Chapter 12
Venture had lost track of the number of warps he had completed… fortunately they were preprogrammed into the ship. The console was blinking at him indicating it was ready for another double warp. He was already sick to his stomach, and wanted to allow himself to slip into unconsciousness.
A glance behind him showed that Captain Wildstar was completely unphased by the warps, and Venture was not going to show any weakness while the captain was around. He reached forward and pulled the warp lever one more time.
Beside Venture, Row was also struggling to remain conscious, while Yumi had lost her battle and was slumped against the communications console.
Once again the ship bent and melted around them, their chairs were free of the floor and floated free.
Row looked to his left, and saw himself, but his other self did not notice him as it was looking to its left at yet another self. He forced himself to look away from himself, and saw Venture who was looking very sick as he slumped himself over a passing galaxy.
Captain Kitano stood up from his bridge command station to study the stars. Something was not right. He knew it. Every instinct screamed it. Their calculations said they should have intercepted the enemy fortress here, but there was nothing.
"I don't like this." Dash spoke from the Combat Chief station at the front of the bridge. "It should be here. Even if they can hide from our sensors, we should have picked up something!"
"Time Radar reads negative too."
No, Kitano definitely did not like the feel of this. "Signal the fleet. All stop."
Turning to the Captain, Dash asked, "Could they have evaded us?"
Kitano knew, just as Dash did, that Space Warps didn't work like that. At least, they never had before. Something was very wrong. "Dash, ready the Wave Motion Guns."
Dash jumped back into his seat and began to run his pre-firing procedures.
Tokugawa, formerly the Yamato's chief engineer, and now the Andromeda's began the power buildup that Dash would need in order to fire the gun. He looked up at his captain. "What setting to you want for the gun?"
"Just charge it. I won't know what shot to use until I see what's waiting for us."
Dieldrin carefully studied the image of the Andromeda II and the rest of the Earth fleet. The Andromeda just sat there like it was waiting for something, while the other ships looked like they were nervous, making minor adjustments to their gun turrets. The fools didn't even have a target yet. "You were right to proceed with this phase, High Lord Sodoman. The armada the Earth sent against us is pitifully small."
"Remember, Dieldrin, the Humans are very dangerous. That is why we must eliminate them." The image of Sodoman said.
"Of course, High Lord," Dieldrin acknowledged while bowing to the High Lord's image as the connection was broken. "Its time to begin."
The space fortress was still nowhere to be seen, but suddenly, Kitano found himself facing thousands of ships. Thousands, against his hundreds. Time to even the odds. He pulled a set of dark goggles down over his eyes. "Set wave gun to Scattershot… Fire."
Deep in the Andromeda's engine room, an engineer ran to the forward weapons consol, and pulled the large lever there to the "S" position. His action was rewarded with movement at the front of the engine room where the two Wave Motion Gun emitters were located side by side. A huge revolver like chamber moved, changing the Gun's equivalent of a firing pin from the standard single wave version to the Scattershot version which had been first invented for use with the original Andromeda.
Back on the bridge, Dash carefully lined up the crosshairs on the wave gun scope with the center of the enemy fleet, then he too lowered his goggles before pulling the trigger.
For just a second, the Andromeda II's twin Wave Motion Gun firing gates seemed to glow, attracting stray particles of energy, then the energy was released and the bridge was bathed in a blinding light as two beams of tachyon wave energy leapt from the Andromeda towards the enemy fleet.
Halfway between the Andromeda and the target, wave motion energy split into thousands of tiny beams that arched around the perimeter of the enemy fleet, surrounding it. Then the destruction began as the individual arcs of wave energy plunged into enemy fleet. For a moment it looked as if space itself were exploding, and not just a few thousand ships.
Finally, the explosions died down enough for the Andromeda's sensors to distinguish between a fully active ship and a fireball. Kitano eagerly estimated the amount of damage his first salvo had caused.
It had not done enough. There were still too many ships. Would they sit still long enough for him to build up another charge for the Wave Motion Gun? He didn't think so. "Shock Cannons, fire." This was going to be a tough one. "Launch all fighters."
Each of Andromeda's turrets lined up with a target and fired, found a new target and fired again. A few missed, but most of them scored direct hits, causing their targets to explode. A few well placed hits managed to take out two or more ships in a single shot.
A door on the bottom of the Andromeda opened, fighter after fighter launched from the opening. Those fighters joined the fighters from the other ships. Soon the entire sky was full of ships.
Two of destroyers flanking Andromeda fired their own Wave Motion Guns. Their guns were not equipped for scattershot, but they were no less impressive, as the beams tore through everything they touched.
The shock cannon fire of the Destroyers joined that of the Andromeda, as they spread out into a line to give each of their guns the best possible firing angle.
Dieldrin looked in horror at his battle screens. Already a third of his entire fleet was gone, just gone. Utterly destroyed, and the pitiful Earth fleet had done it with their first volley. Fortunately the shock cannons they were relying on now did not do the same level of damage that the weapon they first used did. He turned to his fleet commander, "Fire, damn you! Destroy those Earth ships!"
The Andromeda rocked with the first impact. It rocked again, and an explosion echoed from somewhere in the ship. One of the destroyers exploded. Yes, Kitano thought, this was definitely going to be a tough one.
With the same abrupt rudeness as when it left, reality snapped back into place.
Venture weakly checked the navigation coordinates. His mind vaguely registered that they were still not at the planned destination, so his hand reached for the warp lever once more.
His hand didn't make it, as Wildstar's hand gently, but firmly intercepted it.
Confused and nauseous, Venture looked up at his captain, and took the offered bag, which he immediately emptied the containments of his stomach into.
"I forgot they had never been through a warp before," Sandor apologized.
"They did better than we did on our first warp," Eager added.
Wildstar walked back to his command station, and called to sickbay. "Doctor Sane to the bridge." Then looking to Sandor, "I just wonder how the rest of the crew did."
With a rolling hiss sound, the elevator door opened, granting Dr. Sane and IQ-9 access to the bridge.
"All right, what seems to be the problem?" the doctor asked, looking around the bridge. "Ah, warp sickness. Don't worry about a thing, Captain. I've got just the thing!" The Doctor proudly displayed his sake bottle. "It'll put hairs on their chests!"
"Just as long as they are not too drunk to fight a battle, Doctor."
IQ-9 went over to tend to Yumi. She awoke with a start, and gave a short scream when she realized where IQ-9 was placing his hands. Her clipboard clanged as she threw it at his quickly retreating head.
Row and Venture made less dramatic recoveries
"Doctor, Go through the ship and make sure all everyone is in good shape. We only need to complete one more warp before we catch up to the Andromeda. Report when that is done."
"All right, Captain… Come on, IQ. Stop having fun with the ladies and help me work."
"This is a very simple task for a series 9 genius class robot," the robot complained, although he obediently followed.
"Captain!"
"Yes, Yumi?"
"I'm picking up combat signals from the Andromeda and the rest of the fleet." She said with a worried voice. "I don't think they are winning, sir."
"Get a fix on their location, Yumi." Wildstar said, and then swiftly pressed the battle stations alarm.
All through out the ship, what crewmen were able, scrambled to their combat stations. Four crewmen manned each turret, another crewman for each pulse laser battery, torpedo and missile crews scrambled to their stations, while the Black Tiger fighter pilots slid down quick-tubes to the hanger before scrambling into their cosmo fighters.
Kei closed the blast doors around Hydroponics, and then checked that her own pistol was charged.
Knox and the rest of the Space Marines donned their combat armor and space helmets, and then moved to strategic locations throughout the ship, equally ready to repel boarders, to board enemy ships, or make assault planetary landings; whatever the situation would require, they were ready.
The ship's cook unlocked the galley weapon's locker, put on a pistol and holster, then went back to the stew he was preparing for lunch.
On the bridge, Yumi completed her task. "I have the location. 045 degrees at 200,000 Megameters."
"Venture, there is likely to be a lot of debris, so place us clear of the battle site."
Finally, Doctor Sane called up to the bridge with his crew report. "They're all OK, Derek."
"Ok, Venture. Warp."
The lever was pulled, replacing reality with the shifting dimensions of a space warp.
Another section of the Andromeda's hull exploded, smoke from the fire within the ship billowed out into space. The ships remaining shock cannons continued to fire shot after shot.
Cosmo fighters danced around the shock cannon fire, to make surgical strikes on the enemy battleships, then turned to dogfight with the enemy fighters that had followed them through the maelstrom.
More enemy ships were being destroyed than Earth ships, but Kitano knew full well that with the numbers the enemy still had, the end result would be the same. He was running out of ships, and the enemy was not giving him an opening to escape.
On the video panel, Kitano noticed Destroyer #44 pulling ahead of the fleet. Apparently trying to make some kind of heroic gesture, by rushing the enemies position, at the same time depriving itself of the covering fire from the rest of the fleet. "Radio 44, Tell them to get back into formation!"
"Too late!" Dash called.
The destroyer erupted into a fireball.
"Can we get a signal through to Earth?" Kitano asked, as another hit knocked him to the floor.
Wildstar studied the battle that was taking place on the main video panel. The battle was too clustered to use the wave motion gun. It would have to be shock cannons and missiles then.
"The enemy fleet is within range of the main guns, but so is our own fleet," Eager reported from the radar station. "The Black Tigers are in position."
"Venture change our heading by 90 degrees. I want to give them a full broadside. Be sure to keep the ship steady for our gunners.
"Row, aim carefully. Shock cannons and side missile tubes."
All five of Yamato's turrets turned towards the battle taking place to the side of Yamato. The hull plates covering the missile tubes below the pulse laser batteries slid open.
The shock cannons fired. One beam came from each of the three barrels on each turret. In sets of three, the beams from the individual barrels twisted and merged with the other beams from its turret, making the energy beam that much more powerful. A total of five energy beams stretched out from the Yamato, over the Andromeda and her fleet, and impacted with five enemy battleships. Each beam destroyed their targets utterly, and destroyed one or two ships behind it as well.
The turret barrels shifted slightly, then fired again. The slight change made by the barrels, shifted the course of the combined beams so that the second volley of shots destroyed targets in completely different areas of the battlefield.
Missile trails followed the shock cannon energy beams. They followed a straight course until they passed over the bow of the Andromeda, then split up; each missile found a different target.
"Cease fire." Wildstar ordered. "Turn us back and take us below the enemy forces. Ready the stack missiles, and reposition the shock cannons for the next assault. Tell the Black Tigers to make their run."
Dieldrin watched in horror as the ships all around him were unexpectedly destroyed by a new assault. "Where did that come from??"
"A new ship just warped into this sector!"
"An Earth ship?" he asked as another volley of missiles destroyed another line of his destroyers.
"Yes—Fighters, from above!!"
A fresh wave of human fighters soared down upon his capital ships, and he didn't have any fighters available to send against them since they were all engaged against the Andromeda's squadrons. He had to admire the precision of this new wave of pilots. Most of them were able to destroy a ship with only two of their missiles.
A flash of plane dived past the bridge window, so close, he could swear he heard the roar of the engines. The front of his command ship erupted in flame as missiles from the fighter impacted with his hull. The fighter turned up and strafed a wounded destroyer with laser fire. The destroyer exploded.
"Damage control to the fore compartments!"
"Sir! The Earth ship, its moved!!"
"Where? Where is it? Find it!!"
"The Andromeda is disengaging!"
"Don't let any Earth Ships escape!"
"The fighters have disengaged."
Blue-white shock cannon beams erupted through the fleet once more, this time from below. Again, each beam found multiple targets. Ships exploded throughout the fleet.
This time the shock cannon attack was followed by wave after wave of small missiles, no single missile was powerful enough to destroy a ship, but when they hit in sets of three, that didn't seem to matter.
On the tactical monitors, it was painfully obvious that the surprise attack had left his fleet in complete disarray. The Andromeda and her fleet was escaping, and he wasn't even sure exactly where this new ship was. His own command ship wouldn't take another hit before being destroyed. He still had a numerical superiority, but it was useless when he couldn't get them reorganized in time to prevent the Earth ships from escaping, or destroying the new one.
Wait a moment… the Andromeda was not escaping; it was reforming with the other ships in what remained of its fleet. They were lining themselves up with the front of each ship facing his fleet, as if they were preparing to re-enter the battle.
No, they were not going to reengage at close range at all! They were going to use their wave weapon's again! "Withdraw! Withdraw at once!"
Dieldrin's first officer gave him a confused stare, "What sir?"
"I said retreat, NOW! Warp! All ships, warp."
Dieldrin's command ship warped, and was soon followed by several other ships. The rest were instantly incinerated by the combined blast from the wave motion guns from the remaining Earth ships, before they had a chance to follow the order to retreat.