A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1)

by Tyler Totten

  “Daniels, get me the Fleet, 1MC.” Athena ordered.

  “Yes sir, 1MC.” Daniels worked quickly and efficiently. Athena admired her ability to work so efficiently and coolly, even under such conditions. “All set sir.”

  “Attention 1st Deep Strike Fleet, this is the Admiral. We have received word and our mission is a go. We will be transiting into the GJ 48 system, where much of the combined fleet of the US Navy and our allies are engaged in a pitched battle with the Chinese Navy. We, however, will not be joining this fight.” Athena saw the shocked expressions around her own CIC and could only imagine what was occurring in the rest of the fleet and even her own ship. “We are bypassing this fight and proceeding deeper into Chinese space. I’m sure many of you are wondering why, why not stand and fight. The reason is because of the true cost of the Battle of Sol. This is a truth that I am not authorized to tell you, but am doing because I can’t imagine asking from you what I must without this knowledge.” Athena ran through the basic outline of the devastating results of the Battle of Sol, a terse five minute bare-bones summary.

  “We are tasked with destroying the remaining Chinese industry outside of Sol. Without this action, the Chinese will have an industrial advantage, one we cannot counter. If we neutralize this industry, however, we will have the advantage. Admiral Mondragon is leading the combined force to fight a battle of attrition with the Chinese and give us our opening. Every ship he destroys is one less the Chinese will have for the rest of the war, once we have completed our mission.” Athena allowed a small amount of emotion into her voice and increased the volume. “We are the final blow, we are an avenging force. Not just for the combined fleet, but for all of our brother and sisters who have died in this war. We will rip the heart out of our enemy. Failure is not an option.” Athena closed the link. As she looked around CIC, her heart pounding in her head, she saw each one of her staff turn and give her a nod. Tripoli, at least, was with her.

  “Ensign Masters, max FTL. Commander Daniels, give the order to the rest of the Fleet, they are to follow us to the gate.” Athena faced forward, rigidly upright in her command chair. She closed her visor with a quick motion of her hand, allowing the cold ship supply air to fill her helmet. In the confines of her small space, she let out her breath and clamped her hands down on the arms of her chair to stop them from shaking. She glanced again at the tactical snapshot from Eagle 907 as it left the system. The bulk of the Chinese forces were away from both slip gates, meaning they should face light opposition, but they had to go now. Any delay would give the Chinese more time to move, more time for change.

  “Emergence, Admiral.” Masters reported. “We’re in the groove, aligned for transition.”

  “Fleet is forming up, sir.” Johnson chimed in.

  “All ships report ready, Admiral.” Daniels report was the last one.

  “Very well.” Athena normally would be on Tripoli’s flag bridge, commanding the fleet and leaving the running of the ship to her flag captain. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible because the Navy was short on captains, particularly ones with combat experience. Athena was also the only captain with experience in the new ACG type ships, so she wore two hats on this mission. As far as she was concerned, she preferred it that way. There was something lost if you gave general commands but didn’t personally command a warship in combat.

  “Entering now Admiral.” Masters reported again.

  Athena locked her eyes on the tactical display, waiting for the momentary lurching of her stomach to fade and the tactical picture to update to the GJ 48 system. As the display flicked to the updated data, Athena saw the tactical picture begin to fill in.

  “Getting data now Admiral. Subspace pick-ups indicate heavy weapons exchanges around the primary. Also getting secondary explosion indications. Definitely heavy combat sir.” Johnson reported. “Our other data is patchier, but we are getting signs of combat all across the system. Our path, for the most part, looks clear.”

  “Yankee search, Tripoli, four full-power sweeps. I want this system mapped. Prepare a full drone spread and push them out towards the primary, comm drone followers at one million kilometer intervals. Set to burst data every five minutes.” Athena snapped out. The drones would form a sensor blanket, extending the range of her subspace and normal sensors, while the followers would act as relays to keep the Fleet apprised. It wouldn’t be real time, but it would be at subspace speeds. This helped to overcome the inherent range limitations of the sensor drone’s subspace comm.

  “Yankee search, aye.” Johnson responded, relaying instructions to her support staff.

  “Drones are prepping now sir, launch in five seconds.” Heath reported, his hands flying across his console. The crewmen that backed him up in the tactical shack aft of CIC fed the flight profiles to Heath’s console, where he put them together into a single mission.

  The lights flickered and Tripoli’s powerful active sensors barraged subspace with energy, illuminating the system and allowing her passive sensors to identify contacts that normal sensors hadn’t even detected yet. As the fourth pulse went out, Johnson began to report again.

  “We have ships revectoring, high probability of intercept attempt.” Johnson scanned her displays, summarizing quickly in her head. “Looks like two squadrons of corvettes, 17 in total. We’ve also got a partial action group, two Luyang-class cruisers, a Luzhou-class destroyer, and seven Jinan-class frigates.”

  “Tactical, what do we know about those ships?” Athena asked.

  “The action group got chewed up pretty good in their first encounter with the Australian 17th Fleet, so they should be light on ordnance. They fired a full three volleys in that exchange. The Aussies reported heavy damage to one of the Luyangs and hits with main battery railguns on all of the destroyers and frigates. As for the gunboats, they haven’t engaged anyone yet, sir, so they are likely fully armed and undamaged.” Heath reported.

  “Intercept geometry?”

  “The action group is going to have to bleed off a lot of velocity that is almost perpendicular to us, sir.” Heath said. “But the corvettes came through the gate we’re headed for. I think that the gunboats will get a solid run at us, but they won’t be able to get the delta-V they need to stay with us. The action group, well they almost certainly can’t get to us. If they have suffered the damage suggested, it is likely only some of the ships are still capable of full military acceleration.” Heath turned to look at Athena. “I’d say they are the clean-up sir.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.” Athena said thoughtfully. The corvettes were designed to bleed the group and expend ordnance. The Chinese corvettes would focus on achieving hits against the ACGs, hoping to wound them. This would force the entire group to reduce their maneuverability to remain a cohesive unit. With the Chinese Action Group bearing down on them, allowing the formation to spread would allow her ships to be picked off one at a time. This would, as a result, allow the corvettes and the action group to link up and attack her fleet as one cohesive force. Then it would be a battle of attrition, a close ranged slugging match. Athena knew that her force would almost certainly be the victors, they were fully stocked and undamaged, but it would be a shadow of itself. No, she had to avoid this confrontation, as much as she wanted to let the fight occur and destroy the Chinese ships. She also had to do it while expending minimal munitions, because she was going to need what she had to fight her way in, and back out, of Chinese space.

  “Heath, you and your people work up a quick profile to defend from the corvettes. No offensive missiles. Daniels, instruct all ships to withhold missile fire. They are allowed to engage with railguns only.” Athena considered the tactical display. The Chinese didn’t know about the Armadillos, at least Athena figured they didn’t realize their full capability. Particularly in the dark, she suspected, was a corvette captain. She turned back to the Lieutenant Heath.

  “Lieutenant, I have a plan.” Athena smiled at Heath’s ironic eye roll.

  “Yes, sir.” His reply
a mixture of sarcasm and an underlying tone of confidence. Her plans were often such that people shook their heads in amazement. Typically with a mixture of respect and incredulity, particularly when they worked. That was the result a surprising amount of time.

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  “Here they come.” Johnson reported. The Chinese corvettes lanced across the tactical display. They didn’t use their max speed, covering the distance at a somewhat sedate 5x light. As they emerged, Athena’s plan went into action. The fleet had reordered itself as soon as the corvettes went to FTL, arranging into a tight cone, looking almost like an ancient line-ahead formation. Thunderer was in the van, with the two Armadillos immediately behind her and spread slightly abeam. Tripoli and her sisters followed next, creating the core of the formation in a close triangle. The gunboats trailed, stepping out slightly in the formation. The 36 gunboats were arrayed into a rough circle, forming the base of the cone. They were distributed in groups of three around the circumference, waiting.

  “Corvettes are emerging.” Johnson paused for a two-count. “Vampire, Vampire. They’re firing, full missile spread. Targeted on the Armadillos and Tripoli. I count 60 inbounds. Railguns are also engaging, but the fire is light and wide.” The Chinese railguns were looking to keep the gunboats at arm’s length, but not interfere with their own missiles. Athena flipped on her comm.

  “Plan Alpha, execute.” She commanded. Thunderer leapt forward, her thrusters at max. She started to separate from the fleet, her defensive weapons blazing away on her hull before she jumped to FTL. A couple of seconds later, she reappeared on the normal space tactical map. The Chinese corvettes had been bearing down on the fleet in a roughly hollow cylinder, hoping to englobe Athena’s command as they passed by. This would also give them each a unique escape vector. Now, however, Athena had changed the picture.

  Thunderer had leapt into the center of the formation, englobing herself. The Chinese, however, hadn’t expected this and all of their guns were pointed forward. As a result, Thunderer was spared the challenging position of countering full spherical firing vectors. Since Captain Martin did expect this, Thunderer had all of her guns properly aimed. All at once, her entire complement spoke and ravaged the Chinese corvettes. Even the defense batteries were used. Four corvettes were destroyed outright and another two staggered out of formation, bleeding atmosphere.

  “Plan Beta, execute.” Athena spoke into her comm again. This time, the gunboats jumped, arriving in a larger hollow cylinder around the Chinese. Immediately upon exit from their short jump, the gunboats spun on their axis to face inward. The entire scene played out in seconds. The gunboats opened fire with their railguns, tearing into the hapless corvettes. The captains of the corvettes were only just reacting to the presence of the massive Thunderer in their midst, trying to revector and escape the torrent of fire. The arrival of the gunboats forced them to react again. They were stuck between two hammers and were rapidly being pounded. Each corvette picked its own escape path, completely disregarding their formation. The result was chaos. The paths the corvettes picked had no regard for their interlinked fields of defensive fire causing that to collapse, their computer’s resorting to independent firing priorities. The result was a marked decrease in interceptions of Thunderer’s big guns, each round capable of inflicting massive damage on a corvette. After another few seconds, it was over.

  “Local space clear, all targets have been serviced.” Heath reported.

  “Vampires are in terminal mode.” Johnson interrupted the beginnings of any jubilation in CIC, the Chinese missile barrage was now inside the final point defense perimeter. The outer layers of point defense had whittled the inbounds down to just 30 and it was time for the Armadillos to show what they were capable of. Athena watched intently with the rest of the bridge crew as the first of the missiles reached the Armadillo’s inner point defense screen. Athena had withheld permission to fire their long range interceptors, knowing that later they would be needed to protect gunboats on attack runs. Instead, they would rely on their exquisite close-range point defense.

  Ticonderoga spoke first, followed a half second later by Port Royal. In less than a second, each missile was in a cloud of flak and guided kinetic rounds. Twenty of the missiles died in an instant, each targeted by a specific burst. The remaining ten died shortly thereafter. Athena’s eyes rapidly scanned the local space 3D plot, nothing. There were no ships in their path, the way to the gate was clear.

  “Sir, more ships revectoring. We have another three partial action groups thrusting, patterns indicate an interception is possible.” Johnson reported quickly.

  “Well,” Heath remarked. “someone saw our show and decided to bring some more firepower.”

  “They did indeed.” Athena turned to Daniels. “Order the fleet to reassemble but remain at sublight. Also, get Captain Martin on the line. Navigation, plot us a just miss course for the slip gate, but one that we can still correct to make our entry in six hour.”

  “Yes sir.” They responded in unison.

  “Might as well let them continue chasing us, burn some velocity and stop pursuing the rest of Admiral Mondragon’s forces. He might just sweep up the rest if we peel some force away.” Athena said in response to Heath’s questioning look. He nodded in return.

  “Captain Martin for you, sir.” Daniels said.

  “Captain, how’s your ship?” Athena inquired.

  “Quite well, thank you Admiral. We took a single small caliber round, didn’t even penetrate the armor.” Martin responded. “How about the rest of the fleet?”

  “Also doing well. The Armadillo’s interdicted 100% of the inbounds, none even detonated. The gunboats took some minor damage from the corvettes, but overall a solid performance.”

  “Excellent.” He replied. “Plan now sir?”

  “In six hours we will jump on to the Beta Slip Gate, then transit the system. The plan from there is unchanged.”

  “I will be awaiting your signal, Admiral.”

  “Until then. Harper out.”

  Athena took the opportunity to stand-down the fleet from battle stations and cycle the crew through their bunks and the mess. Everyone got two hours sleep and a solid meal. The Chinese continued to pursue, their curving intercept vectors plodding across the tactical plot. Athena took the first break, Sanders relieving her in CIC.

  Two hours and a half hours later she re-appeared in CIC, sending the XO off to catch his own downtime. Just as she settled into the command chair, a beep from the communications console brought her attention around rapidly.

  “Sir, message from Admiral Mondragon for you. It’s on your screen. It’s marked eyes only, sir.” The ensign at the station reported. Commander Daniels was still off for another twenty minutes.

  “Thank you, Ensign.” Athena brought the message up quickly.

  ///18:28 ZULU HRS///2 JUNE 2612///

  TOP SECRET: CDR EYES ONLY

  FROM: MONDRAGON, J.H., ADM USN, CDR BF-1 DELTA

  TO: HARPER, G. RADM USN, CDR DSF-1

  ///ATHENA, I KNOW THAT THIS IS THE HARDEST THING I CAN ASK OF YOU, TO LEAVE US IN SUCH DIRE STRAIGHTS, BUT LET ME ASSURE YOU, THIS IS THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTION YOU CAN MAKE. I KNOW THAT IN YOUR MIND, THAT BRILLIANT TACTICAL MIND OF YOURS, YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT. SOMETIMES IT JUST HELPS TO HEAR IT FROM SOMEONE ELSE.

  NOW, GO KICK ASS AND WIN THIS WAR FOR US ALL. GODSPEED AND GOOD HUNTING. MONDRAGON SENDS.///

  Athena couldn’t help but smile, even if it was a slightly sad smile. The Admiral, even hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, still knew how to convey his warmest regards and prop her up. His timing too, was impeccable. This was exactly the point where she had done all she could and was now simply delaying until the right time to sprint through the system and continue with her true mission. He gave her the confidence to carry-on. At all costs.

  Chapter VIII

  Just over three hours later, DSF-1 emerged into a binary system consistin
g of VVS-2 and VVS-28. Athena had considered having the entire force in full stealth, but then disregarded the utility of that. It was known that the Chinese sensing grid in this system was light, being an interior system it hadn’t seen a large amount of development. There was a single battlestation in system, but it was small and guarded a refueling outpost and fuel processing plant. Athena assumed that the station was likely warned of possible leakers into the system, raids and such now that a battle had commenced in GJ-48. Her suspicions proved accurate, with the station’s active pulses sweeping them within seconds of exit. That was very power intensive, but they wouldn’t be doing it for long. As soon as the station found them, the pulses focused and thoroughly scanned the group.

  “Launch, sir” Johnson broke the relative silence of CIC. “Looks like a small FTL runner, courier ship. Yes sir, confirmed, it just went to FTL.”

  “Running for help no doubt.” Heath snorted. “We’re a lot more than a couple frigates on a raid.” Athena didn’t respond.

  “Gunboat squadrons 1 and 2, your mission is a go. Ticonderoga and Inchon, you are cleared to escort. Burn ‘em out.” Athena ordered over the comm. The groups responded in turn.

  The gunboats went first, firewalling their mains and using every bit of their massive acceleration to get to the edge of the station’s missile range. Though the slip gate was relatively close to the battlestation’s orbit, this still took several hours. The response took much less time. A moment after closing within range, the station fired a salvo at the 24 gunboats, 10 massive missiles. Each was as large as a heavy-lift shuttle, nearly 10% the size of the gunboats themselves. As the two groups raced to close the gap, Ticonderoga and Inchon leapt into the fray. The two large ships jumped to FTL, dropping out in front, roughly equidistant between the missiles and the gunboats. It was an extremely short jump. The two ships, line abreast, opened up with their full suite of point defense. Several of the big missiles died before their onboard computers told them to separate. The 8 that did became 80 small sprint missiles. Inchon tore through a third of them in a torrent of fire. It would have been impressive, if it weren’t for the fact that Ticonderoga destroyed the rest in the same time frame. Athena was again impressed. Those ships were proving their worth already, at least until a counter was developed.