Hero's Return, page 25
Sarah and several others had argued against the plan. It depended on Eesni FTL sensors with only ten times light speed ability. But what if they were better than that? If enemy ships were on the far side of the system, it would be hours before the fleet’s sensors would see them fire their long-range FTL weapons.
If any ships survived long enough to see the launches, Sarah thought.
“You might be right, Kev,” Sarah said.
* * *
“Two minutes to jump,” Paul Wheeler announced to the staff on Daring’s flag bridge.
“Captain Wheeler,” Chuck Anderson got his chief of staff’s attention and motioned him over.
“What’s up?” Paul asked as he walked across the bridge to stand next to his admiral’s command seat.
“Push the jump back by one minute.”
“What?”
“Do it. Delay the jump. I’m playing a hunch.”
“You’re the boss.”
Wheeler turned to face the astrogator.
“Push the jump back one minute.”
“Sir?”
“There’s no time, do it!” Wheeler snapped, looking at the current countdown that had just reached one minute.
“Comms, make sure everyone else knows the change.”
* * *
“They’re late,” Sarah’s XO said over the private channel.
“Yeah,” Sarah responded. Before she could say anything else, a series of explosions rocked the section of space near the spot where the third wave would have shown up.
“Tactical?” Sarah barked.
“Searching, ma’am.”
“Forty explosions,” Kevin said in Sarah’s ear. “Based on what we know, that could mean twenty ships. Chuck Anderson is one lucky son-of-a-bitch. How much you wanna bet he delayed his jump because he thought that might happen?” the XO added.
“We need to find those ships,” Sarah stated, just as the hyper portals of the third wave appeared. She checked another timer.
“It’ll be another fifteen minutes before the second wave can jump out.”
“And thirty before the third wave can,” Ken added. “Are we going to follow our orders?”
“Hell, no,” Sarah instantly responded. “We’re going to do what destroyers do. What they’ve always done. We’re going to screen the main force.”
“Found them,” Tactical said excitedly, and thirty icons suddenly appeared on the tactical display. “They’re thirty light minutes away.”
“Astrogator, plot a jump two light minutes from the enemy,” Sarah ordered. “Tactical, get me as good a firing solution as you can.”
Sarah punched a button to open the special comm channel she’d had her communications officer set up. As the senior of the two destroyer squadron commanders, she was the one Admiral Anderson had placed in command of the first wave. She was now going to exercise that authority.
“All ships, this is Captain Holdman aboard the Lance. My astrogator will be sending jump coordinates to all of you. As soon as they’re calculated, I intend to jump in close and engage the enemy. Today, we remind the rest of the fleet what destroyers do.”
“Jump calculated, ma’am, and sent out.”
“All ships report ready, ma’am.”
Sarah had left her special channel open.
“All ships of the 2nd and 3rd Missile Destroyer Squadrons—jump. See you on the other side.”
Sarah saw the portal open in front of her ship. As she watched Lance slide into hyperspace, she thought of her brother, Levi. His destroyer had been destroyed during the Second Battle of Serenity, when the destroyer squadron it was part of sacrificed itself to defend the Serenity Colony from a missile attack. All ten ships had placed themselves in the line of fire, and all ten ships had been destroyed, but no missiles reached the planet. Ten ships, a thousand Imperial spacers, had sacrificed themselves to protect millions.
Now, the twenty missile destroyers of the 2nd and 3rd Missile Destroyer Squadrons would do the same thing. They’d die to give the thousands of spacers of the rest of the force a chance to live.
That’s what destroyers do, Sarah thought.
* * *
Instead of the normal lurch a ship made when transiting back into normal space, Chuck Anderson felt his flagship, the missile dreadnought Daring, violently shudder.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Sensors are still resetting, Admiral, but it seems we exited into the middle of a battle,” Tactical reported.
“All we have is visuals,” Paul Wheeler said from his station. “I’m seeing a lot of what looks like antimatter explosions all around the jump exit.”
It took a minute for the tactical display to finally reset and update. It was the longest minute of Chuck’s life.
“The Eesni blind-fired into the spot they expected us to enter the system,” Tactical finally reported. “If we hadn’t delayed …”
“Your gut was right,” Wheeler said. “We’d have been right in the middle of it if we hadn’t delayed.”
“What about the rest of the force?” Anderson asked.
“Everyone else is still with us,” Wheeler said quickly.
Chuck’s display was rapidly updating. Then he saw the twenty icons representing his two missile destroyer squadrons disappear.
“The 2nd and 3rd Missile Destroyer Squadrons opened portals and entered hyperspace,” Tactical said.
Anderson exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He’d feared the enemy had destroyed the ships with a second volley.
“Where are they?”
Silence. No one had an answer to the question.
“At least the destroyers followed orders.”
Anderson turned to see that his chief of staff had stepped up next to his chair.
“Some of us will survive.”
“Have all ships accelerate and perform evasive maneuvers,” Chuck ordered.
“It’ll be another thirteen minutes before the second wave can jump,” Paul reminded him.
“Let’s hope the Eesni’s reload times haven’t changed. Some of us might last long enough to jump out.”
The strike force commander slapped the arm of his command chair with his left hand. “I want to shoot at something, distract them.”
Before he finished speaking, four battleships of the 2nd Superbattleship Squadron vanished in fireballs. As the explosions cleared, all that remained of the four ships were expanding clouds of debris.
“The damn enemy seems to know the cycle times of our hyper generators. They’re going after the ships that can jump the soonest.”
“Or they got lucky,” Paul said.
Chuck gave his friend a withering look. It was a you don’t really believe that glance.
“We can hope,” the chief of staff said as he moved back to his own station.
As Anderson watched him walk away, he felt his flagship heel hard to starboard in an evasive maneuver he hoped might keep him alive.
The strike force commander turned his attention back to the tactical display. From the scout’s reports, there were two dozen more red icons scattered throughout the system. Some were former Zenkarr facilities, captured by the Eesni and being used by them to support their fleet, but others were of an unknown design, obviously Eesni-built.
But what he could see didn’t matter. It was what he couldn’t see, already shredding his force, that did. And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Or can I?
“Captain Wheeler, execute the bombardment plan.”
Chuck watched as his chief of staff looked up from his console and give him a feral grin. He knew what emotions were behind that leer. Anderson was feeling them himself.
They may kill most of us. They may even kill all of us. But we’ll take out their infrastructure in this system. It will be months before the bastards will be able to stage attacks out of this system. We will accomplish the mission.
“I need a minute to retask targeting assignments since we’re missing some ships.”
The initial plan had the strike force launching a long-range bombardment of the Eesni facilities shortly after the third wave of Federation ships entered the system. To do that, Captain Wheeler and the tactical staff had developed a detailed firing plan, assigning specific ships to specific targets.
But hypering into the middle of a battle has a way of changing plans, and with four superbattleships destroyed, there were gaps in the targeting plan.
“Launch based on the original plan and adjust on the fly,” Anderson ordered. “We don’t know how long we have.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” both Wheeler and the tactical officer responded almost in unison.
Chuck could tell by the tone of their voices, they approved of the order.
“What about a planetary bombardment, sir?” Tactical asked.
The question surprised Anderson. They’d had this discussion during the planning of the mission, during the strike force’s journey in hyperspace. While many, maybe even a majority of the staff, supported targeting planetary facilities, Anderson had vetoed the idea.
“We talked about this, Commander. While we don’t know for sure, there are still likely Bear civilians on the planet. There may even be Eesni civilians, if there are such people, on the surface. Like the Empire, the Federation does not intentionally target civilians. We, I, will not order the mass murder of thousands of aliens.”
“But precision strikes could …”
“Not at this range,” Anderson cut the officer off. “Leave it be, Commander.”
The tactical officer, finally getting the message, nodded and busied himself at his console.
“Orbital bombardment launch has completed,” Paul Wheeler reported.
And just in time, Chuck thought as four supercruisers exploded.
* * *
Lance transited the portal, reappearing in normal space. Sarah felt her stomach lurch, her typical reaction to a transition, as her palm slapped down on the Special Call button.
“All ships, hold for targeting information from the flag.”
Sarah knew she was running a risk. The Eesni, with their faster-than-light sensors, might detect her twenty missile destroyers and be able to fire before her ships could launch. If that happened, she’d lose the missiles the destroyed ships carried, weakening her attack. But Sarah knew firing on old, long-range sensor readings would be inaccurate. Many missiles would miss if her two squadrons launched right away.
So she waited and hoped.
Finally, the tactical display began populating with red icons, the sensors finally clearing.
“Deities are favoring us, Captain,” Lance’s tactical officer announced. “As soon as the sensors cleared, we saw the light of another enemy launch.”
It was indeed luck, Sarah knew. Not only did her destroyers have a solid lock on the enemy ships, twenty of them only two light minutes away, they also had a four- or five-minute safety window as the Eesni reloaded. But the launch also meant four more Federation warships, along with their crews, had just died. Sarah saw her tactical officer suddenly realize the same thing as his face blanched.
“It’s okay,” Sarah said, pitching her voice just loud enough that only the junior lieutenant commander could hear. “Concentrate on getting the targeting done.”
“Done and sent to the rest of the ships, Captain.”
Sarah toggled the command channel again. “All ships—fire.”
Her private display suddenly filled with the green icons of friendly missiles. The missiles promptly disappeared as each opened a miniature portal and entered hyperspace. Sarah knew it would be a quick journey. Nearly instantaneous, in fact. Two light minutes was the minimum firing distance of the hyper missiles.
Now to see if any of us survive, Sarah thought.
“All ships, accelerate at maximum and scatter,” she ordered over the still-open command circuit. “Make evasive maneuvers.”
Sarah watched as the orderly formation of two missile destroyer squadrons dissolved into twenty ships, each running for their lives.
“And may the deities protect us all.”
Captain Holdman closed the channel. With her ships scattering, she was no longer worried about commanding her force and turned her attention to Lance.
One hundred and twenty-two seconds after the Federation destroyer launched the attack, all twenty Eesni warships disappeared in massive antimatter explosions, but Captain Sarah Holdman and the crew of the destroyer Lance didn’t see them. Nor did fifteen other missile destroyers. Most of the Eesni ships managed to launch one last missile attack against the Imperial destroyer force before being destroyed. The Federation missiles destroyed the four closest alien ships before they could launch their missiles, allowing four ships to survive.
For all intents and purposes, the 2nd and 3rd Missile Destroyer Squadrons had ceased to exist, but they had done their job. They’d done what destroyers throughout history had always done. They’d screened the fleet.
* * *
Chuck Anderson glanced at the time. It had been five minutes since the four supercruisers had disappeared into clouds of debris. His hands gripped the arms of his command chair, anticipating the next attack.
Nothing happened.
He watched the old-fashioned chronometer’s second hand make another complete rotation, marking another minute.
Still nothing.
The remaining ships of the formation continued their random maneuvers, attempting against all hope to disrupt the Eesni targeting. It was the only chance his ships had.
Several more minutes passed. Paul Wheeler stepped up next to his command chair, and Chuck turned to face him.
“What do you think?”
“Maybe that’s all they had? Maybe they’ve run out of their hyper weapons,” the chief of staff said.
Chuck snorted.
“We’ve both seen everything Intelligence has on these aliens. I doubt they’ve run out of missiles, or whatever it is they fire at us.”
Wheeler shrugged. “It’s been ten minutes since the last attack. We haven’t picked up the energy signatures of them leaving. Hell, we haven’t picked up any energy signatures yet.”
“That only means the Eesni are too far away for the light to have reached us yet,” Chuck said.
“Hyper contacts forming directly in front of the second wave,” Tactical announced. “Four of them.”
“Signal all ships to stand by to fire,” Captain Wheeler ordered as he returned to his console. “I want ships firing as soon as they have target locks.”
“Belay that, Tactical,” Chuck countermanded the order. “I want a hard lock on all weapons.”
Wheeler looked questioningly at his admiral.
“We’ve never seen the Eesni open hyper portals like we do,” Anderson pointed out. The admiral said it loud enough for everyone on the bridge to hear him. “They’re friends or innocent bystanders. Either way, I’d prefer not to destroy them accidentally.”
“Four of our destroyers are coming through. They’re part of the 2nd Missile Destroyer Squadron.”
Chuck looked at his chief of staff. He could tell his friend was asking himself the same thing he was.
Where are the rest of the 2nd’s ships? And where is the 3rd?
“Transmission coming in from Scimitar,” the communications officer announced.
“What kind of time delay am I looking at?” Anderson asked.
“A minute, Admiral.”
While not ideal—it would take a minute for anything Chuck said to reach the other ship, then a minute to get a response—it was doable.
And I need to know what’s going on.
“Five minutes and the first wave can jump out, Admiral,” Paul Wheeler reminded his boss.
Chuck nodded that he understood.
“Make the connection, Comms.”
The image of Scimitar’s young commander appeared. Chuck said nothing. He’d wait for the officer to start. Having conversations at a distance was always a pain in the ass, and the general rule was that, regardless of rank, the person initiating the call always started the conversation. So he’d have to wait a minute for the destroyer’s captain to see that he had accepted the connection, then wait another minute for the initial message to reach Daring.
While waiting, he scrutinized the destroyer captain. As a senior commander, Chuck had developed the ability to read people, and he used those skills now. He saw a sadness in her face he’d bet was due to the loss of friends. He also saw pride.
“Admiral, I’m Commander Cecile Imbobway,” the young woman introduced herself. Check pegged her as barely past thirty years of age.
“I’m sending a data package with the tactical information of the battle we just fought against the Eesni cruiser force that attacked the strike force.”
Chuck exchanged a look with his chief of staff.
“Confirmed, we’re receiving the data feed,” Tactical announced.
Anderson motioned to his chief of staff. “Get on that, Captain.”
Scimitar’s captain then continued, drawing the admiral’s attention back to the screen.
“We defeated the entire force, but not without loss. Over.”
Anderson opened the channel.
“We’ve received the data packet and are analyzing it, Commander. I’d like to hear in your own words what happened. Over.”
Closing the channel, Chuck settled in for another two-minute wait.
“I can confirm that the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons found and engaged the Eesni force that was attacking us,” Paul Wheeler reported. “Twenty of their cruisers. They got all of them. I’ve got the tactical staff going through it in more detail.”
“And the rest of our destroyers?”
Wheeler waved at Commander Imbobway’s image on the screen. “She’s leading what’s left.”
Anderson tried and failed to suppress the grimace of pain and loss he suddenly felt.
Sixteen destroyers gone. Add that to the four superbattleships and four supercruisers I lost. A fine tally for my court-martial.
“Captain—” Chuck glanced at his chief of staff “—signal the second wave to hold on jumping out of the system.”
