“How many?” said Merthon.
“There’s probably 500 or so from Jaxxon and there’s more all over the planet. We got the kids but couldn’t hold the rest,” said Koba. “We got reports from all over Duval on the radio network.”
“The BG bastards are trying to wipe us out,” said Jolo.
“Well let’s take as many as we can,” said Katy. “The Argossy could maybe hold a hundred more and each gunboat could hold another hundred each.”
Jolo squatted down, his leg burning up, his head in his hands. He felt Katy’s hand on his shoulder. Too late, he thought.
“Let’s go!” said Katy. “Save the kids and go.”
No, Jolo thought. We’ve come too far to end like this. He stood up again. “Merthon, do the towers release all of the galaxite at the same time?”
“No, if they did it all at once it wouldn’t get hot enough and the galaxite would burn up.”
“Koba, will a tower show a heat signature if it still has galaxite?”
“It should. The alacyte tower will conduct the heat and give us a good reading of what’s inside.”
“Good idea, Captain,” Merthon said to Jolo. “But we should look for cool towers. The hot ones will have already released the galaxite.”
“How many do we need to take out?” said Jolo.
“They planted just enough to push the core beyond its limits once all of the galaxite is dropped,” said Merthon. But we have to hurry. I don’t know how far along they are. But its certainly started.”
By then Trant had joined. “You in?” said Jolo. The older gray-haired captain nodded.
“We’ll give you all we got, Captain” he said.
“The crippled boat still got guns?” Jolo said.
“Yep, ion cannons are full up.”
“Okay. Koba, you and Hurley take the kids up into orbit and stay out of trouble. Okay?” Koba nodded.
“I’ll send the Wasps along in case there’s trouble,” said Trant.
“Koba, run if you have to. Nothing we do here means anything if you… If you lose the ship.”
“Captain Trant, your Wasps know the mission?”
“Yes, Sir. They’ll fight to the last and give your boat time to jump out if there’s trouble.”
Koba ran to the Argossy and soon the rear hatch was closing and Hurley was winding up the engines.
“The rest of you take down as many cool towers as you can as fast as you can,” Jolo said. “We can use the big guns because the BG won’t be coming back to defend them.”
Jolo took the crippled gunboat Vassily. The captain and most of her crew had been injured in the fight near Jaxxon and were moved to the Argossy’s med bay. Merthon had gone up in the Argossy also to tend to George.
Jolo sat in the captain’s chair of the Fed gunboat, his wounded leg hastily tended to by a med bot, now wrapped in white second skin. Katy, with a bandaged head, had insisted on piloting. Jolo relented when he realized the only other option was Barth, who was busy working on the smoking engine, or a young Fed officer whose face was as smooth as Katy’s. Greeley, Hurley and Marco were there also, along with a few remaining Vassily crew members. Barth, Hurley and the engineering crew got the broken engine back to about 70% efficiency and they were good to go.
The three gunboats set out from Marco’s, each heading in different directions. Jolo went North, and at first, all the towers had already dropped their galaxite. When they crossed over a ravine, the ship gained altitude because of the intense heat rising up from the lowest points on the planet. Steam rose up from the rivers and shrubs in the lowlands had started to burn.
“Are we too late?” said Katy.
“We’ll know soon enough,” said Marco. But then they came on a cluster of cool towers. Barth focused the big ion cannons of the Vassily on the base of each tower and after a few concentrated bursts, each tower fell, the galaxite still safely stored in the cones. And in this way they took down as many as they could, Katy expertly moving the ship from one tower to the next, getting the Fed gunship as close as possible yet with no blowback damage from the cannons. Barth metered out the ion cannon bursts to knock them down as quickly as possible while using as little juice as he could. After taking down twenty or so, everyone’s spirits had lifted. The reports from Trant’s Nymeria and the other gunboat, Kubata, were good. Barth relayed exact specs to the other boats on how much energy would take down a tower as efficiently as possible and things moved along well.
But then they saw smoke on the other side of the Caledelle mountain chain. When they came down the other side towards the valley there wasn’t a fire. It was the remains of a large lake called Nouvelle, great billowing clouds of steam rising up so you couldn’t see the surface. Further along they crossed another ravine and the bottom was on fire. At one point they came across a small house with one man standing on his roof holding a pig.
And the gunboats continued to take down towers.
“Do we get him?” said Katy.
“No. He’ll be fine. The planet ain’t going anywhere just yet,” said Jolo.
Soon they had to turn back the way they’d come and when they made it over Marco’s ravine again there was smoke and lava rising up. It had swallowed Marco’s house and threatened to reach the top of the cliff.
Jolo got Merthon on the comm and explained the situation while Katy and the crew kept right on taking down towers still holding galaxite.
“The planet is trying to vent. That’s not a bad
