Scout Force

by Rodney Smith

  The captain gave orders to jump out to fire the last four missiles at the cruiser and active destroyers. Once the calculations had been completed, the helm jumped the ship to within 100,000 km of the formation. As the missiles left the launcher, the Vigilant made the jump to the larger nebula. The missiles did their work, taking out the four larger ships, but two frigates were hot on the Vigilant’s tail. They had figured it out. They were on a direct path to where the Vigilant had entered the nebula, and they looked angry.

  * * * * *

  The Shadow Leader chastised the frigate commanders for their reluctance to chase the Human ship into the nebula.

  “It is only one ship. It should be easy prey. Go in and flush it out.”

  As you command, Shadow Warrior, but for one ship, it has wreaked a significant amount of devastation.”

  The Shadow Leader personally worked a sensor console to attempt to resolve the location of the Human ship in the nebula. The earlier blast had destroyed many of the specialized sensors that made a Shadow Scout Destroyer so formidable. The Shadow Warrior was unable to coax the remaining sensors to give up the Human’s hiding place.

  As the frigates entered the nebula, their communications were lost.

  * * * * *

  Vigilant moved deep into the nebula and ordered a turn 30 degrees to port and 30 degrees up. No use being where the enemy expected you to be.

  “Bridge, Sensors, the destroyer is moving again. It and the two other frigates are moving in this direction.”

  That complicated matters.

  The frigates reached the point where the Vigilant made its turn and continued straight ahead. The captain gave orders to go wide around them to come up on their rear. If the Vigilant could take them out while they were blinded by the charged gases in the nebula, it could even the odds some.

  As the Vigilant moved above and to port of the frigates, they showed no reaction. The Vigilant came around to abeam of them and was preparing to turn to attack their engines when both ships erupted in gunfire. Every gun on the two ships was firing blindly into the space around them. Fortunately, none of the fire came close to the Vigilant.

  The captain lined up with the sterns of the two ships and waited. They wouldn’t be able to keep the firing going for long. As soon as the firing let up he would order the ship in to take the two frigates out of action. Chief B called forward to report the destroyer and its two escorts were holding just outside of the nebula.

  The firing ceased and the Vigilant shot forward. As it closed the distance on the two ships, and before the Vigilant could open fire, the ships began firing again. Their firing appeared to be more directed toward the Vigilant’s path and less random. It was obvious they had some sensor indication of the Vigilant’s position. The gunner shifted from visual to sensor view, locked onto the exhaust of the closest frigate and opened fire. The plasma bursts tore into the frigate's engine spaces and sent it drifting. The helm turned to line up on the second frigate, as the turret gunners concentrated on the gunnery control and sensors of the disabled ship. A few pulses from the frigate's short-range guns hit the Vigilant’s shields, but were harmlessly absorbed. Kelly felt a slight jolt, but none of the frigate's big-bore guns had their range.

  The second frigate came into range and the gunner made equally short work of him. A strong jolt was felt. One of the long-range guns from the first frigate had scored a hit. One of the turret gunners gave that frigate's turret a burst, and put it out of commission. Kelly asked for a damage report from all sections.

  The second frigate’s engines were knocked off line and it also drifted in space. The turret gunners destroyed both its rear turrets and the communications module as the Vigilant moved on. The Vigilant turned parallel with the two ships and stopped just beyond the K’Rang’s apparent sensor range, and waited.

  The damage reports came in. No major damage was reported. Engineering reported a moderate loss in shield strength. Chief Miller was affecting repairs, but he didn’t have an estimated time of completion. The captain asked for a status report every 15 minutes.

  The captain studied his sensor display for a few minutes and said, “Helm, move us away 50,000 km and park us until we get shields back to full strength. Neither of these guys are going anywhere. We’ll come back later and finish them off if we can.”

  “Bridge, Sensors, the support ship and frigate from our first attack are moving again. They're coming to join up with the destroyer and the two frigates sitting outside the nebula.”

  Kelly looked at the sensor display and said, “Captain, the K’Rang ships are awfully close to the nebula. Do you suppose we could sit in here and throw some carefully aimed potshots out at them? If nothing else, it may back them up and give us some more maneuvering room. We just need to make sure we don’t sit in one spot so they can fire back down the path of our pulses and hit us. There is a technique we use in fighters called off-axis shooting. It may work here. This is where you turn your ship away from the direction you are flying to fire off your axis of movement. If we do it right, we can get several shots in on all the K’Rang ships and they won’t know where the fire is actually coming from.”

  ‘I like it. Their frontal armor is pretty tough, but we may get in some lucky shots. Make it happen, Exec.”

  Kelly made some quick calculations, took over the helm, and flew the ship to where he wanted to start his gun run, some 10,000 km inside the nebula. He locked the turrets to fire forward and took over gunnery control.

  The ship moved out smoothly at his command. Once at speed he fired the maneuvering thrusters to turn the ship to face out toward the K’Rang ships. The captain grinned, looked over to him, and said, “Fire as your guns bear. I always wanted to say that.”

  Kelly ignored his captain’s humor. He watched the first frigate start to line up in his cross hairs. He adjusted the angle of the ship and opened fire. Nine cannons opened up at once, piercing the veil of the nebula and striking the frigate’s forward armor. One missile launcher was put out of commission. The forward turret stabbed out at where they thought the Vigilant was, but she had already moved on.

  The destroyer was next. Kelly tried to concentrate his fire on the forward missile bays. His efforts were rewarded with secondary explosions as his fire took off one of the armored hatches and set off the missiles’ warheads inside. Other explosions followed. There were now two damaged and one to go.

  The second frigate had been tracking the fire on the other two ships and its turrets were swiveling to where they expected the Vigilant to be. Kelly increased forward momentum and held his fire until directly in front of the frigate. This threw their targeting solution off. The frigate opened fire on empty space. Kelly returned fire, taking out one of its forward turrets and doing major damage to its bridge. He turned the ship back on axis and moved them deeper into the nebula.

  Shadow Leader M’trang picked himself up from the deck again. The captain lay dead. He punched up the communications console. “All ships move back 10,000 km and hold positions. All ships with working forward guns fire straight ahead on a random basis. Keep them from doing that again.”

  The Shadow Leader pondered his situation. He was down to three ships, four if the engineers on one of the support ships could get power back up. He had too little combat power to influence the battle at New Alexandria. The other two fleets would have to deal with that situation. His long-range communications were off line, so he couldn’t even find out what was going on outside this small battle.

  He chose to fight the battle he could. He called the two frigate captains and informed them of his plan to take out this lone Human ship. They could not leave this ship behind them and would need to destroy it before proceeding to New Alexandria and his triumph.

  * * * * *

  “Good work, Kelly. That should back them up a bit as they lick their wounds. Engineering, how are the repairs coming?”

  “We’re almost there, Captain. We need a few minutes to calibrate the shields, but we should be back
at full power in ten minutes.”

  “Good work, Chief. Kelly, let’s go see what our two blind mice are up to.”

  Kelly turned helm and gunnery back over to the bridge crew and ordered them to move closer to the two frigates they had dealt with earlier. Sensors showed both ships still dead in space. One had the engines completely off line and its comms suite was gone. One of its rear turrets was smoking and venting atmosphere into space.

  The second frigate was in worse shape. A secondary explosion must have blown a large hole in the side of the ship. Kelly suspected the missile magazine may have been touched off by the engine fire. The Vigilant’s guns couldn’t have done that much damage on their own.

  The captain studied the sensor displays for a bit and called out, “Gunner, bring all guns to bear on that hole in the K’Rang ship.”

  The gunner aligned the turrets to fire forward, fired thrusters to line his cross hairs on the hole, and opened fire. The effect was incredible. The frigate blew apart. The shock wave rocked the Vigilant. A large chunk of the stern flew into the side of the other frigate and took out all the short range defensive guns along the port side and slammed into the bridge. The captain ordered the gunner to fire into the bridge spaces of the second frigate. The bridge was easily punctured and the Vigilant’s bridge crew watched as debris, parts of bodies, and atmosphere poured out into space.

  “Good work, gunner,” the captain said. “Now, helm, move us out of here. These two aren’t going anywhere. Wait! Are there any big chunks of the first frigate floating free?”

  Timmons studied his sensor display and found the large piece of the stern that had hit the other frigate.

  ‘Helm, take us into tractor beam range of that piece of junk. I want to go bowling.”

  Kelly stared quizzically at LCDR Timmons, then the realization dawned on him.

  “You thinking of throwing that bit of junk at the guys waiting outside?”

  “Exactly! They didn’t take the hint and back off like I wanted them to. I want to give them two things to think about. One, we got their buddies and two, we can still hurt them.”

  “Helm, pull in that bit of junk and lay in a collision course for the destroyer at just below FTL.”

  The helm and navigator worked quickly to plot the course, while the gunner locked the tractor beam on the wreckage. The Vigilant moved forward, slowly accelerating their increased mass to just below FTL. When Timmons was satisfied they were aimed correctly, he ordered the tractor beam turned off and the helm to execute a loop and keep the Vigilant in the nebula.

  The K’Rang ships opened fire on the debris as if it were the Vigilant coming in on an attack vector. They realized too late what had been done. The gunfire and missile fire shredding the wreckage merely increased the damage as the mass of the stern section plowed headlong into the destroyer. The smaller pieces fanned out and hit the two assembled frigates, causing more damage. The destroyer was a total loss as multiple explosions wracked the ship.

  The captain ordered the Vigilant deep into the nebula to give the crew a break and a hot meal. It was obvious the K’Rang weren’t coming in and with three frigates sitting outside, they weren’t coming out.

  * * * * *

  The Shadow Leader made his way to an escape pod while the ship was wracked with explosions. He launched himself free of the destroyer just as a final explosion consumed the ship. He made his way to the nearest frigate and once onboard, ordered all ships to move themselves out 100,000 km from the nebula. It was plain that the two earlier frigates had been destroyed and this Human ship was still dangerous. He placed the three ships (the support ship had joined them) so they could cover the Humans’ escape paths.

  * * * * *

  The captain ordered Cookie to prepare a hot meal for the crew while he studied their options. There were three frigates and a support ship patrolling out there and waiting. The K’Rang were wounded, but still had teeth. In addition, the frigates had long-range missiles that were almost two times faster than the Vigilant. Running for it, therefore, was not an option.

  The captain had Chief Watson change out the watch as the crew was fed, so fresh eyes and minds would be on the controls, sensors, and gun sights.

  Cookie did wonders with the meal. He produced steaks, potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob, fresh green beans, and caesar salad. The crew was fed first and then Chief Watson, Kelly and Timmons ate, while discussing their situation.

  “Well,” Timmons said, “we can’t run and we can’t stay here and hide. We are too far into K’Rang space. At some point, reinforcements will show up to conduct a concerted cordon and search of this piece of the nebula. The K’Rang ships out there have positioned themselves well. They can watch every escape route. They are far enough out that our weapons can’t affect them if we stay here inside the nebula. If we come out to try and pick one of them off, the others can come to its aid. If we try to run back up the nebula it takes us further into K’Rang space, which isn’t good now that we’re out of missiles. I don’t think we will be able to use the Algolian Gambit again. They seem to have figured that one out. Do you two have any ideas?”

  Chief Watson just scratched his head. “Sir, if we have no real alternatives, why don’t we just take out as many as we can and go down swinging?”

  “Chief, we may get to that, but I want to expend all other options first.”

  Kelly finished chewing a bite of his steak and said, “I wonder if there are any missiles we could borrow from the two frigates in here? If we could pull some out and rig them for firing, even if they don’t hit anything, they may distract the K’Rang enough for us to get a head start to the frontier.”

  “Nice idea, Exec, but I don’t think we have the time or expertise to make that happen.”

  “Captain, I’m kind of out of ideas, then.”

  “I know, so am I. I want us all to get some rest. Nothing is going to happen for a while. If we get some shut eye and approach this with clear heads, we might come up with some options. Go to your quarters. Chief Billings will take the conn. Chief, have the other chiefs get some rest.”

  The three of them finished their steaks and retired to their quarters for some rest. When there are no better options, sleep is a good course of action.

  In three hours, Kelly hadn’t slept or come up with a viable course of action. He saw no other option than to try and battle it out. No tricky moves came to mind. It would be a slug fest. He couldn’t see how the Vigilant could survive battle with three frigates, even with as much damage as they had already inflicted. They still had more firepower, shielding, and as much speed as the Vigilant.

  Kelly gave up on sleep. If he couldn’t get rest, he would at least be clean, so he stripped down and took a shower. He didn’t come out better rested, but at least the grit was out of his eyes. Dressed, he sat down at his terminal to review the tactical situation. It was no better than three hours ago.

  The three frigates were patrolling the perimeter of the nebula. The support ship was part of the screen and all avenues of escape were being watched. Sneaking out was not an option. No matter what he considered, it kept coming back to a brawl. Well, if that were the only option, he would need to look at the best way to do it. He studied the tactical situation again, and was sorting through the options when LCDR Timmons called him over to his ready room. Chief Watson was already there.

  “Kelly, have you come up with any ideas?”

  “I can’t find any better option than a slugfest with our buddies out there. I have been looking at the tactical situation.”

  Kelly pointed at the tactical situation on the captain’s large monitor. “The first guy we should take out is this frigate up on top. He's weakest in the stern. If we can jump in behind him, we can tear him up. We’ve taken out both his gun turrets and his rear missile launcher. The next guy to take out is the support ship. He only has short range defensive guns and missiles good for fighters, but ineffective against us.”

  “This guy here on the frontier sid
e of the nebula is next. He's weakest to the front. My gun run took out his missile launcher and damaged the bridge. We’d need to come in on his forward port quarter. The shrapnel from our flinging the debris at them knocked out most of his port side defensive guns.”

  “The last guy is here on the K’Rang side of the nebula. He is slow, because we damaged his engines earlier, but he is the best armed. He still has all his weaponry. We may be able to avoid combat with him. If we knock out the first two frigates, we could make a run for it. This guy is on the wrong side of the nebula and his engines may not be up to snuff. The support ship probably won’t try to run us down. Its engines are in bad shape also, and it’s not armed to really do us any damage.”

  “Good assessment, Exec. If we have to go out after them, that’s probably the best plan. Chief, what do you think?”

  “I agree with the Exec. I’ve looked at the situation and came to the same conclusion.”

  The captain looked down at the floor and said, “So did I.”

  “Chief, is there anything we need to do before we go out there and try to take on these guys?”

  “Well, Captain, I can’t think of anything. We are about as prepared as we are ever going to get.”

  “Okay, I want to speak to the crew first. They deserve to know what we are going up against. Take your posts.”

  Chief Watson and Kelly exited the ready room and took their places on the bridge. The captain followed a few seconds behind. He took his seat and keyed the ship-wide intercom. “This is the captain. We have fought a good fight. We have accomplished our mission far beyond expectations. In this patrol we have destroyed a K’Rang command ship, four battlecruisers, four missile cruisers, four destroyers, seven frigates, and a support ship.”