“When Dragon was in our possession, it used to take twenty-four hours to generate a large enough quantity of antimatter to service the cannon.”
“A day?” Enrique said, seeming for a time to pay a little more attention to the meeting than he was doing to Kelly. “If we could just throw a few satellites into its path, then we could hold them off for months.”
“Unfortunately, that generation time was reduced to around six hours with the upgrades and optimisations made in 2615,” Jenkins said. “And that says nothing about what the Pandorans might have done with it since. After all, they have made the defences practically impenetrable.”
“Oh.”
“Sure,” Estelle began, “but with the shields it’s almost just a case of swapping out or adding new generation units and power sources. I doubt that upgrading an antimatter generator would be as straightforward as something like that.”
“Unfortunately for us, it might have become so,” Parks said. “We know that the Pandorans retained knowledge of how to upgrade and repair vessels, mining their past lives, as well as sharing information within their hive mind. It’s perfectly possible that they might have found a way of bringing the generation down to under an hour.”
“I’d like to think that your projection’s impossible, Admiral,” Jenkins said.
“I’d like to think so, too,” Parks shrugged. “But then again the Enemy did sack the known galaxy in only a handful of years.”
“Jump, fire, jump, fire, jump, fire,” Mandeep said, quietly.
An hour. Yes, it sounded like a long time, but as Dodds already knew, an hour could pass quickly in a battle.
“Can we just ram it?” Mandeep asked. “A few unmanned, or even manned, warships driven directly into her would be enough to take her down.”
“What about opening a jump point?” Kelly added, before anyone could answer Mandeep. “If we could get a ship close enough to open a jump point and force Dragon into it, we could strand it somewhere between star systems. The crew would likely then die before they were able to make it back into the main transit systems.”
“Fair suggestions,” Parks said. “But the problem with both is getting close to Dragon in the first place. Close enough to ram would mean clearing down as much of the escort as possible, as would opening the point in front of it. I don’t think we can count on either of those.”
Silence filled the room. They had both been fair, workable suggestions. The problem facing them, Dodds knew, was the sheer weight of numbers the opponents commanded, which could always keep the allies away from Dragon.
“Okay, people, come on,” Jenkins said, “how do we destroy it? How does the antimatter generator work? Is there any way we can overload it?”
“Dragon itself contains a tiered circular generation system that runs around the entire ship,” Lynch said, pulling up a schema of the vessel. He highlighted the tight helix-like structure within.
“Looks like a major weak spot,” Dodds said, though something told him that getting to it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Only when it is in the process of generating the antimatter,” Lynch said. “Otherwise, we’d only end up damaging the unit itself. Safety measures would simply prevent the cannon from firing.”
“And we’d still have to get through the shielding in the first place – which takes us all the way back to square one,” Jenkins summed up. “I don’t think that we should count on the Enemy moving in before they have generated enough antimatter for the cannon to be used. What were you saying earlier, Grace? About the asteroid defence system?” she added, looking to Natalia.
“I was saying that we need to destroy it from the inside,” Natalia said.
“But once again, the problem with that is that we need to get inside it, first,” Parks said.
“Surely there are some parts of the ship that are less well-shielded than others?” someone said. It sounded like Meyers, but Dodds couldn’t be sure, his eyes having been drawn to activity beyond the windows. The scene outside was mostly static, with just occasional smaller craft moving amongst the larger ones. His attention had been grabbed by one of the larger warship’s engines coming online, bright cyan hues lighting the rear, far more intense than if the vessel was merely adjusting its position and formation. This ship was moving with purpose. He noticed that Chaz and Estelle, too, had been distracted by the event. Something didn’t appear right. He listened to the continuing discussion, but kept his eyes fixed on the activity outside the station.
“There are only three points on the ship that could be considered weak – the rear, around where the engines are, is the third weakest and easiest to hit.”
“That’s the case with most warships, though. However, the only outcome of that could be that Dragon is slowed down.”
“But assuming we could hit it there, wouldn’t destroying its engines be enough? Wouldn’t that cause it to stop?”
“In the main, that’s controlled by automated safety damper fields that kick in to stop a ship from sliding helplessly and colliding with something if its main source of propulsion dies. In such a case, I think it’s safe to assume that Dragon’s operators would intentionally kill the Hall thrusters that would prevent its forward momentum and just let it carry on going.”
“Assuming for a moment we can get inside, what is the next move?”
“A single nuclear warhead anywhere on Dragon would do it.”
“That’s almost more than we can spare. We’d probably get through all of them just clearing a route to Dragon in the first place. You saw how difficult it was at Alpha, and we now only have a small number of warheads remaining in our entire stock.”
Dodds continued to stare out the window. Its engines now fully engaged, the warship edged forward. A number of other craft could be seen moving up next to it, clinging close to its path. Dodds exchanged looks of disquiet with Estelle and Chaz. They also seemed to be itching to interrupt the conference and alert the others to what they were seeing. The speed at which the vessels were accelerating suggested that they weren’t moving themselves into a new parking orbit. Just as he began to consider a rational explanation for the manoeuvre, another warship’s engines lit up. Smaller than the first, it too moved with purpose, keeping pace with the larger vessel.
“Admiral,” Chaz said. “I think you should see this.”
The room turned to look at Chaz, and then out of the window. For a time, they watched the group of craft moving, starting to shift out of view. Three starfighters then shot past, racing after the six or seven vessels that were moving away.
“Where are those Fireflies going?” Dodds said, rising from his seat for a better view. The fighters were moving quickly, aligning themselves with the group. “Are they skipping off with the ships?”
At that moment, the cannons of the large warship opened up, eliminating the lead Firefly and scattering the other two. The room collectively swore.
“Admiral Jenkins, this is Tower,” a voice filled the room, as several more starfighters arrived at the scene, accelerating towards the fleeing group. “We’ve got a situation here.”
“Does it involve two warships and five general purpose starships?” Jenkins said.
“Yes, Admiral. We’re yet to determine whether or not they have been hijacked or if the crew are active participants, but we have dispatched teams to intercept.”
“Mag cannons only,” Jenkins said. “We can’t afford to have any of those ships destroyed.”
“Teams are already under orders to minimise damage, but will reiterate orders.”
“Where are you tracking them?”
“Cameras two-one-four through two-two-three.”
“Bring it up on screen,” Jenkins said to Lynch. The man did so, cycling through a number of the camera feeds until he came to one that offered the most uncompromising view of what was happening.
The scene showed a minor skirmish in progress not far out from where the main fleet was gathered. Streams of mag cannon bolts were issuing from
the pursuing starfighters – Rays, purpose-built Darts and Hyenas. The Fireflies had fallen back, not possessing the appropriate armaments. The fleeing warships were returning fire with far more gusto than those going after them, and naturally were equipped with far more effective weaponry.
“Tower, have you discovered a motive?”
“Negative, Admiral. We’re working to ascertain.”
Two of the smaller fleeing craft had been halted by the mag cannons now, but it appeared that the larger craft were proving far harder to stop, the Darts’ lasers not cutting through the defences as quickly as they should. Dodds figured that they must’ve routed much of their power to their shields, to stave off the attacks.
“Energy spike ahead of the targets,” the voice of Tower operator reported.
Dodds knew instinctively what that meant, and the video feed confirmed it, the space in front of the vessels twisting and distorting until a jump point appeared. The larger of the vessels sped into it, followed by the second and the remaining still-active craft that were moving along with it. The chasing Rays, Hyenas and Darts either held back or made quick adjustments to their courses, not daring to enter the threshold of the point. The jump point then snapped shut … and the escapees were gone.
“Target craft have jumped out of the system, Admiral,” Tower confirmed.
“Where have they gone?” Jenkins demanded.
“We’re setting up a trace now. Shouldn’t be more than about thirty minutes.”
“I want to know as soon as you find out.”
“Do we know the identities of those two warships?” Parks said.
“One minute,” the operator said. “The smaller of the two was the HRH Little John and the larger one was the Prince of Midnight. The three others that escaped were—”
Dodds didn’t hear the remainder, Jenkins, Lynch, Parks, Meyers and Mandeep all swearing simultaneously generated a lot of noise.
“Tower, please reconfirm the identity of the larger of the two vessels,” Jenkins said.
“Verified and reconfirmed as the Prince of Midnight,” Tower came back, after conferring.
“What’s happened?” Enrique said. “What have I missed?”
“It’s not what you’ve missed, Mr Todd,” Parks said, “it’s what we’ve all just lost – the last of our nukes.”
*
“All our nukes were on one ship?” Dodds asked incredulously, as the group walked across the flight deck to where a set of coastguards was restraining a group of three men and one woman on the floor.
“Everything we had left, which wasn’t a lot,” Parks said.
“I guess what little we had left shouldn’t have been kept all together.”
“They were being prepared for distribution,” Jenkins said, continuing forward with long strides. “We were going to move them to the most appropriate vessels, following tactical.”
“Could’ve at least made an effort to keep them more secure,” Dodds said.
“That’s not as easy as you’d think,” Meyers said. “We thought they were, but people are becoming more and more desperate. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to know whom to trust. Once people realise that they have a powerful weapon in their hands, one which they believe could protect them against advances of the Pandoran army, all loyalty and patriotism goes out the window. They only think of one thing – themselves.”
Dodds glanced to Estelle, to her black eye, and thought of how Meyers could well be right.
“We had better double security around the ATAFs,” Parks said to Meyers, who nodded his approval.
“Some nice friends you have there, running away and just leaving you here like that,” Jenkins said to the four station personnel that security still had pinned to the floor of the flight deck.
“So much for ‘all for one and one for all’,” one of the men snorted, before starting to laugh. The other three remained quiet, the woman appearing a great deal more stressed than her companions.
“Can it, chuckles!” Jenkins glared at the giggling man. “Where were they headed?”
“Somewhere safe and far from here, and with a means to protect themselves,” one of the three other men answered defiantly.
“With seven nukes?” Parks said. “That’s no guarantee.”
“Seven?” Dodds interjected, looking in shock to his team-mates. “That’s all we had left?” He turned to Parks, but the admiral ignored him, his and Jenkins’ focus remaining on the four people on the floor.
“How did you get the arming codes?” Jenkins demanded.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” taunted the chortling man.
“How many more of you are there?” Jenkins demanded again.
“We’re the last ones,” the spokesman said. “Everyone else got on the Prince of Midnight.”
“What’s your name?”
“Like it matters.”
Dodds studied him for the moment. He recognised that face from somewhere, he was sure of it. “Hey, hold on,” he said, “this is one of the guys who was working the deck when we came off Griffin.”
“Are you certain, Dodds?” Parks said.
“Very,” Dodds said, before turning to Estelle. “Remember, you told me that you were worried that he was going to attack us?”
“And someone did,” Estelle reminded him.
Dodds looked over the four deckhands on the floor, before something twigged. “Did you lot try to have us killed?”
“What do you mean, Commander?” Jenkins said.
“Estelle was attacked when the team returned from Alpha. In that case, it was because the guy was upset that we’d survived the war when he’d lost so much. In this case, it’s something to do with trying to steal the nukes. That man that came to your room …” He snapped his fingers as he tried to recall the name. “Jeremy? Jerome? Whatever, he said that he wanted to make sure that we didn’t ‘stop them from getting away’.”
Jenkins accepted there was some connection. “Speak up,” she said to the four on the floor.
“It was Walsh’s idea,” the woman said eventually.
“Walsh? Captain Brandon Walsh?”
The woman nodded.
“Bastard,” Jenkins spat. “Goddamn Chief of Staff,” she added to the others who stood alongside her.
“Head Coastguard?” Estelle asked.
“One of the longest serving. Explains how he would’ve gotten access to the ship. Good chance that he’ll have had access to the arming codes, too.”
“That’ll also explain how that Fincham guy managed to get past all the other security and get to my stateroom so easily,” Estelle said.
“He figured that the ATAFs were probably the only starfighters that would be able to catch us,” the woman on the floor continued, after some prompting from Jenkins. “He suggested we take out the pilots, so we couldn’t be chased.”
“Right, I’ve heard enough,” Jenkins said. “Lock them in the brig and don’t let them out until this is all over. Damn place is going to be full to bursting if this kind of crap carries on,” she added, as the coastguards hauled the four away. “Right, back up to the conference room, everyone. We’ve now got an even bigger problem to deal with.”
*
Security camera footage retrieved shortly after confirmed Dodds’ suspicions that there had been several groups working together to steal the Prince of Midnight. A messenger or spokesperson from each of the groups could be seen meeting up with others as they plotted their moves. Each time Walsh was seen collaborating with them Jenkins let out a curse. A final piece of footage showed Walsh and several others boarding shuttles and heading for the vessels they were about to steal. At this point Jenkins shut off the video in anger.
“How are we supposed to deal with Dragon now the nukes are gone?” she said. Despite the look on her face, her tone was somewhat dispirited, maybe even a little defeated. She genuinely didn’t seem to know what they were going to do. “I’m open to suggestions, people.”
“I can organise
a team to chase down the Prince of Midnight,” Lynch said.
Jenkins mulled it over for a time, before giving him the go-ahead. “I can’t let you take anything big.”
“I’ll only send what’s necessary,” Lynch said. “One of the smaller battleships and a couple of fighters.”
“Lovejoy would probably be the best option,” Parks said. “He’s not directly tied up with anything yet, since he was thought to be KIA. Is that okay with you, Admiral?” he asked of Jenkins.
Jenkins nodded, but said nothing more. She probably thought that pursuit would be pointless and the deserters should simply be left to it.
“Do we not have any warheads left?” Dodds said. Seven. How could they have had just seven nuclear warheads remaining?
“None,” Parks said. “As you know, we used the vast majority of them during Black Widow. After that, every warhead that’s ever been produced has been used immediately against the Enemy. With the speed of their advance, we’ve not had time to stockpile anything.”
“And we also used up a few at Alpha,” Mandeep added.
“I’m wishing now that we hadn’t bothered,” Meyers muttered.
“But we’ve got to have some down there?” Dodds said, indicating Earth, turning slowly beneath them.
“Not unless there is a stockpile that no one is telling us about,” Jenkins said. “Everything we had was moved to frontline defence and other operations and attacks. The last remaining bundle of warheads was on those two ships.”
“Okay, stupid question,” Enrique said, “but can’t we just manufacture more? I mean, we only have to create one, right? Enough to detonate aboard Dragon. It’d be hard, but we could probably clear a route to it.”
“It’s a fair question for once, Mr Todd,” Parks said, “but I’m not sure we can manufacture a nuclear warhead in under twenty-four hours. “He glanced about the room, as if seeking to be disproved. His enquiry was met with blank faces and shakes of heads.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 117
