Into the Darkness: Crimson Worlds Refugees I (26 page)

“Very well,” Compton said calmly. He knew he had no place in what was to come next. The officers and crews of the fleet had their orders, and running their own defensive arrays was their job. The last thing the veteran gunners needed was the fleet admiral breathing down their necks.

It was the periods of inaction that had always been the hardest for Compton. He’d talked about it with Admiral Garret many times, and the two had agreed it was the most trying part of a battle. Space battles were fought over vast areas, and they often lasted for days on end. There were periods of sharp engagement—when two fleets passed through each other, for example. Ships would exchange energy weapons fire until their vectors took them again out of range of their targets, and another period of maneuver began.

Certainly the fear was at its greatest during the few moments when enemy missiles were detonating or lasers were ripping through ships, but those periods were always short—and adrenalin was flowing. The spacers were afraid then, certainly, but they were also too busy to think about it. But the long hours in between intense periods of combat, often including uncomfortable stretches in the acceleration tanks, wore down the crews more than the actual fighting, leaving them exhausted and strung out on stims. And that was usually when a battle was decided—when one side gave in to fatigue and began making mistakes. At least, that’s how war between human opponents had been. But the robots of the First Imperium did not get tired. They didn’t get frustrated or sore or scared. And that made it even more important for their human adversaries to keep their focus, and stay sharp no matter how long a battle continued.

Compton knew what was happening. His gunnery crews and their AIs were plotting the incoming enemy missiles, targeting them with interceptors. The defensive missiles were designed to detonate as closely as possible to incoming warheads in an attempt to damage or destroy the enemy weapons.

Missiles that survived the first wave of countermeasures were then targeted by the fire of defensive laser batteries. Even the largest missile was a minuscule target in the vastness of space, and Compton knew the energy weapons would have a small hit percentage, likely below one percent. Still, every warhead destroyed was a help.

Then the last line of defense would kick in, the electromagnetic cannons. The “shotguns,” as they were universally called, were clusters of railguns firing clouds of small metallic projectiles into space. At the enormous velocities of the incoming missiles, a collision with a fist-sized chunk of metal was enough to vaporize a warhead. Though their effective range was the shortest of all interdiction systems, Compton knew his shotguns would do two-thirds of the damage to the enemy barrage.

Compton watched the screen as his ships thinned out the massive cloud of incoming missiles. The defensive rockets began to detonate, and as they did, the small red symbols representing the enemy warheads began to disappear. It wasn’t devastating, but it was enough, at least for the first round.

The lasers began firing a few seconds later. Most of them missed at first, but as the range closed the accuracy ramped up, and the incoming strike began to really thin out. Two minutes before the missiles reached their projected detonation points, the shotguns opened up. The railgun clusters were devastating, and they tore the heart out of the enemy barrage, missile after missile vaporizing on impact with one of the dense projectiles. By the time the barrage had closed the rest of the way, the attack was gutted. Barely one missile in ten that had been fired was still there. But even that 10% remnant carried with it gigatons of destructive force, more than enough to vaporize
Midway
and every other ship on the line.

But this battle was taking place over quadrillions of cubic kilometers of space, and the battling vessels—both attackers and defenders—were moving at thousands of klicks a second. Hitting a target with a physical projectile under such conditions was almost impossible. But the two gigaton antimatter warheads didn’t need to hit directly. They just had to get close.

Anything under a five hundred meters would obliterate a ship, even a
Yorktown
class battleship like
Midway
. A detonation up to 1,500 meters could cause massive damage, and bathe a vessel’s crew with lethal radiation. At two or three kilometers, major damage was likely, but the effects fell sharply from there.

“Reading missile detonations, Admiral.” Cortez was staring at the screen on his workstation. Damage reports too, sir.
Houston
and
Birmingham
report heavy damage, sir…now reading Delta-Z code from Houston.” Delta-Z was the Alliance protocol for a doomed ship’s last transmission. It had been adopted by the Grand Pact for use by the combined fleets fighting the First Imperium.

Compton sighed softly. He’d heard far too many Delta-Z communiques since the war had begun. With so much combat and death, he knew they’d all become desensitized.
Houston
was a heavy cruiser, and her destruction meant that 392 Alliance spacers had just died. But all he could do was focus on the battle still raging, and the other ships fighting it out on the line.

Midway
shook hard, and the angle of her 1g acceleration shifted for a few seconds, until the positioning thrusters righted her bearing. Two of the bridge crew had neglected to latch their harnesses, and they were pushed off their chairs, sliding around the deck until the jets reestablished
Midway’s
bearing. They both climbed quickly to their feet and hurried back to their stations, embarrassed but otherwise uninjured.

“We took a blast of heavy radiation, sir.” Cortez reported to Compton before the admiral could ask. “Caused an overload in one of the weapons conduits. The explosion blew out a section of the hull, and the blast and expulsion of atmosphere threw us off our bearing. It felt worse than it is.”

Compton just nodded. He might have admonished the two officers who’d failed to attach their harnesses, but he’d done the same thing. The large siderests of the command chair gave him something to grab onto, saving him the humiliation of joining his junior officers in flopping across the deck.

“Task force status reports?” Compton asked, as he reached around and attached his harness as quietly as possible.

“The Europans are taking heavy losses from the missiles, sir. And Udinov’s RIC units are ahead of the rest of the line. They’ve lost
Taras
and
Nikolai
to missile fire, and they are just now entering energy weapons range.”

Compton had sent the RIC force to support the fighters, but the Russian admiral was taking the most aggressive interpretation of those orders.

Udinov’s trying to prove himself. But how many of his people will he get killed in the process?

*  *  *

“All ships, increase to 5g acceleration.” Udinov sat stone still, staring straight ahead at the main display. “We’re going right down their throats.” His voice was hard, cold.

“Yes, Admiral,” Stanovich replied. The aide sounded exhausted, his voice dry and hoarse.

Petersburg
had taken half a dozen hits, and the air of the flag bridge was heavy with smoke and the caustic smells of burnt systems and leaking gas lines. Udinov ignored it all, focusing on the task force formation lined up just behind Greta Hurley’s fighters. He intended to stay right on the fighters’ tails—and finish off any ships they seriously damaged in their attack.

“We hold fire until the fighters finish their attack and get clear…and then we unload with everything we’ve got. I don’t want a battery silent.” Udinov felt the tension in his body. He’d always had a reputation as an aggressive officer, at least in the conservative and cautious culture of the RIC military. But serving with the dynamic Alliance admirals had helped him shake off the last bonds of hidebound routine and realize that most battles were won with action, audacity. He knew it was something new for his crews, even his senior officers, but that was too damned bad as far as he was concerned. They would adapt. He would give them no choice.

“All vessels report ready, sir. All weapons stations at full alert and prepared to fire.”

Udinov nodded silently, his gaze still fixed on the mass of symbols representing Hurley’s fighters. There were a handful of RIC pilots in her formation, the survivors of much larger but poorly trained force at the start of the campaign. The RIC had a poor history in fighter training and tactics, and their Katusha craft were probably the oldest and worst-designed of all the powers.

Still
, he thought, punching at his screen to highlight the RIC units among the squadrons,
the cream always rises
. Hurley’s wings had been to hell and back since the campaign started…more than once. There was no one left in those fighter groups but skilled, veteran crews, and the personnel flying the six remaining RIC boats had proven they could stand with the best.

“Sir, Admiral Hurley reports she is commencing her attack run.”

“Yes, Commander,” Udinov replied softly. “I can see it on the scanner.”

Good luck, Admiral…to you and your brave crews. We’d never have gotten out of X2 without you
.

*  *  *

“I’m right behind you, Commander.” Mariko’s hand gripped the throttle tightly. The fighter had taken some damage driving through the enemy barrage, and she only had about sixty percent of normal thrust. Half of her electronics were scragged, and the cockpit stank of leaking coolant. Indeed, it had gotten so bad, she and her crew had buttoned up their helmets and switched to their bottled air. It wasn’t normal procedure—anything they breathed now was that much less they’d have if they had to eject and hope for a rescue. But passing out less than 50,000 klicks from an enemy battleship didn’t seem like a better option.

The enemy missile barrage had hit the Gold Dragons hard. The formerly charmed unit was down to three fighters, and all of those had some degree of damage. But now they were about to strike back. They had half the firepower they’d started with, but a doubleshotted plasma torpedo could do a lot of damage if it was well-placed, even to First Imperium ship.

“Hold your fire until you can see the name of the ship.” Akara’s voice blared through the com, his order more emotional than literal. PRC warships had their names stenciled onto their hulls, but as far as anyone knew, it was not a practice the First Imperium followed. It wasn’t even known if they named their ships. Besides, it wasn’t possible to read it, even if it was on the hull. At 1,500 kilometers per second, if you were close enough to see any letters, you’d only have a few microseconds before you collided, and your ship vaporized.

“Alright, Hiroki, I’m going right down this bastard’s throat. I’ll get you close, but it’s your job to drop that torpedo right into its guts.” Mariko’s voice was bloodthirsty, seething with hatred. The Gold Dragon’s had been grievously wounded on this sortie…half of her brothers and sisters were dead already. That was bad enough, but she couldn’t bear the thought that they’d died for nothing.
And if we don’t kill this bastard, they have…

“You get us there, Lieutenant, and I’ll drop this thing in the barrel.”

Mariko pushed the throttle forward, increasing the thrust from the damaged engine…4g, 5g…6g. The ship was shaking hard as she pushed it to the very edge of its capabilities. She was slammed back hard into her chair, and every breath was a struggle. But she held the thrust where it was for another three minutes. Then she released it completely, and the crushing pressure was replaced by the weightlessness of freefall.

The scanner showed the perfection of her maneuver. The enemy ship was dead ahead, still too far away to see, but right there on the scanner. And her fighter was on a collision course, and closing at 1,700 kilometers per second.

“It’s all yours now, Hi…” Her head snapped around to the scanner. The third fighter had been right behind her, but now it was gone. The enemy’s defensive railguns were an anti-missile weapon somewhat haphazardly retrofitted to attack fighters. They weren’t as dangerous as the “shotguns” of the human ships, but they were still dangerous, and they’d just proven that again.

“Damn,” Mariko spat under her breath. Now it was just her and the squadron leader. She knew the magnitude of the Dragon’s losses hadn’t hit her yet, not really. Her body was running on stims and adrenalin and the heat of battle. If she survived this fight, she knew she would have to deal with massive grief. But that was for later. Now, only one thing mattered to her…and it was looming up ahead.

“Hold your shot, Hiroki. Hold it until I tell you to fire.” Her voice dripped venom. Right now there was nothing as important as destroying that thing. Not even survival. She didn’t know the ordnance that had killed the other Dragons had come from that ship, of course. Indeed, almost certainly most of it had not. But in her heart she believed it…she made herself believe it. Her soul was screaming for vengeance, and she needed a focus for her wrath. Her eyes were narrow, staring at the monitor as the range ticked off.

Her scanner flashed brightly for an instant. She knew what it was, but she was too fixated on her task, too disciplined to truly acknowledge that the squadron commander’s ship had been hit. They’d gotten off their torpedo, but barely a second later one of the enemy railguns tore them to fragments.

No, not all of them
, she thought for an instant. Then she savagely pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind. She had a job to do. “Get ready…” Her head didn’t move, and her body was rigid, every muscle clenched. “Ready…”

The range was below 30,000…25,000…20,000…

“Fire!” she howled, a shriek like some demon from hell.

The ship shook as the torpedo launched, and Mariko slammed the throttle forward and to the starboard. Six gees of force slammed into everyone onboard, as the straining, dying engines of her stricken ship struggled to change her vector before she crashed into the enemy vessel.