Vortex incursion, p.41
Vortex Incursion, page 41
“Inquisitor Tarbar’s directive,” Deckus replied. “Dedicate at least six peacekeepers to the chase.”
“It will be done, Imperator,” Gretren responded. Then he ordered the majority of his force to chase the alien ship.
Most peacekeepers within the Krackus fleet were stationed close to the Helgart rim where Tarbar had directed his ship and the flagship to station.
Gretren’s fleet consisted of eight peacekeepers and the supply ships, which provided platforms for the Imperium appointees and their research teams.
Korvath stared forlornly at the positioning of Gretren’s small fleet. If I was going to stage an attack, this is exactly what I would do, he thought.
“Second alien ship. Different configuration,” the telemetry officer warned.
Before Gretren could communicate with Korvath, he heard from Deckus, who said, “Imperator Gretren, prepare to launch on the tri-hulled ship.”
“I’ve only two peacekeepers focused on the vortex,” Gretren objected.
Korvath, pitching his voice to be heard clearly by Deckus, announced, “Imperator, the tri-hulled ship has activated its primary engines and is arcing high above our position.”
“Second tri-hull,” the telemetry officer said loudly.
“Imperator Deckus, we must hold,” Gretren entreated.
“Another one,” the telemetry officer repeated moments later.
The Krackus commanders and the inquisitor were stunned into silence, as they watched tri-hull after tri-hull exit the vortex and form squadrons around Gretren’s denuded fleet.
“Declinator, status of the first alien ship?” Gretren curtly requested.
Korvath had kept one eye on the chase. “The ship disappeared, Imperator. The peacekeepers are reversing course and returning to our position.”
“Declinator,” a bridge officer requested, and Korvath hurried to view the officer’s panel.
“Imperator, the tri-hulls are adjusting their configuration,” Korvath said. “Some are tightening their cordon around us. A larger number of them are walling off the returning peacekeepers.”
“That answers our unasked question,” Gretren mused aloud.
“Which is what?” Deckus asked tartly. His frustration at being trapped by the inquisitor’s directives and unable to fight his fleet was showing.
“The alien tri-hulls are warships,” Gretren replied. “I would surmise that the two large outboard hulls fire energy weapons.”
Deckus ordered his imperator to give him a comparison between the small ship that they’d tried to trap and the tri-hulls.
“The difference is on the order of about twelve times the size,” Gretren relayed to Deckus from Korvath.
The imperator and the bridge crew knew what was on the fleet imperator’s mind. The small ship had demonstrated its energy weapon by obliterating an iron asteroid. One of these tri-hulled warships could devastate a peacekeeper by destroying either the bow or aft end of the ship.
Deckus watched Gretren’s six returning peacekeepers decelerate to face the wall of alien warships.
The peacekeepers’ imperators queried Gretren, who, in turn, inquired of Deckus, “Orders?”
Korvath was called to the bridge console again, and Gretren and Deckus waited for the update.
“The first ship to come through the vortex has reappeared,” Korvath reported. “It sits behind the warships ringing us.”
Suddenly, the bridge comms officer stared at his panel in surprise. He turned to Korvath, raised his hands, and shrugged.
Before Korvath could ask about the problem, the bridge heard,
When the Tritiums, who had been removed from Dominique’s Trident to the Nyslara, heard Z’s whispered translation, they had to curtail their desire to utter their high-pitched laughter.
“Who can hear the admiral?” Gretren tried to softly ask Korvath.
Gretren’s gurgle sounded strangled.
“What do you want, alien?” demanded Tarbar.
“What do you want?” Tarbar repeated. He’d tried to growl, but in the Krackus voice it sounded closer to a squawk.
“Freedom,” the Tritiums chorused. Unfortunately, their audio wasn’t relayed.
“We’re not gifting you this system,” Tarbar declared. “You’ll have to take it from us.”
Deckus and his imperators gurgled in trepidation.
“Destroy the aliens, Fleet Imperator Deckus!” Tarbar ordered.
“I would hear your offer, Admiral,” Deckus responded.
Tarbar fumed that his directive wasn’t immediately executed. Nonetheless, he admitted he was curious about the challenge.
“Accept the offer, Imperator,” Tarbar swiftly replied. He was confident in Krackus superiority, especially in the circumstances of a one-on-one ship battle.
“When and where, Admiral?” Deckus requested. In his mind, it didn’t matter whether it was a single peacekeeper or the entire Krackus fleet. He was fairly certain of the outcome.
“Imperator Gretren, take the challenge,” Deckus ordered.
Gretren and Korvath exchanged horrified glances. Then they schooled their faces, accepting their fates.
“Declinator, find us some clear space,” Gretren ordered.
32: Challenge Accepted
Korvath approached the bridge console and eyed his pilot’s screen.
The pilot pointed to a location beyond the sphere of warships that encircled them, and Korvath nodded and patted the young officer’s shoulder.
Gretren watched as their peacekeeper accelerated and made its way through the screen of alien ships. He gestured with a finger to Korvath, which brought his declinator close to him. “Do you think they’re still listening?” he asked softly, pointing at his command chair’s comms panel.
Korvath held his beak close to Gretren’s tympanum. “We must assume so?” he whispered. “Request isolation as a courtesy,” he added.
“Admiral,” Gretren said loudly. “I assume that you’ll stop monitoring us now.”
Gretren beckoned Korvath again. “Can we trust them?” he whispered.
“Based on past actions, I would think we’re the race not to be trusted,” Korvath returned, and Gretren narrowed his orbs but said nothing.
“Battle stations,” Gretren ordered, and Korvath called the crew to their assignments.
Missiles and probes were activated and loaded into the launch tubes. Close-in gun crews checked their monitor controls, opened their ports, and sent their gun enclosures beyond the hull.
Dominique received some data from Z. She shared it with Darren Stansfeld, her senior crew chief, and they examined it together.
The information presented a quandary for Dominique. Her preference was for a single pass and a crippling strike. It would minimize the danger to her crew and ship.
The location app within Dominique’s implant showed the majority of her crew hurrying through the lower decks to the launch bays.
In the meantime, Dominique received numerous attack patterns from Miranda and Z. Or rather she received the links to the tactics. The SADEs had embedded the scenarios in her controller, and her first officer, pilot, and beam gunner were already studying them.
When Dominique received the controller’s signal that three travelers had launched, she ran a check to ensure that every crew member who should have boarded had indeed done that. One name was absent.
Dominique chuckled.
After Darren arrived on the bridge, he regarded the holo-vid, which displayed the latest attack scenario, and he listened to the officers argue.
“Apologies for interrupting, Sers,” Darren said, “but has anyone thought of demonstrating our beam capability before attacking?”
“They’ve seen our weaponry,” a lieutenant pointed out. “The Vivian’s Reflection did that on the first visit.”
“That they did,” Darren politely agreed. “I don’t mean to get into an argument with you about size, Lieutenant. But don’t we have a bigger weapon?”
Dominique had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Her pilot, a young lieutenant, should have known not to cross wits with a senior crew chief.
“Explain your idea, Chief,” Dominique requested.
“I recognize it gives the captain of that battleship a better idea of our Trident’s power,” Darren replied. “I thought a demonstration of our ship’s power might have the captain capitulating before we have to fire on them.”
Dominique used her link with Cordelia and the protectors to run two ideas past them.
Dominique eyed the crew and said, “The admiral said no demo and no systems’ invasion by our SADE. This is to be nothing but a ship-to-ship contest.”
With Cordelia’s links, she was aware of the travelers’ launch from the Trident.
“Are we prepared, Declinator?” Gretren asked.
Korvath wanted to state that they’d never be ready to take on the aliens’ warship, but every department had reported their readiness. “We are, Imperator,” he said, as bravely as he could.
“Thoughts about tactics?” Gretren inquired.
Korvath considered the maneuverability of the small alien ship. “We mustn’t fight in the traditional manner,” he suggested.
“What’s the alternative?” Gretren inquired. “Our power has always rested in the depth of our barrages.”
“Which the SADEs evaded,” Korvath pointed out.
Gretren deliberated on the challenge. “Pilot, lay in an erratic course, signal with our bow lights, and then accelerate,” he ordered.
The pilot’s orbs grew wide, and they appealed to Korvath.
Immediately, Korvath was onto the pilot’s panel, and he selected course changes on a whim. “Do you see?” he asked the pilot.
The pilot nodded thankfully and continued to add to the list that Korvath had created. While he did that, he triggered the bow lights to flash the required times.
The Trident accelerated toward the peacekeeper. Then it transited into the dark for the shortest of distances, reversed course, and jumped into the dark again. When it emerged, there was a near ship collision.
The Trident’s controller executed emergency override procedures and averted a disaster.
“What was that?” Gretren exclaimed, when he saw something flash into being off his port bow and shoot over his ship.
“That was the tri-hull, Imperator,” Korvath said, studying the blurred visual imagery.
“Would they have dared to ram us?” Gretren asked.
“Doubtful,” Korvath replied. “At the last moment, the tri-hull made a course change to miss us. I think our previous maneuver put us in the ship’s path. Should we cease our indiscriminate courses?”
Gretren’s long neck wobbled briefly and then straightened. “No,” he said with determination. “Let the aliens realize their error. They won’t make that mistake again. Declinator, your suggestion about this tactic is proving valuable.”
Behind Dominique, she heard Darren chuckle.
“The tri-hull is attacking,” a Krackus officer reported.
“They’re not repeating their disappearing act,” Gretren commented with satisfaction. “Stand by to launch missiles.”
“Range, Imperator?” Korvath queried.
“Let them close on us,” Gretren replied. “I don’t want our missiles to spread too much.”
“The tri-hull broke off engagement,” an officer reported.
Korvath hurried to the telemetry panel and studied the maneuver. He felt like yelling at the panel.
“We were tempted, and we responded,” Gretren said disappointedly. He heard the report that the missile ports were reloading.
“At the acceleration rate of that tri-hull, we can’t wait until they get much closer,” Korvath said.
“And with their swift maneuvering, we can throw missiles at them until our bays are empty,” Gretren added. He tapped his comms panel and connected to Deckus. “Do you see what’s happening?” he asked.
“How do you intend to combat their tactics?” Deckus asked.
“I’m open to suggestions, Imperator,” Gretren replied. “I thought of ramming them and ending this contest in a draw, but I doubt we can hit them.”
If the situation weren’t so serious, Deckus would have been tempted to gurgle.
Gretren saw his panel’s icon blink red, and he switched to privacy mode, taking the call in his ear comm.
“There’s no doubt that you will lose this encounter, Gretren,” Deckus said. “Despite that, you must make the best of it. Fight until you’ve expended the last missile, the last armed probe, and the last shell.”
