Scout Force

by Rodney Smith

  The captain ordered the crew off battle stations. Kelly turned helm control back over to the helmsman and walked back with the captain to the galley for some coffee. Chief Watson had the conn. Kelly got a cup of coffee and a sandwich from Cookie, then went into the sensor section to confer with Chief B.

  “Chief, we need you and your folks to keep a sharp eye out. Could you tell if the K’Rang command ship got out a distress call or not?”

  “We’ll keep both a sharp eye and ear out. As far as the command ship, it didn’t have time for a distress call. If one went out, we didn’t have any indication of it.”

  “Chief, we may see ships coming from any direction. Keep a watch on where the K’Rang invasion fleet is, on the two K’Rang worlds, and from further into K’Rang space. The captain thinks we may be able to pick off any stragglers that retreat across the frontier away from the 1st Combined Fleet. The 1st Fleet won’t pursue across the frontier, but since we are already here, there’s no harm in taking them out. Try and find good targets for our remaining missiles.”

  Chief B responded, “Will do, sir.”

  * * * * * *

  The K’Rang Fleet commander was ecstatic. Fighting his way through the frontier defenses, minefields and outer defenses had cost him more than anticipated, but at last he had a relatively clear path before him into the 6664 system and the human planet, New Alexandria. His claws involuntarily extended and retracted as he could see an easy victory before him. He ordered his fighters to sweep the path into the system. The remaining defensive satellites along his path would be easy targets for his fighters.

  He signaled his battlecruisers and bombardment cruisers to prepare for the destruction of the planet's surface defenses. Their targeting sensors and firing computers listed and prioritized the defensive installations for total devastation. The lighter carriers followed behind the battlecruisers, ready to land ground forces for the easy elimination of any remaining resistance. The landing support carriers moved their attack fighters to launch positions. His missile cruisers deployed outward to seal the 6664 system from outside reinforcement.

  The commander’s reverie was interrupted by the harsh klaxon sound of multiple alarms going off. He shouted to his battle captain, “What is happening?”

  The battle captain sat speechless, staring at his indicator screen. The commander walked over to see what his battle captain was seeing. He rudely slapped the battle captain out of the way and couldn’t believe his eyes. The screen was covered with hundreds of hostile ship symbols at maximum sensor range coming in at high speed from every direction. There were so many the symbols overlapped. Thousands of inbound missiles were shown vectoring in on his fleet.

  “Battle Captain! Recycle your system!” he shouted. “It is obviously malfunctioning.”

  The battle captain turned to face his admiral, his eyes huge. “I already have, Admiral, it’s not a malfunction.”

  The admiral stared for just a heartbeat more before recovering his senses. “This is Admiral K’Tang to all ships. I order the fleet to form for defense. Escorts form a bubble. Main combatants to withdraw immediately across the frontier at flank speed. Battlecruisers and missile cruisers prepare to fire your long-range missiles against the incoming ships once they come into range. Execute!”

  The K’Rang moved into their defensive battle formation in an orderly and expeditious manner. There appeared to be no panic. All ships assumed their formation positions as they had practiced it scores of times. It did them no good.

  The first inbound salvoes of Fleet missiles expended the K’Rang ships’ magazines of defensive missiles. Their defensive missiles took out hundreds of incoming missiles, but the remainder flew on. The escorts’ guns were unable to save them either. There were simply too many missiles coming in too fast for the defensive guns to track and destroy. The defensive bubble of escorts dissolved in brilliant flashes of matter/antimatter explosions. One second the escort ships were there. The next they were expanding clouds of flame and debris.

  The major combatants fared only slightly better. They never had time to fire their own long-range missiles. Incoming missiles passing through the debris of the escorts flew inexorably into the massed formation of capital and support ships. The missiles chewed away at the fleet. The support ships were easily destroyed by one missile each, but the larger ships took two or more before they were totally destroyed. In minutes, the K’Rang Fleet was no longer a cohesive threat.

  Several ships carried on singly, bravely, attempting to take out any Human ships in range. The carriers launched most of their fighters and attack ships. One lone, damaged missile frigate made a dash for the frontier, but it was quickly dispatched by the Rutherford’s squadron of planetary corvettes. The squadron and other escort ships moved to the frontier to provide early warning of any K’Rang reinforcements. Fleet and New Amsterdam fighters made short work of the K’Rang fighters and attack ships still remaining. No K’Rang forces made it to the planet’s surface. In less than a day, the 6664 system would be clear of any K’Rang forces.

  * * * * *

  Kelly moved through the galley, picked up another sandwich, refreshed his coffee, and resumed his position on the bridge. The captain was in his cabin. Chief Watson still had the conn.

  LCDR Timmons stuck his head out of his cabin and said, “Exec, get some rest. We could be out here on patrol for weeks. Chief, get everybody back on normal watch schedule.”

  Kelly closed down his station and retired to his quarters. The war would wait for him to get some rest.

  He awoke in three hours, cleaned up and took his position on the bridge. The crew settled back into normal watch schedule.

  Kelly reviewed the log from the previous watch. With the exception of some explosions in the Voracious’ patrol area, there was no activity, short of some uninteresting interplanetary traffic in the nearest K’Rang planetary system. The K’Rang invasion fleet had taken a bad beating from the 1st Combined Fleet.

  Kelly stood his watch and had very little to show for it. The sensor section provided periodic reports on the action in the 6664 system. The K’Rang continued to take a beating. Kelly finished out his watch and turned the watch over to Chief Billings.

  Awakened by Chief Watson, Kelly was asked to report to the bridge. It took only a moment for Kelly to throw some water in his face and step back onto the bridge. The tension on the bridge was thick as a fog. The captain was conferring with Chief Watson about something on his display. Kelly moved over and listened in.

  “Chief, there are too many of them for us to take on by ourselves. Oh, Exec, there you are, come here and look at this.”

  Kelly looked at the display and saw a formation of twenty-two warships and support ships moving in their direction. He saw four battle cruisers, four missile cruisers, four destroyers (one of them a new Shadow Scout Destroyer), eight frigates, and two support ships.

  “We only have eight missiles, we can’t take them all on. Even if we get unbelievably lucky and knock out all the cruisers, the destroyers and frigates would chew us up. Even the nebula won’t protect us from a deliberate cordon and search by twelve determined ships. We’re too far away from the frontier to make a run for it. I am open to suggestions.”

  Kelly was about to admit he had no clue how to take this fleet on, when he remembered something he read when researching Admiral Craddock.

  “Sir, do you remember how Admiral Craddock took on the Algolians?”

  A blank look came over LCDR Timmon’s face followed by realization. “I’ll be damned. I see what you mean. The Algolian Gambit! Perfect, but the K’Rang are not the Algolians. How do you propose to make this work?”

  Kelly studied the display for a moment before replying, “We go after the formation from the rear to the front. We take out the support ships first with our guns. We can jump out from this nebula already at max FTL speed, drop in behind the support ships and take out their engines, then jump out to the gas giant we used earlier. We jump from there, take out the oth
er support ship, and jump back into this nebula. We watch them react to our attack and wait. That should take them a while to sort out. If we do it right, they won’t have a clue where we came from and where we went. We should be safely inside the gas giant or nebula before their sensors are able to resolve our signature. It will require precision and our stabilizers must be working at full efficiency for us to go from power 6 to a dead stop in the space inside the safe zone of the planet’s atmosphere. We have to stop before the atmospheric pressure crushes us. If we can manage this, we should be able to knock off maybe a dozen ships. The admiral engaged 20 ships. We should be able to handle a dozen. That will leave 10 for us to take on with our missiles.”

  “It’s a gutsy plan, but it gives us the best chance of success. Plot our jumps so that we come in between two ships. We can double the number of ships we can disable that way. Chief Watson, get as much stuff locked down as possible. This plan will really put a strain on the stabilizers. We don’t want things flying around if they start to go on us. We’ll secure the crew as best we can. All right, get started on locking things down. They’ll be on us soon and I want us ready as soon as they go past.”

  Chief Watson called all the other chiefs together. The meeting was followed by a flurry of activity, as everything that could be stowed, tied down, or locked away was made so. In an hour the ship was secure and ready for battle.

  * * * * *

  Shadow Leader M’Trang reviewed the reports coming in from the 27th Battle Fleet. The Humans had somehow managed to move a large force into the Scutum sector and they were engaging the 27th Fleet to devastating result. He keyed his communicator and attempted to contact the Sector Command Ship that should be in the vicinity. There was no response.

  He realized that if the Command Ship was not responding, it was probably destroyed. The Command Ships had communications redundancies. He considered his options and formulated a plan.

  There were three reinforcing battle fleets converging on New Alexandria. He contacted all three fleet commanders and coordinated their arrival at New Alexandria. His appointment as provisional governor of New Alexandria made him the senior commander. They would converge simultaneously and hit the Humans from three sides with a withering fire. They could bring over 3000 long-range missiles to bear on the Human fleet. It would be simple to continue in with their long-range heavy guns and take out any survivors.

  He ordered the fleet to slow to give time for the other battle fleets to move into their positions for the coordinated attack.

  * * * * *

  LCDR Timmons and Kelly had used the time to calculate jump points in preparation for the attack. Sensors had picked these ships up at maximum range and there were over two hours of tracking data to work from. The K’Rang fleet formation had not changed for the entire time they approached. The escorts were arrayed around the four battlecruisers. An outer ring of frigates surrounded the fleet. Next inside this ring, at the front of the formation were the four destroyers. They were the short range defensive ships for the battlecruisers.

  In the center of the formation were the four battlecruisers, followed by the missile cruisers. The battlecruisers were the heavy punch of the formation. They were equipped with guns and missiles, heavy armor and shielding. The missile cruisers were the fast, long-range punch of the formation and only lightly armored. They each carried hundreds of extended-range missiles designed to take out large capital ships. If this fleet crossed the frontier, it could do serious damage to the 1st Combined Fleet. Trailing the missile cruisers were the two logistics ships, inside the frigate screen.

  Their plan was to take out the two support ships in the first jump. Hopefully, one or two of the frigates would stay with them as the fleet moved off. Chief B’s viruses and trojan horses would be deployed into the formation’s C3I system, if possible. Next they would take out two of the missile cruisers. The next pass would go after the other two missile cruisers. Their goal would be to disable the engines and leave them drifting or moving at such slow speed that they couldn’t engage in combat.

  Follow-on jumps would attempt to take out some of the frigates. If they could knock off half of the frigates, they’d be in good shape for the next jump, in which they would unleash half the missiles, one per battlecruiser. If they were that successful, maybe the K’Rang would retreat to lick their wounds.

  Chief Watson told the captain that the ship was secure and ready for combat. He thanked him and ordered the crew to battle stations. He looked at the bridge crew and said, “Exec, you back up the helmsman and the gunner. Chief Watson, you back up navigation and the engineering position. I’ll watch Sensors. Navigation, plot and lock in our jump points. Helm, prepare to execute. We will not stop longer than three seconds inside the K’Rang formation. Helm, count out loud when we jump in and then jump us out. Do not hesitate. Do not wait for an order from me.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Three seconds and then jump us out.”

  “Helm, execute.”

  The Vigilant leapt out of the nebula at full power 6 speed. The K’Rang sensors, probably set for max range, wouldn’t even resolve the Vigilant this close. If they detected anything, it was only a blur. The Vigilant came in immediately behind the two support ships. The gunner used the forward plasma cannons on the far support ship, shredding the hull. Two of the turret gunners took out the engines of the near support ship. The third turret gunner, unable to bear on the support ships, took out the nearest frigate’s engines. At the count of three, the helmsman jumped the ship into the gas giant.

  The captain had the sensor plot on his monitor and it showed the K’Rang fleet in disarray. The attack was so swift they didn’t even know from where it came or where the attacker went. The frigates, destroyers and cruisers were wildly firing in all directions and lighting up every active sensor, trying to find the phantom ship that just hit them. The captain watched as they slowly came back under control and moved out again. The disabled frigate and the support ship remained behind.

  * * * * *

  The realization that they were under attack came slow to the Shadow Leader. The possibility that the Humans could have penetrated this far into K’Rang space was inconceivable, even though he had presumed the sector command ship destroyed. When the Fleet activated all its active sensors and could find no attacker, it caused him to wonder if the ships hadn’t merely gotten too close in formation and collided. It was not unheard of for ships to run into each other, especially when only operating on passive sensors.

  He called for detailed reports. The response was that a small ship had appeared in their formation, fired on several ships, and disappeared.

  Shadow leader M’Trang knew the Humans did not have invisibility capability. He set his staff to looking for places the Humans could use to hide. Their next attack would be their last.

  * * * * *

  Chief Watson made some quick calculations and passed them to the navigator to plot and lock in the jump points. When the navigator and the helmsman reported they were ready, the captain gave the order to jump.

  Once again, the Vigilant leapt into the K’Rang formation and fired. Two of the lightly armored missile cruisers were wracked with secondary explosions. The Vigilant jumped out of the formation, as missiles and plasma fire zeroed in on their former location.

  They jumped into the nebula, and the sensor display showed the explosions from the two missile cruisers damaging one of the other missile cruisers and one of the battle cruisers. Missiles from the two burning missile cruisers fired off and flew through the formation, hitting other ships. One of the frigates took a direct hit amidships and exploded into a fireball. The formation broke up and ships moved in all directions, fleeing the conflagration. All ships in the formation were indiscriminately firing guns and defensive missiles to intercept the missile cruisers missiles. This caused even more random damage to the formation.

  The captain ordered the Vigilant to jump within close range of the broken formation. Four missiles were targeted against the four
battlecruisers. The Vigilant jumped within 100,000 km of the fleet, fired its missiles, and jumped for the gas giant. The Vigilant actually outpaced its own missiles as it passed over the formation.

  Once they had settled into the planet’s atmosphere, the sensors showed all four battlecruisers received direct hits. The missile cruisers’ errant missiles had flooded the defensive systems of the formation and the four missiles ran unimpeded into the four capital ships. The matter/antimatter warheads and resulting explosions consumed all four. Two frigates and the damaged missile cruiser were close enough that the shock waves from the explosions took them out as well. The Shadow Destroyer stopped dead in space, its engines off line.

  * * * * *

  Shadow Leader M’Trang picked himself up from the deck. A dead sensor operator lay over his legs. He kicked the corpse away and screamed, “Captain, get a damage report. Sensors, get new operators in here to work the systems. Communications, get me the status of all Fleet ships. Put me in contact with Admiral S’Gor.”

  A radio operator was first to report, “Sir, Admiral S’Gor’s flagship was totally destroyed. As senior Shadow Leader, do you assume command or would you pass that to one of the other ship’s captains?”

  “No, I will assume command. Have some undamaged frigates close with us. I will decide on whether to move to another ship once we determine our status. Where are the damage reports, captain?”

  Damage reports came in. The engines were down and would need to be restarted. Engineering expected it would take ten minutes to have maneuver control and twenty for full power.

  “Inform the Fleet that I have assumed command. Have the Frigates lay alongside. The remainder of the ships should form a defensive bubble.”

  * * * * *

  Vigilant held position in the gas giant to give the K’Rang a chance to settle down. Two frigates moved to the disabled destroyer’s aid, probably to pull off survivors, arrange a tow, or assist in damage control. The remaining ships formed a defensive bubble. The three remaining destroyers and two frigates formed a perimeter around the remaining missile cruiser in the center of the formation. All ships pointed outward, away from the cruiser.