Some scientists believed if or when we truly understood how to move about in subspace, that all the trips to alpha Centauri would take just a few minutes, but until then I’d happily take three hours to move over several light years any day.
Ally asked, “Do you think they’ll follow us sir?”
She looked nervous, and a bit vulnerable, but I wasn’t about to lie to her.
I shook my head, “No idea ensign. If they do, we’ll find a way to deal with it.”
Ally looked a bit dubious at that claim, but didn’t argue.
Even if that winds up just being making peace with our maker, if there is one, we’d deal with it, we had no choice. Hopefully if that did happen, we’d have time to prepare before they found more human star systems. I wondered if the government was sitting on some advances in weapons or something. Probably too much to ask for, our best hope would be filching that old ship and figuring out how to manipulate gravity. That would give us a chance, if we got enough time to work it out and start building. Even that was a bit too pie in the sky for my kind of thinking, hopefully I’d be right about the more powerful beams on the cruisers and battleships, otherwise we were screwed.
It was reasonable to think if they didn’t follow, that they were only interested in protecting their solar system. If they could track us, and came after us… then they might search out other threats to them, our human civilization. Given their ships and technology, it wouldn’t take them long to find us even if they couldn’t track our movements through subspace.
I bet if they could, they were laughing at us right now. I imagine we looked a lot like a child walking from point a to point b in aimless circles. We’d get there, eventually.
Captain Kane said, “Commander, you and your team should get something to eat and take a break, then relieve us for us to do the same. I want us all back where we are now when we exit subspace, just in case the enemy is following us.”
“Aye captain,” I said, and then to Ally, Carly, and Jerry, “Let’s get moving.”
The ship spoke we needed required walking the long way around. I knew the crewman we had were working hard on damage control, but there wasn’t much they could do with whole sections of twisted metal. At best, they’d be able to work in bypasses for some of the systems, and leave those areas behind emergency bulkheads until we could put into one of the repair platforms back in orbit around Mars.
We also had two more crew to mourn when this mission was over. Bishop and Collins were non-coms that worked directly for Chief Marilyn Hanson. I hadn’t really known them well at all, but I’d reviewed them a few times the last year and they were good hard working lads.
I also had the feeling we’d all need a lot of rest by the time this was over.
The captain must have made a call, because Cassie was ready for the four of us as we walked in, and had plates made up.
Cassie said, “Got us out a bind Commander?”
I nodded, “Of course, it was worth doing just for some more of your delectable food.”
She snorted, but I could tell she was pleased at the compliment.
“Thanks Cassie,” Carly said as she grabbed a plate. Ally and Jerry did the same.
I grabbed my own, and nodded in thanks before joining them to eat. I wondered if had time to shower, the high gravity run and the shaking, not to mention the adrenaline and fear had made me sweat. I felt like there were puddles in the feet of the suit.
I chowed down, while I wondered again how we could damage them. They weren’t invincible, just… far out of our league. I wondered if we pointed the top of the ship at them, and fired all four plasma arrays at them and in the same spot, if we’d do some real damage, instead of just ruining their paint.
Problem was, their return fire wouldn’t fail to hit unless it was too shallow or too far a shot to completely miss us. Otherwise they’d either crush the bridge, or destroy the rest of our engines. It would be a gamble.
I ate quickly, then ordered, “Be back on the bridge in twenty-five minutes, I’ll meet you all there.”
I nodded at the aye sirs, which the three of them gave me, and went to see about that shower…
I felt better cleaned up, and a little bit more human in a fresh ship suit as I made my way back to the bridge.
The captain didn’t waste any time when I got back.
“Ship is at about seventy percent, there isn’t much else the repair crew and Columbus’s repair bots can fix. We’ll be back ten minutes before transition to normal space.”
“Understood captain, I have the bridge.”
She nodded, and walked for the exit. I sat down and tried to slow my mind down, it didn’t really help at all though. It was relaxing in a way, but it also felt like we were in the calm of the storm, we’d lived through the first half, and then stood in the eye wondering if we’d survive the rest of it.
The three ensigns came in and relieved their counterparts, except for the helm which sat empty, the controls transferred to me. That was simply regulations though, no human could fly through subspace safely anyway. I wished sensors worked in subspace, but they were very limited. Only the specialized sensors that the FTL drive used were any good in this… soup.
Katy threw me a smile on the way off the bridge, which I couldn’t help but return. Was it my imagination or had the smile been different than the usual one? She was a complication, and I reminded myself firmly, had been practically engaged to my dead best friend. We’d formed some kind of connection though, over that toast? Maybe it was just me, but I’d felt comfortable with her. Hell, I’d told her my story, which I hadn’t talked about for over a year, no matter how many times others had asked me about it.
It didn’t matter, anything more than friendship was out of bounds, and once this mission was over we’d go our separate ways and quite possibly never see each other again. Which meant at best, we could what? Have something for a few weeks of leave? I didn’t want that. I was just… reading into it, lack of companionship and being lonely for a year was making me believe, or want, more than it was. It also made me an asshole, because she’d reached out to me for comfort and friendship while she mourned someone she loved. Here I was… never mind. It was just the stress, and the fact she was a gorgeous distraction. I focused back on the real issues.
I hoped the aliens couldn’t track us, and weren’t following us, but I didn’t believe it for a second. My gut told me we’d just stepped in it, in a very bad way, on behalf of all mankind.
It was a morbid thought, but maybe we should have just self-destructed before we got there, since we couldn’t abort. How much death was the human race in for because seventeen of us lived on this one ship? I shook my head, that kind of thinking was stupid, and was self-defeating. I needed to think of solutions, not the problems.
We’d figure something out, we had to.
Chapter Ten
As promised, the captain and lieutenants, along with Ensign John Crossman had returned to the bridge ten minutes before transition back to normal space. I along with Ally, Carly, and Jerry had returned to the auxiliary control room in engineering. We were all strapped in, just in case.
Ensign Crossman said, “Three, two, one, and transition.”
The world blurred for a moment, and we were back in normal space.
Captain Kane said, “Report.”
Katy said, “We are where we’re supposed to be maam. There is a Messenger missile beacon twenty thousand miles to port.”
The captain’s face showed surprise for a split second, but it cleared quickly into her usual confidence. I couldn’t blame her, that the admiralty had sent a message to us so quickly was heartening in a way, and good to know they were taking this very seriously.
It was still surprising though.
“Download the message, and put it up on the screen.”
A man that looked at least seventy appeared on the screen, gray hair, brown eyes, and a look of confidence on his face.
“This is Vice Admiral Clemmons.
If you’re watching this I congratulate you on escaping the system.”
He frowned, “We’re already working on some new procedures to prevent a recurrence, but what is done is done. I want you to hold there for twelve hours, if an alien vessel doesn’t show up by the end of that time, your orders are to proceed directly to Mars central command for debriefing. If an alien vessel somehow tracks you, your orders are to immediately jump into subspace and lead them to 82 Eridani. I’ve sent Rear Admiral Clarence Jones there, along with a taskforce of two battleships, seven cruisers, one of which has an experimental weapon, and of course there were already two scout ships in the system.
“You will share any tactical data you’ve discovered on arrival and put yourself under his command. Good luck Columbus, Clemmons out,” and the transmission finished.
The captain said, “Charge the FTL drive, I want to be able to transition on command. Cindy, have the computer chart a course to 82 Eridani and have it ready to go on a moment’s notice. Katy, I want you to compile the effectiveness of our plasma weapons, missiles, and how our changes of acceleration were key to combat a weapon we have no defense against. Also include the layout of the ship, and make sure they know the rear of the ship is the most vulnerable. If we can get through their hull and technology, we could do a lot of damage taking out engineering. Have it ready to transmit if the aliens show up, we’ll need to transmit immediately after reaching normal space in Eridani. Keep in mind, an Admiral is going to be reading it.”
Katy grinned, “Aye captain.”
She turned to Crossman, “John, if Katy reports the alien, don’t wait for my order, just punch it and get us in subspace.”
He replied, “Yes captain.”
She said, “I think they may use gravity scans as Michael suggested. I think they waited until we transmitted simply because all they could read before that was mass and our effect on space. I’m wondering if they thought we were some kind of rogue comet at first, until we transmitted. It’s just a guess, but based on the alien ship we went over, which had no passive sensors on the hull at all, I’d say they couldn’t tell what we were at first.”
She turned to George, “Any idea how we can take advantage of that?”
George shook his head, “We can’t affect gravity or confuse their scan, no more than we can disrupt natural gravity, if they’re doing some scan to check for mass we have no way of spoofing or interrupting that ability.”
She nodded in acceptance
“I didn’t think so, anyone have any other ideas?”
Cindy grunted, “We could probably build some bomb pumped lasers out of stores and with access to the machine shop. They can run circles around us at forty-five gravities, but at two hundred our missiles can run circles around them. We could program them to circle behind the ship, point at it, and explode far enough away from the ship that their gravity shields won’t harm the missile and nail them high density x-ray laser.”
The captain raised an eyebrow, “We can do that?”
Cindy nodded, “It’s a mature science, the only reason we don’t do it is the bomb pumped lasers aren’t particularly more powerful than the larger phased plasma arrays on our battleships, and those are cheaper and reusable, where a missile is one use only. They will be far more powerful than our plasma arrays though. In other words captain, it didn’t make sense to make them, until now that is. I bet Marilyn and a couple of the crew could modify one missile every fifteen minutes or so, once all the parts are gathered of course.”
The captain said, “Do it. And Katy, add this conversation to the transmission you’re preparing.”
I actually felt a little hope at that, if that worked maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. I also had an irrational urge to both kiss and growl at Cindy, it was a brilliant idea, and as a weapons specialist myself I should have thought of it. I wouldn’t actually do the latter, I wasn’t that shallow, I was just mad at myself for not seeing it. I wouldn’t do the former either, since it would probably get me slapped and on report. Then of course, murphy decided we’d had enough time to plan, and stomped on my hope.
Katy almost growled, “They’re here, just transitioned in.”
John hit the button, and we transitioned to subspace, and one G of acceleration kicked in.
The captain asked, “Time?”
Cindy replied, “According to Columbus, travel time is nineteen minutes and fourteen seconds.”
The captain sighed, “See if they can get at least one load of four missiles done in that time.”
Katy said, “Marilyn acknowledged your orders maam, but the first missiles won’t be done for thirty minutes, and then she can give you four every ten minutes after. The initial wait is to get into stores, someone’s going to have to go into the depressurized sections and try to dig out what they need.”
“Understood, thanks Katy.”
Well, we’ll have a whole fleet to distract them for eleven minutes. Hopefully the missiles wouldn’t be necessary, and the combined fire from twelve ships including our own would take down the enemy. Of course, we couldn’t depend on that.
Ally sighed, “I should have thought of that.”
I laughed, genuinely amused, and she looked a little hurt until I said, “Me too ensign, me too. I just wish one of us had thought of it three hours ago.”
I opened a channel to the bridge, “Captain, the aliens ignored our missiles because they knew their shields would take them out, as they weren’t a danger. We might only get one successful attack with straight missiles, and they’ll try to pick off any successive ones with distance gravity attacks. Can we program them to jump around like we did with the ship, vary acceleration and even randomly fire attitude thrusters to make rapid changes in vector as they close into range?”
The captain nodded, “Good idea. Columbus, can you reprogram the missiles for erratic approach, they’ll also need to go off within the effective strike distance, there’s no reason to close to point blank range right outside their shield width. We should also target their engines, I don’t think they were made with that special alloy, perhaps they aren’t shielded, though we can’t depend on that. In any case, if we can cripple their speed while we try to get through the hull and into their reactor, more the better.”
Columbus replied, “Affirmative, I’ll make the updates on the updated missiles as they’re completed by Chief Hanson, including relevant targeting information. The weapons officer will merely need to target the ship, and the missiles will automatically hunt that ship’s engines and fire at an angle that will bisect the reactor if accurate.”
They had a plan, the only question was would four missiles with bomb pumped lasers be able to get through that shielding, assuming they could even coordinate their strikes.
I wasn’t sure, but it was better than nothing, and at least we had a chance. Or at least, I believed we did for the first time since our missiles and plasma beams had no effect.
Chapter Eleven
John said, “Three, two, one, Transition.”
Captain Kane ordered, “Katy, send the transmission, and report status.”
Katy replied, “Sent captain. We’re currently surrounded in a semi-circle captain, all two light seconds away, on screen.”
The two battleships were at two and ten o-clock, and there were three cruisers directly ahead between them, two on the left flank and two on the right. The two scout vessels were at one and eleven o’clock behind and slightly above the cruisers.
All three ship type shapes were virtually the same, they only varied by size, armament, and power. The cruisers were almost a half mile in diameter, four times as long as a scout ship, and had twelve ring corridors instead of the three we had. They also had eight plasma weapon arrays which were significantly more powerful, and eight missile launchers, twice what we had. Not to mention a complement of ten assault shuttles instead of two.
The battleship was just over a mile in diameter, and held twenty-four rings. Besides having more powerful reactors, mo
re than one, they also had twelve stronger plasma weapon systems, twelve missile launchers, and a cavernous landing bay with twenty assault shuttles, and over a hundred larger shuttles which could accommodate a hundred people each.
There weren’t many of the latter, they were quite overpowered compared to what pirates or private corporations could put together. In truth, with all the room and shuttles, they were designed to be both intimidating, and to move large populations very quickly. Quite often they were used to bring the materials and people to start a new star system colony.
The cruiser in the middle also had a very large weapon array on the top of the central disk that looked unfamiliar. I wondered at the stupidity of that, and decided this experimental weapon spoken of by Vice Admiral Clemmons was probably something older that had ultimately been rejected. Mounting a shoot me here target right above the bridge and engineering was stupid, so this must be the original proof of concept that they’d dragged out from somewhere in desperation.
Katy added, “We’re being hailed by the Victory, Rear Admiral Clarence Jones.”
“On screen,” said Captain Kane.
Rear Admiral Jones had graying hair, and hazel eyes. By his face, I’d say he was in his fifties somewhere. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“Captain, move your ship behind the line. Admiral Clemmons wants you debriefed, how long until we can expect the enemy?”
She nodded at John, who started a one gravity burn.
“Five minutes, admiral,” Kane answered, “At least that’s how long it took last time. This was a shorter hop, so they might be here any second.”
The admiral grunted, “Understood, this information you sent is short on detail captain, which means it’s actually useful even in a situation this tight. Well done. Keep your head down, and enjoy the party. Jones out.”
The captain looked over to Katy, “Well done, short on information?”
Scout Ship: Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Novel 01 Page 8