Flag Officer’s Quarter's, Akula, 1800 Hours

Like the Spartans of antiquity, Vice Admiral Nikolai Gorshkov lived an austere life. The relatively luxurious quarters assigned to an officer of his rank was expected to be adorned with memorabilia and other effects to lessen the feeling of isolation or of someone in the service away from family and home. There were no reminders of his childhood on the streets of Vladivostok, or of his service in the Russian military during the last war on Earth. These weren’t things that Nikolai wanted to bring up to any guests to his quarters. But as human nature cannot be controlled, he absentmindedly dropped pieces of his personality.

On his steel desk was a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, next to his bed was a well-worn copy of Clausewitz’s On War, and a painting of the Battle of Trafalgar hung from one wall. The only picture in the room was a digital portrait of his graduating class at the Naval Academy. It was the home of someone who didn’t particularly care for the superfluous advances in technology, mostly anyway.

The sound system was streaming a medley of Mozart into the room, contenting the naval commander at his desk. The admiral was focusing all his minds’ energies on the holographic projection before him.

“A simple plan,” he thought to himself, studying the holographic map of Jupiter and its moons. There was a tiny red marker just next to the smallest moon, Europa, and it was the enemy, whom he had assigned the codename Aggressor-One. “You’re waiting for us to come straight into your trap. Baiting us to come and get you, just like the last time.” The unknown contact that Nikolai knew to be beyond a doubt an enemy warship had its back against a wall, or so most naval tacticians would have thought.

The gravity well of the moon was just behind it, meaning it couldn’t possibly move backward where it was less maneuverable. So it would have to take the offensive. And it knew that it would be receiving company soon. Its weapons were probably warm and ready. He had to somehow draw it out, a diversion of some sort.

Nikolai furrowed his brow, and ponderously scratched his gray stubble. Things weren’t in the admiral’s favor, but war was never in anyone’s favor. He was about to continue strategizing when a soft but firm voice replaced Mozart’s melodies.

“Admiral,” Nikolai instantly recognized the voice to be that of his Executive Officer, Captain Sara Harrington. “There has been a development over Europa. Visual feed is available.”

“Transmit it onto my private holoprojector”

Wordlessly the Captain complied with the order and the holographic map on Nikolai’s desk disappeared and was replaced with a video transmission. The admiral instantly recognized it to be from the spy ship orbiting observing their quarry. It took him a few more seconds to realize that some fools were headed right for the alien warship. He discerned that they were of pirate origin from the condition and arrangement of the ships. They were probably moving in for a closer look.

Nikolai concentrated his attention on Aggressor-One, at once fearing and admiring its mighty dull red hull. He thought the rebels were increasing their speed but realized that the alien vessel was moving instead. Suddenly bright flashes could be seen tearing off from the rebel fighters, missiles definitely. They sailed forth but instead of hitting the alien ship disappeared into bright orange flashes.

Shields! Of course, the aliens had directional energy shields. Nikolai admonished himself for forgetting this fact. That had been their one major advantage.

Aggressor-One unleashed a salvo of surgical red burst of energy that just disintegrated the pirate fighters. The course of the battle was never in doubt. But the aliens had gotten careless and had moved from their position. At the very least that meant a lowered state of readiness, but victory could never be counted on that technicality. It didn’t matter; Nikolai had a plan now.

He keyed the communications system, “Captain Harrington, bring the task force into attack formation Delta Six. Then I want a pinpoint jump between the gravity wells of Jupiter and Europa. I’ll be on the bridge in two minutes, out.”

Back on Earth, the President was still hours away. The traffic situation between Earth and Luna was overly complex. Repairs were being conducted on the inter-planetary traffic stations, causing a “pile-up” of private transports. To compound matters further two SDF patrol craft were scanning every ship slowly as per security precautions put in place by the Vice President. So by the time the President returned, the situation over Europa would have been resolved.

In his Michael Jacobs was in an excited mood, walking back and forth and looking at the live video of the Europa situation streamed from the spy ship Aurora. In his hand he was toting his Cuban cigar, now reduced to a couple inches. He put it between his lips and inhaled strongly, hoping for a cure to his agitation, but it didn’t work. As the pirate ships disintegrated, he gulped down the last of his finger of bourbon. The sooner the situation was resolved the sooner things could get back to normal.

“Nikolai Ivanovich Gorshkov,” Michael thought to himself. “Where the hell are you?”

Suddenly the video feed zoomed out then zoomed back in. It focused on four large warships, with the hawk grasping a bolt of lightning insignia of the Earth Space Defense Force. Michael grinned; the Gorshkov factor was in play. Now he just had to win.

Newly formed wreckage spun lazily through the deep black of space, a literal shell of its former self. The lone remaining rebel frigate loosed a salvo of missiles that dissolved into dust when it hit Aggressor-One’s energy shields. It tried to retreat but the alien warship fired its own salvo. Instead of missiles, angry ruby red bursts of energy were released. They tore into the frigate, ripping it apart. Flash frozen dead bodies could be seen tumbling among the shards of debris.

Less than a minute later, Task Force Europa appeared in perfect formation out of lightspeed, the proximity of Mars and Jupiter causing the jump to last to just a few minutes.

The task force was in Delta Six formation that brought the destroyer Allegiance in front, both Orion frigates flanking it, and the Akula right behind. The ships maintained a kilometer of space in between for possible evasive maneuvers. The eight Warrior starfighters were arranged in two flights of four, a flight in front of each frigate. All conventional weapons were armed and the MPW was being charged up for use.

On the bridge of the Akula, Vice Admiral Nikolai Gorshkov sat comfortably in his command chair, which was slightly raised, his eyes scanning over screens for that tiny tidbit of information that could somehow to turn a battle in your favor. Captain Sara Harrington, his second-in-command, took a more active approach by walking along the platform by the stations where the bridge officers directly controlled the cruiser. She was of average height with dark brown hair tied behind her head. In her late thirties she lad risen up the ladder pretty quickly earning the respect of many including that of Nikolai.

“Sir, systems are operating at one hundred percent and the MPW is fully charged,” she said curtly.

“Good, Lieutenant Lawson,” the admiral’s voice bellowed over the commotion of the bridge, calling out to the communications officer. “Hail the Warrior squadron leader.”

“Aye sir,” she responded.

“Admiral Gorshkov this is Commander Liu,” the pilots’ static-laden voice came through the speakers.

“Commander I want you to pull back and head towards Jupiter. We will not be needing fighter support.”

“Yes sir,” Commander Liu responded. Nikolai heard just the smallest trace of disappointment.

“Don’t worry Commander, I have something in mind for your squadron.”

“Affirmative,” the voice was at ease. The communications link closed as the eight starfighters pulled up and away from the capital ships.

“Lawson, open communications with the entire Task Force,” he ordered. Once links were set with the other warships, he began, “Do not open fire with Lancermissiles. They have proven ineffective. Allegiance, enter these coordinates into your Zeus launch computer. Fire on my mark.” He turned to Lieutenant Little, the Akula’s weapons officer. “Lock these coordinates into the MPW firing computer.” Before he could continue issuing orders, Captain Harrington interrupted him.

“Admiral!” she shouted pointing out the viewport. Aggressor-One was opening fire.

“All ships, execute evasive maneuvers,” Nikolai ordered calmly.

The alien warship oriented to directly face the threat and accelerated, tripling its original speed. Nacelles along its surface opened up with a torrent of angry red bursts. They streamed straight for the task force and hit it head on.

Allegiance in the lead of the formation took the brunt of it, the red lasers hitting all over its bow, cracking the hull in a dozen places. Atmosphere leaked out as whole sections of plate steel was burned through and evaporated into perfect spheres of molten iron. The ship then exploded, unlike the rebel frigate’s quiet death the Allegiance and its thousand-man crew died in a mighty ball of nuclear flame that completely enveloped the hull.

One of the Orions was splashed across its side by a withering barrage from Aggressor-One. The red energy cut into the ship’s central bulk, disintegrating it thus breaking the frigate into two pieces both leaking atmosphere and bodies.

The second Orion accelerated to its top speed, madly firing its Lancer missiles in a futile attempt to damage the alien ship.

With the Allegiance at the lead, the Akula had suffered no damage yet. But it couldn’t be said that morale was particularly high. In a deft stroke Aggressor-One had taken the advantage, but that implied that it never had it before. Nikolai had to take charge.

“Captain Harrington, launch a Zeus to coordinates delta-five-six-four-kappa-one, full burn for ten seconds, and give me the detonation control. Accelerate to flank speed to coordinates zulu-six-eight-nine, evasive maneuvers.”

The Akula’s engines shuddered to life and pushed the ship on forward. Attitude thrusters located on tactical points across the hull fire off short bursts of thrust in random patterns, to throw off the alien ship’s aim. The sound of muffled thunder filled the bridge as the Zeus missile was launched. Its bright red exhaust burned strong for ten seconds before dying, making the missile almost invisible as momentum continued to push it along.

“Admiral, that’s an intercept course with the target,” Captain Harrington said.

“I know Sara, but I have a plan. Get me a dual MPW firing solution on Aggressor One.” Nikolai eyed the nuclear detonation trigger.

The Akula shuddered as the retro rockets oriented it to face Aggressor-One. The MPW could only fire straight ahead, but when it struck, it struck hard. The ship shook from the shockwave as the remaining Orion erupted into a ball of nuclear flame. Now the alien ship would be focusing all its power on the Akula. It would need a distraction.

“Captain, send out a call to Commander Liu’s squadron. I want them to slingshot around Europa to come into the enemy rear,” Nikolai paused and looked out into the black. “I want a pinpoint defense against those lasers, three Lancers each.”

“Aye Admiral,” replied Harrington.

So went on the correspondence. The admiral was in charge of the overall battle situation; his job was the big picture. The captain was there to relay the orders to the individual bridge officers; hers was the smaller individual picture.

The Russian looked at the status screen indicating the flight path of the Warriors, they would be where they were supposed to be in one minute. It also showed the location of the Zeus missile, forty seconds to go.

The Akula shook as a battery of Lancer missiles took off from their launch silos. They broke into groups of three and raced towards oncoming fire from Aggressor-One. The missiles compensated for the high speed of the lasers by decreasing speed and changing their orientation by minute variations. The first triad of missiles exploded as they were hit by the first beam. The defense was effective, but two angry beams of energy plowed on ahead.

“Impact in twenty seconds,” someone said with desperation.

“Maintain position,” Nikolai ordered. “Evacuate quarters near impact areas and seal the bulkheads. Pump out oxygen from those quarters.”

“Aye Admiral. Commander Liu is thirty seconds from Aggressor-One.”

The seconds ticked by inexorably.

Vice Admiral Gorshkov looked down at the nuke detonation trigger. He flipped it.

A harsh, bright flash illuminated the whole viewport of the Akula, blinding the bridge crew momentarily before the transparent titanium compensated. The Zeus had detonated to the rear of Aggressor-One into a ball of pure energy, containing the power of the fused atom. The alien ship disappeared under the flash of energy, but reappeared untouched.

Then the Akula shuddered, lights flickered and some crewmen were sent sprawling across the floor. Klaxons could be heard in the background, the lasers had struck home.

“Bloody hell,” someone on the bridge cursed.

“Damage report,” the Russian ordered.

After checking with the ship operations officer, Captain Harrington looked up, “We’ve lost contact with hull sections 6A through 6F, electrical systems suffered a brief relapse but have been rerouted, sir.”

“How about the damage on Aggressor-One?”

Harrington checked with the sensor officer. “No damage on the hull, sir, no damage at all.” She almost looked mournful.

Nikolai looked unfazed as usual, “Energy levels?”

“No changes at the bow, but there is an anomaly with the shield towards the stern.”

“Good, I want Commander Liu to hit the stern, and only the stern.”

The Captain relayed those orders through the communications officer.

“I want as a close a visual of Aggressor-One as you can get.”

“Aye sir, magnifying the view.”

The viewport served as a dual-purpose monitor, so it could view video feeds as well. The view changed dramatically as it just showed the alien ship and a patch of space to its starboard side. For brief seconds the shapes of the Warrior starfighters were illuminated as they launched their payloads at the behemoth. The alien ship returned in kind as it fired narrow red lasers in sweeps. A starfighter could be seen tumbling end over end as it lost a wing. To even it out tiny pinpricks of explosions could be seen on Aggressor-One’s hull. It was taking damage.

“Order the Warriors to concentrate all their firepower on the engine nacelles.”

The remaining five starfighters slowed and released their most deadly cargo. The bombs sailed into the aft quarters of the alien warship. Explosions erupted along its stern.

“Aggressor-One has shunted all energy towards its aft,” Harrington said.

“Tell Liu to continue the attack. Is the firing solution for the MPW set in?”

“Firing solution has been locked into the computer sir.”

Nikolai smiled for the first time that day “Send the bastards to hell. Fire the cannon!”

The Akula vibrated as two heavy thuds echoed along the dagger-shaped hull in rapid succession. The two massive five-hundred ton shells made of the hardest in titanium carbide raced along the barrel of the MPW, magnetic particles rapidly increasing their speed. As they launched out of the cannon, the lack of gravity increased the speed of the rounds exponentially as the momentum pilled on.

The four remaining Warriors fired everything they had. A majority of the missiles and bombs dissipated into electrons as they hit the energy shield. But two bombs got through and hit one of the three nacelles that were the primary source of thrust for the alien ship. It shuddered as it lost a third of its speed.

Aggressor-One, under attack from both sides, held its ground. Seeing the weapon deployed by the Akula for the first time, it attempted to evade the shots, its lateral thrusters attempting to push the ship on another course, but the damage to its engines slowed it down measurably. The commander of the ship or whatever it was realized that it would never be able to dodge the oncoming bullets. Its guns opened up on the Akula, firing dozens of its crimson rays of energy. Some of its shield power shifted forward.

The titanium bullets hurtled past the lasers with less than a mile in between.

The first MPW shell slammed into the weakened shields of Aggressor-One. The shields wavered before just shattering. With most of its mass dissolved from breaking through the shields, what was left of the shell scratched along the hull of the ship, leaving a highly visible scar.

A few seconds later the second round struck. It tore through the alien armor like a hot knife through butter. The round punched a solid hole into the front portside of the ship. The force of the impact sent Aggressor-One reeling backward towards Europa, end over end. The round burst out of the rear of the ship, coming through the central engine exhaust port. As it came out, pieces of hull were pulled along by the speed of the titanium shell. The original hole expanded as the hulls integrity was severely weakened.

Its hull cracked and systems heavily damaged, the mighty warship rolled backwards with no way of compensating. Explosions reverberated and enveloped the stern of the ship. With its propulsion system out of action, Europa’s gravity began to pull it.

Sweat glistened on the backs of everyone on the bridge of the Akula below the rank of Captain. Both Sara and Nikolai had seen many battles throughout their careers, though none were as desperate as this, they had built up their nerves to hide any signs of tension.

Seeing the alien ship damaged without power, the junior bridge officers wildly cheered. Against all odds they had won the battle. But the commanders knew it wasn’t over yet.

The red lasers of Aggressor-One’s death kneel drew closer and closer as they bore onto the Akula.

“Captain, cut all forward thrust and fire the lateral thrusters at full speed,” Nikolai ordered, his voice calm and firm. “Maintain pinpoint defense.”

The steady background rumble of the main engines died down and the series of thrusters attached in a single line on the underside of the cruiser pushed the ship “up”. Batteries of Lancer missiles thundered out of their launch bays, racing towards the laser salvo.

Like what happened earlier, most of the missiles were successful in their defense, but now ten streaks of laser streamed towards the Akula.

“Impact in twenty seconds!”

“Fire port thrusters full burn.” As the thrusters on the left side of the cruiser roared, Nikolai looked up at one of the screens that denoted possible damage from laser impacts. Fifty Lancer missiles were in the possible impact area. If they were hit, the Akula could go up like a firecracker. The lasers were too close for any pinpoint defense. “Jettison missiles in battery F6, same for B2 through B6.”

“Aye sir,” Captain Harrington replied before relaying the order to the weapons officer. The missile launch tubes thumped open and disgorged their deadly cargo.

“Impact in ten seconds.”

“Lateral camera on screen,” Nikolai ordered and the image from the camera on the ship’s central axis took up a large portion of the screen.

The red beams, previously tiny pinpricks were now mighty red gashes in the black night of space. He could clearly see that three of them would miss, leaving seven.

“Evacuate outer hull quarters and stations, brace for impact.”

The red warning klaxon in the back of the bridge blared to life. Similarly klaxons were coming to life along the length of the five-hundred meter long warship.

“Impact!”

In that instant in time it seemed as if the bridge had exploded. Electrical systems shorted with explosive sparks, and crewmen were thrown about as a massive shockwave hit the room. The lights died but emergency power brought them back on seconds later. Smoke wafted up from a couple of broken screens and a young Lieutenant could be seen slumped over, blood pooling around his limp form. Other voices groaned in pain. Medical drones entered the room and got to work helping the wounded.

The bridge had become a war zone.

“Damage report,” Nikolai said in his most controlled voice. He was shaken, but did his best to hide it.

Sara Harrington pulled herself up from the floor, a long, bloody wound running down the left side of her face. But whatever panic she felt, she shook from her mind. She had a ship to command, and an admiral to follow.

“Hull breaches in decks F and B, atmosphere venting, crew in those areas were limited as per orders. Cooling system for primary reactor damaged, power rerouted through secondary providing thirty percent power. Lightspeed engines are undamaged. Repair crews are on the way, but substantial refit will be needed to readjust the reactor.”

“Noted Sara,” the admiral took the formality out of his voice. “Why don’t you report to medical deck, the crisis is over.”

Realizing that it was order, the Captain raised her right arm to salute. When Nikolai returned the salute she begrudgingly marched out of the bridge. A couple of medical drones were carrying a body out on a stretcher.

The Russian stared out at space towards the Jovian moon of Europa, which looked quite beautiful from over here. He could also make out the spinning mass of Aggressor-One beginning to enter the moon’s atmosphere. Without shields it couldn’t possibly survive the extremely high temperatures of planetary entry. There wouldn’t be much left of it after it crashed into the moon’s barren surface.

He picked out a junior officer that was lightly injured, “Weapons officer, what is your name?”

The shell-shocked junior officer looked at his flag officer “Ah, Lieutenant Kenji Nakamura, sir.”

“Well Lieutenant Nakamura, until Captain Harrington returns you will be the Executive Officer, understood?”

“Ah, yes sir.”

“Good,” Nikolai turned towards the communications officer. “Lieutenant Lawson, contact Commander Liu. I want him and the remainder of his squadron to search the wreckage for any survivors.”

“Done sir,” she said, looking up at the admiral who was now walking behind the backs of the bridge officers, the traditional space of the captain. “Sir, call coming in from the commander of the Marine garrison on Europa.”

“Display on screen.”

The vista of space disappeared and was replaced by the image of a Colonel of the Space Marine Force. He was wearing a heavy winter parka, looking ready to walk on the extremely cold surface.

“Good fighting up there, sir,” the Colonel said, jovial but respectful.

“Indeed, Colonel,” the Nikolai responded. “I need you to secure the impact areas of the debris from the battle. Naval Intelligence probably has a team on the way.”

“Affirmative, I’ll have reconnaissance teams at the impact sites. Don’t worry, the Marines will secure it tight.”

“I know, Admiral Gorshkov out.” He got up from his command chair, “Lieutenant Nakamura you have the bridge. Try not to start a war.” As he rode the lift to his personal quarters felt the weight lifted from his shoulders. He had another victory to his credit, but he knew that this would be the beginning. He’d used up a lot of luck and lost of a lot of men today, some day down the line he might run out of those things.

Once in his room he keyed his personal communications, which was for his use in the SDF chain of command and was thus heavily encrypted. After typing in the channel manually, a familiar face appeared in the holographic projector.

“Mission accomplished Michael.”

The clean-shaven face on the other end lit up with one of his trademark grins. It really made Nikolai wonder why he was the Vice President and not the President. He shook his head, Earth politics were just crazy.

“Great job Nikolai,” Michael began. “You’ve done us all a great service, I’ll see to it you get a cushy assignment while the Akula gets repaired.”

“I was just doing my duty as an officer in the Space Defense Forces,” Nikolai said.

“Indeed you were, but it doesn’t mean that service shouldn’t go unrewarded.”

“Listen Michael, before my sensors went offline they detected an anomaly. I’ve ordered the garrison commander to secure the impact site but it could be anything.”

The Vice President became sober, “I’ll have Intelligence dispatch a team to Europa.”

“What about the crews, they’ve seen some things…” Nikolai let that hang in the air.

“I’m the politician, I’ll figure it out,” Michael checked with something off screen. “ The President’s returned. I’ll have to give him a briefing.”

The projector died and Nikolai just looked up at the stainless steel ceiling. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his uniform. He reached down into his desk drawer and pulled out a flask of vodka. He gulped it down and felt it burn his dry throat, nothing like the taste of home, a home that he had not seen for five years.

He looked at the painting he had on the wall. Nikolai didn’t like equivocating what he does with the great heroes of history. Those were much simpler times, now the world was rampant with politics. He just yearned to have lived centuries ago, leading his fleet to victory. He shook his head with the insanity of it all, hiding the flask. Politics did not concern him, he had one purpose, and it was to win battles. He had won today.