by Max Glebow
But the wait did not end as Yash had anticipated. The tactical officer pulled the fleet commander from his quarters to the command post with an emergency call.
“What’s going on, officer?” The Сommander’s voice was steel.
“The enemy squadron has left orbit, Сommander Yash. They’re heading for the second planet.”
“What about the second half of their fleet?”
“It remains at the fourth planet and shows no activity.”
Yash didn’t understand the commander of the human fleet. Half of their relatively small fleet was heading into a gravitational trap, committing a certain suicide. Well, if they want to die in this manner, who is he to stand in their way?
“Fleet to begin accelerating towards the second planet to intercept enemy squadron,” Yash gave his principal order in this battle.
***
“The enemy has left the orbit of Ran-1,” the operator’s report tore us away from a light breakfast that's been delivered to the command post, “If we don’t change course, his fleet will intercept us two million kilometers from the second planet.”
On the tactical projection, in addition to our course line, there appeared a dashed line of the predicted course of the quarg fleet intersecting with it. The lines crossed at almost right angles, which was never part of our plan, but Nelson hasn’t ordered a change of course yet.
“Fleet prepare for battle. Rear Admiral Lavroff, take command of the 'Invisibles' and the aircraft carriers Wellington, Windhoek, and Valletta. The hybrid battleships Dragon’s Tail and Saint Petersburg are also under your operational control.”
“Command accepted,” I responded clearly to the expected order. That was what Nelson and I planned. He put at my disposal the forces that I knew best, the tactics of their combat use were being developed in my department. The aircraft carriers I got were fully loaded with drone torpedoes instead of pursuit planes. In this way we tried to compensate for the shortage of torpedo carriers. These rather old ships have earned a place in our squadron only because they have undergone major repairs and upgrades to their propulsion systems, but also, I had a lot to do with Wellington and Windhoek, and I was happy to have them under my command.
“Navigator, show the point of change of direction,” ordered Nelson, and there appeared another mark on the tactical projection, which was about 15 minutes away.
The minutes were long for us. The imperturbable Nelson even went back to the table with the breakfast still unfinished, he had the distinct pleasure of snatching a little cake from it and taking a sip of green tea. It’s good to be Fleet Admiral, he’s got a lot of latitude, even in in a combat situation, and it is important that, in the same time, he is mindful of his duties and responsibilities.
The courses of the fleets did not change, and at the calculated point we made a turn, moving now at an acute angle to the enemy’s trajectory and allowing it to catch up with us slowly.
The quarg fleet has increased speed. Ahead came the fastest of their ships, mostly cruisers and the newest battleships. The enemy’s order was in disarray. The aircraft carriers built in recent months were trying to stay close to the advance party, their speed allowed them to keep up with the group of heavy ships in pursuit, but to do so they had to pass through a line of slower battleships. It might have been a good time to strike if the fleets were equal in firepower, but Nelson only shook his head watching the evolutions of the enemy ships.
“Scanners are detecting pursuit planes and probe carriers taking off aircraft carriers,” reported an operator.
“And they built a lot of fast ships,” thoughtfully pronounced Nelson looking at the tactical projection. About two-thirds of the enemy fleet were quite capable of keeping the speed set by the forward battleships and cruisers. “Rear Admiral, that's your cue, in a few minutes, they’re gonna build an anti-torpedo shield and attack.”
“'Invisibles', prepare to launch torpedoes with cluster warheads. Target is the anti-torpedo shield made of pursuit planes and scanner probes. Torpedo consumption - 30 per cent.”
I watched the enemy mosquito forces creating an anti-torpedo shield in a well-coordinated way. The quargs have already completed their maneuver. The slower ships were left behind, but continued to follow us, keeping their distance, and the cruisers and the battleships of the newer construction were steadily reducing the distance to our squadron.
Nelson also looked at the tactical projection and waited. Our ships were now running slower than they could, using just over 90 percent of the engine power. We needed to allow the enemy to approach at the distance from which our torpedoes would reach his anti-torpedo veil, and the range of effective gunfire of the quarg guns would not yet allow them to fire on our ships. Five minutes later, the right moment has arrived.
“'Invisibles', fire!” I gave a short order.
“Fleet, increase speed to the maximum. Keep up the line,” ordered Nelson trying to keep the optimal distance to the enemy.
Although we have selected the fastest ships of the fleet to our squadron, their sailing qualities have varied somewhat. The ‘Invisibles’ and aircraft carriers under my command, unfortunately, were among the slowest ships among them. The other ships had to emulate them. That’s what Admiral Nelson meant when he gave the order to keep up the line. Still, we’ve had enough speed so far. The distance between us and the quargs has stopped shrinking, and the first wave of torpedoes has reached its targets. The anti-torpedo shield of the enemy was covered with a dense net of bright flares, each of which meant the death of a scanner probe or a pursuit plane. The torpedo salvo of a hundred 'Invisibles' was a sight not for the faint of heart, although they only launched a small part of their ammunition.
Each 'Invisible' carried 60 drone torpedoes. They used to be placed in a ship 10 less, but now we didn’t need command machines, because the drone torpedoes were controlled by operators from the carrier ship, so an extra space freed up, and the huge risk to the pilots of the command machines was now a thing of the past. The 'Invisibles' carried torpedoes of the same three types as the orbital fortresses used in the recent defensive battle. One third of the ammunition consisted of torpedoes with a warhead divided into twenty missiles to destroy pursuit planes and scanner probes. In the first salvo, we used 30 percent of the torpedoes of this type, which meant that 100 'Invisibles' launched almost 700 torpedoes, each of which on the final stretch of the trajectory divided into 20 parts. The quargs, of course, brought down something, they even shot down a lot, but the veil of their mosquito fleet still suffered tremendous damage.
“Up to 80 percent of the small targets destroyed,” the notes of celebration were felt in the voice of the space control operator.
“The 'Invisibles', prepare to re-fire.”
“The enemy is replenishing the veil with new probes and pursuit planes,” reported the operator.
“The enemy increased speed!” The navigator’s report sounded surprised.
“Put on the projection screen a large image of any of their heavy ships,” there was a very bad suspicion in my head.
One of the enemy battleships came at us and occupied almost half of the main screen.
“What’s happening to it’s engines?” asked Admiral Nelson, there was a tension in his voice.
I knew the answer, I knew it from my past life, but here in the Earth Federation, this was the technology that humans have never encountered. A pale glow, shimmering with colors from purple to green, was pulsing slightly around the propulsion systems of the enemy battleship. We called it 'suicide mode'. It was just another dead end technology that didn’t stick in our fleet nor in the toads' fleet, except in some highly specialized intelligence and special forces units. The idea was to use special equipment to drive the engine into an unstable mode of operation on the verge of destruction. Such regimes were considered dangerous. An engine could not operate in this mode for a long time, in a few hours it burned its entire resource, but the main problem was that the unstable regime threatened to explod
e the engine every second, with all its consequences. I didn’t know what exactly the quargs have managed to accomplish, but even the best engine samples from my previous life exploded in the first hour of work in three percent of the cases, and the power of the engine increased by no more than 20 per cent.
“This is another trump card out of a quarg’s sleeve,” said I, “Engineers in my department told me that this was theoretically possible, but it could blow up the engine at any moment, so we didn’t seriously consider this approach. The quargs must have decided otherwise.”
It was as if in support of my words, one of the enemy’s cruisers has turned into a fireflower, and it's marker disappeared from the tactical projection.
“In 15 minutes, our ships will be within range of the main batteries of the enemy battleships,” reported the navigator.
“The density of the enemy anti-torpedo net has been restored,” the report has come from the space control operator.
“The 'Invisibles', repeat the volley!” ordered I and turned to Nelson and Knyazev,“Fleet Admiral, Sir, I ask you and the General of the Army to leave Dragon’s Tail and change the flagship.”
“I didn't understand,” the astonished Knyazev stared at me, having forestalled the answer of the Fleet Commander.
“Explain yourself, Rear Admiral,” Admiral Nelson supported Knyazev.
“We have 15 minutes, gentlemen,” I firmly said, looking into the Admiral’s eyes, “then we’ll be wiped out. Of course, the 'Invisibles' will thin out the enemy ranks, but we’ll have enough of the remaining enemy ships. I should have seen this coming. It was my plan and my mistake, and I’m gonna fix it. The enemy will not be able to move in this mode for long, as soon as the probability of an engine explosion is increasing by the minute. The battleships Dragon’s Tail and Saint Petersburg will engage the enemy fleet under cover of a torpedo salvo. Their Titan-class ships have fallen behind, and now we have a chance to hamper the enemy for the time needed, but the Fleet Commander and the Chief of the General Staff cannot come with us. You are experienced high-ranking officers, gentlemen, and I’m sure you understand that.”
Nelson was silent for long 30 seconds.
“Prepare the Admiral's Boat for departure,” said the Fleet Commander through gritted teeth.
“But...” began Knyazev, but Nelson turned abruptly to him.
“Chief of Staff, Sir,” hissed the Admiral, who had a hard time holding back his emotions, “I command the fleet. And you come with me. Execute!”
Chapter 8
The impact of the second wave of torpedoes once again caused yawning breaches in the quarg anti-torpedo network, but the enemy built their giant aircraft carriers for a reason, his reserve of probes and pursuit planes seemed inexhaustible. A few minutes later, the veil regained its density. Two more quarg cruisers exploded, unable to withstand the exorbitant flight mode, but the enemy heavy ships were approaching and preparing to fire their main batteries.
“Battleships Dragon's Tail and Saint Petersburg, start deceleration,” I gave the order which made my decision irreversible, “'Invisibles', prepare for a full salvo. First wave to destroy the anti-torpedo network. Second wave, torpedoes with anti-air defence filler. Third wave - anti-ship torpedoes. Torpedo operators to receive target distribution. Fire on my order.”
“Rear Admiral,” I was approached by the captain of Dragon's Tail, lizard Slin-at, “The enemy mosquito forces are within range of our cannons.”
“Open barrage fire.”
Our cannon shells were bursting into enemy formation for about a minute, inflicting less damage than previous torpedo salvos, and finally it became clear to me that it was pointless to wait any longer.
“'Invisibles', full salvo! The battleships, stop the deceleration and prepare to open fire on the enemy heavy ships and aircraft carriers. Main batteries, distribute targets. Our fire must be as dispersed as possible. The goal is not to destroy the enemy, but to slow him down. The mode in which the quarg ships are moving is extremely sensitive to any combat damage,” this peculiarity of the 'suicidal regime' I remembered from the history of the world of Brigadier General Dean, “We have to hit different ships as much and as often as possible, and then their formation falls apart. Is the mission clear?”
“Accepted,” answered succinctly Slin-at, whose notions of subordination were very specific.
“That's right, Rear Admiral, Sir,” the commander of the battleship Saint Petersburg confirmed the receipt of the order in strict accordance with the regulations.
The anti-torpedo veil of the quarg mosquito forces, which had already been battered by our barrage fire, received another brutal blow. Unfortunately, these were the last of our torpedoes with warheads specifically designed to destroy pursuit planes and scanner probes, but I was quite satisfied with the result. Two waves of torpedo drones slipped into the holes in the veil. The operators led them to predetermined targets in the formation of heavy enemy ships.
“Enemy battleships are within range,” reported Slin-at.
“Open fire with the main batteries and start to accelerate, we should not be needlessly caught under return fire of their ships,” ordered I, knowing full well that we'll not be able to maintain such a safe tactic for long. In a few minutes, we would have caught up with our 'Invisibles' and put them under enemy fire, which we should never have allowed. But we still had a couple of minutes of safe shooting like in a firing range, and we took it.
I watched with grim satisfaction as the markers of enemy cruisers and battleships died away one by one on tactical projection. Each hit by our massive projectiles shook the enemy ship from bow to stern, knocked off the engine settings and most often led to its explosion. However, the distance was almost ultimate and the precision of our fire left much to be desired, so the quarg fleet continued to rush ahead, despite the losses. There were still too many of their ships. Almost two hundred ships were now chasing our squadron, and between it and the quarg fleet there were only our two battleships and two waves of drone torpedoes, which have almost reached their targets.
The quarg aircraft carriers launched a new batch of pursuit planes and probes, but they did not have time to fully restore the veil. Still, the carrier ships were vulnerable and were stuck behind the battleships and cruisers, and there was quite a distance to cover from there, and this was not a quick fix, given the extraordinary speed with which their fleet was proceeding.
Suddenly, the glow around the engines of the enemy ships died away. Apparently, realizing that they could not avoid numerous hits of torpedoes, the commander of the enemy fleet decided to withdraw the ships from the 'suicidal mode', otherwise, the losses from engine explosions would have been quite extraordinary. The speed of the enemy fleet has plummeted, and our squadron has gained some respite, and again slowly started to disengage from the quarg ships.
“Stop the acceleration,” I have responded to the changing situation.
And at that point, the wave of anti-air defence torpedoes reached its targets. The splitted warheads overcame enemy ships with a multitude of small missiles, that mutilated all the external equipment and destroyed anti-aircraft points on the armor of battleships and cruisers. But the targets turned out to be too many, and they fought very hard, so we could not count on a reliable suppression of the enemy anti-aircraft weapons. The anti-ship torpedoes that struck in the next wave suffered heavy casualties, but still, only a few of the enemy heavy ships survived the attack without damage.
“As a result of the torpedo strike, the enemy lost eight battleships and 14 cruisers,” came the report of the space control operator, “Up to 80 percent of the remaining heavy ships were damaged in varying degrees.”
And now our trumps were over. Drone torpedoes were only left on three aircraft carriers under my command, which were now running off with the rest of our squadron. There are, of course, more torpedoes in the hangars of my two battleships, but there are not many of them, and this really is the last reserve. But the two hybrid battleships themse
lves are capable of doing something, although they certainly won’t last long against such an armada.
The race resumed. But now it turned out that not all enemy ships can continue to chase our squadron at the same pace. Nevertheless, 120 heavy streamers and aircraft carriers again enveloped themselves in multi-coloured gloom and accelerated sharply. However, they lost some time, and now they had to catch up with our squadron again, playing at the same time a no-win lottery with their own engines striving to explode. But all the calculations showed that they would catch up with us, and within an hour, their main batteries would be in play.
“Keep the optimal distance,” I wanted to take advantage of the time gained with maximum efficiency, and to hit the quarg ships as long as I had the opportunity, while remaining out of range of their guns, but the enemy countered a very unpleasant surprise to my plans. And the surprise was called torpedo-bombers. They were the same classic torpedo bombers that the Earth Federation Fleet had long abandoned as a completely ineffective weapon compared to a drone torpedo, and also putting its own pilots at excessive risk. But now, with my two battleships oddly opposed to the giant quarg fleet, they have proven to be an unexpectedly dangerous weapon. Our aircraft carriers were far away now, and we had only 10 pursuit plane squadrons to intercept the torpedo bombers, that is, a hundred machines, 50 planes in the hangars of each battleship.
The enemy, with no one in front of him but us, was able to send a hundred torpedo bombers, covered by almost 300 pursuit planes, to attack my ships. Of course, that armada still needed to get to us, and, theoretically, we even had the opportunity to escape under cover of our fleet, but it meant failing the task that brought us between two fleets.
In the hangars of each of our ships, in addition to the pursuit planes, nine units of drone torpedoes were waiting for their turn. This was a solution we copied from the reconstructed Titan, which became a prototype for hybrid battleships. 180 torpedoes were perfectly capable of scattering the armada of pursuit planes and torpedo bombers coming at us, but I had other plans for these weapons, and I didn’t want to waste them on trifles. Finally, I made a decision.