The fighters bore in, flashing past the wounded Brisbane and closing in on the next line of Vicky war ships.
Now Eder remembered the history class. Old Earth battles with ships that sailed on massive oceans and small, fast planes that went out to hunt them. The planes had been hideously vulnerable, but gruesomely effective.
“All ships,” he bellowed. “Auto-fire all ship anti-missile defenses. And saturate your area with zone defenses.” As he watched two more ships flashed their Code Omega signals, a destroyer and a frigate. But to even things out another hedgehog — the fifth — blew up and yet another staggered out of its line, trailing air and debris.
• • • • •
Admiral Mello watched the holo display. He didn’t like what he saw. Five hedgehogs dead and two more badly shot up. The carrier fighters claimed four Vicky ships now, but the fighters themselves had taken a beating. One hundred fighters had gone out, barely forty had come back. If the Vickies continued their attack much longer, it could spell disaster. He turned to Commander Pattin. “Call back the forty ships we sent to support the supply ships. Tell them to abort their mission and return immediately.”
“And the supply ships?”
“We’ll have to use Admiral Kaeser’s supply ships,” he said. And just where the hell was Admiral Kaeser?
Aboard the D.U.C. Fortitude, Admiral Kaeser did a slow orbit around the Victorian home planet, Cornwall. Around him were the other sixty four ships of the D.U.C. Second Attack Fleet. His orders were clear: he was to wait at Cornwall until he joined up with Admiral Mello, and then together they would seize the space stations Atlas and Prometheus and destroy the Victorian Home fleet.
But Prometheus was reduced to ashes, Atlas was gone, the Home Fleet absent, and Admiral Mello and the First Attack Fleet were nowhere to be seen.
“No courier drones?” he asked again for the tenth time. Both Sensors and Communications shook their heads. Kaeser shook his head. “Just so,” he sighed.
Where the devil was Admiral Mello?
Emily watched in morbid fascination as the holo display shifted with their turn. At the top of the display she could see the Dominion escort attacking what they believed were Victorian war ships coming from the north. Any moment now they would get close enough to realize they were just drones and would turn back to protect the supply ships. In the northwest, now partially obscured by chaff, were the Dominion reinforcements. But if the war ships were obscured, the avalanche of missiles coming towards the Coldstream Guard was not. They had killed some, but there were still three hundred and fifty homing in on just twelve ships. On the holo display they looked like a tidal wave.
And try as she might, she couldn’t think of a way to stop them. Their anti-missile stores
were almost depleted, they were out of zone explosives and even getting low on decoys.
And now they were running out of time.
“Approaching point to launch attack against the supply ships,” Merlin informed her.
“How long before the Dominion missiles reach us, Merlin?”
“Seven minutes, four seconds.”
“Status of anti-missile stores?” she asked.
“Of the ten operational ships under command, four have no anti-missile capability beyond short range Bofor and laser fire. The remaining four have thirty anti-missile rockets among them.”
Across the bridge, Alex Rudd looked at her and shook his head. Emily felt a bubble of anger and desperation. She hadn’t come all this way just to lose her ship and the rest of the Coldstream Guard. There must be something.
But she couldn’t think of it.
“I’m open to suggestions,” she told Rudd and the bridge crew.
“Lieutenant!” Chief Gibson called.
“Sixty seconds to launch,” Merlin said.
“What is it, Chief?” Emily replied.
“The Dominion ships that are chasing us — they’re turning away!” He shook his head in wonderment. “They’re leaving! Looks like they’re going back to Bogey One. So are the six escort ships that were guarding the colliers. They’re all bugging out, and really pouring on the acceleration.”
Emily smiled tiredly. Admiral Douthat must have counter-attacked. Not that it mattered. The Dominion’s missiles would finish the job, whether the Dominion war ships were there or not.
“Um…Ma’am?” It was Seaman Partridge. Emily searched for his first name, couldn’t find it.
“Mr. Partridge?”
“Forty five seconds to launch,” Merlin said.
“Well, Ma’am, we’re close to the supply ships. Really close. Why don’t we hide next to them? I mean, they must be scared of the missiles, too. They’ll have their ‘friend-or-foe’ transponders on, won’t they? I mean they don’t want to get hit by their own missiles. So if we got right up close to them, maybe shoot some chaff around, then the missiles couldn’t tell us from them and they’ll shut down. Wouldn’t they?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Emily was flabbergasted. It seemed preposterous. Hide next to the supply ships? Could this really work? She looked questioningly at Rudd. He smiled. “Oh, I like it,” he said. “I really like it.”
“Twenty seconds to attack,” Merlin reminded her.
Time to make the decision. “Merlin, abort attack.”
A pause. “Attack mission on supply ships aborted. Is there anything you would like me to do, Lieutenant Tuttle?” Merlin asked mildly.
“Relinquish flight control to ships’ captains,” Emily ordered. They were going to have to thread a needle with these war ships, and she wanted human pilots for that. “Mr. Bahawalanzai — ” Rahim Bahawalanzai was recognized as the best pilot on the New Zealand — “you have the Pilot’s seat. I’ll pick the Dominion supply ship we want to cozy up to, but the details of how we do it are going to be up to you.”
“And if you screw it up, Rahim,” Rudd chimed in, “the New Zealand is going to end up as a spot of soot on the hull of one of those big mother supply ships.”
“I will endeavor to avoid such an ignominious fate, Sir,” Bahawalanzai dead panned.
Emily turned to Communications. “Betty, open a channel to the other ships.” Betty worked her control panel, then nodded. “New Zealand to all Coldstream Guards. We’re going to try something a little unusual,” she explained.
Five minutes later, the last of the Coldstream Guard ships slid next to the Dominion supply ships and slowed to match speeds. The supply vessels were accelerating as fast as they could, no doubt red-lining their inertia compensators, but in the end they were still supply ships and the Victorian war ships had little trouble catching up to them. The four Dominion ships were separated by ten miles or so; but even with that spacing, it was a delicate task for the Victorians to insert themselves between them, followed by the white-knuckles job of painstakingly maneuvering the war ships until they were no more than one hundred yards from the nearest Dominion supply ship. In peace time, a stunt like this would mean a certain court martial for the captain who ordered it; now it looked like their best chance.
The supply ship next to the New Zealand was huge. Emily gaped like a tourist. She had never once seen another ship in space without the assistance of video cameras. Now she thought she could reach out and touch the supply ship — the Togo, the name was clearly visible on its hull. Emily tried to imagine the consternation the Dominion ships must have felt when they realized the Victorian ships were sailing alongside them.
“Betty, hail the Togo.”
The Togo’s captain came on immediately, obviously waiting for her call. “Captain, this is the H.M.S. New Zealand. You are instructed to not make any radio transmissions or to launch any courier drones. Kill your engines. You and your crew have ten minutes to evacuate your ship. You will not be harmed as long as you comply.”