Ulysses Last Stand

Gudersnipe

“Stand like a stone wall; never give up, never surrender. Show your enemies what it means to be Gung Ho.”

“Admiral, the Saratoga and Archibald have successfully completed Shouten-Type jump and arrived in the Darnasus System,” Commander Brook called from the Radar station. “Awaiting orders.”

Admiral Tonberry leaned back in his chair. His youthful features were creased by worry and fear. Fear for himself and his few remaining soldiers; he had left Star Base Ninety-Four with a full battle group of three capitol ships and escorts. The surprise attack by Kamian’s had caught them all off guard, and the battle would surely have been lost if Hunter had not arrived with the Saratoga and Gold Team.

When all was said and done they had just three ships counting the Saratoga. Just the Ulysses, the B303-type Battery Ship Archibald, and of course Hunter’s light destroyer. With what was left of Gold Team they had assembled and refueled three full fighter wings, and then schemed about what to do next.

“Admiral, detecting four Kamian capitol ships and escorts coming to bare arms. Awaiting orders!”

There was a huge fight going on over three hundred light years away. Over forty Kamian capitol ships had attacked a large fleet base, and things were bad. The three remaining ships and their fighters had a good chance of making a difference in the fight, if only they could get there. At full FTL the battle and most of the war would be over before they could reach it, and it was over eleven days to the nearest stable hyper launch point.

So the decision had been made to attempt a Shouten style jump. A normal dimensional jump used a huge gravitational well like a star to accelerate the ship beyond normal FTL speeds, through sub space, and back into normal space at the destination. A Shouten-Type jump creates an artificial jump point around the ship and teleports it into sub space. With minimal power the ship than moves back into normal space at its destination, thus instantly transporting itself from point A to point B.

The problem with the Shouten Jump is that it took a lot of power. So much so that between the three ships they simply had not been able to create a stable Shouten energy field large enough to move all of them. The best they could do was Shouten Jump the two smaller vessels and all the fighters without the carrier Ulysses.

“Admiral, orders?” Captain Blake asked a bit angrily. He was scared, and was trying to cover it up with anger. The Ulysses was in rough shape. There chances were bad.

“Our shields are holding steadily at ninety percent, and our armor at fifty,” Admiral Tonberry replied slowly. “And our armaments are down to less than ten percent. We have no fighter escorts and we are to low on energy reserves for a stern chase.”

“So what do we do in a situation like this?” Captain Blake asked. “Those ships are approaching fast.”

“I say we make them sorry they were ever born,” Admiral Tonberry growled. “Battle stations!”

* * *

The G.S.S. Ulysses hung in space and faced the approaching Kamian ships. They were damaged as well, but not nearly as bad as the Ulysses, and they had escorts.

The Ulysses was a medium sized carrier and on its own not much of a fighting ship. It was intended to go into battle carrying fighters, and its primary defenses were those fighters. But it still had some weapons, and Tonberry planned to use every last one of them right down to the musket in his office before he gave up.

“Direct all power to the engines and the forward shield,” Tonberry ordered. He hesitated a moment, and then spoke again. “Bring life support offline for now, we will have enough air for two hours. Direct the available power to the shields.”

It was a cold order, but the way he saw it if they were still around in two hours they could turn it back on, and if they weren’t than they wouldn’t need to. This battle wasn’t going to last that long either way.

Torpedoes and wads of disrupter energy spat from all four ships and expelled themselves against the Ulysses shields.

“Shall I return fire?” Lieutenant Rita, the Tactical officer, asked calmly.

“No, let them waste there strength on our shields,” Tonberry growled. “Status?”

“Shields down to sixty three percent blocking ninety five, armor down to forty eight,” Brook replied automatically.

“Weapons ready sir,” Rita said.

“Steady as she goes, let them be the first to blink,” Tonberry ordered.

The massive Kamian capitol ship, nearly twice the size of the Ulysses, veered off to avoid a collision as the ships came dangerously close to each other.

“Ready to fire?” Tonberry asked as he braced against his console.

“At this range the targeting locks won’t engage,” Rita gasped as she tried desperately to re-align the computer systems.

“They won’t need to,” Tonberry growled as they came up perfectly parallel with the Kamian ship.

“Hold steady—” Tonberry grunted as they inched further. “Give them a broad side lieutenant!”

Rita hit the fire keys and all sixteen torpedo bays on the port side of Ulysses spat fire. Kamian ships didn’t use solid-state shields, but instead had battle screens that dispersed energy weapons and caused torpedoes to explode before they struck the hull; fortunately for the Ulysses they happened to be inside those screens. Every weapon hit home and blew the giant Kamian capitol ship out of the sky.

“Port batteries depleted sir!” Lieutenant Rita shouted. “Repeat, we have no more torpedoes on the port side!”

“Then lets keep the port away from those bastards!” Admiral Tonberry shouted.

The ship shook as a torpedo struck her hull.

“What the hell happened?” Tonberry yelled.

“One slipped under our shields!” Rita replied instantly. “Minimal damage to the hull, but it was an armor piercing, it’s knocked out the Bladeth generator!”

Tonberry’s gaze shot back to the main screen and his face became a mass of fear as Ulysses thick layers of armor began to dissolve, leaving only the minimal hull armor and the energy shields.

The four Kamian ships had been in close formation before the Ulysses had moved in. The one that had torpedoed her was directly off the bow and gearing up for another shot.

“Fire one and two!” Tonberry shouted before the Kamians could launch again. Ulysses forward tubes spat fire and the Kamian ship surrendered itself to the heavens in a brilliant flash of light. It’s own combat screens must have been down, or two torpedoes could never have stopped it.

By now the carrier with the Kamian ships had launched its fighters and they were swarming Ulysses. Her counter measures fired in every direction but the small fast ships evaded them. Were it not for the Kamian Stingers low powered weapons she would have taken heavy damage.

“Starboard batteries fire at anything in range!”

The ship shook and rattled as impacts struck her hull. Well-placed shots from her beam cannons were picking off the escorts, but not nearly fast enough. Within minutes Ulysses had but four cannons left.

“Bring us about!” Tonberry ordered. “Straight for the lead ship!”

It was the second biggest capitol ship from the group, and they were nose to nose. Torpedoes from the big Kamian ship raced out as fast as her tubes could be loaded, and Kamian ships sported a lot of tubes.

“Give me hell box on three and four,” Tonberry ordered. One of the screens on his control panel changed to a large read button and a two dimensional grid of the space between the ships. About seven Kamian torpedoes raced towards them in tight groupings, but if he could detonate his own torpedoes at the right instant…

“Fire three and four!” Tonberry ordered.

“Three won’t fire!” a frantic voice from fire control shouted over the COM.

The breath caught in Admiral Tonberry’s throat as he watched one torpedo leave the bow of his ship. The world faded away as he watched it approach to the nearest Kamian cluster.

Tonberry closed his eyes.

He hit the button.