by D. J. Holmes
“Go,” Ya’sia said. “If Ala’ron’s ships don’t run, it will take our fleet less than an hour to get into missile range. We must be prepared to fight as one unit by then.”
“Then I will take my leave,” James said as he gave Ya’sia a salute. “Good luck, I hope we will have the opportunity to spend a lot more time together after this is over.”
Ya’sia tilted her head sideways and then held out her hand. “Good luck to you Admiral. I look forward to seeing your species’ battle prowess. I hope your people live up to the stories you have told us.”
James smiled as he took Ya’sia’s elbow in his hand. “Don’t worry, they won’t disappoint.” With that he spun around and quickly moved out of Handmaiden’s bridge and towards the shuttle bay where his shuttle was waiting.
As soon as he was on board he opened a COM channel to Golden Hind. “Commander Scott, the meeting with the High Queen didn’t go well. I’m sure you’ve seen the scout report. We are going to launch a pre-emptive strike against the High Queen’s fleet. Alert all our senior commanders and Captains. Hostilities will be beginning immediately. Don’t wait for me to get back on board. Ya’sia has placed her fleet under my strategic command. Send orders to all our ships. Set course for Ala’ron’s fleet. Maximum acceleration. We will gather into a battle formation as we go.”
“Understood Admiral,” Scott replied. “We’ll have formations and attack strategies ready for your review by the time you get here.”
“Then carry on Commander, don’t waste any more time talking to me,” James ordered and cut the COM channel. He immediately opened one of the shuttle’s computer terminals. It was a far cry from the tactical holo maps he was used to preparing strategies on, yet it would have to do. He wrote up a number of different attack strategies and sent them off for Scott and his officers to simulate. Then he went through different formations, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. All the while he kept an eye on Ala’ron’s ships. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the Human and Crian warships accelerated towards the meeting point and the High Queen’s flagship, they all closed with Ala’ron’s ship. That was fine with James. It meant they would not be able to escape.
With Golden Hind accelerating towards Handmaiden the flight time in his shuttle was just six minutes. Breaking into a fast jog, he made it from shuttle bay two to Golden Hind’s bridge in record time. “Update?” he demanded as soon as he burst through the bridge’s access hatch.
“Ala’ron’s flagship isn’t decelerating to fall into formation with the rest of her ships. They are all decelerating now so as to not overshoot Ala’ron, however it looks like the High Queen plans to pass through her own fleet and head straight for the shift passage back to her homeworld,” Miyamoto reported. “Given the rest of her ships’ deceleration rate, we can bring them into missile range before they can reverse course and follow her. However, even with the Crian’s impressive missile range, we won’t be able to bring her flagship to battle.”
“Scott?” James asked as he turned to his Chief of Staff. He knew she would have anticipated his next question.
“Our fighters and bombers can catch her no problem. If they wait another fifteen minutes to launch they can arc up and over the High Queen’s fleet and then catch her flagship undefended. To guarantee a kill on such a large vessel though, we’d have to send all our bombers and at least half the fighters,” she answered. “And there’s no way they could return and rearm in time to play any other role against the High Queen’s fleet. The battle would be over one way or another by then.”
“We can still take the High Queen’s fleet without our fighters,” James said thinking out loud. They would take more losses, but unless an unforeseen disaster occurred, victory would be all but guaranteed. The problem was, he didn’t know how many other battles they would have to fight before they could extradite themselves from Flex-aor space. Extra losses now could mean defeat in a day or two against whatever other forces the Flex-aor might be trying to bring up.
Sending his bombers after Ala’ron was too risky. On the other hand, killing the High Queen could end the war in one-stroke, James thought. It was a very attractive prospect. Would it really end the war? Given what Scott had told him of Qura-rnt and Hir’ram, whatever other Queen ascended to Ala’ron’s position, they would be out for revenge. And if they shared Ala’ron’s disgust for other species, they would continue her genocidal purging of every other world around them.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s not worth it. Not yet at least. If Ala’ron is prepared to sacrifice her fleet to make sure she gets away, let’s oblige her. We’ll have to deal with her another day. Send orders to Wing Commander McGrath. I want her to take Ark Royal and Yorktown’s fighters and bombers and strike as many Flex-aor battleships as possible. She is to take her forces in after the first wave of Crian missiles hit home. The fighter squadrons from our battleships and battlecruisers will provide an outer point defense perimeter to engage Flex-aor missile carriers before they can deploy their missiles.”
“Understood Admiral. I’ll contact McGrath now,” Scott replied.
“Miyamoto, talk me through the battle formations I sent you. How do the computer simulations rate them?” James asked when Scott turned to her command console.
As Miyamoto replied and then Ivanov, Alvarez, Dzedzyk and Becket got involved, James was drawn into a detailed discussion of how they wanted the battle to unfold. Five minutes later he opened a COM channel with Sato, Gupta and Ramirez. He quickly outlined his plan to them and thought through their feedback. Then he transmitted a full battle plan to Ya’sia. As soon as Ya’sia approved it, McGrath’s squadrons launched from Ark Royal and Yorktown. Just five minutes later the Crian warships opened fire.
Though the Crian warships were generally smaller than Human ones, they still released a large number of missiles. From the four hundred and sixteen Crian warships, four thousand eight hundred missiles were fired. The high acceleration rates of the Crian missiles meant they entered attack range before the Flex-aor could return fire.
“It’s nice to be the ones opening fire first again,” Scott commented as the Flex-aor point defenses opened up on the Crian missiles. “It’s a pity we don’t have our multistage missiles.”
James knew what she meant, the Crian missile numbers were impressive, but their penetration aids were not up to Human standards. Given that the Flex-aor were able to shoot down a lot of Human missiles, they were going to tear into the Crian salvo. Even so, any damage they could do to the Flex-aor fleet before it could open fire meant less return missiles. “We’ll just have to make do,” he said in reply. “Let’s not discount our new allies’ abilities just yet.”
Scott didn’t add anything more, nor did anyone else. Everyone was watching the holographic display of the Crian missiles. Their numbers were dwindling quickly, but some were going to get through the Flex-aor’s defenses. Sure enough, thermonuclear detonations erupted as missiles struck their targets. The size of the detonations was impressive. What the Crian missiles lacked in ECM capabilities, they almost made up for in payload. The Crian’s ability to miniaturize thermonuclear warheads was much more advanced than Humanity’s. Within seconds of the first detonation, Golden Hind’s sensors were blinded as thermonuclear radiation overwhelmed them.
When they cleared, stricken and crippled ships were easy to make out as they fell out of formation from the Flex-aor fleet. Before anyone could get a firm count on just how much damage the Crian missiles had done, McGrath’s fighters and bombers tore into the disorganized Flex-aor fleet.
Taken almost completely by surprise, the Flex-aor weren’t able to coordinate their fire. McGrath’s nimble ships made it through to launch their plasma missiles almost unscathed. Only two were lost. As James expected, McGrath had only targeted intact enemy battleships. Six disappeared as plasma missiles burning through their superstructure caused them to detonate, five others lost reactors or engines nodes and began to drift. Ordinarily, such a strike would h
ave proved devastating. However, Ala’ron’s fleet had included fifty battleships and there were still many more ready to return fire. Moments later they did just that.
“We’re tracking just over four and a half thousand missile carriers,” Ivanov reported. “Our fighters will engage them in five minutes.”
“Order our advanced screen to proceed to their intercept coordinates,” James said as he caught his niece’s eye.
“Transmitting the order now Admiral,” Emilie replied.
If Emilie reported James’ order being acknowledged, he missed it, for the next stages of the battle grabbed his focus. The fighters launched from Golden Hind and the rest of the battleships and battlecruisers in the Human fleet began thinning the numbers of Flex-aor missile carriers just as the second Crian missile salvo hit home. Once again massive thermonuclear detonations blinded Golden Hind’s sensors. When they cleared, more Flex-aor ships were destroyed or crippled. There were also six hundred fewer missile carriers approaching.
Before the missile carriers released their devastating payload, they came up against a second obstacle. Thirty Lancer class frigates from James’s fleet and another fifty frigates from Ya’sia’s had moved ahead of their compatriots. As a result, their point defenses opened up on the missile carriers just before the point at which they would usually launch. Another one hundred and fifty were taken out. Then, as missiles began to be released, they too came under the point defense fire of the forward screen.
In the end, less than half of the missiles the Flex-aor had hoped to hit the Human and Crian ships with got into attack range. As James had planned, the Crian ships took the brunt of the attack given that they were at the front of the fleet’s formation. Thousands of missiles were detonated before they reach their targets. Yet hundreds made it through. All across the Crian fleet explosions erupted and the difference between Crian missiles and Flex-aor missiles became apparent. Crian ships brushed off multiple hits from the much smaller and less powerful Flex-aor missiles. Still, here and there some ships fell out of formation and four were destroyed outright.
“Call our forward screen back,” James ordered as soon as the last Flex-aor missile detonated. There was no point leaving them so far ahead of his fleet. The Flex-aor would simply target them with their next salvo.
To James’s disappointment, the Flex-aor got off their second salvo before the third Crian salvo hit home. Despite the losses they had suffered, the Flex-aor handled the third Crian salvo better than they had the first and second. They were adapting to Crian missile technologies. Even so, a number of ships were crippled or destroyed.
“Ivanov,” James called. “The most crippled Flex-aor warships will come into energy weapon range of the Crian ships soon. Start analyzing them and selecting priority targets. I want any ships that even look like they have functioning energy weapons taken out before they can hit us.”
“My pleasure,” Ivanov replied. She had a wicked smile on her face as she looked up from her command console.
“Here we go,” Scott said as the second Flex-aor missile salvo came into range. Its numbers had been diminished by the fighter squadrons James had in position to intercept the missile carriers. Without the screening force of Lancer frigates though, more than five hundred more missiles were coming in. Once again, the Crians took the brunt of the attack. Six ships, including one of their light cruisers, were destroyed. Eight more were forced to pull out of formation, their damage too severe to continue fighting. Only one Human warship was destroyed. The destroyer Agamemnon.
“Now it’s our turn,” James said as some of the tension left his shoulders. Ya’sia had agreed that her ships should take the lead until the Human fleet could get into missile range. Even so, it was difficult to watch others putting themselves in harm’s way to protect you. It was about to pay off though. Without having to worry about fending off incoming missiles, every battleship, battlecruiser and heavy cruiser in the Human fleet had been able to release and tow all their missile tubes. “Fire!” he ordered.
As one, the Human and Crian warships opened fire. They released a missile salvo that was intended to overwhelm Ala’ron’s fleet. A quick glance at the holo map told James that her flagship was still an hour away from being able to jump out of the system. She would see the destruction of her fleet.
Before the Human and Crian ships could see the effect of their combined salvo, they had another Flex-aor salvo to deal with. This time the Human ships pushed ahead of their Crian allies. A number of frigates, destroyers and light cruisers took heavy damage. Three were wiped out when more than ten missiles struck each of them at once. However, the losses were relatively light. Relative at least compared to the effect the combined Human and Crian salvo was about to have.
Given the Flex-aor had struggled to stop all the Crian missiles in the previous three salvos, they utterly failed to combat the additional Human missiles James’ ships had fired. As the Crian missiles proved easier to hit, they were the focus of much of the Flex-aor point defense fire. That was a mistake. Every Human missile was armed with the latest nuclear bomb-pumped grazer warheads. They detonated a full three seconds before expected, and, instead of releasing a thermonuclear detonation, three deadly grazer beams shot out from each warhead. Five hundred Human missiles reached detonation range. More than a thousand grazer beams struck targets. Lighter Flex-aor warships were ripped apart by a single beam. Their larger capital ships could keep on fighting after one or two hits provided the beams didn’t take out their reactors or engines. Many capital ships didn’t get the chance to prove this as they were struck by four or five times the number of beams they could survive.
Before the missile salvo struck, Miyamoto had estimated thirty Flex-aor ships had been destroyed and a further forty-two crippled. In the minutes after the devastating combined salvo ripped through the Flex-aor fleet, he increased the number of destroyed ships to one hundred and six and crippled to almost two hundred. There were still just over five hundred Flex-aor warships left, but the fleet had lost nearly a third of its number.
Chapter 14
It is true, other species look at Humanity’s birth rate with aghast. Some call us an infestation that is slowly spreading across the galaxy. Those that make such claims usually fall into two camps however. Either they are living in the peace and freedom the Empire’s growing power has secured for them. Or they are the ones trying to eradicate Humanity and so make it necessary for our species to continue to grow; for only by spreading out can we ensure no one threat can wipe our species out.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
UNS Golden Hind, X-62 system.
“We’ve gutted them,” Becket nearly shouted as it became clear just how many ships the Flex-aor had lost. “More than half of their battleships are gone.”
“Look!” Emilie responded. “They’re reacting.”
James was already watching the main holo display. Before their eyes the Flex-aor fleet was splitting up. The smaller and faster ships were breaking away from their larger consorts. They were turning to go after Ala’ron’s flagship. She’s scared, James realized. Ala’ron wasn’t thinking tactically. She was reacting out of panic. She feared losing her fleet and was trying to get some of them to safety. Or more likely, she fears that after we finish her fleet, we’ll continue after her. “She’s handing us victory,” James said. “Let’s not disappoint her. Miyamoto, ignore all Flex-aor light ships. Let’s finish off their battleships in the next salvo. Without screens they will be extremely vulnerable. Scott, signal all our ships. We are reversing course. We’re not going to give them a chance to come into energy range. We’ll hang back and hammer them until they are no more.”
Moments later James watched the next Human and Crian salvo race towards their targets. He could hardly believe how badly the Flex-aor were handling their ships. Whether it was Ala’ron who was in command or someone else, they were a far cry from the commander who had taken charge of the invasion of Human space. That commander had handled their
fleets with skill and tact. Whoever was commanding this battle was allowing their ships to be torn to pieces. Remember, they’re used to fighting battles where they have the numerical superiority. Even against us they always had the upper hand. They don’t know how to fight when they are outclassed. No doubt they would adapt given time but James didn’t intend to give his current opponents that time.
Having suffered so many losses, the next Flex-aor missile salvo only destroyed three light ships. That was not the case with the Human and Crian salvo. Thousands of missiles saturated the Flex-aor battleships’ point defenses. Though the salvo was slightly smaller than the previous one as all the Human missile pods had been expended, it proved more devastating. Without their screening ships the large Flex-aor battleships and battlecruisers were almost helpless. Almost all of them were struck by at least one missile. Many were overwhelmed and vaporized by grazer beams or the nuclear detonations of several Crian missiles.