Only the Landrys had been conscripted into the Navy. The rest of the crew were still civilians serving on contracts. Technically that exempted them from Hines’ authority. But Tets responded with a muttered, “Yes, sir” and the conversation moved on.
The waiting ended when twenty-two Censorial cruisers arrived in formation. They closed on the Rift. The waiting lighter ships formed up on their flanks.
They’d been seen early enough that everyone had a half hour’s warning before the shooting began. Marcus stood ready with his crew. Hines bitched about his sleep shift being interrupted.
The Fierans fired six salvos before the enemy returned fire. Marcus wondered if they were low on ammo or they’d decided there was no chance of a missile penetrating the Fieran defenses.
The squadron had enough defensive firepower Marcus had reprogrammed the interceptor guns. They’d wasted ammo in the first battle firing at missiles that were destroyed by other ships. Now they focused on ones directly ahead or close enough they’d survived the first attempts.
Spacer Sokol asked, “Sir, why aren’t we using those?” He pointed to the countermeasures dispenser.
“Those generate a disruption field,” said Marcus. “They’d affect our own missiles going out.”
“Oh. So they’re just for when we’re running away?”
“Yep.” He’d toss the thing overboard if he needed space for more missiles, but they hadn’t gotten enough ammo to fill the hold.
They fell into the tedious routine of loading and firing. The Censorials didn’t force their way into the rift. They just hung outside the opening, their formation a neat plane matching the shape of the defenders.
Both sides were concentrating on each other’s heavy cruisers, in the center of their formations. The missiles the Fierans fired made visible disks as each salvo stirred the aether in their wake. As the disk closed on the enemy it always exploded into smoke and flashes as the Censorate counter-missiles struck them.
Marcus checked the firing orders for updates. “Intel says we wrecked one of them, boys,” he said. The spacers tried to cheer but they hardly had the breath for it. They’d fired over a hundred missiles so far, each heavy cylinder loaded into the launcher by hand.
In a lull between salvos Marcus put his head out the hatch to look at their own formation. The Censorate missiles were fired by squadron, not making neat patterns, sometimes intercepted well out from the Fieran cruisers, some making flashes close by the ships. He hoped they were hurting the enemy worse than they were taking themselves, but he knew that wouldn’t be broadcast.
Hours went by. More missile pallets were emptied and tossed aside. Marcus didn’t see much effect on either side. The task force commander shifted some ships around to cover for damaged ones. The enemy seemed to do some similar maneuvering.
New orders popped up with the ‘URGENT’ ding. Marcus felt a chill as he read them.
‘ALL SHIPS FALL BACK TO FIERA RALLY POINT. ENEMY HAS PENETRATED ANOTHER RIFT. MOVEMENT ORDER: AUXILIARIES LEFT, AUXILIARIES RIGHT, SRN 2ND LIGHT 3RD HEAVY 1ST LIGHT, LOMBARDIA COHORT IV COHORT VIII COHORT XII, COHORT II, LUNTO.’
“Load two jammers,” he ordered. Then he ordered the countermeasures dispenser to fire some delayed activation units.
Once they were in motion he reported to the bridge. An argument was in progress on their course.
“The commodore is taking us through the hot mists,” complained Soon “That’s going to stress life support and take longer.”
A star’s energy leaked into hyperspace, making the aether in the equivalent volume glow. Ships passing through risked overheating as the star’s radiance added to the heat produced on board.
Soon sketched a course on her display. “If we jump back to normal space at the crossover radius, we can dogleg around Surtr, jump back to hyperspace, and reach the rally point four hours sooner.”
The ratio between distances in normal and hyperspace varied by the gravitational stress. In interstellar space a kilometer in hyperspace equaled tens of million in normal space. In some places it was a billion to one. Close to a star hyperspace distances could be five or ten times the normal space equivalent. The ‘crossover radius’ where they were equal was a sphere around the star. It was sunward of Fiera, making it easy to reach the planet in hyperspace.
“Get me hard numbers on both courses and I’ll argue it with the commodore,” said Captain Landry.
“If we’re jumping back to normal I’ll have to clear the aether out of the hold,” said Marcus.
“You can open the hatch as soon as we’ve jumped,” answered the captain.
Soon’s final course transitioned to normal space before the crossover point. That let them accelerate in vacuum instead of being slowed by aether drag.
Her numbers convinced the commodore. The auxiliaries shifted course.
The gunnery crew had half an hour of rest before they had to go back to the hold. Marcus chewed a ration bar while giving himself a sponge bath. Then he climbed back into his sweaty pressure suit.
All the spacers were in place before the jump to normal space. When the warning announcement sounded Marcus reminded everyone to take an anti-nausea pill if they needed it.
Marcus knew they’d jumped when he heard the song. Ethereal voices rang in his head. He tried to make out the words but as always they vanished as the transition completed. He shook his head to clear it.
The spacers were still recovering from jump shock. A couple were twitching. One clung to handhold as if afraid he’d fall. Hines was rigid.
Marcus pressed the hatch open button. The aether filling the hold tugged at him as it blew into the vacuum. When all but a trace had rushed out he grabbed one of the blow tanks.
They were simple gadgets: a tank of compressed air and a hose to aim it with. He began blowing on the back of everyone’s pressure suit. Bits of aether flew off.
As the spacers recovered they grabbed blow tanks and set to work. The launchers, missile pallets, interceptors, and other equipment needed to be cleaned before the aether broke down in the stress of normal space. Marcus didn’t worry about aether on the structural components. Scorched paint on the deck and bulkheads told of where aether had sublimated after previous jumps.
Once the hold was secure Marcus sent the crew to bed. They’d need the rest. He expected the next battle to last until the war was over.
***
Governor Yeager watched the displays as the flagship advanced through the now-empty rift. The aether mists glittered with debris: fragments of missiles and counter-missiles, bits of wrecked ships, and a Censorate cockboat recovering barbarian survivors.
Admiral Pinoy said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shoal pattern like that before.”
Yeager looked at the screen again. The shoals did look different. Instead of a solid color or stripes there were overlapping circles of pink and green and purple.
“Look, the patterns match on each side.” Pinoy pointed to a trio of circles with identical colors on opposite sides of the rift. “This must have been a solid shoal before it split open.”
“How interesting,” said the governor. He thought the admiral should be focused on the next battle but he’d picked enough fights with his nominal subordinate for this week.
Pinoy continued, “When this system is pacified I’m going to request the Astrography Institute set up a research center here. There’s so much we don’t know about how hyperspace works. An odd structure like this might let them make a breakthrough.”
What scientists needed for a breakthrough was to build on previous generations’ work instead of erasing everything that couldn’t be turned into a depersonalized equation. But Yeager didn’t say that. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking that. Stability was more important than scientific progress, after all.
“Sir! Vice Admiral Zahm reports he’s under attack!”
The officer sounded shocked. Yeager was too. Zahm commanded the carrier squadron. They were following behind the battleships in t
he safest place in the fleet.
Yeager looked at the external display to try to catch a glimpse of the enemy. As he watched a Fieran cruiser jumped into hyperspace. It was close enough he could see the bubble of vacuum around it collapse as the aether pressed in. Then the ship blew apart as the flagship’s laser cannon fired at point blank range.
“Order the rear security squadron to close on the carriers at top speed,” snapped Admiral Pinoy. “All battleships turn about, make their best speed.”
A brief flurry of activity relayed these orders. Then the only announcements were damage reports from the carriers.
“Unstoppable has fire on board.”
“Vicious reports most fighters damaged in launch tubes.”
“Inspired has lost propulsion.”
“No signal from Binding.”
Yeager wondered how bad a blow this was. He didn’t dare ask while Pinoy was putting on his calm face. He’d have to wait for a report. One advantage of standing with the admiral was that he’d hear all reports with him.
“Now we know why this rift was so weakly defended,” muttered Pinoy.
Yeager turned to face him. “You think this was planned?”
“Of course it was planned. The ships here fell back with minimal casualties. They didn’t even leave any mines. We went through and called over all our other units. The ambush force probably went into normal space before we assaulted the rift. They have scouts all over. One estimated when the carriers would pass through and sent the message through normal space. And we came along right on schedule.”
“That seems . . . complicated. Didn’t you say plans should be kept simple?”
Pinoy chuckled. “We need simple plans because our captains are only experienced in bombarding helpless planets. These barbarians know how to wage war.”
An officer reported, “Sir, the enemy ships are transitioning back to normal space. Should we pursue them?”
Pinoy paused before replying. “Commander, how good is our survey of normal space in this volume?”
“We don’t have any survey data, sir.”
“Then we’d best not send any ships there.”
The officer flushed and moved off.
With combat over the warships moved in to assist the damaged carriers. They’d all survived but the ambush had crippled most of them. Their fighter complements, sitting in exposed launch cells, were devastated. The damage reports went by in a flurry of jargon. Once the staff officers finished Yeager asked, “What does this mean for our mission?”
“Hopefully, not much,” said Admiral Pinoy. “The carriers were loaded with vacuum-optimized fighters. The scouts report the barbarians are massing for a battle here in hyperspace. If we can crush them there, losing the carriers won’t matter.”
“And if they retreat to normal space?”
“Then we will miss the fighter wings quite a bit.”
***
The jump back to hyperspace woke Marcus with singing in his head. He was barely out of his bunk when the PA sounded.
“All hands, Fleet orders are to stay at normal readiness. The Censorials haven’t all come through the rift yet. We’ll have at least two hours’ warning when they attack.”
Back to sleep? No. Marcus felt rested enough. He deployed the shower sack in the corner of his cabin. He wanted to be clean.
After getting dressed he checked on his crew. Hines was supervising the spacers through various personal maintenance. Marcus pulled his pressure suit out of the locker and disassembled it on the galley floor. It was due for maintenance after all the time he’d spent in it. More urgently, he wanted to clean all the sweat out of it so he could use his sense of smell again.
They had to suit up on less than two hours’ notice. A freighter had missile resupply pallets. That was worth giving up some cleaning time. The scent of lemon soap said he’d missed some spots on the rinse but that was an improvement.
That ship’s supercargo wasn’t as helpful as SRN Station Seven’s quartermaster. “I’m sure you do want them, buddy. But you’re getting ten pallets, same as everyone else.”
“Our firing rate is a third faster than the other auxiliaries’,” countered Marcus. “That’s why we’re using more ammo.”
“Fleet Logistics said ten per auxiliary. You want more, take it up with them.”
“Fine. Have any armor piercing?”
“Yeah, you can have AP.”
The battle in the rift hadn’t lasted long enough to use all their ammo. The oddball pallets were still full or close to it. Marcus looked at the pallet of ‘antifighter cluster’ missiles. They might be worth firing at enemy warships once their outer armor was blasted off.
Once resupplied Azure Tarn formed up with the other auxiliaries. The fleet was in a disk formation facing the reported Censorial position. Converted freighters and other light units were on the edge of the disk with the real warships in the center. Admiral Royce put the fleet through exercises to change the formation.
First the edge units moved forward, creating a smaller version of the dome they’d used at the tunnel. Then they fell back in a reversed dome, protecting the fleet if the Censorials spread out to outflank them.
Marcus’ textbook said the perfect defensive formation was to form the fleet into a sphere. They didn’t practice that. If the Censorials had enough ships to completely surround the fleet they were doomed anyway.
More exercises kept the fleet as a disk while turning as a unit. Admiral Royce complained about the sluggishness of the maneuvers. Marcus thought as long as they could pivot faster than the Censorials could move to a different approach vector it would be good enough.
After eight hours Royce declared a stand down. All ships were to be ready to go into action at an hour’s notice. Other than that the next twelve hours were to be for rest.
The gunnery crew had spent the maneuvers in the hold doing maintenance on the missile launchers and other gear. In practice that was the spacers taking things apart, Hines telling them what to do, and Marcus following along in the operator manual.
Everything met the specifications. Hines replaced some parts with visible wear just in case.
Once the weapons were done Marcus took charge of the crew. They learned how to lubricate the cargo hold hatch’s hinges, check the crane track for wear, and inspect the hold-downs scattered over the deck.
Then they could join the rest of the crew in rest.
***
Governor Yeager walked into his private office. Admiral Pinoy obediently followed him. As soon as the door closed Yeager wheeled around. “What the blazes are you waiting for?”
The admiral didn’t flinch from the volume of the question, almost a shout. “Repairs, mostly. Plus a few squadrons are still rejoining us from assaults on the more distant rifts.”
“Repairs. I’ve looked at the engineering reports. Those ships won’t be operational without a visit to a shipyard.”
“I don’t want them combat effective. I need them moving fast enough to stay with the fleet. If we leave them behind the barbarians could send a detachment to attack them. We could lose thousands, tens of thousands of men if we leave them unprotected.”
“That’s—” Yeager ground his teeth. “We are running out of time. There are only days left on the Monitor’s commission!”
That shout used up the governor’s energy. His shoulders sagged. He sat in one of the visitor chairs.
Admiral Pinoy took another without asking permission. He leaned forward. “Sir. I’m aware of the time limit. But that only transfers command. To, if I may be frank, keep you from abusing your authority for your own benefit. My orders are flexible enough to let me continue the assault if I judge it in the interest of the Censor. These barbarians have already killed over a thousand of our spacers. Intelligence’s simulations predict we’ll lose more in the final battle. I intend to punish them for that, whether I am your subordinate or an independent commander.”
There was no response.
“Your e
xcellency, I promise, you will look upon Fiera as the leader of this expedition. I can’t promise they’ll have surrendered by then but I will do my best to force them to.”
Yeager lifted his head. “Thank you, admiral.”
***
Two more days of exercises followed. Freighters arrived with more ammo and took away empty pallets. Marcus counted the stacked pallets in the hold with relief. He eyed the countermeasures dispenser but decided to keep it. With the exercises moving them back and forth through the same volume tossing something overboard could result in a collision.
Welly’s gossip said the Censorials were just sitting still and Intelligence didn’t have a clue why. Three cruisers had arrived from the shipyards, unpainted and with construction workers filling out their crews. Marcus hoped they had pressure suits.
When the order to stand ready came it was a relief. Marcus floated behind his launcher watching for the approaching enemy. The aether here had a purple tinge, not enough to obscure the view of their own fleet, but the shoals around Surtr were hidden.
The missile launcher display flashed with an incoming order.
‘TO ALL SHIPS FROM COMMANDING ADMIRAL ROYCE.
‘THE ENEMY IS BEING SIMPLE. THEY’RE IN A DISK FORMATION MATCHING OURS. THIS WILL BE AN ATTRITION BATTLE.
‘REGULARS, FOLLOW THE ORDERS OF YOUR SQUADRON COMMANDERS.
‘AUXILIARIES, PICK A TARGET YOU CAN HIT. FIRE ALL YOUR AMMO. THEN JUMP TO NORMAL SPACE. FIND A SUPPLY SHIP. WAIT FOR FURTHER ORDERS.
‘SPACERS, WE ARE A FREE PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR OUR HOMES. GOD AND JUSTICE ARE WITH US. ROYCE OUT.’
Marcus shared the last two paragraphs with his crew. Then he thought about the orders. He’d been constrained in using the special missiles by the coordinated firing plans and the need to avoid fratricide. Now he could make his own plans.
The display received an intelligence report before Marcus could see the enemy. A Censorial destroyer was on the right edge of their formation, just as Azure Tarn was. He began programming attack sequences into the launcher.
Between Home and Ruin (Fall of the Censor Book 2) Page 19