by Chris Hechtl
“Sir it looks like the enemy is splitting up,” a rating reported. Looking up from the tablet he was reading, the Admiral studied the plot. Red tags sprung up, highlighting enemy vessels leaving the battle. Getting a sick feeling, he noted that almost half the fleet was heading in his direction. One dreadnaught, a dozen cruisers, half the frigates, fighters, and drones were remaining behind.
He had four fleet carriers, four dreadnaughts, six cruisers, two dozen destroyers, and a gaggle of unarmed troop transports and colliers to cover. Not to mention the hordes of drop ships about to launch. He sighed in thought. It would have been good, defeat in detail, but the enemy's confidence in splitting up, and the fat transports he had to protect changed that equation.
“Give me a vector on the enemy fleet and ETA. Punch up the tactical sitrep to the fleet. Move the fleet into defensive formation Baker three,” he ordered. The ships began to move out, the slower unarmed transports and colliers heading to the center of the fleet. The dreadnaughts took point, with the cruisers covering the flanks. The two unarmed fleet carriers covered the rear. The destroyers spread out into a wedge shaped screen in front of the fleet, and the entire task force went to flank speed as it changed vectors.
“Okay people, the name of the game is time. We need to get our ships in and out of danger as quickly as possible,” the Admiral said firmly. The computer pulled up a vector map and a point on it began to blink. “This is our drop point. Once we get past this point and our drop shuttles deploy, the fleet will change vector away from the planet here.”
Pointing out the strategy to the flag staff for the final briefing, the Admiral felt their anxiety. Even with what little they had to go on, the enemy was still an enigma. They had little to go on for their thought processes, so enemy strategy predictions were out the door. Mentally dragging himself back on track, the Admiral continued the briefing.
>---{}---<
On the flight deck of the troop transport Ambuscade Major Smith fondly smacked the side of her drop ship. “She’ll bring us back safe,” she said softly as her copilot tried unsuccessfully to hide his grin. The smack was about as close a ritual the Major had before going back into combat. She didn’t have the lucky rabbit’s foot like he did.
“You can still get a rabbit’s foot skipper if you need it,” he teased her, holding it up. “Want to kiss it?” he asked with a grin.
She gave him a long look and then snorted. “Wasn’t so lucky for the rabbit now was it?” she asked him. He chuckled as her sally hit home and heard the chuckles over the open line. The grunts were still loading, marching up in their armored suits and locking into their drop positions. He didn’t want to ever have to ride like they did, stuck in a coffin in the back with no view and no control like a crate. Sighing he finished strapping in and began clipping the implant cables to his implants.
Jen’s hands flashed as she too strapped in and linked in. Drop ship pilots were fortunate, even though they had most of the same implants as a fighter pilot, they were downgraded a bit, and the drop ship had a series of AI to help handle things so the pilot didn’t have to multitask as much. With a ship four times larger than a fighter, they were not nearly as maneuverable, so they lacked the high G inertial dampeners, but they had longer legs and fuel reserves then a dinky fighter did…even if they had to haul around a bunch of apes.
Flicking her awareness to her implants, she felt the AI flash through the boot in procedures then give her a status report. She nodded reflexively as the status was all green. The number two intake was still at ninety five percent and the hydraulics was at ninety four percent but it was within tolerance specs. Hell, there was no way she was missing out on this ride, she thought. The drop chief signaled that the grunts were in and the ship was secure. She flashed over the tactical net and checked for new orders. The CAG wanted them outside the ship, but to hold tightly to the hull.
Valdez sent her a silent query and she nodded. He turned to his implants and opened a communication's channel with the ship. “OOD this is DS356R1 requesting take off clearance,” he said in a professional voice. Getting a quick approval, Jen grasped the stick and kicked the drive over from standby to take off.
Umbilicals detached from points around the craft, snaking back into ports on the deck. She flicked through her usual routine of playing with the flaps, then gently pulled up on the stick and signaled power. The AI responded, lifting off the deck and securing the landing gear. Gently Jen coaxed the ship out the open airlock and into the depth of space.
“This is the CAG, all ships prep for magnum launch,” a gruff voice said over the main channel. Jen flicked her awareness over to the carrier just in time to see the fighters rocket into space in a full up combat launch. Impressive to see, the drop ship pilots were still mocking.
“Show offs,” Valdez muttered as Smith felt the left side of her face tug into a half smile. She watched as the fighters organized into squadrons and half peeled off to meet the enemy fighters barreling in. The other half of the fighters split, one group covering the task force, the other forming up loosely around the transports. “This is DS1 to DS group. Go to plan Baker Seven. All DS group, good luck.”
Finally, Jen thought as she flicked the drop ship through the maneuvers to bring her into squadron formation. The transports arched away, they and a small detachment would take a different orbit to steer clear of the coming combat.
Forty eight fighters went out to hit the enemies fifty fighters and twenty four drones. Bombers launched from the carriers, half joined DS group, while others split into squadrons and then moved off to make shipping strikes against the enemy. The bombers moved to the front of DS1, two AWACS joined them at the rear of the formation as they entered atmosphere.
The AWACS used the same platform as the bombers, however, they had deleted most of the offensive arms to triple her ECM and add a fleet sensor array. AWACS level two had a ground attack laser, however in the rush to launch the fleet the AWACS hadn’t gotten the refit so would go in as only eyes and ears for the group.
Super heated plasma began to stream past the view port, and Major Smith watched as the bombers began salvoing their loads into the orbital defenses the enemy had set up. Combat chatter started filling the radio net.
“HAWK break to port!”
“They got Smitty!”
“Fire!”
“I got one!”
“SHIT I’M HIT! WHERE DID HE COME FROM! NOOO!”
You can read more when Multiverse 1 comes out in the summer of 2014!