by Cameron, TR
He had a feeling though—some would call it impending doom. However, Dima considered it a gut instinct. Long practice had taught him to listen to it, whatever it was.
“Helm, inform the starbase we will uncouple. Communication officer, please send a recall notice to our crew, shore leave is now canceled. If they don’t get here by the time we undock, they can take a shuttle. Wing Commander, please launch shuttles as soon as we’re at far enough away to do so. Also, once we’re at an appropriate distance, deploy our fighter screen.”
He rubbed his chin, realizing he’d been on shift so long that stubble was growing in. Keeping command while the younger officers sowed their wild oats was another tradition Dima kept—one he’d much appreciated when the opportunity was offered by his own captains in the past.
“Tactical, maximum safe sensors while we are still docked. I don’t trust the base feed to tell us everything we need to know.”
He frowned, sure he was forgetting something, then snapped his fingers as it hit him. “Michman,” he said to the junior-most ranking member of the bridge crew. “Please have the galley deliver a fresh cup of tea. I seem to be out.”
* * *
Ninety minutes later, Dima’s instincts proved true. A wash of color fell over the sector, and where previously there were no ships, an invasion force stood. The new arrivals slid into motion, organizing into pairs and moving along separate vectors. Voices trampled over one another on the command channel heralding the aliens until the quiet voice of the starbase commander overrode all channels.
“Response plan Ichi. Execute.”
Defenses spun up on ships that had been sitting dark, on those who were already under power, and on the starbase itself. Multiple options had been developed for an enemy arrival in various parts of the sector, and rather than accomplishing complete surprise, the invading aliens faced a force that had possessed at least a modicum of time to prepare for them.
Dima smiled as he watched the defensive strategy unfold. Cross’s message had been convoluted, but it had put them on alert, even though it hadn’t given any specifics. He hadn’t expected the upstart Lieutenant Commander to respond to his own warning. His captain must be teaching him well, Dima thought.
The forces settled into opposing positions, the defenders arrayed in a web with the starbase at its center, the attackers finishing their organization into two ship elements consistent with the approach he’d observed during the battle between the aliens and the UAL.
The view-screens on all the ships in the sector lit up with the image of a striking, tall, winged alien they hadn’t seen before. It wore a uniform in black with shades of red and carried blades on its thighs. It seemed slightly smaller than the other. A translation, supplied as part of the signal, slid across the bottom of the transmission.
“Greetings, humans. I bring you joyous tidings in the name of the Xroeshyn people. You’ve been named in prophecy as the enemy that will deliver our ancestors from the in-between to paradise. You should be honored to die in the service of our gods, and perhaps you’ll be rewarded with a chance to return as a higher form of life in the next turn of the wheel. We permit you a moment of prayer before we begin our attack. Use it to find whatever peace your false gods can provide to you.” The being’s wings twitched as it clasped its hands behind its back.
“I am Indraat Vray, commander of the Ruby Rain, and I will honor your sacrifice with clean, quick deaths. Fare well on your journey into the in-between.” The screen reverted to an external view.
The command net lit up again with objections, boasts, and other nonsense, mainly from the younger commanders on the newer ships. Those who’d been around for a while dealt with their own fears in silence. The starbase cut through again, this time bearing a message spoken by the admiral in charge of the facility. “Prepare to defend the starbase. Those designated as attackers will begin assault at the enemy’s first offensive move. Remember to overpower where possible. All ships, launch fighters now.”
His tactical officer had already arranged the main display into Dima’s favored breakdown, showing a real-time view from the forward part of the Beijing in one corner, standard battle schematic in another corner, and a smaller version of the battle schematic that included most of the sector. The final quarter showed data on his ship, including status of shields, armaments, and a tally of losses among his fighters. The countdown clock for the tunnel drive was at zero. They were ready.
“Communication officer, ship-wide channel please.” He paused for execution of his command. “Comrades, once again we go into battle. This time, it’s against an alien species, rather than those that we must now consider acknowledging as our brothers and sisters, because we come from the same planet and have a common enemy. Maintain your courage. Focus on your tasks. Do not give fear an entry. Together, we will overcome this challenge.” He motioned for Zian to cut the channel.
Dima took a deep breath, exhaled, and drank the last dregs of his tea.
“You know what to do, people,” he said to his bridge crew, now strapped into their stations and ready for combat. “As soon as the enemy ships move, act according to our preset strategy.”
He waited, as did the entire AAN force, while both forces coasted into final positions as if they were two medieval armies awaiting the clarion call to charge.
* * *
When the attack began, it bore little resemblance to the previous battle recorded in Dima’s observational data. The eight pair of enemy ships joined into four sets of four, and all streaked low, attempting to overwhelm the forces arrayed to defend the bottom hemisphere of the starbase.
The admiral’s voice came over the command channel, redirecting defenders from the upper section to curve down and intercept as the ships at the bottom reoriented their shields along the vectors of the incoming ships. Enemy ships fired at maximum range, launching salvos of torpedoes and blasts from energy weapons that were dispersed by the defenders’ shields.
The Beijing weathered several of those strikes, and his tactical officer reported, “They’re just testing, Captain. Those couldn’t have been full force.”
Dima nodded, having predicted that the aliens would try to get a sense of their defensive powers in the first pass. It was a standard opening move, one he hoped to blow up in their faces. He switched to his squadron’s sub-channel and issued commands. “Attack squadron Beijing, deployment pattern San.” The three other ships under his command surged forward along with the Beijing, dashing above the incoming vector of the alien ships. As they crossed the vertical plane of their target, the four ships in his squadron cut their main drives and used maneuvering thrusters to orient their weapons on a single foe. They formed a rough diamond, and the plasma beams they fired struck the enemy ship from four different angles, punishing its shields continuously as the AAN vessels reoriented themselves to chase the aliens as they streaked past.
Once they were pointing in the right direction, Dima gave the command to engage drives, and they followed the enemy ships in, maintaining the energy barrage on that single ship to negligible damage—when the beams did not bend away before impact, they failed to penetrate. When each of the four AAN ships fired a simultaneous salvo of torpedoes from their forward tubes, the results were far more pleasant. The missiles curved but still struck, and the enemy ship’s shields overloaded. It exploded into its components parts, spraying the other three ships of its group with shrapnel. Dima informed the other squadron captains over the command channel of the success of his strategy.
Unfortunately for the defending forces, they didn’t have the resources required to create positive matchups in all places. As Dima’s squadron shifted toward its next target, he caught sight of an array of small objects cascading away from one of the alien ships. Depressing the button on his command chair that tied him into the squadron’s fighter channel, he snapped, “Umbrella,” the code word to defend their base from sharing the fate of the Union base. Individual fighters tracked the incoming mines and shot them dow
n before they could adhere to the base’s skin. The base released robots to detach the ones that survived the fighters from its hull.
The enemy ships, which so far had mainly evaded and ignored the defenders to focus on the starbase, reacted as one to the successful defense against the gravitic mines. With simultaneous symmetrical actions, they disengaged from combat and flew through a predetermined point, where they organized again into two ship units. They were down to fourteen, but the defending forces had lost twice as many and an unknown number of fighters. The Alliance maintained a numerical superiority, but it was thinner than Dima would have liked.
He ordered his own squadron back to a safe assembly point to await the aliens’ next move. He scratched his cheek as he reviewed and discarded potential gambits to try. “What are you going to do now,” he muttered to himself, attempting to fathom the enemy’s strategy. He saw the opportunity just as the enemy ships moved again and rattled off quick commands to his forces.
“All ships, form up on the Beijing and stay in diamond formation. Helm, course 279, 41 high. Tactical, coordinate all of our squadron’s missiles to operate from the same targeting laser. Lock us on the back ship in this pair,” he said, marking one on his personal display. “Keep that designated, no matter what. All ships will fire all torpedoes when I call for it, set to hit that target 45 seconds after launch.” He knew the tactical officers on all the ships would be racing to program the seeker heads of the projectiles, which had selectable targeting options. The computers would handle the initial time and distance calculations after launch but before releasing the missiles to autonomous control.
“All ships, prepare to send energy weapons into the lead ship of the pair, and launch torpedoes past it to the rearmost ship.” He waited until they were within extreme range. “Fire energy weapons.” His star of four ships rained plasma and coherent energy into the shields of the forward ship, but with its shields balanced against them, it bent, absorbed, or evaded all the incoming beams.
“Continue energy barrage. Standby to launch torpedoes on my mark.” He watched the display for several seconds, doing the calculations without conscious thought, then growled, “Mark.” He felt the torpedoes leave the Beijing and saw on both battle displays the red traces showing the launches. They headed as if they would strike the primary ship in the pair, and it engaged its own countermeasures. A glistening rain of small particles shot out and propelled themselves toward the torpedoes. The defensive mines contacted and adhered to several of them. Once attached, they began to glow, shortly thereafter warping the structure of the torpedoes until they exploded or collapsed into a cone of fast-moving debris.
The defenses couldn’t remove the threat entirely, and the torpedoes that survived smashed into the trailing ship. The bridge crew cheered as they overwhelmed the shields that hadn’t been fully attuned forward. Logic suggested that the missiles were targeted at the advance ship, so the back one was focused on attacks from other directions. The exploding debris also ripped through the weakened rear shields of the lead ship and sent it pinwheeling away, at least momentarily out of the battle.
Dima guided his small squadron again to a safe spot from which to survey the entire battlefield. He realized they were losing. The enemy had been trading ships for strategic position, and he could already see how the endgame would play out. He conveyed this to the starbase admiral in a low tone, and the admiral agreed with his assessment, having arrived at the same conclusion on his own.
The command channel carried the admiral’s order, “We’ve reached the point where we cannot hope to achieve victory in this battle. Initiate evacuation plan Hachi.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The command to evacuate called for new actions by all the AAN forces in the sector.
Larger ships, the Beijing among them, interposed themselves between the attacking forces and the base, absorbing what damage they could before rotating, bringing the next set of undamaged shields to bear. The defense fell back slowly, creating a rough cylinder around the starbase that gave ground, trading space for time.
Meanwhile, ships that weren’t big enough to take the brunt of multiple enemies assaulting them at once rocketed to the base, transferring personnel from it as fast as they could run. As each ship reached capacity, it retreated to a safe distance and tunneled out of the sector to a waypoint, from which it would tunnel again to the AAN’s nearest installation.
Dima thought the shift to a defensive posture was a good decision, but it had probably come too late. The remaining attacking ships, thirteen of them now, were adapting to the defenders’ reorganization, and were turning the ship-to-ship combat numbers in their own favor.
As the Beijing rotated out of its blocking assignment to recharge its shields, Dima grudgingly accepted that the plan wouldn’t work. They didn’t have enough time, or enough space to trade, not to mention enough firepower in the sector, to pull off the evacuation. He keyed his connection to the command channel and said as much to the admiral. Naturally, the admiral disagreed.
Dima, frustrated, sought targets of opportunity and leapt to engage them. One enemy ship was apart from its fellows, skirting the battle and describing a large circle around the space. He ordered pursuit, and as they got closer, he noticed that it was shooting small objects in random directions. These were black instead of metallic, and did not seem intended to attack the base, so he alerted his sensor officer and filed them away to consider later.
Signaling to the captain of one of the other ships resting from its rotation in active defense, Dima requested a salvo of torpedoes launched at a certain moment, and the ship obliged with eight projectiles, all slaved to the Beijing’s control once they were clear of their tubes.
Dima ordered the Beijing on an arcing path that would take it behind that solo ship, putting it between his weapons and the incoming rockets, forcing it to defend on two fronts. “Tactical officer, starboard torpedoes, fire on my mark.” Dima watched the incoming missiles and timed his own launch to strike at the same time. “Mark.” Immediately after the weapons left the ship, he ordered the helmsman to skew, bringing his other battery to bear.
“Tactical, single fire, five second intervals, port torpedoes. Launch when ready.” The torpedoes formed a straight line, one after the other like ducklings in a pond, heading for the alien ship. Caught between both sets of incoming weapons, the enemy turned evasive and fired off countermeasures.
Lieutenant Yegorovich held the targeting laser on the enemy ship as it moved, and the defenses failed to distract the missiles from their singular goal. The initial strikes from the double set of torpedoes overloaded the shields for an instant, and the staccato punches of those driving in a line drilled deeply into the ship’s structure before exploding it from within, hurling mechanical and once-living debris into the void.
There was no time to celebrate. The aliens were getting closer to the base, and it was the Beijing’s turn to defend it. Firing his main drive and sliding deftly into position, the Beijing’s forward shields caught an incoming barrage of missiles that would’ve done substantial damage to the starbase had they penetrated the defensive screen.
Dima again keyed access to the command channel and told the admiral and other captains, “We’re running out of time. Unless you’ve got good ideas for how to turn this thing on its head, you have only minutes before station security will be compromised.”
He was about to offer a suggestion on tactics when something he’d been seeing on the battle display suddenly made sense to him. “The aliens aren’t trying to destroy the base,” he said in sudden alarm. “They’re planning to board it.”
As if he had called it into being, the alien ships slid into a defensive posture around one of their larger vessels, pushing through the blocking screen toward the base. The large ship fired grapnels and pulled itself close to the starbase hull at the dorsal end. The admiral ordered his forces to attack the boarding operation, but the enemy wove a thick defense that none of the alliance vessels c
ould break through. More than one was destroyed in the attempt.
“It seems as if the aliens are done comparing their weapons to ours, and have just decided to take what they came for,” Dima said, his anger evident.
With a static crackle, the command network failed, the constant white noise from the starbase cutting off ominously.
Dima switched to the general battle channel and reached out to his fellow captains. “We must attempt to stop them from taking the station, and to do that we need to blast through their defenses. If we cannot do this,” he made quick calculations in his head, “all surviving ships will have to fire all their weapons at the base. If we cannot dislodge them from it, we will at least try to deny them possession of it.”
“The Beijing will—” he began, only to be cut off by his tactical officer with an uncharacteristic interruption.
“New ships entering the sector, Captain. Computer identifies them as Union.”
“Open a channel,” Dima said, turning to look at the display as if he could read the ship’s names painted on the hulls from this distance.
“Hello, Captain Petryaev,” came James Okoye’s clipped accent. “May we be of assistance?”
Dima failed to quash the fierce predatory grin that stretched across his face at the arrival of reinforcements. “How many ships do you have?”
“We brought six. Several more may arrive within the hour, but from the look of things, that will be too late. Status update?”
“The aliens are boarding the base. I’ve given orders to dislodge them or destroy it, but we couldn’t break through their defensive perimeter.”
