“Admiral,” the sensor officer snapped. “Look at Enterprise!”
Marius stared.
“What the…?”
Chapter Fourteen
The following are not considered line officers under Case Omega: Engineers, Doctors, Intelligence Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers. They are not to be considered to be in the chain of command.
Jefferson System, 4092
Back at Luna Academy, each cadet had to go through a test that dated all the way back to the early days of human expansion into space. Indeed, its origins were somewhat mythological. The cadet was given command of a simulated starship—with the consoles manned, often, by a real starship crew—and ordered to complete a particular mission. What the cadet wasn’t told was that the simulation was rigged; no matter what the cadet did, the mission would lurch from disaster to disaster until the simulated starship was finally destroyed. Roman had, afterwards, asked the instructor why they were put through a test that had no victorious outcome. The instructor had replied that the test was intended to measure how they coped with stress, and how quickly they thought under combat conditions.
“Get me a full damage report,” he ordered, duly aware that he was barking orders to the chief engineer, a man with more years of service than Roman had been alive. The temptation to just give up was overwhelming, yet who else was there to take over? Everyone who outranked him was dead or missing, presumed dead. The poor bastards who’d been on the bridge when spears of antimatter fury had burned through the shields and hull would have been vaporized. “How many sensors do we have left?”
Enterprise was tumbling through space, but thankfully the gravity had remained operational, Even so, he could feel it in his inner ear, a sense that something wasn’t quite right. The carrier had not only been crippled, but punched out of formation and, without a clear idea of how badly damaged the ship actually was, he didn’t know if he dared power up the drives. The emergency systems had powered down the drives as soon as the ship had been hit and there was no way to know if they were still operational. The internal sensor network had been badly damaged and was barely functioning.
“The external sensor network is largely intact,” Sultana said. She sounded icily calm and in control, shaming him. RockRats were supposed to know, in their blood, how dangerous space could be and how only quick action—and no panic—could save lives. “We have incoming.”
Roman stared down at the tactical console. He should have taken the command chair in the center of the compartment, but there was no replacement for the tactical position, at least until they managed to find another lieutenant. Most of the tactical section would have been killed in the attack. There were enemy starships approaching Enterprise; four battlecruisers and a host of smaller craft. The sensors finally identified them as Marine Landing Craft. The rebels intended to board Enterprise!
Over my dead body, Roman thought coldly. He’d admired and respected the captain and the XO. It would have been a betrayal of their memory to tamely surrender the carrier to Admiral Justinian and the rebels. Besides, they were coming in fat and happy, believing that Enterprise was completely crippled. And that, part of his mind insisted, offered an opportunity to strike back.
The damage report started to scroll up in front of him as the internal datanet came back online. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared, even though it was still pretty bad. The main bridge and flag bridge—and surrounding compartments—were completely destroyed. The internal emergency system had sealed off the affected compartments before the atmosphere had been vented into space. One of the antimatter beams had gone through the port flight decks and effectively destroyed them, leaving the starfighter pilots stranded and unable to escape; another had destroyed one of the drive units. The remaining drive units—and shield generators—were intact, as were most of the weapons. Enterprise, given time, would be able to escape, yet it was doubtful that the rebels would give her time. It didn’t take years of experience to know that the damaged carrier was going to maneuver like a wallowing pig.
He ran through the vectors in his mind and smiled. Admiral Justinian hadn’t brought his superdreadnaughts close to Enterprise, either out of suspicion or because he wanted to point them at Admiral Drake instead. The battlecruisers would be in short range—almost point-black range—within minutes, but the Marine Landing Craft would dock with Enterprise before the battlecruisers were close enough to have no hope of evading his fire.
“Deploy the Marines,” he ordered. “Put them in position to repel boarders.”
He spared a single thought for Elf, and then turned back to his console. His plan was insane—he’d have been reprimanded sharply for proposing it at the Academy—but if the enemy just knew that Enterprise was crippled, they might not be too careful. On the other hand, if he opened fire too soon, the battlecruisers would stand off and pound Enterprise into a drifting hulk.
The enemy starfighters were engaging the remains of Enterprise’s CSP, clearing the fighter jocks away before the Marines moved in. Some of the pilots ignored the enemy fighters and targeted the Marine craft, thinning the force before they had a chance to dock with the Enterprise. Roman winced as he saw the starfighters wink out, one by one, knowing that each icon represented a living human being. How many of them had he known personally before the fleet had entered the Jefferson System?
Somehow, he pushed the thought aside. There would be time to mourn the dead later.
“Keep the active sensors offline,” he ordered as the enemy battlecruisers moved closer. A single active scan could tell him everything he wanted to know—at the cost of revealing Enterprise’s true condition. He had no doubts about how they would react if they realized the truth. “Track the battlecruisers with passive sensors only, but keep uploading the targeting data to the missile tubes.”
Enterprise’s designers had sought to create a starship that was a cross between a carrier and a dreadnaught. Roman had been told by Commander Duggan that, like other ships that attempted to combine two separate roles, Enterprise managed to be mistress of neither. She couldn’t stand up to a superdreadnaught—or even a battleship—nor could she launch and recover her fighters as rapidly as a fleet carrier.
On the other hand, at point blank range the battlecruisers wouldn’t know what was coming their way until it was far too late.
“The enemy Marines are moving in to dock now,” Sultana said dispassionately.
Roman turned to look at the internal display. The Marines—his Marines—had deployed themselves to repel boarders. The enemy was being predicable, heading for the holes they’d made in the hull. Roman wondered, suddenly, if Elf was thinking of him, perhaps cursing him for placing her in a death trap.
“Roman…ah, sir…” Sultana said.
“Spit it out,” Roman ordered sharply.
“Two minutes until the battlecruisers are within point-blank range,” Sultana said. “Can I suggest that we open fire on the remaining landing craft at the same time?”
“Make it so,” Roman said. The thought was a good one, even though the boarders might try to disable the ship’s weaponry as they advanced. “Prepare to fire.”