Rescue at Waverly

by T J Mott

  “Aye, Commander!”

  The Cassandra fired one of its heavy cannons, and the massive shell exploded a moment later against their hull. A deafening boom blasted through the Caracal’s interior, giving way to a low, rumbling, almost ringing sound as the frame continued to resonate. Green’s heart rate suddenly quickened. The ships were no longer accelerating, so their heavier, more powerful kinetic weapons were now in play.

  And when it came to the heavier short-range weapons, the Cassandra was armed far more heavily than the Caracal, Green knew. They needed to bring down those guns fast if they wanted to win. “All weapons, target their heavy cannons. Call out your targets, I want everyone focusing fire at the same cannon until it’s down! Then move on to the next!”

  The hull finally quit ringing from their last hit. “We took a direct hit on the port aft section!” Damage Control reported. “Probable loss of armor plating near the upper thruster!”

  The Caracal’s cannons fired another salvo. Green studied the target display and saw that the sensor analysts had updated it heavily. It now had fourteen different weapons turrets deployed. Which was far less than the cruiser’s factory count of twenty-four turrets, according to their records of that particular make and model, but Green was certainly outgunned. Especially with only one of the three corvettes he was promised.

  “Turret 4 has gone quiet. Not sure if it’s damaged or the crew is stunned.”

  Something exploded again. He clenched his teeth again, waiting for the damage report. “Upper port thruster is offline! Loss of coolant pressure in port radiator three!”

  Dammit! We’re starting to take real damage! He looked at his status and noticed the starboard bank still had a jammed cannon, and he had a decision to make. Should he rotate the ship around to bring fresh armor to bear, and suffer a loss of firepower? Or keep the damaged port-side with a full complement of guns rotated at the target?

  A salvo of laser beams erupted from the Cassandra, stitching long, deep burn marks as the beams traced down the length of the frigate. Damage Control reported a reduction in cooling capacity as the attack completely burned through armor plating and severed two auxiliary coolant lines.

  Their target had too many guns. The Caracal would be severely damaged by the time they picked off all the enemy’s weapons. “Helm, we can still outmaneuver them! Fly an erratic flight path so their cannons can’t hit!”

  Now the ships began juking around as the pilots tweaked their maneuvering thrusters in a deadly dance to keep weapons pointed at their targets while trying to deny the opponent a clear cannon shot at their vulnerable areas. Both ships’ cannons began to miss and Green ordered his to stand down. The laser weapons continued to flash out, the Caracal drawing charred lines on its opponent while the Cassandra’s high-powered beams cut clear through armor and did significant damage with each shot. Green’s lasers continued to focus fire on the enemy’s weapons, but the Caracal lost far too much armor and hull plating for each weapon they successfully destroyed.

  “Commander, this isn’t working,” Captain Reynolds voice said calmly but sternly through Green’s headset. He felt his face flush, but a quick glance at the chat logs showed it was a direct message and was not sent to the entire Command Center. “I suggest concentrating fire on their reactor.”

  He looked at the schematic of the Cassandra and noted how the reactor jutted out the bottom of the ship in an armored bulge. Another explosion rang out through the frigate as a lucky cannon shell hit despite Lieutenant Poulsen’s piloting, and he keyed the comm system. “All guns, target the Cassandra’s main reactor.”

  Their lasers paused for a few long moments, and then flashed again. The Panther joined in, and after a few salvos of concentrated laser fire, the reactor’s armor began to blacken. But the Cassandra was still painfully scoring hit after hit. The Caracal’s shells missed more often than not as Poulsen’s maneuvers prevented the gunners from getting a good firing solution.

  Fear crept into Green’s mind and he was sweating heavily now. They were still outmatched, and the Caracal was taking damage faster than it could dish it out. Poulsen’s flying evaded most of the incoming shells, but it was impossible to dodge laser beams without light-seconds worth of intervening distance to throw off the gunners’ aim. Once again, he silently cursed Admiral Marcell for bringing such an inadequate flotilla, and began wondering when the inevitable retreat call would sound.

  Another shell hit the Caracal. The resulting explosion shuddered through the ship’s frame, which resonated for a good ten seconds afterwards. That didn’t feel good…

  “Port lower thruster is offline! Port heat tank has lost containment! Port radiators nonfunctional!” He grimaced. That was all of the major systems in the aft section of the frigate’s port side. They were moments away from losing the battle…and neither Reynolds nor Marcell had called for withdrawal yet.

  The cannons let loose another salvo of shells, these rounds with hardened tips that managed to penetrate slightly into the armor plating before the warheads exploded. Chunks of armor blasted out, leaving behind craters that exposed fresh, shiny armor, but not breaking through to the other side.

  “Helm,” ordered Captain Reynolds. “Reduce maneuvers and try to bring us in close, we need to give the cannons a stable platform to shoot from.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said Poulsen. Green winced. She was dodging most of the incoming shells, but now they would only take more hits…

  “Target is extending radiators! Heat output suggests she’s recharging hyperdrive again!”

  He scowled. “Loaders, pick up the pace! We need to take out that reactor!” he yelled angrily into his microphone. “Panther, target radiators! We can’t let her jump!”

  The Cassandra finally split its attention. Its more accurate laser weapons focused on the Panther, firing nearly continuously, scoring easy hits despite the corvette’s agility and blasting away huge chunks of its ablative armor. The tiny warship returned fire, its own lasers slowly melting through the cruiser’s exposed radiator panels. Thick white gas began to pour out from wounds in one of the radiators, tapering off several seconds later as it was isolated from the cruiser’s cooling loops and finished losing pressure. Meanwhile, the Cassandra’s slower, less accurate, but far deadlier cannons remained trained on the Caracal which was now nearly stationary…

  The Blue Fleet frigate fired a salvo of shells, finally tearing deep craters on the reactor’s armor plating. “Keep firing, we’ve got to be just about through!” If they could just get through the last of that armor, and damage the reactor within…

  Green looked at the big damage control screen displayed at the front of the Command Center. He didn’t have time to analyze it, but he saw a lot of flashing red and orange. This needed to end. If they didn’t disable the target soon…

  A new explosion rocked the Caracal, this one far louder and more powerful than any of the previous ones. The noise was ear-splitting, painful, overpowering, even through the shell of armor that surrounded and protected the Command Center and isolated somewhat it from the rest of the ship. Green’s ears were now ringing and he felt the entire ship shudder violently as a few secondary explosions blasted somewhere inside.

  All of the port guns went dark on his display. He glanced up at the damage control display and saw those sections were dark. Not orange or red, which indicated damage, but dark, meaning no data, status unknown. “What the hell was that!” he shouted.

  “Not sure!” Damage Control replied. “We took databus damage, I’m not getting anything from most of the port-side systems!”

  Green cursed. “Poulsen, roll us around and bring starboard weapons to bear. Protect the port. Guns, is that jam cleared yet?”

  “Negative, Commander. It’s locked up tight. Consider it gone for this battle.” He cursed again.

  “Caracal, Panther. We got a visual on that last hit. It looked like an internal magazine detonation, your forward port is completely blown out.”

  Green felt his
face drain of blood. If it had been only damage to the optical network, runners could still relay orders to the port guns and keep them in the fight, although they would lose the benefit of the ship’s full sensor suite to assist with aiming. But if the port magazine actually detonated…that meant the frigate had no guns on that side. And that those sections would have fatalities.

  Fatalities from his department.

  A new round of explosions shook the frigate as it rolled around. “Direct hits on the port, unknown damage!”

  He looked across the room at the pilot. Her face was set in a scowl and she was intently focused on the displays in front of her, not even aware of the Command Center around her. “I’m trying to bring the starboard side around, but the target is making that difficult!” she yelled.

  “The Panther reports heavy damage to its radiators and turrets.”

  We’re not winning this, we need to run! Another hit could end us. He chewed on his lower lip. “Captain, I recommend we break off!” he said.

  “NO!” Admiral Marcell’s voice blasted into the Command Center, almost sounding like another explosion, and Green winced. That fool is going to get us all killed! We have one corvette and a fast frigate against a cruiser! Can’t he see it’s time to cut our losses and run while we still can?

  He felt cold, his hands and feet were starting to shake, and a layer of sweat coated his forehead. Would Poulsen send them to hyperspace on her own initiative? What would happen if he tried to send her a message, tried to get her to jump them away? Could he switch his station over to the piloting control software and trigger a jump himself?

  His arms were shaking.

  “More hits on the port side, damage unknown!”

  “Armor breach on the target’s reactor!” the sensors officers reported. Green’s target display updated, showing a tiny, almost imperceptible point of red on the reactor.

  “Panther, get below the cruiser and fire everything you have through that breach!” Captain Reynolds ordered.

  “Aye, sir!”

  The agile little corvette easily outmaneuvered their target. With careful bursts of its maneuvering thrusters, it swung around the Cassandra, slipped in beneath it, and fired its lasers. The Cassandra began to roll around its long axis, trying to rotate the reactor away, but the Panther was just too agile and stayed locked below the armor breach. Beam after beam burned through the tiny opening in its armor and the spot of red on the target display slowly widened. The two ships continued to roll around each other, and the Cassandra’s gunners completely gave up on firing at the Caracal.

  ***

  “Sensors suggest target’s main reactor has shut down!”

  Thad was barely listening to the rapid-fire reports. All he could hear was the hammering of his own heart, perfectly timed to the pounding headache in his head.

  ***

  Senior Captain Reynolds assessed the situation, his face held in a stiff grimace, brow furrowed in concentration as he stared at the Command Center’s damage control displays. This was not the worst scenario, but it was far from the best.

  Moments later, the Cassandra’s maneuvering thrusters went dark. They relied on plasma from the fusion reactor, and could not function if the reactor was offline. The cruiser’s relatively weak RCS thrusters kicked in, and many seconds later the ship’s roll was finally halted.

  “Captain, the Cassandra is hailing us.”

  “Put it through.”

  The channel opened and the raspy voice of the Cassandra’s captain returned. “This ain’t right! I told you, we aren’t carrying no slaves! What agency do you guys work for anyway?”

  “Are you ready to strike a deal?” Reynolds asked.

  “Sod off!” The channel closed, and another shell exploded against the Caracal. The frigate returned fire, and now that the cruiser could barely maneuver, its cannon shots hit with perfect accuracy. They struck at the enemy’s turrets and quickly brought a few more of them down.

  “All aft-facing batteries in the target have been destroyed!”

  “Helm, tuck us in behind them and keep us away from their guns.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “The target is attempting to accelerate on RCS only. Point-two G’s.” Reynolds frowned at the futility. They were beaten. The Cassandra’s maneuvering was limited to RCS thrusters, which were designed for small, delicate docking maneuvers. And they were defenseless from the rear. There was no way they could outmaneuver the Caracal now.

  He continued to watch the status displays, and to his surprise the Cassandra fired its RCS thrusters again, this time yawing it around and bringing its weapons back to bear. Poulsen began maneuvering to stay behind the cruiser, but they were still too distant to do it quickly.

  The cruiser’s starboard side faced them. None of its lasers fired, nor could they without power from the main reactor. But the cannons, which relied on high explosive charges to propel their ordnance, were still fully operational. And they fired again, the salvo striking the Caracal’s bow and sending another shudder through the frigate’s hull.

  “Helm, get us closer! I don’t want them outmaneuvering us like that! Panther, target anything that looks like a sensors node! I want them blind!”

  The Caracal moved awkwardly, barely overcoming its damaged main thrusters to close the gap between the two ships. It settled in just a hundred meters behind their prey, close enough that Poulsen could easily match its moves as it tried to yaw its guns into range again.

  The Panther continued to strafe the target, making high-speed passes and lasing sensor nodes with surgical precision while juking around just enough to keep their opponent’s cannons from tracking and returning fire. And after several more minutes the Cassandra could no longer target.

  “Hail them,” Reynolds ordered.

  “They’re ignoring us.”

  Reynolds shook his head. The Cassandra was now helpless, but the captain was too prideful to surrender. Maybe he thought he could delay until help arrived, and spare the embarrassment of surrendering his cargo? Or maybe he thought they were stalemated, one ship unable to run, the other ship unwilling to destroy it, perhaps not expecting a starship as small as the Caracal to be carrying a pair of assault transports loaded with a boarding party.

  Or maybe they were prepared for a hostile boarding party, and expected to win the battle on foot instead of in space.

  “Admiral, they are disabled, but refusing hails and won’t surrender. You’re clear to board them. Expect them to fight back and go quickly, they may be delaying until help can arrive. Shrike, Owl, stand by.”

  Chapter 8

  “Wake up Marines, here we go!” hollered Sergeant Weber over the platoon’s comm channel as the two boarding craft blasted out of the Caracal’s starboard hangar like twin rockets, riding a trail of superheated fusion exhaust towards the disabled cruiser.

  “Caracal, Rossell. The target’s hangar doors are closed.”

  “Copy,” Captain Reynolds replied. “Panther, use your laser batteries and cut the door open.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Thaddeus had no view of the outside at all. The transport was designed to safely and quickly cross a battle in order to board hostile starships. It had no viewports, instead adding thick layers of ablative armor on the front and sides of the hull where other ships would have windows. Outside views were only available to the pilots via closed-circuit cameras, and his jumpseat was far enough back that he couldn’t make out any detail on the screens at the front of the cabin. He was unable to watch, instead trying to piece together an image in his mind based on the comm reports as his corvette maneuvered into position behind the Cassandra, activated its lasers, and burned a hole into its hangar doors.

  “That looks passable. Thanks, Panther.”

  “You’re welcome, Lieutenant. Good luck.”

  “Prepare for boarding, assume hostile forces are present in the hangar,” ordered Rossell as the transports neared their target. “Transport Vampire, enter and break left. Zu
lu, enter and break right. Deploy anti-personnel turrets. Neutralize any forces, then land and immediately disembark.”

  Thad felt the transport sway and roll as it maneuvered into position. The vessel didn’t have a hyperdrive, and so its artificial gravity system was not nearly as powerful or reactive as the Caracal’s. It kept its passengers reasonably comfortable but could not cancel out all maneuvering forces.

  He felt a stiff clunk that chattered his teeth together as the transport slammed into the hangar deck. Then he felt the repeated whump of the antipersonnel laser mounted on the transport’s belly as it fired several shots. “Hangar is clear, repeat, hangar is clear,” someone reported over the platoon channel. “Squad-sized hostile force eliminated.”

  Weber’s voice: “Stay sharp, men! Watch the doors for a counter-attack!”

  The rear hatch on Thad’s transport opened and folded down into a ramp. “Go, go, go!” someone shouted, and the two squads began running down the ramp to the hangar deck below. Thad gripped his carbine tightly and followed. His squad scattered out around the transport, each soldier stopping a few paces away from the nearest, alert and holding their weapons at the ready. Thaddeus stopped next to another soldier and took a moment to look around the nearly-empty hangar. The scorched remains of a squad of vacsuited crewmen, gunned down by the transports, smoked near the front of the hangar. His eyes paused at the back, seeing how the massive airlock hatch was twisted and deformed from heat with a large, jagged hole melted through it. The edges still glowed white-hot, leaving purple spots in his vision when he turned away a few seconds later.

  Weber continued to issue orders. “Squad Four, get a breaching airlock set up and blow that central door open!”

  “Aye!”

  Since the airlock was now inoperable, the hangar’s interior was open to space and completely depressurized. The boarding party couldn’t just open the doors—standard inter-section hatches, not airlocks—into the ship’s interior, not without killing everyone in the adjoining section. And Thad couldn’t risk killing slaves. The boarders needed to set up their own airlock, one that would let them into the next section without venting its air.