complete acceptance check of the shields. A new Empire senior chief accompanied him, making notes of things that were not up to standard.
“How does it look, Lieutenant?” she asked.
“Fair. Some of the controls were damaged in the fighting. It might be a problem bringing spares on line. The Chief is working on a temporary fix. If it works, we’ll be able to run everything through the net, just not manually. I’ll let you know. The guns are next. As soon as we’re done with them, we’ll start checking our spare parts supply.”
“You can fix things during a battle?”
“No, Ma’am. Well… I could, but it takes too long to get from one place to another on these cruisers. Every gun and shield has a supply of spare parts that can be changed automatically. Unless you forget to load the spares, it works, but on your unmodified ships it doesn’t work all that well. An unmodified AI doesn’t like to change out a power supply until it’s exhausted. I’m not going to let it wait that long. I’ll give things a nudge here and there.”
“I like that idea.”
He shrugged. “We discovered right away during our training that none of these Empire cruisers were designed to take on another cruiser. Their purpose was mostly to show the flag, so we’re really abusing them. AI’s on the ships Admiral Trexler brought with him have been modified to change things earlier, so it’s mostly a matter of monitoring. Here, I’ll be busy.”
“Do you need help?” she asked.
“Keep an eye on me if you have time. Remember, we’ve never fought a real battle, so there are a lot of unknowns. If we encounter this scree I’ve heard about, I won’t have any back-up. I will be busy, and if I get overwhelmed, we could lose the ship.”
“Call me if you need help. Our primary focus is offense, but we can’t mount an offense if we’re dead, so your job is crucial to our defense. If you get overwhelmed, we’ll consider retreat.”
“Yes, Ma’am. That’s how it works.”
Reba went back to Sara. “You brought some good people. I’m feeling a lot better about things than I was. What’s my job?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. We’ve learned some things the hard way during training. Here’s how we staff a battle on a cruiser: one gunner for each battery, a gunnery control officer, an engineer, a pilot, and a captain/squadron commander.”
“That’s it?”
“Until we get more people, that’s it. Chandrajuski whittled us down to bare bones. This battle will let us know if it’s a mistake. So
… I’m the pilot. My primary focus is to maneuver on our target. I’ll be coordinating my efforts with Schumacher, the pilot on our sister ship, and it’s intense.”
“Why don’t I pilot, and you command?”
Sara considered. Her thoughts went out through the ship to study the oncoming horde of Rebel/Chessori ships coming toward them, and Reba followed her thoughts through the net.
Sara reached a decision. “No. I’d like to. I’d really like to say I was a squadron commander, but the most demanding job here will be flying the ship. To win, we have to have guns on the target, as many guns as we can. We have to remain in an offensive posture for as long as we possibly can.”
“So what do I do?”
“You have two jobs. As squadron commander, you’re in charge of two ships. You focus on the big picture, and you carry out instructions from Trexler. That’s the easy part. As captain of this ship, your first priority is to monitor our defense. As pilot, I’m focused on offense, and I’m good at it, so you don’t have to worry about that, but I’ll do my job better if I know someone is keeping a tally on our health. We’re going to take hits, many of them. These battles are brutal: there will be damage. The AI will minimize it, but it’s a computer. You need to make sure we remain alive.
“We don’t have reinforcements to call on, and retreat is an iffy thing,” Sara emphasized. “Our opponents are just as fast as we are, so running away doesn’t work. If we need to retreat, call on Trexler for help.”
Sara’s virtual image stared at Reba through the net. “Can you do that?”
Reba nodded. “I can. I could use some training.”
“We all need to train together. We will, just as soon as Jerry and Chuck report ready. What do I need to know about this ship?”
“We’re operational as long as our fight is against Chessori. If our fight is against Empire sailors, we’ll have to retreat. Most of the senior crewmembers were killed or wounded during our fight to take the ship back from the Chessori. There’s no way we’ll compete against a fully operational Empire ship.”
“Well, I have a problem with that. We won’t know who we’re up against until we engage, and remember what I said about retreat. It is not a sure thing. Can we prepare ourselves to go up against a Rebel crew? I noticed there’s no Empire bridge crew here. That’s a first for me.”
“All killed. The squadron commander survived, but he’s wounded. We left him behind.”
“We still have a bare bones bridge crew,” Sara noted. “We’re adequate. We have one gunner for each battery. Do we have time to train Empire gunners? A full crew of them would be 120 plus whatever additional control officers they need. Surely not all of them were killed.”
Reba stared at her in amazement. “They weren’t, and you’re right. We can make this ship functional against whatever we run into. Brilliant!”
“Are the remains of the Empire crew on our side?”
“Good question. I think so, but we’ll take no chances. The door to the bridge will remain locked unless one of us has to go in or out.”
Sara spent hours running battle scenarios, bringing both sets of gun crews to a level of performance Reba had not achieved on her own. All the months of training at Parsons’ World had made a difference for the Terrans.
Reba smiled to herself despite the uncertainties before them. The outcome of the battle had been partly determined on Earth during the selection process. She and Trexler had chosen well. Terrans were going to show their value to everyone today.
The two of them stared out at the oncoming horde. Seven and one-half squadrons had the job of slowing down the approach of 37 enemy squadrons. They didn’t have to slow the enemy down very much, an hour would allow the rest of Trexler’s squadrons to catch up, but an hour of fighting between capital ships was an eternity, and the enemy had five squadrons to each of Reba’s.
Sara sensed Reba’s unease through the net, and she sensed the unease from the rest of her crew which was tied to her through the net. She directed a thought to all of them.
“Admiral Trexler knows. He won’t let us down. He has six fast squadrons that no one can see – their beacons are off. I’ll bet they’re nearby, ready to pounce after the first shot, and they are much more capable than the enemy knows. The real odds are four-to-one. We haven’t handled those odds before, but I think we can.”
She gave that statement a few heartbeats to sink in, then said, “I’m raising the bar. We’re not just going to slow them down. Let’s show these Rebels what we’re made of. I want us to take out all of them before the rest of our guys get here.”
Stunned thoughts flooded the net. She grinned. “Don’t think about 37 enemy squadrons. Think about 4, just the number 4. Our job is to take out 4 enemy squadrons. We have a two-cruiser combination to do it, not a cruiser- frigate. I’ve never seen a two-cruiser combination in action before, but neither has the enemy. We’re going to kick some butt today.”
A little while later, the Rebel/Chessori fleet split up. Fifteen squadrons continued inbound to battle Reba’s inner squadrons, and 22 reduced speed to meet the oncoming fleet of ten outer squadrons. Clearly, the Rebels did not see Trexler’s six fast squadrons.
