by D. J. Holmes
“Admiral,” Golden Hind’s sensor officer called out. When James looked towards his station he continued, “were getting a lot of gravimetric contacts from the edge of the system.”
“The fleet the Crians spotted?” James asked.
“No Admiral, the contacts are at the edge of the shift passage to the Flex-aor homeworld. They’re reinforcements for Ala’ron’s fleet. I’m detecting over three hundred and rising.”
“Show me,” James demanded. What he was hearing didn’t make sense. If Ala’ron had more ships, why had she pulled her screens away from her capital ships? They could have helped her capital ships fight longer and draw his ships in until the reinforcements pounced.
When the holographic display showed the feed from the gravimetric sensors, James was still confused by what he was looking at. The contacts weren’t racing into the system. Instead they were following the system’s mass shadow. Only when he spotted Ala’ron’s flagship did things start to make sense. The new contacts were heading to rendezvous with Ala’ron. She had brought extra ships with her. Yet she wasn’t going to commit them to the battle. Golden Hind’s sensors were now detecting just over four hundred of them. Yet for whatever reason, they hadn’t been positioned close enough to the rest of her forces to come to their aid. Ala’ron had underestimated the speed at which the Human and Crian fleet could close with hers. Now all they could do was rendezvous with her flagship and guard the escape. She fears for her homeworld, James concluded. She wasn’t as bad a tactician as he had thought. She had made mistakes yes, but she was pulling back and saving what strength she could for the battles to come.
“I don’t think they’re coming our way,” he said loud enough for everyone on Golden Hind’s bridge to hear. “Inform me when they jump out of the system. Switch the holo-display back to our current adversaries,” he requested as he turned away from Golden Hind’s sensor officer. If his subordinates saw he was at ease, then they would be too. He didn’t need them worrying about Flex-aor reinforcements, they needed to finish off the ships in front of them as quickly as possible.
Over the next twenty minutes three more salvos were exchanged between Ala’ron’s Royal Guard and James’ forces. Just three more Human and Crian ships where lost. Of the initial nine hundred ships of Ala’ron’s Royal Guard, two hundred and fifty escaped. The rest were destroyed.
“Get me Ya’sia on a COM channel,” James requested after the third salvo all but finished the Flex-aor fleet. Ala’ron’s ships had jumped out minutes before it struck home, though she should have been able to guess the outcome.
“I’ve transferred her to your command chair,” Emilie informed James moments later.
“Congratulations Admiral we have won a great victory here today,” Ya’sia said as soon as her face appeared on the holo display at James’ elbow. “As have you,” James said not wanting to diminish Ya’sia’s pride in what her fleet had accomplished. “However, the battle is far from over. I’m going to leave your ships to finish off what is left of Ala’ron’s fleet. As soon as you’re done here, move on their colony. If Hir’ram has any sense, she will have landed on the surface. Stay out of range of her ships and take them out with missiles. If they try and break orbit to close with you, keep them out of range. I’m detaching my carriers and a heavy cruiser squadron to your command. They’ll assist you in taking out the planet’s orbital infrastructure. I’m taking my ships back to the shift passage we entered the system through.”
“The fleet my scout detected. You plan to take them on yourself?” Ya’sia asked.
“I do. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. We’ll detach all our significantly damaged ships and have them stay in close proximity to your ships. There’s no point risking losing them at this stage. They can carry out repairs and stay out of harm’s way. I suspect we will need them before we get back to friendly space. You should be able to handle Hir’ram’s forces without them and they won’t be any use to me for what I intend to do,” James explained.
“All right, I’ll take over here and then engage the colony. Happy hunting Admiral,” Ya’sia responded. “You’ve already won a great victory, let’s make it even greater.”
James didn’t respond to Ya’sia’s enthusiasm. He understood it, she had never fought a real large-scale naval battle before. She was elated at winning such a one-sided victory. Yet he knew that ships had been lost, at least a thousand Humans and Crians had died and more were going to before the day was over. James wasn’t in a mood to celebrate. “My ships will be going dark in a couple of hours. I’ll keep you updated until then. Make sure your ships don’t try to contact me after that.”
“I’ll make sure they understand,” Ya’sia replied.
“Thank you. Happy hunting to you as well” James said and cut the COM channel. “Dzedzyk,” he called. “We’re disengaging. Plot us a course back to the shift passage we used to enter the system. I want a full acceleration burn for one and a half hours, then we will decelerate for half an hour and go into stealth mode. If this third Flex-aor fleet wants to enter the system, we’re going to give them a warm welcome. Put us on a trajectory that will give us the best chance to intercept whatever forces arrive in the system in the next four to seven hours.”
“I’ll have a course for you in a couple of minutes Admiral,” Dzedzyk responded.
“Emilie,” James said as he turned to his COM officer. “Get me Rear Admiral Hawthorne and Wing Commander McGrath. Scott, write up official orders putting them under the command of Admiral Ya’sia.”
“Understood Admiral,” Scott replied.
When Emilie got James’ two senior commanders on a COM channel, he explained what he wanted from them. Then he had Emilie contact the rest of his senior commanders and inform them of the next stage of his plan. Only once his fleet was on the move did James ask for the damage reports that his staff had been collating. Despite the relatively light losses his forces had suffered, James knew he wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to read.
*
“All squadrons, this is McGrath. Keep your eyes open and your maneuvers random. We won’t have the element of surprise this time. They know we are coming and they know what we can do. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.” McGrath paused to let the series of acknowledgements come across her COM channel. Then she switched to speak to the leaders of her fighter squadrons. “Fighter squadrons you’re going in first, I want you guys fifteen seconds ahead of the bombers. Stick to your preassigned targets and make every missile count.” McGrath waited until each Squadron Commander acknowledged her orders then switched back to speak to all her pilots. “Accelerate to attack velocity.”
As she had ordered her pilots, McGrath began random evasive maneuvers. With the Spitfire’s high rate of acceleration, it didn’t take long for her fighter squadrons to get into point defense range of the Flex-aor warships and orbital defenses. When the first Spitfire blew up McGrath winced, but she forced herself to keep watching. She had kept her squadron back with the bombers and for the moment she was relatively safe. That wasn’t true for her subordinates. When a second fighter was obliterated by a plasma bolt, she winced again. Five, she thought. She had lost five fighters in the ongoing battle with the Flex-aor.
A plasma bolt zipping past her cockpit forced her thoughts back to the task at hand. The Flex-aor had begun to target the bombers as well. For nearly ten seconds her mind was focused entirely on evasive maneuvers. She had a vague awareness of plasma bolts and other weapons exploding around her but her training forced her to ignore them. If she was to get into attack range, she couldn’t afford any distractions.
When the amount of enemy fire coming towards her drastically reduced, it took her a couple of seconds to realize. When she did, she allowed herself to spare a glance at her surroundings. Her fighter squadrons had all fired their plasma missiles. Usually the smart thing to do was to focus all point defense fire on the missiles. That was what the Flex-aor were doing. It was what McGrath had expected them to do. “Okay
bombers pick your targets carefully,” she said to the COM channel she had open to her squadron and the two bomber squadrons from Enterprise and Ark Royal.
Given the lead the rest of her fighter squadrons had taken into the battle, the plasma missiles they had fired detonated before McGrath’s second wave of attackers launched their own missiles. Despite quite a few of the fighters’ plasma missiles being taken out, many struck home. Everyone had been targeted at an orbital defense station. The stations were too large to evade the missiles. McGrath counted five disappearing in fiery explosions as plasma missiles tore them apart. Others were struck but didn’t suffer any catastrophic damage. Those were the ones her bombers were targeting now. She did the same. Selecting a relatively undamaged battlestation, she targeted it and fired. As soon as her missile was released she pulled up and angled her Spitfire away from the colony. Despite the fact that most of the Flex-aor’s point defenses were no longer targeting her, she kept up her evasive maneuvers until she got out of range. Only then did she pull up the battle recording from her Spitfire’s optical sensors. Replaying the last few seconds, she watched the second wave of plasma missiles race in. Seven more orbital battlestations were taken out and several others suffered serious damage.
“Good shooting,” she broadcast to her pilots. “You all have your flight profiles. Stick to them and let’s make sure phase two of our attack goes smoothly.” Seven, McGrath thought as two more pilots failed to acknowledge her order, confirming they had been lost. McGrath gritted her teeth and switched her COM channel again. She didn’t have time to dwell on the losses. Instead she sought out Admiral Ya’sia. “Our attack is complete Admiral. You may move your forces in now. We have done as much damage as we can.”
“You’ve done more than enough Wing Commander. Take out as many of their missile carriers as you can and we will take the rest from here,” Ya’sia replied.
“Affirmative,” McGrath replied and ended the COM channel. For a couple of minutes she allowed her fighter to continue on the course she had set for it. Her squadron mates were formed up around her. When Ark Royal’s second squadron fell into formation beside her fighters, she altered course back towards Ya’sia’s fleet. Arrayed in front of her in three groups were the rest of her fighters and bombers. The bombers were heading back to their motherships but the fighters were cruising in more slowly.
A beep from her Spitfire’s gravimetric sensors told McGrath that the Flex-aor had opened fire. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. What remained of their orbital battlestations were clearly armed with much larger missile carriers than Flex-aor warships to be able to open fire from such range. Against Human warships their range advantage would have been hard to overcome. However, just sixty seconds later, Ya’sia’s ships opened up with their own missiles. Being positioned right in between the two forces, McGrath had a bird’s eye view of the unfolding battle. As her fighter squadrons were cruising back to their motherships at minimal velocities, the Flex-aor missile carriers quickly overtook them. Just before they did, McGrath altered her trajectory and accelerated. Her new flight path put her directly in front of the missile carriers. Within seconds the carriers overtook her fighters. As soon as they did, her fighters opened up with their small plasma cannons. Eight missile carriers were taken out. It seemed like a small number but there would be eighty less missiles closing in on Ya’sia’s ships.
With her final job done, she turned into a spectator as the Flex-aor and Crian missile salvos crashed in on their targets. McGrath watched two Crian ships disappear off her sensors. In return, three Flex-aor warships and two orbital battlestations were obliterated. You are fighting a losing battle my friends, McGrath concluded as she counted the number of orbital battlestations left to the Flex-aor. There were only twelve of them. As if Queen Hir’ram had heard her thoughts, the Flex-aor warships sprang into action. Clearly not content to simply watch the battle unfold, they broke orbit and accelerated towards Ya’sia’s fleet. They wanted to bring their own missiles into range.
As Ya’sia’s ships didn’t attempt to alter their position, McGrath concluded Ya’sia was happy to oblige them. Indeed, as the Crian fleet released their second volley, it seemed Ya’sia was more than happy to do so. The Crian Admiral was ignoring the orbital battlestations and had focused all her missiles on the Flex-aor warships that were charging her fleet. Given that Ya’sia had just under four hundred ships in her command, McGrath concluded the battle would be over relatively quickly. She was proved right. Ya’sia’s second missile salvo took out more than twenty Flex-aor warships. As McGrath’s fighters took out a number of the missile carriers they fired in return, Ya’sia’s lost just five ships.
Though the Crian fleet didn’t have any Human fighters protecting them for the rest of the battle, they handled things themselves. The next two missile salvos that crashed into the Flex-aor warships caused serious losses. Their numbers were reduced by a quarter and though they kept on fighting, they couldn’t put out enough missiles to saturate the Crian’s point defenses. Three more salvos finished them off and a final salvo of missiles from the Crian took out most of the remaining orbital battlestations. The colony’s defenses were wiped out in their entirety. By the time the final Crian missile salvo closed with what was left of the Flex-aor orbital battlestations, McGrath was back on Ark Royal’s bridge to watch the battle come to a close.
“It’s good to be on the other side of a planetary attack,” Ark Royal’s Captain commented.
“Indeed,” McGrath replied with a nod. Neither of them had been involved in the battles of Marshall or Connecticut or where Flex-aor warships had bombarded Human colonies. However, they had both seen the holo recordings more than once. It hadn’t been pretty.
The sudden piercing squeal of an alarm drew everyone’s attention away from the detonating Crian missiles. “What is it?” Ark Royal’s Captain snapped.
“We’re detecting gravimetric pulses from the edge of the system. From the shift passage back to our territory,” a sensor officer reported.
“It’s a gravimetric COM message,” another officer updated. “Message reads, contact made with two enemy fleets. Fleet one numbering six hundred warships directly astern. Fleet two one thousand plus warships several hours astern.”
McGrath shared a glance with Ark Royal’s Captain. They had known about the first fleet of six hundred warships. A Crian scout had already brought news about their approach. Another thousand warships changed things. They were both asking themselves the same question, how many more fleets did the Flex-aor have?
Chapter 15
In any interstellar conflict there are certain advantages and disadvantages that attackers and defenders usually hold. The defender will typically be operating close to their supply lines and so can fight multiple battles in quick succession. On the other hand, they will usually have many important systems to defend and so their forces will spread out. Attackers can concentrate their forces against a single target and so achieve numerical superiority. Yet when involved in a long campaign, they must not allow themselves to be worn down by attrition. The key to a decisive war is to find a way to mitigate either the disadvantage of your position, or the advantage of your opponent.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
UNS Golden Hind, X-62 system.
As soon as the gravimetric COM message was detected, Emilie informed James. He closed his eyes. He had to process the new information quickly. If the two fleets combined, that would be more than sixteen hundred Flex-aor warships. At full strength Ya’sia and his ships could have defeated such a force, though it would have been costly. Now, fighting the two fleets would be a bloodbath.
His fleet was cruising towards the source of the COM message in stealth. He had been planning to ambush the six hundred Flex-aor warships when they entered the system. It was still an option, but if the second Flex-aor fleet was right behind them, he would be caught badly out of position and outnumbered. Even if he sent a request for aid immediately, it would take a couple
of hours for Ya’sia’s ships to catch up to him. It all depends on what several hours means, James decided when he replayed the gravimetric COM message in his mind. If the fleet of one thousand plus warships was right behind the initial six hundred, then he needed to pull out of his attempted ambush immediately. However, if they were three or four hours behind, then he could carry out a quick strike against the six hundred ships and pull back to safety. The problem was, there was no way to find out without revealing his presence. If the first Flex-aor fleet or some of its advanced scouts were right behind the returning Human scout ship, they would pick up whatever transmission he sent to it and learn his position.
“What do you make of our chances of getting out of here if we pull back and allow these two new fleets to combine?” he asked his staff.
“Slim,” Becket replied immediately. Clearly her mind had been working overtime as well. “Given the number of damaged ships we have and the losses Ya’sia just suffered assaulting the colony, we’re far from our full strength. If we try and fight sixteen hundred warships, we’ll take losses, significant losses. And that’s assuming no other Flex-aor warships appear. Clearly Ala’ron intended to try and trap us in this system. More fleets could be on their way. If the two fleets we know of combine, all they would have to do is pin us down and wait for more ships to come.”