It was a horrific six hours, watching the ship try to flee its tormenters, especially being as helpless to intervene as the Brooklands was. Just as the leading edge of the Phage reinforcements came within their maximum weapons range of the Dao, an enormous flash completely washed out the Brooklands’s optical sensors, but the radar images told the tale.
The Dao had taken a critical hit, exploding with enough force that she took fifteen attackers along with her. As the optics came back up, the thermals showed the ship had broken up into four large pieces, along with a lot of associated debris, and each was traveling roughly along the same course the battleship had been taking out of the Xi’an System.
“Fuck!” Lee shouted, causing everyone on the bridge to jump.
The loss of the Dao was a huge blow to the human war effort as large, powerful battleships were quite rare in the current Fleet makeup. He was simultaneously sick at the loss of human life and enraged that someone as incompetent as Chen hadn’t been replaced as CO of such a vital asset.
“Any escape beacons?”
“Negative, sir,” the OPS officer said. “No radio beacons from the Dao.”
“Helm, begin accelerating us out along our escape vector.” Lee forced himself to calm down. “All ahead two thirds. Let’s not draw undue attention to ourselves. We’ll charge to the jump point at the last minute.”
“Ahead two thirds, aye.”
“OPS, keep track of every enemy contact down near Xi’an.” Lee watched the Phage swarm all over the wreckage of the Dao, already dragging the larger pieces back to the planet. “I want to know immediately if they even begin to sniff in this direction.”
“Aye, sir.”
It was another four hours of steady acceleration until Lee began to feel that they just might make it out of Xi’an alive. It was another ten minutes after that when his OPS officer dispelled that optimism.
“Phage formation is splitting up,” he said. “Ten are continuing to push the remains of the Dao to Xi’an. The rest have divided into two forces—one pursuing the Taipei and Zhejiang, the rest moving onto a direct intercept for us and accelerating.”
“Helm, all ahead full,” Lee ordered, eyes glued to the updated tracks. The Phage ships were pushing ahead at three hundred G’s of acceleration, but the Brooklands had an almost insurmountable lead. They’d hit their jump point long before the enemy came into range.
“All ahead, aye,” the helmsman reported.
“Updating our jump point plot,” the nav specialist said.
Lee just nodded, watching the clocks on the main display adjust to show time to warp transition, time from enemy weapons range, and total mission time.
The Brooklands was not built with speed in mind and was never supposed to venture down too far into a system during a battle or be required to escape. She was meant to carry a high relative velocity from the time she warped in, fired her missiles, and warped out. As such, her engines were a bit on the underpowered side, and the Phage had an outside chance of catching them given the acceleration profiles of the small attackers that had been documented in previous engagements. From what he could see so far, however, the small force seemed content to just chase them out of the system.
“New contacts!” OPS said in alarm. “From the other side of the system, closest to us.”
“Resolve!” Lee practically shouted.
As Xi’an was on the Frontier, there were definite battle lines drawn with the Phage incursion coming from the far side and the Terran defenders usually warping in from three available vectors on the opposite side. That didn’t mean, however, that Lee discounted the possibility that the enigmatic enemy couldn’t move beyond Xi’an and push in from the other side, cutting off their retreat.
“Confederate ships!” the OPS officer exclaimed in relief. “Transponder data coming in now… Black Fleet, Ninth Squadron, five ships in total, all Starwolf-class destroyers. Lead ship is the Ares, sir!”
“Thank God.” Lee exhaled in relief. “Send the Ares all the battle data we have, and tell Captain Wolfe his timing could not have been better.”
****
“Data packet coming in from the Brooklands, Captain,” Lieutenant Davis said. “Looks like a raw dump of their entire sensor feed.”
“Archive it, Lieutenant,” Captain Jackson Wolfe said to his OPS Officer. “We don’t have time to analyze it just now. Tactical, what are we looking at?”
“We have twenty-nine hostiles closing on the Brooklands,” Lieutenant Commander Barrett said. “Still waiting on the computer to resolve the rest of the system, but we received some preliminary data over the Link from the other Fleet ships.”
The shared data link, or “Link,” had been a relatively simple upgrade, but had proven its worth at every engagement. Essentially, any ship in the area would broadcast their sensor telemetry so that it could be networked with the others and redistributed among the rest of the fleet. It eliminated the need for individual ships to wait twice as long for a valid radar return over long distances.
“Coms, tell the Icarus and Atlas to adjust course and accelerate toward the Brooklands,” Jackson ordered. “Tell them to engage and destroy all twenty-nine targets.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Have the Artemis and Hyperion break off and pursue the formation chasing the remnants of the Third Fleet armada,” Jackson continued. “Nav, plot me a course down to Xi’an, maximum performance. I want to catch those units before they’re able to deorbit the remains of the Dao.”
“What if there are more ships than just the ten defending Xi’an?” Wolfe’s XO asked.
“Then we’ll deal with them, Commander Wright,” Jackson answered. “I’m more worried about why they’ve decided to try and establish another beachhead on Xi’an. What’s so special about that planet? They’ve already stripped the crust of any usable material.”
“OPS, prep a drone for atmospheric flight,” Celesta called out. “Set flight profile for high-altitude surface scans, full instrument suite.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lieutenant Davis keyed her headset to send the command down to Flight Operations.
Jackson smiled slightly as his XO correctly predicted his next command. After the dust had settled from the initial attack of the Phage, Jackson had pushed CENTCOM to give Celesta Wright a command of her own. Surprisingly, she’d declined and requested to remain as his executive officer. Her rationale had been that the mission that had resulted in the destruction of the Blue Jacket had opened her eyes to how unready she was for a ship of her own. Jackson completely disagreed with her self-assessment, but he was more than happy to keep her on his crew, and if she felt she wasn’t ready, it would negatively affect her ability to command.
“Nav! Where’s my plot?” Jackson asked.
“Coming up now, sir,” the young specialist second class at the nav station said. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to overcome his nervousness about working on the bridge of the Ares.
Based on the look Celesta gave the hapless spacer, it would be his last watch at the nav station.
“Let’s look alive!” Jackson didn’t let up. “There are at least seventy Phage combat units in this system and no Confederate assets within range to provide relief.”
Three possible courses down to Xi’an appeared on the main display as the specialist finished his calculations. The Starwolf-class ship was far more capable than his previous Raptor-class vessel, and the navigation plots reflected that. Each of the courses showed an acceleration profile far more aggressive than the Blue Jacket would have been capable of and would put them in orbit over Xi’an in just over twenty-hours from their current position.
Jackson considered each for a few seconds. “Helm, come to course. Charlie… all ahead full.”
“Ahead full, aye.”
“I hate splitting the squadron up like this,” Celesta said quietly from her seat on Jackson’s right. “Even with the Link, we’re still waiting hours for updates from the other ships.”
“Noth
ing for it this time,” Jackson said. “We need to protect the Brooklands, and it looks like those Third Fleet battlegroups were decimated. If we can save the last two, maybe this won’t be a total loss.”
“All for a planet that can no longer even support human life,” Celesta said, seeming to catch herself in mid-eyeroll.
“But also a system that’s a strategic jump point into three other Terran systems,” Jackson reminded her. “Even though we have no idea how the Phage navigate, they seem to be more than happy to use our own warp lanes against us.”
“This is the third incursion in the last six months,” she said. “Do you think they’re finally gearing up for a major offensive?”
“I truly hope not,” Jackson said. “We’ve not come along nearly as fast as I’d hoped the last few years. We’re nowhere near ready to meet this enemy head on.”
“I can’t argue there,” she said. “Shall we remain on normal watch schedules?”
“Yes.” Jackson checked the mission clock and compared it to ship’s time. “Stand down from general quarters for now since we’re skirting well around the two major engagements. That puts first watch back on duty four hours before we begin braking for our Xi’an orbital insertion. It also means I want you to split your time on second watch with Lieutenant Davis.”
“Yes, sir.” She logged off her terminal and stood to leave the bridge. The pair had become much more comfortable around each other during the manic pace the previous three years. From having to train on an entirely new class of ship, to working at rebuilding a crew around the survivors from the Blue Jacket, they had been around each other almost constantly. While they still maintained a strict professionalism between them, they had become much more efficient at commanding a starship as a team and not just two ranking officers.
“Lieutenant Davis, work with Lieutenant Commander Barrett to break down the data the Brooklands sent over,” he ordered. “Alert me if you find anything in there that will affect our current tactics.”
“Yes, sir,” the pair said, nearly in unison, as each pulled up the data packet and began dividing the work between them.
The bridge crew efficiently went about their tasks as Jackson leaned back in his seat, debating whether he needed another cup of coffee or not. He looked around the bridge of the Ares, the second Starwolf-class ship to come out of the yards and the first put into active service. She still had the “new ship smell” as the new upholstery was still outgassing from the adhesives used, and the crew hadn’t had time to fully break her in.
The bridge required significantly less people than the old Raptor-class destroyer did. In fact, there were usually only seven people on the bridge at any given time. It made for a much less chaotic environment once his crew became accustomed to passing tasks down to their respective shops and then funneling the information back to him.
“Captain, we’re getting returns from the far side of the system,” Barrett said after another hour of relative silence. “The last known target data from the Brooklands is still accurate, we should only have ten individual targets over Xi’an when we get there.”
“That’s assuming they don’t have forces on the surface they can call on,” Jackson reminded him.
It hadn’t taken them long to learn that with their reactionless drives, the Phage could land significant forces on a planet and give a Terran fleet a nasty surprise if they came barreling into orbit thinking they had an advantage.
“Keep updating the existing target tracks, but have the long range radars sweeping in high-power mode. They know we’re here and roughly where we are already, so I want to favor intel over stealth.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson wasn’t overly concerned with the ten targets heading to Xi’an. The Ares would make short work of them before they could even get close to within weapons range. Beyond all else, Jackson was worried that in what appeared to be the early stages of a full out war, they’d yet to see any tactical assets from the enemy other than the small, easily defeated attack craft CENTCOM had unoriginally named Bravos. There were also a smattering of sightings of what appeared to be enormous cargo haulers, but so far, there hadn’t been anything even remotely like the monster, or the Alpha, that he’d fought across four-star systems.
Was that because they were so rare and difficult to produce? Or had humanity not demonstrated itself to be a great enough threat to warrant sending more? The absence of accurate information made him want to scream in frustration, and the apparent lack of movement on the part of CENTCOM made him want to do physical harm to an inanimate object.
“Icarus and Atlas have reported in.” The young ensign at the coms station interrupted his thoughts. “All Bravos chasing the Brooklands have been destroyed, thirty-two Hornet missiles expended between them.”
“Excellent,” Jackson said. “Order the Icarus and Atlas to begin their push toward Xi’an. Inform Captain Lee that he may fly the Brooklands at his own discretion… He can depart the system or wait until we’ve cleared out all the Bravos.”
“Aye, sir. Transmitting now.”
“Are we overdue for a status from the Artemis and Hyperion?” Jackson eyed the mission clock.
“Negative, Captain,” Lieutenant Davis said. “They will not engage the enemy for another three hours.”
“Very good,” Jackson said. “Keep me updated if we get anything from them or the Third Fleet ships.”
The bridge fell into an eerie silence. The Tsuyo engineers had made the ship too comfortable, too sterile. He could barely hear or feel the main engines that were currently at full power, and the acoustics of the bridge had been so carefully planned that he was unable to hear the chatter between his bridge crew and their backshops. He didn’t like the isolated feeling or the false sense of security it induced. A warship should feel like what it was: an instrument of destruction, with all thought of crew comfort coming in a distant second.
Four more hours of the cursed silence slowly ticked by.
“Bravos have abandoned the pieces of the Dao and are now coming out to meet us,” Lieutenant Commander Barrett finally reported.
“Sound general quarters. Set condition 1SS.” Jackson ordered. “Are you still tracking ten Bravos, Tactical?”
“Yes, sir,” Barrett said. “Updating tracks and sending targeting info to the forward missile batteries.”
“Activate port battery, tubes one through twelve,” Jackson said. “Keep five more on ready reserve.”
“Aye, sir,” Barrett confirmed. “Missiles one through twelve now linked and updated with target package. We will be in optimum launch range within six hours.”
“Very good, Lieutenant Commander.” Jackson stood up to pace a bit. “Bring the forward laser projectors online as well. Lieutenant Davis, give Engineering a courtesy call that we’re bringing the tactical systems to full power.”
“Yes, sir.” Jillian Davis turned to make the call to Engineering. She seemed to be mouthing the words silently into her headset as the clever acoustic panels absorbed all the sound.
Jackson made a mental note to ask his Chief Engineer, Daya Singh, if it would be possible to replace or remove all the panels so he could hear what the hell was going on. Commander Wright and Lieutenant Keller rushed onto the bridge, the former looking like she’d been waiting for an alert and the latter looking like he’d been sound asleep.
“Bravos accelerating hard and splitting up into two groups,” Barrett said, his voice strained. “It looks like they’re going to try a pincer movement.”
“Helm, braking thrust, all reverse!” Jackson nodded to Celesta as she pulled up her own terminal to get caught up. “Cut our relative velocity by seventy percent, and then go to no-thrust.”
“All astern full, aye,” the helmsman called out, suddenly very alert. “Helm answering braking maneuver, reducing closure velocity by seventy percent.”
“Tactical, fire the Hornets just outside the optimum range.”
“Aye, sir,” Barrett said. “Updating firing
solution now.”
The plots on the main display now updated much more quickly as the range between them and the Bravos decreased. The computer interposed a blue line between them that was his optimum firing range. Another line, this one flashing red and further from the enemy’s position, indicated where Jackson wanted to fire his missiles. The computer’s passive aggressive jabs at the perceived errors in his commands were a bit more tolerable than his old ship’s habit of simply not performing any action its computer deemed outside acceptable limits.
Now that the enemy had reacted to their presence, the tension on the bridge was palpable, even with contact hours away. The crew of the Ares was one of the most battle hardened groups in the Fleet, but there was still no way to ever be comfortable or complacent when barreling toward an engagement with this terrifying enemy. Three and a half tense hours passed slowly until they were nearly in range.
“Hornets away,” Barrett reported. “All twelve birds are away clean and tracking true.”
The icons representing the missiles split up into two groups, deciding between them which target each would pursue and accelerating toward the Bravos that still looked like they wanted to flank the Ares and catch her in a crossfire.
“Helm, all ahead full,” Jackson said calmly. “Maintain course.”
“Ahead full, aye. No course deviation.”
The reaction was almost immediate. As the Ares shot between the two groups of Bravos, they decelerated quickly, turning hard to come about and pursue the destroyer after the unexpected maneuver. They also slowed and actually flew back directly into the paths of the incoming Hornets. The missiles slammed into their designated targets, the hardened nose cones punching into the organic armor of the Bravos before detonating. Unlike the Alpha Jackson had battled before, the Bravos didn’t seem to have the ability to heal after taking heavy damage. The warhead from a single missile was enough kill or disable it.
Call to Arms (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 2) Page 2
