The units lifting off from the surface of Irricana right now were a little over half the size of the military version and Tony would probably turn his attention to military procurement if, he made it home alive.
Both the dragoons and the Marines were ferrying the AS units to their assigned locations, creating a screen that the enemy couldn’t help but hit. Of course, if their limited power cells failed before the enemy arrived…
“Let’s just turn them all on,” Paul urged. “We’ve got a steady supply close at hand.”
It was good to see Tony, but it was mildly awkward. In the past, Tony had been the younger of Senator Nathaniel’s two sons and he’d always deferred to Paul.
Now Tony was Senator Nathaniel, and Paul was being careful to phrase things as suggestions, as efforts to build consensus.
***
As it turned out, the Grays arrived before the first AS net needed to be replaced. Five days into the seven-day power cells, a large group of Gray ships tumbled into space, right in the middle of the trap. Though the flash of their arrival had been seen from the fleet’s position, they were sitting far beyond sensor range. A screen of Hasty Ferrets, thrown out into the space between the fleet and the AS net, reported their composition and activity.
This was the sort of engagement that carriers had been built for, at least in the opinion of the Nathaniel family, and it was an opinion that Paul shared. Many pundits claimed the concept was a redundancy.
Carriers, they claimed, gave up too much of their volume to their aviation complement and supporting equipment, cutting down on the number of guns they could mount. Those people were almost invariably tied to the sectors where more traditional vessels were built.
The ship destroyer squadrons aboard the Sucker Punch and the Xipe Totec mounted the standard 30mm launch rails, and the warheads packed a yield equivalent to a thousand tons of TNT. The SD didn’t quite carry the equivalent firepower of a frigate’s main gun but it was deadly, nonetheless, and far more maneuverable.
Ship destroyers were too small to have distortion engines but a carrier could put several squadrons into any fight and a single lucky shot could never eliminate all that firepower like it could with a cruiser.
And they opened up new threat vectors for the enemy to deal with.
“Right here looks good,” Paul suggested to Eddie, pointing at a location above and slightly behind the enemy force.
His position aboard the Sucker Punch was an advisory one. Thanks to Julia’s ruthless house-cleaning of the former SDF units, the officers of 1GD were proper professionals, rather than patronage appointees. That meant Eddie was able to turn his own squadron over to his immediate subordinate and take over temporary command of the entire regiment.
Paul served as the link between the privateer captains and the newly arrived dragoons. Tony and his Marines had worked with the dragoons before, but it was Paul that they knew and so he had become the de facto coordinator of the three forces, welding them together to stop the attack on Irricana.
Eddie nodded. “Should prevent them firing back through the wormhole at us.” He touched the icon to authorise the coordinates. “Engineering, establish a wormhole on my coordinate marker.”
The enemy ships, to their credit, had organized themselves and set a course toward their estimate of the enemy position but it would be a long trip before the two fleets came within sensor range. They’d brought three carriers with them but, if they’d launched fighters, the Ferrets were still too far away to resolve the smaller hulls.
They’d know soon enough.
The Iron Hand fighter squadrons slipped through the wormhole, followed by the dragoon fighters in their modified Gray hulls. The ship destroyers from both Human carriers followed as the first data began streaming back through the opening.
“Wo de tian a!” the sensor officer exclaimed. “The battlespace is packed with Gray fighters. Reading just over a hundred fifty Hichef-class fast fighters. No other variants appear to have launched, at this time. Three carriers, six cruisers and twelve frigates.”
Paul nodded to himself. Their sixty Iron Hand fighters as well as the lightly armed, but more maneuverable, twelve ships of the Stiletto squadron were supplemented by the thirty-two Hichef-based fighters of the dragoons. IFF transponders were the only thing preventing the fight from degenerating into an orgy of accidental friendly fire.
“Transports are passing through,” the tactical officer announced. The Khlen-based shuttles used by the dragoons carried a gun in the nose for softening up ground targets and the Marine shuttles, which also carried a 20mm rail gun along the dorsal spine, bristled with an array of smaller weapons as well. They’d been designed for insertion or extraction from hot zones and the Corps had always felt the best defense was a good solid kick in the enemy’s gonads.
Regardless of their original design purpose, the shuttles could kill the enemy fighters and so they spilled out behind the Gray fleet and joined the fight.
“Damn it, Fedorov,” Eddie hissed quietly at the holo, hands clasped tightly behind his back. “Don’t get in so damned close. You don’t have the fire-power that those Iron Hands have.”
It was hard watching another man take your squadron into battle.
Paul realized that Eddie’s concern illustrated a bigger problem. He opened an all call-signs channel. “Dragoons, don’t close in with the enemy. Transponders won’t keep the Marines from shooting you if they don’t know which is which. Stick to the plan; stay on their flanks and support.”
Eddie’s lips drew tight across his teeth, showing his anger at himself. He’d focused too closely on his own squadron and forgot his role in the current fight. “What’s the tally?” he demanded.
“We’ve lost four so far and the enemy have lost eighteen,” Tactical replied. “That gap will widen more quickly as we continue to achieve battlespace superiority.”
“Just be glad they haven’t realized they could be using the guns on their Khlens as well,” Eddie muttered, “or they might be enough to tip the scales back in their favor.”
Paul shook his head as he watched an enemy Hichef slot in behind an Iron Hand, hoping for an easy kill. “As far as they’re concerned, they built the Khlens for ground assault.” One of the secondary armaments, mounted in the tail of the Iron Hand, fired a sustained burst and the Hichef disintegrated.
Paul looked over at Eddie. “It’s not the proper tool for the job.”
The Marines ploughed their way into the enemy fighters, weapons firing almost continuously. The Grays were quick to respond, turning to fire on the Human formation but the dragoons and the Marine Stilettos were providing a withering cover fire and the enemy Hichefs were being steadily pushed back from the rear of the Gray fleet.
Tony’s holographic form stepped into view in front of Eddie and Paul. “The Grays are on their heels,” he said. “I’m going to commit my heavy gunships.”
The heavy gunships, originally designed for gravity-well operations such as covering a troop-landing from within an atmosphere, carried three 250mm guns in their bows as well as seven 150mm guns in turrets around the hull. They were surprisingly effective against frigates and larger ships but they did still suffer against concerted attack by fighters.
The three gunships of 488 Marine Expeditionary Force passed through the wormhole and they each turned on one of the three enemy carriers. If there was one thing a gunship captain hated above all else, it was an enemy carrier.
If the fight went any length, those carriers would be recovering their fighters and re-arming them to go back out and kill the gunships. They had a short window to prevent the scattered enemy fighters from responding.
Each gunship fired a salvo of three antimatter rounds from the main guns, hitting the carriers in the stern. They didn’t penetrate the shields but the reaction between the antimatter and the rounds’ casings unleashed the equivalent of thirty-two million tons of TNT.
Most of the blast dissipated quickly, as there was no air to propagate it,
but the portion trapped against the shielding was more than enough to rip the shield generators loose from their mounts, buckling the protective fields at the aft ends.
Ever efficient, the Grays built the forward shielding mounts to handle greater stress. They estimated the majority of incoming rounds to be from the front and so they saved weight by using lighter mounts in the rear projectors. The increased acceleration, they reasoned, would give them an even greater chance to keep their bows facing the threat.
The generators became projectiles in their own right. The heavy units easily smashed through bulkheads, conduits and crewmen as they tumbled forward into the engineering spaces.
Two of the carriers went dead as their main generators were crushed. The third had taken heavy damage but it was now turning to face the fight at its rear and the second salvo from the gunship behind merely glanced off the half-buckled shield without achieving detonation.
The entire Gray fleet was turning, having found no enemies to their front, and their guns would be able to make short work of the three heavy gunships.
***
“I think it’s time,” a holographic Tony announced.
The artificial singularity generators were built into hardened cases but they weren’t completely invulnerable and more than half of them had been knocked out by the gamma radiation from the antimatter detonations.
The enemy commander would soon realize he had the option to run and so the Human forces had to be held in check so as to give him the impression that he might still have a chance. If they committed everything at the start, they’d simply scare the Grays off.
“Sucker Punch to Brawler…” Paul waited for Robin to appear in front of him. “Get in there, Brawler. Good hunting!”
***
“Helm, take us in,” Robin ordered. “All batteries, weapons free.” She raised her voice. “And let’s try to leave in the same ship we arrived in, this time!”
The chuckles helped to ease the tension.
Though most of the privateers were with Ava raiding Gray logistics centers, Robin had opted to join with Paul. She’d been the one to find and rescue him from the Grays when he’d first come to the colonies and she wasn’t about to let them get him back.
Or fall into the hands of the Imperials. She didn’t quite trust them, despite Paul’s long-standing friendship with General Nathaniel.
Then there was the matter of Paul’s ship.
She’d managed to draw escort duty for the Sucker Punch after returning from the refit. The ship’s ability to put forces anywhere, on a moment’s notice, meant independence for the colonies and she knew the most important mission the Brawler could draw was protecting that capability.
Her brother was on Roanaoke, taking care of her little girl, and the two were all she had in the Universe. Robin hadn’t been the most involved parent, having been away fighting for the last five years, but she was doing it for little Sarah and guarding the Sucker Punch was the best way for her to give her daughter a future.
“Enemy contacts coming back through the hole,” Tactical warned. “Six Hichefs. Engaging…”
The moaning cacophony of the secondary batteries vibrated her bones as the enemy fighters streaked past.
“Splashed three,” the tactical officer announced.
“The combat fleet patrol can handle the rest,” Robin declared. “Keep moving forward. I want us turning toward Tango-Charlie-Five the instant we clear the hole. Tactical, fire as your guns bear.”
The full tactical holo had been transmitting from the moment the first Human fighters had appeared behind the Gray formation. The cruiser Robin had selected was the closest to firing on a heavy gunboat. Imperial Marines had a near-legendary status in the colonies, where professional forces didn’t exist.
Saving a Marine ship would link her own crew to that legend. She just hoped she wouldn’t end up fighting them to keep the colonies independent.
The gunship was moving to evade, desperately trying to stay out of the way of the cruiser’s main guns. The Marine ship was just too small to take any kind of pounding from a cruiser’s mains. She had been designed to support ground operations, after all. The heavy guns in her bows had been added as an afterthought.
The Gray guns were creeping up on her, however, and it was only a matter of time…
“Firing,” Tactical warned.
A mournful howl rattled loose fixtures on the bridge and the four rounds were on their way.
At almost the same instant, the enemy cruiser fired and she tore the front third clear off the Marine gunship. A cloud of debris, gas, and bodies expanded away from the front of the stricken gunship as the Brawler’s rounds impacted the cruiser’s shielding.
“Angle our approach,” Robin ordered, fighting back the urge to curse.
She had no need to explain her order, not to this crew. As the ship altered course to approach at an angle, the ghostly moans of the secondary batteries increased. As the ship presented more of her side to the enemy, more of her secondary weapons could get a clear shot.
“Coolant failure on six-charlie-starboard,” Tactical advised. “Damage control team is responding.”
Robin was continually amazed at how the Grays would simply declare a design as sufficient and never revisit it again. The carbon dioxide system used to cool the gun rails was less than perfect, in her opinion, and another gun on deck six had gone down.
It was the second part of the reason for her approach vectoring.
“Mains up in five.”
“Very well.” She gave the tactical officer a curt nod. “Helm, bring us around on our next tack.”
Tactical would fire the mains as they bore on target and then the portside batteries would get a turn to fire. Hopefully, Damage
Control would be able to get the coolant running to six-charlie-starboard by the time they swung back in the other direction.
***
The data transmitted back through the wormhole in the moments before the Hichefs had been smashed by the Human fighters patrolling their fleet had been enough to make up NGark’s mind for him.
His fighters had already been losing the struggle before the arrival of the enemy gunships and now he’d caught a glimpse of what lay beyond the wormhole. He’d been considering a push through the hole, but he knew the enemy could simply move the opening at will.
His ships would never get near the entrance.
And on the other side of that entrance sat a long line of ships. Navy gunships, Marine cruisers, two carriers and the same Makers-be-damned planet killer that PShelt had lost to such amusing effect at Nurazhal.
A lesser commander would have ignored the odds and pushed ahead, but he knew there was no way for him to achieve his objective. He wouldn’t be able to even approach Irricana, let alone conduct an orbital bombardment of the erbium mines in the capital city of Vermillion.
“Sound the recall,” he ordered, “and all ships will standby to jump.”
It was the one good result coming from the loss of two carriers. It had at least destroyed enough of the singularity devices that he could extricate his force without further loss. A commander needed to be lucky in combat but most officers failed to realize that luck was often little more than the ability to look past failures and see the opportunities that still remained.
PShelt’s foolishness at Nurazhal, for example, had allowed NGark the opportunity to retain his rank. Of course, it had also led to his current predicament…
“But, sir,” a sub-javelin, third grade, objected, “we’ve destroyed one of the gunships and, if we can…” He trailed off, blanching as he noticed NGark’s hand was resting on the grip of his holstered sidearm.
It was an antique but it was intimidatingly large.
“The enemy has a horde of ships waiting on the other side,” he explained, “and the only reason they don’t all pour through is because they don’t want to scare us off. They’re so confident of the outcome that they want us to fully commit. That’s when you’ll see th
e rest of their forces come through.”
“All ships report their readiness for the jump,” the communications specialist, second grade, stated.
“Send the signal to jump,” NGark ordered. “We’ll fall back on Govi Darkhan.” He was certain he knew where the Humans would strike next, and, when they did, he’d make them dance to his tune.
“But the recall…” Tactical protested.
“The loss of our remaining fighters will be mentioned at your trial,” NGark assured him as the ship slipped into distortion. “If you had sent the recall when ordered to do so, we might have saved some of them.” He looked for his master-at-arms and saw he was already leading a pair of security operators to arrest the tactical officer.
Not for the first time, he cursed the Makers for imprisoning his generation in clone bodies. His master-at-arms had served with him since before the sentence imposed on his race and he was one of the few that NGark could truly trust to do his job well. Everyone else aboard was a former doctor, lawyer, writer…
All had followed another path until the boredom had forced them to move on to another job that they still couldn’t take seriously.
The longer NGark lived, the more his punishment made sense. It had seemed an odd choice, at the time – the opposite of punishment, in the eyes of many – but the Makers had punished genocide with immortality.
But not quite immortality, for the slowly degenerating telomeres of their clone chromosomes served as an effective death sentence – one that would take millennia, though it was no less inevitable for that delay. The species had thousands of years to reflect on their sins as they drifted down into oblivion.
He watched the next most senior tactical officer step up to the console and he wondered, suddenly, whether the Makers had decided to use the Humans to accelerate the end of the Grays.
Why else would they be working aboard their ships?
***
“That’s the last of the enemy fighters,” the tactical officer said with a sigh. “Nobody here but us Humans.”
The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3) Page 27