by Chris Hechtl
“Aye aye, ma’am,” Willard replied with a nod to Alton. “Let's give the Taurens what they want.”
“And then we'll get what we want. Right,” Alton replied with a nod.
“Definitely,” Jan murmured as the two officers split up and began to issue orders.
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Adrienne listened to the orders as they came in and then sent out an acknowledgment. Then she turned to her squadron commanders. “Okay, listen up. The brass think the enemy is playing cat and mouse in order to follow us in and then try playing footsie with missiles. We're going to get back in the barn and perform a fast turn and burn. Fuel and life support replenishment as quick as we can. Don't screw around. Once we launch we stick close to the carriers on the offside away from any prying eyes …”
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“The enemy's small craft are boarding their mother ships now,” the Beta bull reported.
“Now, while they are distracted,” the Alpha bull ordered. “Move in fast and hard. Flank speed! Get us into missile range but plot a course out and keep it up-to-date. I want this fast,” he ordered.
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Ensign Lex saw the sensor feed. “The enemy is beginning their run, ma'am,” he reported a beat before the CIC tech did. Jan looked up as she shut the shower off and reached for a towel.
“Very well. Let's see how deep we can draw them in before we ream their asses on the way out,” Jan growled as she finished toweling her hair. “I'll be on the bridge in five,” she stated.
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
“And next time, Ensign, knock,” Jan drawled. “Always show due deference to a lady when she's bathing.”
“Yes, ma’am, especially a superior officer. That's why the cameras are off,” he replied.
Jan stopped what she was doing with a scowl. “Wait, there are cameras in here?” she demanded, but he didn't answer.
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“Entering maximum enemy range now,” a sensor bull reported. The Alpha bull looked up and noted the line. He turned to the ship's Alpha bull.
“I think they'll wait. Like us they want the best resolutions they can get and the shortest run times,” the ship's Alpha bull stated slowly.
“Agreed,” the Alpha bull rumbled.
“Eight minutes until point of no return,” the sensor tech warned, putting up another line on the main plot.
“Status of the enemy small craft?” the Alpha bull demanded.
“The enemy has put several of their vessels between us and their mother ships. They are also employing jamming. We cannot sniff out the spoor in such conditions,” the sensor tech warned.
Both Alpha bulls looked at each other significantly. “Keep me posted,” the Alpha bull finally said.
“They'll turn them around as quickly as possible. They may be doing that now, Herd Leader,” the ship's Alpha bull warned.
“Agreed. Which means they want us to come in deeper.” He turned to the weapons tech. “Weapons, how sure are you of your shot?”
“The enemy's use of jamming this early is allowing us to write filters to combat them more effectively. Not all ships have their jamming up yet however. Targets?”
The Alpha bull rubbed his jaw. He had been tempted to go for the mother ships and the enemy's battle line but both were too well protected. He shook his head after a moment. “Go for the ships closest to us that you have the best shots for. We'll need to coordinate with the other ships. I want the missiles to come in all at once in a storm of fire.”
“Setting up the shot now, Herd Leader,” the weapons tech replied. “It will take another moment to confirm order receipt from the other vessels.”
“Good.”
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When the Taurens launched their missiles, Jan ordered her carriers to fall back further under the protection of the cruisers and destroyers and her battle line to return fire. She was surprised though that the enemy had opted to attrition her screening elements instead of going for the quick kill on her most valuable ships. Obviously, they were learning.
She heard Alton swear and turned to look at the plot as their missiles got within two million kilometers of the enemy ships. She was surprised by the Tauren missile defenses, including crude counter missiles that launched and began to go off, blossoming nuclear fireballs in the path of the incoming missiles. There weren't a lot, but they were not anticipated.
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Roger Daringer scowled as he listened to the reports. So far so good. Galahad had caught the edge of the enemy's fire in the first exchange. Clearly, they knew that the destroyers lacked the amount of ammunition of the larger ships but had lasers to interdict enemy missiles. A near miss went off and then a missile went off tearing at the ship's shields.
“Damage control to starboard bow! DCC to starboard bow! Starboard turrets offline. Missile tubes two and four are offline!” DCC rang out over the klaxon. He scowled and flipped through the various camera feeds. There weren't a lot of cameras left, either they'd been destroyed or so addled or cooked. They were offline when he finally did get a feed and saw the wreckage in the indicated areas he nearly gagged.
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“Pull the destroyers back so they are in easier support range of the cruisers,” Admiral Oh ordered just as he noted Lancelot taking fire. “Damn it,” he muttered as the small ship's shields went down. “Get them …” his roar was cut off as he saw Captain Zilmar's ship lose her engines and then drift through the plasma and debris from the last missiles. When the ship emerged, she was no better than a wreck, her hull scoured clean. “Frack,” he muttered.
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“We are nearly depleted on counter robotic craft, Herd Leader. The enemy has sustained one loss of their small defenders and some damage to others,” the sensor tech reported.
“Helm, change course to get us out of here. Weapons, one more broadside. Fire missiles then a series of warshot. Then reserve the last for the next round of incoming robotic craft and the enemy's small craft,” the herd leader ordered.
As expected, as they turned to run the enemy's small craft separated from their mother ships and formed up before they began to run at full speed up the wakes of the turning Tauren ships.
“Fire broadsides!” the Alpha bull barked.
Broadsides went out in a cloud of metal into the void. Each turret sprayed the rounds at two degrees of their arc in the direction of the incoming enemy ships. The intent was to fill the space between the warships and the enemy small craft with so much metal they would be forced to go very high or low or wade through the wall of death, taking their licks as they did.
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Adrienne saw the flash of the turrets firing and yelped. “All ships jink! Incoming!” she pitched her ship up, then corkscrewed around a soundlessly screaming piece of metal coming in her direction. It missed but only barely. Her computers registered a difference in speed from the last time she'd been up against such a cloud.
“Mother Fracker,” she muttered as another spread came at her. She saw some of her fighters and bombers getting torn apart or thrown off course, but she was too busy staying in the zone and alive to break concentration for the moment.
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Alton shook his head as he checked the stats. The enemy missiles were slower and had less range than they did. It looked like they had poorer sensor resolution and were more vulnerable to ECM and counter missiles. But, they had crude firewalls and some pen aides, more than any was unexpected he thought sourly, kicking himself for the oversight. Clearly, they had learned.
The use of counter missiles was also unexpected, but it seemed the enemy's supply was finite. That was the good news. The bad was that none of their missile spreads from the battle line had managed to score a direct hit. Oh, they'd taken down the enemy's shields, but not enough to keep them down for a secondary hit to finish them off. And the admiral had ordered him to stick to conventional shaped charges over using their limited stock of antimatter rounds for the moment.
He
watched as the enemy's broadsides cut up the incoming bomber strikes. Obviously, they'd been anticipated. And from the looks of the preliminary numbers, the enemy hadn't neglected overhauling their rail guns either. The turrets were firing faster and better than they had before. They'd run out of ammunition fast at that rate, but it didn't seem to matter to them.
As the fighters got through or over the clouds of death, they began to reform. That was when the enemy began to launch their own shuttle fighters. His jaw worked as he realized they had a new design out.
“It looks like Commander Hatfield is going to have her hands busy for the moment,” the admiral murmured as she came alongside him. He nodded once grimly.
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“Get on them, on them! Get those bombers in there and frack them up!” Commander Malone barked just as he saw an alien fighter launch. A larger ship followed. He targeted the first but he wasn't in effective range.
When the larger one set up near its mother craft and began to spit fire, he grimaced. His grimace turned into a yelp when the thing hit him with radar hard enough to send his Artoo unit screeching in a warning of a target lock. He corkscrewed his fighter away and then yelped again as a launch alarm wailed. He caught a brief glimpse of a missile coming his way and then did the only thing he could, punch out.
He never knew about the one kiloton nuclear charge that tore him and his fighter apart.
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Adrienne grimaced as her Artoo reported Mace's death. The enemy had more fighters than anticipated. They were also of a new Tauren design. Based on the numbers, there were twenty-four of them, too few to mount a proper defense ordinarily, but the wings were scattered to hell and gone and they were operating in the shadow of their own battle line.
Still they did their best. The fighters kept to the new doctrine to engage the enemy fighters. When she got the report that a larger craft was out firing off missiles, she scowled. At least they only had the one she thought before she had to refocus on the problems in front of her.
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The twenty-four fighters fought defensively, but the Terrans targeted them with fighter strikes right off. There were not enough of the Tauren fighters to fend off the Terran fighters the Alpha bull realized dully. Once he realized the enemy's intent, he had them pull into the relative safety of his warship's umbrella. But they were useless to fend off the incoming bombers. He ordered an immediate course change and speed to force the enemy to alter their strike.
He followed that up with an order to fire a broadside as the enemy craft tried to reform into small herds, then an order to fire warheads in their path. He had the force emitters disabled so the warheads would just explode, disrupting the enemy's attack pattern.
While that was happening, missiles were still being exchanged by both sides. He was glad he had left the defense of the ship in the capable hands of the ship's Alpha bull. He was also glad they were fighting at extreme range.
He grimaced when two of his cruisers took hits. The bombers scored hits on his cruisers as well but not enough to kill one of the ships fortunately. He ordered the fleet to maneuver to keep the range open between the enemy fleet as the engineers did their best to make good on what repairs they could.
But, he realized that the Terran defenses were too good for his robotic craft to score better hits at that range. He was also running out of the things. The running battle had turned into a forced retreat despite his intent. His desire, his duty, his honor to fight to protect the planet and test the weapons was superseded by another instinct. Survival.
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“The wings are retreating. They got a good chunk of a couple of the cruisers and half of the enemy fighters, but that's it,” Alton reported hoarsely.
“And I bet they won't let us back into range again,” Jan said.
Alton turned to stare at her. “You think so, ma'am?”
She nodded once. “Yes. They aren't foolish. Whoever is in command over there knows they will get reamed each time we send the fighters and bombers in. With less and less protection, it is a certainty.”
“So …?”
“So, he's broken. The question is, what will he do now?” she asked softly.
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“It's over,” the ship's Alpha bull said dispiritedly.
“I know.” the herd leader replied quietly. He was sick with certainty of what would happen to his people on the planet. He was contemplating suicide. It wouldn't change the facts though, and it would deprive the herd of leadership. If he died he knew some of the herd would turn and fight headlong against the enemy, trying to throw themselves between the aliens and the planet. It would be a slaughter.
“We will need to destroy the manufacturing centers on the planet to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Order herd security on the planet to do that,” he said.
“They are busy with the herd civilians,” the ship's Alpha bull warned.
“Then tell them to do it quickly or I'll authorize an orbital strike to do it for them,” the Alpha bull growled, patience at his limit. The ship's Alpha bull blinked then nodded slowly. “What do we do with the captured alien ship?” he left unasked what the enemy would do with the colony. Everyone knew their people, the herd they were sworn to protect, were doomed. But better to lose a single herd world than all, he reminded himself.
“We can't afford to let them fall into the enemy's hands. And we owe them a payment for what they are about to do to the herd below,” the herd Alpha bull said gruffly. He turned to the weapons bull. “Set up the shot.”
“They won't blow the ship,” the ship's Alpha bull said.
“I know that. But we will,” the herd Alpha bull said. “Order those onboard to get off. Do it now,” he said firmly. “They will have little time to escape the fate of the ship.” He paused. “Where is Dreamer?”
“Here,” the Beta bull said. “His shuttle arrived just before the Terrans. He has been in engineering helping out.”
“Well, that is something at any rate,” the Alpha bull said with a shake of his head.
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“Son of a bitch!” Alton snarled sharply, breaking into Jan's conversation with Willard. She turned and saw him staring at the main plot, mouth writhing in unsaid cursing.
“What? Talk to me Alton,” she said, coming up behind him.
“It's … the bastards just fired on the colony ship, ma'am. There is no need for that!” he snarled.
“Apparently, they think there is. There might be something onboard they don't want us to know about.”
“Can we do anything to stop it? Hack the Santa Maria?” Willard asked.
“I can send a signal to the ship's computers, try to hack it again,” Ensign Lex offered. “But by the time my signal gets there, there will be only microseconds to act.”
“Just say no,” Alton said in impotent anger. “It won't work. Damn them to hell,” he spat as they watched helplessly as a broadside of rail gun rounds moved relentlessly to the helpless ship in orbit of the planet.
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The herd onboard the captured Terran colony ship received the warning and panicked. Broken Jaw got them to head to the Terran escape pods, but the elder tinkers couldn't make them work. He rushed out and stormed into the prison compartment.
“This ship is about to die.”
“So?” Captain Krenshaw demanded.
“I will let you loose if you let us escape,” the bull said.
The captain stared at him and then laughed bitterly.
“All right, you don't care for your life? Yet you have clung to it this long?”
“Yes. I don't know why,” the woman said, shaking her head. “I'll tell you what, you let me and my people go too and we'll save what we can.”
“Take it or leave it,” Bob growled. He turned to the captain. “What about the colonists?”
She shook her head. “We can't move the ship, can we?” she asked. Broken Jaw shook his head. “No way,” she said. “Get to the life boats,�
�� she said to her few remaining crew.
Broken Jaw moved them out, but when a few stumbled, he picked them up, one under each arm and then hustled as fast as he could down the corridors to the nearest escape pod. The bulls there stared as he deposited one of the former prisoners and then dropped the next one off at the next pod.
“Get in and get them to the ground,” the captain ordered roughly as she followed the prison guard into the last pod.
She climbed into the pod and then closed the hatch after the rest of the people got inside. She dogged the hatch, then pushed them to sit down. “Strap in. The best you can. This is going to be bumpy,” she said, taking a seat and snapping the straps shut. “Make them tight,” she said, tightening the straps. When the lights went a lurid red, she reached out and flipped the cover shield up, then slapped the red button.
“That's it?” Broken Jaw demanded.
“For the first part,” she said as the pod kicked clear of the ship with a resounding bang and series of knocking sounds. There were some puffs they could see through the single porthole. She reached out and pulled a joystick out and then directed an icon to the planet. She selected a land mass and then hit enter.
“Now we're all along for the ride for the moment,” she said.
“So simple …,” Broken Jaw said dumbly shaking his head.
“All those people,” the captain said, tears streaking down her face as she looked out the tiny pod's porthole at her ship being torn apart. “Damn it all to hell,” she muttered.
“What is this water you secrete?” Broken Jaw asked. Unfortunately, his translator had been tied into the ship's computers. When the captain turned to him, he gently touched her face with a curled finger, brushing a tear, and then cocking his head.