42. Extraction

• “Sir, movement again.”
• “The third unaccounted ship?” — Victoria’s XO leaned forward in her seat revealing no other emotions to his crew.
• “Same size, engine radiations, yes, Sir, it is.” — hastened yet calm inflections from the analyst. — “As you expected.”
• “Keep with the Captain’s plan. Irondome to Tango Team, incoming detected. Interceptors, engage, lethal fire. Be advised, we have ground troops.”
• “Alpha two, target lock acquired. Fox 3 away.”
• “Epsilon leader, Fox 3 away.”

Blinking dots on the radar screens, live high-definition cameras stream the situation to the bridge. XO and a dozen analysts monitoring as the third vessel flying over from the far side. Almost over the position the Captain supposed to be when the first and second blinking spot overlaps.

The high yield missiles designed to penetrate heavily protected bunkers tear into the small civilian shuttle. The expected fireball should vaporize the small vessel leading to no harm for the ground troops. Instead loud sighs and fast chatter erupts on the Irondome bridge. The XO would not believe any official report if he would not sit right here.

The high-def cameras of Alpha lead show no detonation and the worker vessel still flies toward them.

• “Break off!” — flight commander shouted into the open channel.
• “Negative, Captain in danger close.” — Alpha two continued his approach — “Fox 5.” — the heavy caliber bullets tearing into the new threat, pounding it to pieces.
• “Epsilon lead, Fox 4 away.” — the electromagnetic missile traversed quickly detonating on close proximity.

Knocking out for a moment everything on both Alpha two and the unidentified vessel. Inertia bringing both closer, Alpha two still spitting metal. No electromagnetic warhead can interfere with good old mechanics.

Aiming with both arms as now fighting with the knock-backs of the heavy barrels. Strained muscles and pain, Alpha two focuses on the last sensor data where the reactor is on the other ship and slowly chips away around it.

The worker vessels slightly heavier and slower, falls a bit quicker and Alpha two just barely misses collision. Gamma lead unable to fire, risking hitting his friendly. Irondome bridge silently waits until both ships fall onto the surface.

• “Alpha two here, requesting extraction.” — small clapping on the bridge while flight commander acknowledges.
• “Sir, unidentified vessel is far enough from our troops, engine fully destroyed, they are disabled.”
• “Understood, interceptor wings, initiate bombing run on the vessel. We don’t risk anymore.”
• “Epsilon lead here, that contradicts our original order to capture if possible. Please confirm last command.”
• “Confirmed, override original command, destroy the unidentified vessel.”
• “Understood, Sir. Fox 3 ground away.” — entire Epsilon wing, five interceptors simultaneously launched their ground ordinance.
• “A new crater needs to be mapped on this moon, Sir.”

Michael could not respond to Irondome from inside. Yet he was aware of the events outside this time, as the relief teams formed a chain, by breaking off two by two every few corners.

• “How are they so many?” — one of Victoria’s team spoke in a deep, calm manner, while occasionally firing pinpoint shots, all into heads.
• “No clue, can you see anything? My night vision acts funny.” — Victoria brandishing a revolver like handgun in her right, taking potshots while fiddling with her controls with the other hand.
• “Only shapes, no details, my night vision is limited too.”
• “Can be electronic warfare?”
• “Can, but nothing like what we encountered in training.” — bumm, bumm. Would be challenging to talk if there would be any atmosphere conducting the obscenely loud shots.
• “Reloading. One more clip left.”
• “Not good, we barely progressed.”
• “Leave me here, Cap’, I can… I can hold them off a…”
• “No, Gedeon, nobody get’s left behind. Agh!…” — one of the attackers charged right next to her team mates and tackled her to the ground.

She rolled over, trusting her training, throwing a right hook instinctively. Connected, feeling a tiny obstacle, a head maybe? But the heavy exo-skeleton kept going, shaving off what she believed to be the head of the attacker. Just to be sure, she put a close handgun shot into the chest of her victim.

She tried her flashlight again, but it flickered off any time she turned it on. Like the environment sucked away all light, only their infrared lasers getting anywhere. Her rare trainings on the gym deck, occasional commando war-games kept her skills sharp. She remembered even seeing the facial details from fifty meters. Now she could barely see a humans outlines from a meter.

Michael was thinking along the same lines as he brought in his team from behind. Taking his potshots on the incoming shapes, Victoria’s team got to take some breaths finally.

• “Rolling retreat. Follow the breadcrumbs, people.”

John and Victoria grabbed the injured Gedeon from two sides. The minutes passed slowly as the team progressed outward from the wreckage. Every few corridors fresh commando taking care of their backs.

They were at halfway out when the last shapes were shot to oblivion and suddenly no more approached them.

By the time they all exited the wreckage, Irondome sent new extraction pods for all.

As their pod ascended, John and Victoria silently stood in their alcoves. Augmented visors showing multiple patrols in between the moon and the civilian fleets. Space-based interceptors taking a formation around their drop pod to escort them in.

In a few minutes, what seemed to be an eternity for John, they were secured on the Irondome’s spine dock and Victoria stepped out pulling Gedeon with her. Medical teams already in place, assisting Gedeon to the nearest infirmary.

• “John, meet me at my cabin tomorrow 1800 hours. I need to discuss a matter with you.”
• “We should talk now.”
• “I have to tend to my lost officers first. And better to rest first.”
• “Oke… okey, will be there.” — seeing Victoria’s look, eyebrows pulling, lines straitening, he didn’t want to push her now.

John found his assistant right at the dock’s entrance, already waiting for him. Probably she knew nothing of their close calls and deadly adventure down on the surface, she already chatted about the teams’ daily status. John forgot that he missed the stand-up. He had no mood to talk, yet he buried his feelings and let Hanah continue.

• “Sorry to jump in, you got the extracted data?”
• “Yes, at least partially, download is still in progress from your remote server. The recorder you found held more dense data, twice, no, quadruple compared to engineering specifications.”
• “Any idea why?”
• “Maybe a new compression algorithm, don’t know yet. After download, we can run standard decryptions on it.”
• “Do so please, will be in my quarters, need a longer rest.”
• “Oh, okey, sorry, of course.”

Read the story leading up to now:

Giant of the Stars

Fictional story of a luxury starliner’s catastrophy