Rimward Stars (Castle Federation Book 5)

by Glynn Stewart

  “We may have underestimated our ally,” he said softly. “But it’s too late now. Commodore Sherazi,” he reached out to Poseidon’s Captain. “What’s our status?”

  “Starfighters ready to launch, missile tubes primed. We are fifteen million kilometers from the estimated emergence point, and Alexander is due in under five minutes. Any change to our orders?”

  “No,” James told him. Kosta’s analysis suggested all sorts of consequences for the long run, but it wasn’t going to change Alexander’s fate.

  “Engage as per the plan.”

  #

  “We have emergence.”

  “It’s always nice when people are punctual,” James observed, watching the multiple jump flares as the convoy entered the Salvatore system. “It’s a shame we don’t have the jammers this time.”

  They hadn’t had the time or the resources to duplicate the network of modified missiles that had allowed them to take on Maasai without being identified. This time, they would be seen and Poseidon would be identified.

  And this time, it wouldn’t matter.

  “Launch all starfighters,” James ordered. “Move up and keep pace with Coati’s ships. Poseidon at the core, Commodore Sherazi. Alexander is going to target us first; keep us intact.”

  The Commonwealth and pirate formation unfolded, spreading out to envelop the incoming ships now they had a firm location for them. Thirty Katanas flashed free from Poseidon’s launch tubes, joining with the hundred and sixty Cobras Coati’s ships launched.

  Alexander reacted far faster than any crew had any business moving, and James inhaled sharply as the Federation ship’s starfighters flashed into space, three squadrons at a time. One launch. Two. Three.

  Seventy-two starfighters formed up around the battlecruiser and Alexander flipped in space, pointing the massive spike of her bulk right at Poseidon.

  “She’s coming right for us,” Kosta told James briskly. “The freighters are going in the opposite direction; they’re all pushing to Tier Two acceleration and running for safe gravity zones.”

  “Damn,” the Commodore replied. He was actually impressed. Emergence had given the convoy a significant velocity in-system that the freighters were going to need to dump to escape, but the freighters were spending fuel freely to get up to almost two hundred gravities and boost away from the pirate fleet.

  “We have Coati on the channel,” Amoto reported.

  “Put him through.”

  “We need to engage faster,” the pirate snapped at James as soon as the link was established. “Our prey is getting away!”

  “Our prey, Commodore Coati, is Alexander,” James replied. “And our Federation friend is heading straight for us. If we can’t handle her, it’s not going to matter how far the freighters got. I suggest you prepare for a fight. Alexander is one of the most powerful warships in existence, after all.”

  The pirate glared at him silently for a few seconds, then cut the channel.

  “Sherazi is launching missiles,” Kosta told James. “Fighters are moving forward. We’ve got them outnumbered almost three to one.”

  “Which is about the only odds I’d be comfortable sending Cobras against Falcons with,” James agreed. “Our Katanas are a match for them, but Coati’s ships are utterly outclassed.”

  “I’m not sure I care,” the analyst admitted, and James chuckled.

  “Right now, I care,” he told her. “Because right now, I need those Cobras to help kill one of the Federation’s most powerful battlecruisers.”

  The missile salvo passing through the fighter formation was impressive. Each of Coati’s modular ships only carried four missile launchers, but sixteen of them put a lot of missiles into space. Combined with Poseidon’s launch, eighty-four modern capital ship missiles blazed toward Alexander at a thousand and fifty gravities.

  Alexander launched a twenty-missile salvo in return, and James hid a sigh of relief. She carried twice as many starfighters as his ship, so he’d worried just how many missile launchers the Federation ship carried.

  Then Alexander fired again after an eighteen-second delay, and his sigh of relief disappeared. Poseidon’s launchers had a thirty-two-second reload, and they needed to wait for Coati’s people with even older launchers to fire full salvos.

  The attackers would have an eighty-four missile salvo every forty-six seconds. Alexander would be launching five salvos to their two…and the intelligence James had seen suggested the battlecruiser had the magazines to keep that up for far longer than this battle was going to last.

  “Sir…” Kosta studied the screen, her voice quiet. “Are we sure we brought enough ships?”

  “Chariot wasn’t back yet,” James pointed out. “While we know Coati has more in hiding, I think this will be enough. Commodore Sherazi, hold our Katanas back for missile defense.

  “We’re going to do this by the book.”

  “Use starfighters to shield us while we close to lance range?”

  “Exactly. Our deflectors are as strong as hers and so are our lances. We’ll both range at one point five million klicks, and I have faith in your gunners.”

  “All right,” Poseidon’s Captain said grimly. “Let’s hope Coati’s people can keep up.”

  The Falcons had moved out in front of Alexander to form a shield, then reduced their acceleration to match their mothership’s two-hundred-and-fifty-gravity acceleration. ECM, lances and lasers reached out from them as the first missile salvos closed.

  The Commonwealth’s Stormwind capital ship missiles were smart, capable weapon systems, but so were Falcons. Most of the first salvo died when they ran into the starfighters, and the handful that survived were no match for the battlecruiser’s own defenses.

  “What the?!” Kosta exclaimed. “Sir, three of Coati’s corsairs just went to five hundred gees!”

  “What are they doing?” James demanded. “Get me Coati!”

  The link to the Commodore resumed a few moments later, the pirate leader watching his own holodisplay.

  “What?” Coati asked grumpily.

  “What are your people doing?”

  “Going after the freighters,” the pirate replied. “Those are our objective, even if they’re not yours. Half of my starfighters are going with them.”

  James saw that as the pirate said it, their fighter formation splitting into three now. The Katanas, holding position a fixed distance in front of the fleet to shield them against the incoming Federation missiles. Eighty Cobras slowing to join them but not quite aligned with the Katanas.

  And eighty more Cobras, cutting away from the group with the three pirate ships to try to catch the fleeing freighters.

  “You realize you’re sending them to their deaths, right?” James asked softly. “They’re not going to clear Alexander’s lance range on their way by.”

  The first Federation missiles salvos slammed into the starfighter screen as they spoke. Even as he argued with Coati, part of the Terran Commodore’s mind was watching that clash. The missiles were wiped out, but three of the pirate Cobras died with them.

  The pirate flight crews were sloppy. Half-trained. Coati didn’t seem to value them or their fighters much, which was telling in and of itself. Neither starfighters nor starfighter flight crew were easy to replace, but the pirate warlord treated them as not merely expendable but disposable.

  “They’ll pass over two million kilometers from Alexander,” Coati objected. “They’ll be fine.”

  “With the deflectors your ships have? She’s going to gut them like fish,” James told him. “She’s a modern battlecruiser, Coati. Do not underestimate her!”

  “One of us has to make a profit here, Commodore Tecumseh,” the pirate snapped. “You focus on Alexander, I’ll focus on my part.”

  The channel cut out and James shook his head.

  “Time till Alexander ranges on those idiots?” he asked.

  “Assuming she has the same beams we do, she’ll range on the ships in less than five minutes,” Kosta tol
d him. “The starfighters might make it past her, depending on what she does.”

  James studied the tactical feed. Coati was going to lose a sixth of his ships no matter what, but the starfighters…

  “The fighters will overhaul the freighters before they can go FTL?” he asked.

  “Two of them, at least.”

  “What are you prepared to sacrifice, Captain?” James murmured as he looked at Alexander’s icon on the feed. If they diverted their starfighters, the missile salvos heading for the battlecruiser could be deadly…but if they didn’t intercept Coati’s starfighters, they could disable or destroy the ships Alexander’s whole charge had been intended to protect.

  The second salvo from the pirate fleet hit the Federation fighter screen while he was watching. Missiles blew apart in their dozens, and this time, several of the Falcons were caught in the blast zones.

  The surviving missiles were too few to punch through Alexander’s defenses, but the starfighters didn’t even seem to be paying attention. As soon as the missiles cleared their intercept zone, the Falcons were swinging about and going to full acceleration.

  “There they go,” Kosta concluded. “Their course will intercept Coati’s Cobras at less than ten thousand kilometers, and then put them in Neverwinter orbit before anyone else can intercept them.”

  All sixty-plus surviving fighters were moving, James noted. That was going to leave Alexander without fighter cover against the missile salvos already closing in.

  He’d barely finished the thought before the Federation ships demonstrated exactly how they were going to handle that. Their leading salvo reached the next salvo from James’s ships in space, then swerved in space on intercept courses as their jammers went to full strength.

  Explosions pockmarked the tactical feed and twenty missiles wiped out over thirty…and then the salvo ran into the next set of Federation missiles.

  Less than a dozen missiles survived that intercept, and those ran headlong into Alexander’s defenses.

  “Kosta, check my analysis here,” James said slowly. “Their missiles perform better in defensive mode, don’t they?”

  The analyst was silent for a moment as she checked her data.

  “Yes, sir,” she confirmed. “It’s not just that we weren’t allowing for the possibility; they’re at least thirty percent more effective at the close-range maneuvering necessary for the role.”

  “Interesting,” the Commodore noted. “Make sure that gets in our report to the Marshal, will you? It’s important to know.”

  Capital ship missiles were rarely wasted in a defensive role, and it was rare to get solid data on the interactions when they were. Any detailed information on the use of Alliance missiles in that role was valuable.

  “I’m not sure we could do what Alexander is doing,” Kosta admitted, watching as the Federation ship maneuvered her missiles into the course of the incoming salvos again and again. “Damn, they’re good.”

  “We’d better hope Sherazi’s gunners are better, or this is going to be a rough day,” James told her. “There go Coati’s ships.”

  The pirate ships were smaller than a true capital ship, but they were still big targets and their deflectors were significantly more out of date than their weapons. Alexander opened up with her positron lances as the modular ships crossed the two-and-a-half-million-kilometer line.

  A positron lance was a lightspeed weapon. With an eight-second travel time, hitting the target wasn’t easy, and they missed with the first salvo. Over twenty beams of pure antimatter, each powerful enough to shatter a planet, flared into existence, and James swallowed a moment of fear.

  Commonwealth Intelligence had badly underestimated the Conquerors’ lance armament—not least because nothing had ever survived entering range of one of the battlecruisers’ beams. Alexander had a third again as many of the megaton-and-a-half-per-second weapons as Poseidon did.

  And her gunners were good. The first beams cut into space for about three seconds, sweeping around for their targets and failing to make contact before they cut out. There was a two-second pause, allowing the pirate ships to sweep closer—and to begin to panic, flipping in space to desperately try to escape Alexander’s wrath.

  They didn’t make it. They couldn’t make it. The second salvo of twenty-four beams lashed out, and while three quarters of them missed, six didn’t.

  All three ships disappeared in balls of blue-white fire, their own mass turning into explosives and tearing them apart.

  “Federation starfighters are launching missiles at Coati’s ships,” Kosta announced. “Our missiles are getting closer, but I don’t know if we’re going to get any through. Their missiles aren’t getting past our screen, but Coati’s lost another half-dozen ships.”

  She shook her head.

  “I swear some of his pilots have never even been aboard a real starfighter before,” she told James. “They’re not qualified to fly in combat.”

  “Coati seems to be extremely cavalier about them,” he agreed. “Crews and starfighters alike.”

  Even as they were speaking, the group of pirate fighters chasing the freighters ran headlong into the two-hundred-odd missiles the intercepting Federation fighters had launched. Eighty Cobras should have been able to handle less than four missiles apiece.

  Should.

  Explosions lit up the display and less than a quarter of the pirate starfighters survived long enough to meet the second Federation salvo.

  Then Alexander’s starfighters shot through the debris field and continued on their way toward Neverwinter. To be able to intercept the pirates, they’d had to accept a vector that took them out of the fight, but by continuing on that course, they were safe.

  Now it was down to the remaining pirate ships and Poseidon versus Alexander, a duel that James Tecumseh was grimly certain was going to cost him and Coati dearly—but a duel Alexander couldn’t win.

  “Wait, she’s breaking off!” Kosta announced. “Oh, Starless Void.”

  The acceleration data attached to Alexander on James’s tactical feed explained the exclamation. The battlecruiser had been heading toward Poseidon and her pirate companions at two hundred and fifty gravities.

  Now she was burning at ninety degrees to that course, increasing the range at which she’d pass her enemies…at over five hundred gravities.

  “That’s going to cost her,” James murmured. The difference between fuel consumption at Tier Two and Tier Three acceleration was orders of magnitude. Several of them. Every second that Alexander maintained Tier Three acceleration took enough fuel to accelerate for about eight hours at Tier Two.

  “But it’s working. Her closest approach is going to be one point eight million kilometers,” Kosta calculated aloud. “That’s outside beam range, if intel is even close on her deflector strength.”

  “Keep up the missile pounding,” James ordered Sherazi. “That’s our best chance—we can still kill her, or at least slow her down.”

  He was not looking forward to his conversation with the Marshal if Alexander escaped unharmed.

  “Sir, Coati’s on the channel again.”

  “Put him on.”

  The pirate was standing on the bridge of his ship now, pacing back and forth before stepping up to the camera with his fists clenched.

  “You were right,” he ground out. “We’re not getting any loot out of this shitshow, and now my people are telling me that fucking battlecruiser is going to get away? Why aren’t you sending your damn fighters in?!”

  “Because thirty Katanas can’t take down a modern battlecruiser, and your starfighters apparently aren’t worth the duct tape holding them together,” James snapped. “Unless something changes, that bitch is going to get away and there is nothing we can do except keep pounding her with missiles.”

  Coati growled and cut the channel again, to James’s amusement.

  If Alexander wanted to run, he was willing to let her. With Coati’s ships in support, he was reasonably sure Poseidon could take
her…but he wasn’t certain.

  “Stars Eternal!” Kosta exclaimed. “We got her!”

  James returned his attention to the display, where Alexander was spinning in space and spewing atmosphere.

  “Sherazi’s people got a missile through, somehow,” the analyst told him. “Her acceleration just went to nothing; she’s gone fully ballistic.”

  “How long till lance range?” James demanded.

  “If she doesn’t get her engines back, two minutes.”

  And maybe, just maybe, the cruiser had lost enough beams to make it an even fight.

  “Commodore Sherazi?” he asked smoothly.

  “We see,” Poseidon’s commander replied. “Warming up the lances now; let’s see if she makes a fight of it… Wait, what the—”

  The icon on the feed dissolved into a swarm of static that it took James a solid several seconds to identify.

  “Stetson fields!” Kosta said aloud just as he recognized them. “She’s going FTL.”

  Space tore…and Alexander was gone.

  Mostly.

  “Is that what I think it is?” James said slowly.

  “If you think it’s about a hundred-meter-wide chunk of Alexander’s outer hull… yeah, yeah it is.”

  #

  Chapter 26

  Deep Space en route to Reinhardt System

  22:45 October 29, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-052 Kodiak

  “We’re still picking through the damage,” the recorded message from Senior Fleet Commander Hanif Kanaan noted from the main holoprojector on Kodiak’s bridge, “but we’ve lost our backup Class One Mass manipulator, our primary antimatter containment units, and at least five of the eight main engines.

  “Worse, our fighter bays are wrecked, as is the entirety of Broadside Charlie,” Alexander’s executive officer continued grimly. “All told, we’re down eight of the main positron lances and seven missile launchers, and I’m not sure we can trust the ship’s power network sufficiently to energize the remaining main beams or more than a dozen secondary beams.”