10
Once they were inside Trinity space again, Clement called down to Nobli and congratulated him on resolving the time/space distortion problem. The Beauregard led the Corvallis pod back into Trinity space and then on toward Bellus on full thrusters, a trip that would take seven more hours because of the low maximum speed of the transport ships. Clement was relaxing in his cabin when he got a buzz at his door.
“Come in,” he said casually, looking up from the book he was reading. Colonel Marina Lubrov came through the door.
“Moby Dick?” she asked, glancing at his book.
Clement shook his head. “One of the Sharpe’s series from twentieth-century Earth by Bernard Cornwell. It’s about a rifle company commander fighting wars for the British empire in Napoleonic era Europe. It’s been adapted to digital dramas several times, but I prefer the books. I guess I like to get away inside my own mind, interpret things the way I see them, not what some video director decided it should look like.”
“I guess that’s why people still read,” she said, “to get away from the constant one-way information flow that’s constantly being poured into our minds these days.”
“Technology has its drawbacks. It makes our lives more convenient, but does it really stimulate our minds, or are we just receptors for the information that all of our technology puts out? That might be a reason people want to migrate to Trinity. A simpler life.”
“Interesting question, but something likely we should contemplate on another day,” she said, then took a step closer to Clement. “Sir, Lieutenant Adebayor has been getting a signal from the Antietam for the last ten minutes. She’s been having trouble trying to lock down the link so that they can report. I thought you’d like to be part of that process and hear the report firsthand.”
“Of course,” said Clement, and promptly shut the book without leaving a bookmark or folding the page. He got up and set the book down on his table.
They both headed out of his cabin then up the four open metal stairs to the bridge of the Beauregard. Clement took his place in the command couch and swung his control console into place. “Report, Kayla,” he said.
The young African woman responded quickly. “Trying to establish the link with the Antietam now, sir. I’ve been at this for about twelve minutes. It almost seems like communicating inside the Trinity system is more difficult than it is communicating across light-years with the quantum tether.”
“Well, the first thing we’ll have to do is ask the Five Suns government for a communications network upgrade. But I need that link, Kayla, as soon as possible.”
“Aye, sir.” She worked for a few more moments then signaled to the admiral with a
thumbs-up. “Putting you on with captain Kagereki of the Antietam now, sir.”
“On the bridge com, please, Lieutenant.” They all listened then as the scratchy voice of the Antietam’s captain came over the line.
“Admiral, this is Captain James Kagereki of the Antietam. I wanted to report to you as soon as possible, sir.”
“Understood, Captain. Please proceed.”
“Sir,” said Kagereki, “I don’t know quite how to say this, sir.” The man was a young captain, and Clement recalled meeting him once before the fleet’s departure from Kemmerine Station.
“Just proceed with your report, Captain, no need to be nervous. We don’t kill the messenger in this fleet.” Clement couldn’t help but feel apprehensive now.
“Yes, sir.” Kagereki’s voice was still hesitant. Clement heard him take a deep breath before continuing. “Sir, I have to report that there is no one on Alphus. I mean that . . . there are natives, sir, but none of the Five Suns crew loyal to Admiral DeVore that we left behind in the camps are on the planet, as far as I can determine.”
This was not good news to Clement. “Back up a minute, Captain. Tell me what your scans have found.”
Kagereki hesitated a second again. “As I said, Admiral, there are just natives on the planet. All of the camps that you established before you left Trinity have been abandoned. There’s no one there, sir, and it looks like that’s been the case for a while, perhaps as long as six months. We’ve run deep scans. We’ve looked in the hills, even scanned under the ground up to half a kilometer. There’s just no sign of them, sir.” Kagereki was now obviously upset at having to report this sort of news. Clement tried to calm him down.
“Captain,” said Clement evenly, “James, is that what your friends call you?”
“Most call me Jim, sir.”
“Okay then, Jim. We left almost thirty-three hundred people on the surface of Alphus. Are you reporting to me that none of them are there anymore?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I’m reporting. We cannot locate or identify that any one of them is still on the planet.”
“Have you looked to see if perhaps they’ve integrated themselves into the local native populations to avoid detection? They’ve had plenty of time to migrate if they wanted to.” Clement was now regretting not sending more probes to check in on the prisoners left behind from the Five Suns defeated fleet.
“We considered that possibility, Admiral, but from what we can find they haven’t mixed in with the natives. There’s no evidence of them moving from the camps to the native settlements, as far as we can tell, sir. It’s like someone just came in and scooped them up off the planet.”
“I’d like to see this for myself, Captain, but I’m still several hours out from you. Please get your ship out of there as fast as possible and rendezvous with the rest of Captain Yan’s fleet over Bellus. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir,” replied Kagereki. “We’re getting underway now.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Clement cut the com line and then looked to Adebayor again. “Raise Captain Yan on the Agamemnon immediately,” he said.
“Sir,” replied Adebayor.
Clement looked to Lubrov, who raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “It seems as though we may have a military situation here, Admiral, as you suspected.”
“I would be remiss in my duties if I hadn’t planned for this possibility. One thing we do have for sure, Colonel, is a mystery. Thirty-three hundred missing enemy prisoners to be exact.” He turned to his pilot. “Mika, can you get us in-system any faster?”
“Of course, sir. The Beauregard can go much faster than the transports. From here I can have you to Bellus in fifty-six minutes, sir.”
“Do it, Mika,” he said emphatically.
Adebayor presently got Captain Yan on the line, and Clement motioned for Lubrov to follow him to his cabin. Once there they sat down at his worktable and he activated the room’s com system.
“We have a situation, Yan,” said Clement. “It appears that DeVore and her entire crew have been ‘rescued’ from the surface of Alphus, though when or how we don’t know.”
“That is not good news, sir,” said Yan formally.
“No, I agree with you, not at all. We have to assume that she and her loyalists remain hostile to us and our migrants, not to mention the natives. Put the fleet on high alert. Mika says she can have me back aboard Agamemnon in a little less than an hour. I’m ordering you to hold the line there, Captain. Disperse your fleet. Prepare for a military strike at any moment. I’ll be taking command of the fleet as soon as I can get back on your bridge.”
“Understood, sir. Any idea how she could have managed this?”
“None whatsoever, Captain, but I doubt she could have pulled it off without help,” said Clement, all business. “There is the unsolved mystery of the quantum-fluid beacon. That’s not a technology we have but I would venture to guess that whoever is behind that technology probably has something to do with the disappearance of Admiral DeVore and her crews.”
“Shall I suspend the migrant landings, sir?”
“Yes, effective immediately, until I can get back there and get a handle on the tactical situation, if any. But do it without alarming anyone. Tell them you have a maintenance issue on the transports, for now. Get anything in the air carrying settlers on the ground and tell any ships coming up your way to go back down. Take no chances, Yan.”
“Of course, sir. There’s just one transport in transit to the surface at the moment. She should be on the ground in the next half hour.”
“Good. Once she’s down get the migrants out of the transport and into the modular home units on the surface. A transport ship would make a huge target, even from space.” Yan acknowledged and then signed off. Clement looked across the table at Colonel Lubrov. “Inform Captain Samkange that he’s now in charge of getting this pod into a safe orbit around Bellus. Best possible speed . . .”
“Understood, sir,” said Lubrov, then she stood quickly and left for the bridge.
Clement sat staring at the tabletop, his fingers nervously drumming a beat on the wood.
Clement took command of the entire fleet the moment he entered the CAC on board Agamemnon. Yan looked relieved to see him; less so to see Lubrov as she took her station. After receiving initial reports, Clement was satisfied that the situation was stable, at least for the moment. He started in.
“The problem is that we know they’re out there somewhere, and they must know that we’re here. And someone left that beacon for us to find our lost pod, and we have no idea who it was. That’s obviously a concern. Bring the fleet back down from high alert to standby alert,” he said to Yan. “Colonel Lubrov, it’s time to activate your Marines. I want them deployed on every migrant ship that goes down to the surface and I want units on this ship and all of the cruisers in case this becomes a hand-to-hand battle.”
“Is that what you’re expecting, sir?” asked Lubrov.
“I expect nothing but plan for everything, Colonel. We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario, Colonel. Your Marines could make the difference, all twelve hundred of them.”
“What kind of attack are you expecting?” asked Yan.
Clement shook his head. “I’m not sure, but that Earth Ark came here on the first Trinity mission to establish a military base. Fleet Admiral DeVore’s plan was to let the Earth forces build that base and then take it away from them. I have to assume her basic plans haven’t changed. She wanted to conquer this system and set up her own little empire. I would expect any attack to be something on the scale of the previous one, or larger. She knows we have the MAD weapon, and she has nothing that we know of that can counter that.”
“Understood, sir.”
Clement turned his attention to Lubrov. “Marina, I’m going to assume you have a plan for deploying your Marines?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then get to it. There’s no time to waste.”
“Aye, sir,” said Lubrov as she walked away from the command platform.
Clement and Yan got down to developing a tactical defense plan. Clement pulled down all the floating displays so that the console desktop was the only place they could interact. That way their plans were out of the vision of the rest of the crew and they couldn’t see what the two flag officers were doing. That was how rumors got started, Clement knew, and rumors could be the downfall of any ship, any fleet, or any plan.
“We have nine settlements to defend, Admiral,” stated Yan.
“That was our original plan,” said Clement, “but I didn’t expect we might be defending against another invasion force. Those nine settlements will be too spread out, requiring cover from both the sky and troops on the ground. That’s a breakdown of only about one hundred thirty Marines for every settlement. I don’t consider that to be an effective fighting force, especially if they invade with ground forces like last time. We have to consolidate the settlements to make them easier to defend, and I want to stay away from the natives as much as we can. Let’s get these colonists off their transports and onto the surface, then get them dug in. I’m going to need you to consolidate our people into three camps. Try to use as much of the natural topography to defend the camps as well as we can. I want you to pick the three best defensive locations and then get everybody off the ships and down there as quickly as we can.”
Yan looked at the map on the tabletop. “I can already tell you one of the best places will be near the original settlement where we encountered Mary and her friends on our first trip. The other two should be fairly close by so that they can provide reinforcement or support to any of the other camps. Either way there aren’t going to be enough living modules to accommodate everybody. The ones that we placed here over the last year were based on the original nine-settlements plan.”
“I understand that. People are going to have to double up and maybe triple up. Families are going to have to share spaces. Our first priority is going to be getting all of our people on the ground and into some kind of shelter. After that it’s going to be up to the Marines to build any ground-based defenses. As for the fleet, we’re going to have to keep active and cover a lot of space. Always remember that the migrants’ and the natives’ safety is our number one priority, and they are equal in my mind. The last thing I want to do is to surrender our new colony to hostile forces and have them turn all of our people into slaves.”
They were interrupted in the next moment buy an alarm from Kayla Adebayor’s station.
“Report, Lieutenant,” demanded Clement.
“Sir, I’m picking up a distress call from the Antietam. She’s halfway home from Alphus but she’s reporting some kind of unknown vessel actively pursuing her on an intercept course,” said Adebayor.
“How far away is she?”
Mika Ori responded from her station. “She’s still about three million kilometers out, sir. Almost four hours at maximum thrusters.”
“Four hours for the Agamemnon or four hours for the Beauregard?” said Clement.
“Obviously, sir, I was reporting on our best speed here on the Agamemnon. The Beauregard could make it in twenty minutes if we use the LEAP reactor on a low-yield setting, sir.”
“Why a low-yield setting?” he asked.
“We would likely overshoot the battlefield by a considerable margin if we used the LEAP drive on full, sir.”
“I see.” Clement activated his com link to the reactor room. Hassan Nobli, who was now back on board, responded quickly. “How can I help you, Admiral?”
“Is the Beauregard still warm, Hassan?”
“She’s hardly had time to cool down, Admiral. Why do you ask?”
“I need you to fire her back up, right now.”
“Of course, sir. Why?”
“Antietam is under attack, Hassan. We’re going to have to go and rescue her.”
“I’ll get down to the landing deck myself and fire her up right away, sir.”
“No,” said Clement, his voice clear and firm in resolve.
“I don’t understand, sir,” said Nobli.
“I’d love to have the luxury of taking you along on this one, Hassan, but the fact is I need you here to protect the fleet and work with Yan here on whatever preparations we need to make to defend Bellus and the whole Trinity system. If you can spare your tech Reck and you trust her to run my reactor, then I’ll have her instead. But she has to follow my orders to a T, with no back talk like she does with you. This could be a critical turning point, and I want you safe with the fleet while I’m the one taking the unfortunate but necessary risks.”
“With apologies, sir,” cut in Yan, “but you’re not expendable. I am, or perhaps Captain Samkange, but not you.”
“Neither of you have any experience commanding in battle, Captain, but I do. This is my call and my responsibility. I’m going. You’ve already proven that this fleet can survive without its main figurehead, but I’m not sure it can survive without battle-tested captains.”
“Those captains can’t ever get that experience if you fight every battle yourself, Admiral.”
“Your objections are noted, Captain, but my orders stand,” he snapped. He looked up from the console table and activated the CAC com system. “Commanders Ori and Massif, report to the Beauregard immediately. Pass off your stations to your seconds. Lieutenant Adebayor, I’ll be needing your services again, and please call down to Lieutenants Telco and Tsu and have them report as well. Tell them to bring the heaviest small arms they can carry on board the Beauregard. That’s an order. Admiral Clement out.” With that he hung up the com and turned back to Yan. “Bring the fleet back to high alert. Get me enough techs to run my ship and get them down to the landing bay fast. I’d prefer fresh faces over the ones who just got off of the rescue mission. And raise one of the destroyers and send them after the Beauregard on the same course. We may need more firepower than we think for this situation.”
“More firepower than the MAD weapon?” said Yan quietly.
Clement gave her an angry look. “Personally, Captain, I hope we never have to use that thing again. But when it comes to this fleet and this mission I will use every weapon in my power if I have to. Just pick a destroyer to follow us, I don’t care which one. And get those colonists reorganized into the three defensive camps.”
“Aye, sir,” replied Yan. At that Clement turned and walked quickly away.
Once they were spaceborne again and pulling away from both the fleet and Bellus on full thrusters, the admiral once again addressed his crew over the ship-wide com. “I know none of you planned to go back out this quickly, but the situation demands it. Our sister ship is being pursued by an unknown enemy, and we need to help her in any way we can. I know you’re all tired from the rescue mission; I am too. But I’m asking you to reach down inside and find me that something extra I know you all possess. End of inspirational speech,” he said, then sat back down in the Beauregard’s command couch. “Kayla,” he said to Adebayor, “raise the Antietam. I need to know what’s going on with them. Mika, you’ll be acting as my XO on this mission as I can’t spare Yan or Lubrov. That means I need not only your best skills in the pilot seat, but also your opinions about the actions that I take. I know we’ve worked together for a long time, but please put any personal feelings aside, and let me know what you think about the actions I’m proposing. Are we clear?”
“We are, sir,” replied Ori. “You know I’ve never wanted anything more than to pilot a good ship, but I can do this for you on this mission.”
“Thank you, Mika. Ivan, set our course for the last known coordinates of the Antietam and let’s get there as fast as we can.” With that the admiral gave a wave of the hand and sat back in his chair, letting his people do their work. He flipped on the com down to the reactor room. “Tech Reck, please report on my reactor.”
“She’s warm and ready as a school girl on a Saturday night, sir,” said Reck in her rough, husky voice. “I’ll have us moving as soon as the pilot gives me the go signal,” she said. Clement looked to Ori, who gave him a thumbs-up.
“Fire the reactor please, Tech. Low yield.”
“Low yield, aye, sir.” With that the Beauregard slipped once again into the quantum fluid of LEAP space, on her way to rescue her sister ship. Clement shut down the direct com to the reactor room and inserted his private earpiece to have a private conversation with the tech.
“Tech Reck, I assume you’re familiar with the MAD weapon and its specs?”
“I am, sir.”
“Have it ready by the time we reach the Antietam’s coordinates. I expect to see a green light on my app board long before we drop back into normal space. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” replied Reck.
And with that Clement cut the line and sat back in his couch, waiting impatiently to arrive at the battlefield.
When they dropped out of the LEAP quantum fluid and back into normal space again, the Antietam was in deep trouble. Adebayor had been unable to raise them during the LEAP transition, and, frankly, Clement was glad to see that the ship was still in one piece. She was being pursued, though, by not one, but two unidentified ships.
“Raise the Antietam, Kayla, now!” said Clement, rising from his couch and hitting his com to the weapons room. “Lieutenant Telco, are my missiles and torpedoes ready?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Telco, “six conventional missiles at your disposal immediately. Mr. Tsu has antimissile torpedoes ready to be loaded into all six launch tubes, sir.”
“Good job, Telco, but take two of the torpedoes out of the racks and replace them with ten kiloton warheads. I want my nukes ready if I need them.”
“Sir!”
Clement shut off the com and turned to Adebayor. “Can you raise them, Lieutenant?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. It seems like their com links have been burned out. She appears to have taken a lot of fire.”
He turned to Ori. “Tactical status, XO?”
“I detect two unknowns in pursuit of the Antietam, sir. She’s outrunning them for now, but she’s taken several DEW hits on her hull. She’s steadily taking damage while they chase her. They’re trying to wear her down from what I can tell.”
“Like hyenas hunting a lioness. Time to tilt the battlefield a bit more in her favor. Displacement of the unknowns, are they the same as the Earth Ark ships from the last battle?”
“Similar, sir. I’d say they were an evolutionary upgrade from the ships we fought the last time at Trinity.”
“Manned?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Hunter-killers by design, sir.”
“Suicide machines. They can use one hundred percent of their energy to kill an opponent. The kind of weapon that should be outlawed.” Clement sat back down in his chair. “Time until we’re in missile range of the HuKs?”
“Seven minutes at one g sir.”
“Authorizing 3.5 g burn, Commander.”
“That will cut the time to firing range in half.”
“Do it.”
“Aye, sir.” They were all pushed back in their chairs as Ori accelerated the ship for a one-minute, thirty-second burst. They were coming in hard now on the two HuKs, who were less than a kilometer from the Antietam.
“Do you think we could take them both out with a nuke?” Clement asked Ori.
“Not without damaging the Antietam, sir. She’s too close.”
“Conventional missiles then. We’ll fire straight across the line of fire of those HuKs. We’ll probably get one, but if we’re lucky and they fire their DEWs we might get both with an accidental detonation.” Clement checked his board. All of his weapons systems were green.
“Ready, sir,” Ori said, her hand hovering over the firing icon.
Clement watched the tactical screen, his ship bearing down on the two enemies at a ninety-degree angle to their pursuit course. He waited on the timing, calculating their speed relative to the Beauregard. “From, my mark . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . fire!” demanded Clement.
Ori fired. Clement watched as the tactical display showed his missiles tracking the HuKs. It was like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. It wasn’t impossible, but the odds of success were small. The missiles both flared to life as they reached optimum detonation range of the HuKs. They lit up with a flash of explosive force, but neither hit their targets.
“Both HuKs have had to change their courses, sir. We missed them, but we bought the Antietam some time,” reported Ori.
“Good. Now if only Captain Kagereki can take advantage—”
“Antietam is diving back toward the gravity well of Alphus, sir.”
“Excellent! Get us turned back toward the HuKs, Mika. I want to come at them head-on if we can.”
Ori looked up at the tactical screen. “That will take some time, sir.”
“How long? We just bought Antietam some time, right?”
“She has a nine-minute lead now, sir, but it will take us eleven to get back into position for the kind of attack run you want.”
Clement looked down at his board and did some quick calculations, then hit the ship-wide com. “Seven-minute burn at five gs coming up. Secure your stations,” was all he said, then he leaned heavily into his acceleration couch. “Five gs, Mika. Now.”
“Aye, sir.” She hit the plasma drive and then they were all pushed back into their couches, straining against the oppressive gravity of the burn.
It was agony.
The crew took all they could handle with a seven-minute burn. When they were finally out of it Clement had to catch his breath. Taking those kinds of gravity forces wasn’t getting any easier for him, nor any of the rest of the crew he guessed.
“Distance, Navigator,” he said.
“130,000 kilometers from the HuKs,” reported Massif. “At the speed we’re closing we’ll be on them in two minutes.”
“Mika, will we be able to get between the HuKs and the Antietam?”
“I believe so, sir, but at this speed I don’t think missiles are an option.”
“The forward coil cannon then? Kinetic rounds?”
“You could leave scattershot in our wake,” she said, “but it’s impossible to know if we’ll be able to spread them wide enough to make contact with the HuKs. Plus, they likely have limited tactical AI, and can change course to avoid our trap.”
“Not if we give them no time to react.”
“At these speeds, releasing at anything less than three hundred kilometers distance would be a good bet at success. They likely couldn’t change course that quickly. But that would require precision flying, keeping to our ecliptic plane, and keeping them to theirs to guarantee a hit. Plus, the timing of the release would have to be perfect.”
“Hence why I hired you, Commander,” deadpanned Clement. He called down to the weapons room and ordered Telco and Tsu to load up two missile tubes with the scattershot. When they signaled they were ready, Clement released the firing solution to Ori. He watched on the tactical display as the Antietam continued her run back toward the gravity well of Alphus, hoping to get a slingshot around the small planet and perhaps make her escape. Clement’s job was to keep those HuKs occupied long enough for her to do so. Antietam’s Captain Kagereki was impressing him with his tactics and his ability to improvise since the Beauregard’s arrival on the battlefield. Without direct communication from the admiral, Kagereki was exhibiting a strong tactical bent. “We have to try and give the Antietam a chance to slingshot around Alphus and escape if I’m reading her captain’s intent correctly. So ordered, Commander.”
“Aye, sir,” said Ori. With that he started the deceleration burn and the Beauregard began to come in line with the HuKs’ path. They wouldn’t cross their line at exactly ninety degrees, but it would be close enough if they could drop the scattershot, which consisted of four-inch stainless steel spheres usually used as kinetic material in scatter mines, along their path. It was a risky play at the speeds they were traveling, but with a little luck it might bear some fruit.
Ori counted down to the release of the scattershot. Clement ordered the release and the metal balls spread out from the Beauregard’s missile tubes. They had precious few seconds and were precious few kilometers in front of the HuKs when they made the drop. The scattershot only had fractions of a second to disperse into the HuKs’ paths before they crossed in pursuit of the Antietam. The lead HuK lit up with small kinetic explosions on her dorsal surface. It was enough to force her to change course, but not widespread enough two destroy her. The second HuK was trailing slightly further back and was able to avoid the field of debris with a quick burst of her maneuvering thrusters. The first HuK started to swing off course and away from the Antietam. The second was able to quickly regain its bearing on the Five Suns gunship and eagerly continued its pursuit. The two suicide machines had now changed their positions, leading and trailing.
Clement eyed his new tactical board. The Antietam was continuing her dive toward the nightside of Alphus. The damaged HuK was trying to decelerate and get back on track toward the Five Suns gunship. The second, which was now the leading threat to Antietam, was back on the hunt and closing the gap once again. Both were essentially ignoring the Beauregard, which was still decelerating away from the battlefield and out of position to help her sister ship.
“If we do one more deceleration loop, can we face them head on?” asked Clement of Ori.
“It’s a fifty-fifty chance I can make that maneuver from our current course and speed,” said Ori.
“Fifty-fifty or not I think we have to go for it.”
“Aye, sir,” said Ori. She fed the necessary actions into her helm console. “Ready, sir.”
Clement hit the com. “Three-g deceleration burn for fifty seconds incoming on my mark, three . . . two . . . one . . .” The sudden burn knocked the wind out of him and he struggled to breathe while his ship groaned against the stresses of such an extreme deceleration. At that moment, he regretted that he had never installed the Five Suns Navy’s inertial-damping field technology on his ships. That now appeared to be a major mistake. He had seen the technology in use during the War of the Five Suns nearly two decades ago now, but most of that tech had been destroyed in the first battle of Trinity. It had always been an option to include in his refurbished fleet, but with the exception of Agamemnon these were all old vessels and retrofitting the tech had not been deemed worth the expense.
When the gravity forces from the burn finally relented, Clement took in a deep breath and exhaled. “Tactical situation, XO,” he demanded.
“The leading HuK is pursuing Antietam, but it’s now four minutes from firing range. We have that trailing HuK in our sights. I’ll have a firing solution for you on that in two minutes, sir,” she said.
Clement hit the com to the missile room. “Lieutenant Telco, load one of my two-kiloton nukes. I want it ready in ninety seconds.”
“Sir!” replied Telco. Clement smiled slightly at the young man’s enthusiasm. Things finally seemed to be going their way for once. They just had to take out the trailing HuK, then close on the leader . . .
“Sir,” said Adebayor, a warning in her voice. “Infrared telescope has a new sighting, rising from the surface of Alphus on an intercept course with Antietam. She’ll be in firing range in six minutes, sir.”
“From the dark side?”
“Yes, sir, coming from the dark side of Alphus. Same profile as the first two unknowns. It’s another HuK, sir.”
Clement got a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he’d just swallowed a rock.
In a flash, the battlefield had tilted again.
“Do we break off pursuit of the trailing HuK, sir?” The question came from Mika Ori at the pilot’s seat.
“Would another burn—”
“No, sir. We’d actually be in a worse position to aid the Antietam than if we just continued on our initial course.”
Clement looked at his tactical display. They were now outmaneuvered and outflanked. The Beauregard could take out the trailing HuK, but the lead one would get into firing range on the Antietam before they could assist, and the third interceptor would likely be able to finish her off before the Beauregard could get to her.
“We need another option,” declared Clement, to no one in particular. The bridge stayed silent. There were no other options, that was clear from the tactical display. The Antietam would have to fight for her life against two HuKs closing from opposite directions, and Clement would have to pray that he could get his ship into position to help her before she was destroyed. After half a minute of silence, Clement gave the only order he could. “Stay on course and plan, XO. Let’s get that trailing HuK.” He said it quietly and with resignation at the tactical situation in his voice.
“Sir,” replied Ori.
Clement turned to Lieutenant Adebayor. “Kayla, send position and telemetry on that third HuK to the Antietam’s captain. Maybe they can at least receive our communications, even if they can’t respond to us. We know that they know that we’re here, but being deaf and blind is the most frustrating thing I can imagine.” Adebayor sent the communication to Antietam but there was no response of any kind. Likely her captain was busy trying to figure out how to save his ship from destruction.
“We’ve got the trailing HuK in range, sir,” reported Ori a few seconds later.
“Then let’s do what we can, Commander. Ready on the missiles.”
“Reminding the admiral that we currently have a nuke in the tube, sir.”
“I remember,” said Clement. “I want this thing completely destroyed.”
“Understood, sir,” replied Ori. The nuke seemed like overkill to her, but it would guarantee destruction of the HuK with minimal wasted energy. Her husband sent her the firing coordinates and she locked them in to her weapons console. “Ready to fire on your order, Admiral.”
“Fire,” ordered Clement with no hesitation.
The missile lanced out and closed quickly on the HuK. The suicide machine tried vainly to launch countermeasures, but once the nuclear-tipped missile got inside of its safe detonation range it exploded, the bright fire consuming both the missile and the HuK.
“Simple enough,” said Clement out loud, “now comes the hard part. Estimated time to be able to assist the Antietam, XO?”
“Eight minutes on maneuvering thrusters, Admiral.”
“Time before the Antietam is within firing range of the enemy?”
“Seventy seconds for the lead HuK, two minutes fifty seconds on the interceptor.”
“If we don’t get our miracle soon . . .” Clement let his voice trail off.
“Admiral,” came the excited voice of Lieutenant Adebayor. “Another ship just dropped out of LEAP space just ahead of us, sir.”
“Ahead of us? Is it ours or theirs?”
“Unknown yet, sir, but by displacement it’s at least a destroyer, maybe bigger. It’s on an intercept course with the Antietam.”
“Well if it’s not ours, we’re fucked,” said Clement, no hint of humor in his voice. “Can we identify it?”
“Not yet, sir. It’s on full thrusters and the heat signature is blinding our infrared telescope,” said Adebayor.
“She’s twenty seconds from the Antietam, sir,” declared Ori.
“Navigator, plan us an escape path, and quick. If that unknown gets a bead on us . . .”
“Understood, sir,” said Massif. And with that there was nothing to do for the crew of the Beauregard but to watch and wait. The MAD weapon was not an option as it would likely destroy everything on the battlefield, the good and the bad, as would any nukes. All they could do was watch and wait while the seconds ticked down.
As they all watched, the unknown began battering the lead enemy HuK with their forward coil cannons, a barrage of orange energy weapons. The HuK disintegrated in seconds in a fury of yellow-gold fire. A second later and the tactical board picked up a volley of three missiles outward bound from the unknown and heading directly for the intercepting HuK rising from the dark side of Alphus. The missiles did their job quickly, dispatching the interceptor with three direct hits. At that, the unknown began to quickly decelerate, burning thrusters hard to escape tumbling into the gravity well of Alphus.
“I guess she’s one of ours,” declared Ori.
“Apparently,” replied Clement.
“It’s the Corvallis,” reported Adebayor, more than a bit of excitement in her voice. Clement watched as the Antietam began putting on her breaks as well, pulling out of her deep dive toward Alphus.
“Send to all ships, rendezvous and form up with us. And send a well-done to Captain Samkange aboard Corvallis. Tell him the cavalry arrived just in time.”
“Aye, sir!”
And with that Clement sat back in his couch, relieved.