The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (24 page)

His ship rocked four more times. In that time he watched five of his remaining ships destroyed by relentless human bombardment.

***

"That's it.  The last missiles just launched." Cat said. "It's a slug fest now. Ziggy, advise the Admiral we have two ships left to deal with."

"The Admiral has been apprised, Ma'am."

"Cat?"

She mentally activated her comlinks. "Yes, Admiral?"

"I want you to coordinate the Alpha battle group while I handle the overall board."

"Roger that, Sir."

"And Cat..."

"Sir?"

"We stop them at all costs... There are 28 Million people on Mars depending on us."

"Understood, Sir."

"Ziggy... Tie me into the Alpha battle group's comm hub." Cat said to her communications officer.

"You're on, Ma'am"

"Attention Alpha battle group, this is Captain Kimbridge of the Yorktown. We have two bogies left to deal with. They are now traveling at .47c. If even a fraction of one of those ships hits the surface at that speed... Well let's just say that can't happen."

Cat nodded to her First Officer. "Commander Kirkland is sending you your assignments. We are going after bogie one, which is five minutes closer to impact. Our only option, at this point, is to try and overwhelm their shields. This will not be easy, and in order to match their current velocity and acceleration, we will need to use highly coordinated micro-jumps. Unfortunately we did not anticipate this level of coordination, so we are not setup with fleet-wide, ship-to-ship entangled quantum communications. When we jump out of our current formation, there will be a sub second delay between signals as we relay through the communication hub on Lunar One. Therefore, each ship is being assigned a spherical wedge to focus your attacks."

Cat up at looked at Chief Wroblewski, "Chief... Who did you say had EMP rounds left?"

"The Rutledge and the Pinecrest each have one, Ma'am"

"Captains Stover and McKay... Hold back and ready your EMP's. The Yorktown will jump in close enough to disrupt that ship's shields... You fire your EMP's at exactly 23:45 aught aught... To the millisecond. You won't have visual, but your Hyper field sensors should give you the same instantaneous info a quantum link would. With luck the Yorktown's shields will beat bogie one's to recovery, and the EMP will roll over us...

If, for some reason, that does not happen, and we are out of it... Captain Ruck of the Avenger will have tactical command.

I want everyone else to begin strafing with rail guns, and the coherents set on maximum at 23:40 aught aught. People, keep to your assigned sectors. Once the EMPs do their work I'll need all ships to form up on the Avenger... From that point we'll use the rail guns to push the bogie on to a non-collision course."

Cat looked up at her First Officer. "Look over your orders... If there are any questions get them to Commander Kirkland, ASAP... We have two minutes before this final push begins.  Kimbridge out."

***

The deck rolled, and the First of the First slipped out of his command couch. Klaxons resumed their intolerable wail.
What now,
he thought.
Could not these humans allow a warrior to die in peace?

The AI was blathering something that sounded vaguely important. He fought to concentrate on the report. Something about multiple attack vectors and shields depleting. That last got his attention. He crawled towards the door to the bridge. Three of his legs were refusing to work and the others hurt like a breech birth. Just as he was working his way thru the door the ship rolled again and he struck his head against the bulkhead. Fresh blood soaked his fur but the blow cleared his head... At least for a few minutes.

"Computer..." He croaked, “Automated fire unlock... Command code 6-1-7-rapture-0-1-0, execute."

"Command Accepted. Specify target."

"Target any non-D'lralu ship within range... Fire maximum power until all ships are destroyed. Confirm instructions."

"Confirming instructions. Automatic AI directed fire enabled. Target any and all non-D'lralu vessels within weapon fire range."

The First of the First smiled at the ships attacking him. They were in for an unpleasant surprise.

"Implement instructions now"

***

"Whooo..." Cat huffed as most of the bridge crew was thrown to the deck. The Yorktown shuddered under a continuous barrage of incredibly intense energy beam weapons. The CIC was showing most of the Alpha Battle group taking fire simultaneously from the two remaining ships.

Ken pulled himself up and triggered the emergency stabilizers on the navigation console. "Those beams are putting out ten or eleven giga joules each, and they're firing dozens at a time!"

Cat pulled herself back into her command chair. The Bridge continued to roil and panels were beginning to overload. "Ziggy... Fleet wide now!"

"This is Captain Kimbridge... We're taking a pounding... We've already lost the ships with the weakest shielding... Everyone Push the schedule ahead sixty seconds... Repeat we are jumping on the Concertina sixty seconds earlier."

"Helm I want you to plot a jump right on top of that ship... I don't want so much as a single hair between us and them... At the same time I want you to push every last ounce of power into the hyper field generators... We need to give the boys with the EMPs as big a hole as possible."

"Locked in, Captain!" Lieutenant Torres said, as he scrambled to enter the commands on a console that was constantly shifting under him. "Ma'am, some of the emitters are beginning to overload"

"Start rolling and spinning the ship... Let's spread out where we are taking the hits."

"Cal," Cat said... "Watch the clock closely... Jump us the millisecond we need to go."

"
Jumping in 48 seconds
"

It was the longest three-quarters of a minute in Cat's life, but they needed to give the battle group time to do their magic. Time did not come without a cost though. The exhaust fans on the bridge were at maximum trying to clear the smoky haze. Every blast from the D'lralu capital ship knocked more systems offline. The nanite infused systems of the Yorktown were bringing the various systems back up quickly, but they were not keeping up with the rate of damage the ship was taking. 

There was a moment of cheering when the second Bogie was reported destroyed. The shields were not even raised, as the other battle group holed the ship with their first volley of rail-guns and plasma beams. Apparently the captain and crew of that ship were no longer able to command its defenses, and the Beta Battle Group was able to nudge it into an orbit that would eventually take it into the sun.

Meanwhile the bridge continued to shudder as incomprehensible forces raked the hull. As fast as the hull would be opened up, the repair nanites would begin work to seal it. The active shielding was in tatters. Most of the defensive capabilities now came down to the thick ablative shielding. Still, Cat mused as she tried to help Ken organize fire response teams, the Yorktown was still functional. On the view screen she saw a blast rip through the Montana, and she knew, in all likelihood, the crew was lost. About ten seconds to go she thought.

"Battle Group Alpha... Fire everything you've got now!"

"
Jumping now.
" Cal reported.

There was a horrendous crunching of metal. People were thrown from their chairs as the inertial damping systems were overwhelmed. The klaxons added their beat to the cacophonous bedlam. People screamed critical reports over the noise.

"Shields down!"

"Multiple hull breaches!"

"Weapons offline!"

"We're venting atmosphere!" 

Suddenly the lights flickered and went out. The only illumination on the bridge was the intermittent flickering of console displays... Even the klaxons which had been blaring were now silent. The gravity plating powered down briefly before resuming at about a third of a gravity.

"Report!" Cat said to anyone with a working console.

"The Yorktown was hit by two closely spaced EMPs. Most systems are currently offline." Ken said while reviewing info from a backup navigation station.

"Cal, what's the status of the repair systems?"

"
Regeneration in progress. Jump drive will be online momentarily. Passive shields at fourteen percent. Active shields will be available in sixteen minutes. Coherent beam weapons online. Rail-guns will be online in six point four hours. Hull breaches on deck twelve and two are
sealed. The only remaining breach on deck three has be isolated to prevent the additional venting of atmosphere. Estimated time to repair also six point four hours.
"

"Do we have external sensors?"

"Yes, Captain." Ensign Zimmerman reported. "The D'lralu ship has stopped firing. She is venting atmosphere from numerous locations. It looks like we got her, Ma'am"

***

The First of the First was dumbfound. His ship was by-in-large dead. There was nothing stopping the humans from nudging his ship out of its world scattering course. He barely had enough reserve power to launch the escape shuttles... But of course there was no one left to pilot them... Any launched now, would never have a chance... They would impact the rapidly approaching planet at something just over half the speed of light... The First of the First had one of those sudden insights that comes to one near death.

The bridge of his ship was its own escape craft. In addition, there were thirty two more spread about his ship. He would have his revenge.

"Computer, emergency launch all escape shuttles. Absolute minimum escape velocity. Execute now!"

***

At 23:14 Mars standard time, six D'lralu escape shuttles impacted with the Martian surface. Weighing a combined 280 metric tons, and traveling at a significant percentage of the speed of light  the impact released approximately 7.168x10^21 kJ of energy. This was nearly five thousand times the energy output of the largest atomic bomb ever exploded. The resulting explosion superheated the thin Martian atmosphere. The impact crater was over three thousand kilometers in diameter. Mars quakes traveled around the globe at over six hundred kilometers an hour. Five percent of the mass of mars was ejected into the atmosphere. The concussive waves circled the global at supersonic speeds. Within minutes 28 million people ceased to exist, and Mars was once again a sterile world.