Counter-attack

by Max Glebow

  ***

  When our fleet came out of the jump at the edge of Ran star system, all four planets were still holding, and our fleet officers, who have seen many such battles, regarded this as a miracle. The enemy heavy ships, which were divided into four roughly equal squadrons, hung over the planets, our scanners detected missile launches to the surface and explosions on the ground. They could be finishing off the remnants of our troops or destroying ground infrastructure, but sometimes, though not too often, the planets responded, and the armor of the enemy ships was lighted up with explosions of surface-to-space missiles. This meant that the organized resistance of the defenders was far from being suppressed.

  Reconnaissance probes have also detected other types of activity. Here and there, brief but brutal skirmishes of ground forces flared up on the surface of the planets. The script has been repeated over and over being different only in details. Medium-range missile batteries, previously undetected by the enemy, struck at enemy columns heading towards the ruins of cities, and almost immediately thereafter, the column was attacked by ground troops from battalion to regiment, who had been hiding in underground shelters until then. Sometimes the attack was supported by atmospheric aircraft, but this was less and less frequent, 'cause the defenders of the planets had almost no aircraft left.

  Of course, the quargs responded to these attacks. The ships from orbit fired on the launchers and the counterattacking units, but they instantly received in response an anti-orbital missile salvo and were forced to switch to suppressing precisely these most dangerous targets. While the enemy orbital forces were regrouping to strike, the planetary defense forces either managed to destroy the column, or, if they failed to suppress the quargs' resistance immediately, simply retreated and dissipated, concealing themselves by their means of camouflage from aerial and orbital detection.

  The losses on both sides were mounting, and the defenders of the planets often lost far more than the quargs, yet it was impossible to discount support from orbit, but by their actions our ground forces have bound the enemy fleet to the planets, because without its support the quargs on the surface would have a tough time.

  Our fleet was spotted by the quargs at once. Either they’ve deployed their mass detectors, or too many of our large ships have jumped out almost simultaneously, but our appearance did not go unnoticed, judging by the behaviour of the aircraft carriers and the enemy light force, which immediately rushed under the cover of battleships and cruisers.

  Admiral Nelson didn’t hesitate, apparently, the preliminary battle plan was ripe in his mind just before the last jump, and now, having assessed the latest intelligence, the Commander has only become firmly convinced in it's accuracy.

  “Orders for the Fleet: Start accelerating towards the fourth planet.”

  The current position of the celestial bodies in this star system gave our fleet an opportunity to attack the enemy squadron at the fourth planet before the ships of the quargs from three other planets now on the other side of the star would come to its aid.

  The quarg commander divided his ships into four squadrons approximately equal in strength, and now Nelson had the hope of gaining a substantial advantage by attacking the fractured enemy fleet in parts. However, the opponent was not so simple and did not want to take the fight on Nelson’s terms.

  “Fleet Admiral, Sir, the enemy began to evacuate troops from the fourth planet,” reported the space control operator.

  “Will they make it?” asked Nelson, and there was a doubt in his voice.

  “We don’t know the exact number of enemy units on the surface, but judging by the number of transport ships involved, they will be forced to leave some troops on the surface.”

  ***

  Yash felt increasingly irritated by the actions of his subordinates, even though he understood that he himself had made many mistakes. A seemingly simple operation to take control of enemy planets after suppressing orbital defense, which has been worked out many times and has never caused any difficulty before, it turned into a fraught battle with unpredictable results and grossly inadequate losses. Not only did the landing parties suffer casualties, but the fleet sustained losses as well. Of course, nine cruisers and two battleships irrevocably lost under the fire of the enemy’s anti-space defenses did not have much effect on the overall combat power of his fleet, but the loss of troop transports was very painful. Now there were not enough ships to remove the invading troops from the planets. About half the transport ships were lost, and the transports that managed to land on the planets were damaged, which prevented them from taking off without long repairs, which could not be carried out on the planets not yet captured.

  The sound of the alarm has pulled the commander out of his brooding state.

  “Commander Yash, the enemy fleet is emerging out of jump at the outer belt of the asteroids,” reported the tactical officer.

  “How many of them are there?” The Commander has wrinkled his face with annoyance, yet they have not completed the conquest of the planets.

  “The fleet profile and the number of ships are being specified, but there are no less than 80 battleships and about the same number of cruisers. Up to 20 aircraft carriers. Three markers are comparable in size to our Sword of Justice-class battleships. In the experience of previous clashes with humans, there should be torpedo carriers, but our scanners haven’t seen them yet.”

  “Send recon ships out there. Let them use probes or go in there themselves, I don’t care how they do it, but I must know the exact composition of the enemy fleet before it strikes us!”

  “It will be fulfilled, Commander,” respectfully responded tactical officer, “New data. Enemy set course for the fourth planet.”

  “It’s quite reasonable of them,” grumbled Yash, “The humans want us to fight them in parts. That's not gonna happen. Evacuate troops from the planets. Destroy artificial suns. If there’s anything left of their cities, raze it to the ground. After executing the orders, the squadrons are to immediately withdraw from orbit and proceed to join the main fleet forces to the first planet.”

  “Commander Yash, we’ll have to leave some troops on the planets,” told the senior tactical officer for the landing parties, “The amount of troop transports...”

  “I know,” Yash has cut short his subordinate, “Ground forces that we can’t get out of here in time, go on the defensive. After we take the human fleet out, we’ll come back and suppress the resistance on the planets.”

  “It will be fulfilled, Commander.”

  The fleet once again was gathering to become a clenched fist, Yash felt the force behind him. The vivid bursts of explosions of artificial suns over terraformed planets have returned these worlds to their pristine state. The planets have plunged into darkness. Very soon there will be a swift cooling down, and on the fourth planet, there’s a good chance of condensation of the atmosphere. It won’t do much damage to the troops on the planets for at least a few days, and if there’s any civilians left, well, let that be a lesson to humans.

  ***

  “The enemy has left the orbits of the three outer planets and is pulling the fleet to the first,” the operator’s report has broken the silence in the command post.

  “Officers, Sirs,” Nelson addressed to his headquarters, “I want your opinion on the actions of the quarg fleet.”

  “They’re planning to pull us as deep as they can into the star's zone of influence, that's why they chose the nearest planet to the star as their fleet concentration point,” said Chief of Staff Admiral Fulton, “Their commander wants to fight until victory. At this distance from the star, neither we nor they will be able to jump, and it will take about three hours to get out of the zone of influence.”

  “It’s logical,” agreed Nelson. “What can we do against this tactic?”

  “Well, for starters, we could just get on their nerves, Fleet Admiral, Sir,” I put on a smile, “We can orbit the fourth planet and start methodically knocking out their troops on the surface
and helping people in shelters. Then we’ll do the same with the third and second planets.”

  “It is a very simple and reasonable step,” the Commander nodded his head, “but it does not solve the main problem. Assuming the enemy doesn’t respond to these actions, what’s next?”

  “And then there are two options, Fleet Ad...”

  “Put aside ranks.”

  “Yes, Sir. Next, we either stand and wait around one of the planets, or we move towards the enemy and give them that same pitched battle that has been the subject of so much controversy. Each option has its drawbacks. If we wait, it’s unclear what we’re going to do. After the blast of artificial suns, the people and the troops on the planets will last two or three weeks, thanks to the sanctuaries. This leaves the first planet under enemy orbital control, and that’s dangerous. They have also brought troops there from other planets, and our forces on the surface could be in dire straits. And the pitched battle option is going to take a very heavy toll on us. With whom will we revive the fleet after such a victory?”

  Admiral Nelson hemmed indeterminately and shook his head.

  “I wish I had your confidence, Rear Admiral. If I were convinced of the possibility of victory with our forces, I would order an attack without hesitation. But where do you see victory here? The enemy has 146 battleships, 20 of which are Titan-class, albeit with damage. In addition, 180 cruisers and 35 aircraft carriers. What do we have? Three Titans, 78 battleships, a hundred cruisers, 18 aircraft carriers, and 150 'Invisibles'. And the preliminary battle plan we worked out fell apart before it even started to work, because it involved several short blows in counter-courses with the fleet jumping to reload the 'Invisibles'. The quargs have outplayed us.”

  And then General Knyazev, who did not stay in the capital and changed his comfortable armchair in the large office of the Chief of the General Staff to a reserve desk in the command post of Titan, got involved in the discussion.

  “I think we should start by helping our people on the planets that the enemy fleet has abandoned, and then we’ll see,” said he, “Somehow I doubt the quargs will hover idly over the first planet and watch us destroy their troops.”

  This commando general couldn’t bear the thought of just leaving his men behind and quitting. He certainly wouldn’t have left them behind, but the quargs might have thought otherwise.

  “The order to move to the fourth planet has not been rescinded,” answered Nelson, “We’ll help our people, but we need a plan of action in case the enemy continues to wait. There is no war without loss,” Nelson has turned his eyes on me, “you can't say 'A' without saying 'B', Rear Admiral. You’re a recognized expert in 'Invisibles' tactics, don’t disappoint me.”

  “If the enemy keeps waiting, he’ll get himself trapped,” responded I to the Admiral, which caused the officers' faces to become confused, “The enemy tactics of deploying anti-torpedo veils consisting of probes and pursuit planes is designed for the defensive character of the battle, and this scheme has worked well in the Delta Trianguli system. But right now, the Quargs want to lure us to the star so we can’t slip away in the jump, which means they’re going to attack us. They’ll be in pursuit as soon as we launch the torpedoes and try to break the distance, so as not to stand under the fire of their artillery, which outnumbers our firepower several times over.”

  “That’s logical, but what does it get us?” asked Admiral Fulton.

  “Notice, gentlemen,” I put on the projection screen the tactical specifications of our and enemy battleships, “Torpedoes take a markedly longer time to reach the target than shells, but have almost twice the range of effective use. That is, it is theoretically possible to fire torpedoes without fear of being hit by enemy artillery fire.”

  “That's only theoretically,” hemmed Nelson, “In head-on courses battle, this will only last a few minutes, and the quargs won’t stand still at the distance that is advantageous for us.”

  “You’re quite right, Commander, Sir,” I confirmed Nelson’s words, “But that just means we should avoid a meeting engagement. I’m afraid we’ll have to split up our fleet, and create a separate squadron of the fastest ships that will be able to keep the enemy from approaching the firing range of the main batteries.”

  “The quargs already have an advantage in firepower of almost six to one,” objected Admiral Fulton, “And you're suggesting we split up our fleet? And don’t forget, the enemy has fast ships, too.”

  “That’s right. But we must assemble the squadron in such a way that, on the one hand, it will not be retarded by its own low-acceleration ships, and on the other hand, it can defend itself against the fastest ships of the enemy in artillery combat. Quargs have quite a few really fast ships, but Titan-class battleships are not part of this group.”

  “But the 'Invisibles' aren’t very fast either, at least the ones that were converted from troop transports,” Nelson continued to doubt.

  “In the last month, more than a hundred ships of this type have been launched,” responded I to the Admiral, “They’ve got completely different engines on them, so these 'Invisibles' are good for our purposes.”

  “Well, let’s say we’ve assembled such a squadron,” said Fulton, looking at the characteristics of the ships on the screen,“But what do you think of its tactics? You’re not thinking of attacking the entire quarg fleet with these forces, are you?”

  “To be honest, Admiral, Sir, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting we do.”

  ***

  The fleet split in about half. The older ships under the command of Admiral Fulton moved towards the fourth planet. Titan went with them because it was not suitable for our purposes according to the running qualities, and me, Nelson, and Knyazev had to move to Dragon’s Tail, one of my department’s mixed-crew super-battleships. The reptiles that could be found in the corridors of the ship have already become familiar to me, but Nelson and Knyazev looked at them with caution, even though they pretended that nothing unusual was happening. The new ships were significantly more dynamic than Titan, thanks to additional engines, grown specifically for them by bio-engineers of lizards, so they've been very harmoniously integrated into the strike squadron.

  We didn’t go straight to the first planet with a huge enemy fleet over it, but took a slow course to Ran-3 without showing the enemy our speed capabilitiy ahead of time. At the very beginning of the space age, star Ran was named after the sea giant, a character of Norse mythology, that raises waves and catches sailors in a net. I was really hoping that giantess Ran wouldn’t hurt her own people, but for the quargs, she would do her best.

  “A call from the surface of Ran-3,” reported a communications operator.

  “Turn it on,” Nelson has turned to the projection screen.

  “Fleet Admiral, Sir,” Colonel General Matos looked up at Nelson from the screen, “You showed up at the right time, we’re running out of resources for active defense.”

  “You’ve done your job well, Colonel General. Thank you for your service,” responded the Admiral and made a gesture to stop the General from trying to reply according to the regulations, “I hope you don’t have to defend yourself anymore. I see you’re already sending us the target designation, it’s very timely. We’re going to work on the quargs on the surface, but we cannot evacuate you yet, the pitched battle of the fleets is yet to be fought.”

  “So the enemy fleet is still in the system?” The General’s voice sounded tense.

  “Yes, Colonel General, they retreated to the first planet.”

  “So you’ll come back for us and the civilians only after the victory or...”

  “Well, Rear Admiral Lavroff claims that there will be no 'or',” Nelson smiled a little, took a short look at me.

  “Thank you, Fleet Admiral, Sir,” Camilo Matos sneered at me a little bit, “It made me feel better to live in the world.”

  I chuckled too. Well, let’s see how this plays out, I got accustomed to people being sarcastic about me, that was not for the fir
st time.

  ***

  The humans were acting weird. Commander Yash did not understand the motivation of their actions and this caused him to lose his balance. At first, the enemy moved in a single formation towards the fourth planet, and that was quite logical, but then his fleet split. Yash knew for sure that even the entire fleet of men could not resist his ships in a meeting engagement even for a few hours, and he was puzzled by the enemy’s splitting of his small forces.

  More questions arose when it became clear that the squadron that had changed course was moving towards the third planet. People acted like his fleet, which was the strongest fleet ever to invade human space, wasn’t even in the system. They entered the orbits of the third and fourth planets and began to slowly destroy his troops on the surface. Yash had a spontaneous desire to throw his fleet into an attack on the enemy who has gone too far, but he suppressed this emotional impulse and tried to analyze the situation.

  Why do people behave like this? Obviously, they don’t want to get into a frontal battle near a star, in the middle of its zone of influence, that’s understandable. So they’re trying to provoke him into battle in more remote areas of the system. But the orbit of the third planet doesn’t seem to suit that. The fourth planet would be all right, as there is the edge of the zone of influence there, hence, there’s a chance of slipping away if something goes wrong, but from the third planet they'd have to fly in a normal mode for too long. In that time, they will lose their entire fleet under fire from his guns.

  Well, we’ll have to wait. If the humans don’t want those of their own people who are still alive to die off on planets devoid of artificial suns, they’ll have to do something, 'cause they’re not gonna bring slow-moving evac transports into the system with the enemy armada around. Yash knew how to wait, even if the waiting was unpleasant, and the spectacle of the enemy destroying with impunity the troops left on the third and fourth planets was not at all conducive to enjoying the process.