A directed tachyon beam hit the Independence and ordered to a rendezvous point two hundred fifty light years from her current location. She set course and accelerated to the barrier and beyond.
Her passing did not go unnoticed. The two katsurani destroyers noticed her as she sped beyond the barrier. They tracked her course and projected its line.
The conference room of EUS Starflight was large. At least the humans were similar to the reggf when they built things, thinking of comfort and usability first. They both held value in relaxation when meeting to talk and plan.
Rigaar sat at the head of the table, Kaliif to his right and Captain Rilgiff to his left. Next to Kaliif sat Admiral Walker, his liaison sitting next to him. Surrounding the table were captains from each of the twenty ships under the reggf task force, Rigaar's command. Admiral Walker was there as his second.
“We lost three of the Asia class ships in the last engagement,” Admiral Walker informed the group. “Even though none were part of this fleet we still fell their loss greatly. Some information of importance has been learned, we are now discovering the ineffectiveness of the Spruance carrier.” He looked to Captains Nick Garn, Nadine Armstrong and Willard McHenry. “Everyone that has gone into engagement we have lost contact with, while some are listed as missing, presumed destroyed.”
“No ship is ineffective,” Rigaar spoke, the translator that hung around his neck repeated. “They are only used incorrectly.”
“Our losses are too high,” Walker said. “That is why we are here. Grand Admiral Matsuotso has some ideas and we are to come up with a definite battle plan.”
“It would help,” Nadine Armstrong said, her tanned face hiding her forty three years very well, “if we knew where their base of operations were.”
“That was our problem,” Kaliif said. “We never knew where to attack, except for one place.”
“Yes,” Rilgiff said, “Corbis. It was a Pyrinni outpost.”
“By now it is powerfully protected,” Walker said. “That is not a good choice for attack.”
“Excuse me sir,” Captain Garn said. “But what is our objective?” He took a sip of coffee. “If it is just to seek and destroy is that not what we are doing?”
“It's costing us starships and people.” Walker's voice dropped.
“What's our ratio,” Captain Owen DeVorken said. He was a bald man in his fifties of thick build and a powerful voice. He commanded the EUS Bismarck, the namesake of the Bismarck class battleship.
“We have almost a two to one ratio now.” Walker's eyes were blue, cold and icy.
“That would be a good ratio,” Kaliif said, “except for the fact that they have been building ships longer than you.”
“I believe that we have seen,” Captain Karen Larsen said, “a mixture of technology on their part. It seems that they do not readily re-fit nor do they decommission. They just keep everything.”
“Their soldier population must be enormous.” Grant said.
“They are all soldiers,” Kaliif muttered.
A reggf petty officer entered the room and whispered into Rilgiff's hear.
“Sirs,” he stood, his translator raising in volume. “We have scanned a number of saurian ships heading this way.”
Everyone stood and spoke into their portable communicators, talking to their ships.
“We have time to return” Captian DeVorkian said. He smiled and muttered something as he jogged out of the room.
Almost at once the space surrounding the EUS Starflight was filled with shuttles. The ships around her moved and jostled for a position facing outward, the circle in the center, the center the Starflight.
TCI scan read forty saurian ships skipping in from ten light years away. The circle spread as the ships moved into attack positions. The three Spruance carriers joined with two Lassiter class cruisers to form a five ship flotilla.
The Bismarck, her size rivaling that of Starflight, moved away from the group and accelerated past the barrier. She made a direct run at a group of three Saurian battle cruisers, the largest in the attacking group.
The Spruance carriers crossed the barrier, moving to coreward in an attempt to flank the incoming ships. The rest of the ships broke into two groups, the Brandon class destroyers with five of the Constantinople class frigates accelerated past the barrier, following the Bismarck. EUS Starflight pulsed spinward, trying to pinch them in the other direction, the remaining frigates following her in an escort formation.
The saurian battle cruisers launched vortex missiles at the Bismarck. DeVorkian read the maneuver and flubbed one of his coils, significantly altering his ships course. The vortex missiles exploded behind the human battleship, too far behind him to do any damage.
DeVorkian engaged the coils on his kinetic torpedoes while they were still in the bay and then launched them. They diverged from the Bismarck, a group of six missiles, beginning with their mother ship's velocity and pulsing past it, increasing their own with a seventeen-fifty C rate of acceleration.
Before the saurians could realize they had been fired the torpedoes has passed through their ship. The force of impact propelled the inherent parts of the ships away from each other.
Four saurian light cruisers vortexed to a position a few light hours from the Spruance ships and their escorts. The Lassiters flubbed their coils and fired their AM beams. Maneuvering on warp and with the humans a considerable distance away the saurian ships easily jogged past the beams.
Still past the barrier, the Spruance carriers flubbed their coils and dropped to point eight C at a position a few light hours aft of the group of saurian light cruisers. They launched their full complement of fighters and maneuvered, again crossing over the barrier, to meet the group of six saurian destroyers that vortexed to a position from ten light years away to a scant one hundred light hours.
Pulse beams issued forth from the light cruisers. Their thin stream of anti-protons modified and accelerated past the barrier, travelling the few light hours in a less than a second. The pulse beam punched a hole through one of the Lassiter's shields and caused surface explosions to erupt on her skin.
DeVorkian's ship sped through the group of saurian warships. As he sped away he targeted four fat cruisers of the old saurian design and launched his aft coil torpedoes. They left the field protection of the ship’s Coil and dropped to below C in an instant, quickly accelerating under their own power and under the influence of their own coil. They hit the cruisers at well over two thousand five hundred C. The energy exchanged in that mating of matter caused the molecules of the saurian ships to abort their hold on each other. Not even debris was detectable.
Past the barrier and unable to launch her shift fighters the Starflight pulsed away from the main force of the saurain ships, making a wide turn and choosing targets. Her advantage was range, and Rigaar understood the uses of advantage.
A group of ten destroyers faced an assembly of twelve human ships flying toward them faster than light speed. They ejected their security spheres and dropped all power, transferring it to shields.
The human ships sped past them, only a couple intersecting very few of the security spheres. The contact with their shields caused the spheres to explode. The power of the detonation gasped, all the Brandon destroyers retched and were dismembered into their base elements. The shield strength of the Constantinople frigates, as the saurian destroyers, was powerful enough to get away with minor damage, but enough damage to drop the human frigates below the barrier.
Five Constantinople ships pivoted as a unit, bringing broadsides to bear and concentrating all the fire of their AM beams onto three of the ten saurian ships.
The saurian shields, weakened by the security sphere explosions hadn't had time to regenerate, collapsed under the firepower of the human ships. Detonations leaped from the body of the saurian ships. They faltered, energy patterns welling from them in a wave motion, unsteady and faltering. Their brethren maneuvered away from them, engaging the humans with their pulse beam
s. The reactors of one of the wounded ships breached and exploded, destroying everything within a one light second radius, including one of the human ships and two of her unwounded kinsmen.
The remaining force of the saurian unit, thirteen heavy cruisers, shifted out and reappeared just under a light year on the other side of the Starflight.
Flubbing her coils, the Starflight dropped under the barrier, her Constantinople escorts sped past at relativistic speeds. She launched all her fighters, each crewed by three reggf. The one hundred and twenty five reggf fighters engaged a tactic particular to them, rushing past the barrier and engaging shift engines.
Spheres, five meters in diameter, were discharged by the saurian light cruisers. These missiles vortexed onto the Lassiter positions. In the same instant, as in a dance, the Lassiters turned and launched a spread of ten coil torpedoes each. The vortex bombs exploded. The torpedoes rushed to the saurian light cruisers, the wave from the explosion giving pursuit. Thin blue particle beams were spawned by the saurian ships as they turned and vectored away under warp power.
To their aft quarter one hundred and fifty human fighters sped by them at point nine C. They launched their six-packs and turned to flee. The particle beams intersected over half of the missiles, and ten of the fighters. The missile explosions destroyed two saurian ships and damaged the third. The fourth vortexed to a position three hundred light hours from the warplanes.
Twenty of the fighters turned while the particle beams shot from the wounded ship. Many missed, but three hit. The remaining seventeen fighters launched their coil missiles and then vectored away from the battle, trying to distance themselves now that they were unarmed.
While still above the barrier, the two Constantinople frigates followed the Bismarck's tactic and engaged their torpedo’s coils while still in the tubes. They edged out and sped to the group of thirteen saurian ships, decimating two.
Rotating to a new vector, still above the barrier, the Spruance carriers fired their coil torpedoes at the six destroyers that spread before them, each over a light second away from the other. Anticipating the human maneuver the saurians fired security spheres before the torpedo’s launch and slowed their speed, reversing it and heading backwards and point three C. The torpedoes from the Spruance carriers joined with the security spheres and were destroyed in the explosion. The saurian destroyers fired their pulse beam, jacked up beyond the barrier and with tachyon targeting it was still a hell of a shot, one got through and hit the long boom on one of the Spruance ships. She dropped from the barrier instantly and was again fired upon by the six destroyers. Their beams melted the Spruance into nonexistence.
The eleven remaining heavy cruisers anticipated the Constantinople’s course and fired vortex bombs, detonating them immediately after launch. The shock wave ruptured one of the human frigates and severely damaged the second dropping it to just over C. It altered course and sped from the battle field.
The Spruance fighters deployed themselves into a three level arrowhead formation, a total of one hundred twenty birds facing off the remaining saurian light cruiser. They waited for the vortex signal from the remaining saurian light cruiser and then fired their coil missiles. They didn't have time to react to the vortex bomb that appeared in their midst and all but two of them were destroyed. The coil missiles sped past the vortex opening. The light cruisers own tactic blinding it from that angle of attack. The saurian ship was crushed under the force of the kinetic missiles ripping through it at a thousand C.
The Bismarck targeted the battle area from a light year away. They locked onto the six saurian destroyers engaging the remaining two Spruance carriers. DeVorkian changed course and sped to them, the velocity of his ship at just over two hundred C. He launched one coil missile for each destroyer. The seventeen fifty C acceleration rate pushed it to beyond a measurable rate before it hit the saurian ship. The whole area of battle, including the two Spruance ships, ceased to exist in a flash of intense energy that lasted for one thousandth of a second.
The reggf shift fighters reemerged to an area just over two light seconds away from the eleven remaining saurian ships. They travelled at the barrier, their velocity C, and launched torpedoes. Four of the heavy cruisers were hit. The remaining shifted out.
The seven saurian destroyers engaging the remaining four human frigates opened a vortex. The human ships scattered, attempting to bring strong shields to bear against the vortex bombs. The saurian ships shifted out of existence for a full four seconds, the vortex closing when their power stopped. They reemerged one light second from the trailing human frigate and opened fire with their beams. The four human frigates melted under the onslaught and smoldered into a group of dead ships.
The Bismarck flubbed her coils and whirled, bringing her foreword torpedo bays to bear. She engaged and fired. The seven saurian destroyers shifted out and the torpedoes sped harmlessly by the empty space.
EUS Starflight recalled her fighters and pulsed to a position where she could pick up the nineteen surviving human fighters.
Rigaar stood in the commander's platform, Kaliif and Rilgiff next to him. He watched the screen as numbers flashed. Seven Constantinople frigates destroyed one damaged, seven Brandon class destroyers destroyed, two Lassiter class cruisers destroyed, three Spruance class assault carriers destroyed. He looked to the floor and shook his head. A total of nineteen ships out of twenty two ships gone. Only three left and one was damaged.
“How many of them?” he asked.
“Records show a total of twenty six saurian vessels destroyed,” came the reply from one of the stations.
“Why did they leave,” Rilgiff asked. “They outnumbered us.”
“No,” Kaliif said. “Our fighters would have taken the rest with no problem.”
“You saw what they did to the humans,” Rilgiff said. “What makes ours any more special?”
“Ability,” Rigaar said as Captain DeVorkian's face flashed onto the main window, glowing behind the scrolling numbers.
“Admiral,” he said, a thin smile on his face. “We forced a retreat.”
“You think this is a victory, Captain?” Admiral Walker walked onto the command platform.
“Yes, sir, I do.” He turned his head and spoke to someone out of the field of view. “When you are outnumbered two to one and you force a retreat you win.”
“Our losses were one to one,” Kaliif said, his voice translated.
“They could have been less if our ship commanders had proper training.”
“You're talking of your tactics, Captain?” Walker asked.
“Yes. Perhaps this is what Admiral Matsuotso meant. I know this is what Admiral Rigaar meant. We use our advantages, just like the Saurians do.”
“This is an inappropriate place for discussion, Captain,” Rigaar's translated voice said. “Rendezvous with us at the Deneb outpost.”
“Aye, sir. DeVorkian out.” The image faded. The ships turned and sped past the barrier.
Chapter 11
Coaxing, soothingly, the walls pulsed. Not audibly, or visibly, but just enough to make a subconscious effect. Taking up the view of one entire wall was the bent countenance of an old man. His hair was grey, his tanned skin sagging in drooping cheeks, his uniform bore rank Admiral of Space Force. He was Matsuotso, the legend that united the Earth. In his honor no ship has borne the name Yamamoto, the original kept active, attached to special duty. His eyes carried worry as a weight.
“We cannot continue, Mister Harrington,” the figure spoke. Matsuotso's voice carrying a thicker accent now than before.
Harrington sighed deeply. He looked from the dominating figure facing him and scanned the other three walls, made from wood, a living wood that continued to grow somehow. He saw his reflection in a window that opened to a plush green. Not the Pyrinni homeworld, but one of their originals, now a park and the center of the Compendium. He looked down to his hands, to where brown spots should have covered the emaciated flesh. He looked to Matsuotso, a man younger t
han he, and saw who he should have been.
“Our losses are equal.” Matsuotso continued. Even through his age one could see the commanding presence, the ability to inspire fealty under his power. “We are not winning, neither are we losing.”
“Attrition,” Harrington spoke, his voice soft, carrying a soothing tone with it. A tone that inspired the people he talked to. Only Matsuotso was immune. “There is no winner?”
“No.” He looked down, to a portable computer screen. “I do not think we can.”
“What does the Union say?”
“They tire of war. They grow fearful, thinking every day that the Saurians have found Earth. They want to come to an arrangement.” Matsuotso stressed the word ‘arrangement’, causing Harrington to smile.
“We know where they base themselves from. The Pyrinni have the coordinates. Can't we just attack them there?”
“We cannot destroy their base stations. They are too powerful for even our Asia class ships. Even as we speak our ground forces are engaged with them on a ring of star systems just over two thousand light years from Earth.”
“I remember when that was so far away,” Harrington said, looking out the window again.
“It is not any longer.” Matsuotso's face grew grim, giving Harrington the chills. “Contact them. Negotiate.”
“Surrender?” Harrington was surprised.
“No, cease fire.”
“Yes Admiral.” He waved and pressed a button, turning the screen back into a wall. He stared at the wall and wondered. Why so long? He shook his head and chuckled in frustration. Too long, too many dead. He hoped the Saurians would listen.
Harrington stood, his robe covering his entire body, a habit of dress he adopted to keep everyone from staring at him so intently. He adopted it from the Tecktons, who he believed dressed the way they did for the exact same reason.
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