No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (3 page)

“Reading twelve distinct impacts, Captain,” Sarkozi reported with obvious relief. “Forward shields are at thirty percent, port dorsal shields at sixty five and starboard dorsals at eighty.”

The
Pride
’s forward cannons fired again, and the icon of the southern pirate corvette turned grey indicating catastrophic power failure had been detected.

“The southern corvette’s shields have collapsed…and I’m reading a fusion core ejection,” Sarkozi reported hungrily. “She’s broadcasting her unconditional surrender and I’m registering ejecting life pod signals—she’s dead in the water, Captain.”

“Thank you, Tactical,” Middleton replied. But just to be certain, he called up the CR-70 specs once again and nodded in satisfaction at what he saw. The missile complement of that ship’s class, with the sixteen missile configuration, was limited to precisely that number of shots per engagement without an exceptional—and borderline insane—engineering crew to reload them.

The weapons were modular by design, and therefore were not reloadable during combat conditions, requiring at least twenty minutes even
with
a crack engineering team to replace even one missile. So with the corvette’s power plant ejected, she was no longer a factor of any kind in this engagement—which meant this would now be a one-on-one fight between the
Pride
and the northern corvette.

“Helm, take us to the southern side of the rings; put them between us and the northern corvette,” Middleton instructed, relaxing fractionally now that the most critical part of the battle was behind them.

“Aye, sir,” Jersey replied, only slightly less irritably than before.

Damage reports could be heard streaming through the engineering and Comm. stations but they sounded light, all things considered. A few crewmembers had been taken to sickbay to treat minor head wounds and there had been a few cases of electrical burns, but no one had died thus far in the engagement, which made Middleton breathe easy as they came under the outer edge of the ring system.

Round one to us
, he thought to himself.

Chapter II: A Dance of Ice & Fire

“The remaining corvette has still not fired her missiles, Captain,” Sarkozi reported, far more calmly and professionally than when they had been under fire but with a quizzical note to her voice.

“Her captain must have a cooler head than his companion did,” Middleton replied grudgingly, “he doesn’t want to play his ace this early in the game.” Having placed the incredible rings—composed primarily of water ice but with an unusual amount of nickel and iron particulates—between themselves and the corvette, the
Pride
had temporarily nullified the corvette’s biggest offensive weapon in her Starfire missiles. That would give the
Pride
precious time to recharge their shields, as well as work their way back toward the station in an effort to force an engagement on Middleton’s terms rather than the enemy’s.

“Helm, lay in a course toward the collection facility at best possible speed,” he instructed before turning to the Engineering crewman. “Tell Chief Garibaldi that he can cool off Two Plant now; he should have about thirty minutes to set it to rights before we need to restore full combat power.”

“Yes, Captain,” the crewman replied, relaying the order. Surprisingly, there was no reply this time—and thankfully no promise to make yet another note in his Demon-blasted log.

“Captain,” Sarkozi said, taking a few steps away from her station and gesturing to the main screen, “the three merchantmen are still on course for the collection facility; shouldn’t we interdict them?”

Middleton shook his head. “By themselves they wouldn’t pose much of a threat, but that Corvette’s missiles make for a force multiplier. The corvette could deploy them and then—assuming this second captain is halfway capable—coordinate the maneuvers of his ship and the three merchies for an advantageous formation while we try to counteract the missiles. The merchantmen entering the fray would complicate things unnecessarily; letting them dock is a concession we have to make, given the available data.”

“But sir,” she continued respectfully, “if they’re willing to risk an engagement with us, wouldn’t that indicate there’s something of great value to them aboard the station—something we should deny them access to? I doubt they’re going there to re-stock on H3 before beating feet, sir.”

“Your logic is sound, Ensign,” Middleton agreed with a nod of his head, “but pirates
without
warships are far less dangerous than pirates
with
warships. Without knowing for certain what’s aboard that station, I have to deal with the threats in order of apparent priority—that means the corvettes first, the merchantmen second, and
then
the station and its contents.”

“What’s to stop the second corvette from hightailing it out of here, sir?” Sarkozi asked, glancing at her Tactical team briefly before returning her attention to the Captain.

“Greed, Ensign,” Middleton replied confidently as he ran silent calculations to confirm their next likely engagement time with the enemy—assuming the pirate captain was as capable as he, or she, appeared. “If they were going to leave they would have done so already. You’re right; there’s something on that station which is valuable enough to tilt their fight or flight response toward the former, even in the face of a superior foe. Still, we’re now officially on the clock; if we play games for too long out here those merchies will escape with whatever cargo they seem so desperate to reclaim. Then there’ll be no way to stop that corvette from doing likewise, what with her speed advantage.”

“So we have to force the engagement here and now,” Sarkozi said with a knowing nod before turning back to her Tactical team and performing some calculations. “By my numbers, the merchantmen will reach the station in just under an hour—seventeen minutes before we reach extreme range of our forward array,” she reported, confirming Middleton’s own calculations. “If the remaining corvette follows this course toward the nearest gap in the rings,” she continued, throwing a hypothetical trajectory up onto the main screen which seemed to match the corvette’s current course, “they’ll reach an interdictory position in forty two minutes—eight minutes prior to our reaching firing range on the merchantmen, sir.”

The Captain punched up the technical specs on their forward heavy laser array, and after finding the frequency bands the weapons operated in, made a note which he forwarded to Sarkozi’s console. “We don’t want to give the merchies that much time if we can help it, Ensign,” he said confidently. “Make the modifications I’ve outlined to the forward array and report when you’ve finished.”

“Yes, Captain,” she replied, turning to her console and going over his note as a smile crept across her face. “I can have those modifications ready in eight minutes,” she reported hungrily.

“Do it,” he ordered, turning to the Sensors officer. “I need the primary sensors modified to deal with the unusual amount of iron in that ice ring,” he explained. “We’re going to need to use the primary sensor array for targeting, so we’ll need tactical-level accuracy; the weapons’ own targeting systems can’t cut through the rings’ interference. Can you do it?”

The Sensors officer looked at her console for a few moments as she got readings on the ice ring’s composition. “I think so, Captain,” she replied hesitantly, “but based on the interference, as well as our current velocity, we’ll have to slave the weapons to the sensors so they can fire as soon as a target lock is acquired. The firing windows are only going to open for a fraction of a second—too short for human reaction times.”

Slave-rigging the computers to command fire control, even temporarily, was a breach of standard operating protocol—one that required the Captain’s authorization to make. Ever since the AI wars, humanity had been distrustful of allowing machines to have too much control over dangerous equipment like weapons, and it was possibly a punishable offense for a Captain to do so—even temporarily. Normally the solutions were populated by the computer and then the gunners would verify the readings with their own targeting computers which were completely independent from the ship’s computer networks.

“Sarkozi,” Middleton nodded decisively, “slave fire control to the Sensors and set the solution parameters yourself. Each battery should offset their fire interval by ten microseconds from each other, firing in a clockwise sequence; the first laser will clear a hole through the ice ring debris to provide a clear shot for the second. We’re only going to get a couple shots before that corvette’s out of range, so we need to make each one count.”

“Yes, sir,” she acknowledged curtly.

“Helm,” the Captain continued as he forwarded another set of instructions to the helmsman, “re-orient the ship; I want our bow facing that corvette while they make for the ring break, but I don’t want to change our current trajectory. I also want axial rotation precisely as indicated—can you be that exact?”

“Aye, Captain,” Jersey replied tersely, but even the man’s sour disposition did little to deflate Middleton’s buoyant mood. Seconds later the view screen tilted upward, showing the gas giant’s incredible ring system as the bow of the ship rose gently to face it. He knew the rate of rotation he had ordered would be too slow to observe with the naked eye, but Middleton still disliked being in less than total control of the situation so he checked his instruments to verify the Pride’s axial rotation.

The density of the rings around the gas giant was unlike anything Middleton had ever encountered, or even read about, and it was that density which created a shield that would protect them from any beam weapon except the most powerful versions—like the
Pride
’s own heavy lasers, or the Starfire missiles on the corvette.

The sensor distortions caused by the mineral content of the rings were also tactically problematic. The
Pride
’s sensors were likely no better than those of the pirate, but the advantage they had while the rings were interposed between the two vessels was that the
Pride
’s heavy laser array could recharge and fire again, even if they missed. The pirate’s Starfire missiles, on the other hand, were only good for a single attack so the corvette’s captain couldn’t afford to waste them on a low-percentage shot through the rings—especially at their present angle, which multiplied the amount of debris between ships many, many times the median thickness of the rings.

“Comm.,” Middleton spun his chair after a minute’s silence to face the Comm. stander, “status on the primary transmitter?”

“It’s still down, Captain,” the stander reported promptly. “Engineering reports the repairs will require at least thirty minutes to complete.”

Before Middleton could respond to the Chief Engineer’s obviously sandbagged estimate, the forward array of the
Pride of Prometheus
erupted unexpectedly as all ten of her heavy lasers bored into the ice rings. “Beams away,” Sarkozi reported belatedly as she bent down to read the incoming telemetry and nodded satisfactorily, “reading three direct hits, Captain. Enemy shields are holding; adjusting battery timing to eight point seven microseconds for the next pass.”

“Good work, Tactical; Helm,” Middleton replied as he flipped through the ship-wide status reports.
This was all much simpler as a Tactical Officer,
he thought half-grudgingly as he checked the departmental status reports. “Inform Chief Garibaldi that we need that transmitter online in no more than twenty two minutes,” he said after reviewing the ship’s status.
Not a single casualty to this point
, he thought with silent relief.
Murphy willing, we might make it through this unscathed.

A few minutes later the forward array fired another volley when the sensors read a clear enough gap in the ring system, causing Sarkozi to report, “Five direct hits, Captain. Their stern shields seem to have buckled and I’m reading trace atmo venting from their hull, but their engines appear undamaged.”

Rather than ask, Middleton brought up the Shields status display and saw that their forward generators were at 62% of maximum. There had been multiple power grid failures that had necessitated re-routing of the lateral generators’ supply, but fortunately that was of little concern.

If the two corvettes had worked together, they could have outflanked his slower, heavier vessel and made achieving firing position difficult for the
Pride
’s crew. But with one of the nimble corvettes already down for the count and the other well on her way to the same, by Middleton’s way of thinking, it would be little challenge to keep their bow facing the pirate vessel long enough to disable her.

Still
, Middleton reminded himself somberly,
if we can’t disable those Starfires’ fire-linking system like we did with the first wave, I doubt that even our reinforced bow shields will hold.

“Captain,” the Comm. stander began hesitantly, “I’m picking up some unusual chatter from the station.”

“What do you make of it?” asked Captain Middleton.

“It’s coded, sir,” the man replied as his fingers flew over his console, “but I’m getting…” he paused as he listened intently for a moment before continuing, “it’s an awfully powerful signal, Captain, and it’s being broadcast throughout the system. I don’t recognize the protocols…it must be some sort of automated SOS.”

“Log it for later review,” Middleton ordered. He wanted to know where these pirates’ allies were located, and that signal might point them in the right direction.

“Already done, sir,” the Comm. stander replied promptly, “I missed the first two seconds, but the rest—” he cut off mid-sentence, cocking his head briefly before shaking it in negation. “It’s gone now, sir.”

“Contact,” reported the Sensors operator, who Middleton turned toward as she continued, “I’m reading a heat bloom at the edge of the ring system, Captain. Looks like…Captain, it’s accelerating. These energy emissions readings are off the charts.”