Valor At Vauzlee (34 page)

For the next fifteen minutes, hardly a word was spoken on the bridge. Only that communication absolutely necessary could be heard. Jenetta broke five minutes of complete silence when she said, "XO, is everyone at their battle station?"

"The computer reports everyone at their station except Specialist 1st/c Bowens," Lieutenant Ashraf said, looking at the small monitor mounted on the left arm of the first officer's chair.

"And where is Specialist First Bowens?"

"He's just left the sickbay, Captain. He's running for his station."

"Why was he in the sickbay?" Jenetta suspected a nervous stomach.

"According to the medical log, he tripped while jumping out of bed after the GQ alert woke him. He sliced his leg on his night table. The deep cut has been bandaged and the doctor reports he's fit for duty. I have an update. The computer reports he's reached his battle station, Captain."

"Very good," Jenetta said, smiling to herself as she remembered a similar incident where she herself displayed a bit of clumsiness after being awakened in the middle of the night by a red alert.

Jenetta resumed her vigil of the front viewscreen as the bridge again lapsed into total silence. At exactly 0401, CPO Hannigan at the com station said, "Captain, Higgins reports that the Raider fleet has closed to ten-million kilometers. They expect to engage in seconds."

"Thank you, Chief. Can you pickup the transmissions from the CIC?"

"Negative, Captain. The base computer will only release that to ships actively engaged in the action. We're not permitted to log in yet."

"Very well. What can we access?"

"Only the CIC General Information channel. At present it's announcing that the attack is imminent and that all station personnel should get to Secure areas."

Jenetta snorted slightly. "Very well." She leaned back in her chair. They would be deaf and dumb until they were close enough to be considered part of the battle action. That probably meant about five-point-eight-billion kilometers, the distance that the Song could travel in sixty seconds at its top speed.

* * *

"Admiral," the lead tactical officer aboard the Raider battleship Glorious said loudly, "eighteen seconds to the eight-million kilometer mark."

Admiral Nazeer, in command of the battle group, leaned back into his chair on the tactical bridge. "Send the message that all ships should drop their envelope at that point and engage their sub-light engines," he said.

"Aye, sir," the com operator said as he transmitted the prepared message.

"Admiral," the lead tac officer said, "the Spaccs are arrayed exactly as expected, fifty thousand kilometers from the station."

Admiral Nazeer grinned. The Spaccs were always so predictable. They were following the War College's Station Defense Plan Echo-Three, precisely as predicted by the Raider battle planners. Then they'd probably execute Foxtrot-Five, followed by Bravo-Two. This was going to be too easy. He didn't know how they'd learned of the pending attack, but it didn't really matter. It would have been nice to have the element of surprise, but the disparity of warship numbers was so great that the lack of an unexpected attack was inconsequential. The recurrent announcement on the station's general information com channel to civilian traffic to leave, or to not approach, had simply cleared the area for battle. They wouldn't have to decide if a ship was a Spacc vessel or not. They could shoot at everything near the station and be assured of hitting a warship. He fully expected to take out the entire protection force with his first volley.

* * *

Gavin appeared calm and relaxed as he sat in his command chair intently watching the front viewscreen. Currently set to maximum magnification, he could see the large force of ships in the CG representation as they made their way directly towards the waiting Space Command vessels. ‘
Perhaps that isn't exactly accurate
,' Gavin thought. The truth was that the seven Space Command vessels, spread out with ten kilometers between them so that no single Raider weapon had a chance of damaging more than one ship, had moved to interpose themselves directly between the approaching Raider force and Higgins SCB. All crewmembers were at their battle stations and ready for action. In the next few minutes, the battle would begin. There were a lot of sweaty palms and dry mouths among the crew.

The sensors had noted thirty-one ships before the net was jammed, but seventy-two ships now appeared in front of the station's defenders and dropped their envelopes. It was almost a certainty that the Raider torpedoes would have nuclear warheads this time around. They weren't expecting to acquire any salvageable Space Command vessels following this battle so they would be doing everything possible to obliterate the defenders. For their part, the Space Command crews felt the same way. The incredible disparity in ship numbers made it impossible for them to hold back. They would not be looking for crippling blows. They needed to destroy the Raider vessels completely. A damaged ship can still fight on, and can still kill you. After dropping their temporal envelopes, the seventy-two Raider ships spread out to form rows of twenty-four, arrayed in three stacked layers so that every ship had a clear view of, and shot at, the station's defenders.

Less than twelve hours ago, at a battle briefing with the Admiral, Gavin presented the vid from Carver in which she offered her tactical suggestions. He reflected now on the strange expression that had come over the Admiral's face as he listened attentively to the unorthodox tactics proposed by Carver. The Admiral had just scowled and shaken his head as each new tactic was presented and elaborated. As the meeting ended, Holt said that he would have to think about the suggested tactics before he could possibly allow them to be implemented. On Holt's orders, the seven Space Command vessels were arrayed according to the War College's defense plan Echo-Three.

Gavin's calm demeanor and slight smile thoroughly perplexed the crew on the bridge. They were facing the most serious threat that any of them could ever have imagined. At Vauzlee they had been outnumbered two to one, when the Peabody ships were factored in, and Gavin had said that he was willing to give the Raiders the advantage in numbers, but this was an entirely different situation. With odds of ten to one, no one seriously believed they would survive this encounter. Yet Gavin seemed to be amused by something.

That something was simply that the Raiders were so far behaving precisely as Commander Carver had predicted. It was as if she had mantic powers. Looking down at his seat mounted monitor, Gavin knew by the expression on the admiral's face that he also realized the accuracy of Carver's predictions. That knowledge gave Gavin the hope that they might yet survive the day.

"Multiple launches," Lieutenant Hoffmann, the lead tactical officer on the Prometheus, said aloud. "Six-hundred-eighteen torpedoes inbound. ETA for lead torpedo is two-seven-zero-seconds.

All eyes not occupied elsewhere watched as the wave of devastation bore down on the seven Space Command vessels. No move was made to stop or avoid the inbounds until the missiles had been traveling for one-hundred-twenty-seconds.

"All ships, prepare to execute plan India-One," Gavin heard in his CT. It was the voice of Admiral Holt at CIC. He had obviously decided not to follow the Foxtrot-Five tactic that would see them hold position and attempt to shoot down as many of the Raider torpedoes as possible. All officers on the bridges of the seven defending ships heard the directive. Gavin didn't have to relay instructions to his helmsman.

A temporal envelope immediately began to form around the Prometheus.

* * *

"What?" Admiral Nazeer said, "They're forming temporal envelopes? Why? You can't fire a missile through a temporal envelope."

"We do outnumber them more than ten to one, sir," his XO said. "Perhaps they're bugging out."

"No, not Space Command. They'll remain doggedly at their posts, fighting, until we crush every last breath from their broken bodies."

Until now, the Spaccs had behaved exactly as expected, as evidenced by their formation according to Strategic Station Defense Plan Echo-Three. The Raider battle planners had meticulously reviewed every plan in the Spacc's Station Defense Operations Manual and prepared a specific counter move for each. But nothing in the Spacc manual called for them to form their temporal envelopes while facing the enemy. Plan Echo-Three simply called for the Spaccs to empty their tubes at the enemy. While preventing them from firing their torpedoes, because all guidance information would be scrambled in the torpedo's electronic brain as it passed through the temporal barrier, an envelope didn't offer any protection from inbound torpedoes

"Ah ha, I know what they're doing!" Admiral Nazeer said arrogantly. "We obviously have someone with a little imagination on the other side. They mean to move their ships at the last second, so that the torpedoes we've fired will lose their targeting as the Spacc ships accelerate away to a new position. Blast it. I
knew
we should have gotten closer before we fired our first salvo, but the planners
insisted
that the Spaccs would simply stand their ground and try to knock down all our torpedoes. If we had waited until we were less than a hundred-twenty-seconds away we might have gotten some of them. Dammit! Com, warn all ships that the Spaccs are suddenly going to disappear and then reappear at a much reduced range, firing everything in their bow tubes. I want everyone ready to lock onto those ships and fire the next salvo the instant they reappear. Our imaginative Spacc friend is going to get a nasty surprise when he pops his head up."

* * *

The closest Raider torpedoes were less than ten seconds away when the seven Space Command vessels engaged their Light-Speed drives. After first moving very slowly with Sub-light engines to a slightly altered position, the seven Spacc ships disappeared from visual screens, exactly as Admiral Nazeer predicted. The inbound Raider torpedoes, sensing the initial movement of their targets, used the last of their fuel to alter their flight path to new coordinates. When the ships completely disappeared a second later, the torpedoes were pointing well away from the station. They would continue on the last heading in ballistic flight until they self-detonated.

Diving down and under the incoming waves of death, the seven vessels reappeared just a thousand kilometers from the Raider fleet and dropped their envelopes so they could fire their torpedoes. Within a second of arriving at their new location, all seven ships fired a full spread. They didn't wait to target the Raider ships. They just emptied their tubes in the general direction of the enemy. In the weapons control centers located along the center axis of each ship, practiced guidance specialists waited. As each tube released its load, a specialist assumed control of the pernicious projectile and began guiding it towards a pre-selected Raider ship using fully interactive telemetry.

* * *

As the six-hundred-eighteen torpedoes first fired at the Spacc ships, and now empty of fuel, began to self-destruct, so as not to present a hazard to their own ships during the battle, imminent threat alarms began shrieking on every Raider ship. Gunners, hunched over targeting screens, strained to identify the threats on forward looking monitors as exploding torpedoes white'd out their screens momentarily, confused their sensors, or blurred their vision. Tactical officers cursed their equipment as it failed to register the approach of the Spacc missiles. Aboard the Raider destroyer Mourning Star, the eyes of the tac officer opened wide as he realized the torpedoes were approaching not from in front, but from behind the fleet. He identified thirty-four inbound torpedoes less than nine seconds away and closing. Even though his ship hadn't been targeted, he screamed into his headset to alert other tac officers that the threat was on their stern and called for all laser gunners to open fire on the inbound torpedoes. But the stern of a warship is its weakest point. While a freighter relies on side mounted engines in rotating nacelles for both sub-light propulsion and maneuvering, warships use their side-mounted engines only for maneuvering quickly during battle conditions. Massive stern-mounted engines bring warships to up to speed quickly, but the location of the engines restrict the placement of laser weapons on the stern and thus the coverage that can be provided.

The Raider attempt to defend against the thirty-four torpedoes was feeble at best, compared to the defense they could have mounted if the attack had come at the bow or sides. They had already lost precious seconds just trying to locate the Spacc ships. Everyone aboard had been concentrating forward, waiting for the Spacc ships to reappear in front of them as Admiral Nazeer had predicted. They never expected the Space Command group to suddenly reappear just behind them.

As the few mast and keel laser gunners that
could
see the incoming torpedoes loosed a barrage of coherent light pulses in their direction, the Space Command vessels were swinging around, emptying their larboard tubes as they turned. And as their bows came to bear on the Raider fleet, they released a full salvo. Thirty-six torpedoes fired from the broadside tubes streaked towards the Raider ships, almost immediately followed by eighty-four more, even before the initial salvo of thirty-four had reached the Raider fleet.

The Raider ships were left with no choice but to turn and face the onslaught of ordnance from the Space Command vessels so that a greater concentration of laser weapons could provide energy defense against the assault, but in so doing they exposed their sides to the first salvo of torpedoes. The Spacc laser gunners not currently involved with defensive operations loosed a torrent of laser pulses at the exposed hulls. It can be reasonably assumed that the face of every guidance specialist and laser weapon team aboard the Space Command vessels lit up with a broad smile as the Raiders gave them targets that a blind man couldn't miss.