by TR Cameron
“I say this for the final time, Deacon Raanja. The ship, its crew, and its captain follow orders. We do not improvise, except as needed during battle. Strategy is dictated by the marshal, until and unless we’re out of communication, at which time it will revert to me. Should that occur, you’re welcome to make strategic suggestions. Until that time, however, your statements border on both mutiny and heresy. I suggest," she said, stepping forward to invade his space, forcing him to take a stumbling step backward, “that you stifle your comments.” She stared him in the eye without blinking until he looked away. She sat back in her chair, carefully arranging her wings and resting her palms on the large arms. “Are we clear, Deacon?”
“I just—” the man began, but at a vicious glare from Indraat, he corrected himself and finished, “Yes, Squadron-Captain, we’re clear.”
“Very good. I thank you for your support. Now, take your position and stand by to speak with the rest of the vanguard.”
Indraat sat for a moment, gathering her thoughts into words, then signaled her communication officer. The tactical display on the main screen filled with images of each of her captains. She nodded at them, and they returned the gesture. “Gentlemen, ladies, do you have questions?”
“I do, an important one,” the speaker, a brash individual in command of the Sapphire Storm, growled each word he spoke. Indraat imagined she’d be reduced to violence within an hour of serving under him. “I don’t see why we wait here. We’re ready. We’ve been ready since the resupply ships left. Squadron-Captain, why do you hold us back from the attack we’re ordered to make?”
Indraat raised an eyebrow at him. He showed knowledge that his fellow captains lacked, and they displayed various levels of confusion because of it. She smiled inside at the discovery of one of Marshal Drovaa’s direct reports. Only those individuals would know she was using an altered version of the official orders, part of a contingency plan she and her uncle had developed. If questioned, the orders would appear genuine under anything other than a deep investigation, which would falsely reveal that she’d been duped by members of Drovaa’s staff. Moves and countermoves, she thought.
“Captain Breet, I am following the orders I received not seven hours ago from the marshal. Perhaps your information is out of date? In any case,” she said, her voice gaining a sharper edge, “remember that you do not lead this force. I do. And I will follow the commands I am given to the letter.”
“Perhaps you should no longer be in charge,” the man replied, his tone level and cold.
“A bold statement, Captain. What’s your rationale? We have a few moments to indulge your flight of fantasy.”
He stood, and the motion-tracking camera rose with him. “First, your loyalties are questionable. I have it on good authority that the marshal attempted to remove you from your position.”
Indraat waved a dismissive hand. “Rumors. Until proven, they’re meaningless. If the marshal wished to recall me, it would be a simple matter to do so. Would it not?”
She could see his internal debate, but he refused to take the bait. “Second, you’ve shown yourself to be timid, time and time again, thus failing to finish off our enemies.”
“Spoken as only one who doesn’t understand the strategic mandates of each battle, Ship-Captain. “You are a cog in the machine. Your ship and crew but a single part of the whole. You do not determine what that whole does, any more than a cog determines what is produced. Your tasks are limited in scope, fortunately for us all.”
His head snapped around from where he’d been conferring with his religious officer. The personal insult hadn’t missed its target. “Third, you aren’t worthy of your position. It was not earned. Many more appropriate personnel were passed over by your promotion… Awarded because of your family connections, not because of your accomplishments. This isn’t the way of our people. You should not be in command.”
“Ah, now the sun breaks through the clouds. I presume that you feel personally wronged by my promotion?” She was sure this was apparent to her captains. “So, you’ve aired your grievances. Are you planning to do more than talk, Ship-Captain," she said with a sneer, “or can we move on to the business at hand?”
She watched him think about it. She watched as he considered rallying his fellow officers against her. As he considered mutiny to remove the threat to the marshal. She smiled. She was ready, no matter his decision. The hierarch had predicted this long before it was a kernel in the captain’s mind.
“Let this battle be the judge. If you survive this combat, Squadron-Captain," he said with his own approximation of her sneer, “we’ll meet within the lines to settle this issue once and for all, with your life blood spilled on the deck.”
She gave a solemn nod for the benefit of those watching. “At your pleasure, Ship-Captain, I will meet you and end you. Until then, you will obey my orders to the very letter, or I will call upon this assemblage to blast the traitorous Sapphire Storm from the universe. Are we in accord?”
“We are in accord, Squadron-Captain.”
“So may it be.”
“So may it be.”
“Captains, with that tawdry business out of the way, we jump to attack in,” she checked her timepiece, “three eights from now. Expected targets are preassigned in the battle computer, and additional targets will be added once we arrive. Fight well, and soon our ancestors will leave the in-between to journey on to paradise.”
Twenty-four minutes later, the Xroeshyn forces vanished in sprays of color to once again take the battle to the humans.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Washington, DC blasted out of the wormhole in time to catch the color wash of the Xroeshyn arrival. “Those early warning drones did their job,” Cross said before launching into a slew of orders to get his ship into combat. The defensive forces assigned to Starbase 12 were spiraling out of their hangars. Ships that had been patrolling the outside portions of the sector rushed back from the perimeter, weapons already engaging the enemy.
The Xroeshyn moved together on the battle display, almost like a school of fish or a flock of birds. They split into two, then into two again, creating four marauding packs that targeted and attacked wherever they could find a numerical advantage.
“They’ve got a carrier in the sector, and that damned Floating fortress,” Jacobs said from the tactical station.
“Of course, they do,” Cross replied. “They clearly came to party. Sensors, look for the command ships. Helm, bring us around the outside, and when you see a flock coming in our direction, run. Meeting their overwhelming numbers head on would be a bad idea.” The two officers nodded in reply. “Weapons, let’s get our new torpedoes loaded and test them out as soon as we have a decent target.”
As the Washington skirted the battle, several of her fellow ships joined into the fray, arranged in mutual defense groups of four. They resembled a diamond—top, bottom, and two points on the sides. The arrangement allowed their defenses to overlap one another. One of the helm officers in each grouping had master control of all four ships—the battle computers keeping the others locked into position. The moment that one of the ships in the diamond took significant damage, the computer would engage a pre-planned dispersion pattern to protect the rest. The tactic hadn’t been tried yet against the Xroeshyn, and he had high hopes for its success.
“Any sign of the commanders?”
“We found the red ship, commander, but it’s in the middle of one of those packs, not hanging back as before.”
“Blast.” Cross narrowed his eyes at the display. “Okay, new plan. Let’s find some friends and attack the carrier.” The enemy fighters swarming around the sector like minnows were harassing the UAL capital ships at every opportunity. On their own, they were hardly more than a distraction. But aided by the weapons of the heavier vessels, they found angles to punch through weakened defenses with alarming accuracy.
“The New York, London, Montreal, and Vancouver are falling into pattern with us, Commander.”<
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“Very good,” Cross replied. “Weapons, coordinate our attacks with the other ships. Try to keep a constant flow of damage against their shields, rather than one large strike. If it doesn’t work, we can always return to throwing everything all at once.”
“On it, Commander,” Walsh replied. “Can’t wait to see our new torps blast some giant holes in that carrier.”
“Me too.”
The battle continued with losses of small ships on both sides. The UAL traded its bigger vessels for multiples of the smaller Xroeshyn ones. The math favored the aliens.
“Helm, weapons, tactical, set up your attack and execute.”
His four sister ships fell into line and all of them darted toward the carrier. The screen of fighters was the big ship’s first defense, but the energy weapons of the group made short work of them. The one or two that managed to close in were destroyed through clever use of the point defense cannons, which proved as effective against small fighters as they were against large torpedoes. Cross pretended not to hear Walsh’s exultant, “That’ll teach you, you bastards.”
The second layer of protection was a group of three capital ships, firing as the Union forces engaged the fighter screen. The Xroeshyn energy blasts blossomed against their shields, and an avalanche of small silvery particles flowed toward them. “Incoming mines, engage countermeasures.” Big military brains had created a response to the gravitic mines while the Washington was in space dock. Each ship would fire point defense cannons and low-powered energy weapon blasts to thin out the devices. Spiders, pre-programmed to recognize them, would use their magnetic feet to crawl the hulls and pry the little silver sabotage motes from the hull. Each ship had hundreds of crawlers for the task, and the engineers believed a single spider should be able to destroy at least three, and hopefully as many as ten of the infernal devices before the law of averages caught up with them and they were destroyed.
Confident that his ships’ defense was well in hand, Cross tapped a series of commands into his display, setting the Washington’s targeting lasers to three specific points in the center of the enemy’s shield arrays, furthest from the points of overlap. “Full broadsides, time to impact five seconds apart, fill in the gaps with energy weapons. Fire when ready.”
The Washington’s computers communicated the data to the other ships in Cross’s impromptu squadron. They fired, taking on the rightmost ship and pouring ten broadsides worth of damage at it in under a minute. The distance was far enough that the entire barrage was committed before the first ones reached their targets. Every person on the bridge groaned as their torpedoes bent away and spiraled off into space.
“Son of a mother,” Walsh yelled, smashing his hands down on his station, and speaking for them all.
“Plan B,” Cross said. “All broadsides strike at once, including energy weapons, forty seconds from… mark.”
He locked a new target on the midpoint of the shield protecting one of the ships’ engines and waited for the strikes to hit.
Just after it fired, the Washington dipped and Cross felt her heel over. On the main display, he saw a sequence of missiles fly by, just missing the ship. Their shields lit up with the impact of multiple energy weapons.
“Tactical, report.”
“I don’t have one, Commander. The computer has no source on those weapons.”
Cross cursed inwardly. It would be just like the aliens to develop some new and nasty technology in the interim between this battle and the last. “Affirmative, Jacobs. Stay on your toes.” He looked up in time to see the results of his own squadron’s attack and smiled with grim enthusiasm as energy weapons melted the ship’s engines to slag before penetrating into the superstructure. When the ship exploded, it sprayed shrapnel into the one next to it, which the squadron capitalized on with another barrage of projectiles and energy, ending that ship as well.
“Communication, tell the Vancouver and New York to split off and attack the last defender.”
Cross hit several switches to activate a channel to the remaining two ships of his squadron. “Captains, we’ll go after the carrier. Even though there are three of us, the likelihood that we can take it completely out of the battle is minimal. Concentrate all fire on the hangar bays. Let’s strand those fighters in space and keep it from launching any more.” He clicked off without waiting for a response, trusting they would follow his orders.
“Commander,” the sensors officer said, “the battle group led by the Ruby Rain is inbound to our location.” Cross refocused on the display and saw several emergency beacons, the debris of the hunting pack’s last targets. “Dammit,” Cross breathed. “Let’s see if we can draw them off. Sensors, find a ship that doesn’t seem to be doing anything useful and get them to replace us. Communication, transfer squadron command to the Montreal and hook the others in with her.” Cross took a moment to examine the battle display and found a relatively unoccupied section of the sector. “Helm, come around to 239, 40 high, engines full.”
A new voice came across Cross’s earpiece, as the admiral on the Anchorage, charged with overall command, initiated one of the pre-planned tactics. Cross immediately executed his orders.
“Helm, set tunnel jump coordinates to position for X thirty-seven, Y zero, Z zero. Tactical, disperse tunnel protectors.” One-point defense cannon on each UAL ship featured new ammunition. He imagined the gun firing and spewing tiny black particles with a radiation-absorbing coding that the scientists thought would prevent the Xroeshyn from seeing them or picking them up on instruments. Each ship covered a target area, and as they fired a tertiary display showed the projected positions of all the devices.
On the main display, his attention was caught by the flock of birds around the red ship reorienting to pursue the Washington. Incoming projectiles were already stitching imaginary lines between them. Cross noted the increased defensive power given to the appropriate shields on his ship. “I don’t think she likes us, Kate” he quipped.
She looked up from coordinating with the ships that had been under the Washington’s subcommand and responded, “You seem to have that effect on women, Cross.” The poorly stifled laughter of his officers rewarded the devastating power of Kate’s shot, and Cross bowed his head in acknowledgment.
“Message to—”
Cross was cut off as the Washington shook under the barrage of what had to have been a full broadside targeted against her weaker front shields, which promptly collapsed. More projectiles smacked into the hull, catalyzing explosions across the nose of the ship and collapsing the repaired shuttle bay.
“Helm, evasive pattern gamma. Tactical, balance shields. Countermeasures.” The point defense cannons fired again, picking off elements of the incoming third barrage. Their own antimissile torpedoes launched, destroying several more of the inbound bogies. Cross turned to the sensor officer, who was frantically slapping his instruments and shaking his head. “Attacker is unidentified.”
Cross watched as his officers worked, running for the closing gap ahead of the hunting pack. He calculated the odds and found them less appealing than he’d like. “Communication, open a channel to Admiral Thomas.” Moments later, he was connected. “Admiral, recommend we move to phase two, or a bunch of us won’t be around for it.” He paused as another barrage struck the Washington, knocking out the main electrical feed. The backup activated, leaving the bridge dim and smoky.
“Affirmative, Washington. Anchorage out.”
The battle display split and a new window opened, controlled by the admiral. A countdown clock appeared, showing thirteen and descending.
“Hold it together, baby,” he breathed, willing the ship to survive for just a few more seconds. As the clock counted down to two, the enemy weapons locked into place and he knew he could wait no longer. “Tunnel jump, execute.”
The Washington vanished, only to reappear along the far edge of the sector at a safe distance from the Xroeshyn forces. In moments, all the UAL ships had disappeared and returned, creating a st
raight line across the border, each filling a separate box on the imaginary grid that described the territory. As the Xroeshyn ships scrambled to respond, the UAL forces took a deep collective breath. The smoke was increasing, even though the filters were working to eliminate it. “Kate, head down to the auxiliary bridge with Martin.” She nodded and was soon obscured by the closing lift doors.
The rest of his crew hadn’t been briefed on the details of the plan. Their anticipation was palpable as they waited for his orders. It escaped no one’s notice that the countdown clock was counting again, this time from thirty seconds.
“You’re going to like this, my friends,” Cross said. “And the Xroeshyn are most definitely not going to like it.”
Twenty-seven ticks later, as the clock hit zero, two of the three other sides of the square that described the boundaries of the sector filled up. On one side were the retrofitted capital ships of the United Atlantic League, led by Admiral James Okoye on the Chicago. On the opposite edge, a squadron of Alliance vessels tunneled into the space.
Cross smiled, wishing he could see the look on the enemy commander’s face. “All right, witch. You want to tussle? Let’s tussle.”
As one, the forces of the UAL and AAN descended upon the invaders in a classic pincer movement that hearkened back to the earliest days of Earth warfare.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Beijing appeared in the sector along with the rest of his squadron, aligned at right angles to the UAL armada. Everything stood still for several moments as the forces negotiated their relationships to one another—their computers exchanging signals, testing for the first time a shared system that would allow the ships to coordinate their activities. His comm unit crackled, and he waved at his communication officer to accept the signal.
