Warpath

by Randolph Lalonde

  When Jake’s ship emerged, they were caught in the middle by a barrage of explosive shells. Their shields were down to half power. The Revenge fired their large railguns at the same time. Several shots struck the edges of asteroids, but the rest struck the battleship square on, bashing through their shields and ripping several holes in their outer hull.

  A second later, the Revenge fired its lower beam weapon, a white shaft of light with power readings higher than he’d ever seen ran across the fore section of the battleship then onto the base’s shields before deactivating. The enemy battleship sustained electromagnetic pulse damage along the fore half of its port side, and Oz could see systems on that ship going dark, including its sensors, antennae and many computer systems.

  “Sir, we are now close enough to the base for our torpedo guidance systems to make it through the asteroids,” Lieutenant Yore.

  “Fire all torpedo launchers and reload with conventional warheads,” Oz said. Thirty-six antimatter torpedoes fired from the Triton’s launchers and began to zig-zag between the asteroids towards the station.

  The base fired their main cannon at the Revenge and the Triton, attempting to roll asteroids in their direction, but the icy masses were too dense to move any significant amount. Their secondary weapons – particle beams and flak cannons – began to fill the space around them with light and hostile shrapnel. The Revenge and the Triton were too far away, with too many asteroids between them to take any damage, but Oz watched the line his torpedoes must cross so the antimatter explosions wouldn’t damage either ship if they went off closely.

  Some of the flak the base was firing was beginning to get close to that line, moving in between narrow spaces between asteroids. He was relieved to see the first fourteen torpedoes push through or avoid the flak. The ten behind, the ones that took wider routes around the asteroids were still too close.

  A beam weapon swept across the front of one, and it tumbled, the guidance system fried as it passed behind a large asteroid between it and the base. “Shut down main sensor systems,” he ordered.

  The Revenge was safe, but the Triton was still too close. The torpedo caught the outer edge of the asteroid and spun into open space. The base’s beam weapon missed, sweeping wide.

  “Sensors are off and our antennae are disconnected,” replied Ensign Kessen from communications.

  A relatively small chunk of ice, no more than twelve metres in length collided with the antimatter torpedo, cracking it open and exposing the antimatter to space. The explosion that followed went off against a cluster of ice asteroids.

  “Reactivate sensors, now,” Oz said, imagining the worst. “Reconnect antennae.”

  When they came back online he saw the mess the detonation made, a wave of lighter asteroids were spinning towards the Revenge. A shard fifty metres long glanced off its shields, but he could see the thrusters rotating, fighting to stay on course. “C’mon, Ash, you can make it through this,” he whispered under his breath.

  A larger boulder of ice rolled towards them, barely slowing as it nicked a heavy asteroid. The Revenge’s main guns rotated towards it and fired simultaneously, cracking a small chunk that was sent spinning away off. “They’re going to collide,” Ayan said.

  To Oz’s amazement, the aft-starboard compartments as well as the starboard launch bay of the ship depressurized as all their thrusters pointed towards the rear and they powered ahead. The ship turned slightly as it pressed forward into a narrow opening between heavy stone asteroids. The Revenge rotated to fit between them and then turned their main engine pods again, pointing upwards this time. then stopped thrusting as the massive ice boulder barely caught on their aft most armour plating. The Revenge began to rotate, nose down, back up, and then they fired their rear thrusters at maximum, stabilizing the ship. “God, I want that woman back at my helm,” Oz said as the Revenge managed to fit between two gargantuan asteroids, getting clear of danger.

  “You’d have to fight Jake for her,” Ayan said. “Ash is his first adopted daughter, so I think you’d lose.”

  The first of their torpedoes went off several hundred kilometres away from the base, not doing any significant damage. There were nine left, all approaching from the sides of the station, and four of them made it through their defences and detonated. Globes of white light enveloped the base.

  “Now!” Oz said. “Fire another volley and make best speed to our escape point.”

  They were much closer than the last time they launched torpedoes, but the high explosives they were firing were not nearly as risky. With less manoeuvring to do, they moved around the asteroids at a much greater speed. “Keep firing as we reload,” He ordered.

  The Revenge was almost at the same height as the Triton, firing all fifteen of their main railguns, torpedo launchers, missile emplacements and beam weapons in the direction of the station.

  “Sir, the other battleship just came up on scanners, they were hiding behind the station. They are making maximum thrust towards our exit point,” Lieutenant Yore reported.

  A new marker appeared on the tactical display named the Order Hand. “What kind of capabilities does that base have?”

  “Their stationary guns could do some real damage if we lose our cover for long,” she replied.

  “Helm, keep us moving between asteroids, but get us to our exit point. We’ll deal with that battleship when we get there.”

  “We’re going to try another high burst on that thing as soon as we’re clear to fire,” Jake said, his hologram reappearing on the bridge of the Triton. “It’s a bigger ship, but their hull is thinner than ours for fairly large sections.”

  “We’ll try to keep that base blind so they have trouble getting shots off,” Oz said. “Intensify fire on the base, try to aim for their main batteries,” he said, marking three large gun turrets, each with five barrels, that would be able to fire on them on their way through the asteroids.

  The Revenge moved around a large cluster of asteroids, curving through the space so it faced the battleship nearly a hundred thousand kilometres distant and fired its beam weapons at the same time as letting lose with a railgun volley. The battleship let loose with sixteen torpedoes and its three main guns. The torpedoes were rendered useless or smashed by the railgun rounds in the narrow corridor between asteroids. The heavy shells from the battleship exploded against the Revenge’s shields. Another round of fire followed right behind the first, costing the Revenge her forward shields.

  “C’mon, Jake, move,” Oz said, hoping to see the Revenge move back under cover.

  The Revenge let loose with another volley of railgun fire, launched torpedoes and missiles then thrust upwards. The instant before they reached the safety of cover, a trio of large shells struck the front of the Revenge, cracking their nose section open and destroying the old location of the ship’s bridge.

  The Order Hand had done little better. The Revenge was able to render a narrow section of its shielding on the port side useless, and they were venting atmosphere from as deep as five compartments in from their primary hull. Chief Frost was directing the gun team on that ship, and they weren’t loading as quickly as Oz would like, but their accuracy was deadly.

  There was an arrogance to the way the Revenge moved, accelerating around several gargantuan asteroids as it stalked towards the battleship from behind cover. “Let’s keep up with them, Helm,” Oz said.

  “Sir, the base is recovering, we have detected motion from the main gun batteries. They are tracking us,” reported Lieutenant Yore.

  “How long before they have a firing solution?” Oz asked, looking at the tactical map, trying to find a way to direct the helm better so they could keep more asteroids between them and the base.

  “Forty seconds or less,” the Lieutenant replied. “We will still be moving from one asteroid to the next, there are no easy lines of fire.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” he said. Another volley of torpedoes issued from the Triton’s launchers, most of them had no difficulty p
ushing through flak and impacting on the base’s shields. “How much damage have we really done here?”

  “Their shield energy is down to seventeen percent,” reported Lieutenant Yore’s assistant Tactical Officer.

  ‘Suggestions?’ Oz asked mentally. ‘The Revenge is about to try to take on a battleship with equivalent armament, and we’re trying to distract a base that would have had us slagged by now if it weren’t for all this cover.’

  ‘Disappear,’ Hausgiest replied in his mind, sending him a mental image that served as a tactical diagram.

  “Comms, signal the Revenge that we’re cloaking,” Oz ordered. “Cease fire, cloak the ship.”

  “All attention will be on the Revenge, it won’t last more than two or three minutes when they break cover to escape,” Ayan said.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Oz said as he turned towards the helm at the front of the bridge. “Helm, adjust heading to three, eighty nine, two eight seven and follow that chain of asteroids to the Revenge. We’re going to pass behind them and fire a full salvo of antimatter torpedoes at the base as soon as we have a clear shot.”

  The base fired their main guns at asteroids nearby, sending showers of shards towards the Triton. “They’re trying to get our location by seeing what bounces off our shields,” Ayan said. “I can only compensate so much with our projection system.”

  Chunks of less dense asteroids exploded in bursts of white, filling the space around them with debris. Three rounds struck their shields, one breaking through to the hull.

  “Hangar three has taken damage, but it is still intact,” reported tactical. “Aft shields are charging back up from thirteen percent.”

  “Is our cloak intact?” Oz asked.

  “Yes,” Ayan replied. “Cloaking shields are compensating for the damage to the outer layer of our hull.”

  The next shells missed narrowly, and they moved back behind cover. The station’s attempts to strike at them became less and less accurate over the next few seconds as the Triton moved towards the Revenge.

  “Sir, you’re not going to believe this,” Communications said. “We’re getting a direct connection to the base computers. Someone on the Revenge hacked in.”

  “Can you deactivate the station’s guns?” Oz asked.

  “Not yet. I haven’t found that system, it might not be networked.”

  “All right, then, download everything, starting with navigational and patrol information,” Oz said.

  “I’m going to see if we can increase bandwidth,” Ayan said as she brought up a data control hologram in front of her seat. “And I’ll try to prioritize our downloads so we don’t get a bunch of copies of letters home and speeches from Eve.”

  “God, I’ve been trying all this time, and they get it first,” muttered Ensign Gallow.

  Chapter 44

  Run At Them

  The Revenge was expertly guided around one of the largest ice asteroids that they’d seen by Ashley. “I have confirmation, there was no one in the forward observation section when it was hit,” Finn reported. “Nothing important was damaged.”

  “All right, line up your shot, Frost, and wait until we’ve discharged are DEMP arrays before you fire,” Jake said.

  “Aye, gunners ready,” he replied.

  “I’ll take control of the torpedo and missile launchers,” Jake said, bringing up an old-fashioned key style control. “We’re going straight at them one more time.” He sighted the port side of the enemy battleship, where their sensors said the armour was thinnest. “So far, so good, Ashley. Bring us out of cover right where you promised.”

  “Ready with beam weapons,” Agameg said. “We may fuse the controller system in beam number one if we fire at this intensity.”

  “Take it down ten percent, Chief,” Jake replied. “We may still overheat, but the damage shouldn’t be as bad.”

  “Sir, I have hacked their entertainment systems and non-essential mechanical assemblies aboard the Order Hand,” reported Liara from communications.

  “All right, start playing their entertainment library in thirteen seconds, and what mechanical assemblies?”

  “Well I don’t have control of hatches, or machines in main systems, but things like food processors, lifts, the bed adjustments in the bunks,” she replied. “That kind of stuff.”

  “The Captain’s chair?” Finn asked. “You would have control of its rotation and adjustments.”

  Liara looked through her display and nodded. “Oh my God, I do!”

  “Do whatever you can to make the Captain’s seat act like a rodeo bull,” Jake ordered.

  “What’s a rodeo bull?” Liara asked.

  “Something Oz showed me a long time ago,” Jake replied. “It spins and bucks back and forth really fast, trying to knock you off.”

  “Aye,” Frost said. “I’ll have to make one sometime.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Liara said. “But it won’t be for this captain. Sending you the controls to the enemy Captain’s seat, Finn.”

  “Adding a random testing cycle to his seat’s pre-sets,” Finn said.

  “Send him on a ride,” Jake said, wishing he could see it. “Are you playing their library back as loud and as bright as you can?” he asked.

  “What part of their library?” Liara asked.

  “All of it at the same time,” Jake replied.

  “Done!” Liara said with a grin.

  Frost snickered to himself, visibly forcing himself to focus on the task at hand.

  The Revenge moved to the last large asteroid it was going to use as cover. “Forwarding all the commands, the chair should be bucking, and the entertainment system should be blaring,” Liara said.

  They broke cover and Agameg fired every beam weapon on the ship, draining the battleship’s shields down to critical levels as three rays of white light swept across their vessel. “Firing all guns,” Frost said as the roar of fifteen heavy railguns shook the ship. Jake followed up with twenty-eight heavy missiles and the eight torpedoes they could launch. “Begin opening that wormhole,” Jake ordered. “Reload, fast as you can.”

  A hail of antimatter torpedoes fired past them towards the base, and the Triton de-cloaked. “We are ready to go,” Oz reported.

  “Jake, stop generating a wormhole,” Ayan said from the engineering section aboard the Triton. “We’ll have one open in three seconds.”

  Five solid thuds sounded against the Revenge’s port side hull, and Jake’s missile launchers reported that they were disconnected. “Stop generating a wormhole,” Jake ordered. “Damage?”

  “Our shields are down to twenty three percent on aft port sections,” Finn reported. “Minor hull damage, our missile emplacements are gone. Shells struck one of our missiles as it left, setting off all twenty eight and destroying our main turret.”

  “No ammunition explosion in the magazine?” Jake asked.

  “None, which is a miracle. I need to get some bots down there to make sure we don’t have munitions jammed somewhere.”

  Another pair of shells struck their fore portside as Frost announced; “Firing all railguns.”

  All but four of their shots missed. The ones that struck tore holes through the middle of the hangar bay on the enemy battleship.

  “The Triton has opened their wormhole, and I have a course set to enter,” Ashley announced.

  “Execute,” Jake said. A massive explosion surrounded the base in the distance, indicating that most of the Triton’s antimatter torpedoes made it through. They were into the wormhole behind the Triton before they got a scan of the damage.

  “Permission to join the damage control teams, Captain?” Finn asked.

  “Aye, granted. Make sure we don’t have any munitions ready to blow near that gaping hole where our missile launchers used to be, please.” Jake said.

  “We will be in transit for twenty three minutes,” Ashley said.

  “Thank you, great job everyone,” Jake said. “Liara, did we download any updated information that we c
an use to find Freeground Alpha?”

  “I’m starting my search now, Sir,” she replied.

  Chapter 45

  Hidden In Haven Shore

  Carl Anderson missed research. His medical career was often interrupted by it, and his research career was, in turn, interrupted by his work in the clandestine service. As Governor of Haven Shore and master of the Rangers, he was able to balance all sides, and ignore politics when it was convenient. Ayan’s old aide, Lacey Rosedale was perfect to take his place as Governor, and was happy to fill in when he was busy. He would serve as long as he could, and make sure she got the seat when he had to leave it.

  The mess left behind by Doctor Messana was something he could not ignore. When he directed Triton Fleet soldiers to deliver the contents of the lab to a new section of Haven Shore medical along with most of the other experiments, there was no resistance. He didn’t want the dimension drive, and there was only one issyrian who had a tenuous claim to the Fallen Star and whatever was aboard.

  The Fallen Star was originally a Freeground Fleet ship, making it more his property than anyone else’s. His final order for the vessel was for it to be recycled by the Solar Forge, the records of whatever was removed from the vessel deleted.

  Everything from the research sections of the Fallen Star was transferred to a lab that he and four Ando Model androids knew about. He hoped that the Haven Shore Medical Centre would match the Triton’s medbay in technology and capability soon, but there was so much work left to do, so many devices to have manufactured, it would have been months if he didn’t steal everything from the Fallen Star. With the technology from that ship, he’d cut the time down to days. He only had to make sure that the medical equipment that he’d taken was fit for use on normal patients. Extra features or programming could do more harm than good.

  He looked at one of the results of Doctor Massena’s experiments as it lay on the table. It was the result of the perfect conversion of the Alice copy from framework to pure human. The last three days had been tiring, but he’d gone through all the research, checked all the simulation data and made sure all the relevant equipment was set up exactly the same way as it was aboard the Fallen Star. His testing began where hers ended using all the things Doctor Messana created, and he could not believe the results, so he spent an extra day performing the simulations over again. “She found it,” he said to the red-haired corpse on his table.