The Frihet Rebellion
Chapter 25: Into Battle

“Sir!”

It took Jon a moment to react. He was not used to being called sir aboard Spearhead.

“Yes, Roger,” he said. “What is it?”

“I’m picking up some interesting readings around Frihet on the long distance scanner.”

Spearhead had exited the traversable wormhole almost half-an-hour earlier, well ahead of the rest of the Earth fleet. Jon was pushing her at full speed, eager to reach Frihet and get the job done. The sooner it was finished, the better. It was not a job he liked doing.

“Let me take a look,” he said, bringing the scanner image up on his own console. The dots moved with a certain pattern and order, all except one, which darted randomly about in the space between the other dots and the planet surface. He quickly analyzed the situation. It seemed fairly obvious to him, and he was disappointed Roger hadn’t seen it too.

“It is a battle, of sorts,” he said. “One ship trying to avoid a number of others.”

“That hardly seems fair,” said Roger. “What do you want me to do?”

Bryant wouldn’t have had to ask.

“As soon as you can, identify the ships. I do not need names and registration numbers, just whether they are Earth or Frihetian.”

“Yes, sir.”

If not for The Plan I would still have Bryant with me, thought Jon, saddened by the memory of his betrayal, worried about what might be happening to his friend back on Earth.

“I’ve got it, sir,” said Roger, smiling over from the main scanner board.

“Well, tell me then,” said Jon, more than a little irritated at having to constantly prompt for information.

“All but one are Frihetian battleships.”

Roger paused, expecting some acknowledgement. It was all Jon could do to reign in his growing frustration and anger.

I need the full information!

“And the one?” he said, keeping his voice calm.

“It’s an Earth battleship,” said Roger.

It’s so hard not to show my annoyance, my anger, thought Jon. But if I do, Roger will report it straight back to the President. I’m no fool. I know he’s here to keep an eye on me. Maybe that’s why he irritates me so? Or maybe it’s guilt?

He sighed, forcing the thoughts, the doubts, away. He had a job do to, however unsavory.

“Buckle up,” he said. “We are going in to attack.”

“Captain, we’re picking up a new object, coming in fast,” said Davison, her voice controlled, professional.

Ameridian strained under the evasion tactics Sumner was forced to follow while they plotted their best route for an escape attempt. The ship’s shields shuddered under constant bombardment.

“Get me some kind of detail as soon as you can,” he ordered, as the demands of the situation suppressed his usual reaction to Sarah Davison’s voice. “Let’s at least get some idea of what’s about to hit us.”

All my plans are failing, thought Kramer. Just because Sumner can’t break through the Frihetian fleet. So much potential wasted.

Kramer refused to accept that, had he his own ship, he could have done no better. This was Sumner’s fault, and the fault of everyone on board the ship. Except him.

“We’re receiving a transmission,” said Davison. “That object coming in… it’s Spearhead!”

Sumner breathed a sigh of relief and saw smiles break on several faces around the bridge.

Strange how one word can change the atmosphere, lift so much tension.

“Don’t relax too much,” he said. “We’re not safe yet. But at least we stand a chance now.”

Even Kramer smiled. With Spearhead on their side, maybe his plans still had a chance to come to fruition.

He thought of the Princess back in her locked cabin. That was something else he now had a chance to finish. He only just contained the laugh that bubbled inside him.

Spearhead flew in at high speed, its weapons blazing, tearing holes in Frihetian ships as though their shields were inactive. Return fire sparked harmlessly off its hull of super-strong, alien metal. As it drew closer to the ships, its outer weapons were withdrawn within the hull and it began its run at its most feared attack. Ramming.

It smashed through the first Frihetian battleship, destroying everything and everyone in its path. It burst out the other side in a melee of metal, plasteel and body parts.

Without pausing, it veered to one side and into another Frihet ship. Then another.

The attacks were not as random as they first seemed. As each holed battleship drifted out of position, being pulled planetward by gravity, a path to freedom opened up for Ameridian.

As soon as the way was clear, the Earth battleship powered through and ran towards the traversable wormhole back to Earth.

On its way, it passed the Earth fleet, heading in to support Spearhead in its battle with the Frihetian navy.

Spearhead slowed its attacks, and reverted to firing its exterior weapons. Ramming took a lot of power and resources, and could only be maintained for short bursts at a time. Jon was not unhappy to see the Earth fleet arrive to take on some of the responsibility.

Unnoticed by anyone in the swirl, spark and flash of battle, a long, sleek ship entered the fray. Each side presumed it belonged to the other. If they tried to fire upon it, their weapons had no noticeable effect. But it did not fire back, and was quickly forgotten as the battle continued. The ship moved slowly but inexorably through the scattered remnants of broken ships and broken bodies. It had one target in its sights. Like a shark moving towards its prey, it headed towards Spearhead.

The hole in Spearhead’s hull appeared instantly and with no sound, other than a pop and the rush of air.

Jon, momentarily stunned, could do nothing but stare at the hole, which continued to grow slowly, the atoms of the hull seemingly vaporized as he watched. The control consoles nearest the hole burst apart with small explosions and fires, inconsequential compared to the loss of air and the power of the vacuum.

A Matter Disrupter! Nothing else could cause this, he thought, still struggling to believe what he was seeing. But it was only at the first testing stage when Sklalen was destroyed. No one should have a working model. Not even I have one.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a sudden screaming.

Roger!

The Earthman was hanging on to a console by his fingertips, the hurricane of escaping air threatening to take him with it.

Jon tried to reach his co-pilot, pulling himself hand-over-hand towards his weaker companion. But before he could get close enough to grab him, Roger’s grip gave way.

Jon watched, horrified, as Roger was pulled through the hole in Spearhead’s hull, his arms flailing as though he could swim back to the ship. His body disappeared, to become just another piece of space junk left behind, as the fleets continued to battle.

Looking into the void which had swallowed Roger, feeling some guilt because of his mixed feelings towards the man, Jon saw a slim, sleek ship that seemed out of place with the bulkier hulls of the others, bristling with weapons and sensors and defensive turrets. It stirred a vague memory in him, a memory of Sklale, and the battleships of its navy. But he had no time to consider that impossibility, as the vacuum continued to suck the air from his ship.

He pulled himself towards the control room door, using the fixed consoles and chairs for grip and support, as he fought the drag towards the still widening hole. Loose items, paper, pens, drinks, became potentially deadly debris, flying towards him, hitting him, distracting him from his goal. The roar of escaping air deafened him, the clutter of his own ship bombarded him, yet he kept pulling, inch by slow inch. If he could reach the door, escape into the corridor beyond, the control room door would act as a hermetic seal, and the air in the rest of the ship would remain stable. Or so he hoped.

With a suddenness that momentarily stunned him, the rush of air stopped. Everything fell silent. The air had gone. Spearhead’s control room was now in a vacuum.

Holding his breath, Jon scrambled for the door, his movement made easier without the pull towards the hole. He knew that he could survive for a longer time than a human in the vacuum of space, but he had no intention of finding out exactly how long.

He hit the door release button, fighting desperately against the sudden tornadic wind from the rest of the ship into the vacuum of the control room. With one final effort, he dragged himself into the corridor. At the press of another button, the door slid shut and he lay on the corridor floor, breathing the thinned but serviceable air.

Forcing himself back to his feet, he ran, stumbling, to his cabin. Inside, he lay down on the bed, exhausted and defeated. Although Spearhead’s internal systems kept the corridors and rooms steady, he knew that his ship was spiraling down towards the surface of Frihet, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

All he could do was lie on his bed and wonder if he would survive the crash.

The holed Spearhead splashed down into the Frihet Ocean, a great plume of water rising into the sky. For a moment it bobbed back to the surface, but then the water poured in through the hole. Slowly the ship sank, disappearing under the gentle waves.

Jon, shaken, bruised but otherwise unhurt, stayed in his cabin as Spearhead sank. The internal lights had failed with the inrush of water flooding the controls, but he was content to remain sitting in the dark. It would not be safe to leave the cabin until Spearhead settled somewhere and was stable. Its internal gyroscope and balance had turned it upright as it sank, so he waited, with quiet confidence, for it to hit the ocean floor.

It took twenty minutes before the base of Spearhead gently touched bottom, and sank a few inches into the seabed. It rocked, then settled, upright and solid.

A few moments of scrambling in the cabin cupboard, and Jon found a flashlight. He immediately turned it on and used it to make his way through the scattered contents of shelves to the door. The corridor outside was as black as the cabin, and the flashlight only illuminated a small cone around it. But it allowed him to make slow and careful progress to the armory.

He put the flashlight on a small shelf by the armory wall-cabinet. Staying within the cone of light as much as possible, Jon strapped on a holster, chose an old but trusted automatic pistol and several full ammo clips. He also took a heat burner, which looked less like a weapon and more like another flashlight. Satisfied, he locked the cabinet, picked up the flashlight and made his way towards the nearest airlock.

As he walked, he calculated in his head. Given the time sinking, and the probable speed, he thought Spearhead should be around three miles down from the surface. It was a long way, and deadly to a human. But Sklalen’s evolution had been genetically altered, centuries before, to allow deep water exploration. Jon’s body could easily withstand the pressures at this depth, and his lung capacity was such that he could hold his breath long enough to reach the surface. Perhaps it was a mercy that Roger had been sucked out into space. If he had still been alive, Jon would have had to leave him behind. The damaged life support systems would no doubt have failed before a rescue could be arranged. Better the relatively quick death in space than the slow suffocation as the air ran out.

He stepped into the airlock. There was no button to let water in, only one to let the air out. He took the heat burner from his belt and set it to maximum strength. Although the burner was of Sklalen origin, he was still not sure if it would get through the metal door of Spearhead before it burnt out.

After ten minutes of concentrated burning in one small area, the water pressure outside forced the remaining metal in. The ocean began, slowly, to fill the airlock through a hole the size of a fist. Jon waited patiently until the airlock was full, and then activated the door release.

The outer door slid open easily, with the equalized pressure both sides, and Jon swam out of Spearhead.

He used the flashlight for a quick survey of where Spearhead had settled. Satisfied that it was secure, he kicked for the surface.

With his system automatically clearing any bubbles of gas that threatened to form, he was safe from decompression sickness as he rose steadily, breath held, for just over half-an-hour.

Finally, his head broke the surface and he gulped in the air gratefully. It had pushed his lung capacity to the limit, and he was glad to be able to breath normally once more. He looked quickly around, but there seemed no movement on the ocean surface. He had half feared he would come up in the middle of Frihetians, searching for his crashed ship. But it seemed they had not followed it down.

In the sky, he could see occasional flashes, like lightning. But there was no storm. It was the battle, still raging around the planet. He hoped he had done enough for an Earth victory.

But what to do about that battleship? And how had someone got hold of a working matter disrupter?

He saw mountains in the distance and, deciding his questions would have to wait, set off at a steady pace, swimming towards land.

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