Battle of Hercules

by Richard Tongue

   “Can we get to the egress point?”

   Ballard looked down at her board, then looked back up at Orlova, replying, “If we don’t sustain any more damage. The drive’s about the only thing we’ve got that’s still working.”

   “That’s all we need to work. Time, Curry?”

   “Sixty seconds!”

   Orlova looked back at the sensor station again, watching Hercules lumber to its freedom from the system. She could still see the explosion in her mind, and her imagination was only too eager to fill in all the gaps; Alamo pictured as a cluster of tumbling wreckage, her friends and shipmates dead at their posts, or scattered to the far corners of hendecaspace, lost forever in another dimension. She shook her head to dismiss those thoughts; Alamo was just as likely to have got away, and even if it didn’t, all it meant was that Hercules had to survive, had to get home.

   “Signal, ma’am!” Mathis said, frowning.

   “I thought we’d lost long-range comms?”

   “It’s a message laser. Looks like they’ve found an interface point; I think it’s from the carrier, ma’am.”

   “Put it on.”

   There was no picture; the bandwidth was far too low for that. She didn’t need one; as soon as she heard the arrogant, sneering, superior voice, she knew exactly who she was speaking too.

   “How can I help you, Commandant?”

   “Hercules, Alamo is gone, and you are stranded in this system. I have overwhelming force at my disposal, and you have already suffered far too many casualties. Isn’t it time to end this? I’m willing to discuss terms of surrender.”

   She looked around at the bridge crew, working at their posts while they waited for her answer. This could all be over now, and she could join the survivors of the asteroid in captivity. Her wounded could be treated, and her crew saved. For a second, she opened her mouth to agree, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t find it in her to surrender.

   Instead, she remembered a line from an old movie, and with a smile, replied, “I’m sorry, but I’m not in a position to accept your surrender right now. My intention is to leave this system.”

   The Commandant chuckled, replying, “I see. Know that I regret what I must do.”

   “I’m sorry to put you to all the trouble. Hercules out.”

   The channel closed, and Carpenter looked over at her, eyes wide, saying, “You’re crazy.”

   “Comes with the job,” she replied.

   Mathis looked up, saying, “Energy spike! Four missiles, heading directly.”

   “Only four? Are you sure?”

   “Yes, ma’am.”

   “They’re pulling their shots,” Curry said. “They still expect to take us alive.”

   “Nelyubov, countermeasures please.”

   “Running,” he said, furiously typing commands into his station. “These have resisted everything that Alamo and us have thrown at them. I wouldn’t count on me being able to knock them down.” He smashed into the base of the panel with his knee, grimacing in frustration. “If we only had a couple of missiles, I could blast them out of the sky.”

   “Evasive, Curry, then.”

   “We’re spilling seconds as it is.”

   “Mathis…”

   “Impact will be three seconds before we jump, ma’am. No way to stop it.”

   “There isn’t much I can do about changing our aspect that close,” Curry said. “I’ve got damn little control of this beast as it is.”

   Nodding, Orlova replied, “We’ll just have to ride it out, then. Get all personnel away from the areas we’re going to lose. Let’s just hope we don’t take any damage we can’t fix.”

   “Twenty-five seconds to impact,” Mathis said.

   Orlova watched the missiles closing in. Four missiles – three, another one dropped away, its engine burning out – couldn’t do that much damage to them. It was almost as if they wanted Hercules to escape, maybe to warn the Confederation what would happen if they entered Cabal space again. That didn’t make any sense, though.

   Damage reports continued to stream in, their teams calling in systems status as they raced to the interior of the ship, getting themselves to comparative safety. Eighteen seconds to impact, and then three seconds after that, this system and everything that had happened would be a memory, and they could begin to put the pieces back together again.

   “Maggie!” Curry yelled, “We’ve got a big problem!”

   “What’s wrong?”

   “The astrogation systems just went dead. We’ve lost our course.”

   The blood drained from Orlova’s face as she stabbed a button, “Astrogation, what the hell is going on?”

   “Race here. I haven’t got the faintest idea. All of my systems just went dead, it’s as if someone purged the course plot from the system.”

   “No wonder that bastard only fired four missiles at us,” Orlova said. “New course, now!”

   “In thirteen seconds?”

   “Work quickly,” she said, closing the channel. Jumping without a course was a nightmare that hadn’t been tried since the earliest days of interstellar exploration, before people knew better. Hendecaspace was a strange enough place to be if you knew where you were going; flying blind into the unknown was not a prospect she relished.

   “We can’t jump, abort,” Curry said, starting to work her controls.

   “Belay that,” Orlova said. “Proceed with the jump.”

   “Without jump calculations, we could end up anywhere, Maggie!”

   Thumping a hand on the sensor station, over the display that showed a trio of missiles angling onto their position with four capital ships following up to make the kill, she replied, “Right now, anywhere is better than here. Proceed with the jump! You have the call, and that is a god-damned order!”

   Sullenly, she turned back to her station, “Aye, ma’am. Proceeding with the jump.”

   Orlova hovered over the sensor display, watching the missiles come in. Nelyubov was doing everything right, launching the physical countermeasures at the very last second, trying for a miracle that all of them knew was unlikely to come. She couldn’t fault him, couldn’t fault any of them. Less than two seconds remained.

   “Hang on, everyone!”

   The missiles smashed into Hercules’ aft sections, ripping and gouging at the hull, tearing breaches up and down the deck plating. The shock sent the ship tumbling, thrusters firing wildly out of control, and the bridge crew were thrown from their stations to the deck as the acceleration shifted, the engine fading out as the fail-safe systems cut in.

   Every second was an eternity; Curry was tossed to one side, drifting helplessly into the cavernous hangar deck, reaching with a desperate, futile hand for her station. Two seconds to make the jump, before Hercules drifted past, destined to remain in Cabal hands and yielding a crop of prisoners for the Cabal work camps.

   Orlova launched herself towards the console, but she was never going to make it in time. She hadn’t been quite quick enough, and as her flailing arms reached out for the panel, her legs pushing off from the sensor console over the falling form of Mathis, all she could think was that she had failed them. Sirens screamed all around, as though the ship itself was protesting its fate.

   Then, suddenly, there was Carpenter, pulling herself up and over the station, reaching down for the control button. Orlova was barreling right into her unable to change her course.

   “Third from the left, second row from the top!” she cried, trying to stretch for the control.

   Carpenter nodded, and pushed the button, just as Orlova crashed into her, and then everything changed. She could feel the dimensional transition, sense that something had changed around her, and as the ship tumbled out of control, the lights flickered, dimmed, and failed, before dimmer emergency lights slowly began to glow.

   Panting, Orlova said, “Someone give me a report.”
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   Nelyubov was nearest the engineering station, he pulled himself across, rubbing at his shoulder, and started to run a systems check. Gradually the bridge crew pushed themselves back to their stations, shaking and stretching; Ballard’s arm was at a crazy angle, obviously broken, but there seemed to be no other wounds.

   “Transition successful. God knows how,” Nelyubov said. “We’re in hendecaspace. Feels strange to have no course information.

   “What about the rest of the ship?”

   “Damage reports as long as your arm. We’re in a mess, Sub-Lieutenant. But at least we showed those battlecruisers a clean pair of heels.”

   Curry looked over at her, shaking her head, “They fired another full salvo just before we jumped. Twenty-four. We’d never have lived through that.”

   “That was his last bluff. He wanted this ship intact, and prisoners to parade through the streets for his masters.”

   “If the drive hadn’t activated, would you have surrendered? You wouldn’t just have let us be destroyed, would you?” Carpenter said.

   “Do you really want me to answer that question, Susan?” Eyes widening, the paleontologist shook her head. “Probably for the best. I want a full systems status report as soon as possible. We need to get this ship back into combat-capable condition. I’ve no idea what we’re going to run into at the other end of this journey, but whatever it is, we need to be ready for it.”

   “That’s going to be quite a tall order, Sub-Lieutenant,” Mathis said, taking the first aid kit from Carpenter to work on Ballard. “We’ve only got about twenty people to work a ship that needs a hundred.”

   Orlova shrugged, replying, “We’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. That’s all there is to it.”

   As her crew started to work, began to get the pieces put together again, getting Hercules into some semblance of operational status, she looked around the deck. Her first command, a torn-up battlecruiser on a course to nowhere, with a skeleton crew, supplies running low, stranded light-years behind enemy lines, carrying information that had to get back home at all costs.

   She thought again of Alamo, and called up the final frame in which she appeared, ringed by blue light with a halo of flame surrounding her. It was a beautiful sight, but destruction often was. All she could do was hope that her friends had survived, that they might be able to meet up with them again somewhere out in the dark.

   A buzz of noise began to sound from overhead, and the lights began to flicker back on, one after another, bathing the room in white light. Nelyubov walked over towards her from his station, holding out a cracked datapad.

   “First damage control assessments, ma’am.”

    She looked over at him, nodded, and took the pad from his hands. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” The thinking, planning and worrying could wait. She had a job to do.

  Chapter 28

   Marshall turned the data key in his hand, feeling the hard edges press into his palm. All the tests had been completed; Cooper had managed to obtain everything they needed to break the encryption. The data that had been transmitted from Hercules was an open book to them, the breakthrough that they had been looking for. Despite all that, there was an empty pit in his stomach.

   Cooper was standing in front of his desk, leaning on a crutch, still festooned with dressings; standing next to him, impeccably dressed, was Tyler, who looked slightly surprised to be in Marshall’s office. Caine was perched on the side of his desk, a smile across her face.

   “Corporal, I know how expensive this was, but I want to you know that it was worth it. When we get back I’m going to put you up for a Red Shield. You deserve the highest commendation we’ve got.”

   “The people I left behind deserve it more.”

   “I’m putting the platoon up for a Unit Citation. If that means anything.” He sighed. “I know there is nothing I can say, nothing I can do...but we both need to know that it wasn’t for nothing. This data stick proves it.”

   “Yes, sir.”

   “I’m confirming you as Lance-Corporal. We’ve only got a single fire team right now, you’ve got the command. Let me know if there is anything you need.”

   Cooper saluted, and replied, “Nothing physical, sir, but there is something.”

   “Speak.”

   “I understand why we had to leave, sir. I know the reasons, and I agree with them. I want to know one thing.”

   “Yes, Corporal?”

   “I want to know that we won’t do it again. If there is any opportunity to rescue the prisoners they took from us, no matter how slight, I want to know that we’ll take it.”

   Nodding, Marshall replied, “Leaving those men behind was the hardest thing I ever did, Corporal. If we can get them back, we will. You have my word as an officer.”

   “That’s enough for me, sir.” Cooper snapped a salute, and Marshall returned it.

   “That’s all, then. You’d better get back to sickbay.”

   “Very well, Captain.” Cooper turned and limped out of the office, the door closing behind him. Tyler watched the trooper leave, then turned back to Marshall, his face impassive. There was a flicker of a smile, and Marshall reasoned that the young man had an idea of what was about to happen. He glanced up at Caine, then back at Tyler.

   “As of now, I’m pulling you from the bridge duty roster.”

   His face dropped, and he replied, “Sir, if I’ve done anything wrong?”

   “Quite the reverse. We’ve got a massive intelligence coup, Tyler, and I need an officer working on it full-time. You’ve already proven your ability in this area of work, and I’m naming you as Intelligence Officer pro-tem.”

   Tyler glanced across at Caine, then said, “Aye, sir.”

   “Disappointed?”

   “No, sir. It’s the sort of work I’ve always been interested in, and I’m looking forward to getting started.”

   “Very good. If I were you, Sub-Lieutenant, I’d get yourself an office as fast as you can. Space is likely to be at a premium for a while.” He watched Tyler’s face light up. “Yes, I’m commissioning you, effective immediately.”

   “Sir…”

   Raising a hand, Marshall said, “If everything had gone as planned, you’d be sitting your boards in a month or so, and I have no doubt in my mind that you would be commissioned with honors. I’m doing it early because I need you to do this job, and I know that you are up to it.”

   “I won’t let you down, sir.”

   “I know.” He looked down at a datapad, “Second Lieutenant Bailey will be out of sickbay tomorrow. She’ll take your place on the duty roster, so make sure she’s up to speed.”

   “I will, sir.”

   Caine shook her head, “Take it from me, Tyler, you’re going to be a tough act to follow in that chair. I’ve never seen someone with a flare for the helm like that.”

   Nodding, Marshall added, “Don’t be surprised if we borrow you for that job on occasion. You can go spread the good news now.”

   “I don’t know what to say, sir.”

   “Well, ‘thank you’ is traditional, but in this case I’d rather hear, ‘here’s my completed report, sir’. Go get to work.”

   “Yes, sir,” Tyler said, beaming as he walked back out onto the bridge.

   Caine looked down at Marshall has the door closed, “You enjoyed that.”

   “Best part of the job,” he replied. “The kid’s earned it.”

   “Remember the last time we had a Sub-Lieutenant Tyler on board?”

   Shaking his head, Marshall said, “Come on, how many people in the Confederation have that surname? Hundreds? Thousands? I don’t judge anyone by his last name.”

   Her eyebrows raised, Caine said, “And you checked to make sure he wasn’t related. Be honest.”

   “The moment I found out he was coming on board,” Marshall said. “No possible ancestry back to when records began, and
intelligence gave him a clean bill of health.”

   “I’m glad to see your sense of paranoia is nicely developed.”

   “I’ve been hanging around you too long.” The two of them chuckled, then Marshall looked down at his desk. “I’ve messed this one up, haven’t I?”

   “Danny?”

   “We’re stuck deep behind enemy lines. Dozens of my crew are captured and killed, and the ship we came here to rescue is lost.”

   “All of that is true.” She gestured to the data stick. “But that’s not why we came here. That wasn’t the mission you set us after we found Hercules’ survivors. Our job was to pull off the intelligence coup of the century, and there it is, right there in your hand.”

   He held up the data stick, nodded, and said, “The cost, though.”

   “Exabytes of classified data. Tyler’s only going to be scratching the surface. It’s going to take months for the spooks to go over all of that when we get home, and when they do, we’re going to have a picture of the Cabal that would have taken us years to get by other means. People have died. People have been captured. How many lives have been saved today?”

   “I know.”

   “If we’d known going in that we’d have had casualties – right down to the presumed destruction of Hercules – I’d have said it was worth the price.”

   Marshall looked up, shaking his head, “I know. They all knew the risks, going in.”

   “Which only strengthens my argument. We’ve done a tremendous thing here. All we have to do is finish the job and get that data home.”

   Sighing, Marshall said, “That could be a lot easier said than done. We’ve bought ourselves a little time, but they’ll throw everything they have at us.”

   “Of course. And we’ll beat them.”

   “Yes we will,” he replied.

   Caine looked down at the datapad; the file displayed was a list of casualty reports. Major Marshall’s name was right at the top.

   “How is he?” she asked.