With the precision of a drill team, the fighters turned and began to descend. Signals from their base and pleas for help, now filled their headphones and beckoned them like the songs of sirens of Greek mythology. Potential destruction was close at hand. Blinded by the red shroud of churning dense clouds, not one pilot knew what the next moment would bring. As it unfolded unexpectedly on each fighter's screen, it appeared as a large blip that should not have been there. Furthermore, not only was it moving fast—but directly at them.
The Crazy Horse materialized out of the dust clouds in front of Major Maklakov's fighter like a dark behemoth. The astonished pilot never had a chance to scream as his fighter impacted and exploded into a million flaming chunks of composite material and metal as it collided with the space destroyer. The Crazy Horse then roared on through the formation firing all its weapons.
Many of the fighters in the middle of the swarm were blasted to pieces as the Martian ship rushed in. Some pilots lacking in nerve swerved out of the berserk ship's path only to crash into other fighters or spin wildly out of control. A few were even more luckless to bounce off the re-enforced bow of the great ship, splattering like flies on a windshield. In any event, the remaining force of Epson Planum's fighters was left scattered, disorganized, and retreating.
* * * * *
The command and control center of Epson Planum was in state of complete shambles. The result of a special formulated missile with a hardened warhead and delay-action fuse, the engineered weapon had penetrated several upper floors above before detonating. Debris and bodies laid everywhere after part of the ceiling had collapsed. A dusty cloud rose from the concrete heap that now obstructed a section of the room and added to the stagnant air of death and shorting electronics.
General Cox staggered up off the floor and surveyed the grim sight in the dimly lit illumination. The man was aghast at how just one ship could have done so much damage to his fortress.
As the general angrily watched his command try and piece itself back together, he spied his operations officer re-organizing their defenses. Cox carefully stepped through the debris and approached the black woman. The officer turned and faced her commanding officer.
"Colonel, what's the situation?" the general’s inquiry was apprehensive.
"It's pretty grim, Sir," the colonel spoke. "We have a lot of causalities, sensors and targeting equipment are heavily damaged, all of our fighter bays have either been blocked or destroyed, and the main reactor is offline," the woman informed him. "Our remaining laser canons are returning fire, but without fire control, they're ineffective. Repair crews are enroute, and we have only local communications."
"Missiles! What about missiles?" Cox demanded.
"That's the only good news, Sir. They were left intact."
"Do we have enough power to launch?"
The woman took a moment to wipe her face of sweat. "Yes, General, but without sensors we can't aim or guide them."
Cox smiled. "Oh yes we can! Martian ships have a different I-F-F signal than ours! We'll use that to home in on him. I want you to remove all the safeties on the missiles and rig for proximity detonation," the general explained. "And get that cruiser on the line. We're going to nail that Martian bastard!"
* * * * *
No sooner had the Crazy Horse cleared the fighters than an air battle with the Louyang began. As soon as the Martian vessel came within range, the huge Earth ship started shooting. Although its fire was inaccurate, it was also extremely intense. The Crazy Horse evaded and dodged many of the shots. However, the Martian ship took a bad hit as the Louyang drew nearer to finish off its quarry.
Oxygen enriched fuel canisters stored in Hanger Bay Two of the Crazy Horse ignited as loosen debris struck the cylinders. This resulted in a massive explosion that hurled men and women across the compartment. A latent fire then began to burn out of control.
"DAMAGE CONTROL! DAMAGE CONTROL!" a surviving crewman coughed out and alerted the bridge through his communicator, "EXPLOSION AND FIRE IN HANGER BAY TWO! REPEAT, EXPLOSION AND FIRE IN HANGER BAY TWO! WE HAVE CASUALTIES! OVER!"
"ROGER, HANGER BAY TWO! CONTROL TEAMS ENROUTE!" the bridge quickly answered.
Within two minutes, control and medical teams had arrived. The blaze was fought with tenacity, while the wounded were attended to and evacuated. Even the ship's surgeon had raced into the inferno to do what he could. Among the badly burned and impaled, the doctor practiced his trade.
"Don't worry, son," his optimistic voice encouraged a mutilated 20-year-old male. "You're going to be alright!" the healer said applying a synthetic dressing to a wound.
As the Louyang closed-in, her weapons' accuracy began to improve. Aboard the Crazy Horse, hits were more frequent and destructive. The Martian ship rocked from the each well-placed blow like a huge steel fist pounding the hull.
Without warning, the bulkhead of Hanger Bay Two gave way from a direct hit by another energy bolt. The explosion, for a second, sprayed the compartment with deadly fragments that ripped several crewmen apart. Their lifeless bodies were then dragged out of the ship as the compartment depressurized in a tumultuous hiss. Although it extinguished the fire; tools, people, anything else not bolted down were pulled and sucked out of the ship into the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars.
Quickly, the doctor grabbed his patient and held on to a rail, praying for a miracle. Another crewman attempted to work his way to them, but found himself being tugged at by the menace produced by the gaping hole.
"DOC, HANG ON! HANG ON!" the rescuer screamed over the howling winds of depressurization as he slowly forged forward.
The crew of the Crazy Horse worked desperately to save their ship. Even as smoke slowly filled its interior, the Martian military men and women under Wakinyan's command fought hard to change the tide of battle. However, luck had as much to do with the tide of battle as planning and gallantry. An unfortunate hit amidships penetrated deep within the interior of the Crazy Horse, damaging two critical relays: one for artificial gravity, the other for inertia canceling.
Without either, the ship would be unable to maintain high speed, or escape to the safety of space. Instead, she would be forced to slow down, while staying within the gravitational sphere of Mars, making her an easy target.
With another sudden hit, however, pieces of metal debris fell from the ceiling of the bridge. One piece collapsed upon an instrument panel, blowing it apart, while another crushed the assistance helmsman's right arm. He expired from the shock in seconds. Finally, a chunk of heavy conduit was severed at one end from the stress of the multiple impacts. It swung mercilessly in a downward arc, striking Smitty across the head. The man died instantly, his limp body inadvertently pitching over the steering controls of the ship. The Crazy Horse then flipped upside down and went into a slow spinning dive.
As the ship turned over and over, the doctor began to lose his grip on the hanger rail. His hand slid on the metal, while his strength began to fail. As he and his patient were pulled irresistibly towards the opening, the doctor turned his head towards his would-be rescuer. Their eyes met in a final silent plea for help, but an instant later, the healer and his patient disappeared out of the breach in the hull.
Alarms on the bridge sounded as crewmen were thrown about like rag dolls. They fell, littering the compartment with their bodies. Randall found himself flung into a far wall and stunned by the heavy impact. His pain was so immense that he could not force himself to rise, compelling him to helplessly watch his ship, his crewmates, and himself die.
Yet, something moved in the corner of his eye. As the lieutenant painfully turned his head barely to the left, the movement became a man—Wakinyan.
Although Wakinyan's face was bloodied from a nasty gash on his head, the expression he bore was one of pure determination as he struggled to the helm's position. His fingers gripped at the floor grading, while his feet pushed himself desperately forward. It seemed hi
s advance was taking forever.
Finally, Wakinyan reached the dead helm's man. Unsheathing the ancient knife, Richard instantly cut away the vested safety harness from the corpse. Once done, Wakinyan forced the dead man out of the way, and grabbed hold of the control sticks. They were slick and stained with Smitty's blood, but Richard's hands tightened hard around them. First pushing forward to stop the ship’s rolling and then pulling them back slowly as far as he could, Wakinyan's straining muscles then fought gravity, momentum—and fate itself.
Captain Miguel Ortega and his second in command, Lieutenant Ann Boyer, watched as the Crazy Horse ease itself out of the steep dive and go into a slower lateral descent. The Martian ship then vanished into the mingling clouds of the dust storm and to what seemed to be a certain end.
Miguel smirked, gloating at having brought down the Martian ship with such little effort. His ship, the Louyang, had only sustained very minor damage in the battle. This was at the very least worth an accommodation from a properly worded report to Earth Command. As Ortega contrived the report in his mind, his account was to portray a brilliant defensive strategy on his part, while emphasizing the incompetence of others, especially Captain Jamel and General Cox.
As the Earth captain continued to daydream, Lieutenant Ann Boyer walked over next to him. Her eyes were also transfixed upon the image of Martian dust clouds enshrouding the landscape.
"Well, Annie," Ortega happily said, "it appears our Martian friend has run out of luck."
"A real pity," her voice sarcastically added. "Perhaps we can send him some company, Captain."
"Oh?" Miguel was curious.
Ann smiled. "A report just came in. There seems to be a large group of transports sitting on the ground filled with Martian rebels," the woman informed him. "I think our gun crews can use a little target practice to sharpen their aim. Don't you, Sir?"
Ortega returned her smile. "I think your right. But before we do, I want to make sure that Martian garbage scow is nothing more than a memory."
Just then, the communication's crewman called to Ortega. "Captain, I have General Cox on the line!"
"Put him on audio," Ortega said self-assured.
"Aye, Sir," the crewman obeyed and established the communication link.
"Yes, General?" Miguel answered with a question.
"Did you get him?"
"I don't know, General?" Ortega pretended modesty. "We're about to go and find out."
"Well, if he isn't dead, herd him towards me!" the general's angry tone was evident. "I've got fifty anti-ship missiles waiting to kiss his sorry ass goodbye!"
"CAPTAIN, LOOK!" Ann shouted pointing to the viewer.
Miguel looked up and saw several large explosions flash in the area where the Crazy Horse had vanished. Even through the distant clouds of dust, the bright flare-ups and the bellowing of smoke of burning fuel was unmistakable. Ortega grinned broadly.
"What the hell is going on?" the general demanded to know.
"I think our Martian friend has just had a not-to-ceremonious ending," Ortega beamed. "Annie, take us over there and let's see what trophies we can find."
"With pleasure, Sir!"
Even though they were confident of their victory, the Louyang cautiously vectored away from the base. Her sensor arrays scanned relentlessly as the big ship dropped down and entered the storm. As the space cruiser came within a hundred meters distance, she stopped and hovered to catch any sight of the remains of the Martian destroyer.
The Louyang carried scanners that were a complex array of frequency modulated radar combined with magnetic resonance tracking, integrated ion and electron spectrometers, and positron emission technology, capable of detecting the smallest objects from many miles away. But the equipment was not designed to deal with the likes of the intense Martian sandstorm that created illusions of false masses while suppressing any indication of actual rises of solid stone. These confused the Louyang’s scanner computers, which simply could not obtain a lock on any object that appeared and disappeared in mere seconds.
The scanners, however, weren’t the only ones bewildered. Both Ortega and Ann also became disorientated and squinted at the viewer, looking for not just debris, but any recognizable shape. All they saw, however, was the constant blowing of the impenetrable red dust.
"I can't see a damn thing!" Ortega grew annoyed. "Sensors, what do you read?"
"Sir, I'm getting nothing but reflections and distortions," the crewman reported.
"It's that damn Martian iron oxide dust! It's like sitting in the middle of a magnet blindfolded!" Ann's frustration showed.
"There's only one way to see through this and that's by minimizing our scanning levels," the captain realized. "Sensors, cut back on your output power and try again," Ortega suggested. “It should drop the level of noise interference.”
The crewman quickly adjusted his equipment, scanning as he did. "It's working, Sir!" the crewman confirmed.
As the crewman continued to scan, however, a look of bewilderment appeared on his face while he double-checked the readings. Soon however, his puzzlement changed to one of fearful alarm. "CAPTAIN, THERE'S INSUFFICIENT MASS! DEBRIS APPEARS TO BE FROM A SHUTTLE, A COUPLE OF SPACE MINES AND SOME OXYGEN-RICH FUEL CANISTERS!" the man reported. "WAIT! THERE'S A SHIP OFF TO OUR PORT QUARTER!"
On the bridge of the Crazy Horse, Wakinyan glared hatefully at the scratchy image of the Earth cruiser in front of him. His mind was now not only set to accomplishing his mission, but bent on revenge. Richard's dark brown eyes held a steady and unblinking gaze, while his mouth formed just three words in loud tones, "MAIN GUN, FIRE!"
The revolving main laser weapon of the Martian ship flashed on and began to batter the Louyang with a steady stream of pulsed energy bolts. Even though the cruiser was much bigger, ray shielded, and heavily armored, the close range of the ships all but neutralized their effectiveness.
Under Wakinyan’s guidance, the Crazy Horse’s main gun first took out several of the big cruiser’s laser cannons. From the resulting damage, a build-up of energy created a massive overload, which was expended in deafening explosions and a temporarily shutdown of the Louyang’s weapons system. Next concentrating on a single point, the Martian destroyer punched a gapping hole in the cruise’s hull. Satisfied with that, it then sprayed the remainder of its lethal bombardment up and down the cruiser’s port side. The Louyang swayed and listed as it was slowly pushed away to the continuous fury of the Crazy Horse’s bombardment.
Then as abruptly as it had started, the Crazy Horse ceased its firing, with the cruiser saved by the safety time-out of the destroyer’s main laser battery that prevented overload. The Martian ship then veered away and flew slowly off towards the base again.
As the Martian ship departed, the Louyang belched smoke from several breaches. Her hull was scarred with some areas near to buckling while a large amount of carbon scoring blemished her once glistening skin.
The Earth ship had been hurt badly. In particular, the Louyang's bridge was filled with a thick haze of noxious gases that rose from burning equipment. Alarms were still sounding as warning lights flashed to a threat that was no longer present. Slowly, the dazed crewmembers gathered their thoughts. The injured were then removed, while debris was cleaned-up.
Ortega coughed incessantly as he breathed in the foul air. He was furious with himself for having been taken in by such an old trick.
"REPORT, DAMN IT! REPORT!" he yelled to his second in command.
"Captain, we've three hull breaches and some fires! Control teams are enroute!" Ann answered, coughing as she did.
Ortega then turned to the communications crewman. "COMMUNICATIONS! INFORM GENERAL COX THAT THE MARTIAN SHIP IS STILL INTACT AND MOVING ON HIS POSITION!"
"SIR, I'VE GOT HIM ON LINE NOW! HE'S REQUESTING THAT WE TRACK THE TARGET AND TELL HIM WHEN TO LAUNCH HIS MISSILES!" the crewman relayed.
Ortega was quick in his order. "TELL HIM WE’LL DO
SO!"
"AYE, SIR!"
"Annie, get the ship underway!" the Louyang's captain voiced infuriated. "Whatever is left of that Martian bastard, we're going to obliterate!"
Moments later, the huge Earth ship turned and followed the Crazy Horse. As the Earth cruiser slowly close, however, the Martian ship just lazily maneuvered over the Epson Planum Earth forces base—waiting.
"Captain," Ann uttered studying the monitor, "he's not even trying to run."
Captain Ortega sneered. "I don't care! He's just made himself a great big target! COMMUNICATION'S, TELL THE GENERAL TO LAUNCH NOW!"
As quick as the order was received, the operations officer of Epson Planum initiated their last defensive effort. From their underground silos, fifty anti-ship missiles thundered and roared aloft into the Martian sky.
Aboard the Crazy Horse, repairs were quickly being made as unblinking eyes watched their adversaries. The final act to the battle was only a minute away.
“Captain, damage to inertia and gravitational systems has been bypassed! All systems now restored!” the damage control crewman reported the news to Wakinyan, whose bruised and gashed face betrayed a quiet anger.
"SIR!" the sensor crewman suddenly bellowed out to Wakinyan. "EPSON PLANUM HAS JUST LAUNCHED A MASSIVE WAVE OF MISSILES! THEY'RE ACQUIRING!"
For a moment, Richard seemed uncaring, but suddenly, his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. "Now, Mr. Randall!" he calmly commanded.
Randall glanced at his friend and then turned back to the weapons control panel. With the single press of a button, the first officer of the Crazy Horse showered the sky with missile decoys.
As the decoys fell away from the Martian ship, they switched on, one-by-one, filling the sky with a fleet of holographic space destroyers. Right down from the images to the I-F-F (Identification Friend or Foe) signals, they appeared quite solid and real to the homing projectiles. As planned, the decoys became the targets of choice to be killed, rather than the single Martian destroyer that rocketed away.
Captain Ortega beheld the phantom fleet as it turned and faced his ship. Unexpectedly, they began to grow bigger, and then he realized why; they were flying directly towards him. Although collision with the decoys had become a real threat, they were completely overshadowed by the tracking missiles that faithfully followed them.