To Honor You Call Us (Man of War) by Honsinger H. Paul

Author:Honsinger, H. Paul [Honsinger, H. Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2014-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER 14

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12:10 Z Hours, 26 January 2315

The Cumberland had very slowly and very carefully closed within twelve hundred kilometers of the immense battlecruiser, which continued to lumber on, seemingly oblivious to the comparatively tiny destroyer in her wake. Max supposed that she was straining to spot a destroyer slipping in where it was expected, so intent on looking forward that she hadn’t a thought that she was, herself, being stalked from behind.

Twenty minutes before, the destroyer’s hangar deck had opened and her cutter, a small, nimble, multipurpose auxiliary vessel, capable of carrying ten men plus a flight crew of two, slid out on maneuvering thrusters only, then slowly eased in its sublight drive, taking up station thirty-five hundred kilometers behind its mother ship. Ensign Mori, the best small-craft pilot on the ship, settled the tiny vessel into its designated place, experiencing unaccustomed difficulty handling the cutter because of the awkwardly placed additional mass.

Max counted down the seconds to the first step of the minutely calculated timetable that he, Bartoli, Garcia, and Brown had quickly put together. “Maneuvering, EXECUTE.”

LeBlanc brought his hand down on the right shoulder of his drives man, Able Spacer First Fleishman. Two sharp pats. “Go. All ahead Emergency.”

Fleishman pushed his main drive controller all the way forward to the stop, bringing the main sublight drive to 125 percent of its rated power. Like an eager cavalry mount spurred by its rider, the Cumberland leaped forward. The range to the battlecruiser fell rapidly as the ship accelerated: 11,000… 10,500… 10,000… 9,500… 9,000. At that rate of acceleration, stealth went out the window, so at 8,800 kilometers, apparently having gotten a general detection of the destroyer, the Krag vessel began to sweep the area with her powerful active sensors, instantly pinpointing the ship on her tail.

“Battlecruiser has increased her sublight drive to Emergency,” said Bartoli. The larger ship’s top speed was slower than the destroyer’s, and she accelerated more slowly; still, the increased acceleration substantially slowed the closure rate between the two ships. “Battlecruiser is sweeping us with targeting scanners… she’s initiating a lock sequence.”

“Fire the Egg Scrambler” Max ordered. The communications jammer shot from tube three and immediately detonated, making interstellar communications impossible. Unless their enemy survived the battle, any news the Krag passed on about this attack could travel no faster than the speed of light. It would be years before anyone heard it.

“Evasive India Three. Countermeasures.” Immediately LeBlanc started giving a series of intricate orders to his men, jinking the highly maneuverable destroyer erratically to slow the ability of the enemy to get a targeting lock while still continuing to close the range to the battlecruiser. Meanwhile, one Countermeasures officer in CIC and seven of his back room colleagues activated and managed various scrambling pulses, confusing echoes, jamming signals, infrared drones, chaff dispensing missiles, and other kinds of subterfuge designed to confuse, deceive, distract, divert, or otherwise discombobulate the Krag targeting systems so that the battlecruiser’s deadly pulse cannon could not get a killing shot.

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