The Thunder of War (Thunder in the Heavens)

by Dietmar Wehr

  As she waited in the cockpit of her corvette, Harrow wondered what was taking Harkaman so long in ordering the micro-jump to the attack launch position. She was just about to say something to her co-pilot when the channel to the Flag Bridge came alive with background noises that indicated someone was about to make an announcement.

  “This is LeClair. We’ve received word from the TFL that our jump point has been changed. The new co-ordinates are being downloaded to you now. The emergency rally point has not, I repeat, NOT changed. We expect to get the jump green light momentarily.”

  The loss of the background noise told Harrow that the channel was closed again. A beep from her console brought her attention to the display showing the new jump co-ordinates. She told the tactical computer to show her that position relative to the asteroid belt containing the shipyard complex. When she saw the results, she was glad that no one on Ranger’s Flag Bridge could hear her.

  “Oh, hell, that idiot is going to put us above the target’s ecliptic.” A quick look at her co-pilot told her that he didn’t realize the implications of what she had just said. “The old jump point would have put us on the same plane as the ecliptic, and that would have meant we’d be edge-on to the shipyard complex, thereby showing as little of our carriers as possible. If they somehow detected us and fired at us, that low profile would make it harder for them to hit us. But by shifting the jump point to here—“ she pointed to the display, “—we’ll be presenting the largest possible profile for any long range fire from the super-ships orbiting the shipyard below us. That means we’ll be making ourselves nice, big, fat targets.”

  “Why would she do that?” asked the co-pilot.

  “I have no God damn idea!” Before either of them could say another word, they heard the Flag Bridge again.

  “Jump has been approved. Jumping in three…two…one…now.”

  Harrow waited just long enough to confirm via the tactical display that the jump had in fact taken place. Her Ghost Riders and Saville’s Grim Reapers were now expected to launch and form a forward detection line around the Task Force. As Squadron Leader, her corvette, Skydiver, would undock first and head out the front opening of the carrier that looked for all the world like a giant manta ray.

  “Skydiver requesting clearance to undock, Flight Ops,” said Harrow in what she hoped was a calm voice.

  “Flight Ops to Skydiver. TFL wants a clear flight path for the Red Demons and Black Honas squadrons. We’ve been told to hold our birds until they’ve finished deploying.”

  “Roger that, Ops. Do I have enough time to take a nap?” asked Harrow without making any effort to hide her sarcasm.

  “That’s a negative, Skydiver. We expect a green light momentarily.”

  Harrow watched the chronometer and the elapsed time since the micro-jump. It took almost a full minute for the alien squadrons to finish launching. Ghost Rider squadron could have done it in half the time.

  “Flight Ops to Skydiver. You and your squadron have the green light, Commander. Good luck.”

  “Thanks, Ops. Skydiver to Squadron. We have a green light. Sound off when you’ve undocked in sequence order. Here we go.” She turned and nodded to her co-pilot who would maneuver the corvette out the half kilometer wide maw of the carrier, Ranger, while she monitored the rest of the squadron. As Skydiver gently pulled away from the docking bay then past the baffles and moved towards the opening, Harrow switched one of her displays to the rear external view, using computer enhancement to compensate for the low level of light inside the main hangar space. Each corvette in the squadron was undocking and maneuvering in a specified sequence in order to avoid collisions.

  “Skydiver is clear of Ranger,” said the co-pilot. As the ship began to accelerate, Harrow watched the carrier start to recede into the distance. Just as she began to shift her gaze, she saw a streak of light hit Ranger from below, penetrate up through the interior of the huge hangar and come out the top of the ship.

  “FLIGHT OPS! WHAT THE HELL—“ shouted Harrow.

  “—BEEN HIT! RANGER’S BEEN HIT!”

  Harrow recognized the voice of the Flight Operations Duty Officer.

  “OH GOD! BISMARK REPORTS BEING HIT TOO!”

  Harrow thought fast. The Tyrell had obviously detected the four carriers and were firing their long range, faster-than-light kinetic energy projectiles from below. The mission was clearly compromised, and to her way of thinking, getting the carriers to a safe distance was now not only their top priority, it was their only priority.

  “SL to Flag!” said Harrow quickly.

  “We’re kinda busy right now, Commander!”

  Harrow didn’t know who was replying, but she did know it wasn’t Vice-Admiral LeClair, and that’s who she wanted to talk to.

  “You tell the Admiral that he needs to order his carriers to jump RIGHT NOW, Goddamit! We’re sitting ducks here!” Without waiting for a reply she turned to the co-pilot. “How many of our ships have cleared the Ranger?”

  “They’re all out! Do we try to dock again?”

  “God no! No time for that. We’ll have to catch up with her at the rally point if our carriers bug out in time!” She looked at the display that was still showing a now much smaller Ranger. “Come on, TFL! Give the order!”

  “Flight Ops to squadron! Ranger is heading for the rally point now! Meet us th—“ The voice cut off at the same instant as the distant carrier vanished from view.

  “Ranger’s jumped away!” yelled the co-pilot. “Bismark Sea is gone too!”

  Harrow took a deep breath and felt her pounding heart slow down a little. At least her squadron wouldn’t be stranded in this alien star system. “Skydiver to squadron! The mission is aborted! Head for the rally point now. I repeat, head for the rally point now. Proceed independently. We’ll form up when we get there. Don’t bother to acknowledge this message, just do it! Okay, Jack, line us up for the jump but don’t execute until I say so.”

  “Okay, Boss.”

  Harrow set the external opticals to scan for any ship. She watched as the other eleven corvettes from her squadron jumped away and saw half a dozen from Saville’s squadron also jump. The rest must have jumped already. There was no sign of any of the corvettes belonging to the alien squadrons. She did see the carriers Ticonderoga and Trafalgar, or rather what was left of them. They had both been hit multiple times, and not just in the relatively non-critical hangar section. Huge sections of hull had been blown off both of them. They didn’t seem to be maneuvering.

  “Skydiver to Ticonderoga. Skydiver to Trafalgar. Can anyone hear me?” There was no reply. One of the carriers, she didn’t know which one, jerked suddenly as it was hit again.

  “Ah, shouldn’t we get out of here before we get hit too?” asked the co-pilot nervously.

  “Take it easy, Jack. I’m pretty sure the enemy’s not close enough to detect us. I have to know what’s happening with those carriers. Are we lined up yet?”

  “Affirmative. We can jump at any time.”

  “Good! Hold this position.” Even as she said the words, she began to wonder if she should take Skydiver back to get close to the carriers.

  “Skydiver to—“ Her attempt to communicate was cut off when one of the carriers exploded. Half a second later, the other carrier did too. They activated the self-destruct! Once she had that thought, she knew it was the right conclusion. Under no circumstances were carrier C.O.’s to allow their ships to be captured intact. Fission bombs were on board for just this kind of emergency. The two carriers must have had damage to both inertia drives and jump drives. Without any means of getting away, capture would have been a forgone conclusion.

  “Okay, Jack. We can jump now,” she said in a slower and calmer voice.

  The jump itself was easy; finding the carriers was harder. While everyone used the same co-ordinates for the rally point, the carriers had to make two jumps because they’re weren’t pointed in the right direction to jump to the rally point directly, and there wasn’t enough ti
me to line up correctly. Therefore by arriving from a different direction from the squadrons, the carriers had actually emerged a little wide of their intended location. Skydiver eventually found both carriers, as did all of the other eleven from her squadron and all of the other squadron too. Harrow kept Skydiver off to one side of Ranger’s rear entrance until the rest of her squadron had entered the hangar, and while she waited, she queried Flight Ops for information.

  “Any word on the alien squadrons, Ops?”

  “They had already jumped to attack range by the time we got hit, Commander. They couldn’t have know what was happening to us. They’ll return to the launch point and find nothing but two clouds of radioactive debris. If they keep their heads and follow their orders, they’ll eventually jump here.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Harrow. “What’s the condition of the hangar? Will my people be able to dock?”

  “Ah, that’s going to be a problem. Only ten docking bays are still usable. That means two corvettes will have to dock, bring their crews on board and then undock under auto-pilot. Those two birds will have to be abandoned in order to make room for the last two, but that’s not the main problem.”

  When he didn’t continue, Harrow started to worry that the news must be really bad. In a resigned voice she said, “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s the alien squadrons, Commander. We can’t take their crews on board Ranger and Bismark Sea because of the risk of mutual contamination from alien micro-organisms. That means that those crews will have to stay on board their corvettes for the trip home, and THAT means that most and maybe all of our operational docking bays will be needed by those alien crews. So it’s possible that all of your people will have to abandon their birds after programming their auto-pilots to fly them into the local sun to avoid capture.”

  Harrow was actually relieved. Lost corvettes could be replaced. So long as none of her people were injured or killed, she was happy. At least none of them had to stay on board a corvette for days when they were designed to be occupied for no more than three days, four at the most. She turned to look at her co-pilot.

  “Could our version of the Mark 2 keep us alive for the trip back if we had to stay on board, Jack?”

  His expression reflected his skeptical answer. “Maybe. There’s enough water and food, but it’s the life support system that’s iffy. I have no idea if the alien version of the Mark 2 is up to the task. They started with our design and made modifications to suit their specific biology. If their life support fails, there’s not a damn thing we could do to help them without risking contamination ourselves.” He looked at his console and said, “Everyone else is aboard now, Boss.”

  “Okay, Jack. Take us in.”

  Both of them were silent as Skydiver slowly entered the hangar from the rear entrance. The projectile that had pierced both top and bottom hulls had also send debris flying around inside the hangar. Some of that had caused secondary damage, although none of it critical. Harrow learned later that Ranger had actually gotten off pretty lightly in terms of damage and casualties. Bismark Sea, while still able to maneuver and jump, had more serious damage, and over two dozen crew injured or killed. No sooner had Skydiver docked, than Flight Ops ordered her to program the auto-pilot for an unmanned dive into the local star. Through a viewport that looked into the hangar, she watched her now unmanned ship undock and move toward the forward opening. Feeling a tear slide down her cheek, she wondered why it was that humans formed bonds with inanimate objects? It sounded like a silly question, and she shook her head to get rid of it as she walked away.

  Eighteen hours later she was composing her After Action report. It was very short. There was no doubt at all that this mission was a failure, even though the alien squadrons, which had finally arrived at the rally point, reported they had inflicted crippling damage to all five super-ships as well as the shipbuilding complexes they were orbiting. Even if those claims were correct, and Harrow was very much aware of how attack crews might exaggerate, it was only a temporary reprieve for the Korel. The implicit assumption had been that the Task Force would be back to attack again when another Tyrell fleet was almost assembled, but that would not be happening now with two carriers lost and the only other two damaged. Ranger might be able to continue to conduct offensive operations, but sending her alone on another ambush mission was far too risky in Harrow’s opinion. If an attack on the Korel couldn’t be prevented, then the whole point of this mission would not be realized, and that made it a failure. Harkaman had paid for her stupidity. At least LeClair had done the right thing, eventually. She wondered if the alien corvette crews would make it safely back to their own people. There weren’t enough docking bays available for all the returning alien corvettes. Bismark Sea’s damage included several of her docking bays. Five alien corvette crews had to abandon their ships and transfer in space suits to other corvettes, which placed even more strain on those life support systems. The only good thing about the way the mission had proceeded was that the Tyrell hadn’t gotten their hands on either of the two crippled carriers or their surviving crews. The EAF wasn’t ready yet to take on the whole Tyrell Empire, and keeping the Tyrell from learning that humans were the ones attacking them was vital. As she finished her report, she sat back and gave a silent prayer of thanks that Gort was okay. It would have been lonely fighting this war without him.

  Tyrell Home World:

  Torq allowed himself the pleasure of a swagger as he left the offices of the military’s senior officers. The second surprise attack at the Hadosi star system had proven that the Tyrell were facing a challenge such as they had never faced before, and High Command had finally come to that realization. He now had the approval to build a prototype unit to counteract the enemy’s smaller attack ships. They had rejected his proposal for a large ship to carry the new units, but that was okay for now. If the prototype worked, they would be mass produced and deployed as static defenses in conquered star systems. That would take some time to accomplish. In the meantime, he had no doubt that there would be more surprise attacks and perhaps even encounters where those enemy ships would be defending a system against Tyrell fleets.

  Contrary to the prevailing opinion of his superiors, who thought that the enemy’s small ships were incapable of standing up to ships-of-battle without the element of surprise, he believed that those ships were more than capable and that the enemy had merely been unlucky or badly led this last time. The fact that not one but two sensor drones had managed to detect the enemy’s large ships and had therefore been able to triangulate their precise position had definitely been lucky for the Tyrell. Radiation and light emissions seemed to suggest that two of the large ships had been destroyed utterly, perhaps deliberately to prevent capture. That meant the two other ships had gotten away. Torq was content to bide his time and concentrate on the prototype for now. Eventually, when High Command realized that defeating this enemy would require new ways of thinking and fighting, he would be given a chance to redeem himself. It felt good to swagger.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Harrow shook her head in dismay. Why was Mirakova allowing the EAF to be placed in this kind of idiotic position? It was now almost three months since the disastrous raid on Omega1. Detailed examination of the data collected by the alien corvette squadrons and the recon ship after the battle showed that only two super-ships and one shipyard complex had suffered serious damage. While it made the results from her raid on Zulu3 look much better in comparison, it was a serious setback, and instead of acknowledging that the alien members of the Alliance needed more training and experience before taking on operational responsibilities, the response by the majority of the Council was the exact opposite! Somehow the poor attack results were Admiral Harkaman’s fault, and the Council was now demanding that the next raid have an alien leader or at least a co-leader. If Mirakova had objected, she hadn’t succeeded in changing that directive. The Korel had been conquered in the meantime, and they were no longer represented on the Council, but in
its infinite wisdom, the Council had ordered that the next raid be sent to the Korel home system to ‘liberate it’ and keep it liberated! Harrow knew that the Alliance just wasn’t strong enough yet to go toe to toe with the Tyrell. Apparently the experience of the Odina was forgotten. If the Alliance tried to hang on to a liberated Korel system indefinitely, the forces deployed there would eventually be overwhelmed, just as the Odina had been.

  But it was the command structure for the so-called 1st Alliance Fleet that made her want to scream. The 1AF would consist of two task forces, each with three carriers. TF1.1 would be three alien carriers, each from a different race, commanded by an alien admiral who was also one of two, co-equal Fleet Commanders. TF1.2 would be made up of the repaired carriers Ranger, Bismark Sea and the newest light carrier, Kursk, commanded by LeClair who was also a Fleet Commander. Having co-equal Fleet Commanders was asking for confusion and disaster, though it could have been worse, Harrow admitted to herself. LeClair could have been made subordinate to the alien Fleet Commander. She had mixed feelings about her own assignment. She had been promoted permanently to the rank of Senior Commander, but she was no longer Squadron Leader. Gort was taking over as SL of the Ghost Riders. She would be C.O. of the carrier Kursk and would also be LeClair’s Deputy Task Force Leader. If something happened to him, she would take over as TF1.2’s Leader. Her orders said nothing about whether assuming the TFL position also authorized her to assume LeClair’s role as a Fleet Commander. A very discrete enquiry had confirmed her suspicion that that question had been deliberately ignored because addressing it would have involved a confrontation with the rest of the Council that the human leadership wanted to avoid.