Project Sail

by Anthony DeCosmo

  She snuggled close to him, her head against his shoulder.

  “You are forgetting that I am a soldier, too. I know half the time it’s boring stuff that no one else would find interesting, but not me. I want to know about you.”

  “Kelly…”

  “You were a hero, and I want the details. I know you took the battleship by surprise because you gave that order to change course but the rest I’m foggy on, just that you kicked their ass.”

  He recalled dinner at the Captain’s table over a week ago when he admitted to Charles’ delight that his victory at Ganymede had been the result of catching the enemy by surprise. Even that had been an exaggeration.

  But standing there gazing out at the stars and seeing the same light he had fought under thirteen years ago caused an emotional tide to roll in, one of guilt, regret, and fear.

  Jonathan Hawthorne—hero of Ganymede—felt the time had come for confession.

  32. Ganymede

  The USNA John Riley resembled a metallic football with diametric drive bulges bubbling along its sides, two engine baffles to aft, and antenna clusters growing from the underbelly.

  A pair of topside protrusions resembling dorsal fins ranked as the most striking features and a gray and white color scheme matched the design in dullness with one exception: a green shamrock painted on the rearmost fin.

  Looks aside, the John Riley was now the most important ship in the North American Navy because it was now the only American warship near Jupiter. Reinforcements from Mars would not arrive for another forty-eight hours.

  The mighty North American task force had crashed against the rocks of the Chinese defenses at Europa. The remains of the last American battleship now floated in orbit there as a debris cloud, mixed with pieces of four destroyers and a light cruiser.

  The Chinese suffered similar losses the day before at Io, but had withdrawn with half their number intact, understanding what the American Admiral did not: kinetic impactors and speed won space battles, not stubborn determination.

  So as the frigate John Riley orbited Ganymede, the crew knew they were one of three armed ships still operating in the shadow of the Jovian giant, but the other two wore the Chinese ensign.

  Normally they could outrun the enemy ships; frigates in the USNA navy were designed for speed. However, during the retreat from Europa, the diametric drive suffered a fault, resulting in a seventy percent loss in propulsion. Any attempt to leave Ganymede would be detected and the enemy warships would run them down.

  As for a straight up fight, they were not as well armed as the Chinese battleship Shanxi or its heavy cruiser comrade, the Guiyang, with the former perhaps the most modern and deadly man-o-war in space.

  This was the situation confronting Commander Jonathan Hawthorne as his frigate orbited Ganymede, passing over the northern polar cap where water ice gave the terrain a whitish hue.

  Hawthorne had inherited the Captain’s chair a few hours ago when an airlock malfunction killed Captain Herrera during a stop at a refueling buoy. He could not stop fidgeting in his new seat, and neither could his crew, who surrounded him at stations around the circular bridge.

  “They are out here somewhere,” his helmsmen—Duane Parker—said while eyeing feeds from visual scanners. “That last report from the observation satellite confirmed two Chinese ships approaching Ganymede.”

  “They are looking for us and probably taking out the satellites, so do not expect any more reports.”

  Amanda Duncan, the sharp-looking blond communications officer who now served as XO, stood next to Hawthorne’s chair and said, “Now is the time to hit their orbital station; no way their defenses are operational yet. In a couple of hours, though, it will be too late.”

  He asked, “Is that a joke?”

  “We know they just towed it into orbit and their supply ships are still running in weapons components. Based on what we saw at Io, it takes a solid twenty-four hours before these rapid-deploy stations are up and running. But once they have their KI launchers and EMP generators online, they will be nearly invincible.”

  “Now is not the time to go on the offensive. With our drive damaged, we need a course that will take us away from Ganymede without the enemy seeing. Then we meet with the relief fleet.”

  Duncan pushed, “Jonathan, this is our best chance to take out that orbital station, otherwise the reinforcements will not matter.”

  “It is a suicide run, Lieutenant,” and he wanted to add just because we are sleeping together doesn’t give you the right to use first names on the bridge. “Even if we take out the station they will call in the warships and that will be the end of us.”

  The argument, however, became moot when Parker’s telescopic scanners spotted a ship in the distance.

  “Commander, look at this.”

  Hawthorne immediately identified the Guiyang.

  The Chinese Heavy Cruiser resembled a flying crescent aligned top to bottom. Spheres for the diametric drive lined its back like a spine of balls while tubes, antenna, probes, and octagonal ports covered the front.

  “Helm, bring us about one-hundred and eighty degrees.”

  Parker hesitated, glancing first at Duncan and then back at his Commander

  “Do it!”

  Duncan tried to intercede with an argument that would one day be edited from the bridge logs.

  “Sir, they have divided their ships. If we attack, we have a chance.”

  “They have us outgunned and we don’t have the engine power,” Hawthorne answered.

  She asked, “So we run?”

  “Yes, we run, and the fifty other people on this ship probably would agree with me.”

  But truthfully, Hawthorne worried he had crew of wannabe heroes with the same stupid determination that led to disaster at Europa yesterday.

  He called engineering on the intercom. “Faust, what is the status on the drive?”

  “I told you we cannot fix this until we reach dry dock. What’s happening up there?”

  He cut the connection without answering and then noticed his order had not yet been followed.

  “Helm I said bring us about, that is an order.”

  Finally, Parker complied and the frigate made a tight turn, showing its engine baffles to the enemy who was still at great distance but flew an intercept course.

  Once the turn completed, the moon’s curvature put Ganymede’s horizon between the frigate and its pursuer, but Hawthorne knew the Chinese warship would overtake them in minutes, and then destroy them.

  He stood and approached Parker’s station giving special attention to the cameras covering Ganymede.

  “Take us down, as close to the surface as possible.”

  “What?”

  “There is almost no atmosphere around Ganymede, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Look, there, see that crater? We can hide in there.”

  Duncan was on him in a flash.

  “You want to hide?”

  “We can start a fight we can’t win or try to avoid them long enough to escape.”

  Duncan insisted, “We have only a small chance against the cruiser, but we will have no chance against the cruiser and the battleship. They are divided and we should attack!”

  Hawthorne pointed his finger in her face and told her to, “Shut the hell up or you can stand relieved.”

  She bit her lip and her pasty white skin turned a shade of deep red.

  In the back of his mind, Jonathan knew that if they survived he would face Duncan’s father and uncle, both of whom ranked high in the service.

  The John Riley slowed as it descended. Overhead, the red storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere watched like God’s all-seeing eye.

  The ship reached the edge of an impact crater where the surface was red rock under a thin layer of ice.

  “We are close to the surface and no longer moving,” Hawthorne said.

  “You mean sitting ducks?”

  He responded to Parker, “They probably think we are running and will go speeding
by trying to catch us. Unless we are unlucky, they won’t spot us.”

  Duncan walked over to a screen hanging above the helmsman and tapped it, enlarging a section of space just over the horizon ahead.

  “Do you see this?”

  Hawthorne did and his entire body shivered.

  Parker gasped, “Holy Christ that is the goddamn battleship. We were headed right for it!”

  The Shanxi was far bigger than the cruiser and built on a horizontal spine stretching eight hundred meters. Overall, it projected a wedge shape with round bulges lining either side.

  Hawthorne understood. If things had gone according to the Chinese plan, the John Riley would have engaged the heavy cruiser in high orbit to do exactly what Duncan had suggested—attack a divided enemy. But the Shanxi was coming to strike from behind, catching the frigate in a vice.

  As they watched the battleship near, Parker said, “It’s in range, why hasn’t it fired?”

  Hawthorne answered, “Because they have not seen us and their sensors think we are just a big rock on the surface.”

  “Sir, listen,” Duncan was in his ear again. “We can’t miss this chance. If they don’t see us, we can hit them hard. Two W-Zero-S foxys might take them out. Well, wait, we need to hit them with a cutting laser to penetrate the hull, otherwise you will not scratch it.”

  Hawthorne raised his hand to protest, but Duane Parker added his feelings: “Commander, we have lost a thousand guys and an entire fleet the last two days, we cannot run away now.”

  “That’s a battleship!”

  Duncan said, “Jonathan, we can hit it two, maybe three times before it can respond.” She glanced at the screen. “But we have to do it in the next minute.”

  “What if their cruiser gets here in time to see us?”

  Duncan whispered, “If you do not give the order in five seconds, I will remove you from command for dereliction of duty.”

  Jonathan Hawthorne had spent the last several years as a pampered champion. He damned the Chinese for launching this offensive that had disrupted his easy living and he damned Duncan for wanting to be a hero.

  “Commander?” she prompted.

  “Okay, fine, but you will get us killed,” Hawthorne huffed and then called to the weapons station, “Cooper, load the tubes with two of the biggest nukes we have.”

  “No,” Duncan changed the order. “Call missile control and put a MOP 37 in the pipe with a demolition warhead.”

  Hawthorne protested, “The MOP is a bunker buster, not an air-to-air missile.”

  Duncan ignored him and added, “Load tube two with a foxy W-zero-S, maximum yield. You have twenty seconds to get them in the tubes.”

  Hawthorne felt caught in a whirlwind of confusion with any remaining authority slipping away.

  “What are you planning?”

  Duncan hurried to the weapons station where Cooper relayed orders.

  “Missile control, this is weapons, ready to receive two load outs and need them snappy.”

  “Missile control, aye. Go ahead, weapons.”

  “Ready tube one, M-O-P 3-7, warhead Impact Excavation package. Confirm.”

  “Missile control, aye, tube one MOP 37 IE pack. Go, weapons.”

  “Ready tube two, Willy Zero Space Foxy, Crown Package. Confirm.”

  “Missile control, aye, tube two W-0-S Foxy Crown. You are confirmed, weapons.”

  Duncan tapped one of Cooper’s screens and called up an outline of the Shanxi, or at least the best intelligence provided.

  “Parker, you’re a ship nut, where is our best shot?”

  He considered for a moment and then answered, “Rocket propulsion to aft. Any liquid fuel onboard would be stored there, as well as the helium three stocks. The fuel might give you secondary explosions.”

  She touched the rear underbelly of the displayed ship, just below two big rocket baffles.

  “You need to hit right there,” she explained to Cooper, “but you can’t lock-on until you are about to fire, and I will tell you when to do that. Tube one launches first.”

  “No lock-on until the last second?”

  “They will detect it and activate defenses, but don’t worry,” she assured, “we will be close enough that you cannot miss.”

  “And tube two?”

  “Same exact place, but if this goes right there will be a big hole there. That will be your target.”

  Hawthorne stood in the center of the bridge and watched, feeling like the third wheel on date night. At least his conscious was clear; if they died here, it would not be his fault.

  Parker called out, “Looks to pass us by about twenty kilometers in less than ten seconds.”

  Duncan stood over the weapons officer’s shoulder and said, “Stand by for my order, Coop. We get, you know, one shot at this.”

  Hawthorne saw that Duncan’s family lineage came to the surface at the right moment. The more orders she gave, the more confident she sounded and that confidence spread across the bridge, infecting the crew.

  Two indicators on Cooper’s console turned green, signaling both tubes ready.

  “Stand by…hold on…”

  Hawthorne alternated his eyes from the screens showing the battleship passing overhead to Duncan, hoping she would change her mind at the last second.

  “Tube one, away.”

  No shudder, no fanfare, no violent jolt, only computer confirmation of the shot and a quick glimpse on camera as the rocket flew away from the frigate, up toward its target.

  Certainly, someone on the Shanxi’s bridge received warning of the incoming strike, but the missile originated so close to the battleship that sensors and automated defenses could not accurately track it. The missile wobbled as it passed through the gravity fields projected by the Shanxi’s diametric drive, but the weapon’s AI corrected its course.

  The MOP 37 hit the aft underbelly, puncturing the hull and disappearing inside, spewing debris from the wound. The warhead’s demolition charges then opened a hole in the battleship the same way the warhead was designed to blast a hole in a hardened bunker.

  “Tube two, away.”

  The second missile fired as the Shanxi’s maneuvering thrusters brought the ship to an emergency halt.

  Almost by divine guidance, the nuclear warhead entered the shattered hull, detonating inside the battleship, incinerating most of the vessel and shattering the rest into three big pieces and a million smaller ones.

  Such explosions in space were a strange sight in that the mind expected to see flaming wreckage, but fire could not burn in the vacuum. Instead, metal super-heated by the atomic detonation glowed white, resembling flares flickering in the sky before the cold cooled them to slag.

  Much of the debris flew into deep space, more followed the curvature of the moon and assumed orbit. Two big pieces crashed to the rocky surface, grinding stone to powder before coming to rest in a dusty tempest fifty kilometers from the John Riley.

  Hawthorne marveled at the strength of the Shanxi’s construction, surprised that any recognizable pieces survived the blast. Conquering the solar system had required stronger alloys as much as faster forms of propulsion.

  While he watched the monitors and marveled, the bridge crew erupted into cheers, but the celebration ended as the heavy cruiser Guiyang climbed the horizon.

  “We should get them, too,” Parker’s enthusiasm for defeating the mightiest ship in the enemy fleet overcame his sense. In a fair fight, the Guiyang could easily defeat the John Riley.

  Hawthorne attempted to reign in command: “Do not move this ship and keep systems at minimum power.”

  Although amazed by the surprising defeat of the Shanxi, he did not forget the tactical realities.

  “It doesn’t look like they have spotted us,” he said as the heavy cruiser approached the wreckage. “Unless the Shanxi got off a message, they won’t know what happened and they sure as hell will not think a frigate took out a battleship.”

  Duncan said, “If I were them I would guess an
engine or weapons malfunction, or possibly a ship-to-ship collision.”

  The cruiser dodged the debris cloud, slowed, and approached the surface above the two large pieces of hull that had crashed on Ganymede.

  “They are looking for survivors,” Hawthorne said. “Christ, it could be hours before we can move.”

  “Sooner or later they will see us,” Duncan said.

  “We cannot fight that ship,” Hawthorne replied, “and we aren’t going to have a clean shot at its bottom like we did the Shanxi.”

  Duncan studied the screens, sizing up the enemy. Hawthorne worried she planned something stupid again and after knocking out the Shanxi, there would be no stopping her.

  She leaned over Cooper’s shoulder, touched one of his monitors, and zoomed in on one long section that had once been a stretch of the Shanxi’s starboard hull. She referred to bulges there and said, “Those are RDM cisterns and they are clearly breached, I can see clouds of RDM floating around in there.”

  “Hit it with a nuke?” Parker suggested.

  “That won’t do it,” Duncan told him. “That is Refined Dark Matter; it is too stable to be ignited. We need an intense electrostatic discharge to cause the particles to separate back into their natural state, and then they are unstable.”

  Parker said, “Use an EMP warhead,” and she pat him on the shoulder congratulating him for finding the answer to which she had led him.

  Confused, Hawthorne tapped the image of the Guiyang.

  “Way too much shielding for an EMP to hurt them. Besides, they have backup systems like we do.”

  Duncan explained, “No, hit the RDM floating around in the wreckage with an EMP.”

  “Won’t that just cause an anomaly?”

  She explained, “No that happens when the electricity used to stimulate the RDM creates a cascade, like causing a vibration that keeps getting worse. A powerful EMP burst in one quick dose will act like an electrostatic separator, and destabilize the dark matter.”

  Hawthorne’s head spun but in the chaos he came to realize that Amanda Duncan was the real commander on the bridge, showing a foresight and courage that he would never possess.