Once the enemy ships wiped out his warp gate scanners – or cleared range of them – he’d lose contact for a while. Unless they blasted away with massive amounts of thrust there was little chance his ships would detect anything more distant than one light hour. Tactics then became a guessing game based on the last observed vectors and velocities of the ships.
“Scanning array under attack, sir. Forty-three percent of scanner buoys have stopped transmitting.”
“Thank you, lieutenant.” Calloway wasn’t surprised, but he’d hoped it would take the enemy a bit longer. “Ensign Carp, continue recording and retransmitting all data.”
“Yes, sir.” Carp was monitoring his display closely, even though everything the captain had ordered would all be done automatically by the ship’s AI. He was going to double-check it anyway and make sure everything was sent out properly.
It wasn’t more than another minute before the incoming data stopped completely. The enemy had taken out all of the scanner buoys. Calloway took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. It would have taken a normal fleet much longer to clear the area. Whatever these ships were, their short-range detection and targeting was spot on. Better than anything he had…better than anything the entire Alliance had.
“The last transmission has been forwarded to Commnet, sir.” Carp sounded as steady as ever. “All scanning frequencies are silent now.”
Calloway leaned back in his seat, looking out across his cramped bridge. Now it was a waiting game.
“How is the evacuation proceeding?” Cooper Brown stood outside the Capitol Building, enjoying the shade created by the structure. Capitol was a grandiose name for the modest building that served as the seat of the planetary council. The citizens of Adelaide were an independent sort, with a decidedly limited tolerance for heavy regulation, not to mention a profound unwillingness to pay higher taxes to fund the construction of monuments to government. The planet’s administrators were expected to operate on a shoestring budget and, for the most part, that is what they did.
“Things are moving along. A little slower than I’d like, but we should be OK if we get another day.” Jacob Meklin was the president of Adelaide, a position of limited power and responsibility most of the time, not unlike a small town mayor, but on a planetary scale. However, the Adelaide Constitution gave the president enormous powers in time of emergency, and now Meklin had invoked those provisions. Every resident of the planet was being evacuated to makeshift shelters, and detachments from the militia were out enforcing the mandatory order.
At some point in its long journey through space, Adelaide had passed through a cluster of heavy metal asteroids, several hundred of which impacted its surface. These collisions delivered the precious trans-uranic elements that were otherwise inconsistent with the planet’s geology. The violent collisions had also destroyed the ecology of a planet that had once been an Earthly paradise, turning it instead into a marginally habitable world of windswept steppes and dusty deserts.
In their search for the priceless resources buried in the planet’s crust, the mining operations had left an extensive network of tunnels burrowed deep below the surface, and these manmade caverns had now been converted to temporary shelters. Meklin had worked to have the shelters prepared as soon as word arrived of the attack on Barrow but, prior to the emergency declaration, he lacked the authority. The council was hesitant to commit the necessary resources until Commnet brought news of the invasion of Wellington. Then, later than Meklin would have liked, the plan was finally approved. Work began immediately, and the tunnels were structurally reinforced and stockpiled with supplies.
Now they had to get the people into the shelters before the enemy reached the planet. Unfortunately, they had no reliable estimate of how long that would be. An Alliance battlefleet could cover the distance in a little under four days at maximum thrust. But these enemy ships were a mystery. It had already been two days since they’d arrived in the system, and they had not yet entered detection range of Adelaide’s early warning systems.
“It looks like we’ll get that day.” Brown was looking down at his feet as he spoke. “They’ll probably be decelerating hard, which means we’ll pick them up almost a day out anyway.”
Meklin was staring off to the side, looking across the almost-deserted central square. “Yeah.” His voice was somber, almost despondent. “And then what, Coop?” He turned his head to face Brown’s. “We just wait in those holes until they seal us in or dig us out?”
“Then we fight like hell, Jacob.” Brown had a soldier’s outlook – he looked at a battle an hour at a time, not letting his mind wander too far into speculation. Survive the next hour first, then worry about the one after that. He knew as well as Meklin that they didn’t have much chance, but the only alternative to what they were doing was to give up and meekly wait for death. After ten years in the Corps, that wasn’t something that even entered Cooper Brown’s thoughts. “They’re going to have one hell of a time finding everyone in those tunnels. The super-heavy elements will play havoc with their scanners.” He put his hand on Meklin’s shoulder. “And my people are going to give them hell, my friend.”
Meklin smiled weakly. He didn’t really feel any better. In truth, his spirit was broken and he’d just about given up hope. He’d do what had to be done – he was as much a creature of duty in his own way as Brown – but his morale was leaden. “Alright, Cooper.” He tried to pump some energy into his voice, for Brown’s sake if nothing else. “You can be sure we’ll fight. We’ve got what weapons your folks could spare in the shelters already. Every man, woman, and child on Adelaide is a fighter now.” In spite of his own foreboding, the defiant talk made him feel a little better.
“Good.” Brown nodded, a grim smile on his lips. “Is the rest of the council in…” He stopped abruptly, holding up a hand to Meklin as he listened to an incoming message on his earpiece.
“They’re here, sir.” It was his aide, Captain Krantz, on the com. “Captain Calloway just flashed a message through the satellite. “His scanners detected all seven enemy vessels inbound, decelerating hard. Estimate arrival 16 hours, 20 minutes.”
“Understood. Put all units on stage 3 alert. Brown out.” He turned to face Meklin. “We’ve only got two-thirds of that day, Jacob.” He paused an instant before continuing. “Enemy ships inbound. ETA planetary orbit, 16 hours, 20 minutes.”
“Prepare to execute thrust plan Gamma in three minutes.” Calloway’s voice was a little strained, but not too bad for a man staring at 150 gigatons of warheads heading straight for him. “Weapons control, I want full countermeasures ready in 90 seconds.” Like all fast attack ships, Raptor was lightly equipped with point defense. A small vessel, it simply didn’t have the room a cruiser or capital ship did to store dozens of defensive missiles and rockets. The ship was equipped with a spread of ECM devices and anti-missile mines, but otherwise she had to rely on a few light lasers and her dispersed ordnance magnetic batteries. More commonly known as “shotguns,” the turrets of the DOMB system were highly effective at short range.
“Thrust plan locked in.” Her fingers moved across her board as she spoke. “Weapons control reports countermeasures ready, sir.”
Calloway was impressed with Lieutenant Khan’s focus, but he could hear the stress creeping into her response. She’d have to be a robot not to be scared now, he thought. “Very good, lieutenant.” He’d ordered the crew to get into their acceleration couches five minutes before, and anyone who failed to obey that command was going to end up as so much strawberry jam. He was about to push Raptor to the limits of her ability, and that meant serious g forces. “Bridge personnel, prepare for thrust burn.”