Setosha - the Beating Heart
Copyright© 2010 by Prince von Vlox
Chapter 28
Setosha, Inner System
Main Force Admiral Andre Bruxell rubbed his tired eyes and peered blearily at the last of the maintenance and repair reports. He put his thumb against the scanner. It clicked and whirred, then reset. It had never done that before, he noted sourly. He tried it again, and this time the ACCEPT light came on. Damn, something else that needed fixing.
Maintenance was just one more of the worries nibbling away at his confidence. Warships were high maintenance as well as high technology. A warship’s crew was there to repair things. For all their ruggedness, the weapons and other devices in a modern warship required a lot of hands-on care. And this mission seemed to be requiring more of it than projected. Why hadn’t Intelligence warned him about the conditions here? What were they still failing to tell him?
That was a useless question, and he knew it. He clicked back to the maintenance statistics for the previous month. Spare parts consumption was 17.6% above norm. Returning to the current month, he noted that the rate of failure had increased even more sharply.
At this rate, the Bitch Admiral won’t need to defeat us in battle, he thought. She can just wait until everything breaks down and pick up the crews with an unarmed pinnace.
He glanced at his time display and placed his morning call to General Koeyera.
“What’s your latest bad news, Viktor?” he asked by way of greeting.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you what that Hell Beam was, Andre,” General Koeyera said. Admiral Bruxell’s flagship was far enough from the planet that the speed of light imposed an irritating delay on each end of their conversation. “All we found was a large, hot crater. It was still radioactive enough that the Expendables we sent in started getting sick right away.” He shrugged. “It was simpler to just shoot them on the spot and leave them there than it would have been to bring them back to the base and treat them.” He shook his head, his own frustration clearly evident on the vid screen. “In a way, it was merciful. I’ve never heard of a treatment that would work on anyone that far gone.”
Admiral Bruxell nodded sympathetically. “They were just Expendables, after all, Viktor. That’s what you have them for.”
“I’m running out of them, Andre. These damned Bitches have been chewing through them like crazy these last few days, shooting a lot of them and trapping even more. I’ve got over 2,000 useless wounded just lying around the base right now. I’m so hard up for real troops at the moment that we’ve actually had to start treating the Expendables to fill out the ranks. At least the Bitches captured a couple hundred of them yesterday and took them off my hands.”
“I can imagine what they did with them.” Admiral Bruxell’s laugh was harsh.
“We’ve started stories circulating among the troops about that. One of the Internal Security people heard some soldiers yarning about being the only men on a planet full of women; you know how soldiers are. The nitwit thought they were fraternizing and ordered them shot. I damn near shot him when I got the report. I had to move fast to save them. Fool almost cost me two veterans, either one of them worth a hundred of him. Still, it’s a problem. That thought has been circulating among the troops since just after we got here. Because we’re not staying here long, I’ve made it clear there will be no leave. The men are getting restless, and when they get restless, they make stupid mistakes.”
“I’ve got the same problem with my crews, Viktor. Do you have enough prisoners mind-wiped and rewired so we can start some kind of dirtside leave policy?”
“I’m not sure it’s safe to bring anyone down for any sort of leave,” General Koeyera said. “Not any more. Are you sure I can’t send a few of mine up there?”
“My crews want something other than compartments,” Admiral Bruxell said. “Open skies and fresh air beat being cooped up in a ship for weeks on end.”
“I’ll see what we can do. Maybe there’s a depopulated island we could use. Our dear friends in gray aren’t making it any easier to secure recreation resources. If it moves, they kill it. If it doesn’t move, they kill it so it won’t move. Dedicated bastards. How are things up there?”
Admiral Bruxell glanced across his Tac Display. “Quiet at the moment. I expect another attack soon. If they repeat their pattern, we’ll see one tomorrow.”
“When are they going to make their main push? Any indications from your probes?”
“We thought we had something yesterday. One of the probes caught a faint remnant of a hyper footprint, but it wasn’t strong enough to localize. The techs think we caught just the tail end of something, probably one of their scouts.”
“Could have been almost anything,” General Koeyera said, shrugging. “Maybe they’ve given up.”
“Would you? Of course, they haven’t. But we’ve destroyed three of their carriers, and Intelligence reports they only had eight to begin with. I’ve been running my simulations on that level of strength. So far, it’s looking good.”
“I wish it was looking as good down here.” General Koeyera’s attention suddenly focused on the screen before him. “Sorry, have to cut this short, Andre. I’ve got troops screaming for help. The initial report is some sort of avalanche.”
“Throwing rocks at you, are they? Two can play at that game. As soon as we finish off their fleet, you and I need to talk about the surface bombardment part of this operation. We have those Class 7s we’d planned to use, but I thought dropping a few rocks onto the surface would help, too. That way, they’ll never be able to terraform this place again.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” General Koeyera said, “but we brought a few with us. Class 7s, not rocks.”
“Yeah, there are enough of the damned things floating around in this system nobody would notice a few more. Where do you have them?”
“In a bunker on the west side of town. We didn’t use all of the ones we built a couple of years ago for those operations on the PSK front.” Even though this was a secure and encrypted channel, he deliberately didn’t mention any names. Internal Security could be listening, and unauthorized disclosure of Imperial actions in certain systems was an automatic death penalty.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Admiral Bruxell said. “You take care, Viktor. It won’t be long. They’ll be coming any day now. I can feel it. Then we can burn this worthless planet and get out of here.”
General Koeyera smiled. “I’d almost be willing to do that with the damn nobility still on it. Maybe we could leave them behind and blame it on the Bitches.”
Admiral Bruxell smiled back. “It makes a nice fantasy, Viktor. Get back to me after you’ve dealt with that avalanche. We need to work on getting better Fire Support for you from my destroyers.”
He stared at the screen after logging off. Viktor was good people. He needed to thank whoever had paired them together for this operation. They’d known each other for 15 years, and over that time had grown to trust each other’s judgment implicitly.
With a sigh, he turned back to his maintenance reports. The breakdowns were worse than he’d thought, now that he looked at the history of them. He had front-line ships running at 80 percent capacity. That was a recipe for disaster. He had to get another repair ship in here. That would be six. He could already hear the desk rats squeal. But it was either that or cannibalize ships. Huh! Some choice.
“Sir?” It was the Lieutenant on Day Watch in Long Range Sensing. He was calling on the priority circuit. “Sir, I’m suddenly getting a lot of neutrinos all across my boards, waves of them, sir. They just started in the last few seconds.”
“Maybe it’s a flare from a star,” Admiral Bruxell said absently, turning his attention to his Readiness Reports. “We are in a nebula. That has to happen all the time here.”
“No, sir.” The Lieutenant was adamant. “Not at this density. Sir, if I didn’t know better, I’d say someone just lit off a bunch of power plants, and they did it inside this system.”
It was the Lieutenant’s worried tone more than anything else that caught the Admiral’s attention. “Inside the system, Lieutenant? Can you localize it?” Something tickled the back of his memory. No. They wouldn’t have the stones to try that. It would be crazy to even think of it.
“I’m trying to, sir. As far as I can tell, they’re clustered abo--”
The alarm cut across all conversation. “Alert! Alert! We have unknown gravitational sources active and close! We are being scanned by active fire control!
“Alert! Alert! Hostile ships have been detected! We have hostile vessels---”
Admiral Bruxell hit the mute button and raced from his office to the Bridge. “What do we have?” he snapped as he halted in front of the Main Tactical Display.
“Their ships just appeared on the Tac View, sir,” Captain Swenter said. “The Bitches are less than six light seconds from Battle Divisions Five and Six and accelerating. We’re refining the data now.”
“Numbers?”
“80 minimum, but more are showing up every second. We’re still counting. Upper limit, maybe 100.” He paused, looked at something else on his console, and frowned. “Maybe double that.”
Admiral Bruxell looked at the updated Tac Display. Damn! Caught by a stupid, neb trick! What the hell happened to our watchships? His error, his multiple errors, leaped out at him. He’d counted on the Bitches to follow the same pattern they’d settled into for three weeks, the same sort of pattern any PSK or Imperial Admiral would follow: diversions, misdirection, and feints to cover the approach of the main force, then an attack from several axes to keep their main effort hidden until the last possible minute. That’s how he’d do it. That’s how any competent commander would do it.
He’d thought for certain he’d have at least four hours’ warning before the engagement started, more than enough time for him to determine the best solution for whatever they threw at him, test it on his simulator, and issue the appropriate orders. There would be no time for the simulator now.
“Time to engage Divisions Five and Six?”
“Twenty-three minutes at the Bitches’ standard acceleration, sir.”
“Good! There’s still time.” Maybe he could still use the simulator today. “Order Battle Divisions Five and Six to open the range, emergency override acceleration. Put the drives all the way to the max, and to hell with breakdowns. That’ll buy the rest of the fleet time to rendezvous on them. Order all Battle Divisions to rendezvous on Five and Six, best possible acceleration. Cruisers--the main plan still holds, they just have to implement it now instead of in four hours.”
The main plan called for the cruisers, with the battlecruisers at the heart of their formation, to attack the Families ships from inside their orbit. The Families ships would have to track them while looking directly at the local star, which would increase the cruisers’ survivability. The battleships, after joining up, would then swing back towards the cruisers, catching the Family ships between two fires. After that, it would just be pounding hulls into pieces and guaranteeing that the Families Navy was incapable of threatening Imperial plans ever again.
“The Fast Attacks, sir?”
“Both types, and the destroyer squadrons not directly attached to the cruisers, will rally with the Battleship Divisions.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Captain Swenter said. The orders had been going out as Admiral Bruxell spoke them, but Regulations required Captain Swenter to acknowledge receiving them. He repeated the Admiral’s instructions, making sure he had them right.
“That’ll do it,” Admiral Bruxell said. He turned back to watch his Tac Display. You thought you had me fooled with that coming-in stealthy trick, he thought. You’re good. It almost worked. But almost isn’t going to be enough today. You started too far out from our ships. You gave me too much time.
“Sir?” It was Captain Swenter.
“Yes?”
“What about our carriers, sir?”
“Oh. Them.” Admiral Bruxell thought for a few seconds. “Tell them to tag along with the cruisers and see if they can make themselves useful.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
The first hint of trouble came when reports of the enemy ships accelerating towards Battleship Divisions Five and Six were confirmed. Instead of the 180 or at most 220 Gs he’d seen from their carriers before, these ships piled on the acceleration to nearly 350 Gs. In two minutes, not the projected 23, the still scattered battleships of Divisions Five and Six came under fire. And then...
“By the Good God,” someone breathed. The Tac Display had just exploded with nearly a thousand extra returns.
On board the Phormio, Corey forced herself to relax. The fighters were committed. Even now, it wasn’t too late to reconsider. The Fleet could accelerate back out into interstellar space. She hated to even think about doing that. If they did, things would get really ugly on Setosha.
“Down 20 and engage as you have targets,” she ordered her Battle Group. “Fire Distribution One. Remember, everyone, keep our ships outside their energy weapon range. And keep dancing to throw off their targeting solutions. We have the acceleration to keep this fight at whatever range we choose.”
Obediently, the first missiles flashed out from the 65 ships under her immediate command. The Oldendorf and Yi Sung Sin Groups began launching, too.
The Imperial 3rd Battle Squadron’s commander had a real problem. The destroyers that normally helped defend him from missile attacks and that were supposed to defend his two divisions of ships, the 5th and 6th, against the Bitch fighters were instead engaged in close support of General Koeyera’s ground force. Worse than that, the ships of his two divisions hadn’t been properly closed up so their point defenses would interlock. The plan said he’d have at least four hours to do that before the battle started, not two minutes. To complete his joy, he now saw enemy missiles and fighters coming at him in numbers no Imperial admiral had ever faced before.
Doubt surfaced somewhere in the back of his mind. Instead of four battleships arrayed at mutual supporting distance with destroyers deployed forward to intercept incoming missiles with their barrages of antimissiles, he had four naked capital ships spread too far apart in no particular formation without any covering force. This looked like the start of a really bad day.
“We have missile firing solutions on the approaching ships,” his Flag Captain said. “We’re still working on firing solutions for the energy weapons.”
“Do we have any data on those fighters?” This was the first time he had faced Bitch fighters. They had an energy signature far higher than any he’d ever seen before. There had to be an intelligence report on them somewhere. He promised himself he would find it and read it after this was over. And the missiles, well, they just kept multiplying. Finally, he had to shut them out of his mind. Missiles they could deal with, though maybe not in those numbers. There would be more than the usual dents and dings in his big bruisers today.
“Nothing on their fighters, sir,” the Flag Captain said after scanning their Intelligence Summaries.
The Battleship Squadron commander looked at his orders. He was supposed to run, presenting the sterns of his big ships to this wave of death. Firing to the stern always degraded point defenses and main battery fire control. He shook his head. He wasn’t going to jeopardize the safety of four battleships for the Fleet Admiral or anyone else. The Fleet Admiral had an idea. It might even be a good one, but he wasn’t faced with the reality of that wall of missiles falling on him.
“Engage as you can find targets,” he said. “New course.” He sketched it out on his Operations Display. “Execute immediately.”
Moments later, the battleships of the 5th and 6th Division turned to quarter the incoming waves of missiles. With their sensory arcs unimpeded by their drives, their Defense Officers went to work. The first antimissiles flashed out, point defenses went to full-auto, and decoys raced away trying to look like full-scale battleships. Some of the missiles were stopped, some swerved after the decoys, but most kept closing on his battleships. Then the control of his antimissiles and decoys went to pieces as the first Families missiles detonated, their antimatter warheads flooding space with radiation and frying electronics everywhere.
The battleship Emperor Michael Triumphant had barely managed to close with the other three ships of the 3rd Battle Squadron. The Captain noted how his main energy weapon battery could eliminate several missiles with each shot, and for a moment he thought his ship was going to weather this storm. Then, in rapid order, fire control went haywire as the first blast of radiation flooded his sensors, and his ship slued wildly about as that same radiation cooked critical parts of already stressed drive components. Several hammer blows shook his battleship as more missiles penetrated his defenses. Alarms flashed, breakers popped in showers of sparks, and air screamed from the riven hull.
Emperor Michael Triumphant fell out of formation like a wounded giant, flailing around blindly with its main weapons, its drives sputtering uselessly. A fusion bottle popped free and detonated almost immediately, adding its actinic glare to the nearby fireworks. Somewhere in the sparkling hell of his battleship’s drive compartments, the Captain knew his Chief Engineer fought to save the other two bottles. At least, he hoped that was happening. Internal communications were down and seemed likely to stay that way.
The entire fighter complement from Kolin, three squadrons, darted through the yawning gap in their point defense coverage left by Emperor Michael Triumphant. Second Squadron’s 3rd Flight got close enough to Imperial Colossus to open fire with their fighters’ primary weapons. Explosions rippled through the huge hull. Defenses lashed back. Pilots and their fighters died. Then a pilot launched an antimatter missile deep into the hull of the battleship. Imperial Colossus seemed to flicker brightly at every seam and then slowly came apart around an antimatter explosion nimbus that glowed with a sun’s brilliance. The nimbus expanded faster than the spinning pieces could fly away. When it faded, seconds later, there was nothing left but flying debris.
Emperor Michael Triumphant, battered by numerous proximity detonations and hammered by bomb-pumped lasers, avoided the nuclear annihilation focused on the remaining two battleships, dying instead of accumulating traumatic shocks. Both remaining fusion bottles were ejected before their destabilized contents could vaporize the ship. The drives shut down. The hull shuddered as more bomb-pumped energy strikes slashed into it.
The battleship fell further behind its fellows, shedding escape capsules, trailing a stream of debris and dissipating atmosphere. Families’ ships tore at it with their energy mounts as they passed. The few Imperial gunners who stubbornly kept their positions fired back until there was nothing left in their reserve power supplies.
The Families Escort Uhu reeled away from the rest of its squadron when one of those wild shots removed most of the ship’s nose and a good part of the nominal underside. After an end-for-end tumble with the artificial gravity off and every instrument showing nonsense, Uhu’s brain, a dolphin known as Randi, finally recovered control. With a prodigious use of reaction mass, she managed to control the tumble and restore some order to her ship.
The Captain of the Uhu, Third Officer Loren Block, looked at her instruments, looked at the Scan, and looked at the rest of the Families Fleet pulling away from her. She wondered what to do with the wreckage of what had been a warship only moments before. She wanted to continue the fight. She wanted to tear at the Impies, with her bare hands if necessary, but the only enemy ship within reach was the battleship that had mangled Uhu.
Her four missile launchers were fused wreckage. Her energy mounts still worked, though they had no power at the moment. She glared angrily at the nearly dead hulk.
“I want to do something,” she snarled at her Bridge crew.
“Not much we can do,” her Astrogator replied. “We’re pretty much wrecked.”
“Maybe we could ram that thing,” Third Officer Block said.
“Wouldn’t be much to gain from that,” the Astrogator said. “That thing’s already out of it; it’s practically salvage.”
“Salvage?” The idea filled Third Officer Block’s thoughts with a bright light. She laughed. At that brittle sound, her Bridge crew stared, afraid she had gone over the edge. She ignored them and called her ship’s Marine contingent commander.
“Why not?” Senior Marine Trooper Marie Davidson grinned hugely at the ridiculous idea Third Officer Block shared with her. “Looks like most of the crew has already abandoned ship. This is the last thing anybody left behind would expect.”
“It looks like the safest place for us right now. Uhu is wrecked.”
“Unless someone comes back and puts a missile into that thing,” the Marine said.
Third Officer Block shook her head. “We still have communications, and Uhu’s beacon still works. Randi says she’s already told two other ships what we’re going to do, and they’ll spread the word. If we take that hulk, no Families ship will fire on it. Our only worry will be the Impies, and that’s a risk I’m prepared to take. Get ready. I’ll put us where it looks easiest to break in.”
The Marine Trooper laughed again and headed back to her squad of Marines. Just wait till they hear this idea, she thought. This had all the makings of a great day.
The Junior Astrogation Officer of Emperor Michael Triumphant returned to consciousness some time after hard testing a bulkhead with his skull. He looked around the darkened compartment, his senses spinning. By habit, he tried his communications links. Nothing. He fiddled with the unit for a moment, but while the link showed active and he had a carrier wave, nobody answered his calls.
He fumbled a handlight out of his suit pocket and flashed it around. The Astrogation compartment was abandoned except for two very messily dead fellow officers. It looked like he was the senior surviving officer present. He staggered away from the smoking wreckage of his duty station, searching for any Command Deck officer.
A half-hour later, he pried open the hatch to the Emergency Bridge and looked in. Activity. Warm air, people working.
“What do we have?” he called loudly. His ears hurt, and he had trouble hearing anything going on in the compartment, though he could see people talking. The battle had passed them by. He had no idea what was going on, who was near, or what he could do about it. The only thing he was sure of was rescue. After all, this was the Imperial Fleet. As soon as the other battleships finished mopping the system with the Bitches, a Command Deck qualified officer would arrive and relieve him of the awesome responsibility he now felt descending upon him.
“Good to see you, sir!” a Damage Control Tech said, much too cheerfully. “We’re losing air, losing water, losing crew, and we’re on batteries.” He looked at the Junior Astrogation Officer as if expecting an order. The man clearly didn’t understand the distinction between Command Deck and Technical officers.
“Are we on the main batteries?” the Junior Astrogation Officer asked. He remembered hearing that the main battery back-ups were in Engineering. They were used during jump, and he expected they’d be the ones being tapped now.
“No, sir,” the Tech said. “We’re on local batteries. I can’t even make contact with the Power Room. I sent a runner, but he hasn’t returned yet. He’s probably still working through wreckage. I just hope there is a Power Room when he gets there.”
“It couldn’t get any worse than that,” the Junior Astrogation Officer agreed glumly. “All right, first things first. The Power Ro--” The compartment’s other hatch suddenly blew in with a shower of sparks. The air was instantly thinner and smokier. Standing in the opening was someone wearing an armored suit and pointing an accelerator rifle at them.
“I think ‘worse’ just arrived,” the Damage Control Tech whispered. He stared at the muzzle of the accelerator rifle and slowly raised his hands.
The Families Fleet swept past the debris that used to be the Imperial 5th and 6th Battleship Divisions. Corey assessed the damage to Phormio’s Battle Group as her ships reformed. Three escorts destroyed or useless, two cruisers destroyed or wrecked beyond repair, one more cruiser badly damaged but gamely staying in the fight. Minor damage to another dozen ships, and they’d lost eight fighters. Losses in the other two Battle Groups were similar.
She grimaced at the ugly math. Ships lost, ships damaged, those bland words translated into the bitter reality of too many “Dear Sib” letters. But in the cold, hard arithmetic of combat, it was a good trade: 18 much lighter ships for four battleships.
We had all the advantages in this attack, she thought. Those other battleships are going to cost more. I must keep our cruiser and escort commanders from closing to energy weapon range. They can’t hear that enough. I know them. They’ll get their blood up and want to close to make sure. Then the battleships will kill them.
She snapped open the back channel comlink to Admiral Bridges. “Phase Three complete, ma’am.”
“We have a decision point in the plan,” Admiral Bridges said. “The cruisers are massing in-system of us, and the battleships are pulling away from them. We can take one or the other.” She paused, letting Corey make the decision. She and Corey had been through this part of the plan several times, assessing what the Imperial Admiral would likely do. They hadn’t counted on him splitting his ships like he was now.
Corey studied the repeater screen in front of her. She adjusted its settings and projected the courses of the battleships, and then did the same for the cruisers. “Even with full acceleration, those battleships will probably have rendezvoused before we can get at them, ma’am. We can reach those cruisers long before they join the battleships.” She thought a moment more, seeing what the Imperial Admiral was doing. “If we close with the battleships, those cruisers will hit us from two sides and behind. We’ll be in a box with the Impies all around us. That must be why he split his forces. I believe he’s convinced his battleships will beat us. That’s what we’ve been feeding him for a month. If we jump the cruisers, it’s likely we’ll still be involved in fighting them when the battleships come back into range. But if we work this right, his battleships will have trouble firing through their surviving cruisers at us.”
“Good point, Corey, I hadn’t looked at it that way. If the Imperial Admiral insists on keeping his formations split, we might as well take advantage of it. If he survives, remind me to thank him after this is over. The cruisers are the new objective.” She changed channels.
“All ships--Admiral Bridges ... new orders. Option 5 in the Plan. Recall the fighters, re-arm them with imploder warheads. Tactical command is Phormio Flag. Oldendorf Flag will monitor. Bridges out.”
Corey looked at Colleen Mathies, who looked back at her with eyebrows raised. As her job required, Colleen had monitored the whole conversation. At one stroke, Admiral Bridges had just given Corey command of the entire Fleet for this part of the engagement. Corey drew a deep breath. She’d told Karin it was going to get interesting, and interesting it certainly was.
“All carriers--Phormio Flag. Request time to recover and re-arm fighters. Forward to Phormio Flag Coordination. Ships will maintain present vector.” She changed channels. “Tanya, give me the time to engage the Imperial cruisers if we boost at maximum directly towards them.”
“Thirty-four minutes, ma’am,” Tanya said at once.
Corey closed her eyes, mentally picturing the positions of ships in both Fleets. This was harder than for just a squadron or a pair of squadrons. Through the shunt, she could “see” the ships by the size of their powerplants and other emissions. They surrounded her on all sides. Oldendorf’s Battle Group was in the lead. “Above” the Oldendorf Group, and to the left in an echelon position was Yi Sung Sin’s Battle Group, while Phormio’s Battle Group was on the same plane as Oldendorf’s Group, but echeloned “back” and to the “right”, slightly trailing Yi Sung Sin’s Battle Group. The Imperial Cruisers, and their carriers, were “down sun” and to the “left” relative to her current vector.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.