Accord of Honor (6 page)

Now for the coup de grace. I smiled, teeth tight together, and called to the weapons station. The cluster of five ships had flown right through the arc those powered down warheads we had launched were traveling. And now, it was time to spring that trap. We bounced a signal off the colony radio tower, and on my command thirty two powered down SABOT missiles went live almost on top of the enemy. Thirty two warheads locked onto two targets, sixteen missiles to a ship. And now I got to see their defense.

I watched as a few shots wandered off course, confused by the number of nearby targets or with drives which didn’t reactivate properly. Two went after the wrong ships. Another two simply spiraled off into space. The enemy ships did have some sort of defensive fire, but to my eye it looked like it was more of a general gun, not a dedicated anti missile system. They were certainly nowhere near as effective as I’d expect from our own defenses. But there were five ships firing at those missiles, and that level of fire was bound to attrit a few.

The two that had wandered off to attack the wrong ship were destroyed. That left twenty eight missiles. I watched as blip after blip on my screen vanished from radar as their guns blasted apart the missiles. Then they were streaking the last short distance to the ships, and the SABOT rounds hit the enemy hulls.

Only four rounds penetrated the first ship, shedding their outer layer on the hull. A rod of depleted uranium was the core of each SABOT round, accelerated to a terrible speed. They smashed through the outer hull, then generally blasting through anything in their path to the other side of the ship. Scan showed those holes venting atmosphere, but the ship stayed under power.

The second ship was less lucky. Ten of the missiles got past their defenses. Ten uranium javelins blew through the hull. The ship veered off course, venting air from compartments all over the ship. It wasn’t firing missiles anymore, and I could imagine the panic that had set in among any crew who had survived. The ship started to spin, the streams of air it vented twisting the heading around madly.

Meanwhile, the first volley of our missiles were impacting the ship that had split off toward the station. This was a mix of nuclear and SABOT rounds. I could see that it was trying to shoot them down, but explosions blossomed on my screen. It would be a bit before scans cleared enough to assess damage, but I already had thirty two more missiles bearing down on them. I was confident it would overpower their defenses.

Then it was our turn. The first wave of enemy missiles came screaming in toward Defender. Our computer took over defense, firing all four gatlings continuously. Anti-missile missiles licked out, short range but fast, carrying only a light payload but designed to blow up incoming shots. The defense missiles took out twelve of the wave. The gatlings did a superb job and killed another twenty birds. That left four. I had just enough time to thumb the general intercom and holler, “Brace for impact! Incom...” And then the ship was hit, smacked like a giant had slapped a hand against the hull. Then two more shuddering impacts, the shriek of twisting metal audible even in our suits. Then one last crushing blow.

I was dazed. The suits protected against a lot of the impact, but it was still an overload. I shook my head gently. Red lights were flashing on my console, and I could see smoke drifting across the bridge. That meant we still had atmosphere.

“Damage report,” I croaked out, barely audible.

I tried again. “Damage report!” Better. Suited bodies around the bridge started moving again, people pulling themselves together.

A damage control readout popped onto the heads up display on my helmet’s faceplate. Two nukes had impacted near the ship. I had known in theory that we could survive hits like that. Now I had proof to back up the theory. In atmosphere, a nuclear weapon does most of its damage with a shock wave, which isn’t carried well in space. A nuclear blast might scorch the ship a bit, fry electronics, even shatter a few hull plates. And the shock certainly transmits through the interior, and shakes up the crew, I thought a bit ruefully. But most of the impact is simply wasted against the exterior of a ship designed to survive space.

Two SABOT rounds had also penetrated. One seemed to have hit some empty crew quarters, and the blast doors had automatically shut the area off to preserve the rest of the ship. The other, though, had pierced one of the missile control bays. No response from the crew of four who had been in there, which meant they were almost certainly dead. There would be time to mourn them later. We’d lost function in the four tubes controlled from that bay, which cut our rate of fire drastically.

The EM field seemed to have protected most of the sensitive electronics. Backups had already kicked in for failed units. One of the anti-missile turrets had gotten slagged a bit, too. It was locked up, probably some melted metal jammed in the mechanism somewhere.

Even as I took this all in, I was watching the scan console again. The first enemy ship we had targeted, the one that had run off by itself toward the station, was gone. Our radar picked up only chunks of scrap metal drifting where it had been. One of our hits had damaged something critical. Maybe the fusion engine that powered the ship’s ion drive had lost containment and exploded, or perhaps we had gotten lucky and hit some explosive ordnance. But the result was the same. One enemy ship was annihilated.

The ship we had hit so badly before – was it really just minutes ago? – had stopped accelerating completely, and tumbled end over end in an aimless drift. The other four were changing course again. I saw their vector lines shift, then lengthen again as they picked up speed on new headings – away from Mars, away from Sol, out toward the Belt again. Defender still had scores of missiles in space, as did the enemy, pouring on the speed to try to destroy each other.

“Helm, max thrust, bring us along a line perpendicular to those missile plots. Put some distance and some range out. Weapons, stand by to deploy decoys.” The decoys were an idea of Meg’s, and had never really been tested to my satisfaction. But we were out of other options. With over a hundred missiles bearing down on us now, they were our best shot at surviving. “Deploy decoys!” I called, and four missile sized probes detached from the hull in four different directions. Each one was broadcasting a fake signature that matched the Defender as closely as possible. Each decoy was using everything we could think of that might confuse a targeting computer.

Thirty more missiles rocketed in toward us, but this time Meg’s engineering really proved its worth. The decoys drew off all but two of the missiles, and those were quickly dispatched. Antimissile guns and rockets obliterated most of the rest, given extra time by the decoys. Two decoys were completely destroyed as well, but it was well worth it! We were accelerating on a line away from the missiles now, at almost as strong a boost as the missiles themselves could accomplish. It wasn’t likely anything else was going to hit us if we could just survive that next wave, only twenty four this time.

Guns flashed, and rockets streamed out behind us as we raced away from the incoming missiles. One after another, I watched them explode harmlessly at a distance. It was going to be close.

Two nukes exploded at almost the same moment, one on each side of the ship. One clipped a missile of our own as it was launching and detonated the warhead, sending shockwaves back into the tube. The tube shattered from the inside, firing debris as deadly as any bullet through bulkheads into neighboring compartments. The entire ship wheeled over on its side as the impact and atmosphere vent twisted us off course. Lights flickered and died all over the ship as power was interrupted, and emergency lights popped on.

I waited another minute, but there were no more impacts. We had outraced the remaining missiles, but we were hurtling away from Mars now without power, and starting to tumble. Worse, I had no way to see the enemy reaction, no idea what they were doing next. Without power, I was blind. And without power, we’d all be very cold soon.

W
atching
Dad’s battle near Mars was a terrible thing. Not as bad as being there, I suppose, but bad enough in its own way. I was in the command center when things went to hell there. Because we knew Defender’s course plan, we knew roughly were the ship was, even though it wasn’t showing up on scans. And we had the excellent data on local Mars space from the satellites in orbit there. Everything had a short lag, because of the distance. What we were seeing was a couple of minutes behind what was actually going on. But it was still all I could do to keep myself from getting on the radio to Dad when I saw the pirate ships pop onto radar.

Word about the fight spread like wildfire across the station, and work just stopped. Anyone who was near to the command center came in to watch silently as the holotank replayed the battle with merciless precision. Everyone else plugged their consoles into the feed, and watched as best they could where they were.

I had no doubts Dad would engage, even at six to one odds. It was just who he was. He wouldn’t let them blow the station if he could stop them. And I guess he had lived the last couple of decades waiting for this day. It was his moment, his dance.

A cheer went up in the room when the Old Man’s trick with the missiles took out one pirate. The Chief’s glare silenced them. I winced as each missile struck Defender. I think a couple of people started crying as we watched those last nukes explode near the ship, and saw the secondary explosions scatter bits of the hull into space. Then Defender went into a slow tumble and stopped accelerating.

Dad’s missile launches had done their work too, though. Of the four enemy ships that had tried to withdraw, another blew up completely and at least two more took serious hits, slowing them down. Only one of the ships looked to have gotten away clean.

And then... Nothing. No power up from Defender, and the Mars radars lost track of the ship entirely as it continued off into deep space. We kept vigil in the command room, watching the screen and listening for a call.

It was two hours before we saw the signature of a ship under light acceleration on the Mars Station long range radar. I heaved a huge sigh, the weight lifting from my shoulders. We knew from the location that it had to be Defender, and another cheer went up around the room. I looked at Chief Acres and saw him visibly relax, exhaustion replacing the tension in his posture. I wasn’t the only one worried about Dad.

As Defender began to slowly limp back toward Mars, the Chief clapped his hands together. The booming noise startled everyone.

“The Old Man’s done his part!” he said. “Now it’s our turn. Meg tells me the Inde will be ready to leave within the hour. If we move fast, we might be able to catch those injured rats with their pants down. Crew on board in fifteen minutes, prep for launch.” Everyone sat still another moment, staring at him. We’d all been sitting so long, watching the screen, that it took a few minutes to bring ourselves back to where we were.

“What’re you looking at?” he roared. “Move, people! Scat!”

The crowd cleared out double fast. I stood up, my legs aching from tension and sitting too long. “This blows our careful planning up, pretty much,” I said.

“Plans never survive past first contact with the enemy,” Acres quipped back. “I’ve got an idea or two that might turn the liabilities of our merchant ship turned war ship into benefits. Let’s get her out where she can do some good.”

A
fter launch
, we spent several hours on high burn, pouring on the speed. A lot was riding on us beating those other pirate ships back to the captured repair station. All too soon though, we had to drop back down to a more basic acceleration. We wanted the pirates to think we were just another dumb ore carrier, and we were getting close to the outside edge of their active radar. Coming in at ten gravities of acceleration would have been a dead giveaway that we were more than just a merchant ship.

We’d done our best to quickly camouflage the modifications to the ship. The engine was impossible to hide, of course. A bigger engine is a bigger engine, and it was sticking off into space for everyone to see. But the missile tubes were already pretty hard to spot when the ports were closed. You really had to know what you were looking for to see them. That left the antimissile gatlings and the nose mounted rail gun. Meg designated a crew to quickly tack some scrap plates over them. The end result wasn’t going to fool a careful inspection, but might be enough to make a less cautious observer assume the ship was what it looked like – an old and somewhat outdated cargo carrier that had been upgraded a bit by her captain.

I was working bridge crew as damage control, which is to say I was doing nothing except staying out of the Chief’s hair. Being his exec had been an experience so far, but I wondered if I was going to have a chance to do much at all in the upcoming fight. I hated sitting still.

“Active radar and laser pings from the station ahead!” Jim called out. We were out of our helmets and breathing cabin air again. No point to burn up the liquid stuff when we were only pulling normal accelerations.

“Well, that didn’t take long. Now, the question is, will they take the bait?” I asked.

“We’ll see soon enough,” said the Chief. He had been pacing ever since we dropped to normal acceleration. I didn’t think he liked to sit around, either.

“Chief, they’re radioing to us. They’re saying that they got a tip about a ship carrying stolen goods, and they need to segregate and search each incoming ship. They’re sending us an escort, sounds like,” said the woman over at communications. I couldn’t recall her name. It was something I was actively working at, remembering the names of all the people around me.

“Yeah, escort us right into their brig,” Acres laughed. “Watch for their escort ship. Maintain course.” He thumbed a comm console. “Cargo, this is the chief. Make sure our special delivery is packaged and ready to rock.”

“Aye, Chief,” was the immediate response. “It’s all gift wrapped and everything for them.”

“Now we wait for their escort,” Acres said, finally plunking himself down in his seat.

We didn’t have long to wait. Radar picked up two ships coming at us almost immediately. “Two,” I said aloud, like the word had a bad flavor. “That has the potential to mess things up a lot. What do you think, Chief?”

“We stick to the plan. It never was perfect in the first place, but it’s still worth a shot.”

The two ships were coming up fast. It wasn’t long at all before the comm tech reported another incoming call, this time from the ships.

“Put it on speakers,” Acres said.

“Attention, cargo ship. We are claiming your ship and your cargo. They are already forfeit. We have weapons on this ship capable of destroying you. Your lives are ours now. You have a choice: surrender now and join our other hostages until you are ransomed. Or die under fire from our weapons. The decision is yours. You have one minute to cut all power from your engines if you intend to comply with our demands and live. No further warnings. Out.”

“Well, direct and to the point, ain’t they?” drawled Acres. “Helm, cut engine power. Let’s see what these boys do next, shall we? Weapons – stay ready, just in case. I get the feeling these folk might not be completely trustworthy.”

But we didn’t get any more threatening calls, and once our engines were shut down the ships closed on us without incident. Both flipped over and matched our vector, then came up alongside the Inde. Which meant we had guessed right. The Chief’s hunch was that while they wanted to capture ships, they didn’t want to allow those ships too close to the base, so they were probably boarding ships and taking the crew hostage, then bringing the captured ships in. Safer that way, and it prevented a desperate ship captain from doing something crazy like ramming their base with his ship. Now, would they both dock and board us, or would they place one ship on overwatch? One of their ships pulled ahead of us a bit, offset from the other ship as it closed up on our port side, which answered the question. That one could fire on us if we did anything stupid, which would make things trickier.

The radio picked up another broadcast from the ships. “Hold present speed and heading. We will board your ship momentarily. Resistance will be met with lethal force. Surrender any hand weapons you are carrying and turn yourself in to our troops as they enter.” I could see the ship jetting slowly closer on our port cameras. As it glided in, they pirates extended a set of docking clamps. They’d link up directly with our main hatch in a few minutes.

I looked over at Chief Acres. He’d stood up, and had just snatched up his helmet. I realized he’d been strapping on body armor while I was watching the screens. The armor was black, a mix of specially crafted fibers that were designed to stop most small arms, and a set of plates over the wearer’s vitals that would stop a heck of a lot more. “Going somewhere, Chief?” I asked.

“Yup. You’ve got the con, kid. You know what needs to be done. I’m going where I can do what I do best.” He snatched up a rifle from where it sat strapped to his chair, snapped down his visor, and bounded out the door. Down near the main ship hatch, where the pirates were about to board, he’d join a handpicked squad, all armored up the same as him. The first squad the pirates sent over were in for a nasty surprise.

And just like that, I was in command of a ship again. All around me, bridge crew looked expectantly at me. I froze for a moment. What the hell made me think I could do this job? I wasn’t ready for this. My father had been right to leave me behind. I was going to get people killed.

I took a deep breath. I was far from perfect, but I was who we had. I’d have to do. There was no margin for error here. I tried to remember how my father looked when he was commanding and drew a complete blank. My mind didn’t want to think about him right now. I needed to command my own way.

“Weapons, what have we got that can take out that second ship?” I asked.

“Missiles are no good,” the tech replied. “They’re well inside minimum range. Nukes are hardcoded to not blow that close to us, and the SABOTs won’t build up enough velocity to do more than dent their hull.”

“Can we hit them with the antimissile guns?”

“Yes, but they’re not really designed for hull penetration. They may do some damage, but barring a lucky hit, I doubt we’ll really do more than make them mad.”

Well, I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “What about the railgun?” I asked.

He stopped. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s not well tested against real targets. In theory, the rounds should do a lot of damage and have excellent range. There’s no minimum range, either. But the tracking arc is slim. We only have a small rotation around the nose of the ship. If we can get them into that arc, though...”

“Sounds like that’s our best bet unless they back off. OK, keep an eye on them. Tell me if they get in the railgun arc.”

With a loud clang, the ship pulled up alongside us and attached docking clamps. We were firmly fixed to each other now, committed. Any minute now, they would open the door to our ship and all hell would break loose. Still, the second ship held station.

Gunfire erupted somewhere back in the ship. Jolted into remembering, I turned to the bridge hatch, and tapped a code into the number pad on the wall next to it. A blast door slammed down from the ceiling of the door frame, locking the bridge off from the rest of the ship. Should have done that right after the Chief left, and not waited. That door would at the least delay attackers a decent amount of time. They’d have to cut their way through it. Small arms wouldn’t be enough to do the job. No more mistakes; how many times had Dad told me that victory belonged to the side that made the next to last mistake?

Acres’ men down below had been laying in wait, hidden in the passages right around the main hatch. They were linked into the camera system, waiting until a decent number of enemy men had entered before closing the jaws of the trap. The plan was for them to open fire on the enemy troops, and attempt to push back through the hatch, ideally taking the enemy ship. I tried to tab up the camera in the hall where the fighting was going on, but it must have been damaged in the initial exchange. I couldn’t see what was going on back there.

“Sir,” that was the radar tech, “the second ship is warming up its drive. Looks like they are preparing to maneuver.” I watched the plot. They were dropping back a bit. From there they could slip up alongside us at a ninety degree angle to the other pirate ship. What were they doing?

“Can we get a zoom on camera views of that second ship?” I had a bad feeling about this. They were up to something, something sneaky, something I hadn’t anticipated.

“Yes, sir. Pulling the camera up on the main screen now,” he replied. Now I could see the side of the ship, and there was some sort of movement along their hull facing us. “Zooming now.”

I caught my breath when I saw what the movement was. They had a squad of space-suited men out there, hooked to their hull. And they were carrying three large, flat, disk like objects between them. I didn’t like the looks of it at all.

“Thoughts?” I asked. “I’m thinking explosives of some sort. That’s why the sharp angle to their other ship, to avoid blast through damage.”

Weapons called out, “I think you’re right, sir. Those look like they could easily be mines, and quite possibly carrying enough explosive to punch a hole in the hull, maybe even do a lot more damage to the ship when they blow.”

Mind racing, I stared at the plot. I figured we had about a minute before they were in range to jump across to us with the mines. I had to keep them away from the ship. But we couldn’t fire missiles, they weren’t in the arc of the rail gun, and we couldn’t move... Or could we? “How firm are those docking clamps?” I asked our helmsman.

He thought a moment. “Strong. They’re meant to stand up under some differences in accelerations when two ships dock, so they have to be pretty tough. You aren’t thinking of...?”

I punched the button for the general intercom. “All crew, prepare for decompression. Making emergency maneuvers, decompression possible. Suit now!” Following my own advice, I popped my helmet onto the suit I already wore, and I saw the rest of the bridge crew scrambling to do the same.