by Dave Bara
Ten hours later we were ready to drop out of traverse space and into the Pendax system at the jump point, unsure of what we would encounter there. I had my crew on max alert for the last thirty minutes. A traverse drop wasn’t a precise thing. Technically when you shut down the hyperdimensional drive, you would just “drop” out of hyperspace, traverse space, and into the nearest jump point in normal space. But it wasn’t exactly like point-to-point jumping, where you could actually calculate a spatial coordinate for a jump point based on a coordinate grid synced to the galactic plane of the elliptic. Technically, as Jenny Hogan had explained it once to me, you were moving with some forward momentum through hyperspace, and you could drift some distance from the precise jump point coordinates. That momentum might last only fractions of a second, but it could result in “drift” of up to half an AU from the jump point. But Jenny prided herself on being precise, and she was damn good at it.
“We’re free to disengage the jump drive at any time in the next ninety seconds, Captain,” she said from her station.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Please pick an optimal time and count down from there,” I said. We all braced for the drop, safety straps locked down on our couches. She looked down at her board, made some manipulations of the data, then started counting down from ten. When she reached zero the ship shifted out of hyperdimensional traverse space and into Pendax jump space, and we all got the fragment of a second of interdimensional disorientation before we settled back into normal space-time.
“Position, Lieutenant?” I asked.
“Point-oh-three-five AU inward from the jump point, sir,” she replied instantly. Pretty damn close.
“Sitrep, XO?”
“Point-five-five AU from the battle zone, sir,” Babayan said. Battle zone.
“Switch to main tactical display,” I ordered, unstrapping myself and standing to view the display. Starbound’s main display screen lit up with the tactical situation. Two Imperial dreadnoughts and half a dozen HuKs were taking on Valiant and the Wasp merchant frigates. I only counted nine Wasps, which meant three had already been destroyed.
“How fast can you get us there, Mr. Longer?” I asked. Starbound’s propulsion officer looked at his board.
“With the hybrid drive I can get us up to point-two-two light. That will have us in the battle zone in twenty-one minutes, fifty-six seconds,” he said.
“Do it,” I ordered. “Can you raise Maclintock?” I called to the com officer, a young female ensign that I didn’t recognize.
“Those dreadnoughts are putting out too much longwave interference, Captain. We can’t get through,” she said.
“Keep trying, Ensign.” I noticed her nameplate. It said Layton. I leaned down to my helmsmen’s station.
“The sister you mentioned, George?” I whispered.
“Aye, sir. Lynne. She came aboard during the personnel exchange at Candle,” he said.
“It’ll be your job to keep her safe,” I said.
“Was always planning on that, sir.”
I ordered us up to full battle trim and the ship hummed powerfully as we accelerated through normal space faster than any other ship on the battlefield with our hybrid HD drive. I used the remaining time to the battle zone to coordinate a tactical plan with my XO. The two dreadnoughts were keeping Valiant pinned down while the automated HuKs were bashing away at Zander’s Wasps. I noted though that his flagship Benfold was still in the game, which meant Zander was, too.
Commander Babayan and I plotted a strategy that would take us past a group of three of the HuKs, close enough to level our coil cannons at them. This was part of a group Zander was engaged with. I intended to give them a helping hand. I looked to my Master Chief and Weapons officer, John Marker.
“Forward coil cannons on the HuKs, both port and starboard, Mr. Marker. The XO will feed you the firing solutions. I want to destroy them if we can or disable them if we can’t so that Zander’s men can do the cleanup. Then I want all our torpedoes on the first dreadnought,” I said.
“Aye, sir!” snapped Marker from his station. I for one was glad to have him on the bridge. It was Babayan’s idea, and a good one. Without Serosian on the bridge he was the most experienced weapons officer available.
“And the second dreadnought?” Babayan asked.
“We’ll deal with her after we get that first one off of Valiant,” I said.
“Where are the Carinthians?” George Layton asked. I gave him a worried look.
“I wish I knew. Ensign Layton,” I called.
“Yes, sir,” said the helmsman’s young sister eagerly from her com station.
“Any luck raising Captain Maclintock on Valiant?”
“Not as yet, sir.”
“Are you trained on the longscope com systems, Ensign?” I asked.
“Yes, sir!” she replied.
“Then get up here,” I motioned to the ’scope. “Prepare a com probe. We’ll have her trail a longwave back to us and then bore an HD tunnel through to Valiant. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she said again as she took up her position under the ’scope. George went to assist her, but I waved him back.
“If she’s trained, she can handle it,” I said quietly to my helmsman. “I need you on your board.”
“Understood, Captain.”
We waited the remaining minutes until we reached the battle zone. I had Longer decelerate us to a fraction of our top impeller speed so that we could engage the HuKs.
“Do you have the firing strategy loaded, Mr. Marker?” I said as we approached the battlefield.
“Aye, sir!” he said.
“On my mark then,” I said. I watched as we entered firing range on the first HuK. She was trying to evade us, but we were too quick for her. “Starboard coil cannons, fire!” I commanded. The coil cannon array, a cluster of three rotating cannon ports, fired a two-second energy plasma burst, each cannon expunging her load and then cycling back to recharge her mixture of gas and plasma while the next port cycled through.
George Layton had to keep the ship on course in conjunction with the cannon port’s targeting limitations to keep a firing solution on the HuK. After the first volley the HuK went critical, her defensive systems overloading and her propulsion reactors breaking under the stress of our cannon fire. A second volley resulted in a satisfying explosion from the ship, the last two bursts hitting empty space or debris where the enemy ship had been.
“Hard to port, helmsman. Port coil cannons on the second HuK, Mr. Marker!”
“Aye, sir” came from both men in unison, and they both did their jobs to perfection, Starbound twisting her way through the debris field of the first HuK and targeting the second. A few seconds later and the second HuK had also gone up in flames. I watched as Zander’s Wasp Benfold, now free of the opposition that had been pinning her down, accelerated like a gunshot toward her third HuK tormentor, firing a barrage of missiles. In a few seconds she had turned the HuK into a pile of burning debris as she vented gasses into space. I didn’t want to think about the possibility the flames might represent oxygen for a human crew, but ultimately, again, it didn’t matter to me. They were the enemy.
Zander wobbled his wings at me as he crossed our path a few hundred clicks in front of us. That elicited a round of unexpected laughter from the crew as he gathered his comrades and they made a run for the second battle group of HuKs.
“Let it be noted that Captain Zander still has his sense of humor,” I said, smiling. But now it was back to grim business. The closest of the two dreadnoughts was dead ahead.
“Time to intercept on the first dreadnought, Mr. Longer?” I asked.
“Two minutes seventeen seconds to coil cannon range,” Longer replied.
“But she’s in range of our torpedoes now, correct?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
I nodded. “Mr. Marker.”<
br />
“Sir!”
“A volley of torpedoes, if you please. And let’s not play games here. Use the fifty-megaton warheads,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir,” said Marker, who turned back to his board while Commander Babayan fed him targeting coordinates. I walked over to the longscope station.
“Ensign Layton, status of my longwave probe?”
“Ready when you are, Captain,” she said back. I looked to George Layton, who smiled, proud of his little sister.
“Launch the probe, maintain contact, and let me know when you have the commodore on the line.”
“Aye, sir!” she said enthusiastically again. I walked back to my chair, passing Layton as I went.
“Were we ever that young, George?” I whispered. He smiled.
“Two years ago, sir,” he said. I wanted to laugh, but . . .
“Captain Maclintock on the longwave, sir,” said Ensign Layton from the longscope station. She’d done a good job.
“On the main display screen please,” I said. A jagged, grainy view of Maclintock on the bridge of Valiant appeared.
“Glad you could make the party, Captain,” he said.
“Glad to be here,” I responded. “We had a surprise waiting for us at Levant.”
“Carinthians?”
I shook my head. “Dreadnought. Same field configuration as the one that attacked Valiant at Sandosa, sir. And she came in using the direct jump method, triangulating on us with HuK support ships,” I reported.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The enemy was dealt with, sir. Levant is safe,” I replied. The screen broke up then, but the ensign got the signal back quickly.
“If you can get one of these things off my ship, I would appreciate it, Captain,” said Maclintock.
“Unfortunately, Starbound is too close to use the mass-destruction gravity weapon Captain Cochrane used at Levant.” The words came from behind me. They were spoken by Serosian, who had come on to the bridge at some point during the conversation. The Historian took a step closer to the screen, walking in front of me on my own bridge. “I cannot recommend their use again,” he finished.
“Noted, Historian,” said Maclintock. “Valiant’s Historian Virinius concurs that we are in too-tight quarters to use those weapons. What are our options for pushing these things back out of the system?”
“Limited,” I said, stepping between Serosian and the main display. “If we continue at this pace, we’ll be out of missiles before we can do enough damage to force them to retreat. Then it becomes a shooting war with energy weapons. Our defenses can hold them off indefinitely, but . . .”
“But we can’t keep fighting them that way forever. Understood. Do you have an option, Captain Cochrane?”
“I do, sir, if you’ll let me—” At that instant the signal was cut off. I turned to the longscope station.
“Ensign?”
“Longwave probe destroyed by enemy fire, sir,” she said. “I can prepare another.”
“There isn’t time. We’ll be engaging the nearest dreadnought in less than a minute. Clear the longscope station, Ensign,” I ordered, then took the station myself, bringing up the weapons display.
“Ready with torpedoes, Captain,” said Babayan in my ear com.
“Fire at will, XO,” I ordered, then went to my weapons display. All systems were available to me. I pulled up the gravity weapons display.
“You could destroy Valiant if you use the gravity plasma this close to her,” said Serosian in my ear com. He had taken up his bridge station.
“I’m aware of that. It’s not my intent at this point,” I replied.
“Then what is?” I let the line stay silent between us. On my display the high-yield torpedoes impacted against the defensive fields of the dreadnought. Even hardened against such weapons, the dreadnought took a pounding as layers of skin and metal debris peeled off her massive sides from the explosions. It had the desired effect. She turned to close on Starbound.
“And now the game begins,” I said into the com, so only Serosian could hear.
A Battle at Pendax
I had no intention of taking on the dreadnought head-on. We were a match for each other in terms of defenses but the Imperial ship had superior torpedoes in both number and yield, and we had superior energy weapons, but relying on those would be like trying to kill an elephant with a pocketknife. It could potentially go on forever. We had a nearly unlimited source of power for our defensive field and energy weapons via the ship’s HD crystals, but there would come a time where continuing the battle would no longer be an option. We had to get this over quick, and I had a plan.
“Is the dreadnought still closing on us?” I called to Babayan on my com.
“Aye, sir. Fifteen hundred kilometers and closing,” she replied. “She’ll need to get closer to fire her torpedoes. At this distance we could pick them off with our coil cannons.”
“Range to Valiant?” I asked.
“Twenty-eight hundred clicks, sir,” she said. I came out from under the longscope.
“Full reverse, Mr. Longer. What speed is the dreadnought making?” Longer looked down at his board, then turned back to me.
“About ten clicks per second, sir,” he said.
“Make our speed twelve, helm,” I ordered.
“Sir, with the hybrid drive we can make much better speed than that,” Longer said.
“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Longer. Please follow my orders,” I replied.
“Aye, sir.” Babayan came up to me.
“What’s your play?” she said.
“Get them as far away from the battlefield and our defending ships as possible,” I stated.
“And then?”
I turned to my XO. “Snuff them out of existence.”
Our ploy went well enough for five solid minutes, always pulling the dreadnought away from the battlefield. Tactical showed that Zander had lost another Wasp, but they had taken out a fourth HuK and were working on the other two. Then things changed.
“Sir, the dreadnought is breaking off, returning to the battlefield,” reported Babayan. That was the news I was waiting for. I went to the longscope and pulled up the gravity weapons display, then selected the gravity tow field, essentially a beam of gravity plasma that would attach itself to the dreadnought and pull her in the direction I wanted. I fired up the weapon and activated the beam. It took only seconds to impact the dreadnought. The effect was instantaneous. The dreadnought was under my control. I came out from under the longscope hood.
“Helm, set course for the jump point. Propulsion, what’s our best speed with the dreadnought under tow?” I asked. He ran calculations on his board again.
“About point-zero-zero-zero-eight light, sir,” said Longer.
“Do it. When we reach one hundred thousand clicks from the battlefield, let me know,” I ordered.
“That will be about seven minutes, sir,” he said. Then Serosian was at my shoulder, and I knew what he wanted to talk about.
“You could drag the dreadnought back to the jump point. Give them a chance to escape,” he said. I turned to face him, speaking quietly but firmly.
“And how do we know they’ll take it? This is an enemy that seems to only respond to brute force. I can drag them all over this system but I can’t make them jump out of it, and at this point, what incentive do they have? They can keep us at stalemate forever until they get reinforcements, and then they’ll finish us. Right now we have one advantage, and I’m going to use it,” I finished.
“You’ll destroy the dreadnought. Again,” said Serosian.
“That is my plan.”
“Ten thousand more lives on your head, Captain?”
“If that will save as many Union lives, then yes. There is always a chance that the other dreadnought will see the wisdom of retreat, and
maybe we’ll have a chance to save the souls on that ship.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Peter,” he said.
“Then perhaps I’m not the man you thought I was.” He looked at me, impassive.
“Perhaps you’re not,” he said.
Six minutes later and we had reached the 100,000 click mark. I put my plan into motion. Serosian had left the bridge, and that was fine with me. I didn’t have time to worry about the deterioration of our relationship when I still had a battle to fight.
I disengaged the tow field and switched to the gravity-implosion weapon.
“Range to the dreadnought, Mr. Layton?” I asked.
“Nineteen hundred clicks, sir,” he replied.
“Give us some distance, helm. I want a five-thousand-click bubble at a minimum,” I said. That wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. The dreadnought, once released from our tow, was now able to maneuver and she was turning slowly to make her way back to the battlefield and Valiant. Our speed was pulling us away from her, and the distance between us started to grow rapidly.
“Four thousand,” called Layton. I activated the gravity-implosion weapon and started the firing sequence.
“Forty-five hundred.”
I had a yellow light on my board. Not quite ready yet.
“Five thousand, sir.”
“Acknowledged,” I said. I was still yellow.
My board went green at six thousand. I fired the weapon at sixty-five hundred.
The dreadnought warped, collapsed, imploded, and then disintegrated in a shower of silver sparks. I shut down the longscope station. Everyone in the Pendax system would have seen that light show. Whether the remaining Imperial units survived or not depended on what they did next. It took thirty seconds for their response.
“Captain Maclintock on the line, sir,” said Ensign Layton.
“On the bridge display please,” I said. Maclintock appeared from his bridge.
“The remaining dreadnought is bugging out, making for the jump point. She’s ceased all communication interference,” he said.