Created in the years after the last war with the Pythans, the Goireas field mitigated the effects of beam weapons on space vehicles. The field was generated across a mesh that was suspended a short distance over most of the hull. When energized, it held particles within a field that spread the effects of beam hits over a large portion of the field. It didn’t eliminate everything a beam could do, but it bought time for our missiles to be fired. Someone gave me the basics of it once, but I still didn’t understand it. If I did, I’d have a held a much higher rank and made much more money working in a place where nobody tried to kill me, besides, all I needed to know was that it worked.
Wilder gel was different. Contained in viscid membranes that covered portions of the hull, it didn’t require power or computer control to work. Any beams, be they lasers, particle, x-rays, masers, phlegethons, or others would have to get through the dense gel before it could get into the hull where we crew spent our time while in space. Getting through the gel was no easy feat. Whatever materials the colloid consisted of made a beam’s job a tough one. As the beam burned or bored into the gel, more gel flowed into the path of the beam and impeded damage to the hull. A beam would need to work on a particular spot for quite awhile before it would get through. Add in the movement of the vehicles involved and that became a difficult task.
The particulars of the gel’s composition, and how the Goireas field worked, were classified of course, much like the makeup of the composite armor with which modern combat space vehicles were equipped.
The composite armor was an underlying defense against everything. Missiles, beams, radiation, electromagnetic pulses, you name it and the composite armor did its damndest to stop it.
Beams could cut into it, but there were layers within the armor that bent, diffused, and dissipated the beams, much as it did to mag gun slugs, long rod penetrators, plasma jets, fragments, and whatever else tried to find its way inside our vehicles.
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We targeteers trained on consoles that were the same as were in Freya’s Battle and Command Center. Freya was the first heavy missile carrier to require a crew of three missile targeting specialists to deal with the awesome responsibility of putting missiles into action.
The Freya’s Battle and Control Center, or BCC was of the new standard, a compartmentalized D-shaped deck in the middle of the hull for maximum protection. The Freya’s command staff operated from a raised platform on the flat wall, while on the lower level, arrayed in concentric half rings, sat the crew stations of all the different specialties that made a vehicle function. Weapons stations were to the right as you looked over the BCC from the elevated level.
The new consoles were not vastly different from their predecessors, but they were a marked improvement, except for one thing: unreliability.
It’s like that with new technology. No matter how hard the manufacturers test it, they will never find all the bugs until it gets out and real people in the real world put it to real use. My uncle was an infantryman thirty years ago when they last tried crew served beam weapons designed to replace heavy machine guns and mag guns. They were flawless in the lab, highly reliable in testing, training, and garrison duty once they got into the hands of the troops. All seemed well.
Then there was a corporate-hired mercenary outfit that got bold enough to take a settlement on a colony world called Frohming out on the edge of populated space. The Coalition sent in my uncle’s battalion—supported with their shiny new beam weapons—to deal with it. Two weeks later, they were screaming for the return of the tried and true bullet-spinning heavy machine gun. My uncle’s company lost a quarter of their men when their supporting beam weapons went south on them in the middle of a fight. “The tried and true beats hype and sizzle ninety-nine times out of a hundred. It had better be as near foolproof as they can get it before it becomes general issue and before you ask soldiers to rely on it to save their lives. If it’s great on paper and fails the real test, junk it. Wars ain’t fought on paper, but the lists of the dead get printed on the stuff,” he liked to say. They never got the beam weapons to work reliably, not that they didn’t try, and not that it didn’t get more infantry killed. Eventually they gave up, but not until there was nearly a mass revolt by the ground pounders to be rid of the damned things.
My uncle was a smart man, and I always thought war is war, whether it was fought groundside or out in the Big Black. Reliability must be a priority.
For us, the problems our training revealed in the consoles led to fixes they implemented on the Freya, so by the time we actually went on board, everything was up to snuff, or so we hoped.
Nine targeteers were assigned to the Freya. Five of us were old hands and helped the four newbs get up to speed. We didn’t have a dud in the bunch. I’d been a targeteer for awhile, and I was good at it. The trainers and evaluators on Paladium liked how I did things. They told me I was highly efficient, innovative, and had style.
By the time training neared its end, they named me Freya’s senior targeteer and was lead on Team 1, answering to the weapons officer.
Most jobs on Space Forces vehicles run two or three crews depending on specialty, twelve or eight hours per shift. Space Forces used a twenty-four hour schedule on all space vehicles as standard. Every planet has its own length of day, and to keep a standard throughout the force, they went with an old, old tradition of a twenty-four hour clock that came from somewhere.
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The early shakedown runs revealed many problems, but that was normal for a new vehicle and even more so for the first in a new class of missile carrier.
There was a vast list of minor problems, most of which were easily dealt with. There were some fairly serious issues as well: power transmission fluctuations from the black energy fueled generators, data routes that proved vulnerable to heat, faulty switches that went down after a few hundred throws, console screens that were sensitive to g-force changes, and a host of others that all had to be properly dealt with before Freya was cleared for service. Perhaps equally important was the confidence factor, we crew needed to feel confident that we could accomplish our tasks without worrying about technical flaws.
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Engineering crew talk about matter flow, power management, and energy efficiency. Mag gun crews talk about coil limitations, magnetic field consistency, and slug properties. Damage control crew talk about structural damage, hull integrity, and casualty recovery. Every job has its own lingo and missile crew were no different. Even among missile crew, there were subsets: missile loaders, warhead specialists, motor technicians, and missile systems technicians all had theirs, and we targeteers had ours. We threw around terms like missile track, hit probabilities, attack course, warhead selection, and flight size.
As I said, we Missile Targeting Specialists were called targeteers. Missile Loaders were called loaders, Warhead Specialists were headspecs, Motor Specialists were motorheads, Missile Systems Technicians were systechs, but they were a weird bunch and didn’t care for the term, not that it stopped anyone from calling them that. We were all missile troops though, whatever you called us.
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By the time the Pythans attacked, training was nearly completed and we were still meshing as a crew and getting used to the Fat Lady, the disparaging moniker with which she ended up. Every vehicle in the Space Forces had one, and nobody dared call any vehicle but their own by that name without risking great physical distress at the hands of an insulted vehicle crew. One of Freya’s officers mentioned he’d seen an opera with a Freya character portrayed by a lady of rather generous proportions, and the Freya got stuck with her nickname.
Once the Freya was cleared for training missions, she was given a launch ceremony like all new vehicles in the Space Forces. As was tradition, the new crew would board the vehicle according to rank, with the newest and lowest rank going first, followed by the next in seniority and rank. This was done to allow each and every member of an inaugural crew to say that at one time they were the senior
ranking crew member on board the vehicle. The last to board was Colonel Dallas Bridger, our commander.
We went on two extensive shakedown runs before Space Forces command decided we were ready for action. Under normal circumstances, it would have been dozens. Most of Freya’s crew felt confident, but I think we all had some reservations about going to war so soon.
We were going to hit the Pythans in the Regent system. We were a feint, a way to draw attention and Pythan forces away from the Adams system. Coalition Command had a large ground operation going down and it was our job to draw Pythan forces away from that. Division General Marcus Ord was in command of our force and would direct the battle from the CFSSF Garnet CCV-62, a command and control vehicle.
The plan was for Space Forces to launch attacks in several systems at once in an effort to draw Pythan forces away from Adams. Our attack would be on a system that had been secured by Pythan forces and Coalition Command hoped it would alarm the Pythans and make them think our attack was the main objective. If they went for it, we would be gone by the time a large Pythan force showed up, and Creech, a planet in the Adams system, would be secure. An awful lot of things had to go right in order for that to happen.
Freya would be the centerpiece of the attack force, with support from a very large contingent of lancers and the CFSSF Goliad MMC-24 missile carrier of the Vera Cruz class. An old thing, the first of the Vera Cruz class medium missile carriers entered service over a hundred standard years ago. Back then, they were considered heavy missile carriers. Goliad was one of the few of her kind left and was slated be scrapped when the Freya class vehicles came on line, but the war changed that. Space Forces would need every vehicle available, but old warhorses like the Goliad were well past their prime, and despite modernization efforts, the frontlines were not the best place for them. The old vehicles would serve for the time being, but the Freya class was the belle of the ball.
The Pythan force had arrived from Tusk not long before we did. Our nav crew could tell by their course and speed. The Pythans had pulled many of the space vehicles from Regent while realigning their forces. It looked like the Coalition plan was working.
This fight would not be how either side would have preferred, a space warfare version of a meeting engagement. Both sides would have to make a decision quickly: Turn immediately and flee back down the nav lane or maneuver for combat.
Neither side was looking to back down, so the dance got underway. Given that both sides started relatively close to one another, the actual fighting would commence quickly, and the maneuvers would likely not give either side an advantage.
The Pythan force was centered around three vehicles they called cruisers, similar in size and capability to Space Forces Dragoon medium missile carriers.
The force commander brought us to port with the Garnet in the lead followed by Goliad, then Freya. The defense lancers deployed as a screening force between the Pythans and us, while the offensive lancers formed behind Freya.
It was clear from previous engagements in this war that the Pythans had not yet given up on equipping beams as primary weapons on some of their large missile vehicles, so in theory, they punched a little above their weight compared to a similarly sized Coalition vehicle. Our beams were strictly for defensive purposes.
To do our damage, we relied on missiles and to a lesser degree, mag guns. The mag gun was versatile and could fire various types of slugs: kinetic penetrators, conventional explosive and nuclear warheads, and various fragmentary types were the most common. On vehicles that were equipped with the big fixed longitudinal mag guns as primary weapons, they could fire guided warheads that required targeteers.
CCV directed us to target the cruisers. General Ord wanted us to throw the first punch. Before the weapons officer relayed the order to me and my targeteers, we had already formulated an attack, so it was mere seconds before we responded that we were ready.
The order to fire came soon after. Moments after we launched the first of Freya’s missiles to be fired in war, the Pythans responded. Some of their fire was directed at us, mostly beams, but the bulk of it was aimed at the Garnet.
The engagement went fast, a flurry of missiles and beams stabbing through the blackness of space. The Pythan attack overwhelmed the defensive fire of the Garnet and the defensive lancers and the CCV took several hits. It was clear the Pythans had identified Garnet as our force command center.
“We’re hit,” came the call from Garnet “Numerous systems are down. Freya, take over C and C duties.”
As the Garnet fought for survival, two of the Pythan cruisers were in similar peril. Just as the Pythan attack overwhelmed our defensive responses, so did our missile flights overwhelm theirs. The lead cruiser looked like it might still be capable of continuing the fight, but it soon became apparent the second cruiser was doomed. It broke apart and its indicator on our tactical plot screens winked out.
The first exchange was in our favor.
The third Pythan cruiser had fired missiles, targeting the Goliad, Garnet, and us, while Goliad responded with missiles of its own, looking to kill the lead cruiser. Our weapons officer ordered us to target the third cruiser as well as a number of their smaller vehicles. I disagreed with that idea, but it was no time to argue.
Garnet avoided further damage, the defensive lancers stopped the missiles targeted at the ailing vehicle. Goliad did not fare as well. Several missiles tore into the old machine.
“Goliad is damaged,” they announced over the coms. “Missile systems disabled.”
Colonel Bridger ordered Goliad to disengage, but the vehicle’s commander didn’t agree.
“We’re staying if it’s all the same to you. Maybe we draw fire away from Freya. Kill them before they kill us.”
Goliad’s missiles had taken down the lead cruiser, but our missile flights were not so successful. Our attack was diluted by spreading out the strike among so many targets. The third cruiser was untouched, having fended off our attack. The smaller vehicles we attacked did not fare as well. We’d hurt them.
This fight was ours. One cruiser left and we pitched a lot harder than they did. I was plotting a strike when my console went black. Ninety percent of the systems onboard went down within a few seconds. A catastrophic failure somewhere inside Freya put us in mortal danger. We lost engines, all weapons and defensive systems, all of our scanners, most of our sensors, and the Goireas field. The words of my uncle rang in my mind. He might have died on Frohming because of bad gear, now I might die in the Big Black for the same reason.
Internal communications were still functioning, but hardly anyone spoke. Most of us toggled channels to eavesdrop on the command bands.
“We’re dead,” Colonel Bridger said over the coms to Lieutenant Colonel Ted Lawles, Freya’s engineering officer, “if you don’t get the systems restored right now.”
“Then we are dead barring a miracle, and I don’t believe in miracles, colonel. We are working as hard as we can.”
“They’re firing, sir,” one of the countermeasures crewmen said calmly. His sensors were among the very few left functioning. We could hear beams hitting us. A clicking, scraping noise coming from the hull. Missiles had to be inbound, but we were almost blind and certainly deaf to the situation outside our vehicle. The Pythans must have thrown everything they had when they realized our predicament and when that everything got to us, we’d be dead.
I thought that was the beginning of the end of us, but it wasn’t. Waiting for my death made this personal. We were at the mercy of the Pythans with only the hull armor and Wilder gel between us and death, and as tough and as the protection might be, it would only last so long.
Things seemed bleak. I could see it on the faces of nearby crew in the meager lighting of the battle center. But somewhere out there, between us and the Pythan cruiser, something was happening. Someone in the command center said there was a flash of light visible through optics, an explosion, out there in the Black, then another. The beams weren’t slicing us a
nymore.
More systems started to come back online. Our crewmates in engineering were fighting their own war and had just won a small battle.
Freya shuddered. A missile hit, but just one. The calls for damage control buzzed on the headset, followed by more calls for medical personnel. A few more missiles closed, and then flashed past, missing by a tiny margin. I wondered why there weren’t more. They should have poured it on. We have nothing to counter their missiles, we’re a coasting duck, I thought.
“Goliad is swatting at the incoming!” someone said. The old fading warhorse was playing chaperone for the new girl at the dance and showing that tried and true was sure as hell worth something. For the Freya and her crew it was everything.
More systems came on. I flipped com channels and caught a snippet from LTC Lawles, “We’ve got a handle on it, we just need a little more time.”
My console was just coming back up when someone yelled out, “Lancers! Our lancers are slugging it out with the cruiser!”
The little bastards were throwing themselves at the Pythans, not just the cruiser but the entire force they had remaining. Throwing destruction with every weapon they had. Throwing their vehicles and lives at them for us. The explosions were lancers dying and their crews along with them.
The engines were back, the push from the thrust could be felt by everyone aboard. We were back in the game. The Goireas field was restored, I knew it when I saw a brief flash of interference on my screen.
The point defense crew targeted inbound missiles and were engaging. The defense beams pecked away while the mag guns fired cannister rounds. The Freya shuddered again. Another Pythan missile got through, but we were still in the game. It was our turn now.
Our missile system was back up. I had full systems once again and began seeking targets. The weapons officer green lighted me for action, and moments later, he did the same for the other two missile targeting specialists. I would have thought I would be vengeful toward the Pythans after our period of helplessness, but I wasn’t. I had a job to do and feelings would interfere. My job required me to be cold and calculating and the warmth of vengeance could come later, if it ever would.
Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion Page 19