Starbound (35 page)

“Forward coil cannons on the HuKs, both port and starboard, Mr. Marker. The XO will feed you the firing solutions. I want to destroy them if we can or disable them if we can't so that Zander's men can do the cleanup. Then I want all our torpedoes on the first dreadnought,” I said.

“Aye, sir!” snapped Marker from his station. I for one was glad to have him on the bridge. It was Babayan's idea, and a good one. Without Serosian on the bridge he was the most experienced weapons officer available.

“And the second dreadnought?” Babayan asked.

“We'll deal with her after we get that first one off of
Valiant
,” I said.

“Where are the Carinthians?” George Layton asked. I gave him a worried look.

“I wish I knew. Ensign Layton,” I called.

“Yes, sir,” said the helmsman's young sister eagerly from her com station.

“Any luck raising Captain Maclintock on
Valiant
?”

“Not as yet, sir.”

“Are you trained on the longscope com systems, Ensign?” I asked.

“Yes, sir!” she replied.

“Then get up here,” I motioned to the 'scope. “Prepare a com probe. We'll have her trail a longwave back to us and then bore an HD tunnel through to
Valiant
. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” she said again as she took up her position under the 'scope. George went to assist her, but I waved him back.

“If she's trained, she can handle it,” I said quietly to my helmsman. “I need you on your board.”

“Understood, Captain.”

We waited the remaining minutes until we reached the battle zone. I had Longer decelerate us to a fraction of our top impeller speed so that we could engage the HuKs.

“Do you have the firing strategy loaded, Mr. Marker?” I said as we approached the battlefield.

“Aye, sir!” he said.

“On my mark then,” I said. I watched as we entered firing range on the first HuK. She was trying to evade us, but we were too quick for her. “Starboard coil cannons, fire!” I commanded. The coil cannon
array, a cluster of three rotating cannon ports, fired a two-second energy plasma burst, each cannon expunging her load and then cycling back to recharge her mixture of gas and plasma while the next port cycled through.

George Layton had to keep the ship on course in conjunction with the cannon port's targeting limitations to keep a firing solution on the HuK. After the first volley the HuK went critical, her defensive systems overloading and her propulsion reactors breaking under the stress of our cannon fire. A second volley resulted in a satisfying explosion from the ship, the last two bursts hitting empty space or debris where the enemy ship had been.

“Hard to port, helmsman. Port coil cannons on the second HuK, Mr. Marker!”

“Aye, sir” came from both men in unison, and they both did their jobs to perfection,
Starbound
twisting her way through the debris field of the first HuK and targeting the second. A few seconds later and the second HuK had also gone up in flames. I watched as Zander's Wasp
Benfold
, now free of the opposition that had been pinning her down, accelerated like a gunshot toward her third HuK tormentor, firing a barrage of missiles. In a few seconds she had turned the HuK into a pile of burning debris as she vented gasses into space. I didn't want to think about the possibility the flames might represent oxygen for a human crew, but ultimately, again, it didn't matter to me. They were the enemy.

Zander wobbled his wings at me as he crossed our path a few hundred clicks in front of us. That elicited a round of unexpected laughter from the crew as he gathered his comrades and they made a run for the second battle group of HuKs.

“Let it be noted that Captain Zander still has his sense of humor,” I said, smiling. But now it was back to grim business. The closest of the two dreadnoughts was dead ahead.

“Time to intercept on the first dreadnought, Mr. Longer?” I asked.

“Two minutes seventeen seconds to coil cannon range,” Longer replied.

“But she's in range of our torpedoes now, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

I nodded. “Mr. Marker.”

“Sir!”

“A volley of torpedoes, if you please. And let's not play games here. Use the fifty-megaton warheads,” I ordered.

“Yes, sir,” said Marker, who turned back to his board while Commander Babayan fed him targeting coordinates. I walked over to the longscope station.

“Ensign Layton, status of my longwave probe?”

“Ready when you are, Captain,” she said back. I looked to George Layton, who smiled, proud of his little sister.

“Launch the probe, maintain contact, and let me know when you have the commodore on the line.”

“Aye, sir!” she said enthusiastically again. I walked back to my chair, passing Layton as I went.

“Were we ever that young, George?” I whispered. He smiled.

“Two years ago, sir,” he said. I wanted to laugh, but . . .

“Captain Maclintock on the longwave, sir,” said Ensign Layton from the longscope station. She'd done a good job.

“On the main display screen please,” I said. A jagged, grainy view of Maclintock on the bridge of
Valiant
appeared.

“Glad you could make the party, Captain,” he said.

“Glad to be here,” I responded. “We had a surprise waiting for us at Levant.”

“Carinthians?”

I shook my head. “Dreadnought. Same field configuration as the one that attacked
Valiant
at Sandosa, sir. And she came in using the direct jump method, triangulating on us with HuK support ships,” I reported.

“What happened?” he asked.

“The enemy was dealt with, sir. Levant is safe,” I replied. The screen broke up then, but the ensign got the signal back quickly.

“If you can get one of these things off my ship, I would appreciate it, Captain,” said Maclintock.

“Unfortunately,
Starbou
nd
is too close to use the mass-destruction gravity weapon Captain Cochrane used at Levant.” The words came from behind me. They were spoken by Serosian, who had come on to the bridge at some point during the conversation. The Historian took a step closer to the screen, walking in front of me on my own bridge. “I cannot recommend their use again,” he finished.

“Noted, Historian,” said Maclintock. “
Valiant
's Historian Virinius concurs that we are in too-tight quarters to use those weapons. What are our options for pushing these things back out of the system?”

“Limited,” I said, stepping between Serosian and the main display. “If we continue at this pace, we'll be out of missiles before we can do enough damage to force them to retreat. Then it becomes a shooting war with energy weapons. Our defenses can hold them off indefinitely, but . . .”

“But we can't keep fighting them that way forever. Understood. Do you have an option, Captain Cochrane?”

“I do, sir, if you'll let me—” At that instant the signal was cut off. I turned to the longscope station.

“Ensign?”

“Longwave probe destroyed by enemy fire, sir,” she said. “I can prepare another.”

“There isn't time. We'll be engaging the nearest dreadnought in less than a minute. Clear the longscope station, Ensign,” I ordered, then took the station myself, bringing up the weapons display.

“Ready with torpedoes, Captain,” said Babayan in my ear com.

“Fire at will, XO,” I ordered, then went to my weapons display. All systems were available to me. I pulled up the gravity weapons display.

“You could destroy
Valiant
if you use the gravity plasma this close to her,” said Serosian in my ear com. He had taken up his bridge station.

“I'm aware of that. It's not my intent at this point,” I replied.

“Then what is?” I let the line stay silent between us. On my display the high-yield torpedoes impacted against the defensive fields of the dreadnought. Even hardened against such weapons, the dreadnought took a pounding as layers of skin and metal debris peeled off her massive sides from the explosions. It had the desired effect. She turned to close on
Starbo
und
.

“And now the game begins,” I said into the com, so only Serosian could hear.

A Battle at Pendax

I
had no intenti
on of taking on the
dreadnought head-on.
We were a match for
each other in terms
of defenses but the
Imperial ship had s
uperior torpedoes in
both number and yie
ld, and we had super
ior energy weapons,
but relying on those
would be like tryin
g to kill an elephan
t with a pocketknife
. It could potential
ly go on forever. We
had a nearly unlimi
ted source of power
for our defensive fi
eld and energy weapo
ns via the ship's HD
crystals, but there
would come a time w
here continuing the
battle would no long
er be an option. We
had to get this over
quick, and I had a
plan.

“Is the dreadnought still closing on us?” I called to Babayan on my com.

“Aye, sir. Fifteen hundred kilometers and closing,” she replied. “She'll need to get closer to fire her torpedoes. At this distance we could pick them off with our coil cannons.”

“Range to
Valiant
?” I asked.

“Twenty-eight hundred clicks, sir,” she said. I came out from under the longscope.

“Full reverse, Mr. Longer. What speed is the dreadnought making?” Longer looked down at his board, then turned back to me.

“About ten clicks per second, sir,” he said.

“Make our speed twelve, helm,” I ordered.

“Sir, with the hybrid drive we can make much better speed than that,” Longer said.

“I'm well aware of that, Mr. Longer. Please follow my orders,” I replied.

“Aye, sir.” Babayan came up to me.

“What's your play?” she said.

“Get them as far away from the battlefield and our defending ships as possible,” I stated.

“And then?”

I turned to my XO. “Snuff them out of existence.”

Our ploy went well enough for five solid minutes, always pulling the dreadnought away from the battlefield. Tactical showed that Zander had lost another Wasp, but they had taken out a fourth HuK and were working on the other two. Then things changed.

“Sir, the dreadnought is breaking off, returning to the battlefield,” reported Babayan. That was the news I was waiting for. I went to the longscope and pulled up the gravity weapons display, then selected the gravity tow field, essentially a beam of gravity plasma that would attach itself to the dreadnought and pull her in the direction I wanted. I fired up the weapon and activated the beam. It took only seconds to impact the dreadnought. The effect was instantaneous. The dreadnought was under my control. I came out from under the longscope hood.

“Helm, set course for the jump point. Propulsion, what's our best speed with the dreadnought under tow?” I asked. He ran calculations on his board again.

“About point-zero-zero-zero-eight light, sir,” said Longer.

“Do it. When we reach one hundred thousand clicks from the battlefield, let me know,” I ordered.

“That will be about seven minutes, sir,” he said. Then Serosian was at my shoulder, and I knew what he wanted to talk about.

“You could drag the dreadnought back to the jump point. Give them a chance to escape,” he said. I turned to face him, speaking quietly but firmly.

“And how do we know they'll take it? This is an enemy that seems to only respond to brute force. I can drag them all over this system but I can't make them jump out of it, and at this point, what incentive do they have? They can keep us at stalemate forever until they get reinforcements, and then they'll finish us. Right now we have one advantage, and I'm going to use it,” I finished.

“You'll destroy the dreadnought. Again,” said Serosian.

“That is my plan.”

“Ten thousand more lives on your head, Captain?”

“If that will save as many Union lives, then yes. There is always a chance that the other dreadnought will see the wisdom of retreat, and maybe we'll have a chance to save the souls on
that
ship.”

“I'm disappointed in you, Peter,” he said.

“Then perhaps I'm not the man you thought I was.” He looked at me, impassive.

“Perhaps you're not,” he said.

Six minutes later and we had reached the 100,000 click mark. I put my plan into motion. Serosian had left the bridge, and that was fine with me. I didn't have time to worry about the deterioration of our relationship when I still had a battle to fight.

I disengaged the tow field and switched to the gravity-implosion weapon.

“Range to the dreadnought, Mr. Layton?” I asked.

“Nineteen hundred clicks, sir,” he replied.

“Give us some distance, helm. I want a five-thousand-click bubble at a minimum,” I said. That wasn't as difficult as it sounded. The dreadnought, once released from our tow, was now able to maneuver and she was turning slowly to make her way back to the battlefield and
Valiant
. Our speed was pulling us away from her, and the distance between us started to grow rapidly.

“Four thousand,” called Layton. I activated the gravity-implosion weapon and started the firing sequence.

“Forty-five hundred.”

I had a yellow light on my board. Not quite ready yet.

“Five thousand, sir.”

“Acknowledged,” I said. I was still yellow.

My board went green at six thousand. I fired the weapon at sixty-five hundred.

The dreadnought warped, collapsed, imploded, and then disintegrated in a shower of silver sparks. I shut down the longscope station. Everyone in the Pendax system would have seen that light show. Whether the remaining Imperial units survived or not depended on what they did next. It took thirty seconds for their response.

“Captain Maclintock on the line, sir,” said Ensign Layton.

“On the bridge display please,” I said. Maclintock appeared from his bridge.

“The remaining dreadnought is bugging out, making for the jump point. She's ceased all communication interference,” he said.

“And the HuKs?” I asked.

“There's only one left, and Zander won't let it escape,” said Maclintock.

“Understood, sir.” I couldn't blame him. He'd lost four ships today. “What's your status, sir?”

“We have fifteen dead here, Peter. Our Hoagland Field was
penetrated by some sort of vibrational frequency fluctuation weapon they were using. It cut small holes in the field, but when you're fending off atomic weapons and coil cannons . . .”

“Understood, sir. Do you need assistance?” I asked.

“No, Captain. But I do need you to parallel that dreadnought to the jump point and make sure it goes through. This is no time for complacency and we're still picking up the pieces here.”

“Aye, sir,” I said. “I will report when she's gone, sir.”

“Carry on, Captain. Maclintock out.”

With that I ordered us to parallel the dreadnought at 60,000 clicks distance, just to be safe. Thirty minutes later we were still tracking her and she wasn't showing any signs of changing her tack. Perhaps the Imperial fleet had learned their lesson. At her slow pace we were still another thirty minutes from the jump point. It looked like the Battle of Pendax was over, but looks could be deceiving, I reminded myself.

Right on schedule, things changed.

“Captain, detecting hyperdimensional displacement wave signatures coming from the dreadnought,” yelled Marker from his weapons console. “She could be arming a weapon.”

“Hoagland Field to max,” I ordered, then checked the tactical display. She was indeed resonating with a higher dimensional frequency, but was showing no signs of turning to attack
Starbo
und
.

“What's she doing?” said Babayan, looking at the same data I was.

“There's only two reasons why you'd match frequencies with a higher dimension. One would be to charge an energy weapon. The other would be to jump,” I said.

“But she's not close to the jump point. We're still half an AU out,” said Babayan. At that instant the dreadnought winked out of our existence and into hyperdimensional space.

“Exactly, XO,” I said. “She already had coordinates to jump to. She didn't need the jump point. She's just showing us what she can do,” I said.

“Jumping without needing a jump point?”

I nodded. “Turn us around, Mr. Layton, back to the battlefield,” I ordered.

“Sir!” It was Marker again. Something in his voice brought me to full alarm. I looked down to his station.

“What is it, Master Chief?” I said.

“If I'm reading this correctly, sir, the whole damned Carinthian Navy just came through the jump point,” said Marker.

I looked at my tactical board. Three Lightships. Ten heavy cruisers. Destroyers, scouts, even battlefield auxiliaries. Thirty-two ships in all.

“Ensign Layton,” I said to the young com officer. “Get me Commodore Maclintock back on the longwave, now!”

“Keep your distance, we're coming to you,” was Maclintock's last order. That had been ten minutes ago. Behind us the Union fleet was closing to 300,000 kilometers. In front of us the Carinthian fleet was coming at us at .0005 light from the jump point, but decelerating all the way to establish a battlefield. We were maintaining a cushion of just ten thousand clicks from the Carinthians as we retreated toward our own forces.

The Carinthians were arrayed in a tight “I” formation, with
Impulse II
, and Dobrina, on the forward point, a second Lightship,
Avenger
, close behind, and the third,
Vixis
, trailing the formation. The rest of the ships formed flanks on either side with their heavy cruisers outside and the weaker destroyers and scouts inside.

We were outnumbered three Lightships to two, and we had only eight battle-damaged Wasps in our support flotilla. We did have our enhanced Hoagland Fields and higher-powered coil cannon arrays, but no one wanted to use them on our own ships, or at least ships that
had been in the Union Navy only a few days ago. My best guess was that Prince Arin was commanding the attack from
Vixis
, as she'd been the Lightship docked at High Station One in the Carinthian system.