Chroniech! (10 page)

McCallister looked at Keefer and asked, "How long before the fleet gets here?"

Keefer glanced at his watch, shook his head, and replied, "They're probably here already."

McCallister approached the panel. "Then let's push it! It's sure better than risking a catastrophic failure of a multi-terrawatt reactor."

"You are perhaps correct. However, I believe we should inform the captain that we are about to attempt a shutdown of the stasis device."

"Why? We are in charge of this project, not the military. The captain gave us instructions to find a way to shutdown this thing ASAP. We've found a way and I believe we should go ahead and shut it down."

Falnath turned toward the chamber's door. As she walked she said, "Still, I think we should inform him of… " Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a movement. Turning her head she saw McCallister reaching for the button. "What are your doing?" she shouted.

Before she could react, McCallister had placed his thumb on the button and applied a little downward pressure.

6 - The First Battle

"Sensors are picking up a matrix field forming around all Chroniech ships," a voice reported from CIC. "Request permission to go weapons active."

Stricklen knew that in order to begin fighting, the Chroniech ships would have to move in closer than eight hundred thousand kilometers. Typical battle strategy would call for a short faster than light run to put them within striking distance of the Alliance fleet. The matrix fields were a sure indication the Chroniech fleet was about to do just that.

As with all Alliance ships, the Chroniech stardrive required a matrix field to be established prior to engaging the main drive. This matrix field acted as a sort of conductor to guide the stronger and more complex stardrive fields as they formed. Alliance matrix fields required several seconds to become stable before the main drive fields could be powered.

"Permission granted — we are not to fire unless fired upon first. If they want a fight they're going to have to be the ones to start it."

By the time this order had been issued, the buildup time for the stardrive fields was completed and the Chroniech fleet had gone FTL. A few seconds later they appeared much closer to the Alliance fleet. As soon as the Chroniech ships were in normal space they opened fire.

A barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles leapt out from the attacking ships. Faster than light driven sensors detected the missiles almost the instant they were launched and fed this information to the combat computers. The computers calculated each missile's course, assessed its threat potential, assigned each of them a targeting sequence, and began a counter-attack. Powerful needle-beams lanced out from the Alliance warships to lick at the silvery defense screens of the incoming missiles.

The screens of the Chroniech missiles flared and, amazingly, held. The Alliance computers quickly digested the new data, analyzed the results of the first attack, and switched tactics. Now, instead of one beam per missile, three were used. Under this assault, the missile's defense screen flared white then blinked into failure. Bright actinic flashes indicated the destruction of each enemy missile. Soon space was filled with artificial stars as the missiles were intercepted and destroyed. But, since the Alliance had to use three beams per missile, some of them were bound to get through.

The missiles were not the only threat the Alliance had to contend with. Beams of hyper-accelerated particles and pure coherent energy spat out from each Chroniech warship to strike the defense screens of the Alliance ships. The incredible power of the Chroniech weapons was dissipated in great blinding flares of raw energy.

The Chroniech were a well-organized attacking force. Acting in unison, the five ships would direct a concentrated attack upon a chosen target all the while using secondary weapons and missiles to keep the other Alliance ships busy.

Stricklen watched the first few seconds of the battle before uttering a single comment. There was little he could actually do at this point since his ship had managed to put a considerable distance between the two waring fleets. Even if he had been at the forefront, most of the combat decisions were being made by the ship's weapons control computers.

"They carry considerably more firepower than we do," Ken remarked to Doug over the open channel to CIC.

"Logistics place their weapons at about 35% more capable than ours and their shielding is rated even better. They made a tactical error though in attacking since we still have them out-gunned," Doug replied.

Stricklen was about to make another comment when an odd sensation seemed to pass through him. The feeling lasted less than a half second and felt almost as if a wave of compression had rolled through the room. At the same instant a computer screen flashed a warning and displayed a trouble-map. Simultaneously, several other stations around the bridge began to flash danger signs indicating something catastrophic had just occurred.

"Captain!" the woman sitting at the engineering station yelled out. Her hands flew over the console as she attempted to isolate and define the problem. "Indications of some sort of damage to the primary hanger bay area. Hull integrity has not been compromised. Power has been lost to several sections. A large area surrounding the hanger appears to have been damaged although no fires have been detected. There's no indication of an explosion or a weapons hit although internal sensors have picked up a large EMP of unknown origin."

Before Stricklen could reply, another voice spoke up, "Gravitational interference has terminated. We are stardrive capable," said the helm.

Ken's mind put two and two together and came up with the only obvious conclusion. He turned to face Doug's image on one of his monitors and said, "They must have tried to shutdown the stasis field and something went wrong. Doug, send a damage control team to survey the damage."

Doug's reply was masked by another report. The face of Commander Kovalesky appeared on a monitor. Without preamble he said, "Captain, the stasis chamber appears to have emitted some sort of strong EM pulse that has affected several systems. Some sort of gravitational wave also swept through the area causing some localized damage. I have one injured marine who was knocked into a bulkhead."

Stricklen took this new information and merged it with the other data he had received. He issued a rapid-fire string of orders. "Commander Kovalesky, I want as many men as you can spare to surround the hanger bay. Keep everyone clear of the area and don't allow anyone in or out. Coms, inform Fleet Commander Trisk that we are FTL capable and are setting course for Almaranus at max. CIC, drop a monitor probe — right now. Helm, bring the stardrive on-line and engage for Almaranus at all possible speed."

A chorus of acknowledgments followed and the orders were carried out. Stricklen punched a button on his console and the ship-wide address system carried his next words. "All hands, prepare for emergency transition to stardrive."

Under normal circumstances, a ship's matrix field was allowed to build up slowly, taking around 20 seconds to reach full strength. The main stardrive fields were then ramped up to power over a three second period. These times could be shortened in an emergency but the effect was quite unsettling on the crew.

Seconds later, Stricklen felt the dizziness hit him and the room spun around for a moment as the ship made the transition to stardrive. Although the dizziness quickly passed, it left behind a bad headache as a reminder of what had just happened. As the Komodo Dragon raced toward Alliance space, the rest of the fleet fought for their lives. Through the eyes and sensors of the monitor probe, Stricklen watched the battle as it progressed.

The Chroniech tactic appeared to be working to their advantage. Two Alliance ships had been destroyed and a third was being targeted while only a single Chroniech ship had been put out of commission. The enemy's screens were blazing with tortured energy but did not show any signs of weakness.

The Tholtaran master dreadnought had not yet entered the battle as it had placed itself between the smaller ships and the Komodo Dragon in order to shield Stricklen's ship from any Chroniech weapons. Now that the Dragon was gone, the dreadnought was free to engage the enemy.

As soon as it was within range, the Mobius opened fire with devastating results. Five brilliant spheres of coruscating, sparkling, spitting energy emerged from the side of the dreadnought along with hundreds of beams of pure destruction.

The spheres were a Human invention which the Tholtarans had improved upon. The technical term for the weapon was a particle-pumped soliton energy vortex. Its common name was the sledgehammer and it was one of the most destructive weapons known to Alliance science.

The secret to the sledgehammer's power resided in its unique makeup. The external shell consisted of an incredibly stable, extremely powerful rotating electromagnetic field called a soliton. Inside this soliton two counter-rotating streams of accelerated particles whirled around in closed loops. One stream consisted of protons and the other anti-protons. The spheres were accelerated and launched at relativistic speed making them virtually impossible to intercept.

The beams, which traveled at the speed of light, struck the already heavily loaded defense shields of the Chroniech ships. The shields burst into a spectacular display of deflected raw power. The three closest enemy ships took the brunt of the attack. Under the incredible power of the combined Alliance weapons, the shields of the three ships weakened and began to leak enough energy to cause the armor plating to begin to glow in spots.

The five glowing spheres reached their targets a half second later. The sledgehammers impacted the shields which disrupted the structure of their electromagnetic skeletons. The fields collapsed allowing the protons and anti-protons to combine spilling torrents of energy into and through the now over-stressed shields. Armor briefly glowed white-hot then exploded into space. As the air rushed out into the vacuum of space it carried with it the charred remains of Chroniech and other debris.

On three Chroniech ships, bulkhead after bulkhead failed to stop the relentless destruction caused by the ravening beams of focused energy. Sensing that the ship was lost, three Chroniech computers followed their heartless instructions and detonated a 200 megaton thermonuclear device built into the exact center of each ship. The result was the complete and total destruction of all but one Chroniech ship.

The last ship attempted to run but it too was destroyed as the Alliance combat computers trained their weapons on the only remaining target. It joined its companions as it became an ever-expanding cloud of debris. The entire battle, from the first shot to the final destruction, had lasted barely five minutes.

Stricklen picked up on a communication between the Mobius and one of the cruisers. "Tor-Al this is Mobius, what is your status?"

As the link was completed, Stricklen looked onto a scene of utter chaos. A Tholtaran officer could be seen floating near what appeared to be a control console. The artificial gravity was obviously not working. Behind him small flames erupted from several panels. Two other Tholtaran's were drifting near the floor with dark red blobs floating around them. The picture was unsteady and filled with static. The entire room had a hazy, smoky appearance.

"We sustained a near hit from a missile," the officer said not really looking into the video pickup. His hands were busy working the controls on a console. "Stardrive damaged beyond repair. Main and most auxiliary reactors off-line. We have a runaway accumulator fault which I am … NO!" he said turning toward somebody out of the range of the visual pickup. "Do not cross-tie CM-eight with the main. It's not stable yet. I need you to bleed … "

The link snapped and Stricklen shifted his eyes to the visual feed from the probe. The stricken Tholtaran cruiser had a serious problem on their hands. An accumulator was a power storage device capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of energy which could then be delivered almost instantly upon demand. These devices provided the peaking power on all modern starships.

The runaway condition the officer had described told Stricklen that the accumulator was failing and could spontaneously discharge its entire complement of stored energy in a single burst. This would be the equivalent of setting off a small nuclear bomb within the ship.

Ken could see the cruiser was drifting without power. It slowly spun end-for-end. An enormous gash was visible at one location on the aft section of the ship. Gaseous vapor and bits of debris were streaming out of the hole. Several areas of armor plate still glowed a soft orange indicating spots where the Chroniech had hit them with energy beams.

As Ken watched, the entire back one-third of the ship seemed to expand. Cracks appeared in the hull and flames briefly erupted from the gaps then quickly vanished in the vacuum of space. A moment later, the entire ship exploded in a brief flash of light.

The final tally was three Alliance cruisers destroyed and two destroyers damaged verses five Chroniech warships destroyed. Sorbith ordered the Mobius to escort the Dragon back to Almaranus. What was left of the Alliance fleet would remain near the scene of the battle to conduct repairs and to salvage some of the Chroniech debris for later analysis.

Stricklen canceled battle stations and, after attending to a few items, turned over control of the bridge then made his way to the hanger bay. On his way he received a call from the bridge. "Some sort of force field has just gone up around the stasis chamber. It's very localized and has caused minimal damage." Stricklen quickened his pace; he had a long way to go since the Dragon's hanger bay was located in the aft section of the ship.

The first thing he noticed as he approached, was a marine in full combat armor standing guard near the doorway. The marine snapped to attention while maintaining a firm grip on his assault rifle. "As you were," Stricklen said. "What is your status?"

The marine settled back into a relaxed stance as he replied, "Peacekeeper Sorbith along with two others are inside. I have no information other than that."