by Tori Harris
“Easy, Lieutenant Lau,” Prescott soothed. “They’re ours, right?” Still staring at the tactical plot, he could see that the latest contacts were represented by two yellow icons, each with an “UNK” indicator to show that the precise number of contacts had yet to be determined. Seconds later, both icons changed to blue with accompanying text blocks designating twenty-four additional F-373 fighters each for Badger 1 and Badger 2 Flights, respectively. –
“Yes, sir, they’re ours,” Lau said sheepishly. “And they just C-Jumped again — right into an extended trail formation with the original two flights.”
“Dubashi, signal the fighters to commence their attack,” Prescott ordered. “Helm, steer in the general direction of Charlie 2, and follow our fighters in case we need to finish her off. Don’t crowd them, though. Hang back and let’s allow the situation to develop a bit before we go charging in.”
“Aye, sir,” Fisher and Dubashi replied in unison.
Although Ensign Fisher had immediately adjusted course to follow Badger 1 Flight, he need not have done so. Within seconds of receiving their order to attack, both groups of fighters transitioned to hyperspace.
“Badger 1 and Badger 2 Flights have transitioned, sir,” Lau reported.
Before Lieutenant Lau could finish his sentence, thirty-six Reaper fighters reappeared in normal space, roughly seventy-five thousand kilometers aft of Charlie 2. The flight had executed their C-Jump so that they arrived in a stacked, line-abreast formation, providing every spacecraft a clear line of fire in the direction of the cruiser’s vulnerable stern.
“Badger 1 Flight - Fox Charlie!” came the tactical comm call from Captain Zhukov, indicating that his formation was firing C-Drive-equipped missiles — in this case, two HB-7cs from each of the flight’s thirty-six fighters. As soon as the missiles were clear of the formation, every spacecraft pitched down slightly to clear their flight paths, followed shortly thereafter by Zhukov’s call of “Badger 1 Flight is Juliet.” With that, the entire flight transitioned to hyperspace once again. Although each individual ship was still under the direct control of a single pilot, each of those pilots was trained to interact on an almost subconscious level via their neural interface. This interaction took place not only with their own fighter and its AI, but also with every other ship in their flight, particularly with their flight commander, Captain Zhukov. The result was much more than a mere merger of “Human and machine.” Instead, it was truly more of a coupling of Human and artificial intelligence at such a fundamental level that their performance far eclipsed what either was capable of achieving without the other.
At precisely the same instant that Captain Zhukov’s fighters had appeared behind Charlie 2, Commander Waffer’s flight had split into two separate elements. The largest of the two groups, with twenty-four spacecraft, appeared aft of Bravo 1, quickly confirmed that Charlie 3 and 4 were still designated as noncombatants, and then immediately executed a “probing attack” against the Baldev. “Badger 21 Flight - Fox Charlie!” Commander Waffer called as a total of forty-eight anti-ship missiles streaked away toward the distant battleship.
The smaller group, composed of twelve fighters, flashed aggressively into normal space so close to the Baldev’s fighter escorts that their targets were already well within optimal railgun range. The Reaper formation slashed directly through the middle of the still-assembling Resistance fighters behind a deadly wall of fragmented kinetic energy rounds that raced away from the F-373s at nearly ten percent the speed of light. “Badger 22 Flight - Guns Guns Guns!” came the call from the lead pilot in the second element of Badger 2 Flight. Each pilots’ announcement of weapons releases, while somewhat helpful in keeping Theseus’ crew updated on the progress of the attacks, came at such a rapid pace that it was difficult to follow the battle, even while staring at a real-time tactical plot.
“Badger 2 Flight is Juliet,” Commander Waffer called, as both elements of his flight C-Jumped away to regroup and assess the damage from their first attack run.
All of the Resistance fighters unfortunate enough to have been caught in the path of Badger 22 Flight’s railgun attack — which turned out to be a total of nine — were ground into rapidly expanding clouds of dust by the barrage of fragments laid down by the Human fighters. Like an afterthought tinged with bitter regret, the Baldev herself had finally opened up with her energy weapons, but her response was far too late to even test any of the Reapers’ shields.
“My God. Are you able to keep up with what’s happening?” Reynolds asked quietly. “I feel like I’m five minutes behind this battle and it just started thirty seconds ago.”
“The violence and speed of the attacks is a key element of their strategy,” Prescott said. “Don’t get too hung up on the comm calls. In fact, we can discontinue them if they are too distracting. Just continue using your tactical plot like you always have and focus on the AI’s battle damage assessment.”
“One two zero friendly missiles in flight, Captain,” Lieutenant Lau reported from Tactical 2, “they are transitioning … stand by … impacts! Multiple impacts on both Charlie 2 and Bravo 1.”
“Enhanced views of each, please,” Prescott ordered, after which two windows opened on the view screen displaying zoomed-in, light-amplified views of both ships. The image of Charlie 2 had barely stabilized on the screen before the entire aft end of the ship was cleaved into two sections. At the same time, the massive cruiser’s outer hull appeared to be in the process of being peeled back from the stern as a result of incredibly violent explosions deep within her drive section. For a moment, it looked as if she, like her sister ship the Babayev, might be taken out of action while remaining largely intact, but it was not to be. As Theseus’ bridge crew watched in awe, the entire image bloomed forth in brilliant white light, temporarily obscuring their view as the entire ship exploded in a colossal ball of antimatter-induced fire.
“Charlie 2 destroyed,” Lieutenant Commander Schmidt reported calmly.
“Badger 22 Flight - Vampire Vampire Vampire!” the lead pilot in the second element of Badger 2 Flight called over the tactical comm channel, indicating that they had detected the launch of hostile anti-ship missiles.
“Confirmed, Captain,” Schmidt said, “I have a missile launch from Charlie 4. Zero eight enemy missiles in flight. They’re targeting us, sir. Estimated time to impact, three three seconds. No friendly missiles in flight at this time. Damage to Bravo 1 unknown.”
“Just eight? Anything from Charlie 3?”
“No, sir, not yet, although she still looks to be putting herself in a position to fire. None of them are even bothering with their energy weapons at the moment — just the salvo of missiles from Charlie 4. Wait one … disregard what I said about Charlie 3, she just transitioned to hyperspace.”
“Understood,” Prescott replied. “Advise immediately if she returns to the area. Designate Charlie 4 as an enemy combatant. Helm, we’re going to let the fighters worry about that last cruiser for now. Plot a C-Jump to a position in the neighborhood of where Badger 21 Flight launched their missiles at the Baldev’s stern. We should be getting updated battle damage assessment data forwarded from the fighters shortly. Hopefully, that will give us some idea of what we’re up against.”
“Estimated time to impact, one three seconds,” Lieutenant Commander Schmidt reported from Tactical 1.
“Helm, execute your C-Jump when ready.”
“Aye, sir. Tactical C-Jumping.”
On the bridge view screen, Theseus’ AI displayed a “flyby” of the debris that had until recently been Charlie 2 before passing rapidly over the top of the Baldev. After transitioning back into normal space, Ensign Fisher once again pushed the destroyer’s sublight engines to full power, beginning a vertical climb as if to perform a loop. As the ship passed over the point where the maneuver began, he performed a half-roll to complete an Immelmann turn and headed the ship back in the direction of its target.
“Enemy missiles are no factor, sir,” Lieutenant Comman
der Schmidt said. “They are still in powered flight, but have switched to search mode.”
“Thank you, Schmidt. Just keep an eye on them. I doubt they will reacquire us, but their ships may have the capability to issue commands that will send them in the direction of new targets in a situation like this.”
“We’ve got Badger 21’s data,” Reynolds said, issuing commands via her touchscreen to display the new information via a tactical assessment window on the port side of the bridge view screen. Multiple views of both Bravo 1 and Charlie 4 were displayed with all known vulnerabilities highlighted. “As noted earlier, Charlie 4 has the same old vulnerability near her engine nozzles — which is not surprising since her hull configuration is similar to the older cruisers. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a significant threat, but I’m satisfied the fighters should be able to make short work of her. The Baldev, on the other hand … take a look at this.”
The tactical assessment now displayed two rotating three-dimensional depictions of the Baldev’s drive section. After an exhaustive analysis of the battleship’s engine configuration and shield energy output, the AI had highlighted a small, but still significant gap between the ship’s sublight engine nozzles and her aft shields.
“The first view is based on sensor readings the fighters took before launching their attack on Bravo 1’s stern. Note that, as we discussed earlier, the gap is smaller than it is on their cruisers — more like what we saw on the Gresav-class ships — but it’s still there and we can still jump a bunch of C-Drive-equipped missile inside that gap. The second view,” she said, nodding towards the view screen, “is based on readings taken after the fighters launched their attack.”
“Looks like they’ve solved their aft shield problem,” Prescott said quietly. “Maintain this range for now, Fisher — evasive maneuvers only.”
“Aye, sir.”
“To a degree, yes they have,” Reynolds continued, “and it’s a pretty simple solution at that. It looks like they just added a ring of additional shield emitters around the entire drive section.”
As Reynolds spoke, the AI zoomed in on the battleship’s stern — the additional shield emitters now highlighted in red and flashing to further emphasize their locations. The AI then removed the fields generated by all of the other aft shield emitters, clearly revealing the designers’ intentions.
“As you can see, these new emitters create a field that is very nearly tangent to the outermost edge of the ship’s sublight engine nozzles.”
“Simple enough, I suppose. Given the severity of the vulnerability, you have to wonder why it took them so long to implement such a straightforward solution.”
“That’s just it, sir … that’s actually the one bit of good news I have to offer. They fixed one problem, but in the process they created another. We theorized all along that this shield gap issue had something to do with the output of their sublight engines. Today’s data confirms that theory in a big way. Running these new shield emitters closes the gap, but at the cost of seriously degrading their engine output. The AI’s best guess is that they lose something like ninety-four percent of their effective thrust when they engage this supplemental field. Since their engine nozzles are gimbaled, it’s also a safe bet that they will lose quite a bit of their maneuverability as well.”
“So the question now becomes one of how we take advantage of this new vulnerability without getting ourselves ripped apart in the process,” Prescott said, glancing over at the tactical plot to confirm the locations of the fighters. “Badger flights, Theseus-Actual.”
“Badger 1 … Badger 2,” came the immediate replies from Zhukov and Waffer.
“As I’m sure you have seen by now, the Baldev has the capability to reconfigure her aft shields. The good news is that once she does so, she should lose much of her ability to change course and speed. I need some of your fighters to put themselves in a position to maintain a constant threat against her drive section so that she’s forced to keep those supplemental aft shields engaged. With any luck, this will allow us to work on wearing down her shields while limiting her ability to maneuver in response to our attacks. If the shield gap opens up again at her stern, I want them to hit her with everything they have.”
“Understood, Captain,” Commander Waffer replied. “That won’t be a problem. We will also take care of Charlie 4 momentarily. But, sir … I’m concerned we’re being set up here.”
“We’re all ears, Commander,” Prescott replied after a brief pause.
“After our first round of attacks, we C-Jumped to a safe distance, but we took no significant fire from either vessel during the time we were in range.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Prescott said. “The Baldev did open fire on your element that hit their fighters. Don’t you think you were just in and out before they had a chance to adequately respond?”
“Maybe, Captain, but based on the data we have on those defense platform cruisers like Charlie 4, we’re all well within range of their energy weapons right now, but they still aren’t firing. I’m sure you also noted that Charlie 4 fired only eight missiles before you C-Jumped. I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish, but they’re up to something, sir.”
“You may be on to something there, Commander, but don’t you think that allowing their cruisers to get picked off without even putting up much of a fight seems like an ill-advised strategy?”
“Without a doubt, but they probably realize there isn’t much they can do to prevent that from happening anyway. The fact that Charlie 2 and 4 didn’t jump away leads me to believe they have been ordered to lure the Theseus in closer, regardless of the cost.”
“Alright, Commander Waffer, thank you for pointing this out. What you’re saying makes sense to me as well, but it’s really just speculation at this point. The truth is that we are about to get closer, primarily because we don’t have much of a choice. Please keep a close eye on us when we start slugging it out with Bravo 1. I suspect we’ll be in need of your assistance at some point.”
“We’ll be there for you, Theseus. Badger 21 Flight will be C-Jumping momentarily to a position well beyond your current location to cover Bravo 1’s stern. Expect our attack on Charlie 4 to commence in three zero seconds.”
“Thank you, Badgers. Theseus-Actual out.”
“One last thing,” Reynolds said, “as far as we can tell, the Baldev is still vulnerable to kinetic energy weapons, and, as usual, there are no indications that she is equipped with any sort of point defense system.”
“Humph. I suppose they consider that to be of little consequence if enemy ships can’t penetrate their shields. Helm, plot a C-Jump for an optimum range railgun and plasma torpedo attack run on Bravo 1’s stern. I have to believe that’s still where we need to be focusing our attention. Tactical, set up the railguns for preferential targeting on this new ring of shield emitters. If we can get lucky and open up that shield gap again, Badger 21 Flight will know exactly what to do next.”
“Aye, sir,” all three officers at the center bridge console replied.
“Badger 1 and Badger 21 Flights have transitioned, sir,” Lau reported, paused momentarily, then added, “Badger 21 Flight is now on station to cover Bravo 1’s stern. Badger 1 Flight is beginning its attack on the remaining cruiser.”
The fighters’ attack on Charlie 4 began in a nearly identical fashion to the previous attacks that had destroyed both Charlie 1 and Charlie 2. Once again, all thirty-six fighters transitioned back into normal space roughly seventy-five thousand kilometers aft of their target. This time, however, immediately after each fighter had once again loosed two HB-7c missiles, the space astern of the warship was lit by an intense barrage of energy weapons fire as Charlie 4 — the Keturah — finally opened up with every available weapon that had a clear line of fire at the pursuing fighters and their lethal cloud of anti-ship missiles. At a range of only one quarter of a light second, the cruiser’s fire control AI had little difficulty plotting a firing solution for every missil
e targeting their vulnerable drive section. With surgical precision, the ship’s beam emitters were assigned a precise amount of energy to deliver to each inbound missile before moving on to the next threat in their queue. The cruiser itself, now clearly aware of the tactics being employed by the Human fighters, dipped sharply by the stern as her eight massive sublight engine nozzles blazed forth with a brilliant blue glow. In just seconds, the ship was in a steep climbing turn to starboard relative to her original course.
Realizing that he had temporarily lost the initiative and unwilling to push a bad position, Captain Zhukov ordered his fighters to once again transition to hyperspace. “Badger 1 Flight is Juliet,” he announced over the tactical comm channel. Fortunately, only a small fraction of the BD cruiser’s weapons banks had been in a position to fire when his flight had been detected by the Keturah. Although a few had taken shield hits, none of the valuable fighters had been lost to enemy fire before C-Jumping safely away. Their attack, on the other hand, had been a dismal failure. Of the seventy-two missiles launched at the Keturah’s drive section, sixty-five had been destroyed by her fierce hail of defensive energy weapons fire. The remaining seven had survived long enough to execute their C-Jumps, but the extraordinarily precise positioning required to transition inside the cruiser’s aft shields before impact had been thwarted by her aggressive maneuvers. Only one missile managed to actually reach its target, proximity detonating upon its closest approach to the outer dorsal edge of one of the ship’s sublight engine nozzles and yielding only superficial damage.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to fire the missiles from a much greater range?” Reynolds asked, scowling at the still-maneuvering Keturah on the tactical plot.
“If you could be assured that your target would either remain stationary or maintain a constant course and speed, absolutely. Unfortunately, the greater the range, the greater the chances that the enemy vessel will do something unexpected and invalidate your firing solution. The biggest downside to the HB-7c missile when it’s fired in this manner is that it essentially becomes an unguided weapon for a period of time before it transitions to hyperspace — and that period gets longer as the range to the target increases. So if the target accelerates or makes even a gentle turn, you could well end up with a clean miss. It also takes time for the missiles to stabilize on their course before making their C-Jump. As Charlie 4 just demonstrated, they are vulnerable to being intercepted at any time prior to making their jump, so shorter range attacks have their drawbacks as well. In any event, now that they know what we’re about, I expect it’s going to get a lot more difficult to score an easy kill.”
