“I overestimated how much stress the keel could take,” Song said quietly. “We can’t sustain this pace for much longer, and the compensators are in rougher shape than I thought, too.”
“What do you mean?” Henry demanded.
“If we keep the ship under any kind of subjective thrust for much longer, we’re going to snap the keel in half,” the engineer told him. “And the compensators aren’t going to hold up against half a KPS-squared either.
“We need to cut to point three and we need to do it in the next ten minutes, ser.”
Henry was silent for several seconds, studying the geometry. The three Guardians were still pursuing the last Kozun cruiser. Somehow, what he guessed was Kalad’s flagship was intact as she drove for the skip line to Hierarchy space.
She’d lost enough acceleration that the pursuit had to be nearly over, but she was still fighting.
The Drifter starfighters, on the other hand, had now been chasing Raven for ten minutes. Almost forty minutes had passed since the beginning of the fight, and Raven’s desperate course had taken her almost two million kilometers from the original contact point.
The fighters were still almost another million kilometers past that, but they were now closing the distance at almost three times Raven’s acceleration.
“How long can we push it?” he asked, turning his attention to the broader map. He’d been counting on outrunning the Guardians for the next two days. If he suddenly went from having an acceleration advantage to a disadvantage, that wasn’t an option.
“The closer you get to that ten-minute mark, the more likely we are to break the ship in half, ser,” Song said bluntly.
“Right.” Henry sighed and adjusted the settings for his virtual bridge. “Bazzoli, cut acceleration to point three KPS-squared and confirm with Engineering. Lieutenant Colonel Song has the call on our acceleration now.”
“Ser, we’re…”
“Going to get caught by fucking everyone at that accel,” Henry agreed. “I know. Set your course for the comet swarm at sixty by forty-seven. Can we zero-zero at them before the Guardians are close enough to pick out our heat from the ice?”
“They’re ten million kilometers away, ser. ETA is two hours, eighteen minutes. If the Guardians flip now…they’ll still be at least two million kilometers away when we zero in,” Bazzoli said slowly. “We might just make it.”
“We’ll have to take out every one of those starfighters,” Henry noted. “Ihejirika? You get the new pattern?”
“I’ve got it,” the tactical officer replied. “Weapons range in forty minutes for us…couple more for them. We’ll get one unopposed salvo in, but they’ve only got one salvo aboard.”
“What about internal weapons?” Henry asked. “They’ll be over one percent of lightspeed relative to us at that point. They’re not breaking off easily.”
“Most Vesheron fighters are pure missile platforms,” Iyotake said from CIC. “They’ll probably break off vertically, pass around us.”
“They’ll stay close enough to pick us up if we try and hide,” Henry concluded. “We have to kill them all.”
That was easier said than done. Sixty starfighters…and he currently didn’t even have one.
“Hopefully, we’ll have starfighters by then,” he murmured. He had faith in O’Flannagain’s people, but at the same time…time was not their friend.
“Ser, the Guardians,” Iyotake interrupted his thoughts. “They’re breaking off… Oh.”
Henry turned his attention back to the running battle he wasn’t involved in, just in time to see the end. It turned out that it wasn’t just the skip line to Ra-175 the Drifters had laid laser satellites at. The Kozun cruiser had almost made it, but then dozens of weapons platforms lit up.
Iyotake had seen the first energy signatures, and now Henry saw them all. The beams weren’t full heavy weapons, but they were also firing at ranges as short as fifty thousand kilometers, and there were almost a hundred of them.
The last ship of Star Voice Kalad’s command came apart as the beams slashed through her hull, ripping the warship to pieces…and leaving the Guardians clear to come after Raven.
“That’s it, then,” he murmured. “Officers. We are now the only people who can counter whatever story the Drifters want to tell about what happened here. Somehow, I don’t think those starfighters are on their way to save us.”
“They could be,” Iyotake pointed out. “Even if the Drifters are behind this, they haven’t done anything outside their agreements yet. The Kozun fired first.”
“Did they?” Henry asked. “Then tell me, XO. If you had managed a perfect alpha strike that had destroyed or crippled every enemy in the battlespace, would you have just sat there for ninety seconds until the Drifters started shooting at you?”
“Gods.” Ihejirika’s curse was soft. “All they need to do is cut that ninety seconds out of the sensor footage and there’ll be no question, will there? It won’t even be doctored footage, so almost no analysis would pick it up.”
“Those ninety seconds aren’t enough to prove the Kozun’s innocence,” Henry told his people. “But they’re enough to create doubt. They’re enough that we’d talk to the Kozun before going to war…and I have this sinking feeling that someone wants us to go to war.”
“Or are we just jumping at shadows because we’re afraid of the Drifters?” Iyotake asked. “You’re stretching, ser. Stretching pretty damn far.”
“The question, I suppose, is also why they aren’t talking to us,” Henry pointed out. “We could wait the extra few minutes to see if they fire first. But…we also have to consider that Raven is walking wounded at this point.”
The channel was quiet.
“It’s your call, ser,” Iyotake told him. “It’s my job to tell you that you’re twisting for a chance to say Star Voice Kalad didn’t shoot at you. But…that twist doesn’t look wrong, either.”
“I know,” Henry conceded. “On all counts.”
And he was angry. He was so very angry that Todorovich was dead. If he could blame Kalad, well…that would hurt, but his anger was targetless.
If Kalad wasn’t at fault, somehow, then he did have a target—and two women dear to his heart to be angry over.
“We can’t risk it,” he said aloud. “Commander Moon, we will make an attempt to warn off the Drifter starfighters. If they do not break off…Commander Ihejirika, you are to fire as soon as they are in range.
“We can’t give up that shot. It’s the only chance we’ve got of reducing the odds.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Drifter fighter wing, this is Lieutenant Commander Lauren Moon aboard the United Planets Space Force Vessel Raven.” Henry was leaving the whole message to Moon. He suspected his version would involve a lot more bloodthirsty threats than hers.
With everyone out of the acceleration tanks and back in their seats on the bridge, he could even hear her speaking instead of playing the message back.
“Raven is withdrawing to a safe skip line to fall back to friendly territory. While we appreciate Drifter intervention against the Kozun attack, we must act to protect our own safety at this point. Any fighter craft entering within seven hundred and fifty thousand kilometers of Raven will be fired upon.
“We are not in need of immediate assistance or escort. Fall back for everyone’s safety.”
The fighters continued on their course, though lightspeed delays meant they wouldn’t get Moon’s message for several seconds. They were moving at well over a percent of lightspeed relative to the initial battlespace now, accelerating hard to close the distance with Raven.
Most starfighters would carry between five and ten percent of lightspeed in delta-v. They had the fuel to burn for this, but Henry wished he knew if the Drifter fighters carried internal weapons. He wouldn’t normally worry about the relatively weak lasers or plasma guns that could be mounted on a starfighter, but today…today he was going to worry about everything.
“Henrikss
on, let’s bring the shield up,” he ordered. “That should help scare them off if anything will.”
“Yes, ser.”
New icons flickered across his screen. It would be very obvious to the starfighters when the gravity shield came up. His ship would be harder to locate inside the bubble once the shield was up, buying her a small but useful amount of stealth and evasion.
He checked on the fighter-wing status and grimaced at the icons flashing under the spacecraft. Seven fighters were marked as red, offline. The eighth was black—destroyed. There was only one way that had happened.
“O’Flannagain, report,” he ordered.
“I’m sourcing dark alleys for meeting that designer,” the CAG said flatly. “We almost had everything aligned, and then one of the emitters broke free and fell.”
“Through the starfighter,” Henry finished.
“Through the starfighter at eleven subjective gravities,” she confirmed. “And knocked a hundred-and-eleven-kilogram maintenance robot free in the process. Raven-One is offline, permanently.
“We’ve been working on the alignment since we cut to compensated acceleration, and it’s slow going,” she admitted. “At least ten minutes, ser.”
“We’ll be nearly in weapons range of the Drifter starfighters at that point, Commander,” Henry told her. “Is that going to be the full wing?”
“No,” she admitted. “I only have five pilots, ser, even if I’m down to seven fighters…and we’re only going to have two Lancers ready for this. With the GMS and the grav-shield, I’ll back them against sixty Drifter TIEs.”
Henry swallowed his reactions. He hated that particular nickname for an unshielded fighter.
“We don’t know enough about the Drifters’ fighters for me to want to take that bet, O’Flannagain,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t say I wanted to take it, ser. But what choice do we have? I’ll scramble as soon as I have planes.”
“If we’re only a little lucky, we’ll still have a battlecruiser for you to scramble from,” Henry admitted.
“Range in ninety seconds,” Ihejirika reported grimly. “No response to our hails. Bringing up the targeting radar now and pinging them.”
That was early, but Henry held his peace. It was the final warning the incoming fighters were going to get, and he’d let his people do everything they could to warn the Drifters off. It was always possible, after all, that this was some giant misunderstanding.
“Fighters remaining on course. Initial target locks acquired and downloaded to missiles. Launchers one through twelve armed and ready. Range in…sixty seconds.”
“Courses are adjusting slightly,” Iyotake’s murmured in Henry’s internal network. “Not enough to change the timing, but they’re setting up for a wide pass. They’re going to avoid our laser range.”
“If only they knew,” Henry replied. “They could fly right up to us and would be in the same danger they are at seven hundred thousand klicks.”
“Our defense lasers would have some impact on fighters,” his XO said. “But yes, they appear to be overestimating the threat.”
Henry’s answer was interrupted by two of the icons on his display flashing to green.
“Fighters up,” O’Flannagain’s voice barked in the command channel. “Raven-Three and Raven-Four, dropping in twenty seconds!”
“Finally,” Henry said under his breath. “Well done, CAG; pass my compliments to your people,” he told her aloud.
“Missile range,” Ihejirika snapped. “Firing.”
They didn’t even need to flip the ship to clear the launchers. They were decelerating toward the comet swarm, shedding their velocity to match the debris orbiting Lon, which meant their missile tubes and fighter launch bays were all pointed toward the enemy.
Twelve new green icons blinked into existence on the displays, missiles hurtling back toward the pursuing starfighters. Relative velocities were already over a full percent of lightspeed on launch, separating the weapons from Raven in a heartbeat.
“Twenty seconds to enemy range,” Ihejirika reported. “Second launch ten seconds after that.”
“Starfighters away,” Iyotake declared. “Two birds in space, O’Flannagain in command.”
Henry chuckled softly, probably quietly enough to be unheard. Of course Samira O’Flannagain was in one of the two starfighters they’d actually deployed. It was easily argued that the CAG’s place right now was in Flight Control…but he’d never met a Commander, Air Group, worthy of their wings who wouldn’t be in a starfighter in this moment.
“Lancers are breaking away toward the Drifters; acceleration is two point five KPS-squared,” Iyotake continued. “I thought they had more than that.”
“They do,” Henry confirmed. “She’s also carrying full-size missiles and doesn’t need to close the range.”
He watched O’Flannagain’s starfighter fall behind Raven, closing with the enemy fighters at almost five KPS2 with their combined acceleration.
“Trust O’Flannagain,” he told Iyotake aloud. His attention turned back to the damage-control schematic he knew in his heart was going to get updated again soon.
There were clear red sections showing where Raven had been hit, but they’d avoided any hits from conversion warheads. The weapons that had hit them had been the disruptors, which apparently didn’t have a warhead beyond their resonance systems.
Henry blinked.
“Enemy missiles launching,” Ihejirika reported. “One-twenty inbound. They are preserving half their missiles, probably to see how our defenses hold up. If they only need to spend half, well…”
“Ihejirika, analyze those birds,” Henry snapped. “Some of them are conversion warheads and some of them are disruptors, but the disruptors end up as pure kinetic weapons—most of which the gravity shield is going to tear to pieces.
“I need to know how many of each they’ve fired.”
“I’m not sure we can ID that, ser,” his tactical officer replied. “Not with two and a half minutes to do it in.”
“Try,” Henry ordered. “If we can prioritize our antimissile lasers, we can survive this. So, try.”
More missiles blazed out from Raven’s launchers as he spoke, the battlecruiser’s response pitiful compared to the tidal wave now sweeping toward her.
Still almost two minutes until the first salvo connected. The distances involved left even the fastest of weapons taking seeming ages to connect.
“Third salvo away,” Ihejirika reported. “Drifters are continuing to hold on to their remaining missiles. Surely, they’ll launch before we hit them.”
“That depends on whether they think they’ve already killed us,” Henry said grimly. “We might take some of them with us, but there’s no point wasting missiles on an enemy that’s already dead and just hasn’t realized it yet.”
“Ser.” The tactical officer response was clipped. “We…think we’ve found a pattern in the incoming fire.”
“Show me,” Henry ordered.
Ihejirika took control of one of the big screens around Henry, zooming in on the swarm of missiles heading their way. There was nothing to the interweaving weapons that looked unusual to Henry.
“It’s not much,” his subordinate told him. “We wouldn’t have noticed it if we hadn’t been looking for it, but the trailing missiles have a different radiation signature. They’re carrying plutonium-based fission devices—igniters for their conversion warheads.
“The lead missiles don’t have enough plutonium aboard to flag at this range.”
One hundred and twenty missiles blinked, suddenly acquiring a mix of orange and crimson icons.
“It’s not a perfect distribution, but they tried to send the disruptors ahead of the conversion warheads, to bring our shields down before they hit us with the plasma bolts. Three-quarters of the salvo are disruptors. The last thirty are conversion warheads.”
Ihejirika paused, as if running numbers in his head.
“We can probably shoot down thi
rty, maybe forty missiles,” he noted. “Usually, I’d say we could take thirty conversion warheads, but…”
“But our last estimates say they only need fifty disruptors to knock out our shield,” Henry finished. “Even the disruptors can hurt us, but we’re not going to take many hits from conversion warheads if we don’t have the shield.
“Target the conversion missiles, Commander,” he ordered. “We can reset the shield and we can hope to dodge any un-warheaded missiles that make it through, but we can’t survive conversion warheads. If the shield is going to come down either way, I don’t want there to be a fusion bomb left out there.”
“Understood, ser,” Ihejirika paused. “We could use O’Flannagain’s missiles, ser. What’s she doing?”
“Her job isn’t to save Raven, Commander,” Henry said calmly. “That’s our job. Her job is to make sure there are none of those fighters left to tell their motherships where we’re hiding.”
“First salvo impact in thirty seconds, sers,” Lieutenant Ybarra told them both. “Enemy salvo in defense range in fifteen seconds.”
“You have your orders,” Henry replied. He leaned back in his chair, doing what he could to take in the entire battle. “Carry on, Commander.”
In the absence of gravity shields or other passive defenses, most Vesheron fighters that Henry had seen over the last two decades had been true TIEs: since they couldn’t take a hit, they were left with pure maneuverability as their defense.
They were expendable, lethal missile platforms manned by that seemingly universal cultural group of youths convinced of their own immortality. The UPA had never leaned into that standard, equipping its fighters with both gravity shields and antimissile lasers.
The Drifters, it seemed, were more in line with the UPA’s policies. The incoming fighters opened fire as the UPSF missiles closed, rapid slices of coherent light glittering across the void.
“Enemy starfighters are equipped with rapid-tracking pulse lasers,” Iyotake reported from CIC. “They’re almost certainly intended as pure antimissile lasers—energy levels appear to be in the one- to two-hundred-megawatt range. They might cause our people a headache in a dogfight, but that’s not what they’re built for.”
Raven's Course (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 3) Page 20