Battlecruiser Alamo: Vault of Eternity Read online

   “Don't get too optimistic,” Foster said. “I just picked up another launch from Waldheim. Three shuttles, heading in our wake, maybe ten minutes behind us. Looks like transports, estimate fifteen troopers on each. Even if they don't make it from the surface, we can expect to have company soon after landing.”

   Glancing at the trajectory track, Harper cursed, and said, “Out of range of our fighters, here or on Alamo. These bastards are good, Pavel.”

   “Too late to change the plan now,” he replied. “Outer hull temperature rising. We're biting atmosphere.” The shuttle rocked from side to side, glowing a dull red from the gathering heat, Dante dragging them down towards the inhospitable surface. He looked across at the rest of the formation, all following him, still in the same tight formation. Belatedly, he worried about the risk of surface-to-air weapons, missile emplacements on the surface, and had to hope that their enemy had concluded that the risk of an aerial assault was low enough not to waste the cargo space.

   “Second troop concentration, about fifty miles from the first one,” Harper said. “Looks like a modified emergency shelter, maybe twenty-plus troopers. No sign of any unusual surface features, though. Close to a nice landing site.”

   “Not what we're looking for, then.”

   “I'm not the xeno-archaeologist, remember. Odds are we won't have any better ideas until Carpenter can take a good look at the data we're gathering now. Let's just hope it isn't too much of a walk. We don't have any of their fancy armored buggies.” Turning to the sensor display, she added, “Red Flight has started their attack run. That's going to slow them a little. They won't be on the deck until we've been down for two minutes.”

   “We'll have time to get the boosters unloaded,” Salazar said. “Art, you reading me?”

   “Loud and clear, Pavel. I've already got the troopers standing by. We'll set you a new galactic record.” He paused, then added, “Though given our current location, I expect that's probably a foregone conclusion in any case.”

   “They'll have a bead on our landing site now, Kris,” Salazar said. “You might as well try and raise the base. They'll have seen our shuttles coming down, and I'd like to make sure they don't shoot us out of the sky while we're on final approach.”

   “Shuttle One to Dante Base,” Harper said, playing around with the frequencies. “Shuttle One to Dante Base. Come in, please. I am on Emergency Frequency Nine.”

   “Dante Base to Shuttle One,” a tentative voice replied. “Where are you from?”

   Tapping a control, Salazar said, “This is Lieutenant Salazar. I'm coming down with three shuttles to evacuate the balance of the Pioneer survivors. Put on Chief Santiago.”

   “I'm here, Lieutenant. What do you need from us?”

   “I've got twenty-three Espatiers here with equipment to unload, and three fighters that are going to need booster rockets strapped on as soon as they land. Get everyone out and ready to board the shuttles at a moment's notice, and have a technical team ready to attach the boosters.” He paused, then added, “Two volunteers, and Chief, you aren't one of them. They're going to need you back up on the ship.”

   “Damn it,” she replied. “We'll be ready, Lieutenant.”

   “One more thing,” he said. “We've got three enemy shuttles on our tail. Make sure that your missile screen knows the difference between our ships and theirs.”

   With a faint chuckle, she replied, “Will do. See you in a few minutes. Dante Base out.”

   The hull temperature slowly began to fall, the ship settling into a glide path for the final descent to the surface, Salazar watching the monitors, making tiny adjustments to keep the ship steady. It was only a few hours since he'd last made this descent, though that time it had been in an out-of-control fighter, damaged by the wormhole passage, struggling for sheer survival.

   Diving over a mountain range, he saw the familiar plain ahead, baked under the endless sun, and glanced across the see the fighters launching their attack run, unleashing a pair of missiles onto the waiting target below. A pair of explosions ripped into the ground, tearing at the heart of the troop concentration, reducing the odds to something approaching acceptable levels.

   “Base coming up,” he said. He was still flying on instruments, unable to make out the sand-blasted dome amid the wasteland below. “Get ready, everyone! We'll need to hit the ground at the run!” Tapping a control, he said, “Shuttle Leader to all Shuttles. Land in formation, load then go. Art, I'm afraid…”

   “I knew I was staying down here with you when you moved up the departure time. Don't worry, Pavel,” the engineer replied. “I had a feeling this might happen when I signed on.”

   Finally, he could make out the dome, and switched over to the landing thrusters, firing in the familiar pattern to bring them down to the surface. A host of figures raced towards them, waving their arms, and a column of smoke ignited, a guide to the crosswinds waiting for him on landing. Stealth was out of the question now. Everyone for a hundred miles knew the location of the base. Not that it would matter in a few minutes.

   “Coming down,” Harper said. “Two hundred feet, down fifteen. Dust everywhere, damn it. I can hardly make out...there it is. Beacon locked on. One hundred feet. Easy. Easy. Fifty feet.” The view was completely obscured by the growing dust storm, the simultaneous landing of six vehicles momentarily blocking out the sun. “Ten feet. Contact. Engine stop.”

   “We're down!” Weber said, not waiting for the signal. “Let's go, right now!” The hatch slammed open, and Salazar raced from his seat, Harper just behind him, making his way to the aft section. The troopers were hastily passing out their equipment, throwing it unceremoniously into the sand, heedless of damage, knowing that they only had seconds.

   “We weren't expecting this many for dinner,” the Chief said, shaking her head as the troopers raced out onto the desert floor, Rhodes shouting orders as the men scrambled to their positions, forming a perimeter as though the enemy might attack at any moment.

   “I knew I should have replied to the RSVP,” Salazar replied with a smile. Gesturing at the shuttles, he said, “Everyone onto the ships, right now. Quesada, get onto Shuttle One. You'll be taking it back up to Alamo.”

   “Sir,” the young officer said, “Request permission...”

   “Denied,” Salazar replied. “I'm staying here.”

   “Staying here?” Quesada said.

   “We're not going to let those bastards from Waldheim just walk in and strip that base, Sub-Lieutenant. We're here to stay, until we damn well want to leave.” A beaming smile on his face, he continued, “Chief, get everyone on board, on the double. Your ticket home expires in three minutes minus!”

  Chapter 10

   Marshall walked over to the aft holodisplay, calling up a strategic view of orbital space. Their maneuver to bring them close to the planet had made them an easy target for Waldheim, and the enemy battleship had taken full advantage of the opportunity, swinging around the closest moon to bear down upon them, sweeping in on a wide arc that would give them more than enough time to bring their full armament to bear.

   Ahead of them, rising out of the atmosphere, the shuttles bearing the Pioneer survivors were rising towards Alamo, less than four minutes from landing, while their fighter escort struggled to keep up, the time lost as a result of the attachment of the boosters taking its toll. Lieutenant Murphy was bringing them onto a higher trajectory, trying for a desperate intercept with Waldheim to use her remaining missiles, but that could be no more than a minor deterrent.

   “Laser charged and ready,” Caine said. “Missiles loaded, ready for action, all eight tubes operational now.” She paused, then added, “We're a lot better off on the sensors than we were, Danny, but we still don't have anything like the resolution we should.”

   Turning from his console, Francis added, “Senior Lieutenant McCormack requests permission to scramble fighters, sir, and launch a preemptive s
trike on the enemy.” He paused, then added, “They've still got a dozen planes in their squadron, sir. My opinion is that we'd be throwing them to the lions.”

   “To the lions, Lieutenant?” Marshall said with a smile. He looked at the situation display again, frowning at the shortage of options. Waldheim's laser cannon had been disabled, but they still had ten missile tubes, and twelve fighters with two missiles each. A potential swarm of thirty-four missiles would be more than enough to tear Alamo to pieces, no matter what he tried. And on their current course and speed, they'd be in contact with the enemy for more than eight minutes.

   The only positive lay in surviving the run. Both ships would be thrown onto wildly divergent courses by the gravitational pull of the planet, and it would be many hours before they could return to battle. Time to lick their wounds, to prepare a new plan. All they had to do was survive this pass. He glanced at the viewscreen, watched the planet approaching, a single star highlighted on the display as Waldheim entered visual range.

   “Orders, sir?” Francis asked.

   “Wait one, Lieutenant,” Marshall replied. He walked over to Caine, and asked, “Do you see any way for us to get through this pass without considerable damage?”

   “Not a hope, Danny,” she replied. “They'll have to divert some strength to deal with Murphy's flight, but that's just a mild irritant to them. Nothing they need to seriously worry about. If I was Estrada, I'd only commit an equal number of fighters, try and cancel each other out.”

   “Fine,” he said. “Then we can't survive if we stay on this trajectory. Which means we've got to place ourselves on another one.” Reaching down to a control, he said, “Marshall to Kowalski. You down in Systems Control, Chief?”

   “Until an officer turns up, sir,” the gruff-voiced veteran replied. “What do you need?”

   “How hot can you run the reactor?”

   There was a brief pause, muttered conversation in the background, and Kowalski replied, “I can give you one-ten for ten minutes at most. Then we'd have to drop down to sixty while we run a full systems check. We're still strained from the wormhole passage.”

   “On my signal, Chief, I want you to put all available power into the engines. You can cut where you have to, but I need all the acceleration you can possibly give me. Understand?”

   “Will do, sir. You give me the word, and I'll throw the throttles wide open for you.”

   “Francis,” Marshall said, turning to the officer, “Check the status of our ballute. We're going to need it in a few minutes.”

   “Our heat shield?” the Operations Officer asked. He walked over to a control panel, tapped a sequence of commands, and said, “Ready to inflate at your command, sir. No damage.”

   Looking up at him, Caine said, “We're going diving, aren't we?”

   “They can't get us if we go deep enough, and with a little work, we ought to be able to throw our course wildly off-trajectory. With that many variables, they'll never calculate our course.”

   “How deep are we talking?”

   He paused, then said, “Sixty thousand feet.”

   “Sir,” Fitzroy replied, turning from the engineering station, “That's a lot higher than Alamo's design tolerance. I know she's completed maneuvers like that before, but we still haven't had a chance to check the outer hull for stresses in the aftermath of the wormhole transfer.”

   Nodding, Caine said, “Did you read those reports on the shuttle we found?”

   “I did, and I know that we're weighing a risk against a certainty.” Marshall walked calmly to the helm, tapped Imoto on the shoulder, and said, “I'll take it, son.”

   “I can handle it, sir.”

   “I'm sure of that, Midshipman, but I've done this before.”

   Imoto rose from his seat, and Marshall slid into the helm with a smile, quickly adjusting the console to match his personal preferences, calling up the information he was going to need for the close flyby. He glanced up at the viewscreen, a tactical projection snapping on, and started to enter his planned course change, tapping a trio of controls to disable the warning alerts.

   “How long before the shuttles make it home?” Marshall asked.

   “Two minutes, fifty seconds,” Francis replied. “We'll have to commit to this course change well before then, sir. They should still be able to make contact before we enter the atmosphere, but they'll only have one chance to make it home.” Glancing at a panel, he added, “Murphy's fighters are going to be stranded, sir.”

   Gesturing at Waldheim's squadron, screaming in on the far side of the planet to catch them, Marshall replied, “Have her vector in to engage the enemy squadron. She's to make it look good, but not expose herself to any unnecessary danger, and to use her missiles for defense, not offense. Today victory is measured by survival, not the number of enemy ships we take down.”

   “Aye, sir,” Francis replied, moving over to the communications console to issue the necessary orders. Marshall reached down for a headset, tapping controls to link himself to the ship's broadcast system.

   “This is the Captain. In a little under five minutes, Alamo will be entering the upper atmosphere of Dante. Those of you who have done this before will know what to expect, and for the rest, suffice to say that it is going to be a pretty rough ride. Secure all equipment, then get into crash couches. Hanger crew, as soon as the shuttles get on board, lock them down and strap yourselves in. Prepare for turbulence and rapid changes of acceleration. That is all.”

   “Retracting laser radiator,” Caine said. “I'm loading atmospheric missiles, Danny. We might get a target of opportunity, either against Waldheim or on the surface.” She paused, then added, “Request permission to fire the missiles I've got in the tubes. It'll give them something else to worry about.”

   “By all means,” Marshall said, all his attention now focused on the helm. The ship rocked back as the missiles raced away, destined to drift through orbital space forever, their fuel exhausted long before they could reach their target. Caine had placed them in a pattern designed to distract the enemy helmsman, force him into at least a minor course change, without any real hope of doing damage. “Course computed. Deploy ballute.”

   “Aye, sir,” Francis said. “Heat shield deployment initiated.”

   A loud sequence of reports issued from the hull as the inflatable outer skin burst into life, covering Alamo's underside with the protective shield that would disperse the worst of the heat that would be inflicted during the maneuver. Alamo had attempted atmospheric flight before, but never after sustaining such a level of damage. Behind him, Fitzroy was already scattering damage control teams all throughout the ship, ready to repair any hull breaches before they could become catastrophic.

   The navigation computer was still issuing warnings, telling Marshall in no uncertain terms that his intended course change was borderline insane, that he was forcing the ship to do something it wasn't designed to do. Dismissing the last of the sequences, he gently tapped the control that committed Alamo to the course, then rested his hands on the thruster controls, ready to implement last-second changes to the trajectory track.

   “Ballard,” he said, not looking away from the helm, “I want all sensors focused on close-proximity. We're going to need the best possible picture of the atmosphere we can get. And grab telemetry from the shuttles, as well. The better the model we have of planetary conditions, the better chance we have of getting out of here in one piece. Deadeye, what's Waldheim doing?”

   “Moving in as close as they can. My guess is they think we're bluffing. I wish we were.”

   “Shuttles coming in now!” Francis said. “All made contact first time. Hangar crews moving to support stations.” Throwing a switch, he added, “I've sealed all blast doors.”

   As the bulkheads slammed into position, isolating every deck of the ship, Marshall took a second to glance up at the viewscreen, the brown sands of Dante now filling the
field of vision. Not an inviting world, and not one he'd want to be stranded on for any length of time. He glanced across at the trajectory plot, cursing under his breath as he tweaked the trajectory. Even at this altitude, the dense atmosphere was already beginning to bite.

   “Kowalski,” he said, leaning to the speaker. “Full power, now!”

   The lights flickered for an instant as they switched to the emergency system, the engineering crews instead throwing all the power they could find into the main engines. A low rumble was audible, the acceleration growing strong enough to push him back into his couch. Warning alarms sounded, shut off rapidly by Fitzroy, and a series of red lights flickered into life on the viewscreen, alerts of the damage that was already being inflicted on the ship.

   “Hull temperature rising,” Fitzroy said.

   “Murphy's flight has engaged the enemy, sir,” Francis said. “They've fired a full defensive salvo, and are moving to intercept us on the far side of the planet. They're going to be on fumes when they get there, sir. I'm not sure they'll be able to catch up.”

   “Get a tanker shuttle ready to go as soon as we clear the atmosphere. McCormack to provide escort. If it helps, Waldheim's fighters are going to be in the same state at the end of this battle.” The ship began to buffet, taking its first taste of atmosphere, the hull rattling from the unaccustomed strain. Alamo was designed for aerobraking maneuvers, the whole purpose of the ballute, but this was far lower than she was ever designed to go.

   Shifting the ship, Marshall pulled back imperceptibly on the throttle, saving some thrust for the descent. They were down under a hundred thousand feet now, and the frustrated groaning noise from the hull was growing louder by the second, the temperature and the stresses rising. Finally, an urgent alarm sounded from Fitzroy's console, a sound he knew all too well.