A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) Read online

  VALHALLA BOOK I

  A DEEP SLEEP

  By Tyler Totten

  © Copyright 2016 by Tyler Totten

  All Right Reserved

  Cover Art by Zach Jackson

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. As such, all people are fictitious and any similarities with real people are mere coincidence.

  Thank you to all my friends and family who have helped and encouraged me throughout the years, not only with this work, but with those abortive projects that never really reached the point at which I was satisfied with them. Thanks to Zach, for turning my poor attempt at a cover into something of a much higher caliber by starting from scratch and doing it himself. Also, thank you to my good friend John especially, for reading my drafts and then for allowing me to pester him endlessly for his opinion and input.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  Chapter I

  Xi Beta Delta System

  USS Samuel B Roberts (CG-1045)

  Every soul felt the shudder run through the deck plates as the enemy sprint missile detonated deep inside Roberts’ hull. The decompression alarms followed an instant later, indicating the cascading damage and that additional compartments had been breached.

  “Commander!” Ensign Elliot Carp’s shrill voice jerked Athena’s head around. She had been reconfiguring the defensive batteries to improve protection around the even larger hole that had been formed in Roberts’ topside bow, but his voice was entirely too loud and shrill for Auxiliary Conn.

  “Mister Carp, do you have something to report?” Athena’s tone scolding the young Ensign. He continued in a more controlled tone.

  “Yes sir, CIC is gone, that last hit destroyed the citadel.” The citadels surrounded each critical control compartment; CIC, Aux Con, and Engineering Control, to protect their operators from blast and fragments. That had been insufficient, however, to protect Captain Vance Baker and the rest of the CIC staff from the augmented HE missile. Athena locked the loss away, she’d worry about it later, assuming that the Roberts survived the battle anyway.

  Athena also pushed down the fear and uncertainty as best she could. My people need me now. She thought, trying to force an air of calm and confidence onto her face. She wasn’t sure how well she was succeeding. She ignored her clenching stomach and tried to mentally focus on what was to be done next.

  All across the compartment, control screens were already changing, going from standby modes and display-only modes to full control as the computer recognized that CIC had been destroyed and could not switch control to Aux Con itself, leaving the computer to do it and give the Aux Con team control over their badly damaged ship.

  “Very well, Ensign.” Athena turned slightly to face the comms station. “Ensign Daniels, contact Broadsword and let them know Captain Baker is dead.” That would be enough to inform Captain McPhearson that, as senior captain, he should assume command of the group. “Inform him I am assuming command of Roberts and we are still combat capable.”

  “Yes sir” Ensign Daniels responded crisply and immediately set-up the connection to the British light cruiser Broadsword.

  “Maneuvering, base course and speed change. Right five, Up ten, increase thrust to emergency. Continue evasive maneuvers are your discretion.” Commander Grace “Athena” Harper ordered as Roberts was bracketed at extreme range by another brace of thermonuclear weapons. “Aux Con to Engineering.”

  “Ernst here, go ahead Aux.” Shit, Athena thought, Lieutenant Ernst was two steps down from the Cheng, that couldn’t be good. Hopefully they were just busy. Well, not too busy.

  “Ernst, Athena. CIC is gone. I have command.” Athena paused for a two count before continuing. “I need you to bump the output on all three fusion reactors to 125% and dump all that power into the drives.”

  “Commander, I regret to inform you that Fusion 3 is a wreck. The Cheng ordered the cores ejected just before he took a girder to the head. I think he’ll make it. I can only give you 125% on Fusion 1 and no more than 90% on Fusion 2.” To his credit, he ignored the implications of CIC being destroyed and focused on the matter at hand. He didn’t sound completely solid, but Athena didn’t think he was about to go to pieces on her either.

  “I need more than that Lieutenant, these big guns are killing us.” Athena pressed.

  “I understand that, sir, but Fusion 2 is already giving me fluxuations and will likely become uncontrollable at anything above 90%. Also, you’ll be interested to know, the core ejection doors for Fusion 2 are jammed, so I don’t dare increase the output.” Shit, a fusion core is dicey enough, if I couldn’t even eject the cores…

  “As much as you can, we can’t stay in firing range of these big battleships much longer if we want to make it out again. Aux Con out.” Athena cut the line. “Helm, return to original bearing on the targets, we’ve offset enough to ruin the current missile targeting solutions.”

  She wished she had FTL, but the drive had no power in its energy banks, most of it burned up on the jump, the rest in getting into position with short jumps. It didn’t take much energy to travel once in subspace, but breaching into it meant that a ship rarely had more than two or three jumps in a short period of time. Not to mention that the more jumps you performed in the same region of space, the more energy intensive it became to open a new window and the process was an exponential growth factor.

  “Commander, message from Broadsword, we are directed to execute Plan Delta in Five-Zero seconds.” Ensign Daniels reported.

  “Confirm receipt of the order.” Athena silently cursed, considering the finer points of Plan Delta, if you could even call it that. Plan Delta was one of five plans that Captains Baker and McPhearson had put together with their XOs before the start of the battle. While Alpha and Bravo focused on the entire strike group operating together, those plans also relied upon somewhere in the area of seventy-five percent nominal combat strength. Glancing at the icons representing Strike Group Six on the 3D display, Athena confirmed what she already knew, Strike Group Six was well below that.

  The group had started with one light cruiser, two cruisers, four destroyers, and a squadron of ten gunboats. The display showed only the light cruiser HMS Broadsword, cruiser USS Roberts, the destroyers USS Independence, USS Freedom, and HMCS Iroquois, plus gunboats call-sign Eagles Two, Five, Seven, and Nine. The quasi-intelligent main computer for Roberts, so cleverly named Sam, helpfully provided the estimated combat effectiveness on one of the 2D displays below the 3D one;

  Nominal Combat Effectiveness (NCE): 42%

  Samuel B Roberts NCE: 66%

  That thoroughly negated plans Alpha and Bravo. Plan Charlie called for a coordinated attack in what was, effectively, a truncated version of Bravo. This meant that there were fewer targets included in the attack run, but that coordinated Time-On-Target engagements by at least two-ship elements were intended. Instead, Captain McPhearson was going with Delta which called for individual targeting. Basically the plan was a free-for-all, with ships only sharing their targeting plans, not specifically coordinating their attacks. This plan had been created for the eventuality that the group took the fire heavier than expected and yet was too deep into the enemy field of fire to escape without crippling losses. Echo was the last plan
that had been put together; it called for a feint at the enemy force, not to actually engage. Strike Group Six was already far too deep into the envelope for that to be viable now. On top of that, they’d only get closer before they got farther away. Intrinsic velocity was a bitch like that. They would have to fight their way out.

  Athena briefly thought back to the pre-mission briefing. The PRC-Russian Task Force in this system was the equivalent of three battlegroups and the Allied brass had committed five of their own to the fight. The extra firepower was thought to be enough to counter the relatively light orbital defenses in place around Xi Beta Delta V, the gas giant that was mined for fuel. The mission was to capture the orbital fuel processing and storage facilities, as intact as possible, and neutralize as many enemy ships as they could and making the rest withdraw. Pursuit was limited to only that which was seen as having a highly favorable chance of a kill.

  If only it was that simple. Now, the task force would engage individually, moving against favorable targets of opportunity. Whether Roberts survived this battle or not, Athena was going to make sure that they made this one count. She wiggled around in her pressure suit, desperately wishing she could scratch that itch behind her ear but the suit’s helmet annoyingly continued to prevent such an action.

  “Sensors, what’s the status of Shanghai?” The big PRC battleship was anchoring the extreme left-flank of the battle line, sitting just above the elliptic. She was a tempting target and Athena wanted her badly. The problem was, Roberts had already volleyed all of her missiles at the PRC line, going for a saturation effect. While they had dealt damage, it hadn’t been enough to silence Shanghai. Now they had only their railguns to engage the battleship. That was a duel they would lose, badly.

  “She’s still taking some fire from our battlewagons but I don’t think they’re having a huge effect, just some minor damage. The missile volleys didn’t get many close hits. A couple of her escorts have taken a pretty good pounding, however, so we should face a less integrated point defense once we engage. Our heavies are just shooting at too many targets to support all the strike groups.” The battleships and their escorts, not to mention the fleet carriers, were coming in-system at less than 0.05C, holding back to engage at long range and avoid crippling losses. The Strike Groups, meanwhile, were driving in-system at 0.15C, trying to close and engage before the fighter-bombers off the fleet carriers came in to take down whatever was damaged. The battlewagons would then close and engage the remaining units. After that, the transports would come in and drop the Marines to seize the stations and other colonized assets.

  “Maneuvering, course change. I want us headed right down Shanghai’s throat. Speed and maneuvers at your discretion.” Maneuvering acknowledged the order.

  “Comms, get me Eagles…Two and Five.” Athena glanced back at the tactical display, picking out the gunboats that hadn’t indicated they had a target picked out yet. Athena wasn’t surprised, they usually tried to tag along with the heavier ships and let them draw fire. Gunboat skippers were crazy, not stupid.

  “On you line now Commander.”

  “Eagle Two, Eagle Five, this is Roberts actual. You two devils pick one yet?” Athena had risen up to her current rank in the gunboats, or devils as they were known to their enemies. While they tended to have high attrition rates in combat, the gunboats could inflict devastating losses on enemy ships with their high level of maneuverability and large firepower for their size. Of course, this all came at the cost of basically no armor protection, sometimes garnering the nickname suicide boats, but the crews took the name in stride, even if they didn’t generally refer to themselves by the same. Athena was sure it was used often enough by the rest of the fleet though, even more sure now that she had moved out of the devils and onto larger combatants.

  “That’s a negative, Actual. We were thinking about just taking them all on, what with you big lumbering hulks just lounging around like it’s a beach party.” Eagle Five’s mocking tone came over the comm, though she had clearly taken some damage to her comm array because the transmission was a little broken.

  “Well, I have a proposition for you, how’d you like to get a battleship?” Athena outlined her plan. A loud whistle from Eagle Two came over the comm.

  “Damn, once a devil, always a devil I see, Actual.” Eagle Five seemed to have let a little admiration slip into his voice.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Athena turned to her Tactical Officer and motioned for his attention. “I’ll have tactical send you the plan and navigation the maneuvers in one-zero seconds for your execution. How copy?”

  “Copy and Wilco.” Eagle Five responded.

  “We’ll be ready and waiting.” Eagle Two added.

  “Very well, Roberts Actual out.” Athena cut the line and addressed the ship as a whole over 1MC.

  “All Hands, this is the XO. We’re going right at the enemy and making them pay for what they’ve done to our ship. We’re going to make sure that the devils score solid hits. I need everyone totally focused. I know I can count on each and every one of you to get the job done. Every one of us is a professional, let’s show the enemy just how tough the Roberts is. We all know the history, the story of the first ship to bear this name. What that ship and her crew did was a bravery and professionalism of the highest caliber. Well we need to draw on that because I know none of you want to let down the ship or the traditions of the name. Stand firm and Roberts will bring us all out of this.” Athena’s voice had risen slightly in tone, but she managed to keep it from getting indecently loud.

  Athena hadn’t expected to end up in command of Roberts. Honestly, thus far in the war the Aux Con on combatants had, whether through a fluke or otherwise, suffered higher casualty rates than CIC, when looking at ships that survived combat. Intellectually of course, she knew she could be forced to take command. Indeed, she was slated to be bumped to captain and take command of the destroyer USS Sherman when she arrived at the front next week. Now she had been thrust into command and lost her mentor at the same time. Captain Baker had showed her the ropes, refined her command style, and pushed her to do better than she thought possible. She had always been driven, but he had helped her go from a reckless but capable tactician and become an officer. He would be deeply missed. She ruthlessly crushed the sadness once again, that would have to wait for tomorrow.

  They were close now, with all three ships in formation. Athena was thankful for small favors that both devils had survived and were still fully armed. Each of the Eagle-type gunboats carried six Mk-92B Anti-Ship Missile-Sprint (Mk-92B ASM-S.) This version of the venerable Mark Ninety-Two missile had extremely short legs, but they were highly maneuverable, and carried a devastating 74MT thermonuclear warhead. A direct hit would destroy anything man had built in space, but even a near-miss could be devastating. The shielding could stop a large amount of radiation, but even that had its limits.

  Roberts was no longer receiving volley fire. Instead, as it became clear she was boring directly in on Shanghai, the big battleship and her escorts were subjecting Roberts to continuous fire. The ship was under constant bombardment, with her gravetic repulsion field straining and sometimes failing. When they did, the PRC railgun round impacted Robert’s hull with only the secondary repulsors to slow it down. This had a devastating effect, ripping through multiple compartments and fragmenting into hypersonic pieces within the ship. Athena knew she was losing crewmen, but most of the forward sections had already been evacuated from the damage taken on the way in and the artificial gravity plating reconfigured by the DC parties to aid the task of the repulsors, however poor a substitute that was. The forward portion of Roberts now absorbed damage to protect the rest of the ship and the devils following in single file behind her.

  Well, Athena thought mischievously, following was one way to put it. She was sure that Eagle Two would have had to shut off her collision alarms at the distance she was following. That and her forward hull was probably heating up from Roberts’ drives. If Roberts slack
ed off in her thrust by even a small percentage, the gunboat would have no time to react before it rammed the larger ship. That’d be catastrophic to them both.

  “Sir, enemy targeting is shifting. They are moving their fire to concentrate on our aft section.” Ensign William Underwood at sensors reported the change, but there was no surprise in his voice. Roberts ECM suite, normally used to spoof enemy sensors into seeing two or three ghost Roberts, Countermeasures had reconfigured them to create a dozen ghost Eagles. That, combined with the interference from Roberts’ drives, was making it a near impossibility for the enemy to target the gunboats with them hiding behind the cruiser’s bulk.

  “Approaching Point Green, Sir.” Tactical reported.

  “Alright.” Athena turned to Ensign Daniels. “Eagles on my comm please, private line.”

  “Connecting now, Sir… you’re on.”

  “Eagles, Roberts Actual, are you still mission capable?”

  “Affirmative”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Very well gentlemen, get them for us.” Athena spoke softly but there was a steel in her voice.

  “We’ll get them.” Eagle Two’s response was equally soft, but carried a tone of sadness. Roberts was still taking a pounding, it was only a matter of time before she lost her drives, and then there’d be no way to reduce her large intrinsic velocity. The ship, and her crew, would be lost to deep space. Athena cut the line.

  “Point Green in ten…five…execute!” Tactical’s voice rose in volume, but under more control than Athena might have expected. Roberts’ pitched up dramatically, exposing even more of her battered hull to railgun and missile fire. The three still functioning drive units flared with the increased load, receiving power from Fusion One and Two which were both running well beyond the engineering staff’s most liberal limits. The Engineering crewman in Aux Con had already silenced the containment alarms for Fusion Two. Athena didn’t need much longer.