“Blue Leader. We have detected one heavy carrier, repeat one heavy carrier and eight escort ships inbound at flank speed,” and the screen distorted again.
Jason spared a quick look back down at the moon’s surface.
“How long before carrier arrival Tarawa?” There was no answer for several seconds.
The image finally came back on, and he could see that the combat information room was on fire.
“We’ve taken a hit, Blue Leader. Repeat question.”
Jason kicked on afterburners and started straight back up. “How long on that inbound report?”
The screen went dark again.
“Jason?” It was Grierson on the Intrepid.
“Grierson, you copy on that?”
“I’ve got them on long range scan. I bet they came through a jump point screened by an asteroid belt and launched their stealth fighters. I’m reading their carrier as being here in three and one-half hours.”
“Copy on that.”
He switched back to Svetlana.
“You copy that last report?”
“What the hell’s going on up there?”
“Tell Merritt he’s got three hours tops and then we’re getting the hell out of here. One carrier confirmed, they’re hitting us with Stealths now.”
“Damn, we won’t get all the targets.”
“Tell Merritt get the damned carriers on the ground, and whatever else he can, but this bus is definitely gonna leave in three.”
“Copy that, Blue Leader.”
“Blue Leader?”
It was the Combat Information officer again and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Blue Leader here. How we holding out?”
“Under heavy attack.” The woman looked away from the screen for a moment, nodded reluctantly and then stepped away to be replaced by O’Brian.
“Blue Leader, where the hell are you?”
“Coming back in. Will arrive in five minutes.”
“I am initiating emergency withdraw for our exit jump point immediately.”
Jason looked at the screen, stunned by what he had just heard.
“The marines, sir. They’ll never catch up.”
“They are expendable,” O’Brian snapped, “Tell your people to come back in and catch up. When we hit jump point we will not stop for stragglers.”
“You bastard!” Jason roared. “You’re leaving the marines behind. We’ve got time to recover them, just hang on!”
“We are leaving, mister. You are relieved of command and are under arrest for insubordination.”
“You filthy coward, I’ll kill you if I ever get aboard that ship,” Jason snarled and he snapped the channel off.
He slammed the afterburner throttle forward so hard that for a second he thought he had broken it clear off. A Kilrathi stealth started to materialize off to one flank and he ignored it, heading straight in.
The Tarawa finally was visible, tail already turned to the moon, engines up to full throttle.
“Bear, what the hell is he doing?”
“Grierson, he’s running out!” Jason shouted.
“Damn him, I’m moving up to stop him.”
“Cover the marines; try to land and pick them up if I can’t stop that damned coward.”
Grierson hesitated.
“Copy that.”
Jason continued the chase, gradually catching up to Doomsday’s squadron which were returning back from their second attack and were now spread out in a sweep to engage the Stealths.
Jason weaved his way through the battle swirling astern of Tarawa, barely noticing the explosions, streaking missiles and laser burst. Moving up parallel to Tarawa, he clicked his radio back on.
“Blue Leader coming in to land.”
“Acknowledge, Blue Leader.”
He swept up over the ship, seeing where several dozen heavy mass driver hits had scorched the ship’s hull. He banked hard around, diving for the landing bay, Round Top coming in to drive a Stealth fighter off his tail. Jason slammed through the airlock, ramming into the safety net.
He popped his canopy, stood up, and without even waiting for Sparks jumped down, hitting the deck hard and stood back up.
The deck launch officer came running up to him.
“Are we bugging out?”
Jason nodded savagely and pushed past her.
He hit the main corridor and started down it at the run.
The ship’s intercom was alive with shouts and commands and then, as if from far away, he heard a high-pitched voice on the channel.
“He’s closing in, he’s closing. Top guns get him, get the bastard! Get…”
The deck beneath Jason’s feet seemed to drop away and then slam back up, knocking the wind out of him, driving him to his hands and knees. A high-pitched squawking echoed through the corridor, the hull breach/depressurization alarm. He felt a whoosh of air mixed with fire race down the corridor and he covered his head. The blast of heat raced overhead and then, as if playing out in reverse, slashed back up the corridor in a hurricane gale, dragging Jason along with it. He slammed his helmet visor back down and his pressure suit kicked on.
He continued to slide down the corridor, drawn along by the reverse blast of decompression. Hitting the shattered airlock door, which led into the bridge, he grabbed hold of the side and looked in.
The bridge was gone.
He looked straight up and saw the blackness of empty space, a Sabre streaking past, pursuing and nailing a Stealth just as it started to wink out. He looked straight in at the wreckage and fought down the desire to vomit. The entire bridge crew was dead, what was left of them splattered against the durasteel bulkheads. The floor of the bridge was blown out, the next deck down, torn open as well and blasted with wreckage. Electrical cables sparked in the pure vacuum. Fragments of a shattered Kilrathi fighter were embedded in the deck below. A kamikaze hit, Jason realized. He stepped into the wreckage and looked around and then he saw him, or what little was left of O’Brian, the lower half of his body gone. If he had not had a helmet on, he realized that he would most likely have spit on the corpse.
He turned, climbed back out of the wreckage, and started back up the corridor. A damage control team came racing down the corridor and he pressed up against the wall to let them pass. At the end of the corridor, back out into the hangar deck, an energy airlock field had been established and he stepped through and then unsnapped his helmet. A crowd of deck personnel was gathered around, looking back down the corridor.
“Damn it, get back to your stations!”
The group looked at Jason.
“The captain and all the bridge officers are dead,” Jason announced and they looked at him in shock.
He hesitated.
“Flight deck officer.”
“Here, sir.”
“We’re going to establish a new bridge and combat information center in your command center. Hook into the ship’s computer log and…”
He found it almost impossible to say the words. He took a deep breath.
“State that as of this moment I, Jason Bondarevsky, as senior officer of Tarawa hereby take command of this ship.”
The officer looked at him.
“And my first order is that we are turning this ship around and getting the hell back into the fight!”
“This is Admiral Tolwyn. Pilots, man your planes, pilots, man your planes.”
Admiral Tolwyn switched his main screen back to the forward relay broadcasting now from Big Duke One’s headquarters down on Vukar Tag.
The entire plateau was a mad confusion of explosions, swirling dust, and wreckage. The camera operator aimed straight back up again and jumped the image through one thousand magnifications with full computerized enhancement. As the image expanded out, Geoffrey Tolwyn held his breath.