The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #4, Retribution (9 page)

“
My Go
d
…” Commander Ben said, from his engineering station.

“
God had very little to do with this
,
” Cat responded, through gritted teeth.

***

Lieutenant McKinney was a large man. Marines often were. By virtue of his size, he wore a specially modified Mark Six. It was fitted with what the engineers liked to call a portable plasma cannon. It was accompanied by a micro-reactor capable of generating three quarters of a terawatt of electrical energy. Although the generator was little larger than a loaf of brea
d,
it, along with the plasma cannon it supported, weighed in excess of a thousand pounds. In this contex
t“
portabl
e
” was a nebulous concept. If his suit ever lost power, he would be unable to move. As it was, he was a walking tank, with both impressive personal shields and enough fire-power to wage a one-man war.

Right now the lieutenant was following the equally well-shielded and armed Lt. Commander LeAnder. The lieutenant checked his Navicomp. They were getting close.

“
Sir, the target should be just ahead about thirty meters
.
”

“
Looks to be the case, Andy. Ther
e’
s a blast door that looks pretty substantial between us and the computer core
.
”

The capital cit
y’
s computer core and the information it contained about Syndicate-wide force deployment and strength was their target. It contained a plethora of invaluable data that would most certainly help the GCP in its fight against the Modos Syndicate. Unfortunately, the core was likely set to self-purge should unauthorized access to it be detected. This was where the multitude of ENOs the GCP had deployed had become useful. The commander had all of the right access codes. Because of a special set of nanites in his right hand, he could mimic the biometric signatures required. The only problem would be getting to the security console on the other side of those blast doors. Fortunately for them, they had access to two highly powerful plasma cannons.

The two men approached the door and ran scanners built into their armored gloves over the surface.

“
Appears to be a titanium alloy. Tough, but not invulnerable
,
” McKinney commented.

Commander LeAnder scanned the frame and surrounding area
.“I’
m not detecting anything in terms of electronic counter-measures. We should be able to cut through either the door itself or the frame
.
”

“
Is there a reason to choose one over the other
?
”

The commander considered the question for a moment, as he and the younger officer stepped back a few paces to assume firing positions
.“
Going through the door should be more fun. What do you say Lieutenan
t
… feel like slagging a door
?
”

The younger man grinned under his visor
.“
Flame On
!
”

***

“
Come about to heading one-four-zero mark two. Z-Axis plus 50 ahead dead slow. We want to come right up on their flan
k
… without any sort of sensor ghostin
g
”

Cat leaned forward in her command chair as she watched the main holographic display. The GCP
Yorktown
was hunting pre
y
… in this case one of the two Modos frigates parked in the Lagrange point located between Naanac and its only large moon, Tol. Lagrange points were popular places to park starships, because they only required minimal station-keeping thrusters to maintain position. The
MS Redclaw
was the first of the two ships they were hoping to disable. It had been the one firing tactical nuclear bombs into civilian population centers. There were some tactics that were just not allowed in time of war, and that was most certainly one of them.

Commander Ben looked up from his sensor console
.“
The
Tidepool
is powering up engines, Admiral
.
”

“
I thought they might
,
” Cat acknowledged
.“
Troops have landed on planet from somewhere. They have got to be wondering from where. Their current position limits their ability to see the space surrounding the planet.
I’
m surprised i
t’
s taken them this long to realize it, and move one of their ships
.
”

“
That does indeed seem to be the case, Admiral
,
” Commander Kirkland said, from his station
.“
The
Tidepool
is moving toward a geosynchronous orbit on the opposite side of the planet
.
”

“
Once they get into position, le
t’
s give them something to focus their attention on while we deal with the
Redclaw
. Chief Wroblewski, do you think you can arrange a brief distraction for our friends over on the
Tidepool
?
”

“
I believe I have just the thing, Admiral
,
” the Warrant Officer said, with a grin. He reached forward and pressed a button on his console that activated a series of surprises the
Yorktown
had left parked in various orbits around the planet.

“
I thought you might
,
” Cat acknowledged with a matching grin.

Just as the
Tidepool
established itself in a geosynchronous parking orbit, it ran into one of the many cloaked gravimetric mines that had been placed in orbit by the
Yorktown
earlier that day. The min
e’
s hyperfield emitters folded space-time in such a way as to greatly enhance interactions with the Higgs field. The result was it quadrupled a victi
m’
s relative weight. What had been a stable orbit for the MS
Tidepool
suddenly became a rapidly decaying one. Cat could imagine the chaos on the bridge of that ship as they fought to compensate. The ship and crew were in no real danger, but they would certainly be occupied for the next several minutes.

“
Ben, spin up the primary and secondary generators to one hundred and ten percent
,
” Cat said, without taking her eyes off the forward view screen.

“
Chief, I believe we are in position. I want you to power up the forward rail-guns and plasma beams. Target the
Redcla
w
’
s engines, communications, and weapons in that order
.
”

“
Initiating pre-programmed firing sequence now, Admiral
.
”

“
Keep a sharp eye on your boards
,
” Cat warned the Bridge crew
.“
W
e’
ve been cloaked, up to this point, but once we start firing they will most certainly know where we are
.
”

Massive energy beams lashed out from the GCP flagship. The beams instantly vaporized the small amounts of interstellar dust floating between the
Yorktown
and
Redclaw
. The result was a spectacular light show, as a radiant blue-white beam suddenly seemed to span the gap between the two ships. This was followed milliseconds later by kinetic rounds fired at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light from the
Yorktow
n
’
s powerful rail-guns.

Ben smiled. This was always a disturbing sight, as the six-legged D'lralu engineer had massive canines. He reported the initial result of their opening volley.

“
Admiral, their shields attempted to engage. They flickered for all of half a second and then crumbled. As expected, their long range comm-array is toast. Kinetic rounds just hit their aft sectio
n
… engines are offline for the foreseeable future. Additional explosions are occurring near their flight bay
.
”

“
Must be something prone to going bang onboard that ship
,
” Chief Wroblewski commented dryly, as he worked his fire control board.

“
Very good, Ben
,
” Cat said
.“
Chief, switch targeting to their weapons systems
.
”

Ken leaned forward to check a readout
.“
Admiral, they seem to be bringing a secondary shield array online
.
”

“
Talk to me, Ken
,
” Cat said.

“
I
t’
s not something we have seen before. It might be related to their inter-dimensional jump systems. The bottom line is that their weapons remain hot and protected
.
”

As if to emphasize his point, the bridge of the
Yorktown
shook, as the shi
p’
s shields attempted to dissipate a sudden barrage of energy. Cat grabbed her armrest to steady herself.

“
That was a seventy kilo kinetic round fired at .1 C from their rear-facing rail gun. Our shields are holding, but i
t’
s going to get bumpy if we do
n’
t find a way to take out those rail guns
,
” Ben said.

“
Locate their shield emitters and engage with continuous fire from the plasma beams. My guess is we can overload their emitters before our systems overheat
.
”

“
Rigging for continuous fire
,
” Wroblewski confirmed.

“
The
Tidepool
is launching fighters
,
” Ken announced.

“
ETA on the fighters
?
”

“
Seven minutes, Admiral.
I’
m showing jump points forming for four more inbound ships
.
”

“
That was faster than we expected
,
” Ben mumbled.

“
Zigg
y
… send a message to Admiral Faragon. Let him know we might need those reinforcements sooner rather than later
.
”

“
Aye, Admiral
,
” he acknowledged.

Cat hit the ship-wide comm button on her command chair
.“
This is the captain. Flight dec
k
… I need all your birds in the air yesterday. We have incoming fighters. Intercept and destroy. Damage control teams brace for imminent action. Engineering, our shields are about to take a pounding. Top priorit
y
… keep them online. Kimbridge, ou
t
”

Chapter Eigh
t
– Data Mining...

“
The
Bluewater
and
Broken Claw
are backing off
!
” Ken yelled over the battle klaxon, which had chosen that moment to sound yet again.

“
Cal! Kill that alarm, and this time disable it
,
” Cat barked at the shi
p’
s AI
.“
Mr. Wroblewski, focus fire on the
Tidepool
, if you please
!
”

The battle for orbital superiority had been going on for the better part of four hours. Earlier, the
Redcla
w
’
s secondary shields had collapsed within moments of Cat giving the order to concentrate fire. Unfortunately, the
Yorktown
had been unable to capitalize on the collapsed shields.

As soon as the
Redcla
w
’
s shields had fallen, a lucky hit from the Modos shi
p’
s rail-guns had temporarily overloaded a shield emitter on the
Yorktown
. Normally, adjacent emitters would have taken up the slack, but at precisely the same moment a twenty megaton nuclear EMP device exploded near the weaken shield. The resulting electro-magnetic pulse briefly scrambled nearby systems, and a ten foot piece of hull was compromised. Three levels on the
Yorktown
suffered explosive decompression. Twenty-seven crewmen were exposed to hard vacuum, and would have died had their medical nanites not kicked in to induce a type of medical stasis. As it was, they were out of commission until they could receive proper treatment in the shi
p’
s sickbay.