A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) (27 page)

“
Tripoli
is commencing in two, one, firing.” Heath’s announcement was punctuated by the shimmer in the deck as
Tripoli
disgorged her missiles into space. They were the last ones in DSF-1. Fifty six missiles jumped from the group and sped across the intervening space.

“Enemy is responding. Identifying and attempting to jam targeting channels. They’ve selectively stopped jamming.” Johnson reported.

“Here we go.” Heath said softly and with concern evident in his voice, all over the CIC comm link. Athena turned and gave him a quick glare. He silently communicated his apologies.

“Vampire, vampire!” Johnson’s call immediately wiped Heath’s slip from everyone’s thoughts. “One hundred and six inbounds. Not quite a max salvo, but damn close sir.”

“Fighter-bombers?” Athena asked quickly.

“Not yet sir. No indication of launch.” Johnson responded.

“Point defense has the inbounds.” Heath reported. “Engaging in seventy seconds. Own salvo will enter Chinese point defense in thirty-three seconds.”

“Fighter-bomber launch, sir.” Johnson added more good news. “Looks like they’ll be entering just behind the missiles. Full complement of thirty has launched sir. For the record sir, they launched five seconds short of the fastest we’ve seen.”

“Very well.” Athena grumbled more in her head than a simple acknowledgement. That quick of a launch meant that she was dealing with veterans, not rooks. Any hope of facing off against an inferior tactician was gone now. Her thoughts were quickly pulled back to more pressing matters.

“Missiles entering outer point defense perimeter. All ships in automatic and cooperative.” Heath reported, his voice still calm in the face of gigatons of nuclear warheads. “Missiles are separating. Twenty missiles have separated, decoys and warheads deployed. Classified as medium weight missiles. Remaining eighty-six missiles are still intact, now classified as heavy-weight missiles based upon behavior.”

Athena continued to listen as the missiles closed and were blotted out. She had no real role, the fate of DSF-1 was in the hands of her crews and each ship’s computer. Much of the intense fighting was dependent on computers, the reactions times required were just too quick for human minds to handle.

“Inbounds reduced to forty heavies and four mediums. Missiles are entering terminal, seekers are in full active. Targets confirmed. All missiles are targeted on
Tripoli
,
Normandy
, and
Inchon
. They’re going for the ACGs sir.” Heath reported, his voice still remarkably stable.

“Understood.” Athena responded levelly.

“Terminal point defense.” Heath said quickly, trying to keep up with the rapidly evolving picture. “Detonations, two, five, twelve.” His statement was punctuated by
Tripoli
rumbling and rocking. Several alarms began blaring softly from consoles all across DC and the lights dimmed for a moment.

“Status?” Athena demanded.

“Sir.” Johnson spoke up, now that the missiles had all detonated, she took over. Heath was focused on their own missiles now. “Two detonations bracketed us, both heavies. Medium range, unknown damage at this time.
Inchon
was within twenty kilometers of a medium, only light damage reported. Normandy was bracketed by five warheads, damage unknown. No report from
Normandy
. All other warheads detonated out of effective range for their warheads.”

“Daniels?” Athena prompted.

“Attempting to contact
Normandy
. We lost our link to her when the warheads detonated. Still no active comm.” Daniels responded, clearly still distracted as she focused on finding an open channel to the ship.

“Keep trying. Johnson, what are you getting from
Normandy
on sensors? Turn some optics on her if you need to.” Athena ordered.

“Yes sir. I have several trained on her already. She looks to be in rough shape but is maintaining her position in the formation. She staggered during the explosion but regained her position with a burst of acceleration, so she seems to still have engine control. Her thrust is below nominal output, but it is difficult to tell if that is due to damage or not. Fighter-bombers entering firing range.”

“She’ll have to take care of herself for now then. Put one of your people on it, then focus on the bombers.” Athena said.

“Aye sir.” Johnson responded, already distracted by the new threat. “Vampire, vampire. Sprint missiles, light-weights. One hundred and twenty.”

“Point defense is engaging. Gunboats are going for the fighter bombers exclusively.” Heath reported in turn.

“Sir!” Johnson interjected. “Sprint missiles are targeted on AMCs, all of them.”

“Well now, they’ll regret that.” Athena said, her mood slightly improved. The AMCs had initially been designed with these sprint missiles in mind. The fighter-bombers hadn’t adapted their tactics to the new ships and so they focused on overwhelming the point defense of
Ticonderoga
and
Port Royal
. What they didn’t know was that these ships didn’t overwhelm easily. Their repulsors and terminal point defense were designed to brush off sprint missiles. It took heavier missiles than that to get through. They had better thrust profiles and even light repulsors to help them deal with the defensive shotguns.

“Yes sir, I bet they are.” A short pause. “All inbounds defeated.
Port Royal
reports minor radiation penetration of several compartment and some repulsors tripped in overload. They are overall undamaged.” Johnson reported happily.

“They won’t make that mistake again. If any of them make it for a second pass they’ll load heavies.” Athena cautioned.

“Yes sir. But they have to get back to their carrier for that.” Johnson remarked.

“They do indeed.” Athena agreed.

“Our missiles entering Chinese point defense envelope.” Heath jumped in. “Point defense is strong and well-coordinated, ten down, fifteen, twenty, thirty-five down. Twenty-one remain and are entering terminal mode. Closing and…detonation. Five detonations. Two bracketed the battleship. The other three got in tight on a light cruiser.”

“Looks like that cruiser is down and out, too.” Johnson reported. “Power is failing, turrets and repulsors are powering down.” Johnson paused for a moment. “Yup, her reactors just ejected their cores, we’ve got their energy signatures leaving the ship. She’s done sir.”

“Next step then, the knife fight. Time to railgun range?” Athena asked.

“One minute to no-jink range.” Heath reported after checking Conway’s most up-to-date plot. The no-jink range was the range at which it wasn’t statistically worth it to maneuver to confuse enemy railguns. The track speeds of guns and the speed of the rounds meant that the maneuvers would actually subject you to about the same amount of hits as if you didn’t maneuver and instead sped through the engagement zone.

“Status of CORE?” Athena turned to Daniels for this one.

“Captain Martin has just initialized it sir. All ships are moving into final formation and operating under helm control from
Thunderer
.” Daniels reported quickly.

Athena watched the tactical plot as
Thunderer’s
computer and helmsman pulled DSF-1 into an incredibly tight formation. On the 3D display a new purple bubble formed around the ships, designating the CORE interface.

“Let’s see what they make of this formation.” Heath said with humor. “They’ll probably think we’ve lost it.”

“Won’t they be surprised. “ Athena said, though in her mind she wondered if they might not be right.

“CORE is at full power and operating as within desired parameters… at least I think it is.” Daniels said, puzzling over the display.

“
Thunderer
just put plasma cannons into charge mode.” Johnson said, comparing the strange energy readings she was getting with the profile of a plasma cannon charging as provided by Captain Martin. “Ten seconds to ready.”

“No jink in five seconds.” Heath added.

“All main batteries, preference your fire on the remaining light cruiser and the carrier. Secondary turrets fire on the corvettes. Leave the destroyers for the gunboats.” Athena commanded. She flipped over to the pre-readied comm channel to the gunboats. “Hornets, this is Athena. Bag those destroyers for me.”

“Yes sir.”

“For the Goddess of War!”

“Consider it done.”

Athena listened to the various replies over her comm, smiling inside her helmet. She was pleased but at the same time saddened. She knew they would accomplish her task, but they would do so no matter the cost. They knew the stakes, but that didn’t make it a simple thing.

“Good luck to you all. I know I can count on you.” Athena still couldn’t help but use their devotion to her advantage. It was the only way anyone would survive to make it home. Victory or death. Or both.

“Sir,
Thunderer
is about to fire.” Johnson was both apprehensive and excited. Plasma cannons had never been used in combat before.

“Main screen.” Athena snapped out, anxious to see it herself. She ignored the rocking and alarms that continued to erupt around CIC as
Tripoli
absorbed incoming fire. They were well within the no jink distance now.

Thunderer
appeared on the screen, the angle seeming to come from a camera on
Thunderer
herself, looking from the top spine somewhere near the bow. Suddenly, two amazingly bright balls of violet plasma sped away, launched at relativistic velocities. They crossed the intervening distance in the blink of an eye. The plasma cannons were truly cannons, firing unguided balls of plasma contained by an artificial gravity generator at its core. As the projectile was launched, the generator began to heat up, using evaporation of a solid insulation to keep the generator cool for up to ten seconds. After that, the field would collapse and with it the integrity of the plasma. The weapons were only good at close ranges and straight paths.

These two found their target, slamming into the repulsors of the Chinese battleship at nearly three-quarters of the speed of light. Between the thermal and kinetic energy imparted, the repulsors were quickly overwhelmed and the plasma pushed through to actually make contact with the hull. While the battleship was tough, her bow couldn’t handle the extreme temperatures. The armor melted away, followed by the forward compartments. On screen, Athena watched as the bow seemed to blow inward.

“Two good hits.” Johnson reported. “The battleship’s fusion reactors appear to have scrammed. Lots of secondary explosions across the bow, looks like point defense and secondary armaments. Her missile bays seem unaffected. No chain reaction. She’s in bad shape, but she’s not dead sir.”

“Damn, she’s a tough bastard.” Athena said softly. She’d hoped that the battleship would be completely out of the fight. “Is she firing at all?”

“No sir, cold guns.”

“Bypass her, switch to other targets.”

“Sir!” Johnson gasped, her eyes locked on her screen. “
Thunderer
…”

Athena spun back to look at the screen just in time to see a massive fireball extinguished in the vacuum. Athena spun towards Daniels and was about to snap out a command.

“Captain Martin for you, sir.” Daniels said, pre-empting her.

“Martin, status?” Athena skipped any greeting.

“Sir, the number two cannon blew out my port side. Number one cannon is out as well but didn’t overload. My bow is in bad shape. She’ll hold together, I just can’t afford to take any more hits up there.” Martin coughed over the comm. Athena could hear klaxons and the distinctive sound of escaping gas over the comm.

“Do you not have a helmet on?” Athena asked, concerned.

“Broke the damn visor when an overhead display took a trip to the deck. I’m getting a replacement now. I’ve got major damage ship-wide, but we’re holding together. CORE is still online and my helmsman is a rock.” Martin said, his voice was hoarse from the smoke, but still sounded confident.

“Very well. Keep me informed.” Athena closed the channel. “How’s CORE doing?”

“Very well sir. We’re blocking more rounds than normal, right along the predictions. The Chinese are slow to respond and we’re capitalizing on that. Once they start to concentrate their fire, things will become more interesting.” Heath reported.

“Stay on it.” Athena wanted to get her people out of here. “Conway, time to Slip Gate?”

“Five minutes at present acceleration.” Conway said hurriedly.

“Sir.” It was Daniels again. “
Normandy
has her comm back online. I have Captain Snyder for you.” Athena nodded to receive the channel.

“Captain, what’s your status?”

“Sorry for the delay, sir, Blast ripped my damn arrays off.” Snyder sounded pissed at the arrays themselves. “We’re in rough shape. One reactor is all but finished, dialed it back to fifteen percent. The other is running at eighty percent and I finally stopped getting calls from my worried Cheng because he has to manage the finicky bitch continuously now. We’re maintaining formation but we can’t run much faster. Linear FTL is down and I’m told it’s down until I reach a full-repair yard. Repulsors are down by half, point defense similar. Missile tubes are completely out of alignment. My ventral railgun turret was melted and the barrels fused to the hull. Needless to say, those are gone until we hit the yard. No count on how many I’ve lost, but it’s hundreds.” Snyder finished morosely.