Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (50 page)

Art knew it was bad when he realised they were now excavating down past where the blast doors had been – not a good sign. Sue was sitting on a piece of upturned concrete. The steel reinforcing jutted through the broken block which was angled at 20 degrees to the ground. She was covered in soot.

Art could see the tear tracks that had parted the soot on her cheeks. The tears were all dried up now but the loss was still palpable.

She looked up at him as he came alongside her and put his hand on her shoulder. There was no peck on the cheek. It was too dirty and besides it would have been out of place in the current mood. He did manage a smile for her though and she nodded her appreciation.

“I went out to check on the main terminal building just after the attack finished” she said. Art nodded. “I was thinking how lucky we were having moved out of the main building…but then this.”

Art knew it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Both locations were deadly. He wanted to say that he was so glad she got out but he held off. He knew she needed to grieve for John and Chad right now.

He was also glad there was no follow up assault. They would have been hard pressed to deal with it. Like Anita he too found it odd that there were no follow up attacks or an assault. But he knew that might change at any minute.

He extended his hand to his wife. She took it and he assisted her to her feet. “Come on. They’ll be here for hours digging that out. We’ve got things to do.”

Chapter 19. Resolute over Q2 0200, 6 September

The Resolute, Tenacity and Maelstrom warped into Qwantum about 500K on the far side of Q2 and a good 100K above the system plane. It was tense in the command centre. They had already detected the enemy ships. Dave was not surprised. But what he needed to know was if his frigates were there.

This was the first time they had warped in with a mix of stealth and non-stealth craft. As per their pre-mission briefing, the plan called for the Maelstrom to hail Rollinium Control and get an update as soon as they warped in. This Captain Jaques Du Gorin did. He then broadcast it out again so his cloaked escorts could hear the news.

Dave was pleased to hear that the Spectre and Raptor were still here but he took the news of John and Chad’s death with a big swallow and a wrench in his gut. Crystal was crying at her terminal. He wanted to comfort her but he dare not as he expected the enemy to move any minute now.

“Ivan, can you take over from Crystal?” he asked.

“I’m all right” announced an indignant Crystal. She quickly wiped away the tears with a swipe of a tissue. “It’s going to be my finger on the trigger when we nail these bastards.”

Ivan looked to Dave. He shook his head and indicated with his hand for Ivan to retake his seat, which he did. “OK Crystal but you have to stay focussed.”

“I am focussed” she asserted, her tone laced with anger.

And so they waited and waited and waited but the enemy ships did not move. Twenty minutes went by and finally Dave said “Well they are either totally incompetent or they are not taking the bait. I’m going to take Whiskey 1 over to the Maelstrom so I can issue some orders. Ivan the ship is yours. Wait for my instructions. If the enemy does attack while I’m in transit, stick with the original plan.”

Chapter 20. Maelstrom over Q2 0240, 6 September

The first thing Dave said to Jaques Du Gorin as he dismounted from Whiskey 1 was “How long will it take you to transfer 75 missiles to the Raptor and Spectre?”

“It will have to be the all fashioned way” said Jaques “via warthogs. Probably the best part of two hours if they’re alongside.”

Dave started walking across the shuttle deck to the elevators in the centre line of the ship. Jaques had to walk quickly to keep up with him. “The enemy’s not taking our bait. Don’t know why. He may be timid or cagey. If he’s the latter I’d like to know what he has up his sleeve.”

Jaques nodded as they stepped into the elevator. “How are you going to find out?”

“Don’t know yet but first I want to get our frigates rearmed. I’ll order them back here. Can you start and make sure your loggies are ready to roll when they arrive.”

“Will do”

He was offered the Admiral’s chair when he entered the command centre. Dave reflected that Sallusam must have sat here when this was his flagship.

“Is there something wrong” asked Jaques. “They’re a tight fit but it should hold.”

Dave chuckled and sat down. While Jaques gave the order for the frigates to move, Dave cast an eye over the holo. He waited till Jaques had finished and then pointing at one of the icons asked “What’s this?”

“Oh we haven’t finished with all the system mods. I believe that’s the rogan icon for a probe.”

“What is it doing way out there?”

“It’s probably on its way out to the asteroid belt.”

“That’s a long way for a probe.”

“Yeah but he’s obviously loathe to send a lone frigate.”

“Yeah that makes sense.” Dave’s thoughts turned to his frigates. “I wonder where they are?”

“Who?”

“Spectre and Raptor?”

“We probably won’t know till we hear a knock on the door from a warthog.”

“True but I was more concerned with working out how long this resup will take.” Jaques just turned his hands palms up and hunched his shoulders as if to say ‘I have no idea’.

Chapter 21. Raptor in Qwantum 0310, 6 September

Meg had been keen to get resupplied. She had chosen an avoidance route with a caution factor of only “1”. It would keep them outside of the 42K max range of the rogan missiles skirting around the planet at an altitude of about 90K before making a direct beeline to the Maelstrom.

The Raptor had been moving now for thirty minutes and was in the section where the rout skirts around in an arc avoiding the enemy ships. It was certainly out of engagement range and it was also out of what they believed would be effective ladar range given that everything was in the planets shadow of its sun.

“We’ve just been painted…ladar” advised Lulu Kamara. “It’s gone….no it’s picked us up again.”

“Where from?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Where from?” reiterated Meg.

“Here” and she pointed to the new icon on the holo that she had just created. “But there’s nothing there that we know of.”

“Probe. I bet it’s a probe” said  Hec.

Meg was still trying to work out how they should respond when Johnny Warento called out “They’re moving. The whole lot of them. Looks like they are going for an intercept.”

Shivani punched in the details for an intercept solution and then announced the AIs results “In their effective range in nine minutes. We should change course.”

Meg knew Shivani was right. Once they had a lock on her they should be able to track her. But it looked like it was intermittent. If she timed it just right to make the course direction they may just break the  tracking. ‘OK we can do this’ she said to herself.

“Meg” hailed Dave. It startled her. Her first reaction was to answer but that would only confirm her location to the enemy. So she resisted the urge. “I want you to follow this course” continued Dave. He was speaking in a calm measured voice intended for clarity rather than to reassure but it had that effect anyway. “You should get it in a second.”

“Got it” said Shivani. “It’s up on the holo now.”

“Don’t be alarmed” added Dave.

Meg looked at the new course. It arced further out but was still heading towards the Maelstrom. “Shivani show us their engagement zone on the holo.”

“My intent is for you to stay just out of their range.”

“There you go” said Shivani.

Meg looked at it and provided the enemy ships maintained their intercept course she would remain just out of their reach but only just. She gulped at the thought that it would only take a max speed burst from one of their frigates to close her down. But she appreciated what her boss was doing.

“But you are the bait so do not, repeat do not accelerate away. They need to believe they can catch you. Lead them to us and we’ll nail them. You need to alter course now.”

Meg nodded to Shivani and Shivani gave the order to the pilot.

“Good.  I can see you’ve changed course. I will remain here on the Maelstrom and give instructions. Follow them and we’ll win this.”

Chapter 22. Guglin in Qwantum 0315, 6 September

With the enemy in sight Hatzu was like a bulldog unleashed. He had no hesitation in committing his whole fleet as he regarded this enemy as his prime threat. There was no way he was going to split his force, even if it meant using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

He sat there bent forward in his chair, his hands gripping the terminal in front of him and staring over it to the holo willing his ships to go faster. He was not surprised when the enemy changed course. It was to be expected. In a quieter moment of reflection he probably would have questioned why it had not made a more dramatic alteration but with the chase on, that thought did not cross his mind.

It took them a good five minutes to ramp up to max impulse speed for his caps. They were now tearing through space at 58kps. How he wished he had one of those sleth drives that allowed for a short burst at an amazing 69kps. But that was not to be. He dismissed it from his mind.

After ten more minutes he was amazed that the enemy ship could sustain these speeds. It was clearly faster than the non-stealth enemy frigates they had encountered before. They were still closing the gap albeit slowly. The current range to the enemy frigate was 48K. At this rate it would take another half an hour.

He was tempted to unleash his own frigates but he thought better of it. ‘I can be a patient rogan’ he reminded himself.

Chapter 23. Spectre in Qwantum 0340, 6 September

“Hurry up” hailed Sheldon to his quartermaster.

2
^nd
Lt Becky Johnston didn’t appreciate it. She already was apprised of the need for speed. But transferring 36 missiles via warthog was a pain in the arse operation under the best of circumstances and in her view this was not the best of circumstances.

They had just bustered to the Maelstrom at top speed and were under orders to complete this resup and then buster towards an enemy that was racing at max speed towards them. ‘Terrific’ thought Becky. “Yeah we’re hurrying, we’re hurrying” she hailed back and then patted the warthog service crew chief on the shoulder to let him know they were good to go and get another load.

Sheldon smiled as he terminated the call from his seat in the command centre. He looked again at the holo and saw the trace indicating Meg’s ship. It was now emitting so not only could the enemy see her but so too could her friends.

He was so glad that it was the Raptor in this role rather than his ship. He knew from the instructions that he received from Dave that the Resolute and Tenacity were racing to an intercept point of their own from where they would conduct an initial missile attack on the two leading enemy caps before they turned tail and withdrew out of range of the enemy. ‘The beauty of having longer range missiles’ thought Sheldon.

Dave’s intent here was to bleed enemy missiles as it was their normal practice to fire two for one on the defence. The two caps would recloak as soon as they could and form up at RV Alpha.

It was his task to escort the Maelstrom on its move to RV Alpha. There the Maelstrom would launch its seventy five fighters along with the 24 from the Resolute and Tenacity.  The fighters supported by the Spectre and Raptor would deal with the incoming enemy missiles while the Resolute and Tenacity again attacked the enemy caps. It sounded good in theory but Sheldon knew that a lot could go wrong here. What he was worried about was the five enemy frigates. No one seemed to be dealing with these.

Chapter 24. Resolute in Qwantum 0350, 6 September

They had been moving at their max impulse speed of 72 kps and were rapidly approaching within max engagement range of the enemy’s missiles.

“Coming into range” said Ivan. “Ready Crystal?”

“You bet” she affirmed. Crystal had stopped crying half an hour ago. The shock and raw anger had morphed into cold hard steely revenge.

Ivan could see it on her face but he only spent a moment on that before again bringing his focus back to the holo. He watched the enemy’s engagement zone overlap his icon. “Fire” he ordered.

“Away” called out Crystal. She knew that the chance of any of these hitting the enemy was small. The enemy would have more than enough missiles to counter her own 100 torads. But she knew she would get an opportunity to avenge John. It was a matter of time. It was all about revenge now. That’s what she wanted and that’s what she would do her best to get.

“Tenacity’s just fired” announced Chase.

Ivan was again glued to the holo and in particular to the enemy icons. He was waiting for them to engage his ship. They were closing towards each other at a combined speed of 130 kps. So the sooner he could turn around the better.

“We have incoming” said Crystal. She waited for the count to stop ticking over, before announcing “Two hundred at us, same again at Tenacity.”

“James, it’s time to haul arse” ordered Ivan.

“Another 200 at our missiles and 200 at Tenacity’s” called out Crystal.

“This is going to hurt folks” hailed James as he engaged his thrusters at max power to affect a harsh left turn. He watched his screen and saw the digital bar on his gravity well compensator go slightly into the red. He eased off the turn but not before everyone on board had been subjected to a severe gravitational pull.

“Shit” called out Jasmin as the blood vessels in her nose popped. But she couldn’t do anything about it as she was gripping the arm rests of her chair. The blood splattered across her legs and the terminal for a few seconds before James eased off the turn.

Ivan wanted to help his consort but he couldn’t. Even when the effect finished he had to focus on the enemy incomings. It was all relative speed and distance now. The enemy missiles were moving at 114 kps and were now 35K away and closing. They had a max burn of 6 minutes, which gave them a range of just under 43K. The Resolute had to ensure it covered the 8K difference in less than 6 minutes. Normally at full speed this would not be a problem but now they were a long way from max speed.