Siege of Titan (Star Crusades Uprising, Book 1)
Page 23
In the Combat Information Centre of the CCS Crusader it was decision time and the Admiral and her staff were getting nervous. As every minute passed the chances of a decisive and relatively bloodless conclusion slipped away. From inside the bustling room a dozen officers moved back and forth, updating the tactical display and co-ordinating actions between the numerous ships involved in the battle. Hundreds of officers both on the ground and aboard the myriad of vessels involved in the operation did their best to keep everything moving smoothly.
The ground assault on the smaller manmade stations had now been raging for over two hours and there were no signs that the rest of the transit stations would be falling anytime soon. Though much smaller than the massive Titan Naval Station, each was the home to hundreds or thousands of people and couldn’t be simply destroyed from orbit. The stations circled the planet of Prime at different altitudes with the most remote being hundreds of kilometres from the planet. They offered a variety of landing platforms, refineries, ports and shipyards for Prime. Though Titan Naval Station was massive, most of the inhabited areas were situated on the nearside of the moon that faced Prime. The bulk of the population was clustered around the civilian port and naval yard.
As expected, resistance had been heavy but the arrival of volunteer fighters from the planet had not been spotted. On several of the stations there were hundreds of additional fighters and though their skills were limited, they were easily able to hold off and keep the attacking marines busy. These last minute volunteers showed no regard for human life and they were happy to be used as human bombs or simply to draw the marines’ fire to expose their positions to the more experienced Zealot fighters. The latest reports put the attacking marines’ casualties now at over a hundred and as each minute went by more figures came in. The only black mark so far was that one shuttle with eighty-two civilians and twelve marines had been lost due to a suicide bomber making her way inside. The craft had almost reached the transport when her vest detonated. At least the shuttle hadn’t made it inside the transport or it could have easily caused many more casualties. The one piece of good news was that over eight hundred civilians had been rescued by the operations on the smaller Titan stations and were already being shipped by shuttlecraft to the waiting ships. It was bloody work but they appeared to be making progress.
Of even more of a serious concern to the Admiral, was that the cruiser wing had just moved into range of the Naval Station. This was a risky gambit as the battleship had lots of options available and the last thing she wanted was to have to slug it out with an almost impregnable vessel right next to the Station. If they could get her to move the assault would have been pulled off. She prayed the defenders would take the bait. On the tactical screen she watched the line of three cruisers moving in formation to the Station. The three cruisers were powerful ships and easily capable of taking on several similar sized vessels or even one of the stations on their own. A ship like the Victorious however was another matter. The only people capable of producing a vessel of that size and power were the shipyards and engineers of the Confederation Navy. She didn’t enjoy the irony of having to face a ship that had been built and designed to be almost impregnable for the very people that would now have to attack it.
“Captain Matthias, give me a sitrep,” she ordered.
“Affirmative, Admiral. We are twelve kilometres from the Station and so far have been ignored. There is massive electronic and radar jamming in the area and we are having a hard time scanning for power signatures and weapons. We can see their disposition though and it looked like we might be in luck,” he said.
General Rivers moved closer, examining the tactical display and then looked back at the Admiral.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“Understood, Captain, take your ships in, just don’t get too close that you can’t leave. We are twelve minutes behind you. Good luck,” she added.
“Thank you, Admiral, out,” he said and the intercom went silent.