Orion Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

  “Right…” I said, thinking hard. “Any way to know how long those exhaust trails have been here?”

  “They would have dissipated if they’d been laid down more than a week ago.”

  “So, is it possible they could still be in the system?”

  “It hasn’t been ruled out yet,” he admitted.

  “Can I talk to Ursahn?”

  He hesitated. “No, not now. We’ve got an active mission going on, and I need to sign off now, thanks. Please refrain from chit-chat in the future.”

  “I’m not…!” I began, but trailed off. He’d closed the channel.

  “What are they doing that’s so important?” I asked my crew.

  “I’ve got local trails, many small ones. Flying in formation around the inhabited planet.”

  “Move toward their position,” I said. “They’ve shifted to a higher orbit.”

  We were right on top of the planet by this time, about a hundred miles from the blue-white-brown surface. Dalton applied thrust, and we swung away from the planet carefully.

  Moving against the gravity-well of the planet, we came up close to Killer. That seemed to spook her crew.

  “They’re bringing their fighters back to short-range sweeps,” Chang said.

  I couldn’t help but smile at that. “They can’t see us,” I said. “Not even this close. But they suspect we’re here. Why is that, Miller?”

  He looked startled. He wasn’t a highly technical person, but he knew more about the phasing system than anyone else aboard.

  “They can detect a local presence by measuring micro-disturbances in local space. It’s like sensing ripples in a pool with your eyes closed. You might know when someone quietly gets into the water with you, but you wouldn’t know exactly where they were.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “I feel like testing them. Maintain radio silence.”

  He looked at me, startled. “This isn’t a game, Captain.”

  “I didn’t say it was. I’m performing an experiment. I want to know if the Rebels can sense us, and how close we can get before we’re spotted.”

  “They might fire on us—they’d have the right.”

  I shrugged. “But they won’t. The moment they see us we’ll identify ourselves.”

  He muttered something about discipline and madness, but he turned back to his console and left the phasing unit on.

  We nudged closer and closer to Killer’s looming hull.

  “We’re about a thousand miles out, Captain,” Dalton said quietly. It was as if he thought Ursahn’s crew might hear us.

  “What about her fighter CAP?” I asked.

  Dalton turned to me and grinned. “We’re inside her screen. We slipped past them.”

  I grinned back. “Well done, Dalton.”

  “Sir,” Miller said. “May I remind you that this is the approximate range at which we engaged the Imperial phase-ship? If we are detected now, Killer’s gunners might well fire first and ask questions later. We’re well within her safety perimeter.”

  “You’re right. Gwen, give me a channel to her command deck.”

  “Hold on!” Chang said. “I have contacts, sir. Coming from the far side of the planet—they’re rising up out of the atmosphere.”

  “Give me a visual.”

  A slowly spinning wire-frame of the planet appeared. There were three contacts all right. Just like there had been when we’d found the enemy carriers.

  But this time, they weren’t carriers. They were heavy cruisers.

  “Shouldn’t we show ourselves?” Miller demanded. “Killer is sure to be nervous now.”

  “Dalton, slide us out of here. Ease off on our engines and let Killer pull away from us.”

  We watched tensely as Killer went to battle stations and began to apply thrust. Her fighters stopped buzzing around her like flies, forming up and moving to defend the mothership instead. A hundred streaking jets glowed against the atmosphere of the bright planet below.

  “They’re going to try to hit the cruisers before they can get clear of the atmosphere,” I said. “Follow them, Dalton.”

  He glanced at me in alarm, but then he turned back to the helm and did as I’d ordered. We felt the thrust of our own engines, and Samson switched on the anti-grav to keep us from being plastered against the aft wall of the bridge.

  Killer fell away behind us, moving away from the coming conflict. Like most carriers, she was lightly armed and armored. She had dependable shields, but that was about it. She relied on her fighters to damage the enemy.

  But three heavy cruisers… It seemed hopeless. One Rebel carrier couldn’t face three heavy warships like these. Our only advantage was the fact they were still in the atmosphere.

  What had they been doing down there? Hiding? Repairing? It was impossible to know.

  “Full thrust,” I said, “I want to get into attack position just as they’re coming out of the atmosphere.”

  Many worried glances were exchanged around the bridge. I pretended not to notice.

  “Uh…” Samson said, “are we going to attack three cruisers, sir?”

  There it was, he’d come out with what everyone else was thinking.

  “Crew,” I said seriously. “We have to stop the Hunter from destroying Ral. Either that, or Ursahn will drag us to that star system and have the Hunter grind us up.”

  “But we don’t know if these Imperials are actually operating the Hunter,” Gwen pointed out.

  I glanced at her in irritation.

  “Uh… Sorry Captain. I was just voicing a concern.”

  “Noted. But you should all realize we’re about out of time. There are only a few other systems that match the profile Abrams worked up. Either these Imperials are it—or we’re not going to find the control group.”

  “What if we’re pissing in the wind?” Dalton asked. “It seems daft to me.”

  “Objections noted, everyone. Get us into position, Dalton.”

  There were no more complaints. They tensely guided our ship down close to the blue world. It stretched out under our glass-bottomed hull like an endless carpet of colored light. I would have drunk in the lovely view if things hadn’t been so grim.

  The fighters engaged the rising ships at the cusp of the atmosphere. At that point they were vulnerable. They couldn’t turn on their shields without slowing their ascent—all ships only had so much power to apply.

  “Still no shields?” I asked.

  “None detected,” Chang confirmed. “They won’t turn them on until they’re above the mesosphere. Every molecule of gas will be repelled by the shields, draining far too much power, particularly when they are thrusting hard to get off the ground.”

  “Are we going to have to switch off our own shields when we get down there?”

  “Afraid so, Captain,” Samson said.

  The fighters met the first ship as it rose majestically up to face them. I used my sym to reach out and witness the battle up close.

  The vision wasn’t perfect, as our sensors didn’t function as well while we were phasing, but I followed the action easily.

  The lead fighter squadron struck, looking like a mass of wasps with guns. Strikes popped all over the hull in rapid succession.

  But the bigger ship was well-armored. Its own defensive cannons blazed in return. Fighters spiraled and vanished in tiny explosions. Some struck the cruiser itself, but it kept rising, shrugging them off.

  Then, everything changed. I never saw the critical blow, but something inside the big ship ignited. The hot white core blazed into a huge explosion.

  It was quite a spectacle—I’d never seen a warship go up like that. This time there was an atmosphere to burn, even if it was very thin, and ballooning gasses seared my eyes.

  The ripples in the upper atmosphere rolled away from the explosion. Fighters tumbled and scattered in every direction, desperate to escape. I felt for them. I’d commanded just such a fighter not so long ago.

  =39=

  “Ursahn is sending in
her second squadron now,” Gwen said. “They’re right behind us.”

  “Give them room and let them go by,” I said, leaning over my instruments. “Keep phasing. We’ve got to get closer.”

  “The second ship is rising out of the atmosphere now,” Miller said. “We can’t get close before she gets her shields up.”

  I was left grinding my teeth. We were too far out for a sure kill-shot. But if they got their shields up, the fighters wouldn’t have a chance to penetrate it.

  “Suggestions?” I asked. “Do we wait until the fighters engage and put a hole in that shield for them, or do we fire at long range now and hope for luck?”

  They were silent for a second. Miller spoke up first.

  “We’re unlikely to take her out with a single blow either way. But if we fire now, we can probably start phasing again before she can pinpoint us and take us out.”

  I looked at him, nodding. “A plan where we survive to fight another round? I like it. Drop phasing. Gunner, take down that ship! Fire at will!”

  We waited for three short seconds as Dalton steadied our keel. We didn’t want any unexpected bumps. We were close enough to the top layers of the planet’s atmosphere to give us trouble at high speeds.

  I used my sym to amplify my perception of the enemy ship. My vision of the battle cleared dramatically.

  The cruiser really was a monster. She was nosing upward like a shark. I thought I saw the first flickering evidence of shielding going up.

  “Fire, Miller!” I shouted. “Their shields are going live!”

  He worked his controls and engaged a short countdown. The computers had to take over, as this was a long-range shot. We couldn’t guarantee a hit without their help in creating a firing solution.

  The computer inched the turret twice, servos whining, and the projector flared white. Fortunately, we were protected this time. Samson had wisely made the cupola over the bridge opaque.

  Using enhanced perception, I was able to experience the strike like few others could. The beam lanced out in a split-second. The radiation was intense and focused. It struck the second cruiser before she could take evasive action, or deploy significant countermeasures.

  We had every advantage. The enemy ship was only partially shielded, she was thrusting hard, and the atmosphere burning against her speeding hull blinded many of her sensory systems.

  More importantly, we’d been invisible until a few seconds ago. She’d been configured to combat another wing of fighters, not a single intense strike.

  Our single cannon-shot caught her on the prow. It wasn’t a perfect strike, in fact, it was probably a worst-case region to hit. The engines in the rear were more vulnerable. The prow was armed and armored.

  But it didn’t matter. The surprise was complete and devastating. As before, there was a large explosion. There were enough molecules of oxygen around the target to help with that.

  When the vapor cleared, the ship had a large hole driven into it. The pointed prow looked like it had been bitten off and charred black.

  A cheer went up around the bridge—but our jubilation was short-lived.

  “Captain!” Samson shouted. “The third cruiser is engaging. They’ve got a lock on us—we’ve got incoming missiles!”

  “Deploy countermeasures!” I ordered, and other voices began shouting all around me as well. People were calling for the crew to brace for impact.

  “Miller, get us phased-out again,” I said. “Dalton, veer off.”

  For about a minute everyone was working hard, and I couldn’t do much other than watch the drama unfold.

  The cruiser we’d struck hadn’t been taken out. We’d given her a hard knock, but she was still in the fight, laboring to push her way up into open space. Once she was able to fully deploy her shields, she’d be hard to take down.

  In the meantime the last cruiser, the one we’d neglected while dealing with her sisters, was already on us. She’d engaged, and every warning light and alarm was going off at once to tell us about it.

  I considered ordering Dalton to come about to face the injured ship. If we could take one last shot at the injured cruiser, we’d probably be able to finish her now…

  But no. It was suicide to fight on. Phase-ships were all about stealth and surprise. Now that we’d revealed ourselves, we were helpless in a straight fight with these behemoths.

  It was about time I learned to handle Hammerhead the way she’d been designed to operate. We had to run and live to fight another day. It was the nature of this ship-class.

  Clenching my teeth until they hurt, I let my people do their individual jobs. At this point, I could only slow them down.

  We were headed toward open space and accelerating hard—but there was no way we were going to outrun missiles.

  Then the stars outside the hull vanished, replaced by a projection of their theoretical contact positions. We’d phased-out again.

  All over the bridge, my crew let out sighs of relief.

  Dalton swung us hard-over, performing a random seventy-degree turn away from our previous heading. We were invisible, yes, but that wouldn’t save us if the AI in those missiles was good at predicting our course correctly—as I was sure it was.

  “Keep running, full burn,” I said. “They might not be able to see our trail. After about twenty seconds, throttle back and make another random course-shift.”

  Dalton nodded, sweat falling from his hair and face to splatter his console. He was breathing through his mouth, gulping air. We’d all been sweating hard.

  I had faith in Dalton. He’d been an excellent pilot when we’d been flying smaller gunships around. On most submarines back on Earth, junior crewmen actually steered the boat. But that wasn’t acceptable aboard a spaceship. There were too many things that could go wrong and critical decisions had to be made faster.

  Allowing myself a moment for reflection, I considered the fact that commanding a phase-ship was completely unlike piloting a fighter. Oddly enough, it seemed like I felt more stress while we were phasing in and out than I’d experienced while flying a smaller ship in open space.

  It must be related to the timing of events in battle, I figured. In the phase-ship, the quietness of stealth was inevitably followed by a brief period of intense action. You felt terribly exposed whenever you weren’t phasing, and the suspense of the long waits in-between took their toll on the mind.

  “Dammit!” Samson cried out suddenly, slapping at his controls.

  Gwen moved swiftly to his station, looming over his shoulder. She signaled me with a worried glance.

  I joined her, and watched Samson work his console. He was shutting things off as fast as he could.

  “What seems to be the trouble, Ensign?” I asked in calm voice.

  He was breathing hard, running his hands over every one of his defensive-measure controls.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. I forgot. With all the excitement—I just forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” I asked.

  “The countermeasures… We were using tanks of chaff and aerogels to throw off missiles and diffuse beams—but I left them open, pumping out material after we began phasing.”

  In an instant, I knew what he was talking about. We were in trouble.

  “All hands,” I announced over the ship-wide PA. “Prepare for impact. Get yourselves into a harness and stay there!”

  Everyone scrambled to obey.

  Samson threw up his hands in frustration.

  “I’m sorry Captain,” he said. “I’m not used to flying this thing yet—I was following the old playbook from our fighter.”

  “Dalton,” I said, ignoring Samson, “give us another random heading. Get your helmets on, people. Pressurize them immediately.”

  Everyone grabbed at hanging helmets, and our suits puffed out as oxygen filled them. Some looked bewildered, but they all seemed to get the urgency of the situation.

  Gwen seated herself next to me. She reached out and touched my arm.

  “How screwed ar
e we, exactly?” she asked.

  “The chaff and aerogels… once they leave our immediate vicinity, they will unphase.”

  She stared at me for a second. “Leaving a trail behind us?”

  “Exactly. Those missiles would have to be extremely dumb and blind to miss it. We have to assume the worst.”

  She craned her head around, as if looking for the missiles, but of course, we couldn’t see them.

  We were almost as blind as the enemy now. The missiles were out there, but we didn’t know exactly where they were.

  =40=

  Unfortunately, the Imperials had been tracking our ship. The missiles found the trail of chaff and prismatic crystals. Some exploded, confused by the countermeasures—but not all of them.

  We all watched the screens. Our sensory projections were guesswork due to limited input, but they showed the basics—gravitational centers and powerful energy releases.

  We could see the planet below us. It was a massive globe in a slow spin. That wasn’t the interesting part, however.

  “See that flash?” Miller called out, highlighting it. “We’ve got strikes in our wake.”

  “Where’s the digital count?” I demanded. “I want a strike-count, and a percentage of the total missiles released. Get some data up with this chalk-drawing, Chang!”

  “Working on it, Captain. But keep in mind we don’t know exactly how many missiles the Imperials have fired at us.”

  “Give me an educated guess.”

  The tension was intense. Samson was showing his teeth in a wide grimace.

  “I’m sorry about this, Leo,” he said quietly. “I really am.”

  “You might get a chance to do better later on,” I told him. “If we’re lucky.”

  More strikes appeared. Seven of them popped in rapid succession, according to Chang’s new counter which he’d added to the interface.

  “They’re going off several hundred miles behind us,” Gwen said, working on the interface data. “We might be in the clear.”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Those missiles are bombing the decoys we left behind in open space. The birds that are smart enough to pass that stuff up—they’re the ones we have to worry about.”