by Chris Hechtl
He glanced at the clock and then the time table. If UNF-001P was on schedule, she should be jumping out into Dead Drop within another week, which meant they needed to jump for B-97C within another three days.
Just enough time for the engineers to pull off another “miracle” and get the drive issue sorted out while he ran his ship crews through one or two more exercises.
And maybe, just maybe he'd get enough of a feel for the other ship captains to decide which he wanted to shift his lights to. But he had a feeling Renee had the top slot already.
:::{)(}:::
Admiral White was on the bridge reviewing his critique notes of the last exercise before they started the next and hopefully final one when the plot changed. Ordinarily he would have missed it, but he had just so happened to have been looking at the plot to plan out the exercise when he saw a ship blink into existence at the B-97C jump point.
“Sir, we've got an unscheduled …”
“I see it,” he interrupted.
“It's the Prowler, sir. It has to be, based on the size and mass readings we're getting at this range. But why?” Jojo asked, clearly confused by the situation.
So was her boss. His instincts screamed danger. He stiffened in surprise; he hadn't expected to see the ship so something was very wrong. “Cancel the exercise,” he ordered.
Garfield his tactical officer looked to object but instead flicked his ears and then passed the order on to the rest of the fleet.
“Sir, CIC reporting. We're looking at a crash translation. The ship is drifting badly.”
Jojo sucked in a breath. “Not good,” she said in understatement.
“She's finally gotten helm control back, sir. She's straightened out her flight and is now under way. Her signal is fading; our active scanners are losing lock. She's going into stealth now.”
“Something is wrong if they turned back. Comm, flash our IFF and hail them,” the Neochimp flag officer ordered with an imperious wave of his hand. He turned to the hologram of the bridge captain. “Captain Vargess, set condition yellow throughout the fleet,” the admiral ordered.
“Aye, sir. Set yellow alert through the fleet,” his flag captain echoed.
:::{)(}:::
“So we made it in time? I thought they'd be well past us,” Juma said, staring at the image of the fleet. “Do we head for them hoping to get shelter and get caught in-between them?” he asked dubiously.
“It's not up to us,” Ch'r'kk stated from his station. The Veraxin continued to peck at his controls, refining their sensor data. The lights flickered as did the images on the LCD and holographic monitors. “Not good. We've got damage and electrical brownouts all over the ship,” the Veraxin reported.
The captain grimaced. They were a Prowler; they didn't have a tachyon emitter so they were forced to use sublight means of communication. One he should have gotten started the moment they had recognized the fleet. He grimaced. He could kick himself later … if there was a later. “Comm, hail them. Send them our IFF now. Spooky, send them our logs now. Flash a case Zulu. Get that warning off now!”
“Aye aye, sir,” the A.I. replied dutifully.
“Helm get us under control and the hell away from the jump zone. Best speed,” the captain ordered.
“Easier said than done. We've regained helm control, but the engines are restricted to one-quarter impulse, Skipper,” the ensign replied. “We're in stealth, but I'm not sure how good it is.”
“Sam? What gives?” the captain asked, putting his finger on the comm button to call engineering. He got a lot of cursing and heavy breathing for an answer. “Yeah, do your best,” he said looking up to Saheed.
Saheed's black eyes caught his. He nodded once then grimly refocused on his station in an attempt to outrun the juggernaut bearing down on them.
:::{)(}:::
“It's not good, sir,” Jojo reported as she looked up from where she'd been reading over the comm rating's shoulder. “The Prowler reports major damage to her hyperdrive and drive train. They had to run from a Horathian fleet.”
“Shit,” Garfield murmured. “Well, I suppose we can take them,” he said.
“No, the fleet is translating down now,” Jojo said, “as in right behind them.”
“Now? As in right now-now?” the Neocat demanded sharply, pointing at the clock.
The Neochimp nodded. “Yes.”
“Well shit, why didn't you lead with that, woman!” Garfield hissed. He immediately swung into action. “Battle stations!” he snarled. The A.I. picked the call-out, and the lights went red.
“Back that up,” Jojo ordered as she continued to her voyeuristic pursuit. She stiffened and then looked up. “They've got dreadnaughts, sir,” she said in a fearful tone of voice. “A division of them.”
“Oh, frack me,” Garfield muttered.
“My sentiments exactly,” Amadeus said mildly as the dispassionate tactical computer within his mind did the calculations. No matter which way he crunched the numbers he didn't like the results.
“We've got minutes, sir. Every minute is precious. We don't know for sure where they are coming out, and we've got exactly no time to deploy to take advantage of it,” Garfield warned. “Sir,” he turned to meet the admiral's eyes squarely. “Given the reported balance of forces in their favor, I highly recommend we avoid engagement. We'll be surrendering surprise, but we need to get clear.”
“Agreed. Dreadnaughts are nothing to sneeze at or play with up close,” the admiral replied with a nod.
He checked the plot. “Nav, plot us a course back to the B-97A jump point. Have a fallback planned for the B-97B system if we can't make it.” B-97B was a dead end star system so it was a jump of last resort. It was a part of the three-star cluster, however, but mostly ignored since it was out of the way of the main trade route.
“We can't do a reversal, sir; we're too far out. They'd overhaul us as we slowed down,” Alec Rowland, the staff navigator replied. “We need to … I'll work on it, sir. You may not like the answer.”
“Keep me posted,” the admiral ordered. He turned his eyes to the download. The initial warning came with a more detailed scan of the enemy fleet. The Prowler hadn't gotten an in-depth view, but they'd gotten a fingerprint of each ship.
And there were a lot of them.
“Sir, a request for a conference has been called,” Captain Vargess said.
“Tie them in. I'll make this short and sweet,” the admiral said. He quickly outlined the situation to the captains as they came online.
“Sir, what do we do?” Renee asked carefully.
“We fall back,” Amadeus replied.
“Give ground, sir?” Captain Nax of Kittyhawk asked dubiously. “We could bleed them here …”
“Yes. We'll fight but on our terms,” the admiral stated, cutting the woman off. “This star system has little to offer us, and we don't have the time to set up additional defenses. They have surprise and fire power on their side. No, we fall back using our superior speed to get into B-95a3 ahead of them. Hopefully without them noticing we're here.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Don't worry, you'll get your chance,” the admiral growled. Captain Nax hesitated but then nodded.
“Sir, I have that course change plotted, both of them. In order to get back to the jump point, we're going to need to do a slingshot past the star,” the navigator interjected. “And we need to start the maneuver in the next two minutes to get it right,” he said.
“Hyperspace translation at the B-97C jump point! A big one!”
“Frack!” Vargess snarled, clenching his fist.
“The Prowler just lost her stealth and drive!” CIC added.
“Double that frack. It looks like this isn't our day,” Renee said worriedly, “or their day. Can they reach us? Or vice versa?”
The Neochimp shook his head silently. There was no way to get to them in time, and he wasn't about to risk his fleet to save one small ship. Ultimately, it was expendable.
Eve
n if it pained him to see it happen before his eyes.
Renee saw all that in his expression. She flinched and then nodded slowly.
“Nav, you better be right about that course,” the admiral said.
“I am, sir. But … seventy seconds, sir,” the navigator said pointedly.
“Then feed it to the fleet and execute once they all have it,” the admiral ordered.
“Aye aye, sir.”
:::{)(}:::
“Sir, translation complete. We seem to have surprised a few people,” Catherine stated, indicating the plot as it stabilized. The image of the empty star system's cartography was to be expected. The blinking icons of fresh contacts were not.
“And that Prowler seems to have strained something important getting a warning off to them,” the admiral said, noting the icon of a drifting ship less than a light minute away. “Order Nimitz to get a squadron out and take her out.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Catherine replied, passing the order on.
“Sir, Tango Fleet has been detected. Force and composition is coming in now. It looks like eight battle cruisers, sixteen destroyers, four unknown ships, four light cruisers … update: make that twenty-two destroyers, including two in a second smaller force tailing them.”
“Identify second group as Tango 2,” Catherine ordered.
“Acknowledged,” the CIC rating stated. “Tango 2 looks like a fleet train, sir. There are twelve ships of various classes and sizes there and the two aforementioned tin cans covering them.”
“A fleet train. So, Tango 1 is the main body.”
“Aye, sir. Sir, SITREP update. Tango 1 and 2 are altering course.”
“Coming about?” Catherine asked as the projected plot was altered. She frowned as it blinked then started to crab to their right in a bank.
“No, ma'am. We're running the numbers past navigation now.”
“They didn't come about and try for a reciprocal course. They probably realized their fleet train wouldn't be able to keep up,” Admiral De Gaulte stated. He frowned at the plot. It was a bit fuzzy.
“Can we clean that up?” Catherine asked.
“Sorry, ma'am, they are at our extreme range now. We're basing our INTEL on the number of drives, passive sensors, and mass readings. Radar and Lidar as well as our other active sensors are still en route.”
“Understood,” the OPS officer stated. “They are running,” she said quietly.
“We caught them by surprise. They have been defensive minded for a while, and I'm wondering if that Prowler got off her report before we arrived.” He grimaced. “Most likely she did, so there is no point trying to hide our true strength.”
“Darn,” Catherine said mildly.
“They've gotten more reinforcements than I'd like. Another couple of battle cruisers and I'd say we'd be in some serious trouble,” the admiral said, rubbing his chin. He definitely didn't like seeing so many battle cruisers in one place. If they freed up that many for an offensive, it didn't bode well for whatever forces they had covering Antigua and Pyrax. And every day it took him to get there would be one more day for them to keep building and launching more ships.
Not good.
:::{)(}:::
“Shit. I think Alec goofed,” Jojo said. “Or he's nuts,” she said, referring to Alec Rowland, their Navigational officer.
“Nonsense. Alec took the best of a menu of bad options and did what they could with it. Count your blessings,” Commander Kyle Offenger retorted. He turned to the admiral. “Sir, Garfield and Kelly are still going over what the Prowler sent, hunting through our copy of the Horathian war book. They did pass a few things on,” he said.
“Oh?”
“We're too far out to get any hard IDs. The Prowler was a bit busy running for its life to get in-depth scans. But what they did get was within a few light minutes of the fleet. Based on that they are projecting a tentative ID on two of the ships. If they are right, that means that we're looking at the First BC Squadron of the Horathian Home Fleet.”
“With what, a division of dreadnaughts to back them up? Any ID on them?”
“No, sir. Not at this time.”
The admiral grimaced. “Okay, keep me posted. How are we doing?”
“Okay, the fleet train is going to be straining to keep up when we get to the loop itself, sir,” his OPS officer replied. “It's a tight turn, and I'm not sure some of the ships can handle it. Especially the bigger ones.”
“Suddenly I'm glad we off loaded all those parts,” Jojo said, shaking her head.
“Why? The factory ship has the extra mass from the bad parts,” the OPS officer reminded her. The Neochimp female grimaced. “Yeah, you forgot. Whatever. Not that it matters,” he said, turning back to the admiral.”
“It just might,” the admiral replied.
“Sir, the enemy has gotten under way. They are setting a course to meet us before we loop the star, sir,” Alec reported emotionlessly.
“See what you can do to boost our speed and the speed of the fleet train, Alec,” Kyle stated.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“We may need to fall back and cover the fleet train, sir. Otherwise, they'll be in the extreme engagement zone of the enemy first. They may even launch fighters against them.”
“Not a pleasant thought. Move our DDron 2 back there to give them additional cover. Order the tin cans to keep their fighters on alert status. They are to fight defensively,” the admiral warned, raising his index finger in warning. “Let the fighter pilots know to stay close and don't stray or they'll get left behind.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Chapter 10
“Our hyperdrive is toast,” Spooky reported. “Chief Pyraven's words. There is no hope of getting into hyperspace—not without a rebuild with parts we don't have,” the A.I. reported dispassionately.
The captain grimaced. He was glad the chief had kept the reactor from scramming, though he wasn't sure how or what black magic the woman had employed to do so. But obviously that magic had its limits. They'd just gotten the sublight engines back. But if they didn't have a hyperdrive they weren't going to escape the star system. And from the looks of the plot, it didn't look highly likely that they'd get to TF2.1 and safety.
“Frack,” Ch'r'kk muttered, overhearing that statement. Then the Veraxin stiffened. “Fighters incoming, 0500 by mark seven sir. It looks like a squadron.”
Juma scowled. He looked frightened. “Sir, what do we do? We can't jump back into hyper and we're in no shape to outrun them.”
“We can't get into stealth, not this close,” Spooky stated. “They have us locked from too many angles.”
“We run,” the captain said, knowing the order had to be given. “We buy them time.”
“Sir?”
“Draw the enemy off the jump point and away from the fleet, as many as will follow,” the captain ground out.
“Sir, heading 180 will take time even with a yaw turn,” Spooky stated carefully. “The fighters have a limited range, but we're well within it,” he said, projecting an estimated flight cone. “Computing course to the outer edge …”
“Then we don't make a turn—not a yaw or pitch turn. We go down their throats,” the captain ordered. “Fast, before they have time to react,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” the dubious helmsman said.
“It'll be the last thing they expect. And it'll force the fighters to slow as they try to make a firing pass. That might buy us some time to get into stealth.”
“If they don't shoot us up on the first one,” Juma said dubiously.
“We take what we can get,” the captain said.
“Spooky, upload the log to the fleet. Then drop a comm buoy with everything we've got. Make it a stealthed one. Set it to broadcast the next time a friendly ship jumps in,” the captain ordered. Append our log.”
“Aye, sir.”
:::{)(}:::
“The Prowler has shifted course. She's coming right for us,” Lieutenant Ashton said. “Easy meat,�
� he said with a grin in his voice.
“Not necessarily,” Lieutenant Commander Zakhan, Nimitz's CAG stated. He was starting to regret grabbing the first fighter on the line and not waiting for his trusty double ought to be pulled out of the hangars. Two hundred fighters, bombers, and support craft on Nimitz and the one he'd drawn was a blasted Raptor. “They know what they are doing. They are trying to drive us further away from Nimitz. Cut engines and flip now,” he ordered.
“Sir?”
“Do it!” the commander barked, putting words to action as he cut his drive power and flipped his ship. “Rake them in passing, then we'll kick the engines in. We'll have to get over our initial impulse so they'll get ahead of us. But we'll eventually catch up.”
“Aye, sir,” Ashton said dubiously.
:::{)(}:::
“The fighters have cut their engines. They are waiting for us to come to them it seems,” Spooky reported a beat before the rating did.
“Damn it …” Juma muttered. From the way the man was sweating, Captain Liyang knew the man was under intense pressure. They all were. They all knew the chances of survival were slim to none.
“Steady. We knew the enemy was coming. They don't cut anyone a break though. That's fine. Helm, adjust course. Try to scrimp the edge of their firing angle as much as possible, and then jitter a bit. How are we with our ECM and stealth?” the captain asked.
“Our skin is intact. I'm running black now,” Spooky reported. “We can't run ECM with the drive at full power, however. Our current power budget won't allow it,” he explained.
“Cut drive power back to let the ECM come up. We need to fog them and keep at their extreme range. This just became a cat or mouse game.”
“And we're definitely not the cat. Aye, sir,” Spooky stated.
:::{)(}:::
“Admiral, you may not believe this, but UFN-001P has turned and is running into the enemy fleet,” a CIC rating said carefully. “SITREP update: she's completed a starboard bank and is now moving away, sir.”