“Aye, Ma’am,” Com responded.
“And I want us closer to the Achilles Group. Get our speed to full in-system. Close that gap between us!”
“Aye, aye.” Com passed on Erin’s instructions to the three other ships of the Argonaut Battle Group. A moment later they felt the acceleration of the ship as it broke through half the speed of light. At these speeds they could travel the stellar system in no time at all.
Five rocky planets orbited the yellow-white star. Each one was a cold, icy wasteland—all but one as frigid as the outer space surrounding them. Erin’s battle group sped as quickly as they could away from the central star toward the Achilles and her sister ships that were currently struggling to survive.
Could it be the cold? Erin wondered. No, “unforgiving,” was the word she was searching for. Come to think if it, she realized, space here at Sigma Bootis is no colder than any other region in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. But it feels more desolate. It feels “vulnerable.” Maybe that was because the only habitable planet in the system crowded the frigid outer edge of Sigma Bootis’ Habitable Zone. Maybe it was the fact that somewhere beyond the star’s Oort Zone lay unexplored space, intruding on another species’ sphere of influence. Maybe it was because her family was not here. Then again, maybe there was no reason at all. Whatever, it hardly mattered. Of all the places humans thrived, this place could never feel like home.
Two minutes, the battle clock informed her; each second had crawled forward like an hour.
“Screens are lit up!” Tac announced hurriedly.
Erin glanced at her tac screen. A solid wall of red appeared between the Wasatti and the Achilles Group. She tried to count the individual points of light coming from the enemy destroyers, but failed in the attempt.
The Wasatti were vicious fighters. When they engaged they went for the throat, throwing caution—and their ships—to the wind. It seemed as though life meant little to them and would stop at nothing to inflict maximum damage. And today, in the span of only two short minutes, three small Wasatti destroyers appeared on the screens of her leading ships, travelled the 17 million miles separating them, and began insane suicide runs at her forward cruiser line.
All that action took place in the amount of time it took me to recognize them as a threat, Erin rationalized. Rationalizations, though, did not go far with Erin when lives were at stake. She could never forgive herself for not reacting faster. Barely time to react … and they threw everything they could at us.
And if they could, Erin thought with a grimace, they’d throw rocks at us, too.
Although there were differences between humans and Wasatti, the starships on both sides could not ignore the absolute laws of physics, providing each species with two primary offensive weapons: missiles and particle beams. Missiles were used for long-range attacks. They came in various models; the larger ones were the size of small ships, with some capable of near-light speeds. The four ships in the Achilles Group were doing whatever they could to avoid the dozens of missiles streaking their way, and Erin could only sit back helplessly and watch.
Erin urged her vulnerable ships to obey her silent wishes as though casting a magic spell. The communication differential between her and her forward line was four minutes long—well over the time it took to resolve the action. C’mon, you can do it. She edged forward in her chair, hoping she could force her ships to move faster by the will of her mind alone; but her muscles refused to move, seemingly just like her impotent ship.
The glacial battle clock mocked her and edged to three.
“We’re closing the distance, Ma’am,” Tac announced. “Achilles Group is now two l-m away. Agamemnon Group has successfully joined with them.”
Erin watched her forward defenses begin to solidify as the deadly missiles charged on.
“Update, Commodore,” Tac announced. “Our ships have evaded all enemy missiles.”
That was a huge relief. The missiles were no longer a threat, allowing Erin to take her first deep breath of the past minute.
“Enemy destroyers still at speed and have now closed with our two groups,” Tac continued. “Ships are now in particle-beam range of one another.”
Erin saw the symbols for her forward groups merge with the enemy wave. At their closing speeds they would only be together a split second, and for now they were impossible to separate on her screens. Yet, at the distance Erin was from the action, the information she was reviewing was still two minutes old. The waiting was unbearable. “Come on, people,” Erin urged.
A warship could only carry so many missiles. To compensate for confined storage, ships also utilized renewable weapons, throwing out concentrated bursts of alpha particles capable of punching through heavily armored hulls. The alpha stream generated tremendous amounts of kinetic energy, capitalizing on their speed rather than mass. It took time for the on-board nuclear generators to produce the alphas, but once available, the ships firing those weapons needed to carefully time their salvoes to allow the conduits to cool down. Launching particles—even as small as alphas—at near-light speeds produced nearly as much energy on the firing end as they delivered at the receiving end. So if the firing crews were not careful, their ships could violently explode from an accidental detonation, or in the case of the Wasatti destroyers, in cold-blooded calculation timed perfectly to take out any ships unfortunate enough to be near the suicide ship.
“Commodore! The Pelion is destroyed,” Tac announced. “Alpha particle explosion indicated. Looks like the firing destroyer overloaded … yeah, it did; it blew up as well.”
One of her cruisers, the Mount Pelion, ignited like a small nova under a stream of beam particles. The smaller ship died in the exchange, but the energy exerted by the enemy destroyer penetrated through four reinforced levels of the human ship and set off the FTL section in an uncontrolled chain reaction. Erin slammed her fist against her armrest in cold rage.
“Reports also coming in from the Sydney, Ma’am,” Com announced. “Appears the enemy destroyer blew up as it passed near her. They’re reporting shrapnel damage to her hangar.”
The cruiser Sydney fell to the same attack that destroyed the Pelion. The attack had been timed perfectly to throw deadly shrapnel into the Sydney’s exposed underbelly, yet they were plain lucky it had not been worse.
The Sydney’s icon turned amber on Erin’s tac screen.
“Get the Sydney out of there,” Erin snapped. She wondered how many more of her people would never see their homes again, knowing deep in her heart that the blame rested squarely on her shoulders.
Erin had not seriously considered making the military a life-long career. She was fantastic at it—like anything else she tried—but she had had other ideas in mind. She knew she would learn a great deal from a military education. She would gain discipline, and hopefully respect, that would help her in her second career. She would graciously put in her time and pay back the Academy for her education.
She set out wanting to learn how to pilot starships. Her goal was to save a little money, start a family, and buy a small transport—if not as sole owner, at least in partnership. It would have been an interesting life, plying the trade routes from one colony world to another. It would also have provided a good education for the children she planned to have. Then she made captain’s rank and agreed to stay on just a little bit longer; the experience would be good, they claimed.
Then the threat the Wasatti presented grew worse until they could no longer be ignored. The Colonial Academy suddenly needed to keep every able-bodied crew in the ranks, and cared little that their sons and daughters were growing old in their absence. It was all because the Wasatti refused to communicate with humanity. It was as though they viewed humans as insects, unworthy of expending even the trivial effort of talking.
A soft voice to Erin’s side interrupted her thoughts. “Erin, there was nothing you could have done. It was all decided before you even knew about it.”
Erin stared ahead in silence, trying to
ignore the placating voice.
“Don’t beat yourself up.”
Erin had no desire to hear excuses, especially any that might pardon her. She looked at the battle clock, now frozen at four minutes.
Four short minutes ago—in the blink of an eye that for some became an eternity—the 15,000 men and women of the Argonaut Fleet came to the stark realization that the mind-numbing routine they so often complained about had not been so terribly bad after all.
That little … devil … took out two of my ships in the blink of an eye! The thought enraged Erin, especially because she held no hope for any of the nine hundred souls who had served the Pelion.
Erin momentarily thought back to her early days at the Colonial Fleet Academy with the Pelion’s captain, Thomas Templeton. She could see his crooked, boyish smile as if he were standing right here on the Argonaut’s bridge.
You introduced me to Stephen, didn’t you? Erin teased his image. In her mind’s eye she saw him smile at the memory, but she could ill afford any further daydreaming; at least not yet. Erin would mourn for Thomas later, when she found the time. Right now, she had to avenge his death.
The second destroyer in the enemy wave flew into a flurry of missiles launched from the human cruiser it was aimed at, disintegrating before it even got within beam-weapon range. That had been the only bright spot to an otherwise dismal human start.
“Another ship has been disabled, Ma’am!”
Commodore Campbell glanced at her tactical screen. She let out a deep sigh, forcing her nerves and racing heart to settle down. “Which one, lieutenant?” she asked resigning to the inevitable.
“The Pride of Callisto.”
She watched its icon blink to amber. Oh Lord, a heavy frigate, she thought. We can’t afford to lose another. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to relieve the headache she knew would shortly come.
“How bad is she?”
“Venting air on three decks. FTL drives are inoperable. But emergency bulkheads have been sealed. The Callisto should survive, as long as she doesn’t take another serious hit, Commodore.”
If we have to withdraw, she’ll never be able to leave with us, Erin realized. “Instruct Guttmann to fall back immediately. There’s nothing more he can do today. Keep her two torch ships in position, though. I want that hole plugged where she was. They find a hole … they’ll exploit it like that.” Erin considered snapping her fingers, but realized the act would be lost to her crew on the busy bridge. Good military people, this crew ….
“Another frigate has just been destroyed,” Tac announced. “It’s the Al Niyat from the Agamemnon Group.”
Three or four excruciating seconds passed while Erin waited for a battle update from her forward observers. Erin ticked off the distances on her fingers as the precious seconds passed, noting that the enemy moved nearly half a million miles since releasing their deadly salvo.
“Our close-in ships are responding,” Tac continued, “firing alphas from multiple sides … got it! The bug’s dead. That’s all three destroyers accounted for. The immediate threat has been neutralized, Commodore. They did not penetrate our forward line.”
Erin glanced at her screens and saw the small reprieve her forces had won. So in the first lightening-quick wave, three smaller enemy ships were traded for one of her capital ships and a frigate destroyed and another pair of ships seriously damaged. Three destroyers traded for two ships lost and another two damaged was a tactical victory for the Wasatti. One third of her fleet—the equivalent of a battle group—was now out of commission.
Erin watched the final movements of the first act of the battle unfold on her screens. The leading wave of Wasatti had accomplished their task, crippling what targets they could.
Her depleted fleet warily navigated through the mines and debris of the sacrificial Wasatti destroyers, preparing a defense against the stronger enemy ships yet to come—those in the next inevitable wave.
The com officer relayed Erin’s instructions to the damaged frigate a handful of seconds ago and Erin watched the “P.O.C.” symbol on her tac screen begin to ease out of their thin battle line to a location shielded by the remnants of her group.
“Commodore, the Callisto has just acknowledged. She’s safely behind the screen.”
Facing her three depleted battle groups was a strike armada of Wasatti Empire warships. At the start of the engagement, her patrol fleet was outnumbered by fifty percent, and that was before the battle damages took their toll. Now with four ships lost to her, the enemy had nearly twice their numbers fully committed to action.
Erin mulled over her meager options. Eight against fifteen is not good odds, even though my three super-dreadnaughts each equal two Wasatti cruisers. The Academy would recommend a strategic withdrawal in a situation like this, but that did not account for Ice House.
Ice House was a horrible little world. It was frozen to the core. Average high temperatures at the equator sometimes made it up to where ice began to melt, and on a good, sunny day small puddles of liquid water might actually be found shimmering on its surface. What made Ice House important, though, was that nitrogen and oxygen saturated its wind-blown atmosphere. Humans had been scratching out an existence on Ice House for the past four decades. It was the furthest planet out on the 2-14 Corridor.
Erin absently drummed her fingers on her armrest, thinking about the unfolding battle. We don’t have near enough ships to protect all our territory if the Wasatti figure it out and come at us in real force … just too much space ….
The closest-guarded secret for both the humans and the Wasatti was the location of their colonial worlds, and every action the fleets took was crafted to conceal them. This was the first battle to occur at any human star, and so far the action was taking place in the extreme outer fringes of her stellar system. The Wasatti made no moves indicating they noticed the significance of Ice House among the other four planets, and Erin was determined to keep it that way—by The Book or not.
“Tactical: how far out are the rest of their ships?” Erin asked.
“Eight light-minutes, Ma’am,” Tac replied.
Ninety–three million miles: the distance it took light to travel eight minutes to arrive. It was the distance the Earth was from Sol. For humans, it was their Astronomical Unit. So what Tac saw was actually eight minutes old, and for all Erin knew, the enemy ships could be anywhere within the yellow cones of uncertainty her tactical display revealed. Erin often found herself living ten minutes in the future from anyone else on her ship. She had to, in order to issue commands to her fleet in time for them to stay coordinated in their astronomically stretched-out battle lines. It was as though she lived in a universe all her own.
“They seem to be concentrating, aren’t they?” Erin asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, Commodore,” Tac replied, “they do seem to be heading toward a central point bearing 093, Neg 78. You’d think they’d try to flank us instead. They sure got the numbers.”
They had more than just numbers. They still held the strategic element of surprise, and the tactical advantage. Anything the humans had done so far had been reactionary. And that was something Erin disliked with a passion. “They’re going below the ecliptic and away from the core. Away from Ice House,” Erin observed.
“Maybe they’re waiting to see how we reposition. What we’re trying to protect out here.”
“That is, if they think we’re protecting anything,” Erin said to herself. “So we shouldn’t cut between them and Ice House?”
“I wish I knew,” Tac replied.
Erin thought for a moment, enough for the yellow cones to grow imperceptibly larger. “Okay, let’s play their game. Order the fleet to come to 270, Plus 50, relative; stat. Let’s lead them away.”
“Aye, Ma’am.” The ship began a slow turn away from the central star at maximum acceleration—their inertial compensators fighting to keep the human passengers alive under the tremendous gravities produced by the violent mane
uver.
Erin overheard the com officer relay her orders to the seven other undamaged ships in their fleet. She was pleased with the efficiency of this bridge crew. I’ll need to thank Hal later for what he’s created here, Erin realized.
“Assign five torches to escort the Callisto and Sydney. Send them away, toward galactic north.” Erin paused a moment before looking at the tactical display. “Tac: what’s the enemy’s speed?”
“Point-zero-five-two, Ma’am, according to the latest snapshot. Still appear to be concentrating.”
“What are those cockroaches doing out there?” Erin asked no one in particular. She waited a minute or two while they danced a deadly long-distance ballet, looking for any revealing clues or signs of weakness.
Tac broke the momentary silence, “Multiple new contacts! Bearing 274, Plus 36 degrees. They just went sub-light. Distance: 12.2 l-m.”
That answered one question. Now Erin could finally see the reasons for their erratic behavior, but she was still not sure what they were up to. “Great! How many boogies?” Erin asked, rightly concerned about the news.
“Six—no make that seven—Ma’am. Now we’re being flanked. That answers your question, Commodore. I’m listing them as ‘Hostile-2’ on the screens.”
“Yeah, I see it,” Erin replied sharply. She closed her eyes in anger. “They arrived just as the main fleet began its maneuver, didn’t they? And it led us directly toward them. How in the world did those sons of ants know what we’d do?” The bridge remained silent as Erin thought through their situation. “Alright, dispatch the Agamemnon Group to meet the new threat. The rest of us, head directly toward the original fleet at max sub-light speed. Now I’ll try something they won’t expect … this time.” I hope, she silently thought. Erin studied her tac screen. “Tac: give me updated uncertainty cones on the new arrivals.”
“I haven’t had much time to analyze—”
“I know that,” Erin interrupted tartly. She eased down on her volume, “But do your best.” Erin waited impatiently until the seven yellow cones readjusted into a new configuration, indicating the most-probable spread of where the new ships may currently be. They were shedding vee as quickly as possible, but still appeared to be traveling close to ninety–two percent c. For the next few minutes, they would be about as responsive as a wagon pulled by a team of hippopotamus. Erin could almost feel the jolts of gravity they must be experiencing as their vanes pulled their ships back into normal space. The bugs traded maneuverability for surprise, just as their first wave of destroyers had done.