by Ingo Potsch
Now, the junior lieutenant was the only officer on the bridge capable of taking command.
"Hard-a-starboard!" he shouted, in order to make himself heard above the din. “Maintain same pane!’
Ever quick on her helm, the destroyer spun round almost on her heel. The Aesuron vessel missed her by a very short distance only. While firing ferociously from all their artillery guns, the hyperspace force fields of those two ships interacted with each other, and with the already perturbed base brane. As she was hurled bodily sideways by the force of her enemy’s hyperspace field and the conjunction of the combined bow waves, the Mandana slid past with her side-plating almost touching that of her enemy.
Both spaceships were severely shaken. The interaction of the force fields had been resulting in severe repercussions and the vessel’s hyperspace drives and dampers were working at maximum capacity to cope with the near impact. “What nonsense”, cursed Astley. “In all the universe with all its galaxies and stars not crashing into each other I will bump in a bastard, damn it!” Seconds later, and simultaneously, the Aesuron and the Human Nation’s ship let fly with all they could point at the enemy. The destroyer reeled under the shock of several impacts, but once again she was in luck, for none of the major hostile guns had scored a hit; only smaller shells found their way into the hull of the destroyer. The next instant the enemy cruiser was lost to sight in the disturbed dimensions, saluted by a number of rounds from the destroyer's after gun turret.
The enemy wasn’t lazy, either, and seconds later a missile rushed toward the Mandana, right from the direction where the Aesuron vessel had disappeared behind a bank of white noise. Luckily, much of the destroyer’s artillery was already pointing in that direction and then the new threat approached from there, the guns released a veritable wall of projectiles. The nuke chose to explode before getting torn apart by the artillery fire and scorched the Mandana’s read badly.
Temporarily stunned by the detonations of the Aesuron cruiser's nuke - for the destroyer had been so close to the gigaton weapon’s detonation that a shock wave had resulted from the energy pressure which was hitting like a hammer - Astley leaned against the rail around the captain’s seat. Even the conning-tower had received some good amount of radiation. Astley quickly went to the back side of the bridge. The metal was unpleasantly hot, for the detonating nuke’s force had burst against it hardly half a minute before. Beyond denting the steel and ceramic armour of the outer protective shell and blowing the some external pieces to dust – again - the missile had done no further damage. The Mandana was in need of repair again, though. Her armour had held but it would rather not hold again, should she face another such explosion. Her sensor and signals equipment had suffered - encore - and without that she was of limited use only.
Somewhere, the must be a fire, Astley realised. And the air conditioning system wasn’t working properly either. Under normal conditions of operation, the air conditioning system was supposed to clear the atmosphere nicely. Coughing the acrid fumes from his lungs and clearing his eyes of involuntary tears, for the air was thick with irritating dust, Astley began to take a renewed interest in his surroundings. Those were surprising, if he could trust what the remaining hyperspace sensors reported to him.
The Mandana had penetrated the hostile line without sustaining serious damage. She had now to return.
The junior lieutenant grasped one of the microphones. The flexible little shaft came away in his hand, the whole system having been cut through with a fragment caused by spallation.
"We've had it pretty hot!" he soliloquized. "Wonder we're still alive and in one piece. Well, now for it once more."
He left his place and quickly took a few steps to the rear side of the bridge, where he leant over into the ladder tube, which was located at the after side of the bridge and connecting it to the lower decks. A dark figure was moving forward four meters beneath him.
"Pass the word to the weapons’ in-charge" ordered the junior lieutenant, "to report the number of operational missiles remaining."
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the astronaut, and, retracing his steps, he hurried aft to where the leading weapons’ officer was standing at the rear acceleration tubes.
Back came the messenger, lurching as he loomed through the darkness, for the light had gone off and the emergency illumination refused to set in, for whatever reason.
"The man hasn't found his space-legs yet," thought Astley; then aloud he asked: "Well?"
"None left, sir," replied the astronaut, and, having delivered his message, he pitched upon his face.
Astley had to let him lie there. The junior lieutenant could not leave the bridge. Even Bergerault had to be left alone until the destroyer was out of action.
It would have been a futile task to attempt to take the Mandana back between the enemy lines. With no other offensive weapons than her comparatively light automated machine cannons, she would be unable to do any serious damage to the huge armoured ships of the enemy, while at the same time she would be exposed to an overwhelming fire as she passed abeam of the Aesuron battleships and light cruisers.
So into the darkness, beyond the reach of the hyperspace sensors, Astley took the destroyer, with the intention of making a wide sweep and re-joining the Human Nation’s fleet. Of how the Mandana's consorts were faring he knew nothing, except that the action was being briskly maintained. Occasionally the foggy surroundings, dominated by white noise and all sorts of high-altitude hyperspace brane waves would be rent by a vivid sharp recoil that outclassed the almost continuous serious of hyperspace events caused by rapidly manoeuvring ships. The repercussions caused by that kind of ordnance were simply indescribable. It seemed impossible that a vessel could go through it without having her hull burst to dust by the terrific energy radiation of the appalling detonations. Those were the gigaton nukes used by both sides. Even with several kilometres of distance their explosions were deadly, and even the superposed dimension itself reacted to the violence which was done in her confine.
Silently, at reduced speed and with the dampers adjusted as maximum softness, the Mandana made her way into the other direction, to engage into a long deviation that would take her around the battle theatre. Then, about an hour and a half into her tactical retreat, an unclear shape loomed through the darkness almost athwart the Mandana's track. The destroyer’s hyperspace sensors could only detect items and conditions very vaguely now. And again junior lieutenant Astley was confronted with an event that had a probability bordering on impossibility. Only a quick movement of the steering controls avoided the collision of the Mandana’s hyperspace force field with that one of the floating object, which, as the Mandana swept by, revealed itself as a large destroyer.
On the outside of her hulk she was little better than a wreck. The conning-tower with the bridge, instruments and external sensors, even the cupola of gun turrets had vanished utterly. Her few remaining guns, wrenched from their mountings, pointed upwards at grotesque angles through their shattered scaffoldings, which previously had held the mechanics. Where the missile acceleration-tubes had been was a jagged hole still spanned by one arc formed by one former rib of her frame. This much was visible in the reflected glare of the distant search-lights as the Mandana swept by with her guns trained abeam should the vessel still be capable of offence.
A score of astronauts in mecha-suits, mostly scorched dark or covered with soot – whatever - were gathered amidships on the shattered main deck of the crippled vessel, which was open because one side wall was missing on thirty or forty meters. They had desisted from the work on which they were engaged, and were gazing mutely at the destroyer that might be instrumental in giving them the coup de grâce.
"What ship is that?" asked Astley through Morse code transmitted by turning on and off a search light, the intervening distance being less than twenty kilometres. In these conditions, the remaining telescopes of the Mandana were well enough to see at least something. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on the resul
t – the other vessel was so badly damaged that it wasn’t even visible if it belonged to the Aesuron Empire or the Human Nation. How she maintained herself in hyperspace was a miracle; yet somehow she did, though the slightest little push could make her drop out, and perhaps suck the Mandana behind.
"Human Nation Space Fleet destroyer Grey Yates," was the reply, pulsed proudly through the darkness, apparently with a directional flash light.
Carefully manoeuvring his ship closer to the wounded vessel, the junior lieutenant brought the Mandana to a standstill within easy towing distance of her disabled consort. Here was a case in which assistance could be rendered without detriment to the interests of the Space Fleet and the government of the Human Nation. The Mandana, until she could replenish her store of missiles, was practically useless as a fighting unit. With her engines undamaged she could tow the Grey Yates into comparative safety, provided she was not intercepted by a straggling hostile ship.
"Stand by to receive a hawser!" continued Astley. "We'll give you a pluck out of this."
"No; thanks all the same, sir," shouted a deep voice. "We're sound in below. It just looks so bad from outside. We can get under way again in a few hours. We will take our chances of getting out of it on our own. We gave the damn bastards an almighty punching before they swept our superstructures. Carry on, sir, and give them another half a dozen for us."
It was the Grey Yates's missile gunner who spoke, the only surviving executive officer of the gallant destroyer.
Now, that’s true, unabridged, unmitigated madness, Astley thought. That hulk was so holey that anyone using it as dog shed would get in trouble with the animal protection authorities for cruelty against vertebrates. That it would make its way home was probably ten times less likely that the fact that the Mandana had come across this floating piece of junk.
“You’re the pride of the human race”, Astley gave back, instead of telling the chap how mad his idea was. “But it takes time to train astronauts, too, so better join us. We’ll try to tow your hulk home, too. – You see, even if there was a footpath home, you’d need a couple of eternities to arrive. So, take it from me that you folks are heroes and come along, to continue the kicking ass!”
“Thank you very much”, the weapons’ officer replied. “But as mentioned before: the vessel is fine. We will get home with her.”
Can’t force reason on people, Astley concluded, and can’t force them to live and be happy. What a pity it was, though, to lose that crew, but heaven only may know what funny pills have been given to these folks.
"Can you spare us any missiles?" messages Astley, an inspiration flashing across his mind.
"Aye, aye, sir," was the reply. "Four."
"Very good; we'll come and collect them," replied the junior lieutenant, who thereupon ordered the ferry to be made ready, so as to establish communication between the two destroyers. Because the ferry was too small for carrying the missiles onside, the weapons would have to be bound with ropes to the ferry. The young officer gave the necessary orders for this to be done as well.
"Well done, Astley!" exclaimed his lieutenant-commander.
The junior lieutenant turned and found that Bergerault had regained his feet, and was standing beside him at the partly demolished bridge.
"You're…", began Astley, but the lieutenant-commander shut him up.
"Nothing," he replied laconically. "You might fix me up. Not a word to Randolphfield, mind you. If I keep out of his way, he's not to know. But, by Gracious Heavens, you've been knocked about a bit."
The information, although correct, came as a surprise to Astley. For the first time he noticed that the sleeve of the combat fatigue of his left arm was cut away, the remnant hanging by a few threads, while his left wrist was encumbered by a bandage. He must have tied the handkerchief himself, but the action had been purely automatic. Hitherto he had had no knowledge that he had been hit by a splinter, and was quite unaware that he had acted as his own bandager.
"Carry on," continued Bergerault. "I will stand easy for a while. I will feel all right in a few minutes."
He vanished behind the wreckage of rear navigation station and to the vertical conveyance tube at the aft of the conning tower, leaving Astley to survey the scene. It was now light enough – the emergency lights had finally decided that it was emergency enough to shine - to discern the nature of the damage caused by the ordeal through which the Mandana had passed, for the flashes of the few functional screens on the bridge, added to the battery-powered emergency lights, made it possible to see with fair distinctness.
Of the Mandana's gun turrets only one remained where it had been designed to be. The others, either swept clean away or hanging in ill-looking angles, left jagged cavities, through which the smoke was pouring from some ugly smouldering of plastic, fuelled on by damaged energy ducts.
The starboard side of the conning tower had suffered especially, and with it the domed top of the conning-tower; not to mention the deep-fried rear side. The armoured sheets upon the latter, ripped like cardboard, had been torn open, revealing the interior - a jumble of twisted tubes and wires and shattered indicators. The same kind of shell that had wrought havoc with the conning-tower had probably also swept the forward machine cannon completely from its mountings, taking its maintenance crew with it. The entire thing was missing, and the crew had been sucked out of the ship through the ensuing gaping hole.
Meanwhile a dozen astronauts in mecha-suits had boarded the Grey Yates. Her scanty survivors were too done up to tackle the task of heaving out the missiles, for, included in the work of destruction, her assisted moving equipment had shared the fate of the rest of the ship. Others of the Mandana's crew were attending to the injuries of their comrades, for, in addition to eight astronauts killed outright, six were mortally wounded, and a dozen more had sustained injuries that would incapacitate them for further service.
The plucky messenger who had brought Astley's reply from the weapons officer had been carried below. In the heat of the fight he had received a splinter of spallation in his chest, the impact fracturing one of the breast-bones. Yet, undaunted, he continued to serve his gun until the destroyer had emerged from the hostile fire. Even then he refused to present himself before the doctor, and was making his way forward to the bunks of the enlisted astronauts like a wounded animal, when Astley, unaware of his injuries, had ordered him to take a message aft. This he did, in spite of the increasing pain and faintness, and having delivered the reply he had been forced to collapse.
At length the four gleaming steel cylinders of the missiles were transferred from the Grey Yates to the Mandana's weapons’ storage. Once more the destroyer, although battered sufficiently to justify her retiring from the fight, was made capable of dealing deadly blows at her gigantic antagonists.
The Grey Yates was left behind, and, with the generator and hyperspace drive running at the maximum of whatever speed they still were capable of providing, the Mandana again hurled herself into the fray again, instead of continuing on her circumventing the enemy to get back home.
CHAPTER XIII - Astley in Command
By this time the firing had ceased, as far as the Mandana’s sensors reached. While the Aesuron war-ships searched the theatre rather passively, vast and dense clouds of ‘white noise’ brooded over the scene, hindering with their intensity of signal suppression even the best detectors from sensing much. The amplitudes of the hyperspace brane waves were rising rapidly, as if Nature was about to assert her power over the opposing fleets. While the wild shooting, intense manoeuvring, and liberal use of nukes, even including gigaton warheads, caused much artificial interference to the wave patterns, these large-scale, far-reaching waves with their high amplitudes were caused by natural phenomena like stars coming into each other’s gravitational influence, supernovae, and such literally massive events.
Exposed to the full force of the hyperspace waves, Astley’s destroyer made her way toward an area where Aeron were suspected. The young officer stood on t
he portion of the bridge which was remaining half-way intact, while his lieutenant-commander was reclining within easy distance. Bergerault had given his subordinate strict orders to inform him of the moment when the Aesuron were again sighted. His wounds mattered little to him. Provided his head were cool and his brain alert the Mandana's skipper meant to miss no part of the next phase of the epic battle.
The destroyer was now steaming in almost the opposite direction to that by which she had penetrated the enemy line. She was five or six lightyears to outward of the largest body of Aesuron ships and possibly three times that distance from the Human Nation’s main fleet.
From far away, out of the direction of the galactic rotation, came the dull, rumbling signals of a furious cannonade. They reached the Mandana as overtones to the dominant brane frequencies.
"Our light cruisers are having a fight with the Aesuron destroyers," muttered Astley, concluding what it was and who was involved from the likely location of the events. "By Gracious Heavens, this is a battle!"
The junior lieutenant was correct in his surmise. Although the Human Nation’s heavy ships were not attacked during this hour, thanks to the screen provided by two light-cruiser squadrons and several of the destroyer flotillas, the enemy self-guided missile craft were several times in touch with the fringes of the fleet.
The prevalence of white noise, as the banks consisting of myriads of micro-distortions were called, played many strange pranks with the combatants, mistakes that more than once told against the Human Nation, occurring with remarkable persistency.
On one occasion a battleship of the Aesuron Empire’s largest class of war-fleet vessels was detected by the Human Nation Space Fleet ship Amidou Durant. The Aesuron spaceship seemed entirely isolated from other heavy units, and was forging ahead at full speed, trailed by a number of destroyers. The Human Nation’s destroyer was unable to engage her gigantic antagonist - the two vessels passing in opposite directions at an aggregate rate in excess of fifty lightyears an hour. To launch missiles would almost certainly result in a miss for the enemy was getting out of reach already, while it was extremely hazardous for the Amidou Durant to turn and follow, without running head on into other Aesuron Empire destroyers following the hostile battleship much farther astern. Nor did the Aesuron battleship make any attempt to engage; possibly the Amidou Durant was not detectable from the other side.
