Cerberus

by John Filcher

  Ronin nodded. “I haven’t told you this, but I spoke with my counterparts on the Ceres and Cygnus. Captain Rogers mentioned the Ceres has been operating much like we have with the exception of the Battle of the Dark Side. For them, it’s been all hit-and-runs. Cause some hurt, blow up something, and disappear before they can be targeted. What stands out is she also noted they’ve also been getting closer and closer to Earth with their missions. Same as Cerberus.”

  Mueller looked up at him. “What about Cygnus?”

  “Cygnus has been guarding the Argo, wherever it’s currently hiding, and launching strikes further out in the system. It has hit some more distant targets and cleared the known bases on the outskirts of the system. Two more Cerberus-class ships are nearly ready.”

  Ronin finished, taking a sip of his very dark, strong coffee and trying to stay alert.

  “These all seem like signs the Collective is collapsing, and the area of the system under its control rapidly shrinking.”

  Ronin nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Like a rope tightening around the victim.”

  Their discussion was interrupted by a soft beeping indicating an incoming message.

  “Captain, priority message from Admiral Rodding.”

  Ronin glanced over to Mueller as he leaned forward to accept the message.

  “Here we go again,” he said before opening the video channel. “Cerberus Actual, go ahead, Admiral.”

  Rodding wasted no time on communication protocols. “Captain Ronin, we’ve become aware of a small, three ship detachment of the Collective’s vessels streaking away from Earth orbit at unusually high speeds. The ships seem to be using fusion booster rockets for some reason, so they’re arriving in the belt far sooner than would be normal for a trip from Earth. The detachment is one larger ship that we believed was a cargo vessel, and two of their newer frigates, which have never been used in combat before. Intercept and destroy the frigates, and figure out what the story with the cargo ship is.”

  Mueller and Ronin looked at each other, then Ronin replied. “Admiral, what are we to do with the cargo vessel? Destroy it?”

  Rodding shook his head. “You have carte blanche discretionary authority regarding the cargo vessel. Other than being high value cargo, as told to us by the package you retrieved from the Dark Side, we don’t have insight as to exactly what it’s hauling. Nor do we know why it was boosted to the belt so quickly other than the obvious observation that it’s cargo was deemed precious enough to go to such precautionary extremes.”

  Ronin’s eyebrows rose a few millimeters. “If it’s that valuable enough for the Collective to protect, it’s valuable enough for us to try to keep them from keeping it. We’ll look into it, Admiral.”

  Rodding forced a tired smile. “I know you will. The pace of operations is wearing on us all, so try to avoid unnecessary risks. Good luck, and good hunting. Rodding out.”

  Ronin pulled up the Tacnet data forwarded with Rodding’s message. As he and Mueller began studying it, he noticed the enemy formation’s predicted flight path took it into an area of the Belt which spacers had informally dubbed The Cloud. It was so named because long ago, several large asteroids had met catastrophic ends and broken up into massive dust clouds sprinkled with plenty of decent sized rocks. “They’re running for The Cloud. Good place to get lost quickly and not be found if you don’t want to be found.” he remarked.

  Mueller nodded as she looked at the Tacnet plot. “You thinking what I’m thinking, Dan? Jump out there ahead of them and prepare a hot reception for them in The Cloud?”

  Ronin smiled coldly. “My thoughts exactly. That cargo ship can’t be maneuverable at all, especially with the boosted speed. That means a high probability of entry into The Cloud at the predicted entry point at a predictable time. Perfect setup for an ambush.”

  Mueller smiled coldly in response. “We know when and where, so now we just need to map out the how.”

  Ronin expanded an area of the plot that was inside The Cloud, and he thought for a few moments as he considered the setup. “They’ll be flying blind, and will have burned much of their available fuel to reduce speeds for safe transit inside The Cloud. We know this particular point right here is a natural choke point from past experience. Only one possible route through. Let’s designate this ambush point, Wolf 78, and spring the trap here.”

  As he spoke, the area marked by him began flashing in red. He labeled the point “Wolf” to reflect the traditional pre-designation of an attack coordinate in space. The two of them looked it over for a while, then Mueller opened a commlink using her collar node to Cerberus’ tactical officer, LeCroy, who was off duty and working up a sweat down in the gym.

  “LeCroy, sorry to bother you during your workout, but can you come up to the Captain’s ready room right away?”

  The sounds of an active gymnasium provided an acoustic background to his reply. “Yes, ma’am. Be prepared for the smell though.” Both Ronin and Mueller laughed at his reply.

  * * *

  A few days later, Cerberus jumped into The Cloud. “Jump one complete, Captain,” announced Perez from the helm.

  “Scanners are fouled, as expected,” Delacroix noted right after.

  “Lieutenant Sunderland, launch your Bulldogs,” Ronin ordered over the commlink he opened from his console. Sunderland acknowledged, then switched over to the commlink for the Bulldog crews.

  “All right, you savages, you heard the Captain. Time to go to work.”

  The waiting Bulldogs quickly launched, and jumped away. After they left, Cerberus began launching drones, then micro jumping elsewhere to seed even more drones. This process would repeat itself for some time.

  ***

  Days later, Perez was finally able to report after they finished drone seeding. “Jump twenty-two, complete, Captain.”

  LeCroy swiftly began reading the telemetry from the drones. “All drones online and functioning correctly, sending the go dark order now.”

  Mueller and Ronin glanced at each other as she stood next to his command chair. “Now we wait,” she remarked.

  “Optics from the observation drones outside The Cloud confirms the enemy formation is still approaching the predicted entry point on the same vector. Time of arrival in two days.” reported LeCroy.

  Not quite two days later, Ronin fell out of bed early and caught up on intelligence reports while his children still slept. He always had difficulty sleeping the night before an operation. Today was no different. As he sat in the common area and read, one report in particular caught his attention:

  Sources inside the Collective have reported food riot driven acts of rebellion occurring throughout the Collective. Government control over St. Petersburg and Liuzhou ended violently when they were seized by the rioters. In an act of vengeance for their brutal suppression of the people, the former officials and their families were captured and publicly tortured to death.

  Things are worsening rapidly. What happens when their government lashes out? Ronin wondered as he sipped his coffee. His answer was located several paragraphs later, where the report noted the Collective’s government troopers slaughtered tens of thousands in a failed takeover of a medium-sized city in Siberia.

  Hours later, Ronin stepped on to the bridge. “Report,” he said to LeCroy as we walked out of the hatchway.

  “Enemy detachment is right where we want them. They’re entering The Cloud outskirts now. They have scouts forward of their position, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  Ronin already knew all that as he had been following the progress while he was catching up on the overnight intelligence reports. He walked over and sat in the command chair that was just vacated by Mueller as she had been standing watch during his downtime.

  “Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” he murmured to her as they glanced at each other with a knowing look.

  The cor
ner of her mouth curved upwards in a cold smile. “Nobody here to bother you big, tough brutes. Come on in. Everything is nice and safe.”

  LeCroy put the Tacnet plot on the forward view screen while they tracked the ships. Hours later, LeCroy broke the quiet on the bridge.

  “They’ve reached the first turn and are starting down the next lane. Estimated arrival at Wolf 78 in three hours,” Ronin said, nodding. The hours were going to crawl by.

  Bulldog 1

  Johnson watched the progress of the enemy detachment for hours as it approached Wolf 78. If time could stand still, she was sure it could only happen while waiting to spring an ambush.

  “Patience was never your virtue,” wryly noted Patterson as he heard Johnson shifting in her seat. Again.

  Soon he heard Johnson snacking on chocolate. “You got chocolate?” he asked hopefully. Anticipation always made him get the hungries, same as happened to Johnson.

  She half turned and tossed one his way. “Good boy!” Johnson said.

  Patterson managed to bark out an “Arf!” before chomping away as he continued watching the Tacnet plot that was being lasered on a tight beam to their Bulldog from passive drone optics only. Finally, the countdown grew short. “Thirty seconds to Wolf 78,” he said.

  Patterson began counting down aloud. “Ten seconds. Five. They’ve reached the target area, and they’re slowing to make the turn.”

  The turn was unexpectedly sharper than the Collective’s navigation charts showed, courtesy of Cerberus’ pushing rocks around to make it that way in the days before the detachment arrived.

  Johnson nodded. “Time for the dramatic unveiling,” she remarked.

  Patterson had been just waiting to push the button for hours. “With pleasure,” he responded.

  Kursk

  On board the bridge of the People’s Ship that was named the Kursk, Capt. Ivor Remus and his navigator were engaged in a heated discussion.

  “Comrade-Captain, the navigation charts do not align with the route we have taken! There’s no guarantee we can make it to the safe zone,” said Michail Kamisky, the navigator.

  “You saw for yourself, the way was blocked,” Remus replied, somewhat annoyed. “You wish to drive us through a cluster of asteroids instead?” Neither Captain Remus or Kamisky noticed Dimitri Volodovsky, the ship’s political officer, approaching them.

  “Comrades. Is just a small field? Comrade-Captain will return us to prior course soon. Yes?”

  Kamisky and Remus had worked together for years, so there was a level of trust between them. They both trusted their instincts to avoid political officers like the plague, which was the unspoken message that passed between them with but a brief glance in each other’s direction.

  “Comrade Volodovsky, I will endeavor to return us to the proscribed course as soon as is warranted based on what our scanners show is the safest route through The Cloud.”

  Wang, the ship’s liaison officer from southeastern Asia, overheard the conversation, and decided the safer place for him was in his office. There were no government political officers lurking about down there.

  Bulldog 1

  “They’re about to have a very unpleasant surprise,” muttered Patterson, as he pressed the button at last. Bulldogs 1 through 3 were flying in a close (for spaceflight purposes) formation in the path of the oncoming enemy detachment.

  “Optics confirming. Two Collective frigates, and one vessel of unknown type not matching previously observed long range transports,” he noted as the synced Bulldogs activated their reconfigured jump drives to project an image of Cerberus in front of the detachment. Twenty seconds passed in silence, which was finally broken by Patterson.

  “Bulldogs 2 and 3 confirming image projection. Let’s hope this works.”

  Kursk

  The discussion between Remus, Kamisky, and Volodovsky was interrupted by the tactical officer as he quickly read the alert that chimed at his station.

  “Comrade-Captain, Confederation heavy-cruiser detected! It’s the Cerberus!”

  Remus quickly stepped over to the tactical station. “Combat stations!” he ordered loudly. He quickly glanced at the plot, before issuing a series of commands. “Reverse course! Launch missiles. Activate point defense batteries.”

  Liu, the tactical officer, quickly pressed the proper buttons to make all that happen. A shower of missile launches issued from the small fleet detachment while they maneuvered to reverse course in the narrow channel that Cerberus had left open in The Cloud.

  Cerberus

  Lieutenant Perez nearly shouted, “Detachment attempting to reverse course, approaching relative motion dead stop point.”

  Ronin understood his excitement, because the hunt was afoot. “All right, Perez. Jump us behind them when LeCroy confirms his readiness.”

  Perez glanced over at LeCroy, who nodded in his direction immediately.

  “Jump in five. Four. Three. Two. One. Jumping!” Perez counted down as the ship jumped to approximately one hundred miles behind the three ships. “Jump thirty-three complete!”

  Ronin nodded sharply, then ordered “Anytime, LeCroy.”

  LeCroy wasted no time. “Ordinance away. Recommend jump now, Perez.”

  Cerberus quickly jumped away again. “Start the five-minute timer, LeCroy. That should be sufficient for the ordinance to cause the desired amount of chaos,” noted Mueller.

  Ronin put a small five-minute timer on the main view screen. This better work, Ronin thought to himself. Best not telegraph my uncertainties or it’ll affect the crew.

  Kursk

  Remus and Liu stared at the plot on the tactical scanner. “Forty seconds until impact, Comrade-Captain,” Liu noted, without taking his eyes from the plot.

  Remus was staring so intently, he didn’t notice the beads of sweat that began trickling down the side of his face. As they stared, Liu’s attention was suddenly drawn to a new threat warning.

  “Comrade-Captain! Cerberus-class vessel has appeared aft! Distance, 100 miles.”

  Remus was shocked. “There’s TWO Cerberus-class vessels? Why didn’t our drones or scans detect this new ship earlier? Evasive maneuvers!”

  Even as he roared these questions and command to Kamisky, both Remus and Liu realized the situation was hopeless. Trapped nearly motionless in an asteroid tunnel between two exceptionally powerful Confederation warships, one of which appeared out of nowhere a mere 100 miles aft. They were sitting ducks.

  “I have no explanation why we failed to detect either vessel, Comrade-Captain! It’s like they just appeared out of nowhere.”

  While he said this, Liu opened fire with the Kursk’s point defense weapons and anti-missile fire. Liu wiped the sweat from his eyes as he quickly glanced at the incoming ordinance timer. It was counting down far too quickly. “Two minutes until impact. Our weapons fire is… three minutes from the fore Cerberus-class vessel and sixty… it’s gone! The aft Cerberus-class vessel has disappeared from our scanners!”

  “What? Impossible!” Remus knew better than to demand Liu recalibrate his scanners while they were exchanging naval gunfire with a pair of vastly more powerful Cerberus-class war birds. Even if they seemed to appear and disappear like ghosts.

  “Where could they have gone?” As Remus said this, another beeping indicated the situation changed yet again.

  Liu nearly shouted as he said, “The fore Cerberus-class vessel has vanished from our scopes!”

  “Did we damage them?” Remus asked hopefully, although it was too early for their ordinance to have arrived at the ghostly target.

  “Negative impact. Sixty seconds to last known target location,” Liu responded. “Scans indicate the bulk of the enemy ordinance is directed at our escort frigates.”

  Upon hearing that, Remus relaxed slightly. At least they were unlikely to die immediately.

  “Thirty seco
nds to impact,” Liu called out.

  The seconds counted down, before Liu unhelpfully announced, “Impact!” as the Kursk was slammed hard. He would never learn why the fore vessel didn’t fire at them like the aft vessel did.

  Cerberus

  All ordinance should have reached their targets by now, Captain,” LeCroy announced.

  “Split up our Bulldogs and have them jump in for a damage assessment run.” Ronin ordered.

  “Bulldogs 1 through 3, return for a damage assessment. Disperse accordingly. If there’s any sign of trouble, jump away immediately,” LeCroy ordered over the commlink from his workstation.

  Bulldog 1

  “You heard ’em. Jump in five, four, three two, one. Jump!” counted Johnson. “Jump thirty-seven, complete,” she added.

  Without comment, Patterson immediately began scanning the area with both active scans and passive optics, while he waited for the observation drones to report in. As he did this, Johnson reminded Patterson of something he was pretty aware of.

  “Jump engines are still spun up. Any signs of trouble, and we jump away, Patterson.” He only managed to reply “Mmmmm,” while he quietly munched on his beef jerky.

  Johnson reached behind her with a slight snap of her fingers to get Patterson’s attention, which was barely enough to get him to absentmindedly place a few sticks of jerky into her hand while his eyes remained glued to his screens. The cabin of their Bulldog smelled of candy and jerky.

  “Got a read on the situation,” Patterson suddenly said, causing Johnson to jump at the break in the silence.

  “Both frigates took it on the chin. AI estimates they’re wrecks with 90 to 95 percent confidence, and their hulls are in uncontrolled spins. It also positively identified the larger vessel; a converted cargo ship formerly named the Kursk. What it’s been converted into is unknown.”

  “Patterson, forward that to Cerberus. I’m going to jump us in closer and to clear this area because we’ve been actively scanning from this location.”

  Patterson nodded, and pressed the buttons to make it happen before Bulldog 1 jumps again. “Ready,” he announced, giving Johnson the go ahead to jump away.