Wolfhound

by Kindal Debenham

  “What?” Carver’s voice had climbed an octave. Jacob winced. “But if we’re going into combat—”

  “I know. Just trust me on this. Keep the masts out until my mark. Bridge out.” Jacob tapped the link closed before Carver could protest again, and turned to place both hands on the miniature version of the flight wheel. No petty officer had shown up to take control of the Helm, and with both Piebald and Schroder down, no other officers were about to arrive to claim the spot either. It was his chance to pilot. The possibility held no joy for him now. He took the small flight wheel carefully, making sure not to alter their course but making sure he had control.

  Jacob watched the distance close and realized that there wasn’t much else he could do to prepare. The agony of anticipation stretched out for what seemed like an eternity, and then it was time. He opened a general communications link to Laurie, Isaac and Carver. “All stations, ready for action in five, four, three, two, one.” The corvettes and their frigate assault transport were terribly close now, so close the projection couldn’t zoom in any further. Jacob swallowed. I hope this works. “Mark!”

  The Wolfhound burst into motion. Every railgun opened fire. The heavy railguns fired a shell every second. The long range cannon fired every second and a half. The jolts of the shots were powerful enough Jacob felt a shudder run through the flight wheel controlling the maneuvering jets. Lines representing the courses of the railgun projectiles appeared on his projection, and at the same time, a pair of sailjammer missiles shot out at the frigate from the front of the ship. For a full three seconds, the ever-lengthening avalanche of destruction spread out toward the incoming craft.

  Jacob looked from the wave of shells to the pirates. It was inevitable that the enemy would notice the incoming fire. Even a casual observer would have noticed the retracting rad masts, the bright flashes of light and heat as railguns fired, and drawn the obvious conclusion. Still, the pirates’ reaction was delayed by the understandable shock of an attack hurled at them from a ship they had thought crippled and harmless. Jacob pictured sensor officers yelling warnings, navigators reaching for maneuvering controls, defense personnel activating interception turrets. Yet for all the speed that panic must have given them, it was already far too late.

  Isaac’s shells found their mark first, the speed imparted by the long range railguns giving the shots the advantage over their slower, more explosive brethren. Target Alpha had only begun a slight course change, and its defensive turrets were still swinging around to face forward when two of the shells sliced into the ship. The first projectile slammed straight into the nose of the smaller craft. The second tore a gash in the corvette’s side armor. Alpha bucked under the impact of the blasts, and for a critical heartbeat the pirates' reaction slowed. Then a second volley of high speed shells arrived, one of which drilled straight into the starboard section of the craft before exploding somewhere deep inside. They were followed by a heavy railgun shell salvo less than a second later that smashed into the corvette with the force of a battering ram, nearly unopposed by defensive fire. Further salvos crashed into the corvette, and the whole ship started to break apart.

  As target Alpha continued to disintegrate under the repeated blows, Beta and Delta were both beginning their own fight to survive. Target Beta swerved sharply in toward the Wolfhound, as if hoping the maneuver would keep it from encountering the salvo fired at it. Momentum still carried it forward, however, and as wave after wave of incoming shots swept across it, two shells made it through the plasma bursts. One exploded on impact, tearing a rippling hole in the corvette’s armor. The second slammed home in the port compartment of the ship. An explosion carved a cruel hole in the hull.

  Target Delta seemed to have taken a more direct solution. The corvette maintained course, but the defensive turrets wove a literal web of plasma fire that caught nearly every shell fired at it. The salvo of heavy shells was converted into a wave of shrapnel that washed over the ship. Its armor shrugged off the impacts of the fragments, multiple layers of cerrafiber plating and rubberized polymer absorbing the assault as it continued forward. Trailing fragments and fluid behind it, the corvette continued to accelerate as its gun turret came around to point at the Wolfhound.

  Even as the first flashes appeared from the gun turrets, Jacob was ready. He twisted the knob controlling the DE sails, wrenching the forward power back enough that the Wolfhound would eventually come to a complete stop from the brake sails’ thrust. Slowing his thrust would give Laurie more time to intercept the enemy shells. Warning sirens burst throughout the ship as the shells closed in. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. He closed his eyes.

  Light flashed against his eyelids and Jacob braced himself for impact. None came, and he opened his eyes to see the last of the traces of point defense fire fading from view. Explosions had torn through the space ahead of them, each with a fading line of plasma fire reaching out to them. Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, Jacob tapped the communications board. “Good job Laurie. Guns, give me a second salvo, quick!”

  As the shrapnel was left behind in Wolfhound’s wake, Jacob redirected his attention to the transport ahead of him. The rockets carrying the sailjammers had done their work well. Unable to maneuver effectively, the transport drifted forward, its own gun having just fallen silent. It grew larger in Jacob’s projection. He grunted. “Isaac? You gonna make me ram this thing?”

  “No, I got it. Leave them to me.” Isaac’s voice was satisfied somehow, and Jacob raised an eyebrow at the difference in his friend’s words. Before he could respond, the guns opened up again with another salvo, sending a fresh rain of destruction toward the frigate. The frigate let loose with its single railgun, desperate to return fire. Shells crisscrossed the vanishing space between the two ships, and Jacob braced himself for the impacts he knew had to come.

  Plasma fire raced out from both ships to meet the incoming shots, and the first shells fired by the frigate exploded at near maximum defensive range. At the same time, the heavy defensive turrets on the transport opened up and sliced most of the first salvo apart. The two heavy railgun shells that did pierce the web of thermonuclear lances exploded on impact. A high-speed shell arrived a moment later and dug a shalllow furrow along one of the wings. The exchange of blows continued as Jacob held the Wolfhound on course. Thumps and crashes echoed through the ship as shrapnel tumbled into the armor.

  More and more shells pierced the pirate’s defensive screen and hit home. They were too close, too fast, and too many for the enemy to stop all of them. Explosions tore at the transport’s armor, ripping plates of cerrafiber away and opening compartments to space. Sections of the defense grid sparked and went silent as powergrids failed, and the battering worsened as Isaac kept the railguns firing. Hull plates, once concealed under layer of armor, shattered as shells hit them like rocks thrown through a window.

  At the same time the hail of fire around the Wolfhound grew progressively worse as well. The corvettes were firing now too, and the angle from their shots made it far more difficult for Laurie to intercept all of the incoming shells. Sprays of shrapnel riddled the destroyer with impacts, and Jacob sent a grateful prayer of thanks that the fragile rad masts were already retracted beneath armored hatches. Then, as he had dreaded, one of the shells slipped through from target Delta and exploded against Wolfhound’s armor.

  The small flight wheel bucked in his hands as the ship shook. Jacob glanced at the hologram of the ship and was horrified to see a mass of yellow spreading across the top of the destroyer. He slapped at Carver’s comm designation on the board. “Carver, how bad did they get us?”

  The Engineering ensign’s response was calm. “The damage isn’t bad down here, just some minor problems that took out our sewage and water lines for a couple of sections.”

  Finally, the bombardment came to an end as the railguns on both sides fell silent, the combination of heat buildup and clouded targeting systems preventing a more extended burst. The remnants of the frigate
slid by beneath the Wolfhound. Brutally mauled, the wreck trailed a cloud of atmosphere, shattered armor plating, and bodies along with other debris. It was clear anyone not in an escape pod or an EV suit was rapidly going to run out of air. Given that the damage had been done in a matter of seconds, every single person onboard that transport was now dead.

  His relief evaporated as the two remaining corvettes began to swing around to follow the Wolfhound. Beta continued its clumsy, skidding turn while Delta swung into a wide upward loop, rolling to present its belly turret as it climbed. It was obvious both ships were close to opening fire again. Gritting his teeth, Jacob pushed the wheel forward and jerked it to the side, turning the ship to starboard so the currents were at their back and putting the dead frigate between their pursuers and the ship. Dialing the sails back to normal strength, he felt pressure pushing him back in his seat as the destroyer accelerated into the maneuver. He reached out and activated Isaac’s link. “Isaac, hit whatever corvettes you can see next time. I’ll try to keep us from being crippled.”

  The Gunnery ensign’s voice came back with quite a bit of concern coloring his words. “That’s gonna take a while, Jacob. We’ve got to let the guns cool after those opening volleys. Otherwise the damn things’ll melt on us.”

  Jacob grunted in frustration. “Just shoot as quickly as you can, otherwise we’re—” He cut off as the corvettes opened up once again. The purpose behind their shorter salvos was now obvious—though they did not fire as many shots at once, they were able to fire more volleys. Shells streaked in at the Wolfhound’s flank, and he reached desperately for the controls to increase the speed again. His hand had nearly reached it when the defensive screen opened up.

  Laurie’s turrets sent lances of plasma fire out towards the incoming shells, but the close range combined with the interference from the drifting wreckage and shrapnel must have been too much for Countermeasures to compensate for. Only three of the six shots were intercepted by defensive fire; another shell missed the Wolfhound completely as it shot away through space. The remaining two hits connected, hard, one after another.

  Alarms blared in the bridge. The destroyer shuddered violently. Jacob found himself thrown into his restraints, and both Singh and Al-shira cried out as they were shaken as well. He glanced to the side to find that the hologram of the Wolfhound had once again lit up with yellow marks. The first hit had connected with the lower part of the ship, skipping off the armor and detonating in a shower of shrapnel that had left the armor all along the ventral hull riddled with damage reports. The second hit had struck the ship just behind the “northern” arm of the destroyer’s gun decks, and the spreading yellow section there had a foreboding red center to it. Jacob swatted at the communication board again, aiming for Carver’s link. “Carver, how bad is it?”

  The Engineering ensign’s voice was showing signs of strain. “Minor hull breeches along the dorsal surface. We’ve got crewmen on the way, but it looks like blast doors and automatic systems are sealing them. Just don’t get hit there again.”

  Jacob hit the switch and cut off the link. Then he focused on the situation at hand. Beta had stabilized its clumsy turn and was now shooting past Wolfhound’s bow, running parallel to the course the destroyer had been following originally. For a moment, the damaged corvette hovered directly in front of the destroyer, almost daring the gun decks to open up at point blank range and rip the smaller craft apart. Pure frustration ripped through Jacob as the moment passed without a single shot. I have to give the guns a clear shot at them. I can’t let them get away!

  With another push on the flight wheel, Jacob turned the destroyer to follow in Beta’s wake, hoping Isaac’s guns would come through for him soon. At the same time, Delta reached the top of its climb and pivoted back down. The corvette dived toward Wolfhound, rolling again to give its railgun a clear shot at the damaged dorsal area of the ship.

  Jacob growled in frustration as Beta gained a sizable lead on him, the smaller ship’s greater speed allowing it to pull away while its companion lined up for another volley. He twisted the wheel, rolling the ship to present the more intact belly armor to Delta, and sent an urgent prayer Isaac would fire something, anything at the target directly ahead.

  His pleas were answered just as both pirate ships opened fire again. The stream of shells launched by Beta was picked off as the corvette tried to maneuver out of the way one last time. Isaac’s guns decks gave the pirate little chance. The terrible avalanche of shells had a low relative velocity since the corvette was speeding away from the Wolfhound, but even that advantage could not compensate for the number of shots fired at the pirate ship. The initial volleys were destroyed, but then a single high-speed shell pierced the cloud of shredded projectiles and sliced into the corvette’s stern.

  For a moment, it seemed the hit had done no damage. Then there was a single, violent eruption of searing plasma that boiled out of the corvette’s main section, where the main fusion reactor had been located. A second geyser of superheated gas tore its way through the top of the pirate ship, vaporizing hull and armor plating like a layer of frost on a stove. Beta’s DE sails immediately shut off and the rest of the ship went dark, and Jacob knew a third pirate craft was finally dead in space. The second volley of shells caught up with the now powerless, defenseless vessel, and the projectiles reduced the corvette to a shattered cloud of wreckage.

  Then Delta’s salvo caught the Wolfhound in its belly armor, and the entire destroyer bucked as if the ship itself had gone mad.

  Jacob was jerked so hard against the restraints he thought they would break. He spared a panicked look at the hologram to his right, which showed a sudden burst of red flowing out along the Engineering section. His console flickered slightly as veins of yellow flashed through the representation of the ship. With a flailing hand, he hit Carver’s communication link. “Carver! What’s going on down there? Carver?”

  He heard no reply except an omnious crackling sound. Jacob glanced at the projection of the space around them and found Delta diving past the Wolfhound and beginning another loop that would bring it back towards the wounded destroyer. He looked at Al-shira in growing desperation. “Al-shira, I need a link to somebody in Engineering. Can you find an active comm?”

  The Communications ensign nodded, and a new link blazed to life on Jacob’s screen. He activated it as he fought to bring the Wolfhound onto a new course. “Engineering?” He winced as he heard a flood of profanity come through the receiver. “Turley? Is everyone alright down there?”

  The cursing stopped mid-word, and Turley responded with his typical charm. “Not damn likely. Power grid is going wild after those last hits. We had a breach right in helm and nav controls too. I think Carver’s down, maybe a few others. You lose anything up there?”

  Jacob checked the console again, but the ship seemed to be moving fine. “Not yet.”

  “Great. Just get us out of here, dammit!” The link shut down, and Jacob felt a sudden resignation as Delta came up for another pass. No matter how he maneuvered, the corvette was going to be able to catch them. Unless he managed to surrender, the ship was going to be destroyed.

  He was opening his mouth to ask Al-shira to communicate with the last pirate when Ensign Singh half stood in his seat. Jacob looked at the Sensor officer in surprise, but Singh barely noticed in his excitement. “Hull temp readings on target Delta are rising sharply! They’re burning out!”

  Jacob’s jaw dropped as the corvette reeled away from the Wolfhound, its railgun turret twitching erratically. His mind flashed back to the debris Delta had been trailing after the initial bombardment. We must have shredded their radiation masts and punctured the coolant lines. Without the masts and the coolant, the heat from the ship would build up too fast to dissipate. He watched in sickened horror as the corvette twisted helplessly in space, and some part of him felt a moment of pity for the wretches inside. No spacer would ever wish heat death on anyone, pirate or not, and the image of the crew burning to death insid
e their ship was terrible enough that he almost hoped to see an escape pod or lifeboat launch. No survivors made it that far, however, and it soon became obvious target Delta was just as dead as its ruined companions. The corvette continued on its erratic course, its DE sails flickering and fading as the circuits feeding them melted, and finally it broke into pieces as the inner structure of the craft failed.

  Jacob sank back in his chair, overwhelmed by relief. We made it. We’re still alive. For a moment, his mind couldn’t make room for anything but that thought and the emotion it carried with it. From the expressions on the faces of Al-shira and Singh, they shared the feeling. Singh’s voice seemed to almost tremble with fatigue when the ensign spoke next. “All nearby ships have been neutralized. No remaining threats in the immediate area.”

  Jacob looked over at the Sensor officer. “No pods or lifeboats? No rescue calls?” Singh shook his head, and Jacob closed his eyes. He wondered briefly how many pirates had just died, then pushed the thought aside. “Al-shira, give the crew the all-clear signal and help coordinate the recovery efforts if you can. Then tell the remaining officers to gather in the briefing room for a meeting once the wounded are stabilized and the damage patched.” As he spoke, he set an automated course that avoided the remaining debris and shrapnel and took the ship further into the system.

  Al-shira simply nodded. She didn't look at him as he unbuckled himself from the command console and made his way back towards the entrance. When the door opened, he found Ashford unbuckling himself from his own restraints outside. The Marine sergeant glared at him and growled. “So are you done playing pilot, ensign? What the hell are we going to do now?”

  Jacob returned sergeant’s glare with a weary version of his own before he answered. “For now, we fix the ship. Then, we’ll see.” He made his way to access ladder and opened it to make his way down to Engineering to see if he could help, and paused. It hadn't been that long since he had come off that ladder, and yet it seemed like an eternity. As he started down the rungs, he doubted that it was going to be any easier any time soon.