Aurora: CV-01 (30 page)

Marak said something else, in a tone that could only be described as arrogant.

“What did he say?” Nathan asked after releasing his hold on Marak. Jalea was hesitant want to answer. “What did he say?” Nathan repeated more sternly.

“He said, it is already done.”

Nathan continued glaring at Marak, who stood confidently beside Jalea. He could tell by the rebel leader’s steely eyes that he was not one to back down when challenged. Nathan knew that the man had made his decision and there was nothing he could do to change it. The only question was, how he could make this work in their favor?

“Is there another place we can go?” Nathan was asking the question of Jalea, although his eyes were still locked with Marak’s for the moment. “Some place where we can make repairs? Get some supplies?” Jalea translated his request to Marak. For a moment, Nathan sensed that Marak was pleased that Nathan still sought his assistance. He had no doubt that Abigail’s words had been clearly and accurately translated to him by Jalea. And now had to wonder if Marak somehow felt like he had power over them because of their desperate situation. However there was nothing in Marak’s expression or demeanor that might reveal his intent.

“There is a world,” Jalea translated, “that still supports us. Not openly, but covertly. They are just beyond Takaran space. We have contacts on this world. Through them, we may find the assistance you require.”

“Please give the location of this world to Doctor Sorenson,” Nathan requested coldly.

“As you wish,” Jalea nodded, turning toward Abigail.

Nathan stared at Marak a moment longer, until the tension was broken by the communications officer.

“Sir, message from engineering. They can give us limited forward propulsion, but no more than ten percent thrust.”

“Thank you, Ensign.”

“That should be enough, for now,” Cameron noted.

Nathan finally broke eye contact with Marak, turning to Cameron instead. “Can you handle both helm and navigation?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, especially not at that speed.”

“Good. I’ll back you up on navigation if I can.”

“Thanks, but I’ve seen your navigation skills,” Cameron jabbed, finally getting a smile to crack Nathan’s serious expression.

“Jess, I assume you trained for tactical at some point?”

“You bet,” she answered. Spec-ops was a branch of the Security division. And all spec-ops applicants had to have graduated as rated security officers before they could get accepted into the spec-ops training course. Jessica stepped up to the tactical station and looked it over like she was being reunited with a long lost favorite toy.

“What’s the plan, Skipper?” Jessica asked, giddy at being back behind the tactical console.

“First, we get the hell outta here and jump to someplace safe,” Nathan explained. “Then we beg, borrow, or steal whatever we need to get our ship fixed. Then we find a way to get this ship, and that jump drive, back to Earth as quickly as possible. If that means we have to deal with the devil, then so be it.” Nathan stepped away from the tactical station and moved forward, taking a seat in the command chair directly in front of the station. Cameron traded looks with Jessica before taking the helm directly in front of Nathan.

“Sound General Quarters.”

CHAPTER 9

“The rebel ships have exited the asteroid field,” Jessica reported from the tactical station.

“Any change in the Takaran ships?” Nathan could feel the tension in the room as they waited to see if the diversion would have its desired effect.

“Nothing yet, but there’s still a lot of the field still in their way. They may not see them yet,” she pointed out.

“Captain,” Ensign Yosef called. “The rebel ships are generating an unusually high radiation output from their propulsion systems.”

Nathan spun his chair around to look at Jalea. “They’re lighting themselves up?”

“To ensure that they will be noticed,” Jalea explained.

“Isn’t that an obvious tactic?” Jessica asked.

“To you and I, perhaps,” Jalea answered. “But the Takarans do not usually win their battles through intelligence. They prefer overwhelming force.”

Jessica smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

She knew it was usually much easier to outthink an opponent than outgun them. Especially if they had a tendency to think
with
their guns.

“I don’t,” Nathan added. They had already been through a pounding by Takaran guns, and he didn’t care to go through it again anytime soon.

“Well, it worked,” Jessica reported. “The closest Takaran ship just lit up their mains and is giving chase. At their current speed, they should intercept the rebel ships in three minutes.”

“What about the second ship?” Nathan asked. If they were going to make their escape, they would need both of the enemy ships to take the bait.

“No change.”

Nathan was becoming nervous, and had to fight to hide it from his crew. He knew that although they might be able to slug it out with one Takaran ship, there was little chance of defeating two of them, unless they got really lucky with a few torpedo shots.

“Doctor Sorenson,” Nathan said. “How long do you need to calculate our jump?”

“Maybe five more minutes. But it will take twice that just to manually key it into the event sequencer.”

“Sounds like something that should be done automatically,” he commented.

“This is just a prototype, remember?”

“How long will it take us to reach a safe jump distance?” This time he was asking Cameron.

“About ten minutes at ten percent thrust.”

“That’s going to be cutting it close.”

“The ship finally reports ready for battle, Sir,” Jessica reported.

“Good. Make sure the forward torpedo tubes get loaded.”

“I’m on it,” Jessica answered. “The Takaran ship is launching missiles at the rebels. She’s launched four, two per target. The rebel ships are breaking formation, they’re launching countermeasures, and jamming. They’re performing evasive maneuvers.”

“At least they’re not going down without a fight,” he observed.

“Whoa! I’m seeing four rebel contacts now!”

“What? Where’d they come from?” Nathan stood in alarm at the news.

“Beats the hell outta me!”

“They are decoys,” Jalea reported calmly. “Impossible to distinguish from the real ships.”

“And they’re working, Sir!” Jessica added. “If I’m reading this right, it looks like the decoys continued on course and the original ships veered away sharply! And the missiles are tracking the decoys! Damn! That was slick!” Jessica cheered, pounding the console with her hand. “Missile impacts! All four. And I’m pretty sure they only destroyed the decoys.”

Nathan was impressed by the ingenuity that the rebel pilots were displaying. And he couldn’t help but wonder if those decoys were one of the improvements that Jalea had eluded to earlier. “We’ll know in a moment,” he mumbled. Either the rebels were really good tacticians, or they had grossly underestimated their opponents. “Can those decoys maneuver?”

“Yes, nearly as well as the ships that launched them,” Jalea assured Nathan.

“The rebel ships, or decoys, I don’t know which yet, they’re turning to engage the Takaran ship,” Jessica continued. “The Takaran is opening up with her cannons. But it doesn’t seem to be slowing down the rebel ships.”

“I’m picking up new signatures from the rebels ships, Captain,” Ensign Yosef reported. “They’re enveloped in some kind of an energy barrier, EM mostly, but highly charged.”

“Some kind of shielding?” Nathan surmised. He looked at Jalea, who simply nodded, seemingly surprised that Nathan understood the concept so easily. The Aurora was designed to use shielding herself, but it was ablative in nature, designed only to reflect energy weapons away from them. They had nothing to stop solid projectiles from striking their hull. If these rebels did, then that was something that would be quite useful in the defense of Earth. And it made Nathan wonder what other technologies this region of space might hold that would be useful back home.

“Holy shit!” Jessica cried out, immediately turning red as she realized she had let the inappropriate expletive fly. “Sorry, Sir. But the rebels ships just unleashed a hellish barrage of something!”

“Cannon fire?” Nathan hadn’t noticed any cannons on the rebel ships.

“No Sir, too big for cannon launched projectiles. They’re like mini-missiles, or flechettes or something. Whatever they are, they’re pounding that Takaran ship!”

Nathan was standing now, as was Cameron. If two of the rebel ships could possibly take out a Takaran warship, then they might be able to escape without further damage. “Can they actually take him out?”

“I doubt it, Sir, they can’t possibly keep up this level of bombardment long enough.”

Nathan again looked at Jalea, who simply said, “They will not need to.”

“The second ship is changing course, Captain!” Ensign Yosef announced.

Nathan felt another surge of hope well up from inside him, despite his best efforts to keep his emotions under control and stay focused.

Jessica checked the second ship’s course, quickly plotting the ship’s probable destination. “She’s right. Looks like they’re taking the bait as well,” Jessica reported.

“Yes!” Nathan exclaimed excitedly, not caring if he did show emotion. “Time to intercept?”

“Five minutes,” Jessica reported instantly, having anticipated his request.

Nathan looked at Abigail, “Doctor?”

“I’ll be done with the transition plot in a few minutes,” she answered. She was not accustomed to performing such complex computations under pressure. The original jump plots had taken her nearly a week to complete and even longer to verify. And now she was having to do them in minutes—a task she would’ve considered impossible only a few days ago. She cursed to herself in her native tongue, as she waited for her algorithms to process, unable to continue with each step until the previous step had been completed. The computer systems used at this station were not designed for the kind of multi-spatial algorithms she was running.

“The rebel ships have begun alternating fire,” Jessica reported, sounding a bit surprised.

Nathan looked to Jalea for an explanation, which she offered without having to be asked. “They have expended their primary loads. They will have to reload often from this point forward,” she explained.

“How much longer can they keep this up?”

Before Jalea could answer, Jessica offered an update. “The first ship is withdrawing! She’s backing away!”

Nathan jumped up from his seat, bounding the few steps to the tactical station to stand beside Jessica so that he could see the displays for himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her interpretation of the data, he was just so excited at the idea of the rebels defeating one of the enemy ships that he had to see for himself.

“The rebels are staying with her!” Nathan exclaimed. He watched with Jessica as the rebel ships continued to pound their target, taking turns firing as the other reloaded their flechette pods.

“One minute until the second ship joins the battle,” Jessica said.

“Right.” Nathan stood up straight, taking his attention away from the tactical display and leaving it to Jessica. “Helm, prepare to get underway,” he announced as he returned to the command chair.

“Yes Sir,” Cameron acknowledged.

“Second Takaran ship has engaged the rebels,” Jessica reported. “The rebel ships are breaking off their flechette attack and are maneuvering wildly.”

With both the Takaran ships engaged by the rebel decoys, they finally had as much of a diversion as they were going to get. And while there was a remote chance that the rebels ship could beat one Takaran ship, it was doubtful they could defeat two of them. Nathan knew that despite the risk in revealing their location, this was their only chance at escape.

“Take us out, Cam,” Nathan ordered. “All available speed,” he added, knowing it would not be much.

Cameron tapped a few buttons on her console, “Mains coming online, thrust at ten percent.”

The Aurora began to slowly move forward, her two remaining rebel escorts keeping pace beside her. Inside, without the inertial dampeners operating at full efficiency, the crew could feel the ship begin to accelerate. The force was not enough to knock anyone off their feet, but enough to cause a slight misstep for anyone not expecting the sudden shifting of the decks beneath their feet as they walked.

For the last few hours, the bridge crew had been looking at the surface of the asteroid in front of them as it slowly rotated. Now, as they flew up and over the massive rock, light from the system’s red dwarf star spilled over its jagged horizon, lighting up the interior of the bridge with its reddish-amber glow. The rock quickly passed under them as they left it behind, the distant red star glowing in the distance. Cameron immediately dipped the nose of the Aurora down slightly and dove under the next asteroid in their path, rolling slightly to starboard as she did so in order to better hug the service of the massive rock as they passed under it. She knew that the closer she stayed to these rocks, the less chance the enemy had of detecting them. And she wanted to make sure that they did not show up on the enemy sensors until the last possible moment.

Although ten percent thrust was considered a slow speed, in a dense asteroid field it still required intense concentration. Cameron had piloted the ship through far more difficult simulations, but that had been with Nathan at her side offering constant navigational assistance. And as poor as she had always felt his navigational skills to be, at that moment, she wished he was there, just in case.

“That’s it, keep us tucked in close,” Nathan encouraged. She wondered if he could tell how tense she was at that moment.

“Those rebel ships are coming awfully close to us,” Cameron reported. Every time one of the rebels moved too close to the Aurora, a proximity warning light would flash on the helm display. She knew that the rebel pilots were not going to inadvertently smash into her, but it was distracting nonetheless.

“Don’t worry about, it, Cam. They’re just trying to maintain a single contact profile in case we’re spotted.”