by Darold Higa
Amy watched as the lead Narthian fighter group maneuvered into a head-on pass against Natalenko 4. Linked by massive streams of data, the 3 SACVs rapidly choreographed their moves, using Natalenko 4 as bait. Deftly, Natalenko 1 and 2 shot past the Cavaliers desperately trying to get an attack solution on Natalenko 4. The pair pulled a hard-g Immelman, promptly accelerating into the rear of the attacking Narthians. With computer precision the three SACVs devastated the four Cavaliers in the crossfire, firing dangerously close to each other. Amy shook her head. Such a maneuver would be impossible with human pilots. She almost felt sorry for the Narthians. Quickly the 3 SACVs resumed formation and continued their advance.
Amy surveyed the battle raging around her in her datatank. Her fellow attackers had managed to open a large hole in the Narthian defenses and two flights were already beginning an attack run on the Kobenhavn. Amy watched with fascination as they flew towards the giant battleship, weaving in and out randomly to avoid defensive fire. Amy held her breath as she saw a fighter get hit by defensive fire from the Kobenhavn. The fighter was a Renspan FA-23. Despite the devastating blow, the fighter continued to press the attack, but its maneuverability had been drastically reduced. Under a withering barrage of defensive fire, the FA-23 began to take hit after hit. Instead of ejecting, the Renspan pilot pressed the attack, ultimately ramming the giant battleship when it appeared that she could no longer dodge enemy fire. Amy admired the determination of the Renspan pilots. She knew if she were fighting above the skies of Nova Roma or Sardinia that she would probably willing to sacrifice herself as well. For now, however, she knew that Admiral Linodan wanted to preserve as much fighting strength as possible.
Admiral Choi braced herself as the Renspan fighter rammed into the hull of the Kobenhavn. Despite the relative difference in mass, the sound of explosions and tortured metal reverberated through the hull. She cursed under her breath. She had been careful to maintain communications security and had felt confident that it would be difficult, if not impossible to determine the location of the fleet flagship. She had even taken the extra effort to adopt an older model ship as her flag. Now, instead of coordinating a phased retreat, her ship and her staff were engaged in a life and death struggle to stay alive. Reluctantly, she abandoned the notion of orchestrating a flag-wide retreat and gave orders for each individual fleet commander to withdraw from the battlefield with minimal casualties. Again she had been outsmarted by the Devil herself, Princess Alicia Linodan. Admiral Choi vowed that if she escaped this battle, she would make sure to exact revenge.
Ellen almost had to wipe the tears from her eyes. She fought hard to maintain some composure. After the bitter defeat at Newport, the allies had finally stood against the Narthians and beat them back. As she watched her datatank she could see the Narthians beat a hasty retreat. The retreat was so disorganized that they had managed to force an entire group of nearly a thousand ships to surrender, after it had become obvious that retreat for them would be impossible. She ordered her crews combined with survivors of the Battle of Newport to crew as many of the surrendered ships as possible. The fleet operations center was buzzing with activity as shuttles and crews were dispatched to and from the Narthian vessels, evacuating Narthian crews planetside to New Boston, and crewing any ships that could be salvaged with crews from the allied fleets. It hadn’t been a big victory, but Renspa had fought back and fought well. For the first time in two days she felt like she could hold her head up.
Alicia nodded as she looked at her datatank. It was apparent that the Narthians had begun to retreat. Once again the superior AI cores of her ship had given her an advantage. She knew she had the computational firepower to examine the enemy ship movements accurately enough to determine the identity of the enemy flagship. The enemy commander had hid her communications traffic well, simple SIGINT back-tracing wasn’t enough. Alicia used the slight differences in ship reaction times to orders to figure out the rough location of the enemy commander. Once the target list had been reduced to a few hundred ships, it was a much simpler task to examine the volume of signal traffic and figure out what ship held the enemy commander. Instead of pressing the attack, the enemy admiral had wisely chosen to disengage. Even with the attack on the Kobenhavn beaten back, the Narthian commander had known that continuing the fight would have just resulted in larger losses for both sides with neither side able to force a decisive victory. She also knew that their position here at New Boston had become untenable. The original plan was for Sokolov Fleet to return to Spincora with the government in exile while Admiral Mitchell joined up with the forces at Arlington. The Linodan Fleet and the 7th would remain in the New Boston area to harass the advancing enemy. This was no longer possible. Instead, Alicia would have to form a new plan for Linodan Fleet and the 7th. Calling up more maps and detailed logistics reports she nodded again to herself. Sometimes the only logical choice was to go someplace illogical.
End of Book I – “Invasion”