This Corner of the Universe (15 page)

The railgun
mechanism, mounted on top of the sloop along its centerline, sent most of its
force spaceward.  The fraction of the detonation directed downward perforated
Cloak’s
hull, venting the unmanned ammunition compartment into space.  All five of the
sloop’s compartments had been sealed before the battle and the actual effect on
the crew was minor.

Heskan
furrowed his eyebrows as the BigEye Array optics picked up the small topside
explosion on the distorted optical of
Cloak
. 
Did Stacy snipe that railgun
?
he questioned. 
No, her first shot has three more seconds to go.

“Ana’s
closing with the sloop now, sir,” Selvaggio stated, “but she’s running from us,
reducing our closing speed to barely point oh-one light.”

“At
least we’re closing, Diane.  That’s all we need,” Heskan told her.

Truesworth
voice raised an octave, “We’re taking hits, Captain!”

Hands
reflexively tightening on his chair arms even though nothing had changed on the
bridge, Heskan quickly checked his command chair console’s screen dedicated to
displaying the ship’s status.  He saw
Anelace’s
defensive AIPS screen
withering in a hail of railgun bullets.  “Z plus ten-K with the thrusters!”

Anelace’s
thrusters, installed around the
ship for fine maneuvering, touched off, working hard to “lift” the corvette ten
kilometers “higher” while still maintaining her intercept course.  The shower
of bullets from
Cloak
had scattered somewhat over its 8
ls
journey
to
Anelace
.
 Increasing imperfections in the railgun barrel as it
heated and a shoddy weapons program each contributed to the pattern of the
rounds that looked less like an orderly line and more like a spray.  Although eighty-three
projectiles had been fired at
Anelace
, only fifty-three struck her.  The
first forty-one impacted or deflected off her AIPS screen.  Blow after blow
progressively degenerated the screen’s integrity and, before the AIPS
generators suffered complete overload, the automated controls dropped the
protective screen to avoid catastrophic failure.  After the AIPS collapsed, the
final twelve railgun projectiles struck low on
Anelace’s
bow nearly head
on.

The first
physical blow suffered during
Anelace’s
eight years of service came to
her leading portside bow navigation lights.  Unarmored, the light emitters were
battered into thousands of pieces.  Each of the twelve, one kilo rounds
shattered into hundreds of fragments as they impacted on the surface of the
corvette’s duralloy armor.  The armor deflected a sizable percentage of the
fragments and stopped the smallest ones but the larger pieces sliced through
the corvette.  The armor absorbed roughly sixty percent of each of the dozens
of fragments’ kinetic energy before they penetrated into the bow compartments
of the ship.

The
first compartment breached contained the ship’s liquid stores.  Intentionally
placed in the front of the ship, the non-combat compartment housed the majority
of
Anelace’s
available water.  Machinery deeper inside the corvette
recycled the used water and could even produce more when demand was high, such
as during the hours before the start of each work shift.

During
its design, Brevic engineers had anticipated that, given its mission and
probable opponents, a Dagger class corvette would most likely experience return
fire in the form of non-military B-pack lasers and small caliber railguns. 
More efficient and deadlier weapon systems were either cost prohibitive or
simply impractical to be mounted on their expected rivals.  Further, the ship’s
engineers had concluded that since the corvette would most commonly be the
pursuer, fire directed at the ship would be concentrated at her relatively
small bow.  As a result of these findings, every weapon on
Anelace
could
fire in the forward firing arc.  Further, when possible, the least critical
systems were placed in the areas most likely to be breached.  The engineers
took advantage of the enviable properties of the water in the liquid stores,
which could reduce the kinetic energy of a solid slug passing through it and also
reflect a tiny percentage of a laser while also minutely refracting it.  The
refraction, while only a few degrees, could theoretically bend a laser away from
the essential ship’s center.

The
bullet fragments striking
Anelace
drilled through the exterior wall of
the liquid stores and into the water.  The water flash vaporized as it met
space’s cold vacuum but not before it had its effect upon the fragments passing
through it.  Each fragment’s kinetic energy, already severely reduced by the duralloy
armor, was abated even more.  By the time the railgun bullet fragments pushed
through the tank and ran into
Anelace’s
last layer of defense, a fifteen
centimeter duralloy armor plate which separated the liquid stores from the
Kruger Mk 237 mass driver control compartment, each fragment carried with it
less than ten percent of its initial energy.

The
placement of the ship’s mass driver control compartment was out of necessity. 
Quite simply, the three-man crew had to be co-located with the mass driver. 
Although computers controlling the function and targeting of the weapon could
have been placed anywhere in the ship, the crew needed proximity to the weapon
to fix any mechanical problems that might arise during a combat situation. 
Mass driver rounds jamming in the loading mechanism, while rare, were not
unheard of.  Damage to the system during a difficult battle was almost
expected.  Consequently, Petty Officer First Class Douglas and the two spacemen
he supervised occupied what was considered one of the most dangerous battle
stations on
Anelace
.  Unsurprisingly, each crewmember accepted this fact
with great pride.

The
fragments had traveled just fifteen and a half meters into
Anelace
and
lost ninety-two percent of their energy.  Still, the remaining eight percent
was ten times greater than the energy of a one tonne vehicle moving at one
hundred sixty kilometers per hour.  Ripping him to pieces, three fragments
moved through Douglas as easily as they had moved through the vacuum of space
and continued their tour of
Anelace
deeper into her interior.  A cluster
of fragments removed Spaceman Apprentice McKinley’s left leg while Spaceman
Bonner emerged unscathed but gaping at the destruction around him.  The
fragments traveled another fifteen meters through the ship, destroying the
ship’s mess, exercise room and damage control station DC-2, killing Spaceman
Murrell, on loan from Engineering.  All told, the twelve fragments had lanced
nearly a third of the way into
Anelace
.

Automated
containment screens triggered in each of the five affected compartments as soon
as internal sensors detected a low pressure environment.  The low-powered
containment screens were strong enough to maintain a barrier to keep a
habitable environment for humans but were far too weak to act as a protective
barrier against weapon fire. 
Anelace’s
computers triggered the liquid
stores’ containment screens first but the passing fragments had destroyed the
actual containment generators.  The entirety of her liquid stores was lost to
space.  Amazingly, each of the triple redundant containment generators in the
mass driver control compartment was destroyed as well.  Inside the compartment,
pure instinct moved Bonner’s hand to close his shocksuit’s visor when the
depressurization alarm sounded.  McKinley, in shock and with his suit torn
apart, especially at the leg, was not so fortunate and gasped for oxygen that
would never come.  The containment field generators in the mess room functioned
as required and stopped the hemorrhaging of
Anelace’s
atmosphere.

The
last thirty-one rounds fired from
Cloak’s
railgun missed
Anelace
completely as Ensign Selvaggio used the ship’s thrusters to slip the corvette above
their trajectories.  The ship was left streaming frozen water shards as the
vaporized stores recrystallized, followed shortly by the streaming atmosphere
from the mass driver control room.

Had
the light from the stricken corvette reached the pirate sloop faster, its crew
would have undoubtedly cheered.  They had dealt a harsh blow to the fast ship
and, as shards streamed from her bow, her damage looked even more severe than
it actually was.  However, the three iridium mass driver rounds from
Anelace
reached
Cloak
first.  The ship, only a third of the size of
Anelace,
was a Bowrider class sloop manufactured by Harrison & Wright Incorporated. 
It had been specifically chosen by her owners for its svelte shape and small
profile, which assisted in her transformation into a covert pirate ship.  After
six months undergoing illegal conversions, she was one of the stealthiest ships
launched by her underwriters.  The tradeoff for her stealth was lack of durability
and as the first mass driver projectile struck her six and a half meters from
center, it showed.

The
iridium round broke apart as designed and the resultant destruction of the
ship’s mid-section was total.  Between the ship’s third and fourth frames, the sloop
nearly ceased to exist.  Stress from the sloop’s main drive, still
accelerating, and the impact of Vernay’s second shot finished the work the
first had started.  The sloop broke in two and the ungainly pieces tumbled away
even as the third iridium round streaked through the expanding wreckage,
striking a moderately sized asteroid seventeen seconds later.

“I
need a damage report, Boats,” Heskan urged as he watched the optical of the
sloop being cut in half.  There had been no shaking of the ship or calamitous
noise on the bridge as the fragments had smashed into
Anelace,
so he had
no idea if the damage was minimal or cataclysmic.  Shifting his eyes from the
destruction of the sloop to the tactical plot, Heskan saw the pirate fleet had rotated
one hundred eighty degrees and was slowing. 
Anelace’s
computers estimated
the ships were braking hard enough to come to relative rest 2
lm
from the
Beta Field’s edge. 
It makes sense; they have the advantage so why throw the
confusion of the Beta Field’s interference into the mix?

“Bow
sensors registered numerous impacts, Captain.”  Chief Brown’s report ripped
Heskan away from his thoughts.  “I have depressurization in main compartments
L-One and L-Two.  Containment fields have triggered in L-Three.  Murrell must
be pickin’ her way through to get an eyes-on damage report.  I can’t raise her
on her comm unit yet.  L-T, do you have contact with your folks in L-Two?”

Vernay
could only shake her head.  She had gone from the elation of three perfectly
placed shots on the sloop to growing horror as she saw subsystem after subsystem
fail inside the mass driver main control room.  She had already twice requested
a status report from her section leader and then one from anyone in the
compartment but each passing second made it more likely the reports would never
come.  The shock of loss Vernay felt was unlike any feeling she had experienced
before.  She had worked with Dale Douglas ever since coming aboard
Anelace
. 
He was an easygoing and friendly non-com who had a natural ability to inspire
confidence in his subordinates and trust in his superiors.  Both McKinley and
Bonner were young and promising spacemen, each only a couple years younger than
Vernay.  McKinley, with his sarcastic humor, routinely kept the weapons section
in stitches during section meetings.  She had easily been able to identify with
all of them and after two years of working together, she was fiercely
protective of the entire crew.  Mustering every ounce of professionalism she
had, she swallowed hard and then reported, “Communication with L-Two is down. 
I have multiple mass driver system failures but I believe the turret itself is
undamaged.  The weapon is inoperable at this time but I think I can reroute functional
control to the bridge and restore operability.  ETC—” she pronounced it E-tic—“is
five minutes.”

Heskan
took in the discussion going around the bridge.  He did not think he would need
the mass driver before Vernay’s repair estimate and was thankful
Anelace’s
best weapon had not been destroyed.  His skin broke out in goose bumps as he
considered going into battle with just his four GPs against the remaining
pirate ships. 
That was almost a disaster
, he thought sourly. 
What
went wrong?  I thought I was being so clever
.  He shook his head in
disgust. 
If just a tiny sloop can do that to my ship, what chance do I have
against three ketches?

Riedel
appeared by his right side.  “Sir, if you don’t need me, I’d like to head
forward and help out.”

Damn,
that should have been the first thing I ordered
, he chastised himself. 
Stay
in the game, Heskan!

“Thanks,
Mike,” Heskan acknowledged.  “See what you can do and report back to me.”

Lieutenant
Riedel moved toward the bridge door but stopped at his station to collect
equipment.  To his left, Heskan could hear Chief Brown telling the next two
closest damage control teams to leave their stations and meet with the first
officer at the bow.

“We’ve
intercepted the wreckage of the sloop, Captain.  Do I hold our course or come
to rest?” Selvaggio asked.

Damn,
another thing I’m not controlling.  Everything feels like it’s happening too
fast and I’m falling further behind.
 
Irritated, Heskan looked at the tactical plot before speaking.  “Come about and
stop us two light-seconds from the edge of the Beta Field.  Make your speed
point oh-eight, Ensign.”