“Don’t worry, I won’t” he whispered back.
“Won’t what?”.
“Tell you”.
“If you get fucking shot this time, I’ll…”.
“Come on lads, derring-do doesn’t dare itself” Armstrong threw over his shoulder as he strode past with Magnus.
“Corporal” both acknowledged in flat voiced unison.
Magnus lead them out of the armoury and headed back towards the nearest lift shaft. Thresher felt apprehension set in at their unusual travel itinerary. The lift took them deep into the two thirds of Dreadnought that was unpressurised and packed with machinery, weapons or ammunition. The elevator travelled down towards the ship’s stern to a ready magazine for Dreadnought’s main weapon. Her spinal mass cannon ran almost the whole ship’s length. It was designed to accelerate a range of munitions including 80 tonne two stage multi-purpose missiles up to considerable fractions of c. Adding four men in combat suits would not slow it down.
The team cautiously approached the main gun’s breach, which was obligingly open with a specially configured first missile stage load. The multiple independent warheads were missing. Crude acceleration webbing were located in their place.
Magnus slid into the forward web, Armstrong picked the next one, Lincoln, looked at Thresher and opened a private link via mind’s eye, “I ain’t riding bitch between you and the Screw” and hopped into the rearmost location. Thresher shrugged and took the last space, securing himself and his kit in a workman like fashion.
Magnus received a green light from his small team. His mind’s eye sent a readiness signal. At the CIC tactical post, Chris Benbow acquiesced. Between one heartbeat and the next they were out in space. The journey would take minutes even at these speeds and both stages of the missile would burn out all their drives to rendezvous with their target.
The unaided human eye could not have picked out their destination at the start of their journey. Even with the enhancements woven into his very cells, he could only detect an infra-red dot in the far distance. His suit sensors added more detail. Little of the local star’s light was reflected out here in the depths of the system.
The missile’s seeker head added more information. He could make out the missing sections of Spirit’s main drive and jump systems more clearly now. He put the mystery of how and why it boosted out of orbit from Coppinger's Graveyard to one side and contemplated the task ahead.
The little craft accelerated hard back towards Dreadnought though Magnus felt nothing. Then it slipped into the Spirit’s devastated engineering space and clamped itself to the hull. After the four had disembarked it would use the last of its power to dissolve into individual molecules, leaving nothing for the archeo-tech infestation.
Lincoln and Thresher secured themselves to the Spirit’s hull by the nanotech grips in the soles of their suit boots, then surveyed the perimeter, Magnus and Armstrong striped every useful item out of the 1st stage. A flock of stealthy smart missiles swept away from the boarding team, searching for an easy way to penetrate the hull.
Hundreds of thousands of kilometres away and slowly decreasing, Hannah Cartwright sat uneasily in Dreadnought’s CIC. She had never sought command, preferring the challenges engineering brought her. Admittedly those challenges had led to her exile to Tor Station, with the nickname of Doctor Frankenstein. Somewhat obscure for the late third millennium, but emotive. Maybe it was time for some career development after all.
On a cobbled together mission with a half-crewed ship she felt out of her natural element. She did pat herself mentally on the back, plenty of jumps, a weapons test, a stealth run and a flight through a giant dust cloud. At least she knew she did her first job right. Dreadnought could not have run better. Now she just had keep the centre chair warm.
Chapter 5
The small boarding party had forced their way into the ship as discretely as possible. The drive section had ejected cleanly, leaving hatches, airlocks and access ways exposed. Carefully applied violence allowed entry into the Spirit’s airless hulk.
Smart missiles flew forth from Armstrong, Lincoln and Thresher as they slid through the ship’s spinal access. Every fifty metres another airtight hatch had to be unlocked and opened with no access to the main systems. Battery backups were dead through-out the ship.
The best excuse Magnus had found for leading boarding party was that nothing could beat telekinesis for shifting a powerless door. So far, he had simply pealed the doors apart along welds and pushed the remnants through. If that wasn’t enough, properly configured, a psy-blade could wedge open cracks and weld line too small to see or just slice a new opening.
The smart missile had flit through the ship’s structure like a flock of birds, nothing moved, plenty of dead frozen bodies of crew and passengers lay about the pressure hulls. Some just hadn’t got a suit on when the whole ship had been decompressed, others had been killed with gunfire.
The retrieval signal kept leading them further towards the bow. As the group continued, the damage to the ship herself increased and the number of intact bodies decreased. Someone had put up a hell of a fight. Finally, they arrived near the signal’s source. They had to leave the spinal corridor and move out into the hangar deck. None of the small craft were intact. Blast damage from volleys of smart missiles had wrecked the internal bulkheads and fittings through-out.
The parts of several corpses were spread around, looking as if they had exploded, then burned, then froze as each catastrophe tried to trump the previous.
The retrieval beacon demanded ID as they closed to within twenty metres, Magnus’ mind’s eye dragged out an a very old pass code in response to the challenge. The results were both surprising and expected in the same breath. Like a bad penny, some people could not help but keep turning up and when they did mayhem ensued.
Cartwright had experienced the normal emotions of command in the front lines. The romance of command was a thin veneer for the same truth lurking at the heart of many duties in space. Long periods of boredom, short periods of grinding nerves and infinitesimal periods of absolute terror. Several hours after departure, but long before the planned intercept Magnus had broken the strict comms silence whilst Dreadnought still languished some ninety-thousand kilometres away. He’d been, short and sharp. “Dreadnought Actual to CIC. Get alongside Spirit’s bow doors then receive the boarding party, one casualty and one item of cargo. Authentication to follow by data link. Out”.
Now Dreadnought truly stretched her wings and flew, her drive pulling a shade over one hundred gravities as she tried to bend not just space but time to her master’s will. None of her shuttles could match such a sprint.
Cartwright was just beginning to envision the successful end of the mission and getting comfortable sitting in the big chair. She had found this brief stint quite exhilarating and a little sad to be turn command back over to Magnus as he came aboard.
The universe responded. The main display lit up with contacts. A lot of large, primitive ships were entering the Salmis system via the jump point at Coppinger’s Grave Yard, then accelerating up through the dust cloud on an intercept course. Dreadnought’s best exit has just slammed shut, even as her mission continued.
Dreadnought’s reactionless drive reversed in accordance with Jones’ navigation plot.
Cartwright needed information. At the Tactical post, Christopher Benbow worked hard to get it. Dreadnought’s magazines were a hive of activity as flights of missiles were loaded with sensor packages and prepped for launch. Lateral and spinal launchers threw their payloads across the heavens.
Information came in, slowly. None of the newcomers used active sensors. They must have accelerated whilst still in orbit of Coppinger’s Grave Yard and now were flying ballistic at impressive speed whilst Dreadnought was slowing to meet her target.
Cartwright was still avoiding active sensors, the opposition might know a ship was in the system, but not exactly where. The heat sink had a huge operational margin left, so Dreadnought rem
ained a shadow in the dark for now.
Magnus had anchored himself standing in the vacuum exposed zero gravity hangar bay. The main doors had been smashed open with a lively explosion from demo charges. Nothing had stirred or awakened despite the rumpus. Thankfully it hadn’t taken long to find where their subject. A rescue beacon revealed her hiding spot behind a thruster housing. A cargo launcher had been hooked up to an emergency power supply. The boarding party plus one along with their prize were anchored to a pallet and set on the launch rails. Dreadnought came into range, still moving at mind boggling velocity. Armstrong looked over his charges one last time. His mind’s eye link confirmed one last time he would not spatter across his own hull or go screaming off into interplanetary space. He took a breath, then activated the new icon sitting front and centre on his vision. The launcher rumbled into life.
The whole team then felt a powerful kick on their backsides, the launcher accelerated them out at fifteen gravities, only of a brief instant, then Spirit receded fast behind them.
Dreadnought’s passive sensors picked up the boarding party and extras. Greg Jones at the Pilot station ran simple snatch and grab plot through the navigation system. Dreadnought’s bow turned away from Spirit and her drive field dropped to standby. The boarding party continued their approach, even the enhanced eyes of a Laurentian would only be able to pick out the low albedo hull of Dreadnought at the last second. The sensors on the boarding suit would do a bit better, but not much.
A beep and flashing text in his mind’s eye told Magnus they had entered the Hanger bay’s catcher field, before being spun through 90 degrees and lowered gently into a docking cradle.
Any landing he could walk away from was a good landing. Magnus directed the Paras to secure the prizes and headed though the kit room quickly changing to shipboard rig then departing immediately for the CIC.
He walked into CIC, up to the centre seat on the command level, turned to Cartwright, made a dramatic intake of breath, then said “Anyone for a cup of tea?”. Her chain of thought was neatly broken for an instant before replying “Ooh! Tea, milk no sugar. Ta, Skipper”. The tension which had been building steadily in the CIC for hours flowed away as most of those present smirked quietly to themselves.
Simultaneously, the ship’s log downloaded directly into Magnus’ mind’s eye, granting instant situational awareness, he smiled at Cartwright, “I have control, nice to see she’s in one piece and nice catch Greg”, Cartwright responded in time honoured fashion “You have control Skipper”. She grinned then added “I told him, he’d be the one scraping the red paste off the hull, not me if he screwed it up”. “I’m going back to my cubby” and took her steaming mug down to the engineering post.
Greg looked up from the Pilot station with false indignance. Magnus directed Jones to set a new course for navigation, best stealthy acceleration towards the next nearest suitable point of stability, down system at Salmis 4.
After three hours of waiting, the flights of smart missiles starting beaming back high resolution images of the would-be pursuers.
None of the nearest contacts appeared to be real ships up close. Clouds of electronic warfare drones were throwing out signals intermittently. Magnus found himself more confused by the actions of the enemy. Torch drive readings near Coppinger’s Grave yard, but little sign of any genuine Torch ships breaking orbit, squadrons of bogeys made up of clever EW drones. The Spirit attacked and left powerless on a ballistic course in system. A cry for help from a high value Laurentian asset.
Magnus linked to Armstrong via mind’s eye “How’s Agent Athena and her cargo?”.
He got a reply instantly “I checked in half an hour ago, still undergoing regen therapy, between radiation exposure and a nasty concussion, she will be out for a little longer. Our patented grumpy ship’s sawbones, has run her through decontamination and a tissue reviver, just waiting for the latest batch of surgical remotes to finish the job and she should be up and about any time”.
Then a follow on as Armstrong did what every good subordinate does and added what information he thought his boss should know even if he hasn’t asked “Her cargo has gotten very restless. I have it isolated in a Faraday cage at the moment, but the containment unit is running near max capacity. I’ve made sure it’s pointing out an airlock in the hangar bay. Any funny business and pop, the abacus goes overboard”.
Magnus called up their flying course to the Salmis 4 jump point, then sat in quiet contemplation as the CIC crew went about their jobs in front of him. After two more hours racing across the system faster and faster, he stood the ship down to condition two and handed the watch to Maggie Heisenberg. Even the sons and daughters of Avalon, with all their clever nanotech in every cell needed to sleep.
Magnus exited CIC. He thanked whichever astro-nautical architect had placed the Commander’s cabin a few short steps from CIC, slid through the hatch and into his cabin.
He slid straight through the day cabin, ignoring the spacious briefing and dining area. A small cabin space beyond held a decent sized bed, a small ensuite and wardrobe. He threw his uniform on the floor, jumped in the shower for two minutes then collapsed straight into bed.
In CIC, Heisenberg made a decision many considered unwise, she chose not to tell Dreadnought’s Commander of events at their immediate destination. The light arriving from the battle was old anyway.
Dreadnought’s CIC crew watched powerless as a Lakedaemian Navy Battle Group jumped in, facing first a mine field and a small but capable Blight squadron.
Lakedaemia had long been a rival and reflection of the Laurentian Star Kingdom. The Laurentians were the champions of machine integration and the most powerful nation of humanity’s integrationist bloc. On the other hand, Lakedaemia stood for perfection through genetic engineering, standing out as the leading culture of the supremacist bloc. The philosophical differences had led to wars and skirmishes through the last thousand years. The latest period of uncomfortable peace was based on the Treaty of Good Faith, which Dreadnought was in the process of bending if not outright breaching.
The great Torch Ship Lycurgus and her escorts, two coil gun cruisers, four missile defence destroyers and eight scouting frigates put up a valiant fight, but emerged from their jump deep in gravity well of Salmis 4 and her biggest satellite with little base velocity. They were immediately set upon by directed energy mines and stealth missile platforms.
Lycurgus burned hard for open space, clawing for altitude. Her escorts star burst to mutually support her and themselves. Torch ships had an inherent blind spot around their drive plumes.
The incoming fire wore through the escorts energetic defences and hits landed. In final acts of courage, the smaller ships placed themselves between Lycurgus and incoming weapons fire.
The Lakedaemians got their own hits in, impressive flights of missiles struck out hammering the attackers. Blight ships appeared from the jump point, even as the Lakedaemians qualitative advantage in long range weapons took its toll. Lycurgus’ battle group were worried at, eventually Lycurgus was alone. Missiles kept ducking round her drive plume minimising the chance for her point defences to fight back.
She rotated around her base course almost like and old style barrel roll, but it wasn’t enough. As the last great barrage of missiles burned past her beleaguered defences, a final large wave of drones and a flight of assault shuttles broke free from her hangar deck, each too nimble for ship to ship warheads, energy beams and plasma bursts. The mix of small ships broke into two groups, the smaller appearing from behind their mother’s destruction as if to race towards the atmosphere of Salmis 4 for shelter.
The smaller group telegraphed their presence and were harried relentlessly for it by Blight assets. The larger group where stealthier and set course for the Salmis four’s moon under cover of thoroughly irradiated space, to all appearances undetected by their tormentors.
Chapter 6
The small flight of shuttles heading for Salmis 4 were overwhelmed in the end, but the
y had succeeded in diverting the Blight ships.
The larger flight raced to Salmis four’s moon and then disappeared over the horizon. The watch rotated through CIC, Maggie Heisenberg passed the centre seat on to Harry Bainham. His mind’s eye kept him subconsciously aware of ship status. The routine was a little mind numbing, without relieving tension from the earlier battle.
The Sensor post played little updates from the ongoing action on the big screen intermittently.
As Blight ships closed the net on the shuttles, flights of drones would break formation and harass their efforts, stirring up the already tumultuous orbital space with sensor defying bursts of energy and clouds of energy absorbing particles. Each distraction was barely enough to keep the victorious but bloodied Blight squadron off balance and away from the shuttles.
In the age of water navies, contact reports were passed to Ship Captains all the time, whether they were asleep or not.
The observable sphere around a space craft was potentially infinite, but new information arrived at light speed. The distances between astro-graphical features took hours or days to cross in normal space.
Computers could, for the most part, manage the running of a ship. Human high level management could be applied sparingly and the minimum CIC watch might consist of just a pilot and a Watch Officer. An expert system within the computer network would evaluate situations, intervention timescales and standing objectives. It then added a recommendation on recalling the Commander or no to the ship’s log and passed the final decision to the Watch Officer.
No system was perfect, not all Watch Officers made perfect decisions. Waking a Commander for every event observed but beyond influence, would make for an exhausted mess of an Officer in very little time. Commanders weren’t always satisfied, but by and large, few Laurentian Commanders collapsed from exhaustion.
The Syracuse Deception Page 4