Against All Odds

by DePrima, Thomas

  "Back away and allow me to send a message to my family on the IDS band— then I'll surrender."

  "I'm sorry. Any messages from prisoners must be examined for possible encrypted messages before we can allow them to be sent."

  "I'll kill your people if you don't allow me to send my message."

  "I see. Then it is a message to your command under the guise of a family message."

  The Uthlaro scowled at Commander Durland and then muttered something unintelligible. "This conversation is over."

  "Tactical," Captain Durland said, "have our gunners take out their Sub-Light engines."

  "Aye, Captain," the tactical officer said before activating his CT and speaking to the waiting gunners.

  A second later laser pulses flashed out from the Danube's arrays, striking the larboard and starboard nacelles on the Uthlaro ship, then the stern engines. The gunners didn't stop until the engines had been reduced to scrap. The Danube and Nile helmsmen cut power to their own Sub-Light engines and drifted along behind the Uthlaro ship as it lost propulsion and maneuvering capability.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  ~ March 14th, 2283 ~

  "Marine Company Four," Commander Durland said via her CT, "prepare to board the enemy ship. Be aware there are definitely alien survivors. They are hostile and armed, and they have a rescue party from the Nile in captivity."

  "Understood, Captain," Durland heard in her CT. "We're moving in. Nevers out."

  A few seconds later two shuttles could be seen traveling towards the enemy ship. The Marines chose to enter in a part of the ship that was definitely depressurized. They would already be inside before they were likely to meet any resistance. A patchwork of images from the helmet cams of the Marines filled the bridge's forward monitor on the Danube.

  The Marines slowly made their way through the ship, briefly checking all bodies they found along the way. When they reached the center of the vessel, they encountered working airlock doors into a section with atmosphere. They took time to change out of their EVA. suits and into their combat body armor while one squad watched both forward and rear approaches inside the pressurized area.

  Moving out, they hadn't gone more than fifty meters when they discovered several dead crewmen from the Nile, their weapons still holstered.

  The helmet cam on the Marine company leader, Lt. Nevers, recorded the identities of the crewmen as Nevers said, "These people are DOA. From the readings on their suit monitors, they've been dead for more than ninety minutes. Continuing on."

  After walking another twenty meters while checking every room that opened into the corridor and welding the door closed using a tube of special adhesive after the room was searched, the Marine on point found three more Space Command personnel in a heap inside a storage closet. Nevers moved up to check the bodies for life signs.

  "These people are deceased as well," he said. "Their suit monitors indicate they died less than five minutes after the others. Their weapons are missing, but there's no sign of damage in this corridor. It looks like they were herded here and then executed. Continuing on."

  It was almost another hour before the Marines encountered a live Uthlaro crewmember. As they passed though a closed, airtight door, a laser pulse narrowly missed the Marine on point. He dropped to his stomach and returned fire. The hallway filled with light pulses for a few seconds as the Marines behind him likewise opened up. As the corridor returned to normal, the only evidence of the brief fight were the burn marks that covered the walls in the area where the shots had originated.

  The point man got slowly to his knees, expecting another pulse from the end of the corridor, but nothing came. Bent low, he moved cautiously forward and found the body of an Uthlaro around a corner in the corridor. The body, riddled with still smoking holes, was holding one of the Space Command laser pistols. He breathed a sigh of relief and stood up straight just in time to receive a laser pulse dead center to the chest.

  He stumbled and fell backwards to the deck as another light show ensued when the Marines behind him opened fire on the second shooter. A few seconds later, the body of the Uthlaro crewmember fell out of the doorway where he had been hiding. The Marines were using their weapons on narrow beam rather than wide and the light beams had punctured the composite material of the doorway frame, then continued on through the assailant's body.

  "Damn! This new body armor really does work," the Marine who had been on point said as a fellow Marine helped him to his feet.

  "Of course it does," the other Marine said. "It's made of the same stuff as the new ships. As long as you take the hit where you're covered, you can't be hurt by either a wide pulse or narrow beam. The LT said Admiral Carver's command is the first to get it."

  "If I make it back to my rack tonight, I'm gonna send the manufacturer a message of thanks."

  "Send it to Admiral Carver. She's the one who discovered the stuff on Dakistee and then argued with the Admiralty Board until they finally agreed to use it for body armor and APCs. They didn't want to risk having any of it fall into enemy hands, but Carver argued that it wouldn't fall into enemy hands if the Marines wearing it, or riding in it, were still alive to fight."

  "Where did you hear that?"

  "My cousin clerks at the Admiralty Board. She gets to sit in on all the meetings so they can have her run errands if they need something. She can't talk about a lot of the stuff they discuss, but most of the regular weekly messages from Carver aren't classified. When I was posted to the Admiral's command, Sissy began sending me everything she could. I learned that when she was the base commander at Stewart, Carver must have requested a hundred times that her grunts get new armor made from the Dakinium. The board finally agreed to begin manufacture of the new armor after the Milori attacked Stewart. So send your message to the Admiral with a copy to the manufacturer instead of the other way around."

  "Yeah," the Marine said. "I will."

  "Logan, you okay?" Nevers asked after speaking with the captain of the Danube.

  "Hundred percent, Lieutenant. The armor saved my ass."

  "Good. Fall back to the saddle. Sanchez, you're on point. Let's move out, Marines. We have only one man left to find. The Captain of the Nile was leading the rescue party. All other members are accounted for."

  "Damn! The captain?" Sgt. Sanchez said, "What the hell was he doing in here before we had a chance to clear this ship?"

  "I'll let you ask him when we find him," Nevers said testily. "Now move out, Marine."

  As the Marines moved towards the center of the ship, they encountered more and more armed Uthlaro crewmembers. Every corridor became a firefight location. They must have been close to the bridge when they discovered the body of Commander Cross. According to his EVA suit monitor, he had been dead since before the Danube returned to find the Nile missing.

  Picking up his body, the Marines began retreating to the corridor where they had entered the pressurized part of the ship. They took a few minutes to assemble a collapsible 'oh-gee' carry-all in a protected area, then placed his body on it, adding the others along the way while one squad guarded their retreat.

  A half-hour later, they were back at the shuttle. An hour later, they were stripping off their EVA suits aboard the Danube as the shuttle settled to the deck of the shuttle bay. Nevers made his way to the bridge as soon as the bay was pressurized.

  "They were all dead long before we caught up with the ship, Captain," he said to Durland. "It looked like they were executed because the three in the corridor still had their weapons holstered and the three in the storage closet were dumped there. All of them were shot at very close range, probably less than two feet. They were probably surprised and captured within minutes of entering the ship."

  "And every Uthlaro you encountered fired at you?"

  "Affirmative. They don't want to be rescued."

  "Then we'll respect their wishes because we're not simply going to release them and let them go on their way." Walking to her bridge chair, she too
k her seat. "Com, hail the Nile."

  "Lt. Commander Sammuthy is standing by," the com operator said.

  "Put him up on the monitor." When his image appeared, she said, "Commander, it appears that all our people were executed within minutes of entering the ship."

  "Yes ma'am. We were watching the feed from the helmet cams."

  "Since the Uthlaro don't wish to be rescued and we can't just leave them here, we're left with only one option."

  "Yes ma'am. I can definitely live with that."

  "They were your fellow crewmembers. Would your gunners like to finish our business here?"

  "I'm sure they would."

  "Then have at it, Commander."

  The Nile's laser gunners opened fire on the Uthlaro ship and didn't stop until there was no doubt every part of the ship had been depressurized. It was possible some Uthlaro could have survived in EVA suits, escape pods, stasis beds, or shuttles, but there were no pressurized corridors they could use to spring ambushes. The Danube's tug joined the Nile's tug for the trip back to the original site of the battle. The tugs would continue to jam the IDS band until the Uthlaro ship was searched again. The Nile and the Danube would return to the battle site at Light-9375, while the tugs would proceed there at their top speed of Light-75. It would take them almost an hour while the scout-destroyers would be back in less than thirty seconds once their envelope was built.

  * * *

  The situation at the original battle site was progressing normally except that it appeared several Uthlaro ships were in considerably worse shape than when the Danube left.

  "How did you make out, Captain?" Jenetta asked when Commander Durland contacted her.

  "I have bad news, Admiral. Commander Stephan Cross and six of his crew are dead."

  "Dead? What happened? Did the Uthlaro ship come back to life and get off a torpedo?"

  "No ma'am. Commander Cross led a rescue party aboard the Uthlaro ship before we returned. It appears they were captured. The ship tried to escape using their Sub-Light engines while telling the Nile's First Officer they would kill the rescue party members if the Nile took any steps to incapacitate the ship further. When I caught up with them, I took it upon myself to destroy their Sub-Light engines. The Marines I sent in found the bodies of the missing rescue party. According to the reports filed by the platoon leader, the rescue team had been executed by laser pistols fired at close range. Their suit monitors indicate they were dead before we even left the Boreas with the Marines. The Marines encountered heavy resistance so once they had recovered the bodies I ordered them out."

  "And the Uthlaro ship?"

  "We couldn't leave them and they refused rescue, so I allowed the crew of the Nile to finish our work there. Our tugs are hauling it back and it should be here within an hour, but there are no pressurized areas remaining in the ship."

  Jenetta nodded. "Good work, Captain. We've had similar experiences here. Our search and rescue parties were also fired upon and we had no choice but to end the careers of the Uthlaro warriors who refused to surrender. We also have no survivors to worry about."

  "Do you suppose it will be like this with every Uthlaro battle group, Admiral?"

  "I don't know, but it certainly looks that way. We'll be prepared now if that turns out to be the case. What was Commander Cross doing aboard the Uthlaro ship?"

  "Commander Cross was a— bold officer, who sometimes failed to follow the strictest interpretation of the orders he was given. When he offered to have his people search the ship for survivors, I repeated your standing orders that only Marines conduct the search-and-rescue missions. I ordered him to wait there with his prize to ensure it didn't suddenly come to life. He did remain with the Uthlaro vessel as ordered, but he chose to conduct a rescue mission personally."

  "And his boldness cost him his life and that of six of his crew."

  "Yes, ma'am. I can't say what he was thinking when he undertook that mission."

  "Thank you, Captain. Your crew can stand down for a while. We'll be here for at least several days, perhaps a week. I want our engineers to survey every part of the Uthlaro ships looking for weaknesses we can exploit the next time we encounter them and they can't start their examination until our Marines have eradicated every last vestige of resistance."

  "Aye Admiral. Danube out."

  "Colorado out."

  As Jenetta returned to the report she was working on, she shook her head slightly and murmured to herself, "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots."

  * * *

  "The surrender of the Tsgardi Empire has been amply confirmed," Senator Prime Emmeticus said, addressing the Gondusan Planetary Senate in special session. "We have received a communication from Prime Warlord Kalisnacos himself. He admits he doesn't know how she could have destroyed his fleet so easily, but every word Admiral Carver spoke has been verified as accurate. We should assume her threats to destroy our planet and annex our entire territory will be likewise true unless we recall our ships and cede the recovered territory to her immediately. We don't know how much longer she will wait. I leave it to you, senators."

  "Carver may have destroyed the Tsgardi fleet," Senator Neodeet Literamus said, "but that doesn't mean she can beat the Uthlaro. We know how powerful their ships are. They promised us their protection if we joined the pact."

  "The Uthlaro are far away, trying to absorb Region Two. Carver can come here, do what she has threatened, and be gone before any of our ships can return, or the Uthlaro can arrive," Emmeticus said. "One of the battle groups sent by the Tsgardi was destroyed not far from our border. Carver could have come here already if she wished."

  "You can't know that," Literamus said. "She might still be on Quesann, hundreds of light years from here."

  "And she might be a light year away, just waiting to hear our answer, or preparing to strike if we don't respond."

  "We can't simply surrender unconditionally. Not without firing a single shot," Literamus said.

  "We can and should," Emmeticus said. "Our involvement in this pact should never have happened and the sooner we're out of it, the better off we'll be."

  "But she insists we surrender all the territory we took back from the Milori. That was our territory to begin with."

  "And that's the price we'll have to pay for starting this foolish venture. It's better than losing all our territory and witnessing the destruction of our world."

  "I move we put it to a vote," Literamus said.

  * * *

  "Their military ships are an order of magnitude above the stuff they sell to others," Commander Davis Swarth, senior engineer aboard the Themis said, as he pointed to the large image of an Uthlaro destroyer hovering above the holo-table at the front of the room. The conference room was the largest available aboard the Themis and it was crowded. Every officer at or above the rank of Lt. Commander was in attendance. Many were forced to stand around the outer walls of the room.

  "Their hulls are composed of three layers of tritanium with self-sealing membrane, making even their destroyers as resilient as our pre-Dakinium hulled Prometheus-class battleships. Each frame section is a separate airtight compartment. Additionally, no crucial functions are located outside the core of the ship, so punctures and torpedo strikes kill very few key personnel. We have to hope we hit vital areas that will incapacitate the ship because simply opening sections to the vacuum of space won't do it.

  "We have identified several areas we should concentrate on during our battles. They're the most vulnerable points and will stop the Uthlaro ships faster than random strikes. Of course, targeting their engines will stop their movement, but it doesn't incapacitate their laser arrays or prevent them from firing torpedoes."

  Swarth said, "Computer, change image to wire representation." The solid holo-image of the Uthlaro destroyer immediately changed to a wire view of the same ship. Using a pointer to indicate a spot on the image of the Uthlaro destroyer, he continued with "All gunners should concentrate their fire on this area amidship, ju
st above and behind the maneuvering engine nacelles, and pour everything we've got into that point. The central computer for the ship is located there and if they lose that, they lose all shipboard functions. It's well shielded with tritanium, so we really have to clobber that spot. Other than that, target their temporal envelope generators so they can't escape, and their torpedo tubes so they can't fire on us. We can pretty much ignore the laser arrays until the other points are neutralized because they have no effect on the Dakinium. That's all we have, Admiral. The Uthlaro have done an excellent job on the design of these ships."

  "Thank you commander," Jenetta said. "In how many cases did we stop the Uthlaro by destroying the central computer during the most recent engagement?"

  "In almost every case, Admiral. Although we weren't targeting it, we lucked out in eight out of ten ships. From examining the logs, we've learned that the ship that managed to reach Light Speed probably had the least damage in that part of the ship until the Nile peppered it following the recovery of our people."

  "Is everyone clear on the points to target?" Jenetta asked.

  Everyone in the room nodded or voiced their understanding.

  "I've appointed Lt. Commander Soren Mojica of the Yangtze to replace Commander Stephan Cross as commanding officer of the Nile, and Lt. Adel Baran will advance to first officer of the Yangtze. All except the captains and their first officers are now dismissed."

  Jenetta waited until most of the officers had left and the doors of the conference room were closed before continuing.

  "As you all know, the electronic debris field didn't work with the Uthlaro, so we'll discontinue use of that procedure. We got that system from the Raiders and the Raiders do a great deal of business with the Uthlaro, so the Uthlaro may have even developed that system originally. When we activated the sending units, the Uthlaro simply continued as if unaffected. I also expect that their helmsmen have been trained to override the ACS system as soon as they sense the debris field because the Uthlaro ship the Nile chased couldn't be stopped when a ship crossed its path. The ACS had to have been deactivated by that point. They must have stopped solely to engage us. If we assume other Uthlaro captains are as eager to engage, we'll simply use our presence to stop them.