Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3) Read online

  *

  ‘No!’

  Lieutenant Tyrone Hackett saw Endeavour suddenly flicker in a kaleidoscopic rainbow as the light spectrum was bent around her hull, warping the blackness of space around her, and then she vanished in a brilliant flare of white light and was gone. In her place was the huge warship now cruising directly toward them, her immense plasma cannons glowing as she plowed through the glittering shower of debris left in Endeavour’s wake.

  ‘They left us!’ Ellen cried. ‘They left us!’

  ‘Break left, maximum power!’ Tyrone yelled.

  The Phantom fighter rolled over and Tyrone pulled back on the control column, soaring away from the massive capital ship that was looming over them. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ellen hanging close on his wing as they accelerated away.

  ‘What the hell do we do now?!’ she asked in desperation.

  ‘Head for the cavalry,’ Tyrone replied as he locked a fresh set of coordinates into his flight computer. ‘Give it everything we’ve got, now!’

  Tyrone diverted all power to his engines and rear shields and pushed the throttles wide open. The Phantom’s powerful ion engines thrust the fighter away from the debris field and the alien capital ship now turning to follow them.

  ‘Transmit the emergency distress signal now,’ Tyrone ordered.

  ‘They’ll be able to follow us!’ Ellen argued. ‘We can’t outrun them forever, we need to hide.’

  ‘No,’ Tyrone snapped. ‘We need to be seen.’

  Tyrone hit the switch and broadcast an immediate distress signal on all frequencies. Then he looked ahead and silently prayed that he would be on target, on time, because if he wasn’t they were both dead.

  He checked over his shoulder again and saw through his canopy Ellen’s fighter alongside his in a loose formation. Behind her he saw the huge capital ship swinging around, its immense cannons moving to point at them. Both he and Ellen had seen the devastation caused by those weapons in a single salvo against Endeavour. The two Phantom fighters would be entirely vaporized if a shot came within a couple of wingspans of their…

  ‘Gravity well, dead ahead!’ Ellen warned. ‘There’s more of them coming through!’

  ‘No,’ Tyrone said in reply. ‘Break right!’

  The Phantoms rolled again as Tyrone saw a bright light flash somewhere behind him. Moments later he saw two immense plasma shots rocket past their fighters in a blaze of brilliant red light, as though two entire suns were hurtling through space.

  The Phantoms rocked from side to side as the shockwave from the shots hit them, and then they passed through the gravity well ahead of the fighters and changed direction randomly as their path was bent by the warping of space and time ahead.

  Something caught his eye to his left and cold dread rushed upon him.

  ‘Look out, break right!’

  A tendril of icy, pulsating material rushed upon Ellen’s fighter and he saw it crash into her stern as she turned hard away and flew directly overhead Tyrone’s Phantom.

  ‘I’m hit!’ Ellen yelled.

  A second white flash burst into life ahead of them and Tyrone saw the aggressive lines of a warship rush into view.

  ‘Yeah!’

  Tyrone recognized the sleek, sharply raked lines of a CSS frigate the moment he saw them, Defiance surging into view with her shields up and her cannons charged. He wasted no time in hitting the transmit button on his control column and broadcasting on the emergency frequency.

  ‘Rebel Flight, Defiance, danger close, evasive action now!’

  Tyrone pulled up and over the frigate as it rolled hard to port and began turning to bring its guns to bear on the massive warship bearing down upon them. The voice of the frigate’s commander reached Tyrone as he pulled his Phantom around in a tight turn.

  ‘Defiance, Rebel Flight, tactical?’

  ‘Do not engage, prepare to leap immediately, two to land!’ Tyrone yelled in response as he slowed his fighter and began turning toward Defiance’s stern landing bays.

  ‘Two cleared to land, take bays two and four.’

  ‘Cleared to land, two and four, Rebel Flight.’

  Ellen’s voice crackled over the comms channel. ‘I’m losing power!’

  Tyrone looked up and saw her fighter, its stern covered in the strange icy material that was now creeping along the hull and fuselage. Tyrone felt nausea poison his stomach as he realized that Ellen could not possibly escape the material that was rapidly creeping toward her cockpit.

  ‘That stuff, it’s on your hull,’ he said to her.

  Ellen’s voice replied, tight with horror. ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘Rebel Flight, landing clearance denied. Contamination is too dangerous.’

  Tyrone looked over his shoulder at the huge warship bearing down upon them, and he knew that they would not have time to clear Ellen’s fighter of the alien material now surging along the fuselage.

  ‘Defiance is jumping in ten seconds!’

  Ellen’s voice broke through once more. ‘You can’t leave us here!’

  Tyrone racked his brains for a solution, and inspiration illuminated his mind with a grim choice.

  ‘Defiance, head straight past us before you leap. Rebel Two, prepare to eject!’

  ‘What?!’ Ellen screamed at him. ‘I’ll have nowhere to go!’

  ‘Trust me, do it, now!’

  Tyrone saw Defiance turn and head directly for them, rapidly closing the gap as the fighters fled the huge alien vessel. He spoke calmly as he guided his fighter around in a tight turn to spoil the enemy’s aim.

  ‘Rebel Two, circle around behind Defiance and line up for landing, then apply maximum power on my mark.’

  ‘You want me to apply max power on landing?’

  ‘Do it,’ Tyrone said.

  Ellen’s fighter swung around behind Defiance, a tiny metallic speck in the distance as Tyrone lined up on Defiance’s bow and accelerated. The big frigate loomed up before him and he rocketed by just a few meters over the ship’s bridge.

  ‘Maximum power, now!’

  Ellen’s fighter lined up and he saw her engines flare as she accelerated toward him.

  ‘I can see them!’ Ellen almost screamed. ‘They’re nearly at the cockpit!’

  Tyrone heard a strange, crackling sound as Ellen’s communications began to break up, and he knew that they were out of time. He looked over his shoulder and saw the massive alien warship’s huge plasma cannons glowing brighter as an internal charge built up.

  Tyrone aimed for Ellen’s fighter and opened the throttles fully, knowing that if he didn’t get to Ellen in the next few seconds both she and Defiance’s entire crew would be trapped here forever if not destroyed entirely.

  ‘Defiance leaping in five seconds,’ came the voice of the ship’s XO. ‘What the hell are you doing Hackett?’

  Tyrone aimed for the frigate’s stern and Ellen’s fighter rocketing toward him.

  ‘Rebel Two, nose down and eject now!’

  Tyrone was coming in too fast and he knew it but there was no other option. He maintained his course as he saw Ellen’s fighter pitch abruptly nose down. The Phantom presented its entire plan form before him and then Ellen’s cockpit section flared with bright flame as it ejected from the main fuselage.

  The ejection sequence propelled the cockpit away from the Phantom and directly toward Defiance’s open landing bay door as Tyrone aimed and then squeezed the trigger on his control column. A salvo of bright blue plasma blasts seared away from his wingtips and rocketed over Ellen’s cockpit to smash into the Phantom fighter and blast it into a million flaming fragments.

  ‘Four seconds, three, two...’

  Tyrone pulled up steeply and looked over his shoulder to see Ellen’s cockpit sail into Defiance’s landing bay and the huge doors closed behind her as the remains of her fighter and its alien attacker burned out.

  ‘Damn me, Hackett,’ Defiance’s XO murmured, aware of what he had done to get Ellen safely back on board. />
  Tyrone looked at the enemy warship and saw its plasma cannons glowing bright red. ‘Defiance, jump, now!’

  There was no reply, nothing but silence as Tyrone hauled the Phantom around in a tight turn and saw Defiance flare white at her bow and suddenly vanish in a brief rainbow of warped light. The frigate plunged into super luminal cruise as Tyrone rocketed clear and two more tremendous blasts of red energy soared through the trembling gravity well where Defiance had been moments before.

  Tyrone sighed as he slumped in his seat and glanced at his tactical display. Only the enemy capital ship appeared on his sensors, along with strange and shadowy features that he assumed were the icy striations he’d seen emerging from the debris field.

  Ellen was safe and both Defiance and Endeavour were away. That left only him.

  Tyrone craned his neck around and saw the huge vessel bearing down upon him now. Tyrone’s fighter was faster in short bursts, but those huge engines would soon bring the warship into range and he would be history in a bright burst of unimaginable heat.

  Tyrone didn’t fancy giving them the satisfaction. He turned his fighter and aimed for the forested world far below, the huge orb of Ayleea filling his vision as he pushed the throttles open. At maximum velocity and with the planet’s gravity helping, the Phantom would hit the Ayleea’s atmosphere like a shooting star and burn up in a fraction of a second. He wouldn’t know what had hit him.

  Better to go out by choice in a blaze of glory than let some warmongering bunch of…

  Tyrone glanced at his tactical display and he saw the huge warship suddenly break off the pursuit. Moments later, the ship’s engines flared and it vanished into super luminal cruise. For a moment Tyrone was lost as to why they would allow him to escape, and then he realized that Defiance and Endeavour were bigger prizes than he. Plus, the enemy probably knew as he did that in a single seat fighter with limited range and endurance, there was nowhere for him to go but down. He was doomed.

  ‘CSS Defiance, allied ground force requesting immediate assistance! Civilians in distress!’

  The cry burst across the frequency and Tyrone pulled up from his suicidal dive. His voice was high pitched with disbelief and relief as he replied.

  ‘Ground force this is CSS fighter Rebel One, what’s your location?’

  Tyrone had no idea what he was going to do and no idea how he was going to do it. If Defiance had held on a moment longer they would have heard the distress call too, but now Tyrone was the only human being left in orbit around the planet. About the only thing that he knew for sure was that he was on his own in a single seat fighter with nowhere to run and now he didn’t even have the luxury of dying in peace because there was no way he could leave survivors of Fortitude’s crew alone to die here.

  ‘Rebel One, we’re on the surface. Repeat, we’re on the surface! Transmitting coordinates now!’

  Tyrone looked at the savagely burning planet far below and he knew that he had no choice. The survivors might have important information on the enemy, knowledge that could help swing a battle in their favor. He banked the Phantom fighter over and began preparing for atmospheric entry, wondering all the while what he was going to find down there.

  ***

  XI

  New Chicago

  Director General Arianna Coburn sat in a seat inside the executive shuttle as it pulled away from New Chicago’s vast, slowly rotating bulk and began turning toward the bright blue and white eye of the earth. The visit to the governor of an orbital city was a routine event and had been covered by Global Wire Media but it had taken all of her inner strength to conceal her anxiety over the fate of the Ayleean mission. Normally the serene and silent nature of space flight enthralled her as much as it had done when she had first taken a trip into space sixty three years before, but now her eyes stared unseeing into the deep blackness.

  ‘Penny for ‘em?’

  Rear Admiral Vincent O’Hara eased into a seat alongside Arianna’s, a soothing smile on his features. Twenty years her elder and an experienced former fighter pilot in the CSS fleet contingent, O’Hara now served the CSS as a tactical commander and had recently joined her from Polaris Station. Solid and dependable, he had been her rock more than once since she had been voted to lead CSS. His right eye glowed with the unnatural light of an optical implant that continuously fed data streams to him in real time.

  ‘Can’t take your money,’ she replied. ‘My head feels empty.’

  ‘Thinking hard about nothing,’ O’Hara replied with a friendly grin. ‘Any news on Fortitude?’

  Arianna shook her head slightly, her gaze still directed out of the shuttle’s windows as it began decelerating from New Chicago’s geo stationary orbital velocity to re enter earth’s atmosphere. The slender craft’s wings gradually altered shape from razor thin to gracefully tapered as it prepared for atmospheric flight.

  ‘Endeavour and Defiance will be there by now and I can’t help wonder what they’re going to find,’ she said. ‘Worse, I’m concerned that we won’t hear from them either.’

  ‘You’re worrying,’ O’Hara soothed, ‘and worrying doesn’t solve anything.’

  ‘You think I should sit here and think about which movie I want to watch tonight instead?’ Arianna snapped.

  ‘No,’ he replied, not bridling. ‘There’s a difference between worrying and thinking. Thinking results in a solution. Worrying just sends you round in circles and corrodes your arteries.’

  Arianna raised one hand to her forehead as a faint pulse of pain throbbed behind her eyes. Re entry often did that to her, and she could see the shimmering orange glow of the heat flare as the shuttle descended, the earth’s vast sphere now a curved surface and the coast of California passing by three hundred thousand feet below.

  ‘We all have our own way of dealing with things.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean yours is the best way,’ O’Hara pointed out, and he rested one hand upon hers, his skin dry and rough to the touch. ‘Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t care, just that you shouldn’t waste energy focusing on something that you can’t act upon until you know more. Breathe, okay? Give yourself some space, and if this does become a crisis you’ll be better able to deal with it.’

  The pain in her head faded and a faint smile curled irritatingly across her face no matter how hard she tried to prevent it.

  ‘I never liked you ex fighter jocks.’

  A soft beeping intruded into the moment and Arianna saw a small projection of the pilot appear before them.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt ma’am, but we’ve received a priority signal from CSS Headquarters. This flight is now being redirected to New York City.’

  Arianna leaned forward in her seat. ‘Did they say why?’

  ‘Negative,’ the pilot replied. ‘Priority clearance was classed Archangel, so there was no sensitive data in the transmission. We will land at CSS HQ in eight minutes.’

  Arianna felt a cold chill envelop her despite the comfortable temperature inside the cabin.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered as the projection disappeared.

  O’Hara waited patiently beside her, the other dignitaries on the flight saying nothing as outside the deep black of space gave way to the perfect blue of a crisp winter morning. Serene layers of brilliant white cumulus were spread in crumpled blankets below them as the shuttle turned gently, her wings trembling as they encountered the first ripples of turbulence.

  ‘Could be word from the Ayleens saying everything’s fine,’ O’Hara said, but this time there was no conviction in his voice.

  Arianna closed her eyes and steeled herself. The black fear engulfing her heart refused to abate but she rose above it, breathing in controlled rhythm and letting her mind clear of doubts and fears. From somewhere she found the resolve to accept what was happening on its own terms. Sometimes, as she had learned in the past when commanding a warship of her own, it was better to expect the worst than hope for the best. That way, it was tough to feel let down when everything went to hell.


  ‘What is the state of the British fleet?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Ship shape and New Bristol fashion, as the Brits like to say,’ O’Hara chirped, eager to buoy her up. ‘If anything comes calling, Commodore Hawker and his chaps are ready to answer with a plasma smile.’

  ‘What about the Russians and Chinese?’

  ‘They’re holding their own fort as ever, but they’re ready. Nobody’s going to falter if this all turns nasty. We’re all in the same system, remember?’

  O’Hara gestured out of the window at the earth below them, and Arianna nodded as she drew strength from him.

  ‘When you get back to tactical, I want a complete fleet assessment conducted and a strategic plan ready by the morning. If this does go to hell I want to be ready to come out fighting.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ O’Hara grinned as he got up out of the seat and moved across to his own, accessing his communications panel.

  Arianna listened as O’Hara began issuing orders to the CSS fleet as the shuttle descended down through a thick bank of cumulus. It emerged above a gray Atlantic flecked with endless ranks of marching rollers. The shuttle’s wings rocked and rumbled on the gusty air as the craft turned and slowed further, and the CSS Headquarters building in New York City appeared through the gray mist ahead. Nested against the coastline she could see the glittering metal buildings of the city like a sparkling jewel encrusted into the dense forests that surrounded it.

  The shuttle slowed as it approached the city and Arianna could see the occasional flare of light reflected from flying craft travelling this way and that through the skies above New York. A small number of towering skyscrapers soared up into the sky, silver and chrome reflecting the firmament above. Five thousand feet tall and with their upper floors lost deep in the clouds, the buildings all overlooked the wilderness continent and the wild Atlantic Ocean in all their untamed glory.