Battle of Zebes, Chapter Twenty-Four
Posted: 2011-01-17 03:23am
Theseus-class Cruiser CNS Loyalist
Flagship Task Force 23
Stranded in Deep Space
1855 Hours Fleet Standard Time
Commodore Gever Liggs looked over the status reports from the ships of Task Force 23. One of his light carriers' latest update projected... Four hours? That's absurd!
"Com-Scan, I need to speak to Borderer at once!"
There was almost no pause at all before his screen flashed, showing the face of the light carrier's captain. Liggs scowled.
"Commander Blanco, what's taking so long?"
"Ah... sir, we have a serious problem with our repair equipment- we'd been running an inventory of shipboard heavy machinery in the maintenance hanger, and..."
"Spit it out!"
"There's a primary power lead to the frame 50 hyperfield generators running under the hangar floor sir, when it blew it deadlined most of our cargo lifting equipment!" The commander's face was desperate, humiliated. "I'm sorry, sir, but we've done everything we know. Gravity's down to twenty percent, we've got the entire crew working like stevedores and the chief engineer tells me we still can't get the job done in under three and a half hours..."
"Ah." Not surprising; some of those parts were too heavy to move without the proper machinery, and even in low gravity it took large teams of men working very carefully to put them into place without damaging them.
Blanco quivered; he looked almost as if he expected a bullet in the gut- perhaps he did. But Liggs didn't think this was the time for that, and it wouldn't help Borderer shift cargo any faster. He nodded to the carrier officer. "I'll see what I can do to help you expedite matters. Liggs out." The commodore turned across the bridge to his flag captain.
"Captain Hokobaz, get on the line with your chief engineer and shake loose any heavy cargo-moving gear not critically needed for repairs on this ship, particularly the Mark 35 sporklift.* Tell him to substitute manpower for equipment as far as possible without pushing back our schedule; standard work safety protocols are waived."
"Yes, sir, I'll get back to you shortly." The captain switched channels. Liggs waited patiently for his answer, which was not long in coming.
"Commander Gough says he can spare sixteen sporklifts, two dozen agrav coils, and a portable counter-inertial englobulator... but he still doesn't have power to the shuttle bay doors; he can't get a boat off the ship."
Hmm. Tricky, but... That might work, yes. Appealingly direct, took advantage of those overheavy tractor fits the Bureau of Shipbuilding kept tacking on to the carriers for some stupid reason. He liked it.
"Tell him to shove the cargo into space through the port loading dock in fifteen minutes. I'll have Borderer ready to tractor it aboard."
"..."
"Those items are all vacuum-rated, yes?"
"Yes, sir. Good idea, sir."
"Thank you, captain."
*Author's note: The sporklift originated on Nova Terra, in the nation of Miratia, during the mid-21st century. Early models were highly temperamental and prone to spontaneously dismantle themselves without warning, but the design truly came into its own with the invention of smart memory alloys some centuries later. This compact, double-jointed piece of construction equipment can do the jobs of a backhoe, front-loader, and forklift with approximately equal ease, and has supplanted these devices in several major interstellar nations.
1912 Hours
Recommended Listening: Mars, Bringer of War
Liggs fumed as he watched the Heim-drive Zebesian ships streak past, practically ignoring the fleet's plasma fire and pelting the capital ships with those FTL missiles.
The bastards! They're warp strafing us!
An overly helpful tactical rating called over to him. "Sir, we have confirmed aether torpedo hits on Black Hole, Frod, Slavering Gaoogabeast, Tate's Folly..."
"Yes, yes, I see it!"
The repairs were going all right- Borderer hadn't panicked and dropped the equipment he'd tossed them, which was important. They were still taking it aboard as if nothing had happened.
He had to do something about those warp strafers. On a bone-deep level, he felt instinctively hostile to the idea, as if the very universe itself, the fabric underlying reality, rebelled against the idea of something so wrong. So... seemingly overpowering.
The mass drivers might as well not be used here. Even the plasma beams were slow enough to make them an extremely marginal choice for engaging such targets. His ships were designed to close with the enemy, matching him in position and velocity, and then destroy them with overwhelming force. Hitting one of those streaking FTL targets by anything more than blind luck would be... he couldn't think of a viable way to do it. It seemed like an impossible shot... Liggs' face crinkled in a thin, bemused smile; he knew perfectly well who to go to when he needed an impossible shot made.
"Com-Scan, put me through to Carpenter."
Schwartz-class Destroyer CNS Carpenter
1913 Hours
"Let me see what I can do, sir; I'll talk to my gunnery officer."
"Hurry; they'll be back any minute." The commodore cut the circuit, leaving Commander Jiors Leander to his own devices.
Leander tended to draw criticism, and he rather doubted his promotion prospects would go much farther. He didn't mind; quite the opposite. Nearly every large military organization in the known galaxy had its occasional parcel of rogues who survived by balancing success against deviation from doctrine, even the staid and disciplinarian Centralist starfleet. He'd found his home at the head of one such band of lunatics, and never looked back.
The fact that his record of trouble kept him from being raised out of a line destroyer command, as his success record kept him from being dropped from it, was better yet.
He spun the intercom channels round... there. Main Battery Control, chief gunner's circuit.
"You have been working on those Heim drive ships, no?"
Lieutenant Aiden Pelton's helmet was buttoned up, and his face was invisible but he raised his hands from the console and spread them for the camera. "Got it in one, sir."
"Good. And here I was afraid you'd changed." Most captains would have sent Pelton out for insubordination years ago. Then again, most captains didn't command a four time finalist in the Fleet gunnery exercises.
"Tricky shot, Captain."
And it would be, targets going about two orders of magnitude faster than bolts from the ship's guns. Acquisition a problem too... they'd cross the sensor envelope in less time than he wanted to think. Did Pelton have an answer for that?
"Anything in mind?"
"I'd need fifteen sensor platforms and about three dozen tubes to shoot from. Barring that, I'll give it my best shot."
"On what, a hundred meter target with a resolution of..."
"Fifty klicks. You know any particularly generous deities, sir?"
"I'll see what I can do. Get your code set up in case I pull it off- and if I don't, look up the Shroomanist Prayer Book and I'll see what I can do that way." Banned literature, that, but the theory that the gods were crazy and rewarded refuge in audacity made more sense than anything else he'd ever heard about the Dread Gribblies from Beyond the Ether. Might explain a few of his more improbable moments, even...
Aaand Com-Scan had the job done; the commodore reappeared. "So, can you do it?"
"My best gunner thinks he can make the shot if he can get enough networked sensor and guns. Can you pass control of the task force fire control and subspace detection networks to us, sir?"
He could hear Liggs frown. "Most unorthodox... I expect results, Commander."
"As always, sir."
Disruptor-class Battleship CNS Black Hole
Flagship Task Corps 8
1917 Hours Fleet Standard Time
Vice Admiral Prots Verio was a bit surprised by the call from one of his screen commanders.
"Commodore, I have other problems. What do you need?"
"Sir, I've been on the line with one of my destroyers, Carpenter. Her captain wants to run a fleet-level fire mission against the warp strafers, coordinating from his ship."
Verio's eyes narrowed. "From a destroyer?"
"Carpenter did win the fleet gunnery exercises in '98, sir."
"Do you believe his plan?"
"I've already ordered my command to slave main battery control to his ship, sir."
"Does he have the software, though?" Destroyers didn't carry flagship programming, and no matter how good their gunners were, it wouldn't matter if they couldn't process the data from the other ships. Was this a plan for striking back, or a boastful lie entrapping a fool? He had his doubts about Liggs...
"He seemed very confident, sir, and I've never known him to promise something he couldn't deliver..." Was that a waver in Liggs' voice?
Verio considered. From Navigation and Com-Scan's best guess, they still had some minutes before the Zebesian Heimships returned. "You may proceed with your plan, Commodore. I will think over giving your man control of other ships in the fleet, and answer you shortly." He cut the signal, but left the channel open.
What do I have to lose? Realism told him that none of his ships had much chance of hitting the warp strafers on their own. Subspace sensor resolution alone wasn't good enough for target acquisition when the enemy was far out, and by the time the Zebesian raiders got close enough for his ships to resolve, the guns only had seconds to lock and engage... when the time of flight for the plasma bolts would most likely be seconds even then. In theory a fleetwide fire control network might be able to do it. In theory. But his own flagship hadn't been able to piece together anything useful from the last attack run; what were the odds a destroyer could do better?
But then, what did he have to lose?
"Tactical section, get Screen Group 8.1 linked up to TF 23's fire control network, tell them to slave main battery fire control to their orders. Com-Scan, tell Liggs I'm supporting him with SG 8.1 and-" a half-second's pause for thought- "And Frod as well. He can run fire control for Frod." The yards had let the modified battleship keep most of her plasma beams when they installed the Type 74; they'd gutted her short range weapons but left the long range energy batteries in place. And who knew, maybe that would make a difference, assuming that Liggs' pet destroyermen weren't building castles in the air.
Modified Disruptor-class Battleship CNS Frod
Command Bridge
1919 Hours
"Sir! Message from the flagship. They have some kind of fleet fire mission planned for the Zebesians' next pass. We are to slave our subspace sensor relays and plasma gun fire control to... destroyer CNS Carpenter."
"Very well. Tactical department, give them full cooperation." Captain Stack didn't understand why the admiral was letting a destroyer call the shot, but it wasn't his place to question the order. Tactical confirmed, and Stack decided it was time to check in on the engine repairs. His last call had gone down to the chief engineer... maybe he'd better check with the head of the Marine detachment he'd sent down there. It was the work of a moment to find the relevant intercom channel.
"Major Strakanoff!"
The Marine braced to attention. "Yes, sir!"
"Report on the progress of the Cannon engineers."
"By all accounts, they're making excellent progress."
"Good. Have you conveyed my orders to them?"
"First thing we did on arrival, sir."
"Very good. I'll check back with you shortly."
"Yes, sir!"
CNS Frod
Engine Room Six
Ten Minutes Earlier
Ensign Paul Heaviside, Ion Cannon Specialization, Centrality Navy, looked nervously at the pair of fully armored assault troopers. They'd just marched into the compartment and braced against the bulkhead. Granted he was an officer and outranked them. But he couldn't read the mens' faces through their helmets, and there was something very intimidating about the autoblasters in their hands, and the way their fingers tightened on the stock and grip.
Addressing the one on the left, Paul asked the obvious question. "What are your orders, trooper?"
The Marine braced to partial attention, but his weapon stayed at the ready rather than in one of the proper drill positions.
"Sir, my orders are to remain on guard in the engineering spaces, with the rest of the company, during the repair process, until the hyperdrive is operational or until one of the fleet's other capital ships completes hyperdrive repairs. If one of the other ships completes repairs first, the company is to choose a Cannon technician at random every two minutes after the captain gives the orders. Then we are to shoot the technician and liquidate him."
Suddenly, Paul's vague fears became highly specific, but his mind caught on what was perhaps an irrelevant detail- possibly trying to avoid the thought that the random target might be him... "Ah, you said "shoot and then liquidate," trooper?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know what that meant, but he had to ask... damn his curiosity!
"Our orders are to shoot the target in the head, then dump the body the waste dissolver."
"So, when the captain says 'liquidate,' he actually means... turn into a liquid?"
"Yes, sir!"
Paul shivered. I don't want to be turned into a liquid... "I... see."
"If the technicians offer any resistance to the execution, we have different orders, sir." The trooper sounded disturbingly cheerful now. Paul couldn't help himself.
"...what will you do then?" Why am I saying this, I don't want to know I don't want to know...
"Well, then we won't shoot the target in the head before dropping him into the waste dissolver, naturally, sir." The silent Marine on the right nodded slightly.
"Okay..."
"Ah, is that all, sir?"
"Yes."
The ensign turned back to the team of Cannon technicians he'd been supervising as they labored to replace a blown hyper-energy switching unit. "You heard the man, work faster!"
CNS Carpenter
1921 Hours
"I get a battleship? Wait, Frod's the one with the ion cannon, right? Do I get to shoot the ion cannon?"
Deep breaths, deep breaths "No, you do not get to play with the ion cannon. Only the plasma batteries. Now, have you got the software together yet?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me look at..." From the block diagram, he recognized six packages that had to have been illicitly copied from a squadron flagship in gross violation of regs, three more that he suspected the lieutenant had written himself... "Very Dangerous Array?"
"For integrating the subspace data from all the ships, sir. We do have a combined main battery of..."
"I get it, I get it." Not a bad twist on Very Large Array; I wonder where he got it from... Let's see, anything else dodgy in the charts... "Why is this directory labeled 'Crime Pays?'"
"Ah..."
"Tell me now."
The gunner sighed. "Because I got one of the Umerian tactical officers drunk, helped her back to her room, and stole it off her computer? Their information security is pretty bad, sir."
Why me? He normally enjoyed his work, but there were occasional moments when he truly wished he could throw it all away and become a martinet without going mad. Or, kriff, just not go mad, he'd settle for not going mad.
"Lieutenant Aiden Pelton, is this something the CSB should hear about?" Unauthorized contact with foreign officers... Why me?
"Sir, who do you think put me up to it?"
"You mean-"
"Can neither confirm nor deny, sir."
Please let him not be lying, I need him in approximately one piece... "Right. This will work?"
"Should work."
"There are two flag officers who know you're responsible for this, Lieutenant."
"Right."
Leander nodded, leaving Pelton to it.
About two minutes later, the main plot on command deck suddenly zoomed out, light codes getting visibly sharper as CIC showed the increase in resolution. It was... impressive. And there they were, indecently fast, two waves, one corvette and one cruiser tonnage, though a fair chunk of that bulk was probably the Heim drives themselves. First wave spotting for the second? Most likely, from the attack profile last time... no more than forty seconds to the first wave firing pass...
Across the squadron, plasma gun turrets started revolving, all synchronized to the command of a single gunner. Lieutenant Pelton picked his nanosecond, and his kilometer; guns had to be pointed on well in advance if this was going to work at all. FTL sensors made the strafers visible, but hitting them with an STL weapon was still going to be one hell of a trick.
Don't let me down, Pel...
The shot came as a surprise, fired when the enemy's lead ships were still over two million kilometers out and closing fast. Carpenter rippled as her fore and aft plasma turrets lobbed their bolts toward an innocuous point in space; other ships flickered as they fired their salvoes in turn, cruisers and a battleship dancing to his own little destroyer's tune. Time seemed to crawl as the plasma bolts and enemy ships screamed toward their rendevous... No way to tell if it would work by eye from the plot; they could miss by a hundred kilometers and he wouldn't even see it on this scale.
Officially, Leander was a solid example of the New Centralist Man- had to be, or he wouldn't be here commanding this ship, now would he? Officially, that made him an atheist, and he supposed he was. Even so, with the specter of two angry fleet officers and the CSB looming over his head, Jiors Leander quietly commended his soul to any god that could find it- hopefully, the Shroomanist gods...
As one of the enemy corvettes dissolved in a blazing trail of polychromatic vapor and decaying energy fields, like the tail of a comet stretching millions of kilometers across the sky.
The master gunner tried to line up another shot on one of the torpedo boats; he saw the bolts go out again... torpedoes slamming into the capital ships again... miss! Damn.
He called up gunnery. "One for two, Lieutenant?"
"Had him bracketed. I'll make it next time."
"Very good, carry on, and good kill!" That last spoken with a hint of carnivorous snarl, keep the man's confidence up there. Leander closed the circuit just in time to get a call from Loyalist; Liggs with the same idea he'd had, only one level up?
"Congratulations, Commander. Vice Admiral Verio is routing the full fleet fire control network to you next time. Can you handle it?"
Only one response to that. Gulp. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Now to hope Pelton could repeat a trick...
Recommended Listening
Kavoolite Missile Harrier Toranox
Forming Up For Third Attack Run
1927 Hours
The admiral steepled his fingers in a gesture a human would have recognized, and rightly. "We drop farther out this time. Concentrate on targets one, three, and six."
"We're going back in?"
His flag captain was right, and someone had to say it: if the hit on Intharan wasn't luck on the last pass, they were going to lose another ship. Maybe two- perhaps even more.
"I won't inform the Emperor that the cream of his expeditionary fleet turned for home after the loss of a single scout ship."
"Some worrying evanescents on that last pass, sir; I think we were bracketed by at least four plasma bolts within five hulg of the critical threshold."
Their gunnery can't be that good... Then again, who knew what the great powers were capable of? Against Urtraghans, Gron, or Sibellians he'd gamble on his harriers being able to dodge enemy fire until the magazines ran dry. Against the outside races, the humans, Idurans, and others beyond the shoals? Hard to say...
His decision was made. "We go in."
"Yes, sir."
CNS Black Hole
1931 Hours
Black Hole might be out of the loop as far as plasma battery fire control was concerned, but Verio still got the benefit of the coordinated sensor picture from Carpenter- clearer and farther reaching than even his battleship's massive detector grids had given him before.
How are they doing it?
He could see the Zebesians coming in again, at those incredible speeds. The faint rumble of the flagship's heavy plasma cannon pointing on, that clenching of the gut knowing that the torpedoes were going to come in fast and deadly...
It all happened too fast, those final seconds of an action at Heim drive speeds- even high relative sublight speeds- were invariably a gunnery computer's battle, more so than usual. Another one of the Zebesian scouts blew apart; the plasma cannon thumped out their next salvo seemingly simultaneous with the torpedo launch. Black Hole jumped slightly, and Verio just had time to spot the burning red of critical damage appear around the icon for the battle carrier Tate's Folly before bolts and strafers intercepted... and one of the torpedo craft vanished.
Missile Harrier Toranox
1933 Hours
W'bartan... no... The captain of the missile harrier Destrelax hadn't been just a comrade-in-arms; he'd been a friend.
Three hits on two passes was too many, far too many for the amount of damage they were doing. They'd obviously wounded that carrier, probably crippled it, but... not worth the price, not worth two scouts and a harrier. Their orders from the Emperor were clear: once they had done all the damage they could manage practically, it was time to withdraw.
The High Council had no doubt expected them to fire their magazines dry before that time came, but it was not to be. The doctrine of hit and fade, scream past the enemy under Hulartik Drive and deliver a spread of crippling torpedoes... potentially valid, he was sure. But not a tool for asymmetric warfare against such a large fleet, not with his own handful of ships.
"Withdraw into the shoals under magnetogravitic power; activate the cloaking devices. We must report this reverse to the Emperor... and rethink our war plans, lest we face these humans again."
CNS Black Hole
1934 Hours
"What happened?"
"Sir, Rear Admiral Fibors is wounded- we had a cascading power grid failure, there's spalling damage to the bridge."
"His condition?"
"...Too soon to say, sir; I haven't heard from sickbay yet. He managed to get out a few orders after the hit on primary bridge; I'm hoping it's minor."
"I hope so too, Commander. What's your status?"
"Bad, sir. We took two torpedoes, right after the other, and the second drilled the dorsal shields. The superstructure aft of Frame 600 is gone; we're down to half our launch capability and two thirds our fighter complement. Power system is a mess too- the surges blew away a lot of our repairs. I doubt we could manage more than three simultaneous launches, even if we have the tubes for them. Hyperdrive is... I don't think we'll be able to bring it back sir, not soon enough to matter. This is one for the dockyards."
"Understood. I'll detach ships to cover you when we clear this damned interdictor." Verio gave the junior officer a benevolent smile. "Carry on, son. You're doing well. Verio out!"
One battle carrier badly damaged, for two corvettes and a... hard to rate those strafers, they punch hard but die easy. This little skirmish was arguably a success... but he had to get the fleet to Zebes, somehow!
"Com-Scan, contact the Umerians; I need to know if they've nailed down a location yet!" Maybe the Eoghans could line up something; no one knew exactly how far their version of those damn torpedoes could reach... their minimum distance estimate wasn't promising though.
His thoughts were interrupted by that impertinent, disturbingly quick Umerian- who looked much too cheerful this time.
"Vice Admiral, we have a location, and some readouts. We'll get the data to you as soon as we can."
That's some progress at least...
Flagship Task Force 23
Stranded in Deep Space
1855 Hours Fleet Standard Time
Commodore Gever Liggs looked over the status reports from the ships of Task Force 23. One of his light carriers' latest update projected... Four hours? That's absurd!
"Com-Scan, I need to speak to Borderer at once!"
There was almost no pause at all before his screen flashed, showing the face of the light carrier's captain. Liggs scowled.
"Commander Blanco, what's taking so long?"
"Ah... sir, we have a serious problem with our repair equipment- we'd been running an inventory of shipboard heavy machinery in the maintenance hanger, and..."
"Spit it out!"
"There's a primary power lead to the frame 50 hyperfield generators running under the hangar floor sir, when it blew it deadlined most of our cargo lifting equipment!" The commander's face was desperate, humiliated. "I'm sorry, sir, but we've done everything we know. Gravity's down to twenty percent, we've got the entire crew working like stevedores and the chief engineer tells me we still can't get the job done in under three and a half hours..."
"Ah." Not surprising; some of those parts were too heavy to move without the proper machinery, and even in low gravity it took large teams of men working very carefully to put them into place without damaging them.
Blanco quivered; he looked almost as if he expected a bullet in the gut- perhaps he did. But Liggs didn't think this was the time for that, and it wouldn't help Borderer shift cargo any faster. He nodded to the carrier officer. "I'll see what I can do to help you expedite matters. Liggs out." The commodore turned across the bridge to his flag captain.
"Captain Hokobaz, get on the line with your chief engineer and shake loose any heavy cargo-moving gear not critically needed for repairs on this ship, particularly the Mark 35 sporklift.* Tell him to substitute manpower for equipment as far as possible without pushing back our schedule; standard work safety protocols are waived."
"Yes, sir, I'll get back to you shortly." The captain switched channels. Liggs waited patiently for his answer, which was not long in coming.
"Commander Gough says he can spare sixteen sporklifts, two dozen agrav coils, and a portable counter-inertial englobulator... but he still doesn't have power to the shuttle bay doors; he can't get a boat off the ship."
Hmm. Tricky, but... That might work, yes. Appealingly direct, took advantage of those overheavy tractor fits the Bureau of Shipbuilding kept tacking on to the carriers for some stupid reason. He liked it.
"Tell him to shove the cargo into space through the port loading dock in fifteen minutes. I'll have Borderer ready to tractor it aboard."
"..."
"Those items are all vacuum-rated, yes?"
"Yes, sir. Good idea, sir."
"Thank you, captain."
*Author's note: The sporklift originated on Nova Terra, in the nation of Miratia, during the mid-21st century. Early models were highly temperamental and prone to spontaneously dismantle themselves without warning, but the design truly came into its own with the invention of smart memory alloys some centuries later. This compact, double-jointed piece of construction equipment can do the jobs of a backhoe, front-loader, and forklift with approximately equal ease, and has supplanted these devices in several major interstellar nations.
1912 Hours
Recommended Listening: Mars, Bringer of War
Liggs fumed as he watched the Heim-drive Zebesian ships streak past, practically ignoring the fleet's plasma fire and pelting the capital ships with those FTL missiles.
The bastards! They're warp strafing us!
An overly helpful tactical rating called over to him. "Sir, we have confirmed aether torpedo hits on Black Hole, Frod, Slavering Gaoogabeast, Tate's Folly..."
"Yes, yes, I see it!"
The repairs were going all right- Borderer hadn't panicked and dropped the equipment he'd tossed them, which was important. They were still taking it aboard as if nothing had happened.
He had to do something about those warp strafers. On a bone-deep level, he felt instinctively hostile to the idea, as if the very universe itself, the fabric underlying reality, rebelled against the idea of something so wrong. So... seemingly overpowering.
The mass drivers might as well not be used here. Even the plasma beams were slow enough to make them an extremely marginal choice for engaging such targets. His ships were designed to close with the enemy, matching him in position and velocity, and then destroy them with overwhelming force. Hitting one of those streaking FTL targets by anything more than blind luck would be... he couldn't think of a viable way to do it. It seemed like an impossible shot... Liggs' face crinkled in a thin, bemused smile; he knew perfectly well who to go to when he needed an impossible shot made.
"Com-Scan, put me through to Carpenter."
Schwartz-class Destroyer CNS Carpenter
1913 Hours
"Let me see what I can do, sir; I'll talk to my gunnery officer."
"Hurry; they'll be back any minute." The commodore cut the circuit, leaving Commander Jiors Leander to his own devices.
Leander tended to draw criticism, and he rather doubted his promotion prospects would go much farther. He didn't mind; quite the opposite. Nearly every large military organization in the known galaxy had its occasional parcel of rogues who survived by balancing success against deviation from doctrine, even the staid and disciplinarian Centralist starfleet. He'd found his home at the head of one such band of lunatics, and never looked back.
The fact that his record of trouble kept him from being raised out of a line destroyer command, as his success record kept him from being dropped from it, was better yet.
He spun the intercom channels round... there. Main Battery Control, chief gunner's circuit.
"You have been working on those Heim drive ships, no?"
Lieutenant Aiden Pelton's helmet was buttoned up, and his face was invisible but he raised his hands from the console and spread them for the camera. "Got it in one, sir."
"Good. And here I was afraid you'd changed." Most captains would have sent Pelton out for insubordination years ago. Then again, most captains didn't command a four time finalist in the Fleet gunnery exercises.
"Tricky shot, Captain."
And it would be, targets going about two orders of magnitude faster than bolts from the ship's guns. Acquisition a problem too... they'd cross the sensor envelope in less time than he wanted to think. Did Pelton have an answer for that?
"Anything in mind?"
"I'd need fifteen sensor platforms and about three dozen tubes to shoot from. Barring that, I'll give it my best shot."
"On what, a hundred meter target with a resolution of..."
"Fifty klicks. You know any particularly generous deities, sir?"
"I'll see what I can do. Get your code set up in case I pull it off- and if I don't, look up the Shroomanist Prayer Book and I'll see what I can do that way." Banned literature, that, but the theory that the gods were crazy and rewarded refuge in audacity made more sense than anything else he'd ever heard about the Dread Gribblies from Beyond the Ether. Might explain a few of his more improbable moments, even...
Aaand Com-Scan had the job done; the commodore reappeared. "So, can you do it?"
"My best gunner thinks he can make the shot if he can get enough networked sensor and guns. Can you pass control of the task force fire control and subspace detection networks to us, sir?"
He could hear Liggs frown. "Most unorthodox... I expect results, Commander."
"As always, sir."
Disruptor-class Battleship CNS Black Hole
Flagship Task Corps 8
1917 Hours Fleet Standard Time
Vice Admiral Prots Verio was a bit surprised by the call from one of his screen commanders.
"Commodore, I have other problems. What do you need?"
"Sir, I've been on the line with one of my destroyers, Carpenter. Her captain wants to run a fleet-level fire mission against the warp strafers, coordinating from his ship."
Verio's eyes narrowed. "From a destroyer?"
"Carpenter did win the fleet gunnery exercises in '98, sir."
"Do you believe his plan?"
"I've already ordered my command to slave main battery control to his ship, sir."
"Does he have the software, though?" Destroyers didn't carry flagship programming, and no matter how good their gunners were, it wouldn't matter if they couldn't process the data from the other ships. Was this a plan for striking back, or a boastful lie entrapping a fool? He had his doubts about Liggs...
"He seemed very confident, sir, and I've never known him to promise something he couldn't deliver..." Was that a waver in Liggs' voice?
Verio considered. From Navigation and Com-Scan's best guess, they still had some minutes before the Zebesian Heimships returned. "You may proceed with your plan, Commodore. I will think over giving your man control of other ships in the fleet, and answer you shortly." He cut the signal, but left the channel open.
What do I have to lose? Realism told him that none of his ships had much chance of hitting the warp strafers on their own. Subspace sensor resolution alone wasn't good enough for target acquisition when the enemy was far out, and by the time the Zebesian raiders got close enough for his ships to resolve, the guns only had seconds to lock and engage... when the time of flight for the plasma bolts would most likely be seconds even then. In theory a fleetwide fire control network might be able to do it. In theory. But his own flagship hadn't been able to piece together anything useful from the last attack run; what were the odds a destroyer could do better?
But then, what did he have to lose?
"Tactical section, get Screen Group 8.1 linked up to TF 23's fire control network, tell them to slave main battery fire control to their orders. Com-Scan, tell Liggs I'm supporting him with SG 8.1 and-" a half-second's pause for thought- "And Frod as well. He can run fire control for Frod." The yards had let the modified battleship keep most of her plasma beams when they installed the Type 74; they'd gutted her short range weapons but left the long range energy batteries in place. And who knew, maybe that would make a difference, assuming that Liggs' pet destroyermen weren't building castles in the air.
Modified Disruptor-class Battleship CNS Frod
Command Bridge
1919 Hours
"Sir! Message from the flagship. They have some kind of fleet fire mission planned for the Zebesians' next pass. We are to slave our subspace sensor relays and plasma gun fire control to... destroyer CNS Carpenter."
"Very well. Tactical department, give them full cooperation." Captain Stack didn't understand why the admiral was letting a destroyer call the shot, but it wasn't his place to question the order. Tactical confirmed, and Stack decided it was time to check in on the engine repairs. His last call had gone down to the chief engineer... maybe he'd better check with the head of the Marine detachment he'd sent down there. It was the work of a moment to find the relevant intercom channel.
"Major Strakanoff!"
The Marine braced to attention. "Yes, sir!"
"Report on the progress of the Cannon engineers."
"By all accounts, they're making excellent progress."
"Good. Have you conveyed my orders to them?"
"First thing we did on arrival, sir."
"Very good. I'll check back with you shortly."
"Yes, sir!"
CNS Frod
Engine Room Six
Ten Minutes Earlier
Ensign Paul Heaviside, Ion Cannon Specialization, Centrality Navy, looked nervously at the pair of fully armored assault troopers. They'd just marched into the compartment and braced against the bulkhead. Granted he was an officer and outranked them. But he couldn't read the mens' faces through their helmets, and there was something very intimidating about the autoblasters in their hands, and the way their fingers tightened on the stock and grip.
Addressing the one on the left, Paul asked the obvious question. "What are your orders, trooper?"
The Marine braced to partial attention, but his weapon stayed at the ready rather than in one of the proper drill positions.
"Sir, my orders are to remain on guard in the engineering spaces, with the rest of the company, during the repair process, until the hyperdrive is operational or until one of the fleet's other capital ships completes hyperdrive repairs. If one of the other ships completes repairs first, the company is to choose a Cannon technician at random every two minutes after the captain gives the orders. Then we are to shoot the technician and liquidate him."
Suddenly, Paul's vague fears became highly specific, but his mind caught on what was perhaps an irrelevant detail- possibly trying to avoid the thought that the random target might be him... "Ah, you said "shoot and then liquidate," trooper?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know what that meant, but he had to ask... damn his curiosity!
"Our orders are to shoot the target in the head, then dump the body the waste dissolver."
"So, when the captain says 'liquidate,' he actually means... turn into a liquid?"
"Yes, sir!"
Paul shivered. I don't want to be turned into a liquid... "I... see."
"If the technicians offer any resistance to the execution, we have different orders, sir." The trooper sounded disturbingly cheerful now. Paul couldn't help himself.
"...what will you do then?" Why am I saying this, I don't want to know I don't want to know...
"Well, then we won't shoot the target in the head before dropping him into the waste dissolver, naturally, sir." The silent Marine on the right nodded slightly.
"Okay..."
"Ah, is that all, sir?"
"Yes."
The ensign turned back to the team of Cannon technicians he'd been supervising as they labored to replace a blown hyper-energy switching unit. "You heard the man, work faster!"
CNS Carpenter
1921 Hours
"I get a battleship? Wait, Frod's the one with the ion cannon, right? Do I get to shoot the ion cannon?"
Deep breaths, deep breaths "No, you do not get to play with the ion cannon. Only the plasma batteries. Now, have you got the software together yet?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me look at..." From the block diagram, he recognized six packages that had to have been illicitly copied from a squadron flagship in gross violation of regs, three more that he suspected the lieutenant had written himself... "Very Dangerous Array?"
"For integrating the subspace data from all the ships, sir. We do have a combined main battery of..."
"I get it, I get it." Not a bad twist on Very Large Array; I wonder where he got it from... Let's see, anything else dodgy in the charts... "Why is this directory labeled 'Crime Pays?'"
"Ah..."
"Tell me now."
The gunner sighed. "Because I got one of the Umerian tactical officers drunk, helped her back to her room, and stole it off her computer? Their information security is pretty bad, sir."
Why me? He normally enjoyed his work, but there were occasional moments when he truly wished he could throw it all away and become a martinet without going mad. Or, kriff, just not go mad, he'd settle for not going mad.
"Lieutenant Aiden Pelton, is this something the CSB should hear about?" Unauthorized contact with foreign officers... Why me?
"Sir, who do you think put me up to it?"
"You mean-"
"Can neither confirm nor deny, sir."
Please let him not be lying, I need him in approximately one piece... "Right. This will work?"
"Should work."
"There are two flag officers who know you're responsible for this, Lieutenant."
"Right."
Leander nodded, leaving Pelton to it.
About two minutes later, the main plot on command deck suddenly zoomed out, light codes getting visibly sharper as CIC showed the increase in resolution. It was... impressive. And there they were, indecently fast, two waves, one corvette and one cruiser tonnage, though a fair chunk of that bulk was probably the Heim drives themselves. First wave spotting for the second? Most likely, from the attack profile last time... no more than forty seconds to the first wave firing pass...
Across the squadron, plasma gun turrets started revolving, all synchronized to the command of a single gunner. Lieutenant Pelton picked his nanosecond, and his kilometer; guns had to be pointed on well in advance if this was going to work at all. FTL sensors made the strafers visible, but hitting them with an STL weapon was still going to be one hell of a trick.
Don't let me down, Pel...
The shot came as a surprise, fired when the enemy's lead ships were still over two million kilometers out and closing fast. Carpenter rippled as her fore and aft plasma turrets lobbed their bolts toward an innocuous point in space; other ships flickered as they fired their salvoes in turn, cruisers and a battleship dancing to his own little destroyer's tune. Time seemed to crawl as the plasma bolts and enemy ships screamed toward their rendevous... No way to tell if it would work by eye from the plot; they could miss by a hundred kilometers and he wouldn't even see it on this scale.
Officially, Leander was a solid example of the New Centralist Man- had to be, or he wouldn't be here commanding this ship, now would he? Officially, that made him an atheist, and he supposed he was. Even so, with the specter of two angry fleet officers and the CSB looming over his head, Jiors Leander quietly commended his soul to any god that could find it- hopefully, the Shroomanist gods...
As one of the enemy corvettes dissolved in a blazing trail of polychromatic vapor and decaying energy fields, like the tail of a comet stretching millions of kilometers across the sky.
The master gunner tried to line up another shot on one of the torpedo boats; he saw the bolts go out again... torpedoes slamming into the capital ships again... miss! Damn.
He called up gunnery. "One for two, Lieutenant?"
"Had him bracketed. I'll make it next time."
"Very good, carry on, and good kill!" That last spoken with a hint of carnivorous snarl, keep the man's confidence up there. Leander closed the circuit just in time to get a call from Loyalist; Liggs with the same idea he'd had, only one level up?
"Congratulations, Commander. Vice Admiral Verio is routing the full fleet fire control network to you next time. Can you handle it?"
Only one response to that. Gulp. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Now to hope Pelton could repeat a trick...
Recommended Listening
Kavoolite Missile Harrier Toranox
Forming Up For Third Attack Run
1927 Hours
The admiral steepled his fingers in a gesture a human would have recognized, and rightly. "We drop farther out this time. Concentrate on targets one, three, and six."
"We're going back in?"
His flag captain was right, and someone had to say it: if the hit on Intharan wasn't luck on the last pass, they were going to lose another ship. Maybe two- perhaps even more.
"I won't inform the Emperor that the cream of his expeditionary fleet turned for home after the loss of a single scout ship."
"Some worrying evanescents on that last pass, sir; I think we were bracketed by at least four plasma bolts within five hulg of the critical threshold."
Their gunnery can't be that good... Then again, who knew what the great powers were capable of? Against Urtraghans, Gron, or Sibellians he'd gamble on his harriers being able to dodge enemy fire until the magazines ran dry. Against the outside races, the humans, Idurans, and others beyond the shoals? Hard to say...
His decision was made. "We go in."
"Yes, sir."
CNS Black Hole
1931 Hours
Black Hole might be out of the loop as far as plasma battery fire control was concerned, but Verio still got the benefit of the coordinated sensor picture from Carpenter- clearer and farther reaching than even his battleship's massive detector grids had given him before.
How are they doing it?
He could see the Zebesians coming in again, at those incredible speeds. The faint rumble of the flagship's heavy plasma cannon pointing on, that clenching of the gut knowing that the torpedoes were going to come in fast and deadly...
It all happened too fast, those final seconds of an action at Heim drive speeds- even high relative sublight speeds- were invariably a gunnery computer's battle, more so than usual. Another one of the Zebesian scouts blew apart; the plasma cannon thumped out their next salvo seemingly simultaneous with the torpedo launch. Black Hole jumped slightly, and Verio just had time to spot the burning red of critical damage appear around the icon for the battle carrier Tate's Folly before bolts and strafers intercepted... and one of the torpedo craft vanished.
Missile Harrier Toranox
1933 Hours
W'bartan... no... The captain of the missile harrier Destrelax hadn't been just a comrade-in-arms; he'd been a friend.
Three hits on two passes was too many, far too many for the amount of damage they were doing. They'd obviously wounded that carrier, probably crippled it, but... not worth the price, not worth two scouts and a harrier. Their orders from the Emperor were clear: once they had done all the damage they could manage practically, it was time to withdraw.
The High Council had no doubt expected them to fire their magazines dry before that time came, but it was not to be. The doctrine of hit and fade, scream past the enemy under Hulartik Drive and deliver a spread of crippling torpedoes... potentially valid, he was sure. But not a tool for asymmetric warfare against such a large fleet, not with his own handful of ships.
"Withdraw into the shoals under magnetogravitic power; activate the cloaking devices. We must report this reverse to the Emperor... and rethink our war plans, lest we face these humans again."
CNS Black Hole
1934 Hours
"What happened?"
"Sir, Rear Admiral Fibors is wounded- we had a cascading power grid failure, there's spalling damage to the bridge."
"His condition?"
"...Too soon to say, sir; I haven't heard from sickbay yet. He managed to get out a few orders after the hit on primary bridge; I'm hoping it's minor."
"I hope so too, Commander. What's your status?"
"Bad, sir. We took two torpedoes, right after the other, and the second drilled the dorsal shields. The superstructure aft of Frame 600 is gone; we're down to half our launch capability and two thirds our fighter complement. Power system is a mess too- the surges blew away a lot of our repairs. I doubt we could manage more than three simultaneous launches, even if we have the tubes for them. Hyperdrive is... I don't think we'll be able to bring it back sir, not soon enough to matter. This is one for the dockyards."
"Understood. I'll detach ships to cover you when we clear this damned interdictor." Verio gave the junior officer a benevolent smile. "Carry on, son. You're doing well. Verio out!"
One battle carrier badly damaged, for two corvettes and a... hard to rate those strafers, they punch hard but die easy. This little skirmish was arguably a success... but he had to get the fleet to Zebes, somehow!
"Com-Scan, contact the Umerians; I need to know if they've nailed down a location yet!" Maybe the Eoghans could line up something; no one knew exactly how far their version of those damn torpedoes could reach... their minimum distance estimate wasn't promising though.
His thoughts were interrupted by that impertinent, disturbingly quick Umerian- who looked much too cheerful this time.
"Vice Admiral, we have a location, and some readouts. We'll get the data to you as soon as we can."
That's some progress at least...