Ep.#5 - "Rise of the Corinari" (46 page)

“Air boss reports all fighters away, Captain,” Naralena announced.

“Very well,” Nathan acknowledged.

“That last pass did a lot of damage to their starboard side, sir,” Ensign Yosef reported.

“Any change in their shields?” Nathan asked, hoping for a miracle.

“No, sir.”

“I should have put nukes into her when I had the chance,” Nathan stated.

“When was that?” Jessica wondered aloud. “They only extended their shields five hundred meters. There was no way we could’ve turned to bring our tubes onto her. There just wasn’t enough room.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Nathan admitted. “How many fighters did they launch?”

“Thirty-two, including the two that rammed into us,” Jessica reported.

“How’s the first group doing with the Loranoi?”

“First group is down to nine fighters. The Loranoi has taken heavy damage. All of her shields have failed and she’s losing main power. It’s just a matter of time, sir.”

“Comms, tell flight-ops to call off the first group from their attack on the Loranoi. She’s no longer a threat. Tell them to join up with the second group to deal with the Wallach’s fighters.”

“Yes, sir,” Naralena answered.

“Why not finish her off?” Jessica asked. “If she’s left alone, she might get her shields back online.”

“If we finish her off, the Wallach no longer has a reason to launch fighters. We need her to extend her shields again so that we can put some nukes into her.”

“I do not think that will happen, sir,” Mister Willard stated. “Ta’Akar captains do not usually put their own ships at risk to bail out another.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, sir, I am not.”

“Our fighters have engaged the Wallach’s fighters, sir,” Ensign Yosef announced.

Cameron watched silently as the dogfight unfolded on the holographic tracking grid floating in the air in the middle of the Flight Operations Combat Information Center. Slightly elongated three-dimensional green triangles represented the Corinari fighters. Red ones represented the Ta’Akar fighters. The Corinari were dogged combatants. Working in pairs and with the assistance of their flight controllers on the Aurora, they were slowly carving away at the superior enemy numbers.

She couldn’t help but be amazed at the professionalism of the Corinari pilots and technicians, especially considering that today was their first actual space combat in over thirty years. Although the average age of the Corinari was thirty-five, none but the most senior of their ranks had ever flown in any type of actual combat. She couldn’t imagine the number of hours they must’ve spent in the simulators on Corinair in order to achieve the level of skill they displayed at the moment.

By comparison, the Ta’Akar pilots were quite inferior. Their tactics were scattered and their pilots appeared to be more interested in personal glory than in winning the engagement. She wondered how the Ta’Akar had managed to stay in power for so long, considering the embarrassing performance she was witnessing today.

In less than five minutes, the Corinari fighters had cut the enemy fighter strength in half. Now, with the Corinari’s first group of fighters joining up, they had the upper hand. This dogfight would soon be over.

“Flight-ops reports fifteen kills so far, Captain,” Naralena reported, “and the first group is just now joining the engagement.”

“Captain, I’m picking up really high thermals from the Wallach,” Ensign Yosef reported. “I think we might have damaged one of her heat exchange systems when we got inside her shields. I don’t think she can still run everything at once. Not with that much heat showing.”

“What does she have that uses the most power?” Nathan wondered.

“Her shields?” Jessica guessed.

“Probably,” Nathan agreed.

“Her energy weapons,” Mister Willard stated with assuredness.

“Most definitely,” Nathan agreed. “I’d also bet her main propulsion produces a considerable amount of heat.”

“She has to maneuver,” Jessica stated. “Otherwise, all she can do is sit in one place and fire. You can’t win a battle that way.”

“Comms, send a message to the Wallach,” Nathan said. “Tell them to withdraw or be destroyed.”

“Are you kidding?” Jessica wondered aloud.

“They might be more damaged than we can tell. If they fall for it, they’ll withdraw and our work is done for the day.”

“But they’ll be back, and with friends,” Jessica pointed out.

“That’s going to happen no matter what we do here today,” Nathan stated. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Helm, head toward the Wallach, standard combat speed.”

“Aye, sir,” Josh answered.

“Response coming in, sir,” Naralena reported. “Message reads, ‘You are in direct violation of the original terms of surrender. The Ta’Akar will now exercise our rights under article twelve, section twenty-two, subsection…”

“What the hell?” Jessica interrupted.

“Thanks, we get the point,” Nathan stated, relieving Naralena of the need to finish reading the message.

“Captain, the Wallach has changed course,” Ensign Yosef reported. “They’re headed for Corinair.”

“ETA to Corinair?” Nathan asked

“Ten minutes,” Ensign Yosef reported.

“Mister Sheehan, new jump plot. Put us between the Wallach and Corinair. Helm, adjust course for the jump. Tactical, load all forward tubes and prepare for snapshot, staggered, full nukes. Lock all missiles on her as well.”

“She’s still jamming, Captain,” Mister Willard warned.

“Then point and shoot the damned things. I want all rail guns as well.”

“Yes, sir,” Jessica reported.

“Comms, warn the Corinairans.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jump plotted, sir,” Loki reported.

“Execute.”

The bridge filled with the jump flash again.

“Jump complete, Captain,” Loki reported.

“Helm, hard to port! Head straight for the Wallach. Be ready to dive under her on my order. Plot an escape jump, Mister Sheehan.”

“Hard to port, aye,” Josh answered.

“Flight-ops reports the Wallach’s fighters have been eliminated,” Naralena reported.

“Tell them to send the fighters back to finish the Loranoi,” Nathan ordered. “I want that ship dead in space.”

“Turn complete, Captain,” Josh reported.

“Range to target, five kilometers,” Loki reported.

“They should be firing their energy weapons by now,” Nathan stated. “You may have been right about their heat exchangers, Ensign.”

The ship began to shake violently. “We’re taking rail gun fire,” Jessica announced.

“Fire missiles,” Nathan ordered.

“Missiles away,” Jessica answered. On the main view screen, four missiles streaked over their heads, disappearing ahead of them as they sped toward the target that was still too far away for them to see.

“Range to target, three kilometers,” Loki reported.

“Snapshot all forward tubes,” Nathan ordered.

“Firing all forward tubes,” Jessica answered.

“Helm, new course. Come down one degree. Take us under the target.”

“Coming to new course, one degree down, aye,” Josh answered.

“Plot me an escape jump, Mister Sheehan,” Nathan stated.

“Missiles reloaded,” Jessica reported.

“Fire again.”

“Manually targeting,” Jessica reported. “Missiles away.”

“Jump plotted,” Loki reported.

“Five seconds to torpedo impact,” Jessica reported.

“Jump.”

“Jumping.”

The bridge again flashed with light as they jumped just beyond the enemy battleship.

“Jump complete,” Loki reported. “We’re thirty seconds down range, directly astern and slightly below the Wallach, sir.”

“Helm, forty-five degrees to starboard. New jump. Take us one light minute forward along the new course as soon as you finish your turn.”

“Aye, sir.”

“What are you going to do?” Jessica asked.

“I’m going to hit them again, this time from their port side.”

“Sir, we’ve only got ten torpedoes left,” Jessica warned. “That’s not going to do it.”

“The Wallach will be entering orbit over Corinair in two minutes,” Ensign Yosef announced.

Nathan was getting desperate. He looked around the room, looking for answers. “Doctor, would an object traveling at eighty percent the speed of light have enough kinetic energy to get through their shields?”

“Possibly,” Abby said, “but it would have to be a big object.”

“What about something the size of this ship?”

“You can’t be serious,” Jessica said.

“I’ll put the crew off in escape pods,” Nathan said, “near Karuzara.”

“There’s no reason…”

“They’re going to attack Corinair, Jess,” Nathan insisted. “I can’t let that happen, not again.”

“With what?” Jessica protested. “They can’t use their energy weapons, engines, and their shields at the same time. You saw it for yourself. And they can’t use their rail guns on the surface from orbit. Their rounds would burn up in the atmosphere.”

“They don’t have to!” Nathan protested. “Don’t you see? Once they’re in orbit, they don’t
need
to use their engines any longer. They can just continue circling the planet, blasting away from orbit with their energy weapons. Meanwhile, they’ll fix their heat exchanger, and then what?”

“You can’t sacrifice this ship,” Jessica protested.

“But I can sacrifice the entire planet? No, I can’t do that! I have a responsibility to that world!”

“You have a responsibility to our world first! Or have you forgotten that?”

Nathan was torn apart inside. He had already caused the loss of thousands of innocent lives on the surface of Corinair, and now he had to choose between sacrificing millions more lives there or millions of lives back on the Earth. He looked at Jessica, pleading in his eyes. He desperately wanted someone to tell him what to do. Anyone.

“Captain,” Mister Willard said, “what about the comm-drone?”

“What?” Nathan asked, still facing Jessica.

“The comm-drone, sir.”

“We sent Tug after it,” he reminded him.

“No, sir, the other one—the one we were testing. It is still out there.”

“They didn’t work, remember?”

“They worked, sir. They just did not pick up the moving target soon enough. We just have to give it a better signal.”

Nathan turned around slowly to face Mister Willard. “Like what?”

“The Yamaro’s transponder, sir. It’s still installed, isn’t it?”

Nathan looked at Naralena. “Is it?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” she answered.

“Captain, the Wallach has settled into orbit above Corinair,” Ensign Yosef announced. “She’s charging energy weapons.”

“Where is the launch platform?”

“Right where we left it, sir,” Mister Willard told him. “If I can get Lieutenant Commander Kamenetskiy to help me, I am sure we can alter the navigation code on the drone and tell it to steer toward the Yamaro’s transponder signal.”

“Will that work?” Nathan asked.

“I fail to see why it would not,” Mister Willard assured him.

“Captain, how are we going to launch the drone?” Abby asked.

“Same way we did before,” Nathan said. “We jump out and transmit the launch signal.”

“No, that won’t work,” she warned, shaking her head. “You need time for the Yamaro’s transponder signal to reach out far enough. The drone needs to pick up the signal early enough so that it still has time to alter its course to intercept the signal source.”

“Why can’t we just give it a delayed launch signal, tell it to jump a few minutes after we leave?”

“We are talking about an extremely small margin for error, Captain,” Abby warned. “The Wallach is in orbit above the planet. If that signal is not in the exact perfect position, if that drone misses and slams into the planet at tens of times the speed of light, Corinair will die a much more violent death than at the hands of the Ta’Akar.”

“The Wallach has opened fire on the planet, Captain,” Ensign Yosef announced.

“Mister Willard, talk to the Cheng and get on that code,” Nathan ordered.

“Right away, sir,” Mister Willard promised.

“Comms, get me Corinari Command. I need to know the patrol schedule of the early warning jump shuttles. We’re going to need one of them to jump out and launch the drone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain, I cannot stress enough the risk that you are subjecting the planet to…” Abby started to repeat.

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Doctor, but right now, people are dying by the hundreds with every energy blast the Wallach fires, and she’ll just keep looping around the planet over and over again, firing away, until everyone on that world is dead. We’ve already seen them do it, both in Taroa and here. If we don’t do something, right now, millions of Corinairans will surely die. This is the only chance they’ve got.”

Nathan stared at Abby for several seconds, waiting for her to respond.

“I’ll try to calculate an angle and launch window that will result in the least risk for the planet, Captain,” she finally stated.

“Thank you, Doctor.” Nathan took a deep breath. He finally had a plan.

“Captain,” Naralena said. Her voice was weak, as if something terrible had happened.

“What is it?”

“I cannot raise Corinari Command, sir.”

“What?”

“Neither can flight-ops.”

“Communication and control is always the first target,” Jessica stated.

Nathan felt his heart sink. Without the patrol schedules, it could take them hours to locate one of the jump shuttles.

“Contact!” Ensign Yosef announced.

“Are you kidding me?” Nathan cried in desperation.

“A new contact just came into the system, about two light minutes out. Transferring track to tactical.”

Jessica stared at her screen, tapping buttons on her console as she analyzed the new contact. “I’ve got it,” she stated.

“Who is it?” Nathan asked, afraid of the answer.

Jessica’s expression suddenly relaxed. “It’s Tug, sir!”

“Oh, hell yes!” Nathan exclaimed. “Comms, tell him to get his ass over here.”

“Multiple contacts coming up from the surface,” Ensign Yosef announced.