New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) (12 page)

“Target all enemy ships! Prioritize all targets and put two shrikes on each,” Captain Everett was barking. “Helm! Get us underway, all ahead one-half, bear as she goes.”

“Ahead one-half, aye!” the helmsman called.

“Shrikes are not responding, Captain,” the tactical officer called out. “Munitions teams are being deployed to the launch tubes to check the connections.”

“What range weapons do we have?” Everett asked calmly.

“We only had the Shrikes, sir. They were emptying the magazines before we—”

“Coms!” Everett cut off the excuse. “Sound the general alert through the system … we are under attack. Suspected force of the same type of ship that attacked the Xi’an System … unknown numbers, unknown strengths. Get any ship that has working standoff weapons out here ASAP! Tactical! Bring all available laser batteries up and begin full power active scans with the targeting radars.”

“Captain! Two more of the Ushin ships have been destroyed,” his OPS officer reported. “They have one left and it’s pushing down … towards us! They’re moving down into the system.”

“Are they being pursued?”

“Yes, sir!”

“They’re going to try and put us between them and the Darshik,” Everett said quietly.

“Returns on the enemy ships coming in, Captain,” the tactical officer reported. “Eleven ships total, three coming down towards us and the others look to be taking a position outside the orbit of Deveroux.” He was referencing the sixth planet in the system, an odd rocky world that had been flung out of the inner system some billions of years prior and had taken up a stable orbit in the outer system.

“They’re not just holding out there,” Admiral Marcum said, speaking for the first time since arriving on the bridge after general quarters had been sounded. “They’re going after the depot.”

“Shit!” Everett swore. “Coms! Send a message directly to Bespitd Station and tell them to get in the lifeboats and get the hell out of there.”

“Good call,” Marcum nodded, still speaking quietly. “They can’t do anything out there, better get them as far away as possible while they have the chance.” Bespitd Station was a Fleet munitions depot, specifically storing Shrike and Hornet missiles. It was simply a waypoint that ships would stop at on the way out of the system, have the specialized shuttles ferry over their loadout, and then accelerate to transition velocity and hit the Columbiana jump point or come about and circle the system for the other departure vectors.

The thought was to keep the bulk of the dangerous munitions off New Sierra Platform and away from both the populated planets in the system. It had a minimal maintenance crew and, like the com drone platform, was just something that was always in the background and not given much thought. It also had zero defensive capabilities. Fourth Fleet had built the station and had not given a single thought to the fact that someone might actually attack the DeLonges System. Everett knew there was no defending the station for those aboard it so he didn’t bother trying, instead giving them the order to get into the boats and shove off. Maybe they’d outrun the destruction coming if the Darshik opened fire on the depot.

“This isn’t good, sir,” Everett muttered. “We’re flying in with only close range weapons, the rest of the fleet is so far down the well it’ll take them the better part of two days to get out here, and we’re likely about to lose a sizable chunk of missiles we’d probably like to put into Darshik hulls.”

“And we’re still in better shape than when the Phage first came knocking,” Marcum said. “I wouldn’t—”

“We must protect that last Ushin ship!”

Marcum and Everett turned and looked at the same time to see a wild-eyed Ambassador Cole running onto the bridge with the Marine sentry in hot pursuit.

“Our first priority will be to—”

“You don’t understand, Admiral!” Cole shook his head. “They need us far more than we need them … and they’re willing to pay dearly for that. This could change the balance of power in this region of space, but if the entire contingent is wiped out it may all be for naught.”

Marcum’s nostrils flared as he tried to control his temper, enraged that a diplomat barged onto the bridge of his flagship during combat operations and started barking orders. But the admiral—the CENTCOM Chief of Staff, no less—was as much a political animal as the ambassador was.

“You’re certain of this?” Marcum demanded harshly. “This is worth the risk to human lives?”

“I have a recording of the conversation.” Cole’s head bobbed up and down. “The Ushin will still honor it even though their ambassador has apparently been killed.”

“Captain?” Marcum said.

“You’re in luck, Ambassador,” Everett said, looking at the diplomat in disgust. “The Ushin ship is coming down the well towards us, heading for the planets and orbital platforms. My primary job is to keep the Darshik from reaching those Terran assets and it looks like I’ll be able to protect your Ushin friends as a bonus.”

“We’ve picked up a massive explosion on optics, sir,” the OPS officer called out. “Initial analysis is that Bespitd Station was just taken out.”

“Did our transmission have enough time to make it out there?” Everett asked.

“No, sir,” the com officer said somberly.

“So the remaining ships out of the eleven will be on their way down as well, and they can do those intrasystem hops,” Everett shook his head. “Ambassador, I would transmit any information you have that your replacement will need down to New Sierra now.”

“First Haven, now New Sierra,” one of the sensor operators muttered to herself. “Fucking aliens.”

Everett opened his mouth to admonish his spacer, but realized that he completely agreed with her.

****

“Confirmed, ma’am,” Accari reported. “The Bespitd munitions depot has been destroyed.
Amsterdam
is showing eleven targets through the link, but they’re having trouble tracking them.”

“And the Ushin ships?” Celesta asked.

“One left, looks like it’s trying to get down below the
Amsterdam
while the Darshik ships are pursuing.”

“How long until we can launch our Shrikes?” Celesta asked.

“Twenty-nine minutes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander Adler reported from Tactical. Celesta did the math in her head and could only marvel at the sheer speed the RDS was capable of … when it was working. As soon as the detection grid had let them know that the Darshik had appeared in the new capital system she’d immediately ordered the
Icarus
onto an intercept course at full acceleration. They’d been on the other side of the system and were flying along a heliocentric course around to the engagement, as opposed to flying down close to the primary star and back up on a more direct route, and they would still beat the rest of the fleet there by over thirty hours.

They were relying on the
Amsterdam
’s tactical telemetry coming over the Link to steer them in the rough area of the engagement, and Celesta would order her active sensors on at the last minute, not wanting to give away the element of surprise. Since there had only been two engagements up to this point they had no way to determine how the Darshik ships detected other objects in space, but from her own staff’s post-mission analysis it seemed they had similar limitations as Terran ships in that if the target wasn’t decently close or actively transmitting it became exponentially more difficult to spot. With the RDS pushing the
Icarus
along they had the added benefit of no thermal plume from the plasma thrust main engines lighting up their path.

“Transmission coming in, ma’am,” Ellison said. “All channels—I think it may be from the enemy fleet.”

“Put it through,” Celesta tensed up.

“
Warning was given. Now you will burn with them
.”

“End transmission, Captain,” Ellison said. “No repeat … just that.”

“That sounded—”

“Enlightening, actually,” Celesta cut off Commander Barrett. “We now can be almost certain this has to do with our recent association with the Ushin.”

“Does that help us in the immediate situation, ma’am?” Barrett asked.

“It does now,” Celesta said crisply. “We’re the pointy end of the spear everyone … we do not make policy nor are we paid to consider the philosophical ramifications of armed conflict. Tactical, remove the safeties from the Shrikes and prepare all forward tubes to fire, full spread, and stand by on close-range weapons.”

“Shall I charge the capacitor banks for the auto-mag, ma’am?” Adler asked.

“Yes,” Celesta said after a moment of thought. “And have the magazine loaded with high-explosive penetrator rounds.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

Accari had taken the liberty of putting a series of countdown timers on the main display; one had just gone to red, showing that they were within ten minutes of being able to launch their standoff weapons. Another was blue, letting her know she was still over forty minutes from what would be considered the “engagement area” based on the number of ships involved and the capability of the
Icarus
to maneuver within that area of space. It was a deceptive term since an engagement area could still cover half a million kilometers, but with the RDS that was now a much smaller pocket to fight within than it was with the plasma engines. She could now order the ship to decelerate or come about very quickly as opposed to a flyby that required them to target and fire at speed and within a brief window.

“Active sensors,” Celesta said calmly. “All targeting and ranging radars active, point defense lidar and radar as well.”

“Aye aye, ma’am, all active sensors now online,” Adler said. “We shouldn’t have too long before we get returns.”

Sure enough, their range had closed so much that within the next five minutes the threat board began to populate with targets and friendlies, or “friendly,” since the
Amsterdam
was the only Terran ship in the vicinity.

“Coms, let the
Amsterdam
know we’re inbound and will be launching our first salvo at the trailing Darshik units coming down from the remains of the Bespitd munitions depot,” Celesta ordered. “Ask Captain Everett if he has any other requests of us on this first pass.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Ellison said and pulled his headset back up.

“Active target tracks confirmed, ma’am!” Adler reported a bit too loudly for Celesta’s taste. “Shrikes are locked on and ready. We have eight missiles ready to fly, how do you want them deployed?”

“One missile each,” Celesta said. “Target the trailing ship and come down the line from there. Let me know when the missiles are updated.” In her first engagement the Darshik hadn’t shown any capability to intercept or block their missiles, so she didn’t want to waste too many of her heavy hitters when she didn’t have to, especially with the ammo dump having just been blown up. “Make sure the Hornets are also getting active tracking updates,” she said as an afterthought.

“Shrikes are ready, ma’am,” Adler said.

“Fire first salvo!” Celesta ordered. “Helm! Full reverse, cut our relative velocity by seventy percent.”

“Missiles one through eight are away,” Adler said. “Tubes reloaded and all birds are tracking clean.”

“All engines reverse, aye!” the helmsman called out right before there was a sharp
bang
that reverberated through the hull and the lights flickered.

“Report!” Celesta said when her crew just looked at each other for a moment, apparently dumbfounded.

“RDS has failed, ma’am!” the helmsman called out. “We’re ballistic. Engaging MPD mains now.”

Celesta sat pensively as the deck rumbled gently from the main engines building thrust and coming up to full operating range.

“Main engines answer full reverse, ma’am,” the helmsman said. “We won’t be able to cut our velocity enough before we overshoot the engagement.”

Celesta pulled up the data from the helm and nav station and saw that her pilot was right: the RDS had pushed the
Icarus
to such a high velocity that she couldn’t slow down enough even with the powerful main engines burning full reverse. Since the MPDs were capable of equal amounts of forward or reverse thrust it wouldn’t accomplish anything to spin the ship for a braking maneuver.

“OPS!” she barked.

“Talking to Engineering now, ma’am,” Accari assured her. “They’re resetting the RDS pod power interface as we speak.”

“At least we know Commander Graham’s power interrupt works,” Barrett said. “Otherwise we’d be ballistic
and
powerless drifting right into the line of fire.”

“Tactical, do we have a shot with the auto-mag?” Celesta asked, ignoring her XO.

“Negative, Captain,” Adler said. “Our velocity is too high, we’re too close, and the Darshik ships are maneuvering too erratic—”a loud squawking from her terminal stopped her for a moment—“two of our missiles have been destroyed by an unknown enemy countermeasure.”

“Track the others,” Celesta said. “Helm! Engines to zero thrust and bring us about … we’re going to overfly the engagement no matter what, let’s at least get her pointed back in the right direction. Coms, inform the
Amsterdam
of our … predicament … and tell them we’ll be back as soon as we can.”