Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (43 page)

* * * *

              Captain Zar met Emily as she walked back to her day cabin.  “Well, I’d heard that you could be rather unorthodox,” he said dryly.

              “Yes, that was what young Lieutenant Mastromonaco said, too.”

              “Scolded you, did he?” Captain Zar chuckled.  “Speaks his mind, Mastromonaco, you have to give him that.”  He grew serious.  “And Sergeant Sanchez, will she be all right?”

              Emily sighed.  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, “but at least she won’t be in a cell.”

Chapter 41

Timor – at forts surrounding the Might of the People Shipyard

              “Goddammit, they’re here!”  Dominion Commander Folker was in charge of one of the ten space stations defending the Might of the People Ship Works.  He had discounted the rumors that a Vicky task force had somehow gotten through the Refuge/Victoria wormhole and then destroyed the
other
shipyard, the one only spoken of in whispers.  The rumors, which had only started two days ago and grew more fantastic every hour, said the Vickies had destroyed the other shipyard and then vanished into space, leaving behind a trail of dead Dominion ships.  One of the Dominion Internal Defense Security wings had been scrambled to the asteroid belt where the secret shipyard had been, but there was no trace of the Vickies when they arrived.

              But now the Vickies were here.

              Commander Folker watched with growing alarm as the sensor returns identified three Vicky Trident Class Cruisers accompanied by no less than eight destroyers.  Where the hell had they come from?  He took a deep breath and quelled his emotions.  Okay, the Vickies were here, but his station could handle eleven ships, even with three cruisers among them. 

Maybe.

“Charge the energy weapons,” he ordered.  Four industrial-sized antimatter engines supplied power to fifteen ten-inch lasers, plus two dozen five-inch lasers and several dozen smaller lasers that would serve as his anti-missile defense. The lasers were of a rather old design and his overall range wasn’t that good, but it didn’t have to be.  Anything coming for the Might of the People Ship Works from this direction would have to go through his fortress and two others just like it in order to get a clear shot at the shipyard.

“Commander!”  It was his Sensors Officer.  “We just picked up another force behind the first.  We count two battleships, four more cruisers, at least ten more destroyers and a bunch of other ships I’m not familiar with.  One of them is really big.  I designate the first group ‘Hostile 1’ and the second group ‘Hostile 2.’”  Red triangles appeared on the huge holographic display that showed the space around the station for two hundred thousand miles in all directions.

Folker gestured to his comm officer.  “Pass the alert to the other stations, make sure they can see what we see and tell them to watch their sectors closely.  And pass it through to the DID Security Forces and see if they’ve got some ships they can scramble.”  Twenty-four Victorian warships would be enough to make the DID jackals piss in their pants, Folker thought grimly.  They might send him help, or they might decide that every ship was needed in case it turned out the real target was not the shipyard but Timor itself.

Before the Comm Officer could fulfill his orders, the Sensors Officer called out again: “Sir!  I’ve got ten more ships coming in on a parallel course to the first two groups.  I designate them ‘Hostile 3.’”

“What are they?” barked Folker.  Thirty-four ships!  This was going to be a bare knuckles brawl and no mistake.

“Still a little far away for a reliable ID, but it looks like three more cruisers and seven destroyers.  We’ll be within energy range of Hostiles 1 and 2 within forty minutes.  Within energy range of Hostile 3 in about forty-five minutes.”

Folker nodded.  Perhaps the Dominion was not the only one with a secret shipyard.  Perhaps these devilish Vickies had pulled the same trick.  “Keep your eyes peeled, there may be more.”

Time stretched out.  At thirty minutes, Hostiles 1 and 2 slowed their pace, allowing Hostile 3 to pull even, then all there groups accelerated.  A minute later they all launched missiles.  Folker ordered the anti-missile system to be set on AI and sat back.  The missiles bored in, but then the smaller laser turrets began to snipe them.  One after another veered off course or began to tumble end-over-end.  Folker nodded in satisfaction; the station’s defenses were going to knock down most, if not all of the incoming missiles.

Then all of the remaining Victorian missiles detonated at the same time…and chaff and jammers turned the station’s sensors to snowy fuzz.  Folker leaned forward, heart in his mouth, waiting for the Vicky ships to burst through the chaff cloud.

But nothing emerged.  There were no warships.

Then things happened very quickly.

Something – the computer couldn’t tell what – slid from the chaff cloud.  Whatever it was, it seemed to float towards the station like speckles of dust.  More jammers activated and the sensors lost what little they could see.  Commander Folker’s forehead wrinkled in bewilderment.  Where were the Vicky warships?  What was the ‘dust’ that drifted towards his station?  Then an old classroom on tactics from the War College came to mind.

Oh, crap!

“Mines!” Folker bellowed.  “The Vickies ejected mines and then turned around.  Those are mines, coming straight for us!  All lasers to fire and keep firing.  Anti-missile fire on automatic!”

Folker gnashed his teeth in frustration.  This was an old, old trick.  If you can’t take the risk of getting within range of enemy guns, eject a minefield without the stabilizers to make them cover a fixed location.  The mines will continue on the course of the ship and at the same speed.  When they reach their target, proximity fuses detonate the mines.  It was a simple solution for taking out a fixed target…or a target like a space station that has a fixed orbit and cannot maneuver.

The station’s lasers erupted in fire.  The ten-inch lasers drilled long tubes of destruction through the onrushing mines, but it was like sticking a pin in an avalanche.  On and on the mines came.  Even as dozens and hundreds of mines were destroyed, the thousands left over moved inexorably towards him.

“Commander!”  It was the Sensors Officer.  “We’re picking up something else.  Behind the mines there are – well, it looks like big rocks, like asteroids.  I count twelve of them, all moving on our trajectory.”

The laser fire continued, but it was slower now as the massive capacitors had to recharge.  Even with four antimatter engines, they couldn’t maintain anything close to continuous fire.

The leading edge of the minefield struck ten minutes later.  The massive armor of the station held at first, but there were too many mines.  And they just kept coming.  The first hull breach occurred fifty seconds later.

“Engineering!  Pump sealant into the breached compartments!”  The sealant would expand and close off the entire compartment.  Anyone still alive in there would perish, but there was no help for it.

The first asteroid was blown to dust by the lasers.  The second was shattered into pieces, but the pieces continued along the same trajectory.   Then more mines detonated and wrecked some of the laser firing ports.  The intensity of the laser fire diminished sharply, and with that the station was doomed.

The remnants of the second asteroid stuck home, followed immediately by the third asteroid.  The pieces from the second asteroid struck an undamaged portion of the hull and did little more than gouge huge divots into the outer armor, but the third asteroid struck an area already depleted by mines and collapsed a forty-by-eighty section of the hull, opening up three different compartments to space.  The station shook so violently that everyone standing was thrown to the deck.

Commander Folker lay on his back, clutching a broken wrist.  The sensor display above him still worked and he could see several more asteroids about to strike.  “Grendel!” he called to the station’s AI.

“Yes, Commander?” a deep voice replied instantly.

Commander Folker shook with rage and shame.  “Signal Timor:  Station Nine is lost.”

The remainder of the asteroids struck within the space of forty seconds.  As it turned out, the command center was never breached, although the station lost all power.  There was sufficient air for three days, but without power there was no heat.  Commander Folker and his surviving staff died of hypothermia ten hours later.

* * * *

              In his headquarters on the planet surface, Citizen Director Anthony Nasto stared in disbelief at Michael Hudis.  “What do you mean, the Might of the People Shipyard was attacked?  By whom?” he shouted.

              “By a task force of thirty-four Victorian warships.”

              “And how in the hell did Victorian warships get past Admiral Kaeser at the Refuge/Victoria wormhole?” Nasto thundered, his face turning a dark crimson.

              Hudis flinched.   “They didn’t, sir.  Somehow – we don’t know how yet – they came into Dominion space another way.”

              Nasto looked stunned, then got control of himself.  He shifted his gaze to the Admiral standing next to Hudis.  “Well, Admiral Wagner, is the shipyard safe?” he asked coldly.

              Admiral Wagner was an old Fleet work horse.  He had held every position in the Fleet except for the Fleet Admiral role, now held by Admiral Kaeser.  He had survived three prior Citizen Directors and the constant in-fighting among the senior Admirals, largely by being good at his job and not getting involved in politics.  People sneered at him behind his back, but trusted him nonetheless.

              “The shipyard is safe for now, Citizen Director.  The DID rapid response force was summoned, but declined to launch against the Victorians for fear of leaving Timor without adequate cover.”  Wagner spoke with a slight hint of sarcasm.  The fact known to every Fleet senior officer was that the DID commander had panicked at the thought of facing such a large force of Vicky warships and had dropped into a tighter orbit around Timor, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the planet from attack.

              “My staff managed to pull together twenty-five ships of various types and scrambled them to the outer shell of forts,” the Admiral continued.   “As we approached, the Victorians withdrew  – intact, I am afraid – under the cover of chaff, jammers and a large minefield.”

              “Show me,” Nasto said brusquely.   Admiral Wagner called up a holographic map of the Might of the People Ship Works and the shell of fortified space stations surrounding it.  Three of the stations pulsed a flashing red.

              Admiral Wagner pointed to the red colored forts.  “These are three of the ten forts surrounding the Ship Works.  Stations Five and Nine were destroyed; Seven was badly damaged.”

              Citizen Director Nasto studied the display.  The remaining seven forts glowed a cheerful green.  He glared at Wagner.  “What aren’t you telling me, Admiral?”

              “The key factor here is that we did not drive off the Victorian assault force, Citizen Director, they
withdrew,”
the Admiral explained as if he were speaking to one of his junior officers.  “I think they came here for the sole purpose of trying a tactic to see if it would work.  It did work, and it took them only an hour to find out.  Victoria now knows it can make a breach in the shell of forts guarding the Ship Works.”

              “So put a replacement fort in there to plug the hole,” Nasto said irritably.

              “As the Citizen Director is aware,” Admiral Wagner said placidly, “all of our resources have been channeled into the ship works at Siegestor for the past several years.  A replacement fort was begun, but work was suspended once Siegestor came on line.  If work was started today on that fort, it would take six months at the minimum to complete it, arm it and tow it into position.”

              Nasto eyed the Admiral coldly.  Nasto had personally given the order to channel all resources to Siegestor and Wagner damn well knew it.

              “You said you’ve got twenty-five warships-“

              Admiral Wagner held up a hand.  “I said I managed to scrape up twenty-five ships.  Most of them are old and the crews are second rate.  As I said before, we did not drive off the Victorian assault, they
withdrew
.”  He stared evenly at the Citizen Director, sure of his ground.  “I believe we can expect another assault by the Victorians at any moment, with the intention of destroying the Might of the People Ship Works, and I do not have the ships on hand to stop them.”

              “And what if you’re wrong, Admiral?” Nasto said icily.  Wagner understood.  The shell of forts surrounding Timor, the Dominion home world, was configured the same as the defensive shell around the shipyard.

              “If I am wrong, Citizen Director,” he replied, “then the assault on the Ship Works could have just been a test to see if they could breach the defensive shell without heavy losses.  Now that they know they can, they might return in larger numbers and attack Timor itself.”

              “What larger numbers?” Hudis cried.  “The Vickies can’t get anything past Admiral Kaeser’s fleet at the Refuge/Victorian wormhole.  The ships we’re seeing must have been some remnant left over from our attack on them in Tilleke.”

              Admiral Wagner dropped his mask of polite neutrality and looked at Hudis with undisguised scorn.  “Thirty-four Victorian warships are hardly a
remnant
.   In any event, this is hardly the time to gamble.”

“Wars are won by taking risks,” Hudis retorted.

Wagner nodded.  “Yes, Citizen Secretary, that is what we teach every junior officer at the War College.  But senior officers learn a harsher truth: choose your risk carefully.  Are you willing to risk the entire existence of the Dominion, Citizen Secretary?  Because that is what is at stake here.  If the Victorians have found some other way into Dominion space, then they can attack our home world while the greater part of our forces sit at the Refuge/Victorian wormhole, too far away to help us.”  He spoke to the Citizen Secretary, but everyone understood he addressed the Citizen Director.