by D. J. Holmes
Hack’tar opened up her mind to all the Captains in her fleet and made her will known. She then deferred command to her Senior Captain. He would fight the fleet engagement as she aided the fleet’s coordination by sending his orders to each ship. “We will take them out and leave no witnesses. When we pass through the system no one will follow us,” she sent to all her Captains. “I will not be staying out of this fight either. We must push through them. If you want to keep me alive, you must destroy these aliens.”
Hack’tar let out what a Human would almost call a purr when she felt the response from the Captains of her ships. Their anger at the enemy fleet and their desire to wipe them out had immediately gone into overdrive. On top of that, filtering through those emotions, was their devotion to her and their mother. Though she knew it was part of their base instincts, it pleased her. Whatever was about to happen, it wouldn’t be lost through a lack of courage and will to win. “The fleet will advance,” she said, speaking out loud for the first time since entering the system.
“Yes my Queen,” her Senior Captain responded from beside her.
*
“They’re coming to us,” Scott commented as just over three hundred contacts suddenly appeared on Golden Hind’s gravimetric sensors. They were all accelerating straight towards the Outer Defense Fleet’s current position.
James took a few moments to study the incoming enemy fleet. He wanted to give his subordinates time to identify the ships. He had no doubt that they were Flex-aor but waiting for confirmation give him time to think.
“Acceleration profiles are consistent with Flex-aor warships,” Miyamoto reported. “They have eight battleships, eighteen battlecruisers and the rest are an even split between their cruisers and destroyer class ships.”
“Strength analysis?” James asked as he looked to Scott.
“Assuming the ships are equipped the same way as the ones we fought six years ago, they’ll still have a missile advantage over us. Though their missiles are smaller and less powerful than our own. If our new technologies work as well as they do in the simulations, we should be able to get a lot more missiles through their defensive fire.”
“Agreed,” James replied. “Which means we can be a little bit more aggressive than normal. Dzedzyk,” James said as he turned to his navigation officer. “Plot a course for our fleet to close with the enemy. Keep us at extreme missile range. I want to approach slowly as well; they could have another fleet or two waiting out there. Miyamoto, work up a flight of stealth drones and saturate the sector of space where the alien fleet came from. If they do have more ships I want them discovered before we enter engagement range. You have permission to launch flights of stealth drones along other vectors you think we should cover just in case. Emilie, get me Wing Commander McGrath on a COM channel.”
“Vice Admiral,” McGrath said as her face appeared on one of the small holo projectors on James’ command chair.
“I’m thinking we split your forces Wing Commander,” James said. “Your wing can escort the bomber squadrons from Ark Royal and Enterprise and join them in hitting the alien battleships. You can go in under the cover of our first missile salvo. I want to keep the fighters of Wing Commander Samuels’ squadron around our fleet. They can engage the aliens’ missile carriers. We’ll keep the fighter squadrons from the battleships in reserve to launch follow up strikes or provide more anti-missile support. What do you think?”
McGrath grinned ferally. “That sounds like a plan to me Admiral. Samuels will not be too happy, but he’ll understand the importance of his role. If you’re okay with it, his fighters can go out kitted out for anti-ship operations. If you need to, you can order his fighters to launch an attack.”
“That’s fine by me Wing Commander, I’ll leave the details in your hands. Miyamoto will liaise with you to finalize launch times and attack profiles,” James replied.
“Aye Admiral. My pilots will prove their worth.”
“They have nothing to prove to me,” James replied, “but I expect you to give your best nonetheless.”
“Thank you Admiral, we will.” McGrath said as she ended the COM channel.
“You’re thinking we’ll use our new multistage missiles?” Becket asked when McGrath’s face disappeared.
“Assuming we don’t detect any other warships between now and when we open fire,” James answered with a nod. “We can use our missiles to hit them just before they open fire with their first salvo. If McGrath can hit them hard, they may only be able to get one or two return salvos off before we can open fire with our normal missiles. With luck, neither of their salvos will be well prepared. What do you think?”
“Attacking first with our fighters and bombers has worked well in the simulations,” Scott agreed. “Our long-range missiles will improve the effectiveness of hitting first even more. It is still risky, but it’s the best way we have to negate their range advantage.”
“Becket, Miyamoto, are you both in agreement?” James asked, speaking slightly louder. “All right then,” he said when both replied in the affirmative. “Work out the details. We’ll launch a full salvo of our new multistage missiles and as soon as we get into range we will deploy all our missile pods and follow-up our first salvo with the strongest salvo we can hit them with.”
Chapter 3
The thing about planning is, you can only plan for the enemy you know. When the Flex-aor first attacked, mankind was totally unprepared. It was the same with the Karacknids and the Antarians. Despite the trillions of credits the Imperial Fleet spends on intelligence, simulation and war games every year, the fleet will never be ready for the unknown. All the credits in the Empire can’t answer the question so many senior Admirals constantly ask themselves; what unknown threat is out there?
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
UNS Golden Hind, X-41 System.
As his subordinates got to work, James played a couple of other scenarios out in his head. Much of the discussion over the last several years within his fleet, and between most naval officers in the UN fleet, had been on how to negate the Flex-aor’s range advantage. Their warships fired large, almost shuttle sized missile carriers that accelerated at slow rates for a considerable time before they released smaller warheads that were more like normal Human anti-ship missiles. During the Flex-aor’s last invasion Allied ships constantly had to endure multiple enemy missile salvos before they got into range themselves. The fighters and bombers that had been developed using the new inertial compensators had always been factored in as part of the answer. They gave Human warships the ability to strike an enemy fleet long before it came into missile range. The new multistage missiles the Outer Defense Fleet had received were meant to be a permanent solution to the Flex-aor’s range advantage. Having one salvo available was good, but they weren’t enough to entirely solve the problem today.
He had developed a few other strategies with his staff over the years. Most of them involved risky maneuvers and feints to draw an enemy fleet in close. Now that he had some multistage missiles, they were all less effective than what he had discussed with his subordinates. This is the best plan of action, James thought as he nodded to himself. We’ll surprise them with our new technologies and then hammer them until they are finished. That, or they will surprise us with something new.
“Wing Commander McGrath’s fighters are launching Admiral,” Miyamoto informed James twenty minutes later. “They’ll be formed up and begin their acceleration burns in five minutes. McGrath has decided to go in slow to hide her fighters’ capabilities. We’ll fire our missiles in thirty minutes.”
“Very well,” James replied. “Open fire as soon as the time comes.”
Given that his own staff and all the Admirals and Captains in his fleet had simulated this kind of engagement hundreds of times, James found himself almost surplus to requirements. Everyone was working like a well-oiled machine. As soon as her wing of fighters and accompanying bombers was formed up, McGrath turned them towards the approach
ing Flex-aor fleet. Once they were away, Wing Commander Samuels launched his squadrons from Enterprise and they moved to a point where they could intercept incoming enemy missile carriers. Without waiting for additional permission, Miyamoto gave the signal for the fleet to open fire. From the two hundred and eight ships he had brought with him from X-38, four thousand two hundred and eighty-six of the new multistage missiles were shot into space. For twenty-five minutes they accelerated like any other Human missile. Then every contact disappeared off Golden Hind’s gravimetric sensor as their impulse engines ran out of energy. A couple of seconds later, Golden Hind’s normal sensors picked up four thousand small flashes as the first stage of the missiles released two smaller missiles and then self-destructed. For four minutes the second stage anti-ship warheads continued on a ballistic course. Then, as Miyamoto had programmed them to, they powered up and rapidly accelerated towards the Flex-aor fleet.
At exactly the same time McGrath’s fighter wing increased their acceleration by a factor of five and pulled themselves in behind the massive wave of missiles. Despite the sudden change in circumstances, the Flex-aor fleet didn’t react. James didn’t know if it was out of courage or fear or even incredulity at what they were seeing. It didn’t matter. Within two minutes the missiles reached the Flex-aor’s point defenses. Tens of thousands of point defense weapons opened up on them. They quickly took out some of the missiles, however, their kill rate was far too low. The warheads in the multistage missiles were half the size of normal anti-ship missiles and that, combined with the new inertial compensators, meant they were far more agile and harder to hit. When there were still more than two thousand missiles intact, a full tenth of a light second before reaching their targets, every missile warhead exploded. Instead of trying to score a direct hit, the small nuclear warheads focused their explosive power to create a single grazer beam. In the blink of an eye more than two thousand beams of devastating energy pierced through the Flex-aor fleet.
Not every one hit of course, the Flex-aor had been carrying out evasive maneuvers, yet hundreds did. Where they struck enemy battleships and battlecruisers the damage was usually shrugged off. The beams were more than powerful enough to penetrate even a battleship’s armor, however, unless they hit something vital the ship was unlikely to suffer serious damage. Several beams striking a single ship was another matter. One battleship and two battlecruisers were blown apart. Several more dropped out of formation, streaming debris and bodies. For the smaller Flex-aor warships, one hit was far more devastating. In most cases the beams were powerful enough to burn right through the warship and out the other side. In less than a second, sixty of those ships were destroyed. Another thirty were seriously damaged.
“Multiple hits, we scored multiple hits!” Miyamoto shouted as soon as Golden Hind’s computers analyzed the sensor data. “Nearly seventy contacts from the enemy fleet have disappeared. Many more are falling out of formation.”
“McGrath has just sent a COM message, she’s taking her attack wing in now,” Emilie reported.
“Acknowledged,” James responded.
Ark Royal had been refitted and expanded since she had fought to liberate Earth from the Russian siege. McGrath had four fighter squadrons and a single bomber squadron in her wing. She also had the bomber squadron from Enterprise with her. She had timed her attack to perfection. The Flex-aor were still reeling from the devastating effect of James’ salvo and half the fleet didn’t even open fire with their point defenses when McGrath came into range. Those that did clearly weren’t expecting McGrath’s ships to have the agility they did. For twenty seconds McGrath’s fighters and bombers had to twist and weave their way through point defense fire. Only six of her seventy-two ships were hit. As soon as they got into range, they fired their plasma missiles and peeled away. Each Spitfire fighter carried just one plasma missile. The Lancaster bombers carried three. To carry so many they had sacrificed some range and acceleration. They also didn’t carry any plasma cannons. Their purpose was to close with an enemy fleet and unleashed a devastating attack. The Flex-aor switched their point defense fire to the missiles and of the one hundred and twenty plasma missiles McGrath’s fighters and bombers released, they only shot down fifty. The rest made it to their targets, the undamaged battleships in the Flex-aor fleet.
The plasma missiles detonated five hundred meters from their targets. They were designed to release a large ball of plasma. Traveling at almost the speed of light, the plasma smashed into the battleships and ate large holes into them. When the plasma hit vital power relays or engine and reactor compartments they caused secondary explosions that ripped through the battleships. By the time the devastation was over, only two battleships remained in formation. The rest had been destroyed outright or were spinning away out of control.
“We’ve gutted them,” Becket said, awe filling her voice. “That was even more effective than our simulations.”
“They weren’t expecting our technological advances,” James responded. “Imagine we came up against our own fleet six or seven years ago. We would have been wiped out just as easily.”
“Better them than us,” Becket replied. “Let’s hope they don’t have any surprises of their own.”
James nodded. Despite crippling the enemy fleet, there were still more than two hundred ships left. They were still a threat. “What is McGrath doing now?” he asked. Her fighters had pulled away from the bombers but were not heading back to Ark Royal. In the past, she had led her fighters to launch secondary attacks with their small plasma cannons, yet now was not the time.
“She’s just signaled Admiral,” Emilie answered. “Her fighters have enough fuel for one pass through the first missile carrier salvo. She intends to coordinate her flight path back to Ark Royal so that her pilots can take a shot at the missile carriers as they pass them.”
“Good thinking,” James commented. “Tell her to make her shots count.” Once they had fired their plasma missiles the fighters and bombers where essentially out of a fleet battle that was fought within missile range. By the time McGrath had landed all her ships and refueled and rearmed them, the battle was likely to be over. However, as the Flex-aor liked to use missile carriers that were far easier to hit than normal anti-ship missiles, it gave the fighters something else to do.
“They are opening fire,” Miyamoto reported. “We’re tracking four hundred missile carriers.”
“Analyze their acceleration rates and sizes,” Scott requested.
James glanced at Scott and they shared a look. She had a theory about the Flex-aor and Vesterians. Both races had technologies that were similar in some regards. They were also similarities in the weapons technologies they had were far more advanced than any other technologies they had access to. Scott believed that some other race had given the technologies to both races. Both races had been led by hostile and aggressive leaders. If a third race wanted to stir up war and destruction in this part of the galaxy, giving advanced weapons to the Flex-aor and the Overlords of the Vestarians would have been just the thing to do. As far as Scott could find, the Vestarian Overlords hadn’t made any technological advances in more than fifty years with their weapons. That was changing now with the help and training Humanity was giving to the Vestarians. However, as the Flex-aor appeared to want to wipe out any species they encountered; Scott had predicted that their weapons technologies would not have progressed at all over the last six years. Her theory was about to be tested.
“The acceleration rates for the missile carriers appear identical to our records,” Miyamoto reported. “We are picking up one hundred of their larger missile carriers and three hundred smaller ones. Either they have increased the payload each carrier can carry or we’re facing the same kind of weapons we faced before.”
James raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Scott again. He already believed her theory. President Koroylov of the Russian Republic did as well. Beyond that, Scott didn’t have many supporters. Most of the scientists who worked on Vestarian and captur
ed Flex-aor technologies put the similarities down to coincidence. No one at the UN was willing to listen to the idea that there was an even bigger threat than the Flex-aor out there. No one wanted to face up to the military spending the reality of such a threat would demand.
“I don’t think they will have increased their payloads,” Scott replied as she held James’ gaze. “It wouldn’t make sense. If they could miniaturize their missile technologies over the last six years, they could also improve their impulse engines. We haven’t seen any advances in their ships’ acceleration rates or point defensive capabilities. They are using the same technologies they fought us with six years ago.”