"Well I am not resigning myself to long term residence." Crowe stated firmly and he stood up, hastily his officers got to their feet. "We are going to make a break out, how I don’t yet know, but it will happen. You’re all dismissed."
____________________
Brave words. Crowe thought to himself in his darken cabin as he stretched out on the bunk, starring up at the deckhead. But at the academy he’d read enough to know that in nautical history, warships frequently got pinned in a port or waterway by a superior enemy, and when it happened the final outcome was rarely good for the blockaded ship. He also doubted they would have to worry about running out of food. Deimos was in terrible shape; the damage from their various engagements was now taking its toll. While individually minor, hits were now adding up and reducing the ships effectiveness, all the while their supply of spare parts was being steadily diminished. The problem with the damaged electrics, in particular, had eaten through the spares at speed. Although that, at least, was now being dealt with, their forced stop had finally given the engineering crew time to do a proper repair to the power distribution box.
There was a polite tap at the cabin door.
"Come in."
The door swung inwards, and one of the ship’s ratings peered cautiously into the unlit cabin.
"Sorry to disturb you Captain, the Commander ordered all the carbon dioxide scrubbers on this deck be checked." she said nervously, waving toward the block hanging from the deckhead. "With the life support shut down, he’s concerned we might get foul spots."
"It’s all right, carry on." Crowe replied in a friendly voice. He recognised the cause of her nervousness; in the normal cause of events, a rating would never have a reason to step into officer country. Hurriedly she waved the wand of the chemical analyser around, and checked the scrubber.
"All done, sir." She announced with relief.
"So I’m not going to turn up red in the face and dead then?" He asked with a slight smile.
She gave a quick shake of her head.
"Alright, you’re dismissed."
She started for the door then paused and looked back at him.
"Captain, are we going to get out of here?"
Crowe raised his head off the pillow, and looked her in the eye.
"Yes, we will."
____________________
The cabin was still dark when a rough hand shook him awake.
"Nrk?"
"Sorry to wake you, sir." Commander Hockley was leaning over him.
"It’s all right," Crowe replied rubbing his eyes, "what is it?"
"Sir, it’s the Nameless, they’re making their move."
When Crowe reached the bridge, he immediately studied the main holo. The now familiar groups above and below the rings, were still holding position, but now a new group of contacts had appeared below them, beyond the capital ship.
"Sensors?"
"Its four escorts, sir." Colwell replied. "Probably the missing four."
"But you’re not sure?"
"No, sir, we haven’t had a good enough look at their engine profiles, to be certain this isn’t a totally separate group of ships."
"It doesn’t look like they’re planning on joining the capital ship’s group." Crowe replied after a few moments.
"Yes, sir. They are decelerating sir, but unless they go hard burn in the next few minutes they’re going to overshoot. Also their formation is opening up." Colwell type a command into his console. "This is their projected course, if they hold their heading."
On the display lines flowed out from the four approaching ships, terminating at the rings. If they held course, each of the Nameless ships would form the corner of a square, centred round Deimos.
"Looks like they’ve got bored and decided to come in after us." Hockley commented.
"Or they’re sending in the beaters to flush us out." Crowe replied. "Sensors, how long until they reach the rings?"
"Twenty minutes, sir." Colwell replied.
"What’s the status of the repairs to the electrics?"
"Complete, sir," Said Hockley, "we’ve done circuit tests, it’s all good to go."
"Good, that’s good."
Now what? He thought to himself. The issue was about to be forced, but he couldn’t see a path.
"We should be able to take them in here." Hockley said. "At this range, even with the scrag-ends of the ammo we’ll tear them a new one."
"Problem is, I think they’re willing to lose a ship or two to take us out." Crowe said shaking his head. "If they can, they’re going to engage us from all angles, throw out more missiles than we can cope with."
"So we’re going to…?"
"This is dangerous for them," Crowe replied, his voice distant, "they have to close on us in force, if we manage to jump one on its own, then as you say, we should be able to nail them. If they manage to engage us in force, or drive us out of the rings, then we’ll be smothered with fire. Those damn sensors of theirs are going to make closing difficult, but I think we can match them in real space."
"Assuming sir, they don’t simply jump away if we get line of sight on them." Hockley pointed out.
"Well if that happens, we’ll know there’s nothing to Lieutenant Colwell’s theory." Crowe turned and seated himself. "First however, we have to wait for them to enter the rings. Then we’ll see how this pans out."
____________________
Crowe’s hand bumped against his helmet visor, without conscious thought he had tried to rub his eyes. Instead he rubbed at his neck, trying to push away some of the stress that was sending pain shooting down his back. Looking round his bridge weariness was clear in the body language of every man and woman present.
For five hours Deimos and the Nameless ships, had jostled for position without any kind of result. The Nameless were being careful now, clearly mindful of the power Deimos could bring to bear as such short range. Twice, the human ship had nearly got close enough to take a shot, on both occasions the Nameless had climbed away, out of the top of the belt, where Deimos could not follow. Once they’d got too close to the surface, a barrage of missiles from the two cruisers outside the rings had sent them scrambling for cover. On the other side of the balance sheet, several times the Nameless succeeded in forming a ring around Deimos, but each time their prey had managed to slip or force a way out.
But Crowe was certain this game of cat and mouse couldn’t last much longer, his people were getting tired, the ship’s heat sink was slowly approaching saturation. Once that happened, they would have to keep the radiators open; they wouldn’t be able to hide any more.
Not that they hadn’t learned a few things. On silent running, with radiators closed and everything bar manoeuvring thrusters shut down, they clearly dropped below the detection threshold of the Nameless sensors. When that happened the aliens stopped, in doing so, they in turn dropped below Deimos’s threshold. Those were the times Crowe really sweated, the fear that they might round an asteroid, and find themselves nose to nose with a Nameless ship. It was like sneaking around inside a large darkened room, where everyone was armed with rocket launchers.
"We’ve lost Alpha and Charlie again, sir;" Colwell called out, his voice as weary as Crowe felt, "they’re somewhere off to port; probably trying to ghost in. The other two are holding position high and low."
"I see them," Crowe rubbed his neck again. "I’m nearly ready to let them come. Let them take their best shot." He said quietly, before adding in a firm voice, "Helm take us up two kilometres, engines ahead ten percent, open all the radiators."
"Still no sign that they can jump this deep into a mass shadow. Sir, we could still make a break for the Red Line, if we can just get an opening." Said Crowley.
On the other side of the bridge Hockley spun on him.
"And how in fuck’s name are we supposed to get an opening!" He shouted. Most of those on the bridge weren’t on the command frequency, they couldn’t hear his outburst, but several heads turned towards the movement.
/> "Commander!" Crowe snapped.
Hockley stopped, his hands, clenching and unclenching.
"This is not the time to lose it James."
"Yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir." Hockley replied his voice now even more tired. "I’m sorry Lieutenant."
"We’re all tired Commander. We’ve tried conventional means, it isn’t working, we’re going to have to get more- Helm turn us five degrees to port then shut down main engines, close all radiators, all section go to silent running." Crowe paused, "Where was I?"
"Something more creative." Hockley supplied. "If we could only give them something else to…" He turned sharply. "What about one of the shuttles, on remote?"
"No. Sir." Colwell said flatly. "Any data uplink will give us away, plus the engine profile is totally different. To get the output to look like ours, even at low power, the shuttle engine would have to be going full burn, but that means the shuttle would simply rocket away."
"Captain, we’ve regained contact with Alpha and Charlie, they’ve fallen behind. It looks like they’re breaching the rings. They’re going underneath us to get ahead of us again." called out a sensor rating.
"Understood, sensors." Crowe replied. "We’ll probably get a few minutes peace while they redeploy."
He chewed thoughtfully at his lip for a few moments, considering what his two bridge officers had said.
"Captain to Bosun."
"Bosun here skipper." Benson replied.
"Bosun, it’s being suggested up here that a shuttle could be used as a decoy, any thoughts?" Crowe asked.
"Won’t work skipper, engine profile is much too small." Benson replied flatly.
"Lieutenant Colwell just said much the same thing. Can anything be done to alter the profile Bos, something to make it look like ours?"
"No, there is… is… erm…" The connection went silent, it hadn’t been cut off though, Crowe could still hear the Bosun breathing.
"Bosun, have you got something?"
"Err… I might have if I have; if we rig the engines so they’re running both fore and aft together, that would keep the acceleration right down and still give us a big enough engine flare."
"Won’t that mean that the shuttle doesn’t move? Equal and opposing forces you know?" Crowe said.
"No…" Benson replied slowly. "I should be able to get it, so that the thrust pushing back, is slightly weaker than thrust pushing forward."
"Right get on it Bos, we’ll work out the rest of the details up here."
Hockley and Colwell had both been listening to his conversation with the Boson, now they both turned towards him.
"Okay that’s the engine profile question; we have to come up with a solution to the matter of control." He said them both.
"Well we can’t use a radio signal; it would be like putting up a big neon sign saying ‘we’re here’." Colwell said.
"And no way can we keep the line of sight for a coms laser." Hockley added.
"So that leaves autopilot." Crowe said.
"There’s a problem there to ,sir." Colwell said. "I’ve checked the navigation database, the only bit of the rings that we have really accurate charts for, are the parts around Junction Station."
Crowe turned towards the main holo; for five hours they’d been slowly moving away from Junction, zigzagging cross the rings. Two of the Nameless ships, were directly between them and Junction."
"Could we use the data from our own readings?"
"Not accurate enough, sir," Colwell replied with a shake of his head, "not if we’re really counting on it. The shuttle would probably run into the first asteroid, especially if we’ve monkeyed around with the engines."
"Okay, so we’ve got to force our way back to Junction." Crowe said, his voice resigned. "Bugger!"
"Try to sneak past them, sir?" Hockley asked.
"No, this time we’re going to drive our way through, with brute force and unreasoning violence."
"Are you sure about that, sir?"
Crowe beckon him closer.
"We’re all getting tired Commander, we’re going to make a mistake sooner rather than later. We can’t afford to play the long game, not anymore. If we run at the highest speed possible in here, it will take maybe an hour to get close to Junction, that should also keep our four friends off our back as well."
"I don’t like to be the one to throw cold water on this idea, but even if it works its not going to get them far enough away from us." Hockley said flatly. "If they get a visual on the shuttle, the jig is up, and to keep them at a distance the shuttle will have to run fairly straight; it will cross through Junction’s neighbourhood in short order. Once it gets to the other side we have no data at all to feed into the shuttles autopilot."
"Damn, there’s always a fly in the ointment." Crowe muttered to himself. "On the other hand, we might be able to get them to help us." He pointed at the holo, "Those two cruisers above us, they haven’t been shy about taking a pop when we’ve got close to the surface."
"But why would we or the shuttle want to get close to the surface. Without wanting to sound theatrical, what’s our motivation?"
Crowe didn’t have an answer for that, but Colwell came to his rescue."
"If we program the shuttle to head for the opposite side of the Junction area, there is a region, here, where there is almost a solid barrier. The shuttle would have to dive or climb to get round it." Colwell said, his finger pointing to the relevant areas of the navigation display. "It could look like we’d found our way blocked and were trying to quickly nip over it."
"Not give them time to analyse," Crowe said half to himself, "force them to take a quick shot or lose the opportunity. Yes, that sounds good."
"Question is, sir, high or low?" Colwell said
"No question, high. Those two cruisers have already fired a few times with those big capital ship missiles, they can’t be carrying that many. If we have to make a break out it would be better if they’re running low on ammunition."
"All right," Hockley cut in, "so we’ve programmed the shuttle to get close to the surface, we’ve provoke them into firing. A shuttle won’t stand much in the way of even near misses. It’s still not going to leave much in the way of debris though."
"Tell engineering to heave in all those burnt out electrics the Bosun replaced, plus any other broken components into the shuttle. That should give a debris field." Crowe hesitated, sicken by the thought that had just crossed his mind, but it was a good idea, too good to ignore. "How many bodies do we have on board?"
"Err, eight, sir. What… sir, you’re not thinking-" Hockley looked disgusted.
"Yes I am," Crowe looked up at his second in command, "the living come first Commander; bodies in the debris field will make it look more real. Set their survival suit beacons to transmit when the shuttle loses atmosphere."
"Yes, sir." Hockley replied still obviously unhappy.
"You oversee arrangements with the Bosun; we’ll have to manage without you for a moment.”
As Hockley closed the bridge hatch behind him, Crowe turned back to the holo. The Navigator had highlighted the section of the ring around Junction that they had charts for. He took a deep breath to steady his own nerves.
"Helm, reverse course to starboard, then go to one third ahead together on engines. Bridge to Fire Control, activate all weapons, be ready to fire on my mark."
"Understood Bridge." Fire Control replied.
"Sensors, go active on radar." Crowe paused to examine the monitor screen in his chair armrest. Using a stylus he sketched a brief line on the screen and transmitted it to the helm. "Helmsman, follow this course through the rings."
Watching the display, Crowe allowed himself a brief smile. The two ships that had cleared the rings to get ahead of them, had been wrong footed by their sudden about face. They’d gone full burn to get ahead of Deimos, but were now carrying too much velocity. Both had turned and gone full burn within seconds of Deimos’s course change, but it was going to take time for them to decelerate
to stop, then accelerate back towards them. If Crowe was any judge, they were off the board for at least twenty minutes. That just left the two they’d dubbed Bravo and Delta, who were now closing on Deimos from either side. They could go to silent running again and try to ghost past, but that would give Alpha and Charlie the time to catch up. No, straight through it was.
Deimos continued to slalom through the asteroids. On the holo, the emissions of Bravo and Delta faded and disappeared. Going on their last known position, Crowe had a pretty good idea where both were. They were both holding position behind separate asteroids, ones that Deimos would have to pass. The Nameless would have the advantage of knowing Deimos position exactly; they would already have firing solutions ready for the moment when they got a clear sight. Deimos would need a second or two to localise the enemy before she could fire, time that they definitely wouldn’t get. It was too late to adjust course around. They had to force the Nameless back, not give them the space in which to fire.
"Guns, fire, just past the starboard side of the asteroid at baring three, zero, nine." Crowe barked out.
"Bridge, I have no target! Repeat, no target!" The gunner shouted back.
"Its suppressive fire, shoot, god damn it!" Crowe shouted back.
"Got it, firing."
The ship’s plasma cannons, flak guns and point defence batteries, all blazed into action, sketching a line of firepower from Deimos to the edge of the asteroid. Rock and ice shattered as plasma bolts and projectiles hammered in, the stream of fire curved round the asteroid as Deimos started to pass it. The enemy ship suddenly reappeared on the passive sensors, as its engines fired. Frantically, it went hard astern, to avoid the hail of fire now curving around toward it. For the briefest of moments, there was a clear line between the two vessels. Holes were punched into the hull of the Nameless ship, in return, a volley of missiles streaked back, one punching through Deimos dorsal wing, the rest hammered into another asteroid as the human ship disappeared from view.
"Delta has just gone active!" Colwell shouted out. "They’re climbing!"
The Nameless War Page 25