Oort Rising

by Magnus Victor

A nerve-wracking few seconds of silence, background conversation, and then— “Re-entered and checked, sir. Still nothing!”

  Impossible. Everyone in the Navy had heard of Petrakov. Only a half-dozen admirals in the fleet had higher-level codes. And each security code was unique. Even if one of those admirals was crooked, either working directly with the rebels or just a middleman, they couldn't possibly have been stupid enough to allow such flagrant use of a code which would pinpoint exactly who gave it. So why didn't the Commodore's code work?

  "Could the systems have been damaged, not working properly?" asked Captain Conagher.

  "No, ma'am. Double checked. No damage that we can see."

  Klaus smiled grimly. Coming from a Marine, it wasn't exactly an iron-clad guarantee of system functionality.

  "I see." continued the Captain. She drummed her fingers on the armrest of her command chair.

  Klaus studied the Captain. He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. To be honest, the whole thing had him worried as well. He still ached, and he was afraid that all that work might now be for nothing. The Commodore's control-override code should have worked, yet it hadn't. And without access to the Tannenberg's functional main drive, the Overlord would be stuck where she was, facing down the rebels. Almost none of her deflector screens were still active. Given enough time, even the Verdun could cripple her now, if the rebel warship came out of hiding from behind Podera.

  But the Captain's lack of a reaction puzzled him. She must have realized the same problems, but she did not look as worried as she should be. Maybe she was thinking up some way to bypass the codes and get the Tannenberg's drive working manually, but Klaus was pretty sure that would not work.

  A full scram was supposed to disable a ship in case it fell into enemy hands. It hadn't worked against the rebels, but it seemed to be working all too well against the Tannenberg's proper owners.

  After all they had been through, Klaus did not want it to end this way. Against all the odds, against Murphy himself, they had delivered the Overlord to where she needed to be, had rescued their ticket home. Just to be undone by the Commodore's faulty code. He sighed, his aches returning.

  So yes, the Captain should have looked more worried. As worried as he felt.

  He sagged to the floor, his exhaustion catching up with him. In his head, he was already outlining some way to get a secure communication to earth. At the very least, he wanted to share what he and Johann — and James, of course — had learned about the QMP drive, and how to make it work. And the danger to Andromeda station. But he did not want to share it with the rebels.

  It was the best he could think of, to salvage something from their deaths.

  Yet Captain Conagher did not look defeated at all. Her voice was calm, but very forceful as she keyed the comm. "Antoniy, I'm sending you a higher-level override code. Try it." She clicked a sequence of commands into her console, and then sat back, eyes locked straight ahead.

  What? Klaus couldn't have heard her properly. Petrakov's Commodore-level code hadn't worked, so why on Earth — or off it, for that matter — would a Captain have a code higher than that?

  Behind the captain, Commodore Petrakov snapped his head up, frowning. "Where did you get—“

  "Long story. I'll explain later."

  Antoniy's voice came back quickly, a hint of confusion evident from the bridge's speakers. “Er, confirmed, ma'am. Entering new code now."

  The bridge went silent. Everyone knew what was at stake, and all the reasons that this couldn't work. Klaus caught several crewmen exchanging glances. Maybe they wondered the same thing he did. Petrakov stared at the captain's back, his expression unreadable, but all other eyes turned to the holo-display.

  For now, they had maneuvered the rebels into a stand-off. The Overlord's act of teleporting next to the station had placed Podera between the squadron and its most dangerous enemies.

  Add to that an unpredictable target. Conagher had grav-tethered the Overlord to the Tannenberg, and now the two were slowly orbiting each other, using the bigger ship's momentum to race away from where the Tannenberg had been just seconds before. The rebels' firing solutions had been changed in the blink of an eye.

  The Verdun was still skulking around on the other side of the planetoid, the rock-throwers were awkwardly positioned relative to the Navy ships, and so their projectiles would still have to arc around Podera in an indirect — and slow — trajectory. Another rock, launched minutes before the Overlord's jump, flew harmlessly past its former target, missing by tens of kilometers.

  Even so, time was not their ally. It would only take minutes for the enemy rock-throwers to move to a better firing position, and to use the Verdun to accelerate the rocks. That is, if the Verdun's grav systems were still operational. Klaus shook his head at the audacity of the enemy captain. He would have staked his reputation on their grav systems failing long before this. What kind of crack engineers did they have on board, anyway?

  If the Verdun were still in action, and if any of their shots hit the deflector-less Overlord, the battle would be over. Or if the Verdun came over the horizon and fired point-blank from her batteries, grav systems working or not, the battle would be over.

  Everything rested on mobility, which meant on the blinking red icon next to the Overlord: the Tannenberg. Would the Captain's codes work?

  An hour passed in the next five seconds.

  The Tannenberg's icon turned green!

  “Hoo-yah!” erupted from the bridge crew.

  The Commodore drew himself up in his chair, and managed a grim smile. "Impressive," he acknowledged. His voice lowered, and Klaus barely caught the rest. “You'll have to tell me later where you got that code.”

  "Of course." responded the Captain. Klaus saw the corners of her mouth turn up in a quick smile, and then fade again. She began barking orders at the bridge crew. “Engineering. Get an umbilical across to the Tannenberg ASAP.”

  Klaus listened with half an ear. Everyone would now be busy getting the Tannenberg operational, but he had nothing left. The damage control crew didn't need him right now, and he was spent. At least the crew had the presence of mind to see that, and they left him alone. He sat up, and leaned back against the wall, thinking. The holo-display showed no threats, no incoming fire.

  Yet.

  For now, their objective had to be to keep the Tannenberg out of enemy hands. He wondered whether the crew understood just how important that had become. The Captain had given an access code which apparently had priority even over the highest-ranked members of the military, and now that code was on the Tannenberg.

  God only knew where she had gotten it, but Klaus knew what the rebels could do with such a code, if they could only re-capture the Tannenberg and read through her systems. It had been a big risk for the Captain to deploy her ace-in-her-sleeve, but there had been no choice.

  Not if she wanted the Overlord and the Tannenberg to survive.

  Chapter 20: Set Them Up The Bomb

  On the holo-display, a red marker emerged around the white of the planetoid.

  "Ma'am!" called out the tactical officer. "The Verdun's moving up!"

  Damn. Klaus checked the engineering readout. Less than a quarter of the deflector screens were still online, and those only afforded sporadic coverage. Some had been crushed under enemy fire, some overloaded to stop enemy fire, and much had been burned out just moving the huge warship.

  With the Overlord's deflectors down, the Verdun was no longer a smaller, obsolete warship to be laughed at. She was a real threat, now. A very dangerous threat.

  "Then we'd best move quickly." said Captain Conagher. "Engineering, get power across to the Tannenberg, as much as her drive can take." She toggled communications with Antoniy. "Lieutenant Gureivich, we've slaved the Tannenberg's controls to ours. Just keep the rebels out of the bridge and the engine compartments, and we'll be out of here shortly."

  "Aye, ma'am." responded Antoniy, and cut the channel.

  A warning klax
on sounded, and the holo-display flashed three red icons from the Verdun. Incoming fire.

  "Ma'am!" the tactical officer called out. "The enemy's targeting us! Railgun impact in nine seconds, ma'am!"

  Now that the enemy had fully — hopefully — played their hand by using their admiral-level override code, the rebels must be truly desperate to stop the Overlord and Tannenberg from escaping. The Verdun was taking a big risk by exposing herself to the Overlord's fire. They were either desperate, or they somehow knew that the Overlord's fire-control systems had been disabled.

  After the hammering the Overlord had taken earlier from the rock-slingers, Klaus reflexively braced his arms against his console. This was going to hurt.

  "Five, four, three, two, one."

  He almost missed the impact. The incoming projectiles hit the Overlord's armor at an angle, ricocheting off harmlessly. What? The Verdun had missed? Klaus looked to the holo-display. Of course — the Overlord was now maneuvering, heading away from the planetoid. Slow, but enough to almost dodge the Verdun's first salvo.

  But they couldn't outrun the Verdun, not with both ships tethered together and using one drive. If the enemy ship approached to close-range, each salvo would be harder to dodge. It would take time, but the end result was not in doubt.

  "Verdun is closing the range, ma'am." announced the tactical officer.

  Klaus groaned. Murphy again. Why couldn't the Verdun's captain be incompetent for a change? He quite carefully did not wish that they would be stupid enough to miss the idea of dodging around and going for the Tannenberg. The smaller ship lacked the Overlord's armor, and was the only key to both ships' survival.

  "Main battery, prepare to fire." called Captain Conagher.

  "Railgun crews report their weapons are non-operable, ma'am! It looks like their impeller-field emitters were fried when we teleported. The railguns can't operate without them."

  The Captain glared at Klaus, who averted his gaze uneasily. He'd warned her that he hadn't had the chance to test the QMP drive on all of the ship's systems.

  "I see." she said. "Torpedoes?"

  "Too shallow, ma'am! Range is too far, and the chemical drive refit not complete. At least thirty minutes left, ma'am.”

  Far too long. Might as well be years. What other options did they have? Klaus wracked his mind, searching for a solution.

  “Helm, close us up on the Tannenberg. Nudge them if you have to.” Conagher turned to the engineering officer. “How many hits can we take?”

  “At close range, ma'am? Between six and fifteen main-caliber rounds.”

  Klaus did the math. The Verdun's main battery could bring four railguns to bear on a target. Five minutes to reload each barrel. They had twenty minutes at the outside. He gritted his teeth. It was so damn ridiculous that they couldn't deliver a simple warhead to a target which wasn't even trying to dodge.

  Warhead.

  Klaus' heart skipped high into his throat, as a surge of adrenaline hit him. With a groan, he forced himself to his feet and leaned on the weapons console. "Lieutenant Billings," he addressed the officer sitting there, reading her tag. For some reason, he felt it was important to address her name by name. Maybe he had sustained a serious injury, after all. "What are the torpedo warhead dimensions? Just the weapon itself.”

  "Eighty centimeters by forty by forty," she replied after only a moment's hesitation. "Why?"

  "I've got an idea. Hold on a second." He said in a voice loud enough for the Captain to hear. He commed Johann, hoping that the intra-ship comms system wasn't too damaged by the jumping. It was mostly wireless, so—

  "Eh? Ah, Klaus, good to hear —" Johann's voice was almost free of accent. Good, that meant he must have sobered up.

  "QMP test rig still set up in the labs?"

  "Aye," Johann seemed to catch the urgency in Klaus' voice. “Why? We're not going to jump again, are we? I've got a yeoman mopping up last night's dinner, and —”

  "Get down there ASAP.” He almost shouted.

  "Wha—?” Something in Klaus' tone must have gotten through to him, because he added simply, “—all right, on my way to the lab.”

  Klaus thought for a moment. Eighty centimeters by forty by forty. That would just barely fit inside the test rig launcher, with only a bit of adjustment. “Re-size the launch equipment. Use any of the spare parts you need. We've got a package we need to send, and it's eighty centimeters on its longest axis. The rest'll fit.”

  Klaus cut the connection, and faced Lieutenant Billings. His heart pounded, either in fear or hope, or both. He couldn't tell, and it didn't matter. His words were clipped. "We might be able to use the QMP test rig to move a warhead onto the Verdun. How soon can your people get a warhead off the torpedo, and delivered to the lab?"

  "Ten minutes, but—“

  Captain Conagher interrupted. "Do it. And you better mean seven." She turned to Klaus as the weapons officer got busy. "How quickly can you get your system ready to fire?"

  "After Johann gets there, two minutes to fire it up. Five more to get the system zeroed in on a point ahead of the Verdun." Klaus pointed at the display. "If the Verdun keeps accelerating like that — I mean predictably — we'll be able to hit her."

  “Good. Get to it.”

  Klaus stumbled to the Overlord's auxiliary console, which had been set up to control the QMP rig built into the ship. For their earlier jump, the QMP controls had simply been slaved to the ship's navigation computers. In order to hit the Verdun, however, they would need manual control. He sat down and brought up the third-level displays. With a few quick commands, he disconnected the QMP command from the navigation system.

  Then the full realization of what he had to do hit him. His fingers stopped, his hands hanging useless. Dammit, why had he brought up the idea? It just wasn't going to work. He slapped his forehead, which was a mistake. The room spun for a few seconds, before settling down.

  He should have seen it! For teleporting the Overlord itself, the only significant external gravity well nearby had been Podera. But for placing a torpedo warhead inside the Verdun, there would be three. The planetoid, as well as both the enemy ship's and the Overlord's remaining deflector screens.

  The really tricky part, though, was getting the working warhead inside the target ship intact. It was orders of magnitude more complex that delivering it to the vacuum of space. From a relativistic perspective, it would involve several times more calculations than they had needed for the entire QMP jump. He let out his breath, deflated. Put simply, his QMP systems just couldn't calculate fast enough to place that warhead inside a moving target.

  Think! He couldn't just announce that their last-ditch plan wouldn't work. There had to be a workaround. His eyes widened as an idea struck him. It sounded crazy, even in his own head, but yes, it would work. This, he thought, would definitely require the Captain's approval.

  Without moving from his chair, Klaus opened a private communications channel to the Captain's earbud, speaking softly. “Ma'am, I'm sorry — we can't teleport a warhead inside the Verdun. But I think I have a workaround.”

  “Out with it.” Her clipped tone betrayed nerves, but her voice was steady.

  He swallowed, wondering how to present his idea. If he cut down on the accuracy calculations, their computers could easily hit the inside of the Verdun. But the object being teleported would be spread out inside the entire volume. Not good for a piece of precision engineering like a fusion warhead.

  But exploding particles, or a blast wave? Accuracy wouldn't matter with those. It had one really tricky drawback, though.

  “Ma'am, we can't get the warhead inside the Verdun, intact.” This would need some explaining as to why it was the only remaining solution. “Its mass would be spread throughout most of the ship, and it would not detonate. What we can do is send, essentially, the explosion itself. The kinetic energy would be preserved through the teleport.”

  The bridge shuddered as a fresh volley of railgun projectiles slammed into the Overlord.
Klaus barely noticed. His systems still worked, the bridge was undamaged. He had to focus.

  The Captain responded, “You mean—”

  “We detonate the warhead in the laboratory, and then teleport the exploding particles into the Verdun. Enough of them will land inside the ship to gut her.”

  “And that means...oh. Any better ideas?”

  “None that I know of, ma'am. I wish I did.”

  “I see.” Captain Conagher's voice was slow and clear-cut. “You're proposing that we detonate a ship-killer warhead inside our own vessel?”

  “Well, yes, ma'am.”

  Captain Conagher closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Hard. She mumbled, "Well, at least if it fails, we won't have to scuttle." She looked up, and in a strained voice she replied, “Get your systems set up, I'll inform the weapons team.”

  “Aye, ma'am.” Klaus spun back to the QMP console. It was a quick job to strip out much of the target-point refinement code, and to link the target coordinates to the data passed from the ship's weapons computers.

  Of course, that was the easy part. The hard part would be moving the warhead before it destroyed the Overlord.

  He turned to the weapons officer. “Lieutenant Billings, I've got the targeting slaved to your console. Tell your weapons team I'll meet them at the lab.”

  “A-Aye.” The young lieutenant stammered.

  Stammered, eh? He studied Billing's face, which was pale. Ah, of course. The Captain would have informed any crew who were needed for Klaus' plan. Made sense, but he hoped she hadn't told the whole ship that they'd be detonating one of their warheads onboard. If it worked, they could learn about it afterwards. If it didn't — well, then it wouldn't really matter.

  There was no way that he was leaving this sort of programming to Johann. This he had to do personally. He raced for the hatch, just as the tactical officer shouted “Verdun has fired another salvo, ma'am! Time to impact eight seconds!”

  He couldn't help one last look at the holo-display. Four more projectiles were rushing towards the Overlord. Just like last time, with one crucial difference.