John Ringo: Eye of the Storm

What filled the space where the enormous mass driver had once been, its fusion bottles and capacitors, its grav drivers and magazines, was nine tunnel drives from Posleen Command Dodecahedrons, C-Decs, and a one of the largest containment vessels of antimatter ever made. Even with that much antimatter, the ship only had the range to go from the nearest star to the Daga system. Going out they’d have to find a ley-line.

And they would be going out. They did not intend to stay. The mission of the Lady Lex was simple: Trash everything in the system then get the fuck out. They’d be back. But they’d have to refuel to do it.

And Ronnie didn’t get to do the fun stuff like run the guns. Indowy crewed most of the ship, doing everything they could that a human wasn’t absolutely critical for. The rest of the crew, mostly gunnery, tactical and sensors, was a mash of Indy crewmen and officers and some Northern European and Japanese ‘old guard.’

But, in truth, they were just filling. The only thing Ronnie needed to run the Lex was floating beside her.

Unlike many of the being’s fellows, the group that was coming to be known as the Daisies , Lex did not choose to have a real body. Each of the Command Cyborg Entities took for his or her personality that most closely associated with the ship they inhabited.

The Lexington had never had a girlie name. No former movie star or pin-up girl for her.

The Lex was called ‘The Blue Ghost.’

“Hedren battle squadron designate BatRon One at one hundred thousand kilometers 135 mark 4,” the entity whispered. She was barely visible, a cloaked and hooded cerulean apparition. “Recommend come to 134 mark 2 to close for engagement.”

“Maneuvering, make it so,” Ronnie said, her arms crossed. “Launch fighters, tell them to go for the heavies.”

Battle Commodore Ularn watched the visual playback in wonder. Six ships had flashed into substance in mid-space. Well inside the normal dimensional warp point so they were using some other means of faster-than-light travel. But he ignored all but one.

“ What is that ?”

The single ship, alone, outmassed his entire task force. It was clear it was not terribly maneuverable. But if it got into engagement range they were all toast.

“The ship is one that was classed as salvage,” the Marro intelligence officer replied. “One of their superdreadnoughts. The humans used them in a previous war but some were boarded in secret and determined to be unrecoverable.”

“In that case, someone made a very deadly mistake,” Ularn said. “Maneuvering, get us around that thing. Stay out of its range and close with the invasion fleet.”

“Battle Master, that may be impossible,” the Kotha Fleet Maneuvering Officer replied. “The human task force is in a geometry such that we cannot do both.”

Ularn considered that information for a moment then ground his beak.

“Close the invasion fleet.”

“BatRon One maneuvering to close the invasion fleet,” the task force tactical officer said. “If they maintain current trajectory and acceleration, we’re going to cross their T.”

“And all the way back to the surface warfare days, that’s the killer app,” Ronnie said, nodding. The six ships were all that they had had time to refurbish. To the extent they were refurbished. The Lex , two cruisers and three destroyers were all that stood between the Hedren task force and the invasion ships, none of which were capable of duking it out with warships.

On the other hand, of those six one was the Lex.

“Signal task force, close in line ahead, Lex leads the way. Order fighters to close from the rear. We got some destruction to deal out.”

“They are going to cross our front,” the Kotha maneuvering officer said.

“Engage with meson cannons at maximum range,” Ularn replied. It was probably useless, but it was the only choice he had. That or avoiding confrontation which would have equal or worse consequences. At least dying in a space battle was relatively clean compared to what the Imeg would mete out.

The Hedren had the range. Their heavy forward meson cannons had a range of almost five light seconds. Each of the four Hedren battleships in the squadron, long cylinders bristling with secondary weapons, had two of the massive cannons forward. Capable of punching through six meters of homogenous steel, they were brutal devices of war. The ten cruisers and four destroyers each had lesser versions with the same range if not the same power.

And they used it, concentrating the fire of all thirty-six meson cannons on the Lex.

“We’re taking a pounding on the port side,” the Executive Officer said. “Three plasma guns and two mass drivers off-line. Crews are on it.”

Commander Burenda Kidwai knew his head should have been on a spike. Many of the officers he had come to know over the years, including all of his former commanders, were either under arrest or ‘permanently retired.’ Some had been killed in various incidents as the ‘Old Guard’ reestablished control over Fleet.

Recognizing in his new commander, female that she was, a degree of frankness he had summoned the courage to ask why he had not joined them.

“You’re competent,” the bitch had answered. “If you manage to keep you hands out of the till and remain competent, you’ll go far. If you don’t, I’m going to space your ass. End story.”

He had, thus far, carefully ‘kept his hand out of the till’ and worked very hard to get this massive old warhorse into action. Yes, there were problems. Large sections of the old ship were still without environmental controls or even lights. Many of the drive bottles were still inactive, reducing the ship’s already slow acceleration to a crawl. But he had done everything he could in a most ‘competent’ manner to rectify those problems. And all of her guns were working, which was the important part. He did not want to breathe vacuum.

The ship shuddered, ever so slightly, at another barrage from the enemy guns.

“We can engage with mass drivers,” he noted. Breathing vacuum because your ship gets pounded into scrap was no fun either.

“Let ’em shoot,” Ronnie said. “Sorry, Lex .”

“Portions of the metal of the aircraft carrier Lexington , sunk by the Japanese at the battle of the Coral Sea, were infused into this dreadnought in its construction,” the ghost whispered. “More were added from the Lexington II , an aircraft carrier that withstood kamikaze strikes and fought on. In this iteration of my being, I am the survivor of virtual destruction three more times in the Posleen War. I have fought on sea and in space in every worthy battle to be found in this arm of the Galaxy. This is the price of being a warship. I agree that we should close.”

“Fuck yeah,” Ronnie said.

“They are surely in range by now,” the Kotha tactical officer said.

“Yes, they are,” Ularn replied, grinding his beak. “They are waiting until they are in range to utterly destroy us. They are willing to take damage to do so. We must send a message to the communications relays. Tell the High Command that we have seriously underestimated the human’s willingness to fight. And tell them that’s probably the last thing they’ll hear from us.”

The Hedren fleet was arrayed in a stellate pattern, the battleships at the center and the cruisers and destroyers arranged outwards.