by Tyler Totten
As their game of cat-and-mouse approached the ninety minute mark, the tension ratcheted up again, abruptly this time.
“Fort Totten just dropped stealth, she’s pouring on the speed. I’m getting solid returns from passive alone now. That Gnevny is going to see her now. At least 110% on both fusion reactors.” Johnson sounded like she might be getting a little shaky, tracking what was no longer a slow game of cat and mouse.
“Easy does it now everyone, their doing their jobs, let’s do ours.” Athena soothed, still watching the tactical display. She watched as the indicators around the icon for Fort Totten flashed. First, Totten’s own active sensors flared to life, firming up her own firing solutions. Then, her targeting radar drilled the Gnevny and loosed 3 fragmenting-warhead nukes at the ship. Her aft main battery, twin 105mm railguns, also opened up on the Russian ship. Both ships had been closing on the frigate, moving to sneak up behind her and pounce. The Russians still seemed convinced they were sneaking up on her and that the American thought she was evading successfully. Unger was playing his role well.
Now that Totten had accelerated rapidly and obliquely to her previous course track, the Russians were caught out of place. Additionally, the Russians had been sailing in a beam apart formation, giving them better long range detection percentages. Now that they were in a relatively close range fight, they should be closing. The Kresta moved towards the center of the formation, but the Gnevny maneuvered in a corkscrew; first moving towards the Kresta but then beginning to spiral away. Just as she did this, the first of the railgun rounds arrived.
Athena could hardly believe what she was seeing; instead of combing their point defense envelopes, the Gnevny was partially sacrificing that. Athena briefly wondered if the ship even had the capability to link up with her somewhat more modern sister, but even still the effect of simply being close together would provide more protection. The corkscrew maneuver couldn’t confuse the high-g capable missiles that Unger had fired at her. The Kresta, having a less favorable intercept geometry, only downed one before it separated. The two survivors split, each releasing 5 warheads from the missile body. The unburdened missile continued its attack profile, an ECM jammer coming online to add haze to the enemy targeting. The destroyer continued its pointless evasive maneuvers, point defense claiming 4 of the warheads. The 6 that made it through the point defense detonated in a broad ring around the Gnevny, compensating for the loss of their brethren. While each weapon was small, the Gnevny was old and her point defense systems were much more susceptible to the ECM than the newer Russian naval designs. The detonations achieved a near perfect circumferential detonation and the Russian destroyer was crushed in the middle, fires and gaseous explosions bursting from her hull. The destroyer snapped in half and the two pieces continued their breakneck pace, ceasing only the corkscrew maneuvers. Amazingly, the fusion reactors didn’t detonate, ejecting safely off into space.
“Hotel 1 destroyed.” Johnson sounded solid again.
“Sir, Fort Totten’s missile attack profiles were not operating within normal tolerances.” Heath sounded slightly confused.
“I suspect that Captain Unger bet on the old systems on that destroyer not having been upgraded, thus leaving them more susceptible to ECM and allowing his warheads to move closer prior to detonation.” Athena responded, having noticed the same discrepancy a moment earlier.
“Risky play, sir.”
“Indeed it was, but it paid off for him.”
“Yes sir, it did.”
“Hotel 2 is launching, sir.” Johnson reported. “4 heavies, based on thrust profiles. The main railgun batteries are starting to score some hits across Fort Totten’s stern.”
Athena continued to watch the display. She was surprised that the Kresta had launched heavies, especially against a frigate. A single warhead was more than capable of destroying the frigate, but point defense was good and Russian ECM wasn’t. The chances of a none-fragmenting warhead weapon getting through were nowhere near as high.
The railgun battery, however, was a different story. The cruiser might not be new but 185mm railguns didn’t care how old they were. Those rounds were already knocking systems offline, at least one point defense turret and an ECM jammer. Even still, the three missiles began closing the distance and one at a time Totten’s point defense neutralized them.
“Another round of missiles, same thrust profile, classifying as heavies. 6 this time, full spread.” Johnson was just full of good news today.
“They probably had to clear the other tubes of comm drones or sensor probes.” Athena said absent mindedly.
“Doubtful sir.” Heath spoke up. “Those Kresta’s carry their sensor and comm drones in special tubes, different diameters than their missiles. It wasn’t until the Kresta IIs that they standardized the tube sizes to allow for multi-use launchers.”
Shit, Athena thought, sitting bolt upright in her chair, stopping suddenly when her harness came up tight. Daniels and Heath caught the motion and glanced worriedly at the tactical display. Athena cursed at herself for her lack of control and then composed herself.
“The first wave were heavies, not standard doctrine against a frigate since they know that point defense will just chew them up. Against a frigate, the best option is to fire fragmenting warheads to give them as many targets as possible. The thrust profiles are the first indicator, but not certain ones. Now that we’ve seen heavies though, we’ve already jumped to that conclusion. Nobody would reload with heavies, not unless the skipper of that cruiser is tactically incompetent. The Russians don’t promote idiots up to cruiser captain, the ships are too capable and valuable for that. We’re looking at 6 fragmenting missiles, not heavies. The thrust patterns have probably been told to mimic the heavies until they enter the point defense envelope.”
The heavy anti-ship missiles had enough of a variance in mass over the fragmenting missiles that the computer could differentiate the two based on thrust velocities. It wasn’t typical for the Russians to play with the thrust profiles. Normally they didn’t afford their cruiser captains that much latitude to modify their weapons in the field. Maybe something had changed, though Athena doubted it. More likely, the captain has taken it upon himself to make the changes.
“Enemy warheads are approaching point defense now sir.” CIC held its collective breath. Sure enough, the missiles cut thrust and the plot for each became fuzzy. “Separation event, all 6 missiles. 36 warheads, make that 34 point defense just dealt with 2.” Johnson reported.
“Damn. Have to remember that one.” Heath said aloud.
“All warfare is based on deception.” Athena said simply.
“And when you always react to the enemy’s deception, you’ll certainly lose.” Daniels added. Athena gave her a nod.
On the tactical display the Russian warheads had closed to within kinetic point defense range, with the shotguns and mini-railguns adding their fire to the laser batteries. There were still 15 inbounds, more than Unger could take down in time.
“Sir, detecting subspace ripples, originating from Fort Totten, she’s about to go to FTL.” Johnson sounded relieved.
“Very well.” Athena nodded, he’d taken the game as far as he could. Now it was time to run. She forced herself to turn away from the projection. She could only hope the small ship could run the gauntlet and make it back to friendly space.
“Ensign Conway, time to slip gate?”
“At present velocity we will transit the slip gate in approximately 4 days 3 hours and 4 minutes, sir.” Conway rattled off.
“Approximately?” Athena said, grinning at the Ensign.
“Yes sir. I can take it out to the seconds if you’d like.” He responded with feigned offense.
“That’ll be alright, Ensign, approximately should be sufficient.” Athena laughed.
“It’ll be tight sir, making it into position.” Heath said quietly. The tactical station was immediately to Athena’s left, allowing for Heath to discuss with her in a low voice.
&
nbsp; “Yes it is. We may have to do some hard maneuvering to get to cover in time.” Athena turned to face him. “The Russians like to send a scout ship through to take peek before bringing through a convoy. With one this valuable, you can bet they’ll be following procedure.”
“I concur sir.” He agreed.
“Fort Totten has gone superluminal, sir.” Johnson broke in.
“Thank you, let me know when they drop back out.” Athena responded.
“Yes, sir. We’re still tracking them.” Johnson said. She heard something through her headset that made her snap her head back down to look at her display. “Hotel 2 is giving chase, powering up to go superluminal. Estimate 20 seconds to entry.”
“Well that was pretty much expected. Now let’s just hope that they chase them right out of system.”
Twenty-five minutes later they had their answer. Fort Totten had transited the alpha slip gate two minutes earlier and now Athena watched as the Kresta dropped sub-luminal and followed her through.
“There they go.” Athena said quietly. Suddenly the tactical plot seemed very empty. Other than some asteroids and other plotted debris, there didn’t seem to be anything left in the system. The only red dots were the three automated comm relays near each of the three gates known to the Russians. They had no sensors for sweeping a system though and weren’t really capable of detecting them so long as they kept their distance. “How are we looking?”
“Scope is clear, sir. Nothing in-system that we can detect and we have no superluminal targets on our scopes.” Johnson responded.
“Tactical, Lieutenant Heath, assessment of risk?”
“Sir. If there were any enemy contacts in system they likely would have helped in the engagement in some way.” He paused, frowning momentarily. “Unless they have a stealthy surveillance vessel hanging out to look for additional ships. So long as we stay stealthed that shouldn’t be a problem, but if we want to go superluminal and cross the system, they’d likely see us.”
Athena selected a comm channel from her quick connection list and buzzed the compartment.
“Intel, Ensign Bower here.
“Ensign, this is the captain.” Athena prompted.
“Yes, Captain, what can I do for you sir?” Bower didn’t sound at all surprised to be hearing from the captain.
“Well, Mister Bower, we are sitting here in this system with a perplexing situation that could use an expert’s input as to the disposition of certain assets in this system. Are you that man?” Athena inquired nonchalantly.
“If you’re inquiry is in regards to Russian stealth platforms and their likely deployments, yes sir, I am that man.” Bower replied, clearly having a good idea of the question on his captain’s mind.
Athena smiled lightly at his nonchalant response. “Very good then, lay it on me.”
“Yes sir. The Russians have about a dozen of their stealth platforms remaining in service. Intelligence suggests that they have been unable to build any additional platforms in the last year due to shortages of the particular composites that they need to conceal themselves from high intensity scans. Further, we are fairly certain about the system location of eight of these. The remaining four are thought to be deployed to border worlds, including at least two along their border with the Chinese. I would evaluate it as unlikely that they have one deployed in this system sir.” Bower finished a little less certainly than he delivered the rest of his information dump.
“Anyway to know for certain?” Athena asked, suspecting the answer even before she gave voice to the question.
“Not without giving away our position sir.” Bower said apologetically. “Their stealth is such that only high-intensity active scans in the right area of space would even reveal their presence. We could spend weeks looking and not find it, even if there is one here.”
“Very well. Thank you Mister Bower.”
“Anytime Captain.”
Athena closed the link and opened her comm to Heath only. “Thoughts?”
“This is an interior system that they don’t think has any connection to our space. The stealth drone is almost certainly located in Lalande. I say we risk it.” Heath offered.
“Sounds good to me.” Athena turned slightly and opened her comm to the CIC at large. “Navigation, plot me an FTL run, max safe speed. Maneuvering, prepare to receive thrust plan and FTL run parameters.”
“Plot FTL run, present location to Charlie Slip Gate, aye.” Navigation replied.
“Preparing systems to receive FTL run parameters, aye.” Helm echoed.
“Lieutenant Daniels, make sure the gunboats and Fort Worth follow suit.” Athena heard Lieutenant Daniels confirm her command.
The two ensigns quickly worked over their consoles. After no more than a minute they were ready. Lieutenant Daniels took a minute longer, the other ships locking in their own plans and checking with one another to ensure that every ship would remain roughly in formation and none of the ships would attempt to emerge in the same spot. That would be a disaster and also thoroughly announce their presence to the entire system.
“Maneuvering, execute.” She said once all the confirmations were in. 1st LRRS disrupted the boundary between normal space and subspace, then disappeared in a flash of light so brief and subtle that an outside observer would have needed to be very close to even see the event with the naked eye.
Chapter V
FI Virginis
1st LRRS: USS Tripoli
Tripoli hung in space, perfectly matched in her orbit around one of the central stars of the system binary. She traversed space in a near-elliptical orbit, looking for all the universe like a dark rock among many. Across the system, so distant that light would take nearly 3 days to reach their location, subspace was disturbed and 7 fast moving objects emerged in formation. Even with FTL sensors, there was a small but measurable delay.
“Slip gate event.” Ensign Johnson called out. “6 ships, standard Russian convoy formation.”
“Confirm that, six ships?” Athena responded.
“Yes sir, we’ve got three signatures that match our records on the civvies; Cormoran, Lancing, and Sevmorput. We’ve also got four naval signatures. We’re getting signatures on Kashin, Ognevoy, and Azov. We are getting good readings on their subspace drive emissions.”
“You’re getting drive emissions?” Heath said incredulously. He turned to face Athena, a questioning look on his face.
“I agree, that is odd.” Athena said thoughtfully. “Especially since Kirov is supposed to be in that group.”
“Trap, sir?” Heath asked.
“Trap.” Athena pulled up the local map of the beta slip gate, the one through which the convoy had emerged. She drew a line from the gate towards the alpha slip gate. “They know they chased off a frigate, but they might be expecting another one or two waiting for them. Tactical, get together with sensors, find me Kirov.”
An hour later, Athena received a call from CIC. Athena had returned to her day cabin, taking her first nap in a day and a half. When her comm buzzed it took her less than 5 seconds to snap upright, acknowledge the call, and make it to her hatch. Three more steps took her across the deck and to her chair. The call of ‘Captain on deck” hadn’t even finished yet.
“Status?” She asked.
“We’ve got a slight subspace distortion, half an AU aft of the convoy. Based on current velocities, this distance will widen a bit since the convoy is moving faster. They accelerated at light thrust for the first hour through the gate, so they got some spacing.” Johnson turned towards Athena. “If I had to guess sir, Kirov came through the gate right behind them and stayed cold. They’ll just keep plodding along and hope that someone drives in to make an attack on the group.”
“Seems like a fair bet.” Athena said.
“The day FTL drives are cheap enough for the civvies, we’re screwed.” Ensign Conway commented aloud. He realized that he had been louder than intended and looked around CIC with an appropriately embarrassed look on his face.
“Well, Ensign, FTL drives are expensive. I suspect that once they are cheaper, we’ll have some solution to that.”
“Yessir.” He said and turned back to his console.
“Let’s turn the tables on them. Daniels, get me the other captains, we have a plan to hatch.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tripoli waited and watched as the convoy inched across the system at nearly 0.25C, waiting for the convoy to reach the closest point to their hiding spot in the Oort Cloud. The CIC crews rotated through each watch keeping an eye on the suspected location of Kirov. Now, however, Athena sat in her command chair, in the full pressure suit. Tripoli was at battle stations with full decompression protocols. Athena connected herself with engineering.
“Now, Cheng.” Was all she said. She received no response and expected none, the chief was about to be too busy for such things. Athena had ordered a 20 second start-up on all four fusion reactors. The book said it took 5 minutes, the chief had said 45 seconds. Athena had the last word with 20 seconds, of course the obligatory complaints from the Cheng and the warning of instantaneous death from a containment failure had been repeatedly stated. Athena needed that power and she needed it immediately.
“Full power coming online now, sir.” Maneuvering called out.
“Fifteen gunboats report full power, Fort Worth as well, sir.” Daniels reported.
“Thrust plan Delta Two.” Athena said.
“Executing Delta Two.” Ensign Masters responded. “FTL drive is coming online, distortion forming. Thrusting at 110%, building velocity.”
“They’ve spotted us sir, full power sweeps and localizing.” Johnson said, her voice under better control every day.