Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3)

by Dietmar Wehr

  “WHAT HIT US?” yelled Molitor. After a couple of seconds, she heard the shocked voice of her Chief Engineer.

  “We suffered proximity damage from a massive explosion nearby. My guess is a near miss from a missile armed with a fusion warhead!”

  The tactical display, which was only now recovering from the loss of power, caught her horrified attention before she could respond to the Engineer’s speculation. Three of her carriers were gone, meaning they were literally blown apart. Vixen was also apparently badly damaged. Her fleet had been basically cut in half, and she had no idea how the enemy had done it. She needed time to figure out what had happened and how to deal with it.

  “Helm! Order the fleet to jump to the rally point right now! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Jump order sent! We still have positive Helm control. Initiating jump in three…two…one…now!”

  It took almost an hour to get Coral Sea’s and Vixen’s critically damaged systems stabilized and the injured crew attended to. Meanwhile, the four ship fleet coasted on the same heading. Molitor held a video conference with the other three C.O.s in her quarters where she could talk candidly without worrying about the Bridge crew overhearing her.

  “What’s Vixen’s status now, Brad,” asked Molitor.

  “We’ve got main power and life support back online. My number two super turret is still unusable. It’s too damaged to be repaired. It’ll have to be pulled out and replaced with a new one, which will have to wait until we’re back at Excalibur. Hull breaches have been patched, but they’re only temporary fixes. Maneuvering engines and jump drive were shaken up, but are still operational. Vixen can fight.”

  “Very good. Coral Sea is pretty much in the same condition, but only just. She wasn’t built for combat originally, so if she takes any more damage, she might not be able to maneuver or jump. At least Europa and Gambier Bay weren’t damaged at all. The question now becomes what do we do next? My orders from Drake don’t cover this situation. As I see it, we have two choices. Either head back to Excalibur, report to Drake and get our ships repaired, or we go back to Hadley and try to accomplish the mission we set out to do. I’d like to hear input from all three of you. Brad, you go first.”

  “Well, Rachel, before I even consider going back to Hadley, I’d like to know what they used against us. There wasn’t time for a missile volley to be launched after we emerged from hyper-space and cover the intervening distance that quickly.”

  Before he could say more, Yeager jumped in. “I think my engineer’s figured that out. They launched missiles that were jump capable. If the missiles also had the Ether detection system installed, then they’d be able to home in on our ships after jumping to within short range.”

  “Yes, of course that’s it,” said Molitor in disgust. Now that it was pointed out to her, it was clearly the obvious solution. No one had bothered to develop jump-capable missiles before because there was no way to detect ships at ranges long enough to warrant using jump technology, but the Ether detection system changed that dynamic. Majestic would have considered all possible uses of the new system, whereas a human engineer might have overlooked such a radical idea. “If they fired their missiles a few seconds after detecting us, the missiles would have only needed to point in our general direction, jump to relatively close range and then accelerate the rest of the way in. We weren’t using our standard radars because we assumed there was nothing to detect, and if those missiles were also using the anti-radar stealth designs, radar wouldn’t have done us any good anyway. Did your engineer also happen to come up with a way to beat these missiles, Ernst?”

  Yeager smiled. “Ah no, he didn’t, but I’ve had time to think about this problem, and I think we can neutralize those jump-capable missiles. If those Empire ships haven’t changed vectors after our attack, and I realize that’s a big IF, then we have a pretty good idea of exactly where they are and will be at any given point in time. Suppose we head back at a slow velocity and jump to within a hundred kilometers of where we expect those ships to be. At that range, our x-rays can’t miss, and we can try to cut them to pieces before they can launch any missiles. Just to be on the safe side, I recommend we fire two, maybe three laser volleys, then jump away, turn around and do the whole thing again. If it works a second time and those ships are still operational, we can try it a third time.”

  Crusero was the first one to get over his shock. “A hundred kilometers? You want us to try to jump that close? What are the odds that one of our ships will emerge trying to occupy the same space as an Empire ship by mistake?”

  Yeager didn’t bat an eye. “My Astrogator actually did that calculation. She figures the odds of an overlapping emergence for one of our ships at around one chance in twenty-one. Just under five percent. Not that bad really.”

  Molitor looked at Crusero and Gambier Bay’s Foxman. As rolls of the dice went, those odds actually weren’t that bad, but neither of them looked particularly reassured.

  “Why not give us a little more room, say two hundred klicks?” she asked.

  “Well, my engineer had to make some assumptions about the jump capabilities of those missiles, but based on what our ships can do, the minimum distance we could micro-jump is just over two hundred kilometers. Our jump drives aren’t calibrated finely enough to handle jumps that are shorter than that. If the same limit applies to the missiles, then they’d be able to jump at us if we were more than two hundred klicks away. Since there’s a margin for error in any jump, if we aim for one hundred klicks distance, we’ll have a ninety-nine percent chance of ending up within two hundred klicks. If we aimed for two hundred, there’d be a forty-four percent chance of ending up further away.”

  Molitor couldn’t fault the logic, but she had a nagging feeling that they were overlooking something. If they could improve the accuracy of the micro-jump so that the margin of error was very small, then they could aim for a larger range. They’d minimize the chances of emerging inside an enemy ship, and could still use their powerful x-ray lasers to cripple those ships with two volleys if not one. Majestic was certain to analyze their first attack in order to gain whatever insights into weapons and tactics that it could get. If it ordered those ships to change heading or velocity, that would throw off whatever careful astrogational calculations her people made. She needed some specialized advice.

  “Commander to Astrogator,” said Molitor over the ship’s intercom.

  “Astro here, Commander.”

  “Come to my cabin, Lieutenant. The other ship commanders and I are struggling with an astrogational issue.”

  “On my way, Commander.”

  While they waited for the Astrogator to arrive, Yeager said, “Have you got something in mind, Rachel?”

  “Nothing specific, Ernst. Just a gut feeling that we’re overlooking something important, and I’m hoping that a fresh pair of eyes from an astrogational perspective will see what I’m missing.”

  When the Astrogator arrived, Molitor explained Yeager’s proposal for another attack and the need to get close, ideally without an overlapping emergence from jump-space. After giving the problem some thought, the Astrogator responded.

  “I have an idea, but I need to ask a question or two first. How long do we think it’ll take for the Empire ships to triangulate our positions, program their missiles and launch them, and then for the missiles to line up for a micro-jump?”

  “What do you think, Ernst?” asked Molitor.

  “Not more than twelve seconds at the most, maybe as little as ten.”

  “I can program another micro-jump in less than ten seconds,” said the Astrogator.

  Molitor was about to ask how that helped them when she suddenly understood what he was getting at. If the fleet jumped back close enough to be able to track the Empire ships with the Ether system, the Astrogator could then use the triangulated data to program a very precise micro-jump that would get them close without risking an overlapping emergence. The margin for jump error dropped the shorter the ju
mp was.

  “Yes, I see what you mean,” she said, “By jumping within detection range, we program another and far more precise jump to get within firing range. Very nice, Lieutenant.”

  “That will work the first time we try it, but Majestic thinks fast,” said Yeager, “By the time we turn around and head back for a third run, it will have ordered its ships to take counter-measures. If only there were some way to cripple those ships with just one more attack.”

  “I’m puzzled, Commander,” said the Astrogator, “I thought our x-ray turrets could penetrate deep into even an armored ship. Wouldn’t that cripple it?”

  “Only if we got lucky and hit something vital like the power plant. The drawback of having that powerful an energy beam is that it only lasts for a fraction of a second, not enough time to adjust the aim and cut across the target.”

  “How long does the beam last?” asked the Astrogator. Before Molitor could look it up, Yeager answered the question. All four commanders waited while the Astrogator took out his data tablet and crunched some numbers.

  “Okay, so if the firing ship is travelling at zero point eight nine percent of light speed and emerges from hyper-space at a distance of not less than fifty-five kilometers from the target, then a ship would have enough velocity so that a laser beam’s fraction of a second existence would allow it to slash across the entire target vessel. Would that cripple a ship?”

  “That’s a good question. I don’t think we can say definitively one way or the other,” said Molitor.

  “Ja, but even if the target isn’t crippled, cutting deep into the hull all the way across like that is bound to cause a lot of damage, like severed control linkages, major atmospheric venting, that kind of thing,” said Yeager with obvious enthusiasm.

  “So that brings us to the key question,” said Crusero, “Can Astrogation AND Weapons co-ordinate their jump and targeting calculations precisely enough to make this work, and can they do it in less than ten seconds?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Molitor, “We do a simulated attack run and test it.

  The first test run, made in deep space against a target that existed only in the astrogational and targeting computers, was a clear failure, but both the W.O. and the A.O. thought they could do better. The second simulated attack was borderline successful. The third run was an unequivocal success. Molitor held another C.O. video conference, this time from the Bridge, and told the other ships that the next attack run would be the real thing. When all four ships were as ready as they could be, she gave the order to accelerate to attack speed and line up for the first of the two micro-jumps.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Molitor checked the ship’s velocity on the display sidebar. They were at their target velocity of 2,750 kilometers per second, slightly higher than the 2,670 kps that her Astrogator had calculated as the minimum velocity needed to do the maximum damage to the enemy ships. The fleet was fast approaching the jump point. Once again, all four ships’ helm controls were tied in to Coral Sea’s Helm Station so that every action was done exactly at the same time.

  With seconds left in the countdown, Molitor cleared her throat and said, “Okay, Helm, Astro and Guns, this is your show. You know what you have to do.” None of the three officers acknowledged her comment and none was expected.

  “Jumping in three…two…one…Mark!” intoned the Helm Officer. The first micro-jump would take just under a minute. As the four ships emerged from hyper-space, the tactical display pinged and showed the updated data from the Ether detection system. Four ships were still clustered together exactly where the computers calculated they should be if they kept to the same vector as before. The lone, fifth ship was gone. Molitor watched the elapsed time counter tick the seconds away since the jump.

  “Second jump co-ordinates ready! Guns?” yelled the Astrogator. Five elapsed seconds.

  “Targeting…ready!” shouted the Weapons Officer. Eight elapsed seconds.

  “Jumping now,” said the Helm Officer in a surprisingly calm voice. Ten elapsed seconds. The second jump took less than two seconds because of the much shorter distance.

  “Targets acquired! Firing in two…one…Mark!” shouted the W.O. As the fleet roared past the slowly moving Empire ships, each Resistance ship fired two x-ray laser turrets at one of the four targets. There was no chance of missing. The only question was how much damage the lasers would cause. Molitor got her answer almost immediately.

  “All four targets are venting a lot of atmosphere, Commander, and they’ve all stopped accelerating too!”

  Molitor shifted her gaze to the tactical display. At this range, each Empire ship was represented by its own icon. All four icons were now indicating ballistic trajectories and venting. She had to make a decision about whether the fleet should jump away again, and she needed to make it quickly just in case one or more Empire ships fired more missiles at them.

  “Vixen, Europa, fire your missiles! Helm, execute fleet jump as soon as they’ve fired!” ordered Molitor. Thank God Drake decided to leave the cruisers with some of the missile tubes intact, she thought. There was no point in attempting to destroy the Empire ships with missiles so long as the stealthy enemy ships could maneuver, but without that ability they were sitting ducks. With the missiles’ guidance systems programmed with the targets’ co-ordinates and vectors, and with the missiles launched at this short range, there was no chance of them missing either, but Coral Sea and the rest of the fleet would have already jumped away by the time their missiles hit the targets. The fleet would have to decelerate, then accelerate in the opposite direction and jump back again in order to see the results of their own missile attack.

  The trip back was conducted as if it were another attack run. The initial jump revealed that there were multiple smaller hunks of metal coasting on the same vector as the four ships. All four Empire ships had been literally blown apart by the attacking missiles’ fission warheads. Molitor cancelled the pre-programmed jump in order for the fleet to decelerate to a modest velocity so that it wouldn’t shoot past Hadley when they made their next jump.

  By the time the fleet was ready to make the jump to Hadley’s hyper-zone boundary, Molitor realized that she was very tired. It was the damned adrenaline fatigue setting in. She ordered coffee brought to the Bridge for everyone. The jump itself was anti-climactic. What was left of the enemy ships was roughly 5,000 kilometers distant. She was able to see some of the pieces tumbling with red-hot, molten edges via Coral Sea’s optics set on maximum zoom. That sight reminded her that she was responsible for the deaths of four ship crews who probably had all been implanted and forced to fight against their will. She struggled to hold back the tears of sorrow. God damn Jonn Trojan for letting Majestic get out of control! If he was still alive, she was determined to bring him to justice. She took a deep breath to collect her thoughts.

  “Molitor to Fleet. Begin radar and visual scanning for defensive satellites. We’re not going any lower until the coast is clear. Coral Sea out.” Turning to the Com Station she asked. “Any transmissions from the planet or nearby space, Lieutenant?”

  “Nothing, Commander, and I mean nothing. Not even from the colony. This planet is quiet as a tomb.”

  That was unusual. Under normal circumstances, a planet with 22 million colonists would have at least some radio traffic virtually all the time. She couldn’t help thinking that the complete lack of it here and now was a bad omen.

  The fleet stayed out beyond the hyper-zone boundary, spending the next six hours looking for any kind of defensive satellites. When they found none and when Molitor was satisfied that there wasn’t an ambush waiting for them, she ordered the fleet to drop down to a low orbit. Even before they settled into it, the optics revealed the reason why there was no radio traffic at all. There was no sign of life in any of the towns and cities. There were what appeared to be dead bodies. Molitor forced herself to watch the blurry images with a fury growing inside of her. What twisted machine logic could possibl
y make Majestic order the use of the bio-weapon on the humans inhabiting its own planet? Didn’t it still need some humans to carry out its commands?

  By the time the fleet had settled into a low orbit, Molitor was boarding a shuttle. If Trojan was still alive, then he would be either at his palace or at the Majestic Complex. Since destroying that machine was really her number one priority, she ordered the pilot to land near the Complex entrance. While there was some risk of contamination, she felt it was worth taking. Just in case the Complex was defended, she brought along a squad of security personnel fitted out with body armor and heavy weapons brought along for this very mission. The shuttle also carried a fission warhead small and light enough to be carried by four people. The best way to destroy Majestic would be to set off the warhead inside Majestic’s guts. If they weren’t able to force their way inside, then she’d order the fleet to use its x-ray lasers to try to blast through the outside armor.

  The flight down was nerve-wracking. Even though there was no sign of any ground-based weapons that might have threatened the shuttle, Molitor couldn’t help wondering if her shuttle would be blown out of the sky at any moment. When it finally touched down, she let out a sigh of relief and willed her hands to stop shaking. The security squad got out first and quickly gave her the all clear signal.