Alarm of War

Zealand had lost another missile tube, Kent lost several more crew and Galway’s drive was now at fifty percent effectiveness. The Dominions were on full alert and she had to find a better way to get past their defenses.

The ship’s chime sounded softly, signifying the start of a new day. Chief Gibson came to her chair and handed her a steaming cup of coffee. Emily held it carefully in her left hand.

“And the joy of the day to you, Captain,” Gibson said formally, clasping his hands behind his back. Behind him, Emily could see Tobias Partridge look up with a puzzled expression on his face. A giddy, silly thought welled up inside her and she impulsively followed it.

“Oh, aye, ‘tis a rare fine day, indeed,’ Emily said in a dreadful attempt at a Scottish accent. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Rudd?” She pronounced it “R-o-o-o-d.”

The expression on Partridge’s face changed from puzzlement to alarm.

Rudd glanced up, caught Partridge’s expression and the choking expression on Chief Gibson’s face as he tried to stifle a laugh.

“Oh, ‘tis a grand day!” he said cheerfully, his Scottish accent even more hideous than Emily’s. “A true wonderous day, full of sun and laughter, love for our fellow man and perhaps a wee missile up the ass.”

“Sirs,” blurted Partridge, “are you quite all right?”

The three of them broke into laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks. Emily gasped, then laughed, then gasped some more. Chief Freidman, just back from Sick Bay, looked at the three of them, frowned in displeasure and went back to his console, muttering under his breath. Partridge simply stared at them, wide eyed, until Emily weakly waived a hand in his direction.

“It’s nothing, Mr. Partridge, really. Just three officers blowing off a little tension, that’s all.”

Partridge, looking skeptical, turned back to his console. Rudd leaned closer to Emily and Chief Gibson. “But it is a rare fine day, isn’t it?” he asked solemely.

Emily looked at Alex, then at Chief Gibson. “A rough start, maybe, but it has the makings of a very good day,” she said, and nodded to each of them.

“Well, then,” said Chief Gibson, “down to business, I think. Captain, what are your orders?”

“They expect a feint, then an attack, so let’s give it to them.” She told them what she wanted to do and they went off to make things ready. She glanced at Partridge, bent over his console, absorbing everything he saw like a sponge. She hoped he lived through this day.

She held up her right hand. It no longer shook. Well, not much.

Thirty minutes later a Victorian cruiser and four destroyers emerged from the minefield. They fired several missiles at the waiting Dominions. The Dominion retaliation was massive and immediate. A torrent of laser beams raked the Vickies and one by one they lost power, hulls open to space.

“Sensors!” Admiral Mello barked. “Keep your eyes peeled! That was just a feint. In the next few moments the real attack force will come out of the Vicky minefield. Lock on immediately and feed the coordinates to the laser mounts!” Then he sat back, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The Vickies were running out of ships and ideas, and he would use their predictability to kill them.

Emily watched with satisfaction as the Dominions destroyed the five drones. They got their feint, she thought, now let’s give them the “real” attack.

“Okay,” Emily said through the needle laser comm, “let’s do it again. We’ll all target the same ship and see if we can put it out of action.”

“If they’ve caught on, they’ll be waiting to pound us,” snapped Lisa Stein from the Kent. “You’re taking a big chance here.”

“Speed is the key,” Emily cautioned. “Flush your weapons, then turn and run right away. Don’t go too far from the minefield or you’ll get caught in the open.”

On the Galway, Andy Richter grimaced. The Galway’s drive sysem was running rough, first weakening, then surging. It made fine control of the ship’s speed impossible. He mentally shrugged. Nothing for it.

“Let’s do it,” Emily said.

On board the Dominion Vengeance, the Sensors Officer saw five more ships suddenly dart from the minefield. The first missiles shot towards the Dominion task force while he was still sending the coordinates to the laser batteries. He hastily finished, then slapped the ‘Enter’ button.

Two seconds later, the three primary battle lasers on each of the five Dominion cruisers and the nine four- inch lasers on the Vengeance simultaneously fired. The Dominion cruisers targeted the Vicky cruiser while the Vengeance fired on the four destroyers.

On the battle display, the lights representing the targets blossomed briefly, then went out. For a moment the bridge of the Vengeance was silent. Admiral Mello nodded in satisfaction. His intuition had been-

“Admiral!” the Sensors Officer yelled in alarm. “Sensors show the wreckage mass at no more than ten tons. Those were decoys, not Victorian war ships!”

Then, from the spot where the first decoy drones had appeared minutes earlier, more ships appeared. And these, the Sensors Officer realized in a sick panic, were the real ships, not decoys.

The laser capacitors shrilled as they began their recharge cycle. It would take at least two minutes to recharge.

All weapons fire!” Emily screamed into the comm. She grinned ferociously. They had caught the Ducks with their lasers recharging. The Ducks had expected a feint, so she had given them a double feint, with her ships emerging where the first set of drones had appeared.

So far, so good.

The cruiser they were targeting was the one on the Dominions’ right flank, closest to Emily’s surviving ships. Ten lasers struck it amidships. Thirty three missiles followed. Twelve were killed by anti-missile fire, but the rest struck home. Incredibly, the Dominion cruiser was not destroyed outright, but it turned sluggishly, trailing an ugly smear of hull plating, atmosphere and bodies, and began to limp away.

“Pull back into the minefield!” Emily ordered, then took a sharp breath when she looked at the battle display on the hologram.

The Galway had accelerated ahead of them, far ahead of them.

“Galway!” Emily called. “Galway! Watch your acceleration; you’re getting too far ahead of us.” But it was already too late.

On board the Dominion battleship Vengeance, Admiral Mello smiled in satisfaction. “Clever, but sloppy, eh?” he said to the unknown enemy commander. He had bet that the Vickies would try something new. He had held back, only firing his auxiliary battle lasers, but hoarding the primary lasers and all of his missiles. Now the Vengeance sat powered down, almost invisible, within easy shooting range of the emerging Vicky warships.

“Fire all weapons!” he ordered.

In one of the corridors on the Vengeance, Cookie felt a heavy vibration through the soles of her feet, and realized that the battleship had just fired its main weapons. Urgency gripped her and she could feel the bile rise in her throat. They had to move faster! She followed five Marines around the corner and found herself facing a dozen or more astonished Dominion soldiers. They all carried sidearms and frantically groped for them as two of the Marines opened fire with their pellet guns. The Tilleke air-powered rifles made their odd ponk! ponk! ponk! sound and half of the Dominion troops spun and crumpled to the deck. Wisnioswski stepped forward, bellowing incoherently, and buried his spear deep in one man’s chest, just below the breast bone. The man’s eyes bulged and he openend his mouth to scream, but Wisnioswski lifted him bodily off the ground and smashed him violently against the bulkhead.

Cookie shifted to the side to clear her field of fire and opened up with her pellet gun. One of the Duck soldiers was raising a radio to his mouth and she shot him twice in the face. The pellets lacked the sheer force of a sonic rifle or the precision of a flechette gun, but they did the job all right. The soldier’s head splattered backward and the radio handset went flying. She looked around. All of the Dominions were down. Beside her, Wisnioswski was