Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2) (20 page)

I gave her a dark and silent glare.

She frowned fiercely in return. “I can see by your attitude you don’t agree,” she said. “Therefore, you’re forced my hand. I hereby forbid you to attack the Stroj!”

“Under what authority?”

“You read our orders.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. “I read it very carefully. You’re in overall command, and when we’re
not
in combat, that’s clear. But this is a combat situation. I’ve deemed it so, and I’ve logged the supporting data.”

She stood up. “What! You can’t just decide that arbitrarily.”

“Wrong,” I said, pushing a computer scroll of my own toward her with the orders printed on them. “You should read the seventh paragraph—the determination of immediate danger is mine to make. I’ve made it.”

She didn’t bother to read the document. She shoved it back toward me instead, with such force that it flew onto the floor.

“They said you’d be unmanageable, but I truly had no idea. Very well, William. We’ll let Star Guard decide your fate when we return home.”

She left then, in a huff. I didn’t watch her go. Instead, I turned back to the portal and watched hyperspace slide by until we were close to the breach.

I could feel the G forces building all the while. Durris had gone back to the bridge and begun a heavy acceleration curve, getting us back up to speed.

In the final minutes, I stepped out of my office and took my spot in the command chair. Calmly, avoiding eye contact with my confused staffers, I stared straight ahead until we hit the barrier and passed through it.

-28-

Back in normal space, I felt relieved to see stars again. There was something oppressive and unnatural about hyperspace. It felt as if you were dreaming—but still awake.

“No obstacles, sir,” Durris reported immediately. “Everything is smooth and quiet.”

“All engines are stopped? No transmissions?”

“We’re running silent, sir, as ordered.”

Finally satisfied, I leaned back in my chair and watched the screens. Everyone on the deck was doing the same.

Now and then, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder toward the main passage. People came and went. Most of them were powder-monkeys—an old naval term we still used for crewmen running errands.

None of them turned out to be my aunt, and for that, I was grateful.

I’d pulled my final card with her. She was now on notice. There wasn’t going to be any more rolling over and taking orders unless the situation was appropriate.

It occurred to me that I probably should have pulled this right from the start of the mission. Declaring that the entire length of the mission was hazardous and therefore placing myself in full command on the first day would have saved a lot of headaches.

But then again… I kept glancing back at the hatchway. Another powder-monkey rushed in, delivering coffee to the navigational team.

Turning back to the screens, I sighed. I had my aunt corralled, but how long would that last?

Hours passed. During that time, we plunged at an oblique angle back toward the inner planets. Our course was less than ideal. When coming out of hyperspace, it wasn’t possible to measure with precision where you would be headed when you got there.

As a result, Jade was the closest to our current projections. Sapphire was slowly sliding away from us, slipping around to the far side of the star. I thought about using our steering jets, but I didn’t dare. We didn’t want to scare our pirates.

Six long hours passed. I took meals in my chair and I became slowly more annoyed with everyone as each minute crept by.

“We’ll come around the star and fall into an uneven orbit soon, sir,” Durris informed me. “At that point, we’ll begin to slow down due to her gravitational tug.”

I didn’t respond.

“That orbit will decay, sir, within thirty-two days.”

I finally looked at him. “We’re not going to be gliding around here for thirty-two days. Don’t worry.”

“Good to know, sir.”

A new worry had begun to set in. Every instrument we had, every measuring device aboard, was telling us the Crown System was as dead as it had ever been. When we’d first arrived here, we’d done so with a blazing arc of deceleration. Maybe the Stroj had seen us and hidden.

Or maybe, they’d never been here at all.

Four more hours passed. Each minute, I checked every instrument. I was no longer watching the hatch behind me like a nervous rookie. I was past that. As a consequence, when my aunt finally did pay me a visit, I was taken unaware.

“So,” she purred next to me, “how’s it going, William?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“I can see that… It looks to me like we’re in the heat of battle. Oh, by the way, where are these enemies we’re stalking?”

I glanced at her. “You’ll be the first to know when we find them.”

“See that I am,” she said, and she left the deck again.

In a sour mood, I took a break to eat and piss. I was bursting from inactivity by this time, but any second I figured might be the moment of truth.

It was, in fact, when I was in the head relieving myself that everything changed.

The ship lurched. Steering jets had been fired. Right away, my mind leapt to the only possible conclusion: my aunt had ordered a course change.

After wetting my shoes and cursing, I trotted back to the command deck. The woman was a witch. She must have watched me, or paid someone off to tell her when I was off the deck.

Bursting through the hatchway, I found my Aunt standing beside my empty command chair, just as I’d expected.

“Dammit, Ambassador,” I said. “I thought we had an understanding.”

She looked at me. “We did,” she admitted in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.

“You weren’t going to give orders on this deck any longer.”

She looked at me, and I realized for the first time that there was touch of contrition in her eyes.

“It’s all yours, William. You were right this time. They’ve spotted us. They’re lifting off to meet us in battle.” She stepped to one side, looking annoyed and defeated.

I ran my eyes over the instruments. Durris was putting us onto a new course.

“They came up off Ruby, sir,” he said. “We might have missed their heat signatures as they’ve been disguised all this time by the warm world. There are a few oceans there, too. They might have been sitting in water—we just don’t know.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “The Stroj are nothing if not deceptive.”

A hand grabbed my arm, and I looked down to see it was my aunt. She looked up at me intensely.

“How did you know, William?” she asked. “How did you know they’d be here?”

“Just a hunch. The Stroj don’t like to retreat. They don’t like to give ground. They’ll run if they must—but only as far as they must.”

She nodded. “I guess they chose the right man for this job. I tried hailing them, but they’re ignoring us.”

She left the deck then, and I took my seat again. Reports began flooding in.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Yamada said when my aunt had left. “The Ambassador refused to let us buzz your implant when we detected the enemy. She wanted to confirm the ships really were Stroj pirates first.”

“And are they?”

“The signatures match, sir. These are Lorn’s ships.”

My heart was pounding, but not with fear. I had a grin on my face, I realized. With an effort of will, I suppressed my emotions. Now was the time to win a battle, not to gloat.

“Range, Durris?”

“We’re still pretty far out. About twenty million kilometers.”

“Enemy count?”

“Seven ships. The same seven we let slip away before, sir.”

I gave him a sharp glance. He looked back at me blankly. Was he needling me for having allowed the Stroj to survive our previous engagement?

Perhaps he was, and I had to admit, he was right to do so. These beings were abominations. It was hard not to think of them as rough humans when talking to them, but I had to remind myself that they’d gone so far in self-alterations that they were no longer like us. They were only partly human at best, and they had to be destroyed.

“For the blood of all the colonists who’ve died at their hands in the Crown System—and probably countless others—we’re going to take them out as soon as we’re in range.

Durris smiled tightly and nodded. “They know they can’t run this time, sir. We’ve got too much speed built up, and they’re still within Ruby’s gravity-well. They’re moving into attack formation.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear. Vector in on their position—and Yamada, I want you to begin recording and transmitting this battle from our point of view with a twenty minute delay. Hit all the colony worlds with the vid. Jkal told me they were monitoring us passively on Sapphire, at least.”

“Recording. Transmission will begin in twenty minutes.”

Durris came up to my chair and leaned close.

“What if we get our asses kicked up here, sir?” he asked quietly.

“Win or lose, I want them to know Earth’s doing battle in their system on their behalf. Let them see the truth.”

He shrugged and moved back to his station. He may not have been entirely convinced I was doing the wisest thing, but I didn’t care. I wanted to give these people hope again, if nothing else. Let them watch a battle cruiser from Earth fight for them in real time. I suspected the sight would be unique and unforgettable for them. It was the least I could do after centuries of neglect.

-29-

The pirates came up from Ruby’s gravity-well as fast as they were able. They were racing to square-off with us and do battle.

That was another advantage of my scheme. They would be hindered by their nearness to a planet. Fighting within the pull of a gravity field was like fighting with your legs in water—every maneuver was constrained.

“Commence slow, steady fire when we reach maximum range,” I ordered. “Target the hindmost ship—that will probably be Lorn’s vessel.”

Battles in space were strange. They were both long and short, depending on your point of view. If you were getting hit, they might last only seconds. But if you were approaching an enemy fleet at a considerable distance it was like charging across a vast, empty plain toward an army that similarly charged toward you.

The difference was the charging took hours or even days to complete. We watched them grow steadily for three solid hours.

When we got in close enough to take our first shots, my heart began to pound. Unfortunately, they knew from our previous engagement how far our heaviest guns could reach. They began to dodge and weave as soon as they were in range.

“Firing bank one, sir,” Zye said.

I felt the ship shudder. There was a singing sound and then the hiss of escaping gases as the big guns paused and readied themselves again. The chambers were being cooled for the next salvo even before we knew if we’d hit or not with the last.

The second and third banks fired as well before we got visual confirmation of the results.

“We grazed target six,” Zye said. “No appreciable damage noted by the AI analysis.”

I frowned and wheeled on Durris and Zye.

“Not really a surprise,” Durris added quickly. “We’re at maximum range. We can’t expect to cripple them on the first shot.”

“That’s not what concerns me,” I said. “Why are we hitting ship six? I ordered you to attack the hindmost ship.”

“Ship six dodged into the path of the beam and took the hit, sir.”

I stared at Zye for a second, then laughed. “So, Lorn is a coward, is he? Why am I not surprised?”

Zye shrugged. “Most Alphas from my world would do the same. The commander is obviously more important than the crews of her supporting vessels.”

“Really? What if she’s a poor commander?”

Zye looked confused by the concept. Alphas were always better at command than Betas.

“Never mind,” I said. “Second salvo is blazing away. Report.”

“No hits. We even missed ship six this time. They’ve put up an aerogel screen to hide behind.”

“Let’s do the same. Diffuse the beam to burn away the gel.”

“Adjusting the apertures…”

The battle, such as it was, continued. Things didn’t get interesting until we got closer—then, suddenly, three of the ships vanished. One of the ships that disappeared was the one hiding in the rear.

“Where’d they go?” I demanded. “Yamada?”

“I don’t know, sir. Running a sensor diagnostic—everything checks out.”

“What’s my target, sir?” Durris asked.

I looked at him. He had an I-told-you-so look on his face.

“Keep firing at the ship in front of Captain Lorn.”

“That ship is now off-track, sir,” he said.

Frowning, I made a growling sound. We were just moving from long to medium range. Our odds of a solid hit were growing steadily.

“Lay down a pattern where they were a moment before,” I said. “Let’s see what they do about that.”

Shrugging, Durris did as I ordered. The big guns sang and hissed. We waited tensely, then—

“Hit!” Yamada shouted. “We hit something, Captain. We hit it hard. I’ve got debris, radiation, explosive gases—even lateral motion. I think we nailed one of them and it’s spinning out of control.”

“Excellent,” I said. “New target, use the last known coordinates of one of the vanished vessels.”

“Input complete,” Zye said, “canon bank traversing… ready.”

“Fire, and keep firing on that line of attack.”

Durris left his planning table and came up to stand at my side.

“All right,” he said. “I have to know, sir, how did you accomplish that bit of wizardry?”

“Logic, First Officer. There were only a few explanations as to why the enemy vanished. Either the enemy moved somewhere else so quickly that we couldn’t even track them, or they’ve managed to render themselves invisible. I reasoned that the latter was more likely.”

“All right,” he said, nodding. “But—”

“Another hit!” Yamada shouted. “We’re on to them now, sir!”

We turned our attention back to the forward screens. This time, the vessel we’d connected with blew apart. It was strange to watch. At first, there’d been nothing there. Then our beams hit something invisible and it became visible again in a brief sheet of flame and spinning chunks of metal.

Daring to grin, I turned back to Durris. “You were saying?”

He shook his head. “Okay, they’re stealthed somehow. Why are they suddenly easier to hit?”

“That’s a mystery,” I admitted.

“No…” Durris said, looking intensely at the screens. “I have it. It must cost them a lot of power to stealth. Maybe they don’t have the power to alter their course as quickly while they’re in that state. Maybe they don’t have shields, either.

“We’re locking onto the third ship that vanished,” Zye said. “At least, where she was when she disappeared. Firing.”

We waited, excitement building. But ten seconds later, there was nothing. We’d hit empty space.

“No-joy,” Durris said.

Frowning, I nodded in thought. “That third one had time to get away from the spot where it vanished.”

“Presumably.”

“All right,” I said, “Zye lock onto one of the ships we can see and continue shooting at it.”

She looked confused. “But sir—they’ve all stealthed now.”

I stood up and examined the tactical maps. I’d been zoomed in on my personal screen, looking at the narrow region we were targeting each time we fired. I’d missed the bigger picture.

“Damn,” I said quietly. “Switch to the last known visible target. Lock onto the coordinates where it was and unload. Fire on yellow this time.”

She worked the boards swiftly. The cannons hummed and sang. “Failure on bank two, cannon seven. Overheated, sir.”

“Let it clear out, send up a crew.”

We waited, watching the region of space where I’d taken my best guess. Nothing happened for too long.

“A clean miss,” I admitted at last.

“Looks that way,” Durris agreed.

“Target, sir?” Zye asked, spinning her chair to look at me.

“We don’t have one. Hold your fire. Prep our missiles for a proximity launch. We’ll have to guess where they are, and move the missiles up slowly to intercept them when they come out of stealth mode.”

“
If
they have to do that in order to fire,” Durris added. “We don’t know their full capabilities.”

I eyed him. “Let’s pray that they have to show themselves to engage us.”

The waiting began again, but this time it was infinitely more tense. We were being stalked—boxed in by invisible enemies. It appeared that their maneuvering was very limited when they were stealthed, but that didn’t help us much.

“Keep tracking their likely positions,” I ordered. “Fire a barrage now and then at the predicted coordinates every few minutes. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Durris and I glanced at one another. We both knew the math was against us and getting worse every moment. They could be anywhere in a widening cone of probability. Hitting a ship at this distance when you couldn’t track it—well, the odds were extreme.

We played back the vids, looking closely at each second of data. We examined the split-second during which they’d vanished in minute detail.

When the moment came, it was as if the ship’s image had been erased. From the top to the bottom, it vanished. It was as if a shade had been pulled down, hiding it from view. Instead of a metallic vessel, we saw the stars behind each hidden enemy ship.

“I can see why we couldn’t find them during all those system scans,” I said. “They were clearly hiding on Ruby, cloaked.”

“But they had to uncloak to fly up out of the gravity well,” Durris said. “That further indicates the cloaking system is using a lot of power. They can barely maneuver while it’s operating.

“That seems to match the facts as we know them.”

“But what I don’t get is why they didn’t pull this trick before, back in the Gliese system?” he asked. “They were retreating toward a bridge, and they could have blinked out then.”

I shrugged. “Maybe the shield only works when approaching the enemy head-on. Or maybe the Gliese system was too full of solar flares, dust and debris.”

“Or maybe they only equipped the cloaking systems when they reached Ruby,” Durris added. “Who knows?”

“Okay, let’s deal with the cards we’ve been dealt. How long until we’re in range of their guns?”

Durris pointed toward a timer he’d set up on his main boards.

Frowning, I shook my head. “T minus zero?”

“Right. We’re already in range. They stealthed just as they came close enough to take pot-shots at us. Now, however, they’re presumably closing in every moment.”

I returned to my command chair. “Everyone, strap in,” I ordered over the PA system. “We’re in for some harsh maneuvering.”

The klaxons sounded. Yellow flashers spun. All over the ship, the crew scrambled to get into a crash seat and enclose themselves in webbing.

After a full minute passed, I ordered Zye to take over the helm controls and unleash the full power of our vessel.

“Sir,” Durris gasped from his seat a few moments later, “I get why you’re doing this. But are you sure it’s your best option? We can outrun them, but we can’t—”

He broke off as a terrific explosion lit up the forward shield.

“We’re hit,” Yamada said unnecessarily. “Forward shield is down. Hull fractured at the bow. We’re losing pressure on decks, five, two—”

“Was that a nuclear missile?” I demanded.

She looked at me, her face contorted by the G-forces Zye was exerting upon us.

“No sir—one of those invisible bastards rammed our ship!”

We broke off and began to run. Without being able to see or target the enemy, it was time to put some distance between them and our vulnerable hull.

Realizing our intent, all of the remaining stealthed ships revealed themselves. There were four of them left. They began pursuit, firing away at our hindquarters.

We took hits, but they didn’t knock out our engines. That was the only true danger in this situation. We could outrun them, and we could outgun them. The only advantage they had left was their stealth. But, if we wouldn’t let them sneak up on us, they couldn’t use that ability effectively.