Across the Great Rift

by Washburn, Scott;

  Tad was still a little surprised that he was here on the bridge. There were three older members of the official delegation aboard, but they had all opted to observe remotely from their quarters. So when Regina had invited him here, there had been no problem in accepting. He just hoped they wouldn’t be asking him for any official decisions!

  But for the next hour nothing happened and little was said to him. The warship finished its deceleration and the increased gravity dropped away as it came to a near-halt a few hundred kilometers from Panmunaptra. More time passed; Regina excused herself and Tad was seriously thinking about returning to his cabin. He was tired, and in spite of his heavy clothing, he was chilled to the bone and dearly wanted to take off his breathing helmet…

  Suddenly there was commotion on the bridge and several people were talking at once:

  “Sensor contact! One of those EMP discharges! Range about three million klicks, bearing oh-four-nine by oh-one-eight!”

  “Incoming message, sir! From the Seyotah commander, he reports that contact has been made.”

  Frichette and Crawford consulted with their people for a short time before Frichette began issuing orders. Crawford came over to him, his face set in an expression of grim satisfaction.

  “We’ve found them. Looks like it’s show time.”

  * * * * *

  Charles Crawford stood on the bridge of P.N.S. Felicity and watched every move Petre Frichette made. He was acutely aware that sometime in the coming weeks or months he was going to have to do the very same job aboard the battle cruiser Indomitable. With each passing hour he was more and more impressed with the young man. He may have looked about sixteen standards, but he spoke and acted with the confidence of a man three times that age. And Crawford was learning a lot.

  On the one hand, the job was simpler than he had feared. Frichette only issued generalized orders: go there, do that, let me know what happens. The ship’s captain, Frichette’s former exec, Tymmon Chapman, did all the mechanical work of carrying out those orders. But on the other hand, while Chapman’s tasks were technically more complicated, they were also routine and by-the-book. The orders Frichette gave took real thought and decision-making which could only be based on knowledge and experience. For instance, Frichette had just ordered Chapman to move the ship on a certain vector at a certain acceleration. The order itself was very simple, but how had he arrived at that decision? He had just stared at the main tactical display for a while, watching it update as information on the enemy forces was added and then he had issued his orders. Felicity was heading almost, but not quite, directly toward the enemy position, but at only a little over one gravity of acceleration. How had Frichette known to do that? Or did he really know? Was the young man just guessing and acting confident to cover up his uncertainty?

  “The readings we are getting back from the Seyotah scouts indicate that this is the main enemy attack,” said Frichette coming over to stand next to him. “They lost three scouts penetrating close enough to confirm that, but they were able to spot the asteroid and that’s the main thing. It is definitely on a collision course with Panmunaptra.”

  “Is that the red diamond there on the screen?”

  “Yes. We don’t have it on our own sensors yet—it doesn’t appear to have much metal content and they’ve painted or shrouded it in black somehow, so its albedo is almost nothing—but they can’t alter its course now without missing the target. We won’t lose track of it. It’s closing at about eighty-five KPS, so we have almost ten hours before it hits Panmunaptra.”

  “What about enemy ships?”

  “There is a screen about fifty thousand klicks out in front and then a second group closer to the asteroid. No real info on numbers or types yet, but the Seyotah tell us there could be as many as a thousand of those small attack ships like we encountered, and fifty or sixty of the larger carrier ships.”

  Crawford whistled. “Can we handle that many?”

  “I’ll let you know in a few hours.”

  “What about the Seyotah warriors?”

  “You can see some of them on the display, the yellow dots. Their attack ships are almost impossible to spot beyond about ten thousand klicks, even when you know exactly where to look, so most of those positions are only approximate, based on data sent from the Seyotah commander. They have over two hundred attack ships, but over half are out patrolling in other directions and probably won’t be able to get back here in time for the fight. The rest are forming up and heading out. The idea is for them to go in ahead of us and force the enemy to commit their forces and reveal their positions. We’ll be right behind, ready to engage.”

  “A hundred of them against a thousand Clorindans? They’ll be slaughtered, won’t they?”

  Frichette quirked an odd smile at him. “They’d be slaughtered if the enemy had anything to slaughter them with. We are assuming the enemy ships are still armed only with the EMP cannons. So, the Seyotah ships will get wrecked, but I’m told they have life support for a week or more. With any luck they’ll get picked up by someone in time.” Frichette’s expression changed. “No, if there’s any slaughtering to be done, we’ll be the ones to do it.”

  “Hardly seems fair, does it?”

  “Normally I’d agree with you, but considering what the Clorindans are trying to do here, I’m not feeling terribly sympathetic.”

  “No, that’s true. Will we be able to stop that asteroid?”

  “I’m hoping we can. It doesn’t look all that large and a couple of concentrated torpedo salvos ought to be able to divert it. Just in case, though, I think you should get your toys moving.”

  Crawford looked to the two green icons on the tactical display. They were a pair of heavy-duty lifters he’d had fitted with extra fuel tanks. They were unmanned and could only do about one G, but he’d had them follow along under remote control and they were just catching up now. “Will we have time to make a rendezvous and push the asteroid aside?”

  Frichette, shook his head. “No, the asteroid is already too close. If we’d had more time then maybe, but not now. If we need them at all, I’m afraid it will be a bit messy.”

  “The baron isn’t going to like that, but he’ll just have to bill the Protector.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you say the enemy is still ten hours away?”

  “No, it’s ten hours until the asteroid hits Panmunaptra. We will engage long before then. Say about two hours from now. I’ll be sending the crew to battle stations in an hour or so. That will let them have a meal before we engage. You might want to do the same.”

  “Good idea. What about you?”

  “Oh, I’ll grab a sandwich here.”

  “See that you do, Commodore,” said Crawford with a smile. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  In fact, he was back in forty-five minutes. Regina and Tad were just arriving as he did. They all had their vac suits with them as regulations required. “If the Clorindans only use those pulse weapons I don’t see what we need these for,” said Regina. “After all, they don’t have anything to knock a hole in us with.”

  “Things can happen in a battle, Dame Regina,” said Frichette coming over to them. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Right,” said Crawford. “So, what’s happening?”

  “Nothing new, really. Both sides are massing their forces. The Seyotah spearhead should be making contact in less than an hour.”

  “And then we go in?” asked Regina. “That should come as quite a surprise for the Clorindans.”

  Frichette chuckled and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. They’ve known we were coming for the last twelve hours, at least.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Our exhaust flare. Pushing this ship at three point five Gs produces a flare visible to the naked eye for a hundred million klicks. Big ships moving at high accelerations are very hard to miss.”

  “So they know we are here, but they are still coming on?”

  “Yes. Either they can’t change t
heir course enough to disengage, or… or…”

  “Or they’re mad enough not to care,” said Crawford. He looked from face to face and saw that no one liked what that implied.

  “We might need these vac suits after all.”

  That put a stop to all conversation and Crawford and the others simply observed until fifteen minutes later Frichette said to Chapman: “I think it’s about time, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Kirby, sound general quarters. Clear the ship for action.” An alarm began to sound and the crew went to work. The only thing to happen on the bridge was that everyone put on their vac suits, leaving the helmets off, and every loose object was locked away in cabinets. Crawford knew that throughout the rest of the ship, however, much more extensive activity was taking place to bring Felicity to full combat readiness. Weapons were manned and their capacitors charged, bulkheads were sealed, certain unused compartments had the air evacuated, medical teams and damage repair parties got out their gear and took their places. It was a painstaking process, but it was less than five minutes before all the lights on the status board were green. “All decks report ready, sir,” said Chapman. “The ship is cleared for action.”

  “Very good. Please start running target tracks on the enemy ships we have data for.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chapman began issuing orders and his crew got to work. Frichette walked over to where the observers were seated.

  “Just for practice, and to keep them occupied,” he explained. “They are still far out of range.”

  “Great,” said Regina after he stepped away. “What’s to keep us occupied?”

  “Nervous?” Crawford cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

  “Damn right I am. I just wish this was all over.”

  “Will we be able to stop them?” asked Tad Farsvar. Crawford studied the young man. He had far more at stake than any of them—beyond the fact of their lives being in danger, of course—but seemed to be holding up well.

  “I think we can, Tad,” he said. “But… but you do realize that we are going to be forced to destroy some of the Clorindans? We don't have any weapons which can just disable them. If we have to shoot, we will be shooting to kill.”

  “Yes, I understand. But the Clorindans have brought this on themselves. We have no choice, do we?”

  “No, none that I can see. If we just tried to go after the asteroid and ignore the attack ships, they’d disable us before we could. Your people have been trying to contact the enemy for hours now to warn them off, but they haven’t replied to any of the messages.”

  “Then they shall have to pay the price for their folly.”

  Conversation died while they watched the bridge crew go through their exercises. The minutes seemed to drag for ages, but the icons on the tactical display slowly drew closer and closer together. Finally, the cloud of yellow icons was very close to the leading group of red ones. The red ones had just been ‘estimations’ of the enemy positions based on the initial scouting reports, but now the small white icons which Crawford knew meant EMP discharges began to appear and slowly fade on the screen and the small red dots of estimated enemies became the slightly larger and brighter icons for confirmed ones.

  “So, it begins,” whispered Regina.

  The Seyotah warriors, in a tight clump, merged with the bigger, but less densely packed, mass of the Clorindan vanguard. The EMP discharges flickered more and more rapidly on the display and then they were past each other.

  “What do the little blinking lights inside the larger icons mean?” asked Regina.

  “Distress beacons, I think,” answered Crawford. “The attack ships which have been damaged can’t maneuver anymore and have to be rescued. They are so difficult to pick up on sensors as it is, they need those to make sure they aren’t stranded.”

  “Uh, it looks like a lot more of the Seyotahs are blinking than the Clorindans.”

  “Yes,” said Frichette from his command chair, swiveling to face them for a moment. “They were outnumbered two-to-one, so it’s not surprising. They lost about seventy-five and took out fifty of the Clorindans. Not too bad, actually.”

  “And the remaining twenty-five are still going on to attack the enemy main body?” asked Regina in amazement. “They’re outnumbered thirty or forty to one!”

  “Well, no disrespect to the Seyotahs, but it’s not that hard to be brave when the enemy isn’t using lethal weapons. That’s why our combat troopers rarely use stunners—there’s not near as much incentive for the enemy to run—or even keep his head down.” He glanced back at the display. “But excuse me, it’s time for us to do our part.”

  Felicity was nearing the maximum range for its main battery. The Seyotah sacrifice had accomplished one thing, anyway: most of the enemy vanguard had revealed itself during the exchange of fire. Their positions were noted and the ship’s sensors focused on them.

  “We have good locks, sir,” said Chapman.

  “Very well, commence firing.”

  Like during the first battle, there was no physical sensation to tell them that the lasers were firing, but almost immediately some of the icons denoting the enemy attack craft began to wink out. “Three hits,” reported Chapman, and then a few moments later: “Two more, sir.” Minute by minute the number of remaining enemy grew less. Ten, twenty-five, forty enemy ships were blasted out of space. But the range kept getting shorter and shorter.

  “Uh, are we going to be able to handle these before they are all over us, Petre?” asked Crawford nervously.

  “It’s looking good. So far we’ve only been using long range fire with the main battery. But we’re just about to open up with the secondaries in point-defense mode.”

  “We’re picking up a few new targets, sir,” said Chapman. “Some of them didn’t fire on the first pass with the Seyotahs, but we’re starting to pick them up now.”

  “Your active sensors are on maximum?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re probably taking ten years off the service life of the emitters, but we’re putting out so much energy we can spot these suckers at a pretty good range.”

  “Good. Commence fire with your secondaries, Captain.”

  The destroyer’s smaller weapons joined in and the rate of destruction increased noticeably. Sixty, eighty, a hundred Clorindan ships were blasted to wreckage. “About seventy left and it will still be another five minutes before their own weapons can fire back,” said Frichette with a small sigh. “We should be in the clear, folks.”

  “Are you okay, Tad?” Regina asked the young native and Crawford dragged his attention away from the tactical display to look at him, too.

  “I am fine, Regina. But… but it is hard to believe that people are dying out there. Watching it this way—just blips of light on a screen—is so… so impersonal.”

  “Yeah,” growled Crawford, suddenly remembering a far, far more personal combat not so long ago. “Maybe that’s why we find it so easy: we don’t have to look our victim in the eye before we kill them.” He twitched when Regina grabbed his hand and squeezed.

  He glanced at her face for a moment, but then, reluctantly, turned back to the display. As Petre had promised, the added fire of the secondary batteries was chewing away the enemy far more rapidly. The secondary batteries were designed to take out incoming torpedoes, which were smaller, faster, and more agile targets than the Clorindan attack ships. After another two minutes, the last one winked out. There was a palpable lowering of the tension on the bridge as people who had been hunched over their controls leaned back and relaxed. The only things close to them now were the Clorindans who had been disabled during the first fight with the Seyotahs, and their respective momentums would whisk them by and away very shortly.

  “Well,” said Crawford, “looks like we…”

  “Sir!” shouted one of the crewmen suddenly. “I’m reading power spikes on two of the disabled bogies!”

  “Weapons! Target them immediately!” snapped Captain Chapman.

  “What’s happening?” cried
Regina. An instant later the lights flickered slightly.

  “We’ve been hit, sir,” said another crewman. His was nearly lost in a rapid sequence of other voices:

  “Target solution complete.”

  “Fire!”

  “Targets destroyed, sir.”

  “Are there any more power readings?” demanded Frichette.

  “No, sir, not right now.”

  “Well, look sharp! Captain Chapman be ready to fire if there’s even a flicker.”

  “Yes, sir. Uh, that hit was from maximum range and doesn’t appear to have done much. One sensor is burned out and a few minor systems are disabled. Damage control is on it.”

  “What happened?” asked Regina again.

  “Looks like two of the Clorindans were playing possum. They weren’t damaged at all in the initial encounter, but deployed their rescue beacons anyway in hope we wouldn’t fire at them. Worked, too, damn them.” Frichette looked shaken.

  “What about the rest of them?” asked Crawford. “Their course will take them very close to my lifters. If there are more fakers they might be able to knock them out. Maybe…” he glanced at Tad and then swallowed. “Maybe we should blast the rest, too.”

  Frichette gritted his teeth for a moment at that suggestion but then shook his head. “I don’t think we need to worry about that. If there were any more, they certainly would have taken the opportunity to fire at us. In any case, there are a few of the other

  Seyotah attack ships beginning to gather from their patrol zones back there. They can provide an escort for your lifters. We don’t need… we don’t need to kill these people.”

  “But we may need to kill any disabled ships in the next wave, sir,” said Chapman, indicating the tactical display. The surviving Seyotahs were about to hit the Clorindan main body. “We can’t afford to take any chances.”

  “Right. Well, I doubt there will be many disabled ships to worry about this time.” Crawford sucked on his teeth at the sight of the tiny handful of warriors about to collide with the huge red cloud of enemies. The flashes of the EMP cannons flickered for a moment and then it was over. All the rest of the Seyotahs had blinking distress beacons. Only a half-dozen of the Clorindans were so marked.