More shots hit the ship, but these felt like glancing blows. Perhaps the shields were up, perhaps they came from weaker weapons. I knew so little about naval combat. The floor shook. People toppled. Whatever damage was going to be done to the Kamehameha might already be done.
Moving ahead slowly, taking faltering steps and reaching out with my to feel my way ahead, I reached the landing bay. The hatch slid open, revealing emergency lights and the glow of fire. Crews hosed down a blaze under the control booth. Across the deck, fountains of sparks shot out of a row of panels.
Lieutenant Nobles waited for me just inside the door. He pulled at my arm, and yelled, “They’re going to let us through, but they can’t protect us once we’re out!”
We ran into the shuttle and started rolling toward the launch tube. The nose of the shuttle veered right and left, as if Nobles were steering like a drunk, he, all the while, shouting into the microphone, “Open the first lock. Open the first lock!”
I could hear commotion over the radio. Several seconds passed before we got an answer. “You’re cleared. God help you.”
The first of the atmospheric locks slowly ground open just far enough for us to fit through and began closing even before we cleared it. The men controlling the flight deck were not taking any chances. They handled the second and third atmospheric gates the same way, just giving us enough room to pass and closing it quickly behind us.
A wave of relief washed over me as we launched. I had not really believed we would make it off the ship; but there we were, trading the tight confines of the launch tube for the endless expanse of space.
Huge fighter carriers loomed before us. Fighters sped around us, ignoring us, approaching us and ducking away. Tiny fireballs erupted from the side of the Kamehameha. They flared out of the ship and evaporated into nothing. The ship’s shields were down and the antennae that projected those shields were destroyed. It was only a matter of time until the ship went dark; large portions already had.
Beside the Kamehameha hung the ad-Din, looking stronger, but still wounded. Villanueva had sent all of her fighters to circle the ship. They formed a protective screen around the big carrier, but what did it matter?
Using the radio, I hailed the Salah ad-Din. I identified myself and asked for Captain Villanueva, but I only got as far as one of his lieutenants.
“General, where are you?” he asked. “We can try to—”
“I’m on a shuttle. If you scan, you’ll find us. We’re headed to the broadcast zone,” I said.
“Now listen, I have a broadcast key aboard the shuttle. I am about to broadcast to Terraneau. Tell Villanueva to try and enter the zone. The Unifieds won’t follow you; they’ll think it’s a trap.”
“Aye, aye.”
“Pass the message. Tell any ship that can to follow us.”
“Aye, sir.”
I signed off, knowing that if any ship’s captain could possibly break free, it was probably Villanueva. Maybe we would salvage a few ships.
Glancing back at the damaged fighter carriers, six of them—one representing each of the six galactic arms—I saw immediately that the outlook was bleak. Layers of U.A. ships had clustered around the E.M.N. fighter carriers. The Unifieds had sent old ships and new ones as well. It looked like the entire Earth Fleet had joined in on the attack. Seeing four battleships advance on the Kamehameha, I realized that this was not so much a battle as it was a lynching.
I took one last glance at that proud old ship, then I opened the front cover of the book and found the forty-two-digit code for Terraneau. The new generation ships that the Unifieds had sent had broadcast engines, they would be able to return to Earth. Most of the ships involved in this ambush were older ships, however. They were not self-broadcasting. The plan was to send them back to the Sol System using our broadcast station, which was currently set for Mars. By programming a new code into the key, I would strand some of those Earth ships in Olympus Kri space. Their only escape would be to follow me to Terraneau; but, fearing a trap, they would be slow to come after me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“They’re not going to make it out of there, are they?” Nobles asked, as we emerged from the anomaly.
“Some of them might,” I said. “If Villanueva reaches the broadcast zone, he’s home free. The Unifieds won’t follow him.”
Nobles changed the subject. “Why did they attack us?” The words came out in a groan. He looked miserable, somewhere between tears and insanity. A wild look of fear and anger showed in his brown eyes, and his lips quivered as he spoke. “Why the hell did they attack us?”
I looked out into the calm corner of space we had just entered. Stars shone around us. Terraneau, a planet with lakes and rivers and oceans, sparkled like a rare gem.
“They attacked because they can’t afford an open war,” I said in a quiet, subdued voice, the voice of defeat.
Nobles turned to me. His eyes tightened, and he asked, “What?” in a hardened angry voice.
“We showed them how to rebuild their empire. The planets, the broadcast network, the Navy …they want to take it all back in one piece,” I said.
The clone assassins failed, so they lured Gary Warshaw and his top admirals into a negotiation, then they massacred the whole lot of them. Now they want to round the rest of the clones up like sheep, I thought. They will round us up like sheep, and send us out like slaves …like eunuchs, the guardians of the republic that massacred their empire.
The Romans manned their legions by filling them with conquered soldiers; why shouldn’t the Unifieds do the same? And then they would …What would they do? Would they hide under the sea in watertight cities while aliens charbroiled the galaxy? They would not need clones for that. Now that they had a broadcast network, if they managed to capture the network, they could send us out to find the Avatari. We’d be the second wave. They would send us out the same way they sent out the Boyd Clones and the Japanese Fleet; only the Japanese Fleet had self-broadcasting ships. They could return from the mission; we would be stuck wherever they sent us.
“The aliens were real, right?” Nobles asked. “The attack on Olympus Kri was real.” He needed assurance. He knew the attack was real; but at times like this, are you ever sure about anything?
“It was real,” I said.
“Then why?”
I thought I finally understood. Andropov wanted to send out a second wave. After winning the battle for New Copenhagen, the Unified Authority sent out the Japanese Fleet, but that was only four ships, four lowly self-broadcasting battleships. The brass hedged their bets by manning them with a special line of SEAL clones instead of Marines, but still only had four ships tracking an alien signal across an entire galaxy.
If they managed to ingest the Enlisted Man’s Navy, the Unifieds would gain thirteen fleets, over one hundred fighter carriers, hundreds of battleships, millions of clones. And they could broadcast their disposable new fleet into space to search for the alien world, never to return. Kill the chain of command, orphan the ships and the crews …it finally made sense. Maybe Andropov even wanted to send a token Liberator out on the mission to bring it luck; after all, the Clone Empire had gone undefeated in open war. Bastard.
I left the cockpit and went to my little stateroom, where I spent the rest of the flight in silence, brooding over how much I hated my creators.