Battle Cruiser (37 page)

“Listen, Morris. It might be Zye. Give her a thumbs-up in the portal. I taught her the meaning of that gesture last week. See what she does.”

I waited tensely. At last, my helmet crackled, and Morris came back online.

“Sir, you’re not going to believe this. She gave me a thumbs-down in return.”

I grinned. Zye had made it.

-52-

As the second stage of the battle began, I felt far more confident than I had during the first. We flew on into the teeth of the enemy, undaunted by their tiny ships.

“Admiral Cunningham wishes to speak with you, Captain,” First Officer Durris informed me.

I looked over the tactical data before accepting the call. The enemy fleet was still another hour away. I had time to listen to the brass.

“Admiral,” I said, opening up a direct connection into my implants. “What can I do for you?”

“Captain Sparhawk,” she said sternly. “When I assigned you to command
Defiant
, I hadn’t envisioned you would turn it into a circus act. Can you explain your recent actions?”

We spent the next several minutes going over my strategic maneuvers. She seemed annoyed, but she became more congenial as the conversation went on.

“We’ve never seen tactics like this,” she said, going over vid data and diagrams transmitted during my report. “They landed on your hull, and they attacked your weapons systems?”

“That’s right, madam. It was like battling an invasion of roaches. We finally stamped out the last of them less than an hour ago.”

“All right,” she said. “Halsey was ready to court-martial you when we watched your ship go into a spin—but let’s put that behind us. We’ve got a surprise for you—a good one. We’ve launched a missile barrage from Luna. It’s not much, most of their birds were fired on
Defiant
last week. But they sent what they have left.”

Frowning, I turned back to the tactical boards. Zye still wasn’t on station. She’d been injured during her spacewalk, and I’d sent her to medical.

There were new contacts moments later, confirming the admiral’s words. Tiny dots appeared with a questioning yellow color assigned to them. They were pulsing, moving closer every minute.

“Thanks for the update,” I said. “That will certainly give the Stroj fleet something new to worry about. Now, Admiral, if I might be allowed to continue the battle.”

“Sparhawk, hold on,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me what you plan to do. Give me your battle plan. The politicians and the brass here are demanding to know what’s going to happen. The whole planet is watching this battle on live feed, and the news people are speculating wildly.”

After hesitating several seconds, I came up with an answer for her.

“Admiral,” I said, “I can’t tell you that. The enemy has infiltrated our government, remember?  What if they’re spying even now?”

She stared at me, her lips tightly drawn. “I’m under a lot of pressure. Public Servants, the press, my own staff. Can’t you give me something?”

Thinking for a moment, I smiled. Zye’s tricks had inspired me. Normally, I hated deceit. But in this case, it was a critical part of battle. Every Academy professor had stressed the importance of misleading the enemy.

“The key to our attack will be our missiles,” I said. “We’ve married Earth warheads to Beta missiles successfully. We plan to combine our birds with those from Luna, and we’ll destroy the entire Stroj fleet from a safe distance without loss.”

Admiral Cunningham appeared to be confused, but she smiled after thinking it over. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll pass this on as a classified report to be released only on a need-to-know basis.”

“Excellent,” I said. I felt certain the report would spread like wildfire, and I thought she must have known that.

Closing the channel, I went back to running my ship. I checked on the status of Rumbold and Zye. They were both undergoing “biological repair” as the ship liked to call medical procedures.

Looking at our damage reports, I calculated we needed time to repair our cannons on the hull. I turned toward Durris. “Begin braking. Give us more time.”

“Reduced speed will make us an easier target, Captain,” Durris pointed out.

“I know, but we need every cannon in action when we get close enough to hit them. I want as many kills as I can get before they are in range with their smaller weapons.”

“As you wish, sir,” Durris said, moving from station to station. He was operating more systems with Zye and Rumbold off the bridge. I also allowed him to bring in junior officers to help. They were little more than trainees, but we needed them.

We adjusted our course and began braking. We would still intercept the enemy formation, but at a reduced speed.

Repair bots flooded the ship. We’d kept them corralled while the invaders were crawling into the missile ports, but now that they were gone, we let them loose. Automatically, they rushed to every damaged area and went to work.  Soon, regions that had been blinking red on my overview diagrams went yellow, then eventually green.

Zye returned to duty during this process. I eyed her closely as she limped to her seat and sat down hard.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“I’m functional,” she said. “I underwent surgery, and it was successful.”

Getting up, I went to her side and looked her over. “Is that a broken femur you’re walking on?”

“Yes. Your medical people clamped an internal polymer splint onto the bone. The pain is manageable.”

“I see…”

Durris looked at me, as did Yamada. I got the feeling they wanted me to order Zye to a sick bed. I knew she had more than just a broken leg. She had to have radiation burns and God knew what else.

But I didn’t order her off the bridge. Zye was tough, and I didn’t know anyone better to operate her station. With luck, the battle would be over within hours.

“You’ll get some much needed rest when this engagement is over,” I told her, “one way, or the other.”

After a moment’s consideration, my words struck Zye as funny. She provided us with a huffing laugh. I realized then she must be on some kind of pain medication. I told myself I’d have to watch her performance closely.

“Zye,” I asked her, “how did you manage to trick the Stroj?”

She looked up at me proudly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and it appeared some of those capillaries were broken and bleeding just under the surface of her sclera. I resisted the urge to wince and squint in horror.

“I was fortunate,” she said. “The Stroj must have been in a hurry. They used Beta brain matter for most of the intellect in their constructs. The enemy troops were therefore unimaginative and easy to mislead.”

I forced a smile. “Well done. Carry on.”

Returning to my station, I began what turned out to be a short wait. Long before we’d managed to repair all the ship’s damage systems, the enemy came within range of our guns.

“We’re in range, Captain,” Durris said. “Should we hit them now, or wait?”

“Zye, do you think the Stroj will know our maximum range? What will they do if—”

“Sir,” Yamada interrupted, looking at her screens. “The enemy ships are spreading out.”

“There’s your answer,” Durris said. “They know exactly how far a Beta battle cruiser can reach.”

“The First Officer is right,” Zye said. “We’ve done battle with the Stroj on many occasions. Nothing this ship can do will be a surprise to them.”

“And every battle cruiser is more or less identical,” I said thoughtfully. “Zye, what would an Alpha commander do right now?”

She shrugged. “She would commence firing and close with the enemy.”

“Of course. We’ll do something else, then. We’ll drive in at flank speed and hold our fire. Helm, all ahead full.”

Durris had seated himself at the helm, I noted. I didn’t say anything. He’d wanted to man that station since the first moment he was on this bridge. Now that Rumbold was out of the way, he’d seen his chance and seized upon it.

The ship wheeled, and we were soon pressed back into our seats. The G-forces increased steadily, until it was difficult to breathe.

“That’s good enough,” I wheezed. “Zye, I thought this ship had inertial dampeners that would decrease the stress on our bodies.”

“They’re online and active, sir.”

Puzzled, I looked at the iconic gauges. We weren’t pulling two or three Gs, as I’d assumed. We were doing thirteen Gs. I was impressed. The stress on my body was no longer beyond my capacity to tolerate.

“How long until we reach optimal range?” I demanded.

“At this acceleration level,” Durris answered, “we’ve got ninety-six seconds to go.”

“When we get to optimal range, ease off and start firing everything we’ve got. I want to get in there and nail them before they can spread out.”

“Seventy-two seconds,” Zye said. Her voice was calm and gave no hint of distress. To her, the G-forces seemed normal.

“Sir, the enemy is firing,” Durris said. “We must be within their effective range.”

“What kind of armament?”

“Missiles and rail guns. Light pellets—probably accelerated slugs.”

“Helm, take us into an evasive pattern. Shift us a few degrees at random. Make their guns work a bit to get a strike. Have we got any force fields over our bow?”

“Meteor repelling systems are fully active,” Zye said. “No strikes registered yet.”

At this speed, kinetic forces such as those generated by a bullet could do grievous damage even to our thick-hulled ship. A rock could hit as hard as a nuclear warhead if two objects collided with enough velocity.

“Optimal firing range reached,” Durris said.

“Engines full stop!” I ordered. “Fire the main cannons on my mark, give me a wide spread cone on each…Mark!”

The ship shuddered as all our batteries opened up. Particle beams lanced out, the cannons firing in a chained sequence. Overheating symbols flashed up almost immediately.

“I don’t think the damaged bank of cannons is going to be able to keep up, Captain,” Yamada said.

“Confirmed,” Zye said. “The repair bots didn’t completely rebuild them. They need a full overhaul back at the station.”

“Cease firing on battery three. Dammit, can we take the damaged units offline and use only the cannons that work?”

Zye shook her head. “Beta batteries aren’t designed that way. The venting chains together. The pressures would damage the other cannons.”

“She’s right sir,” Durris said, pulling up diagrams and studying them. “Zye knows her ship. The cannons are kind of like pistons in a combustion engine. You can’t just stop using a few of them. It’s not designed for that. The whole system will shut down.”

Cursing, I ordered the robots to work on the battery. We were down to two banks of cannons.

“We’re registering hits,” Yamada said. “Sensors indicate…see for yourself.”

The forward wall flickered, and we all looked at the screen. Great gouts of energy were striking the enemy line. Groups of ships that hadn’t had time to get away from one another were being blasted apart all at once.

Durris whooped. “We’re burning three or four at a pop!”

“How many of the enemy ships are still in the fight?” I asked.

“Six hundred or so,” Yamada said. “Make that five hundred ninety. We’re still getting good hits in, but they’re spreading out.”

“Hit the brakes,” I ordered. “We’ll stand at this range and wipe them out.”

For the next two minutes, my plan worked brilliantly. We’d rushed in closer than they’d expected, faster than they’d expected, and we’d caught them in a tight formation. They were now paying a grim price for their rigid thinking.

Everyone on the bridge was smiling—but it was short lived. A storm of small strikes began drumming on our forward shielding. At first, it was like the patter of raindrops. But after a full minute had passed, it was as if we were in a monsoon.

“Forward shield is red-lining, sir,” Zye said.

“Can we turn our belly toward them?”

She looked at me as if I were mad. “Why?”

“There must be another deflection shield down there. We can power it up and—”

“No,” she said. “Beta ships are designed to fly in one direction. There is no belly shield.”

I nodded, unsurprised.

“All right then. Durris, dive us down out of this storm of fire.”

“That will cause one of our weapons banks to be out of alignment with the enemy,” Zye protested.

“Do it, Durris.”

We felt our guts come up into our throats as he performed the maneuver. The storm of pellets hitting our front shield lessened, but didn’t dissipate entirely.

“Level off and keep firing.”

He did so, and for a few minutes the shields slowly brightened to yellow again. But, the Stroj countered and the storm again intensified.

“How many ships do they have left?”

“Two hundred ninety-eight, sir,” Yamada said. “They’ve taken a beating.”

“We’re about to do the same. Durris, slew to starboard this time. We’ll get out of—”

“Sir, the missiles from Luna…” Yamada said.

“What about them, Ensign?”

“They’ve changed course… They’re now heading directly toward our flank.”

We looked at one another in astonishment.

“How close?”‘

“We’ve got seconds left before impact. They came right up on us, sir, but I thought they were going to plow into the Stroj line, I—”