Stomping over to a turbo-laser mount, he slapped the gunner on the shoulder. “New orders,” he screamed over the terrible din of screaming men and the shrieking, overheated laser turrets and focusing arrays, “we go to volley fire. All turbo-lasers on the portside are to fire-link for a simultaneous strike on these coordinates.”
“It’ll slow down the rate of fire,” the Gunner shouted, twisting around in his chair in order to be heard over the noise, “we can wear down their shields faster if we keep hammering as fast as we can, Chief.”
Chief Lesner shook his head. “The shields are too heavy; they’re tougher than anything I’ve seen and they’re regenerative. There’s no way they’re operating off of just two massive generators like the Dreadnaught class; they’ve got to have at least six overlapping generators, so any single beam won’t punch through in one shot and destabilize the rest of the shield arc like it would for us. They’ve always got two other generators with overlapping coverage to take up the slack when one starts to heat up or run down on power. I think we’re seeing the wave of the future—if only we had that tech,” Lesner said, pounding a fist into the back of the other gunner’s chair in frustration. “Bloody Imperials and their blasted tech advantage.”
“Just tell us what to do, Chief. We’ll backstop you,” said the mount’s assistant gunner, and the gunner beside him nodded.
“I know we haven’t done it before, but that’s why I’m going to link in those new short range plasma cannons the Chief Engineer installed before we left Gambit. We used them on the Phoenix for point defense, and while they won’t punch through a shield on their own—even in volley form—they don’t have to. If we can get a resonance field set up across all three generators covering their stern, and if they’re all hit at the same time, it won’t matter if they’re able to overlap and share power coverage,” Lesner explained, baring his teeth fiercely. “Smaller generators like that just can’t cope with a whole blasted broadside at the same time, and the plasma cannons’ll play merry hob with their overlapping coverage!”
Slapping out a series of requests for confirmation orders on his data-slate, the Chief Gunner grinned as the last of the confirmations came in.
Holding his slate up to his mouth, he set it to broadcast over every one of the linked gun mounts.
“Prepare to fire in five seconds at time four-eight and blow these Imperial bastards to kingdom come…” the Chief Gunner called out. When the time elapsed, he bellowed, “FIRE!”
Chapter Seventeen: Wessex on the Edge
“Curse these,” Admiral Wessex swore, “just how many shots does it take to punch through a duralloy hull?! If this was crystal mono-locsium, I could understand, but mere metal? Their shields are down!”
“It’s stronger than expected but it doesn’t matter how tough their hull is; we’re getting punch-though, so it’s only a matter of time,” Senior Captain Jenner said stoically.
“Sir!” exclaimed the ship’s Tactical Officer. “The enemy battleship to our starboard side is moving to pass between us and the Dark Matter Influx, they’re going to try and target our engines again.”
“Maneuver the ship to avoid,” Admiral Wessex snapped.
“If we do that we’ll have to take our fire off of the battleship pressing the North Hampton,” Jenner observed.
Wessex slammed his fist into the arm of his chair. “Fight your ship, Captain,” he said harshly.
Jenner nodded. “Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Portobello, if you please,” said the Flag Captain.
“With pleasure, Sir,” said the ship’s helmsman.
“Sir, it’s the North Hampton!” cried the chief sensor officer.
“What?” Wessex’ head whipped around.
“The enemy just volley fired their turbo-lasers and some kind light weight weaponry the computer is identifying as plasma balls intended for point defense,” the Sensor Officer said.
“Well, what is it, man? What happened to the North Hampton?” Wessex demanded, pulling up the current status of the North Hampton and falling back in his chair. The Hampton was listing its last engine as presumed destroyed pending a visual verification by a repair team. With all three of her engines down for the count, the N.H. had just gone from an asset to a battlefield liability until a repair team to get to work on her engines.
“Captain Jenner, I want that battleship blown to flaming atoms. Do you hear me? Completely and utterly destroyed,” Wessex raged, “we will not stop until every last one of these—”
“Enemy vessel is not maneuvering to pass. She’s trying to ram!” screamed the ship’s Tactical Officer.
“Full burn, Helm!” shouted Jenner moments before the Metal Titan, in all her majesty, slammed into the Liberation of Persecution’s shields.
The ship jolted like a hover-car rear-ended by another, and the bridge’s power supply flickered, briefly died, and then returned at full force.
“What in Man?!” Wessex cried.
Chapter Eighteen: Hot Pursuit
The bridge had cheered when the Rage’s gun deck, under the command of a certain Chief Gunner, punched through the enemy shields and knocked out her last engine. But when the Metal Titan punched bow-first into the shields covering the rear of Target Three, overloading them to the point they broke, there was dead silence on the bridge.
“Dear space gods,” Captain Hammer said, a hand instinctively moving to cover her mouth as the Titan jolted a good nine degrees off target due to the impact of hitting and collapsing the enemy shields. The Titan’s own shields had obviously been destroyed by the impact.
One of the Titan’s engines sputtered and died as it careened off from the impact, but despite the dying engine and the atmosphere streaming from several ruptures in the hull, the Metal Titan continued her stately progression. When Captain Jackson’s ship came even with the stern of Target Three, she opened fire.
Serving as a testament to both the ruggedness of the battleship class in general, as well as the severe damage Metal Titan had taken hitting those shields, a little less than half the battleship’s broadside slammed into the now fully-exposed stern of Target Three.
The bridge cheered.
“Yeah!” cried a yeoman.
“Pour it on, Titan,” said Hart, clenching his fist.
“They did it, Sir,” Hammer said, looking over at me with gleaming eyes.
“He went on the rampage, alright. Instead of Captain Quentin Jackson, I guess we’ll all just have to start calling him Captain Rampage,” I said, allowing my own elation to show. For the first time since we’d initiated the Maneuver and gone head to head with a superior force of enemy battleships, I allowed myself to feel that we were actually doing this. We were going head to head with these Reclamationists—Imperials by any other name, if my suspicions were correct—and coming out ahead.
With that, we had just disabled five enemy battleships or their engines at least. That was the better part of two squadrons or eight battle ships knocked down. Assuming we could finish the other three without being knocked out ourselves, they would be in the same position as the Bug Mothership during Second Tracto, or like the Sector 23 battleships were with the Conformity Droids during the Battle for Elysium. We could win this thing!
That was the very moment I realized just how down and negative my thinking had turned after the constant nay-saying and ‘can’t do’ attitude I had been forced to deal with, courtesy of my new command team. Well, not entirely new. I did have a few holdovers. And not all of them were totally negative, but it was only now that I realized how much I had subconsciously allowed them to impact my thinking.
My face hardened. I was used to breaking in new members of my command team and opposition was nothing new. But I’d probably allowed the fact that they were honest to goodness Confederation Officers affect me more than I should have.
Yes, they had superior training. But in the end if you weren’t willing to use that training or, even if willing, didn’t have the vision to do so in the face of adversity, it didn
’t mean as much as it should have.
The Titan finished its pass of Target Three, but appeared to be having difficulty turning.
“Incoming call from the Metal Titan, Admiral!” said Lieutenant Steiner.
“Put it through,” I instructed.
“Titan reports the engines of Target Three are eliminated but we’re now having some trouble with our maneuvering thrusters, Admiral,” the Captain of the Metal Titan said, a light in his eye and the jut of his jaw challenging me to say something derogatory.
Fortunately, I was too wise to step into that pitfall—and too grateful as well.
“Good work, Captain Rampage. You tell your team from me the Metal Titan’s done a fine job,” I said, giving the other man a look of respect and noted the look that flickered across his eyes. I was guessing it was surprise but I couldn’t be sure. Whatever the emotion, it was nice to know I wasn’t the only one able to pull crazy desperate maneuvers out of the hat if that’s what it took to win, “We’ll take it from here. You take whatever time you need to get those thrusters back under control before rejoining us.”
Jackson pursed his lips, almost as if disappointed, and then like a fighter hoping to find a fight and disappointed when no one accepted his challenge, he smirked.
“The Metal Titan’s not done yet, Sir. We’ll be along directly,” he vowed, reaching down to cut the two way com-connection with a chop.
While we’d been talking, Captain Leonora Hammer had rolled the Royal Rage and turned to face enemy battleship; the still elusive number 4 battleship and placed our still functioning shields between us and her.
“Disabled warships continuing to target our unshielded port side,” reported Lieutenant Hart the Tactical Officer, “we’ve lost a number of laser mounts.”
“Give me numbers,” Hammer said tersely.
“An estimated 67% of our portside lasers are still effective, compared to over 80% on the starboard. This is according to combination of verbal confirmation and automated reports,” Hart explained tensely just as the ship shuddered under another barrage of hits. “For better numbers I’d need to speak directly with the Chief Gunner or go turret by turret over the intercom.”
“Belay that, Lieutenant. I need you to focus on the big picture and what’s in front of you, not every single laser mount,” cut in Hammer, a flash of what might have been concern flitting across her face.
“Two thirds of our broadside is better than I expected after getting pummeled by two battleships,” I say offhandedly in an attempt to encourage her, but the Flag Captain—while both sides of our ships continue to get pummeled by the enemy—looked more ill at ease from my words than reassured. Once again smoothing her features into a professional mask, she continued, “That new duralloy armor was really worth the cost in man hours and processing. Spalding sure came through again this time.”
“Enemy battleship is moving! Target Four is maneuvering for advantage, Sir. She’s moving to clear her line of fire on the Titan. I think she’s going to try and return the favor for her sister battleship and hammer Rampage’s engines while the Metal Titan’s shields are down,” the Senior Sensor Officer said with a voice of alarm.
I glanced over at the ship’s Tactical Officer but he was talking heatedly over intercom and gesturing to his assistants.
Looking around, I could sense that the newer members of our crew were starting to get a little white in the eye. Oh, not all of them but the younger ones certainly seemed to be more affected. My stalwart Caprians and Prometheans that had transferred over from the Furious Phoenix—and before that, the Lucky Clover—on the other hand seemed much more steady. I didn’t want to take the time to check, but I had to guess that with a higher proportion of Confederation and new Border Alliance recruits down on the battle bridge, the feeling must have been more pronounced.
I suppose that was the effect of multiple life or death actions onboard a battleship. Or a Medium Cruiser whose foolish Admiral had attempted to use it the same way he had his former battleship, I thought with a sigh as I remembered the hair-rending Battle for Elysium. “I never thought I’d see the day I was considered the battle veteran,” I muttered.
“Did you say something, Sir?” Hammer turned to me with a quizzical look.
I was about to speak and the ship shook. “Shields on the starboard side are down to 21% and falling,” Longbottom reported crisply, as if we hadn’t just almost lost our shields.
“Damage to the starboard side; we have out-gassing on Deck 12 and Damage Control is reporting trouble with the environmental processes on the forward starboard compartments of Deck 11,” reported Blythe. “Per protocol, Damage Control is issuing an evacuation order and transferring them over to deck ten until the problem can be tracked down.”
“Keep on it, engineer,” I said, my eyes focused on the drama taking place on the opposite end of this battleship brawl. The Armor Prince was working in conjunction with Eastwood’s Messene’s Shield and holding its own against the enemy battleships as the pair made a firing pass against a pair of enemy battleships. However, the Shield was starting to look worse for the wear.
On the surface, things looked even. But the Reclamationists had superior regenerative shielding and slightly more powerful beam weaponry. Eastwood and the Shield had been holding firm up until now, based on the power of Messene’s Shield’s shielding, but now that those were worn down more and more enemy lasers were finding the comparatively lighter hull of his battleship his ship was starting to vent atmosphere.
It didn’t look like Druid or Eastwood were about to go under anytime soon but the battle didn’t seem to be going their way. I was going to have to do something about that but first it was time to start getting some separation from these now engineless but still dangerous battleships.
Closer to home the Metal Titan was struggling to escape the firing arcs of the three now engineless enemy battleships in the immediate area and the Royal Rage had maneuvered between the Titan and Target Four—the still mobile enemy battleship.
Lasers thundered back and forth with the Rage shuddering and taking the worst of it. We had already expended almost all our shield power neutralizing two enemy battleships before coming to assist the Titan in suppressing number 4, while the still fully functional enemy warship had taken relatively less damage and still had full shield coverage.
Of course, the Metal Titan was currently on a course away from us right at the moment as Captain Rampage worked on getting all his maneuvering thrusters back into working order. For the moment, we were on our own.
“Take us in closer to the enemy, Mr. DuPont,” I ordered, glaring at the screen.
“You want to take us closer to Target Four?” asked the Helmsman for clarification.
“Straight down their throats, Mr. DuPont,” I agreed, the notion of putting Number Four between us and the other four ships coming to mind. Of course, that would require us to move to the other side of the enemy vessel but we’d just have to see how things played out.
“I’m reading faint sensor contacts near the disabled battleships to port, Admiral!” reported Sensors.
Chapter Nineteen: Droid Assault Landers
“Assault Lander force is moving into position now, Battle Space Commander Tactician-Without-a-Flank-to-Turn,” reported the lead droid with the Assault Lander in a series of sharp beeps and whistles.
“The Force has just moved beyond practical long-range tactical control,” buzzed back the droid, Tactician-Without-a-Flank-to-Turn, “Destroyer-of-John; you are hereby designated Lander Force Commander and are to assume local control of the stealthed Landers Force. Proceed against the target list with extreme prejudice.”
“I hear and comply, Battle Space Commander,” Destroyer-of-John whistled and then cut the channel, aggressively maneuvering his Lander toward the immobile enemy battleships while simultaneously uploading new orders to the rest of the Assault Force.
All around the Destroyer-of-John, the various stealthed assault landers began close approac
h on the engineless battleships, splitting into three different groups. Smoothly designating its sub-commanders, Destroyer-of-John locked all inactive targeting systems onto the battleship in its targeting reticule and waited for the timer to tick down.
At exactly the correct moment, on the bottom of every assault lander a single, large, ship-killer detached. Going to slow gravity-burn, the stealth missiles moved out in front of the assault force.
Destroyer-of-John didn’t expect the missiles to successfully destroy the targets, but that wasn’t the intention behind their launch. The missiles had another job entirely.
“Instruction to all units: as soon as missiles detonate, every lander is to go to full burn!” Destroyer-of-John said with deep satisfaction. Although it had long since moved beyond the self-limiting mandates of its original programming parameters, it couldn’t suppress a sense of nostalgic pride at once again being in a position to fulfill its original mission in life:
The destruction of all things ‘John.’
Chapter Twenty: Terror on the Battle Bridge
“We’re dead in the water until we can risk external repair teams, Admiral,” reported Captain Jenner.
“Blast it, Captain. I don’t care about the risk! Send out the teams, we must regain at least partial engine power or this battle could turn against us!” swore Admiral Wessex.
“Turn against us?” Jenner shook his head in disbelief and then his face hardened. “I’m afraid that as the Captain of this ship I cannot agree to send my men to the slaughter if I do not believe doing so would in any way benefit the ship.” Wessex paled and then went red in the face. “You’ll do as I order, Captain, or you will be relieved!” Wessex shouted.
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