by Lee Guo
She could transport the crews of the battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, and heavy cruisers to the lighter warships using the same method she had saved the marine cutters of the last MAB with, by docking their warp bubbles together. Originally, she couldn't do this prior to the battle because the enemy's hunter-killers had followed the main fleet to the tail — there just wasn't enough time — but now that the enemy's hunter-killers were running away to combine with the hunter-killers of the new fleets, there was now enough of a gap, velocity and distance included, to commence the procedure before they returned to interfere.
She told her flag officers.
Their eyes lit up with hope.
“It'll be tight,” Ju-Pont immediately added. “We'll be jamming the crews of our heavies into the corridors and compartments of our lighties, but it can be done. We have to time it when their H-Ks are furthest away. If we do it too soon, they will turn tails and run at us to stop our operation before we can complete it. We'll be sitting ducks if we're caught with our pants down in the middle of it.”
Vier studied the holomap. She guessed at when the old H-Ks would rendezvous with the new H-Ks... “Then we have about an hour to do it, and half an hour to prepare. Has a fleetwide ship to ship full crew transport procedure ever been accomplished within just an hour?” Vier asked while knowing the probable answer.
“No, ma'am,” Mintz replied. “The quickest full crew transport between two warships post dock was one hour and a quarter, and that was between two light cruisers that were undamaged. But in that scenario, the requirements were that cruiser being vacated had to still remain operational.”
“We can break that record,” Vier stated.
“Yes, ma'am.”
It's better than nothing, Vier concluded. “Alright, officers. We have no time to waste. Let's get to it. All ships slower than 25,000 SL are to commence docking procedures with ships faster than that on my mark. Work with the other officers in your fleet to assign docking partners and mates then plan the procedure. Engage on my mark but not a second before. Dismissed.”
The flag officers nodded and their holos disappeared in front of her.
Vier leaned back on her admiral's chair with a sigh of relief. She now had a chance.
“How in blood's name did you think up that idea, Admiral?” Captain Willock asked in awe, while standing beside her.
Vier gazed at him out of respect. She paused, then smiled. “Actually, it was you who gave me the idea, Captain. You told me that the smallest changes can affect big outcomes. Remember? The law of... Compound Effect? I saw the never-before-seen distance between our fleet and their hunter-killers and realized it was enough time to save the crews of the heavies before their hunter-killers return.”
Willock stared at while looking stunned, he was entirely clueless. “I haven't the faintest idea what law you're talking about, Admiral. What law of Compound Effect?”
“You mentioned fortune and fate, remember?” said Vier.
Willock blinked. “… Oh, yes, that’s right Admiral. Actually, I was not thinking of anything discrete when I spoke to you. I simply meant that we should accept the inevitable and allow fortune to determine our fate.”
“Really?” Vier asked with surprise.
“Yes, Admiral.” Then he admitted, “You must have thought up that idea by yourself, by misconstruing my words.”
Vier gazed at him, with her mouth hanging open. What in the world, was she grinning about back then, according to Willock? He just stood there as if he knew what she was thinking, as if he’d been the mastermind of implanting a brilliant new idea when he hadn't even a clue she was being inspired by his words. “Let's get to work,” Vier stated blindly, her eyes wide open in disbelief. “We'll have all the time in the world to discuss what you meant if this works...”
Ka's First Fleet, Main Group
Supreme Battlecruiser Usha'Tera
Command Nexus…
Hal-Dorat gazed at the red holotank, specifically at his new fleets entering the twelve light year battlefield from the rear. Surely, the humans would have detected them by now?
Standing in the middle of a vast chamber with a hologram before him, he wondered what the opposing human commander thought…of the fact that his human forces now faced an enemy with an increased battle strength by a factor of eight.
Hal-Dorat tried to imagine what was going on in the enemy’s fleet. If he were the opposing commander, he would be frightened, too. Naturally. Therefore if the opposing commander did do that, he would not blame him. There was no shame in fear even for the most lucid of generals, after all.
Yet, after this fear had settled, after whatever bouts of nervousness had been given time to cool, what would the enemy commander do after he had had time to manage his emotions?
Hal-Dorat didn’t know— this unsettled Hal-Dorat, because he always knew.
… This adversary Hal-Dorat faced… it was different from the others. It must be a different Pra than the one he had faced early in the battle. Truthfully, Hal-Dorat didn’t know what to expect from this general.
He gazed at the holotank with uncertain thoughts. Every second that passed was more time for the fast units in his new fleets to come closer for the killing blow. Yet, the enemy remained still, moving at the speed of just a little bit over 16,000 times the speed light. It had to be doing something, Hal-Dorat wondered, but what?
Why didn’t the enemy run its small but fastest ships? Surely, it was better to save them then to see them perish along with the rest of its fleet?
Yet, as more time passed, he witnessed instead, some of the enemy’s lighter ships coming closer to their slowest ones.
It was as if…
No…!
Hal-Dorat hissed. He couldn’t believe what his eyes were seeing. Yet, it was right there before him. The enemy was boarding its own ships. “All warships, accelerate towards the enemy fleet, do not gather together as previously ordered!”
“Yes, Subjugator!” came the replies.
It took a little longer to sink in, but within seconds, Hal-Dorat was sure what was happening. The Pra’s actions made sense now. But did the humans have enough time to do what he thought they were attempting? He didn’t know for sure, but he was about to cut their time as short as possible.
Then if he could get them when they were most vulnerable, then he could have their smallest ships, too.
Now was the best time to strike, if only he could get there fast enough.
Betelgeuse Combined Fleet
Flagship, Beginner’s Luck
Flag Bridge…
Vier Kleingelt saw the sudden reversing movement in the Cats’ closest hunter-killers and knew she’d been caught prematurely.
What gave it away? The feline commander was smart. She just didn’t know how he knew. It must have been the movement of some of her ships, or the lack of movement altogether in those same ships. Whatever it was, she now faced a different scenario than what she imagined.
Vier yelled in a borderline panic, “All ships, begin transporting procedures, now! Go! Go! Go! All battlecruisers and dreadnoughts, begin evacuating your crews to the lighter ships! Begin docking procedures immediately! We have less than forty minutes!”
“Yes, ma’am!” came back the replies.
As she sat there, she wondered—did she have enough time? The immediate and most apparent answer was no. She would have to cut corners somewhere, whether it be in only transporting half her crews or somewhere else.
She hated the idea of leaving someone behind, but if it were necessary, she would have to do it.
Then an even worse thought came to her. What was she going to tell the crews that she left behind? Sorry, but you were too late?
“Admiral,” Captain Willock interrupted her thoughts, “it’s time to go. We’re part of the evacuation, too, remember?”
Vier gazed at her comrade. “Of course Captain, lead the way.”
Willock yelled into the mic on his seat, “All crews, abandon ship. I repe
at. This is the captain. All crews abandon ship. Head towards the docking exits on deck five and six. We have forty minutes.” Then he returned her gaze, “If you will follow me, Admiral.”
Vier gazed at her flag captain with a calmness that didn’t fit the situation. She had known she would be part of the evacuation to the smallest ships in her fleet, but the idea of never seeing the bridge of the Beginner’s Luck again, suddenly sunk in. Her headquarters for a month was about to be destroyed. Everything…her seat with all its buttons and controls, the vast holographic displays in front and behind her, the consoles where officers and ratings worked, their miniature holographic displays, even the far white walls with readouts of their own—they were all going to oblivion.
It saddened her. It made her feel angry at the same time. But necessity overcame all those emotions. Necessity and well—something else. This was not the second time this happened, nor was it the third, or the fourth.
She gave one last glance at her home for a month and whispered, “Goodbye,” before following Willock out the exit.
Battlespace…
Within minutes, every human ship docked with another larger human ship. The largest ships began transferring their crews to the smaller ones. Since there were at least two light ships docked with every heavy ship, battleship crews could exit at different side ports, making the process faster. It was a still difficult process as the largest ships were over one kilometer in length, and there were numerous corridors often with damaged and blocked sections with injured crewmen who couldn’t move on their own.
Betelgeuse Combined Fleet
Flagship, Dreadnought Beginner's Luck
Corridor 41B, deck 8…
Vier ran.
Captain Willock ran in front of her.
She saw the scale of the damage to her flagship. Walls were burned and blasted. Metal fragments embedded into the ceiling and the floor. Vier had not witnessed all this happen in real time as she’d been in the most heavily fortified section of her flagship when the battle had taken place. Now, she became aware of just how close her flagship came to being sunk.
And she smelled something. The burning of ferrocarbon. “Captain, are you sure this is the right way to the docking port?”
“I know my ship,” Willock yelled from ahead of her. “Follow me, everyone.”
So, she did.
This wasn’t the first time Vier had encountered destruction on this scale, but it was the first time she had a ticking clock on her way to the exit.
She heard screaming in the tunnel in front of her. The ceiling nanolights flashed on and off, an obvious sign that power in this section had been compromised.
When she crossed the turn, she saw five crewmen lying on the floor, burns on all their bodies – they were a wreck, with blood flowing from those burns, and their conditions were probably at the farthest edge between death and consciousness.
She saw a boy, not much older than minimum age of recruitment, sitting there with his back against the walls. Everything about this boy told Vier he had suffered the greatest amount of misery without it actually killing him.
Something in her told her to stop. “Stop, Captain!” she yelled.
Captain Willock stopped and gazed at her.
“We have to help these people,” Vier said, gazing at the swollen blackened skin of the youngster.
“Admiral, with all due respect, we don’t have time.”
“But we have to—we can’t leave them lying here when the Cats destroy the ship.”
“Admiral! We have hundreds of injured crewmen all aboard this vessel who need help but won’t get it. We came from the deepest part of the ship. We have the longest distance to go. We won’t make it if we carry these people with us. If we try to take them…we’ll die. There is less than twenty minutes before those Cats get here and we have two decks to climb down. How are we going to carry them with us when we descend through the tubes?”
“But—?” Vier gazed at the boy.
“Admiral…”
“Help…” the boy moaned.
Vier knelt beside him and tried to pick him up with her arms. She was a thin woman, not stocky enough to pick up the fully grown youngster with all her muscles.
“Admiral!” Willock knelt beside her. “We got to go. Please.”
Vier glance at the boy and then at Willock and knew she hated the flag captain, but he was right. She glanced at the boy’s burned face and knew she would never see it, again. She took a phase pistol, thought about using it, and then put it back in her holster. “Alright,” she stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Help…” the dying youngster called from behind her.
Vier never looked back.
Betelgeuse Combined Fleet
Flagship, Dreadnought Beginner's Luck
Corridor 39C, deck six…
They descended down two tubes before the captain and the bridge crew reached deck six. Vier was amazed at how instinctively the captain knew about the schematics of his ship. He must have memorized them, she thought. She felt glad she could rely on his knowledge.
Then, they ran. Through another series of corridors until they finally reached the boarding tube. The entrance was open.
“Go! Go! Go!” Willock urged, turning towards her. “Let’s go, Admiral. The Demosthenes is waiting on the other side.”
Vier nodded while she took his hand and climbed into the tube. The moment she entered, her weight lifted off the ground and she floated in free space. Her hands instinctively grabbed the rails and pulled her body through the tube. It was easy as long as she did not bump into the material. She slowly picked up speed as her hands brought acceleration bit by bit. By the time she was moving at the pace of a run, she already reached the middle of the tube.
The tube was transparent, and she could see the vast kilometer long dreadnought behind her, its thick armor plating filled with holes from h-wave impacts. Its oblong shape rested like a giant injured whale. She could see the gravity emitters and the polaron cannon ports as well as the missile ports and all the grav shield emitters. This had been her home for a month. She knew she would never see it, again.
In front of her, the destroyer Demosthenes looked like a baby whale. From her vantage point, it was big as well, but not nearly as big as her dreadnought. It was roughly 1/5th the length of the ship behind her, but only about 1/100th the volume.
…Then she was already through to the other end. She flew through the Demosthenes’s boarding hatch and into the arms of a bulky marine sergeant who caught her before she fell face first into the gravity plating of the new starship. “Thank you,” she said.
“No problem, uh—Admiral!”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Captain Willock said emerging behind her, who had not forgotten to decelerate a bit after reaching past the tube’s midpoint. “Now, which way is the bridge?”
“Ah, this way!” the sergeant turned to another marine. “Bachsted! Take the Admiral and the Captain to the bridge!”
“Yes, sir, Sergeant Miller!” a marine private replied. “Follow me, sirs and ma’am!”
Betelgeuse Combined Fleet
Temporary Flagship, Destroyer Demosthenes
Bridge…
The bridge of the Demosthenes was much smaller than that of the Beginner’s Luck. That was because there was no admiral’s alcove, nor a controller’s section adjunct to the alcove. The main holomap was about a third as large, meaning it was as tall as a human. There were also fewer people maintaining the three rows-rings of interface consoles surrounding the captain’s chair.
It took a little less than four seconds before someone noticed Vier’s presence. “Admiral on the bridge!” they said.
Everyone stood up and saluted.
“Back to your stations,” Vier shouted. “Captain.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the bearded, red-haired captain answered from the center. “Name’s Denmark, ma’am.”
“Display the location of the nearest enemy units in relation to our fleet!”
She gazed into the picture and calculated the distance, then came up with one hundred light-hours. There wasn’t time at all! “Have the fleet reestablish the information net and command channels with this ship, Captain Denmark,” Vier announced. “I need to see the status of the boarding and evacuation on the other ships in the fleet. Use priority authorization code Vier-209-mark-21-Bruce.”
Denmark nodded to a communication officer to his left, who inputted Vier’s code into the command net. “Fleet is responding. Receiving data,” the officer replied.
Suddenly, new numbers appeared on the main holomap and the forward wallscreen. She could now read the statuses of all the ships in her fleet. The average debarkation rate was 68%. That meant 68 out of every hundred crewman in her dreadnoughts and battleships and heavy cruisers had actually made it to the smaller, lighter vessels.
She gazed at the holomap. The enemy fleet came closer. 98 light-hours now.
“Comm,”Vier said. “Message to all ships within 140 light-hours of the nearest enemy hunter-killer, tell them you have six minutes before the boarding tubes must be cut.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Six minutes later, she gave the order. “Cut boarding tubes in section A of the fleet. All ships in section A are to rescind boarding tubes and begin Evasion Protocol immediately when it is safe.”
“Sending orders, ma’am.”
Vier hated to be the doom bringer of the men and women still trapped within the larger ships but she had to do it, otherwise the smaller ships would never make it out alive. She duplicated that order two minutes later for Section B of the fleet, and then again, for Section C. When Vier’s destroyer’s time came, she ordered the same thing for Section D. She estimated that in total, she probably managed to save 80-85% of the crews onboard the heavier ships.
