Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (30 page)

“Well, it was too good to last,” Captain Thuree sighed.  “Send a laser comm to
Lionheart;
tell them a patrol – two destroyer-sized ships – is on an intercept course.”  He looked again at his Sensors Officer and felt a pang of sadness.  There was little chance this eager, enthusiastic lad would live to see his next birthday.

“Captain!” the Sensors Officer called.  “We got another one!”  He pointed to a larger red triangle that had just appeared.  “Mildred identifies it as a cruiser. It must have been moving in the same direction as the asteroids, so it got filtered out.  Then it turned and the computer picked it up.”

“Mildred, plot a course projection for the new target.  Show me where it’s going,” Captain Thuree ordered.

“Processing complete,” Mildred replied and a dotted red line appeared in the sensor display.  It crossed the early course projection of the two enemy destroyers.  All three met just short of where the
Lionheart
was supposed to be at that time.

“That’s it then,” Thuree muttered.  “Send the data packet to the
Lionheart.
  Tell them a Duck cruiser has joined the party and all three enemy ships will intercept them in forty minutes.

Then the Sensors Officer gasped.  Captain Thuree swiveled back to the display.  There, slightly to their right, was a pulsating blue square that blinked once every second.  It was the beacon, the bloody wonderful beacon, blaring its position for all to see within thirty thousand miles.  The secret location of the Duck shipyard was a secret no longer

“Well done, Sadia,” Captain Thuree murmured.

The Battle of Siegestor had begun.

* * * *

On the
Laughing Owl,
they drank the last of the hot chocolate.   Captain Zahiri put the mug down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.  She grinned at the others.  “I think it’s time for us to leave.  Pilot, any recommendations?”

Forrest Janson smiled weakly.  His course had been laid in for days.  “I think straight up, Ma’am.  Take us out of the asteroid belt and then head for the nearest friendly forces.”

“Excellent suggestion, Mr. Janson.  Let’s everybody strap in; this could be a rough ride.  Mildred!”

“Yes, Captain Zahiri?”  The AI’s voice was pleasantly cheerful, as always.  Six days without food hadn’t seemed to affect it in the least.

“Once we start, you are to assume control of the ship. Follow Mr. Janson’s course, but avoid enemy ships.  Take us out of the asteroid belt and then proceed at high speed to the nearest Victorian forces.  Acknowledge!”

“Your order is received and confirmed, Captain,” the AI said soothingly.

Zahiri sat in the shock seat and strapped herself in.  There was a good chance that in her weakened, half-starved condition, the coming maneuvers would knock her unconscious.  She took a last look around.  Dafna Simon had helped Fatima get into her chair and strapped her in, then climbed into her own chair.  When she was strapped in securely she gave Zahiri a brilliant smile and a thumbs up.  Across the bridge Dennie Hod nodded at her, and then closed his eyes.  Forrest Janson was looking at her intently.

“Okay, Forrest, take us out of here.”

Since his course was already laid in, Janson simply pushed a button on his console.  There was a moment of silence, then a scrapping noise as the magnetic clamps that held the
Laughing Owl
to the Siegestor released.   The ship scraped along the bottom of the huge shipyard for a heartbeat.  There was a loud ‘bang’ as it hit something, but then the thrusters pushed it down two hundred feet to clear any protuberances jutting from the bottom of Siegestor.  The mammoth Dominion shipyard continued forward and the
Laughing Owl
slipped backwards.  Thirty seconds later the shipyard had rumbled away and the
Laughing Owl
had a clear view through a screen of asteroids to open space beyond.

As much as he would have loved to pilot her, Janson knew he was too weak and his reflexes were shot.  “All yours, Mildred.  I pass control to you,” he whispered.  It was like handing a newborn child to a beloved aunt for safe keeping.

“Yes, dear, I accept control,” Mildred said cheerfully.

Then the
Laughing Owl
leapt ahead.  Despite the best efforts of the inertia compensators, everyone was crushed into their seat.  The ship lurched violently left, then right, then right again and gained speed.  Zahiri, trying to watch the holo display through red-dimmed eyes, saw that they were cork-screwing through the remainder of the asteroid field, making turns and dodging asteroids with a reckless skill no human pilot could hope to match.  Then the ship steadied out on a straight course and accelerated even harder.  The red haze blurred Zahiri’s eyes and then washed away her thoughts.

Every ship for five thousand miles suddenly saw the sensor plume from the
Laughing Owl’s
engines as it hurtled upwards out of the asteroid belt, then arced over toward the Victorian task force.

And behind it, clamped securely to the bottom of the Dominion shipyard, the beacon continued to wail its siren song.

* * * *

“Get them up on the plot where I can see them, dammit!”  Eder barked.  The Sensors Officer typed a command and the holo display reset.  The battleship
Lionheart
and the cruiser
Wellington
were in the center of the display.  Ahead of them and thirty degrees to the left were two Dominion destroyers bearing down on them, while thirty degrees to the right was the enemy cruiser.  At the far side of the display was a blinking red circle that represented the Dominion shipyard, Siegestor.  Off to the right, almost on top of the asteroid field, twelve small blue specks represented the tugboats, still getting into position.  They seemed to be moving with pitiful slowness and Eder wondered again how he could have agreed to an attack plan that relied on civilian craft for the critical element.

The important thing was to keep the enemy’s attention on them and off the tugboats.  The vital, unarmored, fragile tugboats.  But if he stayed on this course, the destroyers and cruiser would come into missile range at the same time. 
Let’s not do that,
he thought.  He considered the holo, then gestured to his Communications Officer.  “Get
Wellington
and
Rabat
!”

In a moment the comm screen showed Captain Bruce Hillson of the
Wellington
and Emily Tuttle of the
Rabat.

“We’ve got three enemy ships on an intercept course with us, in missile range in about twenty minutes,” Eder said crisply.  “They seem to be coming in piecemeal, so I think we caught them by surprise and they’re scrambling without too much coordination.  Keep an eye out for more ships dribbling in; we don’t want to get caught by a missile up our rearmost because we were too focused on what was in front of us. The tugs are almost in position, but we have to keep these bastards distracted for a while.” 

He nodded at Emily.  “Commander Tuttle, launch half your birds and jump the cruiser.  Go in loud, I want them to know you’re there.  You don’t have to kill it, just keep it busy and for Gods’ sake keep it away from us.    Captain Hillson, I want the
Wellington
two hundred miles off my starboard quarter.  We’re turning into the destroyers so we’ll reach them a couple of minutes before the cruiser can get into play.  Launch the jammers first, but at the cruiser, understand?  When we get within range of the two destroyers we’ll hit them with all of our missiles.  We’ll follow with lasers while we’re reloading and
then
turn to meet the cruiser.  Remember, we need to kill them or cripple them, but in any event the priority is to give the tugs enough time, got it?”

“Yes, sir,” both of them said in unison.

“Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir,” Hillson said. Captain Hillson was Old School; he never had questions.

Eder looked at Emily.  “Tuttle?”

“What if one of the destroyers or the cruiser turns to make a run on the tugboats?” she asked.

Eder nodded approvingly.  “If that happens, divert all your gunboats to that threat.  Deploy other Wings as you see fit, but keep the tugs safe until their mission is accomplished.”  He looked back and forth between them.  “This is the real thing, not another simulation” Eder reminded them, “so get it right the first time.”

The
Lionheart
and
Wellington
veered left and lined up with the Dominion destroyers.  Jamming missiles and decoy drones shot out at the cruiser and turned the enemy’s sensor data into fuzzy snow.  For the moment, the Dominion cruiser was flying blind.

“Fire all missiles on the destroyers!” Eder ordered.  Sixty missiles sped away, aimed thirty each at the two enemy ships.  The destroyers abruptly realized the danger they were in and split, one going high, the other low, leaving behind a trail of chaff and decoys to spoof the incoming missiles. One of the destroyers even had the presence of mind to fire its own missiles, but the other just ran.  The Victorian missiles followed them.  Captain Eder nodded in approval; a promising start.

The promising start soon fell apart.  Decoys tricked a dozen missiles within seconds and they veered off, finally catching and destroying the wrong target.  Another eight missiles lost lock in the chaff cloud and emerged too far away to regain their target.  After a moment of searching, the safety protocol kicked in and the missiles self-destructed.

But that still left a lot of missiles.

Both destroyers fired off their close-in anti-missile defenses.  Another missile exploded harmlessly, but the rest bore in.  One of the destroyers shuddered and staggered to the side, then began a lazy end-over-end tumble.  It was out of the fight.  The other destroyer dropped more chaff and decoys and turned sharply.  Two missiles had caught it, but its last frantic efforts had broken the sensor lock of the others.  It turned sharply one more time and limped away as fast its damaged power plant would take it.

“Leave it!” Eder ordered.  “We’ll save our lasers for the cruiser.”

* * * *

On the carrier
Rabat
, Emily hit the ‘launch’ button for the heavy gunboats.  
Rabat
carried sixty-six heavy gunboats, one third of Fleet’s entire gunboat force.  In ten seconds forty gunboats were in the air, forming up over the carrier.  Four minutes later the remaining twenty- six gunboats joined them and they accelerated for the Dominion cruiser.

Once its boats were launched, the
Rabat
fell back to stay out of missile range from the enemy cruiser. 
Fes
, still loaded with its sixty-six ships, followed closely behind, but the
Meknes,
converted from a carrier into a rearmament platform, crept up the right flank of the action, ready to assist any of the gunboats that had just launched.  This left the
Meknes
more exposed than Emily would have liked and she kept the gunboats on the
Fes
ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

Now it was all position and geometry. 
Lionheart
and
Wellington
were turning left to meet the destroyers head-on.  The enemy cruiser, its sensors baffled by the jamming, couldn’t see the maneuver and so continued on its original course well to the right, expecting to join up with the Dominion warships at any moment.  Meanwhile, the
Rabat
gunboats were rocketing towards the cruiser, hoping to catch it from the far right. 

Each squadron of ten gunboats had a Squadron Leader.  There were three squadrons to a Group and two Groups to a Wing.  Each Group had a Group Commander and each Wing a Wing Commander, who was also known by the unfortunate acronym of “WC.”    Each carrier carried a Wing – roughly sixty boats – plus a few extra gunboats that had specialized tasks such as jammers or hedgehogs.  After many, many hours in the simulators, the practice had developed that the Wing Commanders gave the tactical orders.  The Group Commanders stood ready to step in if the Wing Commander was distracted or simply too busy to deal with the problems one or more squadrons was running into.

Emily’s Wing Commanders were Alex Rudd on the
Rabat
, Grant Skiffington on
Fes
and Avi Yaffe on
Haifa.
  Yaffe was slow talking, slow moving and pokerfaced.  People working with him often wondered if he was actually awake.  He was one of the former pilots from the Refuge Coast Guard who turned out to be a so-so pilot but a brilliant tactician and, surprisingly given his reserved nature, a pretty good manager of the often egotistical pilots.  Emily had first moved him from pilot to systems on his heavy gunboat, but soon realized he was quietly directing his entire Squadron, and also giving timely suggestions to his Group Commander.  She had called him into the office and asked if he would like a shot at directing a Wing.  “It means you won’t fly any more,” she warned him.  Yaffe thought about it for ten seconds, then shrugged.  “Not that good at flyin’ anyway,” he confessed, “but I do like movin’ the pieces around.” He took the job.