Alarm of War

At the very edge of the mine field, slightly below the plane of advance of the Dominion cruisers, Captain Rowe closed his eyes and silently said a prayer for the safety of his ship and crew. Then he quietly spoke into the comm. “Advance. On my signal, fire missiles and lasers and fall back into the minefield.”

Two cruisers and seven destroyers crept forward and poked their noses out of the minefield. Merlin had already selected targets: the five Dominion cruisers on the enemy’s right flank.

“Fire!”

Each ship flushed its missile batteries in a single orgy of fire, then fired every available laser. Then, as one, they turned and raced back into the minefield, seeking whatever protection they could find there. Had they been at full readiness, they would have fired a total of one hundred and ten missiles and twenty five lasers, but all they could manage was seventy two missiles and fifteen lasers. All the lasers were concentrated on one enemy cruiser, leaving eighteen missiles for each of the remaining four cruisers. At normal ranges, this would never have been enough, but the enemy cruisers were less than four hundred miles behind the minefield and the missiles sprinted over that distance in seconds.

Rowe watched through the eyes of a loitering drone. The cruiser struck by lasers shied off, its sensors blinded and its propulsion system faltering, air streaming from several breaches of its hull. Another cruiser triggered its Dark Matter Brake and quickly fell behind. The three others seemed to fair better and immediately began to counter-fire with missiles and lasers in abundance, seeking out the Victorians, who in turn bobbed and weaved in a desperate attempt to get back into the minefield.

“Clear to the left!” Captain Rowe ordered his attack force. “They’ll saturate this area with anti-matter bombs in a moment. Clear to the left!”

The nine ships wheeled away and accelerated, shooting decoys behind them to throw off the Ducks’ tracking. As they fled, each ship pushed its engines to maximum military power, but combat and damage had taken their toll and within minutes the ships began to separate. Soon the Swansea and Repulse were far behind.

Captain Rowe studied his hologram. He was leading his attack force several degrees to the left of where they had first attacked. Now he ordered the ships to slow and turn back toward the edge of the minefield. “Is everyone reloaded?” he asked Merlin.

“Australia, complete. Bristol will be complete in ninety seconds; Auckland, Sydney and New Castle are loaded; Coral Bay, Perth and Darwin will be complete in three minutes; no report from Swansea and Repulse,” Merlin reported.

Rowe frowned. “Merlin, report location of Swansea and Repulse.”

“Insufficient data. There is no C2C contact and without active sensors neither ship can be located within the minefield,” the AI reported matter-of-factly.

Rowe shook his head. Dammit! Down two ships already. He thumbed the comm to speak to his other captains. “Okay, Swansea and Repulse are out of contact. I don’t know if they are out of action or just lagging behind without radio communications, but we can’t wait. We’re going to pop out of the minefield again and target more of the Dominion cruisers. Keep a tight formation, and once you’ve fired, get back into the minefield as quickly as you can. This may be our last shot at this, so make it good. Each ship acknowledge orders!”

The remaining ships acknowledged and headed one more for the edge of the minefield.

Admiral Mello scowled at the battle display. There were two Vicky forces out there, one stalking the Vengeance, the other actively attacking his cruisers. Two cruisers had been badly damaged and were out of action. The after-effects of the anti-matter weapons and the general clutter of the minefield made it impossible to get a clear picture of where they were.

No matter, he would find them.

“Computer, plot a line left and right of the original attack by the Victorian cruisers and show furthest possible location of enemy ships within that area.”

The battle display flickered and an orange tint appeared over the area where the Vickies could be hiding. Mello studied it, then nodded.

“Captain Pattin, are the anti-matter weapons fully loaded on all ships?”

“Yes, Admiral,” she replied.

Mello tapped his fingers on the armrest. “Send a message to all ships. At the first sign of enemy activity…” He spelled out his orders.

Two thousand miles behind the H.M.S. Bristol, the H.M.S. Swansea and Repulse crept along at thirty percent power, all either of them could manange.

“Bugger me,” the captain of the Repulse muttered. His holo display looked like a ball of fuzz in fog. “Where the hell did they go?” He turned to his Communications Officer. “Willy, are we in touch with anybody?”

“Yes, sir, the Swansea. We’ve lost her a couple of times, but we keep finding her again.”

Captain O’Toole stifled a groan. He and the captain of the Swansea had cordially hated each other since their days at the Academy. Just bad chemistry. Once he had even asked her to dance at the Academy Ball and she had told him, loudly, that she wouldn’t dance with him if it were the last dance in the world and he was the only man there. To make it worse, they couldn’t seem to get away from each other. They went through Command School training together, were on the same battleship together as Ensigns, had gone to frigates together and then were both promoted to destroyers in the Home Fleet.

He sighed. No help for it. “Swansea, this is Repulse.”

“Swansea here, Bert. What do you want?” Captain Joan Cummings didn’t sound happy to hear from him.

“Joan, our passive sensors are totally shot and I don’t want to go active unless I absolutely have to. Do you have any idea where the Bristol is?”

“We’re pretty much flying blind here,” the Swansea’s captain replied. “We can barely see you with our passive sensors and you’re close enough to spit on.”

Dammit. Bert O’Toole ran through his options, which didn’t take long. He could run or he could fight.

“Joan, you reloaded yet?”

“Fifty percent capacity, but that’s as good as it’s going to get. Two of our auto loaders are buggered. What shape are you in?”

O’Toole grimaced. Repulse had a full loadout of missiles but only two operational lasers. Worse, the missile magazines had been damaged, so they couldn’t move any more missiles into the auto loaders. And Engineering was warning that the propulsion system was overheating and if they didn’t shut it down completely in the next thirty minutes, they would all be taking a Long Walk. “Yeah, well, we’re pretty much buggered over here, too.”

There was a long pause. “So whatta think, Bertie?” She knew he hated that name. “Shall we run for Atlas or take another shot at these bastards?”

O’Toole snorted. “I don’t suppose we could just demand they surrender?”

Cummings laughed ruefully. “Well, maybe later. Rowe must be planning to attack again, and our fine feathered friends will be shooting off another round of anti-matter fireworks pretty soon. If we’re going to pop ‘em, we better do it fast. Are you up to this or not?” she demanded.

O’Toole sighed. For a fleeting moment he pictured his wife and two daughters, then forced the images out of his mind. Play the hand you’re dealt, Bert.

“Okay, Joan, looks like I get to dance with you after all.”

“Sweet suffering Mothers, haven’t you gotten over that yet? All right, one dance. Let’s make it one to remember, Bertie. I’m setting AI to Max,” Cummings said.

“Setting AI to Max,” O’Toole agreed. “Combat seperation, fire whenever you can.”

“Last one back to Atlas buys the beer,” she said. “Swansea out.”