Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2) Read online

  “Wasting precious propellant,” Jonathan said. “Good.”

  “The prominence we identified earlier is fast coming up,” Lewis said. She paused, then: “We’re flying over it. External hull temperature is rising. Currently fifteen hundred Kelvin. Eighteen hundred.”

  Jonathan tightened his grip on the armrests. If that temperature didn’t stabilize soon, it was doubtful he would be able to move the fleet out of that location in time to save them. Still, the scientists had run calculations, assuring him that the temperature would be well within the tolerances of the heat armor.

  But what if their calculations were wrong?

  “Temperature is stabilizing at two thousand Kelvin,” Lewis said. “Heat shields are holding.”

  Jonathan released the armrests.

  “Radiation is spiking again, however,” the ensign added.

  “How bad is it?” Jonathan asked.

  “Our anti-rads should protect us.”

  Jonathan unconsciously touched the protrusion in his forearm. “All we can do now is wait and see where ETU-F2 shows up.”

  Twenty minutes into the flight over the prominence, the ensign said: “I’ve lost sight of the trailing alien unit. The massive solar prominence is reducing visibility to under fifty thousand kilometers for both the thermal and visual bands.”

  “What are the odds they can’t see us either?” Jonathan asked.

  “I’d say ninety-nine percent, if not a hundred,” Lewis responded.

  “Maxwell?” Jonathan said.

  “I concur,” the AI returned.

  Jonathan clenched his jaw. “Good. Helm, flip us around and prepare to fire thrusters to bring us back to our original trajectory. Keep the port side away from the sun, of course. Miko, transmit the order to the fleet.”

  Two minutes later, when the helmsman had flipped the orientation of the ship, Jonathan gave the order to fire seventy-percent thrust fleet wide. Ten minutes passed, and when he was happy with the new orbital trajectory, he ordered the thrust cut.

  “Now the waiting game truly begins,” Jonathan said.

  “We could initiate deorbit,” Robert said. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “No,” Jonathan said. “They’ll spot us immediately when we emerge from the haze of the prominence. And you forget that the enemy is faster than us.”

  “Why not continue altering our trajectory then,” the commander said. “Move us toward the south pole of the subgiant.”

  “We’ll have to face them eventually,” Jonathan said. “I’d rather do it here, where the advantage is somewhat ours.”

  “How is this an advantage?” the commander asked.

  “We prevent the enemy from coordinating their pincer strike,” Jonathan said. “And we face each group individually.”

  Robert crossed his arms. “What if Lewis and the AI are wrong? What if their sensors can actually penetrate the thermal interference?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jonathan said. “Their instruments obey the laws of physics just like our own. Their sensors won’t function any better than ours, not here.”

  The minutes passed tensely. It was hard to concentrate, knowing that the pursuing Raakarr vessels were somewhere out there.

  “The waiting, it drives me crazy sometimes,” Miko said.

  “You’re not the only one, Lieutenant,” Robert told the man.

  Jonathan held his tongue, though he agreed wholeheartedly.

  At the forty-five minute mark, there was still no sign of enemy contact. The Callaway and the other six ships continued to fly above the expansive solar prominence. So far, the heat shields had held out against the 2000 K temperatures, but Jonathan was beginning to wonder if it was wise to remain at their current orbital height for much longer.

  “I’m detecting a concentrated burst of gamma rays flying past us,” Lewis announced.

  “Aimed at any of our ships?” Jonathan asked.

  “No,” she said. “I think it was a communications burst.”

  “Can you detect the source?”

  “I can. It’s...” She looked up urgently. “I’m reading three signatures consistent with ETU-F2 in the thermal haze up ahead. Only fifty thousand kilometers away.”

  “Damn it!” Jonathan said.

  “An infrared laser is boring into the nose of the Maelstrom!” Lewis said.

  “Tell them to take evasive action!” Jonathan instructed Miko.

  “Their captain appears to be attempting that very thing,” the tactical officer responded.

  Given their current trajectory, the line the human fleet had formed was at a slight angle to the laser ship, exposing all of them and letting the vessel have its pick of a target.

  “Miko, get the fleet back in line relative to that ship!” Jonathan said. “Salvador at point, Aurelia at drag!”

  “Aye,” the tactical officer responded.

  “The pursuing ships have also emerged from the haze,” Lewis said. “Fifty thousand klicks off our aft section! They’re firing... concentrating their six particle beams on the Maelstrom as well.”

  Jonathan raised his arms and formed two fists. He felt so helpless in that moment.

  So much for the hundred percent certainty that they couldn’t see us.

  When the particle beams had ceased and the ten second laser firing interval had passed:

  “The Maelstrom has taken heavy structural damage in the nose section,” Lewis said. “That laser had four times the intensity versus the hundred thousand kilometer mark, and it drilled a quarter way through the ship, almost to the bridge. The particles beams meanwhile dug a hole four meters deep in the frigate’s aft quarters, but that’s it. No breach there. Even though the six pursuers combined their attacks, they were simply too far away to cause any real damage.”

  “But their next attack will,” Jonathan said. “If they strike in the same spot. They achieved their goal of a pincer after all.”

  The captain leaned forward to study the display, even though his posture did nothing to affect the position of the overlay on his aReal. Two dart ships flanked the laser ship ahead, though the range was now forty-four thousand kilometers to them. Mercifully, because of their speed, and their opposing trajectories, the flyby would be quick.

  Meanwhile, the human task group had adjusted positions so that the Salvador was at the head, and the Aurelia at drag.

  “Have the Salvador launch all of its mortars,” Jonathan said. “Tell them to form as much of a shield as they can in front of their vessel, protecting the critical hull sections.”

  He watched as several blue dots appeared in front of the respective ship.

  “Those are going to turn into a molten mess in this heat,” Ensign Lewis commented.

  The range was thirty-nine thousand klicks when the enemy fired again.

  When it was over: “The Salvador reports damage to several decks, none of them critical. Her hull integrity is slightly compromised, however. Not as badly as the Maelstrom, though.”

  “Tell the Salvador to swap out of point,” Jonathan said. “I want the next ship in line to bear the brunt of that laser.”

  “The Salvador is refusing,” Miko replied.

  “What, why?”

  Miko appeared stunned. “The next ship in line is the Marley.”

  “Ah. All right, then get the third ship to move up.” Jonathan double-checked and confirmed that the third ship was a warship, the Dagger.

  “The laser ship and her escorts are thrusting hard to the left,” Miko said. “It looks like they’re trying to keep their range at forty thousand during the flyby.”

  “They know our Vipers can’t touch them at that distance, even if we combine them,” Robert said.

  “Maxwell, compute a firing solution,” Jonathan said. “Lead the target, and fire all of our slugs at that ship. Use mortars to herd them, in case they decide to randomly change directions like our pursuers.” He would have ordered X90s from the Avengers mounted to the hull, too, but those definitely would have detonat
ed prematurely at the current temperature levels.

  “I have a firing solution,” Maxwell announced a moment later. “Transmitting to Miko.”

  “Fire,” Jonathan told Miko.

  While the slugs would become a “molten mess,” as Ensign Lewis called it, a molten mess moving at those speeds would still rip a ship in half.

  “Have they fired again yet?” Jonathan asked.

  “No.”

  He studied the display. “We’re drifting out of line compared to them. Line us up, Miko.”

  But it was too late.

  “The laser is firing,” Lewis said. “They’ve hit the Maelstrom again. The six pursuers are also targeting her, this time from a range of forty-eight thousand kilometers out.”

  The dot representing the Maelstrom winked out.

  Lewis sagged. “I’m sorry sir. The ship lost structural integrity. She was ripped apart. There wasn’t even time for the crew to reach the lifepods.”

  Jonathan nodded stiffly. It wouldn’t have helped even if the crew had.

  In his mind’s eye he momentarily saw Admiral Knox pointing at him accusingly. Then the apparition was gone.

  “The Dagger is on point,” Miko announced.

  “Tell Captain Rodriguez to fire as many mortars as he can to provide a shield against that laser,” Jonathan said. “Just like the Salvador did for herself.”

  “On it,” Miko replied.

  “Maxwell, ETA to slug impact?” Jonathan asked.

  “Thirty seconds,” the AI stated.

  At the ten second mark:

  “The laser is firing again,” Lewis said. “As are the two dart escorts. They’re all concentrating fire on the same spot on the Dagger. They’re shooting through three stacked mortars.”

  The external display abruptly flashed white.

  “What happened?” Jonathan anxiously searched the tactical display. “Did we lose the Dagger?”

  “Negative,” Lewis replied. “Our slugs impacted. The laser ship has been destroyed, as has one of the dart ships. The other one braked, diving to a lower orbit. It’s accelerating away fast.”

  Jonathan exhaled. Another two down. Though at the price of the Maelstrom.

  He issued a silent prayer for the vanquished and hoped, with all his heart, that the fleet could pull through without losing any more ships.

  thirty-six

  Valor approached the hatch to storage bay twelve. The compartment beyond had been converted into a holding cell for the members of Organism Z22. It had enough room to contain hundreds of that species, though it currently held only one specimen.

  Swathed in darkness, the executioner, a Wraith Lord, led the way, accompanied by two similarly shielded Hive Guards.

  When the Wraith Lord reached the bay, he telepathically interfaced with the control unit and the door began to move aside. He entered the airlock, followed by the Hive Guards and Valor.

  The outer door sealed behind them and the four of them waited. The atmosphere would be venting, changing to match that of the compartment inside. Raakarr optic centers didn’t provide the granularity necessary to discern such changes, so none of them would actually “see” any difference in the atmosphere, and would have to trust that the automated systems were working.

  As the inner door opened, the Wraith Lord telepathically addressed Valor.

  You stay here, the Wraith Lord sent. While the Exalted might approve of your presence, I do not.

  Valor transmitted a point cloud representation of submission, and he remained in the airlock while the executioner and his two guards stepped through the inner door. He positioned himself against one of the bulkheads near that door so he had an optimal view of the compartment beyond.

  The area was depicted as a series of point clouds by his vision, similar to the telepathy he used. Those thousands of points formed the shapes of bulkheads, decks and overheads. The glowing filaments in the bulkhead provided the electromagnetic radiation that bounced from the various objects to his optic center, allowing his mind to create those point clouds, and his reality. The wavelength of those filaments determined the hue of the points in the cloud. There were only two wavelengths Raakarr could see: blue and red, each detectable by different sets of eyes.

  Raakarr could emit similar electromagnetic radiation themselves, allowing them to see without the filaments, however the process was mentally exhausting, especially if one wanted to cover a compartment of any appreciable area, even if the EM bursts were emitted only every few moments.

  It was a coincidence that those electromagnetic waves stimulated the optic centers of Organism Z22. The Raakarr had encountered other organisms whose mechanisms of navigating and interacting with their environments were vastly different. The compartment beyond would appear pitch black to such entities.

  The Wraith Lord approached the Z22 female. She still wore the external skin that protected her species from the void, which made her point cloud appear bulky. Some of the radiation penetrated her faceplate, illuminating the face inside, however the Raakarr didn’t have the optical resolution to distinguish Z22 features. Instead they relied on the increased resolution of the Overwatch AI to identify the individual: according to the telepathic signals the AI beamed, it was indeed the female.

  Hold her, the executioner told the Hive Guards.

  One of the female’s appendages had been positioned behind her back, and the creature abruptly brought that limb to the forefront. She gripped a foreign object of some kind in her claws.

  Hello, the female transmitted. Except that wasn’t possible, because the female didn’t have telepathic abilities, nor did she know the Raakarr language.

  One of the Hive Guards collapsed to the floor. That foreign object was a weapon, of course. Capable of photonic fire.

  Valor unleashed his own photonics from his position by the inner door. His target wasn’t the Z22, but the remaining guard and the Wraith Lord. The Unchosen.

  The Overwatch AI remained completely silent during the attack. Almost complicit. And it remained so as the three rolling mists collapsed to the floor.

  Valor, leader of the Chosen People, had replaced the monitoring sensors in the prison with a static feed so that the Overwatch AI wouldn’t know the “female” had swapped places with the Clairvoyant, the Z22 male. The darkness shield the Clairvoyant had given the real female was similarly programmed to emit a signal associated with the male. Another of the Chosen People had planted instructions for the AI to open the hatches of the experimentation center at 0700, Z22 time, to allow the female to escape. She would have to lose the Hive Guards on her own, but once she was outside the experimentation center, the signal from her darkness generator would change so that any further Raakarr she encountered would believe she was one of them. Unless they tried to communicate with her, of course.

  Valor had disabled the safeguards in the hangar bay as well, so that when she finally reached the Z22 craft, her exit was guaranteed. Whether or not she would actually escape the intense gravity outside, or even survive the radiation, was another story entirely.

  It is time to set the operation in motion, Valor sent the Clairvoyant.

  JONATHAN PULLED UP the aft external display. The interference was particularly bad on the video feed, and it was hard to discern the pursuing vessels. A flash abruptly came from the area.

  “Lewis?” Jonathan said.

  The ops station officer seemed stunned. “T300 just fired at the capital ship. Point blank range. Tore it right in half. It swept its particle beam down and hit the pyramid ship in front of them, too.”

  After Jonathan recovered from the shock, he was suddenly very glad he had ordered the fleet not to target T300 in any way. A part of him wondered if Bridgette had anything to do with the surprise attack. Assuming she hadn’t been executed.

  “Did T300 destroy the pyramid ship?” the captain asked hopefully.

  Lewis shook her head. “No. But it looks like they ripped away two of those stilts underneath it. T300 has already issued eme
rgency braking, and they’ve dropped several thousand kilometers down. They’re fleeing on a diagonal vector.”

  There was another flash.

  “What was that?” Jonathan said.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” the ensign said. “But a second dart ship just opened fire, taking out another vessel of the same class. The defector is braking now, too, and dropping down to join T300.”

  All that remained of the pursuers at that point was the damaged pyramid ship, and a previously damaged dart ship, as the surviving vessel from ETU-F2 had overshot its allies earlier and vanished in the haze of the solar prominence.

  Jonathan watched on the display as the two defectors began to climb back to a higher orbit, moving thirty degrees away from the pursuers, whose momentum still carried them toward the human fleet.

  “I’m detecting multiple particle beams from the pyramid ship,” Lewis said. “Source from the remaining two stilts.”

  “At least we know what those are now,” Miko commented.

  “What’s the target?” Jonathan said.

  “They’re drilling into T300.”

  The captain waited several tense moments. When the beam indicator on the tactical display vanished, the dot representing T300 remained.

  “Damage to T300?” Jonathan said.

  “Hard to say,” the ensign answered. “The heat signature has definitely changed. I’d say they’ve taken moderate damage. They’re continuing to pull away from the enemy, along with the second defector.”

  Robert closed his eyes, breathing rapidly beside the captain.

  “Let’s see if we can spook that pyramid ship,” Jonathan said. “Miko, have the fleet decelerate ten percent, but fire ventral thrust to maintain the same orbit.”

  “On it,” Miko said. “But due to propellant costs, I recommend we return to our previous speed in about ten seconds.”

  “That should do,” Jonathan told the tactical officer.

  The vibrations the captain had felt in his chair, which had been subtle before, became all out shudders as the Callaway struggled against the competing forces exerted upon her—inertia wanted to carry her forward, the thrusters wanted to shove her away, the binary stars wanted to draw her in.