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Captain Deaker bounced his hand on the arm of the Chair, staring at the big screen in front of him. Almost there. Looks like space war is no different from any other kind: hours of boredom broken by seconds of stark screaming terror.
Though he had to admit, space war was generally pretty clean. At these speeds and with these weapons, most combatants were either alive or dead.
Except the Destroyer. It was big enough to have taken a pounding but still function at most of its capacity.
He’d like to see what Innsbruck could do about that.
“Coming into range, Skipper,” Tsing said. “Twenty percent hit probability.”
“How long until it reaches Earth?”
“Nineteen minutes,” Macduff replied.
“How long until hit probability reaches fifty percent?” Deke asked.
“About six minutes, Skipper.”
“We’ll wait until then. Helm, make sure you keep adjusting for an intersection course. If all else fails...”
“Understood.” Her bald head bobbed in agreement.
The next six minutes took hours to go by, Deke was certain. Finally the hit probability number clicked above fifty. “Fire at your discretion, Guns,” he said.
“Firing aye,” Tsing replied. “Intermittent pattern with maximum spread.”
Deke stroked his chin. “What if we narrow the pattern?”
Tsing turned to look at his captain, his eyes widened as if to say, you know what if. But he spoke anyway. “It means an all or nothing shot for each burst. The group will either all strike, or all miss.”
“That’s what I want. Love taps won’t work on this thing. We have to gamble that we can get in a few hammer blows rather than just a bunch of little dings.”
Tsing turned back to his board, carefully entering the commands. “Aye aye, Skipper. Adjusting fire.”
The number up on the screen revised itself down to a single digit: seven. Seven percent chance of any one burst striking, but when it does, I hope it will hurt, dig through some armor, maybe drill into some vitals. “When will we see hits?”
“We’re already seeing hits from the orbital fortresses’ long shots, but I think...I think I can tell when one of our big bursts impacts, as no one else is likely to be doing the same.”
That prompted a thought from Deke. “Maybe they should. Pass what we are doing to the rest of the squadron and to Blackhorse. It might be something the rest want to do.”
“They might countermand,” Macduff said.
“They can court-martial me, I guess,” Deke said, resting on his elbows and folding his hands. “I believe it’s the right thing to do.”
Tsing exchanged glances with Chuks, who nodded solemnly. Deke caught the interplay and hoped, believed, that it meant his crew was behind him in this. Of course, if they rammed the bastard, someone would be court-martialing a corpse. No, not a corpse. Just a bunch of floating plasma and a memory.
The number clicked up to eight, and then nine, as they closed the range. “Ammo?”
“Twenty percent, sir. I’m rationing it so that we will run out just before we cross paths. We won’t have another chance at the rate we’re closing.” Tsing reached out to adjust something on his board.
“Five minutes remaining,” Macduff called. “Here’s the countdown.” She made another number flash, then moved it to rest near the hit percentage and ammo readouts.
A very competent woman, Deke thought. Yes, I’ll definitely have to sound her out. A man could do a lot worse. Then he laughed inside at himself. Not exactly the most romantic endorsement, Deke. “You seem competent, Jennifer. Would you like to have dinner?” You’ve been out of the game too long, Deke, since Lana died.
That memory was enough to chill his fantasies and bring him back to the present.
The number crossed four minutes and the hit probability clicked up to twelve, then thirteen. “I can see our bursts striking now, sir, I think. Either that or the other ships have taken to firing similar patterns. I think it’s having some effect.”
Chuks put a shaky optical up on the screen, unsteady despite the best computer stabilization could offer as the Behemoth railgun’s intermittent firing vibrated the whole ship. Without the cladding to absorb the recoil, Innsbruck shuddered and slewed as Macduff fought to keep her aligned with their target. The picture showed flaring bursts of plasma as groups of a hundred metal balls hammered into the Destroyer, tearing new craters each time.
But it was so damned big. Two and a half thousand meters across or more, a mile and a half using the old measurements, a flying mountain wrapped in armor a thousand times as strong as any steel. Each shotgun blast of fusion chewed a hole ten or twenty meters deep and wide, and there had been thousands of impacts over the last thirty hours, but simple math showed that fifty to a hundred of those would have to dig their way through in the same spot to reach into the soft core of the ship where the Meme crew must be.
Some places seemed thinner, where hundred-meter-deep craters showed the effect of fusion blasts or the heavy impact of much larger projectiles – Pilum missiles or Aardvarks perhaps. “Is there any way we can aim for those deeper craters?”
“Not yet, sir. In the last few seconds we might be able to get that kind of accuracy, but right now four out of five of our shots are not even hitting.”
Deke saw that Tsing was right. The hit probability number had climbed to twenty percent even while their ammo was down to ten. “Two minutes,” he said. “Give me the PA.”
Once he’d been patched through to the crew, Deke said, “Now hear this. Captain Deaker speaking. All hands abandon ship. I say again, all hands abandon ship using your assigned lifeboats. There is a strong possibility of a collision or catastrophic damage to this ship within the next two minutes. This is not a drill. This is a lawful order. All hands abandon ship.”
Deaker looked around at his bridge crew. “I won’t order you, but any of you want to go, please go with my blessing.”
Chuks, Tsing and Macduff stayed where they were, as he had expected. After wavering for a moment, several of the junior watchstanders unplugged tentatively.
“Go on, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll pick you up if we survive, and nothing will be said. We only need a few people to do what we must. No point in everyone dying.”
They left, and Deke was glad of it. “Helm, kick any occupied lifeboats free just before we impact. Your discretion. Make sure they get clear.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“One minute.” The hit probability climbed to twenty-five, then thirty, while the ammo dropped to five percent. “Well done, Guns. Give them the last full measure.”
“Damn straight, Skipper.”
Thirty seconds passed, and then Deke felt the shudder as the lifeboats were launched, ready or not. Now anyone aboard was committed. “Thank you all for staying,” he said, and he found he’d never meant anything more in his life. “I can’t think of better company to die in.”
The three murmured acknowledgement, but kept their minds on their duties, especially Macduff, who had closed her eyes to better see her virtual world, flying the ship with all the finesse she could summon.
“Final fire,” Tsing said as the countdown passed fifteen seconds. He mashed his finger down on the button and held it there for five seconds, ten.
Deke felt the ship shudder and slew with the tremendous force of the railgun throwing tons of mass forward, and heard Macduff curse. A line of fusion fire blossomed wiggling across the looming optical image of the Destroyer, constantly adjusted by the stabilization systems. The last five seconds the enemy became clearer and clearer, each detail sharpening with the declining distance until Deke was sure he could have picked out the features of a man standing on its surface.
Then the numbers crossed zero.
“Dammit, Tsing!” Macduff turned with tears of anger in her eyes. “You made me miss!”
“What did I do?” he asked.
“That huge last railgun blast shifted us off course. We passed right over the bastard.”
“I guess we did,” Deke broke in on the impending argument, and took a deep breath. “So we’re still here. We did all we could. Get the lifeboats back in.” He gripped his chair arms to still the adrenaline reaction, feeling somehow disappointed that he was still alive.
Fortunately the lifeboats would not be far away, having been carried along by the same momentum they had when launched.
“We lost one,” Macduff announced. “It’s gone. Must have slammed into the Destroyer. Twelve dead.”
“Oh my God.” Deke rubbed his face. “I didn’t expect that.”
“It’s war, Skipper,” she replied. “Shit happens. Not your fault. You made the best call you could. Fate swapped them for us.”
Deke did not reply, wondering if she was really so cold or if it was all an act. I’m going to have some sleepless nights, I think, once I learn who was on that lifeboat. Would it be too selfish to hope I didn’t know them well?
He’d also have to write the letters. A lot of officers would be writing a lot of letters in the coming days, he thought, assuming there were people to write home to. “What about the rest of the squadron?”
Chuks adjusted the display back to the grand tactical scale that showed the area around Earth. Eight other cruisers accompanied Innsbruck in loose formation as they headed at high speed roughly in the direction of Mars. “Where’s...where’s Calgary?”
“Gone, sir. Either they lost their transponder, or...”
“Or they did what we tried to do. See if we can get some good delayed video of the Destroyer from off the net.” Deke drummed his fingers in impatience. A moment later a shaky image appeared, showing an enormous impact on the Destroyer. The picture clicked forward in ultra-slow motion like a slideshow, showing an expansion of the bright burst, then it cleared.
Right in the nose of the enemy was a new crater fully five hundred meters deep, a grand divot that appeared like a huge circular mouth. “Wow...that took a pretty good chunk out of it. Blackhorse...”
“A cruiser-sized chunk. Nothing left of them, sir. No way, no how.” Chuks shook his head to emphasize the point.
“Can we get back?” Deke asked, knowing the answer already. “Can we hit them again?”
“No, sir. The squadron is swinging around but it will take hours to reverse course, even if we use Mars to slingshot like they did. By that time the Destroyer will have made its run at Earth.”
“Do it anyway. You never know.” Deke slumped down in his chair. “All right. Fine work, everyone. If anyone needs relief, call your counterparts. Someone yell if you need me. I might nod off.” He closed his eyes and put his head back, suddenly so tired he could hardly hold it up.
Once the captain had drifted into a light sleep, Macduff turned around to look at him with her own eyes, instead of through the bridge cameras she usually used. She stared at him for some time, thinking about the future.
