"Time is not on our side, Commander," Jackson said. "We're probably being tracked even now."
Jackson had considered his decision very carefully and weighed the consequences of each against the other. The Cube was unbelievably important to the Federation and humanity as a whole. From theoretical physics to practical engineering, the sentient computer had advanced them more in the last five years than they'd done on their own in the previous one hundred and fifty, and the Project Prometheus team insisted they'd just scratched the surface. Bringing it along with him may have been one of the all-time fuck ups in a career that was rife with them.
But, if what they suspected was true and the Cube held the key to being able to control the Phage swarms, even at a rudimentary level, perhaps it was best that he was the one making the decision on whether to destroy it or not. Something with that sort of widespread destructive potential shouldn't be allowed to exist for the safety of all. The Phage had eradicated entire species from existence before he lucked out and stopped it … letting that restart on even a small scale was unacceptable.
He knew that CENTCOM leadership wouldn't likely share his views. If they learned that they held the key to perhaps wielding the very weapon that the powerful Vruahn had lost control of, they would almost certainly decide to keep it. It wouldn't matter that humans didn't have the same insights into the Phage as the Darshik; just the hint of that sort of power there for the taking would be extremely tempting. Jackson knew better. He appreciated the idea of something like the Phage; an all-powerful deterrent that meant that men and women would never have to know war again. But he also knew the reality of what inevitably happened with such things. He'd spoken personally with the Vruahn when they'd admitted their creation—their defensive weapon—had gotten away from them and was exterminating sentient species it encountered. No … this was the only logical choice to make sure something he had thought was over stayed over.
"We have the BDA on the Specter ship when you want to see it, sir," Accari said as he walked onto the bridge. The tactical officer had already been to the infirmary and sported a new cast that partially immobilized his wrist.
"Condense it for me before I read it for myself," Jackson said, looking around the bridge. His eyes paused on the bloody stain still on the carpet where Commander Chambliss had fallen.
"There's not much; the sensors only got a snapshot before the warp drive engaged," Accari said. "CIC thinks that the plasma lance was badly damaged by the MPD exploding, so unless he's got a spare we won't be dealing with that. There was also some inconsequential damage to the port outrigger and a handful of hull breaches, but no atmospheric venting."
"We've punched a lot of holes in that damn thing and haven't seen so much as a puff of air," Jackson remarked. "Must be a hell of an inner hull or most of that monster isn't crew space."
"Sir, Commander Walsh said he's ready when you are," Lieutenant Makers said.
"Very well," Jackson sighed. "Tell him I'll meet them in the hangar bay."
He trudged off the bridge with a somber Sergeant Castillo in tow, the latter sporting a heavy bandage on his head. Jackson was not at all looking forward to what came next, but he didn't see any other alternative.
28
"Captain, would you give my regards to Danilo Jovanović?" the Cube asked, referring to the person it had first talked to when it had awakened.
"Of course," Jackson said. "You're sure there's no way to download your consciousness into one of the ship's computers until we can find a proper processing matrix?"
"No, Captain … though I do appreciate the offer. The quantum nature of my processing and storage apparatus makes my data incompatible with the servers aboard the Nemesis. Besides, we do not have the time it would take for the download."
"Of course," Jackson said again. He was having trouble coming to terms with the lump he felt in his gut at what he was about to do. It was just a machine, right? An accident of sloppy coding and hastily built hardware? Why should he be wrestling with the ethical implications of destroying it when it could mean saving billions—trillions?
"There is no need for regret, Captain," the Cube said. "This is what must happen. If you were to refrain from your duty due to misplaced sentimentality, I would be forced to take action on my own to ensure it was done. I am … glad … for the time we spent together."
"As am I," Jackson said, slapping the onyx side of the Cube. "Okay, Ensign … load it up and let's get it out of the ship."
"Aye, sir," a young ensign—who looked far too young to be a Starfleet officer—activated the winch that pulled the Cube and the frame it rode on into the yawning hatch of one of Nemesis's cargo shuttles. The crew chief, already geared up in his EVA suit and helmet, locked the cradle down and gave them a thumbs up before shooing the ensign out and slapping the control to close the hatch.
The inner hatch of the hangar bay also closed and a klaxon blasted three times to alert everyone they were commencing active launch operations. The shuttle detached with a meaty clunk and drifted gracefully away on ionic jets through the yawning outer doors and into space.
Walsh's engineering team, along with a crew from Munitions, had dismantled four Shrike missiles and had mounted the warheads to the Cube in such a way that when they detonated simultaneously there would be virtually nothing recoverable of the machine. The Cube had assured them that the ludicrous overkill of using four ship-busting nukes would be sufficient to destroy the dense Vruahn composite. Jackson wanted zero mistakes when it came to ensuring the machine and its capabilities were lost forever.
"Report!"
"Shuttle is almost in position, sir," Accari said. "Ten more minutes and then they'll drop the package and come back."
Jackson said nothing as he took his seat and waited. He'd not bothered to assign anyone as interim XO yet. If something happened to him, Accari or Hawkins would make sure the Nemesis made it home. The wait for the comparatively slow shuttle was galling, but his engineers had assured him that a simultaneous implosion-type detonation was the only way to guarantee the job was done right. Any of the Nemesis's other weapons may just knock the Cube about in space without actually destroying it.
Eliminating the risk the Cube posed was but one-half of the equation Jackson was running through in his mind. What should he do about the Specter once the Cube was gone? Was it worth trying to hunt him down, or should he just cut his losses and flee the system? The bastard still had a lot of combat units to deal with in the inner system, albeit clumsy and slow. He could hide behind those for months taking nips at Jackson's hide until the human made a fatal mistake or the Nemesis had no choice but to withdraw after she'd burned through all her fuel and air.
"Package has been dropped," Makers said. "Shuttle is coming back now."
"Transition flash!" Accari's voice was tinged with panic. "Enemy ship inbound, range is three hundred and five thousand kilometers … he's accelerating hard."
"How long until the shuttle is clear?" Jackson asked, his stomach dropping as he watched the Darshik closing in on its prize that he'd conveniently left sitting in open space.
"Shuttle is not inbound, sir!" Makers shouted over his shoulder. "They called it in too soon … the cradle is jammed in the hatchway!"
"Tactical, how long until the Specter gets there?" Jackson asked.
"Less than five minutes, sir."
"Nemesis, Falcon One," the shuttle pilot's voice came over the speakers. "We're not going to make it, sir. The fucker is jammed sideways and stuck in the ramp actuators … it turned in zero-g on us. Make sure our families know what we did here today, Captain."
"Understood, Lieutenant," Jackson said so softly the computer almost didn't pick it up to retransmit. "OPS … blow the charges."
"Yes, sir," Hori said, tears streaming down her face. A moment later there was a bright flash on the main display that quickly dissipated to nothing.
"Coms, open a channel on the same frequency the Specter used to contact us," Jackson said.
&nbs
p; "Open, sir."
"Attention Darshik Commander … the explosion you just witnessed was the end of the Vruahn device you have been chasing," Jackson said. "I am certain you were tracking its signal, so you know I'm telling the truth. Your mission has failed."
"YOU WILL DIE!" the heavily modulated voice roared back across the channel.
"Here we go!" Jackson shouted as the Specter turned towards them and continued its charge. "Helm, all ahead full and bear twenty degrees to starboard! Tactical, full Shrike salvo now!"
"Something's wrong, sir! The forward tubes aren't responding." Accari was frantically working his panel, trying to reset the launchers. "Port side laser batteries are down to twenty percent effective."
"Helm, hard to port!" Jackson barked. "Cut across his face. Accari, full broadside, all starboard cannon."
The Nemesis swung about and angled hard to the left, her RDS making the turn much tighter than any other ship in the fleet could manage, but there were still limitations and it would be close. The Specter was coming at them in a blind, reckless charge and Jackson had no doubt that if the plasma lance was indeed crippled on his ship that he wouldn't hesitate to ram them amidships.
"Firing starboard batteries!" Accari called as the Nemesis crossed the nose of the Darshik ship. "Incoming!"
The plasma lance fired but was unfocused and much weaker than it had been before. There was still sufficient energy at such close range to do significant damage, however. As Accari's laser cannons ripped down the forward quadrants, the plasma burst took out the Nemesis's two aft/starboard batteries and overheated a third in the forward quadrant.
"We're past," Hori said. "CIC reports moderate damage to the enemy ship, no secondary explosions and no atmospheric venting."
What the hell did it take to punch a hole in that hull? "Snap fire all aft tubes!" Jackson ordered.
"Firing! Four Hornets and two Shrikes are away," Accari said. "Auto targeting onto enemy ship."
"It turned in before the Shrikes could arm," Hori said. “One—no, two Hornets have hit. Minimal damage."
"Enemy ship is still coming about to pursue," Accari said, scrambling to input a new set of targeting scripts for close-range combat.
"Incoming missiles," Hori said.
"Countermeasures active, aft laser batteries firing," Accari said.
"Captain, we're losing engine power," Healy called out. "We're at sixty percent and rolling back."
"OPS!"
"Engineering is working on it, sir! Reactor two is winding down again and they're not sure why," Hori said.
"Shit," Jackson muttered. They were already carrying a lot of velocity, but they'd lost most of their ability to evade and the Specter could now out-accelerate them and close on their aft quadrant.
"Aft tubes ready to—Brace! Brace! Brace!" The computer automatically broadcasted Accari's warning shipwide as one Darshik missile slipped through their point defense and slammed into the dorsal hull. The Nemesis bucked and groaned as the nuclear warhead vaporized over a meter of hull armor.
A destroyer wasn't built to go toe-to-toe and slug it out like a battleship. Jackson knew that if he couldn't get some distance to give his point defense and standoff weapons a chance, they wouldn't last much longer.
"Aft missile tubes are offline, aft laser batteries are heavily degraded," Accari reported.
"Specter will be within lance range in less than two minutes," Hori said.
They weren't going to make it. The Nemesis couldn't limp along with only half her engine power available, and with the Cube gone he didn't have the confidence to try an intrasystem warp jump. The drive software had been upgraded, but his people didn't know how to calculate the jump, so he could either kill them quickly by trying one on the fly or kill them slowly by letting the Specter drive more missiles into their ass end until something critical was hit.
"Helm, zero thrust. Spin the Nemesis about one hundred and eighty degrees," Jackson said. "Tactical, ready the mag-cannons."
"Coming about, aye!" the helmswoman said crisply even as the ship's prow began to swing to starboard.
"Mag-cannons are charged and ready, H.E. rounds loaded and target is locked," Accari said.
"Are the forward tubes responding?" Jackson asked.
"Tubes four and eight are showing green, but I'm not getting any feedback from the missiles," Accari said.
"We'll just have to hope they're good then," Jackson said. He took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. "Helm, full stop! Tactical, eight rounds stagger-fired now!"
"Firing!" Accari grunted against the g-forces as the heavy braking maneuver pressed them all into their seats. Even with degraded engine power the destroyer was shedding off relative velocity so quickly she seemed to stop in space.
"Fire both Shrikes," Jackson ordered. "Anywhere you can get a hit."
"Firing … missile one is away, missile two failed to fire," Accari said.
Jackson watched on the main display as their lone missile raced behind a screen of high explosive mag-cannon shells. It was the same trick he'd used before, so he had little hope that it would work again.
"Missile has accepted targeting update and is—"
"Detonate the missile when it's within sixty thousand kilometers," Jackson interrupted. "Stand by on the mag-cannons … fire directly after you detonate the Shrike."
Accari grimaced as he stretched with his broken arm to hover over the mag-cannon fire control panel and watched as the numbers raced down. The Specter was only mere seconds away as the Nemesis continued to brake. At the critical moment, he sent the destruct signal to the missile and slapped the fire control for the mag-cannons.
Jackson felt the deck shudder from the ferrous shells being spit out of the four mag-cannon barrels even as the display lit up from the Shrike's nuclear warhead detonation.
"Helm, hard to port! Full reverse!"
"All reverse full, aye!"
The Specter was coming in so fast that the Nemesis barely had time to swing over and accelerate away to avoid a collision. The Darshik ship angled over to pursue at the worst possible instant, exposing its left flank to the incoming mag-cannon shells that were masked by the nuclear explosion. Out of the twenty-four shots fired, seven found their mark and slammed deep into the ship before exploding.
"Two explosions detected within the target," Hori reported. "CIC reports its engines have shut down and the port outrigger was blown completely off. Lieutenant Commander Hawkins says he can't say definitively if it's dead in space."
"Accari, do we still have one missile tube functional?"
"Yes, sir … loaded and ready."
"Lock on and fire," Jackson said
"Firing."
The Shrike left the tube and fired its first stage, burning bright as it streaked for the tumbling Darshik ship. It flew true and slammed into the cruiser near the aft section, detonating an instant later and blowing the ship into three large sections. Jackson watched it unfold through the multispectral optical scanners with a numb, detached feeling.
It was over … but at what price?
29
The next eleven days were spent making repairs and prepping the Nemesis for her trip home as well as holding memorial services for all the spacers who had given their lives to complete the mission. Jackson permitted his people the time they needed to grieve and take their time on the repairs to make sure the ship could safely make the voyage. In an especially heart-wrenching moment, he learned that Lieutenant Hori had been engaged to the pilot of the shuttle that had taken the Cube out of the ship. She had detonated the charges without hesitation when ordered even knowing her fiancé was aboard. Their actions were, without a doubt, the bravest thing Jackson had ever witnessed in his entire life.
Saying goodbye to Commander Chambliss had been particularly difficult for Jackson. It was the second close friend that he'd allowed to be killed while chasing down a mission that he'd obsessed over. Chambliss had visited his home and had had dinner with Jillian and the twi
ns while the Nemesis was undergoing her final inspections in the Arcadia System. Some more cynical than he would say the lesson to take away from the whole thing was that as a starship captain it wasn't wise to become too close to people. While Jackson was as cynical a man as one would ever meet, he wouldn't dishonor Chambliss's memory or minimalize what his friendship had meant to an Earther who had spent his entire adult life with less friends than could be counted on one hand.
He spent the days in his command chair, watching the tactical display of the once-more listless Phage units floating around. The Betas and Alphas that the Specter had modified were now in decaying orbits and would eventually come too close to the primary star and be burned away. Jackson knew he should feel elated or at least even relieved about having stopped the rogue Darshik given the ambitions he had harbored, but all he felt was nothing. It was the same nothingness he'd felt when he was certain the Specter would finish off the Nemesis thanks to one mistake too many on his part.
It was beyond time to hang up his spurs. Celesta Wright was an admiral now and using her experience where it could do the most good. And him? He was an old fool who still thought he had the reflexes and agility of thought to tangle with the best of them. The Specter had been two steps ahead of him the entire time. He had baited him into obvious traps, manipulating the human so that Jackson would bring the one thing it desired more than anything within its grasp. Lucky for the galaxy the Darshik hadn't counted on Jackson being crazy enough to destroy something of such immeasurable value.
"Hello, Captain Wolfe."
"What the hell? I haven't even been drinking," Jackson grumbled.
"This is no illusion. I correct myself … this is an illusion, but I am really speaking with you."
"Setsi." Jackson swung his good leg over onto the floor, not bothering with the prosthetic. "I can't imagine there's a good reason you're here. What horrible thing is about to befall me?"
Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 3) Page 25