whoop, the combat information center filling with the lurid red flashes of emergency strobes.
Michael commed Ferreira. “Sir?” she said.
“I won’t be far behind you, but if it all goes to shit, you are not to wait for me, understand?”
“Sir, I-”
“That’s a direct order, Ferreira. Just do it. Captain, out.”
“Command, Warfare. Have Iron Duke ready to receive survivors.”
“Warfare, roger,” the AI replied, quite unruffled by the fact that it had only minutes left to live. Michael suppressed a stab of guilt. It was just an AI, after all, and anyway, its clone and those of Kubby and Kal were all safely aboard the Iron Duke, ready to take over the instant Tufayl was destroyed. He would miss Mother, though; she was not going home, and there was no time to say goodbye.
“Command, Warfare. Iron Duke acknowledges. Closing on Tufayl. Second missile salvo away, targets Hammer light cruisers Machuca, Fram, and Carlucci.”
“Command, roger,” Michael said. He took one last look at the command and threat plots to make sure nothing had been overlooked and headed for the hangar, an awkward shuffling run made difficult by an uncooperative combat space suit and by what felt horribly like the imminent failure of Tufayl’s artificial gravity. He redoubled his efforts. If the ship lost artificial gravity, he would never make it. Desperately he hurled himself into the drop tube, plummeting down to the hangar deck. To his surprise and relief, he was met by Bienefelt and Carmellini on the end of safety lines rigged back to Creaking Door. They wasted no time. Without a word, they grabbed Michael under the arms and rushed him back to the lander, throwing him bodily through the starboard access door, Carmellini slapping the handle down to close the hatch behind them while the lander accelerated hard into space, away from the doomed Tufayl.
“Jeeeeez!” Michael hissed. “Jayla,” he said to Ferreira, struggling to recover his composure, “tell me we have everyone.”
“We do, sir. Ten souls.”
“Good,” Michael said, much relieved. He strapped himself in. “Who’s flying this thing?”
“Sedova and her team, sir, by datalink.”
“Good. Okay, back to work.” He had an operation to run. He closed his eyes and switched his neuronics to the command and threat plots. A quick check reassured him that apart from the imminent loss of Tufayl, the operation was going well. The squadron, trailed by Iron Duke, bored in toward the Hammer task group, already two ships down as Novo City and Jarramshia death-rolled out of the fight, with air, smoke, and flame belching from multiple missile and rail-gun impacts. His mouth tightened into a savage snarl at the sight. The Hammer task group was not going to survive this encounter.
But the primary target, OHMP-344, was still intact. Michael had an idea. Since the Tufayl was well and truly in the ramming business, she ought to go out with a bang. “Warfare, command.”
“Warfare.”
“Set Tufayl’s vector to impact the platform, main propulsion to full power,” Michael said, adding a silent prayer that Tufayl’s starboard main driver mass supply feed had held up. “Set all fusion plants to self-destruct at impact plus two seconds.”
“Warfare, roger. Adjusting Tufayl’s vector,” the warfare AI replied calmly. “Stand by … vector set, ship at full power.”
“Command roger.” The chances of Tufayl surviving long enough to get through to OHMP-344 were fifty-fifty at best, but it was worth the effort, if only to distract the platform’s defenses. The sight of a heavy cruiser with a death wish heading right at them would attract the undivided attention of OHMP-344’s defenders, that was for sure.
“All stations, warfare. Stand by Hammer missile salvo impact three minutes.”
Michael urged the Door on; getting caught in a light assault lander in the middle of a Hammer missile attack was not conducive to a long and happy life.
“Roger. Warf-”
Without any warning, Creaking Door staggered, a bone-jarring bang throwing the light lander off vector, hurling the crew of Tufayl across the lander’s cargo bay in a tangle of space-suited arms and legs. Michael hit the bulkhead with sickening force. He bounced off, crashing into Bienefelt’s enormous bulk, his left arm-held out in a futile effort to protect himself-giving way with a dry crack when he hit. Dazed, he ignored the stabbing pain from his arm. Comming his neuronics to dump painkillers into his system, he found his feet when the Door’s artificial gravity came back online. He commed Sedova.
“Sitrep,” he said thickly as the painkillers worked their magic, the pain receding fast but leaving him light- headed with shock.
“The Door’s finished. Lucky shot from an antiship laser blew out the starboard auxiliary fusion plant, I think. I’m on my way. Get the ramp down so we can take you off. We don’t have much time.”
“Roger that,” Michael replied; he commed Ferreira to take over the transfer. He still had a battle to run. A quick check confirmed that nothing much had changed except that the clock was running down fast. Sedova would have to work quickly.
She did. Tufayl’s crew hung clustered around the ramp, watching Caesar’s Ghost, her ramp down, belly thrusters firing and decelerating savagely, come to a dead stop barely a meter away from the gaping hole in Creaking Door’s stern, jets of reaction mass spewing into space while Sedova realigned the lander for the run back to Iron Duke. A figure-Sedova’s loadmaster, Petty Officer Trivedi, according to Michael’s neuronics-shot across the gap, maneuvering pack on her back, trailing a thin recovery line. Nobody needed to be told what to do. Without waiting, spacers clipped in and started to pull themselves to safety.
“Ghost, loadmaster. That’s the lot. Go, go, go,” Trivedi shouted when everyone was hooked on.
Sedova did not hesitate. Leaving Creaking Door to tumble away into space, the timers on her self-destruct charges running, she fired the main engines in a short, sharp burst that sent the lander heading back to Iron Duke, spacers flailing out behind, clinging desperately to the recovery line while unseen hands inside the Ghost reeled them in. Trivedi’s maneuvering units were spitting jets of nitrogen as she pushed from behind.
After what they had been through, the rest of the transfer turned out to be a welcome anticlimax. Once inside, Michael was more than happy to lie on the floor of the cargo bay, leaving Trivedi to push the last spacer into Caesar’s Ghost and slam the ramp shut. He was even happier when Sedova piloted the lander inside the protective armor of Iron Duke, acutely aware that they had made it by a dangerously small margin.
Impatiently, he waited. Finally, Caesar’s Ghost came to a dead stop in the Iron Duke’s cavernous hangar, armored air lock doors slamming shut behind them. The instant the lander stopped, he leaped out, cradling his injured arm and running hard, eyes half closed while he watched the battle unfold on his neuronics, the rest of his crew in hot pursuit.
Chest heaving from the effort, Michael burst into the combat information center, throwing himself into the command seat with only seconds to spare before the Hammer missile attack fell on the Fed dreadnoughts, fumbling one-handed to strap himself in. With the Hammer task group all but destroyed and lacking rail guns-orbital installations such as space battle stations and maintenance platforms did not carry them, only missiles, lasers, and chain guns-the platform’s attack never troubled the Feds. One by one, missiles were hacked out of space by the carefully coordinated efforts of the dreadnoughts, the missiles unable to penetrate the blizzard of fire from medium-range and close-in defensive weapons, missile fusion plants, and warheads exploding in blue-white balls of flame.
It was over; barely a handful of missiles sneaked through, the damage to Iron Duke limited to a few patches of vaporized armor.
