by B. V. Larson
“That’s right, madam. It was like battling an invasion of roaches. We finally stamped out the last of them less than an hour ago.”
“All right,” she said. “Halsey was ready to court-martial you when we watched your ship go into a spin—but let’s put that behind us. We’ve got a surprise for you—a good one. We’ve launched a missile barrage from Luna. It’s not much, most of their birds were fired on Defiant last week. But they sent what they have left.”
Frowning, I turned back to the tactical boards. Zye still wasn’t on station. She’d been injured during her spacewalk, and I’d sent her to medical.
There were new contacts moments later, confirming the admiral’s words. Tiny dots appeared with a questioning yellow color assigned to them. They were pulsing, moving closer every minute.
“Thanks for the update,” I said. “That will certainly give the Stroj fleet something new to worry about. Now, Admiral, if I might be allowed to continue the battle.”
“Sparhawk, hold on,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me what you plan to do. Give me your battle plan. The politicians and the brass here are demanding to know what’s going to happen. The whole planet is watching this battle on live feed, and the news people are speculating wildly.”
After hesitating several seconds, I came up with an answer for her.
“Admiral,” I said, “I can’t tell you that. The enemy has infiltrated our government, remember? What if they’re spying even now?”
She stared at me, her lips tightly drawn. “I’m under a lot of pressure. Public Servants, the press, my own staff. Can’t you give me something?”
Thinking for a moment, I smiled. Zye’s tricks had inspired me. Normally, I hated deceit. But in this case, it was a critical part of battle. Every Academy professor had stressed the importance of misleading the enemy.
“The key to our attack will be our missiles,” I said. “We’ve married Earth warheads to Beta missiles successfully. We plan to combine our birds with those from Luna, and we’ll destroy the entire Stroj fleet from a safe distance without loss.”
Admiral Cunningham appeared to be confused, but she smiled after thinking it over. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll pass this on as a classified report to be released only on a need-to-know basis.”
“Excellent,” I said. I felt certain the report would spread like wildfire, and I thought she must have known that.
Closing the channel, I went back to running my ship. I checked on the status of Rumbold and Zye. They were both undergoing “biological repair” as the ship liked to call medical procedures.
Looking at our damage reports, I calculated we needed time to repair our cannons on the hull. I turned toward Durris. “Begin braking. Give us more time.”
“Reduced speed will make us an easier target, Captain,” Durris pointed out.
“I know, but we need every cannon in action when we get close enough to hit them. I want as many kills as I can get before they are in range with their smaller weapons.”
“As you wish, sir,” Durris said, moving from station to station. He was operating more systems with Zye and Rumbold off the bridge. I also allowed him to bring in junior officers to help. They were little more than trainees, but we needed them.
We adjusted our course and began braking. We would still intercept the enemy formation, but at a reduced speed.
Repair bots flooded the ship. We’d kept them corralled while the invaders were crawling into the missile ports, but now that they were gone, we let them loose. Automatically, they rushed to every damaged area and went to work. Soon, regions that had been blinking red on my overview diagrams went yellow, then eventually green.
Zye returned to duty during this process. I eyed her closely as she limped to her seat and sat down hard.
“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” I asked.
“I’m functional,” she said. “I underwent surgery, and it was successful.”
Getting up, I went to her side and looked her over. “Is that a broken femur you’re walking on?”
“Yes. Your medical people clamped an internal polymer splint onto the bone. The pain is manageable.”
“I see…”
Durris looked at me, as did Yamada. I got the feeling they wanted me to order Zye to a sick bed. I knew she had more than just a broken leg. She had to have radiation burns and God knew what else.
But I didn’t order her off the bridge. Zye was tough, and I didn’t know anyone better to operate her station. With luck, the battle would be over within hours.
“You’ll get some much needed rest when this engagement is over,” I told her, “one way, or the other.”
After a moment’s consideration, my words struck Zye as funny. She provided us with a huffing laugh. I realized then she must be on some kind of pain medication. I told myself I’d have to watch her performance closely.
“Zye,” I asked her, “how did you manage to trick the Stroj?”
She looked up at me proudly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and it appeared some of those capillaries were broken and bleeding just under the surface of her sclera. I resisted the urge to wince and squint in horror.
“I was fortunate,” she said. “The Stroj must have been in a hurry. They used Beta brain matter for most of the intellect in their constructs. The enemy troops were therefore unimaginative and easy to mislead.”
I forced a smile. “Well done. Carry on.”
Returning to my station, I began what turned out to be a short wait. Long before we’d managed to repair all the ship’s damage systems, the enemy came within range of our guns.
“We’re in range, Captain,” Durris said. “Should we hit them now, or wait?”
“Zye, do you think the Stroj will know our maximum range? What will they do if—”
“Sir,” Yamada interrupted, looking at her screens. “The enemy ships are spreading out.”
“There’s your answer,” Durris said. “They know exactly how far a Beta battle cruiser can reach.”
“The First Officer is right,” Zye said. “We’ve done battle with the Stroj on many occasions. Nothing this ship can do will be a surprise to them.”
“And every battle cruiser is more or less identical,” I said thoughtfully. “Zye, what would an Alpha commander do right now?”
She shrugged. “She would commence firing and close with the enemy.”
“Of course. We’ll do something else, then. We’ll drive in at flank speed and hold our fire. Helm, all ahead full.”
Durris had seated himself at the helm, I noted. I didn’t say anything. He’d wanted to man that station since the first moment he was on this bridge. Now that Rumbold was out of the way, he’d seen his chance and seized upon it.
The ship wheeled, and we were soon pressed back into our seats. The G-forces increased steadily, until it was difficult to breathe.
“That’s good enough,” I wheezed. “Zye, I thought this ship had inertial dampeners that would decrease the stress on our bodies.”
“They’re online and active, sir.”
Puzzled, I looked at the iconic gauges. We weren’t pulling two or three Gs, as I’d assumed. We were doing thirteen Gs. I was impressed. The stress on my body was no longer beyond my capacity to tolerate.
“How long until we reach optimal range?” I demanded.
“At this acceleration level,” Durris answered, “we’ve got ninety-six seconds to go.”
“When we get to optimal range, ease off and start firing everything we’ve got. I want to get in there and nail them before they can spread out.”
“Seventy-two seconds,” Zye said. Her voice was calm and gave no hint of distress. To her, the G-forces seemed normal.
“Sir, the enemy is firing,” Durris said. “We must be within their effective range.”
“What kind of armament?”
“Missiles and rail guns. Light pellets—probably accelerated slugs.”
“Helm, take us into an evasive pattern. Shift us a few degrees at random. Make their gun
s work a bit to get a strike. Have we got any force fields over our bow?”
“Meteor repelling systems are fully active,” Zye said. “No strikes registered yet.”
At this speed, kinetic forces such as those generated by a bullet could do grievous damage even to our thick-hulled ship. A rock could hit as hard as a nuclear warhead if two objects collided with enough velocity.
“Optimal firing range reached,” Durris said.
“Engines full stop!” I ordered. “Fire the main cannons on my mark, give me a wide spread cone on each…Mark!”
The ship shuddered as all our batteries opened up. Particle beams lanced out, the cannons firing in a chained sequence. Overheating symbols flashed up almost immediately.
“I don’t think the damaged bank of cannons is going to be able to keep up, Captain,” Yamada said.
“Confirmed,” Zye said. “The repair bots didn’t completely rebuild them. They need a full overhaul back at the station.”
“Cease firing on battery three. Dammit, can we take the damaged units offline and use only the cannons that work?”
Zye shook her head. “Beta batteries aren’t designed that way. The venting chains together. The pressures would damage the other cannons.”
“She’s right sir,” Durris said, pulling up diagrams and studying them. “Zye knows her ship. The cannons are kind of like pistons in a combustion engine. You can’t just stop using a few of them. It’s not designed for that. The whole system will shut down.”
Cursing, I ordered the robots to work on the battery. We were down to two banks of cannons.
“We’re registering hits,” Yamada said. “Sensors indicate…see for yourself.”
The forward wall flickered, and we all looked at the screen. Great gouts of energy were striking the enemy line. Groups of ships that hadn’t had time to get away from one another were being blasted apart all at once.
Durris whooped. “We’re burning three or four at a pop!”
“How many of the enemy ships are still in the fight?” I asked.
“Six hundred or so,” Yamada said. “Make that five hundred ninety. We’re still getting good hits in, but they’re spreading out.”
“Hit the brakes,” I ordered. “We’ll stand at this range and wipe them out.”
For the next two minutes, my plan worked brilliantly. We’d rushed in closer than they’d expected, faster than they’d expected, and we’d caught them in a tight formation. They were now paying a grim price for their rigid thinking.
Everyone on the bridge was smiling—but it was short lived. A storm of small strikes began drumming on our forward shielding. At first, it was like the patter of raindrops. But after a full minute had passed, it was as if we were in a monsoon.
“Forward shield is red-lining, sir,” Zye said.
“Can we turn our belly toward them?”
She looked at me as if I were mad. “Why?”
“There must be another deflection shield down there. We can power it up and—”
“No,” she said. “Beta ships are designed to fly in one direction. There is no belly shield.”
I nodded, unsurprised.
“All right then. Durris, dive us down out of this storm of fire.”
“That will cause one of our weapons banks to be out of alignment with the enemy,” Zye protested.
“Do it, Durris.”
We felt our guts come up into our throats as he performed the maneuver. The storm of pellets hitting our front shield lessened, but didn’t dissipate entirely.
“Level off and keep firing.”
He did so, and for a few minutes the shields slowly brightened to yellow again. But, the Stroj countered and the storm again intensified.
“How many ships do they have left?”
“Two hundred ninety-eight, sir,” Yamada said. “They’ve taken a beating.”
“We’re about to do the same. Durris, slew to starboard this time. We’ll get out of—”
“Sir, the missiles from Luna…” Yamada said.
“What about them, Ensign?”
“They’ve changed course… They’re now heading directly toward our flank.”
We looked at one another in astonishment.
“How close?”‘
“We’ve got seconds left before impact. They came right up on us, sir, but I thought they were going to plow into the Stroj line, I—”
“Never mind, Ensign. Helm, hard to starboard. Put our forward shield between us and those missiles. Activate all our point-defense cannons, and override their friend-or-foe programming!”
The rainstorm of pellets changed pitch even as we wheeled to face the new threat. The pellets became a deadly hailstorm. I knew they were chewing into our armor and damaging our exterior systems.
But I didn’t know what else to do.
-53-
“Our point-defense systems are firing!” Yamada said.
Her statement was unnecessary. We could all feel the vibration of the small guns hammering at the incoming missiles.
I activated the ship-wide address system with my implant.
“All hands, this is the captain speaking. Prepare for impact. All damage crews be ready to report to the forward sections.”
Twenty seconds crawled by. At the last moment, the missile contacts merged with our ship. A moment after that, the deck heaved below our feet.
Bridge power cut out and emergency power took over. Only the most critical systems were active.
Worse, the inertial dampeners had died somehow. I could feel a sickening sensation as my stomach was pulled in two directions at once.
“Engine one, out!” Yamada shouted.
“We’re in a flat spin, Captain,” Durris complained. He was holding onto his console for dear life.
The wisdom of our spinning gyroscopic seats was now clear. Durris, Zye and myself were being thrown around, but we weren’t being dashed onto the deck.
“Helm, get this spin under control. Damage report, Yamada.”
“The impact of the missiles buckled the forward shield,” she said. “I think Engine One was knocked out by pellets, but it’s hard to be sure. We’re getting hammered, sir.”
“I’m well aware of that. Durris, get us straightened out or I’m giving the helm to Zye.”
“Yes sir,” he grunted uncomfortably.
Over the next thirty seconds, he managed to get our bow aimed at the enemy formation again. The forward shield was blinking red, but at least it was aiming in the direction of incoming fire.
“Have we got any primary cannons left?” I asked Zye.
“Yes Captain. One bank.”
“Well, why aren’t they firing?”
“They couldn’t lock on while we were spinning…we’re back in position.”
I felt that now-familiar bucking that indicated a heavy weapons stream was on its way to the enemy. It made me feel good. As long as we still had effective armament, we weren’t out of this fight.
“Who the hell hit us in the butt with our own missiles?” Yamada demanded. “That’s what I want to know.”
“I want an answer to that as well,” I said.
Grimly, I ordered the lieutenant Durris had replaced himself with at the communications boards to connect me with CENTCOM. They were going to hear directly from me.
When I finally established contact, however, it wasn’t with Admiral Cunningham. Instead, when I activated my implants, it was Halsey’s face that stared at me.
“Admiral Halsey,” I said. “Are you aware that, in the middle of a critical battle, Luna launched missiles at my ship?”
“Yes, Captain Sparhawk,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I…” he lifted a hand and looked at it. Blood coated his fingers.
It was then that I noticed he was injured and standing oddly. He’d been shot or cut in the side. But he was still on his feet.
“Sparhawk,” he said. “Keep flying that ship. I’ve been watching you handle her like a pro. I’m very impressed.”
&
nbsp; I frowned in confusion. “You’re injured, Halsey,” I said. “What’s going on? Can I speak with Admiral Cunningham?”
“No, you can’t. She’s dead.”
“Dead? When? How?”
“That depends on your point of view. I would hazard to guess that the real Admiral Cunningham died a year or so ago. She was a Stroj, Captain. An infiltrator. I should have suspected it. She’s made countless poor decisions over the last year.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “So, she put me in command of this ship to screw Star Guard? Is that what you’re saying?”
Halsey nodded. “Yes, I believe so. She thought a junior officer—well, she was a Stroj. Who knows what she thought? About twenty minutes ago, after it was discovered that Luna had launched missiles in your direction, she broke cover. Two of her closest staffers were Stroj, too. Taranto is dead. So are seven other officers here at CENTCOM. We finally took them down, but it wasn’t easy.”
I swallowed hard. I’d counted on Admiral Cunningham’s support. It was difficult to accept that she’d helped me gain command of Defiant because she thought such a move was the worst possible one Earth could make. It was, in fact, humiliating.
“Sparhawk,” Halsey said, “I think we both owe each other an apology. I underestimated you, and you probably thought I was some kind of monster hell-bent on derailing your career. Let me assure you, all I wanted was to put the best man we had in command of that ship.”
“I see.”
“Yes, you’re right. That means I thought you were a poor choice. I was wrong. Keep fighting. Report back to us when you can. Halsey out.”
I found myself back in my chair, on the bridge of Defiant. I was stunned. Cunningham had been the Stroj? I’d felt an inkling, a faint suspicion, that it could be Halsey, but I’d never suspected…
“Sir?” Yamada said. “Sir, the enemy is changing formation again. They’re going into a wedge formation, and they’re increasing speed.”
Taking a deep breath, I forced all my looming self-doubts away. “Increasing speed? On what course?”
“Directly toward us, sir.”
“How many ships do they have left?”
