Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

Long distance communications in space were problematic. They were more like holo-mail correspondences than conversations, as the back-forth messages couldn’t be responded to quickly.

  As each new message came in, the picture grew more grim. Star Guard was beginning to panic.

  “Official request from Central Command,” said the next message. I directed Yamada to put it on the primary screen.

  The face of a middle-aged rear admiral filled the forward bulkhead. She was very serious in her demeanor, and her uniform was perfectly crisp despite the late hour on Earth.

  “Captain Sparhawk,” she said severely. “You’re hereby ordered not to lead that enemy vessel to Earth. Get it off-track any way you can.”

  Shrugging, I thought the idea wasn’t a bad one. I doubted if I could pull it off, however.

  “Helm?” I asked.

  Rumbold snorted awake. “Ready!”

  “Shift course toward our base on Ceres. Let’s see if they follow us.”

  Rumbold laid in the course and we felt ourselves gently slewing to starboard for several long minutes.

  “Captain,” Yamada said. “The Stroj ship is still heading for Earth. They’ve made no effort to alter their angle of flight.”

  Nodding, I sipped a cup of hot caf and weighed my options. Really, there weren’t many.

  “Come about,” I said. “Rumbold, turn back toward Earth. Let’s see what a parallel course does to impress them.”

  “Nothing, sir,” Durris said. “They’re not reacting at all.”

  About a minute later Durris walked up and approached my command chair. “Many might take you as disobeying a direct order from CENTCOM, William,” he said quietly.

  “You can relieve me if you think you have the grounds,” I said.

  He shook his head and crossed his arms. “I only want to hear a justification.”

  “I was ordered to distract them from their course. My first effort failed. Turning back to pace them isn’t disobedience. Quite the contrary. I’m considering other options.”

  We studied the boards in silence for a few minutes. At last, he sucked in a breath and nodded.

  “You’re right. They’re ignoring us. What else can we do?”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” I said, “but I really know of only one other maneuver.”

  “Which is?”

  “To turn and fight.”

  “That’s suicide.”

  “Probably,” I admitted. “That’s why I haven’t given the order yet.”

  At that point some ten minutes had passed since we’d made our course corrections and been ignored by the Stroj ship. The communications light blinked again.

  “Put the transmission on-screen,” I said.

  It was Admiral Halsey again. He was now standing in Star Guard’s War Room. He was dressed but bedraggled. The female rear admiral was nowhere to be seen.

  “Sparhawk?” Halsey boomed. “I want you to ignore that last order transmitted by our idiot standby crew. You’re to stay between Earth and that monster at all costs. And most importantly, do not engage with them. Not yet. We’re gathering the support you’re going to need—if we’re going to pull this off, we’ll need time to do it.”

  Relieved, I sat back in my chair. Durris approached again, shaking his head.

  “Halsey figured out we’re the biggest line of defense between Earth and this monster ship. He doesn’t want us wandering off. You knew they’d see the light, didn’t you?”

  “I certainly hoped that they would.”

  He studied the data. “We’ve got nearly a day’s flight to Earth. I’ll warn you if anything changes.”

  “Are you suggesting I should retire, XO?”

  “I am indeed, sir. We need your fine mind operating at peak capacity as we approach Earth. At that point, there won’t be any second chances.”

  Taking his advice, I heaved myself up and headed for the showers. Even before I got there, I felt the ship slow down. We were nearly weightless. The helmsman had orders to match the enemy course and speed. Clearly, they were slowing down to meet Earth in her locked circular orbit around Sol.

  The thought was chilling in a way. The dreadnought was implacable, methodical, and deadly. Those aboard her were going to park in orbit above Earth, doubtlessly intending to take their time while delivering destruction onto our cities.

  In the meantime, Defiant was to be ignored. Probably, they thought of us as negligible. Like a small, barking dog that couldn’t stop a prowler, we could only irritate them.

  Crashing onto my bunk, I passed out into what seemed to me a dreamless sleep. It was the sleep of the dead. Nothing exhausted a man more than doubling his weight for hours on end.

  When I awakened, I bathed and ate. Returning to the command deck refreshed, I found Yamada, Durris and Rumbold were gone. They’d been replaced by a skeleton crew of understudies.

  Only Zye remained at her post. I approached her and touched her shoulder.

  She looked up at me questioningly.

  “Zye, you should take a break. Go take a shower or something. I need you functioning at your best when this battle begins.”

  “Captain,” she said, “I’ve been studying the enemy vessel.”

  “Yes, we all have.”

  “Sir, I think there’s something odd about it.”

  I let her show me what she was talking about. The data was confusing.

  “The ship does seem to be… larger,” I said, frowning. “But that’s not possible—is it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Moving to Yamada’s screen, I ran my hands over it and worked the controls. There was the monster ship, displacing an estimated tonnage that was mind-boggling. What was really disturbing, however, was the fact that the estimate was fully twenty percent higher than it had been when we’d first discovered the ship.

  “Could they have some kind of light-bending technology?” I asked Zye.

  She shrugged. “I’m not aware of such a thing—other than their ability to cloak their vessels.”

  “Get Yamada up here on the double.”

  A few minutes later, while we were still puzzling over the sensor data, she showed up with damp hair and slightly out of breath.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “what do you make of these sensor discrepancies?”

  She sat down, blinking, and went over the data we’d compiled. She was baffled at first, but soon began working numbers. In the meantime, I summoned my key crewmembers back to their stations. I had a feeling we might need them.

  “Sir, the ship seems to be getting bigger the farther away it is from us. That’s very strange.”

  “Obviously, it’s some kind of trick,” Zye complained. “The Stroj are always full of tricks.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but it’s up to us to figure out exactly how we’re being fooled. Is it possible this ship we’ve been running from, this monster of the skies, is much smaller than it appears?”

  Yamada shrugged. “I suppose. Maybe it’s like their stealth tech. Think about it: a small ship wants to go unnoticed. A larger ship, however, might want to look bigger and more dangerous than she is.”

  Snorting and shaking my head, I was almost convinced. “Could we be running from a phantom?”

  “It’s possible,” Yamada said, frowning. “But there’s another possibility, sir. She could be looking bigger because she’s closer to us than she appears to be.”

  I stared at her. “Explain.”

  “Well, what if she’s projecting herself in a different location. The technology to do so would be somewhat simpler than total stealth. She could—”

  Snapping my fingers, I walked over to Durris. “Plot her course.”

  “That’s this yellow line here, sir,” he said. “Running right by our ship.”

  “Yamada,” I said, “swing your sensor array around and focus on that yellow line. Look for tritium trails.”

  She stared at me, then wordlessly got to work. For a tense ninety seconds, no one spoke. At last,
she made a choking cry.

  “She’s alongside us, sir!” she shouted. “She’s pacing us, and projecting herself as being far behind.”

  “The slowing of her engines…” I said thoughtfully. “It was a trick. We matched her, when really she’s been roaring ahead to catch us.”

  Turning toward Zye, I gave her the only orders I could think of.

  “Raise shields, Zye,” I said.

  “Captain,” Durris protested. “They’ll know we see them.”

  “Yes, but if we don’t they could ambush us at any moment. Raise shields!”

  Zye’s hand reached up to her boards, and she touched them. The ship’s defensive systems came alive in response.

  -50-

  The Stroj dreadnought was right on top of us. My first thought, other than initial shock, was that I should have foreseen the possibility. The enemy had demonstrated the ability to cloak their ships. If they were capable of that illusion, why not others?

  “In short,” Yamada said, “they’re projecting their location, using a sensor-fooling system of some kind to appear to be far away when they’re really quite close.”

  “That’s why they appeared to be too large,” Durris added. “Their projection is displaced, but since it’s actually closer, the image is larger.”

  “The increased size is a flaw in their system,” I said. “A give-away like the tritium trails. Let’s hope they don’t get any better at fooling us than they already are.”

  “Captain!” Yamada interjected. “The dreadnought is opening her gun ports and shifting course.”

  “New course and heading?”

  “I—I’m not sure, sir. I don’t know where they really are.”

  “First Officer,” I said quickly. “Assume they’re heading directly toward us. Use the tritium trail and the angle of flight to triangulate. We should be able to pinpoint their actual position.”

  “On it, Captain,” he said, racing back to his nav tables.

  Zye looked at me pointedly. “We should run… or fight. Your orders, sir?”

  I studied the monstrous ship on the screens. She seemed even more threatening when I wasn’t sure exactly where she was.

  “They can’t be in range,” I said, “or they would have fired immediately. Wherever they are, we don’t have much time. Angle away from the approaching vessel, Rumbold.”

  He looked startled and uncertain. “What heading sir? I don’t know where they really are.”

  “Assume they’re in the general direction of their illusion. Tack away at a sharp angle. Do so now.”

  He put his hands on the controls, glancing at Durris hopefully. As he was still working on the nav table, it was clear to Rumbold he wasn’t getting any help from there.

  Going by feel, he gave us a thirty-degree shift and we were pressed against our straps as thrust was applied.

  “Enemy reflection is shifting course with us,” Yamada said. “At least, it looks like they are. Their sensor image appears to be flying at nothing, but they have to be reacting to us.”

  “Durris?” I called. “I need a solution, Commander.”

  “On it, sir…” he said, but it was a full harrowing minute before he came back triumphant.

  “I think I have it,” he told me. “That last course change provided another point of reference. I’ve got them pinpointed.”

  “Range?”

  He locked eyes with me. “About eight hundred thousand kilometers.”

  “So close? But they’re not firing.”

  “The Stroj ships might not have extremely long-range weapons, sir. We’ve yet to see a ship of theirs that does.”

  “Alternately,” Zye said suddenly, “like the smaller Stroj ships when cloaked, this dreadnought’s displacement system might take too much power for them to fire while it’s on. That would indicate they’re getting close enough for a killing shot before they turn the effect off.”

  I nodded slowly. “That has to be it. They must realize we know they’re displaced. But they’re gambling that we don’t have them pinpointed. Their best bet, in that case, is to get in close and blast us at point-blank range at a moment of their choosing.”

  Turning to Durris and Zye, I made a fateful decision. “I know we don’t have a target-lock. But the target is fairly large, and we know where they are down to decimal places. We’re going to lay down a pattern of fire hoping for luck.”

  Durris’ mouth tightened into a line, but he said nothing. “Passing my algorithm to you, Zye. Target the projected coordinates.”

  “Particle beam cannons active,” she said. “Charging up.”

  “Don’t fire them all at once,” I cautioned her. “Lay out a consistent barrage, looking for a hit.”

  Several tense minutes passed. At last, the cannon batteries were ready.

  “Fire at will,” I said.

  Immediately, the ship shuddered. The big guns cycled and recharged while we anxiously awaited any kind of feedback.

  “No evidence that we hit anything, sir,” Zye said.

  “I need better numbers out of your station, Durris.”

  “I know sir, I know!”

  He worked, his face sweating, to give me a closer target. The math was complex, and while our battle computers were powerful number-crunchers, they weren’t specifically programmed for such a situation. Guesswork was the specialty of humans.

  By the time the cannons had cooled and recharged, he had a slight variation to offer. We fired again. After several seconds, the result was determined to be the same: nothing.

  “They can’t be too worried,” Rumbold remarked. “They’re still using their displacement system. If we were scorching their fins I bet they’d come out of hiding and start swinging back.”

  His logic was irrefutable. I moved to help Durris with the math. Both of us strained and slid formulas around on his table. The programming was intense, and I wasn’t as well trained on the process as he was. Still, I managed to give him some options he hadn’t considered.

  “Let’s try to flush them,” I said. “Assume we’re missing by a wide margin. Independently target every cannon in a bank, then fire them all at once like a rainstorm of fire.”

  “Won’t do much damage if we hit.”

  “No, but it might scare them.”

  He looked at me seriously. “Sir, are you sure you want to engage this vessel in toe-to-toe combat? I believe Admiral Halsey—”

  “Yes, I know. This isn’t my choice. The enemy has crept up on us. We’re firing defensively. If we don’t even know where they are, how do we run from them?”

  I could tell he was unconvinced, but he stopped objecting. At last, we had zeroed in on another region of space . We fired again, and this time the beams were all widely dispersed.

  “Any response?” I asked.

  Yamada didn’t answer immediately. She looked worried, and she was staring into her scopes.

  “Captain…” she said. “I don’t understand it, but it looks like they just disappeared.”

  “Widen your scanning area. Look where Durris and I have been placing all these shots.”

  There was a tense moment or two while she swung her sensor array around and began studying a new region of space.

  “I’ve picked her up again—she’s close, sir!” Yamada called.

  “How close?”

  “Less than five hundred thousand kilometers.”

  “Battle stations!” I shouted. “Everyone strap in. Zye, unload our defensive measures and strengthen that aft shield. Rumbold—”

  “I know sir—hang on!”

  We began evading with a sickening lurch. Another sudden shift followed five seconds after the first.

  “Zye, see if you can hit them now.”

  “Waiting on heat recycle.”

  “Fire in the yellow—we may not get a second chance.”

  “Enemy weapons charging up,” Yamada said.

  On the forward screens, I could see dreadnought now—the real ship, in her real location. The g
un ports were open, and her wicked-looking cannons were tracking us. I calculated we were probably within her optimal range of fire. We were still firing at long range, meaning our guns could be effective, but they couldn’t deliver their maximum punch.

  “Missiles detected, but we have some time before they can catch us,” Yamada said. “The enemy cannons are going off—they’re missing us.”

  “Keep up the good work, Rumbold.”

  He tossed me a grin over his shoulder then went back to obsessively minding the helm.

  That was as far as we got before one of those big, invisible beams caught up to us. The ship buckled with explosive impact.

  “Port side shield down in one hit,” Zye said. “Hull has minor damage.”

  “Invert!” I ordered. “Aim our starboard side toward them.”

  There was the sensation of doing a barrel-roll. Defiant spun itself on its keel axis to present an undamaged shield to the enemy. It was mildly sickening, but everyone held on determinedly.

  “Keep evading, Rumbold. Don’t spare the gas.”

  We were accelerating hard now, and it made my teeth ache.

  “We hit their forward shield twice,” Zye said. “No appreciable effect.”

  My heart sank. It was really true. We couldn’t fight this monster.

  We were entirely out-classed.

  -51-

  We ran. There was nothing else to do.

  The next half-hour was a time of grueling pain. It was like being on the worst of roller-coasters but with none of the fun involved.

  We lurched and slammed from side-to-side. Now and then, the enemy caught us with a sizzling beam in the guts. The hull was scored until it had blackened. I had no doubt that Defiant’s exterior resembled the bark of an abused oak, scorched by flames and torn up by the claws of wild beasts.

  Over and over we inverted, flipping a freshly recharged shield toward the enemy, only to have it blasted down again. The impacts were deafening, and I could hardly make myself heard over them.

  Yamada said something after ten minutes of this abuse, but I missed her words.

  “Repeat that, Yamada,” I ordered.

  “Sir, we’ve got a communication incoming.”

  I almost laughed. Was CENTCOM calling to complain about my not following orders? Were they considering a court martial for unauthorized enemy engagement?