by Britt Ringel
“I don’t know,” Brewer answered quietly while noting the chronometer.
“He spoke of Pioneer. What did he mean? Pioneer hasn’t contacted us.” The admiral frowned in confusion. “Play the entire message again,” he ordered angrily.
The replay offered no answers. Davis sat in silence for a full minute after Pathfinder’s report. Finally, he stated, “Tell Captain Dawson that I want Docent to conduct a full sensor sweep of the area near the tunnel point.” He turned to Brewer and explained, “It’s possible Pioneer dove out but hasn’t been able to communicate.”
“You’re wasting time, Admiral,” Brewer replied coldly.
“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, I’m gathering information.” The admiral’s tone carried his annoyance with abundant clarity.
The atmosphere on the flag bridge had become toxic. Brewer felt his jaw clench. “Then gather it by asking Captain Twist to explain what he meant.” He pointed at the bridge’s chronometer. “They’ve been in the system now for thirty-five minutes. This Parasite force he talked about will be joining us within the next minute.”
Davis glowered at Brewer briefly. He opened his mouth, thought better of it and, instead, turned toward his sensor officer. “Record. Captain Twist, Pioneer is not in Junction-Two. Why do you believe it has reported to us? I also need details about this pursuing force. SALUTE, dammit!”
Brewer barely listened to the outgoing message as he examined the system plot. Twist’s answer would take another thirty-five minutes to return after the scout ship received it. Docent would detect the Parasite tunnel disturbances long before then. He manipulated the controls on his chair arm, growling slightly when he entered the velocity data wrong. Pay attention, Sebastian, dammit. Twist said their fleet speed was point-three-C, not three-five. The scout had clearly encountered something unanticipated. How am I expected to play the game if the rules are changing? The thought made him chuckle inwardly. You’ve been doing it your whole life.
His console spat its answer at him and his blood ran cold. The Parasites could close to twenty light-minutes of us by the time we receive Twist’s next report. “Admiral, you continue to waste time we do not have. You have an ambush to plan.”
“Against what?” Davis asked loudly while gesturing to the vacant system plot. “How can I plan an ambush when I don’t even know what our scout is talking about?”
Brewer exhaled audibly. “You can expect hundreds, probably thousands of Parasite cutters, and a formerly unknown destroyer-sized ship acting as a flagship. Frankly, this is a much better scenario than I had envisioned as we do not seem to be matched against one of their super-carriers.” Brewer’s voice was calm, nearly serene, as his eyes bore a hole through Davis. “This fleet can defeat such an enemy but only if its commander unplugs his thumb from his ass and acts like the capable admiral that I hired.”
Audible gasps carried through the flag bridge like a winter wind.
Davis’ face flushed red at the rebuke. He opened his mouth to retort but again thought better of it. After several more seconds, he turned away from his civilian tormentor and spoke in a loud clear voice. “Give me the fleet channel.” He paused a beat and then announced, “Expeditionary Fleet, Pathfinder has reported a pursing alien fleet that will be diving in shortly. The fleet will organize into Formation Alpha and maintain our position. Once positive contact has been made, I will send out final sailing orders. This is what our fleet was built for. This is what we’ve been practicing for these last months. We will annihilate the Parasite fleet and proceed with our mission. Davis out.” He looked at his sensor officer. “Order battle stations across the fleet.”
Brewer stood from his chair along with the entire bridge crew. He retrieved his shocksuit from its storage compartment in the chair’s back and began to don it slowly. The ASCAS D-34 shocksuit design had not changed dramatically over the last century. Gradual improvements were certainly helpful but the overall design harkened back to the days when the Solarian Federation was the single Terran government in the galaxy. Brewer had donned shocksuits similar to the one in his hands now but he found his years slowed him considerably. The muscle memory of snaps, zippers and mag-locks was still there but the muscle itself was weary and worn.
The first Parasite tunnel disturbance report came early in the suiting-up process. The sensor officer, wearing less than a quarter of his shocksuit, made the announcement, giving the sailors around him new motivation to finish donning their gear.
The tunnel disturbances appeared dozens at a time. Even with the command destroyer’s sophisticated sensors, Docent had trouble separating individual signals in the flood. After two minutes, an estimated one thousand cutters had entered J-2 along with their much larger flagship.
Brewer was the last to finish suiting up, a fact that shamed him despite his advanced age. He retook his place to Davis’ left and examined the evolving situation. The system plot showed the enemy flotilla thrusting away from the tunnel point. It was obvious that the aliens could detect Pathfinder, which had not engaged her stealth field. The collection of ships raced toward its only visible prey. As the flotilla’s speed increased, the uncertainty zone depicted on the plot expanded around it, awaiting sensor confirmation. Brewer read the complex data with well-practiced eyes. Pathfinder was roughly 10lm from Docent. The scout’s course would take it near his fleet though not directly through it. Behind the fleeing ship, the alien horde pursued in overwhelming numbers. Is this how Garrett felt ten years ago? Brewer wondered. Gooseflesh broke out over his arms as a heightened level of respect took hold.
He pushed away the emotions and performed the basic math. The Parasites are probably twenty-two, maybe twenty-three light-minutes from us. They’ll pick us up in six minutes. “Not much of an ambush,” he noted dryly.
Davis snorted and shot a hostile look at Brewer. “What did you expect? There are no features to use this far out and I can’t change the basic principles of sensor detection.” He thrust his chin upward and forced a confident demeanor. “We won’t need deception anyway. We can take care of them easily. In our exercises, we defeated fleets twice that size.”
“We’ll find out shortly enough,” Brewer stated.
Two minutes passed and Pathfinder’s second report reached Docent. Twist’s on-screen appearance had only worsened with the added stress of tangible pursuit.
“Pioneer dove from Junction several hours before us, Admiral! Are you saying she hasn’t appeared?” He mumbled the acronym “SALUTE” before continuing. “Admiral, the enemy force we sighted is one thousand four cutters strong with a single destroyer-type ship acting as the flagship for the fleet. Unlike the cutters, the destroyer seems to possess a tactical intelligence, possibly similar to their super-carriers. Their activity appears to be as a reaction force for the J-2 tunnel point as there was only a light, covering force at the tunnel point itself. They were ten point eight light-minutes behind us at speed point-three-C. The last time we saw them was immediately before our dive into t-space.” The ship captain’s eyes looked upward for a moment. “E, equipment. Oh, God!” His eyes widened considerably. “Admiral, if you haven’t heard from Pioneer then you don’t know. These cutters have weapons! It’s a spinal-mounted particle beam with what we estimate as an effective four light-second range. The destroyer has several particle mounts that ring around its hull. Additionally, it has a huge spinal mount ending at its bow. We have not observed its effects yet. That’s my SALUTE report, Admiral. Pathfinder will continue in-system unless given a new directive. Twist out.”
“Weapons?” Davis uttered incredulously. “He can’t be right.” He looked crossly at Brewer. “Mr. Secretary, you said the Parasites do not have ship-based weaponry. How can I be expected to perform my job when Intelligence has completely failed at theirs?”
Brewer looked past Davis to the sensor officer. “Lieutenant, send an order to Pathfinder to wait until we have engaged the Parasites and then to activate their stealth field and monitor the battle. It will then re
ndezvous with us after our victory.” He shook his head in disgust at the newly delivered information. He could still see a self-satisfied Davis from the corner of his eye. “Admiral, the prevailing theory was that this race never focused on space dominance. Their objective wasn’t to create fleets capable of destroying alien ships because it fundamentally interfered with their goal of finding the enemy’s colonies and infecting them.” He sighed slowly before stating, “This new information doesn’t make sense. Even Garrett Heskan said that Parasite ships were more like civilian ships or… marine transports.”
Davis growled, “Well, they’ve found a navy and because of your ministry’s failings, we’ve been completely blindsided. Now, maybe you’ll stop with your damn ‘suggestions’ and let military men run this operation.”
“What if they always had a navy?” Brewer speculated aloud. “What if the Commonwealth fleet that first discovered the Parasites blundered into a backwater colony, one that wasn’t protected by a Parasite navy? Then, they reacted as best they could… with civilian ships to chase off the ‘human invasion.’”
“So what does this mean, Mr. Secretary?”
Brewer looked soberly at the admiral. “It means your math is all wrong.”
“We’ll still destroy them before they can ram us,” Davis protested. “Just because your people have failed doesn’t mean mine will.”
“They don’t have to ram us, Admiral,” Brewer explained crossly. “They just have to close to within their weapon’s range. How many cutters can you kill between five and four light-seconds?”
Davis gave him a blank expression. “I… I don’t know.” He cast an urgent glance at a tactician’s station. “Figure that out, Michaels.”
“Because,” Brewer persisted over Davis’ order, “anything you don’t kill before four light-seconds will fire on this sixteen-ship fleet. How long do you think our frigates and destroyers will stand up against several hundred particle beams?”
The admiral’s face lost all color. “What have you gotten us into?”
“The fight of our lives.”
Chapter 49
Docent’s flag bridge contained two tactician stations. Each full commander manning them labored feverishly to answer Davis’ question. While they crunched numbers, Pathfinder and the Parasite flotilla crept closer on the system plot. When the alien fleet closed to within 23lm of Davis’ fleet, the flotilla’s heading swept to starboard in a course adjustment to intercept the larger Terran formation.
“They’ve finally detected us,” Brewer noted while pointing to the plot. The flotilla’s symbol was 22lm away but the uncertainty zone around it was a full 7.5lm in radius.
“They’re probably much closer,” Davis guessed. “If they’ve maintained present speed and course, something like seventeen… eighteen light-minutes out.” He cleared his throat and ordered on the fleet channel, “All ships will turn to heading one-three-five, fleet speed is point-two-C. Maintain formation; Docent is the flagship.” He gestured to cut the channel before turning to Brewer. “That will buy us several hours to devise a strategy.” The sailing order placed the fleet on a course directly away from the approaching aliens and reduced the closure speed to .1c.
“Admiral,” Commander Michaels, Docent’s lead tactician, called out. “Here is the report you requested.” The side screen that formerly displayed Pathfinder’s messages flickered back into life. Byzantine graphs and charts decorated the screen.
Brewer analyzed the data. It was still promising. According to the report, the fleet would still be able to process the thousand-strong flotilla before it breached its 4ls weapons range. The information gave him a measure of comfort and he scanned the analysis a second time. He could not help but be impressed with the engineering of the ships inside the fleet.
“I still don’t like it,” Davis said from his command chair.
“It’s not optimal,” Brewer confessed, “but it’s workable. I wish we knew more about that destroyer.” The information from Pathfinder regarding the curious ship had offered no real answers. Even Docent’s advanced sensor section could not unwrap the riddle of the mysterious ship’s bow.
Davis was in rare agreement with Brewer. “I don’t like it,” he restated. “These numbers are based on this new point-three-C speed, which seems to be a limitation due only to their flagship. What if the cutters come at their full speed when they make their attack runs?”
“The fact that the cutters aren’t charging us at three-five-C would seem to verify Captain Twist’s assertion that there is a higher level of intelligence in the destroyer.” Brewer crossed his arms over his chest. It was more difficult in a shocksuit. “Like I said, this isn’t optimal but it doesn’t change our mission.” He cast a sideways glance at the admiral. “It’s your job to adjust to the new parameters, Admiral Davis. Do it.”
“Well,” Davis considered, “I could shield the frigates somewhat by placing them farther away from the cutters but then we’d lose their point defense at the start.” He shook his head while talking to himself. “That’s only going to dilute our firepower.”
Brewer listened to the man’s muted deliberations for the next hour. He had vowed to stifle his own opinions unless specifically asked for them. After all, he mused, this is exactly why I brought Christopher Davis in to command this fleet. Let the man play his part. The appearance of a new type of Parasite ship had come as a shock. The military cutters were even more so. Brewer hoped ardently that this was the last of the surprises.
An hour later, Davis had rebuilt his plan. When he presented it to Brewer, the secretary thought the “new” plan looked eerily similar to the old one. The defensive action would be executed as the fleet had exercised, with the modification that three frigates would focus fire on the destroyer before switching to cutter attrition duty with the rest of the fleet. After discussing his plan with his ship captains, Davis ordered his fleet to reduce speed. The die now cast, waiting several more hours would only sharpen nerves and dull his fleet’s senses.
As one, the Terran ships rotated and activated their Allison-Turner drives to achieve relative rest. Fifty-two light-minutes from the Junction tunnel point, the Expeditionary Fleet waited for its adversaries to close for battle. With a renewed closure rate of one-third the speed of light, the wait would not be long.
Twenty-five minutes later, the opening salvo of the battle began. Nine destroyers, including Docent, targeted the Parasite flagship and released their brace of Javelin-G missiles. Bona fide warships, each destroyer possessed six missile ports along a single beam. As the first missiles were expelled, containment fields snapped closed to begin the reloading process.
The throw-weight of the fleet, while pitifully small compared to the large-fleet salvoes launched during the Brevic-Hollaran War, was still a respectable fifty-four missiles. The think tank had determined that a wave that large would easily be enough to kill any number of super-carriers given the missiles’ 5lm range. Adding more than six missile launchers per destroyer would only reduce the number of point defense turrets it could hold.
Davis held the fleet’s fire after the first volley. Strategy mandated the conservation of Javelin-Gs and the Parasite ships were not believed to be capable of point defense tactics. There had been renewed discussion around this assertion, given the new types of ships, but Davis and Brewer agreed that it was wiser to witness what happened in the first volley rather than expend their entire ordnance in the first attack needlessly.
The answer arrived six minutes and fifteen seconds later. The fifty-four missiles darted inside 4ls of the Parasite fleet and one thousand cutters opened fire upon their tiny aggressors. An overwhelming number of particle beams missed. Yet, even with a pathetic six percent interception rate, the Republic attack was swept cleanly away.
A second volley, followed shortly by a third, yielded the same, disappointing results.
A deflated Davis rapidly ordered his ships back to .25c. The maneuver placed his fleet 62ls ahead of the Parasites but with t
he greatly reduced closing speed of .05c. Once the admiral confirmed that every ship was correctly positioned, he ordered, “Give me the fleet channel.” He waited several seconds before proclaiming with false confidence, “Attention, Expeditionary Fleet, in approximately eighteen minutes, you will take the first step in ensuring the long life and security of our Republic. I know every sailor will do his duty.” A curt gesture ended the transmission.
Brewer squeezed fingers into fists. The adrenalin coursing through his body made old habits difficult to resist. As he did his best to disperse his tension, he intently watched the tactical plot. The sheer number of ships the fleet faced was severely intimidating. Even armed with the knowledge that his purpose-built fleet should be capable of handling the incoming horde, Brewer could not help but feel the pull of his doubts trying to drag him into terror. He thought about how Garrett Heskan must have felt, facing similar odds but with a vastly inferior fleet. The gap between combatants withered to 10ls.
“They’re increasing speed, Admiral,” Michaels stated from his tactician’s panel. “Velocity increasing to point-three-five-C.”
“Damn,” Davis cursed. “Do I shift those frigates back to the cutters?” he asked himself quietly.
Brewer noticed the man’s hand wavering over his chair arm panel. “Trust your gunners, Christopher,” Brewer counselled as gently as possible, knowing that any changes made now would only throw the fleet into disarray.
The admiral’s hand continued to hover over the communications controls but did nothing more. Whether Brewer’s urging swayed him or the admiral had simply run out of time, Brewer did not know. On Docent’s tactical plot, the enormous wave of cutters crashed through the 5ls point defense perimeter.
The lights on the flag bridge did not dim. Nor was there any sound of capacitors releasing their energy and recharging. Brewer and Davis could only assume that when the deadly cloud of alien ships entered into the extreme range of their pulse laser turrets, every gunner in the fleet had unleashed their hellish salvo. Seconds ticked by without seeming effect until the tactical plot exploded with information.