"Yes, sir."
"Another plasma burst is building up on the target's starboard flank," Davis warned. Jackson looked at their range and saw they were still nearly seventy thousand kilometers apart. With the Blue Jacket under emergency acceleration they would pass within minutes at their closest point, forty-eight thousand kilometers, before the range would begin to increase again. Even with a reactionless drive he didn't think the massive alien ship would be able to turn and pursue before they could get a decent lead on it.
"Maintain heading," he said. He received an alert that the forward-facing missile tubes were loaded, but they'd closed the range so much that he had no chance to fire and allow them to track into the enemy. The Avengers were interceptor-type missiles that worked best when able to cross an incoming ship's course in a head-on pass. Jackson looked over at the armament panel and saw he had no heavy beams available on his forward starboard quadrant. Whatever the enemy was about to do he had nothing to answer with.
"Target is accelerating tangentially from its original course," Celesta called in alarm. "It's closing the range quickly!"
"Helm, fire starboard thrusters, fore and aft!" Jackson ordered. He wanted to crab the Blue Jacket away from the incoming behemoth, but the small attitude thrusters were only meant to change the orientation of the ship, not push it onto a new course.
"No effect, Captain," the helmsman reported. "Her inertia is too great."
"Cease thrusting," Jackson said in irritation. "Commander Wright, send localized warnings to the compartments on the starboard side. Tell them to get out of there and prepare damage control teams. This won't be an exploratory jab like the last hit was."
"Enemy ship is firing," Davis said, her voice tight with fear. Jackson watched on the display as the high-energy thermal distortion on their sensors heralded the destructive plasma charge that was bearing down on them. He looked on in helpless frustration. The Blue Jacket could do nothing to alter her course in time to avoid the incoming fire. "Impact in seven seconds!"
"Sound the alert," Jackson said even as klaxons began to wail throughout the ship.
There was a few seconds of silence before it felt like a vengeful god struck the destroyer amidships, the hull ringing and warping from the blow. Alarms blared on the bridge and warnings scrolled across every display.
"Direct hit on the starboard flank!" Davis yelled over the alarms. "Hull breeches reported in the affected area. Sections twenty-seven through thirty-five, decks four through seven are open to space! Inner hatches are sealed and damage control teams have been notified."
"Casualties?" Jackson asked, trying to concentrate on tracking the enemy ship.
"Nine crew unaccounted for," she said.
Jackson swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat.
"Confirm what the tactical array is showing," he said. "Is the enemy slowing down and coming about?"
"Confirmed," Celesta said from the command chair. "It's not only coming about, it's accelerating at a rate we can't match. Five hundred G's and increasing."
"That's impossible!" the operator at the Nav station hissed.
"Apparently not," Jackson said grimly. "Ensign Davis, get ahold of someone in Armament and find out if the rear launch tubes are still unavailable. I've got no status on my display. Helm, how are the engines holding up?"
"I had to throttle back to eighty percent, Captain," the helmsman said apologetically. "Plasma chamber temps were reaching critical and output on number two was starting to fluctuate."
"Very well," Jackson said. "Keep me informed." He knew Engineering would already know about the engine status so he didn't bother to call down and harass Singh in the middle of a gunfight when the Blue Jacket had just had her hull peeled back like a tuna can. The stress of trying to command the ship while having to concentrate on operating the tactical station was beginning to take its toll. The only thing he knew for certain was that this engagement would be over soon ... one way or another.
"Enemy ship is approaching on an intercept angle that will put them off our starboard flank in two minutes," Celesta said, watching all the sensor feeds from her station.
"Helm, go to zero thrust," Jackson said. "Spin the Blue Jacket about one hundred and eighty degrees along her Z-axis and then engage the engines, full astern."
"Yes, sir," the helmsman said, foregoing the traditional command responses as he frantically executed the maneuver. The Blue Jacket swung around ponderously until she was flying backwards, her nose now pointing at the pursuing alien ship. There was a change in the pitch of the engines as they came back up, their thrust now accelerating the destroyer backwards at full power.
"Go ahead and cheat her a little to starboard," Jackson said as he selected his armament. "I want to take them down the port flank if possible."
"Yes, sir."
"Enemy vessel will overtake us in seventy seconds," Davis said tightly. Jackson selected all the heavy beamers on the port flank, eighteen pulse laser projectors that made up a nearly two hundred petawatt broadside, enough to boil away meters of starship hull material in seconds. The projectors would feed off the massive capacitor bank that would be drained after two volleys, after which the Blue Jacket would try to break contact and use its other armament to keep an enemy at bay while the reactors recharged them.
Unfortunately, the capacitors were as old as everything else on the ship, and just as neglected as the rest of the weapons, so he was counting on a single, partial volley before the system melted down. Nevertheless, it was the most potent weapon he had and he planned on bringing it to bear. He selected cascading fire mode, highlighted the incoming target, and specified the area along the port flank where the plasma bursts seemed to be generated from.
"I'm going to try and hit it as they fly by," Jackson said. "Be ready to reverse thrust and begin braking."
"Sir, the alien ship is slowing down," Celesta said. He looked at his own display and saw the ship decelerating violently and at a rate that would put it at a relative stop only fifteen hundred meters off their port side.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," he said. "They may be trying to capture this ship."
"Why?"
"We can discuss the enemy's tactics in debrief, Commander," Jackson said shortly. "Stand by for a shoot and run maneuver and you'd better go ahead and alert Major Ortiz he may be repelling boarders." He waited quietly as the enemy slipped into range, watching it edge close, careful to stay just behind the missile launch tubes.
"Helm, zero thrust," Jackson said. "Steady as she goes and be ready for a hard braking maneuver."
"Yes, sir," the helmsman croaked, looking in horror at the display as they could actually see the alien ship looming out of the black towards them.
"Sir?" Celesta whispered, as if irrationally afraid the enemy could hear her.
"Firing!" Jackson said, flipping the switch again to let loose a massive broadside.
There was a flash on the leading edge of the enemy ship and then a fresh barrage of alarms. Quickly looking at his terminal, he realized only two projectors had fired one pulse each before the power system failed. His heart sank as he looked at the feed from the optical sensors trained on the target and saw the shot had barely blown a divot out of the oddly textured material.
"Engineering is reporting the power trunk to the port side capacitor bank has failed," Celesta said quietly. "Fifteen capacitors exploded and there was a powerful enough arc from another that it killed a technician and destroyed the control system to the amidships thrusters."
Jackson stared at the ship off the Blue Jacket's port flank before slamming his fist into the tactical console in such a rare emotional outburst that everyone on the bridge actually jumped despite the danger lurking just outside.
"Suggestions?" he asked his crew, turning the seat to face them. Nobody spoke for a long moment.
"Don't let them take us alive, Captain," the chief sitting at the navigation console said.
"We can't even scuttle the ship," Celest
a argued. "We have no nukes, nothing that can take her out."
"That may not be true," Jackson said, bringing up a submenu on his display and entering all the credentials needed to access the system that nobody but him knew about.
"Sir, the enemy is moving again," Ensign Davis said. "They're drifting in closer to us. Ten meters per second closure rate."
"The arrogant bastard knows we can't hurt him," Jackson ground out. As he began carefully entering a command sequence, ignoring the questioning looks from his crew, he saw a green indicator wink on from the display to his left. He looked at it and blinked in disbelief. "Why the hell not?" he muttered, pausing the script he'd been entering on the right terminal.
"Sir?" Ensign Davis asked, her voice strong and steady but her eyes wide and hands trembling.
"Helm, stand by," Jackson said. "I'm going to be feeding you course corrections fast and furious in a few minutes."
"Standing by, Captain."
He selected the blinking green indicator on his armament panel with a certain amount of doubt. He doubted that the system would actually work and, if it did, that it would actually do any damage. Looking up through the "window" of the main display he could see the two barrels of the upper mag-cannon turret give a twitch as power surged into the system. It was a promising sign that he hoped was mirrored by the belly turret.
He selected deep penetrator, high-explosive rounds for all four cannons and selected the spot on the enemy ship he wanted targeted. The enormous ship was still drifting in at its leisurely rate and tendrils could be seen beginning to break away from the hull. Jackson figured they were grapplers that would be grabbing the Blue Jacket in a few minutes if his idea didn't work.
"Say a prayer to whoever the hell it is you believe in, everyone," Jackson said, his finger hovering over the execute button. He pushed it down firmly and watched as the upper turret swung quickly to the left and the barrels gimbaled down slightly. There were brilliant flashes of light and the ship shook with tremendous booms as the fifteen-hundred-millimeter cannons spat out hardened shells at hypersonic velocity directly into an enemy ship that was far too close to dodge or intercept them.
The damage was incredible. Each shell blasted into the ship leaving a neat, circular entry hole as the four cannons peppered the port side of the target with over sixteen shots before the first shell's timed fuse ran down and the high-explosive charge detonated. This heralded the beginning of a cascading explosion that could be seen rippling underneath the skin of the ship's hull, the light from the explosions actually shining through it. Twenty shells fired in total before the cannons fell silent and the powerplant ramped up to begin recharging the capacitors.
Despite the devastating attack, the affected area was still relatively small compared to how large the vessel was. It was apparently enough to give it second thoughts, however, and it lurched away from the Blue Jacket, streaming some sort of viscous substance that froze when it was ejected into space.
"Target is moving away!" Ensign Davis nearly shouted in relief. "No detectable plasma charges on its surface. I don't think they're going to return fire."
"Stay sharp!" Jackson cut off the few tiny celebrations that had begun to break out on the bridge. "Where's it going?"
"Tracking," Celesta said, studying the sensor data. The enemy had already put a lot of distance between itself and the destroyer and was still accelerating. "It looks like they could be heading back to Podere."
"You're certain about that?" Jackson asked, climbing out from behind the tactical station.
"Not completely certain, no. But that's the only thing along that trajectory," she said. "If they simply wanted to put distance between us and them it would have been easier to accelerate along the course we were already on. They have to know we can't match their acceleration."
"Helm, turn us back around," Jackson ordered, ordering Celesta out of his seat with a wave of his hand. "Nav, plot us a course back to Podere that takes advantage of the velocity we're already carrying. We can't afford to stop and accelerate back towards the planet."
"Course plotted, Captain," the chief said. "We'll need to accelerate along this arc and get an assist from the fifth planet. That will swing us back around on an intercept course with Podere."
"Very well. Helm, get us moving on that course, ahead full."
"Ahead full, aye," the helmsman said as the Blue Jacket finished spinning about so her nose was pointed back in the direction she was flying.
"Verify target's position," Jackson ordered.
"Target is verified at seventy thousand kilometers and increasing," Ensign Davis said. "Their acceleration profile is only fifteen percent of what we've seen before but they're turning directly towards the planet."
"That will still put them there ahead of us, but not by much," Celesta said. "Do you think we damaged their drive?"
"I wish I knew," Jackson said, feeling lightheaded as he came down off such an enormous adrenaline rush. "Those shells seemed to get pretty good penetration at that range. The fact it didn't return fire makes me think we scrambled something in there. Maybe their power system."
"That was some last minute tactic," Celesta said quietly. "But that wasn't what you were originally working on at the tactical station, was it?"
"We'll discuss it later," Jackson said, cutting her off. "Since we're getting some distance let's start rotating people out for breaks. It will be quite a while before we're heading back to Podere."
****
"Holy shit, that was lucky," Specialist Ormond remarked as they rotated out of their work area for a short break.
"There are more than a few dead spacers who would disagree with you," Chief Cullen said from beside him. The pair had been able to get out of the starboard engineering compartments before the first blast had opened the ship up. "That incompetent Earther has let this ship get into a close engagement with a superior enemy twice now. If you ask me he's chasing this thing."
"He seemed to do pretty well," Ormond said without much conviction. He had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours and most of that spent under the tension of potential combat. He never realized how terrifying it would be ... stuck in the lower decks, hearing the ship getting hit and taking damage without being able to know what was actually happening. Cullen grabbed him around the shoulder and roughly guided him into a small alcove in the work center that was lined with lockers and had a single bench.
"You can't really believe that?" he asked, staring intensely at Ormond.
"All I know is I'm tired, Chief, and I could use something to eat," Ormond said, wanting to get away.
"You know Wolfe had Chief Kazenski locked up, right?" Cullen asked.
"Yeah ... for trying to start—"
"He wasn't starting anything," Cullen snapped. "He was doing his job. If you have some rogue CO putting the entire ship at danger, not to mention our lives, it's his responsibility to take action. Is it not?"
"I ... suppose," Ormond said, looking around and hoping nobody would hear the conversation.
"Damn right," Cullen whispered so savagely that spittle flew from his mouth and landed on Ormond's cheek. "Listen ... there are some of us who aren't real keen on dying so our token Earther CO can prove he deserves his seat. We have a plan where nobody gets hurt, nobody gets in trouble. Can we count on you?"
"What would I have to do?" Ormond asked.
"I asked a yes or no question," Cullen said.
"Uh ... yeah, Chief," Ormond said, feeling utterly helpless. "You know you can always count on me."
"That's what I told everyone else," Cullen said with a sudden smile. "Since you work in the MUX control room we have a special job for you. But don't worry ... with the damage we've taken hopefully even someone as dense as Jackson Wolfe will know it's time to fly us back to Haven and call in the big ships to deal with this thing."
Cullen walked out of the alcove without another word, leaving Ormond standing there with the burden of a terrible choice on his shoulders.
; Chapter 14
"Have a seat, Lieutenant Barrett," Jackson said as his still-shaken tactical officer stepped into his office. He waited until the young officer was seated and settled before continuing.
"I'm not one for tiptoeing around a subject, so what the hell happened out there, Lieutenant?"
"Captain Wolfe," Barrett said, looking Jackson straight in the eye, "I can only apologize for my performance, but I offer no excuses. I failed and I will accept the consequences of that."
Jackson had started out furious at Barrett, but he grudgingly had to admit he was impressed that the young man didn't come in with a list of excuses as to why he’d frozen up. It was a trait he appreciated.
"Michael, I'm looking at your drill scores and your training records," Jackson said, idly flipping through the file on his tile. "You've consistently been my top performer and have had an exemplary record while serving aboard the Blue Jacket. The lack of disciplinary action alone makes you a standout." Sadly, that hadn't been a joke.
"I'm going to be straight with you ... I don't have anyone else to replace you with. We're chasing this thing across the system in the hopes we can close on it before it can wipe out Podere like it has Xi'an and Oplotom. I can't be tied up at the tactical station and Commander Wright doesn't know the system well enough yet to run it in combat."
"I can do my job, sir," Barrett said with conviction. "I won't let you down again."
"We're all scared, Lieutenant," Jackson said. "Here is where I would usually give you a stirring speech about rising to the occasion and not letting your fear own you, but I think you'd only feel worse after that. All I'm going to say is this: Get your ass back to your station, Lieutenant, and study the previous engagement. Learn everything you can about it and you damn well better not lock up on me again. Am I clear?"
"Crystal clear, Captain," Barrett said sharply.
Jackson stared at him for a moment longer.
"Dismissed," he said finally. "Send Commander Wright and Ensign Davis in on your way out."
Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship Page 15