Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit (19 page)

Loren stopped for a second, then looked
at Elco.  "By the way, where exactly are we going once we are able to
get
on our way?"

"One of the last places they'll
expect us to want to go," Elco said with a resigned grin.  "The next
stop on our diplomatic tour."

"The stop that the Primans probably
already know about?"

"Yes.  Yes it is," said Elco,
this time with a smile.  "I want them to know we're going there.  And
you're going to have to help me arrange a surprise once we arrive."

"I like surprises."

Merritt flew his Talon as cautiously as
he'd ever done, first trying to keep Cory from floating off as well as trying
to not give her anything else to worry about. 

She'd led a charmed life aboard Avenger,
her willingness to take the risky maneuver and never-quit attitude leading to a
record among the most esteemed in the fleet.  The problem was, she took it hard
when her wingmen didn't make it through the missions she planned and led. 
Today was another example.  They'd all done the same thing, flown the same
aggressive profile in defense of their ship, but Cory was the one that made it
back.  Minus her fighter, of course, but again she had to walk into the ready
room alone.  Merritt knew it wore her down even though pilots fought to get
assigned to Avenger and her squadron. 

As they coasted into the Viper's port
side hanger, Merritt noticed the ground crews were spotting a Freedom class
transport at the fore of the bay.  He dropped the landing gear and floated to
the spot indicated by the marshaller, then gently settled it on the gear and
breezed through the shutdown checklist.

"Service with a smile," he said
softly to Cory as they both unsealed their helmets.  She took hers off and
shook her hair, a habit that had been with her since flight school.

"Thanks for the lift," she replied,
then slowly tossed a leg over and climbed down the fuselage and onto the deck. 
Merritt followed quickly.

"Want me to walk you to the flight
surgeon?" he asked.

She turned and gave him a look that
started off decidedly unfriendly, something she quickly changed once she saw
the expression on his face.  "I'm fine," she said simply.

"I know you are," he said
easily, "but since I know you're such a rule follower and all, you know
that after going EVA you need to see the ship's surgeon before you can go back
out.  No time like the present, right?"

She eyed him up again, a jumble of
responses and thoughts swirling through her mind.  "And then you'll be
happy?"

"Happy as a pilot with a free cup of
stim-caf and a big new watch," he replied.

This time, she couldn't help but grin,
just a little.  "Alright, you big weirdo.  But have them prep the spare
Intruder for me, ok?"  She walked out holding her head a little higher
than when she'd entered.

"Sure thing."  Merritt turned
and walked to the status board on the ready room and quickly called up the
flyable inventory aboard ship.  The spare Intruder had been destroyed in the
second wave of their sortie.

Captain Vol was frustrated.  When he
became frustrated, he eventually got angry.  And when he got angry, subordinates
were occasionally demoted or suffered disciplinary measures.

"And what of the
Tring
and
Elexa
?" he asked in a growl.  The two
cruisers he'd dispatched to follow Avenger should have made quick work of the
crippled ship.  Instead, the cruiser had been hit in the engines, sparking
unexpected internal fires and malfunctions.  Her sister ship and escort carrier
Tring
had been forced to heave to and render aid.  Now even the carrier
was feeling the effects of the battle; not in direct damage but in the loss of
so many of her fighters.  The only consolation was that the Reaper had
decimated the attacking Intruders.  Vol knew by now that Crusaders carried
twelve of the attack fighters, and the wreckage of three of them were scattered
about the shipyard.  Still, there was no excuse for failing to wrap up this
operation and finish the Confed ship.

"They report that they are both
underway," reported a slightly nervous communication officer.  He wished
Representative Ravine had been on the bridge; she had left to make a report to
the Commander, but the whole crew were sorely missing her calming effect on
their captain right now.

"Tell them I'm waiting for their
successful reports."

Merritt was still in his flight suit as
he dashed around his hangar trying to keep things organized.  He heard a call
over the ship's intercom to call the captain, so he jogged to the duty station
straddling the hanger and ready room, took a seat, and activated the link.

"Commander Exeter," he stated
simply as Captain Elco's face appeared on the screen.

"Commander," the captain began,
"you've no doubt seen the crew getting a transport spotted in place?"

"I have, Captain," Merritt said
neutrally.  "They don't know what the plan is, just that the order came
from Commander Stone."

"Exactly.  Avenger can't fire
torpedoes and half our laser batteries are offline.  We plan to dump some of
our inventory into space as mobile mines in our wake, then use both transports
with torpedoes strapped inside to roam and flank the enemy once we find them. 
We hope that by keeping the torpedoes in the transports from flying under their
own power that the Primans won't detect them; they'll just see transports. 
We'll operate them remotely and run them right into the Priman cruisers if we
can."

"Do you need us to fly them from
here?" asked Merritt.

"Loren mentioned that your
simulators have that ability, and yes, I'd like you to do just that.  I realize
it's a long shot, and I hate to potentially waste ships and weapons, but they
have us under the gun here and we need to get out of this place if we're going
to survive."

"I'll get on it."

Another half hour had passed with no
results.  Captain Vol was pacing his bridge, trying to will the Confeds into
appearing so he could smash them.

"Captain!" he heard an excited
officer call to him.  "
Tring
and
Elexa
have made contact with
the Confederation ship!"

"Excellent!" he replied
excitedly.  "Do we have a datalink yet?"  Even for the vaunted Priman
sensor technology, this stasis-like damping field that engulfed the shipyard
made his sensors marginally unreliable.

"Partial datastream coming in now,
Captain," was the reply.  "No comms, but live data and some video,
enough for a partial holo display for you."

Vol waited in anticipation as the display
in his bridge, operating much the same way as Confed's holo displays worked,
created a real 3D image for him to inspect.  It was mildly aggravating to not
have audio, but he'd make do. 

He saw his cruisers in open pursuit of
the Confed ship as it headed towards the edge of the shipyard. 

"Set a course for the Confed ship's
exit point," barked Vol, and his orders were quickly  complied with.

The escort carrier was in the lead,
operating with less gross tonnage due to her design, in addition to the loss of
many of her fighter craft and the other cruiser's engine damage.  Suddenly, as
if a curtain were being drawn back on the space ahead of the advancing cruiser,
tiny blips started to appear in her path.  Vol didn't make the connection at
first, but once the first blip exploded against the escort carrier's hull, he
knew: mines, maybe dormant torpedoes.

"Get me comms!" he demanded to
his communication officer, but there was no amount of intimidation that could
fix the problem.  He saw the damaged cruiser in the rear of the formation swing
wide, changing course away from the apparent minefield, and the next thing he
saw was a tiny Confed ship flitting around space near the Priman warship.  He
leaned over, glowering at the data feeds, and saw that his computers were calling
it a transport.  Why in all the empty reaches of space would they have a
transport out there?  Were they really trying to board his ship? 

Another explosion on the escort carrier,
this time not as deadly.  The torpedo was not running, instead just floating in
space.  Their shaped-charge warheads were very directional, and they must have
hit it at such an angle that the warhead's force was mostly spent towards open
space.  He did see several blips start to move, though, and knew that his
ships' ECM wasn't what it used to be against the Confeds.  They'd found some
sort of fix, because despite the cloud of electronic emissions congesting local
space, the Confederation torpedoes were powering up and trying to guide
themselves to his cruisers.  The Priman point defense lasers start speaking up
now, hammering away at the buzzing torpedoes and taking down some of their
number just as Vol noticed another transport dodging around underneath the
cruiser. 

The transport evaded the fire aimed at
it, spinning and maneuvering to avoid the energy streams reaching out towards
it.  There was a live person in control of that ship, whether actually onboard
or via remote.

Finally, he realized what was going on as
the transport ran into the belly of his escort carrier.  There was a flash of
brilliant light as the charge aboard it exploded, the directional blast digging
into the heart of his ship and sending gouts of flame and debris shooting out
of the hangar levels. 

"The transports have explosives
aboard!" he called to his comm officers.  "Either torpedoes or just
shaped charges.  Tell the cruisers to destroy the other transport now!"

His comm officer renewed his efforts, but
Captain Vol knew it was no use; contact was still impossible. 

To his great relief, he saw the Reaper
get underway towards the remaining transport, her sixteen anti-aircraft
batteries lighting up space at they spit rapid fire laser streams at the small
Confed craft.  Despite its efforts, the transport was soon overwhelmed.  The
lasers chopped it apart, separating wings, fuselage, and finally lighting off
the fuel cells.  Vol allowed himself a brief period of relief before he
refocused his attention on the cruisers.

They weren't going to catch Avenger; he
could see that now via the data feeds.  His ship, however, would have plenty of
time to fire on the enemy vessel.

Vol stood up and walked to the main
bridge display, commanding it to show a series of video feeds with a few taps
on the control pedestal.  Sometimes it was more rewarding to see the enemy die
with your own eyes instead of watching a computer proclaim victory.  He
selected the best angle and put it as the primary feed in the display.  The
view was from his own ship, and the camera was looking low and port towards
Avenger's exit point as his own vessel raced to intercept.  He smiled, knowing
that he'd have time to arrange his ship for the meet while Avenger was simply
going to have to run the gauntlet to clear the area. 

"All hands," Elco spoke over
the shipwide intercom.  "Clear the lower decks and hangar levels
immediately.  We have almost no shields and I mean to show the Primans our keel
if it comes down to it."

He returned his attention to the bridge,
trying to soak up every last piece of information that could help.  He had
precious few options left; navigational shields only, malfunctioning torpedo
launchers, functioning laser batteries on the starboard side only, and he
didn't want to launch the few remaining fighters since he aimed to jump to
hyperspace as soon as possible and didn't have time to wait on recovery
operations.  The only good news was that he still had three of his aft torpedo
launchers; the fourth had suffered an indeterminate failure and was out of
action again.  They wouldn't be able to reload, but he intended to launch them
when the time was right.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

"There she is," Vol said
quietly, victoriously.  He saw the stricken Confed ship making for her exit
point in the shipyard.  He was waiting for her, ship ahead of and above Avenger's
path, rolled so that his port side weapons all had a broadside aspect on the
enemy ship.  Priman weapons were a bit more evenly distributed around the hull
than Confed ship design, but the doctrine of 'crossing the T' was universal;
point as many of your weapons at the enemy as you can while in turn limiting
their ability to do the same.  The initial encounter was going his way as he
ordered his gunners to fire at will.  No sooner had she cleared the narrow gap
than Avenger rolled to show him her starboard side laser batteries, which
opened with a withering blast to rival his own.  The only difference was that
his shields were fully functional while Avenger's appeared to be offline.

Scores of laser hits impacted the Confed
ship's hull, scorching the surface and vaporizing armor, leaving pitted and
gouged panels behind.  Avenger began to roll again, showing Vol her keel much
like the feared Starshaker class battleships did.  Only, Avenger didn't have
armor that was many feet thick and intended to take repeated direct hits; she
had hangar bays, laser and AA batteries, and engine pods all waiting to be
destroyed.  He ordered torpedoes fired, saw several shot down but one impact on
Avenger's starboard ventral side just outboard of the starboard hangar.  A great
explosion followed, rended hull plates blown into space as compartments within
the hull were destroyed.

He heard the bridge hatch open and saw
Representative Ravine walk as fast as dignity allowed to join him on the
platform. 

"I apologize for my report taking so
long," she said by way of greeting.

"You have nothing to apologize for,
Representative," Vol replied quickly.  "You have many more
responsibilities than I do.  The fortunate thing is that you are here to watch
us defeat Avenger."

"Excellent," she replied, for
despite her occasional doubts about how her people meant to fight this war, she
had to acknowledge that there was no downside to vanquishing this particular
ship.

By now, Captain Vol's ship, Vigilance,
had passed beyond Avenger and begun a turn to starboard to bring her back over
the top of the Confed ship.

"Helm," Vol commanded,
"take us back across their stern, nose down ten degrees.  We'll destroy
their engines and then finish her at our leisure."

Vol was about to explain to the
Representative that normally he wouldn't consider such a move, but between all
the torpedoes the Confeds had dumped in the shipyard and the fact that they
hadn't fired any while taking such a pummeling in the process of escaping must
mean that their aft launchers were offline.

"Torpedoes, Captain!" Vol heard
in an excited voice.  "Avenger just launched three towards us!"

"Well," Vol yelled back,
"shoot them down!  Helm, evasive maneuvers!"

Vigilance began such an aggressive turn
that the inertial compensators couldn't keep up, and he found himself holding
onto the same guard railing that the Representative was using.  She was always
confident and stoic on his bridge, and he felt now more than ever that she
would make a capable Commander some day.  Perhaps he could even lead a fleet
for her if he performed well...

Only one of the Confed torpedoes made it
through causing a hull breach on an outer compartment of his ship.  While
Priman ships didn't carry as much armor as their Confed counterparts, their
shields were often able to force an early detonation of the Confed weapons,
causing their warheads to damage hull plates instead of penetrating the hull
first.  Measured against the destruction of Avenger, he'd take the torpedo and light
laser damage from her in trade any time.

"Resume pursuit," Vol added,
though he was starting to worry about Avenger's range now.  She was beginning
to tickle the edge of the stasis field surrounding the shipyard, and that
carried the possibility of her escaping the forces that prevented hyperdrive
fields from forming.

"Coming about, Captain," was
the reply.  His ship still chopped away at Avenger, carving furrows in her
armor plates and on occasion penetrating them entirely.  Debris clouded his
ship's path as several hits destroyed both of her aft ventral laser batteries.

Captain Elco stood behind the helmsman's
station, left hand holding onto the back of the chair to steady him as his ship
bucked and shook beneath him.  The bridge was a loud and distracting mess;
warning horns, lights blinking and demanding attention, status reports coming
in over the damage control station speakers, it was almost overwhelming.  One
had to learn to compartmentalize.  True, lots of bad things were happening to
his ship, but only one or two of them would end in the loss of the whole
vessel.

"How much longer to hyper?" he
asked of the helmsman.  He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din
around them.

"Twelve seconds," came the
terse reply. 

"Keep us rolling, helm," Elco
urged.  "We don't want them to hit the same piece of hull too many
times."  He looked over at the ops/conn station to the right of helm
control.  "We still good to go for hyperspace?"

"Good enough, Captain," came
the grim reply from the Drisk woman.  She knew the situation and what the
captain had wanted to know.  It didn't matter if the laser batteries were
functioning, if long range sensors were hit, or if the environmental plants
were working right; all that mattered was that the hyperdrive engines would
light off and that the sublight drives would keep Avenger moving until that
point.  So far, they were still holding onto that luck.

"Five seconds," came the call. 
Elco looked forward at the main holo now, watching the Priman cruiser cutting
low across Avenger's stern, looking for the chance to disable her for good.

"Come on," Elco muttered,
hoping that all the goodwill and efforts he'd put into getting his ship the
things she always needed would pay off now when everyone's lives depended on
it.

"I'm detecting a hyperdrive field
forming, Captain," Vol heard from a sensors station.  It was
unfathomable.  Avenger had a hole speared straight through her; he'd seen the
sensor image captures and had seen the stars though her as they'd crossed paths
on the merge.

"Torpedoes," he barked,
realizing that the lasers were not causing enough damage to stop the enemy ship
quickly enough.

"Torpedoes away!" Vol heard.

With a flicker of motion, Avenger was
gone, vanished to the relative safety of titanic and once-impossible speeds.

Vol had pulled in a breath to give
another command; he let it out now, slowly, trying to calm himself for the sake
of the Representative.  He couldn't lose control in front of her.

He turned to Ravine.  "It appears
they weren't as badly damaged as I'd believed."

"That ship seems to have a knack for
surviving, Captain," Ravine replied by way of consolation.  "It's
regrettable, but I think we will have the chance to finish the job.  She can't
possibly make very good speed to anywhere, can she?"

Ravine was absolutely right!  Vol
chastised himself for being so willing so give up; he simply needed to figure
out what Avenger's best options were and send some ships to those locations to
meet them.

He raced over to the master plot and
ushered the crewman there away.  He began calculating, estimating, looking at
the Carada system and the obvious choices.  There was always an end-run back to
Confederation space.  It wasn't likely, in his mind, for that ship and captain
to give up so easily. With damaged engines it would be a weeks-long journey
through open or occupied space anyway, something that Vol couldn't see as much
of a possibility.  Still, he'd alert some of the patrols along the way back
through occupied Priman space. 

There was a direct route to the nearest
Confed stronghold, only a few days travel from here.  The Confederation had
actually raided, captured, and fortified a relatively major Priman supply depot
and had held it against two counterattacks.  He'd been assured that it was part
of the rebel Confeds that had seceded from the Confederation itself and that
the situation would be resolved through the Confederation Governing Committee
that appeared to be all but puppets of the Primans, but that was the business
of other forces within his government to worry about. 

And then there was the long-shot, the
oddity that just might pay off.  His sources had revealed Avenger's itinerary
on her diplomatic/spy mission, and the next stop was Faaria, one of the more
important worlds in the Mining League.  Coincidentally, Avenger's initial
heading pointed her more towards Faaria than any other location he could dig
up.  But was that logical?  Was there any point in continuing on with their
mission, considering their damage and the fact that they had to realize their
plans were compromised?  Was it an act of desperation, or were they unconcerned
that Captain Vol might guess where Avenger was headed?

He thought about it for some time, until
he realized his bridge crew was getting nervous.  They were trying to look
busy, but he realized they were waiting for him to do something.

"Here are my orders," he said
confidently as he made his way to the communications officer.  "Have Task
Forces Four, Fifteen, and Seventy-Five be on the lookout for Avenger if she
tries to make it back to Confed space.  Alert the Red Fleet that Avenger may
try to join with the rebel Confeds occupying our depot in the Yularia system. 
Tell
Tring
and
Elexa
to make way to Faaria
when they can and await orders from us."

Then he turned and walked back to his
chair, seated himself and made a show of getting comfortable.  "Helm, set
course for Faaria, max speed."

Vol looked at Representative Ravine. 
"I'm going to need some more ships." 

Loren walked the corridors of Avenger, a
man on a mission.  It had been over ten hours since they'd jumped to
hyperspace, and he was still tense; he expected a forced transition back to
realspace at any second as Primans ambushed and destroyed his ship. 

Captain Elco had laid in a smart course
for their journey; it would take them on a loop down and around the Faaria
system, swinging back in from a vector completely off course from the
straight-line plot from Carada to Faaria in the hopes of dodging any Priman ships
that might be trying to blockage the place.  Space was big, strategists always
liked to remind the common folk, and it would take dozens of ships to even
begin to cut off a single planet.  Loren felt good about their chances of
getting to Faaria, at least.  Since the planet was aligned with a large group
of galactic-core-based systems, it was still considered outside the conflict
raging through Loren's home.  Confed as well as the Primans were noninvolved
parties, and Loren as well as the captain both were willing to bet the Primans
wouldn't risk attacking Avenger while in orbit of the planet.  Once they left,
that was another story, much like the Carada Monarchy, but they'd get to that
when the time came. 

Loren stopped at the entrance to main
engineering, a journey that took almost twice as long as it normally would have
thanks to the gaping hole through the ship.  Internal comms were spotty at
best, so he'd come down to engineering to get the latest from Chief Fyr.

He entered and stood outside the chief's
office, who saw him and motioned that he'd be out in one minute.  Loren turned
in place and inspected the main engineering level.  He felt the occasional
rolling tremors that had been plaguing the ship since her jump to hyperspace. 
They'd improved noticeably in the last hour or so as the engineers had
stabilized the hyper field, but to someone like him who'd spent so much time
aboard there was no way to miss it.

"XO," the chief said by way of
greeting as he extended his hand to shake, "here for the latest?"

Loren shook the man's hand, somehow put
at ease by the man's handshake versus a salute or more regulated greeting. 
"Ready when you are."

"Ok, then, follow me and I'll show
you what we have."

They walked through engineering, finally
entering some access spaces that grew tighter and tighter until Loren had to
crouch as his shoulders rubbed the walls.  He noted that his uniform was
getting greasy where it contacted metal surfaces, but the chief was dirtier and
more tired than he, so he didn't complain. 

"Alright," the chief said as
they stopped at an inspection station that carved out a small habitable space
among the ductwork and machinery.  The chief pointed to a scratched and
somewhat cloudy transparent armor viewport only about as big as a data pad,
through which Loren squinted to see beyond.

"In there is Engine Room Two.  Well,
what's left of it, anyway.  The hyperdrive reactor is just gone, vaporized back
to the elements.  It took a lot of associated machinery with it when it let go,
but I think everything's been logged and discovered now.  So, we're up to about
sixty percent speed for the hyperdrive.  I can maybe get that up to around
sixty-five, but that's about it.  We have enough capacity in the machine shops,
printers and materials tanks to seal up the outer hulls and repair the main
structural elements.  We can probably rebuild a laser battery or two as well. 
We should be able to repair most of our combat ability enroute; it's just a
matter of how much time we have.  Forward torpedoes should be first, then port
side laser batteries.  Aft torpedo launchers work, but we're going to have to
build a temporary loading track to get the weapons from the magazines up to the
launchers."  The chief finished and waited for Loren's reaction.