“Get Vinnie into a pod first,” Jason ordered. He was finding it harder and harder to talk and he wondered if the ship’s atmosphere was going.
The medic tugged Vinnie toward the left-hand pod while Jock worked the hand-crank to open the access hatch. The wheel-shaped crank had seen little use, apparently, since the ship had left the Protectorate, and it refused to budge at Jock’s effort. The big Aussie tried to wedge himself against the wall to gain leverage, but the wheel stuck fast.
“Somebody give me a hand,” Jock grunted, glaring at the rest of them.
Clarke, the autogunner, shifted his weapon around to his back and moved to help Jock, but suddenly the ship was jolted violently, the impact throwing everyone against the hull. Jason found himself floating upside down over Jock, his vision filled with explosions of light from the impact of his head against the wall.
“What the hell was
“
“Direct hit, Captain,” the weapons officer announced quietly. “That took out her engines.”
“Hit the weapons pods,” Patel directed. “I want to make sure she’s defanged before we do anything else.”
On the bridge’s tactical display, another of the Protectorate ships disappeared in a globular fusion blast from one of the
The ensign at the weapons board adjusted the aim of the electromagnetic cannon that ran the length of the ship and hit the control to fire it. The ship jolted noticeably, swayed by the expulsion at hypersonic velocity of a lump of metal the size of a groundcar. The projectile was invisible as it covered the hundred kilometers between the two ships in a heartbeat, slicing through the strut that connected the
“Teeth are pulled, sir,” the ensign reported, turning back to face Captain Patel. “Orders?”
Patel’s face was grim, his eyes half-closed in a silent prayer.
“Give it a Shipbuster,” he ordered, his voice almost a whisper. “Blow it out of orbit.”
“Get those Goddamned things open!” Jason bellowed, shoving off the hull, where he’d just been hurtled for a second time. “That’s got to have been the weapons section going, and the only thing that’s left is to put a fusion bomb up our ass!”
“Get over here and help me!” Jock urged, grabbing hold of the left-side pod’s crank one more time.
Clarke growled deep in his throat, unhooked his autogun and maneuvering jets and shrugged them free, then set his back into the wheel, shoulder to shoulder with Jock. On the opposite side, three marines worked the other pod’s hatch, sliding a carbine stock through the spokes of the wheel and using it for leverage. A bone-rattling shriek echoed through the chamber as the Marines on the right-hand pod broke the wheel loose and the hatch popped open, nearly swatting them away. A second later, Jock and Clarke got their side moving, their pained grunts drowning out the squeal of the rust, but the medic was already shoving Vinnie into the right-side hatch.
“Into the left one,” Ari urged his Marines, sending half the platoon scurrying into the little pod.
Weapons and maneuvering packs flew free as they were abandoned to save space, and the Marines packed into the spacecraft, ignoring the safety straps and counting on their sheer numbers to restrain them. In the right- hand vehicle, the medic swiftly but thoroughly secured Vinnie in one of the six acceleration couches while the remaining two Marines, Ari, Jason and Tom Crossman waited impatiently, eyes darting toward the hull, wishing they could see through it.
Jason checked the chronometer on his wrist computer. It had been nearly a minute since the last mass-driver hit.
“Two minutes,” he estimated in a soft whisper. Two minutes till the multimegaton fusion warhead turned them into a cloud of radioactive particles.
Two minutes to live.
“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Kristopolis announced, excitement in his voice, “I’ve got a feed from one of the satellites!”
Shannon and President Jameson hopped up from the consoles they’d been using as impromptu seats and rushed to hang behind the man’s shoulder as he adjusted the view on the screen he’d been fiddling with for the last hour.
“What is it?” Jameson asked, looking from the static-filled screen to Kristy and back.
“It’s not a defense bird,” Kristy told them, chewing on his lip as he tried to bring in a clear view. “But I managed to hook into a weather satellite in geosynchronous orbit.”
The snow on the viewscreen slowly cleared and revealed a dimly-glimmering metallic star just at the edge of vision. Kristopolis worked the magnification and the glint of light grew into a huge cigar shape, its aft end twisted into a shapeless wreckage and a free length of metal strut hanging limply along its belly. Scrawled alongside a Protectorate flag was a red stream of Cyrillic letters that Shannon recognized as spelling “Defender.”
“That’s the flagship,” Shannon guessed. “That has to be the one Jason is on.”
“It looks like they’ve taken damage,” President Jameson observed.
“Yeah, and we’re still alive,” Kristy cracked. “Does that mean we’ve won?”
“Maybe,” Shannon said, eyes glued to the screen. “I just hope he’s… they’re okay.”
“What’s that?” Jameson pointed to a small flare of light closing on the Protectorate ship from a higher orbital path.
“I don’t know,” Kristy admitted, shaking his head. “Maybe another ship?”
The flare of light kept coming, intersecting the
Then the ship transformed into a ball of light, an epiphany of blinding fire that grew and grew until it seemed to reach out for them, and the screen dissolved into a mass of snow.
“Oh God,” Shannon murmured, her eyes wide. She stumbled backward, catching herself on another row of consoles and using them for support.
“He must have already gotten off the ship,” Kristopolis attempted to assure her, rising from his seat and going to her side.
“I’m sorry…” Jameson said, shaking his head in confusion. “Did you…
“Jason,” she whispered, not hearing the President. “Oh Jesus, Jason.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
