by Jon Gerrard
Chapter Twelve
Third rotation was the graveyard shift. It stretched from 11 pm to 7 am. Most of the crew was asleep at this time and the ship was usually very quiet. Corridor lighting was even reduced during these hours, giving the entire ship a sense of day and night. I tended to walk the decks during third watch whenever I had something on my mind. It gave me a chance to be alone with my thoughts. I’d been taking a lot of late night walks since we had picked up the Fleet crew. And since leaving Toula three days ago I’d hardly slept at all. The bomb attack on our ship was still bothering me. It just didn’t make any sense. An antimatter warhead was not something you could find just anyplace. Especially not one stolen from the most powerful nation in inhabited space. And it was ludicrous for someone to use such a weapon against us. It was like using a bazooka to wipe out an ant hill.
The more I thought about it the more I kept coming back to our passengers. Whatever their mission in this sector was it must have stirred up a real hornet’s nest. And now we were right in the middle of it. The one thing that I couldn’t understand was how anyone even knew the Fleet crew was with us. No one had been around when we rescued Saha and his men and no ships had been in scanner range during our entire journey to Toula.
I looked up then and realized that I was near my cabin. I thought about trying to get some rest but knew that I was still too wound up to sleep. Turning away from my door I headed to the main stairwell, climbed to the command deck and stepped onto the bridge. I had kept full crews on duty during each shift since leaving Toula and all the stations were manned. Mindy Preston, the command officer on duty, nodded to me when I entered. She didn’t move to get up from the command chair at my appearance, however. The crew was used to my late night wanderings.
I wasn’t surprised to find Alex manning the security station. She’d been getting as little sleep as I was recently. Since leaving Toula she had been reviewing the dockside security camera recordings in an attempt to find out how the bomb had been smuggled aboard. So far she hadn’t learned anything.
I wandered around the bridge for a while looking at system read-outs that I wasn’t really paying attention to. I exchanged a few smiles and friendly words with the crew as I moved from station to station, my thoughts churning. Everything was quiet and all systems were operating smoothly.
I had just decided to return to my cabin and try to force myself to get a few hours rack time when an urgent buzzing sounded. Although my mind was light-years away I immediately recognized the collision alert warning.
“Torpedo closing from astern!” Alex called out. Torpedoes were cloaked missiles. They were fast and could only be tracked by their wake. This made them difficult to detect until just before they reached their target.
“Evasive maneuvering!” Mindy called out. “Release chaff!”
The helm officer immediately slammed the ship hard to port. In that moment I was thankful that I had been running emergency drills over the past few days.
“Chaff released!” the weapons officer said. Chaff was simply ionized metal fragments released in a sudden cloud behind the ship. The reflective particles would scatter the torpedo’s sensor readings and make it lose its lock on us–hopefully.
“Torpedo’s trajectory is unchanged,” Alex announced after a moment. “It’s going to miss.”
I imagined the deadly cylinder streaking past our hull and heading off into space.
“Picking up sensor scans from the weapon now,” Alex said as she watched her board. “It’s trying to reacquire us.” Although torpedoes had a limited range this one probably had enough fuel to make one more attempt.
“Activate stealth system,” I said, taking over the command seat from Mindy. I was tempted to put up our shields too but knew that the energy signature would draw the torpedo to us like a magnet.
“Stealth system engaged,” the weapons officer said. We were now invisible to its scans. I was starting to relax slightly when there was a deep electronic humming from all of the control systems. We had been flashed! A flash pulse generated a sympathetic ‘echo’ in any operating electronic systems within range of its flash. By flashing us the other ship had made us visible to the torpedo despite our stealth system. Although it wouldn’t give the weapon a perfect lock it would give it a general idea of where we were. And we were a pretty big target.
“Torpedo is turning,” Alex said, “and closing.”
“Launch countermeasures,” I ordered.
“Countermeasures away,” the weapons officer said.
A pair of decoy drones detached from the stern and began giving off false signals.
“Evasive, forty degrees starboard, positive pitch fifteen degrees,” I ordered.
The helmsman immediately began to change our heading. “Coming about forty degrees starboard, fifteen degrees positive pitch.”
For several tense moments we all held our breaths as we waited to see if the countermeasures would work.
“It’s going after the countermeasures,” Alex said. A moment later the ship trembled slightly in the shockwave from the nearby explosion.
“That was close,” Mindy said, her fingers clamped to the arm of the command chair in a vise grip.
“Too close,” I agreed. “Where the hell did that torpedo come from?”
“There’s still nothing on scanners,” Alex said. There was only one possible answer. We were being shadowed by another sub. We needed to lose it while we were under cover of our stealth system.
I turned to the helm. “Come about to a heading of–”
Before I could finish the collision alert began buzzing again.
“Two more torpedoes closing from starboard! Impact in ten seconds!” Alex called out.
Damn! “Release countermeasures! Evasive port!” The weapons were vectoring in from the wrong angle for chaff.
The helmsman threw us into another hard turn.
“One torpedo is going after the countermeasures,” Alex said. “The other is still closing. Impact in four seconds.”
“All ahead flank!”
Seconds later the ship lurched violently as the torpedo struck. The emergency claxon sounded.
“Damage report!”
“Impact was on ... C deck, aft starboard quarter,” Alex said as she checked across her board. “Airtight doors are sealed. No loss of internal pressure. It looks like we were hit in one of the small cargo bays.” With any luck the only thing we lost was part of our shipment.
I jabbed at a switch on my board to cut off the screaming claxon.
“Begin active scanning,” I said. “And flash the area. We have to find that other ship!” The enemy already knew where we were so sending out flash pulses couldn’t expose us any more than we already were.
I turned to Mindy, who was standing beside the command chair. “Get down to C deck and give me an eyeball on the damage. I want to know just how bad it is.”
“Yes, sir.” She hurried for the exit and almost ran into Chris who was rushing onto the bridge.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“There’s a sub out there taking pot shots at us,” I told him.
As Chris took over the XO station I swiveled to Alex. “Tell me you’ve got something.”
Alex was frowning at her screens. “There’s nothing showing on any of my scanners. We’re not getting any flash returns either.”
Flashing the area should have given us the other ship’s position. Unless...
“The bastard’s hiding in our baffles,” I said. There was a distortion area directly behind every ship that was caused by the wake of its own drive system. This was the one blind spot to its scanners. If a skillful pilot could keep his ship in this area it would be invisible to the ship it was following.
Bobby, Mark and Patty came hustling onto the bridge one after the other just then and rushed to take over their stations. Although all of the bridge officers from all shifts were competent I wa
s relieved to see my first shift crew at their stations. They were first shift for a reason.
“Drop us out of hyperspace then give me a random vector change,” I said to Bobby as he assumed the helm.
On the main screen there was a flash of light as we returned to normal space. The stars, which had been streaking toward us as elongated needles at super light speeds, returned to their normal appearance as fixed pin-points. A moment later they began to slide away to port as Bobby quickly changed our heading.
“I’ve got that damage report, Captain,” Chris said. “Mindy says the torpedo holed us in starboard cargo bay one. The compartment’s been depressurized and power is out in three surrounding sections, but there doesn’t seem to be damage to any inhabited compartments.” We’d been lucky.
“Get a damage control team down there and keep me advised,” I said. I looked anxiously at Alex. “Anything?”
“Nothing yet ... wait ... I’m reading an energy surge like a ship just dropped to sublight. I’m not picking anything up on scanners. They must be stealthed. Another surge now ... Weapons fire. One, no, two more torpedoes have been launched.”
“At us?”
“No. Torpedo wakes are vectoring along our downjump trajectory. They’re heading away from us.”
“What’s the status of our stealth system?” I asked Mark.
He studied his board carefully. “Everything looks good, Captain. System is on-line and operating normally. They shouldn’t be able to see us.”
“Captain,” Alex called, “they’re flashing the area.”
There was a tense silence on the bridge for a few moments but there was no tell tale hum from our electronic systems.
“Have they spotted us?”
“I can’t tell,” Alex said. “We’re pretty far away. They may not be able to get a return signal at this ... Just a second. I’m picking up what appears to be maneuvering thrusters. They’re coming about.” She adjusted her scanners. “I don’t think they could have gotten a clear return at this range but they might have gotten a weak signal. Enough to give them a rough bearing.”
“Should I prepare to return fire, Captain?” Mark asked. I could hear the tension in his voice.
I considered our options. As good as my crew was we weren’t a military ship. We’d been damaged and had no idea who we were fighting. If we turned to fight we would have to reorient the ship to bring our tubes to bear on the other sub and they would very likely pick up the power surge from our maneuvering thrusters. And even if we did decide to fight we only had the handful of torpedoes that we had found aboard when we captured the ship from the pirates years ago. With a total of only six torpedoes, three for the forward tubes and three for the rear, there was little chance of us defeating the other sub in a standing fight.
“No,” I said. I turned toward Chris. “Cut power to all ship systems except stealth emitters. Shut us down.”
Chris’ fingers raced across his board as he cut power throughout the ship. Around the bridge one system after another went dark. Moments later the main lights shut off as dim emergency lighting glowed on. Even the soft whispering of the air circulation system died away. In moments the only sound was the sound of our breathing.
I turned to Alex. “What are you picking up on passive scan?”
“They’re heading in our direction,” she said, watching a single, dimly glowing screen. “They’re continuing to flash.” The screen she was watching pulsed regularly in response to the electronic signals from the other ship. Such a small surge was easily blanketed by our stealth system, but we could track them by their pulse emissions.
“They’re closing. Five hundred meters ... Four hundred ... Three hundred. Ship approaching our starboard beam. Two hundred fifty meters ... Two twenty ...” Around the bridge all eyes were staring at the starboard bulkhead as if we could see the ship passing close by us if we just stared hard enough. “... Two twenty ... Two hundred forty ... Two hundred sixty. Ship is moving off. Now three hundred meters. They’re continuing to move away. Four hundred meters.”
I sat back in my seat and drew a deep breath. It looked like we were going to get out of this one. But even as I was relieved at our narrow escape I was angry with myself for not anticipating the attack. Whoever had smuggled the bomb aboard our ship must have noticed that it didn’t blow when it was supposed to. They must have been shadowing us since we left Toula, trying to decide what to do until they eventually just took matters in their own hands and attacked us directly. This was the second time that they had nearly succeeded in destroying our ship. I didn’t intend to give them another opportunity.
“Keep all systems powered down until you hear from me,” I said to Chris as I got to my feet. “We’re going to play dead until they leave the area. Alex, I want you to keep an eye on that son of a bitch who’s tracking us. Send for me if he comes back this way.”
“Where will you be?” she asked.
“In my cabin. I need to have a talk with one of our passengers.”
