Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2) (8 page)

Things couldn’t get any worse.

“Captain,” Ensign Lewis announced. “Several new heat signatures have appeared on the planet’s horizon, in the same general area where Barrick took the shuttle. They’re alien.”

J
onathan exhaled sharply. “Alien?”

“Yes sir,” Ensign Lewis said. “The heat signatures are a match with the enemy fighters we encountered before.”

“A match?” Jonathan glanced at Robert. “I guess I’d hoped the aliens had herded us to some random system. But it looks like they already have some sort of frontier presence in this galaxy.”

The commander didn’t answer. He appeared to be completely zoned out.

“Robert, I need you to focus.”

The commander snapped to attention. “Sorry, Captain.”

“Maxwell,” Jonathan said. “Sound General Quarters.”

Jonathan tapped his lips as the AI played the call to general quarters over the main circuit.

“Miko, recall the Dragonfly and her escorts.”

“Recalling...” Miko answered.

“We’re not going to fight?” Ensign Lewis said.

Miko glanced at her. “If there are fighters nearby...”

Jonathan nodded. “Then there is at least one mothership out there. Probably more. Likely hiding behind the planet. What’s our range to the enemy fighters?”

“Twenty-five thousand kilometers.” 

That was some good news. The plasma weapon found on the larger enemy warships was extremely short range, and functioned best between five to ten thousand kilometers, though the beams from individual alien ships could be combined to increase that effective range. Though if they had one of those specialized laser ships hidden somewhere behind that planet, vessels whose ranges were upward of one hundred thousand kilometers, then the fleet would be in trouble.

“Sir,” Ensign Lewis said. “I’m receiving damage reports from launch bay three!”

Jonathan shot her an urgent look. “What? Launch bay
three?
What’s happening?”

“The four captured fighters have come alive,” Lewis said. “They’ve shot down the robot guards, and are straining against the straps holding them down.”

“Send in more combat robots! I want the MOTHs—”

“Sir,” the ensign interrupted. “It’s too late. All four have escaped. There is extensive damage to launch bay three and the adjacent passages and compartments. Breach seals have activated, and are holding.”

Jonathan saw four red dots appear on his tactical display, moving hastily away from the
Callaway
.

“Damn it. Miko, fire point defenses. Take them out. That’s four more fighters we’re giving the enemy.”

“Firing,” Miko said.

Jonathan tapped in the chief weapons engineer. “Harv, four of our captured fighters just woke up and flew away. Are you detecting anything unusual in yours?”

“I am indeed,” Harv answered. “One of the components seems to have powered to life. I’m finally detecting energy readings. Of course, since we’ve dismantled the whole thing, the fighter won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”

“The
Aurelia
and
Dagger
are reporting similar activity in their dismantled enemy fighters,” Ensign Lewis said.

“We only shot down two of them,” Miko announced. “The others are getting away.”

On the tactical display, Jonathan saw that of the four escapees, only two indeed remained, and they were moving rapidly toward the planet to join their alien brethren. The pair gave the returning Avenger drones a wide berth.

“I don’t suppose our returning drones could intercept?” Jonathan asked.

“Negative,” Miko said. “The closest they’ll pass by is five thousand kilometers. Not enough for the Avenger Cobras to cause any real damage. They could try X90 Hellfires, but the enemy is likely to shoot down the missiles at that range.”

Jonathan studied the display. “What if we fired Vipers fleet-wide at the same time, concentrating on a single enemy fighter, could we take it out from here?”

Miko shook his head. “We don’t have enough charge on the Vipers yet. By the time we do, the escapees will be out of range. Unless they decide to sit still for a full ten seconds and let us drill into them.”

“Too bad.” Jonathan clasped his hands and steepled the index fingers. “We have the same range issues with the farther enemy fighters?”

“We do,” Miko said.

Jonathan pressed his fingers together more tightly. “All right, increase speed to seventy percent thrust. Have the task group match. I don’t want to leave anybody behind. Let’s continue swinging past the planet. Put as much distance as we can between ourselves and the enemy.”

His aReal projected the three dimensional representation of the surrounding battle space over his vision. He watched the blue dots representing the fleet and the smaller drone Avengers move away from the red dots of the enemy fighters.

“Can we outrun them at our current speed?” Jonathan asked.

“No,” Miko said. “They’ll slowly overtake us. We have about two hours until we’re within range of their slugs and lasers.”

Jonathan focused on the Dragonfly and its fighter escort; the small crafts seemed to grow no closer to the
Callaway
.

“The Avengers?” he asked Miko.

“They’re barely able to match our current speed.”

“Slow to half thrust,” Jonathan said. “And instruct the Dragonfly to prepare for docking.”

“And the unmanned Avengers?” Miko asked.

“Drones are to remain in escort positions.”

Jonathan considered retrieving the Avengers, too, but he recognized that he would eventually have to dispatch more, these with manned humans, to help protect them from the enemy fighters anyway. The only craft worth retrieving at the moment was the Dragonfly containing the combat robots.

“Ensign,” Jonathan said. “Are we detecting the commandeered shuttle’s heat signature among the enemy?”

“No sign of the rogue shuttle’s heat signature,” Lewis said.

At least Jonathan wouldn’t have to worry about any psychic control attempts on any manned fighters he launched, then.

When the Dragonfly was within range, Jonathan had the helm initiate an emergency braking maneuver to allow the craft to dock, because while fighters and shuttles could be launched under way, it was extremely dangerous for the crafts to land at speed.

When the shuttle was successfully aboard, Jonathan had the helm accelerate to seventy percent once more. The deployed Avengers had closed the gap by then, so they flew directly alongside the
Callaway
. Because of the retrieval, his ship currently trailed the task group.

“Time to contact?” Jonathan asked the ensign.

“It’s the same,” Ensign Lewis said. “Still two hours.”

“Still two hours? Why?”

“This is odd,” Lewis said. “But the fighters slowed down at the same time we did. It looks like they don’t want to close and engage. It’s almost as if they simply desire to herd us away from the planet.”

“Or Barrick,” Jonathan said. He studied the tactical display on his aReal for long moments. Then he announced: “Full stop.” He tapped his lips with splayed fingers, not looking from the red dots on the display.

“Enemy fighters are slowing,” Lewis said. A moment later: “Enemy fighters have stopped.”

Jonathan nodded. “Let’s call their bluff. Reverse course. Seventy percent thrust.
Callaway, Salvador, Dagger,
and
Maelstrom
only. Leave the
Aurelia
here guarding the
Grimm
and
Marley
.”

Helm and tactical echoed his orders.

Jonathan watched on his aReal as the four ships proceeded toward the unmoving fighters.

“Enemy fighters are retreating,” Ensign Lewis said in wonder. She glanced up. “They definitely don’t want to engage.”

“Continue the pursuit,” the captain said. “Maintain current distance from enemy fighters. Ensign, launch a telemetry drone off our starboard bow.” Like Avengers, drones could be launched while under way, but could only be retrieved at low accelerations. “Send it toward the planet on a high orbit. And when I say high, I mean it: give that rock a wide berth, no closer than thirty thousand kilometers. I want a safe bead on whatever might be hiding behind it.”

He watched the drone depart. The task unit chased the enemy fighters closer to the planet, and when Jonathan deemed that the drone was far enough away to avoid any enemy pursuit, he updated his orders.

“All right, full stop. Recall the unmanned Avengers.”

A few moments later Miko said: “Avengers have returned to cove.”

“Rendezvous the fleet with the
Aurelia
. Let’s regroup.”

When they were under way, Ensign Lewis said. “Enemy fighters are turning around.”

“Pesky little things, aren’t they?” Jonathan said.

When they reached the
Aurelia
and the other two ships, Jonathan called for a halt once more. The enemy fighters stopped, too, maintaining their twenty thousand kilometer distance.

“Ensign,” Jonathan said. “How are we doing on the telemetry drone?”

“It should have the far side of the planet in view in twenty minutes,” Lewis replied.

The captain sat back and folded his hands to wait. He glanced at Robert, who hadn’t said a word since Jonathan had told him earlier to stay focused. The expression on the commander’s face was grim.

Jonathan knew there wasn’t anything he could really tell his friend to allay his fears. By that point, Barrick’s Dragonfly was either captured by the enemy, or destroyed. Probably the former option, if previous alien behavior was anything to go by. Barrick probably wanted that very thing, which only confirmed Jonathan’s suspicions that the telepath was colluding with the enemy. Instructing the man to attempt telepathic communication with the alien captive had obviously been a very bad idea.

Twenty minutes passed.

“Well, Ensign?” Jonathan said impatiently.

“We’re still not seeing anything on the far side as of yet,” Lewis replied.

“There has to be some sort of mothership out there,” Jonathan said. “Ensign Lewis, is it possible there’s a ship somewhere on the surface?”

The ensign frowned. “It’s entirely possible. But because of the thick cloud coverage, we’d have to send the telemetry drone much closer if we wanted to confirm that.”

“How much closer are we talking?”

“Under the clouds closer,” Lewis answered. She stiffened. “Wait a second. Wait. I’m finally reading a new heat signature. It’s just cresting the far horizon.”

“Let’s have a visual,” Jonathan said.

She sent the view from the drone to his aReal. He saw a sliver of thermal radiation on the far tip of the planet.

“Do we have a match with that signature anywhere in our database?” Jonathan asked.

“Negative,” the ensign said. “At least not yet. It’ll be another minute before the drone moves enough to resolve the object entirely.”

When the prerequisite amount of time had passed, Lewis said: “I have a match. The signature appears to belong to one of the smaller alien ships. Their corvette class. I have a visual-spectrum image.”

“Put it up.”

The telemetry drone image appeared on his aReal. On it was a ship design Jonathan was all too familiar with. Small fins protruded from the four quadrants of the aft section, but otherwise the mirrorlike hull was devoid of superstructures. Because of its dagger shape, the vessel bore a vague resemblance to a United Systems corvette, which was why Lewis had called it that. Yet at two kilometers in length and seven hundred and fifty meters at the beam, it was the size of a United Systems capital ship. The actual alien capital ships were about four times as large.

“There are no other ships out there?” Jonathan asked.

“None that I can see, yet,” Lewis said. “The telemetry drone is continuing its orbit, of course. Perhaps we’ll see something more.” She paused. “This is odd.”

“What is it?”

“I’m seeing markings on the hull that are consistent with the damage we caused to T3,” the ensign answered.

“T3?” Jonathan said. “You mean the alien prison ship that had captured the crew of the
Selene?
” T3 was the designation they had given the aforementioned ship in the previous battle, and stood for “target three.”

“The very same,” Lewis told him. “There are small runnels in the hull in the place of the gashes we caused. Similar to the repair marks you’d find on one of our own ships.”

“So what are you saying?” Jonathan said. “This ship is the same one we chased out of Vega 951 six months ago?”

“It would appear that’s the case,” the ensign answered.

“But how is that possible?” Jonathan said. “That ship fled through the 2-Vega Slipstream, which, according to our preliminary readings, was supposed to end in a brown dwarf system forty-eight lightyears from Vega 951. How could it end up here, at the same endpoint as 1-Vega?”

“Maybe they edited 2-Vega as well?” Robert said, finally speaking up.

“But why?” Jonathan said. “To act as some advance party to prepare the way for the others of their kind?”