An Airless Storm: Cochrane's Company: Book Two

by Peter Grant

  With a thumping impact, as if its fragile hull had been hit by a hammer, the lifeboat was shoved away from the hull by two powerful hydraulic pistons. It rocked, suddenly weightless in the absence of the ship’s artificial gravity field, as Ilaria’s gravitic drive jumped to full power, accelerating the big vessel past it and away. Its own power pack still dormant, its internal gravity inoperative, the bright orange lifeboat bobbed in space, its automatic emergency beacon emitting a plaintive plea for rescue.

  MYCENAE SECUNDUS TWO ORBIT

  The incoming missiles were far too numerous, and moving far too fast, for the weapons officers of Hawkwood’s ships – none of whom had yet arrived at their consoles – to manually do anything about them. Fortunately, Kang Industries’ designers had automated many defensive functions. Once activated by the Officer of the Deck, the ships’ battle computers were able to react independently, prioritizing available targets according to the threat they posed, and launching missiles to intercept them. Under the circumstances, they responded very well indeed; not perfectly, but a valiant effort.

  HCS Datura’s datalink flexed its new-found speed through the ship’s battle computer as it poured data to the missiles in the eight pods aboard HCS Narwhal, the arsenal ship with which she had been paired for operational testing. There was a fifteen-second pause as instructions, intercept positions, and courses were passed. It was enough time for Datura’s commanding officer, sliding behind his command console as he arrived in her Operations Center, to curse bitterly at the realization that his was the only corvette assigned to Narwhal. His weapons system could control a salvo of up to one hundred and twenty offensive and one hundred and twenty defensive missiles. However, the two capabilities could not be linked, to control two hundred and forty missiles of a single type. Narwhal carried two hundred and eighty defensive missiles, but he could control only forty-three percent of them at any one time. A second corvette in company could have doubled that.

  The arsenal ship began to vomit her first salvo. One hundred and twenty defensive missiles went screaming out to face one hundred and fifty-seven main battery weapons. Unfortunately, the attacking missiles had spread out, to avoid interference between their gravitic drive fields. This forced the defensive weapons to do likewise to intercept them. The gaps between the outgoing missiles produced voids in the defensive barrier, through which attackers could thread their way. What’s more, the thermonuclear blast warheads on the defensive missiles often took out their fellow defenders as they detonated in blinding, kilometers-wide fireballs. Fratricide and voids meant that a hundred and fifteen attacking missiles made it through the first wave of defenders.

  Datura’s battle computers wasted no time. They instantly launched another hundred and twenty defensive missiles. By now Manchineel had begun to fire her own weapons, and Beluga’s missile tender, an old patrol craft converted for the purpose, added its fifty rounds to the mix. The depot ships each carried a pod of thirty defensive missiles, and began to launch them under local control as their crews reached their action stations and sprang into action. A second wave of well over two hundred defensive missiles slashed at the threats… but the fratricide became much worse as the incoming weapons approached their targets. Their increasing proximity meant that the defending missiles were, of necessity, also closer together. A single thermonuclear detonation might take out up to half a dozen of them, before they could target an incoming enemy.

  A rolling blast front of defensive thermonuclear explosions erupted only a few hundred thousand kilometers from Secundus Two orbit. Another fifty-two of the incoming weapons were destroyed, and twenty-eight more were taken out of the fight as their sensors or guidance systems were overloaded and fried by close-range radiation. They zoomed on, but no longer posed a threat. Their control systems would self-detonate their nuclear warheads after a pre-programmed period without guidance input or a visible target.

  The surviving thirty-five missiles charged in to point-blank range. As they did so, the point defense laser cannon, four aboard each corvette and depot ship, opened fire. By now the incoming weapons were moving at better than four-tenths of light speed, making tracking them very difficult. Under the circumstances, the lasers did very well to nail eighteen of them.

  The remaining seventeen missiles struck home.

  Four targeted Bowhead, the huge two-and-a-half-million-ton warehouse freighter. Each missile’s laser cone fired twenty to thirty beams. More than seventy of them laced her hull. A ship so large was very hard to kill; but her gravitic drive was destroyed, one of her two huge reactors went into emergency shutdown, and her wiring harness was severed in two critical places. Her logistics computers were fried by a power surge so great, it overwhelmed their protective systems. Many of her holds were pierced, the supplies within them suffering damage and destruction.

  Nine missiles went after Vulcan. The corvettes’ systems had given top priority to defending their own vessels, and only then worried about the ships in company. As a result, they allowed too many missiles to get through to her. The half-million-ton repair ship, crammed with vital tools, essential equipment and critical spares, staggered in her orbit as over a hundred and forty laser beams slashed through her hull. She vanished in a thermonuclear ball of fire as one of the beams took out her central fusion reactor, unleashing its fury upon her. Everybody on board died instantly.

  HCS Manchineel had been caught woefully unprepared, with half her crew absent on the depot ship. Those left aboard raced to their action stations, but could not do everything that would have been done by their colleagues. As a result, her defensive fire began later than the other corvettes, and was not as effective. Three missiles screamed toward her, rolled to aim their warheads, and fired. They got close enough to connect with almost all their laser beams.

  Hit more than sixty times, the relatively tiny Manchineel reeled. Every system aboard went into emergency shutdown. Most of her internal atmosphere voided to vacuum through the holes piercing her hull. Except for a lucky handful who were in the few remaining airtight compartments, every man and woman aboard died. She floated in space, an almost lifeless hulk.

  The last incoming missile targeted De Ruyter, the brand-new depot ship. Its laser beams pierced two holds and three crew compartments – but they were all empty. She was still working up, so the holds were not yet filled with supplies, and her crew had raced to General Quarters. Airtight doors slammed shut automatically as alarms sounded, sealing off the damage. Her people would have to find other places to sleep until their accommodation could be repaired, but she would live to reach a shipyard.

  Even as the last enemy missiles exploded, the battle computers on HCS Datura reached a firing solution for the gravitic drive that had suddenly come to life at the enemy’s launching position, and was now accelerating away from the planet. Without waiting for orders, still in automatic mode, the weapons system issued instructions to the main battery missiles aboard Narwhal. Fifty of the big weapons flew from their tubes, turned onto their pre-programmed courses, and sped after the fleeing vessel.

  BROTHERHOOD SHIP ILARIA

  Captain Vrioni watched the Plot display intently as Ilaria swerved to port, then straightened on her new course. She did not appear to have been critically damaged by whatever had targeted her. He left the gravitic drive at full power, building toward maximum velocity to make his escape as quickly as possible. The entire attack was reflected in the display, the diminishing number of his missiles persevering through a double barrage of defensive weapons before striking home. He let out an undignified yell of triumph, echoed by the entire bridge crew, as Vulcan vanished in the starburst icon of a thermonuclear explosion.

  The operator suddenly called, “Third missile barrage! Third barrage! They’re… sir, they’re aimed at us!”

  Vrioni scoffed. “Let them! Those corvette missiles have a powered range of only five to six million kilometers. We’re opening the range with every second that passes. They’ll run out of reactor fuel before they can
reach us!”

  But the arsenal ship’s main battery missiles were designed for cruisers, not corvettes. They were almost twice as large as the smaller units, with a powered range of twelve million kilometers, faster acceleration, and a much bigger and more potent warhead. They streaked closer, showing no sign of slowing down or running out of fuel.

  Vrioni felt panic clutch at his heart for the second time that day. “Defenses to automatic! Weapons free! Helm hard-a-starboard!”

  Datura’s battle computers had made allowances for evasive maneuvers. The incoming missiles were spread out in a wide pattern, so that whatever way Ilaria dodged, some of them were bound to reach her. Vrioni had left his defensive fire too late. It knocked down more than two-thirds of them, but the remainder dodged, twisted and maneuvered their way closer.

  Each warhead carried fifty laser rods in its cone. They arrived with shattering force, spearing through Ilaria’s hull from stem to stern and spine to keel. Three smashed into the bridge, killing Captain Vrioni and every member of the operations crew, leaving the ship leaderless in her most critical moment of need. A follow-up volley of twenty more missiles, which she could neither defend against nor evade, finished the job. Ilaria vanished in a bright, spherical actinic flash.

  In the absence of orders to abandon ship, none of her crew had taken to the lifeboats. They died with her.

  HCS JEAN BART

  Frank watched with bitter triumph as the attacker, whoever she had been, joined Vulcan in thermonuclear obliteration. He picked up his microphone – then noticed Sue McBride standing stock-still beside his command console. She was staring into the Plot display, at the place where Vulcan had been. Her right hand, clenched into a fist, was thrust into her mouth, and she was biting its knuckles so hard that blood was trickling down her wrist.

  He dropped the microphone, stood up, and tentatively touched her shoulder. “Sue –”

  “Don’t touch me!” she screamed hysterically, drawing every eye in the OpCen to her like a magnet. “They’re… they’re all dead!” She burst into tears.

  He suddenly realized that for all her years of service, Sue had never seen battle. She’d been, first a technician, then an engineer, but never a combat officer. She’d just witnessed her pride and joy, the repair ship she’d set up from scratch, blown out of space, along with every spacer, technician and officer aboard her – many of them people she’d personally selected. A lot of them had been, not just her subordinates, but friends of many years’ standing, who’d been aboard because of her. The sense of loss and guilt she must be feeling right now had to be utterly overwhelming.

  “Sue, I… I’m sorry.” He looked around, and caught the eye of the Navigating Officer. “Get her to the doctor!” he mouthed silently, indicating Sue with a sideways jerk of his head.

  The Navigator nodded, and came over to them. He said, very gently, “Commander, you’re needed in the Sick Bay.”

  “What? I – sick bay? What do you mean?” Her voice trembled. Tears flowed down her cheeks, her body shuddering and shaking as if she had a sudden, violent fever.

  “This way, please, ma’am.”

  Frank watched them go, immense aching sadness for Sue, and everyone else they’d lost, in his heart. He wondered for a moment whether she would ever return to her old self… but he had no time to worry about that now. There was too much to be done.

  He picked up the microphone once more. “System Command to all ships. Well done, everybody. A sneak attack like that, launched with no warning, might have destroyed us all. Our losses are deeply painful, but we’ll have to wait to mourn our dead.

  “All ships in Secundus Two orbit are to dispatch small craft with rescue parties to Manchineel and Bowhead. Render assistance to other vessels as required. Zaqar is to head for the lifeboat beacon left behind by the enemy ship near her firing position. Recover any survivors, and bring them back to the flagship for medical treatment and interrogation. Mark my words – bring them back alive! We need answers, and they’re the only people around here who can give them to us. No revenge, no summary justice, no violence unless they offer it first. I want them alive!”

  The depot ship’s commanding officer asked, in a low voice, “Is that why you chose Zaqar to go get those survivors?”

  Frank nodded grimly. “Yes. She’s an unarmed courier ship. She can’t just blast them out of space. After what we’ve just been through, I can’t be sure a corvette would be so restrained.”

  12

  Assessment

  CONSTANTA

  “They’ve damned near crippled our operations in Mycenae.” Cochrane gave his one-sentence assessment crisply, grimly, as he put down the tablet from which he’d been reading Frank’s initial dispatch. “We’re going to have to invest a hell of a lot of time and money just to get back to where we were, let alone continue to expand our activities.”

  Around the conference room table, the members of his abbreviated staff still showed their shock and astonishment. Zaqar had emerged at Constanta’s system boundary less than three hours before, to transmit the first report of the engagement at Mycenae. She was approaching orbit, bringing more detailed accounts.

  Cochrane pushed back his chair and stood, his mind whirling as he weighed up options. He strode back and forth as he snapped orders. “All right. Lachlan, I need you to look for ships right away. We put too many of our eggs in one basket aboard Bowhead. Not only is she effectively a write-off, but many of the supplies aboard her will have been damaged. Even worse, we’ve lost her logistics system. There are backups, of course – we have the grandfather versions here – but it’ll take a while to get a working system going again. Until that happens, those in Mycenae can’t be sure where to locate the stores they need, even assuming they’re not damaged. Sheer lack of supplies is going to restrict our operations there in the short to medium term. We’re going to have to ship a lot more stores from here to there, to keep them going.

  “I want you to find two freighters to replace Bowhead, one to one-and-a-half million tons apiece. If you can’t find them in a hurry, I’ll take three slightly smaller ones. We’ll set up the stores in Mycenae across them, divided equally, so that the loss of one ship won’t mean the loss of all stores for that station. I’d like them to be as new, and in as good a condition, as possible. The need is critically urgent. Price is not as important as getting the right ships in the shortest possible time. I’ll pay a premium if I have to.”

  “Got it, sir,” Lachlan replied, head down as he made rapid notes. “What about repairing Bowhead, and what about Humpback here, sir? Do you want to replace her too?”

  “I’d like to replace Humpback, for the same reasons, but not right away. Let’s deal with Mycenae’s problems first. We can’t repair Bowhead. It’d take a repair ship – which we no longer have – several weeks at least to fix her up enough to proceed to a shipyard under her own power. It might take a lot longer, depending on how much damage she’s suffered, and what parts need to be ordered and shipped to her. After that, it’d take the yard several months, maybe longer, to do a thorough rebuild and refurbishment. We can’t afford the delay. As soon as Bowhead has been emptied of all usable supplies, we’ll drop her into one of Mycenae’s stars.”

  There was an incredulous rustle around the table. “But, sir,” Lachlan protested, “we’ve got a lot invested in her. We can’t just throw that away!”

  Cochrane gave him a tight smile. “The enemy threw it away for us when they crippled her. If we let them tie us up in even more knots to fix her, rather than moving on and getting ourselves fighting fit as quickly as possible, they’ll win again. No. We’ll cut our losses and replace her. You won’t be happy to hear we’re going to do the same with Manchineel.”

  “But, sir! She’s a brand-new corvette – one of the latest two to arrive!”

  “She was. Now she’s a derelict wreck. It would take as long, or longer, to get her back into running condition as it would Bowhead, and we’d be wasting more time and money in a s
hipyard to repair her. We’ll recover any usable weapons, stores and equipment from her, then she can follow Bowhead into the star. We’ll order two more corvettes from Kang to replace her.”

  “Two, sir?” Dave Cousins asked.

  “Yes. One will be Manchineel II. The other will replace Amanita in our operational lineup – as you know, she’s the prototype, and smaller than the others in our fleet – but we’ll keep Amanita, rather than trade her in on a bigger model. If we suffer more losses, we’ll use her to help make up for them while we order replacements. Meanwhile, she can help to train new spacers.”

  “I get it, sir.”

  Cochrane turned back to his logistics staff officer. “Lachlan, I want two repair ships to replace Vulcan. She was half a million tons, and stuffed to the gunwales with everything she might need. We’ve lost all that with her – probably the equivalent of a billion francs or more, in terms of replacement value.” Another rustle of astonishment ran around the table.

  He went on, “We can’t do without a repair ship, but when we got Vulcan, we assumed we’d have to do even major shipyard repairs ourselves. Time has proven us wrong. Grigorescu’s shipyard here has done stellar work for us, and its capabilities have grown to match our needs. A shipyard can do bigger jobs faster, easier and cheaper than a repair ship. Therefore, we’ll have one repair ship on station in Mycenae to do routine maintenance, and put damaged ships into good enough working order to make the trip to a shipyard. However, we won’t plan on using her as a mobile service and engineering base to do everything, as we did with Vulcan. She won’t have to be as sophisticated.

  “A second repair ship will be here at base, partly to train our own technicians and spacers, partly to supplement what Grigorescu does for us. While the shipyard is working on a vessel’s hull, for example, the repair ship can work on some of her systems. That should speed things up. If we lose the repair ship in Mycenae, or she needs to come back here for her own maintenance, the repair ship here can relieve her there.”