“That portal engine creates a wormhole and positions each end,” he explained. “We just need to move the entry point a little farther out and you can take the other ships through first. That LHV is a bit smaller than this beast so no problems there…”
“But what about the Dauntless?” Paul asked. A super-dreadnaught was massive. “Can we make the opening any bigger?”
“We could but it would take an incredible amount of energy, and anyway…” he waved a dismissive hand, “super-dreadnaughts trick the eye. Sure, she’s five times the displacement of this ship but she’s six times the length overall. She’ll fit through just fine.”
“That changes things considerably,” Julia noted. “Especially when we go to Narsa. We’re going to need some serious orbital superiority if we have any hope of finding our people.”
“There’s your casus belli,” Tony said. “Thousands of Humans saved from a Gray experimental facility? We get them back to Vermillion and stand them in front of the media and there’s no way we could stop a war. Any senator who tried to downplay the situation would end up impeached.”
“So do we go to Narsa first or Tel Ramh?” Paul asked.
“Tel Ramh,” Julia replied. “Attacking their wormhole program is our priority. We hammer them flat, then bend space for Bish.”
“A bit of misdirection?” Tony asked.
She nodded. “We bend for five minutes, then drop out and line up a wormhole for Narsa. And here I was planning to be all clever, pretending to show up at Tel Ramh for maintenance. Though I do like the idea of just kicking in the door.”
“The maintenance is where they get you,” Daffyd said with a chuckle. “Sucker you in with a good price then soak you on the repair bills.”
“You see?” Paul nodded at Urbica. “I told you he’d do fine on the interview circuit when we get him back home.”
“Anyway,” she said, raising an eyebrow at Paul, “that might draw forces to Tel Ramh and Bish, making it easier to pull off a rescue raid at Narsa.”
She looked at Tony. “Get back to your ship. I’ll brief Commander Schatz. I want her to take the Dauntless through first. She has the most firepower and can soak up a hell of a lot more damage.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Tony protested. “The Xipe Totec is packed to the gunwales with assault craft. With the element of surprise…”
“This is not a debate, Major,” Urbica cut him off. “I need to consider the possibility that the enemy might anticipate our next move and have forces waiting for us. Hell, they may even be able to track this ship, for all we know. The super-dreadnaught goes through first.”
“Ma’am!” Tony nodded curtly and left the room.
She headed for the door. “Daffyd, get down there and make sure we don’t run out of magic wormhole fuel or whatever the hell that thing runs on.” She followed the curving passageway to the bridge, talking to Commander Schatz along the way.
Paul sincerely hoped life didn’t get any more interesting.
Tel Ramh
Qedna had been on station for seventy-two hours now. Another forty-three and he’d be able to land his squadron on Tel Ramh and hand the next defensive shift over to Birin’s squadron.
He had faith in his superiors’ orders. The Humans would almost certainly come here if they managed to figure out what they’d stolen but that was a very big ‘if’. Humans were all bluster and brute force; they lacked the subtlety to see technology that exceeded their own.
No matter. If they did come to Tel Ramh, one squadron of ship destroyers would be more than enough to hold them while the cruisers closed in from the other side of the planet. Unlike Humans, the Grays knew how to respond appropriately to a threat. One squadron was an elegant display of cool tactical thinking.
An entire combat wing would have been… vulgar.
He suddenly blinked as a portal opened to his front. Somehow, those hairless apes had figured out what they were sitting on. He touched his control panel, ordering a firing line perpendicular to the portal’s axis. The bow was coming through now, but he would wait till the ship was halfway through.
He didn’t want to waste his opening shot on just any part of the ship. He wanted the first, disciplined salvo to strike at the flank, where the rings came closest to the outer hull.
He blinked again in confusion. The ship just kept coming. It was massive and brutally ugly. This was no Gray carrier…
“First-Wing Qedna,” one of his pilots droned, “it’s a super-dreadnaught.”
“Calm yourself,” Qedna replied. “Whatever it is, we must engage the enemy. All units, open fire.”
Too late, his sensors began calmly notifying him of a hail of antimatter rounds.
“Nothing else?” Commander Schatz turned her head to look at the sensor officer. “Just one squadron?”
“There are five cruisers approaching from the far side of Tel Ramh, ma’am, but I doubt they’ll pose us any trouble.”
“Well, you never know what kind of shenanigans they might be cooking up,” Schatz muttered. “Get us off the entry axis, just in case they do something that’s actually dangerous. I don’t want to plug up the doorway.”
“Aye, ma’am,” the helmsman replied, “turning us toward the primary target.” The massive orbital framework of the Tel Ramh shipyards slid into view.
“All batteries, weapons free,” she ordered. She frowned, touching a hand to her right ear. “Roger that.” Her face was suffused with anger. “Now hear this,” she spoke and her voice echoed into the bridge from the nearby compartments. “This ship is now in a combat situation, responding to an act of overt war by the Gray Quorum.
“I will no longer tolerate any acts of mutiny aboard my ship. I am speaking specifically to those Marines of the 538 who have not taken amnesty. We can no longer afford the time or lives to suppress your activities. Compartments under your control will be vented to space in thirty seconds. If you wish to surrender before your suits run out of air, you may present yourselves at the firewall airlocks.”
She nodded at the life support officer.
He turned to his screens. “Initiating a gas dump on all Marine EVA gear. All assault craft are venting their storage tanks as well.” He turned back to her. “They’re going to have two minutes to make up their minds when the compartments vent, ma’am.”
She was quite certain the rebel Marines would view her earlier statement with scorn. They preferred fighting in vented compartments. They trained for it incessantly, but they would be hard-pressed to cook up trouble in two minutes.
She turned back to the tactical holo, surprised to see that the dockyards were already a complete mess. She enlarged the tactical display, forcing herself to ignore the distraction posed by a horde of mutinous Marines.
“Bring us around to face the approaching cruisers,” she ordered. “Let’s loop a few salvos around the planet at them.”
Chirat knew he was too late to save the dockyards but the real objective was the destruction of the stolen carrier. His cruisers would clear the edge of Tel Ramh in a matter of minutes and he would have a straight shot at the carrier. He leaned forward slightly, positively frantic to join combat with the impudent invaders.
With the stolen ship destroyed, those idiot monkeys in the super-dreadnaught would be stranded and another force could be dispatched to deal with it. He doubted his force would survive against such a deadly vessel, but at least the Humans would know they’d been in a fight. He was amazed they’d figured out how to bring the cursed thing along with them.
“Prime-Spear,” the visior murmured, “we detect objects entering an orbital path consistent with our own. We may be under fire.”
“Shields to full,” he ordered. “Evasive…”
“Well, that was kind of an anticlimax,” Schatz remarked. “Why did they think hiding behind the planet would help? They might have done a little damage if they’d been with that patrol squadron.
“Helm, position the ship for orbital bombardment,” she ordered. “F
ire control, stand by to open fire.”
“Aye, ma'am,” the fire control officer confirmed. “The trace is active and updated; looks like almost everything is where intel thought it would be.”
“We’re in position,” the helmsman announced.
“The Xipe Totec is crossing the event horizon,” the sensor officer advised.
“They’re late to the party,” Schatz replied. “Weapons free.”
The distant hum announced the outgoing hail of antimatter rounds from the main batteries. For some unknown reason, their stocks of smaller-caliber AM rounds were mostly conventional and nuke munitions. Schatz suspected Kinsey may have been selling ammunition on the black market.
The outgoing ordinance headed toward the planet on trajectories calculated to pull them into the gravity well of Tel Ramh and strike cities all over the planet. The Humans had come here to eradicate the Gray wormhole program and it was entirely probable they were doing research and development on the surface.
There might be facilities elsewhere, but bombarding Tel Ramh should prove a serious setback in their plans. Of the ninety million clones estimated to be down there, quite a few must be wormhole physicists.
“We’ve cleared the event horizion,” the helmsman announced.
“Very well,” Urbica replied. “Seeing as there’s nothing left for us to do here, let’s move on. “Engineering, Bridge. Restore standard geometry and secure the generator.”
“Restore standard geometry and secure the generator, aye, ma'am.” Daffyd replied.
She opened a fleetwide channel. “Well done, Commander.” She reached out and rotated the projection of Tel Ramh. “Not a stick left standing down there.”
“Well done indeed,” Tony added. “But I think we can reduce our intervals next time we jump.”
“Not to worry, Major,” she assured him. “You’ll see plenty of action when we reach Bish.”
The status board, programmed by Lars, showed the wormhole generator had gone to secure mode.
“All vessels, lay in a course for Bish and bend space on my mark.” She rolled her eyes at Paul. It was unlikely anyone on the surface was listening, but they were probably being heard by a satellite or two. It wouldn’t hurt to mention Bish a few times.
“Three, two, one… Mark.”
The three vessels shimmered as they slipped into pockets of distorted space.
And then they were gone.
Nilak
The stars in front of the Sucker Punch shimmered, like a pond disturbed by a pebble. Instead of fading, the ripples grew in strength until the center suddenly snapped away from the bow of the carrier. The hole stabilized, growing to the edge of the ripples and a cloud of blue gas came boiling out.
The gas quickly dissipated into the vacuum but a constant supply was still flowing through from the other end. The constant eddies of vapor made the event horizon look like a witch’s cauldron.
“Searching for better weather,” Daffyd’s voice advised them over the internal channel.
The light eddies suddenly became a blast of blue vapor, wreathing the Sucker Punch in dying tendrils. As suddenly as it increased, the flow cut off almost entirely.
“Found a belt of flow in the other direction,” Daffyd advised. “Looks like our best bet. Atmospheric flow is less than sixteen hundred kilometers per hour.”
A brilliant flash of lightning from the other side bathed the small fleet in harsh light.
“Why is it,” Paul asked, “that military plans seem so clever when you come up with them but so incredibly risky when it comes time to put them into practice?”
“Could have something to do with our plans being so incredibly risky,” Urbica replied, smiling cheerfully. “Combat is usually a risky job.
“Alright, Daffyd, that’s good.” She walked over to the signalman. “Hold it right there.”
She put a hand on the signalman’s shoulder. “Send the go-ahead, Rishon.”
All ship-to-ship signals would be sent using the optical arrays. There would almost certainly be harvesting operations in the gas giant, and that meant antennae on its satellite world, Narsa, would be aimed in their general direction.
It was unlikely the optical signals would carry far enough in the dense atmosphere to be picked up on Narsa. That limited range was still a calculated risk, however, as the three ships would have a hard time coordinating without access to anything more than infrared laser.
“Dauntless confirms, ma’am.” Rishon reached up to touch an icon. “Xipe Totec standing by for her turn.”
The super-dreadnaught lined up in front of the opening, flanked by three of her assault craft. She pushed into the event horizon, eddies of blue gas tumbling along her hull as she drifted out of sight.
The two assault craft followed and the wait began. Despite the original inclination to pour all three ships through with minimal intervals, the expected wind shear at their destination had forced a new plan on them.
The Dauntless, having the most displacement and mass, would go first. Once through the wormhole, she would pull ahead rather than off-axis. The Xipe Totec and Sucker Punch would follow, slipstreaming behind the massive battleship.
One of the smaller craft re-appeared.
“Dauntless in position, ma’am,” Rishon announced.
The Marine assault carrier went through next. The other assault craft came back to signal the go ahead before landing in the Sucker Punch’s hangar bay. The horrific winds were at the upper limits of the small ship’s capabilities and it was better not to use them in the atmosphere any more than was absolutely necessary.
“Take us in,” Urbica ordered.
“Taking us through, aye, ma’am,” the helmsman confirmed. He was one of four officers kept on the bridge for the jump.
So far, only sixteen bridge officers on the three ships had been told that the small fleet possessed a mobile wormhole generator. Even that small number made secrecy all but impossible. Someone was bound to talk, but they’d been warned of the consequences. If they talked, they would become drug addicts and die on the streets of Vermillion in surprisingly short order.
They still had to deal with the problem of launching the actual rescue raid, but Paul was already working on that. With the new plan, they would have to abandon secrecy and rely on speed and aggression.
As they approached the bubbling, vaporous event horizon, a sudden blast of blue erupted, bathing the Sucker Punch.
“Collision alert,” the sensor officer shouted.
“All hands brace for impact,” Urbica announced over the ship-wide system.
The object was far too small to be the Xipe Totec. It struck the side of the Gray carrier’s hull and broke apart.
“One of the Marine assault craft,” Urbica said quietly, looking over to the sensor officer.
The man shook his head. No life signs.
They’d known there was a risk in deploying the small craft in the fast winds of the gas giant, but they needed them as go-betweens. They had to know if it was safe to feed the next ship through the hole, but now they were flying blind.
“Like I said,” she told Paul, “risky.” She took a deep breath. “Helm, keep us moving.”
A quick glance darted her way. “Aye, ma’am. Steady as she goes.”
They could feel the turbulence as soon as the bow crossed the horizon. It continued to grow as the ship slipped from relatively empty space into a dense, violent atmosphere.
“We have the beacon from the Dauntless,” Rishon advised. “No sign of the Xipe Totec as of yet.”
Paul felt the sudden grip of fear. Having those Marines gave them a much higher probability of success but, more importantly, Tony was the last of the Nathaniels.
He may not have a very high opinion of the upper class, Urbica notwithstanding, but the Nathaniels were one of the rare exceptions. He suddenly realized how much he’d been counting on Tony resurrecting the Nathaniel dynasty.
Paul wasn’t family, but his relationship to the Nathaniels
had come to define him and now that definition may have been blown away by a sudden, moon-sized eddy in the giant’s atmosphere.
Urbica eyes looked darker. “Rishon, do we have enough bandwidth to the Dauntless for voice?”
“Aye, ma’am. The gas is pretty dense down here but the light’s getting through. The holo would be a bit spotty, but we should be able to conference them in.”
Commander Schatz ghosted into existence in front of them.
“Commander, what the hell just happened?” Urbica demanded.
“We experienced a sudden lateral wind shear,” Schatz replied. “Pushed us to starboard a bit and the Xipe Totec went out of comms range entirely. We don’t know if she managed to recover that assault craft before it hit.”
“No. It came through and hit us.” Urbica brought up an order of battle list, opening a header labeled ‘Assault-Support-Logistics’. “You have some heavy logistics vessels aboard, I see.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Schatz confirmed. “But the ASL’s are for supporting a ground assault.”
Urbica nodded. “Get their water tanks installed and fill ‘em up. The extra weight should help minimize the effect of wind shear.”
“You want me to send more ships out in this?”
“Commander Schatz, you were the second engineer before we boarded your ship, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then tell me why the Xipe Totec was pushed off station instead of the Dauntless.”
“Well…” Schatz paused for a moment. “Our density is a lot higher. Our hull is five meters thick in some places ‘cause she was built to survive a direct hit from a high-yield nuke round, back before the AM rounds started circulating.”
“And the Totec, by comparison, is a huge, light-weight sail,” Julia stated. “A small ASL, filled with water, will be easier to handle.”
“I’ll get on it right away,” Schatz promised.
Commander Schatz approached the logistics bay. A very young-looking ensign crouched next to a very old-looking petty officer. Their security team were in positions of cover to either side of the large entry-portal. He noticed her approach and she was pretty sure she could recognize the mix of relief and apprehension the young man felt at seeing someone more senior.
Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3) Page 17
