Hunter nodded, but didn’t smile, a cold glint in his eyes. “It’ll work.” He thrust his chin out, almost defiantly, but there was something in his eye. “I’m staking my life on it.”
“I wish I had your confidence, Captain.”
Hunter blinked, and suddenly it was like Hawthorne was talking to a completely different person as the man’s demeanour changed, deflated. Gone was the self-assuredness, the spark of arrogance in his eyes, replaced instead by an aura that could easily be mistaken for a frightened teenager – shoulders slouched, head down, fists clenching.
“Confidence, Admiral?” Hunter parroted, his tone incredulous. He shook his head slowly. “You have no idea how draining it is to put on this façade of… poise. I am not nearly as confident as I should be.” The younger captain sighed heavily, his gaze fixated on some invisible point beside Hawthorne. “The truth is, I am terrified. Petrified, even – you may have signed off on this battle plan, Admiral, but I came up with it.” His eyes slitted as his voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s a terrible burden, to be saddled with the knowledge that you may have just saved… or destroyed… your entire species.”
Silence descended between the two men while Hawthorne considered Hunter’s monologue. Hawthorne had often wondered if Hunter’s bravado had been faked in any way, but the man did it with such apparent ease that Hawthorne had honestly felt that the man was naturally vain.
“Well,” Hawthorne said, trying to smile reassuringly in the face of this newfound vulnerability. “I’m sure we’ll win.”
Hunter smiled mirthlessly. “I wish I had your confidence.”
*
“All sections have reported in, Captain. Board is green.”
Celina Yuen nodded curtly at her XO, Commander Maita Sumio, said, his crisp Tokyo accent cutting above the background din of the cramped bridge of the Nagano. He was new to the post of First Officer, though was enthusiastic and competent enough, and he’d gained a fair bit of experience quite quickly on several ships-of-the-line before Yuen had chosen him as her XO.
The Nagano was an older ship, but was in good repair, and had been assigned as an escort to the flagship, the Vindicator, and was newer (and more capable) than her old Reverent… still, the Nagano lacked the charm and aesthetics that the Reverent had had, though that may have just been nostalgia talking.
A ship is a ship, Yuen thought to herself triumphantly, still a little giddy over having her own ship again… and not being a token CO on a nearly-defunct world that had no significance to anything or anyone.
Some of the crew under her had served with her before – Stemmons, in Sickbay, had been a first-year nurse on the Reverent before it had been blown up from under him; Liu, her astrophysics officer, had been a neutral, if not friendly, face on the Cordova, and a few of her ground-pounders – slang for the marines the ship carried – had served under her on Wallace.
So far, she’d encountered very little of the resentment that had been thrown her way at the start of the war. Either people had felt that she’d done her penance… or they’d gotten over it. Or both.
Or perhaps they realize that they need every able soldier they can get, a quiet voice at the back of her head suggested. Yuen shook the thought away. It had no place here, not now – she had a job to do. She’d gotten her second chance, and she was determined not to let history repeat itself.
“Very good, Commander. Begin charging FTL capacitors. Synchronize our departure with the Vindicator.”
“Aye sir.”
*
“Captain Shanthi, is my flagship ready?”
Admiral Hawthorne eased into the command chair on the bridge of the dreadnaught Vindicator; around him, the background din of his crew was like music to his ears. Not that it made him feel any less tense, but it pleased him that his crew were attending to their duties without a tangible sense of fear permeating the air. Sad though it was, only two-thirds of the crew of the Vindicator were veterans; the other third either hadn’t seen much combat, or were fresh from the training academies.
His senior advisors – Hunter, Garret, Numberi – were clustered around the central C&C, examining their data feeds intensely; aside from greeting him when he stepped onto the central walkway of bridge, they’d ignored him. The rest of his advisory staff from Strategic Operations were distributed to the other command ships, including the Arizona and the Ravager.
The fleet was assembled and should have been fully prepared by now; five dreadnaughts, including the Vindicator, with twenty cruisers and nearly sixty smaller vessels, all supported by nearly a thousand fighters and bombers that were contained within their hulls. All told, there was nearly 33,000 troops committed to this coming battle.
As ever, Captain Shanthi was waiting nearby, his perennial shadow, stalking the portside work stations like a tiger on the prowl. Like him, she was dressed in full combat regalia, her hand resting on the holster of her standard-issue pistol as she gazed over the shoulders of the other bridge officers.
“The fleet is ready, Admiral,” she finally declared, getting a final nod from the Flight Operations Officer. “All fighter squadrons are prepped, and your flagship awaits your command.” Shanthi’s voice was carefully modulated to sound cool and even, despite the fact she, too, had reservations about this plan.
All war entails risk, he repeated to himself, his hands rubbing over the ends of the arms of his chair. “Begin the countdown, then,” Hawthorne said, smiling wistfully as he gazed out over the bow of the Vindicator. “Prepare for battle.”
Chapter Three
“Good shot, Lead.”
Emil Palhares tried to contain his enthusiasm as yet another N’xin fighter fell to his guns; this was his fourth kill in this battle alone, and from the swarm of activity around him it wouldn’t be his last.
“Thanks, Shapiro,” Palhares said, banking his fighter – one of the new Seraph IIIs – to port as he started yet another pursuit of a N’xin fighter. “How’s the battle looking?”
The Battle for Horus had started off well enough – the Commonwealth taskforces had dropped out of FTL on schedule and on point – the Bellicose first, then the F D Roosevelt, progressing on schedule until all forces were present and accounted for. The Vindicator’s taskforce – consisting of the dreadnaughts Vindicator, Ravager and Adjudicator, and forty of their support ships – arrived arrayed for battle, their hangars spewing hundreds of fighters and spawning even more in reserve.
Unfortunately, the N’xin presence in the system was heavier than their intel had suggested, with the defenders of the moon significantly bolstered by two extra dreadnaughts and fifteen smaller warships – including seven of their newest cruisers.
Even as Palhares waited for a response a fierce salvo of scarlet energy snatched out from the dreadnaught Ravager, converging on a N’xin cruiser five hundred kilometres from it. The alien vessel’s shields held for an instant, a translucent blue sphere of energy, before that bubble burst, and the final darts of energy from the barrage penetrated deep into it amidships – the N’xin cruiser didn’t explode, but it severed into pieces, its internal lights flickering and dying as orange flames licked out from the point of separation.
Even as the cruiser died, however, its support ships – a needle-like frigate and a beefier-variant that barely fit into the destroyer-class – returned fire, laying into the Ravager with what amounted to BB guns – the larger Commonwealth behemoth absorbed the weapons fire easily, its point-defence cannons blasting back with impunity, its heavy weapons too inaccurate against the smaller craft to be effective at these distances.
Still, those PD cannons can keep their shields honest, and allow our smaller ships a crack at them. Even as Palhares finished that thought, however, an alternative revealed itself – a squadron of bombers sailed down like a pelican, unleashing a blistering hail of nuclear-tipped missiles.
“You can kiss that patrol group goodbye,” Shapiro muttered, but made no further comment as the nuclear payloads exploded in spectacularly
blinding fashion – seconds later, the N’xin ships were nothing more than a field of expanding debris.
“The battle seems to be progressing well enough, given the surprises we’ve had,” Lieutenant Savali offered, his tone grim. “Let’s just hope they don’t have any more reinforcements tucked away somewhere.”
“Agreed,” Palhares said, eying a distant N’xin cruiser and its escorts of two destroyers. The rectangular cigar-shaped craft was being swarmed by Commonwealth fighters and their N’xin counterparts; the frigates Lancer, Cameroon and Merkel, in conjunction with the heavy cruiser Chicago, were bearing down on it, keeping their distance while exchanging non-crippling blows.
“Vindicator Control to all fighters,” the female voice of Control filtered through the comm. “Quadrants D-23 and 24 are facing stiff opposition. Rally up with squadrons Nine and Ten from the Stalingrad and help them out.”
“What’s our target?” Commander Beckett – of Razer Squadron – asked.
“There’s a pair of N’xin dreadnaughts and a screen of thirty capital ships. They seem intent on holding that moon. It’s impeding our progress; you blow one of the dreadnaughts, our forces can break through the gap.”
Palhares blanched, making a sudden swerve to avoid a sizzling hulk of debris. N’xin dreadnaughts, while inferior to the modern Commonwealth version, were no slouches, and took a lot of killing; if they were acting with their own support ships, it became even more problematic.
“Surely there’s more than just us attending the party, Control,” he asked, slightly appalled.
“You’ll be acting as an additional screen for the Arizona and her escorts.”
“Understood, Control.”
“Copy Control,” Palhares added, as a triplet of energy lances flashed past his viewport. Palhares swore silently, twisting his fighter to starboard and making a dive, holding that dive for two seconds before slewing his craft to port. His sensors showed him that he had a pair of N’xin fighters on his rear, dogging him determinedly.
“I need a little help here.” He snap-rolled onto his port wing and began a corkscrew climb, reversing the snap-roll after a few hundred metres and then beginning a steep dive that threw him back into his flight seat – fighter dampening systems weren’t as complex as those aboard a capital ship, meaning that pilots had to be very careful about not allowing themselves to be blacked-out by their own manoeuvres.
“Cut right, Commander,” Lieutenant Lawson snapped, and Palhares did so reflexively – as he straightened his fighter up he saw her fighter flash past, cannons blazing, and there was a pair of bright explosions behind him. “You’re clear, sir.”
“Our area is clear, actually,” Savali chimed in. “The few remaining N’xin fighters we left are fleeing back to their lines.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Palhares said as he lined his fighter up on a course for quadrant. The moon of Horus III – where the N’xin shipyards were located – filled out much of his forward viewport, despite still being five million kilometres away. “Form up on me. The Vindicator wants us to make a hole in the N’xin flank, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
*
“Damage report!”
Smoke clung to the air, stinging Lauren Carmichael’s eyes as she steadied herself, grasping the right arm of her command chair as the deck around her continued to shake, no doubt the residue from damaged systems inflicted on that last N’xin salvo. The smoke come from the smouldering ruins of one of the aft auxiliary consoles, which had overloaded and exploded before any safety systems could compensate.
Whatever the damage to her ship, Lauren knew that the Endurance was in better condition than her attackers – that ship had fallen to the Renegade-class cruisers superior firepower in spectacular fashion, the first detonation beginning at the rear engine block and making its way forward in the span of a few milliseconds; its comrades-in-arms (three Type-C frigates and a single Type-F destroyer) detonated mere seconds later under sustained fire from the Endurance’s support ships and squadrons.
“Defence shields holding… barely.” That was her Chief Engineer, Commander Adams. “We’ve got a hull breach on deck ten, but it’s contained. Propulsion systems damaged, but functional.”
“FTL drive?”
“Operational, Captain, for the moment. Are we fleeing?”
“Divert more power to the shields, Andrew,” Lauren snapped, shaking her head and closing the channel instead of answering his question. Flee, like a whipped dog? Not on her watch, not when the stakes were this high. “Status of weapons?”
“Fully operational, Captain,” Lieutenant Avery reported. Despite the commotion on the bridge, he had managed to maintain his position at his station, the only sign of being perturbed was the soot that dirtied his face. “Torpedo tubes are reloading as we speak.”
Lauren nodded, tapping a command into the console attached to her chair, calling for a tactical map. The Endurance, attached to the group led by the dreadnaught Adjudicator, had fallen out of formation during its battle with its now-deceased foe, angling away from the epicentre of the battle. The Richmond-class destroyer Kursk was still tucked in beside it, damaged though it was; her sister-ship, the Salisbury, had been destroyed ten minutes earlier, with all hands lost.
The Adjudicator herself was making progress, of a sort, bearing down on the N’xin defenders with a predatory grace… but it was a progress that couldn’t last much longer, at least, not without additional help. The three dreadnaughts of the main attack force – Vindicator, Ravager and Adjudicator – were approaching a phalanx of N’xin warships – including three dreadnaughts of their own. The space between the two groups were flooded with fighters, and the outer edges of the fleet were beginning to trade blows with their opponents.
“Helm, get us back into formation,” Lauren ordered as she resumed her seat, reaching up with a hand and fixing the loose strands of hair that had begun to impair her vision. “And get me a casualty report!”
“Helm is sluggish, ma’am.”
“Do what you can, then,” Lauren said, trying to sound reassuring as she resumed her attention on the tactical map. “Inform the Adjudicator that her flank is still protected and request instructions,” Lauren continued, nodding at her communications officer.
Even as she finished talking, her First Officer, Commander Chang, had flashed her a casualty report on her VA: seven dead, eleven wounded. That was only going to go up.
“Sir, the Vindicator has redeployed our fighter screen…” Avery reported suddenly, and punched up the new orders on the tactical map.
Lauren blinked in surprise, staring at the hologram for long seconds, watching as scores of Commonwealth fighters zoomed away from the Navy fleet… straight for the shipyards beyond the Hegemony forces.
“What the actual fuck…?”
*
“That’s where they want us to go?” Emil Palhares couldn’t quite believe his new orders, but that didn’t stop him from snap rolling on his starboard wing and swinging over the dorsal superstructure of the Vindicator. Ahead of him the N’xin defenders were distant, deformed specs of shapes and light that spread from horizon to horizon.
That would change soon enough.
“That’s affirmative, Commander Palhares.”
“Great,” Palhares said, signing off as he pushed his throttle to maximum as the remainder of his squad – nine fighters in total – formed up around him in a typical V-formation. Within seconds, the pointed, dagger-like prowl of the Vindicator was behind him, and they were sailing over the top of the Repulse.
“So, if we aren’t going to the moon anymore, where are we going? And what are we doing.”
Palhares grimaced as he updated his squadron with a data squirt from the Vindicator. “We’re engaging the enemy, Lieutenant.”
*
“How confident of this plan are you in this change of strategy, Captain Hunter?”
James glanced up from his terminal to Captain Shanthi – whose severe frown never s
eemed far away from the surface, at least when he was around. She had taken a moment from overseeing the operations of her bridge crew to interrogate him about his recent amendment to their battle orders.
“About as confident as I was when I helped plan this battle, Captain,” James bit out through gritted teeth. Despite being the same rank as the over-bearing woman, Shanthi, being the senior attaché to the C&C, as well as the commander of the flagship, had seniority.
It wasn’t that he disliked her… he just didn’t have much time for her.
Nor did he have time to mollify her concern over his new tactics. It was a gamble – what plan wasn’t? – but James counting on the fact that the N’xin would be so protective of their shipyards – where more than five hundred of the Navy’s fighters and bombers were headed – to persecute a battle against the Commonwealth warships.
“Though I have to say, we stand a better chance at minimising our casualties than we did with our original tactics.”
Shanthi nodded mechanically, her gaze refusing to waver from the display of casualties as they gradually filtered in. He could at least admire her unyielding concern for the welfare of her troops was something a few of his compatriots could learn a lot from. “Is it working?”
James pointed to the tactical overlay. “So far half of the N’xin fighters harassing us are pursuing our fighters…. Actually, make that two-thirds. Our point-defence systems can handle the stragglers.” He looked her in the eye. “You can tell Admiral Hawthorne that we are cleared to advance to engage their capital ships in orbit of the moon.”
After Shanthi had stalked off – without even acknowledging James – David Garret, a native New Yorker of average height, but built like a tank, with fair hair, unassuming grey eyes and an easy-going demeanour, leaned in to whisper in his ear. “You could at least try to get along with her.”
James smirked. “That obvious, is it?”
“A bit, yes.”
*
“Scratch one dry-dock!”
Emil Palhares nodded assuredly as the nearly-completed N’xin cruiser was engulfed in flames as its skeletal parent that contained it disintegrated. Not bloodlessly, however – several Commonwealth fighters were incinerated trying to break off and flee from the death knells of the facility.
A Call to Arms Page 29
