Opening Moves (69 page)

“Can we really call it a victory, given what's happening right under our noses, commander?” Beaufort asked softly.

The Indian slowly shook his head. “I understand what you mean, sir, but after all is said and done it isn't my place to dictate my nation's policy, as much as what is happening here disgusts me. This decision is not mine to make, and it's not my place to burden my crew and their families with the repercussions of taking a stand here and now. I'm afraid you'll be on your own, sir.” He looked to the side again and made a cut off motion with his hand.

To Beaufort's surprise the channel however remained open.

Kapila leaned forward in his command chair. “Off the record now, Captain Beaufort. Regardless of whatever the differences between our nations may be, I'd like to express my crew's deep admiration for what you plan to do. We all know it's the decent thing to do. But be careful! The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Ashani have fired on third powers before. Be safe, and godspeed, sir.”

He saluted, and Beaufort stiffened, returning the military gesture. The connection terminated.

The Union captain felt all eyes on him when he looked up from his screen.

“Ready for orders, skipper,” Therese Ranaissa said with a hint of a smile.

Beaufort was a good man. He cared for his crew and his duty to his nation, and most of the force shared an implicit understanding that part of this duty was protecting the innocent from unwarranted aggression. They were far from home and isolated now, but each knew it was the right thing to do. If they left they would never be able to look at themselves in a mirror again. At that moment he felt immeasurable pride in his crew.

“Very well, then. Helm, move us toward the convoy. Sound general quarters and go weapons active, but do not, I repeat, do
not
target any vessels until I order it.” He shifted in his seat as JOHNSTON changed course and the piercing howl of the general quarters alert echoed through her armored hull. “Get the drones out of their bays and in position. Once the ship's at condition one open a channel to those Ashani bastards.”

Beaufort watched wistfully as the vectors of his ship and the destroyer began to diverge. His ship's new direction would take them on a course heading away from Tanith rather than towards it. On the other hand, Kapila would probably exit the gravity well on the other side of the inner system, just as they had planned. A new change of course at his speed and bearing now would have been a waste of fuel, and if things took a turn for the worse his relative speed advantage would give the Alliance crew a good chance of making it out of here unscathed.

The
Leyte
-class cruiser came fully to life now as crew members raced to their duty stations, while those already there donned their space suits and locked themselves into their seats' shock harnesses. Across the ship's hull laser defense clusters powered up and missile tubes were primed, and the cruiser's twelve dual railgun turrets rose from their pre-set positions, performing quick rotations and elevations to make sure their systems were fully operational and free of obstruction. Each barrel could move and track enemy targets individually, meaning that each turret could theoretically fight two opponents at a time.

Unlike the Alliance destroyer and its heavy focus on long range missile engagements, the
Leyte
-class featured a balanced armament of missile tubes, interceptor drones and railgun artillery, even though its railguns were expected to do the heavy lifting. Accelerating twenty kilogram slugs of tungsten to speeds of fifty thousand kilometers per second, each and every one of the two hundred millimeter barrels was able to dish out close to six megatons of firepower per shot. The problem with slug throwers was friction and ammunition, issues that were of no consequence to the plasma lasers favored by most other space forces. But the technology was a proven concept, and humanity's armed forces adhered to the old paradigm of 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

Beaufort put on his suit's helmet and concentrated on the imagery in the central holographic display. Fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds until JOHNSTON would be in range of the beleaguered convoy. Plenty of time for the Ashani to finish each and every one of these ships off.

But they wouldn't, that much Beaufort was convinced of. What they did followed a perverse logic that only war could bring forth. Their apparently wanton slaughter of innocents was meant to spur the defenders into action, to force them to leave the fixed defenses around Tanith behind and engage the Dominion ships in open combat. The Ashani commander counted on an emotional response, and the Agama and a few of the planets' defenders were just too willing to give him one. Beaufort wondered how he and his cruiser factored into the equation. Would they be the wrench in the works or just another target?

“
All stations report ready for action, sir. Drones are away,” Comamnder Ranaissa said. “They are moving into position.”

Larger vessels like the
Leyte
-class heavy cruisers carried a complement of interceptor drones. Having the appearance of a giant pockmarked egg, an interceptor drone in essence was nothing but a bunch of laser clusters scattered around a small gravitic drive. They formed an outer anti-missile screen around a ship, adding several ten thousand kilometers to their mother ship's effective missile interception range. Multiple ships could form combined screens, slaving their drone complements into one lead ship's fire control systems. Their small size and limited power sources gave them a comparably short combat endurance, but right now Beaufort was willing to bring every chip he had to the table.

“
We've opened a channel to the lead Dominion ship, sir. Standard merchant frequency.”

The captain pressed the comm key on his console and cleared his throat.

“
Dominion warships, this is the North American Union cruiser JOHNSTON. The ships you are attacking are civilian vessels and carry Union citizens. Cease your attacks immediately and allow them safe passage.
”

“Message recorded, sir,” Ranaissa said.

“
Good. Send it on a loop until we get a reaction from those butchers. ETA?”

The XO checked her figures. “Nine minutes and fifteen seconds until we reach the convoy, skipper.”

Beaufort scowled. Nine long minutes. Plenty of time for the Ashani to finish the job if they wanted to. Impatiently he drummed his gloved fingers on a bare part of his console. “Any response yet from the lead Dominion ship?”

“
Nothing, sir,” his XO answered. “Still firing on the refugees, and a Tanithan gunship just went down.”

Beaufort cursed under his breath. He wanted to get in there and make the Ashani stop, and he had no objections to using force on a race that fired on helpless and panicked civilians, but as Commander Kapila had pointed out it wasn't his place to dictate national policy, no matter the odds and circumstances. As the commanding officer of a Union warship, he had to be aware of his political responsibilities. Firing on an Ashani ship, even in these grim circumstances. would be unacceptable to his superiors. Worst case scenario, it could trigger a full scale war which nobody wanted and which nobody on the human side of the equation was prepared for. That, and it would certainly cost him his command and probably see him court marshaled. Finding a way to save these people without causing a war was a seemingly impossible conundrum.

“Helm, I want you to put us right on top of that throng of refugee ships.”

“
Aye Captain,” the navigator replied without hesitation.

His crew trusted him. Beaufort could only hope that trust wasn't misplaced. “We'll try and break up the fight by interposing us between the Ashani and the refugees,” he explained. “If we present a barrier to their guns that should force them to break off the attack unless they want to risk catching us in the crossfire. Then we will see if they want to talk.”

“Understood, skipper. However, there's one,” Ranaissa raised her point. “What if they don't break off and decide to force us out of the way?”

Beaufort's eyes met hers. “Our rules of engagement are clear in regard to self-defense, XO. I don't intend to provoke a fight, but neither will we just sit there idly and be fired upon. We're officially neutrals here and this will be what I'll communicate to the Dominion officer in charge. But if an Ashani laser just comes close to JOHNSTON I'll make them regret the day they were born.”

He put all his conviction into these words, and he knew he had to. It was paramount that the crew was convinced he was in control of the situation and knew exactly what he did. That, in a nutshell, was what a command position was all about. But on a subconscious level, Miles Beaufort knew that the detour from their official orders was an emotional reaction that could cost them dearly if they misplayed their hand – or if the other side just didn't want to play.

“
We're getting close enough for LIDAR, sir. Keep in mind that at this distance everything we see has already happened long before the pictures reach us,” Therese Ranaissa explained.

“
Put it on screen,” Beaufort said quietly.

They were still too far away even for the advanced optical sensors to show any details. And yet the scene displayed in crisp definition in the cruiser's central holoplot conveyed the ongoing tragedy better than any close-up could ever have done. JOHNSTON's tactical computers interposed transponder symbols and clusters of debris forming the picture into a distant and unequal battlefield. Every now and then it magnified heat plumes when clouds of burning plasma shot from wounded ships or the expanding fireballs of nuclear explosions turned helpless vessels into furnaces.

The left side of the holoplot momentarily lit up as close to a dozen explosions merged into one.

“
That was a thirty megaton freighter, sir. A couple ten thousand refugees aboard, I reckon,” Ranaissa quietly explained as the nuclear fireballs evaporated.

“
Comm, any reaction to our hails?” Beaufort demanded.

“
None, sir,“ came the reply. “I'm squawking them in Komerco standard, Érenni and Tuathaan to be on the safe side and they surely received them.”

Beaufort gritted his teeth. Well, silence was an answer in and of itself. He checked the vector projections again. Soon now, they would get their answer, one way or the other.

“Helm, match speed with the convoy. XO, activate our electronic warfare suite and try to blanket jam everything close to us. Let's see if we can put an end to this madness.”

Almost imperceptibly slowly, the course of the Union heavy cruiser and the scattered and beleaguered flotilla of civilian vessels began to merge. Like vultures, the Ashani ships – light cruisers and destroyers, going by the size and mass readings – continued to swarm them. Still, the bridge of JOHNSTON registered a marked decrease in fire coming from the Dominion flotilla. Whether it was just because of their appearance or because of the electronic countermeasures emanating from the cruiser's superstructure, Beaufort couldn't say. Blanket jamming was of limited efficiency against dedicated warships, filling the ether with white noise by pumping random tachyon emissions into space and trying to create targets where none existed. More dedicated platforms were able to launch drones mimicking the IR and emission output of their motherships. Maybe the Dominion ships just needed a few minutes to sift through the unfamiliar jamming patterns. Had Beaufort been able to concentrate his attention on a single opponent this could have turned into an interesting game of cat and mouse. The way it was, it was just one more measure he hoped would buy the refugees some time.

“Get us closer to that bulk freighter on our starboard side, helm. Comm, try to reach the other ships and order them to close the gaps between them and link up with us. We can't help them if they're spread out across sixty thousand kilometers!”

Ahead a pair of destroyers kept tearing into the bulk freighter Beaufort had meant. They weren't even using their main batteries, toying with the slow ship instead, as if it was a whale surrounded by whalers. For once Miles Beaufort was glad for the Ashani
modus operandi
as it gave him a chance to rescue the ship.

“
Closing up and matching speed in five, four, three...,” Therese Ranaissa began to count down and as one the bridge crew's attention focused on the two Dominion destroyers which attacked from different sides, their sickly green laser beams cutting through the vacuum of space. “This is it,” the XO breathed. “Crossing the firing arcs now.”

Beaufort's hands involuntarily gripped the edges of his command chair as he strained against the restraints of his shock harness. Weapons fire continued even as the JOHNSTON entered the line, with half a dozen laser beams zipping by the cruiser's hull merely kilometers away causing a few sharp breathes around the bridge.

“Too close,” his XO muttered under her breath, and the weapons officers eyes darted back and forth between his display and Beaufort's face.

“
Helm, change our speed and relative bearing to the freighter at random intervals. Let's see if we can throw a few more spanners in their work.”

“
Aye, skipper!” The navigator's reply sounded enthusiastic. With all the jamming going on it would be mad to continue to fire on the freighter if JOHNSTON changed her position at will.