“Three minutes to emergence, Captain,” Chen reported, still at his post, having only briefly relinquished it to take a nap in the wardroom. She envied him his stamina, though it was probably being supplemented with illicit injections. Anything to keep the crew going. One way or another, this would all be over soon.
“Thank you, Ensign,” Scott replied. “Clyde, I think you know what comes next.”
“Indeed I do, sir,” Rochford said, tapping a control. “Alert Condition One throughout the ship. Battle stations. Battle stations. All hands to battle stations. Department heads report status to the bridge. That is all.” Turning to Scott, he added, “Maybe I should put that on tape.”
“We’re getting to that point, aren’t we.” Turning to Novak, he asked, “How’s our squadron?”
“Locked and loaded, sir. We’ve added drop tanks and boosted their afterburners. I recommend we launch them as soon as we establish the tactical situation, give them the best possible chance to link up with the rest of the fleet.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. You have the call on that.” He paused, then said, “Bet you never thought you could add squadron commander to your resume.”
“No, sir, I never did.” She paused, then said, “I once again…”
“Denied, Lieutenant. You’ve been in the fire once. I want you here, running that part of the battle from the bridge.” He paused, then added, “If you take one of those shuttles yourself, then you can only use your experience there. Running all of them from the bridge means that every pilot benefits from your advice, your direction. That’s important. Or to put it another way, soldier, shut up and soldier.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She longed to be in one of those cockpits, racing to engage the enemy herself, but her flying skills weren’t up to taking a shuttle out herself, and deep in her heart, she knew that the Captain was right, though that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Emergence in thirty seconds,” the helmsman reported.
“All decks report cleared for action,” Rochford added. “We’re ready, sir.”
The ship lurched out of the ancient wormhole, appearing in the familiar system of Kapteyn’s Star, one of the first stars reached by humanity during the first days of interstellar exploration, and one of the oldest ever visited. A collection of dead stars swung around the sun, a haven for researchers probing the secrets of the early days of the universe. It seemed almost fitting that a place that had seen so much history should be the site of such an important battle.
“I have the fleet, sir,” Sullivan reported. “Just as advertised, holding in attack formation around the third planet. The alien ship is closing on them rapidly, six minutes to contact. Just time for our shuttles to join their formation, sir.”
“All shuttles,” Novak said, “immediate launch. Immediate launch. Join the rest of the fleet, and burn your engines as hard as you can. You only need to complete a single pass.” She looked up at her status board, nodded, and said, “Our shuttles are away, sir, heading to join the second attack wave.”
“Massive power generation from the alien craft, Captain,” Sullivan said. “Bigger than I’ve seen before. All laser arrays are charging up, and they’re increasing speed. Our fleet is matching their move. Looks like Admiral Singh is going for a direct intercept.”
“This isn’t the time for subtlety,” Scott replied.
Turning from his station, Wilson asked, “Should I try and raise the flagship, sir?”
“No, Lieutenant. I think the Admiral’s got more important matters to worry about right now. She’ll call us if she needs us. Monitor all channels, though.” He paused, then added, “And throw the tactical network onto the ceiling speaker. We might as well take part in the action as best we can. Helm, all ahead, maximum acceleration.”
“Course already plotted, implementing, sir.” Once more the engines roared, Leonidas surging to full thrust in a bid to join the rest of the starships preparing to meet the enemy ship. She watched the six points racing ahead of the ship, the shuttles sliding smoothly into attack formation, ranging towards their target. They’d spent the transit rehearsing the attack, as best they could, but the battle plan was essentially a copy of her original flyby of the ship at the unnamed system behind them. There hadn’t been enough time for anything else.
“Four minutes to contact,” Sullivan said. “The alien ship is moving a lot faster this time. Our forces are holding course, charging for attack.” She turned, then said, “I don’t like this, sir. It looks to me as though we’re playing their game, rather than making them play ours.”
“Admiral Singh knows what she’s doing, Ensign. Let’s not second-guess her,” Scott replied. Novak caught a brief glimpse of concern in his face, and she turned back to her station, focusing on monitoring the shuttles launching the attack run. As far as she could tell, the rest of the fleet had modified their ships in a similar way, the same basic flight profile, and they raced toward the enemy ship in a complicated formation, ready to launch their attack run.
She looked at the formation again, a frown spreading across her face. The fleet didn’t expect to have to engage the enemy at full strength. They were too tentative for that. Admiral Singh was hoping that the shuttles would do the job. Novak feared they couldn’t. She turned to Scott, ready to warn him, but then caught his eyes for a second. He already knew. And there was nothing they could do about it. You couldn’t appreciate the power of the enemy ship unless you’d engaged it in battle, and Singh’s forces had yet to do that.
“Two minutes to contact,” Sullivan said.
“First bomber wave will be reaching its target in fifty seconds. Firing range…,” Novak began, as her screen lit up, the alien ship firing precise pulses of laser energy into the sky, each one taking down a shuttle, long before it could reach its target. “All shuttles, disperse! Abort, abort, abort!”
“It’s too late,” Rochford said, bleakly. The alien ship could fire a dozen shots at once, and all of them were precisely targeted, all finding their marks, brief tissues of light flaming in the air as, one by one, the shuttles died. Only Leonidas’ pilots were truly prepared, turning and running before the rest, but even they were too late to avoid the fate of their comrades.
In less than thirty seconds, the first wave of their attack had been destroyed. Now the rest of the fleet came into play, their weapons charging. With the tap of a control, Rochford threw the tactical view onto the main viewscreen, all eyes watching the battle unfolding before them. Novak glanced at the helm, and Chen shook his head in reply. There was no way Leonidas could get there in time to contribute to the battle. Moral support was the best they could do.
“Come on,” Scott murmured. “Bring that bastard down.”
The first shots were fired by the fleet, bolts of maser fire at extreme range, inexperienced officers hoping for a miracle. Fate was not on their side, and the alien ship easily absorbed the fire, dodging two of the bolts completely. As the fleet raced into range, the enemy opened up once more with its laser beams, now with greater power, and swept across space. None of the shots connected with their targets, and for a moment, Novak allowed herself a brief trace of hope that the alien ship might have exhausted itself on the fighters. As she looked more closely at the trajectory plot, however, it became obvious that they were racing into a trap, and that the supposedly off-target shots were simply intended to guide the fleet to precisely where the aliens wanted it.
A few seconds too late, they realized it. The fleet broke off into squadrons, trying to evade, but then the lasers fired again, this time finding their targets, concentrating on individual ships as though they had all the time in the world. First Theseus, a ship of the same type as Leonidas, caught amidships by a pair of laser blasts, ripping it into pieces, the fragments racing across space to impact her sister ship, Achilles, the second ship to die.
Colossus and Dreadnought, the largest ships in the fleet, hurled one maser blast after another at the enemy, trying to move into position to shield
their comrades from fire, but Dreadnought quickly paid a heavy price for its bravery, though it ultimately took five shots to bring it down. Ajax, another cruiser, the last of the Hercules-class still operating, dived back into the fray, attempting a run right down the throat of the enemy ship, spitting fire and death. Its shots rained home, crashing into the weakness Novak’s run had provided, and her commander released a volley of charges, dozens of them, each hammering into the side of the alien ship.
“Nice play, Alec,” Scott said. “Now, get out of there.”
Scott’s advice was a heart-breaking second too late, Ajax sweeping around in a bid to escape before being caught in its rear section by a laser blast, sending it spiraling out of control, perfectly into position to be taken down by a second shot. The screen was thinning now, only half the original ships in the fleet still alive, but they turned back for another pass, Indomitable herself leading the way, as though the slaughter of the last moments hadn’t happened.
It was bravery beyond comparison, and precise gunnery as the nine remaining ships hurled everything they had at the enemy, Monitor and Protector leading the charge this time, diving deep down into the enemy’s firing range. More bolts of crimson death raced across the sky, each of them producing another brief burst of flame as they ripped into the attack force. Protector fell to a hit in its oxygen reservoir, the ship tossed out of control by the violent force of escaping atmosphere before the superstructure finally yielded to the inevitable, the ship torn asunder.
Indomitable remained, her sister ship, Inflexible alongside, and they raced towards the enemy ship, now with no thought other than winning an honorable death, trying to ram their nemesis. It was to no avail. The aliens were too fast, and they nimbly slid to the side, firing at the two ships as they raced past. Inflexible exploded, destroyed with a single shot, and Indomitable was caught forward, a long, savage burn ripping down the side of the ship, slowly tumbling through space, helplessly, hopelessly.
The battle was over. It had taken less than ten minutes, and the finest ships in Earth’s fleet had been destroyed while they watched. The alien ship moved off, lazily heading for orbit, ready to attack the remaining settlements on the surface. Tears streamed unheeded down Novak’s face, and she looked across at Rochford, the veteran’s face buried in his hands. Silence dominated the bridge as Scott walked over to the communications station, grabbing a microphone from the unresponsive Wilson.
“Leonidas to any ship, any ship. Leonidas to any ship, any ship, come in.”
“Indomitable Actual here,” Singh replied, her voice heavy with distortion, barely breaking through. “I read you.”
“Admiral, I can have rescue shuttles over there in five minutes…”
“No point,” she said. “According to my status panel, this ship goes up in less than two. Fires on all decks, out of control, suppression systems down. Escape pods couldn’t get far enough clear in time.” She paused, then said, “I’m sending over our strategic and tactical database, as well as all the sensor data we gathered during the attack.”
Reaching down, Scott tapped a control, and said, “We’re getting it, Admiral.”
“It was a damned nice try, wasn’t it,” she replied. “I guess I’ve done about all I can. You’re going to have to take it from here.”
“We’ll finish what you started. You have my word on that.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” There was a brief moment of wild distortion before the voice returned, saying, “Mike?”
“I’m here, Kat.”
“Happy hunting.”
Static reigned once more, and a brief flare on the screen heralded the death of Indomitable. Scott looked down at the console for a long moment, all eyes now on their commander as he stared into space. Novak wiped her eyes, turning back to the sensor station, sweeping the sky for any signs of life.
“No distress signals,” Sullivan said, blankly. “A few escape pods launched, but with that much debris…” Looking tentatively around the bridge, she said, “It’ll be the planet next. It won’t take them long to finish it off.”
“Maybe…” Ivanov began.
“Jimmy,” Scott said, placing his hand on the young officer’s shoulder, “Connect me through to the ship.”
“Sir, we’re…”
“Do it, Jimmy,” Scott replied.
Nodding, he said, “You’re on, Captain.”
Holding up the microphone again, Scott said, “You all know what just happened. Our fleet is gone. Destroyed. Wiped out, and the alien ship is still out there, as big and bad as ever. According to our projections, humanity goes extinct in less than a fortnight. I don’t think I need to tell you that outcome is totally unacceptable. We’ve got a little time, time while that ship burns away another world, then prepares for its attack on Earth. We’re going to use it, every minute. One way or another, we’re going to beat this thing. As one of my predecessors once said, we have only just begun to fight. That is all.” Slamming the microphone down on its holder, he said, “I reckon we’ve got two hours. We need options people, and we need them now. We’ve paid for this victory, paid in the dearest currency imaginable, and we are damned well going to collect!”
Chapter 19
“I just don’t see how we’re going to do it,” Santoro said, shaking her head, poking at a tablet. “Captain, I can’t bring the main weapons back. There’s just no way to do it. Even if I could improvise something out of the laser signalers, I just can’t channel anything like enough power for it to be effective.”
“There’s no point, anyway,” Novak said, drawing a hard glare from Scott. “We tried that already. It didn’t work. We can’t throw something together at the last minute better than the armament the fleet deployed, and there isn’t any sense trying. We haven’t got the time to waste. What about another bombing run?”
“We have two shuttles left,” Santoro said. “Two. And five charges. I can probably put together some more, but deploying them will be all but impossible.” Slamming her hand on the desk, she said, “It was a trap. The whole damn time. Those bastards out there gave us just enough hope that we concentrated our forces for them, made their lives easier. I wouldn’t be surprised if they damaged their own ship, just to make it look as though we had a chance.”
“I doubt that,” Ivanov said, gesturing at a display floating over the table. “Ajax scored five hits, and each of them caused similar damage. I think kinetic attacks are the answer, the same strategy we attempted before. This time we need to attack in two directions at once, make it impossible for the enemy ship to simply back away.”
“And just how do we do that, Lieutenant?” Rochford said. “We had a hard enough time luring them in the first time. I don’t think they’re just going to sit there while we carefully move two asteroids into position on either side, rigging them to explode with charges we no longer have in our inventory.”
“Maybe we should go home,” Wilson said, quietly. “If we’re going to die, then the crew should have a chance to be with their families at the end. Or try Lieutenant Ivanov’s plan, and run for the frontier.” Looking around, he added, “It would be better than nothing, wouldn’t it?”
Slamming his hand on the desk, Scott said, “We’ve got just over an hour, people. This isn’t helping. Even if we wanted to run, that ship could catch us easily. Nor is there any point throwing together plans that we can’t execute. We’ve got to use what we have. It’s as simple as that.”
“What about the rest of the fleet?” Bouchard asked. “There were other ships, and…”
“And it would take weeks to man them,” Rochford interrupted. “Besides, what would be the point? Admiral Singh launched her attack with everything we had, and we’ve not got the ships to match that again. We certainly don’t have the people. You want Ensigns to be commanding battleships in the next attack? Because that’s what we’ve got left, damn it.”
“There’s got to be an answer, somewhere,” Scott said. “What about the kinetic approach. If we could
move something fast enough, they wouldn’t be able to dodge in time. A small warhead could be boosted pretty damn quick, and we’ve got the mass drivers on the moon.”
“That means fighting a battle in Earth orbit,” Bouchard warned.
Cracking a smile, Scott replied, “We’re going to fight them, Ambassador. I don’t care where. There are arguments for trying Earth. If we could lure them into position…”
Shaking her head, Santoro said, “Mass drivers don’t have the capability to aim, and the enemy would quickly work out what we were doing. They’d only have to alter course by a fraction of a degree to get clear of the attack. If we had something that could probably target them, it might be worth a try, but as it stands, I don’t think we’d score any hits.”
“What about ramming them, then?” Novak suggested. “Red-line the engines, go full speed, right into them, and set the ship’s reactor to explode at the final instant.”
“That won’t work,” Rochford replied. “Indomitable and Inflexible tried the same trick, and both of them got blown up before they even got close. We don’t have much of an edge on speed, and they had a hell of a lot more armor.”
“Bridge to Briefing Room,” Chen’s voice said. “The alien ship has completed its sweep of the planet’s surface. It’s a hell of a mess down there, sir. Just like at Boreas. There’s no sign of life, nothing. Some of the colonists tried to get away in a shuttle, and they shot them right out of the sky. They’re just sitting there, now. Recharging, I think.”
“Thanks, Ensign,” Scott said.
“Maybe if we increased our power feed to the engines,” Novak suggested. “Go faster, try and dodge the bolts on the way in. Even if we couldn’t actually impact, a matter/antimatter reactor makes a hell of a bang when it goes up.”
“Our power network is strained now,” Santoro warned. “I don’t think we could strengthen the conduits in the way you suggest, and we certainly couldn’t do it in the time we have left.” Cracking a thin smile, she added, “I’m afraid we’d be more likely to blow the ship up if we try.”
Battlespace (The Stars Aflame Book 1) Page 16