The Orion Plague (33 page)

“Sensors, report!” Captain Absen gasped.
“What’s our situation?” His eyes roved the screens he could see,
half of them showing gibberish, the other half hopeless
confusion.

“Trying, sir!” In fact it was almost a minute
before Scoggins was able to put some coherent displays up. “It
looks like the enemy is moving away at about one G, using its
maneuvering thrusters.”

“Heading where?”

“There’s another asteroid about six hours
away on their course.”

“Right. Engineering: report.”

“Power systems overall at twenty-eight
percent, sir. One gyro remaining. Six percent of damage control
parties reporting.”

“Six percent? See what you can do. Helm?”

Okuda recited, calm as ever, “The drive plate
and shock absorbers are destroyed, sir. We have nine hundred
thirty-one bombs remaining. We could use a few of them, very
carefully, letting the armor take the blast, if we have to. We’d
get about half a G out of them, and I’d have to go very slowly,
diagnosing the system between every one. We don’t want a
catastrophic failure.”

“Understood. Weapons?”

Ford spoke grimly. “Forty-six Tridents show
operational, though some might not make it out of their tubes…all
of our Grackles and SM5s are gone, stripped away in the blast. Four
Arrowfish launchers and twenty-four CIWS left. One Behemoth only.
And…all but one of the lasers are up, though I can’t guarantee
recycling time. Depends on power.”

“All right, people, it sounds bad, but we
still have enough firepower. All we have to do is get in close and
pound him to dust.” Knowing that most of the crew, those of them
still alive, would have no idea what was going on, he went on,
“Comms, put me on shipwide. Comms?” he looked over to Johnstone’s
station, saw his head lolling inside his helmet.

“I got it, sir,” the assistant Comms officer
blurted, fiddling with his board. “Okay, sir, you’re on.”

Absen put on his best Captain’s voice. “Now
hear this, now hear this. This is Captain Absen speaking. We’ve
almost won. As badly damaged as we are, the enemy is worse. Now we
just have to hunt him down and finish him off. I need maximum
effort from every one of you to get systems restored. There won’t
be any more hard maneuvering,” he said, deliberately leaving out
the details of their crippled drive system, “so good luck and get
working. Absen out.”

The assistant Comms officer leaned over to
shake Rick Johnstone, but Absen said, “Leave him be, Ensign. Tune
your systems for COMINT; if the intel team is still alive they need
signals. Every scrap of information about the enemy might be
critical.”

Okuda spoke up. “We are stable, sir, and have
three percent spin, bringing that up slowly to five.”

“Good,” Absen concurred, “that will help
people work. Weapons, are we in range of the enemy?”

“About forty klicks, sir, but increasing.
Close enough for lasers.”

“Excellent. Fire beams at will, no kinetic
weapons.” He knew that any mass thrown at the enemy would push them
farther away, and with their drive every bit of acceleration was
important.

“Tridents, sir? Enemy’s still going slow
enough we might hit them with a megaton warhead.”

Absen stroked his chin. “No, we wait.
Maintain firing solutions, but I’m not ready to destroy that ship
yet.” He touched a control on his chair. “Absen to Combat Ops.
MacAdam, you there?”

“Here, Captain, and feeling bloody useless.
Are we finally to have some work to do?” The colonel’s voice seemed
composed of equal parts eagerness and bitterness.

“Yes you are. Cry havoc, Colonel. Are your
people ready?”

“Those that are left. We’re down about a
hundred.” Now it was only bitterness.

“And there are almost two thousand crew dead,
so save it. You’re about to lose some more, but we’re all
expendable if that’s what it takes, Colonel.” Absen lifted his
finger from the transmit key, spoke to his Master Helmsman. “Mr.
Okuda, download nav data to the sleds and pinnaces. Make sure their
flight paths stay out of the way of the weapons. Engineering, tell
the damage control crews to concentrate on making sure the Marines
can launch in ten minutes.”

He pressed the key back down, and hit another
that made the channel private to MacAdam only. “Colonel, you are go
for launch in ten minutes, on the mark. The enemy frigate is
limping away on thrusters only and our drive is damaged. The safe
thing for me to do is blow him out of the water – space, whatever –
and we all try to make it home, but we have no idea what kind of
enemy ship will show up next, and we need to capture their
technology to give Earth a chance. We just barely beat a ship
that’s a hundredth our size, and only because we surprised them.
Their next wave may be unstoppable. You understand?”

For a long moment Absen could hear only
breathing on the channel. Then he heard, “Right.
By Sea, By
Land
…we’ll have to add ‘By Space.’ My lads and lasses will get
it done, Captain.”

And you understand
, Absen did not say,
if it doesn’t work I may have to nuke the enemy ship with you in
it. But I’ll expend everyone aboard if it keeps Earth safe for a
little while longer.
“Ten minutes, then.” He clicked off and
looked up at the screens, now being restored one by one. Noticing a
display with four jittery flashing icons, he asked, “Status of the
enemy drones?”

“All of them are in some kind of random
dodging pattern, sir,” responded Scoggins. “Must be a default
setting.”

“At least the enemy isn’t controlling them. I
wonder why?”

The assistant Comms officer spoke up. “Uh,
sir…there’s still a lot of telemetry between them and the enemy,
but we’re jamming it.”

“We are?” Absen snapped, leaning forward.

The Ensign gulped. “I mean, yes, sir, we are
beaming strong coded jamming signals at each of them.”

Scoggins at Sensors poked at keys and
touchscreens. “He’s right, sir. Comms has slaved four of my radar
arrays and is hitting them with a shitstorm of
electromagnetics.”

“I’m not doing it!” protested the ensign.

“It must be
him
,” Ford snarled,
pointing at Johnstone slumped in his chair-couch.

“You better be glad, sir,” the Ensign shot
back at Ford, “because if he wasn’t, those drones might be shooting
at
us
.”

Ford choked back a reply and turned to his
board. “Captain, I could lob a Trident at each drone. Their random
jinks are well within blast radius of a pattern burst.”

“No, Weapons, we’ll let Mister Johnstone keep
jamming. If he can break their encryption he might be able to take
control of them. We need every piece of tech we can capture, and if
I have to destroy the frigate, those may be all we get.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Ford said resignedly.

“Mister Okuda, what can we do to catch up
with the enemy?”

“The only thing that will do it is the drive,
sir. Chemical thrusters aren’t enough.”

“What about towing with the pinnaces?”

“That was discussed in the planning…they
could perhaps impart one thousandth of a G. Enough for a long slow
navigation but not for tactical maneuver. In any case one of the
pinnaces is damaged and cannot be launched without extensive
repairs.”

“All right, then we have to risk it. Very
carefully, get us moving to catch up with them.”

“Aye, sir. First drive bomb now.” It appeared
he had it ready and waiting, as a second later they felt the push,
gentle by comparison with the normal blasts. “Diagnostics
running…within limits.” After five or six seconds they felt another
push, slightly stronger. “Still within limits. Sir, I believe this
will work, if we are careful.”

“Fine job, Mister Okuda, but take as little
risk as you can.”

Okuda chuckled, a first for him since he had
taken over. “Sure, Skipper. Because nukes are so safe.” The rest of
the bridge crew laughed, a bit too loud, but suddenly the tension
level dropped.

Well done, Okuda. They’re starting to jell.
Thank God I made the tough choice and got rid of deLille.

***

Ten minutes went by quickly, with reports of
continuing damage to the enemy frigate by their lasers. They had
snuffed two of the enemy thrusters, but two more had appeared
moments later. Perhaps it had self-repair capability or some kind
of spares. Its surface was now mottled, and it was slowly drawing
away. Range between the ships now exceeded seventy kilometers and
climbing despite Okuda’s best efforts.

Time to throw the dice once again.

Captain Absen tapped the shipwide icon and
spoke. “Now hear this, now hear this. Assault sled and pinnace
launch in thirty seconds, all crew prepare for small boat launch in
sequence on my mark.” He paused for the seconds to tick off. “Good
luck and Godspeed.
Mark
.”

The bridge felt the slight shudders as
thirty-one assault sleds were ejected by compressed gas from their
tubes in several ripples. The sole operational pinnace followed a
moment later, carried outward by the slight centrifugal force of
five percent spin, firing its thrusters once clear.

Now it was time for
Orion
to keep
pecking away at the enemy from long range, to lick their wounds,
and to wait.

***

“Weapons, can the Arrowfish lock on from this
range?” Absen’s voice was icy, intended to send Ford a clear
message:
you are out of favor until you put aside your personal
feelings
. He hoped the man understood; he was still debating
relieving him and putting in his assistant. This was an eternal
dilemma of command, to keep balance among each subordinate’s
talents, competence, personality and weak spots.

“No, sir, but I can guide them manually in
until they do. But they won’t do much damage; their warheads are
just a few kilos of explosive.”

“I just want to give the Marines what cover
we can for their assault. Can you make sure they won’t hit the
sleds and pinnace?”

“They have IFF so they won’t target them, but
there’s always a chance of a random collision. Space is pretty big,
though.”

Helm spoke up. “My calculations say about one
in two point six million chance of a random hit.”

Absen nodded. “Well within risk tolerance. Do
it. Time them to hit the enemy starting a minute before the assault
and end five seconds before. Can you cut it that fine?”

“Easy-peasy, Captain.”

“Good, then use most of them up. They’re
useless against the enemy hypervelocity missiles, so we might as
well get something out of them.”

Ford nodded. “Roger, sir, ripple firing now.
Four hundred sixty-six rounds away, holding thirty-six in
reserve.”

Okuda spoke up. “Sir, I see that damage
control crews have gotten a second Behemoth back online. Might I
suggest we use it? Not on the enemy, sir,” he said hastily. “I can
angle the two of them backward and get some more acceleration as
they throw the mass, and every lightening of the ship gives us a
tiny advantage.”

“What about power and ammo?”

Ford replied, “We’ll have to shift power, the
beam capacitors will charge more slowly. We have more ammo than we
can possibly use, though, if the weapons crews can transfer it from
the magazines of the damaged guns.”

“Right, good thinking Ford, make it happen.
Any other ideas, anyone? Now is the time, it will be more than
twenty minutes before the Marines hit them.”
Carrot and stick,
come on Ford, work with me.

***

Those last twenty minutes were agony on
Absen’s bridge. Even so the delay allowed the crew to regain a
routine, to configure the displays, and to open their helmets to
nibble on ration bars and water. Every ten or fifteen seconds would
come a gentle push, accelerating
Orion
after its quarry.

Absen watched the icons of the assault sleds
on the screen, the pinnace behind them, as they crawled toward
their target. Of his many worries now, his biggest one was
wondering what kind of close-in defense systems the frigate
had.

Hopefully the four hundred Arrowfish would
absorb most of the counterfire, covering for the assaulting Marines
packed twelve to a sled.

Hopefully the still-firing barrage of lasers
would suppress whatever response the Meme had.

Hopefully he hadn’t just sent more than three
hundred men to their doom in some alien deathtrap.

“Helm, can we afford a five-second burst from
the Behemoths to support the boarding?”

“Superb tactic,
capitaine mon
capitaine
. No problem.” He paused and directed the two weapons
he had been using as crude rockets, turning them back into weapons
for a moment. “Firing. Five seconds. Ended. Ordnance
en
route
.”

“Nine seconds,” Ford called. “Seven… five…
three. Impact.”

Tiny stars winked along the enemy ship’s
elongated length, brought close by the
Orion
’s surviving
forward optics. Some were reddish, explosions of Arrowfish missile
warheads and fuel. Some were white and soft, undoubtedly a response
to the incoming, some kind of short-range fusion beam perhaps.
Interspersed they saw a line of black, stitching in two separate
places along the flanks of the frigate, railgun impacts.

Major Anton Stallers strapped himself in to
the crash couch nearest the pinnace’s cockpit. It wasn’t really
logical, but up there he felt like he had some small influence over
what might happen. At least he could see out the windshield.
Spaceshield. Front cockpit window. Whatever they called it in
vacuum.

Not that there was much to see, just the two
Marine assault pilots running their preflights one more time, and
every time he looked, he felt like he might fall into the cockpit.
Right now it was pointing nose-out toward the skin of the ship,
meaning forward felt like down. He was glad to turn to examine his
men.