“Any fighter activity?”
“You guessed right, sir, they shot their whole wad trying to get us. She’s defenseless except for her guns.”
“Signal Intrepid and Kagimasha to take her out and then form back on Tarawa. Order all ships to extend ram scoops for additional braking maneuver and hang on!”
Though the damage control crew had been working on the inertial dampening system, main priority was still on the jump engine and shields. The delay was down to a hundred thousandth of a second but when the energy field of the ram scoops was suddenly extended back out, the ship felt as if it were being torn apart as it went into a thirty gee deceleration.
The Intrepid shot past, diving in towards the station which sent up a spray of neutron rounds. A volley of torpedoes dropped out of the destroyer and the enemy station disappeared.
“Helm, take us straight through the blast and then snag us in tight to orbit around the planet.”
“Captain, just what the hell are we doing now?” Merritt, who had stood by his side throughout, finally asked.
“You’ll see.”
The expanding cloud of debris seemed to race up and Jason winced as fragments of the shattered base slammed against the durasteel hull, the Tarawa groaning from the impact. The nose of Tarawa rose up, skimming just above the outer atmosphere of the giant.
“All fighters recover now!” Jason shouted.
“Say, Jason, did I hear you right?” Doomsday replied.
“You heard me, get in now damn it!”
“Copy that, Tarawa but those furballs will be on us.”
Jason leaned over and switched back to Intrepid and Kagimasha.
“You know the game, rendezvous at…” and he looked up at the clock on the wall, “… exactly thirty hours from now at 17:24 hours and be ready to haul ass.”
“Copy that Tarawa and good luck.” Grierson said, grinning with delight.
“Tarawa out.”
The first Ferret came in, followed at twenty-second intervals by the surviving recon and light fighter craft, and then the remaining Rapiers and Sabres followed suit while Janice circled outside, providing tight-in cover for the landing ships.
“We’ve got a hell of a lot of incoming,” the combat officer shouted.
“Keep the fleas off our back,” Jason said, toggling back over to his escort ships.
Intrepid moved in directly behind, and Jason found that he was starting to drum the arm of his chair nervously.
Half a dozen Grakhi bore straight in and slowed.
“Torpedo attack imminent.”
A spread of torpedoes dropped out from each of the Kilrathi fighters.
Jason turned and looked over at Merritt.
“Still got any mines on board?”
Merritt nodded. “A couple in each of the landing craft.”
“Set a landing craft on autopilot, and once we’ve recovered our last ship I want the mine activated and the landing ship out the airlock door on automatic pilot.”
“Got you,” and Merritt dashed out of the room.
On the downward looking screen Jason watched as the boiling upper atmosphere of the gas giant raced by, not ten kilometers below. The magnetic distortion created by the atmosphere made communication almost impossible with his escorts and he watched as they attempted to cover his stern.
The six Kilrathi heavy fighters pulled up and away, their spread of torpedoes closing in. Jason heard the high-pitched ping of a solid guidance lock.
The stern anti torpedo guns kicked on, attempting to gain a lock in turn, sending out a hail of mass driven shots and in turn the Kilrathi torpedoes popped out small bundles of chaff and signal distorters to throw the guns off. The anti torpedo missile mount on the bottom of the carrier launched a round, the missile streaking forward and then turning to race astern.
Two of the torpedoes were detonated but four continued to bore in.
“They’ve got definite lock,” the combat information officer shouted. “Computer analysis estimates one will break through and hit in twenty seconds… fifteen.”
The collision alarm kicked on.
The rear guns and firepower of the escorts crisscrossed space, knocking one, and then two more torpedoes down.
“Impact in five, four…”
“Oh Christ!” the officer screamed, and, stunned, he looked up at Jason.
The torpedo disappeared in a flash, exploded by a Ferret which had dived straight into the weapon, detonating it just astern of Tarawa.
Jason, unable to speak, looked up at the situation board and saw the status report for Janice’s ship wink off.
“She knew how to pick her death.”
Jason looked up at Doomsday who had just landed and had quietly watched the drama played out while standing in the corner of the room. “I’d have done the same, so would you.”
Jason felt as if he could not take it anymore. He closed his eyes.
“Last fighter in.”
“Launch that landing craft and have it turn astern of us.”
“Landing craft on full autopilot and away.”
Merritt came back into the room and leaned over a comm channel and started to punch in a code. He stopped and looked over at Jason.
“Escorts, you still copy.”
The two ships responded, voices and images distorted almost behind recognition due to the heavy magnetic field around the planet.
“Initiate dive into the atmosphere on my count. Five, four, three, two, one.”
He looked over at Merritt and nodded and the marine colonel slammed down on the key. A heavy matter/antimatter mine detonated half a dozen clicks behind the fleet, directly between them and the Kilrathi’s, blasting out an electro-magnetic pulse that overloaded all surveillance equipment.
“Dive! Helm, point us straight in!”
As the electro-magnetic pulse of the explosion mushroomed out behind them, the three ships pushed over and dived straight in on the gas giant, hitting the upper atmosphere. The Tarawa started to buffet and rock, and he could feel the ship twisting and straining beneath his feet.
“Ten clicks into the atmosphere, twenty, fifty.”
He watched over the helmsman’s shoulder as they continued to go deeper in, ordering a leveling out when they were a full five hundred clicks down into the storm of frozen ammonia and sulphur. The surviving external sensing systems were off-line, picking up nothing but clutter from the intense radiation, and magnetic storms sweeping the upper atmosphere of the planet.
“Level us out, signal engine room, just enough power to maintain orbit.”
“Leveling out, sir; engine room reports throttling back to eighteen percent power.”
“Rig ship for silent running. No transmissions of any kind. Passive listening devices only.”
“Ship rigged for silent running.”
He looked over at the main screen of the combat information officer. It was awash with static. A ping line drifted across the screen and then another. The combat information officer looked back at him, her eyes wide.
“They’re sending out high energy microwave bursts, looking for us.”
“Well let ’em look,” and Jason held his breath.
The pinging moved on; they hadn’t picked him up, and he slowly exhaled.
“Ship’s intercom.”
He picked up the microphone.
“All hands. We’ve managed to elude the Kilrathi attack by diving into the upper atmosphere of a gas giant where their sensing devices can not find us due to atmospheric interference. As you can guess, any type of visual search is like looking for a feather in a blizzard. We will rendezvous with our escorts in a little less than thirty hours. In those thirty hours we are going to repair our ship and our damaged fighters and we are going to come back out kicking. Congratulations on a job well done.”