Dreadnought (33 page)

“How
could it know anything specifically?” he asked. “Even if it is aware of us, how
can it know the present location of our ships?”

“I
suspect that it might be reading the echoes from my own sweeps. I also suggest
that a Starwolf carrier puts a fifteen million ton dent in the fabric of space,
a very small gravity well, but made very conspicuous by the fact that it is
moving.”

Gelrayen
made his decision quickly, and nodded. “Relay your suspicions to the Mardayn.”

“I
am, Commander,” Valthyrra reported. “She agrees with my judgement of the
situation, but she refuses to break off yet. She still wants a shot at the
Dreadnought, in the hope that it is not entirely certain of how matters stand.”

With
the Mardayn unwilling to withdraw, the other carriers had to hold their own
positions for fear that any movement might alert the Dreadnought to their
presence, if it did not know already. Distances within a system were deceptive;
a system looked like a relatively small and crowded space, with no part of it
more than a few minutes away to a fast ship like a Starwolf carrier. But those
distances were still great enough that none of the five carriers could have
moved quickly to assist another. Tracking with cannons would have been
impossible at that range, and a missile would need minutes of flight time.

“Commander,
I can see the flaw in this plan,” Valthyrra warned. “As the Mardayn comes
closer to the Dreadnought, we will have to terminate our tight beam
transmission of scanner images or the other ship is going to detect that signal
for certain. And that is going to leave the Mardayn blind. I am now ordering
the Mardayn to break off.”

“She
can simply ignore you,” Gelrayen remarked. “Keep feeding her all the data you have,
no matter what.”

“The
Kaeridayen is supporting my decision to terminate the attack, and the Mardayn
seems likely to agree. This is the very reason why I should have been the one
to go in after the Dreadnought.”

Unfortunately,
by the time the Mardayn agreed that it was time to retreat, it was already too
late for her. The Dreadnought made no change in either course or speed; it
simply attacked. The Starwolf carrier suddenly found herself caught in a broad,
pale beam that was stripping away power from her shields faster than she could
pour more energy into them, leaving her nothing left over for her weapons or
drives. She called for help, loudly and directly, and the other carriers
hurried to her rescue. The Methryn hurtled herself in through the system so
quickly that Captain Tarrel lost consciousness during the first few moments.

If
any of the other ships could have drawn a part of that fire or made a
distraction of themselves, it would have helped. Unfortunately, they were
simply too far away to be a threat. Even as the Mardayn struggled under that
first assault, a single beam of intense power struck her in the nose and began
to eat steadily along her length through the core of her main hull. After only
seconds, that narrow beam had cut into her engineering regions and the powerful
conversion generators already struggling to meet the demands placed upon them
to maintain the shields. The Mardayn was lost in a blinding flash, like that of
the explosion of a small star; an explosion so great that it knocked even the
Dreadnought from its course a thousand kilometers away.

The
other carriers reacted furiously to the sudden, violent death of their sister,
turning to strike without hesitation. As soon as the Methryn was able to resume
her transmission of impulse images, the two closer carriers hurtled in to
attack while the Dreadnought was still disoriented from the force of that
explosion. Captain Tarrel admired their determination. The absolute destruction
of a Starwolf carrier was such a rare event that she found herself shaken
almost beyond the ability to think clearly. Granted, the Starwolves and their
ships were probably designed to always keep going, no matter what.

“I
am advising the other carriers to keep themselves moving constantly and quickly,”
Valthyrra reported with deceptive calm. “These new weapons are obviously
effective only if they can be locked on target for several seconds. We can
counter that by darting in and making rapid strikes with our main batteries.”

“Do
the other carriers understand?” Gelrayen asked.

“They
have acknowledged,” Valthyrra said, bringing her camera pod around to face
where he stood behind the Commander’s station. “No doubt in response to its
failure in its battle with me, the Dreadnought determined the need to increase
its effectiveness. Either it had these more powerful weapons in reserve, it
adapted weapons it already had, or it created new ones.”

“Trendaessa
Vardon was right,” the Starwolf commented sourly, watching the impulse scan on
the main monitor. “That machine does have more tricks than we gave it credit
for.”

“You
people seem to be missing the whole point,” Captain Tarrel declared, sounding
rather desperate even to herself. “That machine just took out one of your
carriers. What can you do now but throw bolts at a shield that you know you
can’t penetrate this way?”

“Yes,
you have a perfectly valid point,” Valthyrra agreed, lifting her camera pod
slightly. “Commander, I am ordering the packs to the fighter bays. This is what
we should have done from the start.”

Gelrayen
nodded slowly. “I can see no other way that we might salvage this situation.”

Valthyrra
Methryn was taking herself into the system as quickly as she could, building
her speed steadily to take herself just barely into starflight for the few moments
she needed. The Vardon and the Destaen were trying to engage the Dreadnought by
themselves, since neither the Kerridayen nor the Methryn would come into range
for another couple of minutes. They were trying to fight a ship that they could
not track directly, through the impulse images being relayed to them by
Valthyrra. Their attack so far had proven to be completely ineffective, but at
least the Dreadnought seemed unable to lock its new, more powerful weapons on
the carriers as long as they kept moving.

After
a quick conversation with Trendaessa Kerridayen, Valthyrra began braking
somewhat early. Since she was the only carrier that lacked auxiliary shield
generators, she would stand off a short distance and provide accurate impulse
scans of the Dreadnought to help the other ships to coordinate their own
attack. That also gave her the opportunity to get her fighters moved down to
the bays and launch her packs, something the other carriers could not manage
while they were engaged in quick evasive maneuvers.

“Commander,
the first packs are moving into the bays now,” Valthyrra said. “The Kerridayen
has joined the Vardon and the Destaen in battle.”

“Are
they having any success?” Gelrayen asked.

“That
is extremely hard to measure. The objective now is to blind the Dreadnought
completely by depriving it of all external sensors, and we can only judge
whether that plan is effective by the deterioration of the Dreadnought’s
tracking control. I am not yet certain that we have had any success, but it
will take time. ” As Captain Tarrel interpreted that, the Starwolves would know
that their attack was effective if the Dreadnought failed to destroy them. They
knew, or assumed with very good reason, that the Dreadnought was able to see by
means of sensors extended through the shield, and that it could be blinded by
burning off those sensors with cannon fire. She agreed with Valthyrra that the
fighters, quicker and far more maneuverable than the carriers, and much smaller
targets, were better suited to this task. The carriers had been doing the
fighting so far on the assumption that they were more durable than the
fighters, but that assumption was possibly in error. The Dreadnought had the
weapons to destroy a carrier, but the fighters might have a superior defense in
their ability to evade.

But
even if the Starwolves did succeed in blinding the Dreadnought, and silencing
its weapons, that still did not mean that they had won the battle. As Captain
Tarrel saw it, the Dreadnought could either run blind or simply sit tight where
it was like some creature safe in its shell. When their first trick had failed,
she felt that it was time to clear out before things got worse and send the
Starwolves back to their drawing boards to work on some new weapons for
cracking that shield.

“Commander,
the Kerridayen is down,” Valthyrra warned.

“What
happened to her?” Gelrayen asked, hurrying to consult the scanner image.

“The
Dreadnought was able to lock on her with a discharge beam,” the ship explained.
“Her main generators seem to be down; no doubt the discharge was powerful
enough to disrupt her main power grid. She is trying to retreat on secondary
power, but the Dreadnought is chewing her to pieces.”

“Move
in to intercept,” Gelrayen told her. “We have to give her time to get away.”

“I
am moving in now, and the Freighter Taerregyn is coming into system to assist
in towing. I am launching my first packs now.”

The
first group of four packs hurtled out of their bays on the Methryn’s belly,
drives flaring as they emerged beneath the carrier’s nose. Guided by
Valthyrra’s scanner images, they moved off quickly to intercept their prey,
assuming their standard Vee formation before each ship at the end of the wings
moved to take positions one above and the other below the pack. As soon as the
bays were clear, Valthyrra moved away the empty racks and began bringing
forward the next groups of fighters.

At
the same time she was holding herself on a course to intercept the Kerridayen,
ready to do whatever she could to distract the Dreadnought. The Destaen was
there ahead of her, sitting off to one side of the Kerridayen and turning the
full power of her main battery against the Dreadnought, heedless of the
discharge beams ripping apart her enhanced shields. The alien weapon continued
to focus the greatest part of its attention on the stricken carrier, blasting
away sections of her unprotected hull. A large portion of her nose and wings
were gone already, tom apart by internal explosions and burning furiously .

“Valthyrra,
be careful!” Gelrayen warned her sharply. “If you lose your impulse scanners,
then we will be the ones who will be blind and helpless. The Kerridayen has to
have lost her own already.”

“Trendaessa
Kerridayen is dead,” Valthyrra said softly. Gelrayen looked up at her camera
pod. “What do you mean?”

“Her
main computer grid is destroyed. What remains of her crew is trying to abandon
ship, and we have to buy them time.” Valthyrra turned her camera pod to the
main viewscreen. “I am ordering the packs to stand clear of the Dreadnought,
and I am charging my conversion cannon. Transports from the Vardon and the
Destaen as well as my own are standing by to collect escape pods from the
Kerridayen.”

“Conversion
cannons have no effect on the Dreadnought,” Captain Tarrel reminded her. “The
Kerridayen tried that one before.”

Valthyrra
turned her camera pod. “I do not anticipate damaging it.”

Before
she had a chance to act, the Destaen also took a very bad hit in her main
engineering regions and was shaken by a series of explosions that disabled her
drives and most of her main conversion generators. The damage was very serious,
but not a threat to the survival of the carrier as long as she was protected
from further harm. That left only the Methryn and the Vardon in any condition
to fight; the Taerregyn was a freighter and possessed only minimal weapons.
Valthyrra rotated about, locked her conversion cannon on target and discharged
the stellar reserve of energy that she had assembled in her conversion holding
chamber. She released that flood of searing power slowly, pouring it over the
Dreadnought’s shield for as long as she could.

Valthyrra
cleared her impulse scanner as quickly as she could, as soon as she had
exhausted her reserve of energy, fearful of how the Dreadnought would respond.
Perhaps she had done in one stroke what the other carriers had been unable to
manage, blinding the Dreadnought by burning away the sensor array and other
detection devices extended just outside its shield. The immense machine
remained drifting on its previous course, deflected slightly by the Methryn’s
conversion discharge, its weapons still. Valthyrra doubted that this condition
would last for long; she instructed the other ships to hurry in their rescue
efforts, and ordered the packs to keep clear of the Dreadnought for fear of
provoking a response.

Now
that the Destaen was crippled, the Taerregyn had no choice but to tow it to
safety, leaving the burning hulk of the Kerridayen’s remains behind. If the
Dreadnought left the wreckage alone, perhaps they could return later to discover
if any of Trendaessa’s memory units remained intact and could be salvaged. The
Taerregyn moved in directly above the Destaen and settled until the two ships
were nearly touching, and the freighter locked onto the carrier’s hull
magnetically with retractable grappling units. Once the two ships were secured,
the Taerregyn engaged her main drives and began moving them both to safety. The
Methryn and the Vardon remained behind, waiting for their transports and
capture ships to gather in the Kerridayen’s escape pods.

“Judging
by the number of escape pods I have counted, I believe that we can hope to
recover one third to one half of the Kerridayen’s crew,” Valthyrra reported. “I
have ordered the packs to return to their bays, since there is no hope in
continuing this fight. The Dreadnought is still distracted with her own
condition.”

“Are
we giving up?” Gelrayen asked.

“No,
but we are going to do this the way I knew it should be done from the first. As
soon as we have all survivors aboard, then we are going through that shield to
destroy that monster.” “According to the plans we have discussed?” Gelrayen
asked, although he knew what her answer would be. “How many fighters do we have
modified so far?”