Chapter 5

The Gorz battleship was almost upon them and Colin's pulse raced as the distance between the ships closed. At 100,000 kilometers, something tickled the back of his brain.

"Scanners, report." He remembered the the Frog ambush that had killed a couple of his team, sim though it was, and he was not about to commit the same mistake with his ships.

"All clear sir. Nothing but the Gorz ship on any of the sensors." The tech sitting in front of the sensor console was the simulacrum of one the gang members he had kidnapped the night he returned to gather personal effects from his old apartment. Like Colin's, his real body lay nearly comatose in a sim chamber.

"Tell me something, " he asked, "we know our fighters are out there, hidden behind their c-thru's. Why don't they show up on my tactical plot?"

"The sensors can't detect them in their current configuration, sir," the tech answered, puzzled.

"Do you know of a configuration that can detect them?"

"Well, yes sir. It's primarily a matter of scanning for anomalous gravity patterns," the tech answered, gazing upward, as if seeing the necessary configuration in his mind.

"And why aren't we using that configuration?"

"Well, sir, it depends upon our gravity sensors, which are not normally used for that purpose, and uses a lot of MI capacity to compensate for our own ID drive."

"Does it diminish the sensitivity or functionality of the other sensors?"

"No, sir."

"In that case, reconfigure our sensors to detect stealthed objects, and make a log entry to the effect that this is now the default sensor configuration while in space."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Suddenly, the battle plot, which already contained the green blip representing his battlecruiser, and the red one for the enemy's battleship, lit up like a christmas tree. Close in, the green, tightly packed formations that represented the human fighters, ranged ahead and maneuvered in precise, well disciplined formations. Further out, but too close for comfort, a loose cloud of red dots moved around the Gorz ship.

"Relay this feed to the fighter squadrons this instant!" Colin ordered the tech tensely, then punched the button for his command frequency.

"Green Leader to Green Five, we're sending you a new sensor plot. These Gorz have stealthed fighters that intel didn't warn us about. You'll have to deal with them before you can attack the battleship!"

"Crap! When did they show up! My sensors still show nothing!" the tension in Moira's voice was apparent, but her squadrons were already maneuvering to counter the enemy fighters

"Use ours," he told her, "we haven't got time for a technical seminar. I'll make sure the new configuration is downloaded to you when your ships return for resupply."

"Roger that, Green Leader. The enemy fighters aren't reacting to us, so they may not be able to detect us until we start shooting at them."

As the two groups of fighters closed, it became obvious that the Gorz had not detected him or his fighters, and most of the Gorz fighters were destroyed in the first salvo. The bad news was that his carefully laid trap was completely blown. The Gorz battleship immediately began shooting into the space from which the destructive beams emerged to kill the Gorz fighters. His own fighters, trapped in their formations, could not maneuver freely and each time one of them fired, the battleship fired back, with deadly accuracy, it's beams often hitting others in the closely packed formations, as well...

"Green Squadron, this is Green Five," Moira's voice, this time, held a hint of panic, "Break up into pairs and forget the remaining fighters! Attack and evade! Concentrate fire on the Battleship's sensors and point defenses!"

Colin waited. His gut was tied in knots as he watched the carnage among his fighters, but he waited. If his smaller ship attacked now, it would be destroyed, and if it lit off its reaction engines to maneuver, even the Gorz sensors would detect it, with the same result. That result might be acceptable if he could take the enemy ship with him, but at the moment, his odds of doing so were very slim indeed. All he had right now was the ID drive, and with his hull's shape, that was inefficient as hell. So he waited.

With grim determination, pairs of fighters broke out of their formations and made their way individually toward the battleship, sweeping in close to its shields before firing their weapons at almost point-blank range. Then, taking advantage of the ID drive's ability to change direction without slowing, they would shoot off on a totally different path. It helped that their shipboard MIs kept the fighters in sync with each other.

As fast and maneuverable as the fighters were, however, the Gorz computers were good enough to swing weapons to bear within seconds of the time the human ships fire revealed their locations. Several more ID fighters were lost as the battleship's powerful weapons punched through their shields in spite of their pattern of firing, then changing course abruptly.

The battleship, now adorned with gaping holes from direct hits by the fighters, bore on, but the fighters had done their jobs. Their weapons were not powerful enough to deliver a crippling blow to the battleship, but they had taken out most of the external sensor arrays and hull mounted weapons. That would not prevent the monster from launching missiles or self-guided drones, but it did reduce its close-in fighting capabilities considerably, and that's what Colin was counting on.

As the behemoth lumbered past his position, Colin used the cruiser's ID drive to ease them into the drive shadow of the Gorz ship. Once inside the cone where the Gorz drive would mask any emission from his own drive, Colin lit off the cruiser's main reaction engines, not because he expected to need them in the battle, but to give him at least a fighting chance of reaching threshold velocity and escaping into hyper-space, should his attack fail.

"Engines nominal, sir," the Ensign at the engineering console told him.

"Acknowledged. Main battery, and all auxiliaries, target enemy reaction drive. Full salvos, on my mark..." Colin's voice sounded more calm than he felt.

"Sir," Djai Mtumbo said from the weapons console, "that will leave us vulnerable for five point eight seconds, and we won't be back to full defensive capability for nine point seven seconds..."

"I'm well aware of that, Commander," Colin replied, trying not to sound as if he was scolding. "Please carry out my order."

"Aye, aye, sir," Mtumbo's hands flew with practiced familiarity over the weapons console. In reality, the MIs had already relayed his orders, but he was not one to take anything for granted, so he checked the tell-tales on his console before returning an "All weapons targeted and ready to fire, Captain."

"Acknowledged. Helm, take us to and hold us at twenty-two kilometers astern of the enemy vessel, ahead one third on ID only," that would put them just outside the arming threshold for their own missiles while giving the enemy very little time to react to the incoming barrage.

"Aye, aye, sir."

The Battleship's reaction engines loomed large in the forward viewscreens, giving the cruiser's crew a desperate feeling of inadequacy as the cruiser slowly closed to the designated distance.

"Green Five to Green Leader, request permission to land my remaining ships and refuel and rearm, sir." Moira's voice came over the ship-to-ship channel.

"Denied, Green Five," Colin answered with an edge of exasperation in his voice, "some of your c-thrus are damaged, and will tell the enemy where we are if you come back aboard. Withdraw to rendevous Alpha six and await further orders. Green Leader out."

"Acknowledged, Green Leader," he could hear the frustration in her voice and grinned to himself. She wanted to stay in the fight, not be a spectator, but he couldn't take the chance of being discovered.

"On station and maintaining distance at twenty-two kilometers, sir," the helmsman reported.

"Very well, Gentlemen," Colin answered, "let's see if we can blow this bastard up. All batteries, fire!"

A veritable storm of missiles streaked away from the cruiser, headed right up the Gorz ship's tailpipe.

"Engines, all ahead full, forward shields to maximum power! Helm, take us to within five kilometers! All hands, brace for impact!"

The bridge of the cruiser was a flurry of activity, though the untrained eye would be hard-pressed to notice. Hands tapped rapid sequences on console controls while their owners sat at rigid attention, every muscle in their bodies taut. Everyone knew what was about to happen, but they did their jobs and with whatever mind capacity they had left over, prayed.

No sooner had the cruiser's missiles appeared from the shelter of her c-thru, than the battleship's defensive batteries opened up with an even bigger barrage, all aimed astern of the big vessel. Colin's quick maneuver to get closer to the enemy ship saved them from instant destruction. The enemy missiles never had time to arm themselves and most caromed harmlessly off the cruiser's shields. Many were not targeted at the ship but at her missiles. Even as non-explosive projectiles, some of the enemy missiles managed to destroy or damage some of the cruiser's missiles, but it was too little, too late. There was no point defense capability at the ship's stern, thanks to the fighter squadron, and at least ninety percent of Colin's missiles found their target.

The entire stern half of the enemy ship blew apart as reaction drives and their fuel exploded spectacularly. Since the reaction fuel provided it's own oxygen, unlike many explosions in space it was not extinguished until all of the fuel, and much of the enemy ship were consumed.

"All astern flank! Get us out of here, but keep her facing the explosion! Make sure those forward shields are full power!" Colin couldn't hide the urgency in his voice. He knew they couldn't outrun the explosion or its debris, but the further they were from the point of the blast by the time it reached them, the more dispersed the debris would be, which should minimize the number of hits they took, hopefully to something the shields could handle.

Alarms were blaring all over the ship as the ID drives and maneuvering thrusters strained against the gravity fields of the system's planets, clawing for distance from blast and it's debris. First to hit were small, high energy particles and radiation. The shields handled them with ease. Then came larger and larger pieces of the enemy ship until the shields threatened to overload. The MIs took over maneuvering as massive chunks of the Gorz ship's hull careened toward them at breakneck speeds. One clipped the bow, caving in the shield and about twenty yards of hull with it.

"Hull integrity compromised in sections Omega seven and eight," one of the MIs reported, "Autoseals in place and stabilizing. Loss of atmosphere limited to sixteen thousand two hundred cubic feet. Damage control MIs on site."

The last of the blasted hull fragments passed them by and Colin turned his attention back to the enemy ship. It was a mere shadow of its former self. The front half of the once imposing hulk, drifting and spinning out of control, but some of it's weapons were still firing. They were firing at the Cruiser.

"C-thru status?" he asked.

"C-thru was damaged by the collision, sir," a technician reported. "A portion of the forward hull is visible on all bandwidths, including the damaged sections."

"Turn us away from the Battleship and sideslip to avoid those missiles," Colin commanded, "Weapons, what's our status?"

"All green except the two forward, starboard auxiliary batteries, sir," Djai answered. "Point defense is nominal."

"Acknowledged. Helm keep our undamaged side to the enemy, engage enemy missiles as they come in range if any of them poses a threat. Main batteries, hit the enemy again. Green five, this is Green leader, bring your squadrons aboard for resupply and rearm, then get out there and finish that bast... uh, battleship!"