Hammerhead Resurrection Read online

  “This makes no sense.”

  Stacy shared Cantwell’s confusion. The more the Sthenos accelerated, the more they would overshoot Earth and the less time they’d have to take shots at the fleet. Visualizing the black destroyers blurring by at thousands of miles an hour, she tried to understand what they had planned.

  Cantwell asked Nav-Con, “What will our relative speeds be at current velocity deltas?”

  She ran her fingertips across the podium. “If our deceleration and their acceleration remain constant, our relative delta will be 15,000 miles an hour sir.

  “15,000 miles an hour?” Stacy said. “They’ll be lucky to get one shot off at that speed.”

  “Nav-Con,” Cantwell asked, “are any of the trajectories on collision courses?”

  Without delay she said, “No, sir. There are no collision avoidance warnings. All trajectories are clear.”

  Stacy stared at the Nav-Con with Cantwell, the display zooming in as the Sthenos closed. Soon Stacy could see the small shapes of the destroyers.

  Cantwell said, “At that speed, they’ll overshoot the Earth so far we’ll have more than enough time to touch down… but it can’t be that simple.” He returned to his command seat. “Fleet, it appears the Sthenos are going to strafe us. Be ready for Sthenos course changes related to collisions. Nav-Con.”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Time to Earth orbit?”

  “One hour, sixteen minutes, sir.”

  On the Nav-Con, the Sthenos and the fleet seemed to be nearly on top of each other. Stacy looked up through the broad lattice.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Stacy asked, pointing at something dark among the stars. As she squinted at it, it grew into the glowering prow of a Sthenos destroyer.

  Cantwell asked, “Nav-Con, are you sure they aren’t on a collision course?”

  “Not at this time sir. That ship will pass by starboard. It’s highly unlikely, with their current velocity, they have enough time to redirect to strike any of our ships.”

  “They seem to live in the realm of highly unlikely.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Sthenos destroyer, aimed to pass by their starboard side, began to rotate in a slow barrel roll. The rotation accelerated to a spin.

  “What the hell?” Cantwell asked in a quiet voice.

  The destroyer increased the speed of its roll to a near blur. The Nav-Con officer, her voice incredulous, asked, “How can they roll like that and not crush everyone inside?”

  “I have no idea,” another officer said.

  To the port side, much more distant, another Sthenos ship came into view, spinning up as well, faster and faster, also blurring. Even further away, another ship came into view.

  “Holy hell,” Cantwell said. “They’re going to run us through a blender.” He jammed his finger on his com button. “All ships cease deceleration and turn ninety degrees to port now! Get yourselves perpendicular to the Sthenos approach vector.”

  Weightlessness returned as the stars began to rotate above. The conn had responded quickly to Cantwell’s order.

  “I think it might be too late sir,” the Nav-Con officer said.

  “Let it be as it will,” Cantwell said and shouted to his right, “Fire control! Engage at will as they pass.”

  The Sthenos’ bright-green energy beam lanced out from the prow of each ship, and their long axis spin caused the beam to sweep into a corkscrewing sheet, filling the field of stars.

  “Brace for impact,” Cantwell called out.

  The Sthenos whipped by leaving a green swath in front of the bridge glass just missing the Lacedaemon’s bow. A moment later, the deck shuddered and pitched, throwing Stacy in the air as her mag-boots jolted free. Tucking her shoulder, she rolled over, and hit the lattice with her back. She braced herself for another impact, but none came.

  The Nav-Con officer floated a few feet off the deck, struggling. Kicking off the lattice, Stacy landed beside her, boots relocked to the deck, and pulled her down. Red emergency lights pulsed. The main lighting in the bridge flickered, and everything fell into blackness.

  Had they returned fire? Even one shot?

  In the darkness, the stars overhead became brilliant and immeasurable. Stacy noticed a glow on the edges of the lattice work. It seemed to be coming from port side. Moving to those windows, she saw the S.D.F. Naraka drifting in three sections. From each cut, a crystallizing fog of atmosphere escaped into space. The Sthenos had cut down the largest and most powerful Japanese destroyer in half a second. Here and there, the orange burn of life pods streaked away in solid-rocket-smoking lines.

  “I need fleet status Nav-Con,” Cantwell called out.

  “I have no power, sir.”

  As if the Nav-Con officer’s words had triggered it, dim emergency lights flickered to life. The Nav-Con podium lit up, but the display remained empty.

  “Nav-Con,” Cantwell said, “get me status on the fleet and the Sthenos now.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. Her fingers flew over the illuminated podium and went still. She stared at the panel for a moment, tapped on it once. Eyes wide and mouth slightly open, she turned to Cantwell and said as if confused, “They’re gone sir.”

  “Gone? Who? The Sthenos? Do you mean gone to a distance or gone entirely?”

  The Nav-Con officer looked back to her screens. “I… I’m not…” She looked back to Cantwell and shook her head as if trying to clear it. “The fleet sir… our fleet, every ship is… destroyed.”

  Cantwell looked to the Nav-Con’s empty disk. “That pass was too fast. They can’t all… Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stacy said, “Forgive me sir, but the Naraka is off our port side.”

  Cantwell looked to her, his eyes hopeful, and she hated to tell him what she saw, hated to confirm and even believe it herself.

  “It’s in three pieces.”

  He stared at her only a moment before saying, “Navigation, make sure we stay with them. We have to collect life pods.”

  “Main thrusters went offline when we were struck, sir,” the navigation officer said. “I have no control.”

  The dead feeling in the decking and the weightlessness bothered Stacy more than it had before because she knew the ship might never come alive again.

  “Are we maintaining position with them?” He asked the Nav-Con officer.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get pinging for survivors.” He looked to the communications officer closest to him. “You’re the point. Give me any messages that are relevant to main tactics. Route all other communications to relevant commanders.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  He looked to Stacy. “Any thoughts, Zack?”

  “Nothing relevant to our current situation, sir.”

  He nodded, seeming to appreciate her brevity.

  “Nav-Con, does your data still maintain that all ships are destroyed?”

  “Yes sir,” she said, the color somewhat returning to her face. “I show all fifty-six ships were at a minimum completely bisected, some trisected. We were the only one that turned sideways enough… and were lucky enough to avoid a major hull breech.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The U.S.S. Theras had completed its turn, but was cut down the middle.”

  “Completely down the middle.”

  In the woman’s closed off expression, Stacy understood she was stuffing something down into her heart that was too hard to deal with. “Yes sir, all hands lost, no life pods ejected.”

  “Stay on task folks. Our job is to get planet side,” Cantwell said. While Stacy felt certain the loss of a thousand men and women, most the ages of his grandchildren, crushed him, he gave no indication of it. He seemed to have switched off any part of himself which might get in his way.

  Cantwell said to one of the communications officers, “Send out a signal to all life pod computers to autopilot themselves into our hangars.” Then to navigation, “The moment they’re collected, get
us decelerating for orbital insertion again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the status of the Sthenos ships Nav-Con?”

  “The ships have begun their deceleration, but were travelling far too fast with their attack acceleration to obtain orbit. They’ll pass the orbital plane by a significant margin.”

  “Estimated time?”

  “Based on the physics of our ship’s limitations, they should be delayed beyond our own orbital timeframe by twelve hours.”

  “Let’s cut that in half for a safe measure and consider our window at six hours.” Cantwell said. “That still gives us enough time to get to ground.” He looked around the room. “Does anyone have a damage report? I know we got hit, I felt it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Stacy stood beside Cantwell’s command seat staring at the dead Nav-Con as the minutes passed without information.

  Finally Cantwell said, “I feel like I can’t see at all without that thing on. Fire control, did we get any shots off?”

  “I have no information on that at the moment, sir.”

  “Let me know when you do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Comm, do you have the life pods directed to our landing bays?”

  “Coming in now sir.”

  “Good man. Tell me when they’re in.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Keep the communication channels clear of chatter folks.”

  Cantwell turned back to the Nav-Con. His finger tapping on his armrest. Standing, he walked out under the lattice of bridge windows and looked up at the stars.

  “Engineering,” he said, his eyes still on the jeweled swath of the Milky Way.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any information on why we’ve lost thrust?”

  “I have inconsistent information coming in, sir. I’ll update you the moment we have enough detail for an accurate report.”

  “Thank you. We need to complete our deceleration very soon if we want to touch down.” He went back to watching the stars.

  What Stacy was seeing in him now she understood to be what separated him from a non-war commander. His experience had taught him to keep his mind clear, go to the void as Jeffrey had called it. The fate of the survivors in life pods, the men and women on the Lacedaemon, and the human race as a whole might rest on his next few decisions, decisions which had to wait until he knew more. In the waiting, he could yell at people to hurry, remind them delays meant death, but Stacy saw in his silence that he understood he had the best people in the right positions. They needed nothing but time to do their jobs well. They knew the urgency.

  A shatter of sound filled the bridge as the entirety of the Nav-Con display filled with a cylinder of static. The static faded, leaving behind the sparks of the fleet, pulsing in a deep-red light save the Lacedaemon’s single, constant identifier. Brilliant-orange life pod markers swarmed the Lacedaemon.

  “We have positioning now sir, but no visual,” the Nav-Con officer said.

  “Get a camera launched.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damage control,” Cantwell called out, “Do we have any information on thrust?”

  “Coming in now sir,” an efficiently gray-haired officer to the right of the navigation stations said. He watched his screens a moment longer before approaching the command seat. “Sir, we have a problem.”

  Stacy could see Cantwell didn’t care to hear of more problems.

  “Name it sailor.”

  “We have no drive plates, sir.”

  “What?”

  “The damage reports indicate the rear quarter of the ship is gone… cut away.”

  “Cut…” for a moment Cantwell appeared visibly shaken. His expression stilled as he asked, “Do we have emergency thrusters?”

  “Yes sir, side maneuvering thrusters used in tandem at the correct vectors can decelerate us effectively. However, within that solution lies our trouble.”

  “Which is?”

  “The fuel required to achieve a degrading Earth orbit, which will effectively deplete our hydrogen/oxygen reserves.”

  Cantwell said with understanding, “We have to use all of that just to drop into degradation. Then…”

  The gray-haired officer continued his thought, “we won’t have enough fuel for a controlled descent.”

  Cantwell motioned for the officer to come closer. The officer leaned over the left side of Cantwell’s command seat.

  “Are there any other options? Any fuel-use scenarios, which might work?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the officer said, “There are no other scenarios, and if we don’t implement in the next few moments, we won’t have enough distance to achieve degradation. We’ll slingshot past Earth and enter a solar impact trajectory.”

  “Damage control,” Cantwell called out, motioning for a woman with short red hair to approach.

  She walked with stiff steps to the command chair, her eyes strict, but her face young. “Admiral,” she said with a slight nod of her head.

  “Officer, paint me a picture of the drive plates. Is there any way they can be repaired?”

  “If the reports are accurate, there are no drive plates, sir.”

  The Nav-Con officer said, “Sir, we have a visual coming in now.”

  On the Nav-Con, the marker of the Lacedaemon blurred into the actual ship, life pods swarming into the landing bays. The rear half of the ship grew until it filled the display. Stacy’s heart sank. The last hundred feet had been sliced away at a steep angle, deck after deck flayed open to space.

  “That’s a definite no,” Cantwell said.

  The red-haired officer nodded. “Yes Admiral.”

  Cantwell said, “It’s amazing the isotopes didn’t collide. We were lucky.”

  “More than you know, sir.” She walked over to the Nav-Con and pointed to the open decks where small bits of insulation and metal still floated away from the hulk of the destroyer. “The weapon cut right through both containment vessels. A secondary explosion here,” she pointed to a crater in the low center of the mess that had once been the aft section, “caused by environmental oxygen, blew the material in opposite directions. Note how the damage spreads outward? That’s all secondary damage from the blast.”

  “All of the emergency environmental oxygen—”

  “Is gone, sir.”

  “So we won’t have air in how long?”

  “We will be breathing pretty thick in less than a day.”

  Cantwell tapped his fingers on his armrest. “So we have no nuclear thrust, fuel enough for about a thirty minute burn, there are twenty-three Sthenos destroyers bent on our destruction, and we’re the only surviving destroyer in a fleet of fifty-seven.”

  Falling silent, he stared at the floor. Stacy felt certain what would happen in the next few seconds might be one of the most important moments she’d witness in her lifetime.

  Cantwell’s head came up, “Helmsman.”

  “Yes, sir.” The team lead of the four women and three men who sat at the helm controls said.

  “Status.”

  “Helm is responsive sir.”

  “Good,” Cantwell said before trailing off. He sat for some time, and Stacy saw him drawing slow breaths, as if in meditation. Despite the situation at hand, his calm suffused her own thoughts.

  “We’re still receiving life pods sir. If we decelerate now, we’ll lose over a thousand.”

  “Navigation, when is the latest we can begin burn and achieve degradation?”

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  Cantwell’s tired, pale-blue eyes came open. “God speed to those we leave behind.” He paused as if he couldn’t get himself to say what needed to be said but, after a moment, did what must be done. “Cease rescue efforts, secure landing bays, and begin deceleration burn now. Adjust course. Set a glide path for the Amazon.”

  One of the helmsmen looked over his shoulder, his expression sincerely surprised. “The Amazon sir?”

  “Central delta. Make
it happen.”

  “Yes sir.” The navigation officers went to work at their station. The ship began an unharmonious vibration, and light gravity pushed into Stacy’s feet. The navigation officer looked back to Cantwell and said, “Atmospheric contact in forty-three minutes.”

  On the Nav-Con the main maneuvering thrusters had come on full-burn shooting out clear-blue flame to the rear at forty-five degree angles. The life pods, still swarming the ship, fell away as they continued on their slingshot trajectory past Earth. Stacy imagined the people in those pods looking out the small, circular viewport as the wall of the Lacedaemon slid away, leaving the glass filled with stars. She bit her tongue to stifle the emotion the thought brought up.

  “Commander,” Cantwell said. A moment later, he repeated in a calm but insistent tone, “Commander.”

  She looked to him to see who wasn’t responding and found him looking at her.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  He looked to his right, saying, “Captain Donovan.”

  The captain looked to him.

  “Come here please.”

  When the captain had come to stand opposite Stacy, Cantwell said, “If we succeed in getting to the ground, we’ll have to evacuate this ship and get as many resources and personnel into the rainforest as we can. We’ll need food, water, and weapons. You,” he pointed to Donovan, “are to begin coordination of that movement now. You have approximately forty minutes before all personnel must be strapped down. Get started with assigning stations. This must happen fast. After we touch down, we’ll have a four to twelve hour window before the Sthenos return. I don’t know what they’re planning, but I’m guessing they’ll want to assure the Lacedaemon is dealt with. We must assume demolition is imminent and get a safe distance away. A quarter mile is an absolute minimum.”

  “Yes sir,” Donovan said. “We can move the supplies one-half mile off, then have the personnel move further out until we establish a safe-zone and return for supplies.”

  Cantwell nodded. “Excellent.”

  Cantwell looked to Stacy. “Zack, this is Captain Walter Donovan. He’s served under me many years. You can trust him, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”