by D. J. Holmes
Sure enough, the destroyers appeared to be moving out from the main Indian fleet to take up differing orbits around Haven.
“It looks like this is going to be close,” James said to the bridge. “Keep Endeavour on her current course. Designate the closest destroyer alpha one.”
The holo display showed that one of the destroyers now moving to patrol the space immediately around Haven would get very close to Endeavour when she ducked in towards the planet to drop off the stealth shuttle. As James ran a few calculations on his command chair he saw there was no other choice. Any change of direction now would bring them just as close to one of the other destroyers.
“Keep us steady,” he said to Sub Lieutenant Jennings when she looked to him expecting new orders.
For another ten minutes, the tension on the bridge steadily rose as Endeavour braked to enter Haven’s orbit. James would have preferred to just fly by the planet and launch Major Johnston’s shuttle. However, the stealth shuttle would have to do a prolonged burn of its own engines to slow down enough to safely enter the atmosphere. If it did that it would be detected for sure. The only way to keep it from being detected was to enter into an area where Endeavour was in real danger of being detected herself.
“Optical sensors are detecting an anomaly off the starboard bow. It’s small but it is close,” Malik said breaking into the silence. “I think it is a passive recon drone.”
“Alter course to zero point seven five,” James ordered. “If they have one recon drone out there, there will be others. Our best bet is to stick as close to alpha one as possible. There won’t be any stealth drones close to it, they will be spread out further afield.”
“Do you think that drone detected us?” Sub Lieutenant Jennings asked.
“No,” James said. “If they had, those destroyers would already be gunning it straight for us.” That, or the Indian Admiral is letting us get closer to the main fleet before it pounces, James thought.
“Radar saturation is nearing detection levels on the stealth coating,” Becket warned.
“Acknowledged,” James said. He opened a COM channel to Major Johnston. “How long until you can launch Major?” he asked.
“Three more minutes,” Johnston said. “We’ll go as soon as we get into range.”
“Get ready to alter course Jennings,” James said to the navigation officer. “As soon as the shuttle launches take us out of orbit.”
“Sir, the destroyer we designated alpha two is altering course. It’s focusing more of its radar emitters in our direction,” Malik reported shrilly.
“Our stealth coating can’t absorb many more radar waves,” Lieutenant Becket said from the tactical station. “They may start to get returns on us.”
“We’re just going to have to see how good our technology really is,” James said. “Lock all the plasma cannons onto alpha one and get ready to fire a volley of missiles at them. If they detect us we need to finish them off fast.”
Before James realized it, Major Johnston was back on the COM, “We’re launching in thirty seconds Captain, thanks for the ride. We’ll contact you once we’re ready to be picked up.”
“Stay safe,” James replied.
Opening a holo image of the secondary shuttle bay, James watched the stealth shuttle exit his ship. As soon as the shuttle doors closed he turned back to Sub Lieutenant Jennings. “Take us out of here,” he ordered.
Jennings fired Endeavour’s maneuvering thrusters to turn her nose up and away from Haven and the nearest Indian destroyer. Carefully, she engaged Endeavour’s main impulse engines, bringing them up to three percent of their maximum thrust. Any more and the Indian ships were sure to detect them. Nothing seemed to happen for a few moments, then, slowly but surely, Endeavour overcame Haven’s gravity and escaped into open space.
No sooner than he had given the order to turn, it seemed to James, than Malik’s warning broke into his thoughts.
“Alpha one has launched a normal recon drone in our direction. It’s emitting huge amounts of radar waves.”
“Are we in plasma cannon range?” James asked.
“No Sir,” Becket answered. “At this range we’d barely scratch their armor.”
“Navigation, prepare to go to full military power,” James ordered. “I want a sustained engine burn for forty minutes. We need to get some velocity. Then we’re going to shut down and go back into stealth mode. Becket, fire a full broadside at that destroyer. Then switch to rapid fire. I want that destroyer hammered.”
“Aye Sir,” Becket said.
“Ready Captain,” Becket said just a few moments later.
“Fire,” James said.
As Becket gave the command to the missile crews to fire, a number of things happened at once. Both of the nearest Indian destroyers accelerated and turned towards Endeavour. Two recon drones that had been in a passive state switched on and beamed mega joules of radar radiation towards Endeavour. The combined radar waves washing over Endeavour from the two warships and the three recon drones overloaded her stealth coating and allowed the destroyers to get an exact location on her. It didn’t matter however, for the eight missiles that shot towards alpha one shouted to the entire system that Endeavour was in high orbit above Haven.
“This is about to get real hairy,” James said. “Mallory, keep updating the positions of those drones you let loose.”
“Aye Sir,” Mallory said, his attention already focused on his command console where he was directing the drones that he had fired off into various points in the system.
The first salvo of missiles dove into Haven’s gravity well towards their target. The destroyer was accelerating directly towards Endeavour and as soon as it got a firm lock it fired a single missile from its forward missile tube.
“Alpha two is turning,” Malik shouted. “It’s bringing its port broadside to bear on us.”
A good try, James thought, but it’s not going to work. Whoever was commanding the two destroyers was trying to get alpha one into plasma range of Endeavour to cause enough critical damage to prevent her from escaping. To cover alpha one’s approach, alpha two was going to pelt missiles at Endeavour from long range. James didn’t intend to let alpha one survive long enough to get into plasma range.
“Take the safeties off the impulse engines,” James said over a COM channel to Chief Driscoll. “We need everything they have got.”
“Aye, Aye, Sir,” Driscoll said in his thick Irish accent.
“Firing second salvo from our rear tubes,” Becket announced. “The first will enter attack range in thirty seconds.”
Fools, James thought as he watched the missiles home in on alpha one. As all eight were going straight at alpha one’s nose, it meant only a fraction of her point defenses were able to engage them. Just as expected, as point defense plasma bolts and AM missiles reached towards Endeavour’s missiles it quickly became clear they weren’t going to be enough.
Three missiles survived to burst through the defensive fire. A last-ditch nose dive by the Indian destroyer caused all three to fail to get direct hits, but the proximity explosions from two of the missiles were close enough to bathe the destroyer in electromagnetic energy.
“We got them Sir,” Becket called excitedly. “Looks like their port amidships section has taken some serious damage. Quite a few sensor and point defense blisters have been burnt off their hull. Can’t see any hull breaches though.”
“Keep it up,” James ordered.
He spared a couple of seconds to look at the system wide holo plot to see what the rest of the Indian ships were doing. Their reactions weren’t too surprising. Three larger warships had broken away from the Indian fleet in orbit around Haven and were accelerating after Endeavour. At their current rates, they wouldn’t be able to catch his ship on their own. They would have help though. More than two thirds of the ships that were in the outer system were now speeding towards his ship. It looked like they were forming up into a cone formation to block off any possible direction he wo
uld take. No matter where Endeavour went, two or even three warships would be able to bring her into missile range. The resultant engagement would likely give the pursuing cruisers a chance to catch him. Not good, James thought.
His attention was brought back to the immediate battle when the now familiar sound of the flak cannons opening up told him the Indian missiles were entering attack range.
“Four down,” Becket called out. “I’ve got the rest,” she added as she directed the fire of the point defenses gunners.
Within ten seconds the final three Indian missiles disappeared off the plot. No sooner had they been dispatched than another two missiles erupted from Endeavour’s rear tubes. With her missile crews operating in rapid fire mode they were only inputing the barest of targeting information into the missiles before they were fired. The close range to alpha one meant there was no need to spend the time to work out the complicated targeting specifications a longer shot needed.
This meant that barely four minutes after the first salvo crashed into alpha one, two more missiles came crashing in. Becket cursed as the destroyer’s point defenses took out one of the missiles. When the remaining missile overshot its target and exploded quite a distance away from the destroyer, she shouted, “Come on, take a hit.”
“No apparent damage,” Malik reported a few seconds after the explosion near the destroyer. He carefully avoided looking at Becket.
“They won’t survive another salvo,” Becket said crossly. Her tone suggested it was more of a promise than a prediction.
She proved true to her word for after Endeavour effortlessly swatted away the incoming Indian missiles, one of Becket’s two missiles scored another proximity hit on alpha one.
“We’re starting to pull away,” Mallory said, “It looks like alpha one’s maximum acceleration was only about two hundred and twenty gravities. It’s starting to fade. That last hit must have caused some internal damage. We are already exceeding two eighty.”
James nodded to Mallory to acknowledge the unspoken warning. Endeavour’s impulse engines were rated for a maximum safe acceleration rate of two hundred and seventy gravities. Anything more was risking a critical failure that would leave Endeavour a sitting duck. Opening a COM channel to Chief Driscoll James said, “Hold our acceleration at two eighty for another ten minutes then dial it back Chief.”
“A wise decision Sir, I can’t guarantee what would happen if we exceed two eighty,” Driscoll replied.
“Point taken Chief,” James said, cutting the COM channel.
He focused on the third wave of Indian missiles. Alpha one and two were now coordinating their fire so that the five missiles from alpha two and the single one from alpha one were coming at Endeavour at the same time. Whilst the Indian missiles were good, with her flak cannons Endeavour was designed to be able to protect herself against upwards of ten incoming missiles of the latest British designs. James felt no concern as he watched the Indian missiles fail to penetrate his defensive fire.
“Got them,” Becket shouted, bringing James attention back to the missiles she had fired at alpha one.
Switching to the optical feed of alpha one, he saw the destroyer veering away from her original course in a haphazard roll. As the starboard side of the ship came into view he saw a massive hole between two of her missile tubes. As he watched a series of secondary explosions rippled through the innards of the ship and her acceleration cut out.
“Good shooting,” James congratulated Becket.
“Alpha two is slowing down,” Malik reported. “They will be out of missile range in five minutes.”
“They don’t want to share the fate of their sister ship,” James said. “I don’t think they will go too far though. I imagine they are going to try and stay right on our heels. Becket, keep firing at them, our missiles will have to go into ballistic mode for some of their flight. The Indian captain will have to keep altering course if they want to avoid them, that should gain us a little more space.”
James took a moment to check the status of the other Indian ships in the system before he continued giving orders.
“Aim for the left edge of the enemy’s formation as we face it Jennings,” he said once he had formulated a plan. “They will try and move their ships to keep us in the center. I want you to match their movements.”
“Yes Sir,” the Navigation officer replied.
*
Forty minutes after leaving alpha two behind, Endeavour reached her maximum speed of 0.38c. “Cut all acceleration,” James ordered. “Put us into stealth mode. Bring us to a new heading of five seven six point four.”
As his bridge crew carried out his orders James watched the holo plot to see how the Indians would respond. To them it must have looked like Endeavour was racing to the edge of their formation to try and fight her way past the patrol ships before the larger cruisers could catch up with her. Now they would have to come to terms with the idea that James wanted to play hide and seek.
Whoever was in command of the Indian ships wasn’t as slow as he had hoped, within a minute of Endeavour going into stealth over thirty new contacts appeared on the gravimetric plot.
“Recon drones,” Malik reported. “They are all heading in our general direction.”
“Map out where the Indians will be estimating we are,” James ordered.
“There you go Sir,” Malik said as a bubble appeared around Endeavour on the main holo display. The Indians would be aware of Endeavour’s last known speed and direction. However, they had no idea what she did after she went into stealth. She could have reversed, continued on the same flight path or turned in any other direction. As the minutes went by, the bubble of space marking out where Endeavour could be increased exponentially.
Despite the fact that she was heading almost straight towards the approaching Indian patrol ships, it would still take the drones they had fired another hour to reach Endeavour’s location. That meant they would be more than forty light minutes away from their motherships when they began their search. As a result, they couldn’t report back their findings, nor could they receive orders, in real time. Something James had planned for.
“Mallory, wait until the first Indian drones enter Malik’s bubble. Then I want you to light yours up,”
“Aye Sir,” Mallory said grinning. “We’ll give them more contacts than they can handle.”
“Exactly. Fire off any more drones you think you need,” James said.
Having already planned their route of escape before opening fire on alpha one, James had given Mallory the task of working on his part of the plan several hours ago. He now had over twenty normal and stealth recon drones nearby.
“The Drones are switching on their search radars,” Malik informed everyone when the drones approached the bubble that marked out Endeavour’s potential location.
Mallory put his plan into motion. On the holo plot a new contact appeared for a couple of seconds and then disappeared. Endeavour’s computer estimated that the thermal bloom her sensors had picked up had been from a ship using its maneuvering thrusters to change direction.
It seemed the limited artificial intelligence on two of the nearest drones had come to the same conclusion as they altered course to investigate. As soon as they came into the general area of Mallory’s drone he activated a second and then five minutes later a third.
Fifty minutes after Mallory had activated the first drone, the time it took for the drones to send their sensor data to the patrolling warships and for new orders to be sent back, ten of the drones broke off their search patterns and began a more intensive search in the area of Mallory’s first drone. Then, in quick succession, a number of revisions to the drones’ orders obviously came in as the drones began to move back and forth across the space around Endeavour, frantically trying to check out all the contacts they were picking up.
“It’s working,” Mallory said.
“Yes, now let’s see if they take the bait,” James replied.
For another forty minu
tes Endeavour moved silently into the outer system. All the while the patrol craft continued to approach the general area Endeavour had to be in. Then, as James watched, the formation of over sixteen patrol craft shifted as they came onto a new heading.
“Activate the rest of the drones,” James ordered.
“Done,” Mallory said. In response to his order six drones gave off signals that mimicked Endeavour in one fashion or another.
“Some of the recon drones are diverting to investigate our latest drones,” Malik said. “The patrol ships are staying on their courses though.
“Perfect,” James said. Mallory had carefully activated his drones in a manner that would slowly pull the Indian search towards one end of the large bubble that represented the area of space Endeavour could have got to in stealth mode. It had taken a while for the pattern to become recognizable, but the Indian Admiral had finally seen it. Just as James had wanted. Now the Indian Admiral was directing all their ships into the area where it looked like James had been trying to hide Endeavour.
