by Max Glebow
“The first wave of torpedoes to be launched!” Matos heard Sverdlov’s order. He now saw on the projection screen the Hall of Orbital Defense Control, where Sverdlov, in his usual manner, followed the instructions received a few days ago from Rear Admiral Lavroff.
****
An orbital fortress is a piece capable of accommodating a lot of different weapons, especially if one frees up a place that was previously reserved for a garrison. So it was possible to place there quite a lot of drone torpedoes in cylinder launchers. After Groombridge, Admiral Nelson gained enormous prestige, so his kicking has therefore contributed greatly to the increase in the production of this type of ammunition by the military industry. And a few months ago a special Presidential Decree making the torpedoes the main symbol of the fight against the evil enemy added to the stimulation of this universal instrument. All in all, an awful lot of these torpedoes have been produced, and in the last month, a large variety of warheads for them have been made. And now eight orbital fortresses have delivered a coordinated torpedo blow on the incoming super-heavy enemy ships.
The quargs, of course, were waiting for something like this, and were not going to let their best ships be maimed at all. They had many aircraft carriers, so they didn't spare the mosquito fleet to protect the battleships. Hundreds of pursuit planes and carriers of scanner probes have overtaken the heavy ships moving slowly towards the planet. The carriers launched their probes, and a dense network of pursuit planes and flying scanners was deployed between the torpedoes and the battleships. The approaching torpedoes immediately changed from blurred spots to clear markings on the screens of the anti-aircraft guidance systems, hence they could be captured and guided with confidence.
“Main batteries, open curtain fire,” ordered Rear Admiral Sverdlov, and the cannons of the orbital fortresses threw a full volley of shells with strike elements towards the mosquito forces of the enemy deployed in combat order.
Under normal circumstances, barrage fire on pursuit planes and smaller probes was not very effective, but in this case the anti-torpedo network proved to be too dense, and explosions of shells inside this formation caused tangible damage to the quarg mosquito forces.
The battleship anti-aircraft systems and enemy pursuit planes opened fire on the drone torpedoes, but the targets on their scanner screens suddenly split into dozens of smaller markers. The torpedoes launched in the first salvo were not intended to strike the battleships, their target was the anti-torpedo network itself. The cluster warhead of each contained two dozen small missiles, that had been pointed beforehand, and now they were rushing towards their targets.
The quargs defended themselves against small missiles which were not unvulnerable, they could be shot down, and the enemy did so with all its means, but the missiles proved to be too many and more than half of them achieved their targets. A dense veil of the mosquito fleet of quargs was lit by explosions.
“The enemy’s anti-torpedo network lost about a quarter of its composition,” the space operator reported to Sverdlov.
“Torpedo salvo to be repeated.”
Immediately after the previous volley, the cylinders turned, loading new ammunition into the launchers, and now the second wave of torpedoes has gone to meet the approaching enemy. There were three torpedoes left in the cylinders, and only the last two had anti-ship warheads.
“The enemy has opened fire with main batteries,” fortresses’ scanners have detected outbursts of starting discharges at the cut-offs of battleships gun barrels.
The orbital fortresses could not perform evasive maneuvers, and all they had to hope for was their thick armor, but even their armor was powerless against the main batteries of Titan-class battleships. Combat damage lists flashed up on the projection screens of combat systems' operators, the most critical of them were highlighted in red.
“Ten percent of the drone torpedoes' launchers lost,” reported the senior operator, “14 main battery guns disabled.”
“The remaining torpedoes to be launched in three consecutive salvos. Main batteries to continue barrage fire on the mosquito fleet.”
The quargs did not set their ships under the return fire of the orbital fortresses' guns. Taking advantage of the range of effective fire, they stopped the approach and began to shoot the stationary enemy at maximum distance.
“The torpedoes are gone. The second wave is approaching the mosquito forces of the enemy.”
This time the quargs were ready and tried to disperse as far as possible, but doing such a maneuver was contrary to the main objective of the anti-torpedo network, namely, the reliable covering of the entire space between the torpedoes and the heavy ships by the scanners. The confusion, which lasted for a few seconds, cost the enemy’s probes and pursuit planes dearly, a new batch of small missiles hit them even more strongly than the first time, 'cause now they’ve been shot at by a quarter less guns.
“60 percent of the enemy’s torpedo network has been destroyed. We’ve lost two thirds of the main batteries’ guns. The combat survivability of the fifth and eighth fortresses is at a critical level. The control systems are failing.”
“Barrage fire to be continued,” Rear Admiral Sverdlov gave the only possible order in such a situation. The fortresses were doomed, it was beyond doubt, they had no weapon left to strike the attacking super-battleships, except for the drone torpedoes that had already been launched, of course.
All three remaining waves of torpedoes reached the shield of pursuit planes and probes almost simultaneously. The first of them split into small missiles and hit the remnants of the enemy’s mosquito forces, while the rest rushed towards the battleships. Every fifth torpedo in the last two waves was of a new type, with an engine grown by lizards. The invisibility of such munitions was almost twice as high as the standard because the working engine did not interfere with its own EW complex with its intense radiation. All the old type torpedoes were carrying cluster warheads, but unlike the first three waves designed to destroy pursuit planes and probes, the battleships’ anti-aircraft systems were targeted. The torpedoes with lizard engines have fallen behind, letting the anti-aircraft munitions do their job, and they’ve done it, to the best of their ability, of course.
However, the triple anti-aircraft weapons of the battleships proved to be a terrifying force. Even though the anti-torpedo network was almost completely destroyed, the anti-aircraft weapons caused serious damage to the approaching torpedoes simply by the density of the fire, which partially compensated for the lack of precision of the guidance. And yet some of the torpedoes made it to the targets. Knocking down multiple missiles after the splitting of warheads proved to be a very difficult task, and the battleships' hulls were covered with numerous, but seemingly not too dangerous flashes of explosions. None of the hits breached the armor, but sensors of scanners, anti-aircraft gun barrels, and short-range missile silos were severely damaged, and they were unable to withstand the impact of the last torpedoes detected by the partially blinded scanners at almost the very sides of the ships.
For each of the five Titan-class battleships, there were five to eight hits. The three-component warhead of the hybrid torpedo first burned the armour with the cumulative part of the charge, and then, after penetrating the hull of the ship, blowed up the high-explosive part. In addition to the damage caused by the explosion, the shock wave would scatter around the strike elements containing an active substance produced by lizards, which turned out to be such an unpleasant surprise for the cruiser Montevideo crew in the Iota Persei system. The quargs, of course, knew how to fight this scourge, moreover, all the compartments adjacent to the sides of their ships were equipped with automatic sprayers of the reagent stopping the destruction of the armor by the lizard substance. But because of the damage caused by the explosions, these systems failed to work, and repair robots and damage control groups were unable to quickly neutralize small, but numerous, damages. As a result, the superbattleships were forced out of the battle, and they’ve granted the honor of
finishing the already breathless orbital fortresses to the lighter ships.
“Orbital fortresses are lost,” reported Sverdlov to Colonel General Matos.
“I see, Rear Admiral. Thank you for your service, you’ve done your job, it’s our turn.”
Chapter 6
Suppressing orbital defense took less than three hours, but the commander of the quargs was having trouble containing his rage. His reluctance to place the ships under the fire of the orbital fortresses' guns unexpectedly resulted in tangible damage to his 20 best battleships. In three cases, the damages were very serious. As soon as the entire fleet was down on the enemy, the orbital fortresses would be gone in less than an hour, but, having listened to the advice of his analysts, the commander decided to shoot these unwieldy giants from a distance, hiding behind a veil of the mosquito fleet, tested in battle, from torpedoes. The result was a disappointment to the commander, although nothing has been decided yet. After all, he hasn’t lost a single heavy ship yet, but the start of the battle has clearly failed. The loss of a large number of pursuit planes and probes on which such a large bet was made was particularly unpleasant. On the other hand, only a tenth of these machines were lost on a fleet-wide scale, but the commander of the quargs did not like the trend at all.
Well, there are no enemies in space left, except for cavitated plants armed with single launchers. Now the planets were about to be stormed, and the aircraft carriers, which were not needed for this operation, could be sent to assist the light forces that had failed in the simple task of destroying the enemy’s industrial infrastructure.
The scanners couldn’t make out anything down on the planets yet, but the commander’s used to it. The recent surge in the level of the enemy’s EW means has caused numerous problems, sometimes in the most unexpected situations. However, it could and should have been fought.
“Release probes to the surface and form a network of repeaters,” ordered the fleet commander.
This new reconnaissance scheme, conducted before the attack of the planet, has not yet been tested in combat, but has performed well in the test conditions. If a single probe is released to the planet, it will surely be knocked down in the upper atmosphere. One can release a lot of probes and escort them with a bunch of false targets, then not all of them will be brought down, but the signals of those survived will be jammed, so they won’t be of any use. As a result, each of the hundreds of simultaneously launched probes now had a chain of relays connected to the network, holding a stable connection to the scanners located in the probes' heads. It’s expensive, it’s complicated, but it solves the problem.
The commander had no doubt that the people on the planets had troops and anti-space defense systems and that there were many of them. No quargs, no humans, no lizards would ever leave such densely populated worlds as the planets of star Ran without ground protection. The only question was how many and where.
Humans have encountered unmanned reconnaissance devices bursting through the atmosphere, very unfriendly. In addition to ground-based launchers, they engaged atmospheric aviation, which has decimated a network of probes and repeaters. However, data on enemy forces began to enter the command post of the least damaged Sword of Justice-class battleship, chosen by the commander as the flagship.
Maps of planetary surfaces began to be replenished with details. The positions of the stationary batteries of the anti-space defense, the locations of the heavy robots, who also took part in the shooting of the uninvited guests, the atmospheric aviation bases, all this was stored in the memory of the battle systems as the probes provided information. The Commander was pleased to see the smooth work of his officers. At least at this stage, neither his subordinates nor the equipment let him down.
The probes didn’t make it to the planet’s surface. The luckiest of them have disappeared in explosions or become the rain of shrapnel at an altitude of a few kilometers, but they have fulfilled their task. Now the commander knew a lot about the enemy, it was probably not everything, but quite enough to start the operation. At least, at the moment, that was what he thought.
***
Colonel General Matos knew that in order to implement the defence plan proposed by the General Staff, some troops would have to be sacrificed. Someone would have to simulate enough resistance on the surface when the enemy launches the first wave of troops. Every combat general of the Federation was able to sacrifice units and subunits to achieve a common victory, but that doesn’t mean it was easy for them. Behind the unit numbers were always living people, many of whom the generals who sent them to their deaths knew personally, so, upon hearing Rear Admiral Lavroff’s dry calculations, General Matos unwittingly clenched his fists, knowing who would have to give the final order.
But it was then, at the conference of planet defense commanders via hyper-communication. And now everything’s changed. Three weeks later, large troop transports with unmanned robots and their operators began landing one after another at the Ran-3 transport spaceports. The 17th Heavy Commando Corps arrived on the planet. Matos was relieved, because now he knew who would pretend to be the heroes who were throwing themselves into hopeless counterattacks under heavy fire from orbit. He didn’t mind sending drones to hell. Actually, Matos felt sorry for them. These formidable combat machines made the Colonel General, who had seen a lot of things during his service, proud of the army in which he served, and the general was not thrilled while thinking that in a few days they would be nothing but smoking debris, but the opportunity to save people was worth it.
Having destroyed the orbital fortresses, the quargs moved heavy ships and transports with commandos to the planet. They haven’t entered low orbits yet, fearing unnecessary losses due to fire from surface. The enemy, as it should be, began by conducting reconnaissance, applying some of his new developments and even achieving some results. However, Matos believed that these results were useful to the defenders of the planet rather than the attackers, because the quargs saw exactly what the Colonel General himself was going to show them, and was just thinking about how to do it as naturally as possible. And here the enemy has solved such a difficult task for him.
The quargs didn’t think for very long. Apparently, their commander knew he didn’t have much time at his disposal, 'cause that's for sure the Federation fleet is on its way to star Ran right now, and it’s best to meet it without any resistance left in the system. The main landing sites selected by the enemy were three areas not too far from the world’s major cities and convenient for the deployment of large numbers of ground troops. The cruisers and battleships of the quargs have descended into low orbits above selected points, and they were, of course, directly hit by the missile batteries that were discovered earlier. With such superiority in firepower as the quargs had, it was not difficult to suppress a few dozen fire nests, and the enemy was actively engaged in this. The quargs dropped a lot of guided bombs on land-based launchers and received in return only a dozen hits on their ships that did not cause them serious damage.
Seeing no more suitable targets on the surface, the heavy ships of the quargs retreated slightly from the planet, and the transports moved closer. They released a swarm of dropships that immediately entered the planet’s atmosphere. The first wave of commandos proceeded to storm the planet.
“Anti-space defence, do not open fire,” ordered Matos strictly following the instructions of the General Staff, “We’ll meet them at the surface.”
The 17th Commando Corps, scattered across the three continents of the planet, was now slowly converging to the intended landing points of the enemy, observing all necessary camouflage measures. So far, the enemy has not discovered these movements, but to hide indefinitely was not part of the plan of the Commander of Defense.
The planetary defence forces had sufficient capability to knock down most dropships of the enemy, but then the adversary would change their standard landing plan, and no one would have predicted what he might have done with such a formidable armada in orbit. Therefore,
Matos' task was to give the first wave of troops exactly the kind of resistance that would seem to be normal in the given situation and stimulate the enemy to continue the landing in the usual, long-established pattern.
***
The commander of the quarg fleet watched the assault from his flagship. The dropships encountered considerable resistance after they passed through a thin layer of fleecy clouds. Warning signals from the targeting and navigation systems have reported intensive radiation by enemy scanners and the capture of dropships by surface-to-air missile homing heads. Contrails of hundreds of missiles launched by camouflaged anti-aircraft complexes and combat robots stretched from the surface to descending dropships. At the same time, it was reported that several groups of atmospheric pursuit planes had been discovered, rising from previously undetected bases and on a course to intercept the landing troops.
It was very unpleasant, but it was expected. The only thing that really bothered the commander was that he couldn’t know where the next attack was coming from, but there was still enough forces, and what the humans were able to put up against the first wave could only cripple the landing party, but not stop it.
The squadrons of atmospheric pursuit planes which flew together with the dropships, separated from the covered machines, re-formed and moved towards the approaching enemy to prevent him from reaching the missile launching range. Numerous traps and simulators, creating false targets, separated from the dropships, and the dropships themselves opened intense fire in an attempt to shoot down missiles flying towards them from the ground. There were a lot of dropships in the first wave, so the density of the barrage fire was impressive, as for the missiles, the defenders of the planet have launched a lot of them, but still they were not enough to critically damage such an armada.