“They took out the powered missiles, sir,” Farley reported. “But the unpowered warheads are in position.”
Ted nodded. “Activate them as soon as the enemy come within range, keyed to detonate at the first possible moment,” he ordered. On the display, the aliens had reorganised their squadrons, their starfighters zooming ahead, coming in for the kill. The brief pause in combat hadn't been anything like enough for the damage control parties to perform anything other than brief repairs. “And then move our starfighters to cover our hull.”
He held his breath as the alien starfighters roared past the missiles, ignoring them completely. Instead, they rocketed down towards Ark Royal… he muttered orders, sending his starfighters out to engage them before they could slip into one of the new blind spots, then watched as the enemy carriers closed in on the hidden missiles.
“Detonation,” Farley snapped.
Ted allowed himself a smirk as the first warhead detonated, channelling all of its power into a laser beam that slashed into the alien hull. Ark Royal would have taken most of the blow on her armour, but the aliens hadn't seen fit to wrap their carriers in layers of protective shielding. The blast tore into one of the carriers, sending it rolling out of formation. Behind it, the alien frigates and battlecruisers spread out, searching for new threats. Now, Ted knew, they could no longer rely on their point defence to take out human missiles before they became dangerous.
He looked back at the in-system display, hastily weighing their chances. If they could last another thirty minutes, they could reach Tramline Five… but the aliens would follow them through the jump. He briefly considered attempting to mine the exit point, yet he knew that it would be a chancy operation. The aliens might not run into one of the contact nukes as they exited the tramline. Instead…
“Engineering,” he said, “I want you to prepare to eject as much debris as possible, as soon as we hop through the tramline.”
“Understood,” Anderson said. “You propose to trick them into believing that we destroyed ourselves?”
“Yes,” Ted said. If a Puller Drive was badly damaged, it wasn't unknown for a starship to arrive at her destination star system in pieces. Ark Royal was nowhere near that badly damaged, but it was unlikely the aliens knew that. And, if the explosion seemed big enough, it might well have swallowed the other ships too. “Let them think us gone.”
“We don’t have enough debris to pull it off,” Anderson said. “But we could probably create the illusion on this side of the tramline, if you don't mind losing the ECM drones.”
Ted smirked. Each ECM drone cost upwards of a billion pounds apiece and he was sure to face some hard questions from the beancounters when they returned to Earth, but the alternative was losing Ark Royal herself. No, he decided, shaking his head. The bureaucrats could go hang. If they wanted to complain, they could do it afterwards, when at least he would have brought his ship home.
“See to it,” he ordered.
The alien attack grew more savage as the human ships crawled closer and closer to Tramline Five. Thankfully, the alien capital ships seemed to be keeping their distance, but the starfighters pressed the attack time and time again. Ted watched, grimly, as two of his starfighters were lost because the pilots were too tired to focus properly on what they were doing. Between tiredness and the aliens, he might lose a third of his starfighters before they even managed to make it out of the cursed system.
Finally, Anderson called him. “Everything is in order, sir,” he said. “I recommend having the starfighters docked to our hull when we make the jump. And that we fire missiles and mass drivers at the aliens to keep them occupied.”
Ted nodded. “Do it,” he ordered Farley. Ahead of them, Tramline Five blinked on the display. “Launch the drones as soon as we reach the outer edge of the tramline.”
The alien starfighters pulled back as the missiles were launched, leaving the carrier alone as they engaged the missiles. Oddly, they didn't seem to care about the mass driver-launched projectiles, although they might simply have calculated that there was little chance of the projectiles hitting anything important. Ted gripped the side of his command chair as the drones went to work, skilfully creating a false image that should confuse the aliens long enough for them to jump…
“Jumping… now,” Lightbridge said.
Space seemed to twist around the massive carrier as she jumped through the tramline. Behind them, the drones created the illusion of the carrier’s sudden destruction, caught in a gravimetric fold that smashed her and her comrades into rubble. The aliens would want to believe it, Ted knew. But would they?
“Jump completed,” Lightbridge said. “No enemy contacts detected.”
“Activate full stealth protocol,” Ted ordered. The advantage of hitting the tramline at speed was that there was no way to predict their vector on the other side. Even their arrival point could be dangerously random. “I don't want a single hint of betraying emissions to reach their sensors.”
And then pray, he added, in the privacy of his own thoughts. If the aliens caught them with drives, weapons and sensors stepped down, they were dead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kurt guided his starfighter into the landing bay then sagged, barely able to move. He was utterly exhausted. Part of him just wanted to close his eyes and sleep, even though he knew he had to move. The aliens could be on them at any moment. Somehow, he managed to open the hatch and stumble out onto the deck. None of his fellow pilots, even the younger ones, looked much better.
“All hands,” the intercom blared, “rig for silent running. I say again, rig for silent running.”
“Crap,” Kurt muttered. They were all exhausted — and yet, at least one squadron would have to remain on alert. He looked up, then keyed his communicator. “Move the bomber pilots to the spare fighters and prime them for immediate launch.”
Shouldn't be trying to combine CAG duties with flying duties, he mocked himself, as he led the way through the airlock and into the ready room. He knew he was right; the CAG should remain separate from his squadrons, not leading them into battle. But there just weren’t enough pilots onboard for him to refuse to fly a starfighter. And he didn't want to stand on his rights and refuse to fly. There was a reason CAGs weren't always taken seriously unless they flew every so often.
His fingers refused to cooperate properly as he wrestled with his flight suit. It took several minutes to remove it and leave it on the deck as he stumbled into the shower and gasped as icy cold water washed over his body. Behind him, the other pilots stumbled in, too tired to indulge in the laughing and joking they would normally have used to break the tension. He caught a glimpse of a female pilot’s breasts, then forced himself to look away, damning himself for staring. It was a breakdown in discipline his squadron could ill afford.
Somehow, he managed to make it out of the shower and over to the sleep machines. Using them was never pleasant — they would need to catch up on natural sleep sooner rather than later — but there was no choice. A natural sleep couldn't be broken so easily, even if it did mean less wear and tear on their mood. Issuing a quick flurry of orders, he climbed into one of the machines and pulled the hatch down over his head. Moments later, he was asleep.