At the same time, I was getting used to firing eighty torpedoes at a time, and the staggered nature of recharging different sized forward firing guns. There was also being aware of what the point defense and the remainder of the destroyer turrets were doing, and mosquito missiles firing at enemy missiles aimed at everyone. The torpedoes alone were a big adjustment. The temptation was to simply fire off the lot, and let them shred any target more or less near the gun lock reticle, and hit anything else nearby, but the reality was a lot of them were being wasted.
But it did bring up a strategy, and we spent the next half hour in a wall formation with me in the middle, trying out simply running the gauntlet down the middle of a fighter cloud just using guns and torpedoes firing as fast as they could. It worked in the simulator, but I figured we’d only get to use that once. The counter to it was obvious.
After that I let Gitte control the fighting, and followed her orders like everyone else, but keeping an eye on Davis. I rapidly realized I didn’t need to. She’d figured everything out really quickly.
The simulators opened a bit after eleven, and orders came through from Jane. We had ten minutes to check our quarters for anything we wanted on the ship, and then I was to report back to Long Water, while the rest of the squadron were to report to the shipyard for Excalibur mark five assignment.
Looking around my quarters was a bit depressing. The civvies I’d worn on my first day were hanging in the wardrobe, but otherwise I had nothing which said this place was home. The few items I had from my parent’s home were on the ship. I’d have to do something about this one day. Maybe when I received some actual leave time. In the meantime, I contemplated how to get back on board, and an idea popped in. In my little living room, I chose a blank spot on the wall, marked in a doorway on it, and within the marked area, linked a rift to a similar bit of wall in my living room on the ship. A step, and I was back on board, and heading for the bridge.
Long looked up in surprise as I entered, and held the look until after I’d sat in my chair.
“Oh,” she said, obviously having missed how I came on board, but realizing it quickly, to which I just nodded.
“Did we get fighter ordnance changed for the new mark five magazines?
“We did.”
“Get permission to undock, and back us out.”
“Confirmed.”
I shot her a glance. But she was serious in a smiling sort of way. Jane used it. So far, Long hadn’t.
“Is that a real military word?”
“It’s how Jane confirms orders. You should know that.”
“I do. You haven’t been using it though.”
“I’ve been talking things over with the other squadron AIs, and we’ve decided to adopt it as standard for ship operations at least. Is that okay?”
“Whatever you’re happy with.”
“We have permission to undock. Docking clamps releasing now.” There was a slight vibration through the hull. “Backing out.”
There was no feeling of movement at all, but the station slid into the middle distance on the view ahead.
“Where are we going?”
“Swing us over near the shipyard where we can stop safely.”
“Confirmed.”
She spoiled it by giggling, forcing me to smile. We had to wait another fifteen minutes for Gitte to lead the squadron out into space. The fives looked bulkier, and most definitely meaner.
“Orders?” asked Gitte.
“Jump on board, and let’s make sure the new fighters fit. We’ll jump to an asteroid field, where you can jump out and test everything.”
“Aye. Everyone stand by for home jump.”
They acknowledged, and a few seconds later, their dots vanished, and the HUD showed full hangars. I nodded to Long, and we jumped out to where I’d tested Long Water, the squadron emerging into the wall formation, and then peeled away so each pilot could test on their own.
It didn’t take long to fire everything, hit the speed stops, strafe in all directions, stop dead in space and then sprint again, and finally form back up in an arrow formation, before jumping back on board. No-one had any problems to report. The bays started replacing missiles and torpedoes expended as soon as the pilots had left.
I met them in the mess for lunch, and they sounded enthusiastic for the new ships. After, I had Gitte put a rift between our ship living room, and the station one, which would speed up getting on and off the ship in future, with the side benefit of not needing the cargo bay, and not needing to dock again.
It wasn’t until much later it occurred to me I’d negated the need for accommodation on the ship.
Twelve
The afternoon started with a run down the human spine.
Gitte continued the jump out into a wall, then jump into a formation routine, and by the time we were down the far end, she was experimenting with different formations. This was causing a lot of hilarity because we were only spending two minutes in each system, and it took a minute to issue the orders. I hated to think what anyone watching was left thinking after we vanished.
The way back was through some of the outlying systems, and a number of the new colonies. So it was several hours before we arrived back in Haven. At which point, Jane finally put in an appearance.
“All fighters back on board,” she ordered. “Now. We have a mission.”
She took her seat at the helm, and waited while everyone poured onto the bridge through the two rifts from the hangar decks, and took their seats. Long Water had started jumping the moment the ships were on board, so I already knew we were heading a fair distance away.
“The Ralnor just sent out a request for fighter support. They’ve stopped a normal sixty ship Trixone force before one of their planets, have a hundred of theirs slugging it out with them, but the fighters are killing them. We’re the only fighter force able to get there in time to make a serious difference.”
“We’re ready,” said Gitte.
“Yes you are. Your combat suits are being moved into your airlocks, just in case you need them. So are water and field rations. Be aware we’ll be leaving the area of our network coverage, so if you get into trouble, the only way of calling for help is through Ralnor coms, and they are much slower.”
“Not planning on needing help,” said Woof.
“Got that right,” said Metunga, and everyone else nodded, even Davis.
“You’ve got ten minutes to use a fresher or get whatever you need. We’ll drop in above the conflict and check on the best place to insert ourselves, and deploy fighters, but it’ll only take a few seconds before we jump into battle.”
“Let’s hustle,” said Gitte, and ran for the stairs down.
I used the small fresher off my ready room, and was back in two, and buckling up. One by one, the fighters lit up on the HUD hangar display with being ready. And then we waited while Long Water continued to jump. Finally the navmap went dark as we passed beyond the last comnavsat in our network, and we continued jumping now using the Ralnor part of our map.
We finally emerged well above the plane of the destination system. The HUD and navmap updated, and a tactical display popped up showing things as if we were looking down on them. Jane stared at it for a second, while our fighters jumped into our wall formation, with me in the center. But instead of jumping, she turned to me.
“That’s new,” she said.
The two fleets of capital ships were in their own wall formations, and were slugging it out at destroyer guns range. Both fleets were stationary, with only juking around type movements to try and avoid incoming fire. But it looked like only half the Ralnor ships were firing at the Trixone capital ships, with the others aimed at the fighters, which were sitting at the same range only in a different place, and firing thousand gun broadsides at single Ralnor ships. The wreckage on show seemed to indicate a third of the Ralnor fleet were gone already.
But what seemed incomprehensible was the ships firing towards the Trixone fighters seemed to be trying
to use gun pulses to shoot down gun pulses coming at them, because as we watched, the fighters all fired at once, and half way to their target, a considerable amount of fire met the converging pulses, and seemed to cancel out any pulses intercepted. My understanding was you could do this with solid projectiles if you put enough counter fire out, but with pulses?
“Your ship, your fight,” muttered Jane.
“Gitte and Haynes be prepared to raise a shield around all of us. They’re not in their normal cloud, but spread out along a curve allowing them to converge their fire. We’re going to start on one end of the curve, and ram our way around it. I’ll hold a shield around us as long as I can, and I’ll sing out if I’m losing it. We’re going through in bulldozer mode. No strafing. Just follow the curve around until we come out the other side. Then we’ll go back for what we miss. Let your co-pilots steer, and concentrate on maximizing your fire on targets as they present.”
Implicit was anything we missed was going to hit my shield. I reached out for the local sun, and felt energy flow my way.
“Combat speed?” asked Long.
“Combat speed, now.” I waited the few seconds for us to reach the speed. “Put us in torpedo range of one end of their curve, dead center, and then swing us through them.”
“Jumping in five,” she said.
My right hand gripped the joystick. My left was lightly on the speed slider, but not expected to be used until we came out the other side. Abruptly we were heading towards a wall of fighters, and I pulled my trigger and kept my finger on it. A finger tapped the torpedo button, and eighty of them shot forward. But a lot of both my pulses and torpedoes missed.
A twist of the joystick, and the corvette rotated ninety degrees, bringing a wall around into something resembling a brick road, with me starting to chew up the bricks.
“Co-pilots use IR’s on anything we miss,” I said to Long.
“Confirmed.”
And then my shield slammed into the debris of the first destroyed fighters, and we continued in, leaving just the outsides of the road undisturbed. There was pressure on my magic, but I found the shield holding nicely, until several hundred fired their cruiser guns at us instead of the Ralnor. The fire was ragged against my shield, but this time I felt the blow.
Almost immediately though, it was like a fist punched through that group of fighters, many of them vanishing into small debris, and it was followed by another one at a group looking like they were about to fire. Both came from Haynes, and were obviously some form of force punch, with a lot of force behind them.
By the time we were half way through, all of the remaining Trixone were moving, and coming at us. They lost their ability to mass fire, and it became a constant barrage of smaller hits. And this was worse than the solid punch, taking more and more concentration from me to keep the shield up.
“Long, take over torpedo fire, please.”
“Confirmed.”
“Incoming friendly fire!” yelled Serena.
“Jump!” I bellowed.
The fighter cloud in front of us vanished, and we were back out where we’d started from, and our firing went ragged as people took fingers off triggers and buttons. I found myself coughing for a few moments, and the shield vanished as I lost concentration.
“I’ve got the shield,” said Gitte. “We’re jumping to the rear of the fighters the moment it’s safe again. Jane, can you tell the Ralnor to cease firing at the fighters, please.”
“Confirmed,” said Jane.
I felt Gitte’s shield surround us, and a moment later we jumped. My finger jerked on the trigger again, but this time, the plant fighters swarmed away from the middle heading, and went in every direction possible to escape our fire. Within ten seconds, we stopped firing.
“Arrow formation,” said Gitte. “Go.”
The Excaliburs jumped, with six now on each side of me.
“Form into a three by two wall,” went on Gitte. “Haynes, you shield your group, I’ve got mine. Bud, you’re on your own. Woof, you lead Hayne’s group. Jill’s got lead in mine. Go.”
A screen popped up in front of me, with a very zoomed in navmap on it, showing groups of fighters.
“Press where you want us to jump to,” said Long.
I pressed next to the biggest group still in some sort of formation, we jumped behind them, and I started firing again. We took some solid hits before I put my shield back up again, this time just around the corvette. I kept tapping the screen with a finger from my left hand, leaving the speed slider alone and not worrying about strafing. Each time we jumped, I’d fire into what was ahead for a few seconds, and then jump somewhere else.
Once the larger groups were done, I stopped jumping and dropped my magic shield, put my hand back on the speed slider, and started behaving more like a conventional fighter, selecting targets as they presented, and firing what was needed to kill them. I became aware everyone else was doing the same when an Excalibur appeared in front of me, and suddenly jumped to get out of my way.
After what seemed hours, but really was no more than fifteen minutes, all the plant fighters were gone, and I jumped Long Water to where we’d started from, after which everyone else jumped into our beginning wall formation one by one.
A butler dropped an opened bottle of water in the holder on my chair, and I grabbed it and drank deeply. With the bottle half empty, I placed it back in the holder, and started looking at shield values. Most of us were around fifty percent, but Davis was best at seventy two.
“The Ralnor just sent us a thanks message,” said Jane. “We took the pressure off their ships, so they could concentrate on the Trixone fleet.”
“Do they want us to join in?” asked Gitte.
“They left it up to us.”
Gitte rattled off an attack plan as if she’d given it a lot of thought, and I found myself locking glances with Jane and smiling.
“Approved,” I said.
We waited for shields to recover. This time magic shields wouldn’t work, because we only had three mages and a dragon, and every ship was going in separately. We’d rely on normal ones.
“Fingers on triggers,” warned Gitte. “Jump.”
Long Water appeared behind a Trixone battleship just long enough for me to give it the whole broadside of guns and torpedoes, and then we skipped away for the cruiser gun recharge period. The moment they were ready, we did the same with another battleship.
The Excaliburs were targeting the destroyers, each one getting forty five torpedoes over less than three seconds, jumping to another target to fire the other forty five in the magazine, before jumping away to reload magazines, and do it again.
The battleships were mine, and we worked our way through them, while the Ralnor concentrated all their fire on the cruisers. In the end, the last cruiser came apart after the last battleship, but before the last destroyer.
We formed up again where we’d started from, and came to a stop.
“You people are insane!” exclaimed Davis, in her uniquely American accent.
“But?” asked Gitte.
“I wouldn’t have missed that for anything.”
Thirteen
Dinner that night was a boisterous affair.
And it was in the main mess, not on ship. By the time we arrived back near Haven station, orders had come through to eat on station. I docked Long Water to the station, we walked through the rift to our on station living room, and then along to a travel car to take us to the mess.
It was packed, with even more people than I’d ever seen there before. Another group of midshipmen and cadets were present, as well as even more pilot recruits. It was pretty obvious something was about to be announced. I should have guessed, but in spite of a long hot shower, I was still feeling pretty sluggish. The moment I’d let go of the sun connection, I’d felt the fatigue of what I’d been doing. I still did.
We were not the only ones in high spirits, so presumably others had seen a good day as well. Davis received some odd glances
from some I recognized as her fellow demotees, but she ignored them. I wasn’t too sure what I was eating, but I ate it anyway. It kept me awake if nothing else.
With dinner winding down, the flag ranks arrived, and took up a position on the rostrum. General Harriman and Admiral Jedburgh stood to one side, Jane on the other, while Space Commodore Lacey stepped up to the podium.
“Your attention, please.” The room quietened. “Some of you may be aware of the rumours of a new prototype Excalibur bomber. Those rumours are true, and you’re about to see the first action by the prototypes.”
Of course a screen lit up showing us just before we opened fire the first time.
“The corvette is also a prototype, recently upgraded to support a squadron. This was an action this afternoon against a new tactic on the Trixone’s part, resulting in a curved wall of fighters instead of the cloud we’re used to seeing. As we pick this up, the squadron has been in the system for less than two minutes, having assessed the situation, and decided on a plan of attack. They’ve then jumped to this position.”
The vid started, showing us beginning to fire, and it ran for only seconds before it stopped.
“What you see here is a mage shield, in place around the entire squadron. In the fullness of time we hope to have a mage capable of doing this in every squadron, but for now, if you decide to attempt an attack like this, you do so for a maximum of four seconds and then you jump out. Here’s why.”
The vid started, and a truly massive amount of debris started impacting on the shield, as we kept firing through it. The vid stopped again.
“No-one but a mage protected squadron can do this, so don’t think if they can do it, you can as well. You can’t. I can’t do that. Anyone who tries that will die. I want you to believe that. Our shields are good, but every piece of debris and the dirt from inside those plant fighters, erodes your shields. We fight smart, not stupid. The only time you will ever be ordered in like this, is with mage support.”
Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3) Page 6