The first round missed just barely, grazing the alien ship’s shields, but the second slammed home into the destroyer’s bow. Achyuta watched part of its side explode out as the powerful round traveled through the interior and detonated within it. To a warship of that size the damage was fairly minimal; the response was not, however. It turned slightly to starboard and released a staggering orange laser barrage from multiple emission points throughout the side. Each beam hammered against the Maridok’s shields with a vengeance. With its shields depleting quickly in the face of such firepower it let loose with another pair of projectiles. One detonated instantly against the destroyer’s now reinforced shields while the other forced its way into the vessel before exploding deep inside.
It was joined by other rounds a second later fired from the Sirius, the only undamaged destroyer in Admiral Singh’s Battle Group. The enemy’s entire dorsal starboard side became awash with fire as the six rounds slammed into it cratering multiple areas of its black hull. Its discharge of laser energy quickly diminished to almost nothing right after the impacts. Achyuta felt inside that the damage he now witnessed was not enough to stop a ship that powerful, but even so had managed to destroy the ship’s powerful bow weapon. Its neighbor’s weapon was still in perfect working order, however, and the admiral witnessed its own sphere of spinning violent energy light up the enemy’s bow. In a flash another great lance shot out from the alien vessel and angled up directly into the ventral bow of the Sirius. The shields resisted the blow for only seconds before becoming overwhelmed. Unimpeded the weapon proceeded to slice clean through the bottom hull and emerge from the top of the ship. As if in slow motion it surgically began to trace its way through the Cosmos class destroyer from bow to the stern using a diagonal route. About one third of the way through, the warship’s SMS tried to stave off further damage by rotating the ship away. This caused the cutting beam to deviate to the left and painfully slowly stopping its rearward progress. In seconds it sliced out of the port side and deactivated.
For a moment it seemed as if the Sirius remained unharmed. That all changed in the next second as a series of power explosions rocked the large vessel. Along with these blast waves and the ship’s starboard momentum, Achyuta saw over a quarter of the destroyer’s hull separate from the main body. This cut out section floated ominously in space. Anyone left inside it had to fend for themselves.
“Life-pods detected,” Regela began to announce as her sensors registered multiple escape pods firing away from the wreckage.
“Initiate SAR,” Captain Hinnamen ordered as he steadied himself, fighting the neuropathic pain shooting throughout his body.
“Vampires target Hotel Four,” Admiral Singh breathed out as his headache began to worsen once again.
The CGB fighter squadrons fared slightly better. They were starting to regain the upper hand that they had had in the beginning of the fight. The fighters had been almost decimated in the moments of the alien cerebral attack. It had caused many of the pilots of freeze or become distracted for just enough time to give the enemy fighters an edge. Because of this many of those same pilots never had a chance to even see their attackers. When the pain and confusing visions started to subside the Federation Naval squadrons began to exert their revenge for their fallen comrades. Achyuta watched through blurry eyes as more of the aliens disappeared into explosions along with a pair of Regal Dragonfires.
“Enemy ASM signatures detected, twelve in number, extrapolating course and targets. Initiating defensive countermeasures,” Regela called out as new alarms rang throughout the bridge, hurting the admiral’s head even further.
He reached up to hold his head in one hand and forced himself to look at the forward display. The missiles being tracked disappeared quickly even before the laser and particle beams reached them. This time the phasing out was expected and Regela quickly readjusted fire to probable locations of the weapon reappearance points. Most of that fire missed, as the warheads emerged at somewhat different points, but a few were actually intercepted by outbound fire from the CBG escorts. The rest continued on their way until Regela altered the screen once again. These new fields of fire took out three more of the anti-ship missiles and caused large singularities to open up in the middle to space.
“New high speed ordinance separation detected,” Regela informed seconds later.
“Great! More Vortex missiles!” Admiral Singh groaned.
“Negative, reading twenty Brimstone missiles and a similar number of Kibas. It’s Trident and Ranger Squadron, sir.”
Achyuta cursed at himself for not noticing those squadrons sooner. He blamed himself, but also recognized the effects that the mental punishment was having upon him. When the enemy ships had jumped closer the two Regal assault squadrons ended up behind them now. This in turn actually gave them a big advantage. They were able to approach the much less defended rear quarter of one of the alien ships to a closer distance before launching their weapons. Both squadrons pulled away right after in order to target the second vessel as their missiles raced in, taking advantage of the limited rearward facing laser emitters. Some of the ASMs were knocked out, but the majority slipped through and struck the ship.
The admiral watched the zoomed in image of both approaching vessels focus tight just as the right most enemy ship disintegrated under an intense wave of explosions. The Brimstone missiles were some of the most powerful weapons abled to be carried on Federation bombers. They managed to earn their namesake many times over, through multiple engagements with enemy forces over the many years of their service. Being older weapons did not make them any less powerful as was evident by the rapidly expanding field of debris from the enemy frigate sized vessel. Taking notice of this destruction the second alien ship quickly adjusted course to bring more weapons to bare on Achyuta’s fighter and bomber squadrons.
He had no time to watch further as his attention was shifted to the incoming alien missiles. These were fast approaching from their close in launch point giving the Federation ships very little time to react. Achyuta felt the Regal begin to turn again, but its acceleration was slower than before due to the damage to her thruster banks. Other ships of the fleet damaged in the previous assault took longer as well. Admiral Singh’s mind cleared just enough to know that there was only one remaining maneuver they haven’t yet tried.
“Activate gravitic fields,” Achyuta ordered Regela and leaned forward in his seat, already feeling the restraint fields activate around his seat. These activated in preparation of missile impacts in order to keep him from falling out of his command chair should anything happen.
“Powering up gravitic fields,” Regela complied without question and transferred similar orders to the rest of the battle group.
Activation of the fields became evident within seconds as Achyuta felt his entire body tingle and is hairs stand on end. With that came a sudden registering of a decrease in his mass. It was not to the point of weightlessness, but almost. The same effect occurred throughout the whole ship, lowering its mass to only a fraction of what it was in reality. This in turn allowed the vessel to accelerate faster and turn harder as if it was a tenth its size. Admiral Singh’s body compressed into the back to the command seat as the Regal picked up speed faster than normal and turned away from the incoming missiles. Its escorts moved at the same time in order to keep formation. The maneuver took place in the nick of time as the warheads reappeared all along what had previously been the battle line, almost at the exact positions of the Federation ships.
Something finally went right for the defending force when in consequence to the gravitic fields the alien missiles continued to track their targets without phasing back out of realspace. For the moment no one could explain what was happening or how, but that did not matter. Regela’s response was immediate to the instantly visualized threats and within seconds multiple explosive flashes appeared in contrast to the black surrounding space of the missiles being intercepted. Unlike earlier, the anti-missile systems throughout
the CBG finally began to accurately find their mark over and over again even in the midst of a high speed turn. At the same time another high energy beam fired off by the enemy cruiser also missed its target as the destroyer Sirius accelerated away from its position.
Achyuta was about to breath out a sigh of relief, but was stopped short by the sight appearing in front of him. On the large projection displays he began to see a new formation of three enemy vessels now directly in front of his group. These had been the same ships that had earlier engaged the Odessa. He let out a breath of resignation as the zoomed image on the screen before him began to show the bow of one of these large ships alight with a swirling energy sphere ready to fire and seemingly directed straight at the Regal.
“GET READY to launch Knights!” Styker Telwin called out to his squadron as they jostled in space while trying to avoid the intensifying defense fire directed against them.
Getting more visible in front of them, now surrounded in waves of orange colored laser discharges, hung five enemy ships of various classes. As Knight Squadron approached these ships began to turn away to starboard. While they brought more weapons to bears, the enemy also made themselves larger targets. Since punching through the enemy fighter groups the Knights had accelerated to full attack velocity in their sprint towards the alien capital ships. For a moment they had flown in a sphere formation with four Dragonfires in the middle surrounding on all corners by the three other remaining members of their squadron. Another of his squadron had been too damaged in the breakthrough to proceed with them and was on his way to the Regal for a combat landing,
These outside fighters would occasionally flip themselves backwards towards the pursuing alien craft and engage them in mid-flight in an effort to slow them down further. At the same time the surviving Pegasus combat drones dove into the enemy from behind, giving them something else to think about.
After a few moments, however, the flip maneuver became unnecessary as the AF-103E Dragonfires proved to be faster than the enemy fighters and those rear facing pilots flipped themselves back to join the rest of the group. The whole squadron of seven remaining fighters began to pull away from the opposition at a faster rate. As a highly trained unit the pilots maneuvered together as one in their effort to throw off the enemy gunners aboard the warships they were now quickly closing on. Each pilot was now thankful for all the time spent inside the simulators prior to the battle. While they had all complained before to Commander Telwin, insisting that the jammers would take care of the enemy mind attack weapon. Now that those same jammers were of no use to them the training Styker had forced them to complete was kicking in, allowing them all to concentrate on their mission despite the increasing pain throughout their body and the special distortion they all felt around them. The infused meds now coursing through them helped as well.
Up ahead the alien ships continued to loom larger as they completed their turn towards the Regal and the rest of her Carrier Battle Group. The enemy commanders probably figured the fighters little threat, now that they had lost their support ship and were starting to refocus on the much larger and more powerful taskforce fighting their comrades tens of thousands of kilometers away. Styker did not mind this shift of attentions to the heavies. He was only too happy to prove the aliens wrong in their lack of respect for his pilots and their craft. This did not mean that they were simply left alone, however. Proven a second later as an orange beam of deadly fire narrowly missed his Dragonfire and caused the shields to flare a light blue. Others did the same to the rest of the squadron threatening its destruction.
“Target my mark,” Commander Telwin added while completing another barrel roll to avoid the next round of defense fire, “confirm weapons and lock.”
“Ordinance green and spun up, have good lock Boss,” Savage, his XO, replied almost immediately.
“All green, waiting for your go!” came from an excited, but hurting, Lt. Qickowski in Knight Two.
The rest of the squadron followed suit as their systems targeted the rear quarters of the second largest ship within the formation.
“Here we go Knights!” Styker yelled out, fighting through the still increasing stabbing pain inside his head. “THREE…TWO…”
“Sir! Registering Graviton Surge from enemy formation!” Junior Lt. Darla ‘York’ Valerin exclaimed and paused his count, “they’re jumping…”
Darla’s voice trailed off just as the whole alien group disappeared into their faster-than-light jump leaving behind only empty black space. Upset with this new development in his original plan, Styker clinched his jaw and squeezed down hard on his thrust control. Whatever the enemy was doing it was causing him to slowly lose control of his emotions and in turn himself. The Commander tried to regain his composure and with a clearer head began to turn his squadron towards the CBG. He guessed that the aliens had most likely jumped in order to attack his Carrier Group. As such Knight Squadron would follow them from behind and hopefully get back into the fight.
“Raven, Flip One reading Hotel Seven’s signature. She was damaged by the Odessa earlier,” Patricia sent out a moment later as one of the squadron’s Pegasus ACVs detected the alien ship’s now distinct signal. The Anubis missile strikes had caused damage to its hull, ruining its once superb stealth characteristics.
“Copy that Four,” Styker replied with just a slight hint of a smirk on his lips as he heard that piece of good news, “plot us a course. Knights accelerate to full and be on alert.”
“Roger Lead. Enemy twelve thousand kilometers out.”
At top speed the Dragonfires of Knight Squadron pulled away from the alien pursuit fighters even further and within minutes were closing on the hostile’s suspected location. The damaged alien vessel became increasingly easier to detect as the squadron closed on its position. This allowed the Knights to get a more accurate fix on its position in space and it was quickly apparent that the ship was holding itself at a very distant standoff point, far away from the actual ship to ship battle raging ahead. Styker thought this very strange since the escort ship should have joined the others to assist in the battle. The commander guessed that either the ship was too damaged to fight or it had been assigned another mission.
Whatever the reason was it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Taking this chance and their only solid lead of reacquiring the enemy Styker led his Knights towards Hotel Seven. The closer they got the larger the target this enemy ship presented on Styker’s sensor display. It also gave his electro-optical system a more definitive location in space on which to focus on. In minutes the alien warship enlarged within the center of his canopy HUD. He could quickly see the distortions within the once smooth hull where the Odessa’s weapons had impacted the ship. A number of these hits had resulted in rather deep craters that dug into the interior of the vessel. Perhaps the ship was actually too damaged to participate in the battle, Commander Telwin thought to himself.
It was in the middle of this thought that his head began to throb harder and the world started to spin around him. Various feelings of doubt and horrible death to everyone dear to him accompanied the wave of nausea moving through him. The assault was more intense than even the previous one had been, but it was not before he noticed another pitch black shape floating beside Hotel Seven. This one larger and bigger than the other with a much different hull design. Even through his now blurred vision Styker’s sophisticated eyes scanned over the dark shape and noted the bulbous ventral and dorsal positions that jutted out from the hull into curved raindrop shapes. He wasn’t sure why, but instinctually deep inside he knew that this ship was of great importance.
Following that strong feeling and internal guidance Commander Telwin switched targets from the damaged alien escort with the use of his optical designators. The entire squadron was then instantly greeted by incoming fire from both the alien ships. They had obviously been tracking the Knights ever since they had initiated their course correction.
Styker watched one of these heavy orange beams smash
into Knight Two. The beam pierced through the forward shielding of the Dragonfire and contained enough residual power to sheer off its portside wingtip. Kelvin Qickowski felt the fighter shudder and tumble out of formation from the kinetics of the impact before he could wrestle control back.
“I’m good Lead. Just a little clipped,” Two relayed before Styker even had to inquire.
“Copy that Quick. Reacquire the target,” the commander replied while checking out the damage through his TacLink connection.
“Knights spread and commence attack run now!” Commander Telwin ordered and pushed his fighter further ahead towards the enemy. More defensive fire continued to pour out towards them, pushing Styker’s skills as a pilot to try and avoid them.
The closer they got to the pair of alien warships the more concentrated the fire became directed at them. At the same time the pounding in his head and pain throughout his body similarly increased to the point where he could no longer guaranty their successful evasion of it. With the survival of his squadron in question Styker could no longer justify the risk and called out his fire order.
“Launch!” Styker transmitted and initiated his preplanned sequence. Within seconds four Kiba and a pair of much larger Brimstone missiles dropped away from the Dragonfire and accelerated rapidly towards the alien communications ship.
The other six Knight fighters conducted similar launches, some of which featured magpulse missiles within the mix. In total almost fifty missiles raced in against the large warship. While the Kibas flew straight towards it the Brimstones began to corkscrew through space, making erratic course corrections in order to throw off the enemy targeting systems. This proved an instant necessity as the alien ships switched their defensive fire to engage the new, more imminent, threat. At the same time Knight Squadron separated into flights of two and one of three while disengaging from the attack run.
Con-Red: Recourse Page 58