“Very good, Lieutenant Commander.” Jackson leaned back. “OPS, inform Engineering that we will need the Ares’ full performance available shortly. While you’re at it, make sure all applicable departments know that we will be abandoning stealth and charging down into the Alpha formation within the next twelve hours. Coms!”
“Aye, sir,” Keller anticipated. “Prepping a tight-beam transmission for the rest of the squadron now.”
“Lieutenant Commander Barrett, when you go active you are authorized to bring all tactical systems online,” Jackson said.
“Yes, sir!”
“Captain, a word please?” Lieutenant Davis leaned in.
“Speak your mind, Lieutenant.” Jackson made no move to get out of his seat. Davis looked a bit unsure of herself at that but pressed on regardless.
“Captain, is it wise to waste the time and munitions to engage three targets that aren’t our objective?” she asked. “Not to mention the risk?”
“You feel I’m acting rashly?” Jackson asked conversationally. “Perhaps even foolishly?”
Davis’ cheeks burned red and she set her mouth in a thin, hard line. “I would not presume to understand your motivations, Captain,” she said. “But my responsibility is to ensure the safety of the ship and the crew. Perhaps if I knew what the plan was I would not be so concerned.” She was still keeping her voice low enough to not be overheard, but Jackson could hear the steel behind her words.
“Relax, Lieutenant,” he said with a small smile. “I was just pressing you.”
“Sir?”
“There may be times when I am either incapacitated or otherwise unavailable, Lieutenant Davis,” he continued. “I need to know that you place your responsibilities ahead of anything else, including your trust in your superior officers or conflicts from personal relationships.”
“I see.” She looked confused and no less concerned.
“Listen up!” Jackson stood up. “We’re getting ready for a five-ship attack run on three Phage Alphas sitting in high orbit over a large, rocky planet. On the surface this is fairly routine, but our objective will not be to eliminate the targets.
“Since we don’t have one of the Super Alphas here to try and capture and we don’t have the time or the resources to continue to hunt blindly, we’re going to try and draw one in to us. The plan will be to destroy two of the Alphas and let the one escape while we put on a show of harassing it. Hopefully it will go and tell one of its big brothers that we’re here.”
“Why not let two go, sir?” Barrett asked. “Double our odds of success.”
“Because I can’t be certain that our objective won’t return with the Alphas we let go,” Jackson said. “I’d rather thin out their potential retaliatory force here while we have the slight advantage.”
“Understood, sir,” Barrett nodded.
“So since you’re all old pros at this sort of thing, I want a detailed plan for the attack sent to me within the hour,” Jackson sat back down. “Your XO will coordinate your efforts and you will all report to her. Impress me.”
Fifty-three minutes later and his crew did just that. Barrett, Accari, and Hayashi worked to put together an impressively workable plan of attack. It was even complete with contingencies and did not ignore the fact that the Ares would not be attacking alone. With the amount of time left before they would need to commit to the attack by activating their active sensor arrays, Jackson had decided it was a perfect time for a little real world training.
He was both relieved and surprised at how tight the plan was his crew had put together. Much of the relief was due to the fact that he was now reasonably confident that, should something happen to him during a battle, one of his bridge officers would be able to assume command and have the instincts to know whether they should continue to press or disengage and withdraw.
“Well,” Jackson said neutrally, looking up from his tile at the trio arrayed in front of the command chair. “I suppose this isn’t a complete cluster fuck. You’ve smartly deployed the squadron to maximize our weapons coverage, but you’ve left the Ares too far ahead. Depending on how the target reacts, the Atlas or the Icarus could end up inadvertently hitting us on the aft quadrant.”
“That was my fault, Captain,” Hayashi spoke up. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be right,” Jackson said. “Lieutenant Commander Barrett should have been the one to catch that oversight as he’s intimately aware of the auto-mag’s capabilities and limitations.”
“Yes, sir,” Barrett said. “I—” He trailed off before clamping his mouth shut.
“What?” Jackson demanded.
“I may have assumed a margin of error that was too tight for our flanking ships,” Barrett said. “But that’s no excuse, sir.”
“Not all explanations are excuses, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Now … let’s rework the deployment of the ships during the initial attack run so that we’re not putting the other two ships in a position where they could accidentally fire on us. I’d also like you to think a little more three-dimensionally. There’s no reason to array the wedge parallel with the ecliptic during the approach, and it actually cuts off some potential escape lanes for the inner three ships. Once the shooting starts this could all fly out the airlock since we have no idea how those Alphas will react, so let’s leave ourselves as many options open as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” they said in ragged unison.
“A little harsher than I expected, sir,” Davis remarked after they left.
“I’ve come to realize that perhaps I’ve insulated them from making the tough choices, you included,” Jackson sipped his coffee. “Their plan wasn’t bad, even workable, but they need to be pressed a bit. If this war has taught us anything it’s that relying on any single person can lead to lost battles and countless lives lost. Remember the Dao?”
“The Asianic Union battleship that was lost during the second battle for Xi’an?” she frowned.
“Yes. Her captain, the one with the politically connected family, panicked and simply tried to flee the area,” Jackson said. “He not only killed everyone aboard an irreplaceable battleship, but the gap he left in the line let the Phage swarm and kill even more aboard the smaller support ships trying to clear the area.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Captain.”
“Just think if the Dao had an XO, or even a tactical officer, that would have recognized that the captain was incapacitated and had assumed command,” Jackson sighed. “I watched the sensor logs from the Brooklands. If someone had simply turned the ship into the onrush of Bravos and let her automated systems fight back the way they were designed to, from the front, they could have held on long enough for us to arrive.”
“I understand now, sir,” she nodded.
“Then this wasn’t a waste of time, Lieutenant,” he smiled at her briefly. “I’m going to grab a quick bite in the wardroom and then I’ll relieve you before things get exciting around here.”
After a sandwich that had been sitting out for far too long to still be considered edible, but offset with a cup of coffee that was outstanding, Jackson was back in his seat and watching the updates from the Vruahn telemetry link. The device was now able to clearly resolve the three Alphas and seven Bravos holding formation over the lifeless hulk of the fourth planet in the system. They were just about to fire up their active sensor systems, including the Link, so soon they’d have five high-power, high-resolution radars painting the target area and sharing the data so he’d be able to verify just how accurate the cube really was.
“Passive sensors confirm that all ships are redeployed into our final attack formation,” Barrett said. “Warming up active array transmitters now.”
“You are clear to activate the array at your discretion, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Helm! Stay sharp and keep alert for any snap course changes. We’re going to be flying in a tight formation at a group of bunched-up targets. It could get a little hairy.”
�
��Aye, sir.” The helmsman was cinching down his restraints tighter and reconfiguring his panels for close quarters combat flying … at least “close quarters” by starship standards.
“Stand by!” Barrett called out. “Going active … Now!” Jackson mentally counted to three in his head.
“Engines to full operational mode,” he called. “Helm, all ahead flank!”
“All engines ahead flank, aye!”
“OPS, get the Link active.” Jackson leaned into the surge of the main engines shoving the Ares forward with more power than the grav generators could compensate for. “Coms! Verify status of the rest of the squadron.”
“All ships have responded to our opening maneuver and are reporting all greens across the board,” Keller said, referring to the master status board above the main display that gave a quick go/no-go visual indicator for the ship’s primary systems.
“Tactical, weapons hot,” Jackson said. “Begin calculating a distributed firing solution once we have confirmed returns from our own sensors.”
“Weapons hot, aye!”
The radar returns started coming in and, once they were resolved by the computer, Jackson could see that the Vruahn data was quite accurate. There was a slight discrepancy since the data from the cube was instantaneous and their radar returns were hampered by the delay of the RF travelling to the target and then having to come all the way back to be interpreted. He could also see that the Phage were moving as soon as the first pulses from their radar hit them, but not before. It was another nugget of information about his enemy that he catalogued and stored for later.
“Tactical, use the Vruahn telemetry data to calculate your initial firing solutions until we’re close enough to negate our own sensor lag,” Jackson ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Barrett said. “Updating plots now. We’ll be firing the first wave of Shrikes in less than two minutes.”
One hundred and seven seconds later the two ships on the right side of the formation, the Icarus and Artemis, fired two Shrikes each for the same Alpha before angling their course out and away from the other ships. Jackson watched them peel off on his tactical display and crossed his fingers that the Phage would react the way he thought they would.
The Shrikes raced ahead of the formation towards their target. Silent and deadly, they were utilizing a broadcast telemetry uplink from the formation and had not activated their own onboard sensors and had shut down their engines after one quick, intense burn. It wasn’t long before the Vruahn data told the story: the Alphas had been sitting, waiting, and hadn’t detected the four missiles until three slammed into the one that had been trailing behind and below the other two. The fourth missile went ballistic and continued on to the planet’s surface, but the other three had solid impacts and fired their engines again to dig into the organic hull as deep as possible before detonating.
“Tango One is in an uncontrolled tumble and falling out of orbit,” Barrett said. “High-res radar is showing significant damage to the entire front half. It should impact the planet in less than five minutes.”
“Icarus reports the Bravos are pursuing them away from the planet,” Keller said.
“Tell Captain Wright to allow them to close before taking them out,” Jackson said. “What are the other two Alphas doing?”
“Both have turned and are moving towards us,” Barrett said. “Their acceleration rate indicates they’re coming out cautiously.”
“Let’s disappear,” Jackson said. “Coms! Have the Atlas and Hyperion light up the sky. Tactical and OPS, go to passive sensors and switch the Link to receive only.”
“Aye, sir,” Barrett said. “Atlas and Hyperion have both ignited their auxiliary boosters. They’re overtaking us.”
“Helm, zero thrust. Steady as she goes.”
“Engines answering zero thrust,” the helmsman said. “Maintaining course and speed, aye.”
“Tactical?”
“Stand by, Captain,” Barrett said. “They haven’t fully committed—there they go! Both remaining Alphas are swinging out to pursue the Atlas and Hyperion.”
“Coms, inform Captain Walton that he is clear to engage Tango Two at his discretion,” Jackson said. “We’ll move on him.”
Jackson had ordered both of his remaining destroyers to blast their radars at full power while also igniting their auxiliary boosters and pulling out of the formation and away from the planet. Simultaneously the Ares went dark and cold-coasted along her original course that would now take them up behind the two pursuing Alphas. It was a calculated gamble since, if they were spotted or the Phage weren’t fooled, the Ares would be flying dark into the teeth of two waiting Alphas and none of the other ships would be able to come about and offer any assistance in time.
But as he’d anticipated, the sight of two Terran warship flaring brightly and fleeing was simply too much and they were moving out to pursue. If there had been a heavier Phage presence in the system, or even one of the Super Alphas, he wouldn’t have tried something so transparent. But with only three Alphas and a handful of Bravos he’d been confident that their collective consciousness hadn’t reached a level of sophistication past that of a simple predator.
“The Hyperion has locked two Shrikes on Tango Two.” Barrett watched the status updates of the squadron over the Link. “Atlas is reducing acceleration and drifting to port to provide a backup shot without us being in the line of fire.”
“Good, good,” Jackson said distractedly. “How long until we can pursue?”
“Three hours, forty minutes until our first course change,” Ensign Hayashi said.
Jackson had to force himself to sit still in his seat. The last tussle he’d been in with the Phage had been aboard Colonel Blake’s awesome Vruahn strike ship, and it had spoiled him by showing what he was missing. Having to fight his battles once again over the span of hours and days instead of seconds and minutes hardly seemed fair and he once again cursed his new allies.
Thankfully the Phage obliged them by cranking up their acceleration rate once they’d cleared the influence of the planet. It was just over two hours when they crossed the Ares’ flightpath on their way towards the two fleeing destroyers.
“Hyperion is firing,” Barrett said. “Time to impact … ninety-seven minutes.”
“Helm! Come to course Sierra-Delta,” Jackson chose from the list of pre-programmed contingency courses on his display. “Ahead one-third, just enough to get us moving in the right direction.”
“Helm answering new course,” the helmsman said. “Ahead one-third, aye.”
The nose of the Ares swung around to her new heading and the engines gently began pushing them off their current intercept course with the planet. Since they were still trying to remain unnoticed the ship was in reality still flying sideways faster than she was moving forward, as the engine power wasn’t enough to overcome the inertia they were carrying. Spaceflight was a strangely relative thing and it was something the human mind seemed to still struggle with on an instinctual level as there was no “up” and moving “forward” didn’t mean what it did when on a planet.
“Targets are now separating,” Barrett said. “Tango Three is drifting down relative to the Hyperion’s line of fire.”
“That’s it,” Jackson stood. “We can’t let it get behind us. Helm, ahead flank.”
“Engines ahead flank, aye.”
“Tactical, begin updating your targeting pattern and bring the auto-mag online.” Jackson began pacing as the rumble of the engines throttling up vibrated the deck plates.
“Auto-mag capacitor bank is at full power,” Barrett said. “Updating firing solutions now. When am I allowed to go active sensors, sir?”
“Wait until we’ve completed our turn and we’re actually on a pursuit course,” Jackson said. “There's a chance they didn’t notice the thermal bloom from the engines, but we know they’ll feel the radar pulses. Nav! Let Tactical know once we begin to close the interval between us and Tango Three.”
“Yes, sir!”
Accari called out, never looking up from his display.
Jackson watched their interval actually increase slightly on the main display before the roaring engines could get the massive starship turned and moving in the right direction. He watched the helmsman expertly cheat the nose over slightly off-course to direct the engine thrust over just enough to tighten up their turn.
“Tactical, we’re now accelerating along our pursuit course.”
“Acknowledged,” Barrett said. “Going active.” They were close enough to the target to not have a long wait before the tactical computer updated the Alpha’s orientation, speed, and heading. It was more or less right where the Vruahn cube said it was.
“Computer is now constantly updating our firing solution.”
“Weapons free,” Jackson said. “You may fire at will once you have the optimal range.”
“Aye, sir,” Barrett said. “Turning over control of the auto-mag to the tactical computer now … projected time until firing range is three hours, thirty minutes and decreasing.”
The frenetic activity on the bridge simmered down to a tense quietness, punctuated only by the muted alerts from the terminals and the hushed conversations of operators talking to their backshops or each other. For his part, Jackson felt the familiar calm that came in knowing that he had made his preparations as best he could and now there was nothing to be done until his target reacted to what was about to happen next.
“Hyperion is reporting good impacts on Tango Two,” Keller called out.
“Confirmed,” Hayashi said. “All missiles detonated on Tango Two; unknown if target was destroyed or disabled.”
“Let Captain Walton worry about that,” Jackson said. “Any reaction from our target?”
“No reaction,” Barrett said. “It’s still maintaining course and speed, no longer accelerating.”
“Change of plans, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Fire your full spread now. OPS, reinitialize our Link telemetry feed. Coms! Tell Captain Walton I want his two ships to come about and charge at Tango Three; make sure they’re aware of our shot trajectory through the Link.”
Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) Page 12