No Middle Ground Page 2

  We needed those extra twelve minutes! Middleton swore silently. There was little doubt the Pride would prevail in a slugfest, but good people would get hurt in the process and their ship would take an unnecessary beating—neither of which was an acceptable concession before a shot had been fired.

  “Aye, Captain,” Jersey replied in his usual, gruff, semi-irritated manner. A few moments later, Middleton felt the barely-perceptible shift in gravity as the grav-plates adjusted to compensate for their forward motion. Some of his crew still got space-sick during tactical maneuvers on such an outdated vessel, but the ship’s doctor had dispensed the proper pharmaceuticals to counteract the vertigo and other deleterious effects the outdated artificial gravity system was infamous for.

  “Shall we raise shields, Captain?” Sarkozi asked stoically.

  Middleton nearly cocked a lopsided grin, since judging from her tone his Tactical officer assumed he had forgotten about the shields. “Not yet, Tactical,” he replied calmly. “Right now we need all available power to the engines and weapons array. Besides, we’re still well outside their firing range; another few minutes and the power plants should be able to handle a full combat load.”

  Sarkozi bit her cheek and nodded crisply. “Very good, sir,” she managed before turning back to her console with the slightest blush of red on her face.

  “The corvettes are refusing to heave to and disarm, Captain,” the Comm. stander reported. “They’re claiming to be an MSP security detachment assigned to the gas collection facility.”

  “Hah!” Middleton barked a short laugh, which he instantly regretted but did his best to ignore. “Then tell them we’re here to conduct an inspection on the orders of the highest ranking officer in the MSP, Admiral Jason Montagne. Request they squawk the current MSP chain of command, along with their vessels’ respective ID’s and names of their CO’s or, failing their ability to do so, that they stand down, heave to and deactivate their power plants.”

  “We’ve cleared the sensor shadow of the moon, Captain,” Sarkozi reported, “the southern corvette is on an intercept course with us while the northern is coming about. The southern corvette will be in our weapons range in four minutes; the northern in nine.”

  “Thank you, Ensign,” Middleton replied as he flicked through schematics for last-minute review on the enemy vessel capabilities. He had memorized the specs for the CR-70 during the academy, but it had become part of his process some years earlier to call up schematics to refresh himself—and hopefully glean a nugget of tactical advantage as he did so.

  “The corvettes’ weapons are charged and they’re trying to lock missiles on us,” Sarkozi reported professionally. “Estimate the southern corvette will achieve firing solution thirty seconds after we do.”

  “No response to our ID challenge, Captain,” the Comm. stander added tensely. “Their security handshakes are also three weeks out of date.”

  Before Middleton could acknowledge the Comm. officer’s report, Sarkozi piped in, “Regulations clearly dictate we treat the vessels as hostile under these circumstances, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Tactical, Comm.,” Middleton replied as he saw the forward array’s power levels continue to climb. By modern standards, the Hammerhead-class medium cruiser, Pride of Prometheus, was a slow, poorly-armored ship—everywhere but the bow—whose primary strength was in its forward array of heavy lasers and robust forward shields. The Pride, in its current configuration, possessed just two point defense batteries and a pair of stern-mounted heavy lasers. Its design focused primarily on economy, and was intended to be deployed in large formations to limit the design’s weaknesses while permitting several ships to be fielded for the cost of only one, more advanced, model.

  The CR-70 corvette, on the other hand, was faster than the Hammerhead and possessed a more well-rounded weapons package as well, built primarily around omnidirectional, short-range lasers which were employed in strafing runs that maximized the ship’s agility and speed. It appeared that these particular versions of the vessel were also equipped with longer range missiles, and the effective range of those missiles, once deployed, was roughly that of the Pride’s primary weapons array.

  The Pride of Prometheus’ engines continued to increase their output as the tactical display on the main screen showed the ship’s consistent, yet frustratingly sluggish, acceleration toward the southern corvette. True to Middleton’s calculations, just under five minutes after issuing the order they had achieved their maximum acceleration and were driving straight on at their target.

  “Maximum weapons range achieved, Captain,” Sarkozi reported briskly. “Forward batteries charged to 130% of specifications and solutions have been locked.”

  Middleton smirked as he leaned forward in his chair. “You are cleared to engage, Tactical; blow ‘em to Hades.”

  “Larry that, sir,” Sarkozi replied with relish before turning to her display and issuing the orders to the gun deck. Less than a second after she had finished punching in the directives, the forward batteries unleashed their full might and fury, lashing out with the combined power of ten heavy laser cannons which converged onto their target.

  The shields of the enemy vessel flared into, and then out of, existence as the combined weight of the Pride’s forward weaponry crushed the corvette’s bow-facing shields.

  “Eight direct hits, Captain; the corvette’s bow shields are buckling and she’s turning to present her broadside,” Sarkozi reported, but Middleton had already read as much from his chair’s readout. As soon as he saw that the enemy corvette had turned to flee toward the planet rather than away, he felt a surge of triumph.

  He had them!

  “Helm, change course and speed to the following,” he instructed as he forwarded the information to Jersey’s console. “Shields, divert all power to the dorsal and bow facings; Engineering, we need to overcharge the engines and close on the southern corvette.”

  “Chief Garibaldi reports that the reactors are already at 102% of rated capacity,” replied the engineer, “he’s not comfortable pushing them any harder, sir.”

  Biting back a scathing retort, Middleton forcibly relaxed himself enough that he bit out, “Tell him to overcharge the engines like we did when acting as the Lucky Clover’s wingman—now!”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the engineer. A few moments later, he nodded in acknowledgment of his Chief’s unheard reply and said, “The Chief says it’ll take about twenty seconds, and that he’s making—“

  “Another note in his log,” Middleton cut in and finished irritably, “noted, crewman. Tactical: how long until the forward batteries are ready to fire again?”

  “Seventy seconds, Captain,” Sarkozi replied promptly. “The standard recharge is thirty seconds under our current power output, but overcharging the weapons requires additional time for cool-off.”

  “Understood,” Middleton replied, already performing calculations on the heat dissipating and refractory qualities of water ice at seventy to ninety degrees Kelvin. Overcharging the weapons had allowed the Pride to overcome the corvette’s shields, whereas firing at normal power would have allowed the corvette to continue maneuvering while re-balancing their shields. He allowed himself to grin before Ensign Sarkozi turned abruptly.

  “Incoming missiles!” she reported more than a little anxiously.

  “How many?” Middleton demanded, more irritated with her emotional outburst than the fact that they were to receive fire. She had a fine tactical mind, but Sarkozi had a long ways to go before she would be a fully-fledged, battle-ready officer in the Confederation MSP.

  “Twelve…no, make that, sixteen long-range Starfire class missiles on intercept course,” she reported, her voice slightly less frantic than before. “Missiles will enter effective firing range in…four minutes,” she reported more than a little sheepishly.

  “Carry on, Tactical,” Middleton ordered, leaning back in his chair. Starfire missiles were an older class of weapon, easily found on any local black market. They w
ere essentially a mobile, one-shot laser cannon powered by a controlled, thermonuclear reaction which generated a relatively powerful laser beam. The earliest versions of these weapons had utilized streams of superheated plasma, but with improved refraction technology their value as focused laser platforms became apparent.

  Each one packed roughly the equivalent punch of one of the Pride’s heavy laser cannons, but their individual power wasn’t the part that concerned Middleton; it was how they could be deployed with unerring precision and timing that made him set his jaw.

  “Comm., scan these frequencies for anything unusual,” he instructed, manually punching up the bands which he recalled the Starfire fire-linking systems were usually set to. He didn’t expect the Comm. stander to recognize the signal when he heard it, but he should at least be able to detect the activity.

  “Scanning, Captain,” the Comm. stander acknowledged. He cocked his head as his eyes flicked back and forth over the information streaming across his screen until he stopped and expanded a particular band, and Middleton breathed a sigh of relief even before the Comm. stander reported, “I’ve got something here, sir. It’s strange…some kind of trinary data stream like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Forward that frequency to Tactical,” Middleton ordered as he turned his chair to face the Engineering crewman. “I need my engines, crewman!” he snapped. This could be close, especially if our onboard comm. gear isn’t powerful enough to approximate standard countermeasures, he thought silently.

  “Yes, Captain,” the crewman replied, and Middleton turned to Sarkozi.

  “Do you have that signal, Tactical?” he asked, keeping his voice as even as he could manage.

  “Yes, Captain,” she replied without looking up, “re-routing primary comm. array control now.”

  “Good,” Middleton said, fighting to keep the surprise from his voice at her arriving at the correct course of action. A keen tactical mind, indeed, he thought to himself, just as the forward batteries fired on the fleeing corvette.

  “Seven direct hits, Captain,” Sarkozi reported with barely a sideways glance at the gunnery reports streaming onto her screen as she continued working on preparing the Comm. array to deal with those incoming missiles. “They’re streaming trace amounts of atmo and it looks like their power grid is fluctuating.”

  “Carry on, Tactical,” Middleton said, having read that information as quickly as she had and not wanting her to be distracted from the task at hand. He looked at the tactical readout on the main screen and saw the sixteen Starfire missiles spreading out into a fan-like formation as they approached the Pride of Prometheus.

  If they re-routed all available power to the shields there was a chance they could get lucky and absorb the combined weight of the missiles’ laser fire, but if more than half of those shots converged on a single shield generator’s facing they would face the very real danger of a ship-wide power grid failure.

  The true threat posed by the missiles wasn’t in their individual, or even combined power—their deadliness was based purely on their unerring accuracy and coordination. If all sixteen combined their fire to a single point at the same moment, there were very few ships in the space-ways that could simply absorb the blow—the Lucky Clover being one of them, while the Pride of Prometheus—even with its robust forward shield facing—was not.

  “Comm. array prepped, Captain,” Sarkozi reported before adding, “two minutes until the Starfires are in range. Time to the effective edge of the planet’s ring system: eight minutes.”

  Middleton’s eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. Sarkozi had apparently seen the same tactical value in the gas giant’s epic ring formations as he had, and he made a mental note to congratulate her later. “Keep us on the equatorial plane as long as you can, Helm, while keeping a clear line of fire for gunnery,” Middleton ordered. “We don’t want to commit one second earlier than we need to.”

  “Aye, sir,” Jersey replied gruffly, as though this was all some great, personal inconvenience to him.

  “Comm.,” Middleton turned to face the Comm. stander as he forwarded a file to the stander’s station, “on my order you are to send this file at maximum wattage, on the frequency of that signal you detected the trinary signal on; send these pulses on a random schedule with a period between three and twelve nanoseconds—but you are to wait for my order.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the Comm. stander acknowledged as he prepped his console.

  “Missile firing range in thirty seconds, Captain,” Sarkozi reported just as the lights dimmed slightly.

  “Engineering!” Middleton snapped as he rounded on the crewman, who was already on the horn with Garibaldi down in Main Engineering. “Report, crewman!”

  “Reactor two is overheating, Captain,” the crewman reported frantically. “The Chief requests we reduce consumption to avoid a containment failure.”

  “Denied,” Middleton barked, looking back at the tactical display on the main screen. They were too close to the edge; if they slowed now and delayed reaching the ring system by even thirty seconds, the second corvette would have a chance to deploy her own missiles—and that was simply an unacceptable risk, to Middleton’s mind. “Tell him to hold it together for another,” his eyes flicked down to his chair’s readout, “five minutes; then we can reduce the power consumption—and not a second earlier!”

  “Missiles in firing range…now, Captain,” Sarkozi reported tensely.

  Not waiting another instant, Middleton ordered, “Now; transmit the signal, Comm. And keep transmitting until I give the order to cease.”

  “Transmitting now...but Captain,” the Comm. stander objected, “the array can only handle that kind of load for ten, maybe twelve seconds before it fails.”

  “Understood, Comm.,” Middleton growled as he ground his teeth. It was a risk he had to take; in a one-on-one fight, the Comm. systems were of far less utility than the shields, so it was an easy choice to make.

  The seconds ticked away…five…eight…ten…twelve, and just as he was about to order they discontinue the signal in an effort to save the equipment for a potential second salvo, the tactical display blossomed with the sixteen missile icons flashing red, indicating they had fired.

  The ship shuddered with repeated impacts, and the lights on the bridge flickered before going dim and gradually returning to their normal luminosity.

  “Discontinue the signal, Comm.,” Middleton ordered quickly.

  The Comm. stander shook his head. “The array’s been knocked off-line, Captain,” he reported with obvious disappointment. “I’m reading multiple relay failures; recommend we dispatch an Engineering team to effect repairs.”

  “Do it,” Middleton ordered, mentally breathing a sigh of relief at having avoided the worst possible outcome.

  “Reading twelve distinct impacts, Captain,” Sarkozi reported with obvious relief. “Forward shields are at thirty percent, port dorsal shields at sixty five and starboard dorsals at eighty.”

  The Pride’s forward cannons fired again, and the icon of the southern pirate corvette turned grey indicating catastrophic power failure had been detected.

  “The southern corvette’s shields have collapsed…and I’m reading a fusion core ejection,” Sarkozi reported hungrily. “She’s broadcasting her unconditional surrender and I’m registering ejecting life pod signals—she’s dead in the water, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Tactical,” Middleton replied. But just to be certain, he called up the CR-70 specs once again and nodded in satisfaction at what he saw. The missile complement of that ship’s class, with the sixteen missile configuration, was limited to precisely that number of shots per engagement without an exceptional—and borderline insane—engineering crew to reload them.

  The weapons were modular by design, and therefore were not reloadable during combat conditions, requiring at least twenty minutes even with a crack engineering team to replace even one missile. So with the corvette’s power plant ejected, she was no longer a factor of any
kind in this engagement—which meant this would now be a one-on-one fight between the Pride and the northern corvette.

  “Helm, take us to the southern side of the rings; put them between us and the northern corvette,” Middleton instructed, relaxing fractionally now that the most critical part of the battle was behind them.

  “Aye, sir,” Jersey replied, only slightly less irritably than before.

  Damage reports could be heard streaming through the engineering and Comm. stations but they sounded light, all things considered. A few crewmembers had been taken to sickbay to treat minor head wounds and there had been a few cases of electrical burns, but no one had died thus far in the engagement, which made Middleton breathe easy as they came under the outer edge of the ring system.

  Round one to us, he thought to himself.

  Chapter II: A Dance of Ice & Fire

  “The remaining corvette has still not fired her missiles, Captain,” Sarkozi reported, far more calmly and professionally than when they had been under fire but with a quizzical note to her voice.

  “Her captain must have a cooler head than his companion did,” Middleton replied grudgingly, “he doesn’t want to play his ace this early in the game.” Having placed the incredible rings—composed primarily of water ice but with an unusual amount of nickel and iron particulates—between themselves and the corvette, the Pride had temporarily nullified the corvette’s biggest offensive weapon in her Starfire missiles. That would give the Pride precious time to recharge their shields, as well as work their way back toward the station in an effort to force an engagement on Middleton’s terms rather than the enemy’s.

  “Helm, lay in a course toward the collection facility at best possible speed,” he instructed before turning to the Engineering crewman. “Tell Chief Garibaldi that he can cool off Two Plant now; he should have about thirty minutes to set it to rights before we need to restore full combat power.”