Flagship (A Captain's Crucible #1) (23 page)

Jonathan tapped a finger on the desk. "I suppose you're right, then. There is a chance these aliens are the descendants of the Elder."

"You seem disappointed, Captain."

Jonathan shrugged. "I guess I hoped the Elder had moved on from our section of the galaxy. That they'd attained some higher level of consciousness or enlightenment."

"A benevolent race that would welcome us with open arms and share the secrets of the universe with us?" Robert asked.

"Yes. But the Elders aren't some mystical beams of white light ready to shine enlightenment and knowledge into our eyes, but rather dark, amorphous, warlike beings who desire only our blood."

"You have to give them credit," the commander said. "They were only trying to protect their young."

"Maybe," Jonathan said. "But what about the second attack? That was unprovoked."

"Perhaps they believed we were going to use the planet killer against them eventually. Or maybe they wanted to capture it for themselves. You saw those grappling hooks in the replay."

"I guess we'll never know," Jonathan said. "They refuse all attempts at communication. Worse, they're guarding our only way out of here."

"They're afraid we'll call in reinforcements," Robert said.

"The same fear we have," Jonathan told him. "Damn it. Even if we win this, we'll be watching our backs for the next six months while the
Marley
builds a return Gate."

"You don't think the nukes we placed at the Slipstream entrance will stop them?"

"It will stop the first few reinforcements," Jonathan said. "After that..."

"We'll just have to hope they don't send any more ships for a long time."

"Yes," Jonathan said. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, we have a small battle to win, and some crew members to rescue."

Jonathan surveyed the participants seated around him in the virtual conference. The captains and first officers of the fleet had gathered around a large oval table. At the front of the room Miko stood beside a holographic display and gave his presentation on the tactics the fleet would use in the space battle. When he finished speaking Rade took over and detailed the MOTH plan to rescue the prisoners.

When both of them were done Jonathan said: "Thank you, Lieutenant, Chief." He turned toward the captains. "Comments or questions?"

Captain Rail of the
Salvador
spoke immediately. "This isn't going to work. The enemy is never going to fall for your tactical officer's little ruse. We should attack them all-out. Concentrate fire on the capital ship. Once we eliminate that vessel, the smaller targets will flee."

Jonathan had expected resistance from her, she who had firmly resided in the admiral's camp.

"Let's say you're right, and the other ships do actually flee," Jonathan said. "What happens to the prisoners from the
Selene
? We abandon them to their fate?"

"It would be the wisest course of action," Rail said. "You're wasting lives and effort on a rescue operation that's doomed to fail. We know nothing at all about the internal layout of the alien ship. Once the MOTH team is inside—
if
the team even makes it inside—they're expected to navigate a potential labyrinth, fight off alien security forces, and rescue twenty-eight prisoners? It's insane."

"I'm satisfied with the plan Chief Galaal has presented," Jonathan said. "Does anyone else other than Captain Rail have issues with it?"

The captains and first officers remained silent. Rail glanced at her own commander for support, and he feebly raised his hand. "I do."

"Anyone other than you?" Jonathan said.

No one spoke.

Jonathan nodded. "And what about the main battle plan? Any other objections?"

More silence.

"That's what I thought," Jonathan said. "It seems, Captain Rail, you are the only dissenter on this. You'll simply have to grin and bear it."

Captain Rail didn't seem too happy. "The
Salvador
should be the flagship. She's a destroyer. She has twice the firepower of the
Callaway
."

"We're not here to debate the chain of command," Jonathan said. "Nor the unfairness of life."

"If the admiral were still alive he would have you—"

"Thank you, Captain," Jonathan said. "That will be enough. Unless you would like me to relieve you of duty and promote your first officer in your place?"

Rail prudently kept her mouth shut.

"Lieutenant Harv Boroker has sent detailed instructions to your weapon engineers on how to upgrade the target acquisition systems of your point-defenses. Have any of your teams failed to perform the upgrades yet?"

"My teams haven't," Captain Williams of the
Maelstrom
said. "We had no spare processors to divert to the targeting. We could take some of our Vipers offline, as was suggested, but I decided I'd rather keep the full bank active."

"Take some of them down," Jonathan said. "Which would you rather have, twenty lasers that can't hit any of the fighters strafing your hull or ten mag-rails that hit their targets half the time?"

"Good point."

"What about fighter upgrades?" Jonathan asked the captains. "Have any former Task Unit One ships failed to outfit some of their Avengers with charged fields?"

"My weapons engineers have performed the necessary upgrades," Captain Rodriguez of the
Dagger
said.

Jonathan glanced at the captain of the
Salvador
. "Captain Rail?"

She stared at him defiantly for a moment, then said, curtly: "We've upgraded our fighters."

"Good. Because you didn't have the upgrades done before the previous engagement, according to the logs."

Rail's expression contorted in rage, but she quickly got a hold of herself and looked down.

"I think we're ready, then," Jonathan said. "Ready as we'll ever be, anyway. If there are no other questions...."

There weren't.

"We'll be fully engaged by this time tomorrow. I want your crews alert, and chomping at the bit. Have the planned watches take stims, if necessary. Good luck, Captains. I'd say we're in for a good fight."

* * *

Jonathan studied the tactical display overlaid on his vision.

"The enemy has halted, Captain," Ensign Lewis said.

"How far away are we?" Jonathan asked.

"One million kilometers."

"They're waiting for us," Jonathan said. "Good. Helm, continue at half speed. Miko, instruct the fleet to assume formation. Ops, begin venting radiation and atmosphere from the
Callaway
."

He momentarily switched to the view from cargo bay five. The designated bay doors opened a crack to allow the atmosphere to seep out. In order to facilitate the leakage, Jonathan had disabled the auto-seal feature of the appropriate hatches and vents.

The vessels in the task unit formed a defensive half sphere in front of the
Callaway
, with each vessel roughly thirty kilometers from the next, close enough to use their mag-rails and Vipers to eliminate any fighter threats to other ships in the formation, as necessary.

On the 3D display, the dots representing the United Systems task unit slowly advanced.

"Enemy is now eight hundred thousand kilometers away," Lewis announced thirty minutes later.

"Any change in their status?"

"No, Captain."

On the display, the three enemy dots were positioned ten kilometers apart in a rough horizontal line, twelve degrees below the plane of the system.

At the four hundred thousand kilometer mark, the two dart ships moved forward by five kilometers, forming a slight crescent with the capital ship. 

Jonathan checked the inventory of long range weapons for the umpteenth time. Also for the umpteenth time, he asked himself if that inventory would truly be enough for what he had planned. Perhaps he should have taken a detour, pausing beside an asteroid for a week to mine the raw materials for mortars.

Don't second-guess yourself. It will be enough.

"Launch missile and mortar decoy spread," Jonathan said.

"Launching decoy spread," Miko said.

On the tactical display, four mortars were launched per ship, along with two kinetic kills each. The weapons clustered into three main groups, targeting one ship each, with the majority aimed at the capital ship.

It was a throwaway attack. Just enough munitions so that the intent seemed real, but not enough to impact the already low inventories. The hope was to instill a sense of overconfidence in the enemy and to begin the herding process.

"The three targets are accelerating," Ensign Lewis said. "Forward and downward. Looks like they're planning on sliding under the mortar funnel."

"Cut thrust. Point the nose at our targets and keep it there. Miko, transmit similar orders to the fleet."

A moment later Ensign Lewis reported: "Enemy targets are further adjusting course and increasing speed. Looks like they intend the flyby to occur within five thousand kilometers, at least."

"Shall I alter our heading to give them a wider berth?" the helmsman asked.

"Not yet." Jonathan watched the two opposing fleets slowly approach one another.

"Captain?" Miko glanced at Jonathan, waiting for the order to begin the next phase of the attack.

"Hold," Jonathan said.

He watched the kilometers between the two fleets slowly tick downward over the next several minutes.

Three hundred thousand.

Two hundred thousand.

"Enemy has closed to within one hundred thousand kilometers," Miko said.

"Hold," Jonathan said.

"Fifty thousand kilometers," Miko said.

"First wave of missiles has reached the sub-five thousand kilometer mark," Ensign Lewis announced. "Detecting thermal build-up on enemy targets." She looked up. "Our missiles have been eliminated."

"Captain?" Miko said.

"Hold."

Forty thousand kilometers.

Thirty five.

"Launch final missile and mortar spread in the appropriate configuration," Jonathan said. "Deploy Avengers and Dragonflies. And cut speed by five percent. Let's give our Avengers a chance to pull ahead. "

"Launching final missile and mortar spread," Miko said. "Utilizing configuration gamma. And deploying fighters and shuttles."

Miko had several configurations already preprogrammed, with each one dependent on the enemy formation. The general strategy was to hem in each ship with nukes and missiles timed to arrive out of sequence with the particle beam weapons of each target, forcing the aliens to fire at the previous wave of incoming missiles while the second wave slipped through during the recharge interval.

Jonathan watched as the deadly funnels formed three groups targeting each enemy. That was the last of their long range weapons.

I hope I've used them wisely.

Avenger squadrons deployed fleet-wide a moment later, maneuvering in behind the different mortars. Two Dragonflies containing the MOTH rescue team joined the fray, positioning themselves in single file behind a manned Avenger and the shielding mortar beyond it. Two more Avenger drones brought up the rear. 

If the nukes and kinetic kills detonated early, the Avenger squadrons were far enough away to avoid collateral damage; and the radiation armor on the Avengers and Dragonflies would protect the occupants from a deadly dose. The pilots and MOTHs would probably still need post rad treatment in such a scenario, however.

Blue Squadron escorted the MOTH rescue team. Red and Orange Squadrons, meanwhile, escorted two specially modified drone fighters. Those two unmanned Avengers contained a surprise for the enemy: the engineering teams had ripped out the guts of those fighters, replacing the weapons systems with nuclear warheads from the ship, essentially converting the Avengers into smart nukes.

The final squadron, Black, remained behind to protect the ships. That squadron hadn't been launched yet.

Jonathan had put the space wing commander in charge of all the fighters deployed by the task unit this time, rather than merely those fighters launched by the
Callaway
.

Jonathan tapped him in. "Albright, remember to have the fighters avoid the nose sections when traveling under a range of one klick to the enemy—the charged fields won't withstand the particle beams at that range."

"I got it," the lieutenant commander returned. He sounded a little peevish. "Albright out."

Try not to micromanage too much,
Jonathan scolded himself.

He studied the display.

"Enemy capital ship is launching fighters," Ensign Lewis announced. "They're heading toward the mortars."

Jonathan nodded. It was expected that the aliens would catch on to their tactic of hiding fighters behind mortars, as Robert had used the same strategy to get the Avengers close to their laser array in the previous battle. Even so, it had been worth a try.

"Helm, fire starboard thrusters. Knock the
Callaway
out of range of their particle beam for the main flyby. I want our closest point to be no more than twenty thousand kilometers. Increase speed as necessary. Tactical, have the remainder of the task unit follow our lead."

"Enemy ships are attempting to compensate for our course change," Lewis said.

"Will they be able to close the gap?"

"I don't think so," Lewis said. "Their thrusters can't compensate for the immense forward inertia they've already built up."

"Good," Jonathan said. "Increase atmospheric ventage. Make it look like we're on our last legs. And helm, issue slight braking thrust. Let's see if we can draw some of those fighters."

"It's working," Ensign Lewis said several moments later. "Only half of the fighters are braking to engage our squadrons. The remainder are continuing toward us at full speed, and ignoring most of the other ships in the unit."

"We're too tempting a target," Jonathan said. "Though I was hoping we'd draw more of them. Helm, fire forward thrust again. Get us up to speed. Remember, I don't want to pass closer than twenty thousand kilometers with the main targets."

"Avengers are reporting contact," Ensign Lewis said.

White flashes filled the external video feed Jonathan had running in the upper right of his aReal.

"We lost three missiles in that strafing run," Miko said. "And one nuke. All Avengers are still operational, so far. As are the MOTH shuttles."

On the 3D display, the closest group of red dots continued past the mortar funnels, heading toward the
Callaway
, while the remainder continued braking to engage with the Avengers.