The Rampant Storm

by J. Alan Field

  “She still hasn’t fully bought in,” observed Adams, “they’re slowing but keeping some distance.”

  “I see it, XO,” said Pettigrew in an annoyed voice. “I was sure she would get right in our face.”

  “You don’t pull a knife on someone if you suspect they may still have a gun in their pocket—sir,” Adams countered. “You know her tendencies because you served under her, but it works both ways. Also, you’ve gained a certain reputation as being a crafty fox yourself.”

  A hint of a smile crossed the captain’s lips. Adams was right, and in a way, what she had just said served as a warning. It was the same message the late Admiral Getchell had preached to him—don’t try to be too clever.

  “Enemy missiles closing!” alerted Swoboda. With his adopted tactic, Pettigrew had essentially conceded the first round of missile fire to the Commonwealth ships. He reasoned that the enemy would mostly target Tempest and Sinopa, and that the shields of his cruisers would be able to handle the brunt of the blow, with point-defense missiles and beams picking off the few Gerrhan projectiles that got through.

  His prediction was spot on, with waves of the lethal projectiles smashing themselves against the shields of his ship and that of Captain Gambell. A few of his destroyers and frigates had been targeted as well, but they defended themselves adroitly even without shields. The one exception was the destroyer Sibyl, who took two hits on her starboard bow.

  “Sibyl’s lost her deck three starboard armor, but no penetration,” reported Commander Swoboda.

  “Well, our deception about every ship having shields has been exposed,” observed Adams.

  “So it has,” agreed Pettigrew. The two fleets had about four-hundred kilometers separating them and were still closing on each other, but at a much slower rate now. “All ships prepare to fire second missile spread, and we’ll plan to hit something this time. Concentrate fire on the two cruisers. Red squad target Morrigan while blue squad takes Hannibal.

  “Ready—fire!”

  “Birds away, sir—but we have a problem,” said Swoboda.

  “It’s Sinopa,” Adams reported before Pettigrew could ask. “Her forward and ventral shields are down.”

  “Damn it!” the captain said under his breath. He had been concerned about the shields based on a private conversation with Uschi Mullenhoff months ago. His Chief Engineer had worried that the Earth technicians who installed the shield generators on the Task Force 19 ships hadn’t fully understood how to interface between the Earth tech and the Union engines. Everything looked good in simulations, but battle was the ultimate test. Of course, now that battle had arrived, TF 19’s best engineer was back home on leave.

  “Should we order Sinopa to drop back, sir?” asked Adams.

  “Negative, we can’t afford to lose her. Sinopa’s engineers will deal with it. Ms. Nyondo, come to course one-three-zero mark four and slow to one-third pulse drive.” Pulse drive was another Earther gift, an improvement on the ion drives previously used to travel within star systems. Unfortunately, as with FTL communications, the Earth government had chosen to share pulse drive tech with every starhold. A pity, thought Pettigrew—his ships could have used a speed advantage right now.

  As the Union vessels followed Tempest on her new heading, they found themselves angling somewhat starboard and down relative to the system plane. They were veering away from the enemy ever so slightly in order to cover Sinopa and the damaged Sibyl. The Commonwealth fleet adjusted however, and now both sides were creeping toward each other again.

  “Another incoming salvo, sir,” reported Swoboda.

  “Let’s pay ‘em back, Commander,” said Pettigrew.

  The battle had turned into the predictable missile slugfest. As ships engaged each other, they began to stray from formation, and in no time, the conflict had spread over hundreds of kilometers of space. Missiles screamed in on their targets, and interceptor missiles leapt to stop them from hitting home. Laser beams darted from point-defense arrays to destroy the deadly warheads, while ablative armor labored to dissipate the energy of enemy strikes that got through and found their mark.

  This was the first fleet combat since the Settlement War some three decades ago. Even in that conflict, there were no clashes on this scale, involving more than twenty ships in a single battle. If war was to come between the Union and the Commonwealth, and it certainly looked like a war from where Pettigrew sat, this battle would be minor compared to future engagements. What would it be like when major fleets went against each other?

  “Sir, Sinopa’s shields are back up, but they’ve taken a few good whacks,” stated Adams.

  “It’s a tough ship,” said Pettigrew checking his tactical display. “Looks like we’ve got some problems with a couple of the destroyers though.”

  Adams nodded. “Yes, Sybil and Gladius are becoming missile sponges.”

  “Order them to fall back behind Sinopa for a little more protection.”

  “Aye, sir. They’re going to be—uh-oh. Captain, our shields just went down,” Adams said in as calm a voice as she could manage. No sooner had the report come out of her mouth than an enemy missile sliced through their point-defenses and into Tempest’s bow.

  “Dammit!” growled the captain. “Mullenhoff feared this would happen. Damage report!”

  “Armor seems to have caught most of it—this time,” spoke up Lieutenant Rojas, the Damage Control Officer. “DC teams on their way, sir.”

  “Keep on top of it, Lieutenant. Pettigrew to engineering.”

  “Huang here,” answered a stressed voice.

  “I’m missing my shields, Lieutenant,” Pettigrew said in a deliberately calm voice, trying not to make a bad situation worse. Huang was a good engineer, but he was under the gun with Mullenhoff away, and the lives of over four hundred people were at stake.

  “Working on it, sir. We’ll have them back up in no time.”

  “The Gerrhans are being uncooperative, Lieutenant—they keep throwing missiles at us. Swiftly, if you please, Mr. Huang. Pettigrew out.”

  Adams spoke up from her station. “Sir, I was in engineering before I became a line officer.”

  Pettigrew hesitated. He wanted the XO on the bridge but really needed those shields. “Go,” he said, “see if you can give them a hand.” As Taylin Adams bolted for the engineering section, Commander Swoboda rotated into her station and Ensign Kuypers took over fire control.

  The missile exchange was getting more brutal by the second, with both sides beginning to take significant damage. Lurking behind Sinopa only bought Sibyl fifteen more minutes, as several Gerrhan Cheetah missiles penetrated her hull and blew her apart. The destroyer was there and then she was gone—so quickly that none of her crew had time to get to the life pods.

  The Gerrhans were taking losses too. Union strikes had hit home to destroy two of their frigates and incapacitate a destroyer. Damage on the Commonwealth cruiser Hannibal was mounting up fast.

  The sharp eyes of Swoboda spotted something. “Sir, two Gerrhan destroyers are breaking away from their main force. They’re trying to flank us and make a break for the EarthGate. Shall I order pursuit?”

  “Negative, Commander,” said the captain as he checked one of his screens. A live monitor feed from EarthGate showed the imposing crescent shapes of Earth warships now in position near the facility. “I see that Rhaab and her force have arrived at the Gate. I’m sure she’ll give those enemy ships a warm reception. Besides, that helps us—it puts the Gerrhans two more ships down.”

  The pounding match continued. It was only a matter of minutes now before Choi or Pettigrew had to make a decision: either order a charge in an attempt to annihilate the enemy or signal a withdrawal. If the present state of combat continued, both sides would be wiped out. Warships could take an enormous amount of damage, but in the vacuum of space once the end started it happened quickly, as the crew of the Sybil discovered moments before their deaths.

  “Sir, our shields are back up,” reported Swoboda,
and Pettigrew could feel the entire bridge breathe a sigh of relief. Task Force 19’s commander seized the moment.

  “This is Captain Pettigrew to all ships. Close on the enemy using formation Bravo One. Brigand—you are to drop back to effect repairs.”

  “We can still fight, sir,” came the voice of the frigate’s captain over the comm.

  “Sorry, but you’re sitting this one out, Elizabeth. That’s an order,” said Pettigrew in his ‘no arguments’ voice. He didn’t want another Sibyl on his conscience.

  The Gerrhans were in a bad way. Many of their ships had been older vessels to begin with, and after the beating they had gone through over the last thirty minutes, a charge by the Sarissan force would be the coup de grâce. Just as the Union fleet began to surge forward however, an alert klaxon sounded.

  “What happened? Did another torpedo get through?” asked Pettigrew.

  “Shields are down again,” reported Swoboda.

  “Sir!” shouted Lieutenant Rojas in a panicked voice, “there’s been an explosion in engineering!”

  “Were we hit?”

  “No, sir—it was an internal explosion.”

  Pettigrew closed his eyes for a split second to refocus. “Bridge to engineering… Bridge to engineering…” No answer. “This is Pettigrew to engineering—come in.” Still no response.

  Lieutenant Commander Nyondo looked around at her captain. “Sir, should we decelerate?”

  “Do we still have full engines?”

  “Engines are nominal, sir.”

  “Then steady as she goes—the fleet is to continue with the assault,” Pettigrew ordered without hesitation. “Rojas? Swoboda? Somebody talk to me. We need information. Ship, what’s the—”

  “Engineering to bridge,” called a choking male voice over the intraship comm. “Huang here.”

  “Huang—report! What’s going on down there?”

  “Number five power generator just blew up.” That explained why the engines hadn’t lost power—generators five and six served the shield generators. “We need corpsmen and all the DC teams we can get, on the double.”

  Before Pettigrew could say it, Rojas was asking. “Permission to leave the bridge, sir!”

  “Granted,” said the captain, turning his attention back to Huang. By now, Tempest’s AI had established a video connection between the bridge and engineering. Behind the lieutenant, Pettigrew could see a few fires being put out. There was debris everywhere and the sickening sight of some bodies on the deck. “How bad is it, Huang?”

  The lieutenant tried to gather himself but spoke in a shaky voice. “Well, sir, I don’t see any way to get shields up. They were barely holding on full power, and with one generator gone…”

  “Huang, what about casualties? Are those wounded on the floor behind you?”

  The young man looked around to where his captain had mentioned, then back into the screen. “Some of them, sir. We have wounded and at least four dead.”

  Pettigrew already had a gut feeling there were dead but cringed inside at Huang’s confirmation. “OK, do what you can, Lieutenant. Have the XO come to the screen, I need to speak with her.”

  “Sir,” said Huang, “I… I can’t, sir. Commander Adams is one of the dead.”

  There were gasps from some of the bridge crew. Pettigrew cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard Huang correctly. “Lieutenant?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. The commander was working with Ensign Reece, and they were standing right next to the generator when it exploded. I’m pretty sure both of them died instantly.”

  There was silence on the bridge—in the middle of the greatest space battle in human history, there was stunned silence. It took an enemy missile detonating near the Tempest’s hull to jolt the crew out of their shock.

  “Ms. Nyondo,” said the captain. “Go to engineering and survey the situation. Render any assistance to Lieutenant Huang that you can and report back to me.”

  Nyondo hesitated, started to say something and then stopped. She mumbled an affirmative as she ran for the turbolift.

  David Swoboda was closer to Adams than anyone else on the ship was, with the possible exception of the absent Mullenhoff. His voice choked with emotion in his first few words. “Range to enemy,” he said and then managed to clear his throat to bring himself under control. “Range to enemy is thirty klicks and closing, sir.”

  “Helm, braking thrusters to all stop—fleet to all stop,” commanded Pettigrew with an edge to his voice. “Fire control, open fire and concentrate on the Morrigan.” He swiveled slightly in his chair. “Ms. Kuypers, are we within range to fire Scion torpedoes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Empty the tubes on the Morrigan.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Scion torpedoes were nasty weapons that ran very stealthy. It was exceedingly hard for point-defense crews to lock onto them in order to fend them off before they made lethal contact. Unfortunately, they were also among the most expensive weapons in the space force arsenal, so heavy cruisers usually carried no more than a handful of them.

  “Tubes emptied, sir,” reported Kuypers. “Bloodhounds away and running hot, straight, and normal.”

  Some of the Scions were intercepted by Morrigan’s defenses, but others got through and struck home with devastating effect on the Gerrhan flagship. One of the torpedoes inexplicably veered from its designated course toward Morrigan, only to snake its way through the defenses of the cruiser Hannibal, landing a blow against the wrong ship. It was odd, but helpful.

  “All ships close to within beam range,” commanded Pettigrew. “Helm, take us straight for the enemy flag.”

  “Multiple hyperspace bubbles forming, Captain,” announced Swoboda. “They’re getting ready to jump.”

  The traitor Choi and her remaining eight ships disappeared with a flash of light, much as they had come into the Sol system. One of the Gerrhan destroyers, the Themistocles, exploded as it was attempting to jump, most like the result of a damaged hyperdrive engine. In the meantime, the Union lost another ship during the final assault. The frigate Rasiel, one of the original ships of TF 19, had been destroyed. At least she broke apart slow enough for her crew to get to the life pods—most of them.

  The Second Battle of Earth was over, and again the forces of the Sarissan Union had been victorious. It didn’t seem like victory to Chaz Pettigrew however. All he felt was the numbness of survival. For some time after the battle, he honestly wished he had been aboard Sybil that day.

  6: Peril

  Esterkeep

  Sarissan capital

  Two days after the Earth attack

  First Consul Darracott stood staring out her office window at the falling snow. It was a beautiful sight, which brought back terrible memories—recollections of growing up on Odessa. Memories of the snow and ice and the cold gusting wind pressing relentlessly against her skin. Now the cold had followed her here—perhaps there was no escape.

  It was the sixth straight day of snow along the coast. Today it was light, mere flurries, but the accumulation had already prompted a state of emergency across five prefectures. Paxford was reporting over sixty centimeters on the ground. Just what we needed, she thought, one more emergency.

  “Excellency, are you listening?” asked the gray-haired man, his words coming back into focus. “I was saying that the Prefect of Listravia is asking for more assistance from the central government in dealing with their snow crisis.”

  She turned to face the man. “Prefect Housden is a buffoon. He’s asking us for help to distract from his own ineffectiveness, implying that his inability to cope is somehow the Union government’s fault. If he really wants to remove the snow,” Renata Darracott said with a twisted smile, “he should go out to some street corner and give a speech. The hot air that blows from that man’s mouth could melt mountains of snow.”

  Bennett Boyer didn’t know whether to laugh or not, even though the Chief of Staff had known her for years. An academic she stole from Branwyn Univers
ity, ‘the Professor,’ as everyone around Koenig Manor called him, was a man of detail and efficiency. His sense of humor, however, was still a work in progress.

  “You’ve been staring out that window for a while now. Have you heard anything I’ve said over the past thirty minutes?” Boyer asked in a patient voice.

  Darracott turned to sit down at her desk. “Enough to know we have a lot of problems. Tell the Listravian Prefect to go through official channels and work with the Home Ministry just like everyone else is doing.”

  The other woman in the office spoke up. “You were thinking of Odessa weren’t you?”

  Darracott smiled at her. “Yes. Yes I was. You know me too well, Colonel.”

  Ardith Flood was the commander of the Kaskian Guard, the First Consul’s personal security team. The colonel had assembled a group of forty-four people drawn from across the Union military services to protect the Sarissan leader. Like Darracott, she was also from Odessa, the poorest and most brutal of the Six Worlds—and definitely the coldest.

  The colonel was not only charged with the First Consul’s security, she had become a confidant and informal advisor. Actually, Flood was even more than that to Renata Darracott—she was a trusted friend and sister of the heart.

  “On the contrary, Excellency,” said the flaxen-haired officer. “Knowing you well allows me to protect you better. Moreover, you do realize that you have nothing to be ashamed of regarding our homeworld. You’ve done more to help Odessans than all of your predecessors combined.”

  “Which reminds me of something,” interrupted Boyer. “With all that’s happened over the last few days, I assume we will be postponing your scheduled trip to Odessa.”

  “We most certainly will not,” said Darracott in a huffy voice. “I haven’t been off-world since I took office as First Consul.” Just as the Chief of Staff started to say something, she cut him off. “And don’t you dare argue that holographic appearances count,” she snarled. “Giving a speech before the Tezrinan Planetary Council by FTL comm does not count as visiting the planet.”