Battle for Proxima

by Michael G. Thomas

  “No, Sir. They appear to be slightly smaller than our cruisers and have heavy power plants and engines. There appear to be eleven larger ships, each of a similar configuration to the smaller vessels, but with no obvious weapon mounts or gunports. The two larger ships show over thirty turret mounts. We assume they must be air defence vessels, possibly support ships. The larger cruiser is the one we think is the Leviathan, Typhon’s flagship. The smaller ships, I would guess, are based primarily around their weapons systems. They have no rotating sections of obvious crew space, so it is fair to assume they are short range with minimal crew on board. The larger ships are perhaps more transports? That is all.”

  “Interesting,” she said quietly.

  On the tactical map, the two columns of ships were now a matter of three hundred kilometres apart. They were easily within range of projectile weapons, and well in range of missile or drone systems. From her screen, she could see the line of enemy ships, bright lights flashing on their hulls as they fired their primitive but powerful artillery towards her ships. These weapons were not much different to those used hundreds of years earlier and were substantially less effective than the railguns on her vessels.

  “Admiral, I’m getting reports from Rear Admiral Churchill, he says three of the frigates providing a skirmishing screen have just exploded.”

  She tied to stand but the straps on her chair held her down.

  “What! How?”

  “Unknown, he says Wasp picked up a massive energy spike from three of the larger ships before thermal sensors on the frigates went off the charts. It took three seconds, and then they just exploded. No lifeboats, no survivors!”

  “Dear, God! Is it a weapon system or are the ships sabotaged?”

  “Unknown, Sir.”

  She sat for a few seconds, stunned by the news. On the display her Fleet was now well in range. The amount of defensive fire from the enemy was creating a cloud of ammunition hurtling towards the two lead ships. Both vessels were well equipped with point defence turrets and all were fully engaged trying to explode shells before they reached them.

  “Two hundred kilometres, Admiral, we have fired reverse thrusters. We will be inside their line in three minutes.”

  “Excellent work, Captain. Get your crew ready, this battle is about to start.”

  A continuous rattling sound hammered along the superstructure, as dozens of rounds and chunks of shrapnel smashed into the hull of the Crusader. A third of the enemy fleet had their guns trained on the massive warship and their fire was starting to wear down the think frontal armour on the ship.

  “Breaches on Levels Three and Seven. Two batteries out, forty-one casualties.”

  “Deal with it!” barked the XO.

  More shots smashed against the ship.

  “Heat surge detected!” shouted the tactical officer.

  “Get some frigates in front of us, protect our bow!” responded the XO, in an even louder voice.

  The CiC lit up with the chatter of pilots and their commanding officers of the warships. It took just seconds for a number of the frigates to alter their positions in front of the columns. Each of the ships carried between fifty and two hundred crew and their loss would be keenly felt. It was their job though to screen the Fleet and they did their job well.

  “Here it comes!” yelled the tactical officer.

  A series of red lights flashed up around the CiC, followed by sparks and a number of fires. Some of the displays went blank as power or circuits were damaged.

  “Report?” shouted the Captain.

  “We’ve taken heavy bow damage. Our frigate screen is gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Just gone, Sir. They must have taken most of the impact for us. I have severe breaches in the bow, engineers report eighty-one casualties. We can’t take more damage there, Sir.”

  Admiral Jarvis sensed the deciding part of the battle was nearing. She pressed several buttons to contact Rear Admiral Churchill. His face appeared and, to her dismay, she spotted fires burning in his CiC and a number of bodies on the floor.

  “Sir. We have suffered catastrophic damage, we must withdraw.”

  “Negative, Admiral. Stay the course. Move up frigates and cruisers to protect your bow and ready your gunners, it is time.”

  There was a short pause, interrupted by the internal speakers inside the Crusader blasting out orders from the XO. In just seconds, the two columns would meet the enemy fleet head on. It was a risky strategy, but with both columns meeting the enemy’s flank they would hopefully smash through in two points. Each ship would crash through the line and be able to fire broadsides in the bow and stern of the enemy vessels as they travelled past.

  “Understood, Admiral Jarvis. We will see you on the other side.”

  She looked back to the Captain, who was watching the navigation display as they moved into position. It was just seconds away now.

  “5…4…3…2…1…” called out the tactical officer. Then an odd calmness travelled through the ship as the reverse thrusters stopped their burn. The ship coasted though the enemy formation at a crawl. The XO grabbed his intercom and roared through its microphone.

  “All gunners, open fire! Let them burn!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Particle beam weapons research was outlawed following the destruction of the Carthago shipyards. The disaster occurred during a routine test thirteen years before the Great War. A tragedy that killed over twenty thousand people.

  The weapon used an ultra-high-energy beam of atoms or electrons, to damage a material target by hitting it and disrupting its atomic structure. The speed of a beam would approach that of light in combination with the energy created by the weapon would negate any realistic means of defending a target against it.

  Direct Energy Weapons – An Introduction

  The battle to retake the Proxima System had begun. It would prove to be the most significant battle since the Siege of Titan, similar in scale to even the largest battles of the Great War some fifty years earlier. In the opening minutes of the battle and before the two main forces of ships were fully engaged, more than a hundred crew had died from long-range fire. It was a savage start that would number the casualties in the thousands.

  The primary stage of the operation began with the two Confed Navy columns smashing into the Union line. It was truly a sight to behold, as thousands of shells, projectiles and bullets tore through open space. Shreds of metal and bodies drifted in the void, yet the ships continued onwards. The climax of the battle was yet to come. The Union forces maintained their position, each vessel presenting its flank to the Confed Fleet so that they could maximise their firepower while protecting their vulnerable bow and stern.

  At the front of the Confederate columns, the lead ships were heavily damaged. The immense amount of raking fire they had attracted during their high-speed rush into action was taking its toll. As they pushed between the closely spaced Union ships, the terrible truth must have occurred to the enemy. Rather than destroying the Confed columns by crossing their T, they had in fact exposed their own bows and sterns to full broadsides from the massive warships.

  CCS Crusader, the heavy battlecruiser and the most powerful ship in Proxima Centauri, was the first to fire. Unlike the lighter ships, the bulk of her railguns were built into the rotating bands and sections of the vessel. This gave her a full 360° firing arc above and to the sides. Every weapon was loaded and charged. As she passed slowly between two Union warships, great streams of ionised plasma hurled from her gunports. It wasn’t the plasma that was the weapon. This was simply a consequence of weapon system blasting projectiles at a velocity and with such power. These unusual weapons were common on the larger Confed vessels and were entirely electrical. The system accelerated a conductive heavy projectile along a pair of metal rails. The core of the weapon used two rolling contacts that passed a massive electrical current through the warhead. This in turn, interacted with the magnetic fields generated by the rails and accelerated t
he projectile. The technology dated back to the middle of the twentieth century, but it took the powerful power plants of capital ships to allow the weapons system to flourish. There was no armour in the Confederacy that could withstand a railgun projectile, it simply obliterated anything it smashed into.

  The mighty battlecruiser vanished for almost thirty seconds, as the clouds shrouded her in the dust and debris of the close quarter action. Right behind her, followed two armoured cruisers, each of these ships with its side gunports wide open and their weapons ready for close ranged battle. These ships were part of the escaped 7th Fleet from Alpha Centauri and were a powerful addition to the Fleet. Though nothing as powerful as the Crusader, they fitted somewhere between the capabilities of a conventional cruiser and a ship like the Crusader. They lacked the rotating sections of the more recent ship designs, but made up for it with additional weapons mounts and armour. As well as side-mounted railguns, they carried the massive 400mm automatic cannons. In years gone by, these ships were so powerful, even their presence was known to be enough to quell dissent on some of the more troublesome stations or bases in the Confederacy. Today, they were the second rate capital ships in a mighty fleet.

  CCS Crusader moved past the enemy line and turned sharply so that she could run down the flank of the force, her guns still blazing. Following her course, the first armoured cruiser added its own fire to the already badly damaged enemy ships. Doing much the same job as the Crusader, the armoured cruiser quickly dispatched one of the larger enemy vessels in an impressive display of coordinated firepower. Each railgun round smashed through large sections of the ship, some of them even going so far as to pass completely through the vessel. It was a massacre.

  At the same time as the first column smashing the line, Rear Admiral Churchill’s force of ships did the same towards the rear of the enemy formation. It was a textbook assault in the fashion of the naval battles of old. The Confederation warships were tougher and better armed for the close range duelling. Behind the two columns the carrier Wasp waited, protected by a swarm of frigates and gunboats. As she stood off at a safe distance, her squadrons of fighters rushed out to assist. A much smaller number of the assault gunboats moved ahead. These powerful vessels were usually used to escort transports and were armed to the point of excess. The small fighters darted around the craft in small formations. From a distance, it looked like a mighty two-pronged dart being stabbed into the heart of the enemy line. In the centre of the enemy fleet, protected by the two large cruisers, was the Leviathan. Her dark red hull looking almost black, unless lit by weapons fire or the direct illumination of the star.

  As the battle started its first bloody stage, the second part of the Fleet started firing their reverse engines. At that moment they were out of scanning range, but it wouldn’t be long before the planetary assault force reached its destination. This formidable force included the assault carrier CCS Ark Royal and her compliment of fighters. The mighty formation of ships approached the planet almost half an hour behind the primary attack force.

  * * *

  Flashes burst around the group of fighters, as they braved their way into the heart of the space conflict. From inside his Lightning Mk II fighter, Wing Commander Anders did his best to avoid the incoming flak guns and debris. The action was well underway as the fighters rushed past the battle lines looking for targets of opportunity. The small twin-engine craft was fast and agile and usually used as a high-speed interceptor. Their speed and agility was their only realistic defence in a place where they could be crippled by a single cannon round. Though not as powerful as the heavier Thunderbolt strike bomber they were escorting, they still carried a powerful payload of Skua anti-ship missiles and powerful automatic cannons. The enemy forces were taking heavy damage and his fighter wing was looking for stragglers to pick off. A series of messages from CCS Royal Oak and CCS Crusader popped onto his helmet display.

  “Angel One to Angel Squadron, vector seven. We have two vessels breaking off. Escort the heavies into range, watch for turret fire!”

  The squadron of eight fighters split up into two groups of four, each one altering course to bring them in front and to the flank of the four Thunderbolt fighter bombers from Delta Squadron. These heavier fighters were easily double the size of the Lightnings and powered by four substantial engines. They carried two crew, but the size and number of defensive turrets showed a marked difference in design and capability. Above and below the wings, fitted onto the pylons, sat a dozen Skua anti-ship missiles. They were the same light missiles used by all Confed fighters but these craft carried far more. Under the hull, was a single tungsten tipped anti-ship torpedo. In the nose of the weapon was a state of the art micro-fission charge. These tiny nuclear warheads were the most powerful weapons carried by fighters and capable of destroying a cutter, or even a destroyer, with one well aimed shot. The hardened tip would allow it to penetrate deep inside the hull of the target before the warhead ignited. All of this was irrelevant, if they couldn’t get close enough to target the enemy ships.

  The Wing Commander checked his tactical displays, noting the massive amount of electronic jamming taking place. It wasn’t strong enough to interrupt his communication systems, but it would stop the targeting computer. There was no chance he, or the rest of the fighters, could get a decent weapon lock under these circumstances. They would have to launch their weapons on a direct line of sight. This made it much more difficult to get into position and also a lot easier for the enemy to shoot down the approaching ordnance.

  “Wilks, put the Skua missiles on manual, we’re gonna have to do this the old fashioned way.”

  His gunner nodded and flicked a number of switches to deactivate the main tracking system for the missiles. A series of flak bursts shook the craft as they passed two duelling warships and moved in on a direct course to the stern of a retreating Union frigate. They were less than ten kilometres away and though the frigate was leaving a trail of debris and lifeboats, its guns were still firing.

  “Delta Squadron, I’m getting tactical data from the Wasp. The line has been split and part of their fleet is trying to escape. Gunboats are heading for the heavy cruiser. We have the two trying to sneak away. Right here.”

  He tapped the button that would send a marker to each fighter. Their mapping displays would show the designated target, as well as highlighting it on the head up displays built into their helmets.

  “We’ll take the frigate first, then we’ll deal with the light cruiser.”

  “Hold on!” he forced the nose of his jet downwards and hit the thrust button. Unlike movement in the atmosphere, in space the fighters kept travelling in the same direction unless they used their thrusts to alter the course. They moved lower until they approached from underneath the rear of the ship. Four point defence turrets blazed away, each one released a series of small calibre cannon rounds.

  Wing Commander Anders spotted the incoming fire at the last moment and hit the vector thrusters button. It was for emergency course changes and sent a massive burst of power from an additional engine outlet mounted on the top and bottom of the fighter. The burst hit the two men like a sledgehammer, pushing the fighter down thirty metres before he corrected their course. The stream of shells tore past, missing the fighter by just a few metres. Their wingman wasn’t fast enough and a number of the rounds ripped through the nose and port wing, shredding the vessel and blasting it off course.

  The two groups of fighters kept on their course, continuing to drift up and down to throw off some of the incoming weapons fire. They were past the centre of the battle and approaching three heavy frigate type vessels, all of which appeared to be breaking away from the heavy fire of the Confed cruisers. One of the ships had scores of domes along its flanks and top of the hull.

  “Angel Squadron, watch out, the main target looks like a fleet defence ship. Take her out fast!” he barked.

  “Sir, we’re in range!” shouted his gunner.

  “Do it! Do it!” he cried and did
his best to keep the fighter on a straight course. It wasn’t easy as streams of gunfire ripped past him, threatening to destroy the fighter in a single burst. As he tapped the joystick, he spotted the flashes from the other fighters and then felt the clunk from his own wing pylons. Four missiles released from their mounts and with a burst of fire pushed away from the fighter. At first their speed appeared slow, but they increased in velocity quickly, each missile hurtling towards the rear of the larger enemy ship. No sooner had they released their missiles, he gave the evasion signal.

  He hit the vector button again and lifted the fighter up high and away from possible defensive fire. The burst of power from below the fighter pushed the crew downwards and Wing Commander Anders’ vision started to fade before the computer took over and reversed the thrust to put them back on course.

  “Everybody here?”

  He had his answer before anybody could speak. On the main tactical display, it flashed the status of the squadrons and showed him they were still down just one fighter. So far, so good. They moved over the warship and accelerated towards their next target. Below them the weapons turrets blazed away, but this time the enemy were more interested in fighting off the dozens of Skua missiles streaking towards their ship.

  Once the first missile reached two hundred metres from the weapons detection, alarms flashed on the fighters. The point defence mounts must have triggered their close quarter mode, as the area of space around the ship filled with thousands of metal shards from the small Gatling gun mounts. The rapid fire weapons made short work of the first eight missiles, each of the guns tracking quickly to explode them as they reached the defensive perimeter. Only so many could be stopped, one struck near the port engine, quickly followed by another five. The first explosion was small, the blast contained by the medium armour. As the follow-up missiles arrived the damage expanded until a series of explosions tore out a large section from her hull.