On the Space Station Atlas,
En route to Refuge
“I’ve got thirty five war ships left,” Admiral Douthat reported. “And almost all of them have damage of some sort or another. The Brisbane is shot to pieces; in normal times she would be sent to the dock for scrap, but she can still fly and still has a couple of operating lasers and missile tubes, so she stays in the game. And we’ve still got the arks, Javelin, Battle Ax, and Kite Runner, with forty five heavy gunboats. I’m saving them for when I absolutely need them,” she said grimly. “The intensity of the fire means that the gunboats won’t last long once they’re committed. We’ll be lucky to get one good attack run out of them.”
“And the enemy?” asked Queen Anne. It was the end of the third day since they had fled from Cornwall. They sat in the Queen’s quarters in one of the hotels that had been taken over by the Queen and the Fleet. Admiral Douthat and Captain Eder were bleary with fatigue, their uniforms rumpled and dirty. Hiram Brill sat in one corner with his tablet, trying to both keep up with the flow of data and information from their patrol ships and reconnaissance drones and remain inconspicuous at the same time. Peter Murphy was there, dressed in a grease-stained jumpsuit that looked out of place among the Fleet uniforms. And sitting next to the Queen was Sir Henry, looking dour and preoccupied. Sir Henry, normally formal and dapper, had not shaved that morning, which Hiram found deeply unsettling.
Admiral Douthat gestured wearily for Hiram to answer. Douthat was running on nerves and coffee; her exhaustion hung on her like a ratty old coat.
“Of the ten Hedgehog anti-missile platforms that we know of, Admiral Douthat’s counter-attack killed seven and may have damaged some of the remaining three,” Hiram explained. “We also destroyed or badly damaged five other Dominion ships, three destroyers, a frigate and one of their cruisers. We don’t have an exact count, but we think that the particular task force that has been chasing us — Bogey One — may be down to as few as fifty war ships out of their original eighty five. Of course, they still outnumber us, and there is still the Bogey Two force that appears to be stopped near Cornwall. We think Bogey Two has some sixty five ships. Call it one hundred and twenty ships to our thirty five.”
Sir Henry flinched, but the Queen seemed unperturbed. “But there’s more, isn’t there? You’re looking very tired, Admiral, but not panicked.”
Douthat smiled wryly, or tried to. It came out more like a ghastly baring of teeth. “They have more ships, but they have to come to us. We have hundreds of missile pods, an enormous number of laser mines and many antimatter mines. We have laid out the minefield in a sphere around us and we are towing it with us as we move toward Refuge. Getting to us won’t be easy, Your Majesty. And now that they’ve lost most of their Hedgehogs, they’re more vulnerable to our missile fire, much more vulnerable.”
“I assume,” Anne said dryly, “that it will not be that easy.”
Douthat snorted. “That is an understatement, Your Majesty. They outnumber us, they are more maneuverable than we are, and they know where we are going. Taking out those Hedgehogs gives us a chance, but this is still going to be very ugly.”
“And the Coldstream Guard?”
Admiral Douthat sighed. “We’ve had no contact in ten hours. We’re pretty sure they killed Bogey One’s supply train, and that would explain in part why Bogey One has broken off action. There were two more Code Omega drones, from the Southampton and the Kilimanjaro, but nothing since then. Either the rest of the Coldstream Guards have been driven deeper into space, or they are swinging wide around the Dominion forces to return to the Atlas and have gone stealthy to try to avoid contact.” She shrugged. She did not have to state the third alternative, that the rest of the Coldstream Guard had been destroyed to the last ship.
“And Second Fleet?”
Douthat shook her head. “Nothing, nothing at all. Based on the report from the Bawdy Bertha, it looks like the entire Second Fleet, and all of the Third Fleet with it, has been lost. Until we reach Refuge, Your Majesty, we are on our own.”
“And when shall we arrive, Admiral?”
Douthat glanced at Peter Murphy and nodded. Murphy cleared his throat nervously. Like the others, he was going with too little sleep, too little food and too much anxiety. But with the possible exception of Sir Henry, Murphy was the oldest person in the room, and it showed. His skin was grey, his cheeks sunken and his eyes red. Hiram noticed a nervous tick by Murphy’s left eye that had not been there before.
“We should hit the worm hole in forty seven hours and — ” he checked his tablet — “ten minutes. We are making better speed than we had originally estimated. We’ve had about one hundred tug boat failures, with over-stressed tractor beam generators, but we’ve been able to swap them out from stores on Atlas. So we’re making good speed.”
“That’s wonderful, Captain!” the Queen said, but then faltered as she took in the somber faces around her. She looked from Murphy to Admiral Douthat, then back to Murphy. “Perhaps it would be best if you just tell me what the problem is, Mr. Murphy?”
“Well, Majesty,” Murphy began, then restarted. “The thing of it is, Majesty, we’re pulling the Atlas in a straight line. She’s big, really big, and it’s very hard for us to alter course…if we have to, I mean.” His voice trailed off.
“Will someone please tell me what is going on?” Queen Anne snapped.
Hiram sighed and put his tablet down. “The worm hole into Refuge moves, Majesty. It changes location often, perhaps several times a month. Sometimes as much as a thousand miles per day, other days not at all. The orientation of the entrance is always the same, thank God, but from the perspective of our plane of advance, the worm hole can move left or right by a considerable distance with very little warning.”
Anne digested this for a moment. “And if moves?”
Murphy jumped back in. “We can make course corrections up to twenty four hours out, but once we’re inside of twenty four hours, if it moves very much left or right, we won’t be able to change course fast enough to hit it.”
“We could save the ships in this eventuality, but the Atlas would overshoot the worm hole,” Admiral Douthat said.
“And if Atlas overshoots the worm hole?” the Queen asked.
Murphy shrugged. “There’s no way to turn her around if we overshoot,” he said matter-of-factly. “She’s too big to turn around in less than a month.” He tried a tired grin. “We’re on course right now, Majesty. If the worm hole doesn’t jig on us, we’ll hit it dead center. But if it moves, well…”
Anne turned back to Admiral Douthat and Captain Eder. “And the Dominion? Can we withstand another attack with so few ships?”
The fatigue in the admiral’s face seemed to burn away for a moment and she grinned wolfishly. “They may have more ships, Majesty, but we may have more actual ‘throw weight.’ The Atlas has several hundred missile pods and mines, and it’s building more even as we speak. We’re slaving the missile pods to all of our capital ships and even to the tug boats. No matter which way the Dominion comes at us, we can make it very hot for them.”
“That’s the importance of killing the Dominion Hedgehogs, Majesty,” Sir Henry spoke for the first time. “Without the Hedgehogs, our missile penetration will be significantly more successful.”
This is hope of Victoria, Queen Anne thought: Thirty five ships, a space station and a handful of very determined people who won’t give in to despair.
“Thank you, Admiral, and you as well, Captain Eder. And you, Captain Murphy. If we must face desperate times, I am grateful that we face it together.” When Douthat, Eder and Murphy had gone, the Queen leaned back into her chair with a sigh. “And you, Mr. Brill? You seemed rather quiet through this. Do you disagree with this course of action?”
Hiram reluctantly put down his tablet. “I was the one who originally suggested it, Majesty. We don’t have any choice.”
Queen Anne considered it for a moment. “And the Dominion? What will they do now?”
Hiram shrugged. “We’re two days from reaching Refuge. They cannot let Atlas — and you, Majesty — escape. The Dominion will join Bogey One and Two into one large attack force and throw everything they have against us.”
“And if we reach Refuge, will be safe then?”
“There is a risk that the Dominion will follow us into Refuge, but if it does, then it will have to deal with the Refuge navy as well. Refuge honors its debts.”
Hiram’s tablet beeped then. He read it quickly, frowning. “Sensors have picked up Victorian ships approaching us from the left flank.” He took a breath. “Looks like it’s the Coldstream Guard, returning from the attack on the supply ships.” He looked away. “There’s only two of them.”