The Word Is War, page 21
part #1 of Doomsday War Series
“Wait one,” Morgan said, frowning as he looked over his controls. “There’s something strange. Power readings on the enemy ships.”
“Are they coming back online?” Winter asked, eyes widening.
“I don’t know. They don’t match anything we registered before, and they don’t seem to be directed towards any of their systems. Certainly not to their weapons or their engines.” Shaking his head, he added, “I don’t get it, sir. This doesn’t make any sense. Even their primary network is still offline.”
“How long until Admiral Liu’s formation makes contact with the enemy?” Winter asked, turning to Nakamura.
“Approximately three minutes, Commander,” the technician replied.
Winter looked at the power curve, at the reports flooding into the sensors. Energy was certainly going somewhere, and if it wasn’t heading to their primary weapons, where was it going? The enemy ships still looked dead, floating through space without direction, sitting ducks for any attack. If the Tyrants were planning something, then…
Something triggered in his mind. If he was reading the numbers correctly, the power curve was rising to reach a peak in about three minutes. At the time when the Confederation Fleet would be among them, taking their shots. Whenever it had appeared as though the enemy were at risk of capture, they’d taken another way out. They’d killed themselves, in such a way as to do as much damage to the enemy as possible.
This was no different.
“Get me Admiral Liu, now!” he barked at Singh. “Helm, get us out of here! As far from the enemy ships as possible. All power to the engines.”
“Transferring, sir, but what…,” Sabatini said.
“I have the Admiral, Commander,” Singh said, as the face of the battered veteran appeared on the screen, technicians bustling behind him.
“Make this quick, Commander,” Liu said. “In a few minutes….”
“It’s a trap, Admiral. Or a fail-safe, but either way, the enemy fleet is about to self-destruct, and if you remain on your current course, you’re going to go right down with them as well as most of what’s left of our Deep Space forces. You’ve got to evade, now.”
“This might be our only chance to stop them,” Liu replied. “Are you sure about this? It might be some sort of a ruse…”
“It fits completely with their tactical profile, Admiral. It matches everything they’ve done up to this point. They won’t let us win unless they can possibly avoid it, and that means that they’ll blow their ships up if it means they can salvage some sort of victory from this. If you don’t alter course right now, then it’ll be too late.”
Liu frowned, nodded, turned from the pickup, and said, “All ships, maximum evasive course. Scatter and run. Repeat, scatter and run.” Turning back to Winter, he said, “I hope you’re right about this, Commander, because if you aren’t, you just condemned everyone from here to Proxima to death.”
“If I’m right, and you’d held your course, sir…”
“True. Good luck. Out.”
“Ship responding to controls, Commander,” Sabatini said. “We are on escape trajectory.” She paused, then said, “Debris projections suggest that we are on the outer edges of the danger zone, sir, as is most of the fleet.”
“What about our people from the command ship?” Morgan asked.
“Projections suggest that if they are still alive, given the velocity they would have been given by the atmospheric leak, they’re safe,” Bianchi said, shaking her head. “Ironic. They’re probably going to outlive us all.”
“Bridge to Engineering,” Winter said, stabbing a control. “More power to the engines. Cut out everything else, I mean everything, and red-line every transfer conduit. This ship has got to reach maximum acceleration, right now.”
“Trying, sir, but we’re running hot as it is…,” Moore protested.
“Run her hotter, Lieutenant, or we won’t make it in time. Commander Bianchi, warn all hands to prepare for multiple hull breaches. Depressurize any occupied compartments that might be affected. No sense making ourselves a target if we don’t have to.”
“Acceleration is growing fast, Commander,” Sabatini said, the very deck of the ship vibrating under the unaccustomed load. “She’s a wild horse, skipper. I’m having trouble keeping her stable.”
“If your guess is right,” Morgan said, “then that won’t matter in about two minutes. Power levels are still rising.”
“Change to enemy aspect!” Nakamura said, his words filling Winter’s heart with dread. “Some of their ships are coming back under control. Power curve falling on the outermost vessels in the formation, and they are bringing their weapons systems back on-line.” Turning to Winter, he added, “Looks like a cascade effect, sir. One ship helping the others.”
“If that’s correct, then the whole fleet will be operational in a hair under three minutes,” Morgan reported, looking down at a readout. “There’s another race on.” Grimacing, he added, “We might just have had time to take them down if we’d held our course.”
Frowning, Singh said, “Getting a lot of electromagnetic activity from the enemy fleet, sir. I’m not sure I could punch any sort of a signal through all that chatter.” He paused, then added, “Some of it is coming from the deactivated ships, Commander. I don’t understand. If anything is online, then why aren’t the disabled vessels recovering more quickly?”
“Take the miracle, Specialist, and try not to ask just what might be bringing it about.” He sat back in his chair, and said, “Keep us moving, Sabatini. We’ve got to get clear.”
“You know something,” Morgan said, glancing at Winter.
“Just a thought,” Winter replied. “Maybe it’ll play out. Maybe it won’t. We’ll find out in a few minutes, one way or another.” He sat back in his chair, watching the trajectory plot, watching as the enemy ships started to move, to tighten their formation in anticipation of an attack on Second Fleet, Admiral Liu’s forces now scattering to the four winds.
The clock ticked down, the remaining seconds trickling away, and one by one, the enemy ships rallied, regaining control once more. Still a group at the core of the formation remained offline, unable to rejoin the others, their reactors still raging hotter and hotter, racing towards an uncontrollable reaction. The final second ticked away, and the core ships exploded, a blinding glare that the viewscreen struggled to mask.
At once, the debris field raced from the destroyed ships, slamming into the others, tearing the formation apart a piece at a time, a series of new explosions erupting, one after another, the screen filling with the molten remnants of the once proud ships, an expanding cloud of death that would for a brief moment destroy everything it touched.
“Interference is clear,” Singh said. “I’m picking up rescue beacons from all five of our people. All life readings are green, sir. They made it through.”
“And Second Fleet?” Winter asked.
“Safe, just,” Morgan replied. “It’s marginal, but they shouldn’t receive anything other than superficial damage on this orbit, and it will be completely dispersed by the time they come around again.” Turning to Winter, he added, “How did you know?”
“Something Mendoza said, about the look in the eyes of Doctor Meyer before she killed him, that there was still some flicker of life left in him, regardless of what the Tyrants had done to him. Even just the tiniest remnant of the man he had once been, longing for a release.”
Nodding, Bianchi replied, “Then you think someone over there was helping us, even at the last second?”
“I think that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t wipe out all trace of humanity. Just like the one we found in the sensor control room, killed by suicide. He’d regained control for just long enough to free himself, the only way he knew how.” Looking at the viewscreen, at the raging, boiling mass of the remnants of the enemy formation, he shook his head, and said, “I thought I’d be celebrating. I suppose I still should.”
“Maybe there’s something more we can do for them?” Bianchi said. “We need a research project, a way to free someone who has been implanted. Perhaps even restore them to what they once were, or as close as possible. A way to reverse the damage done.”
“Doctor Zhang doesn’t think it possible,” Winter said.
“He could be wrong,” Bianchi pressed. “As soon as we get home, I’ll call every damn scientist on the books to find out the truth.”
Looking up from his console, Singh said, “Is that really necessary, Commander? After all, we’ve beaten them back. They’re gone, and we now know how to defeat them if they return.”
“Do we?” Winter asked. “We didn’t beat them on our own, Specialist. We had help, from the very people we sought to fight. We owe it to them to try and to find a way to free them, even if that just means letting them die with some sort of dignity. Besides, I don’t think this is over.” Looking across at the young technician, he added, “I have the distinct impression that this conflict has hardly begun.” With a sigh, he added, “Commander, rustle up a shuttle and go bring our people home. We’re going to need them for the victory celebrations. Major Morgan, secure from battle stations.”
“With pleasure, sir,” he replied. He turned to Winter, and said, “Do you really think they’ll be back?”
“I’m certain of it. As certain as I am that we will be ready for them.”
Thank you for reading ‘The Word Is War’. For information on future releases, please join the author's mailing list at http://eepurl.com/A9MdX for updates. If you enjoyed this book, please review it on the site where you purchased it.
‘Doomsday’s Dawn’ continues in ‘Arsenals of Death’, which is available at http://mybook.to/Doomsday02
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