Graham Paul - The battle at the Moons of Hell

His hopes of a quiet run in were dashed fourteen minutes later. With no warning, Fusion A tripped offline, immediately depriving Michael of his starboard mass driver-powered main engine. Seconds later, the cross-feeds that would have allowed the starboard main engine to draw power from Fusion B on the port side went down as well. Fucking terrific, Michael thought.

As Michael cursed silently under his breath, Moaning Minnie first sagged and then wallowed back to height, adopting the characteristic skewed posture of a lander running on one engine as Mother quickly ran Fusion B up to full power to cover for the loss of Fusion A.

“Command, propulsion. Software lockout of Fusion A and cross-feed to starboard mass driver. No chance of recovery without command emergency override.” It was Petty Officer Aguilar, about as excited as a lump of rock as usual.

Software lockout, Michael thought. Thank you, directing staff, you bastard offspring of flea-ridden camel herders.

“Roger, propulsion. Mother. Maintain track.”

“Command, Tac. Shrivaratnam reports six Kingfisher fliers at 100 k’s inbound bearing 280.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Michael muttered. Hostile fliers. Just what they didn’t need as they slowed for landing. “Roger that, Tac. Confirm Shrivaratnam engaging?”

“Negative. All assets assigned to higher-priority tasks.” Hadley’s face reflected what he thought of that piece of twisted logic.

“Command, roger. GAs?” Michael asked, more in hope than in expectation. While they had a good air defense capability, the heavily armored ground attack planetary landers were tasked primarily with protecting the marines as they deployed and then with breaking up enemy counterattacks in the hours after the landing, when the marines were at their most vulnerable. Their weapons were designed with close ground support in mind, not atmospheric dogfights, and so, per planetary assault standard operating procedures, responsibility for protecting the assault stream as it funneled in to land rested with the Shrivaratnam, her massive infrared planetary attack lasers more than capable of breaking up even the largest flier attack.

“Negative. Ground attack landers are fully committed.”

Oh, well, thought Michael. Doesn’t hurt to ask. But they were well and truly on their own.

“Stand by hard turn left,” Mother announced.

“Weapons, Tac. On my mark, full spread decoy deployment-we’ve got less than 65 k’s to run, so we’ll throw everything at the hostiles to try to break radar lock.” As Hadley spoke, Mother yanked Moaning Minnie around onto the first of the final doglegs, the max-g turn making Minnie ’s fabric groan in protest. The lander’s synthpain levels fed through to Michael’s neuronics, rising uncomfortably as the wings, now fully deployed, flexed alarmingly under the huge load of the tightest turn Mother could get away with.

“Roger, Tac.”

“Sixty k’s to run. Stand by hard turn right.” Mother was at her soothing best. But her reassuring tones belied the desperate situation Moaning Minnie was in. Hostile fliers and landers did not mix well, especially when the top cover normally provided to landers by the ships orbiting overhead apparently had been tasked to higher-priority targets.

“Weaps, Tac. Decoy release on the turn.”

“Weaps, roger.”

This time Mother outdid herself. Tipping the lander on its ear, the foamalloy wings flexing sharply upward under the load, the synthpain almost unbearable, Mother powered up Fusion B to overcome the loss of Fusion A. That drove Moaning Minnie around in an impossibly tight turn, the g forces ramming her crew deep into their seats despite the best efforts of the lander’s artgrav. Even at the best of times, Minnie and her clan were not known for their agility even with wings fully deployed, but raw vectored power from the lander’s remaining main engine and lots of it was a wonderful thing.

“Thirty k’s to run,” Mother announced calmly as the lander settled onto the final dogleg.

Hadley and Taksin timed it beautifully. As the lander turned, decoys streaked out from Minnie ’s sides. Almost instantly, the swarm of decoys came online, and all of a sudden there were Moaning Minnies everywhere-some running with the ship along its new course, some on the old course, and others on every track in between. Two were even running away. Perfect timing, Michael thought, absolutely perfect.

“Command, Tac. Estimate eight seconds to hostile missile release.”

“Command, roger.”

“Command, Tac. Hostiles have gone to restricted search mode. I’d bet my pension we’ve been selected.”

“Command, roger. No takers.”

“You do surprise me,” Michael muttered under his breath. Who else would the staff controlling the exercise select for a missile attack?

“Command, Tac. Hostile missile launch. Time to target sixty-four seconds.”

“Command, Mother. Stand by turn hard right.”

“Abort, abort.” Michael’s voice cut across Mother. “Turn left under the decoys and cut the corner onto the next turn. Put us back on the final track with 1 k to run.”

Even if what she had wanted to do was standard operating procedure, Michael could see that no matter how hard Mother turned, Moaning Minnie would be uncomfortably close to the debris of missiles closing in on them at 5,000 kph. Even if they cooked off on the decoys, the warhead debris would spread out in a high-velocity cone to envelop the fleeing Minnie. And if they survived, they would still have to get Minnie back where she belonged-back on track heading for the landing zone to dump her hypothetical load of heavily armed marines and their mounds of equipment precisely where they wanted to get off. Sure, the risk was small, but it was a risk. But by turning left, Minnie could duck under the decoys and give the incoming missiles no time to decide that she was a better target.

“New track up, Shrivaratnam approved. Stand by, forty seconds to turn, fifty seconds to missile impact.”

“Roger. Command approved.”

“Stand by turn left.” This turn would be uncomfortably sluggish with no starboard engine to overcome the port engine’s opposition. Hopefully, it won’t matter, Michael prayed.

And around they went, smooth as silk this time, Mother winding the power back as Minnie settled down for the final approach.

“Command, Tac. Stand by missile impact in ten…Stand by. Multiple warhead explosions behind and above us; no hits, no collateral damage. Shrivaratnam reports hostiles breaking off. Ground attack commander reports landing zone sanitized and secure, clear to land.”

Michael heaved a sigh of relief.

“Roger that, Tac. Mother, command approved to autoland.” Michael itched to take manual control and do it himself, but he told himself not to be stupid. Although he knew he could hand fly the lander down, it would be a big mistake. Poor situational awareness, less than sixty seconds to run, and another sharp turn to port with the starboard engine out to boot. No, let Mother do it, he decided.

And a lovely job Mother did.

As a subdued rumble told everyone that the gear was going down, Mother extended the lander’s massive triple-slotted flaps, the fourteen-meter-wide strips of plasteel rammed out to bite hard into the air still ripping fast past the lander’s hull. Michael’s hands clenched unconsciously as Mother began the countdown to the pitch-up maneuver that so impressed the hearts, minds, and stomachs of new recruits. It wasn’t surprising that landers always had to be hosed out after recruit flights, Michael thought. There were few experiences like it. He knew that even experienced lander pilots like Hadley never enjoyed something that felt all wrong, and with one engine out, it was going to feel a whole lot worse.