Chapter Thirty-Six
Aegis corvette Hornet, off R’Bak
Bowden watched as the missiles tracked toward him on the plot. One of the best things about being on one of the Aegis corvettes was the connectivity. As long as they had lascom with Outpost, they were connected to the satellite network and were able to see—to a good extent, anyway—what was going on. But that came at a price. When someone was shooting at you—like now, when there were missiles inbound—you also had situational awareness of that, which was far less cool.
“Maybe they’ll run out of propellant?” Bowden asked.
“Unlikely,” the tactical officer replied with a shake of his head.
“Any chance of outrunning or outmaneuvering them?” Bowden asked the pilot.
“If I maneuver now, we’ll just help them catch up quicker and complicate the targeting solution for your point defense lasers,” Kelebar replied.
Bowden looked over his shoulder. “How’s the point defense coming, by the way?”
“Just waiting for them to come into range,” the tactical officer replied. “Stand by . . . Firing!”
Bowden watched the plot as if his life depended on it—which it did—as their weapons began firing. His corvette—like many due to the slew of last-minute changes—was nonstandard in that it had both a laser and a railgun for point defense.
The missiles raced toward the Hornet, but unlike back home, where the missiles would have come fairly close together, these were spaced apart, giving the tactical officer—maybe—a chance to stop all of them. It also helped that they were running straight away from the frigate when it fired. Not only was the closing velocity lower than it might otherwise have been, but the missiles were also coming straight toward them without any sort of terminal maneuvers.
“Got it!” the tactical officer exclaimed as one of the lines dropped from the link. “Switching to the second.”
The second missile was already close, Bowden saw, and the third was in range, too. It had taken too long to kill the first one. The second track continued to close as the weapons realigned and then slowly—too slowly!—began firing.
Finally—within a second of it hitting the corvette—the laser finally scored on the missile, and it detonated, close enough aboard that pieces of it went Ping! Ping! Ping! as they struck the aft end of the corvette. The tactical officer swung his weapons in search of the next target, but both of the missiles began gyrating rapidly. “The missiles are maneuvering!” he called after a second. “I can’t lock them up.”
“Got it!” Kelebar exclaimed, his face a mask of concentration. With the point defense unable to hit the weapons closing on them, he was free to maneuver, and he threw the craft back and forth, rolling it over and yanking it down and then back up again, all the while firing off chaff from the craft’s countermeasures stores like he’d been taught.
Bowden nodded in recognition. In another time and place, he would have made a good Hornet pilot.
The third missile merged with them on the plot, and Bowden grabbed hold of the arms of his chair, but the explosion never came. The missile went past them on the plot; the chaff had either distracted it or the pilot’s maneuvering had defeated it—either way, it had missed!
Bowden looked for the fourth missile but couldn’t find it on the plot. Then something slammed into the craft, there was a flash of light, and everything went dark.
Corvette Taregon’s Pride, overwatch off R’Bak
“Hornet has been hit, and we aren’t showing any signs of life from it,” Fiezel said, calling from Outpost. “It’s even money on whether the Hound-Dog fleet or the Kulsian fleet will reach him first.”
“I was watching, too,” Reetan said from his overwatch position halfway between Outpost and where the battle was happening, “and I am aware he has been hit. That said, the Kulsians are not a fleet; it is just one ship.”
“I need you to go and help him,” Fiezel said.
“No,” Reetan replied, looking at his tactical plot. The frigate hadn’t seen the fleet coming from behind the planet yet, and it was proceeding even farther from the safety of its fleet. Both forces—the Hound-Dog fleet and the frigate—would end up near Bowden’s craft at nearly the same time. Whether there was even anything worth saving hadn’t been determined yet. “Bowden said that something like this was possible. He served his purpose as the bait. He got the frigate to follow him and separate itself from the rest of the fleet. Now, it is up to Targ to save him and to destroy the frigate while he’s doing so.”
“But they are both going to converge on Bowden, and it’s likely that there will be a battle around him. If you were to swoop in from your current position, the frigate might turn away from Bowden and head toward you.”
“Perhaps,” Reetan said. In looking at the plot, he decided that possibility was actually quite likely. The frigate would turn away, but it would also bring it back closer to the remainder of the fleet. He felt the pull of every spacer not to leave a comrade alone in the black . . . but at what risk? He shook his head. “The answer is no,” he radioed. “Bowden said that there would be a time to use the reserve, and I would know when it was. This isn’t it.” He pursed his lips as he looked at the plot. “Yes, I might get the frigate to turn, but that might also get the rest of the Kulsian fleet to rejoin with it before it is supposed to. Bowden stressed the importance of fighting the frigate alone and hitting it by surprise. If I intervene, that might change. Unfortunately, Bowden is on his own. Reetan, out.”
Corvette J’axon’s Revenge, off R’Bak
“Outpost just called,” the comms officer reported.
“What did they want?” Targ J’axon asked.
“They said Bowden’s craft has been hit.”
“Is he okay?”
“They don’t know. The ship isn’t responding. They want us to go faster.”
Targ studied the plot for a few seconds. “We’re going to arrive at the wreck of his ship at about the same time as the frigate, if we continue at the same speed we are. The frigate will see us coming well in advance of their arrival and will either turn back or engage us instead. Bowden should be all right.” Unless they fire at the ship again, just out of spite. They are Kulsians, after all, so it isn’t just possible . . . it’s more than likely. But there isn’t anything I can do from here.
“Outpost is worried about both sides firing missiles past Bowden’s ship.”
Targ tilted his head as he looked at the comms officer. “Do they not realize we have a repeater of the tactical plot?” He motioned to it. “I can see the geometry of the situation every bit as well as they can. I probably understand it better than someone who doesn’t have a life’s worth of time flying in the black.”
Targ glanced at the plot again and shook his head. “They have lost sight of the situation. We’re fighting for the lives of everyone in this system. Bowden knew the risks of being the bait—he explained them to us! He would not want his sacrifice to be meaningless.” He shrugged. “Tell them we will try not to shoot Bowden’s craft as we pass it, but I will take every opportunity to kill the frigate and make Bowden’s plan a success.
“Are you ready for the second phase?” Targ asked his tactical officer.
“I am.”
“As Bowden would say, then, lights out.”
Frigate Harvester One, off R’Bak
“Got him!” the weapons officer exclaimed.
“One hit out of four missiles fired isn’t something to get excited over,” Ebis’qupoz Barogar noted wryly. “Nor is it particularly cost effective. Still, the ship is dead in space, which will make their capture easy. Hopefully, they were wearing suits and won’t all die on us before we can get there.”
Barogar relaxed back into his command chair. “Navigator, you can slow to a more fuel-efficient speed.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Lord!” the tactical officer exclaimed.
“Yes?”
“I have signals . . . No! Two sets of signals. There are ships coming from around the moon the corvette was heading toward, and there are others coming around from the back side of the planet!”
“How many ships? What type?”
“I’m not sure, Lord. It looks like many of them—at least ten in each group. The long-range telescope indicates that the group from the moon are more of the corvettes like the one we were chasing. Stand by . . . The ones from behind the planet are also corvettes. I make it at least twenty corvettes coming toward us. There are also a number of what look to be smaller ships in company with the group coming from the moon.”
“Navigator, flip us and then full thrust. Get us out of here.”
“Lord . . . ”
“I don’t want to hear about the fuel state! There are twenty ships coming! Get us out of here now!”
“Yes, Lord.”
“Comms officer, call the fleet and have them meet us on our way back. Don’t let them whine about fuel states or having to climb back out of the gravity well. I want them here now!”
“Yes, Lord,” the comms officer replied as the ship started maneuvering. After a few moments, he asked, “Lord?”
“Yes? What is it? I don’t want to hear that they can’t make it; I want them maneuvering immediately!”
“There’s a problem, Lord. Our comms aren’t working; I can’t get a signal through to either group. The communication satellites don’t seem to be working.”
“What? How is this possible?”
“There appears to be some sort of static. The only time I ever saw this before was when I was being jammed in the last conflict back home . . . but that isn’t possible, is it? The locals don’t have a comms-jamming capability, do they?”
“No,” Barogar replied with a grunt. “Not unless the rogue operatives have given it to them.”
“It is more capable than anything the rogues would have had. I can’t get a signal through at all. Perhaps when we are back within line of sight of the fleet I can get a message to them, but at the moment, I am unable.”
“Navigator, we need to go faster!”
The minutes required to get back to within line of sight of the rest of the fleet were the longest of Ebis’qupoz Barogar’s life. “Are we within sight yet?” he finally asked when he couldn’t wait any longer.
“One more minute, Lord,” the comms officer replied. “Perhaps less.”
“Missile launch!” the tactical officer exclaimed.
“What?” Barogar asked. “Where? The ships are too far away.” He scoffed. “They’re desperate. There’s no way they can hit us from there.”
“No, Lord. Closer. More missiles now!”
“From where?”
“Some of the trash in orbit, Lord. They must have hidden missile launchers in the garbage!”
“Destroy them! Destroy them now.”
“Trying, Lord. There are at least twelve missiles inbound.”
“If nothing else, we won’t go alone. Fire six more missiles at the corvette we disabled before we’re out of range.”
Corvette J’axon’s Revenge, off R’Bak
“The frigate is turning to run,” the tactical officer noted.
“He is afraid,” Targ said. “Be prepared for anything; this is when he will be the most unpredictable.”
The crew watched as the frigate spun and brought its engines to full, working to kill its momentum. Before long, it was accelerating back away from them.
“He started the maneuver a little before we had planned. If the fleet goes to full throttle, they will be close to the frigate before we can catch up to it.”
“Then maybe we should slow it down. Fire the orbital missile packs as they come in range.”
“Yes, sir,” the tactical officer replied. Three minutes later, missiles separated from two of the non-maneuvering icons on the plot, and they watched as the missile icons raced toward the frigate. The icon blurred slightly as it used its jammers and countermeasures, then missiles started launching from the frigate in response.
“Does the ship have antimissile missiles?” the tactical officer asked.
“Not that I am aware of,” Targ said.
The missile sped out from the frigate, but then turned and raced back along its path.
“They’re going to kill the admiral!” the tactical officer exclaimed in horror.
Targ shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do. Maybe Burg can stop them, but we’re too far out of range.”
He turned back to the plot in time to see one of the missiles approaching the frigate drop out of the plot, then a second. Targ bit his lip. They needed the missiles to hit. Everything was predicated on taking out the frigate first. In the simulations they’d run, the results were usually catastrophic for the Hound-Dogs if it wasn’t taken out before the fleets joined, which is why they’d prepositioned the missile packs. They weren’t much . . . but the missile packs were all they’d had left over. A couple of the ships were each short a missile, as they’d had to pull some from the fleet to have enough to fill the launchers.
A third missile from the group approaching the frigate dropped out of the plot, then the icons for the missiles merged with the frigate. Two more continued past it, clean misses. Targ continued to stare at the plot. Did they really get seven hits on it? More importantly, would it be enough?
“I have hits!” the technician manning the long-range telescope yelled.
On the plot, the frigate’s acceleration began dropping.
“We’ve got you now,” Targ said to the frigate’s icon.
“But what about the admiral?” the tactical officer asked.
“It’s all in Burg’s hands now.”
Corvette Hound-Dog One, off R’Bak
“Sons of motherless whores!” Burg Hrensku said vehemently as missiles left the frigate and bent back toward the admiral’s ship. “Throttles to maximum! Comms officer, tell our group, flank speed ahead!” He could feel the sweat—formerly of anticipation, but now of horror—running down his back. There was no reason to shoot at the admiral’s ship, other than pure malice. But it was the Kulsians they were talking about.
He smiled as Raptis’s group alongside his also went to full speed, and the missile packets leaped forward ahead of the group to chase down the frigate. Burg didn’t know if he could get to the admiral in time to save him, but he was damn well going to try.
“Sons of motherless whores?” his tactical officer asked. “What does that even mean?”
Burg chuckled. “I have no idea. It’s something the admiral says when he’s frustrated. You can ask him about it, but first we have to save his ass.” He stared at the plot as the missiles raced toward the Hornet. “Contact Raptis’s tactical officer. Our group will take the first three missiles. Her group can take the last three.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hrensku chewed the inside of his lip. Once they saved the admiral—not if, but when—they’d have to slow down slightly to keep from arriving at the frigate piecemeal; the sudden burst of speed was ruining their carefully planned timing. He shook his head. The shots were going to be long ones; hopefully the missiles didn’t have any terminal maneuvering capability. If they did, the Hound-Dogs were going to be screwed, as Fiezel would say. The angle was good and the targeting information they were getting from the Dornaani satellites was solid; the missiles were coming right at them, making the shot as easy as it could be.
Aside from being right at the upper end of their point defense lasers’ effective range.
He didn’t have long to worry about it as the missiles covered the space between the ships quickly. “Weapons free,” Burg said as he’d been taught.
“Ships are all linked,” the tactical officer said, looking at his screen. “Good lock . . . Firing!”
Corvette Hound-Dog Seven, off R’Bak
Malanye Raptis nodded her head as the first missile blew up short of Hornet. As tempting as it would have been to have her crews join in on the first missiles, she wanted them concentrating on the ones they’d been given responsibility for. She had six ships and there were three missiles; there were two ships for each missile.
The second missile dropped out of the plot, destroyed, then the third, then her ship was firing. The only indication was the whine from the equipment over her head.
“We got ours!” her tactical officer cried jubilantly.
“Keep firing at the others!” Raptis ordered. If two ships firing was good, three or four was better.
“Fifth missile down,” the tactical officer said, his voice now full of concentration. “Weapons failures from Eleven and Twelve!” he called. “Now the missile is maneuvering, too. Gods! Eight through Ten are all firing . . . ”
The icon for the missile gyrated wildly in its final approach to the Hornet, then merged with the admiral’s ship.
“Did you get it?” Raptis asked.
“I don’t know.” The tactical officer shrugged. “I think we hit it right before it hit the Hornet, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Comms? Anything from the Hornet?”
“No, ma’am,” the comms officer said. “I can’t reach them on the radio.”
Good luck, Bowden, Raptis thought as her corvette raced past the icon of the Hornet. We’ll come back for you after the battle . . . if we can.