Twenty-Two
Sector 47
Horde Demilitarized Zone
23 September 2017
Battlestar Logoss dropped smoothly back into normal space. The Queen Mother's directive to get the warship back into fighting shape had taken longer than expected. Logoss left the dockyard a day later than the set deadline, but the crews had done a titanic amount of work in those few days. All that remained was to replace the heat sinks along the flanks of the engine module with armor reproductions. The old type of heatsinks were not required for the new hyperdrives, since they didn't build up heat like the previous models. Because hull plates had to be removed from the dorsal surface in order to remove the older, larger modules, which were larger than the newer compact units, regular plates had been secured over the opening. There wasn't time to install thick ablative armor plate back over the hole.
Commander Fontaine sagged in her command chair, relieved that her ship made it back to normal space in one piece. Ordinarily, the meticulous tuning required after installing a new hyperdrive was done in space dock, where all the resources that may be needed were readily available. The tuning was almost complete, but the vibrations in the hull were another matter.
Fontaine took the call from the chief engineer. "We're almost finished. The last few adjustments to the hyperdrive are being made now," the woman reported.
"That's good news," Fontaine said. "The vibrations don't seem to have abated, though."
"Not much we can do about that until the hull plates are replaced with armor plate. The armor will force the surrounding structure into place, removing the vibrations," the engineer said. "Filler pieces just don't cut it." She promised to try to reduce the vibrations, but they were not severe enough to threaten ship operations -just annoying.
The main thing Fontaine had to be wary of was taking the ship into battle. Without proper armor at that location on the drive module, it was a weak point an enemy could exploit. A direct hit could cripple the ship. Maybe even destroy it.
Logoss would be going into battle, of that Fontaine was certain. When and where was still unknown, but the enemy was on the move and could pop up anywhere. Despite the condition of her ship, Logoss was fully armed and functional with a full complement of fighters aboard. Fontaine looked forward to taking her ship into battle.
She should have known better than to let her thoughts wander.
Colonel Darius appeared at Fontaine's left hand. "Commander, we're picking up a distress call."
"Where?"
"Deeper in the demilitarized zone. It's still sketchy, but it appears a group of transports has come under attack. But that's not the odd part."
"Odd? A group of transports is under attack, and you find something odd?" Fontaine shook her head.
"The odd part is a squadron of Horde warships moved to assist, and they are calling for help."
"I have to admit that is pretty odd. How far away?"
"If engineering can finish their final calibrations quickly, we may just make it in time to do some good. And, no, there are no closer starships."
Fontaine hissed a curse. All fighter wings had been embarked for the cruise, though she did not expect to take her starship into battle just yet. The universe sometimes displayed a wicked sense of humor.
A brief talk with the chief engineer ended with her promising to finish as quickly as possible; however, the operation was delicate, could not be rushed, and certainly could not be finished by taking shortcuts.
Orders went out to prep all fighters for space combat. Pilots and crew were ordered to standby stations. They would be called to man their fighters minutes out from the target area. All ballistic weapons were loaded while diagnostics were run on the energy weapons.
In the end, all Fontaine could do was drum her fingers on the arm of her chair and rein in her impatience to get moving. Her people knew their jobs. The task took as long as it took.
Finally, engineering reported ready for hyperspace jump.
Fontaine thought the vibrations felt more intense this time. She ordered her crew to push the envelope to get to the site of battle in time to do more than just pick up the pieces. The call for help was still going out from the Horde squadron, so someone was still alive out there.
Fortunately, the hop from their cruising position along the border to the site of battle was not a great distance. Fontaine ordered battlestations two minutes out. Alarm klaxons echoed throughout the warship. Crewmembers scrambled for their assigned station. Pilots raced for the trams taking them the short distance from standby in the barracks, positioned in an armored module along the belly of the ship, to the landing bays where ground crew waited to get them situated in Bladewing cockpits and stuffed into launch tubes. When Logoss emerged from hyperspace through an electric storm cloud, the battlestar was armed and ready to kill the enemy.
Fontaine rose from the command chair and quickly walked down the few steps from the platform to the holographic table displaying the tactical array as the sensors mapped out local space. Tuning out her surroundings, the commander focused on the two-dimensional map.
The group of transports was making its way at the top speed of the slowest ship for the border of Horde space. Sensors picked up the dead hulks of three cargo ships and five Horde destroyers. The remaining Horde ships interposed themselves between the enemy vessels and their prey.
Icons indicated hull configurations dating back to the Great War. The enemy force numbered only four battlecruisers, but the power signatures were greater than the historical record. A window opened, displaying the comparison of current readings against the original record. Somehow there had been a forty percent increase in power without using a larger power plant. An increase in efficiency?
Fontaine shook off speculation. The woman manning the sensors would take all the detailed readings the battlestar was capable of for later analysis. Her job was to turn this around before it turned into another bloodbath of civilians.
The transport formation icons changed to white, indicating neutrals. Logoss and the spreading formations of smaller icons indicating fighter launches were colored blue for allies. The line of Horde warships were colored in red, along with the four attacking battlecruisers. Fontaine hoped that would change once contact was established with the Horde commander.
"Anything?" Fontaine asked when Colonel Darius joined her at the tactical table.
Darius glanced at the clear panel being updated with a representation of the local space. "Still nothing from the Horde. Their commander may be unsure of our intentions."
"Well, he's about to find out. The enemy doesn't seem to be aware of us."
"Or doesn't care," Darius suggested.
"They will shortly," Fontaine promised.
Captain Jurant surveyed the situation on his tactical board. The transports were moving as fast as the slowest ship in their formation toward the Horde border. Allowing for that had been costly. Three transports had died under enemy guns when his squadron arrived. He had sacrificed five destroyers to set up a defensive line between the fleeing transports and the enemy battlecrusiers. Three times he ordered his ship commanders to unleash everything they had upon the lead battlecruiser. Three times the enemy's shields dipped around twenty to thirty percent, but quickly recovered. Even a full broadside from his battleship's forward guns failed to make a dent. It was maddening to see a ship that should have been easily destroyed by the firepower he commanded stubbornly refuse to die.
And then the battlestar arrived. Communications had been received and ignored by Jurant. He assumed it was calls to surrender, since unconfirmed reports circulated of a battlestar being in on several attacks.
Fighters launched from the battlestar his sensor section had yet to identify. They formed standard wedge formations with fighters screening for those armed with ship-killing capital torpedoes. Jurant grimly thought about how he was going to be able to take at least one of the enemy ships with him.
Tactical finally updated the fighter icons as the deadly Bladewing. The battlestar was still unknown, but something about the approach vector bothered him. It was almost as if…
Abruptly, the fighter screens peeled away in a beautifully executed maneuver leaving clear lanes for the torpedo bombers. Twenty-four torpedoes measuring fifteen feet in length dropped from belly pylons, drives ignited pushing the lethal weapons rapidly up to maximum speed in ten seconds added by the momentum imparted by Bladewings already at attack speeds.
The enemy battlecruisers finally recognized the danger as the trailing ship came under attack. With the enemy in front of them, the ship commanders only utilized their forward shield arc, increasing its durability in the face of repeated Horde barrages. That left the aft sections vulnerable to attack.
Computer brains noted the arrival of the battlestar that swung in behind them and launched fighters. They failed to note the launches from the sides of the flight pods rather than the back end. The fact that the fighters were Bladewings instead of ancient Horde fighters.
Warning klaxons screamed for attention the moment the capital torpedoes were released. The flanking battlecruisers struggled to redirect offensive fire by swinging their bows around in their effort to throw up a defensive barrage and detonate at least a few of the torpedoes.
Plasma/energy beams lit the night trying for intercepts. The weapons were traveling so fast, tracking systems could not keep up. As in an atmospheric fight, the basic tactic was to shoot ahead of the weapons and let them run into the beams. Eye-tearing white explosions from direct hits split the darkness. Secondary explosions of weapons caught in the explosion radius of several torpedoes added to the conflagration. All proved to be in vain. Seventeen surviving torpedoes slammed into the engine nozzles of the targeted battlecruiser. Many of them detonated in the growing ball of plasma explosions, wasting their energy, but it didn't matter. The end result was the battlecruiser, somehow still mostly intact, tumbling away all but dead.
"That was too easy," Fontaine muttered.
"The Horde commander is responding to our hails," Colonel Darius reported.
"About time. Put him through."
A window opened in the air above the table, displaying the image of a man who had seen better days. His apparent age was somewhere in the fifties, ancient for the commander of a starship. While he had not aged well, his green eyes still shone with the sharp intellect of someone who had seen a lot of action. He was also a man looking down the barrel of the gun that might finally kill him but was determined to face it bravely.
"I believe you called for assistance?" Fontaine said, without sarcasm.
"Sorry for not responding right away. There are unconfirmed reports of a rogue battlestar attacking convoys and transfer stations of late," the man replied, sounding as tired as he looked.
Fontaine nodded. "We have heard those reports, too. There may be some truth to that. While we sometimes jump at the opportunity to remind the Horde why it's good not to anger us, I assure you we have come to help."
"So I see," the man said. "Captain Jurant, commander of Squadron Thirty-Seven. And you would be the famous Commander Fontaine. Or infamous, depending on who one speaks to." Jurant actually cracked a wane smile.
Getting to the point, Fontaine said, "I am sending a squadron around to defend the convoy. I would like them to link up with your squadron for support."
Jurant nodded to someone off screen. "Done. We have been trying to disable one of those battlecruisers for almost five minutes. Any damage we do to their shields repairs in seconds. And then you breeze in and take one out as if it were nothing."
Fontaine shook her head. "Not as easy as it looked. They didn't realize we were a threat. Now they do."
"Probably thought you were backing them up."
Fontaine sobered at that thought. That did explain the lack of reaction from the enemy ships. A more terrifying thought was them calling for help from the rumored battlestar in their fleet. "We need to end this quickly. Hold fire and be ready to attack designated targets. I want to get a better idea on how powerful this enemy is. I doubt they can stand up to an attack on two fronts."
Jurant frowned. He could see the remaining battlecruisers turning away from his squadron. They no longer considered his force a threat in the face of the Val-kyrie force regrouping for another run. His fighters were pulling back to defend his ships, except for the squadron ordered to link with the Bladewing fighters making their way over to help defend the convoy. The enemy had yet to deploy fighters of their own. If these battlecruisers were formidable, what were their fighters like?
"You want to experiment in the middle of a battle?"
"Not much choice. Information about this enemy is scant. Horde leadership isn't sharing, and we have been unable to engage them until now. With all due respect, captain, you haven't been doing too well up to now. I promise you will be in on the kill," Fontaine answered.
Brutally honest, but true. He had done nothing but lose warships in a vain attempt at buying time for the convoy to get away. Jurant regrouped his fleet into a defensive formation and made his command ready to jump in when called. An open channel was established to facilitate a coordinated assault.
"Enemy approaching optimum range. Energy spike in the ship off our starboard bow. Designate Target One," the sensor tech reported.
Seconds later, the battlestar rocked from a heavy impact. Stunned faces looked nervously about, then the crew returned their focus to their assigned stations.
"What the hell was that?" Fontaine demanded as her ship rocked from another impact.
"They're hitting us with plasma/energy blasts on a level only a battleship could mount," Darius said. "How is that possible?"
"Damage report!" Fontaine snapped.
"Force wall down to eighty-three percent. Layered defense active," the damage control tech responded smartly.
"Set flight pod guns to antiproton discharge. Bow guns rapid fire burst mode. Maximum power. Ready quantum torpedoes at max yield. Let's see what it takes to really kill one of these," Fontaine ordered.
"Ready," the weapons officer reported seconds later.
"Fire!"
Blue/green globes erupted from the twin barrels mounted in the front of the flight pods. Tracking systems did not have trouble adjusting for the oncoming warship; it was diving straight at the Logoss. Fontaine liked it when the enemy made things easy. Then her satisfaction evaporated in an instant: Streams of antiproton spheres slammed into the Target One's shields. Disruption waves cascaded across the forward surface. That attack was followed up but lines of orange globes from the six bow guns. The enemy's shields flickered and flashed under an assault that would have vaporized a Horde battlecruiser in seconds.
And yet Target One still lived.
"Shields are fluctuating," Darius reported, even as the battlestar rocked from another impact to its force wall.
"Switch bow guns to beam blast. Captain Juant, now!" Fontaine ordered.
Six orange beams slammed into as small an area as possible. Antiproton globes hammered away magnifying the disruptions in the enemy's shields. Whatever guiding intelligence ran the ship poured more power into shoring up the forward shield arc to counter the powerful assault by the battlestar.
Then the Horde barrage impacted the aft shield arc.
Against an adversary attacking from one direction, the artificial intelligence could redirect power as needed to counter the attacks. Power supplies were finite, however. Facing the power of a Val-kyrie battlestar tested the enemy systems in a way the Horde could never do without mobilizing an entire fleet of at least twenty battleships. Of course, even those would not stand up to Unit Six Sixty-six's battleships. Only the Val-kyrie had the power to be a serious threat.
Defeat for the Horde squadron and annihilation of the civilian convoy was inevitable. The arrival of the Val-kyrie Mark XX battlestar changed the equation. At first, the battlestar's arrival had been ignored because Unit Six Sixty-six routinely sent out a battleship to back up the roving attack squads. So, the AI in charge of this squad dismissed the arrival as just insurance against survivors.
Until battlecruiser 23 got its engines blown apart and cascade failures fried the AI and all the machines withing its hull.
The one weakness the warships had was being attacked on two fronts. Logoss continued to hammer away at battlecruiser 33's forward shield arc. The AI drew power from other systems and the after arc to shore up the front. It calculated its enemies must have been coordinating their moves because at the time battlecruiser 33 became most vulnerable to an attack from the rear, the Horde struck with all the power their remaining ships could throw.
Battlecruiser 15 did not have a line-of-sight on the attacking battlestar because the wreckage of battlecruiser 23 was in the way. The Horde squadron was off the ship's port aft side. The only enemy within its firing envelope was the squadron of Bladewings armed with capital ship torpedoes making an attack run on battlecruiser 33. The formation of bombers and their fighter escorts was just on the edge of effective range, but instead of waiting to get closer, the AI released a murderous volley of plasma/energy bolts figuring on at least some connecting. Most sailed harmlessly past the Bladewings, but three fighters took direct hits. Four torpedo planes also took hits, detonating their deadly weapons. The resulting explosions took out another seven fighters and five torpedo planes. It wasn't enough to stave off the inevitable.
Fifteen capital ship torpedoes roared in on their target. Battlecruiser 33 tried to maneuver at the last minute, but the power drain caused by the simultaneous attacks left precious little for the main drives and reaction controls systems. Battlecruiser 33 blew apart in a spectacular explosion rivaling a star going nova. Because the battlecruiser and battlestar were on a collision course, Logoss could take only one course of action due to the closure rate. She plowed through the broiling cloud of explosive energies, relying on a strained force wall to see her through. When the conflagration finally faded away, only atoms remained of Battlecruiser 33.
Battlestar Logoss burst through the backside of the roiling cloud of gas and energy, force wall lit like an aroura borealis as it fended off the heat and exploding matter. The wall stabilized back into an invisible barrier as the systems reset and slowly powered back up to full strength.
Two down.
Fontaine ordered a downward spiral to port. The course would take the battlestar under the formation of Horde warships and swing into the remaining enemy's aft quadrant. The helmsman rolled the ship on its long axis to keep the dorsal section of the force wall presented to the enemy battlecruiser. Shield emitters along the starboard side longitude line had been stressed severely, several exploding under the strain. Because of the overlap and redundancy in the ship's design, losing those emitters had not weakened the overall shield strength significantly.
Battlecruiser 15 turned hard to starboard at the same time the Logoss turned to port. This brought the battlecruiser on course to pass the battlestar on its starboard side. On the same side were its sensors, picked up damage to the battlestar's force wall array. The AI did not hesitate. At a range of ten thousand kilometers, it opened up with a powerful broadside of secondary weapons while the battlestar was still trying to align sluggish main gun turrets. That had been a problem for this design during the last war that had yet to be corrected. Something about the design caused a critical time lag from order to initiation that often proved fatal in a capital ship battle
Logoss' helmsman responded with a snap-roll to starboard that swung the stressed line of shield emitters away from enemy fire. The weapons officer did not wait for the great ship to stabilize. Any weapons with a clear line to the target automatically unleashed on the enemy warship. All this happened without direct orders from either the commander or colonel. Battlestar crews trained to react in just this way under certain circumstances because a delay could mean the difference between life and death.
Shield bubbles of both ships flared brightly at the point of ordinance impacts. The battlestar shrugged off the assault of secondary weapons fire, while Battlecruiser 15 experienced a significant drop in power as the impacts were tightly targeted to overload shield emitters.
Both warships passed each other in moments. Logoss' force wall recharged to maximum. Battlecruiser 15 trailed a sparkling stream of energies and debris blown out when several emitters exploded.
Seeing the damage, Captain Jurant ordered his ships to open fire. Most energy beams missed the mark, but the effect was interesting.
Unit Six Sixty-six did not spend resources indiscriminately as had been the practice in the last war. Materials were finite at the moment. Every space worthy hull had to be preserved, so being destroyed in a battle that had turned against it was senseless. Unit Six Sixty-six programmed the AIs with the option to withdraw from a fight rather than sacrifice itself to no end. The battlecruiser could have taken out more Horde destroyers, but that would have been a useless statistic. The battleship would have been a better target, but the Val-kyrie battlestar would burn it to a cinder before the AI could accomplish that act. So, recognizing the need to return valuable data on the battlestar to its commander as paramount, Battlecruiser 15 adjusted course, accelerated to flank speed and engaged the hyperdrive, escaping to fight another day.
Stunned silence fell upon Fontaine's bridge. Flight controllers quietly coordinated recovery operations for the fighters as well as deploying salvage craft to pick up those precious few pilots who managed to eject before their craft was destroyed.
"They ran," Colonel Darius breathed, still struggling to believe what she saw.
"They never run," Captain Jurant said.
"That's because the enemy had yet to come up against anyone who could threaten them," Fontaine mused.
"Meaning you," Jurant said tightly. It galled him to think the Horde was unable to take on this new enemy and come out victorious. Horde forces had spent so much time fighting weaker opponents that Horde Prime's forces had no idea what it was like to engage someone they could not beat. Someone other than the Val-kyrie, that is.
"We destroyed the first ship because they may have thought we were on their side. Make no mistake, captain, you were instrumental in killing the second ship. Our enemy has a strength even we have not seen," Fontaine said, trying to soothe the man's ruffled feathers. "And this is not the first time the Horde and the Val-kyrie have worked together for the greater good."
Jurant snorted and cracked a slight smile. "That's true enough. I will have a copy of our data sent to you."
"Good. I will do likewise. We need to unite against this enemy. They are ravaging the space lanes with impunity. It needs to stop."
"I know you have excellent scientists to examine the data, but I have no idea who to turn this over to," Jurant confessed.
"Send it to General Rongar. He has been coordinating with us and those in charge of the shipping companies. He will know what to do with it," Fontaine advised him."
Jurant frowned. "Rongar? So, Horde Prime is finally taking action?"
"I don't know about that. I was only told that any data collected was to go to General Rongar and our own scientists," Fontaine said. An icon appeared on the table screen. She tapped it, sending the copy of the sensor data through the comm channel to Captain Jurant's battleship. In short order, a copy of the data compiled by his ships arrived.
"Transfer complete," Jurant reported. "Um, unlike many of my fellow captains I am not too proud to give thanks where it is due. So, on behalf of my squadron, Commander Fontaine, I thank you for your timely arrival and saving my command."
Fontaine offered a genuine smile. "You're welcome, captain. I'm glad we could help."
"All fighters and recovery craft are aboard," Colonel Darius reported.
"We'll see to the safety of the convoy from here," Jurant promised. "Until next time." The screen floating in the air above the table faded away.
A call from engineering came in while Fontaine studied the damage control images. Red dots scattered across the dorsal, ventral and side views indicated areas needing attention. Fontaine frowned at the dots over the location of the temporary hull plates accessing the hyperdrive bay. Without looking, Fontaine stretched out a hand to the touch pad in the corner to open the channel from engineering. "Report."
"If you're quite through shaking my poor ship around, I'd like to get a crew out to seal the breaches around the hull plates over the hyperdrive bay," the chief engineer said, not quite suppressing the snark.
Fontaine's crew excelled at what they did. She afforded a certain amount of latitude when it came to her department heads other commanders would not tolerate. Her people knew where the line was while on duty and rarely crossed it.
"For now. We'll see what comes up on the trip home. You should be more careful about complaining when everything runs smoothly. The Fates have a tendency to slap you across the face when you get complacent," Fontaine said with a straight face.
The engineer grunted at that. "Fortunately, there are only minor oxygen leaks. We should have them fixed within the hour. After that we can jump. We'll need to dock for full repairs. We don't have that many spare shield emitters in storage."
Fontaine nodded. "We're heading home. While the repairs are being made, I want us outfitted with hull mounts for a full complement of capital missiles."
"Commander?"
"We have just gotten a taste of the power our enemy commands. We need to be ready because the next time we sortie it will likely be for serious engagement."
"Understood." The screen winked out. It wasn't fair to keep stressing the spaceframe like this, but every ship that could be made ready for the coming fleet battle had to be available.
Fontaine knew Defiant was already being outfitted with breakaway mounts for the massive capital missiles. Praxis and Cerberus were also being kitted out. Rumor had it a call had gone out to recall two specialized battlestars, but Fontaine had no idea what they could be, She knew of a few designs still in the testing stage, but nothing anywhere near to being ready for active service. Whatever it was the Queen Mother was trying to put together, Fontaine hoped it would help. If the enemy battlecruisers were anything to judge by, even one retrofitted battlestar hull dating back to the Great War would be a formidable opponent. One that might just be able to defeat a Mark XX battlestar equipped with a vacuum energy generator.
Fontaine shuddered at the thought and quickly banished it from her mind.
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