by Dan Worth
With cool efficiency Chen’s crew got to work, responding in kind to the assault as the rapid firing laser turrets that studded the length of the Churchill opened up on the wealth of new targets, causing them to blossom and fade in an ever expanding shell of debris at the carrier pressed on toward its objective.
The turrets were the least of their worries. Although deadly to fighters and other smaller craft, even a sustained assault such as this from the array of automated gun platforms could not realistically expect to deter a large modern warship such as the Churchill. The real threat lay with the sphere of outer defences: four Titan class destroyers were moving from the sentry stations that they had held about the asteroid and were coming about to face the incoming threat under full power. Lieutenant Commander Singh was already informing her of the energy spikes that signified that the vessels were rapidly powering up their weapons and preparing to fire. The closest vessel, the Manzikert was already close enough to engage.
The house at the end of Geary Street was old. Centuries of earth tremors and the occasional full blown quake had left it a mass of crooked angles and bowed beams. It was doubtful that a truly straight edge or right angle remained in the structure. The fact that it and the sloping row of bay windowed houses in which it sat was still standing after almost five hundred years was little short of a miracle. The off-white paintwork, meanwhile, was discoloured and peeling slightly from the effects of the damp San Francisco climate.
Chen was home. She rapped on the door with slightly trembling hands and heard the unmistakeable sounds of her father’s footsteps on the floorboards as he made his way down the hallway to the door.
The door opened slowly and her father stood blinking in the harsh mid-day light with a mixture of recognition and bewilderment on his face before he broke into a broad smile. He looked older than she remembered. There was a little more grey showing in what had once been a thick, black, head of hair and his features seemed more careworn. The vibrant sparkle was still in his eyes though.
‘So, you came back at last,’ he said matter-of-factly in his resonant baritone voice. ‘It’s been far too long Michelle.’ He stepped forward then and held her close for a moment. ‘Come inside. Let me call your mother.’ He started into the dimly lit interior of the family home. She followed him inside.
‘Admiral! The Manzikert it targeting weapons and preparing to fire!’ cried Singh.
Chen’s heart was in her mouth. Those were their own ships out there. Their crews were comrades in arms; loyal servicemen and women who had been drawn from a swathe of human settled worlds to keep the peace and hold back the darkness. Or at least they once had been. Maybe they were still loyal, maybe they were just misguided rather than enslaved. Chen clung to that hope. She wanted to give them a chance to back down, to see through the lies that they had been fed. She wanted to give herself the chance to avoid firing the first shots in a civil war.
‘Andrews,’ she ordered. ‘Begin broadcasting in the clear and identify ourselves. Tell them that if they surrender that they will not be harmed. Tell them that they will not get a second chance.’
She gritted her teeth and then added: ‘Gunnery; target the Manzikert and begin powering the Arkari cannon. Helm; align us directly with that destroyer so that we can get a clear shot. Commander Haldane, order all squadrons to stand by.’
Andrews turned to her. ‘Admiral there is no response from any of the rebel ships or Chiron itself.’
‘Keep trying. There may be somebody on board those vessels who will listen.’
‘Admiral I…’
‘I said, keep trying!’
‘The Manzikert is preparing to fire!’ Singh cried. ‘Detecting energy spikes from her main guns.’
‘Fuck!’ Chen swore angrily under her breath and quickly collected herself despite the anger that now gripped her. Either the captain of the Manzikert was no longer entirely human, or else he was monumentally rash and stupid. Either way he left her with no choice. He had condemned his crew to death.
‘Gunnery!’ she barked. ‘Open fire on the Manzikert! All guns!’
She followed her father into the dimly lit lounge. It was exactly the same as she remembered it: furnishings that had been fashionable twenty years ago, family photos and dusty ornaments and furniture that had sagged from overuse. Through the bay windows at the back of the house she could see San Francisco Bay now clear of mist, a sliver of blue beyond the rooftops backed by hazy dun hills, the water scored with the white lines of craft and punctuated with the distinctive outline of Alcatraz Island. She sat down carefully on the creaking sofa, habitually choosing the same spot at the right hand end that she had always sat in as a child.
‘You want some tea?’ said her father. She nodded mutely and he shuffled off into the kitchen across the hall. She heard him talking excitedly on the phone then clattering around for a moment before he returned with a laden tray containing a pot and two tea bowls which he placed carefully in front of her on the low coffee table. Her father sat down next to her with some care and winced, as if his back was bothering him.
‘You okay, Dad?’ she said, a note of concern in her voice.
‘Me, yeah of course. Nothing to worry about. Did it playing golf, of all things. And you?’ He looked directly at her.
‘Hard to say,’ she replied.
‘Uh huh,’ he responded. ‘I know my daughter well enough to know that something’s up if she says that she isn’t sure of something. Are things not all well aboard ship? Of course we read your emails, infrequent though they are…’
‘Sorry Dad, I don’t always have much time.’
‘I know you don’t Michelle, but believe me your Mother and I do wonder what you’re up to. You were all over the news when war broke out and then these last two years: nothing at all.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I… I can’t talk about it I’m afraid.’
‘Hmm, well. We’re proud of you Michelle. Our daughter: an Admiral! I gather you gave those damn reptiles what for. Your grandfather would have thanked you for that, after what they did to him.’
‘It wasn’t just about revenge Dad, I had hundreds of men and women under my command and I had my orders.’
‘You did us all proud. Believe me when I say that your mother and I were very glad that you came through that experience in one piece. So, two years of almost nothing and then you appear on our doorstep. I assume you want to talk about something in particular.’
‘I was in town Dad, and well, I figured this was as good a time as any to come and see you.’
‘I see ... well believe me when I say we appreciate it. But I can tell you’re holding something back.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Things are…. things are getting pretty bad. Worse, than I suspect most people realise.’
‘I watch the news, you know. You think there’s going to be a coup?’
‘I think there’s going to be some sort of major attack, yes.’
‘If you ask me, that Morgan has a screw loose. His story about the government being in league with aliens sounds like load of horse-shit to me. Rheinhold may be a crooked son of a bitch but that’s as far as it goes.’
‘It is a load of horse-shit. What Morgan said was the exact opposite of the truth. He and his followers are under the influence of an alien race that we can barely comprehend. Things are about to get very bad indeed Dad, and I…’ her voice broke slightly then. ‘I just… wanted to see you both because I wasn’t sure when I’d ever get another chance.’
Chen watched with a mixture of awe and horror as the destroyer split apart along its length. The power of the Arkari cannon slung beneath the belly of the Churchill rent space apart and with it, the structure of the Manzikert. The ship ripped apart like tinfoil, spilling its contents into space in a rapidly expanding wave that rippled along the length of the vessel as space-time itself convulsed along the beam, shattering and twisting hull plating and blowing the ship apart from the inside out.
Chen gripped the arms of he
r command chair tightly and reminded herself that what she had done was a mercy, that they were no longer human, that the men and women aboard that ship would most likely have begged her to commit this act. It didn’t make it any easier. She had still fired the first shots. Open conflict between Commonwealth ships had begun.
As the vessel’s reactor finally ruptured and detonated in a blinding flash, she turned away from the glare and felt tears of regret sting her eyes. But there was no time to pause and mourn those who had died at her hand; two of the three other sentry destroyers were coming about, bringing weapons to bear. Like the Manzikert, they had not responded to hails from the Churchill, assuming combat postures even before the carrier had emerged from its jump. The Barbarossa and the Agrippa had been transferred from Cox’s command at Spica along with the Manzikert.
Her officers clamoured for her attention. They needed her to command them and lead them into the fight. Scrolling data, whirling vectors and targeting icons filled her view through her HUD. One ship, for now, hung back. The Trebia was staying out of the fight. There was still hope at least.
Her mother sighed as she sat down opposite her daughter. ‘You know I never did see the point of us spreading across the stars like this. We should have fixed things here on Earth before we did that. All we did was take our existing problems and just… magnify them a thousand-fold.’
Chen had scrutinised her mother as she had entered the house. She had been a petite, elegant young woman and some of that poise had carried over into late middle age, though her carefully arranged hair was now touched with silver and the lines around her eyes had increased since she’d last seen her. Her make-up and dress were still impeccable, even though she’d only been out shopping. She’d never wholly approved of her daughter’s decision to join the Navy. Even now Michelle could sense her mother’s slight distaste at the sight of her uniform.
‘It’s a bloody mess, that’s for certain,’ her mother added. ‘I’m just sorry that you had to be involved again my dear.’
‘In my position I could hardly not be involved, Mother,’ Michelle replied.
‘Civil wars never end well. You would do well to stay out of things.’
‘This is about more than just internal strife and politics. This could mean the end of everything, both out there and down here. I have to be involved if I can make a difference.’
‘And if you’re killed or captured? What then?’
‘Then I died doing something I believed in.’
‘It’s no comfort for us. Two years Michelle! Two years and barely a word from you! We were worried sick, with the war and everything…’
‘Jesus, you don’t think I would if I could have? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there? Well do you? We spend weeks at a time on silent running or out of range of any public hypercom nodes. I can’t just fire off an email when I feel like it. Not that I have nearly enough time to myself. I….’ She threw up her hands in despair she couldn’t believe this, barely an hour had passed and they were slipping back into their old roles. Her mother was talking to her as though she were an errant teenager who’d stayed out too late on a school night.
‘Your mother is just worried about you,’ said her father. ‘As were we all. Look, I know you can take care of yourself and that you’re busy, but us old folks stuck back here on boring old Earth would like to hear something from you once in a while.’
‘It isn’t boring, it’s wonderful’ she said. ‘Earth is humanity. It’s everything... everything I fight for. I just wish sometimes that you could see that.’
The Barbarossa and the Agrippa had rapidly changed tactics upon the destruction of the Manzikert. Instead of charging straight towards the Churchill they had both changed course, heading off on high speed flanking manoeuvres to split the carrier’s fire and make it impossible to engage both vessels with the Arkari cannon, which was still recharging its accumulators from the shot that had taken out the Manzikert. Chen would be presented with a dilemma: if she turned to engage one with that deadly weapon the carrier’s engines – and the twin gaps in the shields they presented – would be left exposed to fire from the other vessel.
She had no doubt now that both ships were under Shaper control. Such a tactic was bound to result in one of the ships being sacrificed in order to score the kill. No sane human commander would contemplate this. She needed to distract one ship whilst she killed the other with the Churchill’s more conventional weapons, a process that would take longer than the single shot kill offered by the Arkari cannon.
‘Commander Haldane,’ she said. ‘Launch wings Alpha through Theta. Delta and Gamma’s torpedo bombers are to target the engines of the Barbarossa whilst Alpha and Beta take out rearwards facing anti-fighter turrets.’
‘Yes ma’am,’ Haldane replied crisply then began relaying orders.
‘Helm,’ Chen added. ‘Once all craft have cleared the launch bay, advance to engage the Agrippa at close range.’
She watched the sparks of light that were the engines of the launching fighters speed away from the bows of the Churchill before the thrust of the main engines powered the ship forwards. The ship began to turn to engage the hostile destroyer which even now was angling itself to bring as many of its guns to bear as possible on the advancing carrier.
‘Status of our main cannon?’ she queried.
‘Capacitors are at twenty five percent and charging,’ Haldane replied. ‘Reactors are holding steady. Gunnery reports all other primary weapons are charged and ready to fire.’
‘We need to get closer,’ Chen replied. ‘We need to take out the Agrippa quickly and cleanly.’ As she watched, the range on her HUD’s targeting indicator counted steadily down. The Churchill was still outside the optimum firing range and Chen wanted to get in close and use the full power of her ship’s weapons.
‘Admiral, our fighter wings report that they have engaged the enemy,’ Andrews relayed from the comm. ‘The Barbarossa is sustaining heavy damage to its aft quarter.’
‘Excellent,’ Chen replied. ‘Commander Singh, any news on the Trebia?’
‘She’s still holding station Admiral, though the vessel has now powered its weapons.’
‘What the hell is going on over there?’ Haldane muttered.
‘A certain amount of indecision,’ Chen replied. ‘I’d say that they can’t make up their minds.’
‘Admiral,’ gunnery reported. ‘We are now within optimal firing range, requesting permission to fire.’
‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘Hold your fire.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Admiral, the Agrippa is firing!’ Singh reported as searing beams of energy leapt from the warship’s turrets to lash against the forward shields of the Churchill. ‘Shields are down to eighty percent. No physical damage.’
‘Thank you Commander,’ she replied drily. The distance to the target was now fifteen kilometres and dropping rapidly. ‘All guns: target the Agrippa’s engines and prepare to fire on my command. Helm, increase our speed by one third. Comms, signal that they have one last chance to stand down!’
‘Aye,’ Andrews replied. Chen saw her shake her head a few moments later.
‘Status on our attack wings?’
‘The Barbarossa has come to a complete stop. Looks like we got lucky. She’s having to re-start her main engines. Four fighters and two torpedo bombers are down.’
‘Range to the Agrippa is now ten kilometres!’ gunnery reported. The shields were now reduced to nearly thirty percent. Before long even the Churchill would begin to take damage from the onslaught and Chen had no illusions about what the weapons of a Titan class destroyer could do to an unprotected vessel.
The Agrippa was beginning to loom larger in the forward viewing ports. Chen could clearly pick out the superstructure and the numerous armoured turrets that spat deadly energies towards her ship. The gunmetal grey destroyer gleamed brightly from reflected sunlight. She had commanded a vessel just like it once, a proud ship of the line, crammed with br
ave officers and crew who served her loyally. It made her sick to her stomach to imagine them enslaved by an alien, un-knowable enemy. What she was about to do was a merciful act. She would take revenge for them all.
‘Gunnery control!’ she barked. ‘Open fire on the Agrippa.’
‘Firing, aye!’ came the curt response.
At once, the banks of turrets along the Churchill’s hull opened up in unison, delivering a searing blow of concentrated energy against the aft quadrant of the Agrippa. The more modern weapons of the carrier tore into the destroyer’s shields reducing them by one third within a few moments.
‘Keep the pressure on,’ Chen commanded. ‘Helm, swing us round the rear of the vessel but keep us pointed at her. I want to be able to use as many weapons as possible. Gunnery; status of the Arkari cannon?’
‘Forty five per cent and charging.’
‘Come on… come on…’ she muttered to herself and ground her teeth with frustration as the destroyer continued to lash back at them with everything she had.
‘Engineering, re-route additional power to the forward shields, we’re losing them,’ Haldane ordered as their power dropped ominously below ten percent. Another few more moments and the carrier would start to take damage. They were less than five kilometres from the destroyer now as the Churchill slewed past it, heading for the vessel’s rear, the two vessels joined by coruscating lines of fire.
‘Admiral our wings are returning to the Churchill, they’ve expended all useful ordnance and have achieved their objectives,’ Haldane reported.
