by Eric Thomson
Most of the other captains, including Hawkwood’s Kirti Midura, nodded. Dunmoore and Pushkin were the only exceptions. Neither wanted to appear as if they were pushing for a particular outcome, even though both agreed attacking FOB Tyva was the right course of action. Dunmoore especially didn’t want a clash with Corto in front of the admiral over this decision, lest it push Petras into siding with his flag captain who seemed distinctly unhappy at the possibility he might accept Dunmoore’s suggestion.
“We could head for the hyperlimit in packets of two or three ships, which would minimize the hyperspace signature while timing jumps so we emerge in roughly the same area at the same time,” Vento suggested. “Stay in silent running until we’re within effective weapons range, or they mark us with their sensors, make one pass while we throw everything at them, then head for the hyperlimit and jump out. It seems almost too easy, Admiral.”
He grinned at Dunmoore.
“We can’t let Iolanthe hog every bit of glory.”
“I never figured you for a glory hound, Commander,” Corto said in a cold voice.
Dunmoore winced inwardly at the unwarranted barb. Vento’s fellow frigate and destroyer captains weren’t quite as restrained. Even Pushkin gave Corto a look that questioned her common sense. An admiral making a comment of the sort in public might be considered overly critical, but within his prerogative as formation commander. A staff officer doing the same to a starship captain put her in a select category, one where she would find no friends or even comrades in arms, even though she outranked said starship captain.
Petras must have sensed the sudden change in mood caused by Corto’s unwarranted sarcasm. He raised his right hand.
“Having been a frigate captain myself, I can well understand Farren’s urge to hit the enemy where it hurts. And I feel the same way. Captains Dunmoore and Pushkin scored their kills a few hours ago. Perhaps the rest of Task Force Luckner should now hit the enemy where, as Chandra so eloquently pointed out, it hurts the most.”
Dunmoore and her former first officer exchanged surprised glances. Did Corto’s misplaced words tip the balance in favor of an attack? If so, what did it mean for the flag captain’s continuing effectiveness as Petras’ chief of staff? And for the task force’s future?
“You’ll receive your orders within the hour. Thank you.”
— Seventeen —
“I’m getting a strange sense of déja vu all over again,” Lieutenant Commander Sirico said in a stage whisper once Iolanthe’s visual sensors locked onto FOB Tyva. Nothing had changed during Task Force Luckner’s jump inward from the heliopause. Only two black, wedge-shaped starships were in orbit around the dusty reddish planet, one larger than the other, both trailing the station by a few kilometers.
“Except for the Tol and its little brother,” Chief Yens replied. “Still no evidence they saw us come out of FTL. You’d think after what we pulled on that other station, they’d be watching their hyperlimit more closely, especially since the convoy sent a warning out.”
“Or they’re watching, but we were lucky. Space is vast, and their sensors just aren’t terribly good compared to ours.”
“Can you see the rest of the task force, Chief?” Dunmoore asked.
“Right now, only Jan Sobieski, because I knew where to look. She kept perfect station on us. Wait one.”
Yens paused as she studied new information on her readout. Moments later, blue icons came to life inside the tactical projection, each accompanied by a name tag.
“Okay. That accounts for every ship. And not because their silent running is deficient in one way or another, but again, they’re pretty much where Lieutenant Drost expected them based on the common navigation plot.”
Dunmoore left her command chair and studied the tactical projection up close. At its heart, the planet, trailed by three red icons, shone malevolently. Task Force Luckner’s well planned and exquisitely timed approach placed the frigates Belisarius and Narses in the van. They carried the most extensive stocks of missiles and would saturate the three targets from optimal firing range — provided the Shrehari didn’t detect them first.
The destroyers Tamurlane and Hawkwood followed the frigates and would also open fire as they entered optimal range. Iolanthe and Jan Sobieski were last in the order of march and would take care of the gun engagement once enemy shields were breached. Not only because their missile stocks were lowest, but because they carried the most massive plasma weapons in Task Force Luckner. Both scouts and the armed transport would remain at the hyperlimit, their sensors alert for new enemy units appearing unexpectedly.
Admiral Petras’ plan possessed the one characteristic Dunmoore prized above others — simplicity. Simple plans stood a higher chance of surviving contact with the enemy in one form or another. And it was the sort of scheme which, once launched, wouldn’t find itself under constant adjustment by a nervous commander or his even more skittish flag captain.
This was to be a raid. One pass by Luckner’s six fighting ships pouring out everything they could on targets that were stuck in orbit — at least until the enemy ships got underway — then back to the hyperlimit at maximum acceleration. They either destroyed the station and both ships during that single pass, or they didn’t.
Yet it depended on keeping the element of surprise, and that meant remaining undetected until the last moment. Easy with a single ship built for stealth and crewed by unconventional spacers. Not quite as simple with six, especially when four were older models, more prone to leak radiation that might attract an alert enemy sensor technician.
With Iolanthe and indeed the entire task force at battle stations, nothing remained but waiting until one side or the other fired the first missile. Which might not happen for a few hours. Rather than brood in the CIC, Dunmoore turned to Sirico.
“You have the chair, Thorin. I’ll be in my day cabin wading through the never-ending stream of naval administrivia.”
He grinned at his captain, knowing she was retreating into her sanctum so she could fret alone rather than fret where her crew might notice.
“I have the CIC, sir. Slay a few bureaucratic dragons for the rest of us.”
Moments after entering her day cabin, the door chime pealed.
“Yes?”
Ezekiel Holt stuck his head through the opening.
“Coffee and a few rounds of chess, Skipper?”
“How is it you always know when to keep me busy, so I don’t annoy everyone else with my impatience?”
“A roguishly bearded CIC birdie sang a song that reached the bridge. Since I’m the only one aboard who can legitimately keep you penned in while we creep up on the enemy...”
Holt entered and headed for the urn. He drew two full mugs, gave one to Dunmoore, and reached for the mahogany chess set sitting on a sideboard.
“I’ll even give you white.”
“Not a chance, Zeke. I’ll take black, thank you very much. One of us needs every advantage possible.”
As he placed the sculpted chessmen into position, Holt said, “Perhaps we should make you and your nemesis Brakal face each other over one of our chessboards and one of whatever they play to annoy hapless first officers. Whoever wins both games wins the war.”
Dunmoore exhaled noisily.
“Would that it could be so easy. We might save many lives on both sides. If I recall correctly, the Shrehari have a strategy board game similar to our Go. Whether I could beat him at that is highly questionable, but when it comes to chess... If I can take you two games out of three, and you’re one of the smartest officers around, I don’t see how Brakal would stand a chance.”
“I’ll take the compliment, Skipper, but nowadays it’s four games out of seven. I am improving, as you perhaps noticed.” Holt moved a pawn. “Much of that is me getting better at picking up your tells because I know you so well. Brakal, on the other hand, wouldn’t stand a chance. We humans are inscrutable, and you’re more inscrutable than most to anyone other than me — when you put your m
ind to it.”
“Tells? Are we playing chess or poker?” When Holt opened his mouth to reply, Dunmoore raised a hand. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to hear it.”
She picked up one of her pawns.
“I’ll take your king in twenty moves.”
“Promises, promises.”
**
“Either they’re truly not seeing us or the bastards are playing dumb, so they can lure us into effective engagement range, because my sensors aren’t picking up a damned thing.”
“If they spotted us and are playing dumb, you’d think they might power up that Tol and its companion, Chief,” Sirico replied. “But as you just said, your scans show otherwise.”
“Those sneaky boneheads are as quick as us when it’s time to wake up and nuke the enemy.”
The CIC door whooshed open, admitting Siobhan Dunmoore. Sirico climbed out of the command chair and made for his station.
“Still all quiet on the Tyva front, Captain. Belisarius and Narses are five minutes from beginning their battle run.”
“Oops.” Yens raised a hand. “Spoke too soon. I just picked up a power surge from the station. They’re actively scanning. Maybe one of the sensor techs saw a ghost he found suspicious.” A pause. “They raised shields. The Tol and the Ptar are also giving off heightened emissions — sensors and shields as well.”
“We’re not being directly pinged, nor are any of the task force ships going active.” Sirico glanced at Dunmoore over his shoulder.
“Yet.” She dropped into her command chair and studied first the tactical projection, then the visuals of Tyva and the two Shrehari warships. “If Chief Yens is right, let’s hope the nervous sensor tech’s officer will wait and see whether the ghosts dissipate instead of calling battle stations and possibly piss off his CO by disturbing everybody for no good reason. We only need four more minutes.”
Sirico shrugged.
“The 330s are already within effective engagement range, so the boneheads will shortly swallow a lot of missiles. But yeah, giving them less time to swat our birds away would be a fine thing.”
A minute passed in silence, though the tension was palpable. Then another. Dunmoore forcibly stopped her fingers from dancing on the command chair’s arm more than once as she willed Belisarius and Narses on.
She hadn’t played a supporting role in a long time — ever since the battle that eventually wrecked the corvette Shenzen — and she found waiting for events to unfold rather difficult. But Petras’ plan was sound, and Iolanthe would do her part in the overall dance of death even if it wasn’t during the opening movements.
“The 330s just lit their systems.”
“Two minutes early. The boneheads probably pinged them.”
Dunmoore and the CIC crew watched with morbid fascination as volley after volley of anti-ship missiles erupted from both frigates’ launchers, their drives painting streaks of light across the star-speckled background. For a few moments, she wondered whether the Shrehari would react fast enough to erode the saturation strike aimed down their throats. Then, gouts of plasma fire from Tyva station’s multi-barrel calliopes rose to meet the missile flights. The two warships trailing it joined in seconds later.
Warheads exploded mid-flight, but there were more of them than the calliopes could handle. Many came through the defensive fire unscathed and detonated against the Shrehari shields, turning them into ethereal purplish-blue cocoons crackling with energy.
One final volley, as per plan, and the frigates accelerated at full power to slingshot around Tyva and back to the hyperlimit, pursued by a comparatively anemic enemy missile salvo which wouldn’t do much more than give the fire control AIs some practice.
Would the Shrehari think Belisarius and Narses were the only raiders, Dunmoore wondered, or would they look for follow-on attackers? As soon as the thought crossed her mind, it became a moot point.
“The destroyers are active,” Yens reported. “And the Ptar lost half of its shields. It’s rolling on the main axis to present the undamaged side.”
“I’d love to be the officer of the watch on that station,” Sirico remarked to no one in particular.
“Whoever he is, there’s nothing wrong with the duty crew’s reflexes, sir. The station launched missiles at the destroyers. I’m counting thirty. No, make that forty-five. The Tol is firing its own load. Twelve. Eighteen. Twenty-four.”
“Let’s hope their stocks are low and we took out the resupply when we wrecked that convoy.”
“And another volley of thirty from the station as well as fifteen from the Tol. Both Tamurlane and Hawkwood are firing their missiles.”
This time, defensive plasma streams rose from both the attackers’ and defenders’ calliopes in an attempt to destroy as many warheads as possible before they could go off. But inevitably, a small percentage made it through, and the station’s shields flared up with a deep purplish glow that signaled imminent overload. The destroyers fired two more volleys, but their own shields took on a menacing hue as they fought off the energy generated by exploding warheads.
“Wake up,” Dunmoore muttered, “time to kick on those sublight drives and accelerate out, people. Three salvos, that’s it. Gregor and I will take it from here.”
The station’s shields seemed to pop soundlessly as their generators lost the battle, exposing its hull to the full fury of the destroyers’ guns. But instead of following the frigates out of engagement range so Iolanthe and Jan Sobieski could deliver the death blow, both Tamurlane and Hawkwood kept firing, even though they were taking enemy hits in return. And the Shrehari seemed determined to go down fighting, as usual.
Iolanthe’s crew watched in horror as Hawkwood’s shields wavered and buckled under the onslaught, before the portside generators gave up and quit, leaving the destroyer’s flank open to both the station’s and the Tol’s guns. Hawkwood turned one hundred and eighty degrees on her long axis to present the intact starboard shields, but not before enemy plasma dug divots into her hull. Moments later, Tamurlane’s port shields flared deep purple, but her captain turned his ship and presented the unharmed, starboard shields.
“Go for God’s sake.” The entreaty came out in a louder tone than Dunmoore intended as more enemy fire struck both ships’ starboard shields, birthing worrisome deep purple auroras. “Are you idiots trying to claim the kill on that station?”
She took a deep breath and let her fist drop on the command chair’s arm.
“Bridge. Up systems. Mister Sirico, the moment you’re ready, throw everything we can at the station.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Holt and the combat systems officer replied in unison.
“Chief Day, call Jan Sobieski. Tell them I’d be grateful if they went up systems now instead of waiting for the destroyers to clear. They should concentrate fire on the Tol and the Ptar. We will take the station.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Dunmoore silently urged the destroyers to get out of range and felt an unexpected surge of relief when she saw their sublight drives glow brightly.
“At last.”
“First salvo away,” Sirico announced.
“And Jan Sobieski is up systems,” Yens added. “She’s opening fire.”
The sudden appearance of a massive Q-ship and her imposing companion drew Shrehari fire away from the ailing destroyers as they turned their weapons to face a new and more dangerous threat. But even though Tyva station tried its best, without shields, it didn’t stand a chance, not under Iolanthe’s massive guns.
The Tol class cruiser and its smaller Ptar class companion shifted their fire from Hawkwood to Iolanthe, but in vain. Jan Sobieski’s heavy guns gave them no quarter, and both ships died hard once their already overstressed shields collapsed in a flare of ethereal color.
“The station is breaking apart.”
“Keep firing, Thorin. After this battle run, we’re withdrawing to the nearest starbase for resupply. There’s no point in hoarding ammo.”
“Your co
mmand is my wish, Captain,” Sirico replied just as a bright flare blanked out the main display. “And it seems both have been granted.”
“Confirmed,” Yens said. “The station is gone. We hit something vital again, the same as last time. Maybe the design has a fatal flaw.”
“If it does, let’s not tell them. Bridge, execute the slingshot portion of the plan. We’re done here.”
— Eighteen —
“Everyone is accounted for, sir,” Chief Yens said shortly after Iolanthe dropped out of hyperspace at the system’s heliopause, where Task Force Luckner would regroup and head for interstellar space, as per Admiral Petras’ plan. “Hawkwood looks to be in bad shape though”
A visual of the flagship appeared on the main display. Her hull was streaked with black marks and dimpled by divots where plasma had eaten into the metal.
“Ouch.” Sirico winced when the video pickup focused on a large, ragged hole.
“How is Tamurlane?”
“She’s not leaking,” Yens replied. “Though she took more than a few direct hits. I’ll put her on screen.”
“Why in heaven’s name did the destroyers linger longer than planned?” Holt’s hologram, hovering at Dunmoore’s right elbow, asked in a sour tone. “Go active, fire three missile volleys and accelerate away at full speed.”
“That’s what I want to know, Zeke. None of our ships should have suffered so much as a scratch. Hell, between us, Jan Sobieski and Iolanthe could have done the job, even with the two bonehead ships. This was essentially designed as an exercise to blood the rest of Luckner against an enemy FOB.” She let her fingers dance on the command chair’s arm. “Signals, open a link with the flag and pipe it to my day cabin. Mister Sirico, the CIC is yours.”