“But I warn you,” he continued. “If you execute those hostages, I’ll relieve you on grounds of mental aberration, and place you under arrest. Then I’ll order the flotilla back to Thaeron, and report myself to Chard Danought under arrest.” The old man spun and stamped out of the office, slamming the door.
Micah stared after him. The trouble was, the old man was right. He couldn’t afford to lose Van-Lyn now, not with combat ready to erupt at any moment. Van-Lyn’s exec wasn't experienced enough to fight a dreadnought. Besides, Micah didn’t have a firm grip on the man. Nevertheless, as soon as they’d beaten Cord and Kedron, Van-Lyn would die.
Planetary resistance wasn’t the only problem Micah faced. Predator and Harpy had jumped his two Destroyers, Gyrfalcon, and Eagle.
Eagle had been destroyed. Gyrfalcon had fled back to Haven, seriously damaged. Micah’s Chief Engineer surveyed her damage, and decided that she'd have to be sent back to Thaeron for repair.
“It wasn’t Predator and Harpy that were the problem, Admiral,” her captain explained. “They’ve got a bunch of small armed boats. The damned things are smaller than a Strengl, and harder to hit. They’re unbelievably fast and maneuverable. They jumped us before we could transition from jump drive to inertial drive, before we had shields. And our targeting comps were just baffled. They swarmed around us like bees, carving us up with big lasers, or hitting us with rocks. Some of them have mass drivers that must be fifty centimeters in diameter.
“Then, just about the time we got shields and some of our shots began to hit those little monsters, Predator and Harpy moved in. When I saw Eagle blow up, I knew I had to get back here and warn you.”
Micah was thoughtful. Gyrfalcon ’s captain was young, but by all reports, he was smart, resourceful, and brave. No, he hadn’t run out on a battle. He’d retreated from one that was lost.
Gyrfalcon ’s damage was so severe that Micah had no choice but to send her limping back to Thaeron.
Micah had Gyrfalcon ’s sensor logs shown to the captains of his other ships. The lethal little boats impressed and worried them. Oh, Nemesis and Dauntless probably had little to fear. Though enough stings could eventually be serious, even to a cruiser or dreadnought. They wouldn’t be given time to realize that threat.
The Lieutenant in command of Raptor, though, had a lot to fear from them. If Kedron had enough of those damned things, they could overload Raptor ’s shields and cut her to pieces.
“Nothing’s really changed, though,” Micah decided. “Those boats are a surprise, and I want you all working on methods of dealing with them. However, there’ll be no ambushes here; no jumping us before our shields are up.
“No,” he continued, “There’ll be no opportunity for tricks here! They have to emerge far enough out to give us more than enough warning. Then, they have to attack us on our terms; and one damaged Cruiser and two damaged Destroyers are simply no match for our forces.”
“But…” Raptor ’s Captain began. Micah held up a restraining hand.
“Don’t worry, Captain.” He said, “I’m well aware of the threat of these new boats to your ship. Nevertheless, as long as we keep her under cover of either Dauntless ’ or Nemesis ’ weapons, you should be all right. Moreover, we will be looking for ways to deal with the damned things. Perhaps the Strengl s could give you cover.” He shrugged. “At any rate, we’ll work it out.”
Chapter XIII
Bendo and Jamro were as enthusiastic as Cord. They felt the boats would give them a decisive edge. I wasn’t so sure, but the only armed rim tramps available at the moment weren’t fully crewed. They’d have to go it alone.
We decided to jump Jonas’ destroyers in the Lonesome system. Lonesome was one of the three planets still being colonized. There were only a few thousand people on it. It probably wouldn’t suffer reprisal for the battle.
Predator and Harpy deployed their boats and picketed the main jump point. They maintained patrols of half their strength of boats, rotating them every few hours. This meant that each destroyer would have four or five boats grappled to it at any given time, while nine boats patrolled. The off-duty boat pilots would be relaxing in the airlocks, suited but with their helmets off.
They didn’t have long to wait. Gyrfalcon and Eagle emerged less than a day after Predator and Harpy. The boats on patrol swarmed almost instantly, and the rest of the boats joined them before Jonas’ ships could get their shields up.
Dodging, wheeling, the boats corkscrewed or arrowed in, slashed viciously with their lasers or mass drivers, and then bounced away on their pressor beams. The two destroyers were sitting ducks for almost three minutes until their weapons system power came online. Finally, their consoles came to life and a few of the braver gunners began overriding their battle comps and trying to manually aim their weapons. The destroyers’ battle comps didn’t have a hope of locking onto these bouncing, jinking, torturers.
Then Predator and Harpy closed in and the slugfest began. Even with the boats, it was a bloody mess. The gunners aboard Jonas’ destroyers had to shift their attentions from the swarming boats to the more heavily armed destroyers. The boats had to be treated as secondary targets.
Secondary, perhaps, but not ineffective. One of the boats slammed a laser beam into a weakened area of Eagle ’s shields, and suddenly Eagle became an expanding ball of incandescent gases, the first verified kill by an attack boat.
Unfortunately, Eagle was closely engaged with Harpy at the time. The explosion overwhelmed Harpy ’s shields and caused serious hull damage, disabling six laser and particle beam weapon stations.
Gyrfalcon drove frantically for the jump point, with Predator and a flock of boats in hot pursuit. One of Predator ’s particle beams was seen penetrating Gyrfalcon ’s shield and hull split seconds before she jumped.
Suddenly it was over, and all that remained was to lick our wounds and evaluate the results of the battle.
Shar had been right about the boats. Of the eighteen used in this first-ever battle, only seven remained operational, though one pilot was rescued from his disabled boat. Following normal Fleet procedure, Predator and Harpy recovered what they could of the ten dead pilots’ bodies and body parts before jumping out.
Harpy was in rough shape. Almost half her crew was in suits. She was running on 38 % power, though her jump engines seemed all right. With nearly half her weaponry disabled, she wouldn’t be battle-ready for some time.
Predator was somewhat better off. She’d been holed in two compartments, but both had been resealed, and integrity restored. She’d lost almost a fourth of her weapons stations and over a dozen crew.
Quick damage inspections revealed that both were still jump-capable, though Harpy ’s nav comp had slight damage.
They limped back to Bolt Hole to a hero’s welcome. They were the first of Cord’s forces to meet the enemy in battle, and the attack boat pilots were the first, period. Cord was grinning from ear to ear, but I was less enthusiastic.
True, we’d destroyed one of Jonas’ destroyers, and an incoming rim tramp informed us that after reporting to Jonas, the badly damaged Gyrfalcon had been sent to Thaeron for repairs that would obviously take months.
Nevertheless, I rated it a net loss for Cord; all three of his true warships were damaged.
Fearless, our battle cruiser, had jumped out of the Outback system with the help of an attached rim tramp’s comp. She was battle-ready, except that she had no jump comp; and without that, getting her into battle was going to be the problem.
Harpy was probably out of action for the duration. She needed an orbital repair dock. Jamro was cursing volubly as he enumerated her battle damage and casualty lists; but cursing wasn't going to help Harpy — or us.