Copyright 2011 by Christopher Kellen
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I
The proximity alarm picked precisely the wrong moment to begin wailing.
Trace lost her grip on the wooden bar and plummeted to the soft mats below in a cloud of chalk dust and cursing. She rose with a snarl as her intercom chimed. Under normal circumstances, her genetically-engineered reflexes would have allowed her to keep hold of the bars with at least one hang, but her ship wasn't supposed to be in range of anyone else for at least another three hours. Complete surprise got the better of her.
She snatched the small comm device off the neatly-folded pile containing her uniform and shoes. "What is it?"
"Skipper," the voice of Lieutenant Richards came over the com, tight with tension. "We've just detected twenty-eight jump signatures, entering the system at 6 light-minutes from system center, coordinates 54, 110, 105. Bearing zero-five mark three-zero, relative."
Her anger was immediately arrested by curiosity and a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Zack Richards was her newest officer, barely twenty-three years old. He’d been assigned to Ops, and he still had the smell of the Academy on him. "Jump signatures?"
"Yes, ma'am," Richards answered. "Your presence is requested on the bridge immediately."
She cocked her head slantwise, performing the complex vector-calculations in her head. Their surprise visitors had entered the system between her battle group and the rest of the fleet, who awaited her squadron's arrival for the war games to start. "This couldn't be some kind of surprise that Admiral Flynn cooked up for us, could it?"
"I don't see how, captain," Richards answered, his voice trembling. "Their approach vector is clearly heading into the system. Judging by their jump arrangement, it looks like they mean business."
"How long ago did this happen?" she asked.
There was a pause. "Two minutes, thirty-five seconds."
It routinely took five minutes, at optimum efficiency, to bring a ship's normal-space sensors online after a jump. There was a short window of time, exiting subspace, where any ship was completely blind.
"Are they broadcasting ident?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. Complete silence on all frequencies. They're blazing sensor jammers and electronic warfare systems at full-blast, though," Richards said. "Orders?"
She chewed her lower lip. "What's our current accel and velocity, Zack?"
"Accel is 112g. Velocity 1200 kps."
"Range to our 'guests'?"
"Based on our current trajectory, it's about five million kilometers," Richards said. "We'll be within weapons range in less than thirty minutes, according to Tactical."
Thirty minutes? That wasn't enough time, not enough time to think, to plan...
She could almost feel the seconds ticking away as her mind whirled at its fastest. A fleet of ships had jumped into her home system with no warning, with their electronic warfare on full. There were many things that could mean, but few of them were reassuring. After what seemed like an eternity, but her internal clock told her had only been a few seconds, her thoughts crystallized.
The Articles of War were very clear on what she needed to do in this situation. She needed to begin deceleration immediately, to slow her interception time. She needed to broadcast identification requests to the unidentified vessels and request visual contact.
Except that she and her four cruisers were coming up behind this fleet that had jumped in unexpectedly between her and Vega Prime, the main inhabited planet in the Vega system.
And the unidentified ships were still jump-blind.
If she were to immediately cut all power to her engines and enforce radio silence on her small maneuvering force, they would be essentially undetectable until such time as she decided otherwise. It was a clear violation of every regulation in the book, but...
"Cut our accel," she snapped. "Drop all power to the engines and any extraneous systems. Immediately impose radio silence. Transmit my orders for the task force to do the same."
"But, ma'am..." he began, and she could almost hear him begin to quote The Rulebook.
"Do it, Richards! We don't have much time left!"
Only a short pause. "Aye, captain."
"I'll be on the bridge in ten," she said, flipping her comm closed.
**
II
Dressed in the brown-and-sunset-orange uniform of the Vega Naval Fleet, her black captain's jacket perfectly in place around her shoulders, Trace arrived on the bridge nine minutes and some-odd-seconds later. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair was tied in a severe knot at the back of her head, and her sharp blue eyes scanned the deck with ruthless intent. The bridge was dark and cool, with the glow of minimal-brightness screens providing most of the faint illumination.
She’d known by the change in the ship’s vibrations that Richards had followed her orders and cut the engines, and within their slim window, by her best estimate. They were on their previous vector, hurtling inward at incredible velocity; but with their engines offline, no change in approach was possible now.
"Has the crew been alerted?" she asked.
"The command for battle stations has been given, ma'am. Though I imagine the proximity alarm woke most everyone up anyway," Richards said wryly.
"Were we detected?" she asked, her cool contralto cutting through the sound of the air system with minimal effort.
"Doesn't look that way, Commander," said Lieutenant Ty Young from the tactical position to her right. "They're heading in-system at maximum accel. It's a big battlegroup, too."
"Have they even tried to identify themselves?" she asked.
"They're squawking our codes now, ma'am..." Richards said hesitantly. "No other communications, though."
Young let out a low whistle. "Skipper, I just finished a full trajectory calculation on the jump they made. Whoever's doing jump plotting over there is a genius, ma'am. I've never seen anyone try something like this... they came in almost fifty-eight million klicks inside the red line. A missed decimal point or one digit out of place, and they'd have ended up inside the star!"
She frowned. That was a very bold maneuver. She’d been good at trans-dimensional math and physics – almost the top of her class – but she never would have tried a jump so delicate. "Not only that, but if we’d been just a little bit ahead of schedule, they could have translated out right on top of us.” A little shudder ran through her at that thought. “Comm, get me Rebellion. Tight-link. I don't want this going anywhere else."
“Aye, sir,” Ensign Emily Frasier responded, on-duty at communications.
Trace made her way to the center of the bridge and took her seat. The vidscreen on the arm of her chair flashed, and then brightened. Commander Etienne Russell, a man with aristocratic good looks and a shock of brown hair, appeared on her screen. His green eyes focused on her, keenly alert, but the lines around them betrayed his concern. "Trace, thank God. What the hell is going on?"
She had attended the Vega Naval Academy with Etienne, and they'd been friends for almost eight years. He was a strong, reassuring presence which was normally on her bridge as her executive officer. For the purpose of the wargames, he'd been given command of Rebellion, but she missed his cool, collected baritone and his easygoing competence.
"I assume your tactical spread picked up our new guests," she said, attempting to keep her tone light.
>
"Do you know anything about it?" Russell asked. "I have to admit, I wondered if it was some surprise that Flynn had been saving for us at the last minute, but they're headed the wrong way... and there's too many of them."
"The thought crossed my mind as well," she said, suppressing the flash of an ironic smile. "Somehow, I don't think that's what we're in for today, though."
"Then what the hell is it?" he asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine, I'm afraid," she said.
"Revised estimate," Young's voice drifted across the deck. "Due to unidentified vessels' acceleration, weapons range will be achieved in two hours, forty-seven minutes."
She blinked, startled. That was quite a revision. "How did that happen, Ty?" she asked over her shoulder.
"Our previous estimate assumed they would be maintaining position," Young said, embarrassed. "Also, those ships are a lot faster than I’d anticipated. I didn't expect them to be moving so far so fast."
It wasn’t like Young to make an error like that. He'd been her tactical officer since she'd taken command of Renaissance – nearly four months ago now – and she'd become quite confident in his abilities. He was a bright officer, only a few years younger than she.
Trace considered reprimanding him for a moment, but thought better of it. Everyone was nervous and off-guard, and a public dressing-down now would be counter-productive. Instead, she refocused on Etienne’s face via the commlink.
"Well, that gives us a little time to think, anyway," Russell said with a small sigh. "What are we going to do?"
"My tac team doesn't think we were spotted," Trace said. "I think we may have the element of surprise here."
"God alive... you don't suppose they're Castoran?" he asked, horrified.
She nodded grimly. "I think that's exactly what they are, Etienne. They must know that my father's arm of the fleet is out-system, and they've come in to grab Vega Prime while the defenders are stretched thin. They might even know about our little wargames here."
"Dammit," he cursed under his breath. "We're supposed to be pretending to be a fleet coming in from the jump-line! There's not supposed to be a real battle fleet out here!"
"Skipper," Young's voice came over her shoulder again. "Estimate twenty-nine minutes before unidentified fleet reaches outer picket group Delta."
"They're going to get to the pickets before we catch up to them?" she asked.
"Affirmative, captain. They seem to have maxed their accel... their vector will carry them through orbital space, coming within five hundred thousand kilometers of Admiral Flynn's group Alpha." Young's voice was steady, measured.
"Time until they reach weapons range of Alpha?"
"Two hours, thirty-eight minutes at current parameters, ma'am."
"They're going to hit Alpha before we can get there?" Etienne asked. He suddenly looked even more tired than he did a moment ago. "What are we going to do?"
Trace sat back in her seat. If she forced her engines over the red line, she could overtake the invaders before they reached the picket line. If she waited until they hit the picket line, it would be too late... they wouldn't reach Alpha before the Castorans had weapons range. Gunning her engines would get her there, but they would completely lose the element of surprise that she had so beautifully been handed.
"We wait," she said grimly.
**
III
"Two minutes until bogeys Alpha and Beta reach weapons range of the picket line, Commander," Young said.
Despite the comfortable chill of the bridge, Trace was sweating. Her ship, the V.S.S. Renaissance, was perfectly tuned to the needs of those who spent all day in a uniform which did not include nearly enough airflow. She unbuttoned the top two gold buttons on her jacket, allowing herself to breathe slightly better.
It had been the longest two-and-a-half hours of her life. She'd spent every moment of it on the bridge, listening to her crew's reports as they worked to ready the ship's systems for a coordinated online.
She'd been in battle many times in her career, and when the offensive was planned, there was usually time to think and prepare oneself for the possibility of death. In this case, they'd been planning to do little more than play a game, with computers simulating the firey death that missiles and grasers would normally deal out with abandon. Now her crew faced a large chance that they would not see another dawn, and it gnawed at her deep inside.
Concentrate, she told herself firmly. Your crew needs you to be calm, controlled and confident. If they smell weakness in you, they'll start showing it themselves. She forced her attention back to the tactical spread.
Picket Delta, a small sensor platform mounted on an asteroid some five light-minutes outside of Vega Prime's orbit, had been making more and more frantic hail attempts to the approaching invader fleet. There had been no response. The invaders were sending out Vega transponder codes, but they were not answering any direct attempts at communication.
Picket Delta was finally going to give the invaders a good sensor sweep. The sensors on that platform were strong enough to easily cut through Castoran EW, and she needed a good look at their force strength.
The most logical deduction was that they were indeed Castoran invaders who had seized an opportunity to rid Vega of most of its defenders, while the rest of its fleet were currently en route to Aragon. All three of her fellow ship commanders agreed with the analysis. It made sense, however unfortunate it was.
I’d like to have more than four light-cruisers for backup, she thought. She fervently hoped that Admiral Flynn understood her intentions as to why she'd gone dark when she could. He'd personally given her command of this wargame task force, to see what she could do as an invading force.
Instead, he was going to see what she could do as a surprise defender. She hoped it was enough.
"Bogey fleet has entered weapons range of picket Delta," Young said. "And... oh."
"’Oh’, Lieutenant?" she said archly.
Young's voice was shaking. "It's... it's gone, ma'am. Picket Delta is... gone."
A collective murmur ran through the entire bridge crew.
"Gone?" Richards' tight, strained voice. "Gone?"
"They hit it with everything they had," Young said. "It's gone."
Fifteen people, Trace thought, acid churning in her stomach. There were fifteen people on that platform. Gone in an instant, as if they were never there.
“Did we get a sensor sweep of them?” she asked.
Young paused. “No. The picket didn't get anything off of them before they were destroyed – or if they did, they never had time to transmit it.”
"Well, they've answered the burning question," Trace said, clenching her fist and her jaw. There was no doubt now – this was an invading fleet, not just someone with more balls than brains, and it certainly was no surprise training exercise. It was time to break radio silence. "Ensign Frasier, get me a tight-link to Admiral Flynn."
"Aye, Commander," Frasier answered.
"Young, how long do we have until the invaders are within weapons range of Alpha?" Trace asked, trying to keep her voice as level as possible. Now is not the time to panic...
"Sixteen minutes, ma'am."
The vidscreen flickered again, and the graying face of Admiral Flynn appeared on her screen. He was exceedingly pale, even for him, and his hair seemed whiter than usual. Pale, icy blue eyes locked on hers. "Commander Atherton," he acknowledged.
"Sir, I realize that this is a breach of mission protocol," she said cautiously, "However, it seemed that I had little choice."
"I can't disagree with you there," he said. "This is bad, Commander, as I'm sure you've figured out."
"We're about nine minutes behind," she said. "Your orders, sir?"
"Beta and Epsilon are heading to my position with all speed, Commander. I do not believe that the Castorans will breach our line. We have enough strength to hold against the ships that we’re detecting."
She nodded. "I see we had come to the same conc
lusion about the nature of our enemy, Admiral."
"There's no one else it could be," he snorted. "Brazen enough to use our comm-codes, even. They're a dangerous foe, but their weapons technology is significantly behind ours. Several generations, in fact. Our shielding and armor can more than withstand an assault, even head-on like this."
"I understand, sir. Your orders?" she pressed.
He sighed and ran one hand through his short, white hair. "You've already put yourself in position to strike. As soon as you're in range, you have my permission to open fire."
"Aye, sir." She gave a curt nod.
"Godspeed, Commander," he said, one hand moving to cut the link.
**
IV
Trace's knuckles were white on the armrests of her ship captain's chair. She didn't dare break cover now, when they were so close to achieving near-total surprise on the invading force. The temptation to set her engines to max and attempt to overtake the Castorans was high, but at this point, she could never make up the acceleration, and the point was moot.
"Fifteen minutes to weapons range," Young said.
Fifteen minutes. It was too late to change anything. It had been too late upwards of thirty minutes ago. If the fleet ahead of them had any idea that they were being tailed by a team of four light-cruisers, they'd made no attempt to evade them. She could only hope that their combined firepower would be enough.
"How long will it take to bring our weapons and engines online to full power?" she asked.
"Three minutes, Commander," Richards said, his voice hoarse from the strain.
She nodded, though none of her bridge officers could see her from the enclosed space around her command chair. In twelve-and-a-half minutes, they would go bright and alive, and three minutes later, they would begin unleashing hell on the invading fleet.
Nine minutes before that, however, the Castorans were going to have a direct shot at the Admiral and Alpha Fleet. She hated that there was nothing they could do about that, but as the Admiral had reminded her - the Castorans were never much for R&D. The Vega fleet was light-years ahead... literally, in some ways.
Dutiful Daughter Page 1
