“Helm, reduce speed to ten thousand KPH.”
“For this ship, that’s a crawl,” Josh objected.
“A crawl is what we want right now.”
“Yes, sir. Reducing speed.”
“Ready to broadcast on all frequencies, sir,” the comm-officer reported.
Nathan stood up in front of his command chair. After straightening his uniform shirt and running his hands over his hair, he gestured to the comm-officer to begin recording.
“Attention, warship Yamaro. This is Nathan Scott, Captain of the United Earth Ship Aurora. I order you to cease your attack on the planet Corinair and stand down, or we will open fire and destroy your vessel. You have one minute to comply.” Nathan froze, staring coldly at the main view screen, trying to look imposing as he waited for the comm-officer to report the transmission was over.
“Transmission ended,” the comm-officer reported.
“How was that?” Nathan asked no one in particular.
“Very threatening,” Jessica answered, trying unsuccessfully to hide her sarcasm.
Nathan sneered at her. “So what now? We wait a minute and then head towards them?”
“Actually, sir,” Kaylah corrected. “You need to wait almost three minutes. We are nearly a full light minute out.”
“Of course.” Nathan turned and stepped up onto the back upper level of the bridge and moved around to stand by Tug. “How many people will die on Corinair over the next three minutes?” he asked.
“In times such as this, it is better not to dwell on such details,” Tug advised.
Nathan contemplated Tug’s words, wondering if that were even possible.
In a desperate attempt to thwart the attack, the leaders of Corinair launched their meager defensive forces. Wave after wave of attack squadrons, once loyal to the Ta’Akar, now targeted their weapons on the powerful vessel laying waste to their world. But the warship’s shields were too powerful and their attack squadron’s weapons simply exploded harmlessly upon impact. Not a single weapon ever came closer than a kilometer to their target.
As the small ships continued their attack, the warship began picking off the attacking fighters one by one with her guns. Of so little threat were the attacking swarms of combat spacecraft, the warship deemed it unnecessary to use her own fighters to dispatch them. To the captain of the Yamaro, the attacking fighters proved good target practice for his gunners.
As the Corinairan squadrons were rapidly reduced in number, the planet’s leaders were forced to launch their defense missiles. Unfortunately, this only angered the captain of the Yamaro, who thus far had chosen a rather languid pace at which to rain destruction down on their world. His intent had never been to destroy the entire planet. He had only hoped to punish them sufficiently while using the attack to draw the Earth ship into a fight that he was confident he would win. But now, these lesser subjects of the great empire which he served were committing the ultimate betrayal. They were attacking a Ta’Akar ship of the line-not only with pesky fighters, but with nuclear weapons as well.
As a result, the pace of the bombardment increased. Strikes began to happen every few seconds, leaving no gaps in destruction, no safe harbors in which to hide. It was apparent to the leaders of Corinair that the warship was now using all its delivery systems in order to quickly finish the job it had started. There was no longer any hope.
Then suddenly the bombardment stopped.
“Captain, the Yamaro has disengaged and is breaking orbit,” Jessica reported.
“You mean it worked?” Nathan said, finding it too good to be true.
“Not unless he’s trying to surrender in a hurry. He’s headed our way at full power and accelerating fast. I’m pretty sure he’s starting an attack run.”
“Incoming message,” the comm-officer reported.
“Put him up,” Nathan ordered.
A moment later, Captain de Winter’s image was again on the main screen, displayed in a separate window overlaying the exterior view of space.
“This is Captain de Winter of the warship Yamaro. In the name of Caius the Great, you are hereby ordered to surrender unconditionally. You are to power down all systems and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply will be dealt with swiftly, surely, and in a manner most unpleasant.” The image immediately disappeared.
“I say,” Josh began, mocking the captain, “disagreeable chap, isn’t he?”
“Quite,” Loki responded in similar fashion.
“I guess we got our answer,” Nathan concluded.
“Do you wish to answer them, captain?” the comm-officer asked.
“No. I think he’ll understand our answer shortly.” Nathan returned to his command chair. “Helm, full speed ahead. We’ll take him head on.”
“What?” Josh questioned.
“Yeah, what?” Jessica agreed.
“At higher speeds, we’re less maneuverable-”
“Yeah. And head on we have fewer guns on the target,” Jessica pointed out.
“I want him to continue thinking that I’m young and dumb.”
“Well, he’d be half right,” Jessica muttered. Nathan rotated his command chair slowly around to look at her, one eyebrow raised. “You are young,” she added.
“Hopefully, he’ll also think that we either can’t or don’t want to use our jump drive. The longer he thinks he’s in a conventional ship-to-ship engagement, the longer it will take him to start thinking about how to defend against a ship with a jump drive.”
Josh increased the main engine’s thrust to full power, causing the ship to lurch slightly as it began to accelerate. “Main engines coming up to full thrust.”
Nathan turned back to Tug. “Missiles, fighters, guns… right?” Tug nodded agreement.
“Target is also accelerating,” Jessica reported. “He’ll have missile range on us any moment now.”
“How long do you think he’ll wait until he fires?” Nathan asked Tug.
“If it were me, I’d wait until my odds of a strike were better. But I tend to be more prudent in my use of ordnance.”
“Incoming,” Jessica announced. “Four missiles, all conventional, no nukes, accelerating hard. Impact in three minutes.”
“I guess he doesn’t mind wasting ordnance,” Nathan said.
“Curious,” Tug observed. “At this range, the missiles are easily defeated using rather simple maneuvers.” Tug considered the alternatives for a moment. “He may be hoping to lull you into a false sense of security.”
“A curve ball,” Nathan said.
“A curve ball?” Tug wondered.
“A slow pitch, looks easy to hit, then it changes direction at the last moment and you miss.” Tug still looked puzzled. “Never mind.”
“Captain? You want me to evade those missiles?” Josh asked.
“Nope. Hold your course.”
Josh looked over his shoulder at the captain, then at Loki.
“Helm, current speed?”
“Uh, twenty thousand KPH.”
“Reduce thrust to one percent.”
“But Captain, it’ll take us forever to accelerate-”
“I don’t want to accelerate. In fact, we’re going to want to go slower.”
Josh was now even more confused, but followed his captain’s orders nonetheless. “Reducing thrust to one percent.”
“Still trying to look stupid?” Jessica quipped.
“Indecisive would be more accurate. Send the missile track to Abby,” Nathan ordered. He then turned to Doctor Sorenson at the jump control console. “Abby, calculate your first jump from a point a split second before those missiles hit us, to a point like we talked about-five hundred meters forward and five hundred meters to port of that ship.”
“Understood.”
“Can you do that in two minutes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great,” Nathan told her. “Josh, just before we jump you’re gonna pitch over so we’re flying backwards, and you’re going to bring the mains back up to full thrust. We need to slow down as much as we can so we get a chance to do some damage before we blow past him.”