This Corner of the Universe (16 page)

Heskan
looked back to Riedel and watched him as he sped toward the exit.  He was
returning his attention to the main screen when his eyes passed over the
weapons section.  He studied Vernay, who was busy bringing mass driver system control
directly to her console. 
My God,
s
he looks terrible; I’ve never seen
that much stress on a person’s face before
.  A shocking realization came
over him. 
Do I look like that? 
Looking toward the front of the bridge
again, he could only see the backs of Ensigns Selvaggio’s and Truesworth’s shocksuit
helmets.  Heskan almost turned to see how Chief Brown was holding up but
realized he had once again drifted away from his duties.

“Sensors,”
Heskan said in as calm a voice as he could manage, “skip the damage assessment
on the sloop but find out everything you can about the other three ships.  Our
sensor picture should clear up quite a bit as we get closer to the Beta Field’s
edge.  I want information specifically on what weapons they’re carrying.  Understood,
Jack?”

“Aye,
sir,” Truesworth answered as he manipulated the BigEye controls at his console.

Heskan
shifted in his seat.  He knew that he should be refining his battle plan with
the three pirate ships based on the recent events but all he wanted to do was
run to the front of his ship and see exactly how bad things were. 
How am I
supposed to concentrate when all hell could be breaking loose in the bow of my
ship?

“Boats?”
Heskan questioned impatiently.

Chief
Brown looked up from his console.  “They’re there, sir.  Lieutenant Riedel
should be in contact shortly.”  As he spoke, Brown subtly moved his hand in a
“slow down” gesture but softened the mild rebuke with a supportive expression
and nod at his captain.

Heskan
caught the meaning immediately and simply said, “Thank you, Chief.”

Three
minutes passed and Selvaggio announced that
Anelace
was at relative rest
at the edge of the Beta Field.  Truesworth focused the ship’s powerful sensors,
which were now able to fully burn through the edge of the Beta Field’s interference
on the approaching fleet.  An involuntary gasp escaped the young ensign but he
recovered quickly and spoke in a neutral tone.  “Captain, we have a clear
sensor picture of the ships now.  I’m putting them on screen.”  The tactical
plot updated and the activity on the bridge stopped in unison.

“I
santi ci protegga,” whispered Selvaggio.

Heskan
saw two pirate ketches flanking an enormous, two hundred fifteen meter long
schooner.  The menacing ship was over twice the size of
Anelace
.  Only
Lieutenant Vernay’s furious typing on her console could be heard as the rest of
the bridge crew stared in mute silence at the beast.

“Only
one big guy,” Heskan said to break the silence.  “Okay, Jack, start snooping
and tell me what they’re packing.”

The
spell broken, the bridge crew resumed their duties.  After a few moments,
Truesworth replaced the optical of the sloop wreckage by dividing the right
side of the large main screen into thirds.  Each third showed the two-minute
lagged optical of one of the three remaining pirate ships. 
Anelace
had
already identified the class of each ship and was now hard at work comparing
the “textbook” picture of that ship with the actual image of the ship on the
screen, searching for discrepancies.  Truesworth quickly spotted two ominous
bumps on the hull of one ketch that, upon closer inspection, could only be B-pack
lasers.  The examination continued and with each discovery, he tagged the
placement and type of each weapon system on the tactical plot.  The ensign knew
each of the bridge crew would be alerted to the tactical updates and they could
simply touch the updated ship on the miniature versions of the tactical plot on
their console screens to bring up a three-dimensional representation of the
target and its status.

Heskan
did just that as his sensor officer detected and classified the weapons on the
pirate ships.  Ketch-One was a laser boat, identical to
Raptor
.  B-pack
lasers were discovered on the much larger schooner as well.  Two appeared on
the bow of the ship.  Soon two more B-packs were identified on each side of the
frigate-sized vessel.  The ship’s tactical was updated a third time, increasing
the count of side-mounted B-packs to four on each side. 

Ten
B-pack laser
s,
Heskan thought. 
By itself, it outguns us on lasers over two to one.  Still,
it could be worse.
  A nagging thought picked at Heskan. 
Maybe it is.

“Are
you finished with the weapons estimate on that big bastard, Jack?”

“Yes,
Captain, the preliminary is done and I’m looking over the last ketch.  I was
intending to go back over each one again once I got the preliminary examination
finished.”

“Search
real hard for missile ports, Jack.  I know they’ll be almost impossible to see
with the interference and from this angle but they’ve parked themselves two
light-minutes out from us for a reason.”

Truesworth
had just enough time to acknowledge before Vernay declared, “The mass driver is
now functional, Captain.”

“Good
work, Stacy.  You and your team did a great job on that sloop.”  Heskan’s comm
unit alerted him to an incoming call from his first officer.  He stabbed the panel
and said, “Go ahead, Mike.”

“We’ve
made it to the mass driver control room, sir.”  The torment in Riedel’s voice
easily carried over the connection.  “It’s… it’s a mess in here.  Douglas and
McKinley are KIA.  Bonner seemed uninjured but he kept insisting that McKinley
was alive so I sent him to the med station to be looked over.  The room is
wrecked, sir.  I can see directly into the liquid storage tanks.  There’s no
atmosphere in here so the containment field generators must be destroyed.  We
can probably make it airtight in an hour with a portable generator but I don’t
think much of the control room’s equipment is functional.”

Heskan’s
mind raced to process the damage report.  “What about the other compartments?”

“They
are a little better than L-Two.  The ship’s mess containment fields are
operational but I didn’t look at non-combat essential equipment.”

Heskan
noticed that Truesworth had identified Ketch-Two as possessing top and bottom
mounted railguns as Riedel continued.  “I’m afraid Murrell is KIA too.  DC-Two
is destroyed and the gym took some minor hits but that’s it.”

Heskan
sighed as he heard the news of another crewmember killed in action.  Dana
Murrell would have finished her tour on
Anelace
in five months and was
looking forward to going home to Orthosie to pick up her family’s tradition of
agriculture.  Her father, a retired chief petty officer, had insisted that his
children serve the Republic before they planted their roots back home.  “Okay,
just seal off L-Two then get back up here, Mike,” Heskan said.  He looked over toward
Chief Brown somberly.  “Did you hear, Chief?”

Brown
nodded curtly.  “Yes, Captain.  I can have Damage Control Stations One and Three
cover for DC Two.  I’ll update you as soon as we’ve got L-Two sealed up.”

With
the damage report in, Heskan allowed himself a moment to reflect.  The logical
part of his brain told him that they had been lucky.  The damage sustained
could be compensated for and the loss of life would not reduce the ship’s
combat capability.  Heskan knew this was true.  Nonetheless, he felt like a
complete failure. 
A pissant sloop has wrecked four compartments and killed
three crewmembers
. 
Durmont will relieve me of command the second he can
and I’ll be grateful for it. 
The faces of the three crewmembers flashed
through his head
.  How am I going to tell their families?  It’s my fault, my
responsibility. 
Heskan’s vision blurred as his eyes began to moisten.  He
clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might crack when a stern voice from
the past echoed inside his mind;
it is your responsibility so shoulder it,
you idiot
. 
The Brevic Republic is depending on you.  Do.  Your.  Job. 
Anger
began to build from deep inside Heskan as
he willed his vision to
refocus on the main tactical.  He thought briefly back to the
Raptor
and
the guilt he had felt for its destruction.  This time, he had been so concerned
for his own ship that he had felt nothing after
Cloak’s
demise.  Now, as
he glared at the remaining pirate fleet, he felt the embers of burning hatred transforming
into grim resolve.

As
anticipated, the pirate fleet had come to rest 2
lm
from the Beta Field
edge.  All three of the ships now faced
Anelace
, providing a minimal
profile for her optics to analyze.  Truesworth had confirmed no further weapons
but he had added speculative twin missile ports to each of the schooner’s
broadsides, surmised from a sensor/control suite that he had identified on the
hull of the schooner.

The
likely presence of missile ports was bad news.  Although slower than lasers and
mass driver shots, missiles had far greater range.  They also had guidance
packages that would allow them to be directed from launch to impact by the
controlling ship or to home in on their targets independently.  Missiles also
didn’t require a direct hit and could damage their target with a near miss,
depending upon the warhead installed.  The only downside to missiles was that
point defense systems could shoot down incoming missiles before they reached
their target.

Heskan
brought the ship down from battle stations to high alert before saying, “Jack,
change the beacon on the Narvi buoy to red.”

The
ensign acknowledged and sent a coded signal to the navigation buoy near the
Narvi tunnel point.  When the buoy received it, its beacon would change from
green to red and an automated message would be sent to any ship diving out of
the tunnel point, ordering it to execute an immediate jump back to Narvi.  The
automated message would also include an update of the system’s situation and an
official request for additional Brevic naval forces.  Skathi would be closed to
all non-military traffic until the beacon was switched back to green but the measure
was a small comfort to the crew, as they knew help would not be coming for at
least nine days after the next freighter dove into Skathi.

For
better or worse, the situation here will be very different when help arrives
, Heskan considered.

Lieutenant
Riedel entered the bridge, looked at the main screen and nearly stopped in
mid-stride.  After a few seconds, he said almost casually, “I see you were
right about an enforcer ship, Captain.”

“It
would appear so,” Heskan replied.

“Incoming
message from the schooner, Captain.  Voice only,” Truesworth said as he relayed
the message to play over the bridge speakers.

“Anelace,
this is the flagship, Blackheart.  You will approach my squadron at point zero
five light with shields lowered and weapons powered down or you will be annihilated.”

Heh,
they know our name.  I guess that shouldn’t surprise me
.  “Jack, send this to
Blackheart.”  Heskan hit the record button on his console and spoke in a casual
tone, “Blackheart, this is BRS Anelace.  Your squadron is running without
operating beacons or proper identification in violation of commerce and
space-going regulations.  Your vessels will power down their engines and power cores
and prepare to be boarded for citation for these offenses.”

Ensign
Truesworth gave a quizzical expression and then moments later answered, “Sent, Captain.”

Lieutenant
Riedel leaned in close to Heskan.  “You mean to disarm them with humor, Captain?”

“Unlikely,”
Heskan shrugged, “but I don’t want them thinking we’re beaten.  We aren’t
finished yet, I swear to you.”

“I
have not yet begun to fight,” Riedel said softly.

“What?”
Heskan asked.

“Over
a millennium ago, a Terran wet navy captain faced an enemy, fifty-gun frigate. 
Even though he was outmatched, he engaged the enemy.  Partway through the
battle, the ships sailed close enough to each other that the enemy crew
actually called out to his damaged ship and taunted him.  The navy captain hollered
back, ‘I have not yet begun to fight.’  Three hours later, it was the enemy frigate
that surrendered.”

“Let’s
hope history repeats itself, Mike.”

“Indeed,
sir.  Your orders?”

Heskan
leaned back to consider his options.  “What I’d like to do is wait in the Beta
Field until help arrives.  Time is on our side.”

“You
could always ask for two weeks to consider their demand for our surrender,”
Riedel quipped.

Heskan
smiled.  “I’m pretty sure they won’t wait that long,” he responded.  “What
concerns me is they have the RALF as leverage.  They’d never get me out of the
Beta Field if that wasn’t here.”

Riedel
scratched his head.  “So they wait around for us to come out, get frustrated
when we don’t and then threaten to blow up the RALF unless we come out?”

“That’s
what I would do but they’ve already made some mistakes.  That schooner has to
have missiles.  If it didn’t, it would have a lot more B-packs or a bunch of
large caliber railguns.”  Heskan pointed at the tactical plot.  “They’re resting
two light-minutes from us.  I bet you that is the limit of their missile
range.  They aren’t expecting us to surrender, so when we come out to fight
them, they can open up on us immediately and put us on the defensive… maybe
even destroy us before we can reach them.”

Riedel
nodded.  “But that’s a mistake.  We’ll have closed some of the distance before
our light even reaches the pirates showing them we’ve moved and the schooner
will still have to turn to get its broadside facing us.”

“Yup,
and I doubt they’ve fought a navy ship before.  Our defense platforms are a lot
better than anything they’re used to and, with the damage to Ana’s bow, they
may even think the sloop took out our mass driver.”

“Ensign
Selvaggio,” Riedel asked, “how fast can that schooner turn her broadside to
us?”

“Depending
on the crew, roughly twenty to forty seconds, sir.”

“Plus,
Mike,” Heskan pointed out, “look at the formation. The ketches are a full
twenty light-seconds in front of the schooner.  From their point of view that
makes sense because they want to keep us away from their missile boat and
they’ll have to close with us anyway to use their lasers and railguns.”

“But
they’re overextended,” Riedel said as he nodded in understanding.

“Yes. 
To them, we’re just an outmatched, damaged corvette and they have three
undamaged ships, including an enforcer ship.  I bet all three of those captains
are real eager to notch a naval vessel on their belts.  In fact, my guess is if
we charged them, those ketches would actually come toward us.”

“So
what do we do, Captain?”

“We
wait.  Maybe they’ll charge us and then we can split them up some in the Beta
Field.  That’d be nice,” Heskan wished.  “But I won’t change our position without
a good reason, not when time is on our side.”

A
few seconds passed as the officers considered their predicament.   Lieutenant
Riedel began to speak but was cut short by an incoming message.

“Anelace,
this is Blackheart.  You have twenty minutes to strike your lights and
surrender.  Approach my squadron at point zero five light with shields lowered
and weapons powered down.”

Heskan
exhaled heavily as he considered the demand.  “That’s interesting.  He didn’t
threaten us with annihilation this time.  I wonder if that means he knows he
can’t chase us in here.”

“Your
reply, Captain?” Truesworth asked.

“None,
Ensign.”

Twenty
minutes passed without action and two minutes after that
Anelace
received another voice message.  “Captain of the Anelace, surrender immediately
or I promise I will kill every one of your crew while you watch.”