by Kal Spriggs
If these cruisers were old enough that they weren't a recognized military class, then they were probably not a complete match for his light cruiser. We can still win this, he thought.
To his surprise, the destroyers dropped their fields and engaged with their full armaments, a clear sign of desperation. He almost countermanded his earlier order, especially as the enemy cruisers' fire was pathetic. Their armaments were more like an armed civilian vessel, he thought, than any real military ship. Where had they dug up such obsolete...
His mouth dropped open as the drive field on the first ship collapsed and he got a better read on the ship's signature. Those aren't cruisers, he thought with horror, they're civilian ships, armed and with better, drives, but they're not even military.
His horror mounted as the wounded ship, light guns still firing, took a direct hit. Light structural framing shattered under fire designed to shred heavy military armor and the ship ripped apart.
Clearly Captain Aldazar of the Confederacy realized the ploy a moment later as his fire shifted away from the other civilian vessel and towards the real threat of the destroyers. How many civilians did I just kill, Haddar thought, with an order based on faulty sensor data? He wheeled on Captain Heshan, “Those are civilian ships, you idiot!”
“They're engaging, us, sir, that makes them combatants,” Captain Heshan said stubbornly.
“But not a threat,” Haddar snapped. Yet as he glanced back at the display he saw that he wasn't entirely correct.
The other civilian ship, some kind of fast transport of some kind he guessed, powered up its drive in a ram attempt that the Confederacy narrowly dodged. The collision of drives would almost certainly destroy the other vessel, but if it had military grade drives as it appeared then it might knock out the Confederacy's drive or even damage the cruiser.[][]
Even as he thought that, he saw Captain Aldazar of the Confederacy shift fire back to the transport as it came back around in another ram attempt. Haddar almost ordered the other man to stop. A fast transport like that one, especially with its armament, was almost certainly a civilian liner or personnel transport of some kind, which meant that destroying it could kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians. Yet they made themselves a target when they joined the attack, he thought, Captain Heshan wasn't entirely wrong about that.
The concentrated fire was enough to knock out the ship's drive and the Confederacy lifted its fire a moment later, yet the light cruiser's energy weapons had already savaged the front end of the civilian ship and a spread of atmosphere and debris showed all too clearly that the ship had taken grievous damage. Almost certainly most of the crew and many of the passengers would be dead.
They brought it upon themselves, Haddar thought darkly, even as part of him wept at the necessity of their deaths. I am a warrior, he thought. It is not becoming for me to have to kill civilians defending their home.
The mental anguish of the event almost made him order a withdrawal, yet how could he throw away the sacrifice of his men from the earlier engagements? Valor had called on them to serve their nation and honor demanded that they do so. Yet these civilians show us that they can die just as well as a warrior born, he thought.
And Century's Planetary Militia showed that they, at least, were determined to make the best of the sacrifice of those civilians. The three Halo-class destroyers laid into the Confederacy with their chase armament of two heavy fusion-powered arrays as well as their lighter sponsoned particle cannons and relays from the Confederacy showed that the light cruiser's drive field couldn't take much more. On the other side of the planet, his flagship, the Admiral Norwar, couldn't fire energy weapons, they couldn't even see the other ship directly.
“Launch our remaining missiles,” Haddar said. They only had four of the heavy warp-drive missiles remaining, which would leave the Admiral Norwar unable to effectively engage any enemy at long range. Worse, their targeting data was seconds old while the enemy ships still had use of their maneuvering thrusters. Still, it might be the only way to save the Confederacy he knew, even as he hoped he hadn't given the order too late.
***
Vicky wiped a hand across her split lip and spat blood out the front of her open visor. The hit, or more accurately, the near miss, had slammed her into her seat displays despite her restraints. Smoke hung heavy in the air and half the displays on the bridge were out.
“Starboard turret disabled, both missile tubes disabled, aft maneuver thrusters damaged, forward warp drive ring damaged, rear warp drive ring damaged...”
Vicky tuned out her XO's damage reports as her eyes focused on the important details. Captain Argile and the Meteor were no more, clearly the ship had taken two of the warp drive missiles and little more than an irradiated gas cloud marked where the destroyer had been. The third missile had struck her husband's ship what must have been a close proximity hit with a nuclear warhead. The Comet was bent and she could see ripples in the destroyer's armor from the heat and energy of the detonation.
Both her ship and that of her husband were wide open to enemy fire. She could see that the Comet was more vulnerable, its maneuvering thrusters were entirely off-line and the vaporization of part of its hull had given the ship actual delta-vee.
She felt her stomach sink as she watched the Comet continue to direct fire into the enemy light cruiser, “Focus fire on their aft flank,” Vicky snapped to Bobby at the guns, even as she looked over at Ensign Cross. “Calculate the Comet's trajectory and overlay it with the atmosphere.”
She was able to do the calculations in her head before the ensign brought it up to confirm her guess. The Comet was falling towards Century. Their orbit would actually swing them around the planet and fling them into the outer system... except they would hit the upper atmosphere in only a few seconds. From there, gravity and atmospheric braking would do the rest. The destroyer was doomed and the only way for her crew to survive was for them to evacuate immediately.
She brought up a channel to Brett. “Get your people out, your ship...”
He shook his head, his face grim behind his closed visor. She saw that his bridge was a twisted reflection of her own. Behind him, she could see a rent in the hull that showed the dusty brown of Century's surface. “I know,” he said, even as she saw his hands work over the auxiliary controls on his panel. His tactical officer and his XO must be dead or incapacitated if he's manning the guns himself, she thought. “There's no time, we've got to hammer this bastard, no matter the cost.”
Vicky bit her tongue to stop herself from giving an order that she knew he would refuse. Damn him for being stubborn, she thought, and damn me for ordering us in... and damn Toshi Drien for not being here to help. Just one warp missile could do it at this point, she felt, one solid hit and the enemy cruiser would be open to their fire.
One solid hit, she thought, even as she pulled up her maneuvering display. She gave a shark's grin then and looked at her husband. For just a moment, her mind brought up the faces of her two children. They might well lose both their parents, whether or not this worked.
But they won't live under a boot heel, she thought, and they'll know that we did everything we could to protect them. “Brett,” Vicky said, “I love you.” Before he could respond, she switched over to her ship's intercom, “All hands, brace!” She hit the engage button on the warp drive panel.
***
Admiral Haddar Karmazin growled in savage joy as one of the enemy destroyers vanished in thermonuclear death. Captain Heshan had identified that one as the probable command ship, but as the other two ships fought on, despite their damage, Haddar guessed that the Captain had been wrong, again.
Captain Aldazar of the Confederacy appeared on his communications display, “Sir, I believe that we have the enemy in hand...”
“Sir!” Captain Heshan said eagerly, “I'm detecting warp-drive engagement of the third destroyer, I believe they're attempting to withdraw!”
Haddar shook his head at that. Why would they withdraw when they h
ave fought so hard and have nothing left to lose... His eyes widened in realization and he turned back to the display to Captain Aldazar. “Captain, they're attempting to ram!”
Even as he spoke though, he saw he was too late.
***
Vicky shook her head as she had a weird moment of blurred, multicolored vision. One half of her bridge was cloaked in a red haze, the other half was painfully bright. She wiped at her eyes and her hand came away slicked with blood. Oh, she thought, at least I'm not hallucinating.
She wiped the blood away and looked around at what remained of her bridge.
The forward bulkhead had ripped asunder under the energy release of the two drives colliding. Her console showed three quarters of her ship's systems were either destroyed or disabled, yet the little bit of sensor feed showed that her remaining particle cannon continued to fire at the cruiser... and that the cruiser's drive was down.
Her XO busily directed that fire and a glance at her tactical officer showed that he was beyond help. A further analysis showed that her ship was tumbling away from Century, drive disabled and maneuver thrusters destroyed. Yet, for a few minutes, they would have range for their energy weapons to fire. As the enemy cruiser shuddered under the combined fire from her ship and that of her husband she felt some tiny spark of hope.
A glance, though, showed that her husband's ship was just starting to brush against Century's atmosphere. She brought up a channel to him, “Brett, it's time for you to evacuate...”
“That was stupid of you,” he said, his voice a mix of angry and proud. “Brave, but stupid.”
Either fire from the cruiser or atmospheric friction had damaged his communications array. The video feed was grainy and grew worse as she watched. He wiped away something that looked suspiciously like a tear. “But it's too late, love.” Behind him, she saw the edges of the rent in the hull begin to glow orange. “We're too low to evacuate and survive. We'll continue to fire until...”
She lost the transmission, but she brought up a visual display. The Comet continued to fire, its energy turrets ablaze with heat as they fired far faster than they could safely sustain even as the hull began to glow with heat.
Vicky took over from her XO, “Back to damage control, get me more weapons online,” she said. She angled her remaining particle cannons and for a moment, she felt a sense of connection to her husband, separate several thousand kilometers. She disengaged the power limiter safeties and switched the weapon over into emergency mode. Firing like that was against regulation and would probably cause the weapon to explode, she well knew. She brought her guns in-line with where she knew he directed his fire and a moment later, she saw debris and atmosphere boil up out of the rent in the cruiser's hull.
A secondary explosion followed, a moment later, and the enemy cruiser staggered and its fire slackened off. A moment later, alarms lit up her control panel and the weapon feed went dead as the power conduits overheated.
Vicky's gaze went to her sensor feed. The Comet was ablaze, much like its namesake, as it fell deeper into the atmosphere. Yet, somehow, the ship still fired. That image stayed with her, as the vessel with her husband and fifty other brave men and women began to break up, the pieces raining down upon the planet that had killed them even as they defended it with their lives.
***
Admiral Haddar Karmazin waited patiently for the enemy commander to come aboard his bridge. It was a rare event, in modern times, to accept the surrender of an enemy in person, he knew. Certainly, it was the first time that it had happened aboard a Dalite Confederacy warship.
The door opened and the enemy commander stepped onto his flag bridge. She was flanked by two armed men and Haddar grimaced at their presence. Still, he understood the necessity, even though he thought the precaution absurd.
He took a moment to study the woman who had fought so desperately for victory. She was tall, with a stately beauty that seemed at odds with the violence of her defense. She had sacrificed two destroyers and their crews, along with over a thousand civilians in her attack on the Confederacy. In Haddar's mind, his opponent should have been a grizzled fighting man of advancing years, not a young-seeming woman of great beauty.
Yet as she came forward, limping with every step, there was no mistaking the grim resolve in her blue eyes or the iron will that kept her back straight despite her wounds and the losses that must weigh upon her.
It was without regret then, as she halted before him, that Haddar knelt and offered up his sword. His father and his father's father had carried the sword in military service and it had not known defeat.
“Captain Armstrong, I hereby surrender my remaining forces to you.” Rare as it was to accept an enemy's surrender in person, it was rarer still that the man surrendering had to rescue the person who had defeated him in order to give that surrender in person.
She gave him a respectful nod, though her gaze was distant, almost as if she didn't want to see him as a person. She took his sword, “Admiral Karmazin, I accept your surrender.”
He rose and he saw more of her people come onto the bridge and begin to lead his people out. “You and your people fought with valor, today, Captain.”
“So did yours,” She responded. Her gaze went distant, “Though you'll forgive me if I admit that I am glad we fought better.”
“Of course,” Haddar said graciously. It cost him nothing, now, to do so. He was a dead man, he knew. For his failures he would almost certainly face execution. For surrendering rather than fleeing, his family would be lucky if they were merely exiled from the senior ranks and cast down as the lowest of castes.
Yet in his mind, he could only see the sensor feed from the Confederacy as the pair of destroyers fought on, long past when any sane man would do so. One, falling to its death in the upper atmosphere and the other drifting off into space, without radiation shielding, soon to be an airless tomb for its dead crew. He could not have stood by, not when Century's reserve forces would have had to pursue him out of the system, letting the last of their valiant saviors die.
A high cost, he thought, to pay for valor.
He hadn't realized he spoke aloud until Captain Armstrong turned. “A cost we swore to pay.”
###
