines that Sandy belatedly recognized as Spain's southwest coast when the iconic Strait of Gibraltar also glided into view. Looking backward and slowly receding from the space battle, the spy satellite continued its southeastward track, bringing North Africa and the Sahara Desert into the image's lower left side.

As the point of view drew farther away, the full battle finally came into sight. Arranged in a large sphere, hundreds of sleek wedge-shaped ships formed a cocoon with several dark structures at its center. Like spokes of a wheel, scores of laser beams attached the outer shell of ships to the bulbous energy curtains encasing the central targets. As if choreographed to an unheard musical accompaniment, the beams oscillated and randomly pulsed off and on. Sweeping around the formation, incidental patterns generated by simultaneous volleys seemed to race around the sphere like a hyperactive music visualizer.

A new barrage of lasers drew her attention. Burning from various points within the glowing orbs, fruitless violet lasers blazed through empty gaps in the encapsulating formation. As another flurry of beams shot through the shell, Sandy caught movement. They weren't firing at empty space. Each beam had targeted a specific vessel. However, as if prescient, the sleek wedges skipped aside, instantaneously dodging each beam.

The scale of the image slammed home when the shielded objects revealed themselves during a lull in the attack's intensity. Sandy recognized the central small irregular edifices as a collection of the giant asteroidal enemy vessels. Judging by those proportions, and the relative size of the continental land masses below, it looked like a few of the enemy ships had been trapped in a desperate defensive formation a couple of hundred miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

In a sudden epiphany, Sandy realized the encompassing fleet must belong to the galactic government Jake had described. Unrelentingly, the short duration laser beams continued to burn from the nose of each of the encircling ships. Studying their form, Sandy decided the wedge-shaped vessels must be a space-based alien analogue of a fighter jet. As she examined them, several new larger beams joined the assault burning into the shields of the enemy formation.

Following the new lasers to their source, Sandy spotted several dark shapes sliding into the satellite's ever-expanding field of view. Arranged in an expansive grid, a fleet of massive ships hovered below the sphere of fighters. As if absorbing all light, their profiles appeared to cut black holes into the backdropping azure atmosphere. The flowing lines of the beautiful crafts contrasted sharply against the irregular angularities of the antagonistic alien's asteroidal ships. Dwarfing the enemy vessels, the largest of the sleek black ships easily exceeded five miles in length.

Barely discernible against the ocean below, a shimmering halo surrounded each. When one of the entrapped enemy vessels fired its own laser down into the flat formation, the faint shimmer blossomed into an opalescent sheet. Sandy realized it was a forcefield similar to that employed by the enemy ships. The overlapping shields of the massive black ships created a huge circular plane between Earth and the enemy fleet.

While the encapsulating fighters continued to pour fire into the entire enemy formation, all the lasers reaching up from the fleet of huge, sleek vessels burned into one object. The targeted asteroid's forcefield glowed like a white egg, completely obscuring the shrouded enemy vessel from view. Oscillating luminosity created a dizzying strobing effect as the forcefield appeared to weaken under the continued assault. Then, its opalescent shimmer faded to a lambent grid of sheet-lightning. Unrelenting brilliant beams of energy continued pouring into it. The bubble flared blindingly white and then collapsed, discharging its energy in an enormous flash of Saint Elmo's fire. The forcefield surrendered in a death knell of dissipating lightning bolts that leapt from ship to ship, dancing across every vessel in the conflict. The last of their energy spent, the fingers of blue plasma finally flickered and died as they passed into the void beyond the attacking ships.

In the same instant, the giant asteroid started dissolving under the continued assault. With unimaginable power, the lasers rendered the city-sized rocks into molten slag. Some sections detonated, casting glowing orange blobs in every direction. Trajectories curved into graceful hyperbolic arcs as their suborbital velocities proved insufficient to keep the molten rocks from falling into Earth's gravity well. Like a live action version of Salvador Dali's surreal melting clock, the rigid protuberances of the asteroidal ships drooped. Under the continued laser assault, the sagging ship's energetic glow ramped up to white-hot. Now flowing like lava, the melted ship, no longer supported by its drive, surrendered to Earth's gravity and poured down on the vessels below. The small fighters in its path slid aside. When the hellish rain passed, they snapped back to their previous position, all while continuing to pour laser fire into the remaining enemy ships.

The molten rock fell onto one of the large vessels below. To Sandy's amazement, it bounced off the much larger ship's forcefield. Like mercury seeking low ground, it puddled in a depression in the formation's overlapping shield bubbles. The enormous sleek black ships didn't even shudder under the impact. However, the entire grid seemed to sag until a gap opened, allowing the liquefied rock to slip past.

Sandy gasped as the mountainous glowing glob raced toward the Atlantic Ocean. Then, all the large ships turned their lasers and fired into the falling debris. The powerful beams broke the melted minerals into their constituent atoms. Freed of molecular bonds, the liquefied rock evaporated into a gaseous plasma. Like a comet passing too close to the sun, the plummeting molten sphere grew a fiery tail.

"Holy shit," Sandy whispered.

Renewed activity at the conflict's core drew her attention. Like an hourglass laid on its side, the overlapping shield bubbles protecting what was left of the enemy fleet fluoresced under the unyielding onslaught. Between flares, she glimpsed two ships within the double-bubble. A smaller third entity appeared to occupy the area between the two. Then, the linked orbs opaqued in a spasm of opalescent light fluorescing under the continued laser assault of the encapsulating fighters. A brief lull in the bombardment revealed the third object as the blasted ship-remnant that had risen from Chesapeake Bay.

Sandy turned a nervous eye toward the planet below. "What are they doing about the other ships?"

"What other ships?" the major asked.

Sandy pointed at the two and a half vessels hovering at the center of the image. "There were sixteen of those assholes. I assume that's the one that came out of the Chesapeake. It and those two, along with the one they just shot down, only accounts for four of them." Prying her eyes from the incredible scene playing out on the display, Sandy turned to the female major with a questioning look. "Where are the other twelve?"

The major pointed at the Atlantic. "Sinking to the bottom of the ocean." For the first time since meeting Sandy, the stark officer smiled. "What's left of them, anyway."

Before she could ask the myriad questions elicited by the answer, movement at the top of the display drew her attention. New disc-shaped ships darted into the image.

Sandy had observed combat operations from this room in the past. Like her fighter's tactical display, the command center's computers normally superimposed an icon over each asset in theater. Whether manned fighter or remotely operated drone, each aircraft had a computer generated icon following its every movement. Likely due to the lack of tracking telemetry, neither the antagonistic aliens nor the apparently malevolent forces garnered a symbol. However, computer-generated icons tracked each of these new vessels.

Now, four more ships shot into view, bringing the icon count to eight. Moving incredibly fast, the octet of thin silver discs diverged. With instantaneous course changes, they turned onto eight discrete paths. It appeared each vessel's approach angle would ultimately converge on the enemy fleet. However, a wedge-shaped fighter-analogue in the spherical formation appeared to block the inbound path of each silver disc. Just as Sandy recognized the threat to the apparently allied ships, the approaching discs reversed direction. Not believing what she'd just seen, Sandy blinked her eyes. One moment, they'd been screaming toward the battle, the next, they blasted away from the formation in an instantaneous course reversal.

Sandy recognized the fighters from Jake's description. Pointing at the icons, she turned to the major standing next to her. "Are those the fighters that shot down the ship over Chesapeake Bay?"

The major nodded.

The two groups of four ships were labeled
Vampire Alpha
and
Vampire Bravo
. The emblems rushing outbound passed a new solo icon labeled
Vampire Six
. Heading inbound, it passed between the eight symbols of Alpha and Bravo Wings. An instant later, it too reversed course, following the other ships upward, away from the formation.

Several new icons popped into existence. Trailing thin fiery tails, a chain of silver missiles rushed inward. Labeled
BB22
through
BB29
, the eight icons each flew straight toward the back of an allied fighter. A ninth symbol joined the onslaught. Labeled
BB31
, it too rushed toward the back of an allied fighter.

Sandy turned to the female major again. "Those have to be the nuclear bunker busters! Why are we shooting at the good guys?"

The general's aide held up a finger. "Watch."

As each of the lead missiles reached the back of the formation, the imperiled alien ship darted out of the way. As the missile passed, the ships slid back into position. Finally understanding, Sandy nodded. "The Argonian's are hiding their approach until the last possible moment."

Again, the major nodded. "Our fighters can avoid their lasers, but the missiles can't."

Rocket motors added to the incredible velocity the Vampire fighters had imparted upon the missiles. In the short seconds it took them to bridge the gap, every fighter in the ball-shaped formation continued to pour laser fire into the glowing oblong double-bubble.

The image flashed bright white as the first missile impacted the right side of the enemy formation. A split second later, three more nuclear detonations struck in short intervals. Overdriving the satellite's visual sensors, the strobing nuclear blasts completely washed out the image.

As the nuclear conflagration faded, Sandy saw the final fighter dart sideways, allowing the last missile,
BB31,
to pass.

The image flickered as the still receding satellite increased magnification. In an instant, the round formation of sleek black wedges blossomed from the center third of the display to completely fill it.