by Rick Partlow
He touched a button on his earpiece and responded, “McKay here.”
“Sir, it’s Commander Villanueva,” the pilot transmitted. “I’m up, and I’ve got contact with the combat patrol shuttles from the Decatur. It’s the ship, sir…it’s under attack.”
Chapter Twelve
Joyce Minishimi had been a starship captain for eight years, had done interdiction patrols against the Belt pirates for two of them and had been in command of the cruiser Bradley during the war with the Protectorate. She commanded a warship with more destructive power at its disposal than any other device built by man. And yet, she realized abruptly as she watched the sensor icons in the command holotank, she had never once been fired upon. The Belt smugglers had always run at the first sign of trouble, realizing they couldn’t outgun a cruiser; and during the war, they had basically ambushed the Protectorate ships in Earth orbit, destroying them before they even realized they were being attacked.
All of that was about to change. She could see three enemy ships inbound in the sensor display, their fusion drives lighting up the black as they exited the orbit of Peboan’s moon. They had been concealed there, powered down and running cold, until less than an hour ago; they’d gone active immediately after she’d received McKay’s warning and powered up the drive field. She whispered a prayer of thanks for that warning, and for the insight that had made McKay give it. Without the drive field up, the Decatur would have been a sitting duck, vulnerable to a sneak attack. One round from a Gauss cannon fired from lunar orbit would have cored her ship like an apple.
“Bogies are accelerating at two g’s,” the Tactical officer announced from his station to her left. He was half-surrounded by holographic displays and she could barely see him, but Commander Gianeto was a solid, dependable officer. The traditional part of her missed the older setup on the Bradley with flat-panel screens that let her look him in the eye when she gave commands. “At our present speed, we’ll be in direct fire range in twenty-two minutes.”
“We’re still at one gravity, ma’am,” the Helm reminded her. “Do you want to increase acceleration?” Lt. Witten was on his first cruise, she remembered. Very intelligent young man, but lacking experience.
“No, I think we can stay comfortable for now,” Minishimi decided. “Tactical, target all three bogies and launch Shipbusters.”
“Aye, ma’am, launching Shipbusters. Helm, drive field shutoff in ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds to drive field shutoff, aye,” Helm responded.
Gianeto hit a series of controls on his board and on the Decatur’s starboard weapons pod, three launch ports slid open and three deadly wedge shapes, each the size of an assault shuttle, moved forward into the launch bays. “Missiles are targeted and ready for launch,” Tactical announced. “Commence drive field shutdown.”
“Drive field shutdown commencing,” Witten said, powering down the Eysselink generator. The gravimetic field that had been expanding the space-time behind them and contracting it in front ceased and the ship was suddenly in zero gravity.
“Launching three Shipbuster missiles now,” Gianeto declared, touching the three launch controls at once. They could feel the ship lurch as the three huge missiles were shot free of the weapons pod by the electromagnetic launch racks, kicking out several kilometers from the Decatur before their on-board fusion drives ignited. “Missiles out, you are clear to reinitialize the drive field.”
“Drive field initializing,” Witten said, feeding the generators a trickle of antimatter, beginning the reaction that produced the Eysselink Effect. He stared intently at the display, waiting for the waves of distorted space-time to once again cloak the ship in its protection. “Field initialized, engaging to one gravity analog acceleration.”
Joyce Minishimi breathed a little easier as the apparent gravity returned, a side-effect of the build-up of gravito-inertial energy by the drive. Nothing could touch a ship with the drive field around it, except a sufficiently strong gravitational field or, of course, another Eysselink drive. They knew the Protectorate had pirated a few Eysselink drive ships, but she couldn’t imagine how they could produce the antimatter needed to fuel them.
“Helm,” Minishimi ordered, “take us out past lunar orbit; I want a hundred klicks between us and the closest of their ships when those missiles hit.”
“Aye, Captain,” Witten acknowledged, changing their course.
“Bogies are launching countermeasures,” Gianeto announced. He squinted at the displays with amused disbelief. “Awfully big ones too…damn, it looks like they’re shooting Shipbusters at our Shipbusters!”
“That makes sense in a Russian kind of way,” Minishimi mused. “If they have enough to spare…”
“Should we launch again, ma’am?”
“Not yet, Commander…no use throwing good money after bad. Let’s see what happens. How long till their missiles intercept?”
“Not long, ma’am,” he temporized, checking the readings. “Ten minutes, twenty four seconds.”
“What heading are the enemy ships following?”
“Two of them are changing course to follow us, ma’am. One is breaking from the others and seems to be heading into planetary orbit.”
“Helm,” Minishimi snapped urgently. “Immediate drive cutoff. Communications, get a message to the patrol shuttles and to the landing party that they have possible incoming enemy spacecraft. Tactical, target the ship heading for the planet and fire off four Shipbusters, overwhelm their defenses.”
“That will only leave us with four, ma’am,” Gianeto reminded her as her officers scrambled to obey.
“Understood, Commander. Carry out the order.”
“Drive shutting down,” Witten said loudly, and the apparent gravity disappeared, sending stomachs lurching throughout the ship.
“Launch ports open, missiles running out,” Gianeto announced, drowning out the voice of the Communications officer on the other side of the bridge trying to hail the shuttles. An alarm sounded from the Tactical station, one Minishimi had never heard before outside of a drill. “Ma’am, they’re targeting us with a weapons laser…it’s extreme range right now, not penetrating the ship’s armor. Looks like it’s a continuous wave weapon, probably a gas laser, nuclear powered. Launching missiles now,” he added, hitting the control. They all felt a significant jolt as the four weapons were ejected from the ship. “They’re away. Laser is causing significant heating on the forward hull, ma’am.”
“Communications?” Minishimi demanded.
“Message delivered,” Lt. Higgs reported from her station.
“Reinitializing drive field,” Witten said, blowing out a breath. “Reestablishing course.”
“Missile drives have ignited,” Gianeto told her. “The first flight is closing on target, and the countermeasures are still inbound.”
“We are clear of lunar orbit,” Witten said. “Drive field set at station keeping, negative g burn coming.” Minishimi felt herself coming up against her seat restraints as their acceleration ceased, and with it the faux gravity. There was a warning klaxon and then there was a brief, punishing burst in the opposite direction that pushed her forward against the restraints as the drive field braked them at three gravities for a couple minutes to slow their forward velocity before they were once again in zero gravity.
Minishimi suppressed an urge to chew at her lip as the minutes dragged by…space battles required patience and steady nerves. She had the latter and could fake the former.
It’s just like a war game exercise, she told herself. Except for the part where there were three shiploads of Russians trying to kill them.
“Shipbusters are approaching countermeasures,” Gianeto finally reported. “It looks like the missile AIs are attempting evasive maneuvers, but I don’t think they’re gonna’ have enough time…no, the first of them just detonated. Jesus, that’s a big blast! Gotta’ be twenty megatons!”
“Commander,” she admonished quietly.
“Sorry, ma’am,�
� he apologized, abashed. “There’s the second detonation, though…now the third. Sensors are pretty much blinded by the flash, it’s gonna’ be a second…” He hesitated, then shook his head, frowning with disappointment. “Damn it, I was afraid of that. The first wave of Shipbusters are slag, ma’am. The second flight is still on target. The bogie heading for the planet has launched two countermeasures…that may be all she has. The other two bogies are still heading our way…no further launches from either of them. Orders, ma’am?”
“No use wasting any more Shipbusters,” she reasoned, “or time. Helm, intercept course…get us to weapons range so we can get this over with.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Witten said, “initializing one g acceleration.”
“Estimate five minutes to effective Gauss gun range,” Gianeto announced after a quick calculation. “Ten minutes, thirty five seconds to effective laser range.”
“Tactical, plot me a targeting package and charge capacitors,” she instructed.
“Charging capacitors, aye.” Gianeto worked the holotank controls, plotting firing solutions for the approaching Protectorate ships. “Ma’am, the larger of the two ships is moving into a blocking position for the other.”
“Target the leader first, then…we can deal with the trailing ship afterward.” She wasn’t worried. That tactic might have meant trouble for a conventional spacecraft, but with the Eysselink drive, they were maneuverable enough to target both ships.
“Ships are within extreme visual range, ma’am,” the communications officer informed her.
“On screen,” she ordered. The sensor display that had been projected on the main holographic viewscreen disappeared, to be replaced by a computer-enhanced visual of the Protectorate starships. The lead ship was some sort of converted in-system cargo hauler, likely pirated, its utilitarian lines obscured behind makeshift armor, the flare of fusion pulse engines lighting up like a star at its aft drive bell. Partially obscured behind it was a smaller ship, wedge-shaped and unrecognizable.
“Lead ship is coming into range,” Gianeto announced a few minutes later. “Targeting operations center and weapons.”
“Helm,” Minishimi snapped, “prepare to deactivate drive field.”
“Ready to drop field,” Witten confirmed.
“Deactivate drive field now.”
“Deactivating drive field.” More zero gravity and her stomach lurched.
“Open fire,” Minishimi snapped, trying to keep the satisfaction out of her voice.
“Gauss guns firing,” Gianeto confirmed, palming the control. The ship vibrated as tungsten slugs that weighed tons each were ejected from the port and starboard coilguns at thousands of meters per second. “She’s firing too, Captain…Gauss guns and lasers. Gauss gun rounds are a minute out, lasers starting to melt armor on the bow.” He bit back a curse. “Losing sensors on the bow, too…”
“Are our capacitors charged?” Captain Minishimi asked.
“Aye, Captain, lasers ready to fire.”
“Target their lasers and fire all batteries!”
“Firing lasers.”
Four huge capacitors in the twin weapons pods, fed by the ship’s fusion reactor, pulsed through semiconductor rods and were focused by gravimetic lenses using the ship’s drive field generator. The pulses were invisible in the vacuum of space, but the ship’s computer simulated them with crimson threads that speared out to strike the enemy ship in its weapons ports. Vaporizing metal flashed and escaping atmosphere ignited with incandescent clouds as the weapons ports blew apart.
“Gauss guns cease fire,” Minishimi ordered. “Reinitialize drive fields.”
“Drive fields engaged,” Witten sighed, relieved…the enemy Gauss rounds were getting close.
“Just in time,” Gianeto echoed the Helmsman’s unspoken concern. “Incoming Gauss rounds being shunted by the drive field. Our rounds should start impacting…now.”
Even as he spoke, Minishimi could see the tungsten darts slam into the bow armor of the Protectorate warship, ripping through it and sending a cloud of vaporized and splintered armor into an orbit around the accelerating ship. The huge projectiles kept impacting, one after another, until finally the armor was gone and they penetrated deep into the heart of the ship, coring through its nuclear reactor and killing its fusion pulse drive. Unpowered and helpless, the dead hull lost its acceleration but kept its course, the proverbial object in motion.
“Gauss rounds effective,” Gianeto reported with a touch of savage joy. “She’s a rock now…current course will take her out of the system. The trailing ship is still accelerating, should be past the derelict in a couple minutes.”
“Helm,” Minishimi ordered, “flip us end for end…I want our weapons pods on her as we pass. Tactical, are capacitors recharged?”
“Capacitors at full, ma’am,” Gianeto reported. “We’ll be ready to hit her with all laser batteries…” He clipped off his sentence, staring at the sensor display. “She’s adjusting course, ma’am…it looks like she’s trying for a collision course!”
“What?” Minishimi frowned. That was monumentally stupid, even for a Protectorate captain. The Eysselink field warped the space-time around the starship…the same effect that had shunted aside the Gauss gun rounds would rip an enemy ship to pieces if it got that close. “Well, never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake,” she shrugged. “Maintain course, prepare for high-g decel…we want to do maximum damage when the drive field hits her.”
“Preparing for high-g deceleration, aye,” Helm responded, sounding the alarm klaxon.
“What the fuck?” Gianeto blurted, staring at the sensor display. “Captain, I’m reading an Eysselink drive signature on the trailing ship!”
Joyce Minishimi felt her stomach drop away from her in a manner not unlike transitioning to zero g, as a hundred thoughts overlaid themselves on her brain at once, coalescing into a stunning realization in less than a second: the Protectorates had a stardrive, but not enough antimatter to use it for propulsion, so they were going to make a suicide run with it, ramming the fields into each other in an effort to make them collapse.
“Helm!” Minishimi shouted, instinctively trying to rise from her chair but restrained by the safety straps. “Emergency burn, 30 degrees at seven g’s, now!”
There was no time for acknowledgements, no time to sound another warning. Witten followed the command as if he’d been thinking it himself and everyone on the ship felt their body crushed by the sudden, brutal acceleration…but only for a moment, because it wasn’t quite enough…
There was a wavering uncertainty on the main viewscreen as the two Eysselink fields touched and then Joyce Minishimi felt as if she had been turned inside out. She knew she was screaming in agony, but she couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel her body.
Is this what it feels like to die? She wondered.
Then reality snapped back like a rubber band that had been stretched too far and she was back in her acceleration couch, back in zero gravity and hurting everywhere. She heard a quiet, agonized moan coming from somewhere on the bridge and finally realized it was coming from her. The holographic displays were all dark, the only illumination coming from emergency chemical ghostlights that threw the bridge into a sharp, shadowed relief. The bridge crew were floating limp against their restraints, only one or two showing signs of consciousness.
“Eng…” She tried to talk but it came out a barely audible rasp. She coughed and shook her head, both of which caused far more pain than she’d imagined. “Engineering!” She called as loud as she could. Nothing. The engineering bridge officer was a slender, fragile-looking young Lt. Commander named Mehta, and from what she could see in the gloom, he was unconscious, his head lolling.
Forcing her hands to work, she touched the button on her ‘link’s ear bud. “Captain to Engineering.” Nothing. “Captain to Engineering, is anyone there?”
“Cap…captain,” a voice rasped in answer. She barely recognized it
as belonging to Commander Prieta, the Chief Engineering Officer. “What happened?”
“They had an Eysselink drive,” Minishimi told him. “We touched fields.”
“Ah,” he sounded analytical, as if it were some fascinating experiment he’d been performing in the lab. “That makes sense. Our drive field projectors…as near as I can tell, every single relay is slagged, ma’am. The antimatter stores automatically ejected and our reactor flushed and shut down. All we have is the emergency batteries right now…and the automatic switches are burned out. Hold on for a minute, ma’am.” A long pause. “There you go.”
The bridge lights returned, and so did some of the sensor displays.
“Tactical,” Minishimi said. She saw Gianeto shaking his head, hands going to his forehead. “Commander Gianeto, I need a tactical report right now.”
“Ma’am, aye, ma’am,” he stuttered, trying to force his eyes into focus. “About half our active sensors are inoperable…we’re getting nothing from the gravimetic scans.”
“The drives are down and the reactor is offline. What can you see?”
“Ummm…yeah, there she is. The bogey with the Eysselink drive is still intact, as far as I can tell. I’m getting reactor signatures here…I think she has a fission power plant running. And she’s activated her fusion pulse drive. She’s heading towards us, ma’am.”
“Damn,” Witten swore. “How is that thing under weigh already? We’re trashed…I’ve got nothing but maneuvering thrusters right now.”
“Because she was built for that attack, Mr. Witten,” Minishimi said with grim admiration, shaking her head. “Antonov suckered us good. Put it onscreen Lt. Higgs.” The main display tank flickered fitfully and then the image of the strange, wedge-shaped enemy spacecraft solidified, with the green and blue of Peboan behind it. “Tactical, have we got anything to shoot at them?”
“No Gauss guns without the reactor, no lasers without the Eysselink field to focus them.” He shook his head. “I’m not even sure we have enough power to energize the EM launchers for the missiles, ma’am. We can launch some countermeasures, but that’s about it.”