A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) (18 page)

“Corvettes are emerging.” Johnson paused for a two-count. “Vampire, Vampire. They’re firing, full missile spread. Targeted on the Armadillos and
Tripoli
. I count 60 inbounds. Railguns are also engaging, but the fire is light and wide.” The Chinese railguns were looking to keep the gunboats at arm’s length, but not interfere with their own missiles. Athena flipped on her comm.

“Plan Alpha, execute.” She commanded.
Thunderer
leapt forward, her thrusters at max. She started to separate from the fleet, her defensive weapons blazing away on her hull before she jumped to FTL. A couple of seconds later, she reappeared on the normal space tactical map. The Chinese corvettes had been bearing down on the fleet in a roughly hollow cylinder, hoping to englobe Athena’s command as they passed by. This would also give them each a unique escape vector. Now, however, Athena had changed the picture.

Thunderer
had leapt into the center of the formation, englobing herself. The Chinese, however, hadn’t expected this and all of their guns were pointed forward. As a result,
Thunderer
was spared the challenging position of countering full spherical firing vectors. Since Captain Martin did expect this,
Thunderer
had all of her guns properly aimed. All at once, her entire complement spoke and ravaged the Chinese corvettes. Even the defense batteries were used. Four corvettes were destroyed outright and another two staggered out of formation, bleeding atmosphere.

“Plan Beta, execute.” Athena spoke into her comm again. This time, the gunboats jumped, arriving in a larger hollow cylinder around the Chinese. Immediately upon exit from their short jump, the gunboats spun on their axis to face inward. The entire scene played out in seconds. The gunboats opened fire with their railguns, tearing into the hapless corvettes. The captains of the corvettes were only just reacting to the presence of the massive
Thunderer
in their midst, trying to revector and escape the torrent of fire. The arrival of the gunboats forced them to react again. They were stuck between two hammers and were rapidly being pounded. Each corvette picked its own escape path, completely disregarding their formation. The result was chaos. The paths the corvettes picked had no regard for their interlinked fields of defensive fire causing that to collapse, their computer’s resorting to independent firing priorities. The result was a marked decrease in interceptions of
Thunderer
’s big guns, each round capable of inflicting massive damage on a corvette. After another few seconds, it was over.

“Local space clear, all targets have been serviced.” Heath reported.

“Vampires are in terminal mode.” Johnson interrupted the beginnings of any jubilation in CIC, the Chinese missile barrage was now inside the final point defense perimeter. The outer layers of point defense had whittled the inbounds down to just 30 and it was time for the Armadillos to show what they were capable of. Athena watched intently with the rest of the bridge crew as the first of the missiles reached the Armadillo’s inner point defense screen. Athena had withheld permission to fire their long range interceptors, knowing that later they would be needed to protect gunboats on attack runs. Instead, they would rely on their exquisite close-range point defense.

Ticonderoga
spoke first, followed a half second later by
Port Royal
. In less than a second, each missile was in a cloud of flak and guided kinetic rounds. Twenty of the missiles died in an instant, each targeted by a specific burst. The remaining ten died shortly thereafter. Athena’s eyes rapidly scanned the local space 3D plot, nothing. There were no ships in their path, the way to the gate was clear.

“Sir, more ships revectoring. We have another three partial action groups thrusting, patterns indicate an interception is possible.” Johnson reported quickly.

“Well,” Heath remarked. “someone saw our show and decided to bring some more firepower.”

“They did indeed.” Athena turned to Daniels. “Order the fleet to reassemble but remain at sublight. Also, get Captain Martin on the line. Navigation, plot us a just miss course for the slip gate, but one that we can still correct to make our entry in six hour.”

“Yes sir.” They responded in unison.

“Might as well let them continue chasing us, burn some velocity and stop pursuing the rest of Admiral Mondragon’s forces. He might just sweep up the rest if we peel some force away.” Athena said in response to Heath’s questioning look. He nodded in return.

“Captain Martin for you, sir.” Daniels said.

“Captain, how’s your ship?” Athena inquired.

“Quite well, thank you Admiral. We took a single small caliber round, didn’t even penetrate the armor.” Martin responded. “How about the rest of the fleet?”

“Also doing well. The Armadillo’s interdicted 100% of the inbounds, none even detonated. The gunboats took some minor damage from the corvettes, but overall a solid performance.”

“Excellent.” He replied. “Plan now sir?”

“In six hours we will jump on to the Beta Slip Gate, then transit the system. The plan from there is unchanged.”

“I will be awaiting your signal, Admiral.”

“Until then. Harper out.”

Athena took the opportunity to stand-down the fleet from battle stations and cycle the crew through their bunks and the mess. Everyone got two hours sleep and a solid meal. The Chinese continued to pursue, their curving intercept vectors plodding across the tactical plot. Athena took the first break, Sanders relieving her in CIC.

Two hours and a half hours later she re-appeared in CIC, sending the XO off to catch his own downtime. Just as she settled into the command chair, a beep from the communications console brought her attention around rapidly.

“Sir, message from Admiral Mondragon for you. It’s on your screen. It’s marked eyes only, sir.” The ensign at the station reported. Commander Daniels was still off for another twenty minutes.

“Thank you, Ensign.” Athena brought the message up quickly.

///18:28 ZULU HRS///2 JUNE 2612///

TOP SECRET: CDR EYES ONLY

FROM: MONDRAGON, J.H., ADM USN, CDR BF-1 DELTA

TO: HARPER, G. RADM USN, CDR DSF-1

///ATHENA, I KNOW THAT THIS IS THE HARDEST THING I CAN ASK OF YOU, TO LEAVE US IN SUCH DIRE STRAIGHTS, BUT LET ME ASSURE YOU, THIS IS THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTION YOU CAN MAKE. I KNOW THAT IN YOUR MIND, THAT BRILLIANT TACTICAL MIND OF YOURS, YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT. SOMETIMES IT JUST HELPS TO HEAR IT FROM SOMEONE ELSE.

NOW, GO KICK ASS AND WIN THIS WAR FOR US ALL. GODSPEED AND GOOD HUNTING. MONDRAGON SENDS.///

Athena couldn’t help but smile, even if it was a slightly sad smile. The Admiral, even hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, still knew how to convey his warmest regards and prop her up. His timing too, was impeccable. This was exactly the point where she had done all she could and was now simply delaying until the right time to sprint through the system and continue with her true mission. He gave her the confidence to carry-on. At all costs.

Just over three hours later, DSF-1 emerged into a binary system consisting of VVS-2 and VVS-28. Athena had considered having the entire force in full stealth, but then disregarded the utility of that. It was known that the Chinese sensing grid in this system was light, being an interior system it hadn’t seen a large amount of development. There was a single battlestation in system, but it was small and guarded a refueling outpost and fuel processing plant. Athena assumed that the station was likely warned of possible leakers into the system, raids and such now that a battle had commenced in GJ-48. Her suspicions proved accurate, with the station’s active pulses sweeping them within seconds of exit. That was very power intensive, but they wouldn’t be doing it for long. As soon as the station found them, the pulses focused and thoroughly scanned the group.

“Launch, sir” Johnson broke the relative silence of CIC. “Looks like a small FTL runner, courier ship. Yes sir, confirmed, it just went to FTL.”

“Running for help no doubt.” Heath snorted. “We’re a lot more than a couple frigates on a raid.” Athena didn’t respond.

“Gunboat squadrons 1 and 2, your mission is a go.
Ticonderoga
and
Inchon
, you are cleared to escort. Burn ‘em out.” Athena ordered over the comm. The groups responded in turn.

The gunboats went first, firewalling their mains and using every bit of their massive acceleration to get to the edge of the station’s missile range. Though the slip gate was relatively close to the battlestation’s orbit, this still took several hours. The response took much less time. A moment after closing within range, the station fired a salvo at the 24 gunboats, 10 massive missiles. Each was as large as a heavy-lift shuttle, nearly 10% the size of the gunboats themselves. As the two groups raced to close the gap,
Ticonderoga
and
Inchon
leapt into the fray. The two large ships jumped to FTL, dropping out in front, roughly equidistant between the missiles and the gunboats. It was an extremely short jump. The two ships, line abreast, opened up with their full suite of point defense. Several of the big missiles died before their onboard computers told them to separate. The 8 that did became 80 small sprint missiles.
Inchon
tore through a third of them in a torrent of fire. It would have been impressive, if it weren’t for the fact that
Ticonderoga
destroyed the rest in the same time frame. Athena was again impressed. Those ships were proving their worth already, at least until a counter was developed.

“Gunboats are jumping.” Johnson reported.

Athena continued to observe, feeling a low level of frustration at the fact that she was simply sitting, watching the battle. The gunboats jumped half the remaining distance to the station. The battle station obligingly fired again, though this time they fired 20 missiles. The missiles again closed and
Inchon
and
Ticonderoga
again jumped in front of the gunboats, this time just ahead of their charges. The gunboats cut thrust so as to not overtake their protectors. This time, however, the Chinese had programmed the missiles to separate much sooner, and none were caught together. With 200 warheads to deal with, the two ships couldn’t escape unscathed this time, or so it looked. Then, the gunboats leapt ahead, forming up around the two ships and adding in their own volume of fire. The missiles, confused slightly by the new targets and unable to jink outside of all the possible fields of fire, jinked ineffectively. Two warheads closed on
Inchon
and detonated. The first was stopped sufficiently far away so as to cause no serious damage, but the second was closer. As it detonated, a section of the hull was breached and a short spurt of gases leapt forth.

“Damage report?” Athena snapped out. She regretted it a moment later, even
Inchon
wouldn’t know for sure yet what her damage had been.

“Still waiting sir.” Daniels responded, her tone completely professional. Athena still felt scolded.

“All missiles serviced.” Johnson called out.

Inchon
and
Ticonderoga
continued their journey towards the battlestation, their FTL energy banks too low to overcome the subspace distortions and jump their large bulk again. The gunboats, however, had one more jump left, their smaller mass and one fewer jump preserving their precious stored energy. Six jumped first, emerging high and off the starboard beam from the station, firing a salvo. A moment later, six more jumped to the opposite point and fired. Six more jumped immediately in front, firing a slightly larger salvo and blazing away with their small railguns. The last group jumped past, firing on the fueling station and the processing plant. The Chinese commander preferenced his fire, protecting the station at the expense of what it was notionally there to protect. The battlestation just wasn’t designed to fight outnumbered and alone against such a large force.

“Damage report from
Inchon
, Admiral.” Daniels reported, sliding the report onto one of the main screens. “Light damage, small breach to a storeroom and a point defense ammo storage. Captain Dawes advises that he will have the breach repaired inside of one hour. He does not anticipate any lasting detraction from combat effectiveness.”

“Please respond that I await his confirmation of the repair work being completed.” Athena turned back to the 3D display, where the battle was coming to a close. The Chinese battlestation was putting up one hell of a fight, but the ordnance closing on her was simply too much. The refueling station died first, exploding in a massive burst of energy that would temporarily blind any normal space sensors nearby. This was followed a moment later by the processing plant. The station, having neutralized a good two-thirds of the inbounds, finally succumbed to being bracketed by a dozen warheads. With that, the system was empty of all but DSF-1.

“Captain Dawes responded with ‘Wilco’ sir.” Daniels reported.

“Very well. Ordered the fleet to reassemble, best possible speed. I want to FTL to the gate ASAP.”

The next system would be far more challenging.

Sol System: Earth

Bottom of the Yellow Sea

“This meeting shall come to order.” Boomed the deep voice of Chairman Liu Xiaopeng. The other eight men who controlled the People’s Republic of China cut their side conversations short and turned to face the Chairman. “Minister Zhang, your report please.”

“Our combined attack on America and their allies within the Sol system destroyed the vast majority of our enemy’s war industry, including nearly all of the lesser players. The Americans retained some industry, but even with their remaining ships, it will be heavily strained.” Dejiang Zhang, Defense and External Security Minister paused.

“At the cost of our own industry!” Protested Wade Jing, Minister of Industry, Transportation, and Agriculture.

“Please, Minister, allow Minister Zhang to finish. I am sure he was just getting ready to explain how the battle in this system was anything but a disaster. I know I am certainly waiting.” Liu said, his voice flat and level, but still managing to convey a cold reptilian threat across the room.

“Ahh…yes Chairman, I was just getting to that point.” Zhang said with some degree of unease. “The Americans have suffered greatly and are even now launching a final assault against us. The Russians have indicated that they too are under attack and cannot offer any assistance. Our own intelligence confirms this. This is their final desperate gamble. They know that we have more industry available, and a common supply system for our own forces. The Russians are in the same position. The Americans and their allies, on the other hand, have many different weapons, many unique systems. They will not be able to sustain the war effort. Additionally, they cannot miss the fact that the Indians have almost no capacity remaining at all. They will be forced to divert industry resources to them.

“As Minister Wade’s last report indicated, our industrial capacity has exceeded the expectations we had when this plan was initially conceived, more than six months ago. The attack was not a failure, it has simply hastened the end. Their desperation will hand us our victory.” He finished with confidence in his tone.

“What of the reports that an American Fleet has slipped behind our lines and is running rampant? I have reports from several sources that a sizable force has entered the Beta Slip gate in the GJ-48 system.” Minister Tong Ming interjected, the Minister of State Security and Party Loyalty chilling the room from his mere presence.

“I have seen the reports as well, Minister.” Zhang responded quickly, dismissing it with a wave of his hand and continuing confidently. “The report is an exaggeration. The Americans do not have the remaining fleet strength to commit an entire fleet to such an endeavor. The battlestation in VVS will destroy whatever small group they may have slipped through. Even if they bypass this station, there is a partial fleet in Eta Cassiopeia and two medium sized battlestations, each with three full wings of fighter-bombers. They will not get far.”

“We shall see. I retain reservations.” He responded flatly.

“Pray you are correct, Minister Zhang. For your sake as much as for the Party. For now, let us move on to other pressing matters.” Liu said, ignoring Zhang’s suddenly white-sheeted face. “Minister Tong, would you please update us on the quelling of unrest through the republic.”

“Of course Chairman. As of our meeting last week, of the five systems with some form of revolt, two had been fully pacified. As of my last report this morning, that number has risen to four. The remaining system is the Luyten’s Star system. Since at least this time last year, we have known the Australian intelligence branch has been running weapons and other technologies to rebellious elements within that system. Previous attempts at interdiction were successful, but not completely so.

“At this time, all contact with the mining operations on the surface of Lutyen III has been lost and internal security aboard the orbital processing facility reports that they are in danger of losing the station. This system was stripped bare for our attack on Sol, and as a result security forces are lacking in many supplies and have not received regular replacements for several months. At this time I do not believe a victory is likely without additional support.”

“Do you have any recommendations for us?” Chairman Liu interjected when Tong paused.

“Indeed I do. I recommend we move one of the battalions of Marines we have stationed in the Procyon system to relieve the station security. Once that is secured, I recommend we offer the rebels on the surface the chance to surrender. If they elect to ignore this offer,” He smiled coldly. “then we bombard half the mining domes from space and assault the other half with the Marine battalion.”

“But our industry is already stressed enough.” Minister Wade countered.

“Yes it is minister, but the mines of the Procyon system provided additional materials to manufacturing facilities here in the Sol system. About half, by my read of your reports.” He speared Wade with his gaze. “I think ensuring the security of the People as a whole is our most important consideration at this point. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, of course Minister.” Wade agreed hurriedly, but still maintaining some semblance of calm control in his tone. It wouldn’t do to make an enemy of Tong.

“Is there any opposition to Minister Tong’s proposal?” The Chairman scanned the table. “Seeing none, Minister Tong the battalion will be dispatched immediately.”

Tong nodded simply and sat back in his seat. The meeting continued for several more hours before finally adjourning. As the other ministers filed out, Tong and Chairman Liu remained.

“I have concerns.” Tong said simply.

“I saw your report.” The Chairman responded. “I am not ready to make any moves on high ranking officers as of yet. Their compassion is worrying, but for now they are sufficiently competent. I do not feel that we could weed out the potential troublemakers without compromising our combat effectiveness.”

“Very well Chairman.” Tong nodded his assent. “But I caution against waiting too long. There are many independent thinkers within the military. If they are not carefully pruned, we may have issues, perhaps even before the end of the war. This dissention could be the jump-start that begins the larger conflagration within their ranks.”

“I trust you will continue to keep an eye on the situation.” Liu said simply.

Tong only nodded this time.

Eta Cassiopeia System

DSF-1: USS
Tripoli

“Sir!” Daniels called out over the screeching decompression alarm, the third of the last five minutes. The man at DC quickly silenced it. “Captain Martin for you.”

“Put him through.” Athena responded. “Captain, what can I do for you?”

“Admiral, sir. I request permission to execute Plan Daredevil.” Martin responded calmly, but with an edge to his voice.

“Are you sure? This may be too soon.”

“I’m afraid I may not get another alignment like this one. Our speeds are almost perfect, as is our vector. It may be now or never sir.” Martin said earnestly.

“Very well, but don’t spend too much time in close. I need you back in the fight.” Athena said.