"How's that?" Singh asked disinterestedly as he continued to look over the work his crews had done earlier. Jackson answered him anyway.
"I always figured we would stand off hundreds of thousands of kilometers and lob long-range missiles at each other until someone got lucky," he said. "Despite the size and the velocity of the shells they can spit out, the mag-cannons are still basically thirteenth century tech ... you have to get in very close and you can't guide the weapon once it's fired."
"I agree there," Singh said, straightening up. "When I was first assigned to the Raptor-class I always thought the cannons were absolutely absurd. Although they would make a hell of a ship-to-surface weapon."
"A little like using a sledgehammer to kill an insect, but true," Jackson said.
"I've had crews inspecting the cannons and the turrets while we've been in warp," Singh said. "They'll hold up for this last fight. I can't promise the same about the rest of the ship."
"That bad?" Jackson said with a wince.
"Missing engine, leaking air from a few dozen hull breaches, power system fluctuating wildly, and significant structural damage just for good measure," Singh said. "No matter what happens at Nuovo Patria, this will be the old girl's last cruise."
"It already was," Jackson said, no longer seeing any need to keep the secret. "Ninth Squadron is being stood down. The Pontiac and the Crazy Horse are already heading to Sierra to be dismantled and scrapped."
"I guess we'll go out in style at least," Singh said.
****
"Stand by!"
The Blue Jacket bucked and shuddered under Jackson's feet as she transitioned back into real-space. Just as Jackson was about to order Nav to verify their position a flash outside blinded him. Before he could blink his eyes clear there was a tremendous boom felt throughout the ship and alarms began blaring.
"Are we under attack?!" he demanded.
"Negative, sir!" Lieutenant Davis shouted over the alarms. "One of the forward warp emitters broke loose from its mount and impacted the ship! We have breaches in the upper hull, outer and inner. Pressure hatches have failed and we're losing atmosphere on decks fourteen and fifteen."
"Seal off all pressure hatches on those decks!" Jackson snapped. "Try to contain this before we lose the whole damn ship!"
"Pressure hatches closed," Davis said. "We could only save seven compartments out of nineteen."
"How many crew?" Jackson asked, dread in his voice.
"Twenty-seven," Davis said quietly, her voice barely audible even with the alarms silenced. "Six were blown out of the ship when the hull was compromised."
"Daya! What the hell happened?" Jackson practically screamed into the intercom.
"The forward dorsal emitter broke loose from the arm sometime during the flight," Singh's voice came through the speakers. "It was held in place by the distortion ring created by the drive and was released when we transitioned back to real-space. It was still charged and exploded when it impacted the hull.
"There's more bad news, however ... the emitter still had the power cable attached. When it hit the hull it blew out four main power junctions. The dorsal mag-cannons are inoperable until we repair or bypass the affected junction."
"Get to work on it NOW!" Jackson barked. "Get your crews in pressure suits if you have to, but I need those cannons online as fast as you can possibly manage it. Coordinate your efforts through OPS. Bridge, out." He leaned back and rubbed at his eyes before looking at his bridge crew.
"Does anyone have any good news?"
"I've verified our position, sir," the spacer at Nav said. "We're on target, seventeen kilometers away from our intended entry point."
"That's good," Jackson said. "Coms?"
"We're getting normal com chatter, Captain," Lieutenant Keller said. "Drone platform, ships in orbit ... everything looks quiet. There's even an Eighth Fleet cruiser in orbit over Nuovo Patria."
"Send them a flash message and warn them we may have an enemy combatant arriving soon or hiding already in the system," Jackson said. "Don't be too detailed until they ask."
"It'll be nice not to be the only ship in the fight this time," Celesta remarked.
"Don't count on it," Jackson said. "Odds are they'll run if the enemy ship appears in their sky."
"Whereas we no longer have that option," Celesta said, gesturing out the "window" of the main display to the crumpled arm that used to hold one of the four forward warp drive emitters.
"No we don't," Jackson said. "This is where we'll make our last stand. Tactical! Begin scanning the system. If that thing has been here trying to repair itself I'd rather find it sooner than later."
It was the better part of an hour of frenetic activity on the bridge when they received their first com signal.
"Captain," Lieutenant Keller said. "That cruiser is demanding we fly a specific route down to Nuovo Patria and prepare to be boarded."
"There hasn't been enough time for them to receive our signal and send a response," Celesta said with a frown. "They sent that as soon as they had positive identification on our beacon when we transitioned into the system."
"Tell them we're severely damaged and will not be flying anywhere at the moment," Jackson said. "After that ignore any further transmissions from them."
"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Keller said, clearly uncomfortable with the order.
"Could it simply be because we're not scheduled to be in this system on this cruise?" Celesta asked.
"I would normally agree with that assessment," Jackson said. "But the request to board is highly unusual. I can only imagine Winters has sent out standing orders to the entire area. The only thing that does surprise me is an Eighth Fleet cruiser skipper actually giving a damn what a CENTCOM admiral wants."
"So what do we do"?"
"Nothing," Jackson said with a slight shrug. "We press ahead with repairs and stall over the coms as long as possible. I still believe that bastard is on his way here or, more likely, sitting somewhere in the system waiting for us to show up."
"Could that cruiser be of help if they entered the fray?" Celesta asked, raising her voice so that the bridge crew would lose interest in their private discussion.
"That cruiser is a bit newer, but if a Raptor-class destroyer has been taking such a beating from the alien ship that smaller ship would likely do little more than slow it down," Jackson said. "I'd almost rather they stay out of it than risk their crew to a no-win situation." They fell silent as the soft, almost relaxed murmur of the bridge belied the gravity of their situation and the manic state of the engineering crews that were already entering the damaged forward sections to try and get power restored to the dorsal cannons.
"Tactical! Where's my update?" Jackson called out.
"Working on it, sir," Lieutenant Barrett said. "The emitter took out the auxiliary high-power array when it exploded. Slag from the hull took out most of the antennas. I'm working with what we have left."
"Will we even be able to target the enemy?" Jackson asked.
"Yes, sir ... but it'll be a lot closer than we would like before the shorter range navigation radars pick it up," Barrett said. "I'm working with OPS and Engineering to tie my station into their system now."
"Keep me updated," Jackson said, fighting to keep the resignation out of his voice. Finding out that they had even less warning than they had before wasn't welcome news. "Coms, is that cruiser still calling us?"
"No, sir," Lieutenant Keller said. "After our declaration of engine trouble they haven't responded."
"Very good. Commander Wright, you have the bridge. I'm going to be checking the damage firsthand," Jackson said, climbing out of his seat.
****
"When these compartments were breached the explosive decompression was enough to get them through the gap and out of the influence of the grav generator," Singh was explaining. "We hadn't increased back to one G after transition so that didn't help. It wasn't anyone's fault, Jack. It was an accident."
"An accident?"
Jackson asked, incredulous.
"Yes," Singh said forcefully, "an accident. I've already looked at the damage to the truss for that emitter ... it didn't fail from any battle damage. This was a horrible, horrible coincidence. It likely would have happened even if we had flown to Xi'an and found nothing but a disinterested planetary governor and a boring few orbits before moving on. If anything this was my fault."
Jackson only then realized how personally the chief engineer was likely taking the mishap. "I didn't mean to imply—"
"I know that," Singh waved him off. "But I signed off on the drive against my better judgment. I could have insisted and sidelined the Blue Jacket once I realized we were bypassing months of testing and inspections after the clowns at Jericho Station had been climbing all over her. I didn't and now we know that was a lethal mistake."
"Sorry, Daya," Jackson said. "I suppose it's selfish of me to think all the guilt and regrets since this all started belong to me personally."
"There's plenty to go around," Singh agreed. "I'll let you know when we have a definite plan of attack. My gut tells me to lay new runs from the panel two sections back all the way to the turret. But if my guys tell me the lines are all still good and the junctions can be replaced that would be the quicker route."
"Thank for the tour," Jackson said, recognizing a dismissal when he heard one. "I'll be on the bridge when you determine what we should do."
He walked back the way he’d come, skirting around the worst of the damage and staying out of the way by moving back towards the lifts via the port access tube. Since most of the personnel and material were moving forward in the starboard tube the enormous tunnel was practically deserted.
That big bastard was out there somewhere ... waiting. Jackson knew that the alien ship had arrived at Nuovo Patria before the Blue Jacket had limped into the system. He could feel it in his gut. What he couldn't figure out was why it was waiting. That Eighth Fleet cruiser wasn't enough to pose any real threat to it even as badly as it had been damaged. So far as he knew the damn thing had already healed itself up and was sitting at full strength.
The only conclusion he could come to was that it was waiting for him. Or, more specifically, the Blue Jacket herself. He guessed that it had torn through two systems, at least two that he knew of, without ever encountering any real resistance. Then their single destroyer had fought it to a standstill on multiple occasions and had even punched a hole clean through it. It was probable that part of its mission profile during its sojourn into human space would be to analyze any potential threats. If it was sitting out there waiting for them it would only be because it hoped to capture the destroyer and either dissect it or (more likely) take it back to wherever it came from. Neither proposition sounded especially appealing.
****
"That cruiser is beginning to move," Celesta told him as he walked back onto the bridge.
"Direction?"
"It's breaking orbit," Lieutenant Barrett said. "It looks like they'll pick up some speed around Nuovo Patria before coming out to intercept us."
"How old is this information?" Jacksons asked.
"Just over four hours," Barrett said. "She's still broadcasting nav data on her transponder, so we're updating the plot as we receive it."
"Any messages from them?" Jackson asked over his shoulder to where the com officer sat.
"No, Captain," the officer said. "Still nothing but the automated transmissions from them and the com drone platform."
"They're more than a day from getting here at their current acceleration," Jackson said as he looked at the tracks crawling across the main display. "Keep track of it and alert me to any changes, but for now it doesn't factor in to our immediate plans."
"Aye aye, sir."
It was nearly four hours later when Jackson got the call from his chief engineer regarding the upper cannon turret. He had ordered the Blue Jacket into a wide, lazy arc that spiraled down into the system under minimal thrust. As a courtesy, he kept his transponder fully active so the cruiser would know that he wasn't trying to hide. In a worst case scenario the destroyer, even on three engines, could easily outrun the smaller ship and he had the advantage of the "high ground," able to use the star's gravity to assist his maneuvers while the smaller ship fought against it.
"What's the verdict?" he asked Singh over a video link. Both were seated in their respective offices.
"As I suspected, the damage to the power junctions was simply massive, far too great to attempt a repair and have any confidence of it holding," Singh said, sipping on a cup of tea and wiping the black smudges off his face with a rag.
"So you need to lay in an entire run from section fifty-five all the way to the turret?" Jackson asked. "Do you even have the right size cable in a length that great?"
"I do not," Singh said. "We're cannibalizing it from the starboard laser banks. There's a continuous run of cable that's actually larger than what we need. It's also not damaged like the run on the port side since we never got those projectors working."
"How long are we actually talking?"
"A little over fifty meters would be ideal," Singh said.
"I don't imagine that this cable will be easy to extract from the starboard side," Jackson said, rubbing his temples again.
"I'm throwing manpower at it to solve that particular problem," Singh assured him. "It's secured in there tightly, but we'll get it pulled out in the next couple of hours. We should be able to test the cannons within the next six."
"Let's hope the enemy gives us that much time."
"You still think it's already in the system with us?" Singh asked.
"I'm absolutely positive that it is," Jackson said. "It probably is trying to figure out what we're doing skulking along the edge of the system. Once it discovers we're severely damaged I have a feeling it won't waste any time launching an attack."
"Well, here's to hoping you're wrong," Singh said, mockingly saluting with his tea cup. "I'll let you know once my crews have pulled that cable and I've had the chance to inspect it. Engineering out."
Jackson spent the next few hours chugging coffee and studying the sensor logs from their past engagement with the enemy ship, hoping something would pop out that he'd overlooked before. He was desperate to find some weakness he could exploit. The problem was that he already knew the ship was susceptible to kinetic weapons and, conveniently, the mag-cannons were all he had left that was functional on his ship.
Given the sheer size of the enemy, however, he wasn't that confident that another full salvo would be able to permanently disable it even if every shell impacted the same area. Idly, he pulled up another screen and began running the calculations on a plan that was nothing short of insane. As his caffeine-addled mind looked at the results, he knew that it had at least a sixty percent chance of working despite how unworkable it was. He saved the program he'd constructed on the secure bridge server and switched off his terminal. Lieutenant Davis would be coming on watch so he only had around six hours to grab something to eat and get some rest before he was expected back on duty. With a weary sigh, he hauled himself up out of his chair and shuffled to the hatch. Living on adrenaline and coffee for the last week had taken its toll on his body and even his joints ached as he walked down the corridor to his quarters.
Chapter 20
"Tactical, we've just been given the go ahead from Engineering," Jackson said as he slid back into his seat six and a half hours after he'd last climbed out of it. "Begin running a full diagnostic cycle of the dorsal turret. Have Armament load in some solid-core shells and we'll test fire both cannons."
"Aye, sir," Lieutenant Barrett said. "Beginning dorsal turret self-test now and requesting solid-core shells for both cannons, one each."
"Sir, that cruiser is accelerating again," Lieutenant Davis said. "Still not pushing too hard but it looks like they're responding to our maneuvers."
"Let me know when they're in range for two-way communication," Jackson said. "What ship is that anyway? Who'
s the captain?"
"The TCS Murmansk," Davis said. "Captain Agapov commanding."
"Send any other useful information we have on the ship and her captain to my terminal," Jackson said. "Otherwise, proceed with our current course and weapons testing."
"Have you heard of Captain Agapov?" Celesta asked.
"No," Jackson said. "I haven't had much contact with Eighth Fleet. We've only been to Alliance space one other time. Most of our cruises are through New America and Britannia. You?"
"Never heard of him," she said with a shake of her head. "We never made it out this close to the frontier. But most Eighth Fleet COs I've been in contact with were a prickly bunch."
"That's been my experience as well," Jackson said as he watched the barrels from the dorsal cannons move left and right, pitching up and down as they did to verify their full range of motion. "I'll try to talk to him once they're within range, but I have a feeling we're going to be trying to avoid him."
"Another complication is something we don't need," Celesta said.
"I couldn't agree more, but unless I want to open fire on a Terran ship I don't have a lot of other options," Jackson said. "If my hunch is correct, the enemy will eventually come at us so the more distance between us and the Murmansk the better it is for them."
"Lucky them," Celesta remarked before turning back to the test data she had scrolling across her screen.
It was almost a full hour later when the rails on the cannons had fully charged and they picked out their test target: an irregular moon with nothing of interest on it orbiting the tenth planet, another uninteresting lump that was skimming along the very outer edge of the star's influence. The moon was over two hundred million kilometers away so they'd never see the impacts, but the point of the test was just to ensure the operation of the cannons.
"Firing solution confirmed and the rails are charged, Captain," Barrett said.
"Fire," Jackson said, averting his gaze from the blast he knew would be coming. Two booms rang through the hull as the two dorsal cannons fired in quick succession.
Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship Page 20