“Conn, TAO. Power restored to tubes one through four!”
Ruth’s announcement went through David like a lightning bolt. Four Hunters was enough to cause some damage. But what do I attack first? I could knock the Rand out, or two destroyers. He made up his mind quickly. “TAO, firing point procedures, tubes one and two, Master Four, tubes three and four, Master Six.”
“Firing solutions set, sir.”
“Make tubes one through four ready in all respects. Open outer doors.”
“Tubes one through four ready in all respects. Outer doors are open, sir.”
“Match bearings, shoot, tubes one through four!”
On the tactical plot David had integrated into the navigation console, four blue dots raced out away from the Virginia. They broke off into pairs of two. For the thirty seconds it took the Hunters to close the distance, they bobbed and weaved while avoiding desperate League point defense fire before each missile went into their terminal homing mode. The linked A.I.s coordinated their assault, allowing one warhead to hit a couple of seconds before the other. The result was two destroyed Cobras and twin debris fields.
“Conn, TAO. Master Four and Six neutralized, sir.”
The control room rocked from another salvo of incoming enemy fire. David managed to strap himself into the navigation station’s harness, then checked the board. He glanced at Ruth. “TAO, I need to know the moment we’ve got power to any other tubes.” Taking out the two destroyers had helped, but they were still on the losing end of the Leaguer force. Not to mention whatever shorted out their systems before. “Scan the area where we lost power. Try to localize what hit us, because we’ve probably got to go through it again to get out of here.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Ruth remained bent over her console as if getting closer to the screen would make it work faster.
The next five minutes were more of the same; violent maneuvering to avoid League plasma balls, coupled with a mental prayer every second David’s mind wasn’t occupied with trying to save their lives. Why did I agree to this again? Annoyed at the lack of an updated damage report, he brought the handcomm to his lips. “Lowe, what’s going on down there?”
The sound of a high voltage electrical discharge came through the speaker. “We’re crisscrossing cables to get auxiliary power to the weapons. Stand by.” Kenneth yelped, the noise echoing through the control room. “Okay, you should be good on tubes five through twelve.”
David made eye contact with Ruth, who nodded. Okay. The playbook just opened back up. The obvious strategy was to eliminate the Rand and two more escorts. But the most obvious solution isn’t always correct, no matter what Occam said. “TAO, I need your best guess on what caused the EMP. Now.”
“I…I don’t know, sir. Either they have stealth sats out there with EMP generators, or maybe mines?”
“But we adjusted our sensors on all ships to account for the stealth coating they outfitted mine with previously.”
“It’s possible they improved the coating, sir.”
“Options?” David stared at her.
“We could detonate four to six Hunter missiles in a pattern around where we were disabled. That might damage the League tech enough for us to slip through. Of course, if it’s something like a field generator, it probably won’t help.”
As David ran her suggestion through his head, he hated the finality of it. If he used up their precious offensive weapons, there’d be nothing to stop the League vessels trying to chase them down. If we don’t get out of here, it doesn’t matter how many Hunters are left in those tubes. Then it hit him. He wasn’t using the advantages a Growler class boat had going for it. With a quick motion, he brought the handcomm back up to his lips. “Lowe, are the decoy drones loaded?” God, please let them be there.
“Yes, sir! We loaded them last Tuesday, did dry run tests too.”
“Get power to them immediately,” David barked. “That’s your top priority as of now.”
Ruth cranked her head around. “Sir? Am I missing something? Those drones would only fool our pursuers for a few minutes. I don’t see what they buy us.”
“Watch.” David grinned fiercely. As the plan clicked together, he finally went from reacting to the League to proactively plotting their defeat. The moment the drones went green on the navigation board, he plotted a course for one. “TAO, direct lateral sensors to monitor heading zero-eight-seven, mark positive twenty.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The button to launch one of the decoys gave a satisfying click as David depressed it. “Drone away.”
A few seconds later, Ruth glanced over. “Oh, you’re going to fly one of them along our previous route. And see if whatever hit us will attack the drone so we can get a firing solution.” A grin came over her face. “Clever, sir.”
“That is what they pay for me, Captain.” David couldn’t help but feel it was his responsibility to figure a way out of their predicament, since he’d gotten them into it in the first place.
Silence reigned in the control room as the drone raced toward the invisible danger that awaited the Virginia as she hurtled through the void of space. Seconds seemed like an eternity, and each tick of the mission clock brought them closer to doom. The next two Cobras closed to within plasma cannon range, and while most shots missed, a few didn’t—taxing the Virginia’s weak shields.
“Conn, TAO! Decoy disabled,” Ruth began. “I got a sensor echo on three, maybe four small objects.” She paused for a moment before looking at him. “They could be emitters for an EMP field, sir.”
“Best guess to counter?”
“Drop a fusion warhead on each one and hope it’s enough?” As she spoke, the control room rocked again. “Aspect change, Masters Three and Five. They’re almost within optimal weapons range, sir.”
Only one chance to get this right. David silently prayed he was making the right choice. “TAO, firing point procedures. Tubes five through eight, target one each on the sensor echoes.”
Concern came to Ruth’s face as she turned and faced him. “Sir, I can’t get a hard lock.”
“I know.” He forced a smile. “I have faith in you, Ruth.”
“Aye, sir.” A moment later, she continued. “Firing solutions set.”
“TAO, firing point procedures, tubes nine and ten, Master Three, tubes eleven and twelve, Master Five. Make tubes five through twelve ready in all respects and open outer doors.”
“Firing solutions set, tubes ready, outer doors open, sir.”
“Match bearings, shoot, all tubes.”
Ruth depressed a series of buttons on her console and stole a glance at David. “All units running hot, straight, and normal, sir.”
As the groups of blue icons raced away from the Virginia, dread filled the pit of his stomach. David brought the handcomm up. “Lowe, you’ve got sixty seconds to get the Lawrence drive back online, or we’re probably not getting out of here.”
* * *
Simultaneously, in the engine room of the Virginia, Kenneth glanced at Billings in alarm. “Shit.” He ripped the handcomm from his belt. “Understood, sir. We’re working on it.”
“We need at least five minutes to uncouple the charge cables on the Lawrence drive and replace the fuses, boss,” Billings called out from his position behind a large panel where they’d pulled out the guts to the drive and its assorted fuses and safety relays.
“Forget that,” Kenneth replied. He yanked the older man back. “Give me that big set of pliers.”
“You are not doing what I think you’re doing.”
Wordlessly, Kenneth snatched the tool out of Billings's hands. “Sorry, Master Chief. Stand back.” He grabbed the spent circuit board with the pliers and yanked it out of the socket. That’s the easy part. Without giving the Billings a chance to intervene, he quickly picked up the replacement and started to slide it back into the socket.
“Boss, for crying out loud, if you twitch, it’ll fry your insides!”
“Shut up,” Kenneth his
sed as he focused entirely on keeping the device from touching the sides of the energized drive. Centimeter by centimeter, he moved it backward, toward the interlock that would grab the board and reconnect the Lawrence drive. There was a reason you never did what he was attempting, which demonstrated itself as a practical lesson when he accidentally shifted too far, and the contraption arced. Blue electricity, charged at ten thousand volts, shot through the panel and into his arms. Kenneth screamed at the top of his lungs and flew backward. Pain, unlike anything he’d ever felt, vibrated throughout his body, like thousands of nails hammered into him at once. And then, mercifully, he blacked out.
* * *
David stared at the portion of the navigation console that displayed Lawrence drive charge and XYZ spatial coordinates for setting the ship’s destination. Something about the desperation of the situation again reminded him of the Artemis. He briefly recalled jumping the frigate out of danger after the bridge crew perished. Being unable to affect the outcome was something he could barely abide. It took every bit of self-restraint not to throw off his harness and rush back to the engine room.
“Conn, TAO. Master Three destroyed, sir.”
The announcement from Ruth was a welcome point, as it meant one less warship trying to destroy them, but they were out of missiles. David focused on the tactical plot as the other blue icons raced toward their targets. One by one, the warheads exploded on the coordinates pinpointed as satellites in the EMP grid. At least, that’s what Ruth thinks. Thankfully, she’s right far more often than not.
“Conn, TAO, aspect change! Sensors just registered energy pulses all over the place,” Ruth said with a fierce grin. “We popped their EMP field generators, sir.”
“Nice shooting, Ruth,” David replied as his fingers went to work, adjusting their heading toward what he hoped was a sustained break in the EMP field. He pressed Virginia’s speed up to the maximum it could do on one primary engine, even bleeding off life support power to get a few more kilometers-per-second out of the stealth raider.
All the while, the Rand class cruiser and its remaining escorts closed the distance. Incoming plasma cannon fire smacked the Virginia’s shields as two more Cobras ranged on them. If there was any silver lining, it was that the enemy vessels weren’t in position to cut them off from escape.
“Conn, TAO. Master One is less than thirty seconds from weapons range, sir.”
“Shield status, Captain?”
“All at maximum except the aft quadrant, which is down to thirty-one percent deflector energy.”
David’s eyes went back to staring at the Lawrence drive charge indicator. He murmured a prayer and then tried willing the electronic display to change by the sheer force of his mind. It sat, displaying a red error message. As the Rand crept closer and closer, he found himself accepting that this was probably it. Once that cruiser gets a hard lock, this boat is toast. In the space of ten seconds, he second-guessed every choice he’d made the last hour. God, please don’t let me have gotten my friends killed for nothing. Then, at the last possible moment, the indicator turned green. He blinked, not sure of what he saw or if his mind was playing tricks on him. The destination was already locked in, so David reached out and pressed the button to engage the drive.
The moment he did, the small raider began to shake. It shook like no ship David had ever been in before, except perhaps a combat shuttle that crashed due to enemy fire. The shaking seemed to go on for an eternity, but onward the Virginia raced toward the wormhole opening.
“Conn, TAO. Aft shields have failed, sir!” Ruth’s voice was a shout above the din.
Just as suddenly as started, the noise ceased, and the vessel resumed its regular movement pattern. David checked, then double-checked that they’d made the jump successfully. The stars are different—we made it. He turned and stared at Ruth. “TAO, please confirm absence of enemy vessels.” His voice was quiet.
“Confirmed, sir. Sensors back online… we’re clear.”
David leaned back in his seat and let out a deep breath. “Okay.” He closed his eyes. “If I ever suggest doing something like this again, you have advance permission to shoot me.”
“I’ll take you up on that, sir.”
10
A few hours later, David sat in the infirmary of the Virginia, along with the rest of his impromptu crew. They were gathered around a bed that contained Kenneth Lowe, still recovering from his wounds. Sinclair and Alon stood, while Ruth, Taylor, and Billings sat near the medical apparatus.
“According to these readings, I can safely revive him,” Sinclair announced in his ever posh British accent. “Any objections?”
There were none.
A few moments later, Kenneth opened his eyes and blinked a few times. “Uuuuuuh.” He moaned. “Hey. Where am I?”
“Sickbay, boss,” Billings began. “You got zapped by ten thousand volts. I told you not to pull that damn board.”
Sinclair shifted to the side. “You experienced high voltage shock, with no lasting damage. Congratulations. If we’re not all dropped on Lambert’s Lament, you might get into a medical textbook. Though with low amperage, it’s been known to happen.”
“I feel surprisingly okay for someone who should be dead,” Lowe deadpanned.
“Don’t joke about it,” Ruth replied. “Besides, you might wish you were dead after you hear what we found.”
Lowe stared from person to person, then at Ruth. “That sounds, uh, ominous.”
“The League has brought out its home defense fleet. That’s the only explanation for the number of ships present at Unity station,” David said after he cleared his throat. “They’ve been playing Fuentes for a fool. Big surprise there.”
“How many ships are we talking?” Kenneth asked. “I mean, what’s a few hundred League ships, right?”
Sinclair snickered. “Captain Goldberg’s scans were quite thorough. Lieutenant Alon and I reviewed and cross-checked them at length. The League has nearly two thousand warships at Unity station.”
“That’s a joke, right? You guys are screwing with the guy who just woke up from a coma. That’s mean.” Kenneth laughed nervously. “I’ve been out a couple of days or something, we got away, and you’re razzing me.” His voice trailed off as no one spoke.
David let out a sigh. How I wish that were true. “We’re trying to decide what to do about it. Since you’re responsible for us being alive, I decided your input was valuable.” He offered a small smile. “Also, everyone here volunteered, so I don’t have the right to order you to take actions that could put us all in jail.”
“General,” Sinclair began, his voice soft. “It's almost a foregone conclusion that CBI and CIS know we stole this ship. I think from here on out, our own fate is forfeit.”
How did we get here? David kept coming back to the question over and over. A year ago, they were well on the way to defeating the League once and for all. How did it get so screwed up? He made eye contact with Sinclair. “When the time comes, I’ll tell them it was my idea, and I forced all of you to aid me.”
“Sir,” Ruth interjected. “I get it. You want to protect us, and I respect that. But I decided to join the op because I know the League, Seville, and all the rest of them are full of shit. I’m happy to stand with the rest of you and take my punishment.”
Taylor pursed his lips together and nodded. “That goes for me too.”
“Me too,” Billings announced.
“I stand with Colonel Sinclair,” Alon stated quietly.
“Don’t forget me; I gave you the Hunter missiles,” Kenneth said with a smile.
For a moment, David sat there quietly with a blank expression on his face. A feeling of doubt and disdain for himself he hadn’t felt in months roared to the surface. I don’t deserve their loyalty. Even as it did, another voice in him spoke. You don’t have the time or the right to feel sorry for yourself. Focus on the mission and honor their loyalty by ensuring success. He set his jaw. “Okay. We’re all in, then.” David glance
d at Ruth. “In that case, you’ll remember my rules against swearing.”
“No uniform, no rules, sir.” Ruth tried to keep a straight face and failed.
David let the remark pass. The truth was, he was in no mood to joke. “The way I see it, we’ve got two options. We can take this to the press and let the chips fall where they may, or we could try the government.”
“Rhodes will have us shot,” Taylor said, his tone dark. “We can’t go to the government, sir.”
“Not even Rhodes can suspend the Terran Coalition’s constitution. I could turn myself in, and as a condition for doing so, make them review the intel seriously.”
“Ah, General, forgive me,” Sinclair interjected as he adjusted his stance. “I think you may be missing an option.”
“Do enlighten me.”
Sinclair flashed a grin. “The most popular politician in the Coalition today is Justin Spencer. Amazing what six months does for someone’s reputation. Why don’t we give this to him? He has the credibility to do something about it. You all know how his polls numbers are through the roof. Perhaps he could even get pardons for us.”
The suggestion was like a lightning bolt hitting the room. The team exchanged glances at each other, and David found himself nodding along. From a practical perspective, it made sense. The former president would have the ability to gain traction where a group of fugitives would not. “How do you suggest we pull that off? This ship is flagged, and we’ll have a squadron of Coalition Defense Force vessels on us the moment we show up on any planet’s sensors.”
“I’m not interested in fighting our own,” Ruth said. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Not that we have anything left to fight with.”
David glanced at her. “I’ll never shoot at a fellow soldier doing their duty. Period.”
Finish the Fight: Echoes of War Book Seven Page 8
