Eagle (Jacob Hull) (10 page)

A blazing spear of light tore across the projection as
Galahad
’s plasma lance sheared the missile in half, some distance short of the
Bulldog
. The projectile detonated in a violent blast that still encompassed the smaller craft. A heartbeat later, the destroyer coasted out of the other end of the shockwave with its armor battered, but still intact. Jacob let out a breath he had sucked in when the missile exploded and signaled
Galahad
. “Well done, Captain Nivrosky. Keep up the good work.”

“As ordered, Sir.”

Frustrated by the lack of kills, the Odurans accelerated toward Jacob’s ships, bringing their railguns to bear.

He saw flashes as those guns began to fire and could imagine the triumph in those gunners’ hearts. A firing run against the exposed bow of a dreadnaught was the dream of every cruiser captain, and now the
Eagle
had driven herself straight into their sights. A
Golem
-class dreadnaught like her sister ships would have been crippled by the barrage, the damage from each hit compounded by her own forward velocity. Jacob’s hands tightened on the arms of his command chair—if Turley had missed something in Engineering, or if Jacob hadn’t been watchful enough for treachery…

Eagle
’s point defense turrets began to sweep railgun shots from space. The shells exploded, leaving clouds of flame and fragments in the wake of the point defense fire. Though the
Eagle
had been designed with this sort of forward charge in mind, and her defenses arrayed accordingly, shells still got through the web of plasma. Jacob saw the flickers of shell contacts streak in and braced himself for impact.

The dreadnaught rocked gently at those hits, but it continued the charge. Jacob let the tension bleed out of him with a wry chuckle. Most of his commands had been destroyers where even a single hit could spell disaster. A dreadnaught was a much bigger ship—and
Eagle
carried the new internal armor that had made the
Hunter
-class dreadnaught so fearsomely tough. Damage reports stained the forward sections of the ship a warning yellow, but so far the
Eagle
’s armament and capabilities were untouched.

Then it was Captain Martino’s turn, and seventy-two railgun turrets swung around in unison. The guns had been arrayed in turrets of three, six of them spread along the flat surface of each broad wing of the
Eagle
’s superstructure. When they fired in unison, Jacob felt the ship tremble from the force of the shots.

One of the
Brute
-class ships had the misfortune of being Martino’s first target. The
Eagle
fired for a little under four seconds; that quickly, over two hundred railgun shells were in space. Martino’s target swerved—no captain could miss the rain of destruction coming toward his ship—but there was no cruiser in the universe that could have moved fast enough. Oduran point defense caught half of the first salvo and about a third of the second. Then their interception efforts became almost erratic, catching the occasional shell almost by accident as their ship was pounded into uselessness under the avalanche of railgun fire.

Martino didn’t wait to watch the full results of the salvo. Only a heartbeat after the first barrage, the railguns were already changing targets. Even as the first cruiser began to break apart under the sheer weight of fire, railgun shells tracked out toward the
Brute
-class ship to port. The Oduran captain wasn’t waiting around to meet the same fate; his ship was diving below the plane of the
Eagle
’s broad wings, hoping to escape the attack.
Eagle
’s gunners knew their business well, however, and the cruiser was soon awash in flames, even as the railguns zeroed in on a third target.

Jacob stared in awe as the third salvo went out. He’d never commanded this kind of firepower before—on a destroyer he would’ve expected the guns to be melting down by now—and his ship was still shrugging aside the forward damage from the Oduran responses. There was a momentary flicker of pride as he recognized the kind of weapon he’d created for the Navy, and as the third cruiser spun away, one full side pockmarked by successive impacts of railgun shells, Jacob looked toward the rest of the battle.

It was hard to see if it was going well. The clouds of Oduran escorts on the flanks had enveloped the Celostian frigates and corvettes. At the same time, the
Hunter
-class destroyers had risen to the challenge, driving through the ranks of the Oduran ships and scattering them. On both sides, the battle had become a wild melee of explosions and shrapnel—and at the center of the chaos were the cruisers.

Jacob saw the
Kay
drive forward on his flank. Isaac’s plasma lance swept across the nose of a
Brute
-class ship ahead of it. The blazing beam of light and fury ripped across the ship’s length, gutting it even as the other two cruisers pummeled the
Kay
with railgun broadsides. Leon was playing it a bit safer; the former High Admiral’s son was engaging in a duel with the cruisers on his flank, engaging them with missile fire and railgun salvoes as they tried to close the distance.

Then
Eagle
’s flanks belched flame, and Jacob’s attention snapped back to the center. The railguns had fallen silent at last; even a dreadnaught’s massive heat sinks had limitations, and Captain Martino appeared to have reached them.
Eagle
’s missile bays suffered no such penalties, however, and as the guns glowed from waste heat, a salvo of twelve missiles curled out toward the enemy flagship.

The Odurans were waiting for them. Antimissile flechettes intercepted half of them before they had even crossed half of the distance, and a well-timed flare sent another four wandering off target. Both of the remaining two stayed on target as their fellows were picked off or decoyed, but as they closed to attack range the enemy flagship slid to the side in a practiced, well-rehearsed evasive maneuver. The missiles blundered past the ship, clumsy as a bull charging a matador, and then a second salvo of flechettes killed them before they could turn. Jacob cursed and his fists tightened as he watched the
Athens
gracefully come back into formation, unharmed.

Yet the Odurans were not done yet. Their maneuvers had taken the trio of
Scythe
-class cruisers nearly into railgun range. They had to have been confident
Eagle
’s guns could not attack to come so close, and Jacob cursed again as their railguns opened up to bracket his flagship. Then the sides of the
Scythe
-class ships erupted in flame, and a missile salvo of their own sped back toward the dreadnaught. Jacob felt a sudden chill. Eighteen missiles at that range would be deadly, no matter how much armor the
Eagle
had.

The Countermeasures team aboard
Eagle
went into frantic response. Flechettes spawned from half a dozen ports along the
Eagle
’s hull; specialized EW turrets tried to track across the courses of those missiles and flood their computers with confusing emissions. Some enterprising soul launched a flare, though the likelihood the Oduran missiles would be fooled into ignoring a heat source like the dreadnaught at this range was low.

Their efforts, as expert as they were, destroyed or disabled two thirds of the massive salvo. The remaining six missiles came in together, their approaches timed so they would hit the
Eagle
in one massive blow. Jacob could imagine that strike destroying his ship. Four missiles had hit the
Spear
head on at Tiredel; only a fourth of her crew had survived. He pictured internal supports buckling, compartments breaching, his crew dead in the blast or dying as their ship shredded around them. His mind flashed back to the last moments of the
Terrier
, when a single projectile had finished off his crippled ship.

Then the missiles hit, and there was no more time for imagination. The ship shuddered beneath Jacob’s feet. Holograms flickered and consoles blinked. His display stayed solid, however, though most of it went grey as the blast waves fouled the flagships sensors. He heard secondary explosions go off, felt the deck tremble with the aftershocks. For one terrifying second, he thought he heard the sounds of escaping atmosphere or the squeal of twisting superstructure.

The moment passed. Jacob remained still, ears straining, just to be sure. Then he turned his attention back to the display and saw his flagship was clearing the blasts. They’d emerged intact.

Cheering broke out, audible through the bulkheads, and Jacob smiled. He saw the movements of the Odurans all across the battle falter for a moment, their captains and crews shocked by the flagship’s survival, and then they panicked for a moment before discipline took hold again. The three
Scythe
-class vessels swerved, attempting to get out of the
Eagle
’s railgun range. Jacob shook his head. It was far too late for that move.

Knowing Martino could handle the Odurans in front of them, Jacob keyed his console.
“Admiral Hull to
Khan
and
Edward
. You are to begin your attack runs on the Oduran shipyards now.” The two
Crown
-class ships that had hidden in the flagship’s shadow now swung out and around. Their torpedo launchers were crucial to batter the enemy shipyards to wreckage, and Jacob had wanted to keep them in reserve. As they slowly moved to their new positions, the Odurans to port began to collapse, partly thanks to Isaac’s reckless charge. Meanwhile, the enemies on the starboard flank were being picked to pieces by Leon’s forces. The only moderately intact force was dead ahead.

Captain Martino was obviously determined to change that situation. The missile crews of the
Eagle
fired again, this time directing their lethal projectiles against the cruisers flanking the
Athens
. In their panic to escape, the Odurans had allowed their formation to break; they could no longer provide each other with the interlocking point defense and antimissile responses that had saved their flagship before. They still managed to pick off most of the divided salvo, but both ships took damage from the blasts.

Then the
Eagle
’s railguns opened up. It was not a long salvo, because the guns were still fighting the accumulated stress and heat of the previous barrage. The entire wave of shots only lasted two seconds, with the last few shots a bit sporadic thanks to spot failures and mechanical delays. Yet the
Eagle
’s guns put over a hundred shells into space, all streaming toward the enemy flagship. A
Scythe
-class ship’s point defense was nothing compared to the
Brute
-class ships that had charged into the dreadnaught’s first volleys. Shells pierced the enemy flagship’s screen of defensive fire easily, slamming with terrible force into the cruiser’s armor.

A moment later, the fusion reactor at the heart of the ship was breached. Plasma fountained back out of the breach in the ship’s hull, and the
Scythe
-class cruiser twisted in agony as more explosions tore into her. Then the thin superstructure along the ship’s back broke, reducing the
Athens
to nothing more than wreckage and flame.

The destruction of the flagship had an instant effect on the rest of the battle. Those few Oduran ships still actively engaged in the fighting immediately broke off. Jacob’s task force took parting shots at their adversaries as they ran, and more of the escorts
fell victim to Jacob’s destroyers. Isaac’s plasma lance claimed another cruiser as she tried to run, and Leon’s
Galahad
tore two more apart before they could escape his weapons envelope.

Heartening as it was to see those victories, Jacob looked to the
Crown
-class cruisers as they delivered the real success in his mission here. Torpedoes streamed out of their weapons bays, launching at a rate that would have intimidated even the most well-prepared warship. Those projectiles would continue to accelerate for nearly an hour, building up the sort of velocity that would help them tear through any armor once they made contact. In the distance, the Odurans were already evacuating the shipyards, knowing they were doomed.

As if oblivious to their approaching doom, the six
Troll
-class dreadnaughts crouched like toads within their docking slips. Jacob wondered exactly how President Sessors would react when she learned her precious dreadnaughts had been wiped out. Doubtless, she would be able to mobilize a large number of cruisers to back up any force she sent to Celostian territory—but as
Eagle
had just proved, no matter how many she sent, she would need to wait until she had dreadnaughts before her forces would prove to be any real threat. He smiled and sat back to watch those projectiles streak inward.

An hour after the battle, the torpedoes finally arrived. They ripped through the shipyards like bolts of incandescent power sent by a malevolent god. Each impact sheared straight through the clustered ships and docks, not so much drilling through the armor and metal as they were obliterating it. Not even dreadnaughts were immune; Jacob saw at least one of the massive ships take a hit that cored it like an apple, leaving the ship to twist and fall away from the docks an utter ruin. The rest of the ships still moored at the docks were not much better, with every single dreadnaught battered to an unusable hulk by the time the last of the torpedoes hit.