Authors: Kennedy Hudner
In the background, there was suddenly the sound of men shouting and shots being fired. Someone called out: “Sarge, they’re comin’!”
Cookie looked over her shoulder, then back to the camera, her face set and hard.
“Time to go,” she said simply.
The screen went dark.
For a long heartbeat, Emily just sat there staring at the blank image. She didn’t want to think about what she had just done, so she willed herself to stop thinking. About the war, about the damn Dominions, about Cookie and Hiram and their never-to-be-born children. She would think of none of it.
She wanted to weep.
Alex Rudd squatted down beside her chair. He spoke very softly. “Emily,” he said, “we don’t have to stay here and die. Your Marine friend has disabled the Duck battleship, at least for now. They don’t have anything else that big.”
She stared at him for a moment, uncomprehendingly.
“
Emily
,” he said more urgently. “Dammit, don’t go kamikaze on me! We do
not
have to die here. We should run for the worm hole as soon as Atlas clears the fail safe point.”
Emily took a deep breath. Haltingly, reluctantly, she allowed herself a glimmer of hope. Slowly, she nodded to Rudd. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.” Then she took hold of herself.
“Max!” she called. Her voice sounded far away.
“Who shall I attack?” the AI asked again.
Sweet Gods of Our Mothers, she was sick and tired of Max. “Switch back to Merlin.” There was a momentary pause, then:
“Your orders, Captain Tuttle?”
“Display two clocks. The first showing how long before Atlas enters the worm hole to Refuge. The second showing how soon the Dominion ships on your sensors will have Atlas in missile range. Do not take into consideration Dominion ability to shoot lasers.”
The screen flickered and words appeared:
Time to Refuge worm hole: 36:14.
Earliest Dominion missile launch window: 32:28.
Emily nodded. If the Dominions did not start their pursuit within four minutes, they couldn’t get close enough to hit Atlas with missiles before Atlas dove into the worm hole.
“Message to the
Kent
and
Yorkshire:
If the big battleship has still not emerged in exactly four minutes, we are going to do a speed run to the Refuge worm hole! Get ready!”
Grant Skiffington’s face appeared on the comm. “But the Dominion battleship, where is it? Why hasn’t it come through?”
“Cookie took the bridge,” Emily explained. “The battleship has stopped, at least for now. She’s going to buy us a little more time, and we only need a little. Admiral Douthat’s force should be back soon.” She fervently hoped she was right about that.
Skiffington’s face lit up. “We can go in and get her, Emily,” he said excitedly. “If the battleship is stopped dead, we can go in and find Cookie’s team and bring them out.” He looked at her imploringly.
Emily closed her eyes. He didn’t understand, or he didn’t
want
to understand. He could not knowingly sacrifice his people.
“No.”
The word hung there. She could hear it reverberate in her mind.
Now Skiffington sounded frantic. “I can get her, Emily. I-”
“No, Grant. We need to rearm. We need to be ready in case the cruisers take a shot at Atlas while they still have time.”
“But-”
“You have your orders, Captain Skiffington,” she said flatly. “
New Zealand
out.” She closed the comm screen. She watched the clock count off the seconds. Four minutes later, they started their speed run to the Atlas.
Leaving Cookie and her soldiers stranded on the Dominion battleship.
Emily tucked her shaking hands under her thighs and sat on them.
Fifteen minutes later, Chief Freidman called out: “New contact! A battleship has just come though the minefield behind us and is joining the four Dominion cruisers. Merlin identifies it as the Dominion battleship
Fortitude.
Last known commander, Admiral Kaeser. They are accelerating in pursuit!”
But the Ducks had waited too late. There was no way for them
to catch the Atlas. Now the question was if the
New Zealand, Kent
and
Yorkshire
could escape before they were blown to atoms.
“Chief, you’re sure it’s not the big bastard?” Emily asked, anxious to confirm that this was only a terrible tactical situation and not an utter nightmare.
For the first time since his return from Sick Bay, Chief Friedman’s weathered face cracked into a smile. “It’s only a regular Dominion battleship, Captain Tuttle.”
“Barely anything to worry about then,” Rudd added dryly. “Four undamaged cruisers and a battleship against three yard-jobs with barely any ammunition left.”
Emily called to Merlin: “Set new clocks. First, time for us to reach the worm hole. Second, time to missile launch window for the Dominions to fire on us.” Instantly the clocks hovering over the battle display changed.
Time to worm hole: 31:15
Dominion missile window: 20:12
Emily winced. They’d be in range for eleven minutes. She thumbed her comm. “It is going to get very hot around here in twenty minutes. Prepare chaff, decoys and anti-missile mines. Set anti-missile system to full automatic, but make sure the ammunition pods are fully loaded. We need to buy ourselves eleven minutes, then we’ll be through the worm hole and covered by the Refuge defenses.”
Unless the Refuge defenses mistook them for Ducks and blew them apart,
she thought. Then she sat back and let her crew do their jobs, and prayed there was enough crew left to get it all done.
Fifteen minutes later there was a piece of good news. “Captain,” reported Chief Gibson, “the Atlas just passed into the Refuge worm hole. In two minutes she’ll enter Refuge space.”
“Where are Admiral Douthat’s ships?”
Gibson adjusted his display. “They’ve formed a rear guard behind Atlas and are following it through the worm hole,” he said. Emily noticed for the first time that his face was covered with sweat.
We are on our own, again,
she thought. But the Atlas was safe. And Queen Anne. Maybe something good would come out of this. The Atlas could start building warships almost immediately. Rebuild the Fleet, go after the Ducks-
“Why aren’t they firing?” Rudd mused. Emily looked up, startled. He was right; they were in missile range of the Dominion war ships, so why weren’t they firing?
It was Toby Partridge who figured it out. “They’re herding us through the worm hole,” he suggested. “The
Fortitude
must have anti-matter missiles. They’ll follow closely behind us and try to hide behind our FOF transponders, just like we did with those Duck supply ships. Once in, they’ll take a shot at the Atlas.”
“That’s nuts-” Emily began, but then fell silent, considering. She turned and raised an eyebrow at Alex Rudd. “Alex, what if they don’t intend to come through behind us, but want to get close enough to the wormhole entrance to shoot a missile carrying an anti-matter warhead, programmed to go through to Refuge and identify Atlas? If the missile sees Atlas, it pursues it. If it doesn’t, then it picks a secondary target, like maybe the
Lionheart
or some other nearby Victorian ship. The missile would actually be protected by our ships’ FOF transponders for the first minute or so.”
Chief Gibson had been listening in, and now he turned to them with a frown. “Be a long shot to expect just one missile to reach the Atlas,” he said gruffly.
Rudd shrugged. “Who says they only have one? Maybe this new battleship of theirs has several, and it and all four cruisers fire everything they’ve got. All those missiles would come flying out of the wormhole two minutes later, maybe a hundred or more. Heck more like one hundred and fifty, plus the usual EMC drones and decoys. Yeah, it’s a long shot, but what have the Ducks to lose by taking it? One anti-matter missile gets through and Atlas is crippled. If a couple get through, she’s ruined, maybe even destroyed.”
Emily shook her head. “Are they that smart? I mean, they have been coming at us like a sledgehammer all this time. This, this has
finesse
, this is a rapier thrust instead of a battle axe.”
Rudd and Gibson looked at one another. “Well,” Rudd temporized-
“Begging your pardon, sirs,” Partridge interrupted, “but you’re forgetting that this is a different admiral you’re fighting now.
Emily cursed under her breath. She raised her head. “Merlin, display time when the Dominion ships will be within missile range of the wormhole!”
Almost before she stopped speaking, the display changed:
Time to missile range to wormhole: 07:33
“Merlin, prepare a courier drone with the following message!” She spoke rapidly for thirty seconds. “Launch drone!”
• • • • •
On the Dominion battleship,
Fortitude,
Admiral Kaeser stood with his hands behind his back. The three Vicky ships would reach the worm hole soon. He marveled that the Atlas had managed to escape. Mello was a fool, he thought bitterly, an arrogant, self-centered fool.
“About fifteen minutes to the worm hole, Admiral, but we can launch in about seven minutes. That will leave the birds with enough fuel to maneuver on the other side.” Captain Bauer told him. Bauer looked at the battle display. “They must have figured out what we’re doing by now,” he said.
Kaeser pursed his lips. “Knowing what we are about is the easy part. Stopping us from doing it, that is the hard part.” On his order, his ships would launch every missile they could, and launch a second volley as soon as they were able. The
Fortitude
would fire its three precious anti-matter missiles, each programmed to recognize the Atlas and home in on it. “Still,” he said wryly, “we’ll need more than a little luck to make this work.”
“It is a very bold plan, Admiral,” Bauer said.
Admiral Kaeser made a rude noise. “Not bold, Captain, just desperate. I will not risk any more of our ships to kill the Atlas; we have few enough as it is, thanks to Admiral Mello. But I am happy to spend the rest of our anti-matter missiles on a long shot.” He turned to face Bauer. “Status of the three Vicky ships?”
“Still running for the wormhole, Admiral.”
Admiral Kaeser pursed his lips thoughtfully. He would use the Vicky ships to cover his missiles for the first critical moments they entered Refuge space. Or, if that plan didn’t work out, he would turn the missiles on the Victorian ships and simply return to Cornwall.
“Just so,” he murmured, and turned back to the battle display.
• • • • •
Emily told her plan to Skiffington and Stein. “Timing is the key here. If they figure out what we’re doing, they might just decide to kill us and call it a day,” she explained.
“How much time do we have?” Skiffington asked.
Emily glanced at the time display. “Five minutes. Turn your fire controls over to my Merlin. And remember; don’t brake for more than five seconds. We just need a good sensor flare.”
“You know this is pretty goddamned chancy, don’t you?” Stein grumbled.
Emily stared at her coldly. “I think it’s called ‘war,’” she replied.
• • • • •
On the Victorian battleship
Lionheart,
Admiral Douthat gave a quiet prayer of thanks as the space station Atlas moved slowly away from the worm hole, deeper into the Refuge sector. A single ship appeared on her sensors, its transponder displaying that it was a Victorian warship. The
Lionheart’s
comm display had opened to show a young woman scowling at her.
“This is Captain Elizabeth Neuwirth of the H.M.S. Frigate
Matterhorn
of the Third Fleet
.
To whom am I speaking?”
Douthat blinked in surprise. She knew some Third Fleet ships had been left behind when Second and Third Fleets went to Tilleke, but what the hell was a Third Fleet frigate doing here in Refuge? “I am Admiral Douthat, commanding officer of the Home Fleet. What can I do for you, Captain?” She tried, almost successfully, to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
Neuwirth didn’t back down. “I was sent here by Lieutenant Brill to prepare Refuge for Atlas’s arrival. Where’s Brill?”
Before Douthat could reply, someone on the screen whispered to Captain Neuwirth and she nodded. “Admiral, I just received word that
Lieutenant Commander
Brill is calling me from the Atlas. Tell your ships not to enter further into Refuge space until Brill has confirmed your identity. I will get back to you shortly.”
Admiral Douthat bristled. “
Matterhorn,
I intend to stay with the Atlas. I have thirty warships with me. If you think your little frigate is going to stop us, you are sadly mistaken.”
Neuwirth smiled wolfishly. “Admiral, before you do anything you might regret, may I suggest that you first make a sensors sweep of the area?”
The comm screen blinked off. Douthat scowled. Who the hell was this frigate captain? And just what did she mean, ‘Until Brill confirmed her identity?’
“
I’m
the damn admiral here,” she muttered. Then her attention was caught by a harsh trilling sound. It was the alert that warned they were being painted by targeting sensors. She turned to Captain Eder. “What?” she asked.
Eder pointed wordlessly to the battle display.
Douthat stared for a moment, then unexpectedly smiled. The battle display showed not one, but two large forts on either side of the worm hole entrance, studded with missiles, lasers and even some of the rail guns that were too bulky to put on anything but battleships. Even
Lionheart
didn’t have one.
And emerging from behind the forts were dozens upon dozens of Refugian gunboats, nimble little warships that carried three missiles and a bow laser, but had no armor at all.
“Well, well,” she said happily. “A little surprise for the Ducks if they come through.” She nodded briskly. “Message to all ships, activate Dark Matter Brake and hold in place pending further instructions from our hosts.”
And so they sat, until a sensors officer called: “Courier drone coming through the worm hole from Victorian space. Signal indicates an emergency message!”