* * *
Admiral Saha had been watching the progress of his ship on the main bridge screen as the Gulliver nosed its way through the asteroid field. The view on the screen was distorted by the millions of tiny flashes constantly going off around them as the carrier’s shields repelled the miniscule particles which pervaded the field, making it difficult to see clearly. Larger bodies, some the size of a grown man, were also being repelled by their shields to be sent spinning off into space. Anything much larger than that had to either be avoided or blasted out of their path. While shields were effective at blocking the energy of a laser or particle beam, they would at best only deflect matter, and then only if it wasn’t too massive or moving too fast.
Directly ahead a particularly large asteroid was drifting slowly toward them. The admiral glanced at his board and saw that the body was registering nearly half a kilometer in diameter. Before it got too close, the helmsman adjusted their heading, angling the ship down to allow the immense chunk of rock to pass safely over them.
They had been making their way through the asteroid field for more than an hour now. Although their destination was not far ahead, the process of winding through the field of floating boulders was proving to be very time consuming. Not only did they need to avoid collisions with the numerous asteroids but they had to maintain a constant sensor watch to ensure that their presence was not detected by the pirates. So far all of the ships in the battle group had been able to avoid any serious collisions and their sensors showed no evidence that they were being scanned.
The admiral stood and took a slow walk across the bridge. A tense quiet filled the command center as they steered a course through the asteroid field while each officer maintained a ready vigilance at his or her respective post. The feeling was as much one of expectation as it was wariness. He was familiar with this sensation. It was the feeling that arose before a battle.
As he paced across the deck, the admiral passed behind the command station. Captain Rogers was seated in the command chair keeping a careful watch on his board. His people knew what they were doing and he was smart enough to give them the room to perform without hovering over them constantly. As Admiral Saha passed his station he noted that the captain had his board set to monitor several different systems. Chief among these were the helm, sensors and engines—the same systems the admiral had been monitoring himself.
Admiral Saha continued to the starboard bulkhead where he clasped his hands behind his back as he looked through the wide port there. Unlike smaller ships, the carrier’s bridge had a number of viewports positioned on each wall in addition to the monitor screens at each station. With the bridge perched atop the command superstructure, the ports provided them with a sweeping view in all directions. Like the image displayed on the main screen, the constant pinpoint flashes going off around the ship made it difficult to see anything clearly. It was like trying to see through a glittering snowstorm. In the distance the admiral could make out two of the ships from their battle group as they carefully picked their way through the hazardous field. He could only see part of each ship between the asteroids however. At this distance they appeared to be a pair of frigates, probably the Fearless and the Javelin he guessed from their positions relative to the carrier. Although the battle group had entered the asteroid field in a standard starburst formation, it was impossible to maintain strict positioning in this environment.
“Message from the Valiant, Captain,” the comm officer announced into the hushed bridge atmosphere.
Admiral Saha and everyone else, apart from the helmsman, turned toward the comm officer.
“They report that they are on station, but so far have not been able to locate any sign of a base.” The comm officer slid one of the earphones away from his ear and looked at his commander.
Captain Rogers stood and walked over to the comm station. “Have they verified their coordinates?”
The comm officer spoke briefly into his microphone then nodded. “Yes, sir. They’re holding position less than a kilometer from the coordinates they received from the Prometheus probe. Also …” He paused, frowning as he listened to the report over his headphones. Captain Rogers waited patiently as the officer asked for the message to be repeated. Finally the comm operator looked up. “Sorry, sir, we’re getting a lot of signal interference. Their commander says there’s no trace of the Prometheus.”
Admiral Saha was starting to get a bad feeling. He stepped up beside the captain. “Can you establish a visual link with the Valiant?” he asked.
The comm officer made a few adjustments to his console and nodded. “Aye, sir. It won’t be the cleanest picture but you can talk to them.”
“It’ll do. Patch it through to my station.” The admiral glanced at Captain Rogers and hooked a thumb toward his board. Nodding, the captain joined him at his station.
“Captain Owens on the beam, Admiral,” the comm officer said as Saha took his seat.
Reducing the windows he had been using to monitor the ship’s progress and moving them to one side of his board with a swipe of his fingers, Admiral Saha opened the communications window. A static filled image of the Valiant’s commander appeared in the black surface of the console.
“Captain Owens, do you have any idea what could have happened to the Valiant?” the admiral asked.
On the screen Owens scowled as he glanced down at something out of sight below the monitor. “An idea is all we do have at this point, sir. We’re working on something that’s a little bit radical but which seems to be the only thing that fits the facts.” He looked up at the admiral and continued, “Assuming that the drone transmitted the correct coordinates, the only thing that makes sense is that they went inside one of the asteroids.”
Admiral Saha sat in stunned silence for a moment as he considered the idea of the pirate base being located inside an asteroid.
“That’s … incredible, Captain,” Admiral Saha said. “Do you have anything to back that up?”
“We’re working on that, sir. We’ve taken up position beside a large, potato shaped asteroid and are keeping a close eye on a huge body nearby that measures more than twenty kilometers in diameter. That’s our best guess for where they went. We haven’t picked up any energy readings or signs of artificial structures yet, but that’s not surprising considering the layers of rock it must be buried under. The asteroid’s got a slow rotation to it so we’re going to keep monitoring it until it completes a full cycle. We’re hoping—”
From the monitor they could hear someone speaking excitedly in the background on the Valiant’s bridge. “Captain, we’re reading active sensor scans from the asteroid now, sir!”
Captain Owens glanced off to one side. “Can you localize it?”
“The source is at the edge of the asteroid and seems to be rotating in our direction,” a voice said in the background.
“Status of our stealth system?” Owens asked.
“Stealth system fully engaged, Captain,” a different voice said. “They won’t be able to pick us up on their sensors.”
Owens looked back at the screen. “Admiral—”
“We heard, Captain. Can you patch us in to your monitor so we can take a look at this asteroid?”
“Switching feed,” Owens said. A moment later the picture changed to show the slowly revolving asteroid confronting the Valiant. Along the bottom edge of the image a number of readouts were providing sensor data on their objective. As Admiral Saha and Captain Rogers watched, a dark area slowly came into view on the surface of the great rock.
“There,” Owens’ disembodied voice said. “That looks like some kind of opening.”
Several moments later a different voice said, “Sensors confirm that as the source of the scans.”
“It seems that your theory has been proven correct, Captain,” Saha said. “Good work.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Are we going to continue as planned?”
“Yes. Stay on station and report anything new. The rest of the battle group should be in position in about,” he checked the right side of his board, “eighteen minutes. And keep this channel open. I want to study your asteroid a little longer.”
“Acknowledged.”
Admiral Saha looked up at the captain of his flagship. “What do you think?”
Rogers studied the image of the immense asteroid for several seconds and took a quick look at the accompanying data readout below it. “Our ships are going to have to get a lot closer than they normally would in order to have a clear line of sight, and their placement is not going to be by the book, but I think it will work. We just have to be sure each ship keeps out of every other ship’s firing vector.”
“I agree. See to it, Captain.”
A thin smile spread across Captain Rogers’ face as he nodded to the admiral. “Aye, sir.” Rogers headed back to his command seat, turned to the comm officer and said, “Send the order, Mr. Sloan. Battle group to assume nova formation.”
“Aye, Captain. Nova formation.”
Within moments each of the ships in the battle group confirmed their orders. All around the great carrier, the other ships of the battle group changed their trajectories and began to spread out. The starburst formation they had adopted upon entering the system was the standard pre-attack configuration used by a Fleet battle group. It allowed the ships to quickly rearrange themselves for any of several different battle formations depending on the conditions they encountered. Nova formation was the complete englobement of a target. While not feasible when engaging a mobile enemy, it was ideal for confronting a stationary target such as a space station. Careful work had gone into identifying the optimal position that each ship in the group should adopt to ensure that the target would not only be completely surrounded, but that the attacking ships would be kept out of the range of each other’s firing arcs. Although it was notoriously difficult to accomplish a nova formation without alerting the enemy, once it was established the enemy was in for a nasty time unless they surrendered.
Because the pirate stronghold was located deep within an asteroid field however, a new element had been added. With all of the surrounding asteroids it was going to be impossible to position each of the ships at their normal locations. At best they would be rough approximations of where each one was supposed to be. But it should still be effective enough to pulverize the enemy position should they choose to put up a fight.
“Admiral!” Owen’s voice called from Saha’s board.
Admiral Saha snapped his attention to a small window that had opened in a corner of the feed from the Valiant. Captain Owens was peering up at him from that new window.
“There’s been a change in the scan signature from the asteroid,” Owens said. “They’ve switched to a weapon scan.”
The admiral studied the data readout below the image and immediately ordered general quarters throughout the battle group. The pirates had been alerted to their presence. It was sooner than they had hoped, but not completely unexpected. The alarm claxon was loud enough in the command center to catch everyone’s attention, but not so loud that it distracted the officers from their business of controlling the ship. Nevertheless, after a few moments Captain Rogers shut off the claxon, even though the alert lights continued to flash throughout the ship.
Admiral Saha made a few adjustments on his board and sent a parallel of the feed he was now receiving to the captain’s station.
“What do you make of this, Captain?”
Rogers studied his console for a moment, then he suddenly leaned forward as he reviewed what he had just seen.
“Is this right?” he asked.
“If it is,” the admiral said, “we don’t want to get anywhere near those defenses.”
Rogers settled himself back into his seat with his eyes glued to the data being displayed on his board. The energy readings they were getting from the enemy’s weapon scans were more powerful than anything he had ever seen. They were even more powerful than the batteries in place aboard the defense platforms orbiting Haven. As he digested the new information, Captain Rogers began considering options.
“Their guns are recessed inside that tunnel,” Rogers said, swiveling around to face the admiral, “so that’s going to limit their firing arc. We should still be able to establish a nova perimeter, but each ship is going to have to be mindful of the asteroid’s rotation. We’ll need to keep out of the range of those guns as well as watching out for other ships in our formation. Not impossible, but tricky.” He paused and studied a different readout briefly. “Unfortunately, the asteroid’s composition is going to work against us. It’s largely nickel-iron composite. If the pirates buried their base as deep as I suspect, it’ll take some time for our guns chew through enough of the asteroid to reach them. Missiles would be our most effective option but they’ll still take some time to penetrate to the core of something that big and they’ll be less precise. Since we want to get our people out of there in one piece we have to be careful not to go blasting chunks out of the asteroid at random. That leaves us with a frontal assault, which means charging right into those guns. But that’s a suicide run.”
Saha nodded. He had reached the same conclusion himself. “Given the power of those guns, they’ve got to be pretty massive. That could work to our advantage.”
“To our advantage?”
“Yes.” The admiral spread his arms and rested his palms on the edge of his console. “You can’t reposition all that mass in a hurry. Their guns can probably be turned quickly enough to track the larger ships in our group, but something small and agile should have a good chance of getting through.”
Rogers’ eyebrows arched upward. “You want to send fighters up against that?”
“Absolutely,” Saha said. “I’m not talking about trying to fly into the tunnel, but they should be able to get close enough to unleash a Hellhound or two. That should take care of our problem. Then it’s just a matter of sending in the marines to mop up.”
Hellhounds were medium range ship-to-ship missiles designed to take out weapon emplacements. They were fast and accurate. And they carried one hell of a punch.
“That could work,” Rogers agreed.
Just then Captain Rogers and Admiral Saha had their attention drawn to their respective boards as they heard a commotion coming through the transmission from the Valiant. The telltale hum of a ship being flashed reverberated from their screens. The electronic systems aboard the sub had given off a sympathetic pulse in response to a powerful signal sent out by the pirate base. That pulse would make the Valiant stand out clearly on the pirates’ sensor screens in spite of their stealth system. The pirates had found the sub. Captain Owens’ image spun away from the small window as he began issuing orders.
“Shields on. Full power to drive systems,” Owens ordered as the battle alert claxon sounded on his ship. To prevent their being detected, the Valiant had taken their engines off-line. It would take several seconds before they could be powered up enough to move the ship. In spite of the urgency of their situation, Captain Owens remained unruffled and continued issuing his orders calmly. “Helm, as soon as you have power, move us out at flank acceleration. Take a heading of 103 by 45, relative.”
“Captain, I’m reading an energy surge from the crater!” an anxious voice in the background called. Admiral Saha recognized the Valiant’s sensor operator, Lieutenant Perth.
“Emergency power to shields. Helm—”
The screen went blank.
Admiral Saha slowly pushed himself to his feet as he felt his bowels turn to water.
“Rob?” Saha said. “… Valiant come in. Please respond.”
Saha looked over at their own sensor operator. After a moment the officer looked up at him with an expression of shocked disbelief etched on his features.
“She’s not there, sir. The Valiant is … gone.”