Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (12 page)

“Passive sensors confirm that all ships are redeployed into our final attack formation,” Barrett said. “Warming up active array transmitters now.”

“You are clear to activate the array at your discretion, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Helm! Stay sharp and keep alert for any snap course changes. We’re going to be flying in a tight formation at a group of bunched-up targets. It could get a little hairy.”

“Aye, sir.” The helmsman was cinching down his restraints tighter and reconfiguring his panels for close quarters combat flying … at least “close quarters” by starship standards.

“Stand by!” Barrett called out. “Going active … Now!” Jackson mentally counted to three in his head.

“Engines to full operational mode,” he called. “Helm, all ahead flank!”

“All engines ahead flank, aye!”

“OPS, get the Link active.” Jackson leaned into the surge of the main engines shoving the
Ares
forward with more power than the grav generators could compensate for. “Coms! Verify status of the rest of the squadron.”

“All ships have responded to our opening maneuver and are reporting all greens across the board,” Keller said, referring to the master status board above the main display that gave a quick go/no-go visual indicator for the ship’s primary systems.

“Tactical, weapons hot,” Jackson said. “Begin calculating a distributed firing solution once we have confirmed returns from our own sensors.”

“Weapons hot, aye!”

The radar returns started coming in and, once they were resolved by the computer, Jackson could see that the Vruahn data was quite accurate. There was a slight discrepancy since the data from the cube was instantaneous and their radar returns were hampered by the delay of the RF travelling to the target and then having to come all the way back to be interpreted. He could also see that the Phage were moving as soon as the first pulses from their radar hit them, but not before. It was another nugget of information about his enemy that he catalogued and stored for later.

“Tactical, use the Vruahn telemetry data to calculate your initial firing solutions until we’re close enough to negate our own sensor lag,” Jackson ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Barrett said. “Updating plots now. We’ll be firing the first wave of Shrikes in less than two minutes.”

One hundred and seven seconds later the two ships on the right side of the formation, the
Icarus
and
Artemis
, fired two Shrikes each for the same Alpha before angling their course out and away from the other ships. Jackson watched them peel off on his tactical display and crossed his fingers that the Phage would react the way he thought they would.

The Shrikes raced ahead of the formation towards their target. Silent and deadly, they were utilizing a broadcast telemetry uplink from the formation and had not activated their own onboard sensors and had shut down their engines after one quick, intense burn. It wasn’t long before the Vruahn data told the story: the Alphas had been sitting, waiting, and hadn’t detected the four missiles until three slammed into the one that had been trailing behind and below the other two. The fourth missile went ballistic and continued on to the planet’s surface, but the other three had solid impacts and fired their engines again to dig into the organic hull as deep as possible before detonating.

“Tango One is in an uncontrolled tumble and falling out of orbit,” Barrett said. “High-res radar is showing significant damage to the entire front half. It should impact the planet in less than five minutes.”

“
Icarus
reports the Bravos are pursuing them away from the planet,” Keller said.

“Tell Captain Wright to allow them to close before taking them out,” Jackson said. “What are the other two Alphas doing?”

“Both have turned and are moving towards us,” Barrett said. “Their acceleration rate indicates they’re coming out cautiously.”

“Let’s disappear,” Jackson said. “Coms! Have the
Atlas
and
Hyperion
light up the sky. Tactical and OPS, go to passive sensors and switch the Link to receive only.”

“Aye, sir,” Barrett said. “
Atlas
and
Hyperion
have both ignited their auxiliary boosters. They’re overtaking us.”

“Helm, zero thrust. Steady as she goes.”

“Engines answering zero thrust,” the helmsman said. “Maintaining course and speed, aye.”

“Tactical?”

“Stand by, Captain,” Barrett said. “They haven’t fully committed—there they go! Both remaining Alphas are swinging out to pursue the
Atlas
and
Hyperion
.”

“Coms, inform Captain Walton that he is clear to engage Tango Two at his discretion,” Jackson said. “We’ll move on him.”

Jackson had ordered both of his remaining destroyers to blast their radars at full power while also igniting their auxiliary boosters and pulling out of the formation and away from the planet. Simultaneously the
Ares
went dark and cold-coasted along her original course that would now take them up behind the two pursuing Alphas. It was a calculated gamble since, if they were spotted or the Phage weren’t fooled, the
Ares
would be flying dark into the teeth of two waiting Alphas and none of the other ships would be able to come about and offer any assistance in time.

But as he’d anticipated, the sight of two Terran warship flaring brightly and fleeing was simply too much and they were moving out to pursue. If there had been a heavier Phage presence in the system, or even one of the Super Alphas, he wouldn’t have tried something so transparent. But with only three Alphas and a handful of Bravos he’d been confident that their collective consciousness hadn’t reached a level of sophistication past that of a simple predator.

“The
Hyperion
has locked two Shrikes on Tango Two.” Barrett watched the status updates of the squadron over the Link. “
Atlas
is reducing acceleration and drifting to port to provide a backup shot without us being in the line of fire.”

“Good, good,” Jackson said distractedly. “How long until we can pursue?”

“Three hours, forty minutes until our first course change,” Ensign Hayashi said.

Jackson had to force himself to sit still in his seat. The last tussle he’d been in with the Phage had been aboard Colonel Blake’s awesome Vruahn strike ship, and it had spoiled him by showing what he was missing. Having to fight his battles once again over the span of hours and days instead of seconds and minutes hardly seemed fair and he once again cursed his new allies.

Thankfully the Phage obliged them by cranking up their acceleration rate once they’d cleared the influence of the planet. It was just over two hours when they crossed the
Ares
’ flightpath on their way towards the two fleeing destroyers.

“
Hyperion
is firing,” Barrett said. “Time to impact … ninety-seven minutes.”

“Helm! Come to course Sierra-Delta,” Jackson chose from the list of pre-programmed contingency courses on his display. “Ahead one-third, just enough to get us moving in the right direction.”

“Helm answering new course,” the helmsman said. “Ahead one-third, aye.”

The nose of the
Ares
swung around to her new heading and the engines gently began pushing them off their current intercept course with the planet. Since they were still trying to remain unnoticed the ship was in reality still flying sideways faster than she was moving forward, as the engine power wasn’t enough to overcome the inertia they were carrying. Spaceflight was a strangely relative thing and it was something the human mind seemed to still struggle with on an instinctual level as there was no “up” and moving “forward” didn’t mean what it did when on a planet.

“Targets are now separating,” Barrett said. “Tango Three is drifting down relative to the
Hyperion
’s line of fire.”

“That’s it,” Jackson stood. “We can’t let it get behind us. Helm, ahead flank.”

“Engines ahead flank, aye.”

“Tactical, begin updating your targeting pattern and bring the auto-mag online.” Jackson began pacing as the rumble of the engines throttling up vibrated the deck plates.

“Auto-mag capacitor bank is at full power,” Barrett said. “Updating firing solutions now. When am I allowed to go active sensors, sir?”

“Wait until we’ve completed our turn and we’re actually on a pursuit course,” Jackson said. “There's a chance they didn’t notice the thermal bloom from the engines, but we know they’ll feel the radar pulses. Nav! Let Tactical know once we begin to close the interval between us and Tango Three.”

“Yes, sir!” Accari called out, never looking up from his display.

Jackson watched their interval actually increase slightly on the main display before the roaring engines could get the massive starship turned and moving in the right direction. He watched the helmsman expertly cheat the nose over slightly off-course to direct the engine thrust over just enough to tighten up their turn.

“Tactical, we’re now accelerating along our pursuit course.”

“Acknowledged,” Barrett said. “Going active.” They were close enough to the target to not have a long wait before the tactical computer updated the Alpha’s orientation, speed, and heading. It was more or less right where the Vruahn cube said it was.

“Computer is now constantly updating our firing solution.”

“Weapons free,” Jackson said. “You may fire at will once you have the optimal range.”

“Aye, sir,” Barrett said. “Turning over control of the auto-mag to the tactical computer now … projected time until firing range is three hours, thirty minutes and decreasing.”

The frenetic activity on the bridge simmered down to a tense quietness, punctuated only by the muted alerts from the terminals and the hushed conversations of operators talking to their backshops or each other. For his part, Jackson felt the familiar calm that came in knowing that he had made his preparations as best he could and now there was nothing to be done until his target reacted to what was about to happen next.

“
Hyperion
is reporting good impacts on Tango Two,” Keller called out.

“Confirmed,” Hayashi said. “All missiles detonated on Tango Two; unknown if target was destroyed or disabled.”

“Let Captain Walton worry about that,” Jackson said. “Any reaction from our target?”

“No reaction,” Barrett said. “It’s still maintaining course and speed, no longer accelerating.”

“Change of plans, Lieutenant Commander,” Jackson said. “Fire your full spread now. OPS, reinitialize our Link telemetry feed. Coms! Tell Captain Walton I want his two ships to come about and charge at Tango Three; make sure they’re aware of our shot trajectory through the Link.”

“Updating firing solution … Assuming attitude control … Firing!” Barrett called out. The deck plates under their feet rumbled as the auto-mag began spitting out ferrous shells at high velocity. The auto-mag was a powerful railgun system hard-mounted to the destroyer’s internal structure, so the bang of the initial discharge as well as the transit of the shells shook the entire ship from stem to stern. The fact the weapon couldn’t be aimed independently of the ship’s bearing also meant the tactical computer had to take control of the attitude jets and actually steer the ship to aim. Jackson despised the system, but it was a concession he had been forced to make in order to get the weapon on the new class of destroyer in the first place.

“Full volley away,” Barrett said. “Trajectories confirmed. Safeing gun and surrendering attitude control back to the helm.”

“Helm confirms resumed attitude control,” the helmsman said.

“Time until the shells overtake the target?” Jackson asked.

“Seventy-six minutes,” Barrett said.

“The
Atlas
and
Hyperion
have completed their course change and are inbound—”

“Target has altered course!” Barrett interrupted Hayashi. “It is now accelerating towards the outer system at seven hundred g’s and climbing. It has already evaded all of our shots.”

“That’s fine,” Jackson stood. “Those shots were fired to elicit a specific response, Lieutenant Commander. They can still accomplish that without actually hitting the target.” Even as Jackson spoke the cube’s targeting bracket on the tactical display disappeared.

“Target has disappeared on radar,” Hayashi said. “Suspect that it went to FTL and left the system.”

“Stand down from general quarters,” Jackson said. “Begin post-combat inspections and maintenance and go to normal watches. Coms, send out a general order to rally the squadron in high orbit over the fourth planet. Nav, that goes for us too so make it happen.”

“Aye, sir.”

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Davis asked.

“If this works? I would expect that we won’t have long to wait at all,” Jackson said.

It was the second to last system on his list and Colonel Robert Blake was no closer to finding the core mind than he was when he flew into the first one. The apparent failure of his team to locate the core, the most important part of the overall mission, was eating at him like nothing he’d ever experienced.

“Where in the fuck is it?!” he shouted.

“Unknown,” the computer replied unhelpfully.

“Thanks,” Blake rubbed at his eyes. Two of his teammates that had search grids that overlapped his own had reported a Phage presence: two Alphas of the type that had been attacking human planets and three of the big ones that had attacked the Vruahn cruiser during their meeting with Setsi. While it was a hopeful sign, they were running out of star systems to search and a few stray combat units wouldn’t be enough evidence to mobilize the entire Terran fleet.

There was a blast of an alarm that startled him so bad he jumped out of his seat, ceasing before he’d even been able to sit up and see what it was. “Report.”

“There was a brief detection of the underlying carrier frequency we’ve been searching for,” the computer said. “It was detected for less than twenty milliseconds. This could be an anomalous reading. Beginning full internal diagnostics of the passive detection network.”

“You do that,” Blake said absently. “While you’re at it, activate all the passive detection gear … full spectrum.”

“The incoming data of a full spectrum recording cannot be interpreted in real time,” the computer said. “It will be stored and analyzed as processing resources are available.”

“Understood,” Blake sighed. “Just do what I said.”

“Acknowledged.”

He walked the corridors of his warship on his way to the galley and, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he was lonely. Not just lonely as in he’d like someone to chat with. No … this was a deep, depressing, crippling loneliness that tore at his soul. It was almost as if his recent interactions with humans that weren’t part of the
Carl Sagan
crew had awakened a deep need for social interaction within him. Once those floodgates opened he found that the effect was cumulative and, all of a sudden, he was feeling the crush of decades of solitude. He chewed his food mechanically as the parade of depressing thoughts weighed him down.

“When did I turn into such a wuss?” he snapped and shoved his tray away, forcing his introspection to the back of his mind. Having never developed the deep-seated love of coffee the rest of his military brethren had, he grabbed a couple of the sickly sweet energy drinks that were kept on hand throughout the ship and stalked back up to the flight deck. They only had a few more chances to get a bead on the core mind if this mission was going to happen at all.

It had occurred to him that they might never find the precise location of the core mind and the Terran fleet would have amassed for nothing, would have torn the political fabric of the Confederacy to shreds for nothing. Without that target there was simply no way Admiral Marcum could risk all of humanity’s military might on a wild goose chase. Hell, the trip alone might cost him a sizable chunk of his fleet.

Another, darker thought went through Blake’s mind at the same time. What if the Vruahn had intentionally set them onto a path they knew would not bear fruit? Their pacifist nature was well-known to him, and they’d always been reluctant to let him and his crew take the fight to the Phage instead of coming in with well-meaning but ultimately ineffective holding actions. Had they sent them out into this region of space to simply burn up time until the humans’ desire for revenge began to wane?

“Anything new?” He poked his head onto the flight deck. He could access the information from anywhere in the ship, of course, but he liked to come up just before turning in for bed to give the indicators and displays a last once-over.

“Two more instances of the anomalous carrier pulse have been detected since you left the flight deck,” the computer said. “There were no discernable patterns in the interval or duration of all three pulses.”

“Keep running an analysis of that and keep recording at full spectrum in this system,” Blake yawned. “This has been the only interesting thing we’ve found so far and I want to be as thorough as possible.”

“Acknowledged.”

****

Blake’s troubled sleep was harshly interrupted by a strident alarm blaring through the ship that indicated something one step below an actual emergency required his attention. He rolled out of bed and sprinted out the hatch without bothering to dress first. He idly wondered why he had put his quarters so far away from the flight deck when he’d laid out this newest ship.

“Report!”

“The system in which the core mind resides has been identified with a 99.4% degree of certainty,” the computer said. “Strike Six is still sending all the pertinent data.”

“Six, huh?” Blake climbed into his seat. “Halsey’s ship. Bring up her search grid on the forward screen.” He was dismayed to see that Halsey had been searching along the perimeter of the AOR and practically on the opposite side from where he was searching.

“Show me what data we have so far.” The computer wordlessly complied and the raw stats that scrolled down the screen made Blake’s eyes bulge out of his head. The system had the strongest Phage infestation he had ever seen in one place. There were over four thousand Alphas within the almost ten-thousand-strong swarm, with over a thousand Charlies just for good measure.

In all his years fighting the Phage he had never seen anything like the Charlie constructs before he had been called to human space. There hadn’t been any at Nuovo Patria, but he’d seen the aftermath from the annihilation of Haven as well as the raw footage a CIS drone had managed to capture and transmit before it was destroyed. As impressive as the swarm was, he didn’t see anything that would indicate definitively that the core mind was in that system. For all he knew this could simply be the staging point for a fleet that was meant to wipe out humanity in one fell swoop.

He dismissed that thought even as quickly as it popped into his head. If they were planning on using a force this massive against humanity it made no sense to put it so far away. Even the Phage had to consider logistics when it came to moving their largest constructs into the area. Blake also didn’t see any indication that they were forming up for deployment or intended to leave the system anytime soon.

As he continued to stare at the swirling dots on the screen, he thought he could begin to detect a pattern. All of the heavy units seemed to have a definite epicenter to their wide-ranging flightpaths and it seemed to be concentrated around the second planet in the system. Or more specifically, its moon.

“Does Strike Six’s preliminary analysis say the core mind is likely located on the largest moon orbiting the second planet in that system?” he asked.

“It does.”

“And you agree?”

“My probability isn’t as high, but I also have yet to analyze all the data in context,” the computer said. “That probability is likely to go up.”

“Continue analysis,” Blake said. “Make this a priority over the analysis of the full-spectrum data recording of this system. We’ll stay here another ten hours and then pull back.”

“Shall I continue passive recordings of this system during that time?” the computer asked.

“Affirmative.” Blake climbed back out of his seat. “If there are no changes in status by the end of the ten hours we’ll issue a general recall order and rally back in the DeLonges System in Terran space.”

“Acknowledged.”

Blake went to his quarters to shower and dress, not bothering to try and get back to sleep. His mind was racing after all the recent developments and he didn’t feel like just lying in his rack and staring at the ceiling. There was something about the massive Phage swarm in that unnamed, unexplored system that bothered him. He couldn’t pin down exactly what it was, but he knew that he would be far more comfortable going back to Admiral Marcum with hard evidence that the core mind was on that moon.

He knew that the ships would be sharing their data with the Vruahn analysts, as they always did, so maybe he’d get word from them once Halsey’s records were looked over. It was highly likely that the Vruahn had some insight that they’d not bothered to share with their human partners that would add context to the behavior he was seeing in the raw sensor feeds.

****

“Core mind location pinpointed and confirmed. Human strike force returning to Terran space.”

The Vruahn cube had sent the message directly to Jackson’s comlink. Now that they knew where the core mind location was, there was no backing out of this mission. He would have to fully commit the Ninth to capturing a Super Alpha.

He quickened his pace down the port access tube on his way to the main cargo hold. One of his monitor teams had reported that the larger, second Vruahn cube had become active. Jackson had immediately pulled the teams, had Major Ortiz post his Marines at all the hatches, and made his way to the hold fervently hoping that this was a good surprise.

“What new fresh hell is this?” he asked after the Marine at the main hatchway had let him through. The larger cube had reconfigured itself so that it was now, more or less, a large shipping pallet, its sides having folded down flat on the deck. What was sitting there in the open were six skeletal racks, each cradling twelve shimmering spheres that were no more than half a meter in diameter. The spheres were an inky black with purple swirls moving through them, giving them an almost liquid appearance.

“So what are these?” Jackson asked aloud.

“Configurable gravitational munitions,” the smaller cube answered.

“Elaborate,” Jackson rolled his eyes.

“Each sphere is a programmable weapon that is capable of causing gravitational distortions at a specific yield.”

“Could they be programmed with enough force to shred a Phage Alpha?” Jackson walked closer to the racks.

“Affirmative, though that would be counter-productive to stated mission goals,” the cube said.

“Understood,” Jackson said. “I just want to get a feel for how much force we’re talking about here. What would be the optimal deployment for such a weapon?”

“The distortions generated are capable of disrupting or even negating the enemy’s reactionless propulsion system,” the cube answered.

“Would this need to be a necessarily powerful blast?” Jackson asked. “That’s all well and good, but if it creates enough force that our ships can’t survive then it’s more or less useless. What sort of effective area are we talking about?”

“Area of influence can be predetermined,” the cube explained. “The force necessary to disrupt an enemy ship’s reactionless drive should not significantly damage this vessel.”

“Not exactly the reassurance I was looking for,” Jackson muttered. “Okay, new protocols … I need you to speak to my chief engineer and tactical officer and work out a plan for using these weapons. It probably would have been better if you’d revealed what these were long before now.”

“Mission directives dictated that the existence and function of the weapon was to remain a secret until the core mind was located and the secondary objective of capturing an Alpha ship was achievable with a probability of success over seventy percent,” the cube said.

“Of course,” Jackson sighed. “Stand by while I call my officers down so you can brief them and then we can get on with trying to figure out how a Vruahn weapon will be fired from a Terran warship.”

****

“It’s really quite ingenious,” Daya Singh said as he sniffed suspiciously at the soup he’d grabbed from the quick-line before dumping in an alarming amount of hot sauce. “The funny thing is … we could have built something like this ourselves. Not as slick or compact, but we have the fundamental understanding of the principles involved to pull it off.”

“So why didn’t we?” Jackson asked idly, wrinkling his nose at Singh’s now-inedible soup.

“Same reason all of our stuff is two-hundred-year-old tech,” Singh shrugged. “No need. A low yield charge won’t do much to our ships since we’re still pushing them with raw thrust. A big charge would tear a ship to pieces, but so will a nuclear-tipped Shrike.”

“And on an Alpha?”

“The best way I can describe it is agitating the water enough around a surface vessel that it significantly reduces the surface tension,” Singh launched into another of his overly simplistic, astonishingly insulting explanations, again forgetting that Jackson held advanced degrees in engineering. “These grav charges are more than just tossing a rock in a pond and causing ripples. They create random variances and eddies in local space that will make it nearly impossible for a reactionless drive to operate.”

“I understood that much,” Jackson bit back his sarcastic retort while they were in the crowded Officers' Mess. “Let’s leave the theory of operation aside for the moment and talk about how we deploy them.”

“Working on that now,” Singh incredibly dumped more hot sauce into what must have been an almost toxic soup after his taste test. “Apparently they can navigate themselves somewhat, so my first inclination is to load them into the launch tubes and tell the cube to toss them out.”

“If they can self-navigate I want them loaded into launch tubes eight and ten,” Jackson said.