Spaceship Struggles

by Ingo Potsch

  Quickly the news was set by hyperspace message – Morse code, as anything broadband transmission was out of order - from the Mandana to the Arthur Wesley Mornington, the flagship of Grand Admiral Jollyheart. Unless anything unforeseen occurred, it seemed pretty certain to the concerned commanders that Grand Admiral Jollyheart would be able to turn the initial advantage provided by the timely information into an overwhelming defeat for the enemy. And again, it was shown that even experienced space fleet officers could occasionally com to conclude on a naïve assessment of the situation. They were close to the enemy’s advanced bases, practically contesting on the Aesuron home turf. Believing that the hostile forces were just roaming around clueless, that they lacked long-range surveillance capabilities, that their fast units we incapable of operating here - or unwilling or had simply been forgotten – was grossly negligent.

  The two crew members of the high-speed intruder had rendered good service against considerable odds. They had started off three hours previously, and, flying at maximum manageable speed in order to be able to cover enough area, had eventually detected the seemingly badly-damaged Aesuron squadron under the Admiral “Duke of Blades” – so his battle name given to him by the humans. It was assumed by the analysts that these Aesuron vessels had contrived to slip away while their Admiral “Duke Reaper” was endeavouring to delay the advance of Jollyheart's main fleet.

  Owing to the low degree of detectability due to the massive hyperspace distortions, the high-speed intruder came within range of the hostile machine cannons almost before her pilot was aware of the unpleasant fact. Greeted by a hot fire, almost the first shell of which enticed to go “absent without leave” the hyperspace communications equipment, the high-speed intruder descended to normal space, just to circle around a small, lonely planet, and then to ascend into the superposed dimension again. The two chaps of the high-speed intruder’s crew were trusting to be hidden in the clouds of hyperspace distortions until she could make another foray on a different vector and renew their reconnaissance of the hostile fleet.

  Unfortunately, it was a case of "out of the saucepan into the fire", for on emerging above the broad bank of clouds of dimensional disturbances, the high-speed intruder found herself almost underneath an enemy scout cruiser, several of which accompanied the Aesuron fleet. These were extremely fast vessels, although their sphere of usefulness was considerably curtailed by reason of the excessive waste hear production. That large flow of waste heat necessitated the use of extra-large radiators, which again were inappropriate for combat situations. Although the haze of myriads of coiled-up hyperspace perturbations prevented the Human Nation’s from detecting their enemies on medium to long range, it had rather prevented the Aesuron from inflicting greater damage upon their opponents. It is fairly safe to assert that had excellent ‘visibility’ prevailed in this region of the superposed dimension, the fast scout cruisers would have given the Aesuron fleet timely warning, and decisive action to the detriment of the Human Nation would have ensued.

  Nothing daunted in the face of near-certain destruction, the Human Nation’s high-speed intruder opened fire upon her gigantic antagonist; but the odds were against her. The fast scouting cruiser, rushing seemingly effortless through the superposed dimension; and doing that in almost perfect silence, as dampeners and hyperspace drive were of outstanding quality and excellently harmonised, had long before detected the pre-announced approach of the mechanical hornet. The disturbances the intruder caused when moving at capacity were typical and very much detectable. Thus, her appearance was greeted with a concentrated fire of perhaps two dozen machine cannons, accompanied by a few choice titbits in the shape of small missiles. Fortunately for the two chaps operating the high-speed intruder, the speed of their vessel in conjunction with the limited intelligence and restricted capabilities of the missiles allowed these two humans to escape annihilation.

  The latter, without exception, missed their objective, but the hail of small projectiles and fragments from exploding anti-craft shells ripped the high-speed intruder through and through and dangerously wounded her observer. In spite of the riddled state of the radiator planes and much other equipment, the pilot kept his craft well under control, but was forced to take to flight. They found reason for hope to survive not before the Aesuron fast scout cruiser was showing signs of staying behind, perhaps – the chaps assumed – due to fears of receiving too much damaged by a Human Nation's destroyer’s which they had detected in a distance. This destroyer’s automatic gun turrets with their machine cannons were estimated to be of certain dissuasive capacity versus fast scout cruisers. The last the intruder crew saw of her enemy menace was that she was making off at full speed in a direction counter to the galaxy’s rotation. They believed to have detected her stern portion dipping ominously in spite of extensive re-modulation of her hyperspace force-field. This hinted to a sudden defect in her hyperspace drive. Where this defect shall suddenly come from and if that incidence wasn’t suspicious or even a cunning ruse which could be part of an elaborate stratagem was nothing to worry about for these two chaps.

  The Human Nation’s high-speed intruder’s long flight terminated on coordinates just a few lightyears from the place where she had detected the hostile ships. Before long the pilot made the disconcerting discovery that one of the twin cooling systems was leaking. These small high-speed intruders consisted mainly of technical parts, most of them either procuring energy or using it. Despite the efficiency of these functional parts being high, they nevertheless produced comparatively large quantities of waste heat. The vessel had to get rid of that. Having secured his unfortunate comrade, the pilot slipped into the starboard maintenance tunnel of the fuselage to repair the damaged radiator. Failing to locate and stop the leak, he resumed his position at the controls again, in the hope that his work could preserve the high-speed intruder's stability in the superposed dimension. Soon after the radiator, the starboard engine and generator also gave in. The vessel was maintaining herself in hyperspace only with emergency power from the larboard side, while all the machines on the starboard were out of order. In this position he remained for two hours, until, numbed by the cold, he was on the point of abandoning hope when the Mandana hove in sight.

  More than one hour had passed when the Mandana re-joined the flotilla. The enemy was entirely out of sight, but there was every possibility of the Aesuron frigates with their mean missiles making a surprise attack upon the long line of battleships from the Human Nation.

  Every precaution was taken against such a step. The battleships and battlecruisers were encircled by a line of light cruisers, while beyond them, and mostly between the Human Nation’s fleet and the reported position of the Aesuron ships, was a numerous gathering of destroyers for the dual part of protecting the larger ships and also, when opportunity occurred, of making a dash against the Aesuron. The Human Nation’s Space Fleet had assumed the galactic version of a hedgehog position, an effectively defensive measure, no matter how much the offensive capabilities were pronounced. Furthermore, remaining close together and practically stationary was of course the opposite of speed warfare. Ships were deigned to move; that was their advantage. They worked less well as fortresses.

  "Mark my words, Astley," said Lieutenant-Commander Bergerault when the Mandana, having transferred the two fellows from the highs-speed intruder to a ship with more available hospital capacity, had taken up her allotted station, "The next few hours will see the time of reckoning coming. We'll have the time of our lives."

  Or our lived will run out of time, thought the very tired and – weakened by lack of sleep – now sarcastic young officer. He didn’t say it, though, and he would never ever have pronounced this thought. Actually, he felt so embarrassed about his own defeatist undisciplined scintillation that he forgot it faster than it took him to pass the nearest door.

  CHAPTER XII – An Attack into the Darkness

  Just about two hours later, two columns of Human Nation Space Fleet destroyers in line ahea
d slipped away in the darkness, the course being toward the assumed current coordinates of the Aesuron main body of vessels. Without producing so much as a yacht-size type of dimensional disturbances, with their dampers adjusted to maximum softness to prevent interfering with the energy waves running nicely regular on the predominant branes here, the long, lean craft headed in the supposed direction of the enemy fleet.

  From the bridge on the elevated conning tower of the cruiser, Astley took a look out of a porthole. Those were made of strong lead crystal and could be secured with could secured with steel-and-ceramics hatches. Astley could scarce distinguish between the Mandana's bows and the dark, heavy velvet of the surrounding space. Walking back a few steps to the instruments which were allocated on the bridge, the picture looked different, though. Looking at the monitors, Astley immediately found the guidance which enabled the destroyer to keep station. That was the phosphorescent representation of the wake which was created at the stern of the vessel next ahead, as her triple hyperspace drive of that ship churned the force lines of the superposed dimension’s basic fabric of energy.

  On deck the astronauts were at the battle stations, standing or sitting motionless and silent. They all had been told how to act to render their destroyer as inconspicuous as possible. There was, after all, the possibility that the enemy was running scouting missions as well, and that the Aesuron long-distance reconnaissance was working well, perhaps as well or even better than the own.

  Although shape of the Mandana’s hull and her dampers were comparatively ‘hyperspace friendly’, showers of dimensional disturbances ran like spray across and long the drop-shaped force-field, cast aside by the flaring bows. These spray-like occurrences of myriads of tiny perturbations were occasionally caught by the strong sideward waves which ran across the branes as rectangular overtone harmonics and dashed them over the conning tower. Thus, it was at times impossible to make use of the repaired hyperspace sensors owing to the plethora of nearby disturbances.

  Beyond a curt, clearly-enunciated order to the quartermaster, neither of the two officers on the bridge spoke a word, Bergerault gripping the guard-rail in front of his captain’s chair and peering ahead, while Astley kept his attention upon the tell-tale greyish smudge in the main screen that marked the position of the destroyer ahead.

  The result of years of training at short-ranging and disturbed-ranging manoeuvres was bearing fruit. Steel-nerved astronauts were at the helm of each vessel - astronauts who had long since got beyond the jumpy stage of their early days in outer space, when strange freaks of imagination conjure up visions of objects that did not exist. A false alarm and a rapid reaction from machine cannons or even missile launchers would be fatal to the clandestine enterprise, the success of which depended entirely upon getting well within missile-range without being spotted by the alert foe.

  A feeble signal, screened in all directions save that towards the vessels astern, blinked rapidly from the leading destroyer. It was the signal for the flotilla to form in line abeam.

  "Starboard eleven!" ordered Bergerault. ”Same pane.”

  "Starboard eleven, same pane, sir!" was the pilot's reply, while the lieutenant-commander ordered for speed to be increased to twenty three lightyears per hour in order to bring the Mandana even with the leader.

  Had hyperspace been less perturbed, the manoeuvre would have been executed with the precision of a machine. But with the superposed dimension being agitated by external forces and additionally churned up by the major battle which was going on, it was impossible for the Mandana’s sensors to follow the movements of the whole flotilla. Yet, carried out the orders were to anyone’s best capacity, each destroyer keeping station with the one nearest on her starboard beam.

  Suddenly the ‘white noise’ of the hyperspace around the Mandana and her flotilla of fellow destroyers was penetrated by the unmistakeable dimensional signature from a major ship at a distance of two light years on the Mandana's port bow. For a moment it hung around irresolute, and then swung round in the direction of the on-coming destroyers.

  A huge moving mass was making itself felt in the fabric of the superposed dimensions, the outlines of its force field silhouetted against the cloudy untidiness of the perturbed hyperspace. The mass was a Aesuron light cruiser, evidently detached for scouting purposes and returning at high speed towards the main fleet.

  From some other direction, a scouting cruiser from the Human Nation’s Space Fleet approached, almost as fast and as sudden as the Aesuron vessel had appeared. Perhaps, this one had also been scouting, or maybe she was out for the kill on her own, or sent as a disturbance to puzzle the enemy. In any case, the Aesuron vessel had been delivered to her nicely, right to bite her, shew her up, and swallow her down for breakfast.

  The Aesuron scout was very swift, though, and turned in an instance, accelerating to a speed which was out of the Human Nation’s cruiser to follow. Nevertheless, the cruiser yet attempted the chase. Very soon, just a few minutes into the chase, the true nature of the event became clear, though. Chasing someone into an area where that fellow voluntarily fled and which was hidden from detection was a risky business. “Never jump into muddy water where you cannot see that it’s deep enough for jumping in” – or something like this – anyone who learns to swim is told. “Don’t chase an Aesuron fast scout cruiser into a bank of white noise”, should have been the lesson which the human captain should have been told ad nauseam, for hidden behind the cloud of perturbations rested the worrisome fact of several Aesuron cruisers.

  Instantly a furious cannonade was opened upon the Human Nation’s luckless light cruiser from half a dozen of the Aesuron vessel’s consorts. For a couple of minutes the firing continued, until, with a tremendous flash and an impressive reverberation of hyperspace, the Human Nation’s Space Fleet cruiser exploded.

  Damn it, thought Astley. “They should have been more cautious. Aggression needs to be checked by discipline”, he murmured.

  Then the junior lieutenant’s whole attention was chained to the work now on hand. Barely had the last of the pieces of debris from the Human Nation’s light cruiser departed from hyperspace when at full speed the Human Nation’s destroyer flotilla hurled itself upon the foe.

  The group of fifty prowling vessel raced forward. Targeting the Aesuron cruiser squadron behind the bank of white noise, the destroyers held on with one set purpose: the annihilation of the enemy. Their weapons’ crews discharging the deadly nuclear missiles with rapidity and cool determination.

  Above the crash of the artillery ordnance could be detected the deeper boom of the nuclear missiles as they exploded at or near the Aesuron ships. Each one of these detonations caused shock waves to reverberate through hyperspace and increased the amount of dimensional disturbances, though. It was thus getting ever more difficult to detect anything.

  Slick in between two large battleships the Mandana rushed, letting loose a pair of missiles at each of the hostile ships. One torpedo was observed to explode close to the stern of the battleship to starboard. The stricken vessel was torched badly and lost some of her sensors. Being now deaf and blind on one eye, she was leaving the line with a decided list, hiding her wounded side. She and her consort went about and enveloped her in a screen of hyperspace distortions, behind which she could get away, if needed and desired.

  "Light cruisers, by Gracious Heavens!" muttered Astley, as the Mandana, on nearing the end of the enemy line, was confronted by three vessels of the seventy seven-forty five-eighty nice class, also called the ‘Grave Digger’ class among the Human Nation’s military-inclined population.

  A heavy fire greeted the approaching destroyers. Hear already some of the Mandana’s consorts were annihilated, running straight on into approaching gigaton nukes. But missiles were costly and the squadrons closed up on each other quite fast. Low distance between the contestants and high cost of missiles caused the fighters to become more dependent on their artillery. Almost without exception the shells went wide of their mark, though,
as hyperspace was already very perturbed. Artillery projectiles were too small to contain fully-fledged hyperspace drives; and instead they contained hyperspace retainers, which kept them in the superposed dimension for some time, ranging from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. After that, they dropped out. When the branes were agitated with high, powerful waves, and churned by crossing currents and vortexes and eddies of all kinds, big and small, then flying straight was no mean feat.

  Astley was focusing intensely on the surrounding action. He had the navigation station and was also in-charge of the tactical situation. With great luck and amazing foresight, he helped his skipper guide the Mandana through one after the other dangerous situation. Then, he realised that one of the Aesuron light cruisers ported helm and was gathering speed, and attempted to approach her lightly-built opponent.

  Making no effort to avoid the danger, the Mandana held on, until Astley, turning to see what his commanding officer was doing, found Bergerault sitting on the bridge with his back against the pedestal of the central holographic projector, and his hands clasping his right leg just above the knee, and blood oozing from a gash in his forehead. Spallation again, Astley reckoned, for nothing had penetrated the hull of the bridge. He would have realised such a loss of atmospheric pressure. While the bridge and in fact any other place inside any vessel of the Human Nation’s Space Fleet was designed to be secured against spallation to the best of possibilities, it was never to be ruled out entirely, nor was it to be ‘engineered away’. There were always some things that could issue fragments when pressure wave ran through them. A couple of these little fragments had just injured the Mandana’s skipper.