StarFight 1: Battlestar (15 page)

“Science, can your sensors tell us where those two missing enemy ships are?” He looked right to the man at the far right of the front line of function stations.

Willard, who wore a Flower Child decorated vacsuit, was strapped in, like everyone on the Bridge. Still, he leaned forward to scan his control pillar and its sensor readouts.

“Uh, acting captain, a moment. I’m switching settings on the forward sensor array settings.” Silence came. “Yes! The two missing ships are below, close to and out of direct sensor image pickup. That’s according to my moving neutrino sensor. The giant ship’s location is the source of three moving neutrino sources, not one.” He paused, tapped his right armrest, and scanned a new holo. “Plus, I’ve got an electro-optical view of the three ships now. It’s from one of the monitor sats we put in fourth planet orbit. Since the enemy fleet is between us and the planet, it has a great view of the enemy’s rear. So to speak.”

Jacob smiled at Willard’s talkative manner. The portly man was in his late thirties, older than many crew on the ship, and had few friends. But he was an accomplished chess player. After Carlos beat Jacob once, Willard had taken on the young Latino and beaten him handily. Which told Jacob he should never bet in any gambling game where Willard was present. What mattered now was the man’s decisive knowledge of physics, astronomy, orbital mechanics, biology, sociology and the many other disciplines on the Science Deck. While Lori had better chops in gravity and bio-cultural stuff, the man had earned his way to the Bridge the honest way. By being smart, creative and willing to think outside of the box. Or so said his personnel file, which Jacob had scanned during his personal quarters break. In fact, he’d scanned the personnel files of every Bridge crew member, right after Kenji had left. He looked to the Brazilian who sat just to the right of Rosemary.

“Weapons, we are nose down and facing the oncoming enemy. Can you depress the spine or belly or flank proton laser nodes enough to shoot ahead?”

“Acting captain, that is not physically possible,” replied Oliver Diego y Silva. The swarthy man tapped his pillar. An external hull image of the
Lepanto
now showed in the middle of the front wallscreen. The imagery rotated, top to bottom, then back to top. “Our four proton lasers are intended to protect the ship’s flanks. Which means they fire at a ninety degree angle from the ship’s central axis. The proton nodes can tilt by 20 degrees off vertical, but that’s it.”

Which meant for the
Lepanto
to put one of its proton lasers on target on the giant wasp ship meant his ship had to dip its nose by seventy degrees. Thereby exposing a long stretch of its hull to any enemy lying ahead of them. Right now, all eight ships of the battle group had their noses facing the enemy. Behind the
Lepanto
were the two cruisers, lying just to the right and left of his ship’s vector track. Behind them were the two destroyers. They occupied the top and bottom slots along his vector. Behind the four heavy ships were the three frigates, which were clustered directly behind the
Lepanto
in order to reduce their exposure to combined enemy laser fire. In short their current formation was a four layered tube. That would change once the
Lepanto
made its leap ahead against the giant wasp ship.

“Weapons, thank you. Tactical, put up both the true space starlight imagery of the enemy fleet and the situational holo sensor imagery.”

“Displaying.”

In seconds the image of his Battlestar disappeared. In its place, overlapping where stars had once been, were a telescopic true space image of the enemy ships on the left side of the wallscreen, and the situational holo imagery on the right side. The width of both images was about 100,000 kilometers and getting smaller as the enemy got closer. His duplicate of the oncoming wasp ships holo said they were nearly at 11,000 kilometers. Which was the maximum range for their laser and lightning bolt weapons.

“Communications, is everything on this Bridge going out on the All Ship vidcom? And out to the other ships?”

“It is, acting captain,” Osashi said quickly.

“All personnel, combat is imminent. Gunners, you are cleared hot. Kill any enemy target that is within your weapon’s range. Coordinate your fire with the Weapons chiefs on the other ships,” he said quickly. “Remember, every ship fires its carbon dioxide lasers at one spot on the giant wasp ship, while the proton lasers fire together at another spot. Target spots will be designated by the first hits by the
Lepanto
. Everyone join in!”

Below him, O’Connor looked up. “Acting captain, I accept your decision to go with Tactical’s attack formation Alpha Squeeze, and your close-in run as proposed by Ensign Antonova. What about my Darts? We could penetrate the giant’s hull, plant nuke mines, then pull out before they detonate.”

“CWO O’Connor, I am sure your Marines could do just as you propose,” Jacob said, his eyes watching the range countdown on the situational holo. “
If
they could reach the enemy ship. But the middle and rear hulls of your Darts are thin. Two hits by a lightning bolt and a Dart is gone. Plus, I prefer to reserve your Darts for the defense of Kepler 10, after we get there.”

“Accepted, acting captain.”

His peripheral vision told him the white-haired Marine had turned back to watch the two images on the wallscreen. The man had been patient earlier, after he’d come back to the Bridge, contacted the captains on the other seven ships, discussed Rosemary’s formation idea with those captains, then passed the data on to Mehta. He had not challenged Jacob during those discussions with the battle group captains. Which Jacob appreciated. However, the man believed deeply in the value of his Darts for taking down prime targets. Jacob did too. Just not in this battle.

“Enemy is firing,” called Oliver from Weapons, beating the same words from Rosemary by two seconds.

Green laser beams streaked past the
Lepanto
, heading deeper into space. Yellow lightning bolts came crackling out from the five wasp ships that shielded the two hidden ships. What did the enemy commander plan by hiding those ships?

“Nose impact by bolt,” called Joaquin from Life Support.

The red dot of the impact showed on Jacob’s cross section holo of the
Lepanto
. The holo confirmed that all decks were locked down and air-tight. All staff were at combat stations. And the chiefs of each deck were in their control centers, ready to respond to any emergency on their deck.

“The
Chesapeake
is hit,” Rosemary said quickly. “On its upper hull, just ahead of its plasma battery.”

“
Tsushima Strait
hit by bolt,” called Osashi, surprising Jacob that the Communications chief would choose to talk about other ships. Course he was in charge of other ship com linkages, especially the FTL neutrino comlink that allowed real time talk between every Earth ship. Still . . .

The wasp ships hit the 10,000 kilometer distance mark.

“All ships, fire CO
2
lasers at the stern of the giant ship!” Jacob yelled. “Cruisers and destroyers, fire your proton lasers at the top front of the ship. Weapons, fire!”

“Firing,” responded Oliver.

The
Lepanto’s
two front lasers fired from the right and left side outrigger pods. Their green streaks blazed ahead and hit the top rear of the giant ship’s stern. Laser fire from seven other ships joined the Battlestar’s fire. That made for nine green beams hitting within meters of each other.

The true light image of the enemy ships jiggled as the
Lepanto
jinked sideways, then up, to avoid incoming bolt and laser fire. The other battle group ships were doing the same, relying on attitude jets to move the heavy inertia of their ship off the direct line-of-sight that beam energy gunners were limited to.

Six red beams streaked past the Battlestar, zeroing in on the front end of the giant wasp ship. That was the maximum that could be fired by the cruisers and destroyers. While the cruisers had dual flank side proton lasers, the destroyers had only a single proton laser node at their nose. The proton laser positions on all four ships were aimed in a way that allowed them to fire directly ahead. Well, the
Lepanto’s
turn would come, but not right now.

“Power, increase reactor output! Engines, take us up to twelve percent of lightspeed!”

“Reactor output increasing by ten percent,” responded Maggie.

“Ship’s three thrusters are taking increased isotope flow,” called black-skinned Akira. “Magfield confinement of fusion implosions is holding. Speed increasing. To 11.5, 11.7 . . . and now at twelve percent!”

Jacob felt a thrill run down his back. Both fleets were paralleling each other at twelve percent of lightspeed, but closing on each other at far slower speeds of a thousand klicks per minute. Whatever the giant enemy ship commander was planning by hiding two of his ships, the
Lepanto
was about to spring its own surprise. Everyone had agreed the enemy ships would all stay outside the 4,000 kilometer range of the Battlestar’s antimatter cannon. And no battle group ship would get within the 3,917 kilometer range of the giant wasp ship’s black hole weapon. But that gave Jacob eighty kilometers in which to get close enough for him to fire the AM cannon at the enemy ship. Running up the ship’s speed so suddenly was not good on the microelectronic matrices of the reactors and the thruster magfields. But it was the only way he knew of covering the distance faster than the enemy could move out of range.

“Range to giant enemy ship is now 5,143 kilometers,” called Rosemary from Tactical.

“Carbon dioxide lasers are firing a third burst at the enemy,” called Oliver from Weapons. “So are the proton lasers.”

“Reactor stability is holding,” called Maggie.

Briefly Jacob eyed the middle-aged chief warrant officer who managed the ship’s three fusion reactors. Maggie’s file said she was born in the Bronx, had attended MIT and had designed small fusion reactors like the ones that provided power to science bases on Pluto, Europa, Mars and elsewhere. She was also a lesbian with a partner, two boys and four cats at home in the Bronx. The Jewish woman had held up well during the emergency escape from the black hole weapon. The strain on her reactors was less now, but still beyond the safe ratings. Her attention to detail, noted in her file, was now on display.

“Weapons, launch four missiles from our stern silos,” Jacob called. “As we discussed, set them to precede us by five hundred klicks. Set their thermonuke warheads for proximity detonation. And for remote det.”

“Launching missiles,” Oliver called over the helmet comlink. The man’s gloved fingers tapped his control pillar. “Detonation options input. At twelve warheads per missile, we will have 48 nuke-busters flying ahead of us!”

Jacob knew that. He also knew that many of the warheads would be zapped by the enemy’s lasers and lightning bolts. But he only needed a half dozen or so for what he planned. Briefly he wondered what the enemy commander thought of the
Lepanto’s
sudden rush toward the wasp ship, which was also moving toward the battle group. The combined accelerations of both ship groups was rapidly reducing the distance between them. Which made the enemy’s counterfire even more accurate.

“Our nose plasma battery is gone!” called Rosemary.

Soon. Soon they would be in range.

CHAPTER NINE

Surprise filled Hunter’s gut. The Soft Skin flying nests had turned to point their heads toward his Swarm. His group had just begun to fly faster when the enemy shifted nest orientation. It was as if their Fighter Leader wished to enter a swirling mix of the two groups of flying nests. Strange. It was not what a Swarmer would do. Then again, as his elderly Servant had said, different lifeforms meant different ways of organizing themselves. No matter.

“Stinger Servant, bite that largest Soft Skin nest with our head ring of stingers!”

“Biting,” the young female scent cast to him in a mix of aggregation, release and food pheromones.

Clearly she wished to eat of the enemy’s flesh. “Support Hunter Seven, Support Hunter Nine,” he scent cast over the scent talker that linked all Swarm ships. “Are you ready to fly out and sting the large Soft Skin nest?”

“Seven hungers to bite the Soft Skins,” scent cast the young male Hunter who led that flying nest. The youth’s pheromones were full of excitement scents mixed with territorial and trail scents.

“Nine is ready to buzz quickly to the attack,” scent cast the older female Hunter who led that nest.

Hunter knew her. She came from a predecessor cohort, one of the cohorts that had led the consolidation of all Swarmers into the Nest-wide cooperative that now guided their world and every Swarmer on it. She had declared her Hunter eagerness while still a young larva, biting the forelimbs of the Workers feeding her fresh caught meat. That aggressive biting had followed her through five levels of study, until she moved from a land nest to the flying nest that circled their world in the cold of dark space. Once there she had claimed the right to lead one of the nests being gathered together for the colony trip to the yellow sky light that now lay behind his group of nests. She was someone he could rely on.

“Bide your eagerness,” he scent cast to them in a mix of aggregation and trail pheromones.

A change in the oncoming Soft Skin nests drew his attention. They were stinging back against the Swarm with their sky light and heavy sky light stingers. But now the largest nest sent out flying seeds that came forward, sniffing for the scent of his Swarmers. The seeds moved slowly, but they moved fast enough to draw ahead of the cluster of Soft Skin nests. Which, he now saw, had moved to an unusual formation.

“Servant for external space, what do you make of the Soft Skin nest formation?” he scent cast to the older female seated on the bench ahead of him.

The red and black streaks on her well-shaped body shone brightly against the yellow of her undercoat. Her antennae leaned forward. “The perception imagers take in many colors from these strange nests,” she scent cast in a strong signal pheromone. “It appears the larger flying nests seek to shelter the smaller nests from the concentrated bite of all our nests.”

He could see that, in detail with his two major eyes and in broad sweeps of ultraviolet through his three small eyes. The largest nest was in the lead of this formation, just as he was in the lead of all the Swarmer nests. That meant his decision to attack the largest Soft Skin nest was correct. Clearly it held the chief Fighter Leader of the Soft Skins. Though, he now noticed, the Soft Skin nest that had flown away from Warmth when the Soft Skin device had discovered the death of Soft Skin leaders, that nest now returned. It was winging toward the other Soft Skins with a fast wingbeat. Good. This battle would lead to the death of all the Soft Skins.

“Hunter!” scent cast the older male Servant in charge of his nest’s propulsive devices. “The Soft Skin sky light weapons are all striking the shell above my devices! There could be a deep bite soon.”

Now was the time for his guidance to all the Servants and all the Swarmer nests. “Patience, elder. Our hard shell is thick and resistant to the heat of concentrated sky light.”

“Our head skin melts!” scent cast the elderly female Servant in charge of pheromone signals to the other chambers of his nest. “The heavy sky lights hit hard and deep! The bite goes deeper than before!”

The Servant’s ragged alarm pheromones were afloat on the air of the Flight Chamber. He could not allow her to make fearful the other Servants, let along the nests of Hunters Seven and Nine. He flapped his two wings rapidly, rising up from his bench and going forward the few body lengths that separated him from the female. Before she could scent cast more defeat, he flew down, landed on the top of her abdomen and then bit her life cord at the spot where her head joined her thorax. Her head came loose. It hit the bottom of the chamber with a loud swish of fluids.

“Servants! We attack! We defeat the Soft Skins! No Soft Skin can oppose us! Bite now and hard!”

The shock of his action, combined with the overwhelming scent of his pheromones, pushed each Servant to a rapid wing fluttering even as they each emitted intense aggregation pheromones.

“Biting harder!” scent cast the young female Servant in charge of their stingers.

“Aiming our head exactly at the oncoming Soft Skins!” scent yelled the Flight Servant in charge of their nest’s movement through cold dark space.

“Look!” cried the old male Servant who studied aberrant social behavior. “The largest Soft Skin nest jumps toward us! It flies faster than any Swarmer!”

Dismay hit him hard. No sooner had he killed the defeatist Servant than the ancient Servant who knew not how to bite or fight or do anything but hum and buzz, he too emitted a scent of confusion and alarm.

“All Swarmers! Our target comes to us! Rejoice!” he scent cast in strong waves of signal pheromones. “Join your stingers against the large nest’s approach! Support Leaders Seven and Nine, launch your nests now! Swing out to either side of this Soft Skin nest and bite from the sides as we bite its head!”

The swirl of confused pheromones now cleared as each Swarmer understood their purpose and bent to it. The scents echoing back from the two nests he had hidden under his wings were filled with aggregation loyalty, trail determination and anger hunger. Flapping his wings, he spread those new pheromones among the Swarmers in the Flight Chamber, thence out to other chambers in the depths of his nest. They might suffer wounds to the outer hard shell. But the essential parts of his nest were hidden deep. They could fly and bite even with half their hard shell bitten away. Inhaling deep, he brought to mind images of the Soft Skins from the meeting site, before the Storm Bringer had ended their lives. Would the best way to kill a survivor be to bite its neck, the way he had done to the disloyal female? Or should he first sting its middle, the place where his deep color vision said the most heat resided on a Soft Skin? All that mattered was that there be some survivors on which to try all stinger options!

♦   ♦   ♦

Support Hunter Seven sent out the attack pheromone to all the Servants in his nest’s Flight Chamber. Each fluttered wings, bent antennae forward and activated their parts of his flying nest. A vibration that he felt through the bench he sat on told him the nest’s propulsive devices were moving his nest outward and away from the shelter of Hunter One’s massive nest. It was twice the size of any other Swarmer nest, and the leader’s plan to deceive the Soft Skins made sense to him. It was a variation of the historical Swarm attack whereby the strongest Hunter led the swarm forward, his form being the first to be sighted by the major eyes of an enemy cohort. The enemy would think there were fewer nests coming to bite, when in the glow of the day’s sky light there were more!

“Stinger Servant, hold your sting until we are closer to the large Soft Skin nest,” he scent cast in a mix of signal, trail and aggregation pheromones.

“Holding our bite,” the young male scent cast back in a strong odor of hunter pheromones, signaling he wished to eat of the enemy’s flesh.

As did he. Killing the large nest would do much to increase his standing among all Swarmers. He was not the one who had lost five nests to the leaderless Soft Skins. Hunter One was. Once the Soft Skins were dead and gone, he would call for a meeting of all Hunters from all seven flying nests. While Hunter One surely expected him to Challenge, the older leader did not know two nests had already pledged loyalty to him.

“Support Hunter,” called the Servant in charge of monitoring radiations from cold space. “A new Soft Skin nest now flies back to the eight nests that now face us. But it is still distant, even though its wings fly swiftly.”

He inhaled the trail signal emitted by the older female. The Servant spoke truth. But his five eyes judged the speed of the oncoming flying skin to be inadequate to join the battle that now loomed as both nest groups flew toward each other at a large part of the speed of sky light radiation.

“Stay alert,” he said by way of primer and releaser pheromones, mixed with a touch of aggregation to remind her of her loyalty to him. “Soon we will reach the proper flight angle at which to sting hard the disgusting Soft Skins!”

Revulsion pheromones peaked briefly as all Swarmers in his Flight Chamber viewed the perception images of the Soft Skin nests, none of which possessed the orderly outer hard shell that marked a safe nest. Then excitement pheromones became dominant as his fellow Swarmers felt eagerness to attack, that scent enlarged by his release of a releaser pheromone that reminded them all that soon there would be a change in their duties. Soon, their nest would bite hard the head of the large Soft Skin nest, just as Support Hunter Nine’s nest bit hard from the opposite side. Surely no Soft Skin nest could survive bites from both sides and against its head!

♦   ♦   ♦

“Bannerjee, I don’t give a damn what you think about what you deserve! And we’re now in combat!” yelled Alicia Branstead over the between decks comlink.

Aarhant winced. The image of the Australian woman on his tablet showed a brown-haired, middle-aged, stocky Anglo woman dressed in a vacsuit, sitting beside her two principal assistants, in the control center on Science Deck. His own assistants sat behind him in the Navigation Deck control center. He hoped her assistants were not hearing what she was saying.

“I know that,” he replied, his attention partly focused on the situational holo that floated in the middle of the room filled with navigation panels, Library databases, algorithm crunching comp blocks and antique paper files in case a stellar flare wiped all the digital electronic data. “But you are an O-3 Lieutenant, ranking just below me. Surely you must agree that as a lieutenant commander, I am the highest ranking officer still alive on the Battlestar!”

Her frown went to a grimace of distaste. “So what? You know as well as I do that Star Navy regulations prevent an officer from one deck taking over operations on another deck, without an encrypted approval code from Earth Command! Or approval by the ship’s captain. The rules say the Command Deck chain of authority runs from the ensigns up to the admiral or captain. We are
not
in their chain of command. Not until Earth Command says otherwise!” She looked aside at some holo. “Let me go! We are getting close to the attack on the giant wasp ship!”

“As you wish,” he muttered. “Good day.”

Shutting down his tablet link that conveyed images and voice and data only to his helmet’s comlink, Aarhant felt intense frustration. Whatever the Star Navy regulations were, he should be in command! If he had been, the entire battle group would have left the system before the wasp aliens could attack! The image of the vaporized and melted ruins of the meeting site said clearly the First Contact encounter had come up a failure. Every ship should have accepted his leadership. Instead, while he slept, the whelp had entered the ship status change code, assumed command, and then fought a battle that had resulted in the loss of a frigate! Why, a fresh ensign like Renselaer would not even be in command of a frigate, leastwise not until he made the lieutenant JG grade. But the reality was there were only three commissioned officers still alive on the
Lepanto
. Himself, Branstead and Lieutenant JG Jane Yamamoto, who ran Life Support Deck. Everyone else was a Spacer, a warrant officer or a petty officer, none of whom possessed an O-ranking. Even James Alvarez, who was technically in charge of routine Command Deck operations, was just a senior chief petty officer. Who was outranked by any ensign! With a sigh, he told himself to be patient. Once they arrived in Kepler 10, he would talk directly to the captain in charge of the Star Navy orbital base. Surely the man, he hoped it was a man, would agree with him assuming command!

♦   ♦   ♦

“Range to giant enemy ship is now 4,212 kilometers,” called Rosemary from Tactical.

Jacob’s heart beat fast. “Navigation, keep us jinking from side to side, up and down and spiral and any mode that reduces weapons impact!”

“Maneuvering,” replied Louise, her gloved fingers tapping the touch controls on the top of her control pillar.

Briefly he gave thanks for the woman’s expertise. Like Daisy she had been a pilot before earning a Ph. D. in celestial mechanics from Princeton. Her file said she was married to a man who was a mechanical engineer involved in building small dams on lesser streams in the Rockies and the Cascades. They had no children. But the woman had piloted every type of spacecraft in the inventory of the Star Navy, including small LCAs, cargo tubes and sensor blooms. She was the perfect person to be at Navigation. Her deck’s boss, Aarhant Bannerjee, had impressed Jacob as a bureaucrat too focused on his personal image and advancement. Thank the Goddess he was not now on the Bridge!