With some assistance I got back to my feet and was helped onto my command couch. I was a little woozy from the painkillers and delighted that I didn’t have to go up any ladders – the navy called stairs ladders for some unknown and very ancient reason.
I began running tests from the bridge. Navigation had power, but was off-line, and that could prove to be a problem, so I asked the chief to put a crew on it. Radar was tracking properly, and our energy weapons and their tracking systems were now powered up, but at greatly reduced power. We couldn’t fire all ten lasers simultaneously.
I decided to put all the energy weapons under central control and fire them one at a time. The chief reported that he would get us some more power ‘soon’, but he didn’t promise anything. I knew that if it was possible, he would do it, so I didn’t press him.
We still had a handful of missiles and those had been loaded into the two remaining working forward tubes. The other two were jammed. We probably couldn’t do much with just seven missiles, but they would at least keep the bug fighters busy. Elian had ten missiles and he’d loaded his as well. I told him, “Elian, I want you to take overall control of the two ships. Our nav system is busted and we don’t think we can get it back up any time soon. At present we have enough power to fire one laser every two or three seconds, so we’ve put that system under central control. We’ll fight those from here while you keep us headed in the right direction.”
Elian said, “How’s your arm?’ I looked down at it and said, “At the moment it’s not bothering me. How’s your head, still just as ugly as ever?” He laughed and said, “Roberto, you have cause to be jealous, but this is not the right time for such a petty emotion. You should concentrate on ensuring that I stick around to help you out of your jam.” I laughed and said, “Well, OK, you pirate. I’ll pay you one credit for every bug fighter you can kill in the next hour, how’s that?”
Elian laughed and asked, “So little? I would have thought a bug fighter was worth more than that.” I laughed and said, “As we seem to have killed off anyone who might possibly be interested in picking up a nice used bug fighter, I think mine is going to be the best offer you’re going to get.” He sighed dramatically and said, “OK, you win. One credit for each fighter the Lee destroys. To keep you honest, I’m going to announce that offer to the entire crew.”
At that moment, my boards came back to life and Elian’s smiling face came up on the plot. I added, before he could say anything, “Just so you know, I have to be alive in order for you to get paid that exorbitant sum of money, so just you be certain they’re all dead, dead, dead.” He looked a little grim for a moment as he took in my arm and the mess we still had on the bridge. He smiled faintly at me and said, “Well, now we know just how tough the Dresden is. I estimate that that missile, the second one, detonated just three kilometers from your ship. It’s yield was approximately fifty megatons, so all in all, the fact that your ship is in one piece is a testament to its toughness.”
We kept our comm live, not wanting to be alone. By now we were tracking the fighters who were still overtaking us. They were coming up to long energy weapons range and Elian had already attempted to hit them. He was weaving his ship back and forth so he could unmask his energy weapons long enough to get off two shots on each swing
He got a good hit on one of the fighters. It didn’t explode but it lost power and began drifting, which was just as good. We now had fifty-two fighters left in this group, and behind them, the twelve destroyers were finally beginning to move our way.
The admiral commed me again. “Captain Padilla, what’s your status?” I replied, “Sir, we’ve got all our systems back on line and are making nine G’s. We’ve restored approximately twenty percent power, so our energy weapons are sub par until we can regain some more. We have fifty-two fighters coming up on one hundred thousand kilometers, and behind them, twelve destroyers at about five hundred thousand kilometers. Our immediate concern is preventing those fighters from getting in close to us. The Lee is fully functional and will provide most of our defensive weapons until we can restore more power. We’ve got a small number of missiles and they should be launching very soon now.”
The admiral said, “Robert, get your power back as quickly as possible. I’ll want a brief report when you get a chance. How close was that missile when it went off?” I said, “We believe it was three kilometers sir, fifty megatons.”
The admiral said, “It’s remarkable that your ship is in one piece. I’ll want a complete report, as soon as this present unpleasantness is finished.” I smiled faintly, as I knew he was telling me that he believed we would be alive to make those reports.
As the fighters closed to less than one hundred thousand kilometers the chief reported that he was able to give us some more power, perhaps as much as thirty percent. Good news, and just in time.
We began firing our energy weapons, in sync with Elian, whose ship was providing us the targeting selections until we could get our own targeting system back on line. The Lee was targeting fighters with single lasers, as we only needed to disable a fighter enough to put it out of the fight. The Grant destroyed our first fighter at seventy thousand kilometers. By then, the Lee had accounted for eleven. We now had forty left.
As they closed in on us, our accuracy went up, and we began to get more kills. At thirty thousand kilometers we only had twenty-two fighters left, but they were shooting back, and hitting us enough to burn part way through our armor.
We were getting hit very hard now, and if we didn’t kill those fighters off soon, we were going to begin to suffer serious damage. We got our fourth and fifth within a second or so of Elian’s ship hitting three simultaneously. Seventeen now, and all within twenty five thousand kilometers, nearly point blank.
Every shot of ours hit a target, leaving a trail of ugly boils of light. Finally, at a paltry ten thousand kilometers distance, one of their energy weapons burned through the armor and opened a compartment to space. Fortunately it was empty. The last seven fighters hit us repeatedly before they were blotted from existence. We lost three laser mounts and the ensuing backlash of energy caused fairly serious burns to ten more crewmen, some of whom had already been injured, but we were still under power.
We had only a momentary breather, as we had those twelve destroyers coming in as well. However, we hoped to be within the umbrella of the Constitution, which was sending thirty fighters to attack our group one destroyers. The balance of her fighters was attacking the three destroyers from group two, which represented the greater danger.
Meanwhile, the destroyers were launching missiles. Only three of them were missile boats, but we now had twenty missiles in flight.
At one hundred thousand kilometers we began lasing the missiles. Elian was weaving us back and forth, allowing us to unmask our main energy weapons. Elian coordinated it so that we always had one ship or the other in a position to fire.
In the next ten minutes we were able to destroy all the missiles before they got within sixty thousand kilometers, but the destroyers were now only one hundred fifty thousand kilometers distant. Because they started accelerating before we did, we were still losing ground to them.
We had a short rest as we waited for the next batch of missiles to get into range. During that time I talked to the chief who was still in engineering. He said, “Sir, we sustained a huge power overload when that missile went off, and we’ve run out of replacement parts. The designers never anticipated this large a load on the systems, and none of us did either. We can run and shoot a couple of lasers, but not all of them, and it’s going to take longer between shots to charge the capacitors back up. I’m sorry sir. I’ve got my best Etech trying to cobble one or two breakers from the bits and pieces, but I wouldn’t count on it. When we get a chance, we can borrow enough from the other Dresdens to get us home.”
I thanked him and turned back to our plot. I had three replacement crewmembers up on the bridge, one of them with his head bandaged up. I said, “Weps, charge
up all of the lasers and fire them all at one target, your choice which one, as long as it’s a missile boat. we need to know how long it takes to recharge.” She said, “Aye, sir.” And three minutes later she fired all seven remaining lasers at one of the lead destroyers. At a distance of one hundred thirty thousand kilometers we hit the destroyer with enough energy to do some damage, although it didn’t seem to affect its ability to launch missiles.
It took us two full minutes to recharge our capacitors. We fired at the same destroyer, hitting it again. Over the next six minutes we hit it three more times, each shot causing greater damage, but it was still under power and closing on us.
On the next hit we saw atmosphere spew out and it stopped firing missiles. Elian was doing the same thing with one of the other two missiles boats, but we beat his crew, a fact that I took the pains to point out. I said, “Elian, under the terms of our contract, you now owe me one credit for that destroyer.” I had our conversation broadcast to the entire ship, as I thought they might like to know how we were doing. Elian laughed and said, “Robert, oh Robert, where did I go wrong? Was it in flight school, when I took you under my wing? Well, wherever it was, you weren’t listening. Our contract says that you owe me one credit for each destroyer the Lee kills, there was nothing said about me paying you.” I could hear my bridge crew trying to keep their laughter from actually becoming hearable, somewhat successfully.
I grinned at my bridge mates and said, “But Elian, as you must assuredly know, if a contract exists, there must be benefits and obligations on both parties, or it is not a contract. Therefore, you owe me one credit.”
I looked over at my plot and noticed that a second destroyer had fallen out of the formation and was tumbling. Elian came back on and said, “OK, by your distorted version of reality, we are even, as it was my own crew’s superior skill that just eliminated one bug destroyer.”
As the destroyers approached one hundred thousand kilometers one of them figured out what we were doing that enabled us to fire back at them. First one, then all of them began weaving back and forth along their main course and firing their energy weapons as they momentarily came to bear on us. Ten destroyers is a lot of destroyer, and we began to get hit. At that range, they weren’t able to do much more than warm us up, but they were going about it as aggressively as possible. The Lee could have accelerated hard enough to already be opening up the distance, but she had remained at our side.
At my suggestion we began to move around in non-recurring patterns in an effort to keep them from hitting us. It worked well enough to give us another five minutes.
By now, they were down below one hundred thousand kilometers, which was a long range shot for us, and even worse for their lasers, which were not as good as ours. At this range, they couldn’t put enough energy on target to do any damage, despite the fact that their output was equal to ours.
Both our ships ganged up on the third missile boat and it detonated in six minutes of sustained fire. We now had a few incoming missiles in flight, but they were easily dealt with. Our worry was that the nine remaining destroyers not get into close enough range to begin hitting us with some real power. They were not very many minutes away from doing just that. Ten, approximately.
During the next ten minutes, we took out two more destroyers. Now, their lasers were hitting with more force, and that force would go up geometrically as they closed on us.
I commed the admiral and said, “Sir, their seven remaining destroyers are now within effective energy weapons range. We’ve initiated a pattern of unpredictable weaves that has reduced their accuracy, but it is inevitable that sooner or later we’re going to get hit hard enough to damage us.”
The admiral looked to the side at his plot and said, “Robert, hold out for ten more minutes. I’ve ordered our fighters to launch their missiles now, and they should pass your position within moments. Is your IFF functional?” I looked quickly at my communications officer and he nodded his head. I told the admiral, “Yes sir, it’s functional. Thank you sir, for asking.”
The admiral grinned at me and said, “You are a lucky man, Captain Padilla, but even an old as dirt admiral recognizes insubordination when he hears it. Remember Station 86?” I laughed, and we signed off. I liked the admiral. I asked the bandaged replacement to replay the conversation, producing more laughter around the ship.
My navigation officer, actually an ETech asked, “Sir, where, or what is Station 86?” I grinned and said, “Once, I threatened one of my officers with getting sent to Station 86, which, of course, doesn’t exist. However, she, the officer, didn’t know that and she must have made a very exhaustive search, looking for it. I say that because the admiral threatened me with it about a day later.” She laughed and I could feel the tension on the bridge drop noticeably.
Elian and I continued to fire as fast as our systems could charge. The outgoing flight of missiles blew past us on their way to their targets. We killed one more destroyer just before the missiles hit.
Just before that, we got hit, hard. We were on a weave when the laser hit, up near the bow. It took out our primary radar antennas, but we didn’t lose any more crew.
The missiles destroyed five of the remaining destroyers. Now there was one. It continued forging ahead, firing its lasers on each swing, just as we were doing. We got hit twice more, but not hard enough to cause additional damage. We nailed the last remaining destroyer at seventy five thousand kilometers. It lost power, began to tumble and then exploded violently.
Our portion of the battle was finished. Those three remaining destroyers from group two had been blotted from existence by an overwhelming number of missiles moments before we killed our final enemy destroyer.
For a few moments we continued on, then I told navigation, “Bring us back to a heading for the Constitution group please, and reduce acceleration to six gravities. Stand down from battle stations. First priority is to restore power, second, let’s see if there’s enough power available to burn some steaks.” I could hear cheers all over the ship as they learned that we had run out of bugs to kill.
I left the bridge and went immediately to sickbay. We had a fair mix of broken bones and concussions, but nothing life threatening. I spent some time talking to my injured, telling them about the battle. Everyone seemed upbeat, perhaps because we had once again survived. My crew universally considered an injury to be far superior to death. They were proud to be serving on a Dresden, which most of my crew considered to be a cutting edge ship. I knew better. It was quite a bit older than they were, and its sister ship, the Lee, had failed at a critical juncture in the battle. We needed to get these ships into port for a thorough refit. The Grant, my ship, needed a lot more than a refit.
Within six hours all four elements of the Brezhnev fleet had rendezvoused and work was progressing at a feverish pace to resupply the Dresdens, Hawks and Kestrels with missiles. As far as we knew, we had no enemies left in this vicinity, but a war ship with no weapons is just a target.
The admiral ordered his fleet to get underway, away from the location of the recently concluded battle and commed Elian and I and asked us to shuttle over to the Brezhnev for an after-action report. We spent a little time putting together what we knew from our end and took our shuttles over a couple of hours early.
We met on the flight deck and shook hands somberly. Once again we had survived. Elian looked at me and said, “You know, that maneuver of yours meant that the bug missiles had only the one target, instead of two? You could have gotten hurt far worse than you actually did. By the way, please convey my sorrow to your crew over your casualties. You know, over all, we have been extraordinarily fortunate – in all the combat we have participated in we have lost very few people, not counting those early days, and the Essex. Perhaps, because of that, these deaths hurt, hurt a lot.”
I nodded somberly and we walked in a clump out of the hanger and towards the wardroom where the briefing was to be held. I had asked my exec and the master chief to come along, and
Elian had brought his exec as well. My exec was senior to me in terms of time served, but she didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that she was working for me. In fact, she told me, early on in our cruise, that she coveted her assignment. She had stated, “You two are always at the heart of the action, and so far it’s always been the other guys who didn’t come home.” I hadn’t known what to say to that, so said nothing, and merely nodded my head.
Elian’s exec was a lieutenant also, with wavy dark hair and a grin that seemed to have an effect on the women, most especially my exec. As we walked along I said, “Joan, can I offer you a handkerchief?” She looked at me blankly and asked, “A handkerchief? Why?” I grinned and said, “To wipe up the drool I see on your lips every time the Lee’s exec is anywhere near.” She gasped and smacked me on my good shoulder, but she also blushed.
I grinned at Elian who, as usual, noticed the byplay. He grinned widely and asked me, “Robert, do you have any swords on your ship?” I furrowed my brow and suggested, “You should ask my exec.” He looked expectantly at her and raised his eyebrows. She looked thoughtful and said, “I’m sure we must have someone on the crew who brought one. Why do you ask?”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 71
