for sure.
On board the Dominion battleship
“Quite positive, sir.” Captain Pattin had learned never to show the slightest doubt around Admiral Mello. Doubt implied weakness, and Admiral Mello instinctively attacked any sign of weakness. “We’ve triple checked. Although the worm hole is moving to the west as seen from our plane of approach, the Victorian space station is turning to the
Admiral Mello shook his head. This didn’t make any sense. Why were the Victorians making such a blatant mistake? The space station was huge; it had to be difficult to turn. Were they pulling some sort of feint on him?
He turned back to Pattin. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Unless they think they’re going to miss the worm hole and they are turning around to make a run for Darwin.”
“But the Refuge worm hole is moving west?”
“Absolutely, sir.” Captain Pattin hesitated. “Shall I order the attack to be moved up, sir?”
He looked again at the holo display. Feint or no, at the end of the day the Vickies had to go to the worm hole, it was their only open path of escape. Let them twist and turn, that is where he would find them. Mello smiled. “No, Jodi. Let them continue to turn the wrong way. A very famous Old Earth general said, ‘Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.’ We’ll let the Victorians continue their mistake a while longer, then finish them.”
• • • • •
Two hours later the Refuge worm hole suddenly changed direction. One second it was moving west, then abruptly it was moving back east along the same path it taken earlier. The leader of the Dominion blocking force blanched.
“What the hell is it doing?” he shouted at the hapless Sensors Officer.
“I don’t know, Captain!” the man stammered. “It simply changed direction and is moving east.”
“Well, where is it going?” On the holograph display, the captain could see that it was coming up fast behind them and would go past them, toward the Victorians, in less than an hour.
“I- there is no way of knowing, Captain,” the hapless Sensors Officer confessed.
The captain cursed loudly and eloquently, displaying a rich vocabulary gathered during a lifetime of service in the Dominion Fleet. Then he sent a message to Admiral Mello. Several minutes later, he received a one word reply.
Attack!
Chapter 65
At the Worm Hole Entrance
“Incoming missiles!” the Sensors Officer said. Not quite a shout, but hardly his normal voice, either. “The Dominion blocking force has fired on us!” The H.M.S.
“A full report would be appreciated, Chief Kunnin. Tell me how many and when they arrive,” Captain Eder said calmly.
“Yes, sir,” the Chief said sheepishly. “Uh, Mildred counts four hundred and fifty missiles, ETA in fifteen minutes.”
“That’s better, thank you. All frigates and destroyers, deploy anti-missile drones. Prepare to engage any leakers. All ships, go active with computer controlled anti-missile fire in ten minutes.”
“Sensors show large number of enemy ships accelerating towards us, Captain,” the Sensors Officer said, his voice tightly controlled. “Sixty plus ships.”
“Target locks, Chief?” Eder asked.
“Not yet, Captain. There is a lot of jamming, probably some jammers mixed in with the incoming missiles. No firm locks yet.”
“Send some recon birds out,” Eder ordered. “I want to cut through all this crap and see what we’re up against.” Something seemed wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
The screening frigates fired reconnaissance drones toward the oncoming Dominion force and reports began to filter back. The Dominion forces had assumed a wide crescent shape, with a concentration of ships in the center, and in the very center, a positively huge ship. The recon drones reported that most of the ships were cruiser strength, with three battleships and whatever the hell the big ship was. Interspersed among the war ships were numerous small vessels.
“Jeez,” someone breathed. “There’s a lot of them.”
“Too many,” said the Sensors Chief. “Coldstream Guards only counted sixty seven. We’re getting readings for well over a hundred, so there are a lot of decoys out there.”
Even if there were only sixty ships or so, four hundred and fifty missiles was not a very heavy barrage, Eder mused. He wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been over a thousand. Or more. Why such a light volley? “Can you get a firm lock on them, enough to get a clear ID?” he asked.
“Not yet, sir. Recon drones are still working their way in.”
But as they watched, the Dominion blocking force saturated the area with its anti-missile defense and one by one, the recon drones fell before they could burn through the jamming and the decoys and get a clear picture of what the Dominions had.
“Not very anxious for us to see what they’ve got, are they?” Eder mused.
In the meantime, the four hundred and fifty Dominion missiles reached the outer range of the anti-missile drones, which fired small, fast rockets and guided them close enough to the enemy missiles so that the weak onboard sensors could lock on. There were a series of explosions, and then there were only four hundred and twenty missiles.
The anti-missile drones fired a second volley of the mini-missiles. More explosions, but then the Dominion missiles flashed past them and continued toward the Victorian ships, getting closer.
The second line of Victorian drones fired, and so the dance continued until the Dominion missiles reached reliable laser range and the frigates opened up. Thirty of the missiles locked onto two of the frigates and bore in on them. Captain Eder had kept the cruisers and his precious battleship just far enough behind the frigates so that they could not readily help them, and now one of the frigates paid for this tactic with its life. It turned sharply, and then used a full Hong Brake to sharply decelerate, hoping to break the missiles’ lock. Six did lose their lock on the hapless ship and began a long, curving turn, hoping to acquire a new target. But the remaining nine stubbornly closed in. Bofor guns took out two more while they were still fifty miles out and a lucky laser shot caught another, but the last six reached their target, exploding within five hundred yards of the frigate and hurtling shrapnel through the frigate’s hull and into the corridors and work spaces.
By chance, the worst effect was on the engine room. The magnetic bottle held somehow, but both of the frigate’s drive plants immediately shut down, ruined beyond repair. The frigate, the H.M.S.
“Dammit!” Eder cursed. He did not want to risk any more ships until they fully engaged the Dominion’s blocking force. “Tell the other frigates and destroyers to fall back within range of our defensive guns and stay in tight formation. And send out another group of recon drones. I think the Dominions are being a little too coy and I want to know why.”
He looked at the holo display. The Dominion crescent and the Victorian oval sped towards each other. Then, as he watched, the recon drones finally got close enough to burn through the enemy jamming. Some of the fuzzy
