Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3)

by Joshua Dalzelle

  The Ares continued to limp across the system under a straining single main engine, while an ever more brazen Alpha began to eat up the distance between them, throwing caution to the wind and accelerating. Behind the drama between the hunter and hunted, two destroyers were still roaring in under full power and letting the Alpha know they were still there with constant tracking and targeting radar scans. All in all, it was a nice bit of chaos that Jackson hoped would keep the Alpha fixated on rushing in to kill the Ares first and then try to get separation from the other two Terran warships.

  “Alpha has crossed the one-hundred-thousand-kilometer mark,” Barrett said after another six hours of flight. The enemy ship was still closing but had once again decreased its rate of acceleration.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Did it set off the threshold trigger in the tactical computer?”

  “Affirmative, sir,” Barrett nodded. “Aft, starboard launch tube is in launch countdown. Weapon deployment in … thirteen seconds.”

  “Update our weapons status through the Link,” Jackson said. “No outbound com traffic until further notice.”

  “Weapon away!” Barrett called. “Status updating on the main.”

  “Helm! Bring Engine One online,” Jackson said. “All ahead flank!”

  “All engines ahead flank, aye!” The rumble felt through the deck plates doubled in intensity as the Ares surged away from the Alpha on the tactical display.

  “Thermal buildup on the enemy ship’s prow,” Barrett said. “Still no—”

  “Detonation!” Hayashi yelled.

  “Helm! Zero thrust—” Jackson never finished his sentence as the Ares was hit by something so violently that anybody not sitting down and holding on was sent flying. Jackson rolled up on to his knees, not trusting his prosthetic leg while the deck was still heaving, and tried to figure out what the hell had happened.

  “Report!”

  “Gravitational distortion was more than we—”

  “Aft pylon sheared on Engine Two,” Hayashi interrupted Barrett. “Plasma containment is failing.”

  “Jettison Engine Two! Now!” Jackson shouted.

  “Engine Two is jettisoned! Only one of the separation rockets fired!”

  “Helm, get us—” Another blast hit the Ares, this time sounding like something had physically struck the ship. Alarms blared, red strobes flashed, and all over the ship pressure hatches were slamming shut.

  “Engine Two exploded before it was clear,” Hayashi wiped the blood out of his eyes from the heavy gash over his forehead. “Multiple hull breaches … containment protocols are enacted.”

  “Tactical! Report!”

  “Aft scan radar is out.” Barrett shook his head, trying to focus on his displays. “Link telemetry shows that the Icarus and the Hyperion both fired on the target. Hyperion is reporting minor thermal damage to her prow.”

  “Coms!”

  “Keller is down, sir,” Davis said, pulling the com officer down to the floor before slipping the headset on. “Contacting the Icarus now.”

  “OPS, I want a concise damage report and I want it now!” Jackson barked. He grabbed the nearest console and hauled himself up, tentatively putting weight on his artificial leg before walking back over to his seat. “Helm! Are we under power?”

  “Yes, sir,” the helmsman said. “Engine One is responsive.”

  “Zero thrust and bring us about.” Jackson sat down. “Get us pointing back towards the engagement and let her drift until we know what’s going on. Tactical, get sensors on the target ASAP… I need to know what’s happening.”

  “The Icarus is reporting that the target is down!” Davis called.

  “Is it still alive?” Jackson asked.

  “Thermal scans indicate there is still activity aboard,” Davis said. “But it is no longer maneuvering.”

  “Status confirmed,” the words came over the bridge speaker. “Enemy ship is alive and disabled.”

  “Nice of you to suddenly become helpful again,” Jackson snapped. “Lieutenant Davis, make the call to Sick Bay and get a team up here to see to Lieutenant Keller. After that, send word to the Icarus that they’re to begin the grappling procedure and we’ll join them as soon as we can.”

  Chapter 17

  “It was a hell of a thing to see.” Celesta leaned back in her seat. She was in her office aboard the Icarus and Jackson could just make out the picture in the background over the video channel. It was of the two of them along with Davis, Singh, and Pike standing in front of the Ares’ main entry hatch just before the ship was christened and launched.

  “We didn’t get to enjoy the show,” Jackson said sourly. “We’ve taken a serious beating. When the main exploded it opened up the hull along the aft quadrant in a dozen places. So you actually have optical sensor data of the incident to go with the radar and accelerometer records?”

  “We do,” she nodded. “I’d ordered the sensors trained on the spot in space we knew the Alpha was, and we were able to just make it out on the thermal optics at the time of the incident. When the gravity bomb went off it jerked, spun around twice, and then just floundered around a bit before our missiles impacted.”

  “Amazing,” Jackson shook his head. “The bomb must have modulated its output for a sustained effect. One big ripple to slow it down and then just enough disruption of local space to make sure its drive was effectively nullified.”

  “I suppose we’re lucky the Phage don’t have any sort of backup propulsion that isn’t based on gravity manipulation,” Celesta yawned. “Were there any casualties on the Ares?”

  “Six dead, over twenty injured,” Jackson said quietly. “Not to mention the loss of the Artemis.”

  “Yes,” she said sadly. “This operation had better pay off considering the price we’ve paid for it so far.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, Captain,” Jackson said. “I’m ordering the Hyperion back to the planet to recover the Atlas or at least confirm her condition. The probe hasn’t been able to send back anything conclusive on the condition of the crew. We’re limping back to you now; it took a while to come to a full stop and then accelerate back the way we came on one main engine.”

  “Will you be able to achieve transition velocity?” Celesta asked.

  “Singh says yes,” Jackson shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, maintain your position and we’ll hopefully hear from the Vruahn cube soon about what the next step is. Obviously we can’t take the thing back to Terran space intact.”

  “Understood, sir,” she said. “Icarus out.”

  Jackson terminated his own connection and leaned back. Despite the horrors around him like losing an entire ship under his command and the deaths aboard his own vessel, he couldn’t help but smile as he thought about how much Celesta Wright had matured as a commanding officer. She’d grown much from the unsure executive officer who had boarded the Blue Jacket to someone he now considered one of the most solid, dependable captains in the Fleet. He expected big things for her … assuming their next campaign was a success and that they actually survived it.

  He hauled himself out of his seat with a groan, wincing as his leg straightened out. He’d landed pretty hard both times he’d been tossed about the bridge and cursed himself for not ordering everyone into restraints before setting off another of those accursed gravity bombs. They knew so little about the capabilities and limitations of the weapon that he should have exercised greater caution when lobbing them out into space and hoping for the best. Even though they had given some instruction to the cube before deploying them, and had even received a confirmation from the damn thing, he suspected that it had set the weapon’s output based on its own calculations with little regard for the safety of the humans aboard the ship.

  Jackson walked quickly from his office back to the bridge, intent on getting his orders to Captain Walton on the Hyperion before checking in with Singh about how the repairs were going. He also intended to have another discu
ssion with the cube even though he knew it was likely a wasted effort. The device had shown that it had its own motivations and seemed to be operating on protocols that were not made available to Jackson. Either way it was clear that when it came to the alien tech aboard his ship he was not the one in charge. The best he could hope for at this point was that it didn’t cost him any more of his crew before he could get it out of his hold.

  ****

  “I’d like a few straight answers from you,” Jackson bluntly shouted across the hold. He’d already ordered Major Ortiz’s Marines to take up position outside as well as his own monitoring teams.

  “To the best of my ability, Captain,” the cube said.

  “That would be a nice change of pace,” Jackson snorted. “Let’s start with the most pressing: you’re aware your gravity bomb severely damaged my ship and cost six of my crew their lives?”

  “Unavoidable,” the cube said matter-of-factly. “The output of the weapon had to be set so as to be certain the enemy ship was disabled long enough for your escort ships to fire upon it. At the time you ejected the gravity modifier they were too far away for the effect to be reduced enough to ensure the safety of this vessel.”

  Jackson had to clench his fists and count to ten before continuing. “Okay,” he said through clenched teeth. “Why did you not inform me of this issue? We could have easily adjusted our intervals before the Alpha could have caught up.”

  “Your reactions, Jackson Wolfe, are far too unpredictable for me to make calculations based upon them and still stay within my allotted margin of error,” the cube said. “While there are tertiary protocols in my programming to ensure your safety, they do not supersede my primary role of securing vital mission material from the disabled enemy ship.”

  “How in the hell did you intend to—” Jackson trailed off as he realized the truth of the matter. “You would survive the destruction of the Ares, wouldn’t you?”

  “Affirmative,” said that same emotionless voice. “If this vessel were to be disabled or destroyed, my secondary protocols would be to make contact with Captain Celesta Wright should that be necessary to complete the mission. If the enemy was already disabled then I would await contact from Colonel Robert Blake.”

  “Interesting.” Jackson was beginning to lose his grip on his temper. “And could you survive a one-way trip into the corona of the primary star in this system?”

  “Irrelevant.”

  “How about this one: why are you not willing to let me communicate with Colonel Blake?” Jackson asked. “You have that ability, do you not?”

  “I do; however, for reasons I do not know that ability is blocked unless secondary protocols are activated,” the cube said. Jackson took a slight pause from his fantasies of hurling the cube into a star and thought about that for a moment. Despite the appearance of personality and sentience the thing was just a computer programmed with prearranged responses to certain triggers. The Vruahn handlers had made sure that no amount of human bungling was going to risk the success of this mission, even if nobody survived the effort.

  “Are you in constant contact with Vruahn handlers?” he asked. If he’d taken the time to think about his interactions with the cube as simply queries to a computer rather than questions to an actual intelligence he might have made better progress before it had cost him six lives, possibly two ships, and an engine.

  “My telemetry output is being monitored.”

  “Is there any chance of direct communication from me to them?” Jackson asked. “Or possibly a relay from me to Setsi?”

  The display on the cube went dark for a moment.

  “Direct communication is neither necessary nor desired, human,” the cube said, this time with genuine emotion. “Accomplish the task to which you agreed and this unsavory alliance can be dissolved.”

  Jackson was taken aback for a moment before he realized what had just happened.

  “Were your questions answered satisfactorily, Captain?” the cube’s normally dispassionate voice asked.

  “Oh yes,” Jackson said, staring right into the display. “More than you know.”

  ****

  “Captain, this is as close as we can approach until the Icarus stabilizes the spin of the Alpha,” Hayashi said. “In addition to missing one of the main engines, our stability and maneuvering systems have been degraded by nearly forty percent on the starboard side as well as significant damage to the dorsal and ventral thrusters.”

  “Let’s take it slow and safe,” Jackson said. “Anything else?”

  “The Hyperion is seven hours from intercepting the Atlas,” Davis told him. “So far Captain Walton hasn’t seen anything to be hopeful about.”

  “Let’s hope he’s wrong, Lieutenant.” Jackson sat down. “How are Major Ortiz and Commander Owens coming along?”

  “EVA teams are prepped and standing by,” Hayashi said.

  “Good,” Jackson said. “Tell them that they will need to prep for one more team member. I’ll be accompanying the EVA crews.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hayashi said with an uncertain glance to Davis that Jackson pretended not to see.

  “You disagree, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir,” Davis said. “There are multiple reasons why you should not be going over to a still living Alpha.”

  “Such as?”

  “Ignoring the dozen or so regulations it would break, you know that your prosthetic leg disqualifies you from EVA operations,” she said.

  “True,” Jackson nodded. “But there is also one very good reason why I need to go over there.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll just say that we’re more likely to get better proactive help from the Vruahn equipment aboard this ship if I’m on that team,” Jackson said. “Trust me, Lieutenant … that’s the last place I want to be, but I also don’t want to send any more people needlessly to their deaths. I don’t trust that cube to not consider anyone else as expendable.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve completely lost me, sir,” she said.

  “I’ll explain the whole thing to you someday, Lieutenant,” Jackson promised. “But for now I need to get ready.”

  Jackson had ordered his EVA crews to assemble in the main cargo hold so that the cube could directly observe their preparations and make any adjustments necessary. As it turned out, they didn’t need a whole Alpha for their purposes, just a small piece of it that needed to be carefully put into stasis. While this was good news in that they didn’t have to figure out how in the hell they would have transported the entire Alpha back to the DeLonges System, it did present other challenges.

  The obvious problem of needing a piece of a living Alpha was that it wasn’t likely to be handed over willingly. The Vruahn had provided the clever gravity bombs, a wildly inaccurate term that had already been embedded into the lexicon aboard the Ares, which allowed them to immobilize the target without inflicting any collateral damage. After that the cube had given very specific targeting instructions to them as well as the precise yield their weapons would need to be at in order to keep the Alpha disabled. Jackson was assured that not only would the Alpha never be able to repair its propulsion system, but that its long-range beacon had also been knocked out. Given some of his recent interactions with the cube and its handlers, however, he wasn’t inclined to just blindly trust what he was told.

  “Captain on deck!”

  “As you were,” Jackson waved to the assembled group of Marines and spacers. “What’s our status?”

  “We’re good to go, sir,” Major Ortiz said. “Gear check is complete and now we’re just waiting on a go-signal.” The words had no sooner left the major’s mouth when the display on the cube lit up, beckoning them all closer.

  “There are four pieces of equipment you will need before proceeding,” the cube said, its voice startling everyone in the hold but Jackson. “Three are in a container next to the munitions racks.”

  “And the fourth?” Jackson asked.

  “This housing is the fourth,�
� the cube said. “I have been integrated into the stasis chamber in order to directly monitor and manipulate the apparatus that you will be removing from the enemy ship.”

  “This would have been nice to know before now,” Commander Owens said. The chief medical officer was still in his utilities since he was only there supervising the preparations of the science team.

  “You get used to this, Commander,” Jackson said. “Apparently we’re only given information when we need it and sometimes after. Major Ortiz, would you have a detail grab the gear from the other cube? It will be fairly obvious what they’re supposed to take.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ortiz turned and walked off.

  “You,” Jackson pointed at a spacer that seemed to not have any specific tasks at that moment. “Call flight ops and tell them we’ll need this cube moved down to the hangar bay ASAP.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Is there any chance of you telling me exactly what we’re after over there?” Jackson asked the cube.

  “The structure you will retrieve is fairly close to the surface, or the ‘hull’ as you’ve referred to it,” the cube said. “It is the primary communications node, specific to this type of construct, and it not only allows the Alpha to access their networked consciousness but identifies it to others of its kind. If properly secured and integrated into the stasis housing it will allow us to gather intelligence over their communications network and also give us the ability to pass unchallenged into their space.”

  Jackson squinted at the cube’s display, unsure if he’d been talking to the cube itself or the handlers on the other side again.

  “Very well,” he said finally. “I assume this is the part in which detailed instructions are given as to how we’ll accomplish this.”

  “Correct.”

  The briefing that followed was as straightforward as Jackson had hoped it would be given that they would have no time for a dress rehearsal. The equipment they had been given included some type of injector that would soften the outer hull enough that they could cut through it with a standard laser, a handheld holographic projector that would guide them in and walk them through the process of removing the node, and a kit with all the needed tools to keep the node viable until they could get it out and stuff it into the stasis cube.