John went below, secured the hatch, and returned to the transmogrifier. He took off his helmet and nodded to Ian and Pat, “Flip the switches.”
[ 59 ]
Guthrie felt the enormous surge of contained energy and he raised his hands toward the singleships as they closed within range. When his calculations showed he was exactly on target, Guthrie twirled his internal gears and allowed the lightning to shoot from his hands into the heart of the singleship formation.
Bolts arced from one ship to another, creating a spiderweb of light across the sky and enveloping every singleship with powerful charges. Guthrie held the current open for twenty seconds, then when he felt his appendages overheating from the ambient force of the electricity, he shut off the lightning.
Something was wrong. Where he expected to see melting fireballs in the ether, there were only the singleships, still intact. And coming.
Guthrie magnified his lenses and looked at the closest ship. There were small wires encircling the space vessel. He checked another and saw the same thing. The singleships had been modified. They were all protected with a version of the Faraday cage. The ships were impervious to any electrical barrage coming from the Argent or her crew. Guthrie clanked to the hatch and dropped into the ship.
John, Ian, and Pat waited for him and Pat said, “What happened? They’re still comin’!”
Guthrie said, “Follow me, please. I must inform Billy, and I prefer to tell this only once to save us time to prepare for the attack.”
The men followed and, once they were gathered in the command room with Billy, Guthrie explained to them about the modifications on the singleships. Ian said, “That Fu Manchu, he’s a devil; an evil, genius devil.”
Billy said, “Guthrie, will we land before they can begin flying their suicide attacks on us?”
“No. They will be close enough in less than five minutes.”
Billy glanced out the front window at Mars, then at the paper in his hands. “Way I figured it, we won’t make the area at the end of the canal before they can overwhelm us.” He did some quick mental calculations, then said, “We’re changing plans. We are going to drop straight down and go for the surface. We will put the Argent down in any place we can find. It will be touch and go because they can cripple us before we land, or it may be that there won’t be a decent place to land and, in that case we will crash.”
Pat said, “Those orange headed vampires are not taking us. No matter what happens, they are not taking us.”
John said, “We’re with you, Billy. We’re ready for the ride.”
“Everyone needs to put on their spacesuits in case the hull is breached.” They all left, and Billy said to Ekka, “You go, too. I’ll change as soon as you get back.” Ekka nodded, and returned faster than Billy expected. He smiled at her and joked, “You don’t change that fast when we’re goin’ out on the town.”
“I like to keep surprising you.” Billy touched her arm, then left and changed.
He returned to the command seat and used the voice tubes to tell the others, “Hold on to something!”
He edged the acceleration levers forward several degrees and twisted the gears and the Argent turned straight down toward the red planet, shooting through the ether at a steadily accelerating rate. Ekka sat at the command console next to him and reached over to touch his hand for a second, then removed it. She said, “If this is our final time, know that I love you beyond measure.” She turned her head to look behind, but knew that Dakota was safe with Guthrie in the interior of the ship. “I hope Dakota knows I love him just as much.”
Billy worked the levers and said, “He knows. Get ready, the singleships are on us.”
[ 60 ]
The first singleship crashed hard into the Argent’s side and sent a shudder through the ship. Billy gritted his teeth and pushed the great ship’s engine to go faster. A second ship, then a third exploded against the hull, causing groans of metal and a rattle of plates and cups in the galley.
“They aren’t focused on the attack. They’re coming in randomly.” Ekka said.
“Yeah, but there are so many of ‘em, it is only a matter of time.” As he finished speaking, the singleships began exploding against the Argent like it was a tin shed in a furious hailstorm. The sound was so loud and continuous that Billy and Ekka could not hear each other shouting. Billy gave her a quick hand-signal and shoved the acceleration levers another degree forward.
The Argent began pulling away from the singleships, and Billy thought they might make it, but then the mass of small space vessels closed again and continued to slam into the ship.
Billy tried evasive maneuvers, banking left, then right, doing barrel rolls and stalls, then accelerating, but the singleships were so thick around the Argent that no matter which direction he turned, it was always into a thick mass of orange-haired morts flying their tiny bomb-laden ships, resulting in even more damage to the hull. Billy straightened and powered for the red planet.
A singleship worked its way in front of the Argent and turned back to crash and explode near the front window. It rocked the ship. Billy and Ekka saw the small crack at the same time, and Ekka became dead serious behind the sights of the front cannons. She said, “I will keep them away from the glass as long as I have ammunition.”
Billy said, “I know you will,” and as he spoke, Ekka shot two other enemy ships out of the air as they tried to attack the windows.
They kept coming and Ekka continued to fire until the barrels of the cannons glowed like coals. Her last three shots knocked out five enemy ships, then the guns were empty.
Singleships moved en masse toward the front as the morts realized the windows were the Argent’s great weakness. Billy made a split-second decision, not even telling Ekka. He shoved the acceleration levers to Maximum and the Argent shuddered and groaned so loudly that Ekka screamed, thinking the hull was breached.