He Who Dares: Book Three

by Rob Buckman

  “Message drone just entered the system, XO,” the communications technician called. That was odd, as he wasn’t expecting a message drone for another week. By then they would have resurveyed the systems for anything unusual and checked in with the mining colony on Dixie Five.

  “Wow! It’s squawking code red, sir.”

  “What! Helm, head for the position of the drone. Comm, be prepared to download the data the moment we are at optimum range.” They both acknowledged their orders as Chris hit the ship’s intercom.

  “Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge.” That would tell the captain that it was something out of the ordinary, rather than his customary call down to his cabin to update him on something. Naval HQ on Richmond didn’t send out a message drone squawking code red for anything less than a national emergency, or war. Three minutes later Captain Guy Pierce came running onto the bridge and immediately sat in his recently vacated chair.

  “Status, Number One.”

  “We are heading to the position of the message drone, sir, and preparing to download the data the moment we reach optimum range.”

  “Good, Comm, also send a recall order to Lieutenant Commander Distard and ask him to rejoin us.”

  “Aye aye, Captain, relaying the message now.”

  “What do you think, Chris?”

  “Not sure, sir. Richmond wouldn’t send a drone with a code red warning unless it was something very important.”

  “Like?”

  “War, sir,” he whispered, seeing his Skipper shiver slightly.

  “In range, Captain. Downloading message – eyes only,” he said after a moment.

  “Oh shit!” was Captain Pierce’s mutter as he read the decoded message. For a moment, he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “As you suspected, Chris, it’s war.”

  “Oh Lord… the Sirriens?”

  The Captain nodded. “As soon as Bo and his destroyer squadron arrive, make a least time course to WP Epsilon and Richmond, flank speed.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Least time course and flank speed it is.” He repeated.

  “Comm - as soon as Lieutenant Distard is within hailing range with no lag, let me know.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Merrick, bring all weapon systems to condition yellow.” Lieutenant Merrick, the weapons officer looked startled, his boyish face getting three shades lighter. The only reason to bring all weapon systems to condition yellow was war. Three hours later, Specialist Gordon Tailor at the comm systems called down to the Captain to say that Lieutenant Distard was now in communications range with no time lag.

  “Bo, thanks for getting here so quickly.”

  “No problem sir. Thought it might be important when my sensor tech picked up that message drone dropping in-system.”

  “Good man to have spotted it when you were so far out. Anyway, to get to the point. Bring your squadrons weapons systems to condition yellow. We are at war with the Sirriens.”

  “About damn time, Skipper. We knew it was bound to happen.”

  “Yes, sadly I have to agree. Let’s just hope we can get home and help do something about it.”

  “Your orders, sir?” He asked formally.

  “Make a least time course to WP Epsilon and Richmond, flank speed. Anyone who can’t keep up or breaks down will be left behind to make their own way home at best possible speed.” Even as he gave the order, he hoped that none of his aging fleet would break down. The thought of going into combat with anything less than his total fire power didn’t have a lot of appeal.

  With a quick message to the mining colony about the situation the light cruiser Cimarron, and ten fast attack destroyers headed towards the northern warp point, WP Epsilon, and home. As a precaution, Captain Pierce ordered navigation to drop them out of nth space one day short of the home star system.

  “We need to see what we are jumping into, XO. Our hyper footprint will tell anyone watching that we are coming, there’s no way around that, but coming out a day short should give us a few options.”

  “I agree, Skipper. If the Sirriens have invaded, I suspect the battle will be over by the time we get there.”

  “True, a lot can happen, considering that it took two weeks for the drone to reach us, and we have two weeks in nth to get back there.”

  “With luck, out main battle fleet will stop them.”

  Captain Pierce looked at his friend and XO with haunted eyes. Was it more than wishful thinking on his XO’s part, or did he really believe that the outdated Confederate fleet could stop a serious Sirrien incursion. It was hard to tell. He hoped so as well, but knowing just how up to date the Sirrien Navy was, and how out of date the Confederate fleet was in comparison, he had his doubts. The two week jump did give them time to shake the cobwebs out of the crews’ combat readiness cutting the time from stand down to full alert by a full minute

  “Time to exit, ten minutes, Skipper,” Rolland Pike, the navigation officer announced. It wasn’t necessary, as everyone on the bridge could see the ship’s clock, but habits are hard to break.

  “Bring us back to condition yellow, XO.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Condition yellow it is.” This time the crew was even faster getting to their assigned combat stations, ratcheting up the tension even higher.

  “Transition,” Rolland Pike announced.

  The Cimarron and eight of her escort destroyers dropped out of nth in a blaze of displaced energy, slightly closer to the star system than calculated. Not that the captain minded as he got to see what was happening that much quicker. Captain Pierce did wonder for a moment what had happened to two of his destroyer escorts, but brushed it away as irrelevant. Wherever they were, it wasn’t here, where he needed them.

  “Active sensor sweep. They know we are here so it’s no good us trying to hide.” Even so, it took time for all the blanks in the battle tank to fill in.

  “Damn it! The OWP at solar north is gone.” From their exit position above the home star, they “looked down” on the system, so one of the first things to come into view was the orbiting weapons platform guarding the warp point.

  From then on, the “picture” went from bad to worse. They picked up orbiting debris from shattered picket ships, and lonely life pods pinging a plea for help. As the hours passed and they dropped down the gravity well, the picture became grimmer. The Confed fleet as such didn’t exist anymore except as an orbiting debris field. As they ghosted in-system, Captain Pierce ordered all ships to send out search and rescue shuttles to pick up as many active life pods as they could find, but sadly, there were very few. The reason became clear as they passed a cluster of them finding they’d been hulled by weapons fire.

  “Oh god! Those rotten pigs blew the life pods away.” Chris would have cried except for the mounting fury he felt.

  “These people have a lot to answer for, Chris. Our turn will come, mark my words,” was the only solace he could give.

  “Sir, I’m picking up ships headed our way… Sirrien ships, Captain.” Captain Pierce turned and looked at the battle tank and swore.

  “Damn it to hell! We have to get out of here. There’s no way we can take on five heave cruisers and twenty destroyers. Helm, reverse course! Comm, order all ships to follow us.”

  “Captain! We just can’t…”

  “Can’t what? Run?” He snapped. “All we can do right now is stand and die. Is that what you want? A glorious death fighting an unwinnable battle?”

  “No… yes…”

  “Chris, I know how you feel, and believe me, if I thought we stood a ghost of a chance against that many, I’d take it, but we don’t. If we stay, we die.”

  “But… but…”

  “You think it’s cowardly to turn and run against superior numbers? We are not the three hundred Spartans standing at the Hot Gate or Davy Crocket at the Alamo. We are an outgunned naval squadron with nowhere to call home.”

  “So… where do we go? A colony planet?” seeing the captain shake his head.<
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  “If they hit the home system, you can bet they sent additional forces to capture any star systems that had any significant forces. Our best bet is to run to the Union and let them know what happened. Maybe we can join up with one of their task forces and come back to even the score.” It was a faint hope, but better than staying here and being pounded to scrap.

  “Our best bet is to jump back to the mining colony, get sorted out and head for Union space. Let’s hope the Sirriens haven’t gotten around to capturing all of our star systems.”

  Chris didn’t look happy. “Aye aye, sir. Nav set up a course to take us back to the Dixie Five mining colony. Comm, make to all ships our proposed destination.”

  “As soon as we get the S&R shuttles back, I want to talk to whoever turns out to be senior.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I’ll head down there and see who we have.”

  With the advantage of distance, they made it out of the system without having to engage the Sirrien forces. Once past the hyper limit the Sirrien ships broke off the pursuit. That gave Captain Pierce time to transfer the senior officers they found in the life pods. There were few above second lieutenant grades, the remaining senior officers dying with their ships, but he had them all brought aboard for debriefing. The picture that emerged was grim. The Sirriens sent in one major task force to engage the Confederate fleet, opening fire the moment they were in range. Once engaged, a second fleet exited nth space and proceeded directly for Richmond. They never called for surrender or negotiated in any way either with the main Confed fleet or with the planet. They just started dropping KEWs on several major cities. It only took four kinetic energy weapon strikes to force the government to offer unconditional surrender. That didn’t stop the Sirriens from pounding the Confed fleet into scrap even after the signal was received to surrender. While that was happening, they put “boots on the ground,” ruthlessly putting down any sign of resistance. The devastation on the four cities that were hit was complete, killing over four million people and reducing the cities to nothing more than a pile of shattered rubble. To add to the atrocities, the troops rounded up all the government officials and had them shot. The only places that didn’t receive any hits were the orbital shipyards and solar furnace facilities. That made sense as they’d need them to start building ships for the Sirrien fleet.

  What made Captain Pierce so angry was the cold bloodedness of the Sirrien attack. In the normal course of events, there was a prelude to war. Diplomatic exchanges, demands and counter demands in a steadily escalating scale to the declaration of outright war, yet if history had taught them anything it was that one side or the other could strike without prior notice, Pearl Harbor was a classic example. There were others as was the case with the country called Poland where the Germans faked a supposed attack by Polish troops as an excuse to invade. Yet, looking back, all the signs were there. The military knew it, but the politicians tended to think in terms of negotiation and diplomatic solutions, anything to avoid all out war. It didn’t help that the selfsame politicians would rather spend tax dollars on social programs at the expense of the military. They talked a good talk about not needing large amounts of tax money on a “peace time” Navy or military, and year by year drew down the number of troops, scrapping as many of the old ships as possible, cutting the budget for building new ships or upgrades to the old ones or spending huge amounts on research and development. The price? War and invasion anyway. Captain Pierce didn’t shed many tears over the demise of the politicians, they deserved what they got. As the Bible said, as you sow, so shall you reap.

  “Make a course to Union space, nav.”

  “Aye, sir. Making course for Union space.

  The five light year jump to Union space only took three days, and to his horror they jumped in-system at the tail end of a battle. Thankfully, his crew and that of the destroyer squadron were primed and ready launching torpedoes and missiles the moment they came in range of a lone Sirrien heavy cruiser. She’d already taken some damage and hadn’t expected the sudden appearance of the ConFed squadron. It only took one wave of torpedoes and missiles to finish her off. Captain Pierce was already looking around for another target before they’d finished off the first, seeing two Union light cruisers pounding away at a Sirrien heavy battle cruiser.

  “Comm, get on the horn to the captain of one of those Union cruisers and let them know we are here and joining the battle against the Sirriens.”

  “Aye, sir. Transmitting.”

  “Good thinking, Skipper. I don’t want them thinking we are the enemy.”

  “It happens in war.”

  “Have an acknowledgment, sir. He said he’ll take all the help he can get, and welcome to Union space.”

  “Well have to make this quick, Skipper. Several Sirrien ships have turned in our direction.”

  “I see them, Chris. Let’s take that bastard on his damaged side.”

  In some ways, a space battle is a slow motion affair while one side or both maneuver to get into weapons range. In some cases that could take hours, or even days, with the distances involved. In this case Captain Pierce took a roundabout course just out of the Sirrien missile envelope to get into position. The down side was that the oncoming Sirrien ships would be at his back when he got there. With the two Union light cruisers keeping the Sirrien’s attention on them, the captain of the heavy battle cruiser didn’t dare try and turn or rotate his battle damaged side to counter the ConFed ships. At some point he knew it was a losing battle and tried to run towards the oncoming Sirrien ships, but it was too late. With his damaged drive he didn’t have sufficient speed to pull out of range. That left his stern exposed to an up-the-kilt shot by the ConFed squadron, and they took it. A small sun lit space for a moment as the battle cruiser’s fusion bottle fractured not that Captain Pierce had time to admire the sight. He turned his squadron to meet the new threat now joined by the two Union light cruisers. Again, the battle slowed as each side maneuvered to get into the best position. From the Sirrien side, the odds looked good. One battleship and ten destroyers against three light cruisers and eight destroyers. Unlike the days of salt water battleships, size and firepower didn’t mean as much as it did back then. Much of it came down to the amount of ordnance a ship could carry. In the case of a weapons platform like a battle cruiser, that was a lot compared to a light cruiser. It also meant that a ship of that size had more armor and greater shield depth than lighter ships. The only time their bigger “guns” came into play was when both sides got into knife-fighting range, which small, lightly armored ships hated to do.

  Kinetic energy weapons aren’t much good over the longer distances involved in space battles. They are easy to spot, and any ship can either maneuver out of their path or take care of them with the point defense systems. Kinetic energy weapons are good against fixed targets, such as space stations, fixed orbital installations, and planetary-based targets. Direct energy weapons on the other hand, such as lasers and pulse cannons, are hard to spot coming at you and therefore the need for stronger shields to handle the impact. The downside, they tended to bleed energy over long distances and be less effective. That’s where missiles, and some variants of torpedoes, came into play. These could be self guiding to target, have built in ECM and/or ECCM and could contain a variety of warheads from conventional high explosives to nuclear and pumped X-rays warheads. Again battleships and above have a greater advantage in carrying capacity. The trick with smaller ships, therefore, was knowing when to use which weapon and how many at a time.

  “Any fighter support?”

  “None detected, sir.”

  “Thank heavens for small mercies.

  “Damn!” The sensor tech muttered. “Sir, the Sirriens have launched. First wave due in twenty-six point three minutes.”

  Captain Pierce winced. “Damn it! They outrange us! XO, order point defense to close up. They have heavy traffic coming their way.”

  “Aye, sir. So notified.”

  “Nav, show me the plot and our inte
nded course.” A moment later their proposed track came up as an overlay in the battle tank.

  The fact the Sirriens had launched so soon bothered him. Even with advances in sensor technology, they had to be at the edge of their detection envelope. That meant they probably didn’t have a solid targeting lock. Without a corresponding leap in drive tech for the torpedoes they had to go ballistic for part of the journey and only be guided to target during the initial boost and terminal phase. It was up to the onboard sensors to pick up their targets once they got to within a certain range. Once there, they could self-guide and go into sprint mode for the terminal phase. The question was, could he maneuver out of the torpedoes’ narrow detection path before they reached their optimum sensor range? There was only so much hardware and electrical power you could pack into the warhead of a torpedo and have sufficient space left over for the payload itself even with the compact nuclear devices they had nowadays. That was assuming these were standard Sirrien torpedoes. If they’d developed larger weapons, then all bets were off. He plotted a new course, then another, liking the results even better.

  “Helm, bring us to this course, maximum acceleration. Comm, signal to the Union cruisers that we are going to run up and over and try to draw off the Sirrien destroyer screen.”

  “Aye, sir. Transmitting signal now.”

  “It’s going to be rough when we pull that maneuver, Skipper,” Guy Longmire murmured.