“Commander, if this is your Rizr taskforce, then you have to take the entire squadron out.”
“The three that would be left…” Willis started to say.
“This Rizr taskforce is your theory, Commander, but if they are out there then you either have to confront them with all your ships or none of them. Split your force and you risk being picked off piecemeal.”
Willis stared into the middle distance for several moments.
“Sir you’re right. Alright, I am officially calling this an invasion.” Commander Horan heard her and immediately dashed off to make the necessary signals. Within minutes the Geriatrics would be to creaking into action.
“Very well, I’ll send out a general FTL signal.”
If it is, then it’s too late for that to do any good, Willis thought to herself. Still thanks for the belated solidarity.
“Commander, where are you up to with your attempts to reactivate Thunder?”
“My chief engineer was due to be attempt to cold start her reactor about now.”
“Get him aboard. If this is the worst, you’ll need him. I’ll round up who ever I can find. If Thunder can be got moving, we’ll do it. Get out there Commander. I just hope that Commander Espey has panicked.”
___________________
11.25 Hrs Dryad time
Vincent stood in front of the main holo, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He second-in-command came over.
“I’ve checked through the information we have on file,” Lieutenant Mamista said quietly. “The intelligence reports have become spotty since the start of the war but there’s nothing on file to indicate that this is the best they can do.”
Vincent’s scowl deepened.
According to the information on file, the two Bakers had an acceleration advantage over the transport Deceiver was pretending to be, of somewhere between eleven and seventeen percent. They were closing the range, but for the past hour their acceleration rate had only been three percent higher than the fleeing transports. If they planned to take or destroy the three they needed to close the range and they needed to get on with it. It was all starting to smell.
“I’m starting to wonder whether these guys are trying to be clever,” Vincent muttered.
“Why be clever when fast and stupid will get the job done?” Mamista replied quietly.
“Depends on what the job is,” Vincent said, “but right now these jokers seem to be trying to have the worst of both worlds.” He glanced up at the bridge clock. It would be the best part of another half hour before their radio message reached Faith. Figure on another ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes for Faith to reach Dryad Five, most of that spent getting out of Dryad Two’s Mass Shadow. “They aren’t catching us but when the Geriatrics turn up, they’ll be deep into the Mass Shadow. Yeah… this isn’t right.”
“What are you thinking Skipper?”
“I’m thinking that I’m starting to feel like bait. I think they’re trying to suck the Geriatrics in for an ambush or get them out of position. Shit.” They could play it safe, keep running. But that wasn’t what they were there for. If the enemy had a plan, then their first duty was to try to foul it up. “I think this is going to have to stay our problem. We’re going to have to tell them to stay away. ”
Mamista swallowed hard but made no reply.
Vincent turned and walked back to his chair. There weren’t a whole pile of options open to him. Deceiver’s transmitter was military grade, so it might be able to punch through the jamming signal. If they tried and failed though that would give them away with no pay off. Deceiver did carry a couple of message drones. If they got one away within the next hour it would be capable of getting to Dryad Two before Faithie had a chance to jump out. But the drones were old models, not in anyway designed for combat situations. Those missiles the Rizr carried might not be up to much but they’d be able to shoot down his drones before they got out of the Mass Shadow. Deceiver would have to carry them close to the line and the Rizr would undoubtedly object. They were in for a fun afternoon.
Standing he flicked his intercom to ship wide.
“Gentlemen. It’s my belief that the reason for the Rizr’s half-assed pursuit is that we are being used as bait for an ambush for the Geriatrics. That means we are going to have to deal with these guys ourselves. In a few minutes we’re going to turn and make a run for the Red Line. I think they’ll cut us off but we can keep them busy long enough to get a message drone away. With a little luck we might also get close enough to take a crack at our new friends. This is going to be tough but I believe we can do it. Make sure your stations are ready and standby.”
He cut the connection and beckoned Mamista over.
“Speak to the skippers of Weser and Altair. Tell them what I’m going to do. This will pull the Bakers off their tail. They don’t need to know any more.”
“Aye sir,” Mamista said. “Then I’ll head down to damage control.” He hesitated before sticking out a hand. “Good luck Skipper.”
Slowly Deceiver’s bows came round and ship started to brake hard. On the bridge holo the range between the Q-ship and the Bakers started to drop more rapidly. Around Deceiver debris sparkled, mostly chaff but also few freight boxes, just enough for it to look like they were dumping cargo to run faster.
“Skipper, we’re now running engines at eighty percent,” helm reported.
Vincent nodded without replying. Eighty percent power was as high as they could go without showing Deceiver had a better power to mass ratio than a transport should have. The shortest distance back to the Red Line would be straight back they way they had come, but that would be through the two Bakers. Instead their course would angle away from them. On the holo the track of one of the Bakers started to change, moving to intercept.
“Helm, keep angling away. Let’s see if we can pull him away from his pal.”
It would be another forty minutes before Deceiver arrested her momentum toward the planet, but in twenty they’d be getting inside effective range of the Rizr guns.
Battle Fleet had always rejected lasers as a starship’s main weapon. The emitters were sensitive to shock and the behind armour damage effects inferior to that of a plasma bolt. Not that they weren’t without advantages though. As a light speed weapon the first warning you got that you’d been fired on was when it hit you.
“Hull breach!” the shout went up as the jolt went through the ship. “Cargo Bay Two is venting atmosphere!”
“Helm, angle us away another two degrees and start taking whatever evasive action this bucket can manage,” Vincent snapped.
“Damage Control, Bridge,” came Mamista’s voice over the intercom.
“Talk to me!”
“That hit came in through the starboard flank,” reported Mamista. “That was the second hit. The first failed to penetrate the forward abrasion plates. Recommend we steer in and don’t give them too good a look at our flank…”
The explosion that cut him off was loud enough to make Vincent’s ears ring.
“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” he shouted into the link.
There was silence for a moment then Mamista’s voice came through again.
“Visors down! Visors down! Tell Sickbay to get ready to accept casualties! Skipper, that one just clipped the Number Two Gun.” Vincent’s eyes immediately sought out the main bridge status repeater on which the green light beside the gun still glowed. “The local control booth has been hit. It still has the uplink to Fire Control but if we lose that we lose the gun!”
“Understood Lieutenant. Helm, angle us in three degrees,” Vincent ordered.
Thirteen minutes after taking their first hit, Deceiver finally started to move back towards the Red Line. Every thirty seconds another laser beam struck. The abrasion plates, designed to protect the ship from space particles, were taking the worst of it, but it wasn’t proper armour and as the range fell the impacts grew more powerful. Once the range got short enough, even the Baker’s small turret lasers wou
ld cut through, but by that stage they might be close enough to stand a chance of landing a hit with a railgun round. Except the Baker’s Captain lost patience.
“Contact separation! We have five missiles incoming!”
Deception over, Vincent thought as he watched the five blips creep towards them. There was nothing a normal transport could do to avoid or block those missiles.
“Helm, bring engines to one hundred percent power. Fire Control, bring the point defence grid online. Tactical, bring countermeasures online.”
Vincent briefly wondered what kind of surprise or shock there was on the bridge of the protected cruiser as a storm of fire swatted their five missiles without difficulty. Certainly their firing paused. Beneath his feet he could feel the deck plating start to tremble as Deceiver worked up to full acceleration. On the holo the Rizr ship finally started to react by turning to present its broadside.
The jolt felt like Deceiver had damn near stopped dead in her tracks and pitched Vincent out of his seat.
“Skipper! The jump drive has just offlined!”
“Tactical, Bridge! That was a broadside gun. It went straight through the abrasion plate!”
“Contact separation! We have thirty five missiles incoming!”
“Point Defence, commencing fire!”
The reports came in thick and fast as he hauled himself back into his seat. He couldn’t keep up with it all, so he instead had to let his crew work while he tried to focus on the most immediately critical priorities
“Bridge, Tactical,” he called out. “Start streaming gas.”
From pipes mounted on Deceiver’s nose, helium gas started to vent, almost invisible, it slid like silk over the Q-ship’s hull. The next two lasers hits spent most of their energy against the gas rather than the hull. It was a respite, but only a brief one.
“The shot went straight through the jump drive, sir,” Mamista reported. “The entire unit is scrap.”
“Without that drive, there’s not much point in worrying about getting ourselves across the Red Line. I don’t even think we’re going to take much more of this.”
For nearly forty minutes Deceiver had ploughed forward, soaking up hit after hit. Although many of those hits had simply been absorbed by her sheer bulk, they were starting to loose critical systems. The centrifuge had slammed to a halt after a direct hit to the hub spot. The torque stress of that alone had probably twisted the keel. One engine had been torn open and the point defence grid was gutted. A railgun on one side was smashed and on the opposite, another had been reduced to local control. Damage Control teams were shoring up damaged load bearing beams and patching command lines as fast as they could but Deceiver was coming apart at the seams.
Vincent could feel his stomach twist. His second-in-command was going the same way as his first, and so was his second crew. They were a good lot. No one was losing it and everyone was doing their job. It was like being back at Alpha Centauri, people staying at their stations for as long as they could complete a task and when they could no longer do that, they joined Damage Control. When a man or woman was killed another would pause only to push their body aside and then step into the breach. His churning stomach was nothing compared to the tightness of his throat. The second Baker had abandoned the chase of the transports and was now moving to assist its comrade. This time Faithie wouldn’t be coming to the rescue.
“Bridge, Fire Control,” he said.
“Fire Control here sir.”
“We’re going to turn to port in a moment. Set the guns for proximity burst.”
“The range is still pretty long, even with the proximity fuses.”
“We’re only going to get closer as drifting wreckage,” Vincent replied grimly.
“Understood Skipper.”
“Bridge, Tactical. Once we fire launch both message drones.”
“Aye sir.”
“Helm, turn to present starboard guns. Fire Control, fire as you bear.”
Both drones slipped smoothly from their housings and together they turned for edge of the Mass Shadow, and then engaged their drives. They were perfectly positioned to see Deceiver start to salvo out railgun rounds. There was no attempt at precision targeting. It would take each projectile over a minute to reach the Baker. Time enough for the protected cruiser to take evasive action. Instead Deceiver fired as fast as her guns would allow, trying to fill all the possible places the Rizr ship could reach. As some of the projectiles got close they exploded sending out sprays of fragments and for the first time since the battle began, the Baker started to take damage.
As the drones crossed the Red Line and spun up their jump drives, far astern there was a pinprick of light: a starship reactor letting go.
___________________
12.38 Hrs Dryad time
“We are… seven minutes from the Red Line Ma’am and ten from our calculated jump out point.” Hood’s navigator replied to Willis’s question. The Geriatrics and America were making best speed for the edge of the Mass Shadow, which wasn’t very fast. Willis could only grit her teeth and resist the urge to order more acceleration. Push harder and the odds were the engines wouldn’t take it. She couldn’t pass the time planning, as there was no information to base a plan on. Instead, as hypocritical as it felt, she prayed that Vincent had been able to run, or was at least still alive.
“Contact!” shouted a radar operator. “New contact has just jumped in, bearing zero, four, three dash three, five, three, it’s small, it’s… New contact, same bearing.”
“Coms, Bridge. Contacts are communication drones, we are receiving an audio transmission with a secondary data stream, standard encoding protocols.”
“Put it up on the command channel,” Willis ordered.
“This is Deceiver to Dryad Defence Force.” At the first sound of Vincent’s voice, she felt herself choke up. “A couple of Rizr protected cruisers jumped in shortly after we did. I thought they were here to chase us down but their pursuit was half-hearted. I think we’re being used as bait to pull a couple of your ships out, away from the rest where they can be ambushed. So you’ll need to come in force. I’ve managed to pull the cruisers away from the civvy transports but I’ve blown my cover and I’m taking fire. I’ve included our sensor data right up to the moment we launched these drones. I think I’m going to be able to take a lump outa at least one of these guys but unless you’re going to arrive in strength really soon, it probably isn’t going to help us.” Vincent’s report started out sounding professional, but as it went on it sounded more and more human. In the background there was a sudden bang and someone screamed. “Sorry Faithie, I guess this time I won’t be able to hold on long enough for you to ride to the rescue. This is Deceiver, over and out.”
The transmission clicked off and suddenly there was absolute silence across the intercom’s command frequency. Willis sat motionless. Slowly she unclipped herself from her seat and drifted aimlessly towards tactical, before changing course and coming to halt by the tactical station. The display was showing the information downloaded from the drones. She stared as if mesmerised at the pattern of lines, letters and numbers.
“Skipper,” the communications officer said quietly, “the Captains of America and Onslaught are requesting instructions.”
Willis nodded slowly without replying. The two small protected cruisers wouldn’t have added much extra firepower in a stand up fight with the Geriatrics, but by using them as decoys, they could have bought a clear run at Hawkings Base and once they had the base, they had the system. Vincent had gone into a fight he knew he couldn’t win, so she wouldn’t make the mistake of coming to the rescue. Her mind swirled. Could she get to Deceiver or send a ship? No, the fight was probably already over and even if it wasn’t, there was nothing she could do. Her friend was on his own and she wanted to scream.
“Skipper,” Horan’s voice penetrated her consciousness, “we’ve crossed the Red Line, are we jumping out?”
She leaned on the table and closed her eyes. Then
, in a sudden violent movement she swept her arm across the surface, launching computer pads, pens and other detritus across the bridge. The rating and NCOs on the bridge hadn’t heard the transmission but they’d picked up on the tension. Not one of them moved a muscle, not even the ones hit by flying debris. Willis spun herself around and shoved herself back into her chair.
“Coms,” she snarled, “order all ships to reverse course. We’re returning to Hawkings!”
The order broke the spell and the bridge swung into action. The squadron made a ragged turn and started to brake hard. At the centre of this activity Willis sat lost in her own turbulent thoughts. As the Geriatrics started back towards the planet she roused herself.
“Coms, instruct Onslaught to take position at the lunar Lagrange Point and power down.”
14.20 Hrs Dryad time
Three of the Geriatrics waited just beyond the planet’s orbit. They were accompanied by America and the newly reactivated Thunder, now under the command of a very scared sounding lieutenant. Onslaught was halted on the Lagrange Point between Dryad Two and the planet’s small moon. With all her systems powered down, the old raider had disappeared from Hood’s scopes. Willis sat on Hood’s battle bridge in the conning tower staring morosely at the holo display. She was still filled with the almost overpowering urge to charge off to help Vincent, but that would now be the worst kind of useless. For better or worse his battle was already over. She’d already done, what she’d never imagined she would do: turn away from him when he needed her.
“Coms, Bridge. Signal from Hawkings.”
“Put it through.”
“Commander Willis. This is Hawkings. Are you receiving me?” came Admiral Kinnear’s voice.
“Yes sir. Loud and clear.”
“Commander, the lunar tracking station has just picked up a force of twenty-seven Rizr ships making real space re-entry. Composition is much as expected, five armoured cruisers, six protected cruisers, ten destroyers and six transports. It looks like they intend to orbit around the moon.”
The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) Page 31