The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set

by Owen R O'Neill

  “Interesting.” The coffee pot beeped and Buthelezi clicked it off with the remote.

  “And she wants to move the T-0 ahead by an hour and ten minutes—just for her group. The corvettes and Brunner go as planned. And she’s asking for torpedoes.”

  “Torpedoes?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Loadout of two each for Cadets Basmartin and Tanner.” Lieutenant Innis looked at her boss with a pinched expression. “You don’t think she found out somehow, do you?”

  Naomi Buthelezi stood slowly, looking one last time at the xel as she reached for the coffee pot. Filling a waiting cup, she answered, “I don’t see how she could. Red Team hasn’t even submitted their plan yet. Would you like some coffee, Kath?”

  “Yes, please, ma’am—thank you.” Buthelezi filled a second cup, handed it across. Innis added a healthy splash of cream—a venial sin common in the shore establishment. “What do we do, ma’am?”

  Buthelezi raised her own cup—thick, rich, steaming and utterly black—and sipped. “Approve it. I really want to see what she has in mind.”

  * * *

  Before entering the Academy, Kris had taken eight weeks of flight lessons on Nedaema. True, those lessons had involved a harrowing and near-fatal encounter with a hypersonic stealth drone, but in retrospect that only added something to the savor. The main thing was that they—and especially the drone attack she’d barely survived—gave her a perspective on Academy flight simulators that few cadets had. The weightless aspect of the simulators was perfect because it wasn’t simulated at all: the simulators were in the zero-gee environment of Deimos’ interior. The discomforts of the armored flight suits weren’t simulated either, and on long missions these were significant, especially for female cadets who had to deal with the rather more intricate plumbing arrangements.

  Where the flight simulators fell short was in the gee forces of maneuvering: the cockpit motion, augmented by neural induction, produced sensations that did not exceed 3 gees and Kris, who’d pulled a 78-gee actual, 9-gee damped maneuver at near-hypersonic velocity to evade that drone, thought this limitation was just plain silly. The cadets who made it to Basic Flight were in for a hell of a surprise if they thought the simulators prepared you in any way for high-gee maneuvering.

  They would, Kris thought, be much better prepared for cramped, uncomfortable boredom. A five-hour approach looked great on the omnisynth, but now, two-hundred-eighty minutes into it with the sweat the flight suits never completely handled itching, the cramps that had been torturing her left leg for half an hour and the gathering tension in her shoulders and lower back beginning to sting, she was feeling she might have been too clever by half.

  The jump had gone perfectly. She’d been worried because the only convolution she had was an optimum, and an optimum convolution was not physically possible, although you could get very close. But she was afraid the sim-software would reject it and insist on a real, fully-developed convolution. It did not, however, taking her convolution, digesting it as happily as a real input and dropping them into Lacaille space just where she wanted to be. The glow of that small victory lasted for about half an hour before it began to pall.

  They were flying in on a pure ballistic to reduce their signatures to a minimum; fire-control off, no shields, and only Basmartin had sensors running and then only his passive suite. Their trajectory was intended to bring them in behind where Kris had concluded the Red Team’s frigate would be, if they had one, at a range just inside their torpedoes’ engagement envelope. The problem was this: would the frigate be there? Kris had based her whole plan on the assumption that they were being boggarted and that’s all it was—an assumption. If they weren’t—if this was a straight-up exercise—she’d split her force in the presence of a superior enemy and both her little group and Minx’s were going to end up 86’d, or as the other cadets said, deep in the hurt locker.

  She locked on to Basmartin, one minute up ahead, with her tight-beam maser. “Got anything, Baz?”

  “Negative.”

  “Not even shield glow?” It was an unnecessary question, even an unfair one—Basmartin was running sensors because he was far better at it than anyone else in their group. He certainly didn’t need to be told to check for the radiation that bled from active shields, and if she hadn’t been so nervous and irritated, she never would have asked it. Basmartin knew all that and made no attempt to keep the annoyance out of his voice as he repeated, “Negative.”

  “You think they’re really there, Kris?” This was Tanner on the link. “If they aren’t, or if Minx doesn’t come in on time or—”

  “Tanner, cut the yak,” Kris snapped. But in truth, Tanner’s question was only slightly more gratuitous than hers to Basmartin. There were, in fact, a hundred things that could go wrong with her plan. She’d blocked the time window out for Minx, but if she didn’t get there before Red Team recovered from the surprise of Kris’s attack, they were ions. If Minx didn’t keep the formation she’d been given—jammed tight around the corvettes so Red Team couldn’t get a decent read on her numbers—they were ions. If that goddamned frigate was not where she thought it was—if they were busy sneaking up on empty space—they were ions. And the last thing she needed right now was someone reminding her about it. She beamed Basmartin. “Still nothing?”

  “Not in the last ninety seconds, Kris.”

  Damn.

  “Kris?” Basmartin again, in a different tone. “You think they could be running shields down?”

  Irritated, Kris scowled. “Shields down? That wouldn’t make any . . .” Oh, yes, it would. If they wanted to lie dark and cold to ambush her, it would make sense. If she smoked them early, coming in on the expected trajectory, according to the scenario, she could still get out. She’d lose, but they wouldn’t get any kills, either. If they had the frigate lie up dark and then come down on a cold ballistic while she was engaged with the fighters, they could bag the lot—she wouldn’t detect the frigate until it was almost in weapons range, far too late to disengage.

  She checked her numbers again on the fighter’s T-Synth. If Minx and the corvettes were on schedule, they would be in sensor range in about fifteen minutes; if the fighters were where she’d estimated them to be, they’d engage in twenty-five minutes. If the frigate was where she thought it would be, it would move to engage in about fifteen minutes and she’d be in torpedo range in about eleven minutes. If—if—if. Damn—damn—damn . . .

  A fretful silent minute went by—and another. Why hadn’t Baz detected something by now? At this range, he should be getting a drive signature off the frigate, even if its shields were down. Could they be shielding their drive emissions somehow? That shouldn’t be possible, especially on this approach, unless they were stealth ships, in which case . . . I’m gonna kick somebody in the crotch. They wouldn’t—wouldn’t—sneak stealth ships into the scenario. Would they?

  “Kris?” Basmartin interrupted her agitated thoughts. “Got something here. Emission signature—it’s a frigate.” About fuckin’ time! “Almost 6-dB down, though—wait one . . . Shit!” Very strong language from Ferhat Basmartin. Kris’s heart fluttered. “Not a frigate. What the hell? That’s a destroyer signature. But I could’ve sworn . . .”

  “Link it,” Kris said. The data flowed across into her T-Synth, which ran it against the library and spat out its conclusion: an old Halith Kurgan-class destroyer. Well goddammit. They cut loose the destroyer anyway. “Baz . . .”

  “Hold on”—she could hear him muttering to himself—“Oh Christ. I did see a frigate, Kris. I got two signatures now. A frigate and that Kurgan out there.”

  “Oh, we are so boggarted,” Tanner interjected.

  Kris did not bother to shut him up this time. A destroyer and a frigate? That was almost as bad as turning loose a sheath ship on them. She put the new data into the T-Synth as her blood started to come to a slow boil. Somebody was gonna pay for this shit and it was not just going to be her. The T-Synth popped up with its new results.

 
“Baz, why are the emissions so far down? Do you have good range?”

  “Not that good—but they are about where they’re supposed to be. Hang on a second. . .” Kris hung on, quietly seething. “Kris? I think they’re in 10-Minute Ready mode.”

  “You sure? They’re not in hot-standby?”

  “I don’t think so—look at those peaks: the main peak is normal but the secondaries are shifted. If they were in hot—”

  “Baz! We’re not in lecture!”

  “Yeah—right. Sorry.”

  “Nothing on SWIR yet?” Shortwave infrared readings of the power plant’s heat blooms would definitely tell them what mode the ships were in.

  “No joy—still too far out to resolve.” Dammit. If the ships really were in 10-Minute Ready mode, they were sitting ducks. They would need to get their drives into hot-standby before they could bring up shields. She had four torps: plenty to handle a frigate—but a frigate and a destroyer were two entirely different things. But if they were just sitting there. . .

  “Anybody else just wanna call it a day?”

  “Shut up, Tanner.” They said it almost together and Kris grinned.

  “Okay, Baz—Tanner. I’m linking you new numbers. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Those tin cans there are sitting ducks until they get their drives hot. Baz, you and I are gonna take the frigate. Tanner, you get the Kurgan—”

  “Huh? Just me?”

  “We’re gonna go in ahead and screen you. When we get to the 14-meg ring, you lock both torps on the Kurgan and hold position. Baz and I boost in. You wait until we hit the 8-meg ring and then you launch and boost like hell for L3. Baz, you lock that frigate and launch one torp at 5 megs range—save the other for the next round. And keep your missiles for the fighters.”

  “What next round?”

  “Any next round, dammit!” Her tone shut them up for the moment. “I’m going to burn in and hit them with all the gun I can. With cold drives they won’t be able to get energy mounts on us, but expect a lot of missiles. So look sharp. See you at L3.”

  “Oh, this sounds like fun. . .” Tanner must have thought his mike was off.

  “Okay, people—three minutes. Get hot.” And, Minx, you little twit, don’t you dare be late. . .

  Kris watched the range rings run off the display one by one. She still didn’t have the range down as well as she would have liked, but there was no time to worry about that now. The back of her neck itched and she flexed her hands around the stick.

  “Baz, as we go in, light up that Kurgan with all the plasma you’ve got.”

  “Plasma guns won’t do anything to a destroyer, Kris.”

  “It might keep ‘em from seeing Tanner’s torps until it’s too late. We need two hits on that Kurgan to take it out. If their point defense gets both, we’re shit outta luck.”

  “Okay, Kris.” The 14-meg ring was coming up. Coming up—creeping towards the edge, crossing now. . . “Tanner? You got tone?” Five seconds—ten. . .

  “I got tone!”

  “Baz, you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Keep it close. Here we go. . .” The throttle jammed forward; the gentle push back in the seat;. her HUD coming alive with data as she brought all her sensors online—no point in stealth now—arcs, ranges, envelopes flashing out in red, orange, bright yellow. Her fire control engaging, the pip locking on; range rings flying now; Basmartin a comforting blue triangle just off her port wing spar. Fifty seconds to launch range, forty, thirty—activity in the destroyer up ahead; its sensors were up, going active, sweeping; her ESM clamoring that they’d been detected—Yes, I know that—fifteen seconds to launch.

  “Baz, dump chaff and weave!” Chaff blooming around them as she dumped two packets, Baz dumping a third. No lock warning—no missiles out yet. The frigate slow in responding to the danger, its fire control just now online. Priming spikes as the frigate and destroyer woke their drives—

  Too late, you sonsabitches, too fuckin’ late!

  “Tanner?”

  “Launch! Two torps away!”

  “Baz, paint ‘em hard!” She squeezed the trigger of her plasma cannon, a line of bright violet coruscations that burst into white incandescence when their mag-jars timed out, playing across the frigate’s engine cluster at extreme range; Baz taking the destroyer under fire; their guns heating up; the indicators running towards the red; Tanner’s torpedoes burning in. The 5-meg ring approaching. . . “Baz. . .”

  “I got tone!” Wait, wait. . . “Torp away!” His torpedo arcing through her display.

  Lock warnings chimed in her ears. “Suck it in, Baz! Here they come—”

  A volley of missiles from the destroyer, orange fans arcing out and curving towards them. She purled off two decoys, activated her ECM, and kept her eyes fixed on the three torpedoes. They were running true. Had they seen them yet?

  “No shields yet”—Baz’s voice was loud and startling—“I think we caught ‘em with their knickers low!”

  “Break now, Baz!” He broke high and right, ECM screaming and spraying chaff with abandon as the destroyer’s missiles came on. The salvo hunted, some losing lock, some detonating on the decoys, their anti-missile chain guns engaged some more. The rest bore in. There was a flash and a short, sharp shock as one detonated against her forward shield; the shield took it, the indicator dipped into the yellow and she pulled hard left and down as another burned in. It flashed past, encountered a chaff cloud and detonated behind her. She rolled up just in time to watch the destroyer’s point defense take down one torpedo.

  The second one ran in. She saw the destroyer trying to turn keel up with thrusters only. The torpedo struck forward, a glancing blow against the belt armor—Kris saw a plume of debris and gas from a hull breach, serious but not disabling. She boosted in hard, juked a missile, came down on the destroyer’s port-aft quarter and opened up on a drive node, hammering it savagely with her neutron guns until she saw molten slag explode as the node ruptured. She broke off, dancing under the ship, shaving the keel, and boosted away for L3 past the frigate tumbling in a cloud of wreckage, a great gash open amidships. She must have turned into the torpedo trying to bring her weapons to bear and been struck square on. Her fusion bottle was in emergency shutdown and her people were frantically running stringers along the ruptured hull.

  Kris resisted the urge to make a pass—a few bursts of neutron fire into that breach or even a couple of the six missiles she was hoarding would have been devastating—but the frigate was out of the fight and it would bring her under the guns of the destroyer, closing up now with its battered consort. Nor, she reflected through the adrenaline singing loud in her veins, would the referees think highly of her firing deliberately into a crew busy trying to save their disabled ship. Willing her heart to calm, she headed for L3.

  Bringing her fighter into formation three minutes, ten seconds later, Kris hailed her wingmates.

  “Tanner?”

  “All good here, Kris.”

  “Baz?”

  “Got some sunburn here; forward shield is toast.” He’d taken two hits on the way out that had taken off part of a wing spar, and one near-miss that had scorched a patch down his starboard side, but he still had a torpedo and all his missiles. “Not bad considering. You?”

  Kris had timed her escape a shade too nicely: the destroyer had gotten off another missile launch—smaller than the first—but it had still cost her her aft shield. The burn-through had taken out her long-range radar and her port drive node was down to eighty-five percent. “I’m okay. Got a little singed back there. Nothing real serious. Where’s Minx?”

  “Doing what she’s supposed to, looks like,” Baz told her. “Have you seen this?”

  “LRR is hash—show me.” He linked over some data. “I think they think we’re something we’re not,” he said as the data came up on her display. The squadron covering the packet was breaking from Lacaille orbit and headed their way—all of them. Sixteen fighters, twelve minutes out—ma
ybe thirteen. “What are they leaving down there?”

  “Just a corvette and one LMAC.” Without the fighters, Minx could easily deal with a single corvette and one sluggish attack craft, but not if that Kurgan came down—and as soon as Minx and the corvettes got in range she would come down, no matter how the frigate or the fighters were doing. Already she was edging away on thrusters, and while the attack had disrupted her getting underway, she was now only five minutes or so from boost.

  “We gotta go back in.”

  “You wanna take on that destroyer again?” Tanner obviously thought once was all honor demanded. “She has shields up now,” he added.

  “You want to wait until she has drives up and comes after us with that fighter squadron?”

  “No. But we can blitz out now, hail Minx, get the hell outta here. Call it a tie.” From the scoring point of view, he had a point. Playing a game, it made perfect sense. Kris ground her teeth together. “I’m not going home with missiles under my wing.” A pause while she watched the destroyer’s progress and the fighter squadron coming up. “And I’m not wasting that goddamned torp.”

  “Kris,” Baz now, using his voice of sweet reason. “One torp will be wasted on her shields.”

  “They’re probably not a hundred percent. I bet if we hit her with all our missiles at once and then the torp, we get burn-through.” Silence. “Come on, guys—let’s go home winners or not at all.”

  “Alright,” Baz replied first. “Just to see the look on their faces.”

  “Okay,” Tanner agreed. “This is fucking nuts but let’s do it.” And then sotto voce: “Before she thinks up something else . . .”

  * * *

  If Kris had ever been more exhausted, she couldn’t recall it. She pulled herself out of the simulator and hung by the hatch, grateful for the zero gravity, not at all sure she could have stood had it been gee-normal. Basmartin and Tanner were there to greet her, Baz looking more ebullient and energetic than he had any right to be.

  “We did it! I don’t believe it!”

  They had done it—and he would have been well within his rights not to believe it. Coming down spar-tip to spar-tip, Tanner on point, Kris on flank, and Baz in the slot where their shields could cover him, they’d survived the destroyer’s last baggage of missiles—thanks in part to the clutter of the previous attack—and launched their own at point-blank range; watched the destroyer’s point defense take down five as they broke away; seen the rest strike the aft shield almost as one; and seen the shield shiver and collapse and Baz’s torpedo go home into its engine cluster. The destroyer’s fusion bottle went critical and exploded forty seconds later—ten seconds sooner and they might not have survived it—and the explosion having the most decided effect on the Red Squadron that was flying to intercept them.