New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, Book 1) (22 page)

“Lieutenant Commander,” Celesta nodded to the relief watch as she walked back onto the bridge after a fitful sleep that didn’t last nearly as long as she would have liked. “Please report.”

“All quiet, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Washburn said as she gracefully unlimbered her tall frame from the command chair. “We’ve been actively tracking all targets. Three made intrasystem jumps and have been reacquired on radar along our plotted course. They are currently out of weapons range. Two targets are still pursuing us but are slowly losing ground.”

“They’re just there to keep us honest,” Celesta said. “Keep us from doubling back again and going silent to try and sneak our way out. Have there been any further attempts at communication from them or the Ushin?”

“No, ma’am,” Washburn said. “The com has been silent the entire watch. Medical called up and asked me to inform you that all crewmembers injured during the initial engagement have all been cleared to return to duty.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,” Celesta said. “Sign out on the log and then consider yourself relieved. Will you be going off duty?”

“No, ma’am.” Washburn signed her final ship’s log entry and signed out of the terminal. “I’m in the middle of my shift. I will be returning to CIC.”

Celesta didn’t answer as she walked the bridge, looking over all the individual stations and checking over the tactical threat board that was constantly updating on the main display. The data was hours old, but it was obvious that the Darshik intended a fairly basic deployment that would array their ships out along an arc perpendicular to her current course. They had no way to know that she wanted to get to the space directly behind them, so they weren’t committing fully just yet, hanging back and keeping enough distance to react to any moves she made.

The major disadvantage the Darshik had was they seemed to heavily favor that plasma lance. When it hit a Terran ship the results were inevitable as their hulls couldn’t withstand that sort of abuse, but it was also extremely limited in range. More importantly, her laser cannons could begin cutting through their hull much sooner than their plasma could do to hers, but when you factored in six ships ahead of them the equation became much more convoluted.

Without the RDS the
Icarus
was fairly close in subluminal performance to what they’d seen from the Darshik cruisers with a slight edge in acceleration and speed. The enemy’s intrasystem jumps were unpredictable and a major strategic advantage for them, but she’d began to understand the limitations of the maneuver and was able to somewhat counteract that. The major problem she had was that past the Epsilon jump point her plan was based on nothing. CIS had verified the path to the second supposed Ushin system was clear, but they’d done next to zero reconnaissance of the system itself, CENTCOM not wanting to risk losing the element of surprise and still trusting the Ushin intel. 

No matter how she looked at it, they were going to have to run the blockade and push through to the only logical exit point left to them. Trying to circle the system again and hit their original jump point was not an option. The longer she gave the Darshik to plan and organize against her, the less likely it would be for the
Icarus
to make it out of the system in one piece.

“Tactical, have your backshop run a full test on the armament,” she said, turning away from the main display. “One system at a time, and make sure the munitions shop goes in and does one more operational check on our expendables. Not just the missiles either; I want the auto-mag shells given a visual check.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Adler said as she sat at her station. “Sending instructions now.”

“OPS, inform Engineering I want a comprehensive report on all other ship’s systems,” Celesta continued. “Have Commander Graham’s people interface with the com shops and Flight OPS to make sure their equipment is good to go. We have six hours before potential combat and I want her ready for anything.”

Her commands set off a flurry of activity below decks, and no insignificant amount of grumbling and complaining about “busy work.” She wasn’t just trying to keep her crew distracted, however, as the ship had taken a direct hit by a very powerful weapon. While the damage appeared to be contained to the aft sections, it was simply prudence to make sure there were no surprises waiting for her when the time came for the
Icarus
to fight.

As it turned out, problems began cropping up much sooner than she’d expected. Not even two hours into the ordered systems check it was discovered that the power system had been compromised and that had they tried to fire the auto-mag or the forward laser batteries it would have likely blown out several junctions on the primary power bus, and the secondary bus wasn’t capable of allowing both weapons to be fired simultaneously. Apparently when the RDS pod was hit, and subsequently jettisoned, there was damage to junctions where the powerplant fed into the MUX. Commander Graham gave her a running estimate on repairs and it looked like everything would be buttoned up and tested well before she assumed they’d need them. There was considerably less complaining about the workload below decks as the rest of the checkouts were performed.

“All departments have checked in,” Barrett said from the OPS station where he was conferring with Ensign Accari. “Power MUX is back to one hundred percent and no other problems were detected during the system tests. Armament has signed off on the forward weapons systems after doing an internal operational checkout, but the chief down there wants permission to do a live fire test.”

“Denied.” Celesta shook her head. “While we’re closing head-to-head with the enemy, firing the forward laser batteries would be giving a bit too much information about our power and frequency output.”

“I’ll tell him, ma’am,” Barrett said. “Loop-back dummy-load tests all checked good, so we know the MUX can handle the current to the projectors. I’ll have them button it all back up and get their people out of the forward compartments.”

Like all Terran starships, the forward third of the ship was sparsely populated since there were all kinds of nasty sources of radiation and other dangers. All the high-power transmission equipment for the radars and high-power com systems were up there and the RF leakage from the waveguides and transmission lines was a definite health hazard. The munitions magazines were also forward of the centerline, but even the big nukes like the Shrikes were so well-shielded there was little danger from exposure from those.

“Tactical, target and track all enemy ships ahead of us,” Celesta ordered as Barrett began moving the rest of the crew back to their battle stations now that all maintenance actions were completed. He also reinitiated the pressure hatch lock-down that was supposed to be in effect whenever the ship was at general quarters. He’d relented to make it easier for the work crews while all the enemy ships were accounted for.

“I want all ships being targeted with each primary weapon by the computer,” Celesta continued. “Have it constantly update ranging data.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Adler said, the request a bit unusual. Normally a ship would be targeted by a specific weapon and the tactical computer would build a firing solution based on that so the ship could be repositioned and properly configured for that particular weapon. To have it tracking all targets and updating to fire all of their primary weapon systems she had to tell it to ignore a lot of conflicting inputs that would just cause it to spit out warnings and alerts non-stop.

“Helm, engines to zero thrust,” Celesta said calmly, taking a sip from her coffee, an island in the middle of the hectic bustling as the bridge crew prepped the
Icarus
for the coming engagement. “Steady as she goes.”

“Engines answering zero thrust, aye,” the helmsman said. “Maintaining course and velocity.”

Celesta saw the ship was travelling at .22c, or twenty-two percent the speed of light. That was far above their safe transition velocity envelope so eventually she would need to scrub that speed off, but she wanted to keep their closure rate high enough that the Darshik ships didn’t have much of a chance to adjust to any moves she made.

“Aft targets have disappeared,” Lieutenant Commander Adler said just as they crossed the imaginary line that meant they were fully committed to the Epsilon jump point. “One target has reappeared in the enemy picket line.”

“Keep an eye out for that other—” Barrett never got a chance to finish his sentence.

“Second target has reappeared off our starboard flank! Range is one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers and closing.”

“Target the closest bogey, two Shrikes,” Celesta said calmly, watching the tactical display and enjoying the fact the target was close enough to get real-time reporting on its position. The ship had angled over and was now accelerating towards them, trying to bring its prow to bear and obviously planning on firing its plasma lance into the
Icarus’
flank. It hadn’t fully committed, however, and was crabbing in while maintaining its forward speed and ability to accelerate to match the Terran ship.

“Helm! Full reverse!”

“All engines full reverse thrust, aye!” They were all thrown forward a bit when the
Icarus
groaned and shuddered as the main engines reversed thrust and began hauling them down from their relativistic velocity. It had been a move the enemy ship hadn’t expected as it put the Terran ship at greater risk from the ships ahead, but Celesta had no choice: She had to eliminate the closest threat before worrying about those still far out of range.

“Fire at will!” Celesta barked even as Adler adjusted her firing solution while the Darshik cruiser turned in and tried to chop its own speed.

“Missiles one and two away! Stagger fire, three-second interval,” Adler called even as the weapon telemetry and status appeared on the main display and the tactical computer added tracks so they could track their progress. Since the
Icarus
was still braking and the Darshik cruiser was still trying to turn in, the missiles closed the gap very quickly. The first missile was defeated by the enemy’s point defense, but the second slammed into the cruiser amidships, the hardened penetrator of the Shrike punching clean through the hull. The fission/fusion warhead detonated a moment later and the ship seem to expand slightly and simply disappear on the long-range optics.

“Holy shit!” Barrett said softly. “Must have hit them right in the sweet spot.”

“Helm, engines ahead full,” Celesta said, watching their velocity continue to drop as they streaked by the expanding cloud of debris. “Nav, begin final course corrections for Epsilon transition. Helm, at ten percent under transition velocity cut the engine thrust to zero.” She received a chorus of confirmations as she watched the Darshik picket line redeploy based on what they’d just seen. Their ships were a decent match for the more advanced classes of Terran ships, with comparable weaponry, but the Shrike missiles the humans built to kill a Phage Super Alpha were always deadly if they slipped past the defense screens.

“Their flankers are accelerating down towards us,” Barrett said. “They’ll begin to turn in once they feel like we won’t have the room to reverse course.”

Celesta just nodded in agreement. Barrett had been a tactical officer before serving as her XO, and his insights were born from extensive training backed up by combat experience so she rarely found reason to disagree with him, and this wasn’t going to be one of those times. It was clear the Darshik ships were moving with confidence as the ships protecting the edges began to push down to cut off any last-minute abort she might have planned.

Over the next six hours the Darshik formation continued to redeploy until they had a single ship anchoring the net and the other five branching out almost equidistant from each other and coming in on them at a shallow angle. It didn’t take a tactical genius to see that they were going to try and slowly collapse their formation until the
Icarus
had nowhere to go and could be pounded by the five ships nearly simultaneously.

“Tactical, target the furthest, centermost ship with four Hornets,” Celesta ordered. “Then get me an updating fire solution for the auto-mag and stand by. OPS! Let me know when the leading edge of the enemy formation collapses down to the one-hundred-thousand-kilometer range.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Adler said.

“Numbers coming up on the main display, Captain,” Accari said.

Despite the way space combat had evolved in such a short period, it was the timing that Celesta never got used to. Days of nothing, just flying to or fleeing from an engagement and then, as ships came together, it was fast and furious for a few harrowing moments and then back to waiting. It flew in the face of centuries of accepted doctrine in the Terran fleet that all fighting would be done from a safe distance with guided or ballistic weaponry. From the way the Darshik ships seemed to have evolved, and the weaponry they employed, it appeared they’d never considered standoff warfare as a viable option. Nearly all their weapons required their ships to get in very close and try to knock out an enemy at ranges that Terran captains wouldn’t consider other than during docking maneuvers.

“Helm, all ahead emergency,” Celesta said, watching the ranging data closely.

“All engines ahead emergency, aye.” The helmsman deftly disengaged the safety locks and soon the deck was rumbling harshly as Celesta watched her main engines climb to one hundred and thirty-one percent of their designed maximum output. The computers that controlled the engines wouldn’t let her destroy them without a secondary safety lockout being overridden from the command console at her seat. They would pull the power back or allow it to climb as it monitored the electromagnetic constrictors, the nozzles, and the plasma pressure in each MPD. All the participants in the battle were close enough that her maneuver had an immediate effect as the
Icarus
accelerated to the point that the flanking enemy ships had to increase their intercept angles and would likely still overrun the destroyer.