Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  “You’re right,” Rob said. “I expect he’ll try to intercept us before we can hit those freighters. We’ll let Piranha try to finish the Sword Class ship.”

  “We helped take that ship down,” Ensign Reichert insisted.

  He knew why she felt the need to say that. Claymore wouldn’t be properly avenged if someone else struck the death blows to one of the warships that had destroyed her. “That’s right,” Rob said. “It’ll be a joint kill in which Saber played an equal role.”

  Saber was at the top of her loop and Piranha just beginning to turn up from the bottom of her curve when the enemy ships made the move that Rob was expecting.

  “Enemy Founders Class destroyer and cutter are breaking away from the Sword Class ship,” Cameron reported. “They’re coming back and up.”

  “They’re going to try to hit us,” Rob said, “or make us turn away. For now, keep us on a vector to pass through the enemy formation, targeting the passenger ship. We’ll shift vectors on final approach to avoid giving him a shot at us and try to hit one of the freighters.”

  An internal comm alert came on as Mele Darcy called. “He’s going to be mad,” she said, obviously speaking about the enemy commander.

  “I know,” Rob said. “Mad enough to make mistakes.”

  “Maybe. Also mad enough that if you give him an opening he’ll go for your throat. You’re feeling pretty confident right now. Don’t.”

  He hesitated, recognizing that Mele was right, that without realizing it he was feeling almost giddy with assurance after the success of the first maneuver. So confident that he might have given the enemy commander just such a shot at him. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Mele said. “That, and to break things that need breaking.”

  “Captain!” Ensign Reichert said. “Warrant Officer Kamaka reports that we’re getting some very aggressive attacks on our system firewalls. The transmissions carrying the attacks appear to be originating from the enemy passenger ship. So far nothing has gotten through, but he’s monitoring the situation closely and wanted you to be informed.”

  “Thank you,” Rob said. “Mele, if your code monkey isn’t busy maybe he can help Kamaka.”

  “Will do. I’ll have Corporal Giddings get in touch with Warrant Kamaka. Sir,” Mele added, “if those software attacks are coming from the passenger ship, that means their offensive hackers are aboard it, and most ground forces I know of keep their hackers close to the headquarters unit.”

  “Understood,” Rob said, his eyes on the display where the arc of Saber’s path through space was projected to meet with the near-future position of that passenger ship. Piranha was still coming around as well, her vector aimed at hitting the crippled Sword Class destroyer. And the remaining enemy destroyer and cutter were curving up and back to hit Saber just before she reached the passenger ship. He was still twenty minutes out from encountering those enemy warships.

  Rob tapped his comm control again. “Piranha, this is Saber. We’re under software attack from the passenger ship and assess that the enemy ground forces command structure is probably aboard it. Recommend we concentrate attacks on that ship. I’ll try to draw off the enemy combatants. Geary, over.”

  The reply took about a minute to show up. “Saber, this is Piranha. I may not be able to finish off the damaged enemy warship on this firing pass. It’d be helpful if you could make another run on it after mine. I agree with trying to cripple and destroy the passenger ship. That’s their highest value target. Salomon, over.”

  Rob checked his display, realizing that personally running the options would be too distracting. “Lieutenant Cameron, have someone work up some options for hitting that Sword Class destroyer again if Piranha doesn’t finish him.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Piranha, this is Saber. Understood. Will attempt to hit the damaged enemy ship again if necessary. Geary, out.”

  That left the question of whom to try to hit on this pass. Ensign Reichert took that moment to complicate the answer. “Captain, the enemy warships are going to intercept us at a point close enough to the other enemy ships that if we engage them our weapons won’t be able to reload or recharge before we’re past the passenger ship or freighters.”

  He took a closer look, realizing that not only was Reichert right, but that the intercept point was perfectly positioned to catch Saber if she continued a firing run on the freighters or passenger ship. The enemy warships would catch Saber no matter which ship Rob tried to target with a last-moment course adjustment. “He’s good,” Rob muttered in reluctant appreciation of how well the enemy commander had planned his intercept maneuver. “Ensign Reichert, what’s our worst case if we take the maximum number of possible hits from both of those remaining warships?”

  “Wait, sir,” Reichert replied as she ran a simulation. “There’s a better than even chance of spot failures in our shields and hits on Saber. Our combat systems are estimating anywhere from one to three hits on this ship.”

  He didn’t bother asking where those hits would fall. There were too many variables to offer any meaningful prediction. The hits could pass through nonessential areas, or through some of the crew, or strike critical systems and knock them out. There wasn’t any way of knowing in advance.

  Rob took another long look at the aspects of the two oncoming enemy warships. They were close enough to each other that he couldn’t hit the cutter without the destroyer also hitting back at Saber.

  None of his options were looking good. But if he didn’t press the attack, Piranha might feel that Saber was failing to live up to its part of the bargain. Could he risk that?

  A red marker abruptly appeared on Rob’s display.

  “We’ve lost primary controls for thruster group two,” Chief Petty Officer Quinton called out from the engineering watch station. “Cause unknown. Auxiliary controls . . . Captain, the auxiliary controls are having trouble taking over.”

  Rob took only a couple of seconds to confirm where maneuvering thruster group two was located on the hull of Saber before realizing that he couldn’t continue this attack run. With one of the three primary maneuver thruster groups out, the loss of a second could render Saber a sitting duck. Coming right or up was already hindered, so he ran a hasty vector change to the left and down. Even if the enemy warships pursued, that would give at least half an hour to get those thrusters back online. “Come port five zero degrees, down zero three zero degrees.”

  “Understand come port five zero degrees, down zero three zero degrees,” Lieutenant Cameron replied. Saber rolled to the left and dipped her bow as the remaining thrusters fired.

  “Let me know if they come around to intercept us,” Rob ordered, worried that the enemy would spot Saber’s problem and attempt to attack while the ship couldn’t maneuver well in all directions.”

  “There’s no sign they’re following,” Ensign Reichert said. “Holding position near the passenger ship. They probably think we’re pulling an injured bird.”

  Rob twisted in his seat to look at her, puzzled. “An injured bird?”

  Reichert in turn appeared startled that he didn’t know the term. “It’s a deception maneuver to try to draw off escorts or attackers by feigning damage and apparent vulnerability, sir.”

  “It’s on the checklists,” Lieutenant Cameron said.

  “Right. So the enemy would have known we might try that if we were paying attention to the checklists and probably assumes that’s what we’re doing.”

  “Thank you,” Rob said, surprised that something from the Earth Fleet checklists had proven so useful in confusing the enemy about the real problem that Saber was experiencing.

  An internal call from Vicki Dorset came in as Rob settled in his seat again. “Sir, I’m on-site where the failure occurred. It’s a relay junction.”

  “Can you identify the cause of the failure?”
Rob asked, thinking of hacking messing up a critical part’s functions.

  “It looks like a normal failure,” she replied. “Relay junctions on Founder Class ships are notorious for sudden no-apparent-reason RJ fails. That’s why we carry several spares. I’ve sent a team to pull a spare so we can do a replace. If nothing else complicates things we should have the junction up, synced, and working in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you,” Rob said, grateful that he had people with so much experience working for him. With the enemy not in pursuit of Saber, and now sure of the problem, he called Salomon. “Piranha, this is Saber. I suffered the temporary loss of a thruster group due to part failure and broke off my attack run. Saber should be fully combat ready again in ten minutes and will reengage at that time. Geary, out.”

  He refocused on his display in time to see as Piranha raced past the injured Sword Class destroyer. The battered enemy ship had tried to shift his bow away, but Salomon had correctly anticipated the maneuver so that Piranha crossed the enemy bow. With the enemy’s forward shields still down, Piranha was able to fire her pulse particle beams down the length of the Scathan warship. Rob flinched, thinking about those streams of highly charged particles tearing through everything in their path, whether equipment or members of the enemy crew.

  A moment after the particle beams hit, Piranha’s grapeshot struck the enemy’s bow. The grapeshot, nothing but metal ball bearings depending on their mass and velocity to do damage, hit with enough energy to vaporize the front of the Scathan destroyer.

  That was one ship that wasn’t going to be worth salvaging after this was over.

  Piranha continued up and around, aiming for the Scathan troop carriers as a reply came in from Salomon. “Saber this is Piranha. I think your guess regarding the value of the passenger ship is right. I’m going to try to draw off the remaining escorts by hitting the freighters farthest from them. If they go after me, that should give you a shot at the passenger ship. Salomon, out.”

  “Lieutenant Cameron,” Rob said, “as soon as we get all thrusters online again I’ll want an intercept trajectory on the passenger ship, timed to get there right after Piranha makes her run on the enemy freighters.”

  “I’ll have it ready, sir.”

  “Ensign Reichert, how badly hurt is that Sword Class destroyer?”

  Reichert shook her head as she studied her display. “He’s either completely dead or very good at playing dead. His power core has shut down, and we’re seeing no signs of any systems still working.”

  Something about that didn’t fit. “Why haven’t the surviving crew abandoned ship?” Rob wondered.

  “I have no idea, sir.”

  Out of commission as it apparently was, the Sword Class destroyer continued moving with the enemy formation since the passenger ship and freighters hadn’t maneuvered. But the hits on the destroyer had slowed it a little and knocked it onto a slightly converging vector, so the Sword Class ship was slowly drifting higher and closer to the rest of the ships. If none of the freighters or the passenger ships changed their own vectors, the badly damaged warship would drift through them and out the upper edge of their formation. “Maybe they’re waiting to abandon ship until they’re in among the other ships friendly to them,” Rob said. “How are the repairs on thruster group two going?” he added, realizing that ten minutes had come and gone.

  Chief Petty Officer Quinton relayed the question, remaining impassive as he heard the reply. “Lieutenant Commander Shen says the junction repair is complete but something else is causing problems. She’s got specialists trying to run down the problem.”

  “Any new estimate of repair time?” Rob asked, trying not to snap the question in frustration and afraid that he already knew the answer.

  “No, Captain. Until they find what’s wrong they can’t say how long it’ll take to fix. Whatever this problem is isn’t showing up on remote diagnostics so they’re having to do physical checks.”

  Rob rubbed one side of his face, thinking, as Saber continued to arc past the enemy formation. Maybe if we . . .

  “Captain?” Lieutenant Cameron said. “I don’t know how much experience you have with our systems. They will automatically analyze and report any unusual behaviors in another ship.”

  Rob looked back at Cameron, trying not to glare. “And?”

  “Sir, the enemy destroyer came from the same source and has the same analysis systems as we do. If we maneuver without using thruster group two, the systems automatically will spot that and notify the enemy commander.”

  Damn. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Rob said. “I didn’t know they’d do that. There’s no way we can maneuver without giving it away?”

  “No, sir,” Cameron said.

  “Then we’ll have to do the best we can without those thrusters and make sure we don’t give the enemy warships a chance to intercept us while we’ve got limited maneuvering capability. Work me up an intercept on one of the freighters.”

  What to tell Salomon? Regardless of her wishes, he couldn’t hazard Saber in an attack in the ship’s current condition. Coordination could only go so far, and his primary duty remained to Glenlyon.

  Unhappy but determined, Rob tapped his comms again. “Piranha, this is Saber. My number two thruster group is down for an undetermined period. I’ll attempt to continue attacks on enemy shipping but cannot risk an engagement with the enemy warships while my maneuvering is compromised. Geary, out.”

  Salomon didn’t respond as Piranha swept around to hit one of the freighters at the end of the enemy formation. Rob watched, frustrated by Saber’s inability to match the maneuvers, as Piranha’s weapons tore up one side of the freighter. “Give me an intercept for that trailing freighter,” he ordered. As soon as the solution came in, he approved it, Saber’s remaining thrusters firing to bring her around in the long sweep to the left that should end at where the freighter would be.

  “Sir!” Ensign Reichert called out. “Piranha’s trying something else!”

  Rob took another look at Piranha’s vector. The enemy warships protecting the passenger ship had lunged back and up in an attempt to catch Piranha as she pulled away for another firing run. Piranha had seen, too, and was rolling down and over to strike at the momentarily unguarded passenger ship.

  Had the enemy lunge always been intended as a feint, or had the enemy commander lost his nerve and aborted the attack run? Piranha and the enemy ships were close, very close, and moving very fast as Piranha dove at the passenger ship and the enemy destroyer and cutter abruptly altered their own vectors.

  At the velocities such ships were moving, any misjudgment could be catastrophic. Cruel momentum held them in its grip and would not yield easily to even the power of thrusters.

  Rob felt a reflexive yell of caution stick in his throat, too late even as it formed. By the time anyone on the other three warships could see what might happen, by the time even the automated maneuvering systems could spot the danger and make the necessary changes, the enemy cutter and Piranha had momentarily touched hulls as both crafts raced past each other moving at thousands of kilometers per second.

  At that velocity, the energy of the impact was enough to vaporize most of the cutter and at least a third of Piranha. The cutter and its crew simply vanished, turned into dust and tiny fragments. Piranha, slammed off vector by the collision, with all propulsion and maneuvering knocked out, tumbled away from the enemy formation, pieces of the stricken warship breaking off as the wreck spun wildly through space.

  Rob stared at his display, momentarily shocked into inaction. Salomon might have survived, since the bridge was located in one of the best protected places inside Piranha’s hull, but even if she and some of her crew were still alive, they and their ship were out of this fight.

  “Captain?”

  Lieutenant Cameron’s stunned question brought Rob out of his paralysis. “Continue attack run on the last freighter,�
�� Rob ordered as he tried to grasp what had just happened.

  The enemy cutter was gone, but so was Piranha. That left Saber against the enemy Founder Class destroyer. Even odds, or it would be if Saber didn’t have one-third of her maneuvering thrusters down.

  Lieutenant Commander Shen took that moment to call the bridge again. “When the junction failed so did protective breakers along control lines. We’ve got burned-out lines to most of the thrusters.”

  “Can we replace them?” Rob asked, his mind mechanically seizing on something he could still control.

  “Yes, sir. But I’m estimating at least ten hours for the job.”

  Rob inhaled slowly before replying. “Make it as much shorter as you can. We just lost Piranha. Saber is all that’s left to stop that invasion force.” The words felt hollow as he gazed at the surviving enemy destroyer and the freighters and passenger ship. Saber couldn’t handle that all on her own.

  He might be able to inflict some more damage, but barring the miracle that had yet to appear this invasion wasn’t going to be stopped short of the planet it was aiming for.

  CHAPTER 8

  Long ago, on Old Earth, people must have only looked to the sky with fear during those times when thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. But humans had first learned how to fly, then how to enter space. It hadn’t taken them long to realize that weapons and soldiers could be dropped from above. Ever since, the sky and the stars had just been one more battlefield for humans to cross and contest, one more source of danger for those on the surface of a planet.

  On Kosatka, the intelligence offices had been watching space, using the latest sensors available, but as impotent to do anything about the threat as primitive humans fearing the strike of lightning.

  “Everybody out,” Loren Yeresh announced. “The invasion fleet will reach orbit soon. You have thirty minutes to copy any files, collect gear, and leave the building. After that a special team is going to wipe every file from the gear we have to leave, then start planting physical booby traps where they can and malware booby traps in the equipment.”