by T J Mott
His comm board lit up as nearby Avennian patrol boats attempted to hail. Ignoring them, he punched the hyperdrive as soon as the atmosphere was thin enough. The stolen freighter shook with a loud clunk and the view outside went completely black.
Giles heaved a sigh of relief and looked to his fellow Rebels. They’d escaped Ailon. Now, they were out of the fight, and the war, most likely for good. I hope Chad Messier’s encrypted message works. He had no idea what was in the message or why it was so vital, only that it was imperative to get it out into the standard courier networks at nearby Chilon.
***
“They got away,” Culper reported over the Council’s radio frequency. “Chad, how confident are you that someone will respond to your call?”
“Very confident. But it may take some time.”
“Abram is still attacking,” said Rhena. “To very little effect, and heavy losses.”
Thaddeus gulped. The Rebel Council had failed to reign him in, and Abram was essentially rogue now. “I suggest,” he said softly, “that we go into hiding. Keep our forces in reserve until reinforcements arrive. And I guess Abram will keep the enemy distracted while we wait.”
The entire Council—except Abram, who was not on the call—agreed unanimously.
Chapter 31
Four Lancer-class gunships hung together in deep space some forty light-years away from Marcell’s Headquarters asteroid, cruising at low sublight velocities in a close, tight formation that served no real purpose other than as practice for Lieutenant Commander Poulsen’s pilots. She sat in the captain’s chair on the gunship designated Ghost 2, feeling rather annoyed about it. This was her squadron’s first real flight—aside from some touch-and-goes and airlock maneuvering practice at the hangar—and she was not in the pilot’s seat. Her own gunship, Ghost 1, was one of two being retrofitted with a new reverse-engineered X-11 hyperdrive by Gray Fleet. Once the modification was completed, she’d be back in the pilot’s seat.
Some things were a bit clearer from the captain’s station, she had to admit. As a pilot, she would have been intently focused on thruster performance, positioning and velocity relative to the rest of the flight, as well as closely watching a myriad of sensor data. But from here, she didn’t have to focus much on that, although she was constantly fighting the urge to second-guess her pilot. Instead, her display gave her brief status summaries of the entire flight, using some custom software developed by Blue Fleet engineers.
She was watching the statuses of all four gunships as they charged up and prepared for their final jump. The hyperdrive indicators all flipped to green, telling her that all drives were charged and configured. Taking a few minutes to examine their jump parameters, she nodded in approval and ordered the flight into hyperspace.
Behind her, in the aft sections of the gunship, the hyperdrive clunked loudly. Outside, the stars winked completely out of existence and the view through the bridge windows became pure, deep blackness. The low thrumming of the reactor increased in volume and pitch as its power output increased to accelerate the vessel up to its cruising speed.
“All normal,” reported the pilot. “Travel time is thirty minutes.”
Poulsen began thinking about her first moves once the flight dropped out of hyperspace. They needed to re-establish comms with each other, locate the enemy force, and attack. Preferably as quickly as possible. Her four gunships were slightly outgunned by the light frigate and two corvettes they would face, but she believed she could win the skirmish if her force could concentrate fire on the Lynx moments after exiting hyperspace. The two corvettes were immaterial to her mission goals. She’d engage them if absolutely necessary, but if she had to stop and fight them to reach their real target, she knew they’d certainly lose.
They’d spent a fair amount of time in the simulators back on Headquarters to prepare for the skirmish. If they regrouped quickly enough after reversion, it wouldn’t be hard to swing behind the Lynx and concentrate their fire on its main thrusters and reactor before the frigate could respond. The Swift-class fast frigates were notoriously weak from behind. She bitterly recalled how her previous ship, the Caracal, also a Swift-class, had been ambushed and destroyed by a small-time pirate while escaping from their own raid in the Waverly system.
Bile rose in her throat as she also remembered the Caracal’s chief gunner, the man responsible for tipping off their enemies of their location and escape plan. He’d organized a small mutiny, hoping to save his own life and collect some bounties on Admiral Marcell. Instead, he’d died in the brig as the frigate was blown to pieces around him by the very people he’d betrayed the ship to. A fitting end for him, in Poulsen’s mind, although very few others had escaped and returned to Headquarters. It was possible there were more survivors, but Headquarters’ location was so closely guarded that they wouldn’t know how to return. They may have regrouped with Marcell’s other starships elsewhere, but it was just as likely that they’d moved on to other organizations or careers.
In fact, only four people aboard the Caracal had known Headquarters’ coordinates. Herself, Admiral Marcell, Captain Reynolds, and the frigate’s XO, named Bennett. Of the four, three had returned. Bennett was presumed dead.
It was impossible to know the final death tally for the Waverly mission. Information traveled through the galaxy so slowly it was often outdated by the time anyone received it. There was no way to track the roughly two hundred crewmen and the platoon of Marines who had been aboard the Caracal at the moment of its destruction, no way to know how many survived or how many died, or where any survivors had ended up.
“Thirty seconds to reversion,” the gunship’s pilot reported, snapping Poulsen out of her thoughts and back to the present.
Poulsen glanced at the comm officer, a young ensign who sat to her right and facing the starboard hull. “Comms, I want our data links operational the moment we revert.”
“Aye, Commander,” the ensign replied, looking tense in her chair.
The countdown neared zero, and the gunship gradually became quieter as its reactor throttled down. Moments later, the small warship’s frame clunked as it transitioned out of hyperspace. The stars reappeared outside.
“Radiators deployed, dumping heat at normal rate,” reported the ship’s engineer from his station on the port side of the bridge.
Poulsen shot to her feet, took a step leftwards, and approached the bridge’s forward windows, stopping next to the piloting station. She looked out, frantically scanning for any sign of her other ships—or their simulated enemies.
It was a futile effort, if she was honest with herself. The gunship’s sensors were far more astute than her own eyes. But at the same time, it could take several seconds to a minute for them to figure out their situation, and she wasn’t any good at sitting still and waiting for something to happen. She had to do something. Once again, she wished she was in the pilot’s seat. But this wasn’t her gunship and she wasn’t going to disrupt its crew to appease her own vanity.
“Be ready to retract those radiators the moment the engagement begins,” she ordered. Their primary goal was to destroy the Lynx. But just as important was the ability for her force to escape into hyperspace afterwards, at least for a short jump, which would be impossible if their cooling system took damage. “Sensors?” she asked cautiously, still not seeing anything outside. Chances were their opposition was hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers away, far too distant to be spotted by the naked eye. Especially in deep space, where no nearby star could reflect light off the ships’ hulls.
“Two phi-band flashes detected, assuming they are ours, range eighty-seven and thirty-nine. Ghost 3 beat us here and we’re establishing a link with them. Distance thirty klicks.”
She nodded nervously and returned to her captain’s chair. “What about the opposition?”
“We’re tracking a parallax on one infrared contact bearing twenty-two by eighteen. Estimated range six hundred to eight hundred klicks.”
She frowned,
feeling somewhat disappointed at the crew’s slowness. All of her Blue Fleet experience had been aboard the Caracal, Admiral Marcell’s own flagship staffed by some of the best spacers in the galaxy. But her squadron was full of inexperienced ensigns and lieutenants, and it showed. Her ships were slow to link up on comms, slow to locate each other on sensors, and slow to figure out their new environment upon leaving hyperspace.
Relax, she told herself. It’s only a training mission. They’ll get better.
“Comms, link up all our bridges.” She wanted her other ships to directly hear everything she said, rather than having to relay orders through their respective comm officers.
“Aye, Commander. Channel open, I have all four gunships linked in.”
“Form up and begin approaching that infrared contact. Sensors, I want a concentrated scan on that region.” She adjusted her display, switching it to a real-time tactical map. Her flight was scattered dozens of klicks apart. Granted, this had been the first time many of her pilots had ever navigated hyperspace, but their formation was a bit too loose for such a short-range jump. They still needed more practice.
“I have visual contact,” the sensors officer reported. “Looks like one Swift-class. Four smaller escorts but I can’t resolve them yet.”
“Four?” Poulsen asked, frowning deeply. “They’re supposed to have two escorts, not four.”
The inter-ship comm channel came to life. “Ghost 3, confirmed visual contact on five starships. One Swift, four smaller ships still too distant to resolve visually.”
“Ghost 5, that lines up with what we’re seeing as well.”
“What the hell?” she muttered to herself.
“Maybe something went wrong,” said someone from another gunship. “Should we call them and find out if they need assistance?”
“Put us on a course aft of the Lynx,” she said, not feeling very confident in the situation. “But hold your fire.”
“Aye, Commander.”
The formation tightened up and then Poulsen’s comm officer spoke up. “Commander, I have a comm channel request from the Lynx.”
“Accept it,” she said hesitantly. “Lynx, is there a problem? We detect two extra ships.”
“This is restricted space,” replied a stern male voice, one she did not recognize. It was definitely not one of the Lynx’s command staff. “Identify yourself and your intentions.”
She tapped a mute button on her console. “Sensors, any ID on those escorts?”
“We’ve confirmed the identity of the Shrike and Cheetah. No ID yet on the other two escorts. But they are not Blue Fleet starships.”
“Commander Poulsen, Ghost 3. That is our conclusion as well.”
“Did outsiders stumble into our exercise?” she asked. But it seemed impossible for anyone to jump into this region by chance. They were in deep space in the Independent Regions, in the voids between unpopulated star systems and well off any common hyperspace routes.
“Unknown, Commander.”
A stray thought struck her. Could the Lynx have been tracked? As unlikely as it seemed, they could have dropped out of hyperspace near outsiders, who, seeing its phi-band flashes, then followed it to investigate. Did they attack or board it? “Sensors, do a full active scan on the Lynx. Look for signs of damage.”
“Aye, Commander, beginning scan.”
“I repeat, identify yourself and your intentions,” declared the voice again. “You have ten seconds to comply or leave, or we will assume you’re hostile and open fire.”
“No signs of damage, Commander. All three Blue Fleet vessels read normal.”
“Ma’am, our sensors are still in simulation mode,” the engineer reported. “We’re not seeing reality.”
Poulsen cursed, frustrated at herself for forgetting that detail. Of course they’d see no damage. Their sensors weren’t actually scanning the Lynx, they were communicating with a simulation computer aboard the Lynx that reported sensor results consistent with the state of the simulation. And neither side had simulated firing yet. If the Lynx was actually damaged, it was hidden by the simulation’s overrides on her sensor data.
Something wasn’t right. Who were the two extra starships, and why were they interfering with the exercise? “Kill the sim-link,” she ordered. She wanted her real sensors online.
“Aye, Commander. Sim-link closed.”
Poulsen stood from her seat and approached the sensor station, observing over the officer’s shoulder as the real sensors took over. Moments later, she began to realize the truth, and unleashed a string of curses into the bridge.
“Commander, message from the Lynx. Ghost 2 is forfeited for the remainder of the exercise. We are not allowed to comm the rest of the flight until the exercise concludes.”
She let loose an angry, gutteral growl as she returned to her seat. “Re-establish the sim-link, monitor-only mode,” she ordered, her voice dripping with anger. “Bring us to full stop.” She brought up her tactical display again. Her gunship, Ghost 2, no longer appeared, but the other three gunships continued on course towards the Lynx and its escort. Without their commander. For that matter, without anyone ranking above lieutenant.
Her bridge fell into an embarrassed silence as the rest of Ghost 2’s crew realized their commander’s mistake. They listened in to the rest of the flight’s comm chatter as the flight quickly fell into disarray. They were still baffled by the extra escorts, and the sudden disappearance of their command ship with no shots fired only added to the confusion. None of her captains had the confidence to take command and each gunship worked independently, barely coordinating with the others, yet holding their fire because of their uncertainty.
All five enemy starships concentrated their simulated fire on one gunship. The confused and inexperienced pilot was slow to respond, holding a steady course for nearly five seconds as salvo after salvo of laser fire burned into its bow. Finally, it tried to go evasive, just as the bridge blew out and the crew was marked as dead. The other two gunships broke and returned fire. Not on their primary target, the Lynx, but on the closest of the unexpected escorts, whose destruction was immaterial to the simulation’s goals.
OPFOR fired several more salvos, striking the prominent, oversized thrusters on the next gunship. Its starboard thruster failed and went dark, forcing that vessel out of the battle.
The last remaining starship in Poulsen’s flight turned and throttled up to run, but in doing so it exposed its large main thrusters to direct fire from all five opposing force ships. A few seconds later, the computer shut down the thrusters to simulate severe damage to the maneuvering systems, leaving that gunship drifting away from the engagement.
The Lynx finally closed down the sim-link. “Commander Poulsen?” asked the captain of Ghost 2. “Your orders?”
Poulsen slammed a fist into her console. This was their first skirmish. They’d spent days in hyperspace only to have everything go wrong within a few short minutes. She remained silent for several seconds, trying with very little success to bring her emotions under control. “Do a standard data exchange with the Lynx and escorts,” she said, feeling her face flush in both anger and embarrassment. “Then return the flight to Headquarters. Rotate crew positions after each jump, like before. And see if we can tighten up our jump formations! Our jumps here were borderline unacceptable!” She then retreated to her cabin in the gunship’s mid section, where her crew couldn’t see the tantrum she was considering throwing.
***
“You panicked.”
Commodore Reynolds’ words cut right through Poulsen, and her anger and embarrassment continued their vicious duel within her. But she kept it bottled up, and stood rigidly at attention before her commanding officer’s desk on Headquarters.
She couldn’t keep her face from reddening, though. “Yes, sir,” she admitted.
“What were you thinking?” he asked. His tone was infuriatingly mild, not stern or reprimanding.
“I didn’t know what to make of the two unexpected
ships,” she said. “When we couldn’t ID them, I thought that the exercise had been compromised somehow.”
Reynolds narrowed his eyes. “Continue,” he said after she had paused for a long moment.
She gulped. “I thought the Lynx had had some kind of trouble. Maybe they’d put out a distress signal and some nearby ships responded. Or they’d been attacked and needed help.”
“So you brought down your sim-link.”
“Sir, if there was any trouble, we couldn’t tell without switching to real sensors.” And as soon as her ship’s real sensors came online, she’d immediately realized her mistake. The sim-link had hidden their transponders from her, but with the link broken her sensors had displayed the two ships’ real transponder signals.
Transponder signals which had identified them as Gray Fleet vessels participating in a friendly exercise.
“Why did you think something went wrong?” Reynolds asked.
“Because we were supposed to be going into a friendly exercise against an OPFOR that I helped arrange,” she replied sharply, feeling a pang of anger. “The two Gray Fleet starships didn’t belong there. I didn’t know who they were or why they were there.” She narrowed her eyes. “With all due respect, Commodore, you interfered with the parameters of the exercise without my permission.”
Reynolds shot her a hard glare. Then his face softened, and he actually chuckled. “No, your intelligence data was incorrect,” he said mildly. “As it usually is, in real life.”
“How was I supposed to know that they were part of the exercise?” she retorted, feeling her temper begin to slip. “I set up the exercise! I coordinated with Blue Fleet to assemble the OPFOR!” She paused and took a deep breath. “What did you expect me to do? How should I have responded? Even had I continued as planned, the extra starships meant my flight had almost no chance of taking down the Lynx without unacceptable losses!”
