by Blaze Ward
Something dark and predatory, but solid as a steel hammer.
Imperial tactics normally called for two assault squadrons, with Iskra holding the distance with Arad and her two escorts. Each of the dreadnaughts, with a cruiser force, were to descend on a target and engage it. Simple as that.
Not quite the dumbest thing Denis had ever heard, but he could understand now why Samara had never fallen to Imperial forces.
“Del’Antonia, open a line to Valiant,” Denis said, taking in his new flag bridge, after so many years in combat command on the bridge.
Centurion Aranyani Del’Antonia had been Enej’s right hand after Casey departed. She stayed behind to help shape the new staff, when Enej took most of his people over to Indianapolis. It was still weird, not to have Nina facing him, or the others who had served with him close at hand.
But this was the part of growing up that Emmerich had insisted upon. If Jessica could do it gracefully, so could he.
“Provst here,” the man called across the line. “Captain Pitchford is on the line as well.”
“Aranyani, add in Nina and Tobias,” he said, still getting used to sitting back here.
There was a button for it, but that had always been the job for Jessica or Enej.
Finally, he had everybody.
“This is going to be crazy,” Denis said, trying to sound like a Fleet Centurion. “But Jessica has worked it all out in her head, and Nina’s new First Officer, Tobias Brewster, is exceptional at this sort of scenario gaming, so I have high confidence that one of two things will happen. First, the fool stays and fights, badly outgunned and surprised. If that happens, we will hammer him as hard as we can until he’s dead or flees. Second, and more likely, he bounces out in the face of crippling damage. Phase Seven comes into play at that point, and we accelerate after the station. He’ll see us coming this time, but we’ll have more firepower and hopefully some help from the other team. Any questions?”
“How well do we trust the scan logs from RAN Ballard, sir?” Captain Yasuko Pitchford asked. “They still show significant unrepaired damage to the superstructure of the station, even this long after your last strike.”
“If there is a better Science Officer in either fleet, Captain, I’ve yet to even hear about them,” Denis replied gravely. “Assume power absorbers and guns are repaired, and non-critical functions were left until later. That thing is still dangerous, but more fragile than it was.”
“And the Megalodon’s consorts?” Provst asked, but it felt mostly like clarifying a point, rather than challenging the plan, or Denis’s authority.
“They can fire forward guns while docked, but they are otherwise pretty helpless,” he said. “That’s why we’re coming in on the path we are, behind him for the most part. The whole point of bouncing out is to take the ten minutes necessary to undock everyone and bounce back in for combat. That’s ten minutes we’re running hard and dangerous down here.”
Provst just nodded on the visual image, but remained silent.
“Very good, then,” Denis said. “Stand by for fleet signals.”
Chapter XXVIII
Date of the Republic November 25, 402 CA-264, Severnaya Zemlya
Tomas Kigali studied the arrangement of Second Squadron in his projection with a critical eye. With all the Fleet Centurions elsewhere, technically command of this team should have fallen to Robbie Aeliaes, over on VI Ferrata, but Jessica specifically put him in charge, instead of Robbie and Hardie.
Made sense, on the face of it. CA-264 and CA-410 had been joined by the two ICAs, Imperial Corvette Assault: Admiral Konnacht and Admiral Raeburn, plus CM-404. Ásmundur’s Minehunter wasn’t as well armed as even the escort corvettes, but he had a nice sensor array on the bow, so he could generate electronic snow almost as well as CS-405 would have in that slot.
They were sitting in Strike Position Three now, five combat corvettes in the van, with four ICEs, Imperial Corvette Escort, around the perimeter of the formation as point defense. All six cruisers were here: VI Ferrata, VI Victrix, Indianapolis, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Dundee, plus II Augusta. Tamara’s flight wing would be over with Denis, but she was still a cruiser hull that could shoot things.
Over in Strike Position Four the two Heavy Dreadnaughts waited, along with all fourteen GunShips from Iskra, Denis’s three CEs: 401, 402, and 403, and Provst’s ICS, the Imperial Corvette Scout Hans Bransch.
It was one hell of a force assembled today, ten light-minutes out from the planet.
“All vessels, II Augusta’s flight wing is deployed,” Jessica’s voice came over the line. “Kigali, you have the flag.”
“First Expeditionary Fleet, this is Kigali, aboard CA-264. I have the flag,” he said with a terrible glee he could not disguise. “All ahead maximum, conforming to your squadron leaders. Thirty seconds to insertion from mark.”
He turned to his Tactical Officer, still Arsen Lam after all these years, and nodded. He was not looking forward to losing him, but he could make Arsen look good. First Lord would need experienced Command Centurions for the new vessels. It would mean breaking up his team, but that was the nature of service.
He would just train the next set to those same, impossible standards.
“Arsen,” he said. “You have Tactical.”
“Aki, all ahead crazy,” the man ordered.
Centurion Aki Ridwana Ali did roll her eyes at the two of them, but pressed a button and the lights dimmed for almost a second as she routed every erg she had into thrust.
CA-264 attempted to punch a hole in the solar wind, flying hard ahead, with CA-410 running just as fast. If the two Imperials weren’t giving it everything they had, Kigali couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like any space opened up across the entirety of the sixteen ships coming out of the starting blocks.
It was good.
Chapter XXIX
Date of the Republic November 25, 402 IFV Vanguard, Severnaya Zemlya
There were nights he would still wake up in sweat from that same terrible nightmare. It had evolved over the years, but Tobias Brewster would find himself back on the Emergency Bridge of the old carrier, tumbling on an oblong axis while an Imperial Battleship was taking potshots at them.
Except he wasn’t able to score any hits, firing back at the old Red Admiral. It was Simeon all over again, except he had walked into a final exam hung over and confident he could fake his way through it all on charm.
Had it been a decade? Was that even possible?
He looked up from his new station on the bridge of IFV Vanguard. After so many years as Nina’s backup, he was suddenly in her chair, except she was across from him, in Denis’s seat.
It felt like the end of an era had occurred. He could have long ago taken a First Officer slot somewhere. Jessica had even offered to blackmail whoever he identified for the slot, as a measure of how far they had come together since Day One. But in the end, he wanted to be here.
Everyone wanted to be in First Expeditionary, calling in every favor and chit they could to get transferred to the exciting front. Some of them wanted the glory of combat. Others were looking for that line on their C.V. that would get them a better gig back home.
Tobias just wanted to be with his friends. And he had earned his spot here. Hell, he had even published seven articles in military journals on tactics and games automation as a training tool. When he did retire, he could keep being an academic, or become a game designer. Or just go home.
But today, it was final exam time again. Except this time he was awake, prepared, and had an entire battle squadron behind him.
Friends, even if he had only known some of them for weeks.
“Pilot, give me a countdown clock to expected emergence,” he said loudly, glancing over at Nada’s smile as her ponytail bobbed in the air.
“Gunner, confirm everything forward is set for range, and everything aft for damage,” he moved on, echoing Nina’s checklist, as he had always followed from Em Bridge.
“Confirmed long and s
hort,” Afolayan replied.
“Defense, unlock everything and prepare to engage anybody that gets close,” Tobias continued. “Reinforce all shields forward for now, and prepare to cycle along the side as we pass him.”
Centurion Robena Dubej grinned up at him. Robie had moved up from Em Bridge six months ago when Maurice Holiday had to retire for medical reasons after the last time they came through here. Even a battle where the damage is light still results in injuries. Some of them were worse than others. Maurice had been good, but was going to be in the hospital for too long, and needed to do it at home, rather than on the frontier.
But Tobias had worked with Robie since she first came aboard, so he could trust her to trust him now.
“Emergency Bridge, as always, rear Type-3’s will be your purview until I take them back,” he said, smiling as he caught Nina smiling at him. Word for word from what she always said to him. “Anything that can fire forward on our target will do so. Everything else holds back for surprises. If we overrun, I’ll expect you to pour everything you have into him.”
“Roger that,” came the call from aft. Senior Centurion Kathy Mayzes had replaced him as Emergency Bridge commander, and was Third Officer these days.
We are all facing a new future.
Tobias looked up at Nina now, and caught her grinning at him. It was weird seeing a third stripe on her arm.
“What did I miss?” he asked, final exam and him all naked in his mind.
“Only one thing,” she said with a laugh. “Good luck.”
“Oh,” he remembered. “Thank you.”
“Bridge, this is Nada,” the pilot looked up and called loudly. “Twenty seconds to emergence.”
Tobias double-checked his harness and made sure that his emergency suit was close at hand and locked down, if he needed it. Damage might penetrate this deep after all, Maurice had been seated not too far away from this chair.
Everything good.
Now, time to wait.
At this speed, the trigger on emergence was the gravity well. This crew had gotten pretty good about how to hold it together deeper than the designers expected, so the ship might pick up some extra distance. Not much, but every tenth of a second was that much less reaction time over on that Megalodon.
Emergence, and all his boards came on-line at once.
Tobias had just enough time to notice that Valiant was keeping pace with them, both in the jump and now the hard acceleration in. That had been one of the risks, going one-on-one because they got too far ahead of the other dreadnaught.
Not today. Gosh, that must suck for you, Buran.
The hull thumped as the Bubble Gun went downrange. And Provst’s team was almost reading his mind, because their shot had to be within a tenth of a second.
And then the big beams cut loose. Eight Type-4 beams. One target. Range a little extreme, but shortening with every heartbeat.
Afolayan let loose with the Type-3 beams next. Not much damage from here, but again, every little bit might be the one that broke the guy over there.
Good news, they had caught the Megalodon almost exactly where they wanted him. The battleship was orbiting at a different speed than most of the rest of the local warships, in a different plane, and was slowly coming up behind the station, but too far away for them to do much to help.
Tobias checked his boards. Squadron Two had dropped out on the edge of a laager where three of the Tigersharks were patrolling, away from the one that wasn’t on his boards. The Mako was near the station ahead, as were two of the Hammerheads.
Good, hopefully that meant that the other three destroyers were out doing customs duty or emergency rescue patrol. Maybe the Tigershark was supporting them. That would put them out of position now, and maybe make them brave enough to come down to play later.
Severnaya Zemlya was a busy port. Not so much as St. Legier, or even Osynth B’Udan, but there were hundreds, maybe thousands of civilian ships on his boards, most probably running like hell for the safety of deep space as they realized that the war had suddenly returned.
Both Bubble Guns imploded, almost simultaneously. It made a pretty picture on his screen, because they apparently fed off each other somehow. The power curve looked to be another ten percent higher than two separate shots would have been.
Vanguard’s hull rocked now. Incoming fire from the battleship.
Per Imperial records, the Megalodon design only kept one of the three Maulers from the Carcharias design they were replacing. Instead, they had six upgraded Pulse beams, the kind that ranged like a Type-4, but didn’t do quite as much damage. They also kept twelve of the fifteen regular Pulse beams that were functionally equal to a Type-3 for tactical purposes, as well as all nine of the Flicker Beams that had been the inspiration for the Type-1-Pulse.
Poor bastard was also facing the wrong direction, so only two of his big beams could swing around this far, at least until he started to maneuver in real space to swing his bow around.
Still, he had apparently identified Vanguard, concentrating all his fire this way and ignoring Valiant. Just like Jessica had predicted.
“Gunner, ignore the Bubble Gun,” Tobias ordered. “Route extra power to beams and shields instead.”
Everyone acknowledged, but that was just background radiation right now. Tobias was in the zone.
More beams pounding down range. Valiant fired their Bubble Gun again, but they could afford to, at least for now.
Around him, Tobias noted the fourteen GunShips all firing at once. It was a trick they had been taught at Qui-Ping a decade ago. Everyone fire as a unit, so all the energy arrived at the same moment. Still too far away to do more than tickle, but Jessica had wanted the enemy Director’s attention focused over here.
Watching two heavy dreadnaughts and a wall of smaller ships rushing at him.
Because then the Fast Bombers blinked into existence on a flank, also running flat out.
Tobias grinned as all twelve of the little ships fired point blank into the beast’s side, a buzzsaw of Type-3 and Type-1 beams. That facing hadn’t been engaged by the dreadnaughts, but the Bubble Guns had done their best to soften it a little.
And then someone kicked it in and set fire to the place.
A moment later, the Megalodon was gone. Right on schedule. Hopefully bleeding internally and with parts coming off in JumpSpace.
“Squadron flag, this is Brewster, target has jumped,” he called, leaning back and taking a breath.
“Roger that, Bridge,” Denis replied. “Acknowledged. Proceed to Phase Seven.”
“Good shooting, Tobias,” Jessica’s voice came over the line.
Tobias turned to Nina with a huge smile on his face.
Now things were going to get ugly.
Chapter XXX
Date of the Republic November 25, 402 CA-264, Severnaya Zemlya
The Tigershark was a sniper design, apparently. Kigali smiled as his horde of ravening wolves came out of JumpSpace, baying for blood.
The old Mako had been a knife-fighter, with a Mauler on the bow to rend, and nine Pulse Beams arranged down the sides of the triangular hull in trios. Six Flicker Beams provided point defense against missiles and fighters, and could do a fantastic job of savaging a vessel at Mauler range.
But the sniper didn’t want to get into melee with another cruiser. He had that damned Pulse-Ex Beam instead of the Mauler, for hammering on someone at extreme range. Twelve Pulse beams for when he got close. Only three Flicker Beams for close-in work.
Times like this, Kigali was almost sad he didn’t have a missile cruiser handy, just because those three ships could be overwhelmed with drones, if they were dumb enough to stay put.
Not that they would. It was three of them against seven of his cruisers, each probably a kilo for kilo match they didn’t want to try. Plus four assault corvettes out front, just daring the guy to shoot at them.
Still, they opened fire, like any good commander did when surprised. Except that they went random. VI Ferr
ata, Dundee, and Admiral Raeburn each took a hit from incoming beams. The Director over there should have waited a second and identified a target for all three vessels to engage.
“Squadron, engage,” Kigali called over the team line. He had to wait the extra second to make sure that all seven cruisers were visible on his boards and pointed the right way.
The formation was only a little ragged, as they had been hopping just ten light-minutes, with ships fresh out of dry-dock. And the Tigersharks were deeper in the gravity well than the battleship, so Kigali had gone fast and deep on the drives.
In space, the beams were just a flash of light, like a lighthouse cycling by you. On his boards, it was a madhouse. Seven Bubble Guns, firing at extreme range. Four hit, which was damned fine sharpshooting, especially at this speed.
All of them impacted Tigershark Two within about a heartbeat. It was like St. Elmo himself had come down and blessed them. Except he had changed his mind and cursed the ship instead, immolating it in white-hot plasma.
Every beam with arc fired into the ship now. The various gunners had paused for the softening up. It was the exact opposite of what Jessica’s forces normally did, hitting with beams first.
Two looked like a turkey that had been in the oven too long. Kigali’s birds were always perfect, but he had heard horror stories about amateur chefs doing it all wrong.
And then Second Squadron committed graffiti on the guy’s hull. With sledgehammers.
Messy.
“Gunners, next target,” Kigali called. “All vessels maintain acceleration.”
The first ship would need dry-dock. At least six Type-4 beams had hit, after the power absorber panels were completely overloaded, and had collapsed in places. Engineers would probably be able to see starlight through the width of the hull when they looked.