Battleship Trafalgar

Mellotte II

Chase walked into the battleship Trafalgar’s ready room, the office assigned to the commanding officer, to the rear of the bridge. He had not made use of it on his short command when they had been working as a skeleton crew. It had clearly been refurbished, and Harding had decorated it with some personal items. Chase had managed to make it back to Mellotte II and signal the Trafalgar, where he was brought on board and immediately requested to report here. He was still in his flight suit. He got the distinct impression that Harding was not pleased with his actions.

The doors to the office slid open with a wisp sound, and the CO walked in. Instinctively, Chase got to his feet.

“Sit,” was all Harding said.

He sat.

“Cmdr Chase, what were you thinking?” Harding demanded. “You know the state of the Navy’s resources right now, and you risked a perfectly good fighter, not to mention a pilot who has cost the military a great deal in training already. Did you think you knew something that the rest of us didn’t?”

Chase considered the best way to respond to this.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said firmly and confidently.

“Oh, you did, did you?” replied Harding.

“The thing is,” said Chase, “their attack suggested little in the way of reconnaissance, which meant that they had to be operating from a nearby facility—a facility that we should take out at our earliest convenience.”

“That might be right, Mr Chase, but that was not your call to make,” said Harding.

“I was never ordered not to,” Chase replied with a shrug.

He held up his sensor readout and tapped it. A small hologram appeared above the desk. Harding now sat down herself, leaning in to get a better look at the small display that rotated in front of her. It appeared to be an artificially constructed space station, not much thought seemingly given to design or defences.

“Very good, Commander,” Harding said. “You may just have found a prize big enough to make up for your actions.”

She stood up and walked over to a small panel by the door. It beeped—she tapped it.

“Have Mr Sutherland sent up here,” she said.

“Aye, Captain,” came the reply.

Chase had not seen Sutherland, the explosives expert, since they expropriated him from the POW camp. He hadn’t even been sure that he was still on board. When he walked in, Chase barely recognised him now. He had been cleanly shaved, he had his hair cut back to a military standard.

“Good to see you again, Commander,” he said in acknowledgement.

“You too, Sutherland,” Chase replied.

Harding indicated the hologram. “This is a hostile outpost within striking distance of Mellotte II. We need it blown up,” she said.

Sutherland tapped a few controls. A data readout appeared next to the display with all the scans indicating the materials it was constructed of, energy outputs, and other readings Chase had managed to take.

“I can do it,” he said, “but you’ll need to get me on board.”

“Is that strictly necessary?” asked Harding.

Sutherland walked around the desk, studying the hologram.

“It’s made of an unknown alloy,” he said, “an artificial compound, similar to aggregated diamond nanorods. We’ve done experiments with but never used in actual construction.” Now he leaned over and used a screwdriver to point at one side of the outpost. “I’ve gone over the analysis you sent over, A direct hit here with the torpedo would start to collapse the structure, but you’d want to plant some kind of high explosive in their main cargo hold, here.” He moved the screwdriver down to the centre of the hologram. “Anything there would hit all its weak spots at once.”

Chase nodded. “You need to get a team on board, plant it, and get out. It would be difficult but not impossible.”

“I’d rather shoot a missile at it from the edge of the system,” said Harding.

“We can get close enough that they won’t have their defences ready. Considering the fighter wing we’ve already witnessed, we know they will be prepared to defend,” said Chase, tapping his fingers on the desk.

“Sutherland, for this, what about cobalt high-yield warheads?”

“Like that, but we don’t have anything of the sort on board,” said Harding. “Only certain ships carry them as standard,” said Chase, realising too late—belatedly—he was using the present tense.

“They went down with the shipyard,” Sutherland nodded at this. “You wanna take it out quickly, the boarding plan is the way to go,” he said.

“Very well,” said Harding. “Chase, begin drills immediately. Once the bomb is on board, there will be very little time for the team to withdraw. You need to have your timings down before we leave.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The auxiliary shuttle bay on deck sixteen to Trafalgar’s aft, was a large, empty space. Whilst the main bay had been replenished with newly constructed auxiliary craft during the ship’s refurbishment at the shipyard, it was not considered necessary to meet the ship’s original full complement. As a result, this section had been left since Grace Dakota left with her ship, and the engineering team had been tasked with converting it into a training facility, building the best estimate of the hostile station.

Chase was walking through the bay, inspecting their work.

“Is this really fair?” Winter teased him. “You won’t know the exact layout before you land on the real station.”

“Fair point,” he agreed.

As they turned a corner, a smoke machine had created a soft haze, and gratings placed across the light panels. Whoever Dryden had given the assignment to certainly had a touch for the theatrical.

“Well, you ready?” Chase asked Winter.

She nodded. They turned and walked out of the bay, where Dryden and Sutherland were standing and waiting. Sutherland had a large backpack on with several control panels on the exterior—what they had now been referring to simply as the device.

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“Everyone ready?” asked Chase.

“The actors are in position,” Dryden confirmed, referring to the members of the security detail who would be playing roles. “Their weapons have been swapped out for non-lethal stun guns.”

The doors opened with their usual groan. The interior door had been marked up to simulate an airlock. Chase was the first one on board. He swept the area and met no immediate hostiles. He signalled for the others to come through. Sutherland was behind, followed by Dryden, with Winter picking up the rear. They found a large pillar, and Chase indicated to Sutherland to set the device. He secured it to the pillar using straps along the side of the bag and hit the red button on the centre panel. Although it wasn’t displayed, a timer was now counting down.

“Okay, let’s go,” said Chase and immediately dropped down as weapons fire pinned them to the wall, unable to make it to the airlock.

“Okay,” said Chase, “Winter, target two o’clock.”

Winter acknowledged and laid down suppression fire. There was a gasp of surprise as one of the engineers, standing in for a hostile, was the recipient of a light stun and fell to the deck. Then four more came round a corner and initiated close combat and winter was pinned up against a bulkhead when the bay’s lights now came up to full, and Dryden said despondently, “We’re out of time.”

Chase nodded. “Thank you, Mr Dryden. Let’s reset and go again.”

“If we are going to do this,” said Sutherland, “we need to get the device prepped. Ideally, a long countdown would allow us to get back to the ship under a wider amount of scenarios.”

“Yes,” Chase agreed. “It could also give them time to deactivate it. We don’t think any longer would be appropriate.”

“Then perhaps this isn’t the best tactic. We can reconsider long-range assaults.”

“We can do as Sutherland said,” Chase replied. “You ready?”

Sutherland had retrieved the backpack and reset it to its first setting. They went back to the corridor and found themselves back in the mock-up of the station. This time, there were two hostiles standing guard outside the airlock. Chase stunned the first one but was shot in the right arm—not enough to knock him out, but it hurt like hell. Dryden came through and successfully stunned the second as Sutherland started placing the device. Three more came round and stunned him. He fell to the deck. Dryden immediately stepped in, picking up where he had left off, and continued to secure the straps.

“Damn it,” said Chase.

“I’m not ready,” replied Dryden.

“Do it!” Chase ordered, and Dryden snapped the activation button.

Winter had Sutherland over her shoulder, using her free arm to hold her rifle, which she unloaded on the mock hostiles who now entered the rear of the compartment. Chase ducked down, turning around and also opening fire, stepping backwards closer to the airlock. Feeling with his weakened arm, he activated the control panel and allowed Winter to step in, followed by Sutherland. He was hit in the chest as he did so and fell to the ground. He could see the other three combatants move in to surround him as the timer alarm began again, indicating that had this been real, they would all have just been vaporised.

He punched the deck plate in frustration.

“Damn it,” he said.

Harding summoned Chase to her office. He had time to swing by his quarters and clean up and change his uniform. This was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

Harding was sat at her desk, filling out the ship’s log as Chase entered.

“The boarding party isn’t feasible,” she told him without looking up.

“Aye, Captain,” Chase replied, by the book.

Now she did look up. “You’re the executive officer. You’re supposed to correct me when I’m wrong, provide alternative viewpoints,” she said sternly.

Chase sat down in the chair opposite and put one leg over the other. “You’re the Captain. I do as I say,” he said, no-nonsense.

“You still think getting an explosive on board is the best course of action, I take it?”

“I think it’s the best course of action with the highest chance of success. A long-range tactical strike leaves too much open to chance.”

“So you don’t think a torpedo hit from the edge of the system will be enough?” Harding asked him, tapping a switch.

The room lights dimmed slightly as a holographic display floated above the desk. It showed the outpost with a representation of Trafalgar. A moment later, playback started. Trafalgar moved in and fired a burst of torpedoes. The station exploded, and the hologram fizzled out. The lights returned to their previous brightness.

“Of course it could work,” said Chase, “but it would have a higher chance of success if we were to jump into a much closer position.”

“That would leave the Trafalgar vulnerable,” replied Harding.

“Yes,” Chase agreed, “wars are not won by doing the easy thing. Wars are not won by losing this battleship,” she countered.

“It’s true. That’s why we’re not going to lose her,” said Chase. “We have a withdrawal jump programmed. If we enter the system, then move to the next closest star, we’ll be far enough away to be undetected and can withdraw using our conventional drive,” said Chase. “We have a remarkable ship here, but if we don’t use her to her full abilities, we might as well not have the tool.”

Harding stared at him. “I did ask for your honest opinion, I suppose,” she told him.

“You did. If the station has any form of shielding or fighter defence, they will make short work of torpedoes, especially any coming in long range,” said Harding, “which is why I’m keeping the boarding action as a contingency plan. But I need your squad to make it back,” she told him. “You can’t just plant the bomb and consider it a suicide mission.”

“That was never my intent,” said Chase.

“Good,” said Harding. “We’ll attempt it my way, and if it doesn’t work, you’ll board.”

Chase nodded. “Fine.”