The Road to Hell

Chapter 3

There was an initial rush of excitement and happiness when the SluDAR screen cleared up. Then David's face dropped as he got a good look for the first time at just how badly outgunned they were. Then Rear Admiral Hawke's voice cut across every channel in the fleet, uttering something they'd never expected to hear from those lips.

He barely registered the Rear Admiral's order to retreat when his leader suddenly screamed and the transmission cut off.

"Dutchman, give me eyes on Hawk's Nest." The ship responded to the voice command, using the external cams to zoom in on the Nest as it blew apart into several huge sections. That was it then. There was almost no way Hawk was still alive. That also meant Farid...

David shut his eyes and forced his mind to process this new implication logically.

If the flag bridge has been destroyed, it is very likely that my best friend is dead.

Farid is dead.

Farid is dead.

Farid is DEAD.

His mind reeled at the thought, but the ongoing battle kept him from actually starting to grieve. A female voice broke into his thoughts. "Angel Lead? Come in Angel Lead. This is  Spec Ops Actual. Are you out there, Spectre?"

David calmed down as he recognized the voice and patched the video transmission through to the rest of the squad. "Commander Satyana, you're alive! How-"

She raised her hand and he fell silent immediately. "Captain Tsunade and I were on the secondary bridge. Tsunade's taking command of what's left of the fleet. The Niveda and Gravedigger bugged out. We're on our own." Satyana had basically just told him that they were all going to die. It would be hours before the nearest patrol feet could back them up, and fighters couldn't retreat into otherspace. Hearing it come from her though, you would think this was just another day at the office. Satyana had a reputation for showing only one of two emotions at any given time: complete indifference or severe anger.

She gave them a second to swallow the truth and then continued. "Also, just so you know, Lieutenant Commander, our enemy is not human." hearing her confirm it set David's skin crawling, but at the same time, it didn't come as a big surprise. Their ships were like nothing he'd ever seen, they fired weapons humans didn't use, and there was no way any significant human threat would exist this far out from the Colonies.

"An enemy is an enemy," David said.

Satyana rewarded him with a humourless smile. "Damn right, Spectre. Now pay attention. Tsunade's ordering an all-out attack. Fire every damn thing you have and if you have nothing else to shoot, use your ships themselves as weapons. With luck we'll take a couple of the big ships with us."

Tsunade was ordering a kamikaze. David liked the spirit of the plan, but didn't like how much it left to chance. It could just lead to hundreds of men and women throwing their lives away. They needed to do something that guaranteed vengeance. "What if we do something else?" David suggested.

"Go on," Satyana said. She'd been David's commander for a long time, and knew that while he was a little rough around the edges, he was very good at coming up with unorthodox attacks.

"We have marines sitting on board that are probably itching to join the fight. If we get them on board the alien ships then we can take them out for good."

It was a bold plan, and Satyana liked it. She could always count on David to throw caution to the wind. "I'll run it by the captain," she promised. "But, I don't know if he'll go for it. If we put assets on-board, we'll have to lay off the bombardment, and he won't like that."