Ahead the second Nameless ship didn’t wait for Deimos to do the same thing, it climbed until it cleared the top of the asteroid, and fired.
One big missile and four small, blasted out of their silos and surged towards Deimos. Once again, the Deimos opened fire, with the likely direction of approach known, by the time the missiles cleared their launchers, the flak rounds that would stop them, were already on their way. The large missile and two of the smaller ones were cut down short of their target. The other two went in. One knocked a matching hole in the ventral wing, the other struck the main hull, level with the centrifuge, just as the bridge inside swung level.
In the near vacuum of the bridge, there was no sound of the explosion, just sparks as steel splinters punched up through the deck. The main holo disintegrated into a spray of fragments, at the front of the bridge, the Helmsman slumped soundlessly over her controls, the back of her head sheered neatly off. In his chair at the centre of the bridge, Crowe sensed rather than saw, fragments punch through the deck all round him. Then something jolted him hard and his left arm went numb. Looking down he saw a dagger-like splinter of steel embedded in the meat of his upper arm. Sealant around the edges of the tear bubbled for a moment, then hardened. Where’s the pain? He thought to himself as he studied it with mild curiosity. Colwell was shouting on the command channel, the dead Helmsman was thrown out of her chair as a rating replaced her. There was a lot of noise and excitement, but for the moment for Crowe, it all seemed very distant and unimportant.
But while the bridge was temporarily thrown into havoc, Fire Control was hitting back. The two turrets that carried the ship’s plasma cannons, had been traversing round when the missiles struck them. With no other targets available, they now took their revenge on the Nameless ship. With the range so short, there would have been no excuse for missing. All four bolts punched into, and through the alien. Now trailing fuel and atmosphere, the ship dived back behind the asteroid.
None of the three ships had suffered mortal wounds, all however needed time to recover from the shock of contact. On the bridge of Deimos, Crowe was recovering his wits as the shock and the endorphins wore off. The surgeon had been summoned, but to remove the splinter would mean leaving the bridge and going to a pressurised chamber where he could remove his suit. However the suit’s sealant was also sealing the wound for the time being, so after a shot of painkillers the surgeon was sent back below.
Crowe was standing on one side of his bridge, watching the remaining sensor displays over the shoulders of the sensor crew. He was having to stand with one arm held away from his body, so he didn’t nudge the protruding splinter. The two ships they’d exchanged fire with, were now following Deimos but remaining at a respectful distance. The two that had dropped below the rings were overhauling them, but at their current rate of acceleration, it would still be another forty minutes before they would get ahead of Deimos, by that stage they would be back in the charted region of the rings around Junction.
However that still left the decoy.
"Bridge to Commander Hockley, Commander how are we doing on the decoy?" Crowe asked.
"We’ve got it loaded with the… cargo, the Bosun is still working on the engines, we’re starting to program a route into the shuttle autopilot, but we’re going to need a start point." Hockley replied.
"We’re working on it Commander, but we took a hit up here, we’re still sorting ourselves out."
There was a pause on the line.
"Do you need me up there, sir?"
"Negative on that Commander, I need you back there; you have thirty minutes to be ready."
"Roger that bridge."
Deimos continued to make her way through the rings, above and below. Crowe had to force himself not to call the shuttle bay; briefly he examined his command chair, but quickly looked away. The left armrest had been sheered off and was now resting on the deck; if it hadn’t taken the worst of the hit, it would probably have been his arm, rather than the armrest, lying on the deck.
Almost everything was ready now. The shuttle with its tricked out engines and cargo bay filled with rubbish, broken parts and broken bodies. Most of the programming for the autopilot was complete; now they just needed somewhere to launch the shuttle from, somewhere that the following Nameless ships would go around, rather than through as they chased after the decoy. Time wasn’t on their side, if they lingered the Nameless would probably close on them, and definitely sense that something was up. They might already have realized that something was being planned, there was simply no way to know.
"Captain, I think I have something." Called out Colwell.
"Show me." Crowe told him as he hurried over to the Navigation centre.
"It’s here," Colwell replied, pointing at the relevant part of the screen, "Junctions records called them The Lovers."
"I can see why." Crowe muttered to himself. The Lovers were a pair of mid-size asteroids, perhaps five kilometres long each; wide and thin slabs of rock, some quirk of nature had brought the tops of the two together, in the most gentle of contact, forming an arch underneath them. If Deimos were to hide underneath that arch, no one would be able to get line of sight on them from port, starboard or above. That would still leave fore, aft and below wide open. Not perfect but time was running out, and they could reach The Lovers without having to make the kind of major course correction, which would give them away. An added plus, the current starting point of the shuttles programmed course, was off to the port from The Lovers. A turn would have to be added to the instructions, to allow the shuttle to get to where it needed to go. That would give the following Nameless a chance to gain on the shuttle, by cutting inside that turn, which would keep them clear of The Lovers.
"Alright Navigation, give helm the course. Also send it down to the shuttle bay." Crowe ordered after a few moments of thought. "We’re going to have to come to a halt under them, but we can’t do a major breaking burn, that would give us away. So we need to start loosing velocity now, we launch the shuttle as we do our final deceleration. Having the two sets of engines firing together should hide the hand off."
"Yes, sir." Colwell replied.
"This has to be done right the first time Lieutenant. If we overshoot, we can’t fire the engines again without giving ourselves away. Close down all tactical and radar systems now."
"No radar, sir?" Colwell objected. "If we’re going to be accura-"
"No radar Lieutenant," Crowe cut him off, "there’s already a good chance they’ll spot a change in the engine profile, if they see us switch off the radar at the same time they’d have to be idiots not to suspect something. You’ll have to manage with visuals only."
"Yes, sir." Colwell replied, additional worry now on his face. "With your permission I need to speak to helm."
Crowe nodded and turned back to the sensor displays.
Deimos was now barely crawling along, all running lights were off and aside from the engines, now firing only occasionally to make small course corrections, the only sign of life was the shuttle that was being lifted up and out of its bay. Hockley and the Bosun had both returned to the bridge.
"All ready?" Crowe asked Hockley quietly.
"Yes," Hockley replied. "We have it all set to accept the launch command from navigation, after that we can’t effect it in anyway. We did make a couple of late additions; we’ve added a scuttling charge on a ten hour timer."
"Good idea." Crowe agreed. "What else?"
"If their top ships don’t take a shot at it as it goes up, its set to shut down just as it leave's the area round Junction. If they’re still following it at that stage it will hopefully look like we’ve gone to silent running."
"Your idea?"
"No, sir, the Bosun’s." Hockley nodded to Benson. "Sorry, we were getting too pushed for time to run it past you."
"Don’t worry about it." Crowe looked up from the sensor display. "What do you think the chances are?"
"Of the shuttle actually following the right cours
e and not running into anything," Benson replied in a flat voice, "fifty, fifty. As for whether it will fool them, who knows?"
"The whole plan has too many unknowns to say," Hockley said, "we don’t know how their sensors work, that adds a whole pile of questions on its own."
"We’re now ten minutes from launch point." Colwell announced.
"Thank you Lieutenant." He turned to Hockley and Benson, "Whether or not this works you both did well to a get such a complicated plan ready on the fly, all right, to your posts gentlemen."
____________________
The Lovers loomed only ten kilometres ahead of Deimos, the engines were all on stand by, ready for the final thrust that would bring the cruiser to a halt. On the bridge Crowe was standing next to the helm station, with the main holo gone, the helmsman’s display offered the best overall view, even if it did lack detail.
"Thirty seconds to burn and hand off."
"Putting shuttle engines into stand by."
"Docking clamp released."
"All radiators closed down."
"Helm, shift our vector eighty metres to port."
Crowe allowed the stream of orders and reports flow over him, taking it in at a subconscious level.
"Captain, fifteen seconds, everything is ready." Colwell called out.
"Understood, Colwell, countdown from ten; helm and navigation, break, and launch on my mark." Crowe ordered, as he took a firm hold of one of the handhold in the deckhead.
"Ten," Colwell started the count.
"Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One,"
"Mark." Crowe ordered bringing his hand down on the helmsman’s shoulder.
Deimos shuddered, from the rear of the ship came a deep rumble as the engines went full reverse burn. The burn lasted less than two seconds before cutting off, immediately the firing elements dimmed as all power was cut to the engines. The burn had been enough to slow their forward motion to only a few metres per second, a few quick bursts from the docking thrusters was enough to complete the job and bring them to a halt. With the halt complete even the cruisers reactor went into shut down, leaving the ship dark and silent. But as Deimos’s engines were winding down, the shuttle’s were starting to fire. With its forward and rear facing engine nozzles both firing, it slid out of the launch rail only slowly. As it passed out from under The Lovers, it turned to port and disappeared from view.
The bridge was dark and silent; the only source of light was the screen of the passive sensor displays. Most of the crew had to simply wait in the darkness, not knowing whether the Nameless were still coming for them. Not that Crowe was much wiser; only now they had belatedly found out why the ill fated residents of Junction had made a special note of The Lovers: high heavy metal content. The petty officer responsible for passives flicked through the equipments various settings, before looking up at Crowe and shaking his head. They’d lost contact with almost all of the alien ships.
The only ones still detectable were the cap ship and its escort, holding position below the rings. The all important group, the ones inside the rings with Deimos, the ones that would kill them if they were found, were now lost to their sensors. The cap ship was now the only indication where those ships might be. Crowe watched the small collection blips barely daring to breathe. With so much material between them, the passive sensors could only provide a very rough position, not enough to say whether the ships were stationary below them or moving slowly, tracking the shuttle.
"If they come up behind us, we aren’t going to be able to restart fast enough." Hockley said quietly.
Crowe didn’t reply, there wasn’t much that could be said.
Was that movement on the screen? Had the cap ship moved? Crowe wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t the only one who thought he saw something.
Then another movement, more definite this time. They were following shuttle!
There were no cheers, or shouts of joy, everyone on the bridge knew that fooling the more distant ships was no guarantee that the ship inside the rings had been equally deceived. There would be no way of knowing, if they were fooled and chasing the shuttle, if it had been programmed correctly it would not lead them across the arcs of visibility left open by The Lovers.
Minutes passed with glacial slowness; Crowe stood motionless, watching as the cap ship’s group disappeared from view. Not a word was spoken for nearly twenty minutes; nothing appeared on any of their screens. Finally Crowe broke the silence.
"How long before the shuttle reaches the point where it has to climb?"
"Another… twenty five minutes it starts its climb. It will reach the apex two minute later."
"We’ll slide out on thrusters, just as its starting the climb. See what there is to see."
Twenty five minutes later thrusters at the rear of the ship briefly fired, advancing at less than fifty kilometres per hour Deimos edged out from underneath the Lovers. Once again all the bridge officers were clustered around the sensor consoles.
"Contact."
Only now were there sighs of relief. There on the passive display, the shuttle and all of the Nameless ships were visible, far away.
"Hope to god we haven’t given ourselves away by moving." Hockley said quietly.
"Captain," Colwell said, "the Nameless ship Alpha has nearly caught up with the shuttle."
"How close?"
"Less than fifty clicks."
"They can’t have eyeballed it yet." Hockley replied, "They wouldn’t be still chasing it if they had; how long till it starts to cli… There it goes."
The shuttle started to climb, far above the two enemy cruisers were in position.
"Come on you devils, fall for it."
Crowe didn’t realise he had spoken out loud until Hockley half turned toward him.
"Contact separation! The cruisers are firing." Shouted out a sensor rating.
There was no time for any reaction or comment before the missiles hammered into the asteroids above and around the shuttle. The warhead discharge blotted out the shuttle for a moment, when the screen cleared the shuttle was still gamely rising. Then another wave of missiles, large and small plunged down. This time the shuttles signal didn’t reappear.
"Sensors?" Crowe asked.
"I’m not sure, sir, but we might have seen a radiation spike. It could be the shuttles reactor rupturing; it definitely wasn’t catastrophic failure though." The sensors petty officer reported.
"Bridge, Communications."
"Bridge here, report." Crowe replied.
"Captain, we’re picking up at least one survival suit beacon, possibly two."
"So the shuttle was destroyed, but not vaporised." Hockley said. "Looks like we’ve had the best case scenario so far."
The four Nameless ships inside the belt had been sent scrambling back when the two cruisers started firing, now they were almost stationary with their engines powered down. They’d have been invisible to Deimos sensors except for the FTL transmissions they were making.
"I guess they’re waiting for the dust to settle, before they go in and see if they got us." Crowe said.
This time it was Hockley’s turn to nod without replying.
It took time for the asteroids to settle themselves, for those knocked out of their orbits to either be brought to a relative halt by their neighbours, or smash their way clear of the area. Only then did the four start to nose their way forward in a wide picket line. It didn’t take long for one of them to stop and start transmitting again. The other three started to converge. So intent was he on the four that had hunted them, he didn’t register the second movement.
"Sir, the cruisers, they’re closing on the rings."
Crowe whipped round towards the sensor console watching the cruisers. It was no mistake, their main engines were firing, they were heading straight for where the shuttle had been.
"Damn, they’re going to do a serious search. They’re going to realise that isn’t enough debris." Hockley shook his head.
"No Commander, this is an opportunity." Crowe replied slowly but with growing excitement. "Their top cover is moving out of position, if it gets close or into the rings we can make a break for it without having to fight past them. Helm, take us up, thrusters only, make our heading for exit of rings but be subtle."
"Roger."
"This is our best chance James; we just need to be in the right position to take advantage. Bridge, Engineering."
"Engineering here." Benson replied across the intercom.
"Bosun, the shuttle might have bought us an opening, we may be making a break for the Red Line in the next fifteen or twenty. I need the reactor and engines ready for a crash start."
"Understood Bridge, engineering waiting for the word." There was a note of hope and optimism in the Bosun’s voice that hadn’t been there since Junction.
"Sensors, are the cruisers both still closing on the rings?"
"Confirmed Captain, their velocity is holding steady."
"Alright as soon as we breech the rings we make a high power run for the nearest point of the Red Line."
"I’d advise against that, sir." Hockley cut him off mid flow. "In line with Lieutenant Colwell’s theory about their Jump Drives, I suggest we go directly up, it keeps us in the Mass Shadow for longer, but the Rings will provide a barrier between us and the cap ship’s group. They’ll have to go around or through the rings; we’ll be long gone before they do."
"Assuming the Lieutenant is right." Crowe pointed out.
"If he is it makes getting out that bit easier, if he’s wrong then no route we can take is going to make any difference." Hockley replied.
"Good point James."
For the next ten minutes Crowe waited impatiently, well aware that if they acted prematurely they’d blow their big chance. Every time anyone of the searching ships turned towards them even for a moment, Crowe felt his blood freeze. The two cruisers started to break, at first Crowe was afraid they were going to stop, still clear of the rings, but they were slowing, not stopping.
The Nameless War Page 26