“We might be able to do both, ma’am,” Fox said.
“Once they’ve launched their missiles, Lieutenant, their battle is well and truly over. We save ourselves for the attack to come. Time to strike range?”
“Two minutes, ten seconds,” Fox said. “Lieutenant Tanaka’s squadron is into the debris field, Captain, with the bombing force following. I’m feeding them all the sensor data I can, but it’s a real mess out there. We’re having trouble tracking the trajectories of all that rubble. So far we’ve identified more than a billion pieces large enough to do damage.”
“A natural minefield, complements of Professor Newton,” Singh replied, shaking his head. “Beautiful.” He looked down at the course plot, and said, “No sign of any enemy activity inside, other than the ships at the core. As far as I can tell, they’ve found the perfect spot to hide out in there. No debris, nothing. Could have been artificially cleared.”
“Captain,” Fox warned, “if that is the case, then there might be a chance that they’ve already prepared for a possible attack.”
“We knew that going in, Lieutenant,” Forrest said. She glanced at her watch, then said, “Komarov should be arriving in sixty seconds. Let’s try and put on a bit of a show. Hail the enemy formation.”
“Channel open, ma’am, but I...” she paused, then said, “I’ll be damned. I have Commandant Leiter for you, ma’am, from one of the outlying escorts. Sensor checks confirm that he’s changed ships.” Her eyes widened, and she said, “They must have known we were coming.”
“Never assume, Lieutenant. This is a major anchorage of theirs. A natural place to hide.” She tapped a control and said, “Commandant, this is Captain Forrest. In the interests of minimizing bloodshed, I’m willing to offer you a chance to withdraw from the system. Leave the PacFed cruisers and their crews behind, and I will permit the rest of your ships to depart without harassment. I’ll only make this offer once, and it’s good until your fighters enter our defensive perimeter.”
“Captain,” Leiter replied, “I’m impressed that you managed to find us, but you’ve arrived with vastly inferior strength, and have no means to destroy our ships. I will make you the same offer. Withdraw at once. Or stand to, and I will come on board to discuss a possible agreement with you and your crew. There’s no sense in fighting for a doomed cause. The Guild can be a good home for you, and given what you have to bargain with, I’d say the prospects for improvements to your situation are excellent. There are terraformed worlds that are largely unpopulated. One of them could be turned over to you.”
“I presume you’re treatment of my people would be similar to your treatment of the PacFed crews you captured.”
“Crews who attempted to take over our ships, launched an offensive posture and once we had come to what we thought was an agreement, attempted to break it within the first few hours. I truly hope that you are not basing your command decisions on the word of Captain Sinaga. I would have assumed that your own personal experience would have amply demonstrated that he cannot be trusted. Though perhaps you are more forgiving than I.”
Singh looked at Forrest, and said, “Captain, there’s a chance...”
“I don’t trust him, Commander,” Forrest said. “And I don’t trust you. I have no reason to. I’ll give you one last chance to withdraw, or face the consequences.”
“And I make you the same offer, though we both know that neither of us will accept it. Leiter out.” The channel crackled for a second before snapping off, and Singh walked around the desk, making his way to Forrest.
“I find it quite possible that Captain Sinaga acted in the way Commandant Leiter described, Captain,” he whispered, softly enough that nobody else on the bridge could hear. “It’s completely in character with his psychological profile.”
“True enough, but irrelevant,” Forrest said. “The enemy is here, just as we expected, and I intend to proceed with the battle plan.” She turned to the viewscreen, and added, “Monitor the fighters, and keep an eye on those patrolling ships. They’re staying well clear at the moment, but if they think they have a chance to take us down, they’ll take it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Singh replied, returning to his station. Forrest reached forward to her controls, looking over the battlespace. The display shuddered as she altered the magnification, the systems still having difficulty with the sheer number of items it was having to monitor. Given time, the sensors would gather enough data to complete a full projection, to carve out safe paths through the rubble, but that would take days, at best. They didn’t even have minutes.
Sixty seconds until the fighters entered firing range. Tanaka’s formation was deep into the debris field now, struggling to pick a path through the ever-tumbling rubble, flares of thruster fuel registering on the display as the pilots gently followed their course plots. She called up the squadron telemetry, and a frown grew on her face as she looked over the fuel consumption reports. They were spending maneuvering fuel like water, and at their current rate of depletion, she wasn’t even sure they’d make it to the target, still less make it home.
That was a problem for later. Right now, they had bandits incoming. Her eyes roved over the status reports as they flooded into her station, checking the defensive preparations. Singh and Fox had handled everything well, the turret crews ready to open fire as soon as they had the range, Armstrong’s fighters in position to fill in any gaps. The incoming interceptors were sweeping in on a standard attack pattern, a move right out of the manual.
And that sent warning bells ringing in her mind. Leiter was a snake, a bastard, but he had been a good enough commander to fight his way out of their last engagement. He didn’t strike her was the kind to follow the rulebook to the end. That meant that there was a trap, if she could work out what it was. She focused one of the forward scanners on the nearest enemy ship, looking over its lines, trying to spot any alterations. On the surface, she couldn’t find anything, until she looked at the acceleration profile.
The fighters were slow. Nobody in their right minds lingered in the firing line any longer than they had to. A fighter would drop its load, guide it in, then bug out as fast as it could. And it would have all the speed it could muster, for every scrap of relative velocity was more kinetic power for the warheads when they found their target. Which meant they had been modified. She didn’t have time to give an order, her hands dancing across the controls as she called up mass projections, looking for the center of gravity.
A warhead in the nose. These weren’t fighters. They were manned missiles, on a suicide run. Though whether or not the pilots knew that was another question entirely. Sufficient waste gases were leaking into space to establish that they had lifesystems, but not to determine whether anyone was using them. Though at this point, that hardly mattered.
“Armstrong,” she said, stabbing a control, “Take down the enemy fighters. Full offensive. Break and attack, and target their nose. We have reason to suspect that they’re carrying warheads.” Turning to Fox, she said, “Lieutenant...”
“Turret Control, go to full-offensive.” She paused, then said, “Lieutenant Romano, report.”
“McBride here, Lieutenant,” the grizzled gunner said. “We read you. Switching to full offensive fire. We’ll sweep those bastards from the sky for you, ma’am. Turret Control out.”
“Where the hell is Romano?” Singh asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Fox replied. “McBride can ride that board.” Looking up at the sensor display, she added, “Our fighters will come into contact with the enemy in ten seconds. Turrets in twenty-two. We’ll have a damned short window to pull this off, Captain.”
“Make each shot count, Lieutenant,” Forrest said. She watched as the fighters dived towards her ship, spreading into a wide formation designed to inflict as much damage as possible, their attack plan obvious now. Armstrong’s interceptors sped towards their foe, moving into firing range and sp
itting bolts of violent energy at the enemy, taking out two with the first salvo, the remainder dodging out of the way, returning fire and forcing Armstrong into evasive action.
One of her pilots was too slow, and a brief flicker of flame filled the sky. Four against two, but Lincoln’s turrets began to open up, adding their weight to the mass of fire. Two more were destroyed, exploding far short of their target, and Armstrong worked a miracle, running her engines as hot as she dared to manage a second firing pass, blasting a third from the sky. That left only a single fighter, heading right for the rear of the ship, back towards the hyperdrive.
The turrets flailed desperately into the air, hurling bolts of raw energy at the incoming craft, and Armstrong weaved around the incoming fire, random shots blazing from her cannons as she attempted to line up a shot. Silently, implacably, the dotted line representing the trajectory track of the final vehicle ranged in towards its target, until finally, the end was inevitable.
“All hands, brace for impact!” Forrest yelled, white-knuckled hands gripping the armrests of her chair. For an instant, one of the turrets turned towards the target, and she dared to hope that a lucky shot might hit home at the final moment, but it was not to be, and a loud report echoed along the hull as sirens wailed, the all-too-familiar sound of anguished deck plates rupturing along the starboard hull. Singh raced to the damage monitor, shaking his head as he scanned the reports flooding in.
“It’s bad, Captain, but it could have been a lot worse. Looks like a glancing hit right on the aft of the ship. We’ve got hull breaches in five decks, casualty reports to follow, but the only combat-critical system we’ve lost is the hyperdrive.” Turning to her, she said, “We’re stuck here, Captain, until we can make repairs.”
Stabbing a control, Forrest said, “Brooks, you know what I’m about to ask...”
“I’m already on it,” he replied. “Primary unit’s a wreck, and we lost a lot of power from the aft capacitors before the safety interlocks engaged. If I can put people on the outer hull, we can have the secondary drive operational in half an hour.”
“Outside the ship?” Singh asked. “In a firefight?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Forrest replied. “I don’t like it, Commander, but get that team outside on the double. Stress that it is strictly volunteer. Understand? Volunteer only.”
“I completely agree, Captain. I’ll see to it.”
“Sir,” Fox said, frowning. “I’ve got a rather odd report from the lower decks. Apparently Captain Sinaga is no longer in his cell, and the guards have disappeared also. Nobody seems able to contact them. Nor can I contact the Master-at-Arms.”
“What the hell is going on down there?” Singh asked. He looked at the monitor, and said, “Request permission to leave the bridge. I can swing down to engineering as well, check on the repairs. With Commander Brooks tied up with the hyperdrive, that means that Ensign Roberts is having to handle the rest alone. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Agreed,” she said. “On your way. Fox, page Commander Kirkland. Have her turn over command of Auxiliary Control to Lieutenant Richardson, and report to the bridge on the double.”
Fox turned to her station, frowned, then said, “Ma’am, Commander Kirkland isn’t at Auxiliary Control. Richardson reported in when I paged down there. Apparently she left for the bridge fifteen minutes ago.” She looked up at Forrest, and said, “The saboteur. If he’s turned assassin...”
Forrest turned to Singh, but he’d already left the bridge, the elevator doors slamming shut. She looked up at the battlespace monitor again, watching as the fighters swung into position, continuing to track through the debris. There was nothing in range of Lincoln now, no potential threats for the present, though the enemy garrison force continued to loom menacingly in the distance, waiting to strike.
“Dimensional instability,” Fox reported. “It’s Komarov, Captain. Right on time.”
“Good,” Forrest replied. “Now it’s all down to Commander Flynn.”
Chapter 20
“Good God!” Volkov said, looking at the sensor plot. “Impact on Lincoln, astern, estimate two kiloton charge.” He turned to the telemetry report, and added, “They’ve lost hyperdrive. Looks like we just lost our abort option.” Shaking his head, he said, “No other significant damage, but that leaves them vulnerable. And I don’t like the look of those two monitors out there, on deep patrol.”
“They’re just sitting there, sir,” Lieutenant Ivanov, his tactical officer replied. “My guess is that they’re waiting. They probably figure that they aren’t in any particular hurry, not now. Once our fighters are expended, they can move in and take out the carrier.” He paused, then added, “Or they’re hoping that Lincoln surrenders. It’d be a hell of a prize.”
“I have a feeling that Captain Forrest would blow that ship up before she permitted it to fall into enemy hands, Lieutenant. Though let’s all hope that it doesn’t come to that.” He turned to the two figures standing at the rear of the bridge, and said, “Specialist Lopez, I think this is your chance to show what you can do. We’ve got your datalink set up, and all the software you requested has been loaded into the computers.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said, as the communications technician vacated his seat to allow her to take his place, hovering over her shoulder, watching every move she made. Donovan walked over to her side, her eyes locked on the blank screen above the station, waiting for the hacker to begin her work. Turning from her station, Lopez said, “We’re going to need to get closer.”
“How close?”
“As close as you can, Major. We’ve got to cut the time lag right down if I’m going to make this work.” Shaking her head, she added, “The trick is to make sure they don’t detect us at all. That’s going to make this tougher. The last thing we need is some false data being thrown at us.”
“I should be able to work out whether the information we’re getting through is accurate or not,” Donovan said. “How long have we got, Major?”
“The bombers will have to make their turn in sixteen minutes, Specialist. And I think we’ve established that we’re already committed to the attack, so for God’s sake, work quickly.” Turning to the viewscreen, he continued, “Helm, full ahead, right for the enemy formation.”
“We’ll be into the debris in less than a minute, Major,” the helmsman replied, his hands dancing across the controls as he brought Komarov’s engines to full power. “Unless I reverse thrust in thirty-two seconds, we’re committed to encountering at least some of it.”
“Point-defense turrets,” Volkov said, stabbing a control, “Fire at any targets that come into range. Knock those rocks out of my sky.”
“That might not work, sir,” Donovan warned. “It depends on the density, and I’m reading a lot of high-yield...”
“Action leads to reaction, Specialist. I knock chunks of the debris, it’s going to fly somewhere other than right into my ship. Let me worry about the navigation. You just worry about making us the biggest explosion seen in this system for a few thousand years or so.”
“On it,” Lopez said, her eyes entranced by the dancing lines of code on display. Volkov turned to her, struggling to mask the concern on his face. She was new to the Guilder systems, new even to the controls she was using, but she seemed to be handling the equipment better than anyone he had seen. He turned back to the viewscreen, for the first time able to take in the image on the display.
It was an awe-inspiring sight, two shattered halves of a formerly life-supporting world tumbling around each other, the area between swarming with billions of fragments of drifting rock. This had happened to Earth, four billion years ago, the process that had ultimately concluded with the formation of the Moon. Perhaps the same would happen here. Certainly the current situation was only temporary, the wink of an eye in cosmic time. Already the fragments were growing closer to each other, gravity doing its w
ork to draw the world back together once more. In a few million years, a planet would revolve around this star once more, and only a geologist would be able to tell what had happened here.
“Major,” the helmsman said, “We’ll be in the debris field in thirty seconds. No way to stop it now.” Turning to look at him, he added, “How long should I proceed, skipper?”
“I need the range reduced,” Lopez replied, answering the question for him. “I’ve to cut down the reaction time. I think the enemy sysop might have worked out what I’m doing.”
“Sixty seconds, helm,” Volkov said. “That’s the best I can do, Specialist. Sensors, I want a full-scan of all debris that might intercept. Feed the coordinates to our turret gunners of anything they can handle, and make sure the helm has plenty of warning of anything that could do us some damage. I don’t want anything bigger than a micron to hit our armor.”
“Trying, sir,” the young technician said, her eyes widening as amber warning lights flickered across her screen. “There’s just too much junk out there, Major. Our systems are struggling under the load, and we don’t have any reserve capacity.”
“Specialist,” Volkov said.
“I need all the processing power I can get, Major, and if I don’t pull this off, we’re wasting our time out here anyway. Thirty seconds, and I should be in.”
“We could be dead in thirty seconds,” Ivanov replied.
“Then, Lieutenant, all of this will be somebody else’s problem,” Lopez said, her eyes still locked on the screen, her hands still dancing over the controls. “I’m almost there.”
“Now entering debris field,” the helmsman said, and the pounding of the turret cannons began to echo through the ship, bolts of energy hurling through space in a desperate attempt to destroy at last some of the incoming asteroids before they could impact the hull. The onward trajectory track became a confused tangle as the helmsman struggled to find a safe path, weaving around objects registered by the sensors, making a hundred split-second decisions to navigate a way through. A loud report echoed from the deck above, and he looked up, almost expecting to see a crack opening to the void of cold, empty space beyond.
Never In Vain (Lincoln's War Book 2) Page 16