Twisting...
spinning...
and whirling around and...
Here!
Warrior blinked into existence, and the telltale energy discharge blasted away from her. The jump signature was the only evidence of the awesome speeds attained in fold space. Speed that was literally impossible in n-space was converted to energy instantly as the ship arrived. Warrior seemed to flex one last time as she made her presence in the system a solid reality, and proceeded in system, coasting now at her residual and theoretical maximum n-space velocity of 0.83c.
“Translation complete,” Janice said and gulped. “Point... point two five seconds elapsed.”
Colgan swallowed hard and reached a shaking hand to raise his visor. Before he could, Warrior’s computer, finally able to analyse her surroundings again now that she had real data to work with, saw catastrophe looming.
Collision alarms wailed.
Colgan flinched, his eyes widening as his monitors cleared to reveal the danger. “Evasive starboard!” he screamed.
Janice reacted a fraction of a second before the order was given. She slammed her stick hard over and pulled back, while at the same time goosing power to the anti-grav manoeuvring thrusters in the bow. The ship heaved up and around, still stooping upon the pair of ships in her path but at a shallower angle than before. The bridge crew yelled as Warrior sped by the ships, barely missing them.
“Jesus god...” someone gasped.
“Did you see that? Did you see? Did you? Man, we nearly dinged the frigging—”
“Quiet!” Colgan snapped, his fright turning to temper. He removed his helmet and racked it beside his station. What were the odds of translating into a system at the exact time and place as two other ships? Infinitesimal! Statistically improbable... but not statistically impossible. Obviously. “Trim us up, Janice, and someone find our damn referent. Let’s be sure we’re in the right system, shall we?”
“Aye, sir,” Janice said calmly.
“Scanning... referent attained. Helios system confirmed, Skipper,” Francis Groves, his XO said from her position at scan. She murmured something to one of a pair of specialists working alongside her. Both of them were new to Groves and Colgan but experienced with Warrior’s systems. They had inherited the pair along with the ship. Specialist Sheridan nodded as she listened and began working her console. “The... ah anomalies? The ships are at dead stop, Skip. Perhaps an engineering casualty upon emergence and the second ship stopped to give aid.”
“Skipper?” Lieutenant Ricks said. “I have a Captain Voyce on the line. He’s ah... a little hysterical.”
Colgan snorted. “Not surprised in the least—”
Francis’ eyes snapped up from her instruments. “We have a problem. Two ships but only one IFF—a merchy out of Northcliff called MV Astron—and it’s squawking 7500.”
Colgan stiffened. All ships used transponders to identify them by name and registry, all legitimate ships, and were licensed and registered by their home systems to trade. Part of the license agreement was the use of transponders which had the ability to have a four digit code for special circumstances appended to the usual information. 7500 was reserved for jacked ships, or for ships in the process of being jacked.
Colgan turned his station to face the comm shack. “Put Voyce on screen.”
Ricks nodded and did that.
Colgan turned back in time to see a very frightened merchy captain appear. He was pale and sweat slicked his hair where it hung messily over his forehead.
“Help us!” Voyce cried. “We can’t hold them off much longer!”
“You have raiders aboard right now?”
“Yes, yes! My crew is holding engineering, I have the bridge. Please, we can’t hold for long.”
“Sound battle stations,” Colgan snapped and the alarms wailed throughout the ship. “How many raiders are we talking about? How many aboard?”
“Maybe fifty? I don’t know. We killed some, but they have armour and better weapons.”
“My Marines have more and better, I assure you. Keep your people safe. I’ll deal with the rest.”
“Hurry,” Voyce said and broke the connection.
“Hail the raider ship, Mark. Janice, approach course but keep us in Astron’s shadow.”
“Aye, Skip,” Janice said.
“Battle stations manned and ready, Skipper,” Ricks said.
Lieutenant Anya Ivanova, Warrior’s tactical officer, whispered instructions to her tactical team and monitored the enemy as well as the self tests being performed on her weapons. Missile tubes were loaded, the readouts on her console turning green one by one.
The main viewer brightened, but no one appeared. Colgan glanced aside at Ricks but he nodded. The would-be hijackers were being coy. So be it. He didn’t need a face to make his demands.
“Raider ship, this is Captain Colgan commanding ASN Warrior. Cease and desist your illegal action and prepare to be boarded. Do not attempt to get underway or you’ll be fired upon.”
Janice guided Warrior closer, keeping her speed way down and the ship hidden in the shadow of the huge ship. The raider ship didn’t try to run, and that surprised Colgan. Pirates rarely did what they were told even when it was obviously the best course of action. He didn’t like their lack of reaction.
“Warrior, this is Jean de Vienne, Captain Tait speaking. Do not approach or I’ll fire upon you and the merchy you so wish to protect. I don’t need to tell you what a half dozen missiles fired from this range would do to you both, do I?”
Colgan’s face darkened. Warrior’s shields would probably keep her safe enough, probably, but he would take at least some damage and casualties. Astron though would most likely be destroyed utterly. She didn’t have shields except for the standard anti-radiation shielding that all ships were equipped with; particle shielding like that couldn’t hold against missiles no matter what kind of ship they protected. Military or civilian didn’t matter, they were designed to safeguard against solar radiation not nukes and lasers.
“I’m waiting for your response, Warrior,” Tait said, sounding smug.
Colgan made a gesture and Ricks muted the contact. “XO, your opinion?”
Francis frowned. “Jean de Vienne is a Banshee class destroyer, Skipper. If her armament wasn’t stripped when she was decommissioned, Tait can do what he says.”
“But?”
Francis smiled. “But, he hasn’t reacted to our closing on him. Either he doesn’t fear us, or he hasn’t realised he’s inside our energy range now.”
Colgan’s eyes sparked. A destroyer captain who didn’t fear an Excalibur class heavy cruiser like Warrior would be a fool. “And your vote is?”
“He doesn’t know we’ve closed the range yet, but he will soon. I recommend we engage him with energy weapons immediately. Overwhelm him before he launches.”
“Risky,” Colgan murmured, but he was leaning that way himself. Lasers and grazers were light speed weapons. Anya would hit Tait the moment she pressed the commit key. She couldn’t miss at this range, but neither would Tait and the merchy was vulnerable. “Maybe a decoy swarm set to go high above Astron and then dive between them, while we go under and take out his engineering spaces. No power, no bang-bang. Thoughts?”
Francis nodded. “A modification. We go under in stealth mode towing a decoy mimicking our emissions.”
Colgan’s eyes brightened with interest. “I like that. Anything else?”
“Assault shuttles full of Marines take care of the raiders aboard Astron while we take out the destroyer. I didn’t like how rattled Voyce sounded.”
Colgan nodded, neither had he. Voyce had sounded like his crew was hanging on by their fingernails over there, but it was a huge risk to send the Marines in before securing the hostile ship. If he got it wrong, his Marines would join the merchies in death when the missiles arrived. He would have to ask Major Appleford for volunteers. He grimaced at the thought. Appleford was the sand in Warrior’s gears, and had been
since Colgan took command. He didn’t like the man, and Appleford returned the feeling.
Appleford’s file showed him to be a capable Marine and his leadership seemed solid. His men certainly respected him. Colgan had put the problem down to a clash of personalities and was looking forward to the end of Appleford’s current deployment. He was due to rotate out of Warrior when they returned from their current mission. That was less than six months from now all being well. Colgan had dealt with the problem by limiting his contact with the man. He usually used Francis as intermediary, but that wasn’t something he could do now. Not when he was putting Appleford and his men’s lives on the line.
“Get it set up, XO,” Colgan said making his decision and Groves joined Anya at tactical to work. “Live mic, Mark.”
Ricks nodded and made an adjustment on his panel.
“Captain Tait,” Colgan said. “It appears we have a standoff.”
“Do you think so?” Tait said sounding amused. “From where I’m standing, it looks as if I have you where I want you. I’ll give you one hour to exit this system, or I’ll launch my first broadside into Astron. You have one hour. Tait out.”
Colgan’s eyes hardened and he spun to Ricks. “Get me Major Appleford. I’ll take it in my day room. You have the conn, XO.”
“Aye, sir. I have the conn,” Groves replied moving to take the chair.
Colgan entered his day room heading for the desk and its comp. The tiny cabin was directly off the bridge and Colgan rarely used it. His own cabin was larger and had an office, but this one was better for this. He didn’t want to be more than thirty seconds from the bridge while they were at battle stations, and it was private. No sense in making a tense situation public. The crew already knew there was bad blood between him and Appleford, even though both of them strove to be civil in public. They didn’t know the cause, hell, Colgan himself didn’t know the cause, but they sensed it.
Colgan sat and activated the comp. Appleford appeared on screen. “Major.”
“Captain,” Appleford said stiffly.
“You’ve no doubt been monitoring the situation,” Colgan said by way of asking without asking. Appleford nodded. That was something. “We have upwards of fifty armed men aboard Astron attempting to capture her. Voyce, her captain, tells me that his people hold the bridge and engineering.”
“Handy.”
Colgan cracked a grin. “Isn’t it? They can let us in, or rather you in. After that, all bets are off. I won’t bullshit you, Major. Sending your people in now ahead of my attack on Jean de Vienne is risky. If they get a jump, they could take Astron out and you with it.”
“But you don’t think they will.”
“I’m betting on my ship and crew being better than them and Anya is a damn good tactical officer. Francis has given me some options that I think will more than tip the scales. If it works out, I’ll need you again to board the wreck of Tait’s ship.” His face hardened. “And it will be a wreck when I’m done. Because of the risk, I’m asking for volunteers.”
Appleford’s face gave nothing away but his voice betrayed anger. “I don’t like the situation you’ve engineered me into, but I like pirates even less. I can’t do other than volunteer and we both know it. I’ll choose the rest of the volunteers now. We’ll be ready to go in thirty.”
“Thirty minutes, no longer. Tait gave us an hour and we’ve already eaten into that.”
“Screw Tait.”
“Agreed,” Colgan said. “But I want to hit him hard at a time of my choosing not his.”
Appleford nodded and cut the circuit without courtesy.
Colgan sighed. He really missed Canada. His old ship had run like a fine watch, with precision. He hadn’t needed to dance around feelings back then. He pushed to his feet and headed back onto the bridge to retake his chair. He wanted Francis back at scan. She was his best.
When the time came, Colgan watched the assault shuttles race toward Astron keeping in the shadow of the huge ship. Lieutenant Ivanova nodded that all was in readiness. Warrior was in stealth mode, her nanocoat set to black and her electronic emissions dialled way down. Her stealth field was at maximum, keeping any emissions within the bubble of protection it generated, letting nothing escape. It was her equivalent of silent running. That would change the moment she opened fire. No ship could remain stealthed under such circumstances. Her ECM alone would light up the boards of any ship looking for her, and of course weapons fire could be tracked back to a general location.
“The drone?” Colgan asked.
“In position and programmed, sir,” Anya said. “I have it mimicking our usual output and following us two thousand metres astern of us. I threw in some random course changes for giggles. Nothing too fancy, but enough to look like real manoeuvring to avoid fire. I figured it would look off if it just went in fat and happy.”
“Outstanding,” Colgan said. “The decoy swarm?”
“Ready when you give the word, sir.”
Colgan nodded, took a last look at the assault shuttles on his number two monitor, and said, “The word is given.”
The swarm of decoys punched out of their bays and roared away, heading in a mass over the top of MV Astron. Meanwhile, Warrior leapt onto a new course diving under the merchant ship towing the hundred ton drone. The decoys deployed between Astron and the enemy, spreading out to cover the vulnerable ship, and reaching out with powerful sensors ready to intercept missile fire. They were good tech, designed and redesigned through many iterations to defend against the best the Alliance or the Merkiaari had ever fired at one another. What they couldn’t do however, was intercept directed energy weapons. Still, they could and did degrade Jean de Vienne’s targeting solutions, hashing sensors and generally making Astron harder to hit. Come the moment, they would sacrifice themselves against her missiles.
Warrior sped under Astron and back up toward the enemy. The moment Jean de Vienne appeared in Anya’s engagement envelope unobstructed by Astron, her preplanned fire mission executed via computer control. Her lasers and grazers spoke, and they had a lot to say. A lot. Anya Ivanova was a tactical officer with some experience under her belt, and she had big ears to boot. She had taken note of her skipper’s earlier words regarding Jean de Vienne and how taking out her engineering spaces would mean no bang-bang from Tait. That sort of attack guaranteed a lot of casualties and a ship fit only for scuttling after the action. No prize money. Knowing her skipper’s thoughts and his attitude regarding raider casualties, she thought it would be a fine thing to make his vague idea into her attack plan. Born on Last Chance (AKA Flotsam) where many raiders were based, gave her intimate knowledge of scum like Tait and his crew. She had no qualms about killing the lot of them.
Warrior’s energy mounts swivelled, locked on, and spoke, and went on speaking. In fact, they got quite chatty with Jean de Vienne’s aft and mid section. Mega joules of energy reached out to rend the ship and were dumped into overworked shields. The shields were mil-spec of course. The Banshee class of destroyers were quite respectable ships. Their weapons were older designs, but not greatly different to Warrior’s. Except in number and output. Warrior was an Excalibur class heavy cruiser, and only recently superseded by the brand new Washington class. A Banshee had no business standing toe to toe with any heavy cruiser, and especially not an Excalibur. Tait knew that; any captain worth the name would, but to give credit where it was due he had little choice but to try.
Jean de Vienne’s shields fluoresced and tried to shrug off the attack. They succeeded surprisingly well in the opening moments of the attack, and gave Tait enough time to manoeuvre. Unfortunately for him, Anya had anticipated everything he could reasonably be expected to do and had taken steps. Tait flushed his tubes, the dozen missiles he had threatened them with leapt toward Astron as he powered up, but Anya’s decoy swarm was right there waiting. They hashed the missile’s targeting sensors and with finicky precision manoeuvred to intercept. A dozen decoys died accomplishing their mission, leaving a like number
awaiting their turn should Tait manage another broadside. Colgan didn’t expect it. Missiles were expensive ordnance and raiders, no matter how successful, lived their often short lives watching the bottom line. Tait had probably just thrown away upwards of five million credits. Maybe he’d weighed the cost of using his missiles against the cost of his life and ship. Who knew? Regardless, Colgan didn’t begrudge the use of his decoys against the missiles; that’s what they were for. Besides, any not destroyed could be recovered and reused.
Warrior’s energy mounts poured fire into Jean de Vienne and her shields were penetrated in multiple strikes. Despite that, the beams were bent and degraded causing Anya’s fire to lose effectiveness. The hits were more like glancing blows than knockout punches. It didn’t matter. It was part of her job to analyse the effectiveness of her hits and make adjustments. Her tactical team worked with her like a finely tuned instrument to refine targeting solutions, and slowly the glancing blows became slashes, peeling away nanocoat to reveal the armour beneath. Those slashes became hammer blows, and atmosphere belched from the destroyer even as it tried to run.
“Idiot,” Colgan muttered as he watched the attack on his number one monitor where it displayed in miniature a view similar to that displayed on Anya’s much larger tactical plot piped from CIC.
Tait should have rolled ship and fired his port broadside on the heels of his first, but with Warrior the target. That would have forced Anya on the defensive, if only briefly, and may have given Tait a window of opportunity. Trying to run had turned his vulnerable engines toward Warrior, limiting his ability to attack at the same time as revealing his ship’s main weakness. Colgan nodded to himself as Tait realised his error and tried to correct it with a hard skew turn, wrenching his arse out of the line of fire. It worked, sort of, but only for a few brief seconds. Anya’s muttered curse made Colgan smile, but it was a cold smile. Her half dozen clear misses were nothing in the grand scheme. She quickly corrected, and scored more hits. This time the result was more than satisfactory.
Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3 Page 117
