Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion Book 1) (11 page)

Chenko laughed. “You’re forgetting something, Frank. I
may have resigned as Navy Chief of Staff, but I haven’t resigned from the Navy.
I’m sure the new NCoS will find something for me to do, so I’ll be around.”
Turning to Trojan, Chenko said, “I am going to envy you, General Trojan.
General Masterson and I and the rest of us here on Earth are going to watch
from a distance as you get to run this war out there on the front lines. Hell,
now that I think of it, maybe I can convince the new NCoS to let me out into
the field too. I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at fleet command from the Bridge
of a new battleship.” All three officers laughed. It sounded good, but
Masterson and Trojan knew that was never going to happen. Trojan suspected that
the Admiral knew it too. The two Army officers said good-bye and left.

Chenko watched them go.
God, I hope Trojan’s right
about that Majestic device. We’re going to need all the help we can get when
Stacker screws the pooch. Too bad a lot of good men and women are going to pay
for his mistakes.

Day 259/2540

Drake looked at the chronometer and saw that it was only
nine minutes since the last time he had checked the time. The Bridge was quiet
except for the occasional sounds made by the equipment. No one was talking
either to each other or to anyone else on the ship. The tactical display was
still empty of any ship traffic. Valley Forge had now been floating silently
within Dresden’s hyper-zone for 69 days and 13 hours. The trip here from
Sparta, plus the return trip, would total just over 110 days. That meant that
he had less than 12 hours left in order to meet the return deadline of 180
days, and he had nothing to show for his efforts.

The Earth-based shipping companies were learning how to
make their freighters more difficult to capture. They no longer transmitted
their transponder IDs on the way out, nor did they use omni-directional radio
or radar. Nothing that would give away their position to an SSU commerce raider
drifting within a planet’s hyper-zone, just waiting for a ship to come within
interception range. Drake had learned about these new tactics the hard way.
During the past 69 days, half a dozen ships had arrived with their transponders
on, knowing full well that incoming ships were safe because of the randomness
of incoming trajectories. Trying to match speed and bearing quickly with a
decelerating ship was next to impossible, unless both ships happened to be
lined up just right. None of those six ships had been detected leaving, and by
listening to spaceport chatter from the planet, it was obvious that those ships
had left.

That meant Drake had to come up with a new tactic, and he
had come up with one that should work. Unfortunately, it required Valley Forge
being relatively close to the path of an outgoing freighter, and so far they
hadn’t seen one.

Drake returned his attention to one of the smaller
screens at his Command Station. The screen showed a three-dimensional chess
board, with a game in progress. He was playing against the ship’s computer, and
it was his turn. He was just about to announce his next move, when the tactical
display pinged for attention. Looking up, he saw the display zoom in to the
icon representing the Valley Forge. A new icon had just appeared. Valley
Forge’s radar, which was pointed away from the planet to avoid giving the
cruiser’s own position away, had picked up the freighter as that outbound ship
passed the cruiser and moved into the expanding cone of radar energy. The
freighter was already up to 352 kps. Valley Forge currently had a negligible
velocity.

“Okay, Helm, get us moving at max accel. Weapons,
standby,” said Drake. He waited to see what the freighter captain would do
since his equipment would notify him that radar beams from a nearby source were
bouncing off his hull. Would he try to veer off or run for the hyperzone
boundary?

“Comp, designate radar target as Sierra1. Can this ship
match position and velocity with Sierra1 before it crosses the hyperzone
boundary if it continues its present acceleration?” asked Drake.

“Negative,” said the electronic voice. It was just as he
expected. That ship had too much of a head start. The only way to catch the
freighter would be to damage her maneuvering engines with missiles in order to
keep her velocity low enough that the Valley Forge could catch up. Since the
hyperdrive was typically located deeper inside the ship, it should stay
undamaged. After docking, his people would board the ship, secure the crew and
use the working jump drive to take the freighter back to Sparta. If necessary,
Valley Forge could use her own engines to slowly push the freighter to a new
heading while the two ships were docked. It was a risky maneuver, but it could
be done. That was all yet to come. Radar was showing that the freighter was not
trying to veer off. Acceleration had increased slightly from 5.0Gs to 5.2Gs.
Their captain was making a run for it.

“Transmit the recorded warning via
maser
. WO, if
that captain refuses to shut his engines down, we’ll do it for him. Prepare to
fire tubes one and two. You may as well go ahead and load the other tubes with
HEs too.”

The Weapons Officer and the Communications Technician
acknowledged their orders. Drake waited the 60 seconds the recorded message
gave the freighter captain to shut his engines.

When it was clear that he was not going to comply, Drake
said, “Fire one and two!”

“One and two fired! Tubes three to ten are loaded and
ready to fire, Skipper!” said the Weapons Officer.

“He’s calling for help,” said the Com Tech.

Drake nodded. Of course he would, but both ships were too
far from the planet for anyone there to help him. That was why Valley Forge had
positioned herself this far out to begin with. No ship stationed on or near the
planet could accelerate fast enough to catch them now. He checked the display
sidebar to see that the missiles, with their 350Gs acceleration, would reach
the freighter in just under six and a half minutes.

“He’s scanning us with radar now,” said the Com Tech.

“Good! That means he’ll see the missiles coming at him,
and if he’s smart, he’ll shut his engines down before they reach him,” said
Drake. The display pinged again. Sierra1 was now trying to veer off to one side
in a futile attempt to avoid being hit by the missiles.

“It seems he’s not that smart,” said Drake, as he shook
his head in dismay. How could that captain not know that navy missiles had
their own terminal radar guidance and homing capability?

The 389 seconds went surprisingly fast. As soon as the
icon representing the missiles merged with the freighter icon, her acceleration
dropped to 0.4Gs. Drake had the tactical computer do a quick calculation and
smiled at the result. Valley Forge could reach and match velocities with that
ship before she crossed the boundary, with almost ten minutes to spare. Plenty
of time to board and secure the crew.

“Com, tell that captain there’s no way his ship can jump
away before we reach him. You can also tell him that if he and his crew are
able to abandon ship, we’ll leave them alone. We’re not after prisoners, just
the ship.”

Drake was pleased to see that the Helm Officer had taken
the initiative to adjust Valley Forge’s trajectory to compensate for the
freighter’s evasive maneuvers.

“Should we begin 360 degree radar sweeps now, Skipper?” asked
the Weapons Officer. Drake pondered that as he listened to the Com Tech repeat
his message to the other ship. The element of surprise was gone now. Dresden
obviously knew about the Valley Forge from the freighter’s call for help. Radar
scanning all around them would not provide Dresden with any information they
didn’t already have.

“Yes, begin 360 degree sweeps,” said Drake. Seven seconds
later the tactical display pinged for attention again. A new icon appeared at a
distance of roughly 1.1 million kilometers. It was a ship heading towards
Dresden with a velocity of 144 kps, and it was decelerating at the rate of
7.7Gs. Drake groaned. No freighter could change speed that quickly. It had to
be a FED cruiser. The display pinged again. The FED cruiser was now
accelerating AND slowly coming around, probably to a heading that would take it
towards Sierra1, and that meant that Valley Forge was in trouble.

“Comp, designate the new contact as Sierra2. WO,
re-target tubes three to ten on Sierra2, and reload them with KEs as soon as we
fire.”

Drake banged his right fist on his Command Chair’s
armrest. Of all the blasted bad luck, they would have to run into another
cruiser. They were evenly matched. Valley Forge had an advantage due to its
position, but Drake didn’t know if that would be enough to avoid Valley Forge
being pounded into scrap in a missile exchange. It was small consolation to him
that the other ship would also suffer a lot of damage. He wanted to get his
ship and crew home, so that they could fight another day, and it didn’t look
like that was going to happen.

“THEY’RE FIRING AT US!” yelled the Weapons Officer.

“Are we locked on to Sierra2 yet?” Drake tried to keep
his voice calm. Captains weren’t supposed to get excited.

“All eight are re-targeted, Sir!”

“Then fire three to ten,” ordered Drake.

“Missiles fired!” said the WO.

“Fire one and two at the freighter, then reload them with
KEs to be targeted on the cruiser,” ordered Drake. Capturing the freighter was
now out of the question, but they could still damage it. The freighter would
eventually be repaired, but in the meantime the Federation would not be able to
use it. It would be a small victory, but worth taking advantage of while they
were still able.

“One and two fired. All tubes reloading with KEs!” said
the WO.

Drake examined the tactical display. Valley Forge was
moving away from the cruiser. In terms of the geometry, they were the lead ship
in what was essentially a stern chase. That meant the Sierra2’s missiles were
clawing their way towards his ship even as his ship was moving further away.
His missiles and their target, on the other hand, were moving towards each
other. Theoretically, if both ships fired a missile volley at the same time,
his missiles would reach their target first. The other advantage of being the
lead ship in a stern chase depended on what kinds of warheads were being used.
All other things being equal, the ship being chased should fire kinetic energy
warhead missiles. With those missiles and the chasing ship accelerating towards
each other, their combined closing velocity would be extremely high, and the
kinetic energy generated upon impact would be correspondingly high. It was also
very likely that the warheads would hit that part of the ship that contained
its missile tubes, thereby potentially crippling the chasing ship’s ability to
continue firing.

From the perspective of the ship doing the chasing,
kinetic energy warheads would be less effective because the closing velocity
upon impact would be the difference between missile and ship velocity, not the
sum of the two velocities. However, Valley Forge’s stern, where all the
maneuvering engines were located, would be hit unless Drake took some action to
avoid that. Crippling the other ship’s ability to fire more missiles would be
useless if Valley Forge was unable to maneuver and therefore unable to line up
on a target star for a hyperjump. If he were commanding that other cruiser, he
would fire missiles with high explosive warheads to make up for the less
effective KE warheads.

He checked the tactical display’s sidebar. Sierra2’s
first missile volley would take 835 seconds to reach Valley Forge, almost
fourteen minutes. His first volley, which was fired later, would hit Sierra2 at
almost the same time. Drake got up and sprinted over to the Weapons Station.

When the WO looked up at him, Drake said, “As soon as our
tubes are reloaded and targeted, fire them and reload with KEs. Keep firing as
fast as you can. When you run out of KEs, use the HEs, but keep one HE missile
in missile storage no matter what, understand?”

“Got it, Skipper.”

“Good man!” Drake patted the officer on the shoulder as
he returned to his Command Chair. Holding one HE missile back would give him
and his crew the option of sabotaging the ship in case they needed to surrender,
so that the FEDs wouldn’t be able to use her again. Before he sat back down, he
said, “Comp…shipwide intercom.” He heard the two-tone signal to notify the crew
that an announcement was coming. “Captain to crew. We’re in the process of
swapping missile volleys with a FED cruiser. Get your pressure suits on and
stay away from the outer edges of the ship. We’re going to get hit, and we’re
going to suffer damage, but so will they. I’m hoping we’ll still be able to
maneuver and jump by the time they run out of missiles. End of announcement.”
Looking around, he said, “Pressure suits on everybody!” He pulled his pressure
suit out from under his command chair and quickly put it on, except for the
helmet, which he placed in a bracket at the top of the chair where he could
reach it while seated.

“Helm, cut acceleration long enough to rotate us 90
degrees to a course that’s as close as possible to a jump trajectory for an SSU
system, then resume acceleration.”

“Course change understood, Sir!”

As Drake sat back down and buckled himself in, he watched
the tactical display. Sierra2 had fired another volley, but so had his ship.
Once Valley Forge was accelerating on her new bearing, her engines would no
longer be in that part of the hull that was closest to the incoming missiles.
The ship would be hit on her side. The key piece of equipment was the jump
drive, which was more or less in the center of the ship. It might be damaged no
matter which direction the missiles came from. There was nothing he could do
about that, but his re-orientation of the ship’s bow and stern just might let
them retain their ability to maneuver, assuming that the missile impacts didn’t
knock out the power plants. There were still almost nine minutes to go before
the first incoming wave of missiles reached them. He looked down at his hands.
They were shaking. It was hard to stay calm when you knew missiles were on
their way to try to kill you. Who was it that said military duty was months of
boredom interlaced with moments of sheer terror? How about nine minutes of
terror?