Battlespace (The Stars Aflame Book 1) Page 13

  “First things first, Chief, but make sure we’ve got all our sensors running for the entire pass. I want to know exactly what happens at detonation.” She paused, then asked, “How precisely can we target?”

  “We’re essentially throwing rocks at the enemy, ma’am. Big, explosive ones, but fundamentally, still just rocks. There’s no question of precise targeting. I can guarantee that we hit the bastard, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.” He paused, then added, “We still don’t have a good enough knowledge of their weak spots to plan an attack, in any case.”

  “Just a thought, Chief,” she replied with a smile. “Just a thought.”

  “Firing range in three minutes,” Cunningham said, shaking his head. “They’re really moving. Faster than they did back at Boreas. We’ll have to revise our capability estimates.” Tapping in a control sequence, he said, “Altering course to compensate. They’re still not quite moving into optimum firing range. This is going to be tougher.”

  She leaned over his shoulder, looking at the course plot, and asked, “What’s that body you’re using for a slingshot.”

  He smiled, and replied, “The enemy ship.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s big enough for our purposes, and you told me to take us in as close as I could, Lieutenant. That gets us to within less than a mile at the low point, and traveling with enough speed that we’re not going to have to worry much about evasive action. Unless their targeting sensors are a lot better than we’ve seen up till now, they won’t be able to lock on with those big cannons of theirs. Sometimes it pays to be the little guy.”

  “David against Goliath?” Patel asked.

  “More like a mosquito against the armies of Rome,” Novak replied. “Still, the insects won that one in the end. Everyone strap down. We’re going to have to pull some pretty high g-force to pull this off.”

  “Increasing to full speed,” Cunningham said. “Powers, can you give me more thrust? I need all the acceleration you can give me.”

  “Already at maximum, Ensign,” she replied. “I don’t think she’ll take a heavier load.”

  “I only need it for three minutes. Red-line the systems.”

  The engines roared as the technician hurried to obey the helmsman’s commands, and the trajectory plot moved even closer to the enemy ship, the tentacled sphere now large in the viewscreen, sending fear running through everyone on the shuttle. Novak pulled up the sensor display, powering the systems and running another analysis, this time at the closest range yet. Data flooded in, filling the database, and she glanced over the material as it flickered on the screens, destined for long-term storage. If they made it back to the ship, they might have the answer to their prayers, buried somewhere in the mass of information.

  “One minute to firing range,” Cunningham said. Turning to Novak, he asked, “Last chance to evade, ma’am.”

  “We’re committed,” she replied.

  “Maybe we should be,” Patel said, a smile on his face. “Pre-arming sequence completed. Ready for our bombing run.” Shaking his head, he continued, “I’ll admit here and now that those are words I never expected to say.”

  “You should watch more old movies, Chief,” Novak replied. She looked at Cunningham, the young helmsman now in his element, a faint smile on his face as he guided his ship onto trajectory, setting up the evasive sequence that might save all their lives. This attack run was the stuff of legends. She glanced back at the rear compartment, all of the crew working the secondary consoles, anxious to provide any possible contribution to their success or defeat. Only Vidmar was still, laying on the single bunk, strapped in tight, still in his induced coma. They might all be blotted out of existence in a millisecond, and he’d never know that anything happened. Somehow, that almost seemed unfair.

  “Firing range!” Cunningham yelled, throwing the shuttle into a wild sequences of maneuvers that set off every stress indicator on the ship, the engineering monitors protesting the insanity of the course they were on. Collision alerts winked on and off as the trajectory swept around, even the internal navigation system hardly able to predict where they would end up.

  Laser beams waved through space all around them, the alien ship first attempting to strike them, then instead focusing their efforts on guiding them, drawing them in for an easy shot. Patel leaned over his controls, his hand ready on the release, ready to launch their impromptu attack, as Cunningham took them in still closer, the alien ship dominating the viewscreen, blotting out the stars completely.

  “Now!” Patel yelled, slamming his hand on the button, a faint bang from the airlock as the outer hatch opened, releasing the atmosphere within into space and taking the two charges with it, both of them travelling on a pre-calculated trajectory destined to terminate on the surface of the enemy ship. Cunningham gunned the engines still more, a new series of screaming alerts filling the air, Novak struggling to turn them off over the protestations of the computer.

  “Three seconds,” Patel said. “Two. One. Detonation.”

  A bright light filled the screen, and for an instant, Novak thought that despite everything, they had managed to work a miracle, somehow destroyed the enemy ship. The screen cleared, and she focused her sensors on the location of the attack, the first reports causing her to turn her head to Patel in triumph.

  “Direct hit, some evidence of damage. I’m picking up an atmosphere leak. I think you actually breached the hull!”

  A cheer erupted through the shuttle, but Patel broke the mood, saying, “Five kilotons, and we caused a minor hull breach?”

  “It’s better than nothing, Chief, and by all accounts, it’s more than the Folk ever managed.” Turning to Cunningham, she said, “We’re on trajectory, and the aliens are heading right where we want them. Get us the hell out of here.”

  “Working on it,” he replied, as he slid the shuttle around the ship, using its own mass for a gravitational slingshot, sending them racing back the way they had come, back towards Leonidas. Their home ship had launched now, deciding that there was no point in concealing themselves any longer, moving into position to provide additional incentive for the enemy ship to press its attack.

  The beams still lanced through space, some of them dangerously close, Cunningham waging a silent war with his counterpart on the alien ship, trying to guess where they might fire next. Novak glanced out of a side window, her eyes widening as she saw one of the beams pass near enough to see, to set of heat warnings from the hull. The power in those attacks was almost too great to contemplate, no defensive system, no armor, able to counter it.

  “Coming around,” Cunningham said. “Powers, keep the engines stable, damn it! I’m losing thrust from number four!”

  “Trying, sir,” the technician said, sweat building on her forehead. “Hold together, damn it. Just a few seconds more.”

  “Work the problem,” Novak ordered. “Chief, how long?”

  “Ten seconds,” he replied, as another beam raced past, cutting through the space they had occupied a bare instant before. “Systems failing. I’m not sure…” He paused, smiled, then said, “We’re free! Out of attack range.”

  “The enemy ship?” Cunningham asked.

  “Still on trajectory. I guess they’ve decided that we’re not as important a target as Leonidas.”

  “Run for home, Ensign, with everything we’ve got.” She called up the sensor data gain, running through the last seconds of the bomb run, watching as the two charges slammed home. The impact area had been amazingly precise, both landing within a few meters of each other, one detonating just before the other. Possibly the double-punch had been sufficient, or maybe they’d stumbled across a weak spot.

  “Leonidas to Shuttle, Leonidas to Shuttle, come in,” Scott’s voice called, urgently.

  “Shuttle here, Novak speaking,” she replied. “We damaged it, sir.”

  “Lieutenant, you can forget the lecture about irresponsible flying I was about to give you. Did you just say that yo
u damaged the enemy ship?”

  “Nothing major, sir, but a definite impact. I’m relaying the data to you right now. If you want a spot to make that maser impact, I’d say that’s your target.”

  “Getting it now,” Scott replied. “Pass my complements to all hands. I don’t know if a shuttle can get a Presidential Unit Citation, but I’ll put one in for you. Now get back to the barn right away. We’re going to be setting off one hell of an explosion in a minute, and I need you safely locked down before we set it off. Scott out.”

  Patel shook his head, and said, “Too easy.”

  “What?”

  “All of this. It’s too easy.”

  “After everything we’ve gone through…,” Cunningham protested.

  “The Folk spent years throwing everything they had at the enemy, and they never came close to destroying it. The data is quite clear on that. We’re improvising an attack at the last minute, and we think we’re going to do what they could not.” He looked at Novak, and said, “I can’t help but suspect that we’re being just a little arrogant, Lieutenant. That’s all.”

  “Maybe it’s justified, given the circumstances,” Cunningham said.

  “Maybe, sir, but I doubt it.”

  Turning to Patel, Novak said, “I hope to hell you’re wrong, Chief. This is one nightmare that I would very much like to be over.” She looked at him, and said, “We’ve done everything we can. Now it’s down to Leonidas to finish the job. Look on the bright side. One way or another, we’re going to get one hell of a fireworks display out of the deal.”

  Chapter 15

  “Break orbit,” Scott ordered, a smile on his face. “I want to be well clear of the enemy ship before we attempt detonation. Val, what’s the status of our new weapon system.”

  Garcia looked up with frustration, and replied, “We’ve having trouble with the power regulators, sir. Last minute problems. I’m confident we can get it fixed, but…” She glanced at the elevator, and said, “I need to go down there, skipper.”

  “No choice?”

  “None, sir.”

  “On your way, then Commander. Clyde, take over for her. Ivanov can cover you.”

  “Aye, sir,” Rochford said, as Garcia raced from the bridge. The two officers moved to their new positions, and Rochford called up the arming sequences, his finger hovering over the trigger. “Ready for detonation on your command, sir.”

  “Our shuttle’s home, Captain,” Ivanov reported as he settled into his station. “We’re getting a lot of information from her. I’m feeding it to the tactical computers. If we end up taking a shot, we might as well do our best to follow-up on their attack.” He looked up at Chen, and said, “Ensign, get an escape course plotted. Just in case.”

  “Already prepared, sir. I thought Kapteyn’s Star, Captain. Rather than an unknown system.”

  “Agreed,” Scott replied. “Good call. Let’s hope we don’t need it.”

  “Three minutes to firing range,” Rochford said.

  “Hold it until the last possible second, Commander. We’ve gone to a lot of effort to get them precisely where we want them, and I don’t intend to waste any of it.” He leaned forward, eyes on the viewscreen, a hunter’s smile on his face. For the last two weeks, the alien ship had raided human space with impunity, destroying outposts and starships at will. Now they were turning it back upon them, striking blows of their own, hurting the enemy for the first time.

  It felt good.

  He looked across at Rochford’s console, the charges all prepared. It was impossible to say just how much damage they would be able to do, but it was going to be a big explosion, throwing countless fragments of debris towards the target. It might have been an improvised attack, but it was a good one. At the back of the room, Bouchard looked on, implacably, sharing the same focus on the monitor that everyone else was demonstrating.

  A minute to detonation. All eyes were on the trajectory plot now, willing the alien ship to hold its current course, praying that they wouldn’t realize at the final instant that they were being drawn into a trap, playing Leonidas’ game. The temptation to fire early was almost overwhelming, but only the full force of the explosion would stand a chance of destroying the enemy, and they all knew it.

  Billions of lives were at stake. They couldn’t let them down. Rochford’s hand was shaking on the controls, understandable nerves, the only evidence of the strain the veteran officer was going through. A lot of commanders would have insisted on hitting the button themselves. Scott wasn’t one of them. His friend could have the glory of the kill. He just wanted that ship destroyed, before it could work its way deeper into human space. Kapteyn’s Star would be a big enough loss. From there it was just a single jump to Earth itself. All the core worlds were interconnected by the wormhole web, all of them tied closely together. It wouldn’t take long for the aliens to sweep across human space, destroying everything in their path. Just as they had done to the Folk, a million years ago.

  “Ten seconds,” Rochford said.

  “All hands, brace for impact!” Scott said. The bridge was still, calm, quiet. Everyone was watching and waiting for what was about to happen as, anticlimactically, Rochford tapped a button on his console.

  A second later, the charges erupted as one, dozens of shaped nuclear explosives ripping into the heart of the asteroid, blinding light briefly filling the screen as the filters struggled to compensate for the force of detonation. The effect was even more dramatic than they had hoped, the icy core melting in the first instants of the explosion, magnifying the explosive power of the charges. The comet shattered into millions of fragments, hurtling through space at incredible speed, all of them perfectly on trajectory to crash into the enemy ship.

  Ivanov killed the display, switching instead to the sensor view, the image that truly mattered now. The comet was dead, reduced to a cloud of high-velocity rubble racing towards the enemy. The plan had worked, and Chen carefully guided Leonidas to a safe distance, ready to watch the results of their frantic labor.

  “Power readings from the enemy ship, sir,” Sullivan said. “Off the chart, Captain!”

  The lasers burst into life again, sweeping across the sky, hacking into the cloud of debris in an effort to thin it down, reduce the force of the impact. Even the alien ship’s might wouldn’t be sufficient to make more than a dent in the sheer mass of fragments, though, and they continued to hurtle towards it. Then another change appeared on the screen, a course change, the aliens withdrawing, turning back on their course with acceleration far faster than anything humanity had ever conceived.

  “That’s impossible,” Ivanov said, his eyes widening. “Nothing can stand that sort of burn. Nothing could take that and live.”

  “Tell that to the aliens, Lieutenant,” Rochford replied. “It looks as though they don’t use the same rulebook that we do.”

  The lasers continued to fire, the aliens buying themselves more time to escape, the cloud rapidly dispersing. They’d counted on an impact at close-range, but with every second, the force of the debris thinned out, reduced, and Scott’s heart sank as he realized their greatest effort had come to naught. Then the alien ship altered course again, racing into the diminished debris, accepting a series of impacts on the forward hull in order to reach their new target.

  Leonidas.

  “I guess we should be flattered that they think of us as such a significant threat,” Bouchard said.

  “No evident damage from the impacts, sir,” Rochford ruefully added. “It was a damned good try, sir, but I guess it just wasn’t to be.”

  “We’re not done yet, Commander. Intercept course, Ensign. Let’s see if those modifications to the masers are worth the effort. I want a shot precisely on the impact point of those charges Lieutenant Novak deployed. If she managed to find a weak spot, I want to take maximum advantage of that.”

  “Sir, we could make Kapteyn’s Star from here, just before the enemy,” Ivanov noted.

  “And bring the aliens even closer int
o our territory, Lieutenant. We’re going to press our attack. Helm, full ahead.” Tapping a control, he said, “Bridge to Maser Control.”

  “I’m here, skipper. We’re having to hold the relays together with our bare hands, but we’ll be able to make one good shot. I might even be able to force a little more power through the system than I’d expected.”

  “One shot is all we need,” Scott said. “I’ll hold you to that extra power. Bridge out.” Turning back to the helm, he said, “We’re going for a fast firing pass, at optimum firing range, Ensign. In and out. Once we come out the other side, we’ll run for the wormhole.”

  “Course plotted, sir,” Chen replied. “I’ll get you there and back again.”

  “I hope so, Frodo,” Scott said with a smile. The helmsman turned, confusion on his face, and he added, “I think we’ve going to have to see to your education, Ensign.”

  “Erm, sir,” Chen said, “It’s Bilbo.”

  “Little lesson, Ensign,” Rochford said. “Probably not a good idea to get in the habit of correcting your commanding officer. Even over obscure literary references.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Chen said, and Scott laughed, the exchange nicely breaking the tension that was building on the bridge. The crewmen turned back to their posts, some of them with smiles on their faces, and Scott concentrated on their upcoming attack run. The enemy ship was just ahead, racing towards them. That told him that they were scared, that Leonidas at least represented a potential threat. All he had to do was realize it. The bombardment might not have done what they had hoped, but at least it would have forced them to expend a lot of power. Power that they would not now have for this phase of the attack.

  They still had a chance. Maybe even a good one. He looked at the data streaming in from the sensors, matched it with everything that the shuttle’s close pass had provided, and it showed a clear impact point from the explosion, a crack in the armor of the enemy ship. It might have taken five kilotons to breach it, but that just might be enough, if Rochford could get that maser blast precisely on target.