Chapter 90: Death Ride

I collapsed into my chair as soon as the conversation with Captain Prescott ended. The bridge was quiet as we continued to charge forward. Part of me wanted to command Corsica to break off, but our mission was to escort Zulu and the commander of that ship was unwilling to change direction.

My crew appeared to have accepted their fate. No one talked on the bridge as Jessica and Kelsey tried to refine firing plans designed to get missiles through any defense the ships ahead of us might offer. Blaine dozed in his chair, occasionally making a minute adjustment, but otherwise allowing the ship to follow a route he had programmed.

Chaz was the busiest. She was in near constant conversation with Ipanema’s communications officer. I quickly picked up the fact that Captain Prescott was even more upset with Zulu than I was.

Hank Swift and Anders Morgan had stunned everyone with the offer to perform some damage control. The whole crew ended up even more surprised when the two men dragged the still breathing body of Raccoon Roger Reynolds out of the wreckage that had been the starboard railgun control room. They even disobeyed my orders and put up a temporary airlock allowing them to get into the control room for missile one. They reported that the body of Brent Boswell was missing, but William Rich’s suit had manage to seal fast enough to save his life. Hank and Anders had to pry him out of the chair, but they managed to deliver his body to the stern medical pod just before the alarm for battle stations rang out.

“Everyone,” I said over the shipwide communications net. “We have nine enemy ships approaching, and we’ve already taken a beating. Captain Prescott says his crews are ready. Once we start firing we’ll fire until the magazines are empty or we have no more targets.”

“We don’t have that many missiles,” Kelsey pointed out. “And right now, I think three are stuck in missile one’s loading queue.”

“We can get those out if you want. Well Anders can go and fire them off,” Hank Swift’s voice called out over the ship’s speakers.

“If we can’t transfer them, we’ll do without,” I said. “We need Anders working with you to keep missile four running.”

“The transfer system for missile one is out,” Kelsey said. “It would take someone going outside the ship to move those missiles right now.”

“We can’t spare anyone,” I said. “Blaine, we want to cut under Zulu. The Sa’arm we are going to fight are ahead and to starboard. We need to be between them and Zulu.”

“We get to take hits because the captain of Zulu doesn’t want to retreat,” Jessica muttered.

“Captain, I have Ipanema calling,” Ensign Munfree called out.

“Fire when we have range. Try to take out the smaller ones first. The more ships they have, the more accurate their fire will be. I’ll take the call from Ipanema,” I commanded.

There was a long pause and then I heard a weary Captain Prescott speaking. “Captain?”

“I’m here. I’m trying to get Corsica into position. The only problem is that we’ve taken several hits on our starboard side. I’m tempted to have my helmsman roll the ship,” I replied.

“Zulu won’t break off,” Captain Prescott said. “I’ve been arguing with the captain of the ship about that.”

“If we can hold out for fifteen minutes and take out most of the Sa’arm ahead of us, we can break off and Zulu will still survive to make her attack run. I doubt the ship will escape, but at this point I’m worried about what’s left of my crew,” I replied.

“What are you casualties?” Captain Prescott asked.

“Two men in my starboard railgun and one from missile one are confirmed lost. We haven’t had anyone available to check the bow medical pod, but Terrence stopped answering more than two hours ago. We did rescue two crew from the wreckage of the damaged stations,” I said.

“Still almost twenty percent of your enlisted crew,” Captain Prescott said. “These ships need better protection.”

I could see on the viewscreen that Blaine had followed my orders. Corsica was rising up in position so that Zulu was behind Corsica and on our port side. Ipanema began dropping down into position directly behind Corsica.

“Fire!” Kelsey shouted interrupting my thought. Corsica shook just a little and then the tracking display at my chair showed three missiles accelerating towards the approaching Sa’arm ships.

“I see we are in range,” Captain Prescott said. I could hear some irritation in his voice. “We’ll start firing as soon as my team gets a target.”

“We only have missiles for five salvos and then four defensive missiles. After that the magazines will be dry,” I said.

“We’ve got a few more, but I can’t promise much. My hope is we get at least five of the approaching ships. If they have four or less I think we’ll escape,” Captain Prescott said.