For Honor We Stand (Man of War Book 2)

by H. Paul Honsinger

  “How close?”

  “The highest surface feature on that moon is right at seven thousand meters, so we will be at seven thousand two hundred.”

  “Isn’t that, according to the old American idiom, ‘cutting it a little close’?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “As long as you are aware of it.” It took a very acute ear to detect the sarcasm in the statement. Max had a very acute ear. “In addition to cutting it a little close, aren’t we going a little fast for a ship that is going to be that close to the surface?”

  “Not really. We’ll not be going much more than one thousand kilometers per second.”

  “Oh, a snail’s pace. You so ease my mind.” This time the sarcasm was not so subtle.

  Max kept a close eye on a display on his console, which he had configured to show distance to the surface of the moon. Chief LeBlanc had a similar display. Both men watched the numbers as they fell rapidly. Watched them very closely. By Max’s orders, this next maneuver would be executed at the chief’s command, as he had the better “feel for the ship.” Nevertheless, more for his own reassurance than to communicate anything new, Max said to LeBlanc, “Second maneuver at your discretion, Chief.”

  “Second maneuver at my discretion,” the older Cajun acknowledged. On various displays around CIC tied into the forward video feed, Mengis VI’s moon approached at terrifying speed. It seemed impossible to avoid a collision, inscribing a new canyon that some wit would probably name the Cumberland Valley. People had to remind themselves to ungrit their teeth, to unclench their hands, to breathe.

  “All right, men,” LeBlanc told the three men at their stations in front of him, “just like we talked about. In five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Now!”

  At Chief LeBlanc’s signal, the man controlling pitch and roll pitched the bow of the ship up so that it was precisely following the contour of the moon’s surface and rolled the ship so that its missile tubes, one of which was mounted in the bow exactly between the one and the two o’clock positions, and the other between the seven and the eight, were level with one another. The braking drive disengaged and the main sublight drive went to Flank to push the ship through this maneuver, then to one-tenth power to hold the ship to the trajectory Max had ordered for it, which was anything but an orthodox Keplerian orbit.

  The craters and mountains of the desolate world below them whizzed past so rapidly that they could hardly be discerned on the optical feeds. The smallest errant twitch on the pitch controller could slam the Cumberland into the surface so hard that the only evidence she had ever existed would be the kilometer-wide crater, the rapidly expanding ball of incandescent gas, and the “we regret to inform you” commgrams to the parents, orphans, and widows.

  Dr. Sahin looked at his tactical display. The icon for the Cumberland and the icon for the Krag cruiser were approaching one another so fast that they would meet in only a few seconds. He noted from the “data source slot” at the top of the display that the information on the positions of the two ships was being received from the Cumberland’s sensor probe launched hours earlier. To all appearances, nothing would stop the two ships from colliding head-on at catastrophic velocities.

  “This appears to be an extremely hazardous maneuver,” Sahin said. The pitch of his voice was at least a major third above normal. Maybe even a perfect fourth.

  “Yes. It is,” Max admitted. “But it’s a lot less hazardous than fighting it out on even terms with those cruisers.”

  Just when Sahin was going to ask how much less hazardous it was, the two ships came into sight of one another. Apparently by prior arrangement, this fact required no announcement from the Sensors or Tactical officers. Max simply said, “Now.”

  Two sharp pats on the shoulder from Chief LeBlanc to the man at Pitch, and the Cumberland dove sharply toward the surface of the airless moon and then almost immediately leveled out, barely fifty meters above the crater-scarred terrain. At the same moment, the ship’s computer, following the instructions given to it a few hours before, fired two Talon missiles, one from each of the forward missile tubes. In order to give the seeker systems time to lock on, given the close range and high closing velocities of the two vessels, the acceleration coils were set to give the weapons just enough velocity to clear the launch tubes and the bow of the ship, instead of the .61 c that was nominal for the system. At their highly reduced speed, the time from launch to impact was just under a second.

  The Krag had no time to react. They were not expecting the humans. Not there. Not then. The blaspheming monkeys were supposed to be in the midst of the particle stream, frantically running for their lives, where they would be located by sensors and attacked minutes from now, not popping up over the limb of this moon and attacking head on.

  Accordingly, the Krag didn’t have their missile launch systems energized, the missile drives enabled, or the warhead safeties disengaged. Neither had they prepared the ship to receive enemy fire. In fact, the only element of the Krag cruiser’s defenses that was in place was its electronic warfare and countermeasures suite, which Union Naval Intelligence had correctly advised was always active.

  The ever-alert Krag computer sensed the incoming missile and reacted appropriately, transmitting a highly focused, randomly modulated EM pulse designed to disrupt the Talons’ guidance software. One missile behaved as the Krag expected, veering wildly off into deep space, zooming out of sight and off the Krag sensor scans. But the other flew true, straight at the Krag warship, past the powerful Krag deflectors, at the moment configured to repel space debris but not weapons fire, through the multiple point defense zones protected by interlocking layers of four distinct kinds of antimissile weapons, all safed and deactivated, and to within just over a meter of the cruiser’s hull, equipped with structural integrity fields and blast suppression emitters that would allow it to withstand the detonation of a nuclear warhead the size of that carried by the Union’s Talon missile—all switched to standby.

  The 150-kiloton fusion warhead blew just as the Cumberland streaked between the cruiser and the surface of the moon below. The resulting globe of white-hot plasma hungrily ingested the forward two thirds of the cruiser, fracturing its very atoms into free nuclei and electrons, while melting or shattering the rear third into a spray of pea-sized droplets of molten metal and plastic, interspersed with tens of thousands of solid chunks of the harder parts of the hull and the more heat-resistant engine parts, none larger than a man’s head.

  Some of these solid pieces arced off into space to join the other debris, moonlets, and other bodies that swarmed around the enormous gas giant, whereas others slammed into the surface of Mengis VI A, an artificial storm of meteoroids littering the tiny world like deadly metallic hail. The fireball blossomed behind the destroyer as, apparently due to accident triggered by the proximity of the nuclear explosion, the Cumberland’s rear tube fired another missile that also zoomed away from the moon in a peculiar-looking trajectory. If the Krag happened to have any sensor drones in the neighborhood, they would see an accidental firing and a wasted missile.

  In fistfighting, it’s called a “sucker punch.” In warfare, it’s called “tactical surprise.” To the crew of the Cumberland, it was a definite kill.

  The fireball now astern, Max called out, “Weapons, reload all tubes with Talons. Maneuvering, fourth maneuver…execute.”

  As Weapons acknowledged the order, a few quick pats on the shoulder from Chief LeBlanc prompted the Yaw and Pitch men to steer the agile warship through another violent maneuver, bending the Cumberland’s course under full acceleration in a sharp hairpin turn back toward the middle of the particle stream and then turning her again, this time gradually, until after a few moments the Cumberland settled into its former path, with the enemy ship that had been the low cruiser about twelve thousand kilometers behind and slowly gaining. As soon as the ship was reestablished along its former course, Max turned to Nelson a
t Stealth.

  “Mr. Nelson, I think it’s time for that malfunction we discussed.”

  “Aye, sir.” Nelson touched a key on his console. A few seconds later, he announced. “Apparent malfunction in Stealth systems caused us to leak EM aft for five point three seconds, after which the malfunction was ‘repaired’ and the leakage stopped.”

  “Well done, Mr. Nelson.”

  “Malfunction?” The doctor sounded concerned.

  “Not a real one,” Max mollified him. “I wanted to be sure the cruiser knew we were here, so we shut down a few of the electromagnetic suppression systems for a few seconds so that some of the electromagnetic radiation the ship generates in normal operation leaked in the Krag’s direction.

  “We gave him a contact for just over five seconds, which is long enough for him to get a definite detection as well as a rough bearing, but not enough time to give his computer sufficient data points over time to do target motion analysis and spit out a firing solution. With all the sensor interference in this particle stream, he’s going to have to close within about fifteen hundred kills to get a strong enough detection to be able to fire his weapons accurately.”

  “Why, look at that. We’re doing as we were doing before! Running away from the enemy cruiser inside this river of ionized material.” The doctor looked perplexed. “I’m certainly pleased that we dispatched that other ship so deftly, but are we still not in an impossible tactical situation with regard to this other vessel? Is she not speedier and more powerful than we, such that she will eventually catch up with us and defeat us in combat?”

  “It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it,” answered Max. “As far as Mr. Krag is concerned, we never left the stream, and we’ve been running for our lives the whole time. All he’s seen of us tells him that we’re panicked prey, so that’s all he’s going to expect.”

  Max looked at a chrono display that, for reasons unknown to the doctor, had been counting down and was now at just under one minute. He then glanced at the tactical overview display, which was now set on a large scale, with the Cumberland at the bottom of the screen, the cruiser at the top, and a small green “x,” which was apparently a stationary point in space, creeping just to the left of the destroyer. Now it seemed to be moving toward the cruiser as the ships moved through space and the display adjusted, keeping them in the same relative positions so that they did not run off the edge of the screen. “Speaking of which…” Max hit the comm button.

  “Engineering. Brown here. I surmise that this is my cue.”

  “Spot on, my good chap. You’ve got thirty seconds. I’ll give you a countdown from five.”

  “Understood.”

  A tense twenty-five seconds went by, Sahin wishing he had time to ask a quick question so he could understand what was happening, but knowing that he did not.

  “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. NOW!”

  “Executing,” said the engineer over the comm. Everyone in CIC, and presumably throughout the ship, felt a lurch as the main sublight drive abruptly stopped providing acceleration. “Main sublight on standby,” Brown informed Max. “As far as the Krag are concerned, they saw a plasma dump followed by a drive shutdown. They’re going to conclude that the damage they did to us earlier caused a catastrophic drive failure and that we are now without propulsion.”

  “Outstanding,” said Max gleefully.

  “Outstanding?” Sahin was aghast. “Now that we are no longer accelerating, that huge ship full of voracious man-sized rats is going to catch up with us and send us all to Jannah. I had hoped to go there, but it was my cherished desire to delay the arrival for at least a few more years.”

  “It’s not what it looks like, Doctor. If you go to paradise anytime soon, it won’t be because of anything I did today.” Max spoke slowly and calmly. “I just need to get the Krag ship, for targeting purposes, to stop accelerating. Talon missiles aren’t very good at side shots on rapidly accelerating targets.”

  “Side shots? I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  “And we can fire only two missiles at a time,” the doctor continued. “My understanding is that, if a ship of that kind is prepared for our attack, with his deflectors…what is the term…deflecting, it is unlikely that only two missiles will take him out of action. Is my understanding in error? You know how often I am wrong about such matters.”

  “No, you’ve got it right this time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  “You are becoming repetitious.”

  “I know.”

  “The Krag cruiser has engaged its braking thrusters and is slowing rapidly,” Mr. Bartoli sang out from Tactical. “He’s right in the groove, sir, and he’s matching our velocity.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Bartoli.”

  The doctor could see from the tactical display that the icon for the Krag ship was now almost on top of the little green x.

  “Maneuvering,” Max said in a quiet voice, obviously reining in his excitement. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir.” LeBlanc sounded eager.

  “Then…fifth maneuver…execute.”

  Pitch and Yaw steered the ship through a “flapjack,” the maneuver that rapidly flipped the ship bow for stern, after which Drives decisively shoved his main sublight controller all the way forward. In just under five seconds the destroyer had gone from coasting with her bow pointed in the direction of travel to thrusting at emergency power against its forward velocity with her bow pointed at the enemy cruiser. While the sublight drive would not stop the ship any time soon, thrusting against the direction of travel would increase greatly, and unexpectedly from the Krag point of view, the closure rate between the two ships.

  The doctor could see that the Krag ship was now almost right on top of the little green “x” on the tactical display. “Weapons,” Max called out, “abbreviated firing procedure. Make weapons in tubes one and two ready for firing in all respects, and open missile doors. Set both warheads for maximum yield, and program terminal guidance for custom attack pattern zero one. Set launch tubes for minimum speed.”

  With the efficiency that Max had already come to expect from him, Levy at Weapons had anticipated this order and had his hands resting near the appropriate controls. Acknowledging the order, his fingers flew into action. It took only a few seconds for the appropriate lights to change from blue to green and for Levy to check the two relevant optical feeds.

  “Missiles in tubes one and two ready for firing in all respects. Doors for tubes one and two are open and visually verified to be free of obstructions. Warheads set for yield of one-five-zero kilo tango. Custom attack pattern zero one loaded and selected. Launch tube acceleration at lowest setting.”

  “Very well.”

  “Lowest setting? I thought that missiles needed to travel as fast as possible to get through the enemy point defense systems.” The doctor sounded genuinely concerned. “That was the point of bolting the missiles onto the cutter when we destroyed the Krag battlecruiser a few weeks ago.”

  “Relax, Doctor. Today, we’re firing Talons. The missiles we fired at the battlecruiser were Ravens. Ravens have a much bigger warhead but are a lot less nimble and with a less effective countermeasures suite. The Talons are sly and fast. They’ll get through.”

  “But why not use the high speed, anyway? I remember more than one occasion on which you told me that faster is better in these cases.”

  “It usually is, but at this range, faster is not better. As close as the Krag ship is to us, if we launched at 61 percent of the speed of light, the missiles would be past the Krag ship before their targeting systems could lock on.” During this discussion, Max’s eyes had never left the tactical display. “And now, Doctor, speaking of firing…” He watched the display carefully. Just as the cruiser touched the green “x,” he gave the order: “Tubes one and two…fire.
”

  The ship shuddered as it spat the two missiles out of the launch tubes, applying just enough acceleration to eject the weapons. Their drive systems kicked in immediately and steered them on oblique trajectories away from the straight line between the two ships, so they could strike the cruiser from its belly and its flanks, where it was more vulnerable. As soon as the missiles cleared the tubes, Max spoke, “Maneuvering, sixth maneuver, execute.”

  Under Chief LeBlanc’s direction, the ship veered violently once more, this time heading straight for the nearest edge of the ionized particle stream and accelerating as hard as could be managed by her damaged propulsion systems. “Captain,” announced Kasparov from Sensors a few seconds later, “we have cleared the particle stream.”

  “Very well. Sometimes the darn things act like a pipeline for the warheads’ EMP. Don’t want to be in there when they go off if we can help it,” said Max. As soon as the destroyer cleared the particle stream, the doctor saw two ^ symbols appear on his tactical overview display, moving rapidly and converging on the Krag cruiser from slightly different vectors. The symbols seemed identical to those representing the two missiles fired by the Cumberland just a moment before. “Sir, may I ask, what exactly are these?”

  Max glanced down at the display as a grin spread across his face. “Those are our other missiles.”

  “Other missiles?”

  The doctor had barely articulated his question when Levy at Weapons interrupted. “Receiving telemetry from all four missiles. All show successful target acquisition. Handshaking protocol completed. They have switched from Independent Attack to Cooperative Interactive Logic Mode. Maneuvering for simultaneous circumferential detonation. The CILM upgrade in the new Talons is functioning nominally.”

  The doctor could see the ^ symbols moving quickly to encircle the enemy vessel and approach it from four different directions, preventing the cruiser from being able to concentrate its defenses against a single attack vector. “Missile impact in three, two, one, now.”