Opening Moves (71 page)

Despite the sudden loss of their motherships, the remaining Ashani fighters did not hesitate for even a second and hurled themselves into a new charge.

“
They're going after the drones!” McLane warned, but there was little the JOHNSTON's crew could do other than wait and watch. “Starboard drone screen is gone, skipper. Enemy fighters on attack vector! Eighteen fighters incoming.”

The
Swiftpaw
-class fighters were built around a single powerful laser cannon with a comparatively low effective range. Their purpose was to attack enemy merchantmen or smaller classes of warships and to destroy enemy small craft. But that didn't mean in large numbers they couldn't be a problem for larger warships.

“
Use the counter-missiles. Concentrate laser cluster fire and realign the main battery. Fire at will!”

The small crafts and their fearless pilots raced into the cruiser's fire, lashing out with their weapons – and perished.

A strange quiet settled over the JOHNSTON's bridge after the hectic activity of the past... minute? Had it really just been a minute?

“
Report!” Beaufort croaked. His mouth felt as dry as the Sahara desert.

“
Damage to the starboard hull on decks eight, nine and fifteen. Energy lines to turrets Echo and Foxtrott are down. We've lost three missile tubes and our starboard sensor coverage is down to sixty percent efficiency. Damage control teams are down to seventy-five percent efficiency due to the loss of maintbot hangar four, sir,” Commander Ranaissa rattled down the figures.

“
Casualties, Therese?”

“
Sickbay reports twenty-two dead and forty-seven wounded, sir.”

“
Thank you,” Beaufort replied somberly before speaking up. “That was excellent work, ladies and gentlemen.”

“
The Ashani seem to think so, too. They're breaking off their attack on the convoy and turning to head our way. Another cruiser of the same type, six destroyers and three ships ONI has pegged as frigates.” Therese Ranaissa's voice was wry. “If we go by those two performances, the first will be within safe firing distance in less than forty seconds.”

“
And there's a window of opportunity for us to make a run for it, pick up our ground teams and make it the hell out of here on the other side of the gravity well,” the captain mused. “But if we do, we condemn tens of thousands of refugees to death. If we hold fast for a few more minutes some of them have the chance to escape this madness.”

It was the hardest decision Beaufort could imagine, and here and now he was positive the answer would define his life and his legacy. On the one hand he had a duty to his government and crew. He had valuable intelligence data and clear orders to get that information back home. His mandate had been very clear about the use of force and he feared he might have already exceeded its letter, if not its spirit. Still, if he went home now, chances were that despite possible transgressions, they'd hand him and his crew medals by the bucket, just to avoid the public relations catastrophe they would have at their hands if the story broke they were trying to go after a man who had put his life on the line to save women and children. Also, given the distances involved, the fact that the Dominion had its hands full and the fact that the record was clear that they had been the ones to open fire, in all likelihood there wouldn't be a major interstellar incident.

But on the other hand, if he left now he would take the only capital ship defending the convoy trying to flee Tanith out of the battle and therefore sentence tens of thousands to death. And his own crew members would have died in vain.

“
Thirty seconds until enemy ships are in attack position,” Commander Ranaissa reminded him.

“
Mes amis
, it's time to make a choice,” Beaufort spoke gently. “We've done all that was demanded of us, and we are within our rights to leave here and return to Earth. We are not bound by orders or duty to stay. We can outrun the Ashani, pick up our people on the ground, and then go home without further incident. No one would blame us.”

The consoles beeped steadily, but no other sound was heard. Except for the steady breathing of the officers of the bridge staff.

“But you all know what will happen if we leave. If we go, everyone aboard those ships dies. If we stay, maybe we can give them enough time to escape. Maybe not. You know the minds of the men and women under your command and speak for them,” Beaufort said, looking to each one of the bridge officers in turn. “This cannot be an order, but it is a choice. We can leave. Or we can stay and fight.” He let the words hang for a while, gave them a few seconds to sink in. “This is not a chance for glory, ladies and gentlemen. It isn't a movie or a book. I won't lie to you; you deserve better than that. If we stay we will probably die. We're outnumbered and outgunned by a professional enemy who will show us no mercy. I can't tell you to fight these odds. It's a choice. It is
your
choice. Do we stay, or do we leave?”

It wasn't a decision he could make for his crew. If these people out there had been Union citizens or even just humans his course of action would have been clear and unopposed. But it was something different top put it all on the line for aliens from halfway across known space with zero emotional relation or importance to humankind.

“Fifteen seconds, skipper,” his first officer reported stoically.

“
Captain,” Lieutenant McLane, the ship's gunnery officer, was the first to speak. “We swore oaths to protect those that need it. I don't remember the oaths limiting that to humans. I say we stay.”

“
Stay,” Belasquez agreed from sensors.

One by one each department head gave the same answer: each one chose to stand firm and do the right thing, whatever the cost.

Commander Ranaissa turned in her chair to face Beaufort directly, the middle aged man meeting her gaze. “I know the crew would agree. There isn't one of us who'd leave these people to die,” she smiled. “You taught us too well for that, skipper.”

Beaufort had to swallow a lump in his throat. The sensation he felt was odd, a mixture of intense pride coupled with humility. More than anything else it told him that this was the right place to be, and that he was in the company of the finest people he had ever had the good fortune to meet. “Thank you,” he said quietly, then took a deep breath. “All right, people. We have a job to do.”

“Aye, sir! Lead enemy elements five seconds out,” Ranaissa called, thinly gloved hands running over her console.

“
All weapons ready. Turrets Echo and Foxtrott operating on auxiliary power. Remaining drones moving to face the enemy,” McLane added.

“
A shame we can't raise the next fleet base. Comm, can you put me through to the ground detachment?” Beaufort asked.

“
No sir. All communications are being jammed.”

“
Understood. If we survive we'll retrieve them in person. If not... God be with them.” Miles Beaufort bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the dangers the situation posed to
all
of his crew. He hoped it was worth it. “Weapons, do you have those missile firing solutions I wanted?”

“
Plotted and ready, sir.”

“
All missile tubes: fire at will!” JOHNSTON's captain bellowed. “Guns, concentrate on enemy cruiser. Weapons free!”

“
Enemy in range, firing,” McLane called out.

Once again the exchange commenced almost simultaneously.

Flames belched from missiles tubes on both sides of the cruiser and from the six it carried in its bow, arrayed around its hangar bays. Six railgun turrets – four facing forward on the port- and starboard side and one dorsal and one ventral – opened up, hurling their twenty kilogram metal slugs against the incoming Ashani.

The Dominion's response sent howling damage alarms and shudders and screams of tearing metal through JOHNSTON's hull. While the human interceptor drones and laser clusters on both sides stitched the debris littered space between the two forces into a tapestry of exploding nuclear warheads, there was no way to intercept plasma laser beams or railgun rounds. The Ashani cruiser's main batteries bathed the
Leyte
-class ship's bow in fire. The six destroyers, clearly not the missile-heavy type ONI had gathered data on, added their own fire, tearing into the armor and superstructure. Their weapons were lighter than those of the
Sunchaser
-class cruisers, but each carried six in its main firing arc.

Counter-missile launchers one and two ceased to exist, their highly explosive warheads vaporized in an instant. With them vanished the auxiliary control crews manning the duty stations close to them. The primary frontal LIDAR array took a direct hit, putting it permanently out of action. Missile tubes one through five were turned into lumps of molten metal only microseconds after their birds had started. Most of the long antennas and sensor mounts crumpled under the heat like singed cloth, leaving behind a twisted nightmare landscape right out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Two of the Ashani cruiser's main lasers cut through the thick bulkhead of the main hangar bay and the adjacent pressurized compartment. Howling like a hell mouth, the atmosphere raced out into the vacuum in a superheated hurricane filled with razor-sharp debris sped up to the speed of sound, cutting down the flight maintenance crew that had waited nearby in their shock harnesses. The gashes in JOHNSTON's hull glowed scarlet.

It was a fearsome opening move by the Ashani cruiser. It was also the last move it ever made. The human warship had concentrated all its available main battery on her, and even though two turrets operated on auxiliary power and accelerated their projectiles to just a quarter of their comrades' speed: at the close range the exchange was taking place, JOHNSTON's salvo was the equivalent of a shotgun blast into an unprotected chest. The two slugs from Alpha turret came in at slightly divergent angles, ripping through the enemy ship's spiked, maw-like bow like dumdum bullets, gyrating and tearing open paths the size of a small house in their wake. The shots from Bravo turret and her four companions slammed into her like blades, roaring down her full length and gutting her as completely as Vlad the Impaler had done to his victims fourteen hundred years earlier. But the Ashani vessel was lucky. Hers was a quick death. A twenty kilogram slug traveling at fifty thousand kps left no wounded behind. Just as JOHNSTON's bow flared in the rush of lasers and escaping and burning atmosphere, the
Sunchaser
-class vessel tore up from the inside, vanishing in a series of explosions running down its hull.

“
We've lost most of our bow sensor array. Alpha and Beta turrets are running on auxiliary power, Heavy casualties in Section One!” Commander Ranaissa yelled over the thunder of explosions and moaning metal. Besides decks, every Union warship was divided into sections, each having their own auxiliary power systems and damage control teams. The larger the ship, the more sections it had. JOHNSTON had seven.

“
Enemy cruiser down!” McLane called out from his duty station.

“
Destroyers are trying to flank us, sir! Frigates still on approach, taking evasive maneuvers.” That was Belasquez, the sensor officer. “With the loss of the bow sensors and the radiation and all the debris out there, they're hard to track!”

“
Helm, up the zed thirty degrees and full ahead! Weapons, fire at will!” Beaufort barked his commands, holding on to his seat as another series of laser impacts rocked his ship. They did less damage than the first salvo, with many of them failing to even penetrate the cruiser's thick armor. But he didn't take any chances. His ship was outnumbered nine to one and wounded. By rising compared to the ellipsis and rushing forward he could pull his mangled bow from the line of fire and bring his aft turrets to bear and –

“
Drones down! Missile getting thr– ”

McLane's outcry was cut short as a massive hammer blow struck JOHNSTON, throwing everybody aboard roughly into their shock harnesses, driving the air out of their lungs and leaving more than one with broken ribs and in a state of unconsciousness. The cruiser bucked like a wild horse and a nigh imperceptible light pierced the eyes of everyone. Beams cried like living things and hull plating deformed inwards. For the blink of an eye the lights and consoles flickered, and when they came back online the shrill beep of a radiation alert raced through the ship. Automatically their suits medical systems pumped painkillers and anti-radiation drugs into the bloodstreams of the most affected crew members.

“Report!” Beaufort's command came out in a croak. “Somebody put that bloody alert out!”

Therese shook herself in her seat, then concentrated on the data her console fed her. Her face paled. “The ventral sensor and defense tower's gone, skipper. Direct hit by a nuke. Computers peg it at around one hundred megs. All arrays and laser clusters there are gone. Damn it, the whole
structure
's gone.” Her fingers raced across her console. “Ventral turrets and clusters operating on secondary circuits. Heat and radiation have penetrated through the four upper decks at the center. Lots of casualties, sir,” she added grimly.

“
How many, XO?”