Winds of Vengeance (21 page)

The First Imperium is a threat, perhaps the most dangerous in all the galaxy. But as the realization of what has happened to us sets in, how much pain will my people carry…and how can I make them know I understand, that I feel the same sense of loss they do?

Main Engineering Deck, E2S Compton

System G-35, Eleven Transits from Earth Two

Earth Two Date 11.26.30

“I don’t care if the indicators read normal. Get down there and check out that conduit meter by meter. Now!” Ang Minh stood in the middle of
Compton’s
main engineering section, shouting out orders rapid fire.

“Yes, Commander.” The voice was artificial sounding, electronic. The newest AIs had voices that were indistinguishable from those of humans, but no one wasted time putting leading edge voice synthesizers in engineering maintenance bots.

Minh had a dozen people working under him too, but
Compton
was a vast machine, with endless kilometers of corridors and vast amounts of wiring. He would give the orders, and he would send his precious few engineers to double-check the most important systems…but he knew it was the bots who would keep
Compton
functioning through the battle. Or not.

Admiral Frette’s last minute thrust order had probably saved
Compton
, pushing the ship just far enough to escape the lethal zone of the ten-gigaton detonation. But there were burnt out systems all over the ship, and he suspected the outer compartments were heavily contaminated. It was an easy fix, given time. But right now he had seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes before the flagship entered energy weapons range of the enemy.

He’d considered asking the admiral to pull back out of the line…but he knew that was impossible.
Compton
was a huge portion of the fleet’s firepower, the most massive and heavily-armed warship ever built by man. He suspected the fleet could win the fight even without the mighty flagship, but the longer it took them to wipe out the enemy ships, the more losses they would take. Holding
Compton
back meant more damage to the other ships, systems blown to scrap…men and women killed. Besides, Admiral Frette would never agree to stay in the rear of the battle, not while her ship could limp forward at half a gee. She was old school all the way, a disciple of the great Terrance Compton, and when she sent her people into battle, she went with them.

“The main batteries are still offline, sir.”

Minh spun around, turning toward the voice. It was Davis Horn, standing almost at attention, a painfully earnest expression on his face. Horn looked like a child to Minh, though he knew the lieutenant was twenty-five. Horn had been first in his class at the Academy, but he’d given up the position on the command track that was his due to pursue the engineering that was his first love. Minh would never admit it to the kid, but he suspected Horn could already go toe to toe with him on engineering knowledge.

“That’s unacceptable, Lieutenant. We’ll be in weapons range in sixteen minutes, and the admiral needs those guns.”

“I’ve run a complete diagnostic. It checks out, but we’re not getting energy flow to the main accelerators.”

“Fuck.” Minh took a deep breath. The reactors were fine, operating at one hundred percent well within designated safety parameters. And he doubted the radiation from the missile blast could have done any damage to the acceleration chambers themselves. He knew the problem had to be bullshit, some five-minute fix of a burned out circuit, but
Compton’s
main batteries were three kilometers long, mounted right into the ship’s spine. It could take a full shipyard crew a week to find the problem. But he had fifteen minutes.

“Take a dozen bots, Lieutenant…and scour every centimeter of that fucking thing. But I need it fixed, and I need you out of the chamber in thirteen minutes.”

Horn looked like he was going to argue, but Minh spoke first. “Just do it, Lieutenant.” Then he turned around and walked over toward the main control panel. He felt the urge to go with Horn, to prowl along the acceleration tubes himself. But he was responsible for the entire ship, and there were a hundred burnt out systems that needed his attention. And he had to admit to himself, if Horn couldn’t get it done, he probably couldn’t either.

“Fuck.” He muttered under his breath. It had been bad luck—just bad damned luck—that a missile had detonated so close to
Compton
. Admiral Frette’s tactics had been brilliant, and ninety-five percent of the incoming warheads had been intercepted. The odds against a detonation inside the danger zone of the flagship had been heavy. But it was a reminder to all of them, veterans who’d seen twenty years of peace, and the unblooded young crews that made up most of the fleet’s numbers…combat was unpredictable, and whatever could go wrong often did.

He stared up at the main display. He had over three hundred repair bots on
Compton
, and every one of them was committed right now. The flagship’s damage was nothing he’d normally find especially worrisome, at least not if he had time to conduct repairs. But fourteen minutes before the ship moved into close range and engaged the enemy battle line, it was a major problem.

He stared up at the screen, his eyes darting back and forth over the sections his bots were occupying. He sighed hard. “Units thirty-seven and thirty-eight…report to Lieutenant Horn at once.” The two bots had been working on one of the guidance arrays. It as a critical repair, as per the ‘book,’ but Minh knew he could work around it, cover the function with backup systems, at least for a while. But if the main batteries were still down when
Compton
entered firing range…

*    *    *

Nicki Frette sat in her chair, bolt upright, her eyes locked on the battle display. Maneuvering toward the enemy fleet, firing missiles—having missiles fired at you—it was all part of war in space. But to her, and most of the other veterans, it was the struggle that began when the fleet entered energy range that was truly the battle. The missile exchanges had their place, but between the vast distances involved and the sophistication of detection, jamming, and interception technology, the enormously powerful warheads were effectively relegated to a secondary system.

Though we came close to proving that assertion wrong almost blundering into that missile…

I hope that near miss wasn’t a sign of things to come…

Frette was extremely competent, a sharp, quick-witted officer…but she wasn’t completely immune to the superstitions that pervaded the service. And under the surface of her thoughts, her carefully-planned stratagems, she was wondering if she’d gotten the bad luck out of the way…or if it had just been a sign of things to come.

Her hand moved toward the com unit, but she stopped before it reached the controls. Ang Minh would let her know when the main batteries were back online. And she knew the gifted engineer would do everything possible to restore the weapons’ functionality. Humoring the commanding officer was a skill most successful engineers eventually acquired, but it was a waste of time. And she wasn’t about to lose even thirty seconds of precious engineering time just to make Minh humor her.

“Admiral, Commander McDaid’s birds have all landed. He reports minor damage to two ships. No losses, no injuries.”

“Very well.” She exhaled softly. She’d been a little worried about getting the fighters back on board before the final struggle began. She felt the urge to order the fighter-bombers rearmed for anti-ship operations, but she knew it was impossible.
Compton
had taken too much damage from the freak missile detonation, and most of the fighter bay crew and bots had been transferred to damage control ops.

She considered authorizing her other capital ship captains to launch their own fighters, but she knew a disorganized, piecemeal commitment of her wings would only result in more casualties. And if the fleet was going to move forward after the battle, she wanted her squadrons intact.

She glanced at her the readout at the corner of the main display. One minute to energy weapon range.

“Commander Kemp, fleet order…all batteries prepare to fire.”

“Yes, Admiral.” Kemp relayed the command. A few seconds later: “All vessels report ready, Admiral.” Another pause. “Our main batteries are still offline, but all secondary and tertiary weapons charged and ready to fire.”

Frette’s eyes moved across the main display. The fleet was in battle formation, her six capital ships clustered together, surrounded by the cruisers and lighter escorts. Her missiles had cleared away the forward enemy line…eight ships destroyed and four badly damaged. The energy attack would clear away the crippled ships, and then she would push ahead, split the enemy in two. Then the battle line would divide, moving against each enemy wing, and hitting the First Imperium ships from two sides.

“Reduce engines to one-quarter power. Divert energy to weapons systems.” The fleet had been decelerating, reducing velocity as it approached the enemy. Frette didn’t want a flyby attack, one where the two fleets zipped by each other, exchanging a few fleeting shots. She was looking for a battle of annihilation, and that meant staying in the combat zone as long as possible.

“All ships report engines at one-quarter. Ready to fire on your command.”

She stared ahead, watching the seconds count down. She felt strange, the sensation of imminent battle strangely familiar, almost as if the intervening twenty years had never happened. And yet on another level, combat seemed a distant memory, almost as if she’d imagined it all. But it had been real then…and it was real now. And Admiral Nicki Frette knew what she had to do.

“All ships…open fire.”

*    *    *

“I want full power to the main batteries…I don’t care where you find it.” Josie Strand was standing on
Starfire’s
bridge, shouting into her com unit. She knew she should be strapped into her chair like the rest of the bridge crew, but she was too fidgety, too restless. She was commanding her ship in battle. The seventy-seven other members of her crew were depending on her…as was Admiral Frette and the rest of the fleet. She’d been scared as she’d watched enemy missiles coming toward the fleet, and again as
Starfire
moved forward toward energy weapons range, but now that fear was mostly gone, or at least relegated to some deeper place in her mind. She was edgy, tense, her mind racing, trying to keep track of her ship’s fire, its damage…its place in the fleet.

“Captain, Commander Willis recommends we reduce reactor output twenty-five percent until his people can shore up the valves.”

Strand snapped her head around, glaring at her tactical officer with withering intensity. “Tell Commander Willis I want that reactor back up to full power, and I want it now!”

“Yes, Captain.” Arleigh Hahn’s voice was tense, a wave of uncertainty slipping into his tone. But he turned toward his workstation and relayed the captain’s order.

Starfire
had taken two solid hits from the enemy Gargoyle, and her reactor output was down to eighty percent. That wasn’t critical under normal conditions, but the vectors of
Starfire
and her adversary would bring the two ships within forty thousand kilometers before they passed each other, decelerating all the way. It would take almost an hour for her ship to come around for another pass…and she was determined to eliminate the need for such a time-wasting maneuver. She intended to destroy the enemy vessel…and then bring
Starfire
around the flank of the enemy left.

“Captain, Commander Willis says eighty percent is the best he can do…and even that is coming at a significant risk.”

Strand felt a wave of anger. It wasn’t logical, she realized that. David Willis knew his way around
Starfire’s
engineering spaces…and he was almost as much of a perfectionist as she was. If he said eighty was the best that was possible, she knew he was telling her the stone cold truth.

“Minimal power on all non-offensive systems.”

“Yes, Captain.” A few seconds later, the bridge lights dimmed, and the two extra workstations went dark.

Strand knew the same thing was happening all over her ship. Lights dimming, going out. Non-essential systems shutting down. Every watt of power not vitally needed for a critical system flowing to
Starfire’s
weapons.

She sat in her chair, reaching around, slipping her shoulder under the harness. She grabbed the headset she’d set aside, pulled it over her head. She could feel the probe slipping inside the socket at the base of her neck, then the few seconds of disorientation as her mind synced with the ship’s AI.

The direct neural connections were a major step forward in command support, a tool allowing the captain to monitor and control a ship almost like it was another limb. But it was difficult to adapt to the things, and their use remained optional. Many of the younger generation of officers embraced the system as they moved up into command positions. But Strand hated it, just as most of the Pilgrims did. She was young, the first Earth Two born officer to command a full blown capital ship, and she lacked the battle experience of those who had served on the old fleet. But she felt more comfortable with her Pilgrim colleagues than others her own age. She was an old soul, but she knew she wasn’t a Pilgrim, however much she felt like one sometimes. And unlike the Pilgrim commanders of most of the rest of the fleet’s heavy ships, she knew she was a rookie, new to battle. She needed every edge she could get.

She closed her eyes, trying to adjust to the strange sensations, the images in her mind. It was strange…all she had to do was think of something, and the information slipped into her mind. She could see—though ‘see’ wasn’t the right word, she knew—the reactor, the systems of her ship, looking surprisingly like arteries and muscles on some giant skeleton. She wasn’t an engineer, but she could see the damage from the two hits, like nasty scars.