Triumphant (Genesis Fleet, The)

by Jack Campbell

  “Understood, Captain.” Shen spoke in an unnaturally calm voice, like someone trying very hard to sound composed when they weren’t.

  Rob wondered if he also sounded like that.

  At five minutes before intercept, exactly when the old Earth Fleet combat manuals mandated, the two enemy ships cut off their main propulsion and used their thrusters to pitch themselves up and around so that their more heavily protected and armed bows faced Saber as it approached.

  The bridge felt abnormally quiet, the only sounds those of the watch standers moving in their survival suits, the soft noises made by the equipment as it acknowledged commands entered, and the ever-present soft whoosh of the ship’s fans circulating air through the ship. Then even the gentle sound of the moving air stopped as the ship closed off all vents and sealed her interior hatches in preparation for exchanging fire with the enemy.

  One moment the two enemy ships were thousands of kilometers distant, seconds later they were within less than a thousand kilometers, then they were here close enough to exchange fire and Saber was twisting in the last-moment evasive maneuver and weapons were firing and Rob felt his ship rock under multiple impacts and then they were past between one eye blink and the next, Saber’s stern pitching up as her bow went down because of the way-too-close explosion of the enemy’s last missile, which Saber hadn’t quite evaded.

  Red lights flared on Rob’s display. Damage alerts.

  “We’ve lost two of our pulse particle beams and number two grapeshot launcher, Captain.”

  “Damage aft, Captain. Cannot light off main propulsion. Checking for cause.”

  “Maneuvering systems compromised, trying to correct.”

  “Fire control reports primary systems took hits and are down. Backups are online.”

  “Engineering reports power core is stable, Captain.”

  Saber was temporarily out of the fight, unless the enemy changed his vectors to chase Saber to try to finish her off. But doing that would take time the enemy didn’t have.

  Rob listened to the damage reports with half his attention, knowing his crew knew what to do and would take the proper actions. They hadn’t reported dead and wounded yet, for which he was grateful. But he kept the other half of his mind on his display as Saber’s damaged sensors tried to evaluate how much injury the destroyer had inflicted on the light cruiser.

  The projected vector on the enemy ships showed them pitching their bows down and over to begin accelerating toward safety again.

  But the enemy wasn’t matching the projected movements.

  “Estimate significant damage to the light cruiser’s main propulsion,” Chief Petty Officer Quinton reported. “His acceleration is consistent with one main propulsion unit being off-line. He’s at half power for main propulsion. Their destroyer hasn’t taken any damage, but he’s staying with the light cruiser.”

  “That’s doctrine,” Lieutenant Cameron said. He was staring helplessly at the maneuvering display, unable to do anything with both the main propulsion and thrusters down. “All units are to stay together so damaged units can be escorted to safety.”

  “Captain, number three pulse particle beam is destroyed. We can’t get it working again. Number one will take at least an hour to get back online.”

  Rob nodded before remembering that the weapons officer wasn’t on the bridge. He touched the reply command. “We won’t be able to reengage the enemy in less than an hour. How about the grapeshot launchers?”

  “Number two got hit hard, Captain. I can’t give you an estimated time to repair.”

  “Chief Quinton,” Rob said, “any updates from engineering?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Shen gave me an estimate of one half hour before we can light off main propulsion again, sir. Maneuvering thrusters are starting to come back as damage is repaired, so we should be able to stabilize this tumble within the next few minutes.”

  Lieutenant Cameron was already running estimates. “If we get propulsion back within half an hour and the enemy light cruiser remains limited in his acceleration, we’ll be able to reengage them before they can jump.”

  Saber’s part in this fight might not be over after all. Rob sat back, not wanting to ask the next question. “Do we have any casualty counts?”

  “Six dead confirmed, five wounded, but that’s a partial count and very preliminary,” Lieutenant Cameron said. “Chief Austin can only tell us how many he’s personally counted so far.”

  “Understood.” Rob reached out and touched some commands on his display, seeing projected vectors change in response to his inputs. The curve leading toward the jump point for Scatha that represented the path of the fleeing enemy ships had altered as their rate of acceleration was cut roughly in half. He asked the navigation system to assume the four new destroyers would change their vectors as soon as they saw the enemy ships fleeing. Another curve appeared, showing the four destroyers swooping in like deadly birds making a strike, their path swinging through space and meeting that of the enemy ships well short of the jump point. “Unless they manage to repair the propulsion on the light cruiser, we got it done,” he said.

  On his display, the marker for Saber herself spun away from her former track, reflecting the impact of the missile and other enemy weapons.

  “We can still rejoin the fight,” Lieutenant Cameron repeated. “If the estimates from engineering are right we’ll be able to catch them again and join in the attack with our new allies.”

  Rob looked back at the lieutenant, and at the other watch standers. All were happy at that news. Saber had been hit hard, but she’d done some hitting as well. And she wasn’t out of the fight yet. Her crew was ready to engage again.

  He hated this. He didn’t want any more of Saber’s crew to die. But they wanted him to lead them, and lead them he would. “Yes. Let engineering know that, Chief Quinton. If they can make their estimated times for repairs, we can help finish off those guys.”

  His eyes went back to the orbital facility where the battle was still under way. If Mele didn’t manage to capture that freighter, Saber might have to deal with the less glamorous task of taking out that ship. And of trying to rescue Major Darcy and whatever was left of her defending force.

  * * *

  • • •

  Somewhere outside, where the stars shone and infinity beckoned, the enemy warships might already be running for safety. If not now, then soon.

  But Mele Darcy and her group were still trapped in the maze created to slow the enemy, working their way through the traps and dead ends and tight passages while also avoiding any more surprises the enemy had left. The pitch dark that existed anywhere lights didn’t rest didn’t make the task any easier, and they were already tired when they’d started out.

  Mele had allowed six hours for her small force to make it undetected from where they were to a compartment granting access onto the dock facing the freighter. At the moment they were huddled in a side passage, their sensors reporting the vibrations from the movement of an enemy patrol on the other side of a wall that didn’t seem nearly strong enough.

  She checked the time again. Only half an hour remained. Six hours had seemed like plenty of time, but this wasn’t the first enemy patrol they’d had to avoid, and there were more spots where enemy portable sensors or mines had been seeded. Just moving through the tight areas had taken a heavy toll on time and their endurance.

  The signs of the enemy patrol faded, moving away at right angles to the path Mele’s group needed to take. “Move out,” Mele ordered.

  They had to swing around a series of tight corners, drop down two levels, and make a final approach through what felt uncomfortably like a waste disposal shaft. Mele checked her schematics and saw that was exactly what it was.

  Only ten minutes remained before the planned start of the assault on the freighter when she and the others finally crawled into the small compartment
next to the dock and paused to rest. “Take a look, Corporal Lamar.”

  Lamar wriggled over on her stomach and eased open the access giving onto the dock, gazing outward. “Looks okay, Major. Plenty of enemy apes wandering around, but no sign they’re preparing for an attack here in the very near future.”

  “Glitch, are you picking up anything?”

  “There’s a lot of activity out there, but that’s to be expected.”

  “No indications the enemy is alerted?”

  “No, Major.”

  “Let me take a look, Lamar.” Mele took the corporal’s place, cautiously scanning the dock. “Gunny was right. That freighter is docked. I guess they did that to make it easier to get to it themselves and get supplies off of it. But it also makes our job easier. Looks like two sentries at the main air lock onto it.” She studied the rest of the dock area, seeing numerous small groups of enemy soldiers moving about amid a few piles of crates that must have come off the freighter. Even though she could only see the outside of their armor on the airless dock, none of the enemy soldiers acted as if they were alarmed. But as Mele watched their movements she could see the tiredness in them. Her people weren’t the only ones who’d been pushed hard for too long.

  She wriggled back from the access, looking around at her group. “Okay. We’ve got . . . five minutes until things start popping. Get ready. Glitch, how confident are you that Ninja’s worm made it into the enemy sensor systems?”

  Sergeant Giddings spread his hands. “I think maybe. That’s the best I can tell you, Major.”

  “What about the announcement I recorded?”

  “I fed it into the facility’s emergency broadcast gear, which still has some battery power. You should boom out on all frequencies just before the diversion starts. We got maybe two minutes before we hear it.”

  “Not much time to get our breath back,” Mele said. “Okay. When the diversion starts, we’ll get out onto the dock and head toward the freighter like we’re reinforcements for the sentries there.”

  “Major?” one of the ground forces soldiers said. “How about if the four of us are on the outside and you grunts are on the inside? Because our armor looks more like the enemy armor than yours does. That might help the worm’s effectiveness in spoofing their warning systems.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Corporal Lamar said. “And if any of the enemy does detect that we’re Marines, they might think we’re prisoners and the four ground apes are our guards while they take us to the freighter.”

  “Yeah,” Mele said. “Good idea. Once we’re out there, all of us Marines hand our rifles to the ground apes. Keep your sidearms. If things go bad, grab back the rifles and head for that freighter.”

  “The announcement should broadcast in thirty seconds,” Giddings said.

  “Get ready, and follow me when I go,” Mele said.

  “I’m not going first?” Private Ford asked.

  “Are you complaining about that?”

  “No, ma’am!”

  Mele knelt by the access, controlling her breathing, trying to blank her mind of everything except what was happening around her and what she’d need to do.

  Oh, yeah. She’d forgotten one thing. “Corporal Lamar.”

  “Yes, Major?”

  “Effective immediately, you’re Sergeant Lamar. Battlefield promotion. Congratulations.”

  “Really?”

  The blare of the announcement on all circuits cut off any reply that Mele might have made. She listened to her own voice speaking with calm authority and wondered that she’d been able to sound that cool after so many days of combat. “All enemy troops aboard this facility. This is Major Darcy, the Glenlyon commander. Your leaders haven’t told you that Glenlyon has received major reinforcements to its space force and now heavily outnumbers your warships. There are destroyers from three different star systems coming to our aid, and to attack you. Eire, Benten, Adowa, Catalan, Kosatka, and Glenlyon are now allied and will bring their full force against you! Your own warships are abandoning you to your fates. Your mission is—”

  The message disappeared into a barrage of static and randomly wavering musical tones. “They’re jamming it,” Giddings reported.

  “As long as enough enemy soldiers heard it, it’ll cause a serious dent in their morale and some temporary confusion,” Mele said.

  “And since the jamming is on all frequencies it’ll prevent them from sending orders for a few seconds after—”

  Through the structure of the facility Mele felt the shock of an explosion, followed by that of weapons firing. Her battle armor alerted her to combat occurring on the other side of the dock.

  The small groups of enemy soldiers she could see had frozen in place when Mele’s announcement began, and had stood rooted in place since then. Now as combat erupted on the other side of the dock, the enemy soldiers scattered like insects caught in the open, most running toward the fight. But before they got there, another barrage announced a second attack closer to the center of the dock.

  “Gunny Moon must’ve found another group of ours that could help,” Lamar said.

  “Follow me,” Mele replied.

  CHAPTER 14

  She squirmed through the access, cursing the bulk of her battle armor, onto the deck outside, and stood up as Lamar followed, and then the rest of the group. With all attention focused toward the two attacks, no one seemed to have noticed them. She handed her rifle to one of the force recon soldiers. “At a trot, as if we’re going somewhere on orders but not running or attacking or anything like that.”

  The small force set off, the five Marines in the center, the four ground soldiers spaced around them. Mele kept looking around as they moved at a fast pace, watching for trouble. The jamming cut off, but Mele’s broadcast had been stopped anyway once the diversions began.

  A bigger explosion rocked the dock, the shaking apparent even without the help of the battle armor sensors. Enemy soldiers were rushing toward the left and center of the dock area to confront the diversions, which Mele thought were producing an impressive amount of firepower. If she’d been the enemy commander, she’d have believed an all-out assault was being launched against the dock.

  They were two-thirds of the way across the dock when she saw trouble approaching at an angle, a single enemy soldier who changed course, veered to intercept them, planted themselves in front of one of Mele’s soldiers, and gestured vigorously.

  What the hell was the enemy ape doing? He or she seemed to be addressing Mele’s soldier, but of course that soldier wasn’t on the enemy’s frequency so he wouldn’t be hearing anything.

  “I think whoever this is, is chewing me out for something I did or didn’t do,” the force recon soldier reported to Mele.

  She didn’t want a fight to erupt here, out in the open, where the enemy might spot it immediately. “Try saluting.”

  The force recon soldier stiffened to attention and saluted as if acknowledging the unheard orders and/or grievances being directed at her.

  It didn’t work. The enemy soldier seemed willing to keep going for hours.

  Mele looked toward the sound of the fighting, which had begun to taper off quickly as the enemy pushed forward in superior numbers and her own diversionary forces faded away to avoid being trapped.

  Enough. Mele drew her sidearm as she stepped next to the angry enemy soldier. The soldier hesitated as the barrel of Mele’s weapon touched the enemy helmet at a weak spot, but Mele fired before the enemy could react.

  As the enemy soldier was flung sideways by the impact of the shot, Mele grabbed her rifle from the soldier holding it. “Follow me!”

  She ran, knowing the others would be behind her, seeing the two sentries at the freighter noticing and raising their weapons. Mele jerked herself to a halt, aiming carefully. She fired just as other shots went off around her. One sentry dropped, then as more shots ca
me from Mele’s group, the second fell.

  Her armor’s sensors warned of shots from the side as the enemy soldiers who had been distracted by the diversion realized what was happening and opened fire on Mele’s group. But those shots were from much farther off, and Mele’s group was almost to the freighter now.

  She hurled herself into the air lock, shoving the fallen soldiers aside, hitting the emergency close control. Mele and the others huddled against the sides of the air lock as a flurry of shots followed them into the freighter and impacted on the inner air lock hatch.

  The outer air lock hatch slammed shut, enemy projectiles rattling off of it like hail. “Lock this hatch,” Mele told Giddings. “Lamar, get the inner hatch open.”

  Mele waited, tense, as Giddings worked the air lock controls. “I reset the lock. That’ll hold ’em for a couple of minutes,” he said.

  “Inner door opening,” Lamar said, her weapon already aimed toward the interior of the freighter.

  A shocked-looking enemy soldier in a skin suit stood staring at them for only a second before Lamar smashed her rifle butt against his head and knocked him against the side of the passageway.

  Mele looked up and down the passageway they were in to be sure no one else had to be dealt with immediately. “Section One with me. Sergeant Lamar, you know where to go. Don’t let anything slow you down or stop you.”

  “Got it, Major. Come on, Section Two!” Sergeant Lamar ran aft, followed by Privates Ford and MacKinder, and two of the force recon soldiers.

  Mele ran forward, along with Sergeant Giddings and the remaining two soldiers.

  Unlike warships, freighters all pretty much had the same layout, their design driven by requirements that didn’t vary much from ship to ship. And Mele had made her Marines practice getting around inside freighters every time one of them stopped at Glenlyon. Which hadn’t been that often in the last several months, but enough to gain some familiarization with the deck plans. She knew the control deck, which was what freighters called their bridge, would be up forward and centered.