“BOOSY!” screamed Collings. “I’M HIT!”
Colette twisted her head just in time to see her wingman’s fighter become a fireball.
“BILL!” her voice called to a man who was already dead.
Turning back to her intended target, Colette’s teary eyes were filled with rage as she gritted her teeth in anger. Pushing her throttle to full power, the Martian squadron leader plunged her fighter straight for the Ruthann. As she closed in, her cannons heated up the void, while her missile canisters emptied. The rockets flash brightly as they struck the huge ship upon its superstructure. A small portion of the battleship erupted in explosive fire, but still the behemoth continued on.
“Damn you!” Colette cursed as she pulled her fighter up and away. But suddenly, her right wing dissolved in a blinding burst. “GOD, NO!” she screamed as her craft went out of control and spun into the asteroid field. A second later, the brave woman died in a fiery instant among the cold reaches of ice and stone.
* * * * *
O’Donald sneered as he watched Boosy die. He cursed the dead female pilot with a stream of profanities since she had inflicted the most damage upon the Ruthann than any other opponent. Her missiles had demolished the Ruthann’s secondary bridge and control center, denying the dreadnought of any redundancy of command should the main bridge be damaged or destroyed. For this, killing her still was not enough for him, he wished he could have roasted her slowly alive in her cockpit.
However, she made O’Donald realized that his ship was now alone—and very vulnerable. And from the desperate orders and pleas of communications coming over the PA from his surviving ships, it was all too apparent that the battle was lost. From this, a fear of Martian forces mounting a coordinated attack against him drew great apprehension. O’Donald then reluctantly decided to vector his ship away from the battle, abandoning Selena’s fleet to their fate. This was to be excused by her incompetence of the mass loss of ships. But before he could give the order, the huge vessel shook from a hit on amidships.
“ENEMY SHIP APPROACHING RAPIDLY FROM ASTERN!” the computer informed. “NUMBER TWO ENGINE DISABLED AND ON FIRE! MANEUVERABILITY AND THRUST DOWN 25 PERCENT!”
“IDENTIFY ENEMY VESSEL!” O’Donald ordered the machine.
“MARTIAN WARSHIP, DOLPHIN CLASS DESTROYER, NUMBER 2-9-1-1, ID: CRAZY HORSE!” the computer edified.
* * * * *
At seeing the death of Colette, Wakinyan went berserk! He pushed the Crazy Horse to beyond its limits as he charged in. Nothing else mattered to him now—except sending the Ruthann straight to hell!
“NUMBER THREE ENGINE TARGETED!” Randall shouted out.
“MAIN GUN, FIRE!” Wakinyan’s mouth exploded in merciless wrath.
The Crazy Horse’s up-gunned laser cannon split the night in a long continuous burst. With absolute precision, the laser bolt penetrated and smashed the number-three engine pod of the Ruthann. The engine blew apart in an explosion of energy, shooting ion particles in every direction and causing a small nearby cold fusion reactor to detonate. This in turn fueled a series of more clamorous ignition. The behemoth trembled in incendiary quakes, as more explosions rocked the big ship and ripped away parts of its hull. And Wakinyan had just started his onslaught.
“SYNCRONIZE SECONDARIES TO TRACK TO SAME TARGETED POINT!” Wakinyan ordered as he slowed the Crazy Horse to make an attack run.
“AYE, COMMANDER!” Jim responded without hesitation.
The Crazy Horse then change course as it headed in.
“SECONDARIES, FIRE!” spit Wakinyan in savage fury.
As the Martian destroyer came within several hundred feet of the Ruthann’s stern, the Crazy Horse’s secondary laser cannons fired in unison, hitting the same point on the hull of the Earth battleship. The Crazy Horse then veered off slightly to port, but still maintaining its bombardment.
The Martian destroyer continued firing as it speedily flew along side the huge dreadnought. Separated by no more than twenty yards, the secondary lasers riddle the hull of the Earth ship like a machinegun, and the damage it caused became severe. Control cables were cut, equipment exploded, chambers decompressed, and cyborgs died.
The Ruthann rapidly filled with smoke, as fires ignited within. The dreadnought then began to list as the controls to the docking thrusters shorted out, energizing several of them at the wrong time.
“TARGET THAT SHIP!” O’Donald screamed, choking on the smoke.
“IMPOSSIBLE!” Lunda yelled to her superior, while the computer attempted to fulfill the order. “HE’S TOO CLOSE!”
The Crazy Horse then pulled away like a fighter from the Ruthann in a semicircle. The Martian destroyer then darted diagonally for the dreadnought’s center again.
“MAIN GUN, FIRE!” Wakinyan roared.
In the heated blast, the Crazy Horse’s main battery disintegrated the Ruthann’s number four engine pod. The Martian destroyer then headed straight for the big ship’s stern with lasers still firing. More laser bolts ripped into the dreadnought’s hull, and the enormous vessel began to visibly vibrate as well as leave a trail of what looked like smoke. Finally after reaching the stern, the Martian destroyer flipped upside-down and looped around its target in a corkscrew maneuver.
Holding his ship in the tightest pattern that he could, Wakinyan steered the Crazy Horse around and around the Ruthann. Slowly progressing to the bow of the battleship, the secondary laser cannons of the Martian destroyer sieved the hull of the gigantic dreadnought with an unrelenting barrage. The Crazy Horse was literary shredding the Ruthann to pieces.
Out of sheer desperation, O’Donald saw an opportunity and took it. Noticing that the Crazy Horse was passing uncomfortable close to the asteroid belt each time it flew underneath the Ruthann, he sprinted to the weapons console. The officer then targeted a swarm of meteoroids with missiles. In quick succession, they were loosened.
The missiles arced around the frozen rocks to their unseen side. They then struck among the asteroids in a horrendous blast, sending a bombardment of huge shards towards the Ruthann and the Crazy Horse. However, both the timing and the aim were perfect, as the Crazy Horse flew straight into it.
Aboard the Crazy Horse, Randall was the first to comprehend the threat of the missiles. Without a moment of indecision, he threw himself at Wakinyan seated at the ship’s controls. The forceful lunge knocked his friend away from the instruments and behind a reinforced armored plated section. Randall then rolled away and waited. He knew there was no time for anything else.
The Martian destroyer nearly took the full blunt of the blast and strangely shielded the big Earth ship from any severe damage. The rocks slammed into the Crazy Horse with tremendous force.
The stones penetrated its hull, gorging and crushing the ship thoroughly, as the momentum seemed to stop the destroyer in its tracks. The main power was instantaneously cut, yet remarkably, she still retained emergency lighting and artificial gravity. However, she was now adrift and tumbled gradually away. O’Donald breathed a sigh of relief.
His gambit had worked, but the Ruthann’s luck had almost run out. These last two engagements had severely crippled the dreadnought. It had become only a question of time before more Martians appeared to finish them off.
They would have to leave and escape now—or die. However, before the battleship departed, it would deal a deathblow to this audacious adversary.
“Give us some distance!” the admiral ordered the computer. “I don’t want to be caught up in the blast!”
The Ruthann then began to slowly turn and make as much steam as she could. She limped away from the defenseless Martian destroyer, leaving a wide stream of frozen water vapor particles and debris in her surviving engine’s ion wash.
Meanwhile aboard the bridge of the Crazy Horse, a dazed Richard Wakinyan found himself covered with chunks of conduit, cables, ceramic pieces, and other wreckage. His right arm was in tremendous pain and worse, he couldn’t mov
e it. Yet, he summoned enough strength to kicked, pulled, and pushed the heavy litter off his pinned body. A minute later, he was clear of the debris.
Wakinyan clutched his right arm, as he shakily picked himself up from the cluttered deck. As he looked about the tattered compartment, he did not recognize where he stood.
Through the buckled ceiling, a huge gaping hole was torn opened. Debris and bodies lay everywhere. The destruction was indescribable. And as he continued to gaze about, from the few surviving instruments mounted on the walls, it was evident that he was still on what was left of his bridge.
“To any crewmen who can hear this!” he said painfully over his microphone, “THIS IS COMANNDER WAKINYAN! ABANDON SHIP! I SAY AGAIN, ABANDON SHIP!”
Unexpectedly, he heard wheezing and coughing over his headset. It was close from the volume level, however the transceiver indicator located within his helmet only gave a general direction where the sounds emanated from. Looking about, Wakinyan quickly started searching among the dead to find its source. He found it to be a grisly chore, and almost puked in his helmet.
Moving a body by chance, he found his friend, Jim, gasping for air. His chest and abdomen were somewhat crushed by a hefty piece of ceramic material, while his legs were pegged by heavy equipment and plating. Through Jim’s visor, Richard spied blood oozing from the man’s mouth.
“OH, GOD!” Richard shrieked, and franticly he began moving and throwing the pieces off of Jim’s body and legs while disregarding his own pain.
“Don’t bother,” Jim said weakly smiling. “I can’t feel them anyway.”
But Richard ignored Jim’s request, fanatically shoving and moving every object off the trap man’s body. Only when he threw the last piece into a growing heap beside them did he stop to rest.
James then coughed a little as he spat up some more blood, which hit and dripped down the inside of his visor. Richard then saw the fear in his friend’s eyes.
“Please—hold me!” pleaded the dying man.
Richard knelt down and pulled his friend’s torso up. He then put his good arm tightly around the man. “What have I done?” Richard realized the price of what his unthinking actions had rendered to his crew and ship.
Jim coughed a little more. “Rich, it wasn’t your fault! You didn’t kill us—they did!”
Jim paused to get a breath of air. “You did what you were supposed to do,” his voice became softer and weaker. “It damn well was a good day! You stopped them dead in their tracks! And you gave that last big bastard a good pasting!” he nearly laughed. “He’s not going to make it home.”
But Richard was unconcerned about the damage to the Ruthann. “Jim, don’t do this to me! Please, don’t die!” Richard begged as his tired arm cradled his friend.
“Ruins my day too!” he smiled painfully. “But you better get out of here now. In a few minutes, they’re going to finish us off. Blow the hatch. Get to the pod on the other side. It may be okay. You should be able to get safely away in time.”
“And what about you?” Richard asked.
“I’m not going anywhere,” James accepted his fate. “If you try to move me, I’ll break apart!” he choked back his torment and suffering.
Richard, however, squared his jaw and then plopped his butt down next to his friend. “I’m not leaving you—or my ship!”
Jim grabbed at Richard’s hand. “Don’t be a fool! Get the hell out here while you can! Don’t die with us!” he pleaded.
Richard tiredly smiled. “No,” he stated firmly as he shook his head. “I will not desert my crew. We all came here together—we’ll all leave here together!”
And with that, Wakinyan propped his friend against his own body and held him across the shoulders with his left arm. He felt Jim’s hand tighten around his in both fear and in gratitude. The two friends then waited for the end.
* * * * *
“That’s far enough!” O’Donald ordered as he eyed the Crazy Horse some distance away.
The Ruthann then halted.
“Target that destroyer and prepare to fire all remaining batteries,” he said contemptuously.
“By your command,” the hovering computer responded to its master.
O’Donald’s eyes raked over the Crazy Horse as the Ruthann’s laser cannons locked on to the helpless ship. The muscles around the admiral’s cold ocular receptors tightened as he licked his lips in anticipation of the sweet taste of victory and revenge. The Earth officer wanted to savor the moment for as long as possible while hoping that the survivors of the Martian destroyer were squirming in the wreak, knowing they were about to die. So he deliberately dragged out time until he felt the moment was right. However, he didn’t realize that he had missed his one and only opportunity to kill his immobile foe.
As he was about to mouth the word to “fire” to the hovering computer ball, without warning, it shorted out and dropped like a rock unto the deck, spewing a trail of noxious smoke as it fell. It splattered apart with a loud “crunch” into a flaming mess of metal and plastic. The lights then flickered ominously on and off several times, while equipment mysteriously began whirring to a shutdown. And through it all, strange sounds echoed eerily throughout the bridge from different directions.
It was then that something came like a specter, fluttering in and out of the chamber. It haunted the very air around them in bursts of light and shadow. They all seen and felt it, a presence that invaded the ship.
Every cyborg stood up and nervously looked about, their vision receptors scanning in alarm for the enigmatic phantom that swelled in strength. Even the hardened Admiral O’Donald was unnerved by the phantom. He bit his lip in uneasiness as the specter finally revealed itself.
“NO!” a woman’s voice reverberated loudly and ruffled deeply throughout the bridge. “You will not hurt him!” the voice proclaimed in a menacing and greatly angered resonance.
Captain Lunda gathered what the voice meant and made a leap for the weapon’s console. But as she grabbed the controls, it shorted out in sizzling blue arcs of electricity that traveled up her arms and into her body. Lunda was lit in blue neon, as overwhelming pain and electricity drowned her body. As the smell of burning circuits and flesh permeated the air, she was frozen, unable even to scream. A second later, the female cyborg fell over the disabled console quite dead, her body twitching and smoking.
* * * * *
The bridge of the Ariana was bathed in a weird luminescent glow that was more powerful than a row of searchlights. It nearly blinded all the crewmen in the compartment, forcing them to place their visors at the darkest level settings. Yet, still the light penetrated.
To the Martians serving aboard the freighter, the source of the light was frightening and incomprehensible. To mutant starfarers, however, it was not. They had witnessed the extraordinary power of Tara Nargis times before.
As her eyes radiated the entire bridge, Tara’s body was soaked in her own sweat as she tried to steady herself against a wall. She panted hard while her chest heaved as she continued to focus her mind on the Ruthann.
“NOW, MARTIN!” Tara yelled over her microphone as she summoned up the last of her mental strength.
* * * * *
Aboard the bridge of the Ruthann, the specter had receded back into the shadows, but it had left death and inoperable control systems behind.
“Look!” yelled out a cyborg crewman as he pointed to the viewer.
As the entire bridge crew turned, they fearfully watched a ship rising majestically from behind a large meteoroid just in front of the dreadnought. It was not a warship, but an old freighter with the name Ariana stenciled on her bow. As she gained height, the cyborgs saw that all of her cargo bay doors were still opened.
Unexpectedly, about twenty large dark and round objects began flying out of ship’s bays and headed directly for Ruthann.
“MINES!” screamed another female cyborg recoiling in horror. “ADMIRAL, WHAT DO
WE DO?” she yelled, looking for any reassurance and a chance for life.
O’Donald, however, was petrified and did not hear her words. As the mines rushed forward, he was mesmerized by the vision of the end of both him and his ship.
Seconds later, the high explosives slammed into the Ruthann. Every mine detonated upon impact, blowing huge holes into the hull that rocked the enormous ship. The Ruthann then became a blazing infernal, a great torch lit from bow to stern. A minute later, her surviving engine fired-up one last time, and the Earth dreadnought’s nose dipped downward towards the cauldron of floating rocks. She then descended in a spiral dive, where she then vanished into the asteroid field. Disappearing behind a planetoid, she became a sudden and bright flare among the floating tombstones.
With the enemy now vanquished, the Ariana then turned and headed towards the Crazy Horse. Closing all of her bay doors, the freighter’s air pumps and oxygen regeneration units began to work in earnest to restore a breathable atmosphere to the ship. The wounded surviving mariners of the doomed Martian destroyer were in desperate need of medical attention.
* * * * *
The Mariner ran out of targets as the Martian fleet quickly decimated the disorganized rabble that once was the most powerful Earth armada in existence. As the Mariner journeyed through the last embers of the battle, she gathered to her all available ships and reassembled them for the final drive. But something was missing, however, and Deputy Commander Winslow became extremely anxious because of it.
“How long has it been?” Winslow asked his new captain for a count.
“It’s been over fifteen minutes, Sir, since we lost contact with the Crazy Horse,” Captain Jessica Landorf informed the man. “By Wakinyan’s own orders, that makes you the Fleet Commander,” the blonde woman pointed out.
“I know,” Winslow spoke in a low sad tone.
There was a long pause as he bowed his head in respect, for he thought the Crazy Horse was lost. Then slowly, he looked up. His face was filled with both ire and determination.