Defeating the Aatrixx

ADVENTURER: T-MINUS 14 HOURS
  A voice in the tube was telling him to wake up. He felt his weight on his feet. Anderson was waiting for him with a concerned look on her face.
  “What’s up?” Ty asked as he stepped off the pad.
  “Sorry to wake you early. It’s only been about an hour, but an Aatarr battleship transitioned into the system just a moment ago. It’s burning for Mars as we speak.”
  “What?” Ty felt a pit in his stomach. “Why Mars? What about this system is so important?” he asked as he walked with her to the main display. “We need those sleep tubes in command centers by the way,” he said. “How do you guys rate this?”
  “Well, we don’t have chairs,” Anderson answered deadpan.
  Ty winced. “So, what else do you have for me?”
  As she spoke his mind raced about this latest development. He shook his head and focused on what she was saying. She said, “We're matching course now with the convoy. There’s still about five hours before they need to decelerate for the turn. Those two Aatrixx are braking into orbit around Jupiter now. That Aatarr is damn fast, it’s accelerating faster than the Aatrix. It’ll arrive at Mars within the hour.”
  Ty shook his head and held his left hand clenched in a fist to his mouth as he contemplated the news. She waited for him to look back at her before she continued.
  ”Repair teams have finished shoring up the bulkheads on bravo and charlie decks. The power cell has been isolated. We’re back on main power. I’ve got targeting back for you, but we’re blind aft now. I’ve got Red-Seven putting scabs on B-deck overheads so we can re-pressurize the deck. Red-four is sealing off portions of Foxtrot deck. That hole is too big for us to repair it all. I think we can get about half the deck space back.”
  “What’s our casualty count?”
  “Bad, twelve missing. I’m sure they’re all fatals. That’s the entire bridge team and Red-Team one. We have seven fatals, all of Red-six plus three crewmen in the berthing compartment. Three other serious injuries were caused when the power cell blew, burns.”
  Ty wondered what that count would be by the time they got away from the system. “Can we fight?”
  “Yeah, we’re still in the game. We can shoot, but without buss B, we can either move or shoot when the shields are up but not both. My biggest concern is the shields. The dorsal shield generators actually didn’t get touched when we lost the command center, so we have full hardness of our shields but just two-thirds of their capacitance.”
  “Three shots, instead of four or five?”
  She nodded.
  “What else?”
  Anderson checked her notes before continuing, ”The crew berth is pretty severely damaged. I’m using it as the morgue right now. We lost one of the pri-fli controllers in the run in with the LongBow, but we’ve got the other two, plus Junior. The bee-bee stackers wanted me to tell you the Plasma-Arcs launch initiator was replaced. It benched bad so they replaced it from stores.”
  “What does the Dragon have left?”
  “Vince shot off twenty Heli-arcs and seven hundred rounds of thirty-mike rounds taking out the Stilettos. We’ve got four Plasma-arcs, five Heli-arcs, and a thousand rounds of thirty-mikes left.”
  “Anything else?” Ty asked.
  She shook her head no.
  “Well, the Aatarr changes things. I felt confident we stood pretty good odds of handling the two Aatrix, but I think we need to have the convoy divert. If the Alliance knew how close they came with that volley of stilettos to taking out all of the convoy, they would be tempted to try again. I know we’d be hard pressed to stop them if they did.”
  “Well, here’s hoping we persuaded them to not try it again.”
  “Yeah,” Ty said as he stopped a moment to think. “There’s no finessing this. At this point, if the freighters can’t leave now, we’re likely gonna lose some, if not all that stay behind. We could escape pretty easily if it weren’t for the convoy.”
  “Well, let’s get them all on the line. We need to talk.”
  It took a few minutes to set up the conference. Ty had the Adventurer take up a position in the center of the convoy. After a roll call of all the ships, Ty spoke.
  “The situation in system is pretty grim. There are two Aatrixx heavy cruisers in orbit around Jupiter. They’re orbiting the planet in easy weapon range of the apex of our turning trajectory. Additionally, a third Alliance capital ship, called an Aatarr has entered the system. It’s more powerful even than the Aatrixx that are already here. Currently it is burning for Mars. It’s intentions aren’t clear yet.”
  A voice spoke on the call, cutting Ty off, “Feather Wind here. If it’s going to attack Mars, what are your intentions?”
  Ty rubbed his forehead with his left hand. “My orders are to get the convoy safely through to Beta Hydri. We have been cut off from the Fleet by Alliance jamming, so standard fleet doctrine applies. I can render assistance to Mars only after I know you are safe.”
  “Good, although it didn’t do Trade Winds much good.”
  “Understood Feather Wind, but be advised, we can’t stop another attack like the last one. A lot more missiles will get past us if they attack again.” He continued, “Now, the briefed pre-turn escape jump is to Delta Pavonis, it’s still a good option, but you have to make a forty degree free turn there to jump to Beta Hydri and you need to make a five degree free turn here to escape to Delta Pavonis. Let me know your intentions either way.”
  Ty paused to let the ships answer back.
  “Maru Tau here.”
  Ty found the name on the ship list. It was the fuel carrier, the most valuable freighter in the convoy. He cringed inside waiting for the captain to speak.
  “We are unable to make the free turn, Adventurer,” said the captain.
  “Adventurer copies. We will do what we can to escort you through the system.”
   In the end, all but nine ships could make the escape jump. Ty watched the ships on the display intently as they began emergency braking to decelerate enough to change course with just their maneuvering thrusters. It took them fifty-two minutes to decelerate, a few minutes to change course and another hour to accelerate back to jump speed. Then they were gone. During that time, the crew of the Adventurer continued to make repairs as best they could. After the last ship jumped away, Ty turned to Anderson.
  “Nothing is going to happen for the next eight hours, let everyone catch up on some sleep. I’m going to talk tactics with Vince and Stan before I rack out myself. You need to get some rest too.”
  She simply nodded. Ty left the engineering room and headed to the fantail. He could see the midship section of the passageway where it had contained the fire burning below. The flooring was discolored and warped from the heat that had existed on the other side of the deck. The lights in the section weren’t working either.
  It was silent in the fantail. Ty noticed all of the snooze tubes were occupied by mechanics. Vince was crashed out on the old sofa. He walked over to it and jostled Vince’s leg which hung over the end of the sofa. The man sat up, looked at Ty, and blinked.
  “Kill-joy. Don’t you know I need my beauty rest.”
  “Heh, it wouldn’t help.”
  Vince rolled on his side. “Not what my wife says.”
  “Well, I’m not your wife. I need to talk tactics. Since you and Stan are the only other guys on board who know anything about Alliance ships, you’re elected… even if you’re just stick actuators.”
  Vince shook his head and chuckled, “No argument from me on that. You’re the guru on that topic, Ty. All we could do is smile and agree with whatever you say.”
  “So agree with me or tell me I’m full of it.”
  “You are full of it, but I’ll listen anyway.”
  Ty smirked, “Yeah, well, here’s the situation. There are two Aatrixx camped out at the apex of our turn around Jupiter. There’s an Aatarr headed for Mars for who knows what reason. While the rest of the convoy is gone, I’ve still got nine ships, including a fuel carrier that have to make this jump. My job is to see that they survive.”
  “So, how do you like command now?”
  Ty shook his head, “Vince, I never wanted command. Certainly not like this.”  He waved at the darkness around them. “I certainly didn’t want to end up in command with the captain dead and bodies in the morgue. I just wanted to stay in the service. I like being a tactician.”
  Vince laughed. “You crack me up sometimes Ty. I’ve flown against you in the simulators and I wouldn’t want to fight you. I’ve never been able to come up with any attack that stops you, so I don’t think I could offer you a helpful idea. For what it’s worth, I actually think we have better odds of surviving with you calling the shots than with the captain.”
  Ty chuckled, “Humor me.”
  “Knowing you, you want something way outside the box. Something they’re not going to expect.”
  “That’s the only way to fight in my book.”
  “Mine too, Ty.” Vince reached up and placed his hand on the blunt snout of the Dragon fighter. He looked at the space and then at the bay doors and then back at Ty. “Well, near as I can tell, we’ll have to bag the Aatrixx the old fashioned way.”
  “Blind them by taking out their sensor towers, then kill them with Plasma-Arcs,” said Ty, though it was more of a question.
  Vince nodded, “Timing and getting in the correct jump lane will be tough, what with their proximity to Jupiter. You’ll have to stay around long enough to acquire the towers and shoot at them before you jump out.”
  “Yeah,” said Ty. “The topography of the gravity field means our escape jump is going to be towards Jupiter so we’ll be jumping to a place in range of their energy weapons.”
  “So, let’s assume, I can pull this off enough times to disable and or kill both Aatrixx. I still have that Aatarr to deal with. I do have a couple of ideas on how to deal with the Aatrixx, but not that Aatarr, not yet at least.”
  “I’ve got a wild idea for you on that one, throw rocks at it.”
  Ty cocked his head and scrunched his face in a quizzical look.
  “Look, the fleet hasn’t used kinetic weapons besides light rail guns in decades. The Alliance is all about defeating energy weapons since that’s all we use on them.” Ty nodded in agreement. “So, grab some boulders. The asteroid belt out there is loaded with them. Get enough to fill this bay here. Jump out however far you need. Make a run at that Aatar, fast as the engines will go, release them, or just shove them out the bay here. Jump away and see what happens.”
  Ty contemplated the concept of several tons of ice and rock slamming into the armor of an Aatarr at a thousand miles per second. It made him cringe and smile at the same time.
  “That’s a stupid, fabulous idea,” he said at length.
  “Glad I could help. If it works, I get the patent,” said Vince. They both laughed.
  “Well, if it works, it’ll work just once.”
  “Yeah, but there’s just one of them,” Vince added.
  Ty rolled his eyes, “Not the way my luck’s been going. Every time I defeat a ship, another bigger one comes to take its place.”
  “Good for you then that the Alliance doesn’t have anything bigger than an Aatarr.”
  Ty headed back out of the room. Over his shoulder Vince called out, “If it doesn’t work, it’s not my idea.”
  Ty waved behind him as he entered the airlock into the rest of the ship.