Dry, No Lube Ch. 09: Invasion

"Yes, ma'am." He paused again, as if choosing his words. "Thank you for the compliment, but if needed, I'd prefer to stay with the ship, Captain."

"Understood. And unfortunately for you, Commander, I don't give a shit what you'd prefer." She glanced across at him. "No offense."

"None taken," he sighed, looking back down at the slowly descending barge. They both glanced up at the Plot, where the arrival estimate of Laredo's contact continued to tick down toward zero. "I have to say, Captain, that overall? I'm not terribly comfortable with this entire situation."

"This entire situation," Pixy declared, "is a massive cosmic 'fuck you' to everyone aboard this ship. I understand that. But?" She shrugged. "We don't win wars by flying away from the enemy."

"Sometimes we do," he pointed out. "There's wisdom in returning to fight another time, with better odds."

"Then you can test that when the time comes," she snapped. "By then, no doubt I'll be dead and you'll be in the big chair." She shook her head, a deep breath calming her as she patted Jatsupa's arm. "This is the way we're doing this, XO. Every moment we buy strengthens the defense of the Hearth. And there's value in making the enemy deploy, breaking up his formation." She shrugged. "Who knows? We might even win."

Jatsupa laughed, an occurrence so rare that Pixy wondered whether she should have the OOD log it. "We might, ma'am."

But she didn't really believe that when she said it to the XO. And she didn't believe it later, either, as the Cathos Vremein bore down less than an hour away. Obsessively, she ran though all the scenarios in her mind: was there anything she had missed? Something she should be planning for? A remaining scrap of command she'd forgotten to exercise? She brooded, the ship quiet and a little grim around her.

She got the definite impression nobody was expecting this to end well. Fair enough; she was starting to feel the same way.

Her command chair welcomed her with the ease of a well-broken-in pair of shoes, the bridge watch moving with their usual sense of purpose. Behind and beneath her the yawning, hollow tunnel in the middle of the ship stood barren, nearly a clean sweep from bow to stern: with the Army gone, its deserted Barge fittings now slack, there was nothing in the whole Tunnel but the ship's own shuttles, plus Laredo's Tygon Interceptors at the forward gate. She checked her implant and discovered the ship had just shed over 30% of its total mass.

"Helm," she said evenly, "remember that the ship is far less heavy now. You'll need to expect about 14% greater efficiency during initial acceleration, plus there won't be as much of a pivot-anchor when we turn. Watch for that." She glanced at the OOD, including him in that as well. "Things are going to move quickly. You'll need to pay close attention."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

She sighed and realized there was no point in waiting any further. She swung to face the OOD again. "Take her out, Mr Nevsky. Forward at twelve percent power until we clear the planetoid, then we turn toward the enemy and go to general quarters."

"Aye aye, ma'am; forward at twelve." She watched his Adam's apple bob, then he was leaning over to bark his orders into the nav pit as Pixy keyed the Mass Intertube and spoke to the entire ship. The echo of her own voice coming dimly back from the service corridor outside weighed on her like no other announcement ever had.

"All hands, this is Captain Pfeiffer. We're moving out to harass and delay a Cathos Vremein force that appears to be bound for Sol III and the rest of the Core Worlds. I know this is not our usual mission, and that we're not designed for ship-to-ship combat, but I also know that I'm the captain of the best fucking crew in the entire Fleet." She paused, swallowing, then made herself continue. "This is likely to be a rough one, so you're all going to need to listen to your section officers. Key personnel have already been briefed, but I'm not sure exactly how this is going to go. What I do know is that all of us will fight like hell." She hesitated again, but no more words came. "That is all."

It surprised Pixy that there were tears threatening to appear as she hung the handset up, but crying on the bridge was far too horrifying a prospect for her to imagine. So she willed them away. "XO? Surgeon? Gunnery officer? Commo? Let's go over your roles one more time," she barked.

* * *

When the Cathos Vremein armada swept into sublight to prepare for its long, complicated turn at the Branch of the Bacchanal Arm, the lead ships shedding starfire as they came on, they slowed according to their plan and deployed for a potential meeting engagement. Their scouts swarmed out to give Fulvius Station a sniff and figure out what they should do about the garrison there.

They certainly did not seem terribly concerned about the single Fleet ship in their path.

Tirving floated there in space, silhouetted in a thousand stars, with the faintly red luminance of the Branch far off to the right and above. Below lay Fulvius Rock, its brightside looking tentatively up at the oncoming enemy flotilla, but Tirving was not relying on the trap-batteries there; she hung before the Cathos Vremein, one plucky ship in an endless emptiness, waiting.

Every eye on the P/E ship watched as ship after ship dropped out of lightspace, an entire fleet of oddly sleek ships with fluid protuberances and no visible weapons... though, of course, the weapons were certainly there, a nameless silent threat from across the void between them. The vessels kept appearing, sweeping in, driving majestically along toward the big course change at the Branch.

"Jesus H Buddha," breathed Luzhenka from the targeting station.

"Yeah." Pixy, her mouth dry, felt herself make the effort, the show of bravado. "Just wait. Once they finally pick us up on their small-scale scopes, they'll freak the fuck out and fly away." A low rumble of laughter greeted this, the kind of laughter that's grim and savage and a little crazy, the kind meant to relieve tension and maybe, just maybe, lend heart.

The kind that sounds hollow.

Pixy felt her body go still, almost slack, like a deflating balloon. Well. It was set now, chiseled in marble, the thing inexorably moving forward. No more decisions to be made, not really, and she felt the freedom of that as she glared up at the commo station. "Comms," she called, "max sniff, wide spread. One of those ships is the commander. Tell me which one." From the earliest days fighting the Cathos Vremein, it had been clear they operated best under strong central command, like a hive. Which gave Pixy ideas about what would happen if their commander's ship went down.

"Aye aye, ma'am!" and right there, in Spago Verily's brisk reply, Pixy felt the despair ease as the steel Fleet discipline clamped down, focusing the sailors, putting their minds on their tasks instead of their fears. Verily's hood shrank down over his head, all his techs searching for whichever enemy ship was sending out beams to the other ones, knowing that that was the ship that most likely led the enemy on their invasion.

She eyed the most likely candidates on her plot repeater, taking in the obscenely massive dimensions of the main battleships. "One of those," she mused, nodding to herself, and then her brain was sorting through the sketchy plans she'd had swimming around in there for hours now. The ship's computer was chirping, assigning contact numbers to the innumerable ships, and Pixy squinted at one of them. "That one," she told Luzhenka, "number 52. As soon as we get an accurate range, calculate the surface area of their upper hull and tell me."

"Surface area... aye aye, Captain."

She scanned the Plot, all the status bars crowded in the margins. "Closure is increasing, ma'am," Jatsupa murmured.

"Yes, I'm aware." She'd been debating about whether she should back up, but there was no point; where were they going to go? "Someone's going to open fire sooner or later. Better sooner." He said nothing to that, but by then Verily was turning to face down toward the command chair. "Yes?"

"Beam analysis gives three likely candidates for command." He turned to the OOD. "Can I label the Main Plot?"

"Yes!" cried Pixy, Jatsupa, and Nevsky all at once. Their eyes swiveled back to the plot as the system's highlighter picked out three vast Cathos vessels, one of them far in the back of the armada. Verily's first two contact candidates were number 102 and 4. But the third... Pixy stabbed her finger toward the nearest. "That's the one we've already pinpointed. Number 52. Officer of the Deck?" she sang, her voice taking on that Fleet formality that cued people they were into something big, "lay a course for Contact Number 52. Maintain general quarters. All weapons green; await my command to fire."

"Aye aye, ma'am," Nevsky nodded, tension rimming his own voice, and then Pixy was turning to the XO.

"If shit goes wrong..." She was muttering, feeling the surge of energy on the bridge all around her. She knew their organic armor was moving fast toward the bow.

"Shit's going to go wrong, ma'am," Jatsupa told her solemnly.

"No," she hissed, "listen! I mean really wrong." She glanced around at all her people. "You're officer in charge of accountability in the event of an evacuation. Take your post in my shuttle, with your personnel tracker." She scowled when he hesitated. "That's a fucking order, Commander!"

He cocked his head. "You want me to go down there now?"

"I want you in a shuttle. Ready to obey my orders." It came out as a grating whisper. "Go. Now." He turned slowly. "And take the chaplain. That's his duty station, too."

"Ma'am," Jatsupa said quietly, nodding with that resigned air he did so well, and then Pixy whirled toward the Plot and forgot all about him. She raised her voice.

"Listen up! That big fat motherfucker? Contact 52? We're going to pretend it's a planet." She glared around at wide eyes and open mouths. "And what does a P/E ship do to planets?"

"Bombard, ma'am." That was Nevsky, his fingers flexing nervously.

"Damn straight." She looked over at Luzhenka. "Got a surface area?

"Hundred and twenty square kilometers, ma'am, give or take. Irregular curvature, though."

"We'll pretend it's terrain," Pixy nodded grimly, doing the math. "We'll close to within just one poron. All torpedoes, all arc-mortars: full spread. Get it going." People were glancing at each other. "Now! Wake the fuck up." The place came back to life, Plot glowing, and Pixy began to think about evasive maneuvers.

"When they fire back," Luzhenka mused, "a lot of the return fire will go right through the Vag."

"Yep. And they're not going to want to shoot too close to their own ships." Pixy glanced at Nevsky. "Ready with that course, OOD?"

"Ready, ma'am."

"Okay then. All ahead one quarter. The OAS is migrating forward, so smooth out the passive shielding aft. And when I give the order?" she finished, glaring around, "Everybody fires. No letup. We shoot until we do damage. Comprehend?" It came out as a shouted snarl, as all around her she felt the ship settle down, her crew focused. The huge ship before them gained definition in the scopes, especially once she brought them to half-speed, but by then they were taking incoming fire in a tentative, slipshod manner.

The Cathos Vremein had never been good at gunnery. They were more into drones and other things that exploded.

She stooped over the helmsman, one of Malavongsy's best people, and spoke low and fast. "Do you remember how to do a slip-turn? Opposed thrusters firing forward and aft, with simultaneous full reverse?"

He glanced up, plainly wanting to roll his eyes. "Does a light-lizard shit photons? Slip-turns are easy, Captain."

"Even with this momentum?" Pixy's eyes bored into his. "This can't go wrong, sailor. You're going to be positioning us less than 7,000 meters off the hull of that target, right... there." She moved her stylus over the image of the Cathos ship in the helm-scope, choosing an area near what had to have been the bridge. "No room for error. This is going to be the most important thing you do in the entire war, so... get it fucking right." She grinned down at him. "No pressure."

"Yes, ma'am," he shrugged, "none at all."

"Right. Pick your checkpoint carefully when you start." She patted his neck, hard, then strode back to her chair. Her implant told her they were about a minute away from their target, the tension ramping up. Nowhere in her mind, nowhere at all, was there room for anxiety, or fear, or even doubt. Her brain was far too full of facts and figures, ranges, weapons inventories. Of the overall picture, the Rock down below, the garrison there. Of her crew, who she was expecting to have to evacuate at some point, hopefully before too many of them died...

There was a small part of her that was a bit curious about what might happen. But only a small part, and it was detached. Remote. Almost not even a piece of herself.

The fire was growing heavier now, though it rose from the supporting Cathos ships sluggishly, almost as an afterthought, and Pixy nodded to herself: they would not have been expecting resistance here. Their pathfinder had stopped sending back reports the day Rocky Amisuul had loaded it onto his GP ship and sauntered off with it, but no intelligence would have revealed a heavy Federal presence at such a worthless waypoint.

On top of that? They never would have expected a lone Fleet ship, steered by a lone Fleet captain, to come on so impudently.

But the Tirving did, barreling through space with her organic armor soaking up the few hits that came through, the crews aboard intent at their guns, ready to set their sights and empty their magazines. The ship didn't even begin to shake with the impacts until they were already nearly within the action radius of Contact 52's armament, making them harmless. And, at this range, the other Cathos would think twice before shooting at the Tirving and, potentially, hitting their own commander.

"Steady," she called, keeping her own voice low and even, "and make sure you come in straight across that big ship's axis."

"Got it, ma'am." Nevsky swallowed, monitoring the helmsman as they both stared hard at the Main Plot. "Checkpoint's coming up."

"I'm slip-turning in fifteen seconds, sir," the helmsman announced to Nevsky.

"Brace for maneuvering," the OOD duly shouted into the Mass Intertube.

"Lower your voice, Mr Nevsky," Pixy said calmly. "They can hear your excitement. The 'tube will make you loud enough; just relax and speak."

The OOD hung his head. "Aye aye, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Pixy watched the plot steadily, bracing her legs for the helmsman's slip-turn. "I was scared off my ass the first time I went into action in space. Ship-to-ship combat is just made to be exciting, I guess."

"Five seconds!" the helmsman chanted.

"Time to go to work, Mr Nevsky," she nodded, almost conversationally, and then she clung to the chair and got ready for war. The corner of her eye showed her the helmsman, his hands moving liquidly over his console as he timed the levers just right: full reverse, wait for the momentum shift you could feel in your gut, then the thrusters, one up, the other down, both full.

A slip-turn was never fun, and Tirving groaned around them as she twisted in space. Too late, Pixy remembered that the Cathos ship would not be stationary. "We're going to need portside thrusters going, OOD!" she rasped. When he just gaped back, the hull shaking, she scowled. "Think ahead, Mr Nevsky! We'll need to keep station with that ship until we can stop it. So." She wanted to lash out and kick him. "Thrusters. As soon as we reach the ninety-degree course shift, you need to calculate the lateral motion and give the order."

"Aye aye, Captain," the lieutenant replied a little distantly, already taking on the glassy stare of the truly overwhelmed. There was a reason, Pixy reflected, why lieutenants weren't given implants.

She raised her voice. "Everyone? Just do your fucking jobs. Don't worry about the big picture. If it's your job to maintain lateral motion? Or shunt power to the aft shields? Or watch the clobbet angle? That's what you're doing. Everybody focuses on what they do, and everything goes fine." The ship was shuddering less now as she swung, that big Cathos Vremein hull staring back at them now from just one poronkusema away, all unevenly pockmarked like a kid with bad acne. Pixy stared hard at the reticle, trying to measure the drift angle. "Portside thrusters!" she rasped. "Start at full power, then adjust as needed." She glanced at the OOD. "That's all I need you to do, Mr Nevsky, just maintain our position above that motherfucker. Comprehend?"

"Comprehend, ma'am!" Shrill. Loud. Yes, Pixy decided, that kid wasn't getting back on the Mass 'Tube today.

"Good." She glared out the forward port, waiting impatiently for her thrusters to match velocity, for there was nothing to do now except open fire. Enemy solids winked past, faster than the eye could follow, the trails glittering in the stardust. A few more pregnant seconds passed before, with a lurchy jolt, the Tirving began her drift. Another few seconds on the reticle told Pixy their aspect was not changing, so she slapped the paddlecatch for the 'Tube. "All batteries. Fire at will."

The P/E ship rocked slightly as every tube burst out, Pixy watching her hits explode in silent spheres against the big ship's hide. "She'll change course," Malavongsy muttered.

"Yes. That's why Nevsky's only job is maintaining relative attitude." She assumed that gritty hull before her was well-armored, and figured the only way her ordnance could have any effect would be to focus on one target area. Something else occurred to her. "Mr Nevsky, that's going to include inching forward periodically. That ship doesn't produce enough gravity to help us avoid recoil displacement."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"Cool." She switched channels and spoke into the mic again, a prearranged call to Laredo. "Head on out, Commander."

"Roger." A flaring glow from the Tunnel told her the Tygon Interceptors were backing slowly down the Vag and out into space, staying close to ward off enemy drones and provide warning about oncoming ships. Not that the Cathos were doing much, but still. "We're on the move. Out."

And then it was just a matter of watching as, slowly, the ship before them began to suffer. The enemy sent out three drones amid her arc of ineffective close-in fire, but Pixy had been right to stay close: everyone seemed afraid to fight back for fear of hitting their own ship. And, once Laredo's people took care of those drones, she began to relax. "He's juking and dodging pretty good," she warned.

"On it, ma'am." Nevsky seemed to have recovered his mojo, keeping station well enough that, slowly, the armored hull before them began to erode, buckling under her barrage.

"Good. Because this seems to be working." She stirred, thinking ahead. "Ms Luzhenka?" she called to the Targeting station.

"Ma'am?"

"Set aside a load of incendiaries in the ready magazines. As soon as I see a hull breach, we're flipping over and starting a fire on that fucker." She caught a skeptical glance from Luzhenka. "What?"

"We're already below fifty percent on multipurpose torpedoes," the lieutenant warned.

"I can't worry about that now." Her ship was a hissing mass of vented gas, the attitude control systems trying wildly to keep them on station as the Cathos ship evaded. "We do whatever the fuck we can." She had an idea, glancing up at Comms. "Hey. Mr Verily. Since you're pretty much just sitting around, twiddling your dick, why don't you get ahold of the Fulvius Station people and find out when they plan to launch." Trap-batteries were designed for exactly this sort of thing, to harass passing enemy vessels and force them to change course. "Let's get those assholes involved."