WARNING: This Chapter contains major spoilers for the more... unique capabilities of the Star Swarm. If you have not fought them and would prefer to be surprised, you may want to skip this chapter. I will provide a spoiler free summary of the outcome in the first paragraph of Chapter Seven. Chapter Six: The Battle for Hennesy (1590) 15 October 1590
“Good hunting, Casey,” Commodore Dunne said on his private link with Commander Franklin. “See you on the other side.”
Watching the green icons of vanguard force wink out, he thought of a more sinister interpretation for his last words, and leaned back with a sigh. Earl Greenlake said the most important duty of any Admiral was to appear confident and dispense inspirational speeches. That tracked with the type of holo-dramas Dunne enjoyed, but it was hard and he always put his foot in his mouth somehow.
Which was a shame, because HMS Donnelly needed some confidence and inspiration now. The tension in her cramped Combat Information Center was palpable. Serving with the Junction Fleet, he had forgotten how raw most RMN personnel were. Despite the Admiralty’s best efforts to disperse veteran NCOs throughout the fleet, there weren’t enough, and it would never be the same as lived experience.
“Contact! Multiple contacts!” The petty officer overseeing CIC’s sensor stations called out. “Ten, twenty, no… it’s all of them, sir!” His voice had risen to a squeak by the end of the report.
Dunne’s eyes snapped to central the plot where forty-five red icons had just appeared in the middle of his formation. Days of contingency planning and he had never even considered this one! Did they butcher Casey so fast and decide to launch a counterattack? Surely not! But then, what were they doing?
It didn’t matter. He slammed a finger onto the comm switch. “Scatter! I repeat, scatter! Fire at will!” Releasing the button, he turned to his staff tactical officer. “Linda, contact Captain Ainspan. Tell him to bring the heavy cruisers into our tacnet.”
Outside, the Junction Fleet reacted with reflexes honed by years of sporadic invasions. HMS Manticore fired first. Her energy torpedoes enveloped the nearest alien, and it vanished in an inferno of hot plasma. The rest of the units followed a moment later with their full beam broadsides, inflicting fifteen penetrating hits across seven targets.
“Missiles free!” Dunne said. Parliament had restricted using missiles for close wormhole defense, but with so many enemies, the fleet needed every bit of firepower it could muster. He could face the wrath of a Liberal budget committee if it prevented damage to his ships.
As soon as he gave the order, salvos began flying in rapid succession. Most started twenty to fifty thousand kilometers from their targets, so the streak of their drives flashed across the plot in seconds. Nuclear fireballs blossomed among the pack of creatures, killing six of them and maiming two more.
Crown Prince Michael kept his squadron together as they broke free and raced to open the distance. Captain DuChene of HMS Hexapuma, present commander of CruDiv 2, shadowed them, keeping her Kodiaks between the aliens and the lightly armored Donnellys. She needn’t have bothered, since the invaders were running away from the terminus at full speed in the opposite direction. CruDiv 1 and the destroyers were in pursuit, trying to keep the creatures in range of their autocannon. The constant stream of energy and metal took out six more enemies.
Why were the aliens in Manticore? Unless… could they have spooked at the sudden arrival of vanguard force and stampeded into the wormhole? A lemming response? These little ones had never stuck him as being especially intelligent. The move had brought them under the guns of his heaviest warships and cost them thirty percent of their strength in the opening minute.
HMS Gryphon’s Forward Weapons Division erupted into chaos as a massive, unexplained power surge shorted every piece of electronic equipment in the primary compartment. Computer terminals literally exploded, showering the crew with sparks, jagged bits of plastic and scraps of molecular circuitry. Acrid white smoke filled the air. The pulse of energy flooded past safety systems in battle override and fed back into a plasma conduit, which ruptured under the strain and vaporized a dozen spacers at neighboring stations.
“Commodore!” the petty officer manning communications called. “Gryphon reports she’s lost beam fire control. They have casualties. Captain Ross is requesting permission to withdraw to missile range.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Dunne stared at the small schematic of HMS Gryphon on his console, flashing orange with battle damage despite the computer’s estimate of 98% armor integrity. He turned to his tactical officer. “What’s happening over there? What did they hit us with?”
“Report from Mars!” a different tech said. “Her beam fire control is out too, sir. Unknown number of casualties.”
“Tell them,” Dunne began and then punched the comm key again. “All ships, fall back! Open the range to 100k!”
“I think it’s those Adelaides, sir.” His tactical officer said from his side. “They’re generating a directional microwave pulse that’s overloading our electronic systems.”
Of course they were. If aliens could shoot duranium melting goo out of their butts, why not electronics destroying microwave pulses? Dunne scowled at the plot. Out of the forty-five creatures, only eleven had been Adelaides, but the more numerous Brisbanes had taken the brunt of his fleet’s undirected fire. Eight of the little monsters remained. “Do we know what the Melbournes do?”
“No, sir.”
Lovely. The clump of aliens had come to a halt fifty thousand kilometers “northeast” of the Hennesy wormhole terminus. For the moment, they only clustered around their wounded companions instead of pursing his ships. How could such stupid creatures pose such a massive threat to the Kingdom?
He pressed the comm stud again. “Beam units form up on HMS Manticore and withdraw to 160k. Focus fire on Adelaides and Melbournes.”
A hundred and sixty thousand kilometers put the fleet well out of the alien weapons’ range but also beyond the effective range of its own lasers. The beasts declined to pursue even as his retreating ships killed five more of them.
Dunne looked to his left where a display showed Crown Prince Michael seated on the bridge. “Your Highness, how soon can your squadron launch another missile salvo?”
“Seven minutes.”
Seven minutes might as well be eternity if the aliens changed their minds and came after his beam ships. Dunne made a note for his after action report. Weight of fire might be of paramount importance in a fight between equal tech warships, but perhaps a ten minute reload cycle was pushing reduced size launchers too far.
“Target the remaining Adelaides and fire when ready.”
“Four of them.” Prince Michael said. Then, at Dunne’s raised eyebrow, he added. “The Donnelly class has one missile telemetry unit. We can’t split our launch between multiple targets like your Kodiaks.”
There were six Adelaides left. After this, Dunne planned to have harsh words with someone at BuShips. “Very well. Target four of them. Coordinate with the destroyers so they take the rest.”
For seven minutes, the beam armed warships fired ineffective potshots. Except for HMS Kodiak, who picked off both an Adelaide and a Melbourne. Dunne mentally added another commendation to Cynthia Colenso’s file. He hated to lose her, but HMS Kodiak’s tactical officer was long overdue for a promotion. Maybe even her own ship. He ought to have enough clout at the Admiralty to accomplish that.
Forty-eight missiles streaked out from the light cruiser squadron, followed by twenty-four from the Mercury class destroyers. Every salvo killed its target, eliminating the rest of the Adelaides. Dunne smiled when he saw HMS Mars had fired the shot that took out the final one, payback for her dead and injured spacers.
Seventeen Brisbanes and a Melbourne remained. They still had some fight in them despite taking damage. He pressed the comm stud again. “Beam units, advance to energy range and engage.”
The Manticoran cruisers’ and destroyers’ lasers stabbed out with a vengeance as they closed, killing five more creatures. HMS Manticore led the charge and her schematic flashed orange as the aliens concentrated their return fire. No internal damage or electronics failures this time, but her armor dropped at an alarming rate.
“Captain Ainspan,” Dunne said. “Fall back. Kodiak, Hexapuma take the lead.”
HMS Manticore decelerated and reversed course. Finally, the enemy reacted. The fifteen survivors surged after the retreating heavy cruiser at their full 8226 km/s. Like wild animals that scented blood, they raced through CruDiv 2’s autocannon kill zone, oblivious to the trail of corpses they left behind, and honed in on the hapless injured ship, hammering it again and again with globules of goo as the schematic flashed crimson damage reports.
“Oh my God,” his tactical officer whispered.
Dunne stared in horror at the expanding cloud of debris obscuring the heavy cruiser’s aft hammerhead.
“Manticore just lost her aft impeller ring, sir! Her maximum speed’s down to 2250 km/s.”
“Kill those Brisbanes!” An unnecessary order, as Kodiak and Hexapuma were doing everything in their power to aid their wounded comrade. Moments later, the final alien vanished in a fury of laser and autocannon fire.
But were they in time to save HMS Manticore?
Damage Control Petty Officer 1st Class Rebeka Eremenko and her team watched the monitors in horrified anticipation as HMS Manticore’s armor integrity dropped. Most of the heavy cruiser’s crew had seen a little action during Junction deployments, but the ship had never taken serious damage. No drill or simulation could have prepared them for what would happen next.
Crimson indicators flared across the board as enemy fire penetrated. The division's junior lieutenant flew into action. “Hull breach in Engineering Seven and Eight! Fuel Storage Two is venting!”
“On it!” Rebeka called and hustled her spacers into the corridor. They had only gone a dozen meters when an explosion rocked the ship so hard it hurled the entire damage control party to the deck. A whoosh of fire shot over their heads before dissipating into nothing. The vacuum indicator on her skinsuit’s heads-up display lit as she climbed back to her feet.
“Eremenko?” the lieutenant asked.
“Alive, sir. That an alpha node?”
“I think so.” The young officer’s voice sounded as unsteady as she felt. “Something set off a chain reaction and took out the whole ring. Acceleration dropped 50%. Computers are out. I can’t raise the engine room. Go back and do a visual inspection. Be careful. The hull’s peeled open like a can of near-tuna.”
“Aye, sir.” Rebeka waved her team forward. “Come on lads. Ya heard the boss. Move your butts!”
The scene awaiting them aft was straight out of a low budget horror film. Not the mangled bodies or twisted wreckage — she had expected those. It was the pulsating green alien slime everywhere and the unnerving sight of whatever it touched vaporizing in little puffs, then flash freezing into glittering crystals that rained down to the deck and crunched under foot. The stuff ate through everything: bulkheads, consoles, power conduits, people. Worse, it was moving straight towards the cruiser’s vitals.
Casey-Rosewood didn’t teach a class on stopping toxic alien goo from eating your ship. Maybe next term. If someone thought of something clever fast enough to save HMS Manticore. What though? Vacuum had no effect. The gunk could eat through blast doors in under a minute. There were supplies for acid spills in Engineering Stores, but they weren’t stocked by the ton!
Rebeka keyed her uni-link. “Engine room’s gone, sir. Open to space, like ya said. And full of alien goop.”
“Sorry PO,” the lieutenant said. “Say again?”
“Alien goop, sir. I reckon that’s the technical term. Acid or something. It’s eating holes in the…”
HMS Manticore bucked again and Rebeka scrambled for a handhold to avoid being hurled face first in the mass of green sludge. Two members of her team weren’t so lucky. One man fell into the ooze and became a cloud. Another just brushed against it and dropped to the deck, screaming.
Rebeka raced to his side, hauling him up and handing him off to an uninjured spacer. From this position, she could see through shattered bulkheads fifty meters forward to the boat bay where green gunk clung to the marine assault pinnace and chewed its way with relentless indifference through the flight operations machine shop.
Feeling a growing sense of horror and desperation, she keyed her uni-link. “LT?”
“Eremenko, thank God.” The kid’s voice sounded haggard. “I thought we lost you when the beta ring went. We have a problem.”
That comment should win the Star Kingdom’s award for understatement of the century. “We’ve a lotta problems, sir, but we aren’t gonna have any in forty-five seconds ‘less ya call the bridge and tell ‘em corrosive alien slime is eating into the primary magazine!”
“What?”
“Alien slime! Burning into the magazine!”
“Worse than that.”
Worse than alien goo that had detonated two impeller rings getting into forty-eight heavy warheads? “Alright, sir. I’m listening.”
“It’s the aft fusion bottle. Automatic jettison failed. Control runs are out. The readings are crazy. I don't know what's happening. But It could go any second. Someone has to trigger the manual override.”
Yeah, that was worse. “You call the TO, sir. I’ll do the reactor.”
At least the trip was quick, thanks to holes in the deck and bulkheads. One look into the control room confirmed her worst fears. Everybody was dead and the alien gunk had coalesced in a giant blob around the magnetic bottle, which sparked and flickered continuously under relentless assault. The miniature star inside flared and flashed, its fuel lines and regulators disintegrated. Either could overload the field and then HMS Manticore, and everyone aboard her, would die.
Rebeka found the manual emergency release mechanism. That panel was armored enough to survive a direct hit from a missile, but a mass of goo clung to the outside, ablating layers as she watched. She didn’t have time to think. No time to find help or tools. She lunged for the box, flung it open, and pulled the ejection lever with her other hand in one motion. The pain was incredible. Worse than she’d imagined. The reactor was going into space when she lost consciousness.
“Hold position at 100k,” Commodore Dunne told Captain DuChene of HMS Hexapuma. “I want every small craft performing search and rescue operations. We’ll send over the assault pinnaces with damage control parties and then use them to evacuate wounded through…”
An ear-rending squeal of static interrupted the transmission, and someone spat out a curse as the main plot filled with snow. Dunne waited in horror for the interference to dissipate and heaved an audible sigh of relief when HMS Manticore’s icon reappeared.
“What was that!?” He snarled at the image of Captain Ainspan filling a quarter of his display.
“That was the aft reactor safety kicking in and jettisoning a malfunctioning fusion bottle.”
“I’d like some warning before the next part of your ship explodes! Good Lord, man! What if our shuttles were there?”
Ainspan looked sheepish. “Sorry, sir. All the instrumentation back there is out. I believe anything that could explode has. The… um… alien bioweapon seems to have halted amidships. I believe the immediate crisis is over, but half my ship is gone and I have enormous casualties.”
“Commodore?” a communications tech called. “Pathfinder is asking if you want someone to look for Casey?”
In the chaos of the last twenty minutes, Commodore Dunne had completely forgotten the vanguard force. “Yes, of course. Have Akheron transit, assess the state of affairs in Hennesy, and contact Commander Franklin, if possible.”
Miraculously, HMS Casey and her consorts were unharmed. Confused, but who wasn’t? Finding no opposition, Franklin had drawn his ships up on the terminus to wait for the rest of the Expeditionary Fleet. When they didn’t arrive on schedule, he suspected the missing aliens might have gone into the wormhole, but feared sending a ship back into an active firefight might cause an accident.
Since Akheron saw no opposition on her long range gravitics, Commodore Dunne ordered Crown Prince Michael to take his squadron and the Mercury-class destroyers into Hennesy and hold that terminus. He returned to Kodiak to oversee the Junction Fleet’s recovery effort.
The final tally was one hundred and fifty lives lost in a skirmish grandiosely known thereafter as the Second Battle of Manticore. One hundred and twenty-eight of those from HMS Manticore alone, a fifth of her complement. Fourteen had died aboard HMS Gryphon and another eight on HMS Mars.
It took days to restore power to the damaged heavy cruiser’s beta impeller ring and patch one of her propellant tanks while RMAS Anubis made the slow journey from Manticore with additional fuel, maintenance supplies and a load of yard dogs from HMSS Hephaestus to relieve the exhausted crew. The survivors evacuated to Kodiak and Hexapuma for transport home. Their battered ship was two months limping into space dock and BuShips estimated she would remain there until July.
On December 2nd 1590, the same day that HMS Manticore arrived in orbit, First Space Lord Sir Michael Summervale knighted Commodore Dunne for his continued success in battle and initiated him to the Order of King Roger. The ceremony was broadcast throughout the Star Kingdom and included prestigous awards for many of the fleet’s leaders and key personnel. Despite the high honors bestowed upon him, Dunne remained uncharacteristically subdued throughout the presentation, contemplating the high price his people had paid in blood.
Some hours later, Captain Marius Ainspan of HMS Manticore, who had earlier received the Distinguished Service Order for valor in command of the heavy cruiser division and tireless effort to save his ship during the days following the battle, arrived at the RMN’s Bassingford Medical Center with a small box tucked into his pocket.
In a narrow room on the fourth floor, he found Petty Officer 1st Class Rebeka Eremenko propped up on a pile of pillows, swathed in bandages, with a regen cast encasing the remains of her right arm. She faced the window, looking out on the park that ajoined the center’s grounds. Her hazel eyes widened with alarm when she saw who the visitor was and she tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up straighter.
“As you were, PO.” Captain Ainspan pulled up a chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I lost a bar fight with a Kodiak Max, sir. Biggun too. I think the regen hurts more than the acid. I’m a good candidate, though. Doc says I’ll be right as rain in no time.” She looked back at the window. “Just lying here, thinking about walking on that grass. Hugging a tree. Ya know, sir? It’s years since I’ve been home. Near death experience makes ya regret spending so much of your life in the void.”
“I hope you aren’t thinking of giving it up forever.”
“Oh, no sir! Just wanting more time dirtside is all.”
“Well, I’d say the Navy owes you an extended leave. If BuPers won’t give you a ride to Gryphon, I’ll buy a commercial ticket myself.” Captain Ainspan smiled. “And after that? Well, it’s not the Attica Mountains, but I recall there’s decent hiking around the Naval Academy. The weather is certainly nicer. Not that you Highlanders care.”
Eremenko turned back towards him with a confused frown. “Captain?”
“You missed the awards ceremony, so I brought this to you.” He took the box from his pocket and presented it with a small flourish. Inside was a silver cross on a dark blue ribbon.
The young woman’s eyes widened even further. “The Osterman Cross? No, sir! Lorelei Osterman was a hero. She saved the Star Kingdom! That’s not for me, sir! It must've been a mistake at BuPers.”
“You saved 425 people on HMS Manticore. Maybe twice, with that magazine warning. Plus, you came as close as someone in our line of work can to throwing yourself on a grenade to save your crewmates. That makes you a hero in my book. And my wife’s.” Ainspan shrugged. “Besides, the Queen read your name on holo-vision and everything. She’d be terribly upset if you refused now.”
“The Queen, sir?” Rebeka wilted. “I wouldn't want to upset her! But... sir, what do I do?”
“First, concentrate on healing. Then, a few months’ rest on Gryphon. After that, it's back to school, Lieutenant.”
Author's Notes: The Osterman Cross is the highest award given to enlisted personnel in the RMN and always comes with a commission. This is only the second time it has been handed out to date. The original was after the First Battle of Manticore. Anyway, I figured with all the highfalutin noble Admirals and Captains making a right mess of the Navy, this story could use its very own mustang Sharpe character to straighten them all out. 
Sad to see you all had such low expectations for Commodore Dunne. Shame. Or you all very much overestimated the AI in C# which is still dumb as bricks. Sadly, the Navy's budget problems will continue unabated. Next - Chapter Seven: New Discoveries (1590-1591)
