by Rick Partlow
* * *
“This is going to be a huge cluster-fuck,” Captain Nunez said so quietly that only Admiral Patel, seated just behind him, heard it.
“Yes it is, Steve,” Patel agreed, his voice pitched just as low. “I’m sorry you had to be saddled with this situation.”
“Not like you asked for any of this, sir,” Nunez returned, smiling sadly, eyeing the security guard who was strapped into one of the emergency couches at the bulkhead, watching Patel carefully.
“The Bradley is signaling, sir,” Lt. Mandel informed Nunez. “They’re in position.”
“Put me on general address, Lieutenant,” Nunez ordered. At the Communications officer’s nod, Nunez spoke and his voice echoed through the halls of the ship and every duty station from Engineering to the hangar bay. “This is Captain Nunez. The Protectorate has a fully equipped Sheridan class cruiser. They are drawing us in toward Earth orbit to force us to engage them. If we sit behind our drive field, they will move in too low for us to use the field as a weapon against them and they will lay waste to our cities.
“If we drop our shields and engage them, they will use our own ground-based defense lasers against us and try to shoot us down. Together with the Bradley, we are going to attempt something dangerous and very complicated: one of us will attempt to put ourselves between the other and the lasers while the other ship engages, using our drive field to shield them from attack.
“If we are in too low of an orbit to engage our field, we will still attempt to shield the other ship.” At this, Nunez saw a couple doubtful glances from the bridge crew and he fought back a rueful smile. “We are likely going to take some major damage if this occurs; we may even be destroyed. But if we don’t take this risk, we leave our homes and our families naked to the aggression of the madman Antonov.
“I took my oath to defend our world and our people and I will gladly put myself between them and the war’s desolation. I know that I can count on the same from each of you. Do your job well and make them proud.”
The Captain gestured to Mandel and the Comm officer cut the transmission. Estefan Nunez glanced at Patel almost involuntarily, the look of a student to the teacher that even years as a senior officer hadn’t burned out of his system. Patel nodded almost imperceptibly to him, feeling a surge of pride.
“Captain,” Pirelli said, “the enemy cruiser has ceased his braking burn and is accelerating at one g. And she’s changed course, sir… she’s heading straight for the Bradley.”
“They can’t be trying for a field intersect,” Nunez reasoned, frowning. “That would leave them wide open for a strike from us… with our field up, we’d destroy them in one pass.”
“I suppose that depends on how quickly they can recover from one,” Patel said, frowning with concern. “Steve, this whole journey, I’ve seen the enemy do things that I might call crazy, but never one so far I would call stupid.”
Nunez considered that for a moment and his expression hardened. “Helm, sound high-gravity warning and accelerate to two g’s. Engineering, prepare for possible drive field collision.”
“If we hit him, it’ll still take half our assets off the board,” Patel reminded him, his words concealed beneath the din of the acceleration warning klaxon.
“The Brad is an older design,” Nunez said, eyes fixed on the Tactical display. “It can’t take the hit as well as we can.”
“Going to two g’s,” the Helm officer announced and everyone was abruptly pressed back into their liquid-filled couches , the breath leaving their lungs in a choreographed whoosh that no one could hear for the roaring in their ears.
“Besides,” Nunez croaked, his voice filled with the strain of the increased weight, “can’t let the enemy call the shots.”
Patel didn’t respond. They’ve been calling the shots this whole time, he thought bitterly. Why should now be any different?
* * *
“What the hell are they doing?” Larry Gianeto muttered, watching the enemy cruiser burning towards them on the Tactical display.
“If I had to guess,” Joyce Minishimi answered, “I’d say they’re going for a quick kill.” She waved at the Earth, looming huge on the main viewscreen. “We’re about as low as we can go and keep our drive field up… they’re going for a field intersect, take out our field, knock out our power and let us burn up in the atmosphere while they assume a low Earth orbit.”
“And the Sheridan will have to drop their field to fire at them,” Franks finished for her, nodding grimly. “Which will leave them open to ground fire from the launch lasers.”
“Take us out of orbit, ma’am?” Bevins asked, a bit hopefully she thought.
“No, Mr. Bevins,” she said, a bit of amusement slipping into her reply. “That’s his secondary objective, I should think. If we leave orbit, he can take up a position to bombard our cities unopposed and force us to retreat.”
“So what are we going to do, Captain?” Commander Lee asked hesitantly. Minishimi read on Lee’s hard-angled face a struggle between a desire not to look afraid and a need to know what was going to happen to her ship. She sympathized with the younger woman, especially given the position in which they found themselves.
“We’re staying right here,” she told the XO. She nodded towards the icon of the Sheridan as it plunged closer to the enemy ship. “They’re trying to disrupt the attack… we need to be ready to back them up. Mr. Bevins, slave the drive field controls to Tactical. Mr. Gianeto, the second the enemy cruiser comes out of his drive field, drop ours and target him with the lasers and Gauss guns. Be prepared to raise the Eysselink field if… when we come under fire.”
“What if he reaches us before they reach him?” Lee asked so quietly that the Captain almost didn’t hear her.
“In that case,” she answered anyway, grinning fiercely, “I hope the Sheridan‘s Captain is giving the same orders.”
* * *
“Are we going to reach him in time?” Captain Nunez grunted against the acceleration, unable to get his eyes to focus on the Tactical display.
“Field contact in thirty seconds, sir,” Pirelli said, her voice as calm and clear as if she wasn’t being pushed down by twice her normal weight. “He’s a minute away from the Bradley‘s drive field.”
“Sound the collision alarm, Ms. Pirelli,” Nunez ordered. “Lt. McElroy,” he said to the Engineering bridge officer, “alert Commander Kopecky that we are twenty seconds from field collision.”
Patel saw the computer-simulated image of the enemy ship beginning to grow ever larger on the main display and felt an emptiness in the pit of his stomach, as if he were in a flyer heading straight for a mountain. He was so caught up in the roller-coaster feeling that he missed Commander Pirelli’s count-down until he heard her say “…one!” and then…
* * *
Larry Gianeto didn’t bother to announce it when the enemy ship’s field collapsed… he didn’t have to with Captain Minishimi, Commander Lee and Lieutenant Franks all blurting “Fire!” at the same moment. His left hand had been hovering over the field controls for ten seconds and he chopped it downward, then stabbed at the fire controls with his right, swiping his finger across the display to the icon of the enemy ship.
“Lasers and Gauss cannons firing!” He finally said, feeling the faint shudder from the 800 kilogram slugs exiting the coilguns at hypersonic velocities, imparting a slight backwards impetus to the huge ship. “Jesus!” He blurted, seeing a starburst flare from the enemy ship’s aft engine bell. “He’s got his fusion bottle up already!”
“That’s damn fast,” Franks murmured, shaking his head. His eyes tracked the Sheridan where it drifted a few thousand kilometers away, showing no signs of activity.
“He’s climbing into a higher orbit,” Gianeto bit off, using his Tactical override to take control of the ship’s maneuvering thrusters and track the cannon and laser fire to follow the enemy ship. “We are getting positive impact on him though… I’m reading an oxygen bleed…”
&nb
sp; Then there was a flare of white light from the exterior camera feed and the view went fuzzy with electromagnetic interference for a moment before it cut to black. Gianeto swatted the field controls with his left hand and sighed out a deep breath as the Eysselink drive field coalesced around them.
“We took a half second’s fire from one of the ground based defense lasers,” he said. “Drive field is back up.”
“Damage control!” Minishimi snapped. “Give me a sitrep! Bevins, get us between the Sheridan and that laser now!”
“On it!” Bevins touched his controls and acceleration pressed them back in their seats once again. “Ma’am, I’m going from the position we recorded from before the laser strike, but I am not receiving any navigational data from the gravimetic sensors.”
“Nothing here either, Captain,” Gianeto reported. “The gravimetic sensor feed is inactive.”
“Damage control here, Captain,” a female voice came over the bridge speakers. “I can’t say how bad it is until we come out of the Eysselink field, but preliminary indications are that the exterior gravimetic sensor emitters have taken significant damage. No idea yet how long repairs might take.”
“We should be in position to shield the Sheridan now, Captain,” Bevins cut in. “Drive field to station keeping.”
“We’re flying blind,” Minishimi mused, frowning at the computer simulation on the main and Tactical screens. Those were nothing now but best guesses based on the last known readings before the laser had hit them. “Mr. Bevins, turn our fusion drive bell toward the laser; then, on my command, drop drive field for five seconds and then reactivate. Get me a 360 degree sensor reading during that second, Mr. Gianeto.”
Gianeto nodded in appreciation as well as assent. Though the defense lasers could eventually burn through even the fusion drive plates, they would hold up long enough for this to work.
“Now.”
At the Captain’s word, Bevins cut the drive field, the specified five seconds feeling more like five hours before the computer automatically reactivated it. Gianeto flinched as laser fire flared against the fusion drive plates just before the Eysselink field reformed, but he forced himself to scan the sensor input that had flowed into the system in the scant seconds that they’d been open to the rest of the universe.
“The enemy ship’s drive field is up,” Gianeto said. “Captain, he’s heading this way… I think he might be moving in to finish off the Sheridan.”
“And we can’t even see him,” Lee hissed.
“Lt. Bevins,” Drew Franks said suddenly, eyes widening as a thought sparked, “how quickly can you turn the Eysselink drive on and off?”
“Ummm…” Bevins stuttered, caught off guard. “Uh, I think, theoretically…”
“Commander Infante,” Franks snapped, hitting a control on his ‘link. “How quickly can you turn the Eysselink drive on and off?”
“One half second is the time it takes for the field to propagate,” she responded without hesitation. “The main power trunks would only be able to handle that sort of surge for a few tens of thousands of cycles though… maybe 30 minutes continuous before it blew.”
“Commander Gianeto,” Franks turned to the Tactical officer quickly, “is there any way to detect the enemy ship with the drive field up without our gravimetic sensors?”
“Yeah,” Gianeto said with a thoughtful nod. “This close to the planet, we should get some major radiation flares from the drive field interacting with the ionosphere… we can track it.”
“Lieutenant Franks,” Minishimi interrupted, her tone urgent and eager, like a hound on the scent, “I see where you’re going with this. Lieutenant Bevins, set up a program to pulse the drive on and off each half-second. Commander Gianeto, set up a sensor survey to run in that interval and find that damned ship. We need to get between them and the Sheridan.”
As the two men went to their tasks, Minishimi glanced at Franks and nodded in appreciation. “You have quite a grasp of practical engineering. What’s your degree in?”
His mouth twisted in a wry grin and he suddenly looked very much his age. “Eighteenth Century English Literature,” he told her. “But as a desk jockey, I have lots of time to do research.”
“We’re up, Captain,” Gianeto reported after a nod from Bevins.
“Starting the field modulation,” Bevins said, wincing in expectation as he hit a control. Despite his fears, they felt nothing different as the Eysselink field began switching on and off in an eyeblink; the only difference was that a stream of data from the exterior sensors began painting a more complete picture on the Tactical display and the main viewscreens.
“There he is,” Gianeto said, seeing the Threat icon of the enemy cruiser crawling across the display. “He’s coming for the Sheridan all right… he’s pushed into a higher orbit and he’s going to come in from above and try to take her out.”
“Communications,” Minishimi said, “any word from the Sheridan?”
“She’s not answering my hails, ma’am,” Lt. Reno responded, shaking his head. “I’m not reading any transmissions from her at all.”
“From the thermal scans,” Gianeto put in, “her reactor is still down. She hasn’t even used maneuvering thrusters…” He frowned deeply. “Ma’am, I’m getting some oxygen leaks near the hangar bay too.”
“Right now we have to worry about that cruiser… and the laser,” Minishimi reminded him.
“Captain,” Franks said, “the Sheridan‘s a more modern ship with better armor and power systems than us, and they’re still down from that hit. If we risk a field intersect with that ship…”
“I think we’ve just about run out of other options, Larry,” the Captain replied quietly. “Drop field long enough to launch every Shipbuster we have left on board and program them to target that cruiser once her field is down. At least that could keep her occupied for a while… maybe give us more time to recover.”
“Slaving drive field to Tactical,” Bevins said, anticipating her command. Gianeto felt a smile tug at the side of his mouth. The Helm officer wasn’t very experienced, but he was catching up fast.
“We have two Shipbusters left in the magazine,” Gianeto told the Captain as he punched in a series of commands. “I’ve programmed them to go into standby and target the enemy cruiser when he’s in the open.” He hesitated for a moment, double-checking his work. “Dropping field and launching now.”
They could all feel the ship lurch slightly as one of the huge missiles shot out of each of the weapons pods. “I hope they can’t track well enough from whatever they’re using to control the ground lasers to take out those missiles,” he said with a shrug as he reactivated the drive field. “The enemy ship is two minutes out, Captain,” he told her.
“Mr. Bevins,” Minishimi said, “put us in a position to intercept him but make sure we stay in place to shield the Sheridan from the lasers as long as possible.” She paused, looking around at the bridge crew. “I’ve already said this once today,” she began, chuckling humorlessly, “but since this is the second ship I’m leading to possible destruction in the last few hours… it’s been nice knowing you, ladies and gentlemen.”
* * *
It was only when he began coughing uncontrollably that Arvid Patel realized that he was still alive. When he pried open his eyes, he half expected to see pitch darkness, but there were still lights on the bridge. The chemical ghostlights on the floor never went out, of course, but to his surprise some of the control stations still seemed to have power, though the main screen and Tactical displays were both dark. Black smoke drifted slowly towards the ventilators, which seemed to be working at a much lower speed than usual, and with the clouds of electrical smoke floated bright red globules of blood…
Patel snapped to alertness as he realized what that meant, and he began working at his harness with numb hands. A low moaning sounded from the Tactical station and Patel glanced up to see Commander Pirelli cradling her head, in pain but apparently still intact. The Helm officer
, Lt. Ghent, was awake and blinking his eyes to try to clear them, and Reno the Communications officer seemed to be recovering.
Lt. McElroy, the Engineering bridge officer, was floating limply in his harness, his mouth and eyes hanging open and blood droplets slowly floating away from his ear. The security guard who’d been watching him was breathing, but still unconscious and there was a trickle of blood from his nose. Captain Nunez… Estefan Nunez was clearly dead. Blood leaked from his ears and nose and even his eyes from the massive cerebral hemorrhages that the stress of the field intersect had set loose in his brain.
Patel groaned involuntarily, feeling a pain in his chest as if he’d been struck. “Oh God, Steve…” he murmured. Then he shook himself, forcing the shock and pain away. His fingers finally began to get feeling back and he managed to free himself from his harness, pushing over to the Captain’s station and hitting the control to ‘link with the auxiliary control room.
“Commander Sweeny,” he called. “This is Admiral Patel. Come in please, Commander Sweeny.” He waited for another few seconds and called again, but there was no response. He let out a deep breath and made a decision, switching the comm channel to Engineering.
“Commander Kopecky,” he said. “Are you there? Anyone in Engineering, please respond!”
“This is Lieutenant Christian,” a female voice responded, then broke into a pained cough that lasted several seconds before she went on. “The main trunk line blew… we have at least three dead-including Commander Kopecky-and a lot more wounded.” She paused again with a wet cough. “Including me.”
“This is Admiral Patel,” he said gently, trying to keep her as calm as possible. “What’s our status?”
“Sir, we have backup battery power, but we’ve got burnouts all to hell and gone from the power surge, so it’s not getting everywhere it should.” Another fit of coughing that made Patel wince. “The antimatter storage pods are all jettisoned and I can’t be sure, but I think the whole Eysselink field generator is trashed… I’m not even certain the drive nacelles are still attached to the ship, but if they are, it’s only by metal, not by any power trunks.”