“What’s loaded in the coil gun?” he asked.
“A standard Thud,” Alexander answered. “Kinetic energy submunition round, take out twenty hectares.”
“Marines said the Guardians fled into an underground complex. Unload the Thud, load your Mark Five, and take out those gun-sats. Then load a Thud, but not a submunition round. Give me a crust buster.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Suddenly, Sam felt himself thrown hard to one side against his restraints, and then heard the whooping siren of the hull breach alarm. The bridge filled with the babble of voices, particularly from the left side—maneuvering and engineering.
“Pipe down!” Sam shouted, and the bridge fell silent except for the hull breach siren.
“You’re the crew of a US Navy warship and we’re under fire. This is your real job so get used to it. Now work your stations. Ship status, what’s the damage?”
“Losing pressure in the docking bay and compartments twelve and twenty-two in the habitat wheel, sir,” the machinist mate at the Engineering Two station answered. “A-gang on the way to repair damage. No power loss. Sensors and weaponry still up.”
“Ops,” Sam ordered, “evasive action, but keep us in orbit. The Five Boat’s still on its way.
“TAC, what’s shooting at us?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Alexander answered, desperation in his voice.
“Well, figure it out, and quick.” Sam heard two short blasts of the acceleration klaxon, the warning alarm for lateral thrust, and then felt a tug to the side as the Bay used its attitude control thrusters to displace. It wasn’t much, but with so many of the satellites down, and so much new debris in orbit, the Desties’ tracking and fire direction might be pretty degraded. It might be enough.
Sam pinged Major Merderet in the launch bay.
Yes sir, she answered immediately.
“Major, we took a hit aft of where you are. Better pull your reserve platoon from their jump pods and get them up to their squad bays.”
Aye, aye, sir.
“Captain,” Alexander called out, “it’s fire from the surface. We’ve got a firing solution for a Thud, and we’ve still got that submunition round in the coil gun.”
“Hit him, TAC,” Sam ordered, and Sam felt The Bay shudder with the launch.
“On the way,” Alexander said.
“He fired again!” the sensor tech in the TAC Three chair called out. “Missed us, but look at this.”
The main screen showed an exterior view looking forward over the bow toward the planetary horizon. A momentary flash came and went, almost too quickly to register.
“Show that again and freeze it,” Sam ordered. The image reappeared as a thin, bright line running almost straight up past them. As they looked at it, he felt the Bay accelerate slightly.
“What is that?” Lieutenant Bohannon asked. “A laser?”
“We’re in vacuum, COMM,” Sam said. “Nothing for a laser to interact with out here, so no visible track. Maybe a particle accelerator?”
“From out of an atmosphere and into vacuum, sir?” Alexander said. “I’d like to know how that works. A neutral beam won’t hold together in the atmosphere, and a charged one won’t outside of it.”
“Can you track its origin?” Sam asked.
“Yes, sir. It’s close to the original firing point, but it’s moved,” the sensor tech said. “It’s moving counter-rotation, and I think it’s firing from underground.”
“Underground? Let me see that,” Alexander said and touched his own workstation to bring up the duplicate of the sensor tech’s display. Sam did as well. Assuming it was the same weapon, and that it wasn’t actually moving with respect to the planet surface, but was instead moved along by the planet’s rotation, the only solution was a site on the far side of the planet but underground, maybe half a kilometer.
“Bullshit!” Alexander said. “Who can shoot through a whole planet? It’s crazy.”
“Firing again,” the sensor tech reported. “Missed even farther. The firing track lines up exactly with the previous solution.”
“Tac,” Sam said, “get a Mark Five ready and take out those gun-sats. The blast will keep those sensors blind. Then take out the complex the Guardians retreated into with a crust buster. Ops, keep maneuvering, but get us down lower and meet our PSRV. I want to recover the Five Boat and get the hell out of here.”
From Ship of Destiny by Frank Chadwick