The Ascent

Chapter 34

Smith led the first wave. His fleet stayed low, just above the debris field, then veered sharply upwards only when a wall of relativistic missiles flew at them. Even with their greater speed, some of Smith's ships barely cleared the expanding arc of missiles.

Our fleet followed them from beneath the ring of debris, drawing additional fire and covering the Phoenix as we slid in behind a planetoid-sized rock. "Tell Kouvaras to launch when he's ready," I told flight control. Less than a minute later, a dozen breaching pods and an escort of remote fighters threaded their way in three winding columns through the asteroids.

With our EPRs cut off from the other fleets, we could only communicate with our own attack force. I sat back in my crash pod and surveyed the empty C&C. Empty meal packages littered the floor and one of my spare flight suits lay draped over Chris' pod. The cleaning crew hadn't been in here since I had practically moved in. It suddenly seemed empty without Phil, Cathrin and Chris. I even missed Harlow. We had come a long way since that first meeting on Biggs or Dark wherever it was that Sherman joined us, or even the nameless system where I first talked to Kouvaras when I helped put down the mutiny on Sherman's flagship. A lot had changed since then.

The trooper's breaching pods surprised the battle station, slipped past their point defenses and latched onto the outer hull. I followed their data feeds, watching the troopers as they flowed through the corridors of the station like water, appearing as nothing more than ripples in the air due to their optical-mimetic camouflage. Their conversation came in short clipped bursts as each team identified itself, announced its location and status. They identified and secured key parts of the station as they brushed past startled technicians and support personnel without resistance. Something like a security force did surprise one team, but they were effortlessly eliminated.

"Team Leader, this is Team Five. I think we found the main power plant."

I glanced at the data feeds and saw that Redburn led the team. They stood on a platform inside a large space filled with variously sized pipes, conduits and cables. Catwalks overlooking the confusion led off in every direction. A group of alien technicians stood poking excitedly at a control panel set up at one side of the platform.

"Acknowledged, Team Five," I heard Kouvaras say. "What's your status?"

"No resistance, just a handful of technicians."

"Secure the plant and secure the technicians. No one comes in or out until we've secured the station."

"Acknowledged." Redburn moved toward the technicians and raised the speaker of a Cack translation device. Troopers followed him, weapons at the ready. "Step away from the panel." The click and hisses of the translation echoed from the nearby piping. The technicians glanced back at Redburn and continued jabbing furiously at the controls.

"I said—"

The display flashed white and the signal cut off. All my displays showed red broken link icons.

"Holy Crap!" Chris' surprise came across the command channel. I glanced up at my main tactical display wondering if a signal router had somehow been hacked and noticed a ring of ship icons flashing ugly damage indicators. Assuming it was a hit-and-run attack, I expanded the field of view looking for the attacking ships. We must have missed someone hiding in the debris field, I thought.

"It's gone!"Chris said. "It just blew up."

I search the tactical display and found no space station.

* * *

"Who screwed up?" Smith demanded later in our regular commanders' meeting in v-space. "Do we know who's responsible?"