Wolfhound

by Kindal Debenham

  The peace came to a shattered halt as an alert screeched at him from the console. Jacob looked down and saw a pair of glowing red dots rapidly approaching his vessel from a great distance. Selecting each of them using the wheel controls, he brought up images on smaller screens that identified the craft.

  Both were frigate class vessels, around a hundred meters long and half the Wolfhound’s size. One had a standard rectangular design with a pair of solid-looking DE sail rigs attached on either side, while the other seemed to be a squat, heavily-armored version with no rigs visible, looking something like a beetle scuttling through space. The insignia sprayed over their hulls made it clear what their purpose was, however. Pirates. Jacob snarled.

  Normally the simulator would have projected Oduran warships as his opponents since most battles the Navy faced involved the League one way or another. In comparison to the destructive potential and determination of the Oduran League, the ragged, mismatched pirate fleets of Telos were only a mere annoyance. Most officers and enlisted crew viewed them as little more than a thorn in the Celostian Union’s side which only survived because the Navy had more pressing threats to watch for.

  In all fairness to his fellows in the Navy, Jacob knew it didn’t make sense to worry about a few marauding clans using corvettes, frigates, and a destroyer or two to raid frontier posts and shipping lanes when an alliance of dictators and traitors were using dreadnoughts and cruisers to batter the Union. The League was definitely a threat to anyone who currently enjoyed the liberties and freedoms the Union had to offer, and he would be more than glad to oppose the Odurans' goals for conquest.

  At the same time, however, Jacob was intimately familiar with the cost of ignoring the threat the Telosians presented. He had seen countless friends and acquaintances captured or killed during pirate raids. Those killed were often more fortunate than survivors, since those who were captured suffered as hostages or slaves under harsh Telosian rule. All at once, a memory rose to the surface of his thoughts, of his mother half-collapsed over a personal reader. His father put an arm around her as she cried. His mother’s voice came to him, dull with grief after reading one account of a friend’s fate. They took them. We’ll never see them again now.

  Rage, dark and terrible, seeped through him, but Jacob shoved it aside and opened his eyes. His hands danced across the console as he changed course and speed. The Wolfhound on the screen made a graceful turn towards the two interlopers, shuddering slightly under his feet as it fought the inertia of its previous course. The distance between his ship and the two enemies closed swiftly, and Jacob gritted his teeth with impatience.

  The projection lit up with streaks of light as the enemy frigates opened fire, railgun shells flitting through space toward him. His destroyer responded with a wave of its own railgun shots. Point defense turrets on all three ships lanced out with waves of energy, snatching the shots out of space in a series of incandescent explosions. A second wave of fire, then a third pulsed out from the frigates, answered in turn by the destroyer’s own salvos. As the space between the adversaries quickly became littered with shattered pieces of metals and explosions, the two frigates began to veer off slightly, changing their course so they would avoid the mess and present a less dangerous target to their opponent.

  Jacob, on the other hand, increased his ship's speed and stayed on course. The simulator shuddered slightly as the Wolfhound was buffeted by some of the blasts, and the sound of metal bouncing off the hull echoed through the small chamber. The frigates opened fire again, their shots reaching out in an attempt to strike the bow of the Wolfhound once more before the angle was too steep. The bright lights of interceptor fire chased down most of the shots, but two managed, by virtue of their speed and the closer distance, to pierce the screen of plasma fire to strike the destroyer.

  The two explosions shook the Wolfhound hard, and Jacob felt the restraints bite into him as they kept him in the seat. He watched as the guns on the destroyer returned fire, but the frigates were now a much more difficult target to hit. Most of the shots went wide, and those that would have struck them were overwhelmed easily by the overlapping arcs of point defense turrets. Jacob smiled grimly as the explosions filled the space between them. Laugh now, pirates, because soon you will never laugh again. He wrenched the controls, altering the set of the DE sails and bringing the ship around on a new setting.

  The frigates had begun a turn to set themselves at a right angle to their previous course, obviously hoping he would try to turn after them so they could continue to fire at his vulnerable bow. They hesitated as the Wolfhound began to climb instead. Their next volley came as the destroyer continued its vertical turn, and it was horribly off target. The Wolfhound’s next shots did a little better, as they were now coming to face the frigates at a much better angle than before.

  As Jacob leveled out, he twisted the wheel so the destroyer would no longer be flying upside down relative to his prey. The frigates, as if suddenly aware of their precarious position, tried to sharpen their turn and increase speed, but it was far too late. Jacob began a rolling turn to the right, which landed the Wolfhound directly behind the two pirate ships in perfect firing position. Victory flashed through his mind. You’re both mine now.

  The pirate ships, with most of their weapons forward, could barely fire any guns at him now. Jacob, on the other hand, had most of his guns at a perfect angle. The destroyer’s salvo focused on the rectangular craft, firing all twelve railguns into its fleeing bulk.

  For a moment it seemed the frigate’s defenses would intercept all of the incoming shells. Then the tail end of the salvo shot through the clouds of shrapnel and concussion waves to slam into the rearmost part of the ship. Two shots made it through to the frigate itself and tore into its hull. The hits caused multiple explosions and shook the pirate craft severely.

  Both frigates apparently realized the dangerous position they were in and began maneuvering to escape him. The beetle-like craft pulled away from its damaged companion, diving and turning out to the left, while the damaged ship took a different tactic, pulling up and slowing dramatically, apparently hoping the destroyer would overshoot it and allow it to escape.

  Unfortunately for the pirate ship, Jacob had seen the maneuver coming and left more than enough space to slow down between him and his target. As the frigate climbed, Jacob kept the bow of the Wolfhound pointed directly at it, and cranked back the strength of the DE sails to avoid flying straight past it. He glanced up as the distance between the two ships began to vanish.

  The enemy frigate filled his screen, its bulk taking up a slice of space where there had once only been stars. Even as the ship grew larger in the main projection, he saw multiple flashes of light, and the dull realization the frigate had fired on him again raced through him. Defense turrets responded with a frenzy of crisscrossing plasma streams, swatting at the handful of shots and tearing them apart. He glanced down at the screen and saw the single shot which had made it through fly harmlessly off into space.

  Then the destroyer’s guns answered the attack, unleashing another full salvo. This time, with the distance closed and the frigate’s speed terribly reduced, the attack was devastating. Shell after shell pierced the enemy’s defensive screen and impacted against the ship’s hull. The rounds pierced the armored skin of the craft, and a heartbeat later explosions tore their way back out into space. Holes gouged by the tremendous blasts opened up all over the top of the ship, and its momentum slowed even further than it had before until finally it was drifting through space, out of control and on fire.

  Jacob rolled the Wolfhound away from the stricken craft, letting it pass by on the port side. The screen depicting the frigate in the corner of the display showed secondary and tertiary blasts continuing to tear pieces of the pirate ship apart, and he noticed one of the DE sail rigs that had been attached to the starboard side of the enemy vessel was now floating free in space. That thing’s not going anywhere. Now to track down its buddy. He checked the display for
signs of the second craft, wondering where it had gotten to.

  He found the pirate coming in fast. The second frigate, after diving out and away from the fight, came full circle and started a climb again, giving it a clear shot at the Wolfhound from below, and Jacob’s eyes widened as warnings suddenly flashed. Incoming shells! They’re too close!

  The impacts were vicious. With the attention of the Countermeasures officer apparently still forward, only a few interceptor turrets managed to track the incoming blasts. The simulator shook like a leaf in a hurricane multiple hits connected. Jacob was shoved in so many directions he lost track of which way was up, and he barely managed to reach out and twist the strength of the sails down to minimum.

  When the shuddering stopped, Jacob took a moment to collect himself and study the situation. He thought he felt bruises where the straps had held him in his chair. On the front of the ship, the gun mounts seemed relatively unharmed, and the DE sails had escaped most of the damage. All along the ventral side, however, there were fires and holes. Most of what had been the Engineering section was now decompressed, and power was probably fluctuating wildly through the remainder of the ship.

  He checked the flickering screen and found the frigate still closing with his drifting craft. It was apparently convinced that the ship was dead and didn’t see any reason not to close with its victim before delivering a final blow. Typical pirate, but we aren’t through yet. Carefully, Jacob shut down half of the DE sails completely, while he flipped a few more switches on the side with the maneuvering controls. As he was making his preparations, the frigate drew closer. Wait for it, wait for it. The pirate was close enough now that no point defense turret in the world would be able to react fast enough. Jacob smiled grimly and twisted the switch.

  The sails flared to life, catching the dark energy current at the perfect angle. With a wrenching motion that threw Jacob into his straps, the Wolfhound spun in space, swapping end for end. As the ship was halfway through the maneuver, Jacob twisted the sails back off, cutting the acceleration. When it neared the end of its spin, he hit the button to start to sequence for the maneuvering jets and brake sails to fire, slowing the ship suddenly enough that he was thrown in the opposite direction.

  As the ship came to a relatively stationary position again, Jacob found the enemy ship filling the projector above his console. His eyes widened as he registered the alarms going off and realized his opponent had fired the moment he had started the spin. He braced himself for oblivion.

  The simulator shook once, and then again as if the ship had taken a pair of glancing hits. What? He opened his eyes to find the shots launched by the enemy streaming past his ship, thrown off by the wild maneuver he had used against them. Yes! Now we just have to fire before—

  The entire simulator went dark. Jacob stopped, his arm still raised in victory. He looked around, expecting a noise, or at least another shake to indicate that the reactor had exploded. Nothing happened. There was no end of mission message, no after action report on the simulated battle, nothing but silence.

  Confused, Jacob unbuckled himself from the restraints that had held him in the chair and made his way in the dark to where he could access the physical handle for the hatch. Bracing himself, he wrenched the hatchway open and found himself blinking in the light of the training center.

  Ensign Schroder was there, his face twisted in a wolfish grin. “Oh there you are, Ensign! You’re just who I hoped to see.”

  The thrill and surprise in Schroder’s voice confused Jacob until he saw Ensign Caddamar and Triez standing behind him, laughing into their hands. Then his confusion soured into bitterness and hatred faster than the scenario had disappeared. “What do you want Schroder?”

  Schroder’s grin grew a little bit wider. “Well, I had just come down to practice a little in my helm simulator when I found out it was being used by someone else. And then, even worse, the whole thing lost power!” Schroder leaned in close to Jacob, hooked an arm around him to drag him out of the open hatch. The ensign whispered loudly to him as he pulled him around to the back of the simulator. “Hey, since you’re in the Engineering section, could you check it out for me? It is your skill set, after all.”

  Jacob allowed himself to be dragged along, his anger smoldering on the inside as he listened to the stifled laughter of the other ensigns. His mind flashed back to other, similar situations at the Academy, and his anger deepened a little. So you’re having a little fun with the frontier boy, huh? We’ll see how well that turns out for you, Schroder. Schroder pointed to the main power cord of the simulator, which was unplugged. “I think the problem might be right here. Could you work on that for me?”

  His anger built to a crescendo as he looked at the unplugged cord, and Jacob could feel his hands closing into fists at his sides. Schroder didn’t seem to notice Jacob’ tension, though, and just tightened the arm slung around Jacob’ shoulders. “Well?”

  Jacob’s anger suddenly went cold. He looked at Schroder for a moment and smiled, his face showing little of the rage burning beneath the surface. “Sure Schroder, I could definitely take care of your problem for you.” Stepping out and away from Schroder, he slipped out from under the other ensign’s arm. He bent for a moment as if studying the unused power cord, and listened as Schroder and the others continued to chuckle behind him. Then he straightened up, scratching idly at the back of his head. “Well, this is new.”

  The laughter trailed off, and Jacob fought hard to keep a satisfied smile from his face as he pictured the confusion on their faces. After an uncomfortable silence, Schroder spoke up. “What’s new?”

  Jacob looked back at the Navigation ensign almost casually. “There’s obviously a problem here, but I can’t seem to figure it out. I guess I will just have to dig in.” With a flourish, Jacob sat down and opened the small access hatch in the wall near the outlet. “I don’t know how long it will take me, though. We’ll have to see.”

  As the other ensigns were still wrapped in confusion, Jacob reached in and flipped a switch, cutting power to the outlet. A couple of other simulators that used the same spot also went dark. Luckily they were unoccupied. Jacob then started removing wires, mostly the ones that fed power into the navigation simulator, pretending to check each one for flaws. “Let’s see, the problem should be around here somewhere. I’m sure I can find it, though. Just give me some time.”

  Schroder, off balance and suddenly unsure, took a step forward. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with the power relays.”

  A tinge of worry had colored Schroder’s tone, and Jacob smiled. The more complicated this gets, the more likely the commander hears about it, huh? Too bad, Schroder, I have a lot less to lose than you do. He quickly turned the smile into a patronizing grin as he shook a fistful of power cords in Schroder’s direction. “And how would you know, Ensign Schroder? After all, Engineering is way beneath your level. You’re just supposed to drive the ship.”

  The other ensigns weren’t laughing now. In fact, they already looked as if they wanted to be any place other than here. In contrast, Schroder’s face was darkening in rage. “Hull, you damn spacer moron, the power cord is just unplugged. Maybe if your frontier trash daddy had taught you some real skills you’d know that. Put those cables back and get out of here.”

  Jacob kept smiling, the bitter fires of now stoked to an inferno in his heart. “Oh come now, Ensign, power cords just don’t come unplugged. As for these cables –” He glanced down at the cables in his fist, and when he looked up at Schroder again the smile was gone. “You’re welcome to come and get them. If you can.”

  A silence fell over the room like a shroud. Schroder’s eyes widened in surprise, and the ensigns who had been so eager to laugh and joke before were now pale and nervous. Jacob stood his ground, power cables still clenched in one hand, the other already curled into a fist. He waited as the surprise on Schroder’s face faded and was replaced by ugly, terrible rage.

  For a moment, Jacob felt a tin
ge of concern. After all, Schroder was about the same height as him, and he seemed to have a little more muscle than the average Navy ensign usually put on. It wasn’t likely Schroder could be put down quickly enough to avoid being disciplined as a result. The concern passed quickly as a snarl broke out on Schroder’s face. Too late to worry about that now.

  Schroder swung at him, his fist lashing out at a speed that almost impressed Jacob. Before the punch could connect with his head, though, Jacob leaned out of the way and swung his own left hand in a passing blow to Schroder’s midsection. The other ensign, caught off guard and off balance, let all the air out of his lungs in a pained huff, and Jacob brought his other hand around and grabbed the collar of Schroder’s uniform. With a single motion, he tugged Schroder forward and twisted to add force to the throw. The ensign slammed face-first into the wall, and rebounded hard enough to send him staggering backward. Jacob kicked the legs out from under him, which put Schroder flat on his back with a heavy thud and a pained yelp.

  Before he could recover, Jacob placed a knee squarely on the other ensign’s chest and used his other one to pin Schroder’s left arm to the floor. His opponent let out a grunt and reached up with his right arm to try and grab a handful of Jacob’s shirt and wrench him off, but Jacob bore down harder, his knee grinding into Schroder’s collarbone. He looked down into the other ensign’s face, seeing a picture perfect vision of rage, pain, and frustration. “You’re not going to want to keep this up. Your record will go down in flames.”

  Schroder continued to snarl at him from the floor. “My record? I don’t give a damn about my record. You’ll find out what it means to cross me, Hull, I’ll make sure of that.”