by Dietmar Wehr
Day 144/2556
Coral Sea
Dresden star system
Molitor jumped in surprise as the tactical display pinged for attention. The Ether detection system had just spotted the emergence of a ship from hyper-space. It was still outside Dresden’s hyper-zone. Coral Sea, on the other hand, having arrived over a week ago, was deep in the zone and less than a thousand kilometers from the planet. The colonists had been warned about the plague ship, but it was up to Molitor’s ship to make sure the plague ship didn’t land or drop anything on the colony.
It only took a few minutes to confirm that this new ship was headed straight for the colony. Chenko’s deployment data included the ship’s name and the name of her skipper. Molitor would wait until the Black Moon was too deep within the zone to get away before attempting to contact her C.O. She didn’t want that implanted officer deciding to retreat in order to infect some other colony. If he tried to run, Coral Sea would be able to get close enough to fire her lasers accurately, and the Black Moon would be disabled. Its crew and passengers, if any, would be told to take to lifeboats, which would be carefully steered to a remote area on the planet where they would be quarantined until either the people were all dead or had survived long enough to prove that they weren’t infected. That was the best case scenario, but Molitor was sure that the implanted commanding officer wasn’t going to be that co-operative. With almost 40 million colonists on Dresden, there was no way Molitor was going to let a ship or lifeboat land anywhere near the inhabited areas.
The next two and a half hours passed very slowly. Coral Sea was now hovering directly over the part of the planet where the colony had spread out. Black Moon was now less than a million kilometers away, close enough to get good accuracy from her superluminal lasers, and since the freighter was coming more or less directly at Coral Sea, even her standard x-ray lasers had a chance of hitting it if they were fired enough times. She decided it was time to contact the ship.
“Black Moon, this is Commander Rachel Molitor of the Resistance warship, Coral Sea. We know that you’re carrying cargo contaminated with a bio-weapon. You will not be allowed to land anywhere near the Dresden colonists. You are ordered to decelerate to zero velocity. I’m prepared to use deadly force if you do not comply with my instructions. Captain Fernandez, I know that you’ve been implanted with a mind-control device. We have the ability to neutralize that device if you can find a way to surrender your ship. Don’t try to retreat back across the hyper-zone boundary. I’m not letting you infect some other colony either. Deceleration to zero velocity is your only acceptable option. This will be my one and only warning, Captain. If you wish to communicate with me, I’ll be listening.”
“They’re trying to veer off!” The shout from the Detection Station came right on the heels of her message. Clearly Fernandez’s implant had instructed him to try to break out past the hyper-zone before he had heard the rest of her message.
Molitor turned to look at her new Weapons Officer. “Okay, Guns. Get S1 and S2 turrets ready to fire,” she said in a calm but low voice. This would be the first test of the superluminal lasers under a real combat situation.
“Both Supers are charging,” came the reply. “Accuracy at this range is only sixty-six percent, Commander.”
“Can’t be helped, Guns. If we wait, they’ll convert their vertical vector to a horizontal one that’ll be even more difficult to hit. The chances of both Supers missing on the first shot is only eleven per cent. As soon as they’re charged, go ahead and fire. Recharge and continuing firing until you hear otherwise.” She turned to look at the Helm Officer. “Close the range, Helm. Max acceleration.”
With her orders acknowledged, she leaned back and waited. Coral Sea might be a warship now, but she had started out as a freighter, and her ability to accelerate was still the less powerful capability of a freighter. Accelerating from a dead stop was not going to improve the tactical situation much, but it couldn’t hurt either. What worried her more than anything else right now was the long time it took to charge both superluminal lasers. If they only had the one turret, it could be charged in half the time, but with two, each laser was only getting half the available power. She knew from field tests that charging one would take roughly 34 seconds and charging both at the same time would take 68 seconds. In theory, firing once every 34 seconds was really no different than firing two lasers every 68 seconds, but 68 seconds seemed like a long time to wait for stuff to happen.
“Ninety-five percent charged,” said the W.O. “Firing in…three…two…one…now!” The Bridge lights flickered for a fraction of a second. At this range, it was impossible to know for sure if they actually hit the target, but the tactical display sidebar showed that Black Moon’s acceleration dropped by 25% which seemed to indicate some damage to maneuvering engines. “Both turrets are recharging!”
“She’s stopped trying to veer off,” said the Astrogator.
Molitor checked the sidebar again. Black Moon’s speed was still increasing, but not by as much as before. That could only mean that she was willing to let Coral Sea get a lot closer in order to maintain a particular vector heading. “Check her heading, Astro. Is she lined up for another star system?” asked Molitor. The reply came a few seconds later.
“Aurora. It looks like she’s going to try to jump to Aurora if she makes it past the hyper-zone boundary.”
Molitor nodded in understanding. Aurora was the closest colony that required the least change in vector. Even if Coral Sea damaged all her maneuvering engines, her momentum would still take her past the boundary, and if her jump drive was still operational, she’d still be able to get to the Aurora system where her lifeboats might be able to make it to the planet and the colony there. It was a desperate gamble on the Captain’s part. Coral Sea could get to Aurora star system first if need be, but Molitor didn’t want to have to take a long detour which would delay her rendezvous with the rest of her fleet. Letting Black Moon get away from this star system was not an acceptable option.
“Astro, plot us a course that brings us behind her on the same vector. Helm, execute the new course as soon as it’s ready. How’re we doing on the recharge, Guns?”
“Ready to fire again in twelve seconds, Sir.”
“Fine, you can skip the countdown from now on, Guns.”
“Understood. Both turrets have fired. Recharging.” The sidebar data showed no change in Black Moon’s acceleration or vector.
“We missed,” said Molitor in a low voice. She saw her Astrogator turn to her.
“Maybe not. When we hit him before, he had his ship pointed away from us so that his engines could generate as much sideways thrust as possible. That meant the side of the ship containing the engines was facing us. Now that he’s settled down on the Aurora vector, he may have rotated the ship so that his engines are facing away from us. We may have hit the hull, but not penetrated deep enough to reach either the engines or power plant.”
Molitor nodded. The explanation made perfect sense. Letting the ship get hit where nothing vital would be damaged tied in with the plan to redirect to the Aurora colony. Even when Black Moon passed by the Coral Sea and started to pull away from her again, that captain could still rotate the hull so that her engines and power plant were protected as much as possible.
“Then we’ll just have to keep on hitting him until we blast a hole down into the engineering guts of the ship and hope we can do that before they cross the boundary and jump away,” said Molitor.
“There is an alternative,” said the Astrogator.
“Let’s hear it.”
“If he maintains his acceleration and course, we’ll get within one light second range of him at our closest point before he starts to open the range again. That’s barely close enough to use our x-ray lasers with a reasonable chance of hitting him. The x-rays have a lot more penetration capability. As long as we don’t miss altogether, they should be able to punch their way right through the entire hull. That’s bound to hit someth
ing vital.”
Molitor smiled. She had forgotten about the ship’s two x-ray laser turrets. At a range of one light second, they would have to aim the x-ray lasers very carefully at where the target would be by the time the high energy beams of x-rays got there, but the Astrogator was right about their penetration ability. That was their big advantage over the standard photon laser. Concentrated x-rays were so energetic that they could literally cut a ship in half if the beam could be powered long enough. By comparison, the superluminals while faster were not as powerful.
“Good thinking, Tony. How long until we get to that minimum range?” asked Molitor.
“Just over forty-two minutes.”
Molitor looked over to the Weapons Station just as the W.O. said, “We’ve fired again. Recharging.” A quick glance confirmed that Black Moon’s acceleration and vector were unchanged. Molitor wondered if the two superluminal turrets would continue to function if they were fired continuously for 40 more minutes. There were bound to be more battles before Coral Sea got back to Excalibur. She unbuckled herself and made her way over to the Weapons Station.
“How are the Supers holding up?” she asked.
“Both emitter temperatures are still within normal tolerance, but S1 is closer to the red line. I don’t think they’ll last if we keep firing them for another forty minutes.”
“Okay. One more shot, then we’ll give ‘em a rest,” said Molitor. The W.O. looked relieved. The next shot by both superluminals also didn’t appear to cause any damage.
Over the next 40 minutes, Black Moon continued on the same vector with the same acceleration. Molitor was initially puzzled by the lack of any change in behaviour until she remembered that the implant device worked best when it was reacting to an external event. Now that Coral Sea was no longer shooting at the ship, there was nothing new to react against. With Coral Sea’s ECM system hiding her from Black Moon’s standard radar gear, the freighter captain had no way of knowing where the pursuing ship was or even if it was still pursuing. With the initial head on geometry now switched over to basically a stern chase, Coral Sea was rapidly sliding into position directly behind Black Moon, but the distance between them was falling at a slower and slower rate. Within two minutes, Black Moon would pass the point of minimal distance and start to pull away with its higher accumulated velocity.
“Ninety seconds to optimal firing range,” said the Astrogator.
“Charge X1 and then X2 turrets. You may fire at your discretion, Guns,” said Molitor calmly.
“X turrets charging in sequence,” acknowledged the W.O. The only sound on the Bridge now was the background noise from the equipment. No one was talking. Everyone was looking at the tactical display and the sidebar countdown to minimal distance as well as the estimated probability of a hit. That probability was less than 50% for each individual shot. During the 40 minute wait, Molitor had conferred with both her W.O. and Astrogator. The three of them agreed that accuracy might improve if they waited past the minimum distance point, even though it would mean that the range to target would increase. As the Weapons Officer had pointed out, distance to the target only affected accuracy if the target was moving laterally across their field of vision from one side to another. If they stayed directly behind the target and moved in exactly the same direction, then the target would appear to be stationary with no lateral movement at all. That didn’t mean that hit probability would be 100%, because aiming at what appeared to be a very small target was still a challenge, but at least they didn’t have to try to compensate for the additional complication of sideways movement.
No one said a word when the display pinged to announce that the range to target was no longer dropping and was now increasing. Hit probability was still climbing, but hadn’t reached 50% yet. Molitor checked one of her Command Station screens showing the ship’s vector in relation to the target’s. The two vectors were very close, but not quite the same yet. They had to wait a bit longer. She looked over to her W.O. He was watching his panel intently, and she could see sweat trickling down the side of his face.
“We’ve got a vector match,” said the Astrogator in a louder than normal voice. Before Molitor could say anything, they heard the W.O. yell out.
“HP has stabilized at fifty-two point two percent! Firing X1 turret!”
The tactical display flashed, and the icon representing Black Moon changed from red to a pulsating yellow indicating another drop in acceleration, but not to zero.
“Firing X2 turret.” The W.O.’s voice was calmer now. The display pinged again. This time acceleration had dropped to zero. Black Moon was now coasting.
“Good shooting, Guns,” said Molitor as some of the other Bridge personnel expressed their joy at the news. As the celebratory noise started to subside, Molitor realized that she had a difficult decision to make. With Black Moon now unable to maneuver, there was nothing stopping Coral Sea from pulling up beside it and sending over a boarding party. The problem with that approach was two fold. First, nothing like this had been anticipated when the crew was chosen and supplies were brought on board. None of the crew had any kind of training in boarding a ship in space with potentially hostile reaction from Black Moon’s crew. They didn’t have the right kind of equipment either, and neither did they have bio-hazard gear to protect themselves from becoming infected, which was the second problem. If the captain’s implant’s goal was to spread the bio-weapon by any means possible, then the disease might have been planted on any one of hundreds of mundane objects, such as walls, doors, tables, cups, plates, equipment, etc., in the hope that the bio-organism would be picked up by the boarding party, carried back to Coral Sea and then be carried by it to another planet. Ordering Black Moon’s crew to shift over to Coral Sea ran exactly the same risk of cross-contamination, and with Black Moon’s vector now rapidly taking the ship away from Dresden, the original plan of having the ship’s lifeboats land in a remote area of the planet was no longer feasible either. The lifeboats didn’t have enough power to offset the ship’s velocity and still land safely on the planet. Black Moon’s captain, or more likely his implant, had painted the ship and its crew into a corner. Molitor couldn’t just leave the ship as it was, because the jump drive might still be operational, and if it was, the ship potentially could jump to the Aurora star system. The only safe way to make sure that ship didn’t jump anywhere was to use Coral Sea’s x-ray lasers to turn the freighter into a wreck while the crew were still on board. It was going to be an ugly business, but she couldn’t see any alternative that didn’t risk millions of other lives.
“Helm,” she said quietly, “bring us to within ten kilometers with zero velocity differential.” Her Helm Officer gave her a long look before nodding. He was savvy enough to figure out what she planned to do.
She walked over to the Weapons Station, leaned over the console and said in a low voice, “We have to cripple that ship’s jump drive without risking contamination of a boarding party. That means we’ll have to fire carefully aimed x-ray beams until there’s no chance of that ship being able to jump anywhere. The hull will lose atmospheric integrity, but that can’t be helped. I’m not risking our own ship becoming contaminated by bringing survivors on board Coral Sea. Wait until we get within ten kilometers and then blast that ship into scrap metal. Can you do that, Guns?”
He didn’t flinch but he took his time answering. “Yes…I can do that, Commander.”
Molitor couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so she just nodded to him and returned to her Command Station. Damn Majestic to hell for putting me in this position!
Chapter Twelve
Day 160/2556
Coral Sea
Earth orbit
Coral Sea’s emergence from its final micro-jump to the edge of Earth’s hyper-zone generated an immediate and unexpected development. The Ether detection system showed two ships orbiting Earth in close formation roughly halfway between the planet and the moon. Molitor’s first thought was that Saratoga and Valley Forge,
the last two of the five converted freighter/carriers, had arrived too late to intercept their assigned plague ships and had remained in Earth orbit instead, but that didn’t make any sense. If Saratoga couldn’t intercept plague ship #4 in time, it would have gone after #5 instead, and it was highly unlikely that both carriers would have been delayed by the additional six weeks it would have taken to preclude intercepting #5 as well.
Her second thought was that they were Empire ships sent back to check on the plague’s progress on Earth. That didn’t make much sense either. It only took a few minutes of scanning the usual civilian radio frequencies to determine that Earth was now as silent as a tomb. Whatever few survivors there might be, huddled around campfires in the wilderness or perhaps hunkered down in underground bunkers, they were certainly no threat to Majestic or its plans and couldn’t possibly warrant keeping a significant portion of its fleet in orbit for weeks or months on end.
She was about to ask her Astrogator who he thought those two ships belonged to when the Com Tech announced that Coral Sea was being hit by a low-powered comlaser beam. She nodded for him to put the transmission on loudspeaker.