by Andrew Beery
I nodded in agreement.
“Give the recall order. Let’s get the SARs ready to deploy and let Lori have a shot at saving the survivors.”
***
In the end, of the forty men and women sent out to take on bogey four, only six survived. The total butcher’s bill for the entire engagement was sixty-four souls. Eight of them were J’ni caught in a Jefferies tube that collapsed. The rest were homo sapiens. The entire rescue operation took about forty minutes. This was only possible because each Marine had a biotag embedded in their shoulder that facilitated locating them.
The entire time we searched and recovered our fallen and surviving Marines I fretted about that fourth ship heading towards Earth. Both Mitty and Morrison assured me we had plenty of time to intercept them, but I was nervous none-the-less. That and my shoulder and arm were on fire. I would need to do something about it soon, but I didn’t feel I could leave the bridge. Instead I opted for a mild analgesic and a stim. My command chair was able to administer both.
The Gilboa was in bad shape as well. Her drives were still working at close to full efficiency but about a third of the ship was open to the vacuum of space and/or too radioactive to enter without protective gear. More concerning, we had lost two thirds of her weapons and a significant amount of both active and ablative shielding.
What that meant was that we had to be careful with our own acceleration curves. As we headed towards the inner system we would pass an area where the solar wind exactly balanced the pull of gravity on a cloud of micrometeorites. The cloud formed a shell around the sun. The density was actually quite low… less than a few per cubic kilometer.
That may not sound like much but, given such a huge volume of space as well as the distance and speed we were traveling, even a micrometeorite a fraction the size of a kid’s marble would pack a hell of a punch.
As soon as we finished our SARs operation, I issued a series of orders. We would accelerate at our best possible speed until we reached the danger zone. Since we had to keep our best shielding facing forward, we’d kill our acceleration and reorient the ship as we plowed through this narrow band of space within our solar system.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. It meant the sole remaining enemy ship was going to get a heck of a lot closer to Earth than I would have liked. It was getting harder and harder to think straight because of my arm. It had gone from a persistent ache to a full-blown fire. There was too much to do, and the stakes were too high. The shoulder and arm were going to have to wait.
I tried to get Whiskers and his crew working on the shielding, but after several ‘give me a minutes’ he had finally confessed, there just wasn’t much he could do. The surface where the shielding was missing was one big slagged mess. There simply were no shield emitters left to repair. The only solution was to send out repair droids to install new emitters and the power conduits to feed them.
This would have been an ideal solution except that most of the repair droids were in a section of the ship that had been destroyed. This in turn meant that the Engineering staff would need to fabricate new droids before they could undertake the shield repairs.
I was about to order Whiskers to prioritize the shield repairs over every other system when I suddenly started to have a hard time breathing. I tried to get up out of my command chair, but I didn’t make it. My world started going black.
Maybe it was my enhanced intellect or maybe it was just my being a stubborn cuss… but I was pissed that I had not been able to give that final order. My last memory was seeing the bridge turn sideways as I rolled onto the floor instead.
***
“He’s coming around.”
Man, I loved waking up to that voice. It was my Lori. Some of my neural circuits must have still been jumbled. I couldn’t figure out how and why my wife was on the bridge. We had a boat load of sick and injured. Why wasn’t she in the Med-Bay? I still hadn’t opened my eyes yet. I was waiting for the ship to stop spinning.
“You should be taking care of the injured…” I managed to croak out. What was wrong with my voice?
“If you weren’t one of those injured I’d be hitting you right now,” Lori said with a venom that caused me to crack open my eyes. Yeah that was a mistake. It was much too bright.
“Computer, dim lights 50%,” Lori ordered.
“Go ahead and open your eyes, Admiral.”
That’s how I knew I was really in trouble. Lori never called me by my rank unless she was ticked off for some reason. I searched my, admittedly foggy, mind to remember what I had done to give offense. I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head, but that didn’t mean much. Guys had been pissing off women for thousands of years without ever being able to figure out why.
“You’re mad,” I said as I cautiously opened both eyes.
Rather than say anything, Lori shined a pen-light into each eye. It felt like somebody stabbing needles into my head. Why did doctors always insist on hurting their patients? I tried to push the light away, but I realized my arm was encased in a plasta-cast.
“Well, your pupils are both responding normally. I’d say you managed to avoid giving yourself a stroke… this time.”
I tried to sit up but failed miserably. It seemed I was in the Med-Bay after all.
“Stoke? From a dislocated shoulder?” I said in disbelief.
“You stupid… lovable… but stupid fool. Your arm was fractured in three places. Bone marrow traveled to your lungs and caused a pulmonary embolism. You could have died.”
“Well, that would explain the pain,” I said glibly. “As far as dying… that was never going to happen.”
Lori put her fists on her lovely waist and stared at me. It seemed she wanted me to explain myself. Given a total lack of common sense and undoubtedly no small amount of pain-killers flowing through my veins… I did the worst possible thing a man in my position could. I answered her.
“I’m too busy to die,” I said resolutely.
She spun on her heals and spoke to the two Marines that were standing at the foot of the bed.
“Get him out of here before I kill him myself. And Admiral…”
There it went… I was in trouble again.
“If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll let you die and then take great pleasure in kicking your cold dead corpse.”
Here’s the thing you have to understand about Lori and me. We both have tempers. I had no doubt she meant every word she just uttered… including the ones under her breath. That wouldn’t stop her from pulling my bacon out of the fire… nor would it stop her and I from making up later in a more intimate setting. And when I say making up… well… nuff said.
Chapter 13: Dog Bite
Finally, back on the bridge, I had to admit my shoulder and arm felt a lot better. Lori had used a bone fuser and encased everything in a medicinal plastic that would both immobilize my arm and slowly infuse medicinal enzymes, steroids and topical analgesics for the next several days.
I was physically exhausted and would have gladly slept for the next week but there was no time. I had been out for almost three days. Apparently, the pulmonary embolism had seriously compromised the amount of oxygen my body, and specifically my brain, received. Lori had used some of the advanced Galactic Order medical tech to reverse the damage that had been done.
If I had still been at my post on Ceres, there is little doubt I would have died or suffered permanent brain damage. That was a sobering thought. I guess, in hindsight, I understood why Lori was pissed. Fortunately, I hadn’t died and the crew of the Gilboa carried on without me.
It turns out, Whiskers had anticipated my last, un-issued order. His team of engineers had twenty-five percent of the shields restored in the areas that had been burnt away by the first bogey’s antimatter blast.
They had worked overtime to get dozens of repair drones fabricated and deployed. My near-death experience seems to have motivated the crew to go the extra mile. I have to admit, I was surprised. I hadn’t though
t that I had had enough time to form that type of bond with the crew.
Whiskers explained it to me years later. What I had failed to appreciate was that every time I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned a filter or replaced a burned out and/or fused component… what I was really doing was building and solidifying a reputation with the crew. I was an Admiral and yet I wasn’t above honest work.
I suspect it was my defective upbringing. Whenever I saw something that needed doing, and I was free and, in a position, to do it… I did. You’d be surprised how many odd-looks you could get as an Admiral sweeping a floor in the mess hall, so the cook would have the time to bake those special chocolate chip cookies you enjoyed.
The bottom line was the crew had accomplished a week’s worth of repairs, underway no less, in about three days. It was impressive by any measure.
We were about twenty million kilometers behind the final enemy ship. We still expected to catch up with them just inside the orbit of Mars. The good news was that meant we would be close to one hundred million miles from Earth before we engaged the enemy. The bad news was, at the speeds we were traveling, the Federation defense force would not be a factor in stopping bad guys. Human tech just couldn’t travel at these speeds… at least not yet.
If we got lucky, the Earth fleet might get a few shots off as the fourth bogey passed them halfway between Earth and Mars. The defensive platforms in Earth orbit and the moon were non-factors.
Even if they managed to take out the enemy ship… the antimatter scuttling charge would make the asteroid that formed the Yucatan peninsula some sixty-six million years ago seem like a ping-pong ball. And that was the best-case scenario. If bogey four simply crashed into Earth… given that it was still traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light… well… it would be Bedtime-for-Bonzo. The Earth, and all life on it, would die.
I needed some type of force multiplier. Something that would give us a better chance of defeating this foe before they could take out Earth. A seemingly unrelated call from Engineering proved to be just the answer I needed.
“Admiral, McGraw here. Can I run a thought by ya for a minute or two?”
I flicked the comm-button on my command chair. It was still awkward having to use one hand for everything, but I was getting used to it. A holographic display of my chief engineer floated in front of me.
“What’s up Whiskers? Did you get the rest of those shields up yet?”
“Aaaa, I got me boys making droids as fast as we can. We’re not going to get ya much past thirty percent and that’s iffy. No, I wanted to talk with ya about the weapons systems. Every forward plasma turret is toast. I can mount one or two external systems, but they’ll be as delicate as a debutant at her first ball. I was thinking maybe we could do something else.”
“Ok, I’ll bite. What are you thinking?”
“So, our HVMs were a real hit at the last party. Only thing is, the guest of honor had his own going away surprise. We ended up getting pretty badly busted up because we were too close to the action as it were.”
I looked at the cast on my broken arm and nodded.
“That we were. What are you thinking… develop a hyper-velocity missile with a longer range?”
“Aye, that would be nice but it’s a tradeoff between how much mass our railguns can fire and how much fuel we stick in our missiles. The reality is… we are already at pretty close to the prefect balance now for the size of our railguns… and before you ask… there’s not a lot we can do outside of a drydock to enhance our railguns.”
“OK,” I said. “I presume you called to talk to me about more than what we can’t do.”
“That I did Admiral. I want to fire our missiles slower.”
***
Exactly one day and four hours later, Whiskers delivered on his promise. Our HVMs originally fired from our railguns. In point of fact, that was still our primary weapon. Now however, thanks to the engineering wizardry of the J’ni under the leadership of Commander McGraw, the Gilboa now sported seventeen externally mounted racks of twenty-each HVMs.
Rather than launching with our railguns and then using chemical thrusters for the last little push… our new missile racks relied exclusively on their chemical thrusters. Each missile was capable of accelerating to about forty thousand kilometers per hour. This was nothing compared to the existing velocity of the Gilboa, but it was many times the closure rate between the Gilboa and the enemy ship.
The problem was that chemical thrust would be like big flashlights in the dark… telling the enemy exactly where to shoot.
That’s where the genius of Whisker’s plan came in.
“Weapons, are all racks ready for release?”
“Confirmed, Sir. Racks one through seventeen are armed and ready for deployment.”
“Excellent. I’m assuming the Engineering team has our little surprises ready in each of the railgun tubes.”
“Commander McGraw confirms they are primed and ready to fire Admiral.”
I turned to face Mitty. The holographic Archon looked like a huge otter fascinated with the forward viewscreen. Mitty turned his head in my direction and blinked. I knew he was nothing more than an AI driven hologram, but it was hard to watch him and not think he was flesh and blood.
“You ready to take control and make this happen?” I asked.
“Affirmative Admiral. On your command, I will release the external racks and use lateral thrusters to gently push them away from the ship. Since they already have our current velocity they will essentially match our course and speed. When the proper separation is reached I will fire railguns one and four… followed three-point-eight seconds later by railguns two and three.
“The HVMs are programmed to diverge from each other in flight. As we are three light-seconds out, I will instruct each warhead to detonate its nuclear payload when it detects the proper separation from both the Gilboa and its nearest neighbor.
“One second before the detonation I will instruct all three-hundred and forty external missiles to fire. The nuclear blasts from the HVMs will cover the exhaust plumes from the slower missiles. By the time the HVMs have done their work, the primaries will be on target and have gone cold. Given their stealth nature, they will be almost impossible to detect.”
“Very good. Make it so number one,” I said in my best British accent.
“Sir?”
“Fire, Mitty, Fire.”
***
Everything went off like clockwork. If bogey four had any clue what we were doing, he gave no indication.
Twenty-seven minutes later we were almost in striking range. The enemy had dropped several nuclear mines. They’d have been serious trouble if we hadn’t spotted them first. Our point defense lasers took them out before they got anywhere close to us.
Whiskers had actually gotten our forward shields up to thirty-eight percent, exceeding his estimate but still grossly understrength.
Our slow missiles cruised by the enemy ship without making a sound… not that you could hear in the vacuum of space… but you get my point.
I watched the countdown clock move towards zero. It seemed to take forever. All those holovids of dramatic space battles with ships whizzing past one another… don’t believe the hype. It never works that way. Space battles are long periods of ‘wait’ followed by short bursts of ‘holy crap… what just hit us.’
We were down to half a light second of separation. It was time to get to work.
“Light’m up Mike. I want a full spread of HVMs and every plasma toaster we have left firing. I want that ship so focused on us… they never see what hits them from the other side.”
I felt the Gilboa shudder as her massive railguns fired. Moments after the railguns had done their thing, the ship rotated to bring her remaining plasma turrets and shields to bear.
“The enemy is returning fire and deploying countermeasures,” Shella reported from the sensor station that Mitty’s Archon wife had volunteered to man.
I this case, coun
ter measures included chaff that greatly reduced the efficacy of our plasma beams. Our HVMs were taken out with point defense lasers before their chemical thrusters had finished their acceleration. I had had a feeling the enemy would adapt to our attack based on our last encounter. I was OK with that because I still had a trick or two up my sleeve.
“Colonel, if you would be so kind as to launch round two.”
The Gilboa shuddered again. This time three HVMs where launched and one purely kinetic missile. My expectation was that the enemy, whoever the hell they were, would take out the first three and miss the one trailing behind because it had no thrust plume.
“Mitty, trigger phase two.”
At about the same time as I gave the order to begin the next part of the attack, we began taking hits from enemy missiles. Had our shields been fully operational I don’t think we would have even felt the blasts. As it was, I had to fight to stay in my chair. With only one arm it was a struggle. As silly as it sounds, at the time I was more concerned about what Lori would do to me if I rebroke the arm then I was my own safety.
“Rotate the shields,” I yelled. “Do we have any point defense systems still online?”
“Negative Admiral,” Mitty replied. The AI wasn’t even mimicking actuating control systems. The central computer was directly interfacing with the ship’s systems trying to stay ahead of a series of cascading failures. Thankfully, Mitty’s last radio command to the stealth missile fleet was successfully transmitted.
On the far side of the enemy ship, hundreds of heretofore hidden nuclear missiles fired minute retro thrusters.
Bogey four most certainly saw them but there was little he could do. The one disadvantage to traveling at the types of velocities we were… was that it was physically impossible to make a significant course change.