Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane (57 page)

When the Horathian force was judged sufficiently far enough away
from the jump point the Ssilli dropped the four ships into the mix between
Phoenix and her chasers. The four ships dropped out of hyper in a stellar
formation forty million kilometers out. They had dropped in a seemingly
impossible spot, less than two AU from the local star.

The ships were on a course to come in from the sun on the
Horathian's flank, precisely where the Admiral wanted to be. They were on a
least time course for the Pyrax jump point, but they would have to pass through
the enemy fleet to get there.

“Perfect,” the Admiral said, nodding as they settled from jump
exit.

“It'd better be. I don't want to do that again,” Nata'roka
replied. “And oh, by the way, we're down to half on fuel. This battle better
not take too long or there won't be enough fuel in the minnow's to make the
jump,” she said.

“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” the Admiral replied.
“Thank you Commander,” he said.

“If you don't mind, I think I'll just take a nap now,” the alien
replied, voice slurring. The Admiral nodded as the connection terminated. Even
in her advanced age she had done wonders, but her part was now finished.

<----*----*----*---->

Admiral Rico was confused by the sudden arrival of the four ships.
“No one can do that! That's not possible!” He said, rising out of his chair to
stare at the plot. He wasn't the only one stunned by their arrival. His flag
bridge was gibbering about that insane feat of navigation.

“Well, tell them that sir! They did it anyway!” Commander Cowl
said, waving a hand.

“Hathaway! It has to be him! What the hell does he think he's
doing?” Rico said, slowly sinking in his chair as the CIC updated the plot with
tentative ship classes and ID's. From the look of it Hathaway had picked up the
Romeo and Echo Corvettes and one of the colliers. But where were the rest, Rico
wondered.

“Sir how...”

“The squid he's got on board of course!” The Admiral replied.
“Don't be so dense,” he said in annoyance, glancing at the image of his flag
Captain. Burgon winced. “What bothers me is why did he come in on that course?
He knew we were here!”

“Sir, perhaps he thought we were gone? That we had sprung the
attack?” Cowl asked thoughtfully.

“Not likely,” the flag Captain said. “We have orders to wait until
our entire force is gathered,” he said sourly. He'd put in politely worded
requests to get off the stick but the Admiral had held firm to his orders.

“Well, whoever is driving, they sure screwed up. She's headed
exactly the wrong way!” the tactical officer said. “She's facing us not the
ship she was chasing!”

“The squid may have done it. Her way of pissing with us. Hathaway
will handle it,” Admiral Rico replied with a shrug. “In this chase, the more
the merrier it seems.”

“Aye sir,” the rating replied. “Shall we raise them?”

“Yes. I want to know what the hell is going on.”

<----*----*----*---->

“Numbers?” Irons asked. He fought to keep his voice even. He
didn't want to sound bored, that would be too obvious. But he didn't want to
sound excited or anxious either. His crew were leery enough at the odds as it
was.

The tactical officer looked up. “We're still getting tentative ID's
Admiral, sorry. Passive's only. CIC is still working on running things through
the computers. Only a few of the ships are broadcasting an IFF. The gunships
are dark, I think so they can get in closer to their prey.”

“Understood,” the Admiral said, grimacing at the editorial.
“Launch the fighters. Plan Baker. Inform the other ships as well.”

“Baker sir? Aye sir,” Miss Nobeki replied with a nod. She tapped
at her controls, opening a channel to the boat bay and passed the order along.
A minute later the three fighters launched in succession.

He had several plans, each were dependent on the conditions. Alpha
had been contingent on their catching most of the fleet in Lassie's net. They
would then cross the system together and jump to Pyrax. That was out.

Baker required Phoenix and Lassie to break from the warships and
make their way to the jump point on their own, preferably by going wide around
the fighting.

They had various other plans, and variants of each of them, but
he was now certain that things were going to get ugly very quickly. He might
have to implement his omega plan, for all the ships to scatter and jump if
possible. At least one had to get to Pyrax to warn them.

“Fighters away Admiral,” Miss Nobeki said, looking up. The three
fighters dropped into stealth right away, fading on the plot until CIC only had
them as tentative locations. Those were based on their last known course and
speed. After a moment the icons changed to a plot of their planned course.

“Very well,” the Admiral said. They were closing on the enemy
fleet at ten thousand kilometers per second. Things were getting very
interesting.

“CIC has passed along ID's Admiral,” Bounty reported. The plot
altered as icons of data were filled in. Some of it was supplied by the three
ship's passive sensors, some by what they knew of a ship's class and from what
their intelligence had reported would be here.

They had known the fleet was broken into four groups spaced
roughly a million kilometers apart. Now numbers and ship classes were
solidifying. The odds were definitely stacked against them.

The warships were arrayed in three groups. The outer hemispherical
shell had been comprised of a dozen gunships, two frigates, and six corvettes,
with the Garth and unexpected North Hampton class light cruisers forward, less
than a hundred thousand kilometers from the outer perimeter. That formation had
reshaped itself into a mob as they chased after the Phoenix at their individual
ship's best speed.

Four destroyers were on each of the Y and X-axis. The one
furthest from them was an Antelope fast attack destroyer. She had two six cm
Gauss and one force beam in a spinal mount, along with a dozen point defense
lasers and a dozen missile tubes. The one low was an Arboth class. The other
two destroyers were uglies, a mix of ship parts he hardly recognized. The
entire force was labeled Cruron 1. The Admiral wasn't going to quibble over
their choice of identifying markers.

In the pocket, hanging back were the two large ships.  CIC
labeled them Cruron 2. The Arrow was a relic, over fourteen hundred years old.
Little more than her frame was probably original. She was a cruiser escort
carrier hybrid, a flattened arrowhead shape with a pair of notches cut out of
her flanks for her flight deck. She was badly designed, thrown together around
the time of the second AI war. The ship could handle several squadrons of
fighters, but their intelligence stated that she only had a single mixed
squadron of fighters on board.

The Newmann class Battlecruiser had been renamed the 'Queen
Adrienne' according to CIC. Irons was very familiar with the design, it had
been on the drawing board when he had taken a stint in buships. His
fingerprints were all over the ship class since she was a scaled up Resolution
class.

CIC identified one of the frigates as a Yomagato missile frigate,
which made even less sense. Yomagato's were reserve units, ancient things even
older than the Arrow. They lacked energy weapons and even point defense lasers.
Though, someone might have added a few lasers in a refit he reminded himself.

Her missiles were normally short ranged, under two million
kilometers. The ship had been designed as a missile carrier, firing swarms of
missiles to overwhelm an opposing force. However she usually shot herself dry
in a single firing pass.

One of the frigates defending the jump point was a Horseshoe
class. The remaining frigates were Manta's. The Manta was a flattened disk with
drive nacelles on her flanks. The bow was notched for her forward sensors and
bow shield emitters. She had a crew of twenty. S
he was old but a well thought out design, fast for her
time, maneuverable, with six turrets, four spinal mount energy weapons, and
four missile tubes in her bow.

All of the corvettes were Apollo class. That said something there;
someone had a good supply of those ships. That and they had supplied this fleet
with so many to simplify their logistics and maintenance. There were at least
two more than their intel had specified.

The gunships were of many different makes and models. Many were
uglies, a few looked like converted small merchantman. Two were HK's he had
seen in Pyrax. The hunter killers had a spinal mount battlecruiser graser for
it's one and only weapon. She had a crew of six. One of the gunships was green
and curved, with a pair of weapon mounts outboard. He recognized her as a
Veraxin HK, she had come out at the same time as the Terran HK.

A dozen converted freighters and tankers, one liner, and one
factory ship the Andrew Carnegi or old Carnage as she was affectionately known
to her crew, were the fleet train sitting a million kilometers way from the
main fleet. CIC labeled the force tango 2.

There were a dozen gunships, two Manta frigates, and two Apollo
corvettes covering the jump point to Pyrax. Those were new, they hadn't been in
the intel Bounty had picked up. CIC labeled the force Tango 3.

The Battlecruiser floated in the center of the formation with the
Arrow sitting forward of it. Half of the formation was arrayed outward in a
hemisphere, with the small escort ships out on the perimeter. The remaining
half of the escorts were covering the jump point in another hemisphere, this
one set up with the jump point at their center and with all ship's facing
inward to hit anyone who was unlucky enough to emerge.

It was an interesting formation. On the one hand they were
covering external threats, on the other they were covering the jump point at
their rear. Their only ready reserve was the battlecruiser and Arrow though.
All the other cruisers were out on the perimeter with the destroyers in a
Y-axis stellar formation. That wasn't quite by the book; normally you kept the
cruisers back behind the perimeter to respond to a threat on any axis.
Apparently they were out to cast their net wide. Either that was to make it
easier to catch prey... he frowned and then nodded. Yes, that was it. They were
too spread out right now and inviting defeat in detail if an enemy fleet
attacked, but of course there was no enemy fleet. Just them. He checked the
status board. All the small outer perimeter ships were gunships. That made
sense to a degree, they had greater life support than a fighter or AWAC, but the
fact that they didn't even have an AWAC or CAP flight out from the carrier was
also interesting. He wondered briefly if they were still learning carrier OPS.

“Admiral, status change. The ship's are forming up. They are
coming together,” Bounty reported quietly. Enric looked up from his station
with a frown. Irina glanced his way. His face schooled into a deadpan and then
he went back to focusing on his station.

“Why? If they let us in we'd have no place to go. They could turn
inward and hammer us. We can pick them off one at a time Admiral.”

“I'm not complaining. The larger the target the better in this
case,” the Admiral said, hands on the arm rests. “Time to point luck?”

“Cruron one is still reforming. They've cut their speed to allow
the furthest ships out time to join them Admiral. Estimating... another five
minutes thirty-one seconds,” Sprite said. A clock appeared on his HUD.

“Very well.” He was jacked in, he checked his arm. “Are you ready
to play your part?” he asked.

“Admiral, there is no guaranteeing this is going to work,” Sprite
replied.

“Just do your best. If they get a whiff pull out. For now just get
in and lay your traps. We'll activate them a few seconds before Luck,” Irons
said.

“Aye sir,” Sprite said. “We're ready," she said, glancing at
Defender, Proteus, and Bounty. Unfortunately Phoenix was too far out of range
to lend a hand with this attack. Proteus had been pressed into service in his
place. With its intensive knowledge of ship's systems, the AI should be able to
do a bang up job.

The Admiral nodded. “Good. Good luck,” he said.

“We'll need it,” Sprite muttered as the four AI vanished. The Admiral
felt them pour through the ship's net and communication's array.

“AI away,” the Admiral said out loud.

<----*----*----*---->

Knowing they were outgunned, Admiral Irons used the AI’s to try
to disable as many ships as possible as they used subterfuge to get within
firing range.

Each of the AI took a battle group. Proteus took the smaller
ships, working rapidly to insert worms into their systems. Defender and Bounty
took on the corvettes and destroyers. Sprite saved her efforts for the
cruisers.

Her first task was the battlecruiser. Cut the head of the snake
off and it was a lot less effective fighting back. She slipped in with the
codes they had picked up in the captured ships and then forced the firewall
open as she rewrote its core programming, changing its access codes to suit her
needs. Then she went to work.

The tempting thing would be to hit her self-destruct or reactor,
either blowing her up or scramming her. But the system was heavily modified.
There were barely any fleet systems and software remaining in the system at all
for her to latch onto. She also couldn't get into the environmental controls
either. That was apparently on another system.