Starbound (26 page)

So these were really warships after all. It was worse news than I was prepared for.

“So the Admiralty has suspected war with Carinthia as a possibility for years,” I asked. Zander nodded.

“Carinthia has strong cultural ties to the old empire. Any good textbook will tell you that. They were firmly in the Imperial camp during the civil war, and your two worlds were deeply involved in that conflict, on opposite sides. The Earthmen took a risk when they chose Carinthia and Quantar to be the first two planets contacted for membership in the Union. The old ties would always be there. But things accelerated when you encountered your dreadnought at Levant. Arin and his like are clearly under the influence of the empire, and the black school of Historians,” he said.

“Excuse me, the what?”

Zander looked at me. “There is a secret society, even within the Historian order itself, a group that shadows the order, integrates with it, but has its own motives. That's where Tralfane came from. They don't show their faces until it's too late. You should really ask your friend Serosian about all this.”

“I will,” I said. That was another item to add to my list of worries. “One thing has me curious though. I thought you were a tried and true Carinthian Navy Officer, not so much a Unionist.”

“No, lad, I'm a Loyalist. Loyal to that man down there in that crate. Old Henrik brought Carinthia forward into the Union with the best of intentions. I'd never have been in command of
Impulse
if it wasn't for him. I owe him my career. So do a lot of other officers. We may be Carinthian, but we swore an oath to the Union and to the grand duke, and I intend to fulfill it.”

Just then the ship shuddered with an impact, something being deflected by the Hoagland Field, jostling us enough that my coffee dropped off the console to the floor of the bridge. The tactical board lit up with incoming data. From what I could read, we had plenty of unwanted company.

“How many ships?” I asked.

“Looks like three, cruiser displacement,” said Zander; then he barked orders at this tactical crew. “You'd better strap in,” he said to me. I did.

“Can you handle them?” I asked.

“Any two would be a cakewalk, lad. But three . . .” His voice trailed off as he yelled more commands, then returned his attention to the tactical display. “That was just a warning shot, likely a missile with a conventional warhead. They'll want us to heave to, but I'm not of a mind to give them what they want.”

“Are they trying to stop the duke from escaping?” I asked.

“It's you they want,
and
our cargo. They must know the grand duke's on board. If they can capture us they can blame you for trying to kidnap the old duke, really fan the flames for war. My job is not to give them that satisfaction.”

“What's going on up there?” came the voice of Princess Karina over the captain's com.

“We have company, Highness, of the surly and not-too-friendly type,” said Zander. “I suggest you strap in.”

“They can't take this vessel, Captain. They cannot take my father back.”

“I understand that, Highness. I swore an oath to your father
before you were born, and I have no intention of failing him. Now if you'll excuse me, we are a bit busy up here,” Zander said.

“But—”

Zander cut off the com and turned to me. “Can you operate that longscope, lad?” he said, pointing to a small station.

“I am still a Union Navy officer, not just a royal prince with no training,” I said, unstrapping again and springing from my seat as the ship rocked with more nearby missile detonations. At least they weren't shooting directly at us. Yet.

Once I was under the longscope hood I piped into the com and was able to send vector and speed status to
Benfold'
s weapons officer, who turned my data into targeting resolutions.
Be
nfold
launched a counterattack with five tactical atomic multiwarhead missiles. The separate warheads gave the cruiser commanders plenty to think about. Our first volley took out nearly thirty percent of one of the cruisers' tactical capabilities, including weapons. The other two were only slightly diminished, at just five and eight percent lost.

“I'd feel better if we could have knocked one of those cruisers out,” said Zander, just before we took our first full-on volley of retaliatory missiles. My displays showed a twenty-two percent degradation in our attack and defense systems, which I quickly reported to Zander. “We need cover,” he said to me through the private com.

“I'll see what I can find,” I said, and began a search pattern as I'd been taught at the Academy. I quickly had an option.

“Large field of ice and rock planetesimals at point-four-four AU distance, Captain,” I said. “Calculations indicate we can be there in three-point-six-six light-minutes at full max.”

“Mr. Fraser,” called Zander, “Full max on the plasma impellers. Mr. Cochrane will give you our heading.”

“Full max,” said Fraser, after I fed him the directional telemetry. At our current clip
Benfold
could accelerate to .994 of light speed in about thirty seconds. The Cruisers would of course follow, but I
doubted they could match
Benfold
's acceleration curve. Still, with three of them they could keep us from reaching Carinthian jump space by chipping away at our defenses.

“Recommend you strap in again, lad,” said Zander, and I did. After a few seconds of ratting and shaking we hit a safe cruising speed and the ship's hull integrity normalized with the aid of her Hoagland Field.

The passage through open space was tense. The cruisers quickly fell away behind us, but only out of range of their missiles and torpedoes. If they had accurate coil cannons they could still hit us with those. Within a few moments though, it was obvious they either had none or were unwilling to use them until they could regain their tactical advantage. We were faster in a sprint, but we were still two hours from jump space and we wouldn't be able to maintain our speed for that long.

We were thirty seconds from the asteroid field when Zander cut the impeller drive and we went to maneuvering thrusters. The bridge doors opened a few seconds later and the Princess Karina stepped onto the deck. She had changed into a regular
Benfold
casual duty one-piece uniform, Lieutenant rank, and made straight for the weapons station, pushing the merchant sailor there aside.

“Highness, you would be best served to remain in your cabin,” said Zander. She snapped around to face him.

“I'm a naval officer, Captain Zander, and probably better qualified at this station than your commercial grunts,” she said. “And my first observations indicate your defensive fields are only running at seventy-two percent because your man here is running them off batteries instead of the ion plasma from the sub-light impellers.”

“And you can get them up to what, Lieutenant?” said Zander, using her rank. She checked her displays again.

“Eighty-three percent in sixteen-point-five seconds,” she replied.

“Do it, Lieutenant. You have the station,” said Zander.

“Yes, Captain,” she said as Zander nodded the original weapons
officer off the bridge. Zander and I exchanged looks, but he only lifted an eyebrow in response. Clearly, the lady was going to have her way.

We arrived in the planetesimal field a few seconds later, and I found us a good hiding place inside a field of five slow rotating ice-rocks composed mostly of magnesium trilite. They would serve as good cover, as they scrambled magnetic sonar signals, which the cruisers likely had as standard search and destroy armament. The cruisers would have to do things the hard way, with visual probes.

“So we've bought some time, but to what end?” asked Zander rhetorically. I joined him at the captain's chair.

“Captain, suggest we power down the Hoagland Field and the coil cannon. It will make it harder for them to detect us in this field,” I said.

“But that will leave us defenseless,” said Karina, turning from her station and approaching us. “We have to protect the ship.” I knew what she really meant, and what she was really protecting.

“The best way to do that is to remain undetectable, Highness,” I replied. Zander contemplated the situation.

“And none of that gets us any closer to making the jump point. We can't stay in here forever. If we don't make our stand soon they'll bring in the rest of their deep system fleet and then we'll really be outgunned.” He stood silently for a moment, then made his decision. “Lieutenant Feilberg, power down the coil cannon. Reduce the Hoagland Field to fifty percent,” he ordered.

“But that won't—” I started. He cut me off.

“It will offer us protection from anything but a direct hit, Commander,” he said. “And I owe the princess and the grand duke that much.”

“It will leave us more detectable,” I stated.

“I'm aware of that, Commander. And one more thing. Since you've both chosen to get involved in this situation on my bridge, you are now both subordinate to me and my military judgment in these
matters, regardless of your rank in higher society. Do you understand?” Zander said.

“Yes, sir,” we both responded in unison. That made me smile. I for one was happy to be working with Zander again, if only for a short time in emergency circumstances. For her part, Princess Karina, or rather Lieutenant Feilberg, seemed all too happy to be in the midst of things herself as she made her way back to her station, then glanced at me, catching my eye before returning her attention to her board.

The cruisers showed up five minutes later.

I was able to observe them through the longscope, the limitations of magnetic sonar not affecting us with our more advanced equipment. I wanted badly to use longscope probes to view the cruisers in real time, but that would be tempting fate too much. We were in partial stealth mode, but if they looked hard enough and they got lucky, they could find us.

I switched my tactical display to the main viewer and stepped out from under the longscope hood. The three cruisers were performing a search pattern, but with no results. After about thirty minutes of this they backed out of the field and went to station keeping.

“What's this?” asked Zander.

“Either they're waiting for reinforcements with better scanning equipment or they've got something else in mind for us,” I stated.

“Or both,” said Karina.

We watched as they formed into a triangle formation and then suddenly, without warning, one of the cruisers launched a missile. It streaked into the planetesimal field and exploded against a rock in a nuclear fireball about sixty kilometers from us.

“One kiloton warhead, no impact on us,” I reported from my station. The bridge stayed silent. A second cruiser launched an identical missile, then the third ship launched one. None of them were near us. We watched as they regrouped, changing formation, then repeated the pattern and shifted position again. I watched my readouts, then grew alarmed.

“Captain, I think—”

“They're triangulating on us,” said Zander. “Using neutrinos in the atomic explosions to bounce off of our Hoagland Field to create a shadow effect. They may have to do it thirty times, but eventually they'll find us. And once they do they'll cut us to pieces, bit by bit,” he said.

“What do we do now?” asked Karina. Zander looked to me.

“We take our chance,” I said. “Let me launch three longscope probes to triangulate on the nearest cruiser. We make our run at her, take her out. Then we accelerate back up to full max and make our run for as long as we can.”

“Aye, lad,” said Zander.

“And how long is that?” asked Karina. I glanced at my display readouts.

“Based on our fuel and power outputs, one hour forty-seven minutes, most likely,” I said to her. “Then we would have to back off to keep the drives from melting down. If we lean her out at that point and run at point-three-eight max capacity we
could
beat them to jump space.”

“Could?” said Karina. “That's not good enough to gamble my father's life on.”

“We're doing that staying here, Lieutenant Feilberg,” chimed in Zander. “And the commander's plan just might work.”

“And if not?” demanded Karina.

“If not we stand and fight. Smash them in the mouth with all of our missiles and torpedoes, and hope we have enough power left at the end to make the jump,” he said. “And if we don't, then heaven help us.”

I launched my probes, and from that data I was able to calculate that a thirty-three second thruster burst would get us out of the planetesimal field and into open space. From there Karina would have to fire
a mixed volley of multiwarhead missiles and single-warhead torpedoes to take out the target cruiser. We'd have probably a sixty-second advantage if we were able to disable it. That was enough time to accelerate away from the other two cruisers and hope they didn't get any backup help. I calculated our prospects of making it unscathed to jump space at roughly fifty-fifty.