Fermi's War Read online

  FERMI'S WAR

  Battlecruiser Alamo: Book 2

  Richard Tongue

  Battlecruiser Alamo #2: Fermi's War

  Copyright © 2013 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved

  First Kindle Edition: July 2013

  Cover By Keith Draws

  All characters and events portrayed within this ebook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Join the Battlecruiser Alamo Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/A9MdX

  With Thanks To: Kenneth Bailey, Mark Berryman, Jon Clivaz, Peter Long

  Editorial Assistance Provided By Peter Long

  Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

  And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.

  Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

  Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

  You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung.

  High in the sunlit silence, hov'ring there

  I've chased the shouting winds along and flung

  My eager craft through footless halls of air.

  Up, up the long delirious burning blue

  I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

  Where never lark or even eagle flew

  And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

  The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

  Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

  'High Flight', John Gillespie McGee, Jr.

  Chapter 1

  Self-consciously, Third Lieutenant Daniel Marshall sat in a chair in the ready room, trying to look as if he was absorbed in the book he was reading. He'd been on the Wright for less than two weeks, out of flight training for less than a month, but was desperately trying not to let it show. The rest of the pilots in the room were lounging around, all of them veterans of months of constant fighting with UN forces. All of them but him. They were laughing and joking about, telling tall tales and playing games, but all of them had something he lacked; a certain look at the back of their eyes. A look that said they had faced battle and returned to tell of it.

  Both sides were maintaining forces out in Jupiter's Trojans, but with all the spinning rocks for cunning pilots to hide behind, dancing their maneuvers from one sensor blind spot to the next, at times there might only be a few moments warning of an impending attack. Just long enough for a few pilots to jump into their fighters and intercept them, taking the battle to the enemy at a safe distance from the prospecting ships that were the lifeblood of Mars, Callisto, and Titan in their war with Earth's United Nations Space Fleet.

  He glanced up at the sign hung over the wall, 'When you hear the god-damned bell, for heaven's sake run like HELL!' It had initially been meant as a joke, he'd been told. Memories of wars long past and forgotten. Now, a new war had made it deadly serious. Wright had three squadrons of fighters based on board, each divided into four flights of three, at least two of which were always on alert status, their ships ready for launch attached to Wright's outer hull, their pilots standing by in one of the ready rooms, trying not to think about what might happen in the next thirty seconds.

  Grabbing absentmindedly at a cup full of green liquid while tapping the next page in his book, he started to take a deep swig when the launch alarm went off. It took a brief second for it to register, then he leapt up from his chair and raced towards the door, a hair's breath ahead of the two other pilots in his flight. The cup, carelessly placed on the side of a table, tipped over, spilling its contents on the carpet; the stains and marks across the floor testament to numerous other rapid departures in the past.

  One of the first things Marshall had done when arriving on the carrier had been to practice running from the ready room to his assigned fighter station; Major Cunningham, Wright's wing commander, had impressed that upon him as a vitally needed skill, not one that Marshall had learned in his eighteen months at the Academy.

  Like almost every other ship in the nascent Martian Space Service, Wright was a converted freighter, one of the old bulk carriers that had pioneered the in-system hendecaspace routes back in the '20s. As such, it was a maze of serviceways and access corridors that might have made perfect sense when the ship was originally designed, but was nothing but a hindrance to someone who needed to get across the ship in a hurry, especially if that person had only been on board for a matter of days. Fortunately, this time he wasn't in the lead; his flight leader, Marriott, had passed him just after he'd left the ready room, and she'd had months to learn the ship. She turned back, her face stern.

  "Your briefing headset, Marshall!” she yelled, narrowly missing a maintenance technician who'd had the misfortune to decide to venture on one of the fighter pilots' short-cuts.

  Belatedly, Marshall placed an earphone in, and his wing commander's voice continued with the briefing in progress, "...Automedon. Current approach vectors will give a nineteen-second window, and remember that your missiles work better towards the middle of that envelope, so set your attack controls accordingly. Don't anticipate, get that shot in the tenth second if at all possible. You'll be on a course directly for Xanthus, but should have enough time to pull out if you've done it right. There may even be a few seconds to spare. If one of the three targets remains, the second wave should be able to deal with them, but make sure to re-calculate to have another pass on your return to the Wright if necessary. Good Luck."

  By the time Cunningham had concluded his briefing, Marshall was almost at the launch corridor. Each flight had its own alloted space on the side of the ship, ready to launch at a second's notice. A cluster of technicians were swarming around, trying to make sure that all possible pre-flight checks had been completed; a grizzled old Sergeant who could have been Marshall's grandfather gave the young pilot a thumb's up sign and a slap on the back as he climbed into his fighter.

  He turned and looked behind him, grinning at Warren, his old room-mate from the Academy and now one of his wingmates. The chubby-faced pilot waved in reply with one hand, swinging himself into his ship with the other. Shaking his head, Marshall followed, the sergeant closing the hatch behind him.

  The D-8 'Dragon' fighter was a masterpiece of ingenuity, the product of a design and development program that had taken less than a year. To an extent, it showed. The ship was essentially a long tube with four spokes sticking out from the side in an 'X' formation, a combined docking port/airlock bolted to the side. Most of it was fuel and engines; it only had a flight radius of minutes, but the acceleration that it could build up was second to none. A pilot's fighter.

  Not that he would be doing much flying; his job was to make on-the-spot tactical decisions, watch for malfunctions and errors, and to provide the tactical judgment that even the best expert program couldn't manage in an unpredictable way. He gulped as he looked over the controls again. This was it. His first combat mission.

  "Raven One to Ravens," Marriott's voice echoed through the ship as Marshall strapped himself into his cockpit, sliding his control key into the flight panel and watching the controls move about to fit his tailored preferences.

  "Raven Three here. Ready for launch." Damn, Warren had beaten him to it.

  Placing his headset on, Marshall replied, "Raven Two, ready for launch." By the time he had finished speaking, he was; the computer had confirmed that both ship and pilot were good to go.

  "Detach and proceed in V-formation. Intercept in two minutes, ten seconds, mark."

  Pulling back a lever, Marshall felt the loud grinding noise of the emergency release being engaged, the fighter gently drifting away from Wright for a brief second before the thrusters took over, roughly pushing the ship out into the formation outlined by Marriott. Making sure that his hands were positioned correctly by
the controls, he braced himself for the acceleration when it came; seven and a half gravities for almost a minute.

  He grimaced through the pain, trying to maintain focus on the instruments, trying to remain ready to take action if something went wrong. Every breath was difficult, every action an unimaginable nightmare of agony. As unnerving as the acceleration was the course it was setting them on; directly for a three-mile chunk of rock in close orbit around Automedon. Which, of course, was exactly what the UN formation had planned, making the approach more hair-raising.

  He gasped with relief when the acceleration ended, the fighter on its pre-determined course towards the target. Just over a minute to go. The attack computers had already calculated the target track towards the incoming formation – a trio of UN fighters, approaching at high speed. His heads-up display flashed with the specifications of the enemy vessels, at least the known ones; the enemy battle group had been trialling some new ships, turning the combat zone into a technological test track; these were listed as 'X-39 Beetles', long and bulbous with a series of projections towards the fore, thought to be a complicated defense array. The sensors hungrily absorbed data as they approached, all information that would be eagerly poured over when he got back to Wright. According to the reports, this was only the second time that Martian forces had faced this class of fighter in battle.

  A light started to flash on Marshall's control panel, and he yelled into his headset, "Energy spike ahead!"

  "Raven Three. I see it as well."

  "Three missiles on approach. Evasive maneuvers."

  Marriott's order had been unnecessary; Marshall and Warren were both hastily punching directions into their computers, sending the fighters veering off. He was pushed again into the couch as the course change was implemented, watching the window of opportunity for firing diminish. The trick was to make it as difficult as possible for the approaching fighters to attack them, while still making it possible to fire off a few shots. Marriott had opted to trust entirely to her defenses, only making a few conservative maneuvers.

  Overriding the combat computers, Marshall fired a pair of missiles, wanting to be certain of his first kill. He grinned with satisfaction as they arced away towards the UN fighters; Warren and Marriott had gone with the computer, firing one each. Then the countermeasures program kicked in, a combination of electronic overrides, sensor shadows and scatter, but the program stopped as the threat potential fell – none of the missiles were paying any attention to Marshall. Two on Marriott, the easiest target, and one on Warren. Trying to ignore the threat to his comrades, Marshall started to set up the program for the return to Wright, projecting for another firing solution with his last remaining missile. As he worked, the missiles of both sides crossed track, homing in on their target, giving him a front-row seat for the impacts.

  At the last second, all three of the Beetle fighters threw out large homing decoys, a neat trick which worked – for two of them. Flashing across Marshall's screen was a recommended tactical update that boiled down to firing two missiles in salvo, as one of the targets exploded satisfactorily. The impact from the slower, but deadlier UN missiles followed; Marriott's fighter exploded as both missiles caught it amidships. Even if she had ejected in her flight suit, the shrapnel would have torn her to pieces. Warren had been luckier; it looked like his missile had detonated just before impact, the electronic infiltration software doing its job.

  "Raven Three to Raven Two. I'm in trouble. Shrapnel's shattered some of the fuel lines in my aft section."

  Marshall glanced at the course tracker. In less then eight minutes, he'd crash into Xanthus. There wouldn't be enough of his friend left to bury. He started programming the navigational computers again, plotting an interception course, deleting the course back to Wright.

  "Raven Two to Raven Three. Hold on, I'm on my way. Try and divert power to thrusters."

  "Don't be silly," his friend replied, communications protocol forgotten. "I can't transfer across in the time."

  "No-one's asking you to. I'll hard dock with you and burn back to Wright. If I take it slow we should make it fine."

  "And if you mess it up, we both get killed. Head back to Wright!"

  Smiling as he hunched over the controls, Marshall replied, "As I recall, I beat you in class standing."

  "So?"

  "So I have seniority and am in command here. Shut up and be rescued – and stand by to use your maneuvering thrusters for the fine work at the end. Better suit up as well in case I mess this up a little."

  "Aye, aye – sir."

  The two fighters were close enough that a simple rendezvous was simple enough, but the trajectory and the impact on Warren's fighter had left the ships spinning, and to make it more fun, he could see some out-gassing from the rear section. Atmosphere leaking, not enough to cause any problems to his friend, but more than enough to give him a headache if there was a random blast when he was on final approach. He braced himself for calls to abort as Warren's fighter grew closer.

  Normally, Marshall considered himself an instrumentation pilot, but this time, he was going to need the visual touch; with the manipulation of a control, the walls of the fighter seemed to disappear, showing space around him with holographic projections on the wall. There were some old-guard pilots who claimed that they couldn't fly any other way, but usually Marshall found that it disoriented him more than anything else. Ahead, still on his current course, Xanthrus was growing closer and closer. Impact in less than six minutes now.

  One course correction after another flashed across his heads-up display, urgently blinking red, all of them suggesting that an immediate exit from the current situation was a good idea. Usually, docking was a process that could be done gently, carefully – not with a few seconds to spare for a single approach. A few blasts of light showed Warren playing his thrusters back and forth, seeking to stabilize his ship for the approach. He knew that the computer would have done this right, better than he could have, but still his hand was resting on the controls, waiting to make any last-second adjustments. With a loud clang, contact was made, and the rattle of the docking clamps engaging quickly followed.

  "Halfway there, buddy," Marshall said. "Last step's the big one. Hold on."

  "Holding on."

  The navigational computer gave an electronic shrug as it adjusted for the increased weight, the changed center of gravity, plotting a least-fuel course back to Wright, and after a heart-rending few seconds, one was provided, albeit with a sling-shot around Xanthrus that would take them to within a few hundred meters of its fortunately flat surface. Tapping 'enable', Marshall settled back to enjoy the ride, feeling the long, slow burn this time as the engines adjusted the course to take it just over the asteroid.

  All of his instincts were to pull up as it grew closer; instead he turned off the exterior display and just concentrated on his instruments, trying to close out the rest of the universe and focus on the numbers. Periapsis came and went without incident, and he began to breathe again – with difficulty as the engines fired to take them back to the carrier.

  "Danny?" Warren's voice echoed between the two craft on a tight-beam.

  "Problem?"

  "Thanks for coming after me. I'm not sure I'd have risked it."

  "I think you would. Any time."

  The flight back to Wright was uneventful, approach control surprisingly silent once Marshall reported their situation. He had the satisfaction of watching the two remaining Beetle fighters shot out of the sky by the second wave as they made their firing pass, the pilots ejecting in time to be taken into custody for the next prisoner exchange. At a safe distance, the two ships separated and Marshall headed to his position in the outer ring; Warren's fighter would need to be carefully shepherded into one of the maintenance locks before it could be flown again, and docking a ship to a rotating hull was a difficult business at the best of times.

  Docking for Marshall was simple enough; no damage sustained, so the automatics did the work for him, carefu
lly adjusting course and trajectory, backing up slightly a couple of times to adjust spin correctly. He started on the post-flight checks as he heard the loud clang of the two ships docking; he'd made it home. It felt like hours, but he'd actually been in flight for only a few minutes – and would be able to put his first kill token on the squadron's roster board. Just four more before he was an ace.

  As he swung out of his ship into the corridor, he was surprised to see no technicians around; usually a gaggle of engineers would be ready to make sure the fighter was ready as soon as possible for another mission if needed. Instead, Major Cunningham was standing, arms crossed, barely controlled fury on his face. He pointed at the floor in front of him, next to the wall; Marshall stepped over to him.

  "Don't you stand at attention when reporting to a superior officer?"

  Marshall snapped to his feet and saluted, replying, "Sorry, sir."

  "Oh, you're going to be a lot sorrier when I've finished, Third Lieutenant." The 'Third' was heavily stressed. "My office, now."

  The two of them walked down the corridors in silence, heading deep into the bowels of the ship. Packed as it was, Cunningham's office doubled as his quarters; a cluster of datapads were scattered in an ungodly mess around the room, parts of uniforms that had gone out of use years ago draped around the walls. The door to his bedroom was closed, locked; the major sat down behind his desk but made no suggestion that Marshall should sit down; the young pilot instead stood at attention in front of him.

  "What the hell did you think you were doing out there?" Cunningham began. "You violated pretty much every mission protocol, and allowed a pair of UN fighters to make for the carrier without opposition. What do you think would have happened if the second wave had failed?"

  Thinking quickly, Marshall replied, "I presumed they would succeed, sir. Raven Flight managed to wear down most of their defenses, leaving them a vulnerable target. I half-expected them to veer off."