by Shane Black
The strangely dressed people in the room looked back and forth at each other for a few moments before Toby DeMay lowered his weapon just a hair. “Lieutenant Tixia.”
“Well I suppose that answers the question of whether they destroyed Dunkerque,” Moo quipped, relaxing the grip on his blaster. “But it doesn’t answer the question of who the rest of you are.”
“This is Captain L’Orleans,” DeMay replied. “She uh– she picked the lock for us.”
Moo stared.
“We’ve met before, colonel.” Cerylia smiled sweetly as she touched the brim of her hat.
“I don’t believe this,” Moo sighed.
Eighty-Five
“We might be of some assistance to you, sir,” Commander Harcourt said. “At the very least we might give some of Kingsblade’s escorts something to shoot at besides our flagship.”
“I’m counting on them taking shots at me, Dominic,” Hunter replied. “Annora was right. You saw their fighters. They just turned around and set a course for home the moment we disengaged. Those two fleets were set up to defend against fighter strikes, not direct engagement. This is an eventuality they simply aren’t programmed to handle. If the fighters are automated, then so are the ships. Based on our last action, we’ve got a better than average chance of a mission kill on their flagship, and that will both put an abrupt stop to the chase and put us on offense for a change.”
“With all due respect, sir, it’s a risk.”
“Acknowledged, Commander. Let’s not make it any bigger a risk than it needs to be. We got all our fighters and gunships back with only minor damage and no casualties. Now I want their automation system to panic and take their best shots at me first. While they are, you and the rest of the squadron will be taking out her escorts’ drives. If we do this right, I might even get a chance to use my secret weapon. We’ll meet in the middle. Hunter out.”
The Argent Captain rose from his command chair and stood at the edge of the pilot’s station, hands on the helm.
“Alright, Yolanda. Let’s get this fight started. Give me a fifteen degree roll to port and stand by to bank into gun range. Tactical! Line them up in battery order!”
“Acknowledged, Skipper! Main batteries charged for projectile strike! Standing by!”
The ominous image of the battleship Kingsblade occupied the center of Argent’s main display, gradually growing larger as the range closed. She floated in space with an elegance equal only to her absolutely massive weaponry and armor constructs. By her bearing, it was clear the mighty starship was well aware of her approaching opponent, automated or not.
A moment later, intense beams of destructive energy lashed out from her dorsal energy batteries and crossed thousands of miles of space in fractions of a second. Each widened to fill Argent’s screens before Hunter’s ship lurched and shuddered with the impacts.
“Direct hits on our forward battle screens! Defenses holding!” the tactical officer exclaimed.
“Range to target!” Hunter shouted.
“Six thousand miles off our starboard point!”
“Now, Yolanda! Hard-a-larboard!”
Lieutenant McInerney pulled the helm manual controls back. The deck rolled. Argent banked deeply into her port turn and brought her own main battery to bear on her defiant counterpart. Rail casters one and three swiveled on their mounts and lined up their tracks.
“I have a bearings match and waveform lock on her primary power structure!”
“That’s your target, gunner!”
Kingsblade fired again. Two more main battery blasts crashed into Argent’s starboard and dorsal shields, but this was no mere cruiser taking the big battleship’s gunfire. The Citadel-class capital ship under Hunter’s command absorbed the war shots in all their fury and held her course.
“Railshot One!”
Argent’s enormous primary rail caster glowed to life with a yellow-white lightning-like brightness before tens of millions of volts of electrical energy brought a magnetic field into existence around the 100-ton deuterium slug at its base. A blast of superheated plasma shook the entire upper half of the ship as the slug pierced space at a considerable fraction of light speed.
Bright lines of plasma energy marked the course of the Argent’s railshot directly into the Kingsblade’s dorsal shields. The impact explosion lit up the inside of Argent’s bridge and even managed to pull the huge enemy vessel slightly off course. Kingsblade responded with another full power blast that slammed into Argent’s bow. Battle screens glowed and arced with wild and unrestrained electromagnetic energy.
“Railshot Three!”
Argent’s number three rail caster fired with equal severity. The slug pulverized the navigational magnetic emitters on the crown of the Kingsblade’s forward hull, which only seemed to anger the larger vessel. It fired again, and again, and yet again. Argent’s battle screens held, but the rumbling of the unstable energy waves as they reverberated around the hull sounded like thunder rolling across a desert horizon.
This was what battleships were built for. One hard punch after another. First from one, then from the other. Kingsblade’s energy batteries landed body blow after body blow. Argent’s railguns smashed and thudded. Battle screens glowed and crackled. Powered armor plates absorbed and dissipated. The two heavyweights slugged one another over and over again.
Then, like a small child rushing to the aid of its parent, the escort frigate DSS Minstrel rocketed across the ostensible no-man’s land between the two behemoths. Lieutenant Islington had never been known for her bashful approach to combat, and this engagement was likely to be no different. Her badger-like miniature starship managed to unleash a phalanx of two dozen hypervelocity shipkiller missiles directly into the teeth of an opponent that could blow her command into spare parts with one well-aimed shot.
The missiles punctured Kingsblade’s magnetic interference envelope and slashed through her drive field, intent on defeating her forward shields and exposing the huge ship’s armor to the heavier fire of Minstrel’s fleet-mates. The heavy battleship’s point defense exploded into action. Seventeen of Minstrel’s birds were ripped and blasted into debris in the first pass. Three more tried to evade and yanked themselves off course, colliding with each other before impact. Four hit Kingsblade’s forward battle screens hard enough to cause a violently synchronized plasma detonation across her starboard leading edge.
“Nice shooting Dennis! Now give me aft energy batteries to maximum and fire as she bears!” Islington’s voice encouraged her spirited crew. “Port roll eighty degrees and veer us off, helm! All ahead full!”
Minstrel banked away from Kingsblade at the precise moment the larger ship’s point defense was about to acquire lock. Energy bolts ripped into space where the little ship was supposed to be, but wasn’t. A moment later, Minstrel’s aft energy batteries cut and tore at Kingsblade’s starboard hard points in a barrage that resembled a small dog ferociously attacking a longhorn bull’s hoof. Then she dodged, rolled starboard and spun away into space.
A cheer went up on Argent’s bridge and similar celebrations sounded across the command net. Jayce Hunter leaned back in her chair with a hand over her eyes and an entirely non-regulation grin on her face.
“Hire the bloody pirate skipper flying that ship before they get away!” Commander Teller shouted. Aboard the Constellation, Commander Flynn put two fingers to his mouth and whistled another cheer while his bridge crew pumped their fists and shouted. It was a spectacular display of aggressive fleet tactics put on by the “baby” of the Perseus squadron and the Hunter crews couldn’t get enough.
“New contact! Designate Lucifer Four Four bearing two one zero mark one three. On intercept course and closing! Estimated time to range twenty seconds!”
“Sabrina, I want those escorts fully occupied,” Jayce ordered. “Absolutely nothing gets through to engage Argent, clear?”
“Clear, ma’am. Interdiction pattern on the board. Standing by.” Lieutenant Mallory adjusted the cont
rols at her command station and watched the main display intently.
“Helm, new course one two mark seven. All ahead flank. Tactical, main batteries to full power. Go active on the lead vessel at ten thousand miles and start the clock. Mark!” Jayce snapped her shock harness closed as her own flagship veered out of formation and led DSS Spruance and Revenge on their own attack run.
Eighty-Six
It didn’t take long for the Argent officers to realize they had found their way into one of the station’s less frequently used gas and chemical storage bays.
“They’re firing at our decoys, Colonel,” Captain L’Orleans said confidently as she holstered her semi-legal weapon. “My work here is done.” She nodded to her crew members and made for the airlock on the far wall.
“Wait a second!” Moo almost shouted. “We’re a little undermanned here! We could use some help.”
“Not to mention you’re our only transport back to Dunkerque,” DeMay added.
Captain L’Orleans gave Moo a skeptical look. Her comrades hesitated.
“Make me an offer, colonel,” she purred.
“What? You want me to pay you or something?”
“Unlike yourself, colonel, I don’t go charging into well-guarded facilities for love and glory. If you want my crew to fight for your side, then you’ll have to do better than what we’ve already been offered.”
“You can’t possibly be working for the Ithis.”
“We’re mercenaries, colonel. We’re not suicidal.”
“I forgot my checkbook, Captain.”
“Well, there you have it. I’m already late for my next engagement, so I’ll bid you and your finest a respectful farewell.” The Captain and her men slipped through the airlock one by one and were gone.
Moo and the rest of the Argent personnel stared for a few moments. The colonel walked over to an appropriately-sized metal crate and sat heavily. He rested his arm on his leg and let the gun hang loosely.
“Sir, I’ll relinquish command to you. What are your orders?”
Moo rubbed his eyes and looked up with a tired expression. “Say again?”
“I was promoted to acting Commander for my temporary post as skipper of the Dunkerque. You are the ranking officer present. It’s your command.”
Moo looked around at his battered crew. Lieutenant Austin looked particularly spent. It was understandable, considering what they had all been through. It took a few moments, but finally the lack of a way back to Hatch’s ship dawned fully.
“I take it we can presume your ship wasn’t hit?”
“Aye. Dunkerque was intact when we abandoned ship. She should be parked about fifteen thousand clicks off the base at a bearing of two niner zero true,” Toby replied. One by one the exhausted crew members took seats on various crates in the relatively cavernous chamber. “Without a drive field, she’s going to be tough to pick out with all the debris out there.”
“I’m a little concerned they haven’t sent anyone looking for us yet,” Yili pointed out. “One would think they would have some kind of intruder detection system operational by now.”
“The gun has ceased fire too,” Zony added.
“I’m not surprised to hear they were shooting at L’Orleans’ ships,” Moo replied. “Makes perfect sense. She probably had her escorts out there taunting them while she was getting Hatch’s personnel down and intact on the station.”
“That’s what I would have done,” Yili said. “But now it’s up to us. The Captain had two objectives in mind when he sent us out here. First, we have to bring down the minefield. Second, we have to bring the gun back into operation, but that’s going to present us with our biggest problem.”
“Explain,” Moo asked.
“Once we take control of this station’s weapons, we’re not going to be able to maintain our energy source. One of the biggest strengths of the energy field system is the fact they can generate power at point ‘A’ and transmit it to point ‘B’ Once they turn off the transmitter, we lose power and the gun becomes inoperative.”
“That is a problem,” Zony said. “Too bad we can’t hijack the transmission field.”
“It’s worth a try in a lab, but out here the practical considerations are time and confidence. We don’t have enough of the former to guarantee the latter,” Yili replied.
“What about the Dunkerque?” Hatch asked. “She was our original plan. Her reactors can power the gun. Why can’t we put that back into operation?”
“If we can get to her,” Moo said. “And get control of this station with only a few insufficiently armed crewmen at the same time.”
“We need the station first,” Zony concluded. “That gives us more options for getting the minefield keyed to our control. Once we have both we can defend ourselves from the fleet and support the Captain.”
“Alright, let’s quietly find a way to get some weapons and establish some kind of a base of operations down here. Then we’ll start working on the bigger problems,” Moo said. “First–”
As though someone had thrown a switch, the entire station was plunged into darkness and silence.
Eighty-Seven
The Perseus cruisers bore down on Kingsblade’s escort ships like hungry wild dogs. Just like Captain Hunter speculated, they weren’t set up for a ship to ship engagement and by now the Constellation’s sensor section had confirmed no known life forms were present on any of the Poseidon Task Force ships. They were fully automated and apparently functioning at only a fraction of their actual capabilities.
“Target engines and power systems. Energy weapons online. Secure from missile targeting,” Commander Hunter ordered.
“Acknowledged. Range closing to twelve thousand miles. Main battery lock acquired.”
“Configure the datanet on a rotating frequency. All transmitters quick quiet. Stand by.” Hunter authorized all the bridge consoles to deploy their short-range combat modes. The tactical station unfolded into its gunnery configuration. Lieutenant Mallory peered through the sophisticated optical pickups and placed her hands on the power and targeting controls.
“Firing range in ten seconds.”
The primary batteries of the starship Revenge glowed an angry shade of red as they drew power from her crash reactors. On the opposite side of Commander Hunter’s strike cruiser, the equally heavy weapons of DSS Spruance hummed with destructive energy. The Perseus formation sped across the Poseidon escorts’ course at more than 600 kilometers a second, seeking to intercept the Kingsblade’s heavier ships before they could come to the defense of their own battle group’s capital platform.
Moments before they broke firing range, more than 160 overloaded anti-matter warheads knifed through the three-cruiser attack formation and accelerated into their terminal approaches directly at the Poseidon vessels. The Kingsblade’s escorts were caught out of position and unprepared for Raymond Flynn’s brilliantly coordinated missile attack from the Constellation. Emergency point defenses frantically opened up on the fast-moving wall of destruction, but it was far too late.
The concept of a battleship escorted by capital missile platforms had a long and storied history in Skywatch. Many flag officers considered it their sacred duty to reserve a place at the table for the biggest ships and the biggest weapons. Meanwhile, space combat, like many other forms of tactical conflict, often favored three smaller well-coordinated ships to one large easily-targeted vessel.
Three of the four escort ships in the Poseidon squadron were heavily armed with powerful missiles that even a first year cadet knew would do them no good at all against Commander Hunter’s highly trained and nearly perfectly coordinated task force. It was the space combat equivalent of firing a Howitzer at a housefly, or bringing a bazooka to a knife fight in a phone booth. With all those enormous launchers taking up space, there was no room for adequate point defense. Big guns depended on little guns to protect them until they could locate a suitable target. Argent was such a target, but she was still two million miles beyond their maxim
um controllable range. Unfortunately, because Commander Hunter had closed range with their formation so quickly, Fury, Spruance and Revenge were approximately a hundred thousand miles inside their minimum range. Fully 85% of Poseidon’s firepower had been neutralized simply because none of the Kingsblade’s escorts could find a target.
The resulting battle, if what occurred could be dignified with that label, was short and violent. The missile cruiser Ceres was disemboweled and decapitated by Revenge in the first pass. The final ten-megaton proximity blast sent her twisted hull into an uncontrolled vertical spin before it tumbled off into space having failed to get off a single defensive shot.
A brief, savage confrontation between the Fury and the missile cruiser Leto left the latter vessel burning in space.
The third ship, DSS Aike, was set upon by most of the Constellation’s birds and annihilated in a multi-warhead detonation that spiked energy sensors as far away as Station 19.
Four capital missiles were launched at the Argent by the Poseidon formation. Three were shot down by the Spruance and the fourth was vaporized by reflex battery fire from DSS Ajax. It was the most one-sided deep space engagement in fleet history, even though it was really a victory of manned ships over scarcely more than autopilots.
Meanwhile, with Lieutenant Islington’s annoying little ship dodging in and out of range, and Argent pounding away on the Kingsblade’s reactors, the heavy battleship was beginning to show signs of fatigue. Her weapons were exhausted. She was underway, but her drive field was cutting in and out at only 28% of its maximum power levels. Her starboard battle screens were down and what was left of her forward screen wouldn’t survive another direct hit.
But Captain Jason Hunter wasn’t on the bridge to see the unfolding victory. At the moment it became clear the automation systems aboard Kingsblade would be unable to protect the ship from eventual destruction, the Argent Skipper was powering up the engines of a heavy paladin multi-role mech on Flight Two.
“Hunter to Bridge.”
“Bridge, McInerney.”
“Alright, Yolanda, make sure tactical keeps our ECM field at maximum. I’m betting her autosystems won’t detect us until it’s too late.”