Oort Rising

by Magnus Victor

  Chapter 9: Petrakov

  Captain Conagher watched the shuttle enter the docking bay, maneuvering until its personnel hatch was level with the unadorned walkway on the platform jutting out into the center of the open area. A grav-shield kept the space eighty percent pressurized, the thin air carrying the smooth hum of the maneuvering drives to her ears. She admired the skill of its pilot. Not a wobble or correction in the whole procedure.

  Normally the ship's Marine company would have mustered out to formally welcome the Commodore aboard. Petrakov's record, however, mentioned his disdain for any ceremony of the sort.

  That thought didn't make her feel any better, though – perhaps he had just been looking for something to criticize. Any officer experienced at least one superior who was in the habit of complaining about whatever their subordinates did. Maybe he would cite her for not receiving him with the turnout which his rank warranted.

  Not that she could change anything now. Nor would, for that matter. Petrakov's record certainly didn't show that he was that type of commander, but then again that sort of note rarely made it into official paperwork.

  The portside hatch opened, and the traditional shrill piping accompanied Commodore Petrakov as he stepped out onto the gangway. The piping of course wasn't real. It came from a speaker mounted overhead. Tradition only goes so far, after all.

  He stopped and saluted.“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

  “Granted.”

  “Excellent. Follow me.” Without any other acknowledgement, the Commodore strode past her, foregoing the traditional greetings of a flag officer stepping aboard a new flagship. Not even the courtesy of asking to be escorted to the bridge.

  He was certainly living up to his reputation for impatience and brusqueness. His pace was brisk as well – fast enough that she almost had to run to catch up. But she had anticipated that, and matched his stride.

  His voice was steady and even, despite the pace. “You were diverted from trials - is the Overlord ready for combat?”

  They passed through the docking bay personnel gate into an adjacent corridor, and the air pressure reverted to standard. The Captain double-checked that they were alone before answering. “Twelve hundred crew aboard, out of a full complement of fifty-five hundred. Skeleton complement of Marines, mostly green. Reactors are struggling to hit eighty-five percent capacity, but I’ve got someone working on it; they say the reactors can hit one-hundred percent for a short while if needed.” She shrugged. “The usual maiden-voyage troubles. Weapons and deflectors are fully online, limited by power generation. The Overlord was designed to fight off a fleet. Even with our limitations, we can handle anything up to squadron-strength.”

  Petrakov nodded. “Good. Let us talk in private, then.”

  “Aye, sir.” At her command, the gravitational systems picked them off the floor and they took off down the corridor.

  After they arrived in the Captain's office, Captain Conagher took her seat, while the Commodore paced back and forth instead of sitting down himself. “The Overlord won't need to fight a fleet, nor will there be any full naval engagements." He almost sounded disappointed. "We’re going to be intercepting a weapons shipment to one of the insurgent groups operating in the Oort Cloud. The same chaps that you ran into on the way out here, we believe. Did you get anything out of the rebels you captured there?”

  “Not much, I'm afraid. We disabled their ship with a microwave beam before boarding. Their gravity system didn't have any backups.”

  “So?”

  “It spiked before failing. Hit nearly a thousand gees.”

  “Ah.” He grimaced, face paling slightly. “All the crew painted the walls?”

  “All those inside, yes. Those outside were cooked in their suits.”

  “Damn. Waste of intel.” The Commodore's expression was neutral. Conagher studied the commodore, taking note of the tightening at the corners of his mouth. As much as the man may have wanted to project a facade of combat nonchalance, his face betrayed him.

  Conagher took a deep breath to dispel a knot high in her own gut, and continued. “Most of the bodies were pasted beyond recognition. We wanted to test DNA samples, but that equipment had not been installed before we left Earth. None of their electronics were shielded, so we couldn’t mine their databanks, either.”

  “So how’d you identify which group they were?”

  She keyed her datapad, displaying a red-speckled ball of white — a human eyeball — lying in the middle of a corridor. This time, the commodore didn't even blink.

  The green paint of the corridor was barely visible underneath the reddish paste speckled with bits of bone, all that remained of the eye’s former owner. “One of the Marines found this. We slaved one of the security retinal scanners and ran the eye through it. Matched a certain Pravin Adbal. Arrested three years ago after a raid on an insurgent camp in the Gallic wastelands.”

  “Three years? What the hell is he doing out of prison, then? For that matter, why wasn’t he hanged?”

  Captain Conagher raised an eyebrow, giving the commodore a wry smile. “Interesting question, isn’t it? He wasn’t listed as released, executed or escaped – his file said he was still behind bars.”

  “Hmm. Did you mention this to HQ?”

  “Yes." A pause. "Haven’t heard back from them, though.”

  “Probably some low-level SNAFU, not germane to our mission. Although it’ll be rather uncomfortable for some prison bureaucrat.” He leaned forward in the seat. “Did they get a message off before you hit them?”

  “We didn’t detect one, but since their computers were mostly destroyed, we can't confirm that none were sent.”

  “Damn. So we’ll have to assume that they know the Overlord’s in the area.” He sat back, and tapped his datapad. “We've intercepted communications of theirs — a smuggling operation will be handing off stolen weapons in a few days. Heavy weapons. Their planned handoff is near an active mining operation, planetoid 908377 Worzik. I’ve sent you the coordinates.”

  She checked her own pad. “Received. They’re using the mine as cover for traffic?”

  “Looks like it. Confirmed by the Union. They've had their eye on it, and they have better humint.” His voice softened slightly. “I should add that Intelligence doesn’t believe that the miners know they’re being used. Poor rock-rats can't pull their noses out of their dig-sites long enough to see what their bosses are up to.”

  “So they might not be actively hostile?”

  “Chances are, no. So we keep collateral damage to an absolute minimum.” He looked the Captain in the eye. “You've got no combat experience on your record. I know that inner-system, wet-behind-the-ears newbies love to paint anybody outside the Belt with a broad brush. Avoid it.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.” She kept her tone neutral and matter-of-fact. She did not need that kind of lecture. After all, she was a professional. But it made her re-assess the Commodore, and wonder what his motives were for saying something so obvious. Perhaps he had been on-station too long, relying far too much on the locals. Or maybe he was hedging his political bets. If so, against what, exactly?

  “Good. If we come down too hard, all that does is drive them into the rebels' hands.” He snorted. “Mind you, they're no saints. Anybody working as far out as Worzik is likely hiding from someone. But they're just low level, not worth the effort to hunt down.”

  Ah. That answered that question. Or at least, it was meant to.

  Now it was her turn to ask questions, to find out what the Commodore knew. “What sort of opposition are we going to be facing?”

  “Intel says a dozen ships or so, mostly converted asteroids like the one you fried on the way out. Even so, they might also have a proper warship, sort of.” He leaned in, his voice quieter. “The Verdun was hijacked on her way to be scrapped.”

  “Really? I had not been notified of that.”

  “Well, technically she was reported as disappeared. It’s been chalked up to a reactor failure
, but I’m assuming the worst.”

  The Captain nodded, thinking. It was plausible that the Verdun had just blown up. After all, the World War One-class cruisers had been the last naval design to utilize antimatter power plants, instead of the far, far safer — albeit less individually powerful — fusion reactors which were now universally employed.

  Unlike a fusion reactor, intensive damage to an antimatter reactor would almost certainly result in the near-complete destruction of the ship, due to the inherent instability of antimatter as a fuel. The sort of wreckage that a disaster like that would have left behind would have been difficult to trace. The Verdun could reasonably have been destroyed by reactor failure, her wreckage reduced to gaseous particles too spread-out for search parties to recover.

  Still, though, Murphy dictated that she assume the worst. The Overlord was the most powerful ship she had ever sailed on, but she had only a skeleton crew and was just outfitted for a shake-down voyage. If she met a fully functional warship, the outcome would not be certain.

  There had been plans to simply retrofit modern fusion reactors to the old vessels, since the standards for naval weapons systems had not changed much over the years. But between the cost of such extensive refitting and the age of the hulls themselves, the plans were scrapped. The World War Two-class would completely replace their aging predecessors. But those predecessors were still very dangerous.

  The Commodore must have read her mind. “She’d had her weapons and shielding stripped out first, of course. But that’s still a very well-armored hull, and a good engine. That is why I’m pulling the Tannenberg off of her patrol to accompany us. She'll join up with us just before the ambush.”

  “The Tannenberg? She’s a sister of the Verdun! Isn’t she a bit…old?”

  “Scheduled for scrapping next year, yes. But a warship nonetheless. Back to the plan…”

  Chapter 10: Worzik

  The Overlord and the Tannenberg dropped out of FTL transit near 908377 Worzik, weapons charged and ready. Captain Conagher braced against the usual brief wave of nausea as her stomach and eyeballs tried to keep moving forward out of her body. The shipboard systems flickered briefly as they reset from emergence, then powered up. The two-ship squadron probed the surrounding area with their sensors, seeking the rebel transports.

  Conagher studied the holo-map of their emergence zone as it flickered back to life above the bridge. The bright lights she had expected were not there. Where were the target ships?

  The tactical officer beat her to the obvious conclusion. “No transports, ma'am!”

  Ambush!

  “Stow sails!” cried both the Captain and Commodore Petrakov, simultaneously. The fragile sheets of tubing provided nearly half of the Overlord's heat dissipation, an absolute must in a vacuum. By necessity they were large, projecting well beyond the ship's deflector screens, and therefore vulnerable when deployed. The engineer hit the emergency retract, which would ship the enormous sails in a matter of seconds.

  Too late.

  A group of bright flashes erupted in the center of the display, overlapping the green and blue icons of the Overlord and the Tannenberg. Red lines denoting high-power lasers flashed toward the blue icons.

  “Kiloton-range nuclear mines, ma'am!” Reported the tactical officer. “Right on top of us!”

  The bridge lighting flickered, and Captain Conagher felt her stomach jump into her throat. The artificial gravity was out, too. "Take out those mines!" she ordered.

  "Tactical systems have already returned fire, Ma'am. Enemy targets at zero."

  She gritted her teeth. Too little, too late. “Damage report!”

  “No hull damage, ma'am!” replied the engineering officer. “Sails retracted but heavily damaged. Sail effectiveness reduced to eight percent.”

  Damn. Those had to be military-grade weapons, mines by the look of them. Their bomb-driven lasers were designed specifically to destroy heat-venting sails. But they could also penetrate a military hull if they were close enough.

  Not the most up-to-date weapon, most likely left over from Earth's Unification Wars. Those mines were older than any of the Overlord's crew.

  But they still worked. The Overlord was powerful enough to withstand the ambush, and she was still dangerous, but the Tannenberg...well, they'd have to see what happened next.

  After all, she suspected that the ambush was far from over. Only a fool set a minefield without active combatants to take advantage of it.

  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

  Klaus hung suspended in the suddenly-darkened room, trapped like a beetle on its back. The straps of his chair tightened automatically, pulling him back into the seat. Blood rushed to his head, tingeing his vision red. “What the hell have those idiots done now?” he cursed.

  “Emergency reactor choke!” called one of the engineering ratings in the compartment. “Sails are gone!”

  Damn. He pulled up the reactor scram schematic, his datapad eerily bright against the dark around him, to make sure that the overrides were working. As the heat-sinks approached maximum capacity, it was absolutely critical that the reactors should automatically throttle their power output.

  The choke was holding. Good.

  Now the distribution board. With the reactors' lowered output, power should be prioritized to the deflectors and weapons systems. Check.

  He let out a sigh of relief. At least the reactor fail-safes were working as they should, unlike those brass-holes on the bridge. Who enters a combat zone without furling the sails first? It's like they want the engineering crew to hate them. It would require hours of sweat-work in uncomfortable vacuum suits to replace the sails!

  He secured a loose datapad that floated past him. Of course, the artificial gravity power had been diverted. At least the crew had been warned and ordered to action stations. All suited up and strapped into their seats. Well, most all.

  There’s always one, Klaus thought, watching some green tech float past. The drifting crewman transcribed a steep arc through the room, just as Klaus felt his own security straps pull tight against his chest. Interesting – the ship must be maneuvering, and without any gravity compensation. The lights flickered back on, went out, and then shone full force.

  “What’s happening?” yelled the floating crewman.

  Rookie. Who did he think could tell him?

  *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

  Captain Conagher fought to keep her face impassive, but her knuckles were pale as she squeezed the arms of her command chair. She should have brought the Overlord out from superluminal speed with the sails already stowed. It would have taxed the heat-sinks, but they were factory-new and could have taken the strain.

  She forced herself to breathe out. There had been no way of knowing that they would be ambushed, and there were of course solid reasons to enter combat with sails out. For one, it made pursuit of fleeing targets much easier, and the heat-sink reserve might also be needed in combat. All the same, it was a risky tactic. A risk she would not have taken, had the decision been hers alone.

  It was the commanding officer's job – in this case, Commodore Petrakov's, not hers – to decide on the proper balance between safety and effectiveness.

  A difficult choice, and he had chosen wrong this time.

  She pushed the line of thought from her mind. There was nothing she could do about it now. They just needed to fight their way out of the trap.

  She scanned the tactical display – empty. No contacts in sight. Yet.

  Commodore Petrakov might have reached the same realization. “Sensors? Do we have a target?” he called.

  “No, sir.” The tactical officer shook his head. “Nothing on optical or LIDAR, and the grav sensors haven't recovered from the blast yet. Should be up any second, sir.”

  “Shift weapons power to deflectors.” ordered Captain Conagher. No targets in sight, but who knew what more weaponry the enemy might have? Turning to Commodore Petrakov, she added in a lower tone meant for him, “They'll come to us, sir. No point i
n an ambush like this if they don't follow it up.”

  The Commodore merely nodded, his gaze locked on the tactical display. She noted the hard set of his jaw, muscles moving under the skin, as if he was grinding his teeth.

  “Contact!” called out the tactical officer. “Multiple drive signatures, count sixty-seven.” Another flurry of red dots appeared on the display. “Correction, count one-oh-eight. Small craft, by the readings. They're standing off, ma'am. Range one-hundred-fifty thousand kilometers.”

  The weapons officer looked at the Captain. “Orders, ma'am?”

  Captain Conagher, in turn, looked at Commodore Petrakov, her eyebrow raised.

  To her surprise, Petrakov nodded. “Your ship, Captain. Just keep the Overlord in one piece, and I'll stay out of your hair.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his lip. In a lower voice that wouldn't carry to the rest of the bridge, he added, “My experience lies in attacking, not defending. Consider yourself in command.”

  “Aye, sir.” An unusually wise move for a senior officer. Very unusual, and not at all in line with what was in Petrakov's records. Could he know—?

  That could wait. Must wait. Captain Conagher turned her attention back to the holo-display. The enemy ships were waiting, in position, with their drives off. And yet they made no attempt to close to weapons range with the Overlord or the Tannenberg. What could they be planning?

  “Drive spikes!” called out the tactical officer. “Enemy craft closing on us! Moving at five-thousand KPS!”

  The weapons officer called the sitrep in a steady cadence, “They'll enter effective main battery range in sixty seconds, ma'am!” His targeting console beeped, as a red warning light flashed. His hands flew over the console's controls. When he spoke again, his voice was sharp, less steady. “Enemy ECM - we can't get a lock!” He leaned closer to his screen. “Correction, enemy craft have Navy IFFs. Targeting computers refusing to designate them as valid targets!”