Benjamin Gold

Location: CCIWS Stakeholder’s Views, Contested System, Unaligned Space

“And . . . boom goes the dynamite,” the tactical officer pumped her fist as the lights dimmed.

A1 unleashed its fury, which in this particular battle, wasn’t anything to gawk at. The destroyer, acting in concert with the rest of the task force, was steadily hammering away at the Collies’ battleship. But it was still a battleship. The behemoth was designed to do just this; trade blows and take punishment. It was living up to its design.

“Minor damage, skipper,” the tactical officer’s pupils were dilated as she ran over the data scrolling across her vision.

Ben didn’t blame her. Combat, especially in space, was a lot of waiting around followed by pure terror. That was normal combat. This was anything but. He couldn’t remember the last time a bunch of smaller ships had swarmed a much more powerful boat. This wasn’t how combat was done. In the old days, the battleship would just be able to drown them in missiles. Shields had completely changed the game, or at least given the little guys a chance.

“Evasive pattern delta,” he commanded as all the confederation’s ships started to shift in concert. It was like a million tons of ass-kicking potential executing a carefully choreographed ballet.

It was clear the enemy fire control was having issues keeping up, which meant, as usual, Gold Technologies products were the best on the market. For once, Ben was fine with his father’s anal-retentive need to be the best.

A1 sliced through space like some sleek, deep sea predator. Its EW throwing out signals, while disguising others, enough to give the Commonwealth officer onboard that colossus an aneurism. The battleship took a shot at them, just to keep them honest, and almost got lucky. Alarms squawked as a near miss still caused issues. A quick look at the damage report showed it was nothing mission critical.

“Twenty-two seconds to next fire mission,” tactical announced.

The Confederation task force danced through space, and prepared to line everything up perfectly for just a few seconds. That was all they needed to mass fire on targets their AIs said were vulnerable.

Ben’s eyes flickered from the main holo-tank to his command chair’s private readouts, and back again. Even with all his training, he could only process a few things coherently. His IOR did the rest, and pointed out anything pertinent he might have missed. Neither he, nor the IOR, missed what happened next.

Fighting in space was weird. A climate control bridge surrounded you. They only danger you felt were colorful icons on a holo-tank, but there was a degree of separation from the threat. You weren’t on the ground, in the shit, with bullets and energy blasts flying all around you. People sometimes forgot it was just as deadly, and death could come just as suddenly.

One second, the Confed task force was thirteen seconds away from launching their next attack, and the next, there was one less destroyer in the system. In the span of a heartbeat, a warship and its entire crew died.

“Shit!” tactical was all over it, but Ben knew it was too little too late.

The Commonwealth’s systems weren’t totally obsolete. They’d plotted this attack run somehow, and the damage reports were starting to come in. The destroyer was an expanding cloud of atoms, and one of the battlecruisers had been hammered. It was limping along, but looked like it was just about out of the fight. They’d be able to fire off this last broadside, but then they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the dance, and would be forced to withdraw.

Even worse, the other battlecruiser would need to help cover their retreat.

“If I hadn’t switched to evasive pattern delta,” he shivered at the thought. A1 might have joined the other destroyer in the great harbor in the sky.

“Take that, asshole,” tactical snarled at her holo-tank as the countdown neared an end. It wasn’t going to be as nearly as coordinated or on target, but it was better than nothing.

“Game over,” Ben sighed. They’d held out as long as they could, but after those types of casualties, they’d have to fall back, wait for more firepower, and effect repairs where possible.

The clock reached zero, and he closed his eyes along with the dimming lights. He was tired after all the fighting.

***

CWS Pride of Summer

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

“Finally!” Derrick Berg pumped his fist as their AI finally got it right.

The battleship’s more powerful cannons ripped into a destroyer trying to hit their injured flank with its other little friends. The direct hit from the beam weapon dissected it like a middle school science lab. A half-second later, it exploded in a cloud of exotic matter.

A complete loss to the enemy was exactly what his bridge crew needed, and the good news kept on coming. The tactical officer wasn’t assigning anything heavier than a medium laser to the destroyers. They simply weren’t worth the firepower when they couldn’t really hurt Summer. The main energy armaments were targeted on the battlecruisers, and so far, hadn’t had greatest success. They were plenty powerful. A direct hit might even breach the smaller ship’s shields, a pair would really jack up the enemy.

Berg’s face split into a huge grin as he saw one of the battlecruisers take a one-two punch from Summer. The first beam didn’t completely take down the shields, but it paved the way for the second beam that was hot on its heels. Even though there wasn’t a blink of an eye between the impact of the two beams, the battlecruiser shifted enough that it wasn’t a fatal hit. Berg still watched as several secondary explosions ripped through the enemy ship, acceleration dropped, and his IOR told him the ship would need a yard to get back up to full, fighting strength.

“Finally,” he regained a little of his captain’s decorum while the rest of his crew cheered. He let them have the moment.

“Okay, people, let’s get back to . . .” he didn’t hear the explosion as much as feel it.

He pitched forward onto his face, and lucky got his hands out in front of him; or unluckily as it turned out to be. He felt the snap in his wrist, and wasn’t able to stifle his scream.

“Medic! Skippers down!” junior officers rushed toward him, which was exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.

Something critical had just blown up, everyone needed to be at their stations. He let everyone know that by grabbing the first LT to get to him and throwing him away while flinging a slew of curse words at him to make any spacer proud.

Berg cradled his wrist to his chest and got back to his feet. His IOR looked like it was having a seizure from the amount of data flowing in. It wasn’t good. A lucky beam had gotten through shielding, armor, and taken out cooling conduits and fail safes. Three separate generators went into overload; two successfully shut down before going boom, but one didn’t. The explosive material in the other two generators still went up with the first going critical, but it could have been a lot worse. Summer’s structural integrity was still intact, its shields were just down in one section, and there was a medium-sized hole to exposed space.

The XO immediately took control when the call for a medic for the skipper went out, so the ship was already spinning and putting the gaping wound away from any attackers. With the enemy destroyer gone, they had a cone of safe space for the moment.

Of course, this mission just went from a ‘drive the enemy away from the planet’ to ‘get the battleship out of this alive’.

“Shit.” It was a poor performance for Summer’s first combat, and they were leaving a good number of Commonwealth soldiers to the mercy of the enemy.

One of which happened to be his sister’s fiancé.

“Get on the QE to Alamo. Alert them to our status, and the need for reinforcements. If they want this system, we’re going to need some backup.”

It hurt his pride to ask for it, but his pride didn’t come before the mission. The mission always came first.