Valor At Vauzlee

by DePrima, Thomas

  That could very well have been the end of the Song's attempt to disable the battleship, if one of the two torpedoes that pierced the hull hadn't fortuitously ruptured a liquid fuel storage tank supposedly protected by reinforced titanium bulkheads. Sparks from a smashed housekeeping bot working in the area when the torpedo exploded, ignited the gushing fuel, and a massive explosion promoted secondary explosions that began to ripple through the ship. The tiny, insignificant bot, performing a self-test diagnostic routine, had unintentionally finished the job begun by the Song's massive torpedoes. As the lights from the explosions dimmed, bits of wreckage from the enemy ship could be seen radiating outward in every direction.

  The torpedoes launched from the Raider battleship lost the Song as it disappeared at Light-322, and they exhausted their fuel trying to reacquire a target long gone, before entering ballistic flight and eventually self-detonating.

  The Song's twelve torpedoes might have seemed like overkill initially, but there hadn't been time to wait around and fire a second or third salvo if a first salvo was shot down, or failed to disable the target. There were a few light claps and small cheering noises at the death of the battleship, but it was fairly subdued. The crew knew that the real battle was still just minutes ahead of them.

  "Astrogation, time to Higgins?" Jenetta asked.

  "Two-minutes sixteen-seconds, Captain," he responded.

  "Com, I need damage reports," Jenetta said.

  "They're coming in now, Captain. I'm forwarding them to your chair's holo-tube."

  Jenetta reached for the holo-tube and lifted it from its storage holster on the outside of her chair. A list of damage reports jumped up from the tube as she activated it. The ship had been stuck repeatedly by the powerful laser weapons of the battleship. A few dozen punctures had self-sealed, but one location was continuing to bleed atmosphere slowly, indicating severe damage to the self-sealing membrane in that part of the hull. The section had been sealed off while engineers in E.V.A. suits worked to rig a temporary patch against the inside hull. The ship was still battle worthy.

  All idle talk on the bridge ceased as everyone's thoughts turned to the upcoming fight.

  "Captain," Chief Hannigan said, "the Prometheus is asking for our ETA. They desperately need the reinforcement we can offer."

  "Tell them we're proceeding at one-hundred percent FTL and we'll be there in two minutes, Chief. Helm, do you remember the maneuver that was used at the recent battle?"

  "Aye, Captain. I was in AC&C. You want me to turn to starboard when we arrive, and circle the area?"

  "Affirmative. That was the coded message that Captain Gavin sent earlier. Com, put me on ship-wide."

  "You're on, Captain," the com said as he linked Jenetta's CT to the intercom system.

  "Attention, crew of the Song. This is the captain. In less than two minutes we'll reach Higgins, where an intense battle is currently raging. Captain Gavin has ordered us to circle outside the battle as we did during our last engagement a month ago. Gunners, you have permission to open fire as soon as you get a lock on any target. Make your shots counts. Let's send these Raiders where they belong."

  With the completion of the message to the crew, Jenetta's role in the battle was mostly over. She would now sit calmly on the bridge and watch as the battle raged around her, ready to give new orders if and when the situation warranted them, but basically the fight was in the hands of her crew.

  Ninety-seconds later, the Song appeared at Higgins and dropped its envelope less than a hundred kilometers from the station. Her massive sub-light engines were engaged and she surged ahead towards the battle zone. Torpedo specialists and laser weapon teams were hunched over their screens, ready for almost anything, except the sight that greeted them. The battered and broken hulls of warships floated and twisted silently everywhere. Huge, gaping holes in the station and docking ring were further testament to the ferocious fighting that had just taken place here. But there wasn't the slightest sign of activity. No torpedoes flew at the Song, and no flashes of coherent light buffeted her hull.

  "Com," Jenetta said with a slight sense of urgency in her voice, "try to contact the Prometheus."

  "The base's Combat Information Center is trying to contact us, Captain."

  "Put it up on the viewscreen."

  An image of Admiral Holt, sitting in his chair in the CIC, appeared a second later.

  "Sir," Jenetta asked, "what's happened? Where are the Raiders?"

  "We're still trying to work that one out ourselves, Captain. They were pinning our ears back— when they suddenly broke off the engagement sixty seconds ago and left in every direction. Captain Gavin believes they might have left to regroup, so they can attack again when we stand down to make emergency repairs. I've ordered all ships to remain in War Active status while we determine the situation. If they have really quit the battle, we'll need to begin making emergency repairs. Since you have the only undamaged ship, you'll have picket duty."

  "Understood, sir. We only have one section that's losing atmosphere."

  "What? I thought your emergency repairs were completed weeks ago?"

  "They were, sir. The damage I'm referring to is a new puncture, received a few minutes ago during a skirmish with a Raider battleship."

  "There were no Raider battleships at this action, only cruisers, frigates, and destroyers."

  "Yes, sir. The battleship was located some fourteen billion kilometers from here."

  "And this battleship was directly in your path?"

  "Uh, no sir. We had to deviate slightly to engage it."

  "Your orders were to proceed directly to Higgins, Commander Carver."

  "I felt that a slight deviation of four-minutes fifty-two seconds was warranted, sir."

  "I want a full report regarding that incident by first watch."

  "Yes, sir."

  "How much time will you need for your emergency repairs?"

  "My chief engineer is preparing a tritanium hull plate now. He estimates no more than sixty minutes to secure it in place on the outer hull if there's no damage to the cross-member supports."

  "Very well. Initiate that repair immediately, but send as few people out as possible. Better position a shuttle outside also, to pick up your people in case you have to seal up quickly and prepare to meet the enemy. When your ship is fully pressurized, you'll commence picket duty if the Raiders haven't returned."

  "Aye, Admiral."

  "Keep this com line open so we have immediate access to each other."

  "Aye, sir."

  "CIC out."

  "Song out."

  Jenetta leaned back in her chair and relaxed slightly. She hadn't realized just how rigidly she had been sitting until Admiral Holt turned to other matters. She could still see the activity in the CIC and knew that they could likewise see her. Although delighted to have destroyed the Raider battleship, she knew that there might be hell to pay for her deviation from course. Spontaneous actions that defied standing orders and protocols, however well intentioned, had ended the careers of many officers.

  "Chief Hannigan, inform Commander Rodriguez that he may commence external repairs to the hull where we're losing atmosphere. And have a shuttle launched and standing by to retrieve engineers as the Admiral ordered."

  "Aye, Captain," the com operator said.

  The bridge was quiet and the mood subdued as the bridge crew went about their business under the eyes of the CIC. Every person on the bridge had seen Jenetta's court-martial for destroying a massive Raider base without permission. And they had just seen the look on Admiral Holt's face and heard the tone of his voice when he learned of their course deviation. They wondered if they would soon be witnessing another court-martial of their highly respected captain; this time for destroying a mega-giant Raider battleship without permission.

  "Tactical," Jenetta said, "do you have eyes on the Prometheus?"

  "Aye, Captain. I have all seven of our warships identified."

  "Put the image of the CIC o
n my seat's right monitor and put an image of the Prometheus on the forward screen."

  "Aye, Captain."

  A second later the large monitor at the front of the bridge lit up with a close-up view of the Prometheus. Jenetta's heart leapt into her throat and it took all of her self-control to suppress her emotions. Her beautiful ship was practically wrecked. ‘No,' she thought, ‘not wrecked, but very seriously damaged.' There were a dozen massive breaches in his two-kilometer long hull, and it appeared that at least half his laser arrays had been destroyed. Two-thirds of his torpedo tubes appeared to be out of commission as well. The status board still listed him as being War Active, but his fighting ability had to be just a fraction of what it had been at the start of the engagement. She felt a little sick, and wished that she could immediately shuttle over to help in any way she could, but she had her orders. She knew that they would be so busy over there that a call from her would be a distraction, so she didn't ask Chief Hannigan to contact Captain Gavin.

  Instead she said, "Tactical, show me each of the other ships, starting with the Chiron."

  The Chiron looked as bad, and maybe even a little worse than the Prometheus. It had also been pounded by Raider forces using nuclear warheads on their torpedoes, but thanks to its heavily-armored triple hull, the brother ship of the Prometheus would live on to fight another day. The Geneva and Buenos Aires were still listed as being battle ready, but after seeing the damage to their hulls and engines, Jenetta wondered if they could even maneuver. Of course, their orders required them to remain in position and defend the station, so maneuvering wasn't required. The Thor, Bonn, and Calgary were listed on the status board as being out of action, and the damage to the three ships seemed so extensive that they might have to be scrapped. Jenetta couldn't help but wonder if an earlier arrival by the Song could have prevented any of the damage. Sick of looking at the carnage, and visualizing the death and suffering aboard each ship, she choked down her nausea and had the tactical officer replace the image on the forward monitor with the view of the pristine Combat Information Center.

  Jenetta sat calmly in her chair, sipping her coffee and reading reports on the holo-tube until informed that the repair was completed and the ship fully pressurized again. The hull punctures that had self sealed would have to wait. She told Chief Hannigan to notify the CIC that they were leaving to begin picket duty. A com operator at the CIC acknowledged, but Admiral Holt never looked up from the report he was reading on a holo-tube.

  Higgins Space Command Base employed a modified version of the DeTect System used by every spaceship to see anything within four billion kilometers. Homocentric rings of tiny DeTect satellites would identify any movement within their range and instantly relay that information back to the station on a dedicated IDS band. This extended network, referred to as a Distant DeTect Grid, allowed the station to ‘see' any movement within a hundred billion kilometers, in any direction. The Song's first task was to locate and destroy the DDG jamming satellites dropped by the Raiders during their approach to the station. Then, in the hours and days following the engagement, they constantly crisscrossed space around the station.

  As the only ship operationally capable of performing picket duty, the Song couldn't remain quietly in one small area watching and listening for any movement of enemy ships. Most of the Song's travel was in areas beyond the range of the restored sensor net, but they were also required to respond to any detection of ship activity received by the station on the DDG, so they would sometimes cross through areas close to the station, taking the shortest route to the potential enemy vessels. In every case it turned out to be merely a freighter on its way to Higgins, who hadn't reported in yet because of their distance from the station. Even in cases where the freighter did report in, the station frequently wanted a visual confirmation of the ship. No one was really ready to accept either an AutoTect signal or friendly declaration of arrival while the station's protection fleet was unable to respond quickly to an attack. Either could too easily be forged, so virtually every ship was challenged and identified before being allowed to proceed.

  On several occasions the Song passed through the area where they had encountered the battleship. Most of the small wreckage was gone, having long ago tumbled away from the explosion site, but the dead hulk remained essentially where it had been when they encountered it. When several large chunks were identified by the science officer, their courses and speeds were logged into the navigation files to aid all ships in avoiding the wreckage in the future. The base sent out a few scout ships and shuttles with orders to search the wreckage, and they actually found Raiders still alive and trapped in airtight sections. In total they rescued three hundred eighty-one survivors aboard the ship, and another ninety-six in life pods. The ship had carried a crew of just over four thousand at the time of its destruction. At some point, reclamation ships would attempt to track down the larger pieces that had broken off and bring them to the reclamation center to keep the spaceways around the station clear of obstructions.

  The Song continued its solo patrol of the area around the station until the first of the destroyers from the Vauzlee site arrived some six days after the battle. With the arrival of each additional ship, the arc of the patrol perimeter assigned to each picket ship lessened, allowing them to increase the depth of their coverage until the ships making repairs could be almost assured of receiving at least an hour's advance warning if the Raiders returned.

  Once all four destroyers from the Vauzlee battle were patrolling the immediate area around Higgins, the status in the CIC was downgraded from ‘War Active' to ‘War Ready.' The change allowed for a much broader repair effort than was permitted previously, and the duty schedules aboard the picket ships could be relaxed enough so that crewmembers could catch up on some much needed sleep. There had been no sign of the Raiders since they had departed so abruptly.

  Woodrow had meanwhile recovered from his injuries. When he first awoke following the attack, he'd been delighted to learn that his captain was not only safe, but that she'd dealt with the assassin who had attacked them both. Jenetta visited him in the sickbay for a few minutes every day once the battle was over. She learned that he was taken completely by surprise while working in the galley. The door sensor had logged the arrival of the laundry bot, but he hadn't gone out to check on it. Since Pretorious had neither a CT nor ID chip, the computer didn't record his entry. Woodrow didn't know that anything was amiss until he saw Pretorious from the corner of his eye, a second before he was struck down. He returned to duty as Jenetta's steward fifteen days after the attack that had nearly taken his life.

  It was while the Song was out on picket duty that the convoy from Mawcett finally reached Anthius. Although family members had been notified of the deaths of their relatives immediately following the Battle of Vauzlee, and Space Command had released a simulation vid of the battle prepared from the warships' logs, specifics were sketchy and the media was disappointed when informed that a full report wouldn't be released until the analysis of all logs was complete, perhaps in as little as six months. The newsies waiting to greet the convoy got a much bigger story than anything they had expected when assigned to cover the event. Every Peabody gunner had enjoyed a front row seat to the epic battle, so there were suddenly hundreds of eyewitnesses to the Battle at Vauzlee who were willing to talk. The newsies descended upon them like ravenous sharks in a feeding frenzy, eager to record as many accounts as possible. Every Peabody crewman knew that the first ship to arrive had been the Prometheus, and word had quickly circulated after the battle that Lt. Commander Jenetta Carver was the XO on board the Prometheus when the attack began. Almost from the beginning, her name was the only one being bandied about when discussing the battle.

  * * *

  "Come," Jenetta said, when the computer announced that Lieutenant Ashraf was at the door of her briefing room. The report she'd been reading was exceedingly dull so she was thankful for a brief distraction. She pushed down the cover of the com unit and loo
ked up as her XO entered and settled into the ‘oh-gee' chair in front of her desk. Their relationship had grown a lot less formal in the months they had worked together.

  "Isn't it a little early for our daily briefing, Lori?" Jenetta said quizzically.

  "Yes, captain, but I thought you'd want to see these right away." She held out two holo-magazine cylinders.

  Jenetta accepted them and activated the first by depressing the recessed switch. Immediately, the holographic image of a newspaper's front page leapt upwards from the tube. The full page headline read, ‘Carver Saves Convoy.'

  "My God!" Jenetta exclaimed as she saw the heading. She quickly read the story by twisting the end of the tube to scroll down, and then activated the other cylinder. The headline in the second newspaper read, "Carver Protects Artifacts.'

  "I can't believe this," Jenetta said after reading the second article. "They make it sound like I was the only one at the engagement. There were almost ten thousand Space Command officers, noncoms, and ratings at that fight. And far too many didn't survive the battle. Why are they giving me so much credit for the victory?"

  "Probably because you've been the most visible Space Command officer in this war against the Raiders. You've done more during the past year, by yourself, than all of Space Command was able to accomplish in the decade prior. During the court-martial, your image appeared almost daily on every magazine and newspaper in Alliance space. It appears you've become the poster girl in our war against the Raiders. I imagine that as soon as the newsies learned that you were the First Officer aboard the first SC ship to arrive at Vauzlee, they knew that they had their headline. And from what I've read, the Peabody crews are singing your praises and crediting you with their rescue."