Dominion Attack Fleet (Bogey One)
Approaching Cornwall
Admiral Mello’s Attack Fleet entered Cornwall behind a torrent of missiles. Dropping any pretense of being a simple freighter convoy, he went to active sensors, identified several fixed Victorian defenses amidst the clutter of warehouses, satellites, manufacturing stations and miscellaneous junk and unleashed a barrage of a thousand missiles to overwhelm the Victorian defenders.
No one shot back.
No lasers lanced out to score his ships. No missiles homed in on them. No Vickie warships emerged from hiding.
It was the worst possible response.
Mello cursed loudly and eloquently. “Sensors! Get a fix on the space stations, Atlas and Prometheus. I want to know where they are and how many Vickie warships are defending them. Communications, find Admiral Kaeser. I need to know where he is and his ETA for Cornwall.”
His crew leapt to obey. Mello drummed his fingers impatiently while the computer sifted through the sensor reports and analyzed data.
A moment later — “Cannot raise Admiral Kaeser, sir.” Followed by a startled exclamation, “Sir, I can’t find Atlas Station!”
Mello gritted his teeth, struggling to curb his temper. “What do you have, Sensors?”
“Captain, we are not picking up any warships, only civilian freighters, and they are all departing the system at high speed.”
“And Atlas? On the other side of the planet, perhaps?”
“No, sir. We’ve got probes out. I see Prometheus, and another one that is not emitting any signals at all, sensors show it’s still under construction.” The Sensors Officer looked at him, ashen faced. “Atlas isn’t there, sir.”
Mello nodded. The Vickies had balls, damn them. They had seen him coming and had taken the brass ring and run. How the hell did they move the biggest space station in the League of Human Worlds?
“Send out the scouts. Find it.” He beckoned Commander Pattin. “Jodi, they’ll probably create a false trail, try to decoy us away from the real Atlas. But they can’t have much of a head start, so-”
“Admiral!” It was the Communications Officer, his face bright with excitement. “I picked up some radio chatter from a freighter. They said two Victorian battleships had been destroyed in a surprise attack.”
Mello felt a surge of satisfaction. It had worked after all. Now the Vickies had only one battleship left. “Jodi, search for the battleship; it won’t be far from Atlas.”
Two hours passed before one of the scouts called in. “Many ships moving slowly south toward the Sultenic wormhole. They seem to be in a circle around a large object, but I can’t get a good fix on it.”
“Shall I order the Fleet to turn south?” Pattin asked.
Mello held up a hand. “Wait,” he ordered.
Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. The radio crackled. “Scout Leader, Third Wing reporting. I have a large mass of ships moving north in general direction of Refuge wormhole. I repeat, north toward Refuge. Many ships!”
Admiral Mello leaned forward. “Do you have any sign of a Victorian battleship?”
A moment of static. Then, “My sensors can’t sort it out. I’m showing lots of tug boats, destroyers, cruisers — I can’t pick out a battleship, but it could easily be lost in this mess.”
The Sensor’s Officer chimed in again, adding to the confusion. “I’ve got strong thermal blooms off of Space Station Prometheus. Looks like she’s on fire.”
Mello shook his head. The Vickies were somehow towing Atlas Station with them, either north or south, he wasn’t sure yet, and had apparently set fire to Prometheus Station. Turning to his aide, he snapped out orders.
“First, tell the scouts to get a visual sighting on the objects being towed. One of them is the Atlas space station and we need to know which one it is. Then send ten ships to secure Prometheus. Send one of the troop carriers with them. Put out those fires and hold the station. Then alert the Attack Force, as soon as we get a fix on Atlas, we will make a high speed run to intercept it.”
To the south of Bogey One, Captain Grey’s Coldstream Guards coasted in stealth mode five hundred miles on either side of the small grain warehouse being towed by the New Zealand. The other “ships” clustered around the warehouse were drones masquerading as war ships, each emitting engine pulses and other emissions designed to fool enemy sensors into thinking they were the real thing.
“Anything on the sentry drones?” Captain Grey asked, her voice strained. Grey couldn’t use active sensors from any of her Battle Group for fear of giving away their position, so she had left several sentry drones loitering in orbit around Cornwall or within visual range of Prometheus.
“Bogey One seems to be just sitting there, Ma’am,” reported the Sensors Officer. “Several small vessels have left at high speed — scouts, most likely — but they’ve gone outside the range of the recon drones. One was headed in our direction, so we’re looking for him on passive.”
Grey shook her head and shot a glance at Rudd and Tuttle, both huddled by the Tactical Combat sensor display. “I had hoped they’d split their forces, but they’re hanging back until they’ve figured out where the real Atlas is.”
Rudd laughed. “Those bastards,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t you hate it when the enemy acts as prudently as you do?”
Grey snorted, but said nothing. Emily frowned. “Will they spot us?”
“I should think so,” Grey answered. She shrugged. “It was a long shot, I just was hoping we might catch them in a mistake.”
“Small vessel on our passive sensors. Should be the scout, Captain.” The Sensors Officer leaned into his display, peering intently. “Energy blossom, looks like he’s launched a bird.”
“Well, no one said this would be easy. Still, let’s play it out. Shoot chaff and send in the frigates to kill the scout. Change the display on one of the drones to make it look like Lionheart. Let’s see if we can keep ‘em guessing for a few minutes longer.”
Emily kept looking at the display. The Dominion scout was already close enough to pick up electronic and power plant signatures from the New Zealand
and the accompanying drones, but it was still pressing forward. She frowned. The pilot must be aware of the risk, so if he was coming closer, there was something he needed more than electronic signatures.
“It’s coming in for a visual confirmation, Captain,” she said.
Grey nodded. “I would, if I were them.”
On the screen they watched as three laser beams lanced out from two of the Victorian ships hiding on the flank. For a moment nothing happened, then the Dominion scout pitched upwards into a skidding turn and accelerated madly away, leaving a growing cloud of chaff in its wake.
“Damn!” Captain Grey muttered. “Find the recon drone and kill it!”
The New Zealand opened up with its anti-missile batteries, but the display showed the drone weaving and jinking violently, always moving closer.
“Telemetry!” the Sensors Officer shouted. “We have telemetry from the Dominion drone. It’s broadcasting a message back to Bogey One.”
They had waited too long; the drone had just sent pictures back to the Dominion fleet. Now they knew Atlas was being towed north to Refuge, not south. Grey looked glum. “Okay, time for Plan B.”