Ragnarok-ARC

by Patrick A. Vanner

"Contact in sixty seconds. Have your damage-control teams ready to go. As soon as we get through those fighters, we'll be tangling with five of their big brothers. Things are going to get ugly, fast."

  "I saw it, Captain. We're as ready as we're ever going to be. Don't worry—we'll keep her together even if I have to send my teams out with duct tape." The last came across with a slight chuckle.

  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Forty-five seconds until contact. Command, out." She signed off from engineering's net and punched up navigation. "Commander Samuels, are you ready for a little drive?"

  "That I am, Captain." Lieutenant Commander Samuels, a tall, thin man with a shock of wavy chestnut hair, was the senior navigation officer, and he had a golden touch when it came to maneuvering the Fenris. "The drive envelope is fully formed and stable, and the P-Drive is on line. The Fenris is ready to run."

  "Good job, Sam." She looked at her boards and at the main display while her left hand danced across a keypad, entering speeds, distance, and time. She got her answer and spoke into her mike. "Commander, bring the particle concentration up to thirteen percent and put us on the same course as our Valkyries."

  "P-Drive to thirteen percent, match course to Valkyrie squadron, aye," Commander Samuels called back as his fingers began to caress his board. There was a brief wavering in the air as the ship's Particle Drive came to life.

  Warships and larger commercial vessels maneuvered through normal space by means of a Particle Drive. These drives created what was known as a drive field around the ship, partially dropping that ship out of normal space. With this partial phasing out of normal space, a ship equipped with a Particle Drive could accelerate rapidly and to great speeds—speeds great enough to allow a ship to travel across a planetary system in as little as fifteen hours. An added advantage was that the field created around the ship not only partially removed it from normal space, it also provided partial protection from weapons fire, although kinetic weapons could do marginal damage, for while passing through the drive envelope objects lost a great deal of kinetic energy. The drive envelope also dampened laser weapon wavelengths.

  The Particle Drive didn't allow for space travel in the same manner as a normal reaction drive. Rather, the drive was drawn toward a concentration of particles generated within the drive envelope. If that particle concentration was directed in a particular direction, the ship would be drawn toward the greater particle concentration. The larger the concentration generated, the greater the acceleration achieved. However, as with everything, there was a price to be paid. The higher the concentration of particles, the greater amount of time it would take to maneuver them within the drive envelope. Thus, the greater a ship's acceleration, the slower its ability to turn.

  Alex's displays showed that the Fenris had shot forward and reached thirteen percent particle concentration in a matter of seconds. They began to close with the incoming fighters now and would quickly be on top of them. She punched up tactical's net.

  "Commander Martin, bring ECM up on line," she said before the Xan-Sskarns came into range.

  "ECM up and running, aye, ma'am." Martin's voice sounded tense as he began engaging his first ECM program and brought it on line.

  The remaining forty-eight Sally fighters opened fire as one as they reached maximum effective range. Missiles shot out at the Fenris.

  "Missiles impact in ten seconds," Ensign Green's voice boomed.

  She spared a quick glance to her fighter display and saw that they had passed through the Xan-Sskarn fighters and were executing their black turn and burn. There were now five red silhouettes, which was better than she had expected. She could see holes in the enemy formation where twelve fighters once had been. The Xan-Sskarn fighters vomited fire at them again.

  "Five seconds."

  The Valkyries were exiting their computer-controlled turn now. She hoped that the pilots would recover from their blackouts quickly, or they were going to be easy targets as their onboard computers brought them back into the fray.

  "Two seconds."

  She flipped the cover up from over a large red button and pushed it, immediately connecting to the ship's public-address system. A third salvo of fire came at them.

  "All hands," she began, looking at the display and watching the distance to the incoming Xan-Sskarn fighters count down. "Impact . . . " She let the word drag out as she watched the last kilometers counted down. "Now!"

  With point defense set for fighter interception and not for fire interdiction, and only ECM being used to counter enemy missile fire, over sixty-five percent of the first salvo maintained target lock. That number would only increase with each successive salvo, for as the Xan-Sskarns closed, they would be able to refine their targeting solutions.

  The Fenris shuddered as missiles impacted along the length of her hull, the damage negligible at first thanks to the drive envelope. The second wave of missiles capitalized on the first salvo, and the Fenris shuddered again. Damage was still slight, but began mounting. Armor plating had been reduced in several locations and had buckled in others. Wave three impacted with damaging accuracy, rupturing the outer hull in two different locations and scouring away armor plating in several others. Alarms began to wail in outer compartments as the final missiles of the third salvo impacted, causing damage to internal systems. Damage-control teams began to move throughout the ship. Lasers now flashed from the Sally fighters as they reached effective beam range. They impacted almost as soon as they were fired, boiling away armor and leaving dark scorch marks crisscrossed along the hull. A fourth wave of missiles followed the lasers in and dealt more damage. The outer hull was breached in three more locations, and sparks began to fly in outer compartments as systems overloaded. The inner hull had not been breached yet, but it was only a matter of time. The Xan-Sskarn's accuracy increased with every kilometer the distance between them and the Fenris shrank; if something wasn't done to change the situation, the Fenris wouldn't be in any kind of shape to come to anyone's aid. If she even survived this encounter.

  The situation was about to change, however. As the distance between the two forces dropped to twenty-five hundred kilometers, it was the Fenris' turn, and she struck back with a vengeance as Lieutenant McKeenan's point-defense programs came to life. With the mistaken belief that the Fenris had configured her point defense for the coming engagement with their ships following them in, and the fact that the Valkyries had blown right through their formation without slowing to engage, the Xan-Sskarns continued to bear down on the Fenris without taking any evasive maneuvers.

  Fire erupted from along the length of the Fenris as tri-barrel point-defense lasers spun to life and began to spit coherent death at the incoming Xan-Sskarn fighters. Overconfident at the lack of response as they closed, and feeling safe behind their ECM, the Xan-Sskarns had flown right into the teeth of Fenris' fire. At this range, ECM was next to useless, and without engaging in evasive maneuvers, the incoming Xan-Sskarn squadrons were perfect targets for the long-dormant point-defense stations. Within the first five seconds of the point-defense lasers announcing themselves, fully half of the remaining incoming fighters were transformed into rapidly expanding spheres of fire and debris.

  Shocked out of their complacency, the remnants of the Xan-Sskarn squadrons scattered and tried to escape the trap they had flown directly into.

  While the Xan-Sskarns were beginning their evasive maneuvers, the range closed to one thousand kilometers. The still-firing point-defense lasers were now joined by the point-defense guns, as six-barreled chain guns cycled up and hurled twenty-five-millimeter pieces of death into space. Another seven Xan-Sskarn fighters were flamed out of existence as lasers and shells found their marks. Scattering the way they were, the Xan-Sskarns couldn't maintain target lock on the Fenris, and their fire ceased as they pulled away from the engagement. Directly into the flight path of Valkyrie Flight 127.

  "Fenris, this is Valkyrie One, request verification of point-defense envelope depth," came an anxious voice over the
general battle net.

  "Envelope depth set to two thousand five hundred kilometers," Commander Martin responded immediately, ready for the question.

  "Barbie," said Captain McLaughlin, breaking into the conversation, "push them our way, and we'll mop up whatever you miss. Good luck, and good hunting."

  "Thanks, Cap. We're starting our attack run now. We'll try and leave a few of them for you," she called back, the smile evident in her voice. "Okay, boys and girls, it's time for a knife fight." She was now speaking over the squadron net but had not dropped out of the general net. "Let's dance!" She cut her Valkyrie hard to the port and began to dive at the scattering Xan-Sskarns below her, letting out a bloodthirsty howl that made more than one person's hair stand on end. The rest of the squadron let out whoops of excitement and followed her down, guns blazing and missiles flashing out, letting the Xan-Sskarns know that they weren't out of the fight yet.

  Alex watched as all of the remaining Valkyries of Flight 127 cut a swath of destruction through the fleeing Xan-Sskarn fighters. All but two of the remaining Valkyries, that was. She saw that those two were still on the heading they had assumed coming out of their turn and burn. She switched over to the CAG's battle net.

  "Ian," she began quietly, but before she could voice her question, he answered.

  "I see them, Captain. Three's crew is still blacked out. Eight's is dead." His voice was heavy with emotion at the loss of fifty percent of his flight teams, and he knew that this day wasn't over yet.

  "Dead?" She was shocked at that. Usually anything that would kill a flight crew would destroy the Valkyrie as well. "How?"

  "Battle damage. Diagnostics show that their I-Com failed during the turn and burn. At least they didn't suffer. They were blacked out before failure." His voice became toneless as both he and the captain watched another Valkyrie disappear from their displays.

  "Understood. McLaughlin, out." She hated just cutting him off like that, but there would be time enough to grieve later. Right now, she had more immediate concerns. One of which was that Barbie's Valkyries had accomplished their mission, and the Xan-Sskarns were turning tail again—this time, right back at the Fenris. She keyed up Barbie.

  "Break, break, break!" she shouted into her mike and watched her display as the Valkyries broke off engagement and got clear of the Fenris' point-defense envelope. While the guns would not track them thanks to their IFF transponders—assuming that they were fully functional and not a casualty of battle damage—it was still possible to fly into fire meant for a Xan-Sskarn fighter.

  The Fenris barreled through the remaining enemy fighters trying to evade the vengeance of the Valkyries, leaving nine balls of fire and two fighters in her wake. The final two were running flat out to get clear of the murderously accurate point-defense fire. They'd cleared the twenty-five-hundred-kilometer point-defense envelope when they were intersected by bright blue laser fire from the aft point-defense stations. Alex turned her head to look at Lieutenant Commander Martin and saw he had his gaze locked on Lieutenant McKeenan, manning the point-defense station.

  "Lieutenant?" Alex asked in a quizzical voice. "Is there some reason why our aft PDLs reached out and splashed those Sallys beyond the point-defense envelope?"

  "Well, ma'am," he began in a guilty voice, "there were just the two of them left, and all of our Valkyries were clear of that fire zone, so I retasked the aft PDLs to four thousand kilometers as we were clearing them when I saw those final two." He looked from the captain to Commander Martin. He was surprised to see Martin smiling and nodding, then snapped his head back to look at McLaughlin.

  "Quick thinking, Lieutenant. Good job." She sounded pleased, and her smile was approving. "Now, if you would be so kind as to reset PDLs and PDGs to maximum fire interdiction."

  "Aye, aye, ma'am." His face flushed slightly from the captain's compliment.

  While he turned to his station and began to retask the Fenris' point defense, Alex opened her command net, which included all of the members on the command deck, the CAG, Flight 127's squadron leader, engineering, medical, and the marine commander. She began immediately, without preamble.

  "Barbie, good job. Now if Valkyrie Three is awake, collect him and form up five hundred kilometers behind us and stay at maximum combat speed. You are free to maneuver and engage as you see fit—just be sure to meet us on the other side of that formation in front of us." She was busy looking at her consoles and kept looking back down at the display projected in front of her.

  "Aye, ma'am, five hundred K, and run full out. Valkyrie Flight 127 will comply," came a voice just coming down off an adrenaline high.

  "Heron, damage looks like it was minimal"—Alex read the damage reports on one of her screens—"but keep an eye on propulsion. I'm going to want speed over everything else, understood?"

  "Understood, Captain. The P-Drive is purring like a kitten, and we'll keep it that way," she responded confidently.

  "Very good." She thanked her engineer and moved on to navigation. "Sam, bring us to maximum military power on a heading of three one five mark zero one seven."

  "Roger that, ma'am, engaging now." Lieutenant Commander Samuels sounded relaxed, even though the heading he had just set put them on a course right through the center of the oncoming Xan-Sskarn ships.

  "Scanning, time to maximum firing range and time to intersection, please."

  "At current speeds, missile range in ten point three minutes, beam range in fourteen point seven five minutes after that. Time to intersect is nine minutes after entering beam range. Mark." Petty Officer Conrad's voice was still tinged with fear, and after hearing they were now on a course to deliberately intersect with the oncoming Xan-Sskarn ships, there was an edge of panic in it as well. Alex heard this, but didn't have time to put the petty officer at ease. She looked up and caught her XO's eye. His eyebrow went up questioningly, and she nodded in response. He dipped his head in acknowledgment and began to undo his safety harness. He would reassure Conrad and make sure that she was ready to do her duty.

  "CAG, those distortions haven't completely dissipated yet, and it looks like at least some of the carriers got their Lokis off the deck. We can't get a good read on the situation, so I don't know how much time we'll have after we get past those ships, but I want you to land the Valkyries, get them rearmed and back into the tubes—fast."

  "Roger that, Captain. We'll get it done." His confident tone reassured her.

  "Doc, I see we didn't have any casualties during our little tussle." The relief in her voice was evident, but the relief changed to regret as she went on. "I'm sorry to say that our next engagement is going to be a bloody one. I want you to take over whatever space you need and prepare for incoming wounded. Is there anything you need now to get yourself ready in the next ten minutes?"

  "Well, ma'am"—Dr. Swartz began thinking as she spoke—"if engineering could spare it, I could use emergency generators and power leads set up in the mess hall, and if I could borrow a few of Captain Mathews' marines from the damage-control teams to clear out the tables and chairs, it would free up my people to set up our equipment and prep for casualties."

  "Very well." Alex didn't bother asking if it could be done. "Heron, get two generators down to the mess and a team to run the leads. Captain Mathews, send two fire teams to the mess to assist Dr. Swartz in setting up her stations."

  "The generators and a team are already on their way to the mess now, Captain," Heron spoke up just as Alex finished issuing her orders.

  "Aye, aye, ma'am," came the crisp voice of Captain Mathews. "Gunny Brock is cutting two fire teams loose now, and they'll be there before Dr. Swartz's teams arrive."

  "Good." Alex was pleased with how efficiently her officers were handling the situation. "Captain Mathews, I don't know what we're going to be up against once we get out of our current situation, but once we're clear, I want you to get your assault shuttles prepped and loaded. We may find that you'll be needed to assist in repelling boarders, and I want to be able to boa
rd your marines and get you on your way with a minimum of delay."

  "Roger that, Captain." He still sounded crisp and eager. "I'll have my birds ready for launch, should they be needed. I'll also have one platoon armor up as well, just in case we need to repel boarders ourselves. The rest of the company can stay with the damage-control teams, and if we have to deploy, they can suit up in the shuttles."

  She didn't think that they would have to worry about repelling boarders themselves. Not with so many larger and more inviting targets in-system. The captain's armored marines would not be as useful as the rest of the damage-control teams in their hazard suits, but they could still help. Combat armor, after all, was not designed to mend, but to take things apart, brutally.

  "Good thinking, Captain," she replied just as crisply as he had. She turned her attention to her tactical officer. "Okay, Guns, the bad news is that this is going to be a point-blank slugfest, as you're well aware. The good news is that the way they're deployed now, it should be relatively quiet once we get in their formation."

  "Assuming of course the Sallys don't just fall in love with the sight picture of us right in the middle of them and decide to open up on us anyway, friendly fire or no," Higgins cut in over their private channel as he returned to his seat, earning a reproachful glare from Alex. She continued with her orders.