by Dave Bara
I took to the shipwide com.
“All hands, we are preparing to do battle with the Lightship Vixis, once one of ours but now under the command of the Butcher of Carinthia, Prince Arin. We will be facing an enemy unlike any that we’ve battled, with a ship at least as well equipped as ours, as we can assume the disloyal Historians have provided the prince with everything we have. It will be a battle to the death, if need be, and my goal is to completely destroy Vixis. But because of our relative balance of power—a balance of terror, really—we have no guarantee of victory. Man your stations, do your jobs, and follow your orders, and I believe we will be victorious. Captain out,” I said.
“Thirty seconds, Captain. Shall I give a countdown?” That came from Karina. I smiled very slightly at her. I was putting her life on the line, too.
“No countdown, please,” I said, then turned back to my primary tactical display.
“Captain,” called Babayan, “they’ve fired early!”
“Hold stations and hold to the timing of the battle plan,” I said back to her.
“Aye, sir,” Babayan replied.
“What have we got incoming?”
“Tactical atomic missiles, sir, but they fired early by at least thirty seconds. Perhaps they have greater range than we have?” she said.
“Or more confidence,” I replied, watching the incoming volley of ten missiles as it closed in on us.
Five seconds.
The missiles impacted our Hoagland Field, and to my horror, they didn’t explode. Instead they used some improved form of the vibrational wave weapon, then imploded, leaving a hole in our field. Not large, mind you, but the detonation of an atomic weapon against our defenses . . .
A second volley hit us, then a third.
“They’re cutting our field open like Swiss cheese, sir,” reported Babayan.
“Fire all our missiles and torpedoes,” I ordered, trying to remain calm in the center of the storm. I swiveled to face Gracel.
“Why doesn’t our field close back up and protect us?” I asked her.
“Unknown at this time. Most likely scenario is that they’ve matched frequencies with our field. In other words, the field thinks it’s a closed system, but it isn’t. They’re fooling our defensive AI,” she said.
“XO, can we recalibrate, adjust the field frequency?”
“Aye, sir, but it will take time—up to two minutes—and we’ll have to bring the whole field down to do it,” said Babayan.
“That’s what they want,” I said. “Death by a thousand cuts or drop our shielding completely and be exposed. What’s the status of our missiles?”
Babayan shook her head. “Ineffective so far. Their defensive field seems to be adjusting to the coil cannon volleys, and our atomics are detonating against her field but causing no damage, sir. Sir! Vixis is accelerating!”
“Evasive, Mr. Layton. Mr. Longer, engage the hybrid impeller drive, get us out of here—” I was cut off by the impact of tactical missiles against our exposed field. The nuclear energy seeped through our shielding and impacted the hull, boring holes in our sides. A second explosion rocked us again seconds later.
“Atomic impacts, numerous locations, Captain. Some of our missiles detonated in the launch tubes. There will be casualties,” reported Babayan. Atomic weapons going off in our launch tubes was a disaster. Despite the hardened protections we had in place, there were going to be losses. Big losses.
“How many did we lose, XO?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
“Three of our launch bays are gone, sir, full loss casualties. Their atomics detonated ours,” she said. Three of eight gone—fifteen men and women. Only our internal Hoagland Field barriers had saved the ship. They were designed to do that, to separate potentially destructive weapons from the bulk of the ship and crew, but still . . . I had to do something, and quick.
“Understood, XO. Mr. Longer, prep the hybrid drive for overload,” I ordered.
“What, sir?” said Longer. “That could—”
“Cause an explosion. I’m aware of the hybrid drive specs, Mr. Longer. I ordered you to get us out of here. A short-range jump via the hybrid drive might just do the trick,” I said. An overload, flooding the system with antiprotons, would cause the drive to explode.
“We’ll lose the drive until it can be repaired,” warned Longer.
“You’ve got twenty seconds to execute, Lieutenant.” I watched as Vixis launched another round of implosion missiles, followed by high-yield atomic torpedoes. “Pick off as many of those as you can, XO,” I ordered.
“Even the battle AI can’t guarantee we’ll get 100 percent of them, sir,” she replied.
“You have your orders, XO. Mr. Longer, are you ready?”
He looked up at me. “Ready, sir.”
“On my command,” I said. When the countdown clock got to ten seconds, there were still twelve implosion missiles and half a dozen high-yield atomics incoming. I made eye contact with Longer, who looked up nervously at me, his hand hovering over the hybrid drive button, ready to flood the system. At five seconds he was sweating. At three seconds I gave the order.
The ship bucked and shook as the hybrid drive overloaded and exploded, sending a shockwave out of our impeller thrusters, a shockwave that moved us a considerable distance from our previous position in less than a second. The ship was rattled and the inertial dampers had to work overtime, but in the end we were still there, still together, and Vixis’s missiles missed us. I figured I’d bought us maybe twenty minutes.
“Damage!” I demanded.
“Hybrid drive is gone, Hoagland Field is down, and the chemical impellers are gone, sir. But we still have the sub-light HD drive, sir,” said Longer. The sub-light HD drive was much faster than the chemical impellers we had in normal space anyway. It operated on an ancient technology called an EmDrive that used electromagnetism as a propulsion mechanism, essentially bouncing microwaves back and forth inside an enclosed vacuum chamber to generate thrust. Now that we had access to the wonders of higher dimensional energy, the drive was robust to say the least.
“Bring us about, Helm. Close on our target. What’s our distance, Longscope officer?”
“They’re 111,550 kilometers out, sir,” Karina said.
“Too far for missiles or coil cannons. XO,” I called down to Babayan, “prep the gravity weapons and load them onto my display and refire that goddamned Hoagland Field.” The reset of the field would take us a few seconds, but it would come back up fully functional. Vixis would have to punch holes in us all over again.
Presently we were accelerating toward our enemy. I sat back down in my chair, and the gravity weapons display icon came up on my console. I activated the system and moved through to the gravity beam option. The gravity beam would act like a lance in a joust, pushing a highly concentrated beam of gravitons against the defensive field of Vixis, pushing her off course and hopefully leaving her vulnerable to other types of attack.
“Captain, Impulse II is inbound to the battlefield, sir,” said Karina from her longscope station. That was unwelcome news.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, turning to Ensign Lynne Layton at the communications station. “Send a longwave and order Impulse back to her station. Her job is to defend High Station Pendax. Inform her that you are acting with my authority, and copy Captain Zander as well. We could be facing a fleet of dreadnoughts at any moment, and our primary responsibilities haven’t changed. Make that clear,” I said angrily.
“Aye, sir,” she replied, and she turned back to her station to send the messages. I went back to my console, called up the anti-graviton plasma weapon, and powered it up. We’d need to get inside of twenty thousand clicks to use the gravity weapon, but after that we’d be well inside the safe range to use the plasma weapon. My hope was that multiple hits by such powerful weapons would overload Vi
xis’s defensive fields. I might just get lucky, if I added one more element to the mix.
“XO, do we have any frequency-modulating warheads available?” I asked. She quickly checked her inventory.
“We have six left, sir. But they weren’t effective during the first skirmish, and neither was the coil cannon modulator,” Babayan said. I looked to the ever-placid Gracel at her station, then walked up to her.
“If we use the frequency-modulating warheads after the push-pulse weapon, and then fire the anti-graviton plasma . . .”
“I see your strategy, Captain. It just might work. But you’ll have to get close to use the push-pulse cannon and the missiles, and it will take considerable time to power down the cannon before you bring up and fire the anti-graviton plasma. Remember that they use the same gun ports,” she said.
“How long?”
“As much as two and a half minutes,” she replied. During which time we’d be vulnerable to attack. I thanked her and turned back to my console, plugging in my new tactical strategy and forwarding it to Babayan.
“Load the warheads and have those missiles ready for my order, XO,” I said.
“Will do, sir,” she replied.
“Captain.” This time it was Karina trying to get my attention. “Impulse II is still closing in on the battlefield.”
Goddamned Dobrina Kierkopf.
“How soon until we’re in firing range of the gravity pulse cannon?”
“Six minutes and ten seconds to twenty-thousand-kilometer range, sir,” she said. I nodded to her.
“I’ll be in my office. Get Impulse on the longwave com,” I said.
“Aye, sir.”
Ten seconds later I was behind my desk with the aural shield up. Dobrina’s fuzzy image appeared on my desk monitor, then began to clear up. It didn’t clear my anger.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
“Defending the Union against these thugs,” she replied.
“That’s my job. Your orders—and I remind you that you agreed to my taking field command in this system—are to defend the High Station. A dreadnought jumping in behind our lines could destroy the station,” I said more calmly.
“I’m aware of that. But I—”
“You couldn’t pass up the chance to get revenge against a man who devastated your world. I get that. But you’re making an emotional decision, not a logical one. I’m ordering you back to High Station Pendax.”
“I . . . resist that order, sir,” she said.
“Now, Captain Kierkopf,” I said firmly. That sparked her anger.
“I’m not your woman anymore, Cochrane, and you can’t protect me from my own decisions. My mind is made up. Orders be damned,” she said, a look of grim determination on her face.
“Then you’re on your own, Captain. I have a battle to fight,” I said.
“But—” I cut the com line then and went back to the bridge.
“Status,” I demanded of my crew.
“Four minutes fifty-three seconds to gravity pulse cannon range,” reported Babayan. “All weapons charged, and strategic battle plan is programmed into the AI.”
“Belay that. I’ll handle everything but the missiles from my own command console.”
“Sir,” confirmed Babayan, then went to make her tactical adjustments.
“Mr. Longer, set our forward momentum to engage the battlefield at twenty thousand clicks on time with the clock. Speed isn’t as important as accuracy in this maneuver,” I said.
“Yes, sir. Matching the countdown clock to the twenty-thousand-click range,” said Longer.
“At ten thousand the AI will launch the missiles. I want all our forward momentum cut at that point. Once those missiles hit I want us dead stopped to fire the anti-graviton plasma.”
“Aye, sir,” replied Longer. I sat back in my chair and pulled up the tactical console.
“Sir, Impulse II will reach the battlefield less than two minutes after us,” said Karina. “Should we coordinate—”
“Negative, Lieutenant,” I said, looking up from my console. “Impulse II is not part of this attack. We will not coordinate with her, nor change our strategy for her, nor come to her rescue so long as the battle with Vixis is engaged. Am I understood?” The bridge got quiet then.
“Understood, sir,” replied Karina. I turned back to my tactical display, counting down the minutes until I could reengage with Vixis. The bridge stayed quiet except for the general banter required of battle operations.
“One minute, sir,” said Karina from her longscope station, breaking the silence. I checked the position of Impulse. At her current speed she would blow past our position relative to Vixis when we decelerated after hitting the ten-thousand-click mark. She didn’t have many of the same weapons enhancements that we had, so she would have to get much closer to engage the rogue Lightship. I doubted Captain Kierkopf cared about that; she was out for revenge and revenge only. That worried me on a personal level, but she was disobeying my orders, and if she wouldn’t follow my commands, then there was really nothing I could do. At thirty seconds my board was green to fire the gravity push-pulse cannon.
“Countdown if you please, Longscope officer,” I said. Karina counted us to zero, and I waited a few more seconds just to be sure. Then I hit the fire button.
The gravity pulse was invisible to the naked eye. In the infrared spectrum it appeared as a tightly coiled scalar wave, technology once thought to be mythical in nature. The wave lanced out at Vixis and in mere seconds crossed the vacuum and impacted against her Hoagland Field. The result was spectacular—Vixis was bounced nearly ten kilometers from her original position and thrown completely off her ecliptical plane, which was necessary to maintain contact with an adversary on the battlefield.
“Nailed her, sir,” declared Layton from the helm station. “She’s spinning out of control. I think we knocked out or at least damaged her inertial dampening system.”
“We’ll know in a few seconds,” I replied. If we had indeed knocked out Vixis’s inertial dampers, her crew might even now be mere spots on the wall of her interior. But that seemed too easy. Defiant’s inertial damper system was robust, and I had to assume Vixis’s was as well.
“Her spin rate’s starting to slow,” reported Babayan from the weapons station. “Thrusters activated.”
“She’s still with us,” I said. I turned to Longer. “Progress of our deceleration?” I demanded.
“Ninety seconds to missile range, sir,” he replied. It was the longest ninety seconds of my life, watching as Vixis slowly righted herself, as Impulse closed on the battlefield. She was dangerously close to being in range of our missiles, even if they were programmed for Vixis’s Hoagland Field frequency. I couldn’t sit by and watch this any longer.
“Ensign Layton, contact Impulse II. Warn her one last time that she is entering an active battlefield and will soon be in danger of friendly fire. See if that gets her attention.” The young ensign replied with an “Aye, sir” and sent the message. I waited as the seconds ticked off to the ten-thousand-click range and the automated launch of our missiles.
“Should I put the battle AI on hold, sir?” asked Babayan from her station. I surveyed the tactical display: nineteen seconds to our missile-firing range, Impulse II thirty seconds from the same status, Vixis quickly righting herself to face us again . . .
“Negative. Impulse enters the battlefield at her own risk. The AI proceeds as planned,” I said. And then there was nothing to do but watch as the scenario played out. Dobrina was going way too fast in Impulse II to fire her missiles or torpedoes. It was obvious she was going to make a sweeping run past Vixis and engage her with coil cannons, hopefully just seconds after our missiles hit. Then she would effectively be out of the battle for a solid twenty minutes while she decelerated and turned back to us. It was a one-shot strategy—not one that
I advocated—but if Vixis was pockmarked with holes in her Hoagland Field, it could be very effective, even produce a kill.
If.
I watched as our missiles streaked out and accelerated toward the still-reeling Vixis. The only question was how much damage we had done with our gravity-pulse cannon. The missiles closed quickly as I powered up the third leg of my attack plan, the anti-graviton disintegrator. She warmed quickly and was at my disposal with more than twenty seconds to spare.
Then the unthinkable happened.
The missiles started to veer off, away from Vixis and toward the rapidly closing Impulse II. With safeguards placed in the missile guidance systems, what we were witnessing just wasn’t possible.
“Babayan, what’s happening?” I called from my station.
“Unknown, sir!” she replied, feverishly swiping her hands over her weapons console, looking for an answer.
“I know,” said Karina from behind me. “Vixis has swapped shield frequencies with Impulse II, probably using her disaster field codes. For all intents and purposes, the missiles now recognize Impulse as Vixis and Vixis as Impulse.” A quick look at my tactical board proved she was right. The missiles were still locked onto the same frequency they were originally programmed to recognize, but that frequency now resonated from Impulse II.
“Warn off Impulse! Now, Ensign!” I yelled at Lynne Layton.
“Too late,” said Gracel from behind me. She was right.
I watched as the missiles impacted against Impulse II’s Hoagland Field. They had the desired effect but not against the desired ship. Impulse’s Hoagland Field became riddled with holes, and in that instant, Vixis began moving toward her. I looked down to my board, only once chance left.
I fired the anti-graviton plasma. Babayan came running from her post.
“You could hit them both!”
“Unlikely,” I pointed to the tactical display on the main viewer. The two ships were far enough apart that the enveloping plasma would hit Vixis before she could reach Impulse, but not by much. My bridge crew and I watched helplessly as the plasma closed on Vixis while Vixis closed on Impulse.