William Fortchen - Action Stations

"We're going to slow down a bit here. I think it'll draw the flies in. Give you folks some breathing room to get the hell out."

"We copy that, Yorkshire," Naomi Dayan replied, her image showing now on a side screen. Winston could see the hardness of her features. She had been on the open line as the attack on the Kilrathi carrier went in, and he could see her disintegrate as her son shouted his defiant cry. He had known Naomi for nearly twenty years and never had he seen her break before. She had been offscreen for ten minutes, and she looked now as if she had aged ten years in that span of time.

"Take as many of the bastards with you as you can, Yorkshire," she said, her voice harsh and cold.

"Most certainly will," Yorkshire replied. "Must get back to work here. This is Yorkshire. Long live the Confederation."

The image snapped off. Strange, "Long live the Confederation." Two days ago such a line would have seemed like a bad line from a vid, now the words nearly moved him to tears. Winston looked over at Naomi's image.

"How are repairs?"

In the confusion of the attack, three Cat bombers cut their way through and plowed two torpedoes into Ark Royal. Again, one had failed to detonate, but the second one almost took the ship out, shutting down its launch and recovery capability.

"It's bad, Winston. We've lost all launch capacity. We might lose control of the fires, and I've got fifty percent casualties on board."

"Your engines."

"Still at one hundred percent."

"Get the hell out, Naomi. I'll bring up the rear with North Carolina, we'll recover your remaining planes."

"All right, Concordia. Rendezvous on other side of jump point."

Her image snapped off. Winston went to his command chair and collapsed. An ensign came over, bearing a steaming cup of coffee and he gratefully accepted it.

He turned his chair to look at the holo field. The round ball hovering in the field, McAuliffe, was drifting to one side of the display as they accelerated up and away after the strike. It had never been his hope to actually cut a way in and stay, but simply to relieve the pressure long enough to give the marines down on the surface a fighting chance of holding on.

They had come back around and were now racing at full throttle back towards jump point Beta. It was not the direct way back in towards the inner worlds but, rather, curved back in at an oblique. Naomi had suggested it for two reasons, the first that it was the closest jump point available, less than three hours out at full throttle, but it would also present the Cats with a tactical dilemma. If they drove straight in towards the inner worlds, a viable striking force would be on their flank with the potential of cutting back in. If the Cats did decide to pursue, it would take them away from the main target and maybe buy a little more time for Banbridge to organize a defense.

He watched the screen as the minutes dragged by. Yorkshire was continuing to fall further behind, while the strike on McAuliffe continued to accelerate towards the pickup point, less than ten minutes short of the jump. It would be a tight squeeze.

"Yorkshire's in serious trouble, sir," a comm officer announced. Winston pivoted his chair back and saw the display pop up. Three Kilrathi battleships had slowed to engage and were running parallel at a range of less than fifty clicks. The projected damage control board and continual translight radar bursts showed a fusillade of fire and missiles tracing back and forth. Yorkshire's first and third main turrets were gone, and multiple hull breaches flashed red on the diagram of the ship. He put his cup of coffee down, feeling that it was somehow indecent to be drinking it while good men and women were dying. He came to his feet, jaw clenched tight as a red band of light swept into the middle of the ship's diagram. The display winked off.

"We've lost all data from Yorkshire" the comm officer whispered. She waited several seconds. "Translight radar shows debris plume expanding… she's gone, sir."

Winston lowered his head. "She was a good ship." He sighed.

"Sir, one of the Kilrathi battleships is in trouble, sir."

He looked back up at the screen, which now only displayed the translight radar.

The radar officer stood up excitedly, pointing at the image. "There, sir, there. Look at that debris, something's wrong. Massive heat signature… the bastard's breaking up! Yorkshire got her!"

Winston watched, unable to feel anything as a second plume of debris erupted on the screen.

He watched the screen as the slower visual image finally arrived, showing the breakup of Yorkshire, followed seconds later by a series of internal explosions tearing through the Kilrathi battleship. Yorkshire had not hit it that hard, something must have gone wrong with their internal damage control.

"Sir, second Kilrathi battleship is slowing, turning. Massive heat signature behind it, sir. They've been breached, fuel is blowing out and igniting!"

Turner watched the display, praying that the damned ship would blow, but the red plume started to abate. Still the Cat ship was crippled and out of the fight.

"What's our threat analysis, Valeri?" Winston asked, still watching the screen.

She went over to the tracking board, consulted the officer and two enlisted personnel tracking the enemy and then went over to the holo field display. Intersecting red and blue lines started to trace back and forth.

"If Ark Royal can keep up speed, she'll make jump just ahead of them. Our pick up of remaining fighters, both ours and Ark Royal's, will start in thirty-seven minutes. Sir, the incoming Cat fighters and bombers in pursuit will be on us in one hour and twenty-eight minutes at present closing speeds. We're going to have a very tough fifteen minutes from there to jump."

"Fine, Val, fine."

He settled back in to his chair to wait.

"I told you to ignore the battleship!" Gilkarg cried. "We could have taken care of it later."

"My lord, the battleships are the primary target of this strike, not the carriers. We saw the kill and went for it," Nargth replied.

The scene behind Nargth on the vid display was one of chaos. The control room was filled with smoke, flames licking up from shattered control boards. The image flickered for a second, Nargth swaying, grabbing hold of a bulkhead as an internal explosion rocked the ship.

"Will you hold together?" Gilkarg asked.

"Ruptured fuel tanks for engines three and four, they're venting now. We'll hold, but this ship is out of the fight."

"And you lost a battleship. How was that?"

"It is a mystery, my lord. But remember, I warned the Emperor years ago that the Gamorgin class battleships needed more armor instead of greater speed. I think that is the reason."

Gilkarg bristled at the implication of laying blame for the failure on his father.

"If you had not dropped your speed, you could have closed on their carriers and finished them."

"Your own fighters and bombers, which you place so much trust in, will be there before the second one jumps out, and you appear to have delivered a crippling blow to the other," Nargth replied calmly.

Snarling with rage, Gilkarg shut the comm link down.

"My lord. You have shattered their base and taken it," an aide said. "You have destroyed over eighty of their ships in return for the loss of but two carriers, a battleship, a cruiser, a transport and several small vessels. It is still the greatest victory in the history of the empire."

"Yet they made a counterblow while crippled, and that is when they inflicted most of our casualties," Gilkarg replied. "Do you not think that will affect what comes next? If we could still guarantee the death of Concordia, it will be seen as an even trade-off. Concordia must be killed before it can escape."