Ship of Destiny

by Frank Chadwick

  “Bandit is firing again, sir,” Chief Bermudez reported.

  What the hell were they firing? Homer wondered. “Very well, Chief. Track it and see if you can pick up any sign of a small projectile cloud on the same trajectory.”

  “You think it’s something like the buckshot ordnance the uBakai used in the last war?” the captain asked him.

  “I don’t know, sir, but it’s got to be something.”

  Once the last coil gun package was fired and he received his report from Norquist, the captain ordered the Bay turned to begin its deceleration. In the moment of slight dizziness as the ship turned around its central axis, Homer listened to the calm voices issuing routine-sounding updates on range and closing velocity, as if the minutes they counted down might not be all the minutes any of them had left and he wondered if he was going mad, or if they were all mad.

  The numbers . . . nothing but numbers and he felt as if he lost his bearings, no longer knew what any of them meant. He looked at the captain. Bitka’s head was tilted slightly back, eyes half-closed, as if the numbers painted an elaborate picture in his head, as if he understood everything. What did he see?

  Homer visualized the attack swarm—the mix of Mark Five “colds” and decoys. It took two hundred and eighty seconds, almost five minutes, to launch the entire array of missiles and decoys. Since they left the coil gun at four kilometers a second, by the time the last ordnance launched, the first one was over a thousand kilometers downrange. The decoys would spread out, but only a few kilometers, so their attack “swarm” actually resembled a long, thin, ghostly spear hurtling toward the enemy.

  No, not toward the enemy, toward where the enemy would be in thirty minutes. But the Bay would be in range of their meson gun almost ten minutes before their own missiles could start engaging. What then?

  Homer’s tactical display lost much of its resolution as they finished their turn. Now the starlike hot torch of their fusion thruster was directly between the Bay and the long ship, blanking out their own onboard sensors. The only target information they had was from the passive sensor drone following the missile and decoy cloud.

  “Fire the boosters on Hot Alpha and Bravo,” the captain ordered. Behind them the two Mark Four missiles, floating on their own in deep space after Norquist’s bosun’s mates had ejected them from the launch bay, fired their solid-fuel rockets and leaped toward the enemy ships. There was no telling if the Guardians had picked up their attack swarm, but these two missiles would show up on their thermal sensors like two miniature stars. The plan was for the Guardian ship to concentrate its fire on these and assume the more deadly but cold and nearly invisible Mark Fives, sandwiched in amongst hundreds of decoys, were just part of the diversion. But that would all happen after they were within range of the enemy’s meson gun. And why had the captain only discharged two of their Mark Fours, and not all four of them as planned?

  Minutes later Homer watched the range tick down to sixty-eight thousand. The battle clock now read one hour twenty-seven minutes.

  “Helm, secure from acceleration,” the captain ordered. “Have Norquist discharge the last two Mark Fours and then resume full burn.”

  In those two minutes while Norquist’s bosuns ejected the other bulky Mark Fours, the tactical display sharpened up again with the fusion torch no longer between them and the enemy. The range dropped to under sixty-four thousand, about twenty-thousand kilometers out of the range of the meson gun, but still closing at thirty-six kilometers a second. The thrusters kicked in again, pressing them back in their chairs and fuzzing the tactical display.

  Missiles Hot Charlie and Hot Delta successfully deployed, Norquist reported to Homer and Captain Bitka on the command commlink channel.

  “TAC, fire the booster on Hot Charlie,” the captain ordered.

  Homer sent the remote firing signal and one of the two Mark Fours they had just deployed fired, showing up as an intense signature on the thermal tactical display, heading toward the alien ship. Homer glanced at the captain, not sure what he intended with this change in plan but not sure he should ask. The captain met his eye and shook his head.

  “Haven’t got it yet, TAC? Think it through. Range and closing rate?”

  “Range sixty-one thousand, closing now at thirty-three and a half kilometers per second. Eleven minutes until we’re in range of their meson gun, sir.”

  “And how long until our attack swarm starts engaging them?” Captain Bitka asked.

  “Nineteen minutes, sir,” Homer answered.

  “So, we’ll be in their range for eight minutes before we can do anything about it. That should be an exciting eight minutes. And that Mark Four we just lit off, how long until it’s within the meson gun’s range?”

  “A little over six minutes, sir. It’ll take twenty minutes for it to get within its own engagement range.”

  “Well, I don’t expect it to live that long, TAC.”

  Homer glanced at the captain again. He appeared completely calm and relaxed. He seemed mentally engaged, interested by the problem, but somehow emotionally detached. But when the captain looked at him, when their eyes met, the intensity of his stare startled Homer. It frightened him a little, too.

  “TAC, in five minutes our missile and decoy swarm will be in the enemy’s engagement range. What do you think Bandit One is going to do?”

  “I . . . I think they’ll start shooting decoys.”

  The captain seemed to think that over.

  “Possibly. If so, they won’t be able to shoot at Hot Charlie when it gets into their outer range band, not without turning their ship and lifting fire against the main swarm.”

  “Yes, sir, but they’ve got another fifteen minutes to deal with it.”

  The captain’s gaze moved back to his own display. “That’s the way I think they’ll figure it,” he said, as calmly as if talking about the game plan of an opposing soccer team. “We’ll see pretty soon.”

  Homer felt sweat run down his forehead and he wiped it from his eyes. He reached to turn down the temperature in his suit again, but realized he was already shivering from the cold. On his display the range numbers ticked down and the minutes passed, and he wasn’t sure if they seemed to go faster or slower than usual. Both. Neither.

  “Bingo!” Bermudez said from Homer’s right. “I’ve got a return echo from a particle cloud. Very faint radar signature, sir. Must be much smaller particles than the pellets the Varoki used in the last war. More like sand or fine grit. The larger return echo we got must be from the launch canister that held the sand.”

  “Closing rate?” Homer asked.

  “Forty-seven kilometers per second, closing on our attack swarm. Actually, it’s aimed at our original trajectory, so it will pass behind the attack swarm. The second discharge will intercept the attack swarm in sixteen minutes.”

  Homer felt the tight knot of muscles at the base of his neck ease. “Too late. It’s close, but our missiles will fire before that.”

  “Wait, another firing signature.” Bermudez studied the display for a half-dozen heartbeats before nodding. “This one’s coming at us, sir, on our new course track.”

  “I think we can evade that, provided we live that long,” the captain said. “TAC, where is our attack swarm?”

  “Crossing the outer limit of their gun range right now, sir,” Homer answered. He checked the battle clock: one hour thirty-four minutes since jump emergence. “No firing signature from Bandit One.” He waited another thirty seconds. “Still no firing signature, sir. Why isn’t he firing? You think he’s counting on that dust to take out the missiles?”

  “Maybe. I think he’s either holding his fire for Hot Alpha and Bravo following the attack swarm, or he’s repositioned his ship to fire at Hot Charlie, and then kill us when we cross the range boundary. We won’t know until he actually fires. Let’s give him something else to think about. Light up the last Mark Four we kicked out the door.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Homer answered. “Firing boosters on
Hot Delta.”

  “Time?”

  “Four minutes to meson gun range. The attack swarm is twelve minutes from engagement range.”

  “Meson gun firing signature!” Chief Bermudez called out. “Hit! He just took out Hot Bravo trailing the attack swarm.”

  The captain’s forehead creased in concentration. “Next, he’ll take out Hot Alpha behind the attack swarm and then . . . then it will get interesting. Te’Anna said these beings were raised for war. We’ll see how smart and tough this guy really is. Helm, prepare to secure from deceleration and commence lateral evasion. Make your axis of displacement one five degrees. TAC, get ready to fire the warhead on the Hot Charlie missile.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Homer and Lieutenant Barr-Sanchez said almost simultaneously. Homer brought up the missile direct detonation control on his display, but it was still forty thousand kilometers out of its own effective engagement range.

  “Bandit One has fired again,” Chief Bermudez reported. “Hot Alpha is gone.”

  For almost a minute the bridge fell silent, waiting.

  “He’s gone longer than his previous firing cycle time, sir,” Homer said. “Why isn’t he firing at the attack swarm?”

  “Ha!” the captain said and sat back in his command chair. His face showed a ferocious, predatory grin Homer had never seen before. “T-S-T-L!” the captain said, “Too Stupid to Live. He’s turning his ship to fire at Hot Charlie and then us. He thinks there’s nothing left in the attack swarm but decoys. That cocky bastard’s going to get one hell of a surprise when those Mark Fives rip his guts out. Helm, secure from deceleration and prepare to evade. Reactor on standby and go to low-emission mode.”

  “Securing from deceleration, reactor on standby, low-emission mode, sir,” Barr-Sanchez answered, and Homer felt himself float forward against his restraints, again in zero gee. Without the ship’s fusion torch between them and the bogies, the tactical display sharpened again.

  “TAC, detonate Hot Charlie.”

  Homer punched the detonate signal and the tactical display showed an intense white flare where the missile had been and again the tactical screen lost resolution. Their own sensors could not penetrate the cloud of superheated and radioactive debris, but the drone in the attack swarm, at an oblique angle, could see past it, and then Homer understood.

  The enemy ship, the Bay, and the attack swarm were not lined up with each other. Because the courses of the two ships converged, but at an angle, the ships and the swarm formed the three corners of a triangle. But the two Mark Fours the captain had held back and fired later were lined up between the Bay and the enemy ship. Part of the tactics Bitka had developed in the uBakai war was use of nuclear warheads to temporarily blind enemy sensors. That was how he was going to buy the time they needed.

  “Helm, lateral evasion, fifteen degrees of arc,” the captain ordered.

  Barr-Sanchez sounded two short blasts on the klaxon and then fired the ACT thrusters, pushing Homer up and to the left.

  “Making lateral burn on one five-degree axis,” Barr-Sanchez reported.

  “We’ll be in range of their meson gun in ninety seconds, sir,” Homer added.

  “Understood. TAC, prep a firing solution for the Mark Five in the tube to put it right between us and Bandit One. Code it Cold Delta. Helm, give me ten more seconds of lateral burn and then turn the boat through one-eighty and point us at that guy. Then deploy the thermal shroud.”

  Boat, Homer thought as he worked the numbers on the missile launch problem. The captain had said, turn the boat. A slip of the tongue. Transports and cruisers were ships, but a destroyer rider, the type the captain had commanded during the war, was technically a boat because it lacked a star drive. The captain must be back in a part of his mind, a part of his psyche, he had not used since those desperate hours in the uBakai War. Homer wondered if Bitka had put this part of his soul away, thinking he might never need it again.

  “Captain, the firing solution for Cold Delta is to bring the target to a bearing of two three zero with an angle on the bow of two degrees,” Homer said.

  “Helm, make it so,” the captain said, and then shook his head. “I hate to burn a Mark Five as just a sensor jammer. Don’t see an alternative, though.”

  “Meson gun firing signature!” Bermudez in the TAC Two chair called out. “Bandit One has fired at us and missed. We’ve got a sensor image capture. Looks like he fired at our position based on last known course. Energy pulse passed one point six kilometers from the hull, bearing one nine five degrees.”

  Homer felt himself instantly covered in sweat and he was grateful to be strapped into a chair and in zero gee. He might have fallen down if there had been a “down.” At a range of forty-two thousand kilometers, a miss of one point six kilometers was nothing! Less than a tenth of a mil of deflection.

  Beside him, the captain laughed.

  “One point six kilometers?” he asked. “Really?”

  “Affirmative, sir,” Bermudez answered.

  The captain laughed again. Why would he laugh at a time like this? Was he crazy? Homer tried to keep the alarm from his face as he turned to him. The captain looked back, his eyes burning with excitement and humor.

  “One point six kilometers, TAC. Don’t you get it? He missed us by a mile!”

  Homer heard a few nervous laughs on the bridge, and then a few more, and then he found himself laughing. He didn’t think it was funny, but for some reason he couldn’t help himself.

  “Ship steady on target bearing two three zero,” Barr-Sanchez reported. “Angle on the bow two degrees. Thermal shroud is fully deployed.”

  The thermal shroud gave no direct protection against a meson gun, or any other weapon, but the enemy couldn’t hit what they couldn’t see.

  “TAC, go ahead and launch Cold Delta and then load another,” the captain ordered, “although I hope we don’t need to use it.”

  Homer hoped so as well. They had started with thirty-six Mark Fives, which had sounded like more than they would ever need, but between the fight at Destie Four and now this one, they had fired off seven of them, and four of their twelve Mark Fours. How many more long ships would they have to face? There were at least four more out there, and more could show up.

  “Missile Cold Delta on the way,” Homer said as he fired the missile and felt the Bay shudder. He shuddered himself but tried to concentrate on his display. The battle clock read one hour thirty-eight minutes, range now down to forty thousand, still closing at a little over thirty kilometers a second.

  “Meson gun firing signature,” Bermudez said, her voice now level. Maybe they were all getting used to being fired at, Homer thought. “Energy pulse passed two nine zero kilometers from hull, still bearing one nine five degrees.”

  “Yeah,” the captain said, “if we’re not on our old course, we must have tried to deflect, and what better way to deflect than directly away from our attack swarm, to make him turn his ship more. At least that’s what he figured. This guy really is Mister Obvious. Helm, give me ten seconds of lateral thrust at one hundred degrees.”

  Homer’s tactical screen started gaining resolution.

  “Sir, I’m getting a better picture here, and I think that means he must be as well. Even if he can’t see us on thermals, his active sensor radiation will be getting through.”

  “Okay, TAC, detonate Hot Delta. Helm, better give me ten seconds of lateral thrust at one four five degrees.”

  With trembling hand Homer brought up the missile control display and detonated the last of the Mark Fours as Barr-Sanchez sounded two klaxon blasts. Again the tactical screen showed the blooming heat signature of a nuclear detonation and then grew fuzzy.

  For four more minutes they coasted, the bridge crew silent except for the periodic reports of the long ship’s fire by Bermudez, and then the captain’s order for a different evasive burn. The screen interference began to fade.

  “Okay, TAC, better detonate Cold Delta,” the captain ordered.

  Homer d
id so and the screen flared again.

  “Cold Delta detonated. Cold Echo is in the tube, sir. Should I launch?”

  “Let’s wait and see,” he said. “We’re a little under four minutes from our attack swarm being in engagement range.”

  Homer’s chest felt tight and each breath came hard. He swallowed hot spit, fought down the nausea and rising sense of panic. His vision had narrowed to the universe of his tactical display, where the battle clock read one hour forty-five minutes, He couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t see beyond the next second, wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

  “Range thirty-one thousand,” he reported, trying to keep his voice from cracking.

  “Thanks, TAC,” the captain said quietly.

  The minutes and range ticked down, but now with glacial, excruciating slowness. Homer thought his display was growing clearer but he wasn’t sure. His own vision seemed to be losing color resolution and its field narrowing. Was he about to pass out?

  “Range twenty-four thousand,” he managed to say, and then he saw a new thermal flare on his display.

  “That’s Cold Alpha in the attack swarm detonating,” Bermudez called out. “Thermal spike on the target! We hit the son of a bitch!”

  A cheer of desperate relief went up from the bridge crew. Homer realized he hadn’t been breathing, took a long, gasping breath, and felt his vision begin to gain focus again.

  “Settle down!” the captain ordered, but without the edge the command had had over Destie-Four. “Work your stations. We’re not done yet. He’s still showing pretty hot, so he’s got power. Let’s see where he shoots. Bermudez?”

  “Sir, on the firing cycle he’s been keeping to, he would have fired ten seconds ago.”

  They waited and seconds ticked by. Homer felt irrelevant to the battle. Everyone else’s brain was working while he had become a powerless spectator.

  “He’s either lost his gun or he’s turning his ship to engage the attack swarm,” the captain said. “Either way, he’s screwed.”