by D. J. Holmes
Lightfoot closed his eyes. Springbuck was lucky to have survived two proximity hits. From what Suarez had just said, she had only just managed it. Certainly, she was out of action. She needed months in a repair yard to be battle worthy again. “I’m sorry Captain,” Lightfoot said as he opened his eyes. “I’ll have to send you back to Earth. You can bring a report of our operations so far.”
“I understand Admiral. I’m sure my First Lieutenant could bring her back if you need me to stay with you?” Suarez asked
Though Lightfoot was sure the offer was genuine, he could see in Suarez face that the Argentinian Captain wanted to make sure his ship got home safely, and his people were looked after. “Thank you for the offer, I’m sure we’ll be fine without you. I won’t take you away from the ship. Not now when she needs you the most.”
“Houston, check Argyll’s status. If her damage is minimal inform Captain Rivers I’ll be transferring my flag over as soon as they rendezvous with us.”
“Aye Admiral,” Houston replied
“Now Captain,” Lightfoot said as he turned back to Suarez. “How can my staff help? We have at least an hour before Argyll gets here.”
*
Argyll, outer Hessen system, six hours later.
Lightfoot rolled his shoulders as he sat back in his command chair. Though it was a carbon copy of his command chair on Springbuck, it didn’t feel quite right. “Signal Springbuck and her consorts. Say, ‘safe journeys.’”
“Message sent Admiral,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “Springbuck has replied; ‘happy hunting.”
“Acknowledge the message,” Lightfoot said. “Take us into shift space Captain Rivers,” he added as he turned to his new Flag Captain. Rivers had been unknown to Lightfoot before leaving Earth. To date he had handled himself well and Lightfoot had no reason not to trust the American. Even so, he wished he still had Suarez with him.
“Aye Admiral,” Rivers replied.
Silently, Lightfoot watched his subordinates prepare the fleet to depart. Argyll’s officers weren’t used to having an Admiral on the bridge and also had to get used to his staff officers as well. They will learn quick enough, Lightfoot thought. They had to. A slight tremor ran through the ship as it jumped into shift space and Lightfoot winced. Springbuck’s doctor hadn’t had time to look at his elbow before Lightfoot had departed. There had been too many others with more serious injuries. Argyll’s doctor had reset his broken elbow and put his left arm in a sling. With the drugs the doctor had given him to boost his body’s healing rate, he had been told he would regain the use of his arm in three or four days. The doctor’s attention hadn’t stopped it being painful though.
When Argyll jumped out of shift space just five minutes later, Lightfoot winced again. At least that will be the last shift jump for a while, he thought. Springbuck and the rest of the damaged ships had orders to head from Hessen straight to Ulm and then Earth. If any Karacknid ships had remained hidden in the Hessen system, it would look like the rest of Lightfoot’s ships were doing the same. Even if they tried to follow Springbuck through shift space to the next system, it would take them several days to realize the majority of Lightfoot’s forces were not there. In that time he intended to shake off whatever Karacknid ships might be following him. To do so, instead of recharging the shift drives and jumping into shift space again, his fleet turned away from the shift passage and headed back towards the Hessen system. He intended to stay well outside the system’s mass shadow and circumnavigate the system. It would take several days but his ships would eventually reach the shift passage that led from Hessen towards the Holstein system. His mission was to chase down the Karacknid raiding squadrons, but they were all avoiding him. His trick with a fake convoy had worked, but he was certain it wouldn’t work again. Now there was nothing left to do but to head to the Karacknid’s main base of operations. One way or another he was going to bring more Karacknid ships to battle.
Chapter 10
The shift drive has gone through a number of development stages. None were more significant than the Walsiki breakthrough. Suddenly, dark matter was not a hinderance to interstellar travel! It’s hard now for a cadet to imagine the immediate impact this had, but to those who were used to the confines of shift passages it was nothing short of revolutionary.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
10th December 2481 AD (seventeen days later).
“This is the one,” Lightfoot said after taking several minutes to get a feel for the kink in the shift passage. “This is where we wait.”
His fleet was one third of the way along the Föhr-Holstein shift passage. On star maps, shift passages were almost always displayed as straight lines between one system and another. In reality, they were very different. The gaps in the dark matter clouds that filled open space between star systems were random and led to many fragmented and zigzagging shift passages. Given the shift drive only allowed a ship to travel in a straight line once in shift space, a ship had to enter and exit shift space many times as it traversed a shift passage. The Föhr-Holstein shift passage had two particularly tight kinks in it. They weren’t ideal spots for an ambush, but from what Lightfoot had seen of Karacknid shift passage behavior, their ships always travelled along the center line of each passage. That was a mistake Human ships had learnt not to make centuries ago. And perhaps one they have already corrected, Lightfoot thought. But it was his last option short of actually bringing his fleet into the Holstein system and tempting the Karacknid fleet to come out and fight. And such an action would be suicidal. “Pass the word to the rest of our fleet, all ships are to remain at battle stations. I want every ship cleared and ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Dispatch our scouts to Holstein as well,” Lightfoot ordered. Any raiding squadrons that wanted to come back to Holstein would have to pass through the kink his ships were in. It was likely to take a few weeks or even longer, but sooner or later some would pass by his ships. There was no other way to the Holstein system.
For several hours he sat on Argyll’s bridge and oversaw the arrangement of his ships into the best ambush formation. Then he checked in with Jil’lal and Gar’am and his Captains. Eventually, when Lightfoot could think of nothing else to do he nodded to Rivers. “The fleet is yours Captain,” he said.
“We’ll alert you as soon as we detect something,” Rivers promised. Lightfoot nodded again and left the bridge.
*
Seven hours later Lightfoot was startled out of a deep sleep by his bed’s COM unit. Even before he reached up and tapped it to answer, another sign drew his attention. The low thrum, thrum of Argyll’s heavy plasma cannons firing was unmistakable. For a moment Lightfoot struggled to make sense of the noise. He hadn’t expected the ambush to work for days. As soon as he grasped what was going on, he threw himself out of bed and sprinted across his quarters to the bridge’s access hatch. Not caring about his attire, he rushed in. “Status report,” he demanded.
“We’re engaging Karacknid warships,” someone shouted amidst all the other commands that were being passed back and forth.
Lightfoot turned to Argyll’s Captain’s chair to demand more. He shut his mouth when he saw Argyll’s First Lieutenant was sitting there. Rivers had obviously retired as well. Not wanting to be a distraction, he threw himself into his command chair and tried to make sense of the holo plot. Though the sensor readings seemed confused, at least one thing was clear. A small group of Karacknid ships had jumped out of shift space. They had been coming from Holstein. Lightfoot’s forces had been ready. Even as he watched they pummeled the Karacknid ships with fire from their energy weapons while maneuvering to fully envelop the enemy squadron. Within thirty seconds it was over. Every Karacknid ship had been destroyed for the price of one Human light cruiser.
“Begin rescue operations. See if there are any survivors from Dragonfly,” Lightfoot ordered as he eyed the point in space where the light cruiser had been. “How many were there?” he asked when several of his staff officers began coordinating the resc
ue efforts.
“Seven I believe,” Argyll’s First Lieutenant answered as he stood to let Rivers take his seat. “We have to check the sensor logs to be sure. They just appeared and as per your orders every ship opened fire on their own initiative.”
“Very good,” Lightfoot responded. “In fact, pass on my compliments to the fleet for their fast reactions. Then get me a damage report from each ship.” He had seen several of his ships take hits from the Karacknids’ energy weapons. They had reacted quickly as well. When everyone else busied themselves, Lightfoot pulled up the sensor readings and re-watched the engagement. There had been seven Karacknid ships. They were all destroyers. As expected, his ships opened fire first. Though only the closest twelve could actually engage. The others quickly moved to get into range. Most of the first volley of shots struck the destroyers for they were stationary. Nevertheless, the impressive armor of the Karacknid ships absorbed many of the plasma bolts. Only those from the larger cannons of his cruisers penetrated with the first hits. Something we need to replicate quickly, Lightfoot thought as he watched the armor resist the corrosive plasma bolts. He knew scientists back on Earth were already analyzing fragments recovered from destroyed Karacknid ships. It would likely take months or even years to fully replicate it, but the sooner the better.
Seconds after coming under fire, the Karacknid ships started evasive maneuvers and then they returned fire. Lightfoot nodded. The Karacknids had responded quickly, but it was their armor that had bought them the time to do so. They are not invincible, just well equipped. As damage reports came in, Lightfoot studied them. He decided to dispatch two more ships back to Earth with strict orders to travel through the German colonies in stealth. He didn’t want them to risk being discovered. Then he rearranged his fleet’s formation to make up for his reduced numbers. “Now all we can do is wait,” he said to Rivers. His tactic had worked once. The Karacknid ships had appeared right in the middle of the kink in the shift passage. It seemed they hadn’t changed their standard operating procedures. “If they are not going to learn, I’m happy to continue to oblige their folly.”
“It will likely take weeks for whoever is commanding the Karacknid forces in Holstein to notice the loss of these ships,” Rivers said. “We should get another ambush or two out of this tactic yet.”
“As long as we don’t encounter something bigger than we can handle,” Lightfoot replied. He had standing orders for all his ships to jump to shift space if a large Karacknid squadron appeared in front of them. Even so, it could still prove disastrous if it were to happen.
*
Argyll, 16th December 2481 AD (six days later).
The next group of Karacknid warships appeared when Lightfoot was on Argyll’s bridge sitting in his command chair. He was idly scrolling through the most recent Varanni frigate scout report from Holstein. When Flew’s ships had passed through the system they had kept a wide berth. With Gar’am’s approval, Lightfoot had sent two Varanni frigates much deeper into the system. Their findings made for an interesting read. A much closer look at the two hundred Karacknid warships in orbit suggested that nearly half of them were undergoing minor repairs. They had obviously been part of the fleet that had retreated from Earth. Not seriously damaged enough to require a properly equipped repair yard, they had been left behind to bolster Holstein’s garrison. It was useful information to know, but not something Lightfoot could act upon. Even with just one hundred fully operational warships, the Karacknids had a fleet more than large enough to stop him retaking the system.
It was in the midst of such thoughts that eighteen new contacts suddenly appeared right in front of his ships. Even as alarms began to go off, tactical officers on board Human, Vestarian and Varanni ships acted. Tapping their consoles, they gave permission for their ships’ automatic targeting systems to engage. Just three seconds after appearing, the Karacknid ships came under attack. Plasma bolts and laser beams zipped across space to strike them. This time, Lightfoot got to watch the engagement in real time. Not that he could do anything to affect its outcome, it all happened too fast. Six Karacknid ships detonated before they could maneuver or return fire. Then, as their surviving comrades began to do so, the battle turned from being one-sided. In order to cover the center of the shift passage Lightfoot had his forty-two warships reasonably spread out. Only half were in range of the Karacknid ships, though the rest were quickly closing. Until they did, the remaining Karacknid ships found themselves in a near even energy weapon duel. Of course, Lightfoot’s ships knew just what kind of duel they were in. As soon as they fired their first volley, they began evasive maneuvers. Many of the energy beams the Karacknids fired in return missed. Even so, some didn’t.
Lightfoot winced as two of his ships were blown apart by enemy fire. In the next ten seconds, as ships dipped, weaved and twisted, three more of his warships were hit. Two were crippled, the third detonated as one of its reactors was pierced by a laser beam. Four Karacknids were taken out in the same timeframe. Then, Lightfoot’s other ships arrived. The Karacknid ships found themselves almost encircled by enemy ships. Evasive maneuvers that dodged incoming fire from one direction left them open to attack from another. After just thirty more seconds the battle was over. Lightfoot lost one more ship while all eighteen Karacknid contacts were no more.
When the shooting stopped, silence descended on Argyll’s bridge. It seemed everyone was breathing a quiet sigh of relief. She had been in the midst of the fighting, though Lightfoot had been so focused on all of his ships that he hadn’t specifically noticed how badly. As he looked at Rivers, Lightfoot saw his flight captain wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “That was close,” Rivers said in his American drawl. “Did you see that particle cannon shot? It must have grazed the outer hull. We are lucky to be here! Good flying Hanson,” he added as he looked over to Argyll’s navigation officer. “Congratulations Admiral,” he continued as he turned his head back. “We took some losses, but that was a very one-sided victory.”
“Indeed it was,” Lightfoot agreed. He knew he would mourn the ships he had lost later. But now he let the feelings of success wash over him. It was a close thing though, he said to himself. A handful more Karacknid ships and the energy weapon duel could have gone the other way. “We’re going to pull a couple of light hours back from the kink,” he decided. “We’ll carry out repairs, assess our damage and keep an eye on what Karacknid ships pass by before deciding what to do next. We can’t fight another enemy squadron of that size.”
“That sounds good to me Admiral,” Rivers replied. “We were sent here to show the Karacknids we’re not beaten yet. I’d say we’ve accomplished that.”
Lightfoot nodded. Rivers was correct but destroying a handful of Karacknid ships was not going to stop the Karacknids from raiding Human colonies. Nor would it lead to Holstein’s liberation. Lightfoot was all too aware that he had promised Major General Johnston and the marines he had sent to Holstein’s surface that he would return. Being so close to the colony and yet unable to provide any aid was deeply frustrating. We are not pulling out just yet, he said to himself. They would lick their wounds and see what other opportunities arose.
*
Karacknid frigate Scar, Holstein-Föhr shift passage, 24th December 2481 AD (eight days later).
Commander Hx-amon couldn’t help grumbling quietly to himself. Scar was his first command. When he had found out he had been given a frigate he had been elated. Then, when she had been assigned to the fleet invading the Human sector, his hopes of seeing fame and fortune had soared. A small, fast and agile Karacknid warship was just the kind of ship that would have excelled in raiding and pacifying the uncivilized Human colonies. Though he had arrived too late to join the main fleet that had been sent to Earth, it had proved to be a blessing in disguise. Now however, instead of using his warship to the best of its abilities, he had been assigned patrol duty. A raiding squadron was more than a week overdue and Lower Admiral Kiskheck had decided Scar could spend a week slowly traversing t
he Holstein-Föhr shift passage looking for them. Dull and irrelevant work if ever there was any.
“Eh? Commander, I think we’ve found something” one of Scar’s bridge officers said, contradicting Hx-amon’s thoughts.
“What is it?” Hx-amon asked irritably.
“Debris, and quite a lot of it,” the officer responded. “Shall I go active with our sensors?”
“No,” Hx-amon snapped. If the debris was the remnants of the squadron he was meant to be searching for, then it must have encountered a much larger force. There was a Human squadron known to be active in the vicinity, but it was too small. Either way, he didn’t want to encounter whatever had caused the debris field. “Get us closer to the debris. Confirm it is from some of our ships. Passive sensors only.”
Twenty minutes later there was no doubt. The debris was from destroyed Karacknid ships. Hx-amon’s claws were extended. His grumbling replaced with anger. There was some debris that wasn’t Karacknid. It was from Human warships. But there was hardly any of it. Whatever had happened here, his comrades had been decimated. They were ambushed, Hx-amon decided as he looked at the shift passage around him. The Karacknid squadron had exited shift space to reorientate itself and had been set upon by Human ships. Those sneaky dung piles!
