“Nav here, Admiral,” interrupted her thoughts. “The course we’re on is the optimum one for keeping the enemy at arms’ reach while still aiming for the jump.”
“Thank you, Nav.”
It was time for another salvo. This time, they destroyed four frigates. Another three ships showed distress, though none fell out of the line. The one-second laser blasts seemed quite capable of destroying a ship, but only sometimes, say if it hit a reactor or laser capacitor. Either that or the aliens had somehow figured out a way to more heavily armor their ships than Betsy would have thought possible for a twenty-five-thousand-ton warship.
Admiral Bethea studied her battle board. “Sensors, talk to me about the space around those ships. Are we getting any evidence of stone ablating off of a defensive shield?”
“I’m sorry, Admiral. They are closing us. Whatever vents off the ships is quickly left behind. I’ll try to get a quick read from the next ship targeted by the Lion, ma’am. It’s hard in the glare of a hit to do a mass spec analysis on the light.”
“Do your best,” Betsy said.
Again, the forward batteries were reloaded. Admiral Bethea did not wait before she ordered her fleet to fire.
Ten seconds later, six one-second blasts shot out from the twelve lasers in each battlecruiser’s bow. Across the battle, they only got three frigates. Another three showed some sign of damage, but not enough to fall out of the line.
“The aliens have the nose of their ships coated with basalt,” Sensors reported. “The Lion appeared to make a glancing hit. Ablated gases show calcium, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen in the right proportions for basalt.”
“I suspect they have only armored their bows,” S’Bun said. “They couldn’t carry a lot of basalt and be as fast on their feet as they are.”
“And we’re only destroying a ship when we get enough of a hit on one of its gun ports to reach in and blow up the capacitors.”
“Assuming none of the ships have closed gun ports,” her chief of staff said, pointing out a possibility.
“That could be why we’re not blowing up as many ships as I expected.”
“I think we also need to consider what our chances are of getting a hit,” S’Bun said. “Guns, how tight is our stutter fire? At 200,000 kilometers, just how close is one laser bolt to the next?”
Guns had to study her own board for a long minute. “We’ve got them locked in tight, sir,” she answered. “Still, we can only adjust the fire so tightly ourselves. At 200,000 klicks, it’s likely there’s a quarter kilometer between each burst.”
“Thank you, guns,” S’Bun said. “The math is against us, Admiral. Our burst is going to hit somewhere within a space of 250,000 square meters. A ship with a bow silhouette of, say 50 meters across, presents a target of a bit less than two thousand square meters. Admiral, just obeying the law of averages, we’ve got about one chance in a hundred and twenty-five of hitting something, and that’s before we throw in how hard they’re evading and the time it takes us to set up a fire solution and fire.”
Admiral Bethea counted the damage. In a bit less than two minutes, she’d only bagged eleven of the frigates. At this rate, it would likely take her close to half an hour to destroy all the big war wagons. Her battle board now predicted they’d be in range in approximately twenty minutes.
Admiral Bethea had to up her game.
“Comm, send to fleet. ‘Division Commanders. Select a target for your division. Establish a fire pattern for your division with the highest probability of destroying that one ship.’ Bethea sends.”
The next volley, the twelve divisions aimed all three or four of its battlecruisers at a single enemy frigate they had marked for death.
Eight alien warships died.
The next salvo got six. Things were looking up.
Then the aliens changed things again.
32
The cruisers that they had been ignoring had meanwhile begun to spread out. Some turned right or left, others went up or down. Some zigged from top right to bottom left.
Admiral Bethea didn’t spot the movement so much as she noticed when the concentration of light cruisers began to spread out and disappear from her board.
“Sensors, what are those light cruisers up to?”
A second development was also becoming clear. Now that this strike force was concentrating all its acceleration on charging Betsy’s guns, little or no part of their vector was being used to slow them toward the jump. They were now passing from right to left in Betsy’s course.
Before too long, they’d be between her and the jump. When they finally got in a position to fire, assuming enough of them were still in one piece, they would be firing up the humans’ vulnerable sterns, right at their unprotected reactors.
This rapidly developing battle was starting to look like the odds were not on Betsy’s side.
Then the cruisers began spiking their exhaust with aluminum, iron, and other waste metals as well as shooting the stuff off in all directions.
The entire flag plot knew it immediately when Sensors recognized the problem. The shout of “What the hell!” broke the usual cool quiet of the room.
“A problem, Commander?” Betsy said, dryly.
“I’m afraid so, Admiral. Those cruisers we’ve been wondering about? They’ve gone to 4.0 gees and are laying down some kind of chaff or debris screen. I’m having a hard time taking a reading off of the main body of frigates. If I can’t take a reading, the fire control sensors won’t be able to either.”
Betsy and S’Bun watched developments for a few minutes, during which thirteen frigates were blown to bits. However, other frigates disappeared behind a thin but effective fog. With fewer enemy ships visible, the fleet concentrated its fire on the dwindling number of targets it had.
Two salvos later, eleven alien warships were destroyed. A minute later, twelve more large enemy warships were vaporized.
However, the number of targets were drying up fast. The enemy fleet was concentrating into a tighter mass. They’d never been as spread out at Betsy’s ships; their evasion plans required less space. Now they were getting quite cozy as they slipped behind the screen the light cruisers were creating with their exhaust. More importantly, some of the light cruisers were falling back into the expanding cloud and vanishing themselves. The cloud did continue to thicken up, likely because of what those ships were doing.
The cruisers in front were now zigging and zagging, using their 4.0 gees of acceleration to cover both the front of the cloud and to advance it.
“Sensors? That cloud. What acceleration is it advancing?” Betsy asked.
“A lot faster than it needs to if the fleet behind it is still doing 2.5 gees for our throat, ma’am. Give me a minute. That cloud is squirrelly.”
“Take your time,” Betsy said, reinforcing the calm of her flag plot.
“While we’re waiting for that, maybe we should shoot ourselves a few cruisers,” S’Bun suggested.
“Sounds like a good idea. Guns, we’re offering a special on cruisers. One time only. No limit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That was easier said than done. The light cruisers’ acceleration was right up there at around 4.0 gees, each one was a bit different. They also were dodging more nimbly to the right or left, up or down. The first salvo saw the human fleet get only four hits, apparently missing the rest. The next volley was no better.
Worse, when the aliens lost one, a replacement would accelerate out of the cloud and begin to extend the fog closer to the humans.
“Someone spent some serious brain sweat thinking this battle plan up,” her chief of staff said.
“Ah, ain’t it wonderful when the little darlin’s show that they’ve learned what you’ve been teachin’ ‘em,” Betsy said, drolly.
“I’d sooner they stayed dumb for a few more battles.”
“Me too. Okay, concentrate by divisions. However, now we go down to a quarter power and keep the lasers on while we swerve them aro
und the cruisers.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
The next salvo took out eleven of the cruisers it targeted. However, the fleet coasted for almost forty seconds as it emptied its lasers at one quarter power.
Still, it left only five of the cruisers making smoke.
Twenty seconds later, the forward batteries were reloaded. However, the aliens had used the time, too. Eleven light cruisers had shot out of the screen and were adding to it. This time, ten of the smoking cruisers crumpled or exploded as 22-inch lasers cut into them.
Bethea chose to make a change, too. She put power back on her fleet, then flipped her ships to bring her rear laser battery to bear and took out the remaining six cruisers as well as two that had jumped out of the smoke screen.
“Let’s add a bit of vector away from them,” Betsy muttered to herself, then added. “Nav, how long can I stay on this course before I can’t make the jump?”
“About two more minutes, ma’am.”
“S’Bun, I don’t think we’re going to make that jump.”
“Doesn’t look like it, ma’am.”
“I don’t think any of the ships facing us are going to make it either.”
“Looks that way to me.”
“Okay. New battle. We keep our distance and we kill them,” Betsy said.
“That looks like a plan to me.”
Then the aliens moved the goal post.
33
“The two dishes of cruisers not with the battle array have upped their deceleration to 4.0 gees and are making for the jump,” Sensors reported.
The sixty cruisers that had stationed themselves out on the flank, between the larger force attacking Betsy’s ships and the smaller one making for the jump, were now clearly headed for the jump.
Just as Admiral Bethea had conceded that she couldn’t stop the aliens from making the jump, they increased those forces to ninety.
“Navigator, send a course to the fleet that has us reaching hard for the jump.
“We’ll need to go to 4.2 gees.”
“Do it.”
“New course is sent.”
A moment later, Bethea’s flag jacked up the deceleration to over four times her weight. The high gee station groaned, but it absorbed the strain and kept Betsy, and everyone else in her fleet, from being squashed like a gnat.
The battle board, however, had bad news. If they held this course for three minutes, the aliens would cross the 150,000 kilometer mark.
“Guns, new fire plan. Establish and order fire by divisions. Every time one of those cruisers tries to extend the screen, have a division nail it. Forward batteries first. If we exhaust all of them, use aft batteries.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” There was a pause while guns used her board to work out the solution. “Got it. Sent.”
On Betsy’s board, three light cruisers were doing their level best to extend the screen. In ten seconds, all three died as three divisions engaged them. The loose array of Betsy’s ships made it easy for one division to pull out of the line, cease deceleration, fire for as long as it took to get the target, then snap back to the base course.
Over the next two minutes, fifty-seven cruisers tried to advance the screen and every single one of them died before they’d been out for more than a couple of seconds.
“How many more of those cruisers do they have?” Sandy asked her board.
“No more than thirty,” her computer answered.
In the next sixty seconds, those thirty ships shot out from the screen, gyrating wildly and spewing smoke. They came in two waves of fifteen. Admiral Bethea had to decelerate her entire fleet to bag them. However, even as those died, the second group of fifteen shot out right behind them.
Bethea eyed her course. She could not let her ships drift much more if she wanted to intercept the ships making for the jump. If the high gees would have allowed, she would have been biting her nails as she let her battlecruisers decelerate while the alien cruisers spewed all sorts of reflectors and heat generators into space.
Batteries recharged, Betsy put the fleet through a firing sequence. In seven seconds, the last of the alien’s cruisers were dust, gas, or tumbling hulks.
Admiral Bethea ordered her ships back to their base course. They were at the very limit of space that would allow her to make the jump.
She was also at an estimated 150,000 klicks from the enemy fleet.
The screen formed a wall, behind which Betsy could see nothing.
Then the enemy frigates shot out from behind the screen, and Betsy found out just how good the lasers were that they carried.
Betsy then found the answer to one of her earlier questions. The new ships did have new lasers. Lasers that were good out to 150,000 kilometers.
34
Five dishes came out of the fog. They had been hit hard, but they could still muster fourteen or fifteen ships each, and each dish picked a human battlecruiser and concentrated their fire on it.
It was then that Betsy was slapped in the face with the mistake she’d made.
She’d been working so hard on snapping up the cruisers that she’d let her fleet drop all evasion. Her ships were on a solid course.
The aliens took advantage of her mistake.
Five of her battlecruisers took hits, heated up, glowed brighter and brighter, then exploded. In hardly the blink of an eye, the Enterprise, Jaguar, Vampire, Loki, and Opal were gone.
“Evasion Plan 6,” Admiral Bethea ordered.
“Evasion Plan 6 sent,” Comm repeated.
Immediately, the Lion began to throw herself into a brutal jinking that slammed Betsy’s head first against the right side of her egg, then the left, while the heavy hand of high gravity went up and down as the Lion varied its deceleration.
“Prepare to engage the enemy by divisions. Set lasers for one half power. Continual fire,” Admiral Bethea snapped. “Stop deceleration. Aim. Volley fire.”
Betsy went from horribly oppressed by her weight, to weighing nothing. Her ship swung around, and for fifteen seconds, she weighed nothing. The seat belt was the only thing holding her in place inside the egg, which was a good thing.
Without warning, she was suddenly thrust back to over four times her weight.
Her battle screen showed the enemy was minus nine more frigates, with one struggling to maintain its course.
However, no sooner were her ships back on their base course, then the alien fleet did its own flip to bring their aft batteries to bear. This time they concentrated on only two battlecruisers. The Canberra and the Temptress took hits this time. Both held out through the salvo and seemed to be handling their damage, then the Canberra, followed a few seconds later by the Temptress, lost their battle. The heat worked its way through the hull and something critical failed. Both vanished in clouds of roiling gases.
“What type of lasers do these bastards have?” Bethea muttered, then ordered her ships to cut power, flip and bring their aft batteries to bear.
Ten seconds later, the aliens lost another six ships. They were back to having their armored bows facing the incoming fire. They had recharged their forward lasers.
Even as Betsy’s ships slammed back into their deceleration, the hostile lasers cut into them while they were still vulnerable.
Resolute, Banshee, Cobra, and Sapphire were the targets this time. Banshee and Cobra vanished under the heat. Resolute held on for a second after the lasers ceased, but then imploded. Sapphire glowed like her namesake. It seemed that she might dissipate the cruel heat that she wore like a coat, but in the end, she lost the fight. She didn’t explode so much as come apart in space. Several escape pods were seen to launch out, but the heat boiling off the armor turned them into cinders.
A quick glance at her battle board told Admiral Bethea all she needed to know. Even at 4.5 gees, a brutal deceleration that the battlecruiser force had never risked, she could not make the jump.
The enemy had not only managed to kill more battlecruisers than they ever had, but they’
d won the jump. A vicious force was headed for the cats, and Bethea’s ships couldn’t stop them.
She could kill what she faced here.
She ordered her ships to flip, and then flip again as they emptied both ends of the battlecruisers at the enemy.
The aliens lost another nineteen ships in the next forty seconds. They were down to fifty-nine frigates.
However, they nailed the Baldar, Te Mana, and Triumph.
The fight was brutal and not going at all like other battles Betsy had been in. To fire, the ships had to come out of their evasion plans. They were taking fifteen seconds to sweep the area for an alien frigate and often finding one.
Still, before they could get back into deceleration and evasion, the aliens were reloaded and ready to hit them with their own fire. They were trading ships at a cruel rate. The aliens had lost ninety of these new frigates as well as one hundred and twenty of the light cruisers. Still, they’d managed to destroy twelve battlecruisers. And not just the ships. There were no beacons sounding from survival pods.
The crews were gone as well as the ships.
The slaughter continued through another salvo from both fleets. Sixteen of the alien ships burned and blew. The Santee and Diamond were targets this time, and both were overcome by the combined fire from the alien force.
Over the next minute, the aliens lost twelve. They burned both the Thor and the Kikukei. However, only the Thor was lost.
Admiral Bethea’s fleet was firing by divisions and flipping back to deceleration just as soon as their target was no more. That put them back under power and evading when the aliens got their lasers recharged.
The aliens were reduced to a scattered force that barely amounted to a single dish. Still, they kept themselves aimed straight at Bethea’s ships.
Another minute, and Bethea had lost the Fury. The Tiger was scorched but cooling. The aliens were down to only eighteen ships.
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