Warpath (54 page)

“No, I’m a little
disappointed to be shorter though,” Alice said, letting the Doctor
go and sitting down. “I really thought I’d get at least ten more
centimetres. Maybe a few years too, skip the whole teenage chapter
completely.”

Doctor Anderson sat
down across from her and took her hand. “We can use gene therapy to
cause a long growth period to supplement what’s going on, but I
don’t suggest that until you’re about twenty four. Your age is a
gift though,” he said. “If I could go back and be a teenager
again, with the advantages and opportunities you have, I would do it
in a heartbeat. The experiences I had when I was your age weren’t
just formative, they were incredibly intense. Teenagers your age feel
everything more keenly, learn faster, take in experiences
differently, and even feel the effects of excitement more powerfully.
Fill these years with as many meaningful memories and learning
experiences as you can. Something in your subconscious mind wanted to
be on this cusp between adolescent and adulthood, so I hope you run
with it, because you’re not going to be this young and fresh to the
universe forever.”

“Okay, I’ll give
that a try, but only if I can call you Gramps,” Alice said.

“I’ll take that
trade,” Doctor Anderson said. “Now, all the testing is finished,
and you’re completely healthy. What do you want to do?”

The Triton and Revenge
emerged from their wormhole with a dust cloud between them and the
Huntress. The Triton led the way through, ploughing a path into the
iron rich matter for the Revenge using antigravity shielding.

“We have been
detected, and are being ordered to surrender,” Liara announced. “We
are to finish moving through the dust cloud, power down all but
essential systems and prepare for boarding.”

“What’s the Admiral
doing?” Jake asked with a smirk.

“He’s agreeing to
their terms,” Liara replied. “Our official encoded orders from
him still tell us to do the opposite.”

“All right, signal
the Order command ship that we intend to surrender as well, try to
get as much information about their communications systems as you can
while you’re at it, though,” Jake ordered.

“Time to hack the
battleship,” Liara said.

Jake examined the main
tactical display and shook his head. The Huntress was venting
atmosphere from a large opening in her aft section. Two of their five
main thrusters had been destroyed, and their launch was open to space
from the aft section. Several small tug ships and boarding shuttles
were moving in to dock with the kilometre long war ship. The Triton’s
gunnery deck were marking them as their primary targets.

“We are being ordered
to take out Destroyer Alpha and Destroyer Beta. The Triton are taking
on the battleship,” Frost said from his left at the tactical
station.

“Beam weapons first,
we’ll discharge one DEMP beam on each of the destroyers. They are
turning to come straight at us, so focus on their bridges. I’ll
fire driller torpedoes at the one on the left while our beams
discharge, you take care of Beta with the guns,” Jake said. “How
are those new shields coming?”

“I’m having trouble
with power switching,” Ayan said. “I can only get twenty eight
percent of what I need, something’s not connecting.”

“It’s power
junction four,” Finn replied. “It’s failing under full load.”

“All right, I’ll
reset and try starting the new shields up with less power.”

“Hurry please,”
Jake said, looking at the minimal shielding on the nose of their
ship. “Helm, fit us in behind the Triton, flying sideways. Our
shielding is still strong on the sides.” He looked at Ayan out of
the corner of his eye, hoping she wouldn’t take the change in
tactic personally. She seemed completely unphased by his decision.

They were seconds away
from clearing the dust cloud, and their scanners began to reveal
damaged sections of the destroyers that they were ordered to defeat.
Alpha already had significant damage to their fighter launch bay, and
Beta had an opening in their port side hull that yawned open for
nineteen meters. Both of them were still regenerating their shields.

“Fighters detected,”
Kadri announced. “Five squads on scanners, they are flying an
escort formation around the boarding shuttles.”

“Can the Triton’s
gunnery deck take care of them all?” Jake asked, watching as
fifty-six new enemy contacts appeared on the tactical display.

“At that range, there
is little chance,” Frost said. “They’ll make a dent, but the
delay between firing and striking is too long to guarantee hits.”

Jake checked the status
of their fighter wings to find that Samurai Squadron, and three
Squadrons from the Triton were reporting ready. “Oz,” Jake asked
through an encrypted channel. “Are we launching fighters once we
clear this dust?”

“Yes, we need the
cover,” the Admiral replied. “So does the Huntress.”

“Then we launch,”
Jake said, nodding at Stephanie, who was watching him.

“Launch all
fighters?” she asked.

“Samurai Squadron,”
Jake said. “And whoever Minh-Chu wants to take with him. Launch at
maximum speed as soon as we clear the dust, they have to cover a lot
of distance.” The Triton and Revenge were approaching the edge of
the dust field, it was seconds away. “How are our new shields?”

“Activating, I can
give you a one hundred and forty percent improvement overall, and
repelling coverage across the nose of the ship. Warn the fighters. As
they cross the field, they will get bounced forward, about twelve
G’s.”

“Helm, take us down
under the Triton, facing the enemy destroyers,” Jake said.

“We need to be at
least four hundred meters away from the Triton so our shield doesn’t
interfere with their antigravity field,” Ayan said. “Nine hundred
would be better.”

“You heard her,”
Jake said to Ashley.

“Nine hundred metre
distance under the Triton,” Ashley repeated back from the helm. “No
problem.”

Jake watched his status
displays, glancing up at the tactical hologram as fighters rushed
forth from the Triton and Revenge’s fighter bays. Their shields
were reporting a ninety percent boost in strength. “Everything all
right with the shields?” The first of the torpedoes from the enemy
ships were twenty nine seconds away.

“I’m holding at
minimum power while the fighters launch,” Ayan explained. “If I
turn them up all the way too soon, they’ll get thrown out of our
shield barrier at about forty nine gravitational units.”

“New technology, new
rules,” Jake said. “Looks like I have some learning to do.”

“Don’t we all?”
Ayan said. “I have to manually balance the power here, so I’m
going to be busy.”

The last of Samurai
Squadron passed through their forward shielding, catching a boost of
speed as they did so. The entire squadron split and continued their
indirect course towards the cluster of enemy fighters around the
Huntress. The Triton’s gunnery deck and the high rate of fire pulse
turrets aboard the Revenge opened fire on the first salvo of enemy
torpedoes.

“Raising shield
intensity,” Ayan reported.

All but three of the
enemy torpedoes were torn to shreds by thousands of energy and solid
shots. One of the remaining torpedoes was deflected by the gravity
field emitted off the nose of the Revenge, detonating hundreds of
metres away. The other two struck the gravity field and exploded,
barely making any difference to the high-energy barrier beneath. Jake
checked and saw that Ayan had managed to rebalance the power
distribution so they were well protected. She was keeping up with the
task of drawing power equally from different parts of the ship, and
maintaining the intensity of the field across their entire exterior.
It all had to be done manually, and Jake didn’t think he could do
the job nearly as well, if at all. He didn’t complain that it
wasn’t as powerful as originally promised, it should be enough to
get them through the situation they faced and more.

“Fire DEMP beams,”
Jake ordered.

“They will be three
percent effective at this range,” Frost said.

“Drain our capacitor
bank, then we recharge and fire again.”

“Aye, firing.”

The white beams fired,
one striking each destroyer. Their shields registered an eleven
percent dip in power. The Revenge would not be able to fire again for
forty-nine seconds. The enemy destroyers kept firing torpedoes.
Another twenty-four were on their way into range, and Jake looked up
in time to see that their point defence weapons reduced that number
to only two with no help from the Triton.

The last two torpedoes
hit them head on, covering them with a nuclear flash, and their
sensors went dark for two seconds. “Our shields registered a nine
point eight percent loss in power,” Kadri reported. “Scanners and
antennae are back online. We can keep this one, right Captain?” she
said, turning and nodding towards Ayan.

“All right,” Jake
said, watching the Triton alter course to pursue the main battleship.
“Helm, full thrust ahead, we want to pull right up alongside these
destroyers. If they’re going to start firing nukes and antimatter
torpedoes, we’re going to have to make sure they take just as much
damage from them as we do.” He glanced at their power generation
and shield integrity. Only twelve percent of their main power was
being used for their new shields, and they were already fully
regenerated.

“Closing into close
range with Destroyers Alpha and Beta,” Ashley said. The Revenge’s
large rotary thrusters burned white, accelerating the vessel towards
the enemy. Their point defence turrets burned like flickering fires
along the surface of the hull, tearing through another salvo of
twenty four torpedoes that never made it to their mark.

The waiting while they
closed in was what tested Jake. He knew well enough that the time
could not be spent idly, and he checked on the status of his ship,
then on Samurai Squadron. Minh-Chu was directing his squad to come at
the Huntress wide, and Slick – the commander of Triton’s fighter
wing – was following his lead. There were hundreds of small bursts
of light against the enemy battleship’s shields as the fighters
tried to blind their sensors by unloading the smaller nuclear
munitions on it. They would be useless when they closed in on the
tugs and fighters around the Huntress, so it made sense that they’d
assist the Triton while they could.

The anti-fighter guns
on the Order battleship were slow and inaccurate thanks to the
frequent bursts of nuclear fire that scrambled their sensors and made
communication impossible. The Triton was closing in as the fighters
moved on, things were about to get difficult for the enemy
battleship.

The main thrusters on
the Revenge reversed so they wouldn’t rush by the enemy destroyers.
They were still moving quickly, but they would almost match the
enemy’s speed by the time they finished closing in. These kills had
to happen quickly, Jake knew. There were definitely Order of Eden
reinforcements on the way.

The Revenge rumbled as
all fifteen of their main rail cannons fired. The capacitor banks for
their directed magnetic pulse beams were fully charged. “How
effective are our beam weapons at this range?” Jake asked.

“Thirty nine
percent,” Frost replied.

“Wait until fifty,
then drain all our beam weapons on Destroyer Alpha. Aim all weapon
emplacements at that ship, I want it gone before the Triton has fully
engaged that battleship.”

“Aye, Captain,”
Frost said.

“Helm, keep our nose
pointed right at Destroyer Alpha until we’re under it,” Jake
ordered.

“This is Ronin,”
Minh-Chu said over his communicator. “All squadrons have engaged
the enemy fighters. It looks like there are still some gun crews
working on the Huntress, too. Five turrets just started firing.”

“Incoming torpedo
salvo,” Frost warned. “They’re spacing them out this time.”

Jake looked up in time
to see a series of torpedoes spaced several kilometres apart, and
knew what was coming before the first one detonated. A nuclear flash
erupted out of range, an attempt to blind their sensors. The next one
in line was destroyed by point defence weapons fire, hundreds of
high-energy bursts ripping the casing apart. An antimatter warning
appeared above that torpedo a moment before it exploded. That was the
first of seven explosions that followed, each one getting closer to
the Revenge until the last four exploded against their shields only
three seconds apart.

Jake watched their
shield energy level drop to three percent before the barrage was
over. Their sensors took four seconds to reset, and their
communications were out, but, to his surprise, their shields
recovered to twenty eight percent in five seconds, and their power
level increased steadily. Jake glanced over to Ayan’s engineering
station in time to see her fingers moving across the controls at a
frenzied pace. Finn entered the bridge in a rush, “I’m sorry, I
got here as fast as I could.” He said to her.

“Don’t worry, it’s
my fault,” Ayan explained. “I thought I could do this and manage
engineering for you from here at the same time so you could help with
things down there. But, no.”

“I don’t think
Agameg could do both if he grew a third arm,” Finn said, glancing
at Ayan’s station. A complex, ship-wide power diagram was in front
of her along with the active equations that represented the energies
that made their shield, she was interacting with both at the same
time. “I wish there was someone who was already an expert at this
so they could teach me how to do it,” she said.

“You’re doing
great,” Jake said. His tactical display showed that they were at
fifty one percent effective range for beam weapons. “Fire DEMPs,”
he told Frost.