The Tau Ceti Agenda

flow pulsed through the space-time bubble created within the field projector.

It's working, Joe!

Yeah, let's hope and pray it does quickly!

Sparks exploded off of several systems as smaller fingers of the electric bolt tried to dance free of the electromagnetic bottle. Each time a bolt would strike a bulkhead, part of the metal would be vaporized, and more nasty gaseous fumes would be added to the room's already nauseous atmosphere. Joe's DTM still displayed the engineering drawing of the makeshift power conduit path that he had created, and along the path, he could see emergency systems being activated. There were fire alarms, secondary explosion alerts, loss of atmosphere, overpressure, and any other type of alert that was in the safety protocols of the ship's systems. Then there was a rupture along a maintenance corridor six decks down, and the power drained off to ground in the deck plating of the floor for a microsecond before the power supply ground-fault circuit interrupters kicked the breakers. The lightning bolt across Engineering vanished, and the whirling of the projector slowed to idle.

'Maybe that worked.' Buckley crawled up to his feet giving the engineer's mate first class a hand.

'We're gonna need a shit load of mops, sir.' Shah shook his head at the mess in the Engine Room.

'Actually, Vineet, we need to run as fast as we can to sickbay.'

'Why, sir? I feel fine.'

'Yep, so do I. But in about five minutes, our bodies are going to realize that we've just been hard-boiled by all the extremely high energy x-rays that we were just exposed to, and we're gonna start dying of extreme radiation dosage.' Buckley looked at his hands to see if they were swelling yet. He felt the need to grunt and clear his throat, which was definitely a bad sign.

Start a clock, Debbie.

Already did, Joe. In three minutes, it will be hard for you to keep walking. Now, get moving. Joe?

Yes, Debbie?

The ship is still here. Your father would be proud. Joe noticed that the clock for the mass driver impact was now at plus twenty-eight seconds.

'Let's move it, EM1.'

'Jesus, sir. I don't wanna die!'

'Well then, you'd better fucking hurry to sickbay.'

Chapter 14

October 31, 2388 AD

Sol System

Oort Cloud

Saturday, 7:17 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

'Splash another one.' Jack stomped the left lower pedal to stop his bot-mode spin and then toggled back to fighter, yanking his HOTAS hard right to pull back into some sort of formation with Fish.

'Bank left, DeathRay! Hard left!' Fish exclaimed over the net. 'Fox three!'

'Whoah!' he pulled back left on the stick, adding some throttle and slip and gritted his teeth into his mouthpiece as a mecha-to- mecha, QM-guided missile passed within a meter of his cockpit. 'Fish, where the hell are you?' He could see her in his DTM but didn't have a visual on her.

'Splash four!'

'Holy goddamed hell, DeathRay, we're getting hammered!' Lieutenant Dave 'Deadstick' Barber cried over the net.

'Just think of it as a target-rich environment, Deadstick,' Fish replied.

'Roger that shit, Fish,' Hula grunted, obviously working against a high g-load.

'Fish, you with me, girl?' Jack scanned his DTM for more Seppy Gomers and caught a formation of four directly above them, engaged with Demonchild and his wingman, Stinky. He finally caught a visual of his wingman in his rearview mirror, as he toggled over from bot mode into fighter mode and pulled in tight on his right wing.

'Roger that, DeathRay.'

'Let's help out upstairs, angels twelve, two o'clock high.' He gave Fish a moment to catch the bogies in her DTM and gave a shout-out to Demonchild and Stinky. 'Demonchild, Stinky, you've got four Gomers taking up the angle on your seven o'clock trying to gain advantage on you.'

'Roger that, DeathRay! Can't seem to shake these motherfuckers!'

'Just hold 'em off for a few more seconds. We're coming.' Jack pulled the stick back to his stomach and slammed the throttle forward against the stop. The Ares-T fighter plane rocketed upward, farther away from the planetoid facility into the higher altitudes of the engagement zone and deeper into the blackness of space. The acceleration of the maneuver pushed him against his seat with a steady six gravities. His wingman held tight right beside him.

'What's the plan, DeathRay?' Fish said faintly against the added gravity.

'Okay, Fish, we fly in there, and we kill those motherfuckers,' DeathRay grunted.

'Uh, great plan, boss.'

Candis, give me some scenarios here, he thought to his AIC.