Alarm of War

The computer activated a ten minute timer.

Outside the space station, Scinto’s task force kept a close guard. Something kept appearing at the edge of their sensors, but none of them could get a decent lock, though that did not prevent them from shooting off dozens of missiles just to keep the Vickies off balance. Scinto believed in an active defense.

Scinto was thinking about how many ships he would have to leave behind to guard the Prometheus station when the timer aboard the space station reached ten minutes. The computer hidden in the storage closet duly took note, then sent a signal to the forty-five antimatter pods that had been secreted around the exterior of the space station’s hull.

A second later each of the pods expelled its antimatter directly onto the hull. For a fleeting moment, Space Station Prometheus looked like a miniature star in super nova. It turned a brilliant white and expanded in all directions, greedily enveloping the ten Dominion war ships guarding it. On the night surface of Cornwall a small child cried in delight and pointed to the sky. “Look, Mommy, fireworks!”

On board the D.U.C. Vengeance, the Communications Officer frowned in puzzlement. He’d been monitoring the salvage effort at the Prometheus Space Station when the communications had been abruptly cut off. He glanced nervously at Admiral Mello, who was talking intently with Commander Pattin. He most certainly did not want to be the bearer of bad tidings to the Admiral. He nudged the Sensors Officer, whispering: “Mitch, what have you got from Prometheus?”

Mitch adjusted his controls, and then went pale. “Oh my God!” he choked out.

A few feet away, Admiral Mello and Commander Pattin looked up, both frowning.

On Board the H.M.S. Lionheart, Admiral Douthat grimly studied the holo display. The Dominion hadn’t been fooled by the decoy; now they were chasing the First Fleet and the priceless Atlas station, to say nothing of Queen Anne.

“Any word from Captain Grey?” she asked without looking away from the holo display.

“Nothing yet, Admiral. They’re positioned on the far side of the Dominion Fleet, pretty easy for the Ducks to jam their transmissions.”

“Anything on Prometheus?”

The Communications Officer shook his head. “The carrier wave went off line after that energy spike. It was almost certainly the antimatter pods blowing up, but we’ve no way of knowing how much damage it did to any Dominion ships.”

Douthat grunted. The first set of reconnaissance drones they’d sent out earlier had either been destroyed or run out of fuel by now. Should she risk sending a frigate? No, she had too few ships to risk one unless she had to. Gods of Our Mothers, if only they could accelerate faster! It was like trying to swim with a ball and chain around your legs.

“Captain Eder, would you be so good as to send out more recon drones?” she ordered. “And get me the captain of the mine layers; time to leave the Ducks some presents.”

She studied the small speck of light in the far corner of the holo display, the one that represented the wormhole to Refuge. Five days away at current speeds. Five long days.

She sighed. For this to work, the Dominion had to start shooting their missiles, using up what was in their on-board magazines. Time to start…

Chapter 54

On the H.M.S. New Zealand,

Searching for the Dominion supply train

“Damn it, where are they?” Captain Grey muttered. They were now quietly following the Dominion fleet as it pursued the Home Fleet and Space Station Atlas. Each ship of the Coldstream Guards was running as stealthily as possible, but their passive sensors were probing desperately, trying to locate the Dominion supply ships that were the life blood of the Dominion force.

The problem was they could be anywhere. They could just run immediately behind the attack fleet, or above it, below it or on either side. And they would be trying to run quietly, not wanting to attract the rude attention of a Victorian force bent on mischief. Grey’s single Battle Group couldn’t cover everywhere at once, certainly not while using only passive sensors.

No, unless they got really lucky and tripped over the Dominion supply ships, they would have to sit and wait until some frigate or destroyer came running back to refill their magazines.

“Admiral Mello, sensors picking up a line of ships closing into missile range. Dead ahead. They must have been powered down, Sir, because they just popped up out of nowhere.”

“Size?”

“I count fifteen at least. They are blasting ECM, so exact count is uncertain.”

“Type?”

“We only had a glimpse before the ECM kicked in, but I read three battleships, at least four cruisers and a mix of destroyers and frigates. It looks like they’re making a stand, Sir,” the Sensors Officer added helpfully.

“Then you are a fool and we are fortunate that I am in command, not you,” Mello replied acidly. “We know the Vickies lost two of their three battleships, so there is no way they can have three battleships waiting for us. Also, it is unlikely that they would make a stand with only fifteen ships against our larger task force. No, what you see in front of you is a line of drones masquerading as war ships, with perhaps a couple of warships mixed in to give the charade additional credibility. They might have some missile pods, but once they have exhausted their missiles, they will be worthless junk.

“So,” he said, raising his voice for the entire bridge crew to hear, “we will continue and roll over them. We must not give them time! Time is the enemy! Commander Pattin, bring the frigates and destroyers on line. All ships to activate their anti-missile defenses.”

And the Dominion Fleet rushed forward to meet the first line of the Victorian defense.

“Bugger me blue, there’s a lot of them!” the Tactical Officer on H.M.S. Melbourne whispered. The destroyer was hovering four hundred miles behind the line of missile pods, watching through the reconnaissance drones spaced between the pods. Not far away was the H.M.S. Dundee, another destroyer from the Black Watch Battle Group. Their job was to wait for the Dominion ships to close in, then flush the missile pods…and run like hell. “Don’t worry about hitting anything,” Captain Hamid had told them. “Just make them shoot back and waste missiles.”

“Do you have range yet?” the captain of the Melbourne asked impatiently. The Tactical Officer tried to concentrate on his instruments. He was having trouble concentrating; there were so many Dominion ships coming at them.

“Ten seconds!” His voice squeaked. “Five…two, one. In range. They’re now in range. Now.” He couldn’t stop babbling.

His captain looked at him, a smirk pulling at his mouth. “Okay, George, we got it. Fire your missiles, then push the recon drones forward so we can see what’s happening.”

The Tac Officer pushed a button. Four hundred miles in front of them the twenty missile pods each fired sixteen short range missiles in sprint mode. Each pod had been assigned two targets. A moment later the recon drones flared to life and sped after them, active sensors reaching out to find the enemy.

“And activate the antimatter mines,” the captain ordered. Then, satisfied that was done, he ordered: “Let’s get out of here. Tell the Dundee we are pulling back.”

The Dominion had learned the hard way that the Victorians had superior missile systems. Their response had been to build ships dedicated to nothing but antimissile defense. They called them “Hedgehogs.” Each Hedgehog was capable of simultaneously tracking and destroying twenty incoming missiles, and as each was destroyed, the Hedgehog automatically queued up another one. It held a magazine of five hundred short range “buckshot” missiles,