Starbound (11 page)

Maclintock looked to me again. “Can you keep your torpedo volleys effective against them with their maneuvering capabilities?” he asked.

“I've worked up multiple scenarios in training, sir. I'm confident I can handle them both. Mr. Serosian will vouch for my skills.” The captain looked to the Earth Historian, who merely nodded affirmative. Maclintock took this in silently, then looked down the table again to Lena Babayan.

“Colonel, I know your marines have taken a big hit, but can you cobble together teams from nonessential volunteers to strengthen our hand-to-hand defense forces?” Maclintock asked.

“I thought Mr. Serosian said the HuKs were unmanned?” interjected Dobrina. It was a valid question. Maclintock dismissed it quickly.

“If our time in Jenarus has taught us anything, XO, it has taught us that ‘unmanned' doesn't mean unpopulated. They could have automatons like the ones at the station aboard,” he said. He looked back down the table again to Colonel Babayan.

“Aye, sir. We can put together a full complement from volunteers,” she said.

“I might suggest Lieutenant Daniel, the purser,” I said. “I saw him shoot before we left Candle. He's not bad.”

“He was on my list,” said Marker. Maclintock leaned back in his chair again.

“If we're all in agreement—”

“One more thing, sir,” I said, interrupting. He looked at me. He was not happy at being interrupted.

“Mr. Cochrane.”

“Sir, the energy weapons array is down but the gravity projectors are still installed. They can run off energy from the HD drive, not the ship's weapons system power. If we power down the energy weapons array again and de-link it from the gravity weapons, we could still use the gravity systems in the battle, if we need to,” I said.

“Power it down again? Start the whole cycle over?” protested Dobrina.

“That's what I'm proposing, yes,” I said. I hated being at odds with her all the time, but I had a responsibility to give my captain every option.

Maclintock looked around the table, then to Serosian, who remained stoic.

“Mr. Serosian?” the Historian answered.

“What the commander says is true. However, I caution you. These weapons are powerful and destructive, and they represent a dangerous escalation that the Imperial forces may not take kindly to.”

Maclintock considered that, then, “Do it,” he said to me. “Make the hybrid drive preparations and power down the energy weapons array. I'll expect your tactical plan for the torpedo engagement in thirty minutes, Mr. Cochrane.” Then he stood and we all followed suit. “Stations, everyone. Let's not fuck this up.” Then he strode out of the room, leaving us all behind
him.

At the Jenarus Jump Space Tunnel

M
y tor
pedo scenarios were
fully loaded into bo
th the longscope wea
pons interface and t
he captain's tactica
l computer ten minut
es early. I'd gone t
hrough multiple scen
ario tests with Sero
sian at the Academy,
and I ended up simp
ly picking my favori
te three. They all c
oncluded with us win
ning the scenario de
cisively, with more
than thirty torpedoe
s to spare, minimum.
We had a full compl
ement, two hundred,
of varying sizes, yi
elds, and mission ob
jectives. But the fa
ct remained that no
scenario was ever li
ke a real battle, an
d I would be relying
on my skills, exper
ience, and yes, my i
ntuition, in this on
e. The captain said
nothing, but approve
d my scenarios witho
ut comment. He knew
that Serosian and I,
linked in through t
he longscope, were
S
tarbound
's best oppo
rtunity for success
in the coming battle
.

We slowed to battle speed when we crossed within .005 AU of the jump space tunnel, 750,000 kilometers out. We would continue to close on the nearly stationary HuKs for about another ten minutes before reaching realistic battle range. Effective speed to fight had to
be much slower than speed in transit. Simply put, if you were going too fast you couldn't engage your enemy and they couldn't engage you. They could, however, rip you apart with simple things like scatter mines, essentially massive blocks of metal and debris put in your path, if you chose to try to slip by an enemy. I detected no dispersal of such weapons in our intended path.

“Path looks clear ahead, Captain. HuKs are starting to move toward us at low speed in a stack formation, inverting at forty-five degrees to our ecliptic,” I reported.

“I can read my tactical screen, Mr. Cochrane,” said Maclintock curtly. “Time to torpedo range?”

“With their current rate of acceleration, two minutes, sir.”

“You and Mr. Serosian have the tactical con, Commander.”

“Aye, sir,” I replied, then switched to Serosian's com channel. I set the scope controls to envelope me under the hood. I wanted no distractions.

“Ready here,” I said to Serosian. He started in with his instructions without hesitating.

“These appear to be Mark VII HuKs, developed late in the Imperial civil war, designed to be decisive in one-on-one encounters with enemy ships. They have limited AI capabilities and should follow all preprogrammed instructions. Fortunately for us, our Lightships are much more advanced than the ships of that time, one of the advantages of three centuries of technological research and development. The HuKs will undoubtedly try to split their attack at the last possible instant, take us on from two sides. My recommendation is that we try to divert them earlier than they want with a full volley of fifty-kiloton torpedoes, stepped in their launch sequence so they create a maximum possible wall of both yield and EMP,” he said.

“Won't they be hardened against EMP?” I asked.

“They will, but our torpedoes have a magnetic resonance that will have a significant effect on their shield strength. Cumulatively,
their shields will eventually fail and we will be facing an unguarded enemy.”

I switched to my long-range visual. The two HuKs were still coming at us in their stack formation, one ahead of the other by about a hundred clicks on the same vector. I switched to close-ups and evaluated them individually. The forward one looked much like the HuK we had battled at Levant, a dark cylinder with a forward cannon array glowing a sickly green color. This ship, I decided, was a battering ram, designed to hit us hard and weaken our belly. The second ship had the same basic configuration, but with three additional coil cannons on extended stanchions at equidistant points around the cylinder. This one, it seemed to me, was the real enemy. It would follow on after the battering ram's attack and hit us with multiple coil cannon bursts, trying to get through our Hoagland Field and shatter our hull. I was determined not to let that happen.

I checked the clock. Forty seconds to firing range on the first HuK.

“I believe scenario two is the closest equivalent to what we're seeing here,” I said to Serosian.

“Yes, I agree,” he replied. “Proceed per that scenario, but be cautious of variables. We don't want any surprises.”

“Affirmative,” I said. I laid out my torpedo pattern, essentially ignoring the first HuK, which would likely have no luck breaking through our field with just its coil cannon, and I detected no other weapons signatures besides about a dozen low-yield torpedoes in the ten-kiloton range.

I played out my scenario, waiting until the forward HuK in the formation had reached about one hundred kilometers range. The second, and in my mind the more dangerous vessel, was trailing its companion now by a mere ten kilometers.

“They're closing formation, less than a hundred clicks out now. Firing solution locked in,” I reported to both Serosian and the captain through my com link.

“Proceed,” came the Historian's reply. I keyed in the launch sequence and fired five volleys of two torpedoes each, six seconds apart. The torpedoes accelerated toward the forward HuK, which began evasion maneuvers. The trailing HuK stayed on course and true. I switched to my weapons control display and instantly uploaded my preprogrammed variables to the torpedo warheads. Suddenly and in real time I watched as the two forward-most torpedoes broke off their run at the closer HuK and swerved for the second. She suddenly began evasive moves herself as her onboard AI detected the incoming threat. Then the second group of two torpedoes also broke away from their initial course and targeted the second HuK, then the third pair did the same. As the torpedoes closed on their targets they accelerated at different rates, trying to make a firing solution difficult for the enemy.

Facing an imminent threat, the trailing HuK powered up her three stanchion-mounted coil cannons and fired, disintegrating the forward three torpedoes, but the second group of three came on untouched. The specs had told me she would need 2.5 precious seconds to reload and refire her cannons, and that was all I needed. The first torpedo hit the top stanchion on the HuK square, the resultant atomic detonation blowing the coil cannon off its mounting, even through the thing's shielding. The follow-up pair detonated within half a kilometer of the HuK as she scrambled away, and I watched as her shields blew out completely, overloaded by the detonations. Serosian was true to his word, the torpedoes did their job. The HuK veered off but I had no doubt she'd be back. Her shielding may have been gone but she still had a pair of nasty looking coil cannon arrays that worked.

The forward HuK was within fifty clicks now, and was facing our remaining four torpedoes in a staggered-spread formation. They were constantly compensating for her evasion tactics, and she was going to have a hard time avoiding them. Then I saw the HuK make her only play; she fired four counter-attack missiles at my screaming torpedoes. They impacted true enough, the small-yield defensive missiles
packing just enough pop to detonate my incoming torpedoes. Still, she took a massive pulse hit, and hardened or not, her shields were gone, and she was less than ten seconds away from crashing into
Starbound
's Hoagland Field. The resultant ramming attempt would dissipate her energy throughout the field and undoubtedly destroy her.

“Brace for impact,” yelled the captain from his station. It was a precautionary measure, but any collision of this kind was likely to be far worse for our enemy than it was for us.

My eyes flicked to all my displays as I looked for any potential trouble signs as Layton counted down to impact in the background. At this point, with the speed of the incoming HuK, evasive maneuvers by
Starbound
would undoubtedly be compensated for by the battle AI aboard the HuK. But it didn't matter, we would be more than safe behind our protective Hoagland Field.

Unless . . .

I saw it on one of my frequency monitors. A rise in hyperdimensional energy above the mean. It could only be one thing; a displacement wave, one that had been insidiously cloaked from our scanners.

I heard Layton call five seconds to impact with the HuK.

The next thing I felt was as though I was being sifted, like my consciousness was in multiple places at once, and my body, Gods know where. I felt and heard an audible crack in my head, as if I had given off an electrical charge. Then I came back together as one and promptly found myself laying on the deck.

Alarm claxons reverberated throughout the bridge and undoubtedly the rest of the ship as well. I jumped up and tried to focus on my longscope displays. The intercepting HuK had been destroyed by its own HD detonation. The second was coming at us fast, her remaining two coil cannons primed to fire.

“The Hoagland Field is down!” I heard Serosian yell in my ear. Maclintock ordered evasive maneuvers from Layton at the helm but I knew it was too late. This was a sophisticated and well-planned attack.
The HD displacement wave had temporarily knocked out our Hoagland Field, and it would take the requisite 7-10 seconds to refire. That wasn't my job though. Protecting
St
arbound
was.

“Torpedoes, Mr. Cochrane!” came Maclintock's call in my ear.

“Too close!” I responded, and I was right. Any atomic detonation at this range, with us unshielded, would do as much damage to
Starbound
as to the HuK. I had only one chance, and I took it. With the coil cannon array out of commission, I turned to the already-prepped gravity projector weapon, thankful Maclintock had given the go-ahead to use the system. I hit the fire icon and the system shot out a glittering silver lance of gravitons toward the enemy HuK. The beam hit her head-on as she fired her coil cannons from short range. The instantaneous exchange nudged the HuK just enough to keep her coil energy from hitting us at full force. The glancing blow ripped through
Starbound
's outer skin near the science labs. No doubt there would be casualties there, but I had no time to think about that. The HuK flew past us at .00002 light, then swung around for another pass.

“Get that field up!” I heard Maclintock yell, and a second later it was, thanks to Serosian. We were now protected from the HuK's coil cannon fire. Her onboard AI picked up on this and she weaved and bobbed, moving evasively away from us. The captain ordered pursuit, but I had
Starbound
already on her track by the time it came.

“She's making for the jump space tunnel,” reported Serosian.

“Weapons status, Mr. Cochrane?” asked the captain through the com. I had just let go a volley of four pursuit torpedoes.

“We still have enough torpedoes, sir, but she's quicker than us and pretty smart, too. That HD displacement wave trick shows a sophisticated attack plan, likely programmed specifically for encounters with Lightships,” I stated.

“I concur,” came Serosian's voice in my com. Dobrina chimed in with systems reports. We were fully nominal at all stations, our only lack being the coil cannons, which would have been the easiest
solution to our problem. I watched as my four torpedoes ran out of fuel and began dropping off their pursuit pace.

“We'll need a full pursuit, Captain, full HD impellers to catch her before she enters that tunnel. My torpedoes aren't fast enough to catch her at this range,” I reported.

I heard Maclintock give the orders and we began to accelerate, closing the gap with the HuK, but it wasn't enough.

“We need more,” I said out loud.

“Solutions?” demanded Maclintock. “That was far too close back there. I want that thing destroyed.”

“We could use the gravity accelerator to increase the HuK's mass and strain her systems, slow it down,” said Serosian.

“Can you make that work, Mr. Cochrane?” asked Maclintock.

“Aye, sir, I can,” I said. “We'll have to shut down the Hoagland Field to use it, but that still won't be enough to stop her from entering the jump space tunnel. She's going too fast for that. Once inside she could jump out anywhere.”

“And take us with her?”

“Unlikely,” said Serosian. “The topography of jump space, with us being in normal space, would likely break any link with her. We will be within torpedo range a full thirty seconds before she enters the tunnel though.”

“Can your torpedoes take her out before she enters the jump tunnel?” asked Maclintock. I ran my calculations.