by Chris Hechtl
“Our turn now, you bastards,” she screamed through gritted teeth, taking out the enemy Emperor class fighter in her first pass. “Yeah!” she howled and then jinked and fired, twisting and turning right through the enemy's startled formation.
---<>---<>---
Captain Post saw the fighter engagement restarting, but his eyes clung to the status board. It was far worse than he'd feared. “How bad is it?”
“We've got our drive and our port side guns. Ventral and dorsal guns are spotty; there are a lot of severed EPS conduits. DCC is routing around some of the damage now. We've lost all our sensors and shields on the starboard flank and most of our missiles and counter missiles as well. The keel boat bays are wreckage.” Captain Mueller turned away from the sight of the orderlies hauling off the body bag of Trisha. “It could be worse. Our hyperdrive is intact however. I'm not certain about using it however.”
“You're saying we should withdraw?” Captain Post asked.
“I'm not in charge here, sir; you are,” she reminded him.
His eyes cut away from her image in time to see the fighter engagement erupt. The gunships came about as if it had all been planned and bottled the fighters up. “No! Get them out of there!” Captain Post snarled, but it was too late. His distraction with Shantell had allowed the enemy to tear his remaining fighters apart.
“All fighters destroyed,” a rating said ever so quietly in the hush that ensued.
“Well! That sucked,” Shantell said pithily.
Captain Post started to curse. It started low and soft but grew quickly as he paced. When he realized all eyes were on him, he stopped abruptly. “Go back to work!” He snarled.
“Can your ship get into hyper safely, Shantell?” he demanded.
“I don't honestly know. DCC is still doing a structural assessment now. I'm not even sure how much power we've got or how fast she can go. She might break apart if we push her too hard.”
“Damn,” Captain Post murmured. His eyes fell on the plot. The enemy forces were hovering just out of reach. Some had disappeared from his scope entirely. He wondered why but then realized it was the starboard side where Nevada was. He shook his head.
“We have to fall back,” he ground out. “Buy your engineers the time to repair the damage,” he said.
“Sir, if we fall back, they will know we've been hurt bad.”
“I know that. I want them to come in, but I'm afraid of what else they'll do. I don't want your ship to lose her hyperdrive completely. Then you're really screwed,” he said.
“I know. What about if we headed in? It looks like the tin cans were headed for the orbital platforms. If we go in, we could take them out, sir. Force them to defend them? Or the planet? We can at least get a message down to the planet to let our forces know we're here and haven't forgotten them.”
“I'll … I'll think about it. Get your engineers cracking, Shantell.”
“You can count on it, sir,” she said, turning to see an engineer gingerly moving a draping wire up back into an overhead. It was obvious from the yellow markings that it was a high voltage wire. “You there! Get on that quickly and then move on! Don't be all day about it!” she snarled, pointing to the rating as the connection cut.
Chapter 28
“It's not enough to stop them, not even close. But we've hurt them, hurt them badly. Hopefully, you'll be able to send in more forces to bounce them out if we can't finish the job,” Amadeus told Admiral Irons over the ansible link.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough. We … I'll send you the list,” the Neochimp said, waving a hand. He looked to Jojo; she nodded. “An updated SITREP is on the way in a moment. Scratch Xavier, Viper, and Mary Apple. Those are the big ones. The rest …,” he sighed.
“Damn,” Admiral Irons replied. “I'm sorry, Amadeus.”
“We're not finished, just … I've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at them. Meia is rigging her fighters for torpedo strikes now. They've torn apart the enemy fighters. She can get in now and hurt them, and I think they know it.”
“Okay.”
“They are moving in to the inner system, marching on Protodon. I'm working on a battle of maneuver. Halsey is keeping them on the scope with a couple of AWACS. They'll harass them. Bleed them.”
“Hit and hype? Hit, chew them up, pull back, resupply, and then hit them again?”
“Yes. I was planning to resupply myself but I've got cripples. Bounty, Damocles, and Cutlass are all damaged to varying degrees. Cutlass is the worst off.”
“Frack.”
Amadeus saw the word and snorted. “My sentiments exactly. We'll take them down eventually, Admiral, like wolves running down a moose. It won't be pretty though, and I expect our losses will be even heavier than they already are.” He half expected John to order him off, to just harass the enemy and keep him off balance.
“You're the commander on the spot, Amadeus, do what you think you can do.”
“Well, the good news is it hasn't been entirely one sided. They've been hurt, hurt bad. We got, I should say the bombers got, a big chunk of the Derfflinger. Oh, by the way, we're tentatively ID'ing that ship as the Nevada. The other we're not sure about, but according to the war book, her division mate is Massachusetts.”
“Good to know.”
Yeah, it was always nice to know the brute who was about to kill you Amadeus thought. “I'm working on another plan now. I'll update you before we implement it.”
“Good hunting TF 22. Steady aim and sailing. May Lady Luck shine on you and Murphy's gremlins torment our enemies. Antigua out.”
“Protodon out,” Amadeus murmured.
He checked Halsey's status. The carrier had enough torpedoes to arm half of Meia's remaining fighters plus the three bombers one time. After that she'd be dry. Not a good thought, he thought. The pilots were also exhausted. Only their implants were keeping them on their feet now that the adrenalin had worn off.
“Have the gunships resupply.”
“Sir?”
“Order them off. Tell them to get to the warehouses, pull our people off and pull as much hardware as we can. Focus on fighter parts and munitions. Tell the corvettes and frigates to follow at their best speed.”
“We're abandoning the warehouses, sir?”
“They are just storage. The enemy is expecting us to stand and fight to protect them. Well, we're not going to do so. We'll pick our own terms to engage.”
Jojo looked at him dubiously but nodded. “Aye aye, sir,” she replied finally, then turned to send the orders out.
“Tell them to expedite,” the admiral said as the plot changed. The flag lieutenant looked up in time to see the course change on the plot. The enemy ships were no longer headed directly in to the planet but had changed course for the warehouses and the ansible platform. And there was no way to move either of them.
“Frack,” Jojo murmured softly.
“Let Pendeckle know he may have kinetic strikes coming his way any minute. Get his people under cover,” the admiral murmured.
---<>---<>---
“I don't want to get in too close. They might blow them up out of spite.”
“You think they would think we would board, sir?”
“Up until recently we've been pirates, remember, Shantell?” Captain Post said. “So, we'll use that against them. Ready kinetic energy strike. Target the planet and the stations. Once we have fired, we'll maneuver away. There will be nothing left for us there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unfortunately, we don't have enough weapons to stay in orbit and bomb the Feds into oblivion. I'd like to do that; it might draw White into attacking out of desperation. But he knows our capabilities, and I bet he will count how many KEWs we'll fire. So we'll try … something else,” he said.
---<>---<>---
Major Pendeckle got the warning to evacuate in time to put his forces in motion. They had been sealing the caves to keep the damn enemy from reusing them. Now that was a problem, n
ot just for his marines but also for the surviving population.
“Get everyone underground or dispersed,” he ordered. “The same for our hardware. Distribute the ammo dumps and put drones on them to keep an eye on things.”
“Sir …”
“Don't argue with me, do it!” the major snarled just as an alert sounded. He looked up as a klaxon began to wail. “What the hell is it now?” he demanded as his implants pinged. He blanched white as the header got his immediate attention. Imminent kinetic strike.
“Move people! KEW strikes incoming! Get everyone under cover, pronto!”
---<>---<>---
“Fortunately, they've got the warning, and they've got time. Not much time, but time,” Amadeus said as he watched a cloud of rocks erupt from both battle cruisers. They weren't just targeting the ground though; some were headed for the orbital warehouses and the ansible station.
“Sir …,” Jojo said uncertainly.
“I see it. Get the warning out to those gunships.”
“Sir, it won't make much difference,” Jojo said, doing it anyway.
He felt helpless; he couldn't do anything but watch as his people died around him.
“Warm up the ansible. I've got one last message,” he stated.
---<>---<>---
Admiral Irons got the report of the latest situation in Protodon as well as a warning that the ansible was about to be destroyed. He grimaced as the ansible's link terminated with finality. It had been taken out by a rock it couldn't avoid. He sighed heavily. “Well, we're out of it.”
“We were spectators anyway,” Sprite said.
“Yeah, well, the real sucky part is we don't know. And won't know until someone gets word back here or to Kathy's World,” the admiral replied. “Order the ansible techs to pull the Protodon instillation. We'll have to refurbish it,” he said.
“My, you are practical,” Sprite stated.
“I do what I can with what I've got. Amadeus will do the same. We just have to trust him to do the right thing.”
“Yes, sir.”
---<>---<>---
Heavily loaded down with materials, two gunships couldn't quite evade the buckshot coming their way. Both were torn apart. The munitions they had been carrying detonated finishing the job.
Steel rain fell onto the planet. Some of the smaller pieces were ablated into nothing by the superheated plasma generated by their high velocity into the atmosphere. But some got through. The spaceport took the brunt of Massachusetts rage. Fire walked into the abandoned capital city and buildings toppled. More fire hammered into towns and villages on the continent until the lethal cloud ran out.
“Is it over?” a staff sergeant asked, looking out under the lip of the sewer drain to the purple and red sky kilometers away.
“Don't jinx it,” a voice said from behind him.
---<>---<>---
“That should cut their ammunition supply nicely,” Captain Post said. “Now fuel.”
“Sir, we're still getting a handle on the damage. Nevada's engineers have gotten one of her engines back online but two are still out.”
“Tell them to keep on it. We'll move at her best speed to the next target.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did anyone have an idea on what that second platform was? The smaller one?”
“Um, no, sir. Some sort of communication's platform,” the tactical officer said. He pulled up a video of the station and then put it up on the main screen. He froze it at the best image. “Yes, see the antenna and dishes? Some sort of communication's relay?” he mused.
“Get communications to look it over. Any sign of viruses?”
“No, sir. We're keeping a tight lock on Nevada and not accepting anything else, sir,” a communication's rating said, looking up.
“Good man.”
---<>---<>---
Jojo moaned when he saw the scattering debris of the warehouse platforms. “Damn.”
“I know,” Eddie the helmsman said, shaking his head. “All that work down the tube. Dude, that sucks!”
“Yeah. I don't have the heart to tell Owen. He'll commit seppuku for sure,” Jamal said.
“What can be built can be built again,” Captain Ssri’allth said simply. “Ensign Lovejoy has enough to deal with now with the ship repair,” he said as the bridge staff turned to him. “Attend to your duties. We have a battle to win. We cannot rebuild until it is completed.”
“Yes, sir,” Jamal said tightly. He exchanged a look with Eddie and nodded grimly.
“And if you wish, think of exacting revenge on the enemy. If that helps you, so be it,” the Naga said quietly.
“Now you're talking, sir,” Eddie growled with a raised fist.
---<>---<>---
Once his ships had resupplied from the gunships, Amadeus had them move on the refinery to get as much fuel as possible. To his surprise the BCs followed.
“What the hell?”
“Scorched earth,” Captain McGuyver said over the captain's link. “They are taking everything out, sir. They can't force us to engage, so they'll take everything out and either withdraw or wait and make us withdraw, sir,” he said.
Amadeus nodded.
“Sir, Captain Vargess and Commander Meia have a plan. It may not take them all the way out, but it should do some more damage,” Jojo reported.
“Let's hear it,” he said.
---<>---<>---
Massachusetts tucked Nevada's wounded starboard flank into her own port side so it wouldn't be accessible easily. They marched on the refinery platform. Ships scattered away from it gratifyingly, but the two crews were aware that something else was going on. The battle wasn't over; it didn't feel like it.
“We're still getting tracked by their AWACS,” Commander Esenly reported.
“And there isn't a damn thing we can do about it,” Captain Mueller replied, thoroughly disgusted. For Arnold's plan to work, they had to draw the enemy in, to hit them. But the enemy had to cooperate to do that. So far they hadn't been that stupid.
“Ma'am, Massachusetts's CIC is reporting they are getting lidar hits, long range on the starboard flank. Powerful ones.”
“Another flank attack?”
“I think … I don't know. We shot them dry twice. Could they have picked up enough pods to justify coming in again?” Commander Esenly mused.
“Or it could be a bluff.” She wasn't sure about other stockpiles of weapons. If this had been her star system, she wasn't so sure she would have had all her eggs in one basket.
“Or a bluff, yes, ma'am. But ...”
“Ma'am, the flagship has reported a sighting of the escort carrier on her starboard flank at extreme range.”
“That tears it,” a rating murmured.
“Prepare to intercept a fighter strike. Helm, get us in close to the flag but not too close. Be prepared to maneuver with them,” the captain ordered.
“Aye, ma'am, I've got the link here,” the rating said, pointing to the helm data link on the screen above his yoke.
“Good. Don't wait on me to confirm a helm order. If they move, you move. Got it?”
“Aye aye, ma'am.”
“Once they shoot their wad, we'll get our licks in, then get out of here. How is DCC coming engineering?”
“We've finished what repairs we can to the structure, ma'am. She need a yard to do a proper job though,” the engineering rating said from her station. She turned and waved a tablet. “She's not pretty, ma'am. We're running power lines to the systems that are still intact but lost power. The plasma from the EPS conduits that ruptured did almost as much damage as the weapons did.”
“Just be glad they weren't nukes and didn't get all the way through our armor. If they had gotten to the core we would have been wreckage,” Esenly said from her station, not looking up from it.
The captain eyed the woman then looked away. “We still could be,” she said very, very softly.
“Flag is firing KEW strike now. We're to maneuver to the jump point a
fterward, ma'am,” the communication's rating stated.
“Very well. Keep me posted.”
---<>---<>---
Halsey and the other ships feinted a bluff attack on the two ship's starboard flank while the corvettes and frigates feinted from above and below.
There was nothing that they could do about the KEW strike on the platform. Marshall attempted to maneuver the platform remotely, but there was no telling if it would work or not. If the enemy had fired smart rounds or a smart enough missile in the swarm, the effort would be moot. But it had to be made nonetheless.
As the ships started to move in, Meia's bombers and fighters dropped their stealth to pick up their speed for their attack runs from Nevada's port side.
“Here we go!” a bomber pilot yodeled.
Meia grimaced but remained silent. She had the three bombers and fifty fighters remaining. Each of the bombers had four torpedoes while her twelve of her fighters had one torpedo each. The fighters hadn't been set up to carry the torpedoes properly so the bombers had to stay in the groove and fire them remotely with their telemetry data. It was going to be a hair raising experience she thought. The other fighters were there as window dressing and to soak up the counter fire that was about to start … her train of thought cut off as she focused on staying alive.
---<>---<>---
“Port side contacts, ghosts, ma'am,” CIC reported.
“I know the ships are coming in … wait, did you say port?” the captain demanded, rising to her feet. “Fighters on our port side!” she said, sitting back down abruptly. “We've been hosed! Get on them, guns!”
“On it, ma'am!”
“Contacts are firming up! Fighters and bombers have dropped stealth. Three bombers, fifty fighters! Danger close!” the CIC rating said, his tone of voice rising with the stress and panic.
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