Metal Boxes - At the Edge Read online

  The flagship was pushed off course by a wild display of internal explosions. It slammed into the much tinier ovoid ship’s shields. Shields and inertial dampeners would have protected the smaller ship and its crew, but it bounced off the flagship and was pushed into the minefield. It died in a spray of space debris.

  The two ships behind the exploding ovoid ship caught the space debris like a shotgun shell shooting through paper. The ragged pieces of the ovoid ship turned their hulls into little more than screen doors trying to keep out the vacuum of space. Breathing would be a serious problem for the Hyrocanians because their hulls lost containment.

  Two more ships were unable to reverse direction in time and slammed full on into the minefield without protection of their shields. In the quiet of space, they died rapidly, pounded into non-existence by a swarm of mines.

  The last ship in the first wave had its shields on. It flicked away the debris from other ships with ease. It stopped well before the edge of the minefield. Stone’s simulator showed it’s shield designation dotted line shrink to almost nothing as its admiral pulled it in tight.

  Standard shield configuration against mines, for humans and for Hyrocanians, was to place shields close to the hull so if enough mines collected on the shield to blow through, the cone of destruction would not spread too far before cutting through to the ship.

  Stone’s 3D simulation switched the red ring of the now dead in space monster to the only surviving ship of the first wave. As their avatar admiral continued to rant at the incoming ships, their computers analyzed Hyrocanian communications. The comms were too fast and furious to decrypt, but the volume of traffic caused the computer to switch the flagship designation from the first wave survivor to the middle ship of the seven ships in the second wave.

  Stone could almost imagine the frustration as Hyrocanian admirals tried to use their IFF systems to find a path through the minefield. The mines appeared to respond, but when the lead survivor of the first wave started forward, mines exploded on its shields and the ship went dark.

  He was amazed. In a matter of moments, they had destroyed or damaged eight enemy ships. They had caught them flat-footed as they jumped into a system they thought of as friendly. He doubted it was true, but he thought he could hear his skeleton gun crew happily cheering at the damage they watched through their weapons systems targeting reticules.

  He thought they had them stymied, too, hoping against logical thought that the Hyrocanians would turn and run, jumping back through the navigation point to wherever they came from. He knew it was a false hope because he had yet to find a Hyrocanian using logic.

  A ship on the end of the enemy’s line of advance fired a stream of mines at the minefield . A few mines exploded as they made contact with the fresh Hyrocanian mines. Moments later signals from the Platinum Pebble converted the freshly shot mines to the human IFF codes.

  The first and the last ship in the enemy’s line moved in behind the drifting, dead monster ship. Their shields set at maximum distance, the two ships slammed into the back of the larger ship, arresting its drift. Slowly, the two smaller ships pushed the monster deeper and deeper into the minefield.

  Mines slammed into the big ship. It shuddered, taking explosion after explosion. The mines peeled away deck after deck of the ship as it plowed through the minefield, leaving a wide, clear path in its wake. The pushing ships accelerated, shoving the derelict directly at the center of Numos’s wall, straight at the Platinum Pebble. The monster was big enough to obliterate the Stone Freight Company ship and impact some of the shields on other defending ships.

  Stone checked his position and dialed his shield in beyond the point of contact with the derelict.

  Numos shouted, “That ship has enough bulk to clear a tunnel through the minefield. Target the ships behind it. I know we can’t get clear shots, but let’s see if we can cut a hole deep enough in the derelict to hit the pushers. Six, Eight and Nine, reduce your shields to avoid contact. It should miss you. Hold your stations and fire at will.”

  A second later, the simulator showed the Platinum Pebble’s weapons open fire on the big ship, hoping to bore through its bulk to reach the pushing ships. Stone flicked off the gun’s safety. Immediately, a pair of cannons blasted a stream of mines at the big ship. He had not given the order to fire, but a couple of people must have been squeezing their triggers in excitement.

  He painted a target on the hulk. Numos was right, he might be able to cut a hole through the big ship and hit a pusher. “Mine cannons, hold fire. Hard shell cannons, weapons free.”

  Three was almost sixty kilometers from the Platinum Pebble and Stone was certain the dead bulk of the big ship and its debris would miss his ship. His angle was far enough off center that he did not have to shoot through the full depth of the dead ship to reach a pusher. He only needed to clip a back corner to penetrate.

  He spun the dial up on his external cameras and was surprised at what he saw. The big Hyrocanian ship was not a monster dreadnought, it was a transport ship. Each explosion blew open new decks filled with the enemy, spilling them into the raw vacuum of space. Each explosion cut deeper and deeper, ripping farther and farther into the hulk.

  A long series of explosions blew the corner away from the big ship, sending a jagged piece spinning away, exposing a pusher ship to view. The hard shell cannons continued to fire, but the Hyrocanian shields flicked the munitions away without effort or damage.

  Stone shouted, “Cease fire. Cease fire. Cease fire.” There was no reason to waste ammunition they might need in the next few minutes. “Mine cannons, fire at the pusher.”

  Before his order was complete, twelve mine cannons opened fire, spraying long lines of basketball-sized mines at the enemy ship. Stopping the ship from pushing made no difference now. The big ship had momentum and would break through the minefield in seconds.

  The Platinum Pebble began backing up. Numos said calmly, “They are coming through the minefield. Captains watch your front and watch your crossfire. They can only get at us through the cleared tunnel in our minefield, so concentrate your fire there.”

  Stone kept his eyes on the pusher. His gunners were not well trained, but the Hyrocanian guns were simple point and shoot weapons. Mines slammed into the pusher’s shields. They flared and then the shields died.

  Bright flashes across his own shields were distracting, but Stone said, “All weapons fire. Defensive weapons, our shields are reporting mines. Clear our shields before mines cluster thick enough to blow our shields apart.” He sent a signal to the attacking mines, hoping he could convert their IFF or his gunners could shoot them down before they exploded.

  With its shields gone, the pusher ship died under a hail of cannon fire. Its exploding debris splattered across Three’s shields as the remains of the Hyrocanian transport ship slowly slid through the gap left in their wall when Numos backed the Platinum Pebble out of the way.

  Ships One, Eleven, and Twelve spun in place, taking fire from and returning fire at the other pusher. The Platinum Pebble, still backing away from the big ship, began shooting at the remaining pusher. Four against one was good odds in most people’s book, but each human ship was manned by a skeleton crew of mixed experience. Eleven died quickly when its defensive guns and IFF spoofers failed to work fast enough to stop a cluster of bombs from exploding. Twelve was too close to Eleven when it blew. The force of the explosion pushed it out of place, sending its gunner’s shots blasting away at nothing. The men and women at the triggers were not trained enough to stop squeezing the triggers when they lost targets in the reticule.

  One, captained by Gordy, continued to blast away at the pusher, throwing everything they could at the Hyrocanian warship. Stone could picture the old man with the crutches chuckling in satisfaction as he blasted away at the enemy. The big man, the criminal from the Hyrocanian cafeteria, was also on One. Stone was sure the man was enjoying the opportunity to kill a few living creatures.

  The enemy must have rightly determined
that the Platinum Pebble was their flagship. The pusher cleared through the debris and raced at Numos guns blazing.

  Stone said, “Gunners, there are still five ships in that minefield tunnel, coming up fast.” He kept one eye on the Platinum Pebble but painted his targeting laser in the middle of the five ships. “Fire away. I’ve marked their flagship, so aim there if you can. Give ‘em all we got.”

  He checked his simulator. The Platinum Pebble was backing away fast, but the pusher was coming on strong. Numos was shooting as he was backing away, but he was out of position to fight or to run. The Pebble had shields and weapons, but she was still a civilian freighter and no match for a hard charging warship.

  All fire from One ceased. Gordy said, his voice calm and quiet. “Ammo is dry. We’re done here.” One broke away from the wall. Standing orders were for any ship with empty weapons to run hard and fast toward the Holliman’s Rift jump point. There was nothing else an unarmed ship could do.

  Gordy said, “Ramming speed.” One boosted to top speed, aiming directly at the pusher. Shield to shield they slammed into each other. One had the angle, slewing the Hyrocanian pusher sideways. Gunners on the Platinum Pebble took that moment to paint the pusher’s shields with a thick layer of mines.

  The pusher’s shields died, but the explosion took One’s shields with it. Shields gone, the two ships crashed together with a metal rending crunch. The Hyrocanian ship broke across its middle. One crumpled in on itself, engine and life support dying, going dark with pieces blowing away in a dozen directions.

  The five incoming ships continued to advance. Stone on Three and Allie’s ship Two concentrated their fire on the flagship. Other ships targeted whatever enemy ship was nearest them. All five Hyrocanian ships began concentrating their fire on Ten.

  Ten shuddered and died, devoid of life and movement, not exploding.

  The enemy ships shifted fire to nine. It too died much too fast. The advancing Hyrocanian line pivoted toward the gap in their wall. One, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve were gone.

  Stone broadcast over the captain’s command comms, “Concentrate fire on the middle ship. Kill the flagship.” Every ship shifted fire, but a ship on the end of the advancing enemy line slipped out of place, taking the fire on its own shields to protect its flagship.

  All too quickly, Stone’s gunners quit shooting. They did not stop all at once but dribbled away a few seconds after each other.

  Dollish said, “XO here, Captain. Sorry, Boss, almost everyone reports weapons dry.”

  Stone did not want to run despite the standing orders to retreat once their guns were empty. His love was here, still firing, still fighting. He could not abandon her, but he did not have the right to sacrifice his crew. As much as he wanted to save Allie, the only thing he could do was stay in place and absorb fire that might be meant for her. Could he do that to his crew? He would gladly die for Allie, but they had lives and families.

  Dollish said, “Get in close, Boss. Ram them if you have to. We can suit up and jump from our hull onto their ship. If we’re going down, I want to go down swinging. I ain’t running.”

  Stone spun Three in place, shifting the shields so the Hyrocanian mines wouldn’t have time to cluster thick enough to explode before their IFF spoofer could convert them to human IFF. “Everyone get to a safe zone. Seal yourselves in and hold on tight. Get into your suits if you have them and meet me at the main hatch.” There were a couple of Galactic Marshals aboard as well as a few other navy veterans from his ship, along with about a dozen piglets, most with armor. Whether they wanted to join Dollish and him in a hand-to-hand fight with no chance of success did not matter. He was not going to give them a choice.

  The remaining Hyrocanian ships shifted fire to Allie’s, Ship Two. Slipping Three sideways, he intercepted three of the five streams of munitions aimed at Allie’s ship. He was not fast enough as Two’s shields fluttered and died. Allie’s hull began taking damage. The remaining ships on the wall stopped firing. Overlapping comms calls reported munitions dry.

  Stone spun the dial on his comms, picking up the snippet of a broadcast from a piece of rotating junk, spinning away from One as it broke into pieces.

  It was Preacher Mary. “And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee;…thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them;…thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy…unto them.” Her voice was punctuated by moments of silence as the piece of rolling debris she was trapped in spun away from the enemy and she ceased firing until she rolled back into view again.

  Stone tracked the signal and caught a long-range scan of Preacher Mary. She was spinning wildly, but every time her gun barrel twisted in the direction of the Hyrocanian ships, she continued her sermon and squeezed the trigger. She was shooting a defensive cannon whose shells could not penetrate a ship’s shield, but like Dollish, she was going down swinging.

  Stone ground his teeth. He did not want to disobey the direct order to retreat, but he was not ready to quit fighting. If Dollish and Preacher Mary could keep fighting, if Gordy could fight his ship to the end, so could he.

  He aimed Three at the closest Hyrocanian ship. Ramming speed was a hard course taken between two ships with shields. Despite what happened to Gordy on One, most of the time, the shields would rebuff the attacking ship with little or no damage. Driving at the ship, he kept his speed low.

  Shield on shield slammed into each other. There were no sparks or grinding noises, space didn’t allow such things, but Stone felt a vibration that set his back teeth on edge. Increasing his speed to the max, he pushed against the ship. Force to force, it would be a standstill until one ship proved it had engines that were more powerful. Slowly the Hyrocanian ship began giving ground, sliding backward.

  Stone forced Three around, driving the Hyrocanian backward into the waiting minefield. If he could push them far enough into the minefield, they might collect enough mines to blow their shields. He began taking fire from the other ships. The remaining human ships began following his example, each selecting and pushing a Hyrocanian ship backward into the minefield.

  Stone shouted through shipwide comms. “This is the captain. Everyone in a combat suit, get to the main hatch. Everyone else, prepare to abandon ship.”

  If the shields died on the Hyrocanian ship, Ship Three would dive into it at top speed, slamming hard, hull to hull across the short space between them. He dialed Three’s shields down to a minimum distance of a few dozen meters, but the Hyrocanian shields were set fifteen kilometers distance out from the hull. Three could not pick up much speed in fifteen kilometers, but it would be enough to crumple hulls and rip decks apart.

  Stone said, “Engineering?”

  “Frank here, Boss.”

  “You have the con.” He suddenly remembered a UEN officer explaining to him years ago what taking the con meant. He hoped it translated well to the piglet. “Keep us pushing against the Hyrocanian. Don’t let him slip away.”

  “Aye, aye, Boss. Teirs-don-chew doesn’t have a suit. She will push that big Eater all the way back to the edge of the galaxy if she has to. I’m suited up and on the way to the main hatch.”

  Stone’s place was on the bridge, but he was useless there. Having set the course, he raced to the main hatch.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Stone nodded to the gathered troops at the main hatch. He knew a few of them, but most were strangers and complete unknowns. “This looks like the exact crew I would have chosen for what I have planned.”

  Frank said, “We going to kill more Eaters, Boss?” The eagerness was evident even through his STS.

  “That’s the plan, Frank.” Stone stared at the eyes around him, faceplates up, everyone looking back. “As soon as the shields on the Hyrocanian fail—and with us pushing it backward into our minefield, they’ll soon fail—we will jump across empty space, hull-to-hull, gain entry into that fat bastard and tear them a new asshole. This is voluntary, people, but unless we take down these ships, there won’t be an
yone left to come and rescue us anyway.”

  Without waiting to see who would follow, he slipped through a membrane-covered hatchway and climbed a ladder onto the hull. He was pleased to see he had remembered correctly. The main hatch was to the side and he could see the bulk of the Hyrocanian ship off to the edge of Three’s horizon. When the two ships collided, his team on the hull would not be crushed immediately by the impact.

  He was also pleased to see that everyone from the main hatch had followed him onto the hull.

  A female piglet’s voice yelled in Stone’s ears, her excitement evident. “Teirs-don-chew here, Boss. The Eater's shields are going down now. Ours are holding.”

  Stone calmly said into his comms. “Enemy shields are down. Brace for impact.” He felt a lurch and was almost knocked off his feet. He dove headfirst to the hull, wrapping his arms around a gun emplacement stanchion. He shouted, “Brace. Brace. Brace.”

  Everyone grabbed something and held on. A secondary lurch knocked Frank loose, his grip on an antennae bracket held better than the bracket did. He flew a dozen feet toward the enemy ship, but the speed of Three was increasing and caught up to his fall. Stone flicked a hand out to grab the suited piglet but missed.

  Dollish let go of his handhold and dove at the piglet. Grabbing him, they crashed back onto the hull, rolling over and over each other until a navy veteran snagged them and dragged them up to a hull clamp designed to hold a fully loaded trailer container.

  Stone heard Dollish laughing with Frank about this being the day that pigs flew so victory must be assured.

  Stone’s HUD showed the two ships so close that barely a cat’s whisker would slide between them. He heard Preacher Mary sing out a new sermon and caught sight of a line of slugs from her cannon stitch across on the Hyrocanian ship before her debris rotated away.

  He bellowed, “Impact imminent. Brace. Brace. Brace. Hold on tight, boys. This is—”