Interceptor (Strike Commander Book 2) Page 6

   “I'm ready over here,” Bennett said. “Sensor packages all checked, diagnostics green.”

   Sliding on her headset, Mallory said, “Shuttle One to Bridge. Requesting launch clearance.”

   “Clearance granted,” Sullivan replied. “Good luck.”

   “Not a factor,” Mallory answered, throwing a switch to drop the shuttle clear of the ship, the elevator airlock cycling to spit them out into space. On automatic, the engines fired as soon as they launched, taking them down towards the planet, as though they were preparing for a landing. She looked up at the hull sensors, running one last check on the heat shield. They were going to need it for this maneuver.

   She settled back into her couch as the engine roared, the world below filling the viewscreen as they dived towards the surface, spilling speed to hurl them into the upper atmosphere. As the pirate base dropped below the horizon, she killed the acceleration with the flick of a switch, loading the new trajectory plot into the computer.

   “Two minutes, thirty seconds to the burn,” she said, turning to Bennett. “Are you sure you've got everything ready?”

   “Deep sensor package online, all systems running. You get me within twenty miles of the target, and I'll have a full internal layout for you.” Tapping the panel, she said, “We've got a few tricks here that haven't been rolled out to the rest of the Fleet quite yet.”

   Nodding, Mallory reached down for a datapad, shaking her head as she replied, “Did you read Novak's interview?”

   “It didn't exactly take long,” the agent replied. “About the only thing we've learned is that there is someone down on the surface working for the traitors. And that the pirate base is almost certainly the alien site we've been looking for.”

   “Atmosphere in two minutes,” Mallory said. “Better check your restraints. This isn't going to be a very smooth ride.”

   Bennett tightened her straps, securing herself to the acceleration couch. Up ahead, the planet filled the screen, the shuttle diving right for the green fog up ahead. She glanced across at the trajectory plot, a frown spreading across her face.

   “Isn't that a little low?”

   “We'll never fool them if we don't get down into the soup,” Mallory replied. “If this works, we'll come out of the dive with enough velocity that they won't have a chance to intercept us.”

   “And if it doesn't work?”

   “Then dealing with the pirates becomes someone else's problem.” She looked up at the sensor display, both the orbital base and the colony now out of sight. They hadn't picked up any surveillance satellites, just the normal observation constellation, and McGuire was making sure that it was passing on only the information they wanted to give. That the shuttle was on an announced flight down to the surface, and nothing more than that.

   A red light flashed on as the shuttle flew into the upper atmosphere, traces of gas now registering on the hull sensors. The heat shield reported a temperature rise, slowly building as they dropped down towards the world below. She held her hand over the engine controls, ready to fire them manually should for some reason the computer fail.

   Fifteen seconds to the burn, and the stars faded from view as the atmosphere grew denser, flames licking around the outside of the heat shield as it reached the low point of its course, warning alarms sounding as the temperature danced around the danger point. The engineers always built plenty of redundancy into their designs, and they were about to find out whether they had done enough.

   The navigation computer fired the main engine again a heartbeat before she hit the control, warning alarms instantly sounding throughout the cabin as the monitors warned her that she was pushing the shuttle too far, the hull protesting the stresses she was putting on it. Glancing down at the surface below, features just visible through the thick, viscous cloud cover, she silenced the sirens with the touch of a button, resting her hands on the controls to make minute adjustments to the projected course, gently guiding the shuttle back out into space.

   As the force of the engines grew, she felt herself pushed back against her couch, grimacing from the acceleration, her eyes fixed on the altimeter that continued to slowly fall, seeping down as they dropped closer to the surface, deeper into the atmosphere. A flicker of doubt started to cross her mind, and she briefly wondered whether she had made a mistake in her calculations, whether she had ignored too many of the precautionary warnings thrown up when she plotted the course.

   On her right, Bennett was fixed on the sensor screen, watching for any sign of enemy activity. At any moment, they'd see the shuttle racing around the planet, hurtling towards them at barely controllable acceleration. Another warning flashed onto the heads-up display, half of the shuttle's fuel exhausted, and they were still falling towards the surface of the planet.

   Finally, reluctantly, the ship started to rise, the altimeter at first only hesitantly making their ascent, then surging upwards as they raced clear of the atmosphere at last, the heat still rising as their speed increased, the heat shield abrading at an astonishing rate. A loud crack sounded from the rear, and she looked around the cabin, Bennett snatching a hull patch from the wall, ready to react to the decompression alarm, but nothing happened, and the shuttle continued its ascent, soaring up into the stars.

   “We'll be in sensor range in ninety seconds,” Bennett said, gasping under the acceleration. “Closest approach in one hundred seventy.”

   “They'll never scramble their fighters that quickly,” she replied. “Not with no advance warning.” Left unspoken was the knowledge that had she been commanding the pirate forces, any activity on the part of Churchill at all would have brought her to alert status, had her pilots sitting in their fighters, ready for immediate take-off.

   One by one, the alerts faded away as the ship's hull cooled, the pressure falling as their speed grew, hurling them away from the planet with the gift of a gravity boost to push them further towards their goal. Looking down at the trajectory plot, she smiled. Despite everything, they were still within a thousand miles of their target, and one quick burn of the lateral thruster placed them on a direct course for the enemy installation.

   “Sensor systems running, full active,” Bennett said. “Countermeasure programs running.”

   Nodding, Mallory focused on her task at the helm, the stars now restored to the screen as they fought clear of the last traces of atmosphere below. Damage reports streamed in on her monitor, but none of them reduced her flight status, not at the moment. Nothing that would affect the success of their flyby.

   “That's it!” Bennett said. “Enemy base ahead. They'll have us on their screens now. I'm starting my scan.” She looked across at a panel, frowned, and said, “Where the hell is Churchill?”

   “Executing the second part of the plan,” Mallory replied.

   “The second part?”

   With a smile, Mallory said, “With a little luck, we'll make our flyby in one piece, but they'll certainly be sending everything they've got after us.” Nodding at the diagnostic reports, she continued, “That little trick we tried won't work again, not with the damage we took this time, so I had to think of something else. And besides, it seems a pity to waste this chance for a little fun.”

   “When exactly were you planning to tell me about this?” Shaking her head, her co-pilot replied, “Forty seconds to closest approach. Still no change to target aspect.”

   Flicking a switch, Mallory said, “Shuttle One to Churchill. Request status.”

   “What are you doing?” Bennett snapped. “You aren't even on a scrambler!” Turning to her sensor screen, she added, “Energy spike! Four fighters in the air, direct intercept course, one hundred and forty seconds to contact.”

   “Churchill to Shuttle One,” Sullivan replied. “We're ready for stage two.”

   “Execute Scramble,” Mallory said with a smile, turning to her co-pilot. “I believe closest approach is coming up. You'd better get on tho
se sensors. I really don't want to have to make a second pass.”

   “Ten seconds,” Bennett replied. “Projections running true. All systems nominal.” Turning to Mallory, she said, “Now, perhaps...”

   “They've got ten fighters left, according to our best projections. We've got to wear them down if we're going to have any chance of taking out that base, regardless of the data we gather on this pass. If we've got an opportunity to knock out half of their fighters, you'd better believe I'm going to take it.” She gestured at the sensor display, Churchill coming around from the far side of the planet, a trio of fighters in the familiar arrowhead formation.

   “Lieutenant Xylander's taking the lead,” she added. “Nice and simple, straight-in attack.”

   “We're the bait?” Bennett asked, shaking her head. “That was your plan?”

   “There's such a thing as killing two birds with one stone.” Tapping a thruster to alter her course, she added, “We're past closest approach. Start a data dump to Churchill, just in case something goes wrong on this pass.”

   “Way ahead of you.” She looked at her display, and said, “Four fighters. Eight missiles. And they'll be on us in about ninety seconds from now, long before our interceptors can reach them. Tell me that you've got a plan for this part.”

   “If it makes you feel better, sure.”

   “Wonderful.”

   Mallory smiled as she looked down at her controls, adjusting the course to gain maximum distance from the approaching fighters, glancing up to watch Xylander, Fernandez and Sterling driving their interceptors towards her, accelerating above normal maximums in a bid to reach them in time. To her right, Bennett had abandoned her sensors to switch to the countermeasures station, over on one side of her panel, her world reduced to a series of intrusion programs and jamming systems.

   The trajectory plot settled down into pure simplicity. Two targets, one preceding the other with a big speed advantage, but no way to match the furious acceleration of the pursuing craft. The simple act of the chase told her something about the enemy, his willingness to follow a desire for revenge rather than taking the sensible tactical option. He knew his force was facing difficult odds, and there was no way to stop the data they'd collected being safely transmitted to Churchill. She could bait this man, draw him into a fight he couldn't win.

   Unless he had some tricks of his own, of course, but there was nothing she could do about that. The shuttle was already firing at maximum speed, racing on trajectory to take it to safety. Another light flashed on, an emergency fuel warning, the shuttle forced to cut into the reserve supplies to maintain the furious pace. Already it was impossible for them to get home under their own power, but that wasn't going to be a factor in a few moments.

   “Firing range in forty seconds,” Bennett replied, shaking her head. “Countermeasures ready, but against eight missiles...”

   “Don't worry,” she said, reaching down under the panel, pressing a series of controls that set alarms ringing throughout the cabin. One by one, she shut down all of the override systems, taking all the computer-imposed restrictions from the main engine, then tapped a series of commands into the navigation computer, repeating them twice as the safety-conscious machine refused to contemplate orders that might lead to its destruction.

   “Make sure you have those restraints as secure as you can,” she said, tuning to Bennett. “Face forward, and don't turn to the side no matter what happens, or you'll spend the next three days regretting it.”

   “The countermeasures...”

   “Ignore them. As you said, there's damn all we can do against eight missiles anyway.” She smiled, and added, “There's an old trick a friend of mine once showed me. I've always wanted to give it a try.”

   “Energy spike!” Bennett said. “Four missiles, bearing directly!”

   “What a shame we're out of fuel,” Mallory said, shutting down the engines to idle as her incredulous co-pilot looked on, her eyes seemingly about to bulge out of her head. Ignoring the silent protest, she watched as the missiles lined up for a salvo shot, all clumped together as they took the easiest approach to their target. Behind them, the fighters turned, heading back to the base in an attempt to beat the interceptors to the punch. It was four missiles against six, odds not in their favor.

   “Ten seconds to impact,” Bennett said. “Any last words?”

   “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” Mallory replied. “Or to put it another way, beware of Triplanetary pilots bearing gifts. You never know what the catch is.”

   The missiles ranged closer, methodically drawing in on their target, massive overkill that would tear the shuttle into a billion fragments, endlessly drifting through the void. She reached down for the throttle, a grin on her face, and tapped a short sequence of commands into the computer, before settling down in her couch.

   A wild spasm of acceleration hurled her back, knocking the wind from her, and alert sirens sounded as diagnostic warnings flashed on the screen. A series of rattling clangs echoed from the rear of the craft, the ship slowly tumbling end over end from the force of the impact, but the feared decompression alarm never sounded. Bennett panted for breath, shaking her head as she looked down at the sensor display.

   “What was that?”

   “I threw the engines up to maximum acceleration, full power burn, just as the missiles closed on our rear. One millisecond of thrust at forty-one gravities.”

   “Forty-one!” Rubbing her hand through her air, she said, “I feel like someone's hit me in the chest with a metal club.”

   “You will,” she said. “But don't worry, the missiles fared worse. They're not designed for anything like that sort of heat pulse.” She pointed at the display, a cloud of debris behind them, slowly expanding into a cone. “All we had was the impact of the shrapnel. Can you call up a damage report?”

   Shaking her head, Bennett replied, “It'd be faster to tell you what was still working. Main engine is so much scrap metal, but that doesn't matter because both fuel tanks ruptured. Primary oxygen tank as well, but we've got enough in the backup for ten hours. All sensor pickups, communications relays.” Looking across at Mallory, she added, “We're sitting in a big metal box with a half-busted life-support system, and that's about all.”

   Pulling out her datapad, Mallory tapped a control, and smiled, “I've still got a datalink to Churchill's sensor systems. The SAR shuttle is already on the way, and Xylander's engaging the enemy now.”

   “Let me see,” Bennett insisted, hunching over the small screen as the cabin lights flickered, the internal power network struggling to compensate for the damage. None of that mattered to them at the moment, as they watched the three interceptors dive towards the enemy, releasing their deadly payload in a single overwhelming salvo, six missiles racing towards the four fighters.

   “He's playing it safe,” Mallory said, quietly. “Making certain of two kills.”

   Four more tracks appeared on the cramped screen, defensive fire from the pirate craft heading towards the approaching missiles. The interceptors, their job complete, turned back for home, diving low over the planet to return to Churchill in a single, safe orbit. After a brief series of flashes, only two missiles remained on the screen, and just as in the first battle, two of the enemy pilots ejected, abandoning their fighters to the certainty of destruction.

   “That knocks them down to eight fighters,” Mallory said, a moment later, when another pair of wrecks had joined the rest of the debris cluttering orbital space. “How much data did we get?”

   Tapping controls to bring her monitor back to life, she replied, “I've got everything we wanted. With this data I can give you a full schematic of the base and its defenses.”

   “Good,” Mallory said, sitting back on her couch. “Mission accomplished.”

   Looking around the wrecked ship, bathed in the red light of a constant stream of damage reports, Bennett replied, “If this is success
, I'd hate to be around for a failure.”

  Chapter 7

   Morgan scanned down the datapad, shaking her head as she read through the interview transcript with Novak. It only confirmed what they already knew, that Petrov had found an alien site in orbit, and that he had been captured by the pirates with surprising speed. She reached down to take a sip of her coffee, Angel sitting opposite her, scanning the crowd.

   “We're in a coffee bar,” Morgan said, shaking her head. “Whenever we're off the ship, you always act as though your in a combat zone.”

   “It's safer that way,” she replied. “Besides, this is my third time down here, and each of the others ended with a fast dash back to a shuttle with guns firing all around me. I don't think much of the local hospitality.” Drinking down the last dregs of her drink, she added, “They do a pretty decent cappuccino, though.”

   “You ought to get a job with the local tourist board.” Dropping her datapad to the desk, she added, “We're not going to find anything out this way.”

   “I could have told you that. Nothing from the prisoner?”

   “Still unconscious, and will be for a while apparently. I gave him a four-hour dart, but apparently he's had an allergic reaction to the tranquilizer. It's going to be at least a day before he wakes up.”

   “I never heard of anyone having that sort of reaction,” Angel replied. “I thought those things were designed to be non-toxic.” Frowning, she replied, “Not that I would care much if someone taking a shot at me had an uncomfortable time.”

   With a shrug, Morgan said, “If you're taking a prisoner, you want to be able to question him in hours, not days.” She paused, then added, “It's just as likely that someone slipped him something to buy some time. I won't be surprised if we find out tomorrow that he's escaped, or that he's had more complications.” Looking around the bar, she added, “We know that someone's hacked into the police computers. We're going to have to go to the source.”