This Corner of the Universe (12 page)

Approximately
twenty seconds after the channel had been closed, Truesworth declared, “Paragon
is pivoting toward us… she’s braking hard, sir.  Incoming message.”

A
man’s panicked voice came over the bridge’s speaker, “BRS Anelace, we are
heaving to.  Don’t fire!”

Vernay
swiveled around in her chair and stared at Heskan with a questioning look.

We
can’t stop or the ketch gets away and, when I continue pursuit on the ketch,
will Paragon then resume course toward the tunnel point?  What if the ketch
starts leading me away from the tunnel point?  Would Paragon stay stationary or
try to run again for the tunnel point?  I can’t take that chance.

“Fire,
Lieutenant.”

A predator’s
smile broke out on Vernay’s face as she acknowledged the order.

Paragon
was still braking as
Anelace
shot past her.  The freighter was cruising at .04
c
but still
decelerating when Lieutenant Vernay lightly touched the command-accept-execute
button on her weapons console.  Vernay and Selvaggio had coordinated on the
strike and the navigator had rolled the corvette twenty-three degrees to port
to allow all four of the GP lasers to bear on the freighter.  Such minor
maneuvers were considered within the purview of the weapons officer and
navigator during a battle and could be executed without a direct order from the
captain.  Both the first officer and captain were courtesy-copied the command
on their consoles and could either confirm or reject the order before it was
carried out.  If neither took any action, assent was assumed and the command
would execute.  Usually the captain was too busy during a combat situation to
read each command, so it was customary for the first officer to monitor them
and bring any questionable commands to the captain’s attention.  In this case,
Lieutenant Riedel had confirmed the coordinated efforts of the junior officers.

Charged
energy spit from each of the four lasers and the bursts covered the distance
between the two ships in four seconds.  All four shots were direct hits on
Paragon’s
main drive.  The laser fire burned through the freighter’s light titanium-16
hull as if it were so much paper.  Each burst then fried and melted machinery
in the delicate drive system.  Finally, the shots burned through the opposite
side of
Paragon’s
hull and continued a short distance into space before
dissipating. 
Paragon’s
drive system ceased to function three seconds
after the impact.  Her drive went cold and she was left to drift at .04
c
toward the Narvi tunnel point, which, at her new speed, would now take over
eleven and a half hours to reach.  Even if she did reach it, she would drift passively
by the tunnel point as her hopelessly destroyed drive could never generate the
tunnel effect required to dive into t-space.

Anelace
streaked onward toward the ketch,
2.5
lm
away.  “Nice shooting, WEPS.”

“Thank
you, sir.  One down, one to go.”

“Estimated
time to intercept is twenty-nine minutes,” Truesworth announced.

Heskan
lowered his voice as he exchanged looks with his first officer.  In a hushed
voice he said, “It’s going like clockwork, Mike.  Makes me wonder when the
other shoe is going to drop.”

“Things
will be trickier with the ketch if she fights,” Riedel cautioned.  “She’s so
small that if she keeps fighting until we’ve disabled her drive and her lasers,
the ship will be mostly uninhabitable.”

“True,”
Heskan agreed, “but I won’t take any chances with my ship.  As much as I want
to take some of those guys alive, I’ll just order center mass hits before I let
that pirate ketch fire at Anelace.”

“That
will make it easier for Vernay,” Riedel pointed out.  The targeting of specific
systems on ships was out of the ordinary during most naval engagements.  Unless
a weapon was aimed at the center of a ship’s mass, the chance of a clean miss
increased.  In a contest to stop the incoming fire of an opposing ship, any hit
was better than a miss, so while aiming for the bridge of a ship or for certain
weapon mounts made for great holo-movies, it was a recipe for disaster when
fighting a ship that was firing back.

“Not
that she needs the help,” Heskan replied in a near whisper.  “Did you see where
those shots hit Paragon?”

Riedel
nodded, “All four, dead on.  Stacy belongs behind the weapons console of a dreadnaught.”

Heskan
nodded and then looked back to the tactical plot.  “Well, let’s give the ketch
one last thing to think about.”  Heskan spoke normally again, “Jack, comm
message to that ketch, please.”

Truesworth
keyed the proper commands and motioned to Heskan.

“Unidentified
ketch, you are in violation of several ISC Rules.  You will heave to within
five minutes of receipt of this transmission.  Your ship will be boarded and
impounded.  Failure to comply will result in your ship’s destruction.  This is
your final warning.  Anelace out.”

“Simple
and effective,” Riedel noted.

“Yeah,
I don’t want a running, thirty-minute long conversation with this guy while he
tries to finagle some advantage.  This way they have about ten minutes to make
the choice:  obey or be destroyed.”

To
Heskan’s surprise, they received a reply seven minutes later.  “This is the captain
of the Raptor.  There’s room to negotiate here, Anelace.  I’m sure that we
could come to an arrangement that benefits us both economically.  Be reasonable,
Captain.  Why risk your ship and crew to fight us when you could reap some vast
rewards if you happened to look the other way in this system?”

Riedel
laughed loudly when he heard the message.  “Are you going to reply, Captain?”

Heskan
smiled, “Nope, I think we’ve made our position clear.”  He then returned to his
console to review his battle plan, which was the essence of simplicity. 
Without missiles, he would have to close to within 10
ls
of
Raptor
. 
At 15
ls
, Heskan would order
Anelace
to pivot ninety degrees to
starboard in an effort to keep some lateral distance between his ship and the
ketch.  Even if
Raptor
pivoted to face him, which she would surely do,
the change in direction would keep the corvette inside mass driver range but
away from the pirate’s lasers.  Of course, there was a good chance the pirate
captain would anticipate Heskan’s maneuver, pivot his own ship and use its
drive in an effort to reduce the range but
Raptor’s
captain would have
to guess the correct direction to succeed.  Heskan flashed his plan over to
Riedel’s station and attached the text message, “MIKE, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS.”

Another
minute passed and Heskan received a reply on his console, “LOOKS GOOD, CAPT.”

“Fifteen
minutes to intercept,” Truesworth counted down.

Heskan
manipulated the controls on his console and the right-side optical image of the
pirate ketch was replaced with Heskan’s attack plan.  “Okay, folks, this is how
we’re going to make our run.  Stacy, you’ll have about ten seconds of firing
time with the mass driver.  How many shots can you get off?”

“I
can hope for three but will probably only get two, sir.”

“I’ll
take what you can get, center mass shots, Stacy.  Kill that ship.”  Vernay
bobbed her head up and down.  “Have the lasers ready, I’m hoping to stay
outside their range but you never know.”  Vernay again dipped her head. 
Okay,
Heskan, stop mother-henning her
. 
She knows this stuff and you’re making
yourself look bad, or worse, showing you don’t have confidence in her so just
cut the nervous chatter
.

“Another
message from Raptor, Captain,” Truesworth said as he played it.

“Captain
of Anelace, this is Captain Jonathon Montgomery of BRS Raptor.  We are a deep
cover ship on assignment to infiltrate a pirate organization.  Do not fire upon
us.  You are ordered to reduce speed and discontinue pursuit.  I say again, cut
your engines and end your pursuit.  You’ve already risked our cover and wasted
unimaginable resources spent fighting criminal activity.  I warn you, don’t add
insubordination and disobeying an order from a superior officer to the list of
your offenses.”

Heskan
saw stunned looks from his junior officers but heard boisterous laughter coming
from the operations station.  Chief Brown stifled his laugh with great effort.

“Ping
their IFF, Jack,” Heskan ordered.

The
IFF, Identification Friend or Foe, was a military system designed to avoid
firing upon a friendly ship in the middle of a chaotic battle.  With dozens of
ships and hundreds of missiles, the “vastness” of space could quickly become
very crowded during an engagement.  In order to reduce the chance of killing a
friendly, each ship could electronically query its target.  The targeted ship
would then reply with a carefully guarded code.  If the response returned the
correct code, the target was deemed friendly and was denoted as such on
tactical displays.  Heskan assumed any Brevic infiltration ship would be
equipped with an IFF system for exactly this type of situation.

Truesworth
typed into his console and after a minute said, “No return.”

“So,
foe,” Riedel stated.

“Gotta
admit that was a nice try, Capt’n,” Chief Brown said.

“It
kind of threw me for a second, Boats,” Heskan admitted.  “Jack, send this: 
Raptor, IFF returns you as a foe.  Heave to or be destroyed.”

Neither
ship had reduced its speed as
Anelace’s
time to intercept drew within
six minutes.  The ships were just under 30
ls
apart when Truesworth
warned, “She’s pivoting, Captain.  Raptor is turning to face us, velocity is
still constant at point two-five light.”

That’s
to be expected
. 
Heskan took one last glance at his attack plan. 
Picking a simple turn to
starboard was a mistake.  I should have done something using all three
dimensions but it’s too late now because changing the plan in the final minutes
will just throw the bridge into disarray.

No additional
messages were sent as each captain had resigned himself to their final actions. 
After closing the distance to 15
ls
from
Raptor
,
Anelace’s
thrusters fired violently and she yawed hard to starboard.  At nearly the same
time,
Raptor
began to brake hard in an effort to close the distance to
laser range.  The closing speed of the two ships, which had been a mere .08
c
,
grew rapidly to .18
c
.  The pirate captain had also waited patiently
instead of blindly guessing a direction to pivot his ship.  However, in the
time it took the captain to see
Anelace’s
new vector, to command his
ship’s helmsman to execute a corresponding turn to port and for
Raptor
to respond, twenty-two seconds had elapsed.  During that time, A
nelace
traveled an additional 3.96
ls
.  However, due to her new facing,
perpendicular to the ketch, her momentum carried her only 3.1
ls
closer
to
Raptor
. 

Lieutenant
Vernay began to sweat although she was unaware of it.  Heskan could see her
focus on her console screen was absolute as she watched
Anelace
skid
closer to her mass driver’s maximum range of 10
ls
.  The lieutenant’s
left thumb operated a miniature thumbstick used to assist the targeting
computer to keep her target reticule securely on her quarry.  The index finger
of her left hand was lightly pressing the pressure sensitive rocker button
underneath it to further assist the weapon’s lock, while her little finger had
already depressed the input mass driver fire command key.  Vernay’s right index
finger rested lightly over the command-accept-execute button that would
actually initiate the input command to fire the mass driver.

Raptor’s
main drive protested as it
operated over the maximum of the manufacturer’s recommended output.  It was
winning its fight against Newton’s first law of motion but too slowly.  The
range between the two ships was not dropping fast enough and the sleek corvette
looked as if it would skirt safely around the pirate ketch.

Forty-four
seconds after
Anelace
initiated her “hard right” maneuver, the range had
finally dropped to 10
ls
.  During the entire pass, the two ships would
actually close to within 8.8
ls
before parting again.  The total elapsed
time the two ships were within mass driver range was 4.3 seconds, less than
half the time of Heskan’s estimate. During those seconds, the two ships raced
past each other with
Anelace
belching mass driver rounds and
Raptor
unable to return fire.

Anelace’s
Kruger Mk 237 mass driver drew
upon railgun concepts that had been in existence for hundreds of years.  The
basic theory had been around since the dawn of man; take a solid object and
propel it as fast as possible at an enemy.  Improved upon over time, the Mk 237
used five barrels.  The largest was the center barrel from which the actual
projectile was launched.  Made from carbon-treated titanium-32, the barrel’s caliber
was 0.762 meters, or roughly an arm’s length wide.  The remaining four barrels
were located around the center barrel in a box-like arrangement that when
looked at head-on, looked like the face of a die showing a roll of five.  The
smaller barrels generated the electromagnetic pulse that would push the
projectile through and out the center barrel.  As with railguns of the past,
the heat it produced was incredible.  Consequently, the five-barrel design was
adopted so that each smaller barrel would divide the brunt of the heat
generated by the pulse, while the center barrel would absorb the heat from the
friction of launching a projectile from zero to two-thirds the speed of light
inside the eleven meter long barrel.  The heat created was still so great that
it was easily possible to warp any of the barrels, resulting in a catastrophic
misfire on the next shot.  To prevent this, multiple sensors were installed that
monitored each barrel and triggered an automatic shutdown of the weapon system
in the event a barrel reached an unacceptable temperature or began to change
shape.  However, the best preventative measure taken to avoid a heat-related
misfire was to decrease the mass driver’s rate of fire.