Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (15 page)

“Contacts!” the tracking officer reported with surprise. “Coming in from the far side of the moon!”

“What?” the weapons officer cried, his smile instantly fading. “Where?”

“Behind us, sir!”

The weapons officer quickly looked at the tracking display, noticing the four icons on the opposite side from the other five enemy targets they were already firing on.

“Four Jung frigates!” the tracking officer reported. “Coming in low on our horizon!”

“Cease fire on guns one, two, nine, and ten. Have them come about and engage the new targets! Quickly!”

“Targets are firing!” the tracking officer reported.

“Guns one, two, nine, and ten have disengaged and are rotating!” another technician reported.

“Thirty-two missiles inbound!” the tracking officer cried out with great alarm. “Fifteen seconds to impact!”

The weapons officer looked at the status displays for all the guns located along the top edge of the wall. The two guns on either end of the array were not even one-quarter of the way around in their attempt to retarget the new contacts. “Oh, my God,” he mumbled. “They’ll never make it in time.” He looked at the expressions of his staff, every one of which were looking back at him with pale faces and wide-eyed fear. “They must have known all along,” he said softly. “Somehow, they must have known.”

They were the last words he would ever speak.

Pairs of Jung missiles slammed into the ten massive rail guns on the surface of the moon, their detonations tearing the guns apart. The powerful explosions hurled pieces of the guns several kilometers downrange before they slammed back down onto the lunar surface.

The other twelve missiles split off into six pairs, each finding their targets with precision. Power stations, mining facilities, fabrication plants, even housing and flight operations were all targeted.

The last pair of missiles found their target as well, piercing the outer walls of the command structure, exploding from within. The fireball flashed inside the building as it consumed the oxygen, then quickly disappeared as the structure blew apart and the vacuum of the lunar surface instantly smothered the flames.

* * *

“Target six is entering the LRGA’s firing solution!” Lieutenant Calloway reported from the Reliant’s tactical station.

“Put target six on screen and magnify!” the captain ordered. The sixth Jung cruiser appeared on the view screen, her engines blazing as she attempted to match the Reliant’s rate of deceleration and remain close. A large chunk of the cruiser’s starboard upper hull blew away, followed by several flashes of light from deep within her as secondary explosions were ignited. Then another chunk flew away, and another. Within seconds, the Jung cruiser came apart in a rapid series of explosions as more projectiles from the LRGA tore through her. Finally, a projectile found her reactor, and she exploded in a brilliant flash of light.

“Helm, pitch down and starboard!” Captain Yahi ordered.

“Pitching down and starboard, aye!” Ensign Stewart answered smartly as he began the maneuver.

“How long until the other targets reach the kill zone?” the captain asked.

“Thirty seconds!” Lieutenant Calloway reported.

“They’re pitching down to change course,” Lieutenant Legasse reported from the sensor station.

“Do they have time?” the captain asked.

“No, sir! They weren’t decelerating! They were still coasting bow first!”

“They’ll have to pitch down before they burn!” Ensign Stewart added. “Their only chance is to pitch over stern first and burn angled downward like us! It will take them fifteen seconds just to flip over!”

“Yes!” Captain Yahi exclaimed. The trap had worked just like Admiral Galiardi had planned all along. The EDF was about to destroy six heavily armed Jung cruisers without losing a single warship. He only hoped the remaining three Jung cruisers would not have time to transmit a warning to other ships that might come at a later date.

“How are we doing?” the captain asked. “Are we going to clear the kill zone?”

“Yes, sir!” Ensign Erbe answered from the navigator’s station. “But not by much!”

“Fifteen seconds!” Lieutenant Legasse announced. “They’ve almost rotated,” he added.

“Too little, too late,” the captain said to himself.

“Targets have fired their main drives to begin deceleration!” the lieutenant added. “Ten seconds to the kill zone!”

“Tactical map to port view screen. Put the last three targets up on the main screen, split windows.” The captain looked up as his request was granted. The port view screen showed the tactical map with the estimated flight path of the three remaining Jung cruisers cutting across the bottom edge of the LRGA’s field of fire. He looked at the images of the three enemy ships that, at any moment, would be cut to pieces just like the first one.

“Five seconds to kill zone,” Lieutenant Legasse reported. “Three……two……one……zero.”

Captain Yahi and the entire bridge crew stared at the main view screen, waiting for the destruction of their pursuers to begin. A second passed, then two, then three. Ten seconds later, the captain turned to the sensor operator, a concerned look on his face. “Double-check your calculations,” he ordered.

The lieutenant did as requested. “I don’t understand, sir. They should be in the kill zone already. Scanning the area.”

Captain Yahi waited, holding his breath for several seconds.

“Oh, my God,” Lieutenant Legasse said, shock on his face. “There are no more projectiles.”

“What?” Captain Yahi asked.

“They’ve stopped firing, sir,” the lieutenant said.

“Remaining ships are firing missiles!” Lieutenant Calloway reported from the tactical station. “Twenty-four missiles inbound! Time to impact: one minute!”

“Combat! All mini-rail guns switch to point-defense mode!” the captain called over his comm-set. “Lock missiles on all targets. Full nuclear! Fire at will! Repeat! Fire at will!”

“Point-defenses firing!” Lieutenant Calloway reported. “They’re getting in close again! They’re firing their guns as well!”

“Sensors! Scan the LRGA!” Captain Yahi ordered. “Helm, flip us back over, bow to our flight path and full burn! We need distance!”

“Pitching back over! Bow to flight path and full burn, aye!” the helmsman answered as he took action.

“Captain! The LRGA is gone!” Lieutenant Legasse exclaimed in disbelief.

“What?”

“I’ve got four more targets coming out from behind the moon! Jung frigates!” He turned away from his sensor displays to face his captain. “They must have taken out the guns on the moon, sir.”

“Damn it!” Captain Yahi exclaimed. “How did they know?!”

“Four missiles made it past our point-defenses!” Lieutenant Calloway reported. His complexion turned pale as he realized their fate. “Impact in ten seconds!”

“All hands brace for impact!” Captain Yahi ordered.

Four Jung missiles struck the Reliant from behind, two directly in her stern drive section, one in her upper maneuvering pod, and one in the underside of her hull. The two that struck her engines instantly knocked them out, their fires dying in the resulting explosion as pieces of her engine nozzles went flying out in all directions. The upper maneuvering pod came apart and exploded, pieces of its housing slamming into the topside of her hull and causing secondary explosions within. The last missile, the one that struck her underside, found one of the massive ship’s propellant tanks, the explosion igniting the tank’s contents. The force of the explosion broke the ship in half just behind her midsection, with multiple secondary explosions breaking her aft section into two more pieces. Seconds later, eight more missiles slammed into both her forward and aft sections, which were already separated by nearly a hundred meters of open space. After the blinding flashes of light cleared, there was nothing recognizable left of the UES Reliant. Only pieces and bodies scattering about in all directions.

* * *

“Admiral! We’ve lost all contact with the LRGA!” one of Admiral Galiardi’s senior officers working in the Fleet command center reported. “No comms, no telemetry, nothing!”

“New contacts!” the officer in charge of tracking reported. “Coming out from behind the moon. Jung frigates.”

“Oh, my God, they’ve taken out the LRGA,” Rear Admiral Duncan exclaimed, a look of shock on his face. He turned and looked at Admiral Galiardi. “How could they have known?”

“Goddamn it, Marty, we’ve always known there were spies among us!” Admiral Galiardi said. “I guess now we know it goes even deeper than we thought, possibly to this very room!”

“It could be anyone,” Rear Admiral Duncan admitted.

“Contact the Reliant. Tell her to go to full burn and wait until the Volkov arrives to reengage the enemy.”

“Yes, sir…” Rear Admiral Duncan was cut off mid-response by the squawk of an alarm horn. He looked at the massive tactical display map on the front wall of the Fleet command center. The icon representing the Reliant went from green to orange for a moment, then faded away completely. “The Reliant,” he mumbled. “She’s gone.”

Admiral Galiardi sighed, controlling his frustration at the sudden turn of events. “Contact the Volkov,” he ordered his communications officer. “Warn them they are going into battle alone. They must prevent those ships from reaching Earth.”

“Yes, Admiral,” the communications officer answered.

“What about the new contacts?” Rear Admiral Duncan asked.

“We’ll launch the Intrepid. She’ll have to deal with them on her own.” The admiral sighed again. “They knew exactly when and where to hit us—right when our patrols were too far out to rally together at the same time.” The admiral shook his head. “They knew everything about us. Everything.”

“It’s not over yet, Mike,” Rear Admiral Duncan told his old friend.

Admiral Michael Galiardi looked at his friend. “You’re damn right it’s not.”

* * *

“Incoming message from Fleet Command,” Lieutenant Chara reported from the Intrepid’s comm-center on the left side of the bridge.

Captain Christopoulos stepped closer to his comm officer’s station as he paced the bridge of the Intrepid. He peered over the comm officer’s shoulder to read the message. “Sound the word. All decks prepare to get under way. Notify the XO in combat.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant answered.

“Helm,” the captain said, straightening back up. “How are we looking?”

“All systems are online,” Ensign Hunt answered. “Reactors are hot and ready for full power. We’re ready for departure, sir.”

“Very well,” the captain said as he moved to his command chair and sat down. “Comms, notify the OAP that we’re leaving immediately. Helm, retract all moorings and take us out when ready.”

“Aye, sir. Sounding mooring alarms.”

The starboard boarding tunnel that led from the Orbital Assembly Platform to the Intrepid’s port boarding hatch shook as personnel ran through the clear tube on their way to their ship.

“Move it! Move it!” the officer of the deck standing just inside the boarding hatch yelled to the people in the boarding tunnel. The last few men and women ran down the tunnel and into the ship, and the officer pressed the button to close the Intrepid’s main port boarding hatch.

The boarding tunnel connected to the Intrepid’s port side began to retract back toward the OAP’s core as the mooring clamps all around the Intrepid simultaneously released their grip on the Defender-class warship. The Intrepid began to move slowly forward, carefully inching her way out of the OAP’s surrounding framework that barely fit around the Intrepid’s massive hull.

“Approaching OAP framework threshold,” Ensign Hunt reported.

“As soon as we clear the OAP, increase our rate of acceleration,” Captain Christopoulos ordered. “I want to break orbit and go full burn for the moon as soon as possible. We’ve got four Jung frigates inbound from her far side, and I’d like to dispatch them before they get a clear shot at the Earth.”

“Yes, sir,” the young helmsman answered. “We’ll be clear to begin our burn in three minutes.”

“Flight, as soon as we clear port, I want to launch long-range interceptors to harass those frigates. I don’t want them thinking they can just waltz in at their leisure.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Tonnes acknowledged.

“Combat, Captain,” Captain Christopoulos called over his comm-set.

“
Captain, go for combat,
” Commander Nasser answered over the comm-set from the Intrepid’s combat control center.

“Commander, establish a lock on those frigates as soon as you get a clear line of sight. We’ll start with conventional warheads, test their point-defense intercept capabilities. No use wasting nukes until we know the chances of them getting through the frigates’ defenses. If they are too good, we’ll move in close and slug it out. Intel says we have the advantage on armor, so we’ll use it if we have to.”

“
Aye, sir,
” the commander answered.

“Thirty seconds to burn,” Ensign Hunt reported from the helm.

Captain Christopoulos watched the main forward view screen as the OAP’s massive framework that surrounded his ship slipped past their view, falling away as they continued to drift forward across its threshold.

“We’ve cleared the threshold,” the helmsman reported. “Burn in fifteen seconds.”

“Put up the tactical map on the port view screen,” the captain ordered. “Maintain an up-to-date tactical feed from Fleet Command. I want to know the status of those last three Jung cruisers at all times, as we may have to deal with them as well.”

“Aye, sir,” the Intrepid’s new tactical officer answered, his voice shaky.

The captain turned to his new tactical officer. “First tour, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant admitted nervously.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Eckert, sir. Lieutenant Andrew Eckert.”

“You’ll do fine, Lieutenant Eckert,” the captain told him, trying to boost the young officer’s confidence. “This tactical situation is pretty straightforward: four frigates coming over the moon and three cruisers about an hour out from Earth. The frigates shouldn’t be a problem, and by the time we finish them off and turn toward those three cruisers, the Volkov will already be on them. We’ll just be backing her up, and three Jung cruisers are no match for two Defender-class warships, now are they, son?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir, they’re not.”