Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (80 page)

              “Mister Leicasitaj,” Tamara said, turning to her Romigani first officer.  The squid-like alien had shown great leadership potential and had quickly impressed her with his skills.  He was shaky on the new systems, just like all the others, but Tamara had liked what she’d seen of his performance.  Within that weeks’ time since the launch, he’d shown glimmerings of the abilities he need to be able to take command.  “Bring the ship to general quarters.”

              “Yes, Captain,” Leicasitaj said.  He pressed the control and the general quarters alarm shrieked throughout the ship.  There was no mistaking that alarm and no ignoring it either.  It had been designed that way, to wake people out of a dead sleep.  He pressed another control, activating the shipwide PA system.  “All hands, general quarters.  All hands general quarters.”

              Six minutes later, the last section called in, indicating they were secured.  With a watery sigh, Leicasitaj turned to his commander.  “All sections report secure, Captain.”

              Tamara gave him a baleful look.  “Mister Leicasitaj, that simply won’t do.  I want that time down to four minutes.  Get with the section chiefs and do what needs to be done.  Do you understand me?”

              He gulped.  “I do, ma’am.  I’ll get it done.”

              She looked back to her display.  “I expect you will.”  She checked the sensor feeds, seeing a number of large asteroids within sensor range.  The ship was well away from the mining operations, several light minutes distant.  “Now, what we’re going to do is perform a long strafing run through this stretch of the belt,” she informed the crew.  “Miss Garidhak, I expect you to open up with all weapons, and I’m looking at your accuracy.  The first part of the run is going to be about your lasers and rail guns.  Then at these points here,” she indicated a set of four very large rocks toward the end of where she had planned for the ship to fly, “You’re going to engage with missiles.”

              “Missiles, ma’am?” the cat asked, surprised.  The newly designed capital scale TR-1’s, affectionately nicknamed “throat rippers” were not cheap weapons to produce.  They were a high explosive weapon, a helium 3 fusion warhead that could be set to detonate on impact or on a proximity fuse.  The company didn’t have a missile fabricator constantly churning them out, though such a fabricator was in the pipeline.  So far, all fifty examples of that potent weapon were made by hand aboard the
Samarkand
.  For the moment, that process was going to continue, though Tamara had plans to get a fabricator set up to build the missiles and get a fairly large supply stockpiled.

              “Yes, Miss Garidhak, missiles,” Tamara confirmed.  “I don’t have any way of knowing if my weapons actually work unless we actually shoot them, don’t you agree?”

              “Yes, Captain,” Garidhak replied, blinking her eyes rapidly in pleasure.  She didn’t have the same sort of facial muscles that a human would, so it was the position of her ears and the blinking that indicated she was excited or happy.

              “We’re in position ma’am.”

              “Very well.  Helm, take us on a course along the edge of the belt, accelerate to four hundred,” she ordered. 

              “Yes, Captain,” Wymea replied, happily executing the helm order.  The ship tore off on the course, quickly accelerating to a high rate of speed.

              “Miss Garidhak, you may fire at will.”

              “Yes, Captain.  Firing all weapons.” 

              The
Cavalier
sped along the path navigation had laid out, while her weapons cut loose.  The ship’s heavy lasers punched into and through the big rocks, either boring a hole through or blasting it apart.  As the ship roared along, the rail guns opened up, spewing metal slugs.  The high velocity projectiles tore chunks from the rocks, softening them up as the lasers turned their fury on them.  In seconds a large grouping of floating rocks had been pulverized into smaller fragments and sand.

              One of the big asteroids, one about a kilometer in length, half as wide, tumbled into
Cavalier
’s path.  “Ma’am, big one, moving in the way,” Wymea called out.

              “Helm, thirty degrees up and twenty-fire starboard,” she ordered. 

              Wymea nodded, not answering, quickly skewing the ship hard to the right and climbing up above the plane of the ecliptic.  Garidhak took advantage of the maneuver by targeting the big asteroid with all available guns and coherent light and a storm of metal tore the huge rock in half.  Both large pieces went spinning off in opposite directions and the helmsman pounced.  The ship dove into the rapidly opening space between the two firing as she went, ripping chunks of rock as the corvette passed.

              “We’ve cleared the asteroid ma’am, should I resume course?” Wymea asked.

              “Yes, please, Mister Wymea.”  Tamara leaned back her in chair, satisfied with what her bridge crew had done.  “Miss Garidhak, status of shields?”

              “Holding, ma’am,” the cat replied.  “There’s been a fair amount of debris impacts from the dust and small rocks in the field, but nothing the ship hasn’t been able to handle.”

              “Good.  Keep an eye on it.”  Tamara set her display and implants to ping her if the shields dropped below ninety percent strength.  Currently, they were holding at ninety-two percent, but she didn’t want any surprises.  Her implants still couldn’t access remote feeds, since the disruptor was still cutting off signal to her wireless implant.  But, with her HUD activated, it could keep track of things in her field of vision for her while she allowed her attention to be elsewhere.

              “Coming in range of the missile targets, Captain,” the Severite reported, her voice a trifle louder than was needed as she was unable to cover her excitement.  This would be the first time she’d ever fired missiles outside of a simulation.

              “Lock on targets,” Tamara ordered, straightening in her command seat.  There were four large rocks she wanted to test out the missiles on.  Garidhak had scored well in the targeting exercises and Tamara was interested to see how she’d do in a live fire exercise.

              “Umm…” the cat said, working her console.  “Okay, locked on, four targets, ma’am.  Missiles ready.”

              Tamara noted the slight hesitation, but said nothing.  “Fire at will,” she said.

              The Severite pressed the control and the forward launchers unleashed four missiles, which streaked away from the
Cavalier
toward their targets.  They reached the targets and exploded, turning the huge rocks into expanding balls of plasma and shards of rock.  Garidhak pumped a fist in the air.  “Yes!”

              “Good shooting, Miss Garidhak,” Tamara said.  “Damage report?”  Her implants had pinged her about the shield strength.

              “Forward shields at seventy-four percent, ma’am,” Leicasitaj replied.  “A bit of minor scoring on the hull, but nothing serious.  I’ll make sure to have engineering teams take a look at it once we’re done with the exercises for the day.”

              “Very good, XO,” Tamara said, nodding.  She tried very hard to hide a smile, knowing what was coming next.

              “Captain,” Ykzann, the male zheen seated at the sensor station called, sounding slightly concerned.  “We have incoming contacts, Captain.  Twelve of them.  They’re approaching on an intercept course at high velocity.”

              Before Tamara could say anything, Leicasitaj turned and gave her a questioning look.  Tamara managed to maintain a stern façade, but she wasn’t sure she’d fooled her XO.  He turned around, one of his leg tentacles twitching a bit.  “What kind of contacts, Sensors?” he called out.  “Are there rocks on an intercept course?”

              “No, sir,” the zheen replied.  “They’re definitely under power.  They look more like fighters.”

              The Romigani stiffened in his chair.  Then he started in alarm as a new window on his display lit up.  Tamara was busy, her thumb pressed to the access port on her own station, altering settings on the ship’s weapon system, powering everything down to targeting level only, and engaging the firing safeties on the missiles and rail guns. 

              “What the hell?” Garidhak breathed as her tactical controls suddenly altered.  “Weapons are switching to targeting mode.  Missiles are completely locked down.”
              Leicasitaj looked to his captain, who simply smiled at him and gestured for him to continue.  He nodded, suddenly feeling fear’s icy grip.  “Helm, bring us to course eleven by one-six-zero,” he ordered sharply.  “Take us to max accel.  Tactical, target the lead ships as they enter range.  All forward guns.”  Even though the rail guns were locked down, they would still show as firing in “training” and instead of pumping out metal slugs on their magnetic rails, a targeting laser would fire, but the computers on both the
Cavalier
and the target vessel would do the calculations to determine if a slug could reach and hit the target in the allotted time.  The target would realize it was being shot at, with the same weapon’s signature on his sensors as a real rail gun projectile and possibly he could evade if his reflexes were fast enough. 

              Twelve to one odds were very long, however, and Tamara had taken away the ship’s most potent weapons, the missile launchers.  But, in a tactical situation, they might be beset by an unexpected enemy and the launchers might be down, or the magazines might be shot dry.  The crew would need to learn to adapt.  Tamara smiled to herself, leaning more comfortably in the chair, allowing Leicasitaj lead.  She wanted to see how he’d handle this.  If he could win, that would be fantastic, but Tamara was more interested to see how well he could keep himself and the crew under control and fighting.  It would be something important for him to have if indeed he was going to be taking command of the ship. 

              “Roll the ship,” he ordered, checking the sensor feeds for himself as the fighters closed on
Cavalier
’s position.  He made a note to himself to speak with the Captain about possible starfighter defenses that the ship could employ for future engagements.  “Tactical, open fire with rail guns, but I want you to lay down a spread between us and the incoming fighters.  Then open fire on the edges of the field with the lasers.”

              It was an interesting tactical plan, Tamara admitted, but it was possible it might work.  She smiled as the plan went into action.  The “guns” opened up and the fighters broke formation.

              “Direct hit!” Garidhak crowed.  “One fighter down.”

              “Eleven to go,” Leicasitaj said, though he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.  “Change course, heading above the plane of the ecliptic, two-five-seven.  Cease roll.  Garidhak, target all your ventral guns straight ‘down’.  They’re not in position yet, but when we change course, some of them will be.”

              “The main cluster is going to be above us in that position,” Garidhak pointed out.  “The way they’re moving…”
              “I know,” Leicasitaj said.  “But we’re not going to get them all in one salvo.  We got to wear them down, hopefully take out enough of them to force a retreat.”

              “They’re trying to break us up,” Korqath, Commander of Aplora Squadron said over the tactical channel.  “They’re going to swoop over us and attack us piecemeal.”

              “We got missiles, Lead,” Hukriss, his wingmate reminded him.  “They’re only practice shots, but we should use them.  One good punch will crack that thing in half.”

              “Excellent idea, Hukriss.  Aploras, lock on the corvette,” Korqath ordered.  He activated his targeting system, arming two of his missiles.  Hukriss was right, the missiles were an obvious answer.  “Let’s see how they respond to this.”  The targeting reticule turned red and a solid tone indicated a lock.  “Aploras, fire on target.”  He depressed his triggers and a pair of missiles shot forth from the fighter’s launchers.  They were joined by five other pairs of weapons as the other Aploras fired.

              “Incoming missiles,” Garidhak called, almost shrieking in near panic.

              “Calm down!” Leicasitaj snapped from his console, looking over to the cat.  “Time to impact?”

              “Fourteen seconds.”  The Severite was visibly trying to calm herself.  “Missiles are tracking.”

              “Point defense,” the Romigani said, also trying to remain calm.  Tamara said nothing, just watching the scene unfold around her.  “All weapons, open fire.”

              The
Cavalier
open up, weapons flaring as all her guns went into continuous fire.  “Two missiles down!” Garidhak crowed.  “Four!”  The ship’s heavy lasers continued to fire, the rail guns still firing off laser training shots.  “Seven,” she said, blinking furiously, her ears lying flat against her skull.  “Nine.”  Her voice was getting lower, softer, more of a whisper.  Panic was definitely setting in.  “Five seconds.”

              “Helm, new course, down seven five degrees!” Leicasitaj snapped.  The helm responded immediately; clearly Wymea was anticipating the order.  The ship dove, the inertial compensators screaming to keep up but they couldn’t manage all of it.  It suddenly felt as though they were sitting in a falling elevator as the ship accelerated.