by D. J. Holmes
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
Handmaiden, 14th June 2482 AD.
When Becket looked at the chrono meter she was startled. Two days! It had been two days since they had jumped into the Kalesh system. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember each time she had left the bridge. Three, four, maybe five? Three of those times had been to relieve herself. At most she had got four hours sleep. As she thought about it, her tiredness hit her. Her whole body felt weary. And I’m not in command, she thought as she looked over to Ya’sia. Maleck had taken charge here and there, but for the most part Ya’sia hadn’t left her command chair. She couldn’t. Over the last two days there had been three brief skirmishes with the Karacknid fleet as it nipped at their heels. One had been when Ya’sia had caught the Karacknids off guard, turning quickly she had got off a couple of missile volleys to their one. The other two had been when an impressive Karacknid maneuver had made it impossible to stay ahead of them without a brief engagement. Both sides had taken losses in each skirmish, and then the game of cat and mouse had commenced again. A similar pattern was playing out between Jorum’s fleet and the Karacknid ships pursuing it. Though there had been one particularly deadly engagement where both sides had lost several hundred ships. As Becket turned back to stare at the Karacknid fleet astern of Handmaiden, she tried and failed to fight back a yawn.
“If you want to retire for a few hours Commodore, you are perfectly entitled to,” Ya’sia said from her command chair, clearly not missing anything. “We can handle things without you, you know.”
Becket give Ya’sia an appreciative smile. “I know Admiral. It’s just…”
“You don’t want to miss anything,” she finished. “We all feel the same. But we can’t go on like this. We’ll start to make mistakes. I’ll make you a deal. You go get a few hours’ sleep and then when you come back, I’ll do likewise. You and Maleck can handle things.”
“Me?” Becket asked as her eyebrows rose.
“You do have a commission in the Alliance navy now. And you know exactly what we’re about. Just keep us ahead of the Karacknids like we’ve been doing.”
“Right,” Becket said in the midst of another yawn. “I’d better get some sleep then.” As she stood, Maleck gave her a smile. Becket simply nodded as she left. A small part of her was filled with jealousy for the Crians. It seemed they needed a lot less sleep to function than Humans. Though they still needed some. As soon as she got to her quarters she threw herself into bed without bothering to take off her uniform. Moments after her head hit the pillow she was asleep.
Becket groaned as she opened her eyes. It felt like she couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of minutes but something had woken her up. For a few seconds she lay still, listening, expecting the beep of a COM unit. Yet there was nothing. Groggily, she fished around in the pocket of her uniform and pulled out a small datapad. When she saw the time, she couldn’t believe it. She had been asleep for six hours! She hadn’t been woken up by something, her body had woken up naturally. Despite the fact she still felt as tired as she had when she had fallen into her bed, Becket forced herself to her feet. Briefly she checked her appearance in the nearest mirror and then went straight to the bridge.
When she stepped into the large oval command center, she was relieved to be met with an air of calm. Ya’sia and Maleck were both still in their command chairs. “What has happened?” she asked Maleck as she slotted in beside him. When the Flag Captain turned to her, Becket was surprised to see the weariness in his eyes. I guess you have to get tired some time, she thought.
“Not much,” Maleck replied. “We’ve been able to stay ahead of them. Though Jourm had another skirmish. They lost twenty-six ships.”
“Get yourself up to speed Commodore, then I will take my leave,” Ya’sia said from where she sat.
“Aye Admiral,” Becket responded as she looked past Maleck to Ya’sia. The Crian Admiral looked as alert and in control as when she had left. But then, she wouldn’t be leaving the bridge if that were true. Moving around in her command chair until she was comfortable, Becket scanned the various holo displays and information readouts. The fleet was almost on the opposite end of the system to the shift passage they had come in through. Jorum’s fleet was actually not too far away from them, but both Karacknid fleets were between the Alliance ships. As Becket stared at the Karacknids’ formations, something began to tingle ever so slightly in the back of her mind. She narrowed her eyes as she studied the ships further. Something seemed just a little off. She couldn’t figure out what was giving her pause though. Both fleets were doing what they had spent the last two days doing, doggedly pursuing Alliance ships. Their slight speed advantage meant the Allied ships constantly had to cross over the system’s mass shadow and carry out a series of mini jumps to get ahead. Typically, what Ya’sia had been doing then was turning back into the system in an attempt to close with Kalesh and attack the supply freighters once again. So far, she hadn’t been successful, but she was still trying. At present, her fleet was heading back towards the mass shadow after being cut off by bogie-1. The Karacknids were pursuing, but… Something just doesn’t seem right, Becket said to herself.
For a moment she closed her eyes and rubbed them to take the last bit of sleep away. When she opened them, she tried a different approach. Both Karacknid fleets were as close to one another as they had been since the Alliance fleets had jumped into the system. Instead of looking at each fleet individually, she looked at them as two parts of a whole. Doing so sent a warning shot through Becket’s mind. Leaning forward, she began to type a series of commands into her console. With a slight course change they could… As Becket projected the potential course of the Karacknid ships her hands froze. “Can someone send me the data on the Karacknid supply fleet?” she said slowly. Her tone made Maleck and Ya’sia look over to her.
“What is it? Ya’sia immediately asked.
“One second,” Becket said as she held up a hand towards Ya’sia. She needed to check something to be sure. When an officer sent her the sensor data on the supply freighters in orbit around Kalesh, Becket played it back. To her eye, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then she checked the data on the activity levels. There had been a small spike in shuttles moving back and forth from the freighters about six hours ago. Only a five percent increase. Then it had gone up slowly after that. Just by a few more percentage points each hour. Yet it was a pattern. “I think,” Becket said as she lifted her eyes back up to Ya’sia’s, “that the Karacknids are planning to leave.”
“Leave?” Maleck spurted out. “Where are they going?”
“Varanni Prime,” Becket said as she spoke her fear out loud. “If they altered course onto this heading in about an hour or so, we will be across the mass shadow. We will be unable to get ahead of them. With their speed advantage they could cross the system, reach the Varanni Prime shift passage and be a couple of hours ahead of us. They could raid the planet, or even nuke it and we couldn’t stop them.” Becket looked from Maleck to Ya’sia, the Crian Admiral was hunched over a small holo projector on her command chair. She was clearly playing out the scenario.
For several seconds no one on the bridge spoke. Then Ya’sia’s head snapped up. “Send a COM message to Jourm at once. Transmit the data from my command chair. I think you’re right,” she added as she looked back to Becket. “The question is, can we stop them?”
Becket knew the answer to that question. It wasn’t really what Ya’sia was asking. If her and Jorum’s fleets immediately turned and engaged the Karacknids, they would be forced to stay and fight. The only reason the Karacknid fleet could make a move towards Varanni Prime was the fact that their supply freighters were a lot closer to the Varanni Prime shift passage than the Alliance ships would be in another hour. If Ya’sia and Jourm made a move for the freighters now, the Karacknids would have to defend them. But that would all but seal the destruction of every single Alliance ship. Ya’sia was looking for another way to stop them. Be
cket racked her brain, but nothing came to her. With time running out, she looked back to Ya’sia.
“The planetary ring,” Ya’sia said as soon as their eyes met. “We have no other choice.”
Though she didn’t want to, Becket nodded. She had known from the moment the idea had come to her it would be a last resort. That Ya’sia was willing to try it without exploring other options told her how desperate Ya’sia was.
“Send another gravimetric COM message to Jourm. Inform him we’re going with plan Blindfold,” Ya’sia ordered. “Navigation set course for Nammal, we’ll use the planet to slingshot us towards Halomead. Execute course change soon as the fleet is ready to follow.”
The sudden course change caught the Karacknids off guard. Whether they didn’t believe what they were seeing, or thought it was some kind of ruse, bogie-1 didn’t turn to follow Ya’sia’s fleet for four minutes. It was a small thing, but it gave the Alliance ships a little bit more of a head start.
“Jourm has replied Admiral,” the gravimetric COM officer responded.
Ya’sia nodded and looked down to a screen on her command chair to read the Admiral’s message. “He is going to continue to evade bogie-2.” Ya’sia informed her bridge officers. “But he will engage when we do.”
And it will be a slaughter, Becket thought. Everyone had known it when they had left Cria. It was the last ditch option they had always considered could be necessary. The Alliance fleets would sacrifice themselves to take out as many Karacknid ships as possible. As Becket realized she wasn’t going to survive more than a few more hours, her mind cleared. She had done what she could over the last several months as Ya’sia’s adviser. If events had taken her to this, she would accept it. Her only regret was that she wasn’t in command of a ship of her own. She would much rather have gone down leading a ship into battle. Ya’sia’s fleet will be fighting using your tactics, Becket told herself. That will have to do.
Her clearness of mind continued for the next two hours as the fleet charged into the Kalesh system. It took the Karacknids most of that time to catch up with Ya’sia’s ships. Just ten minutes after the fleet used Nammal’s gravitational pull to redirect them towards Halomead, the Karacknids, carrying out the same maneuver, got close enough to open fire. With only their nose missile tubes able to fire, they released ten thousand missiles. Ordinarily such a number would be easily dealt with by the Alliance ships’ point defenses, but only their stern point defense weapons could be brought to bear. Twenty missiles got through and four ships were destroyed. Three more took damage that reduced their speed. They quickly fell back into the grasp of the Karacknids.
Over the next eighty minutes ten missile salvos were exchanged between the two fleets. Each salvo scored a handful of kills but nothing more. The Karacknids seemed content in staying at extreme range. It was obvious where Ya’sia’s ships were headed. Whether the Karacknids knew why or not, heading towards Halomead did not pose any threat to the Karacknid supply freighters at Kalesh so they seemed content to continue the long range duel.
As Ya’sia’s ships closed with Halomead, at her command they flipped over one hundred and eighty degrees and pointed their noses at the ships of bogie-1. Then they rapidly decreased their momentum. As soon as the fleet shot past Halomead, the gas giant’s gravity aided their deceleration. By the time the ships reached the outer edge of the giant planetary ring, they were going slow enough to slip in amongst the asteroids. “Fire!” Ya’sia ordered as soon as her ships were amongst the asteroids and in something roughly resembling a defensive formation.
The Karacknid fleet had mimicked Ya’sia’s deceleration move and opened fire at almost the exact same time. Suddenly over eighty thousand missiles were accelerating towards one another in two massive waves. “Now!” Ya’sia shouted when the Karacknid missiles were just seconds away from entering the planetary ring. From every Alliance ship laser beams reached out to vaporize thousands of asteroids. The asteroids disintegrated into tens of thousands of smaller chunks of rock and hundreds of thousands of pieces of space dust. Many of which contained high concentrations of zinc. The heavy metal played havoc with everyone’s sensors. The electromagnetic energy being thrown out into space by the Alliance ships, the warheads of the Karacknid missiles, and the Karacknid fleet itself bounced off the zinc particles returning a jumbled mess of contact reports.
The sudden cloud sowed confusion among the Karacknid missiles as their seeker heads sought out targets. Thousands of missiles completely lost contact with anything. Many more detonated amongst the asteroids thinking they had found their targets. The ships of Ya’sia’s fleet, equipped with sensors that, at least in theory, were able to partially make sense of the sudden heavy metal cloud all around them, were able to target some of the missiles with their point defenses. They were also better able to carry out evasive maneuvers. Even so, almost a hundred ships died to Karacknid missiles. Others started to take damage as chunks of asteroids struck them. There was simply too much debris and dust for the Alliance ships to keep track of them all, let alone avoid them.
Whilst confusion reigned within the planetary ring, the salvo of missiles Ya’sia had released suffered no such problems. Two hundred and twenty Karacknid ships succumbed to their destructive power though neither Becket nor anyone else on Handmaiden’s bridge was actually able to get such a definitive count with the ship’s sensors. “Keep firing!” Ya’sia ordered over the pandemonium on Handmaiden’s bridge. “Order all ships to keep firing,” she repeated.
With no specific duty, Becket was doing her best to analyze just how many losses the Karacknids were taking. The beauty of their position was that the Alliance ships, though not able to get a proper lock on the Karacknid fleet themselves, could fire salvo after salvo out of the planetary ring, confident their missiles could get their own locks as they cleared the clouds of zinc particles. Over the next twenty minutes Becket was astounded by how the Alliance ships fought. Every time a Karacknid missile salvo approached, they vaporized more asteroids. As they tracked and dodged the resulting clouds of debris, they also engaged the Karacknid missiles, carried out evasive maneuvers and kept up a regular fire of their own missiles. Becket found it impossible to keep a track of the Alliance fleet’s losses, let alone the Karacknids’, but she thought the tactic was working. At least, it seemed the confusion from the debris was cancelling out the Karacknids’ numerical advantage. The Alliance fleet didn’t seem to be withering away as quickly as it would in an open fight.
“They are moving!” Becket called out. “They are moving.” She repeated as she tried to get everyone’s attention. No one else had seen it yet. “They’re entering the planetary ring!”
Ya’sia stopped whatever order she was giving midsentence. She spun around and looked at Becket, then at the holo-projection. “I’m sure of it,” Becket assured her.
Ya’sia nodded. “The fleet will scatter,” she ordered. “One more salvo, and then we will break formation. It’s going to be a laser cannon duel. All ships are to keep hitting the asteroids even after the Karacknids enter. Their sensors are struggling more than ours.”
Before Ya’sia’s orders could be carried out, another wave of Karacknid missiles came flying through the planetary ring. More Alliance ships disappeared. Then the Alliance fleet returned fire. Their missiles hit the Karacknids just before they entered the field of asteroids. As soon as the Karacknids poked their noses into the planetary ring, chaos erupted. The fight developed into a close range knife fight. Both fleets became intermingled with one another and the asteroids as they closed to laser cannon range. The Alliance ships, still focused on using some of their heavy weapons to take out asteroids, weren’t able to put as much fire on the Karacknids. The shots they did take however were more accurate. Even so, Becket knew from experience that in a close-up directed energy weapon fight everyone took hits. Even as the thought occurred to her, Handmaiden vibrated as something, an asteroid or a laser beam, struck her armor. Seconds later another harder shunt threw everyone
on the bridge around in their command chairs. Within seconds, the flagship’s officers were back to fighting their ship. Becket watched as a Karacknid dreadnought suddenly appeared in front of them. Four laser beams reached out from Handmaiden’s forward array and struck the battleship. Two return shots hit Handmaiden. Then the battleship was gone, out of sight of Handmaiden’s sensors. A Karacknid destroyer took its place as it appeared of the port bow. It fired its own weapons before being vaporized by Handmaiden’s.
Up-and-down the planetary ring the same encounters repeated themselves over and over again. Ships desperately tried to peer through the cloud of asteroid debris as they shot one another. Tens of thousands of laser beams flashed out in all directions as the fleet lost all cohesion. Within minutes Becket had no idea what was going on in the immediate vicinity of Handmaiden; let alone across the entire fleet. The Karacknids could be winning for all she knew, or the Alliance ships. She suspected both sides were crumbling to the devastating power of directed energy weapons. She was sure that Handmaiden was taking a beating for she could feel every energy beam that struck Ya’sia’s flagship.