“Understood,” the CO replied. “Conn, adjust vector to come in on our starboard side.” That one had taken the lesser pounding when they’d made the run on the fleet.
“Vector adjusted, CIC.”
“Engage attack system.”
Analysis.
‹Enemy Space Combat Unit uses a previously unreported superluminal drive. Primary weapon system: Species 27314 instability generator. Signals analysis indicate unit controlled by Species 27264. Instability Generators previously unreported type, seventy percent smaller than previous units. Effect estimated minimal on Class One through Four Space Combat Units. Multiple hits on Unit 30,440. Reports minimal damage. Effect increases as units decrease. Effect on Class Three Ground Combat Carrier rated high.›
Ensure security of Combat Carrier Units. Dispatch additional Class Fourteen escorts.
“Dreen cruiser is still decelerating,” the tactical officer said. “But it’s trailing vapor like mad. We’re hitting it hard. Fire level was down at least twenty percent on that last run. But the fleet just dispatched reinforcements; nine more destroyers. With their drives, they’ll be up to the troopships before they enter the warp-denial zone. Fighters are also deploying forward and opening up their spread. I think they’re trying to figure where we’ll come out to intercept us.”
“CIC, Damage control. Two chaos guns down starboard side. Hull breaches in section forty-nine, seventeen and sixy-three. Three KIA, one WIA.”
“At this rate we’ll take it out just in time for it to take us out,” the CO said sourly. “But set up another run. Get in close and pound her. What’s that line from Nelson?”
“ ‘I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor’?” the TACO said.
“No,” the CO said.
“ ‘Desperate affairs require desperate measures’?”
“No. But close.”
“ ‘If I had been censured every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should have long ago been out of the Service and never in the House of Peers’?”
“NO! Something about running your ship alongside the enemy. Trafalgar, I think.”
“Hmmm…”
“CIC, Damage Control. Hull breaches in section forty-two, section nineteen, section twenty-three…”
“ ‘First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can’?”
“No.”
“ ‘There is no way of dealing with the Frenchman but to knock him down — to be civil to them is to be laughed at’?”
“No, but I like that one…”
“CIC, Damage control…”
“ ‘Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon’?”
“No. God, the guy could talk, couldn’t he?”
“ ‘Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil’?”
“No, but another one I like. It was something about get in close…”
“Oh!” the TACO said. “That wasn’t a quote. It was a signal. ‘Engage the enemy more closely.’ First signal at Trafalgar, even before they were engaged.”
“That’s it,” the CO said.
“CIC, Damage Control. Compartments Eleven, Twelve and Ninety-Six breached. Six KIA, two WIA. Forward Torpedo Room out of action. Laser Two deadline. That’s a cut in the power system, we might have it repaired in about thirty minutes. Down to six guns starboard. Most of them are unrepairable and I just lost one of the gun teams in the last run.”
“Damage Control, CIC. Get the laser back up; fighters coming in,” the CO said. “What’s the status on our friend?”
“Bleeding air and various other components,” the TACO said. “In the case of Dreen ships, it’s not a metaphor, if you know what I mean. They really bleed. Still under power, though, so we can’t get through to the troopship.”
“Come in from our port,” the CO said. “We’ve got more guns left on that side and the starboard damage control teams need a break. But keep hitting their starboard. We’re going to get to the guts sooner or later.”
“ ‘If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.’ ”
“You can stop now, TACO.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Hey,” the CO said, looking around. Something that had been nearly constant, so much so that it had become background, had stopped. “What happened to the music?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“And I will write her name and cast it to the sky,” Miriam sang, drifting shining beams across the wall of gas. The formed silhouettes of light, a circle, a swirl that resolved into a dragonfly. “Silhouettes recede into a mother’s tearful eyes…” Her eyes were wide and staring into the distance, lost in a world of music.
“Miriam, bring it down and to the right,” Bill said. “Miriam…”
“I think she’s out of it, sir,” Carpenter said over the officer’s implant.
“It’s not much good if she’s not going to target it,” Weaver responded. “I don’t want to break her concentration, though. Come on, girl, down and to the right…”
As if his will drove it, the image of the dragonfly dove, swooping into the Dreen fleet, and appeared to grasp one of the destroyers protecting the upper side of the fleet. The destroyer, under the power of a dozen Earth suns, flashed in fire and disappeared in an instant, simply adding some constituent molecules to the gases filling the system.
“I felt that,” Miriam said, shaking her head as the beams of light collapsed, the dragonfly left as a glowing image for a moment and then fading. She grabbed her head and squeezed. “There was feedback. I don’t understand the feedback. But I could feel the ship dying.”
“You’re going to have to take it,” Bill said. “You’ve got to get into the brain-ship and take it out.”
“I know,” Miriam said, wincing. “I’ll try. I need something more soothing for now.”
“Yes!” the TACO shouted as the Dreen cruiser erupted in fire. It stopped decelerating and drifted away from the formation, trailing air and water then detonating in a flash of white. “Sierra 31 is toast!”
“We’re not much better,” Captain Prael said, looking at the damage report. “And if we don’t get one of the troopships in the next five minutes, we’re going to have nine more destroyers to deal with.”
“We got some accidental hits on Sierra 50, sir,” the TACO said, still jubilant. His job was killing other ships, other officers had to deal with the damage to this one. “Recommend next run be on Sierra 50.”
“Sir,” one of the tracking technicians said. “Sierra 41 just detonated.”
“Blue on Blue again?” the TACO asked.
“No, sir,” the technician replied. “I’m not sure why…”
“Sir,” the sensor tech interrupted. “The Tree has been making some odd emissions. I thought they were random, but a series of them just tracked across the position of Sierra 41. Emission levels were approximately six hundred exajoules of energy in the area of Sierra 41. I repeat. Six. Hundred. Exa. Joules.”
“Holy Hanna, our biggest nukes are less than a thousandth of that,” the TACO said. “That makes taking out that cruiser a pretty minor accomplishment.”
“Not really,” the CO said. “So far, that’s the only hit that the Tree’s gotten in. And if somebody doesn’t stop this task force from taking the Tree, then they’re not going to get many more. Set up an attack run on Sierra 50.”