The Lost Command (Lost Starship Series Book 2) (41 page)

“I’ve sat here a hundred hours or more,” Fletcher said, “setting up tactical situations and trying to devise a way past a picket of New Men. That’s what sapped my morale the most. I’ve never figured out a method to win our way to the Tannish Laumer-Point. What can one more vessel— even a super-ship—do to change the outcome?”

Taking the control unit, Maddox began to make adjustments. The holopad lit up. He tapped the control. Soon, a holoimage of the void appeared above the pad. At one end of the holoimage, fourteen red triangle star cruisers waited. The Fifth Fleet appeared as small blue dots at the other end. A few more taps brought the waiting enemy drones into view. They were between the two forces.

“Where’s the Laumer-Point?” Fletcher asked.

Maddox made one more adjustment. Far behind the star cruisers was the exit to freedom.

“What kind of firepower does your ship have?” Fletcher asked.

Maddox told him about the powerful but short-range neutron beam.

“Short range, you say?” Fletcher muttered. “That’s the worst news of all. You’d have to use that star drive to jump right beside them. The only problem with that is the star cruisers would slice you into bits before any of you shrugged off Jump Lag.”

Maddox nodded as he stared at the holoimage.

“Jump Lag nullifies the best use of your star drive,” Fletcher said.

“Are you aware of the experimental jumpfighters they’re practicing with on Titan?” Maddox asked.

“In concept,” Fletcher said.

“Maybe I should summon my second lieutenant. He can explain their ramifications.”

“Who is he?”

“A man by the name of Keith Maker,” Maddox said.

“Never heard of him.”

“He once fought against the Wallace Corporation during the Tau Ceti Conflict.”

“A rebel miner? I don’t know what he could bring to the table.”

“He’ll bring a keen understanding of jumpfighter tactics,” Maddox said, telling the admiral about Keith’s idea of using
Victory
as a giant jumpfighter.

Fletcher waved one of his big hands. “I’m out of ideas, and you’re not Fleet trained to know what’s best to do. Let’s see if a damned mining rebel can come up with anything.”

***

Second Lieutenant Maker walked into the Admiral’s quarters with a grin on his round face. It was about time the commanders starting asking for his advice.

He’d moved briskly through
Antietam’s
corridors. The stuffy smell and litter hadn’t bothered him as it had the captain. Keith was used to bad morale and messes. The miners at Tau Ceti had been in hard situations far too many times. One day, people were up. The next, they were down in the sewer. The asteroid tunnels had held women and children, not just the fighters. Lots of people stuffed into small places had meant bad smells and litter.

“Admiral Fletcher,” Maddox said, standing. “May I present to you, Second Lieutenant Keith Maker?”

“The captain tells me you’re an ace,” Fletcher said, as he shook hands with the smaller man.

“Yes, sir,” Keith said. “There’s no one better than me in a strikefighter.”

The admiral raised an eyebrow. “I can see this man belongs with you. He has your humility.”

“I’m just stating facts, Admiral Fletcher,” Keith said.

The big man scowled.

Keith noticed the captain giving him the smallest of head shakes. Keith shut-up and stiffened to attention, staring straight ahead.

Fletcher eyed him, glanced at Captain Maddox and cleared his throat. “Bunch of damned mavericks. I can’t believe this. But I’m not in a position to be choosy. Maybe that’s why you people are here and no one else made it or even thought of trying. Look at the table, see what you can see.”

“We’re examining the tactical situation,” Maddox told Keith.

“I see it,” Keith said, who put his hands behind his back and looked down at the holoimage. “That’s their fleet, their drones and our fleet. What’s the question, sir?” he asked Maddox.

“
Victory
acting like a giant jumpfighter,” Maddox said. “What could we do that wouldn’t let the star cruisers destroy us while we’re dull with Jump Lag?”

“That’s easy, sir,” Keith said. “We take out their drones.”

“Their drones?” Fletcher asked. “No. You’d just be exchanging a thermonuclear blast for beam-fire. I don’t see how that allows your starship to survive.”

“Begging the admiral’s pardon,” Keith said, “but that’s as simple as can be, sir.” The ace sat down at the table. “Can I, sir?” he asked, indicating the control unit.

Maddox slid it to him.

“Here, sir,” Keith said, making a green dot show up before the drones. “Our starship jumps to a position well out of their immediate blast-range. Then, we unload
Titan
-class missiles and jump away again. Our missiles accelerate for their drones. Both are still out of star cruiser beam-range. The enemy warheads begin detonating and so do ours. Soon enough, the enemy drones are gone, sir.”

Fletcher sat down heavily, blinking at the holoimage. The admiral began to nod. “That should work.”

“It
will
work, sir,” Keith said.

Fletcher turned sharply toward Keith, grunting after a moment. Then, he faced Maddox. “I was wrong about your mining rebel, Captain. Your man knows his jumpfighter tactics after all.”

“He does indeed, sir,” Maddox said. “Now, I have to ask, will your people fight when the time comes?”

“They will,” Fletcher said. “I’m going to see to that. How soon until you’re ready to make the drone attack?”

“Several hours, I should think,” Maddox said.

Fletcher rose to his feet. So did Maddox and Keith. The two men saluted the admiral. Then, the captain turned to Keith. “Let’s go. We have a lot of work to do.”

-41-

The next several days proved busy and physically grueling for
Victory’s
crew.

First, Maddox collected seventy percent of the Fifth Fleet’s remaining
Titan
-class missiles. Second, the ancient starship jumped near the accelerating enemy drones. The drones moved away from the waiting star cruisers, zeroing in on the Fifth. Through
Victory’s
open bay doors, the crew cold-launched two dozen missiles at interspaced intervals. Maddox didn’t want to hit the drones all at once, but in stages. Third, at Maddox’s orders, Lieutenant Noonan engaged the star drive, jumping out of danger.

Maddox waited for the crew to recover from Jump Lag. Soon enough, Valerie monitored the situation, giving a running report.

Distances—this time, from the star cruisers to their drones and the battleships from their missiles—mandated computer controlled reactions aboard the drones and missiles.

From his chair, Maddox watched the main screen. The drones and missiles appeared as blips. The enemy’s were red, and theirs were blue. They headed toward each other. The drones came in three big waves. The lesser number of missiles came in five staggered clumps. There was a reason for that.

The first
Titan
missile closed in on the first wave of drones.

“It should be any second now,” Valerie said.

Maddox nodded, although he didn’t speak. Space battle was so different, so long-ranged and slow. When the New Men had parachuted onto Wolf Prime, the captain had had to move fast, reacting in the moment. Out here in space, one could deliberate each move to death. Yet, what one had done hours or even days ago made the difference.

“There,” Valerie said. She pointed at a splash of white on the screen. That indicated an exploding thermonuclear warhead from one of their missiles.

Drone or missile, each side’s warhead was shape-charged. It meant the thermonuclear blast funneled forward in a cone shape instead of radiating outward in a circumference.

“Yes,” Valerie said.

Maddox squinted, wondering what she meant—then, he noticed ten percent of the drones, those in the very front of the first wave. They went from red to gray, indicating the blast from the missile’s warhead had rendered those drones inoperative.

For the next hour, the missiles and drones closed in on one another. Many exploded. Others imploded from enemy X-rays hammering them, frying the inner workings, turning them into inert warheads.

Despite the shape charging, the powerful nuclear reactions often killed the drones too close to the “friendly” explosions.

“We aren’t giving the drones time to spread out,” Valerie explained. “They would have done that against the fleet. Our missiles came at them before the enemy was ready to make his drones operational.”

Maddox understood. It was the key reason the missiles came in staggered attacks. That way, the first warheads didn’t destroy the other clumps of following missiles when they detonated.

By the end of the automated skirmish, eighty-three percent of the drones were gone or had malfunctioned. All the missiles were dead or exploded. That left a mere seventeen percent of the original drones heading for the Earth Fleet.

The fourth, fifth and sixth tasks
Victory
and her crew performed also involved the star drive jump. The ancient vessel moved around the star cruisers in a gigantic sphere. The starship stayed far beyond enemy beam range. At each location, the crew launched more missiles. Those missiles accelerated toward the enemy, timed to arrive all at the same time from various locations on the compass.

The jump maneuvering took its toll on the crew and on Galyan. It made everyone irritable and sluggish. One of the technicians died from a heart attack. A slarn trapper had an aneurysm, perishing on his acceleration couch.

Before any more fatalities occurred, the starship made its last jump for the moment, returning to the Fifth Fleet.

For the next several days, everyone aboard
Victory
rested. At high velocity, the Fifth Fleet approached the outer limits of the Tannish System. Continuing scans showed that another ten star cruisers accelerated from the Tannish Laumer-Point to the others. That made twenty-four enemy vessels against the Fifth’s thirty-six capital ships, plus destroyers, missile boats and
Victory
. Once more, Star Watch had a greater number and tonnage of vessels. This time, however, it was even more lopsided for the New Men than it had been at the Battle of Caria 323.

From what Valerie could tell, each enemy ship came with fully repaired hull armor and with all weaponry intact. It would be a battle of “healthy” star cruisers against “wounded” battleships and cruisers.

“There’s no turning back now,” Admiral Fletcher told his assembled senior officers.

It had been six days since Maddox’s meeting aboard the
Antietam
with Fletcher.

The Fifth moved against the enemy concentration with its heaviest, best-armored vessels in the lead. That meant the battleships, the least-damaged heavy cruisers and the empty motherships. Those carriers had good hull armor and shields, almost as powerful as
Bismarck
-class battleships. That was all the empty motherships were good for now. The others held the Fifth’s remaining strikefighters and bombers.

As per the plan that Fletcher outlined to the senior officers,
Victory
waited with the most damaged warships in the back of the formation.

The idea was straightforward. The best-armored ships protected the rest as a shell protected an egg’s yolk. The “shell” would take the long-range pounding from the star cruisers, hitting back with the heaviest-mount lasers once the Earth Fleet came within range. Once the Fifth reached within medium-range of the star cruisers, the rest of the ships—except for
Victory
—would come forward and unleash their firepower at the enemy.

At short range, as the two fleets moved into colliding territory,
Victory
would come forward to engage its neutron beam.

Admiral Fletcher stood in the conference chamber aboard
Antietam
. The senior officers sat around the long table, including Captain Maddox, with Lieutenant Noonan attending as his aide. She stood along the back wall where the other aides waited for their senior officers.

Fletcher still looked gaunt, but his eyes shined with a new intensity. “The Lord High Admiral sent us his best bet,” the admiral said, indicating the captain. “Cook sent Captain Maddox into the Beyond to find an ancient ship that wasn’t supposed to exist. It did, though.
Victory
holds ancient secrets. A mad genius named Ludendorff is still hard at work trying to figure out those weapons systems. Maybe he will before the battle starts, but it’s beginning to look as if he won’t.

“Well,” Fletcher said, scanning the officers and aides. “Even though the professor hasn’t succeeded yet,
Victory
does have its unique propulsion system. With it, Captain Maddox destroyed the massed enemy drones and seeded our own missiles to hit the star cruisers as the battle begins. Maybe the ancient Adok vessel can hammer the star cruisers into submission once it unleashes the neutron beam. I don’t know if we can save the Fifth, though. But, by damn, we can help Star Watch win the bigger war by annihilating as many enemy vessels as we can. I say that’s worth fighting for. I say that made our dash into the void a good gamble. We don’t get to see the finished product of our handiwork, but neither did King Leonidas.”

“Who is that, sir?” a commodore asked.

“Leonidas was an ancient Spartan king,” Fletcher said. “He led his three hundred Spartans at the famous Battle of Thermopylae at the Hot Gates. Those hoplites bought their side time with their lives, and they showed the enemy what the Greeks were made of. We’re going to show the New Men they can’t win this war. We’ll go down swinging, and
Victory
is the sharp sword we’re going to use to ram into their guts!”

Fletcher eyed Maddox. “Keep firing that neutron beam as long as you can, Captain. Then, when you know it’s over, jump out of danger, race home and tell them how the Fifth Fleet fought to the very end.”

“I will, sir,” Maddox said.

Fletcher inhaled before smiling sadly. “We have another twenty-eight hours before this battle begins. Let’s prepare to meet our end with dignity. Let’s go into the next life with glory in our hearts. Let them speak for a thousand years of how the Fifth Fleet battled against adversity, buying life for their loved ones at home.”

The senior officers at the table squared their shoulders. The aides along the walls stirred.

Maddox could feel the resolve building in them. Fletcher had a knack. The admiral had restored some of the lost morale. Dying wasn’t so bad if one had a reason. No one got out of this world alive. It was how you went that counted.

Captain Maddox scraped back his chair, standing. He gave Admiral Fletcher the crispest salute of his life.

“It is an honor serving and particularly fighting with you, sir,” Maddox said.

The admiral nodded, and then, he stared at Maddox. “
Atten-tion
,” the big man said in a loud voice.

Everyone jumped to his feet.

“Let us salute the man who came to rescue the lost command,” Fletcher said. “He braved the enemy and took every dare to fight through to us. You, sir, have my respect. You, Captain Maddox, are a man.”

Admiral Fletcher thereupon led the senior officers and aides of the Fifth Fleet in saluting Captain Maddox of Star Watch.