First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3

by KOTCHER, MICHAEL

  “Hit them again, Guns,” Tamara ordered, leaning forward slightly in her command seat.

  Another salvo of heavy lasers tore into the after section, but the propulsion unit didn’t explode. It was still functioning but was showing scars from the carbon scoring from the near misses. All of the rest of the wrecked propulsion units were so much slag now. They would need to be completely cut away and replaced once the ship was brought into a repair slip. Or rather, a repair slip would need to be built to hold the cruiser and work on her.

  “Evasive,” Tamara said to Wymea. “Those aft cannons are still shooting.” The corvette jinked right just as a heavy laser blast tore through space nearby. “Guns, you’ve been doing well, but save the missiles. Cannons only. Now get me that last propulsion unit!”

  “Aye, Captain,” the Severite said, stabbing a control.

  Colonel Gants pounded the right arm of his chair with his fist. This isn’t going the way it’s supposed to. Don’t those jumped up freighter bums know when they’re defeated? They would dare to challenge a battlecruiser with a swarm of gnats and a shoebox of a corvette?

  “Helm, alter course,” he ordered. “Twenty degrees down and five points to starboard.” That would slew the engines out of the direct line of fire from the corvette. He couldn’t risk losing propulsion. “Guns, open up on that damned corvette. Ignore the fighters, just shoot down that ship!”

  “We’ll have to cancel shield recharge,” Paxton reminded him.

  He growled. “Fine. Do it. Open fire with aft cannons, and when we change course, if we can, use the main batteries.”

  “Understood, sir,” the tactical officer replied, activating the ship’s weapons.

  Korqath flicked his antennae in frustration. He’d lost another three of his fighters in just the last few moments. Two of the Delphons had strayed too close to the after sections and the heavy cannons had been quick enough to blast them apart. And one of his brave Aploras had been vaporized by a turbolaser shot when the main weapons started shooting again. He simply was in the line of fire and hadn’t known it. The battlecruiser’s guns opened up and fire engulfed his ship. One second he was there, the next he was gone.

  It seemed Captain Samair had finally gotten her act together and closed the distance. She’d savaged the battlecruiser’s engines but hadn’t so far been able to take them out completely. And now the big bastard was turning again to try and keep Cavalier from cutting the legs out from under her completely. Whether it would prove successful, the pilot didn’t know.

  His forces, meanwhile, had been nipping at the battlecruiser’s shields, forcing them to expend energy in keeping them strong. In more than a few cases, the strafing runs had weakened the ship’s defenses enough to cause spotting and the Aploras had managed to cause a small amount of damage to the ship’s hull. They hadn’t tried to get a missile through; they’d been flying too fast for that. His fighters had done little more than annoy the capital ship, but the constant shooting at the shields had been taking a toll on the cruiser’s power systems.

  But they weren’t hurting the bastard! And too many of his pilots had already been lost for little more than harassment attacks. He chittered his frustration.

  His comm panel beeped and he keyed it active. “Korqath here.”

  “Leader, this is Captain Eamonn on the Grania Estelle.” An unfamiliar voice sounded over the comms.

  “Yes, sir. I’m afraid I’m a bit busy right now, sir. Can this wait?” Korqath dodged around a turbolaser that was trying to shoot the Cavalier.

  “No, Leader, it can’t,” the freighter captain and owner of FP replied. “I’m not calling to waste your time. I’ve launched two of my shuttles and loaded them up with explosives. I need your fighters to either distract the battlecruiser so they can do their work, or escort them in.”

  It took a few seconds for what the captain said to process in Korqath’s brain. A shuttle, no two shuttles loaded with explosives. And he and his people needed to escort them in. Or, they needed to distract the battlecruiser long enough for them to get close enough to do their thing. All right. “Copy that, Captain. Tell your pilots that are in those shuttles that my Aploras will give them their opening.”

  “The shuttles are unmanned, Leader,” Eamonn said. “They’re being flown by remote.”

  Korqath shook his head; that was a detail to be explored later. “Understood, Captain. Well then whoever is sitting at the remote better be ready.” He cut the channel and switched back over to the squadron. “Aploras, Delphons, this is Leader. We have a pair of shuttles coming in from the Grania Estelle that have some big boom. We’re going to give them a chance to get close enough to deploy.”

  “Yeah!” Hukriss yelled over the comms. “Now we’re talking, Lead!”

  “Second flight, you will continue to harass the battlecruiser,” Korqath ordered. “First flight, break off and vector on a course two-five seven mark nine. That will move us back toward the shuttles and hopefully up and away from the cruiser’s forward weapons. Just like before, First Flight, make sure you continue with evasive moves. Break!” Eight Sepulcres roared away from the cruiser, heading up and away, in the general direction of the gas giant and the mine, though if they continued their vector, they would just skim the northern polar atmosphere of the gas giant and out into deep space. But Korqath had no intention of going that far.

  “Half of the fighters area breaking off, Colonel,” Paxton reported. “Got one! Got another!” the tactical officer called out in glee.

  “We’re still taking fire from the ones that stayed behind, Colonel,” the engineering watch replied. “Shields are holding, but they’re losing strength. No spotting yet, but it won’t be long. And that corvette is still trying to get into position to shoot the remaining engine.”

  Gants nodded to himself, not really listening to the report. He watched the screen, his eyes seeing only the corvette. That ship is the only real threat. And it isn’t that much of one. One good salvo and it will crack open like an egg. “Alter course,” he spoke up suddenly. “Up six five degrees. Once the main batteries have solution, target that corvette and destroy it.” He grinned fiercely. I have you now.

  “Leytonstone is changing course,” Ykzann reported suddenly. “They’re climbing.”

  “They’re trying to get us in the sights of their heavy batteries,” Tamara said. “Mister Wymea, keep us in their baffles.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the man replied, adjusting the ship’s course. Unfortunately, as he did so, the battlecruiser’s aft cannons caught the corvette and hammered them. Three then four blows rained on the dorsal shields, battering the hull beneath. The hull was blasted away in that section and atmosphere ignited inside, causing secondary explosions.

  “Break off!” Tamara barked, clutching the arms of her chair in a white-knuckled grip. “Drop us down the perpendicular axis to the battlecruiser and accelerate away. We can’t fight them.”

  “Captain!” came al Fakhir’s voice over the comms. “What the hell are you doing to my ship?” he demanded.

  “We’re breaking off, Chief,” Tamara said bitterly, grimacing. “I tried to get clever and we got pummeled for it.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’re breaking off. The central spine of the ship is nearly broken in half. We’ve got only a few spars holding the ship together. I’m going to have to reduce power to avoid strain on the remaining power conduits. And you need to reduce acceleration. Right now.”

  “Helm, reduce accel,” she ordered. Checking her displays, she nodded. They were out of range of the battlecruiser’s weapons, unless the ship turned and chased after them. “In fact, cut accel to zero.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” the Chief Engineer replied. “I’ll get to work trying to fix all this damage. Thankfully, I don’t think we lost anyone this time.”

  Tamara grimaced. “Well that’s some good news anyway. Do what you can, Chief. As soon as this is over, we’ll get teams from the Grania Estelle and the Samarkand to assist in repairs.”
>
  “Repairs?” al Fakhir demanded. “Are you kidding me, Captain? It’s going to take a full rebuild to fix all that damage.”

  “Understood, Chief. Just keep us space worthy as best you can.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” And he signed off.

  “Is the battlecruiser changing course to chase us?” Tamara asked.

  “No ma’am,” Leicasitaj replied.

  “Very well. You have the bridge, XO,” she said, getting up from her chair. “Keep me informed of any developments. But right now I’m going below to give the Chief a hand.” And she turned and exited the bridge.

  The Romigani watched her go shaking his head in disbelief. That’s it? After all her speeches, all the training and now, with the job not done, she just walks off the bridge? He turned back to the tactical display in front of him and studied the readouts. There had to be something that they could do. Cavalier wasn’t out of the fight just yet.

  Tamara stepped off the bridge went down the corridor a few meters, then leaned against the bulkhead. Putting her hands on her knees she doubled over and tried to suck air into her lungs. Things were not going as they were supposed to. But what had she expected, anyway? She was an engineer, not a combat officer. She’d been going about this as though she was a master tactician, someone who had been on the command track in the Navy with a thousand battles under her belt. The closest she’d ever been to a tactical officer, outside of the starfighter corps was serving as bridge engineering watch during her stint on the Archimedes, just after her transfer out of fighters. But that was a totally different set of circumstances. Fighting from a starfighter cockpit and fighting from the bridge of a warship were completely different ways of thinking and fighting.

  I told him, she raged. I told him I wasn’t the one to do this. That bastard Eamonn browbeat me into taking this post, into running his little pet navy for him and now it’s all falling apart. No. I let him browbeat me into doing this. Was it pride? I wanted to show that there was no job too big for me. She let out of wry laugh. Look how well that worked out.

  Tamara sighed, pulling herself up to a more upright standing position. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. There are people counting on you. You’re the damned Captain of this ship! She scrubbed her hands over her face, then shook her head to clear it. She felt a little better. She’d been right, she wasn’t a tactical genius and she didn’t have the forces needed to take on a battlecruiser. But there had to be something that they could do. Cavalier wasn’t out of the fight just yet.

  She started to walk down the corridor toward the spine to head to Engineering when suddenly she felt queasy and weightless. The grav plates under the decking were malfunctioning, most likely due to damage. Then she smiled. That’s it. Picking up the pace, she hustled to the armory.

  “Captain, excuse me, but what the hell are you doing with that missile?” al Fakhir demanded. “We got way more important things to worry about a fucking missile. If that ship turns toward us, we’re dead. We’ve got no shield coverage along the spine and we’re really weak structurally there.”

  “Grav plates,” she said, working to attach the small pod about a meter square onto the nose of the missile. “I removed the warhead from this one,” she said, tossing aside a small screwdriver. “Help me!” she said, and the man sighed, came over and held up the pod while she secured it to the weapon. Once that was done, in less than a minute, she attached it to a hoist and jacked the missile up off the deck. Pulling out her datapad, she linked the cables into the grav pod and began typing frantically.

  “Captain!” al Fakhir bellowed. “What the hell is going on?”

  Tamara wasn’t listening; she was watching as information, macros and figures scrolled down the screen of her datapad, until finally it stopped and she nodded in satisfaction. “I’m sorry, Chief. I think I might have just given us a knockout punch.”

  “What?” The dusky-skinned man put a hand to his forehead and then shook his head in confusion. Then he eyed what she’d been working on. “You attached a grav pod to the warhead of a missile?”

  “I removed it,” she explained. “And yes, I know it’s crude, but the design is sound.”

  “Design?” the man asked, dumbstruck. “You didn’t design anything. You just slapped a grav pod on a missile. And why?”

  “Because we needed a serious punch to take down that battlecruiser,” she said, starting to push the hoist. “Give me a hand. We need to get this to the starboard side launch tube, number three. It’s the only one still active.” He stepped up and grabbed the opposite side of the hoist and the two of them started pushing. While she did, Tamara pulled her communicator out of her pocket and flipped it open with her thumb. “Bridge, this is the Captain.”

  Leicasitaj answered immediately. “Yes, Captain. I’ve been studying the battlecruiser and I think we have a chance to strike. Our last strike on their stern took out two of the heavy lasers protecting there, and the fighters have been forcing them to keep their shields up with their harassing attacks.” She could hear the mirth in his voice. “They aren’t letting up. Never letting them breathe.”

  Tamara smiled. “Very good work, XO. It’ll take me another minute to get this loaded, but then we need to turn back. We need to reengage the battlecruiser, but again, come in at the stern.”

  “Captain, the minute we start turning back to fight the Leytonstone, they’re going to turn toward us and they’re going to blast us apart.”

  “Captain,” al Fakhir put in, his voice low, “we can’t take another pounding. With the damage to the spine that we’ve taken, a good hit even to a shielded area will crack us open right down the middle.”

  She nodded. “I know. But that ship is going to reach the Kutok mine in only a short while and there’s no one else who can stop them.”

  “So we get to die to save the company a few bucks?”

  She rounded on him. “I’m not fighting for the company’s balance sheet. I’m fighting to save our people’s lives. The people who launched that ship did so because they didn’t like me or Eamonn’s way of doing things. And they didn’t like that our business was ever expanding. The only ones who send warships to settle business disputes are pirates and cowards, Mister al Fakhir. And they’ve already killed too many of our people.”

  He stood and stared at her for a long moment. Then without another word, he continued to push the hoist. “Can you supercharge our forward shields, Chief?” she asked. “I’m going to need a few seconds to launch this baby, then we can run for it.”

  “Can you get this to the launch tube on your own, Captain?” he asked. Taking a deep breath, he stopped pushing and turned to rush off down the corridor in the other direction. “I have some work to do.”

  Tamara didn’t spare him a glance. It took a few more minutes to get hoist with the missile from the armory to the missile tube. Please let this work, she prayed silently. She was fairly confident that it was going to. It wasn’t as though the technology was all that new or innovative. Well, it was innovative for military tech nowadays from what she’d seen, at least out here in the Argos Cluster. Who knows what kind of cutting edge tech they might have over in the Republic, or even the Federation? It had been two and a half centuries since she’d been a serving officer in the Republic Navy, after all. But her jury-rigged weapon had just been slapped together in a matter of minutes. It was crude and ugly and wouldn’t perform anywhere near as well as something that had been properly engineered. But that was all right. As long as it functioned to within fifty percent of her expectations, then the crew of the Leytonstone had a serious surprise coming.

  “Grania Estelle, this is Leader Korqath,” the zheen pilot said. “We’re in position and are ready to advance on the battlecruiser.”

  “Very good, Leader,” a female human’s voice responded. Hmmm, he thought, I wonder where the Captain went? No matter. “But you need to hurry. That ship will be in range of the station and this ship any minute.”

  What do you think I’ve been tryi
ng to do? “Understood, Grania Estelle,” he responded. He keyed the squadron channel. “All right, First flight,” he said, addressing his five remaining pilots. “Escort formation, everybody keeps moving, no one stops. We’re going to bring the shuttles in underneath the chin of that big bastard and then we break off.”

  “Let’s bring it, Lead!” one of his pilots said excitedly. A chorus of similar sentiments came from the rest of his pilots and he waggled his antennae in amusement.

  The Aplora pilots maneuvered their ships in a complicated pattern, always shifting, never moving predictably. It was a maneuver that the Leader had drilled on mercilessly, requiring that his flyers work on it for at least two hours every day, knowing that he wanted to actually use such a maneuver at some point. He knew that Captain Samair approved of the training, but didn’t much approve of this particular maneuver, but she’d given him full authority to train his zheen and she hadn’t stepped on his toes about it. They closed on the battlecruiser, which had been zigzagging around, though his Second Flight pilots had been keeping clear of the ship’s engines, peppering the shields on the sides but staying away from the forward section, where the ship’s heaviest concentration of weapons were located.

  “First flight, pincer attack, port and starboard,” Korqath ordered harshly and his ships wheeled around, pivoted and then raced forward. Their last remaining missiles streaked out, exploding against the forward shields of the battlecruiser, opening holes in the already depleted screens.

  The shuttles lumbered forward as quickly as they could, their engines redlining.

  “Damn it!” Gants hissed. The forward shields were shredded, and his forward armor had taken some minor damage from the wash of energy emitted from the blasts. It was as though the Leytonstone’s rusted face had received a pair of jabs from a determined opponent. She wasn’t down, but she was stunned. Six fighters had braved the battlecruiser’s forward weapons to attack. He cursed himself for not having his gunners lay down a blistering level of fire forward, but he’d been focused on the other fighters nipping at his flanks and that thrice-damned corvette which he saw was turning back to engage again. “Just what the hell does it take to kill that fucking ship?” he demanded.