Counterstrike (Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 3) (14 page)

Now, in the very first shot of the engagement, the
Artemis
was completely destroyed with all hands aboard, and the
Atlas
was damaged to the point she was out of the fight. If he didn’t address this soon he would lose his crew to fear and doubt. The only problem was that he hardly felt qualified to comfort them; he was concerned that they would see right through his hollow words and look at the truth of the matter: his orders had directly led to the deaths of thousands of their fellow spacers. What right did he have to offer them comfort?

“Sir?” Davis said quietly from beside him, nudging him with her elbow. “Are you okay?”

“Hardly,” he mumbled before raising his voice. “Coms, patch me through on the shipwide and establish a com link to the rest of the squadron.”

“Channel established, sir,” Keller said.

“This is Captain Wolfe aboard the
Ares
,” he said without preamble. “As you’ve already heard or seen, we lost the
Artemis
in the opening salvo of this battle. Captain Forrest and her crew were brave, skilled, and performed their duty without question. Let’s not dishonor them by doing any different than they.

“Word has come back that the Phage core mind has been located by Colonel Blake’s strike force. The entire Terran Starfleet is now relying on the Ninth Squadron to once again complete its mission so that the safety of all human worlds can be assured. We will mourn our comrades after we execute the capture of this bastard … and then we will take our vengeance out on the core mind that sent it.
Ares
out.”

“You heard the captain,” Chief Green shouted to shake everyone out of their stupor. “Let’s get to work!”

The
Ares
continued her unpowered flight pursuing the Alpha, which appeared completely unconcerned about their presence. It undoubtedly had the positions of the three remaining combat-capable ships left in the system but seemed content to keep just ahead of the
Ares
with no overt move to evade or escape. Even across the vast distance and across the species-lines Jackson could almost feel the arrogance the thing exuded. It had already taken out two ships with a single shot, destroying one, and now glided away in an almost taunting manner.

Jackson hoped he was about to kick the smugness right out of the son of a bitch. Never in his life had he hated something so completely as he did the Phage, an intelligent species with inexplicable motivations that seemed only bent on killing as many as possible with no warning or explanation. The loss of the
Artemis
had stoked the flames so that now his hatred burned white hot within his chest like a mini-supernova. He wanted to not only eliminate them … he wanted them to suffer for what they’d done.

“Target has not significantly altered course,” Barrett interrupted his thoughts. “The gravity mine’s internal sensors have a lock and the Vruahn cube is updating the countdown. Detonation in ninety-eight minutes.”

“Nav! How far will that put us out of the affected area?” Jackson called.

“We will be two hundred and seven thousand kilometers out of the sphere of influence and just over four hundred kilometers behind the target,” Accari anticipated his captain’s next question.

The next hour and a half passed at an interminable crawl and it played hell with Jackson’s nerves. He was anxious to swing back at the Alpha and let it know that it wasn’t going to have an easy time of it, but he also wanted to get the mission back on track and get Barrett into a position where he could target the specific regions the Vruahn had indicated would disable the marauder. The biggest challenge now became keeping the Alpha engaged without taking any more casualties but also not allowing it to escape.

“Stand by,” Barrett said unnecessarily as everyone with a free eye had it turned towards the countdown timer on the main display. “Detonation!”

Jackson had no idea what to expect from a Vruahn gravity weapon, but at such a close range he’d sort of expected there to be some visible light phenomena given the forces that were at work. There was no discernible effect that was visible from the bridge of the ship, but the sensors told an entirely different story. The cube had warned him that the weapons were somewhat unpredictable at full yield, but he’d not bothered to ask just
how
unpredictable they were.

“Alpha has been …
thrown
… nearly seventy thousand kilometers off course.” Barrett shook his head. “It was sucked in towards the epicenter of the detonation. High-Res radar is showing that it’s tumbling in an uncontrolled flight roughly parallel to its original course and streaming something dense into space.”

“The opposing forces of the weapon must have ruptured the hull.” Jackson was suitably awed. The hide of a Super Alpha was nothing to sneer at, and at the edge of its effective range the Vruahn weapon had managed to split it enough that it was spewing that viscous glop that ran through it into space. “Is the blast area clear?”

“Our own accelerometers are picking up some residual eddies and ripples, sir,” Hayashi reported. “But there’s nothing that should cause more than a few bumps.”

“Very well.” Jackson stood. “Helm, direct pursuit course, all ahead flank. Coms, I want the
Icarus
and the
Hyperion
turning in and running ahead of the target but not to pursue. I want to box it in, not give it an avenue to escape from. The Vruahn weapon knocked the piss out of it, but it’ll be coming around soon and when it does it won’t be nearly so overconfident. Expect something new and horrible from this thing as well as a few ploys to try and get us within range of that plasma weapon.”

The
Ares
rumbled to life as the engines were reengaged, and the helmsman corrected their course so that they were once again rushing after the target at full speed. Jackson had seen how tough these things were first-hand and he knew there was no way that a single blast, even one like he’d just seen, was going to put it out of commission for long. By the time they closed the gap it was likely that the hull breeches would be healed up and it would be hauling ass out of the area to rethink its next move.

“What’s our range?” he asked.

“Five hundred and thirty thousand kilometers and closing,” Hayashi answered. “The blast also knocked it further out relative to our position.”

“Make sure the
Icarus
and
Hyperion
are angling out to compensate,” Jackson said. “Coms! Any word from the
Atlas
?”

“Just automated responses, sir,” Keller replied. “Any transmission that includes the name or registry number of the ship triggers the automated mayday.”

“Understood,” Jackson said. “Keep trying.” He was almost tempted to have the
Hyperion
peel off the pursuit and go render aid or at least investigate, but he couldn’t afford to try and corral the Alpha with only two destroyers on the line.

“OPS, prep a Jacobson drone for launch,” he ordered instead. “I want it to fly back and confirm the status of the
Atlas
and verify the loss of the
Artemis
.”

“Aye, sir,” Hayashi said. “Sending mission parameters down to flight ops now.”

It flew in the face of all Jackson's training to leave a potentially stranded group of spacers aboard a stricken starship when he had resources available to effect a rescue, but this wasn’t training and he couldn’t reduce his force by another third when he was already outgunned. The likelihood that anyone on the
Artemis
survived the plasma burst was so slim that he dared not pull another ship from his formation just to verify that, especially not when he had a hangar full of drones that could accomplish the same thing.

“If Colonel Blake was successful in his mission, why is his group returning to Terran space instead of flying out here as fast as they can to help us?” Davis asked him. “From what I understand, their FTL technology could put their strike ships out here well before this battle is over.”

“That’s a good question, Lieutenant,” Jackson frowned. “But since I have no direct way to contact New Sierra or Colonel Blake it’ll have to be pondered another time. The cube has been very specific about what it will and won’t do … and apparently talking to the human strike group is on the ‘won’t do’ list.”

Davis didn’t offer a rebuttal, but Jackson was more than a little disturbed at the obviousness of her observation. Why were the Vruahn leaving the Ninth flapping in the breeze against such an overmatched enemy when Blake’s ships could easily and more precisely subdue the monster they were chasing? Even more puzzling, why was the cube restricting such an obvious asset as the instantaneous interstellar com capability to talk to Blake or at least simply relay a message? The more he thought about it the more he again felt the gentle tug of the strings, being made to dance to the Vruahn’s tune. What left him seething was the fact that he had little choice for the foreseeable future but to continue letting them call the shots until he had more information.

The Super Alpha recovered from the gravity bomb much quicker than Jackson would have expected, much quicker than the first one he’d encountered would have been able. This made him approach the target with a bit more respect, a feeling that was apparently mutual as the Alpha abruptly changed course to take it away from the two closing destroyers ahead of it while still keeping ahead of the
Ares
. Jackson allowed himself a small, tight grin as he thought about the surprise the bastard must have had when they’d lit off a weapon that was generations ahead of anything it thought humans were capable of building.

“Captain, we’re approaching delta-V roll off,” Ensign Hayashi said over the muted rumble of the engines. “Target is still maintaining its interval and is matching all velocity changes.”

“Understood,” Jackson said. “Stand by for course change.” A ship like the
Ares
, which was pushed through space via the brute force method of direct thrust, would eventually come to a point at which the thrust of the engines were only able to give them a negligible bump in velocity. The roll off was just before they would reach their maximum velocity and it was an area in a ship’s performance band captains preferred to stay out of for a couple of reasons. The first was that the ship had to expend an incredible amount of propellant for not a lot of gain, and the other was that it didn’t allow for maneuvers that required them to accelerate ahead.

He could ignite the auxiliary boosters, but that wouldn’t give him a significant boost at their current velocity, and he had no doubt that the Alpha could just match their increase and keep ahead of them. The problem with this breed of Alpha was that they weren’t so easily fooled into taking rash action and tended to be much more cautious once their nose had been bloodied. Jackson didn’t think there was anything he could do to try and goad the Phage ship into coming about and charging him.

“Helm, come to port forty-six degrees relative, eleven degrees inclination,” Jackson ordered after staring at the tactical plots for a moment. “Reduce engine power: ahead one-half.”

“Coming onto new course and reducing engine output, aye.” The helmsman shot a questioning look over his shoulder.

“Specialist Accari, I am not relieving you of your task,” Jackson caught the look. “I’m just playing a hunch here and flying by feel.”

“Of course, Captain,” Accari said, his voice giving no indication he’d been insulted by his captain assuming the job of navigating the ship.

“Coms, tell Captain Wright I want her formation to continue along their current course and mirror any move made by the Phage,” Jackson said. “She is to maintain her interval to it unless it turns away and makes for the outer system, then she is authorized to assume the lead position and disable it before it can escape.”

“Yes, sir.” Keller slid his headset fully back onto his ears.

“Another hunch?” Davis asked.

“More like another blind stab into the dark,” Jackson muttered. “I just want to get a feel for how this one reacts to changes before we close the range and get into a running gun fight.”

The Alpha continued on as the
Ares
ceased accelerating and began to gently push off course towards the inner system. After three hours of steadily coming onto their new course, the Phage ship began to respond, but not in any way Jackson had assumed it would.

“Alpha has come to a full stop,” Barrett said.

“What?” Jackson nearly shouted in disbelief.

“Confirmed, sir,” Hayashi said. “Vruahn telemetry and our own Link updates show the target sitting stationary in space relative to the primary.” Jackson looked at the tactical plots in disgust as he realized he’d put all of his ships out of position. The
Ares
was travelling entirely in the wrong direction and the
Icarus
and
Hyperion
were bunched up and on a course that would make it almost impossible for them to come about onto a direct intercept without the Alpha having limitless options to easily evade them.

“Clever bastard,” Jackson ground out. “It wasn’t sure what we were doing, so it’s just not going to play. It’s completely taken the initiative away from us.”