Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) (19 page)

“She’s
stopped trying to veer off,” said the Astrogator.

Molitor
checked the sidebar again. Black Moon’s speed was still increasing, but not by
as much as before. That could only mean that she was willing to let Coral Sea
get a lot closer in order to maintain a particular vector heading. “Check her
heading, Astro. Is she lined up for another star system?” asked Molitor. The
reply came a few seconds later.

“Aurora.
It looks like she’s going to try to jump to Aurora if she makes it past the
hyper-zone boundary.”

Molitor
nodded in understanding. Aurora was the closest colony that required the least
change in vector. Even if Coral Sea damaged all her maneuvering engines, her
momentum would still take her past the boundary, and if her jump drive was
still operational, she’d still be able to get to the Aurora system where her
lifeboats might be able to make it to the planet and the colony there. It was a
desperate gamble on the Captain’s part. Coral Sea could get to Aurora star
system first if need be, but Molitor didn’t want to have to take a long detour
which would delay her rendezvous with the rest of her fleet. Letting Black Moon
get away from this star system was not an acceptable option.

“Astro,
plot us a course that brings us behind her on the same vector. Helm, execute
the new course as soon as it’s ready. How’re we doing on the recharge, Guns?”

“Ready
to fire again in twelve seconds, Sir.”

“Fine,
you can skip the countdown from now on, Guns.”

“Understood.
Both turrets have fired. Recharging.” The sidebar data showed no change in
Black Moon’s acceleration or vector.

“We
missed,” said Molitor in a low voice. She saw her Astrogator turn to her.

“Maybe
not. When we hit him before, he had his ship pointed away from us so that his
engines could generate as much sideways thrust as possible. That meant the side
of the ship containing the engines was facing us. Now that he’s settled down on
the Aurora vector, he may have rotated the ship so that his engines are facing
away from us. We may have hit the hull, but not penetrated deep enough to reach
either the engines or power plant.”

Molitor
nodded. The explanation made perfect sense. Letting the ship get hit where
nothing vital would be damaged tied in with the plan to redirect to the Aurora
colony. Even when Black Moon passed by the Coral Sea and started to pull away
from her again, that captain could still rotate the hull so that her engines
and power plant were protected as much as possible.

“Then
we’ll just have to keep on hitting him until we blast a hole down into the
engineering guts of the ship and hope we can do that before they cross the
boundary and jump away,” said Molitor.

“There
is an alternative,” said the Astrogator.

“Let’s
hear it.”

“If
he maintains his acceleration and course, we’ll get within one light second
range of him at our closest point before he starts to open the range again.
That’s barely close enough to use our x-ray lasers with a reasonable chance of
hitting him. The x-rays have a lot more penetration capability. As long as we
don’t miss altogether, they should be able to punch their way right through the
entire hull. That’s bound to hit something vital.”

Molitor
smiled. She had forgotten about the ship’s two x-ray laser turrets. At a range
of one light second, they would have to aim the x-ray lasers very carefully at
where the target would be by the time the high energy beams of x-rays got
there, but the Astrogator was right about their penetration ability. That was
their big advantage over the standard photon laser. Concentrated x-rays were so
energetic that they could literally cut a ship in half if the beam could be
powered long enough. By comparison, the superluminals while faster were not as
powerful.

“Good
thinking, Tony. How long until we get to that minimum range?” asked Molitor.

“Just
over forty-two minutes.”

Molitor
looked over to the Weapons Station just as the W.O. said, “We’ve fired again.
Recharging.” A quick glance confirmed that Black Moon’s acceleration and vector
were unchanged. Molitor wondered if the two superluminal turrets would continue
to function if they were fired continuously for 40 more minutes. There were
bound to be more battles before Coral Sea got back to Excalibur. She unbuckled
herself and made her way over to the Weapons Station.

“How
are the Supers holding up?” she asked.

“Both
emitter temperatures are still within normal tolerance, but S1 is closer to the
red line. I don’t think they’ll last if we keep firing them for another forty
minutes.”

“Okay.
One more shot, then we’ll give ‘em a rest,” said Molitor. The W.O. looked
relieved. The next shot by both superluminals also didn’t appear to cause any
damage.

Over
the next 40 minutes, Black Moon continued on the same vector with the same
acceleration. Molitor was initially puzzled by the lack of any change in
behaviour until she remembered that the implant device worked best when it was
reacting to an external event. Now that Coral Sea was no longer shooting at the
ship, there was nothing new to react against. With Coral Sea’s ECM system hiding
her from Black Moon’s standard radar gear, the freighter captain had no way of
knowing where the pursuing ship was or even if it was still pursuing. With the
initial head on geometry now switched over to basically a stern chase, Coral
Sea was rapidly sliding into position directly behind Black Moon, but the
distance between them was falling at a slower and slower rate. Within two
minutes, Black Moon would pass the point of minimal distance and start to pull
away with its higher accumulated velocity.

“Ninety
seconds to optimal firing range,” said the Astrogator.

“Charge
X1 and then X2 turrets. You may fire at your discretion, Guns,” said Molitor
calmly.

“X
turrets charging in sequence,” acknowledged the W.O. The only sound on the
Bridge now was the background noise from the equipment. No one was talking.
Everyone was looking at the tactical display and the sidebar countdown to
minimal distance as well as the estimated probability of a hit. That
probability was less than 50% for each individual shot. During the 40 minute
wait, Molitor had conferred with both her W.O. and Astrogator. The three of
them agreed that accuracy might improve if they waited past the minimum
distance point, even though it would mean that the range to target would
increase. As the Weapons Officer had pointed out, distance to the target only
affected accuracy if the target was moving laterally across their field of
vision from one side to another. If they stayed directly behind the target and
moved in exactly the same direction, then the target would appear to be
stationary with no lateral movement at all. That didn’t mean that hit
probability would be 100%, because aiming at what appeared to be a very small
target was still a challenge, but at least they didn’t have to try to compensate
for the additional complication of sideways movement.

No
one said a word when the display pinged to announce that the range to target
was no longer dropping and was now increasing. Hit probability was still
climbing, but hadn’t reached 50% yet. Molitor checked one of her Command
Station screens showing the ship’s vector in relation to the target’s. The two
vectors were very close, but not quite the same yet. They had to wait a bit
longer. She looked over to her W.O. He was watching his panel intently, and she
could see sweat trickling down the side of his face.

“We’ve
got a vector match,” said the Astrogator in a louder than normal voice. Before
Molitor could say anything, they heard the W.O. yell out.

“HP
has stabilized at fifty-two point two percent! Firing X1 turret!”

The
tactical display flashed, and the icon representing Black Moon changed from red
to a pulsating yellow indicating another drop in acceleration, but not to zero.

“Firing
X2 turret.” The W.O.’s voice was calmer now. The display pinged again. This
time acceleration had dropped to zero. Black Moon was now coasting.

“Good
shooting, Guns,” said Molitor as some of the other Bridge personnel expressed
their joy at the news. As the celebratory noise started to subside, Molitor
realized that she had a difficult decision to make. With Black Moon now unable
to maneuver, there was nothing stopping Coral Sea from pulling up beside it and
sending over a boarding party. The problem with that approach was two fold.
First, nothing like this had been anticipated when the crew was chosen and
supplies were brought on board. None of the crew had any kind of training in
boarding a ship in space with potentially hostile reaction from Black Moon’s
crew. They didn’t have the right kind of equipment either, and neither did they
have bio-hazard gear to protect themselves from becoming infected, which was
the second problem. If the captain’s implant’s goal was to spread the
bio-weapon by any means possible, then the disease might have been planted on
any one of hundreds of mundane objects, such as walls, doors, tables, cups,
plates, equipment, etc., in the hope that the bio-organism would be picked up
by the boarding party, carried back to Coral Sea and then be carried by it to
another planet. Ordering Black Moon’s crew to shift over to Coral Sea ran
exactly the same risk of cross-contamination, and with Black Moon’s vector now
rapidly taking the ship away from Dresden, the original plan of having the
ship’s lifeboats land in a remote area of the planet was no longer feasible
either. The lifeboats didn’t have enough power to offset the ship’s velocity
and still land safely on the planet. Black Moon’s captain, or more likely his
implant, had painted the ship and its crew into a corner. Molitor couldn’t just
leave the ship as it was, because the jump drive might still be operational,
and if it was, the ship potentially could jump to the Aurora star system. The
only safe way to make sure that ship didn’t jump anywhere was to use Coral
Sea’s x-ray lasers to turn the freighter into a wreck while the crew were still
on board. It was going to be an ugly business, but she couldn’t see any
alternative that didn’t risk millions of other lives.

“Helm,”
she said quietly, “bring us to within ten kilometers with zero velocity
differential.” Her Helm Officer gave her a long look before nodding. He was
savvy enough to figure out what she planned to do.

She
walked over to the Weapons Station, leaned over the console and said in a low
voice, “We have to cripple that ship’s jump drive without risking contamination
of a boarding party. That means we’ll have to fire carefully aimed x-ray beams
until there’s no chance of that ship being able to jump anywhere. The hull will
lose atmospheric integrity, but that can’t be helped. I’m not risking our own
ship becoming contaminated by bringing survivors on board Coral Sea. Wait until
we get within ten kilometers and then blast that ship into scrap metal. Can you
do that, Guns?”

He
didn’t flinch but he took his time answering. “Yes…I can do that, Commander.”

Molitor
couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so she just nodded to him and
returned to her Command Station.
Damn Majestic to hell for putting me in
this position!

Day
160/2556

Coral
Sea

Earth
orbit

Coral
Sea’s emergence from its final micro-jump to the edge of Earth’s hyper-zone
generated an immediate and unexpected development. The Ether detection system
showed two ships orbiting Earth in close formation roughly halfway between the
planet and the moon. Molitor’s first thought was that Saratoga and Valley
Forge, the last two of the five converted freighter/carriers, had arrived too
late to intercept their assigned plague ships and had remained in Earth orbit
instead, but that didn’t make any sense. If Saratoga couldn’t intercept plague
ship #4 in time, it would have gone after #5 instead, and it was highly
unlikely that both carriers would have been delayed by the additional six weeks
it would have taken to preclude intercepting #5 as well.

Her
second thought was that they were Empire ships sent back to check on the
plague’s progress on Earth. That didn’t make much sense either. It only took a
few minutes of scanning the usual civilian radio frequencies to determine that
Earth was now as silent as a tomb. Whatever few survivors there might be,
huddled around campfires in the wilderness or perhaps hunkered down in
underground bunkers, they were certainly no threat to Majestic or its plans and
couldn’t possibly warrant keeping a significant portion of its fleet in orbit
for weeks or months on end.

She
was about to ask her Astrogator who he thought those two ships belonged to when
the Com Tech announced that Coral Sea was being hit by a low-powered comlaser
beam. She nodded for him to put the transmission on loudspeaker.

“Coral
Sea, this is Vixen, Brad Crusero commanding. I’m in formation with Europa.
Valley Forge would have carried word about our planned deployment, but she was
already on her interception mission when we arrived, and clearly there was no way
for you to know that upgraded cruisers were coming as well. Fleet Commander
Drake sends his regards and wants you to know that you’re still the Field
Commander. Over to you, Commander Molitor.”

So
the two ships were former SSU cruisers that had been upgraded with the
detection and ECM system plus new energy weapons at the expense of losing their
armor. They had detected Coral Sea the same way she had detected them. Molitor
had her reply ready by the time the Communications Station had a comlaser warmed
up and pointed at both Vixen and Europa.

“Nice
to hear from you, Brad. Your two cruisers are a pleasant surprise. When Coral
Sea left Excalibur, the decision on whether to finish upgrading any cruisers
hadn’t been made yet. Obviously you know about the ad hoc deployment of the
carriers to intercept freighters carrying infected cargo. We successfully
prevented our target from reaching the Dresden colony.” She paused, wondering
whether to go into the gruesome details, and decided not to. “What’s the situation
on Earth now? Over to you.” With the distance between them, it would take 16
seconds for her message to reach Vixen and another 16 seconds before she’d hear
his reply.

“We’ve
been monitoring all com frequencies over the last two weeks. We’ve detected less
than 20 radio transmissions from survivors who have low power equipment. That’s
why we’re this deep into the zone. Those signals aren’t powerful enough to be
picked up where you are. We’ve tried calling back, but as soon as they hear us,
they shut down their transmitters. I guess they’re afraid we’re the same people
who dropped the bio-weapon to begin with, even though we’ve declared our
identity and affiliation. I’m sure there are a lot more small groups of
survivors who don’t have transmitting equipment or aren’t willing to use it,
but it’s impossible to estimate what the population of the planet is now. All I
can say for certain is that the cities are completely deserted. We’ve been
watching from orbit for any signs of movement in cities and towns and haven’t
seen anything moving. In fact, we haven’t seen any movement at all anywhere.
There are no survivors on any of the space-based infrastructure. Either they
succumbed to the plague or they were evacuated. Over to you.”

Molitor
noticed how quiet the Bridge had become during Crusero’s second transmission.
She knew exactly how they felt. Billions had died on Earth, and while her ship
had successfully stopped the same thing from happening to the Dresden
colonists, that was a small victory by comparison to this monumental defeat.

“Understood,”
she said solemnly. “I want Vixen and Europa to rendezvous with Coral Sea up
here outside the zone just in case the Empire sends some ships back to check on
Earth’s status. When we’re in close formation, you and Europa’s C.O. are
invited aboard Coral Sea. My X.O. will finalize the details. Molitor out.”

The
meeting with the two C.O.s went well. Molitor learned about her cruisers’
capabilities. Both cruisers had the same weaponry as her carrier, two x-ray
laser turrets and two superluminals. The difference between their two ships and
hers was that theirs were designed as warships from the ground up. Even without
their armor, their hull had thicker steel. It was not enough to protect the
ship from one of the Empire’s nuclear-tipped missiles, but maybe enough to
prevent the ship from being crippled by a near miss. They also had more
powerful maneuvering engines with a top acceleration rate that was almost 50%
higher than Coral Sea’s. The final difference was the fact that their cruisers
had multiple backups for critical systems. All of the converted
freighter/carriers had minimal backups. The bottom line was that those cruisers
could take more damage and keep on fighting than her carriers could. She had a
feeling that she was going to regret having to make that trade-off.

By
the end of the meeting, the three of them had achieved a consensus on what they
should do next. Trying to guess which planets were being targeted for
bio-weapon attacks was a complete waste of time considering they didn’t know
how many ships Majestic had now or what the machine calculated would be the
optimal sequence of planets to be bombarded. It seemed logical to assume that
the source of the bio-weapon was either on Hadley or on Makassar. Destroying
that source was the best way to stop further attacks. Given that the Empire now
had the Ether detection system too, it seemed prudent to attack Hadley first,
and with all seven ships in order to overwhelm any defenses. That meant waiting
until the other four carriers returned. Molitor desperately wished there was
some way of getting word back to Excalibur other than sending a ship back, but
there wasn’t. The exodus to Excalibur hadn’t included any courier ships, and
building new ones had to take second priority over upgrading the ships they
already had. She thought they were doing the prudent thing, but it would have
been nice to get a second opinion from Drake. At least they would have the
element of surprise.

Or
so she thought. When she mentioned it to both C.O.s, they told her about the
unexpected appearance of a ship five days before Coral Sea arrived. The mystery
ship only stayed a few minutes before jumping away again. Identification was
impossible due to the distance involved. Crusero told her that at first he
thought it was Coral Sea in spite of the fact that there hadn’t been enough
time for it to go to Dresden and back so quickly. He now believed that it was
an Empire ship sent to recon the Solar system. Molitor had her Astrogator do a
quick calculation. Without knowing for certain when the fifth carrier, Valley
Forge, had arrived at Earth and then left for her interception, there was no
way to determine precisely if all five carriers would be back in time to beat
the Empire ship to Hadley.

She
briefly toyed with the idea of not waiting for Valley Forge and taking a six
ship fleet to Hadley in order to ensure surprise, but Crusero talked her out of
it. With no way for them to leave a message behind, Valley Forge would return
with its crew expecting to find the other four carriers waiting for her.
Instead they’d find nothing and have no idea what to do next. There was also
the thorny issue of supplies. All the ships had left Excalibur with as much
food and other consumables as they could carry, but eventually they would run
out and have to replenish their ships somewhere. Earth was no longer an option.
Hadley had a large enough population base that it could spare the necessary
quantities, assuming that her fleet won the battle, and if they were forced to
retreat from that battle, they had enough supplies left to make it to the
colony nearest Hadley. If Valley Forge were left behind, she would have to
forage for supplies on her own, and they might never find her again.

She
reluctantly agreed that they would wait beyond Earth’s hyper-zone until all
five carriers were back and only then head for Hadley. As it turned out, Valley
Forge arrived three days too late for them to retain the element of surprise.
Majestic would learn about two mystery ships in orbit around Earth, and since
its forces controlled every colony that was capable of building ships, it would
know that the mystery ships belonged to the Resistance. An attack on Hadley
would be the obvious next step, and defensive preparations would be made.
Molitor cursed the fact that even with the faster FTL technology on the
Resistance side, Majestic had still managed to gain the upper hand via sheer
luck. She decided not to waste any more time. Twelve hours after Valley Forge’s
arrival, the fleet lined up for a jump to the Franklin Tri-system. If she
couldn’t surprise Majestic, she’d try to outfox it.

The
plan was that after regrouping at the outer edge of the Franklin star system,
their next destination would not be Hadley, but instead would be 30 light
seconds from Makassar. The planet’s defenses were bound to have Ether detection
systems and would pick up her fleet instantly. The orbiting network of laser
satellites could try to fire at them, but at that distance, the chances of
being hit by even one beam of fusion-powered x-rays was small. She knew from
her time as part of the Empire’s fleet that a small jump-capable ship always
remained in orbit around Makassar and that it could jump to Hadley within
seconds of getting the order. That’s what she wanted the enemy to do. The
sentinel ship would warn Majestic that a fleet of seven ships had arrived near
Makassar but too far to attack with lasersats. Majestic would order whatever
ships it had in orbit to jump to Makassar. While that was happening, Molitor’s
fleet would micro-jump to Hadley. Eventually Majestic’s ships would jump back,
but by then her fleet would have spotted and destroyed most, maybe all, of
whatever lasersats Hadley had in orbit and would be ready for the returning
ships. It looked good on paper, and if a human was in charge of the other side,
she was sure it would work, but Majestic was far more intelligent than any
human and might be able to figure out an effective counter-measure.

Day
175/2556

Makassar

Sanders
breathed a sigh of relief as the new ship, unofficially christened Leviathan by
the shipyard workers, lifted off and headed into space. The damn thing was
finished and somehow they had done it on time. Even adding the millions of
cubic meters of computer components at the same time as the hull was being
finished had been accomplished. Why Majestic would want another computer of comparable
size and capability to itself built inside a ship was beyond him. With that
project finished now, it appeared as though his people could take a well-earned
rest since no orders had been received to start work on anything else. As he
stepped away from the window overlooking the now empty construction bay, his
personal communication device signaled an incoming call.

“Sanders
here.”

“Director,
this is Defense Ops. Something strange is happening. All our orbiting lasersats
are shifting from standby to active mode and are re-orienting their projectors
towards our ground installations. My God! They’re going to—“ Both Sanders and
the Defense Ops officer died instantly as stiletto-thin but highly concentrated
beams of coherent x-rays from hundreds of satellites slashed through every
industrial installation on Makassar and turned them all into piles of partially
melted metal.

Hadley

Trojan
knew something unusual was happening when Majestic would not respond to his
queries regarding the sightings of a very large ship dropping down to the
Majestic Complex. The damn thing was big enough that he could see it with his
own eyes from his balcony even though it was kilometers away. He quickly called
for his personal, high performance air vehicle to be made ready. The little
one-man craft was not made for comfort, but it was FAST! In less than a minute,
he was breaking the sound barrier on his way towards the Complex. The craft’s
optics let him zoom in. The size of that ship was mind-boggling. It was
hovering over the ground near the pyramid-shaped armor that protected
Majestic’s Phase II expansion. Some kind of energy beam was connecting the
bottom of the ship with the Complex. It had to be a data transfer, but a beam
that big was only necessary if millions of terrabytes of data were being
transferred either to or from the ship.