Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (3 page)

Captain Sheff knew however that the true threat would be along mere seconds later and those ceramic projectiles might just rip him and his escorted cruisers to so much floating debris.

"All craft evasive maneuvers!" Sheff screamed and leaned against the inertial tug as the Driscoll jerked hard to starboard.

His mind raced, searching for a solution. If they stood their ground and fought, they might take a few of them down before they were overcome, and everyone on board every ship in the fleet would surely die. If they retreated, not only would the Coalition make their next jump into Mars space unchallenged, they would also attain a psychological victory knowing they had sent the Earth Republic fleet running with their proverbial tails between their legs.

There would be no retreat, not today.

He held no delusion that the small force at his disposal could stop the massive Coalition armada that continued to grow before his eyes, as the Virtual Array had expanded itself into a tactical display that showed a grand total of 32 hostiles but it was his duty to try to do as much damage to them as possible.

“Helmsman, provide as much cover as you can for our Cruisers while still allowing them clear fields of fire!” Sheff barked as he collapsed back into his command chair.

“Weapons Control, find the closest target and give them an initial spread of Ceramics. I want you to fire everything, and I do mean everything at the closest Coalition Heavy Cruiser!"

Captain Sheff of the Earth Republic Fleet knew that his orders would be carried out without question, fear or hesitation. Sparing a nanosecond of mental thought, he blessed and thanked the men and women around him for their courage.

Captain Sheff felt the familiar vibration coursing through the Driscoll’s hull as the first barrage of Ceramics was unleashed.

Looking across the command tier at his Executive Officer, Captain Sheff yelled, "Options XO, I need options and I need them now!"

His second in command, Bruce “Steel Eyes” Higuera, who had been with him through some bad scrapes before, looked up at him from the screen he had been looking at. He straightened his muscular frame and squared his broad shoulders as if coming to attention.

Facing his Captain, an old friend, his hazel eyes were narrow as a knife and told the Captain what he already knew about their situation but also somehow managed to convey that there would be hell to pay by the Coalition before he would allow himself to go into the beyond. “Concentrate Ceramics on the smaller craft and then exhaust our supply of Leap Frogs on the Heavy Cruisers and then spit in their freaking eye, Sir!”

Sheff nodded and couldn’t help but honor his XO with a grim smile. Turning to his Officer of the day, he said, "Send a real time message to EFCOM," (Earth Fleet, Command). "Let them know the Coalition is coming in force, and while we will do our damnedest to hold them here as long as we can, advise them the situation is grim. Append our tactical analysis."

“Weapons Control, convey to the fleet to concentrate their Ceramic fire on one of the smaller Coalition Cruisers at a time. The Driscoll will be choosing the targets and unloading all of our Ceramics on them as well before moving to the next target,” Sheff said in the more controlled and commanding voice that the crew was used to hearing from their old man

“Helmsman! Make damn sure they don’t surround us.”

Sheff mentally counted to three to allow the Weapons Control officer adequate time to send the order to their small fleet before stating his next command "Weapons Control, continue to launch our Leap Frogs to eliminate one hostile Heavy Cruiser before proceeding to the next.”

His orders given, Captain Sheff awaited the results and looked down at the vid in his control arm to pull up damage reports. He was surprised to see that he had pulled up the Self Destruct command screen. “Well, that answers what kind of person I am,” thought Sheff before clearing the screen and assessing the minor damage the Driscoll had taken from the few enemy Ceramics that had managed to reach them before they evaded their ballistic path. There were no breaches, yet.

Sheff returned his vision to the Virtual Array where the satisfying sight of one of the hostile smaller cruisers breaking apart in an eviscerated husk once the kinetic force of the Ceramics smashed into its lightly armored hull.

The other nice thing about the Republics ceramic projectile is that they were designed to fracture shortly after impact, sending tiny shards in all directions to maximize damage to the hostile. In spite of their small size and weight, the density and hardness of the ceramic combined with the velocity and rate of fire were devastating on even the thickest armor plating.

The Captain watched with grim satisfaction as the atmosphere that had been on board the hostile craft expanded into a halo-like area surrounding the detritus of the destroyed craft. Sheff knew all too well that this cloud consisted of a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and bits and pieces of its former crewmembers.

“Sir, the first Leap Frog is away!” called the Weapons Control officer. The Captain shifted his full attention and ordered the Virtual Array to follow the Pulse Missile Mark I’s progress. Sheff had of course seen remarkably realistic simulations of what the Leap Frog could do but he had never had the opportunity to use one in live combat before.

The V.A. showed the small blips as the weapon blinked in and out of Null Space, correcting its trajectory in the microseconds it was in Normal Space. Within seconds, it found what it was looking for. A standard Earth Republic Fleet cruiser could fit inside the devastating hole that was created in the Coalition’s craft by the combined kinetic energy and directed explosion at extremely close range. Better still the Coalition’s heavy battle cruiser went dark as the physics of electromagnetic radiation fried the ships on board systems.

Captain Sheff yelled a silent “Hoorah!” inside his head as his hand tightened their grip on the armrest of his command chair. “One for our side,” he thought.

“Helmsman, flip us about,” ordered Sheff.

The E.R.F. Driscoll had another tactical trick up its sleeve that Captain Sheff planned on taking full advantage of. Deep within the bowels of the main hull of the ship, there existed two extremely powerful Control Moment Gyroscopes or C.M.G.s. These allowed the extreme mass of the Driscoll to flip and rotate to any direction desired within moments.

“Fire Control, give the next one a taste of our aft Leap Frog,” Sheff ordered. This would allow the Weapons Control Technicians the necessary time to ready the fore launcher for its next salvo.

The Captain quickly checked the Virtual Array for a tactical assessment. Two more of the Coalition’s smaller craft were either destroyed or so badly damaged as to be out of the fight, but the Republic fleet was starting to be outmaneuvered by the much larger Coalition armada and it was getting harder to evade their combined massive firepower.

As the Captain monitored the tactical display on the Virtual Array, he suddenly saw the Pendragon, one of the two support cruisers at the Driscoll's starboard, explode in a massive burst of violate plasma that lit the blackness of space around them in a dazzling display as dozens of Coalition Ceramics ripped through her hull. The Null Drive must have gone critical as the enemies Ceramics decimated the lightly armored Republic cruiser for there to be such a light show.

The Pendragon had been broken into two large pieces of debris that were separating and beginning to drift apart.

Before the second cruiser, the Acomo, could maneuver itself to safety, it collided with what remained of the forward second of the Pendragon. Captain Sheff watched in real time as the slow motion impact of the debris on the aft section of the Acomo which crippled its propulsion systems according to the complete tactical readout on the V.A.

That was two of the six of his tiny battle group out of commission and the Coalition forces were closing in despite the best efforts of his Helmsman.

Sheff turned to confer with the Officer of the day when something out of the corner of his eye turned his attention back to the main tactical display on the Virtual Array and he knew that the end was near.

“Brace for impact!” he ordered as he saw that they were in the direct path of a small man made meteor shower of Coalition Ceramics. Almost as soon as the order was out of Captain Sheff’s mouth there came a massive vibration through the bridge and judging from the pleading claxons coming from “The Pit,” he knew it was a direct hit.

“Weapons Control, where in the hell is my Leap Frog?” questioned Sheff.

“Launching now, sir,” the reply came.

“Helmsan, show them our least damaged side!” barked the Captain.

Weapons Control called out a report to the Captain. “Sir, that last hit took out all but 22 of our Ceramics. Leap Frog launchers are still fully operational. Firing the fore launcher now!”

Junior Lieutenant Simmons called out from the pit, “Decks seven, twelve, and nine are sealed due to decompression.”

That was bad news, thought the Captain. Life Support systems used to be on deck twelve. They were now breathing the last of their atmosphere and there would be no more coming their way.

"Weapons Control," Sheff yelled out, "Concentrate all Ceramics on the nearest target. Let's take as many of these bastards with us as we can."

"Helmsman!” Sheff barked. Then said in a gentler tone, "Lieutenant Commander Craven, let’s take the fight to them. If they are going to take us down, I want to break the back of their flagship. Flank speed!"

"Sir?" Lieutenant Jones asked, confirming the order.

"You heard me right, Craven." Sheff bolted from his command chair and quickly crossed the distance between him and the Helmsman. He gently placed his hands on Craven’s shoulders and said, “Lay in the course, son. I want to see what they had for breakfast this morning."

Without looking up from his controls as he complied with the order, Lieutenant Jones asked him, "You intend to ram it, sir?"

Giving Jones’ shoulder a reassuring squeeze, Captain Sheff said, "I intend to show the Coalition exactly what the Earth Republic Fleet is made of."

Captain Sheff looked over his right shoulder to the Officer of the Day. “Thompson, inform the Captain’s of the Perseus, Endurance, and Gamma Burst of our intent. Inform them that they are free to act on their own discretion.”

The Driscoll's engines flared into violet brilliance as she increased her velocity through Normal Space. The ram’s head shot forward on a collision vector with the lead enemy battleship.

Without having to look, the Captain knew his XO had left his station and was now standing at ease behind him, offering the calm reassurance he had relied on in multiple battles before, but this would be their last. Sheff hoped that if there were something after death, he would meet Bruce there.

The Driscoll's Ceramics and Leap Frogs continued to rain down on the enemy ships they passed while their velocity increased. Weapons Control managed to take down two more of the Coalitions Light Cruisers and disable one more Heavy Battle Cruiser.

But the favor was returned. Looking at the Virtual Array, Captain Sheff was surprised to see that Perseus and Endurance were following in their wake and giving as good as they got. The Gamma Burst had apparently Nulled out.

Ceramics from numerous Coalition ships raked the Driscoll's hull, peppering its thick armor plating like a shotgun blast. “The Pit” reported more breaches on several more decks. With her armor plating failing under the ballistic onslaught, new holes and scars were being steadily added to the Driscoll’s hull.

Soon entire sections of the hull were giving way, venting atmosphere into the void, filling the battlefield with vast amounts of fractured debris, both metallic and human, which quickly fell behind the Driscoll as she continued to increase in velocity.

Captain Sheff leaned in and said in a soft voice to Lieutenant Commander Craven, “Faster, son, let’s give them all we've got.”

Sheff's Officer of the day cried out in pain as her station erupted into a cascade of sparks and flames from a system overload. Helplessly, he watched Thompson writhing on the floor, as the Com Officer left her post to aid her. Stamping out the burning uniform with her bare hands, Sheff turned his head away when he saw the charred flesh sloughing from her arms.

He fought back the tears forming in his eyes. This was his crew. He was responsible for their safety and he was about to kill them all. Bruce, the XO of the Driscoll stepped forward and whispered, “It is the final and only option, sir.”

Helmsman Craven called out, “Sir the Perseus and Endurance have broken off.” Seconds later, he reported, “Sir! They’ve both rammed a heavy battle cruiser!”

“Don’t mourn them, Craven, we’ll see them again soon,” the Captain of the Driscoll said with a steeled edge to his voice.

With the smell of burning hair and skin filling the bridge, Sheff kept his eyes forward as the Coalition battleship grew closer on the now flickering Virtual Array with each passing second. In spite of their last minute efforts to evade the pending collision, he felt the impact of the Driscoll smashing into the bridge of the Coalition flagship as a smile crossed his lips and he yelled, “For the Republic!”

Then there was only light, heat, and darkness.

Michael sat in Flame Slinger's cupola and in spite of the cramped quarters, stretched like a man wakening from a deep sleep. Outside his vehicle, the Coalition ground pounders were now handling the cleanup operation on New Antrim.