For 2 hours now the convoy had been gliding softly through space. From their position at the rear of the convoy, the glow of the convoys engines was near to blinding, but yet carried with it a serene kind of grace as the flickering lights of the engines drifted about the starry sky.
Well, that's what I thought anyway. I stared around the rest of the bridge and noted that most of my crew had little time for the view in front of them. Most of the dozen or so officers and ratings stationed around me and below me were starring at their screens – the monotony of a two hour convoy escort in friendly space was not something easily surpassed. Most were, I mused, probably asleep at their stations.
Sleeping with your eyes open is one of the first things you learn in any armed force. Navy ratings excelled at sleeping with their eyes open while managing to maintain their watch – some were even able to respond to orders and yet still be asleep! For the marines, such as those stationed at the hatchway behind me, the ability to march while asleep came just as fast. My grandfather, elderly and probably senile by the time I was growing up, had regaled me with tales of his time in the Marine Corps, putting down planetary insurrections and fighting boarding actions against interstellar pirates. He'd claimed to be able to have been able to march for 8 hours straight, while asleep, form up a perimeter, while asleep, and pitch his tent – all while asleep. Until I'd joined that Navy at 18, I'd doubted him severely but now I was probably able to do all those things.
Unlike some of my crew…
"Ensign Actar!" I bellowed from my command chair, startling the young officer whose head had drooped down into his folded arms. With a start, Actar shot up into a military posture – back straight as a ruler, arms locked at his sides, feet firmly planted on the deck. "I'm terribly sorry my company is so boring – perhaps you'd like to go to your cabin and sleep while I attend your duties?" I said to him, keeping my face grim as the young lad reddened.
"No Sir Captain Sir!" he spluttered, nearly lapsing into a stutter. The red had bloomed up well past his collar this time, and I wondered if maybe his hair would turn as red as his face. He was quite obviously scared shitless – as well he should be. Falling asleep at his post, in front of his captain… not only was it dangerous as it left a crucial system unmanned, but stupid to boot! Sleeping with your eyes open was a well acknowledged tradition – falling asleep was a blatant breach of regulations.
"I should hope not!" I bellowed at him. I sympathised with him – Christ I wanted sleep myself – but discipline had to be enforced. Then again, much more bellowing and I had the feeling I'd be losing my voice. I quietened my tone and lowered my voice "Now, do you think you can manage to watch the sensor board without falling asleep?" I asked him more gently.
"Yes Sir!" he replied. Sweat was beginning to appear on his face and the collar of his uniform looked noticeably darker.
"Right then – well perhaps you'd better get back to it" I said and Actar spun his chair to face his console, "And perhaps you'd care to join me in the exercise room later?" I asked him politely. Actar's face fell a mile.
"Yes Sir, I would" came his reply. Not sullenly nor resentfully – if I heard that I'd double his punishment exercised I planned to put him through, and he knew it.
I smiled inwardly, keeping my face stony as I rotated my chair to face the navigation station. A little exercise wouldn't hurt him, but it would imprint this little lesson on duty. I made a note to speak to one of the midshipman, who were the next rung up from the midshipman and traditionally kept an eye over young ensigns. A little tuition in the finer arts of sleeping with your eyes open probably wouldn't go amiss either, and the midshipman would make sure Actar never did anything like that in front of his commander again.
"Nav, what's our status?" I called out to the rating at the console, Peterson if I remembered his name right.
Spinning his chair around to face me, he replied. "Sir, the convoy is just waiting for the Glory to finish recharging and we'll be jumping again. E.T.A is ten minutes thirty two seconds". Not long to go then. Two more jumps and we'd be at the Capella jump node, I thought to myself while giving Peterson a curt nod. He spun his chair back to the Nav console.
The problem with convoy runs like this were the fact that not all the ships were military vessels. Most, like the bulk freighter Glory were Merchant Navy and despite the MN's quasi-military leanings they only rated commercial jump engines.
While military jump engines like those on the Dynamo or the Aeolus could have made the trip from the _ node to Capella node in one, maybe two jumps, the commercial jump engines the freighters had were limited by far smaller ranges and took a long time to recharge. Most of this was intentional – few military vessels go rogue or turn pirate, but its comparatively easy to steal a freighter and arm it. Hence the Navy kept the technological edge by making sure its ships could jump further, faster and with less time to stop and recharge. The best commercial engine on the market cost about half a systems gross planetary product and could do half a system like Vega in one go with a minimum 10 minute pause to recharge the subspace nodes. The Aeolus could do 5 jumps in a row before needing to recharge the nodes – to go beyond that would push the limits of the system and therein ran the risk of node detonation. Imagine a nuke going off in the engine room of your ship, and that's a node detonation.
Minutes passed slowly as the count down to subspace continued. The bridge became still and quiet as we all waited for Peterson to count down the jump.
Peterson cleared his voice. "Five minutes to jump, Sir" he called, half-turning in his chair to face me.
Time to go, I thought. Standard procedure would be to lock down the ship, disengage non-critical systems like weapons and subsidiary computers and have the crew settle in for the jump. I should be ordering that all right about now…
"Sir?" called Peterson. An experienced hand, he knew the drill well.
Something nagged at the back of my mind, stopping me from ordering the lock-down. What was it, I wondered, that was stopping me from ordering it!
"Sir? Do you not want to lock-down the ship?" That from Actar. Dammit, even the ensign knew what I was meant to be doing.
I could feel the eyes of the bridge crew boring into me as sat in the chair. I had to stand! I got up, paced around the chair, feeling the eyes of the crew upon me. As I turned around to face the rear of the bridge, the lift doors chimed open and Danny walked onto the bridge, a questioning look on her face.
"Shouldn't we have jumped by now, Sir?" she asked quizzically. She looked around the bridge at the crew staring at me. "Sir?" She asked again, "Shouldn't we be jumping?"
I stopped and looked at her. A frown creased her forehead, and she stepped closer to me, "John? What wrong?" she whispered in to my ear.
"Something's wrong!" I hissed at her, and she flinched back as if struck, stepped away from me. I stalked around the chair a glared out the viewports. What the hell was wrong… I felt something big coming. Something was wrong. I spun on my heel, and stared at the bridge, looking at each bridge member in turn. Most looked confused, Danny looked worried. Actar looked scared.
Actar was looking right at me, looking more scared now than he had when I was bawling him out. Actar…
Shit. "Red alert! All hands to battle stations! Lock and load missile tubes, full power to energy weapons!" I screamed out, slapping my hand down upon the comm system built into the arm chair of my seat. The computer, voice activated, set off the alarms causing sirens to wail and lights to strobe. The bridge was plunged into red emergency lighting as power was diverted to the weapons and engines by built in automatic systems responding to the red alert.
Danny stepped forward. "John, what the hell are you doing!" she yelled at me. Wordlessly I whirled to my chair and sank in to.
"Actar! Attend your station" I bellowed, causing him to flinch but obey. He spun to his station. His red-lit station. Blips were already moving down the sensor screen.
"Sir, reading approaching hostiles! 3 Wings of enemy fighters and a cruiser incoming. IFF reads them as Neo-Terran front!" he called out, miraculously his voice remaining un-broken.
"Incoming line from the Dynamo" called the comm tech from behind me.
"On my screen" I replied, and Captain Athan's image popped up on my chairs monitor.
"Captain Hadrian, I'm reading multiple enemy wings moving in and a Fenris-cruiser blocking the convoys escape route!" He cried down the comm channel at me, his earlier resolve clearly shaken.
"Roger that, Captain, I'm reading the same situation as you. I recommend you move you corvette out of escort and move up to engage that cruiser. Aeolus and the fighter wing will cover the convoy" I suggested, feeling a calm beginning to come over me.
"But none of our weapons are ready! It'll take at least a minute for the tertiary systems to come back on-line, and more for the primary's!" I could almost smell my fellow captains fear wafting through space towards me.
"Negative on that – the Aeolus is powered up and ready to fight. Keep your ship at half speed and the deny the…" I paused and shouted over my shoulder "Identify that cruiser!" as Danny simultaneously yelled over its name. "Deny the Bloodclaw's approach until your systems are on-line and then finish them off!" A Fenris-Class was no match for a battle ready Corvette.
Athan looked troubled, sweat clearly showing over the comm-line. "Why are you systems still…" he began, but I cut him off with a sharp retort.
"Captain! Attend to your ship and engage that cruiser!" I ordered, cold as ice. Theoretically I had no authority over him as we were both captains and under separate commands, but my voice reached him.
"Aye Aye Sir. Signing off!" Replied Athan, already beginning to pull himself together. Some people just need orders, I thought to myself.
Outside the bridge, the convoy had begun to scatter as the enemy fighters began to make their first runs. Almost immediately a bloom of fire marred the blackness of space, as two wings of NTF Hercules-fighters swept past a sluggish freighter. Raked with cannon and missiles, the medium-sized craft split down the middle and emitted a visible shock wave of energy as its drive core exploded, rocking the strafing fighters with debris.
"All hands, lets do this!" I said over the general intercom. "Commander, engine room – now!" I said to Danny, and listened as she ran to the lift and entered it. Then she was gone.
"Comm, tie in active channels to the bridge speakers. Helm, move us up to that Science vessel to port and then hop us up over the top. Weapons, prepare port cannon and beam for a barrage. I want missiles out as soon as they have a lock on" I ordered to the still bridge, watching through the view-ports as another freighter rocked under a strafing pass, the older Hercules fighters pursued by their new relations, Hercules II. Our single wing of fighters was already split up, all four fighter craft now in groups of two chasing a different wing of enemy fighters - leaving one enemy wing unengaged. Already they had manoeuvred off to port and began another strafing run unnopposed, slicing in along the axis of the convoy from port to starboard. Up ahead, I could dimly see the drive's of the Dynamo as she manoeuvred up to engage the Bloodclaw. All was going as planned.
Over the bridge speakers poured comm traffic from both the convoy and the fighters. Reports of damage and successes rolled in on top of one another, often overlaying each other in the babble.
Silently, the Aeolus sidled up to the Science vessel, keeping station with its thrusters as the vessel manoeuvred away to starboard away from the strafing enemy fighters. "Helm, hold her steady. Weapons prime" I ordered, speaking quietly and as clearly as I could. The view of the battle was now blocked by the bulk of the science vessel, but that didn't matter. I kept my eyes glued to the sensor panel on my arm rest, watching as both friend and foe twisted wildly through space to escape death. Already 2 enemy fighters, one from each wing, were down, destroyed by our own fighters and the convoys meagre defensive fire. Slowly but surely, the unengaged NTF finished a strafing run and looped round for another pass. My eyes were glued to the sensor screen.
"Helm, on my mark three, two, one – hit it!" I screamed out the last two words, felt my gravity double as the gravity field struggled to match the ships acceleration. The Aeolus shot up like a rocket, clearing the looming bulk of the science ship and letting it slip below her keel. Dead on to us was the NTF wing.
"All port weapons… FIRE!" I bellowed, and as one the cruisers guns fired, sending vibrant beams of energy rippling out into the enemy formation. Fire bloomed in silence as our shots struck home, a beam cannon vaporising a Hercules in two strikes while a second rolled away from laser fire only to meet a stream of missiles. The third and fourth fighters rolled and twisted away from our fire, bucketed by the flak cannon sending timed projectiles into their paths. They shot over and under us, rolling to present undamaged shields to our fire.
"Starboard weapons, fire as you bear!" I bellowed again, and the crew hunched over their consoles to obey. Another beam cannon tore into one of the fighters, tearing away its shields and hull and sending the wreck spinning into space before exploding. The last fighter dodged around lasers and beams, sending a cloud of flares and chaff to drive the missiles away from it. Even so, several shots ran true and the fighter showed signs of damage, her speed falling markedly.
"Helm, give us a pursuit course. Lock in all forward weapons but hold your fire" I ordered, feeling the decking beneath my feet tremble as the Aeolus's engines roared into full power. "Comm, open a channel to that fighter"
"Line open"
"NTF Fighter, this is Captain Hadrian of the GTC Aeolus. Surrender now and you won't be harmed!" I barked into the comm channel, hoping both to avoid killing the pilot and to capture a valuable prisoner and fighter.
"… damn you come in now… now I tell you!" crackled back the NTF pilot. I felt a frown furrow my forehead. What the hell was he on about, I wondered.
"Comm, is that directed at us?" I questioned.
"Negative" came the reply, "Can't lock down the source – too much battle noise"
"Damn" I muttered. Who the hell was he talking to. All of a sudden I began to get a bad feeling again. "Helm, slow us down. I want some…"
"Subspace portal opening!" screamed Actar suddenly, "IFF reads NTF coding… NTF Guttersnipe, Aeolus-class!"
"Shit!" I said, more to myself than to anyone else. Fucking shit… "Weapons, lock onto cruiser and engage as you come to bear. Try and take out her forward beams! Helm, take us up and over then roll us 180o!" I ordered to my crew, and they hurried to obey. Almost at once I felt the ship begin to rise again, while from in front of me I heard the pings of target acquisition systems locking on.
The enemy cruiser, the Guttersnipe, sprang into realspace less then 100 meters in frontt of our prow, her engine block already blazing with fire as she drove towards us.
A failing of the Aeolus-class was her lack of heavy weaponry. With only one beam cannon port and starboard she had a limited fire arc. Take out those and against cruisers and bigger she was effectively defenceless. Unfortunately, the Aeolus herself suffered the same failing as her brethren.
The Aeolus began to rise above her sister ship, rolling herself over so it made the Guttersnipe appear to be upside down. The two cruisers began to slide past each other, less than 50 meters from each other. Flak fire blossomed into exsistence in silence outside the ship, occasionally sending a deep, resonating boom through the hull of the Aeolus as an explosive canister overshot its mark and slammed off the hull to spin into space, ruined.
"Targeting – lot of interference. Weapons primed!" came the call from the gun pit. The flak fire, apart from the visual display it created, couldn't harm a cruiser much. But it was effective for blinding sensors.
"Fire!" I called. Whoever got the first shot off would win this, and I prayed to god gambling would pay off.
Twin beams shot from the prow of Aeolus, slicing forward and down into the hull of the Guttersnipe. An explosion along the starboard ridgeline marred the hull of the Guttersnipe and sent a shower of sparks and debris spinning into space. I needed no contact report to tell me one beam had hit its mark. The other beam carved into the hull, spewing wreckage into space but creating no explosions to indicate crucial systems damage.
The Guttersnipe slid below us, spewing laser fire at us from her dorsal turrets. Each strike resonated through the hull, like the flak fire but more deeply. The ship rocked as consecutive blasts bit into the dorsal ridge of the Aeolus, while less noticeable thumps told of the discharge of our own laser cannon.
"Sir, she's manoeuvring alongside us! Coming up on our starboard flank!" called Peterson.
"Match her" I replied, confidant that my ships superior reactors would allow a fast recharge of her beam cannon.
Blue fire poured out of the Guttersnipe's port beam cannon, brighter and more brilliant than our own fire had been by far. The impact rocked the ship, knocking people on the starboard side of the bridge out of their chairs as the ship keeled over to port. Sparks sprayed out of a forward fire panel and then erupted into fire itself as the panel ignited, spraying the gunners with shrapnel and flame.
"Damage report" I called out, choking on the haze of smoke which was filling the bridge. God knows that the stuff would do to our lungs, but even now my sight was impaired and I could barely see my own chair, let alone the rest of the bridge.
"Main systems stable. Power fluctuating. Massive damage to the starboard prow, no reports from the starboard beam cannon. Reading depressurisation as far as hatch 3" called someone from out of the haze, and it took me a second to realise it was Danny's voice coming from a wall mounted speaker, reporting from the engine room.
The Aeolus had been hit hard. Very hard. The enemy fire had ripped into our hull more than half its depth, spilling the interior of the ship into space. Luckily for them, any crew members caught in those sectors would have been flash vaporised by the blast and so not have had to experience decompression. Small comfort. Outside, the damaged Guttersnipe slid past the Aeolus, her port prow now showing deep scarring on my vid screen.
"They double charged the cannon!" called a rating from the smoke, "Blew out the couplings and vaporised their own cannon!". The enemy cruiser had gambled on running twice as much power through their beam cannon than its was rated for – hoping to knock out the Aeolus with a single strike. Though crippled, the Aeolus was still kicking and screaming with life, while they had destroyed their only remaining heavy weapon. We had a chance.
"Helm, swing us about – any and all weapons lock on. Target their engine room as you bear!". Laser fire still shot out of the Guttersnipe, splattering and biting against the Aeolus's armoured skin. Luckily the barrage was diffuse and not a single timed barrage, or else further severe damage would have been caused. I wasn't sure how much more the Aeolus could take.
The Aeolus swung around behind the Guttersnipe, her undamaged engines drawing power from the destroyed starboard beam cannon on Danny's orders, giving the cruiser more manoeuvrability and speed than her counterpart.
"Weapons locked on!" called the gun chief, looming out of the smoke in front of me with a hand to his bleeding head. Rivulets of blood ran between his fingers. Slowly the smoke was being drawn from the bridge by the vents.
"Fir.." I began, only to pause as beam's shot from nowhere to slam into the hull of the Guttersnipe, spearing the ship on two blue beams. The Dynamo had arrived.
"Fire!" I finished, hearing the relish in my own voice and leaping to my feet as lasers and beam shot out, spearing the enemy cruiser again through the engine section. The lasers chewed at the drive section, tearing into delicate systems and causing power to the drives to fail, extinguishing their flame. The beam cannon ripped through their hull, melting armour and decking as it dug its way through the enemy engine room until it burst through the other side.
The beam cannon touched against a coolant system, flash boiling the coolant itself which in a second was fed into the already over heating enemy reactor. A spear of bright white light shot out of the gaping hull breach caused by the beam cannon and then spread, enveloping the entire cruiser in an explosion as the reactor detonated. The rear aft of the Guttersnipe was vaporised, sending flows of molten metal spinning out into space while the prow and engine block where thrown separate ways, spinning off into space as ruined hulks of metal.
The shockwave slammed into the Aeolus, hitting like a bomb itself. Sparks flew from all around me as I was tossed around the bridge, coming to rest with a my back against a bulkhead. Through the disspearing smoke of the bridge I could see the wreckage of the Guttersnipe spinning away, and beyond it the remnants of the convoy, engines still blazing as they made their to the jump point.
