Unlike the snug skinsuits used by the West, the Xin Long crew still wore the loose, low-pressure flight suits that had been issued in the past. The emphasis was not on deploying the latest technological advances, but rather the Chinese viewed the use of tried and true concepts as the key to dominating space. Their shipboard AI was not as advanced either, and their Orion spacecraft had a larger crew size as a consequence. The situation was tense, yet the crew remained quiet and disciplined for the last hour while strapped to their seats, their nervous anticipation dampened by the constant checking and rechecking of their assigned responsibilities.
The Xin Long’s communications officer twisted her shoulders to face him. “Colonel, General Zhou is on the private com-link for you.”
Shen nodded, even though his chin was mostly covered by his helmet, preventing his crew from completely seeing his face. “Go ahead.”
General Zhou’s gruff sounding voice was soon heard inside his helmet. The general was in command of the entire installation, and they had worked together for almost two years now. Zhou was a strict disciplinarian, yet Shen could understand why, for the station crew had to stay focused in order to deal with the problems at hand. “Colonel, both our Earth Ground Control and station observers here have confirmed the American spacecraft is closing in to one hundred thousand kilometers from our position. Your ship and the Fei Long are to deploy immediately and intercept the target.”
“Understood, General,” Shen said over the com-link. “Do I have permission to engage the Orion drive once our ships are at safe distance from the station?”
“Yes,” General Zhou said softly. “While there may be political ramifications over this, the Americans have already violated the treaty with the launch of their top secret warship. Colonel, you must ensure the safety of our assets in this area. You shall be in overall command of the task force. I have already spoken to Colonel Liao about this. Once your ships have deployed, do whatever you need to do.”
“Yes, General. Over and out,” Shen said before adjusting his com-link to the ship’s main channel as soon as the general signed off. “Crew of the Xin Long, this is Colonel Shen, your commanding officer. We are to detach immediately from the dry dock and begin maneuver for safe distance from the station.” He turned his shoulders slightly and pointed to the two pilots at the far side of the room. “Detach and take us out, use maneuvering thrust only.”
Both the pilot and his co-pilot answered at the same time. “Yes, sir.”
Within a few seconds, both Orion battlecruisers had detached from the main hardpoints of the dry dock, and we now using their liquid chemical thrusters to boost as far away as possible from the space station’s vicinity. Shen understood what General Zhou had said to him. Whatever happened at this point would be his responsibility alone. In case anything catastrophic happened, his superior officer could easily insinuate himself from any blame. Shen knew that he was either destined for greater glory, or he would end up dead.
He turned to face the chief engineer. “What is the status of the nuclear charges?”
The chief engineer bent his shoulders down slightly, in order to signify that he nodded. “All systems are at optimum capacity, Colonel. The drive is ready to be activated.”
The ship’s pilot continued to look at the readouts in his console. “Colonel, we have now achieved a minimum safe distance from the station.”
Shen turned to look at the communications officer. “Alert the Fei Long, tell them we will be engaging the Orion drive.”
“Fei Long acknowledges, sir,” the communications officer said. “Colonel Liao says he will be one hundred kilometers to your port side.”
“Patch me in to Colonel Liao’s private line,” Shen said.
Colonel Ping Liao’s high-spirited voice was soon on his com-link. “Shen, looks like this is it for us.”
“Liao, if anything happens to my ship, do your best to destroy that American spacecraft,” Shen said softly. “We cannot let that thing get to the Tian-fu Station.”
“Understood,” Liao said. “We will definitely succeed, Shen.”
Shen switched back to the main com-link channel so everyone could hear him. “Chief pilot, plot intercept course to the Americans and prepare to fire Orion drive.”
“One moment, Colonel,” the pilot said as he adjusted the ship’s attitude control to aim it directly at the incoming spacecraft. “Intercept course and Orion drive ready.”
Shen lowered his faceplate. Everyone else in the bridge had already lowered theirs. “Fire the drive. Now!”
The pilot pushed a button on his console. A second later there was a loud explosion that was heard coming from where the armored rear plate of the ship was. A short second later, it happened again, and again. It felt like they were all inside a huge iron church bell, and some monstrous giant outside was using a massive sledgehammer to repeatedly smash against the sides of it. Several members of the crew instinctively brought their hands up to cover their ears, even though all they could cup were the sides of their helmets. Each blast was disconcerting and everyone feared they would either go deaf or one of the bombs would prematurely detonate and destroy the ship, yet they soon began to accept what was happening as they could feel the Xin Long lurch forward with each head-splitting bang.
Sitting inside the Virago’s battlesphere, Major Vince Lawson noticed it first. One of the long range cameras in his console detected the dim flashes of light in the darkness of space, like the faint twinkling of distant stars. Now it was time to see what this spacecraft could really do. “I got bandits. CAIN estimates they are less than a hundred thousand kilometers away and closing,” he said to no one in particular.
“Switching to manual control,” Colonel Ruthven said. “Vince, go ahead and coordinate point defense. If they get too close, you can use the gauss turrets on offense too, but concentrate on their incoming missiles- that’s first priority.”
“Affirmative, Colonel,” Lawson said. “All defensive systems active.”
Ruthven armed the main guns. The Virago’s side cameras revealed that the Whipple shields above the weapon ports had retracted immediately, and the front barrels of the vaunted 30mm gauss cannons along the length of the spacecraft were now visible. He glanced over at the Russian. “What’s the status on the casaba howitzers?”
Vlad Utkin shook his head from side to side. “Nyet, this is passcode that nobody ever gave to me. I am attempting brute force crack using CAIN, but it will take time.”
Ruthven snorted in disgust. The casaba howitzers would have made short work of these Chinese Orions, so now they would have to get in close to use the main guns. That meant they would be within enemy weapon range as well. He figured the best strategy was to use the Virago like an atmospheric fighter jet, since its fusion drive gave off a continuous delta-v and he could gimbal the thrust nozzle. The enemy on the other hand could only accelerate in spurts with each nuclear detonation, and then used chemical maneuvering thrusters for more precise attitude adjustments. Make them waste a lot of delta-v while trying to get at us, then they’ll be sitting ducks.
“We’ll be within range in about ten minutes,” Lawson said. “They’ll probably start firing their missiles at a thousand klicks out.”
“Lots of optical chatter in English,” Ganz said. The pain in his leg had become a mild ache. “They’re saying that we have to change our course, or it will be an act of war.”
Herbert Eng Wu knew it was useless to try and argue his cause, but he did it anyway, hoping for a miraculous reprieve. “It’s not too late to stop this. The Chinese are only trying to intercept us because we’re heading straight for them. If we leave them alone, I’m sure they won’t bother us.”
“This is not up for debate. Stay off the air,” Ruthven said before toggling his command console, deactivating Herbert’s com-link channel. With his right hand firmly on the control stick, he began to jink the Virago from side to side, as well as up and down while it continued its relentless course towards the two o
pposing ships.
The Xin Long’s communications officer toggled his com-link so that only the ship’s commander could hear him. “No reply from the American spacecraft, Colonel.”
“The enemy ship is now doing evasive maneuvers, Colonel,” the pilot said. “I’m having a hard time trying to maintain our front side to the enemy. We’re expending a lot of propellant with the attitude thrusters.”
Colonel Shen grimaced. The damned Americans had more than three times their delta-v. If this situation kept on going, then the Virago would soon be able to get behind them. “Give me a continuous optical com-link with Fei Long’s commander.”
Colonel Liao’s voice was on the other channel. “Shen, they’re forcing us to expend a lot of our delta-v.”
“Yes,” Shen said. “I need your ship to turn in the other direction opposite to mine, Liao. That way at least one of us will always have their front to the enemy.”
“Good plan,” Liao said. “I will implement that.”
“Once they are within a thousand kilometers, fire all of our missiles,” Shen said to his weapon officers. “Including all nuclear warheads.”
“They’re turning in opposite directions now, like a two-headed dog,” Lawson said. “These Chinese aren’t dumb.”
Ruthven continued gimbaling the Virago’s thruster nozzle. “Range?”
“Closing in at a thousand klicks, we’ll pass right through them in less than ten seconds,” Lawson said. “We’re now within two thousand klicks. In range in five, four, three, two, one.”
Ruthven locked in on the closest enemy spacecraft and toggled the fire key on his console. Less than a second later, several bursts of 30mm tungsten shells leapt out of the gauss cannon barrels and headed straight for the Chinese spacecraft. Ruthven then made a hard, twisting turn on the control stick as a number of tiny flashes seemed to emanate from the globular enemy ships in the side video feed.
The Xin Long had just completed its turn when Shen heard rattling noises coming from outside of the hull. At first it resembled distant rat-a-tats, like the remembrances of light hail hitting the wooden roof of his vacation home in the Yangshuo Mountains. Hearing his chief engineer talking hurriedly to his subordinates, coupled with the slight dimming of the cabin lights, quickly made him realize that it was of a more serious matter.
“We have taken some damage, Colonel,” his chief engineer said as he began to loosen his chair restraints. “Request permission to inspect the ship.”
“Granted,” Shen said. “Weapons officer, did we get to fire our railguns?”
“Negative, Colonel,” the Xin Long’s weapons officer said. “We were facing the other way. The enemy spacecraft has veered off and is making a wide turn for another attack, but they have gone past the two thousand kilometer range. We fired all our missiles, and they are attempting to close with it.”
Shen looked at his point defense officer. “Why have we taken hits? Is our point defense system working?”
“Point defense is operational, sir,” the bridge officer in question said. “But it seems the weapons they used were unguided kinetics, so our close-in weapon systems were unable to do anything.”
“Colonel,” the communications officer said. “I have lost main com-links with Fei Long.”
“What?” Shen quickly cycled through the video feeds on his console. Everything happened so fast, he didn’t have time to check in with his colleague in the other spacecraft. The moment he got to the third video channel, he made a loud gasp.
The Fei Long had been shredded. Large, gaping holes could be seen along the length of its circular hull. One portion of its extended radiators near the shock absorbers had also been heavily damaged. The entire spacecraft seemed to continuously tumble, as if the hand of God had thrown it like a curve ball. The navigation lights would occasionally flicker to life before switching off again. Their sister spacecraft now resembled a lifeless, metallic ball.
With nothing but static on the other line, Shen turned off his private channel. All he had left were the railguns and the CIWS. He turned to look at his stunned crew. “I want all weapons, including point defense, to target the enemy ship as it makes another pass at us. Chief pilot, use whatever delta-v you have left to make sure our front faces the Americans. If there is a chance of collision, you take it.”
The chief pilot nodded. If they could get close enough, they would ram.
Ruthven grimaced as he completed the maneuver. “How many missiles still after us?”
Lawson looked at the tactical readouts on his console. “About twenty-two left, just under three thousand klicks away. They’re behind us and gradually receding. They haven’t got enough delta-v to catch us.”
“Okay, I’ll bring us around for another pass,” Ruthven said. “We’ll take out that second ship.”
“That last explosion was a close one,” Ganz said. “I didn’t think an anti-ship missile could have been that powerful.”
“That was a nuke,” Lawson said. “CIWS detonated it about three klicks out. We felt a bit of the shockwave, but since there’s no atmosphere in space, there’s very limited pressure expansion, so only a direct hit would be dangerous to us. A nuke detonation about a kilometer away can damage the Whipple shields, but it won’t penetrate the hull since the composite armor is shielded against X-rays and neutron radiation. The Virago is one tough baby.”
“Closing in at two thousand klicks,” Ruthven said. “The bandit is trying to face towards us, but he’s sluggish compared to the Virago. Okay get ready, folks- more dead Chinese coming right up.”
“Colonel, they’re outturning us,” The Xin Long’s chief pilot said. “We just don’t have enough delta-v to face them. Every time I make a turn they just shift over to the side again!”
Shen inputted a new maneuver into the console so that everyone could see it. “Can we do manual detonation on the Orion bombs?”
The chief pilot nodded. “Yes, Colonel, we can.”
“Okay, here is what we do,” Shen said. As he relayed the plan to his crew, a few of them smiled beneath their helmets. The colonel had not been chosen to command their country’s flagship for nothing.
They’re just reacting to us now, Ruthven thought. Probably because they know they can’t win. The Chinese Orion battlecruiser in front of him was mere seconds away from being poked full of holes, and they still kept coming. They got guts though, I’ll give them that.
Just as he toggled the fire button on the main guns, the enemy spacecraft inadvertently continued its turn, exposing its armored rear plate to the Virago. Ruthven realized what had just happened, and he made a hard turn in the opposite direction.
The Xin Long fired multiple bombs through the hole in the middle of its butt plate, but they did not detonate until the ordinance got to close range with the Virago. CAIN immediately detected the incoming projectiles as hostile, and the CIWS systems fired right away. The Virago completed its turn a scant few kilometers away from the first Orion bomb, and the latter exploded less than a second later.
Herbert screamed as the ship began rocking back and forth, but no one heard him since his com-link had been turned off. The unarmored rear of the Virago bore the brunt of the blast, but most of the damage was forced away due to the powerful plasma jet that emanated from the spacecraft’s thruster nozzle. The radiator fins deployed along the side of the ship groaned under the stress, but held firm.
Both warships passed to within three hundred kilometers of each other in a matter of seconds while circling, firing with everything they had. Ruthven continued to jink the Virago while facing the Xin Long, allowing his forward guns to bear. The Chinese battlecruiser was already heavily damaged, and its targeting systems were mostly inoperative. The Xin Long’s railguns did not score a single hit, though three shells from its 30mm point defense cannons did penetrate the Virago’s Whipple shielding before bouncing off the fusion battleship’s sloped hull armor.
Ruthven angled the Virago’s fusion thruster until he got back past the on
e thousand kilometer distance. The Xin Long was drifting away, and it was clear that the Orion battlecruiser had been gutted with all hands lost. Still in the middle of his adrenaline rush, Ruthven’s fingers frantically typed on the keyboard, plotting a new course for the Tian-fu Space Station. The moment CAIN had accepted the virtual waypoint into its memory banks, the colonel immediately veered away from what was left of the enemy spacecraft and guided the Virago towards the new course.
“No hull penetration,” Lawson said while looking at the readouts in his console. “A few holes in the portside Whipple shielding, but that’s pretty much it.”
Ruthven’s eyes remained glued to his own console, but his mind was busy collating what had just happened. The entire battle took less than two minutes to execute. “How much ordnance did we use?”
“We’ve still got plenty of ammo,” Lawson said. “We have the full complement of one hundred casaba howitzers still sitting snugly in our missile bays. We expended quite a bit of the gauss CIWS ammo, though we’ve still got ample amounts. I think it’s better if we don’t designate enemy ships as targets next time with those.”
“Agreed,” Ruthven said. “Make the adjustments to CAIN.”
“We’ll be using up a lot of ammo on that station though- it’s huge,” Lawson said.
“No, we don’t have to,” Ruthven said. “I’ve got an idea.”
The Tian-fu command module was actually four interlocked capsules. General Dongfeng Zhou floated near the central area while close to a dozen subordinates were manning the consoles situated along the walls of the module. All of them were now wearing emergency space suits and feared the worst.
“General,” one of the communications officers said. “I have lost all com-links with Xin Long as well.”
Virago One: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 2) Page 22