Captain McLaughlin kept herself dialed into the shipwide net long enough to hear department heads and section chiefs hustle their people along. There was no mistaking the determination and confidence in their voices. They were ready for a fight, and they would give their ship and their captain everything they had or die trying. She looked around the command deck and could see the same sentiment reflected in everyone's faces and actions, and she caught sight of more than one feral smile as she scanned the crew. Whatever came their way, they were ready for it.
Chapter Nine
USS Fenris
October 8, 2197
0501 z
Groombridge 34
"This is Valkyrie One. I am moving into number three tube and am requesting clearance to launch." Barbie spoke formally into her faceplate. Standard flight gear was composed of a G-suit worn beneath an insulated black flight suit, boots, gloves, helmet with a full transparent faceplate, and a tactical vest carrying a variety of survival materials, as well as a heavy pulse pistol. The suit had locks at the feet, hands, and neck, allowing it to be totally sealed when gloves, boots, and helmet were attached, providing full protection against hazardous environments, including vacuum, should the flight crew find a need to vacate their ride quickly and unexpectedly. There was a click as a comm channel opened.
"Stand by, Valkyrie One, number three tube is sealing now," said a brisk and businesslike voice. Launch operations, a daily occurrence, were well rehearsed and choreographed, and could be performed even under the most dire of circumstances without any loss of efficiency or apparent strain. There was no room for mistakes during a launch. A mistake almost always meant death. "Tube three sealed, depressurizing now."
Barbie could hear the hiss of air for a brief moment before a vacuum established. She double-checked that her engines were at standby and that she had a green light on the catapult lock indicator.
"How you doing back there, Digger?" she called over the net to her RIO sealed in the rear facing compartment behind her.
"Everything's good to go back here, Skipper. Diagnostics all come back in the green, I read a positive catapult lock, and all weapon systems are hot and ready," Digger replied. He, too, verified the catapult lock status from his board.
"Valkyrie One, tube three outer door opening. Prepare for launch."
"This is Valkyrie One. All systems are go, ready for launch."
"Good hunting, Valkyrie One. Launch in three. Two." The voice from the tower counted down. Both Barbie and Digger took deep breaths and tightened their muscles. "One."
At that, Valkyrie One raced down the tube, the acceleration slamming Barbie back into her seat. The fighter shot from the middle of the three tubes located on the port side of the Fenris' bow, her engines cutting on at one hundred meters from the ship. Barbie pulled the stick over and stepped on the foot pedals, causing her fighter to bank hard to starboard. Keeping her speed down, she rendezvoused, forward of the Fenris, with her wingman, who had just launched from the number four tube located directly opposite hers on the starboard side of the ship.
"Valkyrie One to Valkyrie Eight," she called to her wingman.
"Valkyrie Eight here. Go ahead, Valkyrie One," Lieutenant Junior Grade Carl "Cat" Patterson responded with a deep rumble.
"Cat, everything green?"
"Everything is five by five here, Barbie."
"Good. Form up and stay tight on me—this looks like it's going to be one hell of a knife fight." She heard his acknowledgment as she checked the status of her squadron. The alert fighters were out in front of her, screening the ship and the squadron as it finished launch operations. The next pair of Valkyries had launched from tubes five and six almost immediately following her launch. They were already forming up on her as she watched the rest of the squadron launch in pairs, staggered just far enough apart to allow the preceding fighters to maneuver out of the flight path of the ones following them. Within the next one hundred and twenty seconds, the rest of her squadron was in space and forming up. She opened up a comm channel to the CAG's net.
"CAG, this is Valkyrie One." She kept an eye on her squadron display as she awaited his reply.
"Valkyrie One, this is the CAG, go."
"Valkyrie One reports successful launch of Flight 127. We are formed up and are awaiting instructions." With a call to general quarters followed by an immediate launch, there had been no time for a mission brief. She glanced down at her sensor readout and could see the incoming fighters. She could guess what her orders were going to be—intercept and engage incoming enemy fighters—but she waited for verification from Hangman.
"Valkyrie One, your orders are as follows. Accelerate to full combat speed," Hangman said in a cool manner. So much for what she had thought her orders were going to be. At full combat speed, there would be no time for full engagement. They would blow right though the middle of the Sally formation and have to spend time bleeding off their forward momentum if they wanted to turn around and engage them again. She brought her mind back to the moment at hand as the CAG continued. "Engage the enemy as you close. Take as many of them out as you can. You are free to take evasive maneuvers on your forward vector, but you are to maintain full combat accel until you are through the enemy fighters." These orders sucked as far as she was concerned, and she had a feeling that they were about to get worse. She wasn't wrong.
"After you clear their formation," the CAG continued in the same dispassionate voice, reading orders that were going to be costly and bloody, "you are to turn and burn, past threshold and into the red, back at the enemy fighters. When you are on an intercept vector, decelerate to engagement speed, and, as you close with them, the squadron will engage as you see fit. Understood?" She almost told him that no, she did not understand. What he'd just ordered was going to cost over half, if not all, of Flight 127, most likely before they even passed through the Sally formation. The Sallys were in a staggered flight, with each twenty-fighter squadron overlapping the other. The formation was deep, and with no room to maneuver except up and down, and side to side, along with rolling, they were going to present a very pretty sight picture to the Sallys and their targeting systems. Assuming that any of them survived that bit of madness, turning and burning past threshold and into the red was risky. Very risky, especially with fighters that more than likely would have sustained battle damage.
Turns while in combat were very demanding on both the crew and the fighter. Newtonian physics stated that a body in motion tended to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside source. Thus, while a fighter moved forward, it would stay moving in the same direction, no matter which way it was pointed. To overcome that forward momentum, force would need to be applied in the opposite direction. The more force applied, the faster the change could be effected. The power plant of the Valkyrie could easily provide all the power and force necessary to affect a rapid change in direction. The primary problem with executing rapid directional and speed changes came from the crews piloting the Valkyrie. Even with inertial compensators, G-suits designed for extreme high-speed maneuvers, and a degree of muscle control that most martial arts masters would find difficult to attain, the human body could withstand only so much pressure. Unfortunately, all attempts at A.I.-controlled fighters had ended in abysmal failure. Fighter combat was as much instinct and intuition as it was calculations. Because of this, a great deal of time and money had been invested in developing ways for the necessary human component to endure the rigors of ACM.
The second problem arose from the Valkyrie itself. While its airframe could withstand significantly more stress than its human pilots, it still had its limitations. Though the frame could be damaged by too tight of a turn at high speeds, this wasn't considered a problem, as the crew inside the fighter would be turned into so much red paste long before the airframe failed under the stress. No, the problem was not the airframe but the engine exhaust. The engine cowling and armor of the Valkyrie were designed to withstand limited exposure to the highly energized particles being
expelled from the engines. This protection allowed the fighter to rapidly change direction while engaged in ACM at lower speeds. But at high speeds, a Valkyrie couldn't just reverse its direction and throttle up to change its vector. The power plant could provide the power for such a maneuver; however, not only would the crews not survive the stresses such a maneuver would generate, the Valkyrie itself would be consumed by its own exhaust.
To overcome the physical limitations of the flight team and to prevent the Valkyrie from self-immolation, changing vectors was accomplished by means of an exaggerated turn. While this maneuver would be slower than a tighter turn, the length of the arc would prevent the Valkyrie from passing though its own exhaust, as well as allowing for a more gradual change of vectors.
The turn could be executed at faster speeds while maintaining the arc, which would allow for a quicker change of direction. However, this put more stresses on the crew. While riding the threshold (the point where a crew would begin to be noticeably affected) could be dangerous, riding beyond the threshold presented its own set of dangers. Beyond the threshold, the crew was incapable of performing within acceptable margins. The Valkyrie's systems were programmed to take the ship through a turn beyond the threshold, performing evasive maneuvers during the turn and immediately afterward, while the crew recovered. Although the computer was highly effective, a Xan-Sskarn fighter could eventually discern the evasive-maneuver pattern the computer had selected and anticipate its moves, allowing them to destroy the Valkyrie while the crew was helpless to respond. Where many pilots enjoyed riding the threshold, as it allowed them to perform to the limits of their endurance, none liked riding beyond it. They preferred to trust their own instincts and reflexes rather than those of a computer program. Turning into the red meant the crews would begin to red-out from the forces exerted on their bodies, and would have to trust to the computer to bring them through the turn and back on course.
"Understood." she forced out through clenched teeth. I understand you just ordered me to throw away fourteen flight teams for no discernable advantage. Closing at engagement speed and dancing with the Sallys would probably lead to the same result, but we would take a hell of a lot more Sallys with us before they took us down. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat before confirming her orders.
"Barbie." Hangman's voice was a barely audible sympathetic whisper, seeming to read both her mind and her mood. "I'm sorry. I don't like these orders any more than you do. You and your squadron are going to have to be the beaters and drive them toward us. The captain has point defense configured for extreme short range, maximum fighter interception. They'll be at point-blank range by the time you come up behind them. When point defense opens up, keep pushing them toward us and take out what you can—let the guns get the rest. We need to take them out quick and get into the fight before there's no fleet left to help."
"Roger, Hangman." She let him hear the apology in her voice. "Valkyrie Flight 127 will comply." She cut out from the CAG's net. Before she could do anything else, Digger spoke up over their private com. He'd heard everything she had.
"You okay, boss?"
"Yeah." She exhaled loudly. "God, those orders suck."
"Yep, but it's the best way we're going to get those fighters out of our sky fast. Hangman was right—we need to be elsewhere."
"Yeah, I know, Digger. Doesn't mean I have to like it." She sounded resigned to her fate as she punched up the squadron's battle net. "Okay, boys and girls"—her voice now light and cheerful—"we got our orders, so listen up."
* * *
"Alright, that's the plan—any questions?" Barbie's voice came though Alex's earpiece. Valkyrie Flight 127 was instrumental to the first part of her plan, but she knew that her orders were going to devastate it, if not outright destroy it. Barbie and her squadron were far from stupid and had no doubt seen what the cost of following her orders would be. She'd dropped into the squadron's net to hear what they thought about the price they had just been asked to pay. What she heard filled her with shame. She should've known that there was no better Valkyrie squadron, no better pilots, in the fleet, and she was ashamed of herself for expecting to hear anything less than what she did. Her shame was quickly replaced with pride as she heard the acknowledgments.
"No questions here, Skipper."
"Let's ride."
"Sounds like fun."
"Who wants to live forever?"
This went on until everyone had their say. She wished she could be out there with those brave crews, laughing in the face of death. She looked to the monitor above her station, switched it to a forward view, and saw fourteen plumes of fire light up space as Valkyrie Flight 127, assigned USS Fenris, leapt forward and raced to face their destiny. She touched the panel and cut herself out of their net.
"Godspeed, 127," she said softly to herself. Shaking herself slightly, she turned back to the task at hand. "XO," she began but was interrupted as Ensign Green's voice shouted across the command deck.
"New contact, multiple incoming!"
Chapter Ten
USS Fenris
October 8, 2197
0507 z
Groombridge 34
Alex punched up scanning's net almost as soon as Ensign Green finished his announcement, just in time to catch Greg muttering to himself about more good news.
She didn't see anything, so whatever was bearing down on them was beyond half a million kilometers.
"Conrad, extend range and replot to include new contacts. Green, what've you got?" she asked quickly as the display expanded to one and a half million kilometers and she saw the new red shapes moving toward them at high speed.
"Ma'am, looks like three fast attack frigates with two destroyers in support." His words confirmed what she saw on the display. "None of them appear to have sustained any damage, and they seem to be loaded for bear from what I could read of their weapons power-up signatures and targeting sensors before their ECM came on line."
"Thank you, Ensign," she said absently as she absorbed what he had said. She cut out of the net and muttered to herself. "Damn. Damn!" Green had given her the information she'd asked for, but it wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. Five ships, closing in on her with three squadrons of fighters screening them. She had to get her fighters closer to her before the Sallys could accomplish what she was intending to do: clear the sky of fighters so that point defense could be set for maximum fire interdiction. But with that many fighters bearing down on her, she couldn't switch point defense over until they were taken care of. No doubt that was why the Xan-Sskarn ships were so far behind their screen; they were waiting for the Fenris and its fighters to be fully engaged with the fighters, giving the Fenris no chance to intercept their own missile fire.
She looked down and saw that two of the Valkyrie silhouettes were already red. Two fighters gone, and they still had twenty seconds to missile range. She knew that more of those silhouettes would be red before the Fenris was through the Xan-Sskarn fighters; she just hoped not too many more. The Fenris was not going to need a fighter screen while engaging the incoming ships. There were too many ships and not enough fighters for the Valkyries to make any difference, so she would not throw them away in a futile gesture. But she would still need to survive the incoming fighters relatively intact if she was going to get past those five ships advancing on them, and her Valkyries were going to be instrumental in that. She punched up the CAG.
"CAG, new orders," she said simply into the mike.
"Go ahead." The CAG sounded slightly subdued. She was sure he wasn't just watching the fighter displays, but listening to their battle chatter as well.
"CAG, the minute the Valkyries are through the Sallys, I want them to execute a turn and burn in the black and get on their asses. We'll be moving in to close the distance and bring the Sallys to us. It's imperative that we clear those fighters out of our way. I'm sure you see their friends behind them."
"Yes, I do, ma'am. They're no doubt trying to do what we are, but with three t
imes as many fighters, they got a little too complacent and are hanging too far back."
"No doubt. Command, out." She signed off, letting Kaufman issue the new orders. She didn't have time to listen to Barbie's response to the new orders, but she knew that those twelve—she looked down at her fighter display, now eleven—Valkyries would take those orders in stride and would be there when they were needed. She keyed engineering.
"Heron," she called out, looking at her ship's status board.
"Heron here," the chief engineer called back after a brief moment.
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