chatter from a freighter. They said two Victorian battleships had been destroyed in a surprise attack.”
Mello felt a surge of satisfaction. It had worked after all. Now the Vickies had only one battleship left. “Jodi, search for the battleship; it won’t be far from Atlas.”
Two hours passed before one of the scouts called in. “Many ships moving slowly south toward the Sultenic wormhole. They seem to be in a circle around a large object, but I can’t get a good fix on it.”
“Shall I order the Fleet to turn south?” Pattin asked.
Mello held up a hand. “Wait,” he ordered.
Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. The radio crackled. “Scout Leader, Third Wing reporting. I have a large mass of ships moving north in general direction of Refuge wormhole. I repeat,
Admiral Mello leaned forward. “Do you have any sign of a Victorian battleship?”
A moment of static. Then, “My sensors can’t sort it out. I’m showing lots of tug boats, destroyers, cruisers — I can’t pick out a battleship, but it could easily be lost in this mess.”
The Sensor’s Officer chimed in again, adding to the confusion. “I’ve got strong thermal blooms off of Space Station Prometheus. Looks like she’s on fire.”
Mello shook his head. The Vickies were somehow towing Atlas Station with them, either north or south, he wasn’t sure yet, and had apparently set fire to Prometheus Station. Turning to his aide, he snapped out orders.
“First, tell the scouts to get a visual sighting on the objects being towed. One of them is the Atlas space station and we need to know which one it is. Then send ten ships to secure Prometheus. Send one of the troop carriers with them. Put out those fires and hold the station. Then alert the Attack Force, as soon as we get a fix on Atlas, we will make a high speed run to intercept it.”
To the south of Bogey One, Captain Grey’s Coldstream Guards coasted in stealth mode five hundred miles on either side of the small grain warehouse being towed by the
“Anything on the sentry drones?” Captain Grey asked, her voice strained. Grey couldn’t use active sensors from any of her Battle Group for fear of giving away their position, so she had left several sentry drones loitering in orbit around Cornwall or within visual range of Prometheus.
“Bogey One seems to be just sitting there, Ma’am,” reported the Sensors Officer. “Several small vessels have left at high speed — scouts, most likely — but they’ve gone outside the range of the recon drones. One was headed in our direction, so we’re looking for him on passive.”
Grey shook her head and shot a glance at Rudd and Tuttle, both huddled by the Tactical Combat sensor display. “I had hoped they’d split their forces, but they’re hanging back until they’ve figured out where the real Atlas is.”
Rudd laughed. “Those bastards,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t you hate it when the enemy acts as prudently as you do?”
Grey snorted, but said nothing. Emily frowned. “Will they spot us?”
“I should think so,” Grey answered. She shrugged. “It was a long shot, I just was hoping we might catch them in a mistake.”
“Small vessel on our passive sensors. Should be the scout, Captain.” The Sensors Officer leaned into his display, peering intently. “Energy blossom, looks like he’s launched a bird.”
“Well, no one said this would be easy. Still, let’s play it out. Shoot chaff and send in the frigates to kill the scout. Change the display on one of the drones to make it look like
Emily kept looking at the display. The Dominion scout was already close enough to pick up electronic and power plant signatures from the
and the accompanying drones, but it was still pressing forward. She frowned. The pilot must be aware of the risk, so if he was coming closer, there was something he needed more than electronic signatures.
“It’s coming in for a visual confirmation, Captain,” she said.
Grey nodded. “I would, if I were them.”
On the screen they watched as three laser beams lanced out from two of the Victorian ships hiding on the flank. For a moment nothing happened, then the Dominion scout pitched upwards into a skidding turn and accelerated madly away, leaving a growing cloud of chaff in its wake.
“Damn!” Captain Grey muttered. “Find the recon drone and kill it!”
The New Zealand opened up with its anti-missile batteries, but the display showed the drone weaving and jinking violently, always moving closer.
“Telemetry!” the Sensors Officer shouted. “We have telemetry from the Dominion drone. It’s broadcasting a message back to Bogey One.”
They had waited too long; the drone had just sent pictures back to the Dominion fleet. Now they knew Atlas was being towed north to Refuge, not south. Grey looked glum. “Okay, time for Plan B.”
Chapter 53
At the Prometheus Space Station
The Dominion ships approached Prometheus gingerly, half expecting missiles to rain down on them from hidden Vickie war ships. As they got closer, they could clearly see smoke pouring out of several holes in Prometheus’s hull.
“They must be mad,” one of the bridge crew gasped. “That thing must be worth 100 billion credits.”
“Not mad,” Captain Scinto replied. “Just very desperate.” Scinto commanded one of the new Argus-class missile cruisers, built at the secret ship yard the Dominion had used to quietly enlarge their fleet. The ship yard was not even named for fear that the name might inadvertently attract the scrutiny of Vickie intelligence services. The only name ever used was that of a nearby small asteroid belt the Dominion patiently mined for its scant traces of Ziridium.
Scinto frowned as he studied the space station. God alone knew how much damage there was already. He thumbed the com: “Troop Transport 4, are you ready?”
“Troop Transport 4 is ready. The men are in shuttles. We can have a thousand men on board the space station in thirty minutes. Once they secure the hanger, we can move the rest within an hour.”
“Troop Transport 4, you may commence now. Tell your men that they must get those fires under control as soon as possible.” He connected to the other nine vessels in his task force. “I want you close in to the space station. Keep a sharp lookout for Vickies. Your scanners should be in active mode. If they were desperate enough to set fire to it, they’re desperate enough to send a force back to finish the job. Set your anti-missile defense to automatic.”
Within moments the shuttles had emerged from the Transport and were soon clustered around one of Prometheus’s many docking bays.
Captain Scinto listened to the reports of the Marines fighting the fires. The fire in Docking Bay 3 had been beaten back almost immediately. The firefighting system there had been turned off, but not disabled, so all the Marines had to do was snake a power line from one of the shuttles and power it up. The fire was out in a few moments. Other areas were raging out of control, however, and even when they opened some corridors to space, there was enough air in the space station to keep the fires going for many minutes.
The second wave of shuttles landed in Docking Bay 3 and the new Marines hastened to help their comrades. When the fires in the perimeter were under control, the Dominion soldiers began to push into the space station’s interior. Meeting no resistance, they exchanged cautious looks of relief.
As the first Dominion Marine passed into the second ring of corridors, he stepped underneath a concealed motion detector. The motion detector duly noted the movement and sent a signal to a computer hidden inside a storage closet deep within the labyrinth of the space station’s hallways.
