As Mother confirmed that 166 was closing in, Ribot settled down once again to wait. At least there were only two more rounds to go, and neither would be as bad as what they had gone through before. Maybe, just maybe, they’d get out of this.
He was quickly disabused.
“Command, Mother. Final vector analysis on Gore’s rail-gun salvo indicates very high probability of impact.”
“Command, roger. Maria, how’s Michael doing?”
“It’s slow, sir. That’s one hell of a big hole out there. They’ve got the emergency ceramsteel generator secured and are putting the supply feeds in place now. Michael estimates another two minutes will see the job done.”
“Tell him he doesn’t have two minutes.”
“He knows, sir.”
Desperately aware that they were standing directly in front of an oncoming rail-gun salvo, Michael and Bienefelt had dragged the ceramsteel generator and a bolt gun out of the forward emergency repair stowage. Their back-mounted personal maneuvering units were working overtime as they manhandled the awkward heavy lumps of metal across the hull to the lip of the huge crater that had been blown deep in 387’s armor, its walls still glowing with residual patches of red heat. As Bienefelt worked desperately, punching explosive bolts deep into 387’s hull to hold the generator in place, Michael, struggling to connect the generator to its high-pressure supply feeds, took a moment to marvel that 387 had been able to withstand the violent explosive release of so much energy. Finally, Bienefelt got the last bolt home. Working with frantic controlled haste, Michael helped Bienefelt run hoses into the crater. The armored hoses were awkward and stiff to space-suited hands, and a terrible feeling of panic threatened to overwhelm him as the seconds ticked remorselessly away.
But finally, all the feeds were in place. Bienefelt’s massive frame was braced against the crater wall as she tightened the last connector.
“Done, sir,” she said laconically.
She could have been talking about the damn weather, Michael thought. One last check and Mother brought the generator online, gray-black ceramsteel sludge already pouring out of the generator ports to bond instantly with the walls of the crater. Looking good, Michael thought as the crater began to fill at an impressive rate.
“Okay, Benny. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Not before time, sir.”
As they cleared the rim of the blast crater to start their frantic dash back to safety, Mother ran out of time. As she simultaneously fired main propulsion and rolled the ship, Michael and Bienefelt were hurled back along the hull until, with a vicious slamming snap, their safety lines brought them to a dead stop before the recoil threw them back where they’d come from, skidding and sliding uncontrollably along 387’s hull before swinging out into space and back again to hit the ship full on with a sickening crunch that tested their suits’ crashworthiness to the fullest. With a despairing lunge, Michael grabbed Bienefelt as she cannoned into him and snap-hooked his suit harness onto hers, all the while desperately fighting to reel in his safety line.
A quick check with Mother, and Michael saw that 387’s violent maneuvering had destroyed any chance of getting back inside the ship. They didn’t have time to get back to the personnel air lock; they’d have to snap into the nearest hard point, secure their safety lines, and wait it out. There was nothing more they could do. They were going to ride out the next attack locked out of 387, hanging on the end of monofil safety lines with only combat space suits between them and God knew how many oncoming slugs.
If their monofil safety lines failed, at least they’d die together.
And then they waited. As Michael hung there, Bienefelt’s massive bulk tightly locked alongside him, he knew he was about to die. He had never been more certain of anything in his life.
Ribot glanced across at the XO, who had just arrived from the surveillance drone hangar to report. He hoped she had good news. Restoration of jump capability in the next ten seconds would qualify.
But he waved her back. She’d have to wait.
The final rail-gun salvo from the now-crippled Gore hurtled toward 387, the bright red icons on the plot closing the gap with remorseless intent.
Mother did her best, driving 387 up and to port to escape the slug swarm. But the task was nearly impossible. With the Gore and 387 now barely 60,000 kilometers apart, the battle geometry was heavily weighted in favor of the rail-gun attacker, the slugs having a time of flight from launch of only eighty seconds.
And eighty seconds did not give Mother enough time to shift 387’s bulk out of the way before turning the ship back to put her heavy bow armor facing the slugs. Worse, and probably more by luck than good judgment, the Gore’s rail-gun targeting team, probably dead now, had gotten it right. The slugs in the swarm were perfectly lagged and spread, and the decoys were well positioned to confuse and overload 387’s sensors. 387 had nowhere to run.
And one slug’s vector was exactly right.
Even as 387’s short-range lasers belatedly flayed it, the killer slug’s surface literally bubbling as platinum/iridium boiled off into space, it smashed into the ship’s starboard upper bow, precisely where one of the slugs from Shark had gouged a crater in 387’s frontal armor. The metal slug smashed through the still-setting emergency ceramsteel repair and the remaining armor as though they didn’t exist, turning to plasma as it sliced through the inner pressure hull and down into Weapons Power Charlie. Microseconds later, the plasma containment bottle erupted in an enormous secondary explosion that ripped the upper bow of 387 apart into a mass of shredded ceramsteel and twisted titanium frames.
The slug, now a concentrated lance of pure energy, plunged unopposed down into and through 387’s combat information center and then on into the hangar, through the bows of 387’s lander, and finally out into space.
Michael didn’t remember much of what had happened.
Gore’s attack was over in seconds. Afterward, all he could recall was a smashing impact as the blast wave hit, a ripping, tearing blur of heat and intense white light, a hoarse scream from Bienefelt followed by a soft bubbling moan, and then a crunching collision with 387’s hull that bounced the two tangled spacers out into space before their safety lines jerked taut. Michael’s head was driven forward hard into his armored plasglass visor and snapped forward nose first onto his collar ring with brutal force.
And then silence. Deathly, deathly silence.
Oh, Jesus, he thought, Bienefelt’s dead. She should be breathing, but she’s not. Frantically he spun her massive frame around, and there it was, a long rough-edged gash ripped across the lower back of the suit, moisture-laden gas spewing ice crystals out into the black night. Even as he slapped suit patches out of his thigh- mounted dispenser onto the gash, he knew he couldn’t help her.
Calling for help and with an urgency born of desperation, Michael unclipped from the sorely tested hard point and reeled in his safety line, the inertia of Bienefelt’s body making the process agonizingly slow. As he got to the gaping hole in 387’s hull that had once been its forward upper personnel access hatch, a first aid team emerged. Within seconds, Bienefelt had been crash-bagged and taken below.
For a moment, Michael just hung there. He didn’t care too much anymore what happened next. He went below only when the coxswain grabbed his arm and dragged him bodily down through the wickedly sharp-edged hole in 387’s hull.
Only later did he find out how lucky they’d been. The curve of 387’s hull had been just enough to protect him and Bienefelt from the worst effects of the Hammer attack.
The flag staff’s increasingly heated debate about what to do with the New Dallas task group was rudely interrupted.
“Flag, flag AI. Missile launch from flotilla base fixed defenses. Stand by vector and attack profile.”
“Flag, roger.”
“Taken them a very long time, Admiral,” her chief of staff said. It was what they’d all been thinking. All the
