William Keith Renegades Honor

by Renegade's Honor

  MacAllister shifted uncomfortably. "My responsibility, sir. I had the watch, and I wanted to see what the nebula looked like. I didn't know it would have that...that strong an effect on everybody."

  "Well, we may have learned something from it. We may have learned we don't dare venture outside our Galaxy!"

  "Pardon me, Captain, but do we have a choice?" Logan said.

  "That's what this meeting will determine." Kendric passed a hand across his eyes. He was so tired.

  "Are you all right, Captain?"

  He opened his eyes and realized they were all staring at him. In the dim lighting in the room, his shimmerheat glow was stronger than ever.

  "I'm fine. As the doctor here has pointed out, we're all pretty worn out. Tired or not, though, we've got to examine our options once more."

  Overlord Gracchi faced the glowing images often of his Squadron Commanders. Each image was a holographic projection less than half a meter tall. Their attention was focused on the tactical display projected on a screen behind the Overlord. It showed a triple point of light labeled Gamma Sacculus, with a straight red line running out from it.

  "So," Gracchi said. "For the reasons I've outlined, the renegades must be somewhere along their departure line. They will be no more than five light weeks from Gamma Sacculus. They will almost certainly be farther out than two light weeks.

  "Here is how we will spring our trap. You, Admiral Benton, are in command of the reserve. Your place will be here, with me, at Gamma Sacculus."

  "Yessir."

  "You, Commodore Pushkin, will accelerate your fleet out along the exact path taken by the renegade fleet. You will make a T-space jump to a distance of one light week, then re-emerge...here." He pointed to a spot along the line, a short distance out from the star. "You will continue along the renegades' path, paying particular attention to your neutrino detectors, your infrared sensors, and your ship-to-ship radio. You will maintain your course for one full day, then reenter T-space for another jump, this time emerging here, one light week farther along.

  "Admiral Hogarth, you will do the same with your squadron, but farther on. You will emerge ten light days from Gamma Sacculus, travel for one day searching for signs of the renegade fleet, then reenter T-space for this point, at seventeen light days out.

  "Each of you will act similarly. As soon as the renegade fleet emerges from T-space, they will begin emitting radio, infrared, and neutrino radiation, so you should be able to pick up some sign of their presence by the time each of you reaches his assigned normal space patrol plot. If, after one day, you have detected nothing, you will leapfrog ahead to take up a new patrol position. With ten squadrons operating along the line out to five light weeks, one of you should make contact within a very few days.

  "The moment you detect signs of the renegades' presence, you will plot their precise position. You will then attack in order to hold the renegade fleet in place, and to cause additional damage, if possible. Before you attack, however, you will dispatch a corvette from your squadron to bring word of your discovery here, to me, at Gamma Sacculus. Admiral Benton and I will jump to your location as soon as we have definite word. We will then crush the renegade fleet and destroy it."

  "My Lord," one of the holographic images said. "Can our squadrons count on having a sufficient advantage in firepower over the renegades? A battleship squadron is, after all, a formidable fighting unit."

  "My staff formulated your squadron makeup with that in mind, Fleet Captain. Any one of your cruiser squadrons should be sufficient to defeat the enemy in its current state of damage and disorganization. Normally, the enemy battleship would be too powerful for even a cruiser squadron to handle, but remember that the renegade battleship has suffered numerous hits already, in the Battle of Gamma Sacculus.

  "Don't forget that all you need do is hold them...pin them long enough to allow the reserves to arrive. You can accomplish this by damaging the smaller ships so severely that the larger ships cannot flee without abandoning them.

  "Remember, too, that the renegades are utterly dependent on their transports, which have reportedly already taken heavy damage. Destroy or incapacitate their transports, and they will be going nowhere!

  "It is you men, my Squadron Commanders, who hold the key to final success! Find the renegade fleet, notify me, and hold it until I arrive with the main fleet!"

  Overlord Gracchi smiled as the arrayed holographic images saluted him as one and winked out. The plan was a good one. There were holes, certainly, and the renegades might still slip away into T-space before the squadron could confront them.

  The possibility did not greatly worry him, however, for the key to this operation was Kendric Fraser. Kill or capture Fraser, and the Gaels would be broken. They had demonstrated no sign at all of unity or fighting ability under Captain Morganen. Under Fraser, they fought like madmen. The Battle of Gamma Sacculus had cost Gracchi dearly—412 fighters destroyed or still missing, out of a total of 1,080. Thirty-eight percent casualties in that operation was not a statistic to endear him to Caesar.

  The current operation would guarantee Fraser's death or capture. The man had, quite simply and literally, run out of time. He would be forced to either jump with his squadron and die, or to abandon his ship and remain behind while the squadron jumped without him. In that case, too, he would die, though not as quickly or pleasantly as from a t-tau intercept dimensional aversion.

  One way or the other, Magnan Domitius Gracchi would win this round...and Kendric Fraser would lose.

  Imperial Corvette One Seven Three. We have Renegades.. .repeat, we have Renegades in sight! Warn the fleet! Hot damn! We'll get a medal for this one!

  —Intercepted radio transmission, Deep Space, Vicinity Gamma Sacculus, 6 Nov 6830

  Jaime Douglass saw them first. "Warrior! Alpha Flight Leader! We have a target incoming! Course one-eight-zero plus zero... Smack on our line from Gamma Sacculus! We are transmitting our scanner data."

  Time dragged with the time lag—more than thirty seconds—between the patrol and the squadron.

  "We copy, Alpha Leader." The answer came through at last. "Please retransmit to verify."

  Damn! Don 'tyou believe your own eyes ? Or ours?" Alpha Leader, retransmitting scanner data."

  Jaime waited, fuming inwardly. The TOG squadron was moving quickly—at least 500 kps—and were glowing with the characteristic, wavering light of shimmerheat. They had just dropped in from someplace not long before, and with that course, they had to be from Gamma Sacculus.

  How in the bloody hell had they discovered the squadron's precise hiding point? The whole purpose of their blind jump had been to lose themselves in the emptiness out beyond the boundaries of the Gamma Sacculus star system. He checked his console. The other five fighters of Gold Squadron were tucked in tight and close, the other three squadrons of Alpha Flight in tight formation to port and starboard. There was nothing more to do but wait on word from the Flagship.

  "Alpha Leader, this is Gael Warrior. Acknowledge your scanner transmissions. Stand by. Muster your fighters and await further orders."

  The duty bridge officer sounded battle stations and alerted Kendric. By the time he was on the bridge again, the incoming targets had been identified: two heavy cruisers, four destroyers, and five smaller ships—frigates and corvettes. There was no question of hiding or hoping they had not been seen. The neutrino spillage from the Gael ships' fusion plants would have scattered across a sphere almost two light days across. The TOG vessels would have known of the squadron's position as soon as they entered that expanding, telltale bubble.

  "What have we got, Ops? Give us our options."

  The deliberate play of the words "Ops" and "options" had become a grim joke over the past several days. Kendric had explained to Kelly shortly after they'd transited from Gamma Sacculus that he feared a TOG pursuit. The joke was carried on each time someone asked Kelly MacCandless what options were coming out of Ops.

  If they'd had more reaction mass and more
time and more velocity at their T-space transit, they might have managed to throw their pursuers off. A simple trick would have been to jump along Course A for a few tenths of a light year, drop into rational space, change course, then enter T-space once again for another faster-than-light run along Course B. Repeated several times, the maneuver would be untraceable, and the Gael Squadron need not worry about pursuit again. But all those "if onlys" could not change what had actually happened. And so Ops had run out of options.

  "No more options, Captain," MacCandless replied after a pregnant pause. "I'd say it was up to our fighters."

  "Agreed."

  Deploying the fighters had been Kendric's idea. He had withheld launching them at Gamma Sacculus because of the obvious futility of throwing sixty fighters at a thousand. Once the squadron had materialized at their current hiding place, however, the battleship's fighters had become the squadron's best means of defense, as well as their best means of gaining early warning of approaching TOG spacecraft.

  "Frank? This is the Captain."

  "Yessir!"

  "Launch the rest of the fighters. We need to slow those heavies down before they hit us."

  "Aye, sir. All fighters in Beta and Gamma bays report ready." Alpha had launched earlier and was already on patrol. It had been they who first identified the approaching TOG force. "Launching now!"

  Two by two, the Gael Warrior's remaining fighters were flung into space.

  "Alpha Leader, this is the Gael Warrior. Beta and Gamma Flights are en route to your position. You are ordered to attack...Repeat... Attack enemy squadron. Try for maximum damage to enemy drive and weapons systems."

  "Ya-hoo!" Jaime's yell cut across the tactical channel. His mind was racing with his heart. At last! Let's move before they change their minds! "Alpha Flight, this is Flight Leader! Heads up, boys! We got ourselves clearance for an attack! Change heading to zero-three-five and accelerate, ten Gs, at my command...Three...two...one...Go!"

  Drive flares blossomed in the thruster Venturis of the three squadrons of Pilums and Spiculums.

  "Galad and Teachdair! You'll cover the transports. Herd them onto zero-one-zero minus two-zero and accelerate." Kendric studied the tactical display as he gave his orders for the squadron's deployment. "Iolaire and Reannruadh, stick with Gael Warrior. We'll follow our second fighter wave in. Aichbheil and Gaidheal, draw off and circle around. Use your own discretion on course. See if you can't come in on them from a different direction while we have them tied down."

  The Gael Warrior was already accelerating toward the distant battle.

  Jaime fired his ventral maneuvering thrusters. His Spiculum twisted to port and climbed sharply in a high-G maneuver that partially overloaded the craft's acceleration compensators and mashed him back in his seat. His pressure suit absorbed and redistributed the excess G-pressure, preventing the blood from rushing from his head. For one, dizzy instant, his vision turned red, but he managed not to black out. A moment later, his eyes had cleared, revealing the long, lean shape of a TOG heavy cruiser less than a kilometer ahead.

  He had used one of the destroyers as a screen. As his squadron-mates slammed missiles and beams into the destroyer behind him, he steadied the twisting spin of his fighter and centered on the cruiser's bridge. Lasers reached out toward him, invisible in space but starkly apparent on his console screens. He twisted to port as coherent light grazed his flicker shield and sparked from his starboard pontoon. Another shot struck him, dead center forward with a dazzling explosion of raw light, but his shield deflected and absorbed the blast.

  He was close now, so close he could see individual turrets on the cruiser's forward deck spinning around to track his hurtling flight. The cruiser had been hit already in an earlier pass. A transponder-guided missile had slipped through the lead cruiser's shields and exploded against her tower armor just aft of her bridge. He could see the crater now, gaping like a black cavern in a convoluted metal cliff.

  Steady! One hand made micrometric corrections on the Spiculum's control stick while the other activated the target lock for his port-wing missile. A green light winked on his weapons board. "Got you!"

  Fighters were weakly armed and armored when compared to capital ships, but they possessed one supreme advantage. In the hands of an expert pilot, they could maneuver in to point-blank range of a large target, taking aim at weak spots in the enemy's armor, or even against damaged areas. In just that way, Jaime was aiming his starboard missile at the ragged crater blasted into the cruiser's bridge tower earlier.

  He squeezed the missile release on his control stick. A shaft of orange fire lanced out from the hard point mounted under his starboard pontoon, kicking hard at Jaime's ship as he pulled back on the stick and triggered his maneuvering jets again. He had a blurred glimpse of his missile slicing past the cruiser's flicker shield, straight into the dark-of the target crater. A hit! The cavern lit from within like an erupting volcano. Molten chunks of metal hurtled out into space as multiple explosions wracked the cruiser's tower.

  Jaime hit full acceleration on his fighter's drives as his little ship raced low across the cruiser's forward deck. Laser fire tracked him. Part of the dagger blade ventral fin melted under a laser's touch, the damage relayed by sensors to Jaime's cockpit, where red lights warned of overloaded systems and excess heat.

  "Nice shooting, Gold Leader!" Davie Marshall sounded wildly excited. "Look at that bastard burn!"

  The heavy cruiser was turning out of the line of battle. Air was spilling from the hole in its tower now, allowing flammable gases to ignite in a trail streaming from the wounded vessel's side.

  Two squadrons from Gamma Flight closed on the stricken cruiser from astern. A pair of aging Verutum fighters cut loose at point-blank range with their electron cannons, then loosed radiation-seeking missiles as they peeled away. Twin explosions gouted from the cruiser's drive Venturis. One whole bank of internal lights flashed off and on several times, then died as major sections of the ship's power failed. An internal explosion, ghastly and silent, shattered portions of her main battery, sending whole weapons turrets tumbling end for end off into the emptiness.

  Jaime checked his tactical display. The second cruiser was some distance away, tangling with Bill Kimball's Beta Flight. He could see the strobe light flashes of that battle in the distance. Then, suddenly, the Gael Warrior was there, along with the Reannruadh and the Iolaire. The three warships, backing down on furiously blazing plasma flares, decelerated to battle speed. They were startling, dazzling sights, their shark-fin radiators still brilliant with the eerie glare of Cherenkov radiation. It would take days yet for that charge to dissipate.

  And if we fail here, we can't jump for safety, Jaime thought. T.C. and Kendric are crowding their tau limits now...

  For a confused moment, Jaime was not certain who he feared for the most. He knew that the Squadron could not afford to lose Kendric Fraser, yet there was also the undeniable attraction Jaime had felt for T.C. long before Kendric had asked him to watch out for her. If Kendric Fraser died, the Squadron would never find its way out of this mess, of that Jaime was certain. Douglass twisted his controls, skimming low across the battered hull of the shattered TOG cruiser. Kendric must have been pounding his squadron at two Gs all the way to the battle, flipping end-for-end at the last possible moment, for the Gael ships were coming in at heart-racing velocity, swelling large on Jaime's screens. His fighter lurched with sudden acceleration as he cleared the Warrior's fire zone.

  The Warrior's main batteries were tracking even as she decelerated to battle speed. Laser fire caressed the stricken cruiser, opening fresh canyons in her shattered side, smashing gun batteries, rupturing her hull. Mass drivers hurled chunks of metal one after another into shattered armor.

  Jaime's radio spat static, then cleared. "Group Leader! Group Leader! This is the Flag!"

  "Go ahead, Flag." Jaime's eyebrows raised behind his helmet visor. That wasn't IFCO. That was Kendric Fraser's voice—the Old Man himself! "Jaime! We're
reading a corvette accelerating back toward Gamma Sacculus. Do you see him?"

  Jaime checked his tactical display. There! A small red symbol, racing back along the straight-line course to that diamond-brilliant star. Tactical data reported on speed—still less than 4 kps, but building rapidly.

  "He'll be off for reinforcements, Jaime. Muster your squadron and get him!"

  "Aye, sir! On my way!" He switched channels. "Yo! Beta Red One! This is Group leader!"

  "Red One. Go ahead, Group Leader."

  "You take the Group now, Kim! I've got a hot vector!"

  "Roger that. Good hunting!"

  "Thanks." He keyed another channel. "Gold Squadron, this is Gold Leader! Swing about to one-eight-zero plus zero! We're going hunting, gang!"

  The corvette had a long head start, but the Spiculum Interceptors had almost twice the larger ship's acceleration and considerable velocity in the right direction already. It was this last, their "hot vector," that had singled them out as the obvious Interceptor Squadron to send after the fleeing corvette. Their target was forced to decelerate in order to reverse course, and then had to build up his speed again, kps by ponderous kps. Gold Squadron was in the perfect position, and with an almost perfect vector, to strike.

  Jaime rejoiced. Battle lust sang in his blood.

  The target was a Cingulum. Long and flat, the broad, canted wing to portside aft gave the ship an oddly unfinished appearance. A turret mounting mass driver cannons and 5/4 cm lasers swung to cover the squadron's approach.

  "Scatter, boys! We'll hit him from port and starboard!" The Cingulum mounted weapons facing ahead and astern, plus a nasty package of lasers and mass drivers mounted in a dorsal turret. It was unlikely that the TOG courier would swerve off its present course to dogfight the fighters. If they attacked from port and starboard, the corvette's bow and stern weapons would be useless, and the turret could direct its fire at only one side or the other at a time.