Rumors of War

by Jake Elwood

  The siren blared once more, and Tom made a mental note to suggest to the Admiralty that they tone down the alarm. It was another laser scorch with no significant damage. He didn't need to almost jump out of his skin every time it happened.

  Onda turned to look at Tom. "We've got a message from Captain Mayberry." Tom nodded, and Onda said, "He's about to start his engines. He'll still need a couple of minutes before he can take off, though."

  I hope he bloody hurries. The sooner he gets out of here, the sooner we can turn tail and run.

  Tom knew when the freighter fired its engines. He knew because O'Reilly turned in his seat and said, "The bogey just changed direction."

  Tom checked his own console and suppressed a curse. The cruiser's course change was slight – less than fifteen degrees – but her new destination was clear.

  She was heading straight for Sunshine.

  "Intercept course," Tom barked. "Get us in her path."

  O'Reilly nodded, and the stars slid past as the Kestrel moved sideways. They didn't have to go far to place themselves back in the path of the cruiser.

  "Franco. Another smart missile. Fire as soon as you're ready." He looked at O'Reilly. "Slow our retreat. Let them close to forty K." The missile wouldn't get through, but it would remind the cruiser that they were up against a warship. He had to keep them focused on the Kestrel.

  "Range is-" O'Reilly paused as another siren blast drowned him out. "Range is forty K." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the siren sounded again.

  "That one got through," Harris said. "Hull breach on Deck One forward." After a moment he added, "Repair crews are on it."

  "What's the bogey doing?" Tom said. Besides shooting us full of holes.

  "They're …" O'Reilly leaned over his console, then looked up. "They're pretty much ignoring us." He grimaced. "Oh, they're doing the standard evasion. But they're not slowing down."

  "Get me an update from Mayberry."

  Onda murmured into a microphone, then said, "He says he needs ten more minutes."

  Tom's calm nod required a massive effort of will. By the time the freighter took off, the cruiser would be on top of it. There was nothing else for it.

  "O'Reilly. We're done retreating."

  Chapter 28

  There was no sense of deceleration as the Kestrel slowed. Tom caught his first glimpse of the other ship, though, a glittering point of light that could have been a star except for the way it wobbled. A moment later he lost it among the stars.

  "We're quicker than they are," he said. "It's our one advantage, and we can make the most of it at close range." It wasn't the most convincing claim, but if it gave the crew hope …

  A series of metallic pings echoed through the bridge, making Tom flinch. A line of faint marks appeared on the window, running from the bottom starboard to the top center. Tom rose from his seat and walked forward, peering at the window.

  Each mark was a tiny pit in the glass.

  "They've got guns," he said. The cruiser was even better armed than he'd thought, and it scared him. He kept his voice light, though. "Doesn't look like they amount to much." He returned to his chair and sat, doing his best to look casual.

  "We're getting our own licks in, too, Sir," Harris said. "I'm sure we've hit them half a dozen times." His bravado would have been more convincing if the damage siren hadn't sounded yet again, the moment he stopped talking.

  The siren sounded again, then again, and Tom barked, "Somebody silence that!"

  "Missiles," said Harris. Tom looked at his console, saw nine points of red light racing toward the Kestrel, and watched them wink out one at a time as the Kestrel's lasers did their work. The last missile looked terrifyingly close when it vanished from the display, but the actual range was several kilometers.

  The hatch to the bridge slammed shut, and Harris said, "Hull breach on Deck Two." He looked at his screen. "Also Deck One in the aft section."

  The cruiser was clearly visible now, though it looked no bigger than a housefly. Tom tapped his console and brought up a view from the forward scanners. The cruiser filled the little screen, shaking and jerking as the computer compensated for the other ship's evasive manoeuvers. Black lines marred the front of the hull, burns from the Kestrel's lasers. "We're hurting them," he said. "Keep firing." It was a useless order – the ship's computer was doing all the shooting, and even if it hadn't been, it wasn't as if anyone was going to let up on a trigger – but it helped remind the crew that the frigate was, indeed, fighting back.

  A dark triangle flashed across the screen, and Tom leaned in close, peering at the display. "She just lost a hull plate. Harris, tell the computer to target that spot if it can. Lower starboard quadrant on the front of her hull."

  "Got it," said Harris, and tapped at his console. A moment later he said, "Damn it. She's turning."

  Tom checked his display. The cruiser was swinging her nose to starboard, hiding the breach in her hull. "Excellent," he said, though he believed the opposite. "It means we've hurt her."

  "It also means her port-side missile tubes are pointing right at us," said Harris. It would shave most of a second off the launch time of her missiles.

  "Target those missile tubes," Tom said. "They just made a tactical error. Let's make the most of it." He found the button for the missile bay. "Launch a dozen dummies." Dummy missiles were cheap things without warheads or anything but the most rudimentary targeting systems. They were usually used in conjunction with regular missiles to distract anti-missile systems. Right now, Tom just wanted the cruiser's guns to have something else to shoot at.

  "Missiles," Harris said. It took Tom a moment to realize he meant incoming missiles, not the dummies. He started to drop his gaze to his tactical display, then flinched as several concussive impacts rocked the Kestrel.

  "Three strikes!" Harris's voice rose. "Two hits amidships. One to the aft section." He was silent for a moment, reading the damage report. "It's too bad we never delivered the top cargo pod. It's pretty much destroyed."

  Tom's thumb had just touched the button for the missile bay when Franco's voice came over the bridge speakers. "Captain!" He spent a moment coughing, then said, "We took some bad damage."

  "I need some missiles," Tom said. "What can you give me?"

  "We're in the corridor," Franco said. "Those of us who are still alive. The whole bay is in flames."

  A chill spread across Tom's skin as he imagined warheads cooking off and exploding. He pushed the thought away. It wasn't as if the warheads were full of gunpowder, after all. They needed electronic detonation to explode. "I need you to get back in there." He thought for a moment. "Find some marines. Pull them off whatever they're doing. Tell them I need you back in that bay."

  "Right," said Franco, and the speakers went silent.

  "Missiles!" Harris cried, and Tom saw a flash of motion between the ships, then a dozen glowing points of light that elongated as they came closer. It was the rocket trails behind the missiles, he realized. By the time he processed the thought the missiles were already past.

  "Damage?" he said. Then, "Harris!"

  Harris turned to stare at him, eyes wide a bloodless face.

  "I didn't hear impacts," Tom said. "What damage did we take?"

  For a long moment the man just stared. Then he looked down, seemed to stare at his console without seeing it, and shook his head. Finally he said, "No damage, Sir. They missed us."

  They hit our Benson field, went ballistic, and missed us when we dodged. God have mercy, we won't be that lucky again. "Get us in close," Tom said. His own voice was rising, he realized, and made himself speak more softly. "I want us hull to hull. I want their missiles already inside our Benson field by the time they clear the tubes." It would put the Kestrel inside the cruiser's Benson fields, but since they couldn't fire missiles anyway, it hardly mattered.

  O'Reilly didn't respond, just worked his console, and the Kestrel surged forward.

  "Harris."

  Harris look
ed up.

  "Pull yourself together. I won't tell you again."

  "Right, Sir." Harris pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Sorry, Captain."

  "Take us up," Tom said to O'Reilly. "Around her hull. Get us away from those missile tubes." Soon the only way for the cruiser to fire her missiles would be in a straight line, in whatever direction her tubes pointed.

  He knew they'd hit the other ship's Benson field when every screen on the bridge flashed white. That was fine with Tom. It meant the cruiser was experiencing the same problems. The erratic jerking of the stars stopped as the Kestrel's computer-controlled evasive manoeuvers halted. The cruiser stopped wobbling as well.

  The other ship still looked small, almost harmless, but it grew rapidly as the range closed. A distant flash of light told him a laser was firing. The Kestrel was no longer evading, but without computer assistance she was far enough away to be quite hard to hit.

  "We've disabled at least one of their starboard missile tubes," Harris said. "We might have gotten them both. I can't be sure at this range."

  "They're coming at us," O'Reilly announced. "Looks like we're going toe to toe."

  Tom's instincts told him to stay back, to keep to the very edge of the Benson field. If the cruiser surprised him and pulled away, though, the Kestrel could be on the receiving end of another missile barrage. "Keep closing," he said. And what next? You've got a tiger by the tail now.

  He ignored the mocking voice in his head. One crisis at a time. We're safe from missile fire, unless they-

  "They're rotating," O'Reilly said, and Tom's stomach sank. He watched the cruiser spin along its axis, showing her top and then her port side. The dark ovals of two missile tubes appeared, then stretched into perfect circles as the ship continued to rotate.

  Harris spoke urgently into the microphone on his console, telling the gun crews to target the missile tubes. Light blazed in the center of each tube and Tom knew it was too late.

  Two missiles streaked out, crossing the void in less than a second. Light filled the bridge window, and Tom raised a hand to protect his eyes. The light was gone before his hand could move more than a few centimeters.

  A near miss. A very, very near miss. He stood frozen, a hand in front of his eyes, trying to throw off a paralyzing horror. Those missiles must have missed us by a couple of meters at the most.

  Momentum kept the cruiser spinning, taking the missile tubes off-target. He expected the cruiser to reverse its spin and try another salvo, but it continued to rotate. Are they going to use the starboard tube on us?

  He had his answer a moment later. He saw the belly of the ship, made out the squat, ugly shape of a gun turret, then flinched involuntarily as the arms of his chair vibrated against his elbows. Metallic impacts echoed around him, and a finger-thick hole appeared in the deck plates just in front of his feet. Bits of metal burst upward, and he stared at the hole in baffled astonishment.

  His ears popped, a siren shrilled, and the faceplate of his helmet slammed down. He looked around, saw a matching hole in the bulkhead behind him, and realized what had happened. They holed us. They hit a spot with laser damage and put a bullet right through the ship.

  How did they miss me?

  His gaze returned to the window in time to see the turret on the cruiser fly apart as a gun crew on the Kestrel took vengeance. Then the cruiser vanished beneath them.

  "Status?" he said, wondering if the radio in his suit had found the same frequency as the bridge crew. He hoped he wasn't broadcasting to the entire ship.

  "I don't know where to start," O'Reilly said. "We took a small puncture on Deck Two forward. We're losing air slowly." O'Reilly waved an arm. "The pressure in here is still over ninety percent."

  "What's that cruiser doing?"

  As if in answer, a tremendous concussion rocked the bridge. There was enough air to transmit the sound of an explosion, even through Tom's helmet. He clutched the arms of his chair as the impact nearly threw him to the deck.

  "I think they're firing missiles," O'Reilly said dryly. "In fact, I'm almost certain." His hands were on the helm controls, and the starfield beyond the window rose as the nose of the Kestrel dropped. "I'm getting above her. That should keep us out of missile range."

  With his console dead Tom couldn't see the relative positions of the two ships. He hit the restart button on the side of the console, watched the screen flicker, and smiled as a limited version of the standard tactical display finally appeared. Instead of a projection showing both ships, he saw a camera view from the belly of the Kestrel.

  The cruisier spun beneath them, trying to bring her port missile tubes to bear. The Kestrel was circling the waist of the other ship, staying just ahead of the range of fire of her tubes.

  Someone said, "What the-"

  Tom looked up in time to see a viscous fluid splash against the bridge windows. The stars went blurry and took on a reddish tinge, and he stared, mystified. In a moment they were through the worst of it, and the view improved moment by moment as the liquid, whatever it was, evaporated.

  "That's fuel," someone said. "Is it ours or theirs?"

  It's ours, Tom realized. We just did a full circuit around the cruiser. We hit a few thousand gallons of fuel that leaked out after that missile strike. That was not good news, but it was something he could deal with later – if there was a later. In the meantime, he had to figure out how to survive this battle.

  "Target their nav thrusters," he said. "I'm getting tired of this race."

  Harris spoke into a microphone, and Tom saw a flash of light as a nav thruster on the cruiser erupted into flame.

  "Never mind that," O'Reilly said. "We need to get back around to her nose. We already knocked out her nose guns." He gave Tom a quick glance before returning his attention to the helm controls.

  "Do it," said Tom.

  The stars changed direction, and he rocked in his seat as the ship whipped sideways. It cost them their forward speed, and a pair of missiles flashed out from the cruiser as the Kestrel passed in front of her missile tubes.

  O'Reilly was too busy to give a damage report, but Tom knew the missiles had missed because he didn't hear or feel an explosion. "Keep targeting their nav thrusters," he said. This was becoming a game of positioning. He had to hope the cruiser didn't adopt the same tactic.

  "Captain. This is Franco."

  "Don't tease me, Franco. What have you got?"

  "One working missile tube."

  Yes. "We're inside their Benson field. Don't bother with smart missiles."

  "I've got three ballistic birds and one smart missile that I can get to," Franco said. "It's all I've got."

  "It'll do." Tom thought for a moment. "We're coming up on the nose of the enemy ship. They've got a missing hull plate on the front. That'll be your target."

  "By dead reckoning?" Franco said doubtfully. "I'll be lucky to hit the cruiser at all."

  "Do your best," Tom said. "I'll settle for anything but a clean miss." To O'Reilly he said, "Bring us in close. Collision-danger close. We don't dare miss."

  O'Reilly, focused on the helm controls, didn't look up. He grunted, and Tom decided that was good enough.

  "We lost the forward port laser turret," Harris said. "We lost a gunner, too. But we got their last forward-facing gun. If we can stay in front of her, we'll be fine."

  Tom checked his console. He could see the nose and port side of the cruiser. Sparks flew from a nav thruster near her nose, and he could see dark streaks along her hull where the Kestrel's lasers had scorched her. It all seemed like minor damage, though, insignificant scratches on a ship that was frighteningly large and still well-armed.

  The cruiser must have had a functioning nav thruster on her tail, because she was turning, trying to keep up with the circling Kestrel, trying to keep the frigate away from her nose. The Kestrel had to move in a large circle while the cruiser simply rotated, but the Kestrel was nevertheless winning the race. The range between the ships was dropping, which re
duced the distance the Kestrel had to travel as she circled. Tom watched on his display as the cruiser grew and seemed to tilt. The Kestrel would be directly in front of the other ship in moments.

  "Get ready, Franco."

  "Great suggestion, Sir." The man sounded more than a little sarcastic, and Tom blinked, startled. Okay, I guess I asked for that.

  He wanted to tell O'Reilly to rotate the Kestrel, to bring her missile bay to bear on the nose of the cruiser. But O'Reilly knew what he was doing, and he was completely focused on his manoeuvers. He didn't need Tom telling him things he already knew. Tom came to the frustrating realization that there was nothing for him to do, and he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, filled with nervous energy.

  "Firing," said Franco. The screen on Tom's console turned white for a moment as a missile engine flared close to the camera. He saw an explosion, an eruption of crimson flames against the nose of the cruiser, and then another flash of white as a second missile flashed past.

  "I've lost the angle," Franco reported.

  "Correcting," said O'Reilly.

  Tom stared for a moment into the grainy image on his console, then rose and crossed to the side window. The cruiser was beside and behind the Kestrel, a distance of less than a hundred meters. Tom had to press his helmet against the window to see back that far, but what he saw filled him with hope.

  The cruiser drifted, all purpose gone from her movements. She floated away from the Kestrel, tumbling as she went. Her nose was a battered mess, a junkyard of twisted and burned metal.

  He stared, and a savage joy rose within him. I've got them. They're crippled. Helpless.

  I can kill every last son of a bitch on that ship.

  The old familiar rage rose up, red and hot and comfortable, and he clenched his fists, savoring it. At last. Revenge. For Brady, lying there on a pallet waiting to die. For all of them. Hell, for me. They put me through enough. And I finally get to do something about it.