Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (22 page)

Besides, he liked working with Trajan. The man was quiet but competent in his job.

He frowned thoughtfully. That gave him his answer right there, he thought quietly. The second question was could he shave one or more of his staff to help out? Oh, and, if he bumped Trajan, would it be considered a battlefield promotion to flag rank? Well, no, a temporary frocking to Commodore … he again plucked at his lip thoughtfully as he thought it over.

Then the question was, what size squadrons? An even split would give them each five with two division mates and an orphan one,
Maine
and
Justice
. That would mean splitting one division pairing up later … since they'd have four each if he did the split right away. But splitting up a division was not wise considering they weren't that far out from combat. Should he go with six in his and four in Trajan's? Give Trajan the carriers? He'd served on them, so he could watch out for them … but they couldn't keep up with the BCs and they shouldn't be in the main battle line! Damn it, he thought in annoyance. He shook himself. He could give him the LCs but they weren't suited for front line combat. He had other uses for them.

And then there was the question of which ship to shift his lights to?

He inhaled, broad simian nostrils dilating, then exhaled slowly. So, he was a tad frustrated he thought. And the training was still fraught with issues as people made simple miss communications and mistakes. He was trying hard not to take that frustration out on his staff. It wasn't their fault after all, but it wasn't easy. He needed to vent.

Now he understood why John played hooky from time to time. Unfortunately, he didn't have that luxury or inclination—not in potentially hostile terrain after all.

He glanced at the clock and then the time table. If
UNF-001P
was on schedule, she should be jumping out into Dead Drop within another week, which meant they needed to jump for B-97C within another three days.

Just enough time for the engineers to pull off another “miracle” and get the drive issue sorted out while he ran his ship crews through one or two more exercises.

And maybe, just maybe he'd get enough of a feel for the other ship captains to decide which he wanted to shift his lights to. But he had a feeling Renee had the top slot already.

:::{)(}:::

Admiral White was on the bridge reviewing his critique notes of the last exercise before they started the next and hopefully final one when the plot changed. Ordinarily he would have missed it, but he had just so happened to have been looking at the plot to plan out the exercise when he saw a ship blink into existence at the B-97C jump point.

“Sir, we've got an unscheduled …”

“I see it,” he interrupted.

“It's the
Prowler
, sir. It has to be, based on the size and mass readings we're getting at this range. But why?” Jojo asked, clearly confused by the situation.

So was her boss. His instincts screamed danger. He stiffened in surprise; he hadn't expected to see the ship so something was very wrong. “Cancel the exercise,” he ordered.

Garfield his tactical officer looked to object but instead flicked his ears and then passed the order on to the rest of the fleet.

“Sir, CIC reporting. We're looking at a crash translation. The ship is drifting badly.”

Jojo sucked in a breath. “Not good,” she said in understatement.

“She's finally gotten helm control back, sir. She's straightened out her flight and is now under way. Her signal is fading; our active scanners are losing lock. She's going into stealth now.”

“Something is wrong if they turned back. Comm, flash our IFF and hail them,” the Neochimp flag officer ordered with an imperious wave of his hand. He turned to the hologram of the bridge captain. “Captain Vargess, set condition yellow throughout the fleet,” the admiral ordered.

“Aye, sir. Set yellow alert through the fleet,” his flag captain echoed.

:::{)(}:::

“So we made it in time? I thought they'd be well past us,” Juma said, staring at the image of the fleet. “Do we head for them hoping to get shelter and get caught in-between them?” he asked dubiously.

“It's not up to us,” Ch'r'kk stated from his station. The Veraxin continued to peck at his controls, refining their sensor data. The lights flickered as did the images on the LCD and holographic monitors. “Not good. We've got damage and electrical brownouts all over the ship,” the Veraxin reported.

The captain grimaced. They were a
Prowler
; they didn't have a tachyon emitter so they were forced to use sublight means of communication. One he should have gotten started the moment they had recognized the fleet. He grimaced. He could kick himself later … if there was a later. “Comm, hail them. Send them our IFF now. Spooky, send them our logs now. Flash a case Zulu. Get that warning off
now
!”

“Aye aye, sir,” the A.I. replied dutifully.

“Helm get us under control and the hell away from the jump zone. Best speed,” the captain ordered.

“Easier said than done. We've regained helm control, but the engines are restricted to one-quarter impulse, Skipper,” the ensign replied. “We're in stealth, but I'm not sure how good it is.”

“Sam? What gives?” the captain asked, putting his finger on the comm button to call engineering. He got a lot of cursing and heavy breathing for an answer. “Yeah, do your best,” he said looking up to Saheed.

Saheed's black eyes caught his. He nodded once then grimly refocused on his station in an attempt to outrun the juggernaut bearing down on them.

:::{)(}:::

“It's not good, sir,” Jojo reported as she looked up from where she'd been reading over the comm rating's shoulder. “The
Prowler
reports major damage to her hyperdrive and drive train. They had to run from a Horathian fleet.”

“Shit,” Garfield murmured. “Well, I suppose we can take them,” he said.

“No, the fleet is translating down
now
,” Jojo said, “as in right behind them.”

“Now? As in
right
now-now?” the Neocat demanded sharply, pointing at the clock.

The Neochimp nodded. “Yes.”

“Well shit, why didn't you
lead
with that, woman!” Garfield hissed. He immediately swung into action. “Battle stations!” he snarled. The A.I. picked the call-out, and the lights went red.

“Back that up,” Jojo ordered as she continued to her voyeuristic pursuit. She stiffened and then looked up. “They've got dreadnaughts, sir,” she said in a fearful tone of voice. “A division of them.”

“Oh
, frack me,” Garfield muttered.

“My sentiments exactly,” Amadeus said mildly as the dispassionate tactical computer within his mind did the calculations. No matter which way he crunched the numbers he didn't like the results.

“We've got minutes, sir. Every minute is precious. We don't know for sure where they are coming out, and we've got exactly no time to deploy to take advantage of it,” Garfield warned. “Sir,” he turned to meet the admiral's eyes squarely. “Given the reported balance of forces in their favor, I
highly
recommend we avoid engagement. We'll be surrendering surprise, but we need to get clear.”

“Agreed. Dreadnaughts are nothing to sneeze at or play with up close,” the admiral replied with a nod.

He checked the plot. “Nav, plot us a course back to the B-97A jump point. Have a fallback planned for the B-97B system if we can't make it.” B-97B was a dead end star system so it was a jump of last resort. It was a part of the three-star cluster, however, but mostly ignored since it was out of the way of the main trade route.

“We can't do a reversal, sir; we're too far out. They'd overhaul us as we slowed down,” Alec Rowland, the staff navigator replied. “We need to … I'll work on it, sir. You may not like the answer.”

“Keep me posted,” the admiral ordered. He turned his eyes to the download. The initial warning came with a more detailed scan of the enemy fleet. The
Prowler
hadn't gotten an in-depth view, but they'd gotten a fingerprint of each ship.

And there were a lot of them.

“Sir, a request for a conference has been called,” Captain Vargess said.

“Tie them in. I'll make this short and sweet,” the admiral said. He quickly outlined the situation to the captains as they came online.

“Sir, what do we do?” Renee asked carefully.

“We fall back,” Amadeus replied.

“Give ground, sir?” Captain Nax of
Kittyhawk
asked dubiously. “We could bleed them here …”

“Yes. We'll fight but on
our
terms,” the admiral stated, cutting the woman off. “This star system has little to offer us, and we don't have the time to set up additional defenses. They have surprise and fire power on their side. No, we fall back using our superior speed to get into B-95a3 ahead of them. Hopefully without them noticing we're here.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Don't worry, you'll get your chance,” the admiral growled. Captain Nax hesitated but then nodded.

“Sir, I have that course change plotted, both of them. In order to get back to the jump point, we're going to need to do a slingshot past the star,” the navigator interjected. “And we need to start the maneuver in the next two minutes to get it right,” he said.

“Hyperspace translation at the B-97C jump point! A big one!”

“Frack!” Vargess snarled, clenching his fist.

“The
Prowler
just lost her stealth and drive!” CIC added.

“Double that frack. It looks like this isn't our day,” Renee said worriedly, “or their day. Can they reach us? Or vice versa?”

The Neochimp shook his head silently. There was no way to get to them in time, and he wasn't about to risk his fleet to save one small ship. Ultimately, it was expendable.

Even if it pained him to see it happen before his eyes.

Renee saw all that in his expression. She flinched and then nodded slowly.

“Nav, you better be right about that course,” the admiral said.

“I am, sir. But … seventy seconds, sir,” the navigator said pointedly.

“Then feed it to the fleet and execute once they all have it,” the admiral ordered.

“Aye aye, sir.”

:::{)(}:::

“Sir, translation complete. We seem to have surprised a few people,” Catherine stated, indicating the plot as it stabilized. The image of the empty star system's cartography was to be expected. The blinking icons of fresh contacts were not.

“And that
Prowler
seems to have strained something important getting a warning off to them,” the admiral said, noting the icon of a drifting ship less than a light minute away. “Order
Nimitz
to get a squadron out and take her out.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Catherine replied, passing the order on.

“Sir, Tango Fleet has been detected. Force and composition is coming in now. It looks like eight battle cruisers, sixteen destroyers, four unknown ships, four light cruisers … update: make that twenty-two destroyers, including two in a second smaller force tailing them.”

“Identify second group as Tango 2,” Catherine ordered.

“Acknowledged,” the CIC rating stated. “Tango 2 looks like a fleet train, sir. There are twelve ships of various classes and sizes there and the two aforementioned tin cans covering them.”

“A fleet train. So, Tango 1 is the main body.”

“Aye, sir. Sir, SITREP update. Tango 1 and 2 are altering course.”

“Coming about?” Catherine asked as the projected plot was altered. She frowned as it blinked then started to crab to their right in a bank.

“No, ma'am. We're running the numbers past navigation now.”

“They didn't come about and try for a reciprocal course. They probably realized their fleet train wouldn't be able to keep up,” Admiral De Gaulte stated. He frowned at the plot. It was a bit fuzzy.

“Can we clean that up?” Catherine asked.

“Sorry, ma'am, they are at our extreme range now. We're basing our INTEL on the number of drives, passive sensors, and mass readings. Radar and Lidar as well as our other active sensors are still en route.”

“Understood,” the OPS officer stated. “They are running,” she said quietly.

“We caught them by surprise. They have been defensive minded for a while, and I'm wondering if that
Prowler
got off her report before we arrived.” He grimaced. “Most likely she did, so there is no point trying to hide our true strength.”

“Darn,” Catherine said mildly.

“They've gotten more reinforcements than I'd like. Another couple of battle cruisers and I'd say we'd be in some serious trouble,” the admiral said, rubbing his chin. He definitely didn't like seeing so many battle cruisers in one place. If they freed up that many for an offensive, it didn't bode well for whatever forces they had covering Antigua and Pyrax. And every day it took him to get there would be one more day for them to keep building and launching more ships.