by Cameron, TR
“Evasive,” Okoye and Cross snapped together. The ship responded quickly despite her injuries, going low and fast to avoid the approaching energy net.
“They’ve just got all sorts of tricks up their sleeves, don’t they,” Okoye remarked with forced casualness.
“If they even have sleeves,” Cross replied in the same tone.
“Good point, XO. No matter how good their technology might be, how impressive can they be if they don’t have sleeves?” Small smiles were quickly stifled by the bridge crew, but Cross saw them before they disappeared.
“Sensors,” Cross said, “analyze those ships and see if they differ from the others. It would be good to know whether all their ships can do this, or if we face two different classes of enemy.”
“Aye, XO.”
Okoye spoke next, “Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, please open a channel to Captain Petryaev.”
“Ready.” Cross made a motion for the communication officer to include him in the conversation, and she gave him an acknowledgment as she did so.
The Russian came through the headset accompanied by the sounds of his ship in battle. “Yes, Captain? We’re a little busy at the moment.” Cross heard him issuing commands, and Okoye waited to speak until his voice fell silent.
“Just wanted to give you a warning about the trio with the energy net. I’m sure you’ve seen them, but they seem to be trying to expand it, and we’re concerned that more than those three have the capability. Probably best to stay out of the middle of them. Also, given that the base is evacuated, what are your intentions?”
They heard a loud crashing as the Beijing took fire from multiple opponents at once. “We still possess numerical superiority against the enemy, for all the good it seems to be doing us. My commanding admiral believes we can overcome these barbarians. I’m not as confident as he is.”
“Admirals are all alike,” Okoye responded. “We lost at least ten extra ships because of that attitude last time around.”
The channel dropped, replaced with static, as the starbase blew apart.
* * *
The shock wave from the rending of the base pulsed outward in all directions, knocking ships aside like rowboats confronted with a hurricane. Unlike the Union starbase, which had been structurally torn asunder, the Marines’ destruction combined with the stresses of the gravitic devices caused the power system to suffer a critical cooling failure. That allowed temperatures to increase, slagging all the safeguards that kept the nuclear reaction in check. The design of the system did its job, funneling the explosion outward instead of vertically into the living portions of the base, but secondary explosions were triggered, including the mines that the evacuation teams had left behind. A mere five seconds after the initial explosion, the entire starbase vaporized.
Anyone not buckled in on the Washington careened sideways and upward simultaneously as the ship was knocked in the opposite direction. It took only moments for the helm officer to right the vessel, but doing so caused further impacts as people fell to the deck. Alarms sounded at all stations, and when Lieutenant Jacobs reported one third of the ship’s compartments were open to space to a greater or lesser degree. “Medical teams are en route to the worst injuries,” he finished.
Protected by their command chairs, both Cross and Okoye watched the main display to see the results of the explosion. The toll was heaviest on the AAN ships, as they’d been closer to the base. Half their strength was suddenly gone. The Beijing, one of their most powerful vessels, was limping. “The Beijing is venting gasses from his engines,” Sensors Officer Flores reported.
The enemy had lost multiple ships, including the energy net cluster. Cross pointed this out to Okoye, who responded with a grunt. “At least that’s something, but it’s certainly not much.” The captain watched the display for a few minutes more and then turned to Cross. “Even strength.”
“We can’t win, Captain, not a fair fight and not now.”
Okoye let out a sigh. “Dammit, Cross...” He began, but trailed off. Nonetheless, Cross heard the unintended and unspoken words echo in his soul. If he could travel back in time and undo the mistake that brought them to the enemy’s attention, he would do it in a second, regardless of the cost to him. Instead of replying, he met the captain’s gaze without flinching.
“It’s time we were leaving this party,” Okoye said, turning to face forward. “Helm, chart a tunnel jump in three steps so we don’t lead them to our base. Tactical, bring our shields to full and if you see an opportunity for a shot as were getting out of here, take it. Communication, open a secure channel to all of our ships and whatever kind you can get to the Alliance forces.”
A few moments passed, and then Fitzpatrick said, “Go when ready, Captain”
Okoye cleared his throat. “This is Captain James Okoye of the UAL Washington, DC. Our tactical situation here is unwinnable, and I am ordering all Union ships to leave the sector according to designated evacuation plans exactly sixty seconds from my mark. Alliance forces, I offer a temporary truce as we evacuate, and my sensor officer will provide routing information so you may retreat along our path with us. We can worry about settling our differences once we recover from this mess.”
He paused, and Cross read the momentary sadness that flickered across his face. “We have all lost today, but we need not lose everything. Mark.”
Fitzpatrick cut the channel, and Okoye turned back to Cross. “Last-minute recommendations, XO?”
“None, Captain. It’s the right move.” He laughed as if at a private joke. You always make the right move, Captain—the words he himself left unspoken also echoed in his soul. Okoye reached across and clapped him on the shoulder, not speaking, then turned back.
“Ten seconds to tunnel,” Lieutenant Lee announced, and continued counting down from there. Cross was watching the battle display when he said one, expecting to see ships wink out as they did the same. The sound of the tunnel drive built to a crescendo and then failed to finish. Several seconds after they should have been safely away, they were still waiting for the drive to engage. A look at the battle display showed the problem was universal.
“What the—” Okoye said, as the communication officer announced, “All ships are reporting failure of tunnel drive.”
Kate, newly arrived on the bridge, conferred with Flores. After several seconds, a new image appeared on the main monitor.
“Captain, watch this. This is the moment we should have entered the tunnel.” On the screen, small pinpoints of light grew to an almost blinding level, then decreased, disappearing again among the blackness of space. “Our theory is that they somehow absorbed the energy that would have opened the tunnels. No way of telling whether this is permanent or single use, but we still need to wait for all of our drives to reset.”
Okoye responded quickly, “Cross, share that information with all the other ships. Helm, go evasive but set up a defensive battle line at this location.” He marked something on his display screen. “All ships with full shields and minimal injury make up the front rank. Those that sustained significant damage and need time to repair, hide behind it. Echo these orders to the Beijing. Hopefully the Alliance forces will join us, but if not, we’ll do the best we can.”
He swiveled in his chair to look at the weapons officer. “Walsh, I want you to keep them running, make it impossible for them to coordinate an attack. Lots of torpedoes, unpredictable fire rate, unpredictable targets. Get it done.” The burly man got a happy look in his eyes, nodded once, and turned back to his controls.
“Chief Jannik to the bridge, please, Lieutenant Fitzpatrick.” He turned to Kate. “Flynn, you two figure out a way for us to get out of the sector. I don’t care what it is, but we need an exit strategy, and we need it fast. Our ability to defend against these bastards for an extended duration is minimal, and we can’t outrun them in normal space.”
Closing down his communication channel, Cross said, “The Alliance forces are searching for their own solutions to the tunnel
problem, and will join us in a united defense. Captain Petryaev had the same idea to keep the enemy off balance, and the Alliance ships will work toward that goal.” Okoye nodded.
The delaying tactics were effective, keeping the enemy focused on protecting themselves rather than making a coherent attack on the defensive position. Even so, a pair of ships, evading incoming fire, swooped in and destroyed one of the outermost defenders. Okoye reformed the line to fill in the gap, and sent them scurrying back with a full salvo of torpedoes on their tails, but the damage had been done. The enemies were chipping away at them, and there was no telling how long they could last.
Jannik stepped from the lift, and both Cross and Okoye pointed him over to Kate. Seeing the engineer on the bridge sparked a synapse in Cross’s brain, and he turned to speak in a murmur to the Captain. “A beacon. We fire a beacon and see if it makes it out. That would at least tell us if these things are single use, or multi-use.”
Okoye gave him a smile with something that resembled approval in it. “Good thinking. Make it happen.”
Cross unbuckled and moved to the tactical station. In quiet tones, he told the officer what he wanted, and less than a minute later, the missile was jettisoned from the Washington and engaged its rocket drive to push it toward tunnel position. Cross, Okoye, and Jacobs all watched as it reached its terminal point and activated its tunnel drive. It failed to make the transition, defeated by more glowing pinpoints, and became just a dead hunk of metal traveling on inertial momentum.
Cross sent a message to Kate and Jannik, rather than disturbing their conversation, and returned to his seat. On the screen, ships fired weapons, other ships dived and dodged, and things looked bleaker by the moment for the defenders, whose ability to defend was being depleted with each torpedo spent.
Finally, Kate waved at the captain, and Cross joined him as they all gathered around the display at the sensor station.
“You’re not going to like this,” Jannik began. “Hell, I don’t like it one bit myself, but it may be all we have.”
Kate called up a display that showed a network of what looked like tubes connecting points in space. Cross recognized it from his time at the Academy.
“The wormhole network,” he asked.
“Aye, LC, the wormhole network. The problem is, since the creation of the tunnel drive, only ships like the DC which were retrofitted from wormhole drives can access it. The newer ships only have tunnel drives. There’s no way of knowing how many of our ships and how many of the Alliance ships are wormhole capable.”
“You’re suggesting that we should probably abandon the majority of the ships here, Chief.” Okoye’s voice was iron.
“Aye, that I am, Captain.”
“No other options?”
Kate and Jannik looked at one another, then back at Okoye. “No, sir,” Kate said. The look on her face said everything she didn’t put into words.
The silence that followed stretched until an incoming torpedo shattered it with devastating effect.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cross picked himself up off the deck—bruised, battered, and bleeding from a cut over his left eye. His ears rang, and he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten injured. He rose to his knees, and the ship spun around him. When it stopped spinning, he pulled himself all the way to his feet and fell into his chair. His vision stabilized, and he surveyed the smoking bridge of the Washington.
As his senses came back to him, he looked in a panic for Kate. She was fine, as was Jannik, although both had been sprayed with shards from the exploding displays. Fortunately, they were made of a glass designed to shatter in non-jagged fashion, leaving the deck littered with interlocking transparent octagons.
A commotion to his left caught his attention, and he turned to see the helm officer kneeling beside a prone body. Everything snapped back into real-time as he realized that it was Captain Okoye lying there motionless. He moved to assist, but was waved off by Lieutenant Lee, who was already calling for a medical team to come to the bridge. “Nothing you can do, XO. He needs a doctor.”
Cross nodded and belatedly started to strap himself into his chair. Then it hit him, and he went blank for the tiniest moment before moving to the captain’s chair. He reached up to trigger his headset only to discover that it had broken in two and pulled it from his head. “Fitzpatrick,” he yelled over the sound of alarms and fire suppression systems. “Open a channel to Captain Petryaev.”
Several seconds later, she replied, “Go for Beijing.”
“Dima,” he said, “have you found a solution to the tunnel block yet?”
“Negative.”
“We have one, but it’s not great.” As he was speaking, Cross reviewed the battle schematic, which showed the same standoff it had before the torpedoes’ impacts. However, with each successful strike, their window of survival was closing. “How many of your ships can access the wormhole network?”
Dima laughed without humor. “I’m surprised a youngster like you even knows about that. I’d have to check to be sure but I imagine maybe half. More likely only a third.”
Cross ran his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face and streaking blood across his forehead. “About the same here. All the new ships have a single tunnel drive. Only old hawks, like the Washington, have both after a retrofit.”
“Exactly. The Beijing, as well.”
“We won’t survive until the tunnel drives are reset to give it another try, according to our latest data.” Cross looked over, and Kate gave him a nod. “I recommend all ships that can exit the system by the wormhole network should do so, and the rest of our forces fight a delaying action to protect their escape.”
“To leave all those ships behind, though—” Dima began, but Cross cut him off.
“Honor be damned, Dima. We need every asset we can get to deal with the next attack that these bastards throw at us. And that includes you and the Beijing.”
“Why is it you telling me this, Cross? Where is Captain Okoye?”
“Injured. Status unknown. I’m in command of the Washington, and there’s really no time to determine who’s in charge of the Union forces at this point. I say we go. Do you agree?”
While he waited for an answer, he looked at the faces around the bridge, all of whom were staring at him. He didn’t see support. He didn’t see condemnation. He saw recognition that it was his duty to make the choices he was trying to make.
“I agree, Cross. We will do this thing.”
“Very good. Let’s regroup at one of our bases. I formally re-offer you a cessation of hostilities between the Alliance and the Union for at least the next fourteen days. That’ll give us time to figure out what to do next.”
“On behalf of the AAN forces deployed in the sector, I accept.”
“Navigational data coming to you shortly. We move in one minute and thirty seconds from my mark.” He paused to allow his tactical officer to set the timer and then said, “Mark. See you on the other side.”
“Affirmative. Beijing out.”
“Helm, plot a two-step transit to the forward-most UAL base. Then transmit that information to all our ships, and all Alliance ships. Fitzpatrick, give me a channel to all of our forces in the sector.”
He waited a moment for the connection to be established, then took a deep breath and delivered the most painful message of his life.
“This is Lieutenant Commander Anderson Cross, acting captain of the Washington, DC. With our tunnel drives defeated, only one possibility remains for us. All ships that have the technology to use the wormhole network are instructed to follow the navigational orders that my helm officer has just transmitted to you. All ships without a wormhole drive, you must cover our retreat. If you succeed in defeating or evading the enemy, head to the nearest UAL starbase at your best speed. Possibly, when you get some distance, your tunnel drives will again be active.” He grimaced. This was far from the glorious adventure he’d always hoped the captain’s chair would bring.
&nbs
p; “The Alliance forces that lack the wormhole drive will stand with you. Coordinate your actions where possible. Make the bastards pay as dearly as you can for what they have done here.” He had no idea how to finish. Captain Okoye would have something inspirational to say at this moment that would carry the spirits of the sailors forward into the fight. Words failed to arrive, and he was left with only those that had been haunting him since the return from alien space.
“I, we, will do our best to be worthy of your efforts. Washington out.”
He saw that the clock was at forty-five seconds, and looked around at the bridge crew, their eyes still locked on him. “Don’t waste this. Do everything you can to deliver us home in one piece and I promise you—I swear to you—we will find a way to beat them.” He paused, his nostrils flaring, his white knuckles gripping the arms of his chair. “Get to work.”
Everyone turned to their controls and did as he asked. He was powerless to improve the situation, so he sat and watched and waited. When the timer counted down to zero, the ships with wormhole drives detached from the main force and reoriented to fly at full speed toward the opening. Unfamiliar sounds echoed through the ship as the machinery that made wormhole access possible spun up. Cross had never been a part of a wormhole transit, although they ran diagnostics on the equipment regularly to make sure it still reported as functional.
“Time to entry?”
“One minute, twenty-three seconds, sir,” Lieutenant Lee replied.
“Jacobs, before we leave this system, I want every single torpedo we carry to be on its way toward an enemy ship. Relay that to all the wormhole ships.”
“Affirmative.”
“Jannik, do you need to get below?”
“No, my people can handle this. I’d like to stay and see it for myself. I’ve never been on the bridge for one.”
“Well then, find somewhere to strap yourself in please.” He looked at Kate. “Lieutenant Commander Flynn you are hereby assigned to the station of acting executive officer on the Washington, DC. Take your position.” She nodded, and he gave her a sickly smile as she came over and strapped herself in slightly behind and to the left of him. He turned to her and beckoned for her to lean over.