Rich Man's War (44 page)

“That’s two destroyers and a frigate,” said Hawkins.

“Well, yeah. We’re kinda dodgy here, sitting out on our own, not offering visuals… Guns, how do we look?”

“Waiting for orders,
cap’n,” answered his chief gunner.

“Keep the beam weapons cool. Don’t want to tip our hand. Ranges?”

“Eighty thousand and closing,” replied Quentin. “Contacts are splitting up. Destroyer
Norfolk
approaching off to starboard, destroyer
Colombo
drifting to port, frigate
Gwendolyn
trailing up the middle.”

“They wanna box us in,” Casey surmised. “Outstanding.”

“How is that a good thing?” Hawkins asked.

Casey threw him a quizzical look. “We’re out here to buy time. You want us to surrender?”

Though momentarily tongue-tied, Hawkins managed an answer. “We haven’t heard anything from Raphael or the Navy.” He pointed to the astrogation table. “There’s no way anyone expected that many ships to show up at our doorstep! For all we know, Raphael’s already negotiating a surrender!”

Casey gestured for Hawkins to step closer, and then leaned in. “Ask me if I give a shit,” he hissed, and then clapped Hawkins on the shoulder. “You might wanna get strapped in. Ops! Ranges?”

“Drawing within 40k and decelerating,” Quentin announced.

“Guns, you got an optical lock?” Casey asked. “No bouncing signals off these guys. Might give them the wrong idea. You gotta do this on manual.”

The gunner’s mouth twitched with a nervous grin. Even ‘manual’ targeting relied on considerable aid from the computers. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

“Engineering, how are we doing?” Casey asked over the internal comms net.

“We’re ready for full burn whenever you need,” came the response.

“
Norfolk’s
at 20k…
Colombo
at 18k,” Quentin reported. “
Gwendolyn’s
closing to fifteen.”

“We’re receiving instructions from
Norfolk
, sir,” spoke up the comms officer. “Come about and roll seventy degrees to receive shuttles.”

“Let’s oblige ‘
em. Helm, seventy-degree roll. Guns, on my mark. Engineering, hold steady. Quentin, you got your finger on the ES system?”

“Electrostatic reinforcement ready,” Quentin confirmed. “Say the word.”

“Not yet,” Casey advised. He stared at the tactical boards, with each of the ships now coming in close enough that the computers kicked over to enhanced visuals. Within seconds, the almost leisurely pace of the ships halved the distances of Quentin’s last report. The main fleet began drifting through the hole they’d made in the drone net. Nothing came from Raphael or from the Archangel Navy.

Casey adjusted the solid screen to his right. In its reflective black border, he saw Hawkins standing nearby. He routed targeting instructions via the screen, prioritizing silently between
Argent’s
systems.

“
Gwendolyn
and
Colombo
are launching shuttles,” said Quentin. “
Norfolk
has us in weapons lock.”

“Sure she does.” Casey looked over his right shoulder and then his left, his eyes sweeping the bridge in one last check of his crew. Hawkins remained close. His hand rested on the holstered pistol at his side.

“
Gwendolyn
at 2k and holding.
Colombo
at 3k to port and decelerating but still closing.
Norfolk
is at rest at 5k to starboard. Shuttles closing.”

“Don’t worry, Hawkins,” Casey said. “There’s no way I’d ever deprive your people and these motherfuckers a chance to murder each other.”

Hawkins blinked. “What?”

“Hit ‘
em now!” Casey roared, stepping out of his chair. Hawkins blinked again, both at the sudden commitment to battle and Casey’s unexpected movement. Weapons systems all across
Argent’s
length fired at once, engaging each of the approaching ships with a torrent of fire.

Gwendolyn
suffered the first and worst of
Argent’s
punishment, lined up as she was within the main gun’s field of fire.
Argent’s
computers had all the time they would ever need to line up the shot. Twin laser cannons tore into the bow of the frigate with greater power than any ordinary starliner could put toward her weapons. Though
Gwendolyn’s
hull enjoyed the same sort of reflective coating and electrostatic reinforcement as
Argent
and most other warships, none of that was enough to withstand such a blast at this close range. Wide red beams blasted straight through the center of the ship, setting off a cascade of explosions within her hull.

The frigate was not the sole recipient of
Argent’s
wrath. False panels along the liner’s hull flew away, sent flying into space by high-pressure charges at their joints to reveal missile pods and laser batteries on both sides of the ship. Flashes of light crossed thousands of kilometers instantly. Missiles followed only a heartbeat later.

False airlock hatches opened to extend defensive gun turrets. Though their short-range
explosive projectiles normally served as a last line of defense against incoming missiles, the turrets devoted their first few thousand rapid-fire shells to all but shredding the approaching shuttles.

Even with their crews vigilant and their combat systems ready, the sudden assault at such close range hit the destroyers hard.
Facing the liner’s “belly,”
Norfolk
suffered less damage, but she still felt the unforgiving heat of lasers that dug ugly scars into her reflective hull. External protrusions like turrets and scanning domes shattered and burst, but the destroyer held together. Her defensive systems reacted in time to stave off death, intercepting and detonating incoming missiles just outside the deadliest edge of their impact zones. Yet those close calls sent
Norfolk
reeling sideways.

Colombo
fared worse. With
Argent’s
dorsal side facing the destroyer, more of those concealed weapons had a clear shot, and
Colombo
had dared to come closer than
Norfolk
. Lasers struck with greater accuracy, eliminating defensive turrets that might have protected
Colombo
from the three incoming missiles that spread themselves almost evenly across her length. Any one of the blows would have been critical, but the one that smashed through her engine room instantly set off every one of the destroyer’s solid state fuel cells.
Colombo
died in a sudden burst of fire and light, leaving behind a mess of splintered debris.

“Back out!” Casey ordered as his ship’s scanners and computers assessed the damage they’d inflicted. “Full reverse! Chaff missiles
toward the fleet! Fire! Don’t wait for targets, just fire!”

Hawkins looked on with horror as he realized the gravity of
Argent’s
actions. She’d lured in and all but assassinated two ships and crippled a third in full view of the biggest armada the Union had seen in his lifetime.

And his captain sounded ecstatic.

* * *

“
Argent
is firing!” blurted one of the ops specialists. She nearly rose from her seat, but the intensity of the liner’s attack kept her riveted for the few heartbeats it took to assess the damage. “We’ve lost contact with all three ships!”

“Report!” Commodore
Eldridge demanded, but then corrected himself rather than wait. “Gordon, send the other CDC ships in there to—“

High-pitched alarms, flashing lights and the shocked voices of several other men and women on the flag bridge coincided with the bright flash of red light that cut through the space between
Hercules
and the frigate
Cascia
looming ahead of her. More such flashes followed, concentrating on the much smaller frigate rather than the battleship.

Eldridge
’s eyes darted to the command table, which had already processed the information. As the young ops specialist warned, none of the three ships remained on the comms net.
Colombo
’s icon went from blue to a faded grey to indicate her destruction.
Gwendolyn
flashed in a rapid sequence to denote her suspected neutralization.
Norfolk
, too, bore similarly grim designations, but at least spat a couple of missiles at
Argent.
The liner now backed away, firing chaff missiles that confused the computers on
Hercules
and, likely, anyone else tracking her.

“She’s firing at us!” another voice on the bridge reported needlessly.

“Gordon!” Eldridge called out.

“I’m on it, sir!” Commander Gordon replied. “Destroyers
Helene
and
Janus
dispatched. CDC destroyer
Devonport
is already moving in, too.”

Eldridge
nodded, maintaining his focus on the bigger picture but considering this development within it. He looked at a replay of the last few seconds. No cruise liner should have been able to do something like that to
Gwendolyn
. Even if one were heavily modified after she left the shipyards, the power draw alone wasn’t something that civilian ships were built to handle.

Except, of course, for certain cruise liners built by NorthStar
, and presumably some built by Lai Wa.

“Inbound contact!” another voice announced. “Civilian yacht bearing one-eight-
niner mark one-five-seven, moving fast!”

“She’s not coming for us, she’s moving for Expeditionary Group Alpha,”
Eldridge warned. “Tell them to close ranks, she’ll be there in seconds!” He glanced back to the fight with
Argent
and saw missiles and beam weapon fire already flashing between the liner and his own forces.

Eldridge
fumed.
These are just the stalling tactics. They’re going to fight.
“Damn it!”

* * *

She was a comfortable ship: sleek, welcoming, efficient. She was fast, too, and well-armed.

Seated beside the helmsman on the four-person bridge, where her original plush seating and user-friendly consoles remained, Chief Everett hoped the former
Guillotine
would hold under fire, too. This particular run wouldn’t come without cost. “Seven seconds to weapons range.”

“Mohamed, when I tell you to bank, go thirty-by-thirty and keep going, understand?” asked the man in the captain’s chair behind Everett. Like everyone else in the crew,
Lieutenant Alvarez was sealed in his vac suit with the faceplate of his helmet down and locked. Formerly the supervising officer of recruit training at Fort Stalwart and a solid performer, he’d been hand-picked for this job.

Alvarez knew full well that
Chief Everett made the call, regardless of the officers who sent Alvarez his orders. Even in the Navy’s traditional chain of command, a chief’s word carried great weight.

“Aye
aye, sir, thirty-by-thirty,” replied the young helmsman. “Still accelerating to maximum sublight.”

“Three,” said Everett. “Two. One.”

“Fire at will, Chief.”

Three more seconds elapsed before the first beams of laser fire appeared, working in vain to catch the yacht. The brief gap in response time offered proof of concept: the invading fleet was still getting itself together, and
Guillotine’s
speed gave her the chance to take advantage of a sluggish reaction. Three seconds was not a long delay, but it allowed her to halve the distance to her targets.

The hail of defensive fire from the enemy ships intensified in a single heartbeat as escort ships all around the yacht’s target joined in.
Guillotine
tilted, her thrusters deliberately sputtering to alter her speed and fool the enemy’s targeting computers. Chief Everett waited one more crucial second before firing off four missiles from the launchers concealed in the yacht’s wings. It left the assault carrier ahead of them only two seconds to intercept his shots.

A torrent of solid-projectile fire blocked one of the missiles. A late-firing chaff missile managed to destroy a second. The third and fourth made it through the defenses and smashed against the aft section of the assault carrier
Waterloo
.

Guillotine
didn’t stay to assess the damage. She banked according to her captain’s orders, hard to the right and “up” from her previous course, burning at full speed to escape the wrath of
Waterloo’s
escorts. The yacht shook from multiple explosive shells impacting against her reinforced hull.

Everett heard a sudden, loud “pop” behind him, along with a brief flash of heat and then the rush of pressurized air against his vac suit. Then, just as suddenly, he heard nothing at all. He looked over his shoulder to see blood and debris against the overhead. A fountain of sparks erupted from the shattered command console. His friend slumped back in his seat. “Captain?” Everett shouted. “Alvarez! Shit!”