Warlord 2: The Nobility

by CJ Williams

  By the time Carrie returned to Lulubelle she was feeling human again.

  Chapter 2 – Misfire

  Carrie listened patiently while the crew ticked off each step of the pre-mission checklist. She was waiting for a particular item.

  “Message drone forwarding set?” the tactical officer asked.

  Dominique Freeman, at the communication station, responded uncertainly, “Set to J99 coordinates?”

  Carrie grimaced at the ambiguous response.

  Grimes saw her expression and interrupted the exchange between his new First Officer and Communications.

  “Lieutenant Young,” Grimes said, cutting into the checklist. “Please clarify the message drone forwarding process.”

  “Aye, sir,” Young said. He went over to Dominique’s console and reviewed the coordinates with her.

  This was an important part of the departure process. Before Commander Blackburn ever set out from Earth on Lulubelle, he and Doctor Higgins developed a protocol for message drones to accommodate a mobile force that was operating from more than one fixed base. On arrival at the programmed destination the drone would seek new instructions from the local AI’s post office module. If a forwarding address was available, the drone would download its messages, upload anything outgoing, and press on.

  Dominique was familiar with the procedure, but there were a lot of new faces on the bridge; everyone was feeling tentative. Grimes was taking it slow and being very methodical with the departure.

  “Coordinates set for J99,” Dominique said firmly.

  “Thank you, Ensign Freeman,” Grimes said and then waited for his first officer, Cordell Young, to resume his seat. “Continue with departure.”

  Carrie wasn’t the only one who wanted to be sure that message forwarding was activated. Everyone was desperate to hear from Earth. The more days that went by without an update, the grimmer the speculation on what it meant.

  Was it possible that Earth was just a smoking hole? Carrie pushed the speculation from her mind. She refused to believe it.

  She also held out an unspoken hope that Commander Blackburn might still be alive. The report from Ensign So’wie left the door fractionally open on that score. In her own quarters, Carrie had replayed the message several times seeking reassurance.

  How nice it would be to return to Bradley’s Planet to find the Commander waiting for her, grumbling about her mistakes.

  “Checklist complete, Captain,” Lieutenant Young announced. He was sitting in the first officer’s chair, having moved from the navigation station. Carrie sat uneasily in the observer’s position to the left of the captain’s seat, which was occupied by Johnny Grimes.

  “Acknowledged,” Grimes said. “George, set course for star system J99 and engage.”

  “Course set, Captain,” George replied.

  The viewscreen at the front of the bridge filled with rainbow-colored streaks of light. The displays facing aft showed the sun for Bradley’s Planet darken to a dull red.

  Carrie was itching to start simulator training but decided to make herself scarce for a couple of hours to give Grimes a chance to get comfortable in his new chair.

  When she took over Lulubelle’s captain’s slot coming from Jigu, the Commander hadn’t given her a moment to rest. They started drills the second they left the system. But then again, he didn’t step on her toes either. He sat back and let her make one mistake after the other without comment. She had asked him about his seeming unending patience.

  “You’re new at this,” he’d explained. “Of course you’re going to screw up. No one is born to lead. It takes practice and persistence. I expect you to make a lot of bad calls, some of them more than once. But hopefully, you’ll learn something each time.”

  When they arrived at J97, home of what became Bradley’s Planet, the Commander had taken the command chair for the first battle. Even though Carrie had been on the bridge during the battle of Jigu, it gave her a chance to watch him direct the Bakkui engagement knowing that her turn would come up next. She would do the same for Grimes once they got to system J99. After that, Lulubelle’s success or failure would be in his hands.

  One big difference between Carrie and the Commander was that she knew she couldn’t keep herself from backseat driving. For the moment at least, Grimes needed room to grow without her nit-picking.

  “I’ll be in my quarters,” she told Grimes. “Think about a few simulation scenarios.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  *.*.*.*

  Carrie stood at the front of the main briefing room. Her senior officers were present as were the warship captains and the fighter squadron commander.

  “The Warlord always emphasized the mission briefing before an engagement,” she said in opening. “Not just the mechanics, but the how and why.” Carrie nodded at Grimes to come forward.

  He took his place at the podium. “The Warlord told us a million war stories about when he was a military pilot on Earth. My favorites were about his time at Red Flag in Nevada. For those of you who didn’t know, he was an instructor there. His mission was to be a bad guy. He called it ‘Red Air’. He defended the so-called enemy targets against student pilots.

  “On each mission the students gathered east of the Red Flag ranges and entered through a mountain pass called Student Gap. The Commander said students were predictable. After watching so many of them, he could spot their tactics the second they came through the pass.

  “That’s our advantage against the Bakkui. Our recce drones have seen enough of their attacks that we have a good idea of what they’ll do when they enter a system. They have two basic tactics; they smoke in for a quick hit and run, or they creep in slowly and set up ambushes.

  “We can’t tell yet what their plan is for J99, but because it has three gas giants, I believe they will exercise caution. That’s good for us because it means we can hit them at the outer edge of the solar system.”

  Grimes turned to the display screen that depicted the destination star system. “The inhabited planet is third from the sun, like our Earth. About thirty astronomical units farther out is the first gas giant. That’s the distance from our own sun to Neptune. There are no planets in the middle of the system nor is there an asteroid belt; nothing that could be a problem for us. Debbie has already detected the Bakkui’s wake so we should be able to engage almost immediately after they arrive in system J99.”

  “How large is their force?” someone called from the back of the room.

  Grimes nodded at Debbie Weeks, the reconnaissance officer, to answer.

  “We don’t know,” she said. “But based on our analysis of their wake, I suspect it’s a single carrier with about two hundred warships. That is their standard force for the smaller systems.”

  “What size force took out the Commander?” another voice called.

  “Belay that!” Carrie barked, intervening. She would not put up with disrespectful speculation about Commander Blackburn. “Shuffles,” she said. “Brief us on tactics.”

  Leon Campbell had moved into the Tactical position as part of the reorganization. He had been one of her best warship commanders and was the natural selection for the open slot; the only exception being his military bearing. He isn’t called Shuffles for nothing.

  Campbell shuffled up to the podium.

  “Nothing particularly new here, except we’re going in with a lot less force. Fewer fighters, fewer warships and, at least in in the initial engagement, no missiles. We will deploy recce drones before and after the battle. You’ve been briefed ad nauseam about why our weapons are better, but keep in mind that to date, the Bakkui have taken out over a dozen of our fighters and three of our Ambrosia-class warships.”

  Campbell threw a glance at Carrie before continuing. “The admiral doesn’t want talk about it, but they sure as hell did something to Earth and Jigu and we still don’t know what…so stay sharp. Tactics are the same; we wait for them to launch their warships before we launch ours.”

  That was a
n important point. Carrie had once tried to nail a Bakkui carrier as soon as it entered a system, even before it launched its warships. The carrier detected their presence and simply vanished at maximum acceleration. Even with their new capability for gravity wake analysis, Lulubelle couldn’t track it.

  Most of the time, the Bakkui would stand and fight, but they weren’t too proud to run away. Not that pride has anything to do with it, Carrie thought. As far as she could tell, their actions were based only on formulaic calculations; plenty of intellect but not a speck of soul.

  The Alliance’s military advantage came after the Bakkui deployed their destroyers. Once they deployed, the carrier would not retreat. It would stay and fight even after the battle was hopeless.

  “So what can go wrong?” Shuffles asked aloud. Without waiting he answered his own question. “If the Bakkui ever figure out how to randomize their tactics, we’ll have trouble. Sooner or later, they’ll do that. So far, all of their attacks are linear and predictable. Think about it. If they varied their deceleration entering a system, that would throw us off. We could even wind up in front; not a good place to be. If their destroyers paired up in pincer attack, or even worse, in multiple axis, they could catch us flat shielded.”

  “These things aren’t dummies. Sooner or later they’ll change what they do. That’s why I’m saying stay sharp. If you see them suddenly doing something unpredictable, don’t wait around and try to figure it out; just get outta Dodge. I’ve gone over this with the admiral and she agrees. We’re better off debriefing over a cold one on Bradley’s Planet. That’s a lot better than a memorial plaque somewhere, trust me. Any questions?”

  Another voice called from the middle of the room. “So are you saying we should cut and run?”

  “No, you idiot,” Shuffles responded tiredly. “I’m saying kill them. Just don’t die trying.”

  Carrie heard some good-natured jibes at the questioner. There was always someone who had to come up with a bonehead inquiry. Being around fighter pilots every day had taught Carrie that the adage there’s no such thing as a stupid question was just not true. Sometimes these guys were idiots.

  “Be ready to deploy,” Shuffles continued. “They may launch destroyers at the edge of the system, or orbit straight into the third planet. Hang tight until George gives the signal and then launch into line abreast formation on Lulubelle. Anybody else?” Hearing none, Shuffles gave Carrie an inquiring look. She shook her head, so he dismissed the crew. Now it was time to wait.

  *.*.*.*

  “You have command,” Grimes said, rising from the captain’s seat.

  “I have command,” Carrie confirmed.

  She paused to allow the quick reshuffle as he and Young moved to different positions. Grimes assumed the observer seat she had vacated, and Cordell Young moved to the First Officer’s chair.

  The bridge was a far cry from when they first set out from Earth so long ago. Back then it was packed and always hummed with activity. The layout was based on the Commander’s military experience. Rather than a helm setup, like the ones Carrie had seen on US Navy vessels, he’d arranged everything like a NASA command center and most of the time called it that.

  Each of the twenty workstations on the bridge represented a facet of what would be a public administration division of a modest-sized city; engineering, education, maintenance, medical, and more. That’s what it took to manage a crew complement of almost fifty thousand people.

  Nowadays, however, they shipped with a skeleton crew so most of the stations were empty. These days, it was a basic battle bridge.

  “Time to intercept, George?” Carrie asked aloud.

  “Approximately two hours, Admiral.”

  “Take us to Yellow Alert,” she ordered.

  “Yellow Alert,” George replied.

  Throughout the ship, crews assigned to the larger Ambrosia-class warships boarded their vessels, ready to launch within two minutes. The fighter pilots completed their pre-inspections and adjusted the seat harnesses so they could board and launch in the same timeframe.

  Within five minutes of going to Yellow Alert, Shuffles, at the tactical position, spoke quietly. “All aircrews showing ready, Admiral.”

  It wasn’t a surprise. After ten days of waiting, everyone was on edge, ready for the imminent confrontation with the Bakkui.

  “Deborah,” Carrie said to Lieutenant Weeks, at the Reconnaissance station, “Tell us what you’re looking at.”

  “A single colony-class carrier,” Weeks replied. “George is maintaining a slight blueshift as we approach; we’re gaining, but slowly. Current distance to target one hundred fifty AUs and closing.”

  *.*.*.*

  “Blueshift increasing!” Deborah called. Their rate of closure on the enemy had suddenly increased. “Bakkui going to sub-light. One hundred AUs.”

  “Put all crews on cockpit alert, George.” Carrie said.

  “Acknowledged,” George replied.

  A minute later Shuffles called, “All warships report ready.”

  Carrie hated the situation; it was the most dangerous part of the engagement. They were closing fast based on the latest information from Lieutenant Weeks. But that information itself, at one hundred astronomical units, was fourteen hours old. What had the Bakkui done since then? Had they already destroyed the civilization on J99? Had they reversed course and backtrailed to catch an unseen pursuer unaware?

  Strangely enough, the answer would become apparent in much less time. The anomalies generated by FTL flight resolved very quickly when the two fleets came together.

  “Deployment bloom observed,” Deborah called. “I confirm they have launched their destroyers. Fifty AUs and closing.”

  So far, so good, Carrie thought. Based on the seven-hours-old information the Bakkui were sticking to their standard formula tactics.

  “Five AUs,” Deborah reported, a note of uncertainness in her voice. “The deployment bloom is gone. I can’t tell, but they may have recalled the destroyers or gone into hiding.”

  “Any redshift?” Carrie demanded, wondering if the Bakkui was accelerating away. “Are they running?”

  “None!” Deborah responded. “One AU.”

  “George, you have the hammer.” Carrie said, giving him control of the attack. The process of launching the fighters and warships was best done under his control, as it involved killing the gravity drives for the few seconds required to launch their warships and fighters from individual launch pads inside Lulubelle’s hull.

  “I have the hammer,” George responded. “Gravity drives to zero…now. Warships launching.” There was a five-second pause. “All warships launched. Fighters launching.” Another pause. “All fighters launched. Tactical displays updating.”

  The large tactical display to the left of the bridge’s main viewscreen showed a God’s-eye view of the system centered around a bright white diamond icon representing Lulubelle. A line of white ovals indicating the positions of the just launched warships were spreading out on either side. The two fighter squadrons, indicated in green and blue symbols, appeared and slowly moved outboard of the warships.

  “Recon drones launched,” George said unemotionally.

  Seconds later he added, “Gravity braking resumed.”

  Carrie studied the main viewscreen. The Bakkui should be coming into view.

  “Less than one AU now,” Deborah advised. “Fifty million miles. Going sub-light.”

  A moment later Shuffles spoke out. “Got them on sensors; updating the display.”

  Carrie saw them. Something was different.

  “They’re clustered together,” Deborah said.

  It was an insane tactic unless Carrie was missing something.

  Shuffles scoffed aloud. “That’s pretty dumb. What’re they trying to pull?”

  “Redshift!” Deborah called out. “The carrier is accelerating away.”

  “Full throttle, George!” Carrie ordered. “Ignore the destroyers; have our warships engage them.”

/>   “Acknowledged, Admiral,” George said.

  “They’re trying to suck us into a trap,” Shuffles said. “Idiots!”

  “Launch guided missiles at the Bakkui destroyers if you can, George,” Carrie said.

  “Launched,” George confirmed.

  “Blueshift,” Deborah said. “We’re gaining quickly. In range in thirty sec—Redshift!”

  “Firing,” George announced unnecessarily.

  From the seat of the captain’s chair, Carrie felt the minute vibration that meant the twenty-four nose cannons built into the nose of Lulubelle’s fuselage were firing. Each second, each barrel fired two of the forty-eight-inch projectiles. They were made of depleted plutonium with a lithium deuteride core, plus all the other enhancements that Justin and Rico had come up with.

  Lulubelle’s master warning system, known to the crew as Belle, spoke up. “Shields. Activated.”

  “It’s mines,” Shuffles said. “They’ve mined our flight path toward the mother ship. Avoid those, George.”

  “Acknowledged. Our extended shields will sweep them aside easily.”

  Belle’s voice was clear in the background. “Shields. Extended.”

  “Still redshift!” Deborah called. “He’s maneuvering. He’s trying to get away!”

  “Don’t lose him, George,” Carrie said. “Keep firing.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The display zoomed in on the colony-class Bakkui warcraft. A flash of light against its stern indicated they had scored a hit. Carrie glanced at the tactical battle screen. The warships were engaging the main Bakkui fleet, now to their rear. One by one, the yellow Bakkui diamonds were winking to red. All of her ships were intact.

  “George, make sure our own ships don’t hit us.”

  “Acknowledged, Admiral. Firing limited within twenty degrees of our position.”

  Carrie hoped that didn’t put her warships at risk. She didn’t like implementing a surprise firing restriction on her forces in the middle of the battle; but then again, it would be worse to take one of their own rounds up Lulubelle’s rear end.