by Ryk Brown
“Are you kidding?” Jessica wondered aloud.
“They might be more damaged than we can tell. If they fall for it, they’ll withdraw and our work is done for the day.”
“But they’ll be back, and with friends,” Jessica pointed out.
“That’s going to happen no matter what we do here today,” Nathan stated. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Helm, head toward the Wallach, standard combat speed.”
“Aye, sir,” Josh answered.
“Response coming in, sir,” Naralena reported. “Message reads, ‘You are in direct violation of the original terms of surrender. The Ta’Akar will now exercise our rights under article twelve, section twenty-two, subsection…”
“What the hell?” Jessica interrupted.
“Thanks, we get the point,” Nathan stated, relieving Naralena of the need to finish reading the message.
“Captain, the Wallach has changed course,” Ensign Yosef reported. “They’re headed for Corinair.”
“ETA to Corinair?” Nathan asked
“Ten minutes,” Ensign Yosef reported.
“Mister Sheehan, new jump plot. Put us between the Wallach and Corinair. Helm, adjust course for the jump. Tactical, load all forward tubes and prepare for snapshot, staggered, full nukes. Lock all missiles on her as well.”
“She’s still jamming, Captain,” Mister Willard warned.
“Then point and shoot the damned things. I want all rail guns as well.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessica reported.
“Comms, warn the Corinairans.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jump plotted, sir,” Loki reported.
“Execute.”
The bridge filled with the jump flash again.
“Jump complete, Captain,” Loki reported.
“Helm, hard to port! Head straight for the Wallach. Be ready to dive under her on my order. Plot an escape jump, Mister Sheehan.”
“Hard to port, aye,” Josh answered.
“Flight-ops reports the Wallach’s fighters have been eliminated,” Naralena reported.
“Tell them to send the fighters back to finish the Loranoi,” Nathan ordered. “I want that ship dead in space.”
“Turn complete, Captain,” Josh reported.
“Range to target, five kilometers,” Loki reported.
“They should be firing their energy weapons by now,” Nathan stated. “You may have been right about their heat exchangers, Ensign.”
The ship began to shake violently. “We’re taking rail gun fire,” Jessica announced.
“Fire missiles,” Nathan ordered.
“Missiles away,” Jessica answered. On the main view screen, four missiles streaked over their heads, disappearing ahead of them as they sped toward the target that was still too far away for them to see.
“Range to target, three kilometers,” Loki reported.
“Snapshot all forward tubes,” Nathan ordered.
“Firing all forward tubes,” Jessica answered.
“Helm, new course. Come down one degree. Take us under the target.”
“Coming to new course, one degree down, aye,” Josh answered.
“Plot me an escape jump, Mister Sheehan,” Nathan stated.
“Missiles reloaded,” Jessica reported.
“Fire again.”
“Manually targeting,” Jessica reported. “Missiles away.”
“Jump plotted,” Loki reported.
“Five seconds to torpedo impact,” Jessica reported.
“Jump.”
“Jumping.”
The bridge again flashed with light as they jumped just beyond the enemy battleship.
“Jump complete,” Loki reported. “We’re thirty seconds down range, directly astern and slightly below the Wallach, sir.”
“Helm, forty-five degrees to starboard. New jump. Take us one light minute forward along the new course as soon as you finish your turn.”
“Aye, sir.”
“What are you going to do?” Jessica asked.
“I’m going to hit them again, this time from their port side.”
“Sir, we’ve only got ten torpedoes left,” Jessica warned. “That’s not going to do it.”
“The Wallach will be entering orbit over Corinair in two minutes,” Ensign Yosef announced.
Nathan was getting desperate. He looked around the room, looking for answers. “Doctor, would an object traveling at eighty percent the speed of light have enough kinetic energy to get through their shields?”
“Possibly,” Abby said, “but it would have to be a big object.”
“What about something the size of this ship?”
“You can’t be serious,” Jessica said.
“I’ll put the crew off in escape pods,” Nathan said, “near Karuzara.”
“There’s no reason…”
“They’re going to attack Corinair, Jess,” Nathan insisted. “I can’t let that happen, not again.”
“With what?” Jessica protested. “They can’t use their energy weapons, engines, and their shields at the same time. You saw it for yourself. And they can’t use their rail guns on the surface from orbit. Their rounds would burn up in the atmosphere.”
“They don’t have to!” Nathan protested. “Don’t you see? Once they’re in orbit, they don’t need to use their engines any longer. They can just continue circling the planet, blasting away from orbit with their energy weapons. Meanwhile, they’ll fix their heat exchanger, and then what?”
“You can’t sacrifice this ship,” Jessica protested.
“But I can sacrifice the entire planet? No, I can’t do that! I have a responsibility to that world!”
“You have a responsibility to our world first! Or have you forgotten that?”
Nathan was torn apart inside. He had already caused the loss of thousands of innocent lives on the surface of Corinair, and now he had to choose between sacrificing millions more lives there or millions of lives back on the Earth. He looked at Jessica, pleading in his eyes. He desperately wanted someone to tell him what to do. Anyone.
“Captain,” Mister Willard said, “what about the comm-drone?”
“What?” Nathan asked, still facing Jessica.
“The comm-drone, sir.”
“We sent Tug after it,” he reminded him.
“No, sir, the other one—the one we were testing. It is still out there.”
“They didn’t work, remember?”
“They worked, sir. They just did not pick up the moving target soon enough. We just have to give it a better signal.”
Nathan turned around slowly to face Mister Willard. “Like what?”
“The Yamaro’s transponder, sir. It’s still installed, isn’t it?”
Nathan looked at Naralena. “Is it?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” she answered.
“Captain, the Wallach has settled into orbit above Corinair,” Ensign Yosef announced. “She’s charging energy weapons.”
“Where is the launch platform?”
“Right where we left it, sir,” Mister Willard told him. “If I can get Lieutenant Commander Kamenetskiy to help me, I am sure we can alter the navigation code on the drone and tell it to steer toward the Yamaro’s transponder signal.”
“Will that work?” Nathan asked.
“I fail to see why it would not,” Mister Willard assured him.
“Captain, how are we going to launch the drone?” Abby asked.
“Same way we did before,” Nathan said. “We jump out and transmit the launch signal.”
“No, that won’t work,” she warned, shaking her head. “You need time for the Yamaro’s transponder signal to reach out far enough. The drone needs to pick up the signal early enough so that it still has time to alter its course to intercept the signal source.”
“Why can’t we just give it a delayed launch signal, tell it to jump a few minutes after we leave?”
“We are talking about an extremely small margin for error,
Captain,” Abby warned. “The Wallach is in orbit above the planet. If that signal is not in the exact perfect position, if that drone misses and slams into the planet at tens of times the speed of light, Corinair will die a much more violent death than at the hands of the Ta’Akar.”
“The Wallach has opened fire on the planet, Captain,” Ensign Yosef announced.
“Mister Willard, talk to the Cheng and get on that code,” Nathan ordered.
“Right away, sir,” Mister Willard promised.
“Comms, get me Corinari Command. I need to know the patrol schedule of the early warning jump shuttles. We’re going to need one of them to jump out and launch the drone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain, I cannot stress enough the risk that you are subjecting the planet to…” Abby started to repeat.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Doctor, but right now, people are dying by the hundreds with every energy blast the Wallach fires, and she’ll just keep looping around the planet over and over again, firing away, until everyone on that world is dead. We’ve already seen them do it, both in Taroa and here. If we don’t do something, right now, millions of Corinairans will surely die. This is the only chance they’ve got.”
Nathan stared at Abby for several seconds, waiting for her to respond.
“I’ll try to calculate an angle and launch window that will result in the least risk for the planet, Captain,” she finally stated.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Nathan took a deep breath. He finally had a plan.
“Captain,” Naralena said. Her voice was weak, as if something terrible had happened.
“What is it?”
“I cannot raise Corinari Command, sir.”
“What?”
“Neither can flight-ops.”
“Communication and control is always the first target,” Jessica stated.
Nathan felt his heart sink. Without the patrol schedules, it could take them hours to locate one of the jump shuttles.
“Contact!” Ensign Yosef announced.
“Are you kidding me?” Nathan cried in desperation.
“A new contact just came into the system, about two light minutes out. Transferring track to tactical.”
Jessica stared at her screen, tapping buttons on her console as she analyzed the new contact. “I’ve got it,” she stated.
“Who is it?” Nathan asked, afraid of the answer.
Jessica’s expression suddenly relaxed. “It’s Tug, sir!”
“Oh, hell yes!” Nathan exclaimed. “Comms, tell him to get his ass over here.”
“Multiple contacts coming up from the surface,” Ensign Yosef announced.
“From where?” Nathan asked.
“From all over the planet, sir. They appear to be Corinari interceptors.”
“They’re going to attack the Wallach,” Jessica said, astounded. “Don’t they realize how hopeless that is?”
“They don’t care,” Nathan said. “They’re refusing to go down without a fight.”
* * *
“The Wallach will be coming around the far side in ten minutes,” Nathan announced ship-wide. “According to our calculations, that will be the best moment to strike as it presents the least risk for the planet should the drone miss. We need to get this right the first time. If we don’t, we’ll have to wait another ninety minutes for the Wallach to complete another orbit and come back into position. Every time she makes an orbit, tens of thousands of Corinairans die. We cannot allow that to happen. We will not allow that to happen. I intend to put this ship in close proximity to the Wallach, directly in the path of the incoming drone in order to use the Yamaro’s transponder to guide the drone to the target. We will jump out of the way at the absolute last second in order to ensure that the drone collides with the Wallach. That means we’re going to have to take a lot of rail gun fire, and maybe even some energy weapons fire. So damage control parties will need to be on their toes, as well as medical.” Nathan paused for a moment, trying to decide what else to say. “No captain could expect a better crew. It has been an honor to lead you all into battle. That is all.”
Nathan looked around the bridge. Never had there been a quieter moment. He looked at the solemn faces of his crew. Each of them understood the risk, but each of them also understood what was at stake. What amazed him was that not one of them complained. Not one of them asked to leave. That’s when he realized that Tug and Master Chief Montrose were right; the captain was someone that you were willing to follow into battle, even if you knew you would die doing so.
“Mister Sheehan,” Nathan said, “jump us in.”
Tug watched as the Aurora jumped away in a blue-white flash of light. She had only jumped a light minute away, jumping straight down into orbit, not more than five hundred meters ahead of the Wallach. By now, she would already be taking fire, even though it would take another minute for that fact to show up on Tug’s sensors. He watched and waited, trying not to think about the astronomically long odds they were about to play. Even if every single thing went absolutely perfect, it might still fail. There were just that many unknowns involved. The only thing he was sure of was that the amount of energy that would be unleashed if the drone actually did impact the Wallach would far exceed any weapon ever known to have been invented or used in the history of humanity.
The history of humanity. Tug thought about that for a moment, wondering how history would judge their actions on this day. Would they call them heroes or madmen? It could go either way.
Eighty-seven seconds after the Aurora had jumped away, Tug picked up sensor readings indicating that they had engaged the Wallach in battle in orbit over Corinair. A few seconds later, he picked up the Yamaro’s transponder signal being transmitted by the Aurora from her position in front of the Wallach. He now had five minutes and thirty-seven seconds in which to execute his part of the plan. He applied a small amount of forward thrust, just enough to set his ship in motion, and then pressed the jump button.
A moment later, as the flash cleared, Tug picked up the comm-drone launch platform on his sensors. It was exactly where it was supposed to be, two hundred meters away from him. He began transmitting the update to the drone’s navigational software that included the instructions for the drone to steer toward the Yamaro’s transponder signal. With any luck, the Wallach’s electronics jamming would not interfere with the transponder signal, since it was a ‘friendly’ signal, but there was no way they could know for sure. It had been another reason they had chosen to take their shot at this particular time, as the drone and the Wallach would be headed directly toward each other instead of the Wallach going across the drone’s flight path. This moment not only decreased the likelihood of striking the planet, but it decreased the amount of course correction needed by the drone to stay on target right up to the moment of impact.
Tug’s communications system beeped, indicating that the data transfer to the drone had been completed. He checked his mission clock and saw that the proper launch window was coming up in fifteen seconds. He spun his interceptor around and prepared for the chase. A few seconds later, the mission clock hit zero and he pressed the launch button.
The drone streaked past him a few seconds later. Tug fired his engines and brought them up to full power, the force pushing him back into his seat slightly despite his interceptor’s inertial dampeners. He chased the drone, watching it continue to accelerate away from him. The comm-drones were extremely fast and could reach subluminal speeds of ninety percent the speed of light in as little as thirty minutes. Even if his ship could accelerate that fast, his inertial dampeners could not prevent his body from becoming a pile of sludge against the back of his seat.
For their purposes, however, a few times the speed of light would be enough. Even with the deceleration effects of the Wallach’s multi-layered shielding, the amount of kinetic energy that the drone would be carrying upon impact would devastate the Wallach. The beauty of the plan was that, because the drone would be traveling faster
than the speed of light, the Wallach would not even see it coming. About the only warning she would get would be when her shield emitters suddenly fried due to overload as the drone passed through the shield layers. They might actually see the drone for a split second before it struck their ship, a thought that Tug found intriguing.
Within a minute, the drone reached ten percent the speed of light. As it did so, it disappeared as its FTL fields engaged and the drone instantly jumped up to ten times the speed of light. Tug checked his sensors, ensuring that they had registered the exact speed of the drone and the time that it had gone to FTL. The Aurora would need the information for their part of the plan.
The Aurora vibrated and shook as she continued to take rail gun fire from the battleship Wallach not more than five hundred meters behind her.
“Keep it up, Josh,” Nathan ordered. “The more we move around, the more she has to work to hit us.”
“It doesn’t look like they have to work hard enough, sir!” Josh responded as he jogged the ship from side to side and up and down.
“Missiles reloaded!” Jessica announced.
“Helm, steady her out for a moment. Fire when ready, Jess!”
Jessica waited for the ship to steady, adjusting the angle on the missile battery sitting on top of the Aurora until the aiming reticle was centered on the Wallach’s live image in the target camera. “Firing!” she announced, pressing the launch button.
On the forward view screen, four more missiles streaked over their heads on their way to the Wallach. Nathan knew they weren’t going to do any good, but at least it kept the enemy thinking they were invincible, which was fine with him.
“They’re still firing their energy weapons at the planet, sir!” Ensign Yosef reported.”
Nathan felt guilty for thinking it, but as long as the Wallach was firing her energy weapons at the planet, they weren’t firing them at him. They could take a pounding from her rail guns for a while, as their hull had been designed for just that purpose. It was several layers thick, with specialized sections in between that greatly absorbed the kinetic energy the enemy’s rail gun rounds carried. It would take several very lucky shots, all striking in the exact same spot and at the exact same angle, for one of those rounds to puncture their inner hull.