by D. J. Holmes
Since Lightfoot had left, James had been comparing himself to the more senior Captain. He knew he had done well in the difficult situations he had found himself in as the commander of Drake. Yet the past week of operations as a Captain of a warship had begun to show he wasn’t quite the invincible Captain he had thought himself to be. Lightfoot had handled the stress of being chased like sheep by a pack of wolves through the New Shanghai system without letting it influence his command ability. James had felt the pressure building and building until he knew he had been performing well below his optimal. He was beginning to realize there was a reason why the Admiralty had a slow process of promoting someone up the chain of command. It took time to develop true command capabilities, capabilities that only came after years of experience. Lightfoot had spent over six years as a Captain of a warship. James’ two years as the Commander of a survey ship didn’t even come close. Nevertheless, Rear Admiral Jensen saw something in him and Captain Lightfoot had entrusted this mission to him. That was something.
In the old style naval books he had been rereading, the Captain often took a tour of his ship before combat. Sitting in his command chair reflecting on the coming battle, James decided that he would do the same. “Romanov, you have the bridge. I’m going to carry out a quick tour of the ship. Please don’t inform anyone I’m coming. I’d like it to be a surprise.”
When Romanov nodded he strode out of the bridge. He chose to make his way to the engineering section first and then work his way back to the bridge. As he walked in Chief O’Neil had an access panel open on number three reactor and was tinkering with something inside. One of his officers tried to warn him about his Captain’s approach but James waved the ensign off. When he got right behind the Chief, James shouted in his best command voice, “attention on deck.”
Chief O’Neil swore as he immediately tried to straighten up and banged his head, dropping whatever tool he was holding. A few snickers escaped some lips and, as James looked around, he could see more than a few of the engineering crew trying to hold back smiles. The Chief continued a string of expletives as he picked up his tool and turned to see who had startled him. As soon as he saw it was the Captain he cut off mid-sentence. “Eh, Captain. Eh, I mean, my apologies Captain. I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me.”
“Don’t worry yourself Chief. I thought I would take a tour of the ship before the battle commences. I’m glad to find you so engrossed in your work.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir. There has been a slight energy fluctuation in reactor two so I was taking this opportunity to make sure it wouldn’t develop into something more serious once the fighting begins.” Only once he had finished speaking did the Chief manage to look past his Captain to see many of his crew staring, some with open smiles on their faces. Glaring at them he continued, “I only hope my example will rub off on this useless lot of space vermin. Sometimes I despair at the men and women the Admiralty sees fit to recruit.”
Turning to take in the men and women who were watching them, James saw that the Chief’s outburst had actually managed to increase the number of people who were openly enjoying the Chief’s discomfort. “Oh I don’t know Chief,” James said. “It looks like you have a fine group of engineers here. You might want to designate someone to give you a heads up the next time an important member of the command staff comes down to engineering though. It might save you a bit of bother.”
That brought a couple of chuckles from the bystanders. The Chief dismissed them with an angry wave of his fist. “Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”
“No Chief, I just wanted to show my face before we go into battle. I trust you have everything under control.” Turning to address the engineering crew directly James said, “We’ll be counting on you all back up in the bridge. I know Chief O’Neil will make sure you all do your best. Good luck everyone.” With that he shook the Chief’s hand and turned to leave. As he walked out a couple of shouts followed him, wishing him good luck or welcoming him back to engineering any time, before Chief O’Neil’s angry voice directed them all back to work.
As he toured through the various weapons stations, the marine barracks and the auxiliary bridge, James found very similar situations. Everyone was giving their equipment a once over in preparation for the approaching battle. Nerves were clearly high but James did the best he could to put people at ease and bring out a few chuckles. In the auxiliary bridge he had a quiet word with Lieutenant Gupta reminding her that if they managed to make contact with the Chinese convoy doing as much destruction as possible was paramount; more important than getting the ship home in one piece. If they could stop just one supply shipment from getting to V17 it would weaken the whole Chinese fleet there.
As he exited the auxiliary bridge his personal COM beeped. “Captain,” Lieutenant Romanov began in an exited voice, “we have ships exiting shift space all around us.” Without even bothering to reply, James sprinted down and around the corridor he was in to the nearest turbolift. Thirty seconds later he burst through the bridge doors and threw himself into the command chair. Looking at Romanov he half shouted, “Status report?”
The Lieutenant already had the sensor plot on the main holo display. Pointing to it he explained the situation. “We’ve picked up forty six ships that have exited shift space. So far we’ve identified five warships with a possible three more. The rest are all freighters.”
From the plot James could see that Raptor was almost right in the middle of the formation. “That’s way more ships than our intel suggested. This must be an important convoy. Have they spotted us yet?”
“No sir,” Romanov answered, “the warships are just now beginning to scan local space with their secondary radar arrays. They’ll pick us up in the next minute or so I believe.”
“Very well, how many warships are in missile range?”
With a single command Romanov changed the holo display to only show the warships. “There is a destroyer off our port bow just outside plasma cannon range, a light cruiser off our starboard bow a little further out. One frigate is at the edge of our missile range. The other destroyer and three frigates we’ve detected are all further off.”
“Ok, navigation, as soon as we open fire take us towards that destroyer at full speed. Romanov, on my mark fire a full spread of missiles from each broadside at the destroyer and the light cruiser. Then target the plasma cannons at the destroyer. We’ll still get hits even though they are just outside our maximum range, we just won’t be able to penetrate their armor. Hopefully we’ll cause enough confusion to help our missiles get through. Target as many freighters as possible with our forward and stern tubes. After you have fired the first salvos I want you to hand over control of the starboard missiles tubes to the auxiliary bridge. They are to keep hitting that light cruiser as hard as possible. I want you focused on the port missiles tubes. As soon as we take out that destroyer I want you to switch everything towards hitting as many freighters as possible.”
“Understood Captain,” Romanov acknowledged.
“Everybody else know what they’re doing?” James asked the bridge at large. After a chorus of, “yes sir,” James looked back to Romanov. “Fire.”
Instantly, fourteen missiles erupted from Raptor, announcing her presence to the Chinese convoy. They were closely followed by a rain of plasma bolts that pierced their way through space towards the Chinese destroyer. Accelerated to almost the speed of light, the first plasma bolts reached it only a handful of seconds after the ship’s sensors had detected the British ship. The bridge crew hadn’t had time to react before damage reports started coming in. Unable to penetrate the valstronium armor the plasma bolts were still able to damage the point defense weapons and sensors that bristled on the hull of the ship.
James wanted to cross his fingers as the seconds ticked by without any response from the Chinese ships. Every moment of delay greatly increased his chances of doing some serious damage to the convoy. Even as they watched a freighter exploded. It ha
d been close enough for Raptor’s point defense plasma canons to reach. Checking to see what happened James saw Romanov had the foresight to designate the freighters as secondary targets for the point defense weapons to engage if there was no in incoming missiles. Realizing what the Second Lieutenant had done James called to the navigation officer, “Keep us heading for that destroyer but if you can get us close enough to another freighter for the point defense weapons to take it out do so.”
“Yes sir,” Sub Lieutenant Jackson said.
A full minute after the first plasma cannon bolts had begun to pepper the hull of the destroyer it finally opened fire. James was alerted by the new beeps that came from the gravimetric sensors, announcing five new contacts heading their way. This was closely followed by another set of contacts as the light cruiser also fired eight missiles at Raptor.
Ignoring those threats for the moment, James watched his six missiles close with the destroyer. They had loaded their final penetrator missile in one of the port tubes and so the first salvo was going to do the destroyer a lot of damage. James didn’t know whether to thank his lucky stars that they had the penetrator missile already aimed at the closest threat or not. A part of him would have liked to be able to fire it at the light cruiser in the hope it would have kept it off his back for a while.
He could only play with the cards he was dealt however and, as he watched, the Chinese point defenses began to try and pick off his missiles. As they entered range of the AM missiles there were three remaining. Only one was destroyed, the other two closed in for the kill. One scored a proximity hit along the destroyer’s stern while the second ploughed right into the midsection of the destroyer and exploded. On the visuals James could see a gaping wound where two of the destroyer’s missile tubes had been. As he switched the display to zoom in on the stern of the destroyer where the second missile had scored a proximity hit, he saw a volley of plasma bolts rip through the ship’s engine compartments. The proximity hit had burnt off enough of the valstronium armor to allow the plasma cannons to penetrate what remained. Once they began to punch through the destroyer’s armor, they tore through the innards of the ship, causing a number of secondary explosions. The fourth plasma bolt actually blew through the rear of the ship, taking out one of the engines and immediately sending the destroyer into a sharp roll. The ship desperately fired off its maneuvering thrusters to try and arrest the roll and bring its weapons to bear but they barely made a difference. Without being able to stabilize itself the destroyer no longer posed a threat to Raptor.
With the demise of the destroyer, Romanov fired off another missile salvo from the port missile tubes. He had been holding back from firing another broadside at the destroyer until he saw the effects of the first. Now the six missiles raced off, each one in pursuit of a freighter. Already the freighters were doing their best to flee from the British warship. On the main holo display it looked like someone had thrown a stone into a 3D lake. The freighters formed what looked like ripples heading off in all directions emanating from Raptor’s central position on the plot. As James watched, two of the closest freighters disappeared even before the latest missiles began to close with their targets. Romanov had begun to pick off those in range of the heavy plasma cannons.
Raptor’s free rein had come to an end though as James was alerted to the fact that the first Chinese missiles were approaching by the sound of the flak cannon firing. The distinctive whirring noise of the electromagnets rapidly accelerating flak rounds brought his attention back to Raptor’s survival. “Romanov, pass control of the heavy plasma cannons to me. You focus on taking out the incoming missiles,” James shouted over all the alarms that were going off on the bridge.
Confident that Romanov could handle the first five missiles coming in from the now incapacitated destroyer, James focused on taking out the two freighters that were coming into range of his plasma cannons. He spared the occasional glance to see how the duel with the light cruiser was going. There were now two volleys of missiles from the light cruiser approaching his ship. In turn, there were three on their way towards the Chinese warship.
Having dealt with the five from the destroyer, Romanov quickly took out four of the first eight from the cruiser with the flak cannon. Three more fell to the short-range point defense weapons. The fourth scored a proximity hit. Everyone on the bridge was thrown around but before James could ask, Gupta called over the open COM channel to the auxiliary bridge. “No major damage sir, we’ve lost a fair bit of our armor but it’s reshaping itself to fill in the gaps now.”
There was too much going on for James to double check Gupta’s report. He had to focus on taking out as many freighters as he could. When the second salvo from the Chinese light cruiser got into point defense range, James handed over command of the heavy plasma cannons to Romanov. The chance they could hit any of the dodging missiles with them was slim but combined with the other point defense weapons they allowed Romanov to fill a larger area of space with explosive energy.
The eight missiles reduced to four as the flak cannon did its work. Next the smaller point defense plasma cannons took out two more. To James’ amazement the AM missiles Raptor launched to intercept the larger Chinese missiles all failed to hit their targets. The final two missiles then closed with Raptor. Sub Lieutenant Jackson, who was manning the navigation console, launched Raptor into a series of evasive maneuvers. They succeeded in preventing either missile from getting a direct hit but both exploded less than five hundred meters from the hull. As the explosive power crashed into Raptor, large sections of valstronium armor were torn off along with vital point defense plasma cannons and anti-missile launchers. Once the inertial dampeners had compensated for the high g-forces from the concussive force of the explosions, James was able to review the damage. Raptor’s point defense network was seriously compromised. Looking over at one of the secondary holo displays, he reviewed the list of confirmed kills. Thirteen freighters were gone. The destroyer they had initially crippled had also been finished off with a missile Romanov had sent after it as he waited for more targets to get into range. Still, they hadn’t done enough to seriously disrupt the convoy, another twenty freighters were trying to get away from the charging Raptor.
“Navigation, work up a micro jump to get us out of here,” James ordered. “Stand by for my mark. We’ll have to take another salvo from that light cruiser but as soon as we’ve taken out enough freighters, we’re out of here.” The same thing that trapped the Chinese convoy in the shift passage meant that Raptor could escape when she wanted to. Having jumped into the area hours before her jump capacitors were fully charged. The Chinese ships would still be charging theirs and so couldn’t escape Raptor’s missiles nor give chase when she decided to jump out.
With one eye, James watched the steady approach of the second salvo from the light cruiser. Already three salvos from Raptor had crashed into it but without any penetrator missiles the light cruiser was shrugging Raptor’s attacks off. James judged they had maybe scored two proximity hits but the thicker armor on the light cruiser enabled it to weather them much better.
With his other eye, he watched the main holo display and the fleeing freighters. The computer was predicting they would be in range of another four before the Chinese missiles made themselves felt. After that Raptor could get in range of another nine before the fourth spread of missiles came crashing home. James was under no illusions. Raptor might not survive the next missiles coming in, never mind a fourth salvo. Still, they had a mission to complete. Both Jensen and Lightfoot had entrusted him with this responsibility. As much as he wanted to run to safety the weight of their expectations held him in a firm grip. Besides, it was the job of a King’s warship to put itself in harm’s way, James said to himself with irony. After the attack on the Swedish colony ship he had hoped never to be facing a similar situation again.
A shout broke his concentration as Romanov pumped his fists, “I nailed him.”
James checked the feed from the tactical console
to see a replay of one of the frigates getting too close to Raptor and being shredded by her heavy plasma cannons. That was one less threat to worry about.
Almost as soon as the last missile streaked off after another freighter, the third salvo of eight Chinese missiles came accelerating into range of Raptor’s point defenses. This time the anti-missiles fared a lot better and only one missile survived to try and make contact with Raptor. Again Sub Lieutenant Jackson threw the ship into a series of evasive maneuvers but to no avail. The single missile managed to get a glancing blow amidships. The angle of the contact meant much of its explosive force was projected out into space. Yet even the fraction of the force that was directed against the hull was devastating. The valstronium armor was blown away as if it was made of steel. Four point defense plasma cannons and three anti-missile launchers were vaporized. The force of the thermonuclear blast blew its way into the ship, crumpling reinforced bulkheads and taking out two missiles tubes along with the twenty men and women who manned them. The force continued into the ship, taking out almost half of the starboard crew quarters. Thankfully, no hands were lost as everyone was at their battle stations. The concussive force momentarily overloaded the inertial dampeners, throwing many of the crew around the ship like rag dolls.