Operation Chimera (28 page)

“Draxx warheads incoming,” Brooke said. “Eight seconds…”

Hardy barely paused for breath as his hands worked the helm. “Pitching to port.”

Driscoll grabbed a safety bar overheard, held on tight. “Brace for impact.”

Hardy’s quick thinking spared them a few of the hits. But the rest of the Draxx warheads struck the
Manhattan
’s side, slamming into the hull plating.

The ship shook.

Commander Teague returned to the bridge as the lights flickered on and off.

“Captain, how bad was the hit?” she asked.

“Port side. Packed quite a wallop,” Driscoll told her. “Helm, increase to full. Orient us to push through.”

“But, sir,” Hardy said, even as he did what he was ordered to do. “If they don’t move out of the way…”

“Do it, Lieutenant. Full speed, right at them. Brooke, load tubes three through five, and give them one apiece.”

“Aye,” Brooke said. Again, he readied himself.

Driscoll’s jaw set with determination. On the viewscreen, the Draxx vessels slid into view until they were on a collision path. Under full power, they grew larger at a frightening pace. The Draxx ships broke ranks, plunging into desperate maneuvers to evade collision. They barely had time to move clear. They were seconds from colliding.

“Helm, full stop! Braking thrusters!” Driscoll yelled.

Hardy cut the engines, and fired the forward brakes. Everyone on the bridge was thrown forward. The
Manhattan
groaned.

“Structural integrity compromised.” Frank’s voice filtered through the din of emergency alarms wailing around them.

“Weapons, launch all birds!” Driscoll shouted. The
Manhattan
took several hits from the Draxx capital ships scrambling to evade. The mighty vessel rocked from the barrage.

“Birds away!” Brooke said.

The missiles hurtled from the
Manhattan
and split, each headed for a different ship.

Frank continued to fire the main guns. “Cease fire, Frank,” Driscoll ordered.

“Yes, Captain.”

The internal thunder of the
Manhattan
’s guns ceased throughout the ship as they were silenced.

“Direct hit on two of them,” Lieutenant-Commander S’lestra reported. “Secondary hit on another.”

“Move us out, but stick tight,” Driscoll said. “Don’t give them too much room. The
Manhattan
is a hefty girl. Her size is our biggest disadvantage. We benefit from close-quarters combat. She responds well to sudden shifts in orientation and speed, despite her size. Let’s make the most of that.”

Commander Teague leaned toward Ensign Blair and Lieutenant-Commander S’lestra. “Is there anything we can do to resume contact with our people out there?”

“The comm is fried, Ma’am,” Ensign Blair said.

“This region isss completely disssrupting all communicationsss in and out. I don’t sssee a way around it.”

Teague looked away in thought for a moment, then realization dawned. “What about ascertaining the frequency of the disruption in the surrounding space and attempting to match it? See if there’s a pattern to it, and try to anticipate it.”

S’lestra’s mouth hung agape, tongue flicking at her teeth as she considered her proposal. “Yesss, it could work. Why didn’t we think of it before?”

“Because it’s never been attempted before. And no Union ship’s come this far into the Cluster until now. What if we had the AI cycle through every known frequency all at once? Sure there’d be some lag, but at least we’d be able to make contact,” Teague explained.

“Get to work,” S’lestra said, patting Ensign Blair’s seat. “Here, I’ll help you construct the sssequenssser.”

Teague slapped them both on the shoulder. “Keep me posted. Even if we can’t contact outside space, at least we might be able to talk to our fighters.”

Lieutenant Hardy felt the Captain’s presence behind him, but didn’t turn his head to check. He glanced sideward at Cochrane, busy dealing with the shifting positions of the three Draxx capital ships.

“Lieutenant, duck in close to that one there,” Driscoll ordered, pointing past him at the viewscreen. Ahead of them, one Draxx ship moved off to the right. Another was about to speed over them. Driscoll pointed to the turning ship. “Close as you can get. Right under their belly.”

“Aye, sir!” Hardy snapped, focused on the task at hand. He was more than impressed with the way she’d handled his vigorous maneuvers so far. “Closing to one hundred meters.”

“Closer. I want to reach out and give ‘em a tickle,” Driscoll said, and walked off.

The Captain stood next to Lieutenant Brooke. “Resume manual control of the guns. Aim at the underbelly and fire everything we have. Tear ‘em a new one.”

“Yes, sir,” Brooke said. He wiped sweat from his brow.

As it should be.
Driscoll moved away.
War is a sweaty business.

“Closing in, sir,” Hardy said through gritted teeth. “Sixty meters.”

“Fire!” Driscoll said.

Brooke let rip with the
Manhattan
’s guns, releasing a steady stream of deadly rain that shredded the underside of the Draxx vessel into a glimmering rain of metal shards. Sporadic explosions flared through the hull every so often as the behemoth slid over the upper edge of the viewscreen. Lieutenant Hardy sent the
Manhattan
into a dive, her aft section barely clearing the now powerless enemy hulk.

“Yes!” Brooke cried, a big smile on his face.

Driscoll laid a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, son. We’re not in the clear yet.”

Hardy brought them around. The other two Draxx capitol ships had circled back.

“Port ssside ssship firing,” S’lestra said.

“Brace for impact!” Commander Teague yelled as the Draxx warheads struck the
Manhattan
broadside. The massive vessel rumbled from the impact. The lights flickered, then returned to full strength.

“They’re hitting back,” Driscoll said under his breath.

Commander Teague drew close. “With them pounding us from both sides, the hull plating won’t last, sir.”

The Captain glanced at the viewscreen, at the two Draxx ships closing in.

“Orders, sir?” Brooke asked from the weapons station.

Driscoll thought for a second… then grinned.

f memory serves, the
Manhattan
’s garbage chutes are located along the topside of the vessel, angled a few degrees to aft,” Driscoll said, walking from one side of the bridge to the other, arms crossed. “Correct?”

“Yes…” Commander Teague said.

The chutes regularly ejected the ship’s general waste and hazardous materials―whatever couldn’t be safely re-sequenced and used in another capacity was let loose into the cosmos.

“And there are six of them in total, yes?” Driscoll asked.

Commander Teague nodded.

“Excellent. Contact the Munitions sergeant; tell her I want one missile loaded into each chute, mixed in with the garbage. They are to be set for remote detonation only,” he said. “And no engines. They’re to drift away, undetected.”

“Yes, Captain,” Teague said, and got to it.

Driscoll turned to Ensign Blair. “Get on the horn to engineering. Here’s what I want you to tell them…”

The
Manhattan
shouldered another hit from the Draxx. The hull plating absorbed the blast, though the aftershock rumbled all throughout the ship.

“He wants to do
what
?” Chief Macintosh asked.

Ensign Ne’ho held the comm. earpiece against his auditory sensors with one hand. “Bridge requests we get ready to shut down.”

Macintosh rolled his eyes. “Give me that,” he said and took the piece from Ne’ho. “What’s the order, you say? You
do
realize I’ve just got this tub back up and running…”

He listened as the order was repeated and explained in more detail, then nodded once. “Aye.”

Ensign Ne’ho took the earpiece back. “Sir?” he asked.

Chief Macintosh’s eyebrow rose to a peak as he shook his head, “He’s out of his mind. Absolutely out of his bloody mind…”