Refusing Excalibur

by Zachary Jones

  The four other cruisers in his flotilla acknowledged his orders.

  “Intercept course plotted, Captain,” Lieutenant Colletta said.

  “Full speed ahead,” Victor said. Just an old-fashioned way of saying, “Maximum acceleration.”

  The Osprey’s thrusters fired at full power, and her AG generators dialed up to maximum to keep the ship’s 150 g acceleration from crushing her crew.

  The Lysandran warships also moved, accelerating toward Savannah at the same rate Victor’s flotilla was accelerating away from the planet. If the enemy maintained their course, it would be roughly six hours until they reached weapons range.

  “Shields are charged and ready, Captain,” Commander Dace said.

  “Good. Be ready to bring them up to combat power on my order,” Victor said.

  Shields spread the energy of any impact over a larger area of the ship’s surface. They were most effective at diffusing electromagnetic energy; a hit from a laser would be spread over most of the ship’s surface area. The shields were less effective against kinetic weapons, which was why the Savannan Navy liked putting big guns on their warships.

  The Osprey, like all Thresher-class cruisers, had a near-hull-length kinetic cannon mounted on each side. The rapid-fire weapons could fire a burst of metal spikes at 3 percent the speed of light, giving the Osprey a deadly close-range punch.

  Threshers paid for their big guns by having a purely defensive missile armament.

  The hours passed as Victor’s flotilla moved to intercept the Lysandran warships still moving toward Savannah.

  “Six Scimitar-class cruisers,” Commander Dace said after the sensors resolved enough to make out the vessels. “They’ll probably try for a flyby attack against Savannah.”

  Victor nodded. Scimitars were missile boats the same way the Osprey was a gun boat. Covered in missile tubes from bow to stern, the Scimitars could do a lot of damage to Savannah if they got through Victor’s defenses. “If we get close, they don’t stand a chance.”

  “That assumes we survive the barrage of missiles they’ll throw at us, Captain,” Commander Dace said.

  “It’s five versus six. Almost an even fight.” Victor turned to Dace. “Since when have the Lysandrans ever beaten us in an even fight?”

  Dace’s smile was filled with menace. “You got me there, Captain.”

  Victor nodded and keyed the flotilla channel. He ordered his cruisers to enter a tight vertical-star formation. Each ship was within one hundred kilometers of the other, close enough for one ship’s point defenses to cover all the others, but far enough away that the whole flotilla wouldn’t all die to a single warhead.

  “Missile launch!” Dace said, loudly but without fear. It was no surprise the Lysandrans would launch missiles.

  “Shields to combat power,” Victor said and then locked his helmet over his head. A swarm of missiles accelerated toward his ships at over 1,000 gs. Hundreds of them. They would be moving at a full percentage point of the speed of light by the time they reached him.

  “They’re not holding anything back,” Commander Dace said.

  Victor nodded. They must have expended their entire antistarship missile armament in a single volley. Taking their best shot at overwhelming the defenses of his cruisers and pushing through to Savannah. Not that he would let them do that.

  The Osprey tracked each and every enemy missile, but, with the cruisers of his flotilla so close together, Victor knew it would be difficult to tell which missiles were targeting his ship until the last seconds before impact.

  Victor keyed the flotilla's channel. “All ships, slave your missile defense systems to mine.”

  Within seconds, the antimissile systems of the five Thresher-class cruisers became a single unit. Missiles would be prioritized to maximize the chances of the flotilla as a whole, rather than individual ships.

  Victor guessed his ship had fifty-fifty odds of surviving the Lysandran missiles, give or take. But the chances of most of his cruisers surviving were near unity.

  Countermissiles were launched when time to impact was down to only a few minutes. Hundreds of blue streaks flew away from the Savannan cruisers, rushing out at 2,000 gs of acceleration toward the Lysandran missiles.

  The countermissiles looked the same size as the Lysandran starship-killers on the tactical screen, but, in reality, they were tiny. Wasps going after eagles.

  A staccato of flashes fired off when the countermissiles reached their targets, and three-quarters of the Lysandran missiles disappeared.

  Victor ground his teeth. The performance of the countermissiles was more than satisfactory. But more than enough enemy missiles were still left to wipe out his cruisers. He ordered evasive maneuvers.

  The ships began a pattern of careful but violent maneuvers. Decoys were launched to tempt away some of the missiles, and then lasers were fired to blind the seeker heads of others.

  A number of missiles fell from formation, either decoyed or blinded. Half the remaining enemy missiles were neutralized before the point-defense guns fired.

  A rain of metal scourged the Lysandran missiles in the last seconds before impact. Missiles disappeared in flashes of relativistic collisions faster than Victor could keep count of.

  He began to believe than none of the enemy missiles would get through. Then something detonated near his ship, and he was thrown against the straps holding him to his seat. The lights on the bridge flickered, and radiological alarms blared.

  “Shit!” Victor tapped on his blank tactical screen.

  “That was a close one. The radiation has blinded our sensors!” Commander Dace said.

  “Did we get dosed?” Victor asked.

  Dace shook her head. “Radiation readings inside the pressure hull are normal. The armor absorbed it. Still, I would advise against any space walks around the ship.”

  Victor closed his useless tactical screen and checked the damage summary. The main communications antenna was down, and a bunch of sensors failed. Also, as Dace had mentioned, the outer hull had been irradiated. It wouldn’t be safe to walk around the exterior of the Osprey until the plating was replaced.

  “Lieutenant Herrera,” Victor called out to the communications officer. “Is the backup antenna still online?”

  “Yes, Captain,” she said.

  “Deploy it and regain contact with the flotilla,” Victor said.

  “Deploying now, Captain.”

  Victor checked his tactical screen. Still down. But on the communications panel, two of his cruisers, the Vulture and Sabretooth appeared. The Stallion and Hammerhead, however, did not.

  “This is Osprey to Vulture and Sabretooth. What’s your status?”

  “Undamaged and fully operational,” Captain Markab said from the Vulture.

  “Minor damage to sensors. Otherwise my ship is fully operational,” said Captain Lyse of the Sabretooth.

  “Roger that. My ship is almost blind but otherwise operational. Can you tell me the status of the Stallion and Hammerhead?”

  After a pause, Captain Markab answered. “Gone, Osprey. They both took direct hits.”

  Victor sighed. It was all that needed to be said. “Roger that, Vulture. Break formation and engage the enemy. That goes for you too, Sabretooth.”

  Both captains acknowledged, and, though his ship was still blind, Victor knew the other cruisers were flying off to avenge their comrades. Victor turned to Dace. “When will sensors be back online?”

  “We should have backups activated in a moment, Captain,” Dace said.

  Victor switched to his tactical screen in time to see it flicker back to life. As expected, the Vulture and Sabretooth ran ahead of his ship, toward the six approaching Lysandrans cruisers.

  Victor targeted the two Lysandran cruisers farthest away from the Vulture and Sabretooth. “Helm, intercept my targets.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Gunnery, begin charging the main gun capacitors,” Victor said.

  “Roger that, Captain,”
Lieutenant Ryam said.

  The Osprey didn’t generate enough power to fire her main guns continuously. Instead she stored energy in a pair of large capacitors, one for each gun to power ten shots.

  The range closed, and the Lysandran formation spread out, but they were still relatively close when the Vulture and Sabretooth reached them.

  The two Savannan cruisers picked off four Lysandran warships with a series of short, accurate bursts of kinetic fire before they flew by at a small percentage of the speed of light.

  Two Lysandrans had survived, flying on a path that would take them into range of the Osprey’s guns.

  “Helm, cede control to gunnery,” Victor said.

  “Roger that, Captain,” Lieutenant Colletta said. The Osprey’s main guns were fixed to the hull; the entire warship had to turn to aim them.

  “Control established,” Lieutenant Ryam said. “Engaging firing solution.”

  As soon as the Lysandran cruisers crossed into range of the guns, the Osprey, under the control of the gunnery computers, turned toward the closest cruiser and fired.

  The retort of the first burst of fire reverberated through the hull of the cruiser like the lowest note of a church organ.

  The instant the first burst finished, the Osprey’s maneuvering thrusters fired, swinging the starship around to face the next Lysandran cruiser and then firing an identical burst of fire.

  “Capacitors depleted,” Lieutenant Ryam said.

  Victor nodded and kept his attention on the tactical screen. The gunnery computers had made tiny altitude adjustments during the split-second bursts from the Osprey’s main guns. Instead of a pair of single-file lines traveling toward each Lysandran cruiser, expanding formations of metal spikes emerged, like pellets from a shotgun. However, unlike a shotgun, the patterns were not random but precisely laid out to maximize the chances of a hit.

  And hit they did. Both Lysandran cruisers attempted to evade but dodging one round only put them in the path of another. Within seconds of each other, both Lysandran cruisers took direct hits. The shields of the cruisers partly diffused the kinetic energy of the metal spikes but served only to spread out the damage. Both cruisers had large holes blown through their main hulls, turning the ships into fast-moving wrecks.

  “Good shooting, Ryam,” Victor said.

  “Thank you, sir,” the Osprey’s gunner said with the pride of an expert marksman.

  Victor shot a message back to Savannah, informing them of the status of his vessels and then scanned his tactical screen for Lysandran warships close enough to engage. There weren’t any here.

  Yet the battle at the Arcadia jump point was still being fought with the same intensity as before, just not where Victor could see.

  Minutes later Victor received new orders from his father. “Return to cover Savannah against any other blockage runners who may try to strike the homeworld.”

  Victor was disappointed; he had hoped to join the battle at Arcadia, but he knew better than to protest. He had lost two ships already. “Vulture, Sabretooth, reform with Osprey. We’re returning to station around Savannah.”

  The two cruisers acknowledged his orders and formed up with the Osprey while she made a full-power burn for home. It took several minutes just to cancel out the speed she had built up before she began to close in on Savannah again.

  The fighting was still going strong around the Arcadia jump point, but no new blockade runners came screaming his way by the time Victor’s reduced flotilla reached high orbit.

  “God, how many ships have the Lysandrans lost?” asked Commander Dace.

  “Hundreds by now, thousands maybe,” Victor said.

  “They can’t keep this up forever,” Dace said.

  “No, but they can keep it up for a while,” Victor said. While the quality of Savannan warships had been the Republic’s greatest advantage, the vast production ability of the Lysandran Empire had been theirs. And they had had two years to build up their reserves. The Lysandrans probably had tens of thousands of warships on the other side of the Arcadia jump point just waiting their turn.

  A transmission came in from Savannah. It was Admiral Selan. “Osprey, we just detected an immense jump signature from the Fersfield 23 jump point.”

  Victor was surprised, to say the least. Could the Lysandrans be that desperate? Fersfield 23 was the closest system to Savannah. Too close, in fact. Its jump point rested deep inside the overheated corona of Savannah’s orange K-class star. Even with the most powerful shields, any starship would be baked to death before it could escape.

  “Get a scope on the Fersfield 23 jump point now!” Victor said. At this time of year, the Fersfield 23 jump point was located almost exactly between the planet Savannah and its star, giving the Osprey a direct view.

  Victor switched his screen to show the magnified image of the jump point, with the flame-colored star of Savannah Prime in the background. Silhouetted against the star was some kind of long and slender vessel.

  The size of the ship startled Victor. It appeared to be stationary relative to the jump point; its velocity upon entering it must have been almost nil.

  Could it be some kind of massive warship? Victor wondered. Or some superweapon the Lysandrans built to end the war? If so, then he wasn’t impressed. A ship that size wouldn’t have much in the way of acceleration, and the quality of its shields or thickness of its armor didn't matter—it would eventually roast in the heat of the corona.

  Then the ship changed shape, opening like an umbrella until the needle turned into a great black disk, casting a visible shadow into space. The shadow completely covered the Fersfield 23 jump point.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Ice formed in Victor’s stomach. Rapid-fire flashes appeared inside the jump point, and starships flowed out at hundreds of kilometers per second, their exit vectors well within the shadow cast by the disk. Then he remembered the light-speed delay. What he was seeing had happened a little over five minutes ago.

  “Helm, vector on the Fersfield 23 jump point, maximum acceleration!” Victor keyed his flotilla channel. “Vulture and Sabretooth, stay in formation with my ship!” He then changed channels to transmit to Savannah. “Admiral, this is Osprey. The Lysandrans have deployed some kind of shade to protect the Fersfield jump point. I’m moving to engage now.”

  “Roger that, Osprey. All other ships in Savannah’s vicinity are moving to engage the shade now. Good luck out there, son.”

  His father had just ordered him on a suicide mission. Only three dozen Savannan warships defended the homeworld. Most of them were lightweight destroyers backed up by a few cruisers, including the ships of Victor’s flotilla.

  Three dozen against an ever-expanding fleet of Lysandran warships, many of them capital ships. Victor and his flotilla could not fight off that fleet. But they could make an end run to the shade and destroy it.

  Victor closed his eyes.

  Goodbye, Gina. Goodbye, Alex. I love you.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Helm, make sure our vector follows the shadow cast by the shade,” Victor said.

  “Already done, Captain,” Lieutenant Colletta said.

  “Good. Put us on a collision course with the shade as well,” Victor said.

  Lieutenant Herrera turned to look at his captain, nodded, and returned to his task. If the Osprey didn’t survive, then perhaps her wreckage could do the job.

  Commander Dace leaned over. “I suggest we tell the other ships to do the same.”

  Victor nodded and passed the word. The thirty-odd Savannan warships vectored to follow the shadow cast by the shade, every one of them on a collision course, moving at full speed.

  “We just need to survive the next two and a half hours,” Victor said.

  “I suspect the Lysandrans are making every effort to ensure we don’t,” she said, pointing at her screen.

  Victor checked his own tactical screen and saw a swarm of Lysandran fighters, cruisers, and destroyers racing ahead of the battleships. The
fighters, accelerating at 1,000 gs, would be the first obstacle. It appeared the Lysandran destroyers had matched the acceleration of their cruisers. They were forming into an expanding wall to block the way of the Savannan warships. Victor tried not to think about how badly outnumbered his flotilla was.

  He organized the fleet into a tight formation so the point defenses of each ship would overlap. It was the best chance they had of surviving the fighters and missile barrage.

  The Republic warships fired into the swarm of enemy fighters as soon as they came into range, downing as many as they could before the fighters dropped their torpedoes.

  “Torpedo launch!” Commander Dace said. Despite the attrition inflicted on the Lysandrans fighters, hundreds of them still survived to drop their slow but powerful weapons. At least fifteen torpedoes homed in on the Osprey.

  “Going evasive!” Lieutenant Colletta said. He threw the Osprey into a series of violent maneuvers while the point defenses picked off one torpedo after another.

  All around the Osprey, torpedoes detonated and Savannans died. The Vulture was consumed in a ball of white flame almost as soon as the torpedoes reached the fleet. The Sabretooth survived most of the barrage until a close-proximity detonation caught her. The starship stopped maneuvering, and another torpedo homed in and finished her.

  When the storm of torpedoes ended, only four other Savannan vessels survived, all destroyers. The Osprey was the only cruiser to make it through.

  The fighters turned around and fired their drive at full power to reengage. But they couldn’t cancel out their speed and catch the Savannan warships before the Lysandran screen of destroyers and cruisers did.

  Victor ordered the survivors to close around his ship, forming the strongest possible defense. It wouldn’t be enough, what with fifty times as many Lysandrans as Savannans. Victor had to try anyway.

  Minutes after passing the fighters, they reached missile range. Thousands of Lysandran missile launches filled Victor’s tactical screen. He had used the last of the Osprey’s countermissiles against the fighters.

  Victor chewed his lips. Five ships could not survive that kind of barrage. Splitting the ships apart to evade would only make them easier targets. However…