If Tyr chose to target her again - as well she might – there was nothing that the Confederation ships could do to protect her.
But the thing which forced Winterson to act was Kerrigan’s next set of orders. Instead of monopolising on the new data provided by Hudson’s missile strikes, he’d kept the weapon packages the same while all the while continuing to beat a retreat. The final straw came when he directed both Molly McGuire and Blackbeard to take up positions forward of The Naked Spur, no doubt intending to utilise their defences in order to buy himself more time. That was when Winterson had realised that he’d have to go down to the battle bridge and confront Kerrigan directly. Though, if he were honest with himself, there was a certain amount of residual guilt there also.
He still hadn’t come to terms with the loss of the Charles W Morgan after his moment of inaction, the look on Captain Wilde’s face as she’d pleaded with him for help still haunted him.
If they intended to defeat the Da’al, if this whole engagement wasn’t going to turn into some terrible farrago then it was going to need a firm response on their part. But before they could do any of that, they needed a viable plan of attack. Something which he firmly believed Vincenzi’s new attack strategy offered.
The key moment for Winterson came as he approached the entrance to the bridge.
Considering that the ship was at battle stations, it wouldn’t have been inappropriate for Kerrigan to have had the battle bridge sealed, with the Marine guards given orders to allow no one to enter – and that would have included admirals. Yet it was clear from the Marines’ response that no such order had been given. In fact, they took care to ensure that his route through to the bridge was trouble free.
He briefly considered waiting for Duvall and Vincenzi but decided against it.
With any attack, maintaining the element of surprise was essential.
When the Marine corporal announced his arrival, everyone on the bridge immediately stopped what they were doing and came to attention. Winterson used this momentary confusion to get a sense of what was going on. And what he saw did little to reassure him.
Kerrigan was out of position, standing with the Tactical officer and his XO, a man called Bryant. This looked to him like a perfect example of crisis management. They had been taken by surprise by the ferocity of Tyr’s response and it was only now that Kerrigan was considering what his response should be.
The pause didn’t last long, barely five seconds, but it told Winterson all he needed to know.
“Please, everyone. Continue with what you were doing.”
While most did just that, he was aware of a small handful of people looking at one another as though Winterson’s arrival was a confirmation of something they’d long suspected: that Kerrigan was seriously out of his depth.
He didn’t approach Kerrigan straight away, he didn’t need to. Instead, he waited for the arrival of Duvall and Vincenzi. Then the three of them formed a little group to the rear of the command chair.
The captain finished his discussion before coming over, Bryant trailing in his wake.
Winterson began with, “I don’t seem to be able to see the POW officer.”
It was the POW officer’s job to co-ordinate the fleet through his opposite numbers on the other ships.
“I had him stand down,” Kerrigan said. He was flanked by Bryant who looked like he was ready for a fight. “I felt it more conducive to a clear chain of command.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
Kerrigan ignored the question. Instead, he said, “If there’s anything I can help you with admiral, I’d be happy to do so. Otherwise, if you’ll forgive me…”
“Actually, there are one or two things I’d like to discuss.”
Winterson looked pointedly at him. If Kerrigan were to dismiss Bryant, then he’d do the same with Duvall and Vincenzi. That way, they could speak more candidly.
But Kerrigan stood his ground.
“Very well,” Winterson said. “May I ask what you intend to do next?”
“I was just going over that with Tactical.”
“What was that? Defensive measures for the Hudson? Was that it?”
“That was very regrettable but we’re looking to mount a strong counterattack.”
“Please, captain. We don’t have time for posturing. You spoke with Marquez and Salmon before the attack. Do you recall.”
“Actually, I do. They were asking for permission to try out some bizarre firing solution.”
“That’s right. And they sent you some data over, too. Have you had a chance to look at it?”
Kerrigan colored at that.
“I’m afraid I’ve been too busy.”
Vincenzi stepped in to confront Kerrigan.
“Then, might I suggest you do look at it,” Vincenzi said tersely. “In the hope that Hudson’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”
“Admiral!” Kerrigan protested. He didn’t appreciate being spoken to by someone of a lesser rank.
“There’s a reason why I asked Commander Vincenzi to join us. He helped formulate this new strategy.”
Kerrigan looked out towards the rest of the bridge crew who were carefully keeping their eyes averted.”
“Very well, commander,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
So Vincenzi told him. It took ten minutes.
When he’d finished, Kerrigan stepped to one side with Bryant so that they could have a brief conversation.
Then, Kerrigan turned back to the group.
“What if you’re wrong?” he said.
“Then we’re all in an awful lot of trouble,” Winterson replied.
“I don’t like it,” Kerrigan said. “This counter-offensive of yours. If The Spur were in tip-top operational shape then we might have a chance of pulling it off. But our repairs are still on-going,” he held up his hands to highlight the cramped confines of the battle bridge they were currently occupying. “We’d be doing well to be operating at seventy percent efficiency.”
He didn’t suggest that the battle fleet should break off in order to re-group later but, clearly, he and Bryant had discussed it.
“Unfortunately, this is not a simulation, Captain Kerrigan. You don’t get to clear the board and start over with this one. Whatever issues you might have with the ship’s efficiency, this is the reality of the situation: the ship is damaged, Hoyt is dead and you’re in command. And so far, every move you’ve made against Tyr has proven to be ineffective. We have to move to an offensive footing.”
“Excuse me, sir, but that’s…”
“I am your superior officer, captain, and you will hear me out. You have failed to take into account the limitations of this fleet and, as a result, everything you’ve done so far has played into the enemy’s hands. The one positive we can take from this is that the Hudson appears to have had a break-through, highlighting a small but crucial weakness in our enemy’s defences. And that’s a weakness we are honor bound to exploit.”
*
The tight parabola which the Renheim had been pursuing for so long had finally started to pay dividends, as they began to swing in towards Thor. Every fifteen minutes, Schwartz had been getting course updates from McNeill whose short-term scans were just about holding up. But nothing had changed. Thor had calculated her optimum track to the Henrietta Gate and clearly saw no reason to deviate from it.
They were close enough to Thor now to get some decent images of their prey.
From where they sat, on the port side and slightly to the rear, the bulk of the ship looked akin to some giant beetle’s carapace, its outer hull consisting of thick, green interlocking sub-sections, the main one being two kilometres high. What was even odder was that the front section was fortified with a solid triangular crown made up with two lower arms with a mighty central fin arcing overhead.
“Looks like she’s been specially reinforced for a head on attack,” Schwartz said, daring to hope that this meant that she might be less well fo
rtified elsewhere.
“No doubt that’s got something to do with their main plan of attack. Nonetheless, I think this has gone on long enough.”
Schwartz froze, fearing what he was about to say and yet knowing all too well what was coming.
“But you haven’t had a chance to go over our new launch package yet, sir.”
“No, but unless you’ve discovered a hidden cache of weapons down in the mess hall, I imagine that not much has changed,” he pushed himself out of the command chair and strode over to her. He touched her forearm.
“When you’re ready, Katherine.”
“Aye, sir.”
She turned to address the bridge. “Lieutenant Whaites, initiate Plan Alpha.”
Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing.
“Initiating Plan Alpha, now.”
One by one, the fourteen missiles in their first salvo streaked away from the ship. Each one targeted to strike Thor just ahead of what they took to be her port engine.
Whaites had initially wanted to target the engine itself but Schwartz had argued that any designer who proposed to send a ship into space without protecting her main engine’s vent wouldn’t be working for long.
A minute later, another fourteen missiles followed.
Schwartz would have happily stood and watch them fly all the way to their target but, with an amber light flashing on her console, she was forced to go and deal with it.
When she arrived at her console she had to look twice at the caller ID. It was Khan. Then she pressed ‘receive.’
“We’ve just launched our first salvo,” she said, perfunctorily. “This better be good.”
“Trust me, it is. Is the captain there?”
“You want to speak to him?”
“Not particularly. I just thought you ought to know: we’ve had to pull back the repair team on that forward engine. The shielding’s completely gone.”
Schwartz worked her jaw up and down, unable to make sense of what she was being told.
“How bad is it?”
“I’m looking at the safety read-outs now and they’re off the scale but that’s not my biggest concern. My biggest concern is that the engine itself is starting to become unstable. We’re going to have to shut it down.”
“Yeah. Only that’s not going to happen.”
“I knew you’d say that. Except, sometimes, you don’t get a choice in these matters. And, as Chief Engineer, I’m just letting you know, we’re going to have to make a call on this sooner rather than later.”
“Enemy are firing, sir.”
“Stephen, I’ve got work to do.”
“Okay. And Katherine?”
“Yes?”
“Look after yourself.”
That caught her off-guard. Outside their quarters, he was always so particular about maintaining the necessary propriety for their various roles. She felt tears start to prick at her eyes.
With her emotions buttoned down tight, she could handle all of this. What she just couldn’t handle was people being nice to her.
“Tactical,” she snapped “What are we looking at?”
“They opened big, ma’am. Thirty birds incoming.”
“Have we got any decoys we can use?”
“I’ve got two big boys locked and loaded.”
He was referring, of course, to the SS-20s.
“Then I suppose you’d better launch them.”
It was an odd thing. While the bridge crew was tending to their defences, their eyes kept flitting over to the rudimentary read-out screen which showed how their missiles were faring. So far, they hadn’t lost a single one but there was plenty of time for that to change.
Schwartz went over and told Faulkner what Khan had said.
“He’s just going to have to get on with it then, isn’t he,” Faulkner said.
“But what if he shuts her down. What then?”
“He’s hardly likely to do that without checking with us first, is he?”
She thought about this. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, it’s your job to see that he doesn’t. We’re not going to be able to stay in this fight with only three engines, Katherine.”
“Aye, sir.”
She tried getting through to Khan in the engine room but the first person she spoke to said that he didn’t know where Khan was. She wasn’t happy with that response and insisted on speaking with whoever was in charge down there.
While the man went off to find someone, she tried to make sense of what was happening with the missiles. Everything on the tactical read-outs had been scaled back due to the damage to their comms so she had to work out that they still had four missiles left to launch, while the countdown clock told her that the first ones were still two minutes from their target.
It was an odd launch sequence but then, that was perhaps the point.
After five minutes waiting for the guy down in engineering to get back to her, she closed the line and strode back towards Tactical.
“Any joy with those shields?” she asked.
Whaites turned on her. “You mean: did we damage them?”
“That was our aim, wasn’t it?”
“Well, judging from this, it would seem to have been a magnificent failure.”
She looked at him blankly. “How come?”
“We didn’t get anywhere near her shields,” he continued. “Her defensive missiles seem to have wiped us out.”
Something deep in her gut twisted. “All of them?”
“That’s what I said,” he retorted before remembering who he was talking to. “Sorry ma’am.”
“We’re all tired,” she said flatly.
“Still. That’s no excuse,” he said, though he looked chastened. “Should we continue with the second salvo, ma’am?”
Schwartz blinked twice before looking over at Faulkner in the command chair.
She couldn’t think what else to do. This whole plan rested on them being able to find some weakness in the enemy’s shields. And if they couldn’t even manage that, then what good were they?
“No. Hold off from launching for the time being.”
She’d already made one bad decision, there was no point compounding the issue by repeating it.
*
Proximity alerts were going off all over, but Schwartz tried to block them out, concentrating instead on the shoal of red dots surging towards them.
“They’re coming in awful fast,” one of the ensigns observed.
Schwartz had to agree but, at the back of her mind she was confident that their two SS-20s would do the job. Along with their Electronic Counter Measures, the two decoy missiles had big enough profiles to confuse most smart missiles into thinking that they posed their own offensive threat.
They all stood and watched as the two sides came head-to-head. Normally, they’d have had a visual update but now they could only watch as the read out showed the two fronts continue on their way as though nothing had happened.
“Well, that can’t be right,” someone said. “Got to be a glitch.”
Then, almost as soon as they’d said it, the two SS-20s disappeared from the screen.
“What’s going on?” she demanded on the comms section.
A young officer turned and threw out his hands.
“You’re seeing what we’re seeing. The incoming vectors haven’t been affected.”
Which meant that all the incoming missiles had survived.
“It’s up to our energy weapons now,” Whaites said.
Schwartz felt like screaming. This couldn’t be happening. With only three laser batteries still remaining they weren’t going to be able to put up much of a fight.
And so it proved.
The four lead missiles detonated long before they reached the Renheim, their radioactive load sending lethal X-rays straight into the heart of the ship seconds before the hull caught the full force of their detonation.
Renheim lurched to one side like a wounded animal, pitching
Schwartz head-first into one of the consoles.
For a moment, she lost consciousness and when she came around she could see that a large section of deck plating had been blown up from underneath. If she leaned forward, she found that she could look down into the deck below. She could see people down there, strewn about the room from the force of the explosion.
A thick pall of smoke obscured the bridge’s front section of the bridge and she struggled to make sense of everything. People started appearing through the smoke, dazed by what they’d just experienced, and one of them was McNeill, the front of his jacket had been torn open but, other than that, he appeared to be unhurt.
He looked right at her.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“No. I don’t think so. Have you seen that gash on your head?”
Instinctively, she reached up to touch it, her fingers coming away slick with blood.
“It’s nothing, I’ll be fine,” she sat up straight, coughing against the smoke. She looked over to her right. In the half-light everything looked off.
“Where’s the captain?” she asked.
His command chair wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
McNeill grabbed her by the arm and helped her to her feet. For such a short man he proved surprisingly strong. He pointed towards the back of the room where the command chair was lying on its side, surrounded by a small group, one of whom appeared to be a medic.
“Is that meant to happen?” McNeill frowned. “The chair, I mean.”
“Explosive bolts,” she managed. “That’s right, I think.”
Seeing that Schwartz was still unsteady on her feet, McNeill left her to go over and speak with the group. Then he came back.
“Is he alright?”
“He’s conscious. Chatting away. But they don’t want to move him ‘til they’ve given him the once over.”
“I should go and see him,” but as soon as she started to move, her head began to throb and she was struck with a sudden wave of nausea.
“Over here,” taking her hand in his, McNeill led her over to a small, recessed seating area.
Schwartz sat down and was surprised how comfortable the seats were. It was odd, she reflected, that in all the years she’d served on the Renheim, she’d never had a reason to sit on these seats before.
Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series Page 29