Dreadnought (2 page)

Fortunately
they had kept their speed to eighty percent that of light to decrease the time
needed for their final run to their destination. They needed only a final sharp
acceleration to carry themselves up to starflight threshold, a matter of only a
couple of minutes even for bulk freighters. As soon as those ships began
disappearing without exploding, Captain Tarrel knew that the survivors were
safe. By that time, only four seemed likely to make it clear. But the unseen
enemy had left the military ships completely alone, either saving them for
sport or simply picking off, the freighters before they could escape. She found
that a disquieting observation in itself.

“Order
the other ships to break and flee into starflight,” she ordered. “Let’s get the
hell out of here as fast as we can. Relay to the battleships to circle around
once they are clear. We have to make some determination about the status of the
station and remaining system traffic.

“All
ships acknowledging.”

“Then
let’s scatter.”

Tarrel
had already predicted two events. The escape of the fighting ships would be
noted, especially now that the freighters were gone, and the larger, slower
carriers would lag behind and find themselves selected as the most inviting
targets. The five military ships suddenly darted away, each one in a different
direction, and it turned out that she was wrong in her second estimate. The
intelligence of their enemy was cold, calculating and merciless. The
battleships were most likely to escape, generators normally reserved for heavy
cannons and shields pouring vast amounts of power into their over-sized
engines, and so they were targeted first. The first went in a matter of
seconds, overloaded generators exploding with enough force to put a sizeable
dent in a planet. The second battleship lost power and was left adrift for a
long moment while lightning rippled over its hull. Observing this final attack
visually, Captain Tarrel wondered if she could protect her ship.

“Standing
to threshold?” she asked.

“Ninety-seven
percent at this moment, Captain.”

“Full
power to the hull shields, even if the diversion of power slows our transfer
into starflight.”

“Captain?”
Chagin asked, surprised.    *

“Do
it now,’’ she snapped.

That
order was obeyed only just in time. In the next moment, a tremendous rush of
energy washed over Carthaginian’s hull. The shields took the initial assault,
and forces that would have ripped the giant ship apart erupted over her hull.
The shields held only a matter of seconds before they failed, power couplings
burned out from the overload. But the ship escaped in that same instant into
starflight, her transitional shock wave shaking off the devastating effects of
the weapon discharge.

Carthaginian
had barely survived. Devastated by the attack, she was still spaceworthy but in
no condition to fight. Too many of her high-power systems had been destroyed
trying to shed an overload of energy, even though she had caught only the edge
of that devastating weapon’s force. After circling in starflight for a full
hour, Captain Tarrel had her brought back into system as close to the inhabited
planet and its meager station as safely possible. A parabolic loop around the
system’s star and then around the planet itself helped to cut the immense
ship’s speed with a minimum use of the drives and their betraying energy
signatures.

Tarrel
had already relayed her warning ahead to the station, sending the local traffic
to cover and dampening all major energy emissions. But closing the system to
traffic did not solve the problem of ships already in flight, not when most
commercial vessels needed a couple of hours either to get themselves to
transition velocity or make they way back to the station. The matter was
largely irrelevant under any circumstances. There was no indication that making
a ship emission-silent decreased its visibility even to known Starwolf
technology, only that unobtrusiveness made it a less inviting target when more
tempting ones were at hand. Captain Tarrel had always felt helpless enough in
dealing with Starwolves, but that was nothing compared with the helplessness of
this situation.

Ignoring
normal approach protocol, Carthaginian made a rapid advance to the station,
matching velocities during a final, crushing loop about the planet, and nosed
in to a docking sleeve. Captain Tarrel had been required to trust a great deal
to the abilities of her bridge crew in that maneuver, and almost as much to
luck. The echoes of that hard docking were still ringing through the ship as
she left the bridge for the nose lock. Only a couple of minutes later she
reached the military command post and the offices of the Sector Commander. Dan
Varnoy was a man she had known well in the past, the captain of the first ship
on which she had served as a senior officer, the same ship that was her present
command. She knew that she could talk to him easily, and that he would believe
her assessment of the seriousness of the situation. He had agreed quickly
enough with her recommendation to close the system.

“Jan,
what have you been doing out there?” he asked the moment she entered the main
office. “We saw ships exploding in rapid succession, but there seemed to be
something strange about the whole affair. We never recorded any weapon flashes.
” “Neither did we,” Tarrel said. “Nor did we see any attacking ships, as if we
were being picked off by something still in starflight. No ships, and no
weapons traces. It was as if we were being hit with a weapon that poured a
tremendous amount of destructive power into a ship’s hull without the need for
either the attacking ship or the download beam making itself known. But I am
only guessing. There are certainly other possible weapons that might have had
the same effect.”

“Could
it have been mines made to escape scanner detection?” Varnoy asked.

“There
seemed to be no detonation of any mine, unless it could have been drawn to a
ship and discharged. But the nature of the energy discharge did not suggest
that.”

“Did
any of the ships survive the attack?”

“As
far as I know, only the Carthaginian,” she explained. “We were hit just as we
were on the edge of transition, and we shook off the discharge by escaping into
starflight. I’ve had the data from the event shunted over to your main
computers.” They retired to a terminal for a couple of minutes while Commander
Varnoy looked over the report. The data was completely raw, not yet organized
in any fashion, but the message was plain enough. “That was a clever move on
your part, but you were still lucky.”

“I
know that,” Tarrel agreed. “I still don’t see what we can do to defend
ourselves against this attack, or even detect it. There’s just not enough data
to suggest how it is being done.”

“You’re
actually being fairly generous in your estimation of just how much hard data we
actually have.”

She
nodded. “If I can stick out my neck a little farther, I have to admit some
doubt that this is even a Starwolf attack.” Varnoy glanced at her. “Just a
suspicion, or can you be specific?”

“Suspicions
on specific observations at this time,” she said. “This seems to be a sudden
and very big jump in Starwolf technology. At the same time, I have to admit
that fairly simple adaptations of existing techniques might be giving very
dramatic results.”

“Granted,
on both counts.”

“The
attack also seemed pointlessly cruel,” she added. “Starwolves can be very
cruel, when they have the need. But they make very certain that you get the
message of whatever lesson they want to make. And they can be very
compassionate as well. This was very casual and undirected, almost like an
automated weapon picking off our ships at random.”

“An
interesting point,” Commander Varnoy admitted. “I still believe that we will
find Starwolves behind this, and that the cold, brutal manner of the attack was
to satisfy the requirements of a field test of some new weapon. But if we can’t
pin it to them any time soon, we have to consider the possibility of a new
enemy. Any more ideas of what to do about it?”

Tarrel
shook her head. “We recorded no data that could have been used as an indicator
of attack or the location of the attacking ship, and no way to trace or even
estimate direction of fire. They might be right on top of us, and they might be
sitting light-years away. I just don’t see any way to fight back.”

“We
need more data, and I don’t see any way of getting it except the hard way.”

The
station alarm lit up at that moment, red alert proximity three. Something out
in the system was happening, probably dangerous. Captain Tarrel looked up,
knowing already what it must be. One of the commercial vessels still out in the
system had just come under attack. Commander Varnoy looked up at her, his
steady gaze unreadable, before he turned to the communications monitor.

“What
have we got?” he asked briskly.

“A
pocket freighter coming into system just exploded,” the response came
immediately. “No indication of attacking ship or weapons, but we treated it as
an attack under the circumstances. Should we send out the system fleet?”

“Negative,”
he answered without hesitation. “Have the entire fleet move off from the
station and stand by, cargo ships and tenders as well. Order all private and
commercial ships out of the system in the opposite direction from the last
attack.” “Your orders understood and relayed.” There was a momentary pause.
“Sir, we just lost another ship, this one much closer than the first. We have
moved up the alert status to proximity two.”

“Give
me a system map indicating the sites of the two attacks.”

They
glanced briefly at the system schematic that came up on the monitor, enough to
see that the line of attack was moving directly toward the inhabited planet and
the station.

“Commander,
evacuate the station,” Tarrel urged him. “Send everyone down in any life boat
and small shuttle with minimal energy emissions that can take them as quickly
as possible to the planet.”

“We
have over four thousand people up here,” Varnoy protested, then nodded with
great reluctance and turned back to the communication monitor. “Order all major
power systems on the station shut down. Order all civilian personnel to
evacuate the station immediately. They are to proceed to planet surface. No
ships will be standing by to evacuate personnel; use emergency pods and
shuttles only. Order all private ships at station and unable to disembark
immediately to be abandoned.”

“Your
orders understood and relayed.”

“Commander,
I have to get to my ship immediately,” Tarrel insisted. “We might be able to
buy some time. ...”

“The
hell you will!” Varnoy declared, turning on her. “You have to get your ship the
hell out of here as fast as you can move. You have the only direct records and
observations on this enemy, so your only concern is to get yourself intact to
Sector HQ by any means possible. I haven’t yet decided whether to use our own
ships to buy time. For as little effect as it would likely have, I think that I
would rather send all ships to safety now. Can you protect yourselves in any
way?”

“No,
all we have on line are drives and partial navigational shields. No scanners
except some passive, and no battle shielding.”

“Then
time is the one defense you have,” Varnoy told her.

“I’ll
call ahead and have Carthaginian standing by to move the moment you come
aboard. Now go.”

Captain
Tarrel left without a word of farewell or a glance back, and she did not even
think to ask until it was too late whether he meant to join the evacuation or stay
at his post. So much probably depended upon whether or not there was time to
clear the entire station of inhabitants. The halls of the station were filled
with people hurrying to find shuttle bays and life boats, many of them
struggling to carry small children or valuable records. All in all, this was a
relatively small station serving a limited colony. They might just all get
away, especially if the unseen enemy was having to maneuver or decelerate to
attack. And if the major power systems were shut down, there was some reason to
hope that the station would be spared destruction. She still held to her pet
theory that high-level emissions drew attention from the automated attack
systems of their adversary.

She
made it to Carthaginian’s nose lock quickly enough, in spite of the confusion
in the station. She sealed the lock herself and released the docking grapples
manually, and the battleship began sliding backward out of her berth only a few
seconds later, drawing back somewhat faster than her usual habit. Tarrel
approved completely, although she was given to wonder just who had the helm at
that moment.

By
the time she reached the bridge, they were already pulling clear of the station
and turning about to maneuver clear. The area was full of ships; even the
Sector Fleet was running, so there was no doubt that Commander Varnoy had
considered them ineffective in covering the evacuation. The ships were moving
up from the station, away from the planet below, while the shuttles and pods
were dropping away quickly toward atmosphere. Anything else would have made
navigation completely impossible.

“What
does it look like outside?” she demanded, hurrying to her seat before
accelerations put her against the walls.

“We
have nothing absolutely certain since the station stopped relaying active
scanner data,” the surveillance officer reported. “I have recorded the
destruction of two more ships, one within two light-minutes of the planet and
one just outside of orbit.”

“What
the hell do they want?” Tarrel asked quietly. The Starwolves would never
wantonly take out a tactically unimportant station, just for the sake of
destruction. “Take us out of this system as fast as this ship will move. Our
destination is Sector Headquarters.”