Ty motioned to Svenson and Harris, the sensor operator, to come over to him.
“What’s up sir,” she asked as the stopped in front of him. Harris just stood quietly.
“We’re going after the Stiletto missiles. Either of you have any experience with them?” Both shook their head no. He took a deep breath before continuing. “They’re a long range fire and forget anti-ship missile. The Alliance loves the things.”
“Fire and forget?” asked Harris.
“Yeah, they shoot it in the general direction of a known target. Then it’ll find the target by itself and home in on it. The missiles talk to each other too. So if there are multiple targets, they’ll decide which missile goes after which target.”
“The Adventurer can take them out with its primary laser easily enough. But as soon as we start active tracking to aim the laser, they’ll wake up and someone will certainly shoot back at us.”
“How can they shoot back?” asked Harris.
“They have a self-shaping penetrator warhead. Its nasty stuff! They’ll rotate the terminal attack module, a one meter diameter silver ball. Then an explosive charge fires. The charge destroys the rest of the missile, but it also propels and shapes the penetrator. Our armor won’t slow it down much and the shields won’t do anything to slow it.”
“How do we avoid it?”
“We move out of the way by changing our course. Where we are now in the solar system means accelerating or decelerating. We can’t move radially.”
“Sounds easy enough,” said Svenson.
“It won’t be. When the terminal aiming charge fires, you’ll have just seconds to react. You might have some warning if Harris here detects the terminal module rotating to fire, but it’s a sphere, so there won’t be much of an indication. Our best defense is to keep moving around. Svenson, that means you’ll need to be really sharp to aim the beam.”
She nodded, “I can do that, sir.”
“Questions?” Neither individual said anything. Ty continued, “Remember, there are seventy-two missiles out there. They can kill this ship. So, we’ll take them one at a time. If we work quickly, we can get them all before they’re a threat to the convoy. Svenson, just start with the closest missile. Harris, you watch for counter fire shots. I’ll be moving the ship.”
They returned to their stations and Ty turned to face Anderson. “Here goes,” he said. “Sound general quarters with Code Blue, depressurization protocol.”
As the klaxon sounded through the ship, he donned his helmet and checked Anderson to make sure her suit was correctly installed. When the stations responded that they were ready, he aimed the Adventurer at the first missile. As soon as the sensors began illuminating the missile to refine the firing solution, the missile spun around and aimed its second stage motor at the Adventurer.
“Aspect change on target, it’s pivoting,” said Harris.
Svenson’s hands flew over the controls. The Adventurer fired. The missile exploded sending the warhead back at the ship. Ty powered the drive motor to push the ship out of the way. Seconds passed, then they heard a staccato tapping sound reverberate through the ship.
“What’s that?” asked Anderson.
“Just debris from the missile casing.”
They continued to the next missile. They got this one before it could fire, but another missile fired back at them. They avoided the warhead, but the EMP burst of the terminal firing charge blinded them for a few seconds. Half-way through the missiles, they encountered a new twist.
“Sir.” It was Harris. “We’ve got a globe of twelve missiles ahead. They’re all in one spherical formation. All of the missiles are pointing out from a common center.”
“Svenson, target a missile on the far side of the sphere, let’s see if that confuses them.”
“Aye, sir.”
When she fired, two of the missiles facing the Adventurer fired. As it tried to dodge them, several more fired. Ty commanded a more aggressive course change. More missiles fired. Soon a cloud of projectiles were coming at them. One hit the Adventurer in its forward sensor dome. The penetrator lanced through the electronic modules behind the sensor panel and into the spaces behind it. It struck and destroyed one of the main power busses in the ship before ripping a thirty foot long tear in the outer hull as it exited the ship. The Adventurer shuddered from the impact. Hull breach warnings began sounding throughout the ship. Red lights appeared across Ty’s panel indicating multiple system failures and faults.
Anderson gazed at the lights before speaking, “We just lost main buss B, the forward sensor array and primary targeting system. Looks like the forward thruster module is off line too. Decks Echo and Foxtrot, forward of frame twenty are depressurizing. We’ve got a major hull breach along deck Foxtrot between frames eighty and one-ten. No casualties indicated, so far.”
Ty joined her at her station. From the number of red-lights on her status board and the sections of the ship which had flashing red borders around them, he knew a lot more than what she’d told him had happened.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Just stay out of the way for now and don’t go after any more missiles until we can get things under control,” she said.
He nodded and returned to his panel. With the sensor array down, he could no longer see what the missiles were doing.
At least we’re down to twenty missiles, he thought to himself.
After a few moments, she motioned to Ty to have him join her.
“Ok, here’s where we are,” she started. “We lost our backup main buss. It was off-line at the time, so we’re OK with power as long as we don’t lose main buss A. We’ve lost deck F for the time being, damage is too severe. I’m having it evacuated and setting up an airlock so repair teams can get into it later. Forward tracking sensors are gone, no way to repair them. I can get targeting back but only by cannibalizing components from the aft sensor array.”
“Do we have laser link?” Ty asked.
Anderson nodded yes.
“OK, I’m going to launch the Dragon and slave our guns to it’s sensors and press the attack.”
“Sounds good. I gotta go now.”
Ty nodded and walked back to his display.
“Dragon. Command.”
“Dragon.”
Ty checked the Dragon’s status on his display before answering. The fighter was still loaded for an anti-ship mission.
“Vince, I need you to go missile hunting for me. That hit took out our forward sensors. We can still shoot, we just can’t aim.”
“Can you slave your guns to the Dragon?”
“Yes, between your missiles and our guns, I think we can get the rest. But we’re running out of time. Launch now and I’ll set things up on our side while you start acquiring missiles.”
“OK, I’m headed for the cockpit now. I’ll be out in thirty seconds.”
“Good, be careful, Vince. These missiles have cooperative attack AI in them.”
“Roger that.”
The Dragon launched shortly after. The small fighter spun around and moved away from the Adventurer so it could see all of the remaining missiles. Once they set it up, the targeting system in the fighter actually controlled the rail guns on the Adventurer.
Next they attacked a cluster of five missiles. They got the first one, and avoided the penetrators from the other four, but a sixth missile not in the cluster fired too. Its penetrator struck the Adventurer amidships.
The ship shuddered again and heeled to starboard from the impact. The penetrator punched through a crew berthing area and into a power cell before exiting the ship. The power cell exploded as it shorted out.
More alarms sounded in the engineering space. The power cell’s explosion threw most of the people to the deck. A power management console exploded as electrical shorts arced through the system. Then main power failed. Gravity and lights blinked for a moment then came back on as emergency circuits came on line.
Fire alarms and warning lights were sounding. Ty staggered back to his feet and looked at the ship’s status board. There were fire lights in three decks. Two sections of the ship showed de-pressurization warnings. He could see Red-One and Red-Five were moving to fight the fire. Smoke began to fill the engineering space. He saw several suited crewmen rushing to the power panel with extinguishers and first aid kits. Someone he couldn’t see was screaming in pain.
Anderson was sprawled on the floor where she’d been thrown by the explosion. Black scorch marks marred the gloves and sleeves of her engineering pressure suit. Her helmet’s faceplate was blistered and cracked.
As he knelt to help her, he tapped the intercom switch on his suit.
“Dragon, Command.”
“Dragon, Need help?”
He spoke as he examined her. The quick-check light over her right breast was yellow. “Negative on that. Do you still have a link to our guns?”
“Negative.”
“We’re out of the game for the time then. I need you to move further away from us and engage with your own missiles. When you use them, come back and rearm with more Heli-arcs and a gun pod. I’ll notify Dragon Ops. Command out.”
“Wilco.”
“Dragon Ops, Command”
“Dragon Ops.”
“Get another full load of Heli-arcs and a gun pod ready. When the Dragon returns pull those Plasma-arcs off. Got it?”
“Dragon Ops copies.”
Ty turned his attention to Anderson and glanced down at his right glove. The atmosphere indicator was green, so he reached for the releases on Anderson’s helmet. As he took it off he called out to her.
“Susan!”
She blinked her eyes. They went in and out of focus as she looked up at him. “Susan, can you hear me?” She blinked her eyes, then nodded her head. “You want to try standing?” She nodded again. He reached under her to help her up.
“I was over by the power panel there when we got hit. The arc went through my suit. It must have thrown me over here.”
“Looks like it.” Ty noticed there was no crying now. “Someone else got hurt though.”
She wobbled as she got to her feet and held on to Ty for a moment.
“Probably Dean, the arc got him worse than me.”
“Command, Red one.”
“Go Red One.”
”Sir, we have the fires out. The port side number three power cell is toast. We also found two fatals and three wounded in the crew berths. We’re moving the wounded to the infirmary now.”
“Command copies.” Ty glanced at Anderson. Concern was in her face too. “Red Five, command.”
He heard some heavy breathing before someone spoke. “Red Five.”
“Sit rep”.
“Sir, fire is out. We’re working the starboard side hull puncture at frame two-oh-seven, radial four-thirty. We’ve got a single wounded in the compartment with us, missing arm, sir. We’re doing buddy air until we can get a patch in place.”
“Command copies.” Ty pursed his lips and shook his head. “It’s only going to get worse.”
“Command, Dragon.”
“Go Dragon.”
“Splash three stilettos. Coming back to reload. Those suckers are nimble.”
“Good work, Dragon.” Ty turned to Anderson, “We’re down to eleven.” They both looked at the clock. “It’s gonna be close.”
“Well, we can’t shoot without main power. We have to get that power cell isolated before we can bring main power back up.”
“OK, that’s your specialty, just remember, each missile represents a freighter at this point.”
“I’m going to supervise isolating the power cell. Don’t break anything else while I’m gone,” she said. With that she walked stiffly towards the entry way. She motioned to one of the other technicians to accompany her.
An eternity later, a call came from Dragon.
“Command, Dragon.”
“Go Dragon.”
“Launching now. We’ve got a gun pod and twelve Heli-arcs.”
“Good hunting. Command out.”
Ty could only wait while others worked to repair the ship. The wait was worse than waiting to hear from the fleet about his promotion. Ten minutes later, Dragon called in.
“Command, Dragon.”
“Go Dragon.”
“Good news, we got eight more. Bad news, three launched before we could kill them. Three freighters lost, no survivors.”
Ty slammed the display panel with his open hand in anger. He took a deep breath to compose himself before speaking. “Command copies. Return to the ship.”
Vince double clicked his mic in response.
Ty looked at a display that showed the ships in the convoy. Red lines appeared through three ships, Tiny Maru a freighter carrying livestock, Trade Winds a freighter carrying spare parts for the fleet and October Harvest, another freighter carrying food.
He looked at the symbols representing the ships in the convoy. In another seven hours, they would need to be decelerating to make the turn around Jupiter.
He called out to the technician who was monitoring their communications systems on an adjacent wall panel, “Hey, Harris.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the man.
“We still being jammed?”
The man entered some information into a keypad on the panel. He studied the results before answering, “Yes, sir.”
“Ok, I’m going to rack out in the snooze tube over there.” He motioned with his head towards a glass half-cylinder wedged in between two panels and some conduits. “If I don’t wake up in three hours, wake me. Ok?”
“Sure thing, sir,” answered the man.
Ty walked over to the device. It looked like a test-tube cut in half along the long axis of the tube. The diameter of the tube was just wide enough to for a single person to stand inside. A small control panel was embedded at eye level in the inner face of the cylinder. Ty tapped in the number 180 then turned to face the room and stepped backwards into the tube. When he leaned his head back into the glass-like material of the tube, he felt himself grow weightless. Sleep came quickly after.
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