Honor Bound

“Admiral,” McKay broadcast over his ‘link to the bridge speakers, “Vinnie had an idea… would it be possible to use our gravimetic emitters to destabilize the rammer’s drive field?” Vinnie glanced at him wide-eyed, looking like he wanted to shush him.

“Pirelli?” Patel threw the question to his Tactical Officer.

“Theoretically it’s possible,” she allowed. “I don’t know what range we would have or how much damage we can do with the reconfigured laser focusing fields…”

“Pirelli, here’s what I want you to do,” Patel said with an intensity born of inspiration. “On my signal, deactivate our drive field, target her with the emitters, hit her with two volleys of Gauss cannon fire, then reactivate the field.”

“Aye, sir,” Pirelli acknowledged. “Helm, prepare to deactivate the drive field.”

“Ready when you are, Angie,” Sweeny said with a grin. She glanced at him sharply, then smiled in return.

“Bogie is two minutes out at current acceleration,” Pirelli announced. “I estimate another minute before our emitters would have any effect.”

“Jesus, sir,” Vinnie said quietly to McKay in the shuttle. “Way to leave my ass hanging in the wind if this doesn’t work.”

“But if it does work, you’ll be the hero of the day, Vinnie,” McKay countered, grinning widely. “By the way, when we get back-assuming we live through this-I think it’s pretty well past time to make you Major Mahoney.” He looked between Vinnie and Villanueva, still grinning. “Then you two can date without feeling guilty.”

Villanueva covered her mouth to suppress a bubbling laugh, but Jock didn’t even try… he guffawed loudly until Vinnie, red-faced, elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop braying you damn Aussie jackass,” he said, “or I’ll field-promote you to Lieutenant just so I can bust you to Sergeant again.”

“The rammer is one minute out,” Pirelli said. “Ready to hit her with the emitters, sir.”

“Drop the drive field,” Patel told Sweeny. “Tactical, activate the emitters and open fire with the Gauss cannons.”

“Aye, sir, firing now.”

On the screen, the computer simulated the beams of directed gravimetic energy as shimmering lines connecting the Sheridan to the ramship… and where they touched, there was a flickering in the blue halo that represented the ship’s Eysselink field until it winked out entirely. Then the streams of tungsten penetrators shot out from the ship’s accelerator coils and cored the defenseless ship like an apple, piercing her light hull armor as if it weren’t even there.

Burning oxygen shot out of the huge holes in the ramship’s hull as the streams of projectiles trailed down the length of the vessel and finally punctured the drive pods…

“Reactivate drive field now!” Patel snapped, leaning forward in his chair, knowing what was coming next.

Sweeny had just hit the controls and hadn’t even had time to speak the confirmation when the ramship’s containment fields failed and its antimatter fuel contacted the bare metal of the storage field projectors…

There was a fiercely bright light, like a star had ignited in space ahead of them and the optical viewers blanked out as their filters were overloaded, and then they were past the conflagration and heading for the exit gate.

Patel sat back in his chair with an exhale of relief that was inaudible over the cheers of the bridge crew. Sweeny and Pirelli shared a nod of congratulations, both of them grinning with triumph.

“My regards to Captain Mahoney,” Patel said with a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe we can keep you all on board after all.”

Valenzuela shot Vinnie a grin and Jock slapped him on the shoulder, then tried to fake an apologetic look. “Oh, sorry, sir… I shouldn’t have touched your august personage.”

“One minute to the gate unless you care to decelerate, Admiral,” Sweeny told him.

“I think we’ll take this one at speed as well, Helm,” Patel said, shaking his head. “Pirelli, the minute that gate is activated, I want a full spread of Area Denial missile shot through it… make sure they detonate before we get there, though.”

“Got it, sir… I recommend we decrease to one half G acceleration now.”

“Do it, Helm.”

After so long boosting at over one gravity acceleration, McKay felt like he might float away when the push decreased to a half G.

“Activating emitters now,” Sweeny said. “Gate is opening.”

“Launching missiles,” Pirelli said as two dozen of the weapons streaked out of the electromagnetic coils and disappeared through the wormhole.

“Gate entry in thirty seconds,” Sweeny said.

“Here’s where we find out if you live to be a major,” Jock said aside to Vinnie.

“Oh, sweet mother,” Cal Orton whispered from the copilot’s seat, crossing himself.

Darkness consumed the Sheridan once more and when the light returned it was also all-consuming, the spheres of fusion explosions lighting up space all around them. And in the midst of it all, a pair of warships bore down on them, so close they could see them on optical alone…

And then the drive field was up, as a chorus of voices began shouting status reports until Patel had to yell: “Silence on deck!” and they all ceased, leaving the bridge in an unnatural stillness.

“Tactical!” Patel looked to Pirelli.

“The AD missiles ignited several mines,” she reported quickly. “We have two bogies with a hundred kilometers… I think we took a Gauss round to the nose, but it didn’t penetrate the armor. Drive field is up and we’re good for now, but sensors are detecting at least one ramship within two light seconds. The primary here is a G5 main sequence star, there are three terrestrial planets and one large gas giant with five moons-we’re about two light seconds from the gas giant. It matches Mironov’s description of the system that holds Novoye Rodina.”

“Helm,” Patel said, turning to Sweeny.

“We’re running star patterns and constellations, should have a location in a few minutes. I’m detecting multiple gates in close proximity as well.”

“Accelerate to one point five gravities. Take us closer to Novoye Rodina,” Patel ordered. “I want to make a pass within optical range, get some details. Keep us ahead of those ramships though.”

“Accelerating to one point five g’s, aye,” Sweeny repeated, sliding a finger along a holographic projection to feed power to the Eysselink field. “Making course for a flyby of Novoye Rodina.”

The viewscreen showed the Protectorate ships beginning to fall behind as the Sheridan accelerated. The Protectorate vessels could probably make two or three g’s, McKay knew, but they couldn’t keep it up for long.

“Bogies are launching Shipbusters at us, sir,” Pirelli reported. “Four… no, six. Accelerating at ten gravities. They have to know they can’t hurt us with the drive field on, sir.”

“They may know that we can’t hurt them with the field on, Commander,” Patel reminded her. “And it will be chancier for us to make an attack of any sort with a whole row of Shipbusters lined up and waiting for our field to go down.”

As the ship swung around to make a run by the Protectorate homeworld, McKay could see the gas giant appear on the screen’s optical cameras. A dull orange, it had a clearly visible ring and as he watched a rocky, asteroidal moon passed across its mottled face.

“A lot of the gates seem to be near the orbits of gas giants,” he said to Patel over his ‘link. “That must be significant somehow.”

“Convenient source of energy and material,” the Admiral speculated. “Or perhaps the large gravity well has something to do with it. The science geeks can figure it out after the dust settles.”

McKay had to smile at that: Patel had graduated from MIT with a Masters in Theoretical Physics before going to Fleet Officers’ Candidate School. Most starship captains had a scientific background, but McKay happened to know that Patel was a dissertation away from his PhD-and likely would remain a dissertation away until he retired