Loyalty to the Cause (TCOTU, Book 4) (This Corner of the Universe) (45 page)

Just
eight seconds had elapsed since
Elathra’s
opening particle cannon shot
initiated the skirmish.  The flashing indicators of weapons fire on Lieutenant
Hall’s console complemented the clipped chirping of automated damage reports
flowing from
Elathra’s
ship-wide sensors.

As
the carronades dispensed death,
Scepter’s
third GP salvo pierced
Elathra’s
abused AIPS.  Twin laser pulses struck near the heart of the snow, vaporizing
duralloy and penetrating through an enlisted berth, past an engineering substation
and into the main shuttle bay.  Fortune smiled upon the Hollaran Class-2
shuttle.  Spared a direct hit, the hurricane winds of decompression did little
more than buffet the tiny craft.  Moments before the last of the bay’s air
could escape, a containment field sealed the four-centimeter gap in the
bulkhead.

Additional
fire from
Scepter’s
tri-mount laser splashed over
Elathra’s
exposed
starboard wing.  The pulses easily gored the thick structure, destroying seven
of the ten radiators connected to Pruette’s particle cannon.

Elathra
passed a bare 2
ls
“under”
Scepter
before the range began to increase.  Seven light-seconds behind
her sister brig,
Superb
bore down on an enemy that was already escaping.

Chief
Brown’s board had barely registered the damage to the wing radiators before the
next assault from
Scepter
arrived.  This time, only twin streams from
the brig’s dual GP mount swatted at the ship.  The AIPS screen, rebuilt to a
pitiful seventeen percent, absorbed the first shot but its companion struck
sixteen meters behind the bridge, lancing through an outer storage compartment
and into the core of the C-DAC.  Sub-lieutenant Curray escaped death by less
than a meter but the pulses of energy drilled into his AIPS control panel and
through the bulkhead toward the primary water filtration plant.

Elathra
spun delicately to maintain her
broadside as
Scepter’s
final GP shots reached their mark.  Due to the lightning
quick pass, the angle of the snow, and extreme close range,
Elathra’s
stern was briefly vulnerable.  Laser fire lashed the snow’s rear quarter,
unfettered by a defensive screen.  Both streams gored through her armor to melt
the delicate machinery inside her tunnel drive system, vaporized the duralloy
protecting the opposite side of the ship and proceeded deeper into space.

All
through the turmoil, Hall’s gunners unleashed their revenge, and Heskan’s
concentration on
Scepter’s
optical was total.  Beginning with the
opening particle cannon hit, ugly craters and gashes appeared on the brig in
two-second intervals.  When the carronades were released upon her,
Scepter’s
cracks and rents arrived so frequently that the expulsion of debris threatened
to obscure the warship.  Heskan raised a fist in triumph and Vernay cheered
when a large piece of the crippled brig broke free.

“Got
her,” Hall celebrated.

“Diane,
rotate to face the trailing brig,” Heskan barked after quickly confirming
Scepter
was out of the fight.

“Target
Superb, Mark,” Vernay added.

Elathra
increased her rate of spin,
pushing her bow through the in-plane compass points to face the brig waning
from her.  As ordered, Lieutenant Hall designated
Superb
as
Elathra’s
new target but he was unsure if his gunners would have the opportunity to
fire.  They had already passed through the 5
ls
laser range and Pruette’s
extreme cannon shot would be rushed.  On the wall screen, the last of
Elathra’s
GP and carronade shots were reaching
Scepter
.  Hall had never seen a
ship as mangled as the brig on the optical before him.  As he stole a peek at
the unimaginable sight of devastation, he saw a large flash of white light and
the expanding debris field of their former adversary.

He blinked
several times to readjust his eyes.  On his console, Pruette’s particle cannon
had just fired.  Remarkably, the gunner’s mate had achieved target lock in the
two seconds provided to him.  Hall was monitoring the impressive heat levels
his carronades had achieved when
Elathra
received her first volley from
Superb
.

Elathra’s
course blitzed the front of the Saden
vanguard, leaving
Superb
with nothing more than a single firing
opportunity as her enemy skimmed 5
ls
.  All five of
Superb’s
lenses had flashed death and then, an instant later, the ships were outside
effective GP laser range. 
Elathra
had rotated fully to face her new enemy,
and the snow took the first hit on her chin.

No
AIPS screen functioned to shelter
Elathra
from the blows.  The laser
fire from
Superb’s
dual mounts tore savage gashes over the flat surface
of the snow’s bow.  The beams burned past her armor and burrowed deeply into
her hide.  After piercing dozens of nonessential compartments, the energy
burned itself out destroying the alternate core coolant system and the
starboard Junkkers control room.

The
pulses from the brig’s triple laser emplacement finished off most of
Elathra’s
port wing.  Already stripped of a third of its mass, the triumvirate of
destruction cleaved the wing to its axillary.  The battered structure failed at
its second frame, just aft of the Number-3 Carronade Blister Turret, causing
the entire wing to break free of the snow.  Decompression events all along the
width of the shattered wing pushed the wreckage gently away from
Elathra
in a slow-motion dissection of the ship.

Three
seconds after
Elathra’s
amputation, neutron particles from her starboard
cannon dotted deep pockmarks into her opponent.  The remainder of the vans
flashed past each other, spewing limited death due to the Sadens’ speed
increase.

Heskan
took a final look at the optical of
Superb
.  The damage appeared
superficial.  “Jack, put the fleet status display up again, please.”  The
remainder of his vanguard would be clear in moments.  Thirty-five seconds
behind, his main would engage the enemy, but fortunately at an agreeably fast
closure rate.  Heskan smiled with a deep satisfaction. 
Scepter’s
captain had gambled her own ship’s vector on
Elathra’s
destruction,
which sacrificed the quality of her entire fleet’s attack pass.  To his left,
Vernay rose from her chair.

“Chief,”
she said, “how bad is it?”

“Not
good, Commander,” he replied matter-of-factly.  “We’ve lost every connection
with the whole port wing.  Last time somethin’ like that happened, it was the
bow with Ana.”  He pointed at his console screen.  “Don’t know how but the
starboard batteries are still intact.  However, that particle cannon won’t be
firin’ more than once because of the damage to the wing radiators.”  He shook
his head in revulsion and muttered to himself, “What genius thought it was a
good idea to place these heat hogs on a ship this small?”

“Leave
it to a Hollie,” Vernay muttered.  “Ship systems?”

“Tunnel
drive is gone fer sure.  I’m waitin’ on a report from Engineerin’ but you’ll
know when I do.”

Vernay
started to walk away but Brown reached out for her arm and said, “Oh, I think
we lost another shuttle.  Whole bay decompressed so it’s probably damaged.” 
The man grinned.  “Don’t understand what you an’ the capt’n have against the
poor things.”  Brown threw the woman a wink.

Vernay
snorted but then regained her serious demeanor.  “Chief, I want a casualty
report soonest.  Our wounded have absolute priority over any repairs.”

“Hold
on, Stacy,” Heskan interrupted.

All
eyes turned toward the captain.

Heskan
looked soberly at his friend.  “Commander, this battle might not be over.”

The
survivors of the third pass receded from each other and Heskan took the natural
pause in the battle to assess the gruesome condition of his fleet. 
Elathra’s
charge into the enemy’s vanguard had minimized the time the balance of the
Seshafian ships had spent in the danger zone.  Nevertheless,
Rindr
had
suffered horrendously.  Even before her captain had struck her lights, the
ship’s inability to follow the vanguard’s turn to port and reassemble on her
flagship foreshadowed her submission.  The ships behind
Rindr
fared little
better. 
Anakim
was mangled and sailed with lights dim, and even though
Covington averred
Ravana
was still up for battle, his ship had been
thoroughly wrecked.  Ironically, it was the section’s only corvette,
Honor
,
sailing proudly at the rear that was most functional.  Further, she had even given
as much punishment as she received during the last pass.

In
return for
Rindr’s
and
Anakim’s
surrenders, the enemy van paid a
heavy price.  
Scepter
was debris, leaving only
Superb
as the
final brig in the contest. 
Anakim
had also taken her counterpart,
Bold
,
with her into retirement and
Ravana
had nearly destroyed a Saden snow
still
afire at her aft.  Heskan realized, as he watched the optical
of the burning ship, that if the raging flames spewing from the snow were not extinguished
soon, her captain would have no choice but to abandon her.

Heskan’s
fortunes had reversed in his main. 
Fame
had survived the contest but
Fly
was missing, except for her ELTI. 
Dart
was also drifting serenely out
of formation, lights extinguished.  The price paid by the Sadens was their brig,
Renown,
whose captain had decided to withdraw his shattered brig from
the conflict.

Elathra’s
plight was worse than even
Ravana’s
. 
Not only stripped of half her armament, she had been stripped nearly of half
her hull.  The once graceful appearance of her raptor-like form was now a
mockery to symmetry as the snow limped forward.  Lieutenant Ayala in
Engineering informed Heskan that any additional damage to the power systems
would certainly lead to a core overload.  She explained that
Elathra’s
imminent
demise was unavoidable in her current state, and the only question was whether
the snow would give them warning before her core folded.  The engineer fretted
over the loss of a Junkkers drive but the destruction of the alternate core
cooling system was of grave concern.   With the loss of the redundant system, a
single blow could set
Elathra
onto the path of annihilation in
milliseconds.

Ironically,
after nearly an hour of unrelenting battle, the relative strength of the
combatants was essentially unchanged.  While each fleet could barely muster a
single section, the contest remained closely balanced, at five to four.

“One
more ship than us,” Vernay noted, “and it’s a brig.”  She looked at the fleet
status display and stared skeptically at Heskan as she shook her head.

“I’m
not giving up, Stacy,” Heskan vowed.  He leaned toward her and waved her
closer.  When she was within earshot, he whispered, “I might consider it but
we’ve got no other options.”

Truesworth’s
panel chirped.  “Incoming message, Captain.”

Admiral
Wallace’s image appeared on the wall screen.  The man’s face matched the color
of his coat.  “Are you satisfied, you lunatic?” he lashed out vehemently. “How
many ships have been lost and how many more damaged to satisfy your morbid
curiosity?  Do you have any idea how many credits have been wasted on a battle
that was won an hour ago?”  He gestured violently toward his screen as he
ranted, “I’ll make sure you never obtain privateer’s work again, you madman. 
Your disregard for established chivalry has ensured that I will most certainly
not
honor your contract!”

Heskan
smiled at the man’s antics until he realized that Wallace was right about the
death and destruction around him.  With a brooding acceptance of what was to
come, he recorded his challenge.  “I’ve only just begun, Admiral.  If you
honestly think what you’ve been witnessing is wanton destruction, then you have
no idea what true war is.”  He smiled weakly but his eyes flashed boldly.  “You
also have no concept of sacrifice because the lost lives of the sailors under
me haven’t been wasted.  They were bequeathed to liberty.”  He let his voice
take on an unwavering edge.  “And I won’t dishonor their last measure of
devotion by surrendering to you, Admiral.  Not while I can still fight. 
Prepare for a fourth pass.”  He cut his recording and shifted his eyes to a
horrified Truesworth.  “Send it, Jack.”

Truesworth
nodded soberly and then looked at his station panel.  He hesitated marginally,
staring at the button that would signal the beginning of the end of his life. 
Exhaling, he pressed it.

Lieutenant
Covington’s voice sounded over the fleet command channel.  “They’re going to sing
songs about us,” he declared cheerfully.

“Or
threaten their children with us,” replied Baldwin in the same channel.

The
remark elicited a laugh from Vernay.  She looked over to Heskan and said, “I
think I like that woman.”