"Stay on them, John, if they maneuver we'll need to deal with them."
"Captain, Echo Two is pacing us, too."
This time Davis came down from the command position to stand with his Surveillance Officer.
"It came in at 210 minus 15, then after about two minutes they maneuvered and have been at 212 minus 10, about 520 thousand klicks, for the last ten minutes."
"Jesus Christ, Sanders, what the hell is going on?"
"I wish I knew, Captain."
Davis went back to Comms.
FLASH 207806251612 UTC
TO: CINCFLEET
FROM: SIGMA
BEING PACED BY SECOND TYPE I CONTACT. RANGE 520 KKM.
STRONG BELIEF THAT ENEMY IS DETECTING AND TRACKING
THIS VESSEL
PLAN TO STRIKE SECOND CONTACT
END
"Weaps! Put a Bludgeon in Echo Two!"
"Only one sir?"
"Only one."
Fleming's techs worked the weapon assignment process, and then he pressed the Commit control.
"Weapon's away sir, three minutes."
"Nav! Give me 15 left again."
"15 left, Captain."
The phone rang at the Comms station and Leah Farley picked up.
"Farley," she said. Her eyes narrowed, then went wide with surprise. "When?" she asked, then finally, "Very well. I'm coming."
She shot out of her chair and walked to the Command position.
"Permission to leave the Bridge, sir?" she asked, the urgency evident in her voice.
"Now, Ensign Farley? Why?"
"Something is up with the SLIP receiver, sir. My techs just called me about it, and I need to check it out before I say anything else."
"Your chief can't handle a maintenance issue?" XO Rodriguez asked with no small amount of skepticism.
Farley shook her head.
"I don't think this is a maintenance problem, ma'am. My techs here can handle the position."
She looked directly at Davis "Sir. If I may?"
Davis paused less than a second. Farley was smart. He would trust her judgment.
"Very well. Report back as soon as you know something."
"Will do, sir."
She ran out of the Bridge, sprinting aft to the Communications facilities.
Just as the Bludgeon struck the second enemy ship in the aft section, the IR alarm again raised its ugly cry.
"IR contact 345 minus 5. Enemy ship, designate Echo Three."
"This is getting ridiculous," Davis said, to no one in particular.
"Echo Two is firing sir. He doesn't seem very dead, Captain." Sanders called.
"How many?"
Sanders and his techs worked the data and were able to see each IR flash of the enemy's missile launches.
"Twelve."
"Weaps! Give me all twelve Spartans right now and reload."
Jake Fleming assigned and released the Spartans and began the reload process. Eight Spartans made the grade, but four missed, and there wasn't time for a second launch.
The first weapon hit just forward of the starboard rotary launcher, damaging it, and sending lethal shards into the magazine, somehow failing to detonate the ordnance stored there, but killing everyone. Some of Lisa's weapons crew died outright from the shrapnel, and the rest suffocated in the vacuum of the shredded compartment. As if to add insult to injury another passed right through and continued out the port side, exploding just outside the ship and pelting the port side with shrapnel. Yet another hit pummeled the hangar, blowing out the doors and destroying the shuttles and other equipment there, as well as taking six more lives. The ship whipsawed and shook from the impacts.
XO Linda Rodriguez left the command position to evaluate the damage aft and direct damage control. She stopped to drag Boyd to his feet and push him out the Bridge door.
"Come with me, asshole," she sneered at him, "If you can't do any good here maybe you can make yourself useful with me."
Boyd made no effort to hide the fear in his eyes as she hustled him aft.
David felt the shockwave move through the ship from then impact aft. He pulled up a ship status display and drew a quick breath. The hangar and magazine were red, showing zero atmosphere.
"Lisa..." he said, almost involuntarily. She and her crew were almost certainly dead. He sucked down the pain and got back to work. The rest of them were still alive, so the magazine hadn't gone up.
The next strike threw Leah Farley and her Chief across the SLIP Maintenance Compartment, breaking the Chief's forearm and blackening Farley's left eye. Her ribs screamed at her from the impact with the wall-mounted steel work table. They slid and crawled their way back to the main SLIP receiver status display panel they had been looking at.
"How bad is it, Jeff?" she asked.
"Not good, Ensign. Broke my goddamn arm."
"Can you work?" The Chief smiled.
"If I can get a half an Ensign to help, yeah, I'll manage."
"OK, I think half of me still works. Show me what you saw."
Chief Shaw stood up and pointed with his good arm to a signal displayed on the receiver status panel.
"There."
"OK, so?""
"So, after every transmission, we have to check the alignment of the SLIP receiver."
"Right, the signal is strongest at the point of origin, so sometimes it can bleed over and shit on the receiver."
"Indelicate, for a lady Ensign, but yeah, accurate enough."
He pointed to a spike on the display,
"Here is the transmission at 1330. I came in to do the usual check, and while I'm looking at it, this happens."
He expanded the display and indicated a small signal, just above the noise level of the receiver.
"Did you have to realign the receiver?"
He shook his head. "No, it was fine. But this little piece of crap here caught my attention."
He paused to take a breath, then grunted in pain from his arm. He'd shifted his weight, and the arm had pressed against the wall of the compartment.
"Shit that hurts." He blinked away the pain best he could. "Turns out that little turd shows up again. And again. Every 35 seconds, near as I can tell. Might be a fraction more or less."
"I've never seen anything like that."
"No, ma'am, neither have I. I don't know what it is, but it isn't right."
"You ran a self-test?"
Shaw rolled his eyes, the pain exaggerating his impatience with Farley.
"What am I, Ensign, a rookie? A moron? Hell yes, I ran it twice, and then a deep diagnostic. The receiver thinks it's OK and frankly so do I."
She smiled grimly through her own pain. Shaw was young for a chief but plenty competent. She liked him, respected his knowledge, and felt sure he would go a long way in Fleet.
"How far back did you see it?"
Shaw grunted as he swiped the display to the right, looking back in time. He was sweating now, and to Leah’s eyes he was getting very pale, but he pushed through the pain and concentrated on this display.
"First one is something like 1130...uh...." Shaw squinted to read the time stamp. "11:32:22 plus a few tenths."
"So, what happened at...oh shit."
The Chief eyebrows went up in reaction to Farley's comment.
"No," she said to herself, "that could not be it…"
"Care to share Ensign Farley?"
"Kinda looks like a sonar ping, don't you think?"
"Oh shit!" he said, the realization coming to him as well.
"Like I said..." with her eye swollen almost shut and three broken ribs, she still managed to reach the phone.
"Intel," she said, wincing in pain as the ship rocked again. The motion knocked the Chief back to the deck, and he swore in pain.
"Powell."
"Powell it's Leah Farley in Comms. I think they're tracking us by the SLIP receiver. And I think they can do it from FTL."
She stopped to cough, which hurt like hell, and spat it out on the flo
or. Blood. Well, she thought to herself, that can't be good.
"Say that again?" he asked, incredulous.
"We see some periodic fluctuations in the-"
Another hit cut Leah's voice off, this one aft and squarely in the SLIP system.
The Navigation officer, Travis Buckley, called out the updated status.
"Three more hits, Captain. The SLIP system is out, the other hits were to an empty crew area and the hangar deck, again."
Davis picked himself up off the floor and stumbled to the Weapons station. Jake Fleming didn't wait for Davis to ask.
"We're still functional, sir. Even the hit on the magazine didn't do any real damage to the weapons themselves. Freaking miracle, that one."
Davis turned back to Surveillance.
"Who the hell hit us, John?"
"Echo Three, sir. They launched-" Davis didn't wait for the rest of the answer.
"Four Bludgeons, Echo Three, now."
Fleming dispatched the weapons as Davis made his way back to the Command position. His phone rang.
"Captain." He answered. There was a moment of recognition, then a look of sadness followed by anger.
"Are you sure, Chief?" He stood and addressed the Bridge.
"The XO is dead, so is Boyd. They think Farley was killed when they hit the SLIP system."
He looked around, and his bleak expression rested on his Weapons Officer.
"Fleming, just in case, you're now the XO."
"Aye, sir."
"Fourth IR contact, sir. 070 plus 30."
Paula had found herself after the initial wave of fear. She was now steady and focused on working the problem in front of her. Sanders was grateful for her courage, her ability to do her job even under this kind of stress. They hadn't seen this sort of action before, and it showed. By now they were all terrified, but they kept working.
"Range?" Davis asked.
"Not yet, sir," Sanders answered.
"They're firing, Captain," Sanders called.
"Fleming! Spartans!"
"On the way, Captain." The starboard rotary, full of Spartans, clicked through six launch cycles in as many seconds and then stopped.
"Six away, sir, but it jammed."
"Shit. Nav! Left 45, down 90 and full power on the Drive. I am tired of this-"
The six Spartans did as well as they could, but they were severely outnumbered, with multiple attacks coming from three different enemy ships. Four incoming missiles missed, but three missiles struck the Bridge in rapid succession, the last two detonated in the Weapons Section, putting that cranky starboard rotary permanently out of service.
Sigma
GL 876
Saturday, June 25, 2078, 1710 UTC
Back in the Intel section, the impacts tossed Powell and Jackson to the floor. Sally Gray managed to stay in her seat.
"Christ, David, what the hell was that?"
Powell shook his head to clear it and looked at Sally.
"We're hit again. But since we're not personally dead yet, let's see what we can do."
David pulled up the ship status display. The display showed him schematics of the ship, side and top views. Each of the modular sections of the ship was yellow, red, green, or black. Yellow meant danger, either fire or leakage. Red indicated sections which had no air. Black indicated sections where no data was available. Their section was green. Forward of them, the ship was entirely red. Nearby was mostly green with a few yellow areas. The starboard side was entirely black. The port side was mostly green, all the way back to the Engineering spaces, except the Weapons section, which was red. Engineering itself was black.
"OK folks, what does this picture tell you?"
Gray pursed her lips and frowned.
"We lost a comm junction. Probably the secondary port crossover junction at section 72."
Powell looked at her in surprise. "Very good. I agree. Abe, that junction is just twenty meters aft of us."
Jackson nodded and moved out the door.
David could see that the strike had destroyed the Bridge, which meant much of the officer cadre was gone. He switched to a display of available crew. There were no officers on the list. David stifled a gasp. The computer had just told him that no line command officer remained alive. Len Davis had been a good commander. He had allowed Powell plenty of freedom and he listened when David spoke. Now Davis, Leah Farley, Lisa Briggs, John Sanders, all the rest, were dead.
"Lisa."
David heard Sally say quietly as she looked at the weapons magazine on the status display. He nodded acknowledgement.
"Yes," he said quietly, then refocused on the task at hand.
He switched to a surveillance display to see what data he had available. Only the port IR and RF sensors were available. He selected the port IR and the ship image was immediately replaced with a deep red picture of space to the port side of the ship. The course and speed of the ship appeared at the bottom of the screen. The margins of the sensor display were labeled with the relative bearings of the data displayed. Other than the stars, there was no IR or RF data. As he watched, some nearby debris moved quickly across the field.
Jackson came back in.
"Got it, I think."
David reset the display and now saw that all the port side sensors were online. But, he was more worried about the engineering spaces aft. He flipped back to the ship status display. Again, the image of the ship appeared, now with green throughout the engineering spaces. Weapons remained a solid, almost accusatory red. He picked up his ship phone.
"Engineering." A moment later, Engineering Lieutenant Kondo's voice was on the phone.
"Kondo."
"Powell, here, Lieutenant."
"Powell! Are you OK? Did you fix the port comm junction?"
"Yes, sir, we're OK. Jackson did the junction. Good job for a spook, eh?" David took a breath. "Looks like we're in decent condition starting about two sections aft of the bridge. Mister Kondo, you appear to be the senior surviving officer."
Kondo, his frown obvious in his voice said "No, David, I will not take command. I am not a line officer. I'm an engineer for FPI as you well know. I know you can do this David. You have to do it. I can give you whatever speed and course you want, but you have to fight the ship, David. I can't."
Jackson, watching the sensor feed on his workstation, grabbed David's arm.
"I have a contact, looks like it might be that 070 plus 30, Mister Powell. Looks undamaged."
Kondo, having overheard Jackson, asked "What's your pleasure, Mister Powell?"
"I shouldn't be doing this Mr. Kondo. You're in command here."
"Fine. So be it. Mr. Powell, my first order is to place you in tactical command and return to my engines. Now, I ask again, what's your pleasure?"
David sighed, shrugged, and finally yielded.
"What's the status of the Drive?" he asked.
"Those last impacts caused the Drive to reset, so it's off right now, but we'll be back up shortly. Reactor is nominal."
"Get us turned towards Tranquility, slow, but hold the speed for the moment. We need to figure some stuff out up here."
"Got it."
David again punched at his workstation, accessing the command functions that the computer had granted him once Kondo put him in charge.
"Sally, I want you to set up an attack on that contact. What's the inventory?"
"The starboard rotary is offline, as is the reloader. We have the eight Lances and four Bludgeons on the port dispenser. That's it. Slim pickin's for a big fight."
David shook his head. "Not that small. Let's give the enemy as big a headache as he gave us. Use a Bludgeon."
Gray nodded and began working the console to execute the attack.
"Abe, see if you can find that 345 minus 5 that came in right before we were hit."
"There was a 212 minus 15, too."
"Right, but really, we've maneuvered and been kicked around so much I don't know which way is what yet."
"And we
only have the port sensors."
"Right. Keep at it."
Powell looked around in frustration. He was effectively a one-eyed fish, with Sigma able only to see what was to her left. As he spun his chair to look at another display he suddenly stopped, slapping his feet to the floor so hard that Jackson and Gray jumped at the noise.
"Dammit."
He said with a wry smile.
"Why didn't I think of that earlier?"
Abe Jackson was about to ask what he meant when Powell grabbed the phone.
"Engineering...Mister Kondo, can you give me a four RPM roll without overstressing what's left of this ship?"
Back in the Engineering control room, Kondo thought about what Powell had asked.
"Yes, Mr. Powell, we can. We'll likely lose some of the loose pieces forward - you understand what I mean?"
David had a momentary vision of the remains of his shipmates being tossed out into space as the ship began to spin.
"I understand. But the decompression of the forward spaces must have done much of that already."
"True. I also have to say that much of the EM coat has to be gone and we will be flickering if we do this."
The thick light and heat absorbing material that was the outside skin of Sigma was obviously shredded where she had been damaged. The secret to survival in space was stealth, and much of Sigma's security blanket up forward was gone.
Powell set his jaw and answered. "I'd rather risk being seen than tolerate being blind. But let's make the roll one RPM. That should cut it down."
Kondo agreed. "Sounds reasonable. Shall we begin?"
"Please." David hung up and turned to his Intel crew again. They were both staring at him. "OK, OK, I know - it's nuts. But the computer indexes scan data to the relative position of the ship-"
"So, by turning like a pig on a spit we get a 360-degree view," interrupted Jackson.
"Exactly."
Gray shook her head in admiration.
"Brilliant."
"No, Sally, desperate."
Their desperation continued as the ship began to roll slowly. Within a few minutes the tactical display began to register something intelligible. As they watched it take shape Gray was setting up to attack.
"OK, so still four contacts. This one," David said, pointing to the display, "is venting. That's probably the one we hit with the Bludgeons. So, leave that one. We now have a 102 minus 2, a 95 minus 5, and a 220 plus 10. None of those seem all that disabled."
Silver Enigma Page 31
