"And there's our answer," Jackson said. "This is the next best thing to being able to actually reactivate and command the swarm: modify them into drones and use their superior powerplant to give your weaponry a kick.
"Tactical, target the incoming Betas with two Hornets each … let's not waste any Shrikes unless it becomes necessary."
"Targeting incoming Betas, two Hornets each," Accari said. "Missiles loaded and ready."
"Fire," Jackson ordered.
The rear launchers spit out six of the smaller Hornet missiles, sending them streaking towards the inbound Betas. The missiles had the same type of hardened penetrator nose cones as the Shrikes but were loaded with high-explosive warheads rather than nuclear.
Jackson took a brief moment to contemplate the elaborate and labor-intensive charade he was seeing on his sensors. Or was it? Had the Darshik figured out an easy way to integrate their tech to the Phage in such a way that it was actually easier to just slap guns and engines on existing combat units and turn them loose?
For the next three hours, the bridge crew sat in relative silence as their two volleys of missiles closed on their respective targets. Jackson was holding their speed in check so that the radar lag between them and the targets wouldn't be so extreme. He was certain that the Nemesis could outrun the Phage-hulled drones the Specter was throwing at him and if not, the warp hop option was always available.
"Shrikes have gone active … impact in nine minutes," Accari reported. "Hornets are still forty-two minutes out. So far enemy ships are not responding."
"How long until we have battle damage assessments from the Shrike hit?" Jackson asked.
"CIC is telling me impact plus thirty," Accari said.
Jackson waited impatiently for the next forty minutes. He wanted to get the BDA for his two missile strikes so he could reposition the Nemesis and shut down his active sensors. So far CIC had been unable to pick out the Specter's unique RDS signature, but with the additional interference from the eight Phage units using a similar drive he couldn't be sure it just wasn't being missed. He also hadn't forgotten that the enemy had baited him into position before and had surprised him with a well-executed warp hop. Was he being herded along again?
"Two Shrikes taken out by countermeasures, four made it through," Lieutenant Hori listed off the BDA Hawkins's team had just sent up. "Two Alphas destroyed, three Betas destroyed, secondary explosions detected through the other units and the support pylons have failed … all remaining units are spinning away from each other."
"Five of six pursuing Betas have been completely destroyed, last one is damaged and adrift," Accari reported. "Alphas that were moving have taken up—Shit!! Captain! CIC reports that right after our Hornets hit, two hundred and thirty-three independent RDS signatures were detected. We have hundreds of Betas and Alphas converging on our position."
"I guess that settles that," Jackson muttered, glaring at the display. "Trap."
"Hop complete, position confirmed," the chief at the nav station called out. "We're on the other side of the system within—holy shit!—two hundred meters of our target … sir."
"Intrasystem warp flights are far easier to calculate with a degree of accuracy than a longer flight between star systems," the Cube said over the bridge speakers. "All the variables can be more tightly controlled."
"Tactical?" Jackson asked.
"Local space is clear, sir," Accari said. "The bulk of the swarm is centralized in quadrant two."
"He couldn't have had the time or material to modify all of these Phage units, could he?" Chambliss was asking. "Captain Wright's battle here wasn't even that long ago."
"Let's keep the speculation to a minimum and focus on the task at hand," Jackson said sharply. "Tactical, does CIC have any hope of pulling the Specter's RDS signature out of all the active drives down in the system right now?"
"Lieutenant Commander Hawkins puts the odds between slim and none, sir," Accari said. "The two types of Darshik drives are very similar and our detection system is very good at seeing that an active RDS is there, not so much at pinpointing a specific one when they're all so closely related. He does say that they can confirm all signatures are Darshik though … no Phage drives are active."
"How can we tell that?” Chambliss asked.
"We had an interferometer detection grid near the end of the war that operated on a similar principle as our RDS detection grid but used six satellites connected by lasers," Jackson said. "The accelerometer data from those early systems has been catalogued and added to the database for all ships equipped with a newer RDS."
"Captain, CIC is telling me that at this range with only passive sensors we have little hope of picking out the Specter's ship if it's even down there," Accari said.
"He's down there," Jackson insisted. "But what we don't know is if it's even possible to detect the ship right now. It's possible the damn thing is docked inside an Alpha and completely hidden from passives or active radar. Let's maintain position and stay silent for now … he has the upper hand currently and I'd prefer not to stumble into another trap."
Not wanting to leave the bridge, Jackson had his senior staff come to him for a quick meeting. He included Chief Engineer Walsh and Lieutenant Commander Hawkins from CIC along with the rest of the senior bridge crew. They gathered around one of the large displays at the back of the bridge and quietly discussed a strategy for ferreting out a single starship out of the mess of Phage units zipping around the inner system. Nothing they could think of was workable with a single destroyer.
"Are all ten Jacobson drones FMC?" Jackson asked. "We could set up another Wright Grid and hope that the higher resolution of so many targeting radars can spot the Darshik ship."
"Without Captain Barrett's missile sleds I'm afraid it would be a short-lived advantage, sir," Hawkins said, pointing out the distribution of Phage units. "We'd have to get them down in there pretty close to be able to see what the hell was happening and they'd have no defensive capability. From what we recorded in the initial skirmish, the new Beta drones the Specter has built can probably catch a Jacobson."
"So we'd lose all of our drones in short order," Jackson said. "The risk to reward ratio is too lopsided to even attempt it. Anybody else?"
"We could try—"
"Transition flash!!"
BOOM!
Everyone standing was thrown to the starboard side of the bridge as the Nemesis bucked and something big exploded somewhere within the hull. Jackson flipped in midair and landed on his back short of the bulkhead. Commander Chambliss was not so lucky. The XO had smashed head first into the nav station and, judging from the angle of his neck, had not survived the impact. Red lights began strobing and alarms blared as thin tendrils of smoke began wafting through the vents.
"Port MPD plasma chamber ruptured!
"Weapon guidance is down!"
"Jettison port MPD and execute emergency jump!"
The last shout had been Jackson's as he struggled to his feet, the prosthetic leg whining in protest. He had set up a series of prearranged warp hops that the Cube would keep updated so that if the Nemesis got into trouble they had an escape route—so long as the warp drive was still operational.
"Port MPD is clear and—hang on!!"
Another hard jolt shook the destroyer and a whole new set of alarms began wailing. Jackson assumed the MPD plasma chamber had blown while still close to the ship after it had been jettisoned.
"Warp jump executed!" Lieutenant Hori had to shout over the alarms. "Local space is clear." The lights on the bridge shut off momentarily before coming back up much dimmer, and Hori began muting the alarms as she went through the list of damage.
"Engineering said they had to shut down reactor two for repairs to the fuel flow system," she explained, pointing at the lights. "We're on low-power mode on nonessential systems until they're done."
"Understood," Jackson said. "Damage control report! And someone tell me what the fuck happened back there!"
"The Sp
ecter hopped in close, sir," Accari said. The tactical officer was cradling an arm that was obviously broken. "We were hit with the plasma lance on the port flank … it penetrated all the way to the MPD's primary plasma chamber."
"That may have been what saved us, Captain," Hawkins said. Unbelievably, the CIC officer looked completely unruffled despite having been hurled across the bridge. He was already at the auxiliary terminal and poring through the incoming data.
"The plasma from our MPD was caught within the same EM focusing apparatus the lance uses. It turned the rupture into a temporary thruster and pushed us out and away from the enemy ship. When you jettisoned the engine and it detonated, our optical sensors picked up significant damage to the prow of the Specter before we jumped away. Give me some time to analyze it, sir, and I'll let you know if we managed to knock his primary weapon out or not."
"Go," Jackson waved him off the bridge. "See to your people first and then get me some answers."
"Aye aye, sir."
"Initial damage control report is in, sir," Hori said, looking stricken.
"Casualties first," Jackson said.
"Sixteen dead, fifty-eight injured, twenty-nine of them seriously," she said quietly.
"And the ship?" Jackson asked.
"In addition to the now-missing MPD, there is damage to the fuel feed on reactor two, one port laser battery was destroyed by the MPD exploding, eleven hull ruptures of which three are still venting atmosphere, secondary tracking radar array was damaged and forward missile tubes one and two overheated from the plasma blast, and both Shrikes were fired by the automated emergency system." Jackson could tell Lieutenant Hori was just giving him the highlights as she picked out the major system damages from what appeared to be a long list on her terminal.
"Helm?"
"Helm is answering normally, sir," Healy said. "RDS is fully functional."
"Tactical?"
"Along with the loss of one port battery and two missile tubes, the lower mag-cannon turret is throwing faults for the fine-correction actuators on the left barrel and we're getting intermittent faults from the aft laser batteries for power distribution issues," Accari said. "That could be because of reactor two being offline. We still have most of our teeth, though, Captain."
"Nav—" Jackson started and then looked over at the station and saw that the chief was slumped over and nonresponsive. "OPS, get medical crews up here ASAP. Helm, I'm sending you a circuitous course that will keep us here in the outer system. When you get it, execute at one-third power."
"Engines ahead one-third, aye"
Jackson made sure his holding course was sufficiently randomized. Perhaps if he'd done that last time Commander Chambliss would still be alive … he had been caught completely flatfooted and allowed his enemy to jump in so close he couldn't even get his hands up before being punched in the face. Those sixteen dead spacers were on him. How was he being so easily tracked? Even the Phage couldn't pick a Terran starship out of the clutter in a star system with that sort of pinpoint accuracy.
Over the next twenty-two hours the crew worked feverishly to get what repairs they could complete before they either had to engage the enemy again or fight their way out of the system. The loss of Commander Chambliss was keenly felt by all who directly served with him, but Jackson took his death personally. Chambliss had quickly become a personal friend, something Jackson didn't have many of, and his death brought back all the guilt he thought he had buried about Daya Singh. When Daya had been killed on the mission to destroy the core mind, Jackson had born the weight of that for years afterward.
The crew took sporadic, short naps where they could and mostly ate from box meals that the mess decks were churning out continuously. Jackson had been able to catch a few twenty-minute power naps here and there, but his brain wouldn't shut down long enough to allow him any actual sleep and a sedative was out of the question. He knew that one way or another the next engagement would be the last between him and the Darshik ace that had so far been making it look easy to slap him around.
27
"What do you have for me, Lieutenant Commander?" Jackson asked, rubbing his eyes as he walked into CIC.
"We've picked up something that might be important, sir," Hawkins said, waving Jackson over to one of the open terminals. "How familiar are you with the communication method the Phage employed?"
"I know the broad strokes," Jackson said. "There were two carrier signals that the system utilized; one was a theoretical superluminal signal that gave simple, broad instructions while another was a subluminal EM signal that would be used within a swarm."
"Correct," Hawkins said. "The theory was that the core mind would use the superluminal signal for generalized orders and then the short wave EM signal for detailed information. What's not generally known is that we actually were able to isolate the second signal."
"How do you—"
"I was part of the Fleet Intelligence team that was tasked with figuring out a way to jam the signal," Hawkins said. "You killed the Phage before we had a chance to figure anything out. The EM signal was a hybrid burst transmission agile enough that a barrage jam wouldn't do any good."
"This is all very interesting, Lieutenant Commander, but what the hell is your point?" Jackson said, his patience wearing thin.
"We've detected the signal again, in this system," Hawkins said. "And it's coming from the Nemesis."
"What the—the Cube," Jackson said with realization.
"Yes, sir," Hawkins said. "I've already had a team confirm that the signals are originating in the cargo bay."
"That's how the son of a bitch has been tracking this ship," Jackson said. "The Darshik had an entirely different relationship with the Phage than we did. It communicated with them … it may have told them much more about the inner workings of individual units than we were ever able to glean. Hell, it may have given them a way to contact it directly."
"Sir, the message—"
"He's been after the fucking Cube the entire time." Jackson swore in disgust, finally figuring out what the prize was from the message the Specter had sent. It also meant that it had been leading him around by the nose the entire time, bringing him here so he could get the Cube from him. But why?
"The Cube was specifically designed by the Vruahn to seamlessly integrate within the Phage communication system," Hawkins said as if reading his mind. "We've been operating under the assumption that the Specter has been obsessing over the Phage derelicts as a type of religious observance, but what if he's figured out a way to use the Cube to reanimate the swarms and bring them under his control?"
"That's pretty damn ominous."
"I assume you were eavesdropping on my conversation with Lieutenant Commander Hawkins?" Jackson asked as he walked into the cold cargo bay.
"Not intentionally, but you gave me explicit permission to access CIC and work with its crew," the Cube said. "To do that I needed to know what they were saying."
"That's true," Jackson said. "So what do you think? The data is pretty clear that you're chirping out a Phage carrier frequency and it's not so farfetched that the Specter is able to home in on it."
"I can find no fault with your logic," the Cube said. "When I operated as a stasis pod to provide cover for Terran warships, I had protocols that would use the Super Alpha's transponder node to craft the intelligence and the syntax of the coded bursts, but my systems would generate and transmit the carrier signal. I do not know why that signal is transmitting now or how to stop it."
"Is it possible the proximity to this swarm is triggering it? Or could the Specter know some way to elicit a response?" Jackson asked.
"Either are plausible."
"If he knows a way to get you to send burst transmissions without your knowledge, is it at all possible that you could be used to reactivate the Phage swarms?" Jackson asked. "I'm not necessarily talking about fully replacing the core mind, but even just sending orders within close proximity?"
"In the absence of contrary evidence
, I have to concede that it is a possibility," the Cube said.
Jackson sighed heavily. He almost wished the Cube had told him that there was absolutely no conceivable way that it could be used in that manner, but even the outside chance had completely tied his hands.
"I think you know what I'll have to do now," he said quietly.
"I do," the Cube said. "The consequences of any choice you make will be profound, Captain Wolfe, but I will not interfere no matter your decision."
"Just so we're clear, you want me to rig up a harness with nukes so that we can toss the Cube out and destroy it?" Commander Walsh was incredulous. He'd only recently learned of the Cube's existence, but he was smart enough to put things together and realize the old piece of Phage War tech had singlehandedly advanced Terran science and engineering by lightyears. "We'll both go to prison for this."
"I may be heading there anyway, Commander," Jackson said with a shrug. "It's crucial that any risk the Cube poses be eliminated."
"Given our level of advancement, couldn't we risk it?" Walsh asked. "Even a Super Alpha would be hard-pressed to take on the new Juggernaut-class battleships."
"You're not understanding," Jackson insisted. "This system is just one swarm of potentially thousands of others still floating around out there. If the Specter is able to use the Cube to route command and control from himself to the Phage and reactivate them, it isn't just humanity in the crosshairs. We'll be right back where we started when Xi'an was destroyed."
His chief engineer paled visibly at that and nodded his head.
"This was always his plan all along, wasn’t it?" Walsh asked.
"I have to believe so," Jackson said. "When the core mind died, it had already passed on a lot of information to the Darshik, and I suspect it knew a lot more about what we and the Vruahn were doing during the war than it let on."
"I'll get on it right away, Captain," Walsh said. "Reactor two is ready for restart so I'll get some of the people from Munitions to begin breaking down a few Shrikes."
Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 3) Page 24