Wandering Engineer 6: Pirates Bane (58 page)

Instead she fell back onto her back up plan. She tossed her
dragons teeth viruses out, seeding them in various systems and then hit the net
with a rapid fire series of rabbit attacks.

Each virus was designed to take the system down and lobotomize it.
Once they were triggered all hell would break loose and the enemy would react
to her presence.

When she was certain she had done what she could she sent the
trigger and then pulled out for another ship.

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

“Sir, we're losing fire control,” the tactical officer said,
looking up from his station.

“You what?” the flag Captain demanded. “What the hell is going
on? Get it back!” He demanded, jowls shaking in anger.

Lieutenant Commander Gerald pounded at his station in frustration
and then looked up. “It's no good sir, we've lost coordination. All the weapons
mounts are in local control until we can figure it out.”

“Sir, I just tried to call the flag bridge, we lost the link. I
tried to call engineering and that link is dead too. We've lost all internal
communications,” the OPS officer said. “Main power is acting up too. We've got
two plasma breaches.”

“What the hell... of all the times to have a computer glitch!”
the exec said, shaking his head. He turned and pointed to a rating at an engineering
station. “You, send a runner to the flag bridge advising the Admiral of the
situation,” he said. The rating nodded and took off like a jackrabbit.

“Is it a glitch sir?” Ensign Ibex said looking up.

The senior officers turned to him. “Explain,” the Captain
growled.

Ibex gulped briefly, paling. He could see the skipper was in a
foul mood over this. “Well sir, we received a lot of data from the destroyer. I
thought it was an update, but it was encrypted. I shunted it to a buffer. Now
I'm wondering if it was an update at all.”

“A virus attack?” the exec said, testing the thought out loud. He
rubbed his chin. “Are you sure?”

“No sir, that's the problem. We've had our share of virus issues
over the years, just last month if you remember...” the exec waved the Ensign's
reminder away. “Anyway, we've lost all external communications as well.”

“We have helm control but it feels... I don't know sluggish,” the
helmsman volunteered. “But we don't have long range sensors sir.”

“Lovely,” the exec said. “So we can't even see where we're
going?”

“Yes sir.”

“Central fire control sensors are out. The point defense lidar,
the entire net. I think, if we can get the nearest mounts to send us their
feeds through cables...” an engineering rating said.

“Running cables? Let's hope it doesn't come to that,” the Captain
growled. “Get someone on the computers. Reboot them. Shut them down and root
them out. Use the roll back on equipment if you have to. For now, cut the
central net up into chunks.”

“Aye Captain.”

“We've lost shields. We've got the particle shields and nothing
else,” a rating said.

“Damn,” the tactical officer swore. He tried to jack in but then
unjacked. He clutched at his head. “What a migraine. Something just kicked me
hard.”

“So we can't jack in either. Yes, this is sounding like enemy
action,” the exec said.

“Get me a status report. Use hand radios and runners if you have
to,” the Captain growled. He turned to the exec, eyes flashing as the lights
flickered. A rating gasped in dismay, looking up. “Get me my ship back!”

“Aye aye sir,” the exec replied with a curt nod.

The tactical officer looked up to the Captain. The Captain was
standing next to his station, rubbing his chin. Captain Bluefield was a good
Captain, thoughtful. He was a rarity in the fleet, he hadn't been a raider and
he had no combat experience. But what he lacked in combat experience he more
than made up for in relentlessly drilling his people.

“I don't like it,” the Captain murmured. “CIC identified the ships
but why aren't they hailing us?”

“We received a data package Captain. It is the Bounty with
escorts.”

“But why are they here?” the Captain persisted. “No, something is
wrong. Hathaway wouldn't break his orders and leave his station.”

He turned and paced. He paused when CIC updated the plot. “Is this
accurate?” he asked, looking at the updated readings. “Run them again. And
someone compare them to what we have on the ships,” he said. He'd skippered an
Apollo briefly, he knew the mass readings. These were off by a hundred and
fifty tons. “Someone raise the flag. I want to know what's going on,” he
ordered.

The communications rating looked up. “Sir, we can't raise the
flag.”

“You what?” The Captain demanded, rounding on the hapless rating.
“That's impossible! Try again!”

“I did sir. Three times. I can't get anyone sir, our link is out.
I thought something was funny,” he frowned and sent a signal through his
implants. Slowly his frown deepened. “We're getting the same report in, I think
it hasn't been refreshed.”

“Shouldn't it have blanked?”

“No sir, when the system goes down or is out of contact with the
fleet it maintains a running plot based on last known course and telemetry
sent. It then updates that information through a refresh when we reestablish
contact,” the rating explained.

“I know that. I had my salad days Manuel,” the Captain said. “What
bothers me is this isn't feeling right.”

“What can we do?” the exec asked. He looked up from his station.
“We don't have orders from the flag.”

The tactical officer looked up. “Sir, CIC has confirmed, the
readings are accurate. And the mass readings are off on all three ships. CIC is
also reporting their drive strength is twenty percent above normal, and
Bounty's energy signature has been altered.”

“Altered?”

“She's almost a new ship sir,” guns replied.

“Altered,” the Captain mused. He turned in place for a moment,
staring at the image. “I think it's time to run a drill. Battle stations if you
please Mister Trevash,” he said mildly.

“Battle stations sir?” the exec asked. They both knew the provisions
to limit clock time on the tactical systems. Home logistics still didn't have a
good supply of some equipment.

“If I'm wrong I'm wrong,” the Captain said with a shrug. “But I'm
going to listen to my gut.”

“Aye sir,” the exec said, hitting the big red button. A klaxon
wailed for a moment, then it's sound changed. He looked up in annoyance just as
all hell broke loose.

Going to battle stations triggered viruses in the ship which
capered through the systems, rewriting or erasing files as they went. “What the
hell is going on?” the Captain demanded.

“I don't know!” the exec said. He pounded at the link and then
jerked his implant jack out with a gasp. “Damn!”

“What happened?”

“Something kicked me off. The computers are going nuts!”

“Virus attack!” the tactical officer said. “It's in our tactical
systems. Origin is communications,” he said, looking at that station.

The communication's rating hunched his shoulders.

“Call the CAG. Get them off. Get all the fighters off. Manually if
you have to. Make sure they don't connect to the CIC until we get this sorted
out,” the Captain growled.

“Aye sir.”

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

“We've done what we can Admiral. The rest is up to you. I didn't
get far with the Garth or the Arrow,” Sprite reported when she returned. “The
battlecruiser is deaf, dumb, and blind, but I don't know for how long,” she
warned.

“Good job,” the Admiral replied. He glanced over to the tactical
station.

“Time to point luck, one minute Admiral,” Miss Nobeki stated
flatly. “Changes in fire priorities?” Each of the three warships had
coordinated their tactical departments to set up a firing pass. They were
reliant on passive sensors; they wouldn't go to active until ten seconds before
launch.

“No, we'll stick with Gamma. We can't afford to hold any back,” the
Admiral replied. Bounty and each of the corvettes had some missile packs
strapped to their hulls as their only reserve. Against the Arrow they might be
enough, but the battlecruiser was a different story.

“We only have one shot at this,” Sprite murmured. It wasn't like
the Admiral to risk it all on a single throw of the dice. He had contingency
plans, but they were vague due to the lack of information they had. The Admiral
knew the axiom, 'no plan survives contact with the enemy' quite well. The
situation would become extremely fluid once the missiles and weapons started
flying.

“Thirty seconds. Lassie is opening her cargo doors,” Miss Nobeki
reported.

“We're getting good returns,” Mister Enric said. The Admiral
looked to him and nodded. Each of the crew were at their assigned battle
stations, all were in skin suits. Damage control personnel had their packs
within arm's reach at all times. As did the medics with their life saving gear.

One quarter of the crew had a spare air bottle in case someone
had a suit breach. He could tell they were excited and nervous.

“Ten seconds to point luck. We are going active with fire control
per plan Baker. Bounty has her assigned targets locked up. Romeo reports the
same. Echo has her targets locked up.”

“Lassie is deploying her brood Admiral,” Bounty said. The Admiral
nodded in response.

 “Crossing point Luck,” Miss Nobeki said. “Time to fire ten...”
Lassie's altered cargo holds opened and objects tumbled out. Each of the
thousands of objects was a six celled capital missile pack.

“One,” Miss Nobeki reached, voice expectant.

“Fire,” the Admiral said as the missile packs cleared the ship and
arrayed themselves at least ten meters apart from one another. Before the
Horathians could react or recognize the threat, Bounty and the corvettes
tactical departments gleefully used the missiles, sending the firing order to
send them off in a massive wave.

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

Each of the smart missiles was far too large for even Arboth to
carry. They were ten-meter long monsters designed to cut across thirty million
kilometers of space with time still on their drives. Each had their own bow
shield and counter measures on board and could coordinate its attack with other
smart missiles through communications telemetry. Normally, so many missiles
would be far too much for such small ships to aim and fire. Their fire control
would be hopelessly saturated by numbers alone.

However each of these missiles were smart missiles. The equivalent
of fire and forget missiles, they took the initial targeting telemetry from
their parent ship and then fired. Once they were stable they were on their own.

The engineering crew had pulled out all the stops to build
battlecruiser missiles to stuff into each of the packs. Now the equivalent
hellfire of two divisions of battlecruiser's full missile capacity roared
towards the enemy. Six thousand missiles erupted in their teeth at under a
million kilometers, all targeting the three cruisers, two destroyers, frigates,
corvettes, and gunships in the outer shell.

Not all the missiles were destined for the outer shell however,
one package fired it's missiles low; another two fired them high at different
targets.

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

The Horathian ships were caught out at the worst possible time
for them. Their computers were down, their communications were down and their
crew was distracted by the internal crisis. The Garth didn't notice the
incoming fire for ten precious seconds, and when Potskin the tactical officer
did see it, he demanded a recheck of the computers, insisting vehemently that
it was a computer glitch.

Panic and shocked disbelief crashed over the Horathian crews.
Their tactical departments rushed to do their best as the rest of the crew
frantically tried to suit up and restore their ship to fighting trim. Their
best wasn't good enough.

Captain Bluefield barked orders but nothing got through to the
other ships. Some of the ships targeted maneuvered, or at least attempted to do
so with half their systems down. Mutual defense was abandoned as fleet discipline
broke down. Lasers and counter missiles erupted into the void, sometimes
getting interposed by fire from other ships.

The North Hampton light cruiser got her shield up a minute before
the missiles reached final acquisition range but that posed another problem, it
blocked her own desperate defenses. Lasers dug impotently into the inside of
her shields, weakening them and overloading the force emitters. Two counter
missiles exploded inside the shield, blowing debris back at the ship, shredding
her starboard sensors, blinding her. With the computer network down the ship
couldn't coordinate its defenses with the shields to open windows for them to
fire through.

Thousands of Horathians hoped it was a drill or a nightmare. But
the nightmare for them was just beginning.

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

“Admiral, you aren't trying to take them alive are you this time?”
Sprite asked Irons alone. This wasn't like him; he had been so focused on
capturing ships earlier. She could sense his grim determination.

“No,” Irons said simply, cold eyes studying the tactical plot.
“We're going to blow the hell out of them,” he growled. “Lower the hammer
people. Time to show them how to fight.”

Bounty wasn't fighting to wound, she was fighting to kill. To
maim, render, and kill in a destructive orgy of death. Vastly outnumbered she
didn't bother trying to capture ships. Nuclear explosions thundered silently in
the void as they hammered ships into spreading balls of gas and debris.

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

“Someone tell me what the hell's going on!” Admiral Rico
demanded. He wanted to go down to the bridge and kill the entire bridge crew
for letting this happen but he couldn't. At least not now. He needed them.

They were getting intermittent radio reports from the weapon
mounts that had their own lidar or radar. The latest report had him practically
foaming at the mouth.

Somehow, and he wasn't certain how, the Arboth had launched
thousands of missiles at his fleet. Many of his ships were wreckage. More than
half if the reports could be believed. And here he was, in the most powerful
ship in the system, completely helpless to do anything about it!

“Sir, main engineering has reported they have the drive and power
systems under local control. They've got the shields back up.”

“Good. At least we have some defense,” the Admiral growled. “Now
someone get me something to see with!”

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

The tidal wave of missiles crashed through the last desperate
defenses one hundred thousand kilometers out and then began to deploy. Force
emitters in a third of the missiles bored holes through shields and then
focused warheads detonated. Nuclear warheads breached the ship's armor and tore
ships apart. Ships that lacked shields had warheads impact directly on the hull
with devastating results.

Some of the enemy ships were destroyed, caught off guard or
simply overwhelmed by the heavy fire. None had been designed to handle such
weapons fire. Admiral Irons wasn't interested in capturing them; he didn't have
the crew and couldn't afford to do so with the odds so out of his favor. He
couldn't afford to let a wounded enemy possibly recover and come after his
people. The two light cruisers were the primary targets of half of the smart
missiles. They were obliterated in nuclear fury.

The two lead destroyers, the Garth class light cruiser, the North
Hampton class light cruiser, two corvettes, a frigate, and ten gunships were
engulfed in the missile swarm. When the eye tearing explosions cleared only a
piece of one of the Garth's nacelles and the torn aft of the North Ha
mpton was left to tumble wildly away into
the void. The smaller ships were gone, turned into spreading balls of plasma
and tiny bits of ash. The rest of the larger ships were expanding balls of
debris. Most of it no larger than a centimeter.

“The Arrow is launching Admiral. It just got ugly for the Cobras,”
Bounty informed him.

“Can't help it. They'll have to make due,” the Admiral said
quietly. He had anticipated getting the battlecruiser in his net. That hadn't
happened. Now things were going to get a whole lot more dangerous.

Ships that were disabled by the AI's cyber attack like one of the
two remaining destroyers he didn't destroy once he was certain it was no longer
a threat. But as Bounty or one of the corvettes passed within range of a
disabled foe shots were fired, slamming into the supine foe, precision fire
taking out or disabling her sublight drive and sensors. They would be adrift,
helpless even if they did somehow get their computers back in order.