Mission's Edge

by Max Jager

  "Helm, what have we got?"

  "The Cherenkovs were damaged sir. While we still have manoeuvring, we can't out run them sir. I'm afraid we'll have to fight, sir." Petty Officer First Class Heather Moorestead's reply came back crisply.

  "Engineering?"

  "Both fusion plants are holding. Structural integrity is down to 60%. I don't know how much repair work we'll be able to do, sir. We might be able to get the shields back temporarily, but the weapons are out of the question." Commander Emily Erstwhile responded quietly. "We'll have to fight with what we've got."

  "Comms, are the merchant men away?"

  "Aye, sir, all four have reached the hyper limit and will be away before the enemy can catch them."

  Aaron nodded, satisfied, and then spoke, "Go to continuous fire. Forget stacking salvoes, get them out as quickly as you can. Target the second battleship with everything we have. They may kill us, but we'll make them pay dearly."

  "Continuous fire, aye."

  Stacking salvoes had the significant advantage of increasing salvo density which, for a ship like Mission, often provided the only means of penetrating a larger, more heavily armed vessel's defences. Continuous fire had the advantage of denying your enemy the same chance to stack salvoes. This tended to make for longer engagements, as missile salvoes wore down shields and Aaron, by ordering his ship to got to continuous fire was using a delaying tactic, to buy more time for the merchantmen to get away.

  As this decision making process had been going on, Mission's last stacked salvo reached the dreadnoughts. The EW was just as effective the second time as the first. The missiles dodged and weaved their way through the countermeasures, seeking to find a home in the skin of the battleship. As fate would have it, the battleship had not been able to get her shields back online, so when the remaining missiles detonated, they did so against the unshielded armour, tearing into the heart of the ship. With the brilliant white light of a ruptured fusion plant, the battleship vanished in one, awful moment. In less than a second, more than two thousand men and women met the end of their lives.

  But their comrades were not about to let that go unanswered. Even as Mission began to spew forth salvo after salvo of missiles from her tubes, the third stacked salvo from the battleships roared in on its target. The remaining EW and countermeasure capability of Mission tried valiantly, but she was just too damaged and too over matched. Finally, she too vanished in a brilliant white explosion as the two miniature suns within her escaped the confines of the fields which held them and devoured the ship around them.

  –

  Aaron leaned back in his chair as the simulation ended. "Well, that went better than expected."

  "It's important to note that they were just simulations and our best guesses as to what the new Orindian hardware is like, but it's certainly hopeful for us." Darnelle voice surprised most of the officers on the bridge. Darnelle had been running the dreadnoughts from the auxiliary bridge. "Though given the amount of data we managed to collect in the initial stages of their assault, they should be fairly accurate assumptions. It probably didn't help that the EW was more effective than I thought it would be and that your penetration aides were far better than we thought. You also didn't go to continuous fire as quickly as I thought you would."

  "I made the call to do as much damage as possible, rather than prolong the engagement. We were fairly close to the hyper limit when you pounced, so I figured the merchantmen would have time to reach it." Aaron responded casually.

  "If you had gone to continuous fire immediately, you might have been able to withdraw." Darnelle noted.

  "If I had gone to continuous fire earlier, I wouldn't have been able to inflict enough damage to give you pause. You would simply have left two behind to deal with me and sent one straight after the merchantmen, I couldn't have stopped him without stacking and if we were both on continuous fire, I wouldn't have been able to. I had to be sure you would stay concentrated in order to ensure the merchantmen's escape." He gave her a wry grin.

  "I suppose that makes sense. I don't know that I would have sacrificed concentration in order to run down the merchantmen, but then I know how dangerous a Reprisal can be." Darnelle nodded thoughtfully.

  As they spoke, the whole bridge crew watched closely, waiting for the inevitable break between the two of them that seemed imminent. But it didn't come. Instead, they continued to discuss the things that the crew had done well and what could be improved upon. At last, the discussion came to an end and they turned to the waiting officers and began to hand out analysis assignments.

  "We will all reconvene at 1900 for dinner to talk it all through, unless someone has an objection." Aaron said, looking around the bridge.

  No one raised any.

  –

  Mission stood off at what seemed like an impossible range from the targets. Today was to be the first live fire exercise with the new missiles that the crew had been allowed to take part in. Bureau of Weapons Development had assured them that the missiles had an effective powered range of nearly 30 light seconds. To officers used to engaging the enemy at no more than 18 light seconds, the range seemed unreal.

  At last, Coren spoke. "We have acquired the targets, sir, and are ready to launch."

  "Well, waiting won't bring them any closer. Let's see if these missiles live up to the hype. Fire at your leisure, Commander." Aaron responded with a shrug.

  "Firing missiles, aye."

  All eyes were on the tactical plot, as 50 missiles left Mission's tubes and roared down the range, faster than any missile previously fielded by any navy that Aaron was aware of. It seemed impossible that they would reach the target. Acceleration against range was another of the classic debates within missile warfare. The previous problem, that of control loops for missiles, had been solved about 300 years earlier, when some intelligent science type had figured out how to cram the FTL communications technology most of the universe had used over short distances within a solar system into something as small as a missile. This had meant that the effective control range of a missile was almost an entire solar system. However, with a finite amount of fuel available, the question arose of how best to use the power available. Greater acceleration had the advantage of a higher closing velocity which meant that the missiles themselves were harder to take out individually. However, greater range often allowed for a high saturation of missile fire which also made them more difficult targets. In the past most of the navies in the known universe had attempted to find a balance between the two. With the new ability to miniaturise fusion plants and magnify warhead yields, most of the old limits had been expanded in never before seen ways. This meant that the new missiles that Mission was designed and built to fire were longer legged and faster than any missile previously fielded. As they reached their final striking distance they accelerated to nearly the speed of light before detonating mere inches from the targets, all of which vanished suddenly a wave of fusion powered fire, bright white light blinding to the naked eye.

  "My God, with that kind of acceleration at that range..." Coren whispered, barely loud enough for Aaron to hear.

  "If we had been able to use the maximum allowable range against the battleships earlier, we might have been able to take out two of them rather than just the one." Aaron returned quietly. "This puts a whole new wrinkle in tactical situations. But even still, we should take a look at what happens when we put it up against our best EW. Sparky, ask the range control to kindly deploy EW targets."

  "Aye, aye, sir. Asking range control to release EW targets..."

  –

  "Crap," muttered Lieutenant Jason Cunningham.

  "Problem, Lieutenant?" Commander Erstwhile asked, appearing over the Jason's shoulder.

  "Well ma'am, I've just realized, looking at the energy sumps, that the parameters we used on the fuel lines today were wrongly input. We have burned 30% more than we intended. It shouldn't be a problem long term, but we wasted the fuel as we didn't really use the energy generated and t
herefore there was more wear on the sumps than there should have been." Jason responded despondently.

  "Fortunately we caught it this early on Lieutenant. If you hadn't caught it, we would have continued to use the incorrect parameters." She paused. "Who did the inputs?"

  "That would be me ma'am." He said quietly.

  "What do you think actually happened?" She asked kindly.

  "I think I made a mistake in my calculations when I was looking at the requirements of the various systems. I must have misplaced a digit or something." He sounded slightly desperate now. "I don't know where it is though!"

  "Is there a problem, Commander, Lieutenant?" The Skipper's voice came from behind Commander Erstwhile.

  "We have a bit of a issues, sir," responded Commander Erstwhile. "There was a mistake made this morning in the energy requirements."

  "How much were we off by?" Aaron asked carefully. Despite its relative simplicity, fuel consumption was one of the most important elements of a modern starship. Because the power plants were fusion, if all the energy generated was used, no problem. The fusion reaction stayed under control and was useful. If, however, there was excess energy, it was bled off into energy sumps. The problem was that the sumps could only take so much and once they reached their limits, and could no longer bleed the energy, the reaction in the fusion plant would get out of control and could potentially cause the destruction of the ship. The only way to stop it once it started was to dump the entire reaction into space and let it burn itself out. This was a highly dangerous process, akin to letting off a low yield missile just outside the skin of the ship.

  "I was off by about 30%, sir." Jason's voice was hesitant, yet clear.

  "Well, Lieutenant, that is quite a bit to be off by. How did it happen?" Aaron asked.

  "Well, I think I somehow added to the energy requirements rather than miscalculated the fuel." Jason responded.

  "Emily?" The Skipper said, turning to his chief engineer.

  She paused and thought about it for a moment. "It could go either way, sir. I haven't had a chance to look over the calculations. But looking at the data on the sump, we definitely ran at 30% over bleed today for what we were doing. While that is well within regulation for a short period of time, holding it consistently is always a bad idea, even if you want to have a little extra power on tap just in case."

  The Skipper nodded. "And what, Lieutenant, can we do in the future to make sure we don't run the plant so hot?"

  "Well, we can triple check the numbers with someone else to make sure they are correct?" Jason said without much conviction.

  "What do you think Emily?" The Skipper turned to his Chief Engineer.

  "I think it's a capital idea, sir." She responded.

  "Good. Lieutenant, why don't you redo those calculations. Bring them to me, I'll check them for your first; then go to Emily, and she'll check my corrections, should there be any, and then if they are all correct, we'll implement them?" Aaron said, not unkindly.

  The Jason stared at him for a long moment, and then nodded. "That sounds like a good idea, sir."

  "We all make mistakes, Lieutenant. Some of ours cost us the lifetimes of sumps, some cost the lives of our crews." Aaron was suddenly very serious. "We can only hope that the mistakes we make are small, and that we learn from them when the stakes are low, so that when the stakes are high, we don't make the same mistakes."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Emily, would you mind joining Commander Darnelle, Eva and I for dinner? I'd like to discuss emergency procedures with the three of you. Coordination of repair parties and such." After receiving a nod from the Commander Erstwhile, he turned and walked away, calling over his shoulder. "I'll be waiting for those calculations Lieutenant."

  As the Jason watched the Skipper leave, he noticed Commander Darnelle, waiting for him at the hatch.

  –

  "So what was that about?" Darnelle asked as she and Aaron walked down the corridor leading from engineering back toward the bridge.

  "Lieutenant Cunningham made a mistake in his energy requirement calculations. There was a small issue of over use on the sumps today. We will have to replace them sooner than expected, but other than that, no harm done. He'll just have to have his calculations more carefully checked in future. At least until he shows he can consistently get them right. He's a good lad." Aaron responded calmly. This was not the first time she had stuck her nose in a decision Aaron had made that week.

  "Are you sure that's an appropriate consequence, sir? Depending on how much over use the sumps had, he could have put the ship in serious jeopardy." Darnelle said suspiciously.

  Aaron was suddenly very glad indeed he had not told her how much over use the sumps had received. "I handled it as I saw fit. He is an extremely capable officer who simply made a mistake. It happens to all of us. Yes, his could have had extremely serious consequences, but then so would yours or mine. Ours even more so."

  "Are you sure not being harder on him wasn't one of those mistakes?" Darnelle asked acidly.

  "Commander Erstwhile agreed with my assessment of the situation and my response to it. She is not the sort of officer that would put a ship in jeopardy simply to show favour to one of her subordinates. If I recall correctly, you were the one that hand picked her for her position." Aaron looked her square in the eye. "I doubt she is so completely wrapped up in my force of personality that she would endanger the ship in order to not avoid a disagreement with me. Especially after she went to the mat for Sensor Tech O'Mally with me after he completely mishandled the repair of the forward magazine capacity indicator."

  "This is a little more important than a magazine indicator." Beth responded dryly.

  "You get just as dead from being out of missiles while in combat as you do from a fusion plant having a containment failure." Aaron returned.

  "One is a might, the other is a certainty."

  "And yet, here we are, still in one piece." Aaron replied. Beth was silent for the remainder of the journey.

  –

  The Tactical section was silent as Coren stepped up to his chair, the officers and ratings sat, ready for instructions. Coren finally spoke. "I know this has been a long time coming, but at last we have complete approval for a series of live fire tests and we are going to make the best use of them. We have been given the third range for our exclusive use. Helm has just put us in position for our first round of tests and the targets are live. You have 30 seconds to find the 20 legitimate targets, acquire lock and destroy them. Begin."

  Suddenly the silence was spilt by the hammering of keyboards and shouting back and forth between the various stations. The pandemonium looked like it completely lacked order, but 10 seconds in, 20 targets had been identified and acquired. 10 seconds later, they had been allocated to the various gunnery sections and by the end of 27 seconds, a buzzer sounded indicating all targets had been destroyed.

  "Well done," Coren' voice rang out over top of the cheers which followed. "Not quite as quick as we will need to be in the future but not bad for a first live fire. The next set of targets will be firing back. Counter missiles will have to be used as well, so defensive station, be ready. The next set will also be mobile. There will be a total of 15 targets. You have 45 seconds this time."

  And so on it went, targets were replaced, parameters changed, the section working like a machine stiff from long disuse, slowly re-lubricating itself and coming back up to speed. Exercise after exercise, slowly clawing their way back to the efficiency that their commanding officer so clearly demanded of them. At last, the last missile exploded, washing its target in hell-bright fire.

  "Well done, people. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're closer than we were. I hope to be able to schedule more time for live fire exercise, until then we will shift back to the simulations at the pre-scheduled times. All but the current watch are dismissed." Coren stood from the seat where had been for the last several hours, directing the intricately choreographed dance which had taken place.r />
  "I'm not sure you should let them off so lightly, Commander," came a voice from behind him. Coren turned to see Commander Darnelle standing in the entrance to the tactical section. "They were slow to warm up, and even when they reached peak efficiency, they were well behind the other sections. Which leaves me to wonder if perhaps the problems are not with them but with their commanding officer. Have you been putting enough time into your section, Commander?"

  All of the officers and ratings had frozen in their seats when they heard the XO's voice and now Coren had to respond with his people watching. "With all due respect ma'am, but is this really a conversation we should be having here?"

  "I think your people deserve to know what kind of officer they are serving under." Her response was pure acid. "And what's more, you owe them an explanation as to why they are lagging behind."