Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2) (33 page)

-52-

On every screen,
Defiant’s
course converged with the enemy warship. I tried to not squint as the Stroj dreadnought loomed, but it was difficult. We’d been abused by this ship. We knew what it could do, and that made it all the harder to pretend that this time would be different. That this time, we would defeat
Nostromo
.

“Star Guard’s destroyers have formed up behind us, Captain,” Zye said. “The cruisers are a little slower, they’re leaving Earth orbit now.”

“How long until the formation is complete?” I asked.

“Seventeen minutes. There will be a few more of the smaller vessels adding to the task force after that, but nothing of any significant size.”

I eyed the tactical holo-maps. Many tiny ships, represented by a few pixels in some cases, struggled to come together in our wake. They looked like a school of small fish following their leader.

On the far side of the display loomed the monster that we must defeat. The dreadnought dwarfed everything Earth had.

“Give me the full battle roster we’re expecting to have at the moment of contact, Durris,” I ordered.

“Nine destroyers. Six of the new Orca-class cruisers. Twenty-six patrol boats and several hundred smaller craft, mostly fighters and pinnaces associated with the larger vessels.”

“That sounds like one battle cruiser—meaning us—and fifteen small support ships. The rest of them are mere distractions.”

“Well,” Durris said, not bothering to argue the point, “maybe the small-fry will do their job and distract the enemy.”

“You mean absorb some of their fire? I doubt the trio that commands
Nostromo
will be taken off-track that easily. They know that we’re the real threat. They’ll go right for us and do whatever it takes to knock us out.”

Durris frowned thoughtfully. I could see he had something on his mind, but I didn’t pry. I let him stew for another two minutes until he finally came up to my command chair and addressed me quietly.

“Maybe there’s a plan in what you just said, Captain.”

“How so?”

“What if we fell back? What if we forced them to either engage our smaller vessels, or plow through them to get to us?”

The idea was intriguing, but I shook my head. “I doubt it would work.
Nostromo
would simply slow down as well, taking their time about destroying everything we threw at them. Once they were finished, they’d lunge forward and finish us. They might be scarred at that point, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The truth is that without our heavy armor taking the hits, most of these ships won’t survive long.”

“Yes, Captain,” he said glumly.

“Besides,” I continued, “CENTCOM would never go for the idea. They’ve laid out their battle plans, and they expect me to follow them.”

He nodded and turned to go. “Just a thought,” he said, and returned to his station.

His words haunted my mind as the battle grew closer to being a reality.

Halsey contacted me with less than three minutes until go-time.

“Captain Sparhawk,” he said, standing at attention.

“Admiral Halsey.”

“I don’t need to tell you that this battle is one we can’t afford to lose. You’re to destroy the enemy ship anyway you can—even if that means the destruction of your own vessel.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

Halsey nodded. “I know you’re a clever and resourceful leader. I wouldn’t have put you in that ship if I thought differently. When the engagement starts, you’re going to be in independent command as far as tactical decisions go. We can’t second guess your every move from a half-dozen light-seconds away.”

“I understand sir, I won’t let Earth down.”

“See that you don’t. Good luck. Halsey out.”

And that was it. They’d given us a battle plan, but it was somewhat vague on the details. We were to lead with
Defiant
up front to take the first punishing blows. The rest of the smaller ships were to sweep around, englobing
Nostromo
. When and where her shields buckled, everyone in range was to pile-on, driving the stake into her heart.

Flocks of missiles were already sailing toward the battle zone. They’d been launched hours earlier. They would strike shortly after our ships were locked in combat.

In the computer simulations, the battle plan seemed reasonable. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much else we could do, given the circumstances.

What I didn’t like was how predictable it all was. The trio of captains had to know what was coming. Despite this, they were rolling up toward us as if they didn’t have a care in world.

The first salvo was launched even as this thought occurred to me—but it wasn’t ours.

“
Nostromo
is firing, Captain,” Yamada said.

“Did she miss us?”

“No sir—she just nailed one of the cruisers.”

My eyes slid over the screens. There… a collection of bright green pixels were drifting apart, like scattering jewels. The Stroj warship had made her first kill.

“Halsey’s right! They are built like tin cans!” Rumbold crowed unhelpfully.

“Increase speed by ten percent,” I ordered. “Zye, get a lock on that ship as soon as you can.”

“We have a lock, but we’re still out of effective range.”

“
Nostromo
is firing again, sir,” Yamada said, “…another hit. A destroyer this time. The
Karachi
is gone.”

“Damn it,” I said under my breath. “Where are those missiles?”

“Two minutes out.”

“They’ll have destroyed all of our cruisers by then.”

We watched as the battle continued to unfold. Our ships were racing forward now, throwing out all pretense of maintaining a tight formation. It looked like pandemonium, but at least no one was running. Our captains had never faced anything like this kind of firepower before.

“She’s firing again—a partial miss.”

Tapping as fast as I could, I brought up the Star Guard Cruiser
El Salvador
on my screen. She’d been grazed. Her forward shields were down, and the ship was venting badly—but she was still in the fight, still advancing.

“Contact
El Salvador’s
captain,” I told Yamada. “Suggest they should break off and fall to the rear.”

“Yes sir,” Yamada said, working her boards.

Before she could finish the message, however,
Nostromo
reached out again and finished the job she’d started.
El Salvador
was nothing but burning, spinning fragments.

“Are we in range yet?” I demanded. “Fire the moment we cross the boundary.”

“Eleven seconds,” Zye said. “Ten… nine…”

The countdown seemed unending, but at last our big guns discharged. We waited a few seconds, then our forward optics registered the results.

“A hit! Forward bow, target’s shields knocked to eighteen percent.”

I looked at Yamada incredulously. “Her shields are still up?”

“Yes. They must have transferred all their power to their forward shields. Their engines have cut out, and they’re gliding forward on momentum.”

“Shields and weapons. She’s not giving any of her other systems any power. She means to destroy us all.”

No one spoke. The evidence was clear.

“Recycle to green,” I ordered, “and hit her again, same spot.”

“Guns programmed, sir,” Zye acknowledged.

“None of the other ships are in range yet, are they?” Rumbold asked. “They’re like sitting ducks.”

To illustrate his point, another of the cruisers was smashed. This time, the ship went into a flat spin. She dropped out of formation, crippled. Unlike the
El Salvador’s
commander, when she got control of herself again, she limped toward the rear of the formation as quickly as she was able.

We fired again, and this time the crew whooped.

“Shield penetration confirmed,” Yamada said. “At least fifty-percent of that one got through.”

“Any serious damage?”

“The hull stopped it. But I think we might have taken out a bank of secondary guns.”

“Mark that and transmit the intel to the fleet. We might be able to get through there, it’s a weak point.”

Again, the big ship lit up and her beams stabbed out. I kept expecting—hoping—that
Nostromo
would turn on us. We could take these shots where our comrades couldn’t.

Hissing through my teeth, I watched as the volley caught the retreating, crippled cruiser and scattered her atoms. There was nothing left.

“As clean a kill as you like,” Rumbold said sadly. “Core breach—at least it was quick.”

“Why won’t she fire on us?” I demanded.

“She knows we’ll be hard to beat down,” Durris answered. “She’s knocking out all our support ships while they’re bunched up. That’s easier than chasing them all over the star system later.”

I looked at him. “It was a rhetorical question, First Officer.”

“Sorry sir.”

The cruisers were in range at last. They began firing back. At about the same time, the missiles from Luna came onto our near-range scanners. They were moving in at an angle on
Nostromo’s
port side.

For the first time, the big ship seemed to take notice of something besides its next hapless victim. She rolled to present her belly-shield to the incoming missiles.

“Hold fire!” I shouted the moment she did so.

Zye glanced at me in surprise, and she scrambled to cancel the auto-fire cycle she had the big guns following. The levels went green and stayed there.

“Wait until those missiles are almost on her. Then take out that shield she’s presenting to them. Rumbold, swing us toward the missiles. We’ll hit from the same side.”

“Roger that.”

We lurched, and there was an extended sensation of lateral motion. After several seconds, we were in position.

“The destroyers are coming into range now,” Durris said excitedly. “I’ve relayed the plan to them. They’ll all hit that shield when they can.”

Secondary guns all over
Nostromo’s
prickly hull began to light up. They were automated turrets, spraying fire at the incoming missiles to destroy them before they could make contact.

Missiles, hundreds of missiles, were destroyed. But hundreds more plunged inward.

I found myself leaning forward and holding my breath. The missiles made their final, suicidal thrust.

“That’s close enough—fire Zye.”

She did, and our cannons sang. The dreadnought’s shield flickered. It wasn’t down, but it was badly overloaded.

The destroyers fired a moment later. They poured beams into the weakened spot, and the enemy began to roll again.

“She’s trying to take the strike with her armored super-structure,” Durris said.

“It’s too late!” Rumbold said triumphantly.

The missiles slammed home at last. Dozens took down the belly-shield, and a hundred more hammered the hull beneath in rapid succession.

“We’ve got venting,” Yamada said, “we hurt her.”

A cheer went up. It was the first time we’d ever seriously damaged this warship.

The dreadnought completed its slow roll, however, and now the rest of the missile-flock struck a fresh shield. The impacts were shrugged off.

Durris looked at me. “Which side should we go for?” he asked. “The topside shield? The rest of our fleet is peppering that area now.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She’ll just roll again. Go under her, bring us around, and hammer that belly region where the missiles got through. We have to beat down her defenses and hit her where it hurts.”

Defiant
moved in a new, sickening direction. We held on with our teeth clenched and bared.

It was then that the battle shifted.

“Sir…
Nostromo
is coming about. She’s aiming her prow at us, now.”

A cold feeling swept over me. The enemy was no longer confident they could destroy us all in turn, one ship at a time.
Nostromo
was wounded, and they were taking appropriate action.

I could tell even before Yamada confirmed it that every gun the dreadnought had left was now targeting
Defiant
.

-53-

The news that we were next on
Nostromo’s
menu was met with a mixture of pride and fear. No one smiled, but we braced ourselves for the opening punches determinedly.

“Rumbold, set us into a gentle spin on our keel axis.”

He worked the controls in silence, putting us into a continuous motion that would spread strikes over a wider area of our hull.

The next barrage of fire struck us without warning. Leaping out at the speed of light,
Nostromo
and
Defiant
were momentarily connected by a lance of energy.

“Our forward shield is down!” Yamada shouted over the din.

“Keep us rolling on the keel axis, Rumbold. Increase the spin-rate twenty percent.”

“I am sir, I am!”

“And get us under that ship,” I continued calmly. “Zye, hold your fire.”

“Captain,” Zye said, “I’ve got a shot now, and their shield capacitors are recharging. Are you sure you want to hold our fire?”

“Follow orders, Zye,” was all I said in response.

On the forward screen—on every screen—the big ship loomed close. For two major warships, this was point-blank range. We couldn’t miss. It was all a matter of timing, of delivering a blow that would punch through and truly damage the enemy.

The big problem we faced was that this enemy both took and dished out more punishment than we did. If we scattered hits here and there on
Nostromo
, she could brush them off. Her shields were layered and quick to recharge. Her hull was also unbelievably resilient.

But that belly region where we’d scored real damage—that was our hope in my mind. We had to dig deeper into that spot and strike deep in the vitals.

The next shot hit us hard. We lost the forward shield, and though we still spun, the bigger ship raked our hull with strikes that tore gouges into
Defiant
’s fortified exterior. It sounded to me as if giants were hammering on the ship, beating it with massive weapons.

“Deck six—no response. They’ve lost pressure, and I fear everyone’s dead.”

That was the medical deck. I saw Yamada look at me, but I grimly watched the screens. We hadn’t been knocked out yet.

“All enemy shields are in the red,” Zye announced. “Below fifty percent.”

That was due to the relentless barrage of fire coming from our supporters. They weren’t getting through, but they were constantly weakening every shield the enemy had.

Another blinding strike came in—I wasn’t clear on how the Stroj were firing so fast. Either they had superior cooling technology, or they were only using one bank each time they fired, thereby increasing their rate of fire.

“We’ve lost main battery two, Captain,” Zye said.

That got my attention. “Every gun on bank two has been knocked out?”

“Our fire control systems are dead. I’m not sure about the condition of the actual tubes, but I know we can’t operate them from here.”

Displays spun sickeningly, I turned away, feeling defeated. There was no way I could order a repair crew out onto the hull under these conditions. I wondered if I’d held onto my close-range barrage too long. Perhaps this had turned into a proverbial “use it or lose it” situation.

Trying to ignore these self-doubts, I waited until we were at the belly of the big ship. Finally, the moment came.

“There!” I shouted, leaning forward and straining against the straps that laced my body. “I can see where she’s still venting.”

“Aye Captain,” Rumbold said, staring. “They haven’t gotten the bleeding under control yet.”

“Fire banks one and three on my mark… one… two… Mark!”

Everything we had gushed upward in a single precision shot. The dreadnought’s flickering shields vanished, and the beams dug deeply into the hull.

“Hold that beam!” I ordered. “Continue firing until I order you to stop.”

Zye glanced at me briefly, but she kept her hands on the firing controls and didn’t let up. The heat graphs went red very quickly. After that, they continued to spike up until they flared white.

“Bank one in shutdown,” Zye said.

“Override and keep firing.”

“We’ll melt the tubes, Captain,” Rumbold said worriedly.

“We’re dead anyway if this doesn’t work. Maintain those beams, Zye.”

Everyone fell silent. We stared together at the incoming video.

“Bank three in shutdown now... Bank one unresponsive.”

“Override bank three.”

The guns kept cracking off jolts of pure force. We were now directly below the enemy, passing beneath her like shadowy fish on the seafloor. The underbelly region we’d targeted was glowing orange-white. Molten globules were breaking away, vaporizing and expanding out into space. A vast cloud of particles began to grow between our two ships. I knew that this cloud would soon impede our fire if our cannons didn’t melt away first.

In the end, it was our cannons that gave out.

“Secondaries, fire,” I ordered. “Hit that same spot.”

Zye looked at me and shook her head. She removed her hands from her boards. “The secondaries went down long ago, Captain,” she said. “Recall that you ordered me to fire everything we had at once.”

“So I did,” I said, relaxing somewhat.

We watched tensely as the dreadnought slid away to our stern.

“She’s still flying, sir,” Yamada said. “We hurt her, and she’s on fire inside. But I’m not seeing a core breach.”

Hammering my fist on my chair, I came to a fateful decision. “Helm, come hard about. Accelerate at ten Gs.”

Rumbold’s eyes rolled around to look at me. His face was white, and he didn’t say a word. Even so, I knew what he was asking.

“Yes, old friend,” I told him. “We’re going to ram her.”

At those words, I sensed that every eye on the deck had fallen on me, but I didn’t care. My orders were to stop this dreadnought. If that meant destroying both vessels in the process… well, so be it.

For the record, Rumbold never argued with me. Neither did any of the others. They knew the score. Too many souls below on Earth were depending on us. We simply must not fail.

Defiant
slewed around with sickening agility. We had no weapons left that would be effective against the dreadnought—save for
Defiant’s
prow, driven by our powerful engines. I planned to make a missile out of her and take the enemy down with us.

On screen, the dreadnought wheeled ponderously to face her tormentor. In comparison, her movements were slow and imprecise. I began to hope that if we struck her with enough of a glancing blow, we might barrel through the explosion and actually survive.

Nostromo
was still shrinking in perspective on our screens. Although we’d spun around, inertia was still driving us backward. Slowly, we regained our footing and began a new charge.

Nostromo
angled her guns directly upon us. I could see she was venting badly, worse than before. Bracing myself for a powerful blast, I was surprised when she struck us with only a spray of small, jabbing lances.

“She must be having significant heat problems now as well,” Rumbold speculated. “That was the lightest touch she’s delivered today.”

We soon saw why. The breach in her belly was widening. It was burning—as if the metal of her hull was itself on fire. A burning mass of super-dense material was converting to energy. Plasma gleamed brilliantly against the black of space like an arc-welder’s torch.

Still, her thin secondary beams clawed out and found us. They blasted down our tattered shields and scored our hull with deep furrows.

All around
Nostromo,
a swarm of smaller Earth-ships pressed the attack. Like jackals that sensed a giant beast was wounded, they darted and approached closer than they’d dared before. From their comparatively small guns a hundred needle-thin beams jabbed and sliced.

Then, the incredible happened. The enemy’s shielding flickered out.

“Pull up!” I shouted at Rumbold. “All power to the aft shields the second we clear her. Cancel the ramming protocol, we’ll do a fly-by, nothing more.”

Rumbold dutifully tilted up our nose. We sailed past the crippled dreadnought instead of crashing into her. At our stern, a hundred tiny vessels closed and went to work. They were like ants chewing on an elephant that was floundering in dust.

After we’d passed her by,
Nostromo’s
last operating cannons shot us in the rear ineffectually. We’d escaped death.

Our sister ships pressed in on all sides. Without shields, the dreadnought was naked. They surgically destroyed every jutting gun, sensor array and projector. The massive hull was soon as pockmarked as the Moon. They even fused shut every hatchway so the Stroj inside couldn’t escape. It was a grim decision, but I hadn’t made it.

The big ship turned again, one last time. But she didn’t head for open space as I’d expected her to. She aimed herself instead toward the bright blue-white disk that was Earth.

Nostromo’s
big engines still operated, if sluggishly. She began a long burn, pushing the vessel toward our home planet.

“Come about again,” I said grimly. “Match the enemy course and speed. If they’re going to take out a city by turning
Nostromo
into a self-propelled meteor, we’re going to have to nudge her off course the only way we can.”

Again, no one objected, but I could see fear and disappointment in their eyes. For a few minutes there, we all dared hope we might live to see the morning.

For several long minutes, we stalked the great ship as it drove a glittering, burning arc across Earth’s disk.

“They’re trying to hit land,” Durris said with certainty. His plotted course-arcs glowed up into his face. “They don’t want to splash down in an ocean—even though that would make an amazing tidal wave. They’re going to target the most significant density of civilization they can manage—possibly Central Command itself.”

After reviewing the data, I was forced to agree with his conclusions.

“Sir…” Yamada said, touching her ear and frowning. “There’s a call coming in.”

“Transfer it to my implant,” I said crisply.

I was sure it was going to be Halsey. This was the moment during which he’d tell me I had to sacrifice my ship and crew to stop
Nostromo
from achieving her final goal. I was already way ahead of CENTCOM on that point, of course, but I’d expected them to call and check up on me all the same.

When a trio of bizarre humanoids appeared inside my visual perception instead, I blinked in surprise.

It was the Stroj group-captain. The center figure of the three spoke up. “The creature known as Sparhawk has been promoted in significance,” he said. “Your consumption has become the number one priority of the Stroj.”

“Why would you call just to tell me that?”

“Because we desire revenge,” he—or it—said. “We know that Basics fear the future. They imagine pain, and they thereby experience it time and time again in their imaginations before it ever becomes a reality. We wanted to make sure that you missed none of that well-deserved experience.”

I gave them a savage grin. “Know then, Stroj Captains, that you’ve instead ignited joy in my heart. It is
I
who now tastes
your
fear. It is
I
who serves to witness
your
kind’s greatest defeat. The fact that you’re even sending such a petty message—”

The channel closed abruptly. I snarled and sat up.

“Reconnect me, Yamada,” I said.

“But sir…” she said, pointing at the screen.

I followed her gesture, and I was rendered speechless. The screens were displaying a terrible sight, one that both stunned me and filled me with wonder at the same time.

Nostromo
had gone into a slow, wobbling roll. Explosions wracked her hull, including a vast plume of gas that shot out of her aft exhaust ports.

Then, incredibly, she began to break up.

“Tell the destroyers and the last three cruiser captains to target that wreckage,” I said quickly. “A big chunk could still take out a city.”

“They know, Captain.”

Star Guard ships were already racing ahead. They hadn’t needed my prompting. Countless bolts of energy melted and sliced the biggest chunks of
Nostromo
into objects no more than ten meters across by the time these dense objects began to rain down upon Earth’s atmosphere. 

Like a thousand large meteors, the chunks disintegrated and vaporized into streaks of white light. From the ground, it must have been an amazing sight.

Only then did I know in my heart that it was over. The dreadnought
Nostromo
had been completely destroyed.