Star Man 2: Star Rise

by I. G. Roberts

  After looking at the data for a few minutes, Nahala said, “Admiral, of course, we will do everything we can to stop them, but you need to have something in place to deal with whatever is left if those Pirates make it past us. I don’t know how successful we’ll be, but we will do whatever we can Sir.”

  Hanadon replied, “You won’t be completely alone, you will have the remaining fourteen Patrol Boats to help. I know they have limited firepower, but in a massed attack with your Destroyers, you may be able to inflict some pain on the bastards.”

  “Yes Sir, we might look at that. Still, they have us heavily outgunned, all we can do is the best we can. I’d like to have a few of those Patrol Boats from Cambridge we’ve heard about, though,” replied Captain Cradlina.

  The Admiral and his Captains spent several hours working through their options, finally deciding on the best way forward for the upcoming engagements, they knew there would be multiple attacks, even with this one group of Pirates. They would split into two groups, each with one Destroyer and seven Patrol Boats. Initially, these two groups would stay together so they could support each other. If the Pirates split up, the Federation Captains would decide on how to change their dispositions then, once they had some idea of what the Pirates were doing. Once they knew the best way forward, the two Destroyer Captains departed for their ships while messages were sent to the available Patrol Boats to form up with the Destroyers once they had undocked. Nobody had any illusions about the likely outcome of this battle, but the crews didn’t have any choices, they had to fight tooth and nail to defend the Station.

  All the Warships had been fully stocked with all the munitions they could carry as soon as the Pirates were detected so as soon as Captains Nahala and Cradlina boarded their ships, undocking procedures commenced. Nahala was in overall command because he was the most senior ship Commander. Captain Cradlina was second so if something happened the fighting ships would still have someone in charge. Admiral Hanadon was responsible for defense at the Station, Shipyard, and Weapons Storage Facilities. Even as the Warships moved away from the Station, small boats were moving missiles to predetermined locations in preparation for the last-ditch defense.

  The Pirate Armada was still following the curved route from the Jump-Point to the Station their intentions completely clear by now. The Destroyers were unable to Micro-Jump out to the enemy simply because they wouldn’t have the support of the Patrol Boats if they did. Instead, the Federation fleet swung wide on a course that would bring them in parallel and slightly behind the Pirates. That would allow the Federation ships to bring all their weapons to bare while limiting the options available to the Pirates. Two Freighters were further out, also paralleling the Pirates but far enough away they wouldn’t be likely to be hit by stray weapons fire. The Freighters were critical to the Federation forces because they would be used to replenish the fighting ships as the engagement continued for long enough. By the time the Federation ships could intercept their targets, the Pirates would have covered half the distance from the Jump-Point to Cotoni Station.

  Finally, the Navy ships came into range of the Pirate ships. All of them fired every weapon they could toward the enemy formation. Of course, it was never going to be completely one-sided, as soon as the Federation ships were in range, the Pirates fired everything they could, right back. Very quickly, the space between the two fleets became a maelstrom as Point-Defense turrets began picking off missiles and other projectiles. The volume of fire was so high that some weapons inevitably made it through, impacting on Shields. After the first salvo, Nahala sent half the Patrol Boats back behind his remaining forces. He did this for three reasons, one being that he wanted to be able to give the Patrol Boat crews a rest. Nahala also needed to be able to rotate Patrol Boats out to be rearmed when their weapons status became low enough, and he wanted those boats available as a reserve force.

  The battle quickly degenerated into a slugfest and about an hour and a half after they started, one of the Patrol Boats was severely damaged when several Rail-Gun rounds finally battered down its Shields and impacted the hull opening large parts of the interior to space. The damaged Boat fell out of formation, and two of the reserve raced to give it some protection while another filled in the gap left by the damaged ship. Some of the other Patrol Boats were becoming critically short of ammunition, so Nahala sent them to rearm. The break would give their Shields time to regenerate, and the crew would also have some time to replace damaged components. All ships on both sides were fully occupied and kept slugging it out. The Pirates were taking some damage as well so things weren’t as one sided in their favour as they would have liked. The problem for the Federation forces was that the Pirate ships were mostly almost as big as the Destroyers while the Federation Patrol Boats were much smaller. The combined throw weight of the Federation ships simply wasn’t as high as the Pirates were capable of.

  After another two hours, Nahala, sent FNS Tumosah back for replenishment, hoping he with some help from the seven Patrol Boats he kept with him could keep the Pirates busy till the others could return. Nahala’s primary concern was that his weapons stocks would be critically low by the time the others could return. Neither Nahala nor the Pirates saw the two new ships enter the System, mainly because they were small and had learned not to advertise their presence anywhere till they knew what was going on. At the same time, the Pirates were having their own problems with supply, so they only had limited munitions to fire at the Federation Navy.

  On board FNS Theseus, Colin watched as the Scans populated the 3D Situational Indicator. This instrument gathers data from the space surrounding the ship and fills a three-dimensional picture for the Captain or Tactical Officer. The same information was also available in the Secondary Command Centre so Lieutenant Commander Sam Harland and Lieutenant Anne Fraser could see the same picture of the situation as their Captain. It was clearly not a good situation for the Federation, but Colin felt he needed to wait here, perhaps planning how he could turn the tables till the remainder of his little fleet had arrived.

  Colin opened a Chanel to Loki to seek some input from Commander Riley. So far, she’d performed extremely well, and Colin wanted to make sure Suzanne felt her opinion was valued. When she came online, Suzanne had a serious but determined expression on her face.

  “So, Commander,” she said, “when do we go and deal with those Pirates?”

  “That,” replied Colin, “is precisely what I wanted to hear from you. As to the when I thought we should wait for the others to arrive, then we can send them off toward the Station while we Micro-Jump into engagement range and upset our Pirate friends a little.”

  “Excellent Sir, with your permission, I’ll begin working on some ideas I’ve been playing with to use some of the tactics you developed in a different way. If they know what we’ve done in the past, we need to keep changing things, so they don’t know what’s coming.”

  “You do that Commander; when you have your ideas together, have Loki transmit to Theseus, so we’re all on the same page.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  After the call was terminated, Colin turned to Ensign Wills and asked, “So Ensign, tell me what you think we should be doing, should we wait, should we just dive in and start shooting at the Pirates?”

  The Ensign considered the question for a minute before answering. By then, she’d already come to understand that her Captain would want her honest opinion. The man had no patience for sycophants, he’d told her he needed an honest opinion. The only proviso was that he expected people to be able to mount a cogent argument for their point of view. Colin didn’t care if someone disagreed with him, provided they respected his opinion, just as he respected theirs.

  Finally, the Ensign replied, “I think we need to time our intervention right, Sir. If we’re too early, they’ll still have plenty of missiles and Rail-Gun rounds to fire at us. If we get it right, they won’t have much attention for us, and we should be able to sneak up on them and cause a lot of damage before they
know what has hit them. I think we should try to time our attack, so it happens when the available System Defenses are entirely online. The Pirates also seem to have a Freighter for resupply so taking that out is likely to crimp their style.”

  “Yes, you’re right about that Ensign, it will make things hard for them. Still, we’ll be much more effective in the short term if the Pirates don’t know we’re around till we smash them. Our first attack is always going to be the most effective one. But, if we attack the main force first, we can take down their Freighter while we prepare for the next attack on their main force. That was good thinking Ensign, keep it up.”

  Ensign Wills positively glowed under the praise from Colin. She was a very junior officer and to have praise like this from Commander Gordon was incredibly uplifting for her, especially after her first few weeks on this ship. Until Lieutenant Fraser came and helped her deal with the issues, Susan had pretty much concluded that her career was over. Now, the Ensign felt she had a great future ahead of her.

  In the Secondary Control Centre, Sam and Anne could hear everything being said in the CCC. That was necessary, so they knew what was happening during a battle if the CCC was taken out. Anne was smiling to herself as she listened to Colin gently leading Sue along the path, helping her to think about the best way to defeat these Pirates. Anne thought it remarkable that Colin didn’t seem to consider the Navy to be outnumbered here, this was just another problem to solve. FNS Destiny arrived in the System, and Colin immediately contacted Captain Carlon.

  “It looks like Admiral Hanadon has his hands full here Sophon. When the others arrive, I’d like you to head toward the Station along the course that Theseus will transmit to you shortly. It is a bit circuitous but will give you a relatively easy escape route almost all the way. If we’re unsuccessful, then you should do a speed run for Sankarah. You should be able to safely enter and transit through a Jump at up to two percent over the recommended maximum. I suggest you do exactly that. If any Pirates are lurking near any of the Jump exits between here and Sankarah, you’ll be past them before they can attack you.”

  “Okay Colin, I’m not happy to be running like this, but you’re right, my passengers and the data I’m carrying are too valuable to risk if we can avoid the fight. You should take Fortitude and Shurana to help you, they should be able to increase your firepower quite a lot.”

  “No Sophon, I want them both with you. If you get into any trouble, the three of you should be able to fight most likely threats off. Fortitude also has our stocks of missiles so we can reload when we’ve used what we’re carrying so I don’t want to risk those. Those two ships need to stay with you. This battle will be over one way or another before you leave the System. If we lose, you leave. Otherwise, we’ll see you at the Station.”

  “Very well Colin, I’ve seen the reports of your skills, and I’m here because of your abilities, so I accept your suggestion. I think I’m just a little jealous that I can’t come with you and kick some Pirate butt.”

  Colin laughed and cut the connection just as FNS Shurana arrived in the System. Captain Carlon let Captain Haron know what they would be doing while Colin continued his thinking. Loki sent Theseus Captain Riley’s ideas, and when Colin saw them, he realized they came from a tactical genius. No matter how he thought about it, her attack plan was perfect, or as near to perfect as anyone could make it. Suzanne had even factored in the destruction of the Freighter early in the engagement, so the Pirates didn’t have a convenient place to resupply. While Colin was trying to find the flaws in Captain Riley’s attack plan, FNS Fortitude arrived.

  Colin called Captain Raganathan to let him know where FNS Fortitude was to be, and what she was to be doing through all the excitement. Umat listened calmly, and without comment, as much as he wanted to go in and fight with the two Cobras, Umat knew that would be a mistake. The Cobras needed his ship so they could rearm when necessary. The five ships began by all heading in the same direction. The Cobras were in the habit of running dark as much as possible, so it was unlikely anybody knew they were nearby. About half an hour after the little convoy started its journey to Cotoni Station, Theseus and Loki quietly peeled off and prepared to Micro-Jump into position.

  When the two Cobras arrived at their planned starting point, they hung motionless to allow the passive Scanners to soak up the most recent data possible. While they waited, Colin looked at the ship IDs for the Federation Navy ships. He quickly noticed one of the Destroyers was FNS Shanonah. Colin wondered if Captain Nahala was still Captain over there. Theseus initiated a Laser Comms link to Shanonah, and once the connection was established, Colin identified himself before asking to speak to the Captain.

  When Captain Nahala appeared, Colin said, “Greetings Captain Nahala. Is this a private party or can anyone join?”

  “Greetings Captain Gordon, you’re not showing up on our Scans, are you close enough to help?”

  “Of course, Sir. May I suggest, that you pull most of your ships back and rearm. When you’re ready, we’ll coordinate an attack. I want your group to look like you’re trying to split their force in two. While you’re holding their attention, we’ll hit them in the flank with everything we can manage. After we hit them, you need to keep them busy while we go and take care of their Freighter. We’ll come back after that. Sir, we need to try and make sure none of them escapes to go back home.”

  “Very well Captain Gordon. I take t you are in one of these new Patrol Boats. I hope you’re not alone.”

  Colin just smiled and touched his nose before cutting the connection. As Colin watched, he saw the rate of fire from the Navy ships slacken off as they backed away. Four hours later, the System Defence ships were all rearmed and ready to go. While the Navy ships were being rearmed, Theseus and Loki moved ahead of the Pirate Armada and set nearly one hundred and forty missiles in the path of the Pirates. He contacted Nahala again, telling him not to send any ships in front of the Pirates and that he would be back soon then Theseus and Loki Micro-Jumped back to Fortitude and rearmed themselves. Once that was done they returned to their starting position ready to mount the attack. Colin knew the timing had to be perfect for this to work properly. Once again, he established contact with Captain Nahala as the time counted down. Colin needed the Pirates attention entirely focused on the Navy before he made his attack. Once again, Theseus and Loki set yet more missiles on a ballistic trajectory designed to intersect the point in space where they expected the Pirates to beat a when the Cobras drove in the attack. The two Cobras were a long way above the elliptic, so they started ramping up their speed as they turned toward the Pirate fleet. At the same time, the remaining Naval forces launched their own aggressive attack, quickly attracting the Pirates attention. As it turned out, the plan worked perfectly, the Pirates thought they were fighting one force, a force they had the firepower to beat, but suddenly, missiles appeared out of nowhere from all directions.

  The Point-Defense was fully engaged with the enemy the Pirates knew about, but now some of the Point-Defense turrets had to redirect to other targets. The Pirates went from having the upper hand to suddenly being in a lot of trouble. With all the new missiles, weapons that were already in among their formation and following erratic paths as they homed in on their targets, the Pirate Point-Defense was completely overwhelmed as missiles impacted on the Shields, battering them down. Meanwhile, on the Federation Navy side, what started out as a feint, quickly turned into a full-blown attack. Then one of the Pirate ships exploded when a missile pierced the hull and exploded in one of its magazines. Three others were so seriously damaged that they were now just drifting in space. Two of the Navy Patrol Boats were destroyed when incoming weapons fire battered down their Shields allowing multiple missiles to explode inside their hulls. Tumosah was severely damaged when several missiles made it through her Shields and impacted against the hull. Her Captain was killed by one of the explosions, but the crew fought on under the direction of the XO till they were ordered to pull back by Captain Nahala.
Two more Pirate ships were destroyed, and more damage was inflicted on others when yet another round of missiles came out of nowhere and began to wreak havoc in the Pirate ranks. Finally, the remaining Pirates broke ranks, scattering in their efforts to escape the onslaught.

  In the meantime, after making their fast pass at the Pirate ships, Theseus and Loki looped over and made an attack run on the Pirate Supply Freighter, firing enough missiles at her to batter the Shields down before broadcasting a surrender demand. After a few minutes of thought, the Freighter Captain concluded he could either surrender or die, so he asked Colin to allow a submission. Colin ordered him to set the engines for zero thrust and then for him and his crew to abandon ship with the promise they would be picked up as soon as it could be managed. The Freighter Captain followed the orders he’d been given to the letter because he now knew who was fighting on the other side. Meanwhile, Theseus and Loki changed course yet again, quickly overhauling three of the fleeing Pirate ships before hitting them with enough ordnance to knock down the Shields and damage the drives enough to stop them escaping the System. By this point, both Loki and Theseus had nearly empty magazines, so they Micro-Jumped over toward FNS Fortitude for resupply. Colin stood half the crew down, telling them to rest and as soon as Theseus and Loki were safely docked to their supply ship, went for some rest himself. Ensign Wills volunteered to supervise the loading, so Colin paired her with his best NCO before leaving them to it. The rearming operation took almost four hours before they could seal the three ships and undock.