Para Bellum

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Helm, take us towards the alien fleet,” he ordered. “Take us right up their blind spot.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sonia said.

  Stephen took a breath. The virus had reacted badly to threats from the rear before - if, of course, the analysts were right. There was a good chance that Invincible - and her remaining sensor decoys - would give the virus one hell of a fright if the ship suddenly appeared behind them, weapons at the ready. It would certainly need a few moments to adapt to the new reality. Stephen didn’t care if it really was one entity or a cluster of minds linked together by a common purpose. Having to rely on radio and laser transmissions would slow it down enough for Admiral Weisskopf’s forces to take the advantage.

  I hope, Stephen thought, as he keyed his console. The data was slowly starting to harden up as the range closed. The time-delay would no longer be a factor by the time they actually engaged the enemy. If they think we’re trying to trick them, again, they’ll ignore us.

  He toyed with the approach vectors for a long moment, trying to find the best option ... but, no matter what he tried, he knew it would be a desperate gamble. The virus would have a chance to retreat - his training rebelled against the thought of deliberately leaving a possible escape vector open - yet if it chose to continue the fight instead ... Stephen had no illusions about the outcome. They’d be too close to the alien battleships to escape. Invincible might win Admiral Weisskopf a few precious moments, but it would come at the cost of her utter destruction. A battleship might survive the maelstrom the virus would unleash long enough to escape; Invincible, despite her armour plating, wouldn’t stand a chance.

  But we may buy the admiral a chance to win the engagement, Stephen thought. It was growing increasingly clear that the two sides were fairly evenly matched. A single shift in the balance of power might be enough to give Admiral Weisskopf a chance to win outright, although it would come at a cost. He could win the battle and yet discover that it costs him so much that we lose the war.

  “Captain,” Arthur said. “We will enter engagement range in seven minutes.”

  Stephen nodded, curtly. The alien fleet was surrounded by so much electronic noise that he found it hard to believe that they’d spot a cloaked ship, even though they’d brought their active sensors online long ago. They’d be watching the combined fleet, he thought; Admiral Weisskopf was spending missiles like water, combining them with starfighter strikes to force the virus to keep its distance. They wouldn’t want a missile to sneak through their defences and slam home, not when it might do real damage. A pair of their fleet carriers already looked as though they’d been through the wars.

  “If we reach Point Alpha without being detected, open fire,” he ordered. “If they see us, open fire without waiting for orders.”

  “Aye, sir,” Arthur said.

  Stephen took a long breath, feeling his heart pounding as the range closed sharply. Invincible was designed to fight as well as merely launch starfighters - she was no fleet carrier, unable to risk exchanging blows with a mere cruiser or destroyer - but she’d never been intended to go toe-to-toe with an entire fleet of battleships. The virus might just decide to scratch an itch rather than concentrate on the combined fleet. Not, he supposed, that it mattered. The virus would have every opportunity to blow Invincible out of space even if it didn’t bother to order its ships to alter course. There was no way to avoid a knife-range engagement now.

  “Entering engagement range in two minutes,” Arthur said. “All weapons are free, ready to fire; targeting sensors locked, ready to fire.”

  “Our remaining starfighters are ready to launch,” Newcomb added. “They’ll do the best they can.”

  “Good,” Stephen said. Seventeen starfighters wouldn’t make that much of a difference, but he’d take what he could get. “Communications, inform Admiral Weisskopf of our presence as soon as we open fire. Dump a complete copy of our logs and sensor records into the fleet datanet.”

  Just in case Captain Shaw doesn’t make it, he thought, grimly. We have to hope that one ship gets home if the fleet is ordered to scatter.

  The display flashed red. “They have us,” Arthur said. “Firing ... now!”

  “Launch all starfighters,” Stephen snapped. Invincible’s mass drivers were already pumping projectiles into the alien rear, aiming them right into the blind spot. They’d have drones to cover the gaps in their sensor network - it was quite likely that one of the drones had spotted their approach - but they’d still have problems deploying counterbattery fire. “And activate the decoys!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Newcomb said. “Starfighters are launching now.”

  Stephen studied the alien formation carefully, watching for signs of disorganisation. Their smaller ships were already altering course, bringing their point defence weapons to bear on the tidal wave of incoming projectiles; the bigger ships, it seemed, weren’t about to allow themselves to be bullied into altering their plans. Stephen hoped they were proceeding on inertia. It would take some time for a human to put together a coherent response to an unexpected threat in the rear, particularly when there was still a major enemy fleet in front of them. Stephen leaned forward, silently willing the virus to take the escape vector. It could break contact at any moment if it wished ...

  “Picking up a signal from Texas,” Morse said. “Admiral Weisskopf is welcoming us to the party. I’m transferring the data dump now.”

  “Good,” Stephen said.

  He gritted his teeth as the battle continued to evolve. The virus wasn’t panicking, damn it. It was carefully redirecting a handful of smaller ships towards Invincible, forcing Stephen to choose between letting them intercept his mass driver projectiles or redirecting his fire to take them out. The virus was being devious, he had to admit. There was no way Stephen could let an enemy starship into knife-range. The bastard might try to ram, destroying both ships in a single tearing explosion.

  “Tactical, engage the smaller ships with our plasma cannons,” Stephen ordered. It was unlikely that any of the alien destroyers carried enough armour to survive such a pounding, certainly not long enough to close with Invincible. “Continue engaging the bigger ships with mass drivers.”

  “Aye, sir,” Arthur said. The display updated again as the plasma cannons opened fire, the first salvo blowing an enemy frigate into vapour. “Engaging ... now.”

  “Good shot,” Stephen said. The virus shouldn’t have been surprised. It had seen Invincible in action before. “Continue firing.”

  “Captain,” Alison said. She sounded shocked, her voice stumbling over the words as if she didn’t believe what she was saying. “I ... Captain, one of those ships is human. It’s Dezhnev!”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Confirm,” Captain Pavel Kaminov ordered. “That is Dezhnev?”

  He ignored the zampolit’s snort as he bent over his console, examining the sensor readings for himself. He’d almost allowed himself to forget his secret orders as the flotilla headed further into enemy space, quietly conceding - at least in the privacy of his own mind - that Dezhnev had been captured and taken to an alien facility somewhere far from the combat zone. It wasn’t as if a human navy would put a captured alien starship in harm’s way. The ship would be taken somewhere secret and carefully dissected until it had revealed all of its secrets.

  But there was no mistake. It was Dezhnev, heading straight towards the tiny flotilla. Pavel had no doubt that the ship was infected. He cursed his superiors and their power games under his breath. Captain Danilovich was a good man - had been a good man - but he hadn’t known what he was facing until it was too late. Mother Russia had made a terrible mistake in ordering Danilovich to open communications with the virus. Pavel didn’t need the GRU’s assessment to know that Danilovich hadn’t managed to destroy his datacores before the ship was overwhelmed. The simple fact that Dezhnev was operating was proof of that.

  “We have our orders,” the zampolit hissed. “Carry them out, Captain.”

  “
I will,” Pavel said, swallowing his anger. His orders were clear. Dezhnev was to be recaptured or unceremoniously destroyed. And yet, he also had orders from Captain Shields to hold position and cover Invincible. It was hard to decide what set of orders had priority. Yuriy Ivanov would not survive long enough to kill Dezhnev if Invincible was blown out of space. “Let them come closer to us.”

  He raised his voice. “Tactical, prepare to target Dezhnev. I want her crippled, then destroyed.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We have our orders,” the zampolit repeated. “Or do you want to be relieved of command?”

  “They’re coming right at us,” Pavel pointed out. The aliens were swinging more and more smaller ships towards the rear, towards Invincible and her three remaining escorts. “There’s no need to break formation when they’re giving us everything we want.”

  He kept his face impassive as the enemy formation took shape. Dezhnev was a mere destroyer, although her designers had crammed a formidable array of weapons into her armoured hull. There was no way she could stand up to Yuriy Ivanov for more than a few seconds. But, with her escorts, she might just be able to survive ... Pavel cursed, once again, as the implications dawned on him. He had to destroy the ship. The British - or the Americans - might try to board her, convinced they were actually helping. Pavel had no illusions about what would happen if the Great Powers discovered the truth. Mother Russia would be shunned for the rest of time.

  “Captain, the enemy formation is opening fire,” the sensor officer said. “They’re targeting the entire flotilla.”

  And forcing us to worry about defending ourselves as well as covering the carrier, Pavel thought. The virus seemed unsure about the ghost fleet - it presumably suspected the truth, even if it didn’t know - but there were enough missiles coming towards the flotilla to give the ships a very hard time. They want to break up our formation.

  “Continue engaging with point defence,” he ordered. “And bring our missiles and main guns to bear on Dezhnev.”

  The thought cost him a pang. It wouldn’t be the first time the Russian Navy had fired on a ship that had fallen into enemy hands, but Dezhnev was no defector. Her captain and crew had followed orders right up until the virus had turned them into host-bodies. They deserved better than to die at Pavel’s hands, although they might consider death a mercy. There was no way to be sure if they were still conscious, still aware of what was happening to them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “Weapons locked, Captain,” the tactical officer said.

  “Fire,” Pavel ordered.

  ***

  “Captain, Yuriy Ivanov has opened fire on Dezhnev,” Alison reported. “The infected ship is altering course.”

  “But still coming towards us,” Stephen said. He’d feared the worst, when it had become clear that Dezhnev was badly overdue, but he’d hoped for the best. It was clear, now, that Dezhnev had been infected. She wouldn’t have been fighting alongside the alien fleet - and against her fellow humans - unless Captain Danilovich was no longer in control. “Engage her with our main guns if she tries to ram us.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Arthur said.

  Stephen gritted his teeth as a dull rumble echoed through his ship. There were so many missiles coming at Invincible that it was inevitable that one or more of them would get through his weakened point defence. The virus didn’t seem inclined to dispatch starfighters to weaken his defences still further - the enemy starfighters were engaging the combined fleet’s starfighters - but it hardly mattered. Alerts flashed up in front of him, confirming that the nuclear strike had taken out a number of point defence nodes. The next salvo would have an easier time of it when they slipped into attack range. His defences were weakening by the minute.

  He watched an alien destroyer explode as it strayed too close to his plasma cannons, its escort firing a salvo of missiles before turning away to close on Daring. The two destroyers converged rapidly, their weapons tearing into each other before the alien ship made a tiny - but significant - course alteration. Stephen reached for his console, knowing that it was already too late. The alien destroyer rammed its human counterpart and both ships vanished from the display.

  Tearing away our point defence, Stephen thought. Daring hadn’t been that formidable, not compared to Invincible, but she’d mounted enough point defence to make it harder for the enemy to strike at the carrier. The virus seemed intent on isolating and then destroying Invincible, even though it was also engaging the combined fleet. Does it think we still haven’t had a chance to tell everyone what we found?

  Another shudder ran through the ship. “Direct hit, Launch Bay Two,” Newcomb reported, grimly. “She’ll need a shipyard before we can launch starfighters from the starboard tubes again.”

  “Understood,” Stephen said. The range to the alien battleships was closing rapidly. They seemed unsure what to do - the virus was moving its ships around, but no clear pattern had emerged - yet there was no way to avoid an engagement. “We’ll worry about it later.”

  He studied the display as more missiles roared towards his ship, followed by the enemy’s lighter units. Dezhnev was hanging back, covered by her new comrades; she seemed more intent on taunting Yuriy Ivanov than taking the offensive. Stephen wondered what the aliens were thinking as their ships altered course again, holding the range open. There was nothing to be gained by trying to force Invincible to engage them with plasma cannons. It wasn’t as if they could run out of plasma!

  Unless we lose power, Stephen thought. But if that happened, we’d be dead anyway.

  The enemy formation lurched, suddenly. Stephen watched as the alien battleships and fleet carriers altered course, slipping onto the escape vector. The combined fleet didn't hesitate to give chase, firing wave after wave of missiles even as the alien starfighters reversed course and raced back to their motherships. Stephen allowed himself a moment of relief, even as the damage continued to mount. His ship would still pass within engagement range of the alien battleships, and she might well be destroyed before she could escape, but the virus had conceded the field. The attack on Falkirk had failed. Stephen had no doubt that the virus would gather reinforcements and try again, but for now the system was safe. Admiral Weisskopf would have plenty of time to repair and rearm his ships before the next engagement began.

  “The flag is sending us orders, sir,” Morse said. “We’re to break off.”

  “Which may be tricky,” Stephen said. Invincible had lost too many drive nodes. She couldn’t hope to avoid engagement by altering course. “Inform them that we will endeavour to do our best.”

  He felt his heart sink as the smaller alien ships turned once again, heading straight towards Invincible. The matter was about to become academic. The plasma weapons opened fire, blasting two of the alien ships out of space as the range started to close once again, but the remainder of the ships kept coming. Stephen knew, with a cold certainty that chilled him to the bone, that they intended to ram. It would be a poor trade, for him. The virus could replace all the lighter ships well before the Royal Navy could replace Invincible.

  “Continue firing,” he ordered. He opened his mouth to order his crew to abandon ship, then closed it again. The stream of updates from the combined fleet had made it clear that the virus was targeting lifepods. “Try to disable their drives.”

  “Aye, sir,” Arthur said.

  Invincible shook, violently. Stephen felt the gravity field flicker, just for a second, as the compensators fought to keep the sudden shift from turning the crew into jelly. The alerts started to blur into a constant liturgy of disaster; two more drive nodes gone, point defence weapons knocked out, a datacore isolated from the datanet, a series of hull breaches that were venting atmosphere into space ... it was only a matter of time before Invincible was destroyed. He wondered, morbidly, what the Admiralty would say. Had he lived and died in the finest traditions of the Royal Navy? Or had he made a series of tactical errors which had eventually resulted in the destructi
on of his ship?

  “Damage report, all sectors,” Newcomb said. “The drive field is failing.”

  “Understood,” Stephen said. They’d be a sitting duck, once the drive field was gone. “Tell engineering ...”

  “They’re closing to ram,” Alison said.

  “Main power is failing,” Arthur said. “Plasma containment chambers are going offline!”

  “Reroute emergency power to the plasma cannons,” Stephen ordered. It might buy them a few more minutes of life. “And don’t let them get close to us!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Arthur said.

  But Stephen knew, all too well, that it was an order his crew wouldn’t be able to carry out.

  He watched, grimly, as the enemy fleet approached. Admiral Weisskopf had dispatched two wings of starfighters to cover Invincible, but it was starting to look as if they weren’t going to be able to get there in time to make a difference. His remaining starfighters were harrying the alien ships as best as they could, yet it wasn’t enough. He closed his eyes for a long moment, fighting down the urge to just give up. They’d done well - he knew they’d done well - but it wasn’t enough.