Countdown by John Walker (most life changing books TXT) 📕

And now they want a piece of us. Justin shook his head. “You’d better hurry, Nina. Whatever you’re going to do needs to happen now. We’re in the shit out here.” I hate to rush her but… well, I don’t have a damn choice. He went fully evasive, working to get another firing arc on the satellite.

I’ll buy her as much time as I can… With four ships swarming around him, a sense of hopelessness built in his chest. Which might not be much!

***

Nina contacted Daisy on the Broken Light. “Put me through to Trenik right away.” While she waited, she got Mac on the line as well. The conference began only a few seconds later, much to her surprise. She swore she would’ve had to wait longer to have any work done by the Gold Empire crew considering what they’d lost.

I’ll just be happy they’re all over it.

“Trenik,” Nina said, “I’ve got our war dog on the line. I need to know what we can do about these satellites. Our fighters have hit them, but they’re fully shielded. We’ve got less than four minutes before they fire again.”

“I…” Trenik started to speak and fell silent. “Oh. Harcourt, I think I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“This device. The signal it threw to the ervas battleship. Those things are taking data from the surface, information from a command center to fire at specific coordinates. What if we use this to blind them temporarily?”

“How will that help me with the shields?” Nina asked.

“It won’t,” Mac said, “but it will buy us time before they can fire again. Is that correct?”

“Exactly,” Trenik replied. “Give us… one minute. We should be able to use the transmitters on this ship to blast them. With any luck, it will short them out completely, but I’d say it will give you another five minutes. In the meantime, continue to shoot them while we think of something else.”

I guess that’s better than nothing. “Hurry up,” Nina said. “Mac, do you think this might work?”

“Considering our lack of options, I say it will not hurt to try.”

“That’s a fair point.” Nina briefed Noah on their plan. “They claim they only need a minute.”

“I pray they’re right. I’m glad he’s proved himself useful on this trip.”

“More than,” Mac added. “His concept has given me an idea. I am turning on the war dogs. When that signal blasts, I will have them collect it. At their distance to the targets, they should make the jam permanent, buying us more time.” He paused. “You must be aware this is going to be very tight. One mistake, one slip and we’ll face that weapon again.”

“Understood,” Noah said. “I’ll just cross my fingers.”

“That will not help anything,” Mac replied. “And I doubt it will make you feel better given that it isn’t a comfortable state to perform that action.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “There you go.”

Erica twisted the ship suddenly, turning like she was doing a donut in a ground vehicle. As she came around, she opened fire on one of their targets. One of their allies joined them, doing a serious number on the battleship in question.

And I thought I had some skills, Nina thought. Erica’s off the chain.

Dorian announced, “an enemy battleship has been disabled. I’m not sure where their destroyers have gone… ah, there they are. Facing off with the Gold Empire smaller vessels. They got caught up.” He sighed. “We’re having a hell of a time getting larger ships near the surface.”

“Understandable,” Noah said, “that’s their only objective: keep us away. They’ll do pretty much anything to maintain their line. But we’re pushing through… if only we can keep those satellites from ripping us a new ass again, we should be fine.”

As close to that as possible, Nina thought. After the first volley, we lost more than I’ve seen go up in all my years of flying. We can’t survive another hit from that thing. With any real luck, they wouldn’t have to. If our luck settled on the good side rather than the middle, I might have some more faith.

“Justin,” Nina reached out. “I’ve got an update.” She let him know the plan. “Shouldn’t take them more than a minute. Keep hitting the thing and do what you can until then. We’ve got plenty underway to help you out.”

“As long as it’s snappy,” Justin replied, “we’re not exactly holding hands out here!”

“Roger that.” Nina leaned back in her chair, regretting her decision to take the commander role more than ever. I want to be out there. But this gave her a chance to do something far more substantial, to make a bigger difference. Just not in the weeds anymore. It’s strange…

She felt both in control and totally without it. Not flying meant acting as a bystander, the coach in a big game. But every leader must have felt a compelling urge to stand in front of their people to show them how it should be done. If not, they probably aren’t the right people for the job.

Nina clung to that. It seemed like it might just help.

***

Trenik worked quickly to set up the signal. Fortunately, they already had the device hooked into the transmitters of the Broken Light. The bad news was they were about to drain a significant amount of power, enough that they may find themselves temporarily disabled. Which meant they may not be able to move or they wouldn’t have defenses.

I suppose those are better than total annihilation from the satellites.

“I recommend we move very high above the range of the attack,” Trenik said, “in the event this does not work, we may not be able to maneuver again for several minutes.”

“Got it.” Harcourt nodded before reaching out to the bridge. He let them know what they were about to