William Fortchen - Action Stations

The skyhook tower of McAuliffe, connecting to base Alexandria over twenty thousand miles above, started to collapse. Due to its size, it'd be several minutes before those at the top of the tower would even feel anything, but when they did and the tower started to fall, it would drag down with it any ship that was in hard dock.

Ulandi could not help but feel a sense of admiration for the Cats and the masterful skill and coordination demonstrated in their attack. They had struck with surgical precision, knocking out the reactors which provided the thousands of gigawatts of energy for the shields, which for a hundred years had been proclaimed to be the ultimate defense. With the shields gone, all of the defensive doctrine and infrastructure built up around them was nothing more than broken toys waiting to be kicked apart.

From out of the south he saw several dozen flashes of reflected light. They quickly took form, a sweep of Kilrathi fighters coming in to strafe the base and nail anything that might still offer resistance.

Thirty years, he thought, thirty years getting ready for this moment, and now…

He took a long drag on his cigar and exhaled slowly. Funny, he thought, don't have to worry about inhaling the stuff now and he took another deep drag so that the cigar tip glowed bright red.

"I'm scared."

He looked down and saw her terrified eyes. Sergeant Major Manual Ulandi made a hushing sound, as if stilling the fears of a frightened child, and drew her in close, burying her face into his chest.

Best for her to get it here rather than trapped down in the basement, he thought. Holding the soldier, who was really still a child, he watched as the fighters closed in, guns flashing.

* * *

"Jak-ta Gal Jak-ta Ga! Jak-ta Gal"

The triumphal cry, announcing the destruction of the reactors and the lowering of the main base shields, erupted from the speakers on the bridge, greeted an instant later by wild shrieks and roars of unspeakable joy as those around the Crown Prince broke into a mad demonstration. Fists were raised to the heavens, talons extended, some of the warriors turning the talons on themselves, slicing open their own veins so that they might smell blood and then drink it.

Even the Crown Prince allowed the moment to seize him, and he ritualistically cut his arm open, holding it up so that all might see the blood flow. His staff clamored around him, offering their blood to him so that they could someday tell their cubs how they had shared blood with the Emperor at the moment of his greatest triumph.

Gilkarg finally stepped free of the turmoil and approached the flat, two dimensional screen as a wavery vid image appeared, shot by a tail gunner on a bomber and beamed back. Fighters were crisscrossing the ground base, hundreds of fires igniting beneath their hammer blows. As the bomber turned it showed the skyhook tower. The structure was so massive that it appeared to be moving in slow motion as sections of the tower, dozens of kilometers long, snapped off, the tower disintegrating from the bottom up.

"We've won!"

He whirled about to look at the fool who now taunted the gods to steal back their victory. The communications officer, realizing the supreme folly of proclaiming victory before it was accomplished, lowered his head.

"Its only started," Gilkarg roared.

* * *

"Helm, give me full throttle, now!"

"We're barely out of cold start," came a nervous reply. "We need another five minutes, or we might rupture the pumps."

"In five minutes we're dead. Full power now!" Turner clicked over to the shield control center.

"Defensive shielding?"

"Defensive shields here, sir."

"As soon as the engines power up, take shields up to fifty percent. I'll give you word when you can draw more."

"Aye, sir."

Commander Turner snapped the line shut and looked back up at the starboard view screen. The full weight of the Kilrathi attack was sweeping in across the far side of the base. He had expected their attack to go straight for the ground reactors, but the speed with which they had been knocked out was startling. The additional ten to fifteen minutes he was praying for simply wasn't there any more.

"Sir?"

One of the combat analysis team looked back from her station and motioned for him to come over.

He stepped up to her side and she pushed her earphones back.

"Sir. I just heard a report relayed from one of the batteries near shield generating station number three. They claim they clearly saw a missile penetrate the shield at very high speed. They caught it on vid and are uploading."

"Good work, yeoman. Let's see it."

A flickering image appeared on her screen, with a scale line appearing beneath the missile, showing it to be nearly fifteen meters in length and two meters thick.

It was, by far, the largest weapon he had ever seen launched from a carrier plane. He watched the grainy image as the missile cut right through the shielding and, seconds later, disappear as it impacted in a thermonuclear flash.

"It was making Mach 10 when it penetrated." She hesitated for an instant and then a grin broke out.

"Sir, it's Ark Royal! On translight burst. The signal's close by."

"Where?"

"I'll switch them in now."

Turner looked up at the screen.

"McAuliffe, McAuliffe, this is Ark Royal."

The image of the Ark Royal's captain appeared on the screen and Turner could not help but smile.

"Admiral Dayan, thank God," he cried. "This is Turner, acting commander Concordia. Where the hell are you?"

"Winston? How did you get here?"

"No time now, Naomi. All hell is breaking loose. We're losing the base."

He looked up at the plot screen and saw a blue blip appear, coming in from jump point Delta. Dayan's task force was starting to come into the system but was still hours away.

"You're the one on the scene, what the hell do you want us to do?"

Naomi had served as a visiting professor at the Academy for a year, teaching carrier tactics, and was definitely one of the young Turks of the fleet. He was grateful, as well, that she wasn't pulling rank and was deferring to his on-the-scene view.

"Let me work up a plot, hang on."

Stepping back he scanned the view screens.

"Navigation, work best possible solution for rendezvous with Ark Royal. Communications, upload all data we have so far on this strike to Ark Royal's exec."

"Coral Sea's gone!" he heard someone cry. The screen focused in on the fleet's heaviest carrier. They had managed to break clear of the tower on maneuvering thrusters but the Cats were already on her, several dozen bombers and fighters weaving around the ship, which was bursting apart amidships, explosions racing through the interior, bursting out of the old carriers single launch ramp.

He turned away and looked back to the forward view, which showed the skyhook tower. It was finally beginning to move, a flickering waver as the blow from twenty thousand miles down finally arrived. Dozens of ships were still hard docked to the spiderweb array of ports. Many of them went into emergency disconnect, blowing the explosive bolts that held them to the dying tower. Smaller vessels, which had been able to start their engines up quicker, were darting away, but the heavy ships, which had been drawing power from the tower were helpless, whoever was in command on board frantically trying to maneuver and pull away using only low-energy docking thrusters.

The battleship Belarus, though disconnected, hovered motionless. The tower started to lean over and appeared to slowly brush against the side of the ship. Due to the sheer size of the vessel and tower, it appeared like nothing more than an inconsequential bump, but Turner knew it was a fatal blow with thousands of tons of mass behind it. The battleship started to move under the impact, as if it would simply be brushed aside… then the outer hull ruptured. Seconds later the ship detonated as stored munitions let go. The explosion blossomed out, taking a frigate that was moored higher up on the tower, the frigate detonating in turn. Explosions laced across the skyhook, momentarily blocking out the view of the incoming waves of Kilrathi fighters approaching from the other side.