CEO Boucher’s battleship looked as if a god’s hammer had slammed into its stern quarter and stern. The battleship was trying to regain maneuvering control, but having trouble, with more than half of its main propulsion units and a lot of maneuvering thrusters destroyed.
“I wish I could have seen her face,” Diaz said. “I wish I could have seen Happy Hua when she realized that Midway had all of her weapons operational, and they were all firing at her rear end as she waltzed past.”
“Yes,” Marphissa agreed. “That would have been nice. Kapitan Mercia, what’s the best way to finish off the Syndicate battleship?”
“Take us past his stern again, Kommodor. If he hasn’t regained maneuvering control, we can hammer him hard, and even if he does get control, he won’t be able to evade us. I am happy to report that all of Midway’s weapons worked at high efficiency.”
Marphissa brought her formation a bit farther down and angled it to port to match the wavering movements of the Syndicate battleship. The lone Syndicate Hunter-Killer still hung by the battleship, but the little warship offered the battleship no real additional protection. “They’re getting the battleship straightened out,” Diaz said, “but they’re having a lot of trouble. The remaining main propulsion units are all pushing to one side of the center of mass, and it’s taking all they can manage to keep the battleship from going into a wide spin.”
“They will have an easier time controlling it if they cut back on the remaining main propulsion units, Kapitan,” the maneuvering specialist offered.
“They would? Yes. I see that. But they will not because CEO Boucher will not let them.” Diaz looked at Marphissa. “Am I right?”
“Very likely,” she agreed. “It will be very hard to convince a Syndicate CEO that reducing thrust at a time like this is the right course of action. Boucher will think that she needs to keep her remaining thrust at maximum even though that’s the wrong thing to do since it’s making it harder to keep the battleship on course. We’re going to come on the stern quarter opposite the one we hit last time and hammer that battleship’s remaining main propulsion. They won’t be able to turn his bow to face us with their main propulsion shoving them in the opposite direction, so they’ll have to try turning away from us and bringing the bow all the way around the long way.”
“Even if he turns away, we’ll probably still get clean shots at his stern,” Diaz said.
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
With the Syndicate battleship wavering up and toward the star, while Marphissa’s flotilla closed in from behind and below, this was much more of a stern chase than the previous encounters, which reduced the relative speed of the encounter a great deal.
Kapitan Mercia called in. “We can brake velocity as we approach to get the relative speed close enough to zero that Midway can sit there and pound on that Syndicate bastard until he breaks.”
“Not yet,” Marphissa said. “Braking down our velocity like that would take more time and prolong our approach. If we give her enough time, Happy Hua may still figure out what she needs to do to get that battleship’s bow around in time to meet us. I want the rest of her main propulsion taken out so she can’t escape. After that, when we come back again, we’ll come in slow enough to pound the hell out of that battleship for as long as it takes.”
“Yes, Kommodor. Request permission to alter my own vector a little as necessary on the final approach to maximize my chances of hitting that battleship’s stern hard.”
“Permission granted,” Marphissa said. “I will tell the other warships not to conform to your movement this time because I want to ensure that CEO Boucher’s ship doesn’t get good shots at any of our escorts while you’re angling for a good shot from Midway.”
Mercia paused, then nodded carefully. “I should have considered that, Kommodor.”
“It’s my job to consider such matters,” Marphissa said. “Yours is to get that Syndicate battleship.”
They overtook and tore past CEO Boucher’s sadly diminished flotilla in another moment of extreme violence. This time, Manticore jerked badly a couple of times, and alarms sounded in the wake of the firing run.
“Happy Hua targeted us this time,” Diaz said, looking furious. “She couldn’t get in good shots at Midway, but she tried to nail us.”
“How bad is it?” Marphissa asked.
“A hell-lance battery out as well as one of the missile launchers. Hull penetrations in two places. Two dead and a dozen injured.”
Marphissa winced internally at the losses but kept her gaze on her display.
The Syndicate battleship’s staggering attempts to swing its bow around had not come close to succeeding. Midway had hit its stern badly, taking out all but one of the remaining main propulsion units and badly chewing up another one of the battleship’s aft quarters.
On the other hand, Manticore had not been the only escort hit by the Syndicate battleship’s fire. Gryphon had taken one bad hit, Eagle had lost some of her main propulsion, and Hawk was temporarily unable to maneuver. Marphissa had deliberately kept her Hunter-Killers away from the battleship during the engagement, which was probably the only thing that had saved them from being badly damaged or destroyed.
Marphissa searched her display for the fate of the sole surviving Syndicate escort and spotted the Hunter-Killer bolting at maximum acceleration on a long, curving trajectory that would bring it to the jump point for Kiribati, far across the star system.
She made a quick check of the fuel-cell status on her own Hunter-Killers and shook her head. “We’ll have to let him go,” Marphissa told Diaz. “Our own Hunter-Killers don’t have the fuel-cell reserves left to catch him.”
“Too bad.”
“Yes.” She touched her comm controls. “Midway, you are to detach from the formation and operate independently to finish disabling and destroy the Syndicate battleship. I will keep the rest of the formation clear to avoid sustaining any more damage until the enemy battleship has been rendered safe to approach.”
“It shall be done,” Kapitan Mercia said, baring her teeth.
“Gryphon, stay with Hawk until Hawk regains maneuvering control, then both of you rejoin the formation.”
“Yes, Kommodor,” Kapitan Stein acknowledged, not quite hiding her relief at not being asked to once more exchange fire with a battleship.
As Midway began cumbersomely swinging about to reengage the enemy battleship, Marphissa began to reverse course by pivoting her remaining ships in place and starting to kill their momentum before accelerating back along the same vector in the opposite direction. Unlike Midway, though, she wouldn’t be closing to firing range again until that enemy battleship had lost its fangs.
The Syndicate battleship no longer had the unbalanced thrust of its main propulsion shoving it to one side, but it had also lost a lot of thrusters aft. Even a ship with a lot less mass would have found it hard to maneuver under those circumstances, but a battleship faced serious trouble. And with only one main propulsion unit still working, it could not accelerate fast enough or change vectors quickly enough to have any hope of escape or evasion.
That left slugging it out with the Midway, and as Marphissa watched, the Syndicate battleship tried once again to swing its bow around in time to meet the latest charge.
But Kapitan Mercia had her thrusters and main propulsion still intact, so while the Midway remained a clumsy elephant compared to smaller warships, she was a graceful, light-footed elephant compared to the damaged enemy battleship.
Using her momentum to skate around the enemy battleship faster than it could turn, Mercia’s battleship raked the enemy from one quarter to the other, destroying the last working main propulsion unit and smashing weapons, sensors, and anything else that wasn’t fully protected by the battleship’s armor.
CEO Boucher’s battleship staggered, beginning a slow tumble under the force of the hits that its remaining thrusters strove to counter.
Having reduced her relative velocity to something ne
arly matching that of the Syndicate battleship, Mercia had Midway back in position within ten minutes and began hammering the enemy systematically, working her way up from the stern to smash section after section of the enemy warship while exposing Midway to only a few enemy weapons at a time.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Diaz said with awe as he watched the methodical destruction of the enemy battleship’s weapons and remaining thrusters. “You look at a battleship and you know the weapons they carry and the defenses they have, but it isn’t until you see something like this, with our battleship hurling out volley after volley that would each tear Manticore apart, and the other battleship soaking up all that damage and still going, that you really appreciate what terrible monsters they are.”
“It’s not pretty,” Marphissa agreed. “If that ship hadn’t done most of the damage at Kane, I might feel a little sorry for them.”
“There must be a lot of snakes aboard forcing them—” Diaz began.
“I don’t care,” Marphissa said, her voice low and angry. “We had snakes aboard, and we did something. They’re dying, but they could still do something.”
They were doing something, but it consisted of attempts to continue fighting. The Syndicate battleship volleyed missiles at the Midway, but the range was so short that Midway could target the missiles with hell lances right after launch as the missiles were at a low relative velocity. The few missiles that survived failed to break through Midway’s shields.
Once their missiles were exhausted, the Syndicate crew tried firing bombardment projectiles at the Midway whenever a launcher was able to bear on her. But Midway was able to use her thrusters to twist out of the way of incoming rocks, adding in bursts of acceleration from her main propulsion when necessary. No launcher got more than a single bombardment projectile off before being knocked out, since they had to be visible to Midway’s weapons in order to fire on the battleship.
As the escorts watched the slow crushing of the Syndicate battleship’s ability to fight, Gryphon and Hawk rejoined Marphissa’s formation, the light cruiser having managed to get enough thrusters working again to maneuver.
Midway had meticulously hammered about two-thirds of the hull of the enemy battleship when the enemy abruptly stopped firing.
“Hold fire,” Marphissa ordered.
Mercia didn’t look happy at the command. “The Syndicate battleship is still dangerous.”
“I know, but if he starts firing again, you can continue reducing his defenses.” Marphissa pointed to her display, where an image mostly covered with red damage markers represented the enemy ship. “If they are ready to surrender, we can use that battleship, even if only as a source of parts.”
“The snakes won’t surrender, Kommodor,” Mercia insisted.
“I know that,” Marphissa said. “The snakes on my ships didn’t surrender, either. We got rid of them. If the crew on that battleship has finally had enough, they may be eliminating the snakes aboard as we speak.”
“How long do you want me to wait?”
“I’ll let you know.” Marphissa ended the call, feeling annoyed. Mercia might have said she was ready to acknowledge Marphissa’s authority when everything was going her way, but when Marphissa’s orders had conflicted with Mercia’s desires, there had been some obvious friction.
They waited, watching the mauled Syndicate battleship roll and tumble slowly through space. “Are we seeing any signs of what is happening inside?” Marphissa asked.
“Nothing, Kommodor,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla said. “No messages, no signs of activity, nothing being detected by our other sensors.”
Another five minutes crawled by, while Marphissa tried to decide how much longer to wait before ordering Mercia to open fire again. She felt a perverse desire to stretch out the time before such an order just to punish Mercia for being less than enthusiastically compliant, but rejected the thought. “If nothing happens in five minutes more,” she told Mercia, “you are authorized to resume firing.”
Mercia kept her expression and voice professionally dispassionate as she replied. “Yes, Kommodor. I will have Midway in position.”
With just two minutes to go, activity finally occurred.
“Escape pod launch from the Syndicate battleship,” Czilla reported. “Another . . . three . . . four more. They’re coming out fast, lots of them.”
“Get me contact with one of those pods,” Marphissa ordered. “I want to know who is abandoning ship and why. Kapitan Mercia, continue holding your fire until we learn what is going on.”
“I am not to target the escape pods?” Mercia asked.
“No. We do not— That is no longer policy, not where President Iceni has authority.”
“O brave new world that has such people in it,” Mercia said, citing the old quote usually used sarcastically. But she gave Marphissa a look that was anything but sarcastic or biting. “Sometimes I don’t know whether these new policies are real until I see what President Iceni’s people do when presented with opportunities to violate those policies.”
“I hope you approve,” Marphissa said, her tone sharper than she had intended.
“Yes, Kommodor. My apologies if earlier I did not act with sufficient respect.”
She seemed sincere enough, so Marphissa waved a dismissive hand. “It takes time to adjust to new situations.”
“It does indeed.”
As far as the escape pods from the Syndicate battleship went, it also took a little time, a few more minutes, to gain contact with one of them while Marphissa waited with growing impatience.
“We have a pod,” Manticore’s comm specialist announced.
“Show me,” Marphissa ordered.
The virtual window that popped into existence before her showed the interior of a standard Syndicate warship escape pod, this one packed with personnel. Looking over the figures she could see, Marphissa judged that all were workers since no portions of executive or sub-CEO outfits could be seen under their survival suits. “I am Kommodor Marphissa of the Free and Independent Midway Star System. Who are you?”
The workers nearest the vid pickup looked at each other, then one middle-aged man licked his lips and answered. “Line Worker Tomas Fidor. Propulsion Section Five. Maintenance Office One. Engineering Department.”
“What is happening on the battleship that you left?”
“We left . . . um . . . honored . . .”
“I am the Kommodor in command of Midway’s warships in this star system,” she said, hearing the snap of command enter her voice. “We are not Syndicate. I know that you left your battleship. I want to know why. Was an order given to abandon ship? Is there fighting going on inside that ship?”
Fidor nodded quickly, then shook his head. “No. I mean, yes. There was no order to abandon ship. The word was passed among the workers. There is fighting. The snakes, they are crazy. There are so many of them. A lot are dead, but we couldn’t get them all.”
“How many of the crew are left aboard?” Marphissa demanded. “How many snakes?”
The image fuzzed as something interfered with the signal, then cleared, showing the worker grinning nervously. “I don’t know. Everyone was trying to get off. Everyone but the snakes.”
“Where is CEO Boucher? Is she still alive?”
The worker’s face spasmed with hate. “She is still alive. No one can get to her.”
“Is CEO Boucher sealed into the bridge citadel?”
“Y-yes. No one can get in there. No one can get close.”
“What about the weapons-control citadel and the engineering control citadel?” Marphissa asked.
“Weapons was abandoned. Nobody there anymore. The weapons-integration systems crashed, and the weapons couldn’t fire from central control, so everyone left. Except some snakes, but they couldn’t do anything.”
Marphissa narrowed her eyes at the worker’s image. “What about engineering?” she pressed.
“Engineering? Um . . . engineering . . .”
“I am trying to decide whether or not to board that battleship to gain possession of it,” Marphissa lied. “I will be very unhappy if there is something I should know before that happens, and you do not tell me.”
“I— You don’t want to go aboard that unit! Just don’t!”
“They’ve done something,” Diaz said. “Before they left the battleship. Engineering specialist, are we picking up anything from the battleship?”
The engineering specialist standing watch on Manticore’s bridge answered immediately. “Minor fluctuations in the power core, Kapitan. That’s understandable given the amount of damage the battleship has sustained. Different systems will be erratically dropping online and off-line in ways that cause core fluctuations as it copes with the variations in power demand.”
“Is that the only explanation or the most likely explanation?”
The specialist did not hesitate. “The most likely, Kapitan. There is a chance it could also be early signs of instability in the core itself.”
“What did you do?” Marphissa asked the worker, her voice low but commanding.
“I did nothing!”
“What is about to happen?”
The worker’s expression visibly wavered with indecision.
“I can ask anyone else in any other escape pod,” Marphissa said, her tone now implacable. “If you plan on living, one of my ships has to pick you up. Now, give me a straight and clear answer with no further delays.”
“Y-yes, honored supervisor.” The man swallowed, looking terror-struck. “There’s a mechanism that the snakes installed. To cause an overload. After all the snakes in the engineering control areas died,” he said, phrasing it as if the snakes had all just suddenly dropped dead of their own accord, “we modified it.”
“Modified it?”
“It’s on a timer. We think it will blow in about . . . what is the time now . . . about ten more minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Marphissa flared. “If the power core on that battleship overloads in ten minutes, a lot of your escape pods will still be within its danger radius! They can’t accelerate fast enough to get clear!”
The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword Page 27