by B. V. Larson
“I’m lengthening the time to intercept,” Engels said with a grin. “What’s more, the float mine will have a lower delta to the attack ships’ velocity, so it will be more likely to catch them all.”
“You should have been male.”
Engels stared at Zaxby. “What?”
“You make war like a War Male.”
“I make war like a professional fleet officer.”
“It is a compliment, Captain Engels. I was referring to my own culture, and how the average Ruxin sees you. You know, like your bridge officers.” Zaxby gestured broadly with six tentacles.
Engels realized more eyes than normal were on her. Zaxby seemed to be trying to tell her something. Did the Ruxin crew have doubts about her ability to command because she was female? That must be it.
She spoke loudly and clearly. “Many human females fight, just as many human males govern. You are a neuter, Zaxby, yet you’re a superb ship’s officer in battle, just like the rest of your fellow Ruxins. Your gender doesn’t matter, especially when the war is fought using machines. It’s about brains, not hormones.”
The Ruxins seemed to relax, and many eyes turned back to their boards and consoles. It looked like she’d passed some kind of test of command without even knowing it was coming.
“Insert the ship,” Engels said as her intercept approached.
“Insert. Underspace achieved.”
“Weapons, deploy one float mine to time-detonate at an optimum location inside their formation, and one to simultaneously detonate directly in front of them. I want microsecond timing to avoid fratricide.”
“Detonation timing set. Deploying float mines.”
Engels didn’t need to order acceleration. The ship was already using retrograde impellers within underspace, slowing the ship for eventually heading back in the direction she had come, so the float mines drifted on a ballistic course, straight ahead toward the oncoming attack squadron.
The holoplate’s icons flashed with detonation, and the Archer rattled with the dimensional bleed-over. The predicted path of the attack squadron passed through Revenge’s location. “Emerge!”
“Emerging.”
The holoplate and other sensor displays updated slowly due to the spreading radiation of the fusion blasts. “Any attack ships left? Find them!” Engels snapped.
“It is difficult,” said her sensors officer.
“We’re looking straight at Lockstep’s fusion flare ourselves, now, trying to pick out any survivors,” explained Zaxby.
“Of course, but we should be able to see their flares if they’re still accelerating in pursuit.”
“Sensors show no flares.”
“Helm, ninety degree course deviation spinward. Get us some angle so we can see.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
The Archer turned away from its course. The new angle eventually allowed them to confirm the good news: no operational attack ships remained. Several were intact enough to have beacons crying for help, but none maneuvered. They’d been eliminated as a threat.
“Set us back on course for the frigates,” Engels ordered.
Zaxby waved at the holoplate. “That may not be sufficient. They have dispersed.”
“Crap.” Engels watched as the icons for the frigates diverged from their former courses in three dimensions, but continued at full acceleration in the general direction of the freighter. “They probably think the attack ships hit stealth mines dropped by Lockstep, and so they’re evading on parallel courses. Now we have three problems instead of one.”
“I suggest we insert soon,” Zaxby said. “Their active sensors are on maximum forward and they could spot us any time.”
“Do it. Insert the ship.”
“Inserting. Underspace achieved.”
Engels sat back down and chewed her lip, using the time to intercept to think, and think hard. The float mines weren’t actually stealthy enough to lay in wait in front of a frigate pounding away with full active sensors. To catch a target unawares, they had to pop out of underspace at the last moment. That’s why they were called float mines.
Ditto for her shipkiller missiles. They could be cold-launched and laid like mines, one at a time, but they would also be seen.
This meant that she could only attack one target effectively, and she’d only have one chance. The Archer wasn’t fast enough to chase down the other two frigates from aft. She could launch one missile, but it would almost certainly be picked out of space by lasers.
An Archer was a poor man’s—being’s—weapon, meant to pick off the low-hanging fruit of war. It was no doubt devastating against an enemy’s cargo shipping, but it was not meant to fight warships, and certainly not squadrons. It was fragile, and could not stand toe to toe with even the smallest warship.
If only underspace engines could be installed on something big enough to really fight—at least a destroyer, or better a heavy cruiser. That would make it a nasty long-range independent raider. She filed the idea away for later.
Engels spoke. “Ops, project when the enemy will overtake Lockstep.”
“Sixty-seven minutes, Captain.”
“Minimum time to Lockstep’s transit?”
“One hundred and eleven minutes.”
Engels rubbed her eyes through her open faceplate. “So, if we can buy forty-four minutes, she’ll get away.”
“Assuming the enemy does not launch shipkiller missiles,” said Zaxby.
“There is that. I’m hoping they won’t, unless they believe they’re losing their prey. Straker has an Inquisitor aboard, and the rescued prisoners from the camp. Plus, I’m betting somebody really wants to capture the man who stuck his finger in the Mutuality’s eye more than once.”
“Are you sure that’s not wishful thinking?”
“It’s the best I’ve got right now. Helm, set us on a combat intercept for the lead frigate. We might as well thin the herd by one.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
The intercept went like clockwork. A float mine left a frigate broken and drifting in space, and the other two began to evade more strenuously, though they still pursued the freighter.
Unfortunately, this left Revenge following hopelessly behind the other two frigates. Launching her only effective weapon, her shipkiller missile, would merely call attention to herself, and it was important to deny the Mutuality crews any information as to what frightening weapon kept attacking them from out of nowhere.
“Give me a tightbeam comlink to Lockstep,” Engels said.
“I am sorry, ma’am, but that is not possible due to engine flare.”
“Dammit.” Of course, they couldn’t punch a beam through the fusion engine’s interference, as the Archer was directly behind both the remaining two frigates and the freighter they pursued. “Well, Derek, I did all I could. You’re on your own now.”
* * *
Straker paced the freighter’s cramped bridge, happy that at least it was dry. Carla was going to have a miserable trip home if they couldn’t finish off all their enemies and join up before sidespace insertion.
“She got one, but two of them are going to catch us before we can transit,” said Loco, stepping up beside him. “It’s going to be a gang-bang, and we’re the pivot point. Well, if a threesome can be called a gang-bang. Maybe just a—”
“Save it, Loco,” Straker said. “We’ve got work to do. Let’s go. Captain Gibson, we’ll be opening the far-aft cargo door.”
“Good luck, Commodore. If your tricks don’t work… well, thanks for getting our families out of there. Better they die here with us than in a camp.”
Straker speared Gibson with a stare. “Nobody’s dying today but our enemies, Captain.”
Gibson nodded, his eyes bleak and unconvinced.
Straker led Loco off the bridge. He called for a detail of troops to assist, and Nazario, Redwolf and Aldrik showed up with a dozen men. They quickly donned pressure suits and tromped to the aft cargo bay door.
Strapped to the w
all were six shipkiller missiles, newly manufactured by the industry of the Starfish nebula. In the month he’d had to prepare for this mission, he’d browbeaten the Ruxin Premier Freenix into supplying many of his battle needs.
“Seal up and depressurize the bay,” Straker ordered. “Turn off the gravplating.” He quickly input commands into their simplified external interfaces.
The cargo bay door in the belly of the flattened freighter opened to reveal the flare of the fusion engine at the ship’s centerline. Soon, the Breakers were unstrapping the missiles and manhandling them into space. They fell into the void, tumbling, left behind by the continuous acceleration of the ship.
They shot briefly through the edges of the plasma. Fortunately, like all such weapons, they were hardened against heat and radiation.
In a short time, they would become visible to the enemy’s hard-driven sensor waves. On schedule, their own engines burst to life, aiming at the nearest of the following frigates.
The jerry-rigged surprise flight of six apparent shipkillers caused their target to veer off, blasting desperately to the side in order to avoid the possibility of destruction. The closing speeds of the frigate and the missiles would give the defender only a short time to try to knock them down with lasers, so the ship increased her survival probabilities by creating a side intercept profile, rather than a disadvantageous nose-on aspect.
By doing so, she’d taken herself out of the fight. She couldn’t catch the Lockstep in time anymore.
Unlike her sister ship, which kept on gaining.
Straker smiled grimly as Gibson reported the enemy action over his comlink. “They’re going to crap their pants if one of those things actually hits them,” he chuckled.
“They’re real enough,” said Loco as he closed the cargo bay door. “Too bad we didn’t have enough fusion warheads.”
“I wouldn’t want fusion warheads strapped into the cargo bay anyway. Too much could go wrong.”
Loco pounded his fist gently on the bulkhead, and then opened his faceplate to sniff the air. “Got any other tricks up your sleeve, boss?”
“Only one, but you won’t like it. It’s crazy. Batshit crazy.”
Loco raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really? I like a lot of crazy shit. In fact, crazy is my middle name.”
“I thought it was ‘Miguel.’ I’ll remind you that you said that, in about…” Straker checked his chrono, “…twenty minutes.” He turned his eyes to the Foehammers reclining on the deck. “Time to suit up.”
“Mechsuits? In open space?” Loco grinned. “Now that’s batshit crazy.”
The End of excerpt from BATTLESHIP INDOMITABLE, Book 2 of the Galactic Liberation Series.
From the Authors: Thanks Reader! We hope you enjoyed STARSHIP LIBERATOR. If you liked the story and want to read the next one soon, please put up some stars and a review to support the book. Don’t worry if you’re a fan of another series, more books are coming!
-DVD & BVL
Books by David VanDyke:
Stellar Conquest Series:
First Conquest
Desolator: Conquest
Tactics of Conquest
Conquest of Earth
Conquest and Empire
Books by B. V. Larson:
The Undying Mercenaries Series:
Steel World
Dust World
Tech World
Machine World
Death World
Home World