Oort Rising

by Magnus Victor

  Worrying, but expected. If the enemy knew that the Overlord's drive was sabotaged – almost a certainty – then they must realize that the Tannenberg was the Overlord's only ticket to safety. “How soon can we hit the Verdun with the co-ax?”

  The tactical officer looked at his console. “Ten seconds, ma’am.”

  “Fire as soon as it bears.”

  “Aye. Firing on Verdun…now.”

  The Overlord’s coaxial railgun battery fired as one, the massive recoil causing a barely noticeable hiccup in the ship's acceleration. On the display, eight orange icons flew forth from the Overlord, racing across the screen towards the Verdun. At seventy-percent of the speed of light, twice the speed of the enemy's batteries, the enemy ship would have almost no warning of the incoming fire. For this reason, the salvo was a tighter spread than the main batteries had been, to maximize the impact.

  “Ma'am!” The tactical officer called out, drawing her attention from the display, “The Verdun has dropped her deflectors!”

  “What?” came Commodore Petrakov's startled reply. The Captain had almost forgotten that he was there.

  How could the rebels know about the co-ax battery? It was — supposed to be — top-secret! Regardless, the enemy had come up with the only real way to 'defend' against its high-velocity projectiles.

  The shells were hardened to pierce through the enemy's deflector screen, the force of traveling through the field converting the projectile into a ball of super-heated plasma as its velocity slowed. This would then impact the enemy hull and carve through the interior of the ship, expanding as it went, wreaking massive damage. It was a weapon designed specifically to destroy armored, purpose-built warships.

  But with the Verdun's deflectors down, the shells would impact at full velocity. With that much kinetic energy, they would pierce right through the enemy hull like paper, destroying anything in their path – a comparatively small, one-meter-diameter path.

  Damn them. She found herself leaning forward in her seat, studying the display. Would the co-ax projectiles get lucky and hit something critical within the Verdun? She crossed her fingers. Maybe the heavy armor of the ship would spall, or the percussive effects would rupture something critical.

  “Target hit, ma’am. Verdun’s grav signature is fading! They're drifting, ma'am! Her drive must have been damaged!”

  Captain Conagher leaned back, grinning. The non-functional QMP drive may have been the most secret innovation aboard the Overlord, but her coaxial battery had turned out to be the most useful. Their three-kilometer-long barrels took up a great deal of space – the capacitor banks and coolant tanks even more – but it was worth every cubic meter.

  “Their deflectors are still up – looks like we missed their reactor proper.”

  She examined the holo-display. The Tannenberg was still shielded from the Verdun by the mass of Podera, and now the enemy was slowed to deflector speed. Good. There was still the risk of enemy emplaced weapons on the planetoid itself, but those, if they existed, were holding their fire. They must be at least somewhat cowed by the destruction of every weapons battery to open fire so far. The Captain turned back to her weapons officer. “How soon can we reload the co-ax?”

  “Next salvo available in six-eight seconds, ma'am.”

  “Good. Helm, keep the bow oriented on the Verdun, and close the range on the Tannenberg at maximum speed. Weapons, hit the Verdun with the main battery. Time salvoes to impact along with the co-ax.”

  “Ma’am!” tactical officer announced. Now what? “Enemy small craft are launching from the planetoid!”

  “Where are they heading?” Was this the real evacuation? Launching shuttles from hidden hangars?

  “They’re heading for the Tannenberg, ma’am.”

  Damn. There’s only one thing that can be. “Label those craft as boarding vessels. Can we hit them from here?”

  “The Tannenberg is between most of them and us. We can only hit a few, and even then our shots would be cutting it rather close.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance.” The Tannenberg could survive a few glancing shots. She looked at her data repeater. The Verdun was out of the fight for now: the crippled ship was maneuvering towards the other side of the planetoid, hiding from the Overlord's guns. Moving slowly, at that, using their deflectors for propulsion. But fast enough, judging by the plot, that the co-ax guns wouldn't be reloaded in time for a second volley.

  Captain Conagher examined the holo-display, running through the few options left to her. The Tannenberg drifted, without power, near 1048 Podera. A flotilla of red icons – the enemy boarding group, one-hundred and twenty-eight in all – approached the disabled warship. More than they brought last time. Much more. It would be a close fight aboard the Tannenberg, especially given the casualties they had taken from the original broadside.Thankfully, the enemy's false IFF transponders wouldn't help them this time around — the extra week of preparation had seen to that.

  So far, the attack had shown the rebels to be highly prepared. So why then did they have the Verdun engage? There was very little she could do against the Overlord, even in her disabled state,and the rebels must have realized that. Could it be desperation?

  On the other hand, so long as the enemy's plans didn't work out for them, that was all right by the Captain. While the Verdun was now out of the Overlord's line of fire, that meant that the rebel warship couldn't fire on the Tannenberg, either. Pretty sloppy maneuvering, actually — it was reassuring to see that the enemy could still make some mistakes in this battle.

  It was almost a stand-off, but her superior firepower should let them grind out a victory, even if their mobility was shot to hell. It would be grim, but as long as the rebels did not come up with another —.

  “Ma’am! Grav sensors picking up a large contact!” Announced the tactical officer. “On display now.”

  A new target indicator flashed onto the holo-display, red and very large. Its meta-data showed it slowing to practical combat speeds. The tactical officer did a double-take at his detail display, and announced in a puzzled voice, “It’s a rock-cracker, ma’am. Er – it’s a mobile mass driver, for breaking asteroids apart for mining. But they carry only slow projectiles – no threat.”

  Commodore Petrakov spun the holo-display to get a better perspective at the newcomer's relative position to the tactical situation. With his pointer, he highlighted some trace lines. “It’s put Podera between us, so we can't hit it. Of course, it can't hit either us or the Tannenberg, either.

  A bright red ring flashed around the rebel rock-cracker, indicating that it had fired. The holo-display plotted the trajectory of the slow-moving projectile.

  “What the-“ exclaimed one of the tactical-section ratings. “They’ve fired on the Verdun!”

  “No, not quite.” Captain Conagher magnified the view on the holo. “It’ll just barely miss, but…” her voice trailed off. Suddenly she turned and barked at the helmsman. “Helm, shift maximum power to the deflectors, get us moving along this vector.” She highlighted a new course, perpendicular to the vector linking the Overlord and the Verdun.

  Commodore Petrakov turned to look at the Captain, brows furrowed in puzzlement. “They’re no threat. That shot is nowhere near us, and it’s moving at less than point zero-one cee.”

  The tactical officer gasped slightly, and looked at the Captain. “They’re going to slingshot around the Verdun.” Conagher grunted. Close. The officer knew his physics, at least. The gravity beams of the Verdun could be used to dramatically accelerate the projectile, and sling it around the planetoid towards the two Federal ships. But at what cost? If they accelerated the projectile to useful speeds that way, it could easily cripple their ship. Grav tethers simply weren't that robust, and no ship of Verdun's size could take that kind of asymmetrical stress. Not repeatedly, anyway. The enemy captain was gambling with the lives of his crew.

  The enemy projectile reached the Verdun just as the Overlord began her slow dodge. It slung aroun
d the Verdun, leaving the much smaller ship's artificial gravity field at a frightening velocity.

  “Ma'am! Round velocity at zero-point-six-three-cee! Impact in four seconds!”

  There was barely enough time for her to clasp the armrests of her seat before the shot hit them. Point-six-three-cee! Their captain must be mad!

  The hull rang like a gong, a gong five kilometers across. It struck the Captain as more of a physical force than a sound, driving the air from her lungs. The seat restraints bit into her shoulders as the entire bridge shook. Loose debris flew around the compartment, but thankfully none of the crew were thrown from their seats.

  Conagher blinked the stars out of her eyes and forced in a breath of air. “Damage report! What did we lose?”

  “Deflectors burned out in octant three!” cried the damage-control officer.

  “Ma'am! The number-three reactor's down!” The engineering officer's face was bone-white. “Current spike. It failed hot!”

  Damn. She pinched the bridge of her nose. The poor crewmen. The gravity-field containment for the reaction had failed before the machine had shut down, venting hot plasma into the compartment. There wouldn't be many survivors from that reactor's crew. “Shift main battery fire to that rock-slinger! Cut through the station if you have to. Make them maneuver!”

  At this range, a narrow ship like a rock-slinger stood a decent chance of dodging the Overlord's fire. But to do that, they would have to put everything they had into the drives, which would throw their aim off.

  The damage pattern from that impact showed that the Overlord had been hit by what was effectively a simple rock. A very large rock, moving very fast, but a rock nonetheless. Its sheer mass had burned out the deflectors, and based on damage estimates, had delivered more energy than the Overlord's own railguns could. A lesser ship, such as the Verdun or the Tannenberg, would never have survived. But the impact itself had not penetrated to the ship's structure.

  Hopefully, that would continue to be the case.

  Chapter 16: Repairs

  Klaus grunted as he forced the badly-mangled cover back over the number-three reactor. It had taken the brunt of the damage, and it showed. Bits of metal that had once been machinery lined the compartment. At least the cover itself was recognizable. It was ugly, but at least with the help of some electro-pneumatic jackhammers the key anchor points had been forced to line up properly.

  His datapad showed that the deflector screen for this octant was down, which made him hurry as best as he could. His neck and back ached from the tension, and sweat ran down his back. All that stood between enemy fire and his fragile body was thirty meters of heavy armor plating.

  That might be a lot for some people, but Klaus was a Navy engineer. He knew plenty of natural hazards that could cut through protection like that, let alone military-grade weapons fire.

  He didn't want to end up like the crew of reactor three. When the deflectors burned out, the overload surge limiters on the reactor's grav foci had failed almost immediately, hyper-condensing the fusion core before the containment field died completely.

  Steam flashed into plasma, metal melted into liquid, and the poor damned crew boiled into ghosts. There were discolorations here and there that might once have been engineers. At least it would have been quick.

  It was little consolation. He felt regret that he and Johann hadn't finished their QMP trials. Sure, they had stabilized the code and had even modified the ship's mission-critical systems to survive the jump. Even Commander Li and the Captain had been pleased enough to keep them out of the brig, but they just couldn't scale it. The Overlord was just too big. And with the drive sabotaged, and no QMP, they had been sitting ducks for whatever had hit them.

  Klaus turned to the grease-streaked engineering NCO who was assisting him, and kicked the reactor cover. “That’ll keep the bulkheads from melting. Might even work for as much as an hour before it blows out and takes the whole section with it.” he groused, almost shouting so that he could hear himself over the howl of the suit's cooling fans.

  The crewman nodded, his deep, rasping breathing audible over the helmet comm. Behind him, the compartment bulkheads still glowed white-hot from the reactor’s initial failure, so both Klaus and the crewman were fully suited up, their visors opaqued. Cooling systems in the suits spun at maximum, yet he was still drenched in sweat. He could not see the other man's face, and could barely hear his voice above the whine of his own suit, but the scowl in the man’s voice was clear enough. “And I’ll need to find a replacement crew for the compartment. Poor bastards.”

  Klaus swallowed, and clapped the man softly on his shoulder before turning to leave the compartment. There was nothing he could say. They all had to press on as best as they could. Out in the relative cool of the corridor — thank god for thermal shielding — he removed his gloves, and wearily checked his datapad to see where he was needed next.

  Capacitor bank D61-NW-87. He sighed, “Computer, request flight to—“

  His communicator chimed.

  Odd. Any of the ship's officers could have — would have — overriden the ringtone and gone straight to voice. He couldn't see who was calling, either - the hands-free headset built into his helmet didn't have a caller ID display. Shoddy product. "Accept call."

  He was almost deafened by the voice on the other end. "KLAUS! Where are yeh, lad? I've got an idea, and I need yeh to come look at it."

  Klaus winced. "For God's sake, Johann, turn your volume down. My ears are bleeding.” He shook his head, and thumbed down his own volume control. Just in case. “I'm needed with the repair crews right now - I can't leave my station."

  "Nae, look - I been talkin' to the Captain. Remember, she asked me ta see iffn' I could nae get the QMP fully workin'. Movin' the whole ship an' all that. Seein' as we're getting bloody shot at and all, I reckon that it'd be useful t' finish that task, y'see."

  Oh, no. Klaus reflexively reached to pinch the bridge of his nose, but only singed his gloved fingers on the still-hot faceplate of his helmet. Johann's accent only got that strong when he was drunk. Very drunk.

  It seemed that the battle hadn't interrupted Johann's celebrations after the partial successes on the QMP project earlier.

  Muting the call for a moment, Klaus finished the request for a flight to the capacitor compartment, where he was needed next. The corridor walls began to fly by, as the display on his databank promised a flight time of eight minutes. Much longer than it should have been. The route-finding program must have been forced to detour around battle damage.

  "Johann, you're drunk. But look, I've got eight minutes before I'm needed next - go ahead and talk."

  "I'm not bloody drunk! That was yesterday!"

  Klaus checked his datapad. "It's barely past midnight, ship's time."

  "Aye, which means it's a new feckin' day!"

  Oh Lord. "All right, all right. What's your idea?"

  "Weel, I was talkin' to some o' the other folks stuck in here." Here? Ah, yes. When the Overlord moved into combat, all civilians onboard were confined to the civilian section, near the middle of the ship. "One o' them — real nice lass — and I got to talkin'. See, she used to work with some o' the big, in-system mining platforms, the ones what they used fer crackin' open Mercury. She was sayin' that they often didn't have 'nuff engines to move the whole bloody platform at once, see? So they'd move the thing in sections, and piece it back together at each new rock!"

  "Makes sense. For mining, anyway. Your point?"

  "So what is the big feckin' problem we're havin' with the QMP? We canna' move the whole bloody ship at once!"

  Oh, for the love of — "Are you seriously suggesting that we cut the single largest, most expensive moving object in the history of mankind into pieces, and hope it comes together properly at the other end?”

  “Precisely, lad! And theoretically it's easier. The way it works, the slices will come back together at atomic distances within picoseconds, so they'll just fuse where they were, give or tak
e an electron or two. And for the computers, we just sit Jimmy here in the first compartment t' make the jump, and let him get all the systems sorted!”

  Klaus shook his head, before remembering that Johann couldn't see him. Johann wouldn't have seen the Captain's order to confine the miners, which included James. Of course, the miner was key to a QMP jump that had to be working in the next few minutes, Klaus could no doubt get him sprung from the brig. But there was another problem. “Still wouldn't work, Johann. As good as James is—” and as good as Klaus' repair-assistance programs were “—he still couldn't possibly get the whole ship's systems up and running fast enough.”

  “Aye, and so we use your idea!”

  “My idea?”

  “Those bloody repair programs of yours, o' course! We'll put 'em in every system on the ship! We just need t' wire a computer into each compartment, and then have each one work over the code o' the next one in sequence! Jimmy'll need to see the first few off himself, but they'll cascade from there!”

  Hmm. Johann might be onto something here. “Have you run the numbers on just how long that would take?”

  “Aye. 'Tis nothing, barely a few seconds.”

  A few seconds in which the Overlord would be crippled, its control systems down. Klaus hoped to God that that would never become an attractive option for the ship.

  "Hold on a moment." Klaus winced as he rocketed past a fire - an inferno, really - still burning white-hot in the corridor. With the ship as beaten-up as it was, mere fires didn't warrant a response so long as they weren't near anything too important. Even at the speed he was going, he felt the searing heat through the shielding of his suit. That fire would melt the local bulkheads soon. He checked his map. No worries. They could afford to lose the ship's number three movie theater.

  "You know, that just might work." He thought a moment. "But that would take a full-up quantum-core computer. How many of those do we even have, onboard?" Johann probably hadn't gone far enough to actually look that up, and Klaus didn't know the number, offhand. He looked down to his datapad, preparing to search through the engineering database himself.