“They must think we’re a tramp freighter,” said Lasardo, looking at his board, then back at the Captain. “From our acceleration profile and the resonances of our engines.”
“And that might save us,” said the Captain. “What’s the status of our weapons, Lasardo?”
“A ring is fully charged and ready,” said the Tactical Officer. “C ring is the only other functional laser, and the emitters are only at forty percent.”
“Particle beams?”
“One forward weapon. Charging now. And most of our short range projectile weapons are still nonoperational.”
“Work out a fire plan that brings the most weapons to bear on the incoming missiles, including our best orientation.”
“Yes, sir,” said the officer.
“Evasive plan, Captain?” asked the Helmsman.
“None, until they are already locked onto final approach,” said von Rittersdorf. “I want their computers to think we’re a freighter until the last moment. I’m hoping they don’t use their full capabilities, thinking we’re just a fat and lazy target that they can take out easily.”
“Translations up to VII,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Athens and the destroyers are jumping. They’re accelerating.”
“And the enemy ships?”
“They’re still accelerating. They’re firing missiles.”
“Target?”
“The Athens and her escorts,” said Lasardo.
Von Rittersdorf stared at the plot, seeing the battle as it would play out in the vector arrows of the ships. The enemy was going straight for the human warships, while the Imperial warships were building up velocity while curving away, looking like they were launching an attack while drawing the Ca’cadasans away from McArthur. The Imperial warships were not doing anything to help McArthur against the enemy missiles heading her way. They had to trust that the crippled destroyer could handle herself.
“The missiles targeting us are jumping down to VI,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Accelerating at eight thousand gravities.”
“Continue steady as you go, Helm. How long to missile impact?” And we can’t really do anything else, not with a hundred gravity acceleration limit.
“Missiles will impact in twenty-five minutes, fifteen seconds,” called out Lasardo. “Closing speed will be point four-three light.”
“Good. The sooner they get here the slower will be their closing speed, and the better targets they will make.”
The bridge crew tried to pay attention to two fights in two different dimensions at once. The three enemy scout ships were closing on the friendly vessels, while the missiles from both forces were speeding toward their targets. “ETA of enemy missiles at our force, twenty-three minutes.”
“What about the friendly missiles?” shouted von Rittersdorf.
“ETA twenty-nine minutes.”
“So they get first hit at both of us,” said the Captain, frowning at the plot. There was nothing they could do but watch . And wait.
“ETA two minutes,” called out Lasardo, waking the Captain from his trancelike state of watching the other fight develop.
“Everything ready, Tactical?”
“All go, sir. Preparing to execute fire plan at thirty seconds ETA. Birds coming in fat and sassy on a flat profile.”
“Very good,” said von Rittersdorf in a voice filled with the calm he didn’t feel. “Prepare to fire when the counter hits thirty seconds.”
“Aye sir.” The counter ticked down, first to a minute thirty, then a minute fifteen. The ship started its turn, orienting itself so that both working laser rings, the one particle beam projector, and seventy percent of the working projectile weapons were capable of engaging the missiles.
“One minute ten. One minute. Fifty seconds. Forty seconds. Thirty-five seconds. Now,” yelled Lasardo, and the ship went into action.
Two powerful beams lanced out of laser A, one from laser C. The three beams were all direct hits, and three enemy missiles exploded in fury. A fourth missile near one of the detonations caught some of the blast and sustained damage to its sensors, but continued toward the target.
Two seconds later the laser rings fired again, this time scoring two hits, including the damaged missile. The next salvo was all misses, as was the next, and the five remaining missiles were fifteen seconds away. The Captain gripped the arms of his chair tightly and stared at the plot, trying to will the lasers to hit. Whether it was will or not another missile went up from a laser hit, then another, and three came on. At eight seconds out the final laser hit occurred, and laser A went off line, bringing a curse to the Tactical Officer’s lips.
“Come on, dammit,” yelled the Captain, hit a hand on his chair arm. Laser B fired and missed, then fired again, missing again, then hit a missile on the tail as it juked. The missile veered, then straightened back to target in time to take the particle beam right up the sensor head. It detonated in fury, sending a particle stream into the weak electromagnetic field of the destroyer. The last missile was hit by the converging streams of the solid particle weapons, exploding less than fifty thousand kilometers from the ship and blasting it with more particle radiation.
Klaxons were going off over the ship, and the schematic on the Captain’s personal screen blinked with red damage icons along the side facing the attack. Casualty figures came through and he winced, thinking of the score of spacemen who would not make it home, while thirty-one more would sit in the stasis tubes for eventual repair and recovery. But his ship still lived, as did one hundred and eighty-three of the crew.
“And now they know we are not a freighter,” said Lasardo with a grimace. “Now they know we’re a damaged warship.”
“This is engineering, Captain,” came a voice over the com. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
“Give it to me,” said von Rittersdorf, wishing he could hide from this kind of news.
“We can only make sixty-two gees,” said the Engineer. “I might be able to get you another ten in a couple of hours, but beyond that I just don’t know.”
“Do your best, Engineer,” said the Captain. It probably won’t mean anything anyway.
“Missile ETA at our force, four minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.
Missiles were dropping off the plot as the three warships engaged them. All could see that it wasn’t enough, as more than two hundred missiles bore in.
“We have translation,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Catastrophic translation of an Imperial destroyer.” Then another translation blast hit, and there was only the icon of the light cruiser and the last thirty missiles trying to kill her on the plot. The missiles fell off the plot, some with minor translation noise, others disappearing without a sound, until they were all gone, and the Athena was still there.
“I wonder what shape she is in?” asked Lasardo, his eyes tracking on the enemy force and the missiles bearing down on them. There were only a hundred of the human weapons, the hyper VII warships only carrying a limited supply of hyper missiles, unlike the aliens, who only seemed to have large numbers of dual purpose weapons.
The missiles closed, until they hit the defensive envelop and started disappearing from the plot. Forty made it to close in engagement range, and nineteen came at their targets. There was the loud sound of translation and one of the enemy ships dropped of the plot. The other two came on.
“We’re receiving a grav wave signal through VIII from the Athens,” said the Com Officer. “One enemy ship damaged, one destroyed. They are also heavily damaged, but still have most of their laser capacity. They advise us to run like hell.”
“And that we’ll do,” said von Rittersdorf. “Don’t return their signal. Maybe the enemy will forget we’re here until we’re out of detection range.”
Then it was another waiting game as they watched the plot, until the Athens fell off as it went out of detection range. Ten minutes later the enemy ships also disappeared. And twenty minutes after came the twin translation signals of two shi
ps falling out of hyper as wrecks. One was an enemy scout, the other Athens.
“I think one of their ships survived,” said Lasardo. “Surely we would have heard it if it fell out.”
Let’s just hope it was badly enough damaged to keep going on its way,” said the Helmsman, looking at his board. “Engineering signaling I have six more gees accel, sir.”
“Then pour it on, Helm,” said the Captain. “Every bit you get, pull it.”
They cruised on for another hour, and von Rittersdorf was beginning to think they might have gotten away when the sound of a normal translation from VII to VI came from astern. Two hours later the enemy ship entered Hyper VI detection range, and the Dot McArthur knew it wasn’t home free.
* * *
“We have missile launch,” yelled out the Sensor Officer.
“How many?” asked the Captain, looking at the plot where the missiles had yet to appear.
“Three. No, four,” called out Lasardo, just before the images appeared on the plot. “That’s probably all they’ve got left.”
“Those things weigh a half million tons,” said the Sensor Officer, looking over at the tac station with a scowl. “They’ve got to have more than that.”
“Unless they were in another engagement,” said von Rittersdorf. “They used a lot of missiles in that engagement that took out the Athens. If this was one of those ships? ETA?”
“Twenty-eight minutes,” called out Lasardo, his face again grim. “We can probably handle them, but he’ll be in beam weapons range in one hour and five minutes.”
I wish I was only facing three times my number of pirates on the Lasharan frontier, thought the Captain. This is more action than I really wanted.
“What are we going to do, Captain?” asked the Helmsman.
Von Rittersdorf looked around the bridge, the scent of fear on everyone he could see. “Lasardo. Prepare to take those missiles under fire as soon as they come within laser range. Is laser A back online?”
“We have one emitter back online,” said Lasardo, shaking his head. “We might have another online in another hour.”
“Which we don’t have,” said the Captain. So we might not have an easy job of the missiles after all.
“And what about the enemy ship?”
“We’ll cross that star system when we come to it. Or it comes to us.”
There was complete silence on the bridge. The crew was emotionally exhausted, at the edge of their endurance. And it looked like it was all over, not in a manner they would have wished. There was no place to hide, no ambushes to spring, no protectors that might come between them and destruction.
“Missile impact in five minutes,” called out Lasardo, initiating the laser defenses.
The ship shifted to a sideways orientation and both laser rings opened fire. The first two shots were misses, followed by a single hit with the next cycle by laser A. It was a momentary hit by a destroyer ring only operating at twenty percent power, causing some damage to the body of the missile, but not enough.
The lasers kept cycling, firing as fast as possible without overheating the system. At four minutes out there was another hit, enough to damage the missile’s guidance systems, making it an easy target for the next three hits. The missile blew apart in space, leaving the three remaining to continue moving in.
At just under two minutes out the next hit occurred, still not enough to destroy the missile, but enough to damage the sensor head. The laser rings went to a maximum firing rate with no care for the cooling systems. At just over one minute they scored a hit on one of the remaining two missiles, a damaged weapon, blasting it out of space.
“Laser A just went offline,” yelled Lasardo. “Laser C still operational.”
And laser C kept cycling, a shot a second, but the strained targeting systems were not functioning at full capacity, and blast after blast missed the target.
“Hit it, dammit,” yelled von Rittersdorf. “Come on, hit it.”
The missile bore in, thirty seconds away . And laser C went offline with a final shot.
“Particle beam is the only other chance,” said Lasardo.
“What about the projectile weapons?” asked the Captain, his hands clenched on his chair arms.
“Only two still have ammunition,” said the Tactical Officer, concentrating on his board. “If only I can….”
The particle beam fired, a shot, two, and both missed. “There,” yelled Lasardo, and a laser beam fired out and hit the nose of the incoming missile directly. The missile exploded, sending a mass of superheated plasma and radiation into the bow section of the ship.
“Good job getting in that last shot in,” said von Rittersdorf, cringing a bit as he looked into the local screen and saw the new damage that had been inflicted to his once beautiful ship.
“Laser A is gone,” said Lasardo, turning with wide eyes to look at his captain. “Now we only have laser C left, and I doubt it’s going to be enough.”
“Hell, Tactical ,” said the Captain with a slight smile. “We haven’t had a chance before, in all the other situations since taking the heir aboard. What’s one more hopeless situation?”
“Enemy will be in laser range in twenty minutes,” said Lasardo, checking his board. “Ten minutes later they will be able to hit us point blank, and we won’t be able to avoid.”
“I’m picking up hyper emissions from the front,” called out the Sensor Officer. “One Imperial destroyer. No two.”
“Still not enough to take on that thing behind us,” said the Helmsman.
“Maybe in a missile engagement,” said Lasardo.
“We have missile launch ahead,” called out the Sensor Officer. “Eight, no sixteen missiles.”
“And that’s probably all the hyper capable missiles those destroyers have,” said Lasardo, nodding. “I don’t think that’s going to be enough to saturate their defenses.”
“But that might,” said the Sensor Officer, pointing to the plot. Forty more missiles appeared on the plot, and the acceleration profile of the destroyer weapons with these would allow them all to strike the enemy vessel in one wave.
“I wonder what fired them?” asked the Helmsman.
“Probably from that,” called out the Sensor Officer, a smile on her face as the icon of an Imperial battleship appeared on the plot.
A took several more minutes before the enemy ship started to react to the missiles coming its way. It started to change its acceleration vector, though three hundred gravities would not get them away from five thousand gravity missiles. It fought valiantly, as all warships would under similar circumstances. And like other ships in similar situations it died.
“We’re receiving grav wave signals from the battleship,” said the Com Officer. “HIMS Lord Kelvin, out of Conundrum.”
“Send them our particulars and destination,” said von Rittersdorf, smiling.
“They’re dispatching the two destroyers to escort us,” said the Com Officer. “Conundrum is less than a day ahead.”
“So we made it,” said the Helmsman, letting out a sigh.
We made it, thought the Captain, looking over the damage schematic of his proud ship. Now we just need a month in a repair yard, and then we can get back into it.
* * *
HYPER VII BATTLE CRUISER JEAN DE ARC.
“They’re in front of us again,” called out the Sensor Chief.
“Any way around them?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” said the Chief in a tense voice.
Everyone is starting to lose hope, thought the Captain, rubbing her temples with thumb and fingers. Myself included. And I can’t afford to be like that. Not at this time and place. Not if I want to get my crew out alive.
“Can we slow down before we come within their detection range?” asked the Captain of the Helmsman.
“I think so ma’am,” said the officer, checking his board. “It’s going to be close though, and we have no control over them coming up on us.”
And i
f I take that chance, and they do start heading our way, then a translation down will definitely give the game away.
“Dammit,” she exclaimed, slamming her hand down on her chair arm. “Slow to a translation speed, then drop us to normal space. Then back us the hell out of here.”
The Helmsman nodded his head, a pinched expression on his face. The Captain looked around the bridge, seeing the hopeless expressions on every face. They see we’re going the wrong direction, away from safety. We don’t stand a chance out here on our own, not in this wreck of a ship.
The hours passed, with the enemy ships keeping their distance, even moving away a bit. We’re going to make it, thought the Captain. The ship was almost down to point two c, almost to the point where they could drop back into normal space if necessary.
“They’re starting to change vectors, ma’am,” called out the Sensor Chief, his voice on the edge of hysteria. “Back toward us.”
“Crap. Have they heard us?”
“Unknown,” said the Chief, taking some deep breaths before continuing. “I won’t know for several hours about that, ma’am. All I can tell is that they are changing vectors.”
“So we wait,” said Mei under her breath. “Nothing else to it.”
Hours passed, and the plot started to show the change. Not directly at the Jean de Arc, but definitely not away from her.
“I’m picking up another resonance, ma’am,” called out the Chief. “About one hundred and ten degrees to port.”
“Another of the enemy?”
“No, ma’am,” said the Sensor Chief. “Resonance matches a tramp freighter in Hyper V.”
“And they’re going after her,” said the Captain, glaring at the tactical plot which was now updating to show all the players.
“We’re in no shape to do anything about it, Captain,” said Commander Jackson over the personal com. “I know it’s our job, protecting the helpless, but that pretty much describes us right about now. We need to get home. That’s more important at the moment.”
“I know, Exec,” she said over the com, feeling like she was betraying her oath in letting a freighter get taken without any effort on her part to intercede. “It just burns me up inside.” She sat there, fretting for a moment, thinking of anything she might be able to do to change the situation.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm Page 43