The doors slid open, and she walked into Engineering, Collins waiting for her, hands on hips, a disgusted look on her face as the warp drive started to power up, an array of amber lights winking into life as she entered.
“Just what the hell are they trying to pull?” Collins asked.
“I believe Commodore Maddox is hoping to win the war,” Carter said. “That seems worth taking a few small risks to me.”
“A few small risks?” Collins replied. “We could blow out half the power relays on the ship, and that’s assuming we pull this off without burning up in the atmosphere of that wasteland down there. We still haven’t really checked all of the systems after the last warp jump. There’s only so much I can do on my own, and I can’t guarantee that we’ll even be able to maneuver when this is over.” Shaking her head, she said, “This is insane.”
“I agree,” Carter said. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re so far off-script now that we might as well just admit that we’re improvising, but if we do manage to pull this off, then the rewards will be more than worth the risk. It’s insane, it’s potentially suicidal, and none of that matters, because we’re going to do it anyway,” she said with a smile. “Trust me. I spent long enough on this ship to know just what she’s capable of. She can do this.”
“Don’t tell me you told Corrigan that?”
“He asked my opinion, I gave it. We’ve got to do this. There’s no choice. So we might as well get on with it. Get on the field sensors and start adjusting the magnetic grid. I’ll ride the power distribution systems. This is going to take both of us if we’re going to pull this off.”
“I wouldn’t want to try this with a full engineering team,” Collins grumbled. “Still less just two of us.” With a sigh, she walked over to her console, and said, “Running adjustment cycle now. Three minutes.”
“Three minutes, roger,” Carter said. “Tell me something, Ensign.”
“Don’t call me that, damn it,” Collins replied. “Sandy. My name is Sandy, and you can go ahead and use that.”
“I guess you’ve just answered at least a part of my question.”
“What question?”
“How much you knew about all of this, about this mission.”
Collins shrugged, then said, “Lieutenant, all I knew was that Dix figured coming along for the ride was better than rotting in detention, and that I agreed with him at the time. If I’d known just what we were going to end up doing, then I just might have figured differently, but I guess it’s way, way too late for me to change my mind about any of this now, right?”
“I’m glad it isn’t just me,” Carter said.
“You weren’t in on it?”
Shaking her head, Carter replied, “When I was a kid, I went to some girl’s birthday party. Turns out it was meant to be fancy dress, but I hadn’t figured that out, or maybe someone decided not to tell me as a joke, something like that. I just turned up in my party clothes. Everyone else was dressed up was pirates, princesses, policemen…”
“Sounds like fun. We ought to do that here some time,” Carter said.
“The point is that I never felt so out of place in my life. I had one piece of cake and ran home in tears. My mum offered to find something for me, but I was so damned embarrassed that I couldn’t face it.” She paused, then said, “I feel like someone left some lines out of the invitation I got for this mission.”
With a grin, Collins replied, “You were the one who insisted on coming along for the ride, as I remember. We did everything we possibly could to get you off this ship first. If you hadn’t decided to get out of that shuttle, you’d be sitting on Gateway Station right now.”
“I’d be down on Earth right now, on leave. Probably Houston.”
“Crazy. Completely damned crazy. If I could get into one of those spaceport dives right now…” She paused, then said, “We have field alignment, but don’t ask me how. We’re ready to go at this end.”
“Power building up now,” Carter replied. “Two minutes, and we’ll be good to go.” She called up a sensor image, looking at the massive battleship to their rear, charging into their wake. The warp jump was going to have to be precise, as carefully calculated as anything she had ever done in her life. One mistake, and it would end in disaster. In the early days of the warp drive, before it had been really understood, there had been far too many nightmares, too many hellish emergences. Ships torn to pieces, tangled with others, merged with the fabric of asteroids and moons. Strict safety rules had been designed to stop that from happening. And today, they were ignoring them all.
“We’re almost ready,” she said. “Is everything still stable at your end?”
“If you don’t count the constant stream of warnings from the computer systems that we’re about to commit suicide, then sure, we’re ready here,” Collins said, her hand poised on the override controls.
Reaching for a microphone, Carter said, “We’re ready to go to warp in thirty-five seconds, mark, bridge. It’s going to be a rough ride and a short one, but if we’ve got everything right down here, we ought to emerge a thousand miles behind Goliath and in perfect position to make our shot.”
“And if you’ve got it wrong?” Dixon asked.
“Let me put it this way,” Carter said, with a smile. “You aren’t going to have any chance to complain.”
“Beautiful,” Dixon said.
“Lieutenant Carter,” Corrigan said, “Engage the warp drive at your discretion. You have the call.”
“Aye, sir,” she replied. “I have the call. Twenty seconds to go.” Turning to Collins, she said, “Disengage safety presets.”
“Disengaged,” Collins replied.
“Enable second-stage power bypass.”
“Enabled. Proximately alerts disabled. Magnetic field stable. Reactor feed looks good at my end.”
Reaching for the control, Carter smiled, and said, “Hang on to something. I have the feeling that this is going to be rough.”
“Way ahead of you,” Collins replied, strapping herself in position, close to her console. “Hit it. Now. Before we lose our nerve.”
“Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Engage.”
Chapter 23
Corrigan looked at the viewscreen, his tightly gripping the armrests of his command chair, his stomach churning as Avenger raced through the warp, raced towards its uncertain destination. The monitor consoles were a sea of red lights flickering on and off, the designers reaching across space to warn him that the ship was on the verge of destruction, that the super-space stresses were far too much for the warp field to withstand, that they would be torn to pieces at any moment.
“Hold it together,” he said. “Helm, I’ll want an evasive course when we emerge, after Crawford takes his shot. Tech, have you got that set up?”
“Complete with a best-guess firing solution. It’s going to be messy as all hell, but if the shielding at the rear is as weak as those reports suggest, any shot hitting that part of the ship is going to hurt them bad.”
“Ten seconds to emergence,” Dixon said. “Gravitational fields are in flux, sensors unclear. We’re could end up damn near anywhere.”
“Just hang on,” Corrigan ordered. “Novak, if we aren’t where we should be, get us to safety, and preferably on a course to take us out of the system in a hurry. I don’t mind risking my neck if we’ve got a chance, but we’re not going to die for nothing.”
“Why didn’t you come up with this revelation ten minutes ago?” Dixon asked. “Five seconds to emergence, all systems appear nominal at present, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay that way.”
“We’ve had a lot of strain on the power distribution network,” warned Crawford. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen after I take that shot. We’ll get one strike home, sure, but we could burn out half the capacitors doing it.”
“Make that one shot enough,” Corrigan said.
“Egress!” Novak yelled, and Avenger lurched back into normal space as the warp field co
llapsed, the image of the icy planet now filling the viewscreen, warning alerts from the sensor station that the upper tendrils of the atmosphere were reaching out to them, threatening to tug them back into its deadly embrace, deep into the gravity well from which there would be no conceivable escape.
“We jumped long,” Singh said. “But we’re behind Goliath. Ten thousand miles distant. She’s turning, sir, trying to get a lock on, and we’re within firing range.”
“Novak, get us in position, now!” Corrigan yelled.
“Main engines at full power,” she replied. “Coming around.”
Avenger rose from the planet, her mighty engines burning white-hot, following a corkscrew course in a bid to catch up to their target. Singh frantically labored at the sensor controls to build up the best possible picture of the enemy, up ahead, of the rest of the battlespace in the system. The Interstellar Squadron was still pursing Hyperion, but the latter had increased speed, Malek evidently realizing that his plans had gone wrong, terribly wrong, and that sheer survival would now be victory of a kind.
Goliath continued to turn, cutting its acceleration down to give her helmsman greater control of the mighty warship. If she could get a bead on Avenger with her weapons, no matter how strong the defense screens, Avenger would die. Die in a second, perhaps without ever knowing that they were failed. It was sheer overkill, a nuclear bomb being deployed to kill a cockroach, but if the cockroach could just get into place with its sting, it would still be just as effective at destroying its prey.
“Watch it, Novak,” Corrigan warned.
“I see it, sir,” she replied. “I’m going to have to take a risk if we’re going to make it in clean, Commander. I hope you weren’t too attached to the paint job on the hull. Dixon, cut shields.”
“What?”
“Cut shields,” she pressed. “If they hit us, they’ll punch through them in a nanosecond, and I need all the power I can get.”
“I can use some of that power as well,” Crawford added. “If I’m only going to get one shot at this, I might as well make it as strong as I can. I’m now getting precautionary warnings from half a dozen power relays. There isn’t going to be a second shot, so if I burn out the capacitors…”
“Try and make sure there’s at least a part of the ship still flyable when all of this is over,” Corrigan replied with a smile. “Dixon, drop the shields.”
“Crazy, crazy,” Dixon said. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right.” He tapped in a command sequence, and the shields briefly flared, white hot, before fading away and shutting down. “That should have looked like a nice, catastrophic malfunction. They think this ship is an experimental testbed. Let’s see if we can convince them that she doesn’t work.”
“Nice play, Dix,” Corrigan said, nodding in approval. He looked at Goliath, larger by the second, still trying to turn, Novak burning Avenger’s engines hotter and hotter in a desperate attempt to reach firing position in time, knowing that one slip would be fatal. All eyes were locked on the trajectory plot, watching the spiral, watching them close for battle.
Then, abruptly, Novak made that slip. Corrigan’s eyes widened as she fired a thruster out of sequence, slowing them long enough for Goliath to turn. He tensed to dive for the helm, certain that his schemes and plans had all failed, that Novak had been a traitor after all, but a quarter-second later, she fired another sequence of thrusters, putting the ship back on course, this time on the far side of Goliath, taking advantage of their opponent’s spin rather than fighting against it.
A burst of violet flame raced through the sky, sweeping through the position Avenger had held bare seconds before, close enough to set every proximity alarm raging. Had the shields been raised, Avenger would have been reduced to little more than a burned-out hulk, drifting hopelessly through space. The blast would have caught their starboard shields dead on, and no systems Corrigan could even conceive would have been sufficient to disperse that much energy so quickly.
“Please don’t do that again,” Dixon pled, his face pale. “I aged ten years in that second.”
“Grey hair looks distinguished,” Novak replied, with a smile. “We’ve got them now, Commander. Closing on target. Fifty seconds to firing.” Gesturing at the trajectory plot, she added, “They know it too, as much as we do. They’re running. We’ve got the bastards on the run!”
Amazingly, unbelievably, they were. The most powerful warship in all of known space was attempting to flee a converted transport ship, albeit one with a devastating combat potential. Goliath was fast, despite her size, a significant fraction of her bulk devoted to the powerful engines that hurled her through space, but Avenger was faster, nimbler, more maneuverable, and under the expert control of Novak at the helm, every one of those advantages was capitalized upon.
“Just a little longer,” Corrigan said. “Just a little longer. Crawford, you’ve got all the time you need to get a firing solution now…”
“I’ve found what I think is their primary power interlock,” the gunner replied. “If I hit that on target, this system’s going to have a second sun for a little while. They really compromised on her rear armament. Never mind an Achilles heel. This thing has an Achilles butt.”
“Whilst I appreciate your grasp of the classics, Tech,” Corrigan said, “I’ll settle for you giving it a good hard kick.”
“Armed and ready, sir,” the gunner said with glee.
“Hyperion is altering course,” Singh added. “They’re moving to try and intercept us. Going to be tight for the battlecruisers to stop her.”
“We can worry about that after this round of battle,” Corrigan replied. “First things first. Crawford, please be so kind as the remove that son of a bitch from my sky.”
“Ten seconds to firing range,” the gunner said. “Quit moving, you bastard, it won’t hurt as much.”
“They’re still trying to turn, trying to twist their tail,” Novak warned.
“Keep on them, helm,” Corrigan said. “This is what the last three months have been leading to. A lot of people have died to make this happen. Finish it. Now.”
“Firing!” Crawford yelled, the lights on the bridge flickering as the eight cannons roared as one, the deck shaking from the force of the blast, warning lights blazing as power lines ruptured and capacitors failed, Avenger falling back as the engines died.
Up ahead, an instant later, the full force of the eight overloaded particle cannons slammed into the enemy warship, right into its weakest spot. Crawford’s aim had been perfect, and a huge, gaping wound was burned into its back, atmosphere spilling out through a dozen hull breaches, sending the once-proud warship lurching blindly across the stars without even the pretense of control, her helmsman struggling to get her back on course.
Escape pods started to flee, a dozen racing in all directions, the sign that her commander had given up the fight and was determined to save as many of his crew as possible, knowing all hope was lost. Corrigan looked at Singh, who shook his head in reverent awe.
“Fires on all decks, sir, and the heat signatures suggest that the suppression systems have failed. There’s nothing fighting the fire, and as soon as it hits any one of a dozen key locations, the whole ship is going to go.”
“Back us off, Novak,” Corrigan ordered. “We don’t want to get caught in the blast radius.”
“Aye, sir,” she replied. “Helm control coming back.”
“I might be able to fire three cannons in a minute,” Crawford offered.
Shaking his head, Corrigan said, “No need.” He looked at the ship he had come so far to kill, had schemed and plotted to face in battle, watching it in its death throes. He’d assumed he would have felt something at this moment, at the culmination of the battle, but there was nothing. Just an empty, soul-rending sadness within. There had never been anything like Goliath before. After this battle, it was unlikely that anyone would attempt to build one ever again. Something unique was about to be lost to the universe, and he was the on
e who had killed it.
He could picture himself on the cramped bridge of that ship far too easily, could see himself ordering the damage control teams into position, getting non-critical personnel to safety, trying to find some way for him to continue the fight, to find some way, despite everything, to bring the nightmare to a conclusion.
There was none. It was a battle that he couldn’t win, and he was going to die knowing that, knowing that he had failed, that the greatest hope of the Belt for the quick victory they craved was going to die with them. Corrigan watched the sensor display, watched as a final wave of escape pods raced away from Goliath, the few remaining crewmen on board doing all they could to stave of final destruction. Not for hope of rejoining the battle. That hope was lost. All they could do now was try and save the rest of their people, to keep the ship together for long enough to get out of the blast radius.
A blinding light filled the sky, and a series of alarms rang from the proximity detectors, warning of a cloud of debris racing through the system, threatening to destroy everything in its wake. Corrigan looked across at Singh, the technician grim-faced as he looked over his readouts.
“They did enough, sir. They did just enough. I think those escape pods are going to make it.” He paused, then added, “We’re by far the closest ship, Commander, and we’re on the right course and speed…”
“Get the rescue robots up on the double, and bring them back to the barn. Try and find out if any of those pods have a doctor on board. We’re going to need them.” He turned to Dixon, and said, “What about Hyperion and her escort?”
“They’re running,” the hacker replied, shaking his head. “Commodore Maddox is chasing them down now, but there’s no realistic hope of them catching up to them before they can get out of the system.”
Shadow of Oblivion Page 18
