Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3)

by Dietmar Wehr

  “That’s assuming a launch from just outside the zone. I somehow doubt that Majestic will be that conventional.”

  “Conventional it may be, but launching from further away isn’t any better as far as I can see.”

  “Same here. I just have this nagging feeling that we should resist taking the obvious course of action when the attack does occur. We might be playing right into Majestic’s hands otherwise.”

  “I’ll keep that recommendation in mind. Anything else you want to add?”

  After a pause she said, “No…nothing.”

  “Okay, let’s keep this channel open,” said Drake.

  Five minutes later, a single ship emerged from hyper-space not far from the last position. Drake watched the icon for a few seconds before turning to the Detection Station.

  “Can we tell how big that ship is?”

  “The mass is typical of an Empire cruiser, Commander. It’s definitely not Leviathan.”

  A few seconds later, the icon disappeared again. Drake checked the time interval between emergences. They were not the same, nor was the time interval until the ship jumped away again. The display pinged again after only a few seconds, just as he was about to ask Molitor if she had any new ideas. This time, two ships emerged from hyper-space, and the sidebar data showed that one of them was much more massive than the other.

  “It’s Leviathan,” said Drake in a louder than normal voice. “Okay, Rachel, I’m bringing my ships up into orbit.”

  “Can I suggest sending up just one ship for now?” she said quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Well, look where they are. They’re still five light minutes away. It could be that they’re just trying to trigger some kind of response by us in order to gage how strong we are. If that’s the case, I’d prefer to make them think we’re weaker than we really are.”

  “Okay, but not just one ship. I’ll send up both carriers now because they have less acceleration than Europa. If and when those two bogeys jump closer, I’ll order Europa into orbit at max speed.” To his surprise, Molitor said nothing.

  It took Coral Sea and Gambier Bay almost six minutes to climb above Midgard’s atmosphere. Vixen and Banshee were higher still in a geo-synchronous orbit that kept them over Avalon Island at all times. There was no way that the mystery ships wouldn’t have detected two more ships in orbit, but when another five minutes went by with no change, Drake was beginning to get annoyed. Molitor sounded more worried than angry.

  “I don’t like this, Roland. Majestic is sitting out there waiting for something, and I feel stupid not being able to think of what that something might be.”

  “I know how you feel, Rachel.” Drake took a deep breath and went over the situation again in his mind. At five light minutes distance, Leviathan and the other ship were far beyond the hyper-zone boundary and therefore too far away to try to hit them with the superluminal lasers. In theory the lasers could hit them, but even though the detection system had given their approximate location, trying to aim a laser at that precise spot would be virtually impossible. With four ships in orbit, triangulation of ether ripples could enable his ships to fire at something just beyond the hyper-zone boundary with a reasonably good chance of hitting it. When Europa reached orbit, its detection data would improve the chances of a hit by an additional 34%, but until the two bogeys got closer than they were now, his ships couldn’t do anything except wait.

  “Roland, I have an idea,” said Molitor. “I think we should—“

  The transmission cut off so quickly that Drake’s first thought was equipment failure, but the double ping from the tactical display told him something else was happening. As he watched in growing shock and horror, he saw all four icons representing Vixen, Banshee, Coral Sea and Gambier Bay break up, indicating that the four ships had been blown apart. For several seconds he was too stunned to have a coherent thought, and then it hit him. Molitor was now dead, as were Yeager, Foxman and Crusero, along with four full crews! He heard moans from the rest of the Bridge crew. Somehow Majestic had just eliminated 80% of his defensive force, but how?

  The display pinged again. Two ships had just emerged from hyper-space approximately 89,000 kilometers beyond the zone boundary. Almost immediately, a third ship appeared followed two seconds later by a fourth ship. Drake realized he was holding his breath and exhaled. The odds against him were now pretty awful, but running away was not an option for him or Europa. If he didn’t stop Majestic here and now, he might not get another chance at all.

  “Helm, get us into orbit asap,” he said in what he hoped was a normal tone of voice. Regardless of how bad things were, he had to remain calm in order not to spook the Bridge crew.

  As soon as the order was acknowledged, he heard the Com Tech say, “Commander Corpus Christi on Tac two, Sir!”

  Drake switched over and spoke first. “Lor, you have to declare an emergency and evacuate the islanders right now! If your ships angle around the planet during their ascent, they may be safe from whatever took out our ships.”

  “I’ll start the evacuation right away, Ro. I think I know how Majestic was able to destroy our ships. The second time the recon ship appeared, I think it launched missiles that accelerated to a very high speed before micro-jumping closer. If they got within terminal guidance range just as the two carriers reached orbit, they could have targeted all four ships.”

  Drake shook his head even as he began to feel Europa’s acceleration overwhelm the ship’s inertial dampeners. “Standard missiles couldn’t possibly accelerate that fast in that short a time!”

  “I agree, but Majestic has had time to develop missiles that might be a lot faster. That’s why we got here first. Majestic and its slaves were somewhere else building these new missiles. What are you going to do, Ro?”

  Drake hesitated. His wife wasn’t going to like his answer. “There’s only one thing I can do. Europa has to try to destroy Leviathan. The other ships don’t matter. If Leviathan is destroyed, then so is Majestic, and maybe that will allow the C.O.’s of the other ships to stand down. If nothing else, it’ll give you time to get our people off the planet.”

  When she replied, her voice was heavy with emotion. “I was afraid you would say that, but I understand why you feel you have to try. Please don’t get yourself killed! We’ve gone through too much to lose each other now!”

  Drake struggled hard to keep his own voice from betraying the emotion that he was feeling now. “I’ll do my best, babe. We should end this call now. We both have things that need our attention. Just make sure you don’t get caught in this battle. I’ll see you at the pre-arranged rally point. Europa clear.”

  He cut the channel just as he heard her say, “Love y—“

  He felt guilty cutting her off like that, but the sense of urgency was screaming at him to DO SOMETHING! He quickly checked the display’s sidebar data. Europa was climbing fast, so fast in fact that air friction was beginning to heat the hull. Prudence dictated that he slow down, but the irrational part of his brain was urging him to speed up! Molitor’s advice about not doing the obvious thing replayed itself in his mind.

  “Helm, drop our acceleration to zero and hold this altitude.”

  “Sir?” asked the confused H.O.

  “The enemy’s not going anywhere. We’ve got time to plan our response carefully. Follow my orders, Lieutenant.”

  With the order acknowledged and Europa’s velocity dropping quickly, Drake turned his focus to Lorelei’s suggestion of super-fast missiles. A quick calculation made him shake his head in disbelief. For missiles to have penetrated all the way down into the hyper-zone in less than twenty-five minutes, after micro-jumping from the five light minute position, they had to have accelerated at over 245 Gs! How they had managed to build missiles that fast he had no idea, but he had to assume that they had. That calculation was based on the assumption that the missile volley had been fired by the first recon ship. If the second appearance of the single ship had resulted in another missile voll
ey, they should get here ten minutes after the first volley’s arrival. He checked the chronometer for the elapsed time since the destruction of his four ships. Just over four minutes had gone by. That meant he had roughly six minutes to figure out how to avoid being hit by missiles his radars couldn’t see and therefore couldn’t hit with anti-missile terminal defense lasers.

  If the obvious course of action was the worst option, as per Molitor’s speculation, and the obvious course of action was to continue to gain altitude until Europa was in space, then the opposite of accelerating into space would be to stay within Midgard’s atmosphere so that the enemy missiles’ plunge into the atmosphere would make them visible and therefore vulnerable to anti-missile counter-fire. That might work against the second volley, but eventually Majestic would figure out what he was doing and adjust its strategy accordingly. Staying within the atmosphere would also complicate Europa’s ability to fire its superluminal lasers. Drake suspected that the atmosphere would attenuate the laser beams just enough to reduce their effectiveness and make aiming accurately more difficult as well. He looked at the display that was still showing the overall position of Majestic’s ships, Midgard and Europa. By shifting position to the right, Majestic’s ships now had direct line-of-sight with the space above Avalon Island, but from Majestic’s point of view, Europa was still below Midgard’s horizon, although just barely. A quick check confirmed his suspicion that Leviathan and the other ships were on a vector that would swing them around Midgard’s hyper-zone in a clockwise direction. If he kept Europa where she was now, they would soon have direct line-of-sight with her, and that would make any additional missile attacks easier. Now he knew what he had to do.

  “Okay, Helm, here’s what I want you to do. I want Europa to move laterally and to gain altitude and velocity while keeping the hostiles below the horizon. Keep us below 100 kilometers altitude for another…six and a half minutes, and then you can go above that. Once we reach space, go to max acceleration and continue to swing around the planet until I tell you otherwise. Got it?”

  “Got it, Sir.”

  With Europa in motion again, he called the Weapons Officer down to his Command Station for a conference.

  “Sir?” said the officer.

  “I need you as a sounding board for my tactical thinking, Lieutenant. We know that Majestic has missiles that are much faster than ours. I think it’s unlikely that Majestic knows about our x-ray and superluminal laser turrets, but even if it does know, there’s no way for it to know about our x-ray laser missile warheads. I also think it’s safe to assume that Majestic thinks we still have the standard missiles with their much lower acceleration. When it detects our movement around the planet, that’s going to complicate missile accuracy for additional missile volleys if they stay were they are now. Would you agree with that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Does it then make sense that they would move in closer and therefore deeper into the zone?”

  The W.O. thought about that question for a few seconds and then said, “That makes perfect sense to me, Sir.”

  “Me too. Okay, how many x-ray missiles do we have again?”

  “Ten, sir.” Drake nodded. They had just enough to fire one x-ray armed missile from each of Europa’s ten missile tubes. He wished now that he had waited on Excalibur until each cruiser had more of them, but getting to Midgard ahead of Majestic, even if there was only a remote chance of doing so, had seemed worth the trade-off.

  “Then here’s what I’m thinking. We keep the planet between us and the enemy ships. When they commit themselves to penetrating the hyper-zone, we’ll fire our x-ray missiles at a projected interception point from behind the planet. With our x-ray warheads, they only have to be in the same general vicinity as their targets. As soon as those ships get close enough for our superluminals to have a decent chance of hitting them, we’ll pop up over the horizon and fire. If we get lucky, we’ll be able to fire our supers at the same time as the missile warheads detonate, and the enemy won’t realize that they’re being hit from two directions. Make sure our missile volley is spread out enough that their detonations don’t interfere with each other. What do you think of that plan, Lieutenant?”

  “It’s devious as hell, Sir. I love it!”

  “Good! Set it up, and then I’ll have a look at it. Any questions?”

  “Yes, sir. How do you want me to distribute those ten missiles among the four possible targets?”

  Drake didn’t hesitate. “All ten plus our supers are to be aimed at the big ship. That’s the head of the snake that we have to cut off. Anything else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Fine. Carry on, Lieutenant.”

  With a plan in place, Drake checked the elapsed time again. Eight and a half minutes since the first missile attack.

  “What’s the status of our anti-missile systems?” he asked.

  “All AM systems are charged and set for automatic fire, Sir.”

  Drake relaxed just a little bit. There was no way to know if the second enemy volley had enough power left to maneuver into Midgard’s atmosphere, but if they did, Europa’s point defense lasers should be able to burn them out of the sky. The next two minutes passed uneventfully.

  Drake heard the telltale ping and saw the tactical display change to near space just as the W.O. broke the news. “AMs have locked on and fired! All four targets destroyed!”

  Drake pumped his fist into the air to give expression to his relief. They no longer had to worry about the second volley. If a third missile volley was already on its way, Europa would be so far around the back side of Midgard that those missiles would have difficulty reaching it.

  Very good, Lieutenant! How’s that fire plan coming?”

  “Almost ready, Sir. I need another minute or two.”

  Drake ordered the main display to shift back to the large scale overview. Leviathan and the other three ships were now almost at the two o’clock position, but Europa was getting close to the seven o’clock position. They were putting more and more of the planet between them and Majestic.

  That damn machine has to have noticed what we’re doing by now. Come on, Majestic, take the plunge! As if the machine had been reading his mind, the display pinged again. The red icon representing all four enemy ships had changed vectors and was now accelerating towards the hyper-zone.

  “Fire plan is ready, Sir. I’ve sent it to your number two screen,” said the W.O.

  Drake checked the missile programming and touched the screen’s virtual ‘approved’ button. From this point on, the tactical computer would continuously update possible interception points as the bogeys moved closer. All Drake had to do was touch the ‘execute’ button and the missiles would fire. The tricky part was trying to time the interception to coincide with the laser fire from Europa. The longer Drake waited to fire his missiles, the less time it would take for the missiles to intercept and the more accurate the ship’s lasers would be when they fired, but that also gave Majestic more time to do something unexpected. At this point, all Drake could do was wait.

  “Com, get me Commander Corpus Christi,” ordered Drake.

  “On Tac Two, Sir,” came the reply a few seconds later.

  “Lor, I’m setting up a close range battle scenario, so I’ve got a few minutes to talk. How’s the evacuation going?”

  “Not as fast as I’d like, Ro. At least we don’t have to worry about running into a missile barrage now that Leviathan’s heading directly for Midgard instead of curving around the zone. We’ll still be below the horizon.”

  “When you do lift off, stay within the atmosphere as long as you can, okay?”

  There was a pause before Lorelei replied. “Ro, I just had a horrible thought. The Midgard Colony is on the side of the planet that’s facing Leviathan. What if Majestic decides to fire missiles at The Colony while it’s waiting to engage Europa?”

  Drake cursed himself for forgetting about the main colony. It was completely defenseless.

  �
�Stand by, Lor. Helm? How fast can you get us hovering over the main colony at a twenty klick altitude?”

  “Minimum of twenty point four minutes,” came the reply.

  Drake thought fast. If Majestic had fired another missile volley at the planet when it made its course change, Europa might be able to get into a position in time to use its AM lasers to stop those missiles, but he had to decide RIGHT NOW if they were going to try it.

  “Understood. Do it! I’m executing missile launch now, Guns!” said Drake as he touched the ‘execute’ button. “Lor, we’ve launched our birds and Europa is heading for the colony. We’re committed now. We just have to hope we can pull this off.” He paused and then said, “let’s keep this channel open no matter what happens.”

  “Oh God, yes,” said Lorelei in a relieved voice. As it turned out, the two of them said very little during the next twenty minutes, but it was comforting to know that the channel was open. Drake chastised himself for cutting off communications the first time. At least the enemy ships were maintaining their direct approach, which meant that the calculated interception point the missiles had been programmed with was still viable. The missiles themselves were tracking their targets with their own internal Ether detection systems, but a radical course change might still prevent interception if the missiles ran out of power before getting into optimal firing range. He decided not to fire Europa’s superluminal lasers at Leviathan during the dash to the colony, because a hit by the less powerful photon lasers might cause Majestic to make a radical course change. Better to hold his fire until the more powerful x-ray laser-armed missiles were close enough for accurate shots.