09- We Lead

by Christopher Nuttall

  I hope so, Susan thought. The starfighters had taken out a carrier, but it wasn't the enemy carriers that worried her. They were rapidly closing on twelve enemy battleships. They have three more battleships than us.

  She gritted her teeth as a flight of starfighters tried to punch through Vanguard’s point defence, a handful surviving long enough to slam their missiles into her hull. A low quiver ran through the ship, but the armour held. Susan allowed herself a split-second of relief as the enemy starfighters retreated, then focused on the enemy battleships. One of them had taken heavy damage and staggered out of the line of battle, but the remainder were still advancing.

  “Signal from the flag,” Parkinson said. “All ships are to go to rapid fire.”

  Expending our remaining missiles, Susan thought. It wasn't really a concern, not now. There was certainly no point in keeping a reserve. Either they won or they died. And we may do some damage ...

  “Fire,” she ordered. “And keep firing until the tubes run dry.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Jean said.

  The two fleets converged with ponderous speed. Susan watched, grimly, as another enemy ship took heavy damage, exploding into a fireball before she could withdraw from the line of battle. But the aliens were inflicting damage too ... USS Eisenhower staggered under the weight of enemy fire, while HMS Rodney and FS Foch vanished into expanding clouds of superheated plasma. A handful of lifepod beacons were clearly visible on the display, but it was clear they didn’t have a hope of recovery. They might well be mistaken for something hostile and picked off by a passing starfighter ...

  “Captain, we will be entering energy range in two minutes,” Reed reported.

  And then it becomes a battering match, Susan thought. They couldn't hope to escape, even if they reversed course. The two fleets were locked together. And whoever inflicts the most damage wins.

  “Order the main guns to open fire as soon as we enter range,” Susan said. “And stand by all damage control teams.”

  “They’re ready, Captain,” Mason said.

  Susan nodded as the last few seconds ticked down. Vanguard shuddered as a missile struck her hull, but the armour held. Susan started to make mental notes for the engineers, then told herself she was being stupid. If they won, the engineers would learn plenty from the post-battle analysis; if they lost, it wouldn't matter anyway. Another missile slammed home, only to expend itself uselessly against her armour. Susan couldn't help wondering if that was a good sign - the enemy warheads were straight nukes, instead of bomb-pumped lasers - or if the enemy were holding their laser warheads back. The latter might be worrying ...

  “Energy range in ten seconds,” Reed said.

  Susan braced herself. The enemy battleships were already falling into attack formation, readying themselves so they could engage two or more targets at the same time. They definitely did have a firepower advantage, she thought. Three extra hulls gave them a lot of options. And yet, human battleships were designed to soak up fire. Her hull could take one hell of a pounding before it finally collapsed.

  Except we had to patch up several sectors, she thought. If they know where to target, they could take us out.

  She spared a thought, briefly, for the men and women on the surface. General Ross was a good man; Percy Schneider was a war hero. And his sister was down there too ... the fleet had to win or the spacehead would be obliterated. And yet, she knew all too well there was no way anyone could guarantee a victory.

  “Targets locked,” Jean reported. “Captain?”

  “Fire as you bear,” Susan ordered.

  “Entering range ... now,” Reed said.

  Susan gritted her teeth as Vanguard’s forward turrets opened fire. The other battleships fired at the same moment, hurling a vast cloud of lethal plasma towards the alien ships. A dozen starfighters were caught in the blasts and vanished, utterly vaporised. Susan hoped, grimly, that they’d been alien starfighters as her main guns started to pound the alien hulls. Moments later, the aliens returned fire. Vanguard shuddered as plasma blasts slammed into her main armour.

  “Armour holding, for the moment,” Mason said. “But they’re blasting our point defence and sensors off the hull.”

  Surprise, surprise, Susan thought, sarcastically. That happens every time.

  “Link us into the fleet-wide network,” she ordered. Being blinded would be disastrous, even if the armour continued to hold. “Tactical, see if you can do unto them.”

  “Doing it, Captain,” Jean said. She paused. “Enemy starships are launching missiles!”

  Smart, Susan thought. Launching missiles at short range was against tactical doctrine, particularly with hundreds of thousands of plasma bursts in the vicinity, but it might just pay off for the enemy. They’ll never have a better chance to get a laser head through our defences and they know it.

  “Stand by point defence,” she ordered. Her mind insisted on reminding her that a good third of her point defence was already gone. “And order the smaller ships to cover us.”

  She felt a pang of bitter guilt. Vanguard could survive in the plasma storm, but destroyers and frigates didn't have a hope. Their crews would be blown out of space in seconds, if the enemy chose to focus on them. And yet, the battleships had to be protected. Their heavy weapons might make the difference between success and failure, between life and death.

  Vanguard shuddered, unpleasantly. “Direct hit, sector alpha-nine,” Mason reported. “They struck us with a laser head. Local armour is melted; we’re streaming air ...”

  “Seal off that sector, then dispatch damage control teams,” Susan ordered, stiffly. A laser head ... it should have inflicted considerably worse damage. Not that she was complaining, of course! Perhaps the warhead had detonated too far from the hull. “Tactical?”

  “One enemy battleship has taken heavy damage, Captain,” Jean reported. “But she is continuing to fight.”

  “Understood,” Susan said. “Continue firing.”

  ***

  There was no point in issuing further orders, John knew. The entire tactical situation had become brutally simple. Either the human ships inflicted enough damage to force the Foxes to surrender - as they were demanding, over the airwaves - or the Foxes crushed the entire task force. It wouldn't be enough to save them, John thought, but ... he gritted his teeth as two more warheads crashed against King Edward. Their only saving grace was that the enemy seemed to be short on bomb-pumped lasers.

  They must have expended them during the advance on Tadpole Prime, he thought. It made a certain kind of sense. The Royal Navy had nearly run out of advanced weapons during the First Interstellar War, when expenditure had been far higher than predicted. But then, the war itself hadn’t been predicted either. And then they found themselves continuously expending their new production, without being able to build up again.

  He cursed, inwardly, as two French destroyers and a Chinese frigate were blasted out of existence. None of them should have been anywhere near such a titanic engagement, but there had been no choice ... he told himself, again, that there had been no choice. HMS Balham followed them into death, just after striking an alien carrier with her plasma cannon and forcing her out of the engagement. John couldn't help thinking that it was a waste, even though the alien carrier had been dangerous. The battleships were the real threat.

  “They’re not combining their fire,” Prince Henry said, breaking the silence. “Why not?”

  “They’re smart enough to know that it would give us an opportunity to target them without hindrance,” John growled. “And besides, they have an edge. They don't need to gamble.”

  The damage was mounting rapidly. Losing the point defence weapons was bad enough, but jammed or destroyed turrets were worse. Bismarck had lost a forward turret to a plasma explosion, after her oversized containment chambers had been breached. John was privately impressed the damage wasn't worse. He’d reviewed Bismarck’s design before the task force had left Earth and he’d thought the Germans had ski
mped on a number of crucial safety procedures. But then, materials science had advanced over the seven years since Vanguard had been designed. The Germans had taken full advantage of later developments.

  “Eisenhower reports that she needs to fall back,” Regal injected. “She’s lost all of her launch tubes.”

  “Order her to break contact, if she can,” John said. Losing Eisenhower meant that he would only have one carrier left. “And order Vikramaditya to pull back. We need her launch tubes!”

  He cursed under his breath as the battering match continued. Yamato had taken heavy damage, but - true to their ancestors - her crew were keeping her on course. Texas and Montana had also taken damage, although their damage control teams seemed to be on top of the situation. Bismarck was still fighting, but her damaged hull was an easy target. Judging by the fire heading in her direction, John couldn't help suspecting that putting a nuke through the gash in her armour had just become an alien priority.

  Of course it has, he thought. They’d have an excellent chance of putting her out of action completely.

  King Edward shuddered again, violently. He forced himself not to look at the status display, even though he had access to all the data. There was nothing he could do. Captain Tolliver and his crew would either save the ship or lose it. And if King Edward was destroyed, or forced out of the datanet, Commodore Hoover would take command. There would be no dispute ... not, he suspected, that it really mattered. The battering match had taken on a life of its own.

  “One enemy battleship destroyed,” Regal reported. “Two more streaming atmosphere ...”

  Prince Henry clenched his fists. “How much of this can they take?”

  John shrugged. The Anglo-Indian War had been genteel. There was no way either Britain or India would expend so much materiel in a single engagement. But the Foxes had to be crushed, they had to know they were defeated. And, as long as they had a chance of winning, they would keep fighting. The odds were still in their favour.

  Don’t they understand what they’re facing? He asked himself. They can't win a war against two separate interstellar powers, can they?

  He studied the display as another alien battleship writhed under human fire. There were plenty of examples, in human history, of cities and nations holding out even when the odds were utterly hopeless. Rome hadn't surrendered after Cannae; Japan hadn't surrendered until two atomic bombs had been dropped; Iran had practically been pounded flat before the remnants of her government had been overthrown and slaughtered by their own people. And yet, the Foxes shouldn't regard surrender with utter horror. Their defeated were absorbed into the victor’s society. It was how they rolled.

  “I think we’re about to find out,” he said, grimly. “And we’re also going to find out how much we can take.”

  Texas flickered on the display, then vanished. John cursed under his breath, trying not to think about her crew. Maybe some would have made it to the lifepods in time ... it didn't look like it, according to the display. Three thousand American crewmen had either been vaporised or thrown into the inky darkness of space. The battleship had gone down with all hands.

  “Montana has taken heavy damage,” Regal reported. “Her CO is reporting direct hits to her missile tubes and drive sections.”

  “Order King Edward and Vanguard forward to cover her,” John said. The enemy advantage was starting to take a toll. And there was nothing he could do about it. “And check with Vikramaditya. See if they can launch a strike to cover us.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Regal said.

  John forced himself to relax, even as the pounding intensified. The starfighters launched sluggishly - Vikramaditya was a good ship, but she was handling far more starfighters than her designers had ever expected - and lanced into the teeth of enemy fire, launching their torpedoes at point-blank range. None of the original squadrons still existed, John noted absently. They’d been broken up and reorganised before the engagement, but now ... now they were gone completely. Human pilots from a dozen different nations were hastily thrown together into makeshift squadrons, then hurled at the enemy. Pilots barely had any time to meet their wingmen before going out to die together. It was hell ...

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. He understood, all too well, why Prince Henry wanted to be out there, sharing the danger. John felt it too, even though he knew King Edward was attracting more than her fair share of enemy missiles. There was something cowardly about having millions of tons of battleship wrapped around him ... he shook his head, angrily pushing the thought aside. He couldn't take a starfighter and go out to fight, any more than Prince Henry could. His responsibilities lay elsewhere.

  “Admiral,” Regal said. “Vanguard is under heavy fire!”

  John gritted his teeth. His remaining ships were heavily engaged. There was no way he could order anyone else up to cover Vanguard, let alone pull her out of the line of battle. And yet, he knew just how hurriedly the battleship had been patched up. The aliens might well know it too. And even if they didn't, they might get lucky.

  “Order the starfighters to cover her as best as they can,” he said, finally. It was almost certainly pointless - and he knew it. But he had to do something. “And see if we can send Montana forward ...”

  Another green icon flickered and died. “Bismarck is gone, sir,” Regal said. “Yamato is taking heavy fire ...”

  ***

  Susan clung to her command chair for dear life as the entire ship shuddered. The Foxes had their number now, she thought; they’d punched two gashes in her forward armour and were now trying to take full advantage of them. Vanguard’s inner layers were holding, but it was only a matter of time before they weakened and allowed the enemy to stab deep into her vitals. Sweat ran down her back - the bridge suddenly seemed very hot - as more and more red icons flashed up on the status display. Her ship was trapped in a nightmare it could neither defeat nor escape.

  “Turret Two has jammed, again,” Mason reported. “The enemy appears to be targeting it specifically ...”

  He broke off as another quiver ran through the giant ship. “Turret Two is gone, Captain,” he warned. “Plasma explosion. There are no reported survivors.”

  Susan hoped, just for a second, that the gunnery crews had died quickly. Plasma burns were nothing to laugh at, even if the victim survived. Modern medicine could work miracles, yet there were limits. But there was little hope of survival when one’s compartment was opened to vacuum ...

  Vanguard bucked like a wild horse as two bomb-pumped lasers stabbed into her weakened hull. Susan grabbed hold of her chair as the lights failed for a long second, the gravity field weakening just long enough to make her think they’d lost everything. The status display blanked for a chilling moment before booting back up again, warning of more and more systems failures. She couldn't help thinking, as she looked utter destruction in the face, that the bridge consoles were on the verge of exploding ...

  “They targeted our weak spot,” Mason reported. He looked up at her, his face pale. “Fusion Three and Four are both gone, Captain; Fusion One is showing signs of imminent collapse. We have a coolant leak in Main Engineering ...”

  He broke off, “Mr. Finch is reported dead,” he added. “Engineer Sato is now Acting Engineer.”

  Susan had to think to place the name. Thomas Sato was ... what? Seventh in Engineering’s internal chain of command? If he was the senior survivor, there might not be many other engineers left. Not, she suspected, that it mattered. The damage control teams wouldn't be able to patch the ship up this time. Vanguard shook, again ...

  “Direct hit, section alpha,” Mason reported bleakly. “They’ve wrecked the armour.”

  “Helm, point us at the nearest enemy battleship,” Susan ordered. The drives should be able to push them forward, just for a few minutes more. “Reroute all remaining power to drives, if necessary. Ram the bastards!”

  Reed didn't hesitate. “Aye, Captain.”

  Susan forced herself to sit back as Vanguard limped
forward. There was no point in ordering an evacuation, not when lifepods were being picked off by both sides. All she could do was try to take out one enemy ship in a final explosion. They couldn't even keep firing as they closed with their target. The enemy poured shots into her hull, ripping apart the remainder of her armour and stabbing deep into her vitals. And then ...

  “Captain,” Jean said. “They’ve stopped firing!”

  Susan blinked. “What?”

  “They’re surrendering,” Parkinson said. “They’re asking to surrender!”

  Susan blinked, then looked at Mason. A trick? It could be a trick. But all the enemy ships had stopped firing ...

  ... And then she saw the green icons appearing behind the red ones.

  “Abort ram,” she ordered, finally. Could they abort ram? Half her control systems had been shot out. “And then inform Admiral Naiser that we need help.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Reed said.

  ***

  “Picking up a signal from USS William Cody,” Regal said. “It’s Admiral Stirling!”