TFS Navajo: The Terran Fleet Command Saga – Book 3 (11 page)

Freyda continued to stare back at him, a look of uncertainty mixed with a hint of disappointment clouding her normally confident face. “I am sorry, sir, I …”

“No, Commander, you need not apologize. You show both courage and wisdom in questioning such orders. In fact, dealing with the potential repercussions of such a morally ambiguous action is a burden that I should bear alone.”

With that, Sarafi quickly entered the necessary instructions at his own Command workstation to direct fire at the two disabled warships. Just three seconds later, the two closest
Rusalov
battleships completed the loading cycle for their main guns and immediately fired six rounds at each target.

“Twelve shells in flight,” the
Gunov’s
tactical officer reported after placing windows displaying both of the damaged Terran warships on the port side of the bridge display screen. “Time to impact, one four and one six seconds, respectively.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

As the remaining seconds before impact ticked slowly past, not a word was spoken on the
Gunov’s
bridge. Each officer present did their level best to affect an air of the routine — busying themselves with their individual tasks as if doing so might somehow insulate them from the atrocity to which they had now become a party.

On the bridge display screen, six simultaneous explosions erupted along the entire length of the first Terran ship, followed shortly thereafter by an almost identical scene as the second ship also took six direct hits. The light and thermally enhanced images on the screen did little justice to the nuclear-induced hell that had just been unleashed aboard the enemy vessels, but it was clear enough that the fire spewing like geysers from each point of impact represented only a tiny fraction of what was taking place inside their hulls. Although both vessels remained intact, it was obvious that both were now little more than gutted hulks — adrift without power and, in all likelihood, with no survivors.

“Both enemy warships destroyed, Commodore,” the tactical officer finally reported after allowing what he hoped was an appropriate amount of time to pass. “The last Terran ship is maintaining course and has stopped accelerating. Time to intercept: four minutes.”

Chapter 9

TFS Theseus, Location Dagger

(3.3 light years from Earth)

“Transition complete, Captain,” Lieutenant Dubashi reported. “All systems in the green. C-Jump range 100.3 light years and stable. Sublight engines online, we are free to maneuver.”

“Tactical, what’s the status of Badger 2 Flight?” Prescott asked.

“Commander Waffer still has them broken out into two separate elements, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Schmidt reported. “Badger 21 is still in the same general area as before — and still in a position to cover the
Baldev’s
stern — but they have taken a few casualties. I’m showing two zero of the original two four fighters remaining. Badger 22 has lost one as well, but they have now been reinforced by Captain Zhukov’s six spacecraft for a total of one seven. Both elements are still engaged with Bravo 1’s fighters, but they do appear to have the upper hand at this point.”

“Are they taking fire from Bravo 1?”

“Sporadic fire only, sir. Our ships have remained in pretty close proximity with theirs, so Bravo 1 isn’t getting much of an opportunity to take a shot.”

“Are you still showing eighteen
Hunters
remaining?”

“Yes, sir. They’re still attached to Waffer’s Badger 21 element. Once Bravo 1 started launching fighters again, he sent all of the
Hunters
in the opposite direction. It looks like he intends to hold them in reserve for the time being.”

Prescott paused, weighing the potential benefits of assisting the remaining fighters versus another attack on the
Baldev
herself.

“What are you thinking?” Reynolds asked after a few moments.

“That we could probably transition pretty close to Badger 21 Flight and take out the remaining enemy fighters, possibly avoiding any further losses in the process.”

“But …”

“But in so doing, we would most likely make ourselves and our remaining fighters vulnerable to attack from the
Baldev
herself. As much as I hate to continue ignoring them, our only path to victory requires the
Theseus
to take out the battleship … or at least her supplemental shields. Do you concur?”

“I do, sir. And I don’t think you’ve been ignoring our fighters. Looking out for each other is one thing, but as soon as destroying the enemy is no longer the number one priority, defeat becomes a near certainty.”

“That’s pretty good, Commander. Did you just make that up?”

“Thank you, I did,” she smiled. “Now let’s get this over with before any more Resistance ships show up. The way things are going, I’m sure it will be more battleships.”

“Agreed. Ensign Fisher, how long until you have us in a position to C-Jump back?”

“To put us in a good position for another attack on the
Baldev’s
stern, six three seconds, sir.”

In spite of his usual efforts to maintain as relaxed an air as possible on his bridge, Prescott was beginning to feel the effects of prolonged, battle-induced stress. At the edges of his consciousness, there was a blurring of his normally keen perception coupled with an emotion that he rarely experienced in any significant measure — fear. It was not a fear born of physical cowardice so much as the crushing weight of responsibility now resting on his shoulders — the dread of failure magnified in the tired mind of a man who had rarely done so. Above all, it was the fear of making a mistake — even the simplest oversight or omission — leading immediately to the deaths of thousands and shortly thereafter to the deaths of billions.

Although, intellectually, Prescott knew the comparison to a little on the silly side, what kept coming to mind was the hopeless, sick feeling he had always experienced when stepping into the batter’s box as an eight-year-old child playing Little League baseball. He had hated baseball — had played mostly because he thought (incorrectly) that his father expected him to — and his utter lack of prowess on the field had borne witness to his corresponding lack of interest. Now, however, his childish anxiety of appearing foolish in front of his family and friends had been replaced by the stark reality that a mistake here could well mean the loss of … everything.

This will be the third time Yagani has seen us execute an almost identical attack,
he thought.
Is this what it feels like right before you get yourself and all the people who depend on you killed?

Swallowing hard to counteract the taste of bile rising in the back of his throat and a growing uneasiness in the pit of his stomach, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply before continuing.

“Alright Helm … Tactical,” he said in as close to his normal tone as he could manage, “with any luck, this will be the last time we have to do this. I want this attack run to play out like a combination of our first two. The first time we hit Bravo 1’s stern, we did more damage than expected, taking out a number of their supplemental shield emitters. But then we blew past them before we could capitalize on the effects of Schmidt’s point location attack. We corrected that problem during the attack on Charlie 4, but doing so forced us to remain under fire for an extended period of time. Probably the only thing that saved us from significant energy weapons damage was Charlie 4 shifting her fire to take out our fighters’ missiles and Bravo 1 holding her fire for fear of hitting their cruiser. I think we can all agree that it’s a very bad idea for us to spend that much time astern of Bravo 1. So this time, I want us to coordinate our attacks with a large-scale missile attack from our remaining RPSVs. Lieutenant Lee, I’d like you to handle the
Hunters
, please.”

“Aye, sir,” he replied confidently.

“Lieutenant Dubashi, before I go into more detail, please warn our fighters that we will be retaking control of our RPSVs and executing another attack on Bravo 1’s stern — ETA: zero two minutes. Tell them to launch their own missile strike on the battleship immediately if they see the supplemental shields drop.”

“Aye, sir,” Dubashi replied.

“We already know that a bunch of missile impacts aren’t enough to bring down Bravo 1’s shields on their own, but I do think we’ve established a pretty consistent pattern that there are limits to what they can withstand — particularly when we deliver an overwhelming amount of energy to a small area. So
this,
” he said, nodding towards the port view screen, “is what I want you to hit …”

Once again, the tactical assessment displayed a three-dimensional depiction of the
Baldev’s
drive section. After a brief pause, the AI zoomed in and placed a flashing red oval over an area where the supplemental shield emitter ring intersected with a cluster of additional emitters that appeared to be of a slightly different configuration.

“As you can see, in this section the supplemental emitter ring crosses through what the AI believes is one of the arrays for their primary aft shields. It’s also very close to their number three sublight engine thrust chamber. If we can concentrate our fire and punch through like we did on the first two attacks, I think we’ll have a pretty good shot at taking out everything in the area. As we saw with Charlie 4, even a momentary breach of their aft shields will allow a significant amount of our ordinance to reach their hull … hopefully resulting in another cascading series of failures and a dead battleship. Even if all we can do is destroy the supplemental emitters between here and here …” out of habit, Prescott pointed to the view screen, but the AI was already highlighting the referenced emitters in red as he spoke, “it should be enough to take down their additional shielding and open the gap for another C-Drive missile strike.”

“During our first two attacks, the AI chose points near the edge of overlapping emitter streams with reduced field strength,” Schmidt observed. “Is that the case here as well?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Prescott replied, shaking his head. “And if there’s a downside to targeting this area, I’d say that’s it. The
Baldev’s
designers seem to have done a pretty good job ensuring that those slightly weaker points do not occur over the most vital sections of the stern. This time, however, we’re going to add seventy-two missiles to our side of the equation, so, hopefully, that will more than make up for the slightly improved shielding at the target location.”

“Ready to C-Jump, sir,” Ensign Fisher interjected after having his attention drawn back to the Helm console by a series of electronic chirps.

“Is everyone clear on what we’re doing?” Prescott asked, looking each of them in the eyes and hoping that his own face wasn’t reflecting what he was feeling in his gut at the moment. “Ready, XO?”

“All departments still reporting combat ops readiness, Captain.”

“Alright, Fisher, let’s do this one last time.”

“Aye, sir. C-Jumping in 3 … 2 … 1 …”

On the bridge view screen, the relative positions of the
Baldev
and her fighters as well as both elements of Badger 2 Flight were indicated by several sets of red and green brackets along with accompanying blocks of informational text. Inside the red brackets labeled “Bravo 1,” the battleship grew quickly in size as
Theseus’
AI provided a visual representation of their nine-million-kilometer approach as if the entire journey had occurred in normal space.

“Transition complete, Captain,” Fisher reported as he rapidly advanced the destroyer’s sublight engines to full power and made a quick series of adjustments of their flight path towards the huge warship.

“Point location target acquired and locked,” Schmidt reported from Tactical 1. Optimum weapons range in three niner seconds.”

“They’re hitting us again with their grav beam, sir,” Fisher said as the now-familiar warning tones sounded from the Helm console. “The hyperdrive is offline.”

During
Theseus’
previous attack on the
Baldev’s
drive section, Captain Yagani had waited until the destroyer had reached its point of closest approach and was about to attempt a transition to hyperspace before opening fire. His primary goal in doing so had been to lure the
Theseus
in as close as possible in order to assess the effectiveness of his ship’s gravitic beam system against the Terran hyperdrive. He also believed at the time that the Human warship posed little if any threat to the
Baldev
with the possible exception of their hyperdrive-equipped missiles — and these he had easily nullified by engaging the supplemental shields now protecting his stern. This time, however, Yagani was under no such illusion. Having now observed two examples where the Human destroyer had managed to concentrate nearly all of its considerable firepower at a single location, he had no intention of allowing a third. Accordingly, the
Baldev
, lead vessel of her class and arguably the most powerful warship ever fielded by the Sajeth Collective, unleashed her full fury against the approaching Terran ship.

“Fox Charlie!” Lieutenant Lee announced excitedly as all eighteen of the remaining
Hunter
RPSVs fired half their payload of HB-7c missiles. “Seven two missiles inbound. The AI has control of their C-Jump timing from here.”

As if Lee’s announcement had somehow invoked the ire of a vengeful deity,
Theseus
shook violently from a series of impacts as the
Baldev
lit the space between the two vessels with orange-tinted energy weapons fire and the white flashes of light induced by shield intercept events.

Prescott’s attention was once again drawn to the tactical plot and its accompanying hull impacts counter. At first glance, the counter displayed twenty-three impacts, but rapidly increased to twenty-seven as the intensity of the incoming fire seemed to increase with every passing second.

“Helm, can you alter course to improve shield performance?”

“Negative, sir, not without breaking off our attack,” Fisher replied, raising his voice over the increasing din. “The AI is telling me ‘don’t fly here’ in every direction at the moment.”

“Optimum weapons range in one one seconds,” Schmidt reported.

***

From locations flanking
Theseus’
approach course, two Carrada Area Denial Weapons pods rotated slightly on their vertical axes, leading their target just enough to ensure maximum submunitions coverage at the predicted point of intercept. Although not generally designed for use against such large warships, the system’s earlier success against the Terran fighters had been noted by one of Captain Yagani’s tactical officers. Since the larger Human ship appeared to be equipped with similar shields, he had suggested that the Carrada might also prove effective as an additional layer of protection for the
Baldev’s
stern.

A relatively recent addition to the Sajeth Collective’s arsenal, four of the Carrada pods had recently been deployed aboard each of their newest warships. Captain Yagani, agreeing that the Terrans would likely attempt another attack against his drive section, had ordered his final two area denial pods be released by the last wave of departing fighters just minutes before the Human warship had transitioned back into the area.